Nice item-ability combinations - what works and what doesn't

[Boeroer]

I just had an idea and tried out the following: Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits + Veteran's Recovery + Trollhide Belt. I thought that might lead to a nice recovery effect. Turns out that this results in a recovery rate of +3,7 end. per 3 sec. Wow, that's crap. Why on earth are these three talents so bad?

 

With a fighter on the other hand you could stack Contant Recovery (3), Rapid Recovery(1 - also crappy), Cloak of the Tireless Defender(2 - ok) and a Trollhide Belt (1) to a total recovery rate of +7 end. per 3 sec. Still not gamechanging, but better. I tried that on the Lady of Pain (need the shod-in-faith elsewhere) with her high might and it's quite noticeable. 

 

I know that Ancient Memory has an aoe and Contant Recovery has not - but seriously: 0.8 and 0.4 points per 3 sec? For two fat talent points? No wonder nobody takes this... And Veteran's Recovery is also lame. It will be even more lame when all the other "Multiclass"-Talents get per-encounter-uses in 3.0. Why are they not scaling with level?

 

p.s.: I want to stack Outlander's Frenzy with Sangiune Plate's Frenzy...

Edited November 21, 2015 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

So Veteran's Recovery + Trollhide Belt isn't really worth it in general?

 

A build like the Backlash Beldam could definitely use some regen, and to an extent so could Fulmineo Prondroni. It would be a shame if Veteran's Recovery + Trollhite Belt weren't enough to make a difference as a talent slot + belt slot are pretty hefty price.

[mosspit]

Just found out something. It is item related but not really a combination of sorts. Still kinda silly though. For Nightshroud, you can power up the 1st level (getting blind proc to trigger 13 times) by hitting your own party member. Doesn't need to be in combat lol.

[Boeroer]

So Veteran's Recovery + Trollhide Belt isn't really worth it in general?

 

A build like the Backlash Beldam could definitely use some regen, and to an extent so could Fulmineo Prondroni. It would be a shame if Veteran's Recovery + Trollhite Belt weren't enough to make a difference as a talent slot + belt slot are pretty hefty price.

I used this on the Beldam and it's not worth it. It's 2.5 end. per 3sec. Better use a weak potion from time to time or use a +3 CON belt. Only advantage is that recovery works also when you're disabled. You can't sip a potion when you're prone.

If they would scale with level it might be worth it. Or if they didn't heal a flat number, but a percentage of your max endurance instead. Would also make CON more important. I still think it's the most unimportant stat - even for front liners.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Just found out something. It is item related but not really a combination of sorts. Still kinda silly though. For Nightshroud, you can power up the 1st level (getting blind proc to trigger 13 times) by hitting your own party member. Doesn't need to be in combat lol.

Ha! Great find. That's really useful if you have a char who's not hitting very fast.

[Boeroer]

I still can't believe it: Ranger's Driving Flight works with Thrust of Tattered Veils from Badgradr's Barricade!

I just did a crit with it and two foes where hit by the thrust: the one in front of me and another one behind him.

I'm just testing a tanky melee ranger build with this shield and Drawn in Spring. Drawn in Spring doesn't do much damage, but sets up Predator's Sense for my wolf companion with it's wounding enchantment. And it looks ok toghether with the shield since they're both blue (or turquoise).

The wolf just did a crit on an Orge Matron (Nalrend the Wise bounty) for >100 damage (all dps+ mods plus Marked Prey).

 

Now I wonder which other "ranged" abilites besides Penetrating Shot and Driving Flight work with that shield. Twinned Arrows? Stunning Shots? Let's find out!

Edited November 23, 2015 by Boeroer

[mosspit]

Lol that's pretty ridiculous

[Boeroer]

I tested it and the Thrust of Tattered Veils (ToTV) from Badgradr's Barricade only works with Penetrating Shot and Driving Flight. NOT with Stunning Shots and also not with Twinned Arrows. Penetrating Shot only works if you activated it before an encounter. It's strange: when you activate it during combat it will not apply to the ToTV.

 

The melee ranger with Badgradr's Barricade looks promising - Driving Flight wit the ToTV is pretty nice and it'S kind of a mini aoe. But I will have a look if a rogue can make even better use of this shield since he crits even more and since deathblows and so on also apply to ToTV. And then I will try out a spellsword wizard with it.  

