Obdurate Set-For the Huge Win!!

Update 1.2: I have realized that the good T4 players usually have high resists around 550s. The soft cap is around about 650. The Archmage buff they get increases that by a good amount. If your target’s resistance is considerably (200 or more) less than 650 then the Obdurate set is viable. However, the spirit resistance easily goes above 650 and the Erosion proc becomes less effective. The closer they are to 650 the less effective the set is. For insance if their resists are at 550 and they get resist buff of 200, then the resistance will be at 750 which is 43%. If you debuff that, then they’ll be at 550 which is around 35%. You only debuffed 8% compared to what 200 is worth before the soft cap, which is 12%. As of patch 1.2 I am not using this set anymore. Neither will I use a 5 piece DP set.

On the bright side, thanks to your self resist buff, you will be able to almost negate the Engi and BW resist debuffs if you have resistances close to 650.

Update Note: Since I posted this article I have done some testing and had to make some changes, particularly about Frozen Touch not proccing the Erosion debuff, as well as Erosion debuffs, despite of appearing twice on a target, not stacking. Debuffs don’t stack, even if they appear twice. Two effects debuffing the same stat only counts the larger of the two. (this item is not so beneficial for bw’s ).  I have also noticed that Erosion does not proc off Shades of Death but it procs off individual dot ticks. So, Chillwind would give you 3 ticks (second 3,6,9); aoe dots would give a lot more ticks (huge advantage). I updated the numbers based on these.

I have been itching to share some incredible findings.

One of my Magus friends recommended the Obdurate Seal Set, he said he tried it in an instance and loved it. I went to wardb.com to check out the items.

The items have some of the highest resists on jewelry, which is great for us Sorcs. Compared to our regular 2 jewelry pieces of +20wounds /+20 int each, they will cost you 27 wounds and 40 int while giving about 13 Toughness (and some weapon skill which is not worth mentioning). So you loose about 40 int and 27 wounds, gain a bit of toughness and above 150 resistances for each magic defense stat. You also gain set bonuses. the 2 set bonus of this jewelry set is a 10% chance to debuff all enemy resists by 200 for 10 seconds upon damaging them (Erosion). The 3 set bonus is a 25% chance of debuffing 50 morale on being hit, which I did not find too appealing. Erosion is also the 5 set bonus of Darkpromise armor set. While debuff effect is known not to stack, my hypothesis is that the chance to proc would increase to 19% while this set and 5 pieces of Darkpromise are worn.

So why was I so interested in the 2 set bonus? It procs on damage. Ticks. Let us think: 10-11 second rotation, 6/7 casts, For example one of my main rotations: WoP + Chill + ShadesOfDeath + VisionOfTorment + Gloom + ImpDoom + HoR hits with 8 + 3 ticks, 3 ticks for Chillwind. Each tick has 10% chance to proc the 200 resist debuff for 10 seconds. So you have 69% chance to proc this resist debuff by the end of your rotation.

In the above rotation, before 9^th second where you have your biggest burst as WoP, VoT and HoR hit at the same time at second 9, you get ticks from ImpD, Gloomburst and 3 ticks from Chillwind . By the time of the big burst at 9th second where WoP, VoT, HoR hit at once, the chance of Erosion to debuff is as high as 57%. (5 ticks before 9th second, 3 spells hit at 9th). Having the Obdurate set and Darkpromise at the same time would increase Erosion proc chance to 82%.

As a baseline for sorc: 100int = 8% crit = 6% damage = 100 resist-debuff. This data is rounded, but it’s a rule of thumb which I came up with after forum research and combat parsing.

What does this mean? For a Sorc this ring is 12-13% damage if resists are debuffed all the time. Worst case scenario for a given target, 2/3 of your damage has 57% chance to increase by 13%. On an Average that is ~5% damage increase (equivalent to 62.5 int). All you loose is the 40 int, which is 3.2% damage and 26 wounds. There is also the huge resist bonus you get so casters won’t be annoying you.

If you consider using the Obdurate set together with 5 piece Darkpromise, the damage increase would be 2/3 of your damage has 81.5% chance to increase by 13%. Which would make ~7% damage increase. Which proves that Erosion is not as effective when procced from 2 different set bonuses.

The Obdurate set, cost&benefits considered, is a HUGE win for us in the end game where the most precious thing we lack is a resist debuff. It gives 13/9/0 sorcs about 10% more protection against spells, average 5% more damage while only taking away 26 wounds and ~3.2% damage due to loss of 40 int .

Muradi

More SpellDamage Posts:

• Tactics as of 1.2.1
• Situational Awareness for the noobish Sorc
• Black Orc and Sorceress a Great Duo!?