I just got my mage to 60, am doing some M0 to gear up for keys, and am realizing how potentially useful Alter Time can be. So far I’ve thought of:
-getting out of Gorchop’s Hateful Smash (and still being able to blink past the chains)
-Soaking a beam on Lord Chamberlain
-Getting orbs quickly on Devos
-Prideful
-Raging Spirits in DoS
and I’m sure I’ll think of several more as I come across them, but I was wondering if anyone a) knows if someone has put together a compilation of places to use Alter Time in M+, and/or b) can share their favorite places to cheese mechanics
You can use in first boss of Sanguine Depths. Alter time before the smash, blink twice to drop the ball very far of it and then come back to instantly start to dps again
On third boss you can use to nullify her aoe damage right after the yellow balls phase, so, use it at first intermission, ice block the second one, and you can use again at third explosion
In plaguefall you can avoid the knockback of the first boss using it to come back right after it and ignore his damage.
In Halls of attonement you can use it to ignore the leap damage of the second boss in case you are out of blinks. Drop it somewhere, walk out of the shadow, and press it again when he jumps on you.
In DOS you can avoid the gnome girl damage if someone fails to stun her during chicken rain. You can even use it to heal you back up if you are the person marked with the stun too.
And finally necrotic wake, you can use to tank the first boss aoe if he marks you and also reposition fast after the blow. In tyrannical weeks you can use to tank the add of the last boss, since it gets dangerous in higher keys.
There are plenty of uses in CN too, like doing the seed job without losing dps.
About the Gorchop’s Hateful Smash, you don’t need all that work to avoid that, just stand in melee the whole fight and he won’t pull you or slow, you can walk out easily this way, or even blink.
This is useful because if you run far enough you don’t spawn an Orb
On high Tyranical keys, if someone misses the chicken stun, you need to immediately block to have any hopes of salvaging the key. It takes as little as 2 ticks for it to kill people.
On mythic, you use it on 3rd/4th set, but you will lose DPS as it will overlap with Annihilate.
But overall this post is excellent and goes through most of the uses of Alter Time. On Tyranical most bosses have regular-turned-annoying abilities that can take a massive chunk of your health, so this spells works well in negating those hits.
I’ll add:
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ToP: The elites before the duel boss that have ricochet attacks
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Spires:
- Second boss, if you’re not confident in dodging his projectiles during the intermission, you can MI > Alter Time, which usually allows you to not die from 1 hit, and you can quickly Alter Time again to reset your HP and position yourself better.
- Last boss, when it’s time to pick up Orbs, Alter Time need your end point, Shimmer x 2 to pick up the farthest orb, and then Alter Time back
- Third boss, you can AT the initial hit of his Purifying Blast
- Sanguine Depths: On high Tyr keys, you can use it on General Kaal’s dash to quickly negate the initial hit
A couple I don’t see mentioned yet: plague rain on Stradama (PF), as well as Halls’ Shade of Halkias thrash-phases. My usual healer is a big fan of when I use it for those two, one less person to have to worry about panic-healing. And pretty much any mechanic that requires you to run out and then get back in, of which I can think of quite a few.
I am a huge fan of alter time overall- I actually run with Master of Time, even though it’s damn painful not to have slipstream.
I think on the chicked rain I can tank one or two hits before Ice block, it gives your healer more time to focus on another person.
But anyway on tyrannical weeks in keys above 20 missing that is pretty much a wipe even with ice block, lol
You can die even if she gets 2 ticks off before the hit. This can happen depending on when you phase Millhouse Manastorm. I’ve done it twice on +21 this week and it happened once.
Awesome examples here, Basically any time you know a big hit is coming you can use it.
Shriekwing you can use it blink out dps take the effect and be back in position without ever stopping to cast.
What I want to say is that you should really be casting mirror images too! It’s uptime is pretty insane it reduces damage by a massive 20% and something ive discovered is that if you are in a party situation it drops threat like fade. MI + Invis has saved me many consumables/repair bills.
Some other fun Alter Times to do. Last boss in HoA you can use it to run the farthest orb very quickly.
You can use it on Artificer in CN loads of places kiting ghosts/clearing traps/running seeds.
You can use it on sludgefist use it before he slams a pillar as soon as he hits the pillar trigger alter time healing to full.
You can use it on Huntsman when you soak/immune and instantly reposition to group.
You can use it for Hungerer boss when you are miasma pop it right off, no one needs to soak you cause alter time will return you to full health. Paired with our Shield/Mirrors/Iceblock we can nullify silly amounts of mechanics. Which usually goes unnoticed but when leaders start seeing you just don’t die to mechanics they will.
Stone Legion Generals the bleed/soak mechanics are great to Alter Time on.
Worth mentioning this week for Grievous you can pop AT at full health and cancel it if you don’t need it.
As long as you don’t die, the only real problem with alter time in m+ is your healer wasting heals on you while you’re AT’ing.
It’s great for Arcane mages since you the to get smacked around a bit more when using arcane explosion: AT, blink in, boom boom boom boom, reset back barrage
I have a weak aura that says in party chat that AT is active and what health I’m snapshotted at which I recommend for that exact reason.
Indeed it can be useful for arcane mages in m+, especially if they’re Venthyr. I play a Kyrian and a Venthyr mage and I sometimes use Altered Time + Door of Shadows (with Nadija’s Agent of Chaos). You can pretty much disorient a whole pack of trash that are casting harmful spells. Then you can use Mirror Images + Frost Nova + Arcane Explosion on them without worrying too much about pulling aggro, as long as the tank helps too, of course
Wow I didn’t even think of this… but that is SO strong for arcane because I find myself REALLY missing Dragon’s Breath from fire or SOME sort of CC other than Counterspell. Really cool!