Curse

Icy The Mage · Apr 04, 2010, 09:33 AM // 09:33

Note: This is NOT as easy as kegging was, nor is it as brainless.

Builds
You: OQcTEX6+R6uM0JXsNSlpvYHcCCA

Hero: OwAS0YIPAkICAAAAAerAAAA

Equipment
You: Full Sentinel's Insignias, Strength Shield (+10AL vs. Earth), Sword (+7 vs. Elemental Damage).
Hero: +4 Divine Headpiece, Enchanting Staff.

Note: You need at least 13 Strength.

Youtube Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RObe0C-an9g

Method & Reasoning
After running a few tests and such, doing Vaettir farms and some old inspiration from pre-nerf "Keg-Farming" I was able to come up with an even faster build to farm those Spectral Vaettir for even more shiny goodness.

What's really unique here and what makes this work is bar compression, so the inclusion of a hero with Spellbreaker and a couple other spells in combination with some flagging, you are able to enjoy the benefit of spell immunity with no downside (other than effort). All this without having to put anything on your skill-bar, nifty.

Since the rate-determining step in Vaettir Farming is the time it takes to rezone,we aim to reduce the length of it. This is done through Shadow of Haste, an ability which will allow you to instantly teleport back to the portal for quick re-zoning.

You need a way to make Shadow of Haste last long enough so that you are able to:

Cast it at the start
Aggro all the vaettir
Kill all the vaettir
Pick up all the drops (especially during an event weekend)
Prevent premature cancellation of Shadow of Haste and subsequent loss of drops

In order for Shadow of Haste to last this long we need either 16 shadow arts (42s long) or Dwarven Stability, which can increase your stance duration as much as 100%! The 16 Shadow Arts would require a superior shadow arts headpiece, resulting in -75hp. This is pretty much offset by your norn title but again, it's a big hit to your HP when you need to survive 36 Vaettir attacking you in Hard Mode with their beefy attack speed. Combine that with your Assassin's 'squishiness' and you won't be getting far in surviving.

With all of these things attacking you, there needs to be a way to limit all of that insane damage. Since you are limited to either A/- or -/A, the best option would be to go -/A and opt for some defense in the primary profession. I thought long and hard about this and considered many options in my choice, here's what it broke down to:

Rangers: 100(base) + 10(blessed insigs) + 18(shield) + 7(wpn) = 135 AL
Warriors: 80(base) + 20(sentinel insigs) + 26(shield) + 7(wpn) = 133 AL

The problem with Rangers is that, while they have skills that can easily defend against all that damage, there is really no way for them to kill all those Vaettir (too bad they don't have ranged autoattacks right?) whereas Warriors have the infamous HB + Whirlwind Attack combo.

Elementalists with Geomancer Insignias, Monks with self-inflicting condition skills & disciples insignias, devishes with loads of enchants etc... just can't compare to this armor level. Another way to boost the armor level is with skills but the bar will already be really tight, I tried to steer away from using skills to boost armor.

I defaulted to a Warrior primary and came up with some neat ideas. Fortunately, the easiest and most space-efficient (bar-wise) to kill a large mob is through Hundred Blades and Whirlwind Attack; but they have an upwards of 160+ armor... This subsequently leads HB + WA to hit garbage numbers (5 anyone?) and you wouldn't be able to kill them even if you mobbed all 60. The best way to increase this damage to a threshold where the 36 you consistently pull will die is through Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honour.

At this stage of the game, your bar is already looking pretty tight;
Dwarven Stability, Shadow of Haste, Hundred Blades[E], Whirlwind Attack and Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honor put you at the 3-PvE skill limit as well as prevent you from taking an elite survival skill. You need to throw a stance on the bar to end Shadow of Haste so you're probably either taking Dash or Sprint if you don't have Dash (Tip: run with Dwarven Stability --> Dash from Longeye's). This leaves you with room for 2, non-elite, non-PvE-only skills to survive with.

