Stop telling people to go Demon and let them choose their own path.

Mauntille - Heavens Tear

tweakz wrote: »

Cleric and Barb use of their pdef reducing skill isn't very common in squad, and Devour + Tangling Mire = 100% reliability and easier to achieve. I'd also guess that D.Ironwood most often gets overwritten in squads. At higher levels in squads, bosses are gonna die so fast you wont even land the armor break most of the time. If I got it: it would be for soloing bosses.

It depends on how you run with. I ended up taking ironwood demon because I tendto run with people who debuff. The general understanding is that they will debuff and then I'll toss an ironwood after that. Every once in awhile I'lls ee someone else debuff while the break is still active, but it tends to not happen too often.

Reliability when soloing is pretty crappy. Usually to compensate for this, I'll try both myriads and then an ironwood. 4 times out of 5 one of them will proc, although there are occassional droughts. Amp and XPoison will always land though, so you can still help out your pets.

Desdi - Sanctuary

Well of course the Sage Venomancer can help the squad do some insane damage but my point was that Demon Venomancer is not useless because Demon Amplify Damage is better than the lvl10 one to begin with. Please don't misread my comments....I said that Demons can't achieve what Sages can but Demons can pull their weight in squads very well and way better than a non-Demon/non-Sage one (considering skills).

I know the Ironwood/Myriad debuffs are not reliable at all but that's what I enjoy the most. You never know what the real outcome will be. I really like what Alphae said and had never thought of it that way to be honest. I didn't hesitate learning Demon Ironwood at all as I had 'studied' the skills long before reaching lvl89 and knew what I was going for...

Solandri - Heavens Tear

SeaStorm - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I also can't remember who posted about demon venos pulling aggro off pets...ummm yeah sage venos can do same....I run full arcane armor/robes rotate vit/def ornaments for channeling ones as need be odd ball hybrid (never followed a hybrid path posted here) but I've pulled aggro off my herc, off 99 barb, off 101 barb (btw they're both great barbs I'm pulling mobs off them not bosses - usually in a multiple mob situation).

Pulling aggro off pets and (lazy) barbs is easy. It's when you start pulling aggro off archers, wizards, and non-interval BMs and sins that people start going "WTF?" Since you're in control of most of the debuffs, you can time your sparks and big damage skills to take maximum advantage of them. So even if their non-debuffed average DPS is higher than yours, you can still out-DPS them after factoring in debuffs.

tweakz wrote: »

D.Parasitic Nova isn't better for a group?

I'm still hoping someone with Demon Parasitic Nova will clarify what damage amps it will/won't stack with.

Cleric and Barb use of their pdef reducing skill isn't very common in squad,

Clerics tend not to use it because it reduces their pdef by the same amount. So particularly against physical AOE bosses, they will try to avoid it.

For barbs, the chi cost of Devour tends to make it an either/or choice with Flesh Ream. They can do one or the other, but not both. So Flesh Ream usually wins out. At higher levels they get more chi-building skills and a good genie so they can usually keep both on if they're not lazy.

and Devour + Tangling Mire = 100% reliability and easier to achieve.

Tangling Mire has a 10 sec duration and 30 sec cooldown. So unless you've got three people with it on their genies taking turns, it's not really comparable to the debuffs you can keep applied 100% of the time. Any comparison which includes Tangling Mire has to be a time-average. Also, you can't compare to a vacuum - you have to compare to equivalent situations. If you're giving Tangling Mire to the Sage Veno, you have to give it to the Demon Veno as well.

Sage Veno: Ironwood + Barb Devour + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 33% of the time
50% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 67% debuff

Demon Veno: Ironwood + Barb Devour + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 46% of the time
50% debuff 54% of the time
Overall average 73% debuff

So the Demon Veno actually wins this comparison by a small margin. The comparison they lose at is actually without the barb (e.g. solo):

Sage Ironwood + Tangling Mire
90% debuff 33% of the time
40% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 57% debuff

Demon Ironwood + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 20% of the time
50% debuff 32% of the time (assuming you save it for when Ironwood doesn't land, and factoring in the 0.8% chance of Ironwood landing 3x in a row thus exceeding Tangling Mire's cooldown)
0% debuff 48% of the time
Overall average 36% debuff

Level 10 Ironwood + Tangling Mire
80% debuff 33% of the time
30% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 47% debuff

These pdef debuffs also have to be converted into damage transmitted, which unfortunately varies with target pdef. The higher the initial pdef, the more effective the bigger debuffs are.

Mauntille - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm still hoping someone with Demon Parasitic Nova will clarify what damage amps it will/won't stack with.

