Do you use it?
Corp or Tastian parse if it does anything?
I use it cause in theory it sounds good.
I always keep it up if for no other reason because it refreshes fast, and pulls agro well, for those times where I want to get agro. I use it when I solo. I don't bother on raids, because the Shaman will over ride it anyway.
Use it for aggro sometimes well tanking, never use on normal mobs I'm fighting. Could never parse enough of a differance that justified the 150 mana cost for me. Might run some more tests on bigger mobs I fight, but on the faster kill mobs it just wasn't worth the mana to me.
I keep it up all the time in case something goes bad and I need to take agro immediatly or in case I need to off-tank something and need to drag the mob away from the crowd.
I dont use it anymore. Dont have the spell gems and it doesnt seem worth it. Of course I havent parsed it so it might be worth it but to the eye it isnt :)
I use it all the time whenever I'm soloing or tanking.
When tanking, it is obviously it's "annoying" quality that is the most useful (ie "aggro").
The diminution in AC is difficult to judge.
From Coprolith PC vs PC parse (although I understand Mob fight is a different kind of things), lowering AC by 24 points may mean an increase of 3% in the average damage per hit (AC 834 - 16.17 to AC 819 16.69).
For most beastlords, this 3% is maybe 5 DPS more (Pet damage is changed also) , ie about 300s damage more on the "1 minute mob" I have usually when soloing.
The decrease in STR should mean a decrease in mob's average damage also, by an even bigger factor (STR going down 55 points). But lets suppose mob has 55 less ATK. I know Coprolith parses shouldn't apply there, but I'm trying to find an order of magnitude 745->879 ATK make a change of 25% in the average hit. That would mean incap lowers mob melee output by something around 10%.
Not sure AGI debuff has any effect.
Didn't someone prove that STR didn't affect pet dps? If so would mobs behave the same way? Or was it that pets STR is already maxed so adding STR buffs didn't raise their attack values and therefore didn't affect pet DPS.
I still use Incapacitate. At the very lease the AC debuff makes a difference but if the STR debuff has an effect so much the better.
I always have it memed for raids - it's handy for taking aggro from Enchanters and Shaman, and for making sure mezzed mobs I think may become a problem come after me and not the chanter when mez breaks.
In groups, it depends on the group makeup. I use it constantly if I'm tanking, occasionally for aggro/CC if I'm not.
Solo, I just don't see much point, unless I know in advance it's going to be a long, tough fight. In that case, I'll take every minor advantage I can get.
Its pretty hard to parse the effects of Incapacitate on mobs, but i can tell you what it does in PvP.
- The AGI debuff would theoretically increase your hitrate by 1.5%.
- The STR debuff will lower your opponent's dps by 1-5%, depending on what his ATK is. If his/her ATK rating is below 1300, you'll get 4-5%, if its above 1300, the return diminishes with increasing ATK (I believe this is the reason why our warder get so little benefit from STR and ATK buffs, there natural ATK is already quite high)
- The AC debuff depends very much on what your opponents AC is. If its above the soft cap, the debuff will do next to nothing. Below the softcap, it will increase your dps by 2-3%.
I expect similar values when you're fighting mobs; the effect may be anywhere between negligible to 5% to both your dps and your damage reduction. Lets call it an average of 2.5%. Whether thats worth the 150 mana is very situational. Lets do some order-of-magnitude estimates in a few examples:
- Solo'ing, killing mobs in 60s flat, mob does 25 dps on average, you+your pet do ~150 dps.
You do 150dps*60s*2.5% = 225 extra damage
mob does 25dps*60s*2.5% = 37.5 less damage.
Not the most efficient use of mana. If Incapacitate ran at full efficiency (5%) then these numbers would double and then the efficiency would be about equal to our nukes.
- Raid mob, Incapacitate runs full duration, mob does 500 dps, total melee dps of the raid 2000 dps
raid melee damage increases by 2000*390s*2.5% ~ 20k damage
MT takes 500*390s*2.5% ~ 5k damage less.
Extremely efficient of course, but, as has already been pointed out, other classes have better debuffs then ours.
- 6-man group, killing mobs in 40s flat, mob does 100 dps, group melee dps = 400.
group does 400dps*40s*2.5% = 400 more damage
mob does 100dps*40s*2.5% = 100 less damage.
Pretty decent, but you have to start considering the time it takes to even land Incapacitate when fights get this short.
I'll emphasize these are rough figures, ymmv by a factor 2 at least. Still on the whole, its not exactly a waste of mana, and if you have to keep agro anyway then its certainly worth it imo.
/hugs
Quote from: ChubakaDo you use it?
No. :)
Ask a rogue what he thinks of how his hits are before / after you incapacitate a mob.
I use it only on long duration fights. IE, 2 min plus per kill. LDON, I keep it up if I am pulling, only as a tool to grab agro off the needed classes.
As Cop said concerning PVP, I'd assume that against regular mobs it would be twice as effective against NPCs.
When I use it in PoTactics, BoT, I've noticed a slight increase in damage delt to said mob thru melee means. Mainly by seeing more frequently the higher average hit.
As far as pet str and changing their damage per hit. There is a hard cap for each level of pet that each class gets. Giving your pet a str buff allows your pet to hit for their max more frequently. Putting on that extra str I see pet constantly hitting for quad 79s frequently than if it was not buffed at all. Maybe someone can parce their pet against a certain mob, not to see how much damage the pet is doing per fight, but how frequently it max hit with and without str buff.
Sorry for the old thread bump...
I haven't used Incapacitate in a long time...it just wasn't worth the mana and mobs died too fast. Then I started soloing in Riwwi, aiming for the hp regen chest piece. They take around 2 minutes to kill, and of course hit pretty hard, so I finally decided I'd try to land Incapacitate on them and see if I noticed a difference. And it definitely *seemed* like it was helping. Before using it, I would be lucky to get through a fight without having to back off and heal myself..maybe 1 in 5 I'd make it all the way through. After I started using it on every mob, I was able to fight the entire time about every other mob. Sometimes I had to give up casting SV in order to preserve mana, but it *seemed* like the mobs dropped just as fast if not faster.
So, was I just hoodwinked by the RNG? It seems like GoD mobs would be less affected by Incapacitate, since it seems like they have high ATK. But perhaps their ATK isn't affected by that 1300 cap that Coprolith pointed out, in which case Incapacitate is a great spell for them.
Anyway, just thought I'd bring it up.
Game on,
Would be nice if we would get an OoW upgrade, that replaces the str reduction with a neg 5pct dmg output reduction mod or something useful like that.
If ever I used the spell for aggro so far
Incapacitate (and cripple, i think from my shaman daze) does one other thing -- it will interrupt a spell cast. I use it on gating mobs because of its fast cast time. I have had this happen enough times both soloing and in groups, with pet and without to be reasonably sure of it. I do not know if it is *every* time it lands, but it appears to be.
I suspect that's your imagination or coincidence - although now that you've said that I'm going to try it on casting mobs about 500 times and see. (That claim has been made for lots of other non-stun debuffs, but it never pans out.)
If I pull 2 mobs, I use it on the one Im going to kill second. The mobs DPS is reduced for twice as long that way.
I also use it for aggro when tanking and when soloing tough mobs.
When I was 62 I worked a lot of AAs in PoN, either solo or duo'd with a 58ish pally friend of mine. Casting incapitate gave a noticible improvement to downtime and kill rate compared to spending the mana on a nuke, dot or saving it for heals.
Hrmmm I wasn't going to post anything as I was starting to do a bunch of tests, but I just haven't had any time latly. Here are the results from a couple parses I was starting to do.
Tests took place in Halls of honor. Mobs were the valorian guardians, level 62. Buffs were constant. For the initial tests AC was 1346 and atk was 1655. Max well everything lol. In the first tests I used sha's + incap, in the second tests I just used sha's. The samples for these parses are small and I need to go back over my logs and rip the data I wanted, but again I appologize for simply having no time latly. 8(
VGs w/incap:
2:00:37 duration
Warder - 69.92 dps 58.7% hit rate, 69 average hit
Me - 77.76dps 51% hit rate, 71 average hit
VG 69.12 dps (that's me getting hit hehe) 308 avg hit
VGs wo/incap:
1:15:06
Warder - 66.25dps 56.8% hit rate, 68 average hit
Me - 76.51dps 51.2% hit rate, 69 average hit
VG 70.22dps (again that's me getting hit) 313 average hit
The defensive samples are small since even over an hour I only got ~800 hits in the non-incap parse. If I can find some time I'll dig up other parses I did at other atk/ac values and post what I can find. Don't really think I'll have time for awhile though.
Even with a smaller than hoped for sample size, it looks VERY solid.
Both, you and your warder gained ~1DPS, with you getting slighty more, likely due to the insanely high ATK of pets not getting as much of a bonus from the -AC from Incapacitate.
