21 réponses à ce sujet

[Tielis]

I do not wish the pain of gathering up 47 pieces of the same kind of cloth on anyone.    (Very casual player here, I play Dragon Age for the story.)

 

In any case, the guy is a riot to play!  I'm still at a low level, so I don't have many songs yet.  At one point I got bored and just ran circles around the rest of the group, alternating the armor and speed songs.  I don't know why that tickled me so much, but it did.

 

Anyhow, just wanted to let all you hardcore peeps know that Zither is the bomb.

 

(After my beloved Abel-- er, Cillian, of course.)  

[lynroy]

And you spelled ZITHER! wrong. Tsk tsk.

[Tielis]

I'll get him a new outfit and I'm sure he'll forgive me.  

[Robbiesan]

Zither is awesome.  Between abilities Cool Beats and Power Chord, he wrecks everything.

[Beerfish]

Very effective class and a well played one is a huge boon to the group.  I personally don't like playing the class though.

[ParthianShotX]

You did a great job with him this weekend.  I don't like playing him either.  He is nifty though, just not for me.

[Beerfish]

You did a great job with him this weekend.  I don't like playing him either.  He is nifty though, just not for me.

I had all of my characters up to level 20 and only him at level 7 so I had to suck it up and get him up to 20.  I'm just not good at using all of his talents.  I can usually go with two a game without screwing up the combos.  I admire the good zither players who can deftly switch from song to song in a heart beat as needed.

[Tielis]

Yes, I'm finding it difficult to switch.  I thought he would be like the Warden in LOTRO, where once you hit your combo key, the queued actions reset.  And it's not, so this is giving me trouble.

[SkillSpray]

Actually, the more songs you have, the easier it is to switch between them. I'm usually running a buff ZITHER! in NM runs whenever I play him.

This is the order i play my songs in:

Fast Beat->Battle of the Bands->Mark of the Riff->Little Knight Music->Bollstering Ballad->Sing Along->Fast Beat

EEE->EEF->EFC->FCC->CCE->CEE->EEE

 

The songs are within 1 note of each other, so switching between them is very easy. If you have the renewal amulet, you can throw in a couple of Hometown Anthem (CCC) after LKM for added exp.

[Roninbarista]

Played ZITHER! this weekend, and it was fun, if not different from the previous mages.

[Proto]

Virt is one of my favorite characters. So many different ways to play.

 

Lack of CC removal is its only weakness. Bioware, pls. 

[lcneed]

So far all the Zither's I have been playing with are either super strong or super weak.   There seems to be no average Zither.   Either they charge in and things just die around them, or they seem to just hang back around you for moral support.

[Tielis]

So far all the Zither's I have been playing with are either super strong or super weak.   There seems to be no average Zither.   Either they charge in and things just die around them, or they seem to just hang back around you for moral support.

 

Yes, I think I've respecced him five times so far.    Power Chord + A Little Knight Music seems to be the best combination for not dying for me.

[Sothalor]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, copied from another thread:

 

1) Unless you have some ludicrous amount of Willpower promotions that you're literally one-shotting everything you come across, Power Chord spamming will run into mana issues. You need to weave in animation-cancelled auto-attacks in between to charge your mana here and there.

 

 

2) The armor buff song is far and away the most mana and time-efficient defensive buff for most of the situations you'll encounter. Take the song duration upgrade passive, and you get an immense survivability boost against physical damage for 12 seconds. Cast it once before you dive into a group of enemies. You will notice the difference in incoming damage.

 

I would actually go so far as to say that the Barrier song is very, very rarely worthwhile in comparison, especially since all Barriers got nerfed awhile back. 20% Barrier is a total trap. Why? Because it's horribly mana inefficient, it begins decaying immediately, and armor is not taken into account when you have active Barrier - no matter how much or how little Barrier you have. That last factor is key, because it applies to carryover damage that gets through your Barrier.

 

Let's say you have 10 points of Barrier when you take a swing that does 200 damage. It wacks through the 10 points of Barrier, which means there's still 190 points of damage - and that still uses the Barrier damage reduction calculation (namely, you get none.) You take that 190 points of damage straight to your health. In comparison, if you'd taken that blow on 170 points of armor, it would have reduced it to 30 points of total HP damage. (Yes, I know the damage formulas are slightly more complicated, this is just an example.)

 

Unlike the Keeper or Saarebas, who give large amounts of Barrier at a time, the Virtuoso is relegated to giving small chunks at a time, and is mana-gated. Because of how rapidly Barrier decays, a Virtuoso casting that song on people is far more likely to create situations where enemies hit a target with minuscule amounts of Barrier, and thus hit for artificially inflated amounts of damage against the party.

 

Barrier Song is a trap. You will boost your party's survivability far more with the armor/resist buffs, with far greater time and mana efficiency.

[Nythrius]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, copied from another thread:

 

1) Unless you have some ludicrous amount of Willpower promotions that you're literally one-shotting everything you come across, Power Chord spamming will run into mana issues. You need to weave in animation-cancelled auto-attacks in between to charge your mana here and there.

 

 

2) The armor buff song is far and away the most mana and time-efficient defensive buff for most of the situations you'll encounter. Take the song duration upgrade passive, and you get an immense survivability boost against physical damage for 12 seconds. Cast it once before you dive into a group of enemies. You will notice the difference in incoming damage.

 

I would actually go so far as to say that the Barrier song is very, very rarely worthwhile in comparison, especially since all Barriers got nerfed awhile back. 20% Barrier is a total trap. Why? Because it's horribly mana inefficient, it begins decaying immediately, and armor is not taken into account when you have active Barrier - no matter how much or how little Barrier you have. That last factor is key, because it applies to carryover damage that gets through your Barrier.

 

Let's say you have 10 points of Barrier when you take a swing that does 200 damage. It wacks through the 10 points of Barrier, which means there's still 190 points of damage - and that still uses the Barrier damage reduction calculation (namely, you get none.) You take that 190 points of damage straight to your health. In comparison, if you'd taken that blow on 170 points of armor, it would have reduced it to 30 points of total HP damage. (Yes, I know the damage formulas are slightly more complicated, this is just an example.)

 

Unlike the Keeper or Saarebas, who give large amounts of Barrier at a time, the Virtuoso is relegated to giving small chunks at a time, and is mana-gated. Because of how rapidly Barrier decays, a Virtuoso casting that song on people is far more likely to create situations where enemies hit a target with minuscule amounts of Barrier, and thus hit for artificially inflated amounts of damage against the party.

 

Barrier Song is a trap. You will boost your party's survivability far more with the armor/resist buffs, with far greater time and mana efficiency.

[AgitatedChicken]

Proper song casting goes lll, ffl until there are no living enemies near you, repeat.

[Banxey]

This thread makes me want to force my friends to suffer through more of my awful ZITHER!-ing tonight.

[Zantazar]

Actually, the more songs you have, the easier it is to switch between them. I'm usually running a buff ZITHER! in NM runs whenever I play him.

This is the order i play my songs in:

Fast Beat->Battle of the Bands->Mark of the Riff->Little Knight Music->Bollstering Ballad->Sing Along->Fast Beat

EEE->EEF->EFC->FCC->CCE->CEE->EEE

 

The songs are within 1 note of each other, so switching between them is very easy. If you have the renewal amulet, you can throw in a couple of Hometown Anthem (CCC) after LKM for added exp.

 

On my logitech keyboard, I map the songs to the special assigned G keys. Key G1 = "EEE", G2 = "EEF" etc.

Makes things a lot easier.

 

Zan the Man has a Plan.

[Jack Black]

Can somebody tell me does Cool Beats make crits?
Tried with winter pact belt and dots were ticking for about 1k, while hot licks can crit up to 4k for me
So what so good about cool beats?(yeah I have high cunning)

[coldsteelblue]

Can somebody tell me does Cool Beats make crits?
Tried with winter pact belt and dots were ticking for about 1k, while hot licks can crit up to 4k for me
So what so good about cool beats?(yeah I have high cunning)

 

Cool beats doesn't crit (as far as I know) but when upgraded each DoT can hit multiple enemies around your target at reduced damage (150% weapon damamge if I remember correctly), handy for hitting strong enemies that are surrounded.

 

Hope that helps

[Jack Black]

Thanks for the tip
Though I'd rather stay with hot licks for fast peri runs and I just love these fire booms

[coldsteelblue]

Any time