Dark Imbuement

[sephiroth1084]

Finally capped Shadowdancer and decided to give this a try. I am, for the most part, quite underwhelmed.

First, it takes forever to generate the 20 charges necessary to activate this, in part because the only way to build them up--hitting, and killing, something which you've marked with Shrouding Strike/Shot, necessarily works around the cooldown of Shrouding Strike. If you're in a group, you're unlikely to get more than one charge per small fight, or two in big ones maybe. That assumes that you don't have anyone killing multiple enemies at a time.

Second, any time you pass through a portal/doorway/Dimension Door, your charges reset.

Another problem with Dark Imbuement, though is that it doesn't interact well with any of your other abilities. If you're an Assassin, you want to be assassinating mobs, not generating aggro by hitting them. This was fixed for Dark Shrouding, but not for DI, yet it really should be. Additionally, it would be useful if Executioner's Strike (when it gets fixed to actually work), Shadow Manipulation and Consume all could generate charges for DI. You shouldn't be forced to choose between using the cool toys your Epic Destiny gives you, and activating the Epic Moment--for all the other destinies, you use the tools you're given to get to the Moment without having to sacrifice your other abilities.


Those are problems with getting to the Epic Moment. So how about once you get there?

Well, The extended range on the melee attacks is pretty nice, and looks kind of cool, but it's inconsistent. I hit a monster with an attack at range, then the next 10 attacks I made didn't register, despite neither of us moving. No attack rolls, no hits, no misses, nada.

And really, that's a ton of build-up for 30 seconds of +2d6 damage. Underwhelming doesn't begin to cut it.

[destiny4405]

ya, it's pretty bad. no other epic moment requires more then one target to keep recharging their epic moments. you can't count on it for any boss fight, but it's not bad since the damage is just so bad. prolly even dps loss if you don't use it with haste boost.

the charges should get changed to accumulate on vorpals or something similiar. and the damage should be upped big time.

it seems like devs don't think that anything is wrong with it. have been saying this on beta, lama and normal forums.

[Tid12]

Finally capped Shadowdancer and decided to give this a try. I am, for the most part, quite underwhelmed.

First, it takes forever to generate the 20 charges necessary to activate this, in part because the only way to build them up--hitting, and killing, something which you've marked with Shrouding Strike/Shot, necessarily works around the cooldown of Shrouding Strike. If you're in a group, you're unlikely to get more than one charge per small fight, or two in big ones maybe. That assumes that you don't have anyone killing multiple enemies at a time.

Second, any time you pass through a portal/doorway/Dimension Door, your charges reset.

Another problem with Dark Imbuement, though is that it doesn't interact well with any of your other abilities. If you're an Assassin, you want to be assassinating mobs, not generating aggro by hitting them. This was fixed for Dark Shrouding, but not for DI, yet it really should be. Additionally, it would be useful if Executioner's Strike (when it gets fixed to actually work), Shadow Manipulation and Consume all could generate charges for DI. You shouldn't be forced to choose between using the cool toys your Epic Destiny gives you, and activating the Epic Moment--for all the other destinies, you use the tools you're given to get to the Moment without having to sacrifice your other abilities.

It takes a lot to charge DI because Shrouding Strike/Shot is broken.

If you mark it, and it dies within the next 6 seconds, you gain a charge. Doesn't matter if you have the killing blow, it just has to die. At the moment, you gain charges only if you Assassinate.

The "pass through anything and you lose charges" is a problem of every destiny. It was stated MANY MANY times in the closed Beta that they should get rid of it but meh, they didn't listen to us and this is the status now.

Also, Consume can't generate charges for DI. You have either Consume or DI, you haven't the points to have both of them. While getting consume to a lower tier would be awesome, it would probably be OP. Instakill option AND Epic moment sounds rather powerfull to me.

Anyway, for all these reasons, I'm going for Consume + Executioner Strike on my rogue. Will see how it works out wednesday.


EDIT: Getting charges on Vorpal would be cool too. Would be awesome in boss fights. Thou, there is always trash in boss fights so you can just charge them marking those foes.

[sephiroth1084]

It takes a lot to charge DI because Shrouding Strike/Shot is broken.

