How do Barbarian Shamans and their toys hold up in Velious?

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Autotune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

With melee interruptions and resists, I still can see where people will have to cast with a bash incoming or die.

For interrupts: A mob's slowed melee timer is 8s, which dovetails nicely with the torpor and bash timers. Again, a little planning ahead of time ensures you can cast your torpor when you want to without any risk of being interrupted by either melee push or bash.

For resists: Torpor isn't resistable, and that's really the only spell that has a tough time with bash interrupts. For slows, you start reslowing a minute before it fades anyway. And it's a 3s cast time. So since you might get bashed twice in that minute, you'd maybe need to start slowing at 66s instead of 60s. This difference is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When you time spells around bash, do you assume every bash is going to hit? Say spell cast recovery time finishes and you want to canni, but your bash metrognome shows there is a bash in 2.273 (repeating) seconds. Do you cast? The Ogre doesn't give a hoot.

I mean, this isn't some age-old question without an answer. There's probably a giant sticky on Samanna that says 'ROLL OGRE.'



Since this is a Velious thread, are you timing your initial bash starting cycle around the first slow attempt? Most everything in Velious is very MR and you're going to have to spend a few attempts slowing, and possibly even kiting until you can override malo with malosini (or even proc tash).

Yes, you have to assume that every bash will hit and interrupt. You wouldn't delay casting a canni because of bash though. If it doesn't land, you get the canni. If not, oh well. There's no benefit in not casting. The only thing you really plan around the bash is torpor, since you probably want to keep that rolling 24x7 with no overlap.

Assuming you are kiting a mob around until it's slowed, which is the most common case in Velious as I understand, the first bash will come when the mob first melees you. So that's how you control when the bash cycle starts (and offset it sufficiently so it won't come in when you want to torpor).

[Splorf22]

To me the funniest thing about this thread is that Reiker is clearly right (with velious everyone will be basically stat capped, and ogre stun immunity is clearly better than barb good looks, even if it isn't much) but he got owned anyway.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To me the funniest thing about this thread is that Reiker is clearly right (with velious everyone will be basically stat capped, and ogre stun immunity is clearly better than barb good looks, even if it isn't much) but he got owned anyway.

Ogre may be better than barb, but I'd say Iksar is probably the best in Velious. Regen and extra ac means you can take on beefier targets with less risk of death.

[falkun]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ogre may be better than barb, but I'd say Iksar is probably the best in Velious. Regen and extra ac means you can take on beefier targets with less risk of death.

When MOBs double for 400, 8hp/tick won't matter. The AC bonus may help a bit over the long run, but not getting stunned from bash will mean a hell of a lot more in getting off that torpor that will save your ass than getting doubled for 388 instead of 400.

[Autotune]

Originally Posted by falkun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When MOBs double for 400, 8hp/tick won't matter. The AC bonus may help a bit over the long run, but not getting stunned from bash will mean a hell of a lot more in getting off that torpor that will save your ass than getting doubled for 388 instead of 400.

not really

22hp adds up in just a few hits.

The main time I see the frontal stun immunity being worth it is when your target isn't slowed. However, it is still probable that you'll die from frontal stuns I imagine it wouldn't be that common for smarter players.

The extra mitigation (AC + innate regen) as an iksar very well could out weight the pros of being immune to a possible stun every 30secs or whatever.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by falkun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When MOBs double for 400, 8hp/tick won't matter. The AC bonus may help a bit over the long run, but not getting stunned from bash will mean a hell of a lot more in getting off that torpor that will save your ass than getting doubled for 388 instead of 400.

I can understand if you haven't read the rest of this thread, as it was shitted up rather quickly. For a recap, look at my sig. You can plan around the bash to keep torpor going without risk of bash interrupt. 8 hp per tick on a 30 min fight and ac to mitigate even just 1-2% of damage is absolutely huge in comparison.

[falkun]

Its an instantaneous vs. law of averages argument, both sides are correct. If you are running a string of bad luck and getting interrupted and/or hit for near-max every round, ogre stun immunity is going to help you more. However, over the long run, the innate regen and the AC mitigation will provide you a small boost in survivability.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but WoW's tanking classes had very similar arguments back in the BC era. The discussion concluded with groups preferring the sustained tankability of the Druid but raids preferring the "o-shit" buttons from the Warrior to save the day on raids.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by falkun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Its an instantaneous vs. law of averages argument, both sides are correct. If you are running a string of bad luck and getting interrupted and/or hit for near-max every round, ogre stun immunity is going to help you more. However, over the long run, the innate regen and the AC mitigation will provide you a small boost in survivability.

You make your own luck in this game. You can choose the time you cast to either completely eliminate or greatly reduce interrupts on torpor. Ogre stun resist only becomes a significant benefit on unslowable mobs. And if I'm not mistaken, pretty much every big mob we fight in Velious is slowable.

[falkun]

Completely agree - plan to execute, then execute the plan. So in most cases, the extra mitigation/regeneration from the Iksar will win out, but if shit hits the fan, it's nice to know that bash didn't just seal your fate.