Improving PvX Spiritway

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu

Which is why I don't usually bring BoTM on my MB which I only use in areas with lots of corpses since spirits already help to tank well enough. Typo. I meant to say i didnt use spirits to tank. I flag my heroes in a diamond, with MoW at the front, the 2 rits back a bit and to the side, and the hench in the back. It's the most efficient thing i've found so far, and im going to give dark bond a try on my next dungeon and see how that works. Should compliment my flagging setup nicely, provided that the minions live long enough.

My rits and hench rarely fall under attack, except on the odd occasion when a rit attracts random aoe. The different heroes/hench are far enough away that i only get into trouble if the 4 hench that can't be flagged apart get focused on.

Quote: Originally Posted by Life Bringing

Typo. I meant to say i didnt use spirits to tank. I flag my heroes in a diamond, with MoW at the front, the 2 rits back a bit and to the side, and the hench in the back. It's the most efficient thing i've found so far, and im going to give dark bond a try on my next dungeon and see how that works. Should compliment my flagging setup nicely, provided that the minions live long enough.

My rits and hench rarely fall under attack, except on the odd occasion when a rit attracts random aoe. The different heroes/hench are far enough away that i only get into trouble if the 4 hench that can't be flagged apart get focused on. Nice! Besides using dark bond, my MB is also the only hero with a superior rune so he tends to attract the monsters more than and away from the rits.

I should give your formation a try, the next time I use spiritway.

Here's just a brief idea of the setup in a screen. As you can see, the three heroes and the hench(as a group) are all out of adjacent range of each other, which saves you from most aoe. The hench ball is a good half of an agro bubble away from where the minions will stop the incoming melee/casters. It also keeps the spirits close enough where they can kill everything without having to worry about enemies being too far away.

To pull, ill precast spirits in this formation and pull out my longbow. Grab the group and pull through the MM. I usually end up just a bit past my henchmen before i turn around to start calling targets. The MB is usually pretty good about protting himself, but i usually will micro prot spirit on him during the pull, and SoA once i turn around.

This is the setup i used for frostmaws. Ward of stability was a huge help because it made worms and incubi harmless. Because of how i pulled and setup my henchmen, worms almost never even reached my MB. Since the ~8 worms all pop up right on top of each other and throw out a decent amount of aoe damage when they do, whatever minions i had brought their health to ~35%, and from there it was just FH spamming until they died. I tailor spiritway just slightly to the area im in. The build is so universal that very little buildwars is needed.

I've attached a couple more screens, but nothing that i was aiming for time on.

http://img717.imageshack.us/i/gw192.jpg/

Vlox lvl 3. Took my time and was still quick.

http://img64.imageshack.us/i/gw191k.jpg/

Vlox lvl 2. Also took my time here, especially because i didn't really know my way around the dungeon. Couple deaths, but nothing major(mostly due to me being lazy or setting up spirits in a bad spot). Only had 1 death during Bellok, which i was reasonably proud of.

http://img153.imageshack.us/i/gw189.jpg/

Raven's last lvl. By no means a difficult dungeon, but still did it flawlessly. This was before Jeydra got me experimenting in only 1 healer hench, so i have both. I brought AoU because 100b/triple chop/barrage are really annoying. Abundance of corpses made it unnecessary though(plus heroes are terrible with it)

Mkay. Reformatted the article a bit so it's easier to read. Agony was supposed to be Anguish. Funny how some people were being retards and didn't guess. Lulz.

Quote: Originally Posted by Life Bringing Optionals aren't exactly a great thing. Heroes suck at Painful Bond, which is why it's not mainbarred. Putting botm on the mm and not mainbarring minions is stupid. They cast PB on when there are mutltiple foes running around. But they won't cast it on lone targets as fast which does make sense because there is no point wasting 15e on something thats going o die in seconds anyway.

My article suggests at least one animate spell or AotL on the bar so BotM is not stupid. :>

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Your SoS Rit:

It is not enough to simply show us the skills that you have placed in your optional, you have to work out the attribute split for those skills as well. Some of those skills need certain level of attribute investment to be effective which is going to impact your attribute points for your restoration. Also, are you suggesting 0 spawning for your rit. Not relevant. I will ad the attributes splits if I get to updating the article but they should be obvious for anyone leaving input in this thread.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Your Communing Rit:

Agony is a channeling skill, as Essence Snow has already pointed out, and so is Spirit Siphon as its variant. How much do you intend to put into channeling? Isn't it obvious that I meant Anguish? =/

Fix'd.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Your MB:

Mixing Bone Minions with Bone Fiends is not a good idea. Bone Fiends are expensive with 25e per minion, while you get 2 bone minions per corpse but your MM can only sustain a limited number of minions. Your bone minions would tend to replace your expensive bone fiends. Bone fiends also make the worst minion bombs since they stay in the back line and are expensive to create. Orly? Ya I'm aware. Thanks for pointing this out, captain obvious.

