ok so as you know Pre- Super ultra omega nerf Occultism was a popular and strong option ingame (this took place pre 1.2 during the alpha/beta. however it was nerfed out of existance pre "launch" taking a massive hit to damage/sustain pretty much everything. that wasn't the only nerf this class got.
shortly after 1.2 the main transition skill (manastars) got nerfed then broken and ignored since launch.
what do i mean by nerfed and broken?
before the nerf manastars used to give 2% damage bonus every cast up to 10 stacks (20%)then at 10 stacks it gave distressed (you might notice that alot of occultism skills and other class skills require this debuff for combos) trion thought it was a good idea to remove it. dont know why the class was underpowered as is before the nerf.
then... there is the broken part. Trion claims they only removed the "Distressed" part of the skill however anyone who has ever used manastars knows the 10 stack buff part of the skill does not work and has not worked since launch. every time its brought up to trion that its broken they just ignore it.
instead of building stacks up to 20% it stops on first stack and never builds it just refreshes the first stack this is a big deal for manstars since the damage of manastars is even less then endless arrows and anyone who has used manastars/endless arrows knows the low damage those 2 skills do is a big p roblem with how defense works (Flat rate reduction) so against a decently geard player you are looking at a 1~50 damage hit frm manastar/endless arrow but at the very least endless arrow has 15% more base damage then manastars + faster attackspeed/gcd & higher crit and range.
^---- at the very least the buff stack issue needs to be adressed the skills already weak it dosnt need to be weaker because you just refuse to fix it.
ok lets take a look at the rest of the tree:
1)Crippling mire: long channel time slow with low damage. by itself its useless in pvp because all it takes is 1 cc or interrupt and that skills canceled and it does laughably low damage however this skill has combos.... o wait... they require distressed.... and the only classes that give distress now are defense and battlerage. as we all know melee and magic classes tend not to blend well together unless its purely for utility (shadowplay,defense,Auramancy,witchcraft ext....) because all damage is sperated into different stats same with accuracy. so if a occultism user wants to use any of their tree combos they need battlerage or defense otherwize they cant combo their tree.
2)Hellspear: decent skill with good aoe damage stun that can combo into posion with another occultism skill only problem with this skill is that it can use a shorter cooldown.
3)Absorb lifeforce: same as crippling mire, requires distress to combo which occultism no longer has long winded channel time with laughably low damage.
4)Summon Crows: This skills too vauge it needs to list how much accuracy it reduces ive heard ppl assume its 40% some assume its 60% some assume its 75% but realistically it feels more like 2% =/ they need to list the reduction % on the skill. its not really a strong skill damage wize its whole purpose is that debuff which we know nothing about.
5) a good skill regens mana does decent damage(x2 damage on feared targets) knocks back a target 20m. but despite the skills usefulness its not "1min cooldown" good. a 30 second cooldown would be more reasonable.
6) Telekenesis: good only in theory. in practice its meh. any form of movement cancels the skill and it has 1min cd. the target is held in place for 12 seconds and can be attacked/stuned/cced/feared and would still be held. but if the caster is knockedback,stunned,tripped,feared, accidentally steps in any dirrection or gets bumped into another player running tword them (even own team) skill cancels.
7)Retribution: this skill claims to return 50% of damage dealt to you back to the person. what the skill dosnt tell you is that its 50% of the damage after defense calculation. so lets say you have 50% reduction and some one hits you for 20,000 crit (before defense) your defense would drop that to 10k then it would reflect it to the person then go through their defense calculation (if its another 50% reduction) that 10k becomes 5k which is then subjected to their 50% defense so that drops to 2500
so they crit you for 10k after defense calc and you only reflect 2500 after their defense calc. that 50% is beyond misleading.
8)Stillness: its suppose to be a aoe silence that works at 5m range however every time ive used it on mages or anyone with a buff or any other ability that would otherwize be "silenced" it never actually silences them idk if this is due to latency issues causing it to "miss" due to its 5m aoe range but it should work in the same way as banshee wail and ive never missed with that ever =/ so idk id have to test this one alot more to give more feedback on it.
9)Urgency: looks cool... but its kinda pointless =/. since prettymuch every occultism skill is 30 seconds to a min cooldown (no reason why just pointlessly high cooldowns for sub par skills) and this skill reduces their cooldowns by 9 seconds. This skill wouldn't even be needed if they simply reduces the overall cd's of the skills to match literally every other class. personally i feel this class should be a damage buff skill similar to how archery has a increase ranged damage buff but this should be for magic damage....we all know occultism could use the damage.
10)Summon wraith: again... good skill in "theory" a aoe that reduces the enemy's movementspeed,attackspeed,castspeed by about 60% which is amazing....however... that debuff only lasts tile the skills being "canneled" which is a 9 second cannel thats super easy to interrupt and only has 7m range. all the enemy has to do is either cc you or simply take 3 steps back to be out of range of the skill. if this skill was a debuff like stalkers mark that once put on it stays on the target for a time without channel and was applied similar to hellspear where its a instant short range aoe. if that happened this would be the best skill in occultism. but saldly... its useless... even in pve atm.
11)Deaths Vengance: basically a self destruct skill...because lets be honnest... if your using occultism we all know you are going to die. this gives you the option to try to take the enemy with you. personally i feel the damage on this can be a bit higher.
now the passives.....some of the worst passives of any class in the game.
1) enhanced mana recovery: post mana regen +7. basically your mana after you get "out of combat" is increased by 7. aka useless.
2) Reprisal: 1 of the few decent passives increases magic crit rate by 20% when you recieve critical damage. this is decent because mages have insanely low crit rate for some reason. wile healers,melee,ranged all have high crit....must be nice.
3) Caster enrichment: another pointless passive. reduces your health regen by 15 and increases your mana regen by 15 (outside of combat)
4) Macabre Reach: increase magic crit damage +20% a good passive but requires 7 points in occultism which overall is a bad tree currently.
5) Overpowered spell lotus: this passive reminds me alot like the new archer feral buff. sounds good till you realize not being able to "move" makes it dumb. (every time you recieve damage your magic damage is increased by 15% for 6 seconds, effect cancels on any movement).
6) Intensified harm: (increases magic crit damage by 50% every time you take critical damage) this can only be applied once every 20~30 seconds or so.
7) Deaths Beckoning: -20% Occultism cooldown(once again a passive that wouldn't be needed if occultism skills didnt have pointlessly high cooldowns. this would be better if it was like the Sorcery or battlerage final passive: +15% damage.)
3 out of the 7 passives are decent. the other 4 are worthless. =/
if you compared the current state of occultism to literally any other tree it would still be inferior. i understand in 2.0 occultism gets a small buff but not enought o justify the fact that its a "main damage tree that is severely inferior to the other main damage trees" Shadowplay,Battlerage,Occultism,Sorcery,Archery,Vi talism are the main "DPS/heal" tree's that you pick from at the start of the game. they are the core that you are suppose to build your class around
using the support trees:songcraft,witchcraft,auramancy,defense. but realistically most of the "support" tree's are stronger then Occultism in terms of dps. That should not happen.
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shortly after 1.2 the main transition skill (manastars) got nerfed then broken and ignored since launch.
what do i mean by nerfed and broken?
before the nerf manastars used to give 2% damage bonus every cast up to 10 stacks (20%)then at 10 stacks it gave distressed (you might notice that alot of occultism skills and other class skills require this debuff for combos) trion thought it was a good idea to remove it. dont know why the class was underpowered as is before the nerf.
then... there is the broken part. Trion claims they only removed the "Distressed" part of the skill however anyone who has ever used manastars knows the 10 stack buff part of the skill does not work and has not worked since launch. every time its brought up to trion that its broken they just ignore it.
instead of building stacks up to 20% it stops on first stack and never builds it just refreshes the first stack this is a big deal for manstars since the damage of manastars is even less then endless arrows and anyone who has used manastars/endless arrows knows the low damage those 2 skills do is a big p roblem with how defense works (Flat rate reduction) so against a decently geard player you are looking at a 1~50 damage hit frm manastar/endless arrow but at the very least endless arrow has 15% more base damage then manastars + faster attackspeed/gcd & higher crit and range.
^---- at the very least the buff stack issue needs to be adressed the skills already weak it dosnt need to be weaker because you just refuse to fix it.
ok lets take a look at the rest of the tree:
1)Crippling mire: long channel time slow with low damage. by itself its useless in pvp because all it takes is 1 cc or interrupt and that skills canceled and it does laughably low damage however this skill has combos.... o wait... they require distressed.... and the only classes that give distress now are defense and battlerage. as we all know melee and magic classes tend not to blend well together unless its purely for utility (shadowplay,defense,Auramancy,witchcraft ext....) because all damage is sperated into different stats same with accuracy. so if a occultism user wants to use any of their tree combos they need battlerage or defense otherwize they cant combo their tree.
2)Hellspear: decent skill with good aoe damage stun that can combo into posion with another occultism skill only problem with this skill is that it can use a shorter cooldown.
3)Absorb lifeforce: same as crippling mire, requires distress to combo which occultism no longer has long winded channel time with laughably low damage.
4)Summon Crows: This skills too vauge it needs to list how much accuracy it reduces ive heard ppl assume its 40% some assume its 60% some assume its 75% but realistically it feels more like 2% =/ they need to list the reduction % on the skill. its not really a strong skill damage wize its whole purpose is that debuff which we know nothing about.
5) a good skill regens mana does decent damage(x2 damage on feared targets) knocks back a target 20m. but despite the skills usefulness its not "1min cooldown" good. a 30 second cooldown would be more reasonable.
6) Telekenesis: good only in theory. in practice its meh. any form of movement cancels the skill and it has 1min cd. the target is held in place for 12 seconds and can be attacked/stuned/cced/feared and would still be held. but if the caster is knockedback,stunned,tripped,feared, accidentally steps in any dirrection or gets bumped into another player running tword them (even own team) skill cancels.
7)Retribution: this skill claims to return 50% of damage dealt to you back to the person. what the skill dosnt tell you is that its 50% of the damage after defense calculation. so lets say you have 50% reduction and some one hits you for 20,000 crit (before defense) your defense would drop that to 10k then it would reflect it to the person then go through their defense calculation (if its another 50% reduction) that 10k becomes 5k which is then subjected to their 50% defense so that drops to 2500
so they crit you for 10k after defense calc and you only reflect 2500 after their defense calc. that 50% is beyond misleading.
8)Stillness: its suppose to be a aoe silence that works at 5m range however every time ive used it on mages or anyone with a buff or any other ability that would otherwize be "silenced" it never actually silences them idk if this is due to latency issues causing it to "miss" due to its 5m aoe range but it should work in the same way as banshee wail and ive never missed with that ever =/ so idk id have to test this one alot more to give more feedback on it.
9)Urgency: looks cool... but its kinda pointless =/. since prettymuch every occultism skill is 30 seconds to a min cooldown (no reason why just pointlessly high cooldowns for sub par skills) and this skill reduces their cooldowns by 9 seconds. This skill wouldn't even be needed if they simply reduces the overall cd's of the skills to match literally every other class. personally i feel this class should be a damage buff skill similar to how archery has a increase ranged damage buff but this should be for magic damage....we all know occultism could use the damage.
10)Summon wraith: again... good skill in "theory" a aoe that reduces the enemy's movementspeed,attackspeed,castspeed by about 60% which is amazing....however... that debuff only lasts tile the skills being "canneled" which is a 9 second cannel thats super easy to interrupt and only has 7m range. all the enemy has to do is either cc you or simply take 3 steps back to be out of range of the skill. if this skill was a debuff like stalkers mark that once put on it stays on the target for a time without channel and was applied similar to hellspear where its a instant short range aoe. if that happened this would be the best skill in occultism. but saldly... its useless... even in pve atm.
11)Deaths Vengance: basically a self destruct skill...because lets be honnest... if your using occultism we all know you are going to die. this gives you the option to try to take the enemy with you. personally i feel the damage on this can be a bit higher.
now the passives.....some of the worst passives of any class in the game.
1) enhanced mana recovery: post mana regen +7. basically your mana after you get "out of combat" is increased by 7. aka useless.
2) Reprisal: 1 of the few decent passives increases magic crit rate by 20% when you recieve critical damage. this is decent because mages have insanely low crit rate for some reason. wile healers,melee,ranged all have high crit....must be nice.
3) Caster enrichment: another pointless passive. reduces your health regen by 15 and increases your mana regen by 15 (outside of combat)
4) Macabre Reach: increase magic crit damage +20% a good passive but requires 7 points in occultism which overall is a bad tree currently.
5) Overpowered spell lotus: this passive reminds me alot like the new archer feral buff. sounds good till you realize not being able to "move" makes it dumb. (every time you recieve damage your magic damage is increased by 15% for 6 seconds, effect cancels on any movement).
6) Intensified harm: (increases magic crit damage by 50% every time you take critical damage) this can only be applied once every 20~30 seconds or so.
7) Deaths Beckoning: -20% Occultism cooldown(once again a passive that wouldn't be needed if occultism skills didnt have pointlessly high cooldowns. this would be better if it was like the Sorcery or battlerage final passive: +15% damage.)
3 out of the 7 passives are decent. the other 4 are worthless. =/
if you compared the current state of occultism to literally any other tree it would still be inferior. i understand in 2.0 occultism gets a small buff but not enought o justify the fact that its a "main damage tree that is severely inferior to the other main damage trees" Shadowplay,Battlerage,Occultism,Sorcery,Archery,Vi talism are the main "DPS/heal" tree's that you pick from at the start of the game. they are the core that you are suppose to build your class around
using the support trees:songcraft,witchcraft,auramancy,defense. but realistically most of the "support" tree's are stronger then Occultism in terms of dps. That should not happen.
