An urgent question about being a terra in UW Four Horsemen quest

Hi all,

Recently I have been practicing to become a terra tank for UW HM pug groups.
I use the following build:

Glyph of Swiftness
Obsidian Flesh
Stoneflesh Aura
Sliver Armor
Lava Font
Mantra of Earth
Stone Striker
Arcane echo/I'm Unstoppable

Thanks to Fooster's and Cerb's great guides, after about 2-3 runs I found myself very comfortable soloing the Ice Wastes and the Bone Pits with their respective quests; I'm also comfortable in clearing the Chaos Plains in preparation for the Four Horsemen. However --

In a total of 6 trials of the Four Horsemen quest, I only succeeded 3 times (two of them being I got killed after about 1-2 minutes and the whole group saved the quest). In most of these trials, I was keeping all my enchants on: Obby Flesh, Stoneflesh, MoE and SS, after about 15 seconds to 2 minutes facing the two Dhuums and Dryders, however, I found myself undergoing massive damage plus level 5+ degeneration, and -- I would die within 5 seconds.

I tried to research the problem and found out that Signet of Humility casted by the Dhuums could be the answer. In Guildwars Wiki the description of SoH is: "Target foe's elite skill is disabled for 1...13 seconds." Forgive my noobiness since I have only played this game for about 2 months -- I don't know exactly what "disabled" is. Does "disable" also imply taking away my currently enchanted Obby Flesh, in addition to disabling me to use the skill again? If that's true then the massive damage is easily explained -- my obby flesh was taken away. But then, how do I know when they are casting SoH? Would my Obby Flesh enchant sign flash after they cast it (and before it's taken away)? Is that the time when I should call for SB?

Every time I became so nervous in this quest that I would only stare at my skill bars to keep everything on that I ignored my enchant signs... and every time I was left with a big question mark not knowing what had caused the sudden death.

What this makes me feel even worse is that the whole group would waste their 1 hour or so time simply because I didn't know what I was doing...

So, please answer my urgent questions. Thanks a bunch in advance!

~A Distressed Newbie Terra Tank

Duration of enchants when used with a + enchant mod get rounded down wrongly.

For example take Shielding Hands.

Without an enchant mod, it'd last 12 seconds, and with one it'd last 14.4 seconds.

Though, the game seems to make Shielding hands end at 13 or 14 seconds already, depending on how it rounded down.

The image of Shielding hands will stay up, but the damage reduction will go away, this is an old problem dating back to Prophecies =/.

Thanks for your advice. But I'm thinking maybe the problem is not about duration since I could solo the wastes and pits and plains with my obby flesh and stoneflesh on all the time -- in fact this task becomes even easier with con sets, which makes recharge significantly faster.

Well, it's not recharge that's to blame, it's length of the enchant, atleast if it behaves like Shielding Hands does.

really it sounds like the problem is that your original [obsidian fle] is expiring while the effects of [signet of hum] are still in effect.

i.e. say you have 10 seconds of recharge left for obsidian flesh, you then get hit with SoH which disables your elite for x number of seconds. i could be wrong but i don't believe the 2 stack, therefore if x>remaining recharge, x takes effect. if x<remaining recharge, regular recharge remains in effect.

in HM the Dhuums have 20 domination magic which means that SoH disables your elite for ~21 seconds, which is usually going to be more than the remaining recharge for obs. flesh when you're terra tanking. i've never actually tried to terra this quest so i'm no expert on it for this particular situation.

Thanks again, Miskav. I haven't measured the exact lengths of my enchants but with +20 enchant on my staff and melee weapons I could solo the first wave in Glint's Challenge HM as well as clear the Chaos Plains HM after my group members leave, both without celerity or any other cons. So I am sure the length of enchants for both obby flesh and stoneflesh are in fact designed to work seamlessly with the help of Glyph of Swiftness, which makes entirely feasible keeping both of them on all the time.

My big problem is that it seemed I would suffer from sudden death even with all of these enchants on, and my conjecture is that at least one of them -- obby flesh being the most likely -- was taken away, somehow. Maybe by Signet of Humility? I don't know... -_-

I was suspecting lagging problem... But after it happened 3 times in a row, I don't think that is the case anymore...

Thanks for your advice, Joshua.

If I remember correctly, I didn't experience a rollback on my recharge... It was like, everything was going just as smooth as in wastes and pits, and... got hit hard and died. I could be wrong... maybe I didn't even notice there was a rollback that was caused by SoH.

That also leads to one of my previous questions: does SoH also take away your currently enchanted elite skill such as Obby Flesh, in addition to rolling back your recharge?

Thanks again!

Obby flesh lasts 21 sec at 16 Earth, plus 20% takes it up to 25.2, rounds down to 25.

Obby flesh recharges in 30, minus 25% is 22.5, rounds up to 23.

Leaves a two second window to recast. It's a 1 sec cast, so you're normally OK.

The Dhumms have 0 point sin Inspiration magic, which is what Sig of Humility is tied to. So they can disable it for 1 sec. Most of the time, that's not going to be an issue. But every now and then they're going to hit you with it during that critical 2 second window. 2 seconds, minus 1 sec of disable, minus 1 second of cast time, minus at least a fraction of a second for your reaction time to hit the key once it's recharged, leaves you with enough downtime for them to slip something in on you.

Quote:

Joshua, Signet of Humility is in the INS line, not DOM. In fact, tanking one side with a Terra is possible due to the Dhuums having no Inspiration Magic (meaning Signet of Humility lasts for a very short time).

