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Topics - Firebrand

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1
Items / New Atlantis Items Showcase (spoilers)
« on: 14 May 2019, 21:02:07 »
I just totally ripped off Prosoro's previous topic for Ragnarök items, because consistency is nice, right?

Anyway, I've already found a few goodies. Only two in total, so it's not a lot, but feel free to post.



Can you say Hunting? Rungu already looked amazing, but lacked a pierce percentage, which seemed to limit its use, because piercing damage is central to Hunting. This is like a mix of Rungu and Hoi Polloi, and the best of two worlds at that. I already have two, and a Dragon Hunter who's just entered Act IV normal... Go figure.



Not sure who wants this, though. Ragnarök already had some bows with bonus to all Defense skills, but does Defense really want a bow? The rest on this seems pretty amazing, though. The slower attack speed is a hit, but this seems to be excellent damage all-around.

2
General Discussion / New Expansion!
« on: 10 May 2019, 22:13:04 »
I wasn't sure if I was even supposed to post in the announcement or the patch note threads, so I decided to just make one.

I opened Steam, and I saw that Titan Quest and related stuff is on sale. Pretty big discounts, too. I thought cool, let's just look at how much I could've gotten it for had I waited for this long- Wait, new expansion?

Well, I couldn't resist so I got it. I have a level 83 Stonespeaker running around on legendary Act V (and quite a few others, although only on normal yet). So why not check out the new stuff?

I don't know who to tell it about, but there are a few issues; quite a bit of lag and stutter in general. The final area of Muspellheim was pretty bad, especially the outdoor areas of the stronghold; other than that it seems fine.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to check out the new skills, so I'll put a list of them in spoilers for those who are interested (only level 1, and while I have them on screenshots, if memory serves, we shouldn't upload pictures too much and cropping them would take longer than typing them out anyway, so here you go.

Spoiler for Hiden:
Earth

Meteor Rain: Call down a shower of burning rocks from the heavens.
19.4 Seconds Recharge
300 Energy Cost
4.0 Second Duration
3.5 Meter Radius
320 Damage
96 Burn Damage over 3.0 Seconds
3.0 Seconds of Stun

Fire Nova: Sends out a ring of flames that ignites everything in the area.
6.4 Seconds Recharge
130 Energy Cost
20.0 Meter Radius
99 Burn Damage over 3.0 Seconds
33 Fire Damage
11% Chance of Impaired Aim for 3.0 Seconds


Storm

Arc Discharge: Enhances the Wisp's Thunderclap ability, generating tendrils of lightning.
62-106 Lightning Damage
0.5 Seconds of Stun

Lightning Dash: Move between your enemies at lightning speed, becoming hard to hit in the process. Assign this skill to your left mouse button.
5 Energy Cost
10 Lightning Damage
+444% Movement Speed
10% Chance to Dodge Attacks
10% Chance to Avoid Projectiles


Spirit

Soul Drain: Cause Life Drain to explode outward, causing harm to body and soul.
8.0 Meter Radius
12% Reduction to Enemy's Health
150 Vitality Damage
6% Energy Drain
2.0 Seconds of Sleep
+200% Damage to Ghosts

Soul Vortex: Concentrate your Spirit power to voraciously absorb all life force and energy in your immediate surroundings.
70.0 Seconds Recharge
120 Energy Cost
4.0 Second Duration
5.0 Meter Radius
36 Life Leech per Second
12 Energy Leech per Second
50% Slowed for 1.0 Seconds
100% Life Leech Resistance
100% Energy Leech Resistance


Nature

Earthbind: Summons roots from the earth to slow and immobilize all foes around you.
20.0 Seconds Recharge
65 Energy Cost
22.0 Meter Radius
36-48 Poison Damage per Second
50% Reduced Defensive Ability for 1.0 Seconds
1.0 Seconds of Immobilization
66% Slower Movement for 2.0 Seconds

Sylvan Protection: The Nymph calls upon the vines of the undergrowth to keep enemies at bay.
12 Energy Cost
68-90 Damage
35-45 Piercing Damage
8% Reduction to Enemy's Health
66% Reduced Defensive Ability for 1.0 Seconds
1.0 Seconds of Immobilization
75% Slower Movement for 2.0 Seconds


