Misused enchantment. WOE IS ME!

[omgFIREBALLS]

I'm attempting Triple Crown, and I'm having far more success with it than ever before. However, inattention has caused me some irreparable damage.

 

My party is fighter tank (watcher), paladin off-tank, fighty fighter, tallbarian, chanter and priest. Having slain the sky dragon, I decided I'd enchant my Tall Grass right away. Only, I accidentally used those eyeballs on my chanter's Llawran's Stick instead.

 

I am unsure how to make the best of this situation. I think at the end of the day, the rational choice is to suck it up. TG still has reach and prone-spam. I'll have the option to give my barbarian the Tidefall later when my fighter gets the hammer (much as I am asking for minmaxer input, I'm not giving my barbarian a dagger).

 

Then there's the staff. My chanter does not bring the pain. Even should I commit to pushing her damage, I don't expect she'll get near the fighter. Committing would mean durganizing the staff, and this party does not want for uses for that steel (I've already used it on TG too). I looked at the attack speed invocation, but eh, I don't know that more attack speed is what she needs, or that she can even utilize it all. The staff has +20% already, durganizing would mean another 15%, and then 40% from the invocation, on someone wearing light armor... I admit attack speed calculations are nothing but confusing to me, would any of this go to waste? Does the best way of improving my chanter's damage with reach/range not involve this staff at all, superb or not?

 

And can I use the Helwax Mold on Concelhaut's eyeball? Yes, seriously

[Dr <3]

Helwax mold: yes you can double concelhaut skyll, but plase just note that the wacher is the only one with pet slot, so is a waste. You can find another dragon eye in the concelhaut tower, so nothing is too much "irreparable".llengrath Stick is a great weapon anyway, but tallgrass remains better, so i would not durganized it.

 

Barbarian with tidefall and heart of fury do wonders, is very good also hours of st rumbald. Or you can go dual wield and permastun everyone with Godansthunyr...

[omgFIREBALLS]

You can find another dragon eye in the concelhaut tower, so nothing is too much "irreparable"

That's the one I wanted to dupe with the mold - not the skull - but can you really duplicate reagents?

 

Barbarian with tidefall and heart of fury do wonders, is very good also hours of st rumbald. Or you can go dual wield and permastun everyone with Godansthunyr...

I'm just wary of sending more people into melee range, though that dual hammer idea does sound interesting. Thanks.

[Jojobobo]

You'll eventually kill the Kraken, giving you the legendary enchantment. I guess just wait it out and hope for the best - I'm in a similar boat as I got a little greedy with my enchantments going solo PotD enchanting my secondary weapon to superb and leaving my main weapon at exceptional until I reach the Kraken for legendary. While this sounded like a great plan in theory - in practice I'm now hurting quite a lot from the lack of accuracy on my main weapon, so in terms of making things easier on myself superb to legendary would have been better.

 

For the Chanter, honestly the Dragon Thrashed and Seven Nights are surely the main ways you're getting damage output with them anyway - unless you're going for the damage shield chant? I'd give your chanter something like Persistence and keep them off your front line, the wounding lash gradually will stack up to decent damage because of it being raw even though you've not built the Chanter for damage specifically. I wouldn't commit overly to a poor(ish) weapon that you made a mistake on (the staff).

[Boeroer]

It's cool. Your chanter will not even reach 0 recovery with his 40% invocation and durgan steel: 1.4*1.2*1.15 = 1.93. Minus armor penalty of maybe 0.2. Even if you add Gauntlets of Swift Action you could then use Vulnerable Attack without slowdown - nice weapon dps from the back row I'd say.

 

Or give it to the fighty fighter. Knockdown & Clear Out plus quarterstaff fit nicely. I like Clear Out (it's one of the few things on a fighter I like).

 

If your barb is going to get HoF please consider dual wielding (anything) - even if you just switch to that special weapon setup for HoF only and then switch back to your usual weapon(s). It will end most trash encounters at once - you only have to reach as many foes as possible. It also works perfectly well with a weapon & special bash shield like Badragdr's Barricade or Dragon's Maw (playing a barb tank with that setup atm - 0 knockouts so far at lvl 11 by the way). Godhansthunyr + Dragon's Maw also looks very neat.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Boeroer

[Dr <3]

Yeah, after all barbarian have tons of weapons choice that all works Pretty well... Dual wielding, sword&shield, 2h swords... Now i'm doing 3 solo run in parallel: a monksterlash monk, a boar shapeshift druid and a barbarian maxed out for tidefall. The last also without dual wielding wreack everything with hof in potd.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Thanks for all the replies. I've been experimenting with Gudansthunyr + TUB* on the barbarian, and while the hammer sure is delivering, I'm just not seeing any Firebug procs. I used to cast that spell now and then when I played caster parties, so I know what the visual and the audio are. I cleared out more than half of the Torn Bannermen and everything in Concelhaut's dungeon and I never saw it and never heard it. At times, I would check the combat log after throwing a big HoF but I'd only see slash and crush. Halp.

 

Edit to rule out one obvious question: Yes, TUB is fully upgraded.

 

* [Perception 13] But you said you wouldn't use a dagger on a barbarian. [omgFIREBALLS: Extraordinary Negative]

Edited September 26, 2016 by omgFIREBALLS

[Boeroer]

TUB's spell chance is broken somehow. If it triggers it only does 1/encounter. And it doesn't work with HoF at all.

 

On-crit weapons also don't seem to work correctly. I only see 1 proc when I do HoF with them.

 

However, Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw work really well with it. You'll deliver tons of Thrusts of Tattered Veil or Taste of the Hunt with them when doing HoF. Way more than you should.

 

For optimal HoF you want dual wielding. Vulnerable Attack, lots of DMG mods like one stands alone and Frenzy on and weapons that hit as hard as possible - so dual sabres are an obvious choice. With that and a bit of luck you can nearly one-shot the hardest bounties.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Boeroer

[omgFIREBALLS]

Ah, I saw the reasoning for TUB/Carnage OP-ness and it all made sense to me, it was really only the barbarian+dagger combo that annoyed me about it. Guess they broke it before I got around to trying it.

 

While you're sharing your insights about squeezing max damage out of a HoF, perhaps you could offer some advice on positioning? I find it hard to hit more than say 4 mobs with a HoF... usually the mobs who decide to converge on my tank.

[Dr <3]

Just Jump with dragon Jump in the middle of them as starting move. You will find surrounded. If you survive just scrivere hof and wach the gibs flying around... Or go solo and solve all your party management problem

[omgFIREBALLS]

Much as I feel I have outpowered the fear of Triple Crown by now, taking most victories rightly for granted, I'm not eager to start basing my battle plans on "jump into the fray and hope you survive"

[Boeroer]

Well, Cape of the Cheat (=Escape) or Dragon Leap are indeed the best ways to reach as many foes as possible. If you can hit 5 or more foes the fight is normally over before it begins (with dual sabres that is). I always send the barb first when he has HoF (after his ACC got buffed a bit).

 

With a wizard Pull of Eora is really nice to amass a lot of foes, then use petrify or paralyze before jumping in with the barb and trigger HoF.

 

I have little concern about jumping into the fray to be honest. The barb only needs enough concentration so that he's not interrupted to death. If HoF is not enough to kill most foes then he has Vengeful Defeat and Second Chance. That "HoF light" will finish off most of the remaining mobs. Then, with a chanter/priest/paladin or a scroll, you can rise again if necessary.

 

Another good way (without jumping or escaping into the fray) is to use a reach weapon from the side - it only allows for one "round" of HoF, but you can place the hit way better than with a short range weapon - normally reaching more foes this way. Tall Grass comes to mind. It's predatory enchantment is not too bad for HoF. Or hey - a superb Llawran's Stick.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Boeroer

[omgFIREBALLS]

It beats me though that big HoF/Carnage nukes become more of a convenience than a necessity past say level 13 (which ironically enough is when you get HoF?), because similar results can be achieved with Charge (for burst) and Sacred Immolation (for sustained), from classes that I find a fair bit more durable than a barbarian. Fighty fighters are walking death sentences.

[Dr <3]

Look, if you think that the reasault is comparable to a warrior with charge or sacred immolation you have done something really wrong... The difference is that with charge you do a little dmg to everyone, instead after a proper hof there is no more "everyone"

[Boeroer]

Right. And a barb with maxed CON, thick armor and enough self healing is very, very durable at higher levels. I'm speaking about ~500 endurance and ~3000 health. Takes forever to hack them down. At least long enough to trigger HoF after careful positioning.

 

The key to a great HoF experience is very high INT though. Every enemy who you can catch with it improves the performance of HoF exponentially. So - forum resting bonus, Gwyn's Band of Union and a priest with Crowns for the Faithful are your dearest friends.

 

I used a 2 DEX / 3 RES dwarf for a barb solo run on PotD and it worked well - especially against mobs and bounties. After you get HoF and Cape of the Cheat or Dragon Leap the game's nearly too easy. By the way: Blood Thirst + damaging scrolls like Maelstrom can mean zero recovery casting once the first enemies died...

Edited September 27, 2016 by Boeroer

[K Galen B]

Look, if you think that the reasault is comparable to a warrior with charge or sacred immolation you have done something really wrong... The difference is that with charge you do a little dmg to everyone, instead after a proper hof there is no more "everyone"

 

This. If HoF is comparable to Charge or Sacred Immolation you're either not hitting enough targets or damage done with Carnage is messed up - try increasing your accuracy and/or damage done after DR is accounted for.