Nudist Revival

[FoxBat]

Let me re-iterate the important of blocking stances vs jades; while vile touch is what stings on your average fully armor character, it's the least of our worries for nudists. Without any armor bonuses, the jade's melee attacks will probably do more damage than the touch, so we probably want them to touch more rather than less. Physical resistance may be another option for tanking, as long as we don't have anything to trigger chillblains. Anyway they are right outside the door, so we can afford a few wipes while trying to figure something out if need be.

[KingOfPain]

If what you say is true (that dem bugs would Plague Touch you back as soon as they are Plague Touched) then there is no better way than to PT them and spread with Epidemic. 2 simple low cost skills keeps a mob busy doing almost no damage, and drain their energy, a win win situation

KoP

[Lurker Wyrm]

If what you say is true (that dem bugs would Plague Touch you back as soon as they are Plague Touched)

They use the skill as soon as they have a condition on themselves.

then there is no better way than to PT them and spread with Epidemic.

That simply means that instead of 1 enemy using the skill they all will.

2 simple low cost skills keeps a mob busy doing almost no damage, and drain their energy, a win win situation

Sounds good on paper, but I seriously doubt it will work at all. For one thing, Epidemic has a 5s recharge, which means they'll have plenty of time to get the conditions off themselves and attack. Also, sure they're just 5e skills but since I'd be the only one with Me abilities that means I'd have to use 10e every time I wanted to combo, which means I'd only be able to do so twice before I was plain out of energy. Not going to work.

I think our best bet is like Fox said, Physical Resistance and some good nuking.

Right now, my elites are limited to Mantra of Recovery and Order of the Vampire, so I'm not really getting any help there at all. Monks are really the only ones that are getting something worthwhile with Word of Healing. My best elite for the near future (and I use that lightly) will probably be Well of Power, which is in Mineral Springs.

My bar, as of now, is: 12 blood, 4 sr, 10 insp; Life Siphon, Barbed Signet, Well of Blood, Energy Tap, Ether Feast, Leech Signet, Physical Resistance, Res Sig.

[KingOfPain]

Whatever, I guess we will never know if my suggestions will work since we are ditching everything in the build/idea I suggested. It's a waste of time to argue over it, nothing works without cooperation. So I guess I will just try to think up something to support the group the best I can.

KoP

[Lurker Wyrm]

we are ditching everything in the build/idea I suggested.

Welcome to my world.

[FoxBat]

Welcome to my world.

Hey, I ran that recall split with no complaints!

We managed to limp over to augury rock, destiny's gorge, and thirsty river, but it was quite a rough going. I'll put a little thought into coming up with some build ideas that might work better for the 15 att quest, but we also really need to watch aggro management, with eyes on the radar, as it led to many a near-wipe.

[theGrimm]

I'll put a little thought into coming up with some build ideas that might work better for the 15 att quest, but we also really need to watch aggro management, with eyes on the radar, as it led to many a near-wipe.

For some reason, I seem to remember that the 15 att quest was just about runnable. With speed boosting skills, you can outrun the meteors, and once in the area with the sage or whatever, there's nothing between you and the reward (iirc).

As a curiosity, is there any reason why necro isn't the preferred class for nudists, with soul reaping for energy management? Since you can't use runes or armour anyway, the real question is whether other professions can match the energy management of SR (Eles might have a good opening salvo, but I'd ragequit before waiting for 70 energy to recharge at 2 pip... )

Forgive the nosy questions, but the varient is starting to intrigue me, and since I can't take part...

Also, if anyone of the participants can provide some info regaridng how you handled the strategy, you'd be assured of at least one avid reader... (hint hint).

[Zed-F]

The problem with Soul Reaping is that you need a good kill rate to keep the energy flowing... and our kill rate is less than stellar, to put it mildly.

Fortunately we should be getting some energy management skills available in the near future, so that will hopefully help at least a bit.

[Lurker Wyrm]

For some reason, I seem to remember that the 15 att quest was just about runnable. With speed boosting skills, you can outrun the meteors, and once in the area with the sage or whatever, there's nothing between you and the reward (iirc).

One of the goals of the variant is to make it through fighting, not just run away from fights and skirt through the game.

As a curiosity, is there any reason why necro isn't the preferred class for nudists, with soul reaping for energy management? Since you can't use runes or armour anyway, the real question is whether other professions can match the energy management of SR (Eles might have a good opening salvo, but I'd ragequit before waiting for 70 energy to recharge at 2 pip... )

The SR nerf hit quite hard. Our kill rate is decent enough, but there are either a lot of enemies bunched up that we can kill all at once with nuking (which kinda negates SR), or we wind up fighting slower paced battles with deaths not quite frequent enough to make a difference.

Also, if anyone of the participants can provide some info regaridng how you handled the strategy, you'd be assured of at least one avid reader... (hint hint).

Our basic strategy in most places is to use an ele tank with Armor of Earth and other buffs and have them run in and collect all the aggro the way a normal warrior tank would. In areas with a lot of enchant stripping, such as when we fight Jade Scarabs, a mesmer (currently my N/Me) will use Physical Resistance to do basically the same thing. The ele also gets a boost from one of the monks which plays as a bonder. In certain areas we would rotate tanks, in that Hawk (the earth ele) would take all non-Jade Scarab tanking duties and I would tank the little Chilblains buggers. This was mostly an issue when going from Desitny's Gorge to Thirsty where there were Dune Burrowers with Jade popups. I would run up and get the aggro from the Jades, retreat a bit to outside the range of the burrowers and tank the Jades; once they were dead Hawk would move in and tank the burrower and any Rock Scarabs that were left.

Really, the strat isn't too different from what would normally be used, you just have a lot less room for error.

[FoxBat]

Well with all the recent craziness, it seems we've sadly lost two necromancers for the forseeable future. That leaves three of the old guard, one of which (correct me if I'm wrong) isn't able to be with us every time, and one faithful new recruit. So we need to consider how to proceed from here. Maybe we can field some guests or take a hiatus for this week, but we need to find more long-term team members to continue. There are two options, with a fork, as I see it:

- Recruit more nudists. I think all the guild members that can consistently come at this time already are, save Roland who has no developed Core characters. This means we will need to turn to others, possibly allies like our KKoP friends or even Basiners (they PvE too ya know. )

This option opens up another possibility; whether we re-think the temporary skill restrictions in place until ascension. I thought of these to provide continuity for us old-timer curmudgeons, but there are fewer of us now. These restrictions add complexity when explaining the variant to newbies, make it perhaps more tediously slow and frustrating then some potential recruits are willing to tolerate, and keep Roland from playing with us. That they are only temporary makes their continued enforcement more questionable; old nudist characters will be acquiring elites and attribute points very soon.

- Wait on some folks to return with GW:EN (end of summer) We could pursue a different variant for the time being (maybe BAR one) that is more hero-friendly and therefore doesn't require a large numbers of players every single night.