Team Heavy Metal

[dagger]

I did a little tweaking myself. I gave Fyona 1 Battlefield Devotion. I hate curses plus the extra heal is nice. I'm also taking Shield of Cortias to 10 before I go into Righteous Fervor. The extra misses will more than make up for the armor bump and HP I miss out on early. I'm actually considering banking a point or two for Reckoning...we'll see.  I always have a hard time "saving" points.  It already takes so long to earn them.

Made it to Riven Field...time to craft.  

Worked on Selen....crafted her:

Scything Dagger 3 Acc, 3 Parry, 21-35 dmg, +1 MP, +10 Ice Dmg, +3% Crit, +4 Parry, +6 Stealth   (just used a Stealth/dmg tuner to get it)
Leather Skin 28 Armor, +100 HP, +8 Holy Dmg, +2% Crit, +3% SP Drain  (used a 2% Crit ring to get this one---gotta be a little careful cuz there's lots of options on this suit---I'd recommend using EXACTLY 2% crit tuner)

I found her an Oxenbone Bow with +10 Holy Dmg and because I don't need to gear up stealth anymore I threw on some bracers (+10 Holy Dmg) I found so her arrow shots are going to be doing an extra 28 Holy Damage!!!!!  Crits are at 6% and SP Drain is at 7% so hopefully she can prolong her SP tank a little with this setup.  She should be doing some SERIOUS damage with her crits....7% drain means I only need to do about 14 dmg to get 1 back so now that I beefed up her parry with the blade and her HP with the Armor, she should be able to enter melee some to refuel the SP.  Blade crits are at 9% so with +3 MP I should be able to swing 7 times at some unfortunate bastard and gas up the tank.

Also crafted the Spiked Shield (5 Parry) for Fyona.  That's just a no-brainer.  With Shield of Cortias getting expensive and Reckoning on the horizon adding the Auto-block 3%, +100SP, +6 Dmg, +2% Crit, 8 All Resists, and +8% SP Drain will come in very handy.  Plus, her new weapon from Oskahold is better than anything else out there right now. 

Vraes just got a new weapon in Oskahold as well and there's nothing enough better than his current armor to warrant spending more Bloodstones so he's set for now.

KJ just gets what he gets since all he does is Ash people anyway.  Just continuing to build his Constitution so if a stray gets through he can weather it.  Otherwise, gearing him with what drops in the loot boxes.

On to Red Hill....

[fallen]

Love your forum avatar

[dagger]

I've only had it for a year.....I was wondering if you were ever going to notice. :-) Now all I need is some fancy badges to go underneath it....

[CdrPlatypus]

Nice. I haven't done any crafting since osk. Those are some nice stats. I'm planning to board stone until right before the store rooms, but maybe I'll lose score due to less efficiency. I just don't want to waste them

[CdrPlatypus]

I just did a respec of vraes to move all the points I had put in constitution into strength. I think this is the way to go with this build Only level int as necessary and max strength first. He is getting plenty of survivabilty from stone skin + righteous fervor and at level 16 now has +30 to minimum damage on his big hammer. GOOD BYE MISTER SPALDING

[dagger]

Just completed the gatehouse. First turn I sent Vraes and Selen back across the bridge to secure that end and do some damage with Fyona guarding the other end and KJ in the middle. Second turn wiped out the Orcboy, heavy elite and an archer, darted KJ and Fyona over to protect him then parked Vraes in the middle of the bridge to do his best Gandalf impression: " YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!" Third turn cleared the back so only Vraes was taking fire and it was all flesh wounds and toothpicks. Geraux hit him once for 113 damage. He started the battle with 956 HP and ended with around 650. Rolling!!!! Looking to craft again at the Advanced Siege Camp....
Archers still get through but do minimal damage. Going to have to upgrade Dodge for Ep2 because even with 1000+ hit points, those are going to start to sting.

Captain Lukai's hammer is already obsolete. Just crafted the Flail 41-73, 5 acc, 2 parry with the Bracers of the Dog (+4 Fire Dmg, +4 Fire Resist) and got paid. Flail 47-82, 6 acc, 2 parry, +140HP, +10 fire dmg, +3% crit, 4% SP drain, and........4 Dodge. Booyaa! Damage just took a 20-40% leap upwards, crits are now possible (had no crit gear going) I added another 60HP on top of what Lukai was giving me and now I'm much harder to hit with arrows. Only downside at all is sp drain went from 5% to 4%. Realistically, by doing more damage that's a wash anyway. Add the crits and it's a win. So let's see.....that's a win, win, win, win, win, win,and win. Have I told you I like crafting yet? :smiley:
Leather Overcoat (Light) 34 Armor tuned with Kallassian Boots (+1 Dodge, 4 Armor) turned into:
Leather Overcoat (Light) 32 Armor, +2 Parry, +4 Dodge, +6 Holy Dmg Not bad considering I was obviously going for dodge. Holy is always good.

So crafting for Vraes here upgraded dmg a bunch, gave me 6 more dodge, some crit, and 10 more armor. As if he wasn't man enough. I'm coming for you Arhaive!

[CdrPlatypus]

Went and played whack-a-ratkin in the storerooms. No deaths yet. I'm Happy with Vraes and Selen's builds so far. Still not sure what I want to do with KJ and Fyona Do I Raise Pureflame or switch to damage? For Fyona to I completely max her 2 group buffs or do I Invest more heavily in Reckoning?

[contributor]

CdrPlatypus I think it really just depends on how they're doing. You are going into a bit of a drought for talent points, but if defense is holding I would go for more fun (i.e. offense). Of course the Underforge is on the far horizon and you may want to save fun for E3. It's not an easy choice.

I'm still working my way through the early ratkin levels. I managed to draw double deathkin in the first fight with them, which is always awesome. The team handled them well. Vraes has this narrow damage band and can almost always be counted on to deliver 50 damage with each stroke of his 2h spear. KJ even took down with Kin with a level 1 fireball. I'm pretty sure Torrent of Steel helped him manage that.

[CdrPlatypus]

contributor have you used warding words outside of redhill? Curious if its' got late game uses

[contributor]

I would say it's uses outside of Redhill are negligible. It's been a long time, but by later game, my Sneak is really on top of the Stealth/Evasion thing and there aren't so many recessed doors. I just played through the whole game with Vincent and don't remember ever wishing for Warding Words.

[CdrPlatypus]

contributor , andrew , fallen


I have to admit I hated the idea of respec when it was first introduced, but now I am constantly thinking about it....because I want to try slight changes without having to start all over. I will limit myself to not abusing it imo using it to get talent spreads that would not be naturally obtainable.

I used it to open the defense barriers, but now I'm thinking its a wasted point. 

Next group I'm going to use spreadsheet and a calculator before starting

[dagger]

Just finished Ep1 by taking out the Baron so I thought I'd do a quick recap on my team.

Vraes is at Stoneskin 10, Natural Mastery 1, Burst of Speed 1, and Juggernaut 1. He's up to 11 Strength and 10 Constitution alternating. He hits well and, with some crafting, doesn't get hit by much of anything. Even the arrow shots rarely do more than 30 damage and with around 1000 HPs he is pretty much unstoppable. Obviously with Stoneskin at 10 the enemies are going to start doing more and more damage as they hit and I can't raise armor via that talent anymore so I need to keep on top of it. But he's only wearing 32 Armor and I haven't put any points in Fyona's Righteous Fervor yet so I still have another 150 armor to put on him, give or take. He should be able to keep pace. I'm going to run Jug to 4 I think and then I want Burst of Speed 3 for the Dodge and MP. I'm also thinking 1 or 2 points in Berserker Rage for the crit depending on how he does with SP. If he's fairly self-sufficient, I'll probably wait. But if he keeps running low on juice, I'll probably add those early. It's fun getting 35 SP points from one crit swing.

Kjartan is at Choking Ash 10 and Pureflame Shield 4. With the other three team members all able to do damage, Kjartan spends most of his time ashing things anyway so he can help the team other ways by buffing. I think I'm going to take that to 7 and then I need to decide where to go. I want some of Meteoric Shockwave, Immolation, and Burning Blades but, again, he spends most of his time ashing so I'm not sure investing a ton of points into those last two will do me much good. I'm leaning towards Burning Blades and Shockwave, probably alternating but we'll see. I continue to build Con on him....just in case.

Fyona is at Shield of Cortias 10, Battlefield Devotion 1, and Reckoning 1. Right now I'm thinking Reckoning to 3 then Righteous Fervor to 6 which should get me through Ep2. After that, who knows. In the meantime, I'll be paying attention to how she hits. Ideally, I'd like Zealous Strikes 4 and Consecrated Defense 2 as well as one or two more Battlefield Devotion but...those will have to be game time decisions based on results. She's currently at 12 Con and 7 Strength. 12 Con is a nice round number to take full advantage of her toughness bonus so I'm going to put at least the next 3 (maybe 5) in strength before taking Con to 16.

Selen is at Pinning Shot 5, Dance of Shadows 5, and Quicksilver Defense 1. With Vraes taking all of the fire her defense can wait but her Stealth can't. So I'm going to run Dance of Shadows to 10 and then probably Pinning Shot to 8. Her Dex is 11 and her Con is 8 and she's got pretty good defense so I think I'm going to put the next point in Dex, then 2 in Con, and then run Dex to 16. She's fairly hardy now and with 3 extra MP's I can keep her out of trouble. Just needs to be strong enough to weather any Stealth-check losses, which she should be at present. Once I get Righteous Fervor going on Fyona I think she'll be fine.

That's where things stand for team "Watch for flying....Heads!" Any comments or suggestions always appreciated. Thanks!

[CdrPlatypus]

dagger I myself would be leary of waiting that long to level QSD myself

[CdrPlatypus]

Cleared the First floor of the underforge plan is going strong. Decided KJ is sticking with pureflame sheild for now. working out rather well Vraes occasionally fully soaks shots from cultist initiates

[dagger]

Yeah, Selen lost a stealth check in the storerooms and went from 480 down to 137 weathering the opening salvo. It was a bad one so the fact she didn't die gives me some confidence but....a little closer than I would have liked. I'll probably have to raise her defense some....