Befuddling Mist + Blinding Sand

Solandri - Heavens Tear

If you didn't know yet, this combo can be used to reduce mob accuracy to 0%. As in, their physical attacks will always miss.

The Skills
Befuddling Mist is one of your fox skills and is a small (tiny) radius AOE. It lasts 8 seconds with a 3 sec cooldown. In practical use, you have just enough time to use another fox skill in between re-applications of Mist to keep it on all the time. i.e. Mist - Leech - Mist - few regular attacks - Mist - Amp - etc.

Blinding Sand is a genie skill and is a small-medium radius AOE (10m radius, same as Amplify Damage's range). It lasts 8 seconds with a 1 sec cooldown. Every 20 points of genie dex extends its duration by 1 sec. It costs 25 energy and 106-160 stamina, so is relatively cheap to use. It will cost you roughly the same amount of stamina as applying Extreme Poison on a boss every time your genie is capable of casting it.

The energy cost is low enough that with a moderately high level genie you can keep it applied all the time. e.g. You can do this with 80 dex (12 sec duration) and 54 magic. Or 80 magic and 40 dex (12 sec duration). I'd recommend the latter so you can get a 5th genie skill, but it will use more stamina.

The Effect
Both skills start at -25% and max out at -70%. You only have to level them to some combination of 12 ranks before you hit -100%. e.g. level 6 for both skills gives -50% and -50%. Yes, it really leaves the target with zero accuracy. Isala tested it in PvP and the target had zero accuracy.

You can level these higher, and they're so cheap to use that I would. In PvE this will cover the cases when you only have one applied. In PvP this will help reduce or eliminate bonus accuracy. The reduction is only applied as a % of the target's base accuracy. So bonus accuracy from (I'm guessing) equipment, shards, or buffs would still remain if you only hit them with -100%. If you go all the way to -140%, the extra reduction should spill over into bonus accuracy (anybody want to test this?).

Unfortunately nobody has backed out how accuracy and evasion combine to determine chance to hit. So it's difficult to assess the usefulness of -70% accuracy. But at -100% with no bonus accuracy, it's clear that the victim always misses. Maybe. I've been hit a few times by mobs when it both effect icons were on. So maybe the maximum chance to evade is 99% or something. Further testing is required.

I will leave it to others to post examples of usage. They are so many, and I've just started using it myself so I don't have much experience to draw upon.

The Bug
Now we get to the cloud in the silver lining, and my reason for making this post. This does not seem to work with the herc with the Strong buff (+150% pdef) applied. I dunno if it's specific to the skill, or to the herc with the skill. But herc without Strong, I apply Mist and Sand, and I see a long string of Miss Miss Miss above the herc's head. I apply Strong, and suddenly my herc is being hit again. I'm gonna report it as a bug, but who knows, maybe the devs did it deliberately because they felt that a herc's insane pdef + 99%-100% evasion would be too powerful.

It'd be nice if others could test it as well. Maybe it's not the herc and Strong, and it's something else that I'm doing that I'm not thinking of that's causing this. And maybe someone with Strong on a non-herc could test it and see if the problem is specific to the skill.

Other Synergies
The wizard spell Sandstorm will also reduce the victim's accuracy by 23%-50% for 10 sec (15 for sage). So if you've got a wizard in the group and are not fighting Earth mobs, definitely coordinate with them.

Peritia - Lost City

Fascinating stuff, although I'm a bit depressed that the devs would allow something so ridiculous. I would have imagined it to be -70% compounded twice, giving 9% remaining accuracy.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

It'd be nice if others could test it as well. Maybe it's not the herc and Strong, and it's something else that I'm doing that I'm not thinking of that's causing this. And maybe someone with Strong on a non-herc could test it and see if the problem is specific to the skill.

Pretty sure Tweakz said he set up his Slugfish with Herc skills. Tweakz, care to enlighten us, if you happen to have a spare genie slot, or don't mind playing around with it?

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Peritia - Lost City wrote: »

Fascinating stuff, although I'm a bit depressed that the devs would allow something so ridiculous. I would have imagined it to be -70% compounded twice, giving 9% remaining accuracy.

