[1.6.6.] The Untouchable ghoul Paradox Mage against Madness

[Cathbald]

why do you, in so many fights, decide that the safest place to tether is in melee of melee enemies when tether has range 2 ?
for example, literally as soon as you do that against Argoniel, she procs Cauterise and you proceed to... stay in place to get hit more ?

why, if your gear isn't BiS, did you not even try to get some merchart ? it takes 2 min to try and hope for better gear. Is madness that permissive ?

why, at several points, do you track, see an enemy, and proceed to walk into his range without any defensive buff just... hoping they don't kill/proc cauterise right away ?

why do you not close portals in final fight ? one duathedlen is enough to completely negate dimentional step, one ruined banshee is enough to corrupted negation, one dreadmaster is enough to disperse magic, one champ of Urh'Rok is enough to get spellfeedbacked by a random AoE, one blinkwyrm is enough to get dispersed,.... there are just so many things that can go wrong. and portal can start spawning stuff as soon as turn 1 if i'm not mistaken. Worst i had was a champ of Urh'Rok turn 2 myself.

why sometimes fight with 600 paradox and not activate hidden resources ? why not run away/temporal reprieve/entomb yourself, when cauterise has procced ?

PM has never been my class of choice but i have many questions like that when i look at your videos. Not gonna look at everything though, the fact that you use the mouse is driving me crazy xD

[Tradewind_Rider]

Hey, hi!

Thank you for your comment & questions, Cathbald!
You asked a lot, so I will answer one-by-one.


First question:

Staying out of melee (or any) range against the Sorcerers is not gonna work in madness.

Argoniel has:

111% global speed and 146% movement speed
100% stun, 100% pin, 100% blindness immunity & “just” 50% confusion immunity
a movement infusion
Level 81 Worm Walk = Range 7 teleport, Cooldown: 10
Level 16 Rush = Range: 14, Cooldown: 10
Level 98 Bone Grab = Range: 10, Cooldown: 15
And she also has ranged spells too, like a level 93 Bone Spear or a level 54 Soul Rot.

Elandar is worse to get rid of of course…

Also, please note: in madness there is Hunted!
That means once per global turn (callbackOnActBase) there is 8% chance for both of them having the Hunter! effect for 30 turns.
And this effect on trigger is also setting YOU as their TARGET.
So, even if they are aggroing on Aeryn and fighting with Aeryn initially, if Hunted! triggers they will immediately aggro on you.
This is a very big difference between madness and other difficulties.

So, you can try to run away from them and staying out of range, but in madness this is not gonna work.

You can make the final fight in insane and lower without having much trouble with the Sorcerers because they set their initial target as Aeryn. So, they aggroing on her.
But in madness, you have just a few turns or even no time before Hunted! triggers and that means they will immediately aggro on you.
They will teleporting/rushing next to you and they will in your face.
So, you cannot stay out from anything, they will always aggro you.


The case that you mentioned:

At first I jumped “into the void portal” and tethered myself there, because this way both enemy is in my range, but I am not next to any of them. Then into a location that was min. 7 tiles away (to have 100% tether trigger).
Then I dispersed Elandar. (mostly to eliminate his stun & pin immunity: Feather Wind)
As you can see, initially both Sorcerer is aggroing Aeryn and not me.
(4:27, the target of Elandar is Aeryn)

Then at 5:11 , Elandar is suddenly aggroing on me. He casted a Phase Door and appeared next to me. (Hunted! triggered)

At 5:28 you can see Elandar is stunned & pinned to the ground. (no Feather Wind)

As you can see at 5:35, Argoniel already has Hunter!, so she also triggered it. This means she also targets and aggros me.
And she has a movement infusion, a teleport, a range 14 rush, a range 10 bone grab… and pin immune.

Cauterize has procced at 5:53 and as you can see I was immediately teleported back to Elandar due to Tethers. I was immediately in the middle of the Stone Wall again.

So, I did not stayed there at melee range as you wrote.

Aeryn was next to Argoniel at that time, and not me.


I immediately checked the Cauterize damage, and it was really low: 24.61 per turn (see at 5:53)
So, Cauterize is just “barely” triggered, and Cauterize triggered, because I only had just a weak (301 power) damage shield that time. No stormshields.

After Cauterize triggered, I had 5 charges of STORMSHIELD RUNE. (from Contingency)
You can see that too.
Also, all of my sustains and effects were on use.

You can see at 5:56 when I am checking the Log, my Contingency triggered my Stormshield Rune.
So, when Cauterize is triggering, I will have an auto Stormshield up thanks to Contingency.
Furthermore, as you can see, I also had a Stormshield Rune that was not on cooldown.

Then I casted an Attenuate on myself & Elandar to HEAL myself.
(so, again I was not next to Argoniel)

So:

a, the Cauterize damage was tiny (24.61)
b, I had all my sustains and effects (Webs of Fate, Tether,…) on use
c, I also had a 5 charge Stormshield on use from Contingency
d, I also had a Stormshield Rune not on cooldown too.
e, and I was at 861/1407 = ~61% life.

You can see when I casted that Attenuate, I immediately went up to 100% life.
And I still had 4 charges of Stormshield on the next turn.

So, the threat was not high.

If I am going into Temporal Reprieve because of a 24.61 Cauterize damage per turn, while I have every sustain & effect on use and also 2 x Stormshield Rune too, then I am wasting my Reprieve.

If I am coming back from Reprieve and taking a really serious blow that triggers Cauterize again but for more serious damage, then I have no more Reprieve for ~30 turns and no more Contingency and I will die.

So, this is a calculated risk. You have to choose the “lesser bad”.
You cannot waste your Reprieve for a tiny 24.61 Cauterize damage, while you have all your defenses up and you also have 2 Stormshields and you are at full life.

Cauterize can trigger for way more damage, like 300 per turn…
And it can happen when my Contingency is on cooldown, and when my defensive runes are on cooldown too…
If I have no Temporal Reprieve that time, I am dead.

As you can see at 6:32, when the Cauterize had a 7 turn duration:
I still had 2 charges from my Contingency Stormshield
I was at full life
And my Shielding Rune was also not on cooldown.
So, I still had a Stormshield effect from Contingency, while I had a Stormshield and a Shielding Rune ready to use.
And still all my sustains and effects were on use.

So, the threat was not high at all.


Second question:

why, if your gear isn't BiS, did you not even try to get some merchart ? it takes 2 min to try and hope for better gear. Is madness that permissive ?

I had no problems in the game with progression. As you can see from the videos, I killed every enemy in the game, and also cleared every vault. (before High Peak)
So, why should I buy better gear, if I have no problem with my current one?

If I would miss something essential, like freeze resist or spellpower or temporal resist penetration, then I would bought something from the Merchant, yes.
But I had everything essential, even if not the best.

It seems, with the right build and strategy, you do not need the very best gear in madness.


Third question:

why, at several points, do you track, see an enemy, and proceed to walk into his range without any defensive buff just... hoping they don't kill/proc cauterise right away ?

Can you be more specific, please? I can answer your question if you are referring to a specific case (like the Cauterize proc in the final fight). We can check it in the videos.


Fourth question:

About portals.

Closing the portals are not important in the final fight and also it is not really doable in madness.
Continuously damaging and debuffing the Sorcerers are way more important.

Because the Sorcerers are aggroing on you (Hunted!), you cannot just close the portals like you can on insane and lower, while they are fighting with Aeryn.
So, madness is really different from other difficulties.
At any time, Elandar can just Phase Door or Teleport next to you and aggro you. Same for Argoniel with a Rush.
It can happen even at the very first turn.

Also, the portals just spawning critters.
Critters are not really a threat compared to the 2 level 154 Sorcerer…

You are wrong about Duathedlens and magical darkness.
As I wrote in my guide, I used Umbraphage. This lantern is auto-eliminate all magical darkness in its radius (radius 10 with full charge) at every turn. Automatically.
Its power is directly subtracted from the power of the darkness at every turn. So, it removes the darkness from critter Duathedlens in 1 turn, and it removes darkness casted by stronger (non-critter) Duathedlens in 1-2 turns.


You are also wrong about Champion of Uhr’Roks.
Spell Feedback is a mental effect. Therefore auto-teleports from Tethers are clearing it immediately.


You are partially right about POSSIBLE THREATS from the portals, like a Ruined Banshee or a Dreadmaster.
But as I mentioned before, the 2 boss will aggro on you and not on Aeryn because this is madness, so you cannot simply close the portals.
Also the 2 Sorcerers are REAL THREAT and VERY HIGH THREAT.
Meanwhile the theoretic Banshee and theoretic Dreadmaster are just a non-existing beings with a probability.

