Curse

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2011, 03:26 PM // 15:26

The limiting factor on Discord is not its recharge. Use EBSoH.

Miteshu · Mar 30, 2011, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

The limiting factor on Discord is not its recharge. Use EBSoH.

Shadow of Fear + Jagged Bones makes this not a limiting factor.

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2011, 03:29 PM // 15:29

Those don't really increase your damage potential though. Shadow of Fear doesn't really need full uptime and Jagged Bones provides a minor benefit with the reduced recharge.

Miteshu · Mar 30, 2011, 03:34 PM // 15:34

They don't, but they fulfill the conditions for Discord easily.

Therefore, a 300 dps makes this better than a +15 damage.

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2011, 03:39 PM // 15:39

I thought Shadow of Fear had a longer recharge, but it seems it's only at 5 seconds.
And if those two skills are your only source of hexes and conditions, your setup suffers from more problems than EBSoW is going to help you with. In short, EBSoW is not going to dramatically increase your DPS with Discord since the critical things are on short recharges anyway. Any small damage increase is going to be outshone by what you'll gain with EBSoH.

Khomet Si Netjer · Mar 30, 2011, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miteshu

I am using heroes, and heroes do like to stand around.

Battles last around 20 seconds.

EBSoH is the same thing as standing around and see how much DPS you can make. So by your logic, EBSoH isn't good.

EBSoW is for my heroes, not for myself. Using three discord, Instead of 300 damage for every 2 seconds, it'll be 300 damage for every second, or 600 damage every 2 second.

I think Kunder has shown that he/she is far beyond any kind of rational thought, so there's no point in responding to it anymore. I posted that for the benefit of other people so they aren't confused by misinformation from a (very) biased source.

Now to get this thread back on track... I think EBSoH and EBSoW are both incredible skills, the only dilemma is which one to take. Since your team has more casters than physicals they will probably benefit more from EBSoW, but if you can take both then do it. Ranged attackers and elementalists get a big damage boost from EBSoH, and because it applies to every damage packet you will want to get as many packets as possible. By this logic, Barrage is better than Glass Arrows, because 7 arrows in flight could get you 7x15=105 bonus damage from EBSoH. For the elementalist the DoTAoE spells like Savannah Heat, Unsteady Ground, etc. get the most benefit (5x15=75 bonus damage times the number of targets in the AoE). You might want to take another barrage ranger to get more bonus damage from EBSoH and spike harder.

Miteshu · Mar 30, 2011, 06:51 PM // 18:51

Its 6 arrows, not 7.

Kunder · Mar 30, 2011, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miteshu

I am using heroes, and heroes do like to stand around.

Battles last around 20 seconds.

EBSoH is the same thing as standing around and see how much DPS you can make. So by your logic, EBSoH isn't good.

EBSoW is for my heroes, not for myself. Using three discord, Instead of 300 damage for every 2 seconds, it'll be 300 damage for every second, or 600 damage every 2 second.

Nonono. First off, Discord is a shitty build you shouldn't be running anyway. But bearing in mind that, you won't be able to cast it even every 2s because if you do the necromancers are useless and can't do anything else, which means they are bad. Just spamming discord on recharge, even on a 2s average cycle time, is 50 DPS, which is about what you would expect a buffed physical not even using skills to do. The limiting factor to the usefulness is CAST time on discord, NOT recharge. Further more, % faster recharge is effectively useless if you are spiking with discord (if you aren't spiking with it then the build is even worse just DPSing, as has been mentioned), the reason being that if 1 discord gets HSR and another doesn't, you have to hold back your spike anyways because all 3 need to be ready to use discord.

Take EBSoH, put it down on a group of 10-15 minions. Oh hey, you just broke the game. Guess what? Its for god damn everything (except spirits, sadly

)

Quote:

I think Kunder has shown that he/she is far beyond any kind of rational thought, so there's no point in responding to it anymore. I posted that for the benefit of other people so they aren't confused by misinformation from a (very) biased source.

That's funny. You aren't even trying to argue the point, just saying 'lol EBSoW decreases recharge! use it!' as if such a statement proves itself while sidestepping any attempt to back yourself up with logical reasoning.

Khomet Si Netjer · Mar 31, 2011, 12:45 AM // 00:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miteshu

Its 6 arrows, not 7.

Barrage hits target + up to 6 adjacent targets, so it could be 7 arrows. (though admittedly that will be a rare case)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

That's funny. You aren't even trying to argue the point, just saying 'lol EBSoW decreases recharge! use it!' as if such a statement proves itself while sidestepping any attempt to back yourself up with logical reasoning.

I have already shown that EBSoW > Arcane Echo for 1 player, and that is not even considering the fact that EBSoW affects every spell on your bar, not to mention every other spellcaster's bar. EBSoW is many times more powerful than Arcane Echo when you take this into account. Discord and Searing Flames are not the best spells to illustrate this point since they already recharge quickly, but RoJ, Savannah Heat, Unsteady Ground, Energy Surge, Feast of Corruption, Spiteful Spirit, Ineptitude, Splinter Weapon, PwK, AP, EVAS and countless other spells get a huge benefit from it. If you *still* can't understand the benefit that this can give to your team then I must assume that you have never played any kind of spellcaster or you are simply too narrow minded to listen to anyone else.

Now to answer Miteshu's question directly... minions won't stay in EBSoH, and even if they did, their damage is pitiful in hard mode. They are better as meatshields and Death Nova bombs. EBSoH is not going to help armor ignoring damage from Spirits, Discord, or the other necromancer spells either, so it will be of limited use with only one ranger in the group. I love EBSoH but this team needs more physicals to take better advantage of it.

Kunder · Mar 31, 2011, 04:28 AM // 04:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

I have already shown that EBSoW > Arcane Echo for 1 player, and that is not even considering the fact that EBSoW affects every spell on your bar, not to mention every other spellcaster's bar. EBSoW is many times more powerful than Arcane Echo when you take this into account. Discord and Searing Flames are not the best spells to illustrate this point since they already recharge quickly, but RoJ, Savannah Heat, Unsteady Ground, Energy Surge, Feast of Corruption, Spiteful Spirit, Ineptitude, Splinter Weapon, PwK, AP, EVAS and countless other spells get a huge benefit from it. If you *still* can't understand the benefit that this can give to your team then I must assume that you have never played any kind of spellcaster or you are simply too narrow minded to listen to anyone else.

I see you are, once again, missing the point. Can you at least try to read posts, as I have already said that this is all false? If you have a reason to refute what I said, post it or shut up with the same crap I have already said doesn't work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Now to answer Miteshu's question directly... minions won't stay in EBSoH, and even if they did, their damage is pitiful in hard mode. They are better as meatshields and Death Nova bombs. EBSoH is not going to help armor ignoring damage from Spirits, Discord, or the other necromancer spells either, so it will be of limited use with only one ranger in the group. I love EBSoH but this team needs more physicals to take better advantage of it.

lolwut? I heard Bone Fiends were good? 2x OoU MMs puts out around 400ish DPS under EBSoH after armor reduction against most mobs (300ish against the highest armored 160s that you rarely see). Technically the upper limit is closer to 600 DPS after armor, but I'm being conservative by accounting for running vampiric horrors and minion AI being less than optimal. If you don't think minions are useful for damage then you should really just excuse yourself from the thread and the entire PvE forum, you are only going to continue making a fool of yourself.

Jeydra · Mar 31, 2011, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Kunder stop trying to pick a fight with everyone imo.

Anyway, I think the way to approach this is to consider what both wards do for your team.

EBSoH: since you're using S/D/M with its plethora of armour-ignoring damage, this benefits only you, mostly. It also benefits hero wands and Bone Minions if you're willing to run up to melee, but that's about it.

EBSoW: almost all your heroes' skills have short cooldown. Some of the Mesmer skills have what looks like long cooldown, but Mesmers get Fast Casting and the associated recharge decrease to go along with HSR mods. The Necros have largely no need for shorter cooldown. A shorter cooldown boosts their defensive output, but S/D/M doesn't need more defense. As for the Rits, spirits aren't affected, so what's the point?

I think EBSoH will do more for your team than EBSoW.

