Boeroer

Ok, come on - do it, do it!

Ok, regarding my cipher build and the skill/item combos that I mentioned: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83186-class-build-the-backlash-beldam-melee-multiretaliation-cipher-tank/

No I don't. Good question. Maybe it's the same problem. I may do some tests tomorrow.

So, this build uses the known fact that retaliation generates focus. There are some builds that use Sura's Supper Plate and another retaliation item for double retaliation. I used that tactic and tried to stack as many retaliating effects as possible. I tried a lot of skills and items for that. Turns out that you can stack up to 6(!) different retaliation effects when you get hit/crit in melee combat. Three of them generate (tons of) focus while the others are for dealing damage only. This cipher is quite tanky because of high deflection and DR. Grieving Mother can be used for this build. So here it is: =================================== The Backlash Beldam =================================== Difficulty: PotD, Version: 2.03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: cipher -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Fire Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 14 CON: 10 DEX: 10 PER: 15 INT: 15 RES: 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: boost survival a bit, the rest is up to you -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities/Powers (that matter, rest as you like): Battle Forged Soul Whip Antipathetic Echo Psychovampiric Shield Ectopsychic Echo Pain Link Body Attunement Mind Lance Borrowed Instinct Amplified Wave Time Parasite -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents: Biting Whip Draining Whip Weapon and Shield Style Savage Attack Vulnerable Attack Apprentice's Sneak Attack Veteran's Recovery or Scion of Flame or Spirit of Decay --------------------------------------------------------------- Items: Weapons: Bittercut (exceptional, durgan refined, corrosive or burning lash) & Sura's Supper Plate (durgan refined, exceptional) Armor: Coat of Ill Payment (durgan refined, crush proofed) Arms: Ryona's Vambraces Rings: Orlan's Bramble Ring, Ring of Searing Flames Belt: Sentinel's Girdle or Maegfolk Might or Trollhide Belt Boots: Echoing Misery Neck: Mantle of Wreathing Flame Quick Slots: Carow Golan, Potion of Flame shield --------------------------------------------------------------- So... this way you stack the following retaliation effects (*f=focus generation, *dm=melee dmg mods like savage attack etc. work. Ryona's Vambraces 3DR bypass included): - Battle Forged *dm - Sura's Supper Plate *fg, *dm - Coat of Ill Payment *fg, *dm - Wreathing Flame *fg, *dm OR - Flame shield *fg, *dm (supresses each other) - Pain Link - Ray of Pain (kind of retaliation) You see that we can have 3 retaliations at the same time that generate focus when we get hit in melee combat. All of them are affecte by +% damage modifiers and also DR bypass from Vuln. Attack and Ryona's Vambraces - so they all negate 8 DR of the target. Now let's say that you get hit by three enemies, each one grazes you (happens a lot because of your high deflection) for 2 or 3 damage. You will receive focus from 9 retaliation hits. While the normal retaliation has not very high damage output (like Wreathing Flame, both are quite weak) the Flame Shield from the potion deals solid damage. Anyways you will get good focus while casting or just standing around. It also works if you are prone, paralyzed, stunned and so on. After two seconds of combat (when you are surrounded by enemies) your focus will jump from 40 (at lvl 14) to 100, two seconds later you will have reached your maximum focus of 160. And you had to do nothing for it. You can now use your powers while regaining focus. You will lose a bit of endurance, but since your DR is very high and you mainly get grazes, that's really negligible. That's why I added Veteran's Recovery and a Tollhide Belt. It's enough to counter the loss of endurance most of the time. In tough fights the Battle Forged kicks in and does a lot of burn damage, but doesn't generate focus. But you could also use a moon godlike if you want powerful aoe healing instead. Now if you add Pain link to the mix it gets interesting in terms of "doing good dps while hanging around". While you're casting your cipher powers, foes not only get hit by (focus generating) retaliations, but also suffer 25% of the damage they do to you - and that's aoe damage, not single target damage. Sometimes also Ray of Pain from the boots kicks in. All these little injuries start to add up pretty fast, you can watch your foes losing endurance while you get focus. If you want a total focus overflow, eat some Carow Golan. That means +4 per *fg-retaliation or with other words you will gain +12 focus for each hit you will receive. If three guys hit you it's +36 focus on top just with Carow Golan. You will hit maximum focus before you can even use a power if you get attacked by a mob. But that's not all. Let's also use these retaliation effects that don't generate focus. Use your Ring of Searing Flames and cast Combusting Wounds on your surrondings. It does 5 burn damage each time the target gets hit by something. Since we have 4 to 5 (with Battle Forged) reliable sources of retaliation (I don't count Ray of Pain) - one of them is aoe - each time we get hit the foes not only suffer from our retaliation damage, but also get burned for >30 damage from combusting wounds. That's why Pain Link's aoe damage is great although it doesn't do anything for our focus: every time an enemy hits us for some damage, all enemies around us receive 25% of that damage. The damage itself is not superhigh, but every time it triggers Combusting Wounds. So one hit from an enemy means several hits for him, they all trigger Comb. Wounds, but it also means that his friends get hit by Pain Link plus Comb. Wounds. They kill themselves quickly. The mob melts like ice in the sun. You need some consumables and per-rest abilities to go really crazy, but even without this the build is working perfectly well without them in normal encounters. If you want you can use up your charges of Wreathing Flame (three per rest, there's more than one mantle in the game) and then use Potions of Flame Shield. I think you willl always have enough charges and/or potions. Carow Golan can be bought, but the insane focus gain that it provides is only needed in very tough fights with very high DR foes. Ok, had fun - hope you too! Good night!

@Andrea: Also: the damage of Bittercut plus corrosive lash is not considered as one source but two - as if you had a lash on a slashing sabre. It says "30 corrode + 7,5 corrode". I also think you have to bypass the corrode DR two times (100% and 25%) which is stupid. That sometimes leads to another stupidity: the game will use the slash damage instead of corrode if the corrode DR is (even slightly) higher than the slash DR. So either Spirit of Decay doesn't work or the game doesn't calculate the +20% bonus when diciding which damage type to use. A little bit bugged at the moment. Best would be: add Bittercut's corrosive base damage and the lash (=125% base damage), then *1.20 because of Spirit of Decay. Same with Firebrand and burning lash (from chanter) plus Scion of Flame. Stupid lash mechanics...

Dead Man Stands works this (stupid) way: when your char reaches 0 endurance you don't fall down but keep standing. But you can't select the char anymore as if he were unconcious. I think when you have AI on he keeps attacking but I'm not sure. Sad thing is you can't do anything in this 3 seconds since you can't select him anymore. Direct healing spells like Lay on Hands also don't work because you can't target the guy. Maybe Aoe healing works, didn't test. After 3 seconds you fall to the ground. Then it's like always: second chance will be activated after you drop. So does Vengeful Defeat. I think Unbroken triggers before you fall - but that doesn't matter since it would trigger with or without the boots. Could have been nice boots - atm they are just even more caustic than bilestompers.

If that is that case, I would flag it as a bug. Of course - but I'm not 100% sure it doesn't work.

Yeah - I use that tactic too. But I added a small detail for extra... "Oompf". Got 160 Focus (=max) in under 2 seconds last time. And Fulmineo Prondroni is our best buddy for your Ectopsychic Echo: +6 Move Speed and Falgellanth's Path is just perfect for this. Did you know that Antipathetic Field also boosts your Ectopsychic Echo's Damage? All beam damage gets +20% as long as the Antipathetic Field is up. Aaand the Badgradr's Barricade build also works great with a spellsword wizard (Eldritch Aim and Merciless Gaze for the crits). When you get Alacrity per encounter it gets totally crazy. Doesn't crit that much when not buffed and lacks the dps of deathblows and so on. But you are even more tanky and you can cast fat (debuff) spells, so... A priest with self buffing also works, but rogue and wizard are more fun. I also figured that a melee ranger with this shield might be great. With all his +acc talents/abilites he will crit quite often and he has a mate for flanking. Use Drawn in Spring to apply the wounding dot effect for your wolf's Predators Sense. The two of you will be a great "tank, flank and spank" team with lots of Deflection and great dps. Also good: melee rangers don't need too many skills - rest makes your animal companion happy. Will test that as well...

It seems that Spirit of Decay doesn't work for Bittercut's base corrode damage, but I may be mistaken. I will have to test this again. I thought that Scion of Flame worked for Firebrand, or didn't it? Will post separate topics with the detailed builds of the melee cipher "The Backlash Beldam" and monk "Fulmineo Prondroni" and put the links here. Don't want to spam this thread too much. I would love to hear some nice tricks from the other rulebenders here. Doesn't need to be overpowered - I also like very stylish and fun to play builds or combinations. That's why Fulmineo is not moon godlike and wears the dandy hat of the diseased yak. Godlikes can't wear cool hats!

