General Quick Questions Thread

[Draegan]

That sounds right.  Same thing with the Riftstalker endurance buff which stacks with normal 60m endurance buffs.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

What I don't understand about the major invasions is why Trion has not simply modified the numbers required to spawn the invasion.

They did, but it wasn't enough in some cases.  On Stillmoor there is a zone wide (minor?) event every 20-30 minutes or so.

Yes I wasn't referring to the frequency of minor invasions, though I'm glad that those have been adjusted. But when the majority of your playerbase literally never see a significant portion of your open world content (but can see all the items you made specifically to tie in to that content's rewards), isn't that the sort of problem you try more than once to address?

[dd0029]

Anyone have thoughts about filling a planar focus? I accidentally "discovered" I could slot lesser essences in the greater slots when I was starting to put together a healing focus for my chloro spec. This got me to thinking, are those sort of gimicky greater essences worth it?

[Threash]

The soul specific ones? i haven't seen one worth using yet.  The regular healing greater essences are quite good though, specially the chance for a hot/bubble when healing and for pvp the heal another random person for 50% of heal ones.  For warrior dps i filled my sigil with epic lessers, probably do the same for rogue.

[Nebu]

Anyone have thoughts about filling a planar focus? I accidentally "discovered" I could slot lesser essences in the greater slots when I was starting to put together a healing focus for my chloro spec. This got me to thinking, are those sort of gimicky greater essences worth it?

I slot the one for my chloro with two epic greaters: Crystallized vines (from Stillmoor vendor) and a greater deep one tear (from IPP).  They proc a ton and provide some nice extra healing.  There are only a couple of T2 bosses I don't feel 100% confident about solo healing. 
 

[dd0029]

There are only a couple of T2 bosses I don't feel 100% confident about solo healing.  

I've been que'ing as Support/DPS. I am now very confident in my support role or sole healer on trash or static fights. Movement and target switching fights have me nervous though, in particular after my experience last night in my first pass through RotF and with another Chloro as a main healer. I really should have been logging it so I could see what he was doing, but even with me as chloro we were wiping frequently. For that matter I would have liked to see his spec to see if he perhaps missed some of the key chloro things.

For example, the last boss in Fae has the portals. For the Fire guys we kept wiping on the splits. Part of it was that this guy was terribad at target switching, but I had particular problems when we got down to the masses of non elites. They weren't dying fast enough that the tank did not take much damage, but they were dying too fast for me to really get cranking on one of them to keep the heals rolling. How do you handle those sorts of things?

[Nebu]

Two things make life really easy for a chloro: a tank with good gear and well-played dps.   The only fights that I really struggle with is one of the middle bosses in CC with all of the moving lasers and the end boss of AP.  Both require tons of movement rendering the use of nature's touch almost impossible.  Bosses that require a lot of heals and cleansing still make me twitchy as well. 

[dd0029]

Droughtlands - there are a pair of dailies from the Hunter camp thing. You get two tokens per day. You can buy good low 40s blue gear with them, 4 for shoulders and pants, 6 for a chest. So, does anyone know why I see two or three 50s routinely farming there?

[Draegan]

Material farming? 

[luckton]

Droughtlands - there are a pair of dailies from the Hunter camp thing. You get two tokens per day. You can buy good low 40s blue gear with them, 4 for shoulders and pants, 6 for a chest. So, does anyone know why I see two or three 50s routinely farming there?

Are we talking just the rare-blue currency tokens?  Probably making a quick Planarite buck by selling them back?

[Draegan]

No it isn't that.  There are special hunter tokens from a random daily down there.  Back in the day they were repeatable quests so you could farm them all day long and get some blues if you wanted.  Now they're dailies and you out level them in like a day with a single dungeon run.

[luckton]

No it isn't that.  There are special hunter tokens from a random daily down there.  Back in the day they were repeatable quests so you could farm them all day long and get some blues if you wanted.  Now they're dailies and you out level them in like a day with a single dungeon run.

