Need a lot of advice, I am needy

Good to know as an Air-Moon-Ice-Life Mage.

I really like to play him,
both on the playing mechanics and the immersive level from...

 

It's located near to the Oracle building - if you're facing the Oracle it's to the left. (Approximately here, though the map is out of date)

Foods made from wolf meat will boost dexterity, so will food made from venison though to a lesser extent (though venison also has a strength buff). I can't recall off the top of my head what the dex potion is but it should be fairly straightforward (e.g. strength boosting potion is 'Potion of Might').

 

This one being true, it's been bugging me What bugs me about it, is that, when it comes to all our developer' Chris's balancing, adding and subtracting, are we leaving behind things like one handed weapons, where they are no longer something that fits into a sward and shield medieval style within our game. I've also heard tell that now there's only one way to do a skill build of a this or that or to have a swift achievement or slow. This is why I have questions of what is, or will be left behind becoming obsolete. Decay and death penalties come to mind when higher single handed weapon's skills are needed to use the weapon, yet suffer more penalties of death at lower level of monsters being hunted by those who use single handed sward and shield.

I'm certainly no combat wiz, but when I hear finer players say that, "there's a better way, or other way which is better", then that seems a balancing issue to me, especially when it comes to decay.
If any of that is understandable in what I've said here, maybe I need to lay off the coffee a bit ...
~Time Lord~

 

Well there is a benefit to 1H/dual wield: it's much easier/cheaper to make/buy two +7/8/9 1H items than a single +11 2H one.

 

I wear cloth chest and gloves, the rest all plate, duel wield also a pole arm. I like what you get from the light armor tree. Though this info might be a bit outdated but you can see what hybrid builds of armor can do.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...s-damage-reduction-per-fizzle-and-more.58765/

 

I think Im the only PvP'er I have ever seen in this game that uses a 1H hammer in my main and a hard core earth wand in the left hand. Seems to work for me, I should be leading "B" class in PvP Virtue league but they have the standings all screwed up (show me with 2 loss's when I only have 1 and the other guy has 2 loss's and only showed 1).

People complain that I kill them as an "earth" mage but the funny thing is the strength of my PvP comes from the hammer (and heavy armor skills), not Earth (and getting luck with a rare crit with stone arrow).

hint: stun stun stun knock down knock down knock down.

 

With the (hopefully) coming player based economy, you're right. I recently began using something other than my founder stuff just to see what that was like. I could see wearing out and pitching to the side single handed allot more cheaply than pitching something costing much more. I'm wearing the Ardoris guard light armor right now and "haven't ever" used heavy armor as of yet. My motives have always been with simple gathering and maybe some more risky area gathering later. I'm waiting on fishing and agriculture before re-inventing my main chr's higher aim. We don't know if special fertilizers will be difficult to get to and we still don't know what monsters we'll be tangling with within fishing, which will both most likely have a special set of combat skills which would work within those most proficiently. PvP, unless in mass battle I think may always be different in skill needs when compared with monster hunting, though anyone skilled in PvP with skill to match within the trees will always be a good killer of everything.

Does the rest of that allow the hammer to do all that damage, or do you think the hammer alone could stand as the lethal weapon without them?

That's a great link ~TL~

 

Body Slam with any wep on hits pretty hard

It does not take much to go up against a 600 hp death mage who is gonna try to steal my HP with me stunning the crud out of them and unleashing a shock and awe of medium damage spells on them while Im in their face. Mage PvP'ers tend to try and be tricky, dancing around all over the place while Im just getting in their face with the shock and awe. Unfortunate for them on occasion my stone arrow (which Im lucky to even get 1 or 2 to draw in a while contest) may get lucky with a 300 hp crit and then they cry foul that earth is over powered because I drop them in 10 seconds. But I generally do that in any case since in the same time Ive hit them for 300+ hp with body slam.

