Build advice (mostly PVE)
i use a 20/30/0/0/20 build for pve. i swap between greatsword/staff, gs/sword+focus or gs/sword+pistol depending on my mood, if there is to be travel or a dungeon.
you can be as glassy as you want for pve, and you should only shatter to kill the mob/end the fight, not necessarily on cooldown unless you are trying to tag in DE’s.
you can be as glassy as you want for pve, and you should only shatter to kill the mob/end the fight, not necessarily on cooldown unless you are trying to tag in DE’s.
Why would you waste a 20% decrease in shatter rate like this? With the point spread outlined above by Dixa, using the weapons indicated, you can generate enough Illusions to shatter for more damage more frequently than leaving your Phantasms up with their crappy cd between attacks.
i’d rather have 3 phantasms up with their ‘crappy’ cooldowns than have onlyh a single clone out because i shattered on cooldown and could only dodge once or had no endurance and could only use a single clone generating ability.
iwarlock and iberzerker make up for their long cooldowns with the damage they do, not to mention the cripple.
i do not take mind wrack damage increase or crit traits, instead going for 3% more damage per illusion out and 15% more damage on phantasms. i prefer constant high damage than inconsistent burst that can go pear-shaped quickly if you are distracted by anything.
i’d rather have 3 phantasms up with their ‘crappy’ cooldowns than have onlyh a single clone out because i shattered on cooldown and could only dodge once or had no endurance and could only use a single clone generating ability.
iwarlock and iberzerker make up for their long cooldowns with the damage they do, not to mention the cripple.
I think you need to look at your abilities again. When I play a similar spread of points, I shatter, and then I have 3 clones again in a few seconds, ready to shatter again. That includes the warlock and the berzerker. So, yeah, I’m getting all the benefits you’re lauding and the shatter dmg on top of it, since their attack CDs are longer than the time it takes me to shatter them.
bull. their attack cd’s are not 11s. that’s the cooldown with both 5 in illusions and the gs trait for berserker. don’t be disingenuous with your assertations. you may have 3 clones by mirror blading/2x dodge or mirror blade/secondary weaopn clone/dodge and then blow those up, but this seems an infernal waste to me in any long fight.
normal mobs for me in orr die in spatial surge>mirror blade>izerker>shatter. dead. no exceptions. on longer fights i want phantasms up longer and if i’m alone i want gs clones stacking more bleeds even though i’m full berserker. if one of them starts to take damage i shatter them all and go again.
there are many ways to play this class, and i’m not going to shatter on cooldown without both mind wrack talents.
bull. their attack cd’s are not 11s. that’s the cooldown with both 5 in illusions and the gs trait for berserker. don’t be disingenuous with your assertations. you may have 3 clones by mirror blading/2x dodge or mirror blade/secondary weaopn clone/dodge and then blow those up, but this seems an infernal waste to me in any long fight.
normal mobs for me in orr die in spatial surge>mirror blade>izerker>shatter. dead. no exceptions. on longer fights i want phantasms up longer and if i’m alone i want gs clones stacking more bleeds even though i’m full berserker. if one of them starts to take damage i shatter them all and go again.
there are many ways to play this class, and i’m not going to shatter on cooldown without both mind wrack talents.
One of the combos you specifically mentioned was GS/Staff. With this weapon you can:
Round 1 (GS): Mirror Blade, zerker, Mirror Blade → Shatter
- You get the zerker’s spin, while he’s on CD you shatter him
Round 2 (GS → Staff): Mirror Blade, Phase Retreat, warlock → Shatter - You get the warlock’s cast, while he’s on CD you shatter him
You can MI at any stage (preferably with only 1 pink dot, otherwise you’ve wasted half of it) if you screw up that basic rotation or one of your Illusions gets taken out by an aoe.
You can do all that as a basic rotation (I change it up depending on fight and timing, so I can leave warlock or zerker out for longer if necessary or desired) but I’ll still do more dmg than you every time.
Your CD on zerker is 15 seconds. Your CD on warlock is 10. To get three of them up is going to take you longer than it takes me to get the benefit of their initial attack, shatter, and recast.
no the cooldown on izerker is ELEVEN seconds (already said this) with gs trait and 5 in illusions. the tooltip does not change when you equip the 20% weaopn cd traits while also having 5 in illusions. this is common knowledge
and once you’ve done those two shatter combos you are stuck with staff auto attack until you can a) swap back to gs or b) iwarlock is up. your dps plummets during this time. if you actually did mirror blade-phaste retreat-warlock-shatter you’re looking at a long time wehre all you’ll have is staff auto attack and dodge clone damage IF the mob is still alive.
you may burst more, but my dps is higher. as soon as phantasm/condition damage is reflecteld in the combat log so proper parsing can be done i’m pretty sure it will show this empirically as well
and lastly – if your iwarlock is a 10s cooldown you are NOT using my trait setup. i said i’m using 20/30/0/0/20. if you have 10s iwarlock you have 20s staff trait which is minimum 0/0/20/0/0. we aren’t even using the same build, so stop making assumptions when you’re sporting 200 less power, 15% less phantasm damage and 15s cooldown izerkers – none of which applies to me
(edited by Dixa.6017)
no the cooldown on izerker is ELEVEN seconds (already said this) with gs trait and 5 in illusions. the tooltip does not change when you equip the 20% weaopn cd traits while also having 5 in illusions. this is common knowledge
Yes, you’re correct – apologies. I had swapped out the GS trait recently. zerker is 11 seconds.
and once you’ve done those two shatter combos you are stuck with staff auto attack until you can a) swap back to gs or b) iwarlock is up.
The weapon swap cd is only 8 seconds. If you weapon swap, PR, and warlock you have 4 seconds left on the weapon swap. In most cases, that’s still less dead time than between Phantasm attacks (since most are between what 5.xx and 7.xx with traits that don’t even work properly).
and lastly – if your iwarlock is a 10s cooldown you are NOT using my trait setup. i said i’m using 20/30/0/0/20. if you have 10s iwarlock you have 20s staff trait which is minimum 0/0/20/0/0. we aren’t even using the same build, so stop making assumptions when you’re sporting 200 less power, 15% less phantasm damage and 15s cooldown izerkers – none of which applies to me
Oh boy, do I need coffee. I read it as 20/0/30/0/20. facepalm
Good news though, I am gonna try your point spread out!
Wow. You two…OK so there’s a lot to go through there. Time to do some reading. Thanks for your input!