[BW] Smoldering Embers tactic

[Tisaya]

25% to re-apply Ignite, Boiling Blood or Slow Boil

What do you think about it? I don't see anyone else but myself running it, but I think it's good and underrated.

1) Your rotation is much less likely to be screwed up by cleanse. Any healer worth his salt WILL try to cleanse you as soon as he sees you preparing the stamp.
2) You save GCD and CD on skills. Less important for Ignite and Slow boil, huge for Boiling Blood, you are have a chance to shave off 5 cd from BB, detonating it every 5s instead of 10s, potentially multiple times in a row.
3) You damage self less, as you manually re-apply skills less often.
4) Dots re-applying themselves can finish off escaping targets. This is the least important, as you are unlikely to be in a situation where the target wouldn't have a healer around to save them, but it does happen.

Obvious con of the tactic is that you have to go high up the Immolation path to get it, but I think it's still worth it. Personally, I go all the way up the middle path to squeeze every last bit of damage from BB, so for my build it's not really a con.

[bw10]

i used to run it when i played bw like two years ago. led to some very memorable moments. the best one was shaman running away from me, with smoldering embers reapplying bb 3 times, he died at the edge of my los.

[Gladiolix]

Biggest reason that I don't use smoldering embers, is that there are better tactics to use.
Ignition and fuel to the fire are mandatory in ST spec. Then endless knowledge, crown of fire and fueled from within compete for the other two tactic slots for me usually. All these tactics work realiably against all targets in all situations, smoldering embers is too situational imo.

Also 3) is false as reapplication causes explosions. (Unless its a tooltip error, haven't fiddled enough with smoldering embers to have confirmation of this)

[wonshot]

Last I tested it on dummies, I just didnt find the probability high enough to get something meaningful out of the reappiance on final tick. I do see the point about clenses, but not fully sold on the oppotunity cost of giving up stuff like Flashfire or other tactics.

The reapplication should have a chance to create a Combution explotion (even though about if you could do something funky combined with Explosive Force tactic)

IIRC boilingblood and Slowboil counts as debufs and not DD so they cant proc Flames of Rhuin (Crown of Fire) so probably also lower value in those tactics for timestamping unless you more so rely on first tick of Fireballbarrage and/or Witheringheat and other instant DDs.

The playstyle of suprice bursting someone down 100-0 before they can break LoS or detaunt you, I feel like the RNG chance of reapplying dots is going against the theme, though I do see some value in pressureing awake healers more with dots getting reappiled on clenses. But overall Flashfire and fitting in an instant Fireball after your golden window connects (all dots lined up no disrupts and no clenses, still LoS, no challenge or detaunts etc etc) seem like a better RNG tactic to give some control in your own hands.

[Aluviya]

25% to re-apply Ignite, Boiling Blood or Slow Boil

What do you think about it? I don't see anyone else but myself running it, but I think it's good and underrated.

1) Your rotation is much less likely to be screwed up by cleanse. Any healer worth his salt WILL try to cleanse you as soon as he sees you preparing the stamp.
2) You save GCD and CD on skills. Less important for Ignite and Slow boil, huge for Boiling Blood, you are have a chance to shave off 5 cd from BB, detonating it every 5s instead of 10s, potentially multiple times in a row.
3) You damage self less, as you manually re-apply skills less often.
4) Dots re-applying themselves can finish off escaping targets. This is the least important, as you are unlikely to be in a situation where the target wouldn't have a healer around to save them, but it does happen.

Obvious con of the tactic is that you have to go high up the Immolation path to get it, but I think it's still worth it. Personally, I go all the way up the middle path to squeeze every last bit of damage from BB, so for my build it's not really a con.

It's very much useless compared to other tactics like flash fire one can take or being in the proc meta - proc related buffs. Also the magic about both sorc and bw are that you narrow down a big portion of your damage to a small timewindow - this tactic does somewhat exactly the opposite of it if you ask me.

[Gladiolix]

Spoiler:

25% to re-apply Ignite, Boiling Blood or Slow Boil

What do you think about it? I don't see anyone else but myself running it, but I think it's good and underrated.

1) Your rotation is much less likely to be screwed up by cleanse. Any healer worth his salt WILL try to cleanse you as soon as he sees you preparing the stamp.
2) You save GCD and CD on skills. Less important for Ignite and Slow boil, huge for Boiling Blood, you are have a chance to shave off 5 cd from BB, detonating it every 5s instead of 10s, potentially multiple times in a row.
3) You damage self less, as you manually re-apply skills less often.
4) Dots re-applying themselves can finish off escaping targets. This is the least important, as you are unlikely to be in a situation where the target wouldn't have a healer around to save them, but it does happen.

Obvious con of the tactic is that you have to go high up the Immolation path to get it, but I think it's still worth it. Personally, I go all the way up the middle path to squeeze every last bit of damage from BB, so for my build it's not really a con.

It's very much useless compared to other tactics like flash fire one can take or being in the proc meta - proc related buffs. Also the magic about both sorc and bw are that you narrow down a big portion of your damage to a small timewindow - this tactic does somewhat exactly the opposite of it if you ask me.

I see many people recommend Flashfire, but I find it pretty much useless in ST spec, as it procs way too rarely. Even healers disrupt me so rarely that I find other tactics way better. If it worked from block too it would be other story, but as is, I find Flashfire only viable in AoE specs. In AoE throwing insta-cast fiery blasts, pretty much every 10sec, feels great.

[Tisaya]

I haven't noticed much difference between the usual build with fireball barrage and the full middle tree with SE. The full middle is probably even somewhat higher in ST damage, but I'm too lazy to do maths. It makes sense though, this way you fully utilize the resist debuff. You can't debuff elemental as BW, so you lose a large chunk of damage by utilizing first path skills.

It's just a very different playstile with emphasis on mobility and range, using mostly instant casts and corp damage. SE fits it very well.

Since I pretty much always top damage charts in SC, highest being 400k pure-st damage per sc, I assume it works as well as the standard route.

Do you have a weaker timestamp with SE due to less procs? Maybe. But I don't think the difference is drastic. You gain more continuous pressure though, which is more important in organized play. You aren't going to timestamp 100-0 anyone with guard and proper heal anyway.