Curse

Ensign · Feb 18, 2008, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

3. @ Ensign, which PvE-only skills are you using?

Typically I run with Dual Norn shouts ("You Move Like a Dwarf!" and "Finish Him!") and "There's Nothing to Fear!". If I'm in a group with other players, I'll drop TNTF, and occasionally YMLAD, for Great Dwarf Weapon, Technobabble, or an Ebon Battle Standard. I've run Pain Inverter and Light of Deldrimor before as well, though neither of those are on par with the other choices.

Winterclaw · Feb 18, 2008, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Hmm, I thought Pain Inverter was supposedly a good skill to have, particularly vs double damage bosses.

blue.rellik · Feb 19, 2008, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Hmm, I thought Pain Inverter was supposedly a good skill to have, particularly vs double damage bosses.

It's best against ele and dervish bosses, maybe the occasional barrage ranger or Siege Devourer boss but really that's it. There aren't many other bosses that have powerful aoe skills dangerous enough to warrant bringing it nor are you going to meet them often enough for Pain Inverter to be a 'must-bring' skill

xDusT II · Feb 19, 2008, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Hmm, I thought Pain Inverter was supposedly a good skill to have, particularly vs double damage bosses.

Most HM Bosses will output more pain than pain inverter will send back if you specifically allow them to do damage, which tends to sour the deal with Pain Inverter. Generally, shutdown options are safer and more reliable, Dazed and KD's being the best two methods.

Ensign · Feb 19, 2008, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Hmm, I thought Pain Inverter was supposedly a good skill to have, particularly vs double damage bosses.

It only does anything if you let the boss do that damage, and that tends to get ugly. If you're shutting down that boss, via knockdowns, daze, blind, block, weakness, and the like, then Pain Inverter is not going to be sending back all that much damage. It's great against bosses that you can't shut down, such as the Great Destroyer, or some of the EotN dungeon bosses that are immune to blind and daze. But generally it's a wasted slot, only good against those bosses and nothing else. I certainly wouldn't slot it very often when those other skills I mentioned are available for usage.

Dr Strangelove · Feb 19, 2008, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Pain inverter is unbelievable if you're running a cloud of minions, which I tend to do with my necros anyway. It gives you the ability to instantly kill the most dangerous mob at little to no danger to yourself. Why bother with shutdown when you can kill something?

LightningHell · Feb 19, 2008, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. WTH happened to my last post? Far too lazy to retype the whole thing, so...

2. Where is this 5 or 6 DPS less than SF figure coming from? I see some thing more like this:
Assume no faster cast/recharge, 16 Fire Magic (if anyone starts another sup vs minor debate here I will kick them in the crotch...), and combustable AL 60 foes, then...
...RI is going to do 127 + 42 from burning and cycle in 7 sec, for ~24.1 nearby-AoE DPS.
...SF is going to do 98 from burning on the first cycle and 106 for each of the next two cycles, and cycle in 3 sec, for ~34.4 nearby-AoE DPS. (And it goes up a little if you include MoR or have multiple SFers.)
To me, that looks more like a difference of 10 than 5 or 6, or a loss of some 30% of your AoE DPS going from SF to RI. Surely MB can probably fund another big AoE spell to fill the gap, but that's going to cut into those free skillslots that are supposed to make MB so good...

3. @ Ensign, which PvE-only skills are you using?

Mind Blast deals damage. It may not be AoE, but it's to a primary target. And mobs drop quickly when a key member - or even just any member - dies.

Sir Pandra Pierva · Feb 19, 2008, 06:06 PM // 18:06

MB>all other fire elites

Chthon · Feb 19, 2008, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Mind Blast deals damage. It may not be AoE, but it's to a primary target. And mobs drop quickly when a key member - or even just any member - dies.

Despite its fast cycle time, mind blast is going to get slowed down by having to fit between the 2 sec cast (plus the aftercast) on RI. It looks like 1 RI and 2 MB per 7.5 sec is the best casting manageable, which is ~39.3 DPS to your primary target.
GG fits much more smoothly in between SFs, since you can manage 3 SF and 1 GG in 9.5 sec for ~38.2 DPS to your primary target.
I don't really see that as a big difference. To really be effective at killing the primary target faster than the SF the MB is going to need another big DD (which would be DD eating into your utility space again) or do something to deal with that cast time on RI. Dual 20/20 items are going to help a little, but not fix the problem. I wonder how much better it would run with mindbender?...

Dr Strangelove · Feb 19, 2008, 06:57 PM // 18:57

I almost always have another DD on my bar, usually immolate or fireball. My AB bar posted on page 4 or so of this thread did 6 less DPS than a SF guy.

However, I generally don't rely on my casters to kill everything. Casters for me are there to provide support, with damage as a neat trick on the side. I almost always have 4-5 physicals to actually score the kills anyway. If you're really relying on casters to score most of your kills, a pack of SF eles is probably the best way to go, albeit fragile and crappy against armor.

Sir Pandra Pierva · Feb 19, 2008, 08:45 PM // 20:45

while SF hits more dps

MB hits slightly less dps with 2 skills
so umm ya

MB>SF

with those 6 other skill slots you can run what you want.

