Curse

What if... · Apr 11, 2006, 03:38 PM // 15:38

I've got a question to asks experienced Mesmer players. When playing as a domination mesmer with Diversion and at least two interrupts and you come across a player in the process of casting a fairly long, but formidable spell (2 seconds or longer) that you know you can hit with either diversion or an interupt, which do you choose? Let's assume you're working with a decent level in fast casting that actully cut cast time of diversion to below 2 seconds so you: cast diversion and take the hit, knowing that that skill will be locked for the next minute, or interrupt it and move on. Or do you do some kind of recharge time impact calculus mid-round and make a decision on that?

holden · Apr 11, 2006, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by What if...

I've got a question to asks experienced Mesmer players. When playing as a domination mesmer with Diversion and at least two interrupts and you come across a player in the process of casting a fairly long, but formidable spell (2 seconds or longer) that you know you can hit with either diversion or an interupt, which do you choose? Let's assume you're working with a decent level in fast casting that actully cut cast time of diversion to below 2 seconds so you: cast diversion and take the hit, knowing that that skill will be locked for the next minute, or interrupt it and move on. Or do you do some kind of recharge time impact calculus mid-round and make a decision on that?

diversion has a cooldown of 10 seconds so you want to spam the hell out of it. maxed out domination gives you a 59 second penelty to put on your foe for casting that spell. if the monk doesn't get his offering of blood for 59 seconds he's in a hurting way. any caster suffers when he has to wait for 1 minute to get his baby back. even if you get nailed with meteor, he wont cast his bread and butter spell for a while.

i take cry of frustration or leech sig into arena to interrupt skills and res sig. power drain to get back energy. the cool down on interrupts is high for the most part and you wont get as much use out of them in arena as you would in pve.

Hella Good · Apr 11, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Diversion/shutdown is in my opinion superior to interrupt. The short term benefit of inters is offset by their long term drawbacks. I'd much rather divert a skill for 1min than try to interrupt it every time it's being used. But like the person above me said, some sort of universal interrupt is good to have for certain situations. Cry/Leech Sig serve that purpose very well. On the flip side, I know a lot of people love playing Migraine inters.

twicky_kid · Apr 11, 2006, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Players know not to cast through diversion. If you do catch some one with it blame it on luck not skill (well skill if they are complete noobs).

Otherwise its a 6 sec shutdown with a 4 sec cool down. Migrane interrupts is better because you can shut down a target for 15+ sec while draining their energy, gaining energy, and dealing dmg.

Diversion is a skills used for spiking. Cast diversion on a monk and spike the target. It forces him to cast through it if he wishes to attempt a save. Other than that there are better options. That 2+ sec cast time hurts in the long run.

Hella Good · Apr 12, 2006, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Players know not to cast through diversion. If you do catch some one with it blame it on luck not skill (well skill if they are complete noobs).

Er... you use Echo or Glyph of Renewal with Diversion... Or you tie it up with Backfire, Blackout, or Guilt/Shame. Or you do both. You can chain Diversion on a target till the cows come home. If they want to be "smart" and not use anything... well... they are shutdown then aren't they?

Do you know what you are talking about btw?

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Otherwise its a 6 sec shutdown with a 4 sec cool down.

Aparently not. I really suggest you double check with www.guildwiki.org next time you talk about a skill you have no experience with. At least will give you some credibility when talking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Diversion is a skills used for spiking. Cast diversion on a monk and spike the target. It forces him to cast through it if he wishes to attempt a save. Other than that there are better options. That 2+ sec cast time hurts in the long run.

Yea, Wiki is a good place to start. You need to play with the skill some to get the experience but Wiki is a start.

Banebow · Apr 12, 2006, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Otherwise its a 6 sec shutdown with a 4 sec cool down.

Aparently not. I really suggest you double check with www.guildwiki.org next time you talk about a skill you have no experience with. At least will give you some credibility when talking.

S/he was probably talking about the four second down time between when diversion goes off and when you can cast it again. I don't think any question about how strong it is would exist if it had a 4 second cooldown.

And you do cast it before a spike. I don't see why that would be seen as a bad tactic, it is a highly good use of the skill. I disagree with saying that it is bad in other situations because of the way it affects enemy players, giving around a 50% lockdown when just spammed, but a 2 second cast time does add up, even more so when you plan on spamming it.

To answer the OP's question: In, say, high end GvG you will not see many 2+ second casting time spells. You might come across a few, and if you have time to slip a diversion in then that is the better choice (unless, say, you need energy from power drain or a power spike could kill the guy)

Valkyries · Apr 12, 2006, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Players know not to cast through diversion. If you do catch some one with it blame it on luck not skill (well skill if they are complete noobs).

Otherwise its a 6 sec shutdown with a 4 sec cool down. Migrane interrupts is better because you can shut down a target for 15+ sec while draining their energy, gaining energy, and dealing dmg.

Diversion is a skills used for spiking. Cast diversion on a monk and spike the target. It forces him to cast through it if he wishes to attempt a save. Other than that there are better options. That 2+ sec cast time hurts in the long run.

Huh?

Why is Migrane interrupts better again? Migrane is alright, dont' get me wrong. But when talking about Diversion, this is MVP in so many builds. Its bloody sick against almost every class. Or maybe I didn't understand your statement.... Also, I have no problems at all hitting people with Diversion. I spam that every chance I get. Even if it does nothing it stops someone from using a spell they REALLY want to cast for 10 seconds. Thats the worst possible scenerio. Best is they loose that skill for a minute.

To answer the OP's question, I really don't think Diversion can be used in the way you describe. Its still pretty slow (even at 1.5 seconds with FC) so I normally just run interupts. Power Drain or Power Leak are two of my favorites. So I interupt the skill, then I Diversion them right away incase they try to recast again without thinking about it. If your lucky you may get both the skill interupted AND have diversion kick in. Just to use it in the way you describe, you would have to be God like Trigger happy to almost predict what they are casting. By the time you click your button, and the spell casts, more than likely they'll already have it casts and on to their next spell. Thats why if you interupt first and then Diversion you could kill two birds with one stone.

What if... · Apr 12, 2006, 06:04 PM // 18:04

I kind of agree with the general consensus that a successful diversion is not too difficult to land (especially on monks who have degenerated into ROF spamming frenzies), but I have noticed on diverting the occational SS or Meteor Shower, that a mesmer will skip the casting animation entirely and cast the spell as though it were interrupting it. This is probably the staff or weapon mod kicking in, but I've serendipidously diverted spells mid-cast on more than a few occasions.

twicky_kid · Apr 12, 2006, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Hella Good you might want think about what is being said before you respond.

Diversion is a 6 sec duration with a 10 recharge that's a 4 second cool down time. If you count in casting that's 8+ seconds.

At high end gvg you will see diversion replaced by blackout because its a clear superior option that completely locks their bar and erases any adrenaline.

If you want to compare it to interrupts the interrupts are still better.

Migrane covered by conjure is 18 dmg per second that ignores armor. If they cast you power leak, power drain, leech sig, or cry the target. Shutting them down completely instead of just snagging 1 skill by chance. If you catch a dumb player casting through diversion for no reason that's not a reliable way to look at diversion.

Most players would wait that 6 seconds instead of waiting another minute. In the end interrupts are better due to the dmg from migrane and conjure. Diversion can disable a skill but the chances are very slim at high end gvg. Not to mention trying to cast it in the first place. FYI savage shot has faster recharge so you can expect to be interrupted every chance you get to cast it if they lock a ranger on you.

There are simply better options in lockout and interrupting.

Demon Rebel · Apr 12, 2006, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

At high end gvg you will see diversion replaced by blackout because its a clear superior option that completely locks their bar and erases any adrenaline.

