"Weakness" and "Nightmare" Skills

Now the discriptions are a little vague and i'm not exactly sure how they work. I do feel that these two skills need a little revamp If they aren't AoE's i feel for pve and pvp purposes they should be. Even if u turn down the debuff they give maxed out. I Feel like the skills would be put to better use then. I don't see many players use it. I fear i may be the only one but i know if the skills have a AoE effect even if the range is short they can and will be an asset to groups latter in the game as content gets harder. The mana cost and CD at the moment with the targeting set up makes the skills difficult to use and costly to the player for not much of a benefit.

Also i would love to see the UI have a noticeable way of showing which mobs are debuffed with what.

Ty,
Jovian:D

I respec'd today and didnt put any points into them. Very blah though I wish you could turn fireblast up to 10!

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/7078/skillzi.jpg

I believe that the skills are meant to be vague, however these skills are absolutely amazing. I am not exactly going to go into detail as to why, for guild reasons. As you can see I have these skills on my Skill Bar, and I use them almost as often as they are available. The benefit FAR outweighs the mana cost.

However I would love to see the UI have a way of showing when the debuffs are off a target, and also seeing when BOV and BOM are off the group as well :)

These two debuffs are excellent. I remember figuring out with a friend early in the game that they were AoE, and spreading the word for a couple days the best i could. These two skills were often unused.

So, let us go through a full description of nightmare and weakness, and how to use them in a group:

The Enchantress Debuffs:
These Debuffs are both AOE. They will effect all mobs within range. The range of these spells however, are limited. Both have two different affects that will be placed on the enemy mobs for a duration slightly less than the cooldown of the spell (it is difficult to tell exactly how long, as the debuff animation only remains on the mob for a short period.) The Debuffs have a cooldown time of 15 seconds. One effect is increased with skill ranks, and one effect will not be. A more detailed assessment is next, but i will say here both spells far exceed their descriptions in effectiveness, and weakness in particular is invaluable for mitigated the damage to you party.

Weakness:
This spell "Reduces enemy damage and chance to hit." It costs 50 mana. Each skill point put into Weaknes lowers the targets damage by 5 per rank. What is most likely is that with 5 points, weakness lowers the damage of the affected mob by 25 points. However we don't know when that damage is calculated, it could be the base damage of the mob, or the damage done to the player after armor mitigation. Regardless, it often seems to lower the damage of your enemies by much more than that, and it is very effected. As an added bonus, the first point will lower the enemies chance to hit as well, by an unknown number. In practice, it does not appear to lower enemy hit chance by much. This spell seems to perform far better than its stated description, but w/e the case may be, it is a fantastic way to lower damage on your party members and yourself. This spell can even lower the damage of a boss the same level as you to around 8-20 damage per hit!

Nightmare:
This spell: "reduces enemy hit chance (and armor). Again, it works much like weakness, except it reduces target hit chance by -5 per rank. If this is a base number or a % is unknown for certain. The spell also lowers armor by an unspecified amount. The lower of armor is noticeable, but does not seem to be affective as an archers break armor, which lowers armor by about 25% if i remember correctly. Weakness is a more effective spell imo, but both are excellent. Consider this spell like a reverse evasion.

How to use these spells while soloing:
When soloing, these two spells are fantastic for lowering the damage you take. Weakness is more effective, however nightmare also has its uses. I find the best thing to do is to use weakness against mobs first, and then after about 7 seconds, to pop mana shield and nightmare. Weakness will lower the damage you take, and once it runs out, mana shield will protect you and damage will go to your mana. Nightmare will ensure that the mobs hiting your shield will miss quite a bit, and your mana pool will not take as large of a hit. You could reverse the debufs and use nightmare and then weakness with mana shield, however nightmare is not as reliable, and a mob can still hit you and crit you, its just a lower chance.

How to use these spells when in a 5 man group:
When you are in a 5 man, these spells will go a very long way! They will often help your party much more than your heal ability, because it protects your party from massive crits and quick deaths (the dreaded one shot kill) that your heal ability simply can not protect them from. First you must remember the range on these spells is short, so you will want to quickly dart into the center of the mobs before you use it. Once its on you can dart back out for safety if needed.
Use the two skills one after another to spread the protection out, but if you feel it necessary, pop both at the same time when your party is facing a boss. Depending on the map, your strategy will change. Sometimes, mages will use this ability to pull a mob, because it doesn't damage the mob and therefore the aggro is easily pulled off by another player. That being said the range is very short, so it is more of a tactic for pulling a single mob away from another mob, and can be somewhat tricky to pull off. This tactic is also often unnecessary when your group is blasting through mobs.

Nice guide Azrael. Even more reason to keep an enchantress around although I prefer two at the same time. ;)

Ty forthe guide. Now I feel my setup is worth somthing. I wasn't gonna charge it I like being a supportress. :) hope they fix the discriptions tho.