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Offline Firebrand

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Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« on: 06 May 2018, 14:36:53 »
« Last Rated on: 02 February 2019, 18:02:21 »
Introduction

So you want to burn things. That's good. Commendable. I don't have a whole lot of experience writing guides, but inspired by @CrocMagnum and his write-up for Rune, I thought I'd try my hand at one. After all, while I haven't gotten far with all of them yet, I've tried the majority of Earth's combinations (Stonespeaker and Conjurer in legendary, Avenger in epic, Summoner and Juggernaut in normal, though I honestly don't have immediate plans to continue with the latter). An Elementalist was my first character ever in Titan Quest (way before Anniversary Edition), and I'm planning to play through the game with one again now that I know better. Any feedback is welcome!

Overview

So what do we know about Earth? Why is it good? Why would we want to play it?

Personally, when I create a character, or plan it, I consider both masteries. Usually (but not always), there's a primary mastery, which roughly determines the way the character's supposed to be played, the way it should achieve its goal, and a secondary, supporting mastery, which usually augments the primary mastery's skills using synergies, provides additional survivability or efficiency. Sometimes there's no distinct hierarchy, but most of the time one of the masteries is more important than the other, at least the way I'm developing my characters.

As far as my opinion's concerned, Earth makes a fantastic primary mastery for casters, and a decent and interesting secondary mastery for fighters. Without further ado, let's look at some generic things.

The mastery itself, when maxed, provides +90 Intellect, +48 Dexterity, +720 Health and +192 Energy. Some of these values are unusual; the Intellect is roughly average as caster masteries go, while Dexterity is nothing special, either. The health bonus is by far better, however, than anything offered by any other caster mastery, but in exchange the energy is the lowest among them. Earth itself also doesn't offer anything to reduce your energy consumption (other than Barrage, which only works for Flame Surge specifically), it is recommended to get some through your supporting mastery or items, if you're planning to go heavy on casting.

Anniversary Edition has affected Earth quite a bit. Many Earth skills deal both physical and fire damage. The former is now boosted by Strength, while the latter has always been increased by Intellect. This offers you a choice; while I've found that the skills generally scale better with Intellect, if you're planning to choose Earth as a secondary mastery for your melee character, you'll find that your increased Strength will still benefit most of your skills, which opens up nice avenues for a hybrid character.

Another remarkable change is damage-over-time. Since now these are increased by their respective attributes, burn damage by Intellect, specifically, with the arrival of Anniversary Edition, Earth has ascended into one of the best damage-over-time masteries, sharing this position with the poison-bleed-focused Rogue and the electrifying Dream. Unlike poison and bleed, burn damage devastates the undead, and you'll find that the combination of physical and fire damage is usually quite complementary in itself, as few enemies are resistant enough to both.

On the other hand, Earth remains good at which it has always excelled: instant damage and destroying crowds. Pyromancers are adept at dealing high amount of instanteous and prolonged damage, and are able to do so to large amounts of monsters at the same time. This gives us one of the best masteries when it comes to dealing with hordes and swarms (which is most of the time in the game), although it might be a bit more lacking against bosses. This is also something to keep in mind when picking your secondary mastery.

Earth also offers pretty good survivability overall, as far as caster classes go. Heat Shield provides a fixed 15% physical resistance, and Stone Form is one of the best panic buttons in the game. The Core Dweller is an incredibly resilient summon who also has the innate ability to redirect attackers to itself. Its attack strength is a little bit lacking, but killing stuff is what the Pyromancer is there for, anyway.

Skills

Earth Enchantment, Brimstone, Stone Skin

Earth Enchantment: If you picked Earth, you want to burn things. This helps you burn things. The flat fire damage bonus is really heavy early on but its effect diminishes later as it doesn't increase with additional skill points. It provides an increasing percentile increase to both fire and burn damage, however, and I personally believe it is a no-brainer skill to max, even reasonably early, even if you don't care much for the increasing radius.

