Analysis of class abilities, combos and min-maxing based on (solo) PotD Adra Dragon fight strategies

[MadDemiurg]

Aaaand a wizard beating Adra dragon in melee

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPG4SwS8mY

 

That was recorded in slow mode, so use 2x speed in settings to watch it faster. I screwed up on several occasions in the vid, but still managed to beat it as you can see. It's much less safe than a "caster" approach though. But that's probably the first vid doing it with a weapon in melee .

[Hopekiller]

Bumping because this should be on the frontpage. Much usefull information even if you don't solo (which I don't). Looking forward to the next update.

 

Also, why no Chanter? Is it just boring or?

 

It's my fav. class for some reason. Would love some thoughts on attributes and playstyle (just run around while waiting for stacks?)

[MadDemiurg]

I actually have a chanter build that can solo AD, but it's not that fun, yes. I'll try to post some info on it when I have more time.

[MadDemiurg]

I was going to finish with wizard next and give a detailed spell/ability analysis, but it's really massive and I don't have the energy to do it yet, so I'll post a chanter vid and some analysis for them.

 

The vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXVATLHjU5E

 

I encountered several pathing glitches while recording and my character got stuck at 1 point for no reason, but it didn't stop me from winning. Watch the vid on x2 as it was recorded on slow mode.

 

Level 1 Invocations (i'm gonna write what they do instead of the names both for chants and invocations since remembering and spelling all these names is too much for me :D):

 

-Summon phantom - This is an extremely powerful invocation earlygame, but it's not strong enough to deal with groups of enemies mid-lategame. Mostly useless for AD fight, but can be used to cleanup ads if there are only few remaining. It's decent enough vs adragans 1 on 1.

-5 DT - this is not bad, but it attacks fort and overall is not as gamechanging as other invocations. Pass.

-Summon skeletons - they are a better meatshield than phantom in general, but lack punch and overall I'd stay away from it.

-+shlash/shock DT - too specialized to be useful.

-Stun cone - Quite awesome, the main downside being that it attacks fort. That prevents it being useful for locking dragon. At 30 Int (possible with godlike) this stuns for 10 sec and can be cast every 12 sec, so it's almost a stunlock provided that you don't graze or miss.

-3 lightning bolts - damage too low, wouldn't bother.

-Corpse explosion - awesome if you can set it up correctly. In case of AD you can prepare a corpse "trap" from xaurips if you slaughter them first, but extremely high phsyical DT makes this spell not that useful vs AD since most hits are cut to minimal damage. In other situations it is quite awesome though.

 

Level 1 chants:

(All 1st level chants are useful for charging up invocations fast, regardless of what they do)

- +speed, +reflex - neither of the bonuses stack with items, but +speed items are rare and you might want to wear smth else in that slot anyway. 

- -concentration - this might be useful for some specialized party builds, but I never bothered with it tbh

- endurance drain - this is the one to go if there are no better options. Damage is low, but it's raw, aoe, and you don't have to do anything. Obviously it won't kill AD fast enough.

- +fortitude +will - only good if you don't have items with the same bonus. Pass.

- -slash -pierce damage - this is actually a very solid survivability booster for a level 1 chant

 

Level 2 invocations:

-Paralyze cone - This is one of the best chanters invocations. It has great aoe and at 30 int lasts 16 seconds on hit which is equal to the time to charge it with 1st level chants, so it's very good at locking down weak willed enemies. It's not that good in solo AD fight though, unless you use scrolls, since using it + 1st level chants leaves you with no damage.

-Charm cone - Nice to turn enemies on each other, in particular AD on its minions in AD fight. Possible to build a viable strategy around it.

-Terrify cone - Extra duration it gets over paralyze/charm does not compensate for much weaker affliction. Pass.

-Summon wurms - another meatshield spell, they tank better than phantom or skeletons but are rather weak overall. Since there are 3 of them they are good for blocking doorways and the like, but they won't stop serious enemies.

-Summon wisps - wisps have charm spells, but their accuracy is not that great and they are less durable than wurms. Overall both 2nd level summons are not that great.

