Lightning Questions

Hi guys, more questions for you all.

Conjure Lightning: Does the damage just add like it used to? Meaning you strike with your weapon for 34 damage and then the additional +1-13 . Is the 1-13 subject to its own check vs foe's armor? or just a base line add?

Does conjure lightning benefit from Air Magic's lightning damage AP of 25% should the damage be subject to foe's armor?

Sorry if those are confusing questions.

Next is: Gale

The spell costs 5 energy and causes exhaustion. If I cast this spell with 25/25 energy points. What is my total energy after casting? Should be 15, correct?

As the spell cost 5 and then lowered my over all cap by 10 due to exhaustion.

So with 25/25 energy barring energy regen, I could cast Gale upto 3 times in a row, stacking 3 exhaustions for a total energy pool of -25(-30 really) with each exhaution lasting 30 seconds and ending seperately.

Any clairification on how Gale & exhaustion functions would be appreciated.
Thanks

Yep, that's how it works.


The bonus lightning damage is subject to armor, and it does not have armor penetration. Only attack skills have that armor penetration - I'd assume that this will be made more clear in release.


You've got it.


Well, you'd have a maximum energy of -5. 25 base, -10 x3 for the three exhaustion effects.


That's not quite right. Each successive exhaustion spell you cast reduces your max energy by an additional ten - so -10, -20, -30, etc. Exhaustion doesn't just end after 30 seconds, though - instead, if you are suffering from any number of exhaustion effects, you'll regenerate maximum energy at a rate of 1 every 3 seconds. So if you cast three exhaustion spells in a row, you'll have -30 energy, then -20 energy after 30 seconds, then -10 after another 30, then back to normal after a full minute and a half.

Peace,
-CxE

Thanks a ton for the info!!

Last question for you about Gale:

The duration says 3 seconds, where as Shock does damage and says knockdown as well. I assume the durations are different because Shock makes no mention of its knockdown duration. Is there a standard duration for all Knockdowns unless otherwise noted? Also how much time does Stonefist Gauntlets add to hammer knockdowns (including Backbreaker)

Thanks again CxE.

As of last BWE when I used gale it only used 5 energy and cost me 10 exhaustion if I cast another spell right after casting gale it would appear to cost 5 energy less than normal. Exhaustion hides your max energy but really only affects the maximum usable energy and I’m 110% sure this is true unless they changed it after last BWE. So to use your example your energy total will appear to be 15 but will actually be 20 but only 15 will be usable at any one time so you can’t cast spells that cost 20 energy.

I played an air elementals that weekend and air has a ton of exhaustion skills so you become intimate with it .

I'd guesstimate that standard knockdown time is around two seconds.

Interesting tidbit about exhaustion dropping you to 20/15 energy. I know you can't regen past the exhaustion point, but leaving you with preexisting energy in place? Good to know.

Peace,
-CxE

Exhaustion doesn't affet your regen at all. You can cast and drop yourself to 5/10 energy, but regen to 40/20. Exhaustion has no affect beyond capping your max energy per cast, it doesn't affect your max storable energy. It's ignorable unless you're spamming enough exhaustion spells to drop your cap below 20 or so. For an average ele, that means you can sustain an inital burst of 5-6 exhaustion spells in the first 30 seconds of a skirmish, and then 1 every 30 seconds thereafter.

Well I'll be damned if I haven't learned something. Why I haven't noticed this, I don't know. Thanks for the tip.

So exhaustion really doesn't do a thing unless you're spamming it like crazy - that's good to know.

Peace,
-CxE

Yeah- exhaustion really doesn't affect elementalists so long as you don't spam them a lot. It's really the biggest problem with warriors: Gale is a great example of this. Using Gale once with your base 20 energy pool gives you 15 energy, but the most you can use at any one time is 10(since you have 10 points in exhaustion). You can still use 5-10 energy skills so long as you have the energy in your pool. However, if you cast Gale again(quick recharge, low energy cost), you're down to 2 max energy or so, as you'll have recovered a little from the previous cast. At this point, you're unable to use any energy based skills until you've recovered to at least 5 energy useable with exhaustion.... making exhaustion very difficult to deal with on a warrior, and fairly ignorable on caster classes, so long as you don't spam the exhaustion-causing skills.

Whoa, I taught Ensign something. Color me tickled pink

Even though i spent most of the weekend running a bunch of exhastion skills I didn't notice that it worked diffrent until sunday night. Its not an obvious effect since your using alot of energy at the same time usually. I even submitted a bug report because i didnt understand that was how it really does work, silly me, but i asked around and evidently all of the GW fan sites post wrong info about it.

Mabye the exhastion definition can be fixed in the condition guide?

Gales knockdown didnt seem to be that much diffrent then normal nockdown to my eye but i wasnt the one being knocked down so i had other things to be doing. I concure with Ensign on this 2 secondish sounds about right ill have to get my stopwatch out next BWE.

Wow great feedback about this, thanks peeps.

Draken: Ya I will try and test this March event. We should post our results. My personal take is knockdown duration varies per skill used coupled with any items that will affect duration.