Which do people find more useful in combat Wither or Death Field?

Thanks

Death Field for more Damage.

Wither for more utility (slow + -5% dmg)

 

Personally i like Wither more, it can easily strike 5 people and affect them greatly. Death Field is mainly for DPS.

 

Imho

PvP wise, Death field all the way.

 

Death field= more damage and more utility in overall

 

Wither will give you a stack of HD, will slow the enemy a bit and reduce his damage a bit but death field will heal you,it have a better range and you dont need a target to use it.

 

So with wither you can...support your team a bit more in big group fight

With death field you can interupt a capping player easily, you can use it as an AOE that hit around 3k+dmg you will heal yourself. Sure the heal is smaller than HD but its impossible to interupt it and you dont need to become a turret to use it. Also,not speccing in wither allow you to spec in the instan whirlwind perk. whirlwind is a 8 second stun. 8 sec stun reduce the overall damage of a player a lot more than 5% and stun them for 8 sec so its better than a slow in 90% of the situations.

 

Also, you can get HD and death field at the same time (27/1/13) so the benefit from wither isnt that good.

 

If you plan on ALWAY sticking with your team and defending your healers(or at least 80% of the time) take wither, the slow will help the dps of your team to kill the healers and the damage reduction+ guard+taunt will allow to protect your healer very easily and the heal from HD will keep you alive for a longer period and this will keep the guard on the healer.

 

If you plan on solo guarding or doing the shuttle to help the solo guard,go with death field. It will give you a better burst to kill the enemy faster and come back in the team fight faster.

From reading about the various PvE builds (No experience I should mention) it seems that if you are taking on hard content you would probably want Wither, because the -5% helps your survivability, but if you are not pushing the edge of survivability then Death Field might be a better choice because it adds more damage.

 

Wither's debuff does stack from different sources though, so if you ever play with another Sin Tank I would recommend you both picking Wither.

Well wither is a must have for any kind of serious tanking.

 

Deathfields gives you a pitiful 1% per target (max 3% on 3 targets but on most bosses always just 1%) self-heal every 15 seconds.

 

Wither builds up stacks of harnessed darkness allowing you to get 3 stacks much faster and allows you to self-heal with force lightning powered by 3 stacks of HD more often. This actually especially in PvE will allow you to get even more self-healing done than DF could ever do. In addition to that you get the -5% on your enemies, which is very much needed for assassin tank's survivability. The -5% debuff by itself would make wither better (and it helps to reduce damage taken by other group members too), and it's not even the only thing.

 

I would not take a "tank" who does not use wither with me to any of the harder operations.

then Death Field might be a better choice because it adds more damage

 

Let's not forget few things...

 

While Death Field does more damage, it strikes 3 targets while Wither hits 5.

Death Field has twice as long cooldown time.

Death Field is targeted on the ground requiring you to drag it under the enemy with your mouse, making it much slower to cast than Wither which is just one press of a button to use.

The difference in overall damage done is not just the damage difference between wither and death field.

The main point being that, Wither builds up a stack of harnessed darkness allowing you to build up to 3 stacks much faster and allowing you to use Force Lightning powered up by 3 stacks of HD more often and being able to use this high damage ability more often adds a lot to your dps too.

 

Granted, this is one thing I have not fully tested or researched it, but as of now, I really don't believe that speccing to DF instead of wither (for an otherwise mostly Darkness build) would even give so high of a dps increase to make it worth in any situation. It might even be worse at that too.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Eternalnight

Let's not forget few things...

Actually after making my post I had another look and Wither gets a 30% damage boost which puts it almost on par with Death Field anyway. And that is excluding all the ther benefits it brings.

Well, if ya go 23/1/17 for pvp, you get insta wirhwlind, so most of dmg is trash any way folowed by shock and DF being just for interrupts/vanished people. , try 0/27/14 instead. Since deception buff, sometimes I find it more durable then darkness.

 

wither (xso 31/anything build) is more friendly for starter pvp

Which do people find more useful in combat Wither or Death Field?

Thanks

 

PvE Tanking Wither

PvE DPS -Death Field Drop the tanking tree

PvP Tanking Death Field

PvP DPS Death Field

Well, if ya go 23/1/17 for pvp, you get insta wirhwlind, so most of dmg is trash any way folowed by shock and DF being just for interrupts/vanished people. , try 0/27/14 instead. Since deception buff, sometimes I find it more durable then darkness.

