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Messages - gasconron

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1
@Jacko

I took an extended break from the challenge the Ragnarok expansion puts on the challengers. When I was running my end-game built toons through Ragnarok, I didnt feel the difficulty spike much. But when you are starting from scratch as a character even twinked Ragnarok Normal and Epic is a different matter. I am actually finding early game a lot harder than end-game now, when you are not on end-game build. You really have to farm the expansions for their new power creep items. They are so overtuned, its almost a sin not to have them for this challenge.

2
Nice progress, @stormyboy.

Also saw your error on Defiler. I have also experience a similar error on some of my characters, specifically those that have stepped foot in Atlantis. I don't exactly know what triggers this error, but it seems like when it does you can no longer load the "infected" character on Defiler.

3
Quote
This is "NEW" of Lightning Dash!

this update actually made my day. my god awful ranting about Storm getting s#*% on actually meant something. Ill take some utility over no usable utility at all.

EDIT:
i was too hyped to notice its still a target skill rather than an activation one. i spoke too soon.

4
You don't need to have every skill good for every build. That's normal if Phalanx has no real use for melee builds, it's made for Defense summoners, it's on purpose that Meteor Rain is better for melee chars than casters (except for the cost, I agree), Lightning Dash isn't made for squishy casters, Lasting Legacy is made for summoners and doesn't have to offer a lot to other types of chars, etc. I find that perfectly normal that a skill may not be good for everyone as you don't have enough skill points to max every skill anyways.
This said, these skills need balance, and some of them have been placed on top of the trees but should belong to lower tiers.

For Perfect Block, it would need a larger CD if its duration is up to 2s, otherwise it would become too OP with -80% recharge.

I can forgive everything else, even Phalanx whose existence I am reluctant to accept. But Lightning Dash, is a step too far bordering inconsideracy. Typical (STR) Melee Hybrids with a storm 2ndary generally don't  need this kind of utility. With enough ADCtH and a max+4 squall on top of your head, you can out-heal damage taken provided your not in mage gear, - resists, or a DA below 800. Even if you agro'd a horde in xMax. The only practical use I see for this skill is when you get yourself in big trouble and you target a stray archer/mage to get yourself out of that trouble. Using this skill like Charge, to close out distance between you and your intended target is "all flair and no substance."

All the bonus stats you get temporarily suggest that this was intended to be a safety skill, why not make it universally usable? You read the complaints from the previous posts, people are irked the Storm was gifted with the worst 2 new skilsl when everyone was screaming for a CC skill that is actually usable. Thunderball is hard to use efficiently while Freezing Blast is counter-productive. I interpret that as an actual need of defensive utility skill, rather than a need for actual CC.

When compared to the other "caster-based" classes, you could argue that Storm is one of the masteries lacking in defensive utility options that are actually effective.
1. Dream - Trance of Convalence, Temporal Flux, Lucid Dream, Distort Reality, Distortion Wave, Sands of Sleep
2. Earth - Stone Form, VO + Fragmentation (Defense on Offense), Heat Shield (Dmg Resistance & Fire Absorption)
3. Nature - HotO, Briar Ward, Heals, Refresh, Plague (slow, dmg reduction), Earthbind
* these masteries have strong sustain and CC utility skills.

----
4. Storm - Thunderball, Lightning Strike, Freezing Blast, Storm Surge, Energy Shield, Squall -
a. TB and LS have too small of a radius to be effective
b. Freezing Blast gives frozen peeps massive dmg reduction, so there is literally no followup to your CC
c. E Shield only works with Cold and Lightning, incomparison to Heat Shield that has dmg resistance% that is a more common problem for casters than other sources of dmg, Storm gets the short end of the stick.
d. Storm Surge is great for Melee Hybrids who is ok with getting hit, but on casters wanting to get hit for a chance to proc my defensive skill is a really bad deal.
e. Squall - literally the only reason why Storm is not at the bottom of the ladder in terms of Defensive Utility. One of the best defensive utility skills in the game, but not nearly enough to scale well into late-game.

5. Spirit - Ravages Tree, Sprit Ward, Death Ward - mastery with the worst defensive utility... but the fact that ADCtH % + Ternion allows this class to face-tank anything and everything, one can ask; does it actually need it?

Lightning Dash could have been the skill that Storm actually needed but was never given, because they opted to discriminate and design it in favor of melee hybrids.

5
Problem with the new version of TQ Vault:

actual equipped items and storage/inventory are cut off. i tried re-downloading TQ vault to fix the problem without any success.
actual problem can be seen in the .jpg attachment.

6
Overall Impression on New Skills:

Given that they are the highest tiered skills in a mastery, they are expected to be awesome or game changing. However, most if not all, under perform to the expectations. A lot of them seem to diversify the current skill trees rather than act as an "ultimate"

Defense: Tested on Conqueror/Paladin/Juggernaut

1. Perfect Block - 100% absorption looks good on paper, the very short duration of the skill is questionable at best, which doesn't really offer any practical use. I'm not suggesting to increase duration to the levels of Stone Form as that would basically make any Defense-based melee unkillable (given the presumed sturdiness of the character), but at least to scale it to a level where in it can actually be used. One-Shot skills in this game (Barmanu Showers, Hades's BoD, Hydra Breath, Yaoguai Bleeds) last more than 1.1 sec. Imagine activating Perfect Block on a shower, absorbing it, only to die on the residual effect of the meteors bouncing on the ground, cuz 1.1 sec is up.  It doesn't scream "ultimate", more like "lol what-a-troll". Increasing max duration to 2.5 or even 2 seconds would make it more impactful.

2. Phalanx - seriously wth, this skill has no business being in the defense mastery. Not everything needs to synergize with a specific concept. If people want to play a summoner class, they can pick Defense 2ndary to increase their survivability. Just because that phalanx line has shields and armored soldiers doesn't mean it justifies it's existence in the mastery.  Even if you were to argue that casters that pick a Defense 2ndary can use this to kite and redistribute agro on to the Phalanx (assuming it does just that), what use does it have for melee? Absolutely Zero.

* 1 horrid concept and the other poorly executed. If Colossus was swapped to Mastery lvl 40 as the Ultimate Skill, I'll forgive it since it give 60% dmg absorp, some HP and a boost in % STR. It had what makes an ultimate skill (it was the "ultimate" pre-Atlantis), it had ooomphh, it had gameplay impact and it turned the tides of battle. These 2 new additions don't.

Warfare: Tested on Conqueror/Champion

1. Slam - just because it looks cool doesn't mean it's effective. While it looks like Dactyl's wave of pew-pew, doesn't mean it hits or works like it. Stun on it isn't as potent warhorn but the ~4 sec skill disrupt is pretty nifty. Had this been pre-Anniversary that 20 % life reduction would have been amazing and worth the 146 mana to activate it at max level. However, AE buffed life reduction resists on bosses and sub-bosses so much that I dropped "of Harrowing" on my ternion casters. This stat is absolutely useless in Legendary now, as an effect this skill doesn't deal nearly enough damage to justify its high mana cost (for melee) and it's place in the skill tree.

2. Lasting Legacy - Ancestral Horn is actually a good skill for summoners, when used in conjuction with Battle Standard + Triumph with Nature's SotP or Dream's Mastermind. Lasting Legacy actually earns it's spot as an ultimate skill (under the right circumstance) given how much it buffs the usability and effectiveness of Ancestral Horn. HOWEVER, what does it do for non-casters and non-summoners? Absolutely nothing. At best a melee-based toon will put 1 pt in ancestral horn as a tool for distraction, to avoid the initial agro of the boss or to buy time for himself in mob fights while he recovers. That extra seconds of living doesn't help anyone with a low investment on AC since duration increase means nothing if the summons are dead due to low HP.

Storm: Tested on Elementalist/Sage/Thane/Paladin

1. Lightning Dash - Solely for the use of a Hybrid Melee and a slap to the face of most Storm main users. Making an Ultimate skill for the use of the minority (melee hybrids) is a nonsensical decision. Why does this surprise despite the existence of Phalanx and Lasting Legacy? Late game with difficulty/spawn increase mods active, most casters don't scale well and need the utility and boost; Had this been made a designated or even random "blink"/phase/teleport skill that had a CtAP and CtDA % bonus decaying residual effect, that would have been a fitting ultimate skill.  But the fact that it needed a target for you to get to in MELEE range was an idiotic design made by someone who obviously didn't play this game and was oblivious to what casters needed to stay relevant end-game.

2. Arc Discharge - i didn't really notice it's relavance, which means it had very little to no impact on gameplay. For a lvl 40 mastery skill? come on...

Earth: Tested on Elementalist/Avenger/Battlemage/Juggernaut

1. Meteor Shower - decent damage to say the least, but the STR investment needed to scale up the skill dmg is a turnoff to casters, who are invested in INT due to most Earth skills scaling off INT. So when you use MS on a 100% INT caster, that ultimate skill doesn't hit like an Ultimate anymore. This skill was clearly designed for Hybrid melees that need more sources of dmg other than auto attacks, since their mixed stats produce little to no dmg in other skills in Earth tree. Irony is that most melee-hybrids also suffer from a naturally small energy pool which can't take much spamming/consecutive casting; and this skill is a mana hog. Unless I find myself facing a horde angrily rushing my squishy melee-hybrid, i wouldn't want to cast it in any other situation, even on boss fights. Imagine fighting a boss, and you needed to use stoneform, but couldn't cuz your manapot is on cooldown and Meteor Shower just  took your mana pool from 80% to 0. Call me a nitpicker, but I always play under Hardcore circumstances, stuff like this happen a lot more than one would like to admit. The damage/effectiveness of the skill does not justify the absurd mana cost of the skill which is already on relatively high cooldown. This skill has the potential to be an actual "Ultimate" skill, but it needs some tweaks to be deserving that status.

2. Fire Nova - On a caster, I actually like it. I have literally no complaints on this skill aside from the fact that it's not flashy enough. :D Full screen cast effect with a 360 degree FoV coverage. Decent damage scaling up until Legendary Act 4-5 (INT 1200+ caster) with relatively low CD (~4 secs) on capped CD reduction. When I first used this after being disappointed by other lvl 40 Mastery skill, i thought to myself: "this is what an ultimate skill should be like." It can be used practically by a caster, an auramancer or a melee hybrid.

7
New expansion is hyped, heard that masteries scale up to give way to the new skills. hopefully this is the boost i need to play some of my more underpowered characters under hardcore challenge conditions.

Is xmax compatible with the new expansion, Atlantis?

EDIT:
@MedeaFleecestealer you can delete my entry Yunah (Thane) from the challenge. I will withdraw her, scrap her and go back to the drawing board. Recent expansion and items seem to have completely killed the concept of INT-melees due to the fact that some items now have potent flat elemental bonuses and come with resist shred, as well as the introduction of a variety of STR armors with -% CD. There's literally no need to handicap yourself by going as a squishy melee just to do elemental dmg melee. It's possible now to do majority elemental dmg (without Rune Mastery) while going STR/DEX/HP.

This really saddens me looking at my collection of dual-affixed elemental Sabretooths... power creep at it's finest. Probably better this way, I reckon, it'll be easier to do HC challenge with a standard STR equip dual wielder, rather than a dual-wielder in mage armor.

8
Always with potion... and I am a chugger. Given that I play this game in Hardcore setting 100% I use whatever available resource there is for me

9
General Discussion / Re: HELP, can't beat Epic Typhon
« on: 17 May 2018, 15:12:32 »
Regarding Typhon's attacks, I allready stated that I'm not getting hit by his fire, lightning or poison attacks, and most certainly not the meteors. They're the easiest to dodge of all, and you can just spam at his side, while he is casting them. The problem is purely the life leech and non-elemental damage. He gains more than I can damage him, and after maybe 15 minutes of not dying, he just needs one lucky shot.

Finally, I am not playing a 'primary "tank-and-spank" toon'. Pets are a major part of this build, thus them being useless against Typhon is a problem. I really wonder how other Wolves & Nymph builds are dealing with this.

Like another person has stated, this is equivalent to "you lack damage" at higher difficulties especially when running an unoptimized setup boss fights will tend to be a battle of attrition, and the scenario you are describing will always happen. This is especially true if you are running a pet dependent build, in which case you build yourself to outlast bosses, while buffing your pets damage... this means high armor, high HP, high res, low cooldowns and Ritualist/Wraithlord prefix gear (minimum of 2: rings, max of 4: +amulet & staff). Nature Pets tendency to wipe on most boss fights is not something new nor is there any work around for it which is why cooldowns, +skills and pet stat gear are important.

Define and ask yourself "where do I want my main damage to come from"? Pets or myself? One will inevitably be sacrificed there is no middle ground. Even the most optimized Nature based pets were okay at best in VANILLA Immortal Throne unmodded gameplay and shitty in xmax or harder modded games. With the AE buffs bumping Boss stats and resists Nature based pet builds literally got shat on. You have to go all out on either Melee or pets, and just have the other as supplementary damage. From your setup there doesn't seem to be a clear definition on what your primary damage is; best if you adjust based on what people have told you here.

10
Love this guy, I've been watching his stream for build ideas. Wonder if he's here in the forums.

Was inspired by his Thor, Petforce and Vampyre Builds, he doesn't seem to like optimization much and is there mostly for the role-play, but his ideas are worth trying with the right amount of micro.  ;D

11
General Discussion / Re: HELP, can't beat Epic Typhon
« on: 16 May 2018, 17:23:02 »
you have a very high HP tool and have access to one of the best boss killing skills by the name of Colossus. With applied Plague for the -% damage resist debuff + spamming Pulverize this fight shouldn't even last 20 secs if your gear is up to par.

  • with balanced resists the fire, lightning & poison damage he does is negligible, yet your resist levels are abysmally laughable by late Epic standards
  • you can invest on life leech and mana leech resist as they would help greatly for this fight, while they do very little to minimize the damage you take, it affects the gains Typhon gets from you.
  • the only viable threat to you are the meteors
  • looking at your gear and being that you are already in Epic Act 3 > Practically Act 4, barely equipped with Legendaries or higher-end Epics if you are playing untwinked, just shows me how ill-prepared you are for this fight... instead of spending that week trying again and again in fruitless endeavor better put that time into farming better Equipment.
  • you are a primary defender with Heart of the Oak active, and you only net ~5k HP...

You need to respect the AE buffs. Playing as a primary "tank-and-spank" toon you need High HP, decent DA, decent resists; all of which are absent in your current setup. I run ~7k HP on Warfare/Defense based melee (my Conqueror has ~10k with Sapros on), ~5.5-6k on Rogue hit and run type melees and 4.5-5k on Mage Melee Hybrids. You scale purely off STR and HP and you have ~545 Str and 5k HP with HotO active. Your stats speak for themselves and there should be no wonder why this fight is hard for you. It's not a matter of tactics or what-not you're just not prepared for it enough.

12
and i just ran my illusionist there just recently.. it is indeed bleed.. it will stack because DoT from different monsters stack.. it's why DoT bosses like Fafnir and hydra are more difficult in xmax.. died once, looked at my bleed res and saw it was -75%.. thought about looking for bleed res items on my TQvault, but decided I'm too lazy to do that so i just continued.. died couple more times ;D  ..  the jotuns though were not much of a problem.. they were too busy attacking my 7 pets

this is actually very useful to know... i've always thought they didn't stack because in the mechanics discussion it was always taken from the player's perspective when dealing the DoT damage. so i guess it would make sense that applying DoT damage on the same target doesn't speed up your killing speed.
However poison/bleed attacks from 3x Cerberus, Yaoguai's, Hydra's will DELETE your HP bypassing even high levels of % and flat damage absorption, because they are damage from "3 different sources." Is this even fair? lol?
Going by the same logic they should make it so that poison/bleed damage from regular auto attacks stack with DoT damage from skill attacks such as Lethal Strike.

13
@botebote77 is there a resource/database that list monster/boss stats and resists updated for ragnarok? i'd like to make my own calculations on testing instead of just guess-timating all the time.

14
This thread made my day... Was wearing a huge smile at work while reading this. Was saying "I'ma Knifu your Waifu..." over and over again under my breath and giggled to my self.
My workmates must have thought I've gone crazy with the looks they were giving me.

15
Nooooooo ! Saiga finally died to the bloodsisters Sagira & Safyia in a cave near the waypoint Jade Palace.

Noooo!!!  :( :( :( Were you caught unaware or was it a high damage spike? Were you map clearing on Legendary on a caster? Don't do that dude...
A lot more things aside from bosses can kill you in Legendary, leave the map clears after the challenge. It's those retarded champion spawns that usually catches you by surprise that ends the challenge.

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