After looking through all of their skills and after several failed runs, pulls, aggro management, different paths etc... I struggled to find a way to survive all that damage with a warrior (36 guys attacking every second @ 10~ damage each = 2s death). With my elite taken up with Hundred Blades, all 3 PvE skill slots taken there was little choice. The ways to reduce all that damage would either come in the form of:

Self-Cast Damage Reduction Skills - eg. Stoneflesh Aura, Armor of Sanctity, etc...
Other-Cast Damage Reduction Skills - eg. Shielding Hands, Bonds, etc...
Blocking - eg. Shroud of Distress, stances, etc..
Miss Chance - eg. Unseen Fury, Smoke Powder Defence, etc...
Healing - eg. Healing Hands, Healing Seed, Mark of Protection, etc...
More Armor - eg. Dolyak Signet, "I am Unstoppable!", etc...
Spirits - eg. Union, Recuperation, etc...
Titles - eg. Lightbringer Title

Why most don't work:

Since we'll be using a W/A, any self-castable damage reduction skills are of other professions.
Stances cannot work because Shadow of Haste is a stance and we can't end it until we're done the farm so we can't take Smoke Powder Defense, Unseen Fury, or any warrior stances.
Spirits do not work, it is much too hard to pre-cast them in appropriate spots and they die almost instantly.
Bonds obviously don't work because the hero will take take drops if they are able to maintain bond range.
Lightbringer title doesn't work because we're not in DoA.
The longest lasting healing spell would be a tie at 10s long which can only be buffed to about 16s with Blessed Aura and a 20% enchanting mod, barely enough to aggro the mob.
More armor just doesn't help, pushing the damage down to 8 from 10 per hit with Dolyak Signet just means you take 290~ DPS rather than 360~ DPS.

The only blocking skills that are feasible to use are Protector's Defense and Shroud of Distress. I tried a run with both of these skills. It kind of worked. The problem is trying to build adrenaline. If you take both of these skills you have to attack about 4 or 5 times to charge your adrenaline in time to spike, which is not only ridiculously hard, it's nigh-impossible with the little amount of time you spend sitting there.

After wondering and wondering, I finally found my answer, one of the most useless skills in the game, look at this:

Supportive Spirit
Enchantment Spell. For 5...19...23 seconds, whenever target ally takes damage while knocked down, that ally is healed for 5...29...35 Health.

That's right, with Blessed Aura & an Enchanting Weapon, your hero can cast this enchant right before they hit you up with Spellbreaker, allowing it to last the full duration of your item-inspired genocide.

Trouble is... Vaettir don't have knock-down skills, here's another fix with an 'almost' useless skill: Drunken Blow.

The combination of both Drunken Blow (with Supportive Spirit) and Protector's Defense is actually enough to keep you alive for the spike. Not only does it keep you alive though, it builds ALL of your adrenaline; you gain about 4 adrenaline for losing 100% of your life, thing is you actually lose about 300%, you just heal all of it

.
The trick here is timing Drunken Blow correctly, you should aim to use it right before you hit about 25% life, as you'll skyrocket up to full HP as all the Vaettir ball up on you and whack away at your ever-rising health bar.

By queuing up Protector's Defense while you're on the ground, you cast it the instant you get up (it's a skill, not a stace so it doesn't end Shadow of Haste) and block enough hits to unleash your beastly combo on 36 unsuspecting ghosties. ( What? That warrior was just on the ground and we outnumbered it 30-fold! How did it just kill all of us?! D: )

Pick up your drops, maybe do a little dance and hit your Dash / Sprint / Dark Escape / whatever the heck your brought and do it again in 40 seconds.

~Icy

Olle · Apr 04, 2010, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Looks nice! Must try this later!.

Andemius · Apr 04, 2010, 10:24 AM // 10:24

seems good, but i think i prefer e/me just for the safety.

how long does it take to clear all 60?

Sethellington · Apr 04, 2010, 10:30 AM // 10:30

Yeah I still prefer a E/Me or E/Mo build - you're missing out half the foes

And you're taking a hero. Also, is the video sped up at some point while killing? It doesn't look quite normal

chullster · Apr 04, 2010, 11:10 AM // 11:10

lolz, top marks for using 2 rarely used skills and originality.

impulsion · Apr 04, 2010, 11:11 AM // 11:11

Wow, this is pro! 45secs for 36 enemies nice work.

Watermelon Tacos · Apr 04, 2010, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Is this possible without an earth shield?
Curse my 'Twisted Fate' :/

Riot Narita · Apr 04, 2010, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Wow, nice one.

What's up with your drops though? You hardly seemed to get anything in that video.

Spiritz · Apr 04, 2010, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Err the part about lightbringer is totally useless to mention - lightbringer only affects foes from nightfall who are regarded as part of abbadons army.Also sadly lightbringer skills are usually known as nf only skill - and as you can use lightbringer skills before doa thats daft to mention as well.
Warrior for vaetires isnt exactly new - oct 09 there was a build on wiki any/war using a hero to cast sb and speed boost was put on - and it states it can do all 60 vaetires.

