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Post by johndramey on Oct 31, 2013 0:13:29 GMT -5
Hmmm. Where is this Deathkin? I think I might have missed him on all 4 play throughs.... haha. Anyways, I can comment and say that cursing is definitely required at the higher difficulty levels. Stacking Ethereal Anguish and Choking sands on enemies makes them easy targets, and easy targets get the axe. Fighting tougher enemies can be tricky, but you really want to set up your ambush as best as possible. This is how I usually do it and I think it's pretty effective. John's Guide to Stomping Critters- Set up my Cleric and Outlander on a defensible position, position the Wizard 1-2 spaces behind them
- Scout ahead with my Thief to aggro any enemies
- If I don't aggro within a decent distance, go back to Step 1, if I aggro something, go to Step 4
- Depending on the situation, I'll either fire off two arrows at the enemy with my rogue or cast Farsight in the enemies' direction, then retreat towards friends*
- Spend a turn or three popping arrows at the biggest threat, ASAP toss curses at targets of scariness**
- One turn before contact, buff your troops! Outlander gets everything, and any left overs can be cast on the Cleric
- When the enemy is within decent melee range (3 squares or so), ATTACK!
- Use the Outlander to bash enemies down, he has high damage output and is relatively beefy. The Cleric should be concentrating on a)Keeping the Outlander healthy, b)Absorbing some hits from the weaker enemies, and c)finishing off critically injured enemies.
*Always be sure to keep at least 6 squares between you and the enemy. Most enemies cannot close a 6 square distance and attack. **Remember that Choking Sands is AoE, so only use that on bunched critters or BSDs (Big Scary Dudes). Ethereal Anguish is targeted and only costs 2AP, hit anything that moves with that one! Of course, your results may vary. However, this has served me well on my Nightmare play through and, I think, will be effective throughout the game. |
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Post by rabidbite on Oct 31, 2013 9:55:30 GMT -5
That's a pretty good description of solid fighting strategy. It's pretty close to what I do, except I give my team more space to maneuver. I mean ... I keep running into them Deathkin and having to delete and start again since no way for me to move forward. Then again, I AM playing Brutal.
If you have a lvl 1 team facing a lvl 1 Deathkin on BRUTAL ... it won't work. It will work with just about everything else I've encountered on that 1st Dungeon (including the shamans).
With the Deathkin, its about making sure it can NEVER do 4-5 attacks on you in a row. So, have to kite him ... but NOT with your thief. You will need to kite him with your OUTLANDER. Why? because the deathkin runs SOOO fast that even after a full run by any of your team, it will probably get, at least, 1 good shot in. So grab your outlander and potion heal him at least -1- time after each fight. Oh, and you really have to curse the Deathkin, or its pointless.
But wait, why not heal the Outlander with your cleric? Because the Deathkin will ZERO IN on the closest member of your team. You really don't want that to be your cleric. She won't make it.
So, Circle Kiting is the only way I can think of consistent killing this mofo, and its sooooooo difficult. You have to -preset- your RANGED team in different spots/or spot so that as you run your outlander around, your ranged folk can SHOOT the Deathkin AND BACKAWAY so that your Outlander remains the closest toon. You don't want the Deathkin to Zero in on your ranged team.
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Post by reubenjohn on Nov 1, 2013 14:02:26 GMT -5
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a death-kin yet. I took my nightmare game and circled back through the other path to try to find one but haven't had any luck.
My hardest fight so far was 4 Giant Rats, a handful of warriors and archers, and 1 shamon.
On nightmare I found it was essential to allow the outlander to tank and do most of my damage. My group was only level 2 at the time, but I opted to get Phalanx Shield on my outlander, Chocking Ash 2 on my wizard, and Warder's Shield on my cleric. I got Aimed Shot 2 on my thief as I used her to focus down archers. This lowered my ability to damage the enemies as fast, but it allowed my outlander to tank through the high damage of the Giant Rats.
My basic strategy on nightmare has been:
1. Stack up behind my outlander (position is key as you want to draw the enemies to as narrow a hallway as possible) and buff him with Pureflame Shield, Warder's Shield, Stone Skin, Phalanx Shield. This basically cuts any damaged received in half. Giant Rats went from dealing 100+ to the high 40's.
2. Curse melee groups and tougher monsters. Choking Ash 2 and Ethereal Anguish gives -3 Dodge, -2 Parry -4 Protection -1 AP so really makes it easy to damage the hard hitters.
3. Heal the outlander with my cleric. (The downside of only 1 level is that I have basic heal only which means I can heal a max of 100ish hp a turn with my cleric.) Focus the outlander on whatever he is tanking at the time (I opted for Savage Sweep as I found I reliably hit 3 times a turn instead of 1-2 for about the same damage) The thief focuses down archers/warriors as I see the need. Archers only attack me once each while warriors can attack multiple times. The wizard helps with that if there are a bunch of them, but in a longer fight (such as the one above) I found it better to keep him for cursing new enemies and rebuffing with the shield(Fireball 1 doesn't hit very hard/often on the big guys).
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Post by fallen on Nov 1, 2013 14:38:16 GMT -5
reubenjohn - the boss fights are a bit randomized each game, so you may have to play again (just play P2!) to see one. When you run into one, you'll know. I love the description of your curse-heavy strategy! Glad its working well for you! You'll find a ton of balancing that helps you out in P2, but a lot smarter monsters that up the ante.
