Curse

Eclair · Dec 12, 2006, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vahn Roi

Kind of a lame question, but forgive me for not searching through 84 pages of posts.

What does the Coffer of Whispers do?

It gives a random item. So far people have gotten scrolls (800 gold >.<), but have also gotten Malyx mini pet (I think, there's a pic).

So its a gamble, you could either get something really good, or really bad.

Guardian of the Light · Dec 12, 2006, 04:39 AM // 04:39

I could care less about the area itself what is ticking me off is the fact that I know I'm NEVER going to get Razah on my dervish unless I pay for overpriced gems.

Blackhawk · Dec 12, 2006, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guardian of the Light

I could care less about the area itself what is ticking me off is the fact that I know I'm NEVER going to get Razah on my dervish unless I pay for overpriced gems.

I'll wait for the price to fall, Razah's not even on my list of priorities since they made him a Rit so I wont be losing any sleep over not having him.

Besides I finished the game with my Ritualist so it's not as if our team wont have access to one, and I reckon most people would actually like to have him BEFORE they finished the game, seeing as he's not really worthy of being an Elite reward now he's not "Variable" and no different to any of the others

Only thing that needs doing to DoA is to add tumbleweed to it as it's going to be deserted pretty soon.

Inner Salbat · Dec 12, 2006, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

~ snip no disrespect intended ~

New UI isn't really a silver bullet solution to all of this.

No it's not the silver bullet, but it would help you must admit, you brought up some interesting points, that had not entirely a cured to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackhawk

I'll wait for the price to fall, Razah's not even on my list of priorities since they made him a Rit so I wont be losing any sleep over not having him.

You'll be waiting a long long time, for them to become affordable to anyone but the constant ebay junkie, case in point they completely ruined farming in UW did not adjust the drop rate of anything, and we have the market spike Glob Of Ectoplasm 9.5k why? because the farmers that where keeping it in check are no longer doing it, as for Ruby's / Sapphires & diamonds well that speaks for itself, to keep the market in a sane level you would have to ensure that anyone that did anything and got a fare distant in FoW/Uw or any other high level area, that everyone got at least 2-3 of the current high priced items, on the team without exception.

There needs to be re-balance of those areas, with farming nerfs to keep market prices in check other wise, no one will be able to afford anything nice, and all the hard work by the artists will hardly ever be seen.

The reason the prices of these Gem's won't go down is because, there isn't enough people constantly farming it, there not on the market to buy so there is no 'fixed' price that is controllable by the game, there like weapons which mean players set the price, and that can be high or low depending on how greedy the player happens to be.

natuxatu · Dec 12, 2006, 07:29 AM // 07:29

Nah they'll drop a lot soon enough... Only a matter of time before the people who *can* wait are the only ones left vs the ones who give in. Sorry to burst your bubble. Not that I care either way...

Plus the new chapter will come out next year and DoA will become old news... if it's already.

Inner Salbat · Dec 12, 2006, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by natuxatu

Nah they'll drop a lot soon enough... Only a matter of time before the people who *can* wait are the only ones left vs the ones who give in. Sorry to burst your bubble. Not that I care either way...

Plus the new chapter will come out next year and DoA will become old news... if it's already.

Lol, they said that DoA wouldn't become a what it has, when I said that people would walk away from this too.

we shall see

Xpl0iter · Dec 12, 2006, 07:43 AM // 07:43

i am amazed that people are considering DoA as old news within 11 days since the release.

Kenagalaz · Dec 12, 2006, 07:51 AM // 07:51

So out of morbid curiosity, I tried Pugging a couple of rounds through DoA.

Map Strategy:
Most PUGs do not use the map or are very poor at it. Like in higher level PvP, using the map and terrain to your advantage is important. While the number of terrain elements are less in PvE, it is vital not to overlook. Using Corners to hook agro and walls to prevent ranged line of sight attacks/spells were completely ignored. When agro breaks and a party wipe seems eminant, using the terrain to quickly removed agro from yourself, Split the remaining party to increase survivability, and regroup (and quickly ressing, sometimes with decoy and rez tactic).

Lagtime between agro:
Pug builds seem to typically seem to use a variant of the hit and run tactic which i will dub "Hit and Wait" tank goes in and holds agro, then its followed by 2-3x glyph sac meteor shower then + SF/GG. While this is great and seemingly fast there are two problems with it. the second one i will describe in a section below. The most notable problem is the lag time between agro. PuGs will wait the entire duration for the glyph sac meteor shower to recharge. Assuming everything goes without a problem, you're still spending more time waiting than fighting. Once the glyph sac MS is recharged, an additional time is spent waiting for figuring out an approach to the next mob then prep time for enchantments etc before agroing. We use glyph conc instead of glyph sac, and don't ever run more than 2 MS (see note below) to reduce recharge time, and we don't wait for MS to recharge before taking on another agro (since it isn't out main source of damage).

Kiting/Defence:
When Agro breaks, and enemies aren't killed before reaching the back/midline, monks have a difficult time keeping the party up. And usually results in most of the party dying. This is due to the lack of protting (asside from bonds) and kiting by players. Notably, there is only 1 copy of PS in the team. of course, the best way to take 0 damage is to kite melee and kite away out of range from casters before they can cast an additional spell. PS is your friend. Our builds carry at least 4 copies of PS anywhere up to 6 depending on the area. Also, I watched a bunch of eles sit in choking gas getting continuously interrupted instead of kiting out of the gas to cast. Esp against ranged attackers, like ele, mes, ranger, it's good practice to run in cast, run out of casting range. this minimizes the number of ppl the protted need to keep ps on and reduces damage and death greatly.

Skill type distribution (A True Balanced Team):
I have seen quite a few builds calling themselves balanced, but in reality aren't very balanced. By definition, they are spiked. In low end PvP, you often seen builds with highly specialized roles. For example, a healer only uses healing skills, a protter only uses protection skills, eles and warriors only uses attack skills, so on. A balanced team, however, has each player take some attack skills and some defensive skills. Monks specialize in defence but take both healing and prot, making a bonder obsolete. This allows your to replace the bonder with another attacker allowing you to deal out more damage.
Why spread the disribution of skill types? Wouldn't keeping only attack skills on attackers, prot skills on a protter, heal skills on a healer, etc allow people to concentrate on their one and only "job" and allow them to be more effecient at it?
Answer: 1) if a mob spike kills one key player, in a highly specialized build, you lose all of that player's ability. For example. You have a team with 1 Protter. He is 100% of the prot. if he dies, you now have 0% prot. Now if you have 2 monks with some prot skills and 4 attackers with prot skills, if 1 monk dies, you still maintain 83% (1/6) of your prot skills. 2) when an agro break, or you come across a 500+ dmg deathly swarm (hits 3 targets) or a bunch of invoke lightenings (hits 3 targets) or any other AoE (Meteor, Searing Flames, E Surge), you have the ability to apply 4-6 PSs simultaneously (of course you need to have to player skill to use them all properly). If you only had one protter, you'd only get one PS off due to the recharge time.
Additional Skill notes. Backfire is important for killing Ki's effeciently. A single Ki due to it near infinate energy pool and keep a mob up for a very long time against 3 SF eles as we found out not to mention when there are 2 or more. SS is a powerful skill too. Lightbringer's gaze is a powerful attack skill and interrupt that is very cheap.

Party Wiping #, Rerez time, DP, and retreats:
These are all elements that exponentially add time to each quest. By reducing the party wipe #, you reduce the time you spend rezzing. Dying also causes DP and limits the energy pool and health, which limit the number of skills you can use (esp for casters) and the amount of damage you can take before dying (1 shot kills?). By using the strategy above you can continue to fight without having to retreat (retreating which eneviably causes death and time delay during retreats) when mobs break agro.

Note on Meteor Shower:
Due to the way the AI calculates agro breaking due to AoE and the way knockdowns are handled, it turns out glyph sacing 3 ms simultaneously often causes mobs to break agro. It's usually better to cast only 1 MS at a time to minimize agro breaking. Note that this may be a different story if you do run Earthbind.