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...the-day-whats-yours.43823/page-96#post-810971
Every time I hear Body Slam it reminds me of the Thai rock band of that name Thai's are soft core in their music, but extremely hard core in the ring! I've actually see 15 year old kids getting carted out on a stretcher KO'ed on live TV Thai Boxing matches here and they weren't moving ~TL~

 

1.) I currently fight in light armor with air magic and 2 handed sword. I used a shield a lot early on and ultimately decided that the extra defense it adds was not worth the fizzle chance penalty and the loss of DPS. (Especially considering you have to invest exp points in the shield skill tree on top of your armor skill tree in order to make good use of the shield.) Focus management is also better with a two hander since every skill use does more damage when you are using a 2 hander and every skill hits 3 nearby targets with a 2 hander (as opposed to 2 targets with a 1 hander)

2.) Heavy Armor passives (extra str, stun resist, increase to the % of damage armor blocks) are MUCH better than light armor passives (move speed, attack speed, small dodge bonus). Because of this many people use a chain chest piece (this puts you into the heavy armor skill tree) and cloth in all the other slots.

If you want to use light armor passives (light armor chest piece) then Fortify Defense (nice evasion/glancing blow boost) and Defensive Stance (boost to % of damage armor blocks) are essential to survival. (Lock them on your combat bar and make sure they are always going.) The passives from the earth magic skill tree are also very helpful for survival. The light armor dodge and evasion skills are okay but they aren't going to keep you alive by themselves.

4.) This is how melee crit chance is calculated as of R34 (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...d-the-upcoming-interruption-change-r35.68009/)

"(BaseWeaponCritChance + VitalPointsBonus+ArmorWeakPointsBonus+DexterityCritBonus) * (100%+EquipmentCriticalBonus) * FromBehindBonus

BaseWeaponCritChance = The natural crit percentage of the weapon which is listed on the weapon
VitalPoints and ArmorWeakPointsBonus = The two skills that currently increase crit chance
DexCritBonus = Dexterity/1000 for ranged weapons and Dexterity/2000 for melee weapons
EquipmentCriticalBonus = All the bonuses from gear added together
FromBehindBonus = 1 if in the front arc of a target and 2 if in the back arc

So for an example, I’m using a longsword with 13% base crit chance, have an 80 in vital points (5%) and armor weak spots(5%), a 60 dex(60/2000 = 3%), and a total of +44% crit chance from my gear, the math is:

(13+5+5+3)*(100%+44%) = 37.4% crit chance from the front and 74.8% from behind."
​

I'm not sure how the fire flies skill fits into this calculation (since it was added after this post was made) but anecdotally Id say its an additive bonus like vital points. (It seems to make a HUGE difference)

 

Thanks everyone. With a 2h I seem to be doing MUCH better along with scumming a couple shrines from a POT (Yes for whatever reason I have courage AND love at the same time) + wolf hat. I was able to go into the Desolis (sp?) dungeon and take on everything 3 at a time except that SOB troll, who proceeded to throw a big ass rock at me and then curb stomp my ass. Everything in there was orange con'd too. Death magic is f******* broken good, too. Basically the only way I can die now is if I run out of focus.

I had thought I'd get TWO bronze ingots per craft, how wrong was I so naturally I didn't have enough tin to make my chain chest yesterday. That is definitely on the docket. I will probably swap back to cloth gloves and then make some chain legs as well to maximize fizzle anti-sadface.

@mystarr : I would love to get fortified defense but I feel that devoting that much experience into useless stances to unlock it isn't the best choice right now. Definitely something long term though as it's both free and beastly.

The next question is where is a good place to get experience by killing things? My adventure level is about 40 now which solidly puts me able to do 3 skull places. I think I've done every available quest that appears in the quest log that gives experience (Anything regarding that POS bone dagger gives zero right now) that I can actually do (One wants me to go to some 5 skull PvP area, lolnope) so I'm getting pretty dangerously low in my banked experience. The one thing I have in my other journal log is Wycliffe telling me to punk the lich lord in that 3 star dungeon on the separate island where Owls Nest and Kingsport are (Can't remember the name). Dunno if that gives any experience and also assuming the lich lord will eat me.

On a side note, I saw some dude with 103 dex yesterday. I don't remember his name but if he can name change it should be Mr. BAMF. How..? He had some +dex on gear but not more than maybe 10-15 which puts him at having ~160 in the +dex skill. I thought they capped at 120.

 

there's a big xp reward for finishing a quest line, and you should be able to finish truth at your level. the only fighting is getting through control points a couple of times, and you can either run for it or take lunar rifts or swing all the way around to go through nighshade pass, which is easier that the others.