The VG also hit you slightly less hard, not overly so, but around what would be expected.
Fight duration plays a big part in me even considering incap personally. The guardians I can usually kill right around the time plague would wear off solo. Mobs in a normal LDoN on the other hand die in ~30 seconds. I'm still trying to do some more tests and at different AC/atk values as well seeing if maybe incap would make a more noticeable or less noticeable change at say 1200 or 1400 AC or 1500 or 1750 atk. With everything else going on atm though I just don't have the time. 8(
Solo I throw it out once at the start if I'm fighting tougher stuff, and if it doesn't land, don't bother trying again. In groups I'd never use it unless I was the tank due to agro; as tank in a group though it's nice for getting agro, especially if your concerned about possibly breaking a mez.
On raid bosses that are slowable I put it in at the start, as the shaman are all focused on slowing for a short while. It usualy gets ovveridden within a minute, but worst case it might put me higher on the mob's agro list than a healer, should a tank die early.
Its worth using in most situations but your milage out of it really depends on the mob you are fighting. Some tough mobs have really low natural ATK and casting Incapacitate (or Cripple) on these can make BIG difference, others have such high ATK they barely notice the loss. The same goes with the AC component. Try using it on the big golems in GoD, it pretty much wrecks what little dps they have to start with.
Its something I will nearly always cast when soloing as it usually makes some difference on the fight (especially when split tanking using the pet), in groups I will use it if the mob will last a while providing I know the tank can handle the additional aggro it generates on top of slow.
Its part of my standard battle spells lineup. Also handy for pulling aggro if you need to (though tainted breath does a better job of that).
I find that it helps my pet stun cleric mobs in Siren's Grotto. This might be due to the fact that mobs need to land a hit in order to proc.
My usual solo style involves Slow/incapacitate and maybe 1 dot. I find this to be a very efficient way to kill dark blues. I only start unloading dots and nukes if I get a mini named.
"This might be due to the fact that mobs need to land a hit in order to proc. "
Here are some rips from a log I had open hehe...
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:01 2004] You try to hit A Valorian Guardian, but miss!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:02 2004] Taunting attacker, Master.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:02 2004] Tastian`s warder begins to cast a spell.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:02 2004] A Valorian Guardian is consumed in a raging wind.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:02 2004] Tastian`s warder tries to bite A Valorian Guardian, but misses!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:02 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 69 points of damage.
Pet started off with proc, then missed, then hit...
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:14 2004] Taunting attacker, Master.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:14 2004] You try to hit A Valorian Guardian, but miss!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 70 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 44 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] Tastian`s warder tries to bite A Valorian Guardian, but misses!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] Tastian`s warder begins to cast a spell.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] A Valorian Guardian is consumed in a raging wind.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] Tastian`s warder tries to bite A Valorian Guardian, but misses!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] Tastian`s warder tries to bite A Valorian Guardian, but misses!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] Tastian`s pet hits A Valorian Guardian for 94 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:15 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 93 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:16 2004] Xarobn crushes A Valorian Guardian for 35 points of damage.
In this snip it the pet missed, proc'd, missed missed and didn't land a hit at all in that attack round.
One more...
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:45 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 36 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:46 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 43 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:46 2004] Tastian`s warder begins to cast a spell.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:46 2004] A Valorian Guardian is consumed in a raging wind.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:46 2004] Tastian`s warder tries to bite A Valorian Guardian, but misses!
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:46 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 108 points of damage.
[Sat Aug 21 18:48:47 2004] You hit A Valorian Guardian for 102 points of damage.
Again we have pet proc, then miss, and that's it for the round
So what that would indicate is that pets don't proc the same way as regular mobs? Arn't mobs supposed to be only able to proc on a successful hit, unless its a timed proc?
QuoteSo what that would indicate is that pets don't proc the same way as regular mobs? Arn't mobs supposed to be only able to proc on a successful hit, unless its a timed proc?
Yes. Actually this has been known for quite a while. The mechanics of pets procs are exactly like us PCs and not like NPCs.
/hugs
Quote from: AneyaSo what that would indicate is that pets don't proc the same way as regular mobs? Arn't mobs supposed to be only able to proc on a successful hit, unless its a timed proc?
Mobs and players can both proc on misses. It's noticeable when fighting mob spawns that have procing weapons - for instance, I used to notice it occasionally while farming Velk's if the Frenzied Velium Stalker spawned with the Venomous Axe of the Velium Brood.
Hm, come to think of it I could probably find an instance in my logs of solo fights in GoD.