Curse

Super Igor · Apr 22, 2009, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

When it comes to Mark of Pain, I'd be looking to maximise the attack rate as I'd expect Mark of Pain to outdamage Death Blossom.
The only concern with MoP with Locust's, is that a heavily buffed sin may end up killing the marked target too quickly.

well, first of all Locust's wont give you 100% to double strike, it will only give you about 74% and it does not effect leads and off-hands so you have to rely on weak assassin auto-attacks which even with buffs wont deal as much damage as the attack skills would with the same buffs. Sometimes, it is pretty hard and pointless to try to ball the foes perfectly for mop so you end up killing off some of them one by one and ms/db beats Locust at that, not to mention that it is less ench-dependant but w/e.
It will take a generic MS/DB sin three attacks to hit with Blossom, [golden fox strike][wild strike][death [email protected]], lets assume you got lucky to make three consequtive double strikes with the Locust, same time taken but more hits. lets see how much aoe damage they will deal with [email protected]:
MS/DB 43*2+38*4=238
Locust 6*38=228

Locust deals a little less damage, but you are not guaranteed to make exactly 6 hits.

Xenomortis · Apr 22, 2009, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc

There is no problem with the lead up. You're still landing effective armour ignoring damage on the target until you get into MS/DB. It takes all of two seconds to do under an IAS.

Two seconds seems a lot to me, but I'm not certain and I'm going to use it anyway.

In that 2 seconds, an assassin with Locust's Fury would have made (on average and under critical agility) just under 4 attacks (3.9 with 12 in Dagger Mastery).

How long it takes to prep DB/MS spamming depends on what you use. If you do use a standard, Lead Attack/Off-Hand Attack, it's going to take longer than using Golden Phoenix Strike.

I'm not sure why I say all this. I'm not so much trying to argue for Locust's Fury or against Death Blossom. I'm just... I dunno.

Super Igor · Apr 22, 2009, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

The problem is that the hero will lock onto the target you call and that Mark of Pain is on a 20 seconds recharge. If you play the way I do (which I guess) you call nearly every target for focused fire. In this manner it will become inevitable, unless you micro the Mark, that it gets put on a low-priority target now and then.

You could give the hero Assassin's Promise, but then, you'd need to micro that...

I do have AP on the bar and heroes are very good with it by themselves too.

As for my playstyle, I find a good target and focus my target on it, depending on a setup tho I might assign a hero to lock on other target mostly to disable it but the buff necro is still going to be targetting the same target I do if thats what you mean..

Paul Dawg · Apr 22, 2009, 07:22 PM // 19:22

And YOU'RE talking to someone who has done every HM zone, dungeon, and mission in the game--most of them with my trusty [pain inverter].

Puh-leeze take your Legendary Vanquisher and show it to someone who might actually be impressed.

Edited to add: What does Legendary Vanquisher have to do with HM dungeons anyway? Lol, enjoy your title.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

You're talking to a Legendary Vanquisher, newbie.

snaek · Apr 22, 2009, 07:35 PM // 19:35

dagger attack speed with 33% ias = 0.88 seconds

[[locusts fury]
0.88s: 2 attacks
1.76s: 4 attacks
2.64s: 6 attacks
3.52s: 8 attacks
4.40s: 10 attacks
5.28s: 12 attacks
6.16s: 14 attacks

[[moebius strike]/[[death blossom]
0.88s: 1 attack (+30 dmg)
1.76s: 2 attacks (+65 dmg)
2.64s: 4 attacks (+155 dmg)*
3.52s: 5 attacks (+190 dmg)
4.40s: 7 attacks (+280 dmg)*
5.28s: 8 attacks (+305 dmg)
6.16s: 10 attacks (+395 dmg)*

(*death blossom activated)

3 [[death blossom]'s on a single foe is a bit high tbh, but its not unusual. i'd say the average would be 2 [[death blossom]'s on each foe.

lets just take 3 for example though; you would need to make up 395 bonus dmg (not counting any aoe) with 4 attacks.

[[locust's fury] imo can only shine under 2 circumstances:
1) armour-ignoring dmg is unimportant/undesirable
2) [[death blossom] has less opportunities to be activated

i.e. normal mode

Moloch Vein · Apr 22, 2009, 07:44 PM // 19:44

^ What I meant is that if you are in full "DB/Moebius" mode it eats all your energy and leaves you short with energy for other utility. And yes, I have run out of energy with DB/MS, usually because of one or two missed attacks and because I do not generally pack Critical Eye.

Hatchet Child · Apr 22, 2009, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

What does Legendary Vanquisher have to do with HM dungeons anyway? Lol, enjoy your title.

Most HM dungeons are either easy or bugged 70% of the time.

....oh and not forgetting you can Purchase runs through them all.

Super Igor · Apr 22, 2009, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

^ What I meant is that if you are in full "DB/Moebius" mode it eats all your energy and leaves you short with energy for other utility. And yes, I have run out of energy with DB/MS, usually because of one or two missed attacks and because I do not generally pack Critical Eye.

start using crit eye, seriously.

Hatchet Child · Apr 22, 2009, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

start using crit eye, seriously.

QFT

If your spamming 2 skills in quick succession your gonna need Crit eye.

....using anything else like another attack skill or maintainable thing would clog the bar up way too much.

Bobby2 · Apr 22, 2009, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

^ What I meant is that if you are in full "DB/Moebius" mode it eats all your energy and leaves you short with energy for other utility. And yes, I have run out of energy with DB/MS, usually because of one or two missed attacks and because I do not generally pack Critical Eye.

What Igor said. Not packing Crit Eye (or Crit Strike, if you will) is a case of severe fail.

snaek, though your calculations seem to be correct, the biggest gripe of Locust's sins with Blossom chaining is the intro: [golden fox strike][wild strike].

Having 0% chance to double strike, they don't abuse external attack buffs as much as autoattacks would. (Of course, they are unblockable, and have pretty damn good bonus damage, but let's disregard that for argument's sake.)

What people advocating Locust's forget is that a Blossom spammer can also opt to autoattack if it would be more beneficial than starting a chain. At 14 Dagger Mastery, standard double strike probability is already 30%, and I've never wanted for procs - nor have my Curses supporters. Because seriously, any Sin whining about the reduced number of MoP triggers should be -kicked- and replaced with an MM. Minions do it way better.

riktw · Apr 22, 2009, 11:32 PM // 23:32

well minions attack once every 3 sec or so, LCFury sin almost every 0.5 sec
you need 6 minions to attack more often than LCFury sin.
and most of the time your sin listens to what you ping and your minions not.
anyway this reached 5 pages, so i am shocked lol
hmm, MoP necro + bonder monk + LCFury sin that aggro's about 30 raptors/veattirs/whatevers, i want screenies of the MoP damage lol

expugnare · Apr 23, 2009, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

I used this for the lulz, must say its pretty funny.

[build prof=a/w box dagger=14 crit=13][locusts fury][critical agility][critical eye][for great justice!][save yourselves!][ebon battle standard of honor][air of superiority][distracting strike][/build]

Well, I must confess my ignorance here; but, wouldn't this build be impossible to run? I'm counting four PvE moves.... SY, EBSOH, Air of Sup and Crit. Agil. Of course, I could be very wrong, as I never really play my assassin.

Or was it just a casual attempt at trolling, hence the "I used this for the lulz, must say its pretty funny."

Thanks.

Bobby2 · Apr 23, 2009, 01:34 AM // 01:34

^lol

[rush][i am the strongest][disrupting stab][wild blow][critical agility][locust's fury][critical eye][air of superiority]

SY! was taken care of, so I could tamper with PvE skills to -maybe- make it worth the change from Blossom spamming... (not)

Chthon · Apr 23, 2009, 04:05 AM // 04:05

1. This build concept is... cute.

2. The damage is bad, for the reasons Snaek points out.

3. The damage is bad, even in the ideal situation with a AP-MoP teammate. Look at Snaek's post again. Even assuming all 4 of the Locust build's extra attacks hit a MoP-ed target with a dozen enemies in adjacent range, that does less damage than the 6 DB triggers the MS-DB build would do to the same dozen adjacent enemies. In fact, the Locust build falls further behind the bigger the mob gets.

4. I'm not sure if the purpose of this build is something actually worth doing. There's no point in spamming SY! more often than once every 4 sec (5 sec of you have a decent rank). Having a bit of extra adrenaline helps you buffer if you miss an attack, etc., but I'm not sure you gain anything worthwhile by taking it to this extreme.

5. Dodge This is a terrible skill for anyone who is supposed to be spamming SY!

6. Pain Inverter is a terrible skill on anyone who is supposed to be spamming SY!. Getting a good effect from it relies on you screwing up the SY! spam. Doh!

Also, it's a pretty bad skill generally. With a few dungeon bosses aside (I'm looking at you, Isuldur...), most monsters (a) don't live long enough for PI to do much, and (b) don't do enough damage that you couldn't just kill them faster via direct damage. Additionally, (c) reactive hexing is weak in general.

Moloch Vein · Apr 23, 2009, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby2

What Igor said. Not packing Crit Eye (or Crit Strike, if you will) is a case of severe fail.

You only have 8 slots on your bar. Sometimes it's hard to make room for everything. When something has to go, I generally skip Critical Eye.

