Contrived Weapon

[CrazyPaladin2]

<p>I have Contrived Weapon @ master 1 and this CA has bugged me for awhile, so does Surveillance for that matter.  The reason?  A relatively long cast time.</p><p>I have used it since it was changed awhile back as part of my main CA lineup.  Use when it refreshes.  I have always tried to limit my use of Surveillance if I feel I don't need the deagro.  With Getaway as an extra stealth it's rare that I need to use it unless I get lagged or my rythm breaks when popping Concealment and chaining my stealth CA's.</p><p>So onto Contrived Weapon.  In a zonewide parse it ranged from 625-1683 damage (average of 1140).  This adds up of course, but does it reduce Autoattack damage?  I sometimes feel that it does so I stopped using it while in melee range.  My weapon hits were 181-2791 (average of 866).</p><p>I have only tried not using this for 1 zone.  What do you all think?  Use it all the time regardless of weapons?  Use it depending on weapons?  Never use it in melee range?</p><p>Atm I'm a little lazy and don't step back and fire off range attacks or CA's.  When I get a good bow I may test it out again (i'm using a throwing weapon with 10dps adornment now).  I will then probably use Contrived Weapon while moving back in.</p><p>My current weapons are GDOH primary and either Vyemm's Fang or Wurmy secondary (until I get DoN or RoD).</p>

[LoreLady]

Contrived weapon can be cast on the move - although it has a 1.5s cast time - it will still boost dps.. It is also a great ability to use while jousting and your dots are on.. Also contrived weapon can be used in melee range. .

[CrazyPaladin2]

<cite>LoreLady wrote:</cite><blockquote>Contrived weapon can be cast on the move - although it has a 1.5s cast time - it will still boost dps.. It is also a great ability to use while jousting and your dots are on.. Also contrived weapon can be used in melee range. . </blockquote><p>Sorry, but this just restates the obvious.  I know it can be cast on the move, used while jousting, can be used in melee range, and if used will add to dps.  In trying to maximize dps i'm looking for new ways.</p><p>To be more specific here are some <b>possible</b> reasons not using it in melee range would be better than using it.</p><p>Missed autoattacks.  Even a minor amount of haste will cause fast delay weapons to get less chances to hit.  With a large amount of haste medium delay weapons will have less chances to hit.  Only the slowest weapons may not have less chances to hit, but depending on what is qued up prior to Contrived Weapon, slow weapons could lose chances also.  Example... w/ alacrity and item haste i'm at 90% haste not to mention our temp haste or any other haste we may have on us.  Few weapons outside of GDOH have a high delay that does not get reduced below Contrived Weapon casting speed.  A fast delay WILL miss a good chunk of autoattacks over the course of a whole zone.  Even the slow weapons can miss based on timing of hit.  We cast a 1/2 second CA, 1/2 second cooldown, 1 1/2 second Contrived, 1/2 second cooldown, next 1/2 second CA, 1/2 second cooldown.  Now depending on when GDOH hit before, we may not see a GDoH hit till the 3rd cooldown.  We would also have lost a hit from a fast/medium weapon during Contrived.</p><p>Slowed CA casts.  I find myself rarely having no CA's up.  Casting Contrived Weapon as opposed to our other CA's commits you alot longer.  Many times I find Contrived casting and other CA's refreshing while it's still casting.  Not casting certain CA's like mark right after they are back up can cause a good loss of dps over time.  Also, depending on the mobs you are killing or the situation you can lose a key ability at a bad time and get a big dps loss.  Example... Dispatch is called while Contrived is in the que or casting.  This delays the cycle of my large attacks I usually start after Dispatch.  In addition, when you have a raid force that is doing crazy dps, some mobs get to below 20% before you know it and a qued up Contrived Weapon can be enough to throw off timing and miss that Finishing Blow (I hate missing FB!).</p><p>So, by no means am I saying Contrived Weapon is useless.  I just wanna get some assassins thinking on this.  Is it possible in some melee situations to just leave it alone and get a higher ZW parse?  Without a great assassin group (no illusionist and missing alot of buffs I usually want) I still parsed 1900 ZW in HoS without using Contrived Weapon.  I can't really compare other parses to this as groups can vary.  It also would not account for intangibles like poor timing.</p><p>Anyways,  maybe I am putting more thought into this than needed and should ignore my gut feeling and just use Contrived Weapon with more caution.      </p>

[Dasto]

<p>I was asking myself this question just yesterday, I guess no one really knows</p><p>My gut feeling is that contrived weapon and auto attack are about the same.  </p>

[judged_one]

I usually use it on my way back in from our 2 ranged CA. 2 steps back Jump back cast 1 back range CA, auto attack range, and then another back range CA, Cast contrive, 2 step up and jump.Resume meleeing

[Jayad]

If you have good weapons and crits, I can't see jousting for a puny range CA to be worth it at all. Maybe if you're bored.

