Curse

Jeydra · Aug 20, 2009, 03:13 PM // 15:13

If heroes won't recast it then micro it ... of course it's preferable the AI gets updated to recast before it expires, but even if it doesn't that doesn't mean you can't manual it.

Superiors are great. The argument's been covered elsewhere. You can not run them if you want, I'll stick them on all my heroes except Monks.

SoLS might be better energy management, but Masochism is also +2 Death.

Mr Emu · Aug 20, 2009, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Superiors are great. The argument's been covered elsewhere. You can not run them if you want, I'll stick them on all my heroes except Monks.

Can you point that argument out to me please?

Jeydra · Aug 21, 2009, 01:00 AM // 01:00

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10385808

Killamus · Aug 21, 2009, 02:34 AM // 02:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10385808

... That argument is against superiors in HM, and last I checked, Discord was a HM team build.
Anything goes in NM, you can power through NM with the random build generator on these forums. (Well, it used to be here...)

Less HP is almost always considered a very bad thing in HM, the few exceptions would be invuln tanks (I.E. shadow formers) and people who are supposed to attract aggro. The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should not be attracting aggro.

AtomicMew · Aug 21, 2009, 04:47 AM // 04:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killamus

... That argument is against superiors in HM, and last I checked, Discord was a HM team build.
Anything goes in NM, you can power through NM with the random build generator on these forums. (Well, it used to be here...)

Less HP is almost always considered a very bad thing in HM, the few exceptions would be invuln tanks (I.E. shadow formers) and people who are supposed to attract aggro. The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should not be attracting aggro.

I use superiors on 2 of my discorders.

Stronger attributes means heroes are casting more efficiently = less casting needed. If anything, I would sacrifice energy for HP/armor. By using a shield or a caster spear/bison cup.

Jeydra · Aug 21, 2009, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killamus

... That argument is against superiors in HM, and last I checked, Discord was a HM team build.
Anything goes in NM, you can power through NM with the random build generator on these forums. (Well, it used to be here...)

Less HP is almost always considered a very bad thing in HM, the few exceptions would be invuln tanks (I.E. shadow formers) and people who are supposed to attract aggro. The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should not be attracting aggro.

Yes I'm assuming HM, and I run Superiors on all my heroes except Monks anyway.

You say less HP is "almost always considered a very bad thing in HM". By who? Certainly not by me. That's a blanket statement you'll need to back up, and even then it still doesn't matter because Fire Magic is almost always considered the best element to use in HM, and yet no intelligent (+ aware) Elementalist runs it in most areas.

The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should be killing, aka. pumping out damage, which means use the Superiors.

But I do not want to argue Superiors. I'll use them. You can not use them if you don't want to, which gives you the higher health sac from Masochism, which makes you not want to use it, which means you have 14 Death Magic vs. the 19 I operate with, which is perfectly fine. Whatever works for you.

Spiritweaver · Aug 21, 2009, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

+5 death magic isn't free, it has an opportunity cost, in this case -75 health, picking a particular elite instead of a more useful one, and putting another specific skill on your bar (which has costs, sacrifice, etc.) instead of some other one.

Either I read it wrong or you did.

You can get +5 Death Magic without using a Major or Superior Rune (+1+1 headpiece, +1 Aura of the Lich, +2 Masochism). You can get a 20% chance of +6 before using runes (Master of my Domain), and +7 if using consets. Take 1 off that number if you don't want to run Aura of the Lich.

Personally I run Masochism on my MM and have no troubles with the health cost on HM thanks to Dwaynas Sorrow. Higher damage Discord, higher damage Death Nova, higher damage Putrid Bile, better energy gain from Soul Reaping, more minions. The pros clearly outwiegh the cons.

kanuks · Sep 09, 2009, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Yes I'm assuming HM, and I run Superiors on all my heroes except Monks anyway.

You say less HP is "almost always considered a very bad thing in HM". By who? Certainly not by me. That's a blanket statement you'll need to back up, and even then it still doesn't matter because Fire Magic is almost always considered the best element to use in HM, and yet no intelligent (+ aware) Elementalist runs it in most areas.

The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should be killing, aka. pumping out damage, which means use the Superiors.

But I do not want to argue Superiors. I'll use them. You can not use them if you don't want to, which gives you the higher health sac from Masochism, which makes you not want to use it, which means you have 14 Death Magic vs. the 19 I operate with, which is perfectly fine. Whatever works for you.

I even use superiors on monks because more life = better against spikes but higher attributes = stronger heals and longer prots. In a long fight, having higher attributes > having higher life.

Maybe that when your monks are humans they needs other to have higher life so they have more time to react but when your whole team is consisted of H/H then it's not a problem because their reaction time is greater than a human.

thor thunder · Sep 09, 2009, 11:41 PM // 23:41

IDK if somone mentioned this, i read most of the posts but its alot of the same,

If max Masochism is -3% and your useing it to push your attributes..

Then you should already have +3 runes.. and if you have +3 runes and prot spirit in your bar, Why not add another +3 or two, kill some Max health and make use of prot spirit..? and lessin the dmg you take from Masochism...??

yes i know 3% is 3% but 3% off lets say 200-300 hp is alot easyer and cheaper too heal then 3% of 550-600..?? correct me if my thinking is wrong here. you shouldn't be worrying about aggro if your a halfbreed MM..... thats the idea of an MM amiright??

Killamus · Sep 10, 2009, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeyra

You say less HP is "almost always considered a very bad thing in HM". By who? Certainly not by me. That's a blanket statement you'll need to back up, and even then it still doesn't matter because Fire Magic is almost always considered the best element to use in HM, and yet no intelligent (+ aware) Elementalist runs it in most areas.

Less HP = More aggro on you. The less total HP you have (Also, less current too, but that's irrelevant in this argument) the more the foes are going to go right onto you. So, while -75 HP might not be a lot, it's probably going to cause the enemy to ignore your warrior and go straight for your squishies, AKA your damage dealers AKA your necros. Who will then be REALLY suffering from that -75 HP.

I would also like to know who considers fire magic to be good in hard mode, because I haven't seen a single person in my guild/alliance who does. Actually, eles don't have much of a place as a general nuker in hard mode, just because enemies take such little damage from non-armor ignoring damage. They're more utility (ER protter, aoe blind, etc).

Quote:

The people who are supposed to be doing the killing should be killing, aka. pumping out damage, which means use the Superiors.

Kinda hard to kill stuff while you're dead because the enemies ignored your tank.

Quote:

But I do not want to argue Superiors. I'll use them. You can not use them if you don't want to, which gives you the higher health sac from Masochism, which makes you not want to use it, which means you have 14 Death Magic vs. the 19 I operate with, which is perfectly fine. Whatever works for you.

Actually, I rarely run with 14. I think only my MM has 14 death, the rest have 12 or 13 (10-11-10 splits). With this setup, my heroes rarely get aggro, and the minions die a lot faster (Which is nice for death nova).

Quote:

Originally Posted by thor thunder

yes i know 3% is 3% but 3% off lets say 200-300 hp is alot easyer and cheaper too heal then 3% of 550-600..?? correct me if my thinking is wrong here. you shouldn't be worrying about aggro if your a halfbreed MM..... thats the idea of an MM amiright??

You've just defined a 55 monk, one of (If not the) oldest farming build out there. Basically, they reduce their HP to 55 via runes, so they only take 5 damage a hit from enemies, and then just use regen (a la healing breeze) to heal the little damage they've taken.

However, I would point out several BAD things in this argument. First and foremost: Any minion master should always be worried about aggro and should attempt to flee aggro at the first sign of trouble. Only minion masters with the spell "Dark Bond" up should not be bothered with this. Why? Because if you die, your minions go kamikaze and start attacking the party. With dark bond, odds are all your minions would die before you did, so it doesn't matter.

Necros, generally speaking, are squishy, and targeted often. Heroes aren't very smart about getting out of aggro unless you set them to flee (Which defeats the purpose of discordway, as they don't use discord while in flee mode), so having the highest HP possible to reduce the amount of aggro they will get is a prime goal.

Yes, 3% isn't much, especially when coupled with superior runes. However, like I said - The AI isn't smart. If you have very low HP (200-300) you'll be targeted above almost everything else. In high end areas, monsters can and will strike for above your maximum HP, and easily. So unless you're prepared to maintain protective spirit on all of your heroes constantly, (A hero monk will not do this, and if they did they will run out of energy before you could blink), lower HP is a bad idea.

Of course, there are exceptions to this (Permasin, 55 monk) but for general play, higher HP = better.

tl;dr - No.

Jeydra · Sep 10, 2009, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killamus

Less HP = More aggro on you. The less total HP you have (Also, less current too, but that's irrelevant in this argument) the more the foes are going to go right onto you. So, while -75 HP might not be a lot, it's probably going to cause the enemy to ignore your warrior and go straight for your squishies, AKA your damage dealers AKA your necros. Who will then be REALLY suffering from that -75 HP.

I would also like to know who considers fire magic to be good in hard mode, because I haven't seen a single person in my guild/alliance who does. Actually, eles don't have much of a place as a general nuker in hard mode, just because enemies take such little damage from non-armor ignoring damage. They're more utility (ER protter, aoe blind, etc).

I don't run Warriors. I also have YMLAD! to defend myself. I don't mind taking aggro if I have Prot Spirit on myself.

PuG more often and you'll see lots of Fire Elementalists. Heck yesterday I even say someone go "Fire Ele LFG ZB" when the Zaishen Bounty is Forgewight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killamus

Kinda hard to kill stuff while you're dead because the enemies ignored your tank.

Don't die.

I don't see how I avoid dying while H/H'ing and you seem to have problems with a human party including ER Protters and such, lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thor thunder

IDK if somone mentioned this, i read most of the posts but its alot of the same,

If max Masochism is -3% and your useing it to push your attributes..

Then you should already have +3 runes.. and if you have +3 runes and prot spirit in your bar, Why not add another +3 or two, kill some Max health and make use of prot spirit..? and lessin the dmg you take from Masochism...??

yes i know 3% is 3% but 3% off lets say 200-300 hp is alot easyer and cheaper too heal then 3% of 550-600..?? correct me if my thinking is wrong here. you shouldn't be worrying about aggro if your a halfbreed MM..... thats the idea of an MM amiright??

There comes a threshold for HP beyond which it gets really dangerous. Personally I'd put that threshold at about ~400 HP for most areas (for the tougher areas, ~500 might be closer to the threshold). If you go under 400 HP then there's every chance you die before your Monks can heal you, even though they have the energy.

Now running 2x Superior runes will not put you under 400 HP, so you can run it if you want - but if you run 400 HP and you die once, then you are under that 400 HP threshold and might very well die a second time, and third, etc. Also, you only have one damage-dealing attribute (i.e. Death Magic - Soul Reaping doesn't deal damage). And so I run one Superior max.

PS: Prot Spirit is no guarantee of invulnerability. If you're taking damage from something like Barbs or Hundred Blades or Mark of Pain, then Prot Spirit doesn't save you.

kanuks · Sep 10, 2009, 02:20 AM // 02:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killamus

Less HP = More aggro on you. The less total HP you have (Also, less current too, but that's irrelevant in this argument) the more the foes are going to go right onto you. So, while -75 HP might not be a lot, it's probably going to cause the enemy to ignore your warrior and go straight for your squishies, AKA your damage dealers AKA your necros. Who will then be REALLY suffering from that -75 HP.

I would also like to know who considers fire magic to be good in hard mode, because I haven't seen a single person in my guild/alliance who does. Actually, eles don't have much of a place as a general nuker in hard mode, just because enemies take such little damage from non-armor ignoring damage. They're more utility (ER protter, aoe blind, etc).
Kinda hard to kill stuff while you're dead because the enemies ignored your tank.
Actually, I rarely run with 14. I think only my MM has 14 death, the rest have 12 or 13 (10-11-10 splits). With this setup, my heroes rarely get aggro, and the minions die a lot faster (Which is nice for death nova).

You've just defined a 55 monk, one of (If not the) oldest farming build out there. Basically, they reduce their HP to 55 via runes, so they only take 5 damage a hit from enemies, and then just use regen (a la healing breeze) to heal the little damage they've taken.

However, I would point out several BAD things in this argument. First and foremost: Any minion master should always be worried about aggro and should attempt to flee aggro at the first sign of trouble. Only minion masters with the spell "Dark Bond" up should not be bothered with this. Why? Because if you die, your minions go kamikaze and start attacking the party. With dark bond, odds are all your minions would die before you did, so it doesn't matter.

Necros, generally speaking, are squishy, and targeted often. Heroes aren't very smart about getting out of aggro unless you set them to flee (Which defeats the purpose of discordway, as they don't use discord while in flee mode), so having the highest HP possible to reduce the amount of aggro they will get is a prime goal.

Yes, 3% isn't much, especially when coupled with superior runes. However, like I said - The AI isn't smart. If you have very low HP (200-300) you'll be targeted above almost everything else. In high end areas, monsters can and will strike for above your maximum HP, and easily. So unless you're prepared to maintain protective spirit on all of your heroes constantly, (A hero monk will not do this, and if they did they will run out of energy before you could blink), lower HP is a bad idea.

Of course, there are exceptions to this (Permasin, 55 monk) but for general play, higher HP = better.

tl;dr - No.

Seriously if you think that sup runes are too risky then I suspect your playing skills. I did all of the HM dungeons H/H no cons by using sup a rune on myself and 3 heroes. Actually, the hardest groups are the ones that takes a while to kill so your party depletes their mana pool. The spiking ennemies that you encounter in PVE are almost never balanced groups so they're all dead too fast before putting pressure on the party, just let one player eat the initial spike with PS on him. In longer fights, superior runes > regular ones because they brings more damage and more healing. After 30 seconds of fight, that -75 health has easily been healed back with healing skills boosted by 2 in their attributes. Sup runes = 2 more into the main attribute of any players so that means more damage, more healing, longer enchants, hex, stances, shouts, chants, conditions, everything. 75 health out of 500+ is nothing compared to what sup runes brings back. There is very few spells that spikes for 450 + damage in PVE and most of them are easily avoidable by using strategy.

FoxBat · Sep 10, 2009, 02:57 AM // 02:57

Minions are a higher priority target than basically anything. Sup death makes them last longer, meaning your heroes get targeted less.

MercenaryKnight · Sep 10, 2009, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Minions aren't always the highest priority target. Usually they will gain some of the innitial aggro from melee (IF) your minions aren't lagging behind. Which usually they will lag behind. So usually you'll still be hit first by the initial aggro/ ranged enemies especially if your making use of death nova.

So I wouldn't put lower hp and hoping that minions will always get first priority.

kanuks · Sep 10, 2009, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by MercenaryKnight

Minions aren't always the highest priority target. Usually they will gain some of the innitial aggro from melee (IF) your minions aren't lagging behind. Which usually they will lag behind. So usually you'll still be hit first by the initial aggro/ ranged enemies especially if your making use of death nova.

So I wouldn't put lower hp and hoping that minions will always get first priority.

Well minions still takes more damage in a fight than all the 8 party members combined. Not to mention that Sos is 3 meat shield that gets targeted like crazy, doesnt require corpses and can be renewed every 20 seconds. These guys can take a lot of damage. I love using 2 discords and a Sos heroes. They eats so much damage that the healing AI get's borred.

Life Bringing · Sep 10, 2009, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by kanuks

Seriously if you think that sup runes are too risky then I suspect your playing skills. I did all of the HM dungeons H/H no cons by using sup a rune on myself and 3 heroes. Actually, the hardest groups are the ones that takes a while to kill so your party depletes their mana pool. The spiking ennemies that you encounter in PVE are almost never balanced groups so they're all dead too fast before putting pressure on the party, just let one player eat the initial spike with PS on him. In longer fights, superior runes > regular ones because they brings more damage and more healing. After 30 seconds of fight, that -75 health has easily been healed back with healing skills boosted by 2 in their attributes. Sup runes = 2 more into the main attribute of any players so that means more damage, more healing, longer enchants, hex, stances, shouts, chants, conditions, everything. 75 health out of 500+ is nothing compared to what sup runes brings back. There is very few spells that spikes for 450 + damage in PVE and most of them are easily avoidable by using strategy.

The thing about runes in pve is that they have to serve a purpose. Sup runes for the sake of having sup runes isn't worth the -75 hp. The only viable reason to go above a minor rune is when trying to hit an important breakpoint. Wanting an extra couple points of healing from your monks isn't a very viable reason to run superiors. However, pushing for the 14 channeling breakpoint for splinter weapon is important enough to throw a major on your rit to hit it. If you're running 1 MM, then yes, a sup rune is good because it hits an extra minion breakpoint at 16, as well as the extra 5(or 10) damage from Death Nova stacking tenfold. That being said, there is never a viable reason to go very far below 500hp. If any of my heroes should drop very far below there, i'll throw on a shield set/high health set to balance out the loss of health.

Improvavel · Sep 10, 2009, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Don't die.

