Random notes that may help those new to GW

[Lurker Wyrm]

I am curious however, if other monks here have noticed the cast time on Word of Healing? Does it really cast in 3/4 of a second for you?

It is a 3/4 second cast, the problem is that once you get used to the 1/4 second skills like Boon and company, anything that takes longer feels like a durge. I was feeling really dragged down by the 3/4 cast time of Shielding Hands earlier. My main bias against Word of Healing isn't the cast/recharge times, but more with the fact that it only gives you the <50% bonus heal when the person won't be healed over 50% by the regular heal and the Divine Favor bonus. I was testing it out in the desert and kept watching the henches health go down lower than 50% (not very far below, but enough for it to be obvious they were down) and wasn't getting the boost. It was little more than an elite Orison at that point.

If you're running an E/Mo that uses a lot of enchantments and Ether Renewal, I only have 2 words for you in terms of healing others: Infuse Health. With Vital Blessing and all that stuff running you'll have a lot of health, and a really big heal with Infuse, even with no, or a very few, points in Healing Prayers. Close to doubled if you're in an area with Symbiosis (and even more with Fertile Season). I've been thinking of trying a PvP char with this (since I really don't feel like doing another PvE one).

Right now, my favorite self-heal is Contemplation of Purity. It costs 5 energy, has a quick recharge, and a 1/4 second cast time. I've got 16 in Divine Favor, so it heals for 85 for every enchantment it removes. On the setup I'm trying out now, I've got an easy 4 enchantments I can throw on myself in no time, which is a 340 heal when/if I decide to use it, not to mention the fact that with 4 enchants being removed, just about every single hex/condition on me will get taken off as well. The only downside to the skill is that, for some reason, I'm not getting the Divine Favor bonus when I cast it.

I'm also using Boon atm (really just thought of it as CoP fodder, but...), which heals for 73 at 16 favor. Combine that with the 51 I get from the standard Divine Favor boost and I'm healing people for 124 before skill effects. Not half bad, considering the only direct heal on my skill bar is Infuse.

Edit: Heh, so much for the "Random notes" idea. Past 10-15 posts should probably have become their own topic.

[Vanyel]

For 10 mana, I can get:

Flare--92 damage

Immolate--50 damage + target on fire for 3 seconds

Did you take into account that 'target on fire for 3 seconds' equates to 3 * 14 damage that ignores defense, and that Immolate isn't line of sight, and that Flare can be blocked/evaded easily though? Might as well replace Flare with something that's more sure-fire, like Obsidian Flame. Extremely devastating if you want a killing blow spell, and if you're at the tail-end of a fight with energy under 50%, the exhaustion wouldn't hurt either. Ignore defense is so very nice.

Of course, this isn't an either/or kind of thing. If it is a single target, and I think I need to cast at it, it is going to be both Immolate and Flare.

If the Mob is at 1/4 or less health, I'll generally just be wanding it anyways, but I don't see why Flare is a bad deal per se or a poor damage spell on a single target.

If it's single target, you might as well conserve energy and leave the cleaning up of it to the single target specialists such as rangers and warriors. The beauty of playing with Fire Magic is that it excels the most in AoE spells, whereas Air excels in single target takedown. But if you're playing fire ele in the RP/fixed build sense and don't plan to go into other elemental lines, then okay.

It is a 3/4 second cast, the problem is that once you get used to the 1/4 second skills like Boon and company, anything that takes longer feels like a durge.

Oh heck that's right. Aftercast delay. I keep forgetting that. /doh

If I'm running E/Mo with enchants I most likely won't be playing the healer heh, I'll be playing tank or proxy smiter, I'm just better at that role than healer. Current set up is so:

Divine Boon/Draw Conditions
Balthazar's Aura
Zealot's Fire
Ether Renewal
Armor of Earth
Aura of Restoration
Balthazar's Spirit
Essence Bond

If playing on a map with enchant strippers, Boon must come on last to play blanket protector over the rest of the enchants. The beauty of all the enchants is that they serve a purpose and don't just take up space for the sake of being there. Adding all the heals together, that's +192 heal per Boon spam and makes the 25 energy cost of Balthazar's Aura laughable.

