[X] My Assistant

I just got access to the Ring of Blood, what would you recommend for taking down manbearpig (or any of the other lower tier enemies)?

I honestly have no idea where to even begin here. I'm a mage that has been respecced to specialize in fire... do I need debuffs? Which ones? Is barrier worth it? Shield?

Shadow Veil seems nice...

Shield is good against little monsters, but doesn't help much against bosses since each individual hit is so strong. Barrier is pretty much worthless everywhere, though. However, Shadow Veil and Haste are quite good to have.

As for debuffs, you'll absolutely want Weaken. Since you're not high enough level to know Bewilder or Silence, you should bring a few Scroll of Life or Scroll of the Gods, for the Spark of Life effect. Manbearpig's spirit attack, Global Warming, will one-shot you if it lands. Only an active Spark of Life effect will let you survive it. The other boss's spirit attacks are Physical attacks, though, and thus deal half damage and are prevented from critting due to Weaken. Thus, you're more likely to be able to survive a hit from them.

It's good that you're specialized in fire, since that's MBP's weakness. For the others, you'll absolutely need to have spells of their specific weakness, or you won't be able to deal nearly enough damage.

Bring your most powerful mana restoratives, spam Meteor on MBP, and keep yourself topped off with Cure, and you should be able to take him down. Do the same to the other bosses, except using their specific magic weakness, and you'll do fine in RoB.

Hmm, so I guess I need to be smacking him with my staff enough to fill up my SP bar to at least 50%...

So are the AOE spells just plain better than their single target counterparts, even against lone enemies? (For example, consider Meteor and Flare).

If you're too cheap to use scrolls or don't have a scroll slot at that level like I did, you can try wearing 1 piece of fire-eater armor (look for 20+ fire resist). If you keep your health topped up when the red spirit bar goes over 50%, you should be able to take 1 hit and survive to heal. You're SOL if it crits, though that happens very rarely. 1 point Poison is enough to slow its MP/SP regen for its special attacks.

And yeah, AOE spells are better than their single target counterpart in terms of primary target damage.

This post has been edited by Ballistic9: Apr 24 2011, 09:03

Hmm, so I guess I need to be smacking him with my staff enough to fill up my SP bar to at least 50%...

Nah, you don't need to worry about your Overcharge bar (the one that goes up when you do melee attacks). When Spark of Life triggers, it takes away Spirit Points, the red bar under your MP. Generally you can survive two Spark triggers before you run out of SP. Two should be more than enough to kill a Boss in the ROB, though.

So are the AOE spells just plain better than their single target counterparts, even against lone enemies? (For example, consider Meteor and Flare).

Yes, they cost about double the MP cost, but deal more than double damage to their primary target. Thus it's better to cast AOE spells against single targets, since you'll kill them in less turns.

1 point Poison is enough to slow its MP/SP regen for its special attacks.

Oh man I totally forgot. Poison is essential for bosses and up, since it halves their MP and SP regen, dramatically decreasing the number of times they can do their super attacks. And Ballistc's right, even with just 1 AP in Poison, it works just fine. More AP will increase the duration, though (5 AP doubles it), making it cost less MP to maintain.

Added a few levels and changed a few things up. I did reset my attributes and plopped points into HP Tankx4, MP Tankx2, Poisonx2, Slowx3 (though I rarely use it now), Weakenx5, both aura slots, item and scroll slot and Cure (of course). Weaken seems quite effective (and I'm surprised how much difference 12% HP makes). I'm focusing stats on STR/DEX/AGI/END since magic is supplemental rather than my damage source. Moved on to a dual-wield setup and picked up a solid parrying offhand dagger, still looking for a good axe for the mainhand (using that shortsword until I find one).

Right now I'm using Red/Green Auras, but I'm wondering if Yellow's evade bonus would be a more effective means of defense than 2 Absorb from Green when fighting at higher difficulties.

I'm still using full light armor, all leather/low dragonhide. I keep looking at heavy armor and seeing that it really doesn't get me much extra protection at this level. Absorb seems to scale down horribly. Does the improved damage type mitigation and +Stats really make enough of a difference to make up for the hideous 20+ burden/interference that most heavy armor I can afford will have? Or would I be better served with something like a dragonhide/silk set picked for evade?

This post has been edited by PK678353: Apr 24 2011, 10:48

I have max in wind and electric dmg right now and only the first point in fire and ice (lvl 30s) should I add more to fire ice and holy or just use the first point and focus on wind and electric?

Spark got nerfed, didn't it? Bad news for me (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif).

That said, it should still be useful...

One thing though: I'm quite poor, but I got a decent chunk of money from selling crystals, what is the best way for me to invest it- should I train scavenger up as much as possible? Luck of the Draw?

I'm trying to think of my future finances here...

--- edit ---

Wow thanks, i managed to bring down manbearpig for the first time! I think what I really needed was the second tier of fire spells.. I guess I'll wait until i can max out the tiers for the appropriate spells before I challenge the other bosses.

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In hindsight I think it was a mistake to invest in the xp boosting abilities and training, because its better that I progress more slowly but have more power and income from drops... Thoughts?

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Also, for monsters resistant to cold (including, but not limited to bosses) but resistant to fire, is it worth it to hit them with fire, then cold, so that the cold spell does more damage? Should I just use my weakest fire spell for that purpose?

This post has been edited by ForbiddenOne: Apr 26 2011, 00:53

Spark got nerfed, didn't it? Bad news for me (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif).

