Virus Nerf - Possible silver lining or suggested change

For reference, the change;

'When the effect of Virus expires, enemies will now be granted the effect Antibody, making them immune to the effects of Virus for 60 seconds.'

Possibility: Antibody is a beneficial effect that can be dispelled.

Result: Keeping Virus on a target requires abit more co-ordination and abilities which dispel effects are actually useful in PvE.

I suspect this probably isn't the case and Antibody is probably gonna be undispellable but one can hope.

It's only 60 seconds... Work on your dmg rotation in the mean time?

60 seconds is still a fairly long time and is going to make some encounters a lot more difficult, but perhaps that's their goal, to not allow Virus to trivialize mechanics (e.g. Death Sentence). It's a fairly key widespread cross-class ability for casters though, and now that's one less.

Death Sentence.

What happens if you refresh virus before it expires? IIRC, if another application of virus is cast before the previous one wears off, then it just extends the duration back to 10sec.

If you need virus for every death sentence you are doing it wrong.

If any silver linen is needed, it would be if the spell would refuse to be cast on a monster with antibody with the message "This spell can not be cast on this target". I rarely used it due to long recast so I often forgot about it. If it now would have long recast AND fail occasionally I'd just completely stop trying to remember it and use the other skills I know have no ridiculous limits.

it's pretty much the same as raising the cooldown from 90 seconds to 120 seconds if you want to use Virus on Raids
person 1 casts Virus, 60 second immunity
person 2 casts Virus, 60 second immunity but person's 1 Virus will have wasted 30 seconds since his CD is over but he can't use it due to the 60 second immunity.

they should have reduced the immunity to 30 seconds, 1 minute is way to much. That way you can have 2 other virus casts before you can cast it again yourself without losing any of your own Virus CD

That also means unless you have 2 bosses, most casters aside of Arcanists/Summoners/Scholars shouldn't use Virus when they are around.

Maybe one ilm punch will disable anti-body.

Maybe one ilm punch will disable anti-body.

The problem being people normally chain cast it. In Titan, myself (as a Scholar) and at LEAST one other person alternate Virus casts when it expires. We normally save it until after the heart phase to lower the damage of MB and tummults, resulting in a nearly constant damage reduction which was awesome. Now we're going to have to choose when to use it. We can't use it every MB, possibly not even every other MB. I suppose the change WAS necessary though. It's not like a tank can spam a damage reduction ability, or Scholars can keep Sacred Soil up constantly. Makes me wonder when they'll change Eye for an Eye.

I guess Eye for an Eye is significantly weaker requiring a proc, can't rely on it being up when it's needed. In honesty, damage intake control has just been shifted around. 2 PLD groups will definitely be needing one to switch to WAR to make things easier, as Warriors can now drop 30% (20+10% Inner Beast/Storm's Path) damage reduction on demand. Bard's can't contribute Rain of Death anymore, and Virus usage has been limited.

Yeah, if you /need/ Virus for every Death Sentence, you might be doing it wrong, the problem is that isn't the only ability you have to deal with, there is the possibility of a Swoop/Auto-attack finishing things off. Virus is a safety net, and maybe we don't need it, but it's nice having it around.

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Originally Posted by peaches

It's not like a tank can spam a damage reduction ability

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Enter the new Inner Beast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ArcaneNova621

For reference, the change;

'When the effect of Virus expires, enemies will now be granted the effect Antibody, making them immune to the effects of Virus for 60 seconds.'

Possibility: Antibody is a beneficial effect that can be dispelled.

Result: Keeping Virus on a target requires abit more co-ordination and abilities which dispel effects are actually useful in PvE.

I suspect this probably isn't the case and Antibody is probably gonna be undispellable but one can hope.

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Welp, that just made another cross skill for BLM semi-pointless, or at least a lot more niche-y. W000T!

SCH gonna rage against the casters now "DONT USE VIRUS" so he won't run into antibody.

I have said before I am hoping that Super-Virus either does not generate antibodies, or will affect the target even with antibodies. This will give Smn/Sch a bit more nich usage out of the ability rather than it being Blm/Whm/Smn/Sch basically interchangeable (really how often did you notice the -Int/Mnd?)

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Originally Posted by lyndwyrm

What happens if you refresh virus before it expires? IIRC, if another application of virus is cast before the previous one wears off, then it just extends the duration back to 10sec.

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Tested this today with Apocatastasis being "refreshed" before the duration is up. It works. So probably works for Virus. Will have to see if Fever wearing off will also apply Antibody though.

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Originally Posted by Teleniel

I have said before I am hoping that Super-Virus either does not generate antibodies, or will affect the target even with antibodies. This will give Smn/Sch a bit more nich usage out of the ability rather than it being Blm/Whm/Smn/Sch basically interchangeable (really how often did you notice the -Int/Mnd?)

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-INT matters for, notably, Titan's stomps. Those are magical.