Curse

Schmerdro · Jun 02, 2008, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I always use Flurry when my party is going to have 8 members; any lower than that and you'd have to use AR because of energy problems.
Healing/Prot Monks never use smiting skills, so why should the "Imbagon" use spear attacks when it is supposed to fill in the exact same role in a group? Besides, Smite Condition/Hex do more damage than something like Spear of Lightning just because it's AoE but Monks never use it.

Off topic: If you want Weakness, use Enfeebling Blood from a SS Necromancer.

Shaz · Jun 02, 2008, 09:06 PM // 21:06

AR should be a staple skill on every paragon bar. While it's true that Drunken Master and Celerity/Alcohol works, most of the time you're better off with some other PvE skill.

Any paragon that have no spear mastery/no attack skills is just bad. Your role as a paragon is a damage dealer while providing some partywide support, defensively/offensively, to the team. You're not suppose to fill your whole bar with support skills.

Princess Pwnage · Jun 03, 2008, 03:03 AM // 03:03

A lot of you have addressed the cracked armor, and the coolness of only casting AR once and then keeping it up, but what about the 25% and 33% difference, although it looks like not much there's actually a significant difference in the adrenaline gained. I don't have the exact stats in front of me, but I found them to be enough to not ignore.

Racthoh · Jun 03, 2008, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Pwnage

A lot of you have addressed the cracked armor, and the coolness of only casting AR once and then keeping it up, but what about the 25% and 33% difference, although it looks like not much there's actually a significant difference in the adrenaline gained. I don't have the exact stats in front of me, but I found them to be enough to not ignore.

25% IAS with a spear = 1.13 attack rate.
33% IAS with a spear = 1.00 attack rate.

5 or 6 second SY and it makes absolutely no difference. 4 second SY you'd keep it up maybe half a second longer with a 33% IAS. 3 second SY I'd always have an order bot with Dark Fury, or monks who aren't bad and can perform well without permanent +100 AL.

Mr Pink57 · Jun 05, 2008, 05:17 AM // 05:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

I always use Flurry when my party is going to have 8 members; any lower than that and you'd have to use AR because of energy problems.
Healing/Prot Monks never use smiting skills, so why should the "Imbagon" use spear attacks when it is supposed to fill in the exact same role in a group? Besides, Smite Condition/Hex do more damage than something like Spear of Lightning just because it's AoE but Monks never use it.

Because spear attacks take nothing away from the paragon, they only add. You can reduce over 80% of non armor ignoring damage and put out some serious damage. My last highest crit from my gon was 111 +3 (vamp) and that was in HM why remove this from your gon?

The imba is based on 13 to 14 spear mastery not 13 to 14 leadership which just shows how strong it really is.

The only thing I have ever found flurry good on was a IW mesmer.

pink

Tyla · Jun 05, 2008, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Pwnage

A lot of you have addressed the cracked armor, and the coolness of only casting AR once and then keeping it up, but what about the 25% and 33% difference, although it looks like not much there's actually a significant difference in the adrenaline gained. I don't have the exact stats in front of me, but I found them to be enough to not ignore.

You should be filling up adrenaline fast anyway. .5 seconds doesn't really make much of a difference for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

I always use Flurry when my party is going to have 8 members; any lower than that and you'd have to use AR because of energy problems.

Why would you use Flurry over AR anyway? AR is a free IAS, and allows more spamming of attack skills.

Quote:

Healing/Prot Monks never use smiting skills, so why should the "Imbagon" use spear attacks when it is supposed to fill in the exact same role in a group?

Because the Imbagon reaches it's goal without a dedicated bar. Not to mention running a Paragon with no spear mastery is stupid because spears are one of the strongest weapons in the game.

Quote:

Besides, Smite Condition/Hex do more damage than something like Spear of Lightning just because it's AoE but Monks never use it.

Have you took into account recharges of those skills, along with aftercast and the requirement to have a condition or hex?

A Paragon can also autoattack for strong, steady DPS. Spear attacks just enhance the flavour.

odly · Jun 05, 2008, 04:29 PM // 16:29

With AR in 5 sec you'll hit 4.5 times on average. This gives you 9 adrenalin.

With furry in 5 sec you'll hit 5 times. This gives you 10 adrenalin, but you'll need 1 to reactivate flurry, so you end up with a gain of 9 as well.

The numbers are not exact, but close enough to conclude that the difference is going to be pretty small.

Since keeping AR up with TNTF is pretty easy once you get accustomed to it, the choice to make is between being slowed down (but ranged) or having -20 armour some of he time.

odly · Jun 05, 2008, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Healing/Prot Monks never use smiting skills, so why should the "Imbagon" use spear attacks when it is supposed to fill in the exact same role in a group? .

Because you can and because you're not supposed to ...

When I'm monking and party members are full heath I can be seen wanding foes. Why ? because I can.

Improvavel · Jun 06, 2008, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Healing/Prot Monks never use smiting skills, so why should the "Imbagon" use spear attacks when it is supposed to fill in the exact same role in a group? Besides, Smite Condition/Hex do more damage than something like Spear of Lightning just because it's AoE but Monks never use it.

Paragons are offensive/defensive characters. That means if your party is getting fubar'ed and you decide you need more defense you have 2 choices - you bring a full defensive character reducing, your damage, or you bring an hybrid that will boost your defense without reducing your offense.

Paragons are the most versatile class in that.

So basically your paragon skill bar only starts with 7 open slots cause the 8th is aggressive refrain.

