Hey guys.
I just wanted to point out that before the last round of changes, one of the items on the block was Phantasmal Blade.
Last night doing Graystone, as a second tank in the group, I took over CC duties and I have to tell you, I didn't realize how good we were at handling 4-5 adds with Phantasmal Blade but we *are* in fact able to CC multiple mobs.
Here's what you do:
There's about a 3-4 second delay after hitting PB before you are considered out of combat and can hit it again. So the first mob is instant, the second mob can be mezzed 3 seconds later, and so forth.
If you ever enter combat by accidentally hitting a rescue, having an add attack you as you move around, or you begin hitting a mob then you can no longer mez, so awareness is key. If you just stand back you can safely crowd control 4-5 or maybe even 6-7 adds with PB as long as your group is assisting, and you don't pull aggro or attack a mob.
I did this last night for several hours and I just thought I'd pass it along. A couple of times the situation got very sticky as I'd attract the attention of a wanderer or repop and would lose my ability to mez, but that's why God gave me plate armour, defensive stance and lifetaps!
Also, once you engage a mob you can't remez, so you have to be very sure, if you are going to be your group's CC, that they aren't ever breaking mez and that you don't start swinging your axe until you know your CC duties are handled (when we were pulling doubles, I'd just mez and then attack the other one with the group, most times the mob died well before mez ran out. In the cases where it didn't, I'd simply offtank).
I just wanted to let you know that there is a whole dimension to PB that I hadn't bothered to discover, as I'd been mostly busy tanking for groups. But this secondary feature of our class actually allowed me to be quite helpful in our group last night, and it was also fun! Certainly I'd prefer to tank, but this was a great backup plan.
Bottom line is: please don't change PB. It's fun as it is now.
