Curse

Tommy's · Jun 18, 2011, 04:46 PM // 16:46

If I'm not playing my monk I prefer to take a Soul twist healer and a Emo with me. Give the Soul twister a few direct heals to heal your Emo in emergencies and your good to go. In NM my Zhed can do the job all by himself most of the time. In HM, well I mostly play monk in HM

Also, I mostly bring a SoGM rit with shadowsong and dissonance and what not along the SoS as well.
In hard mode my set up most of the time is
Me (Monk, mostly WoH healer)
Rt1 (SoS)
Rt2 (SoGM)
N1 (IV curser)
N2 (AotL MM)
Me1 (Ineptitude)
Me2 (Panic)
E (Emo)

Builds are pretty similar to whats been posted before, throw in 2 fall backs, and I rush through HM, finishing most vanquishes in 30min to 1 hour, no idea if thats fast, but its good enough for me

Anaraky · Jun 18, 2011, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Three backline characters is overkill. At least get rid of one of the N/Rts for more damage.

Matter of taste really since a three hero backline allow for a more aggressive playstyle overall, not resulting in that much time difference. It is a little bit slower but also safer. Saying one is strictly inferior is incorrect.

Outerworld · Jun 18, 2011, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraky

Matter of taste really since a three hero backline allow for a more aggressive playstyle overall, not resulting in that much time difference. It is a little bit slower but also safer. Saying one is strictly inferior is incorrect.

No. It really is overkill in modern day GW.

Anaraky · Jun 18, 2011, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outerworld

No. It really is overkill in modern day GW.

Oh, I stand corrected then due to your superb argument.

The difference in killing speed you get from bringing one extra offensive character isn't as big as some people want to believe. With my current 3 backline setup I'll pretty much instagib the majority of the enemy group if I'm doing it right (AoE centric party setup while playing 100b, sup) and if I'm doing it wrong I have enough defence for it not to matter. You do gain some speed, not a huge amount but still, but you loose a somewhat large portion of your defence. It may or may not be worth it, it depends, but saying one way is just plain worse then the other is incredibly ignorant.

Feel free to argue the point with something other then nu-uh.

Outerworld · Jun 18, 2011, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraky

Oh, I stand corrected then due to your superb argument.

The difference in killing speed you get from bringing one extra offensive character isn't as big as some people want to believe. With my current 3 backline setup I'll pretty much instagib the majority of the enemy group if I'm doing it right (AoE centric party setup while playing 100b, sup) and if I'm doing it wrong I have enough defence for it not to matter. You do gain some speed, not a huge amount but still, but you loose a somewhat large portion of your defence. It may or may not be worth it, it depends, but saying one way is just plain worse then the other is incredibly ignorant.

Feel free to argue the point with something other then nu-uh.

Bringing a third backliner may be a safe approach...so giving all your heroes a self heal. The minimal amount of healing/prot is all you need to survive the vast majority of PvE, adding more because it's "safer" is pointless when you could just add even more damage and still have enough defense necessary to survive.

Bassically there is no argument to be had here, three healers is overkill no matter how you look at it. The fact that I needed to explain why baffles me.

Anaraky · Jun 18, 2011, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outerworld

Bringing a third backliner may be a safe approach...so giving all your heroes a self heal. The minimal amount of healing/prot is all you need to survive the vast majority of PvE, adding more because it's "safer" is pointless when you could just add even more damage and still have enough defense necessary to survive.

Bassically there is no argument to be had here, three healers is overkill no matter how you look at it. The fact that I needed to explain why baffles me.

The minimum defence needed to survive isn't static. What may fly in situation A maybe isn't enough for situation B. Going for a defence light approach is fine, it works great and I've done it a long time. But if you opt for a 3 backline you can do heavier pulls, you do survive some situations a 1-2 backline setup wouldn't. If you aren't playing around in the kiddie pool of PvE you will have to be somewhat careful how you pull and fight with a defence light teamcomp, which takes time. The fact that you kill slower with a heavier defence is offset by the fact that you save time by not having to be careful. Not to mention, the defence heavy setup has a larger margin of error which is kind of a big deal in how fast something takes since a) wipes take a lot of time and b) we are all human.

