Curse

Terrokian · May 24, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

I suppose Enfeebling Blood is bad completely now? No.

No it is not.It simply is not a curse for W/X parties is my opinion.If you got your MM and your M/X,and you are mindful of your aggro,physical damage is not a Warrior issue.Thus replacing it with something more "Warrior friendly"(?)might be a route to take.

Also thank you.I appreciate you took the time to not do the typical"Enfeebling Blood or your a noob" route.

Xunlai Secret Agent · May 24, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terrokian

...some random BS...

Laugh out loud.

Yes, Weakness is a waste. Maintainable +100 armor is also useless.

You do know they were probably talking about HM, not charging around against NM mobs, right?

Drastic reductions in incoming damage gives your monks less to heal, and more time to do it. Its just a few skills to basically guarantee your survival, and decrease any downtime when your plan breaks apart and your back line starts taking hits they cant handle (over enough trials, and enough time, any plan WILL break apart).

You really believe that Life Siphon is better then Enfeebling Blood? A measly 6 dps increase in outgoing?

I give up, your an idiot or trolling.

Tyla · May 24, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

It's true Terrokian. Enfeebling Blood on a PvE Curses bar is practically a staple.

Cathode_Reborn · May 24, 2008, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terrokian

The bloodline is simply for damage and leeching.Soul Reaping does supply energy per death,but taking a pause after battles generally addresses this issue.

And what made you think Life Siphon is good for damage? Do you know how much -3 degen is? That's 6hp per sec. In 10 secs, it would do a measly 60dmg. For 5 energy, you could use something like Blood of the Aggressor and do almost as much damage, but in 1 second rather than 10.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terrokian

If you noticed I DO NOT use enfeebling blood,simply because my front liners don't need it.

You still haven't said why Reckless Haste is in there then. You say you want damage yet you put Insidious and Reckless on the same bar. Insidious needs the target to hit to do damage, Reckless causes them to miss - nice waste of energy. I stated this in the necro section and you changed the subject to SS when I mentioned nothing of it.

Just because a build worked in a few HM areas doesn't mean it can't be drastically improved - there's tons of missions/vanquishes that are so easy and makes both titles look like proof of experience rather than skill.

Terrokian · May 24, 2008, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathode_Reborn

And what made you think Life Siphon is good for damage? Do you know how much -3 degen is? That's 6hp per sec. In 10 secs, it would do a measly 60dmg. For 5 energy, you could use something like Blood of the Aggressor and do almost as much damage, but in 1 second rather than 10.

You still haven't said why Reckless Haste is in there then. You say you want damabe yet you put Insidious and Reckless on the same bar. Insidious needs the target to hit to do damage, Reckless causes them to miss - nice waste of energy. I stated this in the necro section and you changed the subject to SS when I mentioned nothing of it.

Just because a build worked in a few HM areas doesn't mean it can't be drastically improved - there's tons of missions/vanquishes that are so easy and almost makes both titles look like proof of experience rather than skill.

Valid points.I always thought SS and Reckless HAD to be a combo.But am starting to wonder about that.And you are right with Insidious depending on hits I think my curser is getting screwed.

But Enfeebling Blood is not the overall answer here.It really is not the cure all,be all,end all.

Which is making think.How do you make a curser that backs up a warrior?

Cathode_Reborn · May 24, 2008, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terrokian

Valid points.I always thought SS and Reckless HAD to be a combo.But am starting to wonder about that.And you are right with Insidious depending on hits I think my curser is getting screwed.

But Enfeebling Blood is not the overall answer here.It really is not the cure all,be all,end all.

Which is making think.How do you make a curser that backs up a warrior?

It's often combined with SS because it puts an IAS on mobs to make them trigger SS faster. In HM, everything has a perma IAS already so Reckless haste only makes them miss 50%. IAS limit is 33%.

A pure curses nec doesn't support a warrior defensively - it helps them kill faster with stuff like Barbs, MoP, Weaken Armor, Defile Defenses, etc. Assuming you're good with numbers and you play a war often, you should know that stuff in pve sometimes tends to have ridiculously high armor.

The defensive support a war could use from a nec isn't in Curses or Blood. Use stuff like Foul Feast, Prot Spirit, Guardian. Or basic heals like Patient Spirit, Spirit Light. If the war is already heavily armored, direct heals/hex/condition removal are also great to keep him alive and clean. If you dislike Enfeebling Blood because it does nothing against casters, put 2 interrupts on the nec. Power Return/Power Spike are both cheap and spammable - interrupting a key spell could save your war or party from nasty damage/hexes.

Assuming you hold aggro as well as you say you do and you really want direct damage within Curses, use Defile/Desecrate Enchantments. If you hit at least 3 targets or so, you're looking at 180+ total damage done, rather than the 60dmg-in-10secs from Siphon....that's also not including the +dmg from enchants a mob might have. Then there's no point to spec into blood and your attributes are free so you can use them on whatever. If you decide to spec into other lines for damage, Splinter Weapon is always good.

Still, not taking of advantage of Soul Reaping seems silly - everytime people find out how to abuse soul reaping in HA, something stupidly powerful is usually the result.

Terrokian · May 24, 2008, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Definitely some ideas Cathode.A direction I wasn't thinking of,but surely worth looking into.Which I'm gonna start on right now.

shru · May 24, 2008, 10:13 PM // 22:13

First off Terrokian, wiki was created by players (some probably like yourself) which means you shouldn't read it like it's the definative source of all information and good practises.(especially if there's people like you turning the clockwork there)
Anyways, there's a difference between tanking (which can be done with any character + [prot spirit] and [shield of absorption]) and running a tank build (see lame wiki guide posted by Terrokian)
Tanking is actually good to practise when ever possible, and helps channel enemies off your squishes by holding aggro on yourself (SY passively does this because you become the lowest AL target in the party, therefore, the higher priority target for the AI)
While running a tank build is just a waste of space, as the same effect can be achieved through running tanking methods on a standard damage dealing warrior combined with a prot monk. By running a tank build, you're just sacrificing your over all damage output.

But because very few tanks know how to attract enemy aggro (doesn’t have to be the entire mob’s attention) without flat out running a tank build, and the popularity of obs flesh tanks in elite areas, these two separate methods have become one and the same with the general population, and as a result, both have become outwardly shunned.

Writing off tanking as bad is just a flat out ignorant thing to do, seeing as there is no reason to spread damage to your entire party (reducing the effectiveness of prot monks, and probably adding more damage for healers to pick up as well, since most frontliners have higher armor than midliners/backliners). But again, trying to run a build with 8 defensive skills for tanking is just as bad a thing to do.
to sum it up:
tank builds=bad
tanking with standard frontliner build+prot monk=good
relying on a tank to be your only source of damage control=bad
/end rant

sorry but I've seen the same "tanking is bad" statement in so many threads and I just had to put that out there.

anyway, back to the matter at hand...
nvm... There's no use in argueing with an idiot (brings to mind an old quote "don't argue with idiots, they'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.), so I'll leave you guys to have fun with Terrokian.

Tyla · May 24, 2008, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Shru, holding aggro is NOT tanking!!

As for holding aggro, that is something I always do when I'm looking at something potentially dangerous. Which the AI succumbs to because it's so stupid, and when they start attacking they're either: Body blocked by my minions, or are almost dead regardless of minions.

shru · May 24, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

Shru, holding aggro is NOT tanking!!

tanking is defined as holding enemy aggro whilst using damage reduction and protection skills. (this is in fact, what you're doing when you prot a frontliner and send him in to take initial aggro)

Tyla · May 24, 2008, 10:52 PM // 22:52

I'm still not convinced, as usually it's using selfish defenses.

On the other hand, how about we just call it "Makeshift Tanking" and get over it?

And on a side-note: My keyboard is crap. Had to edit this like 3 times to get it right, and it kept deleting the letter to place a new one in...QQ

shru · May 25, 2008, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

I'm still not convinced, as usually it's using selfish defenses.

Hate to quote myself but I already made this point

Quote:

Originally Posted by shru

But because very few tanks know how to attract enemy aggro (doesn’t have to be the entire mob’s attention) without flat out running a tank build, and the popularity of obs flesh tanks in elite areas, these two things have become one and the same with the general population, and as a result, both have become outwardly shunned.

Tanking is an action; while tank builds are a means for shoddy players to achieve this action easily.
"Tanking" should not have connotation with only self-survival skills, as that is such a narrow scope of actual tanking.
That being said, those skills are most notably facets of an undesirable form of tanking in a balanced group, giving the entire notion of tanking an undesirable air to it.

Negative posts from active forum contributors like yourself (and positive ones from users like Terrokian) only further the general distaste for the term "tanking" (even if it is the correct word to use in the situation you call holding aggro or most recently "Makeshift Tanking")
Your proposed name is not a bad idea, as it does more justice for the play style then anything else I've seen it called; but again, it tries to avoid the fact that what you're doing is still defined as tanking (further strengthening my argument that it's the term and false connotation you dislike, not the practice.)

