I am looking for a 4th ability for my Katari and cannot decide what to take.
So far I got
Combat Roll (better than "block and slash" in my opinion, on Perilous)
Charging Bull (goes without saying)
Mighty Blow
Does Earhshaking Strike hit EVERY target in the radius?
Or is it more a line (aisle) instead of radius?
Does it go behind walls and obstacles, too?
thanks for your help
Earthshaking is a line attack with a slight delay to jump into the air. Upgrades adds a line of fire that does mild damage. It does go through obstacles.
Pommel strike will likely be better, as Earthshaking strike feels pretty underwhelming.
Earthshaking Strike is quite an eyesore, Pommel Strike is better just by considering that. But honestly I would go with To the Death.
are bosses immune to the "stunning" of Pommel Strike ?
I have always loved using earthshaking strike, but I can't vouch for its usefulness on perilous. It's plus points are; hits multiple enemies more than once damaging any enemy entering the line of fire. Because of this it's great for popping in doorways and choke points. It goes through objects - I have heard of people using it to solo because it allows you to cheese enemies through cover. Finally, it has good range, on a class that previously didn't have that innate guard generation before the patch - a ranged attack was a huge help considering most of his other abilities required you to be within melee range of enemies.
Pommel strike is good, it's fast and it stuns - but you can whiff it, some enemies can't be stunned, and it is single target - on that alone it puts me off. To the death however, is another matter - but then that's trading out a damage ability for a defensive one.
I would as well go with to the death.
Earthshaking Strike is quite an eyesore, Pommel Strike is better just by considering that. But honestly I would go with To the Death.
Earthshaking can be a literal eyesore because the flame effect is really bright white, and it is bad DPS on initial hit and from the flames.
Mighty blow and charging bull should always be used, and imo, high crit and flow of battle should be bee-lined for. Quick summary of my opinion of other options for active abilities:
To the Death: Quite good ability. Yell at an enemy, run him over with charging bull or hit with good DPS ability, get full guard. Can use on venatori and red templar commanders, but vs. the RTC, make sure to kite around to keep yourself safe and tell teammates to kill the RTC while you run around screaming. Can also yell at a high hp enemy you think won't be killed, focus on other enemies, then go back to the yelled-at enemy when you want more guard.
Combat roll: Decent for boosting survival if you use it right after having a CC applied on yourself and to avoid big hits. Definitely makes demon commander easier. Can be very bad if you are playing off-host and have less than optimal ping.
Whirlwind: Decent damage and guard generation IF you can survive swinging at enemies for a while and your team allows enemies to be grouped up around you (static cage, PotA, all your friends dying). Can be pretty good damage if your teammates prime a lot of combos because each swing of whirlwind can detonate them. CAN BE BLOCKED and then the ability will end, best to use after the enemies that can block have been CC'ed or don't have their shields aimed at you.
War Horn: Can be good CC. Be careful about ranged enemies running far away and then killing you and your team from even better positions than before. Rather long ~2s animation before fear applies.
Pommel Strike: Decent single-target DPS and stun. It is easy to miss enemies with it however, especially if they are short or in weird positions.
ESS is better when you lead with it from a distance, and through walls (it goes through cover), or follow up with it after a charge / MB due to fervor ramping up the damage.
Most bosses are physical immune, which includes PS. DC is not physical immune, but is stun immune, which means you can use it to interrupt his pop down and scream.
ESS synergizes ridiculously well with CB. Charge through the line of highest enemy density, until you get to the rear of the enemy group. Then turn 180 degrees and pop the strike. Whatever enemies haven't been knocked down will already be coming toward you, and will run right through your crevice of fire. Smash them to a pulp with your maul, as they run toward you in flames, and keep smashing until you've destroyed everything around you. Especially since the patch, he's become godly with this simple tactic.
Too many min/maxers in this thread...
The take-home point is Shattered Ground adds fire to Earthshaking Strike. Let me reiterate - FIRE! 
It is an essential skill and upgrade for anyone with pyromaniacal tendencies. Katari has no other fire based skills: ergo it must be taken.
End of discussion, thanks for coming.
Other points beyond DPS:
- it has crowd-control effects, as enemies can panic when on fire and/or be reluctant to cross it
- can revive you with HoK rings due to DoT
- luring duties
(already mentioned)
- ranged attack
- goes through walls
- Charging Bull synergy
- is fire; FIRE!
Too many min/maxers in this thread...
The take-home point is Shattered Ground adds fire to Earthshaking Strike. Let me reiterate - FIRE!
It is an essential skill and upgrade for anyone with pyromaniacal tendencies. Katari has no other fire based skills: ergo it must be taken.
End of discussion, thanks for coming.
Other points beyond DPS:
- it has crowd-control effects, as enemies can panic when on fire and/or be reluctant to cross it
- can revive you with HoK rings due to DoT
- luring duties
(already mentioned)
- ranged attack
- goes through walls
- Charging Bull synergy
- is fire; FIRE!
Stinja, earthshaking strike does 20% of weapon damage per second, has a long delay before the second 150% weapon damage hits and flames appearing, and IIRC, I don't remember ever seeing enemies avoiding or becoming panicked by the fire portion of the ability. I have to disagree with all your points except for that it is fire. It isn't because of min/maxxing that I don't recommend the ability, but because the katari is already a rather weak class on perilous and most people would want all the advantages they can get to be viable which unfortunately does mean avoiding certain abilities, until such time that bioware does address the issue. And believe me, few would like it more than me for all abilities to be made viable and so that people no longer have to tell each other that some abilities are so bad they should be avoided.
If people want to use it because it is cool I've got nothing against that. I've even slotted the ability a few times despite my low opinion of it because I wanted to try out unique builds. But don't expect me to see advising people to use earthshaking strike to be much better than advising people to use caltrops.
... I don't remember ever seeing enemies avoiding or becoming panicked by the fire portion of the ability
Maybe "disrupted" would be a better word than panicked.
So you've never seen them run towards you, get the fire DoT, and then instead of continuing towards to attack you, they instead run about (seemingly) randomly, much like Grisly Mutation does? Because i see that fairly often.
But yes, i can't disagree on your min/maxing statements Mr fire-hater 
Although i personally don't have issues playing Katari on Perilous with a half-competent team.
Anyway, whatever. Game is too easy to care about this stuff.
What's wrong with caltrops?
Maybe "disrupted" would be a better word than panicked.
So you've never seen them run towards you, get the fire DoT, and then instead of continuing towards to attack you, they instead run about (seemingly) randomly, much like Grisly Mutation does? Because i see that fairly often.
But yes, i can't disagree on your min/maxing statements Mr fire-hater
Anyway, whatever. Game is too easy to care about this stuff.
Antivan fire grenade and elementalist fire wall cause enemies to run about as you describe., I don't recall ever seeing mobs becoming panicked from earthshaking strike and in your video the mobs don't seem to be affected that way either.
I don't want to criticize anyone for their choice in abilities or how they play (I'm usually a lazy and sloppy player myself), but I have to say the run in your video is not all that convincing an argument of the statement of "Game is too easy to care about this stuff".
The Katari is a very fun class, and I often wish it was more balanced so that I could choose it over other classes without resulting in the team wiping significantly more frequently. When I do play the katari, I do whatever I can to make it stronger, because imo it isn't a cake walk, and I think your video lends much more credence to my opinion than yours.
The Katari is a very fun class, and I often wish it was more balanced so that I could choose it over other classes without resulting in the team wiping significantly more frequently. When I do play the katari, I do whatever I can to make it stronger, because imo it isn't a cake walk, and I think your video lends much more credence to my opinion than yours.
The game is pretty clearly balanced around routine, and maybe threatening, not the end-game Perilous difficulty, as the devs are focusing their efforts on other things (that bard looks like a taste of seriously fun stuff). I really like the Katari-buff gimme though.
I'm really happy to be able to play Katari well and have fun with it on Perilous, and to share that joy with my fellow players. It is indeed no cake walk at first, and off-host melee just sucks as a core-issue. . . but I think there's enough room for ESS. PS's benefit is not really game changing.
TTD is OK but takes too many points (and makes too many sacrifices) for its benefit for my personal taste.
GC is fun but not useful outside of trolling and fishing for DC / Terrors.
The other skills.. kinda trashy. I guess WH is better than before now that Katari gains guard per hit, but suffers the same fate as TTD, as the true ability point cost is 6 pts. 5 if you already want CR but that's really 8 total on the tactics tree. That's before you have any other useful ability like fervor.
I don't want to criticize anyone for their choice in abilities or how they play, but I have to say the run in your video is not all that convincing an argument of the statement of "Game is too easy to care about this stuff".
... and I think your video lends much more credence to my opinion than yours.
Maybe some context is needed: i was quite drunk, my gear was worse than i have now, my promotions are low (+17 con, +2 cunning, +11 will), and two of the other players were distracted streaming and answering questions.
It's by no means an epeen "look how leet i am" video - probably the opposite, and i'm playing at some of my worst - and i'm still not face-planting and fading out every wave, as per the stereotype. i don't keep typically vids, and only saved this one due to the people i was playing with.
So hopefully that context gives some perspective on why i think its easy not hard.
TTD is OK but takes too many points (and makes too many sacrifices) for its benefit for my personal taste.
Whirlwind actually works really well. It's almost an instant full guard ability. I'd just be careful about using it against enemys that can block it.
My thoughts:
PS used to be the clear choice but now, unless you have your camera squared on your target, odds are you will miss a few times before it connects. I still select it, but its attractiveness has diminished.
TTD is great, but its a big investment/sacrifice for it, and there is a delay in casting it.
WH is nice, especially the "secret" damage it does, but I like to be mobile as a Katari and PS/CR give you gap closers.
WW is fun but really only useful for fooling around on lower difficulties. Having it blocked makes it a waste and dangerous.
Never really used ESS, but I will give it a try.
PS used to be the clear choice but now, unless you have your camera squared on your target, odds are you will miss a few times before it connects. I still select it, but its attractiveness has diminished.
No, you have to turn off the mouse look option.
I never touched the mouse look, doing exactly what I did before the patch. It may be the case that a hard target lock fixes the issue, but I didn't need it before so something did change. Don't you find it cumbersome to hard target something when so much of katari play is fast and furious?
Earthshaking Strike (with the upgrade) gives the Katari a way to deal with archers on Threatening and Perilous. Sure it's not doing a ton of damage, but it does enough damage to remove archers from the picture. It also lets you solo wave 5 as I discovered a few weekends ago... I only solo'd routine with it... but at lvl 9. So it's a handy ability for it's range component imo.
I like Pommel Strike for the nice and fast animation. TTD might be good, too - I have it on my Legionnaire where it does quite well.
I never touched the mouse look, doing exactly what I did before the patch. It may be the case that a hard target lock fixes the issue, but I didn't need it before so something did change. Don't you find it cumbersome to hard target something when so much of katari play is fast and furious?
PC? I've had serious trouble with PS tracking when I had the auto-mouselook active. I turned it off again and now it works like before - no hard lock required.
Retour en haut
