Curse

Francis Crawford · Nov 17, 2006, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by kess

The dmg that Necthan saw is not that the effect wears off or something, it's because stoneflesh aura is an armor, so any armor penetrating attack e.g. sundering weapons and air spike spells will go through it.

I'm sorry, but that makes no sense unless there's been a MASSIVE rule change.

For any attack, you have an effective AL. For some attacks, the effective AL is ALWAYS 60. That's if the damage is armor-ignoring (e.g., holy damage, light damage, dark damage, almost any damage caused by a mesmer spell or weapon, anything caused by a necro spell or weapon that isn't called "cold" damage, bonus damage via physical attack skills).

"Armor peneteration", as in sundering or most Air Magic damage spells, lowers your AL from the number it otherwise would have been, by the percentage indicated.

And this is all irrelevant, because Stoneflesh Aura's description doesn't mention it affecting AL at all.

In fact, that's one of the big potential benefits of Stoneflesh Aura vs. Armor of Earth and Kinetic Armor -- it works against armor-ignoring damage.

Francis Crawford · Nov 17, 2006, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Kess,

But thank you very much for the practical experience stories!

And I must admit -- skills do NOT always work as the descriptions say they should ...

frojack · Nov 17, 2006, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Doesn't sound strange at all. Seems it's an order of operations thing. Exactly the same way Shelter and Union work together.
Since Prot Spirit will most likely always end before Stoneflesh (thus needing to be re-cast) you'll need to wait for Stoneflesh to recharge through the gap (around 5-10 seconds depending on the build), and automactically pre-cast Prot before it to get the raw damage reduction to factor after the Prot buff. Shouldn't be too hard as Prot has a 5 second recharge. You will seemingly always take damage after Prot ends however.
It's actually somewhat unfortunate that Glyph of Concentration was updated. Before it had a recharge of 2 seconds. If you were interrupted using it, it wasn't really an issue. The 10 second recharge change is quite crippling however. It should be 5 seconds if anything.

Nechtan Thaumaturge · Nov 17, 2006, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by kess

The dmg that Necthan saw is not that the effect wears off or something, it's because stoneflesh aura is an armor, so any armor penetrating attack e.g. sundering weapons and air spike spells will go through it.

I dunno. It's plausible, but I still think there is something more complex at work here. If you cast according to this schedule (at 16 Earth Magic and 12 Protection Prayers and with a +20% enchantment duration bonus):

Cast Protective Spirit
Cast Stoneflesh Aura immediately after that
Wait until Protective Spirit starts blinking
Cast Protective Spirit
Cast Stoneflesh Aura immediately after that
And so on

then you always get damaged a couple of seconds after casting Stoneflesh Aura, and you're susceptible for about five seconds after that. After that window closes, you're invulnerable again until the same time in the next cycle. In other words, the damage doesn't appear to be linked to armor penetration so much as to the timing of the spells. Also, I tried out Protective Spirit/Stoneflesh Aura against a Mantis Stormcaller -- those have Teinai's Crystals and Ash Blast. Teinai's Crystals, which ignores armor, never hit me for any damage, and Ash Blast, which doesn't, sometimes hit for eight and sometimes hit for zero.

I suppose, however, that the important points are that damage does get through from time to time and that this damage is usually easily countered with Healing Breeze, Spirit Bond, Shield of Absorption, or the like. I hope my earlier post didn't sound too pessimistic; I'm actually quite keen on seeing an Underworld build come out of this.

Also, I wanted to mention that I've tried another tack with the build, namely Protective Bond. It actually works quite nicely in the right places. The main benefit is that while you have Stoneflesh Aura and Protective Bond up, you never take any damage save from health degeneration and life stealing; the quirks I've been alluding to never appear. Of course, energy becomes an issue, but there are a few ways around that. First, make sure your Protection Prayers are at 12 and use a Protection Prayers +1 (20% chance) offhand. Then, re-cast Protective Bond until you get it down to 3 energy lost per activation -- SOP from back when. Of course, you need both Essence Bond and Balthazar's Spirit. I usually take Vital Blessing, as well, for reasons I'll elaborate later.

Now, the key is that you want to be fighting moderately high level creatures here: Minotaurs, Ice Imps, etc., but nothing much more threatening than Mountain Trolls. They should typically not do more than about 30 damage per attack, but they shouldn't strictly do less than that either (otherwise you may as well drop the whole thing and just use Stoneflesh Aura all by itself). So, if a creature does, say, 25 damage, that will all be absorbed by Stoneflesh Aura, and Protective Bond won't trigger. Thus, you gain two energy. If the creature does 70 damage, Protective Bond triggers, reducing that to something like 30, all of which is absorbed by Stoneflesh Aura. Here, however, you net -1 energy (-3 from Protective Bond, +1 from both Essence Bond and Balthazar's Spirit). Assuming at least 1/3 of the damage you take is less than 30, you'll stay at constant energy, more or less.

The reason for using Vital Blessing, then, is to keep Protective Bond from triggering too often. With 330 health, Protective Bond will trigger on anything above 16 damage, which is too low. Assuming you're running 16 Earth Magic (-33 damage from Stoneflesh Aura), you actually want 660 health for best results. Of course, you can juggle the attributes around and try different runes and weapon upgrades, but you want to have in the neighborhood of twenty times as many hit points as Stoneflesh Aura's damage reduction.

I tried this out against the Avicara outside Droknar's Forge, the Elona Reach Minotaurs, and the Ice Imps and Siege Ice Golems outside the Ice Caves of Sorrow. In each of these cases, I never took a point of damage. Mountain Trolls are also possible, but you need a +10 armor bonus and some luck (so that they don't disrupt your Glyph of Concentration) to make it work. Of course, all I was doing was avoiding death, not killing anything. I'm thinking Sliver Armor and Stone Daggers for the last two slots, but that's up in the air.

Xpl0iter · Nov 21, 2006, 04:14 PM // 16:14

am working on a build for Master Quest, forgot what its name was, but you get it at Gates of Tormet, the second Master quest in the series.
This quest has foes coming from 2 sides

If an ele could handle one side himself by tanking, other side could be killed faster with the help of 7 people.

Currently, my issue is Diblitaing shot which reduces my energy. I worked with I have the build which works quite well, but depends on whether u prefer to go against casters or physicals.

Was using it a few days back, so lets see if i am able to recall it

Stone Flesh Aura,
Obsidian Flesh
Serpent's Quickness
Earth Attunement (fixed, thanks to francis for mentioning it )
Storm chaser ( for energy against deblating shot )
Stone Stryker ( to change all recieved dmg into earth damage, making it helpful for storm chaser to gain energy of +4 )
Armour of earth
Optional (i usualy take Sliver Armour here)
16 in earth
9 in wilderness
rest in energy

Issue with the above variant is, Deblating shot.
Since its rangers, i dont need to worry about obsidian flesh
I usualy cast serpent's quickness just before stone styke and all other enchantment, and then use storm chaser the moment rangers hit me, my energy never falls below , usualy stays full. Then i use it second time, which is also fine, but interuption can be a lil messy here. One thing interupted and entire build falls apart.

I was also thinking of going with mist form instead of obsidian flesh which makes sliver works B E A Utifully. If i had one monk behind me casting spell breaker just before i hit the foes, would be great, OR having second ele tank who could work with mist form along with me ( i don't wanna use 2 of my accounts to play tag )

Its better than using an actual tank since the dmg i recieve is 0, energy is the key concern. BIP doesn't fill energy fast enough either. Tested it

Let me know what you guys think

PS: i know this post is very messy since i got not enough time to clean it up. Will do so when i get to home.. Peace.

Francis Crawford · Nov 21, 2006, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Yeah, Xploiter, one of the problems with that build is vulnerability to interruption. The other problem is the precision of the timing; for that reason, I've never enjoyed using Permanent Obsidian Flesh.

Also, you surely meant "Earth Attunement" where you wrote "Ele Attunement".

I don't know the mission you're talking about, but if there isn't any enchantment stripping -- and I'm guessing there isn't, or you wouldn't have mentioned Mist Form -- and you have Prophecies, you can consider an Ether Renewal tank, with Mantra of Resolve.

Xpl0iter · Nov 21, 2006, 08:38 PM // 20:38

actualy, i am very precise with the timing for ob flesh ^_^ been doing solo farming for months.
Reason i was thinking to stay with OB flesh was because hate against casters, there is a mesmer who shatters enchantment. So i have to be kinda careful in that aspect.
And thanks for correcting me, yeh it was earth attument!

I will work on this build's variances for a while until something good comes up.

Regardz

kess · Dec 04, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Ok, today I tested out the stoneflesh/prot spirit combo. And I concluded that the this combo does not work.

It's because, stoneflesh does not always reduce dmg after prot spirit. It's random. Sometimes, it does, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't matter the order you cast stoneflesh and ps.

If any of you say that you get 0 dmg all the time with this combo, you can probably just keep stoneflesh on w/o the prot spirit.

Francis Crawford · Dec 05, 2006, 09:53 AM // 09:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by kess

Ok, today I tested out the stoneflesh/prot spirit combo. And I concluded that the this combo does not work.

It's because, stoneflesh does not always reduce dmg after prot spirit. It's random. Sometimes, it does, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't matter the order you cast stoneflesh and ps.

If any of you say that you get 0 dmg all the time with this combo, you can probably just keep stoneflesh on w/o the prot spirit.

Yours is about the third report I know of saying the same thing.

Thanks for testing it!

frojack · Dec 05, 2006, 01:27 PM // 13:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by kess

Ok, today I tested out the stoneflesh/prot spirit combo. And I concluded that the this combo does not work.

It's because, stoneflesh does not always reduce dmg after prot spirit. It's random. Sometimes, it does, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't matter the order you cast stoneflesh and ps.

If any of you say that you get 0 dmg all the time with this combo, you can probably just keep stoneflesh on w/o the prot spirit.

Hmm... That really is a shame. Make a bug report or something. It really does seem like it would be the perfect combination. I really (REALLY) wish I had the old Glyph of Concentration back now. Tanking Aatxe would've been a breeze...

Hyprodimus Prime · Dec 06, 2006, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Awe.....I hoped for the best. Im not too much of a PvP fan, I like soloing stuff better. The PS-SFA combo looked promising. Oh well.

Hyprodimus Prime · Dec 06, 2006, 02:18 AM // 02:18

Awe.....I hoped for the best. Im not too much of a PvP fan, I like soloing stuff better. The PS-SFA combo looked promising. Oh well.