Afflictions

[robbo79]

Hi everybody! I got a few noob questions for the afflictioners out there, i red the afflictioners guide on guides forum but still some concept are beyond my (limited) grasp. First of all the channel or link thing, how does it works exactly? Does it means that the spell last until you do another action? Is there any visual indications telling you that a spell linked instead of simply hitting?
Does concentration improves your chance of hitting or linking?

Do you have any general advice to give me about afflictions? (i were thinking about pursuing defensive afflictions tree)

Thank you all in advance

[sumoman]

Hi everybody! I got a few noob questions for the afflictioners out there, i red the afflictioners guide on guides forum but still some concept are beyond my (limited) grasp. First of all the channel or link thing, how does it works exactly? Does it means that the spell last until you do another action? Is there any visual indications telling you that a spell linked instead of simply hitting?
Does concentration improves your chance of hitting or linking?

Do you have any general advice to give me about afflictions? (i were thinking about pursuing defensive afflictions tree)

Thank you all in advance

The link appears as a glowing sphere above your avatars head with a different effect in the centre depending on what affliction spell cast.
And the link last until you do another action or until the mob/person eventually resists it
Concentration in my own experience helps alot with hittin
and im not gd at afflictions so i wont try and give advice

[sprite]

As Schizm said, the link is visible above your head and also as an effect on the mob sometimes (depending on the spell).

When you cast at a mob, 3 things can happen:

1) The mob resists, no effect from the spell and it aggros you

2) You get a "link-&-break"... The system info will say you linked and the link was broken (all happens immediately)... You won't see an effect above your head but you will see the spell effect on the mob - if it's root or stun or something then the mob will be affected for about 3seconds then will recover and aggro you... with others I'm not so sure how affected they are.

3) You get a proper link. The bubble will show above your head and the spell effect will show on the mob. Every "tic" the mob will try to break the link... If it fails then the link stays, if it succeeds, then the link is broken and the mob will recover quickly (the same as for a link-&-break)

You can also use the "Active links" window to show when you have got a proper link, but don't ask me what the number or the bar means because I have no idea

Oh and in my opinion, concentrate is a waste of time... I overcredit my afflictions (use 195 credit for a 100 spell) to get 100% success rate and it seems to work better than concentrate, but I think concentrate is one of those things that people debate over its usefulness *shrug*

[blaah]

how does it works exactly?

nobody knows. not even devs or they would have answered the question already (j/k

Does it means that the spell last until you do another action? Is there any visual indications telling you that a spell linked instead of simply hitting?

yep for both. you get little thingy over your char's head to show if afliction is linked (different thingy for differen afliction).
also, check your key config, there is extra window for linked aflictions.

Does concentration improves your chance of hitting or linking?

imho nope.

Do you have any general advice to give me about afflictions?

move close to mob (not too close and spam like hell. dont wait it to link, waste of time and you may end up without xp.

if you high enough already, then aflictions are very useful

[ghyselsj]

Hi everybody! I got a few noob questions for the afflictioners out there, i red the afflictioners guide on guides forum but still some concept are beyond my (limited) grasp. First of all the channel or link thing, how does it works exactly? Does it means that the spell last until you do another action? Is there any visual indications telling you that a spell linked instead of simply hitting?
Does concentration improves your chance of hitting or linking?

Do you have any general advice to give me about afflictions? (i were thinking about pursuing defensive afflictions tree)

Thank you all in advance

Afflictions work like this:
1. Cast the spell.
2a. No resist. The Enemy is afflicted for a certain (random*) amount of time.
2b. The Mob resists. Go back to step one.
3. The link is active and takes away some of your sap at set intervals (ticks). At every tick, the mob has a chance of resisting again, breaking the link. Performing another action will break it too. Walking I have noticed does not always break it, running generally does.

Visually, you will see a yellowish circle above your head, with a small animation in it, depending on which affliction you use (root is some roots sprouting up, fear is a ghost, etc.). However, if your link instantly breaks (almost like a resist) you still afflict it untill it wears off (takes a few seconds too sometimes) and it will appear in the system info window as any other link.

Concentration has no effect on hit or link chances, however, it does effect how easily your spells (all spells, not just afflictions) get interrupted. The higher your concentation (don't use a too high one though**) the higher level the mob will have to be to break your incantation.

To get less resist chance, check out your spell when editing it. Overpay it a little to improve your success rates (e.g. put 100 total credits on an 80 spell) but weigh benefits vs losses. 1% extra success isn't worth paying 20% more sap for example.

Then as to defensive or offensive, that's up to you. Except for fear and madness the 2 afflict types aren't too different (afaik... i'm not the highest affer either, but it's the skill I like most of all). The main difference is that offensive can be combined with an elemental spell, and defesive cant. However, defensive has fear and stun, fear being the only thing able to actually scare mobs away, and stun totally immobilizing them. In the offensive tree, root holds them in place and blind makes them miss most attacks, but stun does that in one spell. Offensive on the other hand has madness, which is the only affliction capable of doing damage against your target. It's a matter of preference mainly.

* This may be from .0001 seconds up to untill the enemy dies. Generally, the higher your affliction level compared to the mob level, the longer it will stick.

** If you examine the concentration bricks, they have an ptimal spell level. Use the concentration brick suited best for your spell, cause using a higher one will not make any difference, but it will cost more to cast.

Hope this helped.

Edit: bah I need to learn to type faster, you guys all beat me...

[sprite]

Edit: bah I need to learn to type faster, you guys all beat me...

Thats because we rock (j/k)

Also, since I missed the advice bit... here's some more...

As blaah said, when you are trying to lvl it then just spam the cast on the mob; don't wait to see if you link or not. Once you *do* link, then stop casting to preserve your stats (unless you have a fulltime healer) and/or just cast slowly and wait to see if you link before casting again - this way you will have more chance of getting xp (you spam till you link) and your aff will be useful to the team (you try and link after you have xp)

As for Defensive vs Offensive afflictions - there are 6 offensive vs 3 defensive.
You can combine OA with a nuke when you get the afflicting missile plan at lvl125 ele or OA so can make up some pretty funky spells (either in terms of looks or use).
Stun and Fear (defensive) are imo the 2 most useful afflictions, but sleep is really only useful if something resists the other two... with sleep, the link is automatically broken if the mob is hit by anything

Personally I'm lvling OA before DA, but thats just because I love my affnukes

[marct]

Best tip for being an effective Affliciontist in your group is to be the highest level skill being used or nearly the highedst level. This will help you be more effective in hitting the mob.

It is also keen to note that the baddies have resistances and weakness to certain spells. So you may find that a Stun hit very well on an Ocyx, but that they resist fear very very well. (Just an example, don't take my word for it.)

After 10 BaJillion casts of afflictions, you will figure out what works best on which baddies.

Noin.

[ghyselsj]

You can combine OA with a nuke when you get the afflicting missile plan at lvl125 ele or OA so can make up some pretty funky spells (either in terms of looks or use).

It's at lvl 100, just like drain nukes and double nukes.

[petej]

Oh lol so there are still things out there I dont know of (at ALL -theres lots I dont know the fine points of) , never knew about the "Active Links" window

Maybe I should RTFM now its been updated (and im not stuck with a French one)

[totnkopf]

Concentration has no effect on hit or link chances, however, it does effect how easily your spells (all spells, not just afflictions) get interrupted. The higher your concentation (don't use a too high one though**) the higher level the mob will have to be to break your incantation.

** If you examine the concentration bricks, they have an ptimal spell level. Use the concentration brick suited best for your spell, cause using a higher one will not make any difference, but it will cost more to cast

Have to disagree here. Concentration does effect how often you hit and how long the link will last. The higher the concentrate, the more often you'll hit and hold a longer link. The downside being that you drain a whole lot quicker. I realize that the text for concentration doesn't list any of these, and to be honest, I don't think it was intended for this to happen. I think it works by raising the level of the spell, plus raises the amount of credits used. I leveled my DA from about 100 to 250 in the void (250 mob zone). Without concentration, I hit once in a blue moon... with it, I hit enough to actually make it possible to level it. Now I'm doing the same with OA (currently about 190ish)

Tips:
*While the affs all claim to have the same cast time, they don't. Some animations are shorter than others and allow you more time to get a hit in on a mob before the rest of the team kills it.

*Get used to rejection. A lot of teams are less than willing to let an affer come into the team and either nerf the xp or not speed up the hunt. I found it best to find a group of people that were comfortable with it and just leveled it only with them.

*The Links window can be a big help in big groups. With all the nukes, especially after 125 when they get flashier, attempting to tell if you've got a link or not can be a pain. Searching the sys info for the link info can waste enough time that you don't get a hit in on the mob. The links window will let you know instantly if you're holding a link. Only down side is that it doesn't show anything when you get the "hit-and-break"