Curse

paranon · Jan 03, 2011, 10:46 AM // 10:46

Over the past few weeks, myself and a few others have been working on an efficient, pug-friendly Mesmer spike for the fissure of woe. The idea was to create bars that were just as fast as manly, but were easier to use and had cleaner spikes. Personally I think the builds we have created achieve this aim and the majority of the people who have run with us have agreed that the spikes are generally superior to manly.

MT - OwBR8Z6AimMCSnB3BAAAIuE
Ineptitude - OQhjAwBc4QwlkApivA2g5ZIgXM
Esurge - OQZDApwTSiOqDpinA2gmOTPAA
Keystone - OQRDAckSS8U/AmO5ZtgTVxk3g
EoE - OAKjQiislSSTXT+glT0gVTQHXM
T1 - OwZSk4PTHQ0klC6M4O8Q5ixl
T2 - OwZSk4PTHQ0klC6M4O8Q5iJD
T3 - OwZSk4PTHQ0klC6M4O8Q5iJD
The builds use a similar framework to manly spike, with an eoe ritualist for support, and 3 spiker roles, an ineptitude caller, an esurge spiker and a keystone spiker. The ineptitude Mesmer acts as a caller for the team, calling arcane conundrum on a central target in the ball, this then signals the other two spikers to use their skill chains on that target.

T3
The T3 goes to the wailing forest and clears it out. The bar for this terra is the same as the standard T2 bar, using glyph of concentration to avoid interrupts. The t3 does something like this:
• Firstly, run to the wailing forest and grab all of the spirit shepherds you can, then sliver down the rock borer worms and the 2 spirit woods in the entrance to the forest.
• Once this is done run to the bridge, sliver the 4 beserkers on the close side of the bridge and then use a bow to aggro the banshees, avoiding the two skeletal groups from the side. sliver the banshees down on the bridge and then take the quest from the wailing lord.
• Next, run up the hill and kill the shard wolf, then death's charge down to a spider, pulling them along the path towards the wailing lord so you can death's charge down. once this is done aggro all the shepherds again and use their aggro to sliver the nearby skeleton group down.
• Once the skeleton group is dead simply ball the shepherds up together and wait for the main team to arrive. The main team should spike the skeleton group in the entrance to wailing forest, spike the group of shepherds and then run back towards the beginning, clearing a way for griffons, when they are ready the t3 will bring the griffons.
This means that the main team spends very little time in the wailing forest, saving the team 2 or 3 minutes, the other advantage of the t3 is that it can easily cover any dead terras.
Video of the t3 role
The advantages vs. manly spike
*The main advantage of this build for me is the range that cry of pain gives the spike. With 2 copies cry of pain hits everything in the area of the ball for around 80 damage, which is easily enough to bring them <90% for eoe. Even the worst ball will die from this spike as long as eoe is up.
*The second advantage is how well this build deals with messy spikes and cleanup, ineptitude and arcane conundrum mean that everything in the ball is casting slowly, and blind, this means that even if the ball comes apart the team still has about 10 seconds during which they take no damage to react, and this is almost always enough time to finish the spike off. The distance from the spike also means that things like caster groups in forge can be spiked without worrying about warriors aggroing patrolling melee groups.
*The cleanup with this build is a LOT better than with manly spike, rock borer worms are generally dead before the main tank has finished balling the next group up and the rangers at the top of forge take seconds to kill with ineptitude and wandering eye, anything that is left over at the end of a spike takes seconds to kill and resses (casting at half the speed) can easily be interrupted by cry of pain.

Tactics changes
Although the tactics are very similar to manly, a few changes have been made:
*After the tower of courage, the keystone and the ritualist should stay with rastigan to kill vogris' group, meanwhile the mt, ineptitude and esurge can ball and spike battlefield.
*During defend, it is possible to pull the foes into the corner in the middle and spike them from the top.
*Using rupture soul on the eoe bar, the ritualist can easily solo the tower of courage, using rupture soul atleast every 10 seconds to keep the abyssals blind and using spirits to block the door.

Thanks to manic for help with creating the builds and tactics and everyone who helped us to test them

current fastest main team time - 11min

Calista Blackblood · Jan 03, 2011, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Definitely cleaner and smoother spikes than manly. Although if you like yellow numbers,both satisfy the craving.

Fall Back chaining was also a huge benefit and the only real counter to the build is badly placed Primal Echoes in Wailing :/ Signets don't like costing 10e

even with AoS

Volo · Jan 04, 2011, 04:10 AM // 04:10

is this simuway version 2.0???

Life Bringing · Jan 04, 2011, 06:11 AM // 06:11

I can see the advantages of this(top of forge and quicker recharging spike for forge itself, although the latter can be remedied with a certain necro bar), but i find it hard to believe that spikes are cleaner than manly. The only way that this is feasible is if the ball is bad. Assuming a competent team, every ball should drop on a single whirlwind from only one of the warriors.

The problem with this kind of spike is that it requires all 3 spikers to be somewhat in unison, which is something that pugs generally cant do. Its all too common that a mop will call a target and itll take a good 5+ seconds for the first war to go in and more time for the second. In a manly setup, you can still complete a spike under these circumstances because it only takes one war to spike down a group and theres no scatter beforehand.

After having run DwG(kind of ashamed to admit it), i would also have to argue that dwg is the most idiot proof teambuild out there, with 1 rit able to solospike top of forge in a couple of recasts of dwg.

Regardless, the bars are well done and are no doubt effective. I expect a 12-13 mt from you though mike

paranon · Jan 04, 2011, 09:18 AM // 09:18

12-13 is coming don't worry, with regards to spikes being cleaner, it is true that in a well organised manly spike everything goes down in one hit, but this spike isn't far off that, and basically if the caller waits for both of the other spikers to be in range then the spike won't fail, and if only 2 people spike then it will still work. Also, although manly spike should take .0001 of a second, people still manage to still have stuff alive 5sec after they deaths charge in. When i said about this spike being cleaner it was maybe the wrong word, but the spike has a bigger range so more dies in the spike, and cleanup is alot quicker and easier.

Enethyl Nagiwe · Jan 04, 2011, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Hey nice job on those builds.

I can understand the spikes are cleaner so more pug friendly (it should be). But the T3 job seems maybe bit hard for pugs, will definatly fail a lot. Myself did the T3 (variant of this one tho) by clearing all of forest and then waiting for main team to spike the shepards. I can assure you, you can't do the job as in the video on first attempt. And even in the video at around 3:10 the T3 almost died.

So more pug friendly spikes yes, T3 doubt it.
But neverthless nice alteration on manly.

novawhiz · Jan 04, 2011, 12:02 PM // 12:02

Looks good, didnt realize people had issues spiking with manly tho

impulsion · Jan 04, 2011, 04:29 PM // 16:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

After having run DwG(kind of ashamed to admit it), i would also have to argue that dwg is the most idiot proof teambuild out there, with 1 rit able to solospike top of forge in a couple of recasts of dwg.

Regardless, the bars are well done and are no doubt effective. I expect a 12-13 mt from you though mike

Agreed, DwG is epic - that is why we have it for DoA and FoW records.

dryst. · Jan 04, 2011, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Im playing this with my ally all the time, works really good and is better than Ineptitune in my opinion.

[Nika] · Jan 04, 2011, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Yeah i would kick the inep aswell.
And i would play with Ua instead of T3 in a pug, if not the run will fail too early.

Manic Star · Jan 04, 2011, 09:24 PM // 21:24

We used to run a heal on the SoS bar for pugs but we were forced to drop it as it was never used and we have had PUGS for the majority of our tests.

Tests have been conducted on how the Mesmers operate without a tank to ball and I was more surprised by the spikers resilience in such circumstances than I had originally anticipated. The slower casting time, Blindness and damage output of Wondering Eye on the Ineptitude bar have been a strong part of this resilience.

It is with is mind that I strongly feel that if a UA was added to this set up that he or she might as well go AFK as there will be little use for it.

Tests have also been conducted on how far the bars can be stretched and when we have used just 2 Mesmers the spikes have still been successful, though this is no excuse to be lazy or slow.

Since the upload of the T3 video people are adapting to the role well, this should not be surprising given a MT in a generic FOWSC has almost the identical bar and experiences the same circumstances i.e Interupts, Natures Renewal etc so there is not a great deal extra to learn. The best advice to avoid Interrupts is to kill the Rock Borer Worms near the bridge so that even if your interrupted by Distracting Shot on your Glyph of Concentration from the Skeletal Impalers that your not suddenly exposed to Choking Gas with no protection whilst GOC recharges.

The greatest surprise I have experienced with this set up so far is the response to the tactics for the SoS with every SoS we have taken soloing The Tower of Courage (Without Summoning Stones) this consistency has lead me to adjust the placement of EoE on the team from the SoS to the Keystone given the average speed the spikers reach the Forge it is more practical. EoE is only useful for 3 spikes 1 - Tower of Courage Pull 2 - Battlefield Pull 3 - Top of Forge (Can also be placed on Forgemaster to allow EoE to exist both sides of the Forge during Defend the Temple of War quest which is when the SoS solo's the second spawn on the south side whilst main team spike the north.

Fawxy Lawxy · Jan 07, 2011, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by impulsion

Agreed, DwG is epic - that is why we have it for DoA and FoW records.

FoW Record for now.
But yeah, this spike works, and its over 9000 times better than simuway.

Ok Dont Panic · Jan 13, 2011, 05:54 AM // 05:54

I'm in the t3 video!! go me!

Mike get rupted less... gg..

I much prefer the mesmer spike but pugs are bad QQ

the fact that it is so much cleaner than manly spike makes me wish that it was what everyone ran

Navis · Jan 13, 2011, 10:04 AM // 10:04

No spike can be cleaner than manly spike. Since all the damage is instant (or in two packages with 2 warriors not coordinated). Now I agree this build will work much better on ugly balls.

I'm under the impression many people underestimate how safely manly spike is built compared to other builds posted. With good players, the whole thing could almost be done with just T1, T2, MT, 100b (x1) and MoP basically. The second 100b, EoE and UA are just here as failsafe, eventhough it is often not enough for PuGs, sadly.

But this Mesmer spike looks fun, I'd love to try it sometime.

Volo · Jan 13, 2011, 12:41 PM // 12:41

ok lets make this simple...manly good with exp/strong spikers
mesmer spike good with...well not so great spikers

khios · Jan 13, 2011, 02:57 PM // 14:57

The matter with manly is that most of the time the necro is way too far from the center of the ball and so when I tp in different cases appears!

1: Good N, everything go down in .1 seconds no matter if the second 100b was slow
2: Not so good MoP, well 1/2 foes left! Not that much to kill!
3: Bad MoP, TP outside or on the edge of the bal... mass scater! Rise and repeat aggro

Need to find a PuG that runs this as my Guild is not really into SC

paranon · Jan 13, 2011, 04:31 PM // 16:31

The bars have been heavily updated since this post was originally made, the current bars can be found here, we added deep freeze to the esurge bar and mainbarred flesh on the caller, this basically just gives the build even more survivability. even if spikes go wrong (which they rarely do) everything is moving slower anyway and it is easy to kill everything before it reaches the team. anybody who has done doasc will know how strong deep freeze and eoe can be.
i also created a video for the solo rit which can be found here

khios · Jan 13, 2011, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by paranon

The bars have been heavily updated since this post was originally made, the current bars can be found here, we added deep freeze to the esurge bar and mainbarred flesh on the caller, this basically just gives the build even more survivability. even if spikes go wrong (which they rarely do) everything is moving slower anyway and it is easy to kill everything before it reaches the team. anybody who has done doasc will know how strong deep freeze and eoe can be.
i also created a video for the solo rit which can be found here

Thanks for the dedication to those builds for players less experienced than you

Yume Shinigami · Jan 17, 2011, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by paranon

Tactics changes
Although the tactics are very similar to manly, a few changes have been made:
*After the tower of courage, all of the spikers should stay with rastigan to spike vogris' group, you can either spike the shadow group at the bottom of the hill and then run back to the tower or simply stay at the tower and run past the group when you go to spike the battlefield group that the MT should have balled up for when you arrive.
*Using rupture soul on the eoe bar, the ritualist can easily solo the tower of courage, using rupture soul atleast every 10 seconds to keep the abyssals blind and using spirits to block the door.

So.. which is it? Does the rit solo ToC or does the entire team do it?

paranon · Jan 18, 2011, 04:44 PM // 16:44

if your rt is confident then you can get him to solo toc, otherwise the whole team can stay back, although i would emphasize how easy it is to solo toc as rt with rupture soul.