HO or not to HO

[Mojentius]

<DIV>Interested to know how many of you guys use HOs past lvl 20.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ive been in different groups that either dont use them at all, or try to complete them at every opportunity.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I find they have value in doing decent damage while preserving power.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Interested to know your thoughs.</DIV>

[Gra]

<DIV>Solo all the time.  In a group, unless you are in a guild and have voice comms open for coordination group HO's are extremely hard to pull off.  In a pickup group almost never, since your lucky if you can get people to do what they are supposed to do, let alone coordinate a group HO :smileyvery-happy:</DIV>

[Mig]

We did one HO called past's awakening. It did 700+ damage, life tapped, and power tapped the mob healing and refreshing the entire group. HO's help with power regen, health regen, perform AC buffs, aoe damage....and numerous other effects. Your crippling your team by not using them. www.gnorrath.com, our guild built that site.

[Hastur Bloodwa]

I use them at every opportunity. They are so easy to pull off, and the advantages really can make such a difference, that I see no reason at all why anyone would not use them, solo or in a group.

[Gra]

<DIV>Clarification on my earlier post.  Group HO's, such as the one mentioned by Migyb are NOT easy to pull off, they take patience and group discipline.  In most pickup groups you will find everybody trying to chain off their solo HO's and interupting everyone else's, which can burn up your power pool and cause you to be OOP when you need one more shout or taunt.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you play mostly in pickup groups, my suggestion is to find 1 or 2 of the easier group HO's to suggest to the group, and you'll still find that your success rate is below 50%.  If you play in a guild or with a few friends I'd suggest getting some tactics down (voice comms helps immensely here) to use some of the more complicated HO's which will make your group ALOT more efficient.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Chaining off solo HO's in a group is not nearly as efficient as using the group HO's.</DIV>

[Wasuna]

<DIV>I was in a HO group mass killing in Fallen Gates for quest monsters. We didn't start playing with HO's until about 20 minutes into the run. I didn't time anything but all of us ended almost every fight with almost full power except for the cleric and the monsters died much slower. My wife is an Assassin and has the highest Magic attack on the server as of a couple of days ago from finishing a HO that hit for 800+.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I can honestly say that if the full group heal or power regen were not random I would do HO's all the time. I can also honestly say that if the entire group did their special attacks through the entire fight withour doing HO's that the monsters die 30-40% faster.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>HO's are fun and can be entertaining but they slow down the fights and even if you end with full power you still have to wait for the healer to regen power so what's they point?</DIV>

[ScreenMonkey]

<DIV>hey my ranger buddy says he has like 3 different HO's he can do solo but it seems i can only do one HO and power preserve not it seems to hit my power hard.  can anyone give me any info on this?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[GenesisForgot]

I don't bother with them really because I'm always in 6 person groups killing yellow ^^ group mobs at level 26 and it isn't conducive to staying alive...

[Belce]

<DIV>Everyone gets 3 solo HO's I think, for us fighter types they are Sky Cleave, Crushing Anvil and Heroic Armor, listed from common to rare.  cleave is a single target attack, anvil is an encounter only aoe and armor is a group ac buff that last for about 3 minutes.  By encounter only, it is the target(s) that make up the pull, if they are linked then it works, if not, then only single hit.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It is important to remember that HO's exist in two states while they are working, open wheel and closed wheel.  While the wheel is open, only attacks that are supported by it can be done to advance.  If the wheel is closed then any attack can be done and only those that work will advance it.  While the wheel is closed, it will complete or timeout.  So while that wheel is closed, fill your boots, while open watch and put in if can.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Scouts and fighters both get very good well supported opening wheels, and by just trying to put one of those up, you can by default have a fair chance to close the wheel.  I at times will just put my wheel up and hope for a heal, caster nuke or scout luck thing progress it.  </DIV>

[Birani]

<blockquote><hr>GenesisForgoten wrote:I don't bother with them really because I'm always in 6 person groups killing yellow ^^ group mobs at level 26 and it isn't conducive to staying alive...<hr></blockquote>I actually believe quite the contrary of this, if your groups is well coordinated, we take on ^ ^ orange and yellow group mobs all the time in TS and SH. Using the rogue starter, warrior taunt, cleric arch heal, mage insta nuke you can get off routinly 300+ damage with a heal and a taunt built in AND while the wheel is up you can spam away at skills. Mobs die in abotu the same amount of time and we end up with more power left and it seems to temper agro a bit more as well. This is also very effective on named. We just made hot keys to say when we are triggering or linking the HO's so that we know it's coming and don't break them. If it gets broken we just do a few skills and start another one up.

[Syraxen]

<DIV>I find it nice to pick a certain HO and just go with that one over and over, co-ordinate with your scout or something at the start <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[ArgosyAxeGrind]

<DIV>HOs when soloing are a must (especially if you go the route of 1hs + shield). I dish out more damage hitting HOs then any other combat arts and slashing combined.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>HOs in groups are also good, but learn to identify which HOs are triggering and what they do. For example, I duo'd with a priest last night and when I would start the chain, we discovered we were triggering many "defensive" buffs. While the buffs are good, we needed more DPS for our encounters - my AC and combat arts are more than sufficient to tank most mobs we encountered. We found that we did better by alternating our single HOs (mine first, and then his second) that we were much more efficient than triggering the two-person combo that triggered the defensive buffs. Again, this was for a priest/fighter combo. I suspect that each duo group has its advantages and disadvantages.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For the most part, there is usually very little harm in trying to start an HO - worst case, it doesn't complete and best case it can lead to some really great effects.</DIV>

[S]

I always try to use HO's. When group with guildmates, we've been able to pull off alot of HO's even though were not using TS. When soloing, depending on lvl of creature I'll use HO's.HO's is the difference between winning and losing and I hate losing (-: