Curse

Iuris · Apr 19, 2011, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

You cant just take the 20% recharge for spells from staves and call that an EVAS advantage over asuran summon. Asuran summons are spells too. Besides, you need at least 50% faster recharge for EVAS to have it up at all times.

There is a big difference here. Asuran summons have a one at a time limit, which means no matter how much sooner it recharges, it only matters to replace a lost one.

With Ebon vanguard assassin support, you can have several assassins up at the same time. Several assassins activating barbs/mark of pain, distracting enemies, knocking down hexed foes, with more coming in with arcane echo/assassin's promise recharge/any boss killed recharge/HSR recharge boost/EBSoW recharge/...

Brian the Gladiator · Apr 19, 2011, 01:07 PM // 13:07

I use EVAS on my SoS rit. It is useful because EVAS can group a mob for me and then I can cast Painful Bond on the entire mob before warping my spirits in to pummel them. It's much more useful that way than any asuran summon and plays an active role to synergize the build. The asuran summons basically don't synergize with anything.

majoho · Apr 19, 2011, 02:36 PM // 14:36

^ I'm currently playing a spirit rit and I can't hardly ever find room for these summons. Vampirism, Draw Spirits and Pain Inverter are my PvE skills of choice.

When I occasion were to use one of the summons it would still be the assassin instead of Vampirism because this whole 3 second cast is putting me off, and the assassin does all the damage when I want him to and isn't just another ally with one skill.

--

Also This thread made me go finish the polymock quests on my current char and damn it was a pain even worse than the solo quests.

Voodoo Rage · Apr 19, 2011, 02:58 PM // 14:58

I wouldn't carry Pain Inverter either. Yes, it has specific situations where you can absolutely rape an elementalist but I'm sure it's overall contribution is fairly minimal. (Impossible to really compute a DPS calculation).

I also think Finish Him! is highly overrated. Other than an AP recharge, it's basically a maximum of 180 damage and cracked armor on an enemy that is already dying. In H/H PvE, an enemy with less then 50% health is one that is already targeted by your team's AI and is going to die regardless in a short time. Coupled with a 15 second recharge, I consider that a weak skill.

majoho · Apr 19, 2011, 03:04 PM // 15:04

It's the ONE PvE skill I wouldn't be doing HM dungeons without.

As I mentioned before overall contribution/DPS isn't that important getting things killed when you need to is.

Ghull Ka · Apr 19, 2011, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

I wouldn't carry Pain Inverter either. Yes, it has specific situations where you can absolutely rape an elementalist but I'm sure it's overall contribution is fairly minimal. (Impossible to really compute a DPS calculation).

I also think Finish Him! is highly overrated. Other than an AP recharge, it's basically a maximum of 180 damage and cracked armor on an enemy that is already dying. In H/H PvE, an enemy with less then 50% health is one that is already targeted by your team's AI and is going to die regardless in a short time. Coupled with a 15 second recharge, I consider that a weak skill.

Respectfully disagreeing with you on the second point. A shout that delivers a damage spike, cracked armor and a deep wound every 15s is definitely not a weak skill. It's overpowered. Sure your AI might kill that target soon, but on the other hand it might heal up and continue attacking. But with the push of a button you can "Finish Him!" and flatten that enemy, instantly, from a distance. Pretty amazing.

On the first point, don't sell Pain Inverter too short. Sure, it gets most of its press from blowing up "hard mode ele bosses" and the like, but it also does very well at blowing up non-bosses. It's not only for niche use. This skill will guarantee a one-shot kill on most enemies that use Churning Earth, Maelstrom, or other AoE skills, especially if you bring minions. Pushing one button and WTFinsta-gibbing up an enemy that would otherwise continue dropping AoEs down on you is useful in many situations. (i'm looking at you, stone summit warders)

But if it's just you, solo, with spirits? Pain Inverter probably won't shine too bright, unless you put it on something that AoE's all your spirits at once.

@topic, EVAS is a skill unlike any other, and I don't even care about its DPS output. To me, the skill description of EVAS reads: "Conjure meat in the middle of a pack of enemies, to hold them in place for a sec, so you can nuke them before they scatter, and so they blow their initial damage spike on it, rather than on you."

I love it!

Voodoo Rage · Apr 19, 2011, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Good points, I think you guys are changing my mind on a lot of these skills, especially the EVAS. I'll give them all a try.

Anyone willing to defend the relative value of Vampirism? It seems mainstay on most Rit bars but ultimately, even with the Painful Bond applied, it's basically 20 DPS and some heal. Obvious great for solo farming but in full party PvE? I'm thinking it should be dropped in favor of better skills (including my beloved Asuran Summons...

....).

Kunder · Apr 19, 2011, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Keep in mind, PvE is not 2 infinite HP teams beating each other to death for all eternity. The fact that an asuran summon can out-DPS EVAS over a minute period is irrelevant when you spend half that time running between mobs. EVAS's recharge of 30s is about the rate at which you can kill one enemy and move on to the next. The reason spike skills like EVAS/Finish Him are useful is because if you can spike off 1 or 2 enemies you pretty much win the battle right there and the rest is just clean up. That said, I would still never bring EVAS unless running AP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

Anyone willing to defend the relative value of Vampirism? It seems mainstay on most Rit bars but ultimately, even with the Painful Bond applied, it's basically 20 DPS and some heal. Obvious great for solo farming but in full party PvE? I'm thinking it should be dropped in favor of better skills (including my beloved Asuran Summons...

....).

Well, its armor ignoring which means a ton in HM. Large spirit groups also body block pretty well, which makes an enemy melee line very easy to nuke. Not amazing but its OK. Bad players that bring an entire bar of spirits are bad though.

Swingline · Apr 19, 2011, 10:11 PM // 22:11

since your dedicating a skill slot for the summon it should be 1 sec cast time like the rit spirits and have a 30 second recharge. even with those buffs evas is still superior.

Frozen Ele · Apr 19, 2011, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

Deep Freeze is 25 energy and a 2 second cast time for a snare of 10 seconds and a downtime of 5 seconds.

The Ice Imp (albeit a PvE skill) lasts for up to 60 seconds and will provide the same movement reduction and approximately the same efficiency more or less (6 seconds of snaring recharging every 10 seconds).

I'm not sure if Frozen Ele sees this thread but I'm curious of his opinion of the Ice Imp.

A lot of valid points have already been brought up both for and against, but to me, Ice Imp isn't too spectacular snare-wise because:

There's no control over it.
Although the Ice Imp will spam Ice Spikes when it can, it won't always target your target, so you won't necessarily get the snare where you want it (it will be useless some of the time). Beyond not being able to choose where you get the snare, you also can't choose when you'll get the snare. While the Imp may spam it, you aren't guaranteed to have it up when you need it.
Deep Freeze is better.
Although costing more energy and overall taking more effort to use, the increased range of Deep Freeze is a great advantage. If you're running any AoE larger than adjacent range then upgrading to Deep Freeze is going to be more useful. If using the snare to immobilize melee, etc., the increased range is also going to be more useful because you'll be able to potentially snare more foes (unless all the foes are nicely balled into adjacent range, Deep Freeze is going to have an advantage over Ice Spikes). Finally, Deep Freeze has a greater duration and efficiency than Ice Spikes (10sec vs. 6sec, 58.82% vs. 50%) so for longer lasting AoE, Deep Freeze is going to have another advantage.

Dervish Kid · Apr 20, 2011, 01:28 AM // 01:28

i cant really judge, i cant even beat the pokemasters to actually be rewarded these skills.

Voodoo Rage · Apr 20, 2011, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dervish Kid

i cant really judge, i cant even beat the pokemasters to actually be rewarded these skills.

I just did it to the end using 3 purple pieces (kappa, fire elemental, earth elemental). I'm really bad at interrupting, so I didn't even try. They will always open with a glyph of concentration and then their big attack which you can still block. You can then cast your own glyph of concentration and then your biggest spell. Otherwise I just spam away, just blindly casting block and the interrupt (I don't bother trying to time it, I just cast it on recharge). Usually blocking that first attack and getting your big attack successfully cast will ensure you a win. Obviously you want to recharge your energy as soon as it gets to zero too.

So in other words, it's pretty doable and obviously helps if you can get your hands on a few powerful pieces. It doesn't take a ton of strategy so I wouldn't be afraid to try it.

Lyra Padfoot · Apr 20, 2011, 10:45 AM // 10:45

I struggled with Polymock until I was lucky and got a Gold Polymock from a chest. As per poster above though, get a few purples and its less tricky.

The wikis are quite good telling you what pieces work best against each poly-master and which are the main "must interrupt skills" that they use.

I have completed polymock on all 9 of my characters now and got my missus through it on one of hers too

majoho · Apr 20, 2011, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dervish Kid

i cant really judge, i cant even beat the pokemasters to actually be rewarded these skills.

There are only two of the encounters that are really tough - Blarp and Volumandus.

I tried quite a few times the other day and finally beat Blarp, then I proceeded to fail at Volumandus a couple of times before trying the other two and I could do those pretty easy and with the pieces I got from that I could beat Volumandus as well, the final battle wasn't hard but maybe I was just lucky.

Daesu · Apr 20, 2011, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirNukes

If you proc a half recharge on Asuran summons it will gain you nothing since you can only have one Asuran summon out at a time.

Not true, because your Asuran summon can be killed before its lifespan is up so having a faster recharge still helps sometimes.

Quote:

Vanguard sins are not limited in this way. I don't know what you mean by that last part; 50% faster recharge is what a staff proc gives you, but the idea of full EVAS uptime is kinda meaningless since they are unlimited summons--you want as many as you can get, like killing the boss in a boss pack first to get an immediate second 'sin.

They still need a 30s recharge so without AP and arcane echo, you can only have 1 vanguard sin for 15s max and be without one for another 15s. You need to gain 50% faster recharge to have it up all the time without using tricks like AP or arcane echo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iuris

There is a big difference here. Asuran summons have a one at a time limit, which means no matter how much sooner it recharges, it only matters to replace a lost one.

It still helps if your asuran summon is killed before its natural lifespan.

Quote:

With Ebon vanguard assassin support, you can have several assassins up at the same time. Several assassins activating barbs/mark of pain, distracting enemies, knocking down hexed foes, with more coming in with arcane echo/assassin's promise recharge/any boss killed recharge/HSR recharge boost/EBSoW recharge/...

Only with tricks like AP or arcane echo, otherwise its natural recharge is a long 30s for a sin that only lasts for 15s. You can't have more than one sin out at a time without resorting to these tricks.

Although I use EVAS a lot more, I like the fact that I don't need to control my asuran summon on my passive character when I am bringing 2 characters across a mission at the same time.

Voodoo Rage · Apr 21, 2011, 03:51 AM // 03:51

I think you guys convinced me on the Ebon Sin. Just doing a few misc missions with the sin in place of the Ruby Djinn and the sin is clearly more effective overall. The main advantage I see is the ability to spike a monk or other desirable target right out of the gate and as mentioned the sin just draws the whole mobs attention almost every time so they do all waste their initial spells on him. That alone makes him immensely valuable even if the enemy manages to kill him right out of the gate.

Thank for all the input, very appreciated.

azur3 · Apr 21, 2011, 09:47 AM // 09:47

The only useful asuran summons are Ruby Djinn and Naga Shaman (for some particualar SC).
Though, PI, EVAS and YMLAD! own them easily

EPO Bot · Apr 21, 2011, 10:24 AM // 10:24

They are decent meatshields when you have em at level 20.