Curse

Arkantos · Jul 22, 2009, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Hmm... It doesn't seem it, but SY seems to be an incredibly balanced skill.
It takes in consideration of range, and since a war is in the front of the battlefield, they will get spiked, stopping SY in a matter of seconds and kill you.

Just my thoughts.

You do know it's incredibly easy to keep a warrior or paragon alive, right? Hell, it's easy to keep up any profession who is using SY. Every other party member is going to have an additional 100 armor, so the monks can focus a lot more on the person not affected by SY.

It's an incredibly imbalanced skill. Thinking it's balanced is, well, wrong.

fenix · Jul 22, 2009, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Just because a Warrior is front line, doesn't mean that it will get instagibbed as a result. Think of it this way;

Warriors have the highest base armor. If you bring Centurion's insignia, it gets bumped up even higher. If you're spamming SY on everyone, then your AL (which is already far higher than heroes) suddenly becomes the lowest, which will result in monsters targeting you.

Here's the fun bit;

Since you already have very high AL, you'll take less damage from focused monster attacks than other party members. Since you're the primary target now, monks will not have to waste energy red barring the rest of the party. THEREFORE, if the monk brought Prot Spirit (I hope so) and SoA, then all you have to do as a monk, is cast them on the warrior, and wand a few things to death.

The key here is prot. Since everyone in the party will be taking ~84% less damage (correct me if I'm wrong) except the Warrior, who will be taking 50% less (100AL compared to 60AL on heroes, my maths works right?), the monk/s in the party don't need to be standing around spamming HB + Heal Party like morons, they just need to bring a bar like;

Word of Healing, Patient Spirit, Guardian, Protective Spirit, Shield of Absorption, Cure Hex, Dismiss Condition, Glyph of Lesser Energy

I use this exact bar on my hero monks. Because WoH is such a huge/fast heal, and Patient Spirit is a large heal with a slight delay, when pairing the Prot spells in the bar with SY, you don't ever take enough damage to warrant further heals.

Since the Warrior will be the target, but will still take 50% less damage than heroes (providing they aren't buffed with SY), bringing SY and maintaining it means that the monster's target will be already tough to beat down. If you just dump Guardian/PS/SoA on the Warrior and there's almost no way you will die, unless your heroes decide to chill in a bunch of AoE (they're good at this).

Now, WITHOUT SY, your Warrior will be the very LAST target the monsters go for (high AL + high HP). This means that if you're going to run around without SY up, you need to do something constructive to make up for the defense you would have been providing.

This of course, means that you have to bring either a high damage build, or a utility/damage build. Some of you might know where I'm going with this (I'm looking at you Arky).

Earth Shaker.

Any other elite will not be as effective (except Hundred Blades/Whirlwind with perfect pulling/balling of groups, of course).

Earth Shaker not only offers an AoE knockdown, which is VERY important/helpful when you're not doing SY, but it is a hammer elite (yes, obviously), which means of course, that you can bring OTHER hammer skills (bear with me).

Hammer skills are wonderful and magical and all kinds of fantastic. Why? Because they range from being XBOXHUEG damage, to OMGHAX utility.

With Earth Shaker as elite, you can then choose to either bring a bunch of damage skills, or devote your bar to linebacking (mass KD). Personally I run around with;

Earth Shaker, Yeti Smash, Crude Swing, Whirlwind Attack

These 4 are great because Earth Shaker provides a 3 sec KD, and under IAS you are able to get off Yeti and Crude, then Whirlwind when they stand up, which charges Earth Shaker again. Some people might ask why I bring Yeti Smash, it's the unconditional damage that does it for me. That, and another AoE skill.

That isn't the only option, you can simply bring single target damage skills, or even fill your bar with KD's, ala [iQ] linebacker;

Earth Shaker, Crushing Blow, Hammer Bash, Bulls Strike, Counter Blow, Shock

The problem, is of course, most players don't do this. If they don't use SY, they run something bad. If they use SY, they simple PvX the bar (which is fine) and spam everything. Neither of these are particularly helpful.

The SY bar has Brawling Headbutt. Use it to knock-lock important targets (monks). The bar has HUGE damage output, use it to DPS off-targets (ping heroes on something, then beat on something else). Most of all, don't waste adren. Just because SY is charged, doesn't mean you need to use it. If you have ANY rank in Kurz/Lux, your SY should last 5 seconds. You charge SY in 1. Do the math.

_Nihilist_ · Jul 23, 2009, 03:51 AM // 03:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

The SY bar has Brawling Headbutt. Use it to knock-lock important targets (monks). The bar has HUGE damage output, use it to DPS off-targets (ping heroes on something, then beat on something else). Most of all, don't waste adren. Just because SY is charged, doesn't mean you need to use it. If you have ANY rank in Kurz/Lux, your SY should last 5 seconds. You charge SY in 1. Do the math.

Damn skippy. Why use "SY!" every time it's up instead of initiating KD-Lock on your high-priority targets?

The standard bar also has Steelfang Slash, which can maintain KD-Lock on said high-priority target even when "FGJ!" isn't up. The DSlash+"SY!" bar is potent in the right hands.

Lishy · Jul 23, 2009, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

It's an incredibly imbalanced skill.

And I love it!
It's the true god of balanced teams...
Screw the mursaat. I'm starting a petition with Anet to make SY the white mantle's new "false gods"

Jaigoda · Jul 24, 2009, 01:45 AM // 01:45

So says the person with the Ursan avatar the says "abuse me!"

But SY does make H/H and pugs a lot easier.