Somewhat new player looking for precisions

[Beriel]

Hi everyone,

So I've picked up the game and I'm having a blast with it, I've just finished my second run... And I'm itching for more!

However I've been trying to wrap my head around the finer mechanics of the game and there are things I'm still not sure about.

I've done this run (I'm roleplaying to a certain extent but I like to maximise build efficiency) with this Orlan frontal shooter, using Seraphen's Handmortar and Fire in the Hole (cajole your friends, threaten others, blow **** up was my style, good times).

 

I've picked Orlan for the situationnal crit bonus, and went with tons of Perception for high crit ratio (I'd crit 75% of the time by the end), however Eder had nearly 20k more damage by the end (he was a swashbuckler with two sabers, Min's Fortune and Grave Calling) than my char.

I used Devoted/Troubadour build for the sure handed Ila, that +15% Burn dmg song and the Drake summon, but I'm wondering if Bleakwalker wouldn't have been a better choice, or if I should have handed singing duty to another char...

More build Info:

Sats: Might 10, Endurance 10, Dex 16, Perception 18, Int 12, Res 10 (with Berath Blessing)

In combat with buffs and Items my Per would reach 30, my weapons speed 0.7/2.0

I focused on passives in my build (Weapon spec, Armored Grace, Affliction Resistance, Two Weapon Fighting etc.)

I was wearing Devil of Caroc armor, ring of marksmanship, that ranged weapon hood and stuff with Per/Dex bonuses or Affliction resistance bonuses.

 

My questions are:

Could this be done better? Is there some kind of accuracy sweet spot I could have stopped at (I had around 110 each hand by the end), should I have focused less on perception and more on other things like INT for AOE or Dex for even faster attacks? Should I have gone Devoted/Bleakwalker and gotten Teheku to sing Sure Handed Ila? I don't understand the mechanics to do the math myself ˆˆ

 

Secondary Question: I've found those cool items that give + Poison Power Level, but there isn't a single spell with that descriptor AFAIK. Is this intended? Is there a list somewhere?

Thanks in advance for your patience and help

[Haplok]

Troubadour doesn't really buff damage, other then the 15% lash - but as you noticed, someone else in the party could have done the singing duty.

A Fighter also doesn't have particularly high damage buffs, even a Devoted. Plus if you went Devoted to BB, you probably run into Penetration issues sometimes, also lowering damage. And yeah, with the mortars, you should have invested more in Int for aoe radius.

 

The class with the big damage boosts is Rogue. Using mortars even synergizes well with the OP Streetfighter subclass, as their modal - Powder Burns - afflicts them with Distracted - and Flanked, which triggers +50% Recovery Speed reduction, +50% additional Sneak damage (on top of 30-110% base+Deathblows damage). Their skills also add +25 or even, in case of Devastating Blow on heavily injured enemy, up to 300% damage. Plus they can apply heavy Damage over Time effects - in case of mortars, also in an aoe.

 

If you wanted to optimize damage, IMO you should have went Streetfighter / Ranger Sharpshooter (for bouncing ranged attacks, accuracy boosts, pet and bonus Penetration) or alternatively maybe something like Streetfighter/Helwalker Monk (for huge Int - aoe radius, huge Might, bonus speed, potential aoe Stunning disables and Penetration - rather squishy though).

Edited September 14, 2018 by Haplok

[Metaturtle]

What difficulty are you playing on?  If it's not PotD difficulty, you would need less accuracy where those stats could have been used elsewhere since normal crits only modifies your damage by +25% with an additional +30% if the crit makes you overpenetrate though hand mortars are kind of low on PEN to do that most of the time without using other PEN sources.

 

You were most likely losing out to Eder being part rogue with his sneak attack + deathblow passives giving him heaps of weapon damage (~+100%).

 

Some poison abilities come from equipment, but you mainly craft poison to use with weapons for single use applications of some nasty debuffs.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Metaturtle

[Manveru123]

You will find Precision on a Fleetbreaker crossbow. Hope I helped.

[Beriel]

I was playing on normal difficulty to discover the quests and story, will probably up to Veteran afterwards.

Streetfighter/Sharpshooter would be a good equilibrum of damage and penetration then? Should I go with 16 DEX/ 16 PER/ 16 INT and then boost those with a buffer and items?

The Devoted special bonuses and Fighter passives are really nice though, with those recovery and deflection malus, wouldn't I have a harder time in early game?

Thanks for the info Manveru but the build was around the Blunderbusses, so changing weapons wouldn't be in my interest ˆˆ.

I had 13 PEN before any spell, and was using the shield cracks, so I pretty much never had PEN problems (and could switch to fists if I really needed crush damage).

 

Anything on those Poison Keyword spells? I was thinking of doing a Evil caster run, and +5 Poison Level seems real nice...

[Manveru123]

Forget it. Poison is a very uncommon keyword. Noxious Burst and Malignant Cloud are the only spells that come to mind.

[Haplok]

I was playing on normal difficulty to discover the quests and story, will probably up to Veteran afterwards.

Streetfighter/Sharpshooter would be a good equilibrum of damage and penetration then? Should I go with 16 DEX/ 16 PER/ 16 INT and then boost those with a buffer and items?

