The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2

[Boeroer]

Afaik Josh said using bugs is fair game. But it's their call after all so maybe you should ask him on Twitter before investing all that time.

[AlyMintChip]

I finally finished my practice/planning run with everything active besides Wael/Trial of Iron. It feels like an accomplishment in and of itself, but now it's time to start the real thing. 

Armaxy, Multiple people have had runs approved using Hylea's Bounty + Luminous Adra so that at least seems fine. I don't know about the Scordeo's Edge accuracy stacking though. 

[thelee]

13 hours ago, Armaxy said:

Hello everyone, congrats every Ultimate challenge successors, you are awesome.

I was also inspired to beat it, all calculations and strategy trainings are ready, but I have some questions.

Is it legit to use Scordeo's Edge accuracy stacking exploit (requires save-load shenanigans) and Hylea reward + Luminous Adra potion stacking (save-load requires too) or this will disqualify me form Ultimate challenge? First is not so necessary for my run (more like funny!) but last is extremely important.

The gist is that anything that's a bug or loophole that you take advantage of is fair game, because it was Obsidian's fault that it exists, not yours. (I forgot where this was said, but I think this is straight from JE Sawyer's mouth.)

Also, while it wasn't intentional, I did end up having a Hylea + Luminous Adra stacking for part of my run (in fact this is how I discovered the stacking bug) and I ended up using it to pass several encounter checks. Didn't disqualify me.

 

PS. best of luck!

Edited January 11, 2020 by thelee

[AlyMintChip]

Whelp, just lost my first "real" run on the Ashen Maw bridge

After nearly 2 hours of healing and getting attacked by a fire blight, I still wasn't able to get Brilliant to proc off of Shadow of the Phantasm before Lethandria's broke. Frustrating because it's literally the only time in the run I need RNG to work for me and it didn't.

Open to ideas on how to keep this from being a problem. I'm probably going to have to hold on to/craft scrolls of withdraw so that I can try multiple times (though in none of my practice runs did it ever take more than 15 minutes to proc Brilliant. 2 hours is laughably bad luck).

Oh well, 4 or 5 hours of nonviolent questing await me!

[Armaxy]

4 hours ago, AlyMintChip said:

Whelp, just lost my first "real" run on the Ashen Maw bridge

After nearly 2 hours of healing and getting attacked by a fire blight, I still wasn't able to get Brilliant to proc off of Shadow of the Phantasm before Lethandria's broke. Frustrating because it's literally the only time in the run I need RNG to work for me and it didn't.

Open to ideas on how to keep this from being a problem. I'm probably going to have to hold on to/craft scrolls of withdraw so that I can try multiple times (though in none of my practice runs did it ever take more than 15 minutes to proc Brilliant. 2 hours is laughably bad luck).

Oh well, 4 or 5 hours of nonviolent questing await me!

Well, put that shield in all except 1 slots (if you have only 2 weapon slots, it means 1, but I use 3 weapslots for my runs) and select this slot without Lethandria when you take hits from blight. When you need healing just run away or around and spam weapon change. Shield is safe and not gonna be broken. Good luck.

 

But, Magran's curse, 4-5 hours before 16 lvl? Maybe some time optimization or speedrun strat that you need.

[thelee]

5 hours ago, AlyMintChip said:

Open to ideas on how to keep this from being a problem. I'm probably going to have to hold on to/craft scrolls of withdraw so that I can try multiple times (though in none of my practice runs did it ever take more than 15 minutes to proc Brilliant. 2 hours is laughably bad luck).

yeah, RNG sucks. my big worry was scordeo's breaking, and i had some backup plans in case in case i couldn't proc blade cascade, but there were some places where I just had to hope that scordeo's would proc before breaking.

my practice run actually broke scordeo's or had to fall on a backup plan twice, but fortunately that never happened in my real run. (it also happened in one of my planning runs, but that was pretty suboptimal in terms of how I handled proccing - i didn't carry over the buff from fight to fight which meant many more times to buff and many more chances to break scordeo's)

 

how would scrolls of withdraw help with trying over and over again? you can't leave the fight and you can't repair mid-fight. do you just need lethandria's for the regen? are there other sources you could use that doesn't require something that needs repair?

edit - silly me, it's probably to heal vela. my bad. worst case you could do something like what armaxy says and just aggressively switch your weapon slots to avoid ever taking damage while having the shield equipped. 

Edited January 14, 2020 by thelee

[AlyMintChip]

20 hours ago, Armaxy said:

But, Magran's curse, 4-5 hours before 16 lvl? Maybe some time optimization or speedrun strat that you need.

I currently finish Ashen Maw on day 32, which leaves me 48 days for DLC and bosses. This seems like more than enough time based on what other people have said in this thread? Could be wrong. 

19 hours ago, thelee said:

how would scrolls of withdraw help with trying over and over again? you can't leave the fight and you can't repair mid-fight. do you just need lethandria's for the regen? are there other sources you could use that doesn't require something that needs repair?

edit - silly me, it's probably to heal vela. my bad. worst case you could do something like what armaxy says and just aggressively switch your weapon slots to avoid ever taking damage while having the shield equipped. 

I only use Lethandrias to regen life while the fire blight is attacking me, but I don't know of anything else that would regenerate at the speed I need for the length of time I need. (I'd run out of potions pretty quickly trying to do this and rings of regen are too slow)

So the strat is : Spawn fire blight -> withdraw vela so the fire blight follows me away -> wait for fire blight to proc Shroud of Phantasm while healing with lethandria's AI script

If Lethandria's gets to "near broken", I have to be able to end combat (by killing the blight), repair, and then repeat the strategy after spawning another fire blight. I can't kill the fire blight without powerful summoned weapons (takes too long, i might die from not healing fast enough, or worse, I might spawn a second fire blight), which share a spell slot with withdraw. This means that without withdraw scrolls, or a weapon strong enough to kill the fire blight in 3 or 4 hits, I will not be able to withdraw Vela for a second pull.

Hopefully that all makes sense. 

Edit: I should clarify that my script is set up to always end on a weapon set that doesn't have Lethandria's in it. This maximizes the lifetime of lethandrias by making it so that I'll almost never be hit while holding it. Even doing it manually I probably wouldn't have the skill/reflex needed to save lethandria's more effectively than this script does. 

Edited January 15, 2020 by AlyMintChip

[thelee]

5 hours ago, AlyMintChip said:

I only use Lethandrias to regen life while the fire blight is attacking me, but I don't know of anything else that would regenerate at the speed I need for the length of time I need. (I'd run out of potions pretty quickly trying to do this and rings of regen are too slow)

So the strat is : Spawn fire blight -> withdraw vela so the fire blight follows me away -> wait for fire blight to proc Shroud of Phantasm while healing with lethandria's AI script

If Lethandria's gets to "near broken", I have to be able to end combat (by killing the blight), repair, and then repeat the strategy after spawning another fire blight. I can't kill the fire blight without powerful summoned weapons (takes too long, i might die from not healing fast enough, or worse, I might spawn a second fire blight), which share a spell slot with withdraw. This means that without withdraw scrolls, or a weapon strong enough to kill the fire blight in 3 or 4 hits, I will not be able to withdraw Vela for a second pull.

oh yeah, i was confused - i thought you were talking about one of the fire blights on the bridge, not the one that spawns from self-damage, so I was confused how you'd be able to end the fight just from dealing with one fire blight.

 

is getting rekvu's cloak feasible? requires a detour to the north of the map and requires some hard fights, but once you have that plus one injury you never need to worry about lethandria's regen again IIRC because you'll just heal the fire blight damage.

also: what build are you?

[AlyMintChip]

16 minutes ago, thelee said:

is getting rekvu's cloak feasible? requires a detour to the north of the map and requires some hard fights, but once you have that plus one injury you never need to worry about lethandria's regen again IIRC because you'll just heal the fire blight damage.

also: what build are you?

I'm playing Streetfighter/Priest of Woedica and relying on Wit of Death's Herald tier 3 for Brilliant inspiration once/rest

I have ample in-game time (practice run finished with like 10 days or something leftover) so if I can acquire the cape without combat then that would absolutely solve my problem. If I have to kill something to get it though, it doesn't help because I won't have unlocked Tier 3 Wit until after killing Jadaferlas and I'll be right where I started. 

I should check if it can be pickpocketed

Edit: Nevermind you can't even get into the shrine without the outdoor encounter which I don't think I have any way to win at this point. This would be happening right at level 16, with no access to an at-will brilliant and no way to fight anything without it. 

Edited January 15, 2020 by AlyMintChip

[Boeroer]

Concerning Lethandria's Devotion don't forget this behavior (in case you don't already use it):

If you switch from the shield directly to a copy of the shield (e.g. weapon set 1: sabre + L's Devotion, weapon set 2: axe + L's Devotion copy) you'll instantly get one tick of healing. You can set up a script (like I did above) that switches all the time once you don't need to attack (so switching recovery malus doesn't matter).

Maybe you can use that behavior to your advantage.

[thelee]

@AlyMintChip sounds rough dude. Might just be some bit of RNG you have to hope goes your way (I mean, it seems rather unlikely to fail so maybe second times a charm?). If it makes you feel any better, Ashen Maw was a major bottleneck point for me as well.

