Owl

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Owl
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Owl

Owl is one of the three spirit options. Owls gain 1 intellect every level. Owls start with a Rune of Ice Spear, a Rune of Magic Missile, and a Gnarled Staff.

Guide

Player Opinion: This article contains advice from other players which may be subjective or incorrect. Consult this guide with caution.

In combat, Owls typically use weapons that scale damage with Intellect, like the Wand and Gnarled Staff which allow the Owl to have range. Owls generally use runes that scale damage with Intellect, like Smite for stun, Magic Missile for damage and Consecrate for healing, etc. Owls, however, are not obligated to use these runes, as every rune offers its own functions, pros and cons and opportunities for better builds. You can consult the Advanced Guide to aid you in your rune and stat choice.

Owls generally fall into three categories:
Snipers, fragile but extremely high damage glass cannons.
Healers, powerful tanky supports that leave damage dealing to the melees on their team.

Sniper

Stats to generally focus on:

• Intellect
• Spell, Arcane and/or Holy Damage Increase
• Spell/Global Crit Chance
• Spell/Global Crit Multiplier
• Cast Speed

The strategy of the Sniper is to use their unique ability of ranged attacks to their advantage. Using Smite and Ice Spear, they can slow the advance of an enemy, allowing time to cast Magic Missile and use it to deal massive damage. As the end goal of a Sniper is to kill their target before it reaches them. This allows the owl to focus on high damage output, at the cost of low armor and vitality. For this reason, owls are very vulnerable to being one-shotted by powerful ranged attacks, such as those from many [[Monster|bosses] Snipers feel at home when using their range advantage to avoid taking much damage, and thus are vulnerable once they are within melee range, or when fighting enemies that also have ranged attacks. Because of this weakness it is highly recommended that all Snipers run a Rune of Consecrate, for healing.

Healer

Stats to generally focus on:

• Intellect
• Holy and Spell Damage Increase
• Max Mana
• Mana Regeneration
• Spell/Global Crit Chance
• Spell/Global Crit Multiplier
• Cast Speed

The healers job is to put to rest any worry the team has of dying. They tend to achieve this by running 1 or 2 Rune of Consecrate and spamming them halfway in between themselves and whoever their team is fighting, allowing melee fighters and any other owls on their team to be healed.

Healers generally stand away from the main battle so that if monsters turn their target to them, their team can charge/ambush or smite the monster, preventing it from attacking the Healer, and re-obtaining aggro. They must be close enough to be healed by their own cons, especially around monsters with ranged attacks because the act of consing may acquire a monster's aggro. If the healer or anyone else is in critical condition, they can use a Rune of Healing Touch which gives a stronger, but single-target heal.

Healers generally often run 2 or 3 Runes of Tranquility to prevent themselves and their teammates from running out of mana. This is crucial because of the high mana cost of Consecrate.

For more detail on rune and stat choice and specific builds, consult the Advanced Guide.

Tips

Skeletons are many times used by slightly weaker owls to help keep enemies away by distracting them. Although it is recommended to use no more than 2, so that you have alternative attacks in case you are caught off guard while summoning a skeleton.

Ice Spear can be used to deliver a quick hit thanks to its low cast time.

Fireblast can be used by slightly tankier owls to keep mobs at distance for a few more ticks, allowing critical time to cast a final MM or cons to heal. It also works well when paired with Ice Spear or smite. In situations with multiple attackers, a lone owl can spawn fireblast and cons to tank until basic attacks and fireblast kill all the enemies. It is really helpful thanks to its low cast time and cooldown.

When engaging in combat alone, a Heal Touch may be used instead of a Consecrate as it provides better hpt.

Owls generally use Tomes as the preferred offhand slot item because of its Spell Crit Chance and multi implicits being more useful than the block chance implicit stat of the Shields.