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Fencing / Mace Masteries vs "Treasures of" High Level Paragons

Val-Tur

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The first treasures of event, macers commented on the effectiveness of stagger vs the paragons. Fast forward to Hythloth: I had 110 fencing stoned. Being done with Hythloth farming, I decided to raise it to 120 & see if pierce (40% stamina drain debuff over 10 sec) would be of any use against paragon elder gazers and balrons.

Fencing is now at 120 & fencing mastery is level 3: first day, pierce seemed to be pretty effective vs paragon elder gazers. Next day it was not so much. First day on paragon balarons it seemed to allow me to tank one while an archer helped me until other paragons spawned and sent us running - we had it down to 10%. The next day paragon balrons owned me every 5 sec and pierce seemed to do nothing.

So, what experience have you all had vs the Hythoth paragon balrons with either stagger or pierce?
 

Akiho

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
So, what experience have you all had vs the Hythoth paragon balrons with either stagger or pierce?
My own personal experience using Stagger and Pierce has been underwhelming against 'top tier' mobs (paragon balrons and Blackthorn melee mobs to name but a few).
These 'top tier' mobs attack so fast and incredibly hard that reducing there swing speed/stamina really doesn't save you for long. It only takes 2 well placed strikes from a paragon balron, even at 3 seconds apart, and most people will be dead or running for their lives. Then you add the tricky part... maintaining those abilities, missed swings, parries, mana drains will mess you up more often than not.

In my opinion, the best approach is to reduce their damage and the best way to achieve that is with Feint (How I deal with them). I've yet to find a situation where Stagger or Pierce was a better option when running solo.
 

gwen

Slightly Crazed
Yes, when you hit 60 per, there is not much difference if you used stagger or not. Huge stamina pool.
But when you have refined armor, swampy and peacemaking buff(30 damage reduction) 60 initial damage from para balron become bearable 30. If you also have provo buff in party with constant healing, para balroons can do nothing to you.
 

Felipovisk

Adventurer
Yes, when you hit 60 per, there is not much difference if you used stagger or not. Huge stamina pool.
But when you have refined armor, swampy and peacemaking buff(30 damage reduction) 60 initial damage from para balron become bearable 30. If you also have provo buff in party with constant healing, para balroons can do nothing to you.
So in other words: you need and army to take a para balron.
PS: you could discord them also, it would help even more.
 

Val-Tur

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
So in other words: you need and army to take a para balron.
PS: you could discord them also, it would help even more.
And thus the tiger form + mirror image template was born. It is not guarantee either. I often duo'ed para balrons in hythoth with a player who used this template. He would tank, but I still had to throw him a bandage or a rez now and again.
 

Akiho

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
So in other words: you need and army to take a para balron.
No, just reduce their damage output.

PS: you could discord them also, it would help even more.
Discord is very ineffective against them because their stats are already incredibly high, not to mention getting them discorded in the first place is not easy as they are by default at 160 barding difficulty.

Feint is your friend, there is no easier or efficient way in my opinion.

The Ninja option works, but it's not optimal. X-healing is best if you have a friend.
 

Val-Tur

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No, just reduce their damage output.



Discord is very ineffective against them because their stats are already incredibly high, not to mention getting them discorded in the first place is not easy as they are by default at 160 barding difficulty.

Feint is your friend, there is no easier or efficient way in my opinion.

The Ninja option works, but it's not optimal. X-healing is best if you have a friend.
It really irritates me that the feint weapons are such low damage. I used to solo Ilshenar para balrons occasionally on my sampire with diasho. I only could survive because of the life leach when I would get hit. But these event paragons are so powerful, not doing a lot of damage on top of feint still cripples you. This is all about soloing them really. A dps with a good tamer or tiger form player, you can take care of them consistently. But that is often not possible in off hours or when everyone is simply sick of them.
 

gwen

Slightly Crazed
It really irritates me that the feint weapons are such low damage. I used to solo Ilshenar para balrons occasionally on my sampire with diasho. I only could survive because of the life leach when I would get hit. But these event paragons are so powerful, not doing a lot of damage on top of feint still cripples you. This is all about soloing them really. A dps with a good tamer or tiger form player, you can take care of them consistently. But that is often not possible in off hours or when everyone is simply sick of them.
They were designed to be tough. To prevent afk Sampire farming. And they did pretty good job. I saw dexxers soloing DF para Balrons , but it was though job anyway.
Think developers should do something with those fast weapon , including feint ones. Because swing speed is capped at 1.25 they could add high critical chance when your stamina and SSI are very high.
This would let me use those krysses , spears , tessens, tekagis ,etc. Now they all just go to unravel or stay on corpses. Even ones with extremely good properties.
 

Akiho

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
It really irritates me that the feint weapons are such low damage. I used to solo Ilshenar para balrons occasionally on my sampire with diasho. I only could survive because of the life leach when I would get hit. But these event paragons are so powerful, not doing a lot of damage on top of feint still cripples you. This is all about soloing them really. A dps with a good tamer or tiger form player, you can take care of them consistently. But that is often not possible in off hours or when everyone is simply sick of them.
Daisho really is not that low, Para Balrons simply soak a lot of damage from any weapon regardless of slayer and elemental type. Also key to note that the event Paragon Balrons are waaaaaaay different from Ilsh Para Balrons, it's not just the anti life leech. Combine Healing with Feint and reasonably good Parry/Defense and they are not a problem to solo consistently.
Sometimes you just have to sacrifice output for survivabilty. You can take care of them 100% consistently with the right set up and still run rampant whirlwinding everything else.

I do agree that weapons need addressed. I've said it a million times, it's dull to be forced to run around using Double Axe/Bladed Staves which 99.9% of warriors do. So many weapon choices and so little incentive to use them, its a travesty!
 

Val-Tur

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Daisho really is not that low, Para Balrons simply soak a lot of damage from any weapon regardless of slayer and elemental type. Also key to note that the event Paragon Balrons are waaaaaaay different from Ilsh Para Balrons, it's not just the anti life leech. Combine Healing with Feint and reasonably good Parry/Defense and they are not a problem to solo consistently.
Sometimes you just have to sacrifice output for survivabilty. You can take care of them 100% consistently with the right set up and still run rampant whirlwinding everything else.

I do agree that weapons need addressed. I've said it a million times, it's dull to be forced to run around using Double Axe/Bladed Staves which 99.9% of warriors do. So many weapon choices and so little incentive to use them, its a travesty!
As far as damage (speaking from my sword and board chiv-dexxer), I am used to duoing with a tamer pet tanking the hythloth paragon balrons. The pet is not doing a lot of damage & my broadsword armor ingores doing 170 a hit, we made short work of the paragon balrons in hythloth. Trade the tamer pet for a tiger form template and it goes a bit faster. If I were the tank with a feint weapon, I would either need dps to back me up or take forever to solo (If I even could), lol.

Yes, I hate that there seem to be only about 3 weapons worth using for warrior templates. I tried to switch to fencing from swords for fun. But leafblade is such low damage compared to longsword / broadsword AI's and I do not have whip recipes to make ww weapons.
 

Keven2002

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
All you really needed for a paragon balron is a weaver mage to heal your sampire (who uses a bladed staff or double axe) and a spot that didn't have a ton of spawn. Pre cast renewal on your sampire and ensure you get honor then go to work. With 120 magery / eval you greater heal for 50ish HP (roughly the damage on a melee attack) while the renewal is healing the spell damage. I killed tons of paragons like this. Hardest part of this would be pivoting if the balron re-targets the mage (use attunement to soak up initial damage).
 
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