Curse

AndrewSX · Feb 02, 2012, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Well, that's something that you hardly can do with any char. I mean, for a warrior player pve is muuuuuch esaier than, let's say, for a Ele(I'm Gwamm an ele and play a lot as Sin now, i know what i'm talking about).

First of all, Physical Dmg Dealer Player > Caster Player. That's it. Splinter (with a good uptime) + WW Attack have more DPS on a balled mob than 2-3 eles spamming 8 dmg spells on recharge. That impacts a lot on your builds, because you can just buff yourself and aim to make stuff dead quick, dropping defence for speed.

Second, aggro control. As meele player, is just simple..flag bck heroes, prot on you (being it PS or Shelther doesn't matter), aggro and walk with a wall on your right. Balled mobs, return to point one: blow them in 3 hits. And don't say to me "PS can make your ele perfect for pulling and balling, or EVAS is good too". It just isn't reliable.

That's why spirits and minions are so popular: not only for the 0-micro level, but for the "Works well enough with anything you are". If you keep using it when playing war, you're not using it as much as you can. But if you're playing a caster those are pretty much mandatory(unless playing a pointlessy damage oriented team for fun or speed, the tipical "Glass cannon", when a single thing goes wrong you'll die. Even more after HM hp boost).

Daesu · Feb 04, 2012, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndrewSX

Well, that's something that you hardly can do with any char. I mean, for a warrior player pve is muuuuuch esaier than, let's say, for a Ele(I'm Gwamm an ele and play a lot as Sin now, i know what i'm talking about).

As always, it depends on the area. This is OT but I am sure that point is debatable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I swear in the search for the ultimate teambuild my teams are looking more and more like SDM. In fact the latest variant I have includes two Discord Necros, and the best choice of 7 heroes appear to be 2 Rits + 3 Necs + 2 Mesmers.

That is only if you are constrained by the current available heroes professions. With mercs, I prefer to have more mesmers in my team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mortenya

i don't think i've really ever seen anyone post an alternative that was actively bashing the current meta builds. they just say it's crap and anyone who runs it is crap, but don't offer any alternatives.

I have been using these: Builds and they have been working well for me so far even in DoA. Depending on the area, I can replace the illusion mesmer with a SoGM rit/Wanderlust/MM when I feel like it.

Chthon · Feb 05, 2012, 03:55 AM // 03:55

Discordway, referring to a teambuild that gets most of its damage output from three dubiously designed Death-X hybrids taking out one monster at a time with Discord remains as bad an idea as it's always been. Slightly worse even, since Discord was nerfed by the AL->HP change.

Discord as a skill may nonetheless be making a comeback on hero bars for reasons that have little to do with its own merits. Specifically:
(1) The old Invoke-CL hero was killed by nerfs in the last update and needs to be replaced.
(2) Between Masochism and the AL->HP change, Deathly Swarm is more-or-less a replacement for the old CL.
(3) Additionally, Death Magic comes with minions and SR generally allows necros to 8-spec something from a secondary (like Command) without energy problems.
(4) Discord, distasteful as I may find it, is the best elite available for a Death bar if you assume that it's not full-on minions (which would justify OoU) and not speccing high SR (which would justify Icy Veins).
(5) DS-Discord is, at least for now, more-or-less on par with every other potential replacement for Invoke-CL that's been suggested.

Jeydra · Feb 05, 2012, 04:10 AM // 04:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

(5) DS-Discord is, at least for now, more-or-less on par with every other potential replacement for Invoke-CL that's been suggested.

It's pretty clearly inferior to EA Fire against monsters without serious armour vs. Fire. It's also constrained severely by the lack of good non-minion skills in Death Magic.

It's certainly possible that I'm restrained by not having mercenaries. A third Dom Mesmer could do a lot that no other profession can do, although it'll have trouble running Command shouts / prots.

Chthon · Feb 05, 2012, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

It's pretty clearly inferior to EA Fire against monsters without serious armour vs. Fire. It's also constrained severely by the lack of good non-minion skills in Death Magic.

It's certainly possible that I'm restrained by not having mercenaries. A third Dom Mesmer could do a lot that no other profession can do, although it'll have trouble running Command shouts / prots.

Minds posting your EA fire?

Also, would anyone (not just Jeydra) care to explain where all this damage Dom mesmers are supposed to do is coming from? Because I just don't see it. E-Surge is ~100 damage on a ~10 sec recharge accounting for FC. Mistrust is similar damage on a little better recharge if you can count on a quick trigger. CoF is worse damage on the same recharge. Ditto Unnatural, and it's AoE is conditional and adjacent. Spiritual Pain is single-target and not huge damage. Overload is dodgy with hero AI. Wastrels stuff is hopeless with hero AI. What am I missing here?

Daesu · Feb 05, 2012, 09:06 AM // 09:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Also, would anyone (not just Jeydra) care to explain where all this damage Dom mesmers are supposed to do is coming from? Because I just don't see it. E-Surge is ~100 damage on a ~10 sec recharge accounting for FC. Mistrust is similar damage on a little better recharge if you can count on a quick trigger. CoF is worse damage on the same recharge. Ditto Unnatural, and it's AoE is conditional and adjacent. Spiritual Pain is single-target and not huge damage. Overload is dodgy with hero AI. Wastrels stuff is hopeless with hero AI. What am I missing here?

I have read mixed reviews on heroes's usage of Overload. From my own observations, heroes seem to use it just fine. However, they do miss the direct damage effect sometimes as they miss with their interrupts from time to time also.

Wastrel's Demise is fine since it is a hex and heroes would not cast the same hex if one is already active on the target. Wastrel's Worry is the one that you need to worry about with heroes, pun intended.

Overall with FC, the damage from a dom mesmer is quite effective since the skills take turns to recharge, it is not like they all go into recharge cycle at the same time and the mesmer has nothing to cast for a long time. The mesmers are more limited by available energy most of the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

It's certainly possible that I'm restrained by not having mercenaries. A third Dom Mesmer could do a lot that no other profession can do, although it'll have trouble running Command shouts / prots.

I have read your post. If you really want an UA in your caster's team, maybe you can draw some ideas from my triple mesmer+UA build here

Chthon · Feb 05, 2012, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Wastrel's Demise is fine since it is a hex and heroes would not cast the same hex if one is already active on the target.

I'm not worried that they'll waste it on an already-hexed monster; I'm worried that they (1) have no preference for targets that are going to be unable to use a skill soon, so WD rarely does full damage (and it's pretty low damage if you don't get to at least the 4th second), and (2) blow through their energy because the recharge is so low.

On a somewhat related topic, I'd like to point something out: Almost all of the... let's say "advanced" discussion in the various threads of the hero/AI forum recently has really been about how to replace the the Invoke-CL hero. (Discord! SF! AE-Fire! MoM! More merc mesmers! Etc.) Perhaps someone ought to make a thread for it so that the conversation can be centralized.

Daesu · Feb 05, 2012, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I'm not worried that they'll waste it on an already-hexed monster; I'm worried that they (1) have no preference for targets that are going to be unable to use a skill soon, so WD rarely does full damage (and it's pretty low damage if you don't get to at least the 4th second), and (2) blow through their energy because the recharge is so low.

True but I am probably biased since I have a BiP on my team and I frequently bring Shatter Delusions anyway.

Jeydra · Feb 06, 2012, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Also, would anyone (not just Jeydra) care to explain where all this damage Dom mesmers are supposed to do is coming from? Because I just don't see it. E-Surge is ~100 damage on a ~10 sec recharge accounting for FC. Mistrust is similar damage on a little better recharge if you can count on a quick trigger. CoF is worse damage on the same recharge. Ditto Unnatural, and it's AoE is conditional and adjacent. Spiritual Pain is single-target and not huge damage. Overload is dodgy with hero AI. Wastrels stuff is hopeless with hero AI. What am I missing here?

ESurge, Spiritual Pain, Mistrust, Cry of Frustration, Unnatural Signet, Shatter Hex and Shatter Enchant. Other spells like Shatter Delusions, Overload and Enchanter's Conundrum can get some damage in as well. Domination Magic has no lack of decent spells, and it mixes AoE and single-target damage quite well too. Their damage output isn't the highest conceivable, but it's very strong.

Please do not evaluate a spell's damage by [damage done] / [recharge], because that is just plain silly. Dom Mesmers always have a damaging spell to cast, so they are always dealing damage. They deal some hidden DPS by removing prots, interrupting heals, etc, not to mention some hidden defense as well.

Gabs88 · Feb 10, 2012, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

It's certainly possible that I'm restrained by not having mercenaries. A third Dom Mesmer could do a lot that no other profession can do, although it'll have trouble running Command shouts / prots.

Well from what I hear you get another rit when completing WoC pt 3 in HM. So guess this is your lucky day

Atanna Charta · Feb 12, 2012, 03:31 AM // 03:31

How effective a given build is will heavily depend on your playstyle. You could make the fastest build ever, but if you have to flag and pull to use it, it will be horrible for a player who likes to just charge in.

I've found discord to be vastly superior than anything else I've tested for the latter play style. Lately I've been testing various hero builds by doing bogroots and keeping my playstyle as consistent as possible - I pretty much just C-Space everything. No pulls (unless the builds fail and I'm almost DPed out, at which point the build is obviously inferior). I always follow the same path, keeping everything I can the same. The only thing I do that's close to pulling is choosing an angle of attack at Khabuus.

I've tried all the 7H builds on PvX using this Leroy-Jenkins playstyle. Nothing comes close to Discordway.

I've been using the AP caller build, since it's standard for discord (I'm a necro so I normally take advantage of the unlimited energy).

For my hero's I've been running 4 discords 2 Esurges and a healing-burst monk:
2 N/Rt Discord Healers (slightly modified from the standard to conc more on healing)
1 N/Rt Discord Curses
1 N/Mo Prot (standard ATM)
2 Me/P ESurgers
1 Mo/Me Healing Burst (needs tweaking)

I'm averaging approx 30 minutes in the dungeon. If I stopped playing like a broken record player and actually brought up my intelligence level to brain-damaged monkey levels, I could probably pull that down a good 5-10 minutes.

Even when playing normally, I didn't find other builds to be faster without pulling. I'd imagine this won't benefit from pulling as much as other builds, so I won't see drastic increases in speed, but whatever.

I'm too lazy to pull when I play normally, and I think many other players feel the same way. I'll do it if it's obviously going to go badly if I don't, but I feel that these hero-builds which require pulling to be effective are silly. They might be 25% faster, but that's not worth it to me if it requires three times the effort. Call me lazy.