Curse

Chthon · Jan 03, 2011, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by NerfHerder

I would say AR > Flurry for an Imba. Like Lanier said, AR can be easily maintained with "TNTF!". Flurry takes alot of energy and must be watched more closely. And the DPS from a spear should not be underestimated or undermined.

I prefer niether. I use a Soldier's Fury Imba and never have trouble maintaining "SY!". I also deal decent spike damage to single targets. The -20 armor isnt an issue. You still have "TNTF!", 86AR, and 110AR with "SYG!" most of the time.

Math doesn't like your build. Your base gain rate is 1.33adr/(1.5sec*.67). At that pace it takes a little over 6 sec to charge SY!. That's too long. The boost from Spear of Fury will get you there in time for every other usage of SY!, assuming you always have a target with a condition when you need it and never miss or get blocked, but you'll still be dropping SY! every other time. And that's not counting the adr you lose to GftE.

NerfHerder · Jan 03, 2011, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Math doesn't like your build. Your base gain rate is 1.33adr/(1.5sec*.67). At that pace it takes a little over 6 sec to charge SY!. That's too long. The boost from Spear of Fury will get you there in time for every other usage of SY!, assuming you always have a target with a condition when you need it and never miss or get blocked, but you'll still be dropping SY! every other time. And that's not counting the adr you lose to GftE.

I do appreciate the fact that you took the time to understand how the build works vs the usual OMG TAHTS NO META!!! RAWR RAgE!

Yeah it may take 6 seconds vs 4 seconds to gain SY!(lasts 6 seconds) every other usage. But, when you spread out the SY! with Spear of Fury it evens out, you cant even tell a difference. Not that big a deal to me. All Imbas have the block issue, so its hard to factor that in. If you do factor that in 33% IAS and higher Spear Mastery > 25% IAS. I just enjoy adding a DW+Damage spike along with SY! and TNTF in general PvE with my heros. Your typical Imba may still have a slight advantage in maintaining SY!(I know thats all an Imba is good for), I just like to be different while still doing the same job.

I suppose this build could be used just as well Spear Imba Variant

Chthon · Jan 04, 2011, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by NerfHerder

I do appreciate the fact that you took the time to understand how the build works vs the usual OMG TAHTS NO META!!! RAWR RAgE!

Yeah it may take 6 seconds vs 4 seconds to gain SY!(lasts 6 seconds) every other usage. But, when you spread out the SY! with Spear of Fury it evens out, you cant even tell a difference. Not that big a deal to me. All Imbas have the block issue, so its hard to factor that in. If you do factor that in 33% IAS and higher Spear Mastery > 25% IAS. I just enjoy adding a DW+Damage spike along with SY! and TNTF in general PvE with my heros. Your typical Imba may still have a slight advantage in maintaining SY!(I know thats all an Imba is good for), I just like to be different while still doing the same job.

I suppose this build could be used just as well Spear Imba Variant

1. You can't spread out the gain from Spear of Fury. SY!'s pool drains completely when you use it. You're always going to be stuck with SY going down every other cycle while Spear of Fury is recharging. (For that matter, you'll also be wasting a lot of the adr from Spear of Fury no matter what order you put your skills in.)

2. While all imba variants have the block problem, this is the only one that drops SY! if it doesn't have a foe with a condition to hit at the right time.

3. Yes, the Focused Anger variant is better.

4. A couple changes to that build:
a. Even at max Kurz/Lux rank, Spear of Fury is still going to under-perform EBSoHonor DPS-wise. And you don't need the adr with Focused Anger chaining with FGJ nonstop.
b. FtW can essentially replace the DW from GftE+Vicious and the spike ability of Spear of Fury.
c. Spear attacks suck, so it's really hard to outperform Vicious. If you don't have necro support, Spear of Lightning has a slightly better damage ramp and recharge. Depending on how well your adr is holding up, you might be able to pop Spear of Redemption off with the same damage ramp and a lower recharge.

Bandwagon · Jan 04, 2011, 05:59 AM // 05:59

The DPS from a spear is meh unless you stack it with physical buffs like Barbs, MoP, orders, GDW.

I honestly find AR to be enough, if it isn't then I am doing it wrong (this coming from a player with r3<X<r10 faction rank). Frenzy/Flurry sounds interesting to trigger physical buffs more often. Though Frenzy makes you more squishie (when it becomes an issue) and Flurry is hard on your blue bar.

Khomet Si Netjer · Jan 04, 2011, 12:43 PM // 12:43

I invite all aspiring paragons to select from a wide range of consumables that increase attack speed rather than using the gimped paragon IAS skills. Other professions do not have to sacrifice armor to gain increased attack speed. :-(

re: aggressive refrain, when I don't feel like using consumables I use this. Heroes will maintain it for you as long as one of them has Anthem of Flame and you have Leadership >= 10

re: soldier's fury vs. focused anger, faster attack speed means more damage. If you are already gaining adrenaline fast enough to maintain SY then Focused Anger gains you nothing and you'd be better off with Soldier's Fury.

re: spear of fury... this is enough to charge SY in one hit if you have max rank and some other adrenal boost is in play (soldier's fury, mark of fury, dark fury, anthem of fury). with celerity your Spear of Fury recharges in just over 6 seconds, so this is enough to keep SY up by itself. don't discount this option if you haven't tried it.

re: EBSoH... don't leave home without it.

Kunder · Jan 05, 2011, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

I invite all aspiring paragons to select from a wide range of consumables that increase attack speed rather than using the gimped paragon IAS skills. Other professions do not have to sacrifice armor to gain increased attack speed. :-(

I'm sure I'm not the only person who will never use consumables because they are a nothing more then a gimmick to make bad players feel better about themselves. Recommending consumables is just stupid. You might as well not post in this thread if you are just going to give up on discussing the merits of IAS.

Other professions always have to sacrifice SOMETHING for attack speed. Warriors have frenzy (equivalent of -40 armor, but also applies to armor ignoring damage and is on a front line class so its 10x more deadly than -20 armor), and Flail (essentially takes up two skill slots since you need a cancel unless you want to not hit anything). Ranger IAS options are of course laughable. Dervish has some no-downside IAS, but nothing that is both non-elite and has 100% uptime (and they also have the downside of either being an enchantment that takes time to cast and can be lost, or being in a crappy attribute). Now, Assassins get a ridiculously good IAS, but its their PvE skill and clearly for the paragon's role skills like TNTF and SY are more valuable.

Aggressive Refrain, now. Its in leadership, an attribute that anyone is going to have unless they aren't playing paragon. 100% uptime unless you fall asleep at your keyboard. Completely unremovable and can doesn't invalidate the use of other skills like a stance would. -20 armor, but even after that your class is going to have 76 armor and be in the mid line. You have to be crazy not to like Aggressive Refrain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

re: soldier's fury vs. focused anger, faster attack speed means more damage. If you are already gaining adrenaline fast enough to maintain SY then Focused Anger gains you nothing and you'd be better off with Soldier's Fury.

Depends. I could see getting extra use out of GftE being a greater damage buff in physical heavy teams.

Khomet Si Netjer · Jan 05, 2011, 04:25 PM // 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

I'm sure I'm not the only person who will never use consumables because they are a nothing more then a gimmick to make bad players feel better about themselves. Recommending consumables is just stupid. You might as well not post in this thread if you are just going to give up on discussing the merits of IAS.

...

Aggressive Refrain, now. Its in leadership, an attribute that anyone is going to have unless they aren't playing paragon. 100% uptime unless you fall asleep at your keyboard. Completely unremovable and can doesn't invalidate the use of other skills like a stance would. -20 armor, but even after that your class is going to have 76 armor and be in the mid line. You have to be crazy not to like Aggressive Refrain.

I'm discussing the merits of IAS and pointing out that consumables and skills from other professions are superior to what the paragon has.

If you are playing the typical Imbagon build your team's survival depends on you staying alive. Reducing your armor increases the likelihood that you will die and your team will die. Therefore any such armor-reducing IAS endangers your entire team and is undesirable unless you cannot afford consumables.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Other professions always have to sacrifice SOMETHING for attack speed. Warriors have frenzy (equivalent of -40 armor, but also applies to armor ignoring damage and is on a front line class so its 10x more deadly than -20 armor), and Flail (essentially takes up two skill slots since you need a cancel unless you want to not hit anything). Ranger IAS options are of course laughable. Dervish has some no-downside IAS, but nothing that is both non-elite and has 100% uptime (and they also have the downside of either being an enchantment that takes time to cast and can be lost, or being in a crappy attribute). Now, Assassins get a ridiculously good IAS, but its their PvE skill and clearly for the paragon's role skills like TNTF and SY are more valuable.

Frenzy in PvE? really? Warrior has many good IAS options in PvE, Frenzy is not one of them.

Ranger has several excellent options that you seem to have overlooked... Expert's Dexterity is permanent +2 marksmanship and +33% IAS, Rapid Fire is permanent +33% IAS. Neither one has any drawback.

Dervish has Onslaught and Pious Fury, not that they really need IAS with mystic/eremites spam. Neither of these has any drawback.

Assassins likewise have little need for IAS but they get it for free anyway, with Critical Agility or Way of the Assassin or both. Once again the assassin IAS options have no drawback.

in summary...
Other professions are able to gain permanent IAS with no armor penalty, therefore the paragon IAS skills are weak relative to the competition. This is why I advise saving a skill slot and using consumables if you have them.

BrettM · Jan 05, 2011, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

IRanger has several excellent options that you seem to have overlooked... Expert's Dexterity is permanent +2 marksmanship and +33% IAS, Rapid Fire is permanent +33% IAS. Neither one has any drawback.

No drawback?

Expert's Dexterity is only "permanent" at 15 Expertise, so you will either need an Expertise mask with a major rune or you will need a superior rune, sacrificing some degree of health to get the permanence. It is an elite skill, so it precludes the use of other useful elites, such as Barrage or Glass Arrows. I would call those some pretty significant tradeoffs.

Rapid Fire is "permanent" at 5 Marksmanship and is non-elite. However, it is a preparation, so it precludes the use of skills such as Barrage or Volley. It also precludes the use of other preparations, so you can't use it in condition builds. Again, I would call those tradeoffs significant.

Either one pretty much limits you to lower-damage attack skills, making up for that by increasing your autoattack damage. A ranger's autoattack damage is not that impressive and I think most bow rangers would prefer to spend as little time autoattacking as possible.

Haggis of Doom · Jan 05, 2011, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Frenzy in PvE? really? Warrior has many good IAS options in PvE, Frenzy is not one of them.

This is quite an erroneous statement

Also, 86 AR on a midline is not so squishy, dunno why anyone would be making a fuss about it. You're the imba, so you always have the least AR and are thus the most targeted besides minions/spirits. Your monk should have an eye on you often and PS at the ready. Unless your monk runs some crappy HB/UA build with no prots, you should be fine.

Tender Care · Jan 05, 2011, 06:03 PM // 18:03

I personally run AR since i like also to deal a bit dmg

and -20 armor is not a real problem even in HM....

Flurry: can be a problem for energy since if u are using the same lameass build that every imbagon use.....and second: since Flurry it's a stance it can be removed

reaper with no name · Jan 05, 2011, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

I'm discussing the merits of IAS and pointing out that consumables and skills from other professions are superior to what the paragon has.

If you are playing the typical Imbagon build your team's survival depends on you staying alive. Reducing your armor increases the likelihood that you will die and your team will die. Therefore any such armor-reducing IAS endangers your entire team and is undesirable unless you cannot afford consumables.

Frenzy in PvE? really? Warrior has many good IAS options in PvE, Frenzy is not one of them.

Ranger has several excellent options that you seem to have overlooked... Expert's Dexterity is permanent +2 marksmanship and +33% IAS, Rapid Fire is permanent +33% IAS. Neither one has any drawback.

Dervish has Onslaught and Pious Fury, not that they really need IAS with mystic/eremites spam. Neither of these has any drawback.

Assassins likewise have little need for IAS but they get it for free anyway, with Critical Agility or Way of the Assassin or both. Once again the assassin IAS options have no drawback.

in summary...
Other professions are able to gain permanent IAS with no armor penalty, therefore the paragon IAS skills are weak relative to the competition. This is why I advise saving a skill slot and using consumables if you have them.

Onslaught requires >12 wind prayers to be maintainable. Also, it is elite.

Pious Fury can only be kept up for a little more than half the time. Also, it removes an enchantment.

76 AL is more than enough for a midliner. My SY Barrage Ranger has about that much armor and never has a problem. Why would a Paragon?

Oh, I forgot the Centurion's Insignia. So a Paragon would have even more armor than a SY Barrage Ranger.

Oh, and by the way, comparing melee IAS to range IAS is a bad idea. Melee characters are clearly supposed to have better IAS by design.

Kunder · Jan 06, 2011, 07:52 AM // 07:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

I'm discussing the merits of IAS and pointing out that consumables and skills from other professions are superior to what the paragon has.

Then take my advice and just stop posting in this thread and 95% of other build discussion threads, because every profession is better off with consumables than taking skill space for something that consumables do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

If you are playing the typical Imbagon build your team's survival depends on you staying alive. Reducing your armor increases the likelihood that you will die and your team will die. Therefore any such armor-reducing IAS endangers your entire team and is undesirable unless you cannot afford consumables.

Everyone who has died because their team couldn't keep up a single backline imbagon raise their hand. I didn't think there was anyone. Lets be honest, if you are dieing with an imbagon in the party either your team had no business being in that area in the first place or your imbagon was blinded/blocked and lost their SY.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Frenzy in PvE? really? Warrior has many good IAS options in PvE, Frenzy is not one of them.

Other than Frenzy their ONLY other option (without majorly gimping the damage output of the build) is Flail, which as I said requires a cancel stance and therefore effectively takes up 2 skill slots for 33% IAS. If you don't use a cancel stance then your DPS is cut by 50-75% since you spend several seconds limping between targets. If -20 armor is such a big deal for you as a paragon you can use your own 2nd skill slot to counter that (Stand your Ground/TntF).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Ranger has several excellent options that you seem to have overlooked... Expert's Dexterity is permanent +2 marksmanship and +33% IAS, Rapid Fire is permanent +33% IAS. Neither one has any drawback.

Except for the drawback that you can't use barrage, and splinter barrage is the only thing rangers have that does competitive damage in PvE. So yeah, you can have IAS as a Ranger, you just have to take a crappy build in the first place. Only use of these I can see is Rapid Fire in a BHA-based build for extra interruption, but thats really marginal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Dervish has Onslaught and Pious Fury, not that they really need IAS with mystic/eremites spam. Neither of these has any drawback.

Onslaught is Elite, so its out. Pious Fury has the drawback of removing enchantments (which are kind of important for Dervishes, they have this thing called Aura of Holy Might), and on top of that it can only be kept up for 60% of the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Assassins likewise have little need for IAS but they get it for free anyway, with Critical Agility or Way of the Assassin or both. Once again the assassin IAS options have no drawback.

Yeah, I said the assassins have it good with regards to IAS. But it is a PvE only skill. Would you rather Critical Agility or Save Yourselves on your paragon?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Other professions are able to gain permanent IAS with no armor penalty, therefore the paragon IAS skills are weak relative to the competition. This is why I advise saving a skill slot and using consumables if you have them.

Except they take other, serious penalties that either hamper their damage output directly or require a weaker build to counteract for their disadvantage.

The fact that we are even discussing a minor armor penalty on the undisputably strongest class (based on positioning and base armor) is ridiculous. Even AFTER the armor penalty you have stronger armor than any of the back line and probably most of the middle. Enemies don't have paragon-seeking missiles lined up ready to fire as soon as your paragon uses SY. I'm not even sure if enemies take into account armor after buffs with regard to their targetting, it may only work on base armor.

reaper with no name · Jan 06, 2011, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Enemies don't have paragon-seeking missiles lined up ready to fire as soon as your paragon uses SY.

Well, that's it. The thread is only going to go downhill from here. Once people bring up Paragon-seeking missiles, there's not much more to discuss.

On a more serious note, since Flurry seems to be out of the running, maybe it's time we started asking a new question: is it better to use Frenzy, AR, or Soldier's Fury?

NerfHerder · Jan 06, 2011, 10:52 AM // 10:52

AR > Soldier's Fury > Frenzy

Soldier's Fury is a viable alternative from AR depending on your build. Frenzy requires almost as much energy and time management as Flurry and the double damage is not PvE friendly unless you have a perma Prot Spirit, again wasting time and energy.

Khomet Si Netjer · Jan 06, 2011, 12:42 PM // 12:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Onslaught requires >12 wind prayers to be maintainable. Also, it is elite.

Elite like Soldier's Fury?

Except that Soldier's Fury also reduces your armor and doesn't even work unless you have a shout on you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Pious Fury can only be kept up for a little more than half the time. Also, it removes an enchantment.

That could be a good thing... think Vital Boon, Aura of Thorns. But I agree, Pious Fury is not the best IAS either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

76 AL is more than enough for a midliner. My SY Barrage Ranger has about that much armor and never has a problem. Why would a Paragon?
...
Oh, I forgot the Centurion's Insignia. So a Paragon would have even more armor than a SY Barrage Ranger.

Just because you have not seen a problem does not mean that no problem exists. The SY player already has the lowest armor of anyone in the team, clearly it is not a good idea to reduce it further.

SY doesn't affect you, so centurion's won't work. and TNTF is only on you half the time, so you can't rely on that either. Besides that, what you should be worried about is huge elemental damage from high level creatures and/or bosses. Physical damage is largely armor ignoring so there is not much you can do to prevent it... but the elemental damage is heavily affected by armor, and in this case Ranger > Paragon. Last time I checked 100 or 110 armor beats 76 or 86.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Oh, and by the way, comparing melee IAS to range IAS is a bad idea. Melee characters are clearly supposed to have better IAS by design.

Where is this documented?

If this is the case, why do the ranger IAS skills provide perma-IAS with no drawbacks, but the warrior IAS skills have all kinds of drawbacks? Take more damage, do less damage, move slower, lose all adrenaline. That doesn't sound "better" to me.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to compare paragons and rangers since they are both ranged attackers. My argument is that the paragon IAS should be equivalent to what rangers have and not come with extra disadvantages.

MisterB · Jan 06, 2011, 02:02 PM // 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

SY doesn't affect you, so centurion's won't work. and TNTF is only on you half the time, so you can't rely on that either.

Centurion's Insignia: Armor + 10 (while affected by a shout, echo, or chant)
Aggressive Refrain. Echo.

You were saying? AR and Centurion's combine for a net loss of 10 armor.

Kunder · Jan 06, 2011, 02:21 PM // 14:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Elite like Soldier's Fury?

Except that Soldier's Fury also reduces your armor and doesn't even work unless you have a shout on you.

Yeah, no one is arguing that Soldier's Fury is exceptional. But Soldier's Fury being bad has no effect on whether AR is good or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

If this is the case, why do the ranger IAS skills provide perma-IAS with no drawbacks, but the warrior IAS skills have all kinds of drawbacks? Take more damage, do less damage, move slower, lose all adrenaline. That doesn't sound "better" to me.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to compare paragons and rangers since they are both ranged attackers. My argument is that the paragon IAS should be equivalent to what rangers have and not come with extra disadvantages.

Look, have you even played a Ranger? First off Bows are ridiculously slower than all other weapons in the game, to the point at which you might as well say the other classes have free IAS without doing anything, but let's disregard that for now. The point of an IAS for Ranger is to increase damage, yet taking IAS will mangle their build so badly that their damage output is actually REDUCED significantly. On that note, there is absolutely no upside to a Ranger taking IAS, they are actually better off with an empty skill slot than trying to use such skills. Every class's IAS has a different method of restraining the class. Just because every other class doesn't have the exact same type of -x armor effect so we may directly compare their disadvantages doesn't mean that they are no less restrictive.

Klance · Jan 06, 2011, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Yeah, no one is arguing that Soldier's Fury is exceptional. But Soldier's Fury being bad has no effect on whether AR is good or not.

Just because you have not seen a problem does not mean that no problem exists. The SY player already has the lowest armor of anyone in the team, clearly it is not a good idea to reduce it further.

SY doesn't affect you, so centurion's won't work. and TNTF is only on you half the time, so you can't rely on that either. Besides that, what you should be worried about is huge elemental damage from high level creatures and/or bosses. Physical damage is largely armor ignoring so there is not much you can do to prevent it... but the elemental damage is heavily affected by armor, and in this case Ranger > Paragon. Last time I checked 100 or 110 armor beats 76 or 86.

Honestly, if SY is up and all the agro goes to the para that just makes the monk's life easy, micro a PS and a SoA onto the para and problem solved.

maxxfury · Jan 06, 2011, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

The point of an IAS for Ranger is to increase damage, yet taking IAS will mangle their build so badly that their damage output is actually REDUCED significantly. On that note, there is absolutely no upside to a Ranger taking IAS, they are actually better off with an empty skill slot than trying to use such skills.

wait what?.... details pls....

You mean the daft aftercast that reduces the effectiveness of an ias on a sunder/pene turret? Or you meant that instead of mashing the keys with your face you have to time you barrage with an ias (and bow that not a hornbow)?

Kunder · Jan 06, 2011, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

wait what?.... details pls....

You mean the daft aftercast that reduces the effectiveness of an ias on a sunder/pene turret? Or you meant that instead of mashing the keys with your face you have to time you barrage with an ias (and bow that not a hornbow)?

You simply can't use any ranger IAS with barrage (the optimal ranger damage build, and PvE is all about AoE damage) in a meaningful way. All Ranger IAS is either: elite, which can't be used with barrage; a preparation, which will be removed whenever you use barrage; or is in beast mastery, which sucks. Of course, the fact that IAS doesn't combine well with barrage in the first place is just another reason Ranger's can't use IAS, but that's more a problem with Barrage than the IAS.