So i’m messing around with ptr and kind of getting a feel for timers etc. cycle of hatred looks to me like it will cause a couple degenerate things.
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buff timer. it looks to hold for 1 minute (no tooltip for the timer) after the last eye beam was used. and resets stacks from 4 > 1 after that 1 minute timer. This I think is a good metric for usage in m+ to get the cd down nicely. However, we are presently able to build the stacks outside combat, so long as we use an eye beam within the 1 minute timer to maintain it. tooltip also shows that it starts at 1 stack and treats it the same as 0 (same with 2-4, acting as they’re 1 stack less. until you cast the 4th eye beam and 4 is then accurate)
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the slowly reducing timer of 40 > 35 > 30 > etc. Creates some notable issues gameplay wise. Lets say first Eye beam is used at 5 seconds in, and then you meta and use another at say 10 seconds in. Your next uses are 45|75|100|120, aligning with Vengeful Retreat (and subsequently inertia) on the opener, 45s and then 2 minutes. Staying aligned only after that. making for some odd timers.
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if you put these two things together. it kind of creates a scenario where you want to immo + VR about 2 minutes before the boss is pulled. to ensure you have cycle of hatred stacked before the boss is pulled. You also want to know within about 15 seconds or so when the boss will be pulled, so you don’t accidently get caught refreshing cycle of hatred and then a 10 second boss timer goes up completely screwing your opener. Going from trash to the boss, you’d already be stacked and just need to have a 15-20s timer to avoid messing with stacks. but any break you take (so mid raid 10m or something). you’d need to spend another 2 minutes re-prepping for that boss. Creating a fairly degenerative and kind of cursed opener that takes 2 minutes of prep time before actually pulling.
potential solutions - only let the stacks generate while actively in combat. this keeps the really messed up first 2 minutes where only 2/4 of your eye beams synch up (1 of the 5 is meta so it doesn’t count). while maintaining the ability to chain the cd between packs in m+ which is likely it’s core strength. | solution 2, would be to just give it a flat 20 second cdr so that it aligns naturally with VR. Only desynching for however long it takes you to meta > eye beam, after the first eye beam. The damage difference for this change would only influence the damage of 2 eye beams in the first 2 minutes, and avoid a lot of the potential pitfalls that the present iteration causes. As multiple different “use x ability x times” for cdr abilities have shown in the past (WW changed most recently, warlocks 2 minutes as well becoming 1.5m), it’s often better to just go with the flat cdr route.