Curse

BlackArrow · Feb 28, 2005, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Both Kui's build and Saus's final build have Savage Slash for interrupting. Does this still interupt with IW on? The description "If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If that action was a spell, you deal 1-32 extra damage." But if you're using IW the attack will never hit. Am I wrong in thinking this?

Dovi the Monk · Feb 28, 2005, 09:37 PM // 21:37

heres the IW build i was running

IW
100 blades
flurry
healing signet
riposte
conjure phantasm
Distortion
soothing images

100 blades and flurry - adds power to my damage output
healing signet - great healing skill
riposte - useful skill for your adren
conjure - great skill to use when IW out
distortian - useful for when ure just about to cast healing signet and those 10 secs with IW
soothing images - say bye bye to future adren gain warriors

al together this build would work best against a warrior, tempt the warrior in with conjure, when he gets on you a quick distortian helps until u then cast IW, followed by nice flurry and 100 blades. soothing images next helps out a bit, every time i can i use riposte. healing signet/distortian combo when needed for health.

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 01, 2005, 10:27 PM // 22:27

I was discussing the revised IW build with Zrave and came up with something interesting I'll share. Zrave's idea was, basically, that a shield is unnecessary and that if that's all you're dumping into Tactics for, to just forget Tactics. Domination, too, for that matter, because you can find some good things in those 20 Illusion skills. That frees up a lot of AP and that means you can do something as radical as actually pump your Swordsmanship attribute. Radical, of course, because Swords doesn't matter when IW is up, for all practical purposes. However, it's an idea with merit as the big danger here is, of course, removal. Someone can strip that IW off and with a Swords 12 you can still keep fighting. Not as effectively, but effectively enough until IW can recharge. So he'd run a Fast Cast 3, Illusion 12, Swords 12 build with Conjure Phantasm in place of Power Leak. A simple change but a profound one.

Of course, he'd also run with a Superior rune for Illusion 16 so he's a little wacky, huh? That's a very vulnerable character, to be sure. Of course, with 48DPS ignoring armor it just might be worth it.

But, my main concern is energy still. Throwing around a lot of Conjure's leads to trouble. So, I'd consider a Fast Cast 9, Illusion 12, Inspiration 9 build (10/14/10 all told, with 7AP left over, enough for a 3 ranks somewhere.) And go with something like :

Illusionary Weaponry {E} (Ill)
Arcane Conundrum (Ill)
Conjure Phantasm (Ill)
Ethereal Burden (Ill)
Power Drain (Ins)
Hundred Blades (Un - sword)
Distracting Blow (Un)
Flurry (Un)

The idea being that a high Fast Casting will cut into Ethereal's casting time enough to make it worthwhile and with that and Energy Drain the build will have enough energy to spread Conjures all over as well as spam Flurry. Phantom Pain in place of Phantasm also intrigues me. That Deep Wound hit lessens heaing and makes my blows more effective. Might be worth having.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

However I disagree with some of the tweaks you made- you say you're not worrying about the damage you're taking as you're a secondary warrior and therefore have to suffer with poor armor. That's where a stance comes in- it's a "Panic" button you hit when you're getting wailed on to buy yourself a little extra time.

The panic button is your Monk hitting you with Infuse Health or with Shield of Brokeness or whatever else is the popular last ditch effort of the day. Damage happens, you don't panic when it does.

Where a stance comes in is to let me do my job. If I'm not wailing away at someone I'm running towards the hills. If I'm wailing on someone, I'm using Flurry/Frenzy. That's a stance. Meaning in order to defend myself I have to sacrifice my main offensive punch. An increase of your swing rate of just 33% translates to an increase in damage, with a sword, of about 50%. For the space of time a defensive stance is going to be valuable I'd rather count on my healer not being a drooling idiot and being capable of actually getting me the help I need when I need it. Or to have anticipating things and buffed me up beforehand. If there's no healer a defensive stance isn't saving my hide anyway - and even if it was it's doing so at the cost of making me ineffectual, so what's the point? - so why would I want one when that healer can do the job just as well if not better?

This build kills. The point is to make it effective at killing. Defense is best left in other hands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Also, I just don't see the need for a 3rd interrupt.

That's like saying "I don't see the need for another healing spell" to a healer. Or "I don't see the need for yet another attack skill here." The need is that interrupting is what this buidl *does*. 3 interrupts means that in the span of those 10 seconds it takes for your first interrupt to recharge you can stop the enemy from doing something 3 times. It's upping the Interrupts Per Second, in other words. They're there for redundancy. They're there to step on the neck of whosoever I'm making miserable and to grind it into the dirt. If I'm interrupting, then I'm interrupting whole hog and no one's going to stop me from doing so by making me waste a Power Leak accidenitly on a Signet or to Cripple me so they can run away from my Savage Slash. They're not all likely to see play all at once but they're there if needed.

