User:Loggy/WiK
WiK bar musings, from soloing many of these enemies.
Maybe it's just me, but certain bars seem more common in some areas than others.
Threat: Resurrection[edit]
Resurrection loops can be annoyingly difficult to break alone.
White Mantle[edit]
- White Mantle Knight - Steady Stance has Resurrection Signet
- / White Mantle Zealot (paragon) - Soldier's Stance has Signet of Return. Easily identifiable by frequently using Anthem of Flame
- / White Mantle Zealot - Eviscerate has Vengeance. This bar gives itself away with Bane Signet and Castigation Signet
- White Mantle Scout - Practiced Stance has Resurrection Chant. Easily identified by use of elite and Choking Gas
- White Mantle Ritualist - Spoil Victor has Death Pact Signet. Shadow Strike and Life Siphon also help identify this
- White Mantle Ritualist (ritualist) - Weapon of Remedy has Flesh of My Flesh. This bar also has shouts like "Stand Your Ground!" and drops Vocal was Sogolons a lot.
- White Mantle Ritualist (ritualist) - Signet of Spirits has Lively Was Naomei. This one isn't commonly a problem though, as the AI seems to drop the ashes too far away to do anything most times.
- White Mantle Sycophant - Word of Healing has Resurrection Chant. It's the healer type, or the one that uses Kitah's Burden. Needs identifying quickly to avoid snare and death.
- White Mantle Adherent - Unsteady Ground has Renew Life. This is easy enough to identify, but it also has Ward of Stability (but NOT Ward of Weakness!)
- White Mantle Champion - Cautery Signet has Signet of Return. This bar is the one with Splinter Weapon which it uses frequently, and also Anthem of Disruption
Peacekeeper[edit]
- Peacekeeper Enforcer - Backbreaker has Death Pact Signet. This is hard to identify. I think (but am not confident) that this bar carries Tiger Stance which is not noted on the wiki. Seeing Overbearing Smash is also a giveaway, but otherwise this can be hard to identify except by eliminating all the others - eg no use of Aftershock, not enchanted with Intimidating Aura, not showing Dwarven Battle Stance
- Peacekeeper Goon - Soldier's Stance and Battle Rage both carry Resurrection Signet. This is also hard to identify unambiguously. Notably, the enchanted ones (Conjure Lightning) and the ones with Warmonger's Weapon do not have resurrection
- Peacekeeper Marksman - Expert's Dexterity has Resurrection Signet
- Charming Peacekeeper - Energy Drain has Vengeance. This is the bar that tries to cover the world in Conjure Phantasm
- Charming Peacekeeper - Keystone Signet has Light of Dwayna. It's also the only possible Charming Peacekeeper bar that has any signets at all.
- Silent Peacekeeper - "Dagger Mastery" uses Conjure Lightning and has Resurrection Signet
- Peacekeeper Mentor - Soldier's Fury has "We Shall Return!". This bar enchants itself with Conjure Lightning and frequently uses Anthem of Weariness
- Peacekeeper Mentor - "The Power Is Yours!" has Signet of Return. It doesn't do much else except Aggressive Refrain and other echoes that aren't Blazing Finale.
- Peacekeeper Sibyl - Onslaught has Death Pact Signet. Easy enough to spot Onslaught, it makes it run faster than the others.
Threat: Snare[edit]
Being snared is frequently death. Not being able to run away is introduces huge survivability problems. Non-melee KDs can also be an issue occasionally.
Horrible Tier[edit]
Very difficult to do anything about, interrupts or not.
- White Mantle Sycophant - Crippling Anguish - This bar uses Mantra of Persistence periodically out of combat. In normal mode, it has considerable Fast Casting investment that makes reacting to this really long high degeneration snare pretty much impossible, putting it at the top of the list.
- White Mantle Zealot - "You're All Alone!" - Any Zealot that wields a sword will have this skill. It can be cheesed somewhat successfully with a minipet, but remains a big threat. It has "None Shall Pass!" too, which doesn't help matters.
- White Mantle Scout - Strike as One - This bar is not normally very threatening, but it can rarely randomly equip a bow (which they seem to always drop?). If you manage to deal with a group and notice that one pulled out a bow and started shooting you and successfully dodge every shot to avoid cripple, you are a better player than I. Without the random bow, this is Low Tier as you have to let him run up and hit you with a scythe...
