Mindpower

[Assur]

Hi

I'm starting a ShadowSniper, i.e. a Bowassa that uses only the Shadow disciplines, and I've got a few questions.

- Do Cloak of Shadows and the stun from Mindblast work on superuniques/act-bosses?

- It seems that Cloak of Shadows can't be recast when it still is active!? Can my Shadowwarrior/master cast it when my casting is still actve? What if I leave the active radius while it still is active, can I recast it then? (There used to be a thread but I can't find it :( )

good karma

[Wyrm]

I'm not sure about the first one, I'd assume they can't be used against act bosses, though regular superuniques should be fair game.

You can't recast cloack of shadows during it's duration time, which is partly why many people leave it at 1 point. Your shadows can cast it however often they want to, so if you're using Shadow Warrior, you can have the skill as your right click and she'll cast it constantly, even though you can't.

[bigeyedbug]

Your shadows can cast it however often they want to, so if you're using Shadow Warrior, you can have the skill as your right click and she'll cast it constantly, even though you can't.

I've played with SW's quite a lot, and I don't think this is true. I've seen no reason to think that they're not on their own, seperate timer. What makes you think otherwise? Are you getting CoS's lasting crazy lengths of time? (Depending on SW and CoS level, 30 seconds or more.)

[Baajikiil]

Do Cloak of Shadows and the stun from Mindblast work on superuniques/act-bosses

Uniques can be stunned by mind blast(at a greatly reduced rate, IIRC 15% of the time), and they will take knockback, but will never convert. Some monsters are immune to knockback(ancients for example, though they *can* be stunned). In general, only a very high lvl of mindblast, with constant spamming can keep a unique stunned. Act bosses will only take the damage from mindblast.

CoS will reduce a unique's defense, but will not blind them like normal monsters. I don't recall if act bosses are effected, but the best you could hope for is simply the defense reduction. They will obviously not be blinded. Next time you fight an act boss, use CoS; if they get the animation over their heads, then the defense reduction is most likely working.

[Wyrm]

What makes you think otherwise?

I've had SWs summoned before and watched them cast CoS 2-3 times consectutively (sp?), sometimes before the darkening effect has fully set in.

[bigeyedbug]

I've had SWs summoned before and watched them cast CoS 2-3 times consectutively (sp?), sometimes before the darkening effect has fully set in.

I'm puzzled then, I've never seen this. Sounds like a bug.

As far as defense reduction on act bosses goes, based on my success hitting them CoS/Non-CoS, I'm nearly certain it works.

[Wyrm]

It's not a bug. Minions aren't affected by casting timers, you just never notice it because none of them can actually use skills that have timers on them, Shadows being the exception (and really, how many people are going to walk around with CoS on their right click all the time?). If you put it on both right and left click, you can probably notice the same thing with Dragon Flight. Granted, even when you have a special attack on your l/r clicks, shadows still seem to use a normal attack half the time.

[bigeyedbug]

I'll run around for a while with CoS on RMB, and see what I can see...

Well, just did some running around. ;) Stopwatch equipped. SP, to minimize issues with lag. Normal difficulty, so as not to get my hc ass qwn3d by Fallen champs while doing a freakin' experiment. Only for about 30 minutes, but I saw very little to make me doubt my observations before.

The duration of the smoke effect was 17 seconds--exactly what it should have been. I pretty much saw nothing resembling a non-timered CoS from the Shadow. When I could get Slim Shady into positions where she'd constantly recast, she basically seemed to abide by the timer.

But wait! "Very little" and "pretty much" and "basically seemed"?

Nope, not my pretentions at British understatement this time. There were a couple of times the the effect seemed to last a little less before being recast. ~15 seconds. And one time I clocked it at ~11 seconds. Operator error maybe?

In any case, there were at least 50 times that everything fell within normal parameters. And you'd think I'd see at least a few instances of fewer than 5 or 10 second castings. I think it's safe to say at the least, that the shadow is very hesitant to exploit the hypothetical timer bug. Gogo Legit Shadow!

It could also be that it's more likely to haxx0r the timer under specific circumstances that I didn't replicate. Anyone with some experience with this anomaly, speak up!


editnote--accidently edited previous post, by the way. That's where the quote came from.