Skills effect in CTF

[Energizeric]

Gale does blow back the enemy too. Does not seem entirely consitent but it works. Unfortunately it
has to be aimed unless converted to aoe. Recently I have been running gale with the aoe, speed
boost and dodge options. Found it a good extra measure to keep those pesky warriors off you. I do
all my other attacks and when he get close or it's time to run I do a charged gale. Do not have to be
facing the warrior but can be running away when release. You potentially knock him back plus get the
speed boost and dodge to get away to a safe distance to do your charged fireball and other ranged
attacks again. Seems to have worked pretty well in a few 1v1 encounters with warriors.

Oh, another nice tidbit which I don't know if you guys have noticed. I seems to me that uncharged skills
have to be aimed to hit an enemy (you have to be facing them) whereas charged skills hit the nearest
target even if your not facing the enemy (at least for fire and frost). Good for if you are trying to run
circles around a warrior

Funny how the best us sorcerers can do is discuss which skills to use when running away from warriors. haha!

Shouldn't we be discussing how to take down the warrior and kill him?

[drgrimmy]

Hehe so true! Call me suicidal but I often like taking on a lone warrior when I find one.
It's so satisfying to kill one solo or watch them put their tails between their legs and run.
Against the average tank, I think your chances are good, but against ones who know what
they are doing I think your chances are low. My strategy...

Charged fireball, charged frost, rifle shots until... charged fireball, charged frost, rifle... etc. While
doing all of this you run circles around or away from the tank. These charged skills and rifle shots
will hit the tank even without you having to turn to face him. When he gets too close, charged gale.

Will kill over time, but unfortunately often interrupted by another enemy coming and killing you
or by or some teammate coming and stealing your kill as this often takes a while

[dakota1988]

im about to respec, so do you guys have any idea about which one is better between :

1. lightning stun vs fire dot

2. lightning vs frost bolt

3. arcane shield + 3 nuke vs arcane + heal + 2 nuke

thx in advance!

[CosmoxKramer]

I have updated the table a bit based on testing some more. also added some comments.

fireball stun (works)
fireball -25% hit (unsure)
Lightning Strike stun (works)
Frostbolt extended slow (works) - probably <50% chance to work (only tested with extended slow)
Frostbolt freeze (works) - Seen it freeze someone 1 time in about 1000 casts, so not reliable even if it does technically work
Gale Force knock down (works) - i don't use the "aoe" upgrade and it does a 1-2s stun probably 75% of the time when i charge it (i charge most skills for pvp)
Gale Force speed (works)
Gale Force dodge (works)
Shield knockback (unsure)
Time Shift slow (works)
Time Shift stop (unsure)
Curse (don't know anything)

[CosmoxKramer]

In line below

1. lightning stun vs fire dot (fire dot is ~50 damage over 5 seconds. I take any CC > small damage boost that i can usually, unless i'm trying to have a PVP build that works ok for PVE)

2. lightning vs frost bolt (i took frost for better damage since frost has inconsistent CC)

3. arcane shield + 3 nuke vs arcane + heal + 2 nuke (2 nuke feels too week to me, i am arcane, gale, + 2 nuke, and gale kind of works as 1/2 def and 1/2 nuke)

[Pulenski]

Hehe so true! Call me suicidal but I often like taking on a lone warrior when I find one.
It's so satisfying to kill one solo or watch them put their tails between their legs and run.
Against the average tank, I think your chances are good, but against ones who know what
they are doing I think your chances are low. My strategy...

Charged fireball, charged frost, rifle shots until... charged fireball, charged frost, rifle... etc. While
doing all of this you run circles around or away from the tank. These charged skills and rifle shots
will hit the tank even without you having to turn to face him. When he gets too close, charged gale.

Will kill over time, but unfortunately often interrupted by another enemy coming and killing you
or by or some teammate coming and stealing your kill as this often takes a while

So is the watch rifle a must have for you? I'm unsure of it... And you would recommend gale force? Which points in gale exactly do you have? I considered a while ago but then decided not to go for it as some people suggested it wasn't that helpful.

[drgrimmy]

So is the watch rifle a must have for you? I'm unsure of it... And you would recommend gale force? Which points in gale exactly do you have? I considered a while ago but then decided not to go for it as some people suggested it wasn't that helpful.

Yes, I believe that the rifle is a must have. The skill damage is over 20 points greater than with
the clever flamestrike. It also has a much longer range, does not need to be aimed, and has
a pushback proc. The dps of the clever flamestrike means nothing if: 1) you are using charged
skills and don't have as much time for your weapon attacks; 2) you can't get close enough to
hit your enemy; 3) you are not always facing your enemy to aim the flamestrike (eg with the rifle,
you can be running from a warrior and fire the rifle behind you at him without turning around).
So yes in my opinion a must have for PvP.

I have yet to decide which upgrades I want for gale... yet I have always had the speed boost
to keep up with warriors and rogues in my party (you don't want to be left behind as they are
piercing and skyward) and for speedy getaways I am still debating on the aoe, but I like how
u don't have to aim it.

[Pulenski]

Yes, I believe that the rifle is a must have. The skill damage is over 20 points greater than with
the clever flamestrike. It also has a much longer range, does not need to be aimed, and has
a pushback proc. The dps of the clever flamestrike means nothing if: 1) you are using charged
skills and don't have as much time for your weapon attacks; 2) you can't get close enough to
hit your enemy; 3) you are not always facing your enemy to aim the flamestrike (eg with the rifle,
you can be running from a warrior and fire the rifle behind you at him without turning around).
So yes in my opinion a must have for PvP.

I have yet to decide which upgrades I want for gale... yet I have always had the speed boost
to keep up with warriors and rogues in my party (you don't want to be left behind as they are
piercing and skyward) and for speedy getaways I am still debating on the aoe, but I like how
u don't have to aim it.

Ok, thats nice. I've just been using mine and have to agree with you definitely. It hits harder and the extended range is also very handy. So it really is a must have. If after this update we get free respecs I will be trying out the gale with with speed and AoE, hopefully it will help with kiting as it can be quite tricky playing on laptop / chrome. Assuming you go for frost over lightning because of the extended range?

[CosmoxKramer]

i do gale with just speed and dodge and with that i have been trying my Flamestrike again and kind of like it. It does require me hiding a bit behind a warrior or other people running in, but after i blast of some fireball/gale, i can do a charged flamestrike for AOE and stun from the charged weapon attack. it works pretty good when 2 groups collide and i get to hide back a short distance I understand the Rifle is better, but since i'm using Gale force i find i have to be in closer anyway with aoe or just cone because of the short range. so i do a lot more AA dps than i did before making flamestrike viable again.

[Energizeric]

I'm stubborn and refuse to respec. I got fire, lightning, frost and heal. I don't want shield, I just want STS to fix the imbalance.

[Pulenski]

I can't shrug off the itch to respec a new build as I'm still fire, frost, time, heal. Agree about shield, I prefer heal as I use it a lot not just for myself but for my team mates when they need mana or healing.

Thinking about dropping timeshift for lightning or gale...

[CosmoxKramer]

you know the great part about this game is it makes you think about skill combinations. PL, you just get everything you want. I would love 5-6 action slots, but nope. So some days i just feel like going all 4 offensive skills, some days i want shield or heal and some days i want both lol. seems there is a skill set that could handle some groups/mobs and other skill that would work better in other situations. So much fun. props to STS =)

[meanakric]

I have seen two mages using flamestrike together, it's like machine gun... killer machine. Imagine a team of flamestrike mages. Haha...

[Energizeric]

Mages do make good teammates, they just cannot solo.

[Patricks]

I have updated the table a bit based on testing some more. also added some comments.

fireball stun (works)
fireball -25% hit (unsure)
Lightning Strike stun (works)
Frostbolt extended slow (works) - probably <50% chance to work (only tested with extended slow)
Frostbolt freeze (works) - Seen it freeze someone 1 time in about 1000 casts, so not reliable even if it does technically work
Gale Force knock down (works) - i don't use the "aoe" upgrade and it does a 1-2s stun probably 75% of the time when i charge it (i charge most skills for pvp)
Gale Force speed (works)
Gale Force dodge (works)
Shield knockback (unsure)
Time Shift slow (works)
Time Shift stop (unsure)
Curse (don't know anything)

Shield knock back works, but its pretty useless so I got rid of it. It's not like the distance they get knocked back is any usable amount of difference. Only ONE time was it truly useful when I used it to bump a warrior away from the goal just as he was about to score the flag, and then we killed him.

[JuiceBox]

Shield knock back works, but its pretty useless so I got rid of it. It's not like the distance they get knocked back is any usable amount of difference. Only ONE time was it truly useful when I used it to bump a warrior away from the goal just as he was about to score the flag, and then we killed him.

I kept the knock back on shield. I shielded against a rogue with razor shield and while he was sliding back he can't do anything else. To describe it would be a sliding stun. I manage to follow up and wand him to death while he was still sliding. Also it set him nicely for another fireball.

Without the knock back he would be still on top and jumping around.

It does have some uses, but I agree that the knock back should be further. And if anyone can confirm, if you're knocked back by a shield do u lose your charge?

[Cero]

i tested curse skill. it sucks.
short range and has a short duration like 3secs evwn with the 2secs upgrade. you'll know if curse is.in effect because there will be a storm cloud over their toons.

i first tested it in pve then i
removed it as fast as i can after 1pvp game.

[Yakiniku]

i tested curse skill. it sucks.
short range and has a short duration like 3secs evwn with the 2secs upgrade. you'll know if curse is.in effect because there will be a storm cloud over their toons.

i first tested it in pve then i
removed it as fast as i can after 1pvp game.

Haha yea I tested this in one of the daily bard quests a while back. The fireball DoT is actually affected by curse if I remember correctly, so I counted the duration based on that. It seems to be literally about one or two seconds without upgrade like you said, and then another two seconds if you upgraded it. So basically you cast it so your (and your party's) next hit will hit for 15% more (upgraded). Meh. Wasn't worth a skill slot and all those points to me, so I dropped it pretty quickly.

[CosmoxKramer]

thanks for the curse posts. I tested in pvp too, but i wasn't sure if the cloud was just a 1-2 second animation and the de-buff continued to last or not. the dot from fireball is also variable and i believe based on about 7.5% of actual fireball damage. So in a way when you cast a fireball with a dot and your fireball skill says (177-214) or after 40% damage reduction it does 106-128. essentially you would see
106-128 damage
+(106-128)*7.5% (8-10 damage)
+(106-128)*7.5% (8-10 damage)
+(106-128)*7.5% (8-10 damage)
+(106-128)*7.5% (8-10 damage)
+(106-128)*7.5% (8-10 damage)

Something along these lines so it seems. Because the dot amounts seems to vary 1-2 points for Fireball and maybe even more for Time Shift dot. This is why i think it is a ratio of the base spell damage. Because of this, it is hard to tell through pve testing and using a dot or spell for that matter, how long Curse lasts....

[Cero]

i alays get average of 10dmg from fireball.
how much does the frost dot gives? btw does the frost dot only effects when enemy is slowed?

i dont use frost so i dont know. i want to compare frost vs lightning. so far i can kill mages by
charge fireball +lightning+ 2gun shot + lightning (+fireball to be sure ) combo, if lucky.

hows fireball frost combo does?