The Devoted special bonuses and Fighter passives are really nice though, with those recovery and deflection malus, wouldn't I have a harder time in early game?

Thanks for the info Manveru but the build was around the Blunderbusses, so changing weapons wouldn't be in my interest ˆˆ.

I had 13 PEN before any spell, and was using the shield cracks, so I pretty much never had PEN problems (and could switch to fists if I really needed crush damage).

 

Anything on those Poison Keyword spells? I was thinking of doing a Evil caster run, and +5 Poison Level seems real nice...

 

Stats look fine. On PotD I like to max Perception, but for Veteran that should be fine.

 

The main draw for Sharpshooter is not Penetration, but accuracy bonuses (Marked Prey, Stalker's Link, and Accurate Wounding Shot, later Survival of the Fittest) and Driving Flight, which causes your ranged attacks to bounce to additional targets (at reduced damage).

For extra Penetration make sure you kill/rob the Rauatai sailors in Wild Mare tavern in the early Valera quest in Neketaka Queen's Berth. One of them carries an awesome ring for a ranged character.

Also the basic, cheap rogue ability, Crippling Strike, comes with 2 Pen bonus (as well as +25% damage). It's also possible to use Pierce the Bell for +5 Pen, but not really worth it IMO.

 

And forget about Recovery malus. With the Streetfighter bonus (which should be always active with a blunderbuss build trough Powder Burns modal) and all those Rogue Full Attacks, you'll still be twice as fast as the Devoted version. Deflection penalties will make you more squishy... but this is a ranged character and party play, right? So it shouldn't be a problem?

 

 

Oh and... if you have a Wizard... sometimes with a particularly tough enemy it might be worth it to cast a humble level 2 spell, Combusting Wounds, switch to regular, single target, 4 bullet blunderbusses, fire Full Attack abilities and see the wounds rapidly pile up (spell gets a new damage stack (3 pts. of damage per tick) with every hit; regular BB fullattack = 8 hits, so you add 24 damage/3 seconds stacks with every salvo: 24/48/72 damage every 3 seconds.. and so on).

Edited September 14, 2018 by Haplok

[Metaturtle]

You will find Precision on a Fleetbreaker crossbow. Hope I helped.

 

You're joke didn't go completely woosh Manveru123

 

 

I was playing on normal difficulty to discover the quests and story, will probably up to Veteran afterwards.

Streetfighter/Sharpshooter would be a good equilibrum of damage and penetration then? Should I go with 16 DEX/ 16 PER/ 16 INT and then boost those with a buffer and items?

The Devoted special bonuses and Fighter passives are really nice though, with those recovery and deflection malus, wouldn't I have a harder time in early game?

Thanks for the info Manveru but the build was around the Blunderbusses, so changing weapons wouldn't be in my interest ˆˆ.

I had 13 PEN before any spell, and was using the shield cracks, so I pretty much never had PEN problems (and could switch to fists if I really needed crush damage).

 

Anything on those Poison Keyword spells? I was thinking of doing a Evil caster run, and +5 Poison Level seems real nice...

 

 

Yeah streetfighter/sharpshooter is perfectly fine for veteran though streetfighter/devoted is cool too if you're comfortable with that instead, hell I made a perfectly fine streetfighter/troubadour that had no problem in PotD.  Notice the pattern here? lol. In PotD, you're probably going to have to max out perception since accuracy and PEN are the biggest factors there.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Metaturtle

[Beriel]

OK, thanks a lot for the advice.

During my run I had Eder, Seraphen, Xoti and Teheku and with those last two buffs I didn't have such a thing as a squishy character, but I worry it won't hold at higher difficulties, Devoted/Troubadour could tank with a little help from Xoti, and once Teheku could cast Returning Storm and Avenging Storm, the fights got really easy since everything was stunned.

 

So I can't build an evil poison druid caster? *disappointment*

[Metaturtle]

OK, thanks a lot for the advice.

During my run I had Eder, Seraphen, Xoti and Teheku and with those last two buffs I didn't have such a thing as a squishy character, but I worry it won't hold at higher difficulties, Devoted/Troubadour could tank with a little help from Xoti, and once Teheku could cast Returning Storm and Avenging Storm, the fights got really easy since everything was stunned.

 

So I can't build an evil poison druid caster? *disappointment*

 

The raw damage dots that druids get are awesome when they land.  Be an evil bug caster spreading blight!

Edited September 14, 2018 by Metaturtle

[Manveru123]

Priest of Berath fills the role better, because he gets all of the important Druid's Decay spells, in addition to his own.

[Beriel]

The raw damage dots that druids get are awesome when they land.  Be an evil bug caster spreading blight!

Raw damage and ilness spreading sounds great, I'm looking it up right now. So many spells though, any rule of thumb I should follow with an evil caster druid?

[Beriel]

Priest of Berath fills the role better, because he gets all of the important Druid's Decay spells, in addition to his own.

Hmm, there's a Priest of Berath/Animist build on the forum but it's a support/debuff more than a dps...

Corrode/Decay/Rot spells for a mean nature guy sounds like something I'd enjoy playing (in a melt your face while smiling sort of way), but there's so many spells in this game x) I guess it's reading time for me.