Chromatic Drakes

[skill]spoil victor[/skill]
I run Whispers as a blood necro with that, haven't had any problems with anyone. If I find an especially caster heavy area I'll bring Norgu or Gwen with a bar full interrupts and again, no problem.

Though don't get me wrong, I think they are really cool creatures. I love the idea of an ele monster that can change it's spec all 4 ways during the middle of battle. Quite cool. I think the Ward of Elements is probably the best thing you can carry since it protects against everything they throw at you, period.

I like that build I posted because it throws around weakness, which makes the Jotun largely useless. We've never had issues with them, except that they take a while to kill. The Wisps annoy the hell out of me, though, since they have Vow of Silence.

oh how I love being a splinter barrager, me and jin just wipe the floor with chromatic drakes.

I can understand how they could require a nerf tho, having the ability to choose between 4 elements definately complicates things for the opposition.

But they don't need a nerf. They're the first enemies able to do this (other then the monoliths, but they weren't as strong). The only thing "broken" about them is elemental shift, which recharges instantly instead of the 30 seconds it should have. Other then that, nothing should be changed. I don't even think that elemental shift should be fixed, but whatever. I'll be mad if they change anything else tbh.

Yeah, not broken. They're perfectly fine as-is.

I had no idea Elemental Shift was supposed to recharge in 30 seconds. But they are not really all that difficult as-is. I like them, actually. They pose an interesting challenge.

Maybe because I’m use to pvping , i approached the problem from a pvp perspective , interrupt the most powerfull spells .
I did the event with my ranger, and I must say it’s a very fun experience; there is always something to interrupt! Even if I have 3 interrupts on my bar they are always recharging..
I think im going to change to a chocking gas ranger so I can interrupt even more

Quote: Originally Posted by arcanemacabre This is the team my wife and I have been running, and we have yet to run into any problems, Chromatic Drakes included -

Necro (Me) - [skill]Enfeeble[/skill][skill]Virulence[/skill][skill]Epidemic[/skill][skill]Oppressive Gaze[/skill][skill]Putrid Explosion[/skill][skill]Well of Blood[/skill] & Putrid Bile
Ranger (Wife) - Barrage
Tahlkora - Gift of Health/Shield of Regen + generic prot skills
Ogden - LoD + prot
Vekk - Sandstorm, Ward of Melee + Elemental, Stoning, generic ele stuff
Jora - Standard adrenal build
Kahmu - Standard Balthazar build
Xandra - RestoRit

We were just playing around, but it seemed to work well. I use a base of three monks 2 prot, one healer, 4 wars plus a paragon, works well too, I think people that get wiped take too many squishies with too little support. So any team supported by three "healers" (in whatever combination) will in general do fine

a lot of people who are having trouble dealing with these drakes usually employ the classic PvE team build: minion master and damage. the MM to put out meatshields, and the damage.... kills things. this setup obviously works well most of the time, but against more diverse opponents like chromatic drakes, it falls apart.

i've personally adopted (as well as many others) a more complex team build. i often choose to overload melee, then build the team around it. often, it means caster heros with splinter weapon and warmonger's weapon. on top of that, i add interrupts, shutdown hexes and enchant strips. this team build is more difficult to run, but it is also more adaptable and can deal with more complex opponents like the chromatic drakes.

so to the OP, i think the main problem you're getting are from the MM. minions tends to blow up spectacularly against sliver armor. since you were running an assassin, you'll get blown up with them.

I had an MM, MMs by their very nature sit idle while their minion spells recharge. So I loaded him with epidemic and brought Zho who seems to have BHA. Quick slaughter of all things who cast anything, as
1) You have loads of fiends shooting at different drakes/casters.
2) Virtually all casters are dazed/interrupted

It never occurred to me that Chromatic Drakes would be considered overpowered by somebody since my default H+H party wipes floor with them. Fighting 6 or more Jotuns simultaneously gives a much better workout although it's still not by any means difficult. I would, however, disagree with Yesitsrob concerning the bison cup and the Glacial Griffon. Unless you exploit the deficiencies of the AI (like pooping the arena full of spirits while the opponent idly waits for a tap on the shoulder) these are more involved tasks than just c-spacing. Yes, they are more predictable than human opponents. No, they are not so trivial that you can c-space and fetch a coffee while your character beats the crap out of PvE monsters, especially if conditions are less than ideal. I played the preview on a spare computer, 10-20 FPS and 500-1000 ping. GG nailing those key skills (I never managed to interrupt Magni's Bear Form even while I knew exactly when he was going to use it, just because of the lag issues (but I could beat him nevertheless)).

The only thing that I found slightly annoying were large groups of wisps with Vow of Silence, but that was only the first time when I H+H'd the Sepulchre without any knowledge of what to expect.

We used the standard team build(Warrior, MM, 3x SF, 3xMO) and we never had any real probs with them drakes.. warrior simply runs in first and takes the majority of the dmg and after that just die soooo fast.. Those jotun on the other hand do a lot more dmg with their dumb knock down and insanely high health/armor level But then again, a challenge is always welcome ;-)

for chromatic drakes, p spirit/spirit bond/seed of life warrior and send him to aggro. then nuke. bye bye drakies.

the giants however have a lot of life and armor. it's so slow to kill them

i usually use 2 savana heat eles, 1 eath ele, 1 ss necro, 1 war, 3 monks. i had no problem in any of the areas of gwen. all u need is 1 warrior, 1 prot monk. rest can be henchies.

I run as a warrior (Triple Chop, Dismember Axe Warrior
I almost always take with me the following group :
Heroes
Mo/P (LoD Healer)
D/W (Balthazar)
N/M (Minion/Blood Ritual),
Henches
2 more monks
Cynn fire ele (nice meteor shower now instead of firestorm)
Illusion Mesmer.

I did all the dungeons and areas on the Sneak Peek with not much trouble
Some fights were lengthly but always vicrorious.

I feel like it is hard enough for me to keep me interested.


Quote: Originally Posted by SotiCoto

I like the chromatic drakes.. The idea that they can change their element is very nice! Didn't have any problems fighting them with heroes & henchies though..

I didn't C+Space Bison or the Glacial Griffon, that would be er, hard

but I by no means thought they were difficult. As far as the Griffin goes I was playing a class which couldn't viably use Consume Soul, practically any other class could. Warrior, Sin, Ranger - should destroy it with utter ease.

I, also, was pleasantly surprised by the nice skillbars of the mobs. Mandragors with ultra conditions builds (Fevered dreams) were the first I encountered and I was very pleased they put mobs with actual team-based skillbars.
Chromatic are overpowered because you're a sin with weak armor, Soti. If I play paper armor character I generally use an armor boost or PS on my tanker (i force my monk hero to put me PS or SoR or whatever armor boost before tanking). As a warrior, I have three sup runes (yeah no kidding, compensed by Norn health title, and because I cheat like this AI which often go for the lowest heatlh character), a sentinel armor (+WY) and shield and I tank eles so easily that is not even fun. Mind Freeze from the imps did to me only a doubled 7 damage.
For PVE, you need to get a tank plain and simply. Whatever its a monk with PS or a warrior, use it. I used Xandra as a spirit spammer too for Refuge, to pawn the mesmer jotuns without worrying too much about their hexes.
You failed because you only thought about offense, but that doesn't work in GWEN.
I had with my Girlfriend a mesmer (she's necro) and we use only caster team (rest is filled with eles+2 monks). We ran on Vekk and sosuke and other a complementary build of water, earth and Air builds. All the ennemies were blinded, weakened, slowed and we were protected by wards and such. We steamrolled the first parts of Norn regions so easily it wasn't quite funny.

Quote: Originally Posted by yesisrob

or he could just run imba pve Sunspear Skills like Critical Agility and have no issues at all.

All this crap about needing a tank too, so far I've not found that true for anywhere, except a couple of places in DoA.

Quote: I have three sup runes What Superiors would you possibly want to run on a warrior? Weapon mod, fine... Tactics? Strength? Really?

For what it's worth I was able to C+Space Frostmaw (with occasionaly Healers Boon Heal Party) with the following Hero builds.

Morgahn
1 - Song of Restoration
2 - Aria of Restoration
3 - Lyrics of Zeal
4 - Spear of Lightning
5 - Wild Throw
6 - Signet of Return
7 - Aggresive Refrain
8 - "Go For The Eyes"
_

Master of Whispers
1 - Enfeebling Blood
2 - Spiteful Spirit
3 - Reckless Haste
4 - Barbs
5 - Signet of Lost Souls
6 - Res Sig
7 - Price of Failute
8 - Blood Ritual
_

Olias

1 - Jagged Bones
2 - Animate Bone Minions
3 - Animate Shambling Horror
4 - Dark Bond
5 - Protective Was Kaolai
6 - Signet of Lost Souls
7 - Rising Bile
8 - Blood of the Master
_

Interrupt Henchman
Earth Henchman
Fire Henchman
Protection Henchman

I mostly kept the same bars throughout the entire weekend, these bars allowed me to do any dungeon with ease. When I had human warrior friend join he'd typically bring TNTF and Save Yourselves which allowed us to get through with ease, via aggro'ing as much as possible then killing it

Quote: Originally Posted by HydroX

Quote: Originally Posted by reverse_oreo