What's the verdict on Master of Disasters?

[Adonan]

I'm thinking of grabbing it on the Cultist of Entropy. Given how heavy the class focuses on debuffs, it seemed like a great pick. However, for a prodigy point, I'm not sure two extra cross-tier effects are worth it. I know it also boosts your power levels, but I look at that as icing on the cake rather than the cake itself.

[zoutzakje]

You've pretty much said it all. It's a decent pick, but it's likely there are better options.

[Adonan]

Yeah, I'll probably just go with Ethereal Form or something. However, now I'm wondering how Master of Disasters could be made better. I'm thinking the prodigy should allow cross-tier effects you apply to scale with Cunning, or power. Not sure how much better that would make it, but it would certainly be more appealing. Or maybe allow it to apply one random detrimental effect every few turns when you apply a detrimental effect, perhaps at reduced strength.

I don't know, I'm just spitballing. I'm a little disappointed because I thought I would finally get to use Master of Disasters on a class it synergized well with, but I've kind of talked myself out of it.

[MagnusGrey]

Sometimes it's fun to make a pick just to see how much it changes things up. Occasionally you find hidden synergies and combos too.

[Adonan]

You know what, you're right. Honestly, it sounds like it'll be fun just to take something other than Adept for a change. I'm also kind of hoping the increase in Spellpower will help with the scaling on some of my one point talents.

[IdealPoint]

Master of disaster is one of the best prodigies for cultist, and most other magic classes. By end game when you have 90 cunning you will be getting 70+ spellpower, which makes your spells very potent. In general it will increase the damage of your spells more than adept. But with adept you get some added effects from hitting breakpoints in the spell levels, as well as various other benefits like a higher level thick skin.

For my cultist win I took master of disaster first and adept as my second prodigy. I killed the bosses in less than 10 rounds.

[Adonan]

Really? No Ethereal Form or Corrupted Shell? I figured you could use the defense given the -4 in life rating.

[Adonan]

Actually, I thinking about it a little more, you probably don't need Ethereal Form or Corrupted Shell. The class has a lot of defensive talents like Void Stars and Quantum Tunneling, and to an extent Hideous Visions and Suspend. That, coupled with the fact that you're going to be crippling your enemies through things like Atrophy and Dark Whispers means you probably don't need a defensive prodigy.

[IdealPoint]

I don't like ethereal form on cultist because you can't get your defense high enough on insane with just ethereal form. I would have to invest into dex and move change some equipment slots to prioritize defense or I would die too easily to rogues and skirmishers.
Corrupted shell is better, but with cultist you have very effective tools to prevent enemies from hitting you that don't rely on armor. I would rather make good use of them and kill things faster.

Obelisk is WONDERFUL early. You stand in a hall and wait until the enemies are in range, then put the obelisk between you and them. If they teleport to you then just swap spots with the obelisk. If you are stuck in the open teleport the enemy away and get enough charges to do a 4-6 turn pin that can be repeated almost infinitely. If you are stuck in a bad spot use boots to leap away or a toque to push enemies back. Or a summoned tentacle to tank for you for another couple turns.

Void stars are pretty bad defense in general, and go down very fast against multi hit enemies. Cursed in particular are horrible to face early. But you can use switch to remove their rampage then teleport them away. What's really scary is a randunique or randboss shadowblade demonologist. They have so many ways to pull you in and teleport to you. Extremely sticky, with a silence and high damage.

[ANGRY ABOUT ELVES]

The power level increase is the main draw of MoD; it's best on classes that benefit from more than one power, especially if they don't cause Spellshocked natively. Any physical/antimagic character like Wyrmic or Cursed, any melee spellcaster hybrid like Reaver or Arcane Blade, and a special shoutout to the tinker classes that all want antimagic and thus benefit from physical, steam, and mind power. If you're only scaling with spell power and cause spellshocked naturally, you have better options and you probably want a defensive prodigy anyway because you're a cloth-wearing squishy.

[Feminine Desires]

MoD is not a good prodigy, but is one of the only ways to increase steampower by a significant margin so it's decent for EoR classes. The problem is that it's competing for Cauterize, Flex, Draconic Will, Revisionist History, Ethereal Form, Arcane Amplification Drone and Swift Hands. These are all going to be far more applicable to most classes and far more effective at keeping you alive or letting you deal more damage.