On last thing - to my knowing its impossible to pack and stack all 60 vaetires - its been tried when kegging was viable and 2 sins were used to pull both mobs as near as possible and im sure it was even asked here on guru several times in the old keg threads.
Shame as 60 vaettires in 1 go would be quite gd fun an a lot faster.
Ppl who use warriors i reckon will stick to raptors as they always state - raptors are faster and theres no time really spent getting to raptors where vaettires you have to run there first.
Personally i dont use war for raptors nor vaettires but simply repeating whats always said when other professions finally get a chance to have somewhere to solo farm.
i`ll stick to my sin/mes/ele for farming vaetires - we dont need to bring a hero as we can truly solo and any cash that does drop we keep, plus the only real threat of dying we have is either thru lag ( affects all ) or not casting a skill which results in death.

dr love · Apr 04, 2010, 02:58 PM // 14:58

icy you dirty pro farmer!
going to have to give this one a whirl

btw if you guys didn't notice, he flagged his hero away so it didn't tief drops, just like in raptor farming

Risus · Apr 04, 2010, 03:54 PM // 15:54

niiiice one. I'm going to try to find an A/W variant.

My calculations are like this:
Assuming you have 16 Swordsmanship, 100b on an assassin would do a total of 144 less damage (36x4).

Vaettirs have a total health of about 570-600. (5x Crystal Wave/Tenai's [email protected] + 2x [email protected] to kill).

Hundred blades should hit 36x22 damage, which is 792. This means there is clearly enough damage at 12 swordsmanship. So the spot for Dwarven Stability can be used for something else to increase defense to make up for the lack of armor.

I will test Shroud of Distress, Great Dwarf Armor, and maybe some other spells on the monk. Assassin should work just as well though. Nice find!

Edit: Ebsoh might not even be necessary.

Dwanya · Apr 04, 2010, 04:01 PM // 16:01

bha!! A/me is best :ddd 3mins all 60

and u can solo them. No need for heros in the run pff

Slasher of Darkness · Apr 04, 2010, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Risus

niiiice one. I'm going to try to find an A/W variant.

My calculations are like this:
Assuming you have 16 Swordsmanship, 100b on an assassin would do a total of 144 less damage (36x4).

Vaettirs have a total health of about 570-600. (5x Crystal Wave/Tenai's [email protected] + 2x [email protected] to kill).

Hundred blades should hit 36x22 damage, which is 792. This means there is clearly enough damage at 12 swordsmanship. So the spot for Dwarven Stability can be used for something else to increase defense to make up for the lack of armor.

I will test Shroud of Distress, Great Dwarf Armor, and maybe some other spells on the monk. Assassin should work just as well though. Nice find!

Edit: Ebsoh might not even be necessary.

If you get this to work on a sin, would you be so kind to post the results and the build variant here?

P.S. Nice build there Icy.

Icy The Mage · Apr 04, 2010, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Thanks for all the feedback.

Quote:

how long does it take to clear all 60?

To be honest, clearing 36 every 45 seconds nets an average time per kill of about 1.25s, there really is no reason to clear all 60 unless I'm missing something (maybe the 24 give more drops because they're farmed less..?)

Regardless, it would only take a few extra seconds (probably add 40s onto the run?) but the problem is the number of them.. there's only 24. With max rank in your Ebon Vanguard title and about 13 Swordsmanship you're only going to hit them for a total of around ([5+15]*24 = 480 damage). Not quite enough to kill them but I'm sure there's a work around somewhere.

Quote:

I still prefer X/X build

Yeah that's fine, everyone likes running different builds for either sake of wanting to play their favourite character, wanting to have an easy and brainless farm, wanting to be as speedy as possible or any combination of them. I'm just throwing out another option.

Quote:

Is the video sped up at some point while killing?

Nah, that's just Fraps being a weird recorder, since my computer lags when I do the spike I'm guessing Fraps lags too.

Quote:

But the hero is taking your drops!

Nah, it's just like raptor farming with the W/N and paragon hero, by flagging them out of your Sphere of Influence (radar / gray names in party list) they won't affect drops in any way, shape or form.

Quote:

Is this possible without an earth shield?
Curse my 'Twisted Fate' :/

LoL ftw! Anyways, I did this video without either a weapon handle with +7 or a proper shield (I believe I was using a tactics shield so missed out on another 8 armor there); also missed out on a potential 100 health with the title, and I had some weird rune setup which lacked a sup vigor, guess I forgot to put one on when I was testing stuff. Not to mention I also waited a bit too long to spike with my combo so it should be possible without the shield mod.

