Some thoughts on the new Time Dilation and Devastation

So I’m been analysing the new Time Dilation and how well it works with various skills, particularly the new Devastation.

First of all, I really like the new changes. TD is no longer overkill for devotion skills like Phoenix Fire and Reckless Tempest. The 100% proc chance opens up some interesting bindings. With enough CDR, you can get a nice rhythm going where TD procs once per mob pack.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is how well TD would work with Devastation. Well consider this setup:

  1. Outcast’s Secret OR Terrnox’s Aether Tome (but not both)
  2. Time Dilation
  3. Eternity relic
  4. 25% CDR

Time Dilation would have a cooldown of 8*(1-0.25) = 6 seconds.

Devastation would have a cooldown of (15-4)*(1-0.25) = 8.25 seconds.

Of course, that 8.25 seconds could be reduced to 5.25 seconds with one proc of Time Dilation and further reduced to 4.25 seconds with one proc of Time Loop (from Eternity). That’s less than the 5 second duration of Devastation.

So you could have endless Devastations, right? Well not quite. The cooldown of Time Dilation is still 6 seconds and it can’t be reduced by Time Loop. Eventually, it becomes “out-of-sync” with Devastation and causes a “desynchronisation” event. What you could do is wait 6 seconds between Devastations to always avoid desynchronisation.

Or, what you could do is attach Time Dilation to a skill that procs at least once per second. This could be Devastation itself but I don’t recommend this. Better options would be Ill Omen, Siphon Souls, or Aether Corruption (from Seal of Corruption). This skill would be cast immediately after Devastation. So what would happen in this case is that after your first Devastation ends at the 5th second, Ill Omen (for example) would proc TD again at the 6th second. After your second Devastation ends at the 10th second, Ill Omen procs TD again at the 12th second. And so on and so forth. Since TD is bound to a skill that ticks at least once per second, you don’t have to worry about timing and it happens more or less automatically.

Now the question is when desynchronisation occurs. Intuitively, without the Eternity relic, it should occur after about 5/(6-5) = 5 Devastations. The Eternity relic however has the effect of basically delaying the onset of desynchronisation to the extent that it occurs after about 11 or so Devastations (from my testing). Afterwards there is a short delay (about 2 seconds or less, depending on Time Loop procs) before you can cast Devastation again. So that’s an uptime of 55/57 = 96.5%.

Now here’s why I went through all this math: because both the Clairvoyant and Agrivix sets have either a free helm slot or a free off-hand slot. That means both of those sets could also have near-endless Devastations. They won’t be very strong, but the key thing is that you would have a Devastation ready for every mob pack instead of every other mob pack (assuming each pack takes 5 seconds), which is good for rhythm.

Now what if you wanted near-endless Devastations, but also wanted Mirror or Blast Shield available for every Devastation? Well, that’s possible:

That’s something I whipped together just as a basis for calculations. In that build, Devastation should have an average case net cooldown of 15*(1-0.36)-3-1 = 5.6 seconds. Less if having a good CDR roll on the off-hand. TD would have a cooldown of 8*(1-0.36) = 5.12 seconds. Since the cooldown of TD is actually less than the cooldown of Devastation in this case, it would be quite comfortable and logical to bind TD to Devastation.

Mirror would have an average case net cooldown of 28*(1-0.36)-3-3-1-1 = 9.92 seconds. Blast Shield would have an average case net min-time-between-procs of 4+9*(1-0.36) = 9.76 seconds. So you can let Blast Shield proc for odd-numbered Devastations and cast Mirror for even-numbered Devastations, for example. Giant’s Blood can also proc for every Blast Shield.

1 Like

Why does that not work?

it does work - tho i’m unsure if something changed/got changed interaction wise for this to make it not so, but before 1.2.3 it used to work atleast
it’s just finicky/“uncontrollable” because time loop is automatic so could happen in a brief moment of time dilation not being on CD yet

I did some tests and if it did work, then I wouldn’t experience any desynchronisation events. But I did, and after a fairly consistent amount of time too. It also makes sense from a game balance point of view. Consider what would happen if Aldanar’s Vanity were also thrown in the mix. Skills with the same skill template as Time Dilation don’t seem to affect each other. TD certainly doesn’t affect itself.

It shouldn’t.

Any skills that have “recharge” in description are not affected by Eternity/Belgo relic etc., like Blast Shield, Arcane Will, Resilience, etc. Time Dilation is that.

those are different because they are auto procs/condition procs?
look at the cooldown description on other skills, regular skills, meteor etc says “recharge” too, it’s how GD defines CD

did anyone tell you that answering with a question just reads passive-aggressive? :sweat_smile:

True, my brain is a a bit of a mush at 2:30 am, Time Dilation is not a buff, so rules of Blast Shield/Resilience shouldn’t work here. But apparently they do according to @Dioarchet so who knows.

it’s not about being a buff, but specific type.
time loop affects regular attack devos too like meteor
*i’ve never been able to proper test it with ghoul/“Passive conditional devo procs/blast shield type devo procs” so cant’ state there

and gildam arcanum suffix etc also affects devos, and time dialation (and as i understand gildam is classed as the same type/counted as flat CDR even if written as %effect)

Ghoul gets affected but Blast Shield not

could make sense, probably not the same type of conditional proc/passive as blast shield types

I believe, as a rule of thumb, TD doesn’t affect:

  1. Itself
  2. Skills like it, like Time Loop
  3. Skills with its own cooldown timer icon, like Blast Shield
  4. Skills with its own depletion indicator icon, like Turtle Shell

that would be because it technically can’t too atleast, cooldown has to be active for it to be affected, since TD cd doesn’t set in until effect is applied it’s default excluding itself

okay out of curiosity i just tested in modded setting to reconfirm (since i can’t read effects/interactions just from the tables)

time loop affects regular attack devos/buff devos, including meteor (that has it’s own cooldown icon, for some reason?)
timeloop/dialation does indeed not seem to affect eachother (0.1 cd timetoop = 6sec intervals TD, 0.1 cd TD = 5 sec intervals on timeloop)
Gildam Arcanum suffix however seems to affect Time Dialation/Timeloop (modded 100% chance 100% cdr)
i’m guessing it’s the last part that spun me for a loop combined with being told it’s counted as flat CDR. eg being counted as flat is not the same as “written” as flat/diff effects

technically i don’t know what makes timeloop/TD cd/effect different, they’re seemingly just normal cd’s with attack conditions, making me almost speculate they are manually excluded from interacting with eachother ? “for balancing purposes” (since gildams is way harder to delibereately interact with in vanilla play?)

Ok, very confusing :sweat_smile:
If someone finds out how it works, let me know.

1 Like

Ghoul and Blast Shield are not same type.
Ghoul’s cooldown starts immediately when triggered.
Blast Shield’s cooldown starts after its duration ends.

2 Likes

just tested this, timeloop does affect turtle shell (increased cd to 22, but it constantly popped off with 0.1 cd timeloop at 25sec reset)

now i wonder why/what makes it different
guessing it’s a manual/base template difference and not just based solely on being a conditional/passive trigger :thinking:

Yes.
Ghoul uses buff template. It is conditional, but still buff, like other buffs, Overguard, Mirror and etc. And even Devastation and Meteor are buff skills, a buff for a period of automatic attacks. Therefore, only one Devastation/Meteor at one time, as buff cannot be stacked.
Blast Shield uses passive template, or we call it conditional passive. Deadly Aim, Fighting Spirit, Arcane Will and stc. are passive template.
Buff skills recharge after cast. Passive skills recharge after end.

3 Likes

wait, if turtle is same passive template, why does timeloop affect it?, seems like it’s just normal buff interaction then? :thinking:
(or does timeloop actually/also affect blast shield and lee was wrong? or there is a difference between blast shield passive type template vs turlte passive ?)

Sorry, my mistake. Shield skills are buff. :confounded:

Turtle, _BuffSelfShield
Ghoul, _BuffSelfDuration
Mirror, _BuffSelfDuration
Devastation, _BuffAttackRadiusDrop

Blast Shield, _PassiveOnLifeBuffSelf
Deadly Aim, _PassiveOnCritBuffSelf
Fighting Spirit, _PassiveOnHitBuffSelf

5 Likes

ok, no worries :ok_hand:, and as always i greatly appreciate all the clarification/table explanation you do regardless :+1: