Curse

arredondo · Mar 28, 2006, 01:24 AM // 01:24

I'm continuing a side conversation in another thread here to focus on this one skill I brought up. It seems that the Necro's new elite Wail of Doom (Soul Reaping att.) has the potential by itself to make future team build makeups a lot more interesting:

Quote:

Wail of Doom
Description: Sacrifice 10% health, and target foe is interrupted. If target foe wasattacking, all of that foe's attack skills are disabled for 5-17 (21 at L16) seconds. This is an elite skill.

Energy Cost: 15
Activation Time: 1/4th of a Second.
Recharge Time: 15 Seconds.
Linked Attribute: Soul Reaping. Increases duration.
Skill Type: Spell.

Contrary to popular belief (and misprints at fansites), this elite is NOT a Hex:

http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?i...skills14os.gif

One Warrior vs. one blood Necro with this elite appears to be in the Necro's favor as he can chain re-cast this indefintely while casting armor ignoring, life recovering spells. And as I indicated in the other discussion, two Necros with fast recharge abilities as Ranger secondaries can easily hold back four Warriors from mounting significant damage. Regular swings are hard hitting from this melee class, but not enough to really take over a match as definitively as they can with attack skills.

My challenge to experienced Warriors out there is to see if two of them with NO attack skills on their bar could get a good win streak in TA by bringing one Monk and one Mesmer for support. Is it possible? If not, aren't Warriors going to lose their position as primary damage dealers on some teams if WoD becomes extremely popular? Sure, it'll be tough for any class to replace their consistent DPS, but what is DPS if you can't use it in a match?

They will never, ever be worthless, and they got a lot of good things in the update (the thread title was hard to resist). Mesmers are a great answer to WoD of course, and other solutions are probably out there, but it seems with this skill (and stuff like Ele's Ward of Stability to stop KDs) it adds together for much tougher times for Warriors overall. Maybe offense will become more unique and spread a bit more across other classes (if possible)? Props to Pat from another site who noticed this early on.

DieInBasra · Mar 28, 2006, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Sword: 34.12 damage per hit, 25.59 damage per second, 1536 damage per minute; 38.39 damage per second, 2303 damage per minute while under Frenzy

Axe: 35.55 damage per hit, 26.66 damage per second, 1600 damage per minute; 40 damage per second, 2400 damage per minute while under Frenzy

Hammer: 51.36 damage per hit, 29.35 damage per second, 1761 damage per minute; 44.02 damage per second, 2641 damage per minute while under Frenzy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Lightning Strike and Lightning Orb*

10 strikes and 8 orbs per minute (roughly): 30.333 damage per second, 1820 damage per minute, spikey, unreliable (orbs miss frequently), 8.5 pips of energy regeneration.

Auto-attacking warrior efficiency again, at the same 8.5 pips of regen that's becoming a theme. Of course you do get a little downtime here to wand with (hahah), but trying to do more would cost you even more energy.

Is their much else to say? Warriors are still the best damage class, even without skills, and they'll be supported by edenial mesmer(as is the current fad), so 15e price tag isn't something to brush aside.

Ensign · Mar 28, 2006, 01:50 AM // 01:50

Wail of Doom doesn't affect warrior DPS at all. It affects a warrior's ability to spike. I consider this to be *obvious*. Is Wail of Doom good for shutting down warriors? Maybe. There are a lot of good warrior shutdown options in the game, and Blackout is effective at making warriors complain so this will likely be a good tool. Worth an elite slot? I'm not sure, but it's something to keep in mind. I don't think it's anything that will revolutionize warrior hate, though.

The scenarios you present are unrealistic at best. You do understand that if you brought a strong anti-warrior necro in your team build, and if he was actually annoying your opponent's warriors, that said necro would very quickly have a mesmer sitting on his face? That's why mesmers are used to support warriors, they stomp on whatever might be preventing their warriors from rocking people.

Even if warrior hate hit a critical mass, you would not see other professions taking over on offense. The reason is because other professions cannot deal damage. When warriors are not good, the metagame degenerates into spiking contests, because that is the only way that other professions can kill anything through monk support.

Peace,
-CxE

arredondo · Mar 28, 2006, 02:20 AM // 02:20

Well if it truly is a scenario of Warrior DPS or nothing as far as primary offense goes, then GW is underachieving its potential as a PvP game IMHO. The stats above are interesting... thx. Of course I didn't mention Enfeebling Blood/SoF which any team with several Necros would spam, but point taken.

