Cross Platform Nightmare Ironman

[fallen]

Just had a rage quit moment. Nightmare Team died in the friggin' vermin layer. Got cocky, Selen was killing like crazy and she walked into a den of archers and 3 shamans firing full. Posted out at 17 million.

EDIT: I think the hardest thing about this ironman mode is the need for endless discipline and vigilance. Even my build had slipped in spending 2 Attribute points, and I was kicking myself. It could have made the difference. I will have to try again

[matrim]

I was so careful in those tunnels, I ran every battle back and funnel killed everything. Had an unlucky spawn of the host spider initiate but my Kincaid blocked all 3 of his attacks. 32 dodge and 5 evasion for the win!

[CdrPlatypus]

fallen I know that feeling. I've gotten too aggressive with melee selen on two groups and gotten deaths I know i'm better than. I take breaks now on playtime to make sure I don't get too impatient.

Although funny enough I'm running a very aggressive group right now as a change up to the defense heavy group I posted my high score with and giving 2-handed hammers a shot on vraes. Hes Crushing 2, NM 1, BOS 1, SSK3, and 10 Constitution (im going straight to 16 its frustrating to have to camp so much but without a shield I think he'll need it). I'm trying to develop him as a classic barbarian and fyona as a tanky healer...shes not quite there yet. I also went burning blades 3 on kj out of the gate...had 2 ridiculous back to back crits with vraes on archers...was like why can't I get that lucky on giant rats?! And pinning selen too get an early -ap curse. Long term I think shes going to be a switch hitter. I don't know how long this group will last, but it is funner than the safer lockdown team I was running and kills a whole lot faster.

[CdrPlatypus]

matrim Much respect. If I may inquire what is your build like? *note I understand if you don't want to share your secrets of l33tness.

[fallen]

CdrPlatypus - I was doing the 100% Constitution with all my characters, but I slipped in a few points of Dex for Selen & Kincaid. One point more Con and I think I would have survived the round ... how painful.

[fallen]

Once more into the breach ... (taking a break from KickStarter work

[matrim]

I don't mind sharing at all. I am hoping that some people can improve upon it.

Kincaid - pure avoidance. I started by maxing dex (nothing in any other stat) and getting sure parry to level 7 (for 3 assured blocks). This made him pretty immune to melee attacks but ranged was a huge weakness. I would usually run behind walls to make the archers go forward while tanking all the melee mobs with him behind the wall. After sure parry I put one point into his +crit buff and then his + move buff till I got +2. One into his acc buff after that because it has an excellent return and now I am maxing his +crit. Rogue armor and all tanking accessories.

Kjartan - pure debuff. 6 into choking ash, 3 or 4 into flame weapon (till it aoes) then straight choking ash till 10. Grabbed a point in inferno for some ae fun but it was pretty pointless. That debuff is the best in the game IMO and I don't know how I would do nightmare without Kjartan. Pure int for more debuffs and fire damage + accuracy accessories. His firebolt hits for 40-80 despite being level 1, it's nice.

Fyona - 2 total points in heal and then straight cortias. This makes Kincaid virtually unhittable in melee. After getting to 7 or 8 I took a point in her attack buff to curb the cost of cortias a bit till her sp caught up. Sprinkled in some points into heal when I thought it was necessary, at 4 heal at level 24. I got 1 point in her -ap move, really important for spider host initiates. Pure int to let her cast cortias and accuracy and damage accessories. Nice thing about max cortias is that everyone gets a ton of parry, can't tell you how many times Fyona or even Kjartan has blocked a stray melee hit.

Selen - pinning shot till 2nd stage ae (where it hits behind the shot). Straight dance of shadows after that. Got to 3 move point and then started putting some points into punishing blade. That coupled with choking ash makes sure that all but the most armoured mobs are at 0 armor and just get eaten alive by Selen and Kincaid. I go pure dex and split points between bow and blades. I focus bow more at the start because she is too fragile to melee at the start but once the damage accessories come rolling in and I can reliably kill 1-2 mobs per round with her it back to blade. She shoots down any ranged units after Kjartan debuffs them. Those get priority as the melee mobs can do no damage. For me building bows was essential because I needed to be able to dispatch ranged units without moving Selen into melee mobs.

Right now I am at 32 parry and 32 dodge with Kincaid and only spider hosts can hit him with any reliability (1 in 5 maybe) everything else is 1 in 30 maybe...I basically never have to cast sure parry in battle and Kincaid has not taken damage from a melee attack since the ratkin shaman. 0 armor makes low ap weapons crazy and my team regularly deals 600 damage a turn. I almost never use empowered attacks to save sp and can go 3-4 battles before needing to camp (less for large encounters, I burn sp if I need to). Places I could improve is ranged enemies, I have no idea where to get evasion except rogue armor and it provides no where near enough for reliability. If anything gets me now it's going to be those initiates. I might consider putting some points into shockwave and only cast it on ranged units...who knows, any advice would be appreciated.

[CdrPlatypus]

Thank you for sharing! That's some serious dedication to pumping parry with cortais

[fallen]

Muhahaha, my new team finally posted a score that has trumped my old team!

And I got to gloat about it on our blog.
blog.tresebrothers.com/2014/09/building-vraes-for-nightmare.html

How did you build your Vraes? Can he take this on, and still scream "Charge!"

[CdrPlatypus]

fallen Congrats. I gotta get back to the grindstone on this

[fallen]

CdrPlatypus - its my current "not KickStarter" activity I'm almost to the lake now and posting 20 millions! I love Kincaid, but I will always feel safe with Vreas

[CdrPlatypus]

fallen same here re vraes. I notice your team lacks an early -ap curse. How is that working out for you?

[fallen]

CdrPlatypus - I am planning a build that will not use them until level 18. I don't know how that is going to work out ... so far, so good, but the mobs are very manageable in E1A1 and you can control who they are hitting.

[En1gma]

fallen- it's going to be interesting to see how well the group does with only Reckoning for AP curses... I would assume that KJ will be investing in Meteoric Shockwave to take some of the Acc from the groups then? I wonder how well this could work with the -Acc from Tam's Silent Stalker... Could be interesting for me to try someday...

[fallen]

En1gma - agreed, I want to see if its possible With the right set of defensive buffs, Pureflame Shield and Shield of Cortias ... Vraes was able to stand there and take the beating from that entire mob. On Nightmare. Now, Ratkin are no Orcin or Cultists, so its going to be a wild experiment.

And yes, Kjartan is 100% curses. Has 8 Conjuring an CA 5. Tamilin is all Deadly Intuition + Lore, already posting a 10% crit rate with gear and absolutely killing.

I will keep everyone posted as my score climbs ... to my inevitable death!