Curse

Outerworld · May 14, 2011, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

They get better if you use BiP... oh well. >_>

Eh? How so exactly?

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Vampiric Swarm and Unholy Feast get assigned very high priorities when you're not at max life. I just use Swarm as a 150ish selfheal and feast as a very fast 200ish selfheal mainly because there aren't many better alternatives (and I don't want to pressure the healers). I'd use Taste of Pain if it wasn't completely bugged (heroes don't cast it at all).

It kinda works though - he's self-healing quite often compared to having to be healed by other people. When not using a melee class to bodyblock, Enemy AI tends to gun straight for the BiP necromancer since they like hitting low health stuff. Swarm and Feast help him survive.

The nice thing is they have very short CDs, but yeah, the energy cost is a bit blegh and the damage could be better.

HigherMinion · May 14, 2011, 12:03 PM // 12:03

No. Self-heal or not, the monk will waste energy trying to heal you.

Consider the dual-ER hero backline for a sort of modern example. Infuse Wars. And BY taking a useless self-heal removes the POINT in taking BiP to "save slots". Bah.

The Josip · May 14, 2011, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

any Diablo 2 player which used Corpse Explosion should know this

Yup

Putrid is awesome, I stopped using it for a while but just reconfigured my BiP to use Putrid again (since, as I said, I don't use minions anyway). Was actually testing Consume, but noticed that hero doesn't make much use of that spell (sadly).

Still not sure of the best way to build BiP.. doesn't even have to be necro. Could use some suggestions. I'd also would like to make more use of channeling Rt and put splinter on him, but I none of the physicals seem to fit into my caster team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

No. Self-heal or not, the monk will waste energy trying to heal you.

This seems to be true from my observations, which is why I was building a way around it. For example, having EMo as a main healer means that BiP puts minimum strain on healers. Another way around it would be party-wide heals such as those from Dwayna healers or those two monk Divine Favor skills, or Rt skills such as Rejuvenation and PwK. But in general HM Dwayna healer + EMo is simply overkill so I'm looking at other options.

Quote:

And BY taking a useless self-heal removes the POINT in taking BiP to "save slots". Bah.

Not at all. First, they are not useless self-heals, just not as good.

Second, my BiP gives +6 regen while a single party member has +4 regen that he can use for "action".

Third, and this is important, BiP and Blood Ritual are energy distribution skills. Necros have energy, EMo's have energy, Dwayna D/Ne (with say, Blood Ritual) is going to have plenty of energy. But Mesmers are able to burn tons of energy fast, and make good use of it. And even the others, such as Rt, or e-drained members, do at times need energy infusion.

Even if BiPer was not doing anything else but infusing others with +6 energy, I'd consider using her.

And what you said goes the other way too: if your mesmers use WNWN, Power Drain and others mediocre (at best) skills, then you're trading off as well. I've even observed the Spirit Siphon hero usage, and it's far from stellar than some want to portray it as. Sometimes the hero was not gaining any energy from the spell at all.

Outerworld · May 14, 2011, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

And what you said goes the other way too: if your mesmers use WNWN, Power Drain and others mediocre (at best) skills, then you're trading off as well. I've even observed the Spirit Siphon hero usage, and it's far from stellar than some want to portray it as. Sometimes the hero was not gaining any energy from the spell at all.

What your saying would be true if there was anything significantly better to replace those two skills with...but there aren't any really.

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Well, there's the issue then - I don't use monks nor ritualists nor elementalists to heal. -_-

My spot healing (what little of it I use) generally comes from 2 skills with either a 5 or a 10 second cooldown, so I find the blood spells useful.

HigherMinion · May 14, 2011, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

Not at all. First, they are not useless self-heals, just not as good.

Second, my BiP gives +6 regen while a single party member has +4 regen that he can use for "action".

Third, and this is important, BiP and Blood Ritual are energy distribution skills. Necros have energy, EMo's have energy, Dwayna D/Ne (with say, Blood Ritual) is going to have plenty of energy. But Mesmers are able to burn tons of energy fast, and make good use of it. And even the others, such as Rt, or e-drained members, do at times need energy infusion.

Even if BiPer was not doing anything else but infusing others with +6 energy, I'd consider using her.

And what you said goes the other way too: if your mesmers use WNWN, Power Drain and others mediocre (at best) skills, then you're trading off as well. I've even observed the Spirit Siphon hero usage, and it's far from stellar than some want to portray it as. Sometimes the hero was not gaining any energy from the spell at all.

Ok. I don't want to have to get Chthon or Life Infusion here to jot some numbers, but the utility and energy return you get back from Power Drain is better than any self-heal. For example, if you were already burning, and you were all balled together (8 players) and Korshek casts Searing Flames on your team... What will be more effective in this situation? Power Drain or Vampric Gaze? PD is a pretty big "heal" in this situation and a valuable skill. Vampric Gaze is also very slow at healing the full 150hp.

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Well, I can't speak for him, but as a primary Mesmer, if Korshek the Burning Flames got off 2 Searing Flames and I wasn't keeping him permanently locked down with offtarget Technobabble/Mistrust/Guilt chaining, my party probably deserved to die.

I don't fear Searing Flames. Never have. I fear Churning Earth. (This is why I sideboard in Complicate)

HigherMinion · May 14, 2011, 02:02 PM // 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Well, I can't speak for him, but as a primary Mesmer, if Korshek the Burning Flames got off 2 Searing Flames and I wasn't keeping him permanently locked down with offtarget Technobabble/Mistrust/Guilt chaining, my party probably deserved to die.

I don't fear Searing Flames. Never have. I fear Churning Earth. (This is why I sideboard in Complicate)

Churning Earth is nothing if you're a caster-only team... You just, like SF, rupt it with PD.

The Josip · May 14, 2011, 02:11 PM // 14:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Ok. I don't want to have to get Chthon or Life Infusion here to jot some numbers, but the utility and energy return you get back from Power Drain is better than any self-heal. For example, if you were already burning, and you were all balled together (8 players) and Korshek casts Searing Flames on your team... What will be more effective in this situation? Power Drain or Vampric Gaze? PD is a pretty big "heal" in this situation and a valuable skill. Vampric Gaze is also very slow at healing the full 150hp.

I assume you wanted to ask LexTalionis not me.

(And I beat Korshek today by aggroing him alone with Prot Spirit on me. I certainly won't rely on 2 CoF's or even that Power Drain you mention, to survive. Heroes are too unpredictable with interrupts. Btw that zone is Pro-BiP and anti-PDrain considering the mobs.)

HigherMinion · May 14, 2011, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

I assume you wanted to ask LexTalionis not me.

You did also mention the better payoff using self-heals than rupts.

@BiP fans.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6...merheroway.jpg

What should I remove PD/WNWN on 4 bars for?

The Josip · May 14, 2011, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

You did also mention the better payoff using self-heals than rupts.

Can you quote it, because I can't find where. It would be easier to comment on it if I knew what I said.

HigherMinion · May 14, 2011, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

Can you quote it, because I can't find where. It would be easier to comment on it if I knew what I said.

The first line I quoted you on, Josip...

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Sure you interrupt it, I just meant it's more difficult for my team to recover from a missed Churning than from a Searing Flames. Churning is around the level of Meteor Swarm in "If you don't interrupt this, you're dead". SF not so much.

As for your build, well... I've done something similar to it before, so these are my opinions (but feel free to dismiss them, I play differently)

If you want BiP, you can stick it on that Mesmer without the assigned elite, you only need 8 Blood Magic. I'd rather put it on the Necromancer because I'm not a big fan of AotL (If I really needed 1 minion in areas with no corpses, I'd frankly use a pet). Once you put BiP on, you can get rid of Castigation Signet and stick Aegis and Prot Spi there instead.
Are you manually microing all your chaos storms? Remember that that spell has... issues.
With that build, two your mesmers (the non paragon ones) are highly unlikely to run out of Energy even if you don't use PD. Your FC isn't particularly high (only a 24% recharge bonus) and all your spells are 5 energy except Mistrust. Why not just swap a few out for useful interrupts like Guilt, Cry of Frustration or Complicate? One trick you can use to help counter interrupt stacking problems is just to disable the interrupt and bind it to a hotkey and treat it like a 9th skill. Works if you need Complicate/Cry of Frustration (i.e. if you're trying to kill 3 terrorwebs at once). Right now you have no way of interrupting non-spell skills whatsoever, this may be a problem.
Consider using 1 copy of Overload.
I'm not sure Weakness alone is worth siding off into 7 Curses for, have you tried Signet of Weariness? You're using Mind Wrack after all.
I'm kinda biased against Mind wrack, so I can't give an objective or reasonable viewpoint on it, so feel free to disregard this: My general opinion is that if it's lasting long enough for you to get any significant amount of damage out of it, your spike probably needs work. I guess it might be useful on really high life special enemies.
Swap your Monk and Necromancer secondaries. Your monk can use runes and cover Protective spirit, your Necromancer is time intensive, so he works better with Fall Back! and other shouts on him (Since you can do 2 things at once). It also helps your minions catch up. Consider "Never Surrender!", it's pretty nice since you can use it even when everyone is knocked down or whatever. With only 3 pips of E regen, I highly doubt you want your UA monk to be running around spamming a 10e shout anyway.

Outerworld · May 14, 2011, 02:59 PM // 14:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Swap your Monk and Necromancer secondaries. Your monk can use runes and cover Protective spirit, your Necromancer is time intensive, so he works better with Fall Back! and other shouts on him (Since you can do 2 things at once). It also helps your minions catch up. Consider "Never Surrender!", it's pretty nice since you can use it even when everyone is knocked down or whatever. With only 3 pips of E regen, I highly doubt you want your UA monk to be running around spamming a 10e shout anyway.

If "Never Surrender" worked on minions then I would agree with you and FYI the monk bar doesn't have energy issues but anyway; isn't the whole point in bringing BiP so that energy becomes a non-issue? You seem to have contradicted yourself there.

The Josip · May 14, 2011, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

The first line I quoted you on, Josip...

Ah. Nah that's something totally else. I was having in mind a situation where your BiP is, for example, Blood/Death Magic hybrid, with attributes already pretty much spread, and then you have to fill the rest of the skillbar with something. In that situation Vampiric Swarm is certainly not stellar skill, but it's a self-heal spike-assist skills that serves as a filler. I dislike Blood Magic aside of BiP/Blood Ritual since it offers nothing else for caster team, which is why I said that I'm open for suggestions. When I consider any heals, first I compare them to Spirit Light (150 heal, 5e), which excludes pretty much all self-heals. But the point of Vampiric Swarm isn't just heal but also damage. It does cca 160 damage if it hits three targets, and then as a bonus heals up to 160 health. If you have better suggestions, shoot.

But putting attribute points in Inspiration for Power Drain would not achieve anything as that necro doesn't seem to have energy problems. Before I switched him to Death to test it, he was actually domination with CoF and some other stuff. Is Power Strike going to be better than Vampiric Swarm? Maybe, and then again maybe not. I was not satisfied even with CoF which was rarely being cast, so regardless of the flaws of Vampiric Swarm at least the skill was being regularly cast.

Hope this explains a bit

Quote:

@BiP fans.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6...merheroway.jpg

What should I remove PD/WNWN on 4 bars for?

LexTalionis already pointed most of it up.
So in short, either remove Chaos Storms or micro them (heroes rarely cast them on their own). The problem with your build, IMO, is that the heals are enough for the build as is, but I've doubts they will be enough if you introduce BiP. There is no healer such as E/Mo who can easily spam Infuse/Heal Other without energy concern. Hero sometimes sacrifices to 50 health and the only thing that keeps her from dying is spike-heal.

Oh, and you may want to remove Mind Wrack, I'd bet that your targets will be usually dead before your mesmer casts 3 mesmer non-hex skills on the same target he mind wracked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lex Talionis

One trick you can use to help counter interrupt stacking problems is just to disable the interrupt and bind it to a hotkey and treat it like a 9th skill

I dislike micromanagement but I think I'll still do this, since CoF is often not getting used as much as I'd like it to, and it can be painful to watch dangerous long-casting spells in front of your eyes while hero just idles instead of interrupting it.

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 03:04 PM // 15:04

It's not for the minions, silly. Who cares about minion health? You're using Death Nova.

I'm not contradicting myself at all. If you swapped BiP into the Necromancer, you could definitely keep the monk as a secondary paragon, if you REALLY wanted; but I feel it's a complete waste of a good opportunity, since you're trying to get your necromancer to do monk duties and your monk can actually use +1 runes; and has the time to cast Prot Spi in combat (as opposed to death nova all the freaking time). Not to mention "Fall Back!" has great synergy with minions which are more likely to be in range of a lagging Necromancer than a UA monk.

@TheJosip: I don't know. Infuse with minions is kinda... well.

Normally I just run my BiP MM like this:
BiP/Bone Minions/Putrid Bile/Dark Bond/SoLS/Fall Back/StandYourGround/ Never Surrender (don't have to use that, "We shall return" also works). I don't really care so much about him saccing down to 33% life when he has 75% damage reduction.

Outerworld · May 14, 2011, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

It's not for the minions, silly. Who cares about minion health? You're using Death Nova.

I'm not contradicting myself at all. If you swapped BiP into the Necromancer, you could definitely keep the monk as a secondary paragon, if you REALLY wanted; but I feel it's a complete waste of a good opportunity, since you're trying to get your necromancer to do monk duties and your monk can actually use +1 runes; and has the time to cast Prot Spi in combat (as opposed to death nova all the freaking time).

I think this is going slightly off-topic but w/e;

I'm aware its not for the minions and thats exactly my point; it's not worth bringing it.
A simple keybind means you can make the Nec use PS/Aegis when you want (Heroes aren't very intelligent with them anyway). The +1 rune for prot is largely irrelevant except for SoA breakpoints.
If all the above bars function without BiP, it still has to be asked why bother bringing it? Theres not alot to replace the e-manage skills that you wouldn't need.

The Josip · May 14, 2011, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

@TheJosip: I don't know. Infuse with minions is kinda... well.

Yea, I'm aware of that, which is why I said I'm not sure how well BiP works otherwise. I know how it works in my build and what chain reactions are going on throughout the team during combat and out of it. But how to make sure BiP is actually useful in MM team and isn't wasting more energy than giving, not sure. Keep in mind that BiP might be targeted by prot skills as well.. not a big deal if you have EMo, you actually want them. But he will chew Shield of Absorption and everything else even though that would be better spent on someone else (which is why I don't use SoA).

LexTalionis · May 14, 2011, 03:20 PM // 15:20

@Outerworld: None at all. If you want to keep your bars like that, don't bother with BiP. I was just answering the question about how to fit BiP on the build, and not why.

Simple Keybind also for PS isn't so hot when Necromancer is perpetually casting Death Nova. That's my problem with it. I usually want PS now, not 2.25 seconds later.

But you're right, this has nothing to do with mesmers, so I'll stop here for the night. Good hunting, folks!