[X] My Assistant

Hopefully, we now have a Thread which Mages and Tanks and Spell-swords alike can answer and we all learn a thing or three from one another.


Simply put: What combinations of Armor and Weapons do you employ to take on various Tasks??

When I ask you this question, I'm not just asking you to share with us that you use a Sword and Board, but I (and others) would be interested to know which specific Weapon and Armor types you employ for a given situation.


Hopefully, this Thread will be even more entertaining than it is informative.



I'll start the Thread with an example of how I do things......hopefully this will help not only Newcomers but even an Old Timer or two as well!!


NOTE: Currently, I exclusively employ Heavy Armor in all of my loadouts; I may experiment with Light Armor or even Cloth configurations later on.


Grindfest: any 2-hander with good chances to Bleed. I now have a 39% Domino Strike Rate -better than 1 in 3 hits -and combined with a good numerical Bleed Value, I often don't have to directly strike many monsters in order to kill them off.

Hourly Battles: I crank up the Difficulty as high as I dare for the bonus XP, stock up on a bunch of the higher Health and Mana Drinks (not necessarily Godly), and go Sword-and-Board.


Arena, Lower Levels, Easy Difficulties: I will employ any of the 2H Bleed Weps that I possess and just clear out those Mobs easy as pie.
(Since I don't personally see ANY change in quality/quantity of the Prizes given out by changing the difficulty, I see no need to waste anything greater than Crude Mana/Health Potions/Draughts, if even those. I'll only crank up the difficulty if I know that I can still clear the Arena in question using only my personal Magic/Health/Spirit Points.)

Arena, Lower Levels, Harder Difficulties: I will only do the first two challenges on Battletoads or Nintendo, and for those two sets of encounters, believe it or not, I'll continue to use a 2H instead of going 1-Handed and Shield (but yeah, I have to pack a bunch of potions). For those difficult battles, I will equip my 2H Estoc that has a 24% chance of Penetrated Armor.......

OR......

I will employ my 2H Mace that has a 28% chance to Stun -actually, I'll only use this particular weapon on the first challenge with only monster, when I set the battle to Battletoads.

Arena, Higher Levels (all difficulties, and where half of the encounters have mini-bosses): I revert to Sword and Board. For this one I employ a 1H Mace with 24% Stun chance -but please note that I'm not relying on the Stun Proc to help me out (IMO Stun is a pretty useless Proc against mobs even on a 2-hander), it just happens that this particular Weapon is currently my highest-powered Weapon -its DMG Multiplier is almost as powerful as some 2H weps.


Arena, Higher Levels (all difficulties, and where half of the encounters have mini-bosses) -alternative strategy: I employ the Rapier in my possession.

That's right, you heard me.

I endure the noticeably lesser amounts of damage that this Weapon Type deals out, because the Weapon that I have deals Penetrated Armor, and even though it only has a 16% Proc Chance, it helps me to cut down minibosses very, very quickly -the duration of the Proc for this weapon is also 3 rounds, and when combined with the Overwhelming Strikes proc and the naturally high bonuses to hit, it wipes them out really fast, even the mighty Mind Raper.



Okay, folks, those are my Loadouts; what are yours??


EDIT: I almost forgot to ask: Do any of you folks change your entire Character class from one type of encounter to another; do you play a Mage for Cake Grind and then a Light Armored Rogue for the Hourlies or easy Arenas, and then maybe go to Heavy Tank for the Advanced Arenas??




This post has been edited by Thanos008: Oct 1 2009, 22:23

grindacake - 2h + heavy
grindanormal - 1h + shield or staff + heavy
arena - 1h + shield or dw + heavy
ring'o'blood - 1h + shield + light and cloth armor

heavy bleed damage on all specs.

I am All Plate, All the Time. I have a level ~130 Fine Shortsword of Balance with good Bleed that I've been using since the Shop opened, but I've been looking to replace this with something better since level 80-ish (if you've got a shortsword that may suit my needs, contact me and I might buy it for a high price). Still using my 24% Block Steel Kite Shield, but I've got some higher level shields in inventory to swap in once the time is right. I've beaten two of the Ring Bosses with this loadout and Interference shitting up my Silence. I can clear Killzone on Normal using two or three Lesser and/or Average mana items without breaking a sweat. Since I just Ascended, I've still to try Endgame, but Spark should help keep me alive while I clear the Boss' goons. I can grind to eternity on Cake at about 100 rounds/hour, but on Normal I can only do about 100 before I run out of MP.

I am All Plate, All the Time. I have a level ~130 Fine Shortsword of Balance with good Bleed that I've been using since the Shop opened, but I've been looking to replace this with something better since level 80-ish (if you've got a shortsword that may suit my needs, contact me and I might buy it for a high price). Still using my 24% Block Steel Kite Shield, but I've got some higher level shields in inventory to swap in once the time is right. I've beaten two of the Ring Bosses with this loadout and Interference shitting up my Silence. I can clear Killzone on Normal using two or three Lesser and/or Average mana items without breaking a sweat. Since I just Ascended, I've still to try Endgame, but Spark should help keep me alive while I clear the Boss' goons. I can grind to eternity on Cake at about 100 rounds/hour, but on Normal I can only do about 100 before I run out of MP.

100 Rounds of Grind on Normal?!? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

I'm not (yet) worthy to shine your shoes.

Hell, I'm not yet even worthy to stand outside the Barbershop where you get your shoes shined!! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/anime_cry.gif)


(If I try really really hard, and get a few lucky Second Winds to boot, I can make it about 20-25 Grind Rounds on Normal.)

With a staff I can go on normal indefinitely without using items.

Its just slow as all hell. D


The staff spec is my most efficient, and godamn slowest going layout.

Once I cap out my Shield, I'm gonna swap in Phase and Kevlar and grind out Dep. I've got a pretty spiffy staff with Ether Theft on it, so I could probably do some Stickadin for a bit.

crap my D: lost its eyes.

Yeah my depre prof is sucktastic, I need to work on that.
%xTurns > 40 will let your Stickadin grind to the limit of your boredom. It's sloooow.

Sweet, someone (presumably hito), just pawned off an Exquisite Prism Kite. Cost me 30k to get it out of hock, but a few Infusions of Credits took care of that. Time to swap out my shield, forget that awesome Fine Ruby Kite of Barrier I bought a while back. =D

dualwield with high bleed, and parry main; high accuracy, dmg, and parry offhand
cakefest heavy can go eternally
normalfest heavy can go about 110 using godlys, aslong as I don't run into a legendary
normalfest mix of heavy and cloth dualwield about 90 using godlys, but legendary's arent a problem

everything below power flux is heroic or higher difficulty so I change to armor pen main bleed off, using high evade cloth, with exquisite chainmail gloves, done up to road less traveled on batttletoads.

for killzone- longest journey I do it on hard, with the same gear, but a high bleed main and armor pen offhand,

Dreamfall same setup but on normal

for cakefest I might switch to a 2h but for now my proficiency is too low and I 2shot everything anyway so it doesn't really matter.

This post has been edited by uth: Oct 1 2009, 23:23

With a staff I can go on normal indefinitely without using items.

Its just slow as all hell. D
The staff spec is my most efficient, and godamn slowest going layout.

If you don't mind me asking whats the strategy used when using a staff. I read a lot about people using staff, but I don't know what people do. If it's spellcasting wouldn't mana be an issue? I would like to try out a staff, so recommendations would be appreciated (what stats on the staff do you prioritize), prices on staff can be pretty high so I don't want to buy a useless one.

its all ether theft, and heavy armor, the only spells you use are regen/cure and supportive, you want the highest ether theft staff you can find.

My character is geared towards using a lot of magic, and and getting whatever offensive/defensive capabilities I can out of my equipment while keeping my interference below 20 or so. So at the moment that's mostly cloth, one pair of Exquisite Prism-Adorned Boots (thanks Hito), an axe with a bit of Bleeding Wound and a Buckler. That lets me do my hourlies on Hard (thinking of upgrading to Heroic) and all the Arenas up to my level (though the harder ones require quite a lot of items).

Cakefest I regard as an anomaly to be exploited while I can... My plan is to wear one piece of light, one of cloth, and the rest heavy, use axe and shield, and build my proficiences in Cloth, Light, 1H and Shield - trouble is, I keep getting distracted by new bits of armour I want to try out... and it's so slow compared to going 2H with my beloved Longsword...

If you don't mind me asking whats the strategy used when using a staff. I read a lot about people using staff, but I don't know what people do. If it's spellcasting wouldn't mana be an issue? I would like to try out a staff, so recommendations would be appreciated (what stats on the staff do you prioritize), prices on staff can be pretty high so I don't want to buy a useless one.

its all ether theft, and heavy armor, the only spells you use are regen/cure and supportive, you want the highest ether theft staff you can find.

This. The highest percent ether theft for the longest duration you can find. 2 turn theft staffs are semi uncommon, 3 turn staffs are incredibly rare. I use a 23%x2. In addition to theft, other features you can look for are +%chance to hit (usually low or nonexistent on staffs, take what you can get), cura and suppo proficiency bonuses, and the least necessary but given choices something to look for... +% physical damage to make life slightly less ungodly slow.

+% physical damage to make life slightly less ungodly slow.

I was dicking around in Cake with this staff:
Average Platinum-tipped Redwood Staff of the Owl
Weapon Damage Type Crushing
Hit Proc: 19% chance for Ether Theft
Duration: 1 turns
Attack Damage Multiplier 5.7
Attack Accuracy Bonus 3.3
Magic Damage Multiplier 5.7
Magic Accuracy Bonus 17.6
Proficiency Bonuses
Elemental 3.7 Divine 5.1
Forbidden 3.7 Deprecating 3.7
Supportive 2.2 Curative 5.1
Burden 10.7
Primary Attribute Bonuses
Wisdom 1.5 Intelligence 1.0
Level 72 / Slot: Staff / Type: Staff

Somehow, I was doing about as much damage as my shortsword, give or take. And my staff prof is less than 1. My guess is its because I had obscene amounts of STR.

just wondering how the armors & weapon stats are calculated for use. Is it level only, or is proficiency a factor as well?

just wondering how the armors & weapon stats are calculated for use. Is it level only, or is proficiency a factor as well?

If I remember correctly, prof is indeed a factor, but I could be wrong.

I use full plate with an ethereal longsword for everything just because I don't see the need to buy multiple sets of armor, nor have the funding to do so. I can do hourlies on Heroic with minute difficulty, but Nightmare slaughters me.

For armor I use Full Heavy for everything

Arena - 1h + shield
Cake Grindfest - 2h(heavy bleed) is what i mainly use, Staff for when I want to train my proficiency in magic.
Normal Grindfest - I take turns with 1h+shield and staff+heavy

Any1 know a decent method to level up shield proficiency, spamming defend didn't work =x. Doing cake grindfest 1h proficiency goes up 3x faster then shield.

There really isn't a fast way to raise Shield. You have to block to get a roll on prof gain first, so Defend is pretty much all there is. You can increase your chances of Block by finding a shield with high Block stats, but that's about it.

This post has been edited by cmal: Oct 3 2009, 05:56

So.....no one here switches their entire Character Classes (Mage to Ranger to Rogue to Tank) to do different kinds of battles??


(I mean, I can understand if you don't; switching out between different types of Character is not only expensive -assuming that you didn't get a lot of different Class stuff in monster drops -but it's a pain in the arse as well.....)

I switch weapons depending on if its for cake, normal or arena, and change my armor to more caster friendy equipment for legendaries. Staff + heavy for high efficiency grindan.

so i guess you could say for cake i go heavy knight, for normal paladin, for legendaries rogue. and occasionally for item efficiency er, fuck if i know what you call that, heavy mage or stickadin?