 

Thank you. That's good to know. Each of the other ... "path" quests awarded experience more incrementally so I assumed this one was implemented but the rewards hadn't been done yet. I will knock it out as I've been everywhere on the map via "On your marks, get set, HOPE TO GOD FEW ARCHERS/MAGES!!!" lol. I usually live except for one pass with a damn troll. I hate trolls.

 

no, the end reward for each quest is the same. i'm not counting the intermediate steps. as for running through things, have you tried acquiring some potions of wolf speed?

 

I have yet to see any potions for sale... anywhere. Ah well with the Truth quest line there is zero experience for any step that isn't the last step and delivering the book the Perri. Each of the others would give you experience for each stage. Thought it was odd in any event.

 

find me in game (same name) and i'll teach you some recipes.

 

There are no caps, it's unlikely his skill is that high however. For comparison: my strength is 102 with my train strength skill at 90 (+45 STR). Bulwark of Earth adds 11.1, Sun Worship adds 5, my gear adds 19.6 (that's not even maxed as my chest piece has DEX not STR), +5 for the blessing of courage, +6 for obsidian bear food which leaves 10 from the base strength you start out with when you round everything up. With a Potion of Might and a Strength of Earth buff I could be at 132 and I'm far from being a top end player.

On Hidden Vale there are a collection of scenes North/West/South/Deep Ravenswood, each one is a different skull rating (Deep is the hardest) and they are right next to each other so you can try them all out quickly and see where you can survive.

 

A quick update and thank you to everyone who has been so very helpful. Especially so @Alley Oop for the alchemy recipes last night. Got my character in chain everything but cloth gloves because the fizzle really was too painful and I was getting fragged pretty hard wearing both cloth boots/gloves. Would I get the gear bonus 10% if I keep my wolf hat and put on chain gloves (chain chest/legs/hands/gloves)? If so I'll definitely wear some chain gloves once I unlock the -fizzle passive likely today/tomorrow. Farmed up everything I needed for Deftness potions last night and will craft some today and see how whiffy I still am.

Fireflies is absolutely amazing. That frankly should be 100% requisite for any melee as, according to the patch notes, it adds chance to crit AND hit. Even if it's only one target, the amount of crit it adds really is quite high relative to the other passives. especially considering experience cost to do it.

My quest log tells me that going to Midras "appears like something I should be able to accomplish" for the Love quest line. Now I tried the Kobold 5 skull place last night after I got to that part of the courage line and I got fragged, miserably, by the archers/rocketeer guys at the door basically as they saw me. Literally 300 damage from pot shots instantly and splat lol with defensive stance up. Is Midras going to be a similarly fruitless endeavor or can I expect a reasonable chance at being able to complete that quest without spoiling too much of what I'm going to do there?

I will try out these places. Thank you!

 

I will add my two cents to the outstanding advice others have given. 1)Listen to Sara's advice if you want to destroy things quick, I was one of those that did , consider her my mentor and am very happy with my two handed swords heavy armor build. 2) As others have said you do more damage when hitting from behind the mob so (Body slam, get behind the mob, hit sneak attack (subterfuge) and thrust. It can all happen while you have the mob stunned. If you work greens instead of yellows you will get quicker xp in the long run as they will drop much faster. Do not try to level too many things at once, i normally leveled 4 to five things at a time to 80 then go with others I need till 80. As far as physical resistances. 3 main defensive ones i use are Glancing Blow, Fortify Defenses and Defensive stance, they minimize damage to you. For magic resistances, Fireproof minimizes the fire damage mages do and the water tree Douse and Ice Shield also help out tremendously.

When leveling 4 or 5 skills at once look at your adventuring xp from time to time ("K" Key on the keyboard). You will see if your adventuring points are going up continuously. If they start going down then stop training a skill until your adventuring xp increases again. This will determine how fast you raise skills (The more xp points in your adv level pool the faster you level. I keep mine about 400 - 500 thousand.

I have dabbled in the Death Tree which may get a huge nerf but mainly stick to the earth and water tree. Life tree healing touch is as far as I have gone. Always carry a couple of greater heal potions as they come in handy.

I am far from an expert at only level 91 adventuring but do enjoy this build, I really like to stun and destroy mobs as fast as possible with an in your face style.

Good luck in your endeavors from the resident pirate. R/Boris/El Pirata