Shadow Barrier Question

GreyRanger · July 2015

I have been using the Dark Shades morph of Summon Shade to get the 15% damage debuff and trigger shadow barrier on my NB tank. I am thinking about switching to Shadow Image for the mobility utility, but I would like to know if activating the power again for the teleport will trigger the shadow barrier buff again or if shadow barrier will only trigger on the initial application that has a magicka cost.

I know that I can repsec and test this out for myself, but I would prefer to skip the hassle of respecing if someone has already tested it or has Shadow Image on a character where they can test it easily enough.

Thanks for the help.

RavenSworn · July 2015

It will only proc on the initial activation. Triggering the ability has no effect whatsoever on the shadow barrier except teleporting you to its location.

GreyRanger · July 2015

Thanks, that is just what I needed to know.

Is there any way to dismiss the Shadow so you can re-summon & trigger shadow barrier? With the Shades you can re-summon them to reset the shadow barrier. The challenge is that the Shades last about 17 secs (with passives) while shadow barrier only goes about 9 seconds with 5 heavy armor.

I think the shadow barrier passive buff is very handy and I would like to experiment with the mobility buff of Shadow Image, so conceding to have shadow barrier down half the time with no way to get it back up is a drag.

Any suggestions?

RavenSworn · July 2015

there is no other way to dismiss shadow image unless you trigger the teleport skill and cast it again to regain the shadow barrier.

Curious, are you trying out a tank build? pvp i suppose?

RavenSworn · July 2015

uniq_faznrb18_ESO wrote: »

It will only proc on the initial activation. Triggering the ability has no effect whatsoever on the shadow barrier except teleporting you to its location.

APOLOGIES MY FRIEND!

Just tested it out on my nb, it actually does trigger shadow barrier on the activation of the teleport skill. my apologies once again.

GreyRanger · July 2015

No worries and thanks for the info. I may respec my morphs and give this a try.

FYI: This is part of a tank build experiment I am trying around getting a high spell damage and focusing on self-heals through sapping.

RavenSworn · July 2015

So Magicka based tanking. I have great success with this build:

Pierce Armor
Deep Slash
Refreshing Path
Siphoning Strikes
Inner Fire

Sap essence
Brawler
Relentless Focus
Siphoning Strikes
Swallow Soul

Its still under works, (since this is based on stamina build but possibility for change to magicka) thinking of changing Relentless Focus for Structured Entropy for better health management but i find responding better to stamina issues is much more important than health since no stamina > no block > health is affected.
i would also use stamina pots on demand, since that helps with ultimate generation and also much more useful.

GreyRanger · July 2015

Thanks. I have a super survivable tank I love now (magicka based), but am working on one who may be a little less tough but helps the team a lot on damage. My current tank is:

Pierce Amor
Absorb Magicka
Summon Shades (proc shadow Barrier)
Funnel health - self heal + damage
Siphoning Attacks
Veil of Blades

Refreshing path (shadow barrier)
Sap Essence (AOE damage and heal)
Spiked Bone Shield
Mirage
Siphoning Attacks
Soul Harvest (increase utl gen.)

This is with 5 piece Footman & 5 piece Whitestrake for the damage shield (would go for Histbark, but I use Mirage) + 2 piece Engine Guardian.

Even not quite optimized this guy is super hard to kill, but he adds almost 0 to team DPS, so I am experimenting.

RavenSworn · July 2015

I do believe in terms of proccing Siphoning strikes, Refreshing path is much better choice for you than any other since it also procs shadow barrier. I understand the need for lessening the magicka usage since double tapping the shadow image is much better but the duality of path upon proccing Siphoning and barrier is a much better choice. With that though, usually I take concealed weapon or dont morph that ability to make full use of the lesser magicka cost if I temember correctly. I might be wrong though but its worth a look.

But it seem an interesting build. If you do want to add dps.. Have you tried spamming Swallow soul? Or funnel health for that matter. Much better dps, with support to oftheals and also Swallow soul would provide better slotted passive than funnel imo.

Mirage is awesome, but I prefer double take, same dodge chance, faster escape or gap closer utility. You dont need that much armor with shadow barrier up almost always so there is that. I prefer whitestrake though over hist bark for the spell resistance it gives, nbs dont have spell resist like the Templars or sorcerers do so it helps.

Interesting use of soul harvest.. I dont usually use that since I generate ultimate like crazy, soul tether to me in a group situation is much better though. If a pack of mobs is swarming your Healer or dps you can just stun them with tether + you will also be healing yourself, reducing the need for the Healer to focus on you and save himself or the dps. As they say, dead dps is no dps and a dead Healer usually leads to a dead group.