Thread: Some Changes For The Test of Will Skill

1. Make this skill a 5 target AoE, or perhaps next xpac make an improved version of the skill that turns it into an AoE. It doesn't hit hard, even on crits, and a 5s stun + morale cost with a 2s induction, and long animation makes the skill not useful for the low damage it does. This skill is nothing compared to burg startling twist. I do understand that LMs have many more stuns than burgs to make up for that, but this skill really has hardly any use. Light of the rising dawn is much faster and does much more damage, while still stunning your target. Since Test of Will is a much longer induction and hits much lower, I feel that it should be an AoE skill.

2. Increase the crit chance. The tooltip of the skill states that it has an increased crit chance, but I do not notice this. It may just be because it's on a 1 minute cooldown, and on top of that I rarely use it in the first place. However it seems like it doesn't crit as much as it should because the tooltip states that Test of Will has a "large bonus to its critical chance and magnitude." Also change the test of will devastate magnitude book legacy to normal crit AND dev crit magnitude on the skill. Increasing the crit chance while making the legacy more useful and having the skill as an AoE would give people a reason to use the skill and the legacy.

3. Along with the stun the skill gives, have it debuff the affected targets' incoming damage by a 5% on critical and 10% on dev critical hits for 30 seconds. Balancing Info- READ THIS -------->This effect will only apply if the Lore-Master is slotted 4 deep in the AM trait-line. Otherwise the LM does not get the added bonus of an incoming damage debuff on crits or dev crits. This effect should stack among multiple LMs who crit/dev with test of will to give raids and groups a reason to consider taking more than just one Lore-Master along. Plus, this would give Test of Will a true secondary function, for mobs that cannot be stunned.

I just feel that Test of Will is outdated and is a skill with potential that could be made useful. I'm not saying my suggestions are perfect, but the skill should be upgraded somehow from what it currently is. Thoughts?

Edit: As a sidenote, I suggest that the cooldown on Lightning-Storm should be reduced to 2 minutes. It's a great AoE with a good animation, and it's a lot of fun to use. I would love to be able to use it as frequently as I can use Ents. 2 minutes seems like a reasonable cooldown for it.

I agree with you that Test of Will is to weak. But I dont think it should be made into an AoE. Instead, I would like the see the damage greatly increased so it can become a good opener to a fight; kind of like a hunter's Heart Seeker. If this were to happen, the induction could be increased and possibly the cooldown as well the balance the higher damage. Failing this, I would at least like the damage to be slightly increased and have a decreased cooldown. As for the crit chance I don't use this skill enough right now to notice if its increased but when it does crit it seems to have a very high crit magnitude.

The debuff on crits would be nice but it still wouldnt increase the number of LMs to be brought on a raid. A burg's revel weakness lasts the whole fight and can be put up immediatly and stacks and with your proposal with the ToW buff only being on a crit it wouldn't be very reliable, plus the skill has a one min CD and the buff would only last 30s.

I think the LS cooldown is fair. It is the most powerful AoE in the game so it should have a reasonably long CD. While I would love to see the cooldown reduced, I don't think its going to happen.

Overall, I do think Test of Will needs to be impoved. The 5s stun is nice but with the long induction, long cooldown, and low damage, it just isn't worth using it.

Actually Test of Will is not weak per se, its situational.....it is a 5 second stun with a long induction, mediocre cooldown and a high chance of devastates.....and yes it does have a high chance of crit......it crits a lot more than any of my other skills.....1/3 atleast......and it devastes for 2.5k-3k for me.....which is as good as a LotRD devastate.....so its true that it has nothing to offer much better than LotRD in compensation of the long induction, except the extra 2 second stun....which is underwhelming....


But making it an AoE would put it in the league of Ents....which is a 2k-3k AoE damage skill with a 6 second AoE stun.....ToW would become quite similar if it were to be turned AoE.....

Personally, I'd like Test of Will to give us something different enough to make the skill useful and not similar to the bunch of other cc skills we have and yet be in tune with our role....so maybe....

Test of Will - Light to Medium damage, 1.5 second induction, 1 minute cooldown, high crit chance (as it is now), 6 second stun, 75 percent chance to open a Fellowship Maneuver, 25 percent chance to put a 5 percent increased melee/ranged incoming damage debuff on the target for 15 seconds....

That way it does what its supposed to do now, gives us a new capability of opening FMs which we dont have at all at the moment, and has a chance to give a debuff which we dont have right now either (unless we use the bear for Shatter Arms)

Originally Posted by Wraithlord

Instead, I would like the see the damage greatly increased so it can become a good opener to a fight; kind of like a hunter's Heart Seeker.

I like this idea. At low levels, that's basically how the skill performs. The problem is that it hasn't scaled well.

Another option would be to raise the stun to at least 8 seconds, which would put it on par with a burg's startling twist.

Not real sure what I would suggest for ToW. I maybe use it 2 - 4% compared to the rest of the skills. I cannot stand around that long for what it does.

As to a 2 min CD on Lighting - almost OP at that point. With total of the 3 legs from 5K to 12K damage for me.... Something would have to get nerfed. I would prefer to see AC get its range expanded to match LS or done away with as a pre-req. Zipping in to cast AC has cost me more than once.

Originally Posted by Tatuaje

I would prefer to see AC get its range expanded to match LS or done away with as a pre-req. Zipping in to cast AC has cost me more than once.

