[Magus] What's the point of Warpfire?

[immdev]

It deal less damage than lash and it's not even spirit damage, so I can't utilize my spirit debuff with it.

[Cyrylius]

Warpfire's purpose is to be a trap for new Magus players who think a channel must have good damage.
It's trash, it's supposed to do more damage, it does more damage on tooltips but it's damage type makes lash spam more efficient. Also it's stationary. The only strong point is larger area of effect, if for some reason your find you Magus standing in the middle of enemy melee blob you might as well use it for the reminder of your life.

[Tesq]

i made a proposition for it yearsa ago, taking ispiration from the tabletop where some flame attacks ignore cover; which could translate here as ignore avoidanc. That way the lower hit power would be balanced by ignore block/disrupt.

of course no one even give it a think...

atm the only use is in place of deamon lash if you are CD increased and you dont have to debuff spam.

[ravezaar]

one of the weaker Rank 40 skills ingame

[Omegus]

Disclaimer: basing this from career builder only.

Firstly, it might not be spirit damage but it's in the close range tree, so chances are whatever it is will having its resistances debuffed by a Chosen so it's not quite the difference between Glean Magic and no debuff, but between Glean Magic and Discordand Insabiility.

Second, when does it do ticks of damage? If it's at 0, 1, 2 and 3 seconds (4 times during the channel) then be sure to compare it to just two hits from Daemonic Lash as that's all you'll get during the same period, especially with the GCD now being enforced at 1.5 seconds.

Finally, it's a circle AOE rather than a frontal cone so it can hit things that Lash cannot, especially if you find yourself in the middle of a group of enemies.

I'm not saying it's a good skill as I cannot test it myself, but it doesn't appear to be a complete write-off in theory...

[Arla]

Magus needs a little help to be sure, but we'll played as is it can be more potent than it gets credit for.

[Aethilmar]

if for some reason your find you Magus standing in the middle of enemy melee blob you might as well use it for the reminder of your life.

I have to admit I laughed very hard at this. Thank you.

[malark]

• it's full 360 degree damage rather than Daemonic Lash that is a frontal cone

• it's elemental damage so it might work better against a target with high spirit resist

• its damage every second rather than every pressed GCD like Daemonic Lash, which means things like it might be better for distributing a proc (e.g the sov daemonic set has a 10% chance to snare for 40% not bad !)

• it looks cool ?

I'm not saying it's unworthy of some kind of looking into but I wouldn't quite label it as super worthless

[Cyrylius]

So, assuming endgame geared Magus, damage difference is actually in favour of Warpfire, as you do get the initial tick I forgot about, meaning you get 20 more damage (490 Vs 510) using Warpfire. But, as i mentioned, damage doesn't fix the more important issue, namely skill being stationary channel you need to get the last tick for it to be efficient, with short range (lash is iirc 40 feet frontal arc, Warpfire is 30 feet) which gets you into range of DPS.

Disclaimer: basing this from career builder only.

Firstly, it might not be spirit damage but it's in the close range tree, so chances are whatever it is will having its resistances debuffed by a Chosen so it's not quite the difference between Glean Magic and no debuff, but between Glean Magic and Discordand Insabiility.

Second, when does it do ticks of damage? If it's at 0, 1, 2 and 3 seconds (4 times during the channel) then be sure to compare it to just two hits from Daemonic Lash as that's all you'll get during the same period, especially with the GCD now being enforced at 1.5 seconds.

It's not a matter of lower damage, it's the matter of skill not being efficient as in damage isn't high enough to justify the risk you need to take if you want to use it.

Finally, it's a circle AOE rather than a frontal cone so it can hit things that Lash cannot, especially if you find yourself in the middle of a group of enemies.

I'm not saying it's a good skill as I cannot test it myself, but it doesn't appear to be a complete write-off in theory...

That's the main issue here. You guys don't seem to try and think of any practical situation when 360 aoe is needed. This situation, as i akurat explained, is "having enemies everywhere around you". It's also what you, as a cloth class player, should avoid at all costs as it's insanely dangerous to stay near things that can just grind you down given time. And sure, you can argue that sometimes you are in backlines, you have lots of targets and guard and healing and stuff. And then, reminder, you need every tick to hit something. And you're stationary, so people have 3 seconds to just run away from you. Then you won't hit anything as you lack charge or any serious mobility. So basically you either are on a disadvantage and you can't just sit down in a short axe range from slayer and channel, or you are at advantage and you don't want to sit in one place hoping enemies will just comply and stand where you are. That's the whole point, skill looks good on paper for someone who doesn't play AoE Magus. Also, frontal cone is very good area of effect, and even in pure area is like 7/9 of the circle.

Once again, the damage difference does exist, it's just really rare to find situations where you want to trade mobility and flexibility for very little damage and cumbersomeness (?) On a class that's already heavily having issues with being situational.

Granted, sorc in party might make it worthwhile. I did not consider price going off twice.

[anarchypark]

same use as Annihilate and Disastrous Cascade.
have you ever heard pbaoe ?

BW pbaoe rotations are
Spreading Flames - Detonate - Annihilate - with proc of Wildfire tactic, Funnel Power and Flames of Rhuin. and m2 morale.
Dot + channel + proc timestamped.

Magus can mirror it, not sorc.
Glean Magic - Pandemonium - Infernal Blast - Agonizing Torrent - Warpfire - with blue horror aoe.
Dot + channel + pet timestamped.

BW need 100 mechanic, magus need pet stacks.
it's little bit harder for magus to get full effects, cuz of pet.
but magus have Chaotic Rift and Aegis of Orange Fire.

magus can interrupt BW channel too.
it's fun rifting BW to burn it with chaos magic.
u know, blue fire is hotter than red.

ps. it's not easy as bw.