 

@Boeroer's trick could work depending on how quickly you're taking damage. three weapon slots, only two with lethandria's. stay on the third while you take damage and then only periodically turn on the ai script to switch between the other two to rapidly heal and then switch off before the blight can hit you. then you don't have to worry about lethandria's taking much damage (if any)

Edited January 15, 2020 by thelee

[Armaxy]

So, ulti-mates, I have another question...

I dont remember, plz help me, where I can read about what exactly to present (except savefile and full video) and where to send this?

[Waski]

All is there.

Btw. What classes?

Edited January 28, 2020 by Waski

[Madscientist]

Congratulations everyone.

I did not read everything above, only that 4 people did it so far and thelee was the last of them.

Where all ultimate winners turn based or rtwp or was it done in both modes?

Ages ago I read that somebody guessed ( I think it was a dev, not sure) that it would be easier turn based.

[Boeroer]

Both. One guy did it on TB mode, the rest on RTwP.

[Armaxy]

@Waski thx a lot

And... need guide how to upload 13+h on youtube

[Waski]

34 minutes ago, Armaxy said:

@Waski thx a lot

And... need guide how to upload 13+h on youtube

Congratulations. What class??

[Armaxy]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4-gPlAz-X6apyE2b2tKdlxiNRIqEjMB2

Here it is, full video of my Ultimate run. I hope you do not mind non-English game language, or?

Everyone welcome and free to ask, discuss, use, or exploit

PS. Class: Contemplative (Helwalker + Skaen priest)

Edited January 30, 2020 by Armaxy

[Waski]

Why not forbidden  fist/skaen ??? (I am trying one )

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Armaxy said:

PS. Class: Contemplative (Helwalker + Skaen priest)

i'm going to skim through the vid later, but extra congrats! i really thought monk would only be viable single-classed for wotw-based reasons, so happy to hear i was wrong.

Edited January 30, 2020 by thelee

[Armaxy]

On 1/30/2020 at 11:35 PM, Waski said:

Why not forbidden  fist/skaen ??? (I am trying one )

Well, Helwalker is way more easier to play and has more Might = more damage. And, good luck best of luck for you (if you are about ultimate)!

20 hours ago, thelee said:

i really thought monk would only be viable single-classed for wotw-based reasons, so happy to hear i was wrong.

The thing is, any class + Skaen can be viable, this is the easiest ultimate meta. As for monks, even without wotw and resonant, these guys have a lot of #perfectlybalanced abilities and features.

 

You know what? In my last training run, I completed it 1 day faster (with exactly the same strategy). I am not sure where I lost 1 day in my ultimate run (I dont think this is because bad sailing), but it is possible to complete it sub-3 month (60 days).

[Madscientist]

Looks like everyone was a multi classed skean priest.

Whats the great thing about them: priest buffs + invisibility to escape combat?

blood mage: you can get spells back at the cost of HP. Just to be sure: This does only restore mage spells, not priest spells?

tactician: It is beyond my understanding how players can manage that all enemies are flanked, and you are not flanked even in normal gameplay. (not solo, no god challenges). It is even more unbelieveble how your target can also be the target of another friendly char when you play solo. But brilliant inspiration is great for sure.

No idea whats so great about hellwalker. Your might is higher but you take much more damage.

[Elric Galad]

54 minutes ago, Madscientist said:

Looks like everyone was a multi classed skean priest.

Whats the great thing about them: priest buffs + invisibility to escape combat?

Priest is mandatory because of Salvation of Time and Barring Death Door.

Even in a normal party game, a single priest (even Multiclassed) basically trivializes Dorudugan and Belranga fights.

[Waski]

2 hours ago, Armaxy said:

You know what? In my last training run, I completed it 1 day faster (with exactly the same strategy). I am not sure where I lost 1 day in my ultimate run (I dont think this is because bad sailing), but it is possible to complete it sub-3 month (60 days).

For sure. Maybe even by a lot. I am using different pathing and getting lv16(post Ashen Maw, edit 16 in ashen) on 25th day ( 55 days left, something like 2nd day of the month) , but it's without killing Concelhaut. 

ie helwalker vs ff, what's so difficult about ff?  It's only +30%  base dmg and 2 acc for helwalker vs smth like 17pen on ff ability that hits very hard with few stacks plus you can just alternate ff/stunning surge/ finishing blow and use weapons( there is not much extra to pick tbh besides grave calling/modwyr for INT immu and Marux).

Why didn't you use the other enchantment on staff(+15% dmg on everything)? And since you had deltro why no mantle of 7 bolts? You can use it basically everywhere except Hauani and Neri maybe.

Edit. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Waski

[Boeroer]

7 hours ago, Madscientist said:

Looks like everyone was a multi classed skean priest.

Whats the great thing about them: priest buffs + invisibility to escape combat?

One important thing besides invisibility and Salvation of Time and Barring Death's Door is Withdraw: you need to protect Vela.

Priest of Skaen has all this in one neat package.