Brimstone: Increased physical damage is good, as two of Earth's skills deal physical damage, though the amount is not much. If you're a caster, I'd personally maybe just put one point into this (with one notable exception), but if you rely on weapon attacks a lot (or like to throw knives), the huge amount of flat burn damage is going to massively increase your DPS if you have decent Intellect and some bonus to burn damage. In this case, I'd max this skill as well.

Stone Skin: Personally I find this underwhelming. Flat armor bonus isn't really worth the skill points in my opinion, especially later on, and the bonus to fire resistance is negligible (and if you're focused on Earth and fire damage, your items should give you ample fire resistance anyway). I usually put one point into this, but I can also easily imagine that it's just as good if you skip.

Flame Surge, Barrage, Flame Arch

I'm going to discuss the three skills in one. Long story short, I see this skill as a replacement for your weapon attack (for casters). However, it is quite unimpressive as far as those go, mostly due to the limited range. Ternion Attack and Ice Shard both outdo it by far in my opinion, but if your supporting mastery offers nothing of the sort (Nature has none, and Dream has Psionic Touch, which might not cut it, either), it's a decent option. As such, I'd either max all three skills with a character who relies on it, or ignore it entirely with everyone else.

With some recharge reduction from items, you can reduce its recharge to zero, which makes it actually pretty amazing at dispatching melee attackers as far as your casting speed is good, although it leaves you vulnerable to archers, other casters, and possibly enemies with thrown weapons (luckily, you have other skills to deal with them).

Flame Surge might be of interest to melee characters taking Earth for reducing the target's defensive ability quite nicely, allowing for harder-hitting criticals.

Volcanic Orb, Conflagration, Fragmentation

I'm going to begin with this: This is an amazing set of skills, and I believe that all three are worth maxing out, pretty much no matter what you do. The mix of physical and fire damage means it's going to scale, no matter whether you invest more heavily into Strength or Intellect. Even Volcanic Orb alone affects a respectable area, which Conflagration increases further (with the addition of some sweet, lethal burn damage) and with Fragmentation, the affected area skyrockets. The recharge is quite low, and with some reduction it can be really easy to dish out a frightening number of fiery orbs of death. The speed at which the orb travels is quite low, which takes some getting used to, but also can be used to your advantage by lobbing the orb at enemies and using the travel time to set up the traps the affected enemies will run headlong into. Another important thing I'd point out is its virtually unlimited range. You can use it on the corner of the screen when you're zoomed out as much as it's possible, and often you can use it on monsters you can't possibly reach otherwise.

Ring of Fire, Soften Metal

Something of an oddity. This is going to steadily reduce the health of enemies around you. At first it doesn't look like much. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this is not retaliation damage, this is not damage reflection: this is fire damage which the Pyromancer automatically deals to all enemies within range. Which means it scales with Intellect, it scales with every fire damage boost you have.

With both skills maxed (which, admittedly, is quite the investment), you're looking at 80 fire damage every second. I personally find that respectable. However, it also costs 16 energy per second at this point. Is it really worth spending that much for some supplementary damage? Why is it good?

There are a few other skills in the mastery this will have nice synergies with.

Heat Shield

It gives a fixed 15% physical resistance. I'd say it's worth putting one point into it just for that. It also gives some fire damage absorption, which is not all that important, but fun. To my knowledge, it stacks with your resistance multiplicatively, and that way can increase your effective resistance above the 80% cap. Which is usually not really important, but it's fun owning Surtr because you take only a few percents of damage from his attacks.

What ultimately makes it a bad investment, however, I believe, is that if you are any serious about using fire (especially if you're using weapon attacks, because once again, huge flat burning damage bonus), you should be using at least one Seal of Hephaestus (seriously, it's too good to pass up). Which grants you a level 11 Heat Shield, and I find it's simply not worth the skill points to compete with that.

Still, having one skill point in it might useful. Your Heat Shield and the Heat Shield from the Seal use different cooldowns, so you can consistently supply an ally (or your Core Dweller, when playing alone) with your extra Heat Shield.

Stone Form, Molten Rock

Panic button extraordinaire. Instant invulnerability for six seconds (eight if you're taking the synergy). What's the catch?

You don't get to do anything. So your enemies keep swinging at you. When the Stone Form ends, you'll not be any better off, and they will still be there.

Or will they?

This is what I've been alluding to under Ring of Fire. You can pop an Eruption and activate Stone Form, but when you're using the latter as a panic button, you hardly have time for that. However, Ring of Fire provides constant fire damage. Heat Shield adds burn retaliation, and Molten Rock has fire retaliation. You might have other retaliation effects from items, too. The Core Dweller can help out a little. Separately, they can be pretty unimpressive, but they do add up. I have killed Fafnir this way; keeping Stone Form up, having him bite at you can whittle down his health remarkably quickly, in fact. It still takes a while, but then it's Fafnir.

Sadly, all of this is moot against ranged enemies and casters. But oh well. It's not your focus, just a nice extra.

Summon Core Dweller, Inner Fire, Wildfire, Metamorphosis

Ah, the fabled Core Dweller. I'd put one point into each skill as soon as they're available, but it seems to me that until the very end of the game, it's more or less safe to leave them that way. Putting some more can help with your pet's survivability, but seeing how you should be able to eliminate your attackers pretty quickly, it shouldn't be a top priority on the list.

Volativity

Two words: max this. No matter what you do. If you're taking Earth, you're probably interested in at least two of the three damage types it boosts. The chance of the proc is good, and the damage bonus is phenomenal. This skill is fantastic, and worth every skill point put into it.

Eruption

Another insane skill. Once again, mixed physical and fire damage means it's going to scale decently whether you're a fighter or a caster. It has a nice radius, and an amount of fragments increasing with the skill level, which spread its deadly influence even further. If you're a caster, you'll probably want to max this. Popping an Eruption under your own feet and then entering Stone Form is a pretty nice way of destroying clusters of melee enemies, but it's also very useful for stationary groups of archers and casters, slow-moving bosses, but even faster ones considering that it affects a rather large area.

Notes

Still work in progress; I'm most likely going to update this following recommendations and other ideas I might have in the following days. Thanks for reading!
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 14:55:32 by Firebrand »

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Offline botebote77

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #1 on: 06 May 2018, 15:51:47 »
you got me smiling  :)  .. I'll read this fully some other time.. i can't spend too much time reading atm but if you may, i have a quick question.. since you mentioned str and how it boosts physical damage from spells now.. my haruspex, the advantages str gives me are more item choices and instant damage.. instant damage because distortion wave deals DoT, and if i spam distortion wave, the DoT will just reset to maximum but it will not stack.. but if i boost the physical damage in it as well, then it's worth spamming.. regarding items, i can have access to visor of the shadowlord for example.. it gives 50%? EBD.. so i can boost my elem damage while boosting str.. i can also wear a shield which increases my survivability greatly.. and it gives me 2 items instead of just 1 (staff).. in my experience, it's easier to up resists that way.. weapon i chose is Neith's will (Lykaion Malleus is good also).. I also have options for other items like Alexander's Cuirass for example which gives +2 all skills.. so my question, do you have str based items in mind that can be good for casters? because if so, then even though fire deals good enough instant damage already, at least with physical you won't have a problem against immunities.. you can still deal good damage against water spirits, fire giants, and Surtr.. I'm guessing Neith's will is still a good option.. aside from recharge and resists, it gives total damage which increases physical, fire and burn
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 21:12:16 by botebote77 »
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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #2 on: 06 May 2018, 23:06:36 »
i was now able to fully read your guide.. nice pairing of ring of fire and stone form.. i haven't thought of it that way.. to answer my earlier comment, since you mentioned seal of Hephaestus is too good to pass up, i thought about hand of Hephaestus.. that one you can increase elem damage while boosting str.. and str won't be a waste because i tested in AE before with a defiler cheat test character, eruption is still good in act 4 legendary even if you boost only str (about 500-600) and nothing in int.. plus you don't have to put too many points on dex so you could focus on str and int only.. the shield i doubt it's worth choosing over Pelaron or Deimos (or Aionios if you have, i don't).. for boots, i recently found a Legguards of the Flameborn.. it's str based but it's too good to pass up if you're a str based earth.. for helm, it's probably better to stick with int based helms right? like Hallowed or crown of dokmaar.. or helm of the (magus? the one with recharge, I'm loosing my TQ touch :) ).. but while skimming TQ-DB, i saw that crystalline helm gives 40% damage reflected.. it's also str based.. i once saw a toon by Workable Krakatoa at reddit (or was it his youtube channel Clex Plays? can't remember. i think i saw it on reddit), he had a earth/dream? char that relies on damage reflection using stone form while reflecting damage.. i think it's dangerous and i prefer to kill enemies myself anyway but there's no denying the idea is ingenious.. also, i would like to share one thing i like with casters not relying on weapon attacks.. you can wear Aphrodite's Favor and not worry about the mind control.. it's really irritating to use it on weapon user toons but for casters, nope it's very good.. of course all of these assuming you have pre-farmed items already.. so yeah those are my take for a str/int earth caster

