Is Sybil's Shuddering Sonnet worth upgrading or using?

[Shalwin]

Normally, I don't do the numbers thing and try to min/max my character, so when facing casting monsters, I would dutifully fire off my Sybil's Shuddering Sonnet.  As I did this however, I didn't notice any type of decrease in my opponent's power bar if I had it highlighted.  Since this is one of my newer songs (I'm 24th level at the time of writing) I figured that it would be matched up to take away a spell or two from a creature that I should be fighting.  I wasn't expecting the power bar to be knocked in half or anything, but maybe see it drop as though the monster had cast a spell.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see any noticible decrease in power, so I decided to allay my fear and scroll back up into the combat text to make sure the spell ( or song I suppose) was working.

 

After scrolling throug some text (finding that Walt's was doing a nice 9 points of power damage per tick!) I found that in my last combat, Sybil's had done a whopping 5 points of power damage against my opponent.  That's right folks FIVE MEASLY POINTS.  I watched it in a few more battles, and never saw it drain more than 8 points.  The recast on it is so slow that I can usually only fire it off once.  Not to mention the power cost of this spell is 34 points right now, so it's been deleted from my spell bar.

 

Am I missing something with this song, or is there actually some real use for a snare?

[Cha]

I really haven't looked into it yet, nice to see someone has. Here is an idea tho.

 

do you think that a apprentice 1 spell against 24+ mobs is going to be that spectacular? Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

anyone have this in adept 1 by chance?

[KDv2]

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Decreases enemy movement speed and slightly drains power when the snare dissipates.

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I guess "slightly" is the 5-8 pts you're seeing.

 

We get the spell at lvl 23 it should be somewhat more useful at App1 than it is.

 

/shrug

 

Maybe they'll change it to some sort of rousing celebration for NPCs. It'd be funny to make an NPC dance right before I kill it...more useful than this spell as well.

 

With so many spells, we're going to find that only a handful of them are actually useful I'm afraid.

 

Ensnare costs less power, this spell doesn't get a spot on my hotkeys.

[Zoolin]

Another thing I've noticed about this spell, when the icon expires in yout maintained spell list, it quite

often takes down other debuffs you've used as well. I'm not sure if it's cancelling the effects of those, but their icons go away and you get the concentration back. For now, I've stopped using it.

[Claritin]

I'm lvl 30 and have found I CAN suck down most of an enemies power... so I do use this spell occasionally.... combined with our other spells it helps a tiny bit.

 

However the reason I can only suck down most of a mobs power is because they die prior to me dumping all of the power.... which means even as they die they could still cast heal or a nuke or whatever... making my ability and my use of those abilities... well lame.  If I can't tear out an entire power bar fast enough so that you notice the impact on the mob there is no real reason to bother trying.

 

Also Swindler's luck seems to take more power to cast than it returns to the caster... I have never seen my power bar go UP from using the spell.. only down.

[Zukh]

Swindlers luck is a HO that boosts skills...........

[Shoplift]

I'm sure she was referring to Swindle Essence.

[bellring]

what im reading says its a movement slow type of debuff or a snear .any damage is just iceing on the cake

[Merend]

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Zukhov wrote:

Swindlers luck is a HO that boosts skills...........

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think he ment swindle essence.  lvl 28 attack that drains power from the target and returns a portion of this dammage as power replinishment to the caster (from the prima guide)

[Urborg]

So does swindle essence take out a good chunk?  I don't know about everyone else but I think there are some mobs where power draining is REALLY nice.  Some of those caster classes burn their power bar pretty fast and they hurt a lot, but once their power bar is gone they become total sissies.  We already have a song that drains a little, and a skill that has a power dot, so throw in swindle essence and I think you've got some pretty mean power bar dmg.  When you're fighting a mob that heals itself *ANY* power drain is a godsend.  Sure, by themselves they don't seem to do much, but I think combined and with some adept+ skill enhancements you're looking at some very helpful, very effective draining.

[Shalwin]

Swindle essence does take out a fair amount of mana... if it's not resisted.  I've found the resist rate on this spell to be pretty high.  When grouped with an enchanter, I found swindle essence getting resisted left and right, but the enchanter would suck the power right out of the mobs.

 

I find it useful for soloing.  It really makes the difference when you can cut severa special moves off of a Mob you are trying to kill solo.  I do try to use it agains ^^ casters and ^^ named.  The only problem is that we're usually fighting mosnters several levels higher than us, so resists make the song almost useless.  Using it against ^ or solo type mobs is generally a waste if you're in any type of decent group as the MoB will die long before you can drain it's power.  The same goes for non caster ^^ monsters (except named)

[Meldu]

 

Sybils Shuddering Sonnet is basically your Troubador upgrade for Ensnare. Its primary function is to slow your opponents movement rate down when you're either running away or kiting with a bow. The power damage after it snaps is minimal and very secondary to its purpose anyway.

[Emizz]

This song has proven beneficial in aiding in solo and party retreats. With the use of this song, kiting a mob while killing it with bow and arrow was entertaining, fun and useful.