 

wither (xso 31/anything build) is more friendly for starter pvp

 

 

I personally like keeping 27/1/13 for PvP for stack of HD on shock. Crappier force generation with DF eating 50 of it, but better survivability and I think damage from FL.

 

As far as PvE goes, even with 30% damage increase, on hit damage of wither is twice as less than DF. HOWEVER, so is the cooldown, and the high threat is making it therefore generates more threat over the same laps of time

 

Also, wither is CC friendly, allowing you to build AoE threat when all else is prevented, something DF won't do.

 

Add to this the 5% damage debuff, 5 targets vs 2 for thrash pull and the stack of HD...there is no reason to prefer DF to wither for pure PvE. Wither is currently the best 31 points ability in the game as far as tanking tree go.

No one seems to be mentioning that wither makes getting 3 stacks of HD much faster and that when either does hit 5 people it will deal more total damage than DF. Faster HD stacks also add up to more dps and more self heals, so keep that in mind.

 

I really like wither and DF to stop caps isn't needed with force pull and reckless/ lightning really.

DF is still good but the big diff IMO is ww vs wither. For a raid tank wither is the clear option, for a pvp tank I'd still tank wither but if you're an off tank in dps gear it's a tougher choice. However if I'm needed to off tank I usually go 23/17/1 anyways for the added fade and blackout talents so I never really have this decision.

well, for combat, I read pvp, for pve tanking there is no question, wither all the way up and down.

about HD stacks, mega force lightning is very predictable, and unless enemy is brainless, he will interrupt (so it's max profit only with shroud + recl) with stun/kb/los (but if he doesnt, then it's bloody sweet).

DF don't need target, so can attack stealthies and interrupt behind corner on 30 m range.

I prefer wither in both PVE and PVP as a main tank its a must for most endgame PVE in PVP with DPS gear on i have had with crit on 4-5 targets for around 2.6K damage which is very nice and the added debuff/slow makes sure that your target will almost never get away.

 

Deathfield is a pain in the arse to use if you ask me.

Deathfield is a pain in the arse to use if you ask me.

Actually I quite like the ground target, I had it bound to Shift+click on my Sorc (Lightning Field being Shiled+rclick) and it was basically a 1 cast, but more targetable than most other AoE's. If you do that it stops being a pain to use.

Both are viable. Its a matter of preference and build.

Actually I quite like the ground target, I had it bound to Shift+click on my Sorc (Lightning Field being Shiled+rclick) and it was basically a 1 cast, but more targetable than most other AoE's. If you do that it stops being a pain to use.

 

True but even with the keybind as a melee dps its still alot more annoying to place as you in many cases need to be on the move all the time

True but even with the keybind as a melee dps its still alot more annoying to place as you in many cases need to be on the move all the time

True, I wasn't thinking about the added complications of melee (Really annoying me having to move all the time now I am levelling a tank).

True, I wasn't thinking about the added complications of melee (Really annoying me having to move all the time now I am levelling a tank).

 

Its always a pow, but as I said Its only my opinion and one of the reasons i prefer wither

No one seems to be mentioning that wither makes getting 3 stacks of HD much faster and that when either does hit 5 people it will deal more total damage than DF. Faster HD stacks also add up to more dps and more self heals, so keep that in mind.

 

I really like wither and DF to stop caps isn't needed with force pull and reckless/ lightning really.

DF is still good but the big diff IMO is ww vs wither. For a raid tank wither is the clear option, for a pvp tank I'd still tank wither but if you're an off tank in dps gear it's a tougher choice. However if I'm needed to off tank I usually go 23/17/1 anyways for the added fade and blackout talents so I never really have this decision.

 

That has been mentioned.

Me and some guildies had this discussion awhile back. I like having withers slow because it stacks with slow( think ball carrier). They liked the consistent bigger hit from DF. I rarely see more than 4 reds stacked up waiting for some easy aoe. It happens, but not as often as I would like. But that third HD comes around a lot easier with wither, no one likes being a turret but I hit it every time I get the chance. To bad my rakata adrenals are useless in WZs