Moderate Tier[edit]
- White Mantle Scout - Melandru's Shot - Don't get hit, or at least not while moving, and hope a Fanatic doesn't Gale you into this. Anthem of Weariness and Apply Poison are giveaways of this bar.
- White Mantle Enforcer - Temple Strike - This bar tends to open combat with Death's Charge into Leaping Mantis Sting. Seems best just to stand still and don't get crippled.
- White Mantle Enforcer - Beguiling Haze - This bar tends to open with Beguiling Haze into Dancing Daggers. If any of those hit, it can then use Entangling Asp and/or Mantis Touch, which is a very good way to get killed.
Low Tier, providing interrupts[edit]
These things are (at least in Normal Mode) not too hard to interrupt. Providing you recognise that they are a threat before they happen.
- White Mantle Fanatic - Lingering Curse - has Ethereal Burden. This is the bar that likes Defile Defenses or Ulcerous Lungs.
- White Mantle Sycophant - Word of Healing - has Kitah's Burden. This bar is a high priority anyway because of healing output and resurrection, and this is really just an extra reason on top to pay attention to Sycophants.
- White Mantle Adherent - Water Trident - This bar has Shard Storm as well. While it's not too hard to dodge all the projectiles, getting knocked down by Trident can cause problems.
- White Mantle Adherent - Shatterstone - This has Winter's Embrace, which it doesn't use much but can be problematic
- White Mantle Savant - Savannah Heat - This has Deep Freeze, easy enough to interrupt but can quite easily hit you as well when aimed at "helper" NPCs.
- White Mantle Fanatic - Icy Veins - This has Gale, which isn't too bad on its own, but being knocked down can lead to other things snaring you. Especially melshot.
- Charming Peacekeeper - Shared Burden - The elite is the snare here. In Normal Mode, this bar comes with essentially no Fast Casting, making interrupting it not too hard. If you get hit, enjoy 20 seconds of slowness, though.
- Peacekeeper Firebrand - Mind Blast - This has Ice Spikes and uses it somewhat frequently.
- Peacekeeper Firebrand - Searing Flames - This has Earthen Shackles and uses it occasionally.
- Peacekeeper Firebrand - Master of Magic - This has Slippery Ground and uses it quite a lot.
- Silent Peacekeeper - Seeping Wound - This is the spear throwing version. Seeping Wound does a lot of damage and is technically a snare, but it has a short range. This bar also tries Barbed Spear into Maiming Spear. Don't get hit by any of the attack skills and it can't snare you.
Low Tier[edit]
Don't stand too close and none of this matters. Or it's not really not very likely to happen to you.
- White Mantle Devotee - Reaper's Sweep - The elite technically cripples but you don't want to stand still to see that. The bigger threat in my experience Aura of Thorns and Death's Charge being used just as it ends...
- White Mantle Knight - Hundred Blades - has Frozen Burst, don't stand too close. This is the bar that uses Conjure Frost. If you run away it usually misses anyway.
- Peacekeeper Enforcer - Earth Shaker - This is the Aftershock bar. It has "None Shall Pass!" which has a bit of a bigger reach than just melee.
- Peacekeeper Clairvoyant - Spirit Light Weapon - This bar does have Binding Chains but it doesn't like to use it except on extremely rare occasions, possibly requiring multiple targets. It's also technically a healing bar, though keeping the elite down means it doesn't really do anything.
Melee Tier[edit]
These require literal melee attacks to do anything to you.
- White Mantle Knight - Crippling Slash - (usualy see Endure Pain or "I Will Avenge You!" first)
- White Mantle Knight - Steady Stance - has Desperation Blow, can RNG cripple
- Peacekeeper Goon - Soldier's Stance - can technically Axe Rake if it gets DW on you first
- Peacekeeper Huntsman - Enraged Lunge - the drake is fast and the master has Pounce. This is also one of the bars where the pet will not get resurrected. It's easily identified as any Huntsman holding a bow will have this bar.
- Peacekeeper Sibyl - Avatar of Grenth - has Crippling Victory.
Non-resurrecting Pets[edit]
Not every pet bar has Comfort Animal. Every single bar that involves a White Tiger can resurrect their pet, but every single Peacekeeper bar except the Peacekeeper Huntsman with Heal as One cannot resurrect their pet. The Heal as One bar is the only Huntsman bar that will wield a spear.
List of Non-weapon droppers[edit]
Peacekeeper Huntsman, Peacekeeper Marksman, Peacekeeper Clairvoyant, Peacekeeper Mentor
White Mantle Adherent, White Mantle Savant, White Mantle Abbot
Bar Distribution[edit]
This is all NM. If I'm not confident of what an enemy is using I simply won't log it. Areas will not be full clears. I'm also not counting boss kills for obvious reasons. I am including "fixed" spawns that always seem to be there, eg the group of four Mentors with "The Power is Yours" in the camp in Nebo Terrace. Not only do I not do full clears and can't note bars I didn't remember or see use any skills, some groups are just not worth the time for me to actually kill because of crazy amounts of resurrection or multiple copies of the more threatning bars. My WiK state for all of this should be that I have accepted but not completed The Battle for Lion's Arch.
HM solo is I think possible, but I don't know if it's really worth doing given how difficult even NM can be, and there is seemingly no data on green drop rates, though they are certainly abysmal in NM. My guess is somewhere in the region of 1/200 to 1/400 at the moment. I got 11 green weapons and 0 minipets before doing any of this recording. Drop rates are not going to be accurate for most areas: the helper foes seem to be able to take loot if you fail to do enough damage to enemies before they kill them.
The "helper" NPCs are braindead and I really wish you could turn them off. They're REALLY annoying and have got me killed more times than I can remember, and the vast majority of them do nothing except be actively detrimental anyway. Even Nola, the most useful of the bunch, deciding to Death Nova you halts your natural health regeneration (plus it gets stripped).
Black Curtain[edit]
Estimated per map: 28 Mantle, 100 Peacekeeper
The Black Curtain (Weapons: 1) |
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Black Curtain Hypotheses[edit]
- Firebrands are only Mind Blast
- Marksmen are only Barrage except for the two popups by Cursed Lands
- Mentors, Goons, Clairvoyants do not spawn
- Silent spawn only in the two popups by Cursed Lands
- Enforcers are only Earth Shaker. Greves the Overbearing's little event may spawn three with Forceful Blow
- Grim are only Aura of the Lich
D'Alessio Seaboard[edit]
Expected spawns per map: 160 Mantle.
D'Alessio Seaboard (Weapons: 6) |
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Divinity Coast[edit]
This area kinda sucks. The groups are very large (mostly 6 foes), almost like it's 8p balanced due to access from ToA... but then Black Curtain is super easy? They also overlap quite a lot. Anyway, this area seems to produce a large amount of problematic resurrection chains (We Shall Return + Vengeance or Mantle garbage like three copies of Signet of Return, both with monks). Or maybe it's the really long walk back from resurrection that somehow feels worse than the other mission map explorables thanks to Loose Magic and spawning an extra compass or so away.
I split this in half, because doing the whole area at once is probably not something I want to do in the future, and the east/west split is mostly (but not entirely) between Peacekeepers and Mantle.
West: 21 Mantle, 86 Peacekeeper
East: 110 Mantle, 12 Peacekeeper
Divinity Coast West |
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Divinity Coast East |
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Kessex Peak[edit]
Expected spawns per map: 40 Mantle, 60 Peacekeepers
The Peacekeepers look like they might use the same spawning logic as in The Black Curtain.
Kessex Peak (Weapons: 3) |
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Cursed Lands[edit]
Expected spawns per map: 5 Mantle (Barthimus the Provident's group only), 35 Peacekeeper
Cursed Lands |
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Nebo Terrace[edit]
Estimated per map: 15 Mantle, 72 Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper Enforcers/Goons will be underreported because the static spawns are easy to blow up before you can properly ID them all.
Nebo Terrace |
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North Kryta Province[edit]
Expected spawns per map: 5 mantle (Sarnia's group only), ~25 Peacekeepers (depends a bit on whether Insatiable Vakar's popups decide to spawn or not)
North Kryta Province |
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Riverside Province[edit]
Estimated foes per map: 255 Mantle. More than I ever want to do solo in a single sitting, especially with a very long respawn walk for mistakes.
