Nightfall WPE 9/22 - 9/24

[Lurker Wyrm]

Sever Artery: 4 adrenaline.
Gash: 7 adrenaline.

Remember what I posted earlier about adrenaline costs. That combo actually does work because Sever Artery becomes 'ready' before Gash.

Yeah, but it's not always a good idea to use Sever as soon as it's ready. Most enemies drop after they use Sever and before they use Gash, so it'd be nice to have them not use either on one enemy to build up adrenaline and then use both on the next enemy to make it go down a lot faster.

I've found one thing that works and gives me better control is to give them their res sig and leave that checked off. That way they won't use any skills and I can have them use the ones I want when I want. Unfortunately, I haven't quite gotten down watching 2 skill bars at once yet so my own tends to get ignored (or I wind up hitting the hotkey for my skillbar that co-incides with the skill on their bar that I want them to use).

I also noticed (without realizing it) that they can equip weapons that are customized to you. I didn't test this to see if they got the additional damage, but it would make sense if they did since you can't customize weapons to them.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. I did manage to make a Paragon for a few hours but didn't get to try out all the shouts, chants, and echoes. Mostly just experimented with spear skills. The only thing I found that was a little unbalancing (and I don't know if it was intentional or not) was that by using Signet of Aggression (I think that's it, it's the one that gives you adrenaline) I was able to build up adrenaline to max without ever hitting a foe. Yeah, it took a while, but in co-ordinated PvP that could mean getting hit by an adrenal spike right out of the gates.

[WarBlade]

Yeah, but it's not always a good idea to use Sever as soon as it's ready.

I don't think Koss is all that concerned with good ideas.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. I did manage to make a Paragon for a few hours but didn't get to try out all the shouts, chants, and echoes. Mostly just experimented with spear skills. The only thing I found that was a little unbalancing (and I don't know if it was intentional or not) was that by using Signet of Aggression (I think that's it, it's the one that gives you adrenaline) I was able to build up adrenaline to max without ever hitting a foe. Yeah, it took a while, but in co-ordinated PvP that could mean getting hit by an adrenal spike right out of the gates.

Yeah, that's Signet of Aggression for you. I believe it's possible for a team of Paragons with some Warriors to get in a huddle and stand there shouting and chanting their way to a full tank of adrenaline, not to mention stack up some sustainable buffs like Mending Refrain in the process. It could potentially be the old mutually supportive D2 All-Paladin-Team back to haunt us all over again.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Well, the weekend's over. Was fun, definitely getting Nightfall now, Dervish is too fun to pass up.

I am sooooooooo tempted to kick Warblade Test Acct.

[WarBlade]

Warblade Test Acct played a pivotal role in locating numerous bugs and having it's player present and taking screenies of every gripe and concern voiced by RB players during the event.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Speaking of those, I went through the skill lists looking at the new elites and there were a couple that really need better descriptions.

Weapon of Fury: Ritualist, Channeling Magic
The current description says: "Elite Weapon Spell. For (...) seconds, target ally gains (...)% more adrenaline and 1 Energy."
I'm assuming that's per hit, so they should probably add that in.

Balthazar's Pendulum: Monk, Smiting Prayers.
Desc.: "Elite Enchantment Spell. For (...) seconds, the next time target foe's Skill would knock down target ally, that foe is knocked down instead."
This one is really confusing. It's an enchant, but it says target foe. My best guess would be that it used to be a hex, but then they decided to change it to an enchant and didn't pay enough attention to the description. If that's the case, it should say something along the lines of "The next time target ally would be knocked down, the enemy hitting them with the knockdown is knocked down instead." There's also the question of range and attack type. For instance, will someone using Gale have the KD reversed on them or is it melee only? For that matter, what if someone is hit by Meteor Shower while under this enchantment -- is the ele who cast the MS going to be sitting down?

Oh, and someone might want to take a look into this one:

[Xyngynkynyn]

Well I had fun this weekend.

The 2 new classes are a lot of fun though I think the Dervish is a tad underpowered on noob isle. There aren't that many defensive skills available for them there. I compensated by using Protective Spirit but Chilblain kept chewing it up and without it I kept dying mere seconds after its removal. I'm not sure how they're supposed to tank if they depend too much on enchantments like that.

Another issue I had with them is that their own enchants have a 1 second cast time. It seemed too long for the offensive enchants like Grenth's Fingers for instance because of the Dervish's deficient tanking prowess there. They're defensive ones also took 1 second which can be deadly when you're unprotected in the center of it all. 1 second offensive PBAoEs and a slow attack rate (ideally) in the middle of 3 mobs means they'll need decent tanking capabilities but without Protective Spirit (1/4 second cast, yeah baby), I wasn't impressed with it. At times, it seemed like I was managing my enchants more than swinging that scythe just to stay alive; and this was with a monk hero and henchman. If they can't tank decently, then I'm at a loss as to how to play one.

I suppose ANet didn't want them to overshadow the warrior in that department by giving them equivalent armor levels so they tried something else by giving them more health and regular healing via Mysticism but their primary attribute's healing bonus was very unimpressive. I can't really comment on Mysticism's energy bonus namely because I was wasting a lot of energy healing myself with RoF at times but I've frequently had insufficient energy to execute Chilling Victory. I wasn't able to complete noob isle with the Dervish but my impression of them from what I was able to try was that they're the next assassins in the making as far as their popularity in PuGs are concerned but we'll see.

Once I hit level 5 I get my secondary (I'm now a D/Mo, raise your hand if you didn't see that one coming) and do some other quests, etc. so I'm now set to go get my second hero. So I leave the Australa... whatever with the level 6 henches and my level 5 Koss. I start heading in the right direction and have to fight 3 monsters, 1 monk and 2 paragons. No problem, right? Wrong. They're all level 8 and I can barely make a scratch on the monk before I get slaughtered by the Vicious Spears from the Paragons that not only hit hard but also Deep Wound me.

Heh, yeah that was the turning point for me when I stopped treating the heroes as henchmen and started using them to their full potential. After maybe 2 wipes, I started using the flags to park them while I pulled but 3 wipes further, I finally decided to look at their skills and improve their equipment. I gave Koss the best axe I had and gave him an axe spike build with Plague Touch while I turned the monk hero into a boon/prot and set his AI to passive. It was a vast improvement as I plowed through them on my next try. Their AI when using skill combos still needs improvement (as was already mentioned in this thread) but over all, I like the heroes a lot. My only issue was the addition of Acolyte Jin and Tahlkora kept re-ordering them to the top of the hero list in the party window whenever I zoned. That's Koss' spot. I bound the command first hero control to F5 so eventually it came to the point where I was sending Jin or Tahlkora into the mob to get all aggro before I charged in. Another DOH!! moment I had was forgetting to cancel the flags after pulling a mob and eliminating the pulled group. I'd usually end up taking on the remaining mobs who weren't pulled all by myself cause the rest of my party was still back at the flag I forgot to clear but that one's really all my fault. Fun moments though.

Other things I liked were no more timed missions save for the first. It's okay for the first because it's a small mission but I hope none of the big ones are timed.

The voice acting and direction is way better than Factions. Pity though that we can't watch the cutscenes again like in Factions.

The pace of leveling seems good too. I was level 19 and 1/2 by the time my Paragon finished all the quests and the mission there.

No word though if top level missions will be locked but overall I'm optimistic about this release.

[Zed-F]

I didn't really have a lot of problems keeping my Dervish alive for the areas I went to, except when she was very young. Once I got my secondary and my sergeant rank attribute bonus, things seemed to go pretty well. But I didn't like the looks of the air spells available in the preview (for a beginning Dervish) and went earth instead. I stuck mainly with the 5e skills like vital boon and aura of thorns to keep energy costs manageable; I get the impression you can only really afford to use 10+e spells if you have a high mysticism rank. With a decent level of earth magic I rarely had problems keeping myself healed.

I tried using Zealot's Fire but it seemed inconsistent; it only did its thing when I was actually targetting myself, not casting self-only enchantments while targetting the mob I wanted to smack. That seems wrong somehow.

[Lurker Wyrm]

I tried using Zealot's Fire but it seemed inconsistent; it only did its thing when I was actually targetting myself, not casting self-only enchantments while targetting the mob I wanted to smack. That seems wrong somehow.

If you read the ZF description, you see it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do: it only triggers when you target something. The PBAoE enchants of the Dervish don't target anything, they just activate in a similar method to Aegis (but without the effect going to the whole party). While it's bad for ZF, it's good for other things: you can still use them while in a Well of the Profane or if you're hit with an enchant stopping hex such as the one the Oni in Factions use (Spirit Shroud, I think).

I think I went the oppossite direction that you did. I didn't have much use for the Earth Prayers spells and focused on Wind Prayers.

Another issue I had with them is that their own enchants have a 1 second cast time.

Most are only a 3/4 second cast time, but when you add in aftercast it's about 1.5s.