I don't run bone minions with AotL for the same reason. Dont like when lvl21 horrors get replaced with lvl15 minions. My article doesnt suggest doing that. Fiends are for damage. I don't like them but some people run them so I thought I'd add.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Aegis is more useful than SoA since you already have PS for single target protection.

How much do you want to put into curses for Enfeebling Blood? Aegis is meh and henchies have it sometimes. Chaining it is redundant. On other hand SoA is much more effective and it doesnt hurt to have several copies of it if henchies run it. :>

You dump trhe remainder into curses. I thought some people would cry for weakness when SoS doesnt run curses and added it. Not sure if it should stay though.

Quote: Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard

Discord looks weak as an optional. True stoy. Completely redundant damage heroes won't even get it through before targets die most of the time. I though Discord lovers would cry but...screw them. :3 Removed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard ST should be an optional elite for the Communing Rit. SoGM clearly does more damage but ST means the hero will always have the energy for expensive spirits, less affected by spirits dying, and is more mobile. Hmm. I saw a few other people suggest it before. May add to variants for the reasons life mentioned. Quote: Originally Posted by Faye Aeris the problems with the PvX build are survivability Uhm...wat. Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu That further proves that minion tanking is not as necessary as what some people claim, in most areas, if you already have spirits to help you tank. Lol. Don't use spirits to tank. They die and there goes your lolimba damage. You use minions to tank mobs or in Life's case, MoW since there were no minions. :> Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu I should give your formation a try, the next time I use spiritway. I thought everyone uses that formation. It's super obvious. o.o; (although I kinda guessed that you wouldnt after your "tank using spirits" coments :P) Turns out not everyone so I may as well add it to usage section. It really boosts the performance of this build.

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount Not relevant. I will ad the attributes splits if I get to updating the article but they should be obvious for anyone leaving input in this thread. If you don't post the attribute split, then your build is not realistic. You can list all the best optional skills from all different attributes into one bar but without a realistic attribute distribution, it is not going to be effective. Go try SoH with 3 to smiting for example.

In trying to "improve" the pvx spiritway, you have fallen for the same trap. You are trying to do too much by cramping all the cool skills that you can think of into a 3-heroes build without considering your attribute spread.

Quote: I don't run bone minions with AotL for the same reason. Dont like when lvl21 horrors get replaced with lvl15 minions. My article doesnt suggest doing that. Your article doesn't suggest NOT doing that either, since you listed Aotl along with animate bone minions as optionals.

Unfortunately, your level 21 horrors die harder than level 15 minions, making them worse bombs than the minions. If they hardly die then they hardly generate damage from DN. That means your build is too defensive.

The purpose of playing a MB is to allow minions to explode for damage. The more damage you have, the faster you generate fresh corpses, for new minions to animate. Besides with spirits, you should not need to rely on minions solely for tanking.

Quote: Fiends are for damage. I don't like them but some people run them so I thought I'd add. Looks like you cant decide whether you want a MM or a MB. Fiends are best left for a different type of MM who seeks to preserve expensive backline fiends to trigger skills like barbs, MoP, or OoU. On the other hand, a MB explodes cheap melee minions for damage at the frontline. The hero plays a MB better than a fiend MM, by the way.

When one asks for comments on something...then proceeds to insult those who make comments, you can only expect reactions. Daesu pretty much pointed out some of the things I would have liked to, but beat me to it. Only thing I care to add is that the agony/anguish thing...remember u also put Spirit Siphon as an optional for that build which, is also a channeling skill....so by having two channeling skills it is not apparent that u meant anguish. Only thing that was obvious was that neither belonged in the build.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu It is funny how you call everyone retards when you cant even tell the difference between Agony and Anguish. Nothing else i can call you. I told you I mixed up the names and you still don't get it. Lol. :S

Quote: If you don't post the attribute split, then your build is not realistic. You can list all the best optional skills from all different attributes into one bar but without a realistic attribute distribution, it is not going to be effective. Go try SoH with 3 to smiting for example. You should know it. I'm more concerned with actual skill choice right now. I think I should make a general bar and then various SoS Rit variants in minibars.

