Blood Ember Gauntlets

[ineubis]

I bought these initially along with the boots envisioning mana-free fear kiting, only to find out quickly, that was a pipe dream. I banked them both until recently, I figured I would try using only the gloves for clicky Engulfing Darkness.

I would mem Engulfing Darkness instead of Dooming that I normally have loaded so I could recast faster, if-needed.

Using exclusively Engulfing Darkness was effective, and mana-free, but the fights took much longer. The mob moves 20% faster, so you need to chase him around more. The spell lasts 30 seconds shorter and casting time is 5 seconds, so you basically have 55 seconds of darkness time per click. Lastly the dmg is reduced to 11 per tick instead of 20.

I didn't know if this was making my life easier or not at this point. I went back and loaded Dooming Darkness and figured I would try using them together. I found this method to be the most effective.

Here is what I have been doing with these gloves for the last 40ish hours of fear kiting...

I always pull with a click of the gloves, mob runs at you, or if you need to split the snare will last until the other mob(s) have left. Cast your few DoTs/debuffs (150 for Boil Blood, 40 for Shadow Vortex) then Fear (100 mana), then lastly once the mob has been completely "primed" then cast Dooming Darkness (120 mana).

The mob is stacked with your dots/debuffs, you and the pet are beating on it, and you've got a fresh Dooming Darkness on it that lasts for 1:30.... which will pretty much be the majority of the length of the fight. You just need to cast one more Fear (100 mana) in about 20 seconds and you will not need to cast any more spells for the rest of the fight.

When your Darkness is just about to wear off, time it right to apply a click of Engulfing Darkness just as it fades and the mob starts to run. It will take some practice but I can almost get it perfectly 9/10 times now.

You might be saying, "Hey? Don't BE gloves have just ok AC, and no stats?". This is true, so I even was swapping out gloves mid-fight for gloves with better AC +stats, but lately I have gotten lazy and just leave the BE gloves on all the time now.

So there you have it. According to the math, this method uses only 1 cast of Dooming Darkness as opposed to two (possibly three if you used Dooming to pull a mob that needs to be split and spent a good portion of it FD'd). This is otherwise the same end result for the fear kite.

This is my strat for blue mobs... anything light blue or lower (something I can drop quickly) I don't even cast the Dooming on, I just click the gloves and beat it down.

Just wanted to share.

[elwing]

Obviously as you discovered, dooming darkness is much better... But not cheap... BE gaunts are great for mana free split, and for when you can use a less good darkness for kiting... So no BE won't be your magical mana free solution, but they are great tools to have, I am 60 and I use them way more than dooming and cascading darkness together....

[stebbins99]

Thanks for sharing! I love hearing about strategies involving classes' respective clickies and spells. This type of input really helps players decide on gear upgrades / investments

[GreldorEQ]

BE gloves save mana - which is the primary painpoint (imo) to knight soloing and grouping in later levels 54+. You can hold aggro all day with little mana, but if you need to snare in a group with no mana regen, or snare a mob when soloing, it can save you a ton of time between kills. You've already pointed out the obvious benefits when splitting.

This item made me seriously consider re-rolling to non-Iksar when i started to work my way into the 50s.

To you hearty and dedicated Iksar SKs out there, pick up a Blood Riven Axe and keep plodding along : )

[ineubis]

they are great tools to have, I am 60 and I use them way more than dooming and cascading darkness together....

I just got cascading a week or so ago, it's too sexy for my mana pool... and I have 2100 mana...

I loaded it once and cast it twice lol. Casting that every fight would burn through my mana quickly and there'd be a lot of downtime. Currently I have no downtime for the camp I am doing, can engage upon pop, should be good for the last 56% of level 59 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[elwing]

Yep, same slow on dooming and cascading, I am only using cascading darkness when doing a single hard mob (named quest mobs...) when I need the extra damage... Fun fact, the disc unholy aura (that improve ht damage) also boost darkness damage...

[ineubis]

Fun fact, the disc unholy aura (that improve ht damage) also boost darkness damage...

Wow! How long does it last? Duration says "until your next Harm Touch" but I assume there's a limit. I always pop that disc before I HT, pretty much used if I need to "catch up" on my spawn timers (I'm LOM but need to drop the current mob quickly to keep on time). Would be nice to get some extra DOT dmg for a little while before using it. Will have to test it out.

[Legidias]

If you open your combat abilities window (alt+c) it will shower timer of how long a disc lasts

[GreldorEQ]

Every once in a while I notice engulfing ticking for 15 instead of 11 and I just thought it was a visual bug of some sort. Neat!

[elwing]

Unsure on the duration, maybe 2mins? Definitely not long, but I use disced ht+darkness to fear kite the ghost in crystal caverns as example... No use for exp due to recast and duration+mana use, but quite fine to kill a single named for a quest....