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Force Master pve in general


LastMagus

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Here's my problem with this class. I spent the last 2 days changing my build every two hours just to go through most of the tiers as I could. Problem is, I'm now 45 and I find it insanely hard to keep up in damage with other classes. I've read at some point that FM could be a good support class .. cc etc but I really don't see that happening.

1. The cds for any good aoe disable are way to high to be worth training in them for groups. I did my first supply run today and i just don't get to use them because ppl destroy mobs too fast. Then using them on bosses they last like 3 sec, and don't really synergize too well with the most played classes of destr/assassin or even bd. 

2. If I want to forget about aoe cc and go for aoe dps well that's just .. sad? really sad damage with the same problem of very long cd. Don't get me wrong, stuff went ok till about lvl 40, aoe clear was good, until mobs started having over 13k hp and i couldn't recover focus fast enough to clear with ease

3. I've been trying to balance out fire and ice and I really can't see a way to do it. Considering that it's also my first week in the game and I still need to read the skill tree each time I change it but still... I need a different spec every time I go on solo runs than that of dungeons, which may seem cool to some, I'm sure but for me it's just a disappointing feature.

 

Since fire is a *cricket* honestly, it may do some dps but I don't think it should be called dps since it's more like significant damage every 15 mins, most of my recent runs i've been focusing on Ice Rain spam + Z for a bit of extra dmg and frost fury for life leech.  I'm sure a lot of people don't find this worth it, but I guess it also depends on who you're doing dungeon runs with. Whatever situation I get faced with, I can't seem to survive long enough without using the leech from frost fury so I choose to keep it in any build. Since the aoe is non existent in this version, apart from the meteor storm which isn't that good when you focus on ice tree, clearing stuff along the way can be very frustrating but dealing with bosses it's easier.

I can do with a pretty shitty soul shield 3.5k crits on ice rain in combination with Z skill, and since these can be spammed A LOT that's insane damage, all I see on my screen is crit. Add to that the new skill dragon frost which can crit for like 5, I do ok against single targets because I can also regen pretty damn fast ( 8-9k hp in 10-12 sec). Problem with this is, I don't have a way to handle more than one target, maybe 2 if I keep stunning with glacial beam on one of the.

 

Now that most of my problems are laid out, are there any FMs with suggestions on how to approach the end game content, or even other classes that might think that there's something specific a FM can do to help them. I see a lot of people using 1 key and detonation an stuff, I just don't see that happening, most of the force masters I've run dungeons with died like crazy because of 0 regen.

 

So you know, any tips and stuff will be appreciated. I'm just new at 45 as of today, so if someone feels like they have something to offer in regards to my problems please do so :) others, try not to dirty up the forum.

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Ice rain is one way to go around it. I went ice rain build this time it seems pretty fun, huge damage output from just doing 2 and Z. (and by the way, Z is not "a bit of a boost", it gives like 3x damage for specced ice rain)

 

You might've been (I'm not saying you have been) playing a bit wrong with fire. I got a pretty good dps out of flame, making it built around ember/burn. (stack 5 ember, impact to burn, fire beam/palm until 5 ember again).

 

Meteor shower is also a strong dps against groups of mobs, perhaps pulled together with shadow grasp if you're solo. If you're doing flame build, spec it to add embers as well. Add to that Dragonwhorl (3) + impact (1) and you have an easy 10 second aoe chain disable. You can also add the Heatwave (specced fire tab) for a knockdown after that.

 

 

For party support you have Divine Veil (spec into walking with it) and Frost Sheath (spec). You also have easy knockout (4-3), and frost palm specced in chill makes it easy to kite & freeze some mobs away from boss. On top of that, free heal and invincibility from ice armor every so and so seconds.

 

Personally, I'm getting pretty decent DPS even compared to other classes, maybe losing to Destroyers or Summoners, but I'm not complaining with the rest of my skills. If you're running Supply chain and don't feel the need for AoE disables, spec those points into different things. Get ice beam stun for example for joint attacks on bosses.

 

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2 minutes ago, LastMagus said:

As i said, I know a lot of ppl say fire is very good dps, I just have a problem with its lack of survivability / life regen

How so? You still have plenty of points to put into divine veil/frost sheath/ice armor/even backstep.

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10 minutes ago, LastMagus said:

As i said, I know a lot of ppl say fire is very good dps, I just have a problem with its lack of survivability / life regen

Check this build for example, off the top of my head. Seems reasonable enough fire damage with plenty CC/health/defense.

https://bnstree.com/FM?build=4500000255322563223833250113801110633251332353324122249322393223722

 

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Do the fire burn build (single target), its a decent dps, why u may ask? just simply look over button 2's t3s3 and compare that damage with its t3s4, and ice Z t3s3 with fire C t2s2, remember the main dps skills fire burn build is mainly RL2, not only u will have to spam 2, you will have spam RL2, if u master RL2 (RL2 in 1 gcd), then u mastered force master, gratz.

 

And by the way if u got aggro, its probably the tank not doing enough dps to keep aggro on him :/ life leech gem on the weapon should be fairly enough, if not spam few ice Fs, but keep in mind dont spam F because F is a dps loss.

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Ice build is vastly inferior to Burn build. Why? cause its a significantly more dps with much less work and focus cost (kinda debatable but eh) I been using it along with some aoes i can share if u want but basically what it is is u spec ur 2 to T2S3 which is a really high dps spammable skill you then spec ur 1 to t3s3 which is the primary way of applying burn i alwso spec flame x to T2S2 for a longer burn.

 

For some AOE i spec flame V to T2S2(long cd warning but pretty powerful) Ice Z to T3S3(2)

u can spec fire storm (tab) to the trap like one which i like but honestly its fine as is

 

Note this is just my build its prob not the BEST but it works for me 

 

I can show it specifically if u like but thats just the basic jist of it and it works really well for me

 

 

Heres a vid of me doing POH jus as an example of how i use it

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@dmoe33: just the kind of thing I wanted to see. Thx for that, the numbers are high but it seems they come at a very slower rate compared to ice, even slower than I previously thought.

 

1 hour ago, InoriYuzurihaDesu said:

Do the fire burn build (single target), its a decent dps, why u may ask? just simply look over button 2's t3s3 and compare that damage with its t3s4, and ice Z t3s3 with fire C t2s2, remember the main dps skills fire burn build is mainly RL2, not only u will have to spam 2, you will have spam RL2, if u master RL2 (RL2 in 1 gcd), then u mastered force master, gratz.

 

And by the way if u got aggro, its probably the tank not doing enough dps to keep aggro on him :/ life leech gem on the weapon should be fairly enough, if not spam few ice Fs, but keep in mind dont spam F because F is a dps loss.

You kinda lost me there for a bit with RL2 and gcd and all that, I'm not yet that savvy when it comes to b&s so I honestly can't figure out what those stand for.

 

Two more things I'd like to add:

1. how many points usually go into blazing palm for a burn build.

2. how do the lvl 45 skills fit into end game content? for a 2 skill spam build whichever path it may be, I just don't see many options of creating enough orbits fast enough to not drop dps. Or am I just too used by now to ice dps which has an easier time with generating orbs ?

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19 minutes ago, LastMagus said:

@dmoe33: just the kind of thing I wanted to see. Thx for that, the numbers are high but it seems they come at a very slower rate compared to ice, even slower than I previously thought.

 

You kinda lost me there for a bit with RL2 and gcd and all that, I'm not yet that savvy when it comes to b&s so I honestly can't figure out what those stand for.

 

Two more things I'd like to add:

1. how many points usually go into blazing palm for a burn build.

2. how do the lvl 45 skills fit into end game content? for a 2 skill spam build whichever path it may be, I just don't see many options of creating enough orbits fast enough to not drop dps. Or am I just too used by now to ice dps which has an easier time with generating orbs ?

Jus cause the numbers appear faster dosent mean its necessarily "better" example: inferno makes a number about every 20s or so but blaze palm makes one every s or so does that mean blaze palm is better?

Think of it this way Ice has a lot of burst in a small instance but flame has a lot of dmg overall.

 

To answer u questions ice orbits are easy to stack with frost palm T2S2 Flame orbs theres no really easy way to stack them in current content other then Speced c or fire fury but orbits are mainly there jus to give u extra effects when ur hit

 

Blaze palm for burn i spec toT4S2

 

Hope i helped

 

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@dmoe33u did help a lot actually. Just tried ur version on dokumo a few mins ago and some dude kept messing up ember stacks therefore, only got burn when inferno was on cd. I'll try it in blackram in the morning, people seem to be more experienced there. But man does this suck if u get aggro again after u used armor and sheeth and using frost fury for leech in a burn build doesn't work efficiently.

I'm still gonna try to make fire work so I won't get kicked for not going with the flow, but it's so so different and it really depend on others a bit too much for my taste.

 

 

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1 hour ago, LastMagus said:

@dmoe33: just the kind of thing I wanted to see. Thx for that, the numbers are high but it seems they come at a very slower rate compared to ice, even slower than I previously thought.

 

You kinda lost me there for a bit with RL2 and gcd and all that, I'm not yet that savvy when it comes to b&s so I honestly can't figure out what those stand for.

 

Two more things I'd like to add:

1. how many points usually go into blazing palm for a burn build.

2. how do the lvl 45 skills fit into end game content? for a 2 skill spam build whichever path it may be, I just don't see many options of creating enough orbits fast enough to not drop dps. Or am I just too used by now to ice dps which has an easier time with generating orbs ?

T4S2 for blazing palm for burn build, u will see it reads deal additional dmg when enemy is burned etc..., im still at level 33 atm, for late game there is ice build which does less damage costs less focus and more defensively such slow freeze etc... and the fire burn build which has more dmg, costs more focus and not many defensive skills. In which ever path u choose, do keep in mind that the left mouse button L right mouse button R and 2 will always be your main dps, whether 2 is ice or fire. So that means LR2 if ice or RL2 if fire most likely. In other servers such as chinese, the flame orbit mainly comes from blazing path and 2's tier 5, but atm im not sure we can unlock tier 5 at end game or not, if not then spec more into fire C and fire F if u want to use dragon F (orbit is only for dragons most likely), but again dragon F does have a low priority so its tricky to use as well. Ice orbit are really easy with RMB, but yeah fire needs both LMB and 2 to be tier 5 ><

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35 minutes ago, InoriYuzurihaDesu said:

T4S2 for blazing palm for burn build, u will see it reads deal additional dmg when enemy is burned etc..., im still at level 33 atm, for late game there is ice build which does less damage costs less focus and more defensively such slow freeze etc... and the fire burn build which has more dmg, costs more focus and not many defensive skills. In which ever path u choose, do keep in mind that the left mouse button L right mouse button R and 2 will always be your main dps, whether 2 is ice or fire. So that means LR2 if ice or RL2 if fire most likely. In other servers such as chinese, the flame orbit mainly comes from blazing path and 2's tier 5, but atm im not sure we can unlock tier 5 at end game or not, if not then spec more into fire C and fire F if u want to use dragon F (orbit is only for dragons most likely), but again dragon F does have a low priority so its tricky to use as well. Ice orbit are really easy with RMB, but yeah fire needs both LMB and 2 to be tier 5 ><

We may get either T5 Blaze palm for T5 2 with feb 10 patch. Note thats a big MAY

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I am using an ice build (not ice rain, that is just a cancer build) that crits for 6k constantly, not counting the big burst skills, the focus bar never run out even when spamming with my eyes closed (tried(kappa)), plenty of defensive/support skills, excellent aoe, can cc-lock bosses that can be cc-lock and literally have no downtime on my rotation. Every "burn blazing beam" fms i've played with always has problem with their rotation since their focus management couldnt keep up. The moment the tank messed up i got aggro right away for the rest of the fight so i dont understand why you say fire build is so much superior to ice build, every fire build that i watched/read about and tried have the same problem, focus management on the long fight, and i hate downtime between rotations since it's a dps loss every second you use skills to recover focus. My rotation is 1second with perfect ani-cancel. The rotation in dmoe33's video just has too much down time, i dont say you're a bad player, but a single misstake with fire build will result in longer downtime since focus-recover skills have long cd. We're forceMASTER, not force-waiting'for'focus'to'use'skills'again.

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2 hours ago, Purarity said:

I am using an ice build (not ice rain, that is just a cancer build) that crits for 6k constantly, not counting the big burst skills, the focus bar never run out even when spamming with my eyes closed (tried(kappa)), plenty of defensive/support skills, excellent aoe, can cc-lock bosses that can be cc-lock and literally have no downtime on my rotation. Every "burn blazing beam" fms i've played with always has problem with their rotation since their focus management couldnt keep up. The moment the tank messed up i got aggro right away for the rest of the fight so i dont understand why you say fire build is so much superior to ice build, every fire build that i watched/read about and tried have the same problem, focus management on the long fight, and i hate downtime between rotations since it's a dps loss every second you use skills to recover focus. My rotation is 1second with perfect ani-cancel. The rotation in dmoe33's video just has too much down time, i dont say you're a bad player, but a single misstake with fire build will result in longer downtime since focus-recover skills have long cd. We're forceMASTER, not force-waiting'for'focus'to'use'skills'again.

Well i am a bad player xD. I get lazy a lot with my focus and that video was a few days old in which ive improved on both skill and gear in which im hardly ever outta focus and the amount of damage blazing beam does is jus ridiculous with burn and is spamable, also ive read in multple place that burn was better (think it was around KR vers not sure) .

 

Im not forcing u to use the burn way or saying ice is complete garbage im saying my suggestion as thta was what was asked for, if u found something that works for u and u like it then use it! These are just my suggestions ^^

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3 hours ago, Purarity said:

I am using an ice build (not ice rain, that is just a cancer build) that crits for 6k constantly, not counting the big burst skills, the focus bar never run out even when spamming with my eyes closed (tried(kappa)), plenty of defensive/support skills, excellent aoe, can cc-lock bosses that can be cc-lock and literally have no downtime on my rotation. Every "burn blazing beam" fms i've played with always has problem with their rotation since their focus management couldnt keep up. The moment the tank messed up i got aggro right away for the rest of the fight so i dont understand why you say fire build is so much superior to ice build, every fire build that i watched/read about and tried have the same problem, focus management on the long fight, and i hate downtime between rotations since it's a dps loss every second you use skills to recover focus. My rotation is 1second with perfect ani-cancel. The rotation in dmoe33's video just has too much down time, i dont say you're a bad player, but a single misstake with fire build will result in longer downtime since focus-recover skills have long cd. We're forceMASTER, not force-waiting'for'focus'to'use'skills'again.

Force masters main damage skill are L R and 2 whether you are ice or fire, if u are not using 2 in your rotations then well...

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1 hour ago, dmoe33 said:

Well i am a bad player xD. I get lazy a lot with my focus and that video was a few days old in which ive improved on both skill and gear in which im hardly ever outta focus and the amount of damage blazing beam does is jus ridiculous with burn and is spamable, also ive read in multple place that burn was better (think it was around KR vers not sure) .

 

Im not forcing u to use the burn way or saying ice is complete garbage im saying my suggestion as thta was what was asked for, if u found something that works for u and u like it then use it! These are just my suggestions ^^

I readed from CN server, burn is the way to go for highest dps hehe

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3 hours ago, Purarity said:

I am using an ice build (not ice rain, that is just a cancer build) that crits for 6k constantly, not counting the big burst skills, the focus bar never run out even when spamming with my eyes closed (tried(kappa)), plenty of defensive/support skills, excellent aoe, can cc-lock bosses that can be cc-lock and literally have no downtime on my rotation. Every "burn blazing beam" fms i've played with always has problem with their rotation since their focus management couldnt keep up. The moment the tank messed up i got aggro right away for the rest of the fight so i dont understand why you say fire build is so much superior to ice build, every fire build that i watched/read about and tried have the same problem, focus management on the long fight, and i hate downtime between rotations since it's a dps loss every second you use skills to recover focus. My rotation is 1second with perfect ani-cancel. The rotation in dmoe33's video just has too much down time, i dont say you're a bad player, but a single misstake with fire build will result in longer downtime since focus-recover skills have long cd. We're forceMASTER, not force-waiting'for'focus'to'use'skills'again.

I appreciate your support for the frozen arts but unless you want to explain where those crits come from, you didn't really help me here :). My main problem with ice was as I said, lack of aoe clear. From what I've seen so far aoe skills have high cd so you can't spam any aoe ice stuff. As for the 6k constant crits, I really don't see that happening without the rain and high lvl gear.

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I don't see your qualms with FM dps as it's the highest in the game bar none. Burn spec with Blazing Beam for single target fights  and Char for more Aoe based fights. Cooldowns are Meteor, Inferno, Wildfire and of course Short fuse. 

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The biggest debate in any FM section on forums has always been fire or ice? This is turning into one of those topics. I can understand why alot of people on the NA servers are finding ice to be more attractive then fire at this stage of the game. The skills has seen multiple upgrades over the years and the current skill set used in the NA servers reflect not the most current skill set for CH/KR servers. As of the current standings of the NA servers the weapon skills differ vastly in their effectiveness to generate focus on hit. profane is a little bit different and is still the only one of its kind. so if we use siren as an example, alot of people have debated weather or not to upgrade to siren for the higher atk at the cost of the profane focus regen. Now if the proc for the % focus regen is very high then you wouldnt have to contemplate to upgrade or not, but the sirens focus regen proc % is very average at best. This update was the first time NC has tried to fix the problem in design of the profane weapons, ie people are not learning how to focus manage because they rely on the weapon instead. After this all weapons come with a proc % focus regen and they are not always reliable, so you need to find ways to regen focus in your skill rotations to maintain dps. 

back to topic, because the ice build was introduced not so long ago it gives a alternative path for FM who dont like to play a style that includes lots of management (lazy) so they can enjoy the game more. But this does mean that the Ice build will have slightly lower DPS as compared to Fire. The ice build relies heavily on low ping, and if you have a ping connection then by all means give the ice build a whirl to find how easy it is to deal awesome dps while only pushing minimal buttons (compare this to KFM and Sins) you have more time to focus on how to avoid boss attacks and what not. But however if your ping is average then you may consider the Fire build because of the issue with GCD nature of FM skills, LB2 has a GCD of 0.8seconds so you can only press these three buttons once every 0.8 seconds regardless or how fast you ping is or how fast you input these skills, compare this to the sin who can spam skills faster when they have faster connections. this is also why you would probably be better off not use LB2 using Ice rain as you cannot cast this faster then using LB2 blazing beam and you have lower damage when use ice rain. 


if you use Ice build FM you will have a easier time managing focus at the cost of slight decrease in DPS but at the end of the day there isnt one right way to play FM you can try anything that floats your boat remember its your character and you can play it however you want but there will be ways to improve DPS but that doesnt mean it will suit your play style so enjoy the game the way you want. Even thought im a fire build and will try to convert all ice builds to fire haha but thats a different issue

 

Now to answer the question of topic creator

you will find that FM is a class that needs to spec its skills very often, you could have stuck with one build through most of the storyline, but once you start doing dungeons you want to have two specs, one for mobs on the way to bosses, and one speced for single target when you get to the boss. if you know you skills inside out you could do this everytime you switch between mob and boss but it does get a bit tiring so you should purchase the skill book expander (dunno what its called =.= ) so you can have two pages of skills, once for boss one for mobs, so you can spec the mobs skill set with aoe dmg skills like 2 T3C1 for example.

  

I really hope they can have class sections where we can discuss class related issues there.

 

 

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@blkcat13This was some new information for me. I'm still grinding to buy a moonwater stone for the first upgrade so I had no ideea there's another weapon choice along the way. I was under the impression you just use the first one. To be honest, If I'd have a weapon that allows me to do more damage but less focus regen, I  think I'd go with ice rain. It's quite easy to spam and regen with it by traiting skills so, the added damage would make it more reliable I think than burn dps where you can screw up at one point or someone screws up for u. No doubt, if I could save 2 different trees and swap them like soul shields that would solve 90% of my problems on FM, not that it's that hard to do manually it's just very annoying for me. Plus, not a lot of people wait around in dungeons for others to reset skills, most rush content so blindly and sometimes even start boss fights with no one else in the room, probably by accident but still... 

