Staff 5 has 9 hits not 11~12… Also it’s far from a AoE it’s a 3 target line cast skill the chances of hitting more than one target with the full damage are negligible. Also proc refers to passive stuff Surge of the mists is a active skill.
The “11/12 crits” was a typo on my behalf because I rushed when writing the post; I went back to look at what I noted down from the combat log on that occasion. I mistakenly counted the number of hits to include: a left-over Enchanted Daggers proc, the hydromancy proc, and an air sigil proc, that were all among the Surge of the Mists hits. Hit Svanir 9 times with Surge of the Mists, all crits, all damage values were correct. Equilibrium doesn`t show in combat log, I took the value from the number on screen. Tried to recreate the same circumstances as close as I could a couple of times, and the number is in the 5k ballpark. Even managed to get higher in some cases.
My comments below are going to focus on PvP, since this is the PvP forum and I am a firm supporter of splitting the game modes.
Comments on the combo Surge of the Mists + Equilibrium + Sigil procs
- hitting more than a single target is still AoE;
- Hydromancy and Fire Sigils are AoE, radius 240, and hit up to 5 targets;
- Equilibrium is AoE, radius 240, and hits up to 5 Targets;
- the most “non-negligible” scenario where the full Surge of the Mists channel can hit multiple foes: rezzing in PvP. In a team fight rezzing someone is usually very important. Because of this, it is most common that at least 2 people try to rez a downed person such that they can ensure getting the rez through the potential cleave. Any two points form a line, so no matter how they position themselves relative to the downed body, both rezzers can get caught in the full (or -1, -2 hits) Surge of the Mists channel with ease and the target cap of 3 not be broken;
- there are many other scenarios of PvP combat where full Surge channels hitting multiple foes are not negligible;
- The simplest way to describe combat in GW2 PvP is the interrelation between these conceptual situations: team fights that gravitate around a specific location of small area relative to other regions, disengages from team fights and/or races to reach other important locations, small scale fights (1v1, 1v2, 2v2) that can gravitate around a specific location but there is more freedom of positioning. This description is not exclusive to the Conquest game mode. In PvP conquest (and other facets of PvP), team fights are usually constrained to a small area location in terms of range units. This is not solely limited by the fact that there is an objective in play. A crucial aspect of team fights is team support through shared defences or peel (def= limiting the pressure on your allies through offence). In the GW 2 system (now and pre-HOT), almost all defensive support is applied in close-to-medium range with close-to-medium range effects, as well as the majority of offensive peel. Even in the cases of support being applied from range, the effect radius is almost always close-to-medium range;
- Therefore, there is a natural tendency for a group of allies to have extensive periods of keeping close to each other (down to less than 240 radius) in between kitting to spread the incoming damage, even in the cases of the highly mobile/squirrelly specs (e.g. daredevil, revenant). This behaviour has even more of an advantage due to the 1v1 and rotational potency of current power revenant meta, and due to the AI spam breaking target limits that is found in current meta specs such as “Rise!” necros and Inspiration/Illusions Chronophantasma. In PvP Conquest/Stronghold, no matter how mobile/squirrelly your team composition is, you can still be out-rotated, you are still going to be forced into team fights at some point, and one of your players can still be full-locked in a coordinated attempt by 2+ players, especially on point/objective;
- 240 radius is the average size of a node in Conquest mode (excluding Foefire map they are all pretty much the same size). Once forced into that 240 radius for support, its most likely that allies are not going to think about maintaining an exact 480 units distance between them to prevent an easy Surge set-up and they will end up coming quite close to 0 units of each other (not going to argue why it is best in most situations to keep your character in constant motion, that`s pretty obvious I`d say). So your Surge is pretty much set-up by itself due to the game design once targets are pressured into close proximity of each other for support. Even if you catch each of 2 players with 4 Surge hits, sigils proc on Legend Swap, thus we are still looking at roughly 13k lock per target (not maximum damage potential from modifiers). Whether it is full or half channel is a bit redundant in light of those values (above 10k, multiple targets, no escape once locked);
- Scenarios in PvP where the spread of positions in a team fight is even more constrained than usual because of map design: mid-point layout on Forest map, races to kill a monster on Forest map, mid-point layout on Khylo map, wood platforms around Clock Tower on Khylo map, archway under mid-point on Khylo map, terrain layouts around Stillness and Tranquillity buffs on Temple map, stairs from mid-point down to Tranquillity buff on Temple map, frontal stairways into side-points on Temple map, races to kill/defend Guild Lord on Foefire map, stone platforms on Skyhammer map, terrain layouts around side-points on Skyhammer map, hammer control room on Skyhammer map, orb channel spot on Spirit Watch map, wooden bridges on Spirit Watch map, hero channels on Champion`s Dusk map, supply channels on Champion`s Dusk map, Guild Lord cleave on Champion`s Dusk map, NPCs stacked on a door on Champion`s Dusk map, everywhere on Courtyard map except for the patch of the dirt at the very middle of the map;
About Surge of the Mists in general
- it is a full evade window with no wind-up animation, pretty similar to Whirlwind Attack on warrior greatsword in these regards;
- a good PvP player should have good enough control of his character and camera motion such that in-line casts are not a problem, both mêlée or ranged;
- a good PvP player will cast it in situations where the full channel is guaranteed, if possible. After he has drained your key mitigations/defences (the ones that can be monitored of course, not Protection spam on Tempest for example), or after he has drained your dodges, or right at the end of an evade frame – where any class is typically most open to attack because of animation lock (except those that can chain many evades: rev and thief), or when you are running in a straight line and he is chasing you, or when you are stationary, or following a previous CC lock, or in narrow paths. Furthermore, a good PvP player should be able to make the fast judgement of whether he can sacrifice the damage of the full channel for just a short CC (start cast far away from target to rupt a crucial healing skill – when necros are low and out of shroud, for example) or just a short evade frame (multiple targets are converging on you for a nuke and you need quick LoS/terrain advantage). Other options that can be used to keep the offensive momentum in a fight are enough, to the extent that spamming Surge on CD just for the sake of it can be a big waste;
- a good PvP player will know how to fake or hide their most important skill casts for guaranteed hits (for the best examples look at these aspects, pre-HOT: people that have mastered power warrior, war vs war duels, warrior WvW solo roaming). Fake running away with “About Face” followed by “About Face” backwards cast when people are chasing you. Luring targets into bad positioning, followed by surprise casts from behind LOS props that prevent any view for incoming attackers. Faking one skill cast in the favour of a more potent skill for that specific scenario. Faking an animation lock just to break it with weapon swap. When there is opportunity, keeping your enemy guessing by playing stupid for a fraction of a second to bait defences or to have the reactive advantage: not doing anything while moving in close range of the target, standing still while waiting for him to act first, closing the gap in mêlée and not doing anything but gravitating around target, breaking your offensive momentum at awkward timings, baiting offence with awkward timing of defences. Casting skills that can be retargeted while facing away from the opponent, followed by “About Face”;
- Similar to the Warrior of old metas, which was forced to use such “tricks” to maximize efficiency, revenant in present day metas has the characteristic of being quite safe to one-shots trough their mix of potent defensive capabilities coupled with powerful damaging skills. Thus, such “tricks” that rely heavily on being able to stall can be performed well on revenant even in the current amount of power-creep;
- Short version of the above comments, it`s not difficult to land Surge for a full channel. Simple example scenario: as a revenant, I can port in with Phase Traversal from out of view, which in most cases is potent enough to waste a dodge (because the threat of unblockable big hits: UA, Precision Strike), then follow it with a guarantee Surge channel at the end of the evade frame; if a dodge is not wasted, targeted either tanked the damage or wasted some other defence, and I still have powerful close-range pressure to force an opening for Surge while not being in any danger of one-shot by a single target or a +1;
- Stability in PvP rarely exceeds 5 stacks (only two skills give 10 stacks in one cast), where most sources are interval pulses of 1-3 stacks, some are single cast 2-3 stacks, and few are single cast 5 stacks. To guarantee that Surge gives you no CC you need to have 4+ stacks because of the skill`s travel distance/duration in relation to the number of hits – This was prior to 19th April 2016 patch when it was made such that a stability stack can be removed by CC only once per 0.75 secs, in both WvW and PvP. Now Surge can remove only 1 stability stack;
- If you are caught in it, it’s the only CC lock in game that can`t be countered with a Stunbreaker due to the speed and amount of the Surge hits;
- It cannot be rupted by a person outside the lock because of full evade frame. And the 1 second duration certainly doesn`t help in this regard. Furthermore, in this game, ground-targeted AoE fields and instant, passive CC procs on attackers are limited or on high-to-medium CDs. Surge is at a low CD of 20 secs;
- Don`t select any traits in the PvP tab, select Marauder Amulet + some power runes with no damage modifier, select a main-hand or two-hand weapon, don`t select any sigils, don`t select any utility skills, and look at all the tooltip damage values of the skills in this game. First 3 places for highest direct damage single hit: Surge of the Mists (roughly 3300, not capped at one target), Procession of Blades (roughly 3200, not capped at one target), Thunderclap (roughly 3100, not capped at one target).
- Blind and Aegis are insignificant counters because of 9 fast hits;
- When countering this skill an opponent has to consider 5 elements at the same time: positioning, its CC, its damage, its evade frame, its AoE effects (e.g. if an ally is downed at other teammates are rezzing while I am redirecting some of the focus and damage, I have to try to not position myself around them if a staff rev is on me).