Icy Terrain/Conduit of Ice AoC vs. Chill Strike

vorphied

ACT is unkind to my computer for some reason, so I’m having difficulty testing and am hoping for some feedback.

1. Am I correct in assuming that Icy Terrain is an optimal choice in a single-target fight if you have AoC and a stationary target, even if you do not need it to maintain Chill Stacks?

2. What about Conduit of Ice? Worth it to include with AoC?

Generally I run MoF Oppressor for boss fights and have RoE on tab with Fanning the Flames, Disintegrate, and either Icy Terrain or Chill Strike. I’ve seen very different advice offered in various guides, so it’d be great to hear from players who have parsed the numbers. Thanks for any info you can offer!

bifflinculte

For Mof oppressor with dread ench, Terrain/CoI definitely beats Chill Strike. The reason is that Terrain and CoI will trigger Shatter Strike at every tick, dealing more damage than 1 Chill Strike shot + its Shatter strike hit. (Shatter strike gets the same buffs as the encounter it was triggered by, for example the crit severity bonus from dread ench)

vorphied

bifflinculte said:

For Mof oppressor with dread ench, Terrain/CoI definitely beats Chill Strike. The reason is that Terrain and CoI will trigger Shatter Strike at every tick, dealing more damage than 1 Chill Strike shot + its Shatter strike hit. (Shatter strike gets the same buffs as the encounter it was triggered by, for example the crit severity bonus from dread ench)

Thanks, I've come to the same conclusion since. Icy Terrain works so well with Shatter Strike and Aura of Courage that it doesn't seem to make sense to replace it with anything else.

thefabricant

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

ekalisttair

thefabricant said:

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

Which would you suggest between Icy Terrain or Conduit of Ice when fighting the Atropal in CODG?

thefabricant

ekalisttair said:

thefabricant said:

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

Which would you suggest between Icy Terrain or Conduit of Ice when fighting the Atropal in CODG?

Icy Terrain, Conduit refreshes itself when reapplied to the same target, where as Icy Terrain stacks.

ekalisttair

thefabricant said:

ekalisttair said:

thefabricant said:

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

Which would you suggest between Icy Terrain or Conduit of Ice when fighting the Atropal in CODG?

Icy Terrain, Conduit refreshes itself when reapplied to the same target, where as Icy Terrain stacks.

Ah ok that makes sense. So Icy Terrain works on the Atropal then?

thefabricant

ekalisttair said:

thefabricant said:

ekalisttair said:

thefabricant said:

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

Which would you suggest between Icy Terrain or Conduit of Ice when fighting the Atropal in CODG?

Icy Terrain, Conduit refreshes itself when reapplied to the same target, where as Icy Terrain stacks.

Ah ok that makes sense. So Icy Terrain works on the Atropal then?

If you are close enough to the edge, yes.

mebengalsfan

thefabricant said:

It depends on the duration of the fight. In high end burst groups, Chill Strike will win simply because it will do all of its damage in the buff window+the boss will not survive very long. In longer fights, Icy Terrain would win. Assuming all buffs are up all of the time, you can do some math which shows:



It takes 5 ticks of IT (or 5 seconds of hits within the buff window) for IT to beat CS without fw, and 6 seconds for it to beat CS IT with fw. Adding in Aura of Courage complicates the maths quite a lot, but the result of it is that chill strike will still win assuming you are trying to burst the boss down in seconds. In any fight however where the damage is not measured over a period of seconds, icy terrain will have higher consistent damage over time.

IT in T9 and in other content use CS. That is what I got out of your comments since most content other than the T9 bosses typically don't take long to kill, including CoDG. This is how I run my CW already.