Curse

SotiCoto · Apr 29, 2007, 11:14 AM // 11:14

I'm trying to 55 solo-farm with the standard hard-mode build... but with a necro primary.
I've never even tried 55ing before today... It is tough, but to some extent I can manage. But since GWG was down last night I pretty much had to try and rebuild it from memory...

I've been dying a LOT ...

The undead behind the shed in Gates of Kryta...
At first there is only the one of them... and then when I kill that, shedloads more of them spawn. At first I'm not getting hit enough to maintain energy... and after that I'm getting hit too much to maintain health.

Am I doing something wrong or can 55/SS Necro-primary just not work?

SalamandraTheNinja · Apr 29, 2007, 01:24 PM // 13:24

With the amount of enemies that spawn in GoK behind the house, regen simply cannot keep you alive when at 55hp. If you died first and swapped to the -20hp offhand, maybe, but then you'd have failed the mission.

Fuzzy Taco · Apr 29, 2007, 01:25 PM // 13:25

55/SS works. VERY well. i'm going to assume you're using Healing breeze? If you are, there are better skills out there. I run a build posted by someone else on these forums. I take no credit for the build, because i'm definitely not the first person to use it.

16 Curses
12 Protection prayers
2+3=5 Blood Magic (energy from the offhand)
Rest in Soul Reaping

Essence Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Watchful spirit (makes up for any downtime)
Protective Spirit
Shield of Absorption (Invincibility)
Shielding Hands (you must stack this correctly with protective spirit)
Spiteful spirit {E} (damage)
Optional (changes depending on where i farm)

Equipment:
you MUST have a wep with +20% enchants. this build can be run at 105 or 55 hp.

Optional can be Insidious Parasite, Desecrate Enchantments, or another Protection spell.

The usage: enter an area, hit EB, BS and WS. wait for a little bit of energy.
before you aggro, hit PS, when they're close, hit Shielding. hit SS and, if you brought a damage spell, hit that. continue to alternate between shielding hands and Shield of Absorption. when one blinks, cast the other. if you miss by half a second, watchful will make up for it.

Good Luck, if you want to see any demonstrations of good farm spots, pm me in game: IGN=Noodle Bury Pie.

SalamandraTheNinja · Apr 29, 2007, 02:00 PM // 14:00

But whatever you do, don't use that in GoK. You'll die ridiculously quickly by degen.

Fuzzy Taco · Apr 29, 2007, 04:31 PM // 16:31

You can play around with it, and put 8 in healing, 10 in prot, and bring mending instead of watchful and healing breeze in the optional.

Craero · Apr 29, 2007, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzy Taco

You can play around with it, and put 8 in healing, 10 in prot, and bring mending instead of watchful and healing breeze in the optional.

Or just bring dismiss condition and go with 105 hp eh?

SotiCoto · Apr 29, 2007, 09:49 PM // 21:49

... For GoK I was bringing Watchful Spirit AND Mending.... Once all my enchants were up I had no energy regen, so I had to make sure I was careful about it... I managed to kill the first hellhound despite it being close and energy management difficult.... but then after that, even with 5 pips of regen from watchful and mending and another 8 from Healing Breeze... they still managed to kill me. It wasn't the degen that did it so much as the sheer number of them attacking me at once.

I tried it again without watchful spirit and brought that other skill ... that.... damnit. I've forgotten the name of it.... The other one people hype about with the picture of the guy looking all gasmed out on the icon.... Factions skill.... heals damage when the enemy does over a certain amount... lasts 8 seconds.
Anyway... I brought THAT with me and a second suit of Superior-Runed-out Armour (I now have one which is max-armour and one which is min-armour).

That worked a bit better.... but maintaining that, energy, the other enchants AND casting Spiteful Spirit was a bit too taxing... and they still managed to mob me to death.

So now you're suggesting Shielding Hands and Shield of Absorption instead? .... Sounds complicated...

Which set of armour should I use?

The AL15 or AL60?

[Note: I practiced the same original build against the Vermins in Xaquang Skyway initially... and even managed to kill a few of them.... but THEY kept knocking me down AND degenning me to death. I actually decided to take on the Undead to AVOID being so degenned... ironically.]

ichigo_panty · Apr 30, 2007, 02:29 AM // 02:29

AL 15 or 60 doesn't make a different if you are using PS. They will never hit more than 5/10hp if you are 55/105.

If you have shielding hands or SoA, initial dmg - protective dmg = 0 dmg when these skills are up.

