Curse

Improvavel · Jul 03, 2009, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Apparently some player seems to believe that Discordway is only good when you run an AP caller build and that heroes wont use discord properly without it.

That is incorrect.

Heroes will attack any target you call, regardless of you casting hexes and conditions there or not.

Discord heroes are one of the most powerful heroes setup for 1 man and a trio of those necros are still a great addition to a 2 players team.

Of course you can't use the PvX wiki build though.

You will have to build a trio of necros that will cast hexes/conditions, provide protection and healing and a minion wall.

The key is to have hexes and conditions that are useful and affect more than one target.

Lets look at some builds.

MM discord:

[Discord][Animate Bone Minions][Death Nova][Aegis][Protective Spirit][Signet of Lost Souls][Optional][Optional]

Discord Restoration:

[Discord][Mend Body and Soul][Spirit Light][Protective was Kaolai][Life][Signet of Lost Souls][Optional][Optional]

Discord Curses:
[Discord][Enfeebling Blood][Barbs] ( [Shadow of Fear] or [Reckless Haste] ) [Signet of Lost Souls][Optional][Optional][Optional]

These are the bare bones of a trio of necros that require no input by a human player. As you can see you still have 7 slots to mess about.

[Foul Feast] is quite a powerful skill and very useful to remove blindness from you if you are a physical attacker.

[Weapon of warding] and [Shield of Absorption] are very strong protection skills.

[Putrid bile] can easily be sloted for more hexes and some AoE.

[Rip enchantment] can be used to remove annoying enchantments and create some bleeding.

[Weaken armor] and [Withering Aura] are options to create more conditions.

[Mark of Pain] is still a decent hex to cause extra mayhem.

[Convert Hexes] and [Remove Hex] are useful to remove anti-physical hexes.

Even more interesting is that you can drop for example the healer necro/rit and replace it with some channeling SoS rit or some RoJ/Strength of Honor smiter or replace the MM for something else in areas with low minions.
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Some player will say "but then your discord heroes wont spam discord, so what is the point?".

That is obvious a fallacy for a few reasons.

First, Discord isn't about spamming - It is about spiking. Spamming discord on recharge will do less than 50 damage per second. Decent for a hero, but even other heroes like Paragons can match that on sturdier armor.

Second if the heroes only spammed discord and the build went with AP caller casting is stuff and discord discording away the enemy in a "BAM BAM BAM" style of play, the other skills in discord bars would be useless.

Discordway can spike an enemy every few seconds, it is true, but they wont be able to kill an entire mob in HM (for the nitpickers in these forums, there might be a mob or another around GW that will die that way) before dying without using the other skills.

So Discordway is about casting discord in the intervals of casting the skills required to survive.

Then,while the AP caller isn't very suited for most (if not all) of the physical professions, that doesn't mean the necro trio using discord isn't still one of the best all round 3 heroes setup.

Very important is the fact physical professions can deal tremendous amount of damage, outpacing the damage of the AP caller.

Sabway way of killing, SS and Splinters have their problems. Discord is faster all round.

Racway while good is prone to the physical counters. In some areas can replace discordway with no loss but in others the variety offered by the physical component of the player and the spell component of the discord is far superior.

The main points are: once the hexes/conditions/enchantments are set discord works the same and the physical damage provided by the player will be the same or greater than the AP caller. Any hexes/conditions you cast are a bonus. The fact some, if not all, of the physical characters can run SY! is a boon not to be sneezed at.

In conclusion, discordway can be used with no loss by a physical character. You can use the above builds, with minor area related alterations (or even change the MM or the Restoration necro for some other char - use ur best judgment to which one is the least useful), to do the missions in HM and do your vanquishers, fast and easily (it helps if you know what a physical character, especially a melee one, are supposed to do and how to play it).

Unreal Havoc · Jul 03, 2009, 08:19 PM // 20:19

I'll solve your query really easily, especially so because you can run 8 men in a party (or women if you want to be an ass about it).

