My Imbagon

vader

vader

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

P/W

I am currently running this build:

Command: 14
Leadership: 16

Focused Anger (E)
"For Great Justice!"
Aggressive Refrain
"Save Yourselves!"
"There's Nothing to Fear!"
Ebon Battle Standard of Courage
"Never Surrender!"
Signet of Return

I have so much candy from Nicholas that I really don't need to use Aggressive Refrain anymore. I was trying to figure out what to replace it with.

I was thinking about adding "Stand Your Ground!" but how often are your teammates not moving?

I can take 1 off Command and put 6 in Tactics and add "Shields Up!" or "Watch Youself!"

Maybe Leader's Comfort?

Any suggestions?

chuckles79

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2009

FILA

P/

Stand your Ground is actually a great skill because you are typically not moving whenever you attack at range or cast a spell...aka the times you most need extra armor.
If you are not going to bring AR, I would recommend GftE. It's spammability is great for E-mgmt and allows for an extra buff in between SY recharges. It would not help much with non-physicals, but then EBSoC would not either.
Also I'm a big fan of We Shall Return over Sig. of Return. If you get into a situation where the UA monk is either dead or can't rez, then bringing back 3-5 party members in one shot can prevent a wipe.
Just make sure to ping it because it does not have the same rez graphic as other rezzes and I've lost count of the number of times some jackweed stands there after being rezzed and gets killed again.

Eragon Zarroc

Eragon Zarroc

Atra estern?? ono thelduin

Join Date: Jan 2008

Madness Incarnate

[Duo]

W/P

You don't need EBSoC when you are spamming SY and Nothing to Fear. Take it out.

Put in Spear of Fury and Anthem of Flame/Anthem of Weariness. Combo them for instant adrenaline filled bar and burning/weakness support.

Cuilan

Cuilan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2008

Me/

It would be wise or at least possible to rely on your party to provide a condition for Spear of Fury. Anthem of Flame is pretty useless on that build.

mage767

mage767

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2006

USA

LOVE

Me/E

I know you have an imbagon in mind, but still, I need to criticize a bit because you asked for it:

1. If you are not going to put points in "Spear" (do you know what that means?), then don't use one for show, because your 1 damage on eneies isn't very impressive...

2. If you put 16 in "Leadership", then you are just a bad imbagon! Use more spammable "adrenaline-shouts" like "Go For the Eyes" to fuel energy at lower leadership levels: 10-12 is more than enough!

3. Never Surrender is pointless. Kick it out, and bring "Stand your ground". Your casters will benefit it the most since they stop to cast skills in succession and have stupid squishy armors.

4. Signet of return is pointless on imbagon! You are supposed to protect everyone carefully and if shit does happen, then it will most likely wipe out your entire group, in which case you bring "We Shall Return". So bring it on and save some time!

5. Ebon ...Batttle...Standard...of...courage? Really? You really want to buff allies at a cost of 10 energy? Hello??? "Stand Your Ground" does it at half the cost (after energy return), and helps them out even if they stand outside ward! So definitely kick out EbSoC and bring EbSoH (honor one) so YOU do slightly more damage .... don't be a free-loading imbagon. It is quite easy to do 30-60 damage per attack with imbagons too, so learn how to synergize skills better.

HOPE THAT HELPS YA!

Skyy High

Skyy High

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: May 2006

R/

SYG! is useless on an imbagon. SY! should be up 100% (or near enough that it makes no difference), and the two don't stack.

_Aphotic_

_Aphotic_

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2010

Muppets Versus Muppets [MvM]

P/A

First off, NO Stand Your Ground!
The armor bonuses from SY! don't stack with it AND
a GOOD Imbagon has a 100% uptime of SY! anyway ;P (at least I do, mind you.)

Running 14 leadership is prime, especially if you want to use "We Shall Return!" as a mid-battle rez (can save your monks if both go down). 10-12 if you're focusing more on damage.

Second NEVER use a -hp Superior Rune on an imba. The fact that you're the ONLY one taking the full damage from attacks (as you are not also under the effects of SY!) is a terrible, terrible idea. Keep yourself alive the best you can, and your team mates will cover the rest for you (DON'T BE THE PRIME TARGET OF ENEMY FOES, AS FOES GENERALLY TARGET THOSE WITH LEAST HP ;P)

Waaay to Support oriented, the REASON why it's called imba is because it offers both extreme defense capabilities while having a decent damage output=completely imbalanced.

Drop Never Surrender... as it won't help you in a life-death situation... most death situations with an imba involve either more than -10 degen, in which +3-4 isn't going to help much, or you being hexed with soothing images/vocal minority. In any which case, in an area such as DoA, or any other place with SI/VM in HM... +3,4 health regen isn't going to save you.

While I certainly don't object to your constant +adrenaline with Focused Anger+FGJ! (I run it often myself), it isn't ALWAYS necessary to keep up SY! Try using a Double Adrenaline mod on your spear. It saves both lives and a skill slot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon
View Post
This. The only +armor skill that stacks with SY! is the vanguard ward b/c it's buggy.

I'd suggest Spear of Fury or Find Their Weaknesses, both solid damage skills. Yes to the latter.
NO to the first, +100 armor ALREADY reduces EVERYTHING that deals armor-affecting damage to basically 10pts. or less...

Consider these skills to bring: (DON'T BRING AR!= my least favorite para skill EVER.)
-Spear of Fury (Kurzick/Luxon skill)= Instant charge of SY! underneath +adrenaline...
The MOST useful imba skill EVER.
-Anthem of Weariness; this skill applies the Weakness condition BEFORE the target is hit, so combined with Spear of Fury= instant charge of SY! with +adrenaline
-Spear of Lightning= cheap, spammable damage
-Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honor...= + damage
-Try [any] other adrenal skills

Suggested Attributes:
At LEAST 9 in Spear Master (weapon attribute)
10-14 in Leadership (SY! will NEVER affect more than 7 people, excluding Urgoz's/Deep)
At LEAST 9 in Command/Motivation/Tactics (shield attribute)

Rites

Rites

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2010

Deep in the belly of Texas

R/

12 spear, that way you are doing full (at 9 you are only doing 75% i believe) possible damage
9+1 Leadership
9+1 in command/motivation/tactics according to shield/skill usage

change never surrender for a spear attack (many have been posted already)
SoR should be we shall return for reasons already clarified above
personally i like aggressive refrain, but then again i don't use consumables, so on this i dont know which way to point you
and damn you have alot of adrenaline builders... SY doesnt take that long to build up

vader

vader

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

P/W

Thanks everyone for your comments. I will look everything over and adjust my build accordingly.

vader

vader

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

P/W

I couldn't go with the Ebon Ward and Spear of Fury since I can only have 3 PvE skills so I ended up going with:

Spear Mastery: 12
Command: 8 + 1
Leadership: 10 + 1 + 1
Sunspear: 10
Kurzick: 8
Health: 581
Energy: 47

Anthem of Weariness
Spear of Fury
Spear of Lightning
"Save Yourselves!"
"There's Nothing to Fear!"
Focused Anger (E)
"For Great Justice!"
"We Shall Return"

So far it seems to be working well ... until I got hit with Vocal Minority in today's Z-Mission.

Tender Care

Tender Care

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2008

Blackwater Park

MpF

P/

Seconded Aphotic!!!!

All imbas take Stand your ground and SY from the pvxnoob build, but they don't know that they don't stack...

And as Eragon Zarrock said, use Spear of Fury and a chant or shout that inflict conditions for an instant adrenaline fill! Find their weakness works great imo!

If foes always have a condition there's also no need to bring For the great justice, since Spear of Fury does his job...
Soothing Images is the only thing that'll outright stop shouting altogether, Vocal Minority will as well but that'll hit "Stand Your Ground!" as well. Depending on how you prioritize your skill usage you can wand/staff from max distance against full groups of casters or stay at max range and attack a melee physical to maintain adrenaline gain to avoid blind.

Quote: If with consumables i like to bring alchohol + Drunken Master. It rocks. Stance removal really hurts Drunken Master. The only thing stopping Aggressive Refrain is careless energy management as "There's Nothing to Fear!" comes off cooldown, and Vocal Minority naturally.

Quote:
For adrenaline fill i like 5 or 8 in Tactics and put To The Limit. A few points of adrenaline every 15 seconds is significantly less than what Spear of Fury will produce.

Quote:
I like it better than Spear of Fury because it doenst need any chant s i wont waste my time casting chants. Plus, To The Limit gives you HP. "Find Their Weakness!" will fulfill Spear of Fury's conditional requirement. Deep Wound is much better than a very minor amount of health.

TiagoS1

TiagoS1

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Racthoh View Post
Soothing Images is the only thing that'll outright stop shouting altogether, Vocal Minority will as well but that'll hit "Stand Your Ground!" as well. Depending on how you prioritize your skill usage you can wand/staff from max distance against full groups of casters or stay at max range and attack a melee physical to maintain adrenaline gain to avoid blind.


Stance removal really hurts Drunken Master. The only thing stopping Aggressive Refrain is careless energy management as "There's Nothing to Fear!" comes off cooldown, and Vocal Minority naturally.


A few points of adrenaline every 15 seconds is significantly less than what Spear of Fury will produce.


"Find Their Weakness!" will fulfill Spear of Fury's conditional requirement. Deep Wound is much better than a very minor amount of health.
1. Empathy / Spiteful Spirit + low hp sucks. Or you die, or you stop attacking. In that situations, Stand Your Ground is usefull.

2. Stance removal.. unless you encounter a foe with wild throw, you wont get your stance raped if you let your tanks tank. I mean, if you don't play frontline.

3. With 8 in Tactics + Focused anger, To the Limit gives you 8 adrenaline. And 15 seconds recharge is exatly the same time of Find Their Weakness! So, if you got no conditions on foe, even with your spear of fury recharged, you won't gain adrenaline.

We must see that Spear Of Fury can be dodge, missed or blocked. To the limit can't.
And To The Limit helps you keeping Agressive Refrain, if you are playing with it.
Spear of fury also takes you 1 PVE skill slot. So, you have to bring SY and There's Nothing to fear. 1 spot left for PVE wasted in spear of fury sucks, for me.

Finally, Find Their Weakness is overrated. Deep Wound, in PVE, every 15 seconds, is not that awesome, even with the bonus damage. I'd rather want to spam YMLAD, Finish Him or play with an axe paragon and spam Dismember and the damn adrenaline based attacks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by _Aphotic_ View Post
First off, NO Stand Your Ground!
The armor bonuses from SY! don't stack with it AND
a GOOD Imbagon has a 100% uptime of SY! anyway ;P (at least I do, mind you.) I must say that Stand Your Ground is underrated. Yes, an imba should keep SY all the time, but there are allways conditions, hexes etc.
You guys must see that Stand Your Ground gives YOU 24 armor too. Very important, specially to ppl running agressive refrain.

TiagoS1

TiagoS1

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tender Care View Post
24 armor in HM doesn't really help.....not for example in DOA HM or UW or any place where a foe can hit u for 300 dmg with a spell....

SY gives u about a 80% dmg reduction....I remember when i used Avatar of Balthazar (+40 armor bonus) i took half dmg, so i guess 24 gives something like 1/4 dmg reduction, that in HM is almost nothing..... Actually, 24 armor reduces damage taken by ~35%. More important in HM than in NM.

For example, if an enemy hits for 20 damage in NM, you will receive 13. 7 Damage reduction.
If an enemy hits for 200 damage in HM, you will receive 130. 70 damage recution.

Honestly, in which situation do you prefer to have the +24 armor?

chuckles79

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2009

FILA

P/

Thanks for posting that SYG does not stack with SY, that's not common knowledge

I think most here will agree on most skills. 1. Spear of Fury, 2. SY!, 3. TntF, 4. Focused Anger, 5. We Shall Return.

6. AR is good in non-elite areas, but not needed if using cons, 7. Some swear by FGJ but I prefer either Anthem of Flame or Anthem of Weariness depending on who's being fought. I usually default to Flame but Weariness is good if you are expecting a lot of physical damage.

8. The last slot is also conditional. I default to GtfE for emgmt and a little extra punch from physicals in the party. They are on Fire works with Anthem of Flame and is maintainable. The last option I run is Can't Touch This in DOA, UW (for silver dryders) and in dinosaur areas in Asura areas.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by TiagoS1 View Post
1. Empathy / Spiteful Spirit + low hp sucks. Or you die, or you stop attacking. In that situations, Stand Your Ground is usefull.
No it isn't. Empathy and Spiteful Spirit both ignore armor.

Quote: 2. Stance removal.. unless you encounter a foe with wild throw, you wont get your stance raped if you let your tanks tank. I mean, if you don't play frontline.
Why do you have tanks on a team with SY!?

Quote:
3. With 8 in Tactics + Focused anger, To the Limit gives you 8 adrenaline. And 15 seconds recharge is exatly the same time of Find Their Weakness! So, if you got no conditions on foe, even with your spear of fury recharged, you won't gain adrenaline. The other 7 party members should be generating a few conditions. It's not that Spear of Fury is without problems, but you dramatically overexaggerate them.

Also, why do you need more adrenaline? Focused Anger+FGJ+Aggressive Refrain+TntF is enough to keep up SY!. Everything else should be damage or utility.

Quote: We must see that Spear Of Fury can be dodge, missed or blocked. To the limit can't.
And To The Limit helps you keeping Agressive Refrain, if you are playing with it. So does Find Their Weaknesses, which, as an added bonus, doesn't suck.

Quote:
Spear of fury also takes you 1 PVE skill slot. So, you have to bring SY and There's Nothing to fear. 1 spot left for PVE wasted in spear of fury sucks, for me. The only other candidate for that position is EBSoHonor. For the record, I think the ward is a slightly better choice.

Quote:
I must say that Stand Your Ground is underrated. Yes, an imba should keep SY all the time, but there are allways conditions, hexes etc.
You guys must see that Stand Your Ground gives YOU 24 armor too. Very important, specially to ppl running agressive refrain. No, SYG is a worthless skill on an imbagon. It does not stack with SY!; gaps in SY! should be fixed by you learning to play better, not sticking bandaid skills into your build; and your backline should be more than able to keep you alive when no one else is taking noticeable damage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by _Aphotic_
NO to the first, +100 armor ALREADY reduces EVERYTHING that deals armor-affecting damage to basically 10pts. or less... I think you misunderstood. Try reading that again. You can't say "no" to simple facts. Fact: Nothing stacks with SY! except that one bugged skill.
I know my english sucks, but i ll try to explain better. Let's imagine you got 60 HP left and you got empathy on you. If the hex is not removed (many time with pugs), will you continue attacking? The answer is NO. That way, you can't keep SY, so Stand Your Ground will be usefull since SY will not be up.
Hope you got it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post Why do you have tanks on a team with SY!?
By tanks i mean melee profs. Or, do you never play with melee?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post The other 7 party members should be generating a few conditions. It's not that Spear of Fury is without problems, but you dramatically overexaggerate them.
True

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post Also, why do you need more adrenaline? Focused Anger+FGJ+Aggressive Refrain+TntF is enough to keep up SY!. Everything else should be damage or utility. You're right, except in block, blind, or hexed situations. A lot of them in HM.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
So does Find Their Weaknesses, which, as an added bonus, doesn't suck. True. But i don't think To The Limit sucks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
The only other candidate for that position is EBSoHonor. For the record, I think the ward is a slightly better choice. True

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
No, SYG is a worthless skill on an imbagon. It does not stack with SY!; gaps in SY! should be fixed by you learning to play better, not sticking bandaid skills into your build; and your backline should be more than able to keep you alive when no one else is taking noticeable damage. Check my first comment on this post.

