Welcome back to the challenge gasconron.  Added to the leaderboard.  Are your toons twinked or are you going self found?  I assume since you're farming it's self found, but let me know if it's not.  And also you're playing the expansion?

Not sure you will find too much cooldown reduction for melee toons in the game.  Neither mastery has it. 

Once you get Shield Charge and its synergy maxed you'll hit several foes when you charge into them.  But yes, there's not a lot of AoE with this class. 

I've never bothered with Batter, except to have it before I reach Shield Charge.  I prefer to have Shield Smash so it just goes off when it feels like it.  The manual targeting is a pain unless your skills are on the LMB and RMB - which is why I limit myself to just those two if I can.  The good thing is that, unlike GD, there is no hesitation before you swop from one weapon slot to the other.  So I usually have an LMB skill on both and then a couple of different RMB ones, switching as I need them.

Conqueror was my first toon both times I started the game.  The first was when I was learning, the second when I got a new PC.  Both times I used Cassidy's guide as an outline.  Not saying I didn't die because I did - about 60+ times both times - but I did get to the end of the game and of course being a new toon I didn't have any optimal gear.  I'll dig the guide out and try and condense it - it's an original from 2006, but it may help.

Um, I'll have to try that when I'm in that area next time.  You never know, something interesting may spawn down there.   

Yes, there is that and I think in the original Naked Challenge some people were pretty close to that clothes-wise.  Not when I revived the challenge though, not because it wasn't allowed, just nobody really went that naked. 

I noticed that the colour bottles in AE/R also change your toon's basic clothing, depending on which region you buy it from.  Greece is the same, Egypt is a two piece and Orient is a two piece with tattos/markings all over the rest of the body iirc. 

Frankly I can't really see the point of your toon being naked underneath all the armour.  You don't see it so just leave the basic costume as it.

Okay, got a bit further along with Tempest.  He's now into Act 2 and resting down in the Rhakotis Library.  Minotaur and Mega were a bit of a battle for him, but not really any problem.  Flurry of Knives is now maxed so working my way up the Rune mastery to get some more of those skills.

Both! I actually have the original boxes from both TQ and the Immortal Throne Xpac, even before the Gold edition. Although I only play AE these days.

Me too.  I bought the Gold Edition originally, but actually bought a copy of TQ and IT separately as backups when I thought the original disc was giving up on me.  Unfortuntely I tried having both disc and digital versions running side by side, but GOG wouldn't play ball so I run the AE/R.  Not getting rid of the disc copies though, nope, not happening. 

Also looking forward to adding the disc copy of GD to my collection when they finally send it out to the Kickstarter participants.  One of the reasons I upgraded my original GD purchase was for that.

Or once the image is in Imgur click on it and then copy the Message Boards and Forums link on the righthand side and paste it here.   

Great news gasconron.  I'm running a Battlemage too so will be interesting to see how they both get on.  He's only up to L19 and at the Upper War Camp at present so not really that far along yet.

Update for Hyone my no potions Haruspex - she's up to L35 and has reached Zhidan. So far no problems, kited Barmanu x3 as usual and they went down more quickly than I expected.    Kill count: 32,720.






Had a funny glitch though.  I was running through the various vendors trying to buy the colour bottles needed for one of the side quests in the expansion and saw that the Monstrous Brigands quest giver had a yellow icon over his head.  Talked to him and got the quest - even though it was done ages ago since it's the first side quest you get at Helos.  And it wasn't in my quest log either.  Anyway ran it again and completed it so now up to date.  Can only think it's something in Xmax that isn't quite compatible with the expansion at the moment. Weird though.