Elemental Team

[Lurker Wyrm]

So...

I think you guys are getting a bit hyper-technical with all this; as long as your character is built around your element, what's the big deal?

[FoxBat]

So...

I think you guys are getting a bit hyper-technical with all this; as long as your character is built around your element, what's the big deal?

Mostly how many times you want to redo a mission...

I've posted some simplified rules in the first post to benefit newcomers and streamline things. Most notably substituting skills from your "type" in for the 5 attributes will open up some new options, including say feast of corruption on the dark/shadow characters. Also it's more about relating your damage types than not dealing the wrong damage, so for example both a water and shadow mage could use winter's chill. This whole setup is then more consistent with both the stout-hearted title and damage conversions.

[Zed-F]

Ok, let's go with that.

[Seijin]

I forgot to mention that this tuesday I'm trying to add a summer class and it happens to be from 7pm-9pm PST. So, I probably won't be there this tuesday, and if I get the class, most likely not the next 4-5 tuesdays afterwards.

So, basically, since someone delegated me as the wards person, there will be no wards. :neenernee

[FoxBat]

Assuming we are tackling Blood Washes Blood tommotrow night, we're going to be fighting quite a few Charr. Charr do have relatively low armor and a fortunate tendency to ball up in large groups, but they can output a ton of damage and both their monks and the dominators that rez them can be a real pain. So we do need A) sufficient defense and B) sufficient damage/shutdown to nail the dominators and healers.

Unlike the other norn missions, at least one player has to take the ursan blessing to proceed. I suggest we allow exactly one character to take the blessing from the shrine, they can then use it in the mission however they wish.

There's a debate here about the quality of wards because of the number of aoe casters. Still the majority of charr AoE is adjacent, which gives you some room to play around in a ward. At least ward against melee and/or standard of courage should probably be used. Standard of Honor will provide a large damage boost against charr.

The mesmers do have shatter enchant, so we should have some "decoy" enchants to trip them up, probably an aegis on the smiter, but aura of resto is also a great personal cover enchant and some decent energy depending on your build (and whatever room you have)

On glimmering mark, I thought the skll did armor-ignoring damage and it used to at one time, but now it isn't. My apologies for even bringing it up. So if Air was just going for pure damage than lightning hammer spam+orb spam with an energy elite is the best choice, but both bsurge and thunderclap can be strong with the amount of balling the charr are going to do.

Earth ele should still probably use most of the aoe stuff, I would just toss in stone daggers and enough energy management (aura of resto) to use it. As mentioned this is mostly to trigger the standard of honor twice, which will deal ~50 armor-ignoring damage.

Whatever the fire ele is running I'd probably tack on meteor shower, that will generally trip up their casters long enough to score kills and prevent rezzes. The old malestrom+deep freeze and/or thunderclap could also help. Once those guys are down we can take out the melee trains at our leisure.

One thing I think we were missing last week is cracked armor, which helps our eles out a ton. Shell shock is a nice skill, but I like weaken armor better or in addition to it when we are going to be fighting a large number of balling foes. - something the blood nec can bring if nothing else.

[WarBlade]

I H/H'd Hard Mode Blood Washes Blood today (waiting for that Frost Gate run that never happened. ) and it turned out to be a good refresher course for what to expect...

We might want to consider the hyper-conditioning Mandragor Groups in the early stage. I usually have Cautery Signet in the build, so I had no major troubles myself. The Elemental Team might want to consider their condition spam before going in.

The direct path to the Bear Shrine is brutal, with overlapping patrols that can quickly see one fighting a multi-front war against two Charr trios and a group of Mandragors. There is another route where you can duck down and around, going close to the Charr base and through some Elementals and Avalanches. I recommend a front line aggro magnet to take point on that path so that we don't get the main group hit with Deep Freeze, Ice Spikes and Maelstrom so much. The same theory applies to the Fire Caller groups if we keep to the high road. 50 DPS from each of two units with a Mender supporting hurts a bit.

I also say we hit the mission from Longeyes. The Vaettir spawns coming through the other way are a whole different ballgame in Hard Mode.

[FoxBat]

I'm likely to be busy tommorow night so I suggest we break for a week. Lev and Jude expressed some interest so we will have some new recruits to bring up to speed too.

[Lev]

yay! the carebear and i will own some baddies <3

p.s. hi rb

[WarBlade]

Well, I wound up accepting an invite to Hard Mode Bloodstone Fen after today's Elemental Team became today's non-event. It was a fun salvage operation, I might add, and Kate now has Tyria Guardian on that Monk of hers.

What's the story with such a last minute cancellation? Back with the Seven Samurai if someone (namely me) couldn't make it the team just pressed on and the errant person was left to Hero/Hench any gaps. Today one absentee and the whole thing stops.

I've had a little more control over where I can roster myself at work and my day off was planned to coincide with fitting in this gathering. It's not easy news to take when the planned event is not going to happen.

[Courin]

Sorry to hear that it came as a surprise last minute cancellation to you. I know Fox had posted about the postponement on Monday night, but if you were working or whatever, even a full days notice might not have been enough.

As for why it was postponed, I got the impression that it was not just because Fox was going to be away, because you're right, in the past we've carried on with one or two no-shows, but I got the impression that it was more because Lev and Jude were joining up and needed a week to get skills, etc?