[CLASS BUILD] Lactose Intolerant Armored Arcanist - Solo Upscaled POTD with Balance Polishing Mod

[Not So Clever Hound]

16 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

In this kind of fight you eventually run out of healing potions

I wonder where you could steal Restore as soon as you hit level 7, so that healing wouldn't be an issue anymore. Maybe a Xaurip priest or Dawnstar? Maybe one of the low level ships would have it but that is likely suicidal at this point.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Shai Hulud]

17 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I wonder where you could steal Restore as soon as you hit level 7, so that healing wouldn't be an issue anymore. Maybe a Xaurip priest or Dawnstar? Maybe one of the low level ships would have it but that is likely suicidal at this point.

Not sure what spells the xaurips have, but priests of eothas all have restore, and the dawnstar priests are mostly eothas (I think just xoti is gaun). Might be some other priest subclasses that have it too, I recall coming across it a lot but I grabbed it when I slaughtered the dawnstar temple. Which this time around may be a little difficult because Adaryc is a freaking beast, so...probably have to kill the sick one Pitli. 

I think the goldpact priests with Beina are also eothas and have withdraw + restore. Meryel and Yseyr are Berathian, there are some Woedica in oathbinder's sanctum, ran across quite a few Wael priests. Not sure about the Magran and Rymrgand but I don't think their spells are anything special.

Yeah boarding a ship is suicide without withdraw, and I might die as well depending on the encounter...once you have enough spells it is no problem. I boarded tons of ships with the soul devourer. Granted she wasn't worrying about recovery time much and could zerg enemies with soul annihilation. Be a lot grindier this time. The druid spells the moon's light and nature's balm are also pretty handy. The moon's light has a pretty long duration of passive healing. Nature's balm not so much but not completely terrible. The naga shaman have exactly these two spells from levels 1 to 3 (and maybe blizzard?) so it is very easy to grab them on hasongo from that one shaman that is by himself. Eventually I can steal moonwell which is better than the moon's light but not until level 16+... if I can crit a decent amount might wield sanguine great sword and devil of caroc breastplate, they provide a lot of healing on crit. But probably will be invisible mostly summoning things later. 

Need to find someone with the phantom spells. Arkemyr has them and he isn't terribly hard but there's probably someone easier...Bekarna is easy but hard to get to. 

Do you know if Meryel (or anyone besides Yseyr) has Halt? I thought she'd have halt because they're both priests of Berath but I've been trying that encounter for about an hour and I am either really unlucky or she doesn't have it. She seems to have three level 1 spells, four level 2 spells, and two level 3 spells, which is a little strange. Touch of Rot, Interdiction, Barbs of Condemnation, Holy Meditation, Repulsing Seal, Spiritual Weapon, Pillar of Faith, Spreading Plague, and Divine Mark. Yseyr has most of these spells but not sure about Pillar of Faith, Divine Mark, and Interdiction. I guess different characters that have more than the standard 2 spells per level could have different spells. 

Halt isn't a must have or anything but it is pretty useful to get Vela to be stil. 

---------

Edit: Good call on the xaurips! The xaurip priests have both withdraw and restore and don't do much damage so they're ideal for stealing these spells. There's one with Purakau you can kite away from him, and I think there are some in Cavern of Xaur Tuk Tuk.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Shai Hulud]

@Not So Clever Hound

Another question about vengeance ships. What is the cutoff point in the plot for spawning these? I usually try to get Huana good 2 in first Neketaka visit to complete Muhai's quest, though really I guess reputation doesn't matter in this game... if they still give you all the quests at -3 is there any downside?

Been wanting to give that shield a spin. 

Also I'm not finding it easy to murder everyone at Takano's. Tried kiting them but doesn't seem to work and I end up doing like 9 on 1. 

Also holy crap that is a tough ship battle, particularly with the ? and the enemy ship being an insanely vast voyager that can board you from distance 105, and all L17. Would be better for me to use grapeshot to reduce ship defenders (get double crew damage from raking fire, quadruple from haeferic) then board at high level. 

Can I tank my rep later? The ship is very fast and hangs outside Neketaka so probably kinda hard to avoid. But I know there's some cutoff point in the plot for all that just don't know when...

Edited January 24, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

What is the cutoff point in the plot for spawning these?

Well the thing is it's incredibly hard or straightup impossible to tank your rep to -3 if you started raising your rep with a given faction. So I did it as early as possible, basically before doing anything that could positively influence the Huana. After, I got the shield, I did a couple quests for them and was back at +2/3 disposition with the Huana in no time.

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also holy crap that is a tough ship battle

Yeah the ship to ship battle is on the harder side. I certainly wouldn't do it on an Iron run. I think I save-scummed until I got a number of "ship afflictions" on them, at which point they're just useless.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also I'm not finding it easy to murder everyone at Takano's. Tried kiting them but doesn't seem to work and I end up doing like 9 on 1. 

I don't know if you can kite there, but it's true I wiped them out with a few levels under my belt already, lvl 12-ish I think.

[Not So Clever Hound]

On 1/22/2023 at 4:00 PM, Shai Hulud said:

Edit: Good call on the xaurips! The xaurip priests have both withdraw and restore and don't do much damage so they're ideal for stealing these spells. There's one with Purakau you can kite away from him, and I think there are some in Cavern of Xaur Tuk Tuk.

Awesome!

On 1/22/2023 at 4:00 PM, Shai Hulud said:

Do you know if Meryel (or anyone besides Yseyr) has Halt?

I am 99% positive Meryel used Halt on me before.

[Shai Hulud]

38 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I don't know if you can kite there, but it's true I wiped them out with a few levels under my belt already, lvl 12-ish I think.

How do you get to L12 without raising your rep with the Huana? I'm avoiding certain quests for that reason, which puts me at 9. Maybe could do the encounter at 9, but it is dicey, so not ideal. I probably don't even need the shield but I've been wanting to try it because of the blood rage thing and huge deflection bonus for my 3 resolve char. Can also use The Wall with Escape (I think). Who needs to move when you can teleport?

Guess I could do some of the Gullet quests, I think those just raise your rep with the Gullet and Dawnstars...except Trade Secrets. Can do Eulogy for the Dead. Archmage Vault and give it to RDC. Yeah could probably get to 12, though the pathing might be weird. Typically I go queen's berth => periki's overlook => serpent's crown => gullet (open undercroft shortcut) => queen's berth => gullet => serpent's crown => sacred stair => brass citdael => serpent's crown => periki => gullet => queen's berth => leave. I haven't found a faster way to do all the quests because you need Huana 2 to turn in Muhai without rep loss (though I guess who cares), and turning in Food For Thought is really circuitous with the best outcome, since you have to see Pitli then the Dawnstar Temple, then the Prince, then Enoi. Would be faster to get food from Mad Morena, but I don't do that because of the meaningless reputation gain in the gullet. 

Yeah I'm not doing that anymore. The only benefit to rep I've noticed is you can pass some checks that otherwise require diplomacy which I usually have anyway, and with Neketaka 2 you can get Emeini who is the best backup crew member IMO. And the cost of getting Dawnstar food is like half a day or more so not worth it. 

 

34 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Awesome!

I am 99% positive Meryel used Halt on me before.

Ah crap, I already killed her. Oh well. I can steal it from Yseyr or Wheneena Eel's Kiss or probably a number of generic Huana ship priests...I think they're all Berath, was it Dgray who said that? 

Shows how hard it is to steal a specific spell though with bad luck. Even with minor grimoire imprint which only targets 3 levels vs major grimoire imprint's 7. I'm going to limit the number of major imprint thefts to things that I really need because it just takes ages to grind out a battle hoping for that 1/14 to 1/21 roll (assuming you always hit with the imprint, which you don't, so more like 1/20 to 1/30). 

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

you need Huana 2 to turn in Muhai without rep loss (though I guess who cares

You can just approach the pyre from behind from stealth and interact with the pyre without talking to the priest and you turn in the quest without any issue/rep loss.

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

How do you get to L12 without raising your rep with the Huana?

I usually sail around to discover all the map spots that give XP but that is not Magran Fires-friendly.

 

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

a number of generic Huana ship priests...I think they're all Berath, was it Dgray who said that?

Yes indeed

[Shai Hulud]

5 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

You can just approach the pyre from behind from stealth and interact with the pyre without talking to the priest and you turn in the quest without any issue/rep loss.

I usually sail around to discover all the map spots that give XP but that is not Magran Fires-friendly.

 

Yes indeed

Didn't know you could just sneak up to the fire. The wiki says doing that gives reputation loss.

I managed to wipe out the Takano Estate at L10. Probably could have done it at 9 but was trying to steal spells from the druid and the wizard, which was a waste of time as none of them had anything good. Well, the druid did but his spells are easy to find. The wizard is called an "elementalist" so I thought he had the "elementalist grimoire" or possibly the "weathermage grimoire" but he has no grimoire at all, just a unique set of common and mostly meh spells: minoletta's minor missiles, jolting touch, curse of blackened sight, ray of fire, fireball, and crackling bolt. Was looking for combusting wounds, chill fog, and kalakoth's minor blights which are fairly hard to find.

Interestingly even with Berath's Challenge you can apparently start combat by attacking and entering stealth, which queues up the battle music and prevents you from using offensive spells or leaving the area, but as long as you stay out of people's stealth detection you can send in summons and buff/heal them from off the screen. Phantom kept killing the druid though so I just took them on at once until druid and wizard remained, got the druid spells I wanted, killed the druid, then fought the mage for about an hour. Because of the changes to blood sacrifice it is very tedious stealing a specific spell (particularly if the mage doesn't have it lol), but basically I just repeat the cycle of eldritch aim => fetid caress (almost always hits this guy) => minor grimoire imprint x2 => blood sacrifice x 2 to 8 (or stop when near death) => fetid caress => restore x4. Need to find a way to script it so I can do it on fast mode but vela seems unscriptable for some reason so idk. Also you can't check wizard resources for some reason which would be needed to know when to blood sacrifice, though you can script around resources for a lot of other classes.

If I knew how to mod I'd make a mod that gives vela the normal "ally" tags so those work on her in scripts and you can just auto-cast withdraw on ally if ally is not a summon, easy game.

Anyway I wrecked my reputation with the Huana and was going to stop and do Archmage's Vault but found out just being nice to Netehe is enough to get you to -2, and the ship isn't there anymore. Your rep has to be -3 when you leave Neketaka. Luckily it doesn't have to *stay* at -3, the ship spawn appears persistent once it spawns, so I can board it later, but you do have to at least leave the city while your rep is -3.

Oh I discovered another consequence of negative reputation. Didn't think there were any really, but if you go to the gullet with huana bad 2 or worse and talk to the overseer to go to the old city, he'll let you, but he leaves you there to die =/

Would be a nasty surprise in an iron run

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

Anyway I wrecked my reputation with the Huana and was going to stop and do Archmage's Vault but found out just being nice to Netehe is enough to get you to -2, and the ship isn't there anymore. Your rep has to be -3 when you leave Neketaka. Luckily it doesn't have to *stay* at -3, the ship spawn appears persistent once it spawns, so I can board it later, but you do have to at least leave the city while your rep is -3.

Ha, I was wondering about that  thanks for clarifying!

 

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

Interestingly even with Berath's Challenge you can apparently start combat by attacking and entering stealth, which queues up the battle music and prevents you from using offensive spells or leaving the area, but as long as you stay out of people's stealth detection you can send in summons and buff/heal them from off the screen.

Yes actually with Berath challenge, you can use a little trick which is to approach enemies from stealth (to be in visual range) and then quickly unstealth/restealth, then you'll be in combat but enemies don't notice you and you can buff, use summons etc. Works like the trap strategy, without using a trap. But, as I recall @thelee mentioned to me once, it's not as reliable as actual traps as you can get easily get the timing wrong on pressing the Alt key twice, and you can't split/pull enemies like with traps. So for The Ultimate this isn't as helpful, traps remain better (but in somewhat limited quantity).

Edited January 24, 2023 by Not So Clever Hound

[dgray62]

10 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Awesome!

I am 99% positive Meryel used Halt on me before.

I think Meryel is a priest of Berath. I'm pretty sure I stole Touch of Rot from her once.

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Yes actually with Berath challenge, you can use a little trick which is to approach enemies from stealth (to be in visual range) and then quickly unstealth/restealth, then you'll be in combat but enemies don't notice you and you can buff, use summons etc. Works like the trap strategy, without using a trap. But, as I recall @thelee mentioned to me once, it's not as reliable as actual traps as you can get easily get the timing wrong on pressing the Alt key twice, and you can't split/pull enemies like with traps. So for The Ultimate this isn't as helpful, traps remain better (but in somewhat limited quantity).

yeah mostly the issue was that in The Ultimate Magran's challenge is turned on, which prevents you from pausing. So it doesn't become foolproof (and in The Ultimate you can't really afford a mistake).

also, with Berath's challenge on, you can pause the game when you're close unenough, unstealth and then re-stealth while the game is still paused, then unpause, and that'll be enough to trigger combat while still in stealth. don't even have to bother with traps or anything. traps are useful if you need to split up enemies though.

Edited January 24, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Ha, I was wondering about that  thanks for clarifying!

 

Yes actually with Berath challenge, you can use a little trick which is to approach enemies from stealth (to be in visual range) and then quickly unstealth/restealth, then you'll be in combat but enemies don't notice you and you can buff, use summons etc. Works like the trap strategy, without using a trap. But, as I recall @thelee mentioned to me once, it's not as reliable as actual traps as you can get easily get the timing wrong on pressing the Alt key twice, and you can't split/pull enemies like with traps. So for The Ultimate this isn't as helpful, traps remain better (but in somewhat limited quantity).

What is the trap strategy? I mostly know stuff I've discovered myself or been told in the last few months so I'm missing some likely commonish knowledge. 

9 hours ago, dgray62 said:

I think Meryel is a priest of Berath. I'm pretty sure I stole Touch of Rot from her once.

Yes she is a priest of Berath. What I'm unsure of is whether all Priest of X have the same set of "extra" spells. They all have the auto-spells like Touch of Rot, Holy Power, Spreading Plague, and I'm pretty sure they share another spell per level. Most enemy casters have 2 spells per level but some have 3 or even weirder amounts like 10 from levels 1 to 3, so I don't know if like Yseyr and Meryel share these extra spells. I tried for a long time and I got every spell except Halt at least three or four times before I gave up. And she had 10 spells without Halt, which is the most I've seen a caster have from levels 1 to 3. Would be really weird if she has 11, but could be.

8 hours ago, thelee said:

yeah mostly the issue was that in The Ultimate Magran's challenge is turned on, which prevents you from pausing. So it doesn't become foolproof (and in The Ultimate you can't really afford a mistake).

also, with Berath's challenge on, you can pause the game when you're close unenough, unstealth and then re-stealth while the game is still paused, then unpause, and that'll be enough to trigger combat while still in stealth. don't even have to bother with traps or anything. traps are useful if you need to split up enemies though.

Didn't know any of this. I mean I knew you could restealth without Berath and flee combat and pick off enemies one by one which is why assassins are so good right? Discovered the restealthing thing by accident really, was trying to murder the servants far away from the rest so I didn't aggro everyone and I restealthed and it aggroed everyone but they just ran into the room and back out. I probably won't be using this tactic much though.

I actually turned off Magran's Challenge for the trial run so I can pause and look at the combat log when I need to figure something out. Trying not to use it much since it makes combat a lot easier. Have everything on but Magran, Wael, and Iron

[Shai Hulud]

PSA on Akola's Apex Ward

Even if you got the ship Servant of Rikuhu (captain Wheneena Eel's Kiss) to spawn, it will disappear later. It's either on a timer or linked to your Huana rep. I tanked my rep to -3 and checked that the ship spawned but decided to board it later because Level 17. I tested that the ship was still there when I bumped my rep up to -2 and like half a day later. After completing The Archmage's Vault (giving it to Netehe) and Trade Secrets my Huana rep was 2 and a couple in-game days had passed, and the ship is now gone. 

So...if you want this shield you better sink the ship right when it appears, and to make it appear you have to get your Huana rep to -3 (killing everyone in Takano's mansion was enough for this),

I'd console it in but I don't think there's any way I can get this item in a trials / iron run so I guess I won't be using it. Boarding the ship at this level is suicide and fighting it is also suicide (particularly with Wael challenge) unless you get lucky and cripple the sails in 1 turn or something because it can move 105m per turn and your ship at this point can't even come close.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Shai Hulud]

Theorycrafting some multiclass builds with similar stats. Was looking through your blessings and saw Magran's Blessing. 

How do you get this? I think the only way to get this is to console it in but I could be mistaken...

[Not So Clever Hound]

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

How do you get this?

In Ashen’s Maw, if you get the support of the rathun to go in the Lair of the Ancient, they’ll give you +2 burn AR. 

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

In Ashen’s Maw, if you get the support of the rathun to go in the Lair of the Ancient, they’ll give you +2 burn AR. 

The blessing also gives you strength inspiration on being crit with fire, which could be useful...

But I tried a bunch of variations of running through Ashen's Maw and I'm not getting this. The first group of Rathun in the Sentinel Wall I use diplomacy and they let me through to the bridge. If you kill the dragon first, you can get the "support" of the Bathor with diplomacy (not sure what you meant by that) but I'm still not getting anything. Tried instead going into the keep first but the Rathun Raider always attacks me without the torc. Tried not killing the dragon, then going into the keep. Doesn't make any difference. Even managed to convince the Bathor to leave, didn't make any difference. Finally I tried stealthing past the raider at the front to get to the bathor. And that managed to do it, one of them cast some spell on me and I checked and had the blessing.

Stealthing past them required very high stealth and gear so I'm guessing you're not intended to get the blessing this way. So then I tried just fighting through the keep and slaughtering a dozen fire giants, and the Bathor kindly gave me his blessing. But he doesn't do it if you don't kill any rathun and deal with the dragon first. 

This game makes no sense. 

[Shai Hulud]

I finally tested this build when I came up against Sissak and found the encounter seemingly impossible with my savage build, which has otherwise been able to solo everything. 

Anyway, I was surprised just how damn tanky the armored arcanist is. Was getting pelted on all sides by minoletta's missile salvos, death of 1000 cuts, and various melee attacks and the enemies might as well have been sneezing at me.

But...the encounter was still impossible, just for different reasons. It grinds on indefinitely. With BPM enabled I couldn't get past the second stage (after the moon spiders come out). The spiders heal everyone too quickly. Also, I noticed the toon has the unfortunate tendency of switching targets for no apparent reason. Would get a guy to bloodied then switch to someone else, then get that guy to bloodied, then switch back to the other one who is now healed. I made some changes to the script because you have enough health regeneration that you can cast one or two more long duration spells. The script @Not So Clever Hound provided casts Llengrath's Safeguard every 70s when the ability lasts over two minutes after being activated, so I changed it to recast every 120s, and added Arcane Reflection which has similar duration (though it can be used up faster if the target of many spells). The Arcane Reflection made a huge difference, some of the vithrack killed themselves with reflected spells. Also added a block to cast Concelhaut's Crushing Doom when above 50% health, and this also makes enough difference to kill enemies who otherwise won't die fast enough. Still, couldn't get past stage 3, when even more spiders come out. The fight stabilized with Sissak and three moon spiders and it seemed impossible to kill any of them. 

I think it is just a matter of DPS being too low, so I tried the fight in vanilla where Blood Sacrifice doesn't have a recovery, and in vanilla the encounter did resolve itself although it took over half an hour on fast mode. 

I may test this more later, I suspect this build would do better with some scripting improvements. Only casting Concelhaut's Draining Missiles is overkill on the healing front. Most of the spells I'd like to mix in are also level 2 though (Combusting Wounds, Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon). A spell like Death Ring cast every now and then could make a difference, or possibly some large AOE CC spell like Arkemyr's Capricious Hex. Sickened and Paralyze would both be very helpful. Jernaugh's Equalizing Burst would be ideal but, unique...

I do have a question, why take Goldpact Knights? I noticed Gilded Enmity's armor doesn't stack with I suspect Llengrath's Safeguard. Exalted Endurance doesn't stack either. So paladin really just gives +3 from stoic steel.

Not sure what a better paladin class would be though. Or could not do paladin at all. Hmmm.

[dgray62]

I was playing this build today, and I noticed what might be a bug with Akola Apex Ward, which leads to super crazy weapon damage. My arcane knight landed a hit with his weapon (with eternal flames) that dealt 300 damage. This was pretty crazy since the weapon he was wielding was Last Word, which isn't exactly OP when it comes to damage. I checked the log and it turns out he did 245 piercing damage and 55 fire damage against a pestilent rotgast. Under damage, the log indicated +1400% due to Blood Rage. There was no corresponding boost to accuracy. I have no idea why Blood Rage is doing +1400% damage rather than +10%. I've had the shield for a while, and noticed that the damage was slowly increasing. It seems that the +10% is stacking. This may lead to insane damage eventually.

[Boeroer]

Whoopsi!

[dgray62]

Indeed! I wonder what's going on here, and if any one else has experienced this.

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, dgray62 said:

I was playing this build today, and I noticed what might be a bug with Akola Apex Ward, which leads to super crazy weapon damage. My arcane knight landed a hit with his weapon (with eternal flames) that dealt 300 damage. This was pretty crazy since the weapon he was wielding was Last Word, which isn't exactly OP when it comes to damage. I checked the log and it turns out he did 245 piercing damage and 55 fire damage against a pestilent rotgast. Under damage, the log indicated +1400% due to Blood Rage. There was no corresponding boost to accuracy. I have no idea why Blood Rage is doing +1400% damage rather than +10%. I've had the shield for a while, and noticed that the damage was slowly increasing. It seems that the +10% is stacking. This may lead to insane damage eventually.

Does the bonus persist even above 50% health ? When removing the weapon ? Does it increase by +10% exactly each time under 50%.  

Does the accuracy bonus correctly apply normally (under 50% health, then removed above 50%) ?

 

The only difference I notice between the acc and bonus damages is that the bonus damages is filtered to work only on weapon damages. Some hard bug might cause it to become degenerate, but not the acc bonus because reasons.

 

Any further testing would help finding the bug cause/fix.

[dgray62]

45 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Does the bonus persist even above 50% health ? When removing the weapon ? Does it increase by +10% exactly each time under 50%.  

Does the accuracy bonus correctly apply normally (under 50% health, then removed above 50%) ?

Yes. In the battle in question the character was at full health, and never went below 50% in that particular battle. It seems that the accuracy bonus was working as intended, as there was no Blood Rage accuracy bonus, as expected when at full health. I'll experiment with removing the weapon and will try to see when and why the damage bonus increases. Will report back when I learn more.

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, dgray62 said:

Yes. In the battle in question the character was at full health, and never went below 50% in that particular battle. It seems that the accuracy bonus was working as intended, as there was no Blood Rage accuracy bonus, as expected when at full health. I'll experiment with removing the weapon and will try to see when and why the damage bonus increases. Will report back when I learn more.

That's really bizarre. I've used akola's apex shield a lot and never encountered anything like that. Are you using any mods?

[dgray62]

Yes, I'm using a number of mods. CP, the no rest mod, and a few others (the one the raises level caps for example). Not sure if any might be effecting the shield here.