[judged_one]

<cite>Jayad wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you have good weapons and crits, I can't see jousting for a puny range CA to be worth it at all. Maybe if you're bored.</blockquote>Don't know, but I crit for 3.5k+ with ranged CA and poison + other are procing off it quite often. So all in all each combo I get up to 10k damage. And it takes about 4-5 sec. I usually use it when after I chained concealment, and horned + DPS buff is down.

[Jayad]

So the best case as you list it is 10k in 4-5s. Best case = 2500 dps. With more likely being less than that. If you have melee-only procs like Agitate, they also won't work off ranged so you lose some potential there as well.

[Graton]

contrived weapon is very useful if used AFTER range attacks. using it before popping range attacks is a terrible idea. the usefulness of contrived weapon comes in it's ability to start the delay timer on melee auto attack from range. if you're jousting you backpedal and hit a neckshot or asp as soon as you head back in pop contrived weapon. this switches the auto attack delay back to melee so that you're already swinging by the time you reach the mob. it saves auto attack swings and adds damage. as for using it when you don't need to joust that really depends on the setup. if you don't have a lot of haste you can get a bit of a boost from it but it's kind of wash from when i've parsed it.

[Executi]

Contrived Weapon can help your dps a lot if you use it at the right time. Always use it when you use exacting. The amount of damage it does it increased by 30%. Also for me, on out calls, when my bow delay is around 5ish seconds with haste modifiers...I'll back out, get auto-bow, immediately use my 2 back bow CA's, then contrived weapon. This restarts your auto-attack, so that when u get in, you'll immediately hit with your GDoH. cuz auto-bow + 2 ca's  = 4.0 seconds with recast. 4.5 you use contrived, .5 seconds later you're in and attacking with your melee weapons again.. On the other hand, sometimes people wanna stay out longer to get in two autobows, because with autobow crits on higher end bows, your dps will certainly increase. So on out calls, you could autobow, 2 bow ca's, contrived weapon, switch back to autobow for one more shot... then go in and hit ca's for 5 seconds until your auto-attack melee weapon can be used again, which is another 5 seconds, so another 4 quick ca's...auto-attack hit... then back to dpsing as usual. Ultimately for me, I use contrived weapon during exacting periods and out calls. Otherwise, I don't, unless all my ca's are down, I see my melee weapon go off, and I want to just use one ca. Because otherwise, it'll just further delay ur auto-attack dps because of it's long cast timer; if you have haste you should be hitting every 2.2ish seconds and the cast timer is 1.5 if im not mistaken...giving you only the time to use that CA before your auto-attack hits again.. Sorry this is kind of a sloppy analysis, but you get the drift. Execution

[Graton]

<cite>Execution wrote:</cite><blockquote>Contrived Weapon can help your dps a lot if you use it at the right time. Always use it when you use exacting. The amount of damage it does it increased by 30%. Also for me, on out calls, when my bow delay is around 5ish seconds with haste modifiers...I'll back out, get auto-bow, immediately use my 2 back bow CA's, then contrived weapon. This restarts your auto-attack, so that when u get in, you'll immediately hit with your GDoH. cuz auto-bow + 2 ca's  = 4.0 seconds with recast. 4.5 you use contrived, .5 seconds later you're in and attacking with your melee weapons again.. On the other hand, sometimes people wanna stay out longer to get in two autobows, because with autobow crits on higher end bows, your dps will certainly increase. So on out calls, you could autobow, 2 bow ca's, contrived weapon, switch back to autobow for one more shot... then go in and hit ca's for 5 seconds until your auto-attack melee weapon can be used again, which is another 5 seconds, so another 4 quick ca's...auto-attack hit... then back to dpsing as usual. Ultimately for me, I use contrived weapon during exacting periods and out calls. Otherwise, I don't, unless all my ca's are down, I see my melee weapon go off, and I want to just use one ca. Because otherwise, it'll just further delay ur auto-attack dps because of it's long cast timer; if you have haste you should be hitting every 2.2ish seconds and the cast timer is 1.5 if im not mistaken...giving you only the time to use that CA before your auto-attack hits again.. Sorry this is kind of a sloppy analysis, but you get the drift. Execution </blockquote>staying at range to get in an extra bow attack makes no sense. our melee auto attack is far superior to our range auto attack. once you fire off a ranged ca, you should head back in with contrived weapon. the part about exacting is a good point though.

[Executi]

Au contraire. Yes, our melee dps is superior to our ranged dps, but a bow will always hit harder than a dual wield, unless of course your bow is a piece of rotten poo. So, if you wanna take an auto-bow, 2 ranged ca's, auto-bow, then contrived weapon on your way back in, depending upon your bow; your dps might slightly increase. For example, one with a Bazkul should probably immediately return in because your crits are only going to hit for 5ish to 6k, while crits with Star Darkened Longbow and Wuoshi's bow will near 10k.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)