Man - I just wrote a whole lot of text about druids, ciphers and monks - and then my browser crashed all of a sudden. All work for nothing dammit! Now I have no time to write it all again. I will do it later. All I can say: the ideas concerning druids were interesting but not overpowered. Basically an unarmed druid "monkstyle" with Sandals of the Forgotten Friar and Novice's Suffering and another druid who's quite tanky. With blights for more tanking (immunities) and focus on corrode damage (Bittercut plus corrosive lash plus Black Santuary plus Spirit of Decay and so on). But I just discovered and tested a cipher build that is abolutely awesome. It just an improvement to an existing melee retaliation build, but a great one. I just say these things as a teaser: 6(!) times retaliation (3 of them generating focus) for hundrets of focus in seconds... plus Combusting Wounds for the win. ) This one is really overpowered. I don't know where to put all the focus... Stay tuned! And my autoattacker dualist monk on speed "Fulmineo Prondroni" is refined and polished now. Lots of fun, very effective. Maaan... stupid browser!

Hi, I had an idea the other day that a nature or fire godlike barbarian with all the "under 50% endurance" abilities/talents and Vengeful Defeat might be effective in terms of dps, but hard to manage with all the revives and so on. So i figured that I could abuse Dead Man Stands (boots) + Veteran's Recovery. These boots delay unconciousness for 3 sec. So if you drop to 0 endurance you will still stand for 3 seconds. It has no charges and works every time you hit 0 endurance. The description says it's possible to get healed in this time. So I guessed that Veteran's Recovery (that ticks every 3 seconds) would be enough to raise your endurance to 2 or 3 so that this KO-timer would get reset over and over and you would basically be unkillable (health loss aside). Not only that - the description of Vengeful Defeat says it triggers at 0 endurance. So I believed I found the ultimate barb-build: No resolve or constitution needed. Just make a pure glass cannon, jump into the fray and let them hit you, and when you drop to 0 endurance - *boom* - Vengeful Defeat triggers. Then Veteran's Recovery would kick in, you don't get KO'ed, you get hit and - *boom* - Vengeful Defeat. I made a barb and gave him all the items that do something special when you hit 50% endurance (basically +10 ACC and +30% dmg): Ritezzi's Thorn, a custom crafted Cladhaliath, Ryona's Buckle and so on. Long story short: Doesn't work. Obviously Obsidian discovered this exploit before I did and made it so that when you hit 0 endurance with Dead Man Stands on, all your active abilities just shut down. So Veteran's Recovery will not work. Also: Vengeful defeat doesn't trigger on 0 endurance, but on unconciousness when you drop on the floor. The damage of Vengeful Defeat then is absolutely crazy because of all the damage and ACC bonuses - but it's just a one hit wonder (tehehe). So bye-bye overpowered masochist barb build. Of course you can still use second chance items, a Paladin with Reviving Exhortation, a Priest and a chanter to revive the barb and repeat that - but it's a lot of microing and not much fun. On the other hand I just made a tanky rogue with Badgradr's Barricade. I didn't think much of it and just gave it a try - but it turns out to be a fantastic build: Deflection above 100 (that makes Riposte worthwhile against mobs) and very solid dps. Not the dual-sabre kind of dps, but still very high. And he can be in the front lines too. Another good thing about him is his aburd high reflex defense above 140. Everything that targets reflex doesn't touch him most of the time. And when it does, Adept Evasion kicks in. On top of that, he has a 30% chance to reflect all ranged attacks (spells also) back to the shooter/caster (durgan refined Barricade plus Golden Scales). I just use this guy to murder spellcasters. If they use reflex-based spells they are dead. They either get beaten or kill themselves. The core of this build is the medium shield Badgradr's Barricade that casts Thrust of Tattered Veils (ToTV) on critical hit with the bash. Rogues (especially Hearth Orlan ones) can crit a lot. While the bash itself has a very low damage output, the ToTV's damage is solid. Best things about it: all the universal damage modifiers of the rogue like sneak attack, deathblows, deep wounds etc. also apply to this. Plus- and that's quite funny - Penetrating Shot works with it. At first I thought that's stupid. But now I think that's quite good: you can activate Penetrating Shot, which gives +5DR bypass to ToTV, but it doesn't slow you down because you're in melee. It's a bit expensive to get +5 DR bypass just for your left handed crits - but on the other hand it has no downside (besides losing a skillpoint). I combined this shield with sabers first - but when I got the Forgotten Tear of the Beloved flail (and later a durgan refined Starcaller) I retrained for flails and also used One-Handed Style. That way you have a 60% (80% on Starcaller) graze-to-hit conversion. You will almost never do a graze which is quite ok for dps against high deflection foes. ANd the Starcaller itself is awesome with the spell striking and stunning. But any good one-handed weapon will do. The Vile Loner's Lance for example is also a nice item with -5 defl. on hit, making it even more likely to crit with the bash to trigger ToTV. So, which nice combinations did you discover? Which worked as you expected and which didn't?

