Maybe this is a well known fact, but I only discovered it over the weekend.

And... I hope this is not a bug that gets fixed in future, cause I love it.

But it seems that if you activate Gloom, and then start channeling your Rapid fire, the lifegain sticks around for as long as you keep the Rapid fire going. In other words, you don't need to re-cast Gloom while channelling.

The opposite is also true though. If you start the rapid fire while Gloom is not active, you won't gain any life from it if you activate Gloom without restarting the rapid fire. I found this out while fighting Belial. I could see my life bar just staying in position, but Gloom was active and I was hitting him hard.

Snapshot gloom is a well known fact and almost any guide does mention it.
Same for strafe builds

Well, I didn't know about it... but like I said in my other thread. I don't really read what other people consider to be the best... or in thing. Obviously i miss a lot due to this.

But then why do everyone still play with Gloom Rune.

Blood Moon is then obviously the better choice.

Whether blood moon or gloom is better depends on the scenario. At low MP where there isn't as much spiky damage, blood moon is better. But at high MP the damage spikes can take you out at 15 or 25% LS, so gloom tends to work better. For example, in FoM if a savage beast is going to charge at me, I just pop gloom and take the hit since I know I'll survive it.

@woodssaxon

I fully agree with your statement. But if you are using it in the "snapshot" method then you gain the 25%LS all the time, while you only get the damage reduction while Shadow Power is actually active.

I run smoke screen along with shadow power, using smoke screen pretty much in the way you described above.

So pop smoke screen when I need to hide.
Activate Shadow power just before starting my Rapid Fire. (and thus locking it in)

@Bort - got it. I haven't used both SP and smoke screen at the same time, but that sounds like a good idea.

Yeah, I'd heard about this as well, though I never really noticed it that much until I started getting more LoH gear... & yes, it's *extremely* annoying when you do it in reverse & end up not getting any life gain at all cause you're snap-shotted at the wrong point in time... :-0

I use Smoke Screen as well in the same way too... great minds think alike? :-)