Title. I tried metamorphosis; interactions with other aspects aside, occulus teleports are just faster, with more defensive synergies. At least from very informal testing.
What shenanigans are you guys coming up with for metamorphosis?
My hypothesis has been that metamorph is a downgrade to occulus.
With Occulus with evade cooldown, you have infinite teleports so long as youre attacking. With Metamorph, you have four evades (if you have those evades on boots) and there is a cooldown. So no bueno if youre being chased.
You also lose the barrier when you go to metamorph.
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I didn’t play s2 so cant speak to any changes, unfortunately.
Defenses are used to tactically extend the amount of time i spend in nm100 runs. I also gain less damage this way so its bis.
I also use esu boots, so would lose out on 15% crit for metamorphosis, not something i could justify:/
I will say the accursed touch aspect has been interesting; still testing this one tho. The primary use found was for ice shards; was running the morph which provided vulnerability with piercing cold aspect; swapping the morph to greater ice shards and accursed touch aspect gave similar multi target and arguably better vulnerability uptime, with 25% more damage.
I think Accursed Touch will be great for a build like Firewall or Fireball once you can no longer get easy access to Vulnerability via the Seneschal. I mean you can always use FO enchant with builds like those, but if you don’t want to spend the enchantment slot like that, this will be a decent substitute.
Apparently accursed is not good for firewall due to the severly low proc rate. The lucky hit on firewall is 50% so in theory with a 70% base lucky hit rate, you should get a 30% proc rate over the life of the firewall. But there is something wrong with DOT not triggering Accursed. Thanks to Macro for the testing. I believe everything Dr. Firewall tells me.
Lucky Hit + DOT is a bad combination in general. I wish the game was more transparent about how it actually works so that it was easier to theorycraft DOT builds.
I do OK right now proccing X’Fal’s and FW enchant with my FW build, but it’s definitely lackluster.
Yah. Xfals and FW proc work fine. Wish accursed worked similarly.
Ooh interesting. So i tested this; for reference, lucky hit is at 98% or so (firewall tool tip is at 60%), accursed aspect is 35%.
Test results:
It procs almost immediately.
The debuff also lasts an absurd amount of time, like 25 seconds, which opens up dmg reduc from vuln as reliable as burning…
I might need to redo paragon now. F.
One thing to test for pvp purposes: what, if anything, cleanses this debuff, as it might change the lvl of influence for your spec.
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That is interesting. I wonder what is causing the differences in testing results. We are in eternal realm which may explain the difference in firewall lucky hit (you are at 60 and we are at 50). To get up to base lucky hit of 90%, id need to use that lucky hit aspect. Are you using Xfals in your build? Maybe xfals is some sort of xfactor
I’m on eternal as well; my first guess would be be the aspect %proc rate that was used for testing, but so you have a ref point to check:
Aspect: 35%
Rings: xfal/tal
Weap: occy/legendary
Uniques:soulbrand[dont laugh im trash]/temerity[again]/esu
Lucky hit: 99%
Tooltip on firewall with barrier up: 60%
Sources:
W/ barrier x 2 [helm/chest]
Arms
Passive precision magic
Frigid fate paragon node
Rings
Dont have great rolls on some atm; will cut down on number of sources with better gear but i want 100%. Other sources of the top of my head could be offhand or uniques, or the aspect but as you already know, not good source because no room.
Obligatory edit: If i had shako/starless, this 100% lucky hit perameter would definitely be lowered in favor of those items. My spec isnt great in terms of dps, but you can still get lucky hit quite high even with the better uniques.
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No enchants were firing; at least i dont think so. Ill go test again this evening because now i feel like im giving misinformation lol.
first test was just the one cast. i did teleport just before the first test and the aspect procced so quickly i thought i hit the dummy with the teleport, so i logged out/in and tried a few more.
1 of the runs did have a firewall burn the whole duration with no procs. Most of the time it procced within a few seconds though. Some of the tests i used multiple casts. (Ya’ll were right on the cast time, very slow)
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Ok so testing methods aside, its tinfoil time:
Anything less than 90% lucky hit feels like trash on sorc. Especially for dot ticks.
I should clarify though: even if only counting first few ticks, it still worked regularly. Also, when i said multiple casts, i meant → start test. Hold button down. Not wait for entire duration of one cast, if that makes sense. Procs within 2-4 sec not unusual.
Edit: i will still test again this evening, as we all know this game is jankymath. com and i cant say with certainty that i checked absolutely everything, and can always be wrong at any time
Neither is needed. Occulus is a dps loss, and sorc is not in need of unstoppable. Meta also is a dps loss compared to Flickster or Esu.
Having said that, both have uses in fun builds. They can be used in all content, without issues, and that is good.
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Agreed, this was my opinion on it as well. Thanks!
I would argue that Occulus is mandatory for some use cases where mobility / escape / dot-stop is of high importance, but im aligned that using Occulus it is a big hit to dps and it one less damage aspect slot.
I like the idea of accursed in PVP because it is another effect layer on your opponent. By layer i mean there is a CC layer, a dot layer, a HP nitro drain layer (if you use a specific aspect), a delayed pop layer if you use xfals, and a semi perm vulnerability layer via Accursed. Right now i dont have a strong use case in PVP for Accursed that would give me a net damage gain
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I also acknowledge that occulus is a dps loss, but most incorporations of non damage capabilities are in some way. Im happy to give up the damage in the case of occulus, because the boredom generated without occulus would prevent me from logging in.
On the subject of accursed aspect, you have a good knowledge of your use case of the sorc class; im not attempting to pursuade anyone here. The knowlege of how things work helps all of us with our choices on how we want to build (thats why i usually try to keep my tone objective, but im not always successful). I just like mechanics discussion.
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Yah, i like the diverse set of perspectives and the good discussions in these forums. It enhances the collective knowledge. Lots of golden nuggets. Theres always going to be some edge case we didnt think of.
I try to watch how my words could be perceived because there are varying levels of sensitivity here. I assume positive intent except if someone is blatantly calling me an idiot lol. Tearing someone down personally is a lose lose.
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In live combat, mobs will move out of your Firewalls, yes… Usually into more of your Firewalls. They also pick up a lingering DoT each time they exit one of your FWs courtesy of Mage’s Firewall (I think; one of the two skill branches, anyway). In any case it’s pretty common for them to be continuously under a DoT effect, and frequently more than one of them.
Now you just trying to get me farming the durial loop. Im not falling for the tricks.
In all seriousness, if im relying on lucky hit for an effect, im not happy until i have that 100% base as it seems to make a big difference in reliability; in my opinion, 95-100% lucky hit has no reason being so much more reliable than 80-85%, but thats all just anecdotal from my perspective.
Lmao excellent conclusion. I imagine with 120% lucky hit, the aspect proc was pretty quick?
I lean heavily on the passive for mana restore with lucky hit vs vuln enemies with cold dmg, so i generally need a bit more uptime on vuln than what lightning spear alone offers; def agree that spear is a great source for the debuff tho.