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Post by contributor on May 23, 2018 3:28:16 GMT -5
Hah! What is it about this game. I've got an Ironman team in early E4 and I started a new group yesterday because I had a new idea for a build. I actually just boosted them in to do a little testing and see how they would handle E2, but still. CdrPlatypus, I think you better just get somewhere with Heavy Metal before starting another group. It's got potential though. |
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Post by CdrPlatypus on May 23, 2018 5:35:03 GMT -5
Hah! What is it about this game. I've got an Ironman team in early E4 and I started a new group yesterday because I had a new idea for a build. I actually just boosted them in to do a little testing and see how they would handle E2, but still. CdrPlatypus, I think you better just get somewhere with Heavy Metal before starting another group. It's got potential though. I'm up to the store rooms. Deciding when i want to go for it. Did a little respec to showcase certain talents. Im enjoying livestreaming. I want to try and get a bit of an audeince for the storerooms |
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Post by contributor on May 23, 2018 6:51:49 GMT -5
Storerooms are pretty scary, but it's pretty much like you just got through the prologue. There's so much left to do.
My fight with C8 says that throwing knives are the best. Tamilin just destroyed him. With Torrent and Strickening he had something like -5 resistance and -8 weak verse all magic. I should have put one of those + all magic damage gear pieces on her.
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Post by CdrPlatypus on May 23, 2018 9:24:59 GMT -5
Storerooms are pretty scary, but it's pretty much like you just got through the prologue. There's so much left to do. My fight with C8 says that throwing knives are the best. Tamilin just destroyed him. With Torrent and Strickening he had something like -5 resistance and -8 weak verse all magic. I should have put one of those + all magic damage gear pieces on her. Yes on so much to do, but i want an off group to play when i want to save a fight for a livestream. Also i know that throwing knives are the better meta at themoment, but like heavy metal is all about show casing vraes the 2 handed barbarian i want to make a group or two or three ...to show case tam built out for bows |
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Post by contributor on May 23, 2018 16:15:33 GMT -5
Yeah, I chickened out on the 2H. Eventually things just got too risky and I had to decide to be serious about getting an Ironman team through or potentially making an epic 2H Vraes. This run is pretty well convinced me that 3AP weapons are just not able to keep up with lower AP weapons once you start getting AoE and crits. When Vraes get's 2 hits and Tamilin gets 20 a turn there's just no way to make up the difference. Besides he needs to be a tank and a lot of his gear/buffs are going to go into playing that role. Tamilin just needs some AP and she can bring the pain and get safely out of range. I feel like especially 3 AP weapons would need double the damage and double the crit of what they have now. Especially for Vraes since he has no AoE. A hammer like that might be OP for Fyona with Reckoning.
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matrim
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Post by matrim on May 23, 2018 16:36:44 GMT -5
I find the same thing with 3 AP weapons. The buffs are linear so when you get 3x the attacks and get to apply bonuses 3x as much, the difference becomes ridiculous. 2 AP is manageable, still a damage loss in everything but act 1 but you do OK damage. I would love to see a cleave added to 2h weapons. Every attack hitting the space to the sides of what you are targeting. In that way, 2hders would become situational powerhouse attacks and that would really make me have to agonize over choosing between them and 1 AP weapons (which I currently don’t do because 1 AP weapons are vastly superior).
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Post by fallen on May 23, 2018 18:58:33 GMT -5
Interesting choices. You're missing out on a huge amount of base damage bonus by avoiding STR based weapons. If your team features a big -Armor curse, 1 AP weapons really shine. All depends a lot on the team build. My current Ironman build does not feature any +Dmg buffs or attacks, and I've recently had to upgrade both Kincaid and Selen off 1 AP weapons because they were two whimpy. Both now carry 2 x 1 AP weapons, but they're back to killing again thankfully. Looking seriously at upgrading them both to 2 AP swords, but may wait until I craft after Red Hill.
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Post by CdrPlatypus on May 23, 2018 23:59:39 GMT -5
Interesting choices. You're missing out on a huge amount of base damage bonus by avoiding STR based weapons. If your team features a big -Armor curse, 1 AP weapons really shine. All depends a lot on the team build. My current Ironman build does not feature any +Dmg buffs or attacks, and I've recently had to upgrade both Kincaid and Selen off 1 AP weapons because they were two whimpy. Both now carry 2 x 1 AP weapons, but they're back to killing again thankfully. Looking seriously at upgrading them both to 2 AP swords, but may wait until I craft after Red Hill. Dor kincaid i prefer a 1 ap and 2 ap for a total of 3ap dual wield |
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Post by fallen on May 24, 2018 0:00:14 GMT -5
CdrPlatypus - its great flexibility, perhaps the best. Always get to use all your AP.
