Curse

Racthoh · Mar 26, 2011, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Our Virus

More ias is more dps and everyone loves dps.

Soldier's Stance: 80% uptime at 33% IAS, 20 energy a minute upkeep. Subject to energy denial, stance removal, Vocal Minority.

Aggressive Refrain: 100% uptime at 25% IAS, 0 energy a minute upkeep. Subject to Vocal Minority.

The difference between a 33% IAS and a 25% IAS is 6 extra attacks a minute with a spear. Soldier's Stance is giving you a 75% block 80% of the time and that's all. With an Essence of Celerity the traditional bar frees up a skill slot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

spear of fury gives +7 adrenaline with one hit, thus allowing you to use SY almost instantly. and it does more damage than any other attack skill, and it charges all other adrenaline spear skills instantly. If you think it's worth losing this ability so that you can bring TNTF, go right ahead. Not worth it imo.

With heroes, I have Dark Fury. If I am worried about a pull and I have no adrenaline saved from the previous pull because it went away naturally or I was mashing "Save Yourselves!" with one enemy left like an idiot, then I will pre-cast Dark Fury, switch to my bow, and get 4 adrenaline. Swap back to spear, Swift Javelin to get the 8th adrenaline strike before their melee get in range. Spear of Fury is also an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket approach to playing, and for a character designed with a defensive application in mind firstly I don't feel this is the right way to play. Spear of Fury means you have to pay a lot closer attention to enemy blocks and minor annoyances like Spirit/Price of Failure or a hard mode enemy just naturally moving faster. That seems like an unnecessary hassle to subject yourself to every 8 seconds.

I don't bring other adrenaline attack skills, or other adrenaline skills at all, since most just aren't that... good, so Spear of Fury charging them is moot. Its damage? Well "Find Their Weakness!" even at a mere 7 Command is +26 damage (32 at 9 for those without an R7 Command shield) and gives Deep Wound, so +126/+132 every 15 seconds and it can be pre-cast before combat so if a group of enemies has 2 priority targets 2 deep wounds are readily available. It also won't miss, be blocked, or avoided, it sticks around until it hits. Spear of Fury tops out at +40 every 8 seconds, so +80 in roughly the same time frame as "Find Their Weakness!". It can miss, be blocked, or avoided.

I don't see how any of that can be considered stronger than what "There's Nothing to Fear!" does. 35% reduction when you can't shout, and a party heal for degeneration that you can't stop with "Save Yourselves!".

Overall Soldier's Stance blocking physical attacks for a single character (the aforementioned IAS boost is easily replaceable) is a waste. If you're dying as the only party member without that +100 armor I can only assume it's because you're dropping redundancies elsewhere, a safe assumption since you already feel "There's Nothing to Fear!" is a waste. Some prots lose their full potential, but not entirely. You don't start running full heal bars on your backline when "Save Yourselves!" is present.

rkubik · Mar 26, 2011, 09:08 PM // 21:08

This looks very interesting. I think this has just given me an excuse to dust off my Paragon for some VQing

Khomet Si Netjer · Mar 29, 2011, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

Soldier's Stance: 80% uptime at 33% IAS, 20 energy a minute upkeep. Subject to energy denial, stance removal, Vocal Minority.

Aggressive Refrain: 100% uptime at 25% IAS, 0 energy a minute upkeep. Subject to Vocal Minority. Gives you squishy caster level armor.

The difference between a 33% IAS and a 25% IAS is 6 extra attacks a minute with a spear. Soldier's Stance is giving you a 75% block 80% of the time and that's all. With an Essence of Celerity the traditional bar frees up a skill slot.

Fixed that for you.
I agree that consumables are the best option for paragon IAS, however the Soldier's Stance build is a good option if you don't want to use consumables.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

With heroes, I have Dark Fury. If I am worried about a pull and I have no adrenaline saved from the previous pull because it went away naturally or I was mashing "Save Yourselves!" with one enemy left like an idiot, then I will pre-cast Dark Fury, switch to my bow, and get 4 adrenaline. Swap back to spear, Swift Javelin to get the 8th adrenaline strike before their melee get in range. Spear of Fury is also an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket approach to playing, and for a character designed with a defensive application in mind firstly I don't feel this is the right way to play. Spear of Fury means you have to pay a lot closer attention to enemy blocks and minor annoyances like Spirit/Price of Failure or a hard mode enemy just naturally moving faster. That seems like an unnecessary hassle to subject yourself to every 8 seconds.

You're saying that microing Dark Fury, switching to bow, shooting a target, switching back to spear, activating Swift Javelin, then hitting SY is easier than simply hitting Spear of Fury then SY? /sigh

In the case where targets are blocking this build is capable of breaking stances, the standard bar cannot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

I don't bring other adrenaline attack skills, or other adrenaline skills at all, since most just aren't that... good, so Spear of Fury charging them is moot. Its damage? Well "Find Their Weakness!" even at a mere 7 Command is +26 damage (32 at 9 for those without an R7 Command shield) and gives Deep Wound, so +126/+132 every 15 seconds and it can be pre-cast before combat so if a group of enemies has 2 priority targets 2 deep wounds are readily available. It also won't miss, be blocked, or avoided, it sticks around until it hits. Spear of Fury tops out at +40 every 8 seconds, so +80 in roughly the same time frame as "Find Their Weakness!". It can miss, be blocked, or avoided.

I'm glad you like "Find Their Weakness" so much, it's a great skill; however saying that all of the adrenaline spear skills are "not good" is simply not true. Blazing Spear does the equivalent of +63 damage @ 12 spear mastery, and Wild Throw is unblockable and removes a stance as well. You can charge both of them in 8s with IAS, even without any additional adrenaline boost. Spear of Fury allows both of them to be used again so you can use them at least twice in 8 seconds. That is 100% improvement, certainly worth some consideration. In those 8 seconds you can throw one unblockable attack with Swift Javelin, but I can use Wild Throw twice and remove a stance each time. I can also use blazing spear twice, which is +126 in bonus damage and burning without considering base spear damage or other buffs. And of course if you use Focused Anger or Soldier's Fury to boost adrenaline gain you can use these even more...

if you add all of this up you get +17(x4), +63(x4), and +40(x2) in 16 seconds. That is +400 bonus damage in 16s... way more than FTW can provide. And there's nothing stopping you from bringing FTW as well, either on this character or a hero.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

I don't see how any of that can be considered stronger than what "There's Nothing to Fear!" does. 35% reduction when you can't shout, and a party heal for degeneration that you can't stop with "Save Yourselves!".

Overall Soldier's Stance blocking physical attacks for a single character (the aforementioned IAS boost is easily replaceable) is a waste. If you're dying as the only party member without that +100 armor I can only assume it's because you're dropping redundancies elsewhere, a safe assumption since you already feel "There's Nothing to Fear!" is a waste. Some prots lose their full potential, but not entirely. You don't start running full heal bars on your backline when "Save Yourselves!" is present.

You can't maintain TNTF, nor does it shield the party from damage the way SY does. It's a nice bonus but not a must-have. Soldier's Stance is for cases where you're not using consumables and you can't (or won't) depend on a prot monk to keep you shielded all the time. Instead of depending on another character to protect the Imbagon, he protects himself. By the way it's perfectly reasonable to bring TNTF as well, just drop EBSoH and have someone else bring it. Just to be clear.... I never said that this build was superior to the standard Imbagon bar, it's just an alternative. It is better in some ways and worse in others.