8 replies to this topic

[indure]

Thought I might start a post to theory-craft how guardians can best gear/spec/combat against the new Agony mechanic that will be present in Fractals of the Mists dungeon. The information for the update can be seen here.

From the little information known: Agony will act as an unavoidable debuff that stacks in intensity and will degen health at a percentage overtime. So hypothetically it will start at 1% health per tick, and will gain in intensity until it exceeds the player's healing potential and kills the player.

Anet will be implementing special gear, called Ascended Gear that will have infusion slots that can be used to help mitigate the damage caused by Agony. This of course will be the primary mechanic players use to combat Agony, but it is not the only one. If we take the gear out of the equation, the most straight forward way of combating against Agony is by having low life and high regen; enter the guardian, a class specifically design to do just that. The guardian has the lowest base health in the game and the highest self healing, so it is uniquely design to combat Agony.

Looking at the current meta builds for the guardian, most have no emphasis what so ever on +healing power and heavy interest in Vitality/Toughness. I personally think that this is going to change for the new dungeon. Perhaps I am over thinking the Agony mechanic, but if Agony is going to be as challenging as Anet makes it sound, then having both Ascended gear and gear that minimizing Vitality and maximizes Healing Power is going to be important. I would recommend purchasing/crafting some cleric gear now, because this gear might shoot up in value after the patch is implemented.

Would be interested on hearing any further thoughts or feelings on the topic from any other Guardians.

[AndrewSX]

We still do not know how Ascended gear will counter Agony.

That's the important thing. If you have to face Agony w/o A Gear, then yes, low Vit and high HPower are the best way to go - apart getting AGear.

Point is: wit AGear on, what does happen when Agony hits you?

It's weaker? Does nothing? It's removable as any condition?

This is the thing that will determine how to react. Which means, theorycrafting before the 15th means nothing.

[G L J]

AndrewSX, on 14 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

This is the thing that will determine how to react. Which means, theorycrafting before the 15th means nothing.

While theory crafting is largely diminished in value, it does have it's merit. We know what happens when Agony hits you - you take % based damage over time. We just don't know how the infusions deal with agony.

I can easily see Knight's armor (Power, Precision, Toughness) and Clerics armor (Healing Power, Power, Toughness) being the big two to take into the dungeons. Sadly, Soldier's armor (Power, Toughness, Vitality) takes quite a bit of a hit in terms of viability because the Vitality becomes a liability.

Additionally, builds will have to be more team oriented in the past - meaning I probably can't get away with rolling 20/0/10/20/20 spirit weapons anymore.

indure, on 14 November 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

Looking at the current meta builds for the guardian, most have no emphasis what so ever on +healing power and heavy interest in Vitality/Toughness.

Because, for the most part, Healing Power is a very weak stat for guardians. It demands a primary focus, which weakens your overall performance, and the guardian's healing ratios aren't that high.

Edited by G L J, 14 November 2012 - 06:46 PM.

[indure]

AndrewSX, on 14 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

We still do not know how Ascended gear will counter Agony.
That's the important thing. If you have to face Agony w/o A Gear, then yes, low Vit and high HPower are the best way to go - apart getting AGear.
Point is: wit AGear on, what does happen when Agony hits you?

It's weaker? Does nothing? It's removable as any condition?

This is the thing that will determine how to react. Which means, theorycrafting before the 15th means nothing.

We know nothing, but we can assume quite a bit.

"This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge."

From the quote we can assume that parts of Fractals of the Mist are clearable without infusions, and that Agony gets harsher the further you go in, or possibly the longer you are in the dungeon. We also know that infusions increase resistance to Agony and that you will need mulitple infusions to build up your resistance. From the wording (resistance and building) we can assume that it will make Agony weaker, it will not completely negate Agony, and it will most likely not allow you to completely remove the condition, although it may help you keep the intensity at more manageable levels.

We also know that there are 3 basic infusion types Defensive, Offensive, and Omni. Meaning that infusions have to do more then provide passive resistance. I would wager, (especially after the outcry in the main forums) that they don't provide more attributes, because it would strongly suggest that Anet is implementing a gear treadmill and they have stated that is not their intentions.

[jpg1]

It's Spectral Agony without the Spectral.

I think Indure has the right of it - it most likely will not be removed completely, although I wouldn't want to assume too much as to invest on another armor set (which increases Healing Power, unless ANet is planning to make it scale better.)

That status was still inflicted on players with infused Armor who dealt with the Mursaat but it took little health after. I don't know how much they've change it apart from getting lazy with the name. But it will be a bit harder seeing as it is not tied to any monster but to the zone itself. Nonetheless, it's tied to a particular zone and will not really impact majority of the game content.

To me it's just part of the quests' objective - we'd have to see first how tough getting hold of the gears and infusions will be.

Creepy Seers a' coming.

[Ranzok]

I would like to know more about this too. How has everyone's testing gone? Have a decent amount of people gotten far enough to notice a difference? Is healing power more viable now compared to vitality being so strong?

[Absintheminded]

According to the Infusions on GW2DB, it will have a duration and can be resisted.

edit: In reference to changing the meta game, I seriously doubt that. People normally don't go +healing power on guardians for a reason, it's under-tuned. Get your ascended gear and infusions, and keep playing how you were before. You're not going to outsmart or out-trait a mechanic.

Edited by Absintheminded, 18 November 2012 - 01:45 PM.

[Geralt Romalion]

Agony seems to last 3 seconds at lv 10 and lv 11, and it seemed like it can be stacked in intensity.
From what I have seen high vitality helps here.
I usually sit between 17-19k health on my guardian, and where I can survive 4x agony in a row ( unless stacked, then it gets harder ) I have seen team mates getting one-shotted by it ( from 100% to 0% in seconds ).

Picture below is what the tooltip has to say about it.

http://puu.sh/1rVk7

Edited by Geralt Romalion, 19 November 2012 - 12:04 PM.

[Absintheminded]

Vitality is irrelevant as far as Agony goes, its damage is based on a % of your health. As far as taking hits and damage from other Conditions well, Vitality helps you as it normally would.