PvP vs. PvE Serendipitous Assault Relics

[oofalong]

First off, much of what I am about to say is captured in this thread. Still, I am recording this here because there are a couple of potential bugs with the Serendipitous Assault Relics and:

 

 

1. I wanted to make sure the Devs were aware of all of them
   
2. I hope to get clarification on which specific issues they plan on fixing.
   

 

 

Item(s): Conqueror and Partisan Relics of Serendipitous Assault

 

Issue: Double Power Surge buff

Explanation: Currently if you equip 1x Conqueror and 1x Partisan Serendipitous Assault (SA) relic you can receive two separate Power Surge buffs. That is, each relic contributes its own buff. Based on Amber Green's post, this bug/issue is slated to be fixed in 2.1.1.

 

 

Item(s): Conqueror or Partisan + Underworld or Arkanian Relics of Serendipitous Assault

 

Issue: PvP SA relics do not recognize the PvE Power Surge buff

Explanation: This is related to the above issue. With 1x PvP SA and 1x PvE SA relic, you can still achieve two separate Power Surge buffs. However, this will happen less frequently than with two PvP relics. The PvE relic recognizes the PvP Power Surge and will not proc. That is, if the PvE SA relic procs first the PvP can still proc, but the opposite is not true.

 

 

Item(s): PvP Relics of Serendipitous Assault

 

Issue: PvP SA relics can proc simultaneously from an attack and heal

 

Explanation: While both relic types can proc from a heal or attack, the PvP SA relics can have their Power Surge buff refreshed due to the other action proc'ing it. Let me illustrate how this works for an Annihilation Marauder assuming they are equipped with only 1 PvP SA relic. At time:

 

 

• 0s PvP SA relic procs due to an attack causing a 6s Power Surge buff.
  
• 3s PvP SA relic procs due to a heal from critical bleed damage. This causes the 6s Power Surge buff to refresh.
  
• 9s the Power Surge buff finally fades 3s after it should have faded from the first proc.
  
• 20s PvP SA relic can proc again due to an attack
  

 

The above example can and will happen as the PvP SA relics proc separately from heals and attacks. This results in significantly longer uptime on the Power Surge buff. And, this does not happen with the PvE SA relics. Thus, even if the first two relic issues are corrected, the PvP SA relics will still remain best for Annihilation Marauders/Watchman Sentinels and healers who can apply a DoT.

[Mireleni]

The ability for the Relics of Serendipitous Assault to proc twice in a 20-second period--once for healing, once for damage--is a huge imbalance that definitely grants certain specs a great advantage, e.g. Watchman sentinels, who constantly do ticks of both healing and damage. It also makes the relics more powerful for PvE than even the Underworld Relic of Serendipitous Assault, which in theory should be better. Whether the double proc buffs stack to give double power or simply double the amount of time that the buff is up, it is overpowered and a problem.

 

I don't have the Arkanian Relic of Serendipitous Assault, but I have heard from a couple people I raid with who do that it, like the PvP versions of the relic, can proc for both healing and damage within the same 20-second period. I can't confirm it firsthand, but they assure me it happens all the time--that they get procs more often than every 20 seconds. This is NOT true of the Underworld Relic of Serendipitous Assault, which I use and have tested extensively. I can confirm it never procs more than once in a 20-second period, regardless of whether I am doing healing and damage simultaneously. This means that the Underworld version of the relic, which in theory should be the best, is actually the worst, because it can only proc half as often as the Arkanian and PvP versions. I have submitted a bug report about this in game, but have yet to see it listed as a known issue or see a dev acknowledge the double heal+damage procs. Let me know if it has been addressed somewhere, but also, please fix it.