PvE Analysis

Taryius

With a recent bugfix, the Firelord and Waterlord damage arties now properly apply to denizen damage. This is an 8% increase for Firelord, and 5% for Waterlord when fully artied.

Here are the new numbers for Firelord with Level 3 Int, Level 3 Collar and the 8% damage artie.

892 dmg, 2.2s bal , 405.45 p/s

Brings it solidly in line with Shaman/DwC/DwB. With the slight con of not splitting crits between smaller hits. 

Minifie

so with the new enviro gems, having a full sceptre should put serpent ahead even further, do good things for classes like DWC, bard, shaman. slow hitting classes will fall behind even more, though, and anything already doing pittance of damage of course. I'd be interested in seeing shaman vs serpent vs arash BM with a full sceptre now. Perhaps the sceptre should confer 10% but scaling based on attack speed?

Mindshell

That's not how dps works, it's a percentage increase so scales equally, you can modify my numbers to see the larger dps if you want but the rankings won't change.

Minifie

Mindshell said:

That's not how dps works, it's a percentage increase so scales equally, you can modify my numbers to see the larger dps if you want but the rankings won't change.

The crits are what throw it out IMO, 5% on top of overkill is still just overkill, while classes such as serpent/arash bm/shaman will be able to make better use and have better carry over crits from WSC and PRC. ATM my WSC and PRC in 2h is double kill anyway excepting the most extreme circumstances, so 5% more of that is just nothing, while others will carry over more damage. I'll try to grab more and do some proper thorough tests with clearing and monitoring criticals, but it's hard to get anything other than Raw numbers because RNG is RNG.

Adrik

Minifie said:

Mindshell said:

That's not how dps works, it's a percentage increase so scales equally, you can modify my numbers to see the larger dps if you want but the rankings won't change.

The crits are what throw it out IMO, 5% on top of overkill is still just overkill, while classes such as serpent/arash bm/shaman will be able to make better use and have better carry over crits from WSC and PRC. ATM my WSC and PRC in 2h is double kill anyway excepting the most extreme circumstances, so 5% more of that is just nothing, while others will carry over more damage. I'll try to grab more and do some proper thorough tests with clearing and monitoring criticals, but it's hard to get anything other than Raw numbers because RNG is RNG.

It won't matter if you just buy another bashing artie! I hear the Maya Figurine is lovely this time of year, and can be gotten for something akin to.. iunno. 1500cr? [sub]That's only $300 today, right now, with their Black Friday Door Buster.[/sub]

Penwize

Minifie said:
The crits are what throw it out IMO, 5% on top of overkill is still just overkill, while classes such as serpent/arash bm/shaman will be able to make better use and have better carry over crits from WSC and PRC. ATM my WSC and PRC in 2h is double kill anyway excepting the most extreme circumstances, so 5% more of that is just nothing, while others will carry over more damage. I'll try to grab more and do some proper thorough tests with clearing and monitoring criticals, but it's hard to get anything other than Raw numbers because RNG is RNG.

If only WSC and PRC crits existed you'd be right, but there are thresholds where x16, x8, and even x4 crits become instant kills as well for higher damage classes.  It'll vary a lot based on the places you're hunting.  I'm not sure how it would actually wind up, but my intuition is that it would be a wash.

Mizik

Anyone notice unartied SNB slice combos are ~3s vs denizens? I can rend at the same speed.

The same attack vs players is around 2s.

Blaire

Mizik said:

Anyone notice unartied SNB slice combos are ~3s vs denizens? I can rend at the same speed.

The same attack vs players is around 2s.

It's been bugged more than a few times, from me included twice. It's come back as dismissed and that is how its intended. I'm really not sure why. Maybe @Makarios would be willing to elaborate more on that decision?

Paux

It'd be nice to have all this info in a viewable spreadsheet for artied/unartied. 

Just got Earthlord and I'm not sure if I deal more in DW or Earthlord (but I fee I'll freaking invincible in Earthlord, so that's what I'm using)

Minifie

DWalker is almost as good as wielding a shortsword and JABbing things to death. Earthlord is considerably better.

Mizik

Fire Lord is excellent bashing.

But yeah, SNB bashing slowed down by a full second since the last time I played it and I heard nothing about it. Super weird. 

Caelan

Finally looking at getting elemental now that my 5 days of puking is over until the next round... Probably not the thread for it but related so..  what are the pros/cons of each one for anybeho may know?

Accipiter

Fire: Pro - Is the best, Con - Is much too amazing for most people

Any other one: Pro - None, Con - Isn't fire

Caelan

Accipiter said:

Fire: Pro - Is the best, Con - Is much too amazing for most people

Any other one: Pro - None, Con - Isn't fire

LOL.  

I've heard fire is...well, fire (but not Fyre).  Some interesting abilities in Earth and Water I think but could really use a side-by-side so I don't waste any more time.

Minifie

Best bashing elord is serpent, those leather-elemental garrotes are legit.

Sobriquet

When I dumped Firelord and got Airlord peole told me I would regret it. I'm not saying they were right, but they were, really... and there is no way in hell I'm going back through Elord quests again. 

Caelan

Sobriquet said:

When I dumped Firelord and got Airlord peole told me I would regret it. I'm not saying they were right, but they were, really... and there is no way in hell I'm going back through Elord quests again. 

Yeah the time sink is why I'd like to make the best decision ahead of time.  Anyone have like an AB breakdown of them or something, maybe a combat strat one as well?  

I seem to remember someone say Earth? was limb based and similar to the old style of fighting which intrigued me but then I can do dragon so..  would be nice to spice it up.

Iaxus

There's another thread for it I don't care to find at the moment that has ABs, but super simple breakdown:
Earth - limb prep, Fire - stacking damage, Water/Air - affs.
And in response to @Sobriquet, I like fire lord enough to have done the quest chain three times. 

Gallida

Caelan said:

Sobriquet said:

When I dumped Firelord and got Airlord peole told me I would regret it. I'm not saying they were right, but they were, really... and there is no way in hell I'm going back through Elord quests again. 

Yeah the time sink is why I'd like to make the best decision ahead of time.  Anyone have like an AB breakdown of them or something, maybe a combat strat one as well?  

I seem to remember someone say Earth? was limb based and similar to the old style of fighting which intrigued me but then I can do dragon so..  would be nice to spice it up.

Fire: Good hunting, best mobility between Ashrain, Flashpoint, and Hearth. Pretty good in groups, solo kills depend *heavily* on the target. You'll murder squishy people and struggle against heavily artied people. Second easiest quest line, nothing too difficult to kill.

Air: Best hunting in terms of damage, definitely the squishiest. Free wings and Meropis access. Decent group utility, doesn't synergize too well with groups due to everything working off smoke cures. Fastest kill potential against bad curing. Probably easiest quest line.

Earth: Tankiest elemental, slowest hunting. Pretty good group initiation, probably worst group fighting. Kill path is pretty hard to stop but is entirely limb prep. Second hardest quest line, requires a solo fight and killing a very tough mob.

Water: Best group utility with two forms of beckon to disrupt groups. Kill path is fast, multiple kill routes in groups, lots of affliction output but not much hindering. Bashing is slow but safe between tankiness and self healing. Hardest and longest quest line by far, requires killing a very very very tough mob that probably needs a group of dragons to suicide into it multiple times, unless you figure out the quest to weaken it.

Atalkez

Dreadpilar can be solo’d!

Gallida

If you want the ABs, they're on the wiki.

Air: http://wiki.achaea.com/Duress

Fire: http://wiki.achaea.com/Ignition

Earth: http://wiki.achaea.com/Sculpting

Water: http://wiki.achaea.com/Pervasion

Caelan

Thanks everyone.

Iocun

I really wish super-hard PvE fights weren't such a big part of many of the elemental questlines. This basically forces people to either be a dragon, do it in groups (which may not always be in the "spirit" of these quests), be heavily artied, or often even a combination of all of the above.

Being a dragon is a rewarding goal in itself with plenty of benefits and shouldn't be a required gateway to a lot of other game content.

I'd be fine if those fights were challenging by having interesting PvE mechanics, but there should be ways to deal with their damage with a single, unartied level 80+ character.

Caelan

Another stupid question...  I don't think I have ever hunted in dragon, having only gotten it after returning from hiatus, and being more concerned with learning all the changes, building my system, and trying to figure out all the new skills for my class plus multiclassing on a whim. 

What is the best ability(ies) to use to hunt efficiently? I do seem to remember playing w gut on a player when I first got it and it felt super slow.  I have +3 on all stats, max healing, magic dmg max, etc... no idea what combos exist for dragon..

Gallida

You use dragon if your lesser class is garbage bashing or you need the survivability. With that much in arties, you'd be way better off choosing a different class. If you really insist on hunting as dragon, use gut until you run out of endurance and then swap to incantation until you run out of willpower.

If you want a bashing class, shaman is probably my vote with your arties: No need to buy any weapons, can use an SoA, crazy damage output, only needs two trans skills, and completely ignores denizen shields. You could argue for Serpent/Runewarden/Bard, but those would also need a weapon.

Caelan

I have 4 classes or so, and this was more just a general question.  I've seen debates that incantation is better and others that gut is to a point.  

Minifie

Incantation’s raw damage at full arties is better, but what are you hunting? Where? Do you have figurine? Do you need your balance? How useful is battlerage? This is why serpent is so strong a hunting class: it has good damage vs insane speed, single hit battlerages, a CC brage in obliviate, and quick balance means you are able to make quick swap decisions. 2h runie is cool, but the difference between its fastest and slowest clear times is a lot wider than serpent. Unless you are going for every possible artie eeking out every second possible, class is mostly fine, anything that is top 5 (serpent, bm, shaman, knight, flord/airlord) is totally fine without killing your speed. Tekura, snb, dwalker, though? That’s just making your speed that much slower. 

Just play what you want, and have the arties for. If you truly want to min/max, there’s a lot more than class to think about.

Gallida

I thought multiple hit battlerages were better overall just because of the crit possibilities.

Obviously it doesn't apply to the "super weak but hits thirty times" ones like Occultist because a WSC from that does like 2% damage.

Minifie

They are... until you get mayan figurine, and seeing that plane-razing crit do 64% instead of insta-gibbing 2 mobs is frustrating. No, a crit to that doesn’t “cost” you another, but it’s the same deal with incantation vs gut, if your wsc double-kills with mayan figurine to a whisper spider, plane razing is a waste. You want fast attacks that also mitigate time spent/damage wasted (in nur, a plane-razing garrote does ~150%, while a plane-razing slaughter instagibs 2 and I have nfi how much in overkill, wsc almost double kills, so while my AP crits in 2h can single kill, that is lost by the crit chance reduction from para gambling). I would need to go through every single clear time vs crits landed to dissect further, but my best times are usually from classes that don’t give me consistent clear times.

Iaxus

Iocun said:

I really wish super-hard PvE fights weren't such a big part of many of the elemental questlines. This basically forces people to either be a dragon, do it in groups (which may not always be in the "spirit" of these quests), be heavily artied, or often even a combination of all of the above.

Being a dragon is a rewarding goal in itself with plenty of benefits and shouldn't be a required gateway to a lot of other game content.

I'd be fine if those fights were challenging by having interesting PvE mechanics, but there should be ways to deal with their damage with a single, unartied level 80+ character.

I did Earth once, Fire three times, and about half of Air all pre-dragon (I think all of those were DWB Runie, can't remember if my retiree was on Runie or Shaman at the time of elelord release). Are they hard? Hell yeah, but none of them require dragon or a group. Most recently I did Fire, with lots of deaths admittedly, so level wavered between 77-79. Only part I needed help on was (trying to avoid quest spoilers) collecting a bunch of random drop items from strong mobs.