Curse

Arathorn5000 · Sep 02, 2005, 11:40 PM // 23:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

The build is thought trough and still lacks in a few basic strategy stuff.
Water magic is WAY too high for THAT single skill btw.

Maybe, but that single skill is basically that ele's main job. To keep up good armor for everyone, especially armor against fire (and therefore physical) damage, the staples of the current smite group. Judges is a problem, balth's aura is not. This is why I advise dropping the enemy warriors first if you want to run this build.

Guys, think of it this way (against a normal smiting group): your first spike kills one warrior. You already have frozen down. What can the opposing group do, their damage output has been cut in half (basically). The first smiter can begin triggering his zealot's on the second warrior, who has about 5 seconds to get to the frozen soil and take it down before he's spiked out by the necros as well. There is a healing spring down, negating balth's aura damage. The spirit is taking only about 1/4th the amount of damage from zealot's so it's almost ignorable. Best case scenario, the E/Mo's have judges insight on the warrior (more and more, I'm seeing E/Mo's without it now). The opposing necro wants to put rigor on the target because he thinks we're using ward against melee, but there isn't even a target. So the warrior has a few seconds to kill that frozen before he's dead....oh no, he didn't kill it. GG, you've just lost all of your damage output.

When you think of the timeframe opposing teams are working under against this build (as long as necro spiking works like I think it should), it's not as easily beaten as some of you are saying.

smurfhunter · Sep 03, 2005, 01:00 AM // 01:00

let me just bow out by saying i am fundamentaly opposed to all forms of spiking as the only means of hurting people.

and arathorn...go try the build lol. this argument is like trying to prove ___ team will beat ___ team in a sport, on paper.

oh and im like 99% sure every damage is kept to < 10% hp by prot spirit.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 03, 2005, 03:47 AM // 03:47

Quote:

oh and im like 99% sure every damage is kept to < 10% hp by prot spirit.

Even if this is the case, there are 10 attacks that will be doing the max 10% HP damage, so the person is dead anyway. 4 * shadow strike's shadow damage, 3 * shadow strike's life stealing damage (if I understand it correctly, the last one won't trigger the life stealing because the other 3 took it down past half heath), and 3 * vampiric gaze damage, while one person puts on the health degen to finish the target.

Granted, a bit of healing would negate the death, but at this point I'm going to believe an entire topic that agreed vampiric gaze avoids prot spirit rather than one person who already does not show a great knowledge of the game

Quote:

and arathorn...go try the build lol. this argument is like trying to prove ___ team will beat ___ team in a sport, on paper.

Well, I really would like to try it, I keep pushing my guild and friends to test with me but they fear change I guess

And I don't agree with you that theory is so bad. True, player skill always factors into these things, but you can see how you'll fare by looking at the specs.

Warskull · Sep 03, 2005, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

let me just bow out by saying i am fundamentaly opposed to all forms of spiking as the only means of hurting people.

and arathorn...go try the build lol. this argument is like trying to prove ___ team will beat ___ team in a sport, on paper.

oh and im like 99% sure every damage is kept to < 10% hp by prot spirit.

Most necro skills are minimally affected by protective spirit. Shadow strike applies its damage in two strikes (both in the 40-50 range) and vampic gaze doesn't do enough damage (Again right around 50 damage) to really suffer from protective spirit. Necros get around protective spirit becausethe spells tend to do low damage or the damage is applied in 2 strikes. If you are equating this to air spiking it is like spiking with lighting strike and lightning javelin.

Red Locust · Sep 03, 2005, 07:38 AM // 07:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ollj

Holy damage can be seen as a damage type that every armor has only 60AL to and the necromancers and minions armor have only 20AL to. Judges Insight adds +10% Armor penetration to the actuall attackers armor penetration, so it could go to +10%+16%+10%=36% Armor Penetration on 60 AL because its holy damage. Thats 21,6 AL for anyone and 7,2 AL for minions.

What?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but holy damage is just another type of damage, while most smiting damage skills deal damage that ignores armor. Only a specific type of necro armor takes increased damage from holy attacks. JI adds +20% armor penetration to whatever AL the target has (be it 60 on monk/ele/mes, 70 on ranger, 80/85 on warrior). Oh, and 36% AP on a 60 AL target would yield a 38.4 AL target.

Banebow · Sep 03, 2005, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Protective Spirit stops any damage from going above 10% of your health. Any damage, be it Vampiric Gaze, Obsidian Flame, or Chain Lightning.

And no, sacrificing life is not damage, just as degen is not damage.

I would remove Barbed Signet (or anything you think would not be needed) and add Dark Pact. With all of this defence, sacrificing a bit of health isn't to bad, and Dark Pact, under QZ, will recharge almost instantly. Speaking as a monk who just did a bit of tombs, if you are spiking for 51-63-51-51-63 (Pact, Gaze, Pact, Pact, Gaze) then whatever you where hitting will die, even with monk healing support, just because my heals won't be rechargeing fast enough.

If you have 4 necros then, effectivly, the spike is 204-252-204-204-252. maintain that, and your target can not survive for long. Obviously you wouldn't want to keep it up for to long, as the health sac would get outragous fast, but if you are in a rangers healing spring...

Arathorn5000 · Sep 03, 2005, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banebow

Protective Spirit stops any damage from going above 10% of your health. Any damage, be it Vampiric Gaze, Obsidian Flame, or Chain Lightning.

And no, sacrificing life is not damage, just as degen is not damage.

I would remove Barbed Signet (or anything you think would not be needed) and add Dark Pact. With all of this defence, sacrificing a bit of health isn't to bad, and Dark Pact, under QZ, will recharge almost instantly. Speaking as a monk who just did a bit of tombs, if you are spiking for 51-63-51-51-63 (Pact, Gaze, Pact, Pact, Gaze) then whatever you where hitting will die, even with monk healing support, just because my heals won't be rechargeing fast enough.

If you have 4 necros then, effectivly, the spike is 204-252-204-204-252. maintain that, and your target can not survive for long. Obviously you wouldn't want to keep it up for to long, as the health sac would get outragous fast, but if you are in a rangers healing spring...

Erm...doesn't seem as efficient as spiking the damage to me...and they both seem like viable methods to kill people. I'd prefer to keep it streamlined, though your method would probably be better for people that are worried about spiking not working.

Da Cebuano · Sep 03, 2005, 01:54 PM // 13:54

I dunno, a soh warrs could possibly make it a short night for your necros, then again, most people would be gunning for the monk, then I guess then the necros would impose a problem. We once faced a similar build, they were mostly hp degen build w/ no monks, we actually lost, when 8 people are on rapid hp degen, it becomes problematic.

The only thing this build absolutely needs is very concise precision team work, so GL if you have that in your guild, even then, it seems to much on counting that nothing goes wrong, problems arise and we'll see how this build does.

Zeru · Sep 03, 2005, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

ok now i am diverting from the main point of the thread, which is your build, but you asked me a question and im answering:

myth #1: frozen is up all the time. ummm, no. res sig take 2 secs to go up, frozen takes 5. guess who wins. if you put it up beforehand you are risking alot, and just about no one does that.

what you said is true... you can take out multiple targets with a good caller only the update made this that much harder. the range is shortened considerably. taking out multiple targets is not as easy as it once was. and i repeat, taking out one is like doing nothing.

simple buff which completely nullifies spikes: prot spirit. spammable. easy. prot spirit + shielding hands = no spike. any competent prot can put it up before its too late. not to mention, when im against a spike team i have some mesmer just run ahead and start casting, that way i know who they target first and s/he is protted right from the start. this kind of destroys alot of spikes, like do you go for the easy target anyway or do you try to endure the mesmer? frozen soil is ridiculously easy to knock out. especially with balths aura you just sit next to it. like 1 hammer attack and its out. in fact i usually put it up in the smite team thats against a spike team to keep THEM from resing.

also, chain lightning is 3 seconds to cast now (correct me if im wrong on that one). orb is something like 1-2 seconds. this means for a full spike you will have eles standing IN PLACE, IN A GROUP. this is like the perfect target for BA. you dont even have to go for the monks, they cant possibly heal all that damage.

finally you rely on DROPPING A TARGET for your damage. you need to be quick or it wont work. the increased casting time completely destroys that. it slows you down. if you allow like 10 seconds in between spike, im sorry but that just wont do a thing. in those 10 seconds you can not only kill half the team, you can easily kill the frozen soil spirit (at least) and res whoever died.

as for actual experience, i have *never* lost to a spike team while in a semi-decent smite pug. never. ive lost about 3-4 people in the group, but ive never actually lost. and one other thing: you dont see spikers further than like broken tower. really. once you get to the courtyard, all you see is smite groups, or groups that work on more than the unworthy. so really, spiking is pretty old news.

the only team i like which works on a 'spike damage' concept is the necro bomb group. now THAT is a hilarious group because if you do it right, you can wipe out the entire enemy team in one bomb

so now im sorry for being blunt, but spike teams = noob. right now at least.

Do you actually know anything about a competent spike team?

There are two counters to spike:
Fertile Season
Energy Denial

Other stuff may beat it but it's not a counter. Protective spirit is absolute garbage vs good spike setup (which is rend+synched orbs/chain).

The only reason air spike is not very viable is cause a) it's hard to execute perfectly and b) energy denial is so insanely good. It would still give most smite groups a run for their money though, especially if the spikers abused ether renewal themselves.

Keure · Sep 04, 2005, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Do you actually know anything about a competent spike team?

There are two counters to spike:
Fertile Season
Energy Denial

Other stuff may beat it but it's not a counter. Protective spirit is absolute garbage vs good spike setup (which is rend+synched orbs/chain).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

holy damage is just another type of damage, while most smiting damage skills deal damage that ignores armor.

Quoted for truth.

People saying otherwise seriously need to do more research before posting.

Thurston Killgore · Sep 04, 2005, 03:28 PM // 15:28

smart build hope i can convince some guildies to try it out..

octaviancmb · Sep 04, 2005, 04:14 PM // 16:14

This looks pretty solid to me. It suffers from the same disadvantages most heal balls suffer from, but you seem to have mitigated many of those disadvantages, *plus* you're comitted to running it with intelligent party members -- that compensates for a lot.

I also give you kudos for using spirits as I think they were intended: gaining tactical and strategic advantage for your team.

I agree with the posters who've said you might be running too many res signets. I think that once you get the build going, you'll find you're not dying that much, and can swap out a few signets and in a couple more specialized skills for the supporting cast to use. Perhaps a few movement/speed buffs? They're not always *needed* of course, but they're good to have around.

Then again, I don't think the build *needs* much more than it already has.

But you need to test it as-is first. Let us know how it goes! I think it will certainly do well against smite.

cmb

Krack Jacker · Sep 04, 2005, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Do not rely on spirits, no matter what your spirits will die, no matter how much you protect them, they will die. THe only thing you can do is body block your spirits, cause a warrior can kill a spirit in 2 hits no prob. Now Imagine 3 warriors with tigers fury and balthazars aura hitting the 1 spirit, uh oh :O. Please talk to someone about your monks. And have you heard of fragility (high conditions) teams? Cause even with your "remove hex" and "smite hex" your team can get seriosly owwned, cause mend ailment is not enough. The build that my guild and I use commnly will eat through your defenses aswell. Although in general good ty, but your build has quite a few flaws.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 04, 2005, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krack Jacker

Do not rely on spirits, no matter what your spirits will die, no matter how much you protect them, they will die. THe only thing you can do is body block your spirits, cause a warrior can kill a spirit in 2 hits no prob. Now Imagine 3 warriors with tigers fury and balthazars aura hitting the 1 spirit, uh oh :O.

Well, each spirit has +80 armor against fire attacks (and pyshical attacks will be fire). So if you usually kill it in 2 hits, count on killing it in 8. Which will take at least 6 seconds, over which time the healing seed will have healed it for 150 HP, at least one of the monks will have popped off a heal area, and probably someone got a healing seed, triggering every time the balth's aura hits them,. Healing seed heals allied members, not just party members, so spirits should be healed (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

Now count on only having two warriors because one was spiked out as he was running towards the group. Then count on another war being spiked out 5-6 seconds later (if we see three warriors running at us, the necros will know they need to take them down fast).

True, you'll put some damn good pressure on the spirits. But I think with good use of heal area, a competent healing spring ranger, and good necro spiking, we could manage your assault. Even if we couldn't, you better hope your warriors went straight for the frozen soil (which they probably wouldn't have), or else, good job, you took out the GC/QZ....you still lost all of your damage output, and you can't rez them. The necros pick off your E/Mo's next, and then it's completely lights out. See, by focusing on taking out this build's defense, you're still neglecting the potent offense, so you're fighting a battle against time that you're going to lose.

Quote:

Please talk to someone about your monks. And have you heard of fragility (high conditions) teams? Cause even with your "remove hex" and "smite hex" your team can get seriosly owwned, cause mend ailment is not enough. The build that my guild and I use commnly will eat through your defenses aswell. Although in general good ty, but your build has quite a few flaws.

Yes, the monks probably need some work. I've never even played a monk. But come on, fragility? The monks' main job is condition/hex removal, that's what they need to be focusing on, as well as popping off a heal area or seed when the group is under heavy assault.

Just wondering, what guild do you play in, and how often do you win and hold the hall? I assume frequently if your build has no flaws.

Kabale · Sep 05, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Ok so if you spike a target with protective spirit on, you'd need 10 hits to take him out. Assuming all your attacks hit the target in under 1.5-2 seconds, the target will die. If it takes longer, your spike is out-healed by (insert any fast-casting heal here).

If you face a decent protection monk running either boon/high divine favor, when that monk notices someone being spiked, prot. spirit goes up along with a nice health boost that will negate at least one of those 10% strikes, and give the other heal monk plenty of time to do his healing.

You need enchant removal.. badly...

Avantos · Sep 06, 2005, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Perhaps it works differently in PvE or perhaps it was changed... but life-stealing abilities don't get affected by protective bond/spirit.

Case in point:

Teammate (M/W invincimonk build, 55 hp I believe... Party leader apparently was friends with the guy and let him in) got hit by a Dryder and instantly died.

I also tend to remember on my R/N hitting a bonded warrior for 65 with vamp touch in a random arena. Fertile season wasn't up, so unless he somehow had 650 hp, I don't think it was affected.

Pretty well thought out. 90% of PuGs won't be able to counter this effectively because this build seems to be designed against most PuG strategies (i.e.... smite) and nothing's perfect in practice. You might lose quite a bit on your first runs though, because of that fact that nothing's perfect in practice. While most jobs seem pretty straightforward, I think this build, more than others, requires a lot more ability to think on the spot to counter disruption.

Said disruption's probably your build's greatest weakness because of the reliance on elementalist ward and ranger spirits/well. If those go, you're in trouble.

There are no real "hard" targets against a necro spike--though your greatest concern will probably end up being multiple mesmers. Spike 'em, cry 'em, you'll probably end up with at least once screwing up your ranger or elementalist, in which case things go rapidly downhill.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 06, 2005, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Yep, which could be pretty rough with the current metagame...seeing lots of shutdown mesmers popping up.