What happens if, say I target a Monk and that Monk has, say, Shield of Regeneration and Signet of Devotion and Orison of Healing? As he spots me Sprinting towards him or after he gets nailed by Burden he's going to realize he's in for pain and start buffing up with his Shield. I won't reach him in time for Savage or Distracting so that's when you pop Power Leak. Bam, no extra defense and he's out a ton of energy and is starting to realize he's in trouble. By that time I've thrown Conundrum up, reached him and as he starts to cast Devosig to conserve some energy, I've nailed him with Distracting Blow before Frenzying up. As the blows start to rain in he'll try and cast Orison to stay alive but that's when I pop Savage Slash. At this point I've likely been banging away for several seconds and he's likely taken a few hundred points of damage and is out several skills and nearly all his energy. That's when you start using Hundred Blades and waiting for things to recharge because he won't be able to cast for a little bit yet anyway. A few seconds later and he should be dead. That job's a lot harder if I don't have any of my three skills.

I don't necessarily care that it's Power Leak or if it's Power Spike or Power Drain or Cry of Frustration. Whichever one works best. All I can about is being able to interrupt when I want to.

I'll agree that if something must go, it's likely an interrupt here but this build is a Monk-hunter build. It's designed to disrupt the heck out of a Monk. That's the whole point so making sure that I can prevent anything they can do is extremely important. The whole idea here is to stop them. If I can drop them, great, but the bigger point is to stop them from keeping someone else from dropping. The more I can screw them over by keeping them from tossing skills around the better.

Let's make no mistake. This is not a build designed to survive over the long haul. It's a buzzsaw blade. The point here is not to last but to go out in a blaze of glory. This is no tank. There is no tanking going on here. This build is a cannon. A loaded gun pointed at the enemy and primed to go off on them.

The portion of the fight this build is concerned with is just those few brief moments of the initial encounter. It wins there or it loses there. Either it punches out the other side's healing support before things go sour or it doesn't. By the time it needs to worry about taking anything but incidental damage the battle's already been decided. It's an aggressive build, a front-loaded build, and that's because of necessity. It lacks the staying power to survive if that first punch doesn't connect. So, you throw everything into that first punch. If the battle is not over in all but detail within a minute of meeting up with the enemy then this character's already lost.

I mean, I'm seriously worried about you Scaphism. What sort of teams are you playing on? Sure, Arena, where this build is admitedly not going to be that great, you want some self-defense because you can't count on your random teammate not having packed six rituals and an echoed Unnatural Signet. But when you play with the big boys are you really fighting in such a way that things break down into a mad fest of 1v1 duels and grabass? Stop worrying so much about getting your Mesmer ganked by the other team. They're not going to split up and each take on one of your team. They're going to focus in on one target and that target is not likely going to be you to start with. They want your Monk before they'll come after you. If they're targeting you, they're being stupid and your Monk will keep you alive while you take theirs out. Or they've already finished off your Monk and are steadily mopping up the other team. As I said, you've won or you've lost, why care after that point?

The point here is not to survive if they happen to kill your Monk, it's to kill theirs before they can kill yours. Seriously, a well-built IW build is going to take down an unsupported target in about 15~20 seconds. Kui's is going to be even quicker than that. Say the average target has 500 hit points. And say IW does about 30 damage per swing. With Flurry/Frenzy that's 1 swing just under every 1 second with a sword. That means you've got at least 30DPS and will carve apart anyone who can't defend themselves. It's actually a bit better than that because the swing rate is slightly less than a minute and the IW damage is a bit higher than 30. Not to mention you have Hundred Blades to crank out damage even further. You're looking at taking someone apart in under 12 seconds with Kui's build. You'll ignore damage, remember, so that's anyone on the other team. That's if they ignore you enough to let you molest them unprotected. If they heal up that's where your disruption comes into play. Targeting the "off" Monk as this build is best off doing - the primary called Monk is going to be the center of a lot of attention, nukes are going to go off around there, angry Warriors will swarm looking for a target, bad things happen to a lightly defended character around there, so Kui's best off avoiding it all together in favor of a juicier target - all Kui really has to do is stop them from healing or at least into diverting enough healing towards saving theirself to let his team down at least one character from the other team. It's all downhill at that point.

That's it. That's all this build cares about. Those few vital seconds where it's either going to crack open that window of opportunity and let the rest of its team through. Or it's going to fail spectacularly. The sensible thing here is not to plan for defeat but to concentrate on making the most of those few seconds. I don't care if Kui's going to drop right after he downs that Monk. That means that someone on the other side isn't paying attention to the biggest threat: having a team that can defend itself with uncontested healing. Trading a Mesmer for a Monk is a win in my book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I think using Frenzy is just helping your enemies kill you even faster.

And I think my enemies are going to be fools for trying to kill me in the first place. Reasonable minds can differ. Frenzy only hurts if they're targeting this character. This character is not a high priority target. Frenzy is unliked to hurt as much as you think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

To reiterate, just because an IW character has less armor than a warrior doesn't mean you have to hasten your own death.

And just because a character has less armor than a Warrior that doesn't mean they're going to be dying all that quick. You still have over 60 armor. You can still use a shield. You still have healers and other teammates backing you up. You're not that weak. Whatever defense you might add is going to be pretty mediocre in any event.

You want to use Healsig covered by a stance? Well, good luck if one of the people banging on you has their own interrupt.

No, leave it up to your teammates who are actually good at that sort of thing. Nothing's going to waste you in a single hit, it's going to take a few seconds at least, and that gives your healers enough time to respond.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

First of all Thank you for taking the time to write up a great article explaining the IW Build. I must say it was quite a read and took me a while to get through. I'd like to present my thoughts and opinion on the IW build. I've been playing an IW mesmer exclusively for the last two BWEs in both PvP and PvE alongside my MDK guildmates so I think I can offer a very "realistic" view of how IW mesmers perform.

Thanks for the kind words and, by all means, share your experiences. Not just you but everyone. I can't test these builds out anymore, I can only rely on what's not covered by the NDA, so it's always a good thing to hear from people who've wrestled with these issues firsthand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

There is no doubt in my mind that the presented IW build would take a caster down with minimal effort (assuming of course nobody strips your echantment but lets just assume that for the rest of the discussion).

Even if IW is stripped off, this build should be able to keep a caster *down* just not out. There's enough disruption here to prevent them from doing much worthwhile even if the main damage source is gone. Damage is effective because no one can do anything when they're dead. But if they have no energy and any time they try and cast a skill it's blown, they might as well be. I'm not too worried about getting IW removed because I can function in my main role without it. Damage is the bonus here, not the focus. Disrupting casters is the name of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

Where I see problems though are in matchups against warriors. The ability to interrupt casters comes as the cost of survivability which I would consider a huge trade off.

Again, self-defense is over-rated. Squaring off against Warriors is a) not a good idea in a team-based game. If a target's too tough, I either find something else or come back with my friends to smack it down hard. Warrior's aren't a priority in a battle, they can safely be left for near the end because without the rest of their team and confronted with a full to nearly full team, they're not much of a problem. And b) not that big of a deal. IW ignores armor. It ignores the stances that many Warriors rely on to defend themselves. All told Kui's build is likely going to be topping out somewhere near 40DPS. That's slaugthing the average target in about 12 seconds. They have to be able to outdamage you. Anything else is incidental damage. As long as you don't drop below 0 hit points you can be healed of all that damage so it doesn't matter. There certainly are Warrior builds that top 40DPS or have some sort of defense I can't deal with. But can they actually use their skills to get there? Savage Slash and Distracting Blow aren't Power Leak, they don't work just on spells. They work on everything. With proper timing and care you can even interrupt attack skills and anything else they might try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

The current build has 10 tactics but doesn't use any skills linked to tactics. I think this is somewhat of a waste.

I do, too. Zrave's pretty much managed to talk me out of Tactics by this point. It's only there for the shield and only for as much as the shield needs. I have no idea what Kui's shield required so I left the number alone. But that's the sole point of those points in Tactics. And it is a waste but so are most of the skills in Tactics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackArrow

Both Kui's build and Saus's final build have Savage Slash for interrupting. Does this still interupt with IW on? The description "If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If that action was a spell, you deal 1-32 extra damage." But if you're using IW the attack will never hit. Am I wrong in thinking this?

Right and wrong. The attack hits, it just doesn't matter. Illusionary Weaponry changes the way your hits work. Normally, it's something like : Check to see if the attack lands [1], if yes, check to see if there's some buff that might avoid the hit [2], if no, then check to see what the damage is first by generating a random number from the weapon's damage range [3] and then applying that along with armor and all other relevant factors in the damage equation [4]. That's with a normal melee hit. When you use IW the damage your weapon does will always and forever equal 0 as long as you have IW running. You can't lower it, you can't raise it, nothing. It's null, for all intents and purposes. But each and every time you swing, you still connect. It just registers no damage and probably doesn't bother to head to steps 2, 3, and 4. That's because every time you swing Illusionary Weaponry hits your target for the listed damage, ignoring armor, not caring if it's blocked or otherwise avoided.