Hmm...haven't gotten that far yet to see the items they're selling...are they salvage/runebreakable?  Can one get Arcane Hand faction from doing the dailies?

[dd0029]

Big Tom sells the stuff. I don't know if they are runebreakable.

For a casual player they are pretty good. You can reasonably start doing them at 40. 7 days gets you all of the tokens you need. I've done it now and finished out about 44 with my last piece both times. Granted if you get lucky and can find groups the dungeon drops are better, but even with the dungeon finder I have only gotten a couple of groups out of it. Heck, this weekend I played with friends and we queued as tank, healer and support at 35 and we spent 45 minutes waiting for 2 DPS.

[Xanthippe]

No it isn't that.  There are special hunter tokens from a random daily down there.  Back in the day they were repeatable quests so you could farm them all day long and get some blues if you wanted.  Now they're dailies and you out level them in like a day with a single dungeon run.

Hmm...haven't gotten that far yet to see the items they're selling...are they salvage/runebreakable?  Can one get Arcane Hand faction from doing the dailies?

I don't think one can get Arcane Hand faction from anything except the regular quests and Lantern Hook.  I'd love to be wrong about this, though.

[Draegan]

Crafting dailies that I turn in in LH give the rep too.

[Xanthippe]

Crafting dailies that I turn in in LH give the rep too.

That's 100 per?  Blargh.  I guess if I really want to check off that achievement, I will have to run that instance.

[Sjofn]

What tradeskills are worthwhile and which ones are poopy?

[Nebu]

What tradeskills are worthwhile and which ones are poopy?

At endgame, I'd say Apoth and runecrafting.  The gear you make with the other skills is easily replaced by dungeon/pvp gear.

[Draegan]

Depend on what you want to do.  Weapon/Armor are moneymakers when using decent augments. I can't make a dime with alchemy.  

Exquisite Whenstones and Weaponstone make a ton of cash though.  Mining/Herbing make money.

Alchemy helps if you want to supply your own pots, but they are pretty cheap in the first place.

[Nebu]

Alchemy helps if you want to supply your own pots, but they are pretty cheap in the first place.

VERY server dependent.  On Dimroot, pots are crazy expensive on the AH.

[Sjofn]

And I am playing on Dimroot!

My cleric is an apothecary, so that's nice. I was kinda thinking of picking up weaponcrafting or armorcrafting on my warrior, just because it feels like no one sells low level shit and it makes me sad. I'm also pondering making my warrior only a miner and doing weapons AND armor on her, because it feels like I get way more crafting materials than I actually need just running around leveling on my cleric, so he has fucking piles and piles of leather and wood. I dunno how good idea that is for higher levels though.

[Numtini]

Nobody sells anything lower level because you lose money. The AH fees are too high.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, it's understandable, but it's sort of frustrating when it's been a while since I've gotten a weapon upgrade. :P

Thanks for the input guys, I find being a newbie again both fun and confusing. 

[Xanthippe]

Every time I make low level stuff and put it on the AH, it sells.  I don't price it to get rich, and I don't make a lot of one thing - just one or two things.  I use cheap augments.  The return on low level crafting seems to be better than on high level stuff - seems like the market dies out by lvl 20.

Judging from prices, it seems miners and foragers are making money, but I don't know how much they actually sell. Every time I post herbs that apoths use, they seem to sell for a bunch, which explains the high price of potions.

[Shatter]

I play (2) 50's on the same server, one defiant, one guardian.  I make money on the defiant side selling carmintium ore and certain foraged items.  People pay almost stupid prices defiant side.  Guardian side I make about 1/4 of what defiant are willing to pay, its very weird.  Im also 300 WS and havent made a dam dime off it.  You cant sell a 50 Purple you make for even break even pricing.  I actualyl just dropped WS because of it and went Rune instead.

[Threash]

You don't make money making purples to sell, you make money making purples on commission.  People want to use their own augments.  Also the consumables from weaponsmithing sell for a fuck ton.

[Soln]

just started this on the free trial.  Fun.

Is there a way to configure  tooltip delay?  I can't find anything in Settings and I'd like a way to stop tooltips from appearing with every mouse over in combat.  Thx.

[dd0029]

Not that I have seen, but you can move the anchor in the layout editor to at least get it out of the way.

[dd0029]

Joined a raid guild and attended my first raid last night. Got through the first four bosses in Greenscales Blight in fairly short order and then spent the rest of the evening wiping on Greenscale.

The reuse of the space with the collapsing hedge maze was kind of interesting, though a bit "Your Princess is in another castle." This stuff is way more involved than intro raiding ever was in WoW. This place laughs at MC. Also, they really toss around the gibs. The number of ways to get wtfpwned it kind of amazing. This felt like a good crew, but we were battle rezzing with regularity.

Anyway, my question is what do bards bring to raids? The DPS and Heals are less than mediocre and the buffs are mostly covered by other people. Are the motifs that strong?

[Segoris]

Yes, they are that strong. Remember, their buffs are increasing 19 other people's effectiveness. So while you don't think 5% crit (both melee and spell) and I forgot how much sp/ap (62 maybe?) are that great on you, remember to multiply that by every other dps person as well as the increases to healing spells by 5% and a reduction of incoming damage on the raid. That adds up to a lot of damage reduction, healing increases, and a big dps boost.

A bards addition to a raid doesn't end there either, as you still need to add in verse of joy and 10% stats to everyone (not every souls scales that well right now, but 10% stats is still pretty big).

[Draegan]

Bards are pretty shit.  Until 1.3 they are the 3rd best buffers in the game.

Warlords with Spotters Order is single handledly the best group buff in the game.
Archons do everything Bards do but better except for a few unique buffs.

Here's what Bards bring:
5% Crit (As gear gets better, this gets worse due to the recent softcap on crit.  Crit is easy to cap)
5% more Healing (This game has an amazing amount of over healing, this is less useful than you think)
62 AP and SP (Does not scale, will become worse as gear gets better but is pretty good now)
5% Damage Redux (Pretty good)

Which isn't terrible, but given how that's all you're there for is prettyshitty.  Bard raid healing is crap because it's all smart healing and is usually overheals.  The only time it's useful is if the raid encounter is taking massive raid damage like during Hylas, and even then it isn't powerful.

Bard's debuffs are eclipsed by Archons since Archon debuffs last 5 minutes as opposed to our 1 minute versions.  

Bard dps is comparable to an Archon if and only if you rotate 4 motifs, ignore Motif of Regeneration, and spam Blade Dancer attacks and keep a Fiery Spike rotation up.  In Hammerknell, in a fight where I can pretty much stand in one spot and dps, I managed to pull 700 dps in nearly BiS gear.  No healing though.

Even a Bard's 51 pt ability which extremely limits a Bards build choices is annoying.  Verse of Joy is great when coupled with other cooldowns as it regenerates Charge and Energy at a pretty good clip.  But you have to take an extreme amount of useless talents.

There is absolutely no difference between a 32pt Bard (For Fervor) and a 51 pt Bard (for Joy)

Oh, Bards to bring decent stat increases in Fanfare of Knowledge and Power.  They don't scale though, so unless we get more ranks in the future, we'll be softcapped on stats and an extra 50 Dex/Str will be less and less important.

Bards are probably one of the worse designed souls in the game from a mechanics point of view.

-Rant Over-

Edit: Resonance is only 5% stat increase, which is pretty nifty.

[Segoris]

That's right, resonance is 5%

Though remember Draegan, you're in a different situation then a guild who's wiping on Greenscale. IMO the bard is better for them as I doubt they're sporting a number of relics in their raid and missing a lot of BIS gear. Put yourself in their shoes and remember how big of a different a bard's buffs made when you were still in t1/t2 dungeon gear

For them, that 5% crit, 62 ap/sp, 5% healing taken increase, and 5% damage reduction is much more beneficial

[dd0029]

Well, that's something to know. I'm not sure they are shit. But I will say they are uncompelling. Once you are good about keeping the motifs up every 30 seconds, there's not much more to do other than pick good times to use verse of Joy. I can't really refresh harder.

I didn't even get to use LoS shennanigans on Greenscale for using both fanfares. They wanted vigor for the more HP.  Is there another HP buff that's even close to vigor? All of the others I know are 40 compared to the 52 for it.

Speaking of Greenscale, something happened on the third add wave everytime. We were always really strong through the first two phases, no deaths and Regeneration hardly ticked. Then comes the 25% transition and things fall apart. Does something happen there we should be watching out for that we missed? The first wipe was the pollen, but we were good on that following.

[Draegan]

That's right, resonance is 5%

Though remember Draegan, you're in a different situation then a guild who's wiping on Greenscale. IMO the bard is better for them as I doubt they're sporting a number of relics in their raid and missing a lot of BIS gear. Put yourself in their shoes and remember how big of a different a bard's buffs made when you were still in t1/t2 dungeon gear

For them, that 5% crit, 62 ap/sp, 5% healing taken increase, and 5% damage reduction is much more beneficial

I was talking more of a future point of view.

I still remember doing GSB the first few weeks.  The only things Bards were really awesome for was runspeed.  Bard healing was better back then because it hit everyone rather than just 5 or 10 people.  Bards definitely help, but they aren't amazing.

[Draegan]

Well, that's something to know. I'm not sure they are shit. But I will say they are uncompelling. Once you are good about keeping the motifs up every 30 seconds, there's not much more to do other than pick good times to use verse of Joy. I can't really refresh harder.

I didn't even get to use LoS shennanigans on Greenscale for using both fanfares. They wanted vigor for the more HP.  Is there another HP buff that's even close to vigor? All of the others I know are 40 compared to the 52 for it.

Speaking of Greenscale, something happened on the third add wave everytime. We were always really strong through the first two phases, no deaths and Regeneration hardly ticked. Then comes the 25% transition and things fall apart. Does something happen there we should be watching out for that we missed? The first wipe was the pollen, but we were good on that following.

At 25% the fight really starts, before that, it's pretty easy.

Few things:

1)  You should be using both fanfares and letting clerics do the endurance buff.
2)  After 25% you should let a few ranged dps (mages) to prioritize killing pollen and brakken.  The Brakken sap mana, slow you, and damage you.

You need to have raid awareness so when plants start stacking up in the back, that he slowly moves the dragon back.  Also, have your melee switch between back legs as plants spawn.  You should do this throughout the fight.  Start on the left leg, plants spawn, move to right leg.  Repeat.
Bards:

For Bard Motifs:
Use Autohotkey to cast all 4 motifs with a single keypress.  Put Motif of Regen on it's own key as you don't need it all the time.  As far as I know it's legal.  They allow you to use your G15 keyboard to do this in any case.    

Bard Spec, always in melee range:
Spec into 51 Bard, 13 Bladedancer (Deadly Dance), and 2 Night Blade

If you need healing: Cadencex2, Deadly Strike.  Fully raid buff my cadence crits for 480ish a tick.

If you need dps use this macro:

Code:

suppressmacrofailures
cast Quick Strike
cast Keen Strike
cast Weapon Barrage
cast Fiery Spike

Rotation should be:  Fiery Spike, Macrox4, Deadly Strike

Fiery Spike before and after every time you refresh your motifs.

Fully raid buffed, in T1 Raid Gear you should be able to hit 700ish DPS.  Make sure you stack all AP.  Fill a Source Engine will all AP essences and a Mortuous Shadesource.

Script: