Quick Q: defending against shadow blast?

[MaxWilson]

Addendum about the gem usage: even a D9 master lich uses up 3 of his 6 death gems to cast Shadow Blast. This is tactically stupid on the part of the combat AI and you can take advantage of it. Either your opponent will give lots (15+) of gems to each Shadow Blaster, or he'll store most of them on scouts and allocate just enough for each attack. If the latter, each caster will only get off a single Shadow Blast and then have to switch to something cheaper like Cloud of Death. If the former, well, at least it costs him a lot.

-Max

Edit: when the master lich has 6 gems, he uses 3 for Shadow Blast. When he has 4 he uses 3. When he has 3 he uses 2. When he has 2 he uses 2. When he has 1 he uses 1. I'm not sure what the pattern is, but 2 casts costs 3 gems and 3 casts probably costs 6. (When he had 6 gems the fight didn't go on long enough for him to cast multiple Shadow Blasts.)