Basic questions about SF sins... - Guild Wars Forums

Cathode_Reborn · Jun 13, 2008, 11:48 AM // 11:48

1: Since they shouldn't be taking any damage at all, is it ok to buy non-max armor and use multiple sup runes?

2: What's a good standard A/E build that uses fire magic and one that uses dagger mastery?

3: What parts of UW can they solo?

A friend and I plan on doing a full UW clear and I was wondering if it was worth bringing an SF sin? I haven't farmed/tanked in almost a year - usually I try to avoid using a tank in favor of damage when forming teams for general PvE. I actually haven't cleared UW in a long while too so besides the Four Horsemen quest, I'm not sure if an SF sin would be useful throughout the clearing.

Thanks for the help

ajc2123 · Jun 13, 2008, 11:59 AM // 11:59

1) For the most part, yes. Some areas youll still be taking damage but it still farm able.

2) Search or pvxwiki

3) chaos planes, place with abominations, grapsings and aatxes (depending on build) might be more.

The Red Messenger · Jun 13, 2008, 12:37 PM // 12:37

1. until you know which areas can be safely farmed, no. max armor will save you many times from the sources that can damage you.

2. try the build forum or pvx

3. you should try playing the game with sin first. its really a very fun class.

MagmaRed · Jun 13, 2008, 12:45 PM // 12:45

The water Ele's like to use spells that do not target you. This means SF won't protect you from the damage. Not having max armor will make that damage enough to kill you fairly easy.

Using daggers won't work with the perma-SF build. Deadly Paradox disables attack skills for 10 seconds, and the Aataxes use Riposte. Also, the Grasps will be able to use Fear Me if you hit them enough without killing them, making your energy harder to maintain to keep SF active.

Shayne Hawke · Jun 13, 2008, 12:50 PM // 12:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathode_Reborn

2: What's a good standard A/E build that uses fire magic and one that uses dagger mastery?

Just taking a glance at PvX, I see one build that is A/E that really uses daggers. Everything else seems to have SF, which leads me to believe it's one form or another of a farming build. The ones I saw with Fire Magic seem to be raptor farms.

I may have misunderstood your question, but I figured you'd be looking for non-farming builds.

Cathode_Reborn · Jun 13, 2008, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Actually was lookin for farm builds but I'll just find some on wiki

Guess I'll try an SF sin for uw today....

HawkofStorms · Jun 14, 2008, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagmaRed

Using daggers won't work with the perma-SF build. Deadly Paradox disables attack skills for 10 seconds, and the Aataxes use Riposte. Also, the Grasps will be able to use Fear Me if you hit them enough without killing them, making your energy harder to maintain to keep SF active.

Ummm... the most popular PvXwiki build for perma SF UW solo does use daggers. Yes, deadly paradox disables attack skills for 10 seconds, but you still have ~30 seconds to attack. Furthermore, you don't attack the aataxes. You just kill the graspings to open the gate and run past them.

Lykan · Jun 14, 2008, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Why would you need mulitple supe runes? All you need is 16 shadow and 12 fire thats it. I use the rest of the slots for restoration runes in case the traps get me. Which is also why i would keep my health at 400+ so if i do get hit by a random trap i dont bleed to death.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Ummm... the most popular PvXwiki build for perma SF UW solo does use daggers.

Ummm... the most popular build is fire, i dont know anyone who uses daggers and i have spoke to a lot of people.

AshenX · Jun 14, 2008, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagmaRed

The water Ele's like to use spells that do not target you. This means SF won't protect you from the damage. Not having max armor will make that damage enough to kill you fairly easy.

Using daggers won't work with the perma-SF build. Deadly Paradox disables attack skills for 10 seconds, and the Aataxes use Riposte. Also, the Grasps will be able to use Fear Me if you hit them enough without killing them, making your energy harder to maintain to keep SF active.

Actually a dagger build does work just fine but is very slow compared to the fire build. Oddly enough the slower kill rate with daggers generates a higher drop rate.

Note that critical eye, critical agility, zealous daggers, and a 13 in critical strikes will generate energy gain at a rate that Fear Me has trouble keeping up with. In fact energy management can be easier on the dagger build (from 0-40 energy in seconds).

Yes DP disables attacks for 10 seconds but you can cycle through golden fox, wild strike, and death blossom several times after the disable wears off before you need to run through the SF reapplication again.

Again, though, I must emphasize just how slow the dagger approach is. Even with a slightly greater drop rate the fact that the dagger run takes more than an hour instead of 30 minutes makes the fire build much better.

I use the dagger build to clear Tombs because the Fear Me spike there is a little less predictable than in UW and the energy gain from daggers is a much much faster way to recover if you are spiked to dangerously low energy levels at an inopportune time.

MagmaRed · Jun 14, 2008, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by AshenX

Actually a dagger build does work just fine but is very slow compared to the fire build. Oddly enough the slower kill rate with daggers generates a higher drop rate.

Note that critical eye, critical agility, zealous daggers, and a 13 in critical strikes will generate energy gain at a rate that Fear Me has trouble keeping up with. In fact energy management can be easier on the dagger build (from 0-40 energy in seconds).

Yes DP disables attacks for 10 seconds but you can cycle through golden fox, wild strike, and death blossom several times after the disable wears off before you need to run through the SF reapplication again.

Again, though, I must emphasize just how slow the dagger approach is. Even with a slightly greater drop rate the fact that the dagger run takes more than an hour instead of 30 minutes makes the fire build much better.

I use the dagger build to clear Tombs because the Fear Me spike there is a little less predictable than in UW and the energy gain from daggers is a much much faster way to recover if you are spiked to dangerously low energy levels at an inopportune time.

Aatxes can't be attacked, as their Ripostes will kill you. 13 in Critical Strikes how? I haven't seen a SF build not use 12 Shadow Arts (+1+3), so you'd have 10+3 Critical Strikes and 8+1 Dagger Mastery? Critical Eye and Agility would make a difficult build. SF, DP, GoS are all required, and a speed skill as well. 4 skills minimun, making you have 4 skills for an attack combo. Taking the 2 Criticals would make you have 2 skills to do damage.

Yes, dagger builds can work. No, they don't work as well. Farming is about doing something quickly. If you want to kill slowly, there are lots of options, and with loot scaling, taking a full team is safer, but not as slow. I just don't think someone wanting to farm will want to use daggers unless bored with the farm.

HawkofStorms · Jun 14, 2008, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Daggers do kill pretty quickly, since unlike the fire build it deals armor ignoring damage with the +x attack skills (and allows you to also farm areas with creatures with high armor against elemental damage), and with Death Blossum it has plenty of AoE, and like I said, you just don't bother with the aatxes in the dagger farm. The thing that makes the dagger build nice is that it can have a lot of utility and variations that allow you to farm areas besides UW.

The build is as follows:
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:A/...Daggers_Farmer

Anyway, the point is, they are both very viable options. Do your research and actually try something out next time before you knock it. I don't know how you can criticize something if you haven't even tried it or even seen the build (since you don't have the attribute spread right).

Jun 13, 2008, 11:48 AM // 11:48	#1
Cathode_Reborn Desert Nomad Join Date: Sep 2006	Basic questions about SF sins... 1: Since they shouldn't be taking any damage at all, is it ok to buy non-max armor and use multiple sup runes? 2: What's a good standard A/E build that uses fire magic and one that uses dagger mastery? 3: What parts of UW can they solo? A friend and I plan on doing a full UW clear and I was wondering if it was worth bringing an SF sin? I haven't farmed/tanked in almost a year - usually I try to avoid using a tank in favor of damage when forming teams for general PvE. I actually haven't cleared UW in a long while too so besides the Four Horsemen quest, I'm not sure if an SF sin would be useful throughout the clearing. Thanks for the help

Jun 14, 2008, 06:11 PM // 18:11	#11
HawkofStorms Hall Hero Join Date: Aug 2005 Profession: E/	Daggers do kill pretty quickly, since unlike the fire build it deals armor ignoring damage with the +x attack skills (and allows you to also farm areas with creatures with high armor against elemental damage), and with Death Blossum it has plenty of AoE, and like I said, you just don't bother with the aatxes in the dagger farm. The thing that makes the dagger build nice is that it can have a lot of utility and variations that allow you to farm areas besides UW. The build is as follows: http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:A/...Daggers_Farmer Anyway, the point is, they are both very viable options. Do your research and actually try something out next time before you knock it. I don't know how you can criticize something if you haven't even tried it or even seen the build (since you don't have the attribute spread right). Last edited by HawkofStorms; Jun 14, 2008 at 06:16 PM // 18:16..

Jun 13, 2008, 11:59 AM // 11:59	#2
ajc2123 Desert Nomad Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: North of the wall Profession: Me/	1) For the most part, yes. Some areas youll still be taking damage but it still farm able. 2) Search or pvxwiki 3) chaos planes, place with abominations, grapsings and aatxes (depending on build) might be more.

Jun 13, 2008, 12:37 PM // 12:37	#3
The Red Messenger Krytan Explorer Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: America	1. until you know which areas can be safely farmed, no. max armor will save you many times from the sources that can damage you. 2. try the build forum or pvx 3. you should try playing the game with sin first. its really a very fun class.

Jun 13, 2008, 12:45 PM // 12:45	#4
MagmaRed Furnace Stoker Join Date: Mar 2007 Guild: Our Crabs Know True [LOVE] Profession: R/	The water Ele's like to use spells that do not target you. This means SF won't protect you from the damage. Not having max armor will make that damage enough to kill you fairly easy. Using daggers won't work with the perma-SF build. Deadly Paradox disables attack skills for 10 seconds, and the Aataxes use Riposte. Also, the Grasps will be able to use Fear Me if you hit them enough without killing them, making your energy harder to maintain to keep SF active.

Jun 13, 2008, 08:27 PM // 20:27	#6
Cathode_Reborn Desert Nomad Join Date: Sep 2006	Actually was lookin for farm builds but I'll just find some on wiki Guess I'll try an SF sin for uw today....