The start of the map can be a little rough. The southeastern part of the area contains a lot of small patrols of two Mantle which are very easy. The temple and the western half have some quite large groups that can be rather difficult and debatably not worth the time to bang your head against.
Riverside Province (Weapons: 7) |
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Watchtower Coast[edit]
Estimated per map: 65 Mantle, 48 Peacekeeper
Watchtower Coast |
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Areas in General[edit]
WiK areas and greens I've seen in them (I am NOT saying that any of these are better/worse in drop rates than the others because I have not run them at all equally!)
These are bonus drops. One regular enemy can drop normal loot, Confessor's Orders, AND a green weapon all at the same time.
Area | Weapons | Minipets |
---|---|---|
Cursed Lands | Firebrand (Mind Blast), Long Arm of the Law (Onslaught) | 0 |
D'Alessio Seaboard | The Adjudicator (unknown Seeker), The Holy Avenger (Soldier's Stance), The Hammer of Justice (Hundred Blades), Fanatical Devotion x2 (Soldier's Fury, Stunning Strike), Long Arm of the Law (Reaper's Sweep), Harmony (Priest WoH), The Rapture (Psychic Instability), The Soul Reaper (Spoil Victor), Peace x2 (WoH Priest x2), Promise of the Unseen (Weapon of Remedy), Beacon of the Unseen (SoGM), Righteous Fury (Soldier's Fury) | 0 |
Divinity Coast | The Peacekeeper (unknown Goon) | 0 |
Kessex Peak | The Rapture (unknown Sycophant), The Holy Avenger (Soldier's Stance), Harmony x2 (LoD, unknown Divine), Law and Order (Dark Apostasy) | 0 |
The Battle for Lion's Arch | 0 | 0 |
Nebo Terrace | Law and Order x2 (unknown PK, Dagger Mastery), The Peacekeeper x3 (Goon w/ healsig, Backbreaker x2), The Holy Avenger (Knight), The Adjudicator x2 (Ferocious Strike, Glass Arrows) | 0 |
Riverside Province | Beacon of the Unseen x2 (Spirit's Strength, ???), The Rapture x2 (HEV x2), Law and Order (Beguiling Haze), Righteous Fury (Soldier's Fury), Promise of the Unseen x3 (SoGM, WoR, SoS), Fanatical Devotion (Stunning Strike), The Adjudicator (Ferocious Strike), The Interdictor (Coward), Peace (Ray of Judgement), The Holy Avenger (Cripslash) | Dorian x2 (Escape Seeker, Boon Sig Abbot), Isaiah (Weaken Knees) |
Scoundrel's Rise | 0 | 0 |
The Black Curtain | Firebrand, Righteous Fury, The Hammer of Justice (You're All Alone), Harmony (Healing Burst) | 0 |
Twin Serpent Lakes | 0 | 0 |
Watchtower Coast | Harmony x2 (unknown Divine, unknown Priest) The Hammer of Justice x2, The Interdictor (unknown Zealot) | 0 |
I suspect The Black Curtain is a good place to farm Peacekeepers because resurrection hell is so rare there:
- Mentors seemingly do not spawn, which is a pretty big plus because ANet decided instant uninterruptible mass resurrection should be a thing and, when paired with healers, stopping it can be quite problematic
- Sibyls do not spawn very much, which are another source of resurrection
- Enforcers seemingly cannot have the Death Pact bar
- Firebrands (that carry probably the most desirable weapon?) are abundant
- On the flip side, the map can be awkward, notably the few Mantle groups are big, close together and frequently have problematic compositions
Battle for Lion's Arch[edit]
Spawn order: Heavily work in progress. Probably won't ever get the whole thing straight, though.
