V) Still to come: Morale Abilities
VI) Tactics
Dark Blessings
Useful when you have a healer although it's not the most effective tactic you can usually slot. 10% healing received is such a small bonus to take up a tactic slot you will most likely abandon this in a few ranks as soon as you get Devour Energy. Unless you are getting spam healed every few seconds it's probably not worth slotting.
Suggestion to Mythic: Increase this to 15% as 10% is simply to meager of an effect and it'll be thrown out compared to any other tactic. I do know that it's a racial tactic for the Dark Elves and would like to see a racial tactic have more use. I know that racially the Dwarves are more resistant to stuns with a tactic – why can't Dark Elves simply be noticed for the extra heals they can scrape up?
Devour Energy
Extremely useful in any PvE group environment. Often useful in RvR as well if you find yourself running out of action points at any time. Combine it with Recover Energy and Reckless Gathering to become a human (er dark elven) action point recovery machine. A key ability to sustained damage.
Grasping Darkness
Makes you a debuff machine. Drops an opponents damage by a considerable amount of whomever you hit with Doombolt or Chillwind not to mention makes it drain ever so slightly the AP of someone every time one of those spells land. Useful if you spam Chillwind around and useful if you Doombolt nuke a target – probably an RvR only tactic unless you really need to reduce the mobs damage.
Alignment of Naggaroth
Spirit Damage is the most common damage type from the Order. It is not used by the classes that excel at ranged damage such as the Bright Wizard, Engineer, or Shadow Warrior however. The classes that deal Spirit primarily is the Runepriest and Archmage. Classes that deal it in addition to physical damage are the Swordmaster, Witch Hunter, White Lion, and Warrior Priest. Most of the melee classes usually don't deal very much spirit damage however. So as modest protection against the enemy healers and an minor tool of survival against the melee of the Order equip this. I however, don't often use it simply because I try not to get hit in the first place and the ones that do hit me are usually not doing spirit damage.
Endless Knowledge
A pretty good boost to damage and anti-disrupt mitigation. Always the perfect tactic to equip when you need filler. In fact, I would only leave it out of very specialized builds. If and when we determine what the soft cap is for Intelligence then I imagine this tactic will become less useful as you fill out with gear letting you free up a tactic slot.
Infernal Gift
This is why you will be wanted for groups. Notice it doesn't effect yourself but you will probably still be dishing out more damage then them anyway if your healer loves you enough. Stick two Sorceresses in one group and it's nearly always up not to mention you can gain the benefit as well. Key to doing massive coordinated damage spikes.
Bathing in Blood
Hardly even useful for PvE. It's useful somewhat while AoE'ing if you are in danger of dying and begin killing off targets - but if you are that in danger of death it's likely a single tick of Bathing in Blood wouldn't save you. There are a lot of reports of it getting bugged while killing multiple mobs at once as well.
Sleight of Hand
If you pull aggro then use this. If you never do then don't. It's that simple. I'm sure tanks would want you to use it however, so keep that in mind. Obviously has no effect in RvR unless you pull aggro against Keep Lords or Heroes guarding the objectives. Course even then I doubt it's needed. Personally I'd suggest a tank Guard you, you get in Close Quarters, and give them as much aggro as you can.
Empowered Dhar
If you dump Dark Magic often with Dhar Wind and are in sustained fights then use this. Generally this will only happen without a healer in RvR. I would see it as counter intuitive that a healer couldn't give you a hot or two in PvE (unless he can't keep the tank alive). It'll probably happen though. PvE by yourself fights go too quick so you don't have to worry about it. You don't even need to Reckless Gathering much at all if you use this in RvR.
Close Quarters
A miracle bonus for when you can fight close up. Think PvE where you don't worry so much about being close – unless it has some crazy AoE in which the Melee DPS get to suffer from. It is possible to use this in RvR but from experience it'll earn you a faster death. It excels at “dueling” a Melee DPS and any solo conflict with one will be considerably easier. Such a damage bonus is nothing to sneer at while doing PvE alone either as I've killed mobs much higher level with this on and it is absolute excellent to use while AoE'ing in these cases. Although it's quite dangerous again and did get me killed once in a long while.
