HM skills worth spending time on?

[ClearSky PhoeniX]

So I  love my pve/pvp and I wanna ask you experienced kfm out there which HM skills should I work towards. As in which ones to unlock and all.

 

the zen bean one seems pathetic to me I could buy it anytime I just don't wanna idk if its just me but it seems worthless to me.

 

So can u suggest some good HM skills to work towards? Thanks :)

[nathaddox]

The hongmoon lmb for kfms is pretty *cricket*ing amazing for pve, dont know about pvp since im only silverscrub. In pve having more uptime on cyclonekick/searingblow means huge increase in dps.

[ShiroUmi]

Hongmoon Comet strike for PvE

Hongmoon Counter for PvE PvP

Hongmoon LB - doesn't really worth it since you have Searing Palm up for alsmot the entire boss fight anyways with Tiger Strike + Searing Blow combo ( Searing Blow reduces CD on Searing Palms by 7 sec per skill )

Hongmoon Swift Strike haven't got it yet so I don't know for sure, but with Parry/Defense penetration it seems to be really useful in pvp

 

Personally I only get HM Comet and Counter

[NekoSama]

NO HM skills really beneficial for PvP atm besides maybe one of the counter paths. HM Z which we get in the near future is amazing for PvP for the pull feature.

 

Royal Zen bean - Not worth at all

Bladeshade Harbor book - Great for PvE until you get legendary weapon as it syncs well with your 20% comet strike amp bonus. Then slowly falls off for better HM later. (Tier 5 Stage 1)

Pellet - Left tree for LMB allows for more Searing Blow stacks which is great with BLACK legendary weapon and allows more uptime on your Searing Palm resets.(Tier 5 Stage 1)

Secret Tech Page1 + 2 - The counter upgrade is not worth the cost unless you get it for pretty much free. Better to spend your points elsewhere.

300 Tomes - The PvP counter is clunky at best. 6 seconds cooldown for a 2 second stun. You need perfect ping and understanding of your opponents mechanics to take advantage of this properly.

Ember + Lamination - MUST GET for PvE. permanent ~30% gain in DPS as its your bread and butter skill. (Tier 5 Stage 4)

 

Typical Endgame PvE Build (Tweak for your HM level)

KFM PvE Fire Tree

[FourOhm]

2 hours ago, NekoSama said:

NO HM skills really beneficial for PvP atm besides maybe one of the counter paths. HM Z which we get in the near future is amazing for PvP for the pull feature.

 

Royal Zen bean - Not worth at all

Bladeshade Harbor book - Great for PvE until you get legendary weapon as it syncs well with your 20% comet strike amp bonus. Then slowly falls off for better HM later. (Tier 5 Stage 1)

Pellet - Left tree for LMB allows for more Searing Blow stacks which is great with BLACK legendary weapon and allows more uptime on your Searing Palm resets.(Tier 5 Stage 1)

Secret Tech Page1 + 2 - The counter upgrade is not worth the cost unless you get it for pretty much free. Better to spend your points elsewhere.

300 Tomes - The PvP counter is clunky at best. 6 seconds cooldown for a 2 second stun. You need perfect ping and understanding of your opponents mechanics to take advantage of this properly.

Ember + Lamination - MUST GET for PvE. permanent ~30% gain in DPS as its your bread and butter skill. (Tier 5 Stage 4)

 

Typical Endgame PvE Build (Tweak for your HM level)

KFM PvE Fire Tree

Gonna have to disagree with the point about counter. HM Counter is AMAZING in PvP, and ABSOLUTELY BROKEN in OWPvP.

 

PvP first: I'll agree, the 300 page counter is kinda trash. But you shouldn't be using stun counter in PvP anyway.

The iframe counter (left tree) is great. 2% heal, Stun/Daze resist for 2sec, and most importantly, 1 SEC IFRAME. 1 second is a very, very long time in PvP. That's the exact same duration as your Q/E, but on a 1.3 second cooldown. I'll list some of the reasons it's so good:

- vs Warlocks. Their combo is an all-out, huge burst combo. Sure, you can block 1 attack every 1.3 seconds, but you will still die unless you use all your other iframes. 1 second of iframe every 1.3 seconds is 77% iframe uptime. Let me repeat: you are INVINCIBLE for 77% of the time he's spamming at you. Assuming he's not proccing your counter as soon as you put it up (which is impossible), the actual iframe uptime is much higher. Literally when a warlock beings their full combo on me, I can just hold 1 and take maybe 10k dmg total.

- vs. Summoners. Similar vein, but not quite as OP. you will be immune to all the cat dazes and stuns as long as you keep successfully countering. Watch out, though, if you spam counter too much you may just get grappled. 

- vs. Parry Spin (LBM or DES). I've posted about this before, but unless you have an iframe on counter, any parry-spec spinner can stun you by simply spinning when your counter is up. The way it works is this: 

     -You put up counter

     -They spin, hitting your counter and making you counterattack

     -You counterattack into their parry

     -You get stunned.

     This is bullshit. But with an iframe on counter, you will be immune to the parry stun, as well as any other stuns/dazes for 2 seconds, AS WELL AS being invincible for another second.

- vs. 5-point strikes. (LBM, BM, KFM). Without 1 second of iframe on counter, even if you counter the 5 point strike, the rest of the hits will land anyway. With 1 second of iframe, you can resist 2 or 3 attacks, and either Q/E, cc them back, or iron shoulder and cancel their 5 point strike. 

 

 

Now, OWPvP:

It's basically the same as the point about Warlock I made above, except even better. When facing an arbitrarily large number of enemies, you can guarantee that your counter will ALWAYS be procced, and will most likely not be grappled. Again, 77% invulnerability uptime, even more if your counter isn't immediately procced. There was a video posted a few weeks ago of a KFM running into 10 ceruleans and surviving for a few minutes, only dying because he started trying to kill them. I myself have run into mobs of literally 20-30 enemies, spamming 1, Q/E when up, abusing iframe so hard some of them called me a hacker. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough, HM Counter is GODLY.

 

Quick note for PvE: the tank spec for counter gives you 1 iframe. However, a lot of bosses have a sort of spin move, which hits 3 times. When BSH came out, I was crying inside that even if I counter Blood Mane's spin, I still get hit and knocked back by the third hit. No more. 

 

 

tl;dr HM Counter is GODLIKE

 

[NekoSama]

13 minutes ago, FourOhm said:

Gonna have to disagree with the point about counter. HM Counter is AMAZING in PvP, and ABSOLUTELY BROKEN in OWPvP.

 

PvP first: I'll agree, the 300 page counter is kinda trash. But you shouldn't be using stun counter in PvP anyway.

The iframe counter (left tree) is great. 2% heal, Stun/Daze resist for 2sec, and most importantly, 1 SEC IFRAME. 1 second is a very, very long time in PvP. That's the exact same duration as your Q/E, but on a 1.3 second cooldown. I'll list some of the reasons it's so good:

- vs Warlocks. Their combo is an all-out, huge burst combo. Sure, you can block 1 attack every 1.3 seconds, but you will still die unless you use all your other iframes. 1 second of iframe every 1.3 seconds is 77% iframe uptime. Let me repeat: you are INVINCIBLE for 77% of the time he's spamming at you. Assuming he's not proccing your counter as soon as you put it up (which is impossible), the actual iframe uptime is much higher. Literally when a warlock beings their full combo on me, I can just hold 1 and take maybe 10k dmg total.

- vs. Summoners. Similar vein, but not quite as OP. you will be immune to all the cat dazes and stuns as long as you keep successfully countering. Watch out, though, if you spam counter too much you may just get grappled. 

- vs. Parry Spin (LBM or DES). I've posted about this before, but unless you have an iframe on counter, any parry-spec spinner can stun you by simply spinning when your counter is up. The way it works is this: 

     -You put up counter

 

The PvE right path also gives a 1 second iframe(HM or not) you also get a 100% defense buff which is pretty useful. The only real benefit is the stun/daze resist for 2 seconds which while great we are kinda starved on points and are needed elsewhere still imho. But can be useful against Des and Lbm spinners I'll give you that.

[FourOhm]

Just now, NekoSama said:

The PvE right path also gives a 1 second iframe(HM or not). The only real benefit is the stun/daze resist for 2 seconds which while great we are kinda starved on points and are needed elsewhere still imho.

Yeah, I accidentally hit submit before I was finished, so I went back and finished the post. Yes, the non-HM right tree does have 1 iframe, but the HM left tree has both the stun/daze resist, and 1 second instead of 1 iframe. I suppose I can understand if you're starved for points, but I honestly believe HM counter is necessary for PvP. I listed out some more advantages in my edit, esp the 5-point strike one.