Occultist Suggestions.

[Pony]

Been running with a pure Occultist, wanted to give some feedback which I think would make things better:

Curse of Frality: this skill imo needs some kind of effect to show the radius being effected when you use it, like an expanding red ring coming off the mouse click or something, atm its got a bizarro "did I or didn't I?" quirk to it where monsters that your sure should have been effected aren't and your not sure if they were just outside of the radius or the skill is bugged.

The skill does seem bugged (along with Sigil of Consumption and Bloody Pox) where if there is height differences within the terrain, or there is a wall near you or your target, instead of getting your skill you get a red line appear from character to mouse pointer and nothing happens. This also effects Dreegs Evil Eye where it just dissappears into nothingness when there is bumps in the terrain.

Storm Raven: he rules when you have his upgrades on him (even if he seems to be a bit slow on the reactions with his lightning strike and blasts at things already dead), but his default attack seriously needs looked at - its slow, has a small hitbox and the raven misses far far more often than he hits, perhaps changing it to what the Liche King used in TQ? Even if you lower the base damage and attack rate to balance it out, I don't mind, I just want that raven to actually do damage with his normal attack more consistantly.

Sigil of Consumption: maybe its just me but I think this skill needs a very brief snare on it off the first hit, I dunno, even when you slow enemies down first some can still run through it pretty well which makes you wonder why you aren't just putting points into Bloody Pox instead.

Blood of Dreeg: both Soldier and Nightblade by default have "oops" skills to help them survive, a pure Occultist is more squishy and gets a health regen which won't help you survive further spike damage. I think the regen should be changed to a % health restored also (with no further health regen) which also helps your pets get their health back instantly when needed. Of course this issue isn't a problem when you spec into another mastery, i'm just considering options for when you don't want to do that (or don't want to use Soldier/Nightblade), or want to do a full run under one mastery first.

Isn't it about time we had a teleport added to this game that isn't tied to attacking things you can target? Occultist would be a fine class to add this to - make him explode in a splash of blood and reappear T-1000 style somewhere else, you could make the upgrade so the blood becomes poisoness and does a small DoT to enemies near the initial teleport.

I think i'm done for now, this is all just opinion of course, so feel free to agree/disagree/ignore as you see fit. :)

[Fendelphi]

I think Sigil is fine as is. It works well in melee builds(you focus on the main threat, while the sigil deals aoe damage to the fodder and heals you) and I guess it could work for casters in future teamplay(with a tank to bottleneck enemies).
Another thing to consider is the different damage types when compared to the pox: bleed vs chaos damage(especially when you consider the chaos damage buff from witchfire and second rite).


About the "oops" skills. The Occultist works different than the Soldier and Nightblade.
It's heals are teamplay based(both Blood of Dreeg and the Raven can effect allies).

The regen on Blood of Dreeg migth not be spectacular, but it is AoE and can be upgraded with Armor, resistances and AS bonuses.
If it were %based(together with the raven heal spam) it would probably be unbalanced when used on high health tanks in future teamplay games.

I am with you on a teleport spell(not requiring an enemy target). I dont think it would fit the Occultist(though your description sounds cool), but hopefully it would be with the next class.

[Harlz]

ive been using bloody pox and i dont see it being bugged, the way i use is gather mobs up with cof then use bloody pox. At first i did thought bloody pox was bugged then noticed if the one you apply it to take lil bit of damage it spread it quicker but 9/10 you kill the mob which is frustrating. this spell does need looking at for the timing of spreading the dot

[Pvtchaos]

Key to bloody pox is to not level it too quickly else you indeed kill the mob before it spreads.
I often throw it onto the creep with the most hp and then just group the rest around it for easy pest control.

[Pony]

Oops, I don't know why I wrote Bloody Pox as part of the bugged skills - what I was referring to is (I assume) a line of sight issue with walls and terrain that effect skills that can be used without actually targetting anything - I did want to mention the amount of time it takes for the pox to spread, but I think any faster and the skill might be a little too good at what it does?

[DeMasked]

Sigil of Consumption is great against ranged enemies who usually stay where they are, or for melee builds in which you are fighting on top of your sigil. You could also probably dual mastery for a stun ability like stun jacks and get an item that increases % stun.

Blood of Dreeg is awesome. Although it's only a flat amount of healing / second (at max it's amazing and helps me face tank any boss) it can still be increased by % healing affixes. Also since it's a temporary aura for your pets and probably other players I think it's quite good.