Quote:

What's up with your drops though? You hardly seemed to get anything in that video.

That was just a typical bad run, I've had about 5 or 6 of them spanning the whole weekend.

Quote:

Err the part about lightbringer is totally useless to mention

Thought I would just mention all variables.

Quote:

u can solo them. No need for heros in the run pff

Why not take them? They don't affect drops at all. The only thing they take is half of the money drops (gogo losing 50g every 3 runs?) which is very inconsequential.

Quote:

I'm going to try to find an A/W variant

Go for it! I thought about using an Assassin at first as you would have an extra PvE skill slot for survivability, maybe something like shadow sanctuary or feigned neutrality would work well.

P.s. Using the forumula: 80 + [20 * Level] we can determine that Vaettir have 600 Health. Without EBSoH you're only hitting about 5 damage with hundred blades (4 if you have 12 swordsmanship) so you're only taking off 144 hp with your combo.
EBSoH adds armor-ignoring damage to that so every 4-hp attack essentially becomes a 18/19 hp attack (you hit 18/19 damage 37 times because of the whirlwind attack hitting each one).

mrseasonalt · Apr 04, 2010, 05:29 PM // 17:29

1. the build is WAY more dangerous than the E/Me because you almost died in the video from attack damage, you have to time the drunken blow perfect, your SB had almost ran out and if the spawn is bad im guessing you wouldnt have time to grab all agro.(im guessing you could save yourself by stance canceling with sprint in this occurrence though)
2.E/Me doesn't use a hero (i know it doesn't take drops but still)
3.The E/Me can clear all 60 in 2 min so the danger, i would assume, is not worth it
4. LOL @ the 3 drops u got in the video and 2 were event items
5.Timing the Drunken Blow is dangerous

Props if you can do this continually without dying but im guessing its quite hard. If you can then this seems like it might be faster than the E/me but im assuming the deaths are going to occur more often.

Risus · Apr 04, 2010, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icy The Mage

Thanks for all the feedback.

To be honest, clearing 36 every 45 seconds nets an average time per kill of about 1.25s, there really is no reason to clear all 60 unless I'm missing something (maybe the 24 give more drops because they're farmed less..?)

Regardless, it would only take a few extra seconds (probably add 40s onto the run?) but the problem is the number of them.. there's only 24. With max rank in your Ebon Vanguard title and about 13 Swordsmanship you're only going to hit them for a total of around ([5+15]*24 = 480 damage). Not quite enough to kill them but I'm sure there's a work around somewhere.

Yeah that's fine, everyone likes running different builds for either sake of wanting to play their favourite character, wanting to have an easy and brainless farm, wanting to be as speedy as possible or any combination of them. I'm just throwing out another option.

Nah, that's just Fraps being a weird recorder, since my computer lags when I do the spike I'm guessing Fraps lags too.

Nah, it's just like raptor farming with the W/N and paragon hero, by flagging them out of your Sphere of Influence (radar / gray names in party list) they won't affect drops in any way, shape or form.

LoL ftw! Anyways, I did this video without either a weapon handle with +7 or a proper shield (I believe I was using a tactics shield so missed out on another 8 armor there); also missed out on a potential 100 health with the title, and I had some weird rune setup which lacked a sup vigor, guess I forgot to put one on when I was testing stuff. Not to mention I also waited a bit too long to spike with my combo so it should be possible without the shield mod.

That was just a typical bad run, I've had about 5 or 6 of them spanning the whole weekend.

Thought I would just mention all variables.

Why not take them? They don't affect drops at all. The only thing they take is half of the money drops (gogo losing 50g every 3 runs?) which is very inconsequential.

Go for it! I thought about using an Assassin at first as you would have an extra PvE skill slot for survivability, maybe something like shadow sanctuary or feigned neutrality would work well.

P.s. Using the forumula: 80 + [20 * Level] we can determine that Vaettir have 600 Health. Without EBSoH you're only hitting about 5 damage with hundred blades (4 if you have 12 swordsmanship) so you're only taking off 144 hp with your combo.
EBSoH adds armor-ignoring damage to that so every 4-hp attack essentially becomes a 18/19 hp attack (you hit 18/19 damage 37 times because of the whirlwind attack hitting each one).

