[P/Me, Various] Fragility echo pyro

[Sitting Sock]

Hiya. Seeing as there aren't so many para builds suggested yet I'd like to share what I've been using. It might not be optimal, but I've had great success with it and find it fun to use. Looking forward to reading your thoughts about it ^^

Basic idea:

Fragility is a hex inflicting damage each time a condition starts or ends on the target. Anthem of Flame and Burning Refrain spams short duration burning. AoF drops alot in effictivity if you're the only physical attacker, but apart from that you want to help keep your friends alive to trigger your AoF which is why a couple of instant cast Command shouts are included.

Attributes aren't set in stone and what runes/hats you wear to get them doesn't matter, but you want at least 12 Lead and to fullfill reqs for max shield/spear:

Spear 9 (7+1+1) - For spear req
Command 10 (9+1) - Never Surrender 4hp regen
Leadership 12 (9+1+2) - For 3sec burning and 6e from shout/chant at max
Illusion Magic 10 - 16sec fragility at 15dmg

1. Anthem of Flame - This is your energy management and burst damage
2. Echo {E} - Echo AoF for more sustained damage
3. Fragility - Keep up on target at all times
4. Barbed Spear - To trigger your AoF and add bleeding
5. Never Surrender - Helps keep people alive, meaning +e from shouts and AoF
6. Stand Your Ground - Energy for you plus more survivability for your teammembers, which is good cause you need them for your damage and energy
7. Spare Slot / Disrupting Throw - Bring Disr Throw for healers or bosses
8. Signet of Return - Save for tank or healer

It's not worth it using a fragility build in missions where foes die in seconds, but where there's alot of small and strong groups it's perfect. If you'll be fighting fleshless foes bring Spear of Lightning Instead of Barbed Spear.

Vs Shiro:

1. Anthem of Flame
2. Echo {E}
3. Fragility
4. Barbed Spear
5. Glowing Signet - To help with initial cast of AR and to spread BR to group
6. Aggressive Refrain - Self only 25% faster attack reapplied at end of each shout/chant
7. Burning Refrain - 3sec burning at any foe with more hp than you reapplies from shout/chant ending. Recast this on all physical attackers using signet to create spare energy
8. Spare Slot / Res / Attack Skill

Once you have the refrains on yourself they're unlikely to ever drop during the fight as you WILL be spamming Athem of Flame ;) Using the Glowing Signet at every cooldown you create spare energy to cast BR on more physical attackers. Apart from recasting AoF you only have to be sure Shiro always has Fragility on him. The reason we're not removing AoF from this build in favour of somethig else is we need a spammable shout to keep the refrains going and when you get free energy and damage at the same time it's a perfect match.

Vs Kuunavang

Same build as against Shiro, but bring Disrupting Throw in the spare slot. When she starts casting Corrupted Scales or Spores you will have just enough time to echo and then use two Disrupting Throws, mind you shouldn't be the only interupter because of Echo's 20sec cooldown each time it wears off.

[Fownkaymownkay]

Ugh, spreading your points wayyy out. Try something more like Leadership/Spear/Illusion, like in your Vs. Shiro build.

Oh, and if you wanted to maximise Frag damage, you'd want 1 second burns. So..getting 3 second burns is kinda counter-intuitive, know what I mean?

But I guess I like the Echo idea.. I just think that the elite could be better used elsewhere...

[Sitting Sock]

Well, I guess you could keep Leadership, Illusion and Spears and drop the Command attribute, but then you're suddenly bringing alot less to the table for the group. Everyone can do damage, you might aswell help yourself and everyone when you're there. Personally I rather recast Fragility and live with slightly lower duration and damage ticks than lose the versatility. Good point though. Could take an illusion focus item instead and bump that attribute up a bit for the Shiro one.

One burning will overwrite an old one. I'm assuming that's a damage tick for the ending and another tick for the fresh start. So it really doesn't matter if they overlap. It does matter that Leadership is either 10 or 12 though, because that's your energy management in the form of shouts. Unless you get interupted yourself you should be able to play just at a constant energy level of about 5 to 10 through the fight.

Echo brings a bit of utility to the build as with it's 5e cost you should be able to afford it at any time and you get the option of another couple of AoF's for energy, or in the space of 20secs you can do four resses with Signet of Return in the event of a near wipe, or you echo Never Surrender to support the healer through aoe punishment.

An alternative could be Cruel Spear for the deep wound condition or Soldier's Fury to cast just before Stand Your Ground, but the latter wouldn't be very effective when spears isn't a good source of damage by themselves.

[Sitting Sock]

Gah, didn't notice from before, but the base of my leadership is 10 with a major rune to it.

I figured it wouldn't make any particular difference if the + on the headgear was lead or spears (and it just happened to be spear from way back when i bought the armour), as there wouldn't be significant spare points to take up Illusion another notch anyway. And I'm not in favour of superior runes on one of my guys unless their benifits outshine the hp loss :P

[Fownkaymownkay]

One burning will overwrite an old one. I'm assuming that's a damage tick for the ending and another tick for the fresh start. So it really doesn't matter if they overlap.
'Fraid not. Imagine a warrior with Apply Poison and Frenzy on, hitting a target that has Frag (casted by a Mes with 16 Illu) on them. Yeah, ouch. Can't happen.

[Sitting Sock]

*sigh*
I stand corrected. Not that I didn't trust you, but tested for myself at Isle of the Nameless and renewed conditions aren't triggering it, just like you said.

Seeing how bosses have lowered durations I guess the 3sec from burning refrain would be either 1 or 2secs which could work without the aggressive refrain. That would explain the amount of ticks I got on Kuuvanang and Glint earlier, but which seemed not to proc while using Anthem of Flame :/

Gah, ah well, if there's something that could be salvaged from this skillset then thumbsup to anyone taking advantage of the idea. I burned out on GW tonight so no more experimenting for me

[waywrong]

Well it still works on Bosses at least, right? :grin:

The thing I hate about having to rely on Anthems of Flame or whatever to get things done is the fact that you have to rely on AI, other people to play intelligently. Sure, you could lower your AoF so that it lasts 1 second. But that would mean your party would have to be smart enough to make sure they don't all spam attack skills as soon as AoF is cast. They need to space it out to get burning as soon as the last one expires. Frag builds with paragons can do a ton of damage, I have no doubt, with a group of well organized guildmates over vent. But in most PuGs, even the smartest veterans will degenerate into lazy players that like to spam whatever skill that is lit up on their skill bar.

[Muhummad Msabi]

Ugh, spreading your points wayyy out. Try something more like Leadership/Spear/Illusion, like in your Vs. Shiro build.

Oh, and if you wanted to maximise Frag damage, you'd want 1 second burns. So..getting 3 second burns is kinda counter-intuitive, know what I mean?

But I guess I like the Echo idea.. I just think that the elite could be better used elsewhere...

I would also consider that you need to focus on what role your paragon will play. As a fragility Para, you should focus on party wide damage dealing rather than using Never Surrender! If you get the build to cause more damage, your monks *shouldn't* need more help with healing your allies. As Fownkaymownkay suggested, keep your points in Leadership/Spear/Illusion or whatever suits your build. I just think having points in a "healing" spell when the focus of the build is damage isn't productive.

~muh

[Sitting Sock]

Yes, the boss build should still work. Might want to consider replacing Anthem of Flame with an adrenaline based shout like Go For the Eyes instead seeing as the burning won't contribute as much as the energy gain would, but that would be up to testing to conclude.

The frag+AoF idea was partially flawed, but thanks for still considering it. Mind it depends what you envision your para as. If I considered myself a primarily "damage dealer" I might as well play elementalist for all purposes. They've got more options to outshine para dps (Not saying paras have low dmg potential, they just have fewer builds to achieve this).

When you keep insisting on more focused attributes, what would it achieve? The enemy might die a couple of seconds earlier. That's all fine in the short term, but in the greater picture for a PuG they'll want to be able to deal with all the random sillyness that so often is their downfall, being able to support your team _while_ dealing decent (not outstanding, but decent) damage will keep that PuG working more efficient by not stopping as often for energy and not getting low hp chars dieing to gather dp. Again, it comes back to what you define yourself and your paragon as. What do you think the other people were expecting when inviting you? Me, I think they wanted or expected a filler, a potato kinda class that can do a little bit of all but nothing to excellence, not someone to be the driving force of the show such as a good tank or nuker would be.