Virtue Spirituality Shield.

Cookie

This shield, only works for PvM damage - is this intended?

CovenantX

I don't recall which publish it was, but  I'm pretty sure there was a change that did make it pvm only.  it may have been the same one where fish pies stopped having an affect on pvp.That being said, I believe it's intended the way it is now, and tbh, there needs to be more things that shouldn't have any affect on pvp related damage.

like:

Armor Refinements - There's no reason for players to take less damage from other players, it's part of the reason why there aren't any one vs one fights anymore.   a bunch of little things allowing players to mitigate more damage and losing nothing or nothing of importance I should say (DCI is actually a detriment if you have Parry, because it's more beneficial to parry attacks at least if you're using an item with "Reactive Paralyze",   Dodge chance (DCI) is checked before your Parry chance, so if you dodge, you can't parry.

Casting Focus.  shouldn't proc vs player damage *also increase the CF cap to 100% and allow it to spawn at higher values on items (5-25% like LRC), it would immediately make pvm mages  much more competitive with pvm dexers,  then high-resistance mobs would be the main issue between pvm mages & dexers, since dexers have Armor Ignore to hit those targets for high damage.

Poison Immunity.  or at least fix it to where it only procs after a successful "Skill-based" method of curing poison.  (this means not potions, and orange petals/poison immunity), it shouldn't be possible to proc poison immunity multiple times in a row, regardless of which level poison you're afflicted with.

CovenantX

a bit of a side note, i think the amount of virtue decay from 'use' of the virtues perks should be reduced to a level where you could more consistently use it & maintain the highest level of said virtue.

Cookie

CovenantX said:

a bit of a side note, i think the amount of virtue decay from 'use' of the virtues perks should be reduced to a level where you could more consistently use it & maintain the highest level of said virtue.

They are hard, I do agree.

Going to respond to your Casting Focus part first, as it is the response I am clearest on, and we actually agree. My reasons for agreeing, may have different detail, and reasoning, but yes we agree, almost along the same lines.

Casting Focus in PvP - Your spell fizzles, or fails, you instantly notice, and you are already compensating for the failed spell. Then the message comes up, your spell failed, and Casting Focus is trying to redo that spell for you... which in fact then interrupts your next compensating spell - so instead of 1 spell failing - Casting Focus instead of trying to help, has just made things worse for me when I'm pvping on a mage and made 2 spells fail. You've lost time as well, which is critical in PvP. I try and find suit parts in pvp that do not include Casting Focus. I do not think there is a PvP warrior equivalent, where a special fails, and then it attempts to redo it for you, whilst over-riding or getting in the way of something else you may be trying to do - I know it is trying to be helpful, but it isn't to me.

Casting Focus in PvM - yes, it can help, you are not casting under such pressure, or as fast, you are more relaxed, if a spell fails, it can be quite nice for it to recast. And you are quite right - the maximum cap at say 12% (17% with Inscription) is too low to be that useful. In PvM it is common for some characters to run with Protection all the time as PvM mages often value reducing interruption's - so why not beef the potential up a lot in PvM scenarios.

In fact - A possible fix - if an item has Casting Focus on it - I believe you should be able to switch it out - very much like the Mage Armour Property can be taken off. I'd like to switch Casting Focus out for Soul Charge, or Damage Eater properties. The nice thing about these Properties in PvP - and Reactive Paralyse is they are passive abilities that are working in the background without interrupting what I am casting.

CovenantX said:

Casting Focus.  shouldn't proc vs player damage *also increase the CF cap to 100% and allow it to spawn at higher values on items (5-25% like LRC), it would immediately make pvm mages  much more competitive with pvm dexers,  then high-resistance mobs would be the main issue between pvm mages & dexers, since dexers have Armor Ignore to hit those targets for high damage.

CovenantX

the option to disable your own casting focus would be nice too, especially if it includes the CF you get from having 100.0 Inscribe (but disabling CF if you have inscribe- should also provide a small SDI bonus, ~5% for a 15% SDI total from inscription skill)   I'd be fine with that, it would allow scribe mages to be at 40 SDI again which i always thought was fair, it was non-focus mages that were garbage at 15% you could barely make bandages slip and even easier to out-heal damage from other mages,.    

-but I do still think CF shouldn't have any affect on player-sourced damage.    the reason I don't like it, is because it's just another layer of RNG where RNG doesn't belong.   adding RNG to 'mage dueling' is one of the worst decisions the devs have made, even if it is only 12/17%