If you mark it, and it dies within the next 6 seconds, you gain a charge. Doesn't matter if you have the killing blow, it just has to die. At the moment, you gain charges only if you Assassinate.

Not in my experience.

Also, Consume can't generate charges for DI. You have either Consume or DI, you haven't the points to have both of them. While getting consume to a lower tier would be awesome, it would probably be OP. Instakill option AND Epic moment sounds rather powerfull to me.

Forgot that you can't take both due to AP requirements. Nothing about the existing Epic Moment here is OP, or would be OP if you also had Consume.

Anyway, for all these reasons, I'm going for Consume + Executioner Strike on my rogue. Will see how it works out wednesday.

I think Executioner's Strike and Consume aren't working currently.

[Rauven]

Consume is on the fix list for Wednesday's U14.2, don't remember if executioners strike is. I've heard the same rumor about shrouding strike not giving charges, have not experienced that. I went with consume on my main, dark imbuement just seemed kinda meh from the description.

[Tid12]

Not in my experience.

Haven't really understood what you mean.

Do you mean that if you mark a target with Shrouding Strike you can get a charge? Seems weird, it is broken now and I'm not the only one saying it.

Or do you mean that you in your experience you have to have the killing blow? Also seems weird since it's broken so it's not really possible to test it AFAIK. Will surely do more test when they fix it.

Forgot that you can't take both due to AP requirements. Nothing about the existing Epic Moment here is OP, or would be OP if you also had Consume.

Having both probably would be too good. Instakill + Damage against boss isn't little.

EDIT: Anyway, it's not possible at the moment so. I'd just rather them to buff DI a bit, see post below.

I think Executioner's Strike and Consume aren't working currently.

Consume will be fixed wednesday with the U14p2. Executioner's Strike yeah, it's still broken, I meant when they fix it

[Tid12]

Consume is on the fix list for Wednesday's U14.2, don't remember if executioners strike is. I've heard the same rumor about shrouding strike not giving charges, have not experienced that. I went with consume on my main, dark imbuement just seemed kinda meh from the description.

Shrouding strike only gives you charges if you Assassinate at the moment. Do you mean it is working for you? Even if you mark and NOT assassinate but just kill it normally?

And yeah..DI doesn't seem good at all.

I'd have preferred something like: For the next 30 seconds, you do -90% less aggro from your melee/ranged attacks and gain 6d6 unholy AND 6d6 Holy damage.

2d6 is so meh when you see the FotW doing 400% damage (10 attacks) and +16 critical threat range and confirmation of critical hits and then LD gives +25% Melee damage that stacks up to 10 times.

[Rauven]

Shrouding strike only gives you charges if you Assassinate at the moment. Do you mean it is working for you? Even if you mark and NOT assassinate but just kill it normally?

And yeah..DI doesn't seem good at all.

I'd have preferred something like: For the next 30 seconds, you do -90% less aggro from your melee/ranged attacks and gain 6d6 unholy AND 6d6 Holy damage.

2d6 is so meh when you see the FotW doing 400% damage (10 attacks) and +16 critical threat range and confirmation of critical hits and then LD gives +25% Melee damage that stacks up to 10 times.

I mean, if I mark and it dies I get a charge. I have not noticed that I have to get the killing blow. I have noticed that there seems to be a short lag between when the effect is removed from the mob and when the curse hat is removed. If the mob dies just as the curse hat disappears you generally miss the charge. Assassination is a quicker way to accumulate charges as I can generally get 2 at a time. I haven't had SD active for a few days but the last time I used it was after U14.1 and before Monday's Marathon Maintenance. When I get on my main later today I'll swap back to SD and try it again to confirm but my experience has not been that shrouding strike melee is broken (can't comment on shrouding strike ranged).

[Tid12]

I mean, if I mark and it dies I get a charge. I have not noticed that I have to get the killing blow. I have noticed that there seems to be a short lag between when the effect is removed from the mob and when the curse hat is removed. If the mob dies just as the curse hat disappears you generally miss the charge. Assassination is a quicker way to accumulate charges as I can generally get 2 at a time. I haven't had SD active for a few days but the last time I used it was after U14.1 and before Monday's Marathon Maintenance. When I get on my main later today I'll swap back to SD and try it again to confirm but my experience has not been that shrouding strike melee is broken (can't comment on shrouding strike ranged).

Just another question: Do you have Shadow Form? It seems that if you have Shadow form, you can get charges normally. This would explain why to some it isn't working while for some other it would.

On my rogue, I haven't Shadowform and not getting charges with Shrouding Strike.

Just read this from Update 14 Broken ‘Things’ Master List (MotU Edition)

Shrouding Strike currently marks the targets correctly, but no shadow charges will be gained after the targets death. As a result, a lot of other abilities on the Shadow Dancer tree are effectively useless, as they need shadow charges in order to do anything. It is possible that this issue only occurs when not in some 'Shadow Form', or depending on the order you took the ability. Can someone please give me a straight explanation?

[Rauven]

Just another question: Do you have Shadow Form? It seems that if you have Shadow form, you can get charges normally. This would explain why to some it isn't working while for some other it would.

On my rogue, I haven't Shadowform and not getting charges with Shrouding Strike.

Just read this from Update 14 Broken ‘Things’ Master List (MotU Edition)

I am aware of the thread and my experiences do not match the claims. Yes I have shadow form, but I could get charges before I had shadow form. As has been noted there is no way to know if you have charges if you don't have something that uses the charges. For example, when I took shadow strike melee I couldn't see how many charges I had until I took cloak of shadow. That may be a bug or a design flaw.

That thread also claims that shadow training IV's shadow walk clicky doesn't work, that it is removed immediately upon use, and that has not been my experience either. I was using the shadow walk clicky frequently when I had SD active.

[Tid12]

I am aware of the thread and my experiences do not match the claims. Yes I have shadow form, but I could get charges before I had shadow form. As has been noted there is no way to know if you have charges if you don't have something that uses the charges. For example, when I took shadow strike melee I couldn't see how many charges I had until I took cloak of shadow. That may be a bug or a design flaw.

That thread also claims that shadow training IV's shadow walk clicky doesn't work, that it is removed immediately upon use, and that has not been my experience either. I was using the shadow walk clicky frequently when I had SD active.

The fact that you can't see how many charges when you pick Shrouding Strike I think is a design flaw. Even when I had Cloak of shadows I couldn't get any charges marking the mobs.

And yeah, Shadow training IV's shadow walk was working on my rogue. However, when i went through SD with my sorcerer, it was doing exactly what that thread describes.

This destiny is so full of bugs that I hope they will seriously fixed in U14p3 (or U15 most likely)

[soloist12]

Shrouding Strike has worked for me with and without shadowform. DI is terrible compared to the other epic moments, and not only that, but when you "zone" to another area in a quest or explorer via a portal or some such (like the door at the bottom of the lords of dust trapped stairs), you lose all imbuement charges...

Junk, repec'd out of it and consume for now - shadowform is awesome though.

[sephiroth1084]

Shrouding Strike worked for me before I got Shadow Form (I grabbed one of the other abilities that uses charges to see if it worked). If I mark a target and it dies while still marked, I get the charge. It's not possible to see whether you have charges or not until you have an ability that uses them.

For the epic moment, I thought it wasn't gaining charges until I noticed that you get a buff icon with a number indicator once you get your first charge. Not sure if you have to get the killing blow or not for this--felt like I had to when I was in a group, but hard to tell. Solo I was able to build up the charges, albeit very slowly.

Interestingly, you don't lose your standard Shrouding charges when you zone into, or finish out from, a quest, nor do you exit Shadow Form automatically (you do lose the Moment charges). This means you can build up your regular charges and enter Shadow Form on your way to a quest.


Again, addressing the idea that it would be OP to have both Consume and the Imbuement--DI is too weak to be in that sentence, and we don't know how strong Consume will be--it has a longer cooldown than Wail. DI is just +2d6 damage for 30 seconds, after 5 minutes of build-up. That's a MANDATORY 5 minute minimum, as Shrouding Strike has a 15 second cooldown. Hardly overpowered.