The way SBs work (buffwise)

Sylvae - Sanctuary wrote: »

What are you talking about, it's been written on the skill since it came out that it reduces skill damage. And the thing about our squad buff only working on normal attacks, was even written in the expansion previews as its effect since before it even got here. The only thing I was unsure of, is if the attacks of mobs count as normal attacks or not, for if it even matters in instances. But since I'll have it either way, and people assume it does something if you use it, I have no vested interest in finding out if it doesn't. I'd rather have people want our buffs, whether it does something or not.

This whole thing is why were being touted as sin killers. BMs already avoided APS due to purify, but many sins could still get away with it. But our skills prevent any APS from being useful at all, and if stacked with DB buff heavily nerf any damage they can do outside skill spam. And sage will end up with Lunar Guidance dropping APS damage received from 32% down to 10%, if the numbers on our skill page are accuracte. Using a static number for that reduction doesn't work, since it changes based on lvl 10, celestial, and which celestial you have.

xD you are totally ignoring my main point here. The buff has been clear and I only added it as well for completion.

I'm about the passive. The passive is what makes SBs so strong. No one ever stated/tested before that the passive reduces any kind of dmg if it's casted in less than 5m range to the SB,

And yes, any attack from any mob that doesn't come with a shiny cast animation is considered melee auto-attack DMG and gets reduced by the buff. The buff is pretty much useless in PvP cept for fighting Archers and APS-built classes. APS wasn't a problem in endgame PvP before and it certainly isn't now...mind the buff or not.

PS: Please people. Try reading the whole post and not just parts of it. There is not a single being on this planet that is able to conclude me, not even myself. To get the whole picture...look at the friggin whole picture xD

Sylvae - Sanctuary wrote: »

Who thought it didn't reduce magical damage? If it meant it to refer to physical skill damage, they wouldn't have bothered adding on the incoming part, since the assumed melee would make it is an unnecessary word to add. Incoming skill damage by any reasonable reading, means all skill damage. You're clarifying your misunderstanding, as if everyone had it.

I'm getting too much here...are you doing this to mock me or something?

IT DOESN'T reduce magical dmg. It only reduces magical dmg when the caster is 4.5m or closer to the SB. Otherwise it DOESN'T reduce magical DMG...

Nah, you are getting me wrong.

The passive from SB reduces any physical skill dmg at any range by 23% (or something around that depending on gears, etc).

IT also reduces that Skill dmg by another ~30% if you are close to the sb (this one also applies to magical dmg or rather any kind of skill dmg). That stacks with the 23% previously mentioned btw. So if you are using ranged melee skills and you are close to the SB you and up getting your dmg reduced by ~60% and that is massive.

This applies to any ranged dmg from Barbs/BMs, any phys ranged skill from Barbs (onslaught/ancestral/BW), any physical skill DMG from seeker. And yes...if you use those skills close to the SB they will get their dmg reduced by ~60% (Note: could also be 30-60% in total depending on gears and stuff). Physical Magic skills such as Supercell, Blade Tempest and Plume Shot are uneffected by the regular effect, but they will get their dmg reduced when you are close to the SB.

I will test if it also applies to absorb soul but I guess it will. EDIT: Ok tested it, due to Absorb Soul being a dot it is uneffected by this passive in any case. Same goes for any magical dmg that is transformed into physical such as BT, SC and Plume Shot in terms of the basic reduction.

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

thats because its not physical ranged skill reduction, but physical ranged auto-attack reduction

cmon joe you cant have a class that reduces physical melee skill damage and physical ranged skill damage, and physical auto-attacks damage at any range xD

SB passive its just good against archers, but still not that good because yea it reduce the auto-attack damage by a lot, but still they dont have any pdef self buff (anyways archers hit low)

you should test how the passive behave against archer's ranged skill damage like aim low and whatnot

I just made a test with my Cleric and SB again. Both have ~450 Spirit, 8.8k pdef and 36 def lvl and I hit on them with my archer with a lvl1 bow for consistent dmg:

SB:
Quickshot:
wide: 52-104
close: 20-40
Lightning strike:
wide: 29-58
close: 22-44
Wingspan:
46-92

Cleric:
Quickshot:
52-104
Lightning Strike:
24-48
Wingspan:
60-120

Just a good thing that sins have mostly skills that are within 5m range so the dmg reduction will apply for them. It's still weird...I get inconsistent result depending on which class I use for testing. Whenever or not this passive works as intended it needs some description fix asap xDD way too lazy to test out any class vs any class...there is a dmg reduction when you are closer than 5m to the SB and thats all I need to know xD

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

so at the end the best interpretation for the SB self buff and passive is that they reduce auto-attacks damage and they reduce skills (from just p.atk classes?) if casted in melee range

It seems like they are reducing dmg from any kind of skill if it's cast from melee range altho it seems that physical skill get reduced more than magical ones. It's so weird and no where near the actual discription of the skill. Still it should be a good 30-40% dmg reduction at endgame so that's quite something. DMG reduction of the outcoming dmg, not the initial dmg. So I still bet they have the best survivability vs melee classes like sins/Barbs/BMs anyways and being able to reduce some magic dmg while being close to the enemy is neat too.

Once PWE decides to throw out real gears for them and we happen to get some endgame geared SBs we'll know for sure.