Curse

nuclear_herring · Feb 28, 2012, 04:35 AM // 04:35

Having just gained my new rit hero, I now have the option to change Razah to something else while retaining the SOS and ST rit I have grown used to.
My question is this, as I currently also have a panic / ineptitude mes setup, is there any advantage to having a third mes? I think a third rit is pretty much redundant. Can anyone offer any opinions to the contrary?

Oh yes, my character is a ranger, usually running R/A with an AP build. My other heroes vary but are normally MM, N/Rt resto and a random 8th that I'm aiming to replace.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Daesu · Feb 28, 2012, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by nuclear_herring

Having just gained my new rit hero, I now have the option to change Razah to something else while retaining the SOS and ST rit I have grown used to.
My question is this, as I currently also have a panic / ineptitude mes setup, is there any advantage to having a third mes? I think a third rit is pretty much redundant. Can anyone offer any opinions to the contrary?

Oh yes, my character is a ranger, usually running R/A with an AP build. My other heroes vary but are normally MM, N/Rt resto and a random 8th that I'm aiming to replace.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Just my personal opinion: Having a third mesmer hero is more useful than having a third rit.

I have 4 mesmer heroes/mercs, it is like having a team of Wind Riders interrupting your enemies to death before they can cast a spell.

The only situation where I can see 3 rits being useful is when you are guarding an area, with 1 ST defensive rit, 1 SoS/restore, and 1 SoGM offensive rit.

nuclear_herring · Feb 28, 2012, 04:58 AM // 04:58

I agree that I think a third mes would work well, but I want him to synergise well with the 2 I already have. What sort of build would fit with that? Shared burden, PI and esurge all seem worthy of inclusion but I'm unsure which fits best with what I have. Tbh I've vanquished everywhere and finished WiK and WoC so this is really about tweaking a formula I'm already comfortable with.
Daesu, could you post your 4 mes builds? My mes pc looks very cool in her leet canthan armor so she could join the party as a merc if there's a role for her to play.

Daesu · Feb 28, 2012, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by nuclear_herring

I agree that I think a third mes would work well, but I want him to synergise well with the 2 I already have. What sort of build would fit with that? Shared burden, PI and esurge all seem worthy of inclusion but I'm unsure which fits best with what I have. Tbh I've vanquished everywhere and finished WiK and WoC so this is really about tweaking a formula I'm already comfortable with.
Daesu, could you post your 4 mes builds? My mes pc looks very cool in her leet canthan armor so she could join the party as a merc if there's a role for her to play.

Here is the sandbox build for 4 mesmer heroes for a caster: http://www.gwpvx.com/User:DarkSpirit...ter_characters

I am still tweaking it after the recent AI update. I am experimenting to replace power drain with Guilt for the dom mesmers, that way I don't need any points into inspiration at all and pump the rest of the attribute points into FC instead or pump more into Command for the Me/P.

HigherMinion · Feb 28, 2012, 05:35 AM // 05:35

BiP is such a waste of an elite when you have four Mesmers. It's never going to be able to maintain the energy if four offensive casters; you might aswell give them all WNWN+PD (which I notice you have taken PD anyway) If the reason you take BiP for bar compression on the other Mesmers, well, you have four of them... Don't really need any compression.

P.S. Guilt still sucks; I've tried it. It doesn't matter how well they use it, it's more situational, returns less energy and has a higher recharge. You then will only have access to one energy management skill.

Daesu · Feb 28, 2012, 05:49 AM // 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

BiP is such a waste of an elite when you have four Mesmers. It's never going to be able to maintain the energy if four offensive casters; you might aswell give them all WNWN+PD (which I notice you have taken PD anyway) If the reason you take BiP for bar compression on the other Mesmers, well, you have four of them... Don't really need any compression.

With the direct damage spells, the BiP works wonders. Monsters die so fast, the mesmers hardly have time to run out of energy.

I am thinking of getting rid of inspiration altogether, either replacing PD with Guilt or not have any energy management at all. Currently I am leaning toward replacing it with Guilt even though it returns less energy than PD, I get to save the attribute points and lower energy returned balances out with BiP.

HigherMinion · Feb 28, 2012, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

With the direct damage spells, the BiP works wonders. Monsters die so fast, the mesmers hardly have time to run out of energy.

I am thinking of getting rid of inspiration altogether, either replacing PD with Guilt or not have any energy management at all. Currently I am leaning toward replacing it with Guilt even though it returns less energy than PD, I get to save the attribute points and lower energy returned balances out with BiP.

My questions are; 1. How often is BiP cast? 2. Does the BiP guy sac to death ever? 3. How does the AI decide what to cast BiP on?

P.S. I'm not derailing this thread into another bip thread; Daesu did that for me.

Daesu · Feb 28, 2012, 09:19 AM // 09:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

My questions are; 1. How often is BiP cast? 2. Does the BiP guy sac to death ever? 3. How does the AI decide what to cast BiP on?

