Theurgist RvR Questions - Phoenix Freeshard

Ignoring the group/solo dynamics for the class, there are a few things I'm looking for information on.

Earth
I hear good things about the 48 pets, due to their speed. How are Earth pets in RvR generally? I've been leveling with full Ice so I haven't played with them at all yet. Are these worth it for RvR if you spec lower than 48? For that matter, are they worth it if you do spec 48?

Ice
I don't see much difference in the charplanner between the 25/32/40 Ice pets, but I'm sure there's more to it than I'm seeing there. Damage doesn't seem to scale up on the nuke much at all in those last few pets. What difference should I expect to see between those pets in actual usage?

Wind
What are these pets good for? Is it just the stun, or do they hit decently? And again, what is the difference between the mid-level and high-level versions of this pet?

General
Pets aside, the three spec lines basically have you choosing between PBT, nukes/aoe-root, and nukes/aoe-mez. I originally considered the 35Earth/25Ice/32Wind spec that seems well balanced, but I wonder if that leaves all of the pets as sub-optimal? Currently I'm leaning more towards a 48 Earth or 41 Ice spec, but want to understand more about the class before I decide. Any info about the effectiveness of aoe root/mez at different spec levels would be appreciated also.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 3:38 PM by Dimir

I can't recall if its 35 Earth 41 Ice or reversed, but that's the "normal" Theurgist RvR spec. You get pretty good PBT, usable pets in both lines. Earth b/c they last longer are better interrupts for their support. Ice are better to snare their tanks. I'm sure someone who plays Theurgist can tell you some more specifics on when it's good to use one over the other (though you would like never use an earth pet on any melee class). The 48 pets do move faster, but I think the benefits you get from being able to chain snare and diversify from Ice make it a lopsided spec.

Air pets can chain stun, so if you put enough on someone, they're just hosed until the pets die. Air is more of a solo spec. I don't think the pets do much damage.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 3:44 PM by Cami

Unless you want to solo or small groups, just forget about the existence of Wind Magic. It is just a bunch of gimmicky stuff without any group value, bad pets, bad mes, bad dd damage type (nobody will debuff spirit). For full groups, pick one of
* 48 Earth, 24 Ice
* 40 Earth, 36 Ice
* 35 Earth, 41 Ice

Thu 28 Feb 2019 4:12 PM by PingGuy

I probably will be mostly solo, at least in the near future. But I wanted to consider everything more from an effectiveness standpoint, rather than anything else.

With that said, 48 Earth is probably out, because that locks me into needing to focus on soft targets. I'm still getting used to RvR and it's more likely that I'm just going to pick a target and spam it and worry about what it is later. So the rest comes down to picking Ice or Wind, and then where the extra points end up.

I've been leaning towards Ice, but would consider Wind if the higher mez's are a decent upgrade. The aoe-root has a great duration, but I wondered if that would be a less popular option to spam due to the snare immunity. If the aoe-mez is crappy due to resists and determination affecting the short duration more heavily, then I wouldn't worry as much about that line.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 5:23 PM by FFpheonix

Everyone generally expects you to spam pets, and Red PBT is a bonus to the Earth line. As Earth you shut down the backlines, but it's a skill to not OOM while spamming pets and keeping interrupts up. You'll need to watch for when the pets get killed, PBAoE or melee, then spam more pets.

I like Air, 45 Air 26 Earth, because I can nuke and use my Mezz to shut down Animist pets, while using the Air pets to lock down Tanks and Casters/Supports. To me Air is much more enjoyable, I like to cast the DDs and I like to watch targets get chain stunned. The Air pets do not have CC immunity, so as long as another stun isn't cast on them you can stun lock a target.

Also the Air pets have 1250 Range and 50% chance to cast.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 8:18 PM by PingGuy

Lots of good info, thanks everyone. That gives me some stuff to think about.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 8:35 PM by Miscanthus

I enjoy the tri-spec mentioned in the original question. I agree the air pets aren't as useful as the other two, but I find them occasionally helpful.

They are good aiding guildies kill epic mobs when a tank isn't available or protecting your healers in RvR against tanks with root/mezz immunity. Not an ideal situation, but it happens.

I tried running red pbt, but hated the Mana management. Additionally, I found the higher ice snare/nuke to be disappointing. For me I enjoy the third pet the most.