Also, I still had Temporal Reprieve ready to use at any time…
So, if any theoretic threat comes into the “real world” and disperse me, then I can go into the Reprieve and I can reset everything.


Fifth question:

why sometimes fight with 600 paradox and not activate hidden resources ? why not run away/temporal reprieve/entomb yourself, when cauterise has procced ?

I am fighting with 600 paradox and not run away, because I can.
I am saving my Temporal Reprieve for real dangers.
As I mentioned before, this build can also fight with most of the enemies with just pressing wait and just re-use Tethers once at every 12-15 turns, under Hidden Resources.
So, this build has NO PROBLEM with HIGH PARADOX.

So, if I am killing the enemies without trouble…
…Then why should I run???

I think I already answered the second part of your question (Cauterize). I just using Reprieve if the threat is real.
If I think, I can handle the situation, then I am not wasting my Reprieve.
When I am coming back from Reprieve that means I won’t have Contingency to give me a strong Stormshield again if Cauterize is triggering again.
Also I won’t have Reprieve too…

--------
Note: running from enemies in madness is not viable at mid & late-game. You can die if you start running. Enemies can have very high global speed (Blinding Speed) also can have really high movement speed (1-2 or even 3000% or more, mainly Cursed and Wyrmics).
Actually, this build is a ghoul, so cannot use movement infusion, but I am saying this overall:
Using movement infusion to run from enemies in late-game madness is a SUICIDE.
--------


About mouse:

I prefer mouse, yes.
Why it is bad or why is this makes you crazy?

[Frumple]

I can sympathize with the mouse thing, heh. Tried using it a few times and it's just... so much slower and clunkier. Watching people use it's actually been mildly distracting the few times I've watched T4 vids.

Kinda' occurs to me slower and clunkier actually might not be a bad thing for higher difficulties, though. If you have to slow down a bit you're maybe less likely to make mistakes or fatfinger something at an inopportune time, so...

[Effigy]

Thanks for the guide and advice. Madness is beyond my skill level right now, but I'm experimenting with these strategies for Insane. I never actually played a ghoul before due to the disadvantages of being undead and having global speed penalty, but the changes to resilience have definitely caught my interest.

[Tradewind_Rider]

Hey, hi!

It’s nice to read, my guide is helpful to someone.

The only thing you have to do to gain “madness skill level” is to play on madness. There is no magic or any extra thing that someone has or do not has. Anybody can learn it.

When you will have some experience with this difficulty you will see, you also have to think “outside of the box”. This is because you cannot progress further from a point if you are using insane tactics/builds. (This point is usually at Dreadfell or at the East)
From a point, most of (or all of?) the successful insane tactics fails here, and also you cannot do simply that you used to do on insane (like closing the portals in the final fight). Hunted! changes a lot of things and the crazy high numbers on enemies also changes a lot of things.


Ghoul has a few smaller benefits, but the two “big shot” is the 50% flat damage cap and the 50% stun/freeze immunity.
The 50% freeze immunity comes very handy for any teleport based character.
Also, Ghoulish Leap is a very nice non-teleport mobility talent. It is very useful when you cannot teleport.

The 20% global speed reduction seems a very big disadvantage at first glance, but for some builds, it is not that bad as it looks like.
First, you can eliminate the reduction with Retch (and that has a 50% uptime).
Second, you can eliminate the reduction with Ghoulish Leap too (or even buff your global speed further).
And third, the global speed reduction is just a big disadvantage for speed-based characters, but not for cooldown-based characters.
At speed-based I mainly mean those who are using weapon attacks. For them, yeah, a 20% global speed nerf is very hard.
But for a cooldown- and for a combo based character (like this Paradox Mage), who using a combination of spells, the 20% nerf is not that hard.

Normally, this means you can cast 4 spells at 5 turns instead of 5/5.
But you have just a few significant damage spells in madness: Spatial Tethers, Attenuate and Echoes from the Past.
These have an 8 turn, a 4 turn and a 12 turn cooldown originally.
So, having a reduced global speed is not making you cast your significant spells less often.
I pressed wait many times during fights to reduce my paradox, instead of casting a weak spell.

