Are Pale Master Necrotic Touch/Bolt/Blast Worth it?

[barclaybrennan]

Hi, pretty soon i'm going to be re-specing my Pale Master and i just wanted to get some thoughts on the PM's SLAs; Necrotic Touch/Bolt/Blast. Basically, are they worth spending 9 points on?

Currently, i don't have any of these SLAs because in my past experience, they didn't seem to be particularly exciting. However, at the moment, while i'm running EE quests, i do tend to run out of spell points which forces me to use a spell pot. Naturally, i'd rather not do this because quite frankly, i don't want to spend too much money in the DDO store so i've been thinking about taking Necrotic Touch/Bolt/Blast to reduce my SP burn...BUT are they actually worth it?! 9 points...long cool down...usually fails on a fortitude roll (at high levels)...can't be boosted with metamagics...What do you all think? Thanks.

[voodoogroves]

Hi, pretty soon i'm going to be re-specing my Pale Master and i just wanted to get some thoughts on the PM's SLAs; Necrotic Touch/Bolt/Blast. Basically, are they worth spending 9 points on?

Currently, i don't have any of these SLAs because in my past experience, they didn't seem to be particularly exciting. However, at the moment, while i'm running EE quests, i do tend to run out of spell points which forces me to use a spell pot. Naturally, i'd rather not do this because quite frankly, i don't want to spend too much money in the DDO store so i've been thinking about taking Necrotic Touch/Bolt/Blast to reduce my SP burn...BUT are they actually worth it?! 9 points...long cool down...usually fails on a fortitude roll (at high levels)...can't be boosted with metamagics...What do you all think? Thanks.

I took the archmage force missile, etc. From the evocation line instead.

[Vellrad]

Last time I played PM was when motu came out.

But building 1 today, I'd definitively took slas.

This is free DPS. 9 AP is a lot to pay, maybe take them to tier 2 instead of T3, if you can't afford them.

Don't forget, if you're magister, they count as debuff that decreases fortitude saves by 5.

[Jasongnc2]

I found the cooldowns were too long to be useful. I use boulder toss for my no-sp dps on my palemaster.

[Cleanincubus]

Personally, I find them very useful. Once you get use to using them, and plan out your spell usage for each quest, they certainly help save on SP. Sure I could probably kill enemies quicker by simply using a spell, but as long as I have Death Aura running, I can usually take the beating, while spamming between the touch, bolt & blast. As long as I'm familiar with a quest, and I know the damage I'm going to take is reasonable, I'll take getting beat on & killing slower, over using pots from running out of SP.

Their cool downs were, however, much better before the Enhancement pass. I could easily hit an enemy with the touch > bolt > blast, and have my cool down timer on each run out before hitting the next repeat of each. Now, I'll hit the initial touch > bolt > blast, and have to wait a second or 2 for the touch cool down timer to run out. The blast seems to be the worst of them all. I use to be able to alternate between enemies with touch or bolt, and then hit them both at the same time with the blast. Not anymore, because the blast will still have 4-5 seconds left on it's timer, from the last time I used it.

[barclaybrennan]

Hmm ok, thanks for the advice guys. I THINK i might go for it but i'll definitely think about the boulder toss as well!

[ReaperAlexEU]

Personally, I find them very useful. Once you get use to using them, and plan out your spell usage for each quest, they certainly help save on SP. Sure I could probably kill enemies quicker by simply using a spell, but as long as I have Death Aura running, I can usually take the beating, while spamming between the touch, bolt & blast. As long as I'm familiar with a quest, and I know the damage I'm going to take is reasonable, I'll take getting beat on & killing slower, over using pots from running out of SP.

Their cool downs were, however, much better before the Enhancement pass. I could easily hit an enemy with the touch > bolt > blast, and have my cool down timer on each run out before hitting the next repeat of each. Now, I'll hit the initial touch > bolt > blast, and have to wait a second or 2 for the touch cool down timer to run out. The blast seems to be the worst of them all. I use to be able to alternate between enemies with touch or bolt, and then hit them both at the same time with the blast. Not anymore, because the blast will still have 4-5 seconds left on it's timer, from the last time I used it.

bleagh, i used to alternate between bolt and blast for the bulk of the quest unless something really had to die fast. not respecced yet since the past and hearing that about the cooldowns has just put me off even more.

[barclaybrennan]

I've just finished re-specing and yes, the long cool downs are quite annoying. HOWEVER, as long as you cycle through all three SLAs, by the time you get back to the first one, it's almost cooled down. It's not ideal but considering they're essentially free SP-wise, i think they're a reasonable investment - especially with the relativity frequent criticals that i seem to be getting. HOWEVER, apart from the obvious drawback of having to spend 9 enhancement points to get them working acceptably, I've found that I've been having to rotate between necrotic touch, necrotic blast and another spell like scorching ray because realistically, i don't want to be getting close enough to an enemy to use necrotic touch. Squishy wizards on the front line don't tend to last too long...

[Vellrad]

If you're rotating all 3 slas, it means you're standing in melee.
Which means, you can use chill touch sla from archmage too!
This rotation should have cooldowns cleared when you finish last sla.

Of course, DPS is not great, but its free.