edit: yep i knew i saw it on reddit (the stone form damage reflection build)

https://www.reddit.com/r/TitanQuestAE/comments/858gua/overpowered_reflect_mechanics_and_how_they_work/
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 23:19:25 by botebote77 »
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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #3 on: 07 May 2018, 00:14:53 »
I haven't read over all the items too much, so I don't have that much of an idea yet.

One that springs to mind is Prometheus's Gift. Hand of Hephaestus is good, but this one's better, I believe. Also comes with a big flat burning damage bonus, and while not part of the set, it grants a skill, Prometheus's Gift, which adds a further bonus to fire damage, burn damage, and once again some more flat burn damage. It's an aura, which applies to all allies in a pretty wide radius, and is automatically on without any energy reserved or energy cost.

Armor of the Burning Blade looks good, although sadly you can't stack two Earth Enchantments onto each other. Of course, a good Blacksteel Plate could help you out, though the legendary versions probably require too much strength (haven't seen one yet, though); same applies to any other Blacksteel equipment that gives bonus to Earth skills. The Firewalker set might be interesting earlier on. Odysseus's Armor, possibly; not a lot else comes to mind. Neith's Will is good, though I think there are other, better alternatives later on. I'll look into them.

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #4 on: 07 May 2018, 13:58:07 »
« Last Rated on: 02 February 2019, 18:07:30 »
Finally! Nice work, Firebrand. A few remarks:

- Earth has changed quite a bit from Titan Quest to the Anniversary Edition, Stat-wise for starters:

# Titan Quest (Original)

90 INT
0 DEX !!
560 HEALTH
160 ENERGY

# Anniversary Edition

90 INT
48 DEX
720 HEALTH
192 ENERGY

Observation : Earth Mastery has gone through some great fine-tuning between Editions (Titan Quest > Immortal Throne > Anniversary Edition) and unlike other Masteries (yeah I ‘m looking at you Hunting Mastery :P) it has never suffered from any crippling nerf. In other words Earth is getting better and better over the years, Stat-wise and Skill-wise \o/,

- Earth has NO Debuff. This becomes a problem in higher difficulties. Taking a secondary including a Debuff Skill -Storm, Nature, Hunting,...- is often a sound plan,

- Eruption goes through terrain, it’s very helpful when your under geared or under leveled, when you can’t keep up with tough enemies,
 
-  I know you already alluded to it but I like to specify. In the original Titan Quest you could not increase the radius of Earth Enchantment no matter what (fixed 6 meter radius). In old days trying to apply the buff on your pets forced you to stay near them (could be very dangerous for caster classes). Now in the Anniversary Edition the radius of the skill grows the more points you put into it (+12 meter at Skill Level 12/12),

- Heat Shield now absorbs a percentage of Fire Damage for 100 seconds,

Comment: Even better. Instead of losing the shield after a treshold of fire damage, now the Heat Shield absorbs a % of Fire Damage for 100 seconds. If it's sounds like a nerf it's not: you have 100 seconds of guaranteed Damage Absorption against Fire that inrceases with the level of the skill. Finally the 15% Damage (Physical Resist), which was the major selling point of the skill, is still there in the AE.

The only problem you might come across is trying to cast Heat Shield on multiple allies (pets mostly), in AE Heat Shield has a 60 sec cooldown, which is still better than original Titan Quest where the cooldown of Heat Shield was 90 sec! So even that part too is better in the AE,

This is what come to my mind right now. I sincerely can't wait to read the full guide, Firebrand. Godspeed. 8)

Note: Sorry for not posting much these days but it's comforting to see loyal members keeping this place going round. Kudos to you.
« Last Edit: 07 May 2018, 19:08:06 by CrocMagnum »

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #5 on: 07 May 2018, 14:07:56 »

Stone Form, Molten Rock

Panic button extraordinaire. Instant invulnerability for six seconds (eight if you're taking the synergy). What's the catch?

You don't get to do anything. So your enemies keep swinging at you. When the Stone Form ends, you'll not be any better off, and they will still be there.

Or will they?

This is what I've been alluding to under Ring of Fire. You can pop an Eruption and activate Stone Form, but when you're using the latter as a panic button, you hardly have time for that. However, Ring of Fire provides constant fire damage. Heat Shield adds burn retaliation, and Molten Rock has fire retaliation. You might have other retaliation effects from items, too. The Core Dweller can help out a little. Separately, they can be pretty unimpressive, but they do add up. I have killed Fafnir this way; keeping Stone Form up, having him bite at you can whittle down his health remarkably quickly, in fact. It still takes a while, but then it's Fafnir.

Sadly, all of this is moot against ranged enemies and casters. But oh well. It's not your focus, just a nice extra.



I'm guessing it's use would be against really damaging attacks that don't get used that often but maybe you think you can't avoid it (like you said, panic button)

I can imagine pairing this up with Nature and having all summons attacking the boss while you sit there and let it attack you, basically be a tank to defend your summons. (as long as you have enough energy of course)
Actually, what's the cooldown on this? Obviously more than 6 seconds means this strategy wouldn't work so well.



The Core Dweller is probably most useful for bosses if you kill basic enemies really fast.
« Last Edit: 07 May 2018, 14:10:38 by Deepblue »

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #6 on: 07 May 2018, 14:34:45 »
i see the bonus attributes have been increased.. that's huge if you ask me

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #7 on: 07 May 2018, 19:57:37 »
All good points. Honestly, I didn't even remember to compare the stats gained before and after Anniversary Edition.

One really handy trick I discovered by accident, if you want to rely on Stone Form a lot: Falcon Cape. Falcon Cape is really amazing for my Stonespeaker, personally, which is why I know about this. But let's see what it offers.
- 40% Elemental Resistance. Quite okay. Nothing to write home about, as your fire resistance will likely be off the charts, but the other two might be useful in a pinch.
- 10% Chance to Avoid Projectiles. Pretty good, no matter what kind of character you're going for.
- +10% Total Speed. More useful for fighters than for casters, as the impact of this on attack speed will generally be higher than that of casting speed. On the other hand, casting speed is quite difficult to get reliably, in my experience, and you need to sacrifice other items to get enough of it (I'm still using a Star Stone instead of another Seal of Hephaestus or something similar on my Stonespeaker), so maybe a few items with bonus to total speed might go a long way. Increased run speed is always welcome.
- +2 to all skills in Rune Mastery: Really nice if you're a Stonespeaker, does literally nothing if you're anything else with Earth.
- +1 to all skills in Rogue Mastery: Same as the above, just with Magician.
Okay, but what is that below all of this? That's right, a skill.
- Grants skill: Level 14 Refresh [Activated on low health]
That's right. Activated on low health. Activate Stone Form, have your Ring of Fire, Heat Shield and Molten Rock do the work for you, and when you get out of it, get hit and wounded, the automatic Refresh will reset the recharge time of Stone Form! I think that the built-in Refresh has quite a high recharge time, but then with enough recharge reduction you can pretty much reduce Stone Form's recharge below its duration, so all of this is moot. Just throwing it out there.

