Getting the most out of BM in PvE

rawrtigerrawr · February 2018

This is mostly just a collection of questions / thoughts about getting the most out of BM in PvE. I'm writing this from the PoV of a r9+12/10 BM with **** star chart and card set. I've been joining 6-man DDH runs and I want to contribute as much as I can. My knowledge about BMs is largely outdated (got back to PWI after a few years), but I think what's limiting me more is the lack of knowledge about other classes and how various debuffs interact with each other (see Glacial Spike section).

River Avalanche / Ocean's Edge / Drake's Ray
Question: When nuking we should avoid using skills that might interrupt. River Avalanche is one of those. Can the freeze effect from Ocean's Edge and Drake's Ray interrupt too?
I was thinking that using Argent glyphs on all three of them would help with damage and make them safe to use while nuking.

Glacial Spike
Does it even make a difference with SB ult going? Honestly, I don't recall other BMs ever using it when I joined FSP/UP runs with my alts. It feels like I see a noticeable spike of damage when I use GS after HF (I start with HF because normally the nuke is over before it runs out and it's the more potent debuff of the two). Of course, it might simply be that others using big hits coincides with my GS and that gives me that impression.

Glyph Choice for PvE
Argent on River Avalanche, Ocean's Edge and Drake's Ray to remove the interrupt effects and boost damage.
Golden on HF for the HF->GS combo without Cloud Eruption
At first I thought I won't use any Ethereal glyphs since you don't really get to use up that chi when you nuke. Ideally I'd use damaging glyphs on Ferocious Leap and Army Crusher, but I don't think I can afford that many glyphs and I'll need those Ethereals for PvP.

I'd appreciate some advice on these topics (the previous thread I created turned out great

).

--
Goatleaf

shopcheese · February 2018

Bosses are immune to freezing and stun skills, I've never had any issues with using such skills as long you avoid actual interrupting skills (smack, sage star smite, whatever other bm skills that interrupts, but also auto attacks)
Then again do bms even use river during a nuke ? I thought it was too slow for dps.

Glacial Spike - it depends. Normally I see bm choose to spark over using glacial assuming they are at least r9, but thats only if your squad already can provide the debuffs themselves, and what type of damage they are. Forexample, the physical defense debuff are easy to find (you have sb ulti + mire + prolly another pdef debuff from veno or db or alike) but the magical debuff are harder to find a good one of. You'll typically have a weaker one from the sb and that is probably also good enough, but it could turn out to be better to use glacial if all your main DDs are magical instead of physical. Its also depends on what damage you could provide yourself spark vs buffing your magic team mates with glacial.

alsdfiu#3037 · February 2018

Interrupts generally aren't an issue when nuking.

For pve I tend to spark and hf.

I tend to have Ethereal glyphs on Ferocious Leap, Ocean's Edge, and Drake's ray. Sanguine glyph on River Avalanche. Golden Glyph on hf. And Verdant glyph on Army Crusher. The army crusher glyph is mostly there from pvp though.

River Avalanche can hit stupidly hard if you max chi. Before the update when there wasn't time to even reach 50% with valkyrie's might while nuking I was able to hit 17mil on last boss in UPD. Post update I could probably break 20mil in the same circumstances on my bm.

rawrtigerrawr · February 2018

As for the interrupts - I have no proof that this is what happens, but sometimes when nuking bosses do seem to switch to the next phase quicker than usual and become immune. At that point somebody always yells "WHO INTERRUPTED" and they start looking for the guilty. Besides the obvious skills that interrupt ("no spell cutter" became a mantra for some groups I ran with) I've seen barbs get blamed for Mighty Swing and some of the new classes for skills the names of which I cannot recall. If you start playing (again) when everybody and their mother have ran dUP a billion times and all they do is nuke-nuke-nuke it's really hard to find reliable sources of information on mechanics. Most of the time even those who grew old nuking don't exactly know what's going on and stand dumbfounded when something goes wrong. /rant

The bottom line is - based on what I've seen people say I was under the impression that basically any skill with CC attached to it (or at least stun/paralyze) can "interrupt" the boss and mess up the nuke.

I like the idea of using the red glyph on River Avalanche. I guess the sequence would be Spark->Cloud Eruption->Ulti->HF(gold)->FL(blue)->OE(blue)->DR(blue)->RA(red) to max chi before using RA. I tested glyphed RA on the ranking mob thingy and with 2.5 sparks (which is what you can expect to have in that combo) I hit twice as hard with sanguine glyph as I do with argent glyph.

shopcheese · February 2018

There was a period on my server where everybody seemed to believe interrupting is what u have to do, on the right timings etc. Lots of time it failed, and sometimes it took so long time to nuke someone would have to go.
One day my old DHJ squad decided to avoid using ANY interrupts, and it died in 1 try. Two weeks straight, it died in 1 try while we were doing 0 interrupts. After that it became pretty quickly do-not-interrup on my server. Of course sometimes it can fail anyway.
Now normally CC skills are not the greatest dps skills so I havent really noticed if they do anything since people dont tend to spam that during nuke, but in my experience I havent seen any case where using it mattered. I would say its uncomfirmed, but people tend to be better safe than sorry.

most bms i know use the reduced casting time on river, btw. Probably also what i would choose as it takes so long time to cast. unless you for some reason want it to be ur last-hit skill always, then i could see a damage glyph on it would work

alsdfiu#3037 · February 2018

rawrtigerrawr wrote: »

I like the idea of using the red glyph on River Avalanche. I guess the sequence would be Spark->Cloud Eruption->Ulti->HF(gold)->FL(blue)->OE(blue)->DR(blue)->RA(red) to max chi before using RA. I tested glyphed RA on the ranking mob thingy and with 2.5 sparks (which is what you can expect to have in that combo) I hit twice as hard with sanguine glyph as I do with argent glyph.

I usually use chi apoth during that combo to be at full chi for the last hit.

rawrtigerrawr · February 2018

Hmm, back to GS for a moment. I'm probably missing something obvious...

The description of GS reads

Reduces Physical Defense by 90% and Magic Defense by 60%.

The description of SB util reads

Also reduces Physical and Magic Defense by 80% for enemy players, or by 40% for non-player enemies.

If I'm not mistaken GS is the strongest debuff of its kind barring 0-def Ironwood proc. Ironwood, cleric's seals, barb's Penetrate Armor and GS all overwrite each other while SB ult stacks with them (I don't know if it's additive or multiplicative, though; Debuffs do go above 100% as evidenced by demon Ironwood). Why is it that SB ult is valued so highly while GS is often forgotten altogether?

alsdfiu#3037 · February 2018

In PVE anything past 100% pdef or mdef reduction doesn't matter, so sb ulti + mire already maxes out. SB ulti is more valued for the channeling speed reduction that delays things on some bosses making the nuke easier.

dingo488 · February 2018

Bosses in PvE have almost no pdef/mdef. I think the highest mdef/pdef is in Quicksand Maze, and those only have 6k pdef/mdef. The difference between GS and other debuffs is completely ignorable, especially if SB ulti is thrown on top of those aswell.

I would suggest always using Dragon's Bane when nuking.

Channel all of your rage into your weapon for 30-second burst of power,
reducing your Attack by 50% but increasing your Critical Rate by 25%.

Costs 1 Spark.
Note: Critical hits will not be displayed if landed.

Using Celestial/Demonic Eruption immediately after casting this skill will purify the debuff that reduces your attack, so there's no drawback.

I would also suggest using Celestial Swords to synergize with Valkyrie's Might, even with the faster stacking on the ulti, the sooner you get that +100% boost the better. Be warned that Celestial Swords can interrupt the boss so you need to stop casting it before the boss reaches a certain HP threshhold. This shouldn't be a problem though, since you should be able to reach max stacks before you finish casting HF.

Getting the most out of BM in PvE

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