Infallible Mage vs. Deadly Strike

DigiAngel

I'm on the fence for these two. Oakensoul already has Minor Slayer...using heavy lightening:
Mage:
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance, Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 900 damage to monsters. Enemies you damage with fully-charged Heavy Attacks are afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 5%.

Strike:
(2 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Increase the damage your damage over time and channeled attacks do by 15%.

If I tweaked the description of Mage:
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 900 damage to monsters.
(5 items) Enemies you damage with fully-charged Heavy Attacks are afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 5%.

Still seems better in the long run..what say you all?

fred4

The sets are not comparable. Heavy attack sets, such as Infallible Mage, work because they add flat damage to every tick of lightning and resto staff heavy attacks.

Side note: They also add flat damage to the heavy attacks of other weapons. However they are much stronger with lightning and resto staves, because heavy attacks with those staves consist of 3 instances of damage, e.g. 3 damage ticks. Most if not all other weapons merely do 1 instance of damage per heavy attack. While there are timing considerations, this basically means heavy attack sets are 3 times as strong with the above staves. They are essentially designed for and viable only with those staves.

The following sets buff heavy attacks (list may be incomplete):

Sergeant's Mail
Noble Duelist
Storm Master
Infallible Mage
Undaunted Unweaver
Undaunted Infiltrator

Of these, Sergeant's Mail is the most powerful one (once it ramps up), provided you use weapons and jewelry, since you don't want to wear heavy armor as a DD. It totals +2580 added damage to every tick of your lightning / resto heavy attacks. Infallible Mage only gives you 900. While the latter offers all sorts of other (group) utility, in my experience you need to fully commit to a lightning (or possibly resto) heavy attack spam build when wearing any of these sets, along with different CP than a normal build, most likely the Oakensoul ring, and being the right class (basically a sorc, possibly a templar). Infallible Mage is at the bottom of the list in the current meta, because it's neither here nor there. It's a hybrid between a trial set and a heavy attack set. You can probably make off meta builds with it, but they probably won't be strong. The key to heavy attack sets is that you don't need high weapon and spell damage stats. You simply want as much flat "proc" damage from those sets as you can get. You basically want to wear Sergeant's + Noble Duelist + Oakensoul or Sergeant's + Storm Master + Oakensoul.

Deadly Strike, on the other hand, gives you +15% damage on channeled attacks. While that includes heavy attacks, Deadly is mainly useful to buff Templar's and Arcanist's class skills. In order to buff heavy attacks, the above dedicated heavy attack sets give you far more damage and you want a source of Empower, such as from Oakensoul. Empower gives you +70% on heavy attacks. Compare that with the puny 15% from Deadly Strike and you get the point.

DigiAngel

Really insightful thank you. I'm using Sergeants as well....it's a very effective combo.

yadibroz

fred4 wrote: »

The sets are not comparable. Heavy attack sets, such as Infallible Mage, work because they add flat damage to every tick of lightning and resto staff heavy attacks.

Side note: They also add flat damage to the heavy attacks of other weapons. However they are much stronger with lightning and resto staves, because heavy attacks with those staves consist of 3 instances of damage, e.g. 3 damage ticks. Most if not all other weapons merely do 1 instance of damage per heavy attack. While there are timing considerations, this basically means heavy attack sets are 3 times as strong with the above staves. They are essentially designed for and viable only with those staves.

The following sets buff heavy attacks (list may be incomplete):

Sergeant's Mail
Noble Duelist
Storm Master
Infallible Mage
Undaunted Unweaver
Undaunted Infiltrator

Of these, Sergeant's Mail is the most powerful one (once it ramps up), provided you use weapons and jewelry, since you don't want to wear heavy armor as a DD. It totals +2580 added damage to every tick of your lightning / resto heavy attacks. Infallible Mage only gives you 900. While the latter offers all sorts of other (group) utility, in my experience you need to fully commit to a lightning (or possibly resto) heavy attack spam build when wearing any of these sets, along with different CP than a normal build, most likely the Oakensoul ring, and being the right class (basically a sorc, possibly a templar). Infallible Mage is at the bottom of the list in the current meta, because it's neither here nor there. It's a hybrid between a trial set and a heavy attack set. You can probably make off meta builds with it, but they probably won't be strong. The key to heavy attack sets is that you don't need high weapon and spell damage stats. You simply want as much flat "proc" damage from those sets as you can get. You basically want to wear Sergeant's + Noble Duelist + Oakensoul or Sergeant's + Storm Master + Oakensoul.

Deadly Strike, on the other hand, gives you +15% damage on channeled attacks. While that includes heavy attacks, Deadly is mainly useful to buff Templar's and Arcanist's class skills. In order to buff heavy attacks, the above dedicated heavy attack sets give you far more damage and you want a source of Empower, such as from Oakensoul. Empower gives you +70% on heavy attacks. Compare that with the puny 15% from Deadly Strike and you get the point.

But let say as for myself I don't wanna stay focus on using the weapon damage as much and use the abilities more then sergeant won't work for me?

OsUfi

yadibroz wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

The sets are not comparable. Heavy attack sets, such as Infallible Mage, work because they add flat damage to every tick of lightning and resto staff heavy attacks.

Side note: They also add flat damage to the heavy attacks of other weapons. However they are much stronger with lightning and resto staves, because heavy attacks with those staves consist of 3 instances of damage, e.g. 3 damage ticks. Most if not all other weapons merely do 1 instance of damage per heavy attack. While there are timing considerations, this basically means heavy attack sets are 3 times as strong with the above staves. They are essentially designed for and viable only with those staves.

The following sets buff heavy attacks (list may be incomplete):

Sergeant's Mail
Noble Duelist
Storm Master
Infallible Mage
Undaunted Unweaver
Undaunted Infiltrator

Of these, Sergeant's Mail is the most powerful one (once it ramps up), provided you use weapons and jewelry, since you don't want to wear heavy armor as a DD. It totals +2580 added damage to every tick of your lightning / resto heavy attacks. Infallible Mage only gives you 900. While the latter offers all sorts of other (group) utility, in my experience you need to fully commit to a lightning (or possibly resto) heavy attack spam build when wearing any of these sets, along with different CP than a normal build, most likely the Oakensoul ring, and being the right class (basically a sorc, possibly a templar). Infallible Mage is at the bottom of the list in the current meta, because it's neither here nor there. It's a hybrid between a trial set and a heavy attack set. You can probably make off meta builds with it, but they probably won't be strong. The key to heavy attack sets is that you don't need high weapon and spell damage stats. You simply want as much flat "proc" damage from those sets as you can get. You basically want to wear Sergeant's + Noble Duelist + Oakensoul or Sergeant's + Storm Master + Oakensoul.

Deadly Strike, on the other hand, gives you +15% damage on channeled attacks. While that includes heavy attacks, Deadly is mainly useful to buff Templar's and Arcanist's class skills. In order to buff heavy attacks, the above dedicated heavy attack sets give you far more damage and you want a source of Empower, such as from Oakensoul. Empower gives you +70% on heavy attacks. Compare that with the puny 15% from Deadly Strike and you get the point.

But let say as for myself I don't wanna stay focus on using the weapon damage as much and use the abilities more then sergeant won't work for me?

I run a one bar dotcro. Deadly and Sergents are my bread and butter. One heavy attack followed by either a BB or long dot. Even as someone who constantly fluffs timing I can hit a dummy for 75k+ without thinking.

It all comes down to how much heavy attacking and how much casting your build will be doing. But if you're heavy attacking often, Sergents is the way.

Foxtrot39

Deadly strike is more for DoT heavy builds

yadibroz

OsUfi wrote: »

yadibroz wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

The sets are not comparable. Heavy attack sets, such as Infallible Mage, work because they add flat damage to every tick of lightning and resto staff heavy attacks.

