Conjuror AA Setup (Post GU62 / AOD Release / 320 AA Cap) [Archive]

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Caethre

12-31-2011, 03:08 AM

Conjuror AA Setup (Post GU62 / AOD Release / 320 AA Cap)==========================================Rider------I am not an expert. I am just another player. I will potentially revise anything I have said below if provided with a good enough rationale for a normal player's playstyle for doing so.There is no "perfect spec", just a preferred one. Your mileage may vary.Any and all *constructive* comments welcome. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Background:---------------I have been playing Conjuror for years now, since 2004 actually, sad I know. Having just grinded Suzanna from 300AA to 320AA this very evening, reaching the new AA cap for the post GU62 / AoD release, it was time to sit down and go through the AA setup again, as I have not done this in, well, bloody ages. My first step was to head to these forums looking for any fresh advice. Finding nothing much, I re-read many of the older threads (especially the excellent stuff from Xalmat), and came up with my own setup, but based on my perception of my own needs and, in some cases, a limited understanding of the precise nature of a few of these abilities. So, I decided to share it.Take note that this setup is intended for the following types of conjuror players:- Those who have 320AA. Well, it is a full spec after all.- Those who prefer a one-size-fits-all setup, who don't want to be using AA mirrors all the time.- Those who are not wanting to spend any points on the tradeskill tab.- Those who are soloers, groupers or pickup or casual raiders.- Those who are not crazy min-maxers- Those who have NOT capped out on all their gear (or probably on any of their gear!).In summary, it is spending 320 AA for a player who is playing a conjuror but for fun and not for a job.If you are one of the 1% of players wanting a hardmode raiding setup for some hardcore guild, this is not the thread for you, go ask someone else, because that sure ain't me, never was, never will be. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />The AA Setup-----------------Follow the link:<a href="http://beetny.com/eq2aa/?GU62;502s184a11@3448@14a@248a188@3212s555551@1553 @2555@13325@2111551@25121y5@125@15@1552@215515@215 @255@11131e@1a@1a8a@2a@21">http://beetny.com/eq2aa/?GU62;502s1...e@1a@1a8a@2a@21</a>Summoner Tab-------------------I actually found this tab the easiest one to select.I take the left-hand line (formerly known as the STR line) all the way down to get Theugist's Minion, a nice DPS ability, including ten ranks in Wild Channeling on the way which is vital for that extra crit chance boost.I also take the right-hand line (formerly known as the INT line) all the way down to get Reanimate, as saving the pet from a splat is just too good not to have when the pet is the main source of our damage, and giving the pet ten ranks in Arcane Minion on the way only boosts that pet damage.I personally really recommend just the one rank in Transference at the top of the AGI line, because that little self-heal has saved me (or someone in a duo or such, where there is no healer) more times than I can count. More ranks however gain very little.Minion's Attention in the WIS line is *absolutely vital* for helping keeping the pet's aggro a little lower in groups where the tank is undergeared, or pickup raids where you are starting to be more DPS than the tanks can handle *chuckle*. So I took ten ranks there too.The rest was to get some ranks in Perceptor's Bodyguard in the STA line (the middle line). The number of points remaining meant I was limited to eight there.As for the bottom, eight rank's each in Aptitude of the Theurgist and Cabalist's Aura seem to be pretty much standard for most conjuror's, and two ranks in Elemental Toxicity is a no-brainer. And that is your 100 points spent.Conjuror Tab----------------Right, there are a bunch of things here that almost any conjuror is going to want, because they are just too good not to have. These are all big DPS boosts.Crystal Blast 5Ice Storm 5Fiery Annihilation 5Shattered Earth 5Earthquake 5Elemental Unity 5Blazing Avatar 2 (3AA per rank)Next come the pet protection boosts. The pet heal I use all the time.Heal Servant 5Summoning 5Stoneskin 3 (2AA per rank)Now after these, I chose:Cure Elemental (2AA for the 1 rank)Geotic Rune 5Petrify 5Summon Spells 5Vehement Skin 3Master's Intervention 3This last group were a little less obvious, especially the last three, but I had 75 points to spend in this section (given I wanted to spend 25 in the bottom of the tab). The smaller number of ranks in the last two are because it is very easy even with poor gear to get some reuse gain on Vehement Skin and Master's Intervention anyway, so three ranks was enough in my case. I can see this could be debatable.The bottom part is very easy however, because they are all so good:UnabateStoneskinsBubbleRunes of Geomancy 5Strength of the Elements 5Fury of the Elements (5AA for the 1 rank)Servant's Aid 5Elemental Blast (2AA for the 1 rank)And that is 100 points spent.Now this spec ignored the damage shield and the fire seed proc, because I find I do not get much out of them. As for speeding up shard of essence summoning, well, soloers and groups hardly use those anymore, and in most raids I go to, it's one raidwide cast every now and then in downtime between pulls and that's it. Regarding Plane Shift, I prefer using Soulburn all the time and Plane Shift interferes with that, so I hardly use it these days.I won't take Enhance Velium Winds as that reduces the snare duration (which is very useful being as long as possible thank you), and as for Sacrifice and Hydromancer, they are garbage, just ignore.Shadows Tab-----------------Now, I have to admit, I find it hard to find 70 points on this tab I actually want to spend at all, and so ended up wasting the last few just to spend them on something!General:Hearty Constitution 5Enhanced Mind 5Pet of the Gods 5Swift Strides 2Mage:Runic Protection 5Strike of the Mage 5Master's Strike 2BewildermentSummoner:Minion's Constitution 5Minion's Critical Strike 5Pet Weapon Mastery (5AA for the 1 rank)Summoner's Soothing 5Minion's MarkConjuror:Elemental Pact 5Blaze of Ro 5Chilling Winds 5Magic MasteryBlazing ConjurationThat's 70 points spent.Some notes:- The other conjuror line options other than the ones I chose do not look useful. As far as I have been informed, Offensive Onslaught actually has no effect if one is using a mage pet (and conjurors almost always use the mage pet these days, I know I always do, whatever I am doing). Since I only ever cast COH in downtime, who cares about reducing it's casting time / recast? And Minion's Protection might be of use to an Earth Pet officionado, but not really to mage pet users I think.- I tried Dimensional Storage, I found it annoying and fiddly to use, especially since if you store a "self buffed" pet, then recall it, all those buffs have gone. So I have dumped it.- Focused Disciple - who care about raidwide shard cast reuse in your average casual or pickup raid? I know I don't - total waste of AA.- Master's Strike I took 2 ranks because I think with my current Rygorr-based gear, that is enough to almost cap the reuse. Others may find value in a couple of ranks more.- The ranks in Pet of the Gods and Swift Strides were purely to put the points somewhere! If I had anything that looked better, I'd move them!Heroic Tab--------------Ability Aptitude 10Lightning Reflexes 10Expertise 10Critical Genius 8Minion's Power 10Soulburn (2AA for the 1 rank)That's 50 points spent.The bottom part was easy - I *love* soulburn, and use it constantly.The hardest part was in fact the top line. I chose ability modifier because currently the gear I have (Ry'Gorr-based) has very little spell modifier on it, and it was hurting to have so little. For those people picking up the +500 ability mod jewelry sets from the x4 raids, this would not be as good a choice, and perhaps health would be more useful in that case. But for those of us in nonraidgear but who have moved into the DOV gear from PQ to Thurgadin to Ry'Gorr, with quested or ToFSx2 jewelry, the ability mod may be your preference, it is mine (for now).Well, there we have it. That took longer to write than I thought. I hope it helps someone.

Banditman

12-31-2011, 04:09 AM

Take two points out of Minion's Attention to finish out Bodyguard. You are a DPS class. 8 points is enough to spend for helping a tank out. Every bit of health your pet gets adds to your DPS, in both hard and soft terms.Conjuror tree is a mess tbh.Shadows tree isn't very good. You don't have Dimensional Storage, which is an absolute must have ability for every Conjuror, regardless of gear level.Heroic tree is representative of a low end gear situation. Once your gear gets better, ie once your Ability Mod exceeds 1500, you want to drop the mod in the first line and go stats.This is my run around <a href="http://beetny.com/eq2aa/?GU62;502s184a11@344a@148@248a188@3212s@2455@15553 5@15555@2255@211551@25121y5@25@14@155@15@115@11@11 @1155@155@11131ea@2a8a@2a@21" target="_blank">normal spec</a>. I do have a pet tank spec that I can pull from a mirror, but I can't remember the last time I had to use it.

Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim

12-31-2011, 07:51 AM

Few suggestions.Summoner:If this is also intended as a solo build, maybe you want to place 8 points in magic leash so it always increases aggro position for the pet. Depending on what you do solo, this can be quite useful.Agree with Banditman here, if you go for Perceptor's Bodyguard, you should max it.For both you can take out points from Minion's Attention. And pay attention how often you need Reanimate. If you only need it rarely maybe agi line is better.Conjuror:Would suggest putting 5 points into planeshift. If your equipment isn't that good, you will profit from the increase in castspeed and crit. If you have better gear so that is maxed you should have the extra 25% potency for plane shift which will be increased to 30%. And solo it's always useful.Shadows:Take the points out of Summoner's Soothing and put them into Dimensional Storage. You should never get aggro and and spell is quite useful. Having no pet is the biggest loss to damage. Also nice for solo together with magic leash. If your pet dies pop out a new tankpet and press magic leash so it has aggro. Though same can be done with Bewilderment.Heroic:With time you will need less points in recast. Otherwise I agree with you here. Ability mod is prefered to int since it is transferred to the pet, we benefit twice from it. Even if 1-2 spells are capped but that isn't that easily done since with better equipment you not only get more ability mod but also more potency which increases the max für ability mod (50% of spell damage, for AE spells you get only 1/3 of the ability mod added to the spell).

Caethre

12-31-2011, 12:48 PM

Ok, let's look at the comments.Summoner Tree:<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Take two points out of Minion's Attention to finish out Bodyguard. You are a DPS class. 8 points is enough to spend for helping a tank out. Every bit of health your pet gets adds to your DPS, in both hard and soft terms.</blockquote><cite>Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim wrote:</cite><blockquote>If this is also intended as a solo build, maybe you want to place 8 points in magic leash so it always increases aggro position for the pet. Depending on what you do solo, this can be quite useful.Agree with Banditman here, if you go for Perceptor's Bodyguard, you should max it.For both you can take out points from Minion's Attention. And pay attention how often you need Reanimate. If you only need it rarely maybe agi line is better.</blockquote>Both of you recommend moving two points from Minion's Attention to Perceptor's Bodyguard. I considered that when I was building this spec, and opted for more hate reduction over more health for the pet. Hate is a big issue for many normal conjurors, and Minion's Attention is one of the best AA choices on the entire sheet in my opinion. However, eight ranks of it might be sufficient, I accept, and more pet health is also good, I can see this either way, so I will look into this suggested change.Jiraiya, that suggestion for Magic Leash is only relevant for soloing earth pet users, and in that case I would see your point. However, these days, I almost never see a conjuror using anything but a mage pet, I know I've not even cast the other pets in a couple of years now, even for soloing. In addition, this spec is not a dedicated solo spec, it is a one-size-fits-all spec for solo, groups and raids, and in my view Minion's Attention is far too important for use in groups/raids to drop even in that case!Re-animate is an interesting one. It used to be bugged, and I have been told it has been fixed, so I have kept it, but I am still never seeing it fire. I have to admit, though, that I have never specifically tested it and looked into it, I have just trusted the word of others that it is now working as described. I really need to look into it more. But that said, the AGI line looks really poor to me, there is nothing there I see as especially valuable for the cost, and if re-animate is working as described, I'd very much prefer to stick with it.Conjuror Tree: <cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Conjuror tree is a mess tbh.</blockquote><cite>Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would suggest putting 5 points into planeshift. If your equipment isn't that good, you will profit from the increase in castspeed and crit. If you have better gear so that is maxed you should have the extra 25% potency for plane shift which will be increased to 30%. And solo it's always useful.</blockquote>Jiraiya, I mentioned Plane Shift and why I don't like it/use it in the OP. Soulburn will not work if Plane Shift is active. I use Soulburn and I like to use it whenever it comes up - but I cannot use it if Plane Shift is up! Fiddling about clicking Plane Shift off is simply annoying and distracting. So these days I rarely cast Plane Shift in groups or pickup raids, unless I think the healers are rubbish or my pet is forever getting aggro and tanking and I can't risk Soulburn. So enhancing it is poor AA usage for me. Only when soloing do I still tend to use Plane Shift a lot (as I don't want a pet on a single hitpoint in a solo scenario of course), but soloing is only a fraction of what I do. The bottom line is - I prefer other choices.[Back a while, when Conjuror aggro was all messed up, I didn't used to take Soulburn because I had to have Energy Clash to even keep my pet alive, and so at that time I used Plane Shift a lot, but that's all history now.]Banditman, "a mess"? Not very helpful. I looked at your spec, and it is many regards similar to mine on this tab, so mine can't be that much of a mess! There are only four differences where you take something that I do not: You select Enhance Plane Shift 5 (which I have already discarded), Flameshield 5, Enhance Winds of Velious 5 and Enhance Shard of Essence 5.The reason I do not recommend Enhance Winds of Velious is given in my OP, this AA actually reduces the duration of the snare in Winds of Velious as well, and I consider that snare highly valuable - I have saved myelf and groups with that snare, buying time to nuke something down, and as such, therefore view this AA choice as actively bad - I would prefer unused AA points to choosing this!Flameshield, fair enough if you value it, once upon a time I had a few points in that, but now I prefer the other things I choose instead.As for Shards of Essence, I consider this to be a poor choice for me, as I hardly ever even cast shards these days apart from in downtime on pickup raids.In place of those four choices, I take: Enhance Heal Servant 5 (which I use constantly and consider a no brainer), Cure Elemental (geez this is a no brainer too), Stoneskins, Vehement Skin 3, Masters Intervention 3, Summon Spells 5 and one extra rank in Ice Storm.Nope, I definitely disagree with you on all four counts, and will stick with my selections here, and recommend accordingly.Shadows Tree:<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shadows tree isn't very good. You don't have Dimensional Storage, which is an absolute must have ability for every Conjuror, regardless of gear level.</blockquote><cite>Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim wrote:</cite><blockquote>Take the points out of Summoner's Soothing and put them into Dimensional Storage. You should never get aggro and and spell is quite useful. Having no pet is the biggest loss to damage. Also nice for solo together with magic leash. If your pet dies pop out a new tankpet and press magic leash so it has aggro. Though same can be done with Bewilderment.</blockquote>You both mention Dimensional Storage. I loved the idea of it, and I used it for quite some time. However, as I said in my OP, I have come to find it immensely fiddly and annoying to use in practice, and the fact that any stored pet comes back entirely unbuffed (even if stored with those buffs) makes it less useful than it might be. Bottom line is - I dumped this ability and will not be taking it again in its current form. That said, I am not saying it is a "bad" choice, some others may love it, and I can see its uses for those who do not find it annoying to use.I want to address this "you should never get aggro" statement. I find almost all forum-based raiding conjurors say this. However, I find *in game* that just about every real, normal player, does have an issue with unwanted aggro. Why? Because we play with real, normal players, who are just not all very good. I pull aggro all the time, and anything that reduces it significantly is a "good thing" (tm).That said, Soothing is not that great, I know. I just don't have anything else of greater value to me to select. I don't like this tree overly much, as I said.Heroic Line:<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Heroic tree is representative of a low end gear situation. Once your gear gets better, ie once your Ability Mod exceeds 1500, you want to drop the mod in the first line and go stats.</blockquote><cite>Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim wrote:</cite><blockquote>With time you will need less points in recast. Otherwise I agree with you here. Ability mod is prefered to int since it is transferred to the pet, we benefit twice from it. Even if 1-2 spells are capped but that isn't that easily done since with better equipment you not only get more ability mod but also more potency which increases the max für ability mod (50% of spell damage, for AE spells you get only 1/3 of the ability mod added to the spell).</blockquote>Banditman, that is not a "low end gear" situation (which implies only the weakest geared characters would have it). It is a normal situation for 99% of level 90 conjurors! Remember, again, the vast majority of players will not have +1500 ability mods from six x4 pieces of raidgear. Suzanna has precisely none of those pieces, and almost every conjuror I meet hasn't got any either. Yes, if everyone had all those raidgear pieces, the advice you gave there would be sound, but we don't. So get with the program, this thread ain't for super-geared raiders, k? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Jiraiya, sounds good.Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into the summoner tab comments.

Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim

01-01-2012, 01:39 PM

Summoner: Reanimate works great. I skilled it myself and really love it. Idea was just when you don't fight against HM Content, pet should survive much better and maybe it isn't really needed. That's why I said have a look at it if it procs. You should see it because the timer starts. The bug was/is (haven't heard if it is fixed but would be great if that is the case) that it doesn't proc if the damage is too high (70k+ or something in that range) and the pet dies with the spell active. But that wasn't much of a problem, only saw it happen twice and there a only a few mobs I haven't fought that other conjis have.In most raid situations 3 points in the deaggro proc is enough (+reanimate memwipe). In group situation more can be useful depending on the tank and the 1. TW+EB is often problematic. But 8 should be enough for all situations.I actually use tankpet quite often solo against t8 raidmobs, PR, SOH, VP... but with a real solo spec (Unflinching Servant, Damage reduction in heroic...). It's a good way to earn money.For Agi line, teamwork is a nice little damageboost for the group and the 20% chance for damage reduction is nice too. But it's not a must have.Conjuror:Ah didn't read the part with planeshift <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />.You can a makro that cancels plane shift if you use soulburn. I'm from the german server so not 100% sure it this is right, but should be something like "/cancel_maintained Plane Shift: Fire". (Have a look how exactly the spell is written in the description, maybe without space Planeshift?) So in a fight you cast soulburn, 5 secs later plane shift and when soulburn becomes active again you automatically cancel it with casting soulburn.This way you get half the duration of planeshift. Or cast it prefight, hit the first TW+EB and that cancel it by casting soulburn.I have the shards because of the little mana boost, it's sometimes useful against the manadrain mobs, but that's only a real problem in some HM fights, especially Drunder HM. Cast speed is irrelevant in high end.Can understand not taking winds of velious, don't have it in my solo build either. More Fire seed proc chance is useless, it's already high enough to be maintained indefinitely. Ok maybe in AE fights it helps. But the spell is pretty much useless anyway. Fireshield is a litte boost in damage, but not very important either. Again Shines a little in AE fights. But what could help is the strikethrough for fire seed. With that your tanks hits better and generates more aggro. It's not much but in group play not the worse thing you could take. Raid it depends if you have a tank in group (it only helps if you attack from the front, so pretty much useless for scouts)Shadow:Aggro is a problem but from my experience only for the pet. But Summoner's Soothing only reduces aggro for yourself, that's why it's useless for me. If you have other experiences take it but keep in mind that deaggro cap is 50% which can be achieved with illu and troub in group. And have a look at a parse, your pet should do much more damage than you. Ok what could be is, with 10 points in the deaggro proc pet is under you in aggro, so if mob memwipes or tank is really bad, than the mob comes at you.For Dimensional Storage, a new casted pet doesn't have buffs either. Reason for it is to safe the 5+ sec casttime during a fight to get a new pet.

Banditman

01-03-2012, 02:34 PM

Let's face it. What buffs does a pet REALLY need? (Answer: none.) Offensive stance is worthless. Defensive stance is utilitized only to increase the pet health for purposes of larger Soulburns. The proc'ed debuff is ok, but not worth time to cast midfight. Basically, when you lose a pet in midfight, Dimensional Storage allows you to resume DPS almost immediately, at almost your full potential with no additional time spent.AGI line is "ok", but really, when you are rocking out 150 - 200 potency, how much is 5% really worth? Really? Think about it. Take a spell that does 1000 damage. Going from 0 to 5% potency yields, as you expect, a 5% increase in damage, going to 1050 damage. Now, that same spell, with 150% potency hits for 2500 damage. Add in your 5% increase, and now it hits for 2550 damage. An increase of only 2%. At 200% potency, the increase is only 1.66%. You see, as you get higher in stats, the value of that buff decrease immensely. At 200% potency, the increase is only 1.66%.Yes, most people simply create a macro for Soulburn with the first line that reads: /cancel_maintained Plane Shift: Fire. This allows you to Soulburn as soon as it is up. Actually, my "typical" useage pattern for Plane Shift is to cast it before pull, wait for TW and hit my EB. Right after EB goes off (TW'ed and with the added potency from PS) I then immediately Soulburn, which cancels PS for me.Like Jir, the only time I would NOT take an upgrade to WoV is if I was solo'ing, and then only if I was solo'ing very hard heroics. I have a spec for that. However, 99% of the time I am in groups / raids and NOT taking the WoV upgrade is taking DPS away from me. I am a DPS class. That is my job. Anything that allows me to do my job more effectively = good.The Strikethru addition to Fire Seed would probably be welcome if you find yourself in groups with a tank with some regularity, but honestly, 5% is still pretty low. Strikethru only helps when the mob actively avoids an attack (Block, Parry). If you just plain miss, Strikethru doesn't do anything. (Accuracy however, would help that situation)

Jiraiya-of-Aphadrim

01-04-2012, 01:37 PM

1,66% more damage may not sound much, but let's put it in hard numbers. For example in the Kreegar HM fight yesterday, my group was doing around 600k damage and some of them did slack off so much more is possible depending on players and enemy but let's calculate with 600k. 1,66% of 600k are nearly 10k. Some of it was melee damage and procs that are not affected by potency. But the gain from teamwork is still around 8k.What are the alternatvise?I think everyone should take str line so we have to measure it with sta and int line.Sta line, here we have added damage for soulburn and shockwave. I read it adds around 50k more damage, correct me if that is wrong. That would mean 1,5-3k more dps depending on the length of the fight. (Initial hit plays less of a role on a long fight). Don't have any numbers for shockwave, but can't imagine it adding more than 1k, maybe more on big ae fights, but there teamwork will also bring more.Int line. Shadowstep is maybe 500, Arcane Minion won't bring much if you are already nearly capped on castspeed/recast, Minion's Uproar will add some damage, no idea how much brings, but can't image more than teamwork. But real reason to take int line is reanimate.So compared to the alternatvise, teamwork is quite great. And the heal and Cabalist's Cover can safe lives. Only reasons not to take it in a raid build are the aggro issues that some have reported.