Rune

Rune Storm: When the situation calls for it, combining mismatched runes can create a dangerous storm of unforeseen effects.
51.6 Seconds Recharge
300 Energy Cost
10.0 Second Duration
4.5 Meter Radius
30 Damage
Chance for one of the following: 1.0 Seconds of Skill Disruption, 1.0 Seconds of Stun, 1.0 Seconds of Fear, 1.0 Seconds of Confusion
20 Elemental Retaliation

Rune Field: Create more runes across a larger area.
(Improvement of Runic Mines)
25 Energy Cost
0.5 Second Duration
6 Projectiles


Dream

Dream Image: Draws forth a mirror image of yourself from the dreamworld that briefly fights at your side.
140.0 Seconds Recharge
150 Energy Cost
Extra Lifetime 10 Seconds
Doppelganger Attributes: Lifetime 10.0 Seconds, 3840 Health, 1920 Energy
Doppelganger Abilities: 384-480 Damage

Psionic Beam: Improve the psionic focus within your magic staff to channel a rapid-fire attack. Works only with Staves.
10% Chance to pass through Enemies
10% Increase in Projectile Speed


Warfare

Slam: Hit all enemies in a straight line with staggering force, disrupting their aim and spellcasting.
7.0 Seconds Recharge
80 Energy Cost
60-80 Damage
20% Reduction to Enemy's Health
70% Chance of Impaired Aim for 1.0 Seconds
1.0-1.5 Seconds of Skill Disruption
1.0-2.0 Seconds of Stun

Lasting Legacy: Forming a deeper connection with your ancestors allows their spirits to remain at your side for longer.
4 Energy Cost
Extra Lifetime 4 Seconds


Defense

Unyielding Phalanx: Summon the shades of fallen comrades to form a line with you once more, engaging any enemy that dares to approach.
80.0 Seconds Recharge
112 Energy Cost
Extra Lifetime 6 Seconds
Elysian Soldier Attributes: Lifetime 6 Seconds, 250 Health
Elysian Soldier Abilities: Basic Attack, 141 Damage, 60 Piercing Damage, 40% Slower Movement for 2.0 Seconds

Perfect Block: Raise your shield to become temporarily invulnerable and stun any enemy attacking you in a melee.
15.6 Seconds Recharge
12 Second Duration
100% Damage Absorption
-100% Attack Speed
-100% Casting Speed
1.0-2.0 Stun Retaliation


Rogue

Blade Barrier: Summons a field of whirling blades that can transmit effects like a regular weapon.
30.0 Seconds Recharge
100 Energy Cost
10.0 Second Duration
2.5 Meter Radius
10 Bleeding Damage per Second
20 Piercing Damage
0% Reduction to Enemy's Health

Poison Mayhem: Throws multiple Poison Gas Bombs at a time.
1 Projectiles
0% Chance of Impaired Aim for 4.0 Seconds
2.0 Seconds of Fear


Hunting

Finesse: Increases your group's chances to inflict critical melee damage.
(Improvement of Call of the Hunt)
2.0% Chance of 20% Reduction to Enemy's Health
+100 Offensive Ability
+10% Offensive Ability

Spear Dance: An impressive display of spear mastery causes surrounding enemies to falter.
18.0 Seconds Recharge
60 Energy Cost
360 Arc of Attack
-20% Physical Damage
8.0 Chance of 1.0-3.0 Seconds of Fear
-50% Slower Attack for 2.0 Seconds

Separate spoiler for personal comments:
Spoiler for Hiden:
Of course I'm pretty stoked for the new Earth spells. Earth still doesn't get resistance reduction, which is fine, and overall they don't seem that interesting, though both could go well with Stone Form, which is neat.

I don't know how Lightning Dash is going to work but I'm glad that Storm got a left-click skill. I never focused much on the Wisp so I don't know much about that, either.

Spirit gets some added viability to Life Drain and some flat life leech on a skill, those have to be pretty interesting!

Nature gets Earthbind and... Nerfed Earthbind on the Nymph. I wish they weren't so close to identical, but they look interesting, and the massive defensive ability penalty makes this look pretty good for supporting melee classes as well as the immobilizing and slowing for supporting casters and ranged attackers. Seems fun!