Now, the way things like Savage Slash work is to add steps at stages [1] and/or [3] (Some skills also add in things at [2] as do skills that ignore or penetrate armor at [4]). Savage Slash will first check in [1] to make sure it's landed. If so, it's interrupting whatever the target's doing. Then, during [3] it checks to see if what was interrupted was a spell and if so it add +dmg to your sword in step [3]. All damage gets lumped together in one sum no matter how many sources it's coming from - what's displayed is another matter, of course - which is then plugged into the damage equation in [4]. Since, with IW that number cannot be higher than 0, it's moot, and Savage Slash will deal no extra damage. It does, however, still function as an interrupt. And an interrupt which will deal an IW hit.

Note in [1] - On a melee attack, barring any outside influences, this is always. If you're in range enough to start your weapon swinging it's impossible for your enemy to get far enough away to avoid it, unlike with a ranged projectile. Things like Blindness can affect things here but annecdotal evidence suggests that Illusionary Weaponry simply ignores Blindness the same way it ignores any skill that might evade a blow. That's also the way I remember things working, but perhaps someone who's played IW recently can shed more light on things. For that matter with adrenaline and Zealous upgrades, too, I'm hearing conflicting reports and I simply can't check on them and tell you about it.

In short, all that happens with skills when using IW is that their damage is replaced by that of IW. No matter what you do or what would otherwise happen you only get IW damage. All other secondary effects still happen. Savage will interrupt but you won't add damage when you interrupt a spell.

BlackArrow · Mar 01, 2005, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Wow, quite a novel up there. Thanks for the help Saus. If I understand correctly, IW just overwrites the damage done by the sword to IW dmg, while leaving the extras in the attacks in tact? Does this mean that Sever Artery will cause bleeding still?

I've been playing around with a Mes/War to protect a healer by taking on Warrior's one on one. My idea is to replace the interupts in the build presented at the end on the build review article with Power Drain, Soothing Images, and Sympathetic Visages.

The plan is to cast Imagined Burden on a warrior attacking the healer, and cast Sympathetic Visage on the targeted healer. I'd use soothing images on the warrior after I;'d regened somenergy. Would this work?

Ensign · Mar 01, 2005, 11:09 PM // 23:09

I can't advocate running Ethereal Burden on this sort of character - a three second cast time is absolutely brutal. Even with a level 9 Fast Casting you're looking at a 2 second cast time, plus the aftercast, and that's completely unacceptable. You get some energy back, sure, but Ethereal Burden is just too slow for me to even consider. You aren't throwing around Conjure Phantasm on everything in sight - you're using it to crank up your DPS on whoever it is that you're mauling. Imagined Burden is expensive, but it's what has to be used. IB also holds someone down a whole lot longer, if that's relevant.

If you're super worried about energy, switch into the Frenzy/Sprint combo. However, given the timeframes that we're concerned about I wouldn't worry too much about energy. You have a pool of roughly 45 to play with, and you have a great amount of regen - you should be able to keep pounding for a good 30-40 seconds before you run dry. The build isn't *that* energy intensive. =)

You don't have to invest too highly in Tactics to get a good shield - something in the 6-7 range has been enough for a straight 15 AL one in the past. I agree that you can really go all in with this sort of character and make that unneccessary, though. The question then is where do you put your attribute points? I'm off of swords for now - what do you gain from that? I'd rather branch out into Domination for Power Leak and Shame, or something equally vicious. They aren't going to be devoting resources to stopping you, so you might as well hit them as hard as you possibly can.

If enchantment removal is a problem you can start to think about covering it with something like Illusion of Weakness - that's a great enchantment to toss up over IW, since you get a huge heal if they remove it. Plus it's long lasting so it's easy on your energy.

I think the point about overkill is not something to dismiss lightly. If you have too many interrupts some of them are just going to be sitting there, dead, while you use the more appropriate ones over and over. That doesn't help at all. You want every skill on your bar to be an important piece, not redundant. You don't get points for overkill - if you have enough interrupts, you have enough interrupts. Take something else that's good in other situations.

Peace,
-CxE

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 01, 2005, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackArrow

Wow, quite a novel up there. Thanks for the help Saus. If I understand correctly, IW just overwrites the damage done by the sword to IW dmg, while leaving the extras in the attacks in tact? Does this mean that Sever Artery will cause bleeding still?

It doesn't necessarily overwrite your sword's damage with IW damage. Instead your sword does no damage and IW hits. A slight difference but an IW hit is not a weapon hit at all, it's not physical damage, it's not stymied by something that would "evade" or "block"., and so on. Effectively, it's about the same difference. You swing your weapon, you do IW damage. It's just inaccurate to say it's replaced your weapon's damage because it's a bit more complicated than that.

