Curse

MasterSasori · Jan 28, 2010, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

When it comes to damage dealing, only Necromancers can compete with physicals in a PvE setting (and even then the Necro depends on physicals for it, be it MoP or OoU).

However cracked armour is of small value to physicals. It is only of real value to Elementalists trying to output some damage from their elemental skills.

What you say is true, but I'm seeing many more caster based hero set ups than physical ones.

I didn't mention anything about damage dealing.

Improvavel · Feb 02, 2010, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

What you say is true, but I'm seeing many more caster based hero set ups than physical ones.

I didn't mention anything about damage dealing.

Physical AI is crap - especially the melee dudes, which are the ones that deal the most damage anyway - although they can sometimes be vicious with skills like skull crack. Bit of AoE damage? Run like headless chickens even if they are taking 5 dps. Auto-attacking and then spiking a different target? Nope. By mistake some human call a target and the hero isn't locked on another target - there he goes running around.

Waste of time.

Paragons are better and can load crap like enchantment removal, daze and DW, disruption like CoF and anthem of disruption to synergyze with spirits.

For heroes or h/h teams the rest is AoE - Offense/Defense and Disruption - Wards/RoJ/Aegis/Maelstrom/Deepfreeze/Eruption/FoC (if using essence)/Enfeebling blood/Reckless Haste/Splinter/DA/etc with good use of PS/SoA and a player that knows how to body block the few hard mobs and a ton of shit crap Minions/Spirits.

Discord is just "hey take a cannon, that ignores physical hate (by far the most common) to do some shit when you aren't casting Aegis/Minions/Life, so you can be useful you dork AI Necro".

It is quite akin to the old Offering of Blood boon prot monks in GvG that used Vampiric Gaze to assist in spikes.

Some people, though, will insist that Discord sucks cause its DPS is low, choosing to ignore the job of that hero is to cast the other shit and discord interest is spike damage (one that actually works good most of the time even without the player forcing the use), choosing to bash it in damage level and comparing it to other builds that deal more sustained damage but don't perform the other roles.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HM with humans is blow shit really fast with SF and then some spike based on RoJ/other Armor Ignoring Skill and the like or physical spikes based on MoP/100b or blow shit slightly less faster with a few physicals, an order dude, a mop dude and a pair of E/Mo ER Infuser/proters that give PS or protective bond to all the party members plus SB and even buff the melees with GDW to boot, sometimes with an imbagon to boot.

To the OP - for doing missions/VQ in HM with your friends just run an Imbagon yourself - that alone will allow your guilds to do most of the content outside some elite areas/dungeons.

MasterSasori · Feb 02, 2010, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Some people, though, will insist that Discord sucks cause its DPS is low, choosing to ignore the job of that hero is to cast the other shit and discord interest is spike damage (one that actually works good most of the time even without the player forcing the use), choosing to bash it in damage level and comparing it to other builds that deal more sustained damage but don't perform the other roles.

If you kill the mob quickly, then who cares what else you load onto your heroes? There is no need for other roles.

The benefit of discord is decent damage and you can afk and usually expect the mob to be dead when you come back.

Improvavel · Feb 02, 2010, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

If you kill the mob quickly, then who cares what else you load onto your heroes? There is no need for other roles.

The benefit of discord is decent damage and you can afk and usually expect the mob to be dead when you come back.

Ok - then give the discord heroes no other skills - easy to test.

I don't know even why teams have backlines at all if mobs die so fast...

Heck even some SC teams have monks...

Keep reading these claims of mobs dying fast enough - one guy in a thread I started about you not needing to run AP/caller to use discordway kept repeating that and saying who cares if the melees can run SY! because you kill mobs so fast you don't need SY!

A few months later the same guy floods the Necromancer forums with Necro melee builds to abuse the power of SY!

MasterSasori · Feb 03, 2010, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Ok - then give the discord heroes no other skills - easy to test.

I wasn't referring to Discord, I was referring to AP-MoP. Discord requires specific set up which requires certain conditions to be fulfilled. Though the Discord curse may have Enfeebling Blood and Shadow of Fear as utility, they are also there to meet the prereq for Discord. This doesn't apply to AP-MoP in terms of skills on a bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

I don't know even why teams have backlines at all if mobs die so fast...