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Post by contributor on May 24, 2018 3:38:23 GMT -5
Interesting choices. You're missing out on a huge amount of base damage bonus by avoiding STR based weapons. If your team features a big -Armor curse, 1 AP weapons really shine. All depends a lot on the team build. My current Ironman build does not feature any +Dmg buffs or attacks, and I've recently had to upgrade both Kincaid and Selen off 1 AP weapons because they were two whimpy. Both now carry 2 x 1 AP weapons, but they're back to killing again thankfully. Looking seriously at upgrading them both to 2 AP swords, but may wait until I craft after Red Hill. I wouldn't say that I'm missing out on the base damage from Strength considering my Vraes is using Natural Mastering and adding +25 base right now. Even with that he's still way way underperforming Tamilin. And yes we are using Choking Ash 10, but even if we weren't Vraes 3 hits would still be getting more soak and he would probably only be hitting once or twice if you took away the -Parry/Dodge aspect of Choking. Tami is a way more consistent hitter. I think matrim already alluded to the fact that the difference increases as you get further on in the game. So yeah, in E1 there is a little more parity between them, but by the time you're getting in to E3, E4 and have a fully developed buff/debuff/crit plan then 2 and especially 3 AP weapons just can't keep up. Even Fyona outstrips Vraes, who is now using the legendary C8 weapon, just because she has AoE through Reckoning. To me the biggest thing is probably the interplay of AoE and critical. When you start multiplying the number of hits someone can make their damage output ramps up. When Vraes is going to hit 2, maybe 4 (with Juggernaut) times a turn there's just no way to get him to keep up on damage. Again I suppose there is something to be said for Vraes tank role. Maybe that is the balancing factor and we shouldn't expect him to be able to take massive punishment and give it out at the same time. |
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Post by fallen on May 24, 2018 11:21:02 GMT -5
Defintely not trying to make the characters all the same. That would have killed the game from the start.
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matrim
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Post by matrim on May 24, 2018 11:31:48 GMT -5
contributor a logical conclusion except that Kincaid or Vraes armed with a 1 AP dagger is actually quite even with Tamilin, single target at least. I have not experienced the game without armour or resistance curses because I feel the game would be a slogfest without them. Giving up 4-5 attacks a turn on 2-3 character so I can avoid leveling Ash or Strickening? It’s just so efficient that anything else hardly warrants investigation and just feels like you are deliberately hamstringing yourself on an already very challenging game. I see the TB bring forward the same case of big numbers to get through armour and all that stuff but the fact remains that while 1400 damage crits look cool, they are inefficient. I want to do 7 attacks that can crit for 500, I do not want to hit something that has 50 health for 1400. 1 AP weapons just outperform in every way, higher single target, able to spread damage around if needed, more adaptability if I need to drink a potion or move around, and more benefits from buffs (including the big one use item ones) so when I want to stack up for a fight I am getting more out of it. fallen I really love the diversity in this game, in fact I love virtually everything about this game. I guess from my prospective of nightmare Ironman it’s just really hard to justify inefficiencies like 2-3 AP weapons. It takes dozens of hours to go through this game and I would hate to lose that because Vraes whiffed twice with his big hammer and now I have to face another round of attacks from that Orcin Shaman or Deathkin that could easily kill someone.
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Post by fallen on May 24, 2018 11:43:15 GMT -5
fallen I really love the diversity in this game, in fact I love virtually everything about this game. I guess from my prospective of nightmare Ironman it’s just really hard to justify inefficiencies like 2-3 AP weapons. It takes dozens of hours to go through this game and I would hate to lose that because Vraes whiffed twice with his big hammer and now I have to face another round of attacks from that Orcin Shaman or Deathkin that could easily kill someone. Well, numbers are numbers! Every player finds and swears by their own strat. It's good we have 2 AP and 3 AP weapons in the game because they are so very popular  |
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matrim
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Post by matrim on May 24, 2018 11:49:02 GMT -5
I stand by my statement of giving 2h weapons a base AE attack so that the hit box targets the square plus the squares to the sides of the mobs. This gives Vraes much needed AoE, which, I am sorry, really hurts his performance, it makes sense (a barbarian swinging a giant 2h sword should be hitting more than a Rogue stabbing something with a dagger), and it brings those weapons more in line with 1 AP. Yes, there will be lots of damage in certain cases but you already have the AI set up that there is really not going to be too many cases where this will be crazy. The only situations I can think of are battles where summoners get stuck and just fill a room with their minions and quite frankly it’s awesome to imaging Vraes or Fyona just wading in there messing them all up in short order.
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Post by drdave on May 24, 2018 11:51:54 GMT -5
It's all about role playing. Vraes isn't the sharpest tool in the box, Big Hammer Vraes isn't ever carrying the sharpest tool in the box, so he probably doesn't notice that he's not as efficient as Tami at encouraging all those souls on their way. He grew up hitting things with a big hammer and he likes doing it.
I see your point about nightmare ironman, but once you've done it with the most efficient group, what about the extra challenge of using a less well tuned group?
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