The Identity Crisis that is Douse + PvE ramifications

So... Douse is a spell that has two very distinct and different usages. Right now it both acts as an *on-demand* and *passive* ability. I feel that this identity crisis hurts the spell as a whole. I view douse's effect in PvP as more of a problem with PvP balance than a problem with the spell itself (that PvE and PvP do not have separate modifiers/ways for abilities to work is not possible with a complex battle system).

As it stands I only bother with douse for the fire resistance and preferred to 5 stack it. Obviously that's a waste of time now. Removing a fire damage over time from most mobs really isn't worth the effort as 9/10 the debuff is re-applied not long after, if not instantly, and the damage over time component really isn't that scary. So as it stands I now have a buff that is situational, can't be placed on the out of combat bar, AND doesn't last very long (2.5 minutes at 90 skill and 73 attunement) so requires constant re-application. With my limited action bar this is a problem for me.

On the flip side, if someone is playing a healer or has found that they get much better mileage out of douse for removing fire DoT's than the fire resistance the buff itself gives, they're likely constantly overwriting this buff and it doesn't need to last more than maybe ~10 seconds to fulfill this role of a "cleanse". In this situation, the defensive value for douse could be greatly increased and truly act like you've been "doused" with a bucket of cold water.

Whichever way we're going to go with it, the fire damage every-day mage mobs do (much less concerned about boss mobs) needs to be balanced to reflect changes in our tool-kit of abilities. A yellow mage mob is not so squishy that it warrants normal attacks that can do 100+ damage to on average 500 hp Avatars actually having 100 fire resistance from Fire Proof + Fire Attunement without Douse up. If we move douse away from an on-demand cleanse and re-instate a proper duration to not need to aggravatingly constantly rebuff all the time, then I feel we've got ample tools available to us to leave mage damage "as is." If, however, we leave douse in this identity crisis state or move it towards the on-demand cleanse functionality, fire damage from common mobs needs to be adjusted or the missing fire resistance incorporated elsewhere. Shield of Ice might be a good candidate for incorporation elsewhere, for example, since it actually has broader usage and is a valuable asset in a deck against varied groups of mobs.

I hope we can pick a direction for douse and then lay this conversation to rest as that will be the direction and vision for the ability and we can further discuss how we move forward from there.

 

stacking buffs, stances and counterspells is lame and doh to me.
I dont stack buffs and i want douse to be a counterspell again, lasts 12 seconds iirc before R42 and i used it in my decks against mages to counter their fire spells.

 

I usually use douse and shield of ice with fire attacks from mages.

 

Douse should never have had its duration increased in the first place. It was never meant to be 5 stacked and last that long. I've been using it as one of my defensive buffs in my active deck for a long time. It's not aggravating at all for me to use it when I need it. I would experiment with some different deck setups if you are having problems utilizing it in combat now.

 

My issue is more along the lines that mages are rarely the only mob type in a pack (making douse useless against the rest), they're also rarely the mob that I'm going to leave alone and not kill first either (for instance making zerker stance not terribly useful either). I can add in the ability to my buff draw no problem, I just am not thrilled about adding extra fluff junk that I may or may not need/want/use and I DEFINITELY can't justify sacrificing an entire ability slot to lock it. As it stands I can't justify making a deck for just mages.

My usual deck setup is one for undead (things that I can't bleed) with banish UD and then a deck with rend. Keeps my play fluid as the areas I frequent will have both kinds of mobs. The long buffs are/were nice as I'd only have to stop and buff every 30-40 minutes by switching one of my two decks to the buff deck and going from there.

 

You need to adapt to this change because it is much needed balance wise. It was only like that for one month, and I think it was more of an oversight then an intended change.

The first time I cast it with the increased duration I thought to myself, "this makes no sense at all" I thought it was going to get changed back pretty quick.

It's not a passive like you mention in your OP. It's a counter to fire damage, therefore it should never have been lasting so long in the first place.

 

As it stands, it's basically neither. It lasts too long and does too little to be considered a "counter" and on the flip side is too transient to be a passive. That's ultimately the point I want to make. You want it to be a counter; with the current state of mages I am more inclined towards more passive fire resist, but as it stands its hard to say what it "should" be as it does neither all that well.

 

No, I disagree. It's a counter to fire damage. I have a fire build if you want to try it out.

In the first fight you can't use it at all. And then in the second fight you can add it to your active deck to see if you can use it to mitigate the fire damage and drop the dot's.

What do you think the result will be?

 

I was referring more along the lines that the removal of the fire DoT's was the "counter" in that you had to re-actively cast it, and that relative to the added resistance of realistically being able to 5 stack before, removing a debuff wasn't worth it. Naturally lol the fire resistance counters fire damage in the most basic sense of the term.

I'm not sure how hard player Fire DoT's hit. If they're anything like NPC mage's, I'd wager a 5 stack douse is more effective than using the single stack to remove debuffs if not entirely outright due to the drop in damage from the initial hit, it most definitely is when you consider how we're able to heal damage. Hence the identity crisis of douse.

 

I rotate douse with my shield of ice and def stance, which is half as often popping on combat bar as dodge and evade.

Not sure why its duration was as long as it was... but i dont really have anything else productive to add. Other then with lont duration buffs, it just forces them to become staple / required to peopl3.

 

It doesn't appear to me that douse has an identity crisis. It had a problem when could be stacked 5 times but with that taken care of I'm thinking it is working more as intended.

 

A 5x stacked GM douse with 100 water attunement should last around 10 minutes. So... per your own requirements... we can still 5 stack douse and it can last a decent amount of time. Effectively (and ultimately eventually) the spell is capable of acting as a passive fire resistance, still.

If we want it to truly be a reactive ability to remove fire DoT damage, then the buff associated with it should be dropped down to ~10ish seconds and possibly be immune to further fire DoT effects for the duration as compensation. At the same time, common fire damage done from PvE mobs needs to be re-adjusted such that mage mobs don't do triple or more damage of any other mob while still maintaining a comparable defense to the mobs they're 3x+ the damage of. If they're designed to be glass cannons, great, lets work on the glass part some and achieve some balance.

If we leave douse in the current state... well all we've really done is make it more annoying and tedious to use (also raising the barrier to entry AGAIN creating more pointless miserable grinding) BUT can and would still accomplish the same effect we had last patch. At which point I argue why bother making it such a pain in the ass to accomplish the same ultimate effect?

 

Its not meant to be a passive fire resistance that you can use from a buff deck. It's use is to counter fire damage.

10ish seconds? That would definitely make it annoying and tedious to use. There defense is pretty weak already, they drop much faster than melee mobs for me.

I've been using it in my active deck for over a year and it's not annoying to use at all.

5 stacking douse out of a buff deck and then switching to your normal deck is a big pain in the ass though. If they give it a long duration then everyone will have it active at all times and no thought goes into its use at all.

The way it is right now works fine, you need to decide if you want to use it in your active deck depending on what you are fighting. What you're asking for is an easy button.

 

@Adam Crow
I don't really seem to be getting through to you. You also don't really understand I'm referring to by "counter" either. Countering, as I've used it, is to do something IN RESPONSE to something else. The active removal of Fire DoT's is the counter here. The added fire resistance of the buff is the passive.

Much of it stems from you quote an entire scenario and then cherry pick one point without taking the entire situation into consideration. You've also never given any convincing example of WHY douse IS NOT a passive fire resistance buff when in fact it has passive fire resistance built into it and, as I've shown, it STILL can be made to work from a buff deck AAAAAND actually works best for mitigating fire damage when done as such. You don't like 5 stacking it, great, don't do it. That doesn't mean that in the current state lol that it still can't and won't be. Hence we have an ability being used two different ways for two entirely different purposes and balance of the ability is in direct question.

If that's not an identity crisis, well I don't know what to tell you other than you simply don't understand my argument.

A lot of the rest of what you're saying is opinion based, which is fine, but don't for a minute pretend that your opinion represents truth. You don't find having douse in your active deck annoying, I do. You find 5 stacking buffs a pain in the butt, I don't. Combat depends entirely too much on A-level so there's no real useful way to argue mages being squishy or not since as I level, yes mages get more and more squishy. You want buffs to be this amazingly meaningful decision, I don't. I don't give a rat's ass that I'll just simply do my same buff ritual when I enter a zone and then simply enjoy the game without having to constantly sit and disjoint my time killing small fry mobs. If we're trying to find "meaningful content" with buffs...heaven help us all because the game will never catch on in today's MMO market. You feel douse should only be a transient counter, I feel douse in the current state both acts as a counter and a passive BUT has a long enough duration to also solely be used passively AND using it passively is defensively superior. Aside from the last example having some fact based information built into it, these are all simply opinions of no substance.

What I'm not asking for is an easy button, but a clear differentiation between active counter and passive resistance. As it stands we've got neither and a bunch of discussion about what it "should" be. If it was clear cut, I wouldn't be able to draw reasonable examples to refute your claims of "It *IS* such and such" like I have.

 

@Trihugger
The big difference in our discussion here is you seem to want the game mechanics to suit your style of play.

You keep saying the same things over and over. I've made my case, sorry I couldn't explain myself better. Goodluck with the identity crisis.

 

I see nothing wrong with Douse. I use it as a buff and I use it as a counter to fire damage over time. I don't think that it needs any more adjustments.