Theft of Essence and Chaotic Assistance

[Fleiss]

Curious why you are not using RS.

If you are burning hard why are you using lower damage spells? I know there is some efficiency in that but if you are running oom in 14 mins on those spells, sounds like it is just that you need more m or m regen. That or you arent using all your m recovery resources as much as you should.

[Voragath]

Make sure to use both mod rods when your mana is low enough to use them without wasting the mana return, then click them every 5 minutes. Use thaumatize pet every time it refreshes. Use gather xxx as soon as you can without wasting the mana return then refresh it as necessary. Use forceful rejuvenation if necessary to get a 2nd gather cast. Use one, maybe 2 RS per mob (depending on how fast you burn--if one is up when mob dies, cast one less RS pet). Make sure you have SE and Clarity pots on at all times, keep phantasmal symbiosis up at all times. Use Elemental Union as it refreshes, as well as twincast.

When I'm in Shard's Landing I'll lead with RS pet, send pet in and malo mob, then start nuking. I use rain, spear of blistersteel, fickle magma and bolt of magma in that order (you can change it up if necessary). Rain is equal to a spear for about half the mana cost. Using all 96+ spells makes sure your GoM procs work on every spell. I can go oom at 15m, by then I have gather and thauma down, click Forceful Refjuvenation and cast gather and thauma, then the 2 mod rods are up around them and reclick both and I'm almost FM again for 15 more minutes. I also use Improved Twincast and Firecore as necessary, clickies as usual etc (the normal stuff you probably know about). When my personal mod rod wears out, I wait for a GoM proc to cast another one. In all, I got through about 6 clicks of mod shard and 6 clicks of personal rod, 4 gathers, and countless thaumatize pet's.

Each kill is almost 1 full AA. I stop and loot so I lose out on kills and I'm usually talking so I lose out on more. I've gotten 25 AA's there once when pushing really hard. I get about 15 when I'm talking and killing. If you are getting 6, you aren't using everything, are timing things bad, or are talking more than I am. My kill rate hasn't changed from launch to now and I've nearly maxed out all aa's of any type of use whatsoever; I've even updated my arms and legs without a noticeable change in kill rate.

[Fleiss]

If you have a merc out dont be afraid to let a mob hit you to keep a RS pet that wasnt fully used up attacking the next mob.

[Piemastaj]

Both abilities need to die off in their current forms.

Assistance heals for less and has half the proc rate as RB while being pet only. Theft does not work on new things, but you can proc it while nuking your pet with level 9 Ward Summoned.

By merely matching RB's proc rate (25%) Assistance would be useful. SOE refuses to do this, which is probably because they believe we are OP in the group game, so thinking we are going to get more pet healing is probably laughable to them. SOE does not want to give our pets a tank disc either. So again trying to increase Theft or actually make it work goes against that. Fortify Companion is a DMG Shield mitigation tool, nothing more to SOE.

IMHO in theory they are great abilities, just will never be developed enough to make them truly great. This is where Virulent Talon is falling as well, just it will always be viable just no where near where I had envisioned it.

Like I said IMHO these abilities would be better off left off future spell/AA lists.

[dorfillya]

Assistance heals for less and has half the proc rate as RB while being pet only. Theft does not work on new things, but you can proc it while nuking your pet with level 9 Ward Summoned.

If you truly want the ToE proc, As Pie just reminded me, you can get it to proc by casting in between pulls, then sending pet in to fight the next mob. But, the real effect of ToE, as well as Chaotic assistance, seem so underpowered, that I don't have any deisire to use them, and, I don't want to waste spell gem slots to keep them up.

[Tweelis]

Ok, so changed things up a bit last night and things got better but still only got 10 AA's in a 30 minute lesso burn killing Wormtooth mobs. A total of 29 mobs went down, 4 cubs, 18 grend's and the rest matrons.

I was very lucky with GoM procs so most of my gargoyle pets were free. Mana was never an issue for me (using gather, forcful rejuv and gather plus rod helped a ton) but my merc ran out of mana half way through which meant a couple minute break half way through. Would switching to an air pet or earth pet make more sense here despite being lower dps? My fire pet had a full range of rank 3 raid buffs from all classes but is the earth or air pet mitigation soo much better to warrant using one of them instead?

As far as mana regen I have: Phantasamal symbiosis, phantasamal guardian, expanding mind 6 (granted not a buff but helps mana pool), spiritual evolution, soothing breath 7, voice of foresight, thaumatize pet, rods and gather.

I managed to get host of the elements out twice. Both times they were on a mob all the time which allowed me to efficiently use salvo of many 11 times. Whenever I got a GoM proc I'd use it for an additional gargoyle pet if the mob was over 40%, spear if the mob was between 15% and 40% and Surge if the mob was under 15%. Granted this was changed up a few times when GoM fired back to back to back.

It looks like my basic tactics are similar to yours Vora except you seem to cast spear as part of your normal spell line-up while I wait for a GoM proc. I pull with malo, send pet, cast gargoyle, rain, bolt, fickle, rain, bolt. By this time the mob is either dead or really close to (under 5%) dead. I will cast force of elements once in awhile when a mob is near dead.

My major question is what mobs are you hunting where you are getting 1 AA per mob? As I mentioned above I did 25 real mobs (cubs are considered weak and provide next to no xp). During the lesson burn I managed 26.98 million points of damage (not counting damage shields). According to gamparse my pet was hit 747 times and it had a 530 point DS on it at all times, surge was cast once during the burn and once in the lobby before heading out to hunt. Rough estimates put DS contributing an additional 550k of damage so about 27.5 million damage total. This all translated to 10 AA's. Do you solo for that aaxp rate or use a merc? If you're solo that makes more sense but getting 25 AA's in 30 minutes with a merc is mind boggling.

When I'm with my fellowship we talk over skype, when solo I don't chat while killing. I only looted when my merc had to sit down for a minute and after the lesson burn was over.

So my question is what mobs should I switch to? Do I need to drop the fire pet and switch to a different one?

I'll try City of Bronze next time I solo. The well proved to be not worth it both doing summoned mobs and regular mobs.

[Piemastaj]

Your merc is running oom because your having a wizard tank mobs.

There is no reason to use a fire pet over air or Earth when solo/molo. The added 1k DPS does nothing when you consider the incoming DMG the pet is taking, not to mention every 4 seconds the pet is not procing iceflame because it is casting.

You should be going: Garg>Rain>Spear>Spear. Not having mana issues, is another issue. The point of a lesson burn is to be tapped out when its over. Your trying to kill the maximum amount of mobs you can in a 30 minute period of time. Not casting a spear is doing more harm then good.

[Voragath]

I always use the air pet when solo. The stun helps a lot with aggro issues and with merc healing. Not really an issue in SL though. If you are handling multiples, it becomes a huge issue with merc healing--when using something other than air.

I hunt the Grendlaens or the Selyrah. With lesson, they are about 85-90% aaxp per kill. Drop surge from your lineup. In a lesson, it's a waste of mana, imo. It also will eat up your GoM procs if you are casting as it refreshes.

The idea, as PJ noted, during a lesson is to go full out DPS and forsake your mana. You are maxing kills. The mana tricks are designed to help you make it all the way through. By the time my lesson ends, every aa and mana regen ability is down and I'm almost out of mana.

Using Host of Elements and Servant of Ro can help. I'm also using my clicky damage items/pets as necessary too during a harvest or to squeeze out an extra kill or two before lesson dies.

It sounds like you have the right idea now. Just practice at it and look for some areas you can tweak or play around with it until you figure out how to squeeze out more aa's.

[Thanasis]

When trying out CoB, ditch the merc and only kill dark blue mobs. Light blue mobs give less exp and are about the same strength in CoB.

(and use air pet, make wise use of RS when your pet focus is not that high). Mobs die way faster than SL, only problem is you have to look for them in CoB.

Good luck

[Tweelis]

Things went better tonight than in previous nights. I notice the wrinkles that need to be worked out so I can more efficiently crank out AA's. Tonight was 12 aa's; I can see 15 when the wrinkles get worked out and even up to 20 when I fill out more DPS aa's like maxing out elemental union and the like.

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated.