So hey, a neat detail I just found out : you know that Apprentice mage, that sits outside Angolwen begging for artefacts? It's actually
My Shadowblade had a dialogue option for this, I guess you need a certain amount of cunning to notice, or something.
edit : Oh god this is so painful make it stop please
I
know shadowblades get broken lategame. I cleared the Spellblaze at level 21 without taking a single point of damage with one. I also know I have tried over 30 and still haven't even gotten to Darkfell. Random rares instagib me, random uniques instagib me, occasionally random normal mobs instagib me. I can have God's own daggers - doesn't matter.
Edit : It seems like I was right - I'm currently level 28, with 4 deahts - one to a rare with 80 retaliation damage, because I really need to start inspecting rares before flurrying them, twice to the game being a bastard and spawning a rare umbral horror as the farportal room boss and 100% shadow resist is nasty, and once in the dark crypt, because I underestimated a rare and didn't teleport away. I did stomp both the Spellblase and the dark crypt, though, which is making me feel warm and fuzzy.
The basic strategy is clear the entrance if anything can see me, and fling shadowbros at the entire level with cteleport and phase door. It seems shadow veil - the ability which blinkstrikes enemies without input - takes however many turns it states, but only counts as a single turn for shadowbro control. This basically means I can use all my abilities, shadow veil, then use all my abilities again, interspersed with even more abilities because I 5 pointed the attack speed sustain. It's hilarious.
I'm not sure how well it'll work against single bosses and the end bosses, though, but I have a lot of doubts I'll even reach there. It's still hilarious, but I'm not yet sure if it's hilarious enough to make up for the abhorrent start Shadowblades have.
edit : level 36, just killed Golbug, about to go to the East for the first time. I cleared up everything, including the elven ruins, have 8 generic points unspent because I just now got the category point to unlock celestial:light. Prolly shouldn't've been a Cornac even though they're my favourite race.
Welp, dead at 42, kept killing myself with flurries, lost my last life to the overpowered Wyrms, because both my teleport and phase door went retarded and kept teleporting me around the stupid thing. It turns out you can't just spam shadows at them, you need to physically walk into the vault, or they keep "vaulted" status and can't act or take damage. I did clear it up, then went to clear the prides - smashed through Vor, then something happened in Grushnak and I died during a shadow veil, despite the damage reduction and my shielding rune. Not sure I can handle the early game of a shadowblade again, and it's actually somewhat boring.
Well, probably not as boring as a dual-regeneration antimagic fungus wyrmic, though.