if you are a REALLY good player who likes a handicap.... its probably the best counter against LAG...

In PVP, if you're a much lower level, such as just starting to get your CP, it can be useful since you're usually too squishy to handle the burst meta. It's only useful tho, if you're able to get away from the fight to regain resources. (using streak or cloak)
It's also one of the easier sets to obtain the full 5 pieces from in a relatively short amount of time. Jump into the sewers and grind out a bit of TV, even faster if a friend or 2 helps. It's 3 and 4 piece set bonuses also provide things most migicka builds look for. So it's still useful when you start to transition into a new set and start replacing pieces. So all-in-all I'd say it's a great set for a beginning magicka PVPer/PVEer.

Having said all that, if you're talking about using it with a character at 531, there's just so many other sets that are better. Phoenix is ONLY useful if you're dying (somewhat) a lot, and if you're dying a lot at 531 CP you're doing something wrong.

Lightninvash wrote: »

it is only useful in PVE as said above as soon as people hear the phoenix screech they hop on you like crazy and in pvp the heal you get from the set is halved lol. In PVE I use it in my lowbies grinding gear as a last resort I'm gna die armor. SO instead of dying I will explode dealing a nice chunk of damage and a full heal lol.

They really should make this set immune to the 50% heal debuff in PvP IMHO.

useless set for PvP. If you got killed once, you will get killed twice.

Build to win fights, no to survive a few more seconds.

The crucial issue is the healing does not begin until after the damage immunity goes away.

So... And this has happened to me... something as small as a light attack can drop you if timed just right.

To fix the set, the sequence of events should be changed so the healing initiates during the turn-to-stone and the damage immunity lasts to about 1/5 of a second after the explosion. The healing change is so that you are fight-capable the instant control of the character is returned to you. The damage immunity change is so you can do a dodge / block / move - so that nobody can use the transitional seam between your controller doing nothing and your controller moving the character.

Those 2 changes to make it function in pvp. But for pve, a 3rd change is needed. The mobs know you aren't dead, so they don't look around for someone else when to them you should be considered dead. That needs to be fixed.