 

With my gear limitations so far I manage do to a maximum fire crit (2) of 4.5k and maybe 8k with inferno. When there's nothing to mess up the ember stacks it's ok I guess, but when talking about ideal conditions I think ice 2 spam would perform better overall in a boss fight. By ideal conditions I'm referring to a lot of other classes launching enemies in the air allowing me to stack up on crit with windstorm and then crit all the time with 2. As for the other weapon variant, where do I get my hands on some of that ?

 

Since I wanted to discuss pve here, I don't get why some ppl have a problem with using less combinations and timings than fire. It's not about being flashy it's about how efficient can you be, at least in my mind. So if you can focus on less buttons to get the job done... I don't see why that's a problem. Wanna play with 50 buttons then discuss pvp :). So far I'm still trying to get used to fire as some of you suggested, unless the person tanking doesn't handle aggro at all I can make do with just 1-2 potions per boss which is better than I thought it would be. I can pretty much stick to the same boss dps layout even when running dailies because let's face it, you rarely have to kill 7 mobs at once. Big difference between fire and ice so far is the open world questing aspect, fire seems better. By the time anything comes near me they usually die, still blocks and stuff like that can put a hurt on me but that's life. With ice, the clear speed for multiple ads seems slower, or at least I can't find a way to use just one loadout for all encounters (again the switching skills issue) while with fire some mobs I can one shot before the other ones animation to attack even begins- the main problem I still have and don't like is the dent it puts on fast life regen. Sure you can still spec on frost fury but it's too slow to get the F started.

 

Anyway, almost any free advice is good advice as long as it stays that way and doesn't turn into a Fire vs Ice battle here without giving some explanations. If you say Fire/Ice OP OMG ETC please also say why. That's kinda the reason I started this topic, to learn stuff and maybe others like me can also find it usefull. So far reading up on skills, combos and tactics is a bit easier to understand than watching some really fast paced videos ( as I'll get more accustomed to the game I'm sure I'll be able to do that too).

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I can't believe you said as an FM you find it hard to keep up in terms of DPS and that they are support ;c Not an insult, but you can do the massive deeps.

 

Go fire, I cannot explain because I am a bad player. But I think you won't go wrong if you take a leap of faith and take my suggestion. LMB+RMB+2 spam under burn.

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8 minutes ago, Starbo said:

I can't believe you said as an FM you find it hard to keep up in terms of DPS and that they are support ;c Not an insult, but you can do the massive deeps.

 

Go fire, I cannot explain because I am a bad player. But I think you won't go wrong if you take a leap of faith and take my suggestion. LMB+RMB+2 spam under burn.

Well I don't know how much dmg the others are doing in the party don't I ? The reason for saying that was that I see the numbers I get and then I see 1 or 2 classes that 1-2 shot stuff all the time. My only way to 2 shot mobs is with inferno which has a cd. Other classes (i don't know if they chain 50 combos or not) but seem to have a more fluent mechanic as to how they dish out damage. So yeah I don't feel like it keeps up in damage with others. May very well do fine with bosses, but it's the little ones along the way that usually end up causing more trouble.

But again, to be fair, I have no ideea of the numbers the other classes put up so as a short example of what's going in my mind when I say this, take pvp - you may do 10k dmg with 3 hits with a FM but you need certain stacks and conditions to make that happen so it's not instant, then an assassin comes along and does 10 1k hits on u in 2 -3 sec.

So if in a boss fight my screen is showing 4k dmg bursts every few sec and someone else is maybe doing 1k but attacks 4 times between my (2) attacks what am I to think? :). Visually it seems slow.

 

ps: before someone comes with a bright idea on creating more classes and running them to see differences or whatever, I barely manage to grind materials and currency for 1 character.

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