Could someone please explain how the spell Curse:Death Link works? It has the same mana and power as hurricane. I have read where many SHs use this to solo with, and I wanted to know why its used over just a normal nuke.
the power of CDL is base power. if you were at 100% hp and casted it, thats the power of the nuke. however, if you have LESS then 100% hp, the power is increased. CDL is supposed to be the baddest nuke you can get when youre down to 1 hp. but most dont let themselves get hit like that, and if they have a healer, well... you wont be using it much.
Actually no. At full health it deals minimal damage, that has nothing to do with the power of Death Spike, VampClaw or Hurricane.
I think the power rating is used only to check the success/fail rate (it DOES fail sometimes... ouch).
The damage indeed inceases as your health decreases. This isn't a linear damage growth. It works best for me when below 300 hp (BtB or BoA can help here, acting as some sort of buffer).
At very low healeth levels it can do twice the damage of a standard nuke (hurricane, death spike, vamp.claw).
It's ideal for raids (at least on non-dark resist mobs).
One can also exp with it... but I personally wouldn't advise soloing with that. Unless you got **** good reflexes and fine, cast-speed equip. It can work wonders... but at least I always end up dead at some point. And the risk of loosing some valuable equipment piece is too much for me.
I <3 cdl. It destorys mobs like none other. Of course it's tricky lvling with it, but it makes lvling fun instead of the mindless grind imo. However you can bet all the adenas in your pocket that I wouldn't CDL in a DC set. Not worth the risk and avadon works fine. :)
On a side note CDL in demon although powerful, is complete suicide.
CDL is the only way I solo now. Just need to pick non-range or group mobs.
<---- CDL in VoS
<---- Stopped CDL in VoS
I heard that wall of agros and FotD are good places to CDL. I know I went from 52-58 in cemetary. Find an orc spawn and own it. Also FG works pretty good for CDL.
I've seen a few inaccurate replies here...maybe from people that aren't actually nukers. So here's the low down.
CDL has the same base power and MP usage as Hurricane at the same level. However, it is only worth using at below around 1/3rd HP.
At 95-100% HP, CDL will ALWAYS do 1 damage and 1 damage only, on any target. Note that the spell does not ~fail~. It hits for full damage ... but it's only 1. This sounds useless but it is great for waking people up from sleep, or in other circumstances where you need to inflict ~some~ damage, but as little as possible, in complete safety. Even if it crits, you are only going to do 4 damage. So yeah you can spam it on people for fun with no risk of accidentally killing them.
At around 35% HP, CDL does the same amount of damage as Hurricane, against a non dark-resistant target.
At around 30% HP, CDL breaks even with Shadow Flare in terms of damage.
At close to zero HP, CDL will be doing close to double the damage of Hurricane. But damage drops off extremely quickly as your HP increases. Even at ~50 HP you are already only doing about 1.5x damage. Your natural HP regen makes it almost impossible to keep yourself at such low health, especially since B2M takes off 200-400 HP in one cast, depending on your level.
Conclusion: I find the best way to use CDL is to be able to 2-hit mobs that you normally couldn't quite 2-hit using shadow flare and hurricane. For low to mid levels, this means you can 2-hit yellows unbuffed as a SH. For high levels, it means you can continue 2-shotting whites, when normally you'd only be able to 2-shot greens and light blues unbuffed.
If you DO have access to buffs, this can allow you to kill even slightly higher mobs again. Maybe pinks for lower levels and whites to yellows for high levels.
But keep in mind, spells fail much more on yellows than on greens. If CDL fails you will generally have a mob beating on you and very little HP in the bank. So you ought to ensure you CDL with as fast a cast speed as possible so you can get off a third nuke or Sleep fast! Avadon set/DC set and an acumen weapon is good. Also consider obtaining a SoES with bless the body, as the extra HP raises the point at which your CDL does sufficient damage to outweigh Hurricane.
Example: without Bless Body, I have 2900 HP and my CDL is approximately the same as Shadow Flare at around 900 HP. But with Bless Body I have 3800 HP and can CDL at 1000-1200 HP, which allows an extra hit or two from a mob before death ;)
CDL behaves the same way when wearing my Demon as it does in my Avadon; under 300 hp it is at it's best. Because the Demon set reduces your max HP, and CDL has always functioned the same way regardless of my max HP at any given level, I would be inclined to believe it is based on the caster's current HP, and not on the HP%. Might be wrong though. :o
I find that the use of the Self Heal skill can help you quickly gain enough HP (without gaining too much or wasting too much MP) to cast Body to Mind, keeping your HP within the proper range to keep this thing working.
I HAVE noticed the fact that Curse Death Link seems to fail more often than any other SH spell, though it seems to do so less when below 150 HP than it does when between 150 and 300. I would recommend using all the casting speed enhancements you can get your hands on, because accidents happen!
If the Magic Power SA is indeed being "fixed" in C5, then it might be worth looking into at that time. I believe I also read that Curse Death Link will cost a bit more MP to cast then? :(
This is a very fun (and fast!) way to level! :)
>>Another nice feautre CDL has is the 1 dmg at full HP combined with Homu with Magic >>Paralyze SA on bots.
You can use freezing strike instead.
CDL is very fun way to level but I'd not recommend it solo, lag spike means you die. In Duo w/ SE it's very fast way to level and gain money.
Arrange W/ the SE the amount of heal you need for b2m. Keep next to CDL, vamp claw and if CDL fails use vamp. claw immediately.
But 600 range...
For poking shepshifting mobs I like Surrender to Poison myself (won't work as wake up on sleeping players though).
Only regret training it a few levels... but still almost 1/2 cheaper then a regular nuke, at full 900 range.
I also used CDL in VoS, at lvl62 I can make 22-25% XP and 400-450k adena an hour.
Ofcause this is fully SE + PP buffed
The only downside is that it takes FOREVER to pickup all that loot :)
And you never never die to the nukers/ bladers? I tried CDLing a few times. Essentially... as soon as I aggro more then 1, I am dead. The bladers will teleport, and the rest with either nuke or dot me.... which sucks considering it's hard for my buffer to keep up when I use it on the same screen as my main ( aka, I dual box.... using one box, windowed mode FTL )
And you never never die to the nukers/ bladers? I tried CDLing a few times. Essentially... as soon as I aggro more then 1, I am dead. The bladers will teleport, and the rest with either nuke or dot me.... which sucks considering it's hard for my buffer to keep up when I use it on the same screen as my main ( aka, I dual box.... using one box, windowed mode FTL )
this is true of many of us dual boxers.
if ever NC makes it so u cant run 2 clients on 1 pc, we are gonna just die.
Yep ... I DO die more then often, but the kill speed makes up for the lost XP.
And then NO :( ...... at least not now, because on Teon we have some ss-lag, and if you initiate attack with CDL and then get ss-lag.... well then its just goodbye :)
Especially the blade, Willing, etc. are tricky because of there spawn skill.
Lets say that a blade and a flame is near each other, then I start on-shotting the first blade, then the next and finish off with the flame. I have a cast speed of 800 and a m.atk. of.... 1600 I think, so I can easily do it this way.