Curse

Daesu · May 28, 2010, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

SoLS + Symbolic Celerity. Synergies has flavur. Also, heals are for the weak. Everything depends on how well you pull and flag your Heroes, no ammount of healing can change this. A lesson for you, Daesu.

If heals are for the weak then show me a video of you not using any heals at all in HM Shards.

Jeydra · May 28, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Preliminary testing indicates ...

1) Psychic Instability + something from second profession may have potential if you have enough energy management somehow (e.g. rest of the bar is Signets).
2) Heroes don't like to use Psychic Instability for some reason. I don't get it. Maybe next time I'll try a build with only one interrupt to force the AI to use PI instead of anything else.
3) Heroes don't maintain Symbolic Celerity and Mantra of Signets, making Signet-based builds that much weaker without intensive micro.

A workable Mesmer build might exist, but it'll really have to come after Rits and MBs, as far as the setup I used is concerned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Just thought that I would share this video that my guildie made with 2 mesmer heroes, 1 with PI/Illusion and the other with Stolen Speed/Dom in HM Riven Earth.

Like I said, they are not the most powerful build but they are feasible in general HM.

http://www.xfire.com/video/2be073/

EDIT: turns out he only needed 1 healer.

Life Bringing and I watched this video and to be honest we weren't impressed. The heroes used SoLS with Symbolic Celerity down once (just watch the first use), and the setup included minion walls, Aegis, Eruption and Ward Against Melee vs. Raptors. That's nothing impressive. To prove it, I went out there with largely the same setup (same henchmen, same player Earth Ele and a MB) and killed those Raptors as well with no trouble. Kill speed was a bit slower, but not by a lot.

With this test I'm honestly beginning to think that PvE is easy enough now that you can get by with 0.5 healers.

@Faye - how good did you find Panic? By the way it's hard to imagine Mesmers out-damaging Rits because Rits deal over a hundred armour-ignoring damage per second. Moving spirits isn't too hard since mobs are usually quite far apart, and if it comes to it having lots of spirits means that some of them will cool down quickly. I generally don't have to micro spirits except just before aggro to a tough mob. PuGGing with SoS Rits though is difficult. For some reason ALL of them insist on bringing some Communing spirits, even when I have a Communing hero.

Myotheraccount · May 28, 2010, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

If heals are for the weak then show me a video of you not using any heals at all in HM Shards.

So you still think that dedicating 2/3 of your heroes to healing then taking 2 healer henchies on top of that like you do is the way to go. Ok, nice lulz.

Daesu · May 28, 2010, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Life Bringing and I watched this video and to be honest we weren't impressed. The heroes used SoLS with Symbolic Celerity down once (just watch the first use), and the setup included minion walls, Aegis, Eruption and Ward Against Melee vs. Raptors. That's nothing impressive. To prove it, I went out there with largely the same setup (same henchmen, same player Earth Ele and a MB) and killed those Raptors as well with no trouble. Kill speed was a bit slower, but not by a lot.

You are right. I was also disappointed with Symbolic Celerity and AI usage, so we decided to get rid of that.

We would have a new video for you later, with HM Shards using 2 rits and 1 PI mesmer to replace my MM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

With this test I'm honestly beginning to think that PvE is easy enough now that you can get by with 0.5 healers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

So you still think that dedicating 2/3 of your heroes to healing then taking 2 healer henchies on top of that like you do is the way to go. Ok, nice lulz.

@Myotheraccount: Either you are watching a totally different video from what I posted, or you failed counting 101.

Video clearly shows a 8 man with only Mhenlo as the healer.

Myotheraccount · May 28, 2010, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

@Myotheraccount: Either you are watching a totally different video from what I posted, or you failed counting 101.

Video clearly shows a 8 man with only Mhenlo as the healer.

More like you were blinded by rage after reading my post and didn't see what build I was talking about. That video goes to show that even with a weakish hero setup you still don't need to take retarded ammount of heal and defense despite of you claiming otherwise. You are too ignorant to listen to anybody so maybe your guildie will make you finally get it. :>

Xenomortis · May 28, 2010, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

More like you were blinded by rage after reading my post and didn't see what build I was talking about. That video goes to show that even with a weakish hero setup you still don't need to take retarded ammount of heal and defense despite of you claiming otherwise. You are too ignorant to listen to anybody so maybe your guildie will make you finally get it. :>

I see one dedicated defensive hero in that build, not two.
The Rit is hardly a dedicated healer (just support heals more like) and the Ele only has one heal.
2/3 heroes are definitely not dedicated healers.