I compensated by using Protective Spirit

I think that was part of your problem. Prot Spirit isn't a great idea and if you were able to get the 55 armor from Blacktide Den then you shouldn't have had a problem staying alive unless you did a super aggro.

At times, it seemed like I was managing my enchants more than swinging that scythe just to stay alive

Pre-cast enchants. If you try putting them up in the middle of combat then yeah, that's all you're going to do. Also, you don't need to have all of them up at all times. Most of the time, I only had Heart of the Holy Flame up and that was fine, and by the end of the weekend I wasn't putting it up in battle, only before. The damage wasn't all that much that I needed it to be successful and I found I'd rather go in with a full energy bar so I could swing away with Chilling Victory, which had a much greater impact than any of the enchants. I found that unless you're completely surrounded by 5+ monsters, just using your Scythe will put out more damage than the enchants.

Being an enchant based class in a game that has so many ways to negate them is a bit of a pain, but easy to adapt to. Boon prots have to deal with it all the time.

Anyways... Did anyone else finish the story missions? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't but I have just one thing to say about it: Kormir > Rurik and 10,000x better than Togo.

[Zed-F]

I think I went the oppossite direction that you did. I didn't have much use for the Earth Prayers spells and focused on Wind Prayers.

To me it seemed like the wind prayers needed a more significant attribute investment (both there and in mysticism for E) to work with than the earth prayers did. I would have probably tried them more if I'd played my dervish longer.

Anyways... Did anyone else finish the story missions? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't but I have just one thing to say about it: Kormir > Rurik and 10,000x better than Togo.

No, I didn't have time to take any one character through to the end. Not if I wanted to try both classes. So I decided not to spoil things too badly for myself.

[Xyngynkynyn]

Most are only a 3/4 second cast time, but when you add in aftercast it's about 1.5s.

I could've sworn 1 second was the norm. But with the aftercast, it's worse than I thought. Anyway 1.5 second casting and a 1.75 attack rate means you have to be able to tank in the front lines and I wasn't impressed by the Dervish's prowess in that area in the preview.

I think that was part of your problem. Prot Spirit isn't a great idea and if you were able to get the 55 armor from Blacktide Den then you shouldn't have had a problem staying alive unless you did a super aggro.

I had 40 AL chest armor and starter other armor for most of the game. Getting full 55 AL armor was the last thing I did before the preview ended. Protective Spirit compensated a lot for this but was easily torn down versus the Chilblain's of the Mandragors in the Keys so I was pretty vulnerable there. I still managed to compensate by having Koss (or whoever was bound to F5) rush in to where I knew the Mandrgors ambushed and having him take the full brunt of it but there was still a Chilblain or two with my name on it. Since I didn't have all of the aggro though, I survived it. It's a pity I wasn't able to try the 55 armor. I'd have liked to have gotten a feel for it.

Pre-cast enchants. If you try putting them up in the middle of combat then yeah, that's all you're going to do. Also, you don't need to have all of them up at all times. Most of the time, I only had Heart of the Holy Flame up and that was fine, and by the end of the weekend I wasn't putting it up in battle, only before. The damage wasn't all that much that I needed it to be successful and I found I'd rather go in with a full energy bar so I could swing away with Chilling Victory, which had a much greater impact than any of the enchants. I found that unless you're completely surrounded by 5+ monsters, just using your Scythe will put out more damage than the enchants.

Only enchant I'd pre-cast was Vital Boon. I didn't want to waste Heart of Holy Flame's initial AoE damage but pre-casting it may be the way to go. Eventually I developed the habit of having Koss (or whoever was bound to F5) take all the aggro first before moving in so I rarely had 5+ aggro on me.

Being an enchant based class in a game that has so many ways to negate them is a bit of a pain, but easy to adapt to. Boon prots have to deal with it all the time.

Except Boon/Prots aren't in the front lines which makes me question the Dervish's design at times.

Anyways... Did anyone else finish the story missions? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't but I have just one thing to say about it: Kormir > Rurik and 10,000x better than Togo.

I was somewhat confused on the mechanics of the tribunal scene. What exactly do you get if you have the higher score? I got 20 to their 17 or 18 but I didn't notice anything special.

Yeah the story and the characters seem better than in the previous chapters.

[minor spoilers]

I also like that the quests have more variety now. Chasing impudent kids through monster infested swamps? Priceless.

And I wonder where they're going with the "Mother's son is kidnapped by pirates and after a rescue attempt, discovers that son wants to be a pirate" theme they seem to be continuing. First Jatoro and now Suwash.

[/minor spoilers]

Overall everything seems better written.