Struggling in some fights

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DalTXColtsFan, Oct 16, 2020.

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  1. DalTXColtsFan

    DalTXColtsFan Avatar

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    I'm not sure if I can word this question actionably, but I'm struggling in fights against multiple opponents. I have healing potions, I have Fiona casting the occasional healing spell on me and I have spells like "Healing Burst" that only restore 40 to 50 hit points at a time. I have several polearm skills as you can see that are all at least level 40. Since I took this screeenshot I've added immolation and drinking Haste potions.

    I could probably win THIS particular battle now, but if, for example, I had to take on 2 Ebon Cultist Fighters plus a Wizard and an Archer I'd usually lose. I try running somewhere where they can only attack me one at a time but they can squeeze themselves into some pretty tight spaces!

    If the answer is "Get more experience and higher levels" I can live with that, but if there's something strategic I'm missing I'd love to know that too.

    Thanks as always
    DalTXColtsFan Dragon
    [​IMG]
     
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  2. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    Make sure you eat 2 different foods, get the blessings from devotionals (they last many hourd wear rings), necklace, and armors and raise your resistant skills from trees especially fire
     
  3. Barugon

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    What kind of armor are you using? Armor is important, especially against those naughty archers.
     
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  4. Violet Ronso

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    Hey @DalTXColtsFan !

    You seem to be using gear similar to mine : Polearms with Heavy Armor (Your chest piece determines your armor skills).

    I made a "Beginner" deck that could actually help you start things off, along with a "Buff Deck".

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    Here is your main deck, I will go over the skills from left to right :

    1. Body Slam : This is a single target skill that closes the gap between you and your opponent, deals damage, and stuns. This is one of the most reliable stuns, and the more you "Charge" the attack, the longer the stun. Very good, this is actually one of my top 3 skills when bossing.

    2. Puncture : This is your best skill, no questions asked. It ignores armor, applies a Damage over Time Bleed effect that works on undead, and a -Healing modifier debuff, meaning the mobs hit will regen less and get healed for less. It is very very strong and you want to charge it to the max amount of stacks you can every time.

    3&4. Push & Pull : These are your low cost decent damage skills, Push pushes your enemy away, while Pull pulls them (surprise surprise), but their main aim is to be 5 stacked for as much damage as possible.

    5. Spinning Attack : This skill is good for "Crowds", you can hit many opponents with this one, and should be used in situations like in your picture, but you should not spam this one, as its focus cost is high.

    6. Glancing Blow : Your main defensive skill. You want to make sure you refresh it before it wears off, but if you know you are about to get hit by a big hit, cast it immediately, it is a reactionary skill, meaning it has a strong effect if you cast it at the right moment, and the right moment is within 2 seconds of getting hit, where the skill is about 3x stronger than the remainder of the duration.

    7. Knights Grace : This skill removes a bunch of CC's such as stuns and slows, very useful!

    8. Healing Touch : This is a very quick healing spell, you can spam this when in danger.

    9. Purify : This skill removes nasty debuffs such as poisons, burns, and a bunch of others. Very fun to use.

    10. Berserker's Stance : This is your main damage buff, you want to refresh this every fight, as it will give you movement speed, strength, crit damage, basically it will make you very strong.

    So this is your main deck, for combat. This will focus more around polearms than your own deck, but will really be stronger than what you are using right now.


    As for your buff deck, basically you want the buff "Strength of Earth" in the Earth tree, replace enlightenment from the sun tree, because you will rather get strength than intelligence as a warrior. apart from that, grab buffs that you will deal useful for fights, things such as Shield of Ice and Douse when fighting mobs who can use fire, or Death shield to fight mobs who are mainly physical damage dealers.

    Also, like Majoria said, you should look into the cooking skill. Cooking allows you to make some decent food. She mentioned 2 food buffs, but with the last release you can actually use 2-6 different foods, depending on the combination you use, and the buffs are very useful, they actually help your health and focus regenerations, which will allow you to survive longer in fights.

    And one last tip, the Water elemental is a great spell to unlock, it will follow you, heal you, and deal a bit of extra damage, most people will go from struggling in a zone to clearing it with ease just by unlocking this summon.

    Feel free to ping me or private message me if you have any other questions!
     
  5. DalTXColtsFan

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    Hey back! And thanks for all of that useful information!

    What exactly do you mean by "Charge" the attack?

    Thanks!
    DalTXColtsFan Dragon
     
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  6. Violet Ronso

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    The deck system has two ways of making your abilities stronger, the first is by using a "Dynamic" deck, which makes glyphs appear as a deck of cards and you pulling these cards. When you have 2 similar cards, you can "Combine" them to make them stronger. When you "Lock" the cards, using a "Static" deck like you are, you can hold down the skill and you will start "Charging", you get 1 glyph at lvl 1, and an extra glyph at skill levels 10, 20, 40 and 80, for a total of 5 glyphs, and you can unlock an extra one if you have the tree's Specialization at 80 or more. Each glyphs = a possible stack, so at lvl 80 Puncture, you can stack it 5x, and each stack makes it a % stronger. This is very important, and works for most skills and spells.
     