Offence heavy is clearly better in theory when facing a static amount of monsters if we measure how fast the group is killed from the pull, but theory and practice doesn't always mash. There are some heavier theorycrafting surrounding this very argument in Chthons "About Backlines" thread which is somewhere around page three if you are interested.

Xenomortis · Jun 18, 2011, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraky

The minimum defence needed to survive isn't static. What may fly in situation A maybe isn't enough for situation B. Going for a defence light approach is fine, it works great and I've done it a long time. But if you opt for a 3 backline you can do heavier pulls, you do survive some situations a 1-2 backline setup wouldn't.

Go to Duncan's level in Slaver's Exile in Hard Mode and tell me how long it takes you to do it without any consumables.

Anaraky · Jun 19, 2011, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Go to Duncan's level in Slaver's Exile in Hard Mode and tell me how long it takes you to do it without any consumables.

Comparing times between players isn't a fair reflection on the teamcomps used, surely you must understand that. I did compare my times with both 3 and 2 hero backline and while 2 hero was faster, when I didn't screw up and wipe, it wasn't significantly faster. It might be due to how heavy my AoE spike already is thanks to AoE comp and playing a 100b Warrior, but there you have it. Unfortunately I don't have the document where I saved the times anymore, lost it when I formatted my computer

Jeydra · Jun 20, 2011, 04:11 AM // 04:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraky

Oh, I stand corrected then due to your superb argument.

The difference in killing speed you get from bringing one extra offensive character isn't as big as some people want to believe. With my current 3 backline setup I'll pretty much instagib the majority of the enemy group if I'm doing it right (AoE centric party setup while playing 100b, sup) and if I'm doing it wrong I have enough defence for it not to matter. You do gain some speed, not a huge amount but still, but you loose a somewhat large portion of your defence. It may or may not be worth it, it depends, but saying one way is just plain worse then the other is incredibly ignorant.

Feel free to argue the point with something other then nu-uh.

From my experiences vanquishing Silent Smurf, it takes ~23 minutes to VQ the entire area with two semi-healers and ~20 minutes with one. Read the time difference however you want.

These days I do all my PvE with two semi-healers, and outside of DoA HM I don't think there's much of a case for more. Three full healers is definitely overkill. If you need three healers to not wipe, I strongly suggest you look to improving your play. On the other hand, if you already instagib mobs after balling them, I strongly suggest you run three semi-healers and then bring more AoE spike skills like Ancestor's Rage, Splinter Weapon, Energy Surge ...

Thock · Jun 20, 2011, 04:47 AM // 04:47

This has gone completely off topic, I only posted my build to give the op ideas because he was complaining about not being able to handle overaggro. This tells me that, like me, he doesn't want to bother with pulling or tanking, if he did he would be asking for pulling or tanking tips. This is exactly how I play, I tend to just aggro whatever is there and let my heroes deal with it. To accomplish this I designed a fairly defensive build. Heck when I got bored doing vqs I would aggro 3-4 mobs on purpose.

It isn't the fastest or most efficient setup out there, but I never claimed it was and that doesn't seem to be what the op was looking for in the first place.

Anaraky · Jun 20, 2011, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

From my experiences vanquishing Silent Smurf, it takes ~23 minutes to VQ the entire area with two semi-healers and ~20 minutes with one. Read the time difference however you want.

These days I do all my PvE with two semi-healers, and outside of DoA HM I don't think there's much of a case for more. Three full healers is definitely overkill. If you need three healers to not wipe, I strongly suggest you look to improving your play. On the other hand, if you already instagib mobs after balling them, I strongly suggest you run three semi-healers and then bring more AoE spike skills like Ancestor's Rage, Splinter Weapon, Energy Surge ...

Ya three dedicated redbarrers isn't really needed, not arguing that. The 3-hero backline I was referring too was more in the vein of a defensive ST rit (ST & Shelter then whatever utility needed), UA monk and rit heals of some kind (either N/rit or some kind of Resto/Channeling hybrid, depends on the area).

Yeah, that is why I run three backline mainly. The added damage I gain from an additional offensive caster won't really matter since I utilize all those powerful AoE spells you mentioned and then some. Any group that consist of 4-5+ mobs are going to flat out explode. I could swap out a backline to strengthen the single-target damage, but the benefits of running a slightly more defensive build outshines any other option due to added synergy with an AoE centric setup IMHO.