Cathode_Reborn · May 25, 2008, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Trying to give the word "Tank" an actual definition should just stop.....I've lost track of how many times it's started flames. Many people have their own definition to what is it so it creates confusion.

Holding aggro is what it is - keeping a mob on you, whether you're standing there doing nothing, or dealing damage while you're at it, you're holding aggro.

Players with high-damage builds can often hold aggro just as well as those with high-defense ones as long as they have some monk/team support, which there always is in PvE.

zwei2stein · May 25, 2008, 09:07 AM // 09:07

There is huge difference between running dedicated tank build with selfish defences and between running normal highdamage/suport builds and being makeshift-tank every so often just to take inital damage spike on encounter.

Its all about the fact that dedicated is dead slot in party. It can do nothing usefull except holding aggro and for that you dont need it.

Makeshift one is simply someone who takes inital spike of monster damage and then proceeds to kill stuff. There is no need for time consuming aggro dance and all that kind of slow stuff.

Its all about effective party slots and time usage.

---

Terrokian: as it seems i dont need to comment of that abyssmal build as others took care of it.

Main point: you were wasting attributes and skillslots on useless stuff. There is no excuse for not taking barbs, mop and enfeeblinf on bar like yours instead of silly blood stuff, awaken, gole, .... etc etc ...

About condtion/hex trouble: but that is the point, if you have trouble with hexes and conditions, you dont want trouble with physicals. it really eats energy you need to remove stuff.

About attributes: -1 IS usefull. Most highdamage skills grow average 6 dmg per att level. Worst case: your party is deepfreezed by group of terror rains. Its 30 damage per person, granted, up to 240 per party per spike. equivalend about ~9 energy. Sweet.

danger of most HM mobs with such spikes however is that they follow spells with wanding. That is the situation when players actually die, and situation when enfeebling becomes worth it.

For players minor vs sups are different than att loss on efeebling. Players get something out of minor (hp), something pretty important. staying alive to use those atts. For monsters enfeebling is just plain att loss.

Cathode_Reborn · May 29, 2008, 04:26 AM // 04:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

Build I've been using for the past year:

Meh:
[build=OAdUUYDeKfSLQ7iKg6Bxk2BCArlA]
Olias:
[Build=OANEUspn92EzOqXB8QVVPIAqHA]
Master of Whispers:
[build=OANEUsl305EzuCHV0geY3VHMaA]
Livia:
[build=OAhkUkG4RFyUMz4k00w0kjdwFTCI]
I just changed dwayna's sorrow recently.
Works like a charm in HM.
Heroes have +1+2 DM, rest minors

I've been messing with a build similar to that:

[build=OAdTY0z6VaBqM4G0OwSImkR0mEA]

[build=OANEUsl30JFzUVpAiGs7QS0A6OB]

[build=OANDUsldSxMVVKg4BHV+OGNuTA]

[build=OANDUspNSxMVVKgTBHV7ENguTA]

Wow, I never knew that's how the build code thing worked (first time using it).....and all this time I was typing out each skill. That's handy

Anyways.....vanquished a few EotN areas and did some random HM missions to try it out....went really well for the most part. I wasn't sure about Healing Ring till I saw it in action - it's a very nice way to heal up aoe damage since henches tend to bunch up. When the entire team is somewhat low, I'll also flag them them in a random spot (to bunch them up) and to make sure everyone gets healed by it. I tried out Heal Area but they spam it waaayy too much - as soon as anyone takes a slight amount of damage, they use it, rather than letting some other cheap heal handle it. I've seen Infuse make some nice saves on a few rare occasions so I kept that in. Healing Whisper is just a decent spammable heal, but not too sure about it yet.

I always bring both monk henches + 2 rangers (if there's 2) for MoP.

Richardt · May 29, 2008, 05:34 AM // 05:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cathode_Reborn

[build=OANEUsl30JFzUVpAiGs7QS0A6OB]

[build=OANDUsldSxMVVKg4BHV+OGNuTA]

[build=OANDUspNSxMVVKgTBHV7ENguTA]

Those are pretty cool looking. I'll have to try them out.

I had Putrid Bile on a necro earlier tonight, and I found I had to micro it alot. Did you have to do the same?

Cathode_Reborn · May 29, 2008, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richardt

I had Putrid Bile on a necro earlier tonight, and I found I had to micro it alot. Did you have to do the same?

From what I saw they'll sometimes use it and sometimes won't. Sometimes it'll be the first things one of them cast. They don't use it as much as I'd like them to but eh, good enough usually