Imbagon question (what kind of spearhead)

I was wondering what you guys use (for imbagon):

-Vampiric spearhead
-Zealous spearhead
-Sundering spearhead
-Furious spearhead

Thank you.

been ages since i even looked at imbagon build but check http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:P/W_Imbagon and that has whats needed on it

Furious for me

Furious is the one that most contributes to your Adrenaline flow, but it doesn't add much. Since you probably don't need more adrenaline, you could use Zealous for energy, but energy is not usually a problem for Imbagons either.
(I use a Furious spear with a +5 energy Inscription and +5 armor.)

Since doing damage is not your focus either, you don't want Vampiric - it's not worth the hassle of weapons swapping, etc.

So, bottom line - Furious - second choice Sundering, just for the extra few points of damage and/or if you want to use the same spear for other builds that could use it.

Note: the above PvX link tells you what that person recommends/uses, but it's not necessarily what you should use. I would recommend you add "Watch Yourself!" to that build. It gives you some extra armor and reboots Aggressive Refrain ("Save Yourselves!" doesn't give you extra armor.)

You can get away with any spear head really.

10% adrenal gain looks nice but odds are if your playing right it won't be needed anyway because you will be able to maintain SY! with near 100% uptime.

Imbagons don't deal (noticeable) damage anyway (unless your team actually features synergy from MoP/Barbs/Orders), and if you play right, you'll never have energy problems either. This leaves you with sundering and vampiric. sundering gives you a 20% chance to have the base weapon damage ignore 20% of your targets armor.

Assuming favorable conditions, that is your target has a lot more armor then normal (sundering adds more to damage with higher armor foes, which is typical for HM mobs) your spear's damage will not deal the full 14-27 damage to the target . if you ignore 20% of let us say 100 armor your damage is calculated on the basis of the target possessing 80 armor.

100 armor = 50% damage getting through, so 14-27 = 7-13.5
80 armor = ~70.7% damage getting through, so 14-27 = ~10-19

In other words, when facing foes with 100 armor, your sundering mod gives you a 20% chance to deal ~3-6 bonus damage to the target (the value is lower on lower armor foes and slightly higher on higher armored foes).

Vampiric always deals 3 damage always. If you want to increase your damage by a smidgen, go vampiric. It will offer more damage dealt then sundering ever will.

-1 degen is redundant as you will recover the health from the spear mod when attacking and inbetween fights, your heroes/henchies can heal you. Players with any sort of intelligence will heal you when your HP dips below >75% anyway in between fights.

The damage dealt did not truly improve in either case, which is why any spear head will do since 10% adrenaline is hardly noticed in the long run, energy is not a problem so no need for zealous, and vampiric/ sundering are only token damage increases at best.

I personally use furious head and +5 energy inscription. The combo i recommend you to be able to have full adrenaline at any time is:

Focus Anger + Find their weakness + Spear of Fury = instant Save Yourself

The rest is optional......

Vampiric. It's added damage, and the periodic heal on TNtF means you don't need to switch.

A well-configured imbagon should not need furious or zealous.

I use Prayer of the Forgotten as my default, furious, +30, and +5e make it good when you need to reapply refrain, or my fav opening combo is Anthem of Flame b4 battle, and open up with Focused Anger and Spear of Fury. Decent damage with high faction rank, and applies burning, and instant SY while you are at it.

For prolonged fights or a "target-rich environment" I recommend Turep's Spear or any Zealous mod for casters. The Energy drain is just a drop in the bucket, but if you can prevent one heal or one interrupt you've just done your team a big favor.
Tradition would recommend an elemental weapon for warriors and paras, but I would just go with the vampiric.
Use vampiric if you have to switch targets often, fighting a lot of melee, ranged, and elementals. Also preferred for large targets.

Don't doubt the damage you can do in the right situations. In Fow last weekend I brought along an orders ele, and between OoP and GtfE, I could easily do 60-70 dmg with Spear of Fury. Not bad dmg output for a support profession.

