1821

Thanks McBain. So I’m guessing having a permanent off-tank is only important if you’re maximizing caster skills?

Sounds like it’ll be warfare/dream then.

1822

The Earth pet (Core Dweller) is pretty amazing if you’re a rangestriker, because he attracts enemies like a magnet. He gets a little fragile in act 3, but if you rush to the top of the tree and get his top-tier buff he gets a lot more durable. I’m not sure how useful he’d be to a melee fighter, but my archer loves him.

You could also consider Storm as a companion to melee: in addition to elemental damage buffs to your attacks and a PBAOE stun that triggers when you get hit, you also get Squall: a ranged AOE attack that shuts down rangestrikers and debuffs their attacks and resists. Archers hit really hard in this game, so the spell is a lifesaver.

1823

I am enjoying this way too much.

Quick question: is it a good idea to max something like warfare mastery before putting points into the individual skills? Also, I know you get the new mastery at level 8, but is it better to max out the skills you need in your first tree before going basically dual-class?

1824

Maxing out a mastery before putting skill points is is not a good idea. Put in one point per level in the mastery generally and use the rest for skills. Two reasons. One, skills and equipment are what kills enemies, not the minor stat boosts you get from putting points in masteries. Two, if you mess up and want to respec your skills you can’t take away points from your masteries, only from your skills.

Whether to max out skills before moving to the second tree or not depends very much on the build you’re going for I’d say. My Hunting mastery archer waited til level 32 before branching out to another mastery.

1825

Honestly, I’d have to agree here. I’ve been screwing around with several characters, up to the level 15-25 range, and I don’t think any of them have benefited much from branching out early. With the Dream/Warfare character, I just put a few points in the mastery (to boost my strength/health) and then maxed that ability that increases your attack speed/attack rating.

That seems to be about the only useful thing the character can get from Warfare for about the first 35 levels or so.

1826

I would say if you’re planning on taking defense as your secondary mastery getting it earlier to put points into Armor Handling can make a difference.

Besides that maxing out a few core skills in your first mastery (like your left click attack if your mastery offers one) is probably a good idea first.

1827

Bah had already spent a few points into the warfare mastery attribute raising. Ah well, I’ll keep the next few points for learning new skills.

With regards to the attribute points, do you just pour it into the specialty you want? So probably strength + health for a warfare character. I’m going more with a style in which I do that, except if I have a pretty neat item I want to equip I try to get in some points in the attribute necessary to equip it, if it isn’t very far off. I’m assuming warfare along with a dream mastery will require some points put into intelligence as well?

1828

There are exceptions to the “focus on one mastery” approach. For example, Conquerors (warfare/defense) do fine mixing the masteries up early, since the skills complement one another nicely.

1829

Speaking of defense mastery, is the colossal form really as awesome as it sounds?

1830

I think I use a balanced approach. By the time I reach level 32, I usually have one mastery maxed and the other about half way, with the rest of the points focussed on a couple branches of the skill trees. What others have suggested above, putting a point into the mastery and the rest into skills, each level up is the best route to go.

On a different topic, I’m thinking that the caravan was a big time eater. I just decided to start transferring items around between my characters and since my “Transfer” storage is maxed, I’m finding it a little hard to get items to the proper characters, mainly because I have to check to see if it’s more worthwhile for them to go one to one or another. I’m almost wishing I didn’t have it…but only almost. I now have four parts of one set, and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to completing a set yet.

1831

It’s a one-point wonder. My level 55 Conqueror keeps it available for boss fights, where it really shines. The recharge is very long, however, so I rarely use it otherwise. But for one point, it’s a great investment (and lots of fun to watch, too).

1832

You can’t hurt what you can’t hit. Ignore Dex at your peril. It also governs how often you get hit or suffer a critical, so it plays a huge role both offensively and defensively.

1833

I finally, finally, FINALLY beat the motherfucking Manticore. I never managed to beat it in the original game. One hit and I’d die instantly. Then I’d scream, “Manticore! When I come back I’ll not just kill you, I’ll kill your scorpos and beetles and I’ll burn your damn cave down!”

And that’s what I did! My level 45 Dreamkiller died (as usual) in the initial fight. Even the powerful secondary attack of the Dream mastery barely took a single pixel of its health bar. And I couldn’t do the shoot & scoot routine because the beast hops rather than walks, so arrows will actually pass below its belly! Also, there’s no rebirth fountain in the endless cave, and the Manticore is always back at full health when you walk back from the Fayum oasis, so strategically dying is not an option either.

So I came back with scrolls. Lots of scrolls. With pets since other scroll types are useless against fast-moving bosses. I still died in the next attempt because I got caught in an instadeath pounce attack when the beast was at maybe 10% health! Next round I was careful and let a Cyclops take care of the very last sliver of health, just so that this wouldn’t happen again.

Total amount of scroll pets expended: 4 Cyclops, 2 squads of Burning Dead, 2 squads of Harpies, and one Corpulent Djinn. None of them lasted more than a few seconds but they did some decent damage. They also pinned the Manticore and allowed me to get a number of shots in.

Is there anything at all in the game that’s tougher than the Manticore? Even Talos isn’t that tough, never mind Typhon or that pussy Hades. At least you get a commensurate amount of XP (over 26,000) and a nice artifact weapon in the chests.

Now I can sleep peacefully at night once again…

1834

One thing I noticed that should be fixed in a patch: When you mouse over the Health/Mana/Str/Dex/Int numbers in the Character window you get an x+y display where x is your starting attribute plus whatever you put into the attribute in this window, and y is everything else.

That’s rather useless because Mastery levels also increase these attributes, and they’re permanent. What I’m interested in is not what I added on the Character window but the total number that’s not due to equipment or temporary buffs. So the first number (x) should include points added by Mastery levels as well, and the second number (y) should be only equipment and temporary points.

1835

That is true. In Epic Act 2 you’ll meet an increasing number of enemies that you take a swing at – and miss! Pumping up dexterity is pretty much mandatory for any class that you want to take into Epic.

Also, is it just me or do all boss-level monsters auto-block the Dream power attack? Sneaking up invisibly and getting in a powerful attack before you get hit yourself is a great strategy for most monsters but it never seems to work with bosses. I just get a “thump” sound and my swing missed. That always happens when there’s some distance, so I turn invisible, but it never happens with the same bosses when I’m already next to them. Looks like cheating to me…

1836

I beat Manticore, on epic, on my spellbreaker without even knowing Manticore was in the cave. :P

I got into the cave and killed all the scorpions and stuff, and then I saw the huge majestic box which I couldn’t open. (Prior to this, my friend did tell me that there was a mob called Manticore which took his corsair like five tries to kill but he didn’t tell me where the mob was located. We did discuss his fight with Manticore, and he told me that he did a lot of dodging and running for his fights). Anyway, because of the locked majestic box, I suspected Manticore was in that cave but I couldn’t see it ( I was lucky cos I didn’t cross its path first when I was killing all the other mobs). When I went near the pit, bam, Manticore appeared out of now, and I got a bit of a fright. In fact, my first reaction was, “WTH is that bat mob?” In the pre-expansion version, all pets are on aggressive, so my liche king immediately attacked it and I quickly summoned my ether lord. Both my pets literally tanked the mob, while I ran around shooting it at range, and we got it down. It was fortunate that I managed to clear the area of all other mobs before Manticore literally dropped down on me so the running and dodging was definitely easier.

Actually, as a spellbreaker, I do a lot of running around and trying to range bosses. :P The worst mob, at least for my spellbreaker, is Talos. I really dread that mob cos I need to get my pets to tank it and it would kill them pretty fast if they don’t get in the right position (which means a lot of trial and error for me).

Dexterity definitely plays a huge part in dodging attacks. I have pretty high dexterity on the spellbreaker, so I could actually survive a lot of the damage from the bosses. From my friends’s corsair’s point of view, movement speed is also important cos that augments the dodges. It makes sense to be lightfooted when you want to avoid damage and to deal damage fast.

Anyway, grats on beating Manticore :).

1837

I agree completely with this. That’s how the display should work, and I was amazed when I first realized that it doesn’t.

1838

I’ll third that. Every single time I’ve looked at that display since I started TQ I’ve thought the exact same thing. It makes no sense to me that they’ve stuck with this design. I wonder if anyone ever told them about it?

1839

Perhaps Michael can forward this observation to the dev team.

1840

So. About to start up a Templar, (Dream/Defense), and I was wondering if anyone who had experience with the Dream tree could give me some input as to their Aura of choice. I’m sort of torn between Empathy (Get small % of damage taken back as health, Return high % of damage taken) and Convalescence (+HP/MP regen, +%Damage Absorb). I’m aiming to be able to tank/kill bosses (since my class has almost no hit n’ run powers).