Question about Conviction

dialamx

I’ve noticed Flow uses Conviction in ever build he offers. I’ve tried using it in one of the builds he gave me, but I didn’t find it very useful. I was using it on a lower level character, so I don’t know if that might affect it.

I’m guessing it must be useful for him to put it in every build, so maybe I’m using it wrong, and don’t quite understand it’s purpose. So my question is, what’s the best way to use it? Other than popping Molecular Self-Assembly, what makes it useful? The heal didn’t seem to do much, and the temp max HP boost didn’t seem to help much either.

bluhman

It's just a very general, quick heal. You just activate it whenever it's up and you get a good 5%-ish HP heal every 3-4 seconds. It's objectively the best self-heal option for DEX/Crit-based DPS builds as it's capable of critting in of itself (based directly off your own crit stats - so having 40% chance of 100% severity means you have a 40% chance of getting a double-sized heal) and it doesn't negatively influence your damage output like Bountiful Chi Resurgence does. So many DPS builds also rely heavily on just having generally high crit stats anyways, it's pretty uncommon to pass it up.

It does scale a bit poorly, so a lot of its healing power is pretty dependent on it being at rank 3. Before that it is a pretty meh heal.

spookyspectre

Resurgence is the emergency button when you're at 5% health. With Conviction you want to keep tabs on your health bar and use it, sometimes frequently, to keep your health topped off.

dialamx

Ok, I didn’t know it could crit based off your own crit damage. Also didn’t realize it was a “use as often as possible” power. That’s probably why I wasn’t seeing it’s effectiveness.

pantagruel01

I used to put it on most builds, but I've pretty much stopped. Yes, it doesn't have a direct damage penalty, but a half second activation time every few seconds is also a damage penalty. My current go-to is consumables and resurgence.

flowcyto

Yeah, I often include it just cause it's the easiest short-cd heal power to use that's also relatively theme-neutral (and the crit scaling helps a bit). I like to think of it as a maintenance heal. You can ofc go w/o one, and there are alternatives out there too. Perhaps I'll reconsider adding it earlier in builds, though, cause it is pretty weak early on. Resurgence has a long cd, but it does innately scale by being %health based, and now has a good tail w/ its added regen effect.

h4forums

I also used to take conviction often but dropped it mostly because I got tired of all the healing consumables the game gives us, and wanted an excuse to burn them. Still kept resurgence for panic situations, and ended up taking dual passive regeneration R3 in lieu of conviction R3, for situations where I'm willing to give up damage for sustained healing.

Also I agree with pantagruel that the activation animation is effectively a damage penalty, especially if spamming it.

avianos

I may add more insight for this from personal experience!

Conviction indeed SUCKS unless you get Critical Hit on the Healing or have slotted Bonus Healing mods+gear! But it's really Theme friendly

Thanks to the addition of more healing powers (mainly powers with access to Restoration ADV) I personally dropped conviction from a lot of characters

On all my characters I use a combination of 2 Self Healing powers! Since I'm doing a lot of SOLO gameplay (soloing QWZ for example) and I hate playing as Glass Cannon DPS who cannot who cannot stand their ground, defeat themselves and explode when a butterfly touches them (By product of playing ATs before FF Slots with no self heals which can die)

Depending on the Build I combine two of those together
Healing Power 1: Conviction, Bountiful Chi Resurge, Endorphin Rush, One of the 3 Life Drain power, Absorb Heat (and I HAVE BEEN USING Absorb Heat A LOT the past years)
Healing Power 2: A power with Restoration ADV (some powerframes still dont have a low CD power with restoration... i'm looking at you ICE), Bionic Shielding

I still have DPS builds who use the old good BCR+Conviction combo, I DON'T CARE for the damage penalty of BCR in that case, a helpless Dead DPS is a bad DPS for me

I don't even bother with Resurgence on DPS or any AO or AD in matter of fact, I only use Resurgence on my TANKS who I do Cosmics with as an Emergency button when healers are busy.

In fact I find Resurgence on DPS silly on long fights, now you are stuck with one of your only self healing powers on 1 minute CD and you still have the agro
Nowdays I removed AOs and ADs from most of my DPS, i just take a self revive instead and they are doing FINE on difficult content (again I solo QWZ with a LOT of characters as DPS)​​

panthrax77

Conviction is imo, and always has been, a build crutch which allows people to add a quick heal for a few points, rather than think smarter about making their builds more survivable.

