Curse

Fury Dilemma · Oct 22, 2008, 07:00 AM // 07:00

I don't understand well.

Is there a difference when I am doing HM or NM.

Which do I use in each?

And I don't know what to do. I have finished prophecies, and nearly done Factions, but my hero's are weak. I only have one necromancer and I need stronger hero's so I can get the other two (one is in NF other is in EoTN) What do I do? Is there another combo that is good, eg. a basic Warrior, Monk and Elementalist? Or....

Thanks a heap

-- Fury Dilemma

-Lotus- · Oct 22, 2008, 01:50 PM // 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. Sabway is specifically for 4-man areas. For 8-man areas the healing should be turned over to the henchmen so that the hero slot can be used for an offense-oriented character, and the prot should be "unpacked" off the minion bomber, since there's better places for it in an 8-man team.

have you ever played with henchies?

Quote:

2. Discord is inherently weak because it's one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time damage. Since it's big, armor-ignoring, and spammable, it's probably the second-best one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time skill out there after necrosis, but it remains a one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time skill nonetheless. I would only suggest discordway for situations where you're trying to H+H with a character that you just can't build an offense around. Otherwise you should be able to do much better.

you failed to notive that discord is on a 2 second recharge. one of those big packets will drop almost anything in the game. with AP you can drop a foe almost every 2 seconds. thats not bad at all...

isamu kurosawa · Oct 22, 2008, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. Sabway is specifically for 4-man areas. For 8-man areas the healing should be turned over to the henchmen so that the hero slot can be used for an offense-oriented character, and the prot should be "unpacked" off the minion bomber, since there's better places for it in an 8-man team.

2. Discord is inherently weak because it's one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time damage. Since it's big, armor-ignoring, and spammable, it's probably the second-best one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time skill out there after necrosis, but it remains a one-damage-packet-on-one-target-at-a-time skill nonetheless. I would only suggest discordway for situations where you're trying to H+H with a character that you just can't build an offense around. Otherwise you should be able to do much better.

Insta killing a foe approx every 3.1 seconds, before they can be protted/healed is far from weak offense. Keep in mind you can also have 2/3 hench adding damage to the mix as well as 18+minions. The speed at which a decent discord setup can vanq an area is much greater than most other team setups. Especially if you take only one monk hero.

Chthon · Oct 23, 2008, 02:43 AM // 02:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by isamu kurosawa

Insta killing a foe approx every 3.1 seconds...

Three shots of Discord at 16 spec is not enough to kill even a level 20. If you run a N to make it four shots, and use /A for AP so that you can add Finish Him too, that's barely enough to kill a level 24. The way I see it, any monster worth killing is going to take at least two cycles of Discord. If you disagree, I'd like to know where you get the extra damage from to reliably kill something in 3 sec.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Lotus-

you failed to notive that discord is on a 2 second recharge. one of those big packets will drop almost anything in the game. with AP you can drop a foe almost every 2 seconds. thats not bad at all...

I'm fully aware of what Discord gives you. It gives you decent red-bars-go-up healing and one almost-guaranteed kill every 6 sec. At the cost of a player slot and his/her 3 hero slots. It's not awful, but you should usually be able to do better for such a high resource cost.

-Lotus- · Oct 23, 2008, 03:25 AM // 03:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I'm fully aware of what Discord gives you. It gives you decent red-bars-go-up healing and one almost-guaranteed kill every 6 sec. At the cost of a player slot and his/her 3 hero slots. It's not awful, but you should usually be able to do better for such a high resource cost.

what does discord have to do with healing?

you can do better than a guaranteed kill every (at maximum) 4 seconds for the possible (you can use 12 points in death for plenty of things) sacrifice of 12 attribute points on 4 characters?

Super Igor · Oct 23, 2008, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Discordway is good tbh. 2 healers, one mm...all hav discord.

isamu kurosawa · Oct 23, 2008, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Three shots of Discord at 16 spec is not enough to kill even a level 20. If you run a N to make it four shots, and use /A for AP so that you can add Finish Him too, that's barely enough to kill a level 24. The way I see it, any monster worth killing is going to take at least two cycles of Discord. If you disagree, I'd like to know where you get the extra damage from to reliably kill something in 3 sec.

discord x3 + you move like a dwarf + finish him can insta kill many foes. for those that survive you do have at least 2 other slots as well as a potential 18+ minions dealing damage. for more pesky foes such as monk bosses you throw in an ebon sin after using you move like a dwarf for not only extra damage but a second KD.

a discord team does have enough to take out a foe that fast because the 3 discorders are not the only people in the team.

Chthon · Oct 24, 2008, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by isamu kurosawa

discord x3 + you move like a dwarf + finish him can insta kill many foes.

At at 16 death on all 3 discords and max norn rank, it just barely kills a level 26. You could drop one discord to rank 15 and still get the kill. Otherwise, it's just not enough. Works for NM at least...

Quote:

a discord team does have enough to take out a foe that fast because the 3 discorders are not the only people in the team.

The same could be said of 3 hamstorm heroes...

Again, my point isn't that discord is terrible, but rather that you could usually do better for the same resource cost. One kill at a time, even on a pretty fast interval, is still slow. Any of the below should kill mobs faster than discordway:
If you've got a necro, run AP-MoP with 2 physicals and a minion bomber.
If you've got a mesmer, run AP-AE-CoP and... anything at all.
If you've got an ele, run GoR-AE-CoP and pretend you're a mesmer.
If you've got a physical run some variant on SY spammer and a buff-bitch, a curser, and a minion bomber.
Like I said before, it's only when you yourself are running a class that you can't construct a first-rate offense, or even a second-rate offense, around that a third-rate offense like discordway starts to look attractive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Lotus-

what does discord have to do with healing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

Discordway is good tbh. 2 healers, one mm...all hav discord.

Erm...

-Lotus- · Oct 24, 2008, 02:39 AM // 02:39

you can put igor on your ignore list like the rest of us, even quoting him makes no sense.

so what does discord have to do with healing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Again, my point isn't that discord is terrible, but rather that you could usually do better for the same resource cost. One kill at a time, even on a pretty fast interval, is still slow.

do you even realize that you are completely contradicting yourself? you are only losing 3 elite slots to discord for a huge spike. you still have the rest of those bars and the rest of the team. and guess what, they can deal damage to!

BlackSparrow · Oct 24, 2008, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

If you've got a mesmer, run AP-AE-CoP and... anything at all.

Doesn't make this better than a well built necro with PvE skills, due to energy limitation of a mesmer and recharge time.

Besides, if you are talking about discordway for heroes, you shouldn't be comparing the hero build against CoP because heroes cannot use PvE skills. Even if CoP is more powerful than Discord, that doesn't mean heroes can use it, so nothing is changed.

Chthon · Oct 24, 2008, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSparrow

Besides, if you are talking about discordway for heroes, you shouldn't be comparing the hero build against CoP because heroes cannot use PvE skills.

Both you and Lotus fundamentally misunderstand. The full cost of discordway is 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots. You don't have any option to turn those heroes into anything other than "Discord plus a half-assed half build" because of the attribute cost and elite slot cost. These requirements preclude you from using them for anything other than more death (basically a half-assed minion bomber without JB, since everything else in death sucks) or a standalone spell-line (basically resto, because nothing else that works with monospec is worth doing). Also, you can't use them for building team synergies around with a good player build -- instead you have to tailor the player build to the hero builds, and turn it into little more than a discord proc-er in the process. The requirements of a hex, a condition, YMLAD, Finish Him, and AP pretty much removes any possibility of doing anything worthwhile with your own build. In sum, since you're spending 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots to make discordway work, the proper comparison is against any other possible use of 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots. And that's not a comparison that favors discordway in most cases.

Quote:

Doesn't make this better than a well built necro with PvE skills, due to energy limitation of a mesmer and recharge time.

Clearly you don't know what AP-AE-CoP is. You should have read the mesmer forums before you posted. By way of education: AP eliminates the recharge on CoP, and on AE, and on whatever high-yield, high-recharge inspiration skill you want to use as an energy engine. IMO, this build is competitive with Moloch's AP-MoP build for the best offensive build in GW PvE. (A little worse than AP-MoP when foes are willing to stand adjacent, a litle better when they aren't.)

BlackSparrow · Oct 24, 2008, 07:38 AM // 07:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Also, you can't use them for building team synergies around with a good player build -- instead you have to tailor the player build to the hero builds, and turn it into little more than a discord proc-er in the process. The requirements of a hex, a condition, YMLAD, Finish Him, and AP pretty much removes any possibility of doing anything worthwhile with your own build.

In sum, since you're spending 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots to make discordway work, the proper comparison is against any other possible use of 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots. And that's not a comparison that favors discordway in most cases.

Conditions and Hex skills are common because they are effective. Even a physical character can carry asuran scan and that skill is still useful whether you are using it with discordway or not. YMLAD, Finish Him, and AP are popular whether you are you using Discord or not. In any case, there is no need to restrict the player build to support discordway because a good discordway build is already self supporting.

Quote:

Clearly you don't know what AP-AE-CoP is. You should have read the mesmer forums before you posted. By way of education: AP eliminates the recharge on CoP, and on AE, and on whatever high-yield, high-recharge inspiration skill you want to use as an energy engine.

Even with inspiration skill included into your AP engine, you still can't beat the energy effectiveness of soul reaping in PvE, especially when coupled with a minion bomber. And AP-AE-CoP has its limitations too, to hex removal and healing. I know this because I use it on my mesmers.

