I'm lvl 63, someone asked me why i didnt use it. I had tried it early on and didnt like it. I just tried it again recently and still didnt like it. Seems like i just end up using more pots. just mana and health instead of just health.

Am i the only one who doesnt like it?

I usually dont even have to bother with mana pots, with blue screen i end up using both.

I made exactly the same argument to a few friends of mine, and I believe I was in the early to mid 60's when I was of that opinion as well. Then one day I found some new gear that I really wanted to use. Now I've always been into high int, but I've also respected my endurance points as well. I put on my new gear that was pure int, and my hp as a level 75 or so dropped to 8,000! But my int was so high and my +shadow was so high I had to try it. I was killing stuff amazingly fast, but I was also using a lot of pots. A LOT of pots. So I started experimenting with stuff, and finally decided to try blue screen again. All of a sudden I understood when I went into the next fight! Blue screen is for those of us who throw caution to the wind and go pure int. It allows the build to be possible because with the screen up, your mana acts like HP. My pot useage with screen up is about half what it is without screen. Also, being pure int means I have virtually unlimited mana, which also cuts down on the pot useage as well.

Summary: Blue screen is for pure int mages, int/end mages probably won't find it as useful.

i would have to disagree with ya phobic.. say doing endurance for stat wise and getting all shadow/int gear .. i found that goin all int vrs end isnt worth it.. mostly end and just enough int so you dont run out of mana during a fight and a friendly mana regen is nice to for in between.. with blue screen i was wasting more pots as a full int mage

The cost of Mp and HP pots are the same. When you run out of MP, nothing happens except you cannot cast spells anymore, which can easily be solved by waiting a bit or just swig a pot. When you run out of HP, you die, and waste time. Therefore, HP is more important than MP, and so should have priority. Secondly, putting points into END gives you extra life. Woo hoo. Putting points into INT gives you extra mana and extra damage. Therfore, putting points into INT is better than putting points into END.

In my opinion then, yes, BSOL is worth it.

I'm going to disagree with Clamm and agree with necro. Once you've gotten used to being a full blown int mage you can't go back to anything weaker, even if it means you get more hp. I want to kill stuff instantly, not in 20 or 30 lightning blasts. I love the full int, low HP bluescreen method of mage play.

Edited by PhobicOne (10/16/07 04:51 AM)

at lvl 95 i had 890 or so shadow bonus with a 26% as well.. the extra damage you get from all int.. isnt all that much better.. i am talking for hdol and stuff like that as any build will work aoeing (well basically).. as in hdol and solo using bsol i found i used more pots.. so i respeced to 85% end and found it to work better. for my style of play anyways.. using hdol and all int i think i had like 5-6k hps and like 34-36k mana or something around there.. doing the end respec i would have like 26k hps with 20-22k mana.. the only time i ever ran out of mana in hdol was against the healers.. matter of fact later today i am going to put on my shadow/int gear and head to hdol to see how more the hits are with being an all int vrs end.. what i will say is though once mages get crits is when int will be even more important.. as then any little bit more helps

thanks for the imput, i'll just try it again at a higher lvl and see how it goes, guess it just depends on your style.

here ya go with 912 shadow and 26% i was shadow lighting for 7.3k (not always but usually in the 6's) and all INT....
when i went to 83% end and 17% int i was hitten in the high 5's low 6's constantly.. will try it out with shadow bolt next as well.. so yes there is a 1k difference in dps but you dont use as many pots and to be honest it may only take 5 seconds longer to kill..

There is a 1K difference per mob struck per cast of shadow lightening. This is far from a 1k difference in dps though. Although I cant remember the refresh time on shadow lightening and also have to figure in how many mobs are attacked/cast. It is a tradeoff with the number of pots that you use. I think the debate is quite funny though because it is very subjective based on your style of play. Also depends on what you feel is acceptable cost.

I do agree with you about the lack of appropriate rainbows for a true mage. Hopefully this will be address in the the next patch or 2 where I know they are adding a number of new rainbows. (this may be why you haven't gotten a reply from a dev on the subject)

Ya know, Clamm, you said something that made a whole lot of sense to me. Your style and my style of play are very different, even though we both run shadow magi. But I don't like HDOL so I build around AOE mobs and you like HDOL so you build around bosses. You raised some interesting points with your arguments. Thanks

well phobic to be honest i did the crypts a bit too but i wanted better gear and there is no other place at the time when i was lvling to do it then hdol.. however now mages have rasputin and i enjoyed that for alot of lvls.. its not as fast as aoeing but the money and gear you get is alot better.. i just couldnt aoe for hours and days to lvl without drinking a pint of vodka or something to keep me going so i jumped aoeing alot to break up the grind.. however i am a firm believer if you can solo hdol lvl 3 as a mage with the bosses solo you become a much better mage.. as you then learn skills and strategies that you normally wont learn aoeing.. examples like kiting, turkey leg, letting mobs reset, how to use tele to its full potential, use turkey leg, stomp (to break up the healers), as the list could go on about how much a different game hdol is then aoeing.. i also didnt want to be a lvl 100 mage with no gear for abby so i did rasputin and hdol lvl 3 for a while just for gear for abby