Quote: Your article doesn't suggest NOT doing that either, since you listed Aotl along with animate bone minions as optionals. I'm not writing the article for myself, I'm writing it for the people. Some may run minions. =/

Quote: Unfortunately, your level 21 horrors die harder than level 15 minions, making them worse bombs than the minions. If they hardly die then they hardly generate damage from DN. That means your build is too defensive. They still die very fast. You actually get more DNs through with high lvl minions. Think of it.

Nothing stops you from running minions though. Lol. Optionals are there for a reason.

Quote: The purpose of playing a MB is to allow minions to explode for damage. The more damage you have, the faster you generate fresh corpses, for new minions to animate. Besides with spirits, you should not need to rely on minions solely for tanking. K more obviousness. So? You don't want all of your minions to explode when you run a MB. =/

seems odd, last time i played spirits sucked, and rits where lackluster
i prefered the stronger minions rather than having two level ones that die very easily

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount You should know it. I'm more concerned with actual skill choice right now. I think I should make a general bar and then various SoS Rit variants in minibars. Whatever, you need to get your attribute spread right and not simply list all the skills you can think of, for a realistic skill bar.

Quote: They still die very fast. You actually get more DNs through with high lvl minions. Think of it. If they die fast then your point of having level 21 minions is moot isn't it? You might as well run level 15 minions and still get similar result.

I have been running animate bone minions (level 15 minions) with Aotl without BoTM in HM and still have enough tanking for my caster team.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu If they die fast then your point of having level 21 minions is moot isn't it? You might as well run level 15 minions and still get similar result. They die fast enough not to have an effect on how much damage you generate with DN. But still provide better wall and damage. So you don't lose anything, just gain.

Quote: Yes I am sure that happens to you a lot. Are you trying to say that your minions are 1337er than mine or something? Lol =/

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount They die fast enough not to have an effect on how much damage you generate with DN. But still provide better wall and damage. So you don't lose anything, just gain. Realize that you are contradicting yourself in the same sentence. If they die fast enough, then they wont make much of a wall would they?

Quote:

If it works well you don't need any redbar at all. You always need some amount of red barring in PvE. Quote: Some may need an extra monk hench then there is no real need to take Aegis on the MB unless they suck so bad that they need to chain it. Hence why I want to just include it in the optionals. Why would you need an extra monk hench then?

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Realize that you are contradicting yourself in the same sentence. If they die fast enough, then they wont make much of a wall would they? Not contradicting myself at all. They die slower than Bone Minions and thus make a better wall. But still fast enough not to reduce the damage you generate from DN explosions.

Quote:

You always need some amount of red barring in PvE. Maybe. One redbar is usually enough for when you run with Spiritway. Quote: Why would you need an extra monk hench then? Dunno. Some people just suck. I only take one Monk hench to heal me.

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount Not contradicting myself at all. They die slower than Bone Minions and thus make a better wall. But still fast enough not to reduce the damage you generate from DN explosions. Define fast enough. If they die slower than bone minions then you are not generating as much damage as you could have.

Quote: Maybe. One redbar is usually enough for when you run with Spiritway.

Dunno. Some people just suck.

I only take one Monk hench to heal me. Then why did you say this?

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Define fast enough. If they die slower than bone minions then you are not generating as much damage as you could have. Hardly. You actually generate more because less minions die with no DN on them.

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount Hardly. You actually generate more because less minions die with no DN on them. If you only rely on Aotl for your level 20 melee minions then you can only animate every 45s. If you dont have enough minions then you are still not generating enough damage, especially when they are hit with strong AoE.

Quote: Me? Depends but usually Healer. So I have Aegis stuck on m Nec most of the time. So if you have Aegis stuck on your nec most of the time, and you usually only bring the healer hench (that does not have Aegis), why put Aegis as a variant instead of the main bar?

Your reasoning of:

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu If you only rely on Aotl for your level 20 melee minions then you can only animate every 45s. If you dont have enough minions then you are still not generating enough damage, especially when they are hit with strong AoE. I got 11 minions most of the time. Stop being bad at theorycrafting, you are making it sound like every time a mob is cleared, AotL is magically put on a 45s cd without summoning any minions.