It would be great if it were realistic for any class to have several options for several styles... offense, defense, utility, etc., at higher levels of play. Perhaps Arena.net has tweaked it enough to shift the weight from "required" use of Warriors/Monks to win top level matches, but you guys seem to doubt it so far.

Just as another thought, would Assassins and Mesmers working on Monks (daze and energy/skill gimp) be enough to keep Monks more occupied than before when it was mainly Mesmers causing the gimp (besides KD assaults of course)? I ask because if the damage from other classes is so easily repairable until they have little energy to work with perhaps there's something, anything to reduce this equation to include more build types per class.

Couldn't the combo of weaker Warriors, debilitated by, say, three Necros with hex spam, blood spell spam and WoD, combined with the harassment of their Monks from an Assassin and two Mesmers work at all towards controlling DPS while minimizing healing support? I'm just trying to think of a scenario where things can realistically change somewhat to not be so Warrior/Monk dominant.

dgb · Mar 28, 2006, 02:45 AM // 02:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Worth an elite slot?

It's more than that. Worth an elite slot, and worth pumping a lot of points into an attributre line that is still only marginally useful?

Allmightybob · Mar 28, 2006, 02:58 AM // 02:58

I'd say that it is more effective against Rangers or Assassins than it is against Warriors, classes that put alot of attacks skills on their bar.

icemonkey · Mar 28, 2006, 03:16 AM // 03:16

with good use of protection skills and some of the spirits that are comming up, warrios will only be able to spike in the future as well. And lets face it, everything comes down to a spike. When you get an oportunity to kill a monk you don't dawdle you blow your wad of adrenaline on him in hopes of killing him, you do as much damage in as little time as possible, a spike. Its not like a ranger spike but the whole game is about dealing an amount of damage that is not healable in the timeframe of the damage. If the timeframe is short the damage is high, very high.

Wasteland Squidget · Mar 28, 2006, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

It would be great if it were realistic for any class to have several options for several styles... offense, defense, utility, etc., at higher levels of play. Perhaps Arena.net has tweaked it enough to shift the weight from "required" use of Warriors/Monks to win top level matches, but you guys seem to doubt it so far.

I agree, I'd love to see a variety of classes with real damage capability. Ritualists and elementalists especially seem to have lines devoted entirely to dealing damage that really can't.

How the game currently works can't be ignored though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arredondo

Just as another thought, would Assassins and Mesmers working on Monks (daze and energy/skill gimp) be enough to keep Monks more occupied than before when it was mainly Mesmers causing the gimp (besides KD assaults of course)? I ask because if the damage from other classes is so easily repairable until they have little energy to work with perhaps there's something, anything to reduce this equation to include more build types per class.

Shutdown is a really great thing and don't think I'm understating its usefulness at all, but shutdown alone doesn't make an effective offense. In order for shutdown to be effective you have to have a credible damage threat.

A blood necro isn't even remotely comparable to a warrior as a credible damage threat. A warrior raging someone's face means they're probably going to need heals and prot sometime within the next few seconds, while a blood necro you can often wait for quite a while until they're even in the danger zone.

Shutdown is a bit misnamed (IMHO) in the sense that it's very rare to ever actually shut someone down. If you're a monk you can usually still get a few spells off, even when you're energy denied or hexed to hell or have an interrupter sitting on your face. There are various techniques you can use to get around shutdown (focus-swapping, faking out interrupters) and sometimes you can just rely on your team for removals. It's technically possible to shut someone down, but typically it takes two characters focusing their attention almost exclusively on that one. Furthermore, the whole pack of cards can come tumbling down once the opposing team realizes what you're doing and starts disrupting your shutdown guys, either by putting warriors on them or utilizing their own Mesmers.

Instead, most forms of shutdown involve debilitating a character enough that they can't do what they need to do at peak efficency. Sure, I can focus-swap as a monk to get those crucial spells off now and then, but if I'm getting energy denied and there are warriors raging the face of my team I'm in a lot more trouble. The shutdown prevents me from acting with the efficency I need to in order to defend my team, so my heal comes 3 seconds too late and we suffer a death.

If it weren't for the threat of the warriors ripping my team apart I'd just sit there energy denied and live off my occasional spells without really worrying.

That's all even ignoring the fact that teams typically run some defense on /Mos these days. Heal Party on the flag runner, Aegis on the mesmer, or any number of other things they can use to lessen the pressure while their monks are shut down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arredondo

Couldn't the combo of weaker Warriors, debilitated by, say, three Necros with hex spam, blood spell spam and WoD, combined with the harassment of their Monks from an Assassin and two Mesmers work at all towards controlling DPS while minimizing healing support? I'm just trying to think of a scenario where things can realistically change somewhat to not be so Warrior/Monk dominant.

The assassin is at least interesting in that I think they have the potential to deal out a lot of damage. Maybe not as much as an Eviscerate guy, but certainly pressure-worthy, and probably a bit more disruptive on a specific target if left unchecked.

The central problem though is that assassins dealing damage won't change the gameplay all that much. Go down the list of warrior counters/buffs and you'll see that they pretty much all apply to assassins too - blinds, hexes, block/evades, snares, kiting, ect. Things will change just a bit as people learn how to deal with teleports and the peculiarities of certain assassin combos, but ultimately it's still just a melee character running around attacking people in melee.

What you seem to be looking for is an offensive caster that can deal pressure damage, and I honestly haven't seen anything of the sort. I wish there was.

arredondo · Mar 28, 2006, 07:35 AM // 07:35

I'm looking for two things because there are two "problems"... Warriors and Monks are so good at what they do (removing health, protecting it, or putting it back) everyone else are utility at best, left out at worst. Like I said, more legit roles for all classes would be an awesome thing.

So I was looking for indications in the update if there are more ways to consistently gimp Monks hard enough to prevent their heal/protect proficiency (even more than currently possible), along with minimizing the consistent DPS of Warriors. By both of these classes becoming, say, 30% less effective on a regular basis may allow other types to fill in more roles if they have the tools.

Of course other classes can't match Warrior output over time, but if what they can do is not easily healed or repaired, then you can look at other offense options only if, simultaneously, Warrior output is also less efficient than before. If that doesn't mean gimping both classes, it means increasing the debilitating options for everyone else specific towards those two classes.

So the Mesmer is already accepted as being decently anti-caster, particularly if you need to slow a Monk down... ok, we see the Assassin has the easiest ability to cause Daze. It was that Condition, along with rapid combos that create multiple Conditions, that may have potential. A Mesmer who is operating on a consistently Dazed Monk has a greater advantage than before. Along with their new stuff, is it enough? I dunno.

For anti-Warrior, you have Mesmers getting some Illusion improvement a month ago, but the Necros consistently receiving more attention in this area. Wail of Doom still looks pretty formidable to me, but you guys don't think any of this is enough to "balance" them enough to not be the only real offensive option.

Hopefully the new release addresses these areas to really see some variety in character roles, in any case, thanks for responding with your knowledge.

Ensign · Mar 28, 2006, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Well if it truly is a scenario of Warrior DPS or nothing as far as primary offense goes, then GW is underachieving its potential as a PvP game IMHO.

I won't disagree with that assessment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Of course I didn't mention Enfeebling Blood/SoF which any team with several Necros would spam, but point taken.

The point that I was trying to make wasn't that any individual piece of warrior hate was bad - of course some warrior hate is good. The point that most people seem to miss when looking at these new skill lists is that a build still has only 64 skills in it. There can be a thousand pieces of warrior hate in the game but there's still only room for a few of them in a build. Some of the new ones are going to attack different angles, or fit onto new templates, but the core of the game is still the same. There's a lot of warrior hate available and it's bloody important.

The thing is that people recognize this on both ends. Warriors rarely run around naked in PvP, they have a significant support structure in any given build to keep them operating effectively - condition and hex removal to keep them clean, enchantment removal on supporting characters to keep their targets soft, and snares to let them get into place. Plus you need to bring some support to keep the opponent from doing the same to you. It's hard to fit it all into a team build. The only alternative, though, is shrugging off damage entirely and just spiking people down, often with some off-target disabling. It's not pretty, but without warriors it's the only option available.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Perhaps Arena.net has tweaked it enough to shift the weight from "required" use of Warriors/Monks to win top level matches, but you guys seem to doubt it so far.