Have an Assassin run AP caller with Discordway fully focused on spike (it works best with Assassin sheerly because of the utility of having an open secondary proffession) and have a Dragon Slash SY Warrior team up with him and run Sabway fully focused on physical support. You then get the very best of both worlds.

Watch stuff explode.

It doesn't matter how much you whine about it, we all have our preferences. Some of us like to use a physical setup, some of us don't. There is no best, each setup has its strengths and weaknesses, while most setups will nearly always need some form of tweaking to suit the area ahead of you.

Saying that you MUST run builds like Discordway and Sabway in a specific way is to deny the very thing that makes them so good in the first place, their versatility. The key to success with both builds is setting them up to what suits you, by focusing them on both your strengths and your weaknesses.

For the record I've ran Discordway with both an AP caller (Assassin) and a physical (Paragon) in HM areas such as FoW etc, and have always prefered the AP caller as it gives a much cleaner and quicker spike with KD lock while leaving four slots and attributes for utility such as extra heals, more damage spells, etc (whatever you feel you need for the area your fighting in), or even leaving you plenty of room to bring a weapon with supporting attributes and skills to boot if things should go to shit.

Also you don't need to run a shit load of healing on Discordway bars while packing utility on my Curses Necromancer. It's all about finding the right balance. A good offence in most cases is a good defence.

The debate is pointless because you're not going to change what people find good for themselves and reccomend to others because it works so well for them.

majikmajikmajik · Jul 03, 2009, 09:00 PM // 21:00

All Discord NEEDS is a condition and a Hex, to think it needs AP caller is a joke. AP just exploits the fast killing power of discord team while being able to spam powerful PVE skills with ease.

Super Igor · Jul 03, 2009, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Your Discord setup will work as long as there is a hex and condition somwhere in the setup, eventually heroes will put a hex and a condi on the target and spam away.

However, if you want you Discordway to operate efficiently I suggest you look into the AP caller. It's the fastest way to apply all of the Discord requrement and assist the spike powerfully with 4 second kd-lock, good spike, unblockability, snare.
You also free up slots on your Discord heroes to fill in with utility and are left with 4 free slots yourself.
Because the primer gets applied in less than a second and your discord heroes dont have to waste time on applying the primer themselves they can spike with discord right away.
You can ofcourse prime using other skills like AS + Wounding Strike for example, but that can be countered easily, doesnt have as much power and utility and is generally slower making it less efficient.

Thats why I say you should run Discord with AP caller. I know it will work with another caller and even without but everything works in pve so you must look for efficiency, AP caller + Discord is most efficient.

SmokingHotImolation · Jul 03, 2009, 10:17 PM // 22:17

do we really need a thread to tell us that discord works without the AP caller as long as you have another source of hexes/conditions? seems pretty obvious to me.

Super Igor · Jul 03, 2009, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokingHotImolation

do we really need a thread to tell us that discord works without the AP caller as long as you have another source of hexes/conditions? seems pretty obvious to me.

No, we dont and I believe that everybody knows that everything works in PvE.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 03, 2009, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokingHotImolation

do we really need a thread to tell us that discord works without the AP caller as long as you have another source of hexes/conditions? seems pretty obvious to me.

Indeed. The argument is which is more efficient.

Personally I don't care. I play the game the way I want to.

Icy The Mage · Jul 03, 2009, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Personally, I like having Cripple + KD/interrupt + Cracked Armor + 260 Damage + 20% healing reduction all in less than 2 seconds. Especially since you can bring 5 skill slots for random utility, including things like pain inverter that will kill something on it's own fairly often, ebon assassin which will assist in knock-locking, interrupts / energy management / conditions. I honestly don't see why you would run a physical damage dealer over an AP caller.

Of course, if you're in a 6+ person area, you can take both, which is even better :P

tl;dr - You can run without an AP caller, I don't see why you would though.