Manic Obsession
If Obsessive Focus was more worth it then this tactic would be pretty neat allowing you to keep one up indefinitely. This however is not quite the case. A 10% boost in damage using 1.5 seconds of every 20 seconds is hardly worth it. Instead I'd just slot Endless Knowledge and notice the effect without having to constantly use it.
Triumphant Blasting
It's amazing. Not as amazing as you probably think, but it is amazing. Knocking people around is great. You probably know by now that you crit a lot at high Dark Magic and therefore you will knockback a lot. Great with cone AoEs and Surging Pain to try and get someone off of you as well as pushing back the enemy with Pit of Shades. If however you want to do pure damage and kill the enemy you will be a fair bit disappointed as this will knock the enemy out of your Pit of Shades or out of any AoE range you cast it in. That's not to say it's not good because it is very, very good. Just not as good as it's first made out to be!
Hastened Fear
If you find you need Grip of Fear and Dread Aspect quicker then utilize this. I never felt I needed either as often as the cooldowns permit since I simply got used to the idea of preventing the instances in which I needed them most often. Of course, there will always be times I used them but when I needed them I very rarely noticed their cooldown ticking. So take it if you need it although I imagine this would be quite useful in a more dual type setting.
Glorious Carnage
Another on crit ability for the crit class. I never actually tested this as I was too hooked on other builds and to be honest I forgot about it. I'm not sure how much 200 points of Morale is but I can gather that is a fairly large bonus. Combined with a high Dark Magic setup you will likely do quite well with this active allowing you to reach Morale 3 and 4 much easier. If someone has a more exacting rate at which 200 points travels through the Morale meter (I know that it's slower at the end so it's not quite %) then please let me know.
Umbral Fury
Triples the damage from Frozen Touch for your entire group. Pretty interesting really and especially useful on a career that hits in rapid succession (Marauder, Disciple of Khaine, Witch Elf). Remember Frozen Touch only applies to being hit with an attack and does not occur within ticks of a skill so keep that in mind. Very powerful tactic in groups and I can only imagine what it can do in tandem with Tapping the Dark. The DPS increase is not considerable (If you average a single hit every 1.5s at max Agony it's only a 50 DPS increase by yourself) alone but in a group it must be weighed in.
Part2... ...Part4
VI) Tactics
Dark Blessings
Useful when you have a healer although it's not the most effective tactic you can usually slot. 10% healing received is such a small bonus to take up a tactic slot you will most likely abandon this in a few ranks as soon as you get Devour Energy. Unless you are getting spam healed every few seconds it's probably not worth slotting.
Suggestion to Mythic: Increase this to 15% as 10% is simply to meager of an effect and it'll be thrown out compared to any other tactic. I do know that it's a racial tactic for the Dark Elves and would like to see a racial tactic have more use. I know that racially the Dwarves are more resistant to stuns with a tactic – why can't Dark Elves simply be noticed for the extra heals they can scrape up?
Devour Energy
Extremely useful in any PvE group environment. Often useful in RvR as well if you find yourself running out of action points at any time. Combine it with Recover Energy and Reckless Gathering to become a human (er dark elven) action point recovery machine. A key ability to sustained damage.
Grasping Darkness
Makes you a debuff machine. Drops an opponents damage by a considerable amount of whomever you hit with Doombolt or Chillwind not to mention makes it drain ever so slightly the AP of someone every time one of those spells land. Useful if you spam Chillwind around and useful if you Doombolt nuke a target – probably an RvR only tactic unless you really need to reduce the mobs damage.
Alignment of Naggaroth
Spirit Damage is the most common damage type from the Order. It is not used by the classes that excel at ranged damage such as the Bright Wizard, Engineer, or Shadow Warrior however. The classes that deal Spirit primarily is the Runepriest and Archmage. Classes that deal it in addition to physical damage are the Swordmaster, Witch Hunter, White Lion, and Warrior Priest. Most of the melee classes usually don't deal very much spirit damage however. So as modest protection against the enemy healers and an minor tool of survival against the melee of the Order equip this. I however, don't often use it simply because I try not to get hit in the first place and the ones that do hit me are usually not doing spirit damage.
Endless Knowledge
A pretty good boost to damage and anti-disrupt mitigation. Always the perfect tactic to equip when you need filler. In fact, I would only leave it out of very specialized builds. If and when we determine what the soft cap is for Intelligence then I imagine this tactic will become less useful as you fill out with gear letting you free up a tactic slot.
Infernal Gift
This is why you will be wanted for groups. Notice it doesn't effect yourself but you will probably still be dishing out more damage then them anyway if your healer loves you enough. Stick two Sorceresses in one group and it's nearly always up not to mention you can gain the benefit as well. Key to doing massive coordinated damage spikes.
Bathing in Blood
Hardly even useful for PvE. It's useful somewhat while AoE'ing if you are in danger of dying and begin killing off targets - but if you are that in danger of death it's likely a single tick of Bathing in Blood wouldn't save you. There are a lot of reports of it getting bugged while killing multiple mobs at once as well.
Sleight of Hand
If you pull aggro then use this. If you never do then don't. It's that simple. I'm sure tanks would want you to use it however, so keep that in mind. Obviously has no effect in RvR unless you pull aggro against Keep Lords or Heroes guarding the objectives. Course even then I doubt it's needed. Personally I'd suggest a tank Guard you, you get in Close Quarters, and give them as much aggro as you can.
Empowered Dhar
If you dump Dark Magic often with Dhar Wind and are in sustained fights then use this. Generally this will only happen without a healer in RvR. I would see it as counter intuitive that a healer couldn't give you a hot or two in PvE (unless he can't keep the tank alive). It'll probably happen though. PvE by yourself fights go too quick so you don't have to worry about it. You don't even need to Reckless Gathering much at all if you use this in RvR.
Close Quarters
A miracle bonus for when you can fight close up. Think PvE where you don't worry so much about being close – unless it has some crazy AoE in which the Melee DPS get to suffer from. It is possible to use this in RvR but from experience it'll earn you a faster death. It excels at “dueling” a Melee DPS and any solo conflict with one will be considerably easier. Such a damage bonus is nothing to sneer at while doing PvE alone either as I've killed mobs much higher level with this on and it is absolute excellent to use while AoE'ing in these cases. Although it's quite dangerous again and did get me killed once in a long while.
Manic Obsession
If Obsessive Focus was more worth it then this tactic would be pretty neat allowing you to keep one up indefinitely. This however is not quite the case. A 10% boost in damage using 1.5 seconds of every 20 seconds is hardly worth it. Instead I'd just slot Endless Knowledge and notice the effect without having to constantly use it.
Triumphant Blasting
It's amazing. Not as amazing as you probably think, but it is amazing. Knocking people around is great. You probably know by now that you crit a lot at high Dark Magic and therefore you will knockback a lot. Great with cone AoEs and Surging Pain to try and get someone off of you as well as pushing back the enemy with Pit of Shades. If however you want to do pure damage and kill the enemy you will be a fair bit disappointed as this will knock the enemy out of your Pit of Shades or out of any AoE range you cast it in. That's not to say it's not good because it is very, very good. Just not as good as it's first made out to be!
Hastened Fear
If you find you need Grip of Fear and Dread Aspect quicker then utilize this. I never felt I needed either as often as the cooldowns permit since I simply got used to the idea of preventing the instances in which I needed them most often. Of course, there will always be times I used them but when I needed them I very rarely noticed their cooldown ticking. So take it if you need it although I imagine this would be quite useful in a more dual type setting.
Glorious Carnage
Another on crit ability for the crit class. I never actually tested this as I was too hooked on other builds and to be honest I forgot about it. I'm not sure how much 200 points of Morale is but I can gather that is a fairly large bonus. Combined with a high Dark Magic setup you will likely do quite well with this active allowing you to reach Morale 3 and 4 much easier. If someone has a more exacting rate at which 200 points travels through the Morale meter (I know that it's slower at the end so it's not quite %) then please let me know.
Umbral Fury
Triples the damage from Frozen Touch for your entire group. Pretty interesting really and especially useful on a career that hits in rapid succession (Marauder, Disciple of Khaine, Witch Elf). Remember Frozen Touch only applies to being hit with an attack and does not occur within ticks of a skill so keep that in mind. Very powerful tactic in groups and I can only imagine what it can do in tandem with Tapping the Dark. The DPS increase is not considerable (If you average a single hit every 1.5s at max Agony it's only a 50 DPS increase by yourself) alone but in a group it must be weighed in.
Part2... ...Part4
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment