Taugrim's MMORPG Blog

It can be fun and educational to run instances with non-standard class compositions. Players sometimes have rigid perceptions of what will and won’t work, and in my experience, those (narrow) perceptions are often inaccurate. I enjoy trying different specs and group compositions to see how they perform.

Thankfully this morning I PUG’d with two very skilled and open-minded players and learned a lot in the process.

I joined a Templar’s Recruit Group for Fire Temple on the LFG channel very early this morning, so there weren’t many players online. After a Ranger and Sorceror joined, the Temp said “OK let’s go” and I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I wasn’t sure whether my 35 Chanter could handle solo healing duties but I was certainly willing to try.

The Sorceror went LD on a pull when we had a couple adds and didn’t come back. From a cynical point of view, I don’t think that was an accident. The Sorc gave up instead of even trying. Fortunately, that didn’t affect our ability to clear the instance twice and get some nice blue mat drops in the process.

Here is footage of the 1st time we downed Kromede.

I went ultra-conservative on this attempt…I

1. didn’t melee
2. spammed Healing Light non-stop
3. chain MP potted most of the fight
4. stacked the deck in our favor by using the awesome group DP buff Word of Wind

Turns out it was a very easy and smooth fight. As you can tell from the footage, the tank (Inlove) used great positioning. He and the Ranger Maddux were very skilled players and it was awesome grouping with them. We handled some multi-mob pulls that I’ve seen wipe full groups.

Here is footage of my 33 Chanter and 33 Sorceror in PVE, fighting against the same 34-35 Klaw mobs.

This is as close to an apples-to-apples comparison that I could get between different classes, in terms of having the same level, comparable gear, and fighting the same mobs.

For Chanters, there are a couple things to be aware of in terms of our CC:

1. you can’t knockdown a mob already on the ground, but you can knockdown the mob as it starts to get back up
2. if you stun a target and re-stun it while the previous stun effect was still in effect, the 2nd stun will overwrite the 1st stun. An example of this is getting a stun with Infernal Blaze, then stunning with Parrying Strike. Depending on the situation, you may want to allow the 1st stun effect to complete before trying another stun (e.g. so that you can interrupt your opponent when they start casting after the 1st stun wears off)

Here are a few Chanter tips that I didn’t mention in the video:

• In PVE, you can tell that I allow auto-attacks (AAs)to weave in during abilities for my Chanter. Even at level 31, I don’t have enough melee abilities to spam non-stop without having to wait for either Meteor Strike (MS) or Hallowed Strike (HS) to come off cooldown. So I basically time abilities with some AAs so that I can use MS and HS whenever they are up. I tend to favor opening with MS over HS, because I want to get as many Pentacle Shock procs as possible and MS-IB do better damage than HS-BS. One could argue though that it makes more sense to open with HS to use Infernal Blaze as early as possible. You say po-tay-toe, I say po-tah-toe. In PVP I would spam abilities, because you have to get as much damage in bursts as possible (and before you get CC’d)
• For PVE, do not use Booming Assault, the 4th skill in the HS chain. It is an evil MP hog and does not debuff the target or have any useful effects
• It’s important to get used to watching the chain / reactive icons to the right of your character in the middle of the screen, instead of looking down at the skill bar. You want to keep your eyes on the action as much as possible, and having to look down can be a distraction

Here are a few Sorceror tips that I didn’t mention in the video:

• The Curse of Roots stigma ain’t cheap, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold, for solo and group play. You will save yourself a lot of deaths by investing in it, so over the long haul, it will more than pay for itself.  It’s always sad to see Sorcerors who haven’t purchased it yet; not having CoR severely affects a Sorc’s ability to CC, especially when pulls get messy
• Did I mention how great Wind Cut Down is? Oh, of course I did, but heck, it’s worth saying again. And the 16s cooldown is short enough that you’ll use the ability every pull. So go out and buy it, if you haven’t already

I forgot to record flying; I wanted to mention that the easiest method I’ve found for steering while flying is holding both mouse buttons down. This allows you to make very fast turns mid-flight, which can cause problems for keyboard turners trying to keep up with you.

I’ll be traveling for work and holiday for most of this month, so my leveling will slow down quite a bit in December. I’m hoping to get my Chanter to 42 in January.