bigwillystyle

thank you for the comprehensive testing!

I think it's a delta of +10 vs. Stun/Prone rather than +20. The Wild Orlan is going to get an immediate +10 to Fortitude when the Dragon fires it's fear aura off, which will apply to stun/prone. It'll also have a reflex bonus against the breath attack which is a plus. I think it's a push personally.

And don't get me wrong, Firebrand still hits like a Mack Truck, no complaints. But if Scion of Flame doesn't work, I have better use of a talent point!

My hits are pretty consistently in the low 50s. I think that's partly an artifact of Carnage - I wasn't taking into account that the vast majority of my hits are via Carnage with a -34% modifier that should yield average damage of ~58. My regular hits are in the low 60s which is close but still ... seems a little light. If I look at the tooltip when Firebrand is active, all the modifiers show except for Scion of Flame. I was partly wondering if Scion of Flame doesn't work. I'll log some #s tonight. My experience (not formally logged and tracked!) seems to match with Scion of Flame not applying a 20% bonus to Firebrand.

I am trying to get a sense if Firebrand is hitting as hard as I think it should. Per the game, Firebrand has a damage range of 20-30 and includes the Damaging 3 enchantment, hence the 29-44 that is seen in the description of the weapon. I think a hit, as opposed to a graze or crit, should deliver on average about 66 pts of damage with the talents I have selected for my barbarian. Are my calcs off? Anything I'm missing / mis-calculating? Might 25: 45% Damaging 3: 45% Scion of Flame: 20% OSA: 20% Savage Attack: 20% Two Handed Style: 15% 165% Avg. Damage 25 (20 - 30) +165% 66.25

Oh that is awesome. Never thought of that before. That is just great. I also never considered the impact of Spelltongue on Ryona's Breastplate.

I learned a thing or two from the Adra Dragon combat logs - thank you for sharing.

I saw them, but apart from maybe the change to single weapon style I don't see how they are particularly relevant to this. Happy for that change though. Mostly I'm cackling manically about the 1/encounter Heart of Fury. That ability is a wrecking ball. That Heart of Fury is now game-changing. Lordy. Heart of Fury + Firebrand, babeeeeeee!

Have you tested that? I tried using multiple rings with combusting wounds and it doesn't work... It sounds like it should work, in theory. You can only wear one pair of gloves at a time, so you'd just swap out the pair that exhausted it's charges with the pair in inventory. (as opposed to two rings, one on each hand). I'd try it, but don't have a spare helwax mold lying around

Armor 3 INT Soulbound BP, pierce proof Wait what? We can enhance the soulbound items? That was not the case previously. OK. If this is all just theorycrafting without live testing, that would be nice to preface, eh?

Serious question - my reading of the "Fighting Spirit" racial above was <50% health. I thought this was endurance (at least it used to be) - has that changed?

Yes, that's why I recommended Spirit Shield (potion or spell). It helps a lot. Yeah, one thing I realized early on was ... cast Spirit Shield first, then Chilling Fog. Doing it the other way around was ... not as good. The Freeze build is a fun variant, but on strict effectiveness, your Bilestomper build should be much better - the freeze variant suffers a bit by having to have both Spirit Shield and Chilling Fog. We'll see how well potions help, but long term this is a build tailor made for the Celebrants gloves. I think I prefer the binding rope to the belt of chimes.

I've been playing around with this - Chilling Fog hits Fortitude. For the others - they target reflex as you said. But in some cases are Foe AOE only. I'm playing around with Shadowflame tonight to see how it goes. I will say that at low level, high Fortitude / Pale Elf Chilling Fog is amazing. I took down some folks at level 2 & 3 that I've never taken down solo before. I also will say that its irritatingly slow to use - interrupts suck - but its very effective. turn on chill fog, go grab a beer, come back to dead mobs Edited to add: Rymrgand's Mantle is also a great level 2 pickup as well.

"How I Buffed the Others" makes everything must easier.

Uh, how does Fighter compete with Faith and Conviction? Vigorous Defense temporarily is all I can see that could bring them over Paladin defenses but it's not long enough duration for solo. Check the date. In May of 2015, there was a legitimate debate on the topic.

MaxQuest - love your description of Sagani's animal companion in the google doc

Does Firebug trigger Blood Thirst? That would be amazing. My barbarian running Firebrand + Blood Thirst continues to go strong into Craigholdt. Needs a Priest (or a certain type of Paladin) but very damaging. Cleave, cleave, cleave!!

135 points of damage at level 5 is ... very nice

I am curious as to why you would go low recovery? Once my Barbarians get Bloodthirst, I found that recovery becomes much less important.

I like using Steadfast on my Priest of Eothas. The Sunbeam effect feels awesome - hits hard and has that RP goodness.

While it's true that you don't have to dump RES to get critted, it does help free up points so that you can max out Might, Con and Int. I don't put much into Dex, and in fact I usually take a couple of points out. Once you get Blood Thirst at level 7, it's game changing. You kill someone and ... recovery goes away. I use the Forgemaster gloves that Blunderboss recommended and after a couple of swings, you're getting Blood Thirst activated almost every time. I wouldn't dump Dex entirely as it affects activation time of your attacks but 8 is usually fine. I run a Boreal Dwarf for the build - I don't put points into Perception, and the +15 accuracy helps against a large number of the enemies in the game. Mig 21 Con 19 Dex 8 Per 10 Int 18 Res 3 For the first 8 levels, a firebrand build would look a little like this: Frenzy Weapon Focus Greatsword (you'll need the accuracy) Savage Defiance (yes, Shod in Faith is great, but I've gotten a lot of spike damage that isn't crit - i.e., Lagufaneth) Two-Handed Style (+15% of damage is great and even better on Firebrand) One Stand Alone (kinda meh but so is everything else at this level) Accurate Carnage (really helps for the wide area hits) Blood Thirst Scion of Flame +20% applies to the firebrand I wouldn't play this without a priest to cast Holy Meditation

A low Dex Monk Tank could be pretty interesting.

I love Ancient Memory + Benevolent Spirits. The buff is really noticeable now.

This is comprehensive and awesome. I really, really appreciate the spell guide.

I tried this, and it's really hard to build around Battle-Forged as a primary damage source. It's good in the "nice to have" sense, but it is really tough to maintain <50% endurance on POTD without getting whacked by spike damage. When I was playing around with a Firebrand barbarian, I found that the damage spikes in WM1 / POTD were just too much to handle without higher CON - all it takes is a couple of Sidewinders and BAM dead barbarian. I love the Fire Godlike conceptually / visually & I think Battle Forged can be fun to have but I would not build around it unless I felt like deliberately frustrating myself