Spell Guard IV  

Besides 5% being a pretty useless amount of damage absoption for a caster class like a druid, if I get nuk ed or hit big big time from these mobs that hit for 600 or more it isn't helping me much. The real killer for me is that it is not a click item, it has to proc, so that means I have to be using the weapon to get it work, and usually its when I am all buffed up and then that annoying extra spell guard buff turns on when I don't want it, taking up presious buff space. This would be nicer if it were click activated or worked without a buff, just on all the time, and added to your stats like a resist stats are calculated in.

But to waste 1150 LDON points
not to have it proc when you need it to
to have it proc when you don't want it to
to take up an buff slot

I was stupid to get this aug and it cost me 750pp for the solvent to remove it to sell it back.

As a stand alone proc it doesnt seem a very good one, but think about a couple of things before you throw it out. Take Fennin Ro, his ae is 3000 first hit plus like 100 each tick or some such, it recasts every minute or so. If the fight takes 5 minutes and you are a melee class you just saved yerself 600 damage + another 300 from the 100 per tick damage. When mana is running low wouldn't those 900hps be nice?

Now take a caster mob who has a nasty ae plus nukes or even ae nukes and the hps you save will be worthwhile. It acts like a proc, puts up an icon and just as if it were runic or rune3 proccing again and again it refreshes each time.

Obviously not as good as a damage proc when dps is "king" but if ye don't want to gain more aggro with damage procs this may be a nice additional proc to add.

Everything has a use.

The gold flecked crystal of negation sports a combat effect and not a worn effect. My evidence: it's on a type 4 augmentation (all type 4 are procs); it can be inserted only into weapons (and range). Therefore, the spell effects of multiple augmentations of this type will most assuredly -not- stack.

However, I would not call this useless in the least. 5% is 5% and better than nothing by far. Don't tell me you've never died in a close fight... A fight in which taking 5% less spell damage could have saved you.

Let's say you get hit with a 1000hp blast from named mob XYZ's AoE blast. This helpful little augmentation effect will absorb a whopping 50hp's of the damage. Now that's one useful effect to spend 1150 adventure points on..... NOT ! ! ! ! !

Someone please tell me where I went wrong, and that you can find an actual use for this effect, and how spending 1150 adventure points on a Flecked Cystal of Negation is somehow worth while.



Edited, Wed Sep 17 19:42:03 2003