I thought it was virtually impossible for iWarlock to do as little damage as 500.
It is when you have no Power investment at all.
But even if it did 2000 damage, it is still about equal to a Staff Clone in my build after considering all factors.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
So you don’t use iWarlock in a condition build with Staff?
I only conjure iWarlock in a condition build for Shatter fodder, or if a boss mob has so many people hitting it it has full stacks of Bleeding and perma-Burn already. In my build iWarlock deals only ~500 damage per hit (~1000 crit), which is considerably less than what a Staff Clone can do; even with the condition damage bonus.
(In case you don’t know, iWarlock’s condition damage bonus is for unique conditions only: 25 stacks of Bleed is exactly the same as 1 stack.)
(edited by Embolism.8106)
They don’t do damage underwater either. Trident Clones however apply Confusion on each hit, so they can do damage indirectly through that. Staff Clones can do it too through Burning and Bleeding.
Do I have to make video prof, or can’t you guys and girls log in a try it your self. No conditions just normal hits does damage. Not much, very litle, but they DO damage.
Oh, so by damage you just mean very little damage… well, my land Clones do that too at level 80…
It could be that your underwater weapons are stronger than your land weapons, allowing them to break through the 0 damage threshold.
They don’t do damage underwater either. Trident Clones however apply Confusion on each hit, so they can do damage indirectly through that. Staff Clones can do it too through Burning and Bleeding.
LOL.
You’re going to have an uphill battle explaining how, say, Staff doesn’t have a major power scaling (iWarlock), or that half of iDuelist’s damage isn’t power-scaling …
Torch is about the only weapon that offers pure condition damage. Lulz.
Edit:
Also, Mesmers don’t need Vit or Toughness. Mesmer OP always live never die #1 huehue.
Warlock is entirely Power-scaling, which proves my point. Duelist is entirely Power-scaling too until you get Sharper Images, in which case it is a rare case where both Power and Malice contribute about equally.
Let me explain this another way. Power and Malice are both stats that increase your DPS. Using Power and Malice together however rarely increases your DPS by more than using Power or Malice alone: the benefit of using them together, therefore, is quite minimal.
The only benefit of using Power and Malice together is if you want versatility: to use Power for enemies with lots of condition cleansers and Malice against enemies with lots of armour. The problem with this is that there are no hard counters either way: a Power build can do fine against heavily armoured opponents and Malice builds can eventually break through condition cleansers, so the benefits of versatility is questionable.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
There is no such thing as a 1vs1 fight when fighting amongst neutral mobs. It always ends with me getting chased by a whole horde of neutrals.
No reason you can’t have both with Carrion gear.
Don’t know why people are so “POWER VERSUS COND DAMAGE” as if they were exclusive.
Because then you’re sacrificing defensive stats like Toughness and Vitality for very little gain. Most skills scale off either Power or Malice, rarely do they scale off both (iMage scales off Malice far better than it does Power), meaning only one of your offensive stats is really contributing at any one time. It is suboptimal.
It is why Rabid gear (Malice Precision Toughness) is so coveted by condition damage lovers, it doesn’t waste stats in Power.
Deceptive Evasion Clones should really all target your target.
Don’t see why it needs anything taken away to balance. As it is it’s an underpowered Utility skill essentially, needs serious love to be Elite level.
@ teviko:
Retaliation damage scales off Power while Confusion damage scales off Malice. Either you have good Confusion damage or good Retaliation damage, you cannot have both. Plus iMage’s Retaliation only lasts 3s and the maximum damage it can deal is about 380.
iMage is weak, plain and simple. Its damage potential is much lower than other damaging Phantasms, and it has the longest CD.
I actually really like Mass Invisibility, because it doesn’t feel like an Elite… I can use it like a Utility skill, which feels much smoother to me than Moa or Time Warp with their massive CDs.
Of course, that’s what’s wrong with MI: it’s not an Elite, not by a long shot. It would need to have its CD halved to feel like an Elite IMO, as using it never changes the game (though it’s very handy for escaping sticky situations: if it doesn’t get interrupted during its long cast time, that is).