-Lotus- · Oct 24, 2008, 01:13 PM // 13:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

The full cost of discordway is 1 player slot plus 3 hero slots. You don't have any option to turn those heroes into anything other than "Discord plus a half-assed half build" because of the attribute cost and elite slot cost.

this is is one of those things that actually sepererates the good from the bad. make better builds, be creative, and play smart. those three heroes are far from useless.

Chthon · Oct 25, 2008, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSparrow

Even with inspiration skill included into your AP engine, you still can't beat the energy effectiveness of soul reaping in PvE

You don't need to. You only need enough to spam CoP indefinitely. Which you have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Lotus-

this is is one of those things that actually sepererates the good from the bad. make better builds, be creative, and play smart. those three heroes are far from useless.

With no elite and not even enough attribute points left to max an attribute, your options are extremely limited. Each hero is left with Discord, plus plenty of energy, plus a half-assed half build. Don't try to tell me you can make a fully functional build on 66 att points and 7 non-elite skillslots. Surely, you can do something, but it won't contribute very much more than Discord.

Is that useless? No. Optimal? Far from it. Maybe this will sink in the third time I say it: For most primaries, you can use a better player build, and hero builds designed specifically to synergize with it, and get more killing power than discordway. Discordway is adequate to get the job done in most places, but you're fooling yourself if you think it's even within striking distance of being as good as one can do.

-Lotus- · Oct 25, 2008, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

For most primaries, you can use a better player build, and hero builds designed specifically to synergize with it, and get more killing power than discordway. Discordway is adequate to get the job done in most places, but you're fooling yourself if you think it's even within striking distance of being as good as one can do.

provide one build that can take down targets faster than discord while still having the same degree of team support if you are so confident. *waits for IWAY heroes*

Chthon · Oct 25, 2008, 03:52 AM // 03:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Lotus-

provide one build that can take down targets faster than discord while still having the same degree of team support if you are so confident. *waits for IWAY heroes*

Read 8 posts up.

BlackSparrow · Oct 25, 2008, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You don't need to. You only need enough to spam CoP indefinitely. Which you have.

And CoP relies on a mesmer hex to be present to deal damage. The same hex that can also be used to support Discord. Cheap mesmer hexes like Shrinking Armor can supply both the condition and hex requirement for Discord and yet be cheap enough to support CoP at the same time.

Therefore, the AP-CoP mesmer build already synergizes well with a Discordway team but they are also good enough to be used outside of Discordway too.

On top of that, inflicting conditions and hexes are basic for necros. Skills like Enfeebling Blood and Putrid Bile or other hexes are almost brain dead to bring along for any triple necro team. You can choose to synergize your main character with your heroes if you wish, but a good discordway build should be self supporting anyway.

Chthon · Oct 25, 2008, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSparrow

And CoP relies on a mesmer hex to be present to deal damage. The same hex that can also be used to support Discord.

That would be foolish. If your heroes finish off your current target with Discord, that forces you to waste time hexing a new target so that you can blow up the rest of the mob with CoP. Far better to let that one monster live an extra second so that you can kill everything else at the same time.

Cathode_Reborn · Oct 25, 2008, 09:53 PM // 21:53

AP CoP Mes actually does combine well with Discord. Because it kills targets so fast, you'll be spitting out alot more CoP's. Combine it with PvE skills like "Finish Him" to make stuff drop fast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

If you've got a necro, run AP-MoP with 2 physicals and a minion bomber.

That's exacly what I was running before. I switched to Discord the day it got buffed and I've been stuck on it since then. The main reason I liked the Para heroes was for triggering MoP. The minions are the ones doing that now and it works well, even if they don't attack called targets. The thing I really like Discord is the amount of armor-ignoring damage it has combined with PvE skills. It makes taking out specific threats easy. You don't have to worry about blocks or any general anti-melee. I have all 3 Discords binded to a key so taking out healers before they can heal themselves or remove AP is usually easy.

Discord x3 is probably the fastest killing build I've ever used. If you've got somethin that can kill faster, I'd be happy to see it. I know for sure it's not always the best thing to use, but it's very effective in just about all parts of the game.

MercenaryKnight · Oct 26, 2008, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Chthon discord works, and is a lot better than you seem to give it credit for. Your the ONLY ONE convincing yourself that it isn't that great. Everyone else realizes discord's potential and is trying to convince you otherwise. If other people can't even be convinced maybe you should re-think your stand.

Go find another build which can do the same damage, while being able to provide utility and keep a party running smoothly. You can't do the same damage, using only 1 elite consistently. Not to mention the added party wide heals and protection you get from discordway.

Discord is a superior damage elite. There are pretty much no other elites that can be spammed as much and cause as much damage on their own. You still have 7 other slots to put whatever you like. That is superior.

Cry of pain can't instant kill a mob by itself you need several characters to spike them down, with this you pretty much only need 3 discords which can be heroes.