Hrm, I keep making mentions of the whole spell proc situation on any thread where they mention they're changed procs, yet they completely ignore it. Though I think I'll go test it, because with the lag on the servers, I don't care about leveling anymore. Oh, and Mana Flow got "fixed" into working against enemies now.
I don't really see how this can possibly hurt our DPS. Procs are scaled to generate the same amount of procs over time, regardless of weapon (and apparently casting) speed. So over the course of a minute of chain-casting, you'll see the same number of procs regardless of whether you can squeeze out 30 spells or 40. And you'll certainly be doing more DPS casting 40. The only issue, I suppose, is that you're running out of things to cast, and thus can't generate the chain-casting that's optimal. If you're only managing 30 casts per minute either way, then yeah, you're not going to see as many procs when under spell haste. But I should hope that the haste lets you get more off.
3. Dream Barrier -- +80ish to all spell resists per rank -- no longer extra buff to mental Looking at the options tonight, I'm pretty certain this one now gives us +87 magic resist only, no other resists are raised, and that it's for the chanter only, not for the group. As a raider, I really have no idea which way to go here. A coercer who often ends up in the MT group can make some use of the STA line - reducing threat to non-fighters and increasing healer's crit chance, but being in a DPS group, more often thatn not, I have no healer in my group. Yes, the hate reduction would still be uselfull, but being able to reduce threat of DPS by a max of 6.4% (for the price of 20 AA points) seems like poor value for my money. The only specific role I have on raids (other than providing crack) is to handle the very occasional need for CC. So I might try the WIS line. Being able to soothe mobs could come in handy - if it is ever required. Somehow I doubt it will be. Sneaking a raid force of 24 people past a soothed mobs in 10 seconds is propably not feasibly. I bet it will be much easier just to kill it, as we've done till now. Charming a mob for 16 secs, is not likely to be part of our strategy, and having that ability as an emergency meassure is kind of off-set by a 3 secs cast timer. The agility line will allow me to cast fater, but as it is, on epic mobs I run out of spells to cast because the choices are so few and the recast time is so long. Being able to cast those spells faster, will just mean I'll spend more time looking a my spellbars for something to actually cast. STR is off the table from the start, so that leaves me with INT, which may increase my DPS by a bit. But then again, I didn't enroll an illusionist because I wanted to do DPS. I need advice here. What are the rest of you raiding illusionists thinking, how can we make the best of these limited choices?
Personally I dont think spending all your points in one path is going to be the best option for most chanters. Spending some points in serveral lines gives you a varitity of ablities and skill sets. I suspect that the choises will greatly depend on play style and your personal vison of our class. I mean you can pick damage (spell), agro control, spell haste, or melee procs/debuffs, ect. None of the choises seem clearly better then the others especially with some of the limitations with respect to the equipment you must have equiped in particular slots, built into them (which will hopefully get changed and/or removed). A very viable option for some will be just to spend points on the stat increases for each stat.
This is my tenative list on what I am thinking of doing for my character (descriptions taken from beta prior to release so keep that in mind. ) My plan for where I will spend my points are in RED as well as my comments for each stat line. Entry AA: Mana Flow -- Transfers 4 mana/sec to a raid/group friend, costs the enchanter 3 mana/sec. Lasts until cancelled. Working. Manditory 1 point spent STR Line -- focuses on melee/debuffing points spent cause I am a weekling and easly encumbered espcially under rez effects (or after getting to much coin.. and getting 1k+ copper isnt hard to do from looting mobs) 1. Spellblade's Strength -- increases STR by 8 per rank 2 points2. Spellblade's Counter -- a quick dagger attack that interrupts the target -- 95-159 at app4, 15 sec recast 3. Spellblade's Retort -- 1% chance per level to riposte frontal attacks, parry from all other quadrants 4. Quickening -- gives the chanter a chance to double attack, and raises melee crit chance -- 3% per rank 5. Counterspell -- Debuff, prevents the next damage spell that targets you. 30 sec duration, 1 min recast. AGI Line -- focuses on quick casting -- abilities 2-5 all require an empty offhand points spent for #2 for the mob debuff (hope it works on epics) and for spell haste 1. Chronomancer's Agility -- increases AGI by 6 per rank 4 points2. Chronosiphoning -- casting-time drain, effectively. At app4, raises target's casting times by 21%, while lowering yours by the same amount. 30 sec duration, 30 sec recast, .5 sec cast. 4 points 3. Chronomotion -- lowers global cooldown by .025 sec per rank (weaksauce!) 4 points4. Chronology -- 1.1% spell haste per rank4 points 5. Perpetuality -- Each spell you cast speeds your next few casts by 12%. Stacks up to 5 times, effect expires if no spell is cast for 3 sec. No longer bugged...however, spell haste caps at 50%, so after 4 procs this wouldn't add anything (3 if chronosiphoning is up) STA Line -- focuses on aggro management points spent for hate gain decreese, putting the chips in that this is going to be effective enough to be worth the points spent. Controlling agro would atleast give me something to do on raids a little more. 1. Empathic's Stamina -- increases STA by 5 per rank 4 points2. Touch of Empathy -- reduces threat of target ally towards their target by 776 at app4. 30 sec recast. Requires a 1hb equipped. 4 points 3. Empathic Aura -- passive group buff -- increases group's crit heal chance by 1.7% per rank (includes power heals). 4 points4. Empathic Soothing -- Decreases hate-gain of non-fighters in the group by .8% per rank 8 points5. Sever Empathy -- target encounter can't "call for help"...i.e. will become non-social. Does not effect epics. WIS Line -- focuses on crowd control 1. Dreamweaver's Wisdom -- increases WIS by 7 per rank 2. Daydream -- Soothes target, 10 sec duration, 1 min recast, boo...requires a symbol in secondary, duration increased per rank 3. Dreamweaver's Armor -- +80ish to all spell resists per rank (+160 for mental) 4. Dreamweaver's Trance -- +4.5 subjugation and focus skill per rank 5. Hypnosis -- Charm, nerfed again -- now 4 sec cast, 12 sec duration, 1 min recast INT Line -- focuses on damage with the increase in level limit the int cap goes up. since they still havent fixed it the issuse where I level up and my int stays the same my damage goes down figured an extra boost in int makes it that much easier to get to and stay at the cap 1. Savant's Intelligence -- increases INT by 4 per rank 8 points 2. Nullifying Staff -- combat art -- inflicts 150-278 damage and decreases mental and magic mitigation by 528 for 36 seconds, 45 sec recast -- additional ranks improve damage and debuff -- 2h staff only 3. Savant's insight -- 1% chance (per rank) every time you're damaged to become immune to interruption for 2.5 sec 4. Savant's Channeling -- +1.5% crit chance per rank (no longer buffs disruption) 5. Volitile Magic -- when under 25% power, your damage spells are 25% more damaging This leaves me with 47 points spent and 3 left (if I counted correctly) depending on the gear upgrades and how my stats look I could spend those points on either more str or sta or wis ... ... nothing else that I am really intersted in (spell crits would be fun but noth worth the expenditures of points imo). As you can see I spend zero points in any of the so called 'mastery' skills and its the 8 point requirement that steers me away from those. None of them (other then the int mastery : Volititle Magic) seem to be that intersting to me I have earned 3 points so far and got Mana Flow ([expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] junk as it is now) and spent two points in sta so far. 4th point is coming soon so
without using chronosiphoning, godking weapon would proc enough that its buff icon would never leave the spell effects bar. with chronisiphoning at app 2, that buff always gets to the point where it starts flashing im just waiting to upgrade that spell a bit more before parsing and testing it, just so that it makes a big enough difference to really show on a parser if it is the case.
Abilities don't scale like passive abilities. You will not be having a -5208 threat reducer at rank 8. Nor will you have a 2k melee attack or a -4.2k mental debuff. I think each rank only increases it by about 10-15% from the previous rank on abilities.
Here's the screenshots I took as of yesterday. There's nothing wrong with the ones posted above, I just like being able to flip between lines in browser tabs. Achievement tree and entry achievement STR line AGI line STA line WIS line INT line
Pinski is correct! Touch of Empathy at rank two is a reduction of 828 hate. Rank 3 is 872. even at Rank 8 its not scaling to go to 5208 threat reduction .
Does the resistability of AA spells (thinking of Chronosiphoning, specifically) increase as they go up in rank, or only the effects? I did a search, but no direct answer easily found. Message Edited by WAPCE on 02-27-200603:18 PM
Back to this discussion for a second, how useful is Chronosiphoning going to be as a debuff? I was under the impression that most NPCs cheated on a lot of things to make them tougher, including greatly reduced casting times and the ability to cast without power. Does the debuff, along with the decrease in casting time, really make up for losing a symbol? Also, are people playing without a symbol equipped all the time, or are we macro-ing unequipping and equipping a symbol 3 seconds later while maintaining the siphoning effect (if it does maintain)?
They don't actually cheat on their normal abilities. Though it's useless vs. melee because 0.2s casting time slowed down, is nothing. Most innate abilities are instant cast as well.
A.) this ability was added after beta, and thus untested (previous similar abilities were bugged on beta) B.) no one on Live has enough points to buy it C.) no one in their right mind would spend 24 AAs down the STR tree Therefore, I suspect that this answer will remain one of life's greatest mysteries...Is the Universe expanding? Is there a God? What the heck does Counterblade really counter?
Sooo true. I am really tempted once I get the points to get a final AA, that I may actually burn points down there when I start raiding to see what the hell it does vs. epics.