Dream gets a doppelganger (seems like a lot of fun!) and an improvement to a left-skill staff attack! Interesting. Not sure how it'll compete with Ternion, but I like some variety.

Rune didn't inspire me too much, to be honest. Runic Mines seemed like a fun skill so more range and more mines look good, though I'll need to try that one with my Thunderer. Rune Storm seems a bit odd.

Warfare gets Slam (I assume this is the attack Polyphemus has) and some improvement to Ancestral Horn. The former is more exciting to me - it's something to use against archers and casters, and might be a very real skill for Battlemages, for which I'm excited.

Defense gets a summon skill and... basically a second Stone Form that lasts a lot longer, and apparently allows you to move, which is honestly pretty huge. A Juggernaut with Stone Form and Perfect Block and then Eruption and all the new skills that do stuff over time... wow. This could be getting somewhere.

I really like Blade Barrier from Rogue from the look of it, and it seems that transmitting weapon effects with skills might be Rogue's specialty. Making an overlooked skill better is something I can definitely get behind.

The improvements for Hunting seem to focus on spears, but that's fine with me. I like Finesse on a dual-wielding Slayer I was planning for a while, but I think that the health reduction part could work on ranged attacks, too. Whether that's worth it, considering their DPS, is another question. Spear Dance seems like War Wind, minus the charge, that can only be used with spears (or so I assume based on the name, the tooltip didn't say so).

Phew, done.

3
Modifications / Idea - Stealth
« on: 21 October 2018, 00:23:33 »
So I've never modded this game, and I'm not sure what's plausible or even possible within the ordinary limitations and what isn't. In fact, I haven't even played mods for this game yet!

But I was browsing the forums here, and I saw that there's some cheat that stops enemies from noticing the player, and it got me thinking. An earlier idea I had for the Rogue mainly was stealth, which, in my imagination, would make it harder for enemies to notice the player (that is, you could move closer to them without being noticed).

Now you could add stuff like passives that increase your damage against targets that aren't focused on you right now, although I imagine they'd be easier to set off using things like pets, stun, confusion, and the like. You could have a skill that would make you completely undetectable, but would be dispelled immediately after attacking.

Edit: an inverted Provoke effect, even?

I don't know if the game even checks facing for enemies (do they notice you easier if they're facing you, and harder if they're facing away)?

I might be straying too deep into RPG territory, really. I was just wondering if this sort of thing was possible, and if there was any interest in it (I'm not asking for myself, I have no idea how to mod this game).

4
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!

5
Warfare AE / Flurry of Steel and Fire - The Berserker
« on: 30 March 2018, 21:20:50 »
Alright, I'm back with yet one more of these threads.

An item I found relatively recently has once again ignited my interest in the Berserker.

I've said a few things about what I imagined would be interesting about it in the other topic (see here: https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=169.msg3578#msg3578 - hopefully I did the linking right), but I'll reiterate quickly (maybe in a little more organized form.

- Astounding number of melee procs, not to mention that, as far as I could see with my Stonespeaker, the individual hits from Reckless Offense's multi-attack can themselves trigger Runeword: Burn (not sure about the dual-wielding ones, though - will have to test).
- War Wind and Thunder Strike both provide useful area attacks that help close the distance to ranged attackers as well.
- Ludicrous amounts of offensive ability from Weapon Training and Runeword: Feather.
- Battle Standard, Guardian Stones, Ancestral Horn... Now that sounds like something to try (later).
- Battle Rage and Sacred Rage (not that there's so much synergy between them in particular, just so much rage).

The thing that put me off from the Berserker for a long time was having to decide between going with strength and Onslaught or intelligence and Rune Weapon. While the intelligence route was tempting due to being more novel and unconventional, as well as good for having a built-in attack damage converted to health, it has its drawbacks - Hew doesn't do much on its own, the enormous offensive ability doesn't help much as elemental damage doesn't crit, Crushing Blow again doesn't do much (I don't know how powerful Crushing Blow is, anyway, but it sure is fun early in the game), Triumph is a bit less powerful... So overall, strength seemed the better choice anyway, but Berserker's Mantle convinced me completely.

