HO Starter Spell

[BaronVonPitviper]

<DIV>Does Ice Spike ever get replaced as the HO lightning icon for us? Negatvie Ablsoution sucks as a lightning icon spell, it's casting time is too long and it's range is too short. Ice spike does an amazing 70 points or so. It's green at 29 anyway, so I'd imagine it wont hit level >35 mobs. Why do you think suffocating breath didn't take over as a starter?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I stopped using HOs in frustration around level 23. In your teens and very early 20's HO played a huge part in your success of an encounter (solo anyways). Fighting multiple MoBs without HOs was practicly impossible. I'd really like the abiltiy to use worthwile HO damage throughout my whole career. Why have them in the first place if they don't give us spells to fully utilize them? It almost seems like no one who is on the HO developement team has played a warlock. If I remember correctly, Arcane fury would give something around 70-100. This was right on par with what my blaze adept 1 was doing. When I fired off a succesful HO, it was like getting double damage on my nuke. I revisited HOs the other day in EL on turtles and my Arcane Fury for Ice spike was the same as before. Negative absolution Arcane fury was in the low 100s. It always seemed to me that arcane fury was based on the spell you cast to finish it. Again, why isn't suffocating breath (or Dark Distortion for that matter) on the HO system. It makes no sense to me to have useful solo HOs for only 1/3 of your career.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Maybe I'm missing something.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Effie]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> BaronVonPitviper wrote:<BR> <DIV>Does Ice Spike ever get replaced as the HO lightning icon for us? </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Level 30 Noxious Bolt is your Ice Spike replacement.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I rarely used solo HOs after level 25.</DIV> <DIV>The damage they do does not scale very well with level. Considering my Belle's can hit for close to 600, Steal Breath can do around 400 and Suffocating  Breath can deal upwards to 250, a measley 100ish damage for a HO that requires 2 casts of low  (100-150) damage spells is a joke. Also, each HO has a high chance of breaking root, which means more time and power spent re-rooting the mob.</DIV> <DIV>I have a pretty flexible spell chain when I solo but I haven't been able to work in a HO combo that doesn't result in lower DPS.</DIV>

[DresdenMalicaster]

<DIV>HO damage was upgraded as of today to make it more viable, both soling and in groups.</DIV>

[Latnam]

<DIV>In single mob encounters I never use Negative Absolution, but with a metric arseload of mobs (ie A Mature Antelope herd roughly 8-12) I'll fire off that spell along with Putrid Cloud.  Its all situational based. </DIV>

[dear]

<DIV>honestly HO is BS</DIV> <DIV>our nukes are not part of it </DIV> <DIV>so whats the use?</DIV> <DIV>just use BSS more damage than HO</DIV>