Best way to distribute skills?

[lilbyrdie]

Thanks for the extra rundown, Pharcyde. I'd (personally) still probably stick with Ice and Frost either reversed or (as I have it now) balanced. I haven't even tried PvP yet, so any advantages there don't really matter to me. Frost, to me, is more useful against mob groups. Currently, in various AO areas, I run into the middle, frost them, then run away and pick them off one at a time, starting with the ones that didn't freeze. It's surprisingly useful if done right. And I think it may become more useful when GCD shows up. (Freeze, run, buff, return to nuke. If only bosses could be frozen. )

I understand the rest much better now.

My L41 build looks like this:

6 2 6 1
6 4 6 1
1 0 1 6

The next 5 levels are all going into vitality, though I might speed that up a little with a respec and pull some frost away early. Right now, it's pretty much just the skill set I ended up with by just playing and reading the screens rather than the forums.

The big things to cause a shift:

1. damage affects skills and weapons (I assumed just weapons) (this also makes Might pretty amazing)
2. hit, crit, and dodge affect skills and weapons (again, I assumed just weapons) (again with Might being amazing -- 60 crit for 20 seconds is effectively a 60% increase in damage for 20 seconds -- all damage -- including the extra 30, which makes it effectively +48 to weapons and skills...)
3. Same things as above, but in reverse for nightmare and weakness.

My skills that hit 6, in order: Fire, Lightning, Drain, Might, Heal (fire because the "push back" helps to break an attack lock) (Heal was last because potions are basically free and are fast, but it's been far more important for group healing since late 30s.)


As for other changes with GCD: unless they increase the length of time buffs and debuffs last for, their effective benefits will be lowered somewhat in the first 5-10 seconds (before regular skill timeout takes over as the limiting factor rather than GCD). Basically, less help in clearing power but shouldn't materially impact long boss fights.

[lilbyrdie]

Ok, a question for this thread:

If you had a weapon that gave the same proc as a skill, would that change your distribution any, assuming either you'll always use that weapon, or pay the 2 plat to respec when you replace it (that is, skills aren't a permanent choice and can be changed for relatively little real-world cost).

For instance, several weapons can do weakness and nightmare (http://j.mp/ikaeBK).

An important question for consideration: Do the weapon procs stack with the same skill as the user of the weapon? This is similar to an as-yet unanswered question of whether or not the same debuff from two casters will stack -- we can see that the party buff skills don't. So, it might be reasonable to assume that the debuffs don't stack. And, following that line ... neither would the debuffs from the weapons. So, have a weapon perform weakness would negate any need for it as a skill (assuming it triggers at every 30 seconds or faster -- or whatever the cool down is for weakness).

Just curious as to thoughts on this...

[Pharcyde]

No, I would not recommend it. The procs are weak, and stack onto your spells. So you can have both a weakness proc and debuff on a enemy at the same time.

Then a enemy may only have 1 weakness proc, 1 nightmare proc, 1 weakness debuff and 1 nightmare debuff on at a time. So it only has a max of one per, then anyone else who casts it will just refresh the duration, not actually add on.

[WhoIsThis]

I recommend that you follow Pharcyde's level 56 configuration. I use the same configuration on my mage, as does Royce.

Mage debuffs are not like break armor, which I believe stacks as multiple birds use it.

[lilbyrdie]

No, I would not recommend it. The procs are weak, and stack onto your spells. So you can have both a weakness proc and debuff on a enemy at the same time.

Then a enemy may only have 1 weakness proc, 1 nightmare proc, 1 weakness debuff and 1 nightmare debuff on at a time. So it only has a max of one per, then anyone else who casts it will just refresh the duration, not actually add on.

Ok, since they stack with the spells, that makes sense.

What I'd still like to know is if the latest one to cast it (or trigger the proc) does more than just refresh the duration -- if it also changes the effectiveness if the level of the skill (or proc) isn't the same. e.g. if I go in an blast out nightmare and weakness at Level 1, but the mobs had Level 6 debuff on, does the party lose the effects of 25 pts of each debuff? Or is the system smart enough to ignore the effects of a weaker debuff (while also not refreshing the duration)?

The reason I ask is because it means there's something to be gained by a little mage discussion up front to see who should be debuffing... even at L56, we can't assume everyone has both of these at level 6. And it's certainly unlikely at lower levels.

[WhoIsThis]

The reason I ask is because it means there's something to be gained by a little mage discussion up front to see who should be debuffing... even at L56, we can't assume everyone has both of these at level 6. And it's certainly unlikely at lower levels.

At lower levels, I can see your point, but at 56, all mages should have both debuffs maxed out.

[Pharcyde]

What I'd still like to know is if the latest one to cast it (or trigger the proc) does more than just refresh the duration -- if it also changes the effectiveness if the level of the skill (or proc) isn't the same. e.g. if I go in an blast out nightmare and weakness at Level 1, but the mobs had Level 6 debuff on, does the party lose the effects of 25 pts of each debuff? Or is the system smart enough to ignore the effects of a weaker debuff (while also not refreshing the duration)?

The highest level buff or proc takes effect and cancels the other one out. So if someone with level 1 weakness casts it on a boss, then someone with level 6 weakness casts it on the same boss, the boss now is debuffed by a level 6 spell, and not a level 1 spell. Basically, if theres two mages in a party, one does and one does not have debuffs maxed, then the who does not have them buffed basically is casting useless spells.

I can't think of any way to test it, but low level debuffs might actually be counter productive. When they cast and refresh the time, they might also cancel out the level 6 debuff and replace it with the level 1 debuff.

So either two things happen, the level 1 effects are completely ignored, or completely replace the level 6 debuff.

[WhoIsThis]

The highest level buff or proc takes effect and cancels the other one out. So if someone with level 1 weakness casts it on a boss, then someone with level 6 weakness casts it on the same boss, the boss now is debuffed by a level 6 spell, and not a level 1 spell. Basically, if theres two mages in a party, one does and one does not have debuffs maxed, then the who does not have them buffed basically is casting useless spells.

I can't think of any way to test it, but low level debuffs might actually be counter productive. When they cast and refresh the time, they might also cancel out the level 6 debuff and replace it with the level 1 debuff.

So either two things happen, the level 1 effects are completely ignored, or completely replace the level 6 debuff.

In other words, debuffs should not be synchronized together or one is wasting their mana. On the other hand, debuffing does a bit of modest damage, so perhaps it may be worth considering casting it. Even synchronized, I still think the low level one should cast (assuming that they even realize that the higher level player has a higher level debuff) due to the damage. I don't think that the low level one replaces it.

[Pharcyde]

In my opinion, it's all or nothing. The modest damage can become pretty good damage in other damage-based skills.

[lilbyrdie]

In other words, debuffs should not be synchronized together or one is wasting their mana. On the other hand, debuffing does a bit of modest damage, so perhaps it may be worth considering casting it. Even synchronized, I still think the low level one should cast (assuming that they even realize that the higher level player has a higher level debuff) due to the damage. I don't think that the low level one replaces it.

Debuffs do damage? That's news to me...

What's modest? And does it show as damage above the mob? (I'd check, but I'm trying to focus on work... hah!)

In my opinion, it's all or nothing. The modest damage can become pretty good damage in other damage-based skills.

One aspect here will be the global cool down. Adding debuffs to the mix of attack spells will slow the major damage spells down. And if it ends up making the debuff worse, the damage will last a while.

Seems like the consensus is that if your party is having a hard time taking out a boss, you might have a chat and find out who has the best debuffs and tell them to be the only ones to cast them. It may not make any difference, but it shouldn't hurt anything if that means the lower level mages can hit faster with more damaging spells (or hit the heals faster). And if the party isn't having trouble, it's a moot point.

[lilbyrdie]

After looking at some more math, I've found Nightmare to definitely be more worthwhile. Each level increases each of your own hits by 5 damage (since we know armor is linear). It also increases your overall chances of hitting by 2% because of the dodge reduction.

Not even looking at the 2% overall increase (because that depends on your exact damage), just the effect of the armor decrease effectively increases a mage's overall DPS by 9 when going after a single target and by 23 when hitting the maximum number of targets (5, according to another thread).

But how does this compare to Frostbite? That's easy.. Frostbite only hits every 4 seconds and only one mob, so each of it's levels only adds 3 DPS (overall).

What about Ice Storm, which can hit multiple targets? Turns out, it's too slow to matter. It only increases DPS by 1.2 against one target and 6.2 against all 5, per level.

When I look at the 2% additional hits on my dude, I can see that overall, I'd see another 6 DPS against one target and 18 against the maximum (assuming, of course, the AOE hit that same 5 the debuffs hit).

This calculation caused me to respec to:

6 1 6 1
6 1 6 1
1 0 6 6

I'm now going to lean towards Nightmare and, secondarily, Weakness. (Damage before defense.) It's clear that Nightmare, even when solo, has a greater impact on damage delivered than Frostbite or Icestorm. That might even hold true with some of the other attack skills, but I'm not sure.

The other conclusion I came to was that I now know that weapon damage impacts all skills. I can get more increase in damage by spending a bit of gold than a couple of skill points in frost or ice storm... In fact, with my D'jinn Wand, my Rank 1 frosts do more damage than before, when they were Rank 2 and 4.... and that's not even counting the extra impact from Nightmare... For instance, with Bony Fire Pin, Ice did 72-146 at Rank 4. Now, at Rank 1, it does 97-128 -- 19 DPS vs 18 and 3 skill points for other stuff.

(* Note: The DPS in this case are calculated and, due to the very nature of the change being to mob armor, obviously take armor into account. If we assume the effect lasts as long as the 8 second cool down, all offensive spells can benefit from it and it can be continuous if you splat out the skills fast enough.)