Hello fellow demigods,
Thought I'd take a brief moment to discuss the orb of defiance. As I've spent a lot of time in high level and mid level games, I figured I'd share in case some of you are not aware. The Orb of defiance is an item that will cost 3,750 gold to purchase. It makes the castor invincible for 5 seconds, but they cannot move, use spells/items etc. It also provides 500 hp and 500 armor (compare to nimoth armor that gives 500 hp and 750 armor (1500 gold). So, its more or less a super expensive nimoth armor that takes up a consumable slot (eg, useful if your kit is full). What is somewhat typical is that high level players using ub (sometimes other dgs, but mostly ub) will pick up the orb after they have finishing getting a low level kit with sigils. The orb is EXCELLENT for a 1 time surprise (hopefully worth a kill or a stall), but loses its value very quickly in experienced games (as experienced players note that X player has orb AND a sigil, perhaps I should focus on someone else). Anyway, experienced players keep this for a bit and then often sell it for narmoth's ring (4k gold) or jtreads (6750)... generally they get jtreads after this.
The main reasoning for picking up the item is to draw agro and mana from other dgs... then cast before the main ability damage is done (eg fireball, etc). This forces everyone in the area to change targets, which increases the strength of whoever cast orb if done right. SOOOOOO.... here's what you might not know.
The orb grants 5 seconds of invulnerability. It does not make you immune to stun. Understanding this can be very huge against inexperienced players and even experienced ones that choose and use orb. While a player is frozen for 5 seconds, you can setup and chain stuns (to keep that player from using sigils and abilities - most importantly, sigils). So, if you see someone that has cast orb. Get as close as you can if you have dgs with stuns AFTER 4 SECONDS and SPAM THE CRAP out of them. They will be completely unable to cast a sigil, which will likely result in a kill. The main thing to keep i mind is that (for instance), if a level 2 boulder roll hits a ub that is on 4 seconds of the orb, the ub will be stunned for 1 second outside of the orb. Then a sedna could silence for another 3 seconds where the ub can do nothing (or a tb would use freeze or an erb could use stun). If you do the math, this can quickly amount to 6-9 seconds where the ub cannot cast a sigil. Now think... with a strong dg, could you wipe someone out if they could not cast a sigil for 6-9 seconds? Probably - almost always if you have a 3 man team there with decent stuns.
Anyway, the bottom line is that orb is still awesome for a the first time change up (as no one generally does what I described the second you see and orb cast for the 1st time), but any good team can make note of who has the orb, and then make use of the stun tactics I've described to get a kill on the 2nd orb cast. Good players GENERALLY avoid getting trapped by this, but even the best fail from time to time.
NT
Get as close as you can if you have dgs with stuns AFTER 4 SECONDS and SPAM THE CRAP out of them
I envy your lag-free connection, Pacov. Sometimes I cannot interrupt Hammer Slam, with its super-long animation, using Silence (an instant, yes?), so... But yeah, generally speaking, I just count to three and cast Silence usually. This way, no sigil immediately after OoD effect wears off, and that's all that really matters.
Wow, i really have been disconnected from the game for too long. That's a well thought out and researched topic Pacov. I'll certainly keep this thread handy for future reference.
High level games will be an eye opener after so long thats for sure...
I forget how many times I have failed to get a sigil away despite frantically hammering the button about 50 times in a second while shouting at the monitor.....
One question. Does lag effect all equally? So if I have a bad connection and I'm playing Pacov with a great connect on a 1v1, do we both experience exactly the same game? Surely we must.
So if I have a bad connection and I'm playing Pacov with a great connect on a 1v1, do we both experience exactly the same game? Surely we must.
It's peer-to-peer connection, so yeah, that's true in anyone's but Pacov's case. Now, Pacov has got a priveleged connection from Stardock, being a DG forum moderator, so he can basically sigil whenever he wants, deal thousands of damage to you when you think everyone is frozen during lag, etc.
yup. I have a special lag free connection where I see everything that happens .5 seconds before you guys. Makes me super. Also, I can fly.
That silliness said, if one person is lagging, ALL will experience that lag.
Bingo, I hate when that happens!! I've found a solution however. Depending on which slot your sigil is on, in lag, it works better to hit either f1,f2, or f3.
just a suggestion!
actually, that's a really good tip for folks that often use their mouse over hotkeys. Thanks for a good tip!
I do use hotkeys for abilities only however. For consumables,favour, minions, i usually use my mouse.
yeah... I'm actually generally the same. I've used my mouse in the past for abilities, but finally moved my lazy butt away from that and now only use hotkeys for those.
Yeah same with me, I only started once i got black ops for pc. ( major keyboardage )
What if you click once and then do something else, move, boulder roll etc.
I would assume that the the sigil would be lost in the lag? After all usually when you sigil your spamming everything you can in a bid to stay alive or turn the fight around.
I think this might just be one of those things where we are just taking a guess anyway, though (the whole press a hotkey instead of using the mouse to click on an icon deal). Not sure if we'll know the real answer on this one, tbh - other than the good 'ol trial and error process. I don't know that a hotkey has more/less potential to time out or fail if its pressed several times during a laggy moment, or if clicking on the sigil has any impact either... and I doubt there is a way to prove it one way or another. I could create a lobby and pump it full of lag, but I don't know how you'd test and prove the 1 hotkey click vs spamming the hotkey method, etc. So, at least we've got some ideas for folks to give a go in the future if they want to give it a shot.
I think spamming it would be the same thing as trying to cast something multiple times. Sometimes in the lag you try spam cast something like a tele halfway through it will start over because you did it more than once. It might be the same thing even if it is an instant cast. The lag draws that INSTANT out to a second or so. Thats the only thing I could see happening. I would agree with the one click theory..........Now having said that I spam the crap outa that sigil button if needed.
You guys are weird. Hotkeys rule!!! I never even thought about clicking the display to cast something. The only thing I click on the display is to select a single minion.
As far as I know (played under various conditions, with ~2k pings, -3 sim speeds, etc). Pressing once, always activates (keyboard or mouse doesn't matter, but my mouse sometimes doesn't work, so I trust keyboard more + when laggy, mouse arrow is difficult to move on screen). However then depends if there is cast time or not. If it's instant (sigil), it will activate sooner or later. If there is cast time: any potion, skill (shield), etc. then pressing once and doing nothing, will make it cast for sure, however if you want to spam skills after that, due to lag you won't do anything for a while after used item, etc (assuming you waited for it to apply to target), otherwise, you'll interrupt your own skill/item and spam those skills.
+ Orb is good to resigil on cataract. If you have two cooldown flags, orb will make sure that you can safely get into it, and if nothing dangerous around, to resigil after its cooldown. Possible to do with one cooldown flag, but more dangerous. With staff of renewal permanent sigil form is possible. Added, but I think everyone knows anyway.
Also when you spam castable items, favors, or skills in lagg it will recast over and over and over.
That's my experience as well. If I click sigil and then try to start a boulder or whatever, my sigil usually doesn't get cast (so I avoid this behavior). Might just be a timing thing too, though.
Just did a quick test associated with orb. I don't think folks are really talking about this, but I'll throw it out there.
When you have activated orb, you cannot do anything at all. All abilities/consumables/everything are redded out and cannot be used until the orb effect ends. As you can't click or hotkey a sigil during this time, that leads to folks HAVING to spam the hotkey/mouse in the hopes you can cast it as soon as the orb ends. So, at least with orb, spamming the button is required to hopefully get it cast the moment you are out of orb.
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