Why Choose MoF?
The main reason you should choose MoF is that you will help your squad finish a dungeon faster by providing buffs, debuffs and dps, making you a valuable and desired asset to any party.
Before we go on we need to clarify what are buffs and debuffs. Buff is when skills & items are used on a player (Damage Dealer) to increase damage while debuffs are applied to a boss to make it take more damage. Buffs and debuffs are multiplicative in nature. So for the debuff to work well we need buffs to be strong in the party and then we can skyrocket the damage.
The general formula is
Total damage = BaseHit x (buff1 x buff2 x ...buff(x)) x(dbf1+dbf2+...dbf(x))
Most people already have a ton of self-buffs and party buffs from the other support class in the party, but far fewer debuffs. And also most other classes are not that great at rapidly and consistently applying debuffs.
In most parties buffs are greater than debuffs, but in math, If we visualize
buff x debuff, we can think of it as a rectangle. And a party without a MoF is a really long but thin rectangle, but with a MoF, we add a lot of area (damage) by providing a boost to debuffs, which are usually much lower than buffs in a party. And while buff classes can provide a little more buff, nobody can compete with MoF debuffs.
You can read more about the combat log and the order of execution further down on this page.
Now when you are in a dungeon we don't need maths and formulas; but what we need to remember is that we need both Buffs and Debuffs in a party to make a run easy, smooth and fast. The best defense is a good offense; the faster a boss dies, the less damage it does. Communication is an asset so you can time your skills right, for maximum output and efficiency.
MoF, in my opinion, has the ability to focus purely on bosses and make them hurt. MoF offers a wide arsenal of both debuffs and buffs for its team. We can make mobs and bosses deal up to 45% less damage to the tank/party. In crowded dungeons like SpellPlague or Tomb of the Nine Gods, it offers crowd control, as well as mass debuffs to all mobs making the fights faster, more efficient and less risky for the tank and cleric.
To achieve that a MoF will have to use the right feats, skills, gears, companions, and mounts.
Our buffs work for every player even when we are NOT IN PARTY (Cradle of Death God, Msva, Edemo, Tiamat, Dragon runs in WoD and StrongHold) which make the MoF even more valuable in mass content.
Module 13 changes.
Module 13 brings some changes to the CW. Some are good some are... not so good. Let's examine the most important ones.
Weapon Enchantments and Multi-Proccing:
Various powers, across many classes, have been adjusted to trigger one weapon enchantment proc per target, per activation.
Which means Lightning, Plaguefire, Flaming, etc won't multi-proc with Icy Terrain or Conduit of Ice anymore.
Combustive Action:
This power can no longer debuff the caster.
A welcome change as now we don't receive more damage because we are trying to help our team.
Evocation:
The Artifact Off-hand bonus now functions properly with all AoE powers.
The Artifact Off-hand bonus now buffs damage by 5%, increased from 3%.
When leveling a CW, Evocation is a useful class feature to use, as the player doesn't yet have enough recharge speed and AP gain to cast dailies back to back to make combustive useful.
Icy Rays:
Now consistently deals increased damage at higher ranks.
Now properly procs weapon enchantments.
Useful changes especially for the DPS CW as Icy rays is a huge AP gain source and deal a lot of damage when used in mastery.
Note here that Icy rays don't proc weapon enchants.
Icy Terrain
Now procs weapon enchantments on the first hit only.
Now correctly deals damage to Frozen targets.
Both good and bad news. This is the main reason why enchants like Lightning lost their usefulness to us.
on the other hand and especially in mobs fight Icy terrain can deal up to 96% more dps for 2 seconds which helps a lot.
Ray of Enfeeblement (Spell Mastery):
This version of the power no longer has two charges. Instead, its initial cast is doubly effective.
So now you don't have to worry about timings anymore. In general, I liked the old way better as it had an element of strategy too but I think it helps overall the new CWs. What it means is that you don't have to cast it twice as with one cast you will get the 35% debuff.
Shatterstrike:
Control-immune targets now take 33% weapon damage, down from 100%.
The damage dealt by this power now scales with buffs / Power.
A welcome change as Oppressor Tree now became the DPS tree of CW. It now became about 10% of our DPS which is way higher than the
Assailing force Capstone.
Smolder and Rimefire Smolder
should now properly be affected by Chilling Presence.
now deal about 50% more damage.
One of the best changes for MoF CW. With this change Smolder on bosses deals a lot more damage to the point that is similar as Storm Spell but unlike Storm spells chance to proc, Smolder is always on. It can further be increased by swath of destruction for an additional 60% dps.
Steal Time now properly procs weapon enchantments.
As always... Cryptic.... Still not procing weapon enchants but in general since we use Fey its not such a big deal. I'm sure it will get fixed... eventually.
Storm Spell:
This power's artifact bonus now correctly scales with Storm Spell ranks.
no longer deals less damage when procced by certain powers.
can now critically strike.
Artifact Off-hand bonus has been adjusted so that it properly has its own 5% chance to proc Storm Spell.
To balance out the above changes, this power's damage has been reduced by about 30%.
Even though it doesn't affect MoF directly at least I will only say that going renegade SS at mob fights with storm spell slotted its still very viable. It is also recommended in case of 2 cw runs.
Teleport (Shift): This power now properly requires 33% Stamina to cast, as it only consumes 33% Stamina when used.
Teleport should now feel much more responsive with respect to animation, lockdown times, and rubber-banding.
Understanding the Combat Log
This is the concept which is more hard to explain but also not so bad as it sounds (or is it?). First lets clear up some misconceptions, the Developers stated that the debuff now caps at 300% from previous 200% but the devs measure the debuffs different than us players do (their way is the right one by the way).
In ACT we often see effectiveness as debuff but its not exactly true. Before we go on we need to know and understand how the game calculates damage. As you see in the screenshot below there are two numbers one normal and one in parentheses. The reason is that the game does 2 distinct calculations when it comes to damage a player does and that's why the 2 numbers.
The number inside parentheses is the calculation that happens first and it's the player's own base skill damage increased by self-buffs (feats potions, companions etc) and then multiplied by party buffs (such as DC, pally etc) which will increase the damage that originates from the player.
The second number represents two smaller separate calculations
a. It calculates the effectiveness on the boss as a percentage. That percentage is the RI a player that will make up for the first 100% and the debuffs from all sources (classes/companion/enchants/artifacts/mounts etc) for up to 300% max.
b. It takes that percentage number and multiplies it by the number in parentheses and that's what we call final damage.
Note here that if a player has less RI than DR then the debuffs also become weaker for him. That way debuffs cant be substituted for arm pen.
As an example look at the ACT log on the top screenshot and grab a calculator and do the base damage column of any skill X effectiveness column and you will get the value of the total damage.
Do the same for the combat log line below.
Your Infantile Compensation deal 26.060 (20.875) Physical Damage to Hulk.
If we divide 26.060 / 20.875 we get 1.248 or 24.8% effectiveness.
To get a bit deeper in the game mechanics, there are two primary stats, Bosses/mobs, have Damage Resistance or DR. DR represents how much the boss will "resist" or reduce the damage we deal to it and it comes from the AC stat (armor class). Note here bosses/mobs don't have defense stats like us players do.
A player, to counter the DR of a boss, uses the stat Resistance Ignored or RI. RI means how much of the bosses DR we bypass and that's why its a negative number. It represents how much of your opponents Damage Resistance you are effectively removing.
As an example, if you have RI=0% and a boss DR=60% that means a boss will reduce the damage you do by 60%.
If a player has -60% RI and boss have 60% DR then we have 60-60 = 0% reduction from bosses DR and so you deal full damage.
Diminishing returns.
Diminishing return is a concept that roughly means, the more you add to a specific stat the less return on investment you get out of it. For debuffs specifically, it means the more you stack debuff skills/items/companions etc the less % you get out of it as a total debuff. As an example, while 100%+100%=200% when we have diminishing returns applied to our debuffs, we will actually get 158% total.
In mod 12 we have the following diminishing return table (hover mouse over the chart to see real and diminished values).
Its very hard for teams without MoF in module 12 to get high debuffs unless they sacrifice from other fields. which will make their DPS and buffing less. If you have a MoF in the party (assuming his spec is for debuffs) the team doesn't have to focus on debuffs and can focus on damage buffs for an even greater output of the damage dealers.
Note here. When you see in ACT logs high effectiveness numbers those are the real diminished values. A 311% debuff means the team actually did 450% combined actual debuff but it got reduced to 311%.