Warshade Toggles

Greetings fellow Kheldians,

Thank you for your thoughtful advice on my build post a few days ago. I have a follow up question which is more tactics related. I notice that I can sometimes have quite a bit of downtime between mobs compared to other members of the team. At the end of each mob it seems like there are many different activities my Warshade must accomplish while more "standard" AT just rush to the next mob. This sometimes causes a considerable delay before I am ready to engage the next mob.

After each mob this is my typical procedure:
- switch from Nova or Dwarf to Human (my macro automatically turns on Gravity Shield)
- utilize Dark Extraction if it is recharged
- hit Stygian Return to top off my HP's and End
- engage Super Speed
- activate Combat Jumping
- power on Sprint
- enfold myself in Shadow Cloak
- empower Inky Aspect

Do you find you have a similar downtime between mobs? I have a macro that turns on the toggles which makes my post battle procedure a bit easier but it can still take a fair bit of time to get prepared for the next mob.

Sometimes I arrive at the next mob and only the Boss and a random Leuitenant are left alive. At times I will just skip to the next mob so I can get full use out of Eclipse and the Mires.

When I enter a mob I have Inky Aspect and Gravity Shield running, hit Eclipse, Sunless Mire, Gravity Well, Unchain Essence, Dark Extraction, Stygian Circle (if needed), then enter Nova or Dwarf to finish the battle. Do you use a similar entry procedure when you engage a mob?

[Edit: should have listed Gravity Well instead of Gravitic Emanation - I use Gravity Well to drop a Minion so my Unchain Essence has a body to explode - Sorry for the confusion.]

I tend to only run toggles that are needed between fights and most likely its none.

This is two issues:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tommy_Truestar After each mob this is my typical procedure: - switch from Nova or Dwarf to Human (my macro automatically turns on Gravity Shield) - utilize Dark Extraction if it is recharged - hit Stygian Return to top off my HP's and End - engage Super Speed - activate Combat Jumping - power on Sprint - enfold myself in Shadow Cloak - empower Inky Aspect

According to my calculation, all of the above works out to 8.37 seconds of power activation after each and every fight. If your friends play like my friends, they've cleared out the next mob while you're still retoggling.

There's no single correct solution. It boils down to playstyle. If your intention is to fight mainly in Nova form you don't need to retoggle all that between fights. If you stick to Dark Extraction and Stygian, you'll cut down your casting time by almost half, to 4.37 seconds. Less really because you won't be summoning a pet after every fight.

Quote:

When I enter a mob I have Inky Aspect and Gravity Shield running, hit Eclipse, Sunless Mire, Gravitic Emanation, Unchain Essence, Dark Extraction, Stygian Circle (if needed), then enter Nova or Dwarf to finish the battle. Do you use a similar entry procedure when you engage a mob?

I do use that entry sequence minus Gravitic Emanation. The attack chain Eclipse > Mire > Gravitic (assuming the toggles are already up) works out to 4.4 seconds, or 7.57 seconds including Unchain Essence which again, you won't use in every fight. Unless you're on a boss farm or fighting an AV I can't imagine that much is still standing by then. Do you really need Nova at that point?

Bottom line is it's about streamlining your form shifting. Don't waste time activating toggles you don't need, especially if you know you're going to shift back into Nova in a few seconds. While in human form and fully toggled, don't use time needlessly shifting to Nova to blast some straggling lieutenant at 20% health. And if you know that Mire, Eclipse, your pet, etc. isn't going to be recharged for the next fight, don't drop Nova needlessly.

That is some very good advice from Rainbow_Avenger and AlienOne and well worth taking note of.

As AlienOne identified, the best two playstyles involve either being human only (Or mostly at least) and continuing to fight in human form after the opening attacks, or fight mostly in Nova/Dwarf, only stopping to Eclipse/Mire/Pets then straight back into Nova/Dwarf again.

You have hit on the key problem with the true tri-form playstlye, and might be better off changing your playstlye slightly to aviod the downtime.

Alternatively since Unchain Essence is on a long recharge you could just use that attack chain when it is up, then stay in Nova until it is up again, so you only get that downtime once every however long.

One last word: I drop for Stygian Circle when there are 1 or 2 mobs still left rather than waiting right until the end, you are most useful opening up on a full pack of mobs than helping clear the last few, and this should help cut into your downtime.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I tend to bind my f1-f4 keys on my laptop so that they drop me out of form and execute one toggle, depending on the situation. If I'm fighting enemies heavy with smashing/lethal damage, I'll drop to human with F1 and call up the shield.

If I'm fighting enemies with heavy mez, I'll hit F2 and call up shadow cloak. Superspeed will generally follow, but activating it is trivial.

I use F3 to call up Inky Aspect, and F4 will activate Sunless Mire (for double miring from dwarf)

With regard to sprint/combat jumping, may I suggest the following binds:

/bind w "+forward$$powexec_name sprint"
/bind space "+up$$powexec_toggleon combat jumping"

Also, if you want to have more than one toggled for the next fight, keep in mind that you can toggle defensive powers like shadow cloak and the shield on the move without even breaking stride, so dropping out of form with, say Inky Aspect and activating your shield and shadow cloak as you run with your team to the next mob will cost you no time at all.

EDIT - so yeah. Rainbow and Alien and Princess are spot on. I guess I could've just said that.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. I ran a couple of TF's yesterday and tried out some of your strategies. I felt like I was able to keep up with the team better was able to contribute more. I still fell into my old habits at times but I will keep practicing.