Since we are closing in on having all 4 ascension classes at lvl 10, I'm curious if anyone has done any serious testing to determine which ascension works best for Necs. I know personal taste is involved here but any information would be appreciated.
Dinger, any reason you say those? Do you like the single target nukes, aoes, debuffs, self buffs, they parse better, just more fun to you?
Well, I've been thaum since the start and I'm not unhappy with it. I switched to etherealist for a bit and even bought some of the spells up. But what I noticed is that the etherealist spells have longer cast times. So, while they hit a little harder individually, it just doesn't flow as well with how I like to press buttons. It is nice, though, to have those aoe from etherealist. If I did a different one, I would do that. But, I just didn't like the flow of the skills and didn't see any improvement where it matters to me (boss fights) that made etherealist worth switching completely. For thaumaturgist, I like how the dots of thaum allow me to always be doing damage while casting on top of the fact that my normal skills are also mostly dots AND the pet is constantly hitting things. So basically, my damage is always applying. Revocation of life at expert is very strong when used near the start of your rotation,especially during rising tide. I currently lead with that, then virulent, then I rotflesh-unda into septic strike before unloading a few more necro dot type things and hitting blood contract. With the people I run with, I'm at the top of the dps chart and never out of the top 3 with Conj, Ranger, Necro, Assassin as the top competition in my guild, unless a script requires me to do stuff or the fight is so short that it's anyone's ascension game to win. Point is, pick what you feel good about.
Thanks for the feedback Captain. I've been using elementalist from the start and pretty much feel the same about it as you do thaum. Glad to know that thaum is a viable option.
Since this the only place where ppl starting actively share data here is my 2cp I have thaumaturgist as a first class as well (expert septic, adepts VO/Blood Contract and journeymen Revocation) - I have notice that major damage contributor is Septic following by VO (that can occasionally spike really high) and distant third Revocation and Blood Contract. Particular useful is Tainted mutilation but I did not want to spend $$$ to get it to GM. Now say this - while taum could be faster recast timer is not (particular revocation timer and blood contract) - thus damage wise this would be worst or second worst after elementalist class Etheralist -have 2 nice things - first of all is EA on the fast timer and by longest mile hardest hitting ability PLUS it scales very linear and very well with spell level quality (so to speak about 50% of Ascending damage comes from single spell). Second obviously is Levin bolt which is really same septic strike just with different resist check. Cascading Force "suppose" to hit hard like a track BUT at journeymen level I have not notice this perhaps taking it expert level will do a trick (but again longish recast timer). Etheflash really shine when you want to hit something with PBAoE and timer is moderate to fast. Implosion on paper should be a decent PBAoE (centered on target) but in reality bleh meh heh Geomancer! this class now surprising me, While it may not have something as heavy hitting as EA basically every skill have damage component in it. Yes Stone Hammer is weakest among all second level nukes but look on numbers of skill Stone Hammer - Terren destruction (40s melee nuke) - Terrestrial coffin - Mudsling (than focused with epic 2.0 hit very hard) - Tellurial rending - Erosion - Granite Protector - SEVEN skills out of 10 that actually carry out damage. Also look on re-use time they are fastest among all classes. One thing is given - Geo do not have much AoE/PBAoE (terrestrial coffin only 1 that comes to mind) but vs. single target I am not sure if Geo will not beat Ether So far I'd probably rate it this way Etheralist > Geo on any AoE fights or/and on any burst fights (because NOTHING can come even close to EA by long mile even at expert level it hit for like 8B which is nearly double of Levin bolt of same expert level) and of course 360s base reuse neat Geo > Etheralist on any more or less prolonged fights due to sheer amount of damaging ability to stack with fairly short re-use time
Doom, revocation of life at expert and used during rising tide often does the same or similar damage to ethershadow assassin. I'll notice that when my guildie who uses EA has the top raid damage of we'll say 20billion, I then look at my parse and see revocation of life at 18 or 19billion. Again, not every single time, but it has that potential. Also, it usually hits for about 24 times, but sometimes hits for 44 times (could be the coop power going off. not sure since my raid doesn't 100% coordinate the ascension abilities yet.) This means you're doing damage constantly while casting other things compared to launching yourself at the mob and then having to reposition. Though at least as a necro you don't really have to be concerned about the power drain. In my tests and during raids, all 4 skills, rev, VO, septic, and blood contract all have the potential to beat each other, with septic probably being my least favorite since the others at least provide damage while casting other things. Last night vs a training dummy, the tests were skewed in the favor of septic and VO, which both did almost exactly the same damage with no pre-buffs, with the DoTs not too far behind. However blood contract and revocation of life for some reason hit a training dummy only around 12 times each consistently, compared to 22 to 44 during raid or heroics. Not sure if this has to do with the training dummy dying too many times during the attack. But if you were to double the number of hits so they were where they should be, all 4 spells would be just about exactly the same. Also, it's not the recast that is fast, but the actual casting times. all of these skills are under 3 seconds casting time, which partially goes to make up for the fact that they do seem to not hit quite as hard as some of the etherealist spells. But again, compare cascading force, which hits around 10 times. The hits are harder than something like revocation, but revocation, as I said, hits 22 times and sometimes up to 44 times. so again, there is balance. You make tradeoffs to either be doing damage constantly or hitting somewhat harder with more pauses. When you put the ascensions next to each other, I feel they are all quite in line with crits and rising tide and coop strikes making it very difficult to tell for sure. But the main thing is, the skills just flow more smoothly with how I play, and I haven't seen anything to tell me that I'm missing out by going thaum. When I tried etherealist, it didn't instantly boost my damage, and it also felt way more awkward. And we all know that being clunky in this game is a good way to have your enc dps drop considerably. Also, what kind of stats does your necro have, Doom?
@Captain I am not playing my necro anymore it been long time ago - my main now BL (and I have shelved warlock and coercer level 100). You truly surprised me with this information on revocation (I have it at journeymen) and blood contract at adept - they both hitting about similar but here is caviar (that I think you are missing) Base recast timer on Revocation is 720second Ethereal *** - 390 second! Cascading Force - 360 second! Also please look on base casting time Septic - 6s Levinbolt - 5s Virulent outbreak - 6.5s Ethershadow *** - 6.2s Revocation of life - 5s (and yes here is it clear winner) Cascading force - 7.6s Blood Contract - 5.5s (again good compare to nukes or nuke like spells) Implosion - 7.8s (that is recast timer of 510s in conjunction with fact it not been affected by eth ravaging make for me worst spell) Also please not that as BL I am heavy relaying on ethereal ravaging proc (ACT trigger) hence for me ideal is something fast casting with duration no longer then 8s Also now look on Geo line Mudslide - 7s/360s recast Stone Hammer - 6.7s/300s Terrestrial - 7.5s/330s Terrens - 7s/510s but 40s duration (need to have melee stats to utilize well this nuke) Telliric - 7.3s/390s Erosion - 6.5s/540s Granite Prot - 4s/720s For me for each ethereal ravaging proc I can either fire 1 Ascend + Primal Chain or Epic + Primal Chain or Epic + 2 Ascend (last one has to be nuke) or 2 Ascends with slow cast. Due to nature of the beast Priority are Epic/EA - primal chain - Ascending. May be if I'd have cascading at expert+ priority would shifted. At this moment I am very exiting to see what Geo doing even at apprentice level but again there is a caviar to it - much like VO - at least 2 geo ability heavy relaying on focus items from Epic (Mudslide and Granite Protector - both getting HUGE boost from epic. while VO at best getting extra 60% to the damage mudslide at apprentice level have its 3x (basically epic adds +36M displayed damage which NOT scales with spell quality) - same goes to Granite Protector - epic do HUGE damage boost to it. Also lastly - have you tested effect of new purple adorn set for Tainted mutilation (set should add fire damage to it)?
Thaum is good if you are looking for self heals.. if you are looking for higher dps consistently Thaum is near the bottom. Different mobs and fights have different reactions to ascensions... so which mob you are facing matters also. Etheralist (eithershadow assassin) is the highest hitting spell. In my experiences with pug group, guild group or raid situations the highest parsers are running etheralist or elemenalist.
I haven't tested the tainted boost on the set. I couldn't figure out which rune I would want to switch out. it didn't seem worth losing something else that i had for a spell that I usually don't have to cast, since it is more of a support/healer spell. Though I do use the spell if I don't see the icon for it up already, and in expert dungeons it is nice to shave a little time off the bosses. that being said, i may look into it again. just one of those things that slips my mind when I log in because it's not high on priority list. and yeah i definitely hate the long recast time on revocation. it makes it so that in the first parts of raids that now go very quickly, i sometimes lose the ability to use it on every other boss. or at least the ability to use it on pull depending on the fight. not really sure why this spell has such a long recast compared to the others. also, last night I used it as my first major spell on pull, and twice during the raid I died during the pull. and yet, either the proc on revocation isn't working or it is so short so as to not matter, because I died and didn't get revived automatically. (luckily as a necro, I have this instant revive ability anyway, so most of the time people don't even notice I died.) Anyway, the only major point i'm making here is that thaum has worked fine for me and a person really can't go wrong with ascension. thaum feels like it may be one of the weaker ones, but I can still get it to work really well for me. well enough that testing showed me etherealist actually parsed lower because of wonky casting compared to the smooth setup of thaum on my hotbar and the fact that the skills aren't so much stronger to make up for that. the thing was, etherealist casting times and because of where you want to put certain of them to make the most of movement and other effects messed up my other skills more, having them get kind of separated from each other. picture your ravaging setup being all off timers from each other, for example where with one ascension your skills all line up nicely and with another, you feel like you need to wait differently for them to come back together, etc. etherealist caused these types of issues because of the need to move in and out while casting along with the spells taking just that much longer to fire. thaum is definitely the most boring of the group, though. the spell effects are minimal. there is no big aoe skill. nothing is flashy. but it gets the job done. And for a necro, it fits our class well with the damage type and the concept of being a blood mage. in a year from now, when I have another ascension class with more experts/masters at the ready, I'll know more for sure about which is stronger for me. but right now, it's fine and not worth investing in another.
I do not see any way how elementalist can come even close to geomancer Geo have SEVEN damage abilities all but granite protector on the short re-use timer
@Captain Dots been always a problem for necros for the short fights but been always a winners for long and endurance fights I honestly not understand why your EA not hitting hard (from what I see you have it at expert) but on other hand you do not benefit from 100 fervor proc every 30s for 8 second for scouts its make huge difference we have all our heavy hitters aligned around this. For me on any given fight EA when properly timed and aligned with my fervor proc and Pot temps is always topping my parse (by good margin overperforming my Epic 2.0 savage ally that btw. are at ancient level). Levin bolt just a solid good filler for the ST fights and I still did not figured who properly use cascading force to get maximum of it but from what I seen top BLs have buff and cascading force at GM level (not EA)
Aaaa I just figured WHY you getting good results with Revocation of Life and Blood contract. Captain you forgot to mention that you have Foci for this 2 spells and THAT is WHY. On your necklace (wisdom of kly effect) - without this neck Revocation will not match of get even close not just to EA but also to Septic or Levin Bolt
I didn't say EA hit low. I said revocation can do just as much damage as EA when used during rising tide. I've had revocation at over 20billion occasinally when EA was the top raid damage spell, hitting at 25billion. The point is, every class has abilities that under optimal circumstances can yield amazing numbers. But it's very difficult to compare, since you're always looking at differing gear and buffs etc. I can't even get my own ascensions to perform similarly in multiple tests with no buffs. Sometimes great, sometimes crappy. It's all over the place. But what is very rarely crappy and always at the top 1,2, or 3 of the parse during optimal conditions? My own personal dps in a fight. This is why I say you can't go wrong. It's just unfortunate that it is way too difficult to do your own personal testing with high level ascension skills. I'd love to spend some time with all expert etherealist and all expert elementalist and geomancer and see side by side how I can put up numbers. But that's just never going to happen for me. I feel like this game will die before I get a second or 3rd group of spells at the same level as my thaumaturgist is now, because I have stopped giving the game more than 5 or 10 dollars at a time very spread out. But I know this for sure. When I put my etherealist class close in line with my thaumaturgist class and did some short but not super short parses, thaumaturgist came out on top and felt better. I had planned on fully switching over, and even spent 40 bucks to catch it up to do so. But the results for me, as a necromancer, made me want to stick with what I had originally. It kinda p'd me off, since I paid money to make a switch that never happened. But there we have it. Thaum won and it continues to perform well for me, despite being the most boring and probably if you look at each skill the lower damage output of any of them. I'll tell you one other thing that was a bit of a let down. I got the ethereal thaumaturgist necklace last night. Says on it, 'increases the effects of revocation of life and blood contract.' Well, from what I could tell from a good bit of testing and comparing the tooltip with different gear, the only thing that noticeably changes on revocation of life is that the death save aspect (which I have never seen actually work) is boosted to 100 hp and full power along with higher damage resistance. The damage numbers seemed to not change AT ALL--or if they did it was so minimal as to be attributed to the 200 less potency on the item i was switching back and forth. And blood contract seemed to have the heal portion improved slightly. There MAY have been 2 extra ticks added to each spell, since I usually see the spells hitting 22 times and after donning the necklace, I saw them hitting 24 times. However, I also see those numbers change occasionally anyway, so that is a tough thing to see. And 2 ticks make a fairly insignificant increase when compared to the coop strike or whatever it is that causes the 44 hits I sometimes get from both of those spells. But vs a training dummy at least, the damage from both didn't change in any noticeable way and was actually higher on the test I did without the necklace than with it on...Anyway, I got an item that I thought was going to make the class even more fun, and yet it was pretty lackluster. all of the numbers i've been referencing in this conversation were from before getting the necklace that I just got last night halfway through our raid. saw no noticeable improvement to the damage from those spells after getting the necklace.
and actually, in one of the fights after getting the necklace I had my worst fight in a loooong time against the first mob in spire raid. I was at like half the damage of our conjuror who I am usually right on the heels of in the top 2 of our raid, with a few people blowing me up between us as well. I don't know if I hit my ascensions during the down turn of rising tide or if that boss has a damage mitigation if you're at range or what. but it was abysmal. Luckily it was the aberration of the night, but it was one of our last fights and left me with a sour taste going to bed, that's for sure.
Hmm all this very interesting but few things comes to mind as a summary Ability make sense to compare only then we are talking at level of expert at least and under proper focus An example - mudslide - got info that this ability at GM level hit for 42B (in raid set up) and although not all the time but definitely more frequently than mythical crit. (of course after focus with epic) I got feeling that final comparison need to be done only after we get our -20% casting time charm (for 4 ascend classes level 10). Personally I am not very incline to spend another $85 right now to get something to GM level but likely try get staff to at least journeymen level with plat (hopefully at on some skills price will go down or stay the same)
