Frustrating; underpowered; what to do

bandoswb

Hey, 14.3 TR, MI build, skullcracker mobs, Shadow solo target, 6 offensive slots on air archon, 3 r12 bondings, 4 rank 12 rads, 1 rank 12 brutal, 1 rank 11 brutal, mostly rank 10 brutals and black ice on character, tensors disk, 3 archons/con artist/siege master - 3 at legendary, lostmauth set, aboleth weapons - at legendary, all artifacts at mythic (tho about to swap tome for Tiamat orb) r10 vorpal. 60+k power and 20+k crit when bonded, 78.6% armpen.

And I still lose to 13k CW.

Aside from going to Orcus set, getting relic weapons (tho I am going to get stronghold set), and getting a lightning enchant (next goal); anything you have done to overcome the fact that our weapon enchantment ONLY WORKS HALF THE TIME.

Wiffle

blur

1. Keep Aboleth weapons. Weapon damage is the same for all latest weapons and only set bonus is different, which is not that important.
2. Vorpal is what works best for us TRs. If you wish to get Lightning as 2nd option do so but not at cost of Vorpal.
3. Orcus set is an improvement over the LM set.
4. Tenser is fine. Enchants are fine, use 2-stat or 3-stat ones as they have higher total stats over single-stat enchants.
5. Forget about Item Level. That number shows you almost nothing.
6. If you use Air Archon as summoned you dont need Con Artist in active 5, it is good only as summoned. Replace it with Raptor.
7. Skullcracker is basically not useful. MI Executioner with ITC feat, Back Alley Tactics feat, Dying Breath feat works well for both mobs and latest bosses.
8. Artifacts as option for primary are DC sigil, Wheel of elements, one of the Dragon hearts, GWF Sigil and Soul Sight Crystal from incoming mod.
9. It is all about rotations. Our Dailies are the key to greatness so using them as often as possible helps. Make sure you use insignia bonus Artificers Persuasion. Use Smoke Bomb+ITC+Dazing Strike/Lashing Blade. Try to keep Shadow of Demise up as much as possible. Class features are Invisible Infiltrator and Inflitrators Action(with Offhand feature).
10. Practice and try to not waste time. Position yourself good so you dont have to dodge.
11. Might not affect you but check you lag and frame rate. If those two work against you there is not much you can do.

bandoswb

Blur - thanks for thoughtful reply.

1. I know that many in my alliance are leveling stronghold weapons to get the 10% bonus, but til then, yes, i'll stick with aboleth - same stats, etc
2. I'll test lightning. Was only thinking about it for mobs.
4. I mostly have Brutal and Black Ice - I'll consider moving them onto companion. I am a HUGE believer in the increased stat points. At some level, however, the 700 power out performs the extra crit and/or recovery??
5. Yes, item level isnt that telling.
6. I keep the Con artist for the legendary bonus - you think the raptor, at purple, would outperform it?
7. Skullcracker itself isn't nearly as good as SoD, however, between Skull, Concussive strikes, Smoke bomb, My target is almost always under some control effect, thus I get 25% extra damage all the time, as opposed to 50% more crit vs one target. And I still have the 25% more when under 30% from the Executioner line. My experience tells me this created more damage to mobs. I've got back alley, i dropped Dying breath after running FBI so much - chit don't die all that often. But its time for a respec to try stuff. I have loadouts, so I do run two different builds - maybe I'll get a third to play with.
8. I use Eye of the giant - but i'll look into those you suggest
9. On single targets, SoD is up like 90% of the time. I hit dailies as often as possible - playing with using tactics, but currently have the 2 infiltrators. Insignia are artificers, cavalry, protectors, assassins, and shepards.
10. Have practiced too much

On an FBI run, I'll do 200-300 mil, depending on group make-up. With 2 dc, did 700 mil is MSPC - so its not a total power outage, but tried T9G, with a couple 15K+ GWF, and was being outdamaged 2-1. Fact is, I am just not sure of dps'ing that dungeon.

Again, thanks for the reply - you have given me lots of different angles to consider. Good stuff

Wiffle

bandoswb

On 7, meant to say 50% more damage, not crit.

blur

1. Depends on your team, the players you run with daily. If you almost always have the same party members and if they all or most of them have Stronghold weapons then it could be nice option.
However, it has been quite long since introduction of weapons which currently have the highest weapon damage and it might be too late to go after SH weapons now. I am expecting better weapons in mod13 so if that happens going for SH ones now might be waste of resources.
2. It could be nice for mob fights but we still have to wait and see if that outperforms Vorpal.
4. I would say to make sure that you get the needed ArPen (85% for Tomb) and Crit around 90% at least, some Recovery is useful (around 10k) and the rest can go into Power. The only single stat enchants i use are Darks in Utility slots, otherwise i stay away from them.
6. If you have the gear, which should not be hard since its 3 rings, use Con Artist as summoned. Raptor depends on your party members, if all have it you would have 5% damage bonus and could replace Siege Master. Swap Siege Master back in for solo stuff.
7. Problem is, even among the mobs, there are many which are CC immune and those are usually the ones with highest HP pool in the group and against them you dont have that Skullcracker buff. Use Dying Breath, it works great, only place where its useless is bosses which dont have mobs and there i replace it with Shadowborn.
8. You can use Eye of the Giant as secondary but DC sigil and Wheel are usually the best for primary, if you can get both.
10. I mean try to see where you can save time when attacking. Get to know the content and try to predict what will happen and act accordingly.

Tomb dungeon is one of the friendliest for TRs but Paingiver favors usually only 1 player, the one who takes the curse on the right will deal far more damage on Orcus fight, the one who takes curse in the middle will deal reduced damage to Orcus...

talon1970

Nothing much to say, bc @blur mentioned most of it.

Just a few things that i personally changed during the last weeks.

I have also now an loadout with dying breath against trash mob and Bosses with spawning adds, still using my old loadout with shadowborn against single Bosses.
I took also @sirjimbofrancis advice, swapping mount powers during an run, so against trash mobs i am using gladiators guille, swapping it against bosses for Protectors friendship.
The runspeed bonus from GG is not only fun, it helps me alot just to jump out AoE attacks, or jumping behind an target, without dodging, bc i have still the relic weapons, so i have way more often the offensive instead the defensive bonus up.

Weapons: The Aboleth are fine, for sure and since the devs fixed the dancing bug, they are even better, but in our alliance, we Tr's discussed a few things, and drakka and me were thinking the same, that MasterworkII are the best, but we both thought, that the Fey weapons from the RD campaign could be the second best weapons, bc of the chance to get AP faster up.
But as blur mentioned, stick with your weapon, they are good enough, but personally, if they are new weapons in further mods, and one of them have an similar bonus, with AP gain, i'll go for them, defenitely.

Let me explain why, many Tr's have discussed about the complexity of our Rotations, how easily we could be interrupted and so on, but with an high AP Gain, for me, it becomes easier to have an daily ready, at the point when all buffs and debuffs are up.
So this is also the reason, why i have swapped out my wheel for the Dc artifact (and not to mention, how often someone was also using it, and i have somewhat useful like wind or earth boon, instead my fire...looking at you natsu)
So all of this, helped me to improve my dps output and (but this is our Guild Philosphy) running mostly with 4 support and 1 pure dps, so i have no "battle" against another dps char.

So also guildwise, some members like natsu, gonzaid and me discussed abot some bosses, and why an Tr are often not in that good shape, the funny thing is..most bosses have not that much HP, that an Tr could perform well.
So in FBI an good (and they are still rarely) dps Gf, could deal an massive dps, and then some feats from the exe tree are again wasted, like @micky1p00 stated out in the past.
Not to mention the interruption from Hatti, Turtle, Drufis running mode and the struggle to build up bleeding stacks against them.
And again, Dc Sigil help me now alot, sadly to say, i don't care that much anymore to play "technically perfect" with bleeding stacks and so on, i am trying now to firing up one daily after another. (Still disappointed that some of the suggestion were made are not invented to our class)
And this is, why i love to run TonG, all three Bosses have alot of HP, are not that much into interrupting an Tr, even if Ras Nih is in the invulnerable mode, we can easily stack the bleeding up to 10.