That said, it should still be useful...

One thing though: I'm quite poor, but I got a decent chunk of money from selling crystals, what is the best way for me to invest it- should I train scavenger up as much as possible? Luck of the Draw?

I'm trying to think of my future finances here...

--- edit ---

Wow thanks, i managed to bring down manbearpig for the first time! I think what I really needed was the second tier of fire spells.. I guess I'll wait until i can max out the tiers for the appropriate spells before I challenge the other bosses.

---

In hindsight I think it was a mistake to invest in the xp boosting abilities and training, because its better that I progress more slowly but have more power and income from drops... Thoughts?

---

Also, for monsters resistant to cold (including, but not limited to bosses) but resistant to fire, is it worth it to hit them with fire, then cold, so that the cold spell does more damage? Should I just use my weakest fire spell for that purpose?

where you put your credits is hard to say. leftover AP could go into EXP but often you're better off putting them into damage spells. Life/mana tanks should be maxed.

When I went from 50% melee 50% mage to 90% mage I reset my tree and took all my AP out of spirit tank/overcharge and put them into elemental spells. What i had leftover went into EXP tree.

I like high scavenger more then LotD but I have them all at about the same price to upgrade. If you want to make credits then you'll want to find a lot of artifacts to sell or use. You'll want a ton of them for the AP.

Something to aim for are the hath perk auras black, white, rainbow. the more auras you have going the more exp you'll get and you'll do more damage.

On that note, what Aura should I aim for first: black, white or rainbow?

that depends on what spells you use, I went white/black/rainbow. Those cost a lot of hath and I think having all your aura slots active would help more. Unless you happen to have the hath to get the other perks.

I went for rainbow first just to get it out of the way, as it is more expensive than the others. Along with 4EverLost's advice, you should also consider how much hath you get and the rate at which you would expect to have enough for each aura.

After reading some, I see that high-level (100?) people are mages due to the fact that they are stronger.
However, I'm at level 40 and I use two rapiers and heavy armour because I ran out of mana usually after 2 rounds of grindfest, which was unplayable. I have the cure spell because potions of mana let me heal more than a health potion, but I don't use any other magic.

I'm curious if what I'm doing is okay or am I doing something stupid because while I can get to grindfest round 15 on hard with 5 potions, I still have trouble defeating arenas ten levels below me.

I have a question about some of my equipment... Currently I'm using This in my body armor slot. I'm wondering if it's actually any good? I don't know if Forbidden magic is very popular or not, so... Yeah. I got it as a drop and was like "yeah, no way I'm selling this", but I'm not sure any more if that's a good decision. Well, do you think I could sell it for a good amount, or should I just keep it?

Also picked up These off of the Equipment Shop. I'm wondering if it's really a waste of my time to try leveling them up; are they actually any good?

Got This off the Equipment shop a pretty long time ago. It certainly helped for my Boss and Legendary Ring of Blood fights, but besides those, I haven't really used it at all. Is it actually any good for what it is?

And then Dragonhide Battlecaster armor. Got This one as a drop a very long time ago, at like level 25 or something I think, and got This one as a drop at around level 65. First of all, which should I keep? Or should I keep them at all? I don't really need to have both of them, but they can really only be used in very specific situations, so... Yeah.

And one more thing: I've been keeping This mostly because of its high Bleed and fairly high Strength, along with its obviously low interference. I mean, despite its burden being 25, is it actually any good?


Unrelated to my equipment: Is it worth it to invest Ability Points into Overcharge Boost? I know your damage increases in proportion to how much Overcharge you have, but it also costs 8 to even max it out once.
I currently have 30 Ability Points, by the way.

The demon fiend robe is decent enough, but I'd put in in storage and use elementalist or fox for general purpose.

cheetah phase, no good.

curse weaver phase, also bleh.

battlecaster dragonhide is always interesting, although generally mid range as far as gear goes. useable but not great.

The scythe isnt bad, but its not particularly good either.

Overcharge only increases physical damage, so if you are primarily using spells it's not very useful.

Alright, here I go~

At first I wanted a dual-wield build so I dumped lots of points in dexterity and agility, but now I want to change to 1h+shield so I somehow managed to get strength and endurance to the same level. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Abilities --- [img826.imageshack.us] http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7034/abiwe.jpg
Stats and proficiencies --- [img218.imageshack.us] http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9979/charaj.jpg
Equipment --- [img88.imageshack.us] http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4902/equipl.jpg

There's my stuff. Suggestions anyone? Am I doing OK or heading towards imminent fail? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Out of curiosity, whats the first hath perk i should be saving up for?

Out of curiosity, whats the first hath perk i should be saving up for?

Get the white/black auras first and then the rainbow. After that i would go for the Crystarium I and then all the innate arcanas.

This post has been edited by Eutopia: Apr 27 2011, 01:49

Yeah, spectral auras first is a good idea, but id recommend Innate Arcana before crystalium. IAnis outstandingly useful, especially once you've got a few ranks and you're getting a large upkeep cost reduction.

Because I rarely sell/get rid of equips that's dropped, I've already reached half of the max equipments I can hold. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

So I'm asking for suggestions on what I should keep for time being while dumping the rest. Since I want to be bit flexible (and perhaps try something different now and then), I want to have a bit of each gear and weapons.

So for each type of gear (cloth, light, and heavy), what stat and suffix I should consider keeping?

Same for weapons/staffs I have, what stat and suffix should I consider keeping?

Many thanks.