Otherwise, yes. Sever will still cause Bleeding. Dismember will still cause Deep Wound. Hammer Bash will still knock down. And so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackArrow

I've been playing around with a Mes/War to protect a healer by taking on Warrior's one on one. My idea is to replace the interupts in the build presented at the end on the build review article with Power Drain, Soothing Images, and Sympathetic Visages.

The plan is to cast Imagined Burden on a warrior attacking the healer, and cast Sympathetic Visage on the targeted healer. I'd use soothing images on the warrior after I;'d regened somenergy. Would this work?

Warriors are seldom best working alone. They work best in groups where they can add their damage to each other.

That said, yes, Sympathetic Viseages can work well. Kui used it in PvE in his build and that's something I'd recommend, too. In PvP when your healer gets focused in on by a group of Warriors you can almost always count on someone getting an enchantment removal in there, so it's less goodd. It can work just don't expect to get the full duration out of it.

Soothing Images can hamper a Warrior greatly, too. It's a hex, hexes can be removed but it can provide some brief respite.

There are better ways of dealing with Warriors, of course, but not in the Mesmer skill lines. And not that you can use to protect someone else with.

Barkam · Mar 02, 2005, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Illusion of Weakness triggers to heal you when it is disenchanted? The way I understood it, it only triggers when you're life is at < 25%. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I also wanted to ask if OoP stacks with OoV. I think they would, but would just like to make sure.

BlackArrow · Mar 02, 2005, 02:11 PM // 14:11

IIRC Illusion of Weakness says "When IoW ends, you gain 50...277 health". It also has a part before that about it ending at below 25% health, so either below 25% or removed will end it.

Ellestar · Mar 02, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

And I think my enemies are going to be fools for trying to kill me in the first place. Reasonable minds can differ. Frenzy only hurts if they're targeting this character. This character is not a high priority target. Frenzy is unliked to hurt as much as you think.

And just because a character has less armor than a Warrior that doesn't mean they're going to be dying all that quick. You still have over 60 armor. You can still use a shield. You still have healers and other teammates backing you up. You're not that weak. Whatever defense you might add is going to be pretty mediocre in any event.

Well, i don't know about a current "school of thought" of beta guilds, but for me a character that can disable/kill a primary target (monk) and don't have a significant defence (has caster armor) can be a 2nd priority after a monks. Unlike enemy monk, this character automatically will be in range of all enemy team and it can be out of range of friendly monks in some cases (from my limited experience, especially if enemy team falls back a little). So it may be a valid tactics for some team setups to try to kill anti-monk characters first.

So probably for now defence isn't that important for a "monk hunter" builds, but it's something that may be important later when general tactics will change.

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 02, 2005, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Blackarrow's right about Illusion of Weakness. Like Phantom Pain's Deep Wound, it happens whenever that skill goes away not just on the built-in condition. When it ends you gain that health. It can end any number of ways including your health falling past 25% but also including it being removed in some other way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkam

I also wanted to ask if OoP stacks with OoV. I think they would, but would just like to make sure.

Yes, they do. But they won't stack with Illusionary Weaponry, to be clear. They require physical damage - weapon hits, in so many words - and that doesn't include IW hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellestar

Well, i don't know about a current "school of thought" of beta guilds, but for me a character that can disable/kill a primary target (monk) and don't have a significant defence (has caster armor) can be a 2nd priority after a monks. Unlike enemy monk, this character automatically will be in range of all enemy team and it can be out of range of friendly monks in some cases (from my limited experience, especially if enemy team falls back a little). So it may be a valid tactics for some team setups to try to kill anti-monk characters first.

So probably for now defence isn't that important for a "monk hunter" builds, but it's something that may be important later when general tactics will change.

Very true. That character in your back lines chewing up and spitting out your Monks is a good target, especially with caster armor. But the point is they're not going to go after you, as a secondary target, if that primary target's still sitting there. And while you're right in that tactics and strategy are advancing past the point of everyone heading for everyone else's Monk it's still not that far off. A Monk-hunter's going to be in range of healing and protection, idealy. As long as they're in range, so's their own Monk, making the Monk a very desirable target. And the whole point here is that an IW build set up to hunt Monks should be able to do their damage *before* the other team gets your Monk. Before the IW build goes from being second or third on the target list and jumps up to #1. That's not necessarily a long amount of time so you need to be able to work quickly. Sacrificing already sub-par defense to make sure the offensive job gets done is what's called for there, not hedging your bets.

The difference is when the Monk-hunter over-extends or gets out of range of their healing and support while coming into range of the enemy. Anyone who does that becomes a very big target of opportunity and will be pounced upon by the enemy team, doesn't matter what they are, really. But anyone overextending is also making a very foolish play and has made themselves vulnerable. Sometimes it's necessary, though, and it's a good tactic on maps where there's a base with a priest or a Guild Lord you need to take out. In that case sending out a well-protected character or two to "gank" is overextending but I wouldn't be sending out an IW build to go gank.

An IW build can work and work well. But not when a tank's called for. You've already sacrificed a lot by going secondary Warrior. A primary Warrior's just going to be better on defense than you are. So, with an IW build the best defense becomes a good offense.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Mar 02, 2005, 06:19 PM // 18:19

I think Ellestar has said something that I've been meaning to say for a long time about the "priority" of an IW Build, or lack thereof. When you guys say that he won't be a target, I have to question that, as Ellestar has.

Whenever I've played PvP, I'm tried to remain flexible and through some jousting with Ensign over a build I'm working on, he still thinks I'll fail.... but that's not the problem here. There are all these "Disrupting" and "Caster-Hate" and "Monk-Hunter" builds... who's going to deal with them? For at least one person on the team, they should be a priority target. In my experience, if I see someone trying to be clever and pulling some crack-head maneuver around the side or up on a hill, I single them out as a loose-cannon and I try to take them down. If there's a battle going on in the middle of the field and someone is breaking away and singling out the Monk or similar, that seems pretty important.

I'm not saying that you guys are discounting the fact that you have to protect your monks... I'm just saying that, in my opinion, there should be someone on the team who can help focus fire but should also be able to stop an IW Build or whoever as soon as they target the Monk.

For all I know, this could be how things are done, and I'm just reading them wrong... but if not, I'd like to give it a try in the PvP this next Beta Event and see what the results are... a Monk-Hunter-Hunter, if you will?

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 02, 2005, 06:44 PM // 18:44

A hunter-killer, if you will, is not the best way of handling things, to my way of thinking. That's a character that's either going to be dealing damage enough to put the Monk-hunter down (And there are other ways of going about a Monk hunter than an IW build. Your Ranger with Concussion Shot and Debilitating Shot makes for pretty good caster denial. As does your interrupt Mesmer build. As do many primary Warrior builds. And they're all a lot more survivable than your IW build. That's because they either stand back or can stand up to more punishment. The general idea is to be disruptive rather than out and out damaging.) and rather than sending them at the Monk you'd send them against a character the Monk's protecting?

No, I'd rather remove the Monk and then concentrate on anything else. With a Monk they'll have healing, they'll have protection. Without a Monk they're more vulnerable. There's certainly an argument for diversifying, for reducing the dependance on the Monk, to be made but we made that case the last time around with Scaphism Nec/War and a "monkless" team. This time around we're dealing with a strategy for the much more conventional two or three or even four Monk team. When two of such teams clash it's all about who can cut out the healers first. And that's where Monk-hunters come into the picture as they attempt to disrupt the healing base rather than out and out remove it (An IW build makes a good Monk hunter because it can do both. It's got disruption and damage down so it's a handful. But it does so at the cost of making itself pretty vulnerable so it needs to work quickly.) so that the rest of their team can eliminate another Monk.

No, the solution to a Monk-hunter is...another Monk. When your Monks are targeted that's when your healers and other support character need to come to their rescue. A Monk-hunter can be stymied by that Protection Monk who'll buff the Monk to high heaven. Or that debuff who'll hex your Monk hunter into the stone-age. The proper defense depends on the type of Monk-hunter, of course. Here, the big danger to an IW build is, of course, someone who'll debuff you, and then drop some sort of anti-magic protection on the Monk you were targeting. Obsidian Flesh or Spell Break or something along those lines eliminates your ability to hex or interrupt them and takes you out of the game. Whereas if your Monk-hunter was a more traditional Warrior then it would be Shield of Deflection and things like Rigor Mortis and Pacifism that you'd need to worry about. Then, once your Monks are destroyed, their damage dealers can concentrate on you free of any concerns of you being defened.

So, you don't trump a Monk-hunter with another character out to do much the same thing. If you make one of those your best target is, of course, a Monk. What protects a Monk from your Monk-hunter is the other characters on the opposing team who are also dedicated to defense. They'll buy their Monk enough time to survive your Monk-hunter while they hunt your Monks until you're vulnerable. Then their hunters turn on you.

Defense counters offense as healing counters damage. It's going to be more powerful and efficient because it needs to be stronger than what it counters in order to make it worth countering. The trick, though, is that a counter is useless in and of itself. An all-Monk, an all healer, an all-defense team will hold off anyone attacking it for a long time. But it's not going to be able to do much of anything to actually win the fight. You'll have to give up some defense in order to have enough offense to take the fight to the enemy. And because offense is less efficient than defense you'll need to skimp on defense to be anywhere near effective. That creates a weakness in your strategy somewhere that someone can exploit somehow. The question is how much of one and where?