The downside is there is a window of about 18s where spamming blindly is not an option. Though with the large energy pool and caution in Boon spamming, it isn't too big a deal, energy is still being replenished from Balthazar's Spirit/Essence Bond. Also if there are a lot of interrupters around, things can go to hell quite easily. It's not an all-encompassing build for sure.

That's something interesting to try with Symbiosis. Though I think it's lost the FotM with us. Could revisit it in time. Right now I'm concentrating on rune unlocks using Van, and partying with my R/Me. Too many times I'm left wishing I had my R/Me along for interrupts or Van along to lay down the AoE love. My guild's E/Me is catching up though, so hopefully I can leave the AoE to him and play a Water/Earth mage. Wards/Maelstrom ftw. \o/

Edit: Oops, should we move to a new thread y'think?

[Cyrene]

Might as well replace Flare with something that's more sure-fire, like Obsidian Flame. Extremely devastating if you want a killing blow spell, and if you're at the tail-end of a fight with energy under 50%, the exhaustion wouldn't hurt either.

Well, in this particular case my wand does more damage than Obsidian Flame--if I had points in Earth I wouldn't be messing around with flare

--Cy

[Vanyel]

Well true, if you're not specced into Earth, there's no point to Obsidian Flame, or the other lovely defense-ignorer, Crystal Wave. Though that's more for if you're doing PBAoE.

What else do you spec your attribute points into? Just out of curiosity.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Crystal Wave is an easy way to annoy the heck out of a Virulence/Epidemic user in the group.

[Vanyel]

Heh, hence the value of discussing team builds before setting out on an adventure eh?

I just completed Elona + bonus with R/Me, E/Me, Me/N, Me/N and Lina. No one brought much in the way of viable self-heals. With a 3s cast time Ether Feast is horrid. Same goes for Troll Unguent, though I did bring that since I was tanking a little of the way with Physical Resistence. The N/Me was doing Curses/Domination, no minions.

I never really noticed since we hardly use her, but Lina has barely any Divine Favor, if at all. She does better than Alesia for our team though, since a lot of what we do involves 'prevention of damage vs patching up damage done'.

In all it was a pretty interesting party to take into the mission. All of us save the Me/N had some minor tanking abilities that Lina could boost (if she didn't attract attention to herself) so we pretty much tossed out the entire 1 Tank Rules All idea. Running around each other actually allowed for small windows of opportunity when creatures re-targeted onto someone new.

That way, enemies never focus fired and even our gimpy little heals were sufficient to keep us alive. In trouble? Hand enemy off to someone else. It was a game of passing the parcel, very fun, and very confusing to the monsters. Having that many mesmers along also meant both the melee and casters were kept crying and helpless a good portion of the time.

I'm looking forward to trying this team out in the Lair. We'll probably eat dirt but it'll be fun anyway heh.

[KingOfPain]

I wasn't going to dwell on the subject anymore since I don't have the proper time and (tiring busy summer workload) mentality to write it up with in-depth details. But, I am glad you are beginning to see KoP's madness

...so we pretty much tossed out the entire 1 Tank Rules All idea. Running around each other actually allowed for small windows of opportunity when creatures re-targeted onto someone new.

That way, enemies never focus fired and even our gimpy little heals were sufficient to keep us alive. In trouble? Hand enemy off to someone else. It was a game of passing the parcel, very fun, and very confusing to the monsters.

Sure it is good to know about game mechanics and formulae but they can only do so much. Nothing compares to in-game experiences. If the monsters are hurting me bad I don't need a spread sheet to tell me I am hurting. And likewise, if I am mauling down monsters like they are paper dragons, I don't need someone to verify what I am doing right. If I don't see monsters dog pile the Healer when I run to rescue him, no one is going to convince me that I am doing the wrong thing because I am not playing by the book/script/rules.

Don't get me wrong, knowledge is power. The more one knows the better, (No Duh!) but how to apply that knowledge is where it's at. And just as important, to truly understand what one knows. Formulae are fine but it is only as good as the data that is being plugged in. (Even one has the complete formula to begin with.) This is the so called "Garbage in, garbage out" effect our resident math boy Charis and I are fond of saying. What we have here is not so much “garbage in”, rather, it is a lack of solid data and missing variables, an incomplete formula.

I’d bet you have seen monsters just stand there and do nothing while you beat on the others right next to them, and you must have seen monsters ping ponging back and forth targets without attacking because they couldn't decide which one would taste better with ketchup. (tho rarely, this is one old King Leoric trick we pull in Ironman games)

There are too many variables, ever changing variables, at work that can affect the out come of a game. Just to list a few:

How many players are in the game. – The monsters have more or less targets to choose from. More or less body blocks.

What role the players play. Are they attacking, buffing running or just dancing. Dancing annoys the hell out of monsters.

Who are the players attacking. The monster AI also gives weigh to their attackers.

The terrain can affect the AI too

Where all the players are, relative to each other, to the monsters, at any one time can also affects the targeting AI greatly.

The path and the speed KoP makes to the rescue the distressed. Is he ditching aggro to other players?

What is the damsel in distress doing. Tanking or running away?

And lets not forget random seeds.

I won’t pretend I can predict the out come of every rescue mission – I can only tell you, it works. And, only experience in playing this style that can give you the knowledge of what’s actually happening in the playing field.

It was a game of passing the parcel, very fun

I couldn't agree more

I would like to discuss in more details of each of the variables, but that will have to come slowly. I am already late for work!


KoP

[Vanyel]

Well, yes. That's why I quote actual gameplay instances and not perhaps maybe instances, talking from the point of view of a Fire/Earth E/Mo who's done two-man teaming for UW pre-Protective Bond abuse. I have some knowledge, and applied it, and here's how it worked out: Blah blah...

There are currently 7 active people in my guild. Most times the biggest number we can muster is 3-4 on a weekend, and we're all pretty allergic to NPC AI. So from all those adventures, I just quote what I come across and anyone's free to take it or leave it. Goodness knows I'm no big authority on the game. I leave that to the top PvP guilds who've clocked in countless hours facing thinking opponants.

Sidenote: Trying to use things like Pacifism and Mark of Pain is just useless with henchmen.

I don't think I'm seeing your madness as I am adjusting strategies to fit the team's build we used in that instance. There were still 1 Tank Rules All instances when I had the vision crystal y'know. *whistles innocently*

Finally, /dancing does annoy monsters. Almost as good as stripping to get attention.

[Cyrene]

What else do you spec your attribute points into? Just out of curiosity.

My Chars all have a smidge of RP, so they don't do crossover unless that is who they are. My Fire and Air/Water El's are tree-based, whereas my Earth one will probably be Tactics-based (PBAoE, for example) and crossover.

My Fire Elmo has max in Fire, 8 in Healing Prayers, and the rest in Energy Storage.

Depending on group makeup and destination I'll carry either Healing Breeze and run some secondary healing, or Mend and keep it running on a tank (I don't need 4 ticks of energy regen on a Fire El with a 74 mana pool--3 is plenty).

--Cy

[KingOfPain]

My Chars all have a smidge of RP, so they don't do crossover unless that is who they are.

Ditto. Plus, the names they use pretty well tight cast what they should do.

Demi Maul - A melee ele with hammer, naturally. Earth magic seemed to be the right choice at the time

Jinni Jinx - jinni (pl. jinn) is a spirit in Arabic and Muslim demonology that is capable of assuming human or animal form and exercising supernatural influence over people for good or for ill. And of course, Curse.

Domi Andre Marie - (Domi) Dominaton and (Andre Marie Ampere) Air.

Half Moons - Female monk's half shaved head look. What more can you ask for in a Mo/Ne dealing with life and death

KoP