BiP seems to be cast when someone gets lower than 50% energy who is not wielding a martial weapon. I have never seen the BiP guy sac himself to death even though being at lower hp does attract monsters at times and holds a certain amount of risk. However, proper flagging negates it to some extend when you are fighting tough foes.

Quote:

P.S. I'm not derailing this thread into another bip thread; Daesu did that for me.

You brought up BiP first, not me.

bleh · Feb 29, 2012, 08:41 PM // 20:41

IMO, A paragon-Motogon or comandagon would be best for both your spell casters and your Player Character and would probably replace your BIP if "needed".

If its between Mes and Rit... Mes is slightly better but i think you'll be happy with both, since a rit can take mes skills and a mes can easily take rit skills.

Mes for hero synergy,
Rit for better player character synergy.

SO either way its down to personal preference,

.

Drk Dervish · Feb 29, 2012, 09:28 PM // 21:28

I been testing out 3+ mes team for couple week now. Finally came down to this, so far work like a charm. 3 mes rarely run out of energy, and I set BIP hero to avoid combat, and rarely die. If you ask is it worth wasting an elite, at least for me hell yet, because now there 3 full bar of mes attack spell. That's at least 2 per mes total 6 attack skills for 1 elite far trade for me.

Kunder · Feb 29, 2012, 09:48 PM // 21:48

3x rit is better for physicals because 2x splinter weapon + ST.

3x mesmer is better for casters because no splinter weapon abuse makes channeling magic go from the best attribute in the game to pretty mediocre.

Can't think of a good reason to need 4x of anything, outside of funny gimmicks that don't have real build potential (though I do want to abuse 7x AoD 1x AoM dervs at some point for the lulz...)

Pew · Feb 29, 2012, 10:15 PM // 22:15

@Above: You're missing the 3 charge breakpoint on your ST rit by 1, you may as well run a Major SP rune to hit it.

As for the topic, having a third mesmer is probably more useful than a third ritualist, although having 2 copies of high-specced Splinter Weapon + Ancestors' Rage seem like they'd be very hard to pass up on a melee character. (While still having the option of a ST ritualist.)

EFGJack · Feb 29, 2012, 10:20 PM // 22:20

I use BiP every now and then and I have never seen a BiP hero sac himself to death under normal conditions, but he doesn't understand what Sourge Sacrifice does and kills himself every single time he's hexed with it.

Pic slightly related. My gf thought I went mad when I started laughing my ass off when I saw one of these last summer; I just had to take a picture.

On topic: I have toyed around with possible uses for the third ritualist hero: with it you can obviously have a ST hero on top of SoS & SoGM, but there's not many zones you want to have a ST in. Another idea I had was that I split the SoGM's spirits on another ritualist that has, for example, Fall Back, Dissonance and Shelter. But that wasn't as good in practice as I initially thought. It appears that the ritualist class isn't so good that you can afford to bring a third one at the expense of another hero. Unless, of course, one doesn't care too much about efficiency and wants to duck around with a variety of setups.

...The third ritualist might be useful against 7HMallyx and Dhuum though. You can get fill it's bars with cheap Earth Binds and other utility.

Daesu · Mar 01, 2012, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Can't think of a good reason to need 4x of anything, outside of funny gimmicks that don't have real build potential (though I do want to abuse 7x AoD 1x AoM dervs at some point for the lulz...)

4-mesmers team is more awesome than 3-mesmers team, if built right. More than 4, then it starts to eat away at your infrastructure for your 8-man team since you generally need 2 healers and 1 prot guy for HM.

Also you don't really need 2 copies of Splinter as a physical unless you are running a 3-paragon heroes build or something similar.

Drk Dervish · Mar 01, 2012, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pew

@Above: You're missing the 3 charge breakpoint on your ST rit by 1, you may as well run a Major SP rune to hit it.

As for the topic, having a third mesmer is probably more useful than a third ritualist, although having 2 copies of high-specced Splinter Weapon + Ancestors' Rage seem like they'd be very hard to pass up on a melee character. (While still having the option of a ST ritualist.)

http://imgur.com/UHsj6.png

Nice catch but also I'm not running union so no need to break to 3 charge. 2x splinter is good but I'm the only melee rarely need 2 copy. Most of the time im really there to tank and ball not really really the most dip in the group. The 3 mes and spirits handle most of the killing.

Running with no MM if I lose the ST then I need to replace him with a prot monk for Aegis and Protective Spirit. But at least for me I found ST work more effective then Prot monk with no MM. The SoS or SoGM can be replace but haven't found a good replacement for them yet open to suggestion tho.

Kunder · Mar 01, 2012, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Also you don't really need 2 copies of Splinter as a physical unless you are running a 3-paragon heroes build or something similar.

Its not at all unusual to have an effective attack speed of ~.5s (thanks to AoE attacks). That lets you hit 12 times every 6s. 2x splinter weapon only covers 10 attacks. Considering that unless you uber-micro everything heroes will take their sweet time to recast it, even a third copy for a single person isn't out of the realm of possibility (though you can certainly find better usages of a hero slot).