Beyond Nakedness

[ShadowHM]

Good points.



I only wish the quiet guy is more "useful" in the curse department. Battle Cry alone doesn't do much with rangers. Hopefully War Cry (when he gets it) will be more of a pain to you all ;p I am going to look more into weapons with CTC or Charges to bring more curses in


KoP

Hapless is feeling very challenged in the 'curse' department. Static Field just doesn't seem to hurt that much, and the splash effect of Fireball makes her rather worried about using it when QuietRiot working on a clustered group of monsters. And that is the limit of her ability to curse her companions.

The BF Assassin will have more luck in the curse department, I think. We shall have to see as we progress, but Cloak of Shadows, Psychic Hammer (to a lesser extent) and Mind Blast have more potential. She will be a bit lacking in the ctc department, due to being somewhat locked into claw class weapons to achieve AR, but we shall see.

[Zed-F]

I don't think any of us are going to be hugely cursey folks. My BNZ has pretty much got 2 curses available -- Slow Missles and (at clvl 30) Valk. Inner sight doesn't really count since a DR of 17 and a DR of -23 are effectively equivalent. Slow missles is a good curse but it only applies when facing mobs that have a significant ranged elemental attack, and it doesn't affect melee. The latter is not too bad since most BNs will default to using ranged attacks for safety, but the former means there are lots of times when she might find it more expedient to just kill monsters than curse them. At least Valk can give everyone a prod now and then.

I don't consider Freezing Arrow a really good curse since she can't equip any +cold length gear, so the freeze length will be useless. Cold arrow and especially Ice arrow might be more possible but are single target attacks, so only act as curses if you get in her firing line. I might take Freezing arrow anyway for the damage; after all, if Hapless can have an AOE attack...

[ShadowHM]

I might take Freezing arrow anyway for the damage; after all, if Hapless can have an AOE attack...

Hapless *should* be using Fireball only when I know that my companions are not close to the monsters, and Firebolt when there is a mob near a companion. Fireball does much more damage than Firebolt, and likely will continue so. In aid of actually getting some kills, as opposed to merely weakening the monsters (especially with no fast cast aid), Hapless has been using Fireball a fair bit. The one real curse that we have not discussed much (and thank you for being kind enough not to ) is the curse of having a clumsy companion. Forgetting to switch spells when the situation warranted it is one curse I seem to be good at.

[Zed-F]

I am thinking a low level multishot could make for a good situational AoE attack for my 'zon as well, and an incidental curse when I happen to feather someone in the back. Since the arrows only do 3/4 damage on top of the PvP penalty it might even be possible for the occasional deliberate feathering when circumstances seem to call for it. OTOH, her to-hit with it will be miserable (at least against the monsters,) so this might not pan out.

A high-leech Lycander's is probably an even better bow for her than Magewrath from the point of view of boosting these sorts of secondary skills, plus it's slightly faster and does more damage. I'll probably continue to keep Insight on switch on my 'zon for mana regen purposes, especially when unleechables and PIs come out to play. A teleport staff on switch is nice but doesn't have quite the same utility when you don't have a bunch of minions to re-gather or to act as meatshields while you reorient after teleporting into tight quarters.

I get the feeling that Hapless is going to have to rely more and more on AoE attacks as time goes on in order to keep up the damage curve and thus the XP curve. Ice Blast is about the only potentially powerful sorcy spell I can think of offhand that ISN'T AoE. Our usual instincts in D2 are to concentrate on one group at a time. To a certain extent this conflicts with the desire to avoid friendly fire when using one's powerful AoE attacks. Your sorcy might well wind up "cursing" the group by going out and stirring up more trouble when we haven't finished dealing with the trouble we already have on hand yet.

EDIT: I had a thought for Hapless: Meteor. Meteor gives a warning before it strikes. That way, if someone eats some high-level meteor damage, you can always claim it was their own fault for not getting out of the way in time. Plus it's a synergy for fireball anyway.