Brainstorming Challenges.

[mucco]

The point of Diversion is to let me Barbs and possibly SS him, and use the Deep Wound too. Five physicals + Barbs on a single target is big numbers! Also, since I can't really use Orders it's the best buff available for physicals on a 80AL like that monkey.

New wiki says clearly that THAT skill, the hex/condi eater, can be diverted. Not sure who is right though and I think all of the Mallyx skills are exclusive to him.

About the armor bonuses not stacking, that's right, I forgot about that. Is there a chance that Bladeturn will work, it being quite a specific armor-increasing skill? I.e. it doesn't increase general armor but only specific armor so maybe there's an off chance it stacks.

The ranger yeah, I didn't think about it too much. Hex Breaker is nice but ultimately not worth bringing if we find better, and if we go with my Barbs on Mallyx idea an IAS like Expert's Dexterity might be far better. Or a pet, but will that be useful for the initial waves? I disagree with the Ranger having to do all-out damage - we have three frontliners already! Sure it's important but its role is more of a shutdown, for both the initial dangerous fire eles and necros, and Mallyx: his only means to res the spirits is by casting that spell. It's a weak spell though. It takes enough time to be interrupted, but more importantly has a 30s recharge which is very long, and only resurrects one spirit. I think Unnatural Signet can handle that. Basically the Ranger/Mesmer should be able to block much of Mallyx's power alone, but I recognize it's quite a difficult thing to do to properly execute all of this. Maybe bring some sort of other interrupt like those insta-KD PvE shouts.

Thanks for the feedback, it helps me explain my build better XD

[WarBlade]

Maybe I'm a moron for asking, or I should somehow hack your computer and find your skill templates, but what exactly are you running on your warrior for Mallyx?

I mean, clue us in here or something. Unless its a big secret. I for one have never done Mallyx and really don't know what to expect. Or better yet, help out in a team build?

I actually haven't finalised a build yet. I think what I ran last time was:

1. Tryptophan Signet
2. Some adrenaline spear skill
3. Spear of Lightning? Not sure.
4. Ursan Blessing - For entry mobs (inactive during Mallyx fight)
5. Signet of Strength
6. Dolyak Signet
7. Signet of Return
8. Drunken Master

Xyn stuck to Ursan.

This time Ursan is weaker, Defy Pain might be viable, Lightbringer Signet could resolve some energy concerns. Basically a few things have changed that we need to think about.

What you can expect is to run on practically no energy. Imagine having half a pip energy regeneration and once in a while you build up 5 points and let off a skill with it. That's your energy if that spirit is up. Add to that trying to operate under permanent Blurred Vision makes adrenaline building pretty slow. Remember the acid traps in the Emperial Isle and Raisu Palace mission? Think harmless version when you're stationary that hurts at -10 whenever you move. Mallyx's skills will teleport you away in mid swing, or alternately you'll be dragged from a safe place into melee range in mid Heal Sig cast.

All these annoyances will be in force if the spirits are up. Kill the spirits and Mallyx will recast them. Knock Mallyx down to certain percentages of his life and packs of DoA monsters will suddenly spawn close by.

In a nut shell a developer and QA team spent hours constructing a party build to crack this thing when they first put it together. It can be a real pain.

I designed the build with our players in mind, really. I know all the warriors in our build like to bring a hammer so I just made two mirror ES bars. Tryptophan Sig can surely replace something on one of the warrior bars, or even better on the Dervish bar so it has some utility as well; not sure of Hawk's Ebon Vanguard title on her dervish though. If she doesn't feel like taking it I'd think the best skill to replace it with would be Flash on warrior #1.

The Dervish will have some energy. The Warriors will have better fortitude. Personally I'd say leave Trytophan on a Warrior, seeing as it will provide a huge defence from a robust character. The Dervish will be much weaker, but with better energy I'd be looking to put some energy use options here.

One thought about the warriors is that one could run another elite like Backbreaker, that would make us slightly stronger versus Mallyx but maybe weaker for the initial waves.

You're still stuck on hammers. Mallyx can't be knocked down and nor can most of the Titans, so while hammers might provide some useful cover in the Margonite spawns I'm thinking that using the elite slot for a KD could be a suboptimal choice for the elite. I keep thinking of Defy Pain, but I'm also wondering how Dwarven Battle Stance might go if we can keep the Shroud of Darkness and Repressive Energy spirits from respawning. As in DBS + Tryptophan Signet mix but that could be risky in the two spawns.

The R/Me is our weapon for Mallyx: he has Diversion and Unnatural Signet, which he will spam on the spirits to take them down fast at the start and whenever they respawn. This should help the adrenaline building a lot for warriors and paragon, I don't think those characters will feel much difference from the usual gameplay if the Ranger kills the spirits quickly. Diversion he should use whenever Mallyx's hex and condition eating skill recharges, and at that point no conditions or hexes should be on the target so that the healing is only the 300 health of Diversion. This requires skill because Zed will have to count down the added recharge (48 seconds) every time, and every other party member who hexes or conditions will have to as well in order to refrain from applying debuffs when closing in. This way Mallyx will be clean except for Diversion every time, which he will eat.

Relying on someone not to make a mistake. Oka-aay. You do bring up the nail-the-spirit strategy though and we didn't try that last time. We'll need serious interupts and I think we'll need more than one person getting the spirits down.

This reminds me of an idea I had earlier tonight. Anyone building adrenaline and not using it might want to check out Brawling Headbutt (dwarf rank skill) if they have empty slots to fill. Not exactly a key skill, but anyone can use it on Mallyx when he pops everyone into melee range. Just a random thought. *shrug*

I have a feeling Mallyx does slashing damage, so I put in Bladeturn Refrain. If you know it's not so, that skill is not worth bringing and we can choose an alternative.

Slashing eh? Can anyone confirm or disprove?

My job will be nuking and helping the offense with the first four skills (devastating), and helping to defend with the rit ones. I'm not sure exactly which rit skills to bring though, heh. So any input there will be appreciated. Keep in mind my Soul Reaping will be worthless vs. Mallyx mostly so don't overload me too much on energy.

Weapon of Warding might help. I'm seriously looking at Xinrae's Weapon as another defensive option. Defiant was Xinrae on key defenders is yet another thought that crossed my mind as a potential damage mitgator. To be honest though I'm not sure what to suggest for a Necromancer. Life Steal against that high AL could be useful?

[FoxBat]

Even if someone does screw up on the interruption (and that should be hard if we have tripto going), unnatural sig gets it down again in notime. It should be on a seperate character than the interrupter though for such a situation.

Mere numbers like +24 armor aren't worth it whether it works or not. Save Yourselves or go home.

If you don't want to rely on interrupts, just waste an elite on consume soul, and eat them as soon as they pop up. That's far less disruptive to the team build than trying to avoid energy consumption.

P.S. mass ursan owns the crap out of Mallyx, especially with celerity. I got my statue from a horrible mess that ended up zerging him in 1 minute. The new version you don't even have to worry about edenial from the spirit anymore. You should have the rest of your build set up for surviving everything else, because with enough ursans he won't last long. There are obvious downsides to that though, such as A) not having a critical mass of ursans (5+) to win in 1 minute, and B) having no elite for half of the preceeding mission.

[WarBlade]

Even if someone does screw up on the interruption (and that should be hard if we have tripto going), unnatural sig gets it down again in notime. It should be on a seperate character than the interrupter though for such a situation.

I agree. After the dodgy-as-hell Slaver's Exile run on my Ritualist with my concentration split three ways at once I'm going to strongly support keeping the interrupter's attention focused entirely on Mallyx's skill activations and not much else.

[FoxBat]

http://gwshack.us/9359a

Ideas there. This assumes constant essence of celerity (+25% move, attack speed, skill activation & recharge) Yes that makes glass arrows good, forgot about it. I was looking at drunken master to get up to 33%, but Mallyx will just smash stances, so our resources seem better spent elsewhere.

Lots of hex removal because Soothing Images and Blurred Vision on the torment demons destroys Wyrm, which destroys the rest of us. That leads to an awful looking monk bar, but what are you going to do without enchantments. Dual gaze is also present for taking down the miss/edenial spirits, and can eat them if an interrupt is missed. Winnowing is a great damage boost vs mallyx, and while maybe too dangerous in the early areas, it can just be fuel to get the Necro's Fury spirit up for an extra spirit/damage.

I've thought about defensive weapons, but I don't like A) overwriting dwarf, B) little room, C) only Warding is any good to mess up Mallyx' shadow smash or protect wyrm. Xinrae is hardly going to do anything the 95% of time when SY is up, and Offering also improves much under Celerity. Maybe I could take Dwarf Weapon to free up the skill slot for Warding. Another solution is a really leet ranger can interrupt Shadow Smash under Tryptophan, maybe.

Can't say I like the "dom necro" a whole lot on paper. Diversion is a looong cast without fast casting, and it's not worth doing just to set up barbs. I also like the hero para and a human healer. Only reason it might be worth considering is for diverting the rest of Mallyx's skills.

P.S. the math on post-nerf defensive communing spirits is pretty depressing.

[WarBlade]

That definitely looks a whole lot more viable. Nit: I see a lot of damage there, but I think we could get some better defenses running...


Other ideas I've been mulling over:

Ranger: R/W bar with "Save Yourselves!" The reason is the interrupter's role of watching the skill activations puts that player in the position of being able to see and react to Summoning Shadows. Example Summoning shadows flashes up and a bow shot or two later the Ranger fires off "Save Yourselves!" so the squishies have some cover when they get dragged in. With no other adrenal skills the shout should be primed and ready for use most of the time.

Ranger: "I am the Strongest!" Damage enhancer.

Warrior: Any meleer with room for Assassin secondary could consider Death's Charge as a response to Shadow Smash.

Warrior: I'm in two minds about Ursan Blessing. Defensively it's crap for Warriors now - Defy Pain mangles it in almost every way. For offence it's still useful, but considering Mallyx I'm thinking that body blocks from our front line might be a little more important than raw DPS. I'm guessing that we'd be holding back Ursan until the surprise spawns and using it on the Margonites etc. instead.

Warrior: Auspicious Parry looks interesting if anyone's thinking of running Tactics. Riposte could be a useful Swordsman option also.

Necromancer: Some hard rez. A team mate hitting the floor will spike the Necro's energy supply, even if only a little, so it strikes me as a good place to pack one of the hard rez skills.


Edit: Forgot... I'd like to see "Finish Him!" somewhere in the party. It would be a redundant skill bringing Mallyx down, but highly useful versus Torment Demons, particularly when they start a Call to the Torment.

[Zed-F]

Personally I would prefer to stick with one of the two Ranger bars Fox provided, since I don't generally use PvE-only skills. I don't even have any of the allegiance skills unlocked on any of my characters, which tosses Save Yourselves right out.

[FoxBat]

Yeah that's what I figured on Zed. I thought hawk had Norn somewhat ground out on her Derv which is why I put those there, similarly Sej gets ebon vanguard since he's not ursan and has everything maxed (I think?) Warrior's Endurance is probably the DPS elite of choice if you just want to spam damage without Ursan, although a hammer elite would also be good if Mallyx can be KD'd.

The point of SY Paragon is 90-100% uptime. It shouldn't be needed anywhere else (in theory), and if it is, you want some kind of adrenaline engine to power it. (Dragon Slash, dual attacks) If not taking the unnatural signet, we want 2x gaze (one from the ranger) to start the battle too. The Para similarly takes care of all your warrior defenses, plus Mallyx will just smash and disable any stances like Auspicious Parry anyway. (Although you could time the activation just to stop Shadow Smash, depending on how slow he will be moving, but plain old Riposte can probably do that too.) You can get a body block working to some degree, although he should break that from time to time with summoning shadows (teleports all to himself) and shadow smash (teleports the target away). A mess of 3-4 melee and tryptophan might contain him anyway.

I just read some strategy about pulling the priest to a safe spot, and then hiding up on the hill to pull remaining groups at your leisure. That would make some added defense more viable since there's no pressure to kill fast, and more thought can be put into just Mallyx. The Rit spirits are pretty bad without a fully dedicated communing character (who would have to be a hero anyway), so I'm not sure what more defense can be added that is also useful against Mallyx, unless he's KD-vulnerable.

[WarBlade]

although a hammer elite would also be good if Mallyx can be KD'd.

He's KD immune.

Mallyx will just smash and disable any stances like Auspicious Parry anyway.

D'oh! I was thinking that was a "Skill." Oh well. The idea still holds for Riposte.

I just read some strategy about pulling the priest to a safe spot, and then hiding up on the hill to pull remaining groups at your leisure. That would make some added defense more viable since there's no pressure to kill fast, and more thought can be put into just Mallyx. The Rit spirits are pretty bad without a fully dedicated communing character (who would have to be a hero anyway), so I'm not sure what more defense can be added that is also useful against Mallyx, unless he's KD-vulnerable.

We did the Zhellix-pulling strategy last time and it worked really well. The trick is you really only get one good shot at it and have to be careful which targets are called and killed. Our version was pulling down to the gate though, which avoided the up-the-hill problem of the spawns up there, while adding in a lot of trickery to get Zhellix out of his perch, around the corner and finally down to the gate. Xyn drew the enemy, most others stayed clear and I nipped in to take some sting out of the attacks with my Tryptophan Signet.

As for anti-Mallyx defenses, any non-Stance blocking we can bring is worthy of consideration IMO. "Save Yourselves!" and "There's Nothing to Fear!" are our aces-in-the-hole obviously, but I'm definitely leaning towards reinforcing those with some blocking.

[Seijin]

Sej gets ebon vanguard since he's not ursan and has everything maxed (I think?)

Yes they're all maxed...unfortunately I have yet to obtain "flesh of my flesh" :neenernee

But i'll fix that.

EDIT:

So How about this:
Strength: 12 + 1 + 3
Swords/Axe/Hammer: 11 (+1 if I mess with my armor pieces)
Restoration: 6

1 Power Attack +42 dmg
2 Counter Attack +37 dmg
3 Warrior's Endurance (E) 37s
4 Signet of Strength 17 attacks @ +5dmg
5 "I Am The Strongest!" (PvE) 8 attacks @ +20dmg
6 Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (PvE) 20s @ +15dmg
7 Tryptophan Signet 20s @ 40% slower
8 Flesh of My Flesh

If energy is not going to be a problem, I'd rather have "I Am The Strongest!" over Signet of Strength and maybe add another attack skill.

Signet of Strength
17 x +5dmg = +85dmg every ~46s

"I Am The Strongest"
8 x +20dmg = +160dmg every 20s

Alternatively I could take LB Gaze in place of "I Am The Strongest!". Since my LB title is maxed out too, that might help more in the initial stages against the waves of demons and stuff. Or even I can bring a copy of SY since I just farmed all that Kurzick faction, unless you just want me to basically do damage with the other frontliners.