Nude Beach recruitment

[KingOfPain]

My schedule has been the same for years.
Mondays and Tuesdays off. Tuesdays are usually better since back in variants nights.
Any other days will have to be after 9:30 PST

Post your prefer time slot anyway, we may just be able to have 2 team and merge them on the rare occassions.


As always, I will pick last as to what character I will make, so the others can play their more favorited classes and I will fill in what is needed. I will even play a variation of Demi Maul E/W as a warrior tank if we need one

Just to name a couple things why a E/W can make a good tank
-Pump Mist Form and hope the party can make good progress in that 18 sec time slot
-Bring Thunderclap and keep mob knocked down around 18 seconds (Thin Air can maintain his lvl18 TC for its 22 seconds duration. Funny How I built Thin Air just to do that then later realized Demi Maul with the E/W classes might be better afterall. But it will kill Demi not to use maul)
-Stackable armor buffs
-Bonetti Defense to regain mana


Anyone with ideas as to what would make a viable team please feel free to propose a mockup. All I know is, we need healers


KoP

[Hawkmoon]

Tuesday nights are fine with me (Monday nights are okay, too, but not as preferred) - I can be online by 8:30 pm Eastern time.

I think that your comments about the usefulness of an E/W as a tank are quite good. Did you happen to read the write-up of the latest Guild of the Week, Eternum Pariah? If not, it's well worth reading. One of their preferred team strategies might work very well for us. For them, it used a hammer warrior to call targets and knockdown, and then have Earth elementalists blast away with Aftershock once the knockdown had occurred. It seems to me we could adapt that by having a nuker cast Thunderclap, then once knockdown had taken place, the E/W (and others, as well) could Aftershock and maybe Crystal Wave. Just a thought.

Figuring 4 members of the team (having 2 teams of 4 so we could eventually merge them would be the ideal), I'd suggest the E/W, an E/something, and 2 monks (healing and protection) - the healing monk should probably be monk primary for the Divine Favor healing bonus, but the other could be an E/Mo to benefit from Energy Storage. Thoughts?

With that in mind, about team roles. I still haven't tried an Elementalist or a Necromancer, so i think I'd like to make an E/N who would have a nuking role, plus animating some minions and perhaps supplying some Wells to help the team.

Anyone else want to take the skinnydipping plunge?

Hawkmoon

[soul]

I think Tuesday night would usually work for me if I join in. Thinking I might like to run a summoner necromancer, but can fill one of the monk roles if needed.

If we do go by two teams of 4, the monks would probablly best be split between the teams until both can merge. Otherwise we have a team with 4 monks when they join up?

I am wondering whats going to happen in the areas requiring a party of 6? Do we attempt to go through with teams of 4? Use henchmen to fill the remaining slots?

[Zed-F]

As with the BN team, I can try to make it on Tues by 8:30 EST but there are no guarantees.

[Hawkmoon]

I think Tuesday night would usually work for me if I join in. Thinking I might like to run a summoner necromancer, but can fill one of the monk roles if needed.

If we do go by two teams of 4, the monks would probablly best be split between the teams until both can merge. Otherwise we have a team with 4 monks when they join up?

I am wondering whats going to happen in the areas requiring a party of 6? Do we attempt to go through with teams of 4? Use henchmen to fill the remaining slots?

In areas where you can have 6 players, I'd vote for using henchies (assuming we can get two teams of 4 going!).

If we end up on the same team, I'm happy with you running a summoner necro. I could either run a Well or two (if I take necro secondary), or I could take monk secondary with an eye to keeping a couple of protection spells up. Whatever will suit the team.

Sounds like Tuesday evenings at 8:30 would suit all four of us who have posted in this thread - should we start planning in earnest, with an eye to starting our chars so that we can begin team play in Post-Searing in a week or two?

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[KingOfPain]

There are a few others who would like to join in but short on character slots. I know how we can and do get attached to our characters, and me, even with my mules ;p

I am only saying, if you really want to join up, there has got to be one least favorited character of the bunch, someone you no longer play with much. So the question comes down to, do you want to save this character you don't play much FOREVER , or, make a new character that you will play regularly with a bunch of "tcpotww" - The coolest people on this whole wide world!

Now, if anyone needs to transfer valueables from the to-be-deleted character to the new naked mule, I can easily help out with that.

I think we should aim for more players. the 4 players per party limit is soon over when we hit Yak's. So a team of 6 split into 2 3s pre-Yaks, or 2 teams of 4 would be good too (more people to cover absentees) - whatever, the more people we can get the better and more fun. We can make it work however many people we get.

KoP
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[Lurker Wyrm]

This is something I'd be interested in, but there are a couple obstacles...

1) Tuesday evenings are ok, but I wouldn't want to stay on later than about 11:30 EST (8:30? PST). The only other problem with Tuesdays would be that every now and then I have a meetings on Tuesday evening, so I might wind up arriving late or missing some of the time. Shouldn't happen more than once a month, though, so I don't think it's a problem.

2) I do still have that 4th character slot available, but I've been leaving it open for a PvP char, which I mostly use to check on what skills I'm missing (until the Ember Light guy, this was pretty much the only way to check without getting a headache) or looking at a skill combination, etc. I don't have any real interest in PvP (big shocker) so that slot isn't really all that important anymore, it's more of a mental thing (holding on to that last spot).

That being said, I think I'd want to make an E/Mo. I could help with healing, but I've never made an Elementalist primary before (had one for about 5 minutes during a beta) and I've been wanting to try it out. Either that or Me/E, but that would be more dependant on having the higher amounts of energy/regen from armor.

I'd like to suggest at least one person (or 2, depending on the split) be a Nature Ritual Ranger, and bring Quickening Zephyr and Energizing Wind, among others (Winnowing and Edge of Extinction would help with damage, Fertile Season and Symbiosis with health management). Unless we're getting really heavy on the 5 energy skills (which would make sense considering everyone will have 20 or so energy) that would really help and make some of those 25 energy cannons from the Ele more usable. If we merge the team into 1 when the party size hits 8, one could switch to traps or whatnot.

Has anyone decided what the stance on pets would be? At level 20 pets have 80 armor and after Iron Mines they're infused, so they would make great tanks, but I'm not sure if that would be cheating a bit. Not to mention there are some pretty powerful pet builds out there and Ferocious Strike (elite pet attack) would give the ranger energy to keep attacks going.

[Zed-F]

I could play an E/R for the nature rituals and so forth. Or R/E, but that seems less likely.

[Drasca]

I'd am willing to create nudist Monk Primary, but am unsure what secondary--preferably something with energy management abilities. Ranger or Warrior? Elemental for the glyph?

[Lurker Wyrm]

I'd am willing to create nudist Monk Primary, but am unsure what secondary--preferably something with energy management abilities. Ranger or Warrior? Elemental for the glyph?

Every class in the game has some form or another of energy management, it's just a matter of picking what works best for you.

Warrior's have Bonetti's Defense, which you can have up almost constantly with Bal's Spirit on yourself (granted, you have to actually be taking damage, but I don't think that'll be a problem most of the time).

Rangers have Marksman's Wager, which puts you in the position of attacking and using a bow. You'll only be getting 5 energy per arrow without Expertise, but that's still pretty good considering. You'll just have to make sure you have enough energy when you start to heal because it can get a little dicey when you try to attack and cast spells at the same time.

Mesmers have the Inspiration line, which has quite a few ways of getting energy, the most direct being the steal skills, Energy Drain/Tap, both of which can be doubled (or tripled for the non-elite one) with Echo/Arcane Echo.

Necros are famous for skills like Blood is Power and Offering of Blood. The first being for allies' energy (+5 at 9 blood magic), the latter being for self energy. OoB is a very good skill for self energy management, I've used it quite a lot in the past when Remy was running the Fi Boon healer (not something I'd recommend on a nude team).

Monks have P&H and all the 5 energy heals/protects. There's also Divine Boon, which can give you a 63 or so heal for 2 energy whenever you cast a spell on an ally (just think of it as a 2 energy Orison tacked on to whatever you cast) at 12 favor (you'll want a high favor anyways for the healing boost). There's also Signet of Devotion, which is a really good heal that's a signet (meaning no energy cost) with a fairly quick recharge time (5 seconds). You can also stack up on maintained enchants with Blessed Signet, but that might not actually be beneficial.

Elementalists have, of course, the glyphs, but those aren't always beneficial. They're more for getting out that high energy spell when your energy pool is running out (or, with Glyph of Energy, for getting off exhaustion spells without exhaustion), not for a maintained battle. Then there's the ever lovable Ether Renewal, which is only really for primary Elementalists, but can work decently without energy storage.

Really, just decide what has other skills that will benefit your selection beyond just a form of energy maintenance.