Anniversary Edition - Mastery Mods > Runemaster AE

Runic Elemental Shotgun

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Firebrand:
I'll start with some brief history.

I got Ragnarök a good while ago, and needless to say, I was quite excited about the new mastery, so I started a character to try it right away. Looking at its skills, I was thinking what I'd combine it with and what kind of playstyle I'd go for. Between Runeword: Feather and Transmutation, I decided that it was time to finally try an actual spellsword-type character; swinging a weapon and casting spells at the same time.

To go with the whole elemental damage theme, the secondary mastery was going to be Earth or Storm. If you remember me from the old forums (my username was a bit different, though), you'll know Earth probably qualifies as my favorite mastery, so I decided to go with it. Thus the Stonespeaker was born. (Besides, bias aside, Earth seems to provide more support for melee than Storm, overall.)

Eventually, time proved me wrong. I died embarrassingly often (well, part of the reason might be that I've returned to the game from a long break, and had to get used to things again). The Stonespeaker doesn't seem to be able to stand against most enemies in the game toe-to-toe. Casting is good, but if I rely on it only, it's basically a caster build that has a melee weapon equipped for a change. Runic Weapon doesn't work with a staff, and bows need way too much dexterity. On the other hand...

So I decided to go with thrown weapons. They seemed interesting, anyway; their range might be shorter than bows, but they fire faster, and can be used with a shield. So that looked useful. The limited range can be helped in a number of ways, so that was no problem, and their dexterity requirements are generally much more friendly than those of bows. So there we go!

You might wonder about the title of the thread. Sometime around normal Act V I decided to try one thing. Namely, I was curious about Reckless Offense. Does it allow me to dual-wield weapons on itself? Can I dual-wield thrown weapons? To investigate, I put a point into it, expecting to undo that move with a mystic pretty soon. But I didn't. The chief reason for that is Thunder Strike. Now Thunder Strike shoots five projectiles, as its description says. However, if you're dual-wielding thrown weapons, it will net you five projectiles for each weapon you're holding! That's a lot of daggers or axes at the same time. And Reckless Offense itself pays off as well, I found.

So it began. Admittedly I got really lucky with drops. I got a Fenrir's Bite randomly in Act V normal, and then a Munnin's Grasp after farming Surtr a little. Those I didn't even carry for long, as I had two Neith's Wills drop in Act I epic, which lasted way until Act II legendary, which is when, during my first farming run of Aktaios, a Bone Pile dropped... Chakram of the Sun.

Wow. That thing is everything I was looking for. Does base fire damage, increases fire damage, burn damage, attack speed, decreases recharge... Do I need to list it? Fortunately I was wearing a Lithe Coil of the Gryphon (naturally enchanted with epic Primal Magma) I fortuitiously found sometime in epic that let me use a lot of thrown weapons before my dexterity caught up. It bumped my DPS up by a little more than 2000 on its own.

More runs than I dare to admit and around 7-8 Gorgon's Edges later (don't take it the wrong way, that looks like a frightening weapon, just not for my Stonespeaker - still, having them drop from pretty much everywhere is a little excessive), I found a second Chakram of the Sun (and soon after a third). Equipping two of them also gave a total damage bonus of +40%; I assume that's the set bonus I get for some reason for wielding two of those instead of one Chakram of the Moon. Not that I mind; I don't have a Chakram of the Moon yet, and other than the +10% intelligence instead of strength I see no benefit to it over Chakram of the Sun anyway. Plus cold damage and +2 skills to Dream don't synergize well, I believe, at least not nearly as well as fire damage bonuses and +2 skills to Earth.

I find that even before finding those, the class was capable of incredible damage output (and after some farming, my resistances are mostly in the positive even on legendary, which is new). Running up close to bosses and using Thunder Strike on them (after warming up with a few Runic Weapon shots) regularly took off about half their health just like that. And that was before I discovered that Seal of Fate reduces resistances!

The character's far from optimized, sadly I put a bit too many points into strength when I underestimated Runeword: Feather, and sadly there's no way to undo that. I needed about 385 dexterity eventually (for Chakram of the Sun), so quite a few had to go into that; intelligence therefore isn't sky-high, it could be a little better, but overall still pretty good (I think I've just broken 700).

So now that I'm done this part, here are some gameplay tricks for those who would be interested. Keep in mind that while throwing weapons have insane DPS, I still wanted to be a caster to some degree (and I found the two complement each other), so it's not a pure throwing build.

First of all, items: two Chakrams of the Sun, Crown of Dockma'Ar, Falcon Cape, Lithe Coil of the Gryphon with epic Primal Magma (planned to switch it to another something of the Gryphon with a better prefix, as I don't need the Lithe anymore), Völva's Foot Leather, Seal of Hephaestus, Star Stone (good casting speed bonus), Eye of Flame (planned to switch it out for Polaris), Dragontongue (planned to switch it out for Eye of Ra).

Not much to say of skills. The Runic Weapon line is maxed, with the exception of Energy Drain which is almost. Earth Enchantment line is maxed with the exception of Stone Skin. Volcanic Orb line and Eruption are maxed, so are Runeword: Explode, Reckless Offense, and Thunder Strike. Unleash and Runeword: Burn are close, but not complete yet. I put one-one point into the rest of the skills, and improved some of them (Seal of Fate, Rune of Life, Energy Armor). Flame Surge doesn't have any points in it; my throwing weapons are a better substitute.

Thrown weapons and casting go wonderfully together. Your thrown weapons are amazing mid-range, but you're going to have a problem with enemies that strike you from a greater distance; archers and casters, most notably. I don't know if it was the case before Ragnarök or Anniversary Edition, but Volcanic Orb has effectively unlimited range; at least I can cast it at the edges and corners of the screen when fully zoomed out. It is my primary weapon for fighting archers, but it is also useful for drawing the attention of enemies to yourself, getting them to charge at you so you can greet them with a friendly Thunder Strike.

Eruption, as always, is the crowd-killer. I mainly used it against archers, and earlier on I liked to combine it with Guardian Stones for extra fun (it is actually quite powerful; I neglected to put points into it, however, so by late epic and legendary it fell behind). But whenever you run into a huge horde of enemies, it's going to serve you well.

Seal of Fate is too cumbersome to use regularly, but its resistance reduction combined with the incredible thrown DPS makes short work of almost all bosses. This also makes the Stonespeaker a good candidate for farming runs. Legendary Aktaios goes down in a matter of seconds, literally.

In my melee days I used to use Runic Mines extensively (Volcanic Orb to aggro them, surround yourself with Runic Mines, cut down all who survive) but I'm barely using it anymore. In fact, I'm considering removing the skill points from it. Melee-based enemies rarely live long enough to be affected by it, and they're not really dangerous most of the time, anyway.

And of course there's Thunder Strike. It is incredibly good against hordes, and just as incredibly good against bosses, who are likely to get hit by most if not all projectiles, provided you're close enough. Combine it with Seal of Fate (and don't forget to warm up with a few Runic Weapon shots) and you'll one-shot virtually anything that's not a final boss.

There's Energy Armor. I didn't think much of it initially. I thought the damage absorption was too low, until I got enough bonus to all skills in Rune mastery and a Shrine of Mastery. Its damage prevention gets insane on high levels; I managed to get some in the range of 2000-3000, though that usually needs equipment to reduce energy cost. I found it useful; it's how I stopped dying in Acts IV and V on epic. It prevents piercing and bleeding damage along with physical, so it's really useful in archer-infested places. I find it too tiresome to keep up constantly, but it's worth it when you're getting pelted. I died a few times farming legendary Aktaios because I didn't put Energy Armor up, deeming it unnecessary; if I'm unlucky enough to have Sensunet Mal spawn somewhere, he literally one-shots me with a single arrow (damage over time not included, I still don't know if he has any). That caused a few deaths.

So there you have it. I find that the Shotgun Stonespeaker is an incredibly versatile character. No trouble with crowds, no trouble with bosses, with actually decent protection. Did I mention the absurd amount of attack damage converted to health? Energy Drain gives 4%, the two Chakrams give 5% each. I can aggro several rooms' worth of Shadowstalkers, kill them all with the Chakrams in melee, and they don't put a dent in my health; I heal all damage back. It's probably not as impressive as I think, but my Runic Weapon attack one-shots practically every ordinary enemy I come across. I don't think I've ever had a character capable of regularly one-shotting mobs in Legendary. Sacred Rage is useful, not only for the fear, but because Frightening Power's resistance reduction allows you to leech some health off even undead. (Seal of Fate allows you to leech bosses similarly, which is incredible.)

So what are the weaknesses? While the Stonespeaker likes crowds and likes huge enemies, what it likes less are groups of small enemies that are small targets and are scattered over a large area. Like the Maenads, ugh. I'm glad I'm beyond Greece now just because they were horrible.
Poison is the Stonespeaker's Achilles' heel. As you can figure out looking at my equipment, I have nothing that gives poison resistance, and no protection against it. (No pierce resistance, either, but Energy Armor takes care of that if needed.) I still hope to find something that remedies it, but generally I could manage by playing carefully where I knew poison was a danger. And dying a few times. Oh well, I didn't have the pretense of not trying to die once, either.

That's it for now! Thanks for the immense patience to read it through if you did, and I hope you find it interesting. A somewhat resilient, versatile powerhouse: the Stonespeaker!

Medea Fleecestealer:
You can dual wield thrown weapons?!  WOW!  May look at that for my Trickster.  He's currently using Throwing Knife and thrown weapons, but carrying "of Trickery" shields for additional attack speed.  With the reduction in Throwing Knife's recharge and dual wield thrown weapons he should really be able spam them.   ;D  Thanks for the post. 

Firebrand:
There's one downside, sadly: when you're dual-wielding thrown weapons, attack speed seems capped at 141% for some reason. So if you can achieve really high attack speed otherwise, it might not be worth it. I couldn't really (without my +25% attack speed bonus on my Dragontongue, I'm only at 139%), and I find that Reckless Offense (which, when maxed with at least +4 to rune mastery, has a 27% chance to trigger, which is close to once in every three attack; it also includes throwing I think two projectiles in rapid succession), the bonuses from two Chakrams of the Sun, and especially the doubled lethality of Thunder Strike more than compensate me for the loss of potential attack speed.

One more thing: while I noted Volcanic Orb before, its slow speed can work to your advantage. You can shoot it, then run up to them and time your Thunder Strike to hit them the same time the orb does. You can do something similar with Eruption, taking advantage of Volcanic Orb's stun to keep them in the field of lava longer. I don't know how useful this is, objectively, but it sure is loads of fun!

botebote77:
nice post.. just few questions.. what's your stat distribution? because a fairly good amount of dex would be needed for thrown weapons right? obviously i would also pump int if it was me.. i would also pump str because earth gives lots of %physical damage.. and str also boosts VO and eruption.. and since elemental conversion happens before str and any %damages, transmutation could be out.. not that a hybrid isn't doable, symbol of the polymath is a go to artifact for me for hybrids.. also do you have any points in core dweller? because aside from CD, i don't see any source of CCs besides runic mines and that's not good enough for me (I'm a sucker for CCs)

Firebrand:
Thanks for the questions and the interest!

Stat distribution, according to profile page (before any bonus from Runic Weapon):
Strength: 146+115 (261)
Intelligence: 418+277 (695)
Dexterity: 258+129 (387)

I have a feeling these say more to you than they do to me.

As you can see, I made the mistake of putting too much in strength. Keep in mind, my idea used to be that I'd use melee weapons, which usually need more strength and less dexterity; early in the game, when I didn't have Runeword: Feather maxed out, I often needed to put a few points into strength to be able to equip some of them I found. Only later did I transition to thrown weapons, so I ended up adding points both to strength and dexterity, while in fact the latter only would've sufficed. With Runeword: Feather maxed and no other requirement reduction, my weapons need less than 120 strength to equip. I wish I could redistribute the points put into strength into something else, but sadly there's still no option for that in the game. (I'd welcome any information on opportunities I might have missed. If there's a third-party program to do it, I might use that after I'm finished with the playthrough to see how deadly the Stonespeaker would've been if properly developed.)

You need a dexterity of 385 to equip Chakram of the Sun, and that's what you should be aiming for. It's much, but it isn't prohibitive, and it's nowhere near the 400-500 you need for high-end bows.

In case you're interested in how I distributed my points as I levelled, due to the concept shift I can't really help with that right now. I imagine that if I'd been planning this out since the beginning, I'd have invested in dexterity to keep up with the requirements of thrown weapons and put the rest into intelligence.

I haven't tested it, but I believe that while strength boosts the physical component of your Volcanic Orb and Eruption, with the intelligence boosting the fire and burn components, not to mention the elemental damages you deal all across the board (and Runic Weapon giving a percentile increase to your intelligence), you're likely better off that way. I like the idea of Transmutation, though probably it's possible to go heavier on strength and physical damage and forgo it.

I have a single point in Core Dweller and its upgrades each. Currently I have +6 to all skills in Earth, which increases all of them to a fairly respectable rank of seven. The Core Dweller seems fairly reliable; the only things it seems to fall to (other than a select few bosses like the Hydra) are sustained barrages from archers, and melee enemies if I let them wail away at it for too long (which I usually don't).

However, if you're looking for more CC, I can recommend Guardian Stones. The stones are stationary, but I find that they usually attract enemies to attack them, even bosses, and when you get the spell the first time they even have phenomenal damage output. I imagine that keeps up if you put points into the skill, which I neglected in favor of others.

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