Curse

DarkSpirit · Apr 22, 2008, 06:47 AM // 06:47

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Originally Posted by Kale Ironfist

I argue:
1. Dark Fury has a 3/4 activation time, you have ~600 health and have +100 armor due to "Save Yourselves!". You will not be dying quickly, so any prot+heal will keep you well alive while you kite in between each Dark Fury. Thus, no big deal unless the D/N Orders doesn't know how to kite, or the Monk isn't paying attention. We assume that neither situation happens, because it isn't affected by the imbagon build.

Then you should tell that to Melonni.

Does the hero AI know the best time to kite based on the which skills are recharging? I doubt it.

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2. The worst enchantment exploit is Shatter Enchantment and Strip Enchantment. Neither are particularly bad, since the you'll have at most 3 or 4 enchantments at once, which means you won't be going down unless you weren't at close to full health (not imbagons fault), or "Save Yourselves!" wasn't up (something happened to not have "Save Yourselves!" up on the character - may be imbagons' fault, maybe not.)

Enchantment stripping itself is not a problem in an orders build but exploiting enchants for further damage (e.g. Melandru's arrows or Desecrate/Defile Enchantments) can be.

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3. Rigor Mortis, target switching, removing the source of the block. Therefore, not imbagon builds' problem.

Perhaps so, if heroes use Rigor Mortis on the appropriate targets and at the right time since imbagons are P/W. Otherwise Aegis doesn't care of you switch target.

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4. Degeneration conditions do pitiful amounts, and can be easily removed through a myriad of ways, most notably Foul Feast.

Unless it is AoE burning or disease which Foul Feast from a hero usually doesn't keep up. May work with a party removal like Martyr, I dont know, but that would mean changing my hero build based on the area again, like I said before.

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5. This is where the team support shines. You can either avoid the knockdown through kiting away from where it would appear, or bring along anti-knockdown skills. As for AoE, so long as you all don't stand within adjacent/nearby (you've got earshot), the party won't collapse under the strain. Moreover, most AoE is affected by armor anyway, so your "Save Yourselves!" reduces it.

Avoiding knockdown is easy on a human character but unfortunately heroes have a response time and they tend to clump together.

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As far as I can glean from your arguments, you're saying stupidity breaks the incredible resilience "Save Yourselves!" adds to your team. Which indicates that it is not the builds' fault, but the players'.

I am not saying it is a bad build at all. But saying that absolutely no one in your team would ever die with an Imbagon is a sheer exaggeration.

Anyone wants to prove this with me in the game, in HM, with H/H that no one would EVER die? I name the area/dungeon.

If Imbagons really magically makes a H/H team invincible this shouldn't be a problem right?

odly · Apr 22, 2008, 07:27 AM // 07:27

I like the way people on these forums contradict themselves and each other.

Argument 1 : +100 armour makes you invincible.
Argument 2 : allways take survivor insignia and vitea runes, +armour is not going to help you as much as more health because there is degen and lots of armour ignoring damage.
Argument 3 : Don't bother about cracked armour (AR), -20 armour is not important if you give +100 to the rest of the team.

I'm an armour junky myself, but I'm not blinded to the fact that more armour is not allways going to keep you alive.

Racthoh · Apr 22, 2008, 07:38 AM // 07:38

The stone summit found in the southern shiverpeaks are particularly nasty. You get:

-Conjure Phantasm, Crippling Anguish, Bleeding, Life Siphon for a -10 cap
-Melandru's Arrows with Precision and Penetrating Shot
-Shatter Enchantment, sometimes echoed
-Cleave with FGJ!
-Deep Freeze and Water Trident (Rust hurts the warrior henchmen as well)
-Maelstrom and Mind Freeze

It wrecks Mhenlo and Lina if your heroes are not well equipped.

Richardt · Apr 22, 2008, 11:43 AM // 11:43

I've never found Dark Fury to be fully essential-sure it helps, but I can keep up SY! pretty much constantly without it.

My biggest problem with the D/N is pretty much what DarkSpirit described-the hero will sack themselves at the most inappropiate times 'cause the hero AI is kinda dumb. And there has been many times when I've been getting hit hard, and they'll just sit there, full energy-all healing skills recharged, and all they do is sac themselves with orders.

Kale Ironfist · Apr 22, 2008, 11:58 AM // 11:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

I am not saying it is a bad build at all. But saying that absolutely no one in your team would ever die with an Imbagon is a sheer exaggeration.

It's true, under the assumption every single spot has at least human intelligence, the team build is synergistic and you have good teamwork.

If that assumption is not true (and H/H fulfills two of those three conditions, so long as you choose well), then we can expect some degradation of the teams' power. It's the closest to invincibility you're going to get.

DarkSpirit · Apr 22, 2008, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kale Ironfist

It's true, under the assumption every single spot has at least human intelligence, the team build is synergistic and you have good teamwork.

If that assumption is not true (and H/H fulfills two of those three conditions, so long as you choose well), then we can expect some degradation of the teams' power. It's the closest to invincibility you're going to get.

Imbagon is a great build, and I like it. But I wouldn't over exaggerate and call it god mode or that "no one would die with an Imbagon in the team". There is a difference.

One weakness with Paragons is that if your team happens to be dying in a tough battle, you dont gain as much energy from your adrenaline shouts, so in a sense, you are weakened in a time when you need to be at your strongest. This is when Ursan can be more useful.

Savio · Apr 22, 2008, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by odly

I like the way people on these forums contradict themselves and each other.

Argument 1 : +100 armour makes you invincible.
Argument 2 : allways take survivor insignia and vitea runes, +armour is not going to help you as much as more health because there is degen and lots of armour ignoring damage.
Argument 3 : Don't bother about cracked armour (AR), -20 armour is not important if you give +100 to the rest of the team.

How are they contradictory? In arguments 1 and 3, you don't get a choice to increase health. Regarding argument 2, +10 AL has much less of an impact when you have +100 AL.

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Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

One weakness with Paragons is that if your team happens to be dying in a tough battle, you dont gain as much energy from your adrenaline shouts, so in a sense, you are weakened in a time when you need to be at your strongest. This is when Ursan can be more useful.

If your team is dying with an imbagon, an ursan team is probably going to die under the same conditions.

DarkSpirit · Apr 22, 2008, 03:48 PM // 15:48

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Originally Posted by Savio

If your team is dying with an imbagon, an ursan team is probably going to die under the same conditions.

Maybe I am not making myself clear. I H/H 99.9% of the time and have never joined an Ursan group yet, even though my Paragon has norn rank 7 at the moment.

What I am saying is, wouldn't bringing Ursan for just such a situation be useful? All I need to do is to replace Focused Anger with Ursan, I still have FGJ (Dark Fury/OOP from my hero D/N), and swap to my Zealous Spear when I need to Ursan, right?

Kale Ironfist · Apr 22, 2008, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Imbagon is a great build, and I like it. But I wouldn't over exaggerate and call it god mode or that "no one would die with an Imbagon in the team". There is a difference.

One weakness with Paragons is that if your team happens to be dying in a tough battle, you dont gain as much energy from your adrenaline shouts, so in a sense, you are weakened in a time when you need to be at your strongest. This is when Ursan can be more useful.

Hardly. If you brought Ursan instead of the imbagon, they would have been dead already, simply because there isn't enough defense on the Ursan bar, and the extra DPS brought out by Ursan is minimal.

As a comparison, Ursan deals 37.5 DPS through Ursan Strike plus an additional ~12.3 DPS through Ursan Rage, which also provides adjacent foe knockdown.

A Paragon at 12 Spear Mastery deals 19-37 damage per hit against a foe with 60 armor, for around 25 DPS if I calculated it correctly. This is then augmented by attack skills, and more importantly, trigger suff like Order of Pain and Barbs. I'm going to assume we're only triggering Order of Pain with a D/N Orders @12 Blood. Overall base DPS is augmented to 36.4, close enough to Ursan Strike itself. Moreover, we have the +100 armor capability of "Save Yourselves!", and we have the ability to keep it up permanently, or near permanent.