With higher global speed you could spam non-significant spells on the enemies continuously, like Stop, Repulsion Blast, Gravity Spike or Dust to Dust, but in madness these spells makes no difference. Spamming a lot of small damage spells on enemies is meaningless here.
I can understand, on lower difficulties spamming these spells as fast as you can is an effective way to kill the enemies, but not on madness.

Here, you have to accept: fights are veeeeery long. You cannot hurry. You have to focus on survival (handling high incoming damage & detrimental effect clearing) and dealing damage is not the top priority.
When you found a way to survive, then it doesn’t really matter if you kill your enemy at 50 turns or at 150 turns.

Also, you have Time Dilation as a Chronomancer, therefore you can cast a spell at every turn even with 80% global speed. Just with a level 4 Time Dilation you can reach 68% of a turn spell casting.

Also, basically you start all fights with Time Stop.
Then position yourself with Ghoulish Leap, then Redux, Tether, Dimensional Step then Tether again.
So, you have a set up system that continuously damaging & debuffing the enemies and meanwhile clearing detrimental effects from you.
And you do not need speed for doing this, because you set up this while the time is not flowing.


One more advantage of Ghoul Resilience is its synergy with Cauterize:
As you know, if Cauterize triggers that means you will take 10% of the damage that triggered it for 8 turns.
For example if a total damage of 10 000 is triggering Cauterize that means you will take 1000 damage per turn for the next 8 turns.
And basically this means you will very likely end up dead.
So, in case of very high damages, Cauterize is not always saving your life, just delaying your death.

But if you have a flat damage cap that means it is also reducing the damage from Cauterize, because most of the times, not a high damage will trigger Cauterize but just a lower damage (thanks to the damage cap).
You will very likely take lower damage per turn from Cauterize if you are a ghoul.
Significantly lower compared to a character without a flat damage cap.

Does this count on insane and lower? I do not think so.
Does this count on madness? Absolutely.


While insane tactics/builds not working on madness, madness tactics/builds are working on insane and lower.
Just keep in mind when you experimenting: maybe this tactic is not the fastest on insane.
This is becasue the top priority was not fast killing when I made it.
But I am really interested in your experience, how well this is doing on insane.
And feel free to ask.

[Effigy]

That makes sense. Thanks again for taking the time to share this information.

[Tradewind_Rider]

Oh, one other thing I just forgot...

If you are a ghoul and using a Corpselight lantern (that one with Retch in it),
then the Retch from the lantern counts as your own Retch.

So, that means, you can have 2 Retch that eliminates your global speed nerf.
And this means, you can easily have a Retch effect 100% uptime.

So, no global speed nerf at all...

I hope it helps you with ghouls.

[Frumple]

Eh... neither of those are instant talents, right? Pretty sure retch takes up a turn, if it hasn't changed at some point. If you're expending a turn to get the global speed mitigation you're dealing with some degree of functional global speed penalty regardless. Still losing turns, heh. Seems more like a pick your poison (passive global penalty vs. spending turns for a localized penalty removal) situation than really eliminating the penalty, even if you have permanent retch uptime.

Might be less of one, though. I don't remember the durations and cooldowns involved with retch. If the duration is more than five turns (i.e. you're spending less than one out of five turns casting retch) you have a persistent penalty reduction so long as you have the effect up. It just wouldn't be 100%, exactly.

[Tradewind_Rider]

Frumple, you are right.

Retch is not an instant, it takes 100% of a turn to use.
The cooldown of Retch is 20 turns and the duration is 10 turns.

The corspelight-Retch has a 30 turns cooldown, so basically if you have an effective tlvl 4 Device Mastery, you can reduce it down to 20 turns.
Then you can have a 100% uptime Retch.
(you have 2 Retch, each has 20 turns cooldown & a 10 turn duration.)

So, with Retch, you are spending a turn (1000 energy) and eliminating the 20% global speed penalty for 10 turns. That is a total 10 x 200 = 2000 energy “income” for a cost of 1000 energy.

So, with Retch, you are losing 1 turn at 10 turns instead of losing 2 turns (without Retch).
With 2 Recth (from the lantern & Device Mastery) you are doing the same, but you can maintain the effect continuously.

So, yes you are not totally eliminating the speed (or energy) nerf, just “halving it” with Retch.
But Retch is not just about speed, it has other effects too.
It damages non-undeads and heals you at every turn.
Also, it clears a beneficial physical effect from non-undeads and clears a detrimental physical effect from you at every turn (~27% chance per turn if you max Retch).

So, overall, you have better speed with Retch (~halving the energy loss), it also gives you useful effects (healing & detrimental effect clearing) and it also gives negative things to non-undeads (damage & beneficial effect strip).

Is it worth it? It depends on the build I think.

[Effigy]

I completed an Insane/RL run with this build. It was very effective and a lot of fun. I know this thread is about tackling Madness, but I'll just post a few thoughts about my run since it may be useful to others trying the build.

I didn't start doing much with Spatial Tether until level 30+ because the points were kind of tight during the early game. I'm sure you could start doing it sooner, but I just played it as a standard Attenuate build until that point and it worked fine. I tried Worm Hole + Tether but I wasn't getting very consistent results with it, probably due to ghoul speed and no movement infusion. Redux + Tether worked great though. I was able to kill large groups of enemies very efficiently with this, such as in the orc prides. It's also great against single targets as long as they stay near an anchor point.

Ghoul PM + Untouchable is definitely very tanky. I'm sure you get more mileage from Untouchable on Madness, but it was still proccing sometimes on Insane. It didn't proc constantly, but I was glad to have it when it did. It's probably debatable whether heavy/massive armor is more useful on average, but I had enough paradox issues in light armor so I would stick with Untouchable. Really, I was more concerned about my paradox than the enemies' damage in most cases. Even with Hidden Resources at level 25, this build has so many sustains that it's easy to start seeing anomalies.

I only killed about 10 enemies total on High Peak. Burning Star + Track item + digging made it really easy to find the stairs. Banish is a clutch talent on High Peak because you can aim it around a corner and teleport the guardians off the stairs, then Dimensional Step to instantly switch level. One of the stair guardians had 117 spell save (!!!), but since Banish doesn't cause aggro, it didn't come around the corner after me even when I failed a couple attempts to Banish it. I finally used Empower on Banish and was able to get it off the stairs to swap level.

I found the Wheel of Fate on the ground a few tiles before the exit on High Peak 10 and then managed to roll the absurd stats I'm currently wearing, with 39 regen and 38% heal mod among other things. Since I had my heal mod capped at 250% while wearing the ring, I had 116 permanent passive regen for the final fight. This amount of regen was completely unnecessary, but it did allow me to drop Bloodcaller. I'm confident I would have won the final fight without it. I did laugh out loud after getting that roll though.

The final fight was fairly easy. I was previously using Rune of Reflection, Stormshield Rune, and 2x Shatter Afflictions, but I drop one of the Shatter runes for Dissipation right before the final fight because I was worried about making Entropy stick on the bosses. In practice I was able to beat their saves anyway, but I think it was still worth swapping in Dissipation because they had tons of buffs and I was quickly able to strip them. I actually ended up killing Argoniel first because Elandar teleported away and Argoniel wasn't all that tanky with his buffs removed. I mainly used Redux + Tether in this fight, with Attenuate, Entropy, Echoes, and support skills thrown in of course. I was debating closing the demon portal because I didn't find Umbraphage, but I decided to chance it and just fight without closing portals. Aeryn died really fast and I don't think there's much I could have done there. Maybe I could have used Time Skip on her? Not sure.

I made a few changes from OP's build, some due to personal preference and others due to playing on Insane instead of Madness.
- I didn't feel Cauterize was necessary on Insane because I was incredibly tanky. The run ended up being deathless without it. I decided to take Ethereal Form instead since I didn't have any resist penetration from talents, plus it gives some extra protection; overall I was happy with it, although I think Temporal Form or Adept would also be strong choices.
- OP skipped the Gravity category completely, but I found 1 point in Repulsion Blast to be very useful, probably moreso than anything else I could spend 1 class point on.
- I left Extension at 3/5 because it seems to round duration up, so I was able to get a 7 turn Seal Fate (8 turns in practice because it's instant) with it at 300 paradox.
- I invested 3/5 in Ghoulish leap because (like Dimensional Step) it gets an extra tile of range on the 3rd level, plus the cooldown and speed improve with levels.
- I put a couple points in Light Armor Training. I got Chant of Fortress from an escort, so I was able to get ~70% hardiness and 115 armor at endgame. The extra defense was good with Ethereal Form too.
- I maxed Energy Decomposition and Dimensional Step because it just seemed worthwhile to me.
- As a tradeoff, I had to drop Energy Absorption to 1/5 and didn't really use it past the early game. I also dropped Seal Fate to 3/5 since it didn't seem like I was usually hitting more than 4 times per turn, and that was sufficient to extend Attenuate + Entropy anyway.