BrettM · Mar 31, 2011, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Nice analysis, Jeydra. Which raises the question of whether to bring EITHER ward given the composition of the team. Why exactly is this an either-or choice again? Is the game so deficient in skills that there is nothing better to put in that slot than an EV ward, one almost pointless and the other providing minimal team benefit?

For example, why not make the Barrage ranger Ra/P, taking advantage of the adrenaline generated to use GftE, boosting damage from both the ranger and the minions without requiring proper placement of a ward?

Miteshu · Mar 31, 2011, 01:50 PM // 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Nonono. First off, Discord is a shitty build you shouldn't be running anyway. But bearing in mind that, you won't be able to cast it even every 2s because if you do the necromancers are useless and can't do anything else, which means they are bad. Just spamming discord on recharge, even on a 2s average cycle time, is 50 DPS, which is about what you would expect a buffed physical not even using skills to do. The limiting factor to the usefulness is CAST time on discord, NOT recharge. Further more, % faster recharge is effectively useless if you are spiking with discord (if you aren't spiking with it then the build is even worse just DPSing, as has been mentioned), the reason being that if 1 discord gets HSR and another doesn't, you have to hold back your spike anyways because all 3 need to be ready to use discord.

Take EBSoH, put it down on a group of 10-15 minions. Oh hey, you just broke the game. Guess what? Its for god damn everything (except spirits, sadly

)

You got me on the Bone Fiends.

But I fail to see how the limiting factor is the cast time.

Dzjudz · Mar 31, 2011, 02:25 PM // 14:25

Alright let me explain what I think he means.

Discord: 1 sec cast time, 3/4 sec aftercast, 2 sec recharge.

This means a necro will spend 1 second casting discord, then 3/4 second doing nothing (aftercast) and has 5/4 sec before Discord recharges again. This is assuming no HCT and HSR of course.

With HSR the recharge of Discord is 1 second. This means that after the aftercast Discord will recharge in 1/4 second.

So yeah, with HSR a necro can spam Discord with only a 1/4 sec wait in between casts. But will a necro do that? No, he has 7 other skills. He might need to heal someone, hex someone, enfeeble someone, death nova someone, etc.

If he does this during the Discord recharge of 5/4 second without HSR Discord will be recharged in any case (except after a 1/4 sec spell with 3/4 sec recharge, then there will be a gap of 1/4 sec).

Now, if Discord had a cast time of 1/4 or 1/2 sec, he would have time to do other stuff while Discord was recharging.

Miteshu · Mar 31, 2011, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

Alright let me explain what I think he means.

Discord: 1 sec cast time, 3/4 sec aftercast, 2 sec recharge.

This means a necro will spend 1 second casting discord, then 3/4 second doing nothing (aftercast) and has 5/4 sec before Discord recharges again. This is assuming no HCT and HSR of course.

With HSR the recharge of Discord is 1 second. This means that after the aftercast Discord will recharge in 1/4 second.

So yeah, with HSR a necro can spam Discord with only a 1/4 sec wait in between casts. But will a necro do that? No, he has 7 other skills. He might need to heal someone, hex someone, enfeeble someone, death nova someone, etc.

If he does this during the Discord recharge of 5/4 second without HSR Discord will be recharged in any case (except after a 1/4 sec spell with 3/4 sec recharge, then there will be a gap of 1/4 sec).

Now, if Discord had a cast time of 1/4 or 1/2 sec, he would have time to do other stuff while Discord was recharging.

I see, thanks for the explanation.

Haggis of Doom · Mar 31, 2011, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Even disregarding the 7 other skills on your hero's bar (you do bring them, right?), assuming to double one's Discord heroes damage is fallacious.

Over 20 seconds, this is what happens without EBSoW:
300 dmg/cast x [ 20 seconds / (2sec/cast) ]
= 300 dmg/cast x 10 casts
= 3000 dmg

And this is with EBSoW at max rank:
300 dmg/cast x [ 20 seconds / (60% x 1.75sec/cast + 40% x 2sec/cast) ]
= 300 dmg/cast x 10.8108 casts
= 3243.24 dmg

... Yes. Instead of a 300 dmg increase per 2 seconds that you claim, you're instead getting a 243.24 dmg increase over 20 seconds, or a 8.1% dmg increase. Not so impressive now, is it

EDIT

and I got ninja'ed o.o

Dzjudz · Mar 31, 2011, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Actually, without HCT and HSR, you can cast Discord once every 3 seconds: 1 sec cast time + 2 sec recharge.

But yeah, the point is not that Discord can do XX damage over a period of time, it's that to make that XX damage you cannot do anything else.

Khomet Si Netjer · Mar 31, 2011, 09:33 PM // 21:33

As I said in post #29 spells which recharge quickly don't get as much benefit from EBSoW, and Discord certainly falls into this category. EBSoW will give it an average recharge of ~1.3s instead of 2, so if you are casting it on recharge you can cast every 2.3 seconds with EBSoW or every 3 seconds without it. The recharge will begin at time=1s so if EBSoH reduces the recharge to 1.3s average you get cast+recharge time=2.3s. since cast+aftercast=1.75 seconds you are still not gaining the full benefit from EBSoW, the time waiting for recharge is just lost... but this is a special case, and few spells recharge as quickly as Discord and Searing Flames. And it is obvious that Discord every 2.3s is better than Discord every 3s, so case closed.

EBSoW will reduce spell recharge time to about 2/3 of its normal value on average (proof in post #18), which means that you can cast that spell 50% more often, which is roughly 50% increase in damage if you assume that spells are being spammed all the time. It decreases recharge times for other spells too, such as Aegis... and it's not hard to see how an Aegis that recharges in an average of 20s is much better than the standard 30s. It isn't only for damage, it helps all spellcasting.
Since Discord doesn't gain as much benefit from EBSoW you should probably consider its effect on other damage dealing spells that you might have on the team. Splinter Weapon (5s recharge) and Mark of Pain (20s recharge) would gain the full benefit from EBSoW and increase damage quite a bit, especially Splinter Weapon + Barrage. A barrage ranger can consume splinter weapon in one shot so recharging it quickly will definitely help your damage potential.

The simplest and best way to find out which one is better for your proposed team is to test it in game... I'd suggest rolling with EBSoH or EBSoW (your choice) and timing a vanquish, then repeating the same vanquish with the other skill, and then repeating the same exercise with both. I can tell you that when I am playing a caster, EBSoW is stapled to my bar... but test it for yourself and see.

Dzjudz · Mar 31, 2011, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Dzjudz mentioned this already (and I said it in post #29), spells which recharge quickly don't get as much benefit from EBSoW, and Discord certainly falls into this category. It casts in 1s, recharges in 2s, so by the time you cast you only have to wait 1/4s for the recharge. EBSoW will give it an average recharge of ~1.3s instead of 2, but since cast time + aftercast is 1.75s the extra .45s that you might have gained with EBSoW is lost.

Just a note: recharge starts after casting (or prevention such as interruption). For example, a spell with a cast time of 5 seconds and a recharge of 10 seconds is not recharged 5 seconds after casting, it is recharged 10 seconds after casting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

EBSoW will reduce spell recharge time to about 2/3 of its normal value on average (proof in post #18), which means that you can cast that spell 33% more often, which is roughly 33% increase in damage if you assume that spells are being spammed all the time.

And another note: a decrease in recharge time of 33% means an increase in number of casts of 50%.

For example, a skill has 30 sec recharge.
In one minute you can cast it twice with normal recharge.

A reduction in recharge of 33% means a 20 sec recharge.
In one minute you can now cast it 3 times. 50% more than with normal recharge.

Of course, this isn't entirely correct, you have to take cast times into account as well, which reduce the recharge benefit a little. For example a skill with 5 sec activation and 25 sec recharge can normally be cast twice in one minute. With 33% recharge reduction the recharge is 16 2/3 seconds, meaning one cast every 21 2/3 seconds, a little under 3 casts a minute, less than 50% more than with normal recharge.

[/math]

Khomet Si Netjer · Mar 31, 2011, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

Just a note: recharge starts after casting (or prevention such as interruption). For example, a spell with a cast time of 5 seconds and a recharge of 10 seconds is not recharged 5 seconds after casting, it is recharged 10 seconds after casting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

And another note: a decrease in recharge time of 33% means an increase in number of casts of 50%.

you ninja'd me while i was editing.

you are right of course.

note to self: proofread thoroughly before hitting "submit" button.