I haven't seen anything in the skill listings that will allow a non-melee character to deal appreciable amounts of damage. The disparity is pretty huge man, a couple of skills here or there aren't going to change anything. Again though, if you don't want to use warriors you can always just spike things out. Every profession has some good spike options available, and you can get pretty high up on the ladder with a pure spike strategy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Just as another thought, would Assassins and Mesmers working on Monks (daze and energy/skill gimp) be enough to keep Monks more occupied than before when it was mainly Mesmers causing the gimp (besides KD assaults of course)?

You run mesmers now to situationally sit on monks and give your warriors a chance to kill people. Assassins are potentially a nice hybrid with some disruptive potential, and a damage output that can actually kill people (it is a melee profession after all). Still you can disrupt an enemy an awful lot but it doesn't matter how much you disrupt him if you aren't threatening him at the same time. If you want to threaten him, you have two choices - you can beat his face in with melee, or you can spike him down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

I ask because if the damage from other classes is so easily repairable

It's not that it's easy to heal. It's that those other professions really don't deal damage. They can contribute a little bit on a spike but nothing sufficient to actually kill anything on their own. You need something like 4-5 casters to equal the damage output of two warriors. It isn't even close.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Couldn't the combo of weaker Warriors, debilitated by, say, three Necros with hex spam, blood spell spam and WoD, combined with the harassment of their Monks from an Assassin and two Mesmers work at all towards controlling DPS while minimizing healing support?

How are you going to kill anything with that setup? Nothing in your build deals any damage. The way that build would play out against a typical build of warriors and domination guys, is that you'd shut down their warriors, but you don't have any warriors of your own, so no one's really pressuring each other and you have a big stalemate. This continues until our mesmers sufficiently work over your necros that our backline can clean up our warriors for a short window, during which they smash your monks and eventually roll up your team.

That's the problem with defense versus offense. The offense can fail in the struggle and the situation remains the same, a stalemate. But the moment the defense breaks, you take deaths and you start losing the match. If you aren't pressuring the other team at all, either with melee pressure or through a constant spiking threat, you're really just delaying your own loss - you're never in any danger of actually beating your opponent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

I'm just trying to think of a scenario where things can realistically change somewhat to not be so Warrior/Monk dominant.

Create a format where killing people isn't all that important. 12v12 is a good example of that. When killing isn't important warriors aren't all that relevant since they contribute little to a fight besides their ability to kill people. In formats where killing people is relevant, the only way to make things less spike-and-warrior dominant is giving other professions the ability to deal useful amounts and types of damage.

Fixing this paradigm requires 3 main changes:

1) Buffing up alternative forms of really money damage, I.E. AoE, until they are competitively priced. Right now most alternatives to warriors are priced as though someone is afraid of them actually being any good.

2) Increasing the efficiency and utility of spammable damage skills so that offensive casters can apply some sort of pressure when their big spells are recharging.

3) Nerfing Heal Party so that the most efficient form of non-warrior damage, health degeneration, wasn't such a complete joke. The only reason to use a significant amount of health degeneration is to force an opponent to fall back and pump his Heal Party, reducing their defenses against your warriors and your spikes.

It's that simple.

Peace,
-CxE

arredondo · Mar 28, 2006, 10:18 AM // 10:18

Ok, you are touching on what I was getting at. You are correct in how consistent damage is tough for individual non-Warriors to inflict, let alone sustain, right? Putting aside the fact that Monks can diminish or heal inflicted damage, if more classes could maintain a decently strong form of DPS, then it could get interesting depending on what advantage it has in a particular scenario (i.e. armor ignoring or protect spell ignoring)...

I'll post up my test build tomorrow, but tell me what you think of the overall potential of the concept. I used a BWE Necro with these skills:

Vampiric Spirit
Dark Aura
Vampiric Gaze
Dark Pact
Awaken the Blood
(support skills)

... at L16 Blood (L18 under AtB) and a high level of Death, one cast of V.Gaze on a foe did about 120 life-stealing damage to an opponent. Dark Pact (under DA) did 163 damage (60 of it life steal, the rest shadow) every few seconds. Bringing Shadow Strike, inflicts 160 life steal damage above 50% health on the target.