Daesu · May 29, 2010, 04:16 AM // 04:16

It is official, Igor (aka Myotheraccount) can't count.

Here is the 2 rits, 1 mesmer video in HM Shards. He has to take both Mhenlo and Lina along.

http://www.xfire.com/video/2c3002/

He gave up flagging heroes for the last mob.

Essence Snow · May 29, 2010, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Do ya'll really flag h/h like that for every mob? Seems like waste of time imo.

Myotheraccount · May 29, 2010, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

It is official, Igor (aka Myotheraccount) can't count.

Daesu so autism. ER Prot, Rt Resto and you suggest to take one/two healers on top of that - 3/4 healers. So you're the one who can't count. I was talking about your build and all the claims that you have made about PvE being hard. Now you show your guildie going with a single healer - selfpwnd. :>

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I see one dedicated defensive hero in that build, not two.
The Rit is hardly a dedicated healer (just support heals more like) and the Ele only has one heal.
2/3 heroes are definitely not dedicated healers.

Tbh MBaS, SL, PwK are all the main Resto skills so it's a redbar. Ele is dedicated fully to Prot/Heal. Too much, they stand idle most of the time; Rit only casts first three spells and ER only throws PS around but MB can do it too. When you do something retarded, they are not going to save you.

Daesu · May 29, 2010, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

Daesu so autism. ER Prot, Rt Resto and you suggest to take one/two healers on top of that - 3/4 healers. So you're the one who can't count. I was talking about your build and all the claims that you have made about PvE being hard. Now you show your guildie going with a single healer - selfpwnd. :>

I dont know what you are talking about.

Quote:

Tbh MBaS, SL, PwK are all the main Resto skills so it's a redbar. Ele is dedicated fully to Prot/Heal. Too much, they stand idle most of the time; Rit only casts first three spells and ER only throws PS around but MB can do it too. When you do something retarded, they are not going to save you.

ER doesn't stand idle most of the time. I dont know where you are theory crafting from, but nice try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Do ya'll really flag h/h like that for every mob? Seems like waste of time imo.

No, just for those 3 mobs in HM Shards to make the video.

General HM is too easy with those builds that you dont need to flag for every mob, there is a video where he tried it without flagging but the result doesnt look as nice at the last mob. HM Shards is hard without smites.

@byteme!: It may feel like years to you, but it has only been the last month considering Igor's new account join date. Don't remember arguing with his old banned account, this started when I named my paragon heroes build Daesuway and he got upset.

Xenomortis · May 29, 2010, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

Tbh MBaS, SL, PwK are all the main Resto skills so it's a redbar. Ele is dedicated fully to Prot/Heal. Too much, they stand idle most of the time; Rit only casts first three spells and ER only throws PS around but MB can do it too. When you do something retarded, they are not going to save you.

Yes but the rest of the bar are comprised of non restoration skills. 3/8 skills are Healing but then 3/8 are also geared to offense (SoS, Splinter Weapon, Ancestor's Rage).
It's not a healer hero. It's a hero with some redbar support.
Taking two monks with the ER and that hero may be overkill, but it's nothing to get worked up about.

An ER also throws around Spirit Bond - don't dismiss that out of hand. The ER will also throw out more Prot Spirits than the MB can manage.
Giving the prots to the MB would also mean losing Dark Fury and/or Mark of Pain (the latter having immense offensive power when properly used).

The only thing I disagree with is the ER build itself. Seriously, I don't understand why people put Shield Guardian on the hero ER bar - the skill itself is actually rather poor. Human ERs carry it so they always have something to spam (1 sec recharge) to get energy back (between it and SB) but heroes don't do that. Better skills are Aegis or even Shield of Absorption.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Do ya'll really flag h/h like that for every mob? Seems like waste of time imo.

For SoO HM? I would certainly start the dungeon flagging my heroes apart for each mob - it doesn't take that long to do (guy in the video takes his time) and it really helps prevent your team from wiping.
If after a bit I didn't think I needed to and felt confident in my heroes' ability to stop the 6 enemy Eles casters nuking me then I'll try not bothering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Here is the 2 rits, 1 mesmer video in HM Shards. He has to take both Mhenlo and Lina along.

The big thing Lina provides that your heroes lack is Prot Spirit. After that it's SoA and everything else is relatively minor.
She'll also burn away most of her energy with PS and Zealous Benediction.

As Jeydra said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

1) Psychic Instability + something from second profession may have potential if you have enough energy management somehow (e.g. rest of the bar is Signets).