Stone Form actually works well with a lot of skills, I believe. A list I've quickly compiled:
- Earth: Ring of Fire, Heat Shield, Summon Core Dweller, Eruption (technically Volativity, as it should boost both Eruption and Ring of Fire)
- Storm: Static Charge, Storm Surge, Reflection, Summon Wisp, Squall - Obscured Visibility
- Spirit: Deathchill Aura, Summon Liche King, Summon Outsider
- Nature: Plague, Call of the Wild, Sylvan Nymph, Refresh
- Warfare: Counterattack, Ancestral Horn
- Defense: Rally - Defiance
- Hunting: Study Prey - Flush Out, Herbal Remedy
- Rogue: Lay Trap, Poison Gas Bomb, Envenom Weapon
- Dream: Trance of Empathy, Trance of Wrath, Distortion Field, Summon Nightmare
- Rune: Rune Weapon - Magical Charge, Seal of Fate - Aftershock, Guardian Stones

Some of these work well, others not so much. There are potential anti-synergies here. Using Stone Form and Storm Surge together capitalizes nicely on the fact that while you'd take no melee damage from the hit, you are still being hit and therefore Storm Surge activates. On the other hand, the stun effect prevents them from hitting you more for a short time, therefore they won't take as much retaliation or reflection damage (although Ring of Fire of course still applies).

A few are obvious. Summons still attack while you're in Stone Form, so those of course are on the list. Poison, damage-over-time effects, and prolonged resistance reduction all play nicely onto your passive damage from multiple sources. Additional retaliation damage works, as well as reflection (as the reflected damage is determined before resistances or absorption would kick in).

However, one that truly stands out to me from that list is Trance of Wrath. It periodically deals pretty hefty Electrical Burn damage to all around the character, the only effect similar to Ring of Fire in that it is not retaliation damage or reflection but simple damage dealt automatically and periodically by the caster, therefore buffed by Intellect and all percentile bonuses to Electrical Burn damage. On the top of that, it reduces resistances! The skill disruption is not as relevant as you'd be in Stone Form anyway, but I feel that an Evoker might be really interesting when combining these four spells to kill enemies simply by being around them and getting attacked.

I'm not here to pretend I know about pets, though. While yes, your idea with a Summoner and letting your summons do the job sounds good, but I've never had a petmaster, so I won't leave further comment on that. It seems to me that Earth and Nature complement each other in a number of other ways, though, anyway.

One thing to keep in mind that is while you're killing basic mobs really fast, they usually do the same to you. It's usually avoidable by killing them still faster (it's what Earth is best at, after all), it's always reassuring to see a horde of Melinoes jump at your Core Dweller, rather than you. There are bosses that kill it really quickly, though, so keep that in mind.

A note to tend is that I'm fairly busy these days. I'll try to update this as soon as I can, but I might take a while. Some of the statements above I haven't rigorously tested, but I'm fairly certain about most of them.
« Last Edit: 07 May 2018, 20:00:17 by Firebrand »

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #8 on: 07 May 2018, 20:58:33 »
I'm not here to pretend I know about pets, though. While yes, your idea with a Summoner and letting your summons do the job sounds good, but I've never had a petmaster, so I won't leave further comment on that. It seems to me that Earth and Nature complement each other in a number of other ways, though, anyway.
uhmm i reread CrocMagnum's reply and i didn't see any petmaster.. so hmm could this be a response to my reply to Bobinho's thread?   .. if so, don't get me wrong man.. I'm not pushing for a petmaster.. i hate pure petmasters.. i get bored with it too quickly.. in fact, you probably know what i would push for :))  .. it's just that Bobinho plays console and console don't have ragnarok yet so rune is out, throwing weapon is out, and also it's more difficult for self-found toons to get high CDR.. i think it's easier in ragnarok to get high CDR.. also, Bobinho said he don't like playing casters.. but the biggest reason, is iirc i read somewhere that plague is bugged in console.. so if plague is out, that takes out many other builds for a summoner
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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #9 on: 08 May 2018, 20:16:46 »
I think you mean the knifethrowers, @botebote77, am I right?

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it already, but I personally believe that when it comes to boosting weapon attacks, the biggest bonus you get from Earth is the huge burn damage from Brimstone, especially for throwing knives as the physical damage bonus from Brimstone and Volativity don't work on them.

As a result, bladeflinger Magicians sound different from other knifethrowers. From both of your masteries, your greatest asset is damage over time. You get the poison damage from Envenom Weapon, augmented by all the upgrades and every related bonus, bleeding damage if you're into that (Anatomy boosts that quite well), and you have the burn damage from Brimstone (which, again, should be the main Earth-related DPS source on your knives), and everything boosting that (also including Seal of Hephaestus or anything similar you should have).

So I imagine that you wouldn't really spam knives, so to say, because the shortest damage-over-time you have has a duration of three seconds. That should help with the energy problems that other fellow bladeflingers face. I imagine that this opens up the option to use the remaining time to throw a Volcanic Orb or an Eruption to help the knives out, if necessary, though dexterity doesn't help those at all, so I'm questioning.

I might try this kind of Magician sometime soon, at any rate.

Also, the petmaster-related response was to Deepblue, not to CrocMagnum.
« Last Edit: 08 May 2018, 20:18:39 by Firebrand »

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Offline botebote77

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #10 on: 08 May 2018, 21:07:46 »
oh to Deepblue.. my bad then

I'm an advocate of casters in general.. not just knifethrowers
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Offline Gautrec

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #11 on: 09 May 2018, 13:27:55 »
Summons still attack while you're in Stone Form, so those of course are on the list. Poison, damage-over-time effects, and prolonged resistance reduction all play nicely onto your passive damage from multiple sources. Additional retaliation damage works, as well as reflection (as the reflected damage is determined before resistances or absorption would kick in).
I actually believe that the synergy between Stone Form and reflection is the most powerful of them all :) Especially with the new Ichthian Icescale MIs from Ragnarok, a reflection-based Juggernaut or the like is probably one of the most broken characters in all of TQ :P With enough cooldown reduction, you can keep up Stone Form and Rally permanently, killing the most difficult bosses in a few seconds without breaking a sweat. I have to admit that I never finished my playthrough with that build, though - mostly because the gameplay becomes kind of boring after a while... in constrast to a build with Trance of Wrath, like Firebrand suggested, here, trash mobs are, ironically, the most difficult/annoying to kill. This lead me to just skip most enemies, levelling only via quests & boss runs, which were so easy that it felt like cheating :/
     If you want to know more about the power of reflect builds anyways, I would suggest you to head over to Clex's Youtube channel and watch his videos on advanced reflect mechanics and the reflect Evoker: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWP2ABMB20FD2N_-ochNERQ/videos
     And yes, I do realise that I quote a lot of his content... But no, he is not paying me any money for that  :))
I just like his stuff :)

Edit: @botebote77 actually mentioned the strength of reflect builds a few posts further up, but I guess I can leave this post as a report on my personal experience with it (and to remind me of my shame for skip reading for all eternity).
« Last Edit: 09 May 2018, 14:21:55 by Gautrec »

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #12 on: 09 May 2018, 13:42:05 »
it's the same i posted above :)  ..  i can imagine it being very powerful and very boring at the same time.. but it is ingenious.. seriously, damage reflection needs a tweak in this game.. it should be like thorns where the damage you deal is the damage you take
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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #13 on: 09 May 2018, 14:08:45 »
Well, that's a little embarassing  :)) So much for reading the thread you reply to...
But I agree with you, @botebote77, reflect definitely does need a nerf.

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Offline botebote77

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Re: Earth: An Attempt at a Comprehensive Guide [Ragnarök]
« Reply #14 on: 09 May 2018, 16:37:21 »
don't be like that.. same thing happened to me as well, on this thread in fact.. replying to a comment that has nothing to do with me.. all because i did not fully read every comment :))
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