improved crit 2 or life burn

[controller]

well i was windering what to get next, i raid maybe twice a week and i solo the rest of the time. so what do you guys think

[Badvok]

I am kind of at this point too, personally I am maxing all the ICA aa's first.

Critical Affliction is the gift that keeps on giving, it improves DPS whether you are soloing or on a raid, it will help you get more aa's quicker and more efficiently. Lifeburn, from my understanding is more specialised in its usage and not that much use when grinding out the aa's (occasional quicker kill).

Badvok (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=881442)

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by controller@Aug 31 2005, 05:00 PM
well i was windering what to get next, i raid maybe twice a week and i solo the rest of the time. so what do you guys think
I got LB to get it, but ICA is much more valuable.

[shraklor]

well i was windering what to get next, i raid maybe twice a week and i solo the rest of the time. so what do you guys think

if you may or may not raid 2x a week, and during those raid you probably only get to DoT the boss MOBs .. so you get to DoT 6-8 times while raiding but for all the trash you are nuking. point LB

LB has re-use timer on it I believe. neg point LB

if you solo 7 days a week and (without seeing a magelo for lvl and HP) during your soloing you DoT DoT DoT DoT and only tap DD when health drops due to hit or lich, then it's still gonna be 5-6 DoTs vs. 1 nuke which wouldn't even be LB since low health == low LB damage. point * (number of days soloing) ICA

ICA can crit every other tick of every DOT (doubtful but it COULD). point ICA


so to me either way you look at it, ICA wins, LB is nice when raiding with 8K+ HP but for less then that ICA wins. Just remember to FD in case you get a few crit together...

[nethyia]

If you raid at most twice a week, and sometimes less, crit affliction lines are way to go. Lifeburn is going to do how many hps you have in damage, plus 1500 damage in DoTs, *once* ever 144 minutes (2 1/2 hours about!), and has a long cast time, so hard to use when kiting.

Unsure of your level and gear, so to compare the 2 using where you might be in content is hard, but I wish I had held off lifeburn till I had gotten elemental geared (not hard to get equivelent nowadays, though, with OoW and DoN gear), and till you get better than elemental gear, then your lifeburn will still be only up there with maybe a Mage's max crit nuke, nowhere near a wizzies, so can't even show off better-than-wizzie nuke. If you get ICA 2 and 3, nobody may see it, but you can out-do a mage's crit with 1 tick of dots critting, and a lucky crit nuke going off.

So yeah, rambled a bit, but I'd go with ICA2 and 3 before lifeburn. (trivia: crit affliction line can increase damage of lifeburn, as you can crit on the DoT portion of it, BA will not increase the DoT though, and can't crit the nuke portion).

[flishtaco]

heh, I am not the biggest LB propenent anyway ( yes I have it and yes I use it but its usually only to try an grab a ks on a boss)

go crit AA get all those first LB is a toy, like the pets.

I usually raid with one or two other necros, and they are on my level or lower AA/gear wise and with all raid buffs I run around 6800 hit points, so even if all 4 of us necros in alliance are on the raid at the same time and burn thats what like 24kish damage, so Quarm goes from 5% to 1% sure he dies faster but if your force got him to 5% you are still just trying to out KS the win is already in the bag.

Maybe with higher gear/raids targets its more valuable. Where I am in game we are just now flaggin thru Uqua, had our first success <kicks rock> on a day I was working. So about 50%ish of alliance can now move into what ever zone that is past ikky4/uqua, and we farm time usually once a week.

One thing that should be obvious with LB if your full life with lots of hitpoints is the best time to use it. If the fight is going marginal and may wipe then you are gonna have to be real sure on using it. If you are not at least 80-90% certain that your Burn can kill it or push the win over the top, then dont use it run and FD, better for you to live and rez everyone else, provided of course that you on this marginal win still even have enough life saved up to toss at the mob for Burn to even matter.

On non raid days if soloing I will use burn right away (well once I am in me spot and have me kite on) as this is the most likely time for me to have a Virtue/Vicky and will probably be the best bang I get out of it for that 2.5 hours and usually gives me another shot to pop it afore I go to bed for nite.

If grouped I will hold onto it for need, but long story short CA>LB, and as I have discussed before so are about 200ish AA (well at least imho)

[Xislaben]

Originally posted by shraklor@Aug 31 2005, 08:15 PM
well i was windering what to get next, i raid maybe twice a week and i solo the rest of the time. so what do you guys think

if you may or may not raid 2x a week, and during those raid you probably only get to DoT the boss MOBs .. so you get to DoT 6-8 times while raiding but for all the trash you are nuking. point LB

LB has re-use timer on it I believe. neg point LB

if you solo 7 days a week and (without seeing a magelo for lvl and HP) during your soloing you DoT DoT DoT DoT and only tap DD when health drops due to hit or lich, then it's still gonna be 5-6 DoTs vs. 1 nuke which wouldn't even be LB since low health == low LB damage. point * (number of days soloing) ICA

ICA can crit every other tick of every DOT (doubtful but it COULD). point ICA

so to me either way you look at it, ICA wins, LB is nice when raiding with 8K+ HP but for less then that ICA wins. Just remember to FD in case you get a few crit together...
I rad 6 days a week, and on any given day I dot a great deal. Take time for instance, there's lots of gods and a bunch of minis in p3 that live long enough for a few dots. Then there's ikkinz which has a bunch of minis that get dotted as well. The trash in any raid gets a nuke if anything, maybe a nice soul orb, and that's if it stays alive long enough for it to land.

ICA maxed is 18% dot crit, so that's just under once every 5th tick. Of course if you have 6+ dots running you'll see on ave at least one of them critting per tick and probably more. I love seeing DN crit 3x in a row.

[Xelgadis]

There really isn't a choice here, Improved Critical Affliciton is a far more worthwhile investment than Lifeburn is. Lifeburn is very situational; mostly I save it for when a raid screws up and a win is questionable, we're on the last raid target for the night and I feel like using it, I get pissed off at some fricken cleric mob who's channeled like 5 or more CHs in a row, etc. You'll always reap the benefits of the Critical Affliction line, everytime you have a dot running. Lifeburn really needs to be reworked, as I see it, but that's neither here nor there, as what needs to be reworked about it is very subjective in the community.

[Mallakith]

Agrre with Xel... well who'd dare disagree ;-)

Currently on raid mobs my lifeburn does 8800hps damage and most mobs dont even tick down a % point...

Its a fun nuke tho and free so worth getting at some point