The one part of this build that’s really confusing to me is why you only have one point in Bloody Pox. And then you have all 12 points in its followup skill, and then 4 more points into another follow up skill. Apparently that all adds up to Bloody Pox being badass? With just one point in the base skill?
The base skill is primarily bleeding damage, which I don’t focus so much on, the other 2 are for the debuffs, which is really what i use the skill for. It’s really the -180 offense, and 20% chance to confuse that I even have the skill for, the damage, even when maxed , is a bit irrelevant.
The other point about bloody pox, …most AOE skills come with a + to radius when you level them up, BP migrates from mob to mob, so even at 1 point, it still does the same job as far as spreading the debuffs. That’s why it’s such a great 1 point wonder.
Having to only cast a spell once, and having it migrate to every mob onscreen, and that having a 20% chance to confuse, is actually really very good, it’s also a really cheap and fast way to get everything on screen doing less damage to you.
Edit. I may end up changing my mind on this, as it actually scales really well without a ton of investment. As you say, a lot of the build is based on what you actually find. I’ve started finding a few really good pieces with both bleed and vit damage, so I may redo that. It’s always a problem of having too many things to try and shoehorn into a build, and which ones to get rid of.
I hit level 19 last night with my Petless Conjurer, my highest level hardcore character so far. It’s weird that I’ve been playing so long, and yet, suddenly I’m drawing a blank on the most dangerous enemies that I should watch out for that might cause me to die.
Thank god for the game’s reddening of the screen when you’re about to die by the way. Their health indicator isn’t as eye-catching as Diablo 2’s, so it’s a little hard to realize sometimes that you’re close to death. But thanks to the whole screen becoming red, you get a sudden jolt of realization that you’re about to lose your character.
I hope it will be smooth sailing until the Warden. Off hand, I can only remember those two high level enemies you encounter before then. One is in a cave somewhere, and one is behind that locked door where you need the key to get in. That guy has killed nearly every one of my characters multiple times, so maybe I should avoid the locked door area with my hardcore characters.
Salazar, in the Depraved Sanctuary I think it’s called. Yeah, might want to avoid that guy on Hardcore.
The other one you’re thinking of is probably … Gutworm? Gutspill?
For me one of the most common ‘what? I’m dead? WTF?’ occurrences comes from enemies with Reflective (e.g. archmages), but they don’t show up until later.
I found the Smuggler’s Basin. The little cave he lives in. I can take him, right? He was only 6 levels above me, and I had lots of Damage Over Time stuff, so I just kept running and turning around and hitting him, and running, and turning around, and getting stunned by him and then hit by him. And then running and drinking a potion, and turning around and getting stunned. Uh oh.
You are Dead.
Level 20, Rest in Peace.
Got my Shaman to 65 and equipped my empowered Wildcaller set. Primal Strike is now 23k-36k dmg. Using Forcewave with it works well, too, lets me stun mobs, close the distance, and then bring the lightning down on them. Most skill and devotion points now go to defenses for survivability.
So last night I killed what I assume is the final boss – some Cthulu looking thing with tentacles. What am I supposed to do now? The only quest in my log is the one from the witch in Fort Ikon.
I take it you don’t have the expansion, or there would be another quest to follow still.
You have a couple of options, did you finish all the keyed rogue-like dungeons? Find all the shrines?Did you get quest line of the hidden temples? There are a couple of other bosses out there that are either from faction quests and I think the hardest boss doesn’t even have a quest attached (the queen something or other, I am going off of memory of looking over the wiki, so might be wrong on that).
I would just start over on Elite myself, I think it’s the most fun in terms of difficulty vs reward and you will max out all your factions and unlock all the faction merchants.
It does end abruptly. If you get the expansion, they explain what happened and what you saw there at the end, and continue the quest into a new area.
But yeah, you can quit to the main menu now, and start the game on Elite difficulty.
I ran around for 2 hours after that doing whatever quests I could, trying to figure out how I had borked the main story line lol. It’s not handled well.
I guess I misunderstood the question. A window pops up saying you beat the game and elite is open now, right?
OH doh, thought you were talking about the Malmouth boss.
Started my first hardcore toon, made it up to level 21 so far – just beat the Warden.
Hardcore is a bit of a bump to my waning interest – it’s nice to get excited about modest drops again since I know every stat point counts and I don’t have access to the shared stash.
Went with a battlemage, partly because it’s a class I haven’t tried and partly because I figured lots of points in the Soldier skill bar would help survivability.
Poison Bomb (the item-based ability you get from Mutagenic Ichor) is a really handy early-game skill. You can position yourself behind a narrow entryway and spam them in front of you. By the time enemies reach you they’re softened up or dead.
Nope, no expansion. Fun enough game, but if continuing on means playing through the same content at a higher difficulty level, it’s time to move on to the next game in the backlog.
I’ve never really been one to play a game over and over again to chase matched armor sets.
Most of the fun for me in GD, is trying different class combinations. There are hundreds of hours worth to try easily. If that’s not your thing, then yah, it will get old pretty fast I guess.
I have a hard time leveling anything because a different class combination is always calling me. I’m using the Trickster now, and it’s the first one I might actually stick with.
I was looking through the in-game achievements the other day. There’s one for beating the Warden while being level 11 or below! Holy shit. Has anyone managed that? What kind of character is strong enough at level 11?
On the other hand, there was no mention of it having to be hardcore, so I guess maybe the Warden can be beaten by shear attrition.
Yeah, I suppose all it comes down to is managing to do more damage before dying than he will recover, and lather/rinse/repeat.
I once thought of doing that achievement but I didn’t make a fast enough beeline for the Warden and was already level 12 or so by the time I got to the laboratory. Oh, also I think I was playing on Normal not Veteran.
Yesterday I unlocked ultimate with my Trickster. The elite run was pretty easy, with only the occasional death and a couple of side quest bosses that were 2 much for her. I skipped most of the side quests mainly because she seemed to out-level most content and I didn’t see much point grinding for very little experience. I may go back to complete all of the shrines.
Anyway, on starting an Ultimate run, I took off all her equipment, attributes, skill points and devotions planning to respec her a bit, and I than I was paralysed with indecision. How would I start? Should I pick some good armor and than invest in devotions to close any resistance gaps? Maybe start with devotions. Perhaps build the skills?
Up until now I concentrated on bleeding damage and resistance. She could stand toe to toe with most bosses and trade blows, but I’m thinking that I should put much more into resistances and health regen for ultimate.
Can do it with any dot character, takes a while, but he’ll die. Word of pain or devouring swarm are both pretty easy. If you’re in normal, the boss health doesn’t regen in between deaths as well so, you can just zerg it down eventually.