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In the patch we received this morning, Chaos Mage was given a buff in PvE increasing the damage of Triple Orbs, Comet, and Gravity Crush, and reducing the cooldowns of Black Hole, Comet, and Gravity Crush. There was also a PvP nerf removing the ability to reset Triple Orbs using Gravity Spark, essentially removing Chaos Mage's ability to lock people into a permanent orb combo.
Here is a list of all of the class changes.
1st. The buff to Triple Orbs is freaking insane. As the class' main source of dps (ranging 60-65% of all damage in golem testing) this buff is a 55% increase of the skill value. This change alone increases the dps potential of Chaos Mages by 35%. Needless to say this is basically the entire reason Chaos Mage is now debated to be an S tier dps class.
2nd. Buffing Black Hole by reducing the cooldown sadly isn't too significant and I actually don't even cast this skill when doing dps testing in Training Grounds because the cast time is too long and lowers your dps. In daily dungeons and special dungeons though having Black Hole up more often is great for wave clear and CC.
3rd. Something to note with Comet is that the damage was already much higher than the tooltip that previously stated 2728%, and was closer to about 3755% after damage testing on the Training Golem. With the update I expected Comet's damage to yet again be higher than the tooltip stated and after testing today using broken weapons to cause the numbers to be exactly the same on every cast, I came to the conclusion that the damage on Comet is exactly 5774% and not 4042% making the skill basically our best filler.
4th. The damage increase on Gravity Crush isn't too significant, but the real change here is the reduction in cooldown. Before this update, the downtime of the elemental debuff from this skill was 15 seconds, meaning when the debuff expired, there was 15 seconds until the skill came back up in order to reapply the debuff. With this change there is now only 6 seconds between when the debuff ends and when the skill comes back up, significantly increasing the debuff uptime and adding a lot of potential to your dps.
And lastly the removal of Gravity Spark reset in pvp is honestly a little extreme considering Chaos Mage's instant is one of their most important combo starting skills and will therefore significantly reduce the strength of the class, essentially lowering Chaos Mage to debateably the weakest sorceress in PvP. It's a little extreme but I've pretty much gotten over it, the two Elementalist specs have always been stronger than the Mystics and this pretty much solidifies that fact. Nothing we can do about it now.
And now for some dps comparisons!
First here is a 50b golem test I did before we received the buff (a test where you kill 10 golems in a row in order to show a regulated dps potential in long running content, i.e. raids).
And then this is my dps after the buff (with the exact same gear and stats).
As you can see from the screenshots (or at least try to see since the upload quality is so low, lol) my dps went up from 105m to 148m which is almost exactly 40% of an increase.
Looking at the Skill Description page, you can see that the percentages on Triple Orbs and Gravity Crush went up, since their buffs were the most significant, and the percentages on Gravity Blast and Gravity Well went down in result since their contribution to Chaos Mage dps is now less significant. Also the buff to Comet made it actually worth casting in Training Grounds where as before the damage was too low to be worth getting locked in the cast animation.
Overall the buff is an incredible increase to Chaos Mage dps even if its a little lopsided with a heavy reliance on Triple Orbs. And in the end its a great thing to see one of the less common classes receive a buff that boosts them to potentially top tier dps. Hopefully in the future War Mage will see some love as well since we know they need it too. ♥
IGN: Echoes
DISC: Echelos#0677
Here is a list of all of the class changes.
1st. The buff to Triple Orbs is freaking insane. As the class' main source of dps (ranging 60-65% of all damage in golem testing) this buff is a 55% increase of the skill value. This change alone increases the dps potential of Chaos Mages by 35%. Needless to say this is basically the entire reason Chaos Mage is now debated to be an S tier dps class.
2nd. Buffing Black Hole by reducing the cooldown sadly isn't too significant and I actually don't even cast this skill when doing dps testing in Training Grounds because the cast time is too long and lowers your dps. In daily dungeons and special dungeons though having Black Hole up more often is great for wave clear and CC.
3rd. Something to note with Comet is that the damage was already much higher than the tooltip that previously stated 2728%, and was closer to about 3755% after damage testing on the Training Golem. With the update I expected Comet's damage to yet again be higher than the tooltip stated and after testing today using broken weapons to cause the numbers to be exactly the same on every cast, I came to the conclusion that the damage on Comet is exactly 5774% and not 4042% making the skill basically our best filler.
4th. The damage increase on Gravity Crush isn't too significant, but the real change here is the reduction in cooldown. Before this update, the downtime of the elemental debuff from this skill was 15 seconds, meaning when the debuff expired, there was 15 seconds until the skill came back up in order to reapply the debuff. With this change there is now only 6 seconds between when the debuff ends and when the skill comes back up, significantly increasing the debuff uptime and adding a lot of potential to your dps.
And lastly the removal of Gravity Spark reset in pvp is honestly a little extreme considering Chaos Mage's instant is one of their most important combo starting skills and will therefore significantly reduce the strength of the class, essentially lowering Chaos Mage to debateably the weakest sorceress in PvP. It's a little extreme but I've pretty much gotten over it, the two Elementalist specs have always been stronger than the Mystics and this pretty much solidifies that fact. Nothing we can do about it now.
And now for some dps comparisons!
First here is a 50b golem test I did before we received the buff (a test where you kill 10 golems in a row in order to show a regulated dps potential in long running content, i.e. raids).
And then this is my dps after the buff (with the exact same gear and stats).
As you can see from the screenshots (or at least try to see since the upload quality is so low, lol) my dps went up from 105m to 148m which is almost exactly 40% of an increase.
Looking at the Skill Description page, you can see that the percentages on Triple Orbs and Gravity Crush went up, since their buffs were the most significant, and the percentages on Gravity Blast and Gravity Well went down in result since their contribution to Chaos Mage dps is now less significant. Also the buff to Comet made it actually worth casting in Training Grounds where as before the damage was too low to be worth getting locked in the cast animation.
Overall the buff is an incredible increase to Chaos Mage dps even if its a little lopsided with a heavy reliance on Triple Orbs. And in the end its a great thing to see one of the less common classes receive a buff that boosts them to potentially top tier dps. Hopefully in the future War Mage will see some love as well since we know they need it too. ♥
IGN: Echoes
DISC: Echelos#0677
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