Fragility Spikes Re-emergence...

I have been wondering for a while, and i think some PvP players have been as well, if we will see a return of the once so popular Fragility Spike builds. With the ability of a Assasin to apply its conditions fast and furiously it could turn out to be an extremely powerful and old "new" FotM.

A/Me and A/W (with Flourish) could cause a lot of damage really fast in a match when accompanied with Fragility.

Um, restore condition;hexbreaker/shatter hex?

Restore Condition would work, but the thing with Frag spiking is that the second you inflict conditions, Frag is triggered. Frag also triggers upon removing conditions. Sure, Restore Condition would probably heal for more than enough after removing conditions, but it's an Elite, and even with the recent changes, I think you'd still get more mileage out of Mend Ailment.

I don't think condition removal is the most effective counter to Frag. Hex removal is, though, like you mentioned in the second part of your post. But I wouldn't bother with those two skills, unless you've got the energy for Shatter Hex (15e). I've found Remove Hex to be pretty handy, that is, unless, Frag is protected by a cover hex, which usually it should be if the Mesmer is even barely adequate, heh.

But yeah. Hex removal is the way to go to counter Frag, not really condition removal.

And yes, I think we could expect to see a re-emergence of Frag spiker A/Me with Factions.

Well, the thing is, most Hexer's are smart enough to cover their damage hexes with cheaper skills, such as SS necros covering SS with parasitic bond.

I remember back in the day.

Frag, Phantom Pain, Shatter Delusion, Virulence. (Repeat Virulence)

Instant dead W/Mo.

Generic Wammo: i culd smash u [email protected]!!!!!

I quite like :
using in this order with fast cast mesmer
1 Fragility
2 phantom pain
3 shatter delusions
4 arcane echo
5 virilence
6 virilence

Problem is it is slow between using frag and virilence but when it works it works

I met my favorite type of Wammo tonight in Random arena. He used Live Vicariously on himself and carried a frost artifact. I was taking on the earth spiker when I noticed him attacking rather fast so I targeted him to see what was up. Frenzy. I immediately changed targets, put on Fragility and after 1 spike, he was dead. WOOT for a 40 damage Fragility going off 6 times!

Congratulations, you've found the most roundabout way of dealing damage ever. Instead of just hitting a target with your Daggers, you're going to apply conditions to a target with fragility.

-light goes on in head-

Okay, what if you packed IW instead of Virulence as your elite?

123 <Assassin skills
4<Illusionary Weaponary
5< Ressurection Signet
6< Channeling
7< Fragility
8< Ether feast

Of course, the drawback being that you don't have an attack speed boost, or a feasible way to protect yourself. Oh well, back to my Me/Ri IW build.

O_o

Your kidding right? The assassin skills that deal out conditions usually also have a damage boost along with it.

A/Me could use Fevered Dreams with their condition attacks too, or even Epidemic. What was that concussion attack? Temple Strike? You could combo that up really easily. That's all in addition to Frag / Phantom Pain I suppose.

A/N obviously has Virulence, Plague Touch/Sending and Barbs to play with. Warriors could easily be tamed with Enfeeble -> Virulence and it's easily spammable to keep up with condition removal (5e spells the both of them). The beauty of causing Disease is that it spreads

The other way to look at it is as a Me/A or N/A for the condition causing dagger attacks and rune-enhanced spells - if you pick the right armour it's easy to have AL70 on both of those two.

This is the kind of mindset that's going to make the first few months of Factions PvP so much fun for the rest of us