Spell Scourge + Fading Chaos = Brain Nova! (The secret coercer uber nuke!)

[tracheaspider]

<p>So I was screwing around in Castle Mistmoore on my coercer and wasn't mezzing much after initial pull of the 5+ groups since we had very decent heals and DPS and wanted the group to be able to use AEs.  And since I wasn't locking mobs down, I was popping Spell Scourge to get in a wee bit of DPS of my own.  Only trouble was, I'd be getting massive aggro from one of the mobs the tank wasn't directly targeting.  I finally tracked down the source of the problem: the secret coercer uber nuke that I shall call "Brain Nova."</p><p>Basically, if you have Spell Scourge on any of the mobs that can cast Fading Chaos (that incredibly annoying cast speed debuff that shows up as an elemental AE), it will count as an individual spell cast for every group member it lands on.  With 6 points in Enhance: Spell Scourge, this meant a potential of 5 triggers of Scourge all at once.  Plus I had Harmonious Link on myself in a silly attempt to reduce this mystery aggro.  Debuffed, the mob was taking maybe 1300-1600 per trigger and average 450 from Link.  Added up, that's upwards of 6950 - 8450 all in one shot.  (I don't recall it ever critting, but that would have made for some truly insane spike damage, plus you could put Link on more people for kicks if you wanted.)</p><p>I think this also happens with Treyloth in FTH when he casts Contagious Lockdown (or whatever it's properly called) because I was getting dead there today and it would make logical sense that each trauma = 1 spell cast when compared to Fading Chaos.  (We had a guest from another guild who says their coercer also has inexplicable trouble w/ Treyloth aggro.)</p><p>I doubt this is working as intended, but it's sure fun to play with the timing in order to get a huge "Brain Nova" after you know what's causing it.  I hope if they do fix this they address some of the broader coercer reactive DPS issues (such as it not existing outside special cases like this one) at the same time.  Till then, enjoy making vampires nuke themselves down by an enitre health bubble or two.</p>

[madha]

That explains why i keep dieing in FTH.. thank so so much stayin away from that spell during that fight... Allthough it is nice to hit the parse during raids id rather not have to cast my 13+ buffs.

[redde]

I think this has been the case for a while. If you can predict (or have it well timed) when the mob is going to use his AE and you throw on tashania that boosts it even higher!

[Obsidiann]

Sounds cool. I'm not sure what the spell is called but the Sentries in Vaults have an AOE that can trigger procs pretty well, too. When they use it all 3 go off, hitting for about 3500 or so per target.

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<p>I remember back in the day when our spell would proc damage for each target the mob hit with the AoE. Imagine 24x the single proc. whoo! That was nerfed fairly quickly.</p>

[Sydias]

<p>I noticed this same thing in Castlem Mistmoore.  I wasn't able to narrow it down to a specific ability that the mob used, but I could see it was happening.  I mean I normally don't see 6 numbers all >1,000 all fly above the mob's head at once, so I knew something was wrong.</p><p>The way I deal with this is to wait until the mob is down to 50% and use only auspex.  Once the mob is under 50% there should be significant hate generated, so then I put the spell scourge on and wait for it to do the super fast reactive tick.  This works specifically if you have the other targets in the group mezzed.</p>

[tracheaspider]

<p>One thing I wanna point out is that not all AEs are counted as individual casts per group/raid member hit (alas!).  For instance, the wandering bard mobs that look like the level 20 necro mage pet in Unrest (uninvited guests?) have about 3 AEs and only one of them seems to count as multiple single target casts from what I've seen.  But you can super nuke them occasionally if you keep Scourge on them whenever it's up.</p><p>I also discovered earlier this week there's a trauma (?) AE the non-golem sentry type mobs (plane shifted tank pet look) in HoS do that can get all 5 triggers off Scourge at once.  Not sure if they can also take all triggers of Auspex too, but I know I was spiking <i>extremely</i> high on these guys before they came over to swat me.  (And just try explaining you were testing the interaction of reactive damage and inconsistent mob AE mechanics to an angry raid leader.)  Maybe I'll get another chance to go in there and see just what was going on.</p>

[foiled_again]

I use spell scourge on Treyloth everytime we kill him....never caused a problem for me