Theorycrafting Thoughts On New Classes (Patch 4.0 Beta)

[guildwriter]

The only thing I'd add to the wtf tier is the Debonaire as his benefits are so situational and equipment dependent to just be more trouble than it is worth.

[TheWeaver]

The only thing I'd add to the wtf tier is the Debonaire as his benefits are so situational and equipment dependent to just be more trouble than it is worth.

 

Even a Debonaire/Cipher so you have other sources of charm (that aren't restricted to Kith) and then can leverage the 100% HtC?  What equipment do you think is required?  Something with an on crit activation to further leverage the guaranteed crit?  Just curious since I haven't really tried the sub-class yet.

Edited December 21, 2018 by TheWeaver

[guildwriter]

Charm breaks on damage so if you want to take advantage of the hit to crit you have to keep doing it over and over.  It seems like a lot of work just to get crits honestly.  There are still items that provide a guaranteed benefit on crit, but most have been nerfed to a percentage chance.

 

Weapons like Magistrate's Cudgel which kills lower level Kith than you on crit or Essence Interruptor which will apply the transmogrify debuff on crit are potentially good choices for such a character.  You could make arguments for things like Seeker's Fang esp if you're also a Cipher, but the benefit doesn't seem nearly dramatic enough to justify the usage in this case.

[QuiteGoneJin]

im just sad ive seen ZERO builds with the new subclasses yet, not one good one. Maybe somekinda Fighter/Blood Mage for constant recovery but meh. 

[Frak]

 

edit - if anyone has figured out how to metagame the forbidden fist please let me know. i suspect it's mostly just an underpowered monk that can occasionally enfeeble an enemy for free. which i mean sure ok that's alright, but i'd rather just roll a normal-ish monk.

 

 

 

I did a bit of testing through the Engwithan Digsite (level 1-3).

 

The build seems a bit broken still. I might be wrong, but it _feels_ broken

 

- Using FF once means that you have the curse for 10 secs+10*(1 - resolve_bonus), ~18-19 seconds.

The raw damage also increases fast with repeated use of FF.

- This leads to two things :

         - Very slow wound generation unless you get other hostile effects on you. Also, even with repeated use of FF while you have the curse, you only get one wound on expiration of curse (level 1-3 tested only). So you have no real reason to stack FF.

          - You want to keep Clarity of Agony up at all times. Because you want the curse gone ASAP, so you can reuse FF.

           This leads to a wound starvation unless you use Dance of Death. And that only last until you get hit. So, wound starvation.

 

My impression. FF is only meant to be used with one (maybe two) stack and the curse will stay for ca 18-19 secs without Clarity of Agony. Whereupon you will receive a single wound and some healing.

You will be wound starved, unless enemies put short hostile effects on you or you can do Dance of Death.

The subclass seems broken, unless wound generation goes up with levelling.

 

Will test a bit more.

 

PS. Did I write that you will be wound starved? You will be wound starved. Starved for wounds.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Frak

[brasilgringo]

im just sad ive seen ZERO builds with the new subclasses yet, not one good one. Maybe somekinda Fighter/Blood Mage for constant recovery but meh. 

Raven Darkholme posted some video of his/her Bloodmage/Tactician build, and you can kind of decipher it from looking at the spells and character sheet in the video ... hopefully he/she/they will post the full build soon.

[thelee]

im just sad ive seen ZERO builds with the new subclasses yet, not one good one. Maybe somekinda Fighter/Blood Mage for constant recovery but meh.

 

It hasn't been long and it's holiday season. Don't read too much into it. I can already think of plenty of good builds with the new subclasses (except forbidden fist).

[thelee]

 

edit - if anyone has figured out how to metagame the forbidden fist please let me know. i suspect it's mostly just an underpowered monk that can occasionally enfeeble an enemy for free. which i mean sure ok that's alright, but i'd rather just roll a normal-ish monk.

 

 

I did a bit of testing through the Engwithan Digsite (level 1-3).

 

The build seems a bit broken still. I might be wrong, but it _feels_ broken

 

- Using FF once means that you have the curse for 10 secs+10*(1 - resolve_bonus), ~18-19 seconds.

The raw damage also increases fast with repeated use of FF.

- This leads to two things :

- Very slow wound generation unless you get other hostile effects on you. Also, even with repeated use of FF while you have the curse, you only get one wound on expiration of curse (level 1-3 tested only). So you have no real reason to stack FF.

- You want to keep Clarity of Agony up at all times. Because you want the curse gone ASAP, so you can reuse FF.

This leads to a wound starvation unless you use Dance of Death. And that only last until you get hit. So, wound starvation.

 

My impression. FF is only meant to be used with one (maybe two) stack and the curse will stay for ca 18-19 secs without Clarity of Agony. Whereupon you will receive a single wound and some healing.

You will be wound starved, unless enemies put short hostile effects on you or you can do Dance of Death.

The subclass seems broken, unless wound generation goes up with levelling.

 

Will test a bit more.

 

PS. Did I write that you will be wound starved? You will be wound starved. Starved for wounds.

No clarity of agony. No sense going through all the effort to generate wounds and then burn some of it to help generate more wounds.

 

I had limited testing success just with dance of death, mortification, and powder burns from fist/blunderbuss with a high resolve and only modest intellect. It's still extremely wound starved, but not as bad. But any other monk could do the same thing (e.g. dance of death) and do it probably better and I'm not sure a free Forbidden Fist once every 20s is good enough.

 

Edit: I'm pretty sure you have to multiclass it. Maybe multiclass with wizard and stand in a binding web with extremely high resolve? (The catch is that if a debuff refreshes, e.g. repeat chill fog hits, you still only get one wound when it eventually wears off. Binding web at least has short debuff durations, so with high resolve and grazes you could repeatedly trigger wound generation every 3s)

Edited December 22, 2018 by thelee

[guildwriter]

Well I found a way to create a wounds engine for Forbidden Fist.  

• Start with a Berserker/Forbidden Fist.  We need the Confuse from Frenzy to make this work.
• Make sure you have Footsteps of the Beast.  It's worth talking about these boots in some detail as I think they're amazing and haven't been discussed much.  What these boots do is generate a "wall trail" behind the player as they move.  The faster you move, the longer the wall you can create due to the time it takes for each "trail patch" to expire.  What makes these really interesting is these boots have no accuracy check, they automatically hit.  That means unless you're resistant or immune to dexterity afflictions, you will automatically get hobbled once you step into a patch. They don't generate a patch unless you move though.  And someone getting hit by a patch will knock you out of stealth.
• Confuse yourself and then move a small amount.  You will auto hobble yourself with a 1.5 second duration.  Once it expires you will get the wounds and the +health.  Repeat as long as you have confuse.  Free wounds and health every 1.5 seconds!  Combine with the Armor, Shield, and Cloak that give bonuses on affliction from BoW for extra bonuses.

The problem here is that you need to Confuse yourself, so if there is a way to inflict Confusion without using a resource that would be best to make this an infinite combo.  It also requires a fair amount of micro to make work.

 

[Final Note: Footsteps was one of the ways I managed to clear some SSS fights on PoTD upscaled with my Assassin/Skaen.  Highly recommend playing around with it.]

[Boeroer]

Ha! Nice!

[thelee]

Nice! I remember those boots, the autohobbling was real useful when I had Ydwin set up to Arterial Strike people and just flee until they die

[Frak]

 

No clarity of agony. No sense going through all the effort to generate wounds and then burn some of it to help generate more wounds.

 

 

I had limited testing success just with dance of death, mortification, and powder burns from fist/blunderbuss with a high resolve and only modest intellect. It's still extremely wound starved, but not as bad. But any other monk could do the same thing (e.g. dance of death) and do it probably better and I'm not sure a free Forbidden Fist once every 20s is good enough.

 

Edit: I'm pretty sure you have to multiclass it. Maybe multiclass with wizard and stand in a binding web with extremely high resolve? (The catch is that if a debuff refreshes, e.g. repeat chill fog hits, you still only get one wound when it eventually wears off. Binding web at least has short debuff durations, so with high resolve and grazes you could repeatedly trigger wound generation every 3s)

 

 

I like Clarity at these lower levels I'm currently on. The raw damage is pretty annoying and with Clarity you have a net gain of healing. And I get to enfeeble more. Also, good penetration. The policy might change at higher levels.

 

If the subclass only 'works' as a multiclass, then that is bad design. In my book, you must also be able to use the subclass as a single class. We'll see. I expect more changes after new year.

[knownastherat]

Kinda happy to share, did not know where to put it.

 

 

Overleveled but that is the business and even cleaning up can have its oops moments.

[dunehunter]

Well I found a way to create a wounds engine for Forbidden Fist.  

• Start with a Berserker/Forbidden Fist.  We need the Confuse from Frenzy to make this work.
• Make sure you have Footsteps of the Beast.  It's worth talking about these boots in some detail as I think they're amazing and haven't been discussed much.  What these boots do is generate a "wall trail" behind the player as they move.  The faster you move, the longer the wall you can create due to the time it takes for each "trail patch" to expire.  What makes these really interesting is these boots have no accuracy check, they automatically hit.  That means unless you're resistant or immune to dexterity afflictions, you will automatically get hobbled once you step into a patch. They don't generate a patch unless you move though.  And someone getting hit by a patch will knock you out of stealth.
• Confuse yourself and then move a small amount.  You will auto hobble yourself with a 1.5 second duration.  Once it expires you will get the wounds and the +health.  Repeat as long as you have confuse.  Free wounds and health every 1.5 seconds!  Combine with the Armor, Shield, and Cloak that give bonuses on affliction from BoW for extra bonuses.

The problem here is that you need to Confuse yourself, so if there is a way to inflict Confusion without using a resource that would be best to make this an infinite combo.  It also requires a fair amount of micro to make work.

 

[Final Note: Footsteps was one of the ways I managed to clear some SSS fights on PoTD upscaled with my Assassin/Skaen.  Highly recommend playing around with it.]

 

Nice found!

[Gregorovich]

I have not seen any topic on that, so I'll post it hear.

 

Ngati's Tusk, a pike from SSS dlc, might be a nice choice for a spellcaster, multiclassed probably

The Tusk has an upgrade called Hunter of hunters, giving defence penalty to your enemies(all except deflection), scales with survival skill. The penalty is about 10 with survival 20+.

If use a BM with fighter/paladin, and get the Tusk, you have +10 ACC for some nice spells like Ryngrim Face and Minoletta Piercing burst

[guildwriter]

It's about 0.25 per point of Survival.  So with some effort you could reach -10, but it would take 24 Survival.

 

Even at -9 though that's pretty good.  Stacked with all sorts of other debuffs and accuracy bonuses you could probably make Poisons a viable option against even bosses.  I bring it up because Stone Joint is one of the more efficient DoTs in the game if you can land it (especially with Alchemy and Poison PL).

 

Might need to check to see if different Poison instances stack now.  

[Marigoldran]

But can any of this compare to what a single class normal no subclass monk can do? 

[Boeroer]

Sweet Jesus...

[djinnxy]

Blood Mage/Fury Shaper Warlock is a fairly strong combo so far. I'm early in game with it. Nothing greatly exploitative. No real hidden surprises. Just lay down a fury totem, rage, summon concelhaut's staff and throw in some of the usual suspect enchantment or illusion buffs. After trying a number of combos with the new subs it's my current favorite. It's advantage so far is haste, haste, haste, and massive hp to make up for the blood sacrifice along with lots of spell options.

 

I imagine a Fury Shaper/Steel Garrote would be a close second. I'm thinking with bardatto's luxury for the 10% chance to sicken or resounding call with the 50% chance to cause a random mind affliction on crit added in with the few barb debuff status effect abilities. Again a large part of the advantage is a huge hp pool and some self healing which is better than the warlock. The obvious advantage of the warlock is a huge bag of tricks while the Fanatic is kind of limited to a few repetitive tricks. 

[Archaven]

Kinda happy to share, did not know where to put it.

 

 

Overleveled but that is the business and even cleaning up can have its oops moments.

 

can post build ?

[djinnxy]

 

 

can post build ?

 

 

It's at the end of the video?

[knownastherat]

It's not optimized build, I don't have Mule Kick at lvl 19 for example, I was just trying the combo and liked it so I carried on.

 

 

 

 

[Krowseph]

Question on a possible combination I am thinking about playing... would Arcane Archer / Devoted be any good? I am thinking of using he arbalest “spearcaster” so I get multiple bonuses for stacking Arcane. Does the weapons accuracy bonus impact the primary attack from the imbue abilities?

[Boeroer]

Yes. Double Arcana-ACC boost with Imbue shots so to speak.

 

But with non-imbue attacks of Archer and Devoted you will suffer the Arcane Archer's ACC penalty.

 

A way around this would be to not use a Devoted/Arcane Archer but a Paladin/Arcane Archer. Because Flames of Devotion does not get the ACC Malus because it's an elemental attack. It only costs 1 Zeal and in most encounters you will not run out of Bond and Zeal altogether. In addition to that Flames of Devotion has +10 ACC anyway. AND it works with the Ring of Focused Flames, giving you additional +10 ACC on top of ACC bonus from Spearcaster/Arcana. Add Zealous Focus, too. Another plus is that (Greater) Lay on Hands is perfect to keep your animal companion alive.

[Krowseph]

Wouldn’t the elemental bolts upgrade on the Spearcaster overcome this? It adds +3% Damage as Burn, Corrode, Freeze and Shock. Is the sufficient to remove the penalty or am I misunderstanding?