Enchantments on Strike?

Hmmm... Attemtped a search on this, though I may have overlooked something. I do hope not though...

Anyway, I'm testing out a 55 Mesmer idea against the Trolls near Droknars. All is going great, until *BAM* all of my enchantments just drop and I fall dead.

I figure, "Okay, minor glitch. No big deal".

So I go for another run. Same thing happens again. Trying to figure out what the problem is, I attribute it to be some new problem in the Southern Shiverpeaks. No big deal, I'll just test my ideas somewhere else.

Elona Reach. *BAM*
Northen Shiverpeaks. *BAM*
Kryta. *BAM*

And the worst part of it all...

Underworld. *BAM* Without a single Dying Nightmare in sight!

Now, I've seen this happen before. It's happened to a guildie of mine once or twice in the past, and I had it happen to me about a week or two ago. But I have never seen it happen this often...

Anyone know what the issue here is, or have any theories? I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but before I logged out of GW to post this and play some Neverwinter Nights, I popped into my guild chat to say "The Devs are watching. Fear thier unholy Enchantment Stripping might!".

I'm starting to wonder if they silently decided to rip through the 55'ers...

Hm. I doubt it was ANet's doing. Probably just a server glitch.... and with any luck, it'll wear off. ^_^
Although it'd be nice if they did. Not to all 55ers, just to the bots. But then glitches would cause other problems...

Admin: You are a botting suspect. Please respond.
Monk: ...
Admin: [Repeats warning in Chinese]
Monk: .....um...
Admin: [Repeats warning in French]
Monk: I'm not a bot....
Admin: [Repeats warning in Spanish]
Monk: Hello? I said I'm not a bot. I just like this route...
Admin: [Repeats warning in Japanese]
Monk: The heck?
Admin: Bandit confirmed. NUKE ENGAGED!
Monk: AAAAHHHH!!!

-Balthazar's Avatar descends; deals 9k+ damage to the instance-
Admin: -disables Monk's mapping ability, trapping him in an infinite loop of respawn/death-
Monk: I just wanted a few runes..... T_T

This has happened to me, I think. I'm still not sure if I just forgot to recast Prot Spirit. Although it did seem to short of time for it to need recasting. Meh

Two theories:

1. Your Protective Spirit ran out. You may have forgotten to set attributes(hence a very short duration) or you simply may be forgetting to recast.

2. You are trying to maintain more enchantments than you can. Example: You have energy degen(5+enchantments) and the energy you're getting from Balthazars Spirit and/or Essence Bond is not enough to keep your energy in the positives.

1. Not likely. My PS will last for 15 seconds as it is currently set, with extra duration due to the 20% Enchantments mod on my sword. Plus, I always recast PS whenever I happen to have full energy, whether or not it needs to be renewed, and I always renew it (if at all possible) as soon as it starts to blink, which gives me plenty of time to get it cast before it dies off. If this was an isolated case, then I might consider that as a possibility. I know we are all prone to make mistakes, but I've put too many hours into my timing and training to make the mistake that often.

2. I always have a positive 1 Energy Regeneration, as I only maintain 3 enchantments that lessen the amount of regen I get. When farming Trolls and Minotaurs, my energy is almost always full, as I tend to round up a good number of them to decrease the amount of time I spend on each run. Balthazar's Spirit and Essence Bond keep me energized very nicely . I make sure I round up enough to keep me pumped, but not enough to outdamage my regeneration.

I used to have the same problem all the time, but dont anymore.. I now assume that my PS must have been interrupted without me noticing. (or in UW, maybe just not noticing a nightmare)

In that case, I have no good explanation. Possibly a troll managed to hit a 1/4 sec prot spirit and you didn't see it was disabled... Which is extremly, extremely unlikely, especialy since you did the same thing versus minoutars, which don't have any inturupts at all... Quite improable it was the cause of all of your deaths, if such a thing did happen.

This has happened to me before in UW and farming trolls out near droks

I've had it happen in UW twice. I know there were no nightmares, and I highly doubt PS ran out.

Interesting...I had a similar effect yesterday while using my 55 mo/me outside Augry Rock. I hadn't used my 55 for weeks since I prefer my warrior for more fun. A guild member is a necro and wanted to practice for UW. I am rusty/not very experienced on 55 so I went out with him for a couple test runs to grease the gears. Bam. Didn't last more than 5 seconds on any mob. It seemed as though instant death happened no matter what I did.

Not sure if it's the same thing, but thought i'de mention it. I've done fine as a 55 before, but then again..it's been a little while.

strange but i had the same thing happening. in UW few times, so i tought maby PS got interrupted, but few times while i was runing Elona.... happened when i was aggro minotaurs, i casted PS, saw the PS face on top of me and 2 secs later.... BAM

and a few times like this, everywhere

Well... I'm glad it's not just me!

Okay so I'm not glad that it's happening to more people than just me... But maybe we've stumbled upon an issue that could possibly be in need of a fix here. Unless ArenaNet actually is watching us...

*shifty glances*

But on a serious note, other than energy depletion or missing PS/HB, are there any theories as to what may be casuing this problem? I'm out "farming" for knowledge right now in the Troll cave again, and so far I haven't died from the Enchantment Strike... But who knows when it will rear its ugly had again?

First off, what other enchantments are you using. In fact, what's your whole skillbar. You're not using something like prot bond that takes away nrg are you? or Holy Wrath? Also. Did your bonds drop and then you died about a second later, or you just plain died? Oh...and do you actually have 55hp? You need the 55 hp Also in Kryta and North Shivers, you didn't happen to be around any of the mesmers there did you? (Caromi and Summit Sages)They do strip your enchants. Not sure what it was in Elona, minotaurs? Well it's quite possible for trolls and minotaurs to kill a 55 if you get unlucky/aren't careful. With 55 hit points all you need to die is for 12 or so enemies to be attacking you at the exact same time. With around 12 enemies or more "spiking" you you'll be dead before you can regen. This is why I carry Bonetti's and Zealots Fire vs. huge melee type monsters. Sometimes they do attack you all at once so you either use Bonetti's to evade some of them while your health has time to regen to full, or you have Zealots Fire. Why set off at a slow rate, zealots fire AoE will not trigger the trolls to run away. But, if you cast spells on yourself too quickly, it will chase them away for a sec. You can use zealots to chase monsters off you for a few seconds, so that when they come back, they won't be as aligned with the attacks of the other monsters. If you can't figure it out still, PM me on one of my chars (the names are under my avatar) and I'll come and watch ya while you farm it up and try and see what's wrong.

How cute. ^_^

Back on topic - Well, I've just done a bunch of random 55 monk 'farming' runs, and absolutely nothing has changed for me. Perhaps something in your skillbar has been changed in this patch? Who knows. May as well hope it will be corrected.

Hmm, after reading this again if it isin't happening anymore, there's the small chance it was just a massive amount of damage being dealt in a fraction of the time it normaly is. Since the 55 build revolves around taking 5 damage per hit, with 10 pips of regen(20 health per second). Essentialy if you take over 15 hits in a second, you'll drop dead.

Yeah, I have 55 Health. Why would I be 55'ing with anything other than 55 health? I'd have called it 105'ing, or 33'ing.

No mesmers around, seeing as how the Mino's and Trolls are all fighter types... I never 55 against Mesmers, except the Reed ones outside of Toa (the damn wussies).

As to my skills? Not using anything that takes away energy as it works. And yeah, every enchantment dies and then a split second later, I drop dead.

Mending, Balthazar's Spirit, Essence Bond, Protective Spirit, Healing Breeze, Shield of Judgement, and occasionally (when I have it active) Sympathetic Visage all just dissapear and *BAM*, I hit the floor.

The problem here isn't being spiked to death either, as I've had it happen when being attacked by as few as a single, solitary mob.

There is definitely something screwy going on here, and I'm trying to figure out just what it is.

Hmm, well if you haven't already try and make a bug report to anet and tell them something screwy is going on. Make sure you detail everything about the situation including your skills and everything you've told us. Mayhaps there truly is a rare bug that maybe something you in particular are doing that makes it not so rare. I've had similar experiences where I just drop dead, though rarely, and though I could've sworn I wasn't messing something up, I just assumed somehow I did. Try and keep testing it out on the trolls and everything else you tried. This time pay close attention to what skills they're using (which can be sort of hard because the dark red text doesn't stand out much) and see if you can catch what skill it was, if any, that did you in.

BTW are you saying this happens every single time you go out and try, or just very frequently?

I've been watching the skills Nothing they were using could possibly have killed me in this manner. And it's just a frequent thing. If it was an every-time occurence, I'd be peeved rather than very curious...

That old "bonettni's defense" glitch better not be back...

I 55's elona (as a Mo/E so I wouldnt use it) and I have no problems...

I remeber some glitch with bonettni's that made enchantments go bye bye.... I really hope this isnt the case.

Something that would remove your enchantments, would be if somehow you drop within negative energy. You know the -50HP item also has energy bonusses. If at one point you suddenly no longer meet one of the requirements of the focus and are in the very low energy regions, then your energy might reduce to negative energy. If this happens, I thought it results in all your enchantments being dropped.

In your case: might it be that you're HP has dropped to below 22HP and you had a very low energy reserve? (22HP = 40% of 55HP)