Builds
You: OQcTEX6+R6uM0JXsNSlpvYHcCCA
Hero: OwAS0YIPAkICAAAAAerAAAA
Equipment
You: Full Sentinel's Insignias, Strength Shield (+10AL vs. Earth), Sword (+7 vs. Elemental Damage).
Hero: +4 Divine Headpiece, Enchanting Staff.
Note: You need at least 13 Strength.
Youtube Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RObe0C-an9g
Method & Reasoning
After running a few tests and such, doing Vaettir farms and some old inspiration from pre-nerf "Keg-Farming" I was able to come up with an even faster build to farm those Spectral Vaettir for even more shiny goodness.
What's really unique here and what makes this work is bar compression, so the inclusion of a hero with Spellbreaker and a couple other spells in combination with some flagging, you are able to enjoy the benefit of spell immunity with no downside (other than effort). All this without having to put anything on your skill-bar, nifty.
Since the rate-determining step in Vaettir Farming is the time it takes to rezone,we aim to reduce the length of it. This is done through Shadow of Haste, an ability which will allow you to instantly teleport back to the portal for quick re-zoning.
You need a way to make Shadow of Haste last long enough so that you are able to:
Cast it at the start Aggro all the vaettir Kill all the vaettir Pick up all the drops (especially during an event weekend) Prevent premature cancellation of Shadow of Haste and subsequent loss of drops
In order for Shadow of Haste to last this long we need either 16 shadow arts (42s long) or Dwarven Stability, which can increase your stance duration as much as 100%! The 16 Shadow Arts would require a superior shadow arts headpiece, resulting in -75hp. This is pretty much offset by your norn title but again, it's a big hit to your HP when you need to survive 36 Vaettir attacking you in Hard Mode with their beefy attack speed. Combine that with your Assassin's 'squishiness' and you won't be getting far in surviving.
With all of these things attacking you, there needs to be a way to limit all of that insane damage. Since you are limited to either A/- or -/A, the best option would be to go -/A and opt for some defense in the primary profession. I thought long and hard about this and considered many options in my choice, here's what it broke down to:
Rangers: 100(base) + 10(blessed insigs) + 18(shield) + 7(wpn) = 135 AL
Warriors: 80(base) + 20(sentinel insigs) + 26(shield) + 7(wpn) = 133 AL
The problem with Rangers is that, while they have skills that can easily defend against all that damage, there is really no way for them to kill all those Vaettir (too bad they don't have ranged autoattacks right?) whereas Warriors have the infamous HB + Whirlwind Attack combo.
Elementalists with Geomancer Insignias, Monks with self-inflicting condition skills & disciples insignias, devishes with loads of enchants etc... just can't compare to this armor level. Another way to boost the armor level is with skills but the bar will already be really tight, I tried to steer away from using skills to boost armor.
I defaulted to a Warrior primary and came up with some neat ideas. Fortunately, the easiest and most space-efficient (bar-wise) to kill a large mob is through Hundred Blades and Whirlwind Attack; but they have an upwards of 160+ armor... This subsequently leads HB + WA to hit garbage numbers (5 anyone?) and you wouldn't be able to kill them even if you mobbed all 60. The best way to increase this damage to a threshold where the 36 you consistently pull will die is through Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honour.
At this stage of the game, your bar is already looking pretty tight;
Dwarven Stability, Shadow of Haste, Hundred Blades[E], Whirlwind Attack and Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honor put you at the 3-PvE skill limit as well as prevent you from taking an elite survival skill. You need to throw a stance on the bar to end Shadow of Haste so you're probably either taking Dash or Sprint if you don't have Dash (Tip: run with Dwarven Stability --> Dash from Longeye's). This leaves you with room for 2, non-elite, non-PvE-only skills to survive with.
After looking through all of their skills and after several failed runs, pulls, aggro management, different paths etc... I struggled to find a way to survive all that damage with a warrior (36 guys attacking every second @ 10~ damage each = 2s death). With my elite taken up with Hundred Blades, all 3 PvE skill slots taken there was little choice. The ways to reduce all that damage would either come in the form of:
Self-Cast Damage Reduction Skills - eg. Stoneflesh Aura, Armor of Sanctity, etc... Other-Cast Damage Reduction Skills - eg. Shielding Hands, Bonds, etc... Blocking - eg. Shroud of Distress, stances, etc.. Miss Chance - eg. Unseen Fury, Smoke Powder Defence, etc... Healing - eg. Healing Hands, Healing Seed, Mark of Protection, etc... More Armor - eg. Dolyak Signet, "I am Unstoppable!", etc... Spirits - eg. Union, Recuperation, etc... Titles - eg. Lightbringer Title
Why most don't work:Since we'll be using a W/A, any self-castable damage reduction skills are of other professions. Stances cannot work because Shadow of Haste is a stance and we can't end it until we're done the farm so we can't take Smoke Powder Defense, Unseen Fury, or any warrior stances. Spirits do not work, it is much too hard to pre-cast them in appropriate spots and they die almost instantly. Bonds obviously don't work because the hero will take take drops if they are able to maintain bond range. Lightbringer title doesn't work because we're not in DoA. The longest lasting healing spell would be a tie at 10s long which can only be buffed to about 16s with Blessed Aura and a 20% enchanting mod, barely enough to aggro the mob. More armor just doesn't help, pushing the damage down to 8 from 10 per hit with Dolyak Signet just means you take 290~ DPS rather than 360~ DPS.
The only blocking skills that are feasible to use are Protector's Defense and Shroud of Distress. I tried a run with both of these skills. It kind of worked. The problem is trying to build adrenaline. If you take both of these skills you have to attack about 4 or 5 times to charge your adrenaline in time to spike, which is not only ridiculously hard, it's nigh-impossible with the little amount of time you spend sitting there.
After wondering and wondering, I finally found my answer, one of the most useless skills in the game, look at this:
Supportive Spirit
Enchantment Spell. For 5...19...23 seconds, whenever target ally takes damage while knocked down, that ally is healed for 5...29...35 Health.
That's right, with Blessed Aura & an Enchanting Weapon, your hero can cast this enchant right before they hit you up with Spellbreaker, allowing it to last the full duration of your item-inspired genocide.
Trouble is... Vaettir don't have knock-down skills, here's another fix with an 'almost' useless skill: Drunken Blow.
The combination of both Drunken Blow (with Supportive Spirit) and Protector's Defense is actually enough to keep you alive for the spike. Not only does it keep you alive though, it builds ALL of your adrenaline; you gain about 4 adrenaline for losing 100% of your life, thing is you actually lose about 300%, you just heal all of it
. The trick here is timing Drunken Blow correctly, you should aim to use it right before you hit about 25% life, as you'll skyrocket up to full HP as all the Vaettir ball up on you and whack away at your ever-rising health bar.
By queuing up Protector's Defense while you're on the ground, you cast it the instant you get up (it's a skill, not a stace so it doesn't end Shadow of Haste) and block enough hits to unleash your beastly combo on 36 unsuspecting ghosties. ( What? That warrior was just on the ground and we outnumbered it 30-fold! How did it just kill all of us?! D: )
Pick up your drops, maybe do a little dance and hit your Dash / Sprint / Dark Escape / whatever the heck your brought and do it again in 40 seconds.
~Icy
And you're taking a hero. Also, is the video sped up at some point while killing? It doesn't look quite normal
).
