Curse

Gigashadow · Jun 26, 2009, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crassus Praetor

If the paragon is attacking the same target as you, surely he would have
the same effect with Splinter Weapon that you would.

Therefore giving him a spear and letting him attack would provide him with more adrenaline.

However, if Signet of Aggression provides enough adrenaline or you prefer splinter always on yourself then it's not a big deal but still maybe something worth trying.

I also really dislike Ballad of Restoration... if Finale of Restoration was put in its place and GftE
on a player bar it would mean increased healing albeit single target. Still that's personal preference
but I would definitely make that switch.

So I tried out your three suggestions.

Giving him a spear and allowing him to attack worked fine. He would get splinter weapon first, before I had closed with the enemy, and attack with it. Zho tended to get second priority. I would get priority over both if I was next to 2 or more enemies.

I then disabled Signet of Aggression and his energy still worked out all right, so he clearly doesn't need to benefit from his own Lyric of Zeal.

I then replaced Lyric of Zeal with Anthem of Envy, which 6 people (3 from Signet of Spirits, me, Zho, paragon) can benefit from. This can make a nice dent in a mob's health while it's above 50% health.

I then replaced Signet of Aggression with Wild Throw. Even though he has 0 spear mastery, this is fine, because Wild Throw is there to kick someone out of a stance, not to do damage. Wild Throw also triggers the various "on attack skill" abilities. I may change it, as I think he may not be building up adrenaline fast enough to trigger those shouts frequently. On the other hand, having a stance remover is pretty nice.

On "Ballad of Restoration" vs "Finale of Restoration", I tried switching to FoR, but Ballad was the clear winner for me. I was getting hurt pretty badly by Charr AOE damage combined with degen (suffering + reaper's mark), and BoR made a noticeable difference stabilizing the health bars. I didn't have deaths, but the bars looked a little scary sometimes. Although I saw that FoR was definitely being used, I couldn't see where it was going, because not once did I see it go on me or any of my heroes. I hope it wasn't putting it on minions.

So now I have:

14 leadership
11 motivation
9 command
2 spear mastery

Song of Restoration {elite}
Ballad of Restoration
Anthem of Envy
Anthem of Disruption
Blazing Finale
Anthem of Weariness
"They're on Fire!"
Wild Throw

upier · Jun 26, 2009, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Riven

Forgive me if im being thick but by this i take it your posting NM builds?

Like I said, HM.
I've VQ enough areas with it to max out Sunspear in C3 and he is using the same thing in other chapters now.

If I do run Orders, I end up running a necro. Just not Vampire because Pain does the job equally well, while opening up the elite slot for a monk elite.

Racthoh · Jun 26, 2009, 09:38 AM // 09:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

I don't think Go for the Eyes is any good at all and I don't know why people are so attached to that skill. The bonus of critting in hard mode is absolutely pitiful, as the base amount is so small to begin with. Its only real use is as energy management or triggering shout finales, but you can get that functionality from more any other number of more useful shouts or abilities.

There are a few factors concerning "Go For The Eyes!" usefulness. For starters the rate in which you inflict critical hits is either increased or decreased depending on the level difference between you and the enemy. Naturally criticals become rarer come endgame where most enemies are level 24+, or in the case of the majority of hardmode, 26+. "Go For The Eyes!" dramatically increases that rate to the point where it's practically a guarantee.

How much damage the critical actually adds can be debated. Consider that a critical hit deals maximum weapon damage and a little extra. I can't for the life of me find how much is added and all the official wiki says is a 1.414 multiplier onto the weapon's damage; it doesn't indicate the significance of weapon mastery level over 12. Anyway, weapons have a range of damage and you will notice that your damage is never the same with every attack, sometimes higher sometimes lower. "Go For The Eyes!" as such will occasionally cause a substantial increase in damage when one of those lower hits becomes a critical, most notable on weapons with a large damage range. That's not to suggest the impact isn't significant without the present of scythes and axes but it does lead to the next point.

"Go For The Eyes!" usefulness increases expontentially based on the number of physicals in the group. What may seem like a rather small amount of damage compared to +damage skills you have to consider that each physical is getting that additional critical damage. Now I have no idea what level of Spear Mastery you were using to get:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

You will hit a high armored target for about 9 damage with an auto-attack in hard mode. GfTE will make you hit for about 13 or so.

My typical group would consist of five physical characters, six with consumables, someone pushing out orders, and two healers. Assuming a critical hit was just 4 extra damage (it's definitely more) that's 20 extra damage if all five critical. Consider also the point in the second paragraph there as well, the hidden increase that you can't factor in from low hits suddenly being max hits and then some. Now for a skill that can be pumped out every 4 strikes of adrenaline, 2 with Dark Fury, 1 with Infuriating Heat/"For Great Justice!" and Dark Fury, it's a strong skill. When it had the 4 second recharge there would be some validity to saying it wasn't that great since the frequency of use was a lot lower. At that time I favored Anthem of Envy for the +damage when speccing into Command.

As a side note:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

high armored target

Do not argue a point on how much a skill hits an armored target for. The first targets are always what can be killed the fastest, the casters. Enemy physicals are left till the end at the point where you're already assured victory. Weakness, Aegis, "Save Yourselves!"; don't concern yourself with the damage dealt to a target that doesn't even pose a threat to the group.

Paul Dawg · Jun 26, 2009, 02:02 PM // 14:02

That's not why you go after casters first. Killing a dolyak rider can take ten times as long as killing one of their stone summit grunts. But taking out that dolyak rider is like cutting the heart out of the group. You go after casters first because they can either cause tons of damage with spells or prolong the battle by constantly healing the entire enemy group. (In PvE, you're likely to lose long battles of attrition because you and your heroes will eventually run out of energy before the AI foes will.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

The first targets are always what can be killed the fastest, the casters. Enemy physicals are left till the end at the point where you're already assured victory.

Racthoh · Jun 26, 2009, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

That's not why you go after casters first. Killing a dolyak rider can take ten times as long as killing one of their stone summit grunts. But taking out that dolyak rider is like cutting the heart out of the group. You go after casters first because they can either cause tons of damage with spells or prolong the battle by constantly healing the entire enemy group. (In PvE, you're likely to lose long battles of attrition because you and your heroes will eventually run out of energy before the AI foes will.)

Anything that slows the speed of killing things basically needs to die first, priority targets. Monks, restoration rits, anything that blinds/weakens/hexes the physicals, the more time those enemies stay alive the more strain you put on the backline.

Paul Dawg · Jun 27, 2009, 04:25 AM // 04:25

Right, THAT I agree with. At first you said that casters go first because they're easiest to kill, which isn't always the case.

distilledwill · Jun 27, 2009, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Whenever I'm playing on my paragon I always run as an Imbagon, then a motivation para, a cruel spear para and my final is an N/Rt build I made:

[Well of Power][Order of Pain][Dark Fury][Splinter Weapon][Strip Enchantment][Masochism][Foul Feast][Death Pact Signet]

Never runs out of energy, provides healing/energy regen/condition removal for the whole team and throws out splinter and orders. Tasty Jazz.

Buns United · Jul 08, 2009, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Couple of weeks ago I tried an 'Imbagon Hero' build, works pretty well considering I had no source of "SY!" in the team setup.

[build prof=P comma=11+1+1 lea=11+1 spe=8+1 pve]["Stand Your Ground!"][Vicious Attack]["Go for the Eyes!"]["Find Their Weakness!"][Soldier's Fury]["They're on Fire!"][Blazing Finale]["We Shall Return!"][/build]

Increased party members' armour level, can save the team when shit hits the fan, does damage through constant burning and adds deep wound. What's not to love?

*edit* also increased minion's damage, due to +91% chance to crit from gfte, which is spammed every third attack (while under 33% ias).

Tenebrae · Jul 08, 2009, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Micro´d Blazing Finale ? last time a put it on my hero he didnt use it so good but it makes a good couple with TAOF! , i was thinking of that couple or Burning Refrain .

Carnivorous Cupcake · Jul 08, 2009, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Tenebrae

Yep, you have to micro Blazing Finale for best results. I have also getting an impression that heroes will cast it on a target that is taking considerable pressure by themselves.

HigherMinion · Jul 19, 2009, 10:11 AM // 10:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

I was not impressed with using spears, which is why this guy doesn't attack, and doesn't need to waste attribute points on spear skills. Spear attacks and auto-attacks by themselves just aren't that great compared with the other utility paragons provide from their shouts, and you actually do have to spend a fair amount of time with sub-par auto-attacks to build adrenaline. If you have multiple adrenaline skills on your bar, it's even worse due to the way adrenaline works. No spear skills means none of this is an issue, nor is blocking, or line of sight, blindness, or miss hexes, and he can take some choice abilities from 3 lines, rather than requiring that you use 2 paragons to do so.

I don't think Go for the Eyes is any good at all and I don't know why people are so attached to that skill. The bonus of critting in hard mode is absolutely pitiful, as the base amount is so small to begin with. Its only real use is as energy management or triggering shout finales, but you can get that functionality from more any other number of more useful shouts or abilities.

I will point out that this isn't a theory post, I have actually been running this build, and am comparing it to the standard builds I H'H all of EoTN with.

At the moment I am running two paragon heroes with my MoP nuker. The Command is using Burning Finale and the Motigon uses Finale of Restoration... USING spears of course, but no AR as heroes have a hard time upkeeping before getting to the next mob. Waste of energy, so I swapped it for Glowing signet to help when using We Shall Return/ other chants or shouts.
I don't understand the problem with spears... They make alot of damage while he's shouting. All down to preference I guess. 2xpara 1xMM or OoV.

Improvavel · Jul 19, 2009, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

USING spears of course, but no AR as heroes have a hard time upkeeping before getting to the next mob. Waste of energy, so I swapped it for Glowing signet to help when using We Shall Return/ other chants or shouts.

If you use fall back, the paragons will keep ar with np.

HigherMinion · Oct 21, 2009, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Yes, I have actually started doing this for a while now once I realised. AR is 100% maintained now with one copy of fall back on my command paragon and one on my MM. If I have one, that is.

Khomet Si Netjer · Oct 21, 2009, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by distilledwill

Whenever I'm playing on my paragon I always run as an Imbagon, then a motivation para, a cruel spear para and my final is an N/Rt build I made:

[Well of Power][Order of Pain][Dark Fury][Splinter Weapon][Strip Enchantment][Masochism][Foul Feast][Death Pact Signet]

Never runs out of energy, provides healing/energy regen/condition removal for the whole team and throws out splinter and orders. Tasty Jazz.

I like this idea, I'm using the inverse of it though. Like some others here I found that the D/N Orders was suboptimal (though I vanquished almost everywhere with it), I still thought that there must be something better. With the recent buffs to ritualist skills I found the answer. XD
Here is the support hero build I am using now, works great with any physical damage dealer especially those which use adrenaline. Why Rt/N and not the reverse? High channeling means more damage from Splinter, more damage from spirits (as well as stronger spirits), and better energy gain from Spirit Siphon. You lose soul reaping but IMO it is worth it. With five spirits you have a nice spirit-wall that tends to draw aggro and keep them off of your party. Unlike minions, the spirits work everywhere, so no need to retool this for different areas. I also bring Anthem of Disruption on one of the paras (my typical team is 3P, 1 Rt/N, 2R, 2Mo if henching) because as someone else noted here already, anthem of disruption affects spirits. This means that you have 3P, 2R, and 4 attack spirits interrupting things constantly. I didn't think it would have such a dramatic effect but it does... try it out and you'll see what I mean.

Rt/N; channeling 12+1+1, blood 11, spawning 6+1, restoration 2
[Splinter Weapon][Spirit Siphon][Order of Pain][Dark Fury][Signet of Spirits][Bloodsong][Agony][Flesh Of My Flesh]

use blood or channeling staff with +20% enchanting if you have it. Energy is fine as is though Well of Power is a good option if you want to give up Signet of Spirits. You can also bring Offering of Spirit if someone else in the group is bringing Signet of Spirits. I haven't found any negatives to this build yet. Feels *much* stronger than D/N, partly because of the way the spirits keep things distracted. Constant mass armor ignoring damage from spirits, splinter, and orders are a huge win and D/N only gives one of those three.

HigherMinion · Oct 21, 2009, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Rt/N; channeling 12+1+1, blood 11, spawning 6+1, restoration 2
[Splinter Weapon][Spirit Siphon][Order of Pain][Dark Fury][Signet of Spirits][Bloodsong][Agony][Flesh Of My Flesh]

I use the opposite. I make sure my orders is dedicated to spamming off those two Order spells, the other support skills are a cheeky bonus.
At the moment this is what I've been using... Well, MoW's been using:

1.Cultist's Fervor.
2.OoP
3.DF
4.Strip Enchantment.
5.Foul Feast.
6.Warmonger's Weapon.
7. Splinter/Nightmare Weapon. (I change between the two sometimes. Could take out Strip Enchant occasionally.)
8.Flesh of My Flesh.

This has been rather successful in the last few weeks I've been using it.
You use N/Rt Instead of Rt/N, because your main job is to get the most out of Order of Pain, Which is +17 damage for all physicals. /N would only be 13 damage, which is quite pitiful in comparison.

Edit: At the above poster, your bar there seems to be more about spirits. They will simply slow you down. An Orders bar should support your physicals. A hero will not know when is best to drop a spirit and the recharge is long.

Khomet Si Netjer · Oct 21, 2009, 06:37 PM // 18:37

You mentioned that "spirits slow you down", but clearly you have not used ritualists since the update. All binding rituals cast in 3/4 second now, you can summon 3 spirits before anyone finishes casting an Orders spell or lands their first spear throw.

I've tried N/Rt as well, for the same reasons you mentioned, and while it works well I think this is better. My argument is that splinter + orders + spirits is better than orders alone. Certainly the damage from splinter weapon outweighs the extra damage from orders in my experience. Condition removal via foul feast is unnecessary because one of the paragons is almost always carrying Song of Purification.

HigherMinion · Oct 21, 2009, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

You mentioned that "spirits slow you down", but clearly you have not used ritualists since the update. All binding rituals cast in 3/4 second now, you can summon 3 spirits before anyone finishes casting an Orders spell or lands their first spear throw.

I've tried N/Rt as well, for the same reasons you mentioned, and while it works well I think this is better. My argument is that splinter + orders + spirits is better than orders alone. Certainly the damage from splinter weapon outweighs the extra damage from orders in my experience. Condition removal via foul feast is unnecessary because one of the paragons is almost always carrying Song of Purification.

I don't run Song of Purification, and I don't know how many do. My Motigon runs Song of Restoration if it gets a look in at all. FF is an optimal skill also for the Orders to maintain energy.

With a 20% faster-casting blood staff, most of the time my hero will be casting OoP or DP and it will be taken into effect near-instantly; Once the physicals have run into the mob. When you cast SoS, you get a delay where the spirits will not attack and must configure themselves. This is what slows you down. Also, SoS casts in 1 second, not 3/4.

Adding spirits to an Orders build isn't going to change all too much, with the recharge of the spirits and speed you'll be going through the mobs anyway.

Splinter IS good, but it's good enough at 10 Channeling, or there abouts. You also forgot Warmonger's Weapon which is a great skill for shutting down casters.

Khomet Si Netjer · Oct 22, 2009, 12:09 AM // 00:09

warmonger's is great, no argument there... but my whole group (and the spirits too) gain interrupt capability with Anthem of Disruption so I don't carry Warmongers.

re: song of purification, it's pretty common on paragon teams, party-wide condition removal for free is hard to pass up. this also means that other characters don't need to waste energy trying to remove conditions.

re: spirits, I like the psuedo-minion-master effect that the spirits have, they tend to draw fire from the enemy and lessen pressure on your team. I have never noticed any significant slowdown but to each his own. Before the update, definitely... but now the spirits cast very quickly, so not an issue anymore.

Splinter Weapon @ 14 is 5 x 47 AoE damage, so 235 armor ignoring AoE damage for 5 energy. Splinter Weapon @ 10 is 4 x 35 AoE damage, or 140 AoE damage total, so it is a big difference. That is a much bigger difference than Order of Pain @ 14 (+15 damage) and Order of Pain @ 11 (+13 damage), so this made the choice easy for me. This math also shows why Rt/R Splinter Barrage does much more damage than R/Rt, most of the damage is coming from Splinter Weapon and not from Barrage.
(note, I did not compare the skills @ 16 since I don't use superior runes on any heroes)

HigherMinion · Oct 22, 2009, 12:56 AM // 00:56

Yes, each to his own. I have Superior runes on my necs. ER has Sup ES rune and the rest have minors.