Curse

Soda Popinski · Jun 16, 2005, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Hello all,

I was PvPing with some friends the other day in 4v4 Team Arenas. One group that kept beating was using the following build:

1) Me/El
2) Mo/Me
3) Wa/Me
4) Wa/Me

As you can see, all of them had mesmer skills. What they were doing was a lot of blackout. Granted, the other team was extremely well coordinated. The two warriors would black-out our monk and elementalist, rendering them useless for 6 sec. Then they would hammer away at us. Their mesmer in the meanwhile was taking advantage of our lack of hex removal (due to blackout) to disable us further.

My question is this: is there anything you can do to guard against/prevent black-out? I know it disables the person using it as well, but with warriors, it's not as damning to have your skills blacked out for 6 sec since you can still do appreciable damage. I didn't see a hex icon either when I was blacked out, so I assume I can't remove it.

ComMan · Jun 16, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

You can use Spellbreaker, but I don't think there's any other way to prevent it.

No, it is neither a Hex nor a Condition. You can not remove it.

Darc.Syde · Jun 16, 2005, 05:39 PM // 17:39

use snares..

edit:

this is a situation where a rangger can be good. pin down and deb shot owns this..

Mercury Angel · Jun 16, 2005, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Spell Breaker shouldn't work, if it does. Blackout is a touch based skill, not a spell.

Rey Lentless · Jun 16, 2005, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Isn't blackout a hex, and thus able to be removed?

Vindexus · Jun 16, 2005, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Blackout is a skill. As such, it can't be removed, or blocked by Spell breaker.

Snares are your friend vs blackout.

Aug · Jun 16, 2005, 09:06 PM // 21:06

I think they were running Illusionary Burden on the Me primary. I think I fought the same group (or a similar one) last night as well, and our R, W, E, M group got beat pretty badly. Not much a Monk can do once snared with blackout active and 2 Warriors pounding away.

Vindexus · Jun 16, 2005, 09:17 PM // 21:17

True, but 4v4 isn't what the game is balanced for. Blackout is much less effective in 8v8.

Soda Popinski · Jun 16, 2005, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Agreed about the 4v4 and 8v8 balance issues...just curious if there were ways to stop blackout.

BBrecht · Jun 16, 2005, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soda Popinski

Agreed about the 4v4 and 8v8 balance issues...just curious if there were ways to stop blackout.

Iron Mist, Pindown, Deep Freeze, etc...

iDissapear · Jun 16, 2005, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Best defence against black out is offence. Beat the living crap out of them. At most they can have black out up for 7 of every 11 seconds. The warriors even less. Just go in and beat them silly, then spam whatever skills you need for those 4+ seconds between blackouts.

BBrecht · Jun 16, 2005, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Oops, I forget to mention Diversion in my last post - a real winner in just about any situation.

Also, note that most warriors running Blackout won't be using adrenal skills, given the way that skill disabling interacts with adrenaline. In that case draining energy is not a bad option.

Radagast de Brun · Jun 16, 2005, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Blackout is listed as a hex, hex removal might help. Hex breaker would also prevent the hex. Hex breaker is generally a very useful stance for a monk anyways, as you can be nearly certain that someone will target you with a hex.

Golradiar [NOOB] · Jun 16, 2005, 11:26 PM // 23:26

I was just looking through the posts and saw this one. Once I read the build I realized you were talking about my team =P. We were just having some fun messing around with crazy builds while waiting for the rest of the guild to come online lol.

Royal Noob · Jun 17, 2005, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Hey guys, I hoped you love our little gettaway built, and for I was the mezmer, I was using Power/energy tab/ ele ward/disortion/ armor of earth/ *spell to keep adrenaline at 0 for warriors/imaged burden/and phantom pain to drop the monks hp to 20% lower.

But anyways hope to see you guys in pvp arena or Tombs~

-Royal Noob

StandardAI · Jun 17, 2005, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Spell breaker does not stop blackout because blackout is not a spell, it is a skill. The counter to warriors and any touch spell is ward against foes and kiting. (kiting is a term used for running away from someone) Another good combo would be ward against foes and barbed trap.

Soda Popinski · Jun 17, 2005, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Yeah, it was NOOB. Your build was the only one that was killing us consistently lol...good fun. I think a lot of it was we weren't used to it- you should have heard the real "crys of frustration" coming from our monk and elementalist.

QuixotesGhost · Jun 17, 2005, 03:15 AM // 03:15

They're right about it being a skill, I use it in PvE all the time and the little purple "hex" arrow does not appear.

deciimos · Jun 17, 2005, 03:33 AM // 03:33

That's a build similar to one we used to run in 4v4. The weakness being lack of burst dps. With both warriors using blackout, their adrenaline skills are reset to 0 when they fire it off. Have a groupmember bring ward against melee that will last ~17 seconds to cut normal hammer swings. This won't stop your monk from dying if the two warriors can chain their blackouts well, but you only need to stretch the fight long enough for the warriors to thin their small energy pools. Everyone in the group should have res signet since normal resurrects take too long to cast, you'd just get blacked out.

For offense, you'd have to work your own plan since I don't know your group workup. Burst dps works wonders on one monk teams. Focus your attacks on the monk. If the monk is based around self-preservation, you change your focus to another soft target, usually the mesmer. Knockdown and enchantment stripping skills are two of the best you can have for 4v4, so if they're available to your team load them up.