If you could get that to work with the second prof skills being the monk prots then you could safely drop Lina. The Mesmer skills lost aren't anything very good anyway and you'd gain more from simply taking one of the henchmen Eles.

NB: I know it's not you in that video, Daesu. However it's easier just to use "you, your, etc" all the time, instead of sometimes switching to "his, him".

Jeydra · May 29, 2010, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Do ya'll really flag h/h like that for every mob? Seems like waste of time imo.

The guy in the movie played pretty badly actually (by the standards I myself play at). His flagging was slow, he didn't have the flagging commands mapped to keys, he didn't pre-cast spirits (which is the whole point of pulling), he risked AP to hex removal a lot by using AP -> YMLAD! -> EBVAS -> FH, and his AoE missed far more often than it hit ... but HM Shards is definitely more impressive than killing Raptors.

There's no need to flag H/H like that for every mob except those with highly dangerous AoE, in this case Eruption and Churning Earth.

I think the video is mildly impressive but not much more. One thing definitely lacking is the lack of a micro'able Prot Spirit, and the fact that two healer henchmen are involved this time. Last time I went through Shards I had Smiter + 2 Rits + Mhenlo, and it worked quite flawlessly. Again I'm disappointed at how often Gwen gets the AoE KD off. The result reminds me of the time I ran a Mantra of Recovery / Clumsiness / Wandering Eye Mesmer hero (that was before the buff), the results of which weren't very good.

I wonder how much of the results are because of the Rit heroes, which are heads and shoulders above everyone else. Maybe they're carrying the team when whatever you run on the last hero slot doesn't matter. I'll go try Shards now without the Mesmer hero, same as I did with the Raptors run, and edit the results.

EDIT: @above - yeah, I've been trying to get a Mesmer hero capable of using Aegis + Prot Spirit to work. I've not found anything terribly effective yet, however.

EDIT#2: It turns out that I was able to kill the Skeleton mobs with 7 players. I even used a more offensive teambuild, running Air myself and taking Cynn / Herta / Lo Sha / Mhenlo. I used the same techniques as the player in the movie (no pre-cast spirits). In my many runs testing different teambuilds, I did take a couple of deaths and the lack of a micro'able Prot Spirit reared its ugly head, but nothing too damaging. However, I didn't play far enough to face the Chained Brigands, against whom not having Prot Spirit is going to be really painful.

Again the kill speed was a bit slower than the one in the video, but not by a lot - in fact the difference was near zero - and again I'm inclined to conclude that the Mesmer hero really isn't achieving much. If PI / Clumsiness / Wandering Eye are making the mob deal a lot less damage, well you don't need the mob to deal a lot less damage because the Rits can already mop it up. Why bother?

EDIT#3 - mistake above, edited and highlighted.

Steps_Descending · May 29, 2010, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Am I the only one who think a mesmer hero setup will definately not be a damage heavy build?

I'm thinking of starting to work to shutdown as many as possible to play with 1 hench healer and no proting. That would probably still be inferior than 1 heal+1prot +6 full damage. But if it's workable. PvE is easy as it is, the only thing one can look for is time efficiency for farming, exploration (cartographer or lore/quest-seeing) and fun from different playstyle. Methinks the build fits the last idea.

Daesu · May 29, 2010, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Taking two monks with the ER and that hero may be overkill, but it's nothing to get worked up about.

That is Igor's (aka Myotheraccount) own theory crafting in action.

Quote:

The only thing I disagree with is the ER build itself. Seriously, I don't understand why people put Shield Guardian on the hero ER bar - the skill itself is actually rather poor. Human ERs carry it so they always have something to spam (1 sec recharge) to get energy back (between it and SB) but heroes don't do that. Better skills are Aegis or even Shield of Absorption.

The reason Shield Guardian is used with ER builds is because it synergizes better with ER as it is energy expensive, spammable and I needed a blocking skill. Aegis is good but it is not spammable so it makes sense for another hero like a MM to carry it. That is a minor point though and Shield Guardian can be substituted for Aegis if you prefer.

Agree that Shield of Absorption is a good idea for melee, but I felt it would be a little overkill with both PS and SB already present, for general HM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The guy in the movie played pretty badly actually (by the standards I myself play at). His flagging was slow, he didn't have the flagging commands mapped to keys, he didn't pre-cast spirits (which is the whole point of pulling), he risked AP to hex removal a lot by using AP -> YMLAD! -> EBVAS -> FH, and his AoE missed far more often than it hit ... but HM Shards is definitely more impressive than killing Raptors.

I have to agree that his flagging skill is not very impressive and he was too lazy to produce this video before I bugged him.

