Melee Fourm Challenge

[mrsarfa]

Nov 27, 2014 12:48:36 GMT -5 fallen said:

mrsarfa - I just fought my way out of Krellin Deeps at 4.43m.

Most deaths in Nightmare come from a drop in discipline. Don't play if you're tired or in a rush, take a break, play another group. That's my secret

fallen - Thanks for the good advice! So playing after a few glasses of wine and while in a Thanksgiving food coma probably wouldn't be smart, then?
Happy Thanksgiving, all!

[contributor]

Ok, I finished Episode 3 and started a new group from the Melee Challenge. Mighty Melee blew through Krellin Deeps like a storm and are now clearing the North Vault and Farmhalls. They're super efficient and fierce killers, which probably means I will get over confident somewhere and get them killed. I have to get in a more conservative mindset. The team is all of the pay-to-play characters. Vincent is focusing totally on debuffs and later will do some Thundering Blades. Kincaid is all Fleet Feet or whatever the shoe buff is, oh he's doing one point in LbtB to get that extra move point. Selen is doing Punishing Blades, a little Dance of Shadow and lots of QS Defense when she gets it. Fyona is doing Cortias and Healing for now.

[CdrPlatypus]

contributor Welcome to the party! You're group sounds very similar to mine atm. Good luck

And anytime you get Kincaid and Melee Selen together you get an orgy of blood soaked death

[Zhivago]

I'm going to give this a go I'll post the occasional update if I survive long enough!

[CdrPlatypus]

Zhivago thanks for joining! Look forward to hearing your take on how to make this work

[Zhivago]

I'm using K, KJ, Fyona, Selen. KJ will be pure debuff/buff while Selen will spend early usually reserved for PS talent points on punishing and frenzied. I'm taking a huge risk without an ap debuff in e1, but I'm fairly comfortable with the content and hopefully luck will hold out. If it does, then Reckoning1 and the eventual Crippling 6 will serve as both the AP debuff and Kincaid's aoe attack. Lots of big ifs haha!

[contributor]

Score Check?

Mighty Melee has cleared out everything around Oskahold and is in the first level under the North Vault. They're around 16.5 mil.

They're becoming a bit less effective and are especially struggling with accuracy and damage output, which is slightly terrifying going into the Deathkin fight. They've got a big supply of pots though, so, if we have to, we'll just stretch it way out. I'm seriously considering pumping up Flanking Unity once Kincaid hits level 12. It would fix my groups current problems, but takes awhile to become really powerful. I'm also surprised how many hits are still landing on them. It's going to keep me on the edge of my seat for awhile.

UPDATE: They did the Deathkin fight. It was a little hairy but not too bad. Still had loads of pots to spare. I'm putting more into constitution this time and appreciating it. I had a few turns where I thought "if everyone hits Selen she's gonna die," but she never actually came too close. Vincent is doing a good job of enemy suppression and even comes in for a few kills here and there. I've never used him as a melee fighter before, so it's sort of fun to see him get in on it. Current score is 19.7 mil

There are times when I really miss a ranged person especially to finish somebody off whose stuck at 10 hp, but no one has AP to get to him. Interestingly I don't miss it as much as I thought I might though. I'm finding positioning to be an interesting challenge in the narrow corridors of the ratkin levels. Those extra MP in a few characters that let you shift so everybody can get in and land hits are very crucial.

[CdrPlatypus]

About to jump down the rabbit hole myself.

I used to hate ratkin swarmers, then I got Flash Freeze 6 and rode the lollerskates all the way to exp town

[CdrPlatypus]

Ok killed the Deathkin. It was a much more challenging fight using only melee. I had to blow through a bunch of stockpiled potions ...my poor precious. I pulled 2 deathkin and a ton of archers way more ranged mobs then melee mobs...made life hell until I managed to swing the momentum in my favor. Definitely having some accuracy problems without a -parry curse or group +acc buff at this point. Can't wait to hit lvl 12 plan to pick up thundering blades and flanking unity to help with that. Fyona's 2-handed hammer was the MVP of this fight. Very glad I chose to go two-handed rather than shield and one handed hammer with her. Entering the Vermin Warren with 21,685,175.

P.S. thought: This group plays very mobile moving back and forth almost every turn.