Of course on certain builds, like healers, it's fine and makes sense. But with so many other ways to heal yourself in the game now, conviction is outdated and overused in a lot of cases.

With most builds, there's really no need for it, but if it's something you want, you do you.

nbkxs

I agree w/thrax, it's pretty bad for a DPS. Life drain, or other maintain heals are vastly superior.

jaazaniah1

Eh, the problem with Life Drain and so on is that if you (DPS) are the only target you are not likely going to heal up faster than they burn you down. If someone else is the target and you can invest the time in draining life then those maintains are fine. I still find that at cosmics and the like popping Conviction to stave off death until all the heals from healers on the team kick in is viable, though, as Panta notes, all the potions they rain down on us can fill the same role.

My gut says that eventually the Devs are going to nuke Resurgence. If you are only going to take one AD (and why would you take 2)? that is likely the one you are going to take. The Devs don't seem to like the idea that everyone ends up taking 1 power on virtually every character (though they seem to be trying to nudge people that way with Threat Wipes or self rezes now?). Remember poor old Ego Sure with Nimble Mind?

pantagruel01

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Eh, the problem with Life Drain and so on is that if you (DPS) are the only target you are not likely going to heal up faster than they burn you down.

Same problem with conviction. It's plenty to exceed things like Kiga grinding you down, though.

vonqball

I think we all have our preferred setups. Conviction is great with an int/dex/? build using MSA. I might be wrong, but that setup seems like Flow's wheelhouse, and there are echos of it in a good number of builds he makes.

I don't think conviction is a bad option for most dps builds. DPS want crit, and conviction likes crit. It's a bit expensive, and the activation time is a bit long... but everything has pluses and minuses.

I have to admit that I have been replacing it with endorphin rush these days. I like the short activation and speed boost endorphin gives. That, a healing adv on an attack and resurgence tend to be my go-to for healing these days. But you need con or rec to make that work.. so it's a bit build-specific.

nbkxs

I don't find conviction to be really useful at all on the DPS. The incoming dmg almost always vastly exceeds whatever conviction puts back. The CD is too long after the change in 2015? I think it was? Whatever. Heals for DPS are better off w/mentos from TT, or TA juice. You can buy the juice w/WZ credits. Second are those key pack devices. Those things are a godsend for healing. And you can save other people too.

vonqball

Yeah, but aren't you running multiple necrulitics on your toons? Most of us just aren't operating on that level.

mastercontrol7

pantagruel01 wrote: »

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Eh, the problem with Life Drain and so on is that if you (DPS) are the only target you are not likely going to heal up faster than they burn you down.

Same problem with conviction. It's plenty to exceed things like Kiga grinding you down, though.

ROFL, I never had this problem, not even once... XD

Oh wow

pantagruel01

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

pantagruel01 wrote: »

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Eh, the problem with Life Drain and so on is that if you (DPS) are the only target you are not likely going to heal up faster than they burn you down.

Same problem with conviction. It's plenty to exceed things like Kiga grinding you down, though.

ROFL, I never had this problem, not even once... XD

Oh wow

There are very few enemies that both have damage output lower than the rate at which you can self-heal with conviction, and health high enough that you can't just beat them down without ever using conviction.

superalfgorn

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

...
My gut says that eventually the Devs are going to nuke Resurgence. If you are only going to take one AD (and why would you take 2)? that is likely the one you are going to take. The Devs don't seem to like the idea that everyone ends up taking 1 power on virtually every character (though they seem to be trying to nudge people that way with Threat Wipes or self rezes now?). Remember poor old Ego Sure with Nimble Mind?

I have the same feeling.... they nerfed MD, and now Resurgence is basically the best for a large number of builds.

jaazaniah1

When, sadly, what they really need to do is figure out ways to bring the other ADs up to the level of Resurgence. They usually seem to like to do the opposite because it is easier to hamstring 1 power than upgrade 3-4 others.

superalfgorn wrote: »

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

...
My gut says that eventually the Devs are going to nuke Resurgence. If you are only going to take one AD (and why would you take 2)? that is likely the one you are going to take. The Devs don't seem to like the idea that everyone ends up taking 1 power on virtually every character (though they seem to be trying to nudge people that way with Threat Wipes or self rezes now?). Remember poor old Ego Sure with Nimble Mind?