He hates flagging individual heroes but he needed to do that just to run that build in HM Shards to take the video. Anyway the purpose of the video is to try out 2 Rits+1 PI mesmer in HM shards, not to show off his never-used-before-and-absolutely-hates-flagging-of-individual-heroes skill.

Quote:

EDIT#2: It turns out that I was able to kill the Skeleton mobs with 7 players. I even used a more offensive teambuild, running Air myself and taking Cynn / Herta / Lina / Mhenlo. I used the same techniques as the player in the movie (no pre-cast spirits). In my many runs testing different teambuilds, I did take a couple of deaths and the lack of a micro'able Prot Spirit reared its ugly head, but nothing too damaging. However, I didn't play far enough to face the Chained Brigands, against whom not having Prot Spirit is going to be really painful.

Again the kill speed was a bit slower than the one in the video, but not by a lot - in fact the difference was near zero - and again I'm inclined to conclude that the Mesmer hero really isn't achieving much. If PI / Clumsiness / Wandering Eye are making the mob deal a lot less damage, well you don't need the mob to deal a lot less damage because the Rits can already mop it up. Why bother?

I am not sure what you mean. Did you go at least as far in as the video shows with 7 heroes?

I think our point is to show it with as little micro as possible, as you noticed that he never even pre-cast spirits but he needed the flagging to work in a place like HM Shards.

From our testing, I still think that mesmer heroes have a value in the team, not so much in terms of damage, but damage prevention. And the point of not micro-ing the skills is also to show that a "lazy" build of HM Shards is possible at least with the first few mobs (we are too bored to play any HM dungeon to the end

). By the way the mesmer hero wasn't rune with any insignia and has no vigor rune since this is only an experiment and not his usual build.

This is the absolutely fun no micro version of the same build:

http://www.xfire.com/video/2c3bd3/

Jeydra · May 29, 2010, 03:22 PM // 15:22

I went in with 2 heroes, 4 henchmen and myself, total 7 characters. I did it with the same amount of micro as in the video, i.e. I didn't pre-cast spirits + a few more things I won't mention. I did, however, call targets a lot.

So there's no micro advantage to using the Mesmer hero, no damage prevention advantage and basically nothing of value I can see, and you lose Prot Spirit / Aegis. What's the point?

Myotheraccount · May 29, 2010, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

I dont know what you are talking about.

Daesu is in denial.

Quote:

ER doesn't stand idle most of the time. I dont know where you are theory crafting from, but nice try.

So you know what I was talking about after all. I ran that build for you since you never did. I saw it with my own eyes.

Quote:

@byteme!: It may feel like years to you, but it has only been the last month considering Igor's new account join date. Don't remember arguing with his old banned account, this started when I named my paragon heroes build Daesuway and he got upset.

We used to argue allot. Everything you say now that isn't wrong, I been telling you back then but you argued against it. Oh and your Para build is a spinoff of Gigashadow's build but much worse. When I pointed it out to the OP in that thread you got butthurt and started stalking me all over the boards till this very day. Lol

Quote:

Yes but the rest of the bar are comprised of non restoration skills. 3/8 skills are Healing but then 3/8 are also geared to offense (SoS, Splinter Weapon, Ancestor's Rage).
It's not a healer hero. It's a hero with some redbar support.
Taking two monks with the ER and that hero may be overkill, but it's nothing to get worked up about.

Well, half of that bar consists of redbar with some utility so it's a typical resto healer. Regardless, resto redbar is extremely strong already and he takes two of them for more spam, an ER on top of that with a Minions, Spirits, weakness and a bunch of healing hench is an overkill. Doesn't make the setup more failsafe either because if you do something retarded you are going to wipe anyway. If not, then PvE is easy enough to stroll through with half a healer.

Quote:

An ER also throws around Spirit Bond - don't dismiss that out of hand. The ER will also throw out more Prot Spirits than the MB can manage.
Giving the prots to the MB would also mean losing Dark Fury and/or Mark of Pain (the latter having immense offensive power when properly used).

Mine never used SB. He just stood there and protted at the same rate as MB does or stood idle. =/ Most of Prot Spirits he throws out are useless anyway because you only need PS to pull and soak. Oh and losing prots means losing ER which in turn means you can take another hero with DF. Not to mention whatever DF hero you take will cast DF more than his MB does. :>

Quote:

The only thing I disagree with is the ER build itself. Seriously, I don't understand why people put Shield Guardian on the hero ER bar - the skill itself is actually rather poor. Human ERs carry it so they always have something to spam (1 sec recharge) to get energy back (between it and SB) but heroes don't do that. Better skills are Aegis or even Shield of Absorption.

I like Shield Guardian. Some decent AoE heals in nearby range. Infuse on his bar is stupid though. Without Life Attunement it will take him ~10 enchants in order for ER to make up for Infuse health loss so it just hogs heals from other chars (hero used Infuse twice in entire Riven Earth vanquish). Infuse should be used by players but not heroes. You should really take SoA because it's such an amazing skill in PvE. I also take Aegis because it's still nice even when you have SG.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

So there's no micro advantage to using the Mesmer hero, no damage prevention advantage and basically nothing of value I can see, and you lose Prot Spirit / Aegis. What's the point?

That. I wasn't sure what mes is doing there either. That video doesn't show that Mesmer heroes are useful in that instance. Other than rupting Fendi that it doesn't contribute to the party enough to justify dropping PS/SoA/Aegis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The guy in the movie played pretty badly actually (by the standards I myself play at). His flagging was slow, he didn't have the flagging commands mapped to keys, he didn't pre-cast spirits (which is the whole point of pulling), he risked AP to hex removal a lot by using AP -> YMLAD! -> EBVAS -> FH, and his AoE missed far more often than it hit ... but HM Shards is definitely more impressive than killing Raptors.

I kinda chuckled at the part where he pulled Eruption into his spirits. :>

Daesu · May 30, 2010, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myotheraccount

Mine never used SB. He just stood there and protted at the same rate as MB does or stood idle. =/ Most of Prot Spirits he throws out are useless anyway because you only need PS to pull and soak. Oh and losing prots means losing ER which in turn means you can take another hero with DF. Not to mention whatever DF hero you take will cast DF more than his MB does. :>

Yeah I saw your build alright.

Hmmm...interesting that you added a primary rit build at the end, since I last looked and your human rit bar looks like mine, which I posted here before.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/User:DarkS...s_Rit_Daesuway

....except that my heroes are not as defensive.

Quote:

We used to argue allot. Everything you say now that isn't wrong, I been telling you back then but you argued against it. Oh and your Para build is a spinoff of Gigashadow's build but much worse. When I pointed it out to the OP in that thread you got butthurt and started stalking me all over the boards till this very day. Lol

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/User:DarkS...ragon_Daesuway

There will be similarities between builds, but the builds are different enough to warrant a different strategy. As I recall his strategy involves "They're on Fire!" and damage mitigation through Blazing Finale. His build is probably safer than mine.

Some of his ideas (and mine) are also not completely new and are taken from Racway and other sources.

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2010, 05:50 AM // 05:50

I've been playing around with using Norgu to replace the healer of the Sabway team. It does seem that Psychic Instability is not being casted as much as I would like. He also doesn't seem to want to cast Chaos Storm either.

Daesu · May 30, 2010, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

So there's no micro advantage to using the Mesmer hero, no damage prevention advantage and basically nothing of value I can see, and you lose Prot Spirit / Aegis. What's the point?

My guildie and I discussed about your point that a mesmer hero has no damage prevention advantage or micro advantage. We disagree.

The best way that we can demonstrate this is to go back to a dual mesmer build in HM Shards with minimum micro, he only used the H/H flag this time. Note that his mesmers heroes are poorly runed (i.e. no insignia or vigor runes) and Norgu is runed to be a dom mesmer instead of illusion, but we decided to bring the same PI build for both mesmers anyway because PI isn't cast as often and Illusion synergizes better with it.

One of the big problems he has with Shards is the Skeleton Illusionists because their Hex Eater Vortex is a direct counter to his AP build and Frustration+Interrupts is a pain. Even with the mistakes he made, his mesmers were able to prevent damage long enough to buy him the needed time to turn the battle around.

http://www.xfire.com/video/2c567e/

Note that we don't have the mesmer skill bar quite nailed down yet and energy management is still a problem.

Xenomortis · May 30, 2010, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

One of the big problems he has with Shards is the Skeleton Illusionists because their Hex Eater Vortex is a direct counter to his AP build and Frustration+Interrupts is a pain.

Casting AP when the target is above 50% health is asking for it to be stripped.
The hex removal is annoying, but opening your spike chain with AP (he does it at least twice) isn't going to help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Note that we don't have the mesmer skill bar quite nailed down yet and energy management is still a problem.

Gwen in particular seems fond of using Web of Disruption when PI has long since recharged. Although reading the wiki suggests that they don't use Web as an interrupt but only as a regular hex. In that case, it's near useless.