I member before he fudged the shrining I loved casting hh now IMO be a waste :hail:urnless ur godo

I agree Adam is the only person i've seen who can cast every class effectively. He is truly one of a kind.

Edit- Which also helps prove my point. He can cast HH and out damage any melee player i've seen.

This post was edited by PhiRip on Apr 27 2013 10:58pm

oh ehm gee it told me a couple times that I needed to wait 30 seconds after I waied several minutes....

This post was edited by PhiRip on Apr 27 2013 10:55pm

I'm not certain what you're getting at, my friend. Consider this:

1. I solo'd 5 trapdoors at level 65. The hits being dealt to me were running in the 400-600 every melee shot range from EPs.
2. Most "casters" don't put much, if any, extra stats in vitality.
3. I had on EE robes, 80 vit, and 50 int. Casts by mobs did little if any damage to me, so casters have no advantage.
4. Without the EE from my robes, and me tanking most of the shots, many casters in the 65-70 range would die immediately in a 9 wave EP. As in, the ENTIRE GROUP. If you are dead before you can heal, what purpose is healing?

You are arguing towards this patch making the game far better for casters. I stated that I don't give a shit about black track groups, this game is more enjoyable, more playable, and lends itself to character development better with solo. I have given examples of this. You keep going back to blacktrack group, but ALL BLACKTRACK GROUP IS IS AN MQ GRIND THAT BENEFITS YOU ALMOST NONE, MERELY GIVES YOUR GUILD RANKING.

Again, we're talking about a different game, I think. You're talking about black tracking, no explore, no risk, grinding out MQs. I'm talking about full explore, trap doors, attempting to maximize both your prof gain AND your chance to get a bit of gear. You're talking about speed of climbs, I'm talking about speed of prof gains. You talk about how you've played nearly as long, (probably longer since profs were released) yet I sport far higher profs than you. Perhaps... Just perhaps, you should reevaluate your position.

Also, consider this... Over the years, I've held some of the most amazing gear in the game. Much of it now is virtually useless. Why? It was nerfed. Do you think the nerfs are done? How many major investments have you made that're now garbage because they were "not the way it was intended"? Again, Prof is the ONLY improvement to a character, without knowing what paul invisions for a future, that doesn't stand a fair chance of turning to shit, and casting in no-explore groups does not gain much prof, now does it?

Again, take your caster, go solo, explore explore explore, go down all the trapdoors, see how it does, and how long the climb takes you. Get back to me on that.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 27 2013 11:07pm

What does you being melee have to do with tanking with a robe? Last I checked EE armors could be worn by casters too.

1. Nothing to do with casting vs melee at all.
2. Most "melee" dont put much, if any, extra stats in vitality either. Its a personal choice and most play willing to occasionally die rather than sacrifice damage. Look on hardcore if you think casters arent stating vit.
3. So casters have a slight advantage in this point, even if it is a small one, but you are unwilling to admit it.
4. Again nothing to do with casting vs melee debate

This post was edited by KakeWalk on Apr 27 2013 11:20pm

Indeed, and if you give up all the extra damage that statting the vit for health to tank, or give up the int on the robe because int/ee robes aren't that common provides, how much extra mana does it take? I still add millions in damage to a group when I group, and the damage difference on melee given 40 or 50 more or less dex/st in negligible enough that it's no skin off my back to tank. How about with caster? Can you take your vit to 80 (giving up how much mana in the process?), give up stats for EE on a padded robe, and do half so well? Again, solo that caster, explore, go down trap doors, let me know. When you try to tank, you run into mana as a major issue. When you don't tank, you run into death being a major issue, no?

And look at the masteries in this update for a moment, using your "tank caster" idea. You have ee robes. You have int. Um... How exactly is this added defense against the elements supposed to help when 1) you aren't going to take many shots from the elements that would cause damage anyhow and 2) 75% of the shots you're taking are melee? Seems to me those mods are far more beneficial defensively on heavy armor (plate/chain) melee builds where statting int isn't very worthwhile. Otherwise, they're just adding a bit of chedder to a caster's damage.

Edit: Oh, and prior posts regarding Ambush, Sneaky, etc. are irrelevant when speaking of solo, as you won't hit them. When speaking of group, even full explore, I've not seen sneaky or ambush in a long time, hell, even pinch is rare. So not sure about the relevance of any of that either, at this point.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 27 2013 11:28pm

You make no sense. Whether you play melee or cast you give up damage to stat vit. Im not even arguing which is better, Im arguing that you arent making sense.

Its not a "caster tank" idea, its just using an EE robe to take less damage. How does it matter if you are using a sword or a charm to do damage?

The mana loss from stating vit? Uhh ya on hardcore casters stat vit and they get by ok. Also I guess you missed the fishing update or something, infinite mana now

This post was edited by KakeWalk on Apr 27 2013 11:30pm

In the time it would take me to fish up enough mana fish for a full climb, any speed increase gained by going caster vs melee would have been eaten up trying to get the mana to cover it. I don't need the mana melee, so why bother? I'd say you aren't making sense.

You give up mana to tank, or you tank ineffectively because you don't stat life, and can still die to 1 or 2 good EP crits. So either you aren't really a tank, or you lose your edge on mana. Again, being that I've actually solo'd, and explored, I can tell you you aren't going to find enough shrineables to keep your bar going casting, even as warlock. Fishing takes time. Trust me, I've done a bit of it. So either to match what melee can do naturally you have to spend FG on fish/comfreys, or spend enough time fishing that you've now lost any gain that a bit of added damage would give you. And not everyone likes fishing (as the ladder clearly shows). Hence, melee = win on solo. For group tank casting... Doesn't it defeat the purpose? To spend the time to fish for mana fish means you've given up the speed advantage of group. If you cast until out of mana, then just sit there, you give up the damage melee would offer. Um... I'm confused how tank casting would be an improvement?

Edit: There are a few int/ee robes out there, and combined with weapons/charm that add a couple thousand extra life, perhaps extra vit MAY not be needed. There's also the int/mana - ee/int/mana - int/ee (weapon - robe - charm) combos that say you could probably stat some vit and end up with roughly the same mana. Do you have such gear combos? I don't. Most don't. So for most, this update didn't really "help" casters except for a mild increase on their damage IF and WHEN they can find some decent mastery gear that fits their build. Fishing is better, from a skilling point of view, but again, fishing for 2 minutes does NOT give you enough to bring health OR mana bar up to where it needs to be in solo climbs. Sorry.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 27 2013 11:49pm

As far as Im concerned if you are serious about this game you will fish either way because of how beneficial life fish are, especially when it comes to soloing elites.

The 30 stat loss of putting points into vit instead of int at level 65 is about 2k mana. 2k mana in fish is nothing. Thats 16 cooked sardines if you take the averages. Higher level fish obviously require far less. Even the average cooked mana herring will fill up that missing 2k in only 8 fish. If you really dont want to spend the time fishing I'm sure tossing a few coins at some newcomers rather than having them beg for free is a good solution too. Think about how cheap fish stacks will be.

Again Im not arguing which is better, just that how you are playing could be identical playing caster or melee. So I'd say the real argument comes from the damage numbers.

This post was edited by KakeWalk on Apr 27 2013 11:56pm

Fish were op as fvck before the update. Now it's even better.