Yeah, I’m here, lol
If you want to keep playing in non season, Something to make Shadow Power more reliable to use is run with Yang’s. The up to 50% resource reduction makes Shadow Power really cheap. It can be kept up near 100% of the time just by using Yang’s.
As far as an easy way to manage cooldowns, you could try the “numlock trick”. Essentially, you map the skills you want to pop as soon as they come off cooldown to the numpad on your keyboard. Then when you start a game, you turn on numlock and then press the corresponding numpad number. While holding that button down, turn off numlock and the skill will automatically go off when it comes off cooldown. You repeat the process with each skill you want to do this.
While holding down strafe, the skills won’t go off unless you interrupt with a Hungering Arrow shot which can be done while holding down strafe. Then it’s just a matter of piloting as you say and cooldown management is taken care of.
When you want to pause the automatic cooldown pops, just open chat and you can town portal, identify gear and what not. Putting things in your stash can make the them go off again but all you have to do to pause it again is close chat and open it again.
Or if you want to turn it off, simply turn numlock on and then press the numpad number and that skill will stop going off.
As far as season, there’s three set ups to use with GoD. CoE, Frostburn/RoRG, Mantle of Channeling/RoRG.
CoE is most powerful, Mantle of Channeling is second and Frostburn is third. All are capable of 140+ though.
The benefits of Mantle of Channeling is you give up half the damage of CoE for a 25% defense boost. When used with Fortress Ballista, it really helps your shield and you can be a little more relaxed as its easier to keep Squirt’s up.
Frostburn gives more crits at the start of combat so up to around 120, you’re one shotting most enemies. The ones you don’t are frozen so they can’t hurt you letting you down them sooner rather than later. It’s less effective the higher you go because mobs can develop cc immunity. This is manageable and can play similar to CoE in that instead of managing a 20 sec cycle you’re fighting on one side of a good pull for a few seconds then switching to the other side and fight them for a few seconds and rinse and repeat until the pack is dead. It is much weaker than CoE about 5 GR’s give or take but its something you can try if you rather not deal with CoE’s cycle.
As far as the Buriza ethereal you’re looking for in season. You want either one with Dawn’s power in the 63% or better range, or one with Fortress Ballista power in the 2.8 to 3.0 range, or Valla’s Bequest power (this last one is a bit harder to play because you’re giving up Fortress Ballista and it’s shield making keeping your Squirt’s buff up harder, but it’s still a decent choice.
As far as stats on items, early on, crit chance isn’t as important on your gear. In fact, I cleared GR 139 with 1850 paragon and only 31% crit chance using CoE about a month ago. Buriza’s crits on frozen enemies is that powerful. You want to put on Area damage where you can, three rolls of cooldown reduction or 2 if you use the enchantress follower, Crit dam, as much as you can get. And Cold dam on your amulet and bracers. All Resist is also important, if you can get it to 1200 or so on your sheet you should be all good.
Beyond that, it’s just having fun in any manner you choose.
Happy Hunting!!! And I hope this helps.
)