I have the same feeling.... they nerfed MD, and now Resurgence is basically the best for a large number of builds.

panthrax77

> @jaazaniah1 said:
> When, sadly, what they really need to do is figure out ways to bring the other ADs up to the level of Resurgence. They usually seem to like to do the opposite because it is easier to hamstring 1 power than upgrade 3-4 others.

While I don't usually support wide scale buffs like this for power creep reasons, in this particular case it makes sense to bring other ADs in line with resurgence. Currently no other ADs except for indestructible even compare to it, which is frustrating when you feel like your only choice is resurgence. Resurgence itself isn't really OP. It's just a pick me up, but it's just the most effective in endgame because health bars can go down so quickly.

Unbreakable is useless for a DPS but basically a superior version of field surge, which is just trash for anything other than restocking PFF (which in itself is trash). Masterful dodge is okay, but it's limited. Unbreakable can work okay on healers (and certain tanks) but it discourages damage output, which really limits its usefulness elsewhere. These powers all need changes to bring them in line with resurgence and indestructible.

And don't even mention ice barrier..

mastercontrol7

pantagruel01 wrote: »

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

pantagruel01 wrote: »

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Eh, the problem with Life Drain and so on is that if you (DPS) are the only target you are not likely going to heal up faster than they burn you down.

Same problem with conviction. It's plenty to exceed things like Kiga grinding you down, though.

ROFL, I never had this problem, not even once... XD

Oh wow

There are very few enemies that both have damage output lower than the rate at which you can self-heal with conviction, and health high enough that you can't just beat them down without ever using conviction.

There is a thing called blocking you know...

you can't block while using life drain, Also IIRC doesn't pull out that much in one second... Now don't be scaring me on how yall forgetting how Blocking works now. >:)

Dead DPS isn't going to get you anywhere either... BTW 2 ADD.

---

Also what about active offenses? I believe there are a lot of powers in the ground then in the air working if you get what I'm saying...

pantagruel01

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

There is a thing called blocking you know...

Most problematic solo situations have a lot of fast spammable stuff that isn't really worth blocking; if you spend 1s blocking, that's 1s you aren't spending ending the fight.

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

you can't block while using life drain

I wasn't defending life drain. I was defending not using healing powers at all.

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

Also what about active offenses?

Active offenses, other than certain specialized ones with power set synergy (ice sheath on a character who expects to have three stacks chill on a target, ego surge on a character who expects to have five stacks ego leech), are a waste of a power pick.

jaazaniah1

The power meta seems to have moved away from AOs (is Imbue still useful?) to Threat Wipes and Self Rezes, at least in terms of what you need after your basic/necessary 3-4 attacks (i.e. the single target attack, the AoE attack, the debuffer/buffer and possibly the debuff/buff refresher)

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Active offenses, other than certain specialized ones with power set synergy (ice sheath on a character who expects to have three stacks chill on a target, ego surge on a character who expects to have five stacks ego leech), are a waste of a power pick.

pantagruel01

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

The power meta seems to have moved away from AOs (is Imbue still useful?)

In that case, the power meta changed because the powers changed. Kaizerin decided to balance all active offenses by reducing the ones that were worth taking to the level of the ones that weren't worth taking.

mastercontrol7

pantagruel01 wrote: »

mastercontrol7 wrote: »

There is a thing called blocking you know...

Most problematic solo situations have a lot of fast spammable stuff that isn't really worth blocking; if you spend 1s blocking, that's 1s you aren't spending ending the fight.

that seems like a personal problem, Conviction is just a buff/heal that keeps you from being defeated with low HP, there are only a small number of powers that do a good job at that. [ That isn't AD like Resurgence]

pantagruel01 wrote: »

In that case, the power meta changed because the powers changed. Kaizerin decided to balance all active offenses by reducing the ones that were worth taking to the level of the ones that weren't worth taking.

didn't that make it less useful? and a waste of a power point? or just make you stick to what you been using instead of using other AO? [ IE Lock N Load, ] or just go for the next best thing? Like when the last time you have seen a group of people using Ego Surge? or unbreakable? making things less useful is going to make the game less entertaining in a factor of ways since they haven't added a map in over some years and if they do it got to be a map for Like EVERYONE who is playing this game. Soo they need to Step up their game, instead of stepping it down.

This game doesn't even have Extraordinary content pop out every year that would make people screaming "Oh My Gawd this is going to be awesome!" for said content, that was their idea? how silly that was...

in short: What Kaiz did help at all.
if that was the case anyway.

superalfgorn

Oh, c'mon, Ice Barrier is cool

(sorry, could not resist)