The game developer in me agrees, but the RPGer in me says if you blind someone, they should miss nearly all the time. Anyway, the durations of the two are short with no easy cues as to when they'll expire. So it's difficult to keep both effects up unless you're willing to burn a lot more mana and stamina reapplying them early. With a barb tanking, I don't think they'll mind a hit getting through now and then.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The game developer in me agrees, but the RPGer in me says if you blind someone, they should miss nearly all the time. Anyway, the durations of the two are short with no easy cues as to when they'll expire. So it's difficult to keep both effects up unless you're willing to burn a lot more mana and stamina reapplying them early.

Not to mention blinding sand is not a powerhouse of damage..... you will need to use your other skills if you plan on killing stuff in a resonable amount of time.

tweakz

Careful there, you're making the magmites seem even less useful. b:chuckle

My Genie use is limited to emergencies as I like to keep expenses low. I do have L.10 Befuddling Mist, and a Celestial Plumpfish with Herc buffs though.

My guess is that this will get back to the devs quick and get fixed. Is it even very useful? Herc not only relies on getting melee dmg for aggro, but for extra damage as well.

If anyone catches me free on Heaven's Tear and wants to loan me a genie with >/=L2 blinding sand, I could try it out on the Plumpfish.

Edit

Blinding Sand: "Only usable on the ground."

Brael - Dreamweaver

I don't have a genie that can keep blinding sand on, but I was trying with only mist. It reduces the hit rate some but not all that much on it's own. My herc however was never missed testing with strong, protect, or reflect which makes me think it's related to any buff at all. I can only think of one or two times I've ever seen my herc missed as well which is making me think it's just some interaction with evasion and buffs.

King_Solomon - Heavens Tear

wanna get archers and bms VERY angry? use it!

Aaryana - Sanctuary

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I
The Effect
Both skills start at -25% and max out at -70%. You only have to level them to some combination of 12 ranks before you hit -100%. e.g. level 6 for both skills gives -50% and -50%. Yes, it really leaves the target with zero accuracy. Isala tested it in PvP and the target had zero accuracy.

I was the one Isala first tested that on. It does zero out your accuracy.

williamzeo

Thanks for the info, now maybe people can stop to complain about the bleeding and they will start to complain about acurracy b:chuckle

tweakz

Range for Befuddling Mist is "Melee". Aren't you going to be dead before you get that close to an Archer?

williamzeo

Stun + slow 'n freeze. Depend of the situation but isn't impossible. Surely he will try to use some elemental skills if he see you in fox form, if you have the magic canceling skill in your pet, it can help i think... probably he will die first by the bleeding anyways lol.

King_Solomon - Heavens Tear

tweakz wrote: »

Range for Befuddling Mist is "Melee". Aren't you going to be dead before you get that close to an Archer?

well... foxes are fast and have amazing phys def. with refined elemental ornaments and buffs it seems very possible. it's a stalemate: if the archer hits you, pet will stun and flesh ream = dead archer. would the archer kill pet the fox would be close enough to use the trick, you'd have the archer with 0 accuracy (i'm yet to test whether it goes to 0 or not) for a few seconds but enough to give you enough time to summon another pet to flesh ream = dead archer.

Brael - Dreamweaver

tweakz wrote: »

Range for Befuddling Mist is "Melee". Aren't you going to be dead before you get that close to an Archer?

Melee is 4-5m, the instant he stops to pop off a skill, even for half a second you could holy path and reach him? Well, on the ground atleast. It would be a bit trickier for air, but if he's dealing with your pet, he's probably not going to worry about a fox running up next to him anyways unless he's worried about the 10m on amp.

Or that's my guess atleast, PvE with no duels/TW's means a huge lack of experience.

Isala - Sanctuary

Awww, Solandri. You ruined my secret. :P Kidding. The more people that know about this, the easier all of our jobs are.

A couple sidenotes, though. It may seem OP, but as stated, it's ground only. Since a lot of PvP takes place in the air... And I still don't know how it affects misties.

And for you wizards out there, keep in mind both skills are ranged. Meaning you've now got a leg up against some archers.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The game developer in me agrees, but the RPGer in me says if you blind someone, they should miss nearly all the time. Anyway, the durations of the two are short with no easy cues as to when they'll expire. So it's difficult to keep both effects up unless you're willing to burn a lot more mana and stamina reapplying them early. With a barb tanking, I don't think they'll mind a hit getting through now and then.

Edit: Actually, Solandri? Reapplying Sand earlier DOES NOT WORK. You must wait for the debuff to disappear before refreshing it, or you've just wasted your skill. Now, Mist, on the other hand, I spam all the time, so that one does work.