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Post by rabidbite on Nov 3, 2013 13:50:14 GMT -5
AJA. I just ran into another Deathkin. Here me heroes! Bring the vermin down! To battle! To battle! Let them hear our roar! FOR PONY!!!!!!rabidbite PS: I wonder how many will get it  |
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Post by johndramey on Nov 3, 2013 16:54:59 GMT -5
reubenjohn - the boss fights are a bit randomized each game, so you may have to play again (just play P2!) to see one. When you run into one, you'll know. I love the description of your curse-heavy strategy! Glad its working well for you! You'll find a ton of balancing that helps you out in P2, but a lot smarter monsters that up the ante. Just ran into a deathkin in my current play through and... wow. Is this supposed to be a level 1 enemy? If so, you might want to balance it down a little bit. I was running through on normal so I wasn't really working on min/maxing my character builds, but I only beat it by abusing the enemy pathing a little bit and getting lucky. It hits like a truck (easily dealing 200 hp in damage a turn), has huge HP, and has a lot of armor/dodge. I specced my outlander into hammers and was basically totally unable to damage it too much with my melee attacks, instead relying on fireball to hurt it. That was a very hard fight, and having the heavy of an enemy early in the game could really frustrate newer players haha. |
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Post by fallen on Nov 3, 2013 16:56:49 GMT -5
johndramey - what difficulty are you on? Cellet Void won't be the start of the real game!
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Post by rabidbite on Nov 3, 2013 18:17:31 GMT -5
Try fighting that thing on Brutal.
It's a religious experience.
Well, I started my first Nightmare level team. The fights are particularly tough and exiting. I'm hoping I don't run into a deathkin, but if I do, I SHALL PREVAIL ... by quitting and starting another team.
(twiddles thumbs)
rabid
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Post by johndramey on Nov 3, 2013 21:28:17 GMT -5
johndramey - what difficulty are you on? Cellet Void won't be the start of the real game! Haha, as Rabidbite showed, I'm on Normal. The problem I have with the deathkin is that he seems so much better than just about any other "hero" enemy we face. Giant Rat Huge hit, high HP, fairly low dodge/armor, normal AP Shaman Huge HP, low damage hit, medium armor, lowish AP Deathkin Huge HP, Huge Damage, high dodge/armor, 9AP On normal the deathkin is able to, with a little (bad) luck, take a full HP outlander to 0 in one turn by himself. Add in another ratkin (archer or melee) and it's relatively trivial to get wiped. Just seems like he's a little out of his level fighting with the creatures he's stacked up with. |
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Post by fallen on Nov 3, 2013 23:56:13 GMT -5
johndramey - if we made him wimpy, what would give rabidbite chills!? More seriously, we will tone them down a bit ... they are meant to be absolutely terrifying group killers.
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Post by johndramey on Nov 4, 2013 0:17:31 GMT -5
fallen - If I were to do it, I'd lower his armor/dodge chance. Make him into a sort of berserker style enemy. High AP, hit's like a brick, and doesn't care about himself so much. Has high HP, but if he wades into combat he'll be taking hits left and right. Does he care? Not at all.
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Post by rabidbite on Nov 4, 2013 11:44:01 GMT -5
fallen - If I were to do it, I'd lower his armor/dodge chance. Make him into a sort of berserker style enemy. High AP, hit's like a brick, and doesn't care about himself so much. Has high HP, but if he wades into combat he'll be taking hits left and right. Does he care? Not at all. My thoughts exactly. Though, not sure how this would play out on Nightmare. An observation, are the abilities of the Outlander playing correction in terms of Savage Sweep I on nightmare? I don't see much of a change in to-hit chances even with the +3 accuracy. For example, I am getting 1-2 in 6 chance of hitting against Cave Spiders, with or without Savage Sweep I. I DO see the change with the +3 ranged accuracy of the Thief's Aimed Shot. From 1 in 5 I am getting around 2-3 in 5, which is double the hits. I ran about 40ish attempts in a row (continue recycle button) to test. A few more things: 1. The HP of enemy monsters have a "More than 10 ... or 20 ... or 30" hp marker flags separated by units of 10. Could that be made a little more accurate, like up to +5 hps instead of +9? Cause it kicks me in the teeth when I do 19 hp damage on an 'more than 30' hp mob and get an "Above 20 hps" status afterwards. 2. In several occasions an enemy monster casts a spell on one of my toons with no damage marker, but when my toon's turn comes around a significant amount of health has gone. Sometimes there IS a damage marker, but it says something like -8 hps when HALF the health of the toon is gone (I'm speculating it should have said -80 hps?). Can there be a peek taken into these odd incidents? rabid |
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Post by absimiliard on Nov 4, 2013 12:32:40 GMT -5
An observation, are the abilities of the Outlander playing correction in terms of Savage Sweep I on nightmare? I don't see much of a change in to-hit chances even with the +3 accuracy. For example, I am getting 1-2 in 6 chance of hitting against Cave Spiders, with or without Savage Sweep I. I DO see the change with the +3 ranged accuracy of the Thief's Aimed Shot. From 1 in 5 I am getting around 2-3 in 5, which is double the hits. I get the feeling that accuracy increases have increased my damage more than the amount of times I hit. Like the to-hit check is also effecting the damage-roll, i.e. a "near miss" does a fraction of the damage-roll and a "solid hit" does whatever you roll. I could easily be wrong as I've not been writing anything down, but my most recent outlander has been focussing on raising sweep instead of the pure-damage talent and I think the effects are feeling quite similar to me. Either of Fallen/Cory care to comment? -abs |
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Post by fallen on Nov 4, 2013 13:37:25 GMT -5
absimiliard - accuracy rolls do not have any effect on damage. If you hit more, you are more likely to get more damage rolls and have more high / low results?
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Post by fallen on Nov 4, 2013 13:53:56 GMT -5
rabidbite - I will check on the Savage Sweep to insure that it is working, we have had some mis-wiring before. I have added the item about making the monster HP more granular. We are also working on some other updates to that display. I will check the HP display, it is very possible that the magical damage (Evil, Fire, etc) is not being displayed -- on the list!
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