[AndreaColombo]

^ the Penetrating Shot thing sounds like a bug. A bug you'd probably want to stay, I suppose?

[Boeroer]

Sure!

 

No seriously - it's not overpowered and adds a nice little detail to the item. I don't even know if it is intended that there are no limits to the spell striking. But I think so because they changed it from Pillars of Faith to Thrust of Tattered Veils - which is a lot weaker. That Driving-Flight thing might not be intended. ToTV is a ranged spell with crush damage and therefore counts as "ranged attack" which can be reflected by some items - but it's not a missile. However: this Driving-Flight thing is also not superoverpowered. I mean how often do you crit with the bash? Ok pretty often... It's really funny: the shield has a higher (bash-) accuracy than the superb dagger Drawn in Spring. That's because the shield causes a -4 to accuracy penalty - but still. Another funny thing: since ToTV has +10 ACC it nearly always crits when it gets triggered.

 

If they want to nerf that they should probably do a nerf for Stormcaller+ranger first. Not that I want that either.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Boeroer

[L4wlight]

Really? Last time I tested it, Driving Flight didn't worked with ToTV. But maybe it didn't worked because of bad positioning.

 

EDIT: I tested this with a 3 INT Build.

Edited November 23, 2015 by L4wlight

[Boeroer]

Is the range of driving flight influenced by int?

[L4wlight]

Most likely yes. Or maybe the size of the cone?

 

Edit: I can confirm that Drving Flight works. Even with 3 INT.

Edited November 24, 2015 by L4wlight

[Boeroer]

Yes - it seems not to be affected by int.

 

Another thing: I just build a barbarian with all the abilities possible that give him buffs for a certain time (Frenzy, Bloodlust, Stalwart Defiance, Wild Sprint and so on) and paired that with Sanguine Plate, Shod-in-Faith boots, Tempered Helm etc. Then I used Spelltongue plus Ravenwing (call the stylepolice!) in the Thorfen Quest. This is what happens: Spelltongue steals 5 seconds duration from each benefical effect of the enemies (also with carnage hits) and gives this time to my beneficals effects. After a few hits my frenzy's duration is so long that it will last for the whole fight. The pulses from Consecrated Ground will go up from 2 seconds to 20 if you're lucky and hit alot of enemies while the pulse is on. Bloodlust, Stalwart Defiance, etc... they all can last forever as long as the enemy has still buffs on. This is really great. And with the mace you do good damage. I also tried Mosquito instead of Ravenwing because that looks better. The carnage-draining is also nice, but dps drops significantly. Same with Drawn in Spring wich applies wounding via carnage: nice effect, but the mace was better. Maybe I should completely skip Weapon Focus Noble, use Gallant's Focus and take a nice Stiletto for the second hand... Next thing I want to try is to use potions and see if Spelltongue also prolongs their durations.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Boeroer

[L4wlight]

Can you extend the duration of the human racial abilitie too?

 

What about Sword of Daenysis (comes with rending) + Ryona's Vambraces (3+3+5=11 DR bypass with Vulnerable Attack, not too shabby).

Vierina's Leaves is a good rapier too. The Vicious enchant can be quite good in certain party setups.

Add a wizard for Expose Vulnerabilities for DR debuffing (helps interrupting too).

 

 

EDIT: But generally I don't like fast weapons on barbarians much. Your Carnage will hit like a wet noodle...

Just do some hits with Spelltongue, conjure firebrand per forgemaster gloves and become a human fireball.

Edited November 25, 2015 by L4wlight

[Teioh_White]

Spelltongue does some nutty things, especially in combination with Barb. Which, if history is any guide, means it'll be 'fixed', while even more powerful cheese remains as intended. (RIP fireball Barb).

[AndreaColombo]

^ Not necessarily. It's hard to think they didn't see this coming when they designed the Siphoning weapon enchant, or that they didn't test it. Besides, as you said, there are more powerful combinations in this game; this is not an instance where you go, "wow this is broken"

 

It's not like they're out looking at our build posts to nerf the eff out of everything we find to maximize combat efficiency, eh Even though... link #tongueincheek

[L4wlight]

This tactic would have been broken if they added spelltongue's weapon enchant on a sabre. On a rapier however, it's more like a trade-off between damge and survivability, because low base damge weapons are not really compatible with carnage.