Basically, casting Vamp Gaze, Shadow Strike, Dark pact, Vamp gaze, Dark Pact, Dark Pact does about 890 damage in 13 seconds, with half of it life stealing. 66 DPS that heals the player seems pretty decent. The sacrifice from DP and Dark Aura's self damage is easily and completely covered by the life steals. If this is somewhat maintainable through energy management tactics (I went high Inspiration because of the +3E cost per spell cast), couldn't this at least compete with Warriors, damage wise, from several Bloodsuckers in Factions? Especially if Warriors have been WoD's from other Necro primaries?

Wasteland Squidget · Mar 28, 2006, 11:09 AM // 11:09

It's an interesting build and I like the use of vampiric spirit, though I do see a couple problems with it.

-Energy. Even with some inspiration skills, maintaining that kind of energy at +3 a cast is going to be difficult. The result is a frontloaded character who would deal a ton of damage initially, but then have to back off and regen for a while. A "Nuker" in many senses of the word, but the effectiveness-regen ratio might be too high to be effective.

-Range, and this is the bigger issue. For Vampiric Spirit and Dark Aura to deal damage you need your necro to be near your target, which means charging the opposition's midline/backline. Typically a caster that charges the opposition is dead very quickly. You could solve this by staying back and primarily targeting their warriors (since most of your damage ignores armor), but that leaves you playing kind of defensively and more as a supplement than a substitute to a warrior.

Come up with a build that solves these issues and you've got a potentially viable damage dealer.

rii · Mar 28, 2006, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

My challenge to experienced Warriors out there is to see if two of them with NO attack skills on their bar could get a good win streak in TA by bringing one Monk and one Mesmer for support. Is it possible? If not, aren't Warriors going to lose their position as primary damage dealers on some teams if WoD becomes extremely popular? Sure, it'll be tough for any class to replace their consistent DPS, but what is DPS if you can't use it in a match?

Yes, I did it for some time. (for a month or so)
At first i was using frenzy/sprint/res sig, and then i just took off frenzy/sprint and just had a skill bar full of resses for lols. I was going to frap it but it lags so hard i couldnt be bothered.

With a monk and a mesmer it would be so easy i might just start laughing now.

As for your build, your not spiking anyone and its energy/health heavy enough to simply run out of fuel (in an actual battle, not last more than 2 minutes). My monk will heal me or themselves and you will run out of energy. No oob for you.

The aotl necro (or deviation) has been around for a while. You yourself posted a thread about how great it was. I used, and also enjoyed. An aotl necro however lacks the armour, sustainability, and pretty much everything else a warriors got. There is no spike, and kiting kills those builds more than it kills warrior dps.
As stated above, a frenzied warrior deals almost 50dps if hammer, and they have spike as well....you use half your bar to do only slightly better what they do with 1 skill, and as stated there are several things you loose which are unreclaimable.

edit: Ive just noticed you said two warriors.... when i did it i was alone.

Symbol · Mar 28, 2006, 05:19 PM // 17:19

I think the cheesy R/N is more appealing as a warrior pressure alternative, now that you can double up on vamp touch.

Take vamp touch, vamp bite, touch of agony. You can now do vamp touch + toa + vamp touch + vamp bite in 6 seconds for ~40 dps, which is baseline axe war + speedbuff damage except much harder to mitigate. With 16 expertise VT costs 5E and touch of agony does 2E. You can add life siphon for an additional 6 dps on top of that.

Energy management can be handled with offering, and defense with whirling D + lightning reflexes.

You have a build with good dps that's very hard to mitigate, almost self-reliant in terms of healing, and good self defense. Only thing it lacks is the ability to spike.

arredondo · Mar 28, 2006, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Heh, I mentioned the Vamp Touch/Vamp Bite Ranger spam yesterday in the other thread where I brought up WoD... it seemed to be dismissed by the regulars. I think it is a significant improvement but the question is, will it be enough to find its niche IF (a big if) Warriors have it tougher to maintain damage under the new defenses while Monks have it tougher maintaining their protect/support role. The new Mesmer interrupt abilities (a spell stopper every two seconds) matched with Assassin daze spam look intriguing.

rii: I don't doubt you did well in the arenas now that I looked at the stats above. Still, if you had to battle for an extended period of time vs. a talented 8v8 team, you admit that your efficiency is at least dropped if you are chain spammed by WoD, right? Sure, a Mesmer can target that Necro, but there may be two. And if there is a reason for a enemy Mesmer to stop targeting a Monk, that's significant, right? All we can do is wait to see what people come up with after the release I guess.

