Cave Beetles?

[xdesperado]

So my new group of Kincaid, Kjartan, Fyona and Tamilin has been blowing through early part of episode 1 no problem. Level 7 and cleared out all of west West Road then went into Warm Cave. Bloody Beatles are ridiculous. Kjartan hits them with Choking Ash 5, Fyona hits them with Holy Strickening 4, that's -7 Dodge and their armor is down to 4. Tamilin tries to hit them with Torrent of Steel 3 and either misses or does no damage about a 3rd of the time (3weapon, 4thrown, 9dex)accuracy plus 6acc from ToS. She's using Flat Daggers with 9-14Dmg so any hit should do damage.
After she hits thats another -5dodge and their resistance is down to 4.
Kincaid tries Darting Steel 1 and only gets about half his attacks to connect and do damage.
Basically even after Beatles are fully cursed they are still crazy hard to land attacks on and seem to still be soaking far more damage than their listed Armor and Resistance would indicate. Since majority of my attacks are ranged, do they have some insanely high dodge or what? -13 total dodge is pretty high at this level and likely overkill on most enemies.
I have no problems taking down ROUS or any other targets, just these crazy Beatles.

[matrim]

Seems like a string of unlucky rolls. Beetles have around the same defense as ROUS's but much less offense and HP. Also I am not sure how well early Strickening will serve you as you don't really have much elemental damage early game, it is a great mid to late game talent when you can stack. Of note is that you are developing CA not BB to go with Strickening. CA will take you through to level 20 easy and you will crush everything, by then you can start to develop Strickening to do mid to late game damage. This is one of the best parts of the Kjartan and Fyona team up, Kj breezes you through early game and then Fy steps in mid to late game to help you destroy that.

[fallen]

I'd agree with matrim in a string of bad rolls. Beetles are definitely less bad than ROUS, but they come in packs.

[samopop]

The reason you are getting 0s for damage even though you think you should never get zeros is that enemies also have a "toughness" just like your characters which acts like armor but can't be removed and is not shown in the stats screen.

[fallen]

Also, yes, Cave Beetles have high dodge, which is caused by the deflective nature of their outer carapace.

[matrim]

I have never noticed this toughness stat that people are saying mobs have. When something is down to 0 armor I have done absolutely max damage to them, I know I have done max damage to beetles. So, when I did this (about 1.5 years ago) beetles at least did not have toughness then.

[xdesperado]

Thanks for replies and I ground my way through the Warm cave, but grind is definitely the word.
The dodge on those beetles must be insane because I was getting far more misses than just a run of bad luck would explain even against fully cursed ones.

matrim I am starting to develop Burning Blades and have some elemental damage gear already so the -resistance from Strickening isn't a complete waste, plus knowing that Kjartan's Firebolt 1 is going to do decent damage when he connects is a big plus. With 8 will he's pretty much guaranteed to do very good damage against majority of targets once they are cursed.
While re-spec is available, I prefer trying to plan ahead and build towards what I want at a given point as opposed to trying to maximize effectiveness at low level then having to re-spec later.
For me re-spec is sort of a oops I really goofed in most cases and not something I get in habit of relying on constantly.

[Cory Trese]

Mar 15, 2016 15:17:20 GMT -5 matrim said:

I have never noticed this toughness stat that people are saying mobs have. When something is down to 0 armor I have done absolutely max damage to them, I know I have done max damage to beetles. So, when I did this (about 1.5 years ago) beetles at least did not have toughness then.

Screenshot?

[matrim]

I didn't screenshot this but I could, do they have a toughness value?

I just boosted in a group, level 18 ratkin warrior hit with a sai sword (21-24 damage) had 0 armor and a normal attack. Hit for 24, absolute max damage. So a ratkin warrior at least has no toughness at level 18. I will test on a giant rat.

[matrim]

I got a giant rat's armor down to 0 and used the same weapon (max punishing and max CA). For some reason I was doing 34-36 damage, not sure what is going on because that is 10-12 more damage than I should be doing. Is there some hidden stat I am not seeing?

[wascalwywabbit]

Mar 20, 2016 1:05:42 GMT -5 matrim said:

I got a giant rat's armor down to 0 and used the same weapon (max punishing and max CA). For some reason I was doing 34-36 damage, not sure what is going on because that is 10-12 more damage than I should be doing. Is there some hidden stat I am not seeing?

Str?

[matrim]

Dex weapons...

[wascalwywabbit]

BB? Empowered? Which char/weapon?

[matrim]

No damage buffs, normal attack, Vraes with no added stats. Using a sai sword (dex weapon) 21-24 damage. Hit the rat for 34-36 (the range should be 1 more either way logically but the rat died before I did any other damage). Selen did the same damage with the same weapon. Nothing else besides the sword was equipped.

just stacked the same curses on a ratkin warrior and my damage boosted to the 46-48 range. This definitely means that armor can be overcursed, as I think these rats were at -25 armor or so.

[wascalwywabbit]

What's their strs, I wonder if its a bug with those new rules that slipped thru..? That's really weird tho.

No other gear? Is this boost in?