I'm pretty sure that it stacks with everything except for heaven's flame. It's the same curse icon that shows up at any rate.

The only debuff that I haven't been able to test this with is substream strike, but since that works with heaven's flame, I don't see how it and nova would conflict. I can try to grab a sin tonight to confirm this when I get home though.

tweakz

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Tangling Mire has a 10 sec duration and 30 sec cooldown. So unless you've got three people with it on their genies taking turns, it's not really comparable to the debuffs you can keep applied 100% of the time. Any comparison which includes Tangling Mire has to be a time-average. Also, you can't compare to a vacuum - you have to compare to equivalent situations. If you're giving Tangling Mire to the Sage Veno, you have to give it to the Demon Veno as well.

Sage Veno: Ironwood + Barb Devour + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 33% of the time
50% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 67% debuff

Demon Veno: Ironwood + Barb Devour + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 46% of the time
50% debuff 54% of the time
Overall average 73% debuff

So the Demon Veno actually wins this comparison by a small margin. The comparison they lose at is actually without the barb (e.g. solo):

Sage Ironwood + Tangling Mire
90% debuff 33% of the time
40% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 57% debuff

Demon Ironwood + Tangling Mire
100% debuff 20% of the time
50% debuff 32% of the time (assuming you save it for when Ironwood doesn't land, and factoring in the 0.8% chance of Ironwood landing 3x in a row thus exceeding Tangling Mire's cooldown)
0% debuff 48% of the time
Overall average 36% debuff

Level 10 Ironwood + Tangling Mire
80% debuff 33% of the time
30% debuff 67% of the time
Overall average 47% debuff

These pdef debuffs also have to be converted into damage transmitted, which unfortunately varies with target pdef. The higher the initial pdef, the more effective the bigger debuffs are.

All that work and you ignore the timing of the debuffs in sync with others.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

tweakz wrote: »

All that work and you ignore the timing of the debuffs in sync with others.

No, I took that into account to maximize the debuff coverage and effectiveness. I just didn't feel like cluttering up the post with an explanation of it:

"assuming you save it for when Ironwood doesn't land, and factoring in the 0.8% chance of Ironwood landing 3x in a row thus exceeding Tangling Mire's cooldown"

Mauntille - Heavens Tear

While you're running numbers, you may want to consider venomous' 30% wood resistance debuff as well. It won't help anyone except for venos and barbs, but it's pretty much constantly up since venomous is a filler skill. Assuming of course you aren't in fox.

Alphae - Lost City

tweakz wrote: »

Cleric and Barb use of their pdef reducing skill isn't very common in squad, and Devour + Tangling Mire = 100% reliability and easier to achieve. I'd also guess that D.Ironwood most often gets overwritten in squads. At higher levels in squads, bosses are gonna die so fast you wont even land the armor break most of the time. If I got it: it would be for soloing bosses.

To echo Mauntille, it really does matter who you run with. And if I'm in a pick-up squad, I tend tell the barb and cleric that I have demon ironwood and that I'll be debuffing after they do, and that they should wait at least 10 seconds before debuffing again. If the debuff drops before then, mine didn't proc and they renew. If it drops at 10 seconds, mine proc'd.

An even easier way would be to ask the cleric and barb to keep an eye on their damage, for clerics just plume shot, and for barbs obviously all skills. If it suddenly shoots up, they should avoid dubuffing until it goes down again.

SeaStorm - Heavens Tear

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Pulling aggro off pets and (lazy) barbs is easy. It's when you start pulling aggro off archers, wizards, and non-interval BMs and sins that people start going "WTF?" Since you're in control of most of the debuffs, you can time your sparks and big damage skills to take maximum advantage of them. So even if their non-debuffed average DPS is higher than yours, you can still out-DPS them after factoring in debuffs.

Solandri...

The Barbs I run with are good barbs and know their job, as I run with them regularly they know to expect the possibility and do what they can to keep it from happening. Granted most of the time I've pulled aggro on mobs is during a multiple mob situation vs one-on-one. On the other hand per your comment above, yes I have pulled aggro off non-interval/non-fist BMs. I tend to only spark before I use nova in the multi-mob situation (with my sage lending I tend to chi the Clerics in BB and BMs as necessary prior to my personal use). As I am not a full mage veno but a hybrid type (with ~396 mag). My highest crit is only 90,000 and change, and Archers/Wizards pull much higher crits so I doubt I will pull off them ever.

Knowing this I tend to watch my damage output as I and the squad would prefer not to play aggro ping pong unless we've planned ahead b:laugh