Iceheart vs Combat Physician

Beaf

With the incoming nerf of Iceheart, and the Combat Physician Necklace in golden vendor this week, I had the idea of comparing the Combat Physician set to Iceheart.

I was not expecting much, I just did it for fun. The idea was to investigate the potency of the combat physician set compared to a standard “defensive” setup, i.e Mother’s Sorrow + Perfected False God + Iceheart

First let’s investigate the set bonuses:
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(4 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(5 items) When you critically heal yourself or an ally, you grant your target a damage shield that absorbs 9507 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

The 2, 3, and 4 pieces are identical to Mother’s sorrow:
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(4 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(5 items) Adds 1924 Spell Critical

Basically, we are trading the 5pc of Mother’s Sorrow for an offensive monster set.

Here are the 2 set up tested:
Iceheart + Perfected False God + Mother’s Sorrow (Arcanex3 + Precise front bar)
Vs
Zaan + Perfected False God + Combat Physician (Arcane x3 + Precise front bar)




The rotation is simple, apply dots when they run out, crystal fragment whenever it’s up, and keeping power surge up. I didn’t bash in the rotations for consistency purposes.

Here are the results:





As you can see the dps is similar. Then, you may ask, why the f* would I use combat physician?
It is true that the proc condition of combat physician require a critical heal, while you just need critical damage for Iceheart. But some classes like Sorcerer or Magicka Nighblade have access to self-HoT (Critical Surge, Swallow Soul, Siphoning Attacks), and everyone have access to Structured Entropy. It is quite easy to proc the shield. The downside is that you need to take damage for the shield to proc, you can’t have the shield while full health. But with this set you can have an offensive monster set, like Zaan or Slimecraw (if you can’t get combat prayer).
This could be useful (maybe) in content if you want to have Minor Berserk + defensive set. For exemple vMA or Asylum Sanctorium.

Your thoughts on this ?

Taleof2Cities

The vast majority of players are just trying to complete content, @Beaf. They often don’t play vMA or vAS “for fun”.

Which means running BiS gear (or the players’ perceived BiS) ... and includes running a rotation that isn’t trying to chase a crit heal.

You found an interesting result ... but I don’t think there’s much application of the result to an everyday player. The DPS gap between the two setups is likely wider as the experience level of the player goes down.

Everstorm

Been using both Iceheart and Combat Physician on my magblade for soloing more difficult content. Paired with light Fortified Brass for high resistance without losing the light armor passives. Gets the job done.

barney2525

this much math makes my head hurt

Sergykid

i don't know how is it possible to reach those numbers. 24k light attacks, 63k frags proc. My glass cannon build hits about half as this much. True, on the 3m dummy, but still. Is the trial dummy really doubling your numbers?

edit: and sets like julianos and necropotence, so full buffing those attacks. Sure, Mother Sorrow grants overall more dps cuz frequency of crits, but it doesn't buff the "big numbers" while my sets do that. Yet still they're lower than u wearing a defensive set.
.

peacenote

I like the idea of leveraging a shield that possibly shows up when you need it most while solo-ing or duo-ing.

Personally I have never gotten Combat Physician to be useful enough as a healer to wear it over other options, but I have always liked the set, so this was a fun post to read. Gave me some ideas.

Coatmagic

Def keep posting your finds on these official forums; you're doing the devs work for them.

So many cool old sets out that not been brought into line with the faceroll that is today's game.

Keep up the good work guys, we'll get em all *fixed yet!

Everstorm

peacenote wrote: »

I like the idea of leveraging a shield that possibly shows up when you need it most while solo-ing or duo-ing.

Personally I have never gotten Combat Physician to be useful enough as a healer to wear it over other options, but I have always liked the set, so this was a fun post to read. Gave me some ideas.

Think it's more useful as a solo set because there is no RNG as to whom the shield gets, it's always on you so more dependable.

Commancho

If they are going to nerf Ice Heart like that, they should change proc conditions from crit dmg to any dmg otherwise it will be another useless piece of garbage like other hundreds we already have in the game. Please, FIRE this guy, just fire him already for sake.

Beaf

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

The vast majority of players are just trying to complete content, @Beaf. They often don’t play vMA or vAS “for fun”.

Which means running BiS gear (or the players’ perceived BiS) ... and includes running a rotation that isn’t trying to chase a crit heal.

You found an interesting result ... but I don’t think there’s much application of the result to an everyday player. The DPS gap between the two setups is likely wider as the experience level of the player goes down.

I wouldn't say this setup is chasing crit heals. Your crit chance applies to both heals and damage. With iceheart you have 20% chance to get a shield if you do crit damage, while with Combat Physician you will get a shield as long as you crit heal. Both setup rely on crit. Indeed you need to use some sort of self HoT for Combat physician to be usefull. But if you are using iceheart or any other defensive setup it probably mean that you are in a progression group or trying to get a first clear in vMA and thus you most likely use a selfheal.
I'm not saying it's gonna be BiS or anything, as you said the result is interesting so I decided to share it.

Sergykid wrote: »

i don't know how is it possible to reach those numbers. 24k light attacks, 63k frags proc. My glass cannon build hits about half as this much. True, on the 3m dummy, but still. Is the trial dummy really doubling your numbers?

edit: and sets like julianos and necropotence, so full buffing those attacks. Sure, Mother Sorrow grants overall more dps cuz frequency of crits, but it doesn't buff the "big numbers" while my sets do that. Yet still they're lower than u wearing a defensive set.
.

Trial dummy provides a huge selection of buff and debuff, such as major breach, minor berserk, major courage, major force etc.
So, compared to a regular 3M dummy you will obviously deal more damage.

Everstorm wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

I like the idea of leveraging a shield that possibly shows up when you need it most while solo-ing or duo-ing.

Personally I have never gotten Combat Physician to be useful enough as a healer to wear it over other options, but I have always liked the set, so this was a fun post to read. Gave me some ideas.

Think it's more useful as a solo set because there is no RNG as to whom the shield gets, it's always on you so more dependable.

This setup is not exactly RNG. The shield you get from this set will be granted to the target of your heals. If you are using a self-heal, then the target will always be yourself. Indeed, if you are playing templar and relying on Ritual of Retribution, then RNG is involved, but with Critical Surge, Swallow Soul, Structured Entropy etc. you will only heal yourself and thus you will get the shield.

Iskiab

I tried combat physician on my magblade. It has some issues from a pvp perspective:
- the shield value is good, but if you’re healing the random element about who gets the proc is an issue.
- One shield per 6 seconds means it scales very poorly with more people
- Solo the shield isn’t worth the loss in extra damage/stats

It’s decent for duoing maybe, even in a BG with 4 people there were better options. It’s just another set where the issue is it’s unreliable for defense if there are other people around.

If your goal is pve then burning mobs with high damage is better.

It’ll be a poor replacement for iceheart, I used iceheart in pve as a healer because you end up face tanking trash mobs in dungeons as a healer.

Beaf

Iskiab wrote: »

I tried combat physician on my magblade. It has some issues from a pvp perspective:
- the shield value is good, but if you’re healing the random element about who gets the proc is an issue.
- One shield per 6 seconds means it scales very poorly with more people
- Solo the shield isn’t worth the loss in extra damage/stats

It’s decent for duoing maybe, even in a BG with 4 people there were better options. It’s just another set where the issue is it’s unreliable for defense if there are other people around.

If your goal is pve then burning mobs with high damage is better.

It’ll be a poor replacement for iceheart, I used iceheart in pve as a healer because you end up face tanking trash mobs in dungeons as a healer.

Hello good sir, no offense but I think you have missed the point of this post.
While it is true that I never specifically said it was for PvE, it was very much implied.

The point of this post is to compare defensive setups for magicka DDs in a PvE perspective. Nothing to do with PvE healing, PvP or anything else.

Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough.