Nudist Progression

[Zed-F]

I decided I would try Ember Buffy out as a beastmaster and see how she would work, so look for more pet action and less fire magic from her. Unfortunately she doesn't have many pet attack skills yet (just feral strike), but hopefully things will improve in that regard. Predator's Pounce is the only other skill she can get so far, and it isn't really all that great as healing goes, but it does do a bit more damage than regular attack, so might be worthwhile.

[Hawkmoon]

Looks like we're all undecided about exactly what we want to do with our characters. Arty has gone from being pure Fire + raising the occasional minion to being pure Air + Well of Blood, to being (last night) a mix of Fire and Earth + Well. All I can say is, Bleh. The change to AI that killed the DoT AoE spells really made a whole slew of skills useless (can you say Eruption? what a waste of 25 energy! why would anyone bother to use it? and of course Firestorm is pretty useless for dealing damage now, though Cynn sure hasn't twigged to that fact).

I think I'm going to keep Well, but add back in Animate Bone Horror, just so we have another damage sponge going most of the time. Earth magic is pretty much useless at this point (though Magnetic Aura was useful for short periods of time last night...but I still died enough). Not sure whether to stick with Fire or go back to Air. I really like Immolate, and Fireball is not too shabby. The main reason I can think of for going back to Air is that I can (occasionally) interrupt enemies with Gale. But if we're going to get some Mesmer interrupt capability, then maybe that's not a concern.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[Havral]

...can you say Eruption? what a waste of 25 energy! why would anyone bother to use it?

Eruption!

Eruption is still Vortik's Big Bang™ spell, for lack of any other earth-based blasts. In the last few runs of Borlis Pass or so, I have had some luck blinding enemies with it: Mainly Shiverpeak Protectors and (if I can get some other poor sap to soak up the Distracting Shots) Longbows.

Using minions to pin targets into a corner works too.

[Zed-F]

Haven't bought Immolate to try it. I anticipate Incendiary Bonds + Glyph will be a nice replacement combo for Firestorm + Glyph, but IIRC it's not available until somewhere in Kryta. Fireball is pretty nice, double Flare damage for double the mana plus it's AoE, not the speediest recharge but I don't have the energy to cast tons of them anyway. Lava Font will sometimes get a melee dude off your butt, but isn't 100% reliable in that regard. Usually they are just starting to run by the time it ends. Still Lava Font + Unguent is not a bad self-protection combo if I'm only being pestered by one guy. The melee mob isn't hitting anyone while he's running away from DOT AOE.

Air... well, I'd like to try Gale out but I can't see putting Air magic up to 5+ based on the spell selection I have now. Moreover Air is about spike, which means dumping lots of mana quickly, whereas our fights tend to drag out. Once I get Elemental Attunement and Air Attunement, sure... as long as I'm dreaming. That's at least a year or so away at this rate. Fire tends to be more mana-efficient, IF you can take advantage of the AoE damage. Actually I've noticed that we are not great so far at clustering the mobs for AoE to be all that valuable. Something about having no tanks to draw aggro, maybe? Most of the time I try to save my fireballs for when the melee guys come swarming in on some poor hapless party member, and use my kindle+enchant combo otherwise. So maybe air isn't such a bad idea.

I took Ele primary for the looks, more than because I thought an Ele makes a good nudist, so I'm not sure what I can tell you beyond that.

[Lurker Wyrm]

I think, for now, I'll be remaking as Me/W. Was thinking of going Me/N, but the N skills I want to try out with the Me don't become available until after Ascension (aka elites) so I have no problem with that.

I think Fox Bat was also working on a nudist of some sort, so he can probably join up with us and we'll have a full team of 8 (if Seijin can get his schedule worked out to be on).

[Zed-F]

Well I tried out a pet-oriented build for Ember Buffy and the damage is not so great, but it might work out. Since I want to see if I can get my pet to Elder status I think I'll run with this for a while. I also swapped in Distracting Shot so we have an actual interrupt in the team for those cases where one is needed.

[Zed-F]

Guys, I'm going to be on vacation for the next bit, with sporadic computer access ('till Jan 15 or so.) I'm going to try to log on for Wintersday but no guarantees. I also might be able to make next Tues but again, no guarantees. Cya in mid-Jan if not before then.

[KingOfPain]

I will be late and not likely to make it tonite. I hope the rest can get caught it tonite

KoP

[Lurker Wyrm]

For next week, I don't particularly care to have to redo all of the missions yet again, so I don't mind if someone runs me to the peaks to catch up with the rest of the party. I just need to make a quick stop at Grendich to buy a couple skills (namely Distortion and Physical Resistance). I can do skill quests on my own time so no need to worry about those, instead we could just plow on through a mission. As for levelling... well, I'm level 8 in pre-sear, so I shouldn't have too much catching up to do.

Edit: I have a meeting tonight, so I'll be a bit late. Angela is fully caught up though (as in she's at Frost Gate and has done all of the skill quests up to that point), so the team won't have to backtrack on my account.

[KingOfPain]

I am sorry to say, after some thoughts, I will have to outlaw the usage of candy cane weapons, as well as the other Wintersday shields and focus.

I want to see the treats being used as much as anyone (and who but the nudist make a better candidate? Maybe another variant..) but it is a dangerous path to travel when we allow weapons that do roughly 2/3 of a max weapon (minus mods) - The same argument can be used on a whole lot of items once we open that gate; there is just no end to it.

At least we still have a hat we can use, and all the Wintersday consumables, too

BTW, I have seen candy cane advertised for sale from 650 to 1k each so far. Not sure if they are in demand tho.

PS: I will see if I can get AN to throw us a bone and make some none/low damage/armor treats for the next event. Doesn't hurt to try, right?


KoP









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