Let's talk stronghold items!

[Kaylon]

There's an Eye Patch I got that gives +0.1 Flanking damage and an Immunity to Blindness. I was wondering if they stops the self inflicted blindness of the new ranger Modal. Would be nice with that new blunderbuss that gives everyone Blind with out doing it to Sagani herself.

 

On that note, does anyone have the specifics of that modal? I haven't gotten high enough to test it, and was wondering if it could out-do the already impressive Stormcaller+Twin Arrows spam that made her such a powerhouse. Is the Cone a decent size? Hidden knocks to accuracy? Does it stack with any of the other Ranger Modals?

The patch gives Immunity to blind and -2acc and indeed it's a must have if you want to use Powder Burn. The cone is dependant on the firearm type. Blunderbusses have a short and large cover, pistols medium and arquebuses cover a long and narrow area. Unfortunately, due to the very slow attack speed of firearms it's not enough to add more dps or utility over a bow.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

But does the blinding effect of that special silver blunderbuss work in an AoE with Powder Burn? That would make it really good. 

[Kaylon]

But does the blinding effect of that special silver blunderbuss work in an AoE with Powder Burn? That would make it really good. 

 

 

Don't know about the blind, but Divine Mark only on a single target

Edited February 26, 2016 by Kaylon

[MaxQuest]

On that note, does anyone have the specifics of that modal? I haven't gotten high enough to test it, and was wondering if it could out-do the already impressive Stormcaller+Twin Arrows spam that made her such a powerhouse. Is the Cone a decent size? Hidden knocks to accuracy? Does it stack with any of the other Ranger Modals?

It works only with firearms. 

It doesn't s stack with: Swift Aim, Vicious Aim and Twin Arrows.

With it's on, you basically hit a single target with pierce damage and then unleash burning damage in a cone. Friendly fires. With proper positioning theoretically can vastly outperform Twin Arrows. Problem is: your ranger is not the one to stand in front line.  

 

Could be funny with ranger standing in midline, just behind two pale-elf tanks with huge reflex.

[TheMetaphysician]

I got:

 

Swaddling Sheet (cloak): Recall Agony 1/rest, Overwhelming Wave when critically hit 1/encounter. The wave is Foe AoE only (I don't remember if regular overwhelming wave is foe AoE).

 

For me, this was in the same group of adventures as Nidhen's Finger (which is a cloak, by the way; very confusing), posted earlier in this thread. Security and Prestige around 30.

 

It is really cool if you put it on the same character you build around Shod-in-Faith, like AndreaColombo's Lady of Pain build or a low-deflection monk type, which is my current character. Nature's Embrace is another good item for that (casts Woodskin in an AOE when critically hit). Put all three items on, and he gets a lot better when he is critically hit, which is basically every fight. Could add the Binding Rope and the soulbound breastplate that triggers a lot of stuff when hit (or just ol' Sanguine Plate that triggers Frenzy when critically hit). Maybe also the gloves that trigger holy meditation when critically hit. An astonishing number of effects will happen when you are hit! Many of them go well together, too. Who needs action speed when your enemies are triggering your actions for you?

[Teioh_White]

Ah, thanks for that info on Powder Shot, I misunderstood it quite a bit then. Thought it made the gun shot itself an AoE, but instead does a regular shot, plus an additional fire AoE. There goes my dreams of easy Blinds for the team. And with no Swift Shots, guns are really bad dps. I'm not sure about the strength of the Fire AoE, maybe it's still worth it, but be hard to beat the easy 4 arrows a turn that stun from a bow.

 

I'll give it a shot whenever I get around to another 6x ranger play through(still the most fun I've had of my dozen plus play throughs). I normally uses guns until Twin Arrows with that anyways, so this'll just let me not feel like I wasted money souping all those guns. Still a distinct lack of Superb guns in the game, but at least the Wax lets us make a 2nd one. Maybe with an entire team firing off 6, can make some fun stuff happen.

[Boeroer]

 

But does the blinding effect of that special silver blunderbuss work in an AoE with Powder Burn? That would make it really good. 

 

 

Don't know about the blind, but Divine Mark only on a single target

 

I did some tests with that Silver Flash blunderbuss:

 

- Blind only applies to the initial target.

- Stunning Shots also - but also works on the target behind the initial one that gets hit by driving flight (can't confirm if blind works the same way). 

- Driving Flight seems to work with Powder Burns: When I chose a target in the back row of my cone, several targets behind the cone (=out of reach) got hit, too. But maybe that's just an effects of the blunderbuss and it's multiple projectiles who choose different targets after the initial hit.

 

It was very good on an Island Aumaua with Arms Bearer and Quick Switch, wearing a fat armor and standing in the front line. I also gave him weapon and shield style. Shot three times with Powder Burns (and the eye patch thingy) and then switched to tank mode. Not too bad.

 

Does anybody know if Scion of Flames works with this?

Edited February 27, 2016 by Boeroer

[Braven]

The first item I got from the stronghold (minor quest) is a belt that passively gives +25 concentration. Many need-low-deflection builds that rely on items that trigger when receiving a crit (shod-in-faith, Sanguine,etc) only need resolve to prevent interruptions. With this belt, you can transfer those 10 or so resolve to a different stat. Given the shortage of good early game belts, I thought it was a pretty good deal.

[TheMetaphysician]

Can anyone verify whether Mourning Gloves actually work? When my monk kills someone, it doesn't show on his stat sheet that he has the 10% speed increase. I assume it would be suppressed by Swift Strikes, but it doesn't even show up and say suppressed (like effects usually do). And can anyone tell whether they actually heal the character when you kill something?

[Kaylon]

Can anyone verify whether Mourning Gloves actually work? When my monk kills someone, it doesn't show on his stat sheet that he has the 10% speed increase. I assume it would be suppressed by Swift Strikes, but it doesn't even show up and say suppressed (like effects usually do). And can anyone tell whether they actually heal the character when you kill something?

The speed works. With 2x durgan enchanted Rimecutters (and no armor recovery penalty) you have a very short recovery; with the buff the recovery disappears completely...

Edited March 1, 2016 by Kaylon

[Braven]

Do I understand correctly that the speed enchants and Durgan of dual weapons stack? In other words, dual Durgan speed weapons and two weapon fighting alone = 90% and all you need is 10% more (not considering penalties) to reach 0 recovery?

 

40 attack speed enchants

30 Durgan

20 dual weapon style

10 gloves (or something else)

= 100

[AndreaColombo]

Dual speed + Durgan is 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.15 * 1.15 = 90%

 

Two Weapon Fighting stacks additively, so 110%

[Braven]

Dual speed + Durgan is 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.15 * 1.15 = 90%

 

Two Weapon Fighting stacks additively, so 110%

 

Seems strange that it would be multiplicative instead of additive, but I will still take advantage of it.  Do additive bonuses and negatives always apply after the multiplication?  Are all other bonuses always additive?  Seems like it is not too hard to get passive (or almost passive) max speed without per rest abilities or consumables.

 

Proposed Combination for Fighter:  two speed weapons with Durgan (90%) + two weapon fighting (20%) + armored grace  (20%) + Sanguine frenzy or Outlander Frenzy (25-33%) + swift action gloves (15%) - vulnerable attack (20%) - plate penalty (50%) = 100-108%

 

Non-plate version (could be better for triggered immunity activation and does not rely on frenzy activation):  switch out Sanguine for the robe with the on-crit mirrored images enchantment.  The lower armor rating makes up for the lost frenzy.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Braven

[AndreaColombo]

Search this forum for a thread called "attack speed 2.0"; it's got all the info you're seeking

[TheMetaphysician]

 

Can anyone verify whether Mourning Gloves actually work? When my monk kills someone, it doesn't show on his stat sheet that he has the 10% speed increase. I assume it would be suppressed by Swift Strikes, but it doesn't even show up and say suppressed (like effects usually do). And can anyone tell whether they actually heal the character when you kill something?

The speed works. With 2x durgan enchanted Rimecutters (and no armor recovery penalty) you have a very short recovery; with the buff the recovery disappears completely...

 

Ok, I ran a few tests with the Mourning Gloves (just using the eye-test; I don't know how to count frames like many of you do), and made one significant discovery: the attack speed buff on kill from the gloves seems to stack with Swift Strikes! I assume that means that it also stacks with Frenzy, since the speed buff from Swift Strikes is suppressed by the Frenzy that is triggered on Sanguine Plate. That must mean that the engine thinks of the Mourning Gloves bonus as an equipment bonus rather than a spell bonus that is cast by equipment (like Sanguine Plate's Frenzy is).

 

If that is so, to my knowledge that makes the Mourning Gloves the only equipment-based (non-weapon, non-spell-based) attack speed buff other than Gauntlets of Swift Action. Is that right? Am I missing any other equipment? Given that the gloves also heal you on kill, that may make them the gloves of choice if you need to stack attack speed to get down to 0 recovery.

