What effect do you put on GS for EE? (besides blurry)

[LeLoric]

Radiance Guard makes mobs survive long enough to escape CC, thus actually increasing party-wide damage. Any CC caster with a clue will tell you to remove the guard and if you don't will ask the divine not to raise you - I'd rather someone dispel party members at random as it's less disruptive to group success.

It is strictly for emergency use ONLY. Caster dead? Hotswap Radiance Guard to buy time while you kite and raise. But otherwise, frontline melees should never wear it. It is fine on people that don't expect to be hit much, however, like casters or divines.

I've never asked someone to remove radiance guard as a caster. I also would not take it off as a melee. If you can only compete/complete in EE if everything is in complete lock down cc then ya may want to try EH.


Radiance guard provides many benefits including but not limited to.

Better defense. (50% miss chance)
Better offense. (lower ac, sneak attacks for everyone)
CC (a blinded mob turns less to aggro and a smart player can have it never hit them)

The movement while cc'd doesnt happen while mass held anymore anyways the major things it will move in are stuns and dances.

I like enervate guard on my caster but find it fairly bleh on my melees. The chance of having it actually reduce hit points on most melee would be minimal as the mob has to hit you first before it takes enough dmg to have the enervate do no dmg and onthat hit it has to hit the 5% chance to drain levels. Sure when it works it is great but the chances are too low and it works best on big orange nameds on EE who you really don't want hitting you much. The exception here would of course be Bastard wielding tanks using nightmare and mass cleaves where enervate guard would have a much more likely chance to work in conjunction with nightmare to create some really nasty neg lev goodness.

[MRMechMan]

Radiance Guard, while powerful, has some issues in that it disrupts CC. A mob that is both blinded and incapacitated will move around stupidly, making it harder to hit - quite an issue when a limited duration CC spell like Mass Hold Monster is involved.

The thing with Enervation Guard is that when the neg levels go away, the HP lost do not come back. A mob that is at 7800/8000hp that hits you and cops 3 neg levels suffers a 15% max HP penalty and goes to 6800/6800hp. In 6 seconds the negs are gone and it is at 6800/8000. A decent effect.

Now imagine that the mob was a 150k HP orangenamed - it can go from 150k/150k to 127.5k/127.5k in one shot. 22500 damage, no save, no SR? Sounds good to me.

It's less effective late in the fight, but the temporary save reduction still matters.

I'd still choose radiance guard. Moving mobs during CC is annoying but they are not THAT hard to hit still.I think you overestimate how much longer a mob survives when moving slightly. Not raising someone because they are wearing a radII item...dramatic much? A blinded mob is no threat whatsoever, CCed or not CCed. 50% miss chance and they are slowed and wander around...win.

If he is a S&B fighter he is almost certainly running with one of these:

arcane
divine
someone with UMD with an enervation scroll.

The odds of a 150k orange name hitting the S&B fighter and getting the enervation proc before the orange named is already heavily negged and then stunned/danced/tripped/EiNed/etcetcetc is pretty small, assuming the casters/monks are doing their job.

Enervation isn't bad, but if you are getting hit in EE content you want to get hit less (radII), not have a 5% chance of negging them...which only really has effect when they are above 80% hp.

The main trouble is, only concop (when the mob hits for 150, 1.2 stacking DR is pretty useless), blurry (said he has it), radiance and enervation are in the least bit useful, anything with a save is gonna be 5% even WHEN it procs.

But I guess it doesn't matter as the item is made .

[Nitesco]

Epic Sacred Helm is a great swap-in. I've seen a few lootgen shields with it too.