If you enjoy respecing and readorning to do a single zone, more power to you, simply not what I find enjoyable in game play. You can call that lazy, whatever, its simply not 'fun' in my book. I can do it, and when the reward is valuable enough for me, I will do it, but in general its not something I seek out to do. But as I said, if that is something you enjoy, more power to ya.
The new AA profiles should make the AA's a non-issue, and you can use gear that has been upgraded to adorn for these zones. It boils down to how hard you are willing to work for upgrades, temp adorns and red adorns are a plus from there and the plat is decent too...
I am somewhat confused, the rewards for the duo are best in slot rings and pretty amazing helms (best in slot if you clear SG). plus amazing temp adorns, what rewards are you wanting to "get that motivation"?
The Duo's are a pain for my (Illy or Guardian) but I still do them. Have yet to beat one though. While I do with they were a little less "Healer required" in that not being required a healer would open up more class-combinations and make it more skill reliant than reliant on the age old "make it run out of HP before you do" however, Kander has stated they won't be changed so I accept that. If an Inquis/Guardian combo can do enough that when they aren't both sleepy they could clear Automaton then I don't see why others can't.
The duo zones boil down to this: Someone to take damage, and someone to deal damage. The holy trinity breaks down into a duo mentality. Running healer/tank is not very effective. Running dual DPS is not very effective (Except in aqueduct, because lol) Atan, the idea of respeccing for a single zone might bother you, but some of us who actually care to perform to our fullest respec for every fight. I spec one way for trash, one way for named, one way for SG, one way for DMP.. the new AA system makes that even easier. To refuse to adjust based on the situation is a refusal to overcome challenge, and a forfeiting of loot and content participation. As it should be.
At least you can respec Maergoth. I have yet to find any real situation that respeccing my Guardian is beneficial and I have looked. What makes it hard for a player like myself is I have. Guardian: A tank (who can't heal though significant damage) which puts me out of being the one to take or deal damage. Illusionist: A Support Type mage that probably can deal enough damage granted if my partner can both deal and take damage (Inquis/Warden) I guess that's just how it goes sometimes.
Because Guardians can't DW or use Runes of Mending or Soul Quench banners. Forgot those were class specific.
Mending adorns are so bad. Respecing is fine. Expecting people to constantly go through the extremely tedious and expensive (in the case of adorns) process of readorning and reforging for these zones is overboard. It's really time consuming, and it's time spent that isn't actually doing anything productive. There is no entertainment value, it's an exercise in is it really worth it.
Mending adorns are garbage (1.2K heal proc when I have 100K hp is a drip in a lake). Mending adornments have been horridly out of date and worthless since Sentinels Fate. A 1.2 K heal in SF was roughly 10% of your life where now it is about 1.5% of your life. Astral Mending Runes (Superior) heal for 1,724 which is just barely better than Ethereal ones and probably would be worthwhile if they did 8,000-10,000 on a proc in PvE and about 2,000-3,000 in PvP. Just looking at my Guardian I have the following Heal-Procs available to me. Blood Ritual: 1741 hp - 10% Chance to heal for 1907 Drought of Stones: 1589 hp - 10% Chance to heal 4488-4960 Draft of Tourbillion: 9303-10282 hp - 10% Chance to heal for 5135-5675 Major Siphoning Eulogy: 1247-1378 hp Tempered Will of Zek: 1702-1881 hp Alacrity of the Undaunted Champion: 1773-1960 hp If I re-adorn for them: Astral Rune of Mending (Superior): 1724 Astral Rune of Medning (Greater): 1293 I was about to give Soul Quench a try as it's the only thing I have not yet tried out. In total I have the ability to heal up to 28,885 HP minimum if everything fires off in a single "hit and be hit" round. That extra ~3,000 from Mending is really going to break it. I plan of giving Soul Quench banners a try the next time I go in. I am not saying it's impossible for a Guardian to do it. Just nowhere near as easy as it is for a Monk to do because of how the classes are built currently.
Does all that procs stack? that have 10% proc chance when you hit a mob. I always thought that only one works. What about guardian - i found it quite easy to do furnance with double fighter combo using guardian. Roen instance - was easy to do that with guardian-necro combo. 5 min fight or so. The aqueduct instance - was hardest one, but after 15 min or so a mob was killed using a guardian+inq combo (last pull time). Yes doing with guardians there are much harder than using monk or scout, but still doable if you'll use good combo. Not trying to do roen one with guard+templar for example...
Draft of Tourbillion and Draft of Velium do not stack up. Blood Ritual and Drought of Stones are separate proc types and stack up. It took me a fair bit of testing to find that Drought and Draft stacked though, believe it or not Drought actually procs more reliably despite having a lower listed proc rate. BR and DoS are Sentinels Fate procs which almost all of them stack because whoever designed the proc-system back then knew what they were doing. No one proc is really all that good by itself, they are designed to stack to be effective and that is why SF procs are so nice still. They are meant to work with other procs by design at least for PvE play. You do however have to take that nearly 100 stat hit just to equip one of them now though :/ The rest all stack, I see 1-2K heals all the time. I suppose the bigger issue in Furnace is once I get about 4 stacks of the debuff on me I am forced to swap out due to reduced healing effects. The bad thing is when that happens while the adds are up. I either have to throw a temp (which is doable) to risk him getting the Flaming Weapon buff. I will try out the Guard/Necro for Automaton though. I have a paladin trying to duo Furnace with me on the Guard that way we only have to worry about 1 weapon. As I listed above, I have done my homework on healing procs and sure, maybe I will add Soul Quench and Mending just to see how it actually works.
I basically do the same for raiding, swapping gear, aa, etc between encounters and zones. What I don't like is redoing white/red adorns to work these duo zones. I know what build I need to do, and I know what build I want my inq partner to use. It was brought up earlier in this thread, if reckless gave us a position down as it does others, I wouldn't need to bend over backwards on re-adorning. As Estred said, its tough on a guard to complete these as we simply do not manage enough healing to pair with a non healer very effectively. I can however on my paladin do very well paired with a conj. For now, I play my alts in those zones, when I can get the helm, I'll buckle down and get it done once for the guard and move on. But as far as helping others thru the content, I'll do that on my paladin instead, as its just much easier imo.
As a Dirge, I managed to do all of them 3 times each with a Guardian. Soulquench helps considerably, and if you succeed, is paid for by the plat in the chest. It may not be as easy as other class combos, but it's definitely possible. Also, these should only end up getting easier with the expansion, and still worth it since they've said the hydra helm will still be best in slot.
I ran them with Gorion, and between my avoidance, well timed stoneskins, dirge heals and the soulquench, We were able to take them out no problem. Hardest one for us was forge, and that was because of the debuff counter climbing too high at random points. (I believe that was adjusted?) I did try these zones with a warden as well, and we just lacked the dps to kill anything, Automaton got all his buffs, couldnt kill both adds on Aqua, and didnt have the dps for the adds in forge.
My experience was the same here. If it indeed has been adjusted, will find some time to go back and try again.
I've completed every duo zone with a zerker and bruiser combo. There are multiple combos that can be used to beat every one. Have an open mind and patience. If you have to respec then so be it. The reward is with effort.
While I know these zones can be done with most setups. The amount of difficulty isn't the same. Proper setups make these zones a cake walk or even just two great dps but when you add in a utility I find these zones far from fun and more aggravating than the reward for the time sink. Too many fights have become more about long and drawn out than actually fun and challenging.
