Random questions

Are they using all 3 of the companions and a summoned or tamed creature? I was just running around the Grannus Colossus with all 3 companions and an earth elemental to do the quest for the Vermilion Lens. Had a blast running through there.

 

The Ep 2 content is largely aimed for groups. It's probably possible to solo some of the situations you mentioned, but not achievable by any common / casual player. Like Violet said, it takes great effort and understanding of the game systems to do so. Not to mention the outright impossible ones like the giant in Jotungrund.

But being able to solo the Ulfheim dragon is a feat on its own! Not many can claim that one.

 

Estroma actually soloed the Giants in single player a few times in Offline before groups were able to kill it online

 

Oh really? I was pretty sure a solo player would either be defensive / slow DPS enough so it out heals the damage or get one shot by some big crit during the fight.

 

He is (or was) scaled down for single player, much less health, so with the right build and good management on your Healing modifiers, it's possible, tough, but possible!

 

I described my build in pretty good detail. Polearm/Heavy Armor/Water, not much else outside of a few earth skills, banish undead and a few life skills. Anything else you need to know to be able to assess whether or not I should be able to solo the ancient obsidian golems, skeletons and elves in the throne room with that build?

I've noticed that you in particular like to kite mobs. Does kiting help against (if you'll pardon the pun) mobs of mobs like what you'd encounter in the throne room or a control point?

Thanks as always
DTXCF

 

I would for sure recommend a shield for those rooms. For your polearm, I would use a spear made out of a Unicorn horn corresponding to your virtue alignment, as well as a Mossy Handle (salvageable off of Torc'dawl's weapons). You would want spinning Attack for sure, 5 or 6 stacked to clear as many mobs as possible at one time, and poison, tons of poison!

I do think your build might struggle a bit, but with enough water attunement, a shield, the right potions (regeneration potions would be a must, as would any other source of healing over time, you have Soothing Rain, could use melody of mending as well, and Healing Grace).

Yes, Kiting helps TONS. Melee mobs have to reposition, which allows me in my bard build to attack them from a distance with Atonal Aria. For the ranged mobs, I always try to put some obstacle between me and them, forcing them to reposition, sometimes close enough for me to fight them!

Also, even though you are a water mage, I would still use Shield of Crystal (the Earth Shield) or Death Shield the majority of the time. Death shield if there are no mages, Shield of Crystal for any mix of mobs, those will help your survivability a ton, and use your water elemental or a tamed pet!

 

I was playing around with crafting a legendary shield of attraction. It looks like arties can't be socketed with imbued gems (but can be with regular gems) and can't be masterworked. Would an epic shield of attraction or shield of the wicked king be worth pursuing even though they can't be masterworked or imbued socketed? Arties are significantly easier to spam offline.

 

I really dislike the Shield of attraction, it's "special effect" is that it attracts damage to it, so durability of your other armor pieces will last longer, but at the cost of not being able to use an imbued gem, which is a heavy downside for me.

As for the wicked king shield, yes, it is an amazing shield, but I prefer by far it's imbued gem. Playing Offline means you'll get plenty of these (probably?) So if you want to pursue it, go ahead, but if you are not using dynamic spam decks or dynamic Bard decks, I don't feel like it's all that worth it for such a difficult to obtain shield.

I would personally just craft a regular shield and socket it with an imbued gem that will assist your build, which could be a polearms damage gem, Imbued Tempestry or a wicked caster gem!

 

I used the camouflage skill in offline playing this way: Solstace Bridge Outskirts, the abandoned village with undead and Ebon Dawn patrols of sometimes 3 or four together. Too much at once for my ranged newbie. So I walked as near as I could, while still being behind a tree or around the corner of a house, camouflaged, used the skill to distract the closest to come closer or walk by me in shooting range, readied my bow (you can´t camouflage while holding your bow, but you can draw your bow while being camouflaged), held down the aimed shot glyp and released once one of them let itself lure to it´s demise...

 

I have a build (char level around 140) that's focused around doing exactly this, except I use Silent Movement. Using Distract I manipulate one target so that I can get behind them without being close to other foes, then use Sneak Attack. With Back Stab being at around 90-something that first arrow is brutal. Then it's just doing a little kiting. As long as I leave one item on the corpse, it will inhibit respawn, so I can then rinse and repeat.

I think the main reason many people don't use this tactic is because it does not provide a high DPS. Fortunately I don't care about DPS. It's fun...

--- Edit ---
Turns out my Backstab is actually higher than I thought. It's at 107.

 

Yeah, it's very slow paced and useful in specific situations.
I wish I had a Subterfuge spec'd friend to see how it goes. I don't believe I ever played with someone who was Subterfuge spec.

 

Raised my camouflage enough to start learning SM and that is even better ^^

How does that work exactly? Simply leaving anything at all on the corpse? How long does that last - or does that work as long as you are in the same map?
I am a slow player and actively hate to fight respawns, e.g. the first time in the Soltown catacombs I came to the room where 3 bandits (archer, thug and wizard) waited. Killed them the first time and then I started browsing the books on the shelfs - all those books and I wanted one of every book. So I rightclicked and took one after the other - and while that already took long enough as simply taking all of them or taking one by pressing E did not work, I started to read through them. Had to kill the same 3 guys half a dozen times as they kept respawning. The archer respawned even in the same room with me...
I know that SotA is no singleplayergame but respawning of the same enemy while I´m still reading in the same room as the respawn kills my immersion in the game. At least they could respawn at the other side of the dungeon and walk to the room I´m in, just like I have to when I die and have to first walk to an Ankh before returning to what I was doing before...

 

In general a creature won't respawn as long as its "previous" corpse still exists. Since looting the last item from a corpse makes that corpse immediately vanish, that means it can respawn whenever the spawn frequency says it can and that varies from creature to creature. The bandits in the Soltown catacombs - if memory serves - tend to respawn after about 2 minutes, That is also about how long a corpse with at least one item will last before it decays. Maybe a bit longer, like around 3 minutes.

It's kind of ironic that at low levels that respawn is annoying, but at higher levels player can get impatient, waiting for the respawn...

That immersion thing is a bit of a hot topic. As others have said, in the early days of SOTA they were pushing for immersion - which is something I prefer as well - however, so it could appeal to a wider audience, some (or most) of the immersion was sacrificed. I think my biggest disappointment in loosing immersion was the loss of daaarrrkkk lightning storms. Very few things spoil the immersion to me more than casting a shadow during a nasty rainstorm with lightning flashing all around. Personally, I would like dark storms be a toggleable option.

 

this is no longer true. hasn't been for some years.

 

Really? Still seems to work for me, though.

 

The corpse just vanishes when it respawns.

 

So it is correct that leaving something in the loot on the corpse does absolutely nothing to the time until the corpse re-spawns and the player has no control at all delaying re-spawns?

 

I'm pretty sure it will just respawn when their respawn timer expires. There have been plenty of times where enemies have respawned before I could loot or skin and the corps just disappears (sometimes just a few seconds).