-A bunch of defenses vs various afflictions - useless solo as it doesn't work on self. In a party it is decent if you ignore the fact that this kind of a bonus is most useful at the start of a fight.

 

Level 2 chants:

(All these charge invocations slower, so you have to think if it's worth it before turning any of these on)

- frighten - frighten is an entry level debuff, but it's -10 accuracy if it hits, so +10 to all saves effectively if you don't have any other debuffs running. Not bad, but it's not worth it vs AD solo.

- -frighten/terrified duration, +frightened/terrified defense - this is effectively a replacement for priest's protection vs fear so if you've run out of scrolls it can be useful. However, you'd rather use scrolls and do smth more useful for the most part

- Frost trap - this is decent for kiting, and trap accuracy is quite high. However AD lair doesn't have enough room to kite forever and the damage it does is negligible. It's a decent way to inflict a one time hobble on the dragon though.

- +ranged attack speed/reload speed - This one is a decent ranged dps boost and I wouldn't be surprised if it works with some spells (untested), but generally don't expect to hurt the dragon with a ranged weapon as a chanter. Pass.

- -Disengagement accuracy - this is just terrible

 

Level 3 invocations:

-Summon drake - this is supposed to be a "dps" level 3 summon, however it's inferior to ogres in almost every way and in many cases i would prefer phantom actually becaue of faster charge. It's not exactly horrible, but there are much better options.

-Summon orges - the best meatshield spell. Not that useful in AD fight though as they can't really tank AD and are easily dominated by adragans.

-Resurrect - obviously useless solo and in a party there are better abilities for this in the rare cases you might need it

-7 ice spikes - This invocation alone is enough to warrant taking secrets of rime as your level 10 or level 12 talent. It's especially great vs big targets like AD since it's possible to hit them with 3 spikes essentially dealing like 400 damage on a great roll and 300 on an average one. Switch to fire lash chant for maximal damage when casting.

- +Dex/Per/Int - good buff, but useless solo and probably comes too late in a party to make a difference.

- +Might/Con/Res - same as the previous one.

 

Level 3 chants:

- +25% fire lash. This is one of the few chants that are worth sacrificing greater invocation speed for. It's mostly awesome in a party, but it adds damage to your big guns, so it's worth considering switching to it when using a damaging invocation. With cooldowns on chants this swithcing became more questionable though.

-+Freeze/Shock DT, +Prone defense +Concentration - what is this thing doing on level 3?

- fire/slashing DoT - In the latest build this definitely scales with might (and linger scales with int), so max these if you want it to be effective. It still does not benefit from scion of flame for some reason. However it deals very solid damage (with stat buffs up to like 30 damage per tick). It attacks reflex, which is AD's weaker save, so it's not too difficult to land. This is one of the 2 main damage options for this fight.

- +deflection - this doesn't even stack with items, so what's it doing on level 3?

 

Overall it's hard to speak of chanter "combos" as there isn't enough combo material, but you can make combos with some items and scrolls.

• Sunbeam spellbind + Seven nights she wailed (7 ice spikes) = higher chance to land the invocation that you really don't want to miss with
• Seven nights she wailed + fire lash chant = more damage
• Kill a group + lure enemies to corpses + corpse explosion = lots of damage

Viable tactic for AD fights:

• Use tanking talents/equipment - this is overall probably the best option for chanter in any circumstances
• Go max might/int (int not required for some strategies)
• Either use dragon trashed or some 1st level chant + Seven nights. Possible to combine/switch between these
• Also possible to use charm invocation on the dragon to make it deal with ads while you charge seven nights
• Aaand of course it's also possible to bombard with scrolls while charging your invocations and chanting your chants but that would make things too easy

Will post some additional stuff on stats later, but it's pretty straightforward

Edited May 27, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Narla]

 Hi and thanks for all your good posts across the board MadDemiurg.

 

 Just wanted to add that the 2 damage chants and the heal talent for chant all scale with might in 1.05 (the lv1 endurance drain chant still only does like 1 damage per second with 20 might though). Also a question, are you sure the fire lash chant boosts the ice spikes? I don't have a 1.05 group with it to test but i'm almost certain that in 1.04 it only worked on weapon attacks/skills.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Narla

[MadDemiurg]

 Hi and thanks for all your good posts across the board MadDemiurg.

 

 Just wanted to add that the 2 damage chants and the heal talent for chant all scale with might in 1.05 (the lv1 endurance drain chant still only does like 1 damage per second with 20 might though). Also a question, are you sure the fire lash chant boosts the ice spikes? I don't have a 1.05 group with it to test but i'm almost certain that in 1.04 it only worked on weapon attacks/skills.

Yeah, I'm sure it works with all (instant) spells. You can even see fire damage in the logs of the vid I posted at one point.

Edited May 28, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Bubbles]

Autumn's decay - Solid corrode damage, 100+ corrode DoT over duration with maxed might and int (including resting bonuses). Target's reflex, which is also good for us.

Insect swarm - another solid DoT. Worse than decay, since it targets fortitude, but since we can't stack same DoTs this will do.

 

Autumn's Decay stacks just fine in the newest beta.

[MadDemiurg]

 

Autumn's decay - Solid corrode damage, 100+ corrode DoT over duration with maxed might and int (including resting bonuses). Target's reflex, which is also good for us.

Insect swarm - another solid DoT. Worse than decay, since it targets fortitude, but since we can't stack same DoTs this will do.

 

Autumn's Decay stacks just fine in the newest beta.

 

Well, another bug out of many then. DoTs should not stack. If it does spam away then if you don't mind using this.

[Bubbles]

FYI, Rot Skulls' AoE DoT component also stacks. If you don't want to abuse bugs, don't use them.

[Bubbles]

Insect Swarm also stacks with itself. So does Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon. I'm guessing all DoTs stack in the beta, which is presumably intended.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Bubbles

[Narla]

 I tested automn decay a bunch when 1.05 came out and if i remember right the debuff displayed in character sheet was completed unrelated to reality, but the actual damage for 2 autumn decay would stack, but no more. When the third or more landed it would overwrite the oldest autum decay.

 

 I tested it by debuffing my highest endurance charater, then casting the spell lots of times at it. By noting the difference between the character's total health before the experiment and after and comparing to the combat logs I could try to figure out stuff.

[Bubbles]

Are you sure that isn't due to the low duration of the spell? With a base duration of 6 seconds, a high Int character will barely be able to fit three casts in before the first DoT expires naturally.

 

edit: AoE stacking makes Rot Skulls do absolutely filthy damage by the way. A base corrode damage of 52 in a base 1.25m AoE on every hit of an Average speed weapon.

 

As long as the original attack at least grazes the target, the AoE always does its full damage to everyone in the area; it cannot miss, graze or crit. Probably the best attack in the game.

 

edit2:

 

I thought about this some more; actually, the best way to use Rot Skulls against a high level enemy might be to cast it on one of your low-deflect summons. Since the always-hit Foe AoE is the main prize of that attack, and the summon can be freely positioned, you can do tons of damage without ever having to roll against an enemy's defenses.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Bubbles

[MadDemiurg]

Just tested decay/rot skull and they do not seem to stack in 1.06 for me, so one of our games is definitely bugged.

 

Using rot skull on summons is indeed quite devious tactic but they can only last for so long.

[Narla]

 

 Hi and thanks for all your good posts across the board MadDemiurg.

 

 Just wanted to add that the 2 damage chants and the heal talent for chant all scale with might in 1.05 (the lv1 endurance drain chant still only does like 1 damage per second with 20 might though). Also a question, are you sure the fire lash chant boosts the ice spikes? I don't have a 1.05 group with it to test but i'm almost certain that in 1.04 it only worked on weapon attacks/skills.

Yeah, I'm sure it works with all (instant) spells. You can even see fire damage in the logs of the vid I posted at one point.

 

 

 Just wanted to confirm that I just spent a bit testing this and you are right, the fire lash chant adds a 25% fire lash (unaffected by might, regardless of what the icon tooltip says) to the majority of weapon attacks, abilities, and spells. Doesn't seem to work with DoTs and most raw damage abilities, so goodbye dream of one shotting adra dragon with disintegrate crit, but it works with things like returning storm and chill fog