Azarael wrote:Having left the live game in 2009, I rely on the playerbase to give me correct advice regarding how certain abilities worked on live. At the time, no Chosen contradicted the report regarding the handling of Discordant Fluctuation.
Now would be a good time for the community to decide how it worked.
DF was OP on keep Takes and Sieges. It reflected back the 112+ damage to the caster for each party member in the Chosen's group hit by the spell - 672 damage per tick and it would tick on every tick of AoE. I can remember Keep Takes when my Chosen was at the door and some poor Bright Wiz would drop an AoE. The damage ticks would burn him down. He'd get a rez in the keep, but because his spell was still active, the damage ticks would hit him and insta-gib him a the spawn point. Engineers with their AoEs suffered the same fate for some reason (the reference above to normal ranged attacks is where this comes from).
The DEVs Nerfed DF down to "No Reason to Use" status as it only reflected 46 points of damage per party member and dishing out 276+ damage (versus 672) is a pretty meaningful drop in potency. Solo it was worth less than the buffs other auras provided.
I never used it after that point with the possible exception to dueling for fun, but even then, it was pretty worthless.
EDIT: If you are looking for an opinion on how to properly fix it so that it is useful for large scale Keep Takes I suggest the following;
1. Increase the base damage for just the Chosen so that it's at least viable solo. Maybe use the 112 damage number?
2. Keep it as a damage tick per party member affected but make it an additive damage for each additional party member not multiplicative.
In this way, it's a meh solo Aura, but in group settings, it becomes viable as we all know how casters like their AoE.
Base damage stays at the original spec 112 minus resistances by target. It's not great, but as a semi passive choice it's Meh 1v1.
Simply add 45 damage per party member under the DF that is affected by the casters damage spell per tick.
1 = 112 damage, 2= 157, 3 = 202, 4 = 247, 5 = 292, 6 = 337 (minus any resistances)
Taking backlash damage of 337 points for dishing out an AoE may be a little strong at the lower tiers, so those numbers could be adjusted based upon level/tier; however, as the only way a Chosen can damage an enemy caster on the top of a wall in a siege, it should be somewhat meaningful or DF becomes another useless aura.
