Curse

Lord Cooper · Jun 29, 2007, 08:00 AM // 08:00

i was doing AB last night when i noticed something about magnetic aura.. the skill description is:
For 5-17 seconds, Magnetic Aura has a 75% chance to "block" melee attacks.

problem is it doesnt work against assassins!! sin attacks are melee arent they? i may be wrong as i havent done a lot of experimentation but it seems that spells like kinetic armour and armour of earth dont significantly reduce damage (if at all) from sin attacks.

i admit i dont really no a lot about assassins as ive never really played one so can someone explain to me why this is?

Dr Strangelove · Jun 29, 2007, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Magnetic aura works fine, if they aren't using expose defenses or some other antiblock skill (which they should be)

As for kinetic armor and armor of earth, the +damage on attack skills ignores armor. Since huge chunk of an assassin's damage comes from +damage, extra armor doesn't have as great an affect as it would against, say, an elementalist.

As a side note, please tell me you weren't running a geotank in AB.

Lord Cooper · Jun 29, 2007, 10:27 AM // 10:27

dont be daft.. no i just had kinetic in the build for defense if anything got too close.

your explanation makes sense i suppose... well back to the drawing board lol

Stormlord Alex · Jun 29, 2007, 11:26 AM // 11:26

The two best defenses an ele can throw up against assassins are [skill]stoneflesh aura[/skill] - which reduces damage taken from everything, even the armour-ignoring +dmg attacks (coincidentally, it screws over crits, killing their energy management)

... and skills that cause blind/miss chance. Air eles get Blinding Surge/Flash, Fire dudes can run a decent-spec Steam, Water guys get Blurred Vision, and Earth eles get Ash Blast.
Nearly all of the martial classes you run into in AB - warriors, paras, and notably Assassins - seem to lack the cranial capacity to bring any form of condition removal... Playing a blindbot is fun.

Dr Strangelove · Jun 29, 2007, 03:54 PM // 15:54

^ ^ What alex said. It's also worth noting that defensive warriors stances fit really well on a caster with a free secondary now, far better than magnetic aura, actually. You might give [skill]wary stance[/skill] , [skill]shield bash[/skill] or [skill]disciplined stance[/skill] a shot. Shield bash has the notable bonus that it doesn't matter if they have an antiblock, they get kded and have the skill disabled anyway.

As a side side note, bring a shield with +10 vs. piercing or somesuch in your offhand. You've got a big enough energy pool that +12 energy from a focus isn't anything that critical, and you can always switch to a higher energy set if need me. Personally, I almost always have a +30 health, -2 while enchanted shield up when I play ele.