Curse

Coleture · Aug 20, 2009, 08:37 PM // 20:37

There is a lot off talk about Paragon builds (Imbagon, etc.). Here is a general PVE build I use often (which I think works rather well). Created for player who don't have/haven't made it to the other campaigns and picked up those other skills. Hope it helps you get there and die less. I call it Burning Soldier's Fury Spear Mastery=11+2, Command=8+1, Leadership=11+1+2 /Vic. Att.(for deep wound)/Blazing Spear/Spear of Redem.(for blindness)/GFTE (give VA deep wound)/Ant. of Flames (attack buff)/TOF (Damage reduction)/SF(IAS, adren.)/Sig of Return. If you have other ideas, I'm all ears.

MarciNoExcess · Aug 20, 2009, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Every paragon without "There is nothing to fear!" is a newbie!
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Zzes Tyan · Aug 20, 2009, 09:25 PM // 21:25

no use for AoF without Aggressive Refrain.

Gennadios · Aug 20, 2009, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Switch TOF for for There's Nothing to Fear. Unless you also have a searing flames ele hero with you, anthem of flames alone won't provide enough burning to compete with TNtF. True that you can power Soldier's Fury with it, but Can't Touch This! works just as well.

Besides that, I've fallen in love with We Shall Return! as the rez of choice, spamming GFTE and AOF will provide the 25e to use it in under 5 seconds with careful skill selection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zzes Tyan

no use for AoF without Aggressive Refrain.

Get thee out! No use for aggressive refrain. Period.

It's a skill entirely for noobs and imbas (uber noobs.)

Coleture · Aug 20, 2009, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Your right about the searing flames ele hero. I keep one in my group, should have added that. I like your idea on the We shall Return! I'll try it.

MisterB · Aug 20, 2009, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

Get thee out! No use for aggressive refrain. Period.

It's a skill entirely for noobs and imbas (uber noobs.)

Aggressive Refrain is one of the best Paragon skills, and I'd rate it as the best non-elite paragon skill, or at least in the top 5. Calling people names is not a valid argument. Did you just suggest adding "Can't Touch This!" so Soldier's Fury will work?

All the people suggesting TNtF instead of ToF are overlooking the OP's choice of elite, Soldier's Fury.

Tenebrae · Aug 20, 2009, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Soldiers Fury , TNTF and Stand your ground is all you need. Add random adren spear attack + vicious attack + random comm /leadership shout and GFTE. Done.

PD: Ofc Sig of Return , best hard rez imho. If you dont want it , use a useful pve skill .

Gennadios · Aug 20, 2009, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

Aggressive Refrain is one of the best Paragon skills, and I'd rate it as the best non-elite paragon skill, or at least in the top 5. Calling people names is not a valid argument. Did you just suggest adding "Can't Touch This!" so Soldier's Fury will work?

All the people suggesting TNtF instead of ToF are overlooking the OP's choice of elite, Soldier's Fury.

Can't Touch This! + Soldier's fury = constant 33% adrenaline gain and 33% faster attacks. and the combo takes 1sec/30sec to get going (agressive refrain has a 1sec casting time and lasts 30 sec, CTT has no cast time)

Agressive Refrain = 25% faster attack, the only way to keep it up consistantly is /w a low recharge, non-adrenal skills. In this case either anthem of flame (1sec cast/8sec) or anthem of weariness (1sec cast/10seconds)

AR will waste 3sec of your time over the same 30 second period to maintain, give you an 8% slower attack rate, will still require a separate adrenaline boost skill, and gives you cracked armor. If you consider that in the top 5 paragon skills, you must really not have a high regard for paragons.

And I didn't overlook the OP's choice of Elite. That's why I suggested CTT. One "wasted" slot to keep SF up is worth 2 "wasted" slots to keep AR up and generating adrenaline.

MisterB · Aug 20, 2009, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gennadios

Can't Touch This! + Soldier's fury = constant 33% adrenaline gain and 33% faster attacks. and the combo takes 1sec/30sec to get going (agressive refrain has a 1sec casting time and lasts 30 sec, CTT has no cast time)

Agressive Refrain = 25% faster attack, the only way to keep it up consistantly is /w a low recharge, non-adrenal skills. In this case either anthem of flame (1sec cast/8sec) or anthem of weariness (1sec cast/10seconds)

AR will waste 3sec of your time over the same 30 second period to maintain, give you an 8% slower attack rate, will still require a separate adrenaline boost skill, and gives you cracked armor. If you consider that in the top 5 paragon skills, you must really not have a high regard for paragons.

And I didn't overlook the OP's choice of Elite. That's why I suggested CTT. One "wasted" slot to keep SF up is worth 2 "wasted" slots to keep AR up and generating adrenaline.

Aggressive Refrain costs 25 energy and 2 seconds to cast in the entire zone. You activate it once, and you are done. Once it's up, it can never be removed, nor should it ever drop. Soldier's Fury costs 5 energy each time, and an additional second to activate, during which you may not attack. Aggressive Refrain may be maintained with [email protected] Leadership. You can even use a Superior Leadership on a helmet swap to activate it, which will increase it's duration even when it renews, then switch back.

The Aggressive Refrain versus Soldier's Fury argument has been done before. I don't care to repeat it. You can win PvE with either or neither.

Can't Touch This is a very poor skill; at least choose something that provides a useful effect like Stand Your Ground, They're on Fire, etc.

There are many numerical errors(in bold) in your post on various skill effects and durations.

@OP: You might consider Blazing Finale in place of Anthem of Flame with all the GFTE spam. If nothing else, you can run up adjacent to the caster ball and spear them in the face with GFTE on you to trigger it. H/H tend to focus all attacks on called targets, so AoF will only burn a single foe. They may attack separate foes if you do not call; I don't know.

Gennadios · Aug 20, 2009, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

Aggressive Refrain may be maintained with [email protected] Leadership. You can even use a Superior Leadership on a helmet swap to activate it.

...so you're proposing using one of the best skills in the paragons arsenal to keep a broke ass IAS skill running instead of selectively using it when a party may need it?

Seriously, the whole argument for slotting a single throwaway skill is to leave the rest of your bar free to actually use the better skills when they're necessary as opposed to echo fodder.

Aeon221 · Aug 20, 2009, 11:54 PM // 23:54

I have a big paracrush on Find Their Weakness and Fall Back. Fall back is great pretty much always, and FTW gives you an on demand dw+domage that can't be blocked (because it stays active til an attack hits). They both happen to keep up Aggressive and remain viable in a primarily caster group -- aka, almost all h/h groups -- unlike AoF or AoW.

The Juggernauot · Aug 21, 2009, 01:22 AM // 01:22

before i would run Cant Touch This to maintain Soilders Fury ... i would run a useful chant/shout to at least help the rest of the party like Hexbreaker Aria for no points at all you can give your monks and fellow casters a huge releif on hexes and maintain your req for soilders fury. Heck id even dip into tactics and grab maybe Watch Yourself before i would use Cant Touch This. Been playing para since day one its a very underrated profession, but its funny to see ppl jumping on the bandwagon since the updates to the skills. Also aggressive refrain was cool back in the day but now its kinda ..meh.

Tenebrae · Aug 21, 2009, 12:02 PM // 12:02

Agree with Gennadios on Agg Ref , if you can have Soldiers Fury , its BS ..... but , i also agree with Juggernauot , Cant Touch this its BS . Like i said before , its better to alternate TNTF with Stand your Ground and its done , Solidiers Fury working 100% of the time.

Coleture · Aug 21, 2009, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Wow, appreciate all the ideas, especially all the free thinkers. I agree about AF why use two slots when I could use one. Tenebrae, I like your ideas on TNTF and SYG, I think I'm going to use them. Gennadios, tried the We Shall Return! it didn't work for me. If you die 2-3 times you don't have the energy pool to use it. With only 8 slots, need every 1 to count. This is my is my 4th character I've beaten all campaigns but Prophecies (so far) with my A/D. People need to experiment more, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Most builds can only be made after running thru a few campaigns, so what do you do till then... experiment. Thanks for the ideas.

Reverend Dr · Aug 22, 2009, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Why are we talking about aggressive refrain vs soldier's fury when there is the perfectly broken drunken master which doesn't require a second (largely worthless) skill to keep it functioning?

I really do prefer to keep the elite on paragon open. There are very many wonderful elites, Song of Purification, Song of Restoration, Defensive Anthem, Anthem of Fury, Empathic Removal, Order of Vampire, Blood is Power, etc. especially since it is not that difficult for a decent spec into a secondary for the secondary's elite. I know suggesting something other than P/W, what is wrong with me.

angmar_nite · Sep 08, 2009, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Why are we talking about aggressive refrain vs soldier's fury when there is the perfectly broken drunken master which doesn't require a second (largely worthless) skill to keep it functioning?

TNTF is useless????

Reverend Dr · Sep 08, 2009, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Must use TNTF on recharge to keep up aggressive, which means you won't be able to save it until right before a large damage wave comes in. As such either you give up the efficiency that controlled activation of TNTF gives you, or you bring a worthless skill to keep up aggressive.

MisterB · Sep 08, 2009, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Find Their Weakness(PVE) is FTW for Aggressive Refrain. It's not useless, either. DW + damage, unconditional. I use that in place of an attack skill.

angmar_nite · Sep 08, 2009, 09:53 PM // 21:53

i mean during battle you will be spamming plenty of other shouts and stuff like GFTE, so you no longer have to rely on TNTF for AR and can use it whenever

Nighthawk2dr · Sep 08, 2009, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Why are we talking about aggressive refrain vs soldier's fury when there is the perfectly broken drunken master which doesn't require a second (largely worthless) skill to keep it functioning?.

QFT.
I use Drunken Master for my IAS. Works wonders. I can work on my drunkard title as well as have fun at the same time! Long duration, low energy, 25-33% attack increase, depending on your dwarven rep rank.