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Cryosite wrote on 2011-01-04 00:11
The other side of the coin is that if there are more than 7 targets, golem WM may end up being higher DPS than your crash shot. hitting 12 or 14 mobs every ~0.8 seconds for the kind of damage a golem's wm does can clear a room potentially faster than crash shot hitting only 7.
It takes a good archer to put aside their ego (not the glowing one) and play support to a golem. Rather than trying to your personal best dps and crash shot the biggest cluster you can find, and being frustrated when a golem scatters them, hold your fire a moment to let the wm happen, then fire at whatever is the best target post scattering. With some mob spawns, the golem could end up making a denser cluster for you, due to putting things against the wall that were otherwise scattered away from that wall. Or you could nail a particularly high hp foe with a support shot, so when that golem follows up with a smash on it post wm... it outright dies. There is also the old tactic archers used to use heavily: bowmill+ar. only instead of bowmilling you have some golem spinning and doing more damage than your wm could. pick off the survivors with ar (or elf normal range as appropriate).
It takes some differences in playstyle to play together in a group. The golemer can do some things to make life easier for you, the archer (like holding back on that first wm to let your first crash shot hit) and things you can do to play around their golem wm rampage. I keep mental notes of things that happen in my dungeon/mission runs, then talk with the people I run with after. We discuss the merits of what happened, alternate ways to do things, and experiment in future runs. I typically find archery to be one of the best attack styles to work with when I use blaze. I plan to start using golems heavily soon, and you can bet I'll be talking strategies over with my grinding partners.
Bad parties are the ones where random people get together, and there is no communication. If you're in one of those, accept that you won't be having ideal cooperations going on, and adopt a playstyle that is safest for you, and most effective for the time being. Even if that means not pushing out the most dps you are theoretically capable of.
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Meikeru wrote on 2011-01-04 00:15
Well, would I rather have a melee team mate or an alchemist? Meleer hands down.
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Raj wrote on 2011-01-04 00:18
Quote from Meikeru;274957:
Well, would I rather have a melee team mate or an alchemist? Meleer hands down.
Why? (I need reasons. -.-)
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abc33kr wrote on 2011-01-04 00:27
Because melee is much more spammable.
While you have to gather golem crystals for alchemy, all you need for melee is just some feathers and repairs.
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Meikeru wrote on 2011-01-04 00:31
Eh, just from past experiences. I rarely party with alchemists and when I do party up they usually have poor damage. I haven't partied with many people lately due to lag so these are from memories from far back.
Shadow Wiz:
Alchemist: Damage averaged around 30-50
Melee: Around 40-150
Tail Defense:
Alchemist: Needed 2 other archers to hold down gate. If I can remember correctly he was a RA.
Melee: Could solo the gate.
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radionoise wrote on 2011-01-04 00:31
Quote from Cryosite;274951:
The other side of the coin is that if there are more than 7 targets, golem WM may end up being higher DPS than your crash shot. hitting 12 or 14 mobs every ~0.8 seconds for the kind of damage a golem's wm does can clear a room potentially faster than crash shot hitting only 7.
It takes a good archer to put aside their ego (not the glowing one) and play support to a golem. Rather than trying to your personal best dps and crash shot the biggest cluster you can find, and being frustrated when a golem scatters them, hold your fire a moment to let the wm happen, then fire at whatever is the best target post scattering. With some mob spawns, the golem could end up making a denser cluster for you, due to putting things against the wall that were otherwise scattered away from that wall. Or you could nail a particularly high hp foe with a support shot, so when that golem follows up with a smash on it post wm... it outright dies. There is also the old tactic archers used to use heavily: bowmill+ar. only instead of bowmilling you have some golem spinning and doing more damage than your wm could. pick off the survivors with ar (or elf normal range as appropriate).
It takes some differences in playstyle to play together in a group. The golemer can do some things to make life easier for you, the archer (like holding back on that first wm to let your first crash shot hit) and things you can do to play around their golem wm rampage. I keep mental notes of things that happen in my dungeon/mission runs, then talk with the people I run with after. We discuss the merits of what happened, alternate ways to do things, and experiment in future runs. I typically find archery to be one of the best attack styles to work with when I use blaze. I plan to start using golems heavily soon, and you can bet I'll be talking strategies over with my grinding partners.
Bad parties are the ones where random people get together, and there is no communication. If you're in one of those, accept that you won't be having ideal cooperations going on, and adopt a playstyle that is safest for you, and most effective for the time being. Even if that means not pushing out the most dps you are theoretically capable of.
Working in tandem and using strategies with the golem is what I mean by a good party... if it was just everyone trying to outshine the golem it wouldn't be a party at all.
In some cases, golem wm -> crash shot is more efficient, sometimes you have two archers and crash shot -> crash shot -> wm would clear things much faster, etc. Then there's also places like Alby Adv hardmode where archers would benefit more from supporting the golem, rather than directly try to tackle things...
What I really mean to say is that inexperienced golem summoners or just bad parties in general can make range really hard to work with, while experienced golem summoners and good parties that have decent communication can make both range and golem really fun and efficient together.
As for Support Shot + Golem... I don't really think it works. I've tried R1 Support Smash with my friend's snow golems, but no change in damage at all... while it does affect my human meleer friends' smashes.
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Juno wrote on 2011-01-04 00:34
As a giant, and a Royal Alchemist, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Alchemy is very powerful once you've poured a lot of AP into it, but in tight situations melee always comes out on top. Having any sort of cast time is a huge disadvantage.
If you want to talk just golems, they definitely have an easier time stacking mass windmill/smash damage. However, no matter how beefy or huge you are, you're not going to crush everything in the game with just smash and windmill. Golems are on top of the game as long as you're grinding SCC for lvls or what not, but a more well-rounded character is preferable for general use. For example, good luck rafting with a golem .-.
Besides, while golems are arguably overpowered, full swing is also up there. True, it has a time limit like golems, but it's even more effective during that time than a wm spam machine.
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Cryosite wrote on 2011-01-04 01:53
@
[B]radionoise try using blaze when some nub alchemist insists on "helping" you with their water cannon. No. End. to. FRUSTRATION. Worse when that person speaks no English and I speak no Spanish.
@Juno Full swing is freaking hax. It can be so fast too! and the area it affects... my gawd!
[/B]
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abc33kr wrote on 2011-01-04 01:56
Whoa the next few pages, were they too flame war that they had to be deleted?
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Raj wrote on 2011-01-04 02:39
Quote from Juno;275001:
As a giant, and a Royal Alchemist, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Alchemy is very powerful once you've poured a lot of AP into it, but in tight situations melee always comes out on top. Having any sort of cast time is a huge disadvantage.
If you want to talk just golems, they definitely have an easier time stacking mass windmill/smash damage. However, no matter how beefy or huge you are, you're not going to crush everything in the game with just smash and windmill. Golems are on top of the game as long as you're grinding SCC for lvls or what not, but a more well-rounded character is preferable for general use. For example, good luck rafting with a golem .-.
Besides, while golems are arguably overpowered, full swing is also up there. True, it has a time limit like golems, but it's even more effective during that time than a wm spam machine.
Juno wins this thread.
No more flame wars about, whatever we were arguing about with the numbers please. xD
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Jovo wrote on 2011-01-04 18:45
Quote from radionoise;274246:
I agree it can be disconcerting, it's not just melee... golems can outdamage just about every other skill with 1/15th of the AP, time and effort, but at the same time they don't give the same enthusiastic feeling of performing all those feats as a character... besides, the reason many of us play this game is because we enjoy the grind and seeing a blank slate of a character turn into something formidable is quite enjoyable in itself.
Alexina players are really of a different mold...I really respect that. Effort is something you consider a value. However in Ruairi, people would take the shortest way possible. It's hard even finding an empty rafting channel without 1-2 people botting on the river. Thus, my conclusion would be:
B>server change card. Lol
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Offspring wrote on 2011-01-04 19:22
I'm happy with the poll results.
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Cucurbita wrote on 2011-01-04 19:23
How about you take a melee giant and give him alchemy on his secondary weapon slot?!
I'm sure there are a few really useful alchemy that complement melee.