Why does Shadow use life steal?

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zeto wrote:

Another solution would be to allow the Shadow to use a skill to sacrifice some HP for more ES, then use HP leech to restore the lost HP.

I think this is a great idea for int classes in general, including templars and witches. Right now, both HP and ES need a ton of passives to be useful, so you can't really make a good hybrid build with both, and int+dex/int+str armor is awkward and weak. There needs to be some way that a class can tank effectively with a mix of ES and HP.

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Neokolzia wrote:

And use high Life steal to mediate between those, to keep his low life pool topped up as the odd hit slips through his evasion.

Your a diamond supporter so im gonna assume you've played MOC... if so what the hell are you talking about?? Unless your stacked with health and DR once you ES goes down and your evade fails you are basically dead, even if you survive that 1 hit you wont be standing there lifestealing your way back to full health it would be WAY to dangerous, at that poin IF you survived and were not 1 shotted you have 2 options.

1) Potion
2) Run away
3) Potion THEN run away

(well 3 actually) :)

Basically the OP Is dead right, lifesteal is pointless for shadows unless they are using blood magic, which then makes perversely about 30% of their passives utterly pointless.

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RodHull wrote:

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Neokolzia wrote:

And use high Life steal to mediate between those, to keep his low life pool topped up as the odd hit slips through his evasion.

Your a diamond supporter so im gonna assume you've played MOC... if so what the hell are you talking about?? Unless your stacked with health and DR once you ES goes down and your evade fails you are basically dead, even if you survive that 1 hit you wont be standing there lifestealing your way back to full health it would be WAY to dangerous, at that poin IF you survived and were not 1 shotted you have 2 options.

1) Potion
2) Run away
3) Potion THEN run away

(well 3 actually) :)

Basically the OP Is dead right, lifesteal is pointless for shadows unless they are using blood magic, which then makes perversely about 30% of their passives utterly pointless.

Seconded.

The shadow will likely not have a great use of lifesteal, which is a pity and in my opinion a bit of a design flaw.

If, however, the shadow was to invest into Iron Reflexes, then it's a different ballgame (but IR is quite far away and a big investment)

Just needs a new keystone that makes life steal apply to energy shield instead of health. Possible downside if needed could be reduced recharge rate on ES.

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Vampiric Energy - All life steal effects now apply to Energy Shield instead of health. Energy Shield recharge rate reduced by 50%.

Well, that answered some questions

I'm fairly certain that I'm the only non-dev who's played a high-level Shadow, so here's my take on it:

The life leech actually works rather well with a true hybrid Shadow. I agree that it doesn't make much sense if you are heavy on energy shield or very low on life, but a hybrid is neither. I certainly wouldn't try to rely on it, but I've never considered relying on your damage output to heal yourself a very sound strategy.

With around 400 life and 300 energy shield, using all hybrid dex/int gear, I've done fine up to Act 2 Ruthless. I have the entire Soul Raker cluster for a grand total of 3% life leech. My main claw gets 9 life per hit and my other gets 5. When I hit something, I can see a noticeable gain.

Also, I'm fairly certain I've never been killed in 1 hit, even once my shield is down. Of course, I don't stand around when that happens, but that should be the standard rule for anyone playing this class. I'm sure it would happen in Maelstrom of Chaos, but that's not going to be in the game at release, anyway.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

I'm sure it would happen in Maelstrom of Chaos, but that's not going to be in the game at release, anyway.

As I pointed out in my thread I dont see how release or OB end game can differ greatly without making it a cakewalk for certain builds. The dynamics between armour types, speed, DPS output and mob/player life are just all over the place and make for a deadly game at the most extreme levels that forces you to basically exploit the AI or game in any way to be viable.

I guess it could synergize with Blood Rage? It does seem quite odd now that I think about it for the most lifesteal-oriented class to be one that only benefits half from it.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

I'm fairly certain that I'm the only non-dev who's played a high-level Shadow, so here's my take on it:

The life leech actually works rather well with a true hybrid Shadow. I agree that it doesn't make much sense if you are heavy on energy shield or very low on life, but a hybrid is neither. I certainly wouldn't try to rely on it, but I've never considered relying on your damage output to heal yourself a very sound strategy.

With around 400 life and 300 energy shield, using all hybrid dex/int gear, I've done fine up to Act 2 Ruthless. I have the entire Soul Raker cluster for a grand total of 3% life leech. My main claw gets 9 life per hit and my other gets 5. When I hit something, I can see a noticeable gain.

Also, I'm fairly certain I've never been killed in 1 hit, even once my shield is down. Of course, I don't stand around when that happens, but that should be the standard rule for anyone playing this class. I'm sure it would happen in Maelstrom of Chaos, but that's not going to be in the game at release, anyway.

My issue with it is that in order to benefit, at all, from life leech, you need to stay and engage the enemy, when in reality, you need to run to recharge ES... because you don't have Armor and potentially only have mediocre evasion.

Purpose of ES here is to be able to run prior to being able to be stunned by hits to hp. Fighting with leech essentially defeats this buffer, entirely negating your major defensive trait.

If the game were balanced so that every good fight resulted in killing all the enemies with a little HP loss, ES coming back, and HP leech recovery bringing you back to full hp as your ES is drained during the next battle... I'd probably not see a problem, but I have extreme doubts this is how it'll actually play out.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but my experiences with evasion have been that you will get ROCKED if you go melee with evasion. Theoretically you will have even less evasion than the ranger, since you will be dividing your points against ES now as well, hybrid gear has less, and you have access to fewer nodes.

Traps and mines won't take advantage of your leech. Flasks don't work on ES, your primary defensive trait, which will be drained in short order.

The melee based Shadow is not ranged like the witch or ranger. They are not taking a low amount of hits to statistically benefit from evasion or ES as they were designed for the other two pure classes... of which leech helps neither.

I must then assume that new Shadow skill gems will allow for 'ranged-melee'... something akin to flicker strike, whereby you are in melee, but enemies have a very hard time attacking you. Without this trait, melee Shadows are probably toast in difficult encounters...

but even with that, I don't see how life leech really fits into the picture, as fighting without ES is panic mode. (which is good if it's as stated in paragraph 3, however as I said, I doubt that's how difficult encounters will go)

Passive Keystone Masochist: Converts (some%) Life Leech to life lost and (someother%) ES gain. [this passive is mitigated by usage of life flasks that would otherwise not be used]

Good discussion guys, and I guess we'll all find out soon enough anyway. I've got a suggestion, what about this instead of life steal.

Spirit Void
"Regain 0.x seconds of rapid energy shield regeneration on each strike with a claw"

Will keep the players constantly engaged while in combat, and skills like flicker strike and phase run will become very useful to engage ranged attackers. Could be fun trying to balance your energy shield regeneration with damage taken. It will promote taking out enemies quickly 1 by 1, which seems to fit with the whole shadow/ninja class.