Side note: They also add flat damage to the heavy attacks of other weapons. However they are much stronger with lightning and resto staves, because heavy attacks with those staves consist of 3 instances of damage, e.g. 3 damage ticks. Most if not all other weapons merely do 1 instance of damage per heavy attack. While there are timing considerations, this basically means heavy attack sets are 3 times as strong with the above staves. They are essentially designed for and viable only with those staves.

The following sets buff heavy attacks (list may be incomplete):

Sergeant's Mail
Noble Duelist
Storm Master
Infallible Mage
Undaunted Unweaver
Undaunted Infiltrator

Of these, Sergeant's Mail is the most powerful one (once it ramps up), provided you use weapons and jewelry, since you don't want to wear heavy armor as a DD. It totals +2580 added damage to every tick of your lightning / resto heavy attacks. Infallible Mage only gives you 900. While the latter offers all sorts of other (group) utility, in my experience you need to fully commit to a lightning (or possibly resto) heavy attack spam build when wearing any of these sets, along with different CP than a normal build, most likely the Oakensoul ring, and being the right class (basically a sorc, possibly a templar). Infallible Mage is at the bottom of the list in the current meta, because it's neither here nor there. It's a hybrid between a trial set and a heavy attack set. You can probably make off meta builds with it, but they probably won't be strong. The key to heavy attack sets is that you don't need high weapon and spell damage stats. You simply want as much flat "proc" damage from those sets as you can get. You basically want to wear Sergeant's + Noble Duelist + Oakensoul or Sergeant's + Storm Master + Oakensoul.

Deadly Strike, on the other hand, gives you +15% damage on channeled attacks. While that includes heavy attacks, Deadly is mainly useful to buff Templar's and Arcanist's class skills. In order to buff heavy attacks, the above dedicated heavy attack sets give you far more damage and you want a source of Empower, such as from Oakensoul. Empower gives you +70% on heavy attacks. Compare that with the puny 15% from Deadly Strike and you get the point.

But let say as for myself I don't wanna stay focus on using the weapon damage as much and use the abilities more then sergeant won't work for me?

I run a one bar dotcro. Deadly and Sergents are my bread and butter. One heavy attack followed by either a BB or long dot. Even as someone who constantly fluffs timing I can hit a dummy for 75k+ without thinking.

It all comes down to how much heavy attacking and how much casting your build will be doing. But if you're heavy attacking often, Sergents is the way.

But it doesn't work on pvp and I'm looking to use on cro a build where the set benefit on both mode.

OsUfi

Sergeant and Deadly both work in PvP. Sergeants even works on Ravenwatch, which is always a little baffling.

BXR_Lonestar

Deadly strike won't do anything for you unless you are running a dot heavy bar. It doesn't improve your heavy attack damage as far as I am aware. So if the choice is between those two sets, Infalliable mage is going to synergize with your build better.

However, on my heavy attack petsorc, I've parsed him with Seargants + a combo of different sets (Storm master, relequens, infalliable mage, and Order's Wrath), and of those sets, Order's Wrath gave me the best parse.

I think the reason for this is because I can mix my armor weights to give me the best combination of weapon damage/crit damage (passive from medium armor), while still having optimized penetration and crit chance (from light armor pieces). My Order's wrath is either 3 medium or 4 medium, and 1/2 light armor pieces, whereas any number of the sets you would choose from are all medium or all light, which means you could be missing out on either pen, crit chance, weapon damage, or crit damage.

OsUfi

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Deadly strike won't do anything for you unless you are running a dot heavy bar. It doesn't improve your heavy attack damage as far as I am aware.

I believe Resto and Lightning Staff heavy attacks are channeled, so are effected by Deadly Strike.

DigiAngel

Ya I landed on Noble Duelist for most content, switching to Deadly Strike for a lil bit more surviveability as Deadly Strike is medium armor.

El_Borracho

Infallible Aether/Mage hasn't been a decent set in at least 3 years. It hung on for a second there as a healer group buff set, but I fear its utility is over. Between the Oakensoul ring and other HA sets, there really is no reason to use this set.

DigiAngel

Agreed...once it was explained to me...and realizing Minor Slayer is on oaken anyway, ya..infallible went away.

BXR_Lonestar

I believe Resto and Lightning Staff heavy attacks are channeled, so are effected by Deadly Strike.

I'm not sure that's true, but I can certainly test it and find out for sure. Even if it is true, I'm not sure it'll make up for the loss of crit chance/pen in the build on the trial dummy.

I'll test it out and let you know.

Ohmoxide

Question, Storm Master says "Monster" does that mean it doesn't apply in pvp?
Rob

loosej

Ohmoxide wrote: »

Question, Storm Master says "Monster" does that mean it doesn't apply in pvp?
Rob

Correct, it doesn't apply to players in PvP (but it does apply to non-players in PvP zones).

Zodiarkslayer

The highest buff to heavy attacks from sets is Sergeants Mail plus Noble Duelist. This is not a PvP friendly setup.

However in a PvE context, a on demand Off Balance that some classes have access to is worth more than just a consideration. It can change your build.
Ruinous Scythe and Veiled Strike are perfect, because you can be in melee range for Noble Duelist and get your Off Balance on cooldown.

Wardens have the Birds for the same effect, but need to be at range (>7m) for it to work. In this case a stat dense set like Order's Wrath in combination with Sergeant's Mail will do more than a dedicated heavy attack set like Storm Master. Even Deadly Strike is not necessarily better, even if it does buff everything by 15%. Warden's passive buff crit damage and the comparatively higher crit chance from Order's Wrath will let you leverage that much better and you can keep the range for the birds to work properly.

That 70% heavy attack damage bonus to Off Balance targets is a powerhouse. My recommendation is to build around that, instead of a fixed set.

Ohmoxide

I'm currently using the sergeant set along with orders wrath in PvP and I just don't feel like I'm hitting as hard as other people.

I'm also super confused why people are suggesting Noble, and other sets with the monster tag, for PVP.

fred4

Ohmoxide wrote: »

I'm currently using the sergeant set along with orders wrath in PvP and I just don't feel like I'm hitting as hard as other people.

Cause you're running a PvE build. There is no PvP heavy attack meta anymore.

I'm also super confused why people are suggesting Noble, and other sets with the monster tag, for PVP.

1. Because those limitations are quite recent and people don't keep track of all these changes or you've been watching old threads / content.
2. There is still a niche use for such a setup, such as boss-farming in IC. The final tick of a lightning heavy attack is AOE. The splash damage keys from the boss / NPC you're attacking, which means it's not subject to Battle Spirit or armor set limitations. It can hit players for as much as 20K, if those players get caught in the crossfire. I might be out-of-date on this myself. You'd need to test, but I think this is still the case.

EDIT: That said, maybe study @Zodiarkslayer's reply carefully. He seems to be on to something. My gut feeling remains, however, that you don't want to run a (lightning) heavy attack build in PvP these days.

Ohmoxide

Thanks Fred.

Zodiarkslayer

fred4 wrote: »

EDIT: That said, maybe study @Zodiarkslayer's reply carefully. He seems to be on to something. My gut feeling remains, however, that you don't want to run a (lightning) heavy attack build in PvP these days.

Thanks. And I agree heavy attacking is a key mechanic in PvP, but for ressources, not damage.

Like @fred4 said, I also think that heavy attack builds in PvP are a thing of the past and some guys just didn't get the memo.

My previous reply is mainly focused non-Trial PvE. I shall edit it to be make it clear.

BixenteN7Akantor

The problem with Infaillible Mage is that Minor Vulnerability is most of the time already applied by the Concussed status effect, which procs-off shock damage.
The Lightning Staff HA is composed of two single-target channelled DoTs then one direct damage AoE, so Deadly Strike doesn't boost all.
For PvP, Knight Slayer (8% health of Oblivion Damage per HA) is probably at it's highest with the recent meta.