Quick Q Regarding Degen

Is fire degen (burning condition) actually cumulative, as with other conditions? More poison = more degen... same w/ fire?

Specific example: if you use Mark of Rodgort or Glyph of Immolation, yet your spell already causes, lets say 3 seconds of burning... does it accumulate in terms of how many pips extra dmg you do?

I've been testing it out (MoR w/ a SF build) and it would seem that I'm killing things/people way faster than I already was, because they suffer burning condition on top of the spell's burning condition every time they take fire dmg.

Could just be me, but my time for (just as an example) killing turtles in FA seems cut in half, and that's even when they're being healed.

So I'm assuming that burning is cumulative?

Doesn't seem to be as noticeable between spells alone that cause burning (which seems odd), but with MoR thrown into the mix, there seems to be a difference... though I could just be crazy

Thanks in advance

Degen caps out at -10, fire causes -7. You can stack degen BUT remember it won't go more then -10.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Health_degeneration

No, using Mark of Rodgort followed by Searing Flames still does -7 degen, BUT, the burning is applied before it decides if the damage should be. So SF without MoR would need 2 casts to deal damage, while SF with MoR does the damage on the first cast. Same with GoI.

OK, that's really odd, then... because I've been testing it again this morning, and there's definitely a big difference... so what's causing the difference?

Is the extra burning degen "softening" things more? Seems that way, at the very least.

Another example (again, using AB): killing the Priest and Commander at the Luxon spawn point, usually is a a little tough due to their levels, the Commander more than the Priest if you go for him first. Usually have to go through my bar three or four times to get 'em both (and not because I'm unskilled or using bad skills).

Now, I kill both in literally 1/3 the time using MoR cast on 'em first. Priest is down in about five seconds, and commander probably just under/at ten seconds with quick casts.

It was never quite that fast before using MoR with this build. Maybe it's the softening of enemies by bringing burning degen up to -10, but I swear, it must be more... of something...

Just this morning, ran into a Warrior I ran into last night who uses Defy Pain and something like Silver Armor, I believe, and something else. Last night, I would cast on this guy for two minutes before finally getting through all he was using. This morning, in about 30-40 seconds he was 3/4 down in health. I watched him using the same skills in the same way he was last night.

Felt bad, I kept "griefing" the guy to test this out, ha ha, but that's what it's about... and I simply can not explain it, going by what you're saying here, which makes it sound as if using MoR would not add a whole 'lot.

*insert confused brain here*, ha ha

Here's what I'm running (icon code not working for some reason):
Searing Flames|Immolate|Searing Heat|Rodgort's Invocation|Mark of Rodgort|Meteor|Aura of Restoration|Fire Attunement

Nail 'em with MoR, (which doesn't actually do dmg by itself, btw), then Immolate (to actually start the burning +dmg) or Rodgort's, then Searing Flames/Immolate back-and-forth, with others thrown-in. This already did a lot of dmg, but now, there's a big difference.

Not trying to make this complicated, ha ha... just noticing a bigger difference than what it sounds like you'd expect and have been trying to figure out if it's because fire degen is cumulative, which it must be.

Well, I can't really explain it, but it's making a bigger difference than what I expected... and I'll keep testing it.

The burning time will stack, but it will not go over the degen limit.

ok here is how this works as I understand it from 55 monking. Yes 55 monking.

I can get Healing breeze up to 8 bips of regen. Lets say I add the skill that give me 4 more bips of regen.

I will have 12 bips of regen but only 10 is the max. UNTIL I take degen. Lets say that a mesmer skill is cast on me and I suffer 5 bips of degen. My heath bar will only move 3 bips and not 5. Cause 12-5 is 7.

So if you set them on fire for 8 bips and then another 8 bips they have 16 bips of degen of which only 10 count. If someone puts healing breeze on them at 6 bips of regen it is NULL AND VOID cause it only cancels from the amount of degen caused not effected.

Does that make any sense? You can have more degen than 10 but only 10 count at one time. So you can also have more healing Bips than 10 but only 10 are counted. I think that when I am in tough as a 55 monk I have like 18 bips of health on me and sometimes only 8 are showing!!!

It's really not that complicated. It comes down, as has already been pointed out, to Searing Flames doing twice as much damage as it would otherwise.

Without Mark of Rodgort, you have to cast it once to apply burning and a second time for a fire splat. While the target is hexed with MoR, every casting of SF deals damage.

This is very simple. Yuo are doing DAMAGE with Searing Flames on the FIRST cast. Normally the first cast of SF does zero damage, but causes burning. THe second cast is when the damage comes in since the target is already burning. But with MoR, they start burning before SF checks to see if it would do damage. And since EACH cast does damage, you can continually deal damage with every cast of SF until MoR is removed.

Degen does not add from the same source. Burning from Immolate will provide -7 degen. Burning from SF will provide -7 degen. Using BOTH skills will still result in -7 degen, NOT -14. It isn't the degen from burning that is allowing you to kill faster, it is the instant damage from SF.

Well, to be accurate, that's not actually "doubling" the dmg of Searing Flames. It simply allows the first cast of it to do dmg and not be a catalyst for every other cast; i.e. only gaining one more cast of dmg.

No, it's not hugely complicated, but it's doing more than what I would have expected. It must be both maxing-out degen, as well as increasing burning time, because it massively softens-up enemies.

I would have though that it would just get "covered" by the burning time of any given spell, but I think it's actually in addition (stacking, as stated above) to a spells burning time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

SF causes burning for 7 seconds... is MoR actually adding another 4 seconds to that?

Fire burns at 7 pips, no matter what, and you can max to 10 degen. I get ya... just seems to be doing more than that, but that's probably due to it prolonging the burning time of any spell that already causes burning, because every time (such as with Searing Heat) they take dmg, it "resets" the burning time.

As to why it seems SF and other one-shot spells are "doing more", it must be maxing degen, and adding to burning time. Only thing I can figure. Just tried the difference again now, with and without using MoR, and there's a definitive difference.

I appreciate the response, but there's a lot of focus on SF here, which isn't really what's doing it...

I've been using SF for over a year, and never did the same damage I'm doing with MoR included. SF is not what's allowing me to kill faster.

As I said, MoR must be maxing degen and increasing burning time to soften enemies a lot more, so it must be cumulative in that way. Otherwise, I'd noticed no difference using MoR, since SF causes 7 seconds burning and I'm killing faster now than before.

Don't know how else to put it, but there is a difference.

Uh...MoR cannot "be maxing degen." Burning doesn't stack with other burning. The best that can happen is that the remaining duration is overwritten with a greater one, prolonging the effect. It will never exceed seven pips though.

No, MoR does not add another 4 seconds because you met the conditional damage of SF. If the target is ALREADY on fire, you deal damage. If they're not on fire they are set on fire for 7 seconds. MoR sets burning before SF is calculated so SF does fire damage which uses MoR's conditional of burning for 4 seconds. So if you cast SF on a target hexed with MoR, you do the dmg from SF and set them on fire for 4 seconds.

Are others hitting him? Other ele's and monks typically have fire weapons (if they're fire eles too) and whoever else is using fire atm. If there is other degen or if someone else is causing damage or burning could be aiding you. But it is likely that it's from not having to reapply the burning from SF every other cast and causing damage instead every cast.