Uses of undine

Adroit - Lost City

So I've been noticing that I seem to use undine far less than most other people I watch.. and I'm kinda curious why now. I usually only use undine when I'm trying to go for a kill (i.e. very rarely do I use it as an opener).. because if I were kiting a bm or something, I'd much rather use the time of undine on another skill that both gets me chi and has a chance for some proc (like immo against a melee char). Maybe my damage just sucks, but if I'm hitting a bm for like 1-2k and it has 15k hp, I'm going to need to plan away around that charm.. using undine and gaining ~15% damage is really a waste imo. It probably won't even tick their charm faster.. with kiting you'd likely only get 1-3 hits off while undine is active, and you'd have done more total damage just using gush instead of undine to begin with.

I really do try to use undine before a sutra or before going for a bypass (or before I use spark).. but I see people using undine on anything that moves, and really not sure why. Anyone else notice anything similar or have any insight as to why some wizzies seem to have a love affair with undine?

U_Sasuke - Sanctuary

i use undine for following reason/situations:

1. higher dmg/ killing
2. to kill timing while control skills on cooldown.
3. to put pressure on my enemy (having debuffs on u does put pressure on enemies sometimes b/c they imagine something gonna happen or just panic cuz they will take high dmg, thus can make some mistakes/use apos etc)

if u dont use undine much, thats ok b/c u focus more on chi getting which is also important.

undine strike is helpful, but nothing that important imo.

Nurfed_You - Harshlands

i'm trying to break my habit of not undining targets. In large group pvp, i try to undine things that other mages are hitting. But in simple fights i really just don't even use it 90% of the time. i guess it started from your reason adroit, and now on r9 HA's it normally takes a bids crit to bypass anyways and undine doesnt really make a difference in that aspect. i.e. 5k non crit 10k crit or ~6.3k non crit 12.5k crit. either way my target has less then 10k hp if i set them up between 51-60%. The numbers are actually higher(total hp/damage i do) but the generalization is there.
If i know my target is r9 well refined/really high hp i try one bypass and if it isn't close i just kill them with a sutra combo anyways. With how gear is nowadays undine>fire sutra w/spark is your best bet to kill people. Sometimes its the only way to kill some bms/barbs.

I've noticed that some wizzies will do things like undine a melee>melee gets close>force of will>blink>undine again. monumental waste of time/chi/cooldowns. my one flaw atm that im noticing is i spam hailstorm. i actually open wiht hailstorm over gush now on the ground jsut because the damage is similar and hailstorms proc is better. i do like hailstorm>pyro>gush. proc chi proc slow down before i blink away.

As far as some insight as to why wizards feel like they need to keep undine on their target. When i was first starting i read on one of the old guides we had, or somewhere on forums, that you should always keep undine on your target because you never know when a crit will happen and undine will make said crits hurt. kind of like an always be prepared type of deal. Some mages will argue that if you only undine when you go for a kill people will learn when use their genie/survival skills better against you.

Sorry for the wall o txt, but do you ever try to use sage debuffs on d.pyro/glacial to set up mages for bt bypasses or bm/barbs for bids bypasses? I've found it actually catches them off guard a little more and its another way to force them to use survival skills without genie/our precious little cc that we have.

FaceRolI - Sanctuary

They're probably just noobs.

most players now days don't have a good idea of what will kill/will not kill their opponent/themselves.

im tired of r8 +5 atking me with DAMAGE only attacks from the AIR... ALONE.

anyways tbh im one of the people who just spams undine (and hence a noob :P). probably b/c I didn't start as a wizard, and went through my TT90 green days as an archer, so I did not develop as solid a base for understanding my damage potential/limits (as wiz), plus it doesn't cost me much time xD.

the only reason makes sense to me is not wanting to give warning to opponent. people who are good vs wizard prob know to watch for *blue sparkles* if you only undine right before going for a kill thats another tell for your opponent. If you undine ALL the time theyll never know which is real XD (lol not a good rsn)

its kinda like when you play monopoly and go ha mother f*ckers imma buy everything I land on! then you run out of money so you rob the bank which is why you go to jail and do not pass go but you're like I don't need the 200 anyways and you play get out jail free card cuz you're boss... at monopoly b:cool

Theres less premeditated intent to kill both in play and due to gears. I mean w/o spark its kinda ... well i HOPE this CRITS!! and even though spark itself lends well to willful intent to commit murder, it opens up alot more opportunistic play, better have that undine on!

edit: omg so fast response on wiz forum \o/

Adroit - Lost City

I really don't think that having undine on anybody that knows how to pk is really going to stress them out, I love it when a mage opens with undine.. usually a sign that it will be a quick fight =]

@Nurfed - I actually noticed in your latest vid that you seemed to be hanging around other mages.. and you guys were using undine on the same targets (almost the exact same time haha), maybe it would have been better if one of you decided to undine targets.. the other just DD'd. I have never been of the opinion that it is good practice to keep opponents permanently undine'd, I actually tried once in a TW where I thought I was undergeared and that just undining for the better geared mages would be a good idea. Turned out to be a total waste, 99% of the targets would have died without undine.. and I lost out on chi I would have gotten with other skills. In world pvp as well, if you are focusing with a few other mages/psys on some +12 r9 jaded HA class, sure.. undine that sucker so everyone gets the boost. If you are just taking on some 9k hp aps sin.. why bother? 50-66% chance the debuff will be resisted anyway, and it likely won't change the 1-3 hits required to kill.. just hit them with something normal. If you crit on gush, good chance they'll drop or tick nerves + charm.. which would obviously be more valuable than undine. That is just one example, but I really don't think you have a bad habit tbh. Same goes for hailstorm, I think it is generally underused by most wizzies.. especially for air fights. I learned that from fighting calvin, I was just gushing away while he was on his flying mount.. what a waste of a skill, would have been far better off using hailstorm + pitfall for the chance to immo.

I've heard the argument that it would help someone better predict what you are doing, but I really don't think it applies honestly. Most of the time when I am setting up for a kill, I've already made sure at least their genie doesn't have much energy left.. depending on the opponent I'll also keep track of mdef charms, apoth, etc as well, so they really won't have many options when I use undine. I mean, I do the same thing with spark.. I don't just spark people randomly so that they won't know when I actually mean to kill them, I only use when I'm setting up for a kill (or to force genie/apoth etc I suppose). Anyway, I've never really used the debuff on d.pyro or g.snare for anything, it's seemed so small to me (20% mdef reduction ).. but maybe I should be. I'm guessing it is less than 10% amp, usually just ignored it tbh.

@Face - That is pretty much what I was thinking, I just wanted some other perspectives in case I was missing something obvious haha. Also undine use is probably different to you because of your high channeling, and I really didn't notice a love affair with undine in your vids :P

Burnout - Harshlands

IMO a lot of mages just don't understand the concept of why undine is useful. It doesn't increase your "overall dps". It increases your damage done in 10 seconds. Using it right before a charm tick imo is almost always useful, but using it during the 10s charm cd is detrimental.

OFC if you're confident you can kill them in way under 10s w/o undine, like vs sins, then there's no point in using it.

Why do you think it only lasts 12s? 2 seconds to tick their charm, then 10 seconds left before the next charm tick.

Adroit - Lost City

Burnout - Harshlands wrote: »

IMO a lot of mages just don't understand the concept of why undine is useful. It doesn't increase your "overall dps". It increases your damage done in 10 seconds. Using it right before a charm tick imo is almost always useful, but using it during the 10s charm cd is detrimental.

OFC if you're confident you can kill them in way under 10s w/o undine, like vs sins, then there's no point in using it.

Why do you think it only lasts 12s? 2 seconds to tick their charm, then 10 seconds left before the next charm tick.

I agree, wish I could get boogie's perspective, seems he really likes to keep opponent's undined :P

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear

I tend to keep targets which will stay alive longer undined. So BMs, Barbs, sometimes EPs, archers etc.

Sins are mostly 1-2 shots and never seem to learn from being 1-2 shot.

witniss

I like keeping them undined in case an opening pops up ef fortify
I use it to tick mdef charms aswell

Nurfed_You - Harshlands

like i said earlier, i undine a lot in group pvp because i never know if another mage has my target or a psy. In the 2nd half of my last pvp vid we we're calling targets in vent, but we just didn't decide who was going to undine and what not which is why we were both undining targets. Also the hailstorm abuse in air actually works really nicely 33% of the time trololol.

side note: adroit you havent said anything about my hotkeys anymore. im disappointed

Adroit - Lost City

Nurfed_You - Harshlands wrote: »

like i said earlier, i undine a lot in group pvp because i never know if another mage has my target or a psy. In the 2nd half of my last pvp vid we we're calling targets in vent, but we just didn't decide who was going to undine and what not which is why we were both undining targets. Also the hailstorm abuse in air actually works really nicely 33% of the time trololol.

side note: adroit you havent said anything about my hotkeys anymore. im disappointed

haha I forgot to check, I'll look again when I get back from school

Nurfed_You - Harshlands

and if you had watched my earlier videos, then yeah. i agree omg my hotkeys sucked. They've changed quite a bit now though + the new hotkey chagnes i added in