The Illusionist and You. Maximizing your DPS

Discussion in 'Mages' started by Revel, May 18, 2017.

  1. Revel Well-Known Member

    It's late and I've been grinding PGs for Marks before double currency ends, so I thought I'd share a little write up about Illusionists in this expansion and how to parse as high as possible as I still see occasional confusion about certain things.

    Illusionist DPS revolves around three factors this expansion. (Getting KA Sig line and Epic 2.0 done and the rewards is a no brainer so I won't list it)

    1.Going Etherealist and getting your major spells up to Expert level (about 85% of the damage of grandmaster) or higher. Those spells are Levinbolt, Etherflash, Ethershadow Assassin, Cascading Force, and Implosion. Costly in terms of DBC or time consuming in the form of research or buying scrolls, this is going to help your DPS immensely. You can get value out of even apprentice however, so don't be instantly discouraged. Of those spells, I would focus on Cascading Force and Levinbolt first, followed by Ethershadow and Implosion.

    2. An excellent Rising Tide charm. Bitter Essence of Disdain, http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/177378370/
    a reward choice from last expansions Zek the Scourge Wastes meta collection, is currently the best charm with 100% rising tide. Next would be the charms at 90%, Essence of the Everliving Reaver and Shard of the Black Reaver, both of which drop from the T1 Raid Black Reaver named in Torsis. Following those, you have some 88% Rising Tide charms from heroic zones. In a worse case, you can pick up a handcrafted Twark 80% Rising Tide charm from the broker for a few plat. Obviously, the higher your Rising Tide, the more potency you get, and the more DPS you'll do.

    3. Timing your Mimic and learning what it works with. I see a lot of confusion about this. People who think it doesn't work with ascensions, etc etc. Mimic does work with SOME ascension spells. Levinbolt, Etherflash, and Cascading Force all work with full effect with Mimic. For Implosion, it only mimics the first hit, thus making it a sub par spell to use. Ethershadow Assassin does not Mimic. I don't use Geomancer, Elementalist, or Thaumaturgist, so I cannot confirm all spells for those ascensions. I honestly think its one of the best abilities in the game.

    For other specific spells, Unda does not Mimic, but Blinding Shock does. Mimic does not Mimic pets, so someone like a Necro or Conjurer are often horrible mimic targets.

    What Illusionists are really good at this expansion is front ending a truckload of damage thanks to Rising tide, mimic, and ascensions. For the first 20 seconds of any fight you can put out some absolutely sick numbers thanks to the way these abilities work together. I have obliterated competent T1 DPS on T3 raid mob parses abusing the Illusionist's best abilities to their fullest. What you are less good at is sustained DPS, or worse, stop and go DPS. Illusionist Class specific spells leave much to be desired in terms of damage. Tons of low damage dots that need time to tick, your best spells and abilities outside of Ascensions are Theorems, Prismatic Shock, Blinding Shock, Chromatic Illusion, and Unda, which can hit hard for any mage.

    With a 90% Rising Tide charm, low 20k range potency, raid/group buffs, you'll likely hit 45-50k potency for that 10 seconds its up, drastically increasing damage of your abilities. Combined with mimic giving you extra hits while this is running, you start to see how you can throw down some impressive numbers. It gets even better with the release of the new 150 fervor orange adornment, and we'll get to that later.
    Order of Stat Importance
    Casting Speed/Reuse/Recovery should all be 100, naturally. This is so easy these days I shouldn't have to post this, but for completeness sake I will.

    1. Crit Bonus to cap, and much Potency as you can get. If an item doesn't have at least 850 potency at this point I don't even look at it. Potency is hard to get from reforging, and thus you want to have as many 1k potency items as possible. Getting to 4150 CB should not be hard at all, even with low teens in Crit Bonus you can cap out if you right side in the prestige tree and you're infusing your gear (and you should be). With Invoker's Finesse from the right side Prestige tree every 1k potency item is going to net you an additional 83 CB. Points in Imbued Sight from the Illusionist prestige tree helps too.

