Immolates "Affected targets take up to 45% more damage"?

[Guest]

Is it a universal debuff? For example when I'm fighting a boss should I

nova-->immolate-->beam-->nova

or

nova-->beam-->immolate-->nova?

If the latter does indeed give a 45% dmg buff to my thermal shock is it even worth the 1+ second for skill queuing?

Or is it the case that targets affected by immolate just take 45% more dmg from immolate?

[Tin Man]

I do not have a good answer for you. I know that my typical pattern is nova --> immolate --> beam --> nova.

I am sure others have the answer but there is another way.

You could test the results in Training Grounds. Just do not use it with your ANB hero as time spent in Training Grounds goes against your Event Timer. This is, of course, you really, really, really want to test something that can only be tested with your ANB hero.

I do believe that immolate before beaming is the better option.

[Guest]

The short answer is Frost Nova --> Immolate --> Frost Beam --> Frost Nova, although on the mob phase there are two different rotations depending on whether you are using "Tap and Draw" or "Mouse and Keyboard" for input. "Tap and Draw" is Frost Nova --> Immolate --> Vortex --> Frost Beam --> Frost Nova, and "Mouse and Keyboard" is Frost Nova --> Immolate --> Frostbeam --> Vortex (during Frostbeam) --> Frost Nova. Those Vortex casts are crucial to fast mob phases!

And for the reason for this rotation, the 45% more damage from Immolate increases all your damage sources to enemies that are under the Immolate effect. In an ideal scenario where you get to use a full channel of Frostbeam, Immolate will still be active for a fraction of second at the end of the channel, meaning Frostbeam, it's Frostfire damage and the final Thermal Shock are all increased by Immolate's effect. In practice during Trials, and especially high-level Trials, it is unlikely you will complete a full channel of Frostbeam, so that initial Immolate will definitely still be active when casting Frost Nova for the Thermal Shock. If you were to wait until after Frost Beam before casting Immolate, you lose the 45% damage increase to both Frostbeam and the Frostfire damage, and then lose out further with the final Thermal Shock because that is triggered off the remaining burning, the bulk of which comes from the Frostfire stacks - by delaying the Frost Nova cast an extra second you have wasted some of the burning damage that could have been multiplied into Thermal Shock.

It's a tricky one to test in the Training Grounds as there are a lot of pitfalls that can skew the results, however I've had a go at explaining those and mitigating them in this video below:-

Thank you so much for answering all my questions! That clears a lot of things up for me.

Mobile gang here so no vortex when beaming unfortunately.

By chance I also stumbled across a luck based mobbing scenario on mobile where Robins Disengage can extend the time slightly of the mobs getting beamed. The scenario is

(disengage)
nova-->immolate-->vortex-->beam-->nova

such that the disengage extends the time that the enemies are crushed into a tiny dot on your screen. Just an interesting thing I found (probably rediscovered) since I got Robin this AnB. It's not reliable unfortunately.

Ah, Robin has saved me many a time in the past, especially in the pre "belts, bracers, trinkets" times with old ELR. The most memorable was being close to beating Magroth and I failed to dodge his charge. I had barely no life left and stunned....he lined up the one hit to kill me and good old Robin went and triggered disengage and froze Magroth long enough for me to escape and recover!

[Bali_Lenni]

Thank you Wispy for this great info (the crucial part in particular) in the forum.

[Bali_Lenni]

Quite a beutiful little gem of inspiration. All this time I had always presumed, the longer one holds the beam, the more dmg inflict, including the themal shock right after beam stops on its own and one still has that 1 second to trigger it. Can't wait to test this, adjusting game play to correct timing/sequence and see what difference it will make in the "higher trial roadblock"...

[Bali_Lenni]

Thanks for the details.
"by delaying nova after beam.....you lose...."
So it is better to thermal shock before beam ends naturally, is how I translate this ?

Sorry I am a terrible tester, but I will try..

Another question: how crucial is Vortex before beaming in higher trials ? Let's say after Nova/immolating a group which is more or less nicely rounded up. Would you rather try and vortex before beaming even though there are pretty good chances you will die...or you take the safer path and beam straight away , then vortex and nova/thermal shock, to at least have the thermal shock do more dmg thanks to the vortex.....or is that not the way it works and one is better off keeping the vortex to do a better sequence next time around ?

Hahaa, or in other words really: what is the playing style to pass the higher trials roadblocks (in my case 147,148,149 start to be extremely hard to pass) for a mobile KritBuild ?

From the info above, my suspicion is, I have been using vortex too much for "general rounding up" of mobs, sometimes also just to stay alive, instead of saving them (3 Maggies/Eileens) for just before beaming.
Maybe I should focus on doing better at rounding up mobs , just the right size, with arclighning only, in order to have the vortexes ready and use the 100% correct sequence as often as possible, even if it means attacking less often ?

Anyway, I will try that and thank you for all the shared so far.
cheers

[Bali_Lenni]

Thrilled. Just made 148 after over 2 months of trying to do so.... so, this seems to have answered my question.
Sticking strictly to the correct sequence, patience patience, including beaming immolated and subsequentially vortexed groups only = makes a huge difference in the mob phase (managed to do this about 90% of beams). Elban spawned at about 4 minutes left, which is a pretty much a whole minute more, than I was able to achieve so far.

Was this just coincidental pure luck, or am I heading the right way ?

cheers

Definitely down to an improvement in your playstyle and skills, nothing to do with luck. As Bo mentions below, the next step to improving further is to time everything to coincide with Talisman procs, that's when the serious damage is done to enemies. You're completely on the right path, it just takes time and practise!

[bojck]

congrats Bali_Lenni : ) Mobile beam is tough, and I'm not an expert there, but I can give you a few valuable tips, but first to answer your question:

"So it is better to thermal shock before beam ends naturally, is how I translate this ?"

No. If possible, finish the beam, and cast nova as soon as possible.

Don't use vortex if you're not beaming afterwards. Unless you need to go through a wall of mobs, then vortex can make an opening, but that's not something to do all the time

The last bit to pushing max trials is using ToS properly. With a good strategy you should be able to utilize 9/10 ToS procs in mob phase (fit both frostbeam and thermal shock while ToS is up). To do this, you should make sure not to trigger ToS by accident. You can work on this in training grounds, e.g.

0. Setup: attack until ToS is up. Cast vortex, then beam
1. Wait until beam is available again. Do your usual sequence: nova, immo, (vortex), beam
2. Stop attacking. For 10 sec just stand there.
3. When your vortex and beam are ready, it is time to trigger ToS:
- cast nova
- wait 0.5-1sec to get into position, cast immo on top of the enemies - this should trigger ToS
- (vortex if you see fit) and beam
- cast nova again, while ToS is still up

Timing everything right is quite hard, but it can make a big difference.

One more tip: try which skills actually trigger ToS out of the ones you use

[Bali_Lenni]

Wow, thank you for these great tips ! That should keep me busy for awhile.

My initial thrills got a big damper from Keeper, "thou shallt not pass", Garm.
Tried dozens of combinations interchanging passives & gems _ all to no avail (of
course it helps if everyone's favourite dragon is spot on a right spot). Won't break the garn this season.... better of to use the time and try and work it all out with one of the additional worry-free bosses

So its back for some practice sessions, maybe Kara 140 or 135, {quite a relief to finally know what to look out for and focus on} and working out ToS in the training grounds _ I had no idea, that it can actually "be triggered"...

cheers for the roadsigns Bojck and Wispy {and to Finn for asking good questions}