(Not) Taking a break...

Okay, John is NOT taking a break from finishing the last 1-2 posts of his Kuok Kah series. Rather, John decides to continue from where he last left off involving the HR. In other news, difficulty level for raiding instances has been upped. Yes, it's old news. But in case you forgot about it, Valindra Shadowmantle now doesn't do her second round of roulette wheeling that easily. Currently given the ability to do two sequences of necromancy by the devs, you have to navigate the first sequence in order to get her to do the second roulette wheeling. As for the second sequence, it's the same thing as the standard format where the coffins popped up when she's (really) dying last time around. Ironically, navigating the first sequence of the current challenge level means you should have a good chance of dealing with the second sequence if your party happened to be down to 2-3 members so long the tank doesn't die. John isn't joking. He ran Valindra's Tower with his half-orc OP tank (i.e. Oath of Protection+Justice) last week. 3 members went down, only 1 SW and Bhaasmond Taran were left standing (seemed like her claw swipe has greater one-shot potential now. Either that or John hasn't been playing VT that often lately). It took a moment of rez from the SW and plenty of lag (apparently, double refinement stones event does cause some moments of instance server overload), but the party pulled through. Tough fight for some, but more of a prolonged attrition plus a few moments of either getting grabbed or saving the SW from getting grabbed to death. If there's anything truly annoying about fighting Valindra currently. it'd be her instant AP drain. John is pretty sure she was capable of doing that all along, just that she's now doing more frequently. Something like opening cans of spam instead of just one or two of those. Ultimately, it's the job of the tank to get AP drained while the ranged members (especially the DC) should be spamming either mass-buff or single-target damage dailies non-stop.

Mask and Leira (i.e. 23rd Oct to 6th Nov)

It's been quite a mayhem leading up to 6th Nov. Beyond the border, fears of Trump doing a Priebus block on Putin remains very real. At home, it truly sucks to be a swing voter right now. Evidence here. Or maybe not depending on how cynical the average swing voter currently is (i.e. the whole "We're screwed by the far left-alt right political divide anyway" logic). No matter where and how you see it, Mask and Leira are pulling the strings with Cyric watching the show. As for Kelemvor and Mystra, it's a case of 404.

Let's not dwell on the bad things. After all, there's still tomorrow if we really want to worry about the sanity of reality ever since the rise of the Akkadian Empire. But if you really want to be reminded why the world is so screwed up today, just click this.

Back to Faerûn minus the likes of Erevis Cale and Elaith Craulnober. For two weeks, the Liars event would be back. Actually, it's already back. So how does John rate this version of political festival? The stuff you can get from the event store got upped quality wise. By now, everybody should know the active comp bonus for that wandering strawman got upped. Originally a crappy +105 for armour penetration and recovery, it's now +400. So yes, it's definitely worth two weeks of grinding. Then you have the empowered version of Leira's fave headgear. But that'd be expensive. Very expensive. If there's a space in your character bank slot, you may want to save it for your current Leira's mask so that you can try farming 1K Masquerade Tokens next year. The stats are quite good if you want to gear up your fave alt. BiS for many TR builds if you're to ask John.

As for the witch stick comp, it's definitely a far better buy than the green Skeletor himself. 600 Masquerade Tokens should be nothing to you if you want to get a good green companion for a crit-based toon. In fact, John already bought one for his SW alt. Which means Kariss Locras' comp list looks like this below:

Bear Cub (Rare)

Dancing Blade (Epic)

Wandering Scarecrow (Rare)

Splinters (Uncommon)

Fire Archon (Uncommon)

Summoned comp: Bear Cub

SW paragon tree: Hellbringer damnlock (for solo); Hellbringer templock (for raiding)

All that's left is the epic broom mount. John's half-orc OP needs more power. The 2K mount bonus would do nicely. Thankfully, the crit has gotten way above 50%. Like around 60% due to a maxed out Force of Will feat. Hopefully, John's TR can get the job done by tomorrow or the day after.

