1881

Here’s a question:

I read through the manual (and the IT manual), and I don’t see any mention of the following damage types:

  • Electrical Burn (for some dream skills)
  • Vitality Damage

Just what is vitality damage, anyway? Is that like the “unspecified” pure damage type in Dungeons & Dragons?

And does anyone know if increasing my lightning damage will also increase my electrical burn effects?

1882

If I remember correctly from the TQ official forums, vitality damage is also related to dream skills (unsure which ones).

1883

Vitality damage is the type of damage done by life-draining powers. It’s not stopped by armor and has it’s own resistance type. A +5 vitality damage sword just does damage though, doesn’t give you life back. Basically, it’s the same as most other non-physical damage, just a damage type that has it’s own resistance.

I expect that electrical burn damage is just a DoT version of lightning damage, so your lightning boosts should affect it.

1884

I’ve been thinking about starting a caster build since all my previous ones have been melee guys and an archer build but I have no clue what to pick. Any particularly efficient combos I should be aware of?

1885

I’m going to have to wade through the TQ forums then, since it’d really be helpful for me to find out. :P

1886

Kalle, the Oracle (Storm/Spirit) is particularly ferocious I found. Ice Shard is awesome and you get a powerful pet (Liche King), as well. I’m playing a Diviner (Spirit/Dream) through TQ:IT (in low 20s right now, Act II) and, like most casters, they start off slow and ramp up nicely as you get better gear/skills. I now make liberal use of Ternion and have been blasting groups quite nicely. Ice Shard has a similar effect with the Oracle.

I like melee characters most, but range seems to have an easier time in TQ, mainly because of the boss battles. My Haruspex (Hunting/Dream) mowed through the entire game with relative ease (compared to my Templar). He only died once because the Minotaur boss before the Telkine in the labyrinth was wielding the Raging Bull, a weapon that did 2-5 seconds of stun damage 30% of the time he hits. I got caught once and couldn’t escape, because every time he hit me he restunned me. That was a tad unexpected since the weapon he wields is random. Ah well, that was a legitimate kill and nothing to be upset about.

1887

I’m playing through the first Act in the expansion and haven’t found any formulas. Are they just very uncommon? I’m level 16 or so, I guess.

1888

Just unlucky, I guess. At level 15, I’ve found four or five so far, only two of which are for the same item (Leafsong).

1889

I think the formulas are act specific, I found a copy of one I had during epic act 1 .

1890

So I got to Typhon with my Dream/Warfare character.

Wow.

Fuck.

I’m sorry, but that is like the most poorly designed boss fight EVAR. Suffice it to say that I had to do the following in order to beat him:

  1. Respec.
  2. Use an editor to give myself three extra levels.
  3. Use an editor to give myself a LOT of money to buy a LOT of potions for a LOT of attempts.
  4. Kite him with a melee character.
  5. Be very, very patient.

In particular, I think the ridiculous aspects of this fight are:

  • You need to be able to resist every kind of damage in the game. THERE ARE LIKE 10 DIFFERENT RESISTANCES YOU NEED TO STACK, WTF?

  • Even with 85% fire resist, his flame jet attack was basically an instakill against me.

  • His giant rock crushy thing is an insta-kill, and he uses it so fucking often that in an endurance fight like this, you are actually fairly likely to get hosed.

  • Life suck? Ok, fuck that.

1891

Yeah the new version of typhon can be a pain in the ass to fight melee. Try finding a blue or purple bow and just use that on him during the fight. That’s how I killed him and the final boss of act 4.

1892

He was VERY easy for my Conqueror (Warfare/Defense). I just dodged his rocks (which have a very long animation before they actually hit) and beat on him the rest of the time. Took less than a minute on both Normal and Epic; I haven’t gotten to him on Legendary yet. To avoid the life-drain attack, fight him away from the Hades statue. As long as Typhon’s attacks don’t hit that statue, he can’t use it.

1893

That’s not longer true. The statues do nothing now. I beat him with a Warfare guy but it took me lots of tries (on normal) and I almost gave up right there. What helped me was augmenting my vitality resistance – the one that protects against his lifedraining attack – to about 80%, at the cost of a good slice of my attack power. But it did the trick – though there’s no trick, really: avoid his attacks, fall on him when his pointy things aren’t showing and bash him like you bashed every other moving thing throughout the game (tried also with a powerful bow, Of the Nile, but didn’t work).

1894

Typhon is easy (if tedious) if you get a speed boost and a powerful bow or staff, then just run along the circle of his little theater and blast away while dodging his attacks.

I just had to respec for Epic Cerberus, though. He has an ultra-powerful poison attack plus a sizable piercing component to his bite, and those were my two weakest standard resistances. Running around and shooting didn’t work because his room is too small and full of those nasty poison jets, so I had to stack poison res gear until I could just stand in the entrance and melee him to death. Took me five or six deaths to figure out a good combination.

1895

For a melee character, pick up a Frenzy scroll (or two, or three). I used it with my Templar and it made Typhon a lot easier than otherwise, since I could move so much faster. After that (which was the first time I used a scroll), I kept Frenzy scrolls around for boss battles. Seriously, try it out.

It doesn’t make the battle any more interesting. It’s still a hit and dodge and run around in circles type of combat, but at least it’s over quicker.

1896

Right, I also used Frenzy on Cerberus. One of the few scrolls that’s worth anything IMO, though I also like having a Djinn as a backup in difficult fights.

1897

What I wound up doing was just kiting him around with distortion wave / phantom strike. Took me about 40 health potions and 20 energy potions, but it worked. Eventually.

1898

Just finished the expansion, overall I’m very pleased with it. One odd thing is my archer had a WAY WAY harder time with the jailer in the last dungeon than hades. Odd. That jailer wasn’t even a boss, he was just a yellow.

1899

Was that the guy with the shockwave attack? He tore thru my assassin on epic level. Mainly because there didn’t seem to be a cooldown to that attack, and he kept using that whenever I got close to him.

1900

Interesting, I didn’t know that. I just assumed it was still working the way it used to and made sure to fight him away from the Hades statue. It seemed to work–on both normal and epic difficulty he didn’t heal from any of his attacks, and I thought I saw all of them :-). Maybe I just got lucky.