I am going for a tank/DPS-type build. Something that can take and dish damage in equal measure. I have been focusing just on strength, but have started to raise DEX to get more CRITS. I would prefer STR and DEX to be closer to equal. Can I get both in the 200 range? I am looking for the following types of advice: Skills - I can do a dynamic deck. What skills do I need to keep my defense, strength, and dex high? Armor - I want to go more for damage avoidance than damage resistance. Weapon - I want to do dual-hammers. Food buffs - I am doing baked Alligator Gar for the +10 Bludgeon Combat Artifacts I should wear - Anything for STR, DEX, earth magic, or bludgeon skill boost Artifacts I should salvage for gems - Anything for STR, DEX, earth magic, or bludgeon skill boost COMBAT DECK ADVICE What are the bludgeon skills I should use the most for dealing damage? What are the heavy armor skills I should use the most for defense? What are the earth magic skills I should use the most? ========================================================================== Here are my stats. I can provide more upon request. Health = 1278 Focus = 744 Strength = 228 Dex = 79 Int = 27 HEAVY ARMOR Glancing Blow = 109 Body Slam = 121 Inner Strength = 118 Deflection = 138 Absorb Impacts = 120 Taunt = 120 Hard Headed = 120 Endurance = 120 Knight's Grace = 89 Valient Warden = 92 Provoking Shout = 72 Heavy Armor Spec = 112 BLUDGEON Bludgeon Combat = 148 Crushing Blow = 120 Break Weapon = 120 Stunner = 120 Knockback = 120 Knockdown = 124 Break Armor = 120 Crusher = 120 Breaker = 120 Beserk = 120 Ground Pound = 120 Budgeon Spec = 118 EARTH MAGIC Stone Fist = 10 Root = 40 Stone Arrow = 40 Strength of Earth = 95 Sympathy of Stone = 110 Shield of Crystal = 40 Earthquake = 40 Earth's Embrace = 41 Bulwark of Earth = 100 Summon Earth Elemental = 100 Torpor = 1 Earth Magic Spec = 0 Air Warding = 1 MOON MAGIC Moon Worship = 31 SUN MAGIC Sun Worship = 106 Sun Eater = 101 FIRE MAGIC Fire Proof = 45 STRATEGY Healthy = 120 Armor Preservation = 118 Weapon Preservation = 118 Reckless Stance = 40 Defensive Stance = 40 Train Strength = 120 Parry = 40 Beserker's Stance = 69 Passive Stance = 40 Mounted Proficiency = 110 Mounted Gallop Speed = 110 Mounted Carry Capacity Focus = 108 Mounted Speed Focus = 109 Magic Warding = 1 Heavy Lifter = 119 Offhand Attack = 102 Offhand Defense = 102 Offhand Power = 127 Elixier Extension = 1 Fortify Defense = 63 Tactic Spec = 0 SUBTERFUGE Train Dexterity = 119 Armor Weak Points = 120 Safe Fall = 1 Backstab = 101 Trip = 1 FOCUS Heightened Awareness = 102 Train Intelligence = 12 Quick Swapping = 40 Elixir Receptive = 86 Inner Calm = 123 Follow Through = 113 Tranquility = 52 Train Summoned Pet Health = 100 Train Summoned Pet Resistance = 100 Train Summoned Pet Damage = 100
greetings @Segalleon2! i love posts like this as they can reveal so many useful tidbits. thank you for taking the time to put it together responses to a post like this will hopefully draw out many different philosophies. i have never been bludgeon spec, though i do use bludgeon in certain situations. i have been heavy spec at various times (both before and after the heavy skills rework). my overall philosophy is defense first, so my most experience is there. for bludgeon, my understanding is STR is king so i think its best to focus everything on high STR. for defense with heavy armor i primarily use: Defensive Stance, Glancing Blow, Earth's Embrace, and Shield of Crystal. i know you mentioned dual-wield, but if i have a shield i add Deflect and Bolster Balance as well. Knights Grace is great, but a hassle expiring every 30 secs. if you can add it to a spam dynamic stack go for it. for other skills i use Strength of Earth and Inner Strength. since you are using bludgeon you really wont need this but body slam with heavy spec is a pretty amazing stun. foods: Oozy Omelete (10% crushing blow), Dragon Stew, Corpion Claw Salad potions: Acumen, Deftness, Might, Regeneration, Regeneration (imbued), resistance (either elemental or magic depending), shadow form. shrines/blessings: devotional of sacrifice (+1.5 combat health regen), devotional of compassion (+5 dodge modifier), blessing of avoidance (+20 dex, +10 avoid). maintenance (-25% equipment damage) or invigoration (+10 healing and regen). one of the greatest benefits of bludgeon is the stunning. stun then move behind for the extra damage while they are stunned. Crushing Blow, Ground Pound (with spec). Break Weap/Armor are also great skills, which debuff and do decent damage. i dont use knockback or knockdown that much unless within a dynamic spam stack but they can be valuable. one very, very overlooked skill for bludgeon is the Splintering Strike combo. even in single-stack form this combo skill is absolutely devastating at higher levels. hope this gives you some ideas! safe travels
I have a similar build, more tanky less dps. I have listed a few things that might help. 1. Haste potion is very good, only lasts a few minutes but really useful. 2. Spellbinders stance, It breaks if you move but your card pull time is much faster a lot more dps. 3. Berserk is your friend raise it as high as you can. 4.Fireflies - It reduces your crit damage taken by 70-80 per cent. A lot less chance of dying. 5. Look at Coelocanth and chips and Grilled wyvern chops as food. That is a personal choice. Good luck!
If you want to play a well rounded melee build that can tank or deal decent damage, I wouldn't limit yourself to just bludgeon. You can always pick two generally useful melee specs and use different weapon types for different situations. There's nothing wrong with bludgeon, but it doesn't have much synergy with heavy armor. If you're specialized in bludgeon, you get super long stuns from that tree, which makes body slam somewhat unnecessary. Also, since bludgeon specs are stun machines, they can get away with using berserk and berserker stance in a very high percentage of situations, making both resist and avoid fairly irrelevant a lot of the time. If it were me, I would choose between one of the following: 1: Specialize in bludgeon and tactics, embrace the berserker lifestyle, and work on some creative ways to keep yourself alive. 2: Specialize in tactics and some other generally useful melee thing like heavy armor or earth, and use whatever weapon tree happens to be best for what you are doing. Other than the weapons, there will be a lot of gear overlap, and it's not such a huge investment in a skills system with heavy diminishing returns. Iirc earth/bludgeon has a good combo and is pretty decent all around, but I just think you can do something similar with a lot more utility if you don't use a spec on bludgeon. Disclaimer: I've barely played in the last couple of years, so my opinion might be outdated or just completely wrong.
My favorite character is Bludgeon/Earth/Heavy too! Her specs are in Bludgeon and Earth and she put less effort in Heavy, but many things are the same. First I must point out how wonderful a skill Torpor is. It took me a while too to discover that. I always use it early in big fights. It freezes you for a second, but after that you get a big Str buff and after some seconds a big heal. It saved her butt zo many times! For more gentle healing I use the Bard skill that gives a small heal over time. I play with a dynamic deck, but never learned to stack properly, so I spam skills and therefor use a lot of Focus. So I use the Bard Focus regeneration as well. I found my character quite vulnerable to magic, so I invested in some defensive skills like Fireproof and some warding skills and in Purify to get rid of DoT's. As for artifacts: I only use imbued gems: Earth attunement and Bludgeon. For the rest I try to use masterworking and enchantment to get the attributes I want. At the moment, my character has a hammer with +Knockdown chance and +Knockdown length and I absolutely love knocking down big baddies. Compared to you, I think she focuses more on earth skills than on tactics and crits. For instance, Stone arrow is very useful to have a long distance skill that she also uses to pull mobs. Stone fist is in my deck too, because it can make a nice combo with Crushing blow. And of course Earthquake is also a favorite of hers with her knockdown playstyle. It's of course up to you to choose your own favorite playstyle! But whichever playstyle you choose, you will be quite hard to kill as a bludgeon/earth player but you should also accept that you won't be the fastest killer in the game.
