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Shadow Tendrils
Shadow Tendrils
Release date 19 May 2014 (Update)
Members Yes
Skill Ranged
Level 75
Type Threshold
Adrenaline −15%
Equipment Any
Cooldown 45 seconds
Description
Shadow tendrils whip at your feet multiple times in quick succession for 33-250% weapon damage. They then strike your opponent once for 66-500% weapon damage.
Shadow Tendrils
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Shadow Tendrils is a threshold Ranged ability requiring level 75 Ranged to use. When activated, it summons shadow tendrils to inflict several hits on you in quick succession, before dealing a single hit on your opponent for double the damage. Shadow Tendrils, along with Smoke Tendrils, Blood Tendrils, and Ice Asylum, is learned by reading the Codex Ultimatus, which is obtained by talking to the Archaeological expert after The Dig Site.

Because Shadow Tendrils hurts the user, it should be used with caution, especially against strong boss monsters or other players. It is best used with Soul Split or the Vampyrism aura against weaker monsters with many life points. Under normal conditions and with the best ranged setup, it is possible to hit exceeding 14,000 damage.

Shadow Tendril deals up to 5 hitsplats of damage to the user before dealing damage equal to the double the combined damage of those hit splats. Shadow Tendrils is guaranteed to do at least 2 hit splats to the player, has 90% chance to do the 3rd, 80% chance to do the 4th, and 70% chance to do the 5th (so around 50% chance to do 5 hits). The damage dealt to the target by Shadow Tendrils will be increased by Death's Swiftness, but the self-damage will not be increased.

Each hit taken deals 16.5-50% ability damage (33.25% average). Thus, each hit taken contributes 33-100% ability damage (66.5% average) to the final hit dealt, giving an overall average (with the chances of the 3-5th hit) of 274.246% ability damage - at a cost of 137.123% ability damage to the user.

This means that Shadow Tendrils is in reality a scaled combined damage of up to 5 hitsplats rather than a single hit. Shadow Tendrils has much less probability of actually dealing close to 500% damage compared to a hypothetical ability that simply did up to 66%-500% damage in one hit (given all hitsplats are discretely uniform distributed).

Shadow Tendrils is comparable to Snap Shot, another ability with large damage upfront. Snap Shot has a considerably lower maximum hit (330%) and higher minimum hit (200%), offering more consistent damage without the self-injury, but Shadow Tendrils offers greater KO potential.

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