Couple of skill questions, if you please

Right so at level 20, and stuck at ehlonas reach (for several days now, btw), tis kind of embarassing that I don't have the answers to these questions. But here goes

- If I double cast Wastrels Worry, does the 3sec timer reset, or does the second cast have no effect.

- If I double cast diversion, before the time has elapsed, would it deactivate the next skill cast and reenable the previous one, or do nothing, again.

- In pve groups, is phantom pain generally useless unless carrying Shatetr Delusions?

- How much does phys.resistance really help?

Graci in advance. Questions in order of priority, can ignore last two if desired.

Wastrels Worry resets the 3 second timer if you cast it before it triggers. Generally, it's not a very useful or energy-efficient skill in PvE, unless you are going to be fighting a few bosses. Against bosses the 3 second trigger is halved to 1.5 seconds meaning you can basically spam it.

If you double cast diversion before the first one has triggered, it will again just reset the timer meaning your first cast has effectively done nothing.

I've never really used phantom pain. Perhaps someone could clarify whether the enemy still suffers from a deep wound if you remove the hex, or whether the hex has to run its full course in order to suffer a deep wound. In honesty, this skill has never struck me as having a good damage-to-energycost ratio.

Physical resistance should only really be required if you plan on tanking, which in PvE you shouldn't be doing (unless you are 55hping!) - leave it to the warriors to get in close to enemies. If you are concerned about health, ether feast is fairly decent for healing. I use Phys resistance with an Illusionary Weaponary build in PvP when you know you will be getting up close and personal with your enemies.

Graci in post.

I just put it in for the bosses in Ehlona actually. Wasn't sure about what to work with, and there's so many of them.

But then say I cast diversion and end up locking an Earthquake, if I recast and the arcanist plays stoning, I would lock stoning, right? That would make a recast useful, which is sort of the logic I was going for

Ether feast is great, only sometimes they seem to especially hunt me down Tis why I considered phys. rest.

Thanks muchly for the answers though, but one last thing. Do Imagined burden and friends only affect movement speed, or attack speed as well? Just hoping

Well, the general rule is, if you keep casting Diversion, and your target keeps using skills, they'll eventually end up with blacked-out skill bar.

Shattering Phantom Pain does cause a deep wound, which makes it a good Mesmer combo for spike damage. I generally don't bother with that though, since it's a one-trick pony, requiring attribute points in both Domination and Illusion to be fully effective.

And Imagined Burden only affects movement speed.

Quote: Originally Posted by LuxA

Quote: Originally Posted by Rayinzar

*snap*

Well me thinks that you have most graciously cleared my confusion

And yay that makes the skill even better than I thought it was Now if only it wouldn't slide off bossess like so much jelly

The best way to blank out your enemy's skill bar for a long time is simply Echo Blackout.

Don't have it yet

And from what I've read doesn't that do the same to yours?

Yes, it does. Common durations are 5 secs on your bar and 7 secs on the enemy's which leaves you a small time frame of doing something else before the guy gets active again. Like casting Diversion on him.

The chances are with Blackout, the enemy your making cry has a much more valuable skill bar than you do. Keep a monk shutdown and the opponents suffer greatly, the 5s shutdown on yourself means nothing in comparison.

It is a PvP skill though really, many more effective ways to shutdown PvE casters (Like casting Backfire and letting em kill themself )

Quote: Originally Posted by d3kst3r

Alrighty after quite a few of tests carried out by Seekers; the following has been gathered on hexes/enchantments.

If more than one countinuous enchantment is cast on a target; the stroger one carries priority. Yet all enchantments are considered on the ally but may be removed as from a single enchantment removal spell. Such as if two monks have mending on a target and they get hit with a shatter; both mendings are removed. These mendings do not stack to become +2x; instead the strongest one will be used +4>+3. If the party casts essence bond on the tank (the party refering to all other members IE 7) then whenever the tank gets hit by physical or elemental damage the party will receive 1 energy each. Yet these bonds are treated as a single enchantment on the tank; for purposes of spirits and enchantment debuffs; yet are still "maintained" by each individual caster.

Now to transfer this to hexes. Whenever a "new" hex is cast on a target; the "freshest" one wins. This means "wastrel's worry" does not stack with itself, it simply overrides itself as a hex. This will trigger soul barbs as it has just freshly been cast on the target, but it will not trigger the ending of wastrel's worry as the hex never eneded. For diversion and such skills; the most recent one will also win-simply overriding the last type hex of the same name. However if an already existing hex has a longer duration than a new incomming hex; then the old hex stays.

SOTA will greatly appriciate information on lapping blackouts; although we are fairly confident that they are treated in the same fashion.

Quote: Shattering Phantom Pain does cause a deep wound, which makes it a good Mesmer combo for spike damage. I generally don't bother with that though, since it's a one-trick pony, requiring attribute points in both Domination and Illusion to be fully effective. Strictly speaking, you don't need any points in Illusion to get the Deep Wound from PP. Phantom Pain will still last for 10 seconds doing 1 degen at 0 Illusion, and the duration on the Deep Wound (not like it really matters) is unlinked as well. High Domination is important for the damage from Shatter Delusions- it's the Eviscerate of the mesmer world (and shatter enchantment is probably the executioners).

Quote: Originally Posted by swordfisher