minstrel are hardier and can interrupt while being chased by tanks, interrupted by spells, etc. far more aggressive interrupts

theurgist needs to be free but the range and FnF nature of their pets makes them more conducive to intense pulling.

dyukanon wrote:minstrel are hardier and can interrupt while being chased by tanks, interrupted by spells, etc. far more aggressive interrupts

theurgist needs to be free but the range and FnF nature of their pets makes them more conducive to intense pulling.

Theurgists don't need to be free. If a Theurgist gets off some pets then gets tanks on him, then he is still interrupting for 60 seconds if he's earth spec. Theurg can also theoretically keep an entire 8man locked down if need be, but that never happens. Most of the time its 4 or 5 at the most. A good Minstrel can lock down 3 or 4 with mezzes landing.

except that any half decent mid/hib grp will run with 1 caster who can 1shot all theurg pets?

popo24 wrote:

dyukanon wrote:minstrel are hardier and can interrupt while being chased by tanks, interrupted by spells, etc. far more aggressive interrupts

theurgist needs to be free but the range and FnF nature of their pets makes them more conducive to intense pulling.

Theurgists don't need to be free. If a Theurgist gets off some pets then gets tanks on him, then he is still interrupting for 60 seconds if he's earth spec. Theurg can also theoretically keep an entire 8man locked down if need be, but that never happens. Most of the time its 4 or 5 at the most. A good Minstrel can lock down 3 or 4 with mezzes landing.

casters just have to stack pets into one QC DD to clear them all, whereas it's really hard to lock down a minstrel who's getting any kind of heals since he can easily sit on top of 3+ healers/casters in the middle of their backfield.

i'm probably biased because 8v8 minstrel is by far my favorite class in this game, i think good minstrel interrupt play is sooo beautiful

Mincer – is hands down the best rupt class in the game, but also one of the hardest classes to play well. A good mincer, will always be able to interrupt, -always- and he will be able to interrupt many different things as well as excellent spot interrupt. Not to mention a great deal of utility otherwise (namely speed 5 and 2nd demezer.) A theurg makes a mincer even better - as now he can spot interrupt threats to the theurg pets.

In a good 8v8, the difference of a sorc having yellow and red mezz is irrelevant, duration will never be an issue, only radius vs lower-power. The mezzes will get purged/peeled ect like wildfire vs any half decent group, having a backup aoe root is invaluable, a blue one is workable but a yellow one is even better.

Hsn - how is that group even remotely good? If the spirit caba gets locked down the group does next to no damage, and a friar subtracts from group utility >.>. Its bad. Theres no other way to describe it - just bad. Same with red NS caba, red NS caba is asking to lose vs any half decent group, it doesn't do anything. NS spam caba can't compare to a theurg or a mincer in rupting cabaility, once NS duration is up its useless any half decent group can easily ride it out. Most every caba should be tri, hands down, the exceptions are extremely rare, quit trying to crutch on powerful abilities to make up for bad play.

The Paladin does the job of the friar AND armsman in that group - run a pala instead.

Every alb group should look like 2 cleric, 1 sorc, 1 of a tank type/the paladin, 4 others, plain and simple.

Utility is spread, but the utility is also generally stronger than its counter parts. Utility spread means separation of tasks, which makes the group consistent (also generally makes the classes a little easier to play.) Clerics always heal, Sorcs always CC, Mincers always rupt, Paladin always defends, etc. Group setup in alb is not difficult, you just need to run good classes/spec setups. Damage can be a concern, which is why you need to run things like split sorcs, tri cabas, mercs instead of arms or friar. If you run a split/body sorc you can consider an Ice theurg to help offset the damage count, but it can be done - just need to juggle the options.

Every good group, on any realm, has at least 1 caster 1 tank, for consistency reasons. You need a caster in an mid/hib tank group to control things let pets and keep the support going, an alb caster group needs a tank to save it from bad incs, etc.

KXT wrote:
Hsn - how is that group even remotely good? If the spirit caba gets locked down the group does next to no damage, and a friar subtracts from group utility >.>. Its bad. Theres no other way to describe it - just bad. Same with red NS caba, red NS caba is asking to lose vs any half decent group, it doesn't do anything. NS spam caba can't compare to a theurg or a mincer in rupting cabaility, once NS duration is up its useless any half decent group can easily ride it out. Most every caba should be tri, hands down, the exceptions are extremely rare, quit trying to crutch on powerful abilities to make up for bad play.

I don't see why a spirit cabbie is always bad. When we ran a debuff grp on alb we had 1 spirit cabbie and 1 trispec who obviously both focus on different stuff.

As perfect group setup:

Sorc (mind or split spec)
Sorc (Body)
Paladin
Cleric
Cleric
Cabalist (Spirit)
Cabalist (trispec)
X-This can be pretty much whatever, either another cabby or sorc or a mincer or theurg or a reaver.

Depending on what you take for the 8th spot you get 4 or 5 classes with root or ae root which is pretty awesome with such a group, very useful RR5s on sorc & caba, boltrange shears on cleric so their positioning is easy, two classes that can debuff damage, etc etc...

better get a wind theurg in grp additional to the spirit cabbi (with red spirit debuff)

KXT wrote:bla

I'll not develop about how you contradict yourself when you use the term 'lock down' as the same time you confirm the spread utility of albion.
I'll only talk bout the two points you talk about which seem serious: the paladin & the 2 cabbies.

First point'll be fast enough, what is a paladin? An end bot, point.
The second one: the spirit cab 'locked down'? To that I answer: guard 3, slam, chain snare, ccs, but above all: spike at will. In other words, you do damage when you want, and you don't want it when your cab is not ready.

Maidrion I apologize for the confusion, I did not mean a spirit caba was bad, merely that Hsn's group setup was bad. A spirit caba [especially if the caba is R8] is great in an alb caster setup especially with a tri caba and a split sorc. NS caba is just bad, spirit caba is very good when used correctly.

Hsn, Paladin is a defensive tank, endo - heat/cold - slam - guard ect, among other utility functions, it does what an armsman and a friar do but in as a compact 1 class version. Alb only has utility problems when you run low utility classes like armsman and friar.

As far as split utility goes, bottom line, any one class in the alb group can fail and the group will be alright, this is not true of mid/hib if a pac healer/bard/eld etc majorly fails.

Defensive hybrid please. A tank has stoï, better guard for obvious reasons, and he chain snare which is far better than only a slam. Switching resist is a joke, specially when the friar is heal/buff spec. A paladin is not even imaginable in a good set up, its defensive role is not fulfill because it gets CCs all the time.
You think 2 caba with 2 different spec is not good because one tri spec can do the same and a ns red isnt useful; well not on uthgard, and even less in a caster group. Plus the debuff red is a must cause of the absence of a 4th caster.*

isn't red debuff redundant because of the way debuffs work vs buffed opponents? (ie, close to 2x delve effectiveness vs buffed opponents = very little diff between yellow and red body debuff on targets with body resist buff)

i clearly remember it being that way on live. you can see the same things if you hit an unbuffed target with red DQ debuff and then hit a fully buffed target with the same spell. i remember a lot of tests showing that the difference between red and yellow cab debuff are mostly negligible

Red debuff is not redundant, debuffs here are livelike and blue explained it somewhere before already, but basically debuffs pull from buffs first and then I think up to half from item bonuses. So a yellow debuff on a target with no buff and only 26% item bonus wont reduce them to 0 resistances. Just to clarify, resistances cannot go into the negatives.

An armsman is going to be a minimally better guard tank, but ultimately a paladin has more utility. Theres no need for a friar, a friar cannot heal like a cleric, does not get instas, does not have spreadheal incase they get NS'd, friar does not have access to the primary healer RAs such as DI, bof and pr. Friars have crappy rupt capabilities, no stun, no particularly good styles, a paladin rupts x10 better than a friar. Why do you need friar resists in the first place? Any hib caster oriented group is going to assist debuff nuke with red heat debuffs, and for the situations when fighting tank groups with a solo eld/RM, paladin twisting in cold is sufficient.

Friar offers inferior healing, inferior buffs, inferior rupt capability, inferior RA set, and only minimally useful resists (heat/cold/matter are not that important for albs.) Armsman, while mildly good, just does not possess enough utility, a paladin will do the role nearly as well, and has more utility. Sure, you can cut a paladin by going lw2/endu pots, but filling the cut slot with a friar and/or armsman is a waste.

About the friar < cleric as a healer, yea it gimps the set up np.
I don't agree about paladin > armsman even if he has more utility; you can't have that in a kite group.
So I guess you'll have a theu wind with spirit DD & the cabby will play 2 kind of debuffs, either you get another sorc dmg spec for a 5th pet and 3rd demezz.

Arms is not substantially better than pala, and needs to be ultra high RR to start bringing things like SB3 to the table, a det5 or purge3 pala with yellow body resists is workable, esp if you have a sorc/mincer or sorc/sorc. Block rate is similiar, pala has lower HP but more AF - mostly equal in difficulty to kill. If your pala is any good, you can twist while roaming to speed 6 with a mincer (or speed 5 w/a sorc) something that can't reasonably done with endu pots. An alb caster setup should already have two sorcs anyways.