Rather conveniently, I had a Warrior in the middle of Normal Egypt, developed towards strength (obviously) but without a secondary mastery (as I started that character before Ragnarök and didn't know what to choose). So... Berserking time!

Past me apparently decided that Onslaught and the Dual Wield tree were the most important to max out first, so I decided to continue that (went into Rune anyway, to get the shiny new Berserker title as well as Rune of Life - mainly for the movement speed, but the percentile increase to Strength is also good - Sacred Rage, and Thunder Strike). I have a point each in most Warfare skills, though, except for the horns (I should invest in them soon, though).

War Wind and Thunder Strike on the same character is evil. Use War Wind to close the distance in a blink of the eye, attack everyone around, and then use Thunder Strike to attack everyone around again. Playing on the highest speed option (I'm impatient) is really satisfying as pretty much every hit I land now is a critical; being surrounded pretty much means that yellow numbers float up from basically every enemy in melee range. Good stuff.

However, the reason why I started this thread is a little different.

I'm in Act III now, and usually when I enter a new act, I try a few items from my vault that look interesting. Weapons are usually less so in Normal, as Quicksilver Bludgeon stands out so much from the rest that I generally tend to end up using it far into Act IV and more. Not this time, however.

As I looked around, I had a pair of a Yin and a Yang, neatly next to each other. At the first glance, I never thought they'd be more than a pair of gimmick weapons, probably for Spellbreakers, but... sure, why not. (I really like how they're done, thematically, anyway.) Especially since I had Imperial Bracers and Imperial Greaves lying about, too.

I underestimated them. DPS increased by nearly two hundred compared to the Quicksilver Bludgeon + Marduk's Rage setup I'd been using before, and unless I'm fighting undead or constructs, the health bar doesn't really go below full (which renders Sacred Rage a little useless right now). I wanted to say that while I don't have critical hits for about 1000 damage anymore like I did with Quicksilver Bludgeon, around the end of today's session I had a few 1100-1200 crits (I assume Battle Rage and Crushing Blow did that).

Fun times. If you're like me and overlooked Yin and Yang, give them a try!

I'll keep playing with the Berserker, probably... Or one of my other characters. Either.

6
Hunting AE / Shuriken Storm
« on: 17 March 2018, 00:22:20 »
Of course I'm not quite there yet.

First of all, thanks to @botebote77 for the very idea that spurred me on this journey. For details, see the discussion here: https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=169.msg3290#msg3290

Long story short, I was pretty awestruck when I saw Jagged Silk, but not in my most far-fetched dreams did I think that separate instances of Volley would stack. Botebote suggested that they would, and quick testing suggests that they indeed do - so it's time to do something crazy.

I've only started recently, and wouldn't have started a thread just yet, but things happened - lots of them, in fact - and decided to do so anyway.

I started out with Rune (was pretty sure I'd want Rune, but wanted some more time to decide whether to go with Hunting or Rogue). Eventually went for Hunting to become a Dragon Hunter. Unlike any other character I've had so far, I've been juggling masteries back and forth; instead of focusing on maxing one of them, getting all the skills I was interested in, and then focusing on the other, I started out with Rune, then went for Hunting until I got Marksmanship, then back to Rune for Reckless Offense, and now I'm maxing Hunting to get Volley. After that... We'll see.

I'm already at two deaths. First is probably the earliest and most shameful death I've had - the first time the undead show up (in the graveyard next to the guy who wants to deliver potions to Tegea), I got caught off-guard by a few Plague Birds just as I'd run out of Health Potions. Embarrassing, but oh well. Second was Lysia Spellbreaker, who's always an annoyance, but this was the first time she was a lethal one.

The main reason why I started this thread so early is the selection of loot I got. I found a Copper Hunting Hatchet around level 2, was pretty happy about it, eager to use (it was not magical, but its base damage was by far higher than anything else available at its level). Good, then just after killing the first Satyr Brute a chest dropped Hand of Lycurgus. I thought wow, I was set for a long time - it is actually really good. Then not long after...

A Hoi Polloi dropped from a Sepulcher, I think. Same DPS as Lycurgus, but it also comes with Volley... Awesome. I found two Small Torches later. The in-game DPS meter gives a higher figure for them, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't calculate with Volley. I'm still dual-wielding them in the secondary slot against undead, who aren't quite as susceptible to pierce damage (I use Rune Weapon with them, too, for fun). It's a bit of a shame that Small Torches look and sound like knives and don't even have fire on them. If the burn damage procs, however, they one-shot any non-boss undead. (Also, got my Will of Horus out of the stash to dual-wield along with Hoi Polloi.)

Another reason why I went with starting the thread is skills. It occurs to me that I wouldn't want or need too many skills from either mastery. Marksmanship is fine, but Rune Weapon might work better in the end, as Puncture Shot Arrows and Scatter Shot Arrows don't seem to work with thrown weapons (I haven't tried, entirely based on their descriptions). Wood Lore is something I always go for with Hunting, but considering that Jagged Silk gives a huge bonus to attack speed and dual-wielding attack speed with thrown weapons is capped at 141%, it doesn't seem very useful at all - maybe for the defensive ability when I'm out of skills to put points into. Which leaves me with Art of the Hunt, Study Prey, Volley, and Herbal Remedy, as well as Marksmanship; Runeword: Burn, Reckless Offense, and potentially Rune Weapon in Rune. Probably Guardian Stones as well. Energy Armor, useful as it is, seems out of the question.

7
General Discussion / Favorite and least favorite acts
« on: 19 January 2018, 18:40:46 »
So now that's Ragnarök is out, there are five acts to choose from! Do you have favorites? Are there ones you just don't like? Go ahead and share!

To lead by example, I'll do. I'm in a bit of trouble with favorite, though. Whenever I leave Egypt with a character on legendary (it hasn't happened very often, mind you, but I've had a few characters there), I always feel a bit disappointed that I'm not going back there (at least with that character) again. I really like the atmosphere that was built up for Act II, and the fact that it's most likely the shortest of the five by a long shot doesn't really help, either. On the other hand, Act V is hard to contest with. Celtic and Nordic themes are both great, and the deep forests and snowy wastelands are both very evocative. The soundtrack is superb, and there's some unique feel to the Dvergr ruins, too.

My least favorite is much less of a question, I think it's always been Act IV. Don't get me wrong, the atmosphere is pretty greatly done, usually (I particularly like the eerie Tower of Judgement), but something about the whole act just makes me want to get out of there as quickly as it's possible. I could never really explain why that is, but somehow the whole act has a rather oppressive feel, I think.

On that note, I'm not a huge fan of the start of Act III, either, but by the end it really grows on me. I'm not fond of the random prehistoric monsters, either; I guess I think that with its rich mythology and history, China really would've deserved an act on its own, and before that Babylon, Persia and the Silk Road could've been rolled into another. Thinking about it, I'd really have liked to see how that'd have turned out!

8
General Discussion / Am I unlucky, or are unique drops weird?
« on: 17 January 2018, 15:27:05 »
It took me a while to consider creating this thread, but by now I'm nearly convinced that either I have some really peculiar luck, or something's not right with the game's loot system.

It goes way back, in fact. Even when I first started the game, a good four-five years ago I think, I noticed that in Normal sets the torso armor tends to drop much less than the others (or not at all). Even now it still seems to be the case; I have the full Labyrinthine, Theban and Obsidian sets - all three are only missing the torso armor, while having multiple copies of the bracers and the greaves especially.

I've spent more than an entire character level now farming Aktaios on legendary (there are some things I'd really like for other characters, including a few things that only drop in legendary Egypt). I have three Alexander's Bracers; no other pieces of Alexander's set have ever dropped.

I have over ten Gorgon's Edges now from random drops like Bone Piles and Sepulchers. It's like the game really likes giving me that item for some reason. In Act V epic and Act I legendary, it was the Dwarfbiter I found everywhere similarly, I have six or seven pieces of that, too. Interesting, both are poison-focused.

According to the database, both epic Typhon and legendary Aktaios have the same chances to drop Eye of Flame and Polaris. I have seven of the former and none of the latter, and all Eyes of Flame I have have dropped from either of them.

I know that probability can produce some interesting things, but I can't help but think that the statistical odds of this kind of thing happening are nowhere near significant.

9
Runemaster AE / Runic Elemental Shotgun
« on: 15 January 2018, 17:21:12 »
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!

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