As for the AotL build, yeah it really works well. For better "toughness" I think I mentioned in my thread the combo I came up with of Animate Minions+Dark Bond. I took a random forum team of Dark Bonded Dark Bombers with me to the Tombs to test out my idea. We were cleaning house until we got to the relic map and few knew what to do.

We spammed minions two at a time before the fight, everyone Bonded up (we had Ranger and Monk support too), and we were impervious to any spike or DPS damage for quite awhile (Blood Renewal for degen of course). The dual minions soaked 75% of our damage (which is minimized under AotL - minions last longer), and they each gave us SR energy when they died. Fun times.

rii · Mar 28, 2006, 06:40 PM // 18:40

You specified arena... and thats where i used it yes.

In 8v8... im afraid your argument is degraded into : this elite skill shuts down warrior dps and spike capabilities to a degree.

This is not dissimilar to ss, sof, si, sshackles, or any other shutdown skill. The only reasonable conclusion from this is they are giving us a way to shut down spike capabilities.... o wait, we already had soothing images.

You argument is also descending into counter-this-counter-that. There may be two necros? Well they are using two characters to shut down one.. i think we can give them that.

I tried the dark bond thing... it was meh.. i prefered some actual energy management and condition removal.

And the power of the ranger toucher is non-disputed. Another amusing build, the one i used before factions bwe could 4v1 some of the more gullible arena teams. I never used it in any form of competitive setting since frankly its not as good - no spike, inferior armour, little durability.... its flawed leave it at that.

Edit: I think if you want alternative pressure the ranger is going to be a good way to go. Something like quickshot, some preps.. then get the imba duel shot and an interrupt to formulate a similar set up to warrior pressure/adrenal spike... thats something we can probably all respect. I havent seen a ranger pressure damage character in a while, but i know the damage can be good with a decent set up.

swordfisher · Mar 28, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

The big difference between Wail of Doom and all the -hexes- you just listed is...removability. Basically put, the counter to Wail of Doom is a) don't attack b) get a morale boost or c) flourish. None of these are great options, compared to 'remove my hex.'

So yes, this is just another version of warrior hate, but it's a whole lot harder to mitigate. Methinks the skill might change a tad?

JR · Mar 28, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by swordfisher

The big difference between Wail of Doom and all the -hexes- you just listed is...removability. Basically put, the counter to Wail of Doom is a) don't attack b) get a morale boost or c) flourish. None of these are great options, compared to 'remove my hex.'

So yes, this is just another version of warrior hate, but it's a whole lot harder to mitigate. Methinks the skill might change a tad?

That is the whole point; you CAN still attack. And even just a t-spacing warrior is decent DPS compared to other classes.

arredondo · Mar 29, 2006, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

snip

It may seem like I was just forum theory arguing with you but it was only thinking out loud... I'm not discounting an expert Warrior's ability without attack skills except to note there's no way he can dish out the same amount of damage during that time. To me, if a class like the Necros can be as important of a nuisance to Warriors to where they must peel a mesmer off of an enemy Monk to slow him down, it's significan. A similarily, if Assassins can add to the worries of Monks to diminish their casting ability enough 9besides mesmers) then that's a significant change as well... I wasn't necessarily calling out you and your team with that speculation.

As for AotL w/Dark Bond... perhaps your SR was low. I'm not sure because when I ran it with people, almost all of us had no energy issues. The tanking ability is insane... so much so that even Symbiosis that we put out there was overkill.

Back to topic... how do you guys counter Contemplation of Purity? Do you battle around it or is there a method you use to stop it's effectiveness (besides e-drain)? I know about Diversion spam and have a few other ideas, but is there anything else common that deals with it? The reason I ask because in a way Wail of Foom shares CoP's effectiveness. They are both highly effective, non-spell skills with a .25 cast time. Thanks in advance.

dgb · Mar 29, 2006, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Look if a necro wants to take it, and spec high enough into soul reaping for it be anything other than a nusiance then all power to them. There are far more annoying things a necro can do with their attribute points and elite, so if they want to annoy my warriors then good for them.

As for contemplation it's clear what everyone does to counter it. They use skills that it can't touch. Just about every GvG I watch has at least one and often two surge/burn mesmers. Sure focus swap lessens the pain, but it definately drops the efficiency of the monks.