The skill that you were using is Spirit Bond which could be good as a heal as well since they are likely to hit you for 90++ most of the time. The degne in GoK are just too high and will be hard to heal.

In GoK, the hex,conditions are just too much. You could take Mending touch/Condition removal for GoK to counter the conditions.

Enko · Apr 30, 2007, 04:59 AM // 04:59

what build are you using? when using balth's spirit and essence bond, there should be pretty much no energy problems.

SotiCoto · Apr 30, 2007, 10:15 AM // 10:15

I was using Spirit Bond, Protective Spirit, Healing Breeze, Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite, Mending, Balthazar's Spirit and Essence Bond.

The initial one enemy was barely hitting me enough to get me back the energy I was spending keeping my enchants up...

The mob that followed after I killed him didn't give me any energy trouble at all, but were simply hitting me so often that my health-regen alone couldn't cope with it and Spirit Bond kept running out before I'd finished casting Spiteful Spirit.

Even rapid-casting Spirit Bond > Protective Spirit > Healing Breeze > Spiteful Spirit > Spirit Bond > Protective Spirit > Healing Breeze > Insidious Parasite like that wasn't enough to stop them killing me. For a while I seemed invincible (that is to say it seemed to be coping fine)... and then suddenly I'd be dead without any explanation.

I have my suspicions that it was my typical lag causing activation delay on the skills.

ArTy · Apr 30, 2007, 11:14 AM // 11:14

The degen is manageable if you have 13 into Healing prayers (Monk primary). Mending then gives +4 while Breeze gives +8, after the the degen stacking left me with +1.

If I had NF I would probably use Mystic regeneration, it's the shiz atm

SotiCoto · Apr 30, 2007, 11:19 AM // 11:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArTy

The degen is manageable if you have 13 into Healing prayers (Monk primary). Mending then gives +4 while Breeze gives +8, after the the degen stacking left me with +1.

¬_¬
What part of "My character is Necromancer Primary" don't you understand? I cannot mystically, magically change her primary class... and I wouldn't even if I could.
My monk hasn't got any further than the Marketplace by Waijun Bazaar so far, so she isn't an option.

Incidentally.... Where would folks suggest is a good place to farm with the N/Mo 55? Apparently my choosing to try GoK behind Oink's house was a bad decision... as was trying to solo Vermins in Xaquang Skyway.... I've noticed the Undead Archers outside the Hotsprings are too spread out (and small in number) for SS to be really effective, but I can just about solo them awkwardly provided I don't get any lag.

SotiCoto · May 01, 2007, 09:09 AM // 09:09

[Update of Situation]

Despite absolutely chronic lag this morning (I had an average ping of 3000... and found myself stuck, unable to move at all if I stayed around in outposts too long)..... I tested the SH/SOR 55/SS on the Anvil Rock Minotaurs....

I noticed three things:

#1. It basically works. Nothing particularly wrong with it, and I'm able to stay alive just fine.
#2. To some extent... so are they. Though they all mobbed me at the beginning and it looked hopeful, once they got down to a certain health level they hopped away and just stood at the back.... watching... until their health regenerated. ¬_¬ .... It took me a while longer than I had hoped to kill them all... forcing me to put Insidious Parasite AND Spiteful Spirit on each one in turn to spike them to a degree that they wouldn't immediately run off and recover from. And I eventually managed to kill them all.
#3. I got a lot of Curved Minotaur Horns... worth 8 gold each... 2 piles of around 100 gold.... and one hide worth pittance. That was it. If most of what they drop is just horns and hides then I can't see how they could possibly be worth farming at all... Am I totally missing something here?

[Incidentally: I tried farming them earlier with the 1hp Solo Assassin build... discovered that the nearest Res Shrine was in the distant south (with no Minotaurs around).... and also discovered that I can't solo Shiverpeak Centaurs with only two health regen, as they cause bleeding.]

Craero · May 01, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by SotiCoto

[Update of Situation]

Despite absolutely chronic lag this morning (I had an average ping of 3000... and found myself stuck, unable to move at all if I stayed around in outposts too long)..... I tested the SH/SOR 55/SS on the Anvil Rock Minotaurs....

I noticed three things:

#1. It basically works. Nothing particularly wrong with it, and I'm able to stay alive just fine.
#2. To some extent... so are they. Though they all mobbed me at the beginning and it looked hopeful, once they got down to a certain health level they hopped away and just stood at the back.... watching... until their health regenerated. ¬_¬ .... It took me a while longer than I had hoped to kill them all... forcing me to put Insidious Parasite AND Spiteful Spirit on each one in turn to spike them to a degree that they wouldn't immediately run off and recover from. And I eventually managed to kill them all.
#3. I got a lot of Curved Minotaur Horns... worth 8 gold each... 2 piles of around 100 gold.... and one hide worth pittance. That was it. If most of what they drop is just horns and hides then I can't see how they could possibly be worth farming at all... Am I totally missing something here?

#1. Nothing wrong with that
#2. It's this simple, push them up against a wall and attack one with your weapon. If you body block them effectively they won't run away most of the time and the one you're attacking will pretty much never run away.
#3. You're just having bad luck.

SotiCoto · May 01, 2007, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craero

#3. You're just having bad luck.

While I appreciate the sentiment.... I suspect I'm just having bad anti-farming code. -_-;

Tried farming the minotaurs again today. Once again no weapons... just a few piles of cash and a few curved minotaur horns.

Been farming Chkkr Brightclaw with the same build I used for Byzzr Lightwing.... and once again I'm getting nothing from him but the occasional small pile of cash.

Heck... I even tried doing the entire Consulate Docks mission inbetween with full party to see if that'd kill the anti-farming code.... but it hasn't... >_<;

Llint · May 01, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by SotiCoto

While I appreciate the sentiment.... I suspect I'm just having bad anti-farming code. -_-;

Tried farming the minotaurs again today. Once again no weapons... just a few piles of cash and a few curved minotaur horns.

Been farming Chkkr Brightclaw with the same build I used for Byzzr Lightwing.... and once again I'm getting nothing from him but the occasional small pile of cash.

Heck... I even tried doing the entire Consulate Docks mission inbetween with full party to see if that'd kill the anti-farming code.... but it hasn't... >_<;

Anti farming code was removed, you're just having bad luck.

Knight of Saitin · May 01, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Hey,
Try going to the Ice Tooth caves in the north Shiverpeaks of Tyria.

Skillz: SS, Prot.Spirit, Spirit Bond or Healing Breeze, The main 3 Enchants-Mending, BS, and EB, IP and one optional (I use Dessicrate Enchants for som extra dmg)

You can clear them fast, and some good gold drops. I got a req 9 Butterfly sword 15%^50 20/19 last night. Bring lockpicks for the odd chest and you'll make about 5k+ and hour. GL

{KoS}

Craero · May 01, 2007, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight of Saitin

Hey,
Try going to the Ice Tooth caves in the north Shiverpeaks of Tyria.

See below

Quote:

Originally Posted by SotiCoto

..... I tested the SH/SOR 55/SS on the Anvil Rock Minotaurs....

Tried farming the minotaurs again today. Once again no weapons... just a few piles of cash and a few curved minotaur horns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Llint

Anti farming code was removed, you're just having bad luck.

Some people still don't believe that and others don't read update notes.

red13xx · May 01, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

There are some places that still work good for 55 farming with necro in HM. You dont always need to have SS. There are other skills that can help like price of failure/reckless haste/insideous parasite or even sometimes when the melee you face have too much dps you can try mixing ss with shadow of fear. For monk skills when you are not using SS you can bring healing hands or shield of rejuvination etc. There is a lot of trial and error though so it is all about experimenting with it. Some bosses still can be taken down with 55 spoils victor in HM so it isnt the worst for 55 necro although I think 55 monk is more versatile or a geomancer ele/mo.

SotiCoto · May 01, 2007, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Llint

Anti farming code was removed, you're just having bad luck.

And I suppose if an A-Net representative was cutting your arm off with a hack-saw and told you there was no hack-saw... you'd believe them then too?

If anything, the only part of the anti-farming code they've removed is the actual pop-up window that would tell you it was active.

To claim bad luck is soley to blame for my getting 6 runs of really good drops from Byzzr Wingmender (as mentioned somewhere: 4 of his green, 3 elite monk tomes, 2 fow scrolls, 1 uw scroll, alongside whites and cash).... then effectively nothing from him for the next 15 or so runs, nothing higher than infrequent whites (one drop from every 4 of them) from around 30 minotaurs... and nothing more than adventurer scrolls from Chkkr Brightclaw for now coming up to 30 runs.... is ridiculous.

At the very least I'd expect the odd purple, but I don't even get that.
Heck... I don't even get blues aside from the scrolls.

This never occurred with my Assassin when I was flag-soloing bosses deeper in the level in normal mode... and that was when the message still showed up for some folks. -_-; .... Maybe I ought to take my heroes with me and flag them back at the start.