    2. Double Cast. Nothing says more damage like your spells consistently casting twice. You want as close to 100% as possible. The new double cast adorns from Proving Grounds can help you considerably if you're low, without sacrificing lots of potency for those low potency items with DC on them. The base level only costs 10 marks, and gives 4.2 DC. A few will help you out if you're in the 80s.

    3. Fervor. The king. Each point of fervor is worth hundreds of potency past 20k. Epic has 25, Heartbind is worth 30 with your partner logged in and refreshed (and you want one) and the Aspect of Paxiao rune set gives 4. That's 59 Fervor right there, and an excellent starting point to high DPS.

    4. Ability mod. Regular Illusionist abilities caps pretty low thanks to their low damage potential, but this helps with ascensions. Quite frankly, with the new Proving Grounds orange adorns, and crit bonus reforging extremely well into it once you're overcapped, you shouldn't have to worry about it.

    5. Disruption, Subjugation. Be advised that this can be surprisingly elusive this tier. The itemization was not as well done as it could have been, and thus plenty of excellent high potency items have weapon skills or defensive stats. Your epic items can help you here.

    Melee stats are pretty much worthless, you'll max attack speed, flurry and hit soft caps on everything with 0 effort.
    Reforging
    Simple. Is your double cast low? Reforge useless melee stats or crit bonus that you have overcapped to casting speed for the doublecast conversion. DC already high? Then go ability mod where you can.

    Myths and False Beliefs I've Actually Heard
    1. Double cast past 100% is worthless. While I wouldn't focus on it, this is incorrect. Going from 100% to 200% double cast while time warp is up makes Unda hit 20-25% harder. At 19 meters with just my static stats, my Unda is consistently hitting with a normal critical of 1,934,284,946 damage. Because of its formula, there is no random damage variation. With Time Warp Running, increasing only my double cast up to 200%, this number jumps to 2,321,779,059 damage on a normal critical.

    2. Time Warp only adds triggers to Mana Cloak. I am not sure why anyone thought this, but I heard it from a fellow illusionist. Time Warp also adds triggers to Theorems and Prismatic shock, 3 in fact. Oddly enough, my own testing has shown that while time warp is active, Mystic Illusion will not proc, although the initial hit from Chromatic Illusion will. They will proc again as soon as Time Warp ends. Weird.

    3. Ascensions don't mimic. I was actually startled how many people didn't realize they did in the other thread. As I said earlier in the post, some Ascensions do and you must know which ones work with mimic.

    4. Illusionist Epic spells aren't very good. You can see people arguing this on this very forum and it quite frankly boggled my mind. 25 extra fervor while dumping your high end ascension for even more damage? The ability to reset yourself after your ascension dump and do it all over again to blow people away? The ability to reset a tank of healer's death prevents, etc. etc? If you believe this, I want to bonk you over the head with my Awakened Mirage Star.

    Stopping here as its getting very late, will continue tomorrow with more information on Rotation, gear recommendations, etc.
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  2. Revel Well-Known Member

    Reserving this post for future info, hopefully I can edit it later.
  3. Naneeje Well-Known Member

    Keep it going :) Good info...
    There were a few things I did better than most Illies back in AOM.
    I would swap ranged/melee and beat T1. Standing 19 meters, jousting in to 9, back out,
    but all that is in the past. I appreciate your post because I am figuring out that 19 meters is impossible now with all healers melee and right up the mobs butt. :) Looking forward to getting my groove back and I appreciate your post.
  4. AarChon New Member

    Good to see actual wisdom being shared on the forums. Thank you.

    So when resetting people's abilities, do you let them know before the fight starts that you plan to, or just assume that they'll use everything good within say 20 seconds and also assume they'll notice their abilities light up? The 45 minute timer makes it such a uncommon occurrence I can't see people getting too excited about it.
    Naneeje likes this.
  5. Revel Well-Known Member

    Its good to see someone else doing this and being mobile, and yes, I still do a little jousting back and forth, especially on fights you can move and cast.