FYI savage shot has faster recharge so you can expect to be interrupted every chance you get to cast it if they lock a ranger on you.

I'd say that Blackout stands a better chance of doing more damage to yourself than to the other player.

Yes a 2-6 second time of the Foe having their skill bar "blackedout" can be helpful, but you take yourself out of the loop for 5 seconds every time. Do you chain everything while walking up to your target just to touch them and run away? (I don't find that feasible)

With a higher lvl of FC you can decrease the time used to cast Diversion. If you have a Savage Shot Ranger and time ... get in a position to drop Diversion on them - fast recharging spammable skill under Diversion is exact reason you have the skill.

There are suggestions of using Wastrels Worry in combo with Diversion - this forces the Player (Caster/Tank/Ranger) into sacrificing a skill in order to miss the damage caused by WW. Now I have not yet used any of these skills in PvP (they will be used tonight) but they sound feasible and the outcome is better than both skill bars being locked for 5 and 2-6 seconds.

Just my two cents.

~Demon

Valkyries · Apr 12, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

At high end gvg you will see diversion replaced by blackout because its a clear superior option that completely locks their bar and erases any adrenaline.

You my friend are incorrect!!

This is NOT true... pay attention in Observe mode. 99% of the TOP builds ARE indeed running Diversion. You want to know why they don't run Blackout? Because if you try to Blackout a Monk the Warriors will eat you before you get there. If you want to Black out a Warrior, you turn what I like to call insta-squishy and the Warrior is going to pound on your head repeatedly. If you think what Im saying is incorrect, you can always go ask in the GVG Forum (I've already done so).

You are right about the interupt part though. But I never said to ever use Diversion for an Interupt. IT SHOULD NOT be used in this manner. Yes you can pull something off, and get a good spell locked out for a minute. But that isn't the point of Diversion. The point is to repeatedly cast it on a spellcaster to really annoy them to no end and lock out some of their skills. Its a safe bet to say they bring 7 skills + res into combat for a reason. So they either wait 6 seconds OR they loose one of those skills for 60 seconds. Either way, its a win win situation. In addition, it has a pretty fast recharge time... so you can keep using it. This is its purpose, not for interupting. If you want to use interupts use Power Drain, Power Leak, Leech Signet, etc. You may think 6 seconds isn't long, but I assure you when someone needs healing or is doing something in a chain or a spike 6 seconds is quite long to cast NONE of your skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid
Otherwise its a 6 sec shutdown with a 4 sec cool down.

And I am SURE you meant 60 seconds shutdown and not 6 seconds. Unless again you mean 6 second duration for Diversion which I explained above. As Hella Good said, you can chain this and use it with a lot of other good Dom Mesmer skills. Glyph Mesmers use this as a very good base and they make life extremely difficult.

Quote:

Migrane covered by conjure is 18 dmg per second that ignores armor. If they cast you power leak, power drain, leech sig, or cry the target. Shutting them down completely instead of just snagging 1 skill by chance. If you catch a dumb player casting through diversion for no reason that's not a reliable way to look at diversion.

Are you saying use Migrane so you can easily interupt them? Ill take a very nice quote from Vindexus who is very regularly on this forum. i hope he doesn't mind....

"People who use Migraine for easy interupts are scrubs."

^^ Agree

Not saying Migrane is a bad skill because it isn't. But that isn't the point of it.

Why people think the only good mesmers are Migrane and ESurger Ill never know.

holden · Apr 12, 2006, 08:22 PM // 20:22

migraine is an ok spell. a great spell maybe but just an ok elite. it's nice that at high illusion you can keep it on a target at all times but the 3 degen doesnt mean anything to me. arcane conundrum is a better choice because it leaves your elite free.
i agree with vindexus, if you need dazed, migraine or arcane C to get off an interrupt you're a scrub.

