Curse

Homsar · Mar 09, 2006, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Since a lot of people dont fully comprehend how to complete TOPK in a timely orderly fashion, I thought i would start a thread showing pointers on how to become an effective B/P group!

Heres what i have so far.

1. Spirits: spirits are essential on survival and damage modifiers to kill effectively and quickly. In order to speed up your progress make sure you have the following spirits:

Favorable Winds: makes your arrows travel faster and deal extra Damage.

Winnowing: adds a Dmg modifier to your attacks

Predatory Season: This sparks a big debate between a lot of people, but if you fully understand how Pred season works, you will see how it actually HELPS your group

Pred season reduces all healing by 20%, whenever your attacks hit you gain +5 health. But not only do you get +health for every hit, but your MINIONS do as well. The secret to getting lots of minions up? Simple. Keep them alive longer! We all know that the more minions you have the easier the monks job is and the faster you can kill things.

2. Pet management

Simple. if your pet dies, bring it back to life ASAP. More corpses= more minions

3. Aggro Management : Assign a Target caller, whenever a mob is almost finished, the caller should be already starting on pulling the next mob, that way its continuous killing the entire way. The only reason a group should slow down is for a monk to regain energy, but that brings me to my next point

4. Monks: Lets face it, there is a lot of bad monks out there, more than we want to even deal with. But its critical that a monk has energy management when they go in a TOPK group. I cant tell you how many times i have asked a monk what their energy management skill was and the reply was "energy management?" It amazes me how they even made it to dragons lair.

Energy Management: Ive found that as a monk Mantra of Recall works really well with a 20/20 inspiration staff or a 10/10 staff. Since most of the stuff in TOPK is mesmers with shatter enchants and enchantment removal a 20/20 or a 10/10 staff works amazingly well. Just put 10 points in inspiration and you should have no problem keeping up with a fast pace group.

Monk skillbar: Try to stay away from enchantment heals such as healing breeze and healing seed as Fingers of Chaos will just rip it to shred, not to mention a shatter enchant will make you have to heal even more!

Healing: If you have a good Orders Necro, you should NEVER have to heal him. Period. Your energy is far too important to waste on a target that isnt even in combat range, and if he is. Hes a real BAD orders necro.

5. Kiting

Kiting the act of combat movement for survival. its so sad to see a bad ranger standing there getting wacked by 3 grasps of chaos just going to town with an adrenal spike and the ranger blows up on the monk asking why he didnt heal. Its not always the monks fault if you die in TOPK, 80% of the time its yours, and yours alone. If you see grasps moving towards you with bloodlust, simply move around, set a pick with your minions, most of the time the grasps will change aggro onto the minions, but there is NO excuse to just stand there.

6. Rangers. For the love of god. Please dont be anything other than R/MO

Rebirth is too important, cause lets face it, sometimes shit happens. and people will die occasionally. and your silly rez sig in the first room is pointless.

Traps: Traps suck, and are pointless, they make you put points in wilderness when all you need is 7 beast, 12 expertise and 16 Marksmanship. if you want to blind a grasp that wants your face, use throw dirt. Dust trap is amazingly retarded to use in TOPK.

7. Necros.

I cant express this enough, Death necros must bring DEATH NOVA

other than that, you should be N/MO with heal area and verata's, and blood of the master if you feel.

Orders necro: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be in range of ANYTHING, at ANYTIME

your job is simple. hit orders, and heal yourself, that is all

if you get hit by anything you deserve to stay in presearing forever.
================================================== ====

That is all for now, feel free to add your opinions/flames/whatever!

Tigers Anger · Mar 09, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

i still use my R/Me with res sig for farming tombs and as long as you have a halfway decent group shit won't happen. Channeling works wonders in there aswell as often you are surrounded by enemies which would rip to shreds were you not surrounded by minions, pets and ever helpful rangers blinding the Fingers of Chaos.

