Nudist Revival

[FoxBat]

If something were to be removed, probably ward vs elements. Its not that much extra armor against a damage type you won't be facing too much of. But if energy is an issue I can consider putting balth's spirit on you. You might like glyph of concentration even in some areas.

There are two ways we can tackle the end part. The more "honorable" way is that rather than everyone charging into the docks area, the tank can place themselves just below the ledge on the beach that is south of the docks, while the rest of the party rains fire from above. This keeps enemies out of range of the vizer, and makes it less likely for them to break aggro onto our squishies. We still need to kill fast enough so the tank doesn't take too much damage. Also mind that the archers have savage shot.

The second trick that xyn taught me, if you stay far away enough, the vizer will not appear. If you go up the path for the ghost (can get bonus on the way), the mantle will start charging towards the docks while the vizer is absent. If you stay back, you can pull this huge mob one group at a time with a longbow, without triggering the vizers appearance. Continue at your leisure until all are dead.

I've suggested running a minion bomber (bone minions, death nova, taste of death) as a high-damage template that fuels itself and the other necro with energy. Big nova explosions and poison degen. Wyrm is game to try it out at least. Henchies however are known to trigger vizer apperance, so if taking the tricker route I'm not sure if minions might trigger as well.

P.S. everyone should have vent ready to go for listening at least. Voice comms are vital for correcting confusion and can save us unnecessary repeats. Our server info is in our guild announcement/status page.

[Lurker Wyrm]

The second trick that xyn taught me, if you stay far away enough, the vizer will not appear. If you go up the path for the ghost (can get bonus on the way), the mantle will start charging towards the docks while the vizer is absent. If you stay back, you can pull this huge mob one group at a time with a longbow, without triggering the vizers appearance. Continue at your leisure until all are dead.

Won't work. There are 2 supplies of Mantle, 1 group will be already on the beach and the other has a spawn point aka infinite enemies. Also, when you trigger 1 side the other side triggers as well so, even though the Vizier won't be there yet there will still be a ton of Mantle waiting for him when he does show up.

I'll give the minion bomber a try for a while, though I do think the Dark Pact/Blood Renewal build I was using added a rather nice amount of ranged damage.

Too bad Zedf can't use Stoneflesh Aura, Mantra of Earth, Earth Striker, and Obsidian Flesh yet. That would solve all of our tank issues.

[FoxBat]

Won't work. There are 2 supplies of Mantle, 1 group will be already on the beach and the other has a spawn point aka infinite enemies. Also, when you trigger 1 side the other side triggers as well so, even though the Vizier won't be there yet there will still be a ton of Mantle waiting for him when he does show up.

I tried it myself. You can let all of the mantle congregate in one big group right on the docks if you want, pull them with a longbow from there and the vizer will not spawn. It's not totally clear how the group pulling with the bow works, as it seemed I pulled larger groups than you'd normally expect, but you can definitely pull part and not all of them with this trick, and you can always run till some shake aggro anyway.

The number of enemies spawned is also finite. I have stayed there and killed them all till they stopped coming. Its a heck of a lot though so it could take quite a while with nudists.

[KingOfPain]

Maybe I am missing something but I am still trying to figure out how this (Bone Minion, Death Nova and Taste of Death) combo any better than Deathly Swarm which Vex uses, especially in the end of Sanctum Cay mission where you will hardly see 3 monsters bunched up.

Not counting the cost of raising the minions to begin with. DN cost 5 cast 2, and ToD cost 5 and cast 0.75. VS Deadly Swarm cost 10 cast 3. Both do roughly the same damage, cost and cast time. The DN/ToD combo is actually harder to play and waste time targeting minions. Deadly swarm does the same damage in the same amount of time, while leaving minions to do yet more damage and tank to take pressure off players. I can see DN would come in handy to explode minions that are about to die anyway, but I just don't get the DN/ToD combo in Sanctum Cay.

KoP

[FoxBat]

Mostly that every exploded minion gives you 10 energy back at 10 SR. Even leaving out the 16 seconds of sometimes redundant poison degen (128 damage), you get two death novas for the price of one bone minions (not horror) spell, and you give 20 energy to the other necro on the team. In some cases you don't even need to spend the energy on taste of death: perhaps just blow up the first one in a group to get poison degen going, and then let the others die of natural causes. It does take some practice targeting but thats how I pushed my ritualist through most of factions. Of course there's no reason why we cant have both nukes flying around between two necros, or even deathly swarm and the minion bombing on the same character. (Can't raise new minions anyway till a corpse pops up...)

With either of the two methods I outlined, we will be facing larger groups of mantle huddled around the tank at the end, so AoE of whatever type will be useful.

[KingOfPain]

Ah ok, both methods do roughly the same damage if counting in the poison damage. As for energy, it is the same cost and return no matter how you slice it - the difference is when you spend and get the energy back (for all necros involved), which is more efficient is something very hard to predict with the randomness of monsters and players placement plus the lack of follow-called-target minion ai. While with Deathly Swarm you get to choose your targets. I guess it comes down to a matter of preference.

I have no problem if Wyrm wants to try the combo. I don't think there are enough corpse fast enough for two summoners and nothing is more annoying to expliot a corpse and then get the invalid target message after a full cast. I suggest only one of us bring Animate Minion skill(s) instead of wasting skill slots. Wyrm, make your call and I will change my bar accordingly

KoP

[Hawkmoon]

I've spent a bit of time perusing GuildWiki, and procured most of the likely-looking Prophecies/Core skills that are available to an Intrepid Adventurer with a handy cap sig and some active quests, and time to run around.

So, a couple of possibilities. First, Arty could act as the tank, going heavy on Earth magic:
Stone Daggers
GoLE
Earthquake
Aftershock
Ward Against Melee
Kinetic Armor
Earth Attunement
Res Sig

I'd probably still need a bond (or three), but it might work, and Aftershock needs adjacent foes.

Second possibility is for Arty to stay in the back lines like before and rain Fire From the Heavens. I don't like the looong casting times of Meteor and Meteor Shower, so Shower at least would go in favor of Searing Heat. I could add in another necro curse like Price of Failure in place of Meteor. Or something else; I dunno, and am open to suggestions.

See y'all this evening!

[Zed-F]

I'd be quite worried about energy with that setup. Kinetic armour is something I consider when I've got a lot better E-management than just GoLE and Earth Attunement available.

OTOH, it doesn't look like I will be able to show up tonight after all as I have another engagement I'd forgotten about so if you want to experiment as a tank, feel free.

[FoxBat]

1 daggers every 8 second or so is fairly maintainable with earth attunement. Moreso if I put balthazar's spirit on hawk. She can even stack with armor of earth if needed. Just be careful to leave a space between skill uses so the savage shots don't catch you. Also need to watch out for guilt and shatter enchantment from the occasional mesmer. Earthquake may be a touch (read:outlandishly) expensive, perhaps whirlwind instead for melee shutdown and prepping aftershock's condition.

Anyway I have found a "temporary replacement" for zed, have yet to see which class will be brought though.

[Hawkmoon]

Earthquake may be a touch (read:outlandishly) expensive,

No more outlandishly expensive than Meteor Shower, which is what I've been bringing.

Two pips of energy regen is tedious.

We can talk over our options tonight on Ventrilo [right, Kop? ]