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Comment by Urbanmech

These guys also cast "Curse of Thorns". 50% chance to take 22 to 44 damage on attack. very annoying!

Comment by 244934

First, they cast a shadow bolt, second they use curse of Thorns, third another Shadow bolt, then they go to you and start attacking with the staff, when they have 20% life they cast a spell like fear on itself, the spell name its "run away".

Comment by WokkaD

The Vial of Innocent Blood is a 100% drop when on Blood of Innocents, until you have 5.
Hillsbrad Human Skull also drops while you are doing Souvenirs of Death, until you have 30. Reported to be 4 Hillsbrad Human Skull for every 5 kills.

Comment by kurji

These guys cast a nasty Curse of Thorns. The debuff does not affect spells, non-physical procs, explosives or ranged attacks, meaning it mostly leaves Rogues and Warriors licking their wounds with Paladins only being able to cure it through bubbling. The debuff has a 2 second cast time, and if you can interrupt it, you should prioritize it any time you're playing a melee character. In fact it's advisable you save your interrupts for this particular spell and simply allow them to cast their comparatively weak Shadowbolts.

The exact damage range of this debuff seems to vary based on the level of the Shadow Mage casting it. On this video by Pshero, you see the curse's description stating a damage range of 20 to 43. We can make some simple calculations based on these numbers:
The average damage inflicted per proc is 31-32.
A Rogue's average rate of attack is approximately 1.1 swings per second.
= A Rogue would be taking an average of 34-35 Shadow damage per second. This type of DPS on top of the standard attacks used by other mobs in this area would quickly overwhelm any player, as your typical 22-24 Rogue sits at around 600-750 health. The Syndicate Rogues also trigger a 30 second poison (and employ the use of Backstab when given the chance...), and the Syndicate Watchmen can dish out a 30 second Fire damage dot. Effects like this stacked on top of each other make your existence misery, so use caution and interrupt!

As is evident by the simple calculation above, a quick attack speed will quickly lead to your untimely demise making Rogues particularly vulnerable to this type of debuff. Warriors and Paladins swinging heavy hits with two-handed weapons may only receive around 12 DPS on them with this curse active. Paladins should be aware of the fact that Seal of Command procs do count as physical swings, meaning they will proc the curse as well. Still, if you're even taking ~8 extra damage per second for 3 minutes straight, you're essentially taking 1440 damage you wouldn't need to take. Even a tank lowbie should avoid getting cursed with this type of periodic damage at play.

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Syndicate Shadow Mage

This NPC can be found in Hillsbrad Foothills (62).

Gains

After killing this NPC you will gain:

-25 reputation with Syndicate
5 reputation with Ravenholdt (stops at Honored)

Syndicate Shadow Mage

Gains

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