[X] My Assistant

However heavy armor in a way does make you use more mana pots. As in the supportive spells don't last as long so you'll be recasting them more often.

edit: did not know there was no more grace burden. Guess ethereal is the only way for a battle mage.

no more proficiency hit from interference last patch; just mana cost now. Spells cost more in heavy armor, but last the same length.

Just hit 75, DW is sitting at just under 45 prof; should i wait til i hit 50 prof for 2nd chain skill before taking on the schoolgirls?

As a mage, how should I go about the school girls? I've already cleared Kotana, but what about the rest? Wait til I get some Heimdall gear?

Or should I change to DW/1h and turtle them down? I don't have a good rapier though (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif). Just clubs and axes and shortswords, sigh...

Lewted these Power Pants. I thought Power gear is meant to have Slaughter/Balance/Ox suffixes?

As a mage, how should I go about the school girls? I've already cleared Kotana, but what about the rest? Wait til I get some Heimdall gear?

Or should I change to DW/1h and turtle them down? I don't have a good rapier though (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif). Just clubs and axes and shortswords, sigh...

You don't need Heimdall gear; Heaven-sent armor and a decent Katalox staff should be enough. You will want to carry as many Godly Mana Potions as you can, except for two or so Superior/Godly Spirit Potions. Cast Weaken, Bewilder, Poison, and maybe Slow on them; Haste, Shadow Veil, Regen, and maybe Protection on yourself. The problem is that you don't have Spark of Life, and their special attacks will probably one-hit you even through all the debuffs. So you can either stock up on Scrolls of Life or hold out until level 100. These bosses become even easier once you get Silence and Arcane Focus at levels 110 and 130 respectively, so you may just want to wait or something.

Power come in Protection/Warding as well

Regarding tokens of blood.

Should I save them up for the higher bosses at this level, or just blow them on Bunneh/MBP/Dalek?

Get the first kill on each, then save up to farm FSM when you are strong enough to do it daily

Decided to hell with it and went DW-ing. Used 2 infusions of darkness, 1 scroll of the gods (no SoL yet:( ) and 55 turns. I think it was overkill cause I never lost more than 100 HP.

As an aside, this is working out really really well! Apart from the profs, I can switch between DW/1h and maging at a moment's notice!

Are these stats good for a DW my level?

Mainhand Damage Type
Soul
Offhand Damage Type
Slashing
Physical Attack
474.8 base damage
88.1 % hit chance
17.5 % crit chance

Physical Defense
15.5 points absorbed
29.1 % mitigation
Magical Defense
31.6 points absorbed
29.8 % mitigation

Avoidance
9.5 % evade
0 % block
25.8 % parry
29.6 % resist
Compromise
28.2 interference
30.4 burden

Bleeding Wound
34 % on mainhand hit
124 dmg for 3 turns
Offhand Strike
27 % on mainhand hit

what weaon do you have that has soul damage? I know ethereal have void and everything else usually has crushing/slashing/piercing.

If you don't mind, I would like to see it. (to link it, press c while it is highlighted and copy the url[just in case I put this in])

As far as dual weilding for your level, I'm not really sure I can answer that for you. Sorry, but its mostly because I believe dual weilding is hard to be successfull anywhere but ROB. I can take a try though.

Are you a light armor dw? If so your mitigation seems nice enough. But your avoidance can be higher. (parry is pretty high but thats only from your weapons and dex). If you are heavy armor, need more mitigation. Your compromise does lead me to believe that it is light armor though.

I think base damage and accuracy could be higher. (1h weapons are supposed to be better for accuracy while 2h has better crit chances). I was 2h when i was your level and my bas damage was almost twice that. (but then again I put lots of exp into str).

all in all, above average but everything could always be better.

what weaon do you have that has soul damage? I know ethereal have void and everything else usually has crushing/slashing/piercing.

If you don't mind, I would like to see it. (to link it, press c while it is highlighted and copy the url[just in case I put this in])

As far as dual weilding for your level, I'm not really sure I can answer that for you. Sorry, but its mostly because I believe dual weilding is hard to be successfull anywhere but ROB. I can take a try though.

Are you a light armor dw? If so your mitigation seems nice enough. But your avoidance can be higher. (parry is pretty high but thats only from your weapons and dex). If you are heavy armor, need more mitigation. Your compromise does lead me to believe that it is light armor though.

I think base damage and accuracy could be higher. (1h weapons are supposed to be better for accuracy while 2h has better crit chances). I was 2h when i was your level and my bas damage was almost twice that. (but then again I put lots of exp into str).

all in all, above average but everything could always be better.

I'm sure glad I hear that, cause I'm mostly a mage. This is my ROB build, which seems to be working out awesome, especially when I have the bosses under dep spells.

And I have an old ethereal sword with soul damage. The new ones have void.

Ah, that makes sense. Kind of forgot that ethereals used to do soul damage. And I think that set up will be good up until the gods. (serioulsy, died by fsm like 3 times. once because I forgot 2 change the difficulty, second because I wasn't paying attention and third time ran out of spirit potions)

Does your offhand also have bleeding wound? If so, I would suggest a club for its stun. Or when your a higher level, penetrated armor will do more damage.

If you are really stuck on staying between maging and dual weilding, I would suggest battle mage once you have enough credits. Thats something I would really like to see happen. I have one battlecaster sword but its 2h and level 58. Fine Longsword of the Battlecaster

Ah, that makes sense. Kind of forgot that ethereals used to do soul damage. And I think that set up will be good up until the gods. (serioulsy, died by fsm like 3 times. once because I forgot 2 change the difficulty, second because I wasn't paying attention and third time ran out of spirit potions)

Does your offhand also have bleeding wound? If so, I would suggest a club for its stun. Or when your a higher level, penetrated armor will do more damage.

If you are really stuck on staying between maging and dual weilding, I would suggest battle mage once you have enough credits. Thats something I would really like to see happen. I have one battlecaster sword but its 2h and level 58. Fine Longsword of the Battlecaster

Not sure about battlecaster. From what I gather so far, not very probable yet, but we'll see.

Club doesn't have parry, so... As for PA, I haven't got a good rapier yet. I'll switch the MH to rapier, probably. Keep the dagger for the parry.

As for DW VS maging, I think I'll level with both. 1 for ROB mobs that resist ele spells, 1 for normal uses. Right now, my maging set is not very good yet, while my leather set is quite above average. X-Attack just sweetened DW for me ATM, and once I get IA1 I'll stop having to worry about casting haste.

I want to try 1h/2h too, but I don't have a heavy set ATM, sigh:(. Power armor for 2h and Shield for 1h.

@smilejb
Two problems on battlecasting:
1. You'll need both mage and melee's prof to work, and it's painful to train on those profs you don't usually use
2. Difficult to find a situation where battlecasting works better than melee/mage.

I'm not claiming that bettlecasting won't work. Maybe I can't find the correct mix between weapons/armor....yet.

@boobs
That's what I've heard:
Shield armor:
Basically they're plate armors with blocking chance and less physical mitigation.
Problem with shield armor of barrier is that they're so rare: so far I only know two players who have a complete set of that, and even so theie equipments are mostly underleveled.

Shield armor of protection with strong blocking chance and high physical mitigation can be useful at high levels, when you gain your physical mitigation from your character's STR and END.
1. Blocking is indeed better than passively increasing your protection.
2. Balancing among stats.

Power armor:
Not so friendly to new players.
ADB is something that has a high scaling factor, while you lose much of the physical mitigation that is has a low scaling factor.
Besides, high interference is bad for new players who don't have many mp tanks. And you don't have the level to benefit from its low burden.

Of course, everything I've said above becomes a benefit for a high-level melee;
ADB's much higher, you have physical mitigation from your character, high interference won't hurt, and low burden did have some use.

@ChosenUno
Congrats on beating those legends.
You still need those heaven-sent armor to beat FSM though (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
Also, I would say an oak staff of heimdall with high holy EDB works better when you're facing gods/legends in ROB.

Slow isn't a very good spell, as it costs too much mana. You can use haste scroll instead.

@Chosenuno

Superior Club of the Ninble This one has parry. Albeit very small. And yes, shield and power armors are hard to get. I don't have a full set. Almost had a full set once but the were too far under my level to be useful.

@varst
I was discussing battlemaging on here earlier. If anything its more useful just for building your overdrive so you can get that spirit stance. And I imagine its more viable in difficulties under battletoads.

Then only thing I can't figure out is if it would be better to dual wield it or 2h. 2h for the domino strike and stun or dw for the parry.

And I think gaining prof shouldn't be too hard. Gaining elemental prof is so much easier than staff. And instead of magic missile for the last couple of monsters, you can melee them instead for the overdrive.

As far as usage, its mostly to save mana. But that only works if you have the phaze gear and ethereal weapons. (interference would otherwise negate that). If you go 2h with stun, you are healing less often. And the spirit stance does reduce mana cost.

Plus most of these mages still keep some strength for the mitigations anyway and dex to help proc ether theft and get that little bit of parry. (granted we won't have ether theft this way, but switching from mage to battle mage when you already have the stats shouldn't be a problem).

And one more thing. The overdrive skill for mages sucks anyway.

edit: another one more thing. As a mage, usually the last couple of critters still left after blasting them have high resistance. But usually that means that they are an elemental or something and have low defense to physical.

This post has been edited by smilejb: Feb 10 2012, 10:08

2H is better in most situations, such as grindfest, IW, most arenas, anywhere with lots of mobs.

DW is awesome in RoB and good for Schoolgirl Marathons, I could do the marathons faster with DW over 2H, just used an Eth Mace cause it gave more surviveability due to stunning lots of mobs (disclaimer: Haven't melee'ed in a bit)

MM is great vs elementals, they take extra damage from piercing attacks.

It sounds kinda fun to get max Overdrive boost, pick up a Battlcaster Mace and Phase EDB gear, and then smash faces until it is full, and then melt them with cheaper spells (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). low difficulties where you wouldn't be using ET anyway it could be viable, or at least a nice change up.

It sounds kinda fun to get max Overdrive boost, pick up a Battlcaster Mace and Phase EDB gear, and then smash faces until it is full, and then melt them with cheaper spells (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). low difficulties where you wouldn't be using ET anyway it could be viable, or at least a nice change up.

Thats exactly what I think.

But I was wondering, does stun and pa increase magical damage as well? Cause if thats the case than it would be viable in the rob too. Whack them until you proc something than mage them. All the while your overdrive builds up.

@smilejb
No, stun only boosts physical damage, not magical damage.


Here's how I think regarding battlecaster (as a high-level mage's view)

Most wepon/armor sets are collected specifically for this purpose.
Heavy armor -> high phy. mitigation + bleeding
Light armor -> high evade + stunning
Clothes -> max power output

So mix and match...
1. High difficulty (x10, x25)
Staff + armor -> damage output is just too low.
2-handed + clothes -> low physical mitigation, you just get hit too often

2. Low difficulty (x1, x2)
2-handed + clothes -> Most monsters die in a few hits with staff+ clothes/2h, so why do I need to use battlecasting?
Staff + armor -> damage output is still too low compared to melee/mage.

3. Medium difficulty (x3, x4)
2-handed + clothes -> seems better, I need more spells to kill monsters now, so spirit stance and stunning weapons would definitely help.
Staff + armor -> damage output is low, but I can proc for mana regen and spirit stance for lowering casting cost. I also have better mitigation, so I need less cure casts.

I'm going to test if I'm correct once I have some 200 prof. in melee weapons and armors.

This post has been edited by varst: Feb 10 2012, 10:54

@smilejb
No, stun only boosts physical damage, not magical damage.
Here's how I think regarding battlecaster (as a high-level mage's view)

Most wepon/armor sets are collected specifically for this purpose.
Heavy armor -> high phy. mitigation + bleeding
Light armor -> high evade + stunning
Clothes -> max power output

So mix and match...
1. High difficulty (x10, x25)
Staff + armor -> damage output is just too low.
2-handed + clothes -> low physical mitigation, you just get hit too often

2. Low difficulty (x1, x2)
2-handed + clothes -> Most monsters die in a few hits with staff+ clothes/2h, so why do I need to use battlecasting?
Staff + armor -> damage output is still too low compared to melee/mage.

3. Medium difficulty (x3, x4)
2-handed + clothes -> seems better, I need more spells to kill monsters now, so spirit stance and stunning weapons would definitely help.
Staff + armor -> damage output is low, but I can proc for mana regen and spirit stance for lowering casting cost. I also have better mitigation, so I need less cure casts.

I'm going to test if I'm correct once I have some 200 prof. in melee weapons and armors.

Might be doable if you get a nice battlecaster 1 hander and a battlecaster shield, as you get the advantage of block (I have a battle caster buckler with decent blocking, it runs nicely with light armor - not sure about clothes).

Well, I think one application of battlecasting is for heals? You basically trade the mitigation from leather for the dodge + stronger spells from heal profs.

Not sure it's something I'd pursue though.

@smilejb
No, stun only boosts physical damage, not magical damage.
Here's how I think regarding battlecaster (as a high-level mage's view)


3. Medium difficulty (x3, x4)
2-handed + clothes -> seems better, I need more spells to kill monsters now, so spirit stance and stunning weapons would definitely help.
Staff + armor -> damage output is low, but I can proc for mana regen and spirit stance for lowering casting cost. I also have better mitigation, so I need less cure casts.

I'm going to test if I'm correct once I have some 200 prof. in melee weapons and armors.

Damn. Thought i would make sense for stun to leave any critter open to any type of attack.

But yea, I've been saying that its meant for anything under battletoads.

And hey, don't forget about the DW. The parry does make up for the low mitigation. It does have stun too. And I imagine in most cases you are only using your weapon for the last one or 2 of the mobs.