Yea I found out you need EBSoH the hard way. This is a very hard farm, and you need at least R8 Ebon to kill with all 36. Also its impossible to kill w/o all 36. I'm gonna stick to E/Me 2 mins/60 is alot better if its safe.

Icy The Mage · Apr 04, 2010, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrseasonalt

1. the build is WAY more dangerous than the E/Me because you almost died in the video from attack damage, you have to time the drunken blow perfect, your SB had almost ran out and if the spawn is bad im guessing you wouldnt have time to grab all agro.(im guessing you could save yourself by stance canceling with sprint in this occurrence though)
2.E/Me doesn't use a hero (i know it doesn't take drops but still)
3.The E/Me can clear all 60 in 2 min so the danger, i would assume, is not worth it
4. LOL @ the 3 drops u got in the video and 2 were event items
5.Timing the Drunken Blow is dangerous

Props if you can do this continually without dying but im guessing its quite hard. If you can then this seems like it might be faster than the E/me but im assuming the deaths are going to occur more often.

Again, I didn't have all the recommended items, nor did I have a sup vigor or norn title, the attack damage is really no problem. SB usually "almost" runs out when you're doing this farm, even with the Any/W one on wiki. The trick is knowing if you can pull all 36 or only 32 because one group is way too far out. Yes, usually if it's terrible and there's no way to ball them all up, sprint / dash = only 10 or 15 seconds wasted on the odd occasion that you can only pull 24 because one group decides to break off and 2 don't feel like following you.
Irrelevant, hero means nothing but slightly more effort.
I don't see a point in spending double the time killing 60 when you can spend the same amount of time killing 72.
I can post some screenies to prove the drops aren't as lolworthy as the video makes them out to be.
Timing the drunken blow, is, as with all farming builds, comes with experience. If you want to be safe just use it when your health hits half.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Risus

Yea I found out you need EBSoH the hard way. This is a very hard farm, and you need at least R8 Ebon to kill with all 36. Also its impossible to kill w/o all 36. I'm gonna stick to E/Me 2 mins/60 is alot better if its safe.

It's possible to kill 32 as long as you have R8 Ebon Vanguard (33 * [14+(4 or 5)] + 10 or 20 from WW attack) = 604 to 647 damage; based on 13 or less swordsmanship as well as Sunspear Title Rank for WW attack's bonus damage.

EDIT:
Finally got the A/W to work, with 16 Shadow Arts & 12 Swordsmanship and the exact same build (minus Dwarven Stability, add Shadow Sanctuary or Feigned Neutrality) we still run into a little minor issue. Shadow of Haste ends a little bit too soon.. After about 10 or so runs, I've only managed to pick any of my drops once :/ One run it even ended mid-spike and they all died, I maintained my 15% DP from last round (no exp? lol!) and got 0 drops (kind of like when you die in the middle of a raptor spike).

Solutions:

Skip the outliers, ball 32 instead of 36.
Increase the duration of Shadow of Haste.
Cast Shadow of Haste later.
Ball them faster.

We probably won't have to omit balling 4 of them each run, that would be pretty terrible in the long run.
How would we go about increasing the duration of Shadow of Haste?; afaik there is no way to increase Shadow Arts above 16 (sub consumables, no one wants to use a golden egg every run) and we can't use Dwarven Stability due to survivability issues.
Casting Shadow of Haste later is a possible option, but that slows down the run by increased the re-zone time.
Balling them faster is probably the most likely option, there is most definitely a more efficient way to ball them all.

Suggestions?

impulsion · Apr 04, 2010, 06:21 PM // 18:21

In your optional slot take death's charge/Heart of shadow so you can ball faster?

Icy The Mage · Apr 04, 2010, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by impulsion

In your optional slot take death's charge/Heart of shadow so you can ball faster?

The problem then is survival, a warrior can actually survive through the 75% block chance, an assassin can't. You're essentially stuck using something like Shroud of Distress, Feigned Neutrality or Shadow Sanctuary in your optional slot in order to survive.

I tried Dwarven Stability on an assassin, in combination with Feigned Neutrality (not sure if there's any single other skill which is as defensive) dropping damage from 16 or 17 per hit to 3. With using just Feigned Neutrality I was able to survive long enough to spike, but activating whirlwind attack ends it, meaning you get insta-spiked down and get no drops (excluding map pieces

).

damkel · Apr 04, 2010, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Very nice. Thank you. How hard is it running to the vaettirs? I've had probs in the past running there on warrior.