Pale Master - Useless to Godly?

[Wizard_Zero]

So after playing around with our new toys. Update 5 has actually made investing in Pale Master worth it, especially for fleshies. For three minutes, I am pretty invincible. For the first time ever, my fleshy feels comparable to a WF with Reconstruct. Yeah, WF is still going to have the advantage in raids with their Reconstruct, but with U5, the gap has closed tremendously.

Sure I'm gonna miss those heal scrolls, but with this new power, they are gonna become a distant memory.

Thank you Turbine for this great update.

[Phidius]

Don't skimp on us, give us some numbers! Details, man, details!!

[Syldra]

unfortunately, the supposed bonus to negative energy still does not work.
oh. an the bit where you save against you own neg energy. or waste SF/worldshaper charges. ouch.

otoh, frostmarrow knights are nice cheap distraction now. i'd estimate ~700 hp and appear to have an on-crit chance to freeze targets.
just don't summon them into a wall. i did that already.

if only they'd fix the bugs...

[Spillisgod]

On my 20 WF Wiz the aura is "healing" me for between 16-40 points every 3 seconds. Not bad. The new bolt is pretty freaking awesome also. 250+ points of negative damage and a level drain? It's costly, 78sp for me max/emp/heightened but still. Also of note is the fact that your aura will heal your summoned skellies. I was in lich form with the aura up and a knight summoned and was just letting the aura heal him as I spammed wail. Overall I'm impressed with PM now. The bugs are annoying but hey, it's what I've come to expect from ********.

[Wizard_Zero]

Don't skimp on us, give us some numbers! Details, man, details!!

My Wizard is lvl 20 (Hero)

Started in Vale first, which is where I always test things. Threw on Wraith Form and threw on Lesser Death Aura (Used no gear modifiers for negative damage), which heals me 1-4 HP every three seconds. Started to fight small things like rats, dogs, etc. They were hitting me for 8-15. Put on Stoneskin, I was taking 0-5 damage. So once damage/aura was calculated, I was taking 0-2 damage.

Decided to take it up a notch, put on Death Aura, which heals me 7-19. Let two trogs and a scorpion beat on me, sat there and did nothing, even let SS wear off. I watched my Aura kill them, while healing me to full health.

Decided to go a step further, went to Lich Form (for hit point proc), threw on my Eardweller clicky, superior potency weapon and my Madstone shield. Did have have displacement on. Gathered 6 Orthons, 4 devils and a couple of tigers and shield blocked. The initial 15 or so seconds were kind of dicey. I was taking much more damage than I was being healed for, lost about 50% of my health at one point. The Lich temp hit points proc went off pretty often, which really saved me. Once the first couple of enemies started to die, my HP shot straight up.

Did a final test in Epic Wiz King vs 1 Knoll. They hit in the high 30's-40's. Went Lich, Death Aura and shield blocked. I was pretty much able to keep my HP stable somewhat. I was taking good amount of damage and decided to bust out the secret weapon, Necrotic Touch. Despite it's 5 HP cost to use, I was healing my self for about a 55 average. With it's low cool down, I was gaining around 25 HP a second with Touch and Aura combined. Once my undead form ran out, I died in like 5 seconds (Got so dependent of heal scrolls).

Now these test were done without the negative energy amplification stuff (other than, potency and Eardweller), so I can't imagine if I had the ToD Pale Master Set and other items. And I don't even have a Torc on this toon yet.

I'm pretty sure I heard they are gonna take out self-necro touch, that's gonna be a bummer when they do. It's like the fleshies version of reconstruct.

As of right now though, you can cast Necro touch and Necro bolt (Hit around 50 on saves, and 100 on non-saves) infinity times in undead form, so no more standing around watching other have fun fighting. You can actually do something and not worry about mana management, which is my favorite thing.

I love this update.

[bashemgud]

Can't believe they didn't fix the self necro-touch. They said it was a bug 3 weeks ago, and yet it's here.

But at least it's a decent PrE ^^

[Vaelorn]

They'll fix the Necrotic Touch bug pretty soon, I'm sure. After all, we can't have Pale Masters running around touching themselves because it feels good...

[Serakan]

not being able to receive a heal or reconstruct on a raid is going to make this useless. I don't see how it's going to change much of anything 20epic. WF already have lich-like immunities (immune to level drain, paralysis, exhaustion, don't breath, poison, disease, yadayada) and self heal abilities starting at level 1 they don't pay extra for and can receive cleric heals. it's obvious WF already are liches, albeit horrendously ugly ones, and they don't have to turn into it every 3 min or pay for it. They even get cleric-like heal spells if they are arcane for giggles, and have no problem letting those clerics heal them in raids too. They can get healed from multiple directions actually, unlike every other race.

wf remain overpowered, but ya let's nerf those pale masters even though they cant even use their lich form in raids~ Just another gimmick toy-around for the casual don't-give-a-hoot-about-end game gamers. the min/maxers still won't touch it, it seems...