VendingMachine

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2006

Yeah, conditions and hexes affect you a lot, but you should have monks removing hexes/conditions from you when you're protecting the rest of the party. There's a reason you have allies, to cover your weaknesses. No point trying to gimp yourself over by covering a small weakness you have by bringing a 2 mediocre skill when you can have an ally just bring some condition/hex removal on you. Also, you can stop running in first to let most hexes and conditions be used first on your melee allies.

TiagoS1

TiagoS1

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2009

Asuran Scan: changed functionality to: "For 9...12 seconds your attacks cannot miss target foe. Killing a foe hexed with Asuran scan removes 5% death penalty."

If miss they are talking about blind, it sucks.

If it goes through block and blind, its a good skill to consider for paragons, especially imbas.

skarhand

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2006

Hi Jinx Rage

W/

I was never a big fan of the traditional Imbagon builds, so when I first started working on my GWAMM for paragon I worked and reworked my Imba build for quite a while. This is what I settled on and used to H/H my way thru 100% of Vanq, Guardian, and Master of the North.

P/W
Tactics: 8
Command: 10+1
Leadership: 12+2
(Centurions, sup vig, and some random other stuff)
600 Health, 38 Energy (+30 shield, +30,+5e Spear)

1: Interchangable PvE skill (I used PI mostly, Ebon Assassin, Ebon Sniper ect. depending on area)
2: Signet of Aggression
3: "Go for the Eyes!"
4: "Watch Yourself!"
5: "Save Yourself!"
6: "There's Nothing to Fear!"
7: Focused Anger [Elite]
8: "We Shall Return!"

OQGjUhmKKTylwbWYcFxgAhpb4YA

I changed to this setup mostly because I HATED Agressive Refrain. It was so high in energy cost and ever time I stopped or got distracted for a second...it would go down, let alone the -armor effect. With this build Focused Anger + signet of agression gives you +4 adrenaline every 5 second (+1 sec cast) as long as you spam GftE and Watch yourself. Not counting what you get from attacking. I use Watch Yourself for the cheap energy and extra armor on me even though it dosn't stackwith SY on others. With this build I can easily keep SY up 100% of the time often with SY recharged within 2-3 seconds. Signet of Agression is also nice because you can still gain adreanaline while blinded or missing/blocked. I don't think I've ever seen it posted in any Imba builds before, but I think it is a great alternative to AR.

Skar

Kafiri_Mkorogai

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2007

Mo/

While I can see the potential value in some very difficult areas of having so much damage reduction, do you think the investment into tactics simply for WY is worth having to give up doing any real spear damage? I guess it would also matter what h/h's you ran with. What was your normal hero setup?

skarhand

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2006

Hi Jinx Rage

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Khaldun
View Post
What kind of team did you run with that build, if you don't mind my asking? I'm still pretty new at GW, but have started changing around my Imbagon build for the same reason (Agressive Refrain being a bother.) so I'm looking for inspiration.

As it is I am almost completely changing it for some missions, and it would be nice to land on something I can stick with for a good while. I usually Ran:
1. N/Rit healer/damage
OAhjYghr4OXTMm0cyNMHnV1LGA

2. N/Mo MM with Prots (disable Vengence, only for emergency)
OANDUspPSLVVBKgoBvO1DBE7EA

3. Varied depending on area/what I fealt like.
a. N/Pa - OAljYgHspO5h9gQrOUVxx17dMA
b. M/Rit - OQhjAgDaIPZgegPNjd9GmjzLGA (take life off of N/Rit)
c. P/Ele - OQakkomyJjiz6mD7hjxvCV3LGHD (good in areas with lots of KD.

None of those were set in stone I fiddled alot but that was kindof my main setup. N/rit was extra support for the 2 Hench monks and Spirits more fodder to keep foes off me and my heros. Use yourself to pull and ball mobs while forcing MM to put Prot spirit on yourself. Bring Int mesmer for areas where interupts are handy. Make sure to take a team of at least 2 heavy hitters (I consider MM heavy, if you go into areas with alot of healers. You, your n/r and 2 hench monks will be doing very little damage. Your survivability may be high, but hard to kill a mob with heavy healing if you have too much support and not enough damage. You can even consider dropping the n/r for a full on spirit spamming rit/any.