Befuddling Mist

mooman321

Lvl 72 LA

During bosses i have been spamming venemous, lending hand, amp damgage. (can't believe how many venos I see who go through a whole dungeon without amping but meh....makes me look more compitant). Anyway on bosses without aoe I was wondering:

am i more help doing what i have been doing, or should i go foxform and keep boss befuddled (spam befuddle, fox whollop, amp, lending hand)? Am i right that doing this should drastically reduce damage taken by tank and pots used by cleric?

tweakz

No Ironwood?

Wizards have a similar skill: Sandstorm but it's not as good as Befuddling. If boss misses: they get no reflect damage and take longer to kill so Wiz's and Archers lose more. I save Lending Hand for the ones who request it. Otherwise I stick mostly to Ironwood, Amp, Myriad, and the DoTs. Purge when applicable.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

You amp normal monsters? Really?

Personally I do my damage in arcane form, and just drop into fox for the amp. Which means I've got until foxform recycles before I can change back. I typically throw either leech or befuddle before the amp.
Then back to arcane for the iron wood.

It would be nice if the cleric could notice the reduced damage caused by befuddle - but since you still run the risk of a boss *not* missing several times in a row, I'm not sure they dare do so.

I'd be interested in hearing from some tanks as to whether or not befuddle really makes a difference to them.

Vensgard - Heavens Tear

mooman321 wrote: »

(can't believe how many venos I see who go through a whole dungeon without amping but meh....makes me look more compitant)

well this is true, some venos never use there debuff on boss. b:surrender everything go faster when a veno debuff and I use to debuff alot. b:victory

Basicly, i'm using AMP, myriad, ironwood like tweakz said.

Ikurei - Dreamweaver

mooman321 wrote: »

(can't believe how many venos I see who go through a whole dungeon without amping but meh....makes me look more compitant). Anyway on bosses without aoe I was wondering:

I prefer those venos to the ones who cast amp then soul degen after I already amped the boss.b:sweat

But yeah, I used to use befuddling mist a lot until I noticed that the barb kept losing aggro. Took me a while to make the connection though. Like others before me have said, stick with amp and ironwood (and myriad once you get it).

Brael - Dreamweaver

I cast SD over peoples amp at times. It's because they amp too early though and I have the sage version. I almost always follow SD up with amp however (sometimes with multiple mobs though, I'll SD one and amp another)

Ikurei - Dreamweaver

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I cast SD over peoples amp at times. It's because they amp too early though and I have the sage version. I almost always follow SD up with amp however (sometimes with multiple mobs though, I'll SD one and amp another)

Understandable but I generally don't squad with people who are much higher level than me so no sage or demon bonuses at all.

And, um, it's bad to cast amp too early? I usually cast one at the beginning when the barb is attacking by himself so he can do a little more damage before the DDs start. I do wait a bit after that for the tank to get in a few flesh reams though.

Brael - Dreamweaver

It's not bad in general, but if it lands before I get SD on the mob I end up overwriting it. It's kind of annoying actually, I'm usually pretty fast on it though. Faster than archers atleast, which just proves I haven't run across a really good archer yet, seeing as how mine casts slower and from a much shorter range.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Nobody has figured out how accuracy affects chance to hit or miss. So there's really no telling how good or bad Befuddling is for that application. Back when Blinding Sand worked with it to drop accuracy to zero, you knew for sure because targets would always miss.

With skills maxed to level 10, Befuddling is your second-highest DPS foxform skill (after Stunning Blow). So arcane builds should definitely be spamming it and Leech just to boost their DPS (provided the mana hit is not too bad). I'm not sure about light builds, but I'm guessing they should be spamming it too.

For heavy builds, after you get a certain amount of str you're actually better off just using regular attacks. Against a single target, Befuddling is one of the few skills that out-DPSes my heavy's regular attack, but the mana cost makes it more effective to just use regular attacks unless I have a cleric to heal me up after ST.

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=3976582#post3976582

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You amp normal monsters? Really?

Personally I do my damage in arcane form, and just drop into fox for the amp. Which means I've got until foxform recycles before I can change back. I typically throw either leech or befuddle before the amp.
Then back to arcane for the iron wood.

The calc for my build at level 85 (3819-4955 mag attack) put my average spell DPS at around 4000. So the 2.7 sec to cast Amp costs me about 11k raw damage. With damage reduction that's about 8k damage. Since Amp increases damage 20%, the mob needs to have 8k/0.2, or >40k hp left for Amp to be better than just nuking for those 2.7 sec.

Most outdoor mobs around 85 only have about 30k hp so it doesn't make sense to amp them. But in FBs and TT they typically have >100k, so it does make sense there. I suppose it would also make sense if your damage is so high you're pausing at the start of the fight so as not to pull damage off your pet.

As for the 6 sec before you can switch back from fox form, if I'm in caster mode I just time my Amps so they coincide with a pet heal (either before or after). That eats up most of the 6 sec so you're not wasting any time doing nothing. If there's a cleric to heal me after I ST, I'll even toss in a fox myriad rainbow.

Vidalaire - Heavens Tear

The calc for my build at level 85 (3819-4955 mag attack) put my average spell DPS at around 4000. So the 2.7 sec to cast Amp costs me about 11k raw damage. With damage reduction that's about 8k damage. Since Amp increases damage 20%, the mob needs to have 8k/0.2, or >40k hp left for Amp to be better than just nuking for those 2.7 sec.

Arcanes have twice that magic attack so it increases the amount of HP necessary to make Amp worth using. In most cases for me, Bosses and mobs go down so quickly, it's not really worth going into Fox to cast Amp. I also tended to wait to cast Amp at the beginning of a boss fight. Mainly because if I'm going into the fight with full MP, switching to Fox mode wastes 20% of my mp bar that I could've used to nuke the boss with.

These days, since I have a lot of my Demon skills, it's a 50% chance that I'll reach a boss/mob in Fox mode. In that case, I'll cast Crush Vigor than Amp before switching to human to nuke. Plus, I have no qualms about going into Fox to use the CV/Amp combo at the beginning of a boss fight since more chi means I can Demon Spark more and that gives me back the 20% mp that I lose going into Fox.

To address the OP's question, there's no solid proof of how useful Befuddling Mist is or if it's even that helpful at all. It would probably be better to stick with Amp, nukes, and Purge when necessary to kill the boss ASAP. The faster the boss dies, the less money everyone spends.

King_Solomon - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Nobody has figured out how accuracy affects chance to hit or miss. So there's really no telling how good or bad Befuddling is for that application. Back when Blinding Sand worked with it to drop accuracy to zero, you knew for sure because targets would always miss.

are you sure blinding sand stacks no longer?

well... if it does it's still possible to make one's accuracy go 0. a lot harder in terms of lucky points and genie lvl though.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

King_Solomon - Heavens Tear wrote: »

are you sure blinding sand stacks no longer?

Yes. Can't find the short post I made on it. Basically I tested it on an alt in a duel as I deleveled it. All Blinding Sand does now is decrease attack speed. It does nothing to accuracy.

mooman321

excellent info, thank you guys.

No Ironwood?

yes i throw in iron wood during spamming bosses. With the people i party with lately (all higher than me and often as the second veno) my damage is not as significant and I make having a spark ready for the tank a priority.

Thanks again