Thu 28 Feb 2019 11:44 PM by Word

If solo go 45 wind for sure.

Fri 1 Mar 2019 1:54 AM by Falken

If you go heavy earth I wouldn't try to run red pbt it will drain your power... stick with yellow I have been told so that you are aren't OOP quickly.

Fri 1 Mar 2019 6:26 AM by teiloh

Things to note:

1. Earthlords afaik hit cloth pretty hard. I'd say 180-250ish per swing. However they swing about every 5.5s, and they have a hair more than 400 HP. Almost every AOE or nuke will outright kill them or slow them to a crawl. High level earth pets do run very fast and they can be disruptive to the enemy for the sake of targeting.

2. Ice pets do not truly progress past 25, other than gaining marginal levels of additional survivability and melee damage. Damage, and I believe resist rates do not improve at higher levels. They will still be dragged into melee and crippled just like any lower version of ice pet.

3. Air pets on the face of it look like they're bad, but iirc they have 1100-1200 hit points, are on a slightly better resist table than Earth pets (more resistant to Hib/Mid AOE damage types afaik; been a long time since I tested), and swing more frequently (can be good or bad). Air theurg pets can reliably survive one cast of PBAE, unless they're debuffed and face a high crit. Here, there's an internal CD for stuns but the stuns are pretty good. They have moderate speed and have a good chance of starting to interrupt from 1350 range, so they're actually a strong choice for interrupts.

Personally, I rarely ever see any sort of Theurg pet lasting much longer than 20-25 seconds in real life or in recordings. Earthlords are usually all taken out by that time, or the fight has already been decided otherwise.

Fri 1 Mar 2019 3:57 PM by PingGuy

If I decide to go 45 in Wind (or any line for that matter), do I get much of a benefit for raising my composite spec above 50?

Fri 1 Mar 2019 5:22 PM by teiloh

Iirc, you get about .5 percent damage per point above spell level but I could easily be remembering wrong

Fri 1 Mar 2019 5:56 PM by PingGuy

Since I've been leveling with Ice, I'm going to stick with that, at least until 40. Then i will test out the 40 pet, followed by the 25 pet, to see how much of a difference there is between them. Then around 49 I'll try out varying levels of Wind, like 39, 45, and 49, to see what works best for me.

Sat 2 Mar 2019 8:12 AM by teiloh

Air specs almost always top at 45, the + damage and 5s on mez isn't significant enough to give up either PBT or 25 ice pets.

Sat 2 Mar 2019 5:13 PM by PingGuy

At level 40, with 40 + 9 Ice spec, on yellow mobs. The 40 Ice pet nukes for 150-170, melees for 52. The 25 Ice Pet nukes for 170-220, and melees for 42. The 25 pet seems a bit weaker, but nukes better. The 32 pet is slightly worse than the 40 pet. I need to see how those damage levels get affected by different spec levels. Going to try 25 spec soon to compare.

EDIT: On reds the 25 pet still nukes for more, but gets torn through much faster by the mob. The 40 pets make it much easier to take reds, despite doing around 3/4 of the damage of the 25 pet per hit.

Wed 13 Mar 2019 5:10 PM by PingGuy

I wanted to add that I initially thought there was a difference in nuke resists between the 40 and 25 Ice pets, and also between the 25 Ice pets at 25 spec and 40 spec, but I couldn't come to any definitive conclusion. If there is a difference, it's marginal, or overwhelmed by RNG variance.

Last night I tried out 45 Earth spec in PvE and RvR, at level 45, so I couldn't test the 48 pet yet. I went with 45 to see how the top PBT is for mana consumption and general usage. With Serenity 2, mana consumption wasn't bad. You will eventually run out of power, even if you don't cast anything else, but it will take a long time. In combat it wasn't an issue, but that was running solo among other groups. Fights didn't last long enough for the high mana consumption to have any real effect. It could matter more in a group setup with extended fights.

With that said, there was one major downside to this spec, and I should have realized it ahead of time. You can't run Speed and PBT at the same time, so the Earth spec is not conducive to soloing right off the bat. If you could switch to PBT with an instant cast it would work, but that's not an option. Realizing this has basically killed my ambition to have at least 26 Earth spec in any of my plans. That's a good thing though, it simplifies the process.

The 40 Earth pet itself is tough, was hitting for 220, living as long as the 40 Ice pet or longer, when being hit by yellows and oranges. It moves pretty fast, I bet the 48 pet really cruises. One thing I found cool in RvR was the pet duration. I got killed by a stealther, but got off an Earth pet first. Got to watch him run away with that thing chasing him as another group was rolling up. It was like a huge "kill this" bullseye on his back. The downside in RvR is that you are basically stuck with the one pet and the baseline Ice nuke, so not many options, but they aren't bad options either.

In all of my tests, nothing has come close to the effectiveness or ease of use of the Ice spec for PvE. I'm working on making something else for a farm character, but this is my highest Alb for the moment. So while I want to convert to an RvR spec, that is holding me back a bit.

Next up I'll test 45 Air and then 48 Earth, and then probably sit at 49.5 and R2L9 for a bit until I make a final decision.

Thu 14 Mar 2019 1:15 PM by Rakul

Keep us posted.

Mon 18 Mar 2019 1:49 PM by PingGuy

Rakul wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Mar 2019 1:15 PM
Keep us posted.

With the change over the weekend, to allow multiple character pages, I may just have to make one of each spec.

Going to test 48 Earth next time I'm on, just need to finish off 48.5 first.

Mon 18 Mar 2019 1:59 PM by FFpheonix

Air has the most utility even though it doesn't look like it on paper.

45 Air has:
Strong nukes
Stun locking pets
AoE Mezz for interrupting mezz immune targets
26 Earth allows for PBT

I've considered going back to Earth because the 48 Earth pets hit so hard but I really like nuking. I would never run Red PBT as a 48 Earth Spec Theurg though, I would run Blue PBT and cast static group blade turn in fights as needed. Most groups invite me for DA, Haste and Interrupts so really any spec is viable.

Tue 19 Mar 2019 6:30 PM by PingGuy

I tried to do some testing last night, but found it hard to get comparable experiences while running the different specs. This was mostly due to the randomness of the zerg, but also partially from the dynamics of the different specs.

Started with 41 Ice, with the rest in Wind, 2 Earth for self-BT. Basically I just went to get some XP from the tasks while keeping my PvE spec. This spec just doesn't feel fun for RvR though. It might be effective, or not, or maybe this was just when I was having the least useful zerg experience of the night. I'll explain more below.

Next was 48 Earth, with the rest in Ice. This happened to be when I had the best zerg experience of the night. Caught a wave, got really far, spammed pets on some people, never even tried to use the Ice nuke. I was really down on the Earth spec after trying 45, but that 48 pet is crazy, changed my perspective quite a bit.

Next was 45 Wind, with the rest in Ice. This was during the Invade Hibernia task, when the zergs were swinging back and forth between AMG and MMG. I was on a swing towards MMG with the last spec, and a swing towards AMG with this spec. I couldn't get off a Mez to save my, or anybody else's, life. Did land a few nukes, and they hit pretty hard. Spammed some pets, but they felt slow after running the Earth pet. Still seemed more useful than the Ice pets though.

Then I went back to 48 Earth again, and had an experience more similar to the Wind spec. Both were fun, but I think it boils down to this:

1500 range sucks. That's your nukes and your mez and roots. Anytime I get within 1500 to use these spells, I die really fast.
2000 range is better, but then you have to wait for the pets to move. This is where the 48 Earth Pet shines. The speed, the damage, the duration, all very effective.

If nothing else, I think I've ruled out the tri-spec. The 48 Earth Pet is the only one I really like in the line. The 40 was ok, but the 32 doesn't really offer enough of a benefit over the 32 Wind Pet. I'm approaching 49.5, and will turn xp off at that point. Then keep testing specs until 2L9. I'd really like to land an AoE Mez or AoE Root at some point just to see how that plays out. Both the 48 Earth Pet and the 45 Wind Nuke have had some success for me so far, with the 32 Wind pet trailing a bit behind those two. No matter what happens, it's been fun doing the comparisons.

Tue 19 Mar 2019 6:39 PM by FFpheonix

Nice tests. Keep it up.

P.S.
Please don't mezz or root anyone. Signed Sorcs and Tanks.

Tue 19 Mar 2019 6:45 PM by Raec

45 wind rest earth is the best solo spec u could run. Just make sure to spec concentration 1 at least. Most of the encounters will be stelthers with purge up so they will purge your quickcast mezz , so to have a chance to survive u need reset it and go for a root. Make sure to always run full buff aswell.
For a easy life macro face + qk + haste debuff + mezz on the same key and be ready to use it right after pa

Tue 19 Mar 2019 7:13 PM by ILLMYRIN

Raec wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Mar 2019 6:45 PM
For a easy life macro face + qk + haste debuff + mezz on the same key and be ready to use it right after pa

Write that macro out for me. I must be missing something if it's possible to stack actions on a key.

Tue 19 Mar 2019 7:26 PM by Raec

ILLMYRIN wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Mar 2019 7:13 PM
Raec wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Mar 2019 6:45 PM
For a easy life macro face + qk + haste debuff + mezz on the same key and be ready to use it right after pa

Write that macro out for me. I must be missing something if it's possible to stack actions on a key.

It s possible, u are missing something. I kinda forgot how ahk works , if u want use that software, sure someone else will help u, or just experiment by yourself

Tue 19 Mar 2019 8:06 PM by darthenron

I have a Theurgist in the Thid BG, and after playing around with the different spec types, I feel like the pets levels are buggy.. I might create a support ticket later.

Ice Pets, 1,7,13,18 (Levels)
Seems to nuke well, decent HP, not a lot of resists

Wind Pets, 1,7,12,20 (Levels)
I feel like the level 12 & 20 pet spells do less stunning

Earth Pets, 1,7,12,20 (Levels)
I only got to mess around with level 20 pets, but I felt like they did very little damage and quickly died. (I had to completely drain my mana to kill the same mob that would typically take 2-3 ice to kill)

Thu 21 Mar 2019 11:23 AM by cutcha1

the 48 earth pet moves faster then the 32 one?

Fri 22 Mar 2019 12:42 PM by Degro916

Realm rank 5L0 theurg speaking here. I’ve tried all he specs and the best of all by far is 48 earth spec just for the pet. Speed is everything and that pet is the fastest, also hits the hardest and has the most hp of those earth pets. I was before 41 ice 35 earth but the problem with ice pets is that they are slow to run and slow to cast. People can run out of range and worst if they just come into melee range the ice pet will melee and not cast for bad damage. All air spec is awesome for one vs one but that almost never happens so it sucks and the pets are the slowest of all. The mez sucks because of the range of cast is short and the same for the nuke. As a theurg your job is to pet the healers and casters to get them out of the fight. In a group you run the blue 10 sec pbt because it drains so much power if you use the others. When I duo with my minstrel buddy I run the red one and that works perfect.
As for RA’s: Mastry of concentration lvl 1 only to spam pets non stop,
Purge
Tireless and longwing
MCL lvl 2
And that’s all you need. Anything else is bonus.

Fri 22 Mar 2019 1:34 PM by Dagerin

Degro916 wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Mar 2019 12:42 PM
Realm rank 5L0 theurg speaking here. I’ve tried all he specs and the best of all by far is 48 earth spec just for the pet. Speed is everything and that pet is the fastest, also hits the hardest and has the most hp of those earth pets. I was before 41 ice 35 earth but the problem with ice pets is that they are slow to run and slow to cast. People can run out of range and worst if they just come into melee range the ice pet will melee and not cast for bad damage. All air spec is awesome for one vs one but that almost never happens so it sucks and the pets are the slowest of all. The mez sucks because of the range of cast is short and the same for the nuke. As a theurg your job is to pet the healers and casters to get them out of the fight. In a group you run the blue 10 sec pbt because it drains so much power if you use the others. When I duo with my minstrel buddy I run the red one and that works perfect.
As for RA’s: Mastry of concentration lvl 1 only to spam pets non stop,
Purge
Tireless and longwing
MCL lvl 2
And that’s all you need. Anything else is bonus.

I'll completely counter everything this guy is saying. Everyone told me 45 earth wasn't enough, I HAD to be 48 for that AMAZING pet.

I respecced 48 earth and took my fully temped cleric buddy to a dueling session. He was fully 36 enhance buffed with my damage add and haste.

He killed the 32 earth pet in 4 hits. He killed the 38(i think?) pet in 4 hits. He killed the 48 pet in 4 hits. They all have exactly the same HP, or at least close enough that it makes no difference.

That 48 earth pet might hit harder, but to be honest in PvE I didn't notice a difference. If it's there it certainly isn't enough to solo a caster.

As for the speed increase, this one I cannot attest to. It wasn't until i spec'd out of this that I heard it was supposedly faster. The 32 earth pet is fast as hell anyway, I really can't imagine how it makes a difference, and in RvR you shouldn't be spamming earth pets on one target anyway, you should be alternating between earth and ice that way one aoe doesn't clear your entire mana bar. By the time that earth pet arrives the ice pet should already be nuking.

That brings me to my last point. One PBAE or even an AOE is enough to clear out all these things, even the 48 pet. Almost every group out there has at least one caster capable of a QC pbae or aoe to clear these pets. It is my opinion that dumping everything into Earth is pointless. I think 41 Ice 35 Earth is more than sufficient as red PBT is an enormous mana drain on a mana starved class already, and do we really empirically think that those 2 seconds make that big of a difference?

I'd rather have highest con ice pets with better nukes, more reliable snares, and more HP personally. You can play and spec however you want, these are just my thoughts and tests that I have done personally to see how these work. To be frank I think the best spec for us is probably 45 air 26 earth..you keep the PBT, you have the highest HP air pets with chain stuns, and you're an actual functional member of the assist train. If this was ToA, 41 Ice 35 Earth would be great because it's easier to extend push groups, have the mana to keep spam up, and the range to start early on those inturrupts. Pre-ToA in OF? Our position in a group is much weaker I think.

Fri 22 Mar 2019 1:51 PM by PingGuy

Just one minor note. While the 40 Ice pet has more defense and melee's harder, the 25 Ice pet nukes harder. In fact the 25 Ice pet, at 25 spec, nukes harder than the 40 Ice pet, at 40 spec.

The funny thing is that after reading your post, I have to put the tri-spec back on the table. Having three good pets with 2k range might end up being the best option.

I will try to do some testing with the 32/40/48 Earth pets to see if I can identify any real differences. Speedwise I feel like 48>40>32 held up in my previous testing, but I'll have to check it again. Maybe they are the same and I just thought I saw a difference.

Wed 5 Jun 2019 3:03 PM by nardo

Just got to know about Phoenix. I used to play a Theurgist rr11+ since DAOC launched up till 2008/2009. Had been a wind theurgist pretty much all the way. Back then, ice and earth specs were rare, even in 8v8. What has changed? I recall wind had the best DD coupled with usually sub-par sprint resistance on most people, usable AoE Mez backing up as AoE interupts, AoE root, single root, blue ice pets and grey earth pets were good enough to keep tanks snared and casters / healers interrupted. Only used Air pets while soloing.

Wed 5 Jun 2019 5:43 PM by PingGuy

I ended up going back to Hibernia so I haven't spent any more time on the Theurgist since my last post. Just wanted to add that the devs changed some pet casting level mechanics since I made these posts, so some of the things I said may no longer be true.

Ice spec here is really just for PvE, and it is really great for that. I found Wind to be terrible for PvE, the pets just die too fast. Earth is popular for PvP here due to the PBT, but also the highest pet moves really fast, so it can catch people the other pets can't. Wind is a good PvP spec also, for the reasons you mentioned, but the newer RA's on this server mitigate CC pretty well, so the short duration on AoE Mez gets even shorter quite often.

Sun 9 Jun 2019 7:51 PM by Laviski

with all that is said, opinions split down the middle,

so will need to check out for myself.
may try the earth/ice spec 48/24
but will also try the 45 air and 26 earth

Sun 30 Jun 2019 7:48 PM by Anelyn77

Dagerin wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Mar 2019 1:34 PM
Degro916 wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Mar 2019 12:42 PM
Realm rank 5L0 theurg speaking here. I’ve tried all he specs and the best of all by far is 48 earth spec just for the pet. Speed is everything and that pet is the fastest, also hits the hardest and has the most hp of those earth pets. I was before 41 ice 35 earth but the problem with ice pets is that they are slow to run and slow to cast. People can run out of range and worst if they just come into melee range the ice pet will melee and not cast for bad damage. All air spec is awesome for one vs one but that almost never happens so it sucks and the pets are the slowest of all. The mez sucks because of the range of cast is short and the same for the nuke. As a theurg your job is to pet the healers and casters to get them out of the fight. In a group you run the blue 10 sec pbt because it drains so much power if you use the others. When I duo with my minstrel buddy I run the red one and that works perfect.
As for RA’s: Mastry of concentration lvl 1 only to spam pets non stop,
Purge
Tireless and longwing
MCL lvl 2
And that’s all you need. Anything else is bonus.

