So I hate Agressive Refrain

Good to know about Wild Throw. Since my Paragon is still in the middle of Nightfall, I'm encountering a lot of annoying Kournan rangers with Whirling Defense.

So I updated my skill bar by taking out FGJ and putting in Anthem of Envy. Then I gave Margrid a Glass Arrows build that uses GFTE, Anthem of Weariness, and Fall Back.

What a world of difference that made. I'm thinking about giving another hero Fall Back as well for extra insurance, but unless I stop to talk to a quest NPC or something, AR never goes down.

I don't know why I never thought to give heroes shouts before...

Imho, AR is completely useless. You can easily get the adrnl for SY! and maintain it without ias. Bringing a more useful skill (or apparently something that seems useful like anthem of envy) would be better. If energy is a problem try another adrnl shout, or in a melée heavy areas maybe protectors defence; possibly just a zealous spear. But if for any reason you aren't getting SY! up fast enough, use a pie or candy bc it really isn't worth the skill slot for a skill that decreases your own armor.


Off topic: anthem of envy sucks. If your are using enough physical characters for it's dmg to matter then you are just wasting party slots. One spell (probably aoe) will so more dmg than all the bonus from envy. Imho

But what about the spirits!

I personally use Flurry btw, the damage decrease isn't that noticeable anyways.

This has been gone over to death, and the result is always the same. FA+FJG+AR, using a hat swap and TntF to maintain AR is simply the optimal configuration for IAS and +adr on an imbagon. Any other configuration means spending more skillslots and/or getting less IAS and/or less +adr and/or less damage and/or spending more energy.

Ehh..

I would take Flurry over AR anyday if the only drawback is 6% less damage compared to AR and additional energy. It also gains adrenaline 12% faster than AR. I think its personal preference really.

Bring an Orders hero with Dark Fury and Mark of Fury. Then you can maintain "SY!" with just about any build.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mike Jack

Ehh..

I would take Flurry over AR anyday if the only drawback is 6% less damage compared to AR and additional energy. It also gains adrenaline 12% faster than AR. I think its personal preference really. The problem with Flurry is that its really f**king annoying hitting it every 5s. If it takes more than about 2/3rds of a second to re-hit flurry after it goes down you actually have less IAS, and keep in mind this also includes your ping time, so to break even its more like you have to hit it within .4-.5s. While that is certainly doable, your effective IAS gain is becoming vanishingly small to the point where most reasonable people have to agree its not really worth the effort. Missing it even for a second once in a fight essentially makes it worse than AR, so why bother?

Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

The problem with Flurry is that its really f**king annoying hitting it every 5s. If it takes more than about 2/3rds of a second to re-hit flurry after it goes down you actually have less IAS, and keep in mind this also includes your ping time, so to break even its more like you have to hit it within .4-.5s. While that is certainly doable, your effective IAS gain is becoming vanishingly small to the point where most reasonable people have to agree its not really worth the effort. Missing it even for a second once in a fight essentially makes it worse than AR, so why bother? As bad as all that is, the energy load is a worse problem. Maintaining Flurry costs 3pips of e-regen. That's going to starve your other energy skills (like TNtF).

Yes, this is why I decided to heck with Flurry and just was going to get my timing right with AR, I'd rather pay my energy up front and not have to pay again, especially because of TNTF.

Also I think some people are missing the issue, I have no problems keeping SY! up at all times. Anthem of Flame + SoF with FA active gives an instant recharge, and when I'm not providing the condition, my heroes are.

Spear of fury has an 8 second recharge and can not maintain SY by itself.

Aggressive refrain is definitely the best way to go, hands down. Flurry is way too energy intensive and decreases damage, while AR is practically free (minus 25 energy that will likely be completely regained by the time you reach the first mob), and it doesn't hurt your damage output. There really is no comparison.

To those saying imbagons are primarily defensive, they can still pump out a good amount of damage with energy spear attacks (fueled by SYs energy gain). There is no reason to unnecessary nerf your damage output.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lanier

To those saying imbagons are primarily defensive, they can still pump out a good amount of damage with energy spear attacks (fueled by SYs energy gain). There is no reason to unnecessary nerf your damage output. The -25% damage from flurry really isn't the problem. Remember, it only applies to the armor-affected portion of your base spear damage, which sucks anyways because against armor your damage is nil anyway. In a real situation against high armored enemies where you are relying on stuff like orders/GDW/SW for damage flurry is probably closer to -5% to -10%. The problem is that flurry just sucks even if it didn't nerf your damage at all.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

The -25% damage from flurry really isn't the problem. Remember, it only applies to the armor-affected portion of your base spear damage, which sucks anyways because against armor your damage is nil anyway. In a real situation against high armored enemies where you are relying on stuff like orders/GDW/SW for damage flurry is probably closer to -5% to -10%. The problem is that flurry just sucks even if it didn't nerf your damage at all. I never said it was a big nerf in damage, just that it was an unnecessary nerf in damage. And your right about it sucking, especially on paragons where it'll eat your energy that you could be using on spear attacks and TNTF up.

What's such a big deal about the energy cost of Flurry? Just bring "Go for the Eyes" for better energy management. The recharge (or duration) is it's problem.

anyone tried dwarfen stability with flurry? Solves almost all problems (expect maybe the dmg but that has been mentioned before). It consumes a pve skill slot, but if you realy like a insta SY charge (I sure do), take "To the limit!".

Eh, I dont really like bringing any adrenal shouts besides SY. Bringing any others slows down the casting of SY, and if my only adrenal skill is SY, then I know that every 4 chucks of the spear, i'll be able to use SY. If I have to switch targets, it can occasionally slow me down enough that I can't get more than 4 attacks off in time.

Besides, the energy issue (which is completely related to the recharge issue you brought up) is pretty draining. Sure you could bring Gfte or some other energy management but that would still hurt your ability to spam energy spear attacks. Since I use AR, I am able to spam TNFT, Spear of Fury, and Spear of lightning on recharge. This wouldn't be the case with flurry in the mix as well, even if you had gfte in the build (which, as mentioned above, would slow the upkeep of SY as well).

Finally, when it all comes down to it, the energy issues really are not the reason why I choose AR over flurry. I don't care how much flurry reduces damage output, it still does reduce it. Since imbagons have plenty of free attribute points and a couple of free skill slots, they can produce a pretty respectable damage output (you should have at least a 14 in spear mastery when running an imbagon).

I guess the bottom line of what i'm trying to say is that no matter how much flurry reduces damage output, its simply not worth using when you could use AR instead. So yea, use Aggressive refrain, not flurry.

@ above post: yea, I like instant casts of SY at the beginning of battles too. If you arn't running tactics, "make your time" (which is in leadership) is also useful.

Quote: (you should have at least a 14 in spear mastery when running an imbagon). So in that case would you suggest sacrificing points in Leadership or using Major/Superior runes?

Why does everyone say that Flurry is a damage decrease?

Flurry has a faster IAS, so over time you only deal 6% less base damage. Any sort of physical buff (Splinter, GDW, Orders) will easily put it at the same damage output/and or greater than using a 25% IAS.

Quote: Originally Posted by Zyph

or using Major/Superior runes? why not?

My attribute spread is 14 spear (with a sup rune), 11 command (can be lowered to 9 if higher command is not necessary, thus raising spear to 15), 12 leadership. I also have a sup leadership headpiece for casting AR.

I thought the common consensus nowadays in PvE is to use Sup runes?

Quote: Originally Posted by Mike Jack Why does everyone say that Flurry is a damage decrease?

Flurry has a faster IAS, so over time you only deal 6% less base damage. Any sort of physical buff (Splinter, GDW, Orders) will easily put it at the same damage output/and or greater than using a 25% IAS. 1st off: the math doesn't work like that. Flurry is actually a 0 net damage change. Over baseline.

2nd: Flurry vs 25% IAS is a 15% base damage loss over time vs 13% more attacks per unit of time. So its about even as long as your +damage from buffs is equal or greater than your base damage. That sounds great... but we have a problem. Flurry is NOT true 33% IAS. As I already outlined, the problem with not being able to hit Flurry exactly on recharge essentially makes it a 25% IAS. Maybe 28/29% if you have a macro running to spam it and have a low ping, but not nearly 33%.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier why not? My attribute spread is 14 spear (with a sup rune), 11 command (can be lowered to 9 if higher command is not necessary, thus raising spear to 15), 12 leadership. I also have a sup leadership headpiece for casting AR. I thought the common consensus nowadays in PvE is to use Sup runes? It is... for good players. Don't go spreading the word though, the thought of puggers full of sups makes my cry myself to sleep at night.

Maths check.
In naive theory, Flurry is a 33% IAS and if maintained will result in 50% more hits in a given time interval.
Each of these hits only deals 75% of the normal damage.
1.5×0.75 = 1.125 - a 12.5% increase in average damage.
Since it's impossible to perfectly maintain Flurry without a recharge reduction modifier or something to enhance the duration, but it seems unlikely that Flurry will drop below being a 30% IAS assuming you have the energy (hitting a skill on recharge isn't hard, the main limiting factor is ping) - 7% increase in damage from autos.
Note: Flurry acts as a ~30% IAS if you activate it every 6 seconds.

Aggressive Refrain (and indeed any 25% IAS) results in 33% more hits in a given time interval.

When you start adding in adrenaline and damage boosts, Flurry does better simply because the damage reduction doesn't affect bonus damage (from skills or buffs) and the extra hits give more adrenaline (more damage skills or shout spamming).
That said, Flurry is bad because it takes up 3 pips of energy regen to keep up. Frenzy only takes two (a little less) but Aggressive Refrain is the most energy efficient (as well as being the most convenient and having a negligible downside).


Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

1st off: the math doesn't work like that. Flurry is actually a 0 net damage change. Over baseline.

2nd: Flurry vs 25% IAS is a 15% base damage loss over time vs 13% more attacks per unit of time. Refer to the calculations above.
Looking at that, you have your IAS calculations wrong.
An X% IAS works by reducing the attack interval (time between hits) by X%
So a 33% IAS reduces the time between attacks by 33% which in effect (say 33% = 1/3) results in 50% more attacks (1 - 1/3 = 2/3 "time/attack multiplier" leads to a 3/2 "attacks per second multiplier").
So assuming perfect uptime on Flurry, the difference between it and AR (or indeed any 33% vs 25% IAS) is actually ~17% (1.5-1.33) more hits. If you treat Flurry as a 30% IAS you're looking at ~10% more hits.