Most players I’ve talked to who’ve played an Aether Ray build seem to agree that this skill needs a buff. Considering this skill requires you remain stationary to use, and the massive energy cost, it should be a more devastating attack than it currently is IMO.
You need quite a bit of gear to make this skill viable in Ultimate, and even if you get BiS gear for an Aether Ray build, its still sorta “meh” compared to a variety of other builds.
A couple suggestions:
Have the beam increase in power in multiple stages the longer you hold the button. Lets say its got 3 stages, the current aether ray is stage one, after 1 sec, it goes to stage 2, the beam does more damage, and gets wider, after another second, its stage 3, the beam does even more damage, becomes wider and can pierce targets.
Add debuffs to armor and resists on disintegration. Maybe a slight bonus to aetheral mobs on top of that.
Already did that. The skill still lacks damage for its downsides (you being stationary) and its energy cost. But I’d be happy if they gave it any sort of buff.
Whole issue with it is the complete lack of AoE imo. If you had it have a shotgun type of effect around from behind the currently hit target, it would give it some ground to actually take out more than 1 enemy at a time, and help hit the backline ranged enemies shooting away at you from behind a tanky frontline that can take the AAR for a few seconds.
It isn’t a skill you can go halfway with though, and its cheap enough to get some trash clear without skimping out on your defenses
It is definitely an all offense or nothing kind of skill though (which I’m having much fun with in ultimate HC). don’t build enough OA and crit multi, and it is lacking, but when you get there… hooly dooly its fun
The drawback of standing still can be nullified by mirror and health regen from giant and the tree.
90% of other builds out there have faster killing speed than Aether Ray builds vs bosses.
Even a 2H warder with vendored gear kills faster than an Aether Ray build with BiS gear. And the 2H warder can face tank Fabius & Mad Queen.
You be the judge. My gear is pretty decent on my Aether Ray build, and you tell me if you think the killing speed is “good enough”. There are many dozens of builds in this game that could kill bosses like MQ 5x faster with less gear. I just started playing a 2h Warder yesterday, and 100% vendored and crafted gear completely craps all over any Aether Ray build. Period.
Tool tab DPS varies between the two videos. But in both videos Aether Ray is over 40k tool tab, and devastation is over 25k tool tab.
Mad Queen:
Anasteria (this fight makes it 100% clear it doesn’t do enough damage, look at how long it took just to drop the Aether hulks):