Heck even some SC teams have monks...

Keep reading these claims of mobs dying fast enough - one guy in a thread I started about you not needing to run AP/caller to use discordway kept repeating that and saying who cares if the melees can run SY! because you kill mobs so fast you don't need SY!

A few months later the same guy floods the Necromancer forums with Necro melee builds to abuse the power of SY!

Monks are there because people screw up and because SC teams still need heals.

It's difficult to understand what you are saying in your second paragraph. Does "that" refer to "claims of mobs dying fast enough" or "you don't need AP caller to use discordway?"

Your evidence of your guy claiming to not need SY on Discord may have nothing to do with his latter post about necro melee builds. He can choose to run a different hero setup and instead abuse SY.

Improvavel · Feb 03, 2010, 10:31 AM // 10:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

I wasn't referring to Discord, I was referring to AP-MoP. Discord requires specific set up which requires certain conditions to be fulfilled. Though the Discord curse may have Enfeebling Blood and Shadow of Fear as utility, they are also there to meet the prereq for Discord. This doesn't apply to AP-MoP in terms of skills on a bar.

If you are trying to say that an AP-MoP nuker will kill an enemy mob so fast that the enemy won't have time to deal damage to your team making skills like Aegis/PS/Wards/Enfeebling blood irrelevant, that is only true in areas that are easy anyway.

If you are trying to say that AP-MoP nukers deal serious single target damage and have the potential to mow down balled mobs really fast due to MoP, yes that is true, but the team still needs to survive those few secs it takes to kill the mob.

Quote:

Monks are there because people screw up and because SC teams still need heals.

Teams like manly spike increase the efficiency of an AP-MoP nuker in a way you can't possible expect to match running H/H or a couple of players+heroes.

Still, as you say, people can screw up.

H/H teams not only have that problem but you are running AI that can and will screw up, even if in predictable ways. Additionally, you won't be dealing nowhere as much damage as in a manly spike team simply because without the SF tank you won't be able to ball all mobs that good, nor will your spikes be as clean.

Quote:

It's difficult to understand what you are saying in your second paragraph. Does "that" refer to "claims of mobs dying fast enough" or "you don't need AP caller to use discordway?"

Your evidence of your guy claiming to not need SY on Discord may have nothing to do with his latter post about necro melee builds. He can choose to run a different hero setup and instead abuse SY.

My point is - you won't kill mobs fast (at least in areas that matter) enough to make defense mechanisms irrelevant.

There is no spike 1 monster down, run, spike 2 monster, run, repeat till the enemy is down, without the enemy touching you (and when the enemy touches you in HM it will hurt).

There is also no way other than using tanks, of dispatching the entire enemy mob without it firing back at you.

The bottom line is - your team needs to deal massive damage, preferably AoE, but it still requires defense mechanisms like SY! to survive.

Human teams will have access to stuff like SF and ER E/Mo with loads of protection and GDW to knock/disrupt enemies. H/H or teams with only a few humans will have to rely on less efficient defense skills (well they can bring SY! which it seems to be so good that may be preferable to bring it on necro instead of running the same necro as AP-MoP in a h/h team).

If on the other hand your point was that compared to humans most heroes and henchmen builds can't really do damage, you are correct. The really damaging skills I see available to heroes are RoJ, FoC (but recharge is too long to be used without celerity), Putrid explosion (which relies on death bodies), Minions hitting Mop/Barbs targets and/or blowing with death nova, Spirits, Splinter weapon, SS (but it is slow). There might be some other skills (and I'm ignoring melee heroes due to their idiotic/limited AI) but those are the ones that comes on the top of my head.

So, it is easy to see, how even some Discords on some heroes, that provide other functions, can help improve overall damage (and providing a spike to take out important targets) - especially on heroes that have the best PvE energy management engine.

MasterSasori · Feb 03, 2010, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

If you are trying to say that an AP-MoP nuker will kill an enemy mob so fast that the enemy won't have time to deal damage to your team making skills like Aegis/PS/Wards/Enfeebling blood irrelevant, that is only true in areas that are easy anyway.

If you are trying to say that AP-MoP nukers deal serious single target damage and have the potential to mow down balled mobs really fast due to MoP, yes that is true, but the team still needs to survive those few secs it takes to kill the mob.

A few seconds to kill a mob is a bit of an overstatement. Even AP-MoP needs a little time to work no matter how fast.

The point I am trying to make is that depending how fast you kill should let you know how much defense you will need.

The greater the offensive power and stability, the less there is a need for defense is the general idea. I never stated that you should forgo all defense.

Improvavel · Feb 04, 2010, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

A few seconds to kill a mob is a bit of an overstatement. Even AP-MoP needs a little time to work no matter how fast.

The point I am trying to make is that depending how fast you kill should let you know how much defense you will need.

The greater the offensive power and stability, the less there is a need for defense is the general idea. I never stated that you should forgo all defense.

That is certainly true.

But with h/h or teams with loads of heroes - enough damage and loads of defense is probably better, just to be on the safe side with their AI.

That is what discord heroes are good what - loads of defense due to SR and enough damage to kill.

Malician · Feb 07, 2010, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

A few seconds to kill a mob is a bit of an overstatement. Even AP-MoP needs a little time to work no matter how fast.

The point I am trying to make is that depending how fast you kill should let you know how much defense you will need.

The greater the offensive power and stability, the less there is a need for defense is the general idea. I never stated that you should forgo all defense.

During the last Stygian ZB I had some groups explode without Prot Bond triggering once (and I had the whole party bonded). We did have GDW + Earthbind, and the mobs would have taken a moment to attack the spirits before hitting the party.

HigherMinion · Feb 07, 2010, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

That is certainly true.

But with h/h or teams with loads of heroes - enough damage and loads of defense is probably better, just to be on the safe side with their AI.

That is what discord heroes are good what - loads of defense due to SR and enough damage to kill.

Of course, when you have an ER hero with an optimal build and another healer, you don't need much more defense than that.

People also consider minion walls defense, and spirits. I hate teams with stacks of heals, but general layers of defense are fine. Discord has too many stacks of heals.

Improvavel · Feb 08, 2010, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Of course, when you have an ER hero with an optimal build and another healer, you don't need much more defense than that.

People also consider minion walls defense, and spirits. I hate teams with stacks of heals, but general layers of defense are fine. Discord has too many stacks of heals.

What you mean is the discordway of pvx wiki has too many stacks of heals.

Drop one of those N/Rt healers for a curser or N/E with wards and other stuff and you don't have stacks of heals anymore.

Discord necro only means a necro with the elite discord.

And of course, that ER hero, opposed to the humans ER with GDW or to a N/Rt healer have no offense

MasterSasori · Feb 08, 2010, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

What you mean is the discordway of pvx wiki has too many stacks of heals.

Drop one of those N/Rt healers for a curser or N/E with wards and other stuff and you don't have stacks of heals anymore.

Discord necro only means a necro with the elite discord.

And of course, that ER hero, opposed to the humans ER with GDW or to a N/Rt healer have no offense

No please do not do anything with wards.

Discordway has alot of heals, but with faster options, the heals won't be necessary. The heals are only necessary on discordway because it is relatively fast, but not fast enough so that neglecting it is fine.

ER deals with so much crap from monsters that the rest of the team can focus on offense instead of surviving and thus, allows greater offensive power.

Discordway on PvX wiki is pretty bad as well.

Improvavel · Feb 08, 2010, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

No please do not do anything with wards.

Think in terms of certain areas, not as regular set in stone builds - the ward of stability comes in mind and a hero like that can use stuff like maelstrom and eruption. And when I say wards, it is stability and against melee.

Quote:

ER deals with so much crap from monsters that the rest of the team can focus on offense instead of surviving and thus, allows greater offensive power.

While this is certainly true for human players, ER heroes are a bit erratic and quite more limited. N/Mo and N/Rt aren't as powerful but are much more predictable.

HigherMinion · Feb 08, 2010, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Think in terms of certain areas, not as regular set in stone builds - the ward of stability comes in mind and a hero like that can use stuff like maelstrom and eruption. And when I say wards, it is stability and against melee.

While this is certainly true for human players, ER heroes are a bit erratic and quite more limited. N/Mo and N/Rt aren't as powerful but are much more predictable.

Things a hero ER can't do:

Maintain Protective bond on *anyone*.
Spam prots on everyone, while ER is up.
Maintain ER with GoS.
Enchant itself with prots to fuel/cover ER.
No PvE skills means no damage buffs; but this is rather irrelevant.

These are the only disadvantages in comparison to a human ER. But the fact remains that their energy is still godly, making it silly not to atleast try a variation of bars until you find one that works optimally for the hero.

Improvavel · Feb 08, 2010, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Things a hero ER can't do:

Maintain Protective bond on *anyone*.
Spam prots on everyone, while ER is up.
Maintain ER with GoS.
Enchant itself with prots to fuel/cover ER.
No PvE skills means no damage buffs; but this is rather irrelevant.

These are the only disadvantages in comparison to a human ER. But the fact remains that their energy is still godly, making it silly not to atleast try a variation of bars until you find one that works optimally for the hero.

I wouldn't call GDW irrelevant.

It also doesn't cast ER if energy is full and sometimes it will refuse to cast Infuse (even after the AI patch and Dkiss while good is not exactly as exciting as Infuse) - both situations can cause problems at the wrong time.

If a player is using discord heroes like those in the pvx wiki, where 2 of them are restoration spammers, yeah, PS and SB will make a fantastic difference. The same reason ER Infuse Prot is so much better than ER Healer or why prots+heal is so superior to only heal.

But, if on the other hand, you are using a N/Mo WoH hero, things get much closer, and while a N/Mo won't generally have both PS and SB on the same bar, it will have Aegis and SoA.

The N/Rt is probably the weaker of the 3 in the defense department due to weak prots, but it does have party healing and some spike potential.

Human ER - yeah, by far the most powerful.

Hero ER - I see it on par with N/Mo and N/Rt (in my personal experience I prefer the Necros over the E/Mo ER, but that maybe to personal playstyle).

HigherMinion · Feb 08, 2010, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

I wouldn't call GDW irrelevant.

It also doesn't cast ER if energy is full and sometimes it will refuse to cast Infuse (even after the AI patch and Dkiss while good is not exactly as exciting as Infuse) - both situations can cause problems at the wrong time.

If a player is using discord heroes like those in the pvx wiki, where 2 of them are restoration spammers, yeah, PS and SB will make a fantastic difference. The same reason ER Infuse Prot is so much better than ER Healer or why prots+heal is so superior to only heal.

But, if on the other hand, you are using a N/Mo WoH hero, things get much closer, and while a N/Mo won't generally have both PS and SB on the same bar, it will have Aegis and SoA.

The N/Rt is probably the weaker of the 3 in the defense department due to weak prots, but it does have party healing and some spike potential.

Human ER - yeah, by far the most powerful.

Hero ER - I see it on par with N/Mo and N/Rt (in my personal experience I prefer the Necros over the E/Mo ER, but that maybe to personal playstyle).

Well, from what I see from my ER hero when playing on my nec; as soon as I call a foe and my aggro circle touches the first enemy of the mob; he casts ER. The only time it starts to get dangerous is when the battle lasts more than 25 seconds or so; and that generally doesn't happen.

N/Rt is rubbish, but has it's place. No prots, just spike-heals; would only use one in conjunction with an ER hero.

If Infuse is the only spike-heal on the bar, he will cast it alot more. I don't know why people were scared of it "over-using" Infuse. Stacks of prots are the way to go in Hard Mode. And the ER hero can outperform any monk or necro at it.

I do sometimes have a WoH or Life Sheath N/Mo occasionally, or just a hench healer, for the 8 seconds that ER is down.

GDW is irrelevant because we're talking about two hero builds. GDW doesn't factor in either of them.

aspi · Feb 08, 2010, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

Discordway on PvX wiki is pretty bad as well.

There are several discord builds on pvx, which one is so bad or maybe you mean all of them

Me and a person also posting here, Oni Clair, ran a discord team yesterday in DOA, well she did most of the work was my first time there with my necro, but used an almost all necro team with discord this made it seem almost easy.

Improvavel · Feb 08, 2010, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Well, from what I see from my ER hero when playing on my nec; as soon as I call a foe and my aggro circle touches the first enemy of the mob; he casts ER. The only time it starts to get dangerous is when the battle lasts more than 25 seconds or so; and that generally doesn't happen.

I have a different experience - the hero seems to only cast ER after losing some energy - sometimes too much of it. I can force cast but after a while I start to get annoyed by that.

Quote:

If Infuse is the only spike-heal on the bar, he will cast it alot more. I don't know why people were scared of it "over-using" Infuse. Stacks of prots are the way to go in Hard Mode. And the ER hero can outperform any monk or necro at it.

I think the guy most worried of over infusing is the hero - also he seems to dislike to cast it to heal degen and sometimes just refuses to infuse. I don't exactly remember what it is the hero behaviour when kitting, but I've the impression that he doesn't like to use infuse when under fire.

Quote:

GDW is irrelevant because we're talking about two hero builds. GDW doesn't factor in either of them.

But not when comparing the power of ER E/Mo human vs a ER E/Mo hero - the hero is much weaker and I can't stop having the feeling that people idealize a bit their ER heroes because of their experiences with human ERs.

If you give a N/Mo hero PS and SB it won't run out of energy any time soon (unless you can't actually kill anything or at least drop them to under 50% health).

HigherMinion · Feb 08, 2010, 05:17 PM // 17:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

But not when comparing the power of ER E/Mo human vs a ER E/Mo hero - the hero is much weaker and I can't stop having the feeling that people idealize a bit their ER heroes because of their experiences with human ERs.

If you give a N/Mo hero PS and SB it won't run out of energy any time soon (unless you can't actually kill anything or at least drop them to under 50% health).

Quite the opposite, I do believe.

If human ERs were the reason they thought all ERs were good; they would try and get the hero to bond the team, use GoS, but they don't. One ER hero on your team is more optimal than two N/Mos; but you can still have one and everyone will be happy.

I see no reluctantness to use Infuse, to be honest. Alot of people say this, but I see nothing of the sort...

I think you should try it again, with the build I use; and re-draw your conclusions.

Improvavel · Feb 08, 2010, 06:24 PM // 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Quite the opposite, I do believe.

If human ERs were the reason they thought all ERs were good; they would try and get the hero to bond the team, use GoS, but they don't. One ER hero on your team is more optimal than two N/Mos; but you can still have one and everyone will be happy.

I see no reluctantness to use Infuse, to be honest. Alot of people say this, but I see nothing of the sort...

I think you should try it again, with the build I use; and re-draw your conclusions.

As if you use glyph on your human ER...

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

By the way @Upier.

When I play H/H, I am successful with:

ER hero
Paragon command buffz0rs
MB
Healer hench
Warrior hench
other war hench if possible
ranger hench, para hench if possible.

Why do you need so much defense?

I see ER healer and another healer. So a ER healer is better than 2 N/Mo or you trying to say a E/Mo+Healer hench is better than 2 N/Mo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

That Forgewight run was a mistake

I don't see it as a patience problem though, because before we left I saw no problems with the build we had. A bit more patience and we might've remembered to bring Frozen Soil, but that's it. I learned from that run that ER heroes simply cannot be trusted, and while human ER + two Smiters is more than enough, you need a human ER.

From someone that has been a "true paladin" of ER E/Mo on these forums and has loads of experience with h/h.

As you know minion, my experience is mostly 2 players+6 heroes at least in the last 2 years or so, so my view can be a bit skewed by that.

So lets get my ER bar under scrutiny:

ER, AoR, Infuse, Dkiss, PS, SB, SG, optional like vital blessing or your favorite Vigorous Spirit.