01-06-2005, 11:55 PM
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First off, thanks to Bolty and all the regulars here for a great resource. I've been tracking it since playing D2, and it's made it much easier to play smart.
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Personally, I'm not sure that I'd take points out of Shadow Reach, and I'd max Blackout. This is all personal opinion, of course, and you need to choose what suits your style.
I've currently got a priest within a whisker of level 42, and I'm about to respec to full shadow - 33 points, not a point elsewhere. From here on, my points will be going into Discipline talents to get improved PW:S and PW:F. My plan is to do this until my life in instances gets too unpleasant to bear, at which point I'll respec to improve my healing. I'm currently at 2/5 in Blackout and 1/3 in Shadow Reach, and those are both going to get cranked. Here's my logic:
Mind Flay works great while mobs are closing on you, but it's got a fairly limited reach. If I open with a big hit + DoT (Mind Blast + SW:P), I find that channelling MF gets broken because the cast delay associated with SW:P gives the mob time to get too close, and they can hit to break your MF. The solution to this is to cast PW:S before every fight, but that's a mana-intensive way to avoid interruption. And since MF is channelled rather than cast, the Discipline talents don't do anything to avoid interruption.
Blackout, however, fixes this -- you get a free shot while the mob is stunned. At 5/5 in blackout, it's 90% chance that they'll get through unstunned on any one cast. But if you're opening with MB/SW:P/MF, that's (0.9^3)~73% chance of them getting to you. Better odds, but not great.
My hope is that combining this with Shadow Reach will give me two more casts of either MF or MB. At that point, the mob's chance of getting to me without a stun is (0.9^5) or ~59%. Still not in my favour, but better -- enough so that it's worth a test drive to see if I like it. I do know right now, with only 2/5 points in Blackout, that the little purple swirl over the mob's head is a really happy sight when it shows!
The other factor in favour of Shadow Reach is that MB has a longer range than MF - at least, I see cases where I pop a mob with MB, MB procs a stun from Blackout, and when I hit MF I get the dreaded "out of range" message. This might be because I habitually start backing up after firing, because I need the space to ensure I have time to get a full MF in. Shadow Reach won't fix the difference in range between the two spells, but I'm hoping that it will give me enough range on MF that if I pull from max range, I don't have to back up in order to get the time for MF to complete.
If all this works as planned, I should get out of using shields so often -- hopefully only when Blackout doesn't proc, about 2/3 of the time. Or maybe I'll switch to using Renew and spamming an improved MB, perhaps coupled with Vampiric Embrace. By my math, I'll be saving a good chunk of mana per fight, and I'll be 100% guaranteed to get Spirit Tap at the end of it, so my downtime should be a lot less.
Of course, I haven't played this yet, but it sounds good on paper... :)
The good thing about this build is that it's generally agreed to be great for soloing. The bad thing is that giving up improved Renew and the other healing talents will make instances a lot harder, and I'll be depending on improved Fade rather than Subtlety to manage healing aggro, which might eventually drive me to another respec. I fully expect to respec once more for the end game, trying to keep shadow up to MF and cranking up the healing talents to 21 points. Something may have to give, it'll include giving up Spirit Tap for sure, and probably Shadow Reach once I'm doing more grouping and less soloing.
Anyhow, that's just where I'm at right now. Ask me tomorrow, it might not seem like such a good idea after I've tried it.
Kv
PS - If you want to have real fun with this, find a good mage to partner with, and watch your killrate soar. With some creative dancing, you can use monkey-in-the-middle tactics to keep the bad guys from ever hitting you as you trade aggro back and forth, and the damage output is amazing. Give it a whirl!
First off, thanks to Bolty and all the regulars here for a great resource. I've been tracking it since playing D2, and it's made it much easier to play smart.
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Xanthix,Jan 5 2005, 02:47 PM Wrote:As for Subtlety, you could take the points out of Shadow Reach and Blackout. Pulling range is rarely an issue for anyone I know - Reach's only benefit might be extending Mind Flay range. Blackout's stun could be nice... I guess it give you an uninterrupted spellcasting window when it procs, but if you have multiple mobs on you the benefit is reduced, and 10% is infrequent, and you have Mind Flay to slow mobs anyway which is kind of half a stun.
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Personally, I'm not sure that I'd take points out of Shadow Reach, and I'd max Blackout. This is all personal opinion, of course, and you need to choose what suits your style.
I've currently got a priest within a whisker of level 42, and I'm about to respec to full shadow - 33 points, not a point elsewhere. From here on, my points will be going into Discipline talents to get improved PW:S and PW:F. My plan is to do this until my life in instances gets too unpleasant to bear, at which point I'll respec to improve my healing. I'm currently at 2/5 in Blackout and 1/3 in Shadow Reach, and those are both going to get cranked. Here's my logic:
Mind Flay works great while mobs are closing on you, but it's got a fairly limited reach. If I open with a big hit + DoT (Mind Blast + SW:P), I find that channelling MF gets broken because the cast delay associated with SW:P gives the mob time to get too close, and they can hit to break your MF. The solution to this is to cast PW:S before every fight, but that's a mana-intensive way to avoid interruption. And since MF is channelled rather than cast, the Discipline talents don't do anything to avoid interruption.
Blackout, however, fixes this -- you get a free shot while the mob is stunned. At 5/5 in blackout, it's 90% chance that they'll get through unstunned on any one cast. But if you're opening with MB/SW:P/MF, that's (0.9^3)~73% chance of them getting to you. Better odds, but not great.
My hope is that combining this with Shadow Reach will give me two more casts of either MF or MB. At that point, the mob's chance of getting to me without a stun is (0.9^5) or ~59%. Still not in my favour, but better -- enough so that it's worth a test drive to see if I like it. I do know right now, with only 2/5 points in Blackout, that the little purple swirl over the mob's head is a really happy sight when it shows!
The other factor in favour of Shadow Reach is that MB has a longer range than MF - at least, I see cases where I pop a mob with MB, MB procs a stun from Blackout, and when I hit MF I get the dreaded "out of range" message. This might be because I habitually start backing up after firing, because I need the space to ensure I have time to get a full MF in. Shadow Reach won't fix the difference in range between the two spells, but I'm hoping that it will give me enough range on MF that if I pull from max range, I don't have to back up in order to get the time for MF to complete.
If all this works as planned, I should get out of using shields so often -- hopefully only when Blackout doesn't proc, about 2/3 of the time. Or maybe I'll switch to using Renew and spamming an improved MB, perhaps coupled with Vampiric Embrace. By my math, I'll be saving a good chunk of mana per fight, and I'll be 100% guaranteed to get Spirit Tap at the end of it, so my downtime should be a lot less.
Of course, I haven't played this yet, but it sounds good on paper... :)
The good thing about this build is that it's generally agreed to be great for soloing. The bad thing is that giving up improved Renew and the other healing talents will make instances a lot harder, and I'll be depending on improved Fade rather than Subtlety to manage healing aggro, which might eventually drive me to another respec. I fully expect to respec once more for the end game, trying to keep shadow up to MF and cranking up the healing talents to 21 points. Something may have to give, it'll include giving up Spirit Tap for sure, and probably Shadow Reach once I'm doing more grouping and less soloing.
Anyhow, that's just where I'm at right now. Ask me tomorrow, it might not seem like such a good idea after I've tried it.
Kv
PS - If you want to have real fun with this, find a good mage to partner with, and watch your killrate soar. With some creative dancing, you can use monkey-in-the-middle tactics to keep the bad guys from ever hitting you as you trade aggro back and forth, and the damage output is amazing. Give it a whirl!