To summarize: to cut down on time, cut away the wait time between agroing mobs, fight and defend through broken agro, minimize deaths/dp with smart and skilled play, and rez quickly.

Xpl0iter · Dec 12, 2006, 07:59 AM // 07:59

i am not sure of that MS theory though.
We tend to cast 3 meteors with spacing, it keeps them in agro while knocking them down.

Tested in stygian, and had no issues.
Tested in Foundry, and had no issues... maybe got lucky...

Appears to me that the way this tank had his agro maintained, monsters were not towards his front side, but rather spread arround him ( Adjacently )

As one of my friend said, An average PUG group should take half hour in order to get to know each other and their skills. Synchronizing is what one needs in PuG most of the times.

Kenagalaz · Dec 12, 2006, 08:05 AM // 08:05

A Meteor shower hits every 3 seconds, while it only knocks down for 2 seconds. If a second meteor shower hits during the time that the target is knocked down, (ie 1 sec after the first kd-when the target is in the motion of standing back up) a second knockdown is NOT applied. Usually (if MS are cast sepearetly) the 2sec kd is enough to reset the broken agro from AoE. but if the agro is rebroken while the target is coming back up, it will not get reset. since MS kd is for 2 sec while hitting every 3 sec, this gives them 1 sec to move out of MS. of course, if you use earthbind, this makes kds last 3 sec and may keep foes permanently kded (unconfirmed)

Xpl0iter · Dec 12, 2006, 08:07 AM // 08:07

no, it does keep them kded, though the spirit won't last long enough. that is confirmed ^_^

aohige · Dec 12, 2006, 08:08 AM // 08:08

MS doesn't break aggro.
However, standing around in the enemy aggro range for long time after you cast MS does.

As long as you pull your Ele back as soon as you spam the two MS, the aggro won't get on you.

Xpl0iter · Dec 12, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Very possible aohige
Thing is, if your using one ele with arcane and sac and another with just sac, have arcaned ele cast his first ms, ( Cast your Sac glyph while he is casting his MS ) then his sac, and cast second ms... the moment u see him calling for second ms, cast yours and step back.
3 ms and i have maybe seen 5% of the times, any agro breaking in DoA since i have been playing.

aohige · Dec 12, 2006, 08:20 AM // 08:20

You should use Arcane echo before moving into range,
and when in range, use MS > Sac > MS. This should reduce the time you're near enemy aggro by a bit.
But yeah, only time when I see aggro break, is when a caster is sitting too close to the enemy range for too long.
During the first casting of MS shouldn't aggro the enemy unless he's already broke aggro from another Ele.

So timing for the two Eles to go up at once is crucial, obviously.
Once the first MS is cast, the sac>MS combo is very fast, so it shouldn't be an issue for them to get out of the way in time.

The most frequent aggro breaking, IMO, is when multiple Eles are taking turns going up, and one of them breaks aggro of a monster... just in time for the next Ele to come up in range.

Xpl0iter · Dec 12, 2006, 08:22 AM // 08:22

if u notice, i never called the first ele using arcane while in agro

heh
i said "arcaned ele" :P
But excellent advice!

Inner Salbat · Dec 12, 2006, 08:58 AM // 08:58

Yes, all excellent advice be that as it may, most people don't have time to fiddle with meta game, micro level skill adjustments. I'd say people expect that sort of micro management in PvP rather than PvE.

Duly Thankful · Dec 12, 2006, 11:20 AM // 11:20

Absolutely. From what I have seen, the majority of the playerbase is interested in forming a group quickly and just jumping in to have fun. They either don't have the time to go into long-winded discussions as to who is going to do what, or don't have the inclination. If they did, they would play PvP.

If too many people decide it isn't fun, it will be become a ghost town (assuming it hasn't already). I would have thought that it would be better to have a gradually increasing level of difficulty, rather than the 'Dead on Arrival' type, as that way people will at least give it a chance.

