Originally Posted by
Pharcellus
I am also a Helian focused on Primal, but most of the time wear T&C-teched Armor scales with Strength techs as I tend to melee, since I kill significantly faster with T&C than can with our lousy spell line. I miss on attacks against even-con mobs about 33-50% of the time. I pull with Reach, Snarl, and/or Grazing Winds. I Tail Swipe, if it is available, otherwise I just hit them a few times with normal attacks, or use Gust/Barrage if there is more than 1 mob, in hopes Vengeance will go off (for melee mobs). Depending on the mob, I will try to reserve Gold Rage/Silver Strike/Ravage for when it appears I am hitting with normal attacks or the lesser specials, and doing normal damage again. Problem is, with some mobs, that is quite a long time to wait, and means that, with multiple mobs, I can have a significant chance of dying.
With low base stats/skills, it means that I can't fight even-con monsters very effectively to hit over and above their buffs. If I had 1000 base T&C, and 1000 base Strength, I could strike them before their buffs ran out, and still have a decent chance to hit them and/or do decent damage. That's not taking into account debuffs. Debuffs cripple a Dragon. -100 in a stat is a serious blow to us. Fighting shamans (for example, Blood Skulk Soothsayers) makes for a LONG fight. Between their debuffs, expulse, heals, and stuns, I'm lucky to get out of a fight with a single one with half my hp. If I get an add, like a Bloodmage, I'm toast, unless I get very lucky. I'd say that I only ace even-con mobs with GR about 10-25% of the time, usually because the Misty Topaz procs. I rarely see the 1000+hp strikes with GR, and only against very specific mobs, and only when the MT procs (and I am not debuffed).