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[bug_age_inquisition]

My personal favorite, the Truncheon of the Master mace, with the right grip and a stun chance ring you can hit 50% chance and it is awesome on Legionnaire. However believe me, it's not worth it on Templar at all. (Speaking of that neither is Horn of Valor or any build besides Wombo Combo/Shield Wall/Livid)

 

Whirlwind axe was an absolute monster on Katari because of his guard on hit, however I still took a beating from magic, leaping shot and such things. Can't remember if Avvar gets guard on hit too because I hardly play him anymore, don't think he does - but if he did, it'd be mandatory on him. And you can sprint glitch it, which is the real reason why it shines. (Please don't nerf this, if anything give Avvar guard on hit.)

 

Obviously the guard on hit staff is very good.

Amulet of mana regen on mages might be useful in tandem with guard on hit staff, to replace the need for Hakkon's cost reductions. Currently testing on Keeper with Chain Lightning (for guard on hit), Cage, Dispel. Not entirely sure how the amulet compares to the other stamina one.

 

I haven't tried the amulet of threat reduction yet, but I see potential on the Archer for example.

 

Silencer dagger does more DPS than Hakkon if you use abilities that hit as close to 10x as possible like spinning blades. I haven't got Bloody Bargain or the flanking dagger yet but those are, again, obviously good.

 

Other than that, all I've really gotten for new gear is ability rings:

• Fade cloak duration ring has enormous potential, just pulled it last night haven't tried yet
• Keelhaul ring is actually really nice if you run a "support" Duelist
• Elemental Mines ring, while the tooltip number doesnt change I feel like it does work, and while it might not be optimal I like it for those times when I throw the last set of mines after fire flask wears off
• Stonefist ring is just self explanatory
• Broadsides ring for cooldown

If you haven't figured it out yet, Magic Defense Belt is almost mandatory on non-mages. Also lot of abilities like Mind Blast and Full Draw being fixed/buffed adds a lot of applications to heartbreaker builds.

 

And there is the mother of all amulets which I am about to make another thread about.

[DanakV]

Don't forget the Heart of Pride, which is an absolutely amazing weapon.  I honestly don't even want to think about playing the Saarebas without it.  I really feel for the people who are having poor RNG luck picking that one up.

[TheThirdRace]

Don't forget the Heart of Pride, which is an absolutely amazing weapon.  I honestly don't even want to think about playing the Saarebas without it.  I really feel for the people who are having poor RNG luck picking that one up.

Honestly, the Heart of Pride is an amazing weapon but the Hakkon Staff is better/faster at killing things (once you're past 60% critical chance). I've been doing amazingly well without Heart of Pride and even without the Ring of Asaaranda, both things I was so fond of when I started to play the Saarebas.

Currently I use an Amulet of Accord combined with Athlok Burst 1 & 2 + Asaara's Leap as finisher and it's amazingly fast. When the enemy has high Fire Resist, just use Athlok Burst 3 as finisher and you're golden. Mastering Asaara's Leap 2 is also pretty amazing for that Lightning damage. It's hard to use at first, but if you get the hang of it, you'll be decimating things in no time.

As for passives, Static Charge is the most important. The one that gives "Enemies explodes for 400% Spirit Damage when you kill them" is also pretty amazing to speed up things. I don't even take the passive that makes the 3rd stance uninterruptable. I've got the timing/positioning down now so I don't get interrupted anyway or very rarely. The Amulet of Accord helps tremendously though, but only when not using Asaara's Leap as a finisher.

This is all on Nightmare and Heartbreaker, I'm guessing it would be even faster on Perilous or lower...

[Wavebend]

The Amulet of Accord helps tremendously though, but only when not using Asaara's Leap as a finisher.

 

I don't have Heart of Pride (currently farming for it!), but I'd imagine that the increased attack speed alone is worth it vs. the lower damage output.

 

When you don't benefit from any extra attack speed, the only reliable/effective combo when soloing is to somehow cast the Athlok Burst finisher without getting hit, then perpetually chain it until all enemies are dead.

 

But to avoid getting hit while casting Athlok's finisher is a real problem. The only viable flow-stance AoE control abilities that allow you to safely transition into Athlok are Ataashi's Breath (Paralyzed for 3s), Wall of Hissra (Paralyzed for 2s), Gaatlok (Paralyzed for 4s+, but single-target) and Itwa (Panicked for 8s+). Ataashi's Breath is a good ability on paper, but doesn't have much purpose other than transitioning for Athlok. Wall of Hissra's lightning wall is my preferred transition because the ability has an awesome finisher, but the lower Paralyzed duration gives enemies enough time to hit you should you fail to plan your timing properly.

 

And while Athlok Burst's finisher is really cool, the incapacitated effect from Shatter isn't reliable for some enemies. I really, really like Wall of Hissra's finisher, which is a ~8m x 15m wide AoE Panic that deals insane damage as well, but there currently is no way to cast it safely when you have aggro. Even Ataashi's Breath's 3s Paralyzed duration doesn't cut it.