Bluebird:
Sure it is, but switching weapon sets is 9 seconds you don’t have access to the Staff and Staff Clones; in general I don’t feel it’s worth doing. Plus the DPS bonus gained with Duelist is not that big compared to what Staff Clones can do: remember they don’t just inflict conditions, they also give you Might and Fury; boosting the damage dealt by you and all your Clones.
The only reason I’d switch would be to use Magic Bullet (usually to stop a runner, there’s rarely enough time to interrupt a heal if I’m not on the set to begin with) or Blurred Frenzy (if I’m Immobilised with Phase Retreat/Blink on CD).
In general, condition damage builds are more powerful than Power builds in prolonged fights, the exception being zerg fights where the target is piled with so many conditions yours don’t register. Against weak mobs however a Power build is more efficient.
In sPvP however I’d definitely take a condition build over a Power build.
When something says it inflicts “random” conditions and boons, it is not as random as you think.
Winds of Chaos inflicts one of three conditions: Burning, Bleeding or Vulnerability. Staff Clones likewise inflict one of these three. It applies one of two boons: Might or Fury.
Chaos Armour inflicts one of three conditions: Blind, Cripple or Confusion. It always applies Protection right off the bat and applies one of two boons: Regeneration or Swiftness.
Chaos Storm inflicts one of three conditions and a CC: Poison, Chill, Weakness or Daze. It applies one of three boons: Aegis, Swiftness or Retaliation.
Debilitating Dissipation inflicts one of three conditions: Weakness, 3x Bleeding or 3x Vulnerability.
The best weapon sets for a condition damage build is Staff + Sword-Pistol. Because Sword Clones attack quickly so can apply lots of Bleeding from Sharper Images, same deal with Duelist. If you really want Confusing Images you can go for Scepter, but IMO Scepter is bad as both the autoattack and Scepter Clones are crap: after you use Confusing Images the only thing you want to do is to switch out.
Personally though I always stick with Staff, I rarely switch weapon sets playing a condition build. There’s just rarely any need to do so.
The Staff, despite being a “long ranged” weapon, is very much a close ranged weapon in duels; because the bounce only occurs if a valid target is within 600 range. If you’re going to be in close range anyway I don’t feel the slow projectile is a problem.
Remember that the Staff’s power is in the fact that Staff Clones also cast Winds of Chaos with the full conditions and boons, and these boons will always be bounced to you in a duel as Illusions cannot be the target of a bounce. Three Staff Clones plus yourself with Illusionary Elasticity (allowing one cast of Winds of Chaos to hit an enemy twice in a duel) is very powerful, inflicting loads of conditions on the enemy and stacking loads of boons on yourself.
In PvE I’d Shatter for a finisher. In PvP I generally only Shatter for Distortion, and usually only to secure a stomp.
I think the main reason the Mesmer is so popular in sPvP is because it’s a noob-stomper. New players do not know how to deal with Clones, making them easy prey for even the least skilled Mesmer.
There may or may not be OP builds: people often cite the Phantasm build as OP, but I couldn’t comment on that as I don’t play one.
Please do not change the charges of my mantras. It’s so useful to have 2 charges (and 3 if you spec for it). If you think they need to act like our normal heal then you aren’t utilizing it properly. It took me a while to figure out how to use it well and after I did (and after I stopped being afraid to take a time out of combat in long fights to recharge my mantra) it became significantly more powerful.
Mantra of Recovery was my favourite heal throughout Beta, I only stopped using it when they nerfed its healing from 3260 per charge to 2620 per charge for no reason. I know how to use MoR and how to channel it in combat (stealth skills, CC and just LoSing helps a lot), the reason I don’t use it anymore is simple: it’s no longer worth using without traits. Its HPS isn’t much better than Ether Feast now and doesn’t justify its 4s self-Daze.
Mesmer enchantments.
In other words, don’t think the Arcane Council necessarily represents Asuran interests as a whole. Remember that members of the Council are either forced into the position (most Asura would rather do research than deal with bureaucracy) or are power-hungry.
You may as well wonder why they’re not immune to Bleeding and Daze and Confusion.
There was an Asura, Oola, who combined Golemancy and Necromancy; claiming that one deals with life and the other death and the two are destined to collide.
Well.. if they did the changes once.. why you want them back? if they did the changes be4 it was probably because they were way too OP as they used to be.. lol
specially..
Mantra of Resolve
Increase number of conditions cleansed from 2 to all
Additional effect: immune to conditions for 5s
Decrease cool down from 20s to 15s
This returns Mantra of Resolve to its original power, with an added effect to make it competitive with other condition cleansers.Well.. if they did the changes once.. why you want them back? if they did the changes be4 it was probably because they were way too OP as they used to be.. lol
specially..
Mantra of Resolve
Increase number of conditions cleansed from 2 to all
Additional effect: immune to conditions for 5s
Decrease cool down from 20s to 15s
This returns Mantra of Resolve to its original power, with an added effect to make it competitive with other condition cleansers.Lol immune to conds for 5s.. with a 15s cd.. srsly? not counting the fact that you can cast it while moving..
waaayy too stronk..
If you were not in the Beta you would not understand how Mantras were and why changes occurred.
Long story short, Mantras used to be weak because Mantra traits were OP. Anet then changed Mantra traits (specifically Harmonious Mantras) so that they’re less OP, with the idea that untraited Mantras could be buffed. The problem is, they way they went about it they actually made untraited Mantras even weaker than before, and now they don’t even have OP traits to help them out.
The reason I want to reverse the changes is because I feel Anet went about the wrong way to balance Mantras and their traits, and I want to propose another way to balance them: specifically one that does not involve multiple charges.
Also, I can tell you have never used Mantras yourself because you do not understand how debilitating the long channelling of a Mantra is. It is essentially a self-Daze and makes channelling Mantras during combat near-impossible without wasting a defensive skill to cover for it.
If you take Phantasmal Haste, Warden will whirl almost non-stop and will in fact block/reflect projectiles non-stop, even during the brief pause between whirls.
I agree with your ideas 100%, however, the numbers might be a little off, might need a little testing.
I’m sure they are, especially with MoR as while I suggested returning it to its previous healing, I also suggested reducing channel time by 1s; which may be too much together.
Most of the changes I proposed however are reversals of what Anet has done to Mantras during the Beta.
Currently, Mantras are not only clunky to use, but are almost completely worthless without traits. I also personally hate the multiple charges system as, IMO, Mantras should be powerful spells even if you only cast them once; not weak spells that are spammed between channels.
Here are my ideas of how Mantras should be polished (or rather, overhauled). Please share your ideas as well.
All Mantras
- Reduce channel time from 4s to 3s
- Reduce number of casts per channel from 2 to 1
Should make Mantras less clunky to use and address my pet gripe of multiple charges.
Mantra of Recovery
- Increase base healing from 2620 to 6520
This returns Mantra of Recovery to its original (total) healing, before they steath-nerfed it for no reason.
Mantra of Pain
- Increase base damage from 324 to 650
- Increase cool down from 1s to 5s
There is no reason for Mantra of Pain to have almost no cool down, all it serves to do is to make it incompatible with Mantra Mastery and break Restorative Mantras, which many believe is the reason Mantra channel time was nerfed from 3s to 4s.
Mantra of Distraction
- Increase Daze duration from 1s to 3s
- Decrease cool down from 30s to 15s
This turns Mantra of Distraction into a silence as well as an interrupt.
Mantra of Resolve
- Increase number of conditions cleansed from 2 to all
- Additional effect: immune to conditions for 5s
- Decrease cool down from 20s to 15s
This returns Mantra of Resolve to its original power, with an added effect to make it competitive with other condition cleansers.
Mantra of Concentration
- Increase Stability duration from 2s to 5s
- Decrease cool down from 25s to 15s
Again returns Mantra of Concentration to its original power. Seriously, this was a never-used Mantra to begin with, then they changed it and made it totally worthless.
Harmonious Mantras
- Overhauled effect: reduce Mantra channel time from 3s to 2s (instead of “Health! Vigour! Recovery!” you’d chant “Health! Recovery!”)
I hate multiple charges, and I think this is a good effect worthy of Grandmaster. I know I’d want it if I play a Mantra build, but it’s not essential like the previous versions of this horrid trait.
Protected Mantras
- Overhauled effect: gives you Protection for 1s for every second you’re channelling a Mantra (including when you start channelling); Gives you Protection for 2s when you finish channelling a Mantra, or 3s if you have Harmonious Mantras
The original effect was +250 Toughness while channelling, which really made little difference. The idea of this is to provide 5s Protection, but in a round-about way so it cannot be abused by channel-cancellers.
Empowering Mantras
- Increase damage bonus from channelled Mantras from 4% to 5%
Since Mantras won’t have multiple charges, this deserves a small buff (or rather, reversal of a nerf).
Restorative Mantras
- Healing is triggered by casting instead of finish channelling a Mantra
To make it more intuitive and easier to use.
You can find your first mentor in your home instance but that’s it.
The Inquest produce results. The Arcane Council is concerned with one thing only: Asuran domination over all of Tyria. They see the Inquest as the Asura’s best chance of achieving that, and it’s true.
Basically, the Arcane Council itself is very shady. That’s why it allows and even curries favour with the Inquest.
Cry of Frustration’s Confusion lasts only 3s, not 4s as its tooltip says.
Oh, and Chaotic Dampening on WoC Bleeding is not a tooltip anomaly, it is a real nerf. Your Bleeding really do only last 5s.
Master of Misdirection does affect Confusion from Shatters and Illusionary Retribution. It does not affect Confusion from Confusing Combatants or Illusion-inflicted Confusion, like from iMage.
Where did you test these?
I just went and tested these in heart of the mists again to be sure. (tested them in pve before that)
Winds of Chaos lasted 7s against the target golem, even with Chaotic Dampening
I did make a mistake in that Illusionary Retribution does get its confusion extended, but cry of frustation (the only shatter that causes confusion without traits) still did not.I also made sure to not have any traits on besides the ones that were necessary for testing, to make sure there were no conflicts.
You are right about Chaotic Dampening, but not about Cry of Frustration. Master of Misdirection does increase CoF’s Confusion duration.
I did, however, find another bug: CoF’s Confusion only lasts 3s, not the 4s the tooltip says.
Far-Reaching Manipulations increases range by 300 as it should.
Oh, and Chaotic Dampening on WoC Bleeding is not a tooltip anomaly, it is a real nerf. Your Bleeding really do only last 5s.
Master of Misdirection does not affect Confusion from Confusing Combatants or Illusion-inflicted Confusion, like from iMage.
Staff Clones use an old version of Winds of Chaos that travels along the contours of the ground. Also, Bleeding inflicted by Staff Clones’s WoC always lasts 5s instead of 7s, unrelated to Chaotic Dampening.
Far-Reaching Manipulations reduces the CD of Arcane Thievery from 45s to 40s.
Blade Training does affect Spear skills and Blurred Frenzy, though it does not seem to affect other Sword skills.
Master of Misdirection does affect Confusion from Shatters and Illusionary Retribution. It does not affect Confusion from Confusing Combatants or Illusion-inflicted Confusion, like from iMage.
Phantasmal Defender being conjured out of melee range does not affect its effectiveness. How it works is that whenever you take damage, half of that damage is absorbed by the Defender no matter where it is.
Masterful Reflection Does not affect Blurred Inscriptions either.
Staff Clones use an old version of Winds of Chaos that travels along the contours of the ground. Also, Bleeding inflicted by Staff Clones’s WoC always lasts 5s instead of 7s, unrelated to Chaotic Dampening.
Far-Reaching Manipulations reduces the CD of Arcane Thievery from 45s to 40s.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Reflection only works on projectiles. It doesn’t work on melee, ground-targeted AoE or non-projectile ranged attacks.
