As far as I tested, the damage from TSS spam with new iskandra is somewhat decent. But The main problem, IMO, is that set has ZERO means to sustain the user. And on top of that it BLOCKS possible solutions (like Spellgaze helmet, for example).
What would be REALLY fun and cool, as yet another TSS set, is make Iskandra setbonus remove cooldown on Trozan and reduce its the damage, by, say, 70%.
Make the option for spammability, like PB or Stun Jacks.
And, as a nice bonus, add some non-set % lifesteal item for TSS. Medal?
In its current state – i.e., with zero sustain capability – TSS is absolutely not worth the effort, IMO.
This. I just HAPPEN to be a mage hunter with Inquisitor Seal bumped to 300+ damage absorb (plus maxed WoR, Mirror, Wayward Soul, Giant Blood and Maiven’s Sphere). But IU set user without that level of tankiness is potentially a death trap for a class without a heal on demand or shield/mitigation.
I haven’t really gotten a chance to test the new set out itself but I’m still confused. Don’t we already have a full 100% only used for TSS set…you know the one called Trozan’s?
My PRM Mage Hunter doesn’t use Giant Blood and I think I’ve died maybe twice in Ultimate and I’ve cleared everything with her. Just swap to the Invoker set or change your build. No amount of tantrums is going to make Crate change IU back to what it was (a mediocre set at best).
It is really unflavorful, that Iskandra’s set doesn’t revolve around Iskandra’s Elemental Exchange and martial combat. “Iskandra was a master of conversion, turning martial weapons into conduits for the arcane. Her unusual attunement to martial combat required that proper defenses be raised.” >>> Martial combat was her trademark, her set should build upon this specialty.
With the current iteration, they should modify the set’s flavor text to “Carefully preserved regalia of Master Iskandra, worn on the day she stole the spell which was Trozan’s namesake.”
yeah… well, you can’t possibly even DREAM to beta shards above 50, if your build doesn’t have some form of reliable sustain.
In case of PRM it’s usually Spellgaze helmet.
New Iskandra set doesn’t have a built-in sustain. It has some pathetic 25% weapon damage per shard, but it’s not enough to get a proper lifesteal from it.
And it prevents you from wearing gear for other spells with sustain (like the mentioned Spellgaze).
So that is it.
I don’t mind Iskandra being focused around TSS (which is weird lore-wise and which is EXACTLY the reason what’s got Ulzuin’s changed, since it didn’t have bonuses to Ulzuin’s Chosen).
I like elemental damage and I absolutely love aether to elem conversoin.
The big issue with IEE centric Iskandra is the fact that the set already exist with an off-hand.
In theory, they could seperate the off-hand from the set, making it it’s own legendary, and add a new main hand weapon to the set as a new piece of gear, and revert it to something akin to the old IEE set only modernized to actually be good.
But this doesn’t really fit into what Arcanist is as a class. Mono-class sets embody the essence of a class.
Markovian is the quintessential shielded soldier tank, Ultos is a big burly 2H lighting centric damage dealer (Although the set could use some modernization as well IMO), the NB set dual wield cold WPS, Uruborok the aether caster necro, Spellbinder the ranged WPS heavy elemental gunner with rune support, and Virtue the stalwart guardian of empyrion. And Ulzuin now fits the world on fire theme of the Demo as well.
Iskandra and Dreeg sets are the only two really not fulfilling the fantasy atm. Dreeg just has core issues, and would probably be able to be a lot better if designed around DEE bomb vs DEE cast speed, or if it gave sustain to DEE cast speed at the very least. Could enable it to support both if it had a flat cooldown reduction modifier for DEE, and a few other changes to the set (Also support Bloody Pox perhaps?).
Iskandra just… sort of suffers from the split identity of Arcanist.
How about changing all the flat damage bonuses to TSS to WD% + adding a elemental weapon that adds even more WD% to trozan? This would make Iskandra’s elemental exchange far more useful(which IMO should be useful considering the name of the set) and differentiate the set more from the other TSS sets.
I can understand complaints of the new Iskandra set lacking damage, but what i can’t understand is the complaint that it lacks identity. I feel that only now it has an identity,a s compared to before.
The problem is that,you already have different TSS sets and this doesn’t add anything interested like lower damage,but spammable for example.Previously it was awkward,but now is not really much better.
yeah but it’s not Iksandric. it’s not a big deal ofc but it’s weird to have an Iksandra set supporting a Trozan skill. but as others have said there was no ideal solution, cause Iksandra supports weapon users and Arcanist is more a caster oriented mastery.
Agreed. To all the complaints about the IU set not having an identity; it did. It was a martial-focused Arcanist-centric set. It didn’t do a great job of it, but that could have been addressed by making the set into a 4 piece Elemental melee set. Here are the changes I would have made to the old set:
Remove the off-hand and make it a separate Legendary. Elemental TSS mods could be put on the newly single item off-hand where you could use it with the other TSS sets, but change the damage type to Elemental.
Change the amulet to a pair of gloves to make the set a 4-piece set like the Justicar Armor
The set needs some +% AS in the set completion
I haven’t thought about specific bonuses to skills, but I think it should have been changed to focus on Arcanist, Inquisitor and probably Shaman as class combos and changing skills as necessary to support Elemental melee.
The issues I am having with the current set change is the following:
Loss of -15% Cunning for melee weapons hurts class combos that need it to equip swords, like my N&O melee Pyromancer. This means less Physique and more Cunning to equip resulting in a loss of much needed DA for that class combo specifically, but also for my Mage Hunter as well.
Loss of about 120 DA from the set. Really hurts my Pyromancer even more when combined with the first point above. In addition, the Bargoll’s Heart DW MH (from thejabrixone) I have been playing suffers quite a bit with this as well.
Loss of IEE points combined with loss of the Amulet skill means losing 24% Physical Damage to Elemental conversion and some flat Elemental as well. My Mage Hunter lost about 30% of my total Damage overall.
Tri-Elemental builds can be decent, but we need a set to support it. Iskandra was already partly there, but the changes really gutted it’s use in melee. Hopefully there is a set coming that will address this in the next big patch.
These may not be the best ideas, but I think it would be a start to support the old set theme.