Antheus · Dec 12, 2006, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenagalaz

So out of morbid curiosity, I tried Pugging a couple of rounds through DoA.

Map Strategy:
...

Lagtime between agro:
...

Kiting/Defence:
...

Skill type distribution (A True Balanced Team):
...

Party Wiping #, Rerez time, DP, and retreats:
...

Map: Most PUGs have somewhat learned to watch the map for doodles. What most still lack, is taking initiative in responding to map. Paying attention to agro circle, keeping an eye out for patrols, etc. The problem: Heroes don't draw on map.

Kiting/Defence: "I'm an ele, I shouldn't have to kite." This is #1 thing that kills most groups in DoA. One mob escapes agro, and the entire group simply falls apart. Only the person targeted kites, the rest keep on attacking the escaped mob while everyone stays in monk's range. Easy? Or is it. Wards, party armor buffs, evasion, ... all lost in many PUGs.

Lagtime: Yep. First thing here, is that you don't need 3 arcaned MS to kill anything. Unless you fail to shutdown the monk.

Balanced teams: Wuts a memser? Seriously, ask anyone what backfire does. Ask them how long it takes for backfire to kill anything. Or, how many mobs in DoA can remove hexes. Two, possibly echoed/aechoed/renewaled backfires, coupled with mistrust and spiritual pain is probably one of heaviest damage dealers when dealing with single groups (depends on area). Ritualist with a selection of spirits, including earthbind, eoe, QZ (in some cases), EoE, Famine + SV, desecrate enchantments, BHA + virulence, wards, paragon buffs, even well of profane (used carefuly of course) will hurt the mobs much more than party (no bonder of course).

But any and all such "advanced" tactics seem to be lost. Maybe someone should make a tutorial video, demonstrating all of that.

Protection and damage prevention is another topic which goes mostly unnoticed. For example: Shiro. Protection, and damage prevention makes shiro completely harmless. 2 Monks with chained aegis are enough, throw a ward, SoA and prot spirit into that mix and shiro will die of frustration. The groups I ran against shiro used 2 full prot monks, with only two heals being dwayna's kiss and mend condition. The rest is all out prot. No bonds or anything like that either.

But as long as groups remain at LF 4 SF/MS nukers, DoA will remain hard. Unfortunately, it's quite hard to try different group setups, since the class selection there is limited, and gameplay strategies are really slow to catch on.

Vahn Roi · Dec 12, 2006, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eclair

It gives a random item. So far people have gotten scrolls (800 gold >.<), but have also gotten Malyx mini pet (I think, there's a pic).

So its a gamble, you could either get something really good, or really bad.

That's kind of lame...

Inner Salbat · Dec 12, 2006, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duly Thankful

Absolutely. From what I have seen, the majority of the playerbase is interested in forming a group quickly and just jumping in to have fun. They either don't have the time to go into long-winded discussions as to who is going to do what, or don't have the inclination. If they did, they would play PvP.

If too many people decide it isn't fun, it will be become a ghost town (assuming it hasn't already). I would have thought that it would be better to have a gradually increasing level of difficulty, rather than the 'Dead on Arrival' type, as that way people will at least give it a chance.

Which is why I proposed an idea, of difficulty same rewards / drops at any level, but for those that like a harder challange, they can choose the harder settings, for example, [easy] [intermediate] [advanced] [expert], completing the top 2 levels would give you some sort of title, where as the easier stages wouldn't give you anything towards the title, there by giving reward to those that can master the game by using micro management, and allows others to just play for fun.

This presents itself it's own set of draw backs, if you get the same rewards on any level (except for title gain), then why would anyone choose a harder level for the same reward, someone or something has to keep gemstones in check for one thing, and something has to keep it fun for those -new to the game- let alone C1/C2.

The problem here is ArenaNet, so far they've never gone back on an idea and fixed it, I'm referring to the content in factions, they said they would provide a way to gain access without owning a town have they? no, all be it for 1 weekend allowed people in, they seam to be stubborn at admitting there faults at creating things, at least that's the impression I get from them, and the favor debates still rage on, so lets not get into that one.