Orders necros often spam heal party's or heal others to help lessen the job of the monk to as was used by many IWAY order necros in tombs.

Monks should bring plenty of hex removal too, smite hex and inspired hex being good for this if you are using an inspiration based monk. Monks should also rely on Word of Healing and particulary Dwayna's Kiss because there are a lot of hexes being used there.

Effendi Westland · Mar 09, 2006, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Homsar

6. Rangers. For the love of god. Please dont be anything other than R/MO

Rebirth is too important, cause lets face it, sometimes shit happens. and people will die occasionally. and your silly rez sig in the first room is pointless.

Traps: Traps suck, and are pointless, they make you put points in wilderness when all you need is 7 beast, 12 expertise and 16 Marksmanship. if you want to blind a grasp that wants your face, use throw dirt. Dust trap is amazingly retarded to use in TOPK.

I use a R/N and he's very effective. With 10 curses 16 mark and 9 exp. Mark of pain owns, by the time the AoE nerf kicks in everything surrounding the target is dead already. I have tried to make a screenie with the beautiful 20 x -30 on the screen but everytime I hit screenshot button I seem to be a bit too slow

Some say... but your pet will hardly be able to tank!... well another great curse is enfeebling blood

Cherno · Mar 10, 2006, 03:47 AM // 03:47

My only thing I agree and disagree with you on is the orders necro. Sure I can be on the complete other side of the room and be effective, but you also don't get any soul reaping or experience this way.

The trick is to be close but not too close to risk danger of being within target range of anything. I also believe that in any battle if you at least blood the monk once that will qualify you as contributing to the battle and will get you experience.

dgb · Mar 10, 2006, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Homsar

Orders necro: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be in range of ANYTHING, at ANYTIME

your job is simple. hit orders, and heal yourself, that is all

This bit is garbage. There are two critical times when you need to run forward. First if someone goes down - it's your job to rebirth them, not the monks. Switch armour and do it, then get back to hitting orders. Second if the minion master goes down. Run forwards, switching your armour, hit veratas aura and then rebirth. Then once the minion master has gotten control (veratas aura again) go back to doing orders. Aside from that you should be inside soul reaping range but outside aggro range at all time with 105hp.

Additionally run Awaken the Blood, it just makes things more efficient.

Ristaron · Mar 10, 2006, 04:41 AM // 04:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Additionally run Awaken the Blood, it just makes things more efficient.

Was waiting for that.

Amen. Awaken the Blood ftw.

kvndoom · Mar 10, 2006, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Monking a barrage / pet group is a joke. I mostly just stand around waiting for something to happen. For a REAL challenge, get together a balanced group where you have to worry about condition removal and good stuff like that.

You should only bring one enchant, and that's Divine Boon, and you only use it in emergency situations. I've never had any problem with "energy management" when all I did was stand around most of the time. My elite was Word of Healing, and then a few other 5 energy spells (Orison, Dwayna's Kiss, Healing Touch for yourself), Signet of Devotion (for insta-heal after Rebirth, if necessary), Mantra of Resolve (I'd rather lose energy than be interrupted), and rez. My energy management consists of little more than focus swapping- a Gingerbread Shield, which I have equipped 85-90% of the time, a Droknar's Divine Symbol for a quick +12 after Rebirth, and a 27/-1 focus for extreme emergencies. If you ever have to use the latter, you've got a horrible group anyway. It's pretty hard to run low on 4 pips of energy with 5 cost spells.

Homsar · Mar 10, 2006, 06:28 AM // 06:28

As i agree with what most of you are saying I shall respond like this:

When it comes to my point of rangers being R/MO i believe that rebirth is just too imporant to not have.

When i say that the orders necro should never been in range, that should be taken with a grain of salt, too many orders necros like to hug the enemies if you know what i mean.

but above all, i belive i created this thread to get mention of Pred season out there, to show how good it really is!