I have not spent much time with groups in UW (in fact I only did Four Horsemen with a Terra two times or so), but if Signet of Humility was the problem, then Essence of Celerity would fix this. (cut the recharge on Obs Flesh by 25% from Glyph of Swiftness, and by another 25% from Celerity, which gives you enough time to recast it even if you get hit by Signet of Humility).

@ Shielding Hands: I am not sure if you are referring to PS+SH bug (only way that it is bugged that I know of), but if so, the bug is actually explained in The Art of Underworld:

Quote:

Thanks, Chthon.

So when I am casted SoH in that critical 2 second window, the only effect is my obby flesh recharge is slowed down by 1 second for the next recast, and there won't be any other nasty remove effects like that of Rend Echantments, correct?

Then it brings up this critical question (maybe a noobish one too): how do I know that I have just been hit by SoH?

Thanks a lot!

Quote:

We'll it's kinda hard to help you fix your problem if you don't know it yourself :P I suggest going for a run and pay more attention to what happens and if you still die, update us with why you died. It'll be easier to help you this way. (pay no attention to what's been said about Shielding Hands)

Quote:

Quote:

you running it in hard mode?

we're having issues with SoH in hm. do the dhuums have 0 in inspiration on hard mode as well?

Quote:

I've asked the same question before (a search would probably bring up my post). After doing it a number of times now, i can say that it is pretty much all luck as to when SoH hits.

If it hits just before you're about to recast ob flesh (or you can tell you will not have enough time to maintain it), you call for spellbreaker. A spellbreaker monk is the only way to be sure you CAN tank one side on the four horsemen quest. It is much more likely that you can do it alone with cons since you have more time to play with, but without cons i always ALWAYS make sure we have a SB monk in the group to back me up.

Quote:

If the Dhuum rider manages to disable [obsidian flesh] when you are casting it, you will be interrupted, and obviosly have to cast it again. I'd also suggest you to get a video recording software (like gamecam or fraps) and simply record a run, then look at where it goes wrong.
Just make sure that [obsidian flesh] always is recharging. Then you should be fine.

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

I also have a similar problem while tanking. If the signet only disables the elite for 1 second, why is it that when I get hit by it, flesh seems to go on its full recharge time?

Ok when i first started tankin the four horsemen quest... i got hit with SoH alot. Untill i noticed that they wont even try to use it if your elite is recharging naturaly. MEaning.. watch obby LIKE A HAWK.
dont ever have more than 3/4 second gap where its charged. i say 3/4 because thats how long it takes to cast it with celeirty up.

so heres what i do. as soon as the horsemn are coming.. i have obby PRE CAST and at around half recharge when they see me initialy.

then ill agro the oother one. pre cast glyph so its at half recharge wehn obby is about to come up.

DONT watch the little picture that showsn what you are enchated with. watch your skil bar. and before obby is even recharged.. start hitting that buttin like a mad man! i go nuts in the mouse button AND the hotkey i set for it BOTh to make sure im truly castin it when the server knows its up not my display or lag telling me. i am on that buttion before its actualy recharged.

the reason for this is so that i am truly casting obby the INSTANT its recharged. ther is a delay somethimes in the display of the recharging skill of about half a second. so when it looks like its fuly recharged im reality iw was charged 1 second ago and the ai picked up on it be fore it even regestered on my screen... so when it looks to me like it still has 2 second to recharge..it might be only 1 second. so i dont take the chance.i start mashing that one button when it looks like within 2 seconds before its up.

dont EVEr leave obby un cast at recharge. then its open and the ai will detect this and this triggers SoH.If obby is startin to ccome up and your half way threou something else.. CANCEL IT and get obby up. dotn ever leave it open at full recharge. it must be rechargin all the time.
a 40 40 set is good to have but not really needed. as long as you never ever ever leave obby recharged during this quest. never mroe tan 3/4 seconds.

that's exactly what I said the other terra when he asked me before tanking the 4 horsemen, he did it but he failed, because his ping was too high

if your average ping is above 500 you should be very carefull with this quest, or let the other terra tank

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

by any chance could groups begin taking assasins now instead of eles may-haps? I mean, what would be the key difference (if any?)

So.... I died again...

But this time at least I know how I died, or sort of...

I was having my obby flesh and stone aura on, waiting for the horsemen to come. As they came close to me, I re-cast my stone aura, at that moment my obby flesh was about half-recharged. I then cast Swiftness and I was watching obby flesh recharge, like a hawk. I didn't try clicking and hotkey at the same time like Fooster suggested... but I did try to re-cast obby flesh as soon as I saw it was recharged. Then...

I noticed a slight delay after I cast obby, and then I saw -- my obby flesh came up with... only about 3-4 seconds duration. My guess is this was actually my previous cast with 3-4 seconds leftover, most likely. But at that crucial moment I noticed one more thing -- my obby flesh recharge started all over again, as if I had just casted a new one.

So a little summary of my shitty situation at that moment: I was left with a completely rolled back and recharging obby skill, and an obby enchant with only 3-4 seconds duration left.

Then I died, pretty soon.

I guess my conclusion is: I got hit by SoH just when I was casting obby flesh and, the result is disastrous -- it seems not to be just 1 sec rolled back -- it was a sheer cancellation of my cast as well as completely rolling back my recharge of obby (literally rolled back by 30 seconds). It's basically... a death penalty.

IDK... guess next time I will try clicking and hotkey at the same time when I recast... But the trials and tribulations are a little... maddening

EDIT: I just realized how similar the situation was to an interrupt... but heck, how could I possibly get interrupted when my obby is still up (at least 3-4 seconds left, in this case)?

P.S. What is a 40 40 set, btw?

Quote:

Quote:

That is why there's a [spell breaker] monk with the terra......

Quote: