Tanking Phosm Stonebend ( Splitpaw Arena (solo) )

[Tiao]

<DIV>Hi Guys,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thought i'd write a post asking for advice about how to take this guy out. i have tried to take him down 3 times now and can only get him down to 1.5 bubbles of health left.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>currently i am level 37 with decent kit. The buffs i have up at the time of the fight are sweeping crane, quiet purity, staggering stance if i can get it. I also use a imbued Agi ring and a potion. I can get my Agi to about 150. It seems that if i use everburning flame i get taken out even quicker so i leave that off.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I use 2 x 1 hand blunt imbued weapons, pristine imbued briarwood baton and cudgel.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I tried using FOTM with very little effect. Is this guy just too hard? Anyone else having these same problems?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tiao.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Dandeli]

<DIV>Theres a huge 5 page thread on it somewhere around here about this exact champion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I dont know about advice for a 37, when I was 50, I left everburning flame off too.</DIV> <DIV>Most of us that brag about killing him, are raid level monks, with adept 3's/masters, shiney fabled weapons, big greasy eyeballs.<BR><BR>Advice? <BR>It'd be hard to give from our standpoint.<BR><BR>Upgrade upgrade upgrade...</DIV> <DIV>Try a 2her with a higher delay instead of your DW's, sure its ugly but its better. I believe the weaponsmith makes one with a 2.4 delay which is the highest, though a woodworker can get you a 2.3 delay staff. Go Rare if you can, on my server rare wood only costs 10-20gpish. Oh the higher delay only matters if you imbue it, so imbue it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Pretty much other then that, upgrade... </DIV><p>Message Edited by Dandelize on <span class=date_text>07-25-2005</span> <span class=time_text>04:52 AM</span>

[Lareal]

Try using Brawler's stance instead of SC. IMHO SC Sucks. <div></div>

[Sotaudi]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Lareal wrote:<BR>Try using Brawler's stance instead of SC. IMHO SC Sucks.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Take it for what it is worth coming from a level 26 Monk, but you may want to consider something I found.  I have beaten Phosm three times, but I have never taken the Champion (lost once to the trio just before the Champion, stopped after Phosm once to take the award gained to that point, and lost badly once to the Champion).  And I think he has taken me twice.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What I observed from the times he beat me and from one of the times I won a very close battle was this.  The biggest problem I was having was that Focused Strike, Grappling Bear, and Swooping Dragon were being blocked or parried or just plain missing alot.  This not only lost the damage from those skill, but it also meant that I could not complete a lot of HO starters, so I was not able to land many HOs.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Note that all my relevant skills are at Adept 1 (all three of those, anyway) and almost all my gear was orange to yellow.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So after looking over everything, I considered the following.  Brawler's Stance does increase defense, but it does so at the cost of offense.  It, in fact, reduces offensive skills by a full level.  Likewise, Phosm is yellow, meaning he is a higher level than me already, further magnifying the drop in offensive skills.  Martial Foucs does add back the loss of offense that Brawler's takes away (a +1 gain, actually, with both at Adept 1), but since the problem seems to be that I cannot hit him a lot of times, that obviously was not enough.  Finally,  no matter how good my defense was, if I could not kill him, he was going to win by attrition eventually because there is no one else to do damage if I am fighting him solo.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Therefore, I decided to drop Brawler's Stance in favor of the lower level Thundering Fists.  The drop in defense did not seem to mean that he was hitting me all that much more, but the fact that Brawler's was no longer taking away offensive skills mean that Martial Focus was now able to actually raise my offensive skills by a full level (+6, actually) rather than just countering the loss from Brawler's.  This meant I was not only more likely to hit, but I was more likely to complete HOs.  Also, since Thundering Fists has a chance to stun (6% at Adept 1), while I did not parse the fights, it meant i was 6% more likely to interrupt his attacks.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I am not saying that the battle was a breeze after that change, but I do feel that it made a difference.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At higher levels, you may have other factors, but this is something to consider.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Sotaudi on <span class=date_text>07-25-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:10 PM</span>

[Ribbitz]

<DIV>Stacking Wisdom of Zeph and Call to Arms (which stack fine, regardless of being on the same timer) actually raises your offensive skills past what Brawlers Stance drops them. I'm a level 27 monk, so I cannot offer much advice beyond my own level, but I can tell you my setup and I have defeated many, many times without too much trouble.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Brawlers Stance, Wisd of Zeph, Call to Arms. I also use a dmg sheild potion (Concotion of Adventure etc). Oddly they seem to recharge when you zone, so they are actually viable.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>While I do prefer to use Face of the Mountain for MOST of this fight, I do use the Rushing Bear/Rapid Swings combo when I initiate the fight and again when I'm trying to finish him off. (Stun mob, run behind him, rapid swings. Nearly garunteed to get all four hits in).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I begin the fight like that then defense up with face of the mountain. I normally blow toughness and Karmic Focus as I engage, so at this point he doesnt really hurt me much. I then pretty much go DPS on him, trying to work him down. I keep Taunt App 1 out for an easy combo finisher w/out blowing power on it. I also have Wild Swing App 1 available if I ever run out of power (strictly for our fighter combo, of course), which against Phosm I typically don't at my level.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm sure the higher I go, the more difficult he will become. I also have the benefit of Gnoll Mastery, so the times it has been a close fight I've easily turned the tide with Gnoll Master Rage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for the champion... I've gotten him down to about one and a half bubble before falling w/out using the mentor tactic. I simply cannot defeat him. I've tried, and tried some more, but without exceptionally great gear I believe it just might be impossible. I plan to add some healing potions to my arsenal soon to see how much of a difference that makes.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Ribbitz on <span class=date_text>07-26-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:02 AM</span>

[Sotaudi]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ribbitz wrote:<BR> <DIV>Stacking Wisdom of Zeph and Call to Arms (which stack fine, regardless of being on the same timer) actually raises your offensive skills past what Brawlers Stance drops them. I'm a level 27 monk, so I cannot offer much advice beyond my own level, but I can tell you my setup and I have defeated many, many times without too much trouble.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Brawlers Stance, Wisd of Zeph, Call to Arms. I also use a dmg sheild potion (Concotion of Adventure etc). Oddly they seem to recharge when you zone, so they are actually viable.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>While I do prefer to use Face of the Mountain for MOST of this fight, I do use the Rushing Bear/Rapid Swings combo when I initiate the fight and again when I'm trying to finish him off. (Stun mob, run behind him, rapid swings. Nearly garunteed to get all four hits in).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I begin the fight like that then defense up with face of the mountain. I normally blow toughness and Karmic Focus as I engage, so at this point he doesnt really hurt me much. I then pretty much go DPS on him, trying to work him down. I keep Taunt App 1 out for an easy combo finisher w/out blowing power on it. I also have Wild Swing App 1 available if I ever run out of power (strictly for our fighter combo, of course), which against Phosm I typically don't at my level.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm sure the higher I go, the more difficult he will become. I also have the benefit of Gnoll Mastery, so the times it has been a close fight I've easily turned the tide with Gnoll Master Rage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for the champion... I've gotten him down to about one and a half bubble before falling w/out using the mentor tactic. I simply cannot defeat him. I've tried, and tried some more, but without exceptionally great gear I believe it just might be impossible. I plan to add some healing potions to my arsenal soon to see how much of a difference that makes.</DIV> <P>Message Edited by Ribbitz on <SPAN class=date_text>07-26-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>10:02 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I tested what you said regarding Call of Arms and Wisdom of Zeph stacking.   What I found was that if I cast Call to Arms (App IV), my piercing, slashing, and crushing stats go up 4 points.  If I then cast Wisdom of Zeph (Adept 1), my stats go up 2 more points (+6 total).  That would make it appear that they are stacking.  However, if I cast Wisdom of Zeph first, my stats go to +6 and if I then cast Call to Arms, there is no change in my stats.  Since Widsom of Zeph adds +6 and Call to Arms adds +4, you would expect an increase of +10 if they were stacking, or, at the very least, something greater than the +6 of Wisdom of Zeph alone.</P> <P>Since I do not recall if I had Brawler's Stance up at the time I tested this, it is conceivable that Call of Arms would reduce the amount of loss from Brawlers without taking the stat total over what Wisdom of Zeph adds.  So I could see BS (-5) plus CtA (+4) plus WoZ (+6) resulting in an overall increase in skills of +5 instead of the +1 without CtA.  I will test this tonight if I remember to do so, but from the above data, I woud expect BS + CtA + WoZ to result in the same +1 to those stats just as if CtA was not cast.</P> <P>To what are you referring when you say they stack, because (assuming I am correct about combining all three), it would appear that they do not.</P> <P> </P>

[Ragin_Goblin]

<DIV>Sotaudi is correct these two buffs do not stack. At one time I believe they did but it was a bug that everyone was exploiting but SOE has fixed it. I have spent alot of time with guildmates and friends testing to see what will and what will not stack (gearing up for raids so we know what works). WoZ is meant to replace CoA. It's not just another buff that you can use to make your stats better. Test it out for your self. Here is the command to show the main hud for your toon----------------->  /show_window Mainhud.Character <---------Try it out. There are alot of abilities/spells/buffs that dont stack (even cross class). Don't assume that just because you have an icon in your buff window for 2 abilities that they are actually stacking.</DIV>