If you want to keep playing the trapper build even tho it’s not great in general you can still optimize it. Give her a melee weapon (a sword works well) since apply poison works for every type of physical weapon/dmg so it works on swords too for example. This puts her in melee range and she will cast her traps on top of foes. Coupled this with throw dirt avoids her getting interrupted while casting (if you don’t want to use the elite trappers focus, which you do have unlocked you missed it). Ideally you should replace dshot with either savage slash, distracting strike, distracting blow or disarm, all of these are unconditional interrupts, pick what you prefer I guess, note that disctracting blow interrupts adjacent foes too. A blocking stance will be good too to avoid getting interrupted and helps her already strong survivability. I would replace troll urgent with a pet though to have more bodies. If you struggle with skill slots, because I can see you still wanting to run 3 traps at least, to make this effort worthwhile, I‘d drop the rez signet. When it comes to tahlkora, she will struggle hard with energy with skills like RoF. I would drop it and if possible take a cheap healing skill. Signet of rejuvenation is nice. Also I recommend a different condi cleanse. Mend condition is one of my fav non elite skills for this purpose, she can’t cleanse herself but that should be alright. Prot spirit is also heavy on her energy and spammable, even though it’s still strong. Maybe disable it and cast it on yourself when you feel like you‘re under pressure. I would drop Koss in general if I were you, Melonni is much stronger than him. A hybrid smite build for dunkoro could be a good option too, so you have another condi cleanse (I would take mend condition again so they can cleanse each other) and another hex removal. 1 more decent heal skill would round this up. GL Edit: Little follow up, if you follow my advice regarding Jin you can drop marksmanship completely and don’t have to spec into swordsmanship since you aren’t looking for her to do dmg in melee, this frees up attribute points and will make your traps stronger. She then gets to focus on spreading conditions
Great advice! Putting a melee weapon on Jin would solve the AI problems of placing traps too far away I hope. The few times the traps worked they did quite a lot of damage so I don’t wanna give up on the build just yet. I’m gonna put this to the test following some of your points!
~30:15 If you're going to disable a hero's skill and micromanage, at least remember to manage (noob). I'd be interested in watching how the hero AI handles that maintained enchantment. I long ago switched all my heroes from "Fight" to "Guard" alert status, but I can't remember exactly why. Physical heroes all seem to default to "Fight", as is Jin at this point. Do you have any preferences and why?
Hero review project: Tahlkora Tahlkora (Protection Monk): Comes with.... Protective Spirit, Shield of Absorption, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Ailment, Remove Hex, Resurrect Notes: Reversal of Fortune not that good in normal mode, but these are all standard except Shield, which is a solid Nightfall skill. No changes suggested though Dismiss Condition may be better than Mend Ailment since the former is a Nightfall skill. For story purposes and to better stagger hero acquisition, Tahlkora should have been temporarily available at this point through Istan so that the player can be introduced to a Protection Monk, but she should then leave the player until she rejoins permanently after the Tihark Orchard mission. Through most of the game, the player will have access to a Healing and Protection Monk henchman anyway. Dunkoro (hero Monk) could be tailored to supplement any additional needed Monk skills.
Yeah I think I remember what part you mean story-wise. Yeah I guess they wanted the player to establish a connection to her early on, but as you said that could be achieved easily enough by making her a recurring npc throughout the primary quest line
Hero review project: Acolyte Jin Acolyte Jin (Ranger): Comes with.... Kindle Arrows, Power Shot, Distracting Shot, Lightning Reflexes, Troll Unguent, Rez Signet Note: I never pick Jin at this point and rune as a Wilderness Survival Ranger after acquiring much later. All of her skills are core, which makes sense since the lore has her coming from Factions. I should respect this limitation. The prep is general use, likely better than average due to all the plants in Istan. Power Shot always sucks, but I don't see any better alternative for a short recharge bow attack. As already noted elsewhere, I don't find the Ranger stances very general purpose, and Lightning Reflexes only has ~33% uptime at lvl 20 attribute point investment. In contrast, Storm Chaser has ~50% uptime even at low levels. Kindle Arrows, Power Shot, Distracting Shot, Storm Chaser, Troll Unguent, Rez Signet.
Yeah in hindsight I realized that I dismissed kindle arrows a little too quickly. It would definitely be ideal to use against the plants. I think I prefer ranger as a hero companion rather than as the player character for playing around with different builds. (That being said ranger player has the benefit of being designated puller of mobs)
I always preferred Sousouke over Vekk, he is an enthusiastic Zai shen elementalist, and the other is an ugly, sarcarstic gnome with a nasty disposition. Of course we later find out that the Asura are not so bad, and Vekk has special reasons to be so bleak. But still. As to acoylte Jin, she speaks little and you could find her an animal companion, dont let Koss interfere. Imagine fighting this corsairs with two flamingoes instead of one. My most favourite hero in this game is Ogden Stonehealer, but he, of course, is a Eye of the North companion. By the way, Jerek is a jerk, he is aptly named.
@@MrChristophSteininge I’m with you I always picked sousuke as well. But seeing as I picked him already on my Mesmer I switched it up. Hearing Jin’s backstory though makes me a bit more sympathetic towards her. Two flamingos are far better than one! 🤣 if I make her full trapper as was recommended I’d have enough attributes for her to go beast mastery so I might as well try that!
If you want to keep playing the trapper build even tho it’s not great in general you can still optimize it. Give her a melee weapon (a sword works well) since apply poison works for every type of physical weapon/dmg so it works on swords too for example. This puts her in melee range and she will cast her traps on top of foes. Coupled this with throw dirt avoids her getting interrupted while casting (if you don’t want to use the elite trappers focus, which you do have unlocked you missed it). Ideally you should replace dshot with either savage slash, distracting strike, distracting blow or disarm, all of these are unconditional interrupts, pick what you prefer I guess, note that disctracting blow interrupts adjacent foes too. A blocking stance will be good too to avoid getting interrupted and helps her already strong survivability. I would replace troll urgent with a pet though to have more bodies. If you struggle with skill slots, because I can see you still wanting to run 3 traps at least, to make this effort worthwhile, I‘d drop the rez signet.
When it comes to tahlkora, she will struggle hard with energy with skills like RoF. I would drop it and if possible take a cheap healing skill. Signet of rejuvenation is nice. Also I recommend a different condi cleanse. Mend condition is one of my fav non elite skills for this purpose, she can’t cleanse herself but that should be alright. Prot spirit is also heavy on her energy and spammable, even though it’s still strong. Maybe disable it and cast it on yourself when you feel like you‘re under pressure.
I would drop Koss in general if I were you, Melonni is much stronger than him. A hybrid smite build for dunkoro could be a good option too, so you have another condi cleanse (I would take mend condition again so they can cleanse each other) and another hex removal. 1 more decent heal skill would round this up.
GL
Edit: Little follow up, if you follow my advice regarding Jin you can drop marksmanship completely and don’t have to spec into swordsmanship since you aren’t looking for her to do dmg in melee, this frees up attribute points and will make your traps stronger. She then gets to focus on spreading conditions
Great advice! Putting a melee weapon on Jin would solve the AI problems of placing traps too far away I hope. The few times the traps worked they did quite a lot of damage so I don’t wanna give up on the build just yet. I’m gonna put this to the test following some of your points!
I made some of the adjustments you advised in my latest video. Giving Jin a sword worked very well I think!
@@UberOfficer1 glad to hear 🔥 will check it out later
~30:15 If you're going to disable a hero's skill and micromanage, at least remember to manage (noob). I'd be interested in watching how the hero AI handles that maintained enchantment.
I long ago switched all my heroes from "Fight" to "Guard" alert status, but I can't remember exactly why. Physical heroes all seem to default to "Fight", as is Jin at this point. Do you have any preferences and why?
I guess we just found out I can only micro one hero haha I totally forgot about managing dunkoro 😅
~15:05 Though no quest may have taken you there as of yet, I suspect that you now have access to Blacktide Den for better armor.
Yep I’m gonna be investing in it in the next episode for sure
Hero review project: Tahlkora
Tahlkora (Protection Monk): Comes with....
Protective Spirit, Shield of Absorption, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Ailment, Remove Hex, Resurrect
Notes: Reversal of Fortune not that good in normal mode, but these are all standard except Shield, which is a solid Nightfall skill. No changes suggested though Dismiss Condition may be better than Mend Ailment since the former is a Nightfall skill.
For story purposes and to better stagger hero acquisition, Tahlkora should have been temporarily available at this point through Istan so that the player can be introduced to a Protection Monk, but she should then leave the player until she rejoins permanently after the Tihark Orchard mission. Through most of the game, the player will have access to a Healing and Protection Monk henchman anyway. Dunkoro (hero Monk) could be tailored to supplement any additional needed Monk skills.
Yeah I think I remember what part you mean story-wise. Yeah I guess they wanted the player to establish a connection to her early on, but as you said that could be achieved easily enough by making her a recurring npc throughout the primary quest line
Hero review project: Acolyte Jin
Acolyte Jin (Ranger): Comes with....
Kindle Arrows, Power Shot, Distracting Shot, Lightning Reflexes, Troll Unguent, Rez Signet
Note: I never pick Jin at this point and rune as a Wilderness Survival Ranger after acquiring much later. All of her skills are core, which makes sense since the lore has her coming from Factions. I should respect this limitation. The prep is general use, likely better than average due to all the plants in Istan. Power Shot always sucks, but I don't see any better alternative for a short recharge bow attack. As already noted elsewhere, I don't find the Ranger stances very general purpose, and Lightning Reflexes only has ~33% uptime at lvl 20 attribute point investment. In contrast, Storm Chaser has ~50% uptime even at low levels.
Kindle Arrows, Power Shot, Distracting Shot, Storm Chaser, Troll Unguent, Rez Signet.
Yeah in hindsight I realized that I dismissed kindle arrows a little too quickly. It would definitely be ideal to use against the plants.
I think I prefer ranger as a hero companion rather than as the player character for playing around with different builds. (That being said ranger player has the benefit of being designated puller of mobs)
I always preferred Sousouke over Vekk, he is an enthusiastic Zai shen elementalist, and the other is an ugly, sarcarstic gnome with a nasty disposition. Of course we later find out that the Asura are not so bad, and Vekk has special reasons to be so bleak. But still. As to acoylte Jin, she speaks little and you could find her an animal companion, dont let Koss interfere. Imagine fighting this corsairs with two flamingoes instead of one. My most favourite hero in this game is Ogden Stonehealer, but he, of course, is a Eye of the North companion. By the way, Jerek is a jerk, he is aptly named.
@@MrChristophSteininge I’m with you I always picked sousuke as well. But seeing as I picked him already on my Mesmer I switched it up. Hearing Jin’s backstory though makes me a bit more sympathetic towards her. Two flamingos are far better than one! 🤣 if I make her full trapper as was recommended I’d have enough attributes for her to go beast mastery so I might as well try that!
And yes I think they did a great job establishing Jerek as a supreme jerk 😡
Masochist or noob? Why not do that late primary quest with Tahlkora starting from Beknur Harbor for a party of 8?
@@tarheel7406 that would have made it 1000% easier haha oops. We’ll just say it was a challenge mode.😅