Insidious Retrogression || CD?

[kefkari]

I am getting close to getting level 49, and am curious about IR.

I've only found a few posts on this subject of this spell.

Why don't people use it more often?

It seems fantastic. It has a nice snare effect. Has good dmg/mana ratio. Compared to the darkness line, you get the full ratio when casting this spell (assuming not a partial resist?). Not counting focus effects, it has a greater then a 2.6 Dmg/Mana ratio (not fantastic, but not considering its advatanges its not aweful either)

Doing 550 upfront dmg seems like a great way to shorten TTK when agroe kiting, which also equals more time to med.
Big agroe on pull, so you can send pet right away. Opposed to having to wait for mob hp to drop, or to add a 2nd/3rd dot before sending pet.
At 48 with dooming darkness, I have only needed to recast it mid fight due to snare running out once or twice, so it rarely gets full dmg out of it,


However, How is the resist rate on this spell?

It is disease based. From my limited experience with disease dots, they seem to rarely be resisted compared to my poison and magic based spells.

It has a long cast time, however in most of my hunting experience I pull with snare, so I usually don't have to worry about running from mobs.
I can imagine lots of trouble though if the spell were to resist.
Would it be wise keep a seconds snare loaded then? At 48, when I solo I can easily free up 1 or 2 spell slots anyways.

I've read on castersrealm that the snare doesn't last for full duration? Is this true?
If it is, is this due to the fact that it can be partially resisted while dots cannot be?
-- If this spell is partially resisted, would the darkness line of spell have been fully resisted in that same situation?

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Similar question with cascading darkness.
Assuming same resist rate as dooming darkness, its longer cast time is not a huge disadvantage for me.

At level 49 it has the second best dpm ratio, and has the 3rd highest dps (dark soul, bond of death - but I dont use dark soul anymore, bond of death is hopefully not needed on every monster with the upgraded lich). If I were to hunt the same mobs that I am right now with this spell, I could reduce 1 dot from my agroe kite.

The post I have read against complain about: 1) Cast Time 2) Resist 3) Not meant for doing dmg?

How is the resist rate? I once in a blue moon get dooming darkness resisted when solo grinding for exp.

Why shouldn't it be used for doing dmg and snaring?

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Thank you for any input

[Salizarr]

IR doesn't get reisted that much, however you cannot count on its full duration. It often breaks way before its duration and this can get you in trouble if you don't have a second snare up or if hunting in dungeons or so without space to kite/run.

I only used IR in two places: bard/nobles/isabella in HHK as they NEVER resisted it and i only got it broken like maybe 2-3 times from the 3 levels i made there. The other place i used it was in Dulak hunting in boats to help generate more aggro fast so they wouldn't turn on my pet, here tho, it broke more often but i usually had space to kite or another snare lined up.

As for the darkness line, i don't even count on them for their damage at this level, i just use it for the fixed snare time itself.
The resist rate on dooming darkness varies acording to what you're fighting. PoN ravens tend to resist it quite often. There were times i had it resisted 5 times in a row, but again, it only eats up 2% of my mana (with focus) so i don't really care, i just run until it sticks.

Sal

[Yattan]

I wouldnt mess with any other darkness besides dooming until the level 63 Embracing Darkness. The ones in between just plain suck with their cast time and if you're using them and get a resist, you can be screwed. Unless of course you like wasting time FD'ng and/or zoning.

Just my 2cp of course. :)

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

Disregard ALL snare-spells after Level 29's Dooming Darkness, until you acquire Embracing Darkness. Darkness spells are highly resisted, and even the best ones do mediocre damage compared to our 'DPS' DoTs. You should never, never count on darkness as DPS. Never. Never, never, never ever.


As for Insidious Retrogression, this falls under the 'If you ain't fightin' an idiot with low disease-resistance in PvP/Arena, why bother?' category. Sure, it does 550 damage, and has a snare component. Yippie.


550 DD is a spit in the bucket, and the snare component is random, and the cast time is monumental, and the recast time is even worse.


Stay FAAAAAAR away from this spell.

[Aryse Andenter]

I loved Insidious Retrogression at that level, but I almost never used it soloing, I used it in groups. The damage done vs the mana cost is fantastic for a DD, with the added bonus of the decreased STR and ATK. I never even really worried about the snare component, I'd rather use my usual snare I can rely on for that. But compare IR 549 dmg at 210 mana to poison blast at 400 dmg to 230 mana or even Venom blast at 600 dmg to 340 mana, not even counting for the extra decreases it adds.

I did find that it began to get resisted quite a lot mid-50s and I stopped using it altogether about then.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

Unnoticable statistic debuffs, super-taunt from the unreliable snare, an All-or-Nothing DD component, and a mana-cost that's 20 to 30 points higher than the Torba's at the respective level does not make for a good DD, nor even a more efficient one -- The spell has no negative disease check, so it bounces a lot.


Compare 210 mana for 0 damage and massive taunt versus 230 for pure DD, and more reliable DPS ( no reload time, unlike Insidious ). Throw in a DD Focus, and the Torba's line becomes even nastier.


Insidious Retro. was fun to play with, because the idea of pelting something with spores to slow it down amused me to no end. The amusement died when I started to have my boney ass beaten into the ground in experience groups, and when I had a coronary when the Snare component broke while the creature was still Feared, and I had to run and scream and panic because I didn't have Darkness loaded, and I had no spellhaste, and Insidious had such a huge cast time ...


Plus, darkness has a series of ticks that helps to keep track of the duration without the use of a timer, or somesuch -- with Insidious, it's praying and guesswork.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

Nice panties, though. ;)

[Aryse Andenter]

All it takes is a little bit of spell management. If you try it on 2 or 3 mobs in your group's chosen xp spot and it gets resisted, load something else. There are plenty of places where it just won't be resisted at that level though. With the long cast time, it's a good thing for managing agro, because by the time it hits your group should have strong control over the mob. Besides, FD helps to manage agro nicely. And at 20 mana cost less for 150 damage more, if it is landing, hell yes use it instead of Torbas'. But I still don't think it should be relied on for snare, it's a nice little bonus in a group that is hopefully tanking things down fast enough that snare never becomes an issue, but it's not something to use if you want to rely on the mob being snared.

And I couldn't make the font appear pink for my panties, I am horribly disappointed :(

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

People have to stare hard to read the font, and when they finally read it, it has a more subtle impact. Thumbs up, imo! :D


And sure, if the monster isn't resisting it, go for it -- In fact, that might be one place that it could be useful. Aggro-kite situations!


Does a helluva lot more than chain-casting Level 4 Fear ( which I never understood ... why do that, when Splurt, BoD, and EB hold aggro fine ... ? ) :huh:

[Nigyl]

Personally I only use IR in groups where the mobs die too fast for DoTs or I don't want to DoT in case they need to be mezzed, because I found it got resisted a bit less than the other nukes (though it still gets resisted a lot), was about as efficient and has the snare component too. I've never had aggro issues with it.

That said, now I've hit 60 I tend to throw on Funeral Pyre instead when I can, since even if the mob only lasts a few ticks it does decent damage and I generally get the mana back before the next one.

[Niri]

I tended (as a younger necro) to use this in the Umbral planes...it stuck where other snares wouldnt always

[AnimocityStromm]

Insideous is great when you need to snare mobs with good MR and don't want to cast Dooming 14 times (provided the mob doesn't have high DR, too). Also, like was stated above, you can snare adds before they are mezzed and they stay snared without breaking mez (it WILL break mez if it hits a mezzed mob, though...just to clarify). It's a decent nuke for it's level. You don't use it for very many levels, though, as your poison DD's and lifetaps get better, and mobs you're soloing hit too hard for you to risk using an unreliable snare.

Originally posted by Demetrii
You should never, never count on darkness as DPS. Never. Never, never, never ever.

Bullshit. Embracing Darkness is 1400 damage over 20 ticks...for 200 mana (not counting focus and specialization). Making it nearly our most mana efficient dot. When a mob takes more than 2 minutes to down, that's a nice little bit of dps. Granted, we'd use it even if it did 0 damage, but 7:1 is damn nice damage:mana to not be 'counted'. if it had no snare component, I'd use it for damage when soloing with that kind of ratio.

[Demetrii Spiritdrinker]

DPS = Damage-Per-Second, not efficiency.


E.Darkness is 70 damage per tick, for 2 minutes. Which is less DPS than the Level 39 Curse. In other words -- Darkness should never, never, never be relied on for DPS. The respective spells at this level deal 5 - 8 times the damage per tick. Darkness is not DPS. It is a snare that happens to hurt the mob ... a little.


And yes, it is efficient. Very efficient. But it still has little to no stopping power. :P

[cornflkeboy]

I use IR all the time both in and out of groups with great results--I swear I get less resists with IR than with CD. I use it for fast aggro while aggro kiting and use it as DD while grouped because it resists less than the fire/cold nukes and Venom Blast has a lousy mana/dmg ratio. I love this spell and keep it memmed at all times.

Also, I have never noticed the snare not lasting as long as its supposed to--as far as i knew all snares were fixed duration.

[Nigyl]

Darkness is not DPS. It is a snare that happens to hurt the mob ... a little.

Usually true, but not always. In the time I spent in Twilight Sea killing the dock people, for example, the only DoT I used was Cascading Darkness, with the pet doing the rest... no point casting two DoTs for more mana when one can both snare and do enough damage to ensure the mobs die as fear runs out.

[Tordal]

Originally posted by AnimocityStromm@Mar 31 2004, 09:57 AM
Insideous is great when you need to snare mobs with good MR and don't want to cast Dooming 14 times (provided the mob doesn't have high DR, too).


Exactly!

It all comes down to mob resists. If you are getting resists on a particular spell, it flushes the mana efficiency right down the toilet. For highly resistant mobs, I tend to use the Torbas' line of nukes because I can get partial resists and a faster recast delay. If Insidious will stick more than 80% of the time -- I use that. 550+ damage for 210 mana beats 400 damage for 230 mana, all other things being equal.

If speed is of the essence, then yes, you get better DPS from the Torbas' line -- but in a group where the mana load is spread around several players, you often don't need to chain nuke the mob to kill it, and INsidious helps the melees take a little less damage, AND saves your own mana.

Tordal Graveminder

[Salizarr]

The only problem with IR is that you can't rely on it for its snaring effect since the duration is not fixed. This can get you in trouble depending on what you're fighting.

Sal

[Skova]

I never had a problem because i waited to nuke/snare it untill after it has hit 50%. I don't aggro kite and therefore i never want aggro.

I used it alot in dulak tunnels. The pet wasnt tough enough to do on his own yet dark was too expensive with mana. dark didnt do enough damage in the little time it would take to kill the mob. so I got used to sending pet in, waiting for 70%, then casting IR to drop mob to 25% and let pet finish.