Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem - ARPG, CryEngine

New patch done fucked some shit up on the gamma/brightness/contrast…

Scott, I know you are past it now, but you can break the pods before they start flashing, hit the boss for a few seconds, then repeat. If you aren’t breaking the pods in a couple of hits, damage might be an issue (though I haven’t used a staff).

Yeah, in theory. It was taking me a lot of resources to break the pods (I have felt my damage output was super low the entire game, I think I’ve had three total different staffs the entire game and even though all my gear has +elemental % damage on it, it still takes a LOT of fireballs to kill many of the larger/normal enemies). I could break one before it split open, but NOT two. And I can’t stand still long enough to work on refilling my willpower/potions, because the floor is constantly red or about to be where an attack comes in, so I could maybe attack once or twice, roll away, repeat until I’m out of stamina - it was a nightmare.

But I have some better gear from that fight and some grinding to hit level 34 I did before my last (successful) attempt, so I’m hoping Act 3 goes better for me. It would be nice to actualy find a cool purple item, or a red that isn’t for melee (I have literally 2 boots, a chest, and a pants Legendary that all have “bonus damage to attack” and “+% melee” damage and other melee focuses bonuses - I have yet to get a Legendary that helps me specifically, and the only Unique I have found is a tower shield).

Tried rerolling those?

I spent all 5 rerolls on the staff I have right now, it’s pretty solid with +42% elemental damage and 15-20 Aether damage added to spells, but it’s like level 27 or something and no better staves have dropped in the last couple days of playing.

I’m doing champion 90+ expeditions with my 65 mage. Mage tips:

  • Spells scale badly, unless you invest in plenty of +flat damage modifiers. % based modifiers are much, much less effective
  • Direct damage mages really struggle later one. Go ailments or go melee
  • Despite the above, Ferocity/ Toughness works well, though I prefer Wisdom/ Toughness
  • There are nodes in Cabalist and Timeweaver that allow +5 ailment stacks. Get all of them
  • Timeweavers “That Which Time Cannot Heal” Node is good, as are the ones in Cabalist that allow more ailments per application
  • Force shield builds are awful. That’s partly because leech with force shield is broken. Wear heavy/ bruiser gear
  • Spells that tic quickly do the best damage (if you’re an ailments build and stacking +flat damage modifiers). Anomaly, Annihilation, Tear (modded as damage over time) and Parasite are standouts
  • Parasite is awesome. The pets can be useful, and it also works as a primary boss DPS spell if you have modded it for “faster ticks based on ailment stacks”
  • The golem can grab aggro on bosses and even hold it for a while, if you use his taunt a lot. He’s the only good summon (Livre Mortis). Note, when you hit endgame and can duplicate spells, you can have three different versions of him up at once (that’s not a good build idea, but Mortis and Parasite are the only useful summons. The zombies are all awful)

That’s how to do damage as a mage. Survival is a whole different thing :) Or… you could just run 2H Melee Bleeding Edge, which is the current OP meta.

I really like this game, despite the many many bugs and broken skills. I hope the devs can iterate well and at a good pace.

I really wanted to love Parasite but my experience was that while it was fine for clearing random mobs, the parasite’d organism died in a boss fight. So it sort of felt like a “win more” button rather than a good skills.

It’s a single-target damage spell, and a top-tier one when modded right in an ailments build. It also happens to mind-control potential minions, but that’s secondary :)

Funny, I think of it more as a possession spell. Does it do more damage than Annihilation when its specced for Toxic damage I wonder. That might be worth looking into.

My mage is level 71 and on level 103 in the rift thing and I’ve been finding it extremely easy mode using Fireball/Anomaly/Tear/Healyport/Golem. I’ve messed around with virtually every other skill in the fireball slot, but I think it works the best. The rune that empowers all your other spells with fire damage really adds a ton of dps.

The Temporal Mage passive that makes you do a second hit for 120% damage, 1.5 seconds later on enemies with Stasis is just completely busted, so I’d go for that first.

If I’m planning to play this solo, is there any reason to create my character online versus playing in offline mode?

Nope. offline is actually more convenient because if you get stuck somehow (like a quest objective doesn’t update properly or the like) you can edit your character file.

Why is this better than Grim Dawn or Path of Exile?

I really don’t get the sudden popularity of this game.

It’s not, it’s just new and shiny and ARPG fans like trying new things.

It’s very pretty and it’s fun to play and at this stage my 14 hours have been well worth it, but I suspect it will need some ongoing support to maintain a playerbase. There are some interesting mechanics, but it will need tweaking/tuning/balancing.

The current popularity is good, as it should fund the devs and it could turn into something quite special.

POE and GD diehards at this stage will probably fall back to those, but D3 players I think will find a lot to like in Wolcen.

Not too many quality ARPG’s have come out in awhile, so I think the market is a little starved for something new, like @sharaleo said.

I like the camera is a lot further out and better than PoE, for one thing.

It’s definitely not better than Grim Dawn right now. I don’t know about POE, but I suspect POE outshines this too.

The game has a way to go. It’s got some bugs. Balance is off. Endgame is kind of meh.

But it’s new, and it certainly has a good foundation for evolving.

I’m about to rage quit over this stupid ass Act 1 boss. There is nothing I can do that saves me from his invulnerable instant kill ring of fire and I never have enough lives to get through it, despite not dying a single time during the first two fights. There is a tiny tiny tiny window of invulnerability if you roll during it but its never enough to save you, and you have to do it goddamn 20 times in this fight.

And it would cost all the gold I have gotten to this point to respec my skills and tree, but if you gotta go full fucking tank thats what i would do if anyone on the goddamn internet had built any kind of recommended specs before you hit goddamn level 50.

And should note I’m level 21, have all yellows with offensive and defensive gems, and have double common health pots.

/rant

Well, got it. Upgraded my spin attack to let me hold it down and that just barely gave me the strength needed.

Dodge does the trick. It works similar to a Dark Souls game in that dodge roll isn’t just movement, you’re invulnerable during the animation. So when the ring goes outward, just dodge through it.

The core combat in this game is drastically better than Grim Dawn or Path of Exile. But it is buggy. Especially if you play online, which I’m regretting sticking with. I spent a couple hours on the Act 2 boss, frustrated I was getting killed by seemingly unavoidable, disjoint, or outright invisible attacks only to eventually figure out that after you fail once it gets completely desynched and none of the attacks or level elements visually match what’s actually happening anymore. Even going back to main menu wasn’t good enough, I had to exit the whole game and come back to try again. Fortunately, when I could actually see the damn attacks I got it on the second try.

I could have done without a mimic of Baal, the worst fight in Diablo 3 but it was still fairly fun when it was working. Really though, did they even test some of this stuff at all?