This feels too easy!!!

Maybe it's skill rather than build? Are. You just really awesome @liz_the_wiz?

 

People should get away from classic arch-types for SOTA. I've worn the same chain armor for most of my builds over the past 2 years. Right now Im an archer. With buffs I have 70 avoid and nothing really hits me with all the avoid buffs on me in normal farming. With dual wielding wands, I could see even staying in my chain in the heavy fizzle based magic class's. Ive seen a lot of people say lately "well Im an archer, I have to wear leather and move around all the time"... but no... I can drag 10 critters around me with my avoid up, stand in one place with my bow taking no damage and just twang them to death.

I can tell you that people in PvP who are wearing light armor and think they need to run/dance around all the time are the easiest for me to kill.

 

Im not in front of my PC right now so I cant scree shot but I have GM in the primary 4 avoid buffs as well as +avoid on my armor and one of my chain pieces have a bonus to one of the buffs that adds more avoid. Take a look at this video, I buff right at the beginning.

Fortify defense, glancing blow, defensive stance, ice shield.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158742686

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158694851

Watch all the glancing blows.

 

Thanks brother, I will check it out soon as I get home as those are the four defensive buffs I use. R/Boris/El Pirata

 

Yea. Liz i agree with you completly. I made a blades heavy armor just to test it out and it was around 24+h mark i was 5 skull pretty consistantly. Proper buffs + light healing... wasnt overly hard.
Wasnt much different with my first play through, where i did archer ( tho things have changed since then ) and with a duel wielding blades buddy. 5 skull consistently in like a week.

Honestly, unless your trying to do a pureist, or specific *class type* build.. then it doesnt take much time at all with even basic game knowledge/skills.

If your specifically trying to be an assassin.. running all stealth , poison, and w.e else.. then yea its probably more fun for you.. but it might not be an *effective* build.
As for balancing.. we can all spec into everything. So they will always balance tree vs tree.. not traditional class vs class.

Subterfuge i see brought up all the time. I think its actually pretty fairly balanced overall. Armor weak points for example, is a staple skill 2/3 of players are going to want. Dexterity is something 3/3 players are going to want to get. Etc etc.
Id argue Subterfuge is more balanced then other things.. as personally i see 0 reason for 2/3 of characters to ever take something in blades tree.. yet 3/3 types of players are dabbling in subterfuge =P

Its really goofy having a Class less system.. because we all think *fighter, Mage , Archers.* .. when it simply isnt like that in SOTA.
Love it or Hate it.

I recently stopped trying to be such a pureist archer/tamer.. and now im running something like 10 buffs all the time, with searing ray, fire arrow, healing spells etc etc.. and im easily