Curse

God_Hand · Aug 19, 2009, 07:25 PM // 19:25

You probably remember my "Thoughts" topic on Armor of Sanctity. This time, I'd like your input on Illusion of Pain. It's grown pretty popular since the update. Here's a look at it:

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Illusion_of_Pain

Remember the old Weaken Knees? It gave 5 degen and 14 damage while moving. Combined with another hex, the result was more or less 17 degen while moving.

Now check out Illusion of Pain. It causes 10 degen off the bat at 14 Illusion. It also gives 10 damage a second, equivalent to 5 degen. You don't need another hex to reach maximum degen, and they don't need to be moving, the skill does it all for you unconditionally.

This skill is basically a non-elite non-conditional Weaken Knees. It causes 30 damage a second, equivalent to 15 degen, to your bar. This gives a total of 300 damage over the course of one ten second hex. Worst part? It can be maintained.

There's a drawback to this skill. If the hex ends, the target is healed. My biggest gripe is that this drawback can be circumvented simply by casting it again before the hex ends.

Self-Heals are virtually worthless against it, as they could just stack on Conjure Nightmare to counter regen, or someone else could spike/pressure you to counter direct healing.

From a low-level perspective (don't laugh, I play a lot of RA, AB, & FA, cause I like its unorganized, chaotic feel; HA & HB are stupid IMO because of Heroes), this skill, like Armor of Sanctity, seems really overpowered to me. Without a means to remove the hex, you're screwed the moment it's put on you.

Like many other Mesmer hexes (Empathy, Backfire, Wastrel's Worry, Visions, etc.), or Armor of Sanctity, I feel the recharge is too short for how powerful the hex is. Admittedly, bumping the recharge to even 10 seconds (as opposed to eight) would probably make it underpowered, as the hex would always end before you could cast it again, so it would always heal, unless you used a skill to make it recharge faster.

Again, your thoughts?

Faure · Aug 19, 2009, 08:29 PM // 20:29

I like it a lot. I play it in low-end pvp together with phantom pain and glimmering mark (stolen from i think yumy's mesmer).

deluxe · Aug 19, 2009, 08:30 PM // 20:30

It's cool for killing overextended prage warr's in gvg, but other than byob it has no real use.

There's so much OP stuff in the game, that nerfing this gimmick skill would be the last on my list.

Venez · Aug 19, 2009, 09:02 PM // 21:02

The problem is the recharge is shorter than the duration, so if your decent they should never receive the heal unless they have hex removal (cover hex). 30dps is nothing to sneeze at. Illusion is generally a shit attribute line though so it shouldn't be to much of a problem

Xsiriss · Aug 19, 2009, 10:28 PM // 22:28

It's definitely a buff to the skill in how it can help kill stuff,and as said illusion itself holds no particular threats so having one powerful skill in an entire line,especially seeing as it doesn't shutdown the target in any way,is not that big a deal.Liking the buff despite never playing mes nowdays.

Mad Lord of Milk · Aug 20, 2009, 01:45 AM // 01:45

/hexremoval

This skill heals monks

Reverend Dr · Aug 20, 2009, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Put it on E/Me's mind blasts.

Seriously, its about 240 damage before the healing.

Faure · Aug 20, 2009, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lord of Milk

/hexremoval

This skill heals monks

Only if you are not smart enough to either bait the hex removal, or cover quick enough

.

And if the monk then is so smart to not fall for the beit, you have to be better then that.

Etc, etc etc.

The skill itself is cool, but you gotta use it right, just like every single other skill =).

distilledwill · Aug 20, 2009, 11:33 AM // 11:33

They should up the cast time to 2s (much faster with FC) make recharge exactly match the duration time minus the cast time. That way you would HAVE to recast it as soon as it recharges to maintain it, making it easily interupted by counting recharge and making it only really viable if you hit a half recharge.

God_Hand · Aug 20, 2009, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Wow... combined with Glimmering Mark, it's unbeatable. Just cover it up real quick (hexspam teams anyone?) and the only thing that can stop it is a PnH monk.

~60 damage a second, anyone?

kedde · Aug 20, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

That's 60dps requiring a dedicated bar and of which is 66% is nullified by shielding hands or soa.
It doesn't kill anyone from full health.

It's fun for splitting and nice against bunch of annoying templates like distortion mindblast or escape daggers, but it doesn't really cut it for much else.

Horus Moonlight · Aug 21, 2009, 12:43 AM // 00:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by distilledwill

They should up the cast time to 2s (much faster with FC) make recharge exactly match the duration time minus the cast time. That way you would HAVE to recast it as soon as it recharges to maintain it, making it easily interupted by counting recharge and making it only really viable if you hit a half recharge.

Or you can use MoP with this.

I Jonas I · Aug 21, 2009, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by kedde

That's 60dps requiring a dedicated bar and of which is 66% is nullified by shielding hands or soa.
It doesn't kill anyone from full health.

It's fun for splitting and nice against bunch of annoying templates like distortion mindblast or escape daggers, but it doesn't really cut it for much else.

Let's count the number of other skills that do 600 damage over 10 seconds with only a 15e investment:

oh wait, there aren't any

Reverend Dr · Aug 21, 2009, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonas The Keen

Let's count the number of other skills that do 600 damage over 10 seconds with only a 15e investment:

oh wait, there aren't any

Its not a singular skill. But really 10 seconds is a long time, if you have no self survivability and are without support for 10 seconds while engaged, there are plenty of templates that will take you down faster also its time to reevaluate your play.

But if we are looking at skills completely out of context, then RoJ, searing/tenai's, savannah do put out a lot of damage in their 5 second windows.

kedde · Aug 22, 2009, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Truly, I couldn't care less what a required 12/12 attribute split and a locked secondary can do in 10 seconds.
Bottom line is it really can't do much else.

Sure its a fun bar, but it doesn't stand up to anything simply because its way too inflexible.
What it can do on it's own is rather irrelevant since you always have a team.
You'll have to think of whether it'll actually be useful for anything else than running around and annoying people which quite simply isn't adequate.