Curse

From The Blackness · May 09, 2011, 07:40 AM // 07:40

I know most of the assassins out there have proclaimed ToPK to be dead. I wish to change your view. ToPK is alive and well for ecto farming, but you have to crack the shell. That is to say, all of the juicy ecto is sitting after level 1. I made a new build to do this about half an hour after the update and I feel it is time to share it.

The 1st level takes about 2.5 minutes to solo through, which is almost nothing when one considers how much ecto is hiding in the latter levels. Here is what you will need:

Template Code: OwVSM4PTRQLB6MHQmAsixlul

Attributes:
Shadow Arts 12+1+3
Inspiration Magic 12

Armor:
Armor vs Slashing Insignias
Sup Shadow Arts

Weapons:
20% enchant, +5 energy 1 handed weapon
Shield with +10 vs slashing or demons

I have made a video showing the tactics used to clear the 1st level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H62doAXJu8

I have not made a video showing level 2 tactics because they are identical in goal as the level 1 tactics. Ball things up and degen away. Personally, I usually kill the ecto droppers on level 2 and zone out and repeat because the worms take a bit of time to kill.

If anyone has any questions, please ask away. This is a 1st posting, so I am sure I did not cover all of my bases.

Q and A:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nijntjuh

just wondering if there is a reason you use arcane echo instead of deadly paradox to maintain SF?

I use Arcane Echo instead of Deadly Paradox for energy reasons. During 2 casts of Shadow Form, a DP bar would use 40 energy while this only uses 25. Also, this would trigger channeling 3 times instead of two. This comes in handy on level 2 when you ball up a ton of grasps and they try to spike your energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedDog91

Is there a reason for Great Dwarf Armor?
Shroud of Distress seems as though it could keep you alive alone.

It's not. 16 health per second is not a ton of healing so the basis of the build is to prevent damage coming in. You could deal with small groups of grasps without it (like 6), but there are places where you will want to pull twice that many and then you would be hurting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Silverwing

Looks interesting. If you could upload a video of level 2 I'd appreciate it

How many ectos will you get/hours on average?
Adam

The way I do it now (Clear level 1 and just kill the ecto droppers on level 2), nets about 2 ecto per run. A run takes 14-15 mins, excluding zoning time sitting in town. So, you're looking at about 7-8 ecto per hour with quick zoning and about 6 if you like to salvage everything between runs. If you decide to kill everything, you will get fewer ecto/hour. So, it gets a person probably 55-65k per hour between ecto and drops. When you factor in that there are no cons or pcons used, it is one of the most profitable farms in the game.
As for the level 2 video, I don't think I will be doing that soon. My internet connection can be roughly approximated by covering a turtle in molasses, and even that short video took me forever to upload. Level 2 would take 4-5 times longer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkekSister

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

What would you suggest as an optimal build for farming on level 2? I ask because I have permas on two accounts so could easily use one to get me to lvl 2, then use the second to do the actual farming once there. (Using GW multilauncher to run two instances of the game.)

There are 2 things this build is slow with. Dream riders are not fleshy, so they take 11 casts of Rad Field to kill (with a respectable Asuran rank). This translates to 190.33 seconds if wielding the suggested weapons. Once the grasps are dead, you are free to switch to a staff for HSR. This will knock some seconds off that time. Luckily, you only need to do this on 3 balls in level 2 if you ball properly. The other thing this build takes a long time with is the worms. If you are bringing another character to get to level 3, bring whatever bar you would like just to get rid of the worms. Then, clear all but the worms on your 1st sin and use the 2nd for cleanup duty. I would only bother with this if you really want to get to the next levels. The greens at the end are worth diddly-poo and you will net more ecto per hour zoning and repeating instead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by In Game Pm's

I have had many pm's asking about Arcane Echo and Unseen Fury.

If you read the skill, you will see that Arcane Echo "ends prematurely if you use a non-spell skill." This means you cannot use Unseen Fury between Arcane Echo and SF. You can, however, use it during the cast of Arcane Echo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by In Game Pm's

Waaaaaaah! The Dream Riders run away and I can't ball them up so they take forever to kill!

The Dream Rider's will try to go around you to your right (clockwise on the edge of your aggro bubble on the radar). While facing the ball of Dream Riders, have a wall adjacent to you on your right and they will not run away because they cannot follow their desired path.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinny survivor

Would it be any faster to run a hero with bonds/nukes and just have the sin pull/have more offense?

Unfortunately, this will not help you much. The blocking and blinding skills are on the bar for adrenaline denial as much as they are for damage reduction. The only skills you could readily part with would be Great Dwarf Armor and Channeling, but you would be hard pressed to replace them with anything that would speed up the run. There isn't a skill that could knock out all the Scythes of Chaos any faster because you can't ball them in any tighter. The only thing you would be able to speed up, possibly, would be the Grasps. The issue I see with this is the grasps only take another 12 seconds to kill once you kill the Scythes. I would expect putting up bonds to take at least this long, negating any positive effect. There isn't a nuke that you could bring that would hit all things and not break aggro onto the nuker, and bringing heroes would decrease your ecto drop rate on level 2. I would try to avoid it. Though, EoE would add massively to the spike. If you bring a friend with just EoE on his or her bar, it would knock those 12 seconds off level 1 and greatly speed up level 2 killing the dream riders. I can't say I would bother bringing it on a hero though.

TL: DR-->No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by In Game Pm's

Isn't this just a big gamble that they won't interrupt you?

Yes and no. Isn't using shroud a gamble because you only have a 3/4 chance to block and things could theoretically never block? It's one of those things that is good almost all the time. Let me break it down for you.

The enemies you are worried about attack you with axes. Axes have an attack speed of 1.33. You have a 50% chance to block from Mental Block and a 75% chance to block from Shroud. This means that instead of hitting you every 1.33 seconds, they will hit you once every 10.64 seconds. When you blind them with Unseen Fury, they have an additional 90% chance to miss. If you used unseen fury every time it recharged, this would make them only hit you once every 19.15 seconds. Instead of this, however, you use it right before you cast important skills, so it's effect is lessened somewhat to around 18 seconds. The skill that interrupts you has an adrenal cost of 6 strikes. 6*18=108. That is an average of 108 seconds of attacking before a Grasp can interrupt you. Now, if you look at the video, you will notice that the 1st time a Grasp hits me is at 0:37. All the grasps are dead at 2:39. This is a 122 second window for your grasps to attack you. On average, each one will use an interrupt skill 1.13 times in this window. There are 11 Grasps. You can expect to have 12.43 interrupts thrown at you in the 1st level. Remember our blind and blocking? You are always blocking and you use blind before important skills. This means that an interrupt on an important skill has a 1/80 chance of connecting. So, you have a 15.5% chance of being hit with an interrupt during the blind phase. Only about 10% of this time are you casting important spells, so now we're down to about 1.5% chance to get interrupted in the run. This success rate is pretty darn good, but you can make it better. The Grasps will use their interrupts after they see you use a skill. If you notice in the video, I cast enchantments that do not need to be recast usually when they recharge. This keeps my energy up and coaxes out the interrupts. Employing this tactic, your effective rate of interrupt on an important skill is effectively 0.

TL: DR-->Use your other skills when they recharge, and the Grasps will waste adrenaline trying to interrupt those so you will be safe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinny survivor

On the second floor, do you avoid pulling the grasps/scythes all together, just pulling the ecto-droppers?. If so, how do you do this in the room with wurms?

When you load into level 2, I like to pull everything in that first room, neglecting the group in the small area directly opposite where you start. Then, I ball them up and degen away. Here is where I ball them, usually. It's not a tight ball, but Rad Field hits em all. That's all I require.

Once you enter the main room, you have 2 sides to pick from. I generally pull the ecto droppers from there into the left room and ball that up and degen away, then take the remaining room.

PROTIP: The lower your health, the farther you can pull things and the less apt things are to break away. Once you are comfortable with the basics of my setup, I would recommend getting rid of your viggor runes on your armor and the +HP you likely have on your shield.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pvp joda

use arkane echo instead skill 6 and echo skill 8 for a 1 min run on lvl 2
any shield will do you won't rly take dmg and 0% change to get interuptet

You're using a bonder. My thread is about how to solo. Also, there is no way in hell you could clear level 2 in 1 minute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xx_Sorin_xX

I'm using all the suggested equipment (slashing shield instead of demons) and they consistently bring me down to low health and if a wrong skill gets through (like evi) I am probably dead. You're video shows you rarely dropping past half health. Does the shield make that much of a difference?

The slashing shield will protect you from the Grasps just as much as the demon shield will, but the Scythes will do more damage to you. I usually take 0 damage from the Scythes, so if you are not, that is most likely your issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unmoose

for some reason, sometimes, SF aint enough for me to cast Aracane.. O.O
maybe I lag a bit?

Attributes:
Shadow Arts 12+1+3
Inspiration Magic 12

Armor:
Armor vs Slashing Insignias
Sup Shadow Arts

Weapons:
20% enchant, +5 energy 1 handed weapon
Shield with +10 vs slashing or demons

Quote:

Originally Posted by teotuf

What is your success rate?
To be worked out: Better way to pull the second level - the banished dream riders scatter a lot when I'm trying to get them into position (before starting to kill) so that needs to be figured out... Another thing that killing non fleshy creatures is SOOOO slow... >_> There's gotta be a better skill than radiation field somewhere...

My success rate is almost 100%. I would say it is at least 98% and the main reason I would die is due to trying to pm someone when I need to cast. Sometimes I go for record runs just to see how fast I can do things. Those have much lower success rates. I take off the sup viggor for those and switch to a -50 cesta to pull things a tad farther--which is risky.
I find the best way to start pulling on level 2 is running up the hill to your left at the start and coming down the other side, then running back through the middle. This aggros all of the 1st room without having to worry about getting bodyblocked like you would if you ran straight through the middle.
As for balling them up, it's rather similar to tanking in City, if you have done that. You have enemies that pull at three different lengths. You pull everything in a straight line (along a wall) until all the dream riders are in a ball. Then, you double back and run the other way until the Terrorwebs are sitting on top of the dream riders. Last, you go stand adjacent to the ball and face it with a wall on your right side so the Dream Riders cannot run away. That is the appropriate way to ball. The way I show in the picture above is just me being sloppy. I have taken to running with 405 health so they don't break as easily which is why I am able to do that, but you are probably better off doing what I outlined here.
As for rad field, you are wasting your time if you are not at least r8. There is not a better way to do it if you are solo. Bringing a friend with EoE and bonds would open you up to a whole lot more damage ability, but I made this thread about soloing, so I will not delve into that.

Spiritz · May 09, 2011, 08:04 AM // 08:04

Personally i dont do topk but have a few times read posts on it and the only problem i can see - the old run took a few mins to do but sadly yours you state takes around 30 mins.
Reason topk was used - it was a very fast farm compared to uw which if a players taking 30 mins in topk then a bit of extra time in uw`s chaos planes may yield more ectos ( mindblade heaven ).
Credit tho for trying to find a new way to keep topk alive

End · May 09, 2011, 09:32 AM // 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spiritz

Personally i dont do topk but have a few times read posts on it and the only problem i can see - the old run took a few mins to do but sadly yours you state takes around 30 mins.
Reason topk was used - it was a very fast farm compared to uw which if a players taking 30 mins in topk then a bit of extra time in uw`s chaos planes may yield more ectos ( mindblade heaven ).
Credit tho for trying to find a new way to keep topk alive

The difference being a higher drop rate on the second floor. Honestly its the same concept as a build I used to use long long ago with damage changed to degen because of the damage cap. (yeah I mean long ago) sooo while the run takes longer I find you get more ectos per hour which is what its really all about. Whether this remains true I can't say but yeah...just my little comment

Bright Star Shine · May 09, 2011, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spiritz

Personally i dont do topk but have a few times read posts on it and the only problem i can see - the old run took a few mins to do but sadly yours you state takes around 30 mins.
Reason topk was used - it was a very fast farm compared to uw which if a players taking 30 mins in topk then a bit of extra time in uw`s chaos planes may yield more ectos ( mindblade heaven ).
Credit tho for trying to find a new way to keep topk alive

He never said it takes half an hour, he said he made the build half an hour after the update..

SkekSister · May 09, 2011, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

What would you suggest as an optimal build for farming on level 2? I ask because I have permas on two accounts so could easily use one to get me to lvl 2, then use the second to do the actual farming once there. (Using GW multilauncher to run two instances of the game.)

Nijntjuh · May 09, 2011, 12:06 PM // 12:06

just wondering if there is a reason you use arcane echo instead of deadly paradox to maintain SF?

dasmitchies · May 09, 2011, 12:40 PM // 12:40

He uses arcane to use the other stance

RedDog91 · May 09, 2011, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Is there a reason for Great Dwarf Armor?
Shroud of Distress seems as though it could keep you alive alone.

Nijntjuh · May 09, 2011, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by dasmitchies

He uses arcane to use the other stance

not needed as the stance only provides him unblockable attacks. The initial Blinding will stay even if you remove the stance. just don't be bad and cast deadly paradox -> unseen fury -> shadow form thats the only way its going to kill you.

Adam Silverwing · May 09, 2011, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Looks interesting. If you could upload a video of level 2 I'd appreciate it

How many ectos will you get/hours on average?

Adam

SkekSister · May 09, 2011, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Arcane provides energy via channelling, Paradox does not. That's about the only reason I can think of.

Sinny survivor · May 10, 2011, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Really fun and decent build cheers. What i was wondering is, would it be any faster to run a hero with bonds/nukes and just have the sin pull/have more offense? As a healer/player bonder, either wouldnt matter. other than that , i cant really see much improvement on what youve got ^^

pvp joda · May 14, 2011, 09:10 AM // 09:10

with a bonder you can kill the first 4 mobs on lvl 2 in under 2 mins sounds nice

Sinny survivor · May 14, 2011, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Thank you for replying to my last comment, and the in-depth answers your giving, its truly great

. What id like to ask is that on the second floor, do you avoid pulling the grasps/scythes all together, just pulling the ecto-droppers?. if so, how do you do this in the room with wurms?

pvp joda · May 15, 2011, 08:18 AM // 08:18

pull anything together helps keeping up energy and it won't take longer than just pulling riders if you want to kill the worms i would go duo with a bonder/eoe so you can bring more dmg skills

Xx_Sorin_xX · May 17, 2011, 04:02 AM // 04:02

I'm using all the suggested equipment (slashing shield instead of demons) and they consistently bring me down to low health and if a wrong skill gets through (like evi) I am probably dead. You're video shows you rarely dropping past half health. Does the shield make that much of a difference?

pvp joda · May 17, 2011, 05:15 PM // 17:15

use arkane echo instead skill 6 and echo skill 8 for a 1 min run on lvl 2
any shield will do you won't rly take dmg and 0% change to get interuptet

Unmoose · May 18, 2011, 03:12 PM // 15:12

for some reason, sometimes, SF aint enough for me to cast Aracane.. O.O
maybe I lag a bit?

teotuf · May 19, 2011, 06:11 AM // 06:11

I'm using unseen fury twice every cycle - once before arcane + SF, once for echoed SF. Yet, with all the same equipments and skills you have - I'm still taking too much damage per cycle, not to mention the unlucky eviscerate -> deep wound or disrupted SF or arcane echo every now and then...

What is your success rate? Even though I have succeeded a few times, I feel this build is too unreliable - I fail more than half of the time due to pure luck, or the lack of it...

Gonna try the visages and see if I have better luck...

Edit 1: A little better with visage/physical resistance instead of unseen fury + delmore armor - I can tank room one for about 4-6 minutes instead of 1.5-2 reliably without dying. Still doomed to die due to luck though.

Edit 2: Tweaked a bit - use deadly paradox + way of perfection/master instead of arcane echo + physical resistance would give you 10 dmg reduction (2 refreshes per SF) for all types of damage instead of half damage for only physical - I can now tank them permanently without ever dying (got sick of just tanking so started killing after 10 minutes).

Code:

Skill Build: OwVUEyR6nPTiA8I6MHQEQulxlmAA

Start by precasting channeling, then once you hit max energy, DP+SF+SoD+WoP, followed by mental block after grabbing a few guys.

Survival cycle - Cast 2+3+5 every 20 sec cycle, while adding 4 to every second cycle. Of course, use sympathetic visage on cooldown and keep refreshing channeling.

Graspings only have 10-11 secs to build up adrenaline before losing it all from your next cast of SV. With 12.5% to hit, they are lucky to get more than 2 adrenaline, with the exception of using "to the limit" to get 5 or 6 if they are really lucky - in which case they would use as fear me instead of disrupting blow or eviscerate (and only about 1 or 2 out of 10 would use it every 20 secs so energy isnt a problem even when you are tanking dozens of them).

To be worked out: Better way to pull the second level - the banished dream riders scatter a lot when I'm trying to get them into position (before starting to kill) so that needs to be figured out... Another thing that killing non fleshy creatures is SOOOO slow... >_> There's gotta be a better skill than radiation field somewhere...

P.S. As one of the people who pioneered the perma shadow form ecto farming (inspired by the most awesome assassin ever - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...t10098485.html) and figuring out the AI mechanics and builds (look at the good old days... way before the times of SCs... http://www.wegame.com/watch/Solo_Sin_Ecto_Farm_in_ToPK/ and http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t10286824.html), I am VERY glad someone like you is using your brain to find out new builds to adapt to the updates!

Quote:

My success rate is almost 100%. I would say it is at least 98% and the main reason I would die is due to trying to pm someone when I need to cast. Sometimes I go for record runs just to see how fast I can do things. Those have much lower success rates. I take off the sup viggor for those and switch to a -50 cesta to pull things a tad farther--which is risky. I have taken to running with 405 health so they don't break as easily which is why I am able to do that, but you are probably better off doing what I outlined here.

I'm not quite sure what you mean - I've done runs with 360 max hp. Even then, if I pull like you at top the circled riders would run away. What are you doing there so that they don't break aggro in that picture?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Quote:

As for balling them up, it's rather similar to tanking in City, if you have done that. You have enemies that pull at three different lengths. You pull everything in a straight line (along a wall) until all the dream riders are in a ball. Then, you double back and run the other way until the Terrorwebs are sitting on top of the dream riders. Last, you go stand adjacent to the ball and face it with a wall on your right side so the Dream Riders cannot run away. That is the appropriate way to ball.

That is exactly how I've been doing it, but very often the banished dream rider act very differently than scythes of chaos, even though they have the same attack range.

Found a decent way to do it though: walk in semicircles around the dream riders (they run away from you if you walk directly to a group of them), and pull the group to here.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Quote:

As for rad field, you are wasting your time if you are not at least r8. There is not a better way to do it if you are solo.

Sadly I only have rank 4 - so 5 pips or degen. I don't see how 10 extra damage every 14 seconds is going to significantly speed things up though. Going to try it with a mesmer primary when I get her through EoTN for the pve skills - and see if there is any hope there.

Did about 5 full runs so far (3 rooms in level 2), still 0 ectos???

andrewftw · Jun 19, 2011, 09:31 PM // 21:31

I am just starting to get into perma farming etc. so I was wondering, why use armor vs slashing instead of Blessed insignias?