With my Paragon I use a Prayer of the Forgotten and a Zehtuka's Horn when I go Imbagon.
That's +10% chance to double adrenaline, Received physical damage -5 (Chance: 20%) , +11Energy, and +60 Health.

It works fine for me, plus it look great to go around with a warnhorn a la GW2.

I don't need adrenaline, i'm fine with that, so no furious.

I don't realy care about damage (as you are a support class) so i don't like a sundering spearhead (mostly i run racway if i H/H)
The vampiric is just a +3 damage.

If i play imbagon i'm fine with energy (35 energy, and i still have my staff if i run out of energy, wich give me 50 energy)

So i don't know what to select.

Vamp, icy and a furious/-20% blind set for me.

So don't - just leave whatever is (or is not) on it, on it.

You could consider the idea of using some sort of condition causing setup. Say, a barbed spearhead with Barbed Spear or poisonous spearhead with Poison Tip Signet (Ranger) or whatever.

Never sundering.

http://www.oildrip.com/calc/index.php

For 12 attributes:

35.6 Average Damage with +3 Vampiric Prefix
22.3 Minimum Damage
40.3 Maximum Damage
55.7 Critical Hit Damage
31.3 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
35.6 Average Damage (including critical hits)

Damage (20% Sundering)
20.2 Minimum Damage
39 Maximum Damage
55.1 Critical Hit Damage
29.6 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
34.1 Average Damage (including critical hits)


For 14:
38.6
Average Damage with +3 Vampiric Prefix
23.7 Minimum Damage
42.9 Maximum Damage
59.5 Critical Hit Damage
33.3 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
38.6 Average Damage (including critical hits)

Damage (20% Sundering)
21.7 Minimum Damage
41.8 Maximum Damage
59.1 Critical Hit Damage
31.7 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
37.3 Average Damage (including critical hits)

More energy comes in handy under spirit shackles. And some extra adrenaline gain helps when enemies have 'soothing' effects.

At the moment i have a zealous 1.
I guess that i leave it on the spear.

Vamp ofc, more dmg, and the zealous isn't needed, neither is the furious.

I use Furious.

Keep in mind what is the key role you do as an Imbagons - To provide support for the party. You don't do dmg, leave it to your party, you're playing mid-line support for your party.

This viewpoint is your problem.

Killing monsters is integral to your win condition in almost every mission or quest (either because killing them is the goal or because they are hostile and in the way). Every resource your party has that is not needed for survival (or quest/mission-specific gimmicks) should be directed towards killing monsters.

The direct corollary is that every weapon in your party that can be vampiric should be vampiric unless there is a specific reason for it not to be.

(Sundering scythes used by crit-sins perhaps excepted.)

Furious is usefull, i know, but i got enough adrenaline to support my party, so i don't use a furious.

Not only are the numbers arrived at by simple calculation not the same as "real-GW-world" numbers, but you'd have to ask - "would a whole 1.6 extra damage be worth worrying about anyway?" (even if it was true.)

Bottom line?
If you really don't need the adren or energy (some people actually use speargon for general PvE sometime, in that case, more adren is nice. So is longer daze) for an imbagon, why not add some damage?
Vamp (admit it, having a dummy spear and pressing F5 before combat and F6 at the end isn't that much of a hassle) or sundering for imbagon. I'd personnally go for Vamp, but if the maths are true, the difference is kinda irrevelent.

I'd run furious regardless of what your build is...it's always nice to have that double hit of adrenaline. I've ran imbagon with order of fury on a hero, and that 4 adrenaline every 10 hits or so is actually rather noticeable. It's not "every ten hits" either...each attack has its own 10% probability. You could get lucky and get it half the time...I've seen that too.

Since the mod doesn't matter, may as well run what works best with your build. For an adrenaline based build, adrenaline is a no-brainer. Furious, all the way.

Oh, and you can also imbagon with appreciable and useful pressure with damage. I run 15 spear mastery, 12 leadership with a rune, and 10 tactics with auspicious parry as my elite. Spear of lightning and one adrenaline attack skill, spear of fury, sy!, tntf!, and a couple chants or shouts which match the area, or sig of return plus one shout/chant.