Pathfinding is horrible. Sometimes two chars meet in battle and both decide to turn, let's say, left - then they both run side by side like if they decided to take a walk in the park - hand in hand. Romantic... and stupid too.

Sad news for the monk: Spell Binding items do no longer work with his duplicates. Bye-bye free Alacrity. But besides that: just tested the Prone Drone monk with the setup I mentioned above. Added Fast Runner at lvl 14 for a hilarious move speed bonus of 6. For dps it would be better to take Apprentice's Sneak Attack though, but this is more fun to watch. With a durgan refined robe, durgan refined dual wielding speedy weapons (Sword o Daenysis + March Steel Dagger) and Swift Strikes on there's no recovery bar anymore - even when I use Vuln. Attack. The puny damage of the rapier/dagger got pimped by Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes, Savage Attack, lashes and superior enchantment. Together with Ryona's Vembraces he has 11 DR bypass for the Sword of Daenysis (rending) and 8 for the Dagger. I just solo'd Nalrend the Wise and hit him for 20 to 60 points of damage every half second or so. That's better than I expected. As I said: no recovery bar visible (without any potions and food and spells). It's just *pierce*slash*pierce*slash*. :D If you turn the AI on and let him use Force of Anguish and Swift Strikes aggressively you can just fire and forget him. He runs around, prones enemies and tiggles them with his speedy toothpicks. Moon Godlike, Iron Wheel and Blunting Belt plus crush-proofed Gwisk Glas for survival. If he goes 1:1 the enemy is perma-interrupted. Very nice auto attacker - needs nearly no microing. Love it! Maybe I will use another race so that I can wear the Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak together with some vailian cloth outfit to spare the durgan ingots and to make him really look like a noble duelist with rapier and dagger. Style is important! So now I have companion number one for my own Lady of Pain. Excuse me, I have to test the next idea...

A small shield from the Alpine Dragon's den. You get Sabra Marie and Black Sanctuary. It casts Warding Seal 2 times per encounter when you get a crit in your face. Maybe a char that totally delves in getting crits (spell holding)/dealing crits (spell striking) would be interesting: jolting touch stiletto plus black sanctuary - when all charges are gone switch to Bleak Fang stiletto and Badgradr's Barricade. Together with Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith and Cloak of the Master Mystic and so on. Might be fun. This cries for monk since you need high ACC as well as good health. Does carnage still do this crazy things with jolting touch?

My next playthrough will also be with this build (well, 95% of this build. I want to try out Rapid Recovery plus Cloak of the Tireless Defender plus Trollhide Belt instead of Shod-in-faith for a steady +6? end/3sec base and see how that goes). Now that the engagement and disengagement radius is even bigger, I might also go for Defender. Last playthrough my two animal companions were wrecking stuff with diseng. attacks. Then I want to try out a dual stiletto painful interdiction skaen priest as main. Rogue with spells that is. Then my "Prone Drone" auto attacker swashbuckler monk I tested the other day (dual wielding durgan refined Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger and Angio's Gambeson. Uses Force of Ang. and Boots of Speed together with Long Stride). He has +25+20+20+15 = +80% Attack Speed by design without other buffs and can use the Alacrity from the gambeson for his two elemental thugs that use their fists and get +50% Attack Speed for free that way. He's not a superoverpowered DPSer but it's so much fun to watch him go zip zig zag and proning and piercing things without microing. Then I want to use a build that uses Badgrad's Barricade that I'm testing atm. Not sure which class I will use. I also want to try a combination of stormcaller (shock DR reduction) and Black Sanctuary tank (Warding Seal on getting a crit). That's what I need the shod-in-faith for. The seal's shock damage might be nice together with the DR reduction. Also not sure which class(es) I want to use for this. A Druid Tank? Or maybe I'll try an unarmed druid with Novice's Suffering and Skandals of the Forgotten Friar. Does anybody know if the +2 unarmed damage bonus of the sandals also applies to Spiritshift weapons? I know Novice's Suffering doesn't.

Another thing with this shield: it has a 10% chance of reflecting ranged attacks - and the description says it also works against spells. With durgan steel you can add another 10% of reflection. That's quite good. If it works against spells like necrotic lance and so on it would be very funny to see these stupid skeletal wizards nuke themselves from time to time.

You mean Turning Wheel? That's the same bug as pre 2.02, when lighning strikes would override Turning Wheel all the time. Maybe this bash thing slipped through when they fixed that issue. Thanks for testing. Maybe this shield is more fun when you don't use it on PotD - not enough crits there if you aren't a rogue (+hearth orlan). Or you have to stack a lot of ACC with Zealous Focus, Inspiring Radiance and Gauntlets of Accuracy and so on. Maybe I'll try a build after my current playthrough. @Kasajal: I tried a six rogues party once and with it a tanky rogue build with riposte. I have to say it's a wasted talent - at least on PotD. Your deflection is never high enough to let most enemies miss a lot - and this whole riposte stuff happens only when they miss. Instead they graze a lot and that gives you nothing. Ripostes are rare and do nothing special. To make it worthwhile it should happen more often (like 50%, not 20%) or it also should work with grazes. Whatever - it's not worth the skill point.

Quick update: doesn't generate focus. (

I think the that's exactly the case: bash is not influenced by the ACC malus that the main weapon will get. So... I figured out that pure melee skills like Vulnarable Attack and Savage attack don't work with this - but surprisingly Penetrating Shot does. So I think that at least this spell strinking form of Thrust of Tattered Veils is considered a ranged missile attack - maybe that's also the case for the wizard spell itself (needs further testing). So I guess that all talents and abilities that apply to ranged missile attacks will also apply to this spell striking - which is a bit stupid since it's a shield and shields don't work well together with ranged weapons - but there are some talents/abilities that work with melee and ranged weapons (most of the rogue for example). I'm curious if a ranger's stunning shots or driving flight would work with this... or if it generates cipher's focus. Next test will be a tanky rogue with high crit chance and several modifiers like deathblows and deep wounds and so on.

Ok, so I couldn't wait and tested it with my paladin: it seems to have limitless spell strikings! I managed to crit an Ice Troll three times in one encounter with the bash (which has +8 ACC and I don't know why) and every time it triggered Thrust of Tattered Veils (with +10 ACC). The best part is that not only the bash, but also the spell itself received +25% burning lash damage from my chanter's phrase. It seems to be considered an attack from a weapon instead a spell. Now I'm wondering if other modifiers will also apply to this spell (like vuln,. attack, sneak attack, deep wounds, lighning strikes, turning wheel, deathblows, savage attack, FoD and so on)? That would be absolutely awesome...

Hi, I just noticed the following thing: The medium unique shield "Badgradr's Barricade" has the enchantment "Spell Striking: Thrust of Tattered Veils" and bash. So the first thing is it will unleash this spell if you do a crit with the bash attack, I assume. But the second thing that is different to all other spell strinking itms I encountered is this: it has no description like "1 per encounter" like all the other spell strinking items have. Since 2.03 you also will see these spell strikings as inactive symbols next to your special actions (special attacks, spells, spell bindings, spell holdings etc.) together with a number how many charges are left. Badgradr's Barricade doesn't add such a symbol. So I assume it has unlimited charges per encounter? This would be quite powerful and whole new builds could emerge around that shield. Otherwise the shield is quite underwhelming. So - can somebody verify my assumtions? If not, I will have to go and generate a char that can try this out - but I'm really too lazy for that right now.

Not only solo. This is very useful for every party composition. An undestructible blocker/tank is always nice. Instead oft nerfing it the enemies could just choose a different target if they can't harm the blight.

The only "unarmed" talent that does not work with the druid's spiritshift weapons is Novice's Suffering. This is not a bug but intended, since it would be too powerful.

Good point with the blights. Didn't think of that before - it's brilliant. So it will be nerfed...

Well - immunity to prone makes my priest cry. A lot. No more Sabra Marie early on.