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  7. Anpu

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    Are you weapon and defense skills to around level 80?
     
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  8. DalTXColtsFan

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    Only my main polearm skill is anywhere near 80. All of the rest are between 40 and 50.
     
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  9. Anpu

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    You might be neglecting your defensive skills like glancing blow and parry. Keep those on and get them to 80. That’s just some basic defense.
     
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  10. Barugon

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    Also, if you use a static deck then also use auto-attack so that your avatar is attacking while you're charging skills.

    [edit] I say static deck meaning that all glyphs are locked.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
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  11. Barugon

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    One more thing: don't let any enemy get directly behind you or they will get large bonuses (you get the same bonuses for being directly behind an enemy). Your polearm is also able to hit multiple targets (two handed polearm can hit 4 targets each swing) so try to keep as may enemies in front of you as possible.
     
  12. DalTXColtsFan

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    I haven't "learned" the deck swapping or auto-attack stuff but it's "on my to-do list".

    What exactly do you mean by "charging skills"?
     
  13. Violet Ronso

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    @DalTXColtsFan

    Basically, charging a spell means holding the button down and "charging" the skill or spell to give it increased power. Letting your character do auto attacks while you charge spells can result in the highest potential dps for that style of play.
     
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  14. AzazelReborn

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    From what I see from your picture and your previous post, you have not settled on a build yet. Once you know what you want to aim for i.e. Polearms, there's somethings you need to consider. Polearms is an amazing tree with its specialisation, it works well with Tactics Specialisation with the use Berserker stance.

    Since your wearing heavy armor spend some points on your defensive skills, from there and Tactics tree. Some heal over time spells might be useful too. Elysian Illumination(Sun), Soothing Rain(Water) and Healing Grace(Life).

    To maximise your XP you have gain try not to spend points into skills the doesn't add anything to your main build, just focus on them. This will make those mobs your fighting are easier to deal with and once your comfortable with your build you can start to explore different things as you like.

    If your having Focus issues look and read skills in the focus tree and see if they will be useful to you. If you need more help you can contact us in game.
     
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  15. Loaffer

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    My first question would be why are you using enlightenment that raises int, as a melee use strength of earth, that will increase damage and hit point
     
  16. DalTXColtsFan

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    OK, so progress report:
    • I got most of my skills up to level 79. Fights like those in the original post might as well be a hot knife through butter now
    • I used to struggle even worse against swarms of ebon cultists like those that would be encountered in the siege scenes - now, with most of my skills at level 79, as long as I'm not fighting 5 fireball-throwing wizards at once, I can pretty much take them down at will.
    • Even at level 79 I couldn't defeat ghosts and couldn't survive the encounters against the Ebon Cultist Marksman, High Wizard and Champion that defend the siege engineers. Liches, especially the Lich Mage, were really tough as well. I decided to use COTA to raise a bunch of my skills to level 179. Now I can pretty much defeat ghosts at will (which is VERY handy for mining gold in the Etceter Crag Mines!!!), but I STILL can't defeat the siege engineers because the Wizards/Marksmen/Champions cut me down too quickly. Liches are a challenge now but I can usually beat 1 or 2 when neither is a mage, and I'm about 50/50 against the Lich Mage (just depends on what spells it casts).
    • It's interesting how much more focus the spells take when their levels are that high. It's almost like a safeguard against totally cheating was put in (joke)
    With all of that said, there is still some advice in this thread that I'm still playing around with like food buffs and charging attacks.

    I do have one specific question: Blessings from devotionals - how do I get those? I don't know what to do when I get to a shrine other than talk to the caretaker

    Thanks as always
    DalTXColtsFan Dragon

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Cora Cuz'avich

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    In theory, you're supposed to stand near them, and you should see the buff appear. But it's kinda wonky, so I usually just jump into them for a second or two.
     
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  18. Anpu

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    Also standing close to the devotional then press space bar (jump) up will also add the buff too (usually).
     
  19. Violet Ronso

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    What? Am I missing something?

    Anyways, here is what I wrote to someone else who uses Polearms. I did a few adjustments but I still left in content that you might not have yet. I still provided reasonable replacements and if you have any questions concerning this, feel free to ask away.

    First off please note that while I am sending you the exact build I am using, some changes could be made to better suit you without impacting the DPS as much, and if you have any questions concerning any of my choices feel free to ask away! I will should you my trees and then explain the details I find important

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    So basically I am mainly a boss hunter, I kill Torc'dawl, any dragon I want (even the Krul mechanical dragon in about 1:45 solo), I can fight pretty much close to any mob and come out victorious, but I suck at AoE, so scenes with too many mobs (10+ per fight) aren't my forte.

    So for Heavy Armor,

    1. Glancing Blow : Main source of damage reduction, since I use Berserker's stance, my resistance is super low, so I need avoidance to give me glancing blows instead
    2. Inner Strength : at 120 skill level With Heavy Armor Spec at 100, This skill gives me 30 points of Strength for 10 minutes, very very good buff
    3. Body Slam : Ohh, this is probably the #1 skill for Heavy Armor, with the skill at 120, Spec at 100, and a Chainmail Chest armor witrh a Body Slam Duration increase masterwork, I can stun things for 22 seconds at 6stacks, This is how I can kill so many bosses with barely any problems
    4. Knights Grace : always good to remove slows and stuns, also using it gives an extra 25% Heavy Armor Mastery which means my Body Slam stun is longer, my resistance and avoidaances are stronger, and my Glancing Blow skill is way stronger and lasts longer too for the big bonus

    Tactics :
    1. Specialization: Since I am using Dual Wield for spears and blades, Tactics gives a lot of benefits, so I took this spec as well
    2. Berserker's stance : Increased Strength, Increased Crit damage (87.5% with my stats), increased attack speed, basically just raw DPS, you want this skill if you want to hit hard. Should be stackable starting today so it will be even stronger!
    3. Parry : This is super important, it shaves off even more damage, and being dual wield you usually have even better crit passives!
    4. Offhand Attack : Since I am dual wield, this is super important, its free damage because when used dynamically, it has no global cooldown, meaning you can immediatly cast another skill with no wait time! Also, with Tactics Spec, this gives an extra parry modifier meaning even more parries!

    Subterfuge :
    Poison, dex passive, back attack, crit modifier, thats pretty much all there is to it!

    Polearms, here, I invested where I knew I needed it, this explains why I haven't trained all the skills :
    1. Polearm Combat : Always heep this one 10-20 levels above anything else, this is the main damage!
    2. Puncture : Main damage source, I use it locked and always charge it to 5 stacks to use it!
    3. Bec de Faucon (innate) : Even more crit chance, means you can get the big hits
    Rest : I usually use Push and Pull as my other damaging glyphs, because they do not aapply the debuff resistance buff on mobs, which means more chances to land Body Slam. I ignore Leg sweep and skewer because they apply cc which I do not want, and spinning attack costs too much focus to be useful, but obviously if you fight multiple mobs at once this can be better.

    Bard : 1. Savage Sonata, I keep this as 2 dynamic slots (I don't recall if we explained what dynamic slots were, but basically when I build my deck I have glyphs that will show up at random, as if I was drawing from the deck. I can direct which slots I want to use this option for by clicking the little lock by the glyph when I am building my deck in the Combat Decks (Y) screen). I use this with 2 unlocked slots specifically for savage sonata to stack it (same as charging) while I am fighting. As soon as its 5 stacked, or 4 stack and about to discard, I use it, and it gives strength (more damage) dex (more crit chance and damage) and Crit damage (more crit damage!!!). The rest is optional for my style.

    Food : Dragon Stew for the resistances, I refresh it every hour, and Wolf Surprise for the Crit Damage

    Consumables : I use all the potions : Acumen, Deftness, Might, Regen, Regen Imbued, Resistance (depending on the zone, elemental for most, magic for Spindelskog), Wolf Speed, and Haste every 6 or so minutes

    Poisons : Corpion if fighting basic mobs, Festering if fighting bosses. The festering poison slows their regen meaning I fight them for a shorter amount of time. Any mob with over 6k health usually gets the festering treatment.

    Ohh and for the elixir innate, I use the Elexir Receptive from the focus tree, 1h duration on potions is more than enough so I get an extra 33.3% power from them instead.

    This is my buff bar, only use Inner Strenghth, Strength of Earth and Crystal Shield, haven't fixed it yet to include more usefull spells
    [​IMG]
    [9:58 AM]
    And this is my combat bar
    [​IMG]

    For combat, 1-5 is locked, 7 and 10 also
    6 is Parry x2, Glancing Blow x2, Fortify Defenses x2, and Offhand attack x6
    Meanwhile 8 and 9 are for my 5 savage sonatas
    And there you have it!


    For my blessings, the devotionals will be +4 ALs (for the regen it gives) and the Health regen one, meanwhile for the 3 day blessings I take the Blood River Forest and Lamech's Bazaar Expert ones, for you I would recommend the Elysium Mines blessing instead, at least for now. For info on the 3 day blessings, the Rinaldi Thread on puzzles and secrets in the player created resources section of the forums has the info (or spoilers) you would need. To keep the challenge open, you could also visit the scenes listed and simply try the quests there, which will lead you to the puzzle. These are scenes that are side quests, they are not used in the main questline unless I am mistaken.

    This is what I wrote to someone asking about dual wield Polearms. If you plan to use a Halberd, I would remove the Offhand attack from the dynamic slot, and add defensive buffs or healing spells in there instead.

    Now one thing that is important, this becomes some of the challenging deck styles, do not worry if this is hard to adapt at first, and like I mentioned at the beginning, feel free to change anything that doesn't suit you. You probably don't have the bard skills yet, so you could remove the slots 6 through 9, remove everything from the "deck", and place Parry, Glancing Blow, Fortify Defenses and Healing Touch in those 4 slots instead.
     
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  20. Cora Cuz'avich

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    OP plays in offline mode. COTA is @Barugon's tool, one feature of which is editing offline characters.
     
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