I'll completely counter everything this guy is saying. Everyone told me 45 earth wasn't enough, I HAD to be 48 for that AMAZING pet.

I respecced 48 earth and took my fully temped cleric buddy to a dueling session. He was fully 36 enhance buffed with my damage add and haste.

He killed the 32 earth pet in 4 hits. He killed the 38(i think?) pet in 4 hits. He killed the 48 pet in 4 hits. They all have exactly the same HP, or at least close enough that it makes no difference.

That 48 earth pet might hit harder, but to be honest in PvE I didn't notice a difference. If it's there it certainly isn't enough to solo a caster.

As for the speed increase, this one I cannot attest to. It wasn't until i spec'd out of this that I heard it was supposedly faster. The 32 earth pet is fast as hell anyway, I really can't imagine how it makes a difference, and in RvR you shouldn't be spamming earth pets on one target anyway, you should be alternating between earth and ice that way one aoe doesn't clear your entire mana bar. By the time that earth pet arrives the ice pet should already be nuking.

That brings me to my last point. One PBAE or even an AOE is enough to clear out all these things, even the 48 pet. Almost every group out there has at least one caster capable of a QC pbae or aoe to clear these pets. It is my opinion that dumping everything into Earth is pointless. I think 41 Ice 35 Earth is more than sufficient as red PBT is an enormous mana drain on a mana starved class already, and do we really empirically think that those 2 seconds make that big of a difference?

I'd rather have highest con ice pets with better nukes, more reliable snares, and more HP personally. You can play and spec however you want, these are just my thoughts and tests that I have done personally to see how these work. To be frank I think the best spec for us is probably 45 air 26 earth..you keep the PBT, you have the highest HP air pets with chain stuns, and you're an actual functional member of the assist train. If this was ToA, 41 Ice 35 Earth would be great because it's easier to extend push groups, have the mana to keep spam up, and the range to start early on those inturrupts. Pre-ToA in OF? Our position in a group is much weaker I think.

This is 100% accurate. You need both ice and earth pets (1 and 2 or 2 and 1) on a target to have both melee and ranged rupts. Earth pets die - for me, RR6 Mentalist - in 1 AoE, because they will always stay on top of echother pretty much so you do max dmg to all pets with 1 cast (same with bomb). You need to have ice pets out too, to keep the target rupt, or make the person who is clearing pets waste 3-5s to clear them instead of 1.5s (every seconds when someone is clearing pets, they are not demezzing / stunning / debuffing heat a target / nuking someone into oblivion / nearsighting etc).

/Aicha 6L1 Elf Mentalist @Emerald Knights

Mon 29 Jul 2019 2:56 AM by nephine

Thanks for this thread guys. I've been back and forth for a bit now on where to land at end game. I originally rolled this toon for DS, but things changed, and I kinda like the guy now. This thread seriously helped my decision quite a bit!

Mon 29 Jul 2019 7:19 AM by MacPrior

My favorite skill on Life was 50 Ice/ 20 Earth.
1. Best and quick (2.5 sek base cast time) AE Root, lasts 1Min 13 Sek. after that the sorc can mezz again. Lvl 49 cast, so, very seldom resists.
2. Lvl 50 base nuke with no variance. Seldom resists
3. Lvl 50 Spec nuke with 35% Snare for 30 Sec, 179 delve, seldom resists
4. Highest Ice Pets, whereby on life (and Uthgard too) you have an advantage of lvl 48 Ice Pets, here last Ice Pets are lvl 40 unfortunately.
5. Self-, Targeted and Group-Bubble. Easy Power-Management. If needed, I casted just targeted or even group Bubble in chaint, provided max 2 sec BT.
6. the only MOF 1 required to cap all spells on resists issue.
7. Good synergy if cast together with ice wizzard under wizzi or sorc cold debuff.

Downside:
1. No PBT
2. Low Melee-Swing debuff (9% only)
3. Low Earth Pets (lvl 25 only)

But I was satisfied with this skilling and with abilities I had and have had a lot of fun with.