When is it time to switch up, if at all.

salvini262

Hi All, first let me explain, i'm writing this at work so sorry about the vagueness of my stats.
I'm a 3.2k fully buffy GF with, from memory lvl 10/ 11 enchants. I've started doing the new content (river district) and as all buffy GF find out is that the solo stuff is slow heavy grind.
So as an experiment I tentatively switched my belt and cloak over to something that would give me a little more DPS. I know your gonna ask me what did you switch out but like I said i'm at work and this is from memory Lol.
Long story short the results were good (ish) but then I did castle never and I was....... shaky at best, where normally I can do him with my eyes shut.

My question is have I tried hybridizing to soon? When would you say it's time to switch? or do I just suck it up and stay true to my calling.

Thankyou in advance.

zekehubris

I'm a 3K conqueror with nothing higher than rank 8s and don't have trouble tanking Orcus. You may just need to tweak a few things.

dread4moor

I assume you mean switching from a defensive set (eg. Seldarine or Lathander) to a DPS set (eg. Orcus or Lostmauth).
Maybe this will change with the upcoming Loadout feature, but Artifact sets are rarely game-breaking improvements, certainly not enough to switch out all your enchants everything you go from party to solo.
IMHO, it is your build and playstyle that have greatest effect on your ability to efficiently solo buff or tank, not one price of gear like an artifact set.

slapdrive

Only survival difference I can think of is if you switched from Valhalla set or a life steal set like Seldarine to something like Lostmauth or Orcus, the former are noticeable on your ability to survive(like they are suppose to be, but not by too much) so it might take time getting use to the later(life steal and damage mitigation are great tank stats after all). As zekehubris said, you might just need to tweak a few things and see what you lost... it's hard to really say without knowing what you did precisely.

Even in full dps gear a modest geared GF should have it easy at orcus, the run may have just been laggy tbh.

salvini262

Thanks guy's When I get home I'll check what I changed.......... I hadn't thought of lag tbh, or even just getting to grips with a new set. I must stress that it wasn't a complete wipe out with orcus, it was just more touch and go than normal.
Also if i'm gonna be tetchy with orcus whats it gonna be like with bigger bosses, which is why I want to sort it out now rather than later.
I will return!!!

rjc9000

salvini262 said:

Hi All, first let me explain, i'm writing this at work so sorry about the vagueness of my stats.
I'm a 3.2k fully buffy GF with, from memory lvl 10/ 11 enchants. I've started doing the new content (river district) and as all buffy GF find out is that the solo stuff is slow heavy grind.
So as an experiment I tentatively switched my belt and cloak over to something that would give me a little more DPS. I know your gonna ask me what did you switch out but like I said i'm at work and this is from memory Lol.
Long story short the results were good (ish) but then I did castle never and I was....... shaky at best, where normally I can do him with my eyes shut.

My question is have I tried hybridizing to soon? When would you say it's time to switch? or do I just suck it up and stay true to my calling.

Thankyou in advance.

Ugh, don't remind me about how awful it is to solo as a Tactician...

To answer your question...

Whenever you feel like you're ready. There won't be some magic fairy who pokes you with a wand and pronounces you DPS GF. This is something you'll need to play around with yourself.

Your choice of belt/cloak won't make a huge impact on your ability to tank. At the end of the day, it is still about you being able to time your powers/shield correctly.

Orcus can actually be harder to tank than other bosses. An example would be to compare the FBI/Svardborg manticores versus Orcus.

The manticores appear in harder instances, but Orcus is harder to tank. The manticores actually give you time to breath and react, whereas Orcus hits for 700kish base damage and swings much faster than any other boss I've encountered.

Orcus, in short, is a cheap ****er that was pretty much designed so teams are forced to get a tank for the sake of having one. I wouldn't worry about him too much.

grimah

Swap when you have AD

I've jumped from feytouched to plaguefire to feytouched again and now vorpal.

Gear I've gone from seldarine to lostmauth to valhalla and now orcus during hte refinement weekends.

As long as you are comfortable that you can survive and tank successfully you can switch it up, it also depends on how well you can carry a team.

After getting my HP chest piece from thrones and the DC changes I noticed I didn't need any survival/debuff things to tank all content fine so I felt comfortable switching to more damage and lower my survivablity. (I hit over 200k hp also so I don't need to cap my DR either). It all depends on what thresholds you set and makes you comfortable.

The biggest things that you will notice the difference from my experience is losing DR debuffs, like plaguefire, dancing shield etc. As I occasionally run with really weak groups the clear time is noticably slower.

mebengalsfan

From my experience, Orcus can be done without a healer and without using steel defense if you time your moves just right. I have done it a few times, but if you are having lag issues or are messing up the timing, Steel Defense and a good healer can help get you over the hump.

Not sure if you are using an artifact set or not. I started off liking the Seladine set and quickly realize how crappy the set bonus was and moved onto the LoL waist for better DPS and Lathander neck for some defensive stats. I recently moved away from those items over to the Valhalla set as the whole set is well balanced for tanks: HP, CON, DEX, Defense, Deflect, Critical Strike, Power and Recovery. This set provides me with the stats I wanted for my GF and the set bonus does damage reduction on targets that hit you which stacks with the damage reduction that Combat Superiority provides.

Insigna bonuses, boons, companions and bonding stones play a vital role in any good build. Using my CW as an example, she is a 2.6K CW but has beaten plenty of 3K+ IL DPS that were using incorrect companions, incorrect feat distribution, lack boons, etc...

salvini262

Hi Guys sorry for the late reply but work has an ability to kick my HAMSTER from time to time.

Just to keep you posted I ran the Orkus set (from Lathander) a few more times through Castle Never and got better and better. 

So I think it was a combination of me not knowing the intricacies of the new set and our good old friend Mr LAG.
Thankyou everybody for your reply's, much appreciated.

On another note @rjc9000. I've just respec to your "together we ride" build. Love it by the way, big kudos to yourself!!, and on this double refinement weekend I will switch again to the Valhalla set and give that a run through.

 P.S I'd love to meet the DPS fairy, I bet she's smoking hot but has one hell of a mean handshake  

rjc9000

Combat Superiority only works for the GF, not for the party....

salvini262 said:

Hi Guys sorry for the late reply but work has an ability to kick my HAMSTER from time to time.

Just to keep you posted I ran the Orkus set (from Lathander) a few more times through Castle Never and got better and better. 

So I think it was a combination of me not knowing the intricacies of the new set and our good old friend Mr LAG.
Thankyou everybody for your reply's, much appreciated.

On another note @rjc9000. I've just respec to your "together we ride" build. Love it by the way, big kudos to yourself!!, and on this double refinement weekend I will switch again to the Valhalla set and give that a run through.

 P.S I'd love to meet the DPS fairy, I bet she's smoking hot but has one hell of a mean handshake  

Glad to hear you're reworking, the world community could always use more heroes GFs.

I can totally sympathize with work tiring you, except, for me, it's college work. I haven't been on as much lately since I had a lot of things to do (finish Calculus homework! write an essay! read philosophy stuff! research stuff for Biology!).

PS: I met the DPS Fairy. She goes by the name of " @d66723225 ". Your mileage may vary on appearance, but she's not very talkative.

(I can't tell if Snoo is super annoyed with me or is silently cringing ...)