AtomicMew · Jul 03, 2009, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Im just going to quote myself since your question was already answered a billion times. If you want to TLDR it: AP caller is FASTER. NO you don't NEED an AP caller. If you don't play an AP caller, there's better builds out there for you than discord.

"MS/DB of course, does work. You might even be able to a few areas that discordway would have trouble with because MS/DB allows you to do more sustained damage. MS/DB sin with discordway does work, but don't be fooled into thinking it's faster than an AP caller. The very fact that MS/DB is melee, and the fact that it takes ~1-2 seconds to even get into melee range, means it is slower.

There is no comparison. An AP caller can do ~250 damage in 1.5 seconds with norn shouts. EVAS does ~200 damage costing you 1.75 seconds and knocklocks.

On the other hand, assuming completely ideal conditions (i.e., everything shadow steps to you in melee range), MS/DB takes 1.75 seconds to do ~100 damage (asura scan + first hit)... and doesn't even prime for discord (condition req). "

Improvavel · Jul 04, 2009, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

On the other hand, assuming completely ideal conditions (i.e., everything shadow steps to you in melee range), MS/DB takes 1.75 seconds to do ~100 damage (asura scan + first hit)... and doesn't even prime for discord (condition req). "

This bit is where everyone seems a bit lost.

If you have a heroes with hexes and conditions only, what will he cast when you engage battle?

Lemme think, hexes and conditions!

So why the hell does the assassin/warrior/paragon/ranger/dervish needs to cast hexes and condition (it can bring it anyway, and will bring at least some conditions like deep wound)?

Now lets look at the AP caller. What does he need to do?

Cast his primers then AP in time (or just cast AP if no hex removal). So he has 4 slots for utility. But if he is using utility, is that utility creating the requirements for discord?

What does a warrior/assassin/derv/etc, do meanwhile? Damage. Damage all the time. And knocks. And shout SY!

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but SY! is much more useful than PI.

And physical heroes have access to knocks too.

Ideal conditions my ass - as soon as the first mob goes down with the AP caller the discord heroes will be doing other things and the AP caller too it seems, since he has so much use to give his 4 marvelous utility skills slots.

I bet a warrior or an assassin caller will be casting loads of utility!

I didn't start this thread with the objective of bashing Primary Caster AP callers. YMLaD, FH and EVAS are great skills, better than many skills casters have access to.

I started this thread because to the question of "what heroes should I use with my "physical" character?" the answer seems to always be "Either run Sabs or play as an AP caller".

Which is false. You can run discordway with a physical character and no AP caller. Its faster than sabs and it is, at least, as fast as the AP caller discordway version.

And if the AP callers are such powerhouses to which a physical can't compare, why don't we see human teams with 4 or 5 of them as the main damage dealers? After all they deal so much damage, knock so much and have so much utility space!

Why is the prefered build to the gimmicks SF based team builds, which don't have competition in terms of speed, physicalway builds?

In conclusion:

For those that want to play their warriors, assassins, dervishes, paras and rangers as warriors, assassins, dervishes, paras and rangers, you can do so and use a modified version of discordway, and it will be as efficient if not more as the one with AP callers.

And for those that have problems with aurora glades HM, you can solo it with the above builds + a healing hench and some other hench. You just need to have a pair of running skills and keep capping the middle and the left shrine, while having your heroes flagged near the mid shrine (hint: you can control the flux of enemies going to your heroes by capping or not the left shrine).

And I wont even go on 2 player + 6 heroes teams.

For some reason, some persons seem to think I'm flaming discord. I'm not. I'm saying it is the most effective player+ 3 heroes build. Just don't use AP caller on your physical, first because its boring to do so on a physical character and second, physical characters aren't as good casters as casters.

AtomicMew · Jul 04, 2009, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

This bit is where everyone seems a bit lost.

If you have a heroes with hexes and conditions only, what will he cast when you engage battle?

Lemme think, hexes and conditions!

No, you are the one who is lost, sir. Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose you had a discorder with discord + a bunch of damage/buff hexes/conditions. What is the purpose of the hexes and conditions? To do damage. What is the purpose of discord? To do damage. You have just wasted 7 slots on your hero's bar being redundant.

Quote:

So why the hell does the assassin/warrior/paragon/ranger/dervish needs to cast hexes and condition Now lets look at the AP caller. What does he need to do?

Cast his primers then AP in time (or just cast AP if no hex removal). So he has 4 slots for utility. But if he is using utility, is that utility creating the requirements for discord?

What does a warrior/assassin/derv/etc, do meanwhile? Damage. Damage all the time. And knocks. And shout SY!

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but SY! is much more useful than PI.

So what you are effectively saying is, an AP caller can do more DPS with just 4 slots than a physical. I fail to see how that is an argument against an AP caller.

Quote:

Ideal conditions my ass - as soon as the first mob goes down with the AP caller the discord heroes will be doing other things and the AP caller too it seems, since he has soo much use his utility skills.

I'm sorry, can you fix your grammar please? What do you mean "he has soo much use his utility?" I honestly don't understand what that means.

Quote:

I started this thread because to the question of "what heroes should I use with my "physical" character?" the answer seems to always be "Either run Sabs or play as an AP caller".

Which is false. You can run discordway with a physical character and no AP caller. Its faster than sabs and it is, at least, as fast as the AP caller discordway version.

No it is faster. The very fact that MS/DB is melee, and the fact that it takes ~1-2 seconds to even get into melee range, means it is slower.

There is no comparison. An AP caller can do ~250 damage in 1.5 seconds with norn shouts. EVAS does ~200 damage costing you 1.75 seconds and knocklocks.

On the other hand, assuming completely ideal conditions (i.e., everything shadow steps to you in melee range), MS/DB takes 1.75 seconds to do ~100 damage (asura scan + first hit)... and doesn't even prime for discord (condition req).

Quote:

And if the AP callers are such powerhouses to which a physical can't compare, why don't we see human teams with 4 or 5 of them as the main damage dealers? After all they deal so much damage, knock so much and have so much utility space!

Because it's CBA too much trouble, difficult to coordinate, and if AP gets removed (lol) it's goodbye WIPE.

Quote:

Why is the prefered build to the gimmicks SF based team builds, which don't have competition in terms of speed, physicalway builds?

Because SF + massive AoE spike = no threat... duh....

Finally,

If you don't want to run AP, then there are better hero options; if not sab, then something else. That much should be clear, which makes your entire argument for "discord + melee" moot.

PS:

Quote:

For some reason, some persons seem to think I'm flaming discord. I'm not. I'm saying it is the most effective player+ 3 heroes build. Just don't use AP caller on your physical, first because its boring to do so on a physical character and second, physical characters aren't as good casters as casters.

And you think I'm not not flaming discord. I'm saying discordway isn't end-all-be-all. There are outright better options if you want to play melee.

FoxBat · Jul 04, 2009, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Heroes generally focus fire on your target, and discord is the fastest way to take out single foes. Humans can do better by spreading their damage out when appropriate, whether via AoE tank-spank gimmicks or some physicals buffed to high heaven converging on different targets.

Improvavel · Jul 04, 2009, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

No, you are the one who is lost, sir. Let's do a little thought experiment. Suppose you had a discorder with discord + a bunch of damage/buff hexes/conditions. What is the purpose of the hexes and conditions? To do damage. What is the purpose of discord? To do damage. You have just wasted 7 slots on your hero's bar being redundant.

Because that curses can't carry MoP and Barbs to increase damage or use enfeebling blood/reckless haste to mitigate damage. All wasted slots! And it can't bring a rez, foul feast, hex removal, etc.

Quote:

So what you are effectively saying is, an AP caller can do more DPS with just 4 slots than a physical. I fail to see how that is an argument against an AP caller.

The question is, what will you do with the other slots. And more important to the debate in question, is with what energy a physical profession will be casting AP+YMLaD+EVAS+FH and the other 4 skills in his bar?

Quote:

I'm sorry, can you fix your grammar please? What do you mean "he has soo much use his utility?" I honestly don't understand what that means.

It has been fixed before you posted. Later hours and non native language + blurry eyes cause stuff like this. The fixed version means: what damn utility will a physical profession bring that it can actually cast with the leftover energy?

Quote:

No it is faster. The very fact that MS/DB is melee, and the fact that it takes ~1-2 seconds to even get into melee range, means it is slower.

On the other hand when the battle is over the MS/DB assassin is ~1-2 secs ahead of the party so in the next battle it will be ~1-2 secs faster.

Quote:

There is no comparison. An AP caller can do ~250 damage in 1.5 seconds with norn shouts. EVAS does ~200 damage costing you 1.75 seconds and knocklocks.

While a moebius sin might not deal ~250 damage in 1.5 second, he can deal a nice bunch this second + a nice bunch the next second+ a nice bunch the second after. Will an ASSASSIN AP caller be able to have the energy to execute its combo every 1.5 seconds?

Quote:

On the other hand, assuming completely ideal conditions (i.e., everything shadow steps to you in melee range), MS/DB takes 1.75 seconds to do ~100 damage (asura scan + first hit)... and doesn't even prime for discord (condition req).

You are forgetting that when the battle ends the assassin MS/DB is ahead. Even if it stops to catch the stuff, so will the AP assassin to move to pick up, stop to pick up and then only move on.

I can't remember the last time I used a shadow step in PvE with the purpose to jump into a mob....

And while Black Mantis Thrust might not be useful in every area, that kind of assassin will by itself do the 100 damage and prime for discord. Not that he has too. Hexes/conditions will soon follow from the curses necro.

Then, if needs must, you have Withering aura.

See, after all the moebius dude doesn't even need a curser necro.

Quote:

Finally,

If you don't want to run AP, then there are better hero options; if not sab, then something else. That much should be clear, which makes your entire argument for "discord + melee" moot.

Clearly you lack some experience with playing h/h with physical professions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Heroes generally focus fire on your target, and discord is the fastest way to take out single foes. Humans can do better by spreading their damage out when appropriate, whether via AoE tank-spank gimmicks or some physicals buffed to high heaven converging on different targets.

This is very true.

But that focus on your target mean a curse hexer, if needs to, will be quite adept at fulfilling the discord requirements.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 04, 2009, 01:41 AM // 01:41

The advantages of using an AP caller are (based on using an Assassin):

#Supplies hex and condition for spike within one second while KD'ing a target.
#Supplies snare & knock lock from doing so when chained with EVAS, target cannot attack while spike is being pulled off when he is on the floor.
#Unblockable Ebon Assassin (Iron Palm, Fox Fangs, Nine Tail Strike) chain, stances and blocking enchants are useless against the spike. It's possible to get a couple of these running at once with high enough ranks.
#Throws on Cracked Armour and Deep Wound to finsh off the target.
#This is all done at range meaning it is pulled off faster than melee can pull it off. Targets can be dropped quite literally in seconds.
#Shouts are uninterruptable and work even if you are KD.
#AP Callers damage is armour ignoring, including the attack skills from the EVAS.
#Spike is completely recharged along with any other long recharging skills you may have.
#Skill compression, it takes just 4 skills to initiate all of the above, leaving an open secondary proffession for an Assassin and four open skill slots to use whatever you want. You can throw on extra hexes, extra damage, extra heals, extra protection from numerous proffessions.
#Assassins have extra runes for Deadly Arts to bump it higher meaning longer duration of AP and more energy gain.
#Assassins hae 4 energy regeneration compared to other physical classes.
#Running a caller means more utility for your heroes for healing, enchantment removal, or maybe something more specific to the area you are in, etc.

