Spectral Agony

Spectral Agony is a monster skill that can only be used by Mursaat, Jade Armors, and Jade Bows.

Skill description
For 5 seconds, target foe suffers 1...24 Health degeneration, moves, attacks and uses skills up to 80% slower than normal, and loses 3...81 Health each second.

Analysis
Spectral Agony can very quickly kill an unprotected character. To make things worse, Mursaat and Jade enemies will use this skill frequently. The only way to protect against it is infusion. Infusing your armor will reduce all of the effects of Spectral Agony to very manageable levels.

Spectral Agony was changed in a previous patch, but the in-game description does not reflect this. Our own analysis on damage follows:

1 The total damage done is the total health lost due to direct damage and health degeneration over Spectral Agony's 5 second span. 2 Health degeneration is subtracted from regeneration to find the actual health "balance." A character cannot actually suffer from more than 10 net health degeneration (or benefit from more than 10 net health regeneration). 3 Assumes an effective net penalty of 10 health degeneration.

The exact slowing effect of Spectral Agony is unknown. When wearing a fully infused set, little or no slowing is experienced. With each piece less, a character suffers from progressively worse slowing. Spectral Agony's direct damage ignores armor like Obsidian Flame and Crystal Wave but unlike most other skills, no type of magical resistance is effective against it. This means infusion is the only protection and any infused piece of armor is effective as another.

It´s good idea to take mesmer, who can try to slow casting time and then block casting of Spectral Agony.

The final word on Spectral Agony is that when fighting Mursaat or Jade, make sure you're wearing a fully infused set of armor.