[contributor]

I went with two point into Frigid Air for Vincent to get the block AoE. So that means I'll only get Flash Freeze to 5 before the Shaman fight. I'm a little concerned about that. It's a tough call though, because with Selen and Kincaid out front Frigid Air really takes a lot of archer pressure off of them. Bowrats with Frigid Air are hitting like 1 in 6 shots and the damage reduction makes them hurt less too. It also really has a big effect on shamans. I'm getting a new appreciation for Vincent the Ice-Mage and thinking it would be cool if his level 18 attack spell could do ice damage instead of lightening, that is, if it can't be changed into a melee attack.

[CdrPlatypus]

Died Vincent got eaten by a rous. Time to start over. Think I will tweak a few talent points. Definitely learned a lot

contributor I think youn!made the right choice with fridgid air from what I have experienced so far

[contributor]

Sorry man. What fight? The one up at the top of the Warren can be nasty because there is nowhere to run. The center-left one can be rough too, but at least there is room to retreat. I'm mostly keeping Vincent tucked safely in the back, but I'm am envisioning an eventual melee roll for him, even if he's not on the very front lines.

[CdrPlatypus]

contributor It was the one with the trapped set of stairs. I thought I was down to the last mob and then a giant ratkin peeled out of a black square (fog of war) and ate vincent for lunch. Eh back to the drawing board.

Having tried rushing to Flash Freeze 6, I'm no going to try more of what you are doing. Flash Freeze 6 is powerful but very expensive. I had to invest a lot into int that could have gone into dex instead. I actually think it will work out better this way. Archers only have 2 attacks so the -2ap dosen't do anything extra for them. Kincaid and Selen are pretty good at avoiding melee attackers. The only ranged mobs with 3 ranged attacks are shamans. So Really I think it was overkill and fridgid air would have helped more anyways as packs of archers were the primary bane of this group.

I'm Thinking FF 2, FA 3, CS 1 (or 2 not sure) then FF + 4 => 6 then either FA or TB depending on what is causing me the most problems. Going to try and stick with primarily investing in Dex for vincent this time around

[contributor]

Yeah, I really dislike the Vermin Lair level. At that point I'm pretty sick of fighting Ratkin, and all I want to do is get to the Shaman, but there's this huge level in between that just doesn't end. It always tempts me to push harder than I should, with groups that aren't really in full-swing yet. A lot of my groups get their first kills there.

I would think that, even if you do FA and want to slow down the FF progression more, you should probably do TB. FF does give you dodge reduction and I find it helps against the giant rats/shamen/deathkin. Either that or you have to invest in some of your attack talents to get more accuracy early on. This group has a hump that it won't get over until at least level 13, if not 15.

[mrsarfa]

Here's my update. I'm calling my group the Odd Squad. Here's why: Kincaid, KJ, Kyera, Selen. Probably an odd choice for an all-melee group, but I wanted KJ's Choking Ash and (eventually) Burning Blades and Kyera's healing and Ethereal. Sacrifice will probably come in handy as well, since, per CdrPlatypus's advice, I've been putting everyone's points into Dex or Con rather than Int. Warder's Shield is also a great compliment to Kincaid's Cunning Footwork.

I just cleared Korvain's Trench and am now working on Nordhall. Demolished the initial ambush without any difficulties. I've also already cleared the West Road and both Muddy and Warm Caves. All characters are level 8 and point total is currently 14.5M and counting.

Selen is a total monster. Since I have Choking for the -armor curse, I've got her focused entirely on Frenzied and Dance of Shadows. No Punishing. She's dual-wielding 1AP blades and is extremely deadly.
Kincaid is more focused on building his defense, so I've got him at Cunning Footwork 4 and one point into Live by the Blade for the extra MP. Fully buffed, he dodges or parries well more than half of all melee attacks against him and, I would argue, is a better tank at the moment than Vraes at an equivalent level. My only concern with him is that he may need to continue leveling Cunning to keep pace with enemies, causing his damage to suffer. He's dual-wielding a 1AP and 2AP blade and already does noticeably less damage than Selen.
KJ is all Choking Ash and Pureflame Shield at the moment, but future points will definitely be going into Burning Blades. I want that crit%!
Kyera is leveling Warder's Shield and has one point in Sacrifice. Eventually, I'll need to put another point into Myshana's and Sacrifice and I'd like to get EA up to level 4 for the AOE.

I'll keep you all posted, but so far things seem to be going smoothly. Knock on wood...