These aren’t meant as strict A-B comparisons, but simply some ideas as to how Mongoose Bite might be improved, such as through quicker ramping, more fluid or player-influenced windows, or AoE interaction.
In terms of single-target throughput, each should be basically balanced with the current version; if we need buffs, those can come separately — for now I’m just interested in the functionality and playflow of the skill.
Present Version:
Mongoose Bite
30 Focus
A brutal attack that deals (90% of Attack power) Physical damage and grants you Mongoose Fury.Mongoose Fury
Increases the damage of Mongoose Bite by 15% for 14 sec, stacking up to 5 times. Successive attacks do not increase duration.
Idea 1 – Shorter window, fewer stacks required
Mongoose Fury stacks increase damage by 25%, up from 15%, but stack only up to 3 times. (The maximum bonus is still +75% damage.) To compensate for the 2 fewer globals and 60 fewer Focus necessary to reach maximum damage, duration has been reduced from 14 seconds to 9.
Idea 2 – Buff-overlap rather than a fixed window
Mongoose Fury no longer stacks, but instead, multiple applications may overlap, to a maximum of 3 applications’ worth of damage increase (25% each). Each application lasts 9 seconds.
- This is a large change to Mongoose Bite’s characteristic windows. The main difference between this and the 9-second version in which “successive attacks [still] do not increase duration” is that it can be maintained for much longer (i.e. the window can be variably extended by available Focus) so long as one casts 3 Mongoose Bites per 9 seconds.
- Again, it’s still far from possible to maintain Mongoose Bite stacks indefinitely. The main difference here is simply that you can extend your window more fluidly with available resources, and it better rewards banking deeply before any such window.
Idea 3 – Some AoE interaction
Same as either Idea 1 (or Idea 2), but Mongoose Fury now instead increases the damage of Mongoose Bite and Carve/Butchery by (22.5% of Attack Power) per stack (or overlapping application).
- This is equal to a 25% increase to Mongoose Bite damage. Nothing changes in its ST damage. You can just now also time Carve to Mongoose Fury windows for some extra oomph. I used a flat % Attack Power bonus over an inherited % damage bonus because I didn’t want to force anyone taking Mongoose Bit to also have to take Butchery. In this way, Carve and Butchery are equally affected.