[Boeroer]

You can put a sabre in the other hand. Or We Toki. Then you would have damage, prone effect and everlasting buffs. Together with a priest this is awesome.

Another thing: I just noticed that unarmed attacks do not trigger carnage. I tried out a barbarian with Novice's Suffering, Sandals of the Forgotten Friar and so on - and while the damage is pretty good and he hits very fast, there is no carnage. This has to be a bug.

[mosspit]

Imo, I wouldn't say that the effects of Spelltongue are completely tested out. If my memory serves me correctly, in the earlier parts of post-2.00 didn't Spelltongue stack multiple instances of stolen atk spd? Ofc, that has since been addressed but who knows what about other aspects?

 

In any case, OPness and fun combinations are not necessarily mutually inclusive. Synergies between items, skills and talents creates some sort of depth in gameplay which can be very fun.

[Boeroer]

I was wondering if Novice's Suffering suffers (ha!) from other problems as well. Turns out that all the special attacks of rogues don't work with it. I have a base damage of 23-27 crush with my unarmed rogue at lvl 14 (sandals included). But when I read the tooltips of Crippling Strike (and the others), it says Full Attack(7-10 crush+7-10 crush). When I do deathblows with my fists, the damage is way lower than with hatchets (which have less base damage). Seems that NS is totally bugged. Nobody ever noticed because nobody ever bothered to use it.

But in theory this counterpart to Fulmineo (monk with fancy hat/rapier/dagger vs. rogue in robes with fists) would be quite good. The damage is that of sabres (in theory, if NS would work), he would hit faster and you didn't have to use any enchantments to make the fists viable. And with a spear and hatchet in the second slot you would cover all three damage types.

 

Can anyone confirm? 

[AndreaColombo]

Will run a few tests as time allows and open a thread in the tech forums thereafter.

[L4wlight]

Found some pretty overpowered ****. Completely and utterly removes all fun from the game, so be warned. I hope they fix it somehow. Used it only once for testing purposes and will never use this trick again. For maximum destruction use a Dwarf  (doesn't matter, but we want to hit slow and hard) Barbarian (doesn't matter, but Carnage is just too good) for this (attributes without race/ background:  18 9 3 18 18 9):

 

- equip 2 slow two-handers (doesn't matter; whatever you like the most)

- spec into Quick Switch

- equip Coil of Resourcefulness

- engage combat and hit with your first weapon

- pause immediately afterwards before the recovery bar shows up!

- switch to your second weapon

- hit and pause immediately afterwards

- rise and reapeat

 

Net gain: You attack with no recovery time (fully armored) and become the destroyer of worlds. You basically just hit, pause, switch, hit, pause switch... (zZzZzZzZ)

Please tell me this has something to do with me using the IEMod and this is not possible in the unmodded game. It works with firearms too, but its much harder to maintain. If you are to slow, you have to reload them and are screwed... It works without Coil of Resourcefulness too.You then have a 0,5 second delay between your attacks (not a big deal), so it has nothing to do with this item (this belt makes it only slightly more op).

 

EDIT: In the first place I wanted to test how good Coil of Resourcefulness and Quick Switch synergize together. I used pause to make use of the nullified recovery time. Was pretty shocked that you can rotate beween you weapons endlessly.

 

EDIT 2: Or imagine a ranger using this exploit together with Sabra Marie and Stormcaller + Twinned Arrows. My, my...

Edited November 25, 2015 by L4wlight

[Raven Darkholme]

Usewd to be buggerd, meant to be fixed:https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81692-20-coil-of-resourcefulness-is-exploitable/

Will test it later if I find the time.

[L4wlight]

No it has nothing to do with Coil of Resourcefulness. Even if you exploit like this with just Quick Switch (.5 weapon switch time remains) this is completely overpowered. Coil of Resourcefulness is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

I mean, you could exploited the heck out of games like BG2 too, if you like the cheese, but this here is a whole new dimension.

 

EDIT: Hahaha this is not even something new. Just found this old thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76665-quick-switch-talent-ranged-weapon-no-recovery-time/

 

EDIT 2: I have to agree with Luckman:

Skipping reload is different than skipping recovery time. Skipping reload is a valid tactic. Skipping recovery time is probably a bug.

Edited November 25, 2015 by L4wlight