LightningHell · Feb 19, 2008, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Despite its fast cycle time, mind blast is going to get slowed down by having to fit between the 2 sec cast (plus the aftercast) on RI. It looks like 1 RI and 2 MB per 7.5 sec is the best casting manageable, which is ~39.3 DPS to your primary target.
GG fits much more smoothly in between SFs, since you can manage 3 SF and 1 GG in 9.5 sec for ~38.2 DPS to your primary target.
I don't really see that as a big difference. To really be effective at killing the primary target faster than the SF the MB is going to need another big DD (which would be DD eating into your utility space again) or do something to deal with that cast time on RI. Dual 20/20 items are going to help a little, but not fix the problem. I wonder how much better it would run with mindbender?...

I had to reread your post. Are you sure...? Your numbers are practically saying that MB+RI damage is higher than SF+GG, on a single target...

Chances are that the MB will for a while cast only one MB between Rodgort's, sometimes he'll stop casting RI altogether to cast utility, etc. DPS numbers are generally not very accurate when you have a character that's made to do several things - it's going to be lower than the optimum, if you're playing the character anywhere like how it's supposed to be played.

Quote:

However, I generally don't rely on my casters to kill everything. Casters for me are there to provide support, with damage as a neat trick on the side. I almost always have 4-5 physicals to actually score the kills anyway. If you're really relying on casters to score most of your kills, a pack of SF eles is probably the best way to go, albeit fragile and crappy against armor.

qft.

Div · Feb 20, 2008, 02:22 AM // 02:22

I don't understand Chthon's argument. The point of the mind blast ele is to be almost as effective as SF ele in terms of damage but provide twice as many slots for utility and support. No one's trying to argue that it does more damage. No one cares that it does slightly less damage. You argue from the novice's standpoint where big numbers mean everything, which is the same philosophy that argues for dual superior runes on healing prayers/divine favor to see a huge heal every cast.

Chthon · Feb 20, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

I don't understand Chthon's argument.

That's because I have no argument to make here.

I am merely questioning the notion that MB really sports "almost as much damage as SF with a lot more utility," particularly the "almost as much damage" part. I'm seeing some 30% less AoE DPS and a dead heat for single-target DPS. And that leaves me wondering if we're really getting enough utility to offset that sort of damage loss (are dual norn shouts really that great?) especially if we have to give back some of the slots we gain by switching to MB for mindbender and/or DD to shore up the damage gap a bit.

I don't know the answer to that question. But it does not look to me like the answer is as cut and dry as folks in this thread seem to think.

LightningHell · Feb 20, 2008, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

That's because I have no argument to make here.

I am merely questioning the notion that MB really sports "almost as much damage as SF with a lot more utility," particularly the "almost as much damage" part. I'm seeing some 30% less AoE DPS and a dead heat for single-target DPS. And that leaves me wondering if we're really getting enough utility to offset that sort of damage loss (are dual norn shouts really that great?) especially if we have to give back some of the slots we gain by switching to MB for mindbender and/or DD to shore up the damage gap a bit.

I don't know the answer to that question. But it does not look to me like the answer is as cut and dry as folks in this thread seem to think.

That's because it's not really something that numbers can solve. However, as I said before, killing off one creep from a mob goes a long way to killing that mob outright; generally you'd want one target to die, and the rest follows pretty easily.

Stormlord Alex · Feb 20, 2008, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I'm seeing some 30% less AoE DPS and a dead heat for single-target DPS. And that leaves me wondering if we're really getting enough utility to offset that sort of damage loss (are dual norn shouts really that great?)

'Meh', basically - it's not all that much of an issue.

The damage loss isn't all too substantial overall, especially if - like me - you're not really using your eles to kill things anyway. The actual AoE damage isn't too impressive, especially in later PvE/HM; essentially a Mind Blaster offers plenty of support options whilst contributing fair AoE damage; whilst the physicals and Curse necro do all the real damage.

However, if for some bizarre reason, you wanted to kill things with Eles, by all means run SF - it honestly is much better than MB at straight big-damage numbers, and gets even better because if you're killing with eles, you'll have a pack of them killing things, and we all know SF shines in packs.

Seven Flames · Feb 20, 2008, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Mind Blast deals damage. It may not be AoE, but it's to a primary target. And mobs drop quickly when a key member - or even just any member - dies.

if you wanna say that, then SF on that "key target" with multiple SF Eles makes that all the better

LightningHell · Feb 20, 2008, 05:54 AM // 05:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seven Flames

if you wanna say that, then SF on that "key target" with multiple SF Eles makes that all the better

Searing Flames is used because it's a reliable way to cause damage and not much else. If you're going to use SF to kill a single target, you're doing something wrong.

Besides, if you really want to take down a target, DSlash is win. MB is good because apart from outputting reasonable pressure, it provides utility.

Seven Flames · Feb 20, 2008, 06:15 AM // 06:15

what do you mean it's a reliable way to cause damage and "not much else"?
as well as the killing a single target part

Stormlord Alex · Feb 20, 2008, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seven Flames

what do you mean it's a reliable way to cause damage and "not much else"?

All you can really do with a SF bar is blow things up, given the extensive support needed to spam SF.

If you're feeling adventurous, you might just be able to squueze Aegis or a Ward on there.