Thanks again to the OP for posting detailed guides about using Spatial Tether offensively, and the Ghoul + Untouchable defense layering. It's a novel approach to Paradox Mage and I think anyone playing the class would benefit from reading these guides.

[GlassGo]

Thanks again to the OP for posting detailed guides about using Spatial Tether offensively, and the Ghoul + Untouchable defense layering. It's a novel approach to Paradox Mage and I think anyone playing the class would benefit from reading these guides.

Absolutely agree, it was informative and at times dramatic reading! Congratulations, and in my opinion Tradewind_Rider is a valuable member of ToME4 community (creativity is good), and rightfully took place in elite group of players, no matter if someone from that group disagree with it, hehe.
I think those doubts in chating and such were overly excessive, as - where is the line in these doubts?
Someone could be a mad hacker who hacked server and put character there - is it impossible in times whene pentagon was hacked many times?
Or someone could take a sharp knife and threaten with it DG so he make his character clean and "legit", or pay mney to local refugy to do so lol.
Or simple crack saves with no traces left lol.
There is no end in doubts if treat every win like this - everyone is a chater and everyone is guilty.

However this

I also reject your implication that some small clique of elite players should/does serve of the arbiter of what is legitimate and has value in ToME. This toxic elitism has long been present, and is one of the reasons I played for years before getting actively involved in the community. Condescending toward newer and less experienced players and telling them they suck when they get excited and post here about something they did or discovered for themselves just serves to deter people from participating in the community and ruins their enjoyment. Disrespecting the efforts the developers put in on a game that is affordable/free will likely make them care less about the concerns of high level players. The vast majority of time in ToME is spent below insane. Why should developers spend time addressing the problems that players who play on insane+ experience if they're just going to be jerks about it anyway? I'm not sure that 1% of the customers are always right.

is completely wrong.
Of course, idea that some group of players could "validate" or "onvalidate" is laughable, they could agree\disagree just like any other people.
But this "toxic elitism" sounds like a attack aimed to elitism, well, even frasing IS aimed at that.
There is no elitism - there is elite, people who achieved something in their life, and it doesn't matter what is it, even if they learned to eat pies with their butthole.
So yes, there are people that did something, and others who did nothing.
Mindset aimed vs "elitism" is a mindset aimed at breedig mediocrity - in everything.
You don't need to achieve something, to put efforts, to be "harder better faster stronger" - and when someone did that, you can just form a jackal pack with the same "mediocrity is my life motto" jackals and bully those who did something.
We got generation of worthless ciliates like that for example, population of landwhales who bully those who looks after his body and put efforts to be in good shape, dispence ugliness and thus banish beauty from that world.
It's a dangerous and I would even say toxic mindset that leads to a troubles for everyone.

[Tradewind_Rider]

Thank you very much Effigy & GlassGo!

I am glad that you enjoyed the play with this build Effigy.

Yes, Cauterize is not necessary on insane or lower, and Ethereal Form is a very solid choice instead of that.

1 pt in Repulsion Blast and even 1 pt in Gravity Spike can be very handy becasue of enemy replacement.
Before this PM, i made a Cornac one and i used 1-1 pt in them. Very useful, yes.


I checked your character and i had 116 willpower in end-game and Rod of Sarrilon too (+25 reduced anomaly)
compared to your 89 willpower and +12 reduced anomaly from gear.
Willpower (and any source of anomaly chance reduction from gear) is very important.

Also, the continous use of Temporal Bolt and Energy Absorption (what you skipped) enables more cast of Induce Anomaly
during fights.

These things can cause a bit struggling in paradox management.


I can imagine in non-madness, how fun to play with Banish at High Peak.
Basically you have a good set of tools to avoid enemies very effectively.

Thanks again, it's nice to see my build was fun to play for someone.

[goodestboii]

The 1.7 Aether Permeation prodigy is quite good. Not sure if it can replace cauterize in madness but for insane and below it is a real life saver. It prevents dispel and make you immune to it for 6 more seconds, automatically. Losing your buffs and sustains as PM is one of its biggest run killer. Thanks for this guide btw!