I've been out of game for over a year, so there was possibly changes... My pet is no longer receiving Theft of Essence buff from Volley or Storm of Many... I've cast each more than 100 times, in several different group zones, with various amount of pets on the mob (but perhaps none/few times max number) and pet no longer receives a buff icon indicating that it has received Theft of Essence... Did they perhaps remove the buff icon but pet still receives it, or change it so that max number of pets are required when 'of many' lands in order to activate the AA? Haven't tested with summoned nukes yet... soon as I'm done at current camp, will test that as well. It isn't triggering when attempt to nuke pet with low level summoned nuke like it used to, but it would be no surprise to me if they fixed that...
Was working fine the other day for me using Storm, and it has worked with Volley as late as a week ago. It is a short term five minute long aura on the pet nowadays. The icon looks like a blue grey shield. There is a 45% chance it lands on your pet, so conceivably you could have had the worst RNG ever...
Got it to trigger finally.... seems like I have to be close to mob, for it to trigger? Can't be far away from mob and pet, maybe?
Just looking at the spell file, it looks like you'd need to be within 200 feet of your pet for it to proc. That distance shouldn't be extendable, given it's an AA (lvl 254). I'll try to test it at some point, though.
Did you have Rathe’s Strength on your pet? Pets can only run one aura at a time, so if it has Rathe’s Strength you can’t proc Theft of Essence.
Arcane Distillect takes up a mage aura slot and centers on the Mage. Rathe's Strength does not take up a Mage aura slot, it takes up a pet aura slot and centers on the pet. Theft of Essence does not take up a Mage aura slot, it takes up a pet aura slot and centers on the pet. The pet only has one aura slot and therefore can only run Rathe's Strength or Theft of Essence. Which part is confusing you?
I always assumed arcane distillect was a direct upgrade for rathe's strength. Thanks for clearing that up.
So, I came back here again to post I was having issues again, and read about the aura conflict... That is exactly the problem, Rathe’s Strength I was using when pet was often not close when fighting, but I was using A. Distillect when fighting close, since I knew AD has no effect if pets fighting very far at all from me. Thank you all much, that cleared it up. Just one more reason for me to be less lazy, and stay up close and personal... guess I gotta be less lazy and move to the mob more often
Why would you not want to be close to the mob and auto attack a mob? It is one button, and with damage procs on everything you probably do enough damage comparable to another spell or two that you cast...
I have thought about this and come to the conclusion that its simply not worth the time to move into melee position on group mobs that only last 15 seconds. You spend up to 3 seconds moving into position, and that is 3 seconds lost where you could have casted another nuke. Also on multi mob pulls, you can get nailed by adds if the tank doesnt grab ae aggro fast enough.
That is fair. Generally it is me and a box bard, so we are not necessarily killing things in 15 seconds. Full guild group, absolutely. So I guess the melee is put in situational context. Having said that, I do find that when I melee I can get anywhere from 2-4 65k DD procs from melee and casting spells. Get some twincasts or twinprocs in, all of a sudden I am doing about two spears worth of damage just from turning on attack. For me and my situation, it is worth it!
I don’t get in melee range because I use rains a lot. I have found, for me, I can use RS > chaotic > rain > rain, pull 2 mobs at a time, and do more sustained DPS with zero med time. With 2 mobs, rain gets 4 hits per, and still beats any other nuke for sustained damage per mana when moloing.
No melee here for a different reason: player fatigue. Especially when pulling real fast, not having to position toons for melee leaves me a lot less tired after say 90 min of continous pulling. Especially with Shaman in group, the benefits of melee are noticeable, but the negative dps time, that is, time when we are not in combat, is the real killer of dps for me. Having a faster group coth would increase damage dealt pr hour significantly when crawling dungeons. (4 toons when solo-boxing, 6 toons when duo-boxing). I will often position the bard a few “feet” in front of the rest, but that is also to absorb the charge of the mob. As part of debuf-pull, the bard will a bit delayed get 6 sec of undivided attention from the mob, which helps me nuke harder from the beginning. Saying all that, I am a bit frustrated with my dps... wiz is newly 105 with only t1 visibles, but mag, bard, ench are almost maxed out in AA, and dps for team peaks at 250-300, 400+ on burn. Mash keys, spell setups, focus on getting synergies to pop, +spell dam are somewhat thought through, items need to be worked at... still frustrating though, RoS seems out of reach for a long time...