We now have to analyse the last two abilities of Ursan Blessing. One gives earshot weakness to foes, the other provides +33% IMS. For a spear wielding Paragon, IMS isn't as effective as when used on a melee, since you've got the range to not require movement to counter kiting. Moreover, while you can't apply weakness, you have the +100 armor from "Save Yourselves!", which is stronger than -66% base physical damage anyway (and then there's the fact that you can bring a Curses Necromancer for weakness).

So, the we come down to the last thing we can analyse: the power of the 2 second knockdown provided by Ursan Rage. With it, comes two seconds of immunity from anything affected by it. Given the fact that you'll be in touch range, you can easily choose who'll be affected by it.

Which means it all boils down to: How many Ursans are there in the party compared to characters that will support the imbagon? For the Ursan to always be better, there must be a large majority of Ursans in the party. Otherwise, it's better to bring the imbagon complemented by non-Ursan players.

wazz · Apr 22, 2008, 04:28 PM // 16:28

@op: E-management is just fine when going ursan.

But if you gonne vanquish with H/H, imbagon is better 80% of the time (only exception would be 4 man areas and majesty's rest).

IMO the only thing that really kills imbagons are conditions and hexes... and heros who have no idea how to remove em.

With a full/near full human team it depends on what the other people bring.

DarkSpirit · Apr 22, 2008, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kale Ironfist

Hardly. If you brought Ursan instead of the imbagon, they would have been dead already, simply because there isn't enough defense on the Ursan bar, and the extra DPS brought out by Ursan is minimal.

What I am saying is, I replace Focused Anger with Ursan, and play my Imbagon build by default with my H/H team. But when party members start dying in a tough battle, I switch to my zealous spear and activate Ursan. Would that work?

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As a comparison, Ursan deals 37.5 DPS through Ursan Strike plus an additional ~12.3 DPS through Ursan Rage, which also provides adjacent foe knockdown.

A Paragon at 12 Spear Mastery deals 19-37 damage per hit against a foe with 60 armor, for around 25 DPS if I calculated it correctly. This is then augmented by attack skills, and more importantly, trigger suff like Order of Pain and Barbs. I'm going to assume we're only triggering Order of Pain with a D/N Orders @12 Blood. Overall base DPS is augmented to 36.4, close enough to Ursan Strike itself. Moreover, we have the +100 armor capability of "Save Yourselves!", and we have the ability to keep it up permanently, or near permanent.

We now have to analyse the last two abilities of Ursan Blessing. One gives earshot weakness to foes, the other provides +33% IMS. For a spear wielding Paragon, IMS isn't as effective as when used on a melee, since you've got the range to not require movement to counter kiting. Moreover, while you can't apply weakness, you have the +100 armor from "Save Yourselves!", which is stronger than -66% base physical damage anyway (and then there's the fact that you can bring a Curses Necromancer for weakness).

So, the we come down to the last thing we can analyse: the power of the 2 second knockdown provided by Ursan Rage. With it, comes two seconds of immunity from anything affected by it. Given the fact that you'll be in touch range, you can easily choose who'll be affected by it.

I agree that as a full party build, Imbagon works better.

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Which means it all boils down to: How many Ursans are there in the party compared to characters that will support the imbagon? For the Ursan to always be better, there must be a large majority of Ursans in the party. Otherwise, it's better to bring the imbagon complemented by non-Ursan players.

How about a 4-man party? Using SY would not have as a great an impact, not to mention fewer energy points returned.

MasterSasori · Apr 22, 2008, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Paragon using Ursan? Get out.

Racthoh · Apr 23, 2008, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

What I am saying is, I replace Focused Anger with Ursan, and play my Imbagon build by default with my H/H team. But when party members start dying in a tough battle, I switch to my zealous spear and activate Ursan. Would that work?

There is a reason I don't bring Signet of Return on my paragon when using SY. If people are dying the last thing I want to do is stop pumping out +100 AL because clearly out monks must be under some kind of pressure for someone to die. Swapping to Ursan when people start to die isn't going to accomplish much; I can't see extra DPS being better than +100 AL.

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How about a 4-man party? Using SY would not have as a great an impact, not to mention fewer energy points returned.

Personally I've used three paragons and the D/N for every single four man area that I've vanquished so far (all of Cantha/Elona, half of Tyria). The biggest issues have been... Grawls. The only area I don't plan on using the same setup will be Diessa Lowlands because I remember it taking way too long as a warrior with 4. I'll be using 6 from Yak's with cons. Anyway the size of the party doesn't make much of a difference, the build has the same weakness and that is the imbagon getting focus.

DarkSpirit · Apr 23, 2008, 06:51 AM // 06:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

There is a reason I don't bring Signet of Return on my paragon when using SY. If people are dying the last thing I want to do is stop pumping out +100 AL because clearly out monks must be under some kind of pressure for someone to die. Swapping to Ursan when people start to die isn't going to accomplish much; I can't see extra DPS being better than +100 AL.

I am curious. Would you still try to pump SY if there is only 1 more hench (e.g. Herta) alive other than yourself? SY wouldn't last long in that situation either. In my case, it only lasts 4s and it takes awhile to build up the adrenalilne again.

Isn't the whole SY spamming strategy based on having the D/N present, and hopefully doing a good job, to enable you to do that? If I can keep my SY up constantly without the D/N, I would but I can't so it becomes a choice of waiting for a long time of not having SY activated and being low on energy yourself and FGJ is in its 45s recharge or activate Ursan for a last ditch effort to kill off the remaining enemies.

Shaz · Apr 23, 2008, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

I am curious. Would you still try to pump SY if there is only 1 more hench (e.g. Herta) alive other than yourself? SY wouldn't last long in that situation either. In my case, it only lasts 4s and it takes awhile to build up the adrenalilne again.

This situation shouldn't happen, if it did you should rethink the build of what make you almost wipe and change accordingly. And you should retreat, if Herta or yourself have a res, otherwise just wipe and respawn at res shrine.

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Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Isn't the whole SY spamming strategy based on having the D/N present, and hopefully doing a good job, to enable you to do that? If I can keep my SY up constantly without the D/N, I would but I can't so it becomes a choice of waiting for a long time of not having SY activated and being low on energy yourself and FGJ is in its 45s recharge or activate Ursan for a last ditch effort to kill off the remaining enemies.

The D/N help you pump out SY more often with Dark Fury, but at 4 seconds, you should be able to maintain SY quite well even without it. Dark Fury is not require to run the Imbagon properly, it help but not require. Rarely happen, but I sometime run Imbagon with friends in group that do not consist of any physical other than myself, or it is full and therefore cannot fit the Order in, and I don't find much problem keeping SY up. Mine is at 4 seconds also.

Washi · Apr 23, 2008, 09:39 AM // 09:39

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Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Unless it is AoE burning or disease which Foul Feast from a hero usually doesn't keep up. May work with a party removal like Martyr, I dont know, but that would mean changing my hero build based on the area again, like I said before.

[skill]Pure Was Li Ming[/skill] This skill is crazy. Use it before they nerf it.

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Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Isn't the whole SY spamming strategy based on having the D/N present, and hopefully doing a good job, to enable you to do that? If I can keep my SY up constantly without the D/N, I would but I can't so it becomes a choice of waiting for a long time of not having SY activated and being low on energy yourself and FGJ is in its 45s recharge or activate Ursan for a last ditch effort to kill off the remaining enemies.

I don't use D/N and I have no problems keeping SY up all the time (unless they fuk me with [skill]soothing images[/skill]). Focused anger is the key, ofcourse you will not have SY up if you swap it with ursan...

Also [skill]Spear of fury[/skill] helps when you missed few times / got blocked and you need SY asap.

odly · Apr 23, 2008, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Dark fury helps you spam SY twice as much, so you have excess energy which can be used for attack skills and for more expensive things like the ebon battle standard of honour.

Without it you can keep SY up almost all the time as well, depending on your kurzick/luxon rank. It doesn't make any difference for TNTF. So your imbagon part is almost as good as it is with dark fury, but you're restricted to doing that and you'll be dealing less damage.

zling · Apr 23, 2008, 09:55 AM // 09:55

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Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

I am curious. Would you still try to pump SY if there is only 1 more hench (e.g. Herta) alive other than yourself? SY wouldn't last long in that situation either. In my case, it only lasts 4s and it takes awhile to build up the adrenalilne again.

