Curse

mage767 · Jun 20, 2011, 09:41 PM // 21:41

AI + EB = way to go

GoLE, spell, spell = also good

Soryuju · Jun 21, 2011, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Okay, so I spent a decent bit of today testing out skills, and also swapping out my 15/-1 Wand for a regular, 20/20 Domination wand. The rest of my equipment still needs changing around, but that's going to have to wait until I get some money back. =P

Anyways, here's the current draft of my build:

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Runes put my Fast Casting at 10 and my Domination Magic at 15 (headgear + Major Rune). I'm probably going to get a Minor Inspiration Rune at some point soon, but haven't bothered investing in it yet, since it seems like most of my gear is going to be changing in the near future.

Alright, so, brief reasoning behind each of the skills:

Mind Wrack: Long-lasting setup hex for Unnatural Signet and Cry of Pain, and amplifies damage from most of my skills to the target. Also adds a little damage to Ether Feast, which is fun.

Unnatural Signet: Easy, unconditional damage at no cost. With Mind Wrack, spikes for 100 damage and deals 50 to anything adjacent.

Cry of Pain: More quick damage, with health degen added. Also very useful as an interrupt. My Sunspear rank is 8, so it hits for 45 damage initially.

Energy Surge: The finishing blow after US and CoP. If the target was affected with Mind Wrack and gets hit by all three follow-up skills, the total damage is 285, with -5 health degen on top (75+25+45+25+90+25). Since both it and CoP hit enemies nearby, the AoE potential is also pretty nice.

Ether Feast: A self-heal, mostly included because Flesh of My Flesh saps my HP. I found that when one of my healers went down, trying to revive them with FoMF usually resulted in my own death shortly after, even though I was keeping my distance from enemies. Ether Feast buys me some time while my healers get back to work again.

Web of Disruption: Testing this as a backup interrupt and a cover hex for Mind Wrack. Seems to be working okay so far, since even if I miss the interrupt, it sets the target up for Unnatural and CoP. I was thinking about running Shatter Delusions with it, but couldn't fit it.

Power Drain: E-management, interruption.

Flesh of My Flesh: Liking this so far. Fast Casting lets it activate at a nice rate, and I can usually stay in good enough health to keep it useful.

I ended up going a bit light on the energy management, mostly just due to a lack of space, though it doesn't seem to be working too badly so far. With energy regeneration factored in, a full salvo of Mind Wrack, Unnatural Signet, Cry of Pain, and Energy Surge puts me at 27 energy (out of 42). Then I have to wait for a little bit while stuff recharges, which lets me get some energy back and helps keep me from running dry too quickly. I can't really do too much during that time, though, since Ether Feast and FoMF are reserved for specific situations. Basically, I just have to look for something to interrupt with Web or PD until my damage comes back online.

I did try the AI/AE combination, but it didn't really work that well for me. It certainly restored energy nicely, but I found that by the time I cast Auspicious and copied a skill with AE (usually E-Surge), most enemies were usually already scattered or dead, so my damage output dropped dramatically. I also tried Auspicious with Deep Freeze, but I kind of got flustered trying to manage my damage output, energy, snaring, and interrupting all at once, and the result was that I didn't really do any of them very well. That's probably just my inexperience showing, though, since I know other players use combinations like those successfully. =P

I also tried Glyph of Lesser Energy, which was more straightforward and took less time to use, but I ran into a different problem there. The skills I'm using for offense don't cost very much to activate, with the most expensive being CoP, so I wasn't actually saving much energy. GoLE's long recharge time meant that I was only periodically getting a brief effect that wasn't having much of an impact, so it just seemed like a waste of space. But maybe that's just another case of improper usage on my part.

That's about all I have to report at this point. Any further suggestions anyone has to offer are welcome, and again, thank you all for providing such great help. ^^