Question regarding CoF 'Farm'

Ok, so a friend and I have completed the dungeon a few times by ourselves doing the somewhat popular 600/smite duo run. I've done it a time or two using a Monk hero for the practice. Now, my question is, that sometimes luck isn't on my side with Spirit Bond and I cast it too early or too late and fall out of step with the attacks and don't receive the required healing to stay alive. No big deal (in our eyes) he rebirths and we re-bond and get back to it, and move on.

Now, this may happen a time or two, but we plow forward. My question to you is, is this bad? Do people look down on you for falling once or twice? Is it to be expected? We've thought about taking people with us, be it pay or free, but we don't want to hear any mouthing off about an occasional mistake, so long as we complete the dungeon in a timely manner.

Speaking of which, what are average times per level? We finish the first level rather quickly, assuming The Keeper and his bunch gives us no problems. Second level, same issue usually, The Keeper puts us down maybe once. Last level is usually no problem save for maybe the Steward. Sometimes we make a mistake elsewhere along the way, over aggro and they run past to the smiter, etc. Human mistakes.

Thoughts / opinions?

PROTIP: Cast Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond before you run into a mob. When Spirit Bond goes down, recast Spirit Bond (1) followed immediately by Shield of Absorption (2) and then renew Prot Spirit (3) [1-2-3 combo]. When Shield of Absorption starts blinking to indicate it is almost dead, pull the [1-2-3 combo] again. If you die... well, you won't die.

I used to run this back when I was REALLY desparate for money, and no one ever complained about one or two deaths. Unless they're complete assholes.
Just finish the dungeon in a good time and you'll be fine.

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If you are dying a lot, do you have 14 in protection?
SOA lasts 7 seconds at 14 prot.

You should either buy a major prot rune, and use a sup devine headpiece or swap headpieces. I would recommend going for the major prot rune and sup devine headpiece till you get good (easily keepup SOA).

I second, the hint for precasting SpB before SOA, it's a lifesaver

Until you get the hang of it & do it clean w no dying. I wouldn't run people for money.

(I get annoyed if a run takes longer then 45 minutes)

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chill with the nub comments please...

here's what works for me. before you go in, hit prot spirit and spirit bond. if the mob has interrupts you don't want to cast soa right after aggro, otherwise it works fine. if you cast soa immediately after aggro, you can just hit sb again, the counter makes no difference here. obviously if your health starts dropping, spirit bond isn't on you.

while you are in the mob, its usually easiest to time your enchants around soa. assuming you are using a 7 sec soa, 30% blessed aura, and 20% enchant, soa is pretty much renewed on recharge. very few mobs require you to double spirit bond for each soa, 1 before and 1 immediately after. I would suggest casting soa --> sb --> prot spirit. in between soa casts you usually have 6 or 7 seconds to cast whatever else you might need.

done right its nearly impossible to die....but there are always little things that occasionally will screw you up. lag, missing a cast, etc often will leave you no time to correct, and you will die. but thats why you have rebirth on smiter anyway.

Thanks for the adult answers, no silly insults or the like.

So, given the advice from everyone, its safe to say my mistakes are from recasting SB too early. So, to correct the problem, my question is this: when the 10 hits are used up on SB, does it go away, or remain on you even though its useless? If it disappears, in theory, that should be a sure fire sign to recast it, but if it stays even though it isn't being triggered, how does one know? Not everyone (including me) can keep up with the 15 things going on at once.

Thanks again for the advice.

It disappears

Most People put up with a death or two, however focus on doing the first level without dying because generally if your on the 2nd or 3rd level of the dungeon people wont leave because there already halfway through.

Don't be mad if people do leave there are always impatient punks who think there better then everyone.

Thanks again for the advice, charging people for runs isn't normally my forte, just a thought. As for SB, I moved my enchants down around my skillbar to monitor SB more closely, and low and behold, everything went much more smoothly. Still a death or two, though not as common which were mostly due to The Keeper's and a group or two of Enchanted. All in all, me paying more attention to SB worked much better.

If you die once, thats not problem but anymore than 2 may result in a leaver. When I run, I make sure I don't spam all my skills. Throughout all my runs, all I do is look at the enchantments I'm keeping up. The need to keep Spirit Bond up, keeps the 600 alert at all times. Since Spirit Bond only protects for 10 hits and does not renew if you cast it early, your basically dead if you cast too early. Good luck on your runs.

if you renew spirit bond while the enchant indicator is blinking, it will fully renew regardless of the number of hits taken

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My advice is to never "renew" SB, it should always drop off. That's why you have SoA

Also, one thing some people miss is to use Spellbreaker before engaging the Charr groups which have mesmers, since Power Block is a killer.

And the best advice of all is : If you have a second account, don't bother running others, bring it along instead. My brother and I do this, 4x chars opening chest and all the drops on the way are ours xD. Also works as a good backup plan for UW if you find yourself dying too much.

It sounds like your problem isn't with SB but with SOA. Pay attention to SOA, you should always have SOA up. With single groups, you should SB-SOA, but with multi-groups SB-SOA-SB then wait for SOA to blink and recast combo....

SOA will keep you at MAX health - taking no damage, except for conditions, which is nothing at your high health.

Seems paying closer attention to SB made life a lot easier already. Perhaps making sure SoA remains active always is the next step.

Out of curiosity, other than 'paying' to tag along, is there any viable tactics to 'farming' this run with a Warrior primary? No pun intended on the term tactics.

"Running Temple HM 3k! -500g per death! invite self 2/8" sigh...thankfully I don't do that anymore. Anyway, I rarely die...thus the guarantee that if I die, i take 500g off the fee per person. It was a good motivator too :P

Anyway, tips... i went as Mo/Me, using Mantra of Resolve @ 3 Inspiration (left overs..), that anti-interrupt really helps against those pesky spiders and enchanteds. My sequence would be, going in I cast Spell Breaker(1) + PS(4), then i hit aggro i cast SB(2) + SoA(3), by this time you would have enough energy to put Mantra and your SoA is running out, so cast in order SB+SoA+SB, so dats 2+3+2, reason for this is...you cast SB right before SoA ends as a safety net before SoA applies, then once you got SoA up, your 1st SB would have run out and you would be losing HP again, so put up a 2nd SB right after the SoA. Rinse and Repeat!! For spiders is a bit tricky, i usually get mantra up with Spell Breaker and PS, have enuf energy for SB then SoA, you would continuously interrupted wen you cast your 2nd SoA again, just time the skills right and don't spam. Goodluck!

And for those who are without access to a mesmer secondary (Rt/mo 600 Tank) it looks like the asuran skill Mindbender usually does the trick. An interupt might still get by but the chances of happening are less.

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