If we look on a standard PvE bar,

[build prof=a/w dagg=12+1+1 crit=12+1][critical agility][golden fox strike][wild strike][death blossom][moebius strike][save yourselves][/build]

This is sort of the minimum required to make the bar useful, in my opinion. You could compress by switching in Golden Phoenix Strike but then your entire combo becomes blockable, which isn't always a good thing. This is also 6 slots right there and we end up with 4 attack skills of which only 1 provides any utility. Still, this is a very good bar.

Now, if we really do want to be able to keep up Save Yourselves without 1: wasting a paragon elite for pretty unreliable returns (Anthem of Fury) or 2: bringing an entire extra character you might or might not bring otherwise (Orders Dervish with Dark Fury) we need to add:

[for great justice][air of superiority]

As you see this fills the entire bar. Now, this is only an example. By the way, that stuff about MS/DB not being "maintainable" was sort of an afterthought. It's not really a criticism of the build. However what was discussed seemed to be the best way to fuel SY!, in which case I felt that it might be prudent to note.

The reason that I feel Air is such a strong skill for this character isn't just that it will likely recharge FGJ. It's also for the other passive benefits, which include complete condition removal (handy for physicals), health given, energy given.

As for Dawg it's pretty obvious he can't even read the thread order.

Paul Dawg · Apr 23, 2009, 06:49 AM // 06:49

That's the most serious concern for me, and why I still think the tried-and-true SY-spamming builds like warrior Godmode and Imbagon are still superior to any sin bar you can make with [locust's fury]. Yes, the bar I posted earlier in the thread was able to spam SY faster than any other bar I've ever used, but plenty of times I found myself reapplying SY long before the previous shot was going to wear off. And even with some mischief-making skills like [disrupting stab], you're still not going to disrupt casters nearly as much as an old-fashioned warrior armed with the famous ["for great justice!" (pve)][dragon slash]["save yourselves!" (luxon)][brawling headbutt] combination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

4. I'm not sure if the purpose of this build is something actually worth doing. There's no point in spamming SY! more often than once every 4 sec (5 sec of you have a decent rank). Having a bit of extra adrenaline helps you buffer if you miss an attack, etc., but I'm not sure you gain anything worthwhile by taking it to this extreme.

Moloch Vein · Apr 23, 2009, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Personally I just find it annoying having to reapply Locust's.

glountz · Apr 23, 2009, 10:54 AM // 10:54

You don't need For Great Justice.

You don't need to devote a whole thread or build to find a way to spam SY!.

Just get 10 Kurzick/Luxons rank, have a 6 secs duration SY!, then play any bar you want with IAS to keep it up all the time.

A 6 secs SY! can be kept up with a standar Critical agility DB-MS bar without the need of FGJ.

Builds revolving around a unique skill are bad most of the time.

Seriously.

Bobby2 · Apr 23, 2009, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

You only have 8 slots on your bar. Sometimes it's hard to make room for everything. When something has to go, I generally skip Critical Eye.

If we look on a standard PvE bar,

[build prof=a/w dagg=12+1+1 crit=12+1][critical agility][golden fox strike][wild strike][death blossom][moebius strike][save yourselves][/build]

This is sort of the minimum required to make the bar useful, in my opinion. You could compress by switching in Golden Phoenix Strike but then your entire combo becomes blockable, which isn't always a good thing. This is also 6 slots right there and we end up with 4 attack skills of which only 1 provides any utility. Still, this is a very good bar.

It is. Still, if bar space is this much of an issue, I'd make the change to GPS, swap in Eye, and rely on Rigor calls.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Now, if we really do want to be able to keep up Save Yourselves without 1: wasting a paragon elite for pretty unreliable returns (Anthem of Fury) or 2: bringing an entire extra character you might or might not bring otherwise (Orders Dervish with Dark Fury) we need to add:

[for great justice][air of superiority]

[Anthem of [email protected]] is teh shiz. Free [enraging charge] for everyone, every 10 seconds? Yes plz. As has been pointed out you don't strictly -need- any adren buffs to keep up a 6s SY!, so this is just built-in redundancy.

Leaving the last PvE slot free to spend on [asuran scan]. Woot.

Super Igor · Apr 23, 2009, 12:03 PM // 12:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by expugnare

Well, I must confess my ignorance here; but, wouldn't this build be impossible to run? I'm counting four PvE moves.... SY, EBSOH, Air of Sup and Crit. Agil. Of course, I could be very wrong, as I never really play my assassin.

Or was it just a casual attempt at trolling, hence the "I used this for the lulz, must say its pretty funny."

Thanks.

I was laughing so hard that nobody noticed...

you ruined my fun, dam you.