Also, Masterful Reflection only works on the Shatter Distortion. It does not work on Blurred Frenzy or Blurred Inscriptions.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
I’ll laugh when Anet finally gets around to changing Phantasm names to “Phantasmal X”.
Confusion damage is much higher in PvE compared to PvP to compensate for slower mob attack rates. Fun fact: WvW Confusion damage uses the PvE version, which means you can gib people in an instant by using Confusing Images + IR CoF for 11 stacks of Confusion.
Currently I do more than 3000 damage per skill activation with this, and I haven’t even “maxed out” my condition damage yet: when I do it’ll probably be 4000 damage per skill activation.
If you use Illusion of Drowning it gives your victim reflection, which could reflect Siren’s Call from Clones to you inflicting you with Confusion.
3x Bleeding is a lot of damage, that and Weakness are worth it. IMO being able to apply only a choice of these conditions is a strength of the trait. If it was a random condition from any condition I’d be less inclined to take it.
iDuelist applies Regeneration from Phantasmal Healing every 3 seconds or so. Stand near it and Illusionary Membrane will give you almost constant Protection.
illusions also take on the the “proc” stats for weapon sigil…so a sigil of earth would grant the iDuelest and clones you create while using the pistlol the 60% bleed proc.
Not true. The only Sigils that can affect Illusions are those that modify your stats, such as Sigil of Battle.
If you want Clones that do damage, use the Staff. Staff Clones do excellent damage.
Phantasm (direct) damage is determined by your Power stat.
Do we know how that works? I haven’t done testing myself, but do the boons transfer stats on phantasms already summoned or do you have to have them upon summon for them to transfer over. The latter sounds easiest for them to do even if it isn’t as balanced.
Given that existing Staff Clones do progressively more damage as they stack Might boons on you, it would seem the stat changes are applied immediately.
I’m pretty sure that this is exactly the opposite case. Illusions are copies of youself without boons. Damage/ HP and other stats are somewhat scaled (like clones have ~2% of your damage) but depend on your stats.
Increasing illusion stats has to be done be giving them boons (like Fury).
Indeed, Illusions do not get boons when you get them. However, because Illusions use your stats to determine their stats, any boons that change your stats directly: e.g. Might and Fury: will indirectly boost your Illusions too.
You can test this by simply conjuring a Staff Clone against a dummy Golem. As you gain Might, its Burning and Bleeding damage increases. Same deal with Fury.
I think skills are ordered based on their CD, so skills with longer CDs will go towards the back. Chaos Armour and Chaos Storm are an exception because Chaos Storm used to have 40s CD, same as Chaos Armour; and they didn’t change the order when they reduced Storm’s CD.
Clones and Phantasms use all your offensive stats, and possibly defensive stats as well. Also, boons and such that affect your base stats will improve your Illusions: getting Might and Fury on yourself will increase the (condition) damage and crit chance of your Illusions as well.
You can craft the armor yourself (with whatever stats you want) , you are lucky its quite cheap in this game.
Except you can’t. The Rabid prefix is not available via crafting.
UPDATE:
This is strange. I just respecced (putting 10 points into Domination, 10% condition duration) and now my Bleeding from WoC lasts 7.75s (0.75 is from the 10%). In sPvP however, the Bleeding duration is always 7+s even if I don’t put any points in Domination.
UPDATE 2:
I have discovered the cause. It is the trait “Chaotic Dampening”, taking it reduces the Bleeding duration of WoC from 7s to 5s.
Also, Staff Clones use the old version of WoC, the one that cannot transverse the Z axis and travels along the ground (making it useless against enemies on different elevations).
I also noticed the Bleeding applied by a Staff Clone’s WoC always lasts 5s (with or without Chaotic Dampening), but the Burning/Vulnerability it applies isn’t any weaker than your own; so I doubt this is intended.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Anyone notice the lack of racial healing skill for Asura Engineer?
in Asura
Posted by: Embolism.8106
Racial skills are the same for that race regardless of profession.
Racial skills do not necessarily have to include a healing skill, in fact only humans and sylvari get a healing racial.