Coping with Shadow Veil
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Coping with Shadow Veil
I don't know how to deal with enemies that use Shadow Veil. Every turn, they teleport next to you and attack, they have + resistances, and cannot get status effects to stop them. Does anyone have strategies for dealing with it, especially against tough bosses?
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
This was mentioned before. There are a few things that work.
First, the most direct solution is to use some method of dispelling enemy buffs. Corrupted Negation (even the nerfed version) will do it and is available from staves; the archmage dispel talent is available from gloves. Removing Shadow Veil itself will obviously stop them cold.
Anything that raises your Darkness resistance will likewise protect you.
If you can entomb yourself, that will also work. A hat of earthrunes will do this for you.
I'm not sure whether the Rune of the Rift or Time Prison would work or whether their status immunity will block them, but it's worth a shot. They'll probably still have Shadow Veil up when they come out, but it'll at least give you a breather to heal halfway through. Actually, casting Time Prison on yourself seems like it might work, though if your talent level is too high they might just recover the cooldown on Shadow Veil before you come out...
Obviously, anything that boosts your defense in general will help -- shields, evasion, etc.
If you have a way of forcing the enemy to switch targets, that would probably work, too. Such things are rare, but an Alchemist can foist them off on their golem, at least.
It might be good to add more weaknesses, though, given how hyperspecific most of those are (in particular, characters with low magic are unlikely to qualify for any of those, and antimagic characters seem to be screwed.) I'd add a range limit and possibly require LOS, so typical escape options work.
But in general, you should always try to carry a method of removing enemy buffs on any character who can use them, since they're too useful not to.
First, the most direct solution is to use some method of dispelling enemy buffs. Corrupted Negation (even the nerfed version) will do it and is available from staves; the archmage dispel talent is available from gloves. Removing Shadow Veil itself will obviously stop them cold.
Anything that raises your Darkness resistance will likewise protect you.
If you can entomb yourself, that will also work. A hat of earthrunes will do this for you.
I'm not sure whether the Rune of the Rift or Time Prison would work or whether their status immunity will block them, but it's worth a shot. They'll probably still have Shadow Veil up when they come out, but it'll at least give you a breather to heal halfway through. Actually, casting Time Prison on yourself seems like it might work, though if your talent level is too high they might just recover the cooldown on Shadow Veil before you come out...
Obviously, anything that boosts your defense in general will help -- shields, evasion, etc.
If you have a way of forcing the enemy to switch targets, that would probably work, too. Such things are rare, but an Alchemist can foist them off on their golem, at least.
It might be good to add more weaknesses, though, given how hyperspecific most of those are (in particular, characters with low magic are unlikely to qualify for any of those, and antimagic characters seem to be screwed.) I'd add a range limit and possibly require LOS, so typical escape options work.
But in general, you should always try to carry a method of removing enemy buffs on any character who can use them, since they're too useful not to.
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
Corrupted Negation won't work. It's not a dispellable effect (type=time).
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
Huh. Well, it should be dispellable, I think. There does need to be some way of stopping it...
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
This is pretty much the reason I hate the bandit lair now. 
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
It really seems excessive for an NPC talent. The main disadvantages, that you have no control over it and can't choose your target, are totally meaningless when placed in the hands of an NPC with one enemy and no motivation beyond killing the player.
Sorry about all the parentheses (sometimes I like to clarify things).
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
Also can't use other talents since Shadow Veil uses energy for you (which applies to the NPCs too).
I could see it being a magical effect though. NPC dispels aren't terribly common and imo they probably should stop something like Shadow Veil.
I could see it being a magical effect though. NPC dispels aren't terribly common and imo they probably should stop something like Shadow Veil.
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
The problems with this are:edge2054 wrote:Also can't use other talents since Shadow Veil uses energy for you (which applies to the NPCs too).
1. Bosses have a ton of HP. It's possible for the PC to hit a situation where they'd be saying "ack, if I could've used this healing talent I wouldn't have died, but Shadow Veil prevented me." (As a practical matter I guess they won't see the exact details, they'll just activate Shadow Veil and die, but you get the idea.)
That's not very likely for a boss. In general, a boss can afford to put off activating other talents until Shadow Veil runs out, because they have enough HP to give them a margin of error in terms of exactly when they heal.
2. Enemies can afford to take risks the player wouldn't -- the player has to win every fight, while only one NPC has to win a fight for the game to be over (well, discounting extra lives, but the difference is close enough.)
If a talent gives you a 50% chance of dying and a 50% chance of killing your opponent, it's worthless for the player; but it's horrifically deadly when used by an NPC. Shadow Veil isn't exactly there, but the basic calculus is similar -- it's something a PC will be reluctant to use, but which an intelligent AI would hammer relentlessly until the player succumbs.
Re: Coping with Shadow Veil
Just hit another boss with this (14 duration, 18 cooldown). 65% resist all and 1770 HP makes for a very long fight of getting hit for unavoidable 350 damage per turn.
One bugfix that would help immensely with managing these enemies would be if it respected LoS (as a code comment suggests it is intended to), as well as being restricted to only acting within a range of 5 (as the talent description shows). It should also not be able to teleport in no-teleport areas such as vaults.
Seeing how this talent is extremely powerful on an NPC, and fine for the player, perhaps it should be flagged as no NPC until those balance issues are addressed.
One bugfix that would help immensely with managing these enemies would be if it respected LoS (as a code comment suggests it is intended to), as well as being restricted to only acting within a range of 5 (as the talent description shows). It should also not be able to teleport in no-teleport areas such as vaults.
Seeing how this talent is extremely powerful on an NPC, and fine for the player, perhaps it should be flagged as no NPC until those balance issues are addressed.