Isn't the whole SY spamming strategy based on having the D/N present, and hopefully doing a good job, to enable you to do that? If I can keep my SY up constantly without the D/N, I would but I can't so it becomes a choice of waiting for a long time of not having SY activated and being low on energy yourself and FGJ is in its 45s recharge or activate Ursan for a last ditch effort to kill off the remaining enemies.

I'm sorry but if only 1 other hench is alive in your party how will Ursan help you exactly?

you will end up dead either way, but Imbagon with Ursan is just FAIL because it's a handicapped Imbagon that if uses Ursan stops being Imbagon and most likely causes a party whipe, or at least wont stop it.

as for the original question here: Imbagon is great inside an Ursan group, +100AL Ursans? yes please! but yes Paragons are also the best chars to use Ursan, so if you have more than 1 Paragon in party 1 should be Imbagon the rest Ursan. as having more than 1 Imbagon is useless, SY doesnt stack with itself

DarkSpirit · Apr 23, 2008, 03:37 PM // 15:37

No, I couldn't get my 4s SY up at all times without the D/N, there will be breaks in between. With only 1 ally alive SY is not returning enough energy too. I could only get FGJ up if I am too low on energy. My AR was also gone since I couldn't cast other shouts or chants to maintain it.

I am also lazy to check out the area monster builds before heading out sometimes so mobs that are anti-physical with blind spam, block, anti-physical hexes, etc tend to be troublesome for me and my 2 other Paragon heroes. My D/N doesn't attack and neither does Mhenlo. This means more than half my team is not churning out damage as much as I hope.

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Originally Posted by zling

I'm sorry but if only 1 other hench is alive in your party how will Ursan help you exactly?

If I get a team wipe, it is usually a close battle so only about 2 or 3 enemies would be left alive. Even without a monk, an Ursan can still finish them off.

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Originally Posted by washi

Also [skill]Spear of fury[/skill] helps when you missed few times / got blocked and you need SY asap.

TNTF, SY, EVSH are already 3 PvE skills so I cant equip Spear of Fury. If I get rid of my D/N and other Paragons, I may replace EVSH with Spear of Fury.

This is why I am rethinking my team build to be less physical, so as to be more universal across PvE areas. I was using Rac's hero build, a good build but because of my laziness, I didnt change it for anti-physical areas. If you know that the area is physical friendly, then a group of buffed Paragons can certainly kill faster. If you dont want to do too much research before heading out, like me, you may want a more "universal" team build (perhaps with some caster heroes). I am thinking of getting rid of my D/N (except for physical friendly areas where 2 Paragon heroes make sense), and replacing it with alternative forms of gaining adrenaline for just 1 Paragon, like Mark of Fury or Infuriating Heat.

Racthoh · Apr 23, 2008, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

I am curious. Would you still try to pump SY if there is only 1 more hench (e.g. Herta) alive other than yourself? SY wouldn't last long in that situation either. In my case, it only lasts 4s and it takes awhile to build up the adrenalilne again.

I would just wipe. I don't use Signet of Return on my paragon unless consumables are present so if Herta has already burned her sig there is no point in continuing. DP works off pretty quickly in Hard Mode.

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Isn't the whole SY spamming strategy based on having the D/N present, and hopefully doing a good job, to enable you to do that?

Having someone with Dark Fury just means you don't have to worry about energy as much. In turn that means I have hit my attack skills more frequently to kill stuff faster.

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If I can keep my SY up constantly without the D/N, I would but I can't so it becomes a choice of waiting for a long time of not having SY activated and being low on energy yourself and FGJ is in its 45s recharge or activate Ursan for a last ditch effort to kill off the remaining enemies.

If the party is taking deaths because they can't survive for the one second or so that SY is down without Dark Fury the problem lies elsewheres. If you're low on energy, weapon swap. Every paragon should have a +energy set anyway in case DP builds up enough that you can't cast AR.

I'm getting confused. In the 20 seconds that FGJ is up your monks have somehow burned all of their energy and you've taken deaths despite the +100 AL of SY. You have also somehow burned all of your energy as well. But if you go into Ursan mode at that point, losing the +100 with monks drained of energy, you have a better chance of winning?