I am feeling rather disappointed at Zombie form for Pale Master Wizards. I levelled mine all the way to 16, as a mixture of Eldritch Knight and PM Zombie, and the plan is to use the Ascendant Zombie form for extra HP and all the extra melee dmg.
As soon as I toggled the Ascendant Shroud, to my surprise I started attacking MUCH slower. Yes, I had already been attacking slower (-10% speed) all the way to level 16 due to the regular Zombie form penalty, but the Ascendant form made it A LOT slower.
I couldn't really work out what was happening: I read and re-read the description of the Tier 5 Ascendant Shroud enhancement in the Pale Master tree, and it just does NOT mention at all that there is a further reduction of 10%, making it -20% to the attack speed:
"While in Zombie Form, you gain an additional +30 Melee Power and +10 Physical Resistance Rating, and your attacks deal +10% more damage. You also benefit from a 10% Profane Bonus to Maximum Hit Points"
I then hovered my mouse over the buff bar at the top of the screen, and then the description there said:
"Shroud of the Plague Zombie: While in this form, you hunger for brains and gain +4 CON, +2 STR, +10 Melee Power, +3 PRR and MRR, and attack 20% slower. You also gain an extra +10 Physical Resistance Rating, 10% Profane Bonus to Maximum Hit Points, deal +10% more damage with your attacks, and 30 additional Melee Power for choosing Zombie as your Ascendant Shroud". The first and ONLY place where the 20% penalty is ever mentioned.
Just VERY disappointed really, mostly with the game not saying this clearly in the Pale Master enhancement tree (and, consequently, on the wiki). I spent a long time planning the character, then TRed it, got all the gear ready, levelled to 16 and then found it out the hard way through toggling it on that it completely cripples melee (I am using THF feat line for the strikethrough with Dwarven axes and shields, so not using SWF feats).
I am really hoping this is a bug, and that it can be fixed. I found another post about this earlier today:
Wish I had read this earlier to be honest, as I was the poor soul that made this charcter...
Could we please get a confirmation from a DEV?