I don't really see anything bad about that if you know how to use it properly. I don't see how a physical can really compare. You can argue that a standard melee physical can do more damage over time, but truth be told if you need that extra time to kill something you're doing something very wrong.

As for all this speed drama, it makes little difference as in both cases you still should be waiting for the rest of your party before engaging. Meaning the AP caller is actually faster.

Lastly if you really want to pack Mark of Pain or Barbs feel free to, like I've said before the beauty of Discordway is its versatility. I'm sure the EVAS will love it if stuff lives long enough for your Necros to actually use it.

AtomicMew · Jul 04, 2009, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Will an ASSASSIN AP caller be able to have the energy to execute its combo every 1.5 seconds?

YES!...

A sin has 4 pips e-regen just like a caster. A sin has a higher level Promise which gives back more energy than casters. Furthermore, almost EVERY secondary option has strong e-management options.

A sin is arguably BETTER at AP calling than other casters (besides of course the necromancer.)

Quote:

You are forgetting that when the battle ends the assassin MS/DB is ahead. Even if it stops to catch the stuff, so will the AP assassin to move to pick up, stop to pick up and then only move on.

...

I'm going to give you one free take-back for the above statement. Go ahead and use it, please. For my sanity.

Marverick · Jul 04, 2009, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Barbs is bad, way too long a cast time unless you disable and manually control it for bosses and stuff.

Also physicals can fulfill DIscord requirements... take Asuran Scan (which also increases your own energy) and have a necro hero put Withering Aura on you.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 04, 2009, 02:14 AM // 02:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marverick

take Asuran Scan (which also increases your own energy) and have a necro hero put Withering Aura on you.

I'm missing the part in Asuran Scans description that says it increases your energy.

You're not thinking of the title based buff are you?

_Nihilist_ · Jul 04, 2009, 02:21 AM // 02:21

Edification (the Asuran-area effect if you have the Asuran Title active) increases energy.

Asuran Scan is a hex that increases the damage the caster deals against the hexed foe.

Other than that, yes, even Physicals can fulfill the requirements to meet the conditions for Discord to be usable, but better than an AP Caller? Not as efficiently. See Unreal Havoc's extensive list, it's quite solid.

I say "Not as efficiently." because AScan takes up one of your PvE skillslots, which on an AP Caller afford KD/Cripple/Damage (YMLaD!), KD/Damage (EVAS), and Cracked Armor/DW/Damage (Finish Him!). Lose some of that, and you lose some of the speed and strength that Discordway does have.

I said Discordway has speed and strength... I'm gonna go wash my mouth out with soap, now...

Quote:

As a disclaimer, I personally think Discordway isn't the best teambuild to run, but if there's going to be a comparison on which is better for Discordway, the facts are the facts, and the MathCraft and practice seems to show that ranged AP Caller has better overall performance than a Physical running AScan + Conditioning. The Physical that is going to have the most hindrance running an AP Caller build is the Warrior (2 regen - ouch), a Sin should have no problems (imba 4 regen on a Physical what what what?! <- just my POV, to be sure, lol) running a Caller build. Just my opinion, don't get your panties in a twist, folks.

Trader of Secrets · Jul 04, 2009, 07:10 AM // 07:10

They do use discord properly w/o AP caller. The AP caller only as fast application for the discord conditions making it more effect that just relying on the heroes/hench/minions to apply the discord conditions. It is helpful though to run a build that can help apply the discord conditions in some way. In a heavy hex-removal area, my war runs a dslash build, with severy artery and asuran scan that helps to apply the conditions.

upier · Jul 04, 2009, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Hopefully all the people that are arguing for the insane speed of Disco kills are all microing Disco, right?
You do know that without doing that a lot of the things said here are just a nice theory?