Considering how "long" (not) the battles last with spiritway I simply see no need in summoning minions mid-battle. AotL is usually recharged or nearing it when a mob is cleared. At any rate it takes the same time to wait for it to fnish cd as to exploit the mobs with minion animates.

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount I got 11 minions most of the time. Stop being bad at theorycrafting, you are making it sound like every time a mob is cleared, AotL is magically put on a 45s cd without summoning any minions.

Considering how "long" (not) the battles last with spiritway I simply see no need in summoning minions mid-battle. AotL is usually recharged or nearing it when a mob is cleared. At any rate it takes the same time to wait for it to fnish cd as to exploit the mobs with minion animates. Then you must be playing a different game from me because I actually tried your build with Aotl as the only animate spell and BoTM. I usually end up with only 5 minions at most and sometimes 0 minions in the middle of a battle. This is in HM by the way.

The hero AI also doesn't always cast Aotl at the end of the battle, it casts Aotl whenever it ends like an enchantment, which is another reason why you don't get level 21 horrors (unless you micro Aotl), you get level 20, even though at 16 Death, the duration is longer than the recharge. This means at 16 Death, your hero would wait longer than 45s to recast your Aotl. Furthermore, the hero AI doesn't always cast Masochism before casting Aotl so sometimes you even get level 18 bone horrors replacing your level 20s.

The point is, relying on Aotl for higher level minions doesn't make sense in HM. As a MB, you need more minions and a faster/cheaper way to animate them in mid battle so bringing animate bone minions is more realistic than just relying on Aotl for your bombs. The difference between a level 20 bone horror and a level 16 minion is only about 31 armor, which buys you about what, 5s with HM damage? This is why MBs are so effective in HM because they specialize in churning out fresh minions in mid battles fast and cheap.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu So if you have Aegis stuck on your nec most of the time, and you usually only bring the healer hench (that does not have Aegis), why put Aegis as a variant instead of the main bar?

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu Then you must be playing a different game from me because I actually tried your build with Aotl as the only animate spell and BoTM. I usually end up with only 5 minions at most and sometimes 0 minions in the middle of a battle. This is in HM by the way. We are playing the same game but I play it differently.

Quote:

The hero AI also doesn't always cast Aotl at the end of the battle, it casts Aotl whenever it ends like an enchantment, which is another reason why you don't get level 21 horrors (unless you micro Aotl), you get level 20, even though at 16 Death, the duration is longer than the recharge. This means at 16 Death, your hero would wait longer than 45s to recast your Aotl. Furthermore, the hero AI doesn't always cast Masochism before casting Aotl so sometimes you even get level 18 bone horrors replacing your level 20s. The point is, relying on Aotl for higher level minions doesn't make sense in HM. As a MB, you need more minions and a faster/cheaper way to animate them in mid battle so bringing animate bone minions is more realistic than just relying on Aotl for your bombs. The difference between a level 20 bone horror and a level 16 minion is only about 31 armor, which buys you about what, 5s with HM damage? This is why MBs are so effective in HM because they specialize in churning out fresh minions in mid battles fast and cheap. I am aware of that. I micro AotL. I always micro something in my builds and see nothing wrong with it. You seem to be demanding efficiency from my build and yet are thinking on such a primitive level of playing. There aren't many things you need to micro in Spiritway and checking on two spells every 20s or so doesn't take allot of effort. I'd say microing the paragon hero for W/N 100b Raptor Farmer requires more effort than microing AotL. Nice wall of text btw. I just skipped through it but I think it's enough to adress the major points you have made. Quote: Tell him not to do that in your guide? If they would only bring 1 monk hench, they usually bring the healer hench anyway instead of the protection hench. Will do. I think I will re-write it on my PvX page alongside fixed 6-man necroway and discordway (I want to post those here too) in one fell swoop and just link it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Myotheraccount We are playing the same game but I play it differently. If playing the very builds that you have listed is not going to be effective then your guide is not worth much.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu If playing the very builds that you have listed is not going to be effective then your guide is not worth much. No matter how many times I'm going to tell you that the builds I listed are not the builds I run youre not going to understand it seems. They are effective and you can fit them with various optional skills to fit your playstyle best.

I for one, prefer to play smart. That means I can easily fit in Fall Back! and more offensive capabilities on my MB at the cost of doing something as simple as microing one spell and flagging my heroes properly.

That is me. Others have their ways of playing this build so they can easily adapt thanks to the optionals. That was the whole idea.