[X] My Assistant

Wow. 80 rounds in IWBTH. How do you guys get through so many rounds?!
I can barely last 50 and that is using everything I got, and on Normal!

How long does it take you guys?


And how do you manage to do long bouts in places like the item world that has 100+ rounds some times. And I'm not talking about just the difficulty, but in time. I honestly get bored after something like 30 or 40 rounds. Do you guys just close out and come back later, or just power through the whole thing? Or are you guys so epic that you clear 50 rounds in like 10 minuets or something?

I just feel that sometimes I'll never clear an item world or something like that.

Or are you guys so epic that you clear 50 rounds in like 10 minuets or something?

its more like twice that fast (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Ok, so if I was going to go heimdall for lots of rounds at low difficulty and for smacking FSM around what abilities would I need to spec?

Right now I'm thinking just purge, pestilence and arcane focus to 5. And nothing else, because imperil doesn't work on holy/dark right?

A question: What will affect the chance of proficiencies gain? Outside training and difference between proficiencies level and character level

Wow. 80 rounds in IWBTH. How do you guys get through so many rounds?!
I can barely last 50 and that is using everything I got, and on Normal!

How long does it take you guys?
And how do you manage to do long bouts in places like the item world that has 100+ rounds some times. And I'm not talking about just the difficulty, but in time. I honestly get bored after something like 30 or 40 rounds. Do you guys just close out and come back later, or just power through the whole thing? Or are you guys so epic that you clear 50 rounds in like 10 minuets or something?

I just feel that sometimes I'll never clear an item world or something like that.

Remember, they're level 300s with godly gear. Levels do a lot. Gear does a lot. Most of them are running either Mage or 2H weapons, which are much better for dealing with masses of normal mobs (DW shines against small rounds and bosses like schoolgirls, 2H shines vs. large rounds of normals). I think even T_Starrk (shade/DW style player) doesn't DW through IWs, too tedious.

As for the IW on easy, I just spam T2 Cold through the whole thing. One-shots 90% of rounds at Easy. As for difficulties where I occasionally have to think it does take longer, though I never leave in the middle of one. I certainly could, but you don't regen Stamina in battle, and I'd rather not start the next day on 80 Stamina.

On the other hand, 50 rounds on Normal shouldn't be draining everything from you. Got any Pack Rat? More pots does a lot to improve longevity. I also assume you've found or been given some better gear since you posted last.

Ok, so if I was going to go heimdall for lots of rounds at low difficulty and for smacking FSM around what abilities would I need to spec?

Right now I'm thinking just purge, pestilence and arcane focus to 5. And nothing else, because imperil doesn't work on holy/dark right?

Purge is good enough for low difficulty rounds, but for FSM you probably want Banish just to deal with the fact that he's got a few million HP to burn through.

A question: What will affect the chance of proficiencies gain? Outside training and difference between proficiencies level and character level

That's it. It's kind of stubborn like that, you can get weapon prof whether you hit or not, and you'll gain armor prof whether they hit you or not. The only thing outside that is that if you have spells on IA you have a small chance each turn of gaining Supportive prof.

This post has been edited by PK678353: Dec 30 2012, 09:22

A question: What will affect the chance of proficiencies gain? Outside training and difference between proficiencies level and character level

Almost nothing. I think Shadow Veil might to some (rather small) extent; iirc you have a chance to gain prof for armor when you're hit, and obviously shadow veil makes it harder for enemies to hit you. Outside that, nothing I can think of.

Ok, so if I was going to go heimdall for lots of rounds at low difficulty and for smacking FSM around what abilities would I need to spec?

Right now I'm thinking just purge, pestilence and arcane focus to 5. And nothing else, because imperil doesn't work on holy/dark right?

Imperil won't reduce holy/dark defense directly but it does reduce magical mitigation, so it will have some effect.

This post has been edited by DemonEyesBob: Dec 30 2012, 09:21

Imperil is useful against FSM for the magical mitigation reduction I guess, not sure if worth it just for that.

Shadow veil doesn't affect prof gain (you can gain armor prof when evading) but haste and slow makes them attack you less often. Don't think there's anything else

Any advice for me, oh Grandmasters? I've been leaning towards a Mage path, but I haven't committed all that fully to it yet, and I'm not quite sure what I should buy/upgrade next.

My abilities:


My equipment:


My stats:

Thanks to those who replied.

Got a lot of feedback about purge/imperil, how about the pestilence part? Is there any point in grabbing pestilence for the elemental explosions? Or is it just holy spell after holy spell after holy spell? For both cases, the low-difficulty spam and the FSM case.

Thanks to those who replied.

Got a lot of feedback about purge/imperil, how about the pestilence part? Is there any point in grabbing pestilence for the elemental explosions? Or is it just holy spell after holy spell after holy spell? For both cases, the low-difficulty spam and the FSM case.

You probably do want Pestilence. It's there for the few random dick monsters that have 75% Holy resist and just won't die to Purge. With Nif I just Imperil and keep blasting, but Holy/Dark doesn't have that option. You'll learn over time when it's better to Purge again, Pestilence for the explosion, just hit the guy in the face with your staff, throw a Magic Missile, etc.

FSM is just holding down R until you need to recast something.

Any advice for me, oh Grandmasters? I've been leaning towards a Mage path, but I haven't committed all that fully to it yet, and I'm not quite sure what I should buy/upgrade next.

My abilities:


My equipment:


My stats:

Stats are fine, balanced stats is actually OK. I keep END/AGI/INT/WIS about even and STR/DEX about 20 points behind them, but my gear gives considerably more INT than WIS (I kept INT about 5 points ahead when my gear was more balanced).

As for spells, you don't need every damage spell. You really don't. I think I have 7. Keep a selection of them (some in each tier, and probably of each Element), ditch the rest depending on the build you choose to use going forward. Get Slow, Weaken, Haste, Shadow Veil, Imperil, Absorb, Spark, Silence and AF from the right, and Cure, maybe Cure II, Regen and definitely Regen II. All the points that freed up go straight into MP tanks and then SP tanks. No XP tanks until you've got everything else you need (they do nothing for your combat viability).

The gear makes me twitch. Everything except maybe the staff is a write-off. You can link gear by hovering over it in HV, pressing C, and then copying the link.

Do not mix armor weights, you lose all the armor proficiency bonuses if you do. Don't use Heavy armor with mage gear ever, the burden tanks your Evade (which is a mage's main defense). Don't use Cotton, it does nothing for your attack power. Don't use Curse-Weaver Gossamer, it does nothing for your attack power. Don't use specific mitigation suffixes like Frost-Born (exceptions exist for Mag+ Plate).

As a mage, your gear determines your offensive power. If you get even decent gear, you'll double your damage output. Good gear would triple it. Go to WTS, find the free shops and get yourself some better gear. You'll want all Phase of the same Element, or a mix of Phase with appropriate gossamer (Elementalist Gossamer with Surtr/Niflheim/Mjolnir/Freyr, Heaven-Sent with Heimdall, Demon-Fiend with Fenrir).

At this point, you need to determine whether you want to go Elemental or Holy/Dark in the near future. Elemental is easier on the budget (at least at first), and since you appear to have very few credits, I'm going to recommend Gossamer of Elementalist for now. Switch to Holy/Dark when you can afford a set of Heimdall or Fenrir Phase, it's more viable long term.

This post has been edited by PK678353: Dec 30 2012, 11:44

Any advice for me, oh Grandmasters? I've been leaning towards a Mage path, but I haven't committed all that fully to it yet, and I'm not quite sure what I should buy/upgrade next.

My abilities:


My equipment:


My stats:

Try exchanging some EXP in Strength and Dexterity to Intelligence and Wisdom (mainly Wisdom for Mana Regen and MP)

Link your equipments so we can see the stats for them. Because we can't see what's wrong with the equips, we can't help you otherwise.

Equipment links aren't needed in this case. The types and suffixes tell you enough. Except for perhaps the staff, it's all Bazaar-bound.

Ok, so if I was going to go heimdall for lots of rounds at low difficulty and for smacking FSM around what abilities would I need to spec?

Right now I'm thinking just purge, pestilence and arcane focus to 5. And nothing else, because imperil doesn't work on holy/dark right?

If you do that at lower difficulty only, you may not need pestilence; just purge/banish everything since most of them can't even sustain more than 2 hits (possibly). Banish/pestilence is only needed when you want to try higher difficulty.

What was your evade? Mine is at 47.1% currently and with Shadow Veil on I can evade a lot of attacks. This is what my stats look like after I feather all my gear, and the only Forged piece is the Breastplate (Evade Lv.14, Agility Lv.13). With equal (forged) gear in all slots, I think base evade of over 50% is feasible. (Also the Estoc has all three Shards on at the moment)

Mine is at 36.4%, pretty sure my evade isn't bad for my level.
And I only use crappy estoc dropped from monster to experiment a bit, so that's not really good comparison (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) .

Wow. 80 rounds in IWBTH. How do you guys get through so many rounds?!
I can barely last 50 and that is using everything I got, and on Normal!

How long does it take you guys?
And how do you manage to do long bouts in places like the item world that has 100+ rounds some times. And I'm not talking about just the difficulty, but in time. I honestly get bored after something like 30 or 40 rounds. Do you guys just close out and come back later, or just power through the whole thing? Or are you guys so epic that you clear 50 rounds in like 10 minuets or something?

I just feel that sometimes I'll never clear an item world or something like that.

I haven't calculated my IWBTH speed, but when I play a Magnificent or Legendary Item World on Hell (highest difficulty I can play IW on) it usually takes me ~40 minutes. I do get bored though, and I always watch something at the same time, in a maximized media player behind the HV window. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) I'm re-watching House these days and an Item World which has ~177-197 rounds takes about as long as one episode. Try something like that if you want, perhaps it will help you clear more rounds without getting bored.

Btw, I cleared ~80-85 IWBTH rounds in the previous patch. This one is clearly harder so I don't know how long I can last now. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Mine is at 36.4%, pretty sure my evade isn't bad for my level.
And I only use crappy estoc dropped from monster to experiment a bit, so that's not really good comparison (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) .

It's not bad, but it does make a difference when you evade almost half the attacks without even SV on. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Maybe try it again at a higher level, after 250 or so? Shade+Estoc isn't as bad as most people make it sound like...

I think base evade of over 50% is feasible.

It's more than feasible. I want 60% by level 400 (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I think even T_Starrk (shade/DW style player) doesn't DW through IWs, too tedious.

Way too tedious. I tried it again a week ago, but I quit at about round 70. And this is from a person who does all his arenas with dual wield. Doing 8-10 mobs one-by-one for 160-180 rounds is too much, and that's even with the ability to 2-hit every monster on BT. Best way to do IW and long grindfest on higher difficulties is heavy/estoc.

Maybe try it again at a higher level, after 250 or so? Shade+Estoc isn't as bad as most people make it sound like...

It really isn't. I get by easily dual-wielding on IWBTH with having stun on just one enemy at a time. So it's possible to not have it at all and still get by once your evade and parry get to a certain level. Although I would greatly miss the ability to be able to stun the higher PL monsters, I definitely couldn't faceroll IWBTH arenas like I do now. Special piercing attacks from the high PLs really hurt with shade. Having the ability to stun a few certain enemies with shade greatly helps.

Although, I think if you really want to do shade armor/estoc. I think you should have one piece of forged legendary kevlar, lol. Anymore than that and it would hurt your evade too much. But like for me, it I added one piece of forged kevlar for my leggings or breastplate, that would push my PMI over 70% which is enough to use estoc, imo.

This post has been edited by T_Starrk: Dec 30 2012, 17:46

Starting to get burnt out on IWing the estoc. How do you guys survive the grind?

multitasking. Read sth, watch a movie, etc while you grind. If you're getting burnt out you should be used enough to not need all your attention.

That said, try to test things out to find out what is fastest for you since it'll take a while.

This post has been edited by Lement: Dec 30 2012, 18:26

Quick question: if you cast an AoE spell, does each target give a chance to increase proficiency?

It's not so bad, but I think having an auto-cast slot for spark of life would greatly help because of the high chance of getting killed in the later rounds. Battletoads with a mace takes 10 turns, estoc takes 6-8 on spirit stance on average, but I can do trio on IWBTH with a mace whereas I die by round 80 or so using estoc. I would use it for fast battletoads clears but IWBTH and long IW is kind of impossible right now

Quick question: if you cast an AoE spell, does each target give a chance to increase proficiency?

No, you gain proficiency before your spell hits the targets.

This post has been edited by fishinsea: Dec 30 2012, 18:43