How do all the warforge keep reproducing and ending up in Korthos? that is the greatest mystery of all

[Kriogen]

...

How do all the warforge keep reproducing and ending up in Korthos? that is the greatest mystery of all

Like Borgs. Assimilating weak fleshlings. Khorthos has transwarp portal nearby.

[Lord_Lambent]

Good to know the PrE's received well. Looking forward to rolling one as soon as my account downgrade is fixed.

[samthedagger]

Scrolls of harm would seem to fix the problem. Not that they exist. More a suggestion really.

[Eladrin]

Scrolls of harm would seem to fix the problem. Not that they exist. More a suggestion really.

Verisgante has a friend in House Jorasco that may be of some assistance. Talk to him in undead form.

Can't believe they didn't fix the self necro-touch. They said it was a bug 3 weeks ago, and yet it's here.

We're leaving it alone until we can fix the negative energy SR/Save problem. PM's need a reliable way to heal themselves.

[Trillea]

Verisgante has a friend in House Jorasco that may be of some assistance. Talk to him in undead form.


We're leaving it alone until we can fix the negative energy SR/Save problem. PM's need a reliable way to heal themselves.

This makes perfect sense, and thank you for telling us, Eladrin.

[sephiroth1084]

We're leaving it alone until we can fix the negative energy SR/Save problem. PM's need a reliable way to heal themselves.

I've asked before and will ask again: Can the lich and wraith forms be changed to either: allow a wizard to remain in one form indefinitely, or allow a wizard to switch from one form to the other when the first form's duration expires?

Is it so unreasonable for non-WF wizards to gain the ability to self-heal all the time (at the expense of outside healing, 3-4 feats, and around 1/4 of their total AP)?

Make the cooldown equal to the duration of a form, so that you can't end the form and start it again, but can reenter a form immediately upon its duration expiring, or put wraith and lich on separate cooldowns. Please?

[Eladrin]

I've asked before and will ask again: Can the lich and wraith forms be changed to either: allow a wizard to remain in one form indefinitely, or allow a wizard to switch from one form to the other when the first form's duration expires?

We've actually been experimenting with forms-as-a-toggle for Update 7. The sp cost might end up going up, since it'll last indefinitely. (And you'll be able to bail out of form at will.)

[sephiroth1084]

We've actually been experimenting with forms-as-a-toggle for Update 7. The sp cost might end up going up, since it'll last indefinitely. (And you'll be able to bail out of form at will.)

Eladrin, I seriously teared up just now--it may have been from my joy at reading this, or from the chili I have cooking, but there were tears brimming nonetheless.

This is wonderful news! /hug

[Megaton_Samurai]

We've actually been experimenting with forms-as-a-toggle for Update 7. The sp cost might end up going up, since it'll last indefinitely. (And you'll be able to bail out of form at will.)

Personally I'd prefer a toggle with a 5-minute cooldown to prevent simply shutting it off for heals. To make it a toggle with a simple SP adjustment would make it feel like a glorified metamagic to me.

[sephiroth1084]

Personally I'd prefer a toggle with a 5-minute cooldown to prevent simply shutting it off for heals. To make it a toggle with a simple SP adjustment would make it feel like a glorified metamagic to me.

Given the extreme cost, I don't think that it's unreasonable for PMs to be able to toggle on and off at will, though I'd be okay with a short cooldown to make doing so often less than ideal...somewhere in the 10-30 second range.

After all, compare a WF wizard with a PM wizard: WF gets both self-healing and outside healing all the time at the cost of 1 point of DC (and, really, this equation is being dramatically oversimplified in favor of the cost at the moment, as I'm ignoring immunities and such). A PM spends feats, AP, higher elemental specializations and the ability to be healed by others for +1 to all DCs, +1 to necro DCs, and the ability to self-heal. How they stack up is debatable, but it shouldn't be that much more punishing.

[Hendrik]

We've actually been experimenting with forms-as-a-toggle for Update 7. The sp cost might end up going up, since it'll last indefinitely. (And you'll be able to bail out of form at will.)

Ahh, nice idea!

The increased AP cost makes me shudder some at the thought of re-working Enhancements for my PM again, but the toggle benefit would still be worth it.

Hope your experiments go well!!!!


And on the topic of the PM Collector;

TYVM! Found him yesterday and put out a Guild wide request for the three collectables and I am now a very happy PM! Several hundred Inflict Wounds pots, half dozen inflict wands, handful of Harm scrolls, and all the new Necro Spells.

Nice if this tech for the hidden Collector could be applied to maybe a Vendor say in Necropolis(?) Maybe available to PMIII?

Anyways, really starting to enjoy my PM. Thx!

[Gol]

We've actually been experimenting with forms-as-a-toggle for Update 7. The sp cost might end up going up, since it'll last indefinitely. (And you'll be able to bail out of form at will.)

Any chances of getting other forms, while you're at it? Like Mummy or Wight?