As a side note, loads of people seem to bring Ebon battle standard of honor, but if any other human player can carry it by all means make him/her do so - [[anthem of flame] + spear attack + [[spear of fury] with either focused of for greater justice is a great oponer in any battle.

MasterSasori · Jun 06, 2008, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Pwnage

I know that Aggressive Refrain is the standard IAS for any paragon, and thus Imbagon. But I was thinking, it only increases attack speed 25%, lowers your armor by 20, and its obnoxious to cast anthem of flame every 10 seconds to keep it up. So why not tap into the warrior side of an imbagon and use either flurry, frenzy, or flail.

Flurry could work if you don't care about damage, personally, my imbagon is mainly to reduce damage, and the damage output is a nice little bonus. Plus with all the SY! and other shouts you'll have plenty of energy. It also increases attack speed by 33% instead of 25% like AR.

Frenzy is the same as above except it lets you keep the nice damage. Since you're a paragon you don't have to worry too much about getting attacked...until you use SY and all the baddies target the 100 less armor target, so that might be a problem. This double damage also makes the -20 armor from Aggressive Refrain irrelevant. But on the otherhand, monks will probably (hopefully) be concentrating on you more since you're the main target, so it may even out.

Finally, there's Flail, which will last for 5 seconds with 0 str. If you have a long lasting SY, or adrenaline isn't much of a problem, I feel like this would probably be the best option.

Please comment with what you think of this. I'm sure I skipped some important stuff so correct my wrongdoings please.

Anthem of Flame sucks big time.

An imbagon not doing damage is kinda missing the point of playing paragon in the first place - high, ranged damage.

Creatures rarely attack you so cracked armor should rarely be an issue. It's usually removed fairly quickly anyway.

Flail as you said is the best option, but Aggressive refrain doesn't have the problem with taking up your adrenaline.

Mort Mythoryk · Jul 26, 2008, 07:59 AM // 07:59

honestly.

I always use flurry for my IAS. I do not want the cracked armor stacked with the fact that Im not armor buffed as well... like the starter said.. big bullseye on you.. not a good idea imo, also the 33% vs. 25% is a big factor in adrenaline gain.. and if you're using a zealous mod (explained momentarily) it really helps.

As far as most imbagon builds I've seen using attacks skills... >.> WTF?
The paragon dmg output as a whole imo is lack. even at 16 spear you're skill.. mediocre at best. So, with that being said.. and guild wars as a generalized game being focused on role's and team effort.. I strongly feel that the imbagon is a support build.. and should be focused on souly that. I put my leftover attributes into spear.. putting major leadership and major moto. using ballad of resto, mending refrain and sig of synergy for when I get in a bind for some quick self heal/support for the healer... and as always TNtF. I use FA and FGJ for adrenaline gain.. and a furiour or zealous spear depending on what's needed at the moment.

I have no energy problems keeping flurry up every 5 seconds, and with it being about the same duration as SY.. it's not too bad of a chore to maintain.
As for Ballad, with SY ending every 5 seconds.. you have the energy to maintain that... and mending refrain is maintained throughout the battle..
But with mending refrain.. as always.. it's a chore and a half to cast it on everyone in the group.. so I usually try and keep it up on melee or heavily targeted allies.

just my perspective.

Rhamia Darigaz · Jul 26, 2008, 08:11 AM // 08:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mort Mythoryk

honestly.

I always use flurry for my IAS. I do not want the cracked armor stacked with the fact that Im not armor buffed as well... like the starter said.. big bullseye on you.. not a good idea imo, also the 33% vs. 25% is a big factor in adrenaline gain.. and if you're using a zealous mod (explained momentarily) it really helps.

As far as most imbagon builds I've seen using attacks skills... >.> WTF?
The paragon dmg output as a whole imo is lack. even at 16 spear you're skill.. mediocre at best. So, with that being said.. and guild wars as a generalized game being focused on role's and team effort.. I strongly feel that the imbagon is a support build.. and should be focused on souly that. I put my leftover attributes into spear.. putting major leadership and major moto. using ballad of resto, mending refrain and sig of synergy for when I get in a bind for some quick self heal/support for the healer... and as always TNtF. I use FA and FGJ for adrenaline gain.. and a furiour or zealous spear depending on what's needed at the moment.

I have no energy problems keeping flurry up every 5 seconds, and with it being about the same duration as SY.. it's not too bad of a chore to maintain.
As for Ballad, with SY ending every 5 seconds.. you have the energy to maintain that... and mending refrain is maintained throughout the battle..
But with mending refrain.. as always.. it's a chore and a half to cast it on everyone in the group.. so I usually try and keep it up on melee or heavily targeted allies.

just my perspective.

ups, you just described how not to play an imbagon.

Dairith · Jul 26, 2008, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mort Mythoryk

As far as most imbagon builds I've seen using attacks skills... >.> WTF?
The paragon dmg output as a whole imo is lack. even at 16 spear you're skill.. mediocre at best.

We playing the same game?

Sure a paragon's damage is "mediocre" when compared too, say, a D-Slash war whose entire bar is centered around getting out as much damage as possible. But when compared to a prot monk, which you'd need to get anywhere even close to the benefit that a para would bring to a party, a para's damage is amazing.

-------------------------

While I haven't played around with other IAS's much, AR > other IAS's, simply because it takes nothing for me to maintain. I use "ToF" to maintain mine and I'm netting energy, not loosing energy (or even worse adren).

Bobby2 · Jul 26, 2008, 03:36 PM // 15:36

[aggressive refrain][anthem of weariness][save yourselves]

OH NOEZ THE SYNERGY