A word of apology

It was an honest mistake, John swears. For this year, you got a contest. Choose your team out of the three available. You have Johnny Blaze hiding his flaming head with Jack O'Lantern's helmet after pwning him big time. Then you have Groot from Yishun who recently outed himself as an admirer of Zechs Merquise. Because John never read the guild MotD, he chose the nearest thing to Tallgeese Mk III.

Okay, Groot has yet to become 100% Tallgeese Mk III.

So what about John's guild? Apparently, Vrae (i.e. his guild boss) decided that Lilibet Olsen should be the team boss.

To be honest, John doesn't mind Tallgeese Mk III losing to Lilibet Olsen this year. Not because of her looks or this, but because the prizes on display are effectively a case of cosmetic bonus. But it'd be nice to see a Tallgeese Mk III army. After all, we already got Warhammer 40K.

Fun fact: The guy voicing Dude Wonder Kershner in Sirius the Jaeger was the same guy voicing Zechs Merquise. His name? Emperor Yasuhito.

Combat HR and Emiya Kiritsugu

Emiya Kiritsugu was the main character of Fate/Zero. What this means is:

1. He didn't die at the end unless you want to count in his last words to Shirou.

2. The reason why being that Urobutcher Gen couldn't do a thing due to his BFF (i.e. Magic Kinoko) already setting the story for Fate/stay night below.

Seriously, do you believe Urobutcher Gen would let Kiritsugu live if he has the absolute say?

3. He is what the combat HR should be in the first place. More specifically the strategist of the party. This is due to the tactician spot taken up by the GF.

John believes he's said this before. If not, allow him to repeat his view again: Come next mod, HR will have a much better buffing game. Instead of the crappy 50% post-first rank system invented by Kotomine Kirei, Nov 6 will see a buffer class across all three paragon trees. This is NOT to say every HR would be an Emiya Kiritsugu. If you're going with archery, chances are that you can actually opt for a more dps'y choice. If it's trapper, damage bonus at max rank+max stacks means it's more viable to do a dps'y build. That'd shaft the buffing/debuffing aspect unless you're going with Aspect of the Serpent and Crushing Roots (very likely the favoured choice come next mod).

The equation for playing a combat HR for any given raid is very simple so far: If you want to play dps, go with Marauder's Rush. It's a high risk-high reward approach, something which Jeff Hardy would always do especially if it's TLC, Dudley Boyz or no Dudley Boyz. However, you'd need Oak Skin to prevent yourself from dying. And therein lies the problem: Apparently, it seemed that Oak Skin won't give you damage resistance buff when November arrives and every adventurer must win the heart of Khaleesi herself. Okay, that's a lie. As if it's really so easy to change the relationship status of Emilia 404.

But Oak Skin getting brutally shafted should be for real. If there's any substitute, that'd be the Calydonian Boar Hide. That's the most brutal nerf job John has ever seen as a HR gamer. While it should still be theoretically possible to use Oak Skin as a melee HR for next mod, John wouldn't be surprised if that'd be more of a trapper move (unless you want to waste two encounter slots on Oak Skin and Boar Hide. Which tbh would be a dumb move unless you want to do the melee version of a templock).

Now it must be stated that the paragon mechanics for the HR can be very different from each other. Stormwarden is more towards the dps (which might explain why the person inventing Stormstep Action for this game was 120% out of the loop) while Pathfinder is more towards the debuff (hence, explaining why this paragon class is more defensive and utility-based). For now, pathfinders are harder to use since you can easily spam Clear the Ground if you're a stormwarden. For the next mod, John suspects pathfinders will make a comeback due to Primal Instincts. Because pathfinder combat HR tend to have very little options on the dps end, it's a no-brainer that many combat HR prefer stormwarden. Including John, but that's because being a dual-wielding ranger commanding the destructive force of nature sounded cool.

With Primal Instincts and the devs deciding to set right the buffing aspect of the HR gameplay, pathfinder combat HR should be much easier to use. Just slot Primal Instincts and use Hawkeye/Boar Hide. If you're running with Hawkeye, then using Pathfinder's Action as the other class feature should help a lot due to the run speed bonus (and that's not taking into account 5 points into Fleet Stance). So should you throw in 5 more points into Slasher's Speed? Unless you're not running on rank 3 Vampiric Grace boon, John would say save it. But if you want to play it risky, then it's worth a shot at the expense of Wilds Med. Whatever you do, don't trade away Skirmisher's Gambit unless you want to screw up your dps (either that or you're going for an arpen-power build). At the end of the day, you'd still want to strike balance between buffing and proc'ing Flurry.

If you're running with Boar Hide, then you can either go all out with Pathfinder's Action and Aspect of the Pack (just remember to switch on the off-hand artifact weapon power for the latter due to the 8% max damage bonus) or the aforementioned Primal Instincts and Pathfinder's Action combination.

So does this mean the stormwarden is no longer the Han Solo of Feywild? After all, the dps got nerfed. At least sort of. Now it must be pointed out that Bladestorm dps got upped. At max rank, you get 20% chance to proc. This is 5% less, but the nuking got buffed. From the current 20%, The Heart of Fire and Blood will give you a whopping 40% nuke damage instead of the current 20%. But there's a trade-off. After all, nerfing is effectively the art of balance. In stock market speak, economists call it a correction rather than a collapse. John is not saying Bladestorm got nerfed. Rather, the off-hand artifact weapon power got nerfed. Originally done at 45% damage bonus on proc, it's now only 10%. Once you do the maths, you realised that the next mod will give you 50% damage bonus in total (40%+10%=50%). Compare this to the current one and you get 65% damage bonus in total (20%+45%=65%). So yes, it's really a nerf. But unless you get really lucky (or unlucky depending on how you see it), chances are that you won't get to score that 50% damage bonus. In other words, it's more practical to opt for either Aspect of the Pack or Twin-Blade Storm when it comes to the off-hand artifact weapon power. That is if you're out to max the dps. Which means overall wise, the stormwarden got nerfed in terms of the dps cap. This is to balance the gameplay as the buffing aspect will be hitting top gear (minus J.Clark and his Jaguar XKR-S).

Which now comes to the wild card of every dps stormwarden, combat spec included: Stormstep Action. Will it be the accidental Special One or every stormwarden's Ferrari F430 Speciale (not in John's own words, but J.Clark's)? The cooldown system got reworked, but only time will tell whether this would be a Real Madrid or the current Manchester Utd (sans the Ferrari F430 Speciale). If you're out to use Stormstep Action with Bladestorm, next mod will be the perfect moment to prove whether you're just another archer or Archer himself. In other words, John is referring to Forest Ghost and the Caladbolg Mk II also known as Seismic Shot. Going by the maths, Forest Ghost give you a 2.5 sec cooldown reduction while Disruptive Shot should give 1.25 sec instead. Again, only time will tell whether the maths would end up at the same place as communism (i.e. nice in theory, but worth the square root of sod all in reality as proven by China's rise in power and Kim Jong-un's desire to emulate Deng Xiaoping). Either way, go for every AP gain and recovery boon if you want to have a go at a Stormstep Action-Bladestorm combination. Unless it's the third boon for Elemental Evil where it's a choice between critical and recovery.

P.S: This is NOT to say Oak Skin will be 100% useless for the next mod. You still can make it work, but strictly for solo loadouts due to an effective synergy with Wilds Med, Planar Vitality, and Rousing Warmth. It's just that John doesn't see it as raid-friendly as there are better options. Not the least Boar Hide.

Add P.S: The debuff dept should be quite okay. So far, it's doing fine. Even though Thorn Ward now gives away damage to other party members instead of benefitting the HR's dps.

Final P.S: Just use Hawkeye if your combat HR wants to be more useful for the next mod. No one ever said Emiya Kiritsugu was the typical Rambo or Wonder Woman you see so often in Hollywood. So long you can chuck out either a Thorn Ward or Split the Sky, it shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure you opt for two damaging encounter powers in order to balance things out. Be smart, be like Batman.