Curse

fgarvin · Nov 25, 2005, 01:15 AM // 01:15

I made it to the Fire Islands a while ago, but haven't tried a mission there (or anywhere) since the update, so today I decided to give the first one a try. Cynn is now right behind the mesmer henchie when it comes to being useless. I've read that making the mobs scatter can be helpful, but I don't find that to be true and when it comes to 10 Mursaat, it can be a royal pain.

Should ANet switch her spells around to something that can actually contribute to completing a mission?

Fyre Brand · Nov 25, 2005, 01:33 AM // 01:33

I went to cap in Ring of Fire so I filled up the 7 slots and left Dunham like I always do. There was no real problems through the whole run except I forgot to take Mantra of Flame. Oh well I can still get through the nasty Lava Imp part.

So I'm past all the ettins, lava imps, spiders, the floating octopus things, and the few mursaat/tower outposts. But it was at these that I started to notice Cynn was a small problem. At the second outpost/tower the boss was the Jade Bow ranger and he kept retreating. It was taking around twice as long to kill him. Then I finally put it together. Doh! Cynn's firestorms were the problem.

Well the insane problem came when I got to Coventina. It took me forever to wear her mana down. I wasn't really aggravated because I hadn't intended to get that far. I just went to cap the breeze keeper boss, but I brought a second signet just in case I got lucky. The only way I could actually kill her was to get Cynn killed and that way Coventina wouldn't retreat into the ether seal tower, which was too much to handle.

Short Answer: No Cynn ever again. I never thought I would say this: I wish I had brought Dunham. Aiden is fairly useless as well I found. His elite is practiced stance. At the least he could have something useful for the area like poison arrow or melandru's arrows. Oh well, lesson learned.

Kai Nui · Nov 25, 2005, 02:26 AM // 02:26

NOOO! henchmen were awesome aswell as area spells. Now all area spells are USELESS. cah-rap.

dargon · Nov 25, 2005, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyre Brand

Well the insane problem came when I got to Coventina. It took me forever to wear her mana down. I wasn't really aggravated because I hadn't intended to get that far. I just went to cap the breeze keeper boss, but I brought a second signet just in case I got lucky. The only way I could actually kill her was to get Cynn killed and that way Coventina wouldn't retreat into the ether seal tower, which was too much to handle.

Maybe you should have killed the towers first, coventina won't heal them, then you can kill her at your leasure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyre Brand

Short Answer: No Cynn ever again. I never thought I would say this: I wish I had brought Dunham. Aiden is fairly useless as well I found. His elite is practiced stance. At the least he could have something useful for the area like poison arrow or melandru's arrows. Oh well, lesson learned.

As for Aiden, he uses preps so Practiced Stance is a good elite for him, makes them last longer which saves his energy for other things. Poison Arrow is useless against Jades, as is the bleeding that Melandrus causes and if you get a condition or a hex on a mob many of the bosses have a special ability called "Natural Resistance" (FF #62), which reduces by 1/2 the duration of hexes and conditions.

Personally, I think practiced stance is a good skill for Aiden, I just wish you could cap the skills from the henchmen when they die

Fyre Brand · Nov 26, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by dargon

Maybe you should have killed the towers first, coventina won't heal them, then you can kill her at your leasure.

As for Aiden, he uses preps so Practiced Stance is a good elite for him, makes them last longer which saves his energy for other things. Poison Arrow is useless against Jades, as is the bleeding that Melandrus causes and if you get a condition or a hex on a mob many of the bosses have a special ability called "Natural Resistance" (FF #62), which reduces by 1/2 the duration of hexes and conditions.

Personally, I think practiced stance is a good skill for Aiden, I just wish you could cap the skills from the henchmen when they die

1. Coventina does appear to heal the tower. I watched her. Unless it has a "while being damaged regen" that other towers don't seem to have. If it wasn't being healed I would have killed it first. But that whole idea is pointless. The point is that I had pulled Coventina out of the towers range and the firestorm chased her back into it. Even if there wasn't a tower there the warriors would have been chasing her around.

2. Everyone has there opinion about what skills make up a good ranger. I see very few practiced stance builds for PvE that people use. Yes I know there are some, but there are MANY better builds. I was capping on my monk but I have played through all the way on my ranger. There is no way I would waste an elite slot on Practiced Stance in the fire islands.
-- Kindle is a 5E skill that lasts 24 seconds. There is no need for Practice Stance as an elite for that prep. In fact he should have no energy management problems what-so-ever. If his expertise level is even 8 or 9 he's getting enough of a energy reduction that nothing he is casting should matter.
-- I'm not sure what FF#62 means, and even with a shortened duration doesn't mean you don't use conditions and hexes. Conditions and interupts work really good on the Mursaat.
-- The few jade warriors/bow there are the only mops that aren't susceptible to conditions. The rest are affected and their number far outweigh the few jades. Jades aren't that tough and aren't a problem. I would rather face a group of 2 jade bow and 2 jade warriors than a group of 4 lava imps any day. In fact the Coventinas and the towers Jade guards went down pretty quick. So it would be much better to bring poison arrow for damage + degen or melandrus which would hit enchantment users (like coventina and the mursaats) harder and have a degen.

But that is neither here nor there. I still find Aiden fairly useless, but not worthless. As it stands Cynn is more of a hindrance than she is a help. I know that henchies skill set sometimes changes with their level evolution, but it should also change for the area. And in general the henchie elementalist should be switched from fire fairly early on. I think it would be nice to see Orion's and Cynn's builds have some water, air, or earth skills too. Or even if they stick with fire they should bring the fire ward at that point in the game.

Bottom line, the henchie builds need a little looking into.

And if anything changed about capping I would like to be able to cap a skill while a mops alive as well as dead. Maybe that would be too easy, but I don't think so.

d4nowar · Nov 26, 2005, 07:15 AM // 07:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyre Brand

And if anything changed about capping I would like to be able to cap a skill while a mops alive as well as dead. Maybe that would be too easy, but I don't think so.

Thats how it used to be, but people complained. Apparently people are complaining again. Who needs an elite in pve anyway?

I agree though, I've wanted some of the builds of the henchmen changed since day 1.

Why have a henchman with charge? Is it ever useful?
Why have a fire ele in a fire zone?

It might be awesome if you could like customize your own henchmen to a certain extent, but I doubt that would happen. So more variety of better henchmen is the best solution.

I haven't used Cynn or Orion since the update, I immediately just switched to Dunham.