 

My point is, Heart of Pride should theoretically greatly increase the number of potential combos, and that alone is enough for me to put it above HK staff. Maybe you won't kill as fast, but you'll have so many more CC opportunities and overall mobility that you'll end up being more effective in the long run. With my HK staff I don't see how I could solo NM, but with Heart of Pride would be a different story

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

Amulet of physical immunity (except for frozen and panic effects), would make a bigger difference on saarebas than the the heart of pride. You just don't realize the amount of dmg your giving up vs hakkon staff, unless you want to play support which would be a better option vs hakkon wisdom.

[TheThirdRace]

Snip...

Solo is another story entirely. People usually don't solo Nightmare thought

For Heart of Pride vs Hakkon, it all depends on your stats.

At 50% Critical Chance and lower, I'd say go for the Heart of Pride. It will allow you to do a lot of combos and control the battlefield. The downside is that it's gonna be much longer to actually kill things because the combos don't do that much damage on Nightmare.

At 55% Critical Chance and higher, you're gonna feel a difference using the Hakkon Staff. Add the right equipment, like the Amulet of Accord, and you're casting without much interruption while doing more damage. The damage will be better not only in the long run, but also upfront. And if you kill fast with the damage upfront, the enemies have less chances to damage you and your survival increase tremendously. The time to kill things will become much faster. And the more your Critical Chance will go up, the bigger the difference will be felt.

Another thing to consider is what are the actual combinations you're better to use.

Athlok Burst 1 will give me around 4k to 8K damage, combine with Athlok Burst 2 to pull all the enemies near me then Asaara's Leap 3 will hit all of those enemies for 1.5K to 3K damage going up and going down. The enemies being packed together makes it very "damaging" and Asaara's Leap 3 is pretty fast to cast. So in less than 10 seconds I can deal a tremendous amount of damage while taking virtually no hit.

Going in with Asaara's Leap 1 will usually hit 1 or 2 enemies for around 1K to 2K damage. A small nudge to align yourself before Asaara's Leap 2 will allow you to deal between 3K to 6K AOE damage. Finish with Asaara's Leap 3, rince and repeat. It's hard to grasp the mechanic correctly, but when you do you can do insane amount of damage in less than 8 seconds.

Mixing those 2 combinations is even more devastating. Go in with Asaara's Leap 1, pull everything in with Athlok Burst 2, get "immunity frames" with Asaara's Leap 3, chain with Athlok Burst 1 for tremendous damage to everything you just pulled in, Asaara's Leap 2 to get out of trouble and deal damage you can't even begin to fathom when they're all tightly packed like that.

Using those combinations, more attack speed will not always translate to more damage over time. You kill already very fast and deciding what's the next course of action might take a split second that would be wasted with more attack speed. Also, I'm not convinced that attack speed actually speed up everything from start to finish. Yes your casting animation is faster, but does it also affects the following moments the spell goes off? Are the spell effects also faster? (Shatter doesn't always trigger right away for example). Is the "cooldown" between being able to use your next ability any faster?

As I said in my first post, I'm not saying Heart of Pride is bad at all, in fact I think it's the second best staff. What I'm saying is eventually you get better options if you accept to change your playstyle accordingly. Of course, if you want to lock the battlefield up and stick to a choke point, then Heart of Pride will suit that playstyle better.

Ultimately, it's a trade off. Your mileage will vary depending on what you want to accomplish and who you're playing with. When you play with people that can hold their own pretty good on Nightmare, you won't be able to lockup the battlefield because by the time you cast 1 combo, the enemies moved or are almost dead which reduce the usefulness of that playstyle. And you don't have to be a PromotionLord to be pretty good on Nightmare, it's all about knowing what makes your character tic. Knowing you, you're especially good at that so it's a good proof you don't need hundreds of promotions to make it work either.

[Wavebend]

And if you kill fast with the damage upfront, the enemies have less chances to damage you and your survival increase tremendously.

 

I can definitely see how a pure DPS Saarebas + amulet of Accord could synergize well with the playstyle you described. My problem is that I don't have enough willpower to kill most things in one casting cycle, and therefore my survivability decreases a lot. I wish more people would play barrier/tanking classes and carry me so that I could run a similar setup!

[Amartell44]

I don't get to play heartbreaker much because of a lack of a consistent solid group to run with...

But silent sister with the physical immunity amulet and savage thorn & bloody bargain in offhand is pretty absurd... She moves so fast sometimes that's it hard to reign her in... Massive damage and no fear of interrupts... Fun times

[TheThirdRace]

I can definitely see how a pure DPS Saarebas + amulet of Accord could synergize well with the playstyle you described. My problem is that I don't have enough willpower to kill most things in one casting cycle, and therefore my survivability decreases a lot. I wish more people would play barrier/tanking classes and carry me so that I could run a similar setup!

That's where the Glyph comes in handy. Either the 25% Damage Reduction or the 25% Movement Speed + 1 Dodge every 10 seconds. The 25% Damage could also be lumped into this if you accept to take a bit less risks.

In any case, while that playstyle works well with teammates, it wouldn't work as well on solos without the promotions to go with it. I always factor in my teammates because a normal game isn't a solo and those teammates should be contributing somehow... should is the right word here. It does happen sometimes where I'm the only one left alive. In that case, the Asaara's Leap with good positioning will save your life because the enemies won't be fast enough to touch you. You are dancing with death, but as long as they can't touch you, you can't be defeated