A longer range on AC would be nice, but it's not just there to enable LS. It's a hugely powerful armour debuff. You can often see just how good it is, from knowledge of the loremaster. Many bosses show the same remarkable damage resistance to all types without AC, but with AC running, you will usually see a hidden weakness (in relative terms!) to a particular damage type.

well ... put that on aoe it's a really fail !
lore master have already a lot of aoe skill and the problem is when you can't use the aoe skill cause you don't wanna kill or destun adds ...
Lore master need an upgrade on single target !!!
for me An upgrade of this skill can be only add a debuff with reduction of stat/defence or increase damage on the target.

Another point the lore master need for sure is a skill for decrease the incoming healing ...

Atm burg have better cc debuff and damage ...

<controversial but fun>
ToW one shots all wargs on a dev crit
</controversial but fun>

I suggest an alternative to a stun. Its supposed to be a "my mind is greater than your mind" sort of thing. That offers an alternative mechanic, possibly mob genus based. Think Glorfindel at the Fords of Bruinen when he revealed himself as one of the Noldor in the full power of one born in Valinor, chasing away multiple Nazgul which may be the inspiration for this effect.
Orc and troll types, being thick, run away in terror for 20s
The Dead and Unseen become neutral for 20s, they stop attacking unless damaged
Beats and Creatures of Nature become biddable for 20s and attack anything that has aggro on the caster
Ancient Evil and Dragonkind are too intelligent for their will to be overcome save on a very small chance (dev crit only) and are stunned for 5s as normal, otherwise they flee.

To make it more interesting perhaps have the skill reset the mob's threat perception.

We have a big aoe stun with damage in Ents go to war. I don't think test of will should be a mini Ents. Instead they should make a trait that increases all stun times by 2s. Test of will at 7s would be an amazing lock down. This would also make all out other stun stills better which wouldn't be too bad.

I think LMs could also use a memory wipe skill, like the ToO frost ring, on a 5 minute cooldown. This would let us get around stun immunity and adaptation once a fight but you can not abuse it.

Originally Posted by silverblade5445

it crits a lot more than any of my other skills

If this is the truth , you are doing something terribly wrong .

On a related note , I'd like to see it on a shorter CD , different animation and with a 20% chance to proc a CJ .

Originally Posted by Louvre

If this is the truth , you are doing something terribly wrong .

On a related note , I'd like to see it on a shorter CD , different animation and with a 20% chance to proc a CJ .

Er....with the exception of crit chance rating (mine's 6k), there is barely anything in a person's control about chance of skills getting crit and devastes.....wonder how anyone can "do something terribly wrong about it"


On topic, I'm with the CJ idea.....We really need a FM opener.....especially as support class....

Originally Posted by silverblade5445

Er....with the exception of crit chance rating (mine's 6k), there is barely anything in a person's control about chance of skills getting crit and devastes....

- Lightning Skills Critical Rating
- Fire Skills Critical Rating

Those by themselves should make you crit like crazy on fire / lightning skills .

So yes , if a light skill crits more often than any of those , something is wrong imho .

Originally Posted by Louvre

- Lightning Skills Critical Rating
- Fire Skills Critical Rating

Those by themselves should make you crit like crazy on fire / lightning skills .

So yes , if a light skill crits more often than any of those , something is wrong imho .

Test of will has a higher chance to crit, per the tooltip.

The thing is that most people use way more fire/lightning skills than ToW. Hence, the absolute number of crits will be higher on fire/lightning, but the rate of crits should be higher on ToW, on average (assuming no legacies).

I like it just the way it is, a 5 second stun, thats nice, and say what you want, I have seen it one hit before on a devastating hit (just once, but still), so the crit damage it quite nice. I wouldn't change it at all, I pretty much use it everytime its off CD solo, no matter how I am traited.

Originally Posted by Waxe

I like it just the way it is, a 5 second stun, thats nice, and say what you want, I have seen it one hit before on a devastating hit (just once, but still), so the crit damage it quite nice. I wouldn't change it at all, I pretty much use it everytime its off CD solo, no matter how I am traited.

Yes it crits very nicely. I was just killing some lvl20 bears on my lvl16 LM, went to stun one, it dev'd and one-shotted the bear 4 levels above me. I almost giggled.

Originally Posted by Moejo

Yes it crits very nicely. I was just killing some lvl20 bears on my lvl16 LM, went to stun one, it dev'd and one-shotted the bear 4 levels above me. I almost giggled.

This is how we like it. Thing is, as anteku already said, that the skill doesn't scale that well. Level capped lore-masters use Test of Will mostly for the stun, not for the damage.

Originally Posted by anteku

Another option would be to raise the stun to at least 8 seconds, which would put it on par with a burg's startling twist.

I like this idea as well! It has bugged me often that burglars have a longer stun available than lore-masters, especially in ToO, where stuns come in handy for adaptation mobs.

I'd love it if they would alter this skill to either hit as sweetly as it used to on low levels (but scaled ofc ) or increase the stun to match the burglar's 8 seconds. The AoE idea is over the top and not very realistic to be implemented, but I think these earlier ideas would do nicely.

I agree with the OP, Test of Will is a skill I rarely use due to the long induction. A FM/CJ opening addition would make perfect sense. I believe the % chance should be higher or even 100% imo. If it is a "Improved Test of Will" it makes sense to have it be a 100% FM/CJ opener. +rep to who came up with that idea.


Good topic