Immortal Squish · Mar 04, 2005, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Well, check out my take on the monk hunter style build. It's got two methods of caster harassment: diversion+distracting shot stacking for long range, as well as IW smackdown for when the subtle touch just isn't enough.

Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to test this build out until retail, as getting these skills during my limited BWE playtime just isn't going to happen. Nevertheless, I'm thinking it'll be quite spiffy. Anyways...

Class: Mesmer / Ranger

Assumed items:
+1 to Fast Casting
+1 to Domination Magic
+4 to Illusion Magic
+3 to Inspiration Magic (if I can find runes with penalties other than to hp/mp)

Attributes: (cost)
Fast Casting: 3+1 (6)
Domination Magic: 8+1 (37)
Illusion Magic: 12+4 (97)
Inspiration Magic: 8+3 (37)
Beast Mastery: 6 (21)

Total attribute points used: 198/200

Skills:
1) Arcane Conundrum - (10,2,20) For 31 seconds, spells cast by target foe take twice as long to cast.
2) Distracting Shot - (5,1,10) If Distracting Shot hits, it interrupts target foe's action but deals only 1 damage. If the interrupted action was a skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 20 seconds.
3) Diversion - (10,2,5) For 6 seconds, the next time target foes a skill, that skill takes an additional 38 seconds to recharge.
4) Power Leak - (10,1,20) If target foe is casting a spell, the spell is interrupted and target foe loses 19 energy.
5) Power Drain - (5,1,25) If target foe is casting a spell, the spell is interrupted and you gain 23 energy.
6) Imagined Burden - (15,1,30) For 21 seconds, target foe moves 50% slower than normal.
7) Illusionary Weaponry (elite) - (15,1,40) For 30 seconds, you deal no damage in melee, but whenever you attack in melee, target foe takes 43 damage. This is an elite skill.
8) Tiger's Fury - (10,0,5) All your non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds. For 7 seconds, you attack 33% faster than normal.

Armor: Enchanter's Armor w/ +1 Illusion mask
Weaponry:
Any shortbow with +attack speed
Any sword/axe with +attack speed
Illusion linked wand
Off hand focus also linked to Illusion

---

Playstyle will consist of staying back while the primary targets are chosen, and locating an untargeted enemy monk or other high priority caster. Arcane Con. the target to make landing interruptions easier. Then, the idea is to spam Diversion while interrupting with Distracting shot when possible. The two recharge penalties should stack, giving a good minute additional downtime when landing both on the same skill.

The build's lack of bow damage (no marksmanship) should keep the target blissfully unaware of the situation until it's too late.

Should the opportunity present itself, the build can also serve as a lethal IW blitz type build. This will mainly be for taking out lone casters/rangers seperated from the main fight. Tiger's Fury subs in for the typical IW build's Flurry/Frenzy. Care has to be taken though, as non-attack skills cannot be used during the first 5 seconds of Tiger's. Switching to bow and getting a Distract off could work as an emergency interrupt, but that's likely to be too slow even with Arcane Conundrum still active. I'd probably save Tiger's until after hitting the target with a Power Leak/Drain.

If melees/rangers become a problem, I'll likely drop Power Leak in favor of the Distortion skill. The hope that a 16 Illusion would drop it's "per hit" cost to zero was the original reason I decided on such an excessive illusion skill anyway.

Spura · Mar 04, 2005, 07:14 PM // 19:14

If someone else is already on monk so monk runs a lot, then I will ALWAYS go for IW builds. Because they are cheap and I hate them. I have 100 DPS for about 5 sec. So if they don't have illusion of weakness I will drop them. Well DPS is a bit lower because of the aftercast times :/

Odd Sock · Mar 04, 2005, 07:31 PM // 19:31

wow 500 damage in 5 seconds! Could you please post that build ?

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 04, 2005, 09:16 PM // 21:16

No offense to Spura, but those who make grandiose claims about their builds without bothering to share them are generally in error somewhere or other. They've gotten a skill description wrong, or are calculating things based on false assumptions or inexact figures, or they're just plain blowing smoke up your arse. Another truism I tend to follow is that "secret tech is bad tech". In general, any strategy that relies on your opponent's not knowing anythign about it isn't the most robust of plans. And in specific, people who don't back things up are poor sources of information.

As Chuck would say, this is the internet. Pics or it didn't happen.

As for your build, Immortal Squish, it's not a bad idea. I'm a bit skeptical about pairing the melee strength of IW with the ranged strength of Ranger but as you're not relying on your bow, it could well work. I do, however, like the inverse of Ranger/Mesmer a lot better. Take a look at something like the Furious Archer from the first alpha roundtable. Drop ele for mes and it'll be as disruptive as anything a mes/ran can be with likely fewer skill slots (What do you need past Debilitating and Distracting, really? A hex or two, an interrupt maybe. But you don't have to devote your whole bar to disruption even if that's your whole goal.) and with the option of just switching over to straight-up damage dealing. Not that a mes/ran can't work. Just that it's much easier, to me, anyway, to make a ran/mes work.

Unik · Mar 04, 2005, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Hi all, I must say first great idea and very useful, thanks.

I would really appreciate having this build reviewed from you guys, I’ve been playing around with it for the past two betas now and starting to like it more and more.

What I like up to know about it, is the fact that it’s quite versatile. A few skill changes and you can change from pve to pvp or even change from high damage dealer to a degen build almost as easy. The damage output is also high enough to be in the respectable range, at least I think it is.

The down sides, I find it a bit weak defensively, yes Aura and Fire attunement, do and fairly good job keep my health and energy up, but on the field it seems to lake just a bit defensively. Although I have to admit according to my guild mates who affectionately often call me *Unik The Tanking Ele*, at least I hope or would rather keep believing is out of affection and not complete laughter. Well let’s say I like being in the action and not as much looking at it from a distance, problem is I like casters, so I will have to deal with the situation somehow.

Anyhow here is the build.

Elementalist / Mesmer

Attributes: (cost)
Energy Storage: 10+1 (61)
Earth Magic: 1 (1) (no reason)
Fire Magic: 11+2 (77)
Illusion Magic: 10 (61)

Total attribute points used: 200/200

Skills:
1) Aura of Restoration - (10,1,20) For 60 seconds, you are healed for 350% of the energy cost each time you cast a spell.
2) Fire Attunement - (10,2,60) For 57 seconds, you are attuned to fire. You gain 30% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use Fire Magic.
3) Flare - (5,1,0) Flare flies towards target foe, striking for 41 fire damage if it hits.
4) Mark of Rodgort - (25,2,20) For 19 seconds, whenever target foe is struck for fire damage, that foe is set on fire for 3 seconds.
5) Phoenix - (15,3,25) A fiery phoenix rises at your location, striking nearby foes for 103 fire damage, and flies out to your target, exploding on impact. This explosion strikes for an additional 80 fire damage.
6) Conjure Phantasm - (10,1,5) (Hex Spell) For 2..12 seconds, target foe experiences -5 Health regeneration.
7) Fragility - (15,1,15) For 16 seconds, target foe takes 24 damage each time that foe suffers or recovers from a new condition.
8) Fevered Dreams (elite) - (10,2,10) For 12 seconds, whenever target foe suffers from a new condition, all nearby foes suffer from that condition as well. This is an elite skill.

I also used a couple other skills in and out for testing, for now I rotate them in and out in place of fevered dreams simply because I haven’t found the skill yet, but once I do have it I guess it would be in place of Conjure Phantasm.

These are the skills I’ve tried:

Glyph of lesser energy; for energy problems.

Sympathetic visage; for defensive purposes.

Arcane Echo; just for more fun, ok damage also.

Fire Storm; damage in pve and defensive in pvp.

Fire ball; for fast damage in pve.

Epidemic; quite disappointed in the area of affect.

And several others in the fire line for pve.

Well that was a long one indeed, looking forward to hear your ideas on this so don’t hold back guys.

Thanks

Dovi the Monk · Mar 04, 2005, 11:42 PM // 23:42

[COLOR=DarkSlateGray]u might try using fragility in the build
if u r planning to keep using rodgorts to use your fire attacks and light them up, fragility will help your damage ouput because them being on fire happens then goes away so fast

so basically with rodgorts and using flares on a person u casted fragility on, its like lots of damage since they keep cacaught on fire again...[/COLOR]

BlackArrow · Mar 04, 2005, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Take another look Dovi, I think thats the plan.

Unik: you may want to take a look at Blinding Flash (air) to get more damage out of Fragility. With 0 points in Air Magic, Blinding Flash will only last 3 seconds but with Fragility on the target it makes another short lived conditoin to take advantage of.

Dovi the Monk · Mar 05, 2005, 12:07 AM // 00:07

lol
oops
i think ilooked at the build then saw some good chances with fragility when i was going to post, and when i looked to see if they were using it i looked at the build above it, lol

so, lol i guess ure right on the point fragiliy would help out there for damage and gice u some good damage, u also may want to look into binding flash, u could cast it and deal 60 dmage in like 3 secs, which isnt bad, plus there blinded, would make a pretty good warrior or ranger killer there if there blinded

. then u hve fire and blindness, there pretty lethal seeing as when someone catches fire just the site of there char on fire makes any1 get off track, and with it happening to everyone with fevered dream that would pretty deadly, and mixed with blindness theyd be going crazy...!!!