    I usually set up a rotation and tell them before pull to blow everything so I can reset them after my rising tide/time warp/mimic dump. A few also have a macro to ask for a reset so if its up, I can give it to them.


    Also, apparently you only have 30 mins to edit a post, so I'll have to make a new one to continue. Oh well.
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  6. Twisty Well-Known Member

    I've had contrary test numbers with doublecast over 100% on Unda. damage didn't change
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  7. Revel Well-Known Member

    Rotation

    My raid tank is very accurate on his 10 count, your mileage may vary. As such, I can consistently get the same buffs every time. Getting into a good, consistent rotation will have you flying over your keys in a rhythm for maximum DPS. Here is how I usually start. (As of 5/18/2017) This changes as adjustments are made.

    This order is made on the assumption you're wearing your Earring of the Etherlord for the 10% cast time reduction on Ascensions.

    Prepull.

    1. Swap in your Rising Tide charm

    2. Flash of Brilliance - Pre pull, just before the tank starts their count - Its up for 45s on a 45s timer with 5 points of AAs in the Illusionist AA tree. In essence, its always "on"

    Tank says 10 here. The frantic buffing begins.

    3. Ethereal Conduit - target self. Obviously dependent on your spell level for your return on this.

    4. Peace of Mind - Yes, I forgo the low chance to reset TW off the start. The 5% potency buff for the whole group lasts 40s if you AA spec correctly, as does the 12.5% bonus to profession spell and CA damage. Seconds count and this saves you 1 in the middle of your dump.

    5. Immediately hit your Rising Tide charm and begin casting. My tank does his 5 second warning in the middle of this.

    6. Swap back to regular charm using a macro.

    7. Immediately begin to cast ethermancy. You tank will just start his pull as this hits, and can be cast while you're running at the mob.

    8. Time warp - Cannot be cast on the move, pause a second to make sure it goes off

    9. Spellbind - Another 25% potency? Nice. Can be cast while running at the mob!

    10. Mimic - Target self. Can also be cast on the run while moving into position.

    11. Levinbolt - This is cast first to hopefully proc your new orange 150 fervor rune. If it does, I sure hope you have a troub, -50% hate, and they cast AV on pull. Also, if you've run into range and the levinbolt does NOT proc your fervor rune, your auto attack hit might (we'll get to that in AA spec). Practice on a dummy. Get your timing down so that levinbolt hits a split second after Rising Tide and TW hit. You may have to delay very slightly between mimic and starting levinbolt.

    12. Cascading Force - I won't lie. If you've got mimimal hate reduction, and no troub casting AV this is very likely to get you killed when you do enormous damage, rip aggro, and get punched in the face by that raid mob. But a balanced raid force should have those things. With the Earring of the Etherlord reducting cast time by 10%, its possible to get this in with TW fervor still up if you timed Levinbolt correctly. With Double Cast and Mimic, that is 15 hits, each with their own chance for legendary, fabled or mythical crits. With the old Ethereal Mastery rune, you could get 20 hits with a timely proc, but as almost no one is using it now in favor of the new orange rune you won't see this often. However, I can confirm that Ability Doublecast does stack with Double cast, giving you 20 hits again if you get lucky. Also, while I don't usually have to, but be prepared to immediately cast Arcane Bewilderment afterwards as a failsafe. I run Undeath just for this reason, as everyone in raid should have 10 points in Dragon Scales and Scaled Protection anyways.

    [IMG]

    13. Ethershadow Assassin - Does not mimic, but if you've got Rising Tide up and the 150 extra fervor this is a no brainer. I've done 75 billion + criticals in raid, and that was BEFORE the new orange adorn. More on maximizing this damage later.

    Now the nature of the fight from here on out determines where I go from here.

    Is it a multi mob encounter with adds up? Implosion + Etherflash, work your way into normal illusionist chain
    Is fervor rune proc hitting again already? Implosion + Etherflash, work your way into normal illusionist chain

    Is neither case applicable? Normal illy chain, wait for orange rune proc for Implosion + Etherflash

    My normal Illy chain? Your best bets are Prismatic Shock, Theorems, Chromatic illusion, Psychic Trauma, Blinding shock, and Unda. It all goes downhill from there. Nightmare, Brainburst, Chromatic Shower, and Color Storm should be allowed to tick. Nullifying Staff at 10 ranks is a nice little contribution to combat mit debuffing. I don't bother with the low single hit spells like aneurysm, speechless, or paranoia unless there isn't anything else to cast, and that is rare. Cast Prismatic shock and theorems every time they pop up while waiting to chain your ascensions again.

    Next up, tips and tricks and adornments.
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  8. Revel Well-Known Member

    It does, but its less than I quoted. Only about 5-6%, not 25. Silly me forgot I had Chronal Mastery still on. This thread is a work in progress, unfortunately I can't go back and edit the first post.

    Go get a practice dummy, make it immortal. Switch AA specs so all buffs are down. Stand at 10 meters. Use chronsiphoning to throw you into combat. Hit unda a few times, it should do the same damage. Hit Time Warp, with all buffs off so that it only adds 100 DC, and watch that your unda now does a higher consistent value.

    Thanks for making me recheck and realize my mistake here.

    This test was done at 10m, no buffs, the first two base stats, the second two with just timewarp running for the extra 100% DC. Like I said, not worth focusing on, but something of interest to note.

    [IMG]
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  9. Scrappyz Well-Known Member

    And here I was thinking I had the Illy figured out hehe ;)

    It's nice to see an info post like this, don't see many of them anymore :)
    Naneeje likes this.
  10. Scrappyz Well-Known Member


    I still try to sit at 19m most times.. my issue isn't so much as healers being too far but pulling agro from tank and mob running to me lol
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  11. Twisty Well-Known Member

    my damage on Unda with and without time-warp active (103dc and 200dc) is identical at 19m. don't know what to tell you :(

    this was before epics and extra fervor on TW

    i then reforged more casting speed to about 110dc without changing CB and dmg still didn't change, just to make sure i wasn't being geriatric and not able to press a button in a 5s window
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  12. Revel Well-Known Member

    Adornments

    Naturally you would have wanted wantia, but with the release of the new PGs you can get adorns better for just 10 marks apiece. Still, wantia is perfectly fine if you don't want to go through that effort.

    For white adorns, Potency in every slot that will take it. Crit bonus in every slot that will take it after potency. Finally ability mod in whats left. There will be a few slots left over, and for those I use +101 int but you could go whatever route you want, it will not matter that much. If you need some of the new double cast adorns from PGs to up your DC towards 100%, do so.

    Purple Runes

    I'm going to flat out say this. MELEE WAR RUNES ARE A WASTE. It is a complete and utter waste of those valuable slots to blow one on something like Wild Swings or Screams of Battle. Winds of Obol and Truespirit's Legacy are almost as bad. 18% and 25% potency aren't even a drop in the bucket these days. So what do I recommend? Well I recommend pumping your power as much as possible for that tasty Ethershadow Assassin damage. Here is what I run.

    Relentless Conviction - 6% trigger chance! The rest is just gravy.
    Bolstered Attributes - I believe this is a must for anyone on any class. 10% + 150 more int for higher damage? Yes please.
    Bolstered Endurance - 20% more power and health. More power, more EA damage.
    Ethernean Will - 14% more power, and a nice regen proc for those power drain fights.
    Exceptional Bloodjewel - +5 Fervor gem in cloak. Not everyone has this or will get it, so you can sub in either a set rune from the new sets, or a different war rune. Can be gotten from Fabled Chel'Drak. Can be done every 3 days by a competent single group now. Its tradeable, but be expected to pay several million plat to go this route.

    Don't bother with the old Ethereal runes anymore now that they no longer work with the new orange adorn. Ethereal Expertise was the only one still worthwhile anyways.

    For armor slots, you have 7 openings. I recommend all 3 runes from Aspect of Paxiao to get the 4 fervor, 2 runes from Aspect of Aniquilacion for the 100k ability mod, and 2 runes from Aspect of Zhu Kunnen for the 25,000 power which will be boosted even more by all the + power % war runes.

    Cyans are obviously the Sathirian Power ones if you can get the drops from Expert Heroics. Oranges are straight forward as well, the 150 fervor rune you can get after completing your epic, and the new ones from PG for Ring, Gloves, and Pants, plus the items that you have to buy to fit them.

    AA Spec

    I toy around with my AAs a lot, so I'll tell you my personal preferences.

    First off, my belief is most of the stuff on the Enchanter tree is now worthless. Staples from the past like the Int line now offer almost nothing for the points.

    10 points in Nullifying Staff for the combat mit debuff, although as the Goblin Ear, Mythical, and a slew of other abilities have done this, it may not be necessary anymore.

    12 points in Stam line to get Empathic Breeze for that -8% group hate.

    I put 6 points currently in Str line, 1 in Spellblade's Counter for the interrupt, and 5 in Spellblades reflexes to push my melee range to just shy of 7m.

    For the Dragon Tree, I highly recommend going down the trees and getting Undeath, Spellbind, and Ancient Fury. 10 points in Scaled Protection is a must. The ones to skip and put in the bare minimum of 1 point are Ancient Wave, Spellbinder's Mastery, and Ancient Shield.

    From the Heroic Tree, go down and pick up both Psychic Trauma and Enchanted Vigor. Make sure to grab 10 points in Enhance Peace of Mind and Academ, and 1 point in Manasoul just to have the spell.

    Shadows Tree, obviously get the end line abilities. I also recommend 5 points in Enhanced Mind for another 2.5% power.

    Illusionist Tree. Of course you want Time Warp, so spend your points to get it. Ignore the mezzes, stuns and stifles up top, Grab Illuminate, at the bottom I recommend Nighmares for another combat mit debuff.
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  13. Revel Well-Known Member

    Interesting. I'm getting a completely different result. All my buffs are off too, except food/drink deity and arcanna'se statue. There's a definite difference and I am not sure what it could be.
    Naneeje likes this.
  14. Twisty Well-Known Member

    if you're testing it now the ~6% change sounds just about in line for 25fervor on timewarp...
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  15. Revel Well-Known Member

    No I didn't have Chronal Mastery running. I guess the only way to be sure is for me to strip all gear and use the minimum AAs for TW and Unda.
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  16. Flamace Active Member

    It's very disheartening that we're now basically ascension classes. All our class abilities and spells fall to the wayside over ascension. I don't like it...
  17. Kioske Well-Known Member

    The only suggestion that I would make is, don't just assume that etherealist is the best for DPS. Using combos and such, the other ascension are great for DPS as well. Kinda tired of every group I run, and even having to tell people in my raid force to switch, because EVERYONE picks effing etherealist lol (I'd bet 75% of every server is Etherealist)

    Every Ascension does good DPS and some have great debuffs to go with it. Etherealist have no debuffs, really is one of the weaker ascension over all other than 10-20 second fight DPS throwing the 4 spells you mentioned.
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  18. Carynn Well-Known Member

    Even though I don't raid, posts like this can still help me solo like a Boss.
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  19. Udonn Active Member

    Nightmare debuffs mental.Being mental is a part of magic, does nightmare debuff a mob for etherealist ascension? Iam swapping between Geomancer, and Etherealist to see how the compare. I will probably use Geomancer on my monk, and Elemenalist on m Wizard. Working on the 4th ascension on both my alts now.

    Well written guide. I am sure it will benefit many.
  20. Scrappyz Well-Known Member



    Yes it does.. Geo is more beneficial if you're meleeing, as Terrene is a HUGE portion of a Geo's dps but it doesn't apply to wands.

    IMO, Etherealist is the no brainer for a chanter because of our magic debuffs, even though these days they are small I believe they still help get that extra damage from the big spells :)