Are Ruin and Greater Ruin useful on a Favored Soul?

[Certon]

The title says it all: Are Ruin and Greater Ruin useful on a Favored Soul?

I need to know--my nuker FvS is approaching 27 rapidly.

[Halciet]

They are a hard sell period due to taking both your 27 and 30 feats and enormous SP cost (w/o making them free with Otto's set), but I find they are deeply useful in the right situation, such as solo fighting golems with your caster. Never tried them on FvS specifically but I imagine they will fall under similar situational usefulness.

[LavidDynch]

The title says it all: Are Ruin and Greater Ruin useful on a Favored Soul?

I need to know--my nuker FvS is approaching 27 rapidly.

yes. combine it with draconic ed and you will pack a punch, I think ruin-builds are far better on warlocks thou but not horrible on FvS.

[Seph1roth5]

Only char I can usually find room for ruin/greater ruin for is aura warlock. Works great there though, since your draconic breath will match your element, and they have great aoe but lack single target dps.

On a fvs you're going to be mainly light damage, no light draconic so you're missing out there. Plus, aside from iron golems and a few other things, nothing's strong vs light.

[nobodynobody1426]

Not really, FVS has better damage tools and Greater Ruin would be the only one worth using.

At 30 a FVS has 34 CL's with Searing Light which would have a base damage of 323. FVS gets two of them on separate timers, one is an SLA at 0sp and 6s cooldown the other is a regular spell at 8sp and 3s cooldown. Dragon Breath from DI is 1D6+10 per CL and FVS can get 38 CL if it's fire giving it 513 base damage in a cone. Ruin ends up being a huge waste of SP for it's damage leaving greater ruin as the only one worth using at it's insane cost. Now if they let us take GR without needing ruin, then I'd likely put it in my level 30 feat slot and use it as a guaranteed delete button at range.

Only char I can usually find room for ruin/greater ruin for is aura warlock. Works great there though, since your draconic breath will match your element, and they have great aoe but lack single target dps.

On a fvs you're going to be mainly light damage, no light draconic so you're missing out there. Plus, aside from iron golems and a few other things, nothing's strong vs light.

Umm yes and no, FVS runs light and fire equally with fire being the far better AoE damage type. There are no good AoE light nukes right now, the alignment spells are not light damage, they are good/law/chaos/evil damage and end up being weaker then firestorm though still extremely useful due to other properties they have. For a "nuker" build we end up going T5 in EA while getting to T4 in DI for double Dragon Breath damage.

[JOTMON]

It has a high mana cost, but Ruin has its uses.
Boost it with Impulse/Impact
Its untyped damage against anything - no save.

...works on von6 pillars... (sadly though..by level 27 we are typically done with vons)

[Halucien]

It has a high mana cost, but Ruin has its uses.
Boost it with Impulse/Impact
Its untyped damage against anything - no save.

...works on von6 pillars... (sadly though..by level 27 we are typically done with vons)

I took both Ruin and Greater Ruin on my FvS when she's in DI, now she's using SC.

I like having both of them when I'm up against Iron Golems (Or anything immune or highly resistant to fire and light damage).

[Marshal_Lannes]

Well, Greater Ruin is one of the best spells in the game (while in Draconic). As for the cost, who cares? You're a FVS, you have tons of SPs. FVS and Sorcerers never feel the pinch of spell points. The only debate is whether you need that L27 slot since you'll never use Ruin.

[nobodynobody1426]

Another aspect is that FVS takes two of the Master of X feats, one for the Alignment spells and another for it's laser beams. That means both the 24 and 27 feat slots are taken up making the feat tax of Ruin unacceptable.

Holy Smite (and other alignment spells) at 30
Base CL/MCL: 20/10
Enhancement CL/MCL: +3/3
Epic CL/MCL: +5/5
Total: 28/18

Master of Alignment raises spell damage by 55% bringing it from 207 to 322

Searing Light at 30
Base CL/MCL: 20/10
Enhancement CL/MCL: +9/15
Epic CL/MCL: +5/5
Total: 34/30

Master of Light would only be a 13% increase (was 40% before u51) but it's to a spell that is used non-stop, then we have Intensify Spell which could be taken in the level 27 or 30 slot for another +75 spell power on all the stuff we like to cast and is free if we are going T5 Exalted Angel. Then only time I could see Ruin / Greater Ruin being taken is if someone is going T5 Draconic, which doesn't blend as well with divine casters like Cleric or FVS. Now I can totally see Sorc / Warlock and even Wizard taking them.

[Marshal_Lannes]

The assumption was taking T5 Draconic. Without that then Greater Ruin loses its attractiveness completely due to the prerequisite feat. A deeper question might be, is Greater Ruin (enhanced) better than T5 Holy Fireball, plus Master of Light? I would lean toward Fireball/Light. But - it might depend on your DCs as well. Greater Ruin effectively functions as an instakill (or near instakill for red names) and can be extremely effective for casters who don't have high enough DCs to land traditional necro-based instakills.

[nobodynobody1426]

It's holy Fire Ball + Free Intensify + Master of Life.

[kamthalion]

I have both on my nuker FVS and are great damage also in R10 against dooms

[Certon]

My experience with Ruin & Greater Ruin on my now 30 FvS:

8/10 -- Not bad.

I've only got my crit for untyped to 30% but when it happens, Greater Ruin commands the attention of red names! Because I'm wearing fire and light items, the draconic additional damage and the ensuing fire DoT REALLY puts the hurt on just about any monster it hits.

On solo R1, the mana usage is negligible, with all the lost souls around that are exclusively mine. Also, my searing light is 0sp and my second searing light is 12sp, so most of my time is spent spamming that. That, and the two dragon breaths I have...

What doesn't make sense to me is why Ruin and Greater Ruin can't be Enlarged.

[majorhavoc]

The title says it all: Are Ruin and Greater Ruin useful on a Favored Soul?

I need to know--my nuker FvS is approaching 27 rapidly.

If you go T5 Draconic, it by far the best nuke in the game, I have seen 100k hits and it will make a huge dent in Red named life bars.
Yes it is a mana hog, yes it is sucks to burn 2 epic feats, but IMHO it is worth it if you have the gear to support it.

[Ulfo]

Yes it is a mana hog

You can always use 5pc Otto's filigrees combo with Arcane Insight/Wellspring of Power for free casting. 8)

[Alled78]

You can always use 5pc Otto's filigrees combo with Arcane Insight/Wellspring of Power for free casting. 8)

I did my last life
T5 draconic, t3 shadowdancer, t2 shiradi

With mana efficency, maximizedd and quicken reduction i was able to cast ruin and g ruin without mana problems...around 5000+ spell point.

[slarden]

It primarily depends on playstyle and grouping patterns.

If you solo or two-man it's a super useful spell because it's untyped and gets around damage reduction - most notably against golems. A tiefling charisma fvs in draconic that can bypass fire immunity can lay on alot of damage really fast with ruin + greater ruin in the rotation.

Favored souls have high DC and a high spell point pool so I find everything else to slot at level 27/30 less compelling than ruin/greater ruin.

If you primarily group you might be better off taking master of light and alignment which you can't fit in with ruin + greater ruin. Epic Destiny choices are also much more complex with groups so draconic is less compelling in a group where taking down enemies is trivial compared to soloing.