'Most players would wait that 6 seconds instead of waiting another minute. In the end interrupts are better due to the dmg from migrane and conjure. Diversion can disable a skill but the chances are very slim at high end gvg. Not to mention trying to cast it in the first place. FYI savage shot has faster recharge so you can expect to be interrupted every chance you get to cast it if they lock a ranger on you.'

you can't sit on a caster waiting to interrupt him forever. the cooldowns for interrupt skills are 15, 20, 20, 25 and 45.

What if... · Apr 12, 2006, 08:45 PM // 20:45

The annoyingly long recharge times on said interrupts are, I guess, are another reason why diversion maybe the better option, situational as it may be. But, your opinions have led me to conclude that a mesmer will divert that which they can and interrupt those which he cannot. Is this a sufficient conclusion, or am I oversimplifying the matter?

Valkyries · Apr 12, 2006, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by What if...

The annoyingly long recharge times on said interrupts are, I guess, are another reason why diversion maybe the better option, situational as it may be. But, your opinions have led me to conclude that a mesmer will divert that which they can and interrupt those which he cannot. Is this a sufficient conclusion, or am I oversimplifying the matter?

Sigh.....

Say this with me.

Diversion is not situational

You are using it completely wrong if you think its situation. Its not meant to interupt, you have other skills that interupt. I think you should just give this a try and see how it works. Problem is to be a very good mesmer, you need to practice and not give up on skills or a certain build which is why most ppl do not become good mesmers. They quit and become a Warrior or an Elementalist. Nothing against these skills at all, but this is what happens.

So my best advise, try it, along with a lot of other good mesmer skills put together. If you are new, ESurger is a decent choice (Add Diversion, trust me it wont hurt you) and see how you go from there.

holden · Apr 12, 2006, 09:28 PM // 21:28

cast diversion every 10 seconds until that foe is dead. or echo it, arcane echo it. glyph of renewal it. put in on the casting foe continuously. it doesn't matter what else your build does, diversion stands on it's own.

Hella Good · Apr 12, 2006, 09:34 PM // 21:34

I happen to play a Monk, in fact I used to play Boon Prot exclusively for awhile. Migraine is meh... It's always a RoF/CoP away from being done and out of the door (including the Conjure cover). Heck I can PS on top of it, too, if you are going to go hex heavy on me... If you think you can interrupt any of these: RoF, CoP, PS... you are, in fact, smoking some reeeeeeeeal good stuff. Don't get me wrong: hexes do work on Boon Prots but you have to stack A whole lot of them and in a very, very, rapid succession.

P.S. Do I need to go into Holy Veil? I hope not...

EDIT: Diversion destroys Boon Prots. Diversion and Blackout are the 2 Mesmer skills that I have always hated the most when playing Monk.

Evilsod · Apr 12, 2006, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Diversion and Blackout are spells designed to make you shout at the computer

If your not looking around enough to see whats going on a lucky fast cast or quick reaction from the mesmer and you won't be seeing Aegis for a while. Plus what would your bonder hate more? Distracting Shot into his Blessed Signet (30second recharge) or a lvl16 Diversion onto it (69second recharge).

It really depends who your targetting. You can't interrupt RoF but you sure as hell can can get it for 59seconds. Sometimes it can be more useful than interrupting SS too, if they're gonna cover it with Parasitic Bond (which they should do) they'll lose that spell instead.

Eaimirth Etaivella · Apr 12, 2006, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Diversion at the moment is the only counter to CoP; it does not under any conditions shut down the boon prot (thank you holy veil)
*sighs*

Migraine is better because diversion has a long cast, is energy intensive, has too short a duration, lastly I will bring to the arguement the "fodder" skills which can be used to "plow" through diversion with little or no trouble. Classic fodder skills are "Res Signet" "Long duration:short downtime stances" and "Situational Skills that fail to meet their niche" and "skill that only need to be cast once" (an example is I'm cast the obsidian flame that is going to kill you; it doesn't matter if it is delayed if you die- I accomplished my job, you as the mesmer may have disabled me temporarly but I have disabled you)

Blackout is truly the better skill, it is non-situational, shuts down all their skills, can be coordinated with knockdown, and stacks perfectly with the one of the best stances in the game to shut the hell out of enamy warriors: distortion.

Fine; for all you Ra/Me out there; use dodge, escape, whatever perfectly good skills in the expertise line since distortion nerf for you guys.

At best, diversion will lock-down your target for 6 seconds. You lose 10 energy for disabling them for those 6 seconds, in those 6 seconds you gain 8 energy, likly they will as well.

In short, they gain 8, you lose 2 but have a "possable" 6 second period where they will not be using skills.
Questions you should be asking yourself
-Is it worth it?
-Are they running veil?
--Will someone else remove it?
---Should I use a cover hex; or do I use it as a cover hex?
-Is it worth a spot in my skill bar?

Conclusion-no
Illusion magic has migraine
Inspiration magic has interrupts and MoPersistence
-these two are a classic combo that many people use.

Domination magic has power block; a skill that plows through diversion in every way. You cannot interrupt RoF, or SP, but you can interrupt WoH with it (unassisted even), and like BO it cannot be removed. Diversion dies to HolyVeil Hella Good, glad you brought that up.

In my belief; diversion is not worth using since its nerf long ago. It needs its old power, we need a counter for BoonProts as at the time there is no class in the game that can take one down unassissted.

Hella Good · Apr 12, 2006, 11:16 PM // 23:16

I just played a few matches versus Boon Prots using Arcane Thevery, Diversion, Blackout, and Sig of Humility... I clearly have no idea what you are talking about, since I dealt with the Boon Prots in seconds... I used Echo as elite... Was easy as hell...

holden · Apr 13, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

Diversion at the moment is the only counter to CoP; it does not under any conditions shut down the boon prot (thank you holy veil)
*sighs*

Migraine is better because diversion has a long cast, is energy intensive, has too short a duration, lastly I will bring to the arguement the "fodder" skills which can be used to "plow" through diversion with little or no trouble. Classic fodder skills are "Res Signet" "Long duration:short downtime stances" and "Situational Skills that fail to meet their niche" and "skill that only need to be cast once" (an example is I'm cast the obsidian flame that is going to kill you; it doesn't matter if it is delayed if you die- I accomplished my job, you as the mesmer may have disabled me temporarly but I have disabled you)

are you saying you'll cast res sig to counter diversion?
a boon prot has NO 'fodder skills'. every skill is important. if your build has 'fodder skills' it's not a very well thought out build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

At best, diversion will lock-down your target for 6 seconds. You lose 10 energy for disabling them for those 6 seconds, in those 6 seconds you gain 8 energy, likly they will as well. In short, they gain 8, you lose 2 but have a "possable" 6 second period where they will not be using skills.
Questions you should be asking yourself
-Is it worth it?
-Are they running veil?
--Will someone else remove it?
---Should I use a cover hex; or do I use it as a cover hex?
-Is it worth a spot in my skill bar?

what's your point here? diversion causes the skill essentially to cooldown for 59 seconds. where do you get 6? are you confusing diversion with ether lord?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

Domination magic has power block; a skill that plows through diversion in every way. You cannot interrupt RoF, or SP, but you can interrupt WoH with it (unassisted even), and like BO it cannot be removed. Diversion dies to HolyVeil Hella Good, glad you brought that up.

this is laughable. what boonprot monk uses word of healing.
wastrels worry is a fine cover hex for diversion. unless you plan on keeping up holy veil the whole fight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

In my belief; diversion is not worth using since its nerf long ago. It needs its old power, we need a counter for BoonProts as at the time there is no class in the game that can take one down unassissted.

that's a ridiculous thing to say and totally false. though i agree your migraine build won't take him down.