 

My (admittedly unscientific) test went as follows. I fought the group in front of the tower in Heritage Hill with my monk, who had 20 dex, regular leather armor (30% recovery penalty), dual-wielding regular spears, with two-weapon fighting. I fought once without Mourning Gloves, in which the monk had a significant recovery bar before activating Swift Strikes and a shorter but still existent recovery bar after activating Swift Strikes. I then loaded and fought the same fight, same gear, with Mourning Gloves. With Swift Strikes active, after the first kill (when Mourning Gloves triggers), he had no visible recovery bar at all. (I'm guessing that doesn't mean 0 recovery; it just means close enough to 0 recovery that the bar doesn't show up for the naked eye to see).

 

One more possible implication that I haven't tested: if the engine thinks of the Mourning Gloves bonus as an equipment-based bonus rather than a spell-based bonus, then the +5 to all defenses should stack with spells and abilities, but shouldn't stack with other defensive equipment (like rings of deflection and protection). I haven't tested that yet.

[TheMetaphysician]

Well, I just fought the fight again wearing both a ring of deflection and a ring of protection (+9 to deflection and the other defenses, respectively), and cast reinforcing exhortation on the monk. The Mourning Gloves +5 bonus to all defenses stacked with ALL of those bonuses (at least according to the tooltip in my character sheet).

 

So it looks like Mourning Gloves stacks with absolutely everything, and doesn't suppress or get suppressed by anything. Or am I missing another general category that it could fit into?

 

That makes that item really, really good, IMO.

[TheMetaphysician]

One other cool thing about the Mourning Gloves that I noticed, which in hindsight is actually stated in the description but surprised me nonetheless: at the end of fights I often had 120 seconds or more remaining on the duration of the effect. What that means is that when a kill is made the gloves don't simply refresh the duration of the effect (like Deep Wounds or Wounding work); they actually add a new full duration ON TOP of what is remaining from the old duration. So just a few kills early in the fight will make the effect last even for long fights. I imagine that will be useful in dragon fights; kill some adds, and the effect will be there even if it takes a long time to kill the dragon.

 

That actually seems to be stated in the item description. It says you get "+20 seconds on kill" of the various effects. That literally means "+20 seconds", not just "20 seconds".

[Heligor]

Ok now i need to test mouring gloves with a barbarian dual wielding we toki and spelltongue. And maybe executioner hood..i foresee something hilarious!

[divx]

The description for the Mourning Gloves says they give +15 endurance per kill, but in practice they damage the user for 15 endurance per kill. Does anyone know which its supposed to be?

[TheMetaphysician]

The description for the Mourning Gloves says they give +15 endurance per kill, but in practice they damage the user for 15 endurance per kill. Does anyone know which its supposed to be?

 

I was shocked to hear this, and thought "that can't be right!" I went and tested it, and I think you are right! I hadn't noticed it before, because I have sanguine plate on the monk with these gloves, so his health is often hidden from Frenzy, and he has a bunch of healing effects that counteract the damage (silver tide, shod-in-faith, veteran's recovery, ancient memory/beloved spirits on my chanter). I got rid of the healing effects I could and took off sangine plate, and it does appear that each kill hurts him a little bit. Sucks -- and makes that item suck.

 

Has to be a bug. I'll go write it up in the bug forum.

[TheMetaphysician]

On a hunch, I consoled in Executioner's Hood and tested it. It has the same bug. Supposed to give you 20 endurance per kill, hurts you on kill instead.

[AndreaColombo]

Might be the same bug that makes the new padded armor Eyestrike the wearer, or some soulbound weapons affect the wielder with their proc. With some luck, it is fixed in 3.02. Anyone with access to the beta patch care to test this?

[Crucis]

The same thing happens with the Redeemer with its Divine Mark ability.  Hits the wielder rather than the target.

 

Ya know, the fact that this is happening to so many items is making me think that the problem isn't with the items themselves, but with code that handles "x% chance to cast (whatever spell) on a hit or a crit".  That code doesn't seem to realize that it should be targeting the enemy target rather than the wielder.  Indeed, perhaps part of the problem is related to the fact that sometimes the spells being proc'd by these x% chance on hit or crit are friendly ones that are MEANT to hit the user of the item.

 

Thinking further on it.... I wonder of there are two separate function calls in the code for this.  One for friendly spell effects (that affect the user) and one for unfriendly spell effects (that affect the targeted enemy).  And maybe when some of these items were built, the wrong function call was used.

 

Hmmm....

[Kaylon]

Don't understand how it's possible to have so many bugs after a beta test and a patch...

[AndreaColombo]

I'm surprised too that QA wouldn't notice something as glaring as beneficial effects applying inversely, or weapon proc hitting the wielder. Then again, it's a small team testing a big game. Oh well.