- 4x "You're All Alone!" Zealot, 4x Crippling Slash Knight
- Dark Apostasy Enforcer, Beguiling Haze Enforcer, Temple Strike Enforcers - total 8, composition variable
- Punishing Shot Enforcer, Melandru's Shot Scout, Glass Arrows Seeker, total 8, composition variable
- Pet rangers and 2x Flesh Golem
- High Inquisitor Toriimo, Unsteady Ground Adherent, Water Trident Adherent, Savannah Heat Savant, Glyph of Renewal Savant, Restore Condition Abbot, Preservation Ritualist
- 2x Energy Surge Sycophant, Signet of Ghostly Might, Discord
- 2x Icy Veins Fanatic, 1x Hex Eater Vortex, 1x Lingering Curse
- 3x Adherent, 1x P/Rt Sig of Return
- Isaiah, 2x random Jade Bows, 1 random Scout, 1 random Seeker, 1x Song of Restoration, 1x P/Rt Sig of Return
- 3x Strike as One, one pet champ
- Jade bow (is this always prepared shot?), 2x oath, 1x practiced stance (are these fixed or random?)
- Pain. At some point in this big mess are yet more random bars, I've seen stuff occasionally crop up that isn't always in there like Weapon of Remedy, a Word of Healing priest and some Sycophant healers.
A big problem is I think the Healer's Burst Priest that's guaranteed to spawn in the next part. There's cheese: the Jagged Bones ritualist will often stall around the Ebon Falcons, throwing Death Nova on degenerating minions, and the Priest staying healing them, meaning the rest can be killed off on their way to Salma. Of course, the other cheese is to lure Salma away with a vampiric weapon and try to get her stuck on something... that'd probably get a solo clear, but would obviously be useless for farming. This is doable without - I'm not sure what the key is other than killing stuff quicky, but stopping the Jade Armor bonking the NPCs for very long might have something to do with it.
After that, the next big problem comes with the Perfected Aegis group. I think this is doable by killing all the Armors, then balling all the bows/cloaks up, keeping stability down and doing the normal balled up mesmer stuff to them... Though I've yet to actually do that!
I am very unconvinced that greens can drop here. I've now picked up three stacks of Orders here alone - and that ignores more left on the floor when wiping to the Perfected Armor part. This is many, many more than my average explorable area drop rate - so I conclude that I either I am being unlucky, doing something wrong, or they don't drop here. If you assumed that the drop rate of orders in this area is still ~10% and weapons are ~1/400 (seemingly pessimistic), this means (based on 3 stacks of orders) I should have a killcount in Battle for LA of about 7500, and if the drop rate were the same (and static without dependence on any other factors) the odds of me not having seen at least one should therefore be something around 1 in 142 million.
As far as I know, Hearts of the North drops Orders but no greens, which really does make me think that Battle for LA is like those.
Confessor's Orders[edit]
- 21 in 276 Mantle kills (Riverside Province)
- 25 in 245 Mantle kills (Riverside Province)
- 18 in 152 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 23 in 276 Mantle kills (Riverside Province)
- 13 in 141 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 16 in 143 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 18 in 155 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 19 in 148 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 31 in 279 Mantle kills (Riverside Province)
- 15 in 165 Mantle kills (D'Alessio Seaboard)
- 29 in 265 Mantle kills (Riverside Province)
The above comes to 199 in 1980 kills, which supports a ≈10% drop rate.
Drop Rate Estimations[edit]
(See above for Confessor's Orders at ~10%)
I'll probably not update this very often as it's not really changing a whole lot, but in a couple of minutes I whipped up a dumb script that generates a summary:
Mantle dropper kill count: 5032 Total weapon count: 15 Kills per weapon: 335.46666666666664 Peacekeeper dropper kill count: 1843 Total weapon count: 2 Kills per weapon: 921.5 Total dropper kill count: 6875 Total weapon count: 17 Kills per weapon: 404.4117647058824
I don't know of much other data except Péter Kádár's journey farming a mini peacekeeper. Obviously any comparison has issues because:
- His methodology is likely way more affected by any antifarm code (kills shortly after zoning, thousands upon thousands of zone entries)
- He was killing Peacekeepers, whereas most of my data is for Mantle
But, his droprates for orders were not far off mine (~8%), yet his green weapon drop rate was nearly a quarter of what I'm recording (assuming 3 weapon droppers per run, his is ~1/1146).
Now that I'm using AP to do this instead of a mesmer I don't have the energy regen downtime to count enemy builds individually, but I can still count completed runs, so I started doing that. In any case, it's starting to actually look like Peacekeeper weapon drop rates are about 1/3 to 1/4 of the Mantle ones. Yuck.