I don't see how I avoid dying while H/H'ing and you seem to have problems with a human party including ER Protters and such, lol.

So u never ever die, nor do ur heroes.

And the reason for that is that you have less health and deal a few more damage.

Ok.

I think you should had a third superior rune and drop any health runes for energy runes.

Jeydra · Sep 10, 2009, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Read this buddy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

There comes a threshold for HP beyond which it gets really dangerous. Personally I'd put that threshold at about ~400 HP for most areas (for the tougher areas, ~500 might be closer to the threshold). If you go under 400 HP then there's every chance you die before your Monks can heal you, even though they have the energy.

Now running 2x Superior runes will not put you under 400 HP, so you can run it if you want - but if you run 400 HP and you die once, then you are under that 400 HP threshold and might very well die a second time, and third, etc. Also, you only have one damage-dealing attribute (i.e. Death Magic - Soul Reaping doesn't deal damage). And so I run one Superior max.

Yes I do die sometimes, but usually not enough times for me to regret running the Superiors (i.e. my DP is almost never > 30%).

PS: Look at this ...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...14#post4848114

Forge HM, one of the hardest areas in the game for sure. I make it through with Superior runes on everybody. Did take a few deaths yes, but nothing critical - just look at DP.

Now of course there are times when the -75 HP from the Superior rune kills you. It happened once in this dungeon actually. I was on ~40 HP an my shield set (which is +30 health +5 armor by the way) and Diseased. I'd disengaged at that point, and swapped to enchanting set to put up the Attunement, and died because of it. For sure I wouldn't have died if I didn't have a Superior rune (although in this particular case I wouldn't have died either if I hadn't swapped off shield set until I got healed).

But ... it's not like it's that important. One death in the entire dungeon that didn't result in a wipe, that doesn't matter a lot, especially since the -16 damage from Lightning Orbs @ Stone Summit Healers / Flowstone Elementals / Burning Spirits if I dropped to 14 Air, not to mention the drop in damage from minions / spirits / Painful Bond, could've meant I missed the quick kills I needed and all the associated problems.

Superior runes on damage characters for the win!

PPS: Masochism is featured, too.

Improvavel · Sep 10, 2009, 12:07 PM // 12:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Yes I do die sometimes, but never enough times for me to regret running the Superiors (i.e. my DP is usually never > 30%).

Yes, but from I read, you also play most of the time h/h which already caps any benefit of max health due to the 480 of the henchmen.

Additionally, I have the impression that you spend considerable time flagging and luring (well I do when playing with stupid hench, which happens rarely thank goodness).

Advocating superiors to kill faster isn't as compelling when that increase is spent in setting up or running back to avoid wipes - higher individual health parties have an easier time to win battles even with members down.

Of course when all your party members can use runes, there is quite a difference between a party with avg healths of 600+ vs parties with avg healths of 500.

On the other hand, henchmen are pretty much just fillers in discord parties, adding a lot less when compared to the discord necros. Hence probably makes sense to make the player and the necro trio have as much health as possible.

Additionally, if you don't have to rely on henchmen, the biggest speed buff you can get to clear (most) areas is to add a Movement Buff - fallback for example.

Using sup runes have a much inferior penalty in h/h because henchmen are pants anyway. Once you go to 2 players or more, the penalty is a lot steeper.

madriel222 · Sep 10, 2009, 01:25 PM // 13:25

I can understand why you would want a superior rune on a player. You can position yourself to avoid unnecessary aggro. You can run when you have to. And, probably most importantly, the player typically has the higher damage potential of the group. In this case, sure, strap on -75 health, you're killing faster after all.

Discord heroes in particular though, are better off with minor runes in my experience. Having a set of heroes with both (superior on my necro's heroes, minors on my ele's), I can say with certainty that the extra few points of damage you get on a discord spike with superiors isn't enough to matter in 99% of cases. If you're spiking cleanly, your target is going to die in just about the same number of casts with either rune.

This, of course, would depend on your playstyle. I like to hotkey my hero's Discord for a clean, immediate spike, but I know a few players who like to just sit back and watch the heroes do the work. There's nothing wrong with that, and yes, in that circumstance the extra damage from superior runes would start to add up. But if your'e calling, and even better if you're micro-ing, it's much more beneficial to have more health than more death magic, in my experience.

I'm not going to make a blanket statement or try to prove anyone wrong, that's just what I've gathered from playing.