Effendi Westland · Mar 10, 2006, 07:03 AM // 07:03

My response to that... I don't think you are right on the ra/mo thing. I'd rather have players who think about synergies in their build then use the R/Mo option.

However with predetory season up and no enfeebling blood I can imagine you having a lot more near party wipes then me.

Hockster · Mar 10, 2006, 07:17 AM // 07:17

I'm just shocked that people still farm for the crappy greens. It's knda like intentionally farming for the Bludgeoner.

Anarion Silverhand · Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM // 14:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hockster

I'm just shocked that people still farm for the crappy greens. It's knda like intentionally farming for the Bludgeoner.

To my knowledge, Victo's Bulwark is still selling good, and there is a chance for ecto drops in ToPK...

thelessa · Mar 10, 2006, 02:26 PM // 14:26

From what I understand his axe is still selling well too.

Big_Iron · Mar 10, 2006, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by thelessa

From what I understand his axe is still selling well too.

Yeah, the axe and Bulwark are still my main reasons for going. I unload the crappy staffs cheaply as quick as I can just to free up space.

IIIPowerIII · Mar 10, 2006, 04:40 PM // 16:40

I also use Symbiosis. It add around 125hp when you have order on and monster dont use enchant. For the first time today, I got Kicked/called a noob by a ranger team, because the MM didnt like Symbiosis, because it "apparently" made the pet almost invincible with death nova on and he couldnt get minion...

shaolin mind trick · Mar 10, 2006, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

2. Pet management

Simple. if your pet dies, bring it back to life ASAP. More corpses= more minions

Pretty trivial, but I'll add that if possible you should be sure the MM has actually used your pet before resing. Too many times people res their pets before their corpse has even been touched.

Ira Blinks · Mar 10, 2006, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hockster

I'm just shocked that people still farm for the crappy greens. It's knda like intentionally farming for the Bludgeoner.

/signed

Antheus · Mar 10, 2006, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Cookie cutter b/p, always.

But allow me to explain.

All runs I've done were with PUGs. This introduces lots of uncertainty. You get people who do 5 runs daily, and you get first-timers. Until after the first level, you don't get a real feeling for the group, so it's a hit and miss situation. This is why I prefer the standard build, since it has the greatest likelyhood of everyone in group knowing what to expect from others.

The ranger skills I expect are: barrage, distracting shot, throw dirt, troll unguent, comfort/charm animal, rebirth. For extra slot, two rangers have spirits, other three have concussion shot. I prefer R/Mo, since they are less likely to bring some "perfect skill" (it's horrible seeing a R/E starting to cast meteor storm). Seeing apply poison (wiped by barrage) is also bad sign, as well as ranger running ahead starting to lay traps (traps have uses, but prove uneccesary in tombs and slow things down considerably).

Distracting shot is best for wurm siege (20 second safe time), distracting shot is used to disable the dryders. Some would argue that savage shot is better, but that one needs to be spammed, and keeps one person locked on target. The greatest damage dealers would arguably be dryders, so having 6 free interrupts to shut them down should be enough. Mesmers are only dangerous for empathy, and spikes, the rest of their stuff is managable.

MM should be able to sustain minions, so the typical N/Mo with heal area works best. In my opinion, death nova is not needed. For a simple reason. A MM should have two tasks. To chain-rez minions, or spam minion healing skills. If there's time for anything else, the group is killing stuff too slow. In a fast killing group, there should be no time whatsoever for MM to cast death nova.

About pets. Many want pets rezzed first, but I'm strongly against it. The reason is the skill disable that occurs on pet death/rez. That is 8 seconds when one ranger is not spamming barrage. Since pets often die in groups, this means there's plenty of rangers not using their strongest damage dealing skill.
5 x barage with orders will do incredible ammount of damage to whole group in 8 seconds, possibly killing it. The benefit that MM would get from rerezing the corpses of pets is negligible (starting a level, or recovering from partial wipe excluded).

Targeting: most will use the 'target closest', and use barrage on that. But the barrage will send up to six arrows to opponenets around your target. So targetting the closest will mean you're only allowing to hit up to half of possible targets. Always aim at middle of the group.
While playing MM I sometimes find myself standing in front of everyone, trying to create minions. Rangers stand safely back, while I need to be closest to mob, and as such take all agro. All rangers should stand between the minions, giving the mobs closer targets, giving them also time to respond to grasps that get through, and use throw dirt. Many rangers also prefer to run away from grasps behind monks and MM. If at any time you find yourself under too much pressure, it's better to die there, than to let MM take over the tanking. A blinded grasp will take quite a few hits to kill a ranger.

Using 'unusual skills'. With PUGs it's not about bringing the best build of the hour. It's about bringing simplest and most predictable one. A R/E might bring ward against melee, but some people will not know how to take advantage of it. Symbiosis is a skill like that. It has good sides, but neither MM nor Monk will be prepared for the changed situation. Also, grasps will kill most minions in 2-4 hits, so the minimal healing brings only marginal difference in most encounters. The fastest killer overall is well aimed 5 x barrage. dealing around 35+17(+14) damage under ideal conditions means each mob takes 300-350 (damage varies) almost every second. Even SS put on individual opponents will only deal 30 or so every second. Minions help a lot here as well, but most of the time they focus on one or two mobs at most. This is also why I believe that rangers being disabled by pets are a bad move. MM should keep making minions whenever possible, if they run out of corpses during battle, the group overall is killing stuff too slow.

Leader. Groups slow down considerably when there is no clear leader. When creating a group, the leader should also be the puller (in case of ranger), and make sure the group knows that. All total wipes I've seen have occured, because someone got impatient, and pulled before the designated puller, who was waiting for mobs to get into right position.

Luck. Even with best groups that clear first three levels in record time, a disaster can happen on the fourth, for absolutely no reason. Had it happen twice.

All above is just personal experience of PUGs, from seeing what works and what doesn't, taking in consideration the lottery aspect, as well as huge skill diversity of players entering. Your milage may vary and your opinion might be different.

4runner · Mar 10, 2006, 09:53 PM // 21:53

we use traps on mm,orders and monk! And we dont die all that much anyway, stop playing in pugs if it must be that percise in execution, its a game to have fun! We And we only bring 2 rebirths!! WOW~!!!!! the rest is res!! What ever floats ur boat!

DUST TRRAP FTW!!!!!

I feel dust works great for that bad pull, it does wonders!!!

IIIPowerIII · Mar 12, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

I've recently turned to 16 BM, some expertise and some Marksman. With 2 sup rune, rest minor.

I bring Pred and Symbiosis, I dont tell to my party what spirit I bring or I get kicked right away. But once we have entered, I cast them, theyre like "WTF", I tell them, just try them, you'll see, it will not hurt you

I didint see any ppl who didnt like them. Only 1 monk, I said fine, I'll stop using them, but every ranger wanted to keep them... So now I run Tombs with Pred/Symbiosis and ppl bring Winno/FW. That make great run.

trf2374 · Mar 14, 2006, 02:59 PM // 14:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by IIIPowerIII

I bring Pred and Symbiosis, I dont tell to my party what spirit I bring or I get kicked right away.

The problem I find with Symbiosis is that necro sac spells still sac the same %, but now more HP are lost. This makes it hard for necros (and monks using OoB) to regain the lost HP since they have more to regain, which in turn makes it harder to spam orders or minion healing spells. The one time I had a ranger drop Symbiosis, our orders necro died a few times by stepping out of Symbiosis or having enchants drop off of him at the wrong time. I know I couldn't heal him, heal other barely moved his HP bar.

It also made my job harder as a monk since the enchants would come up & down since the necro couldn't keep the orders up reliably due to having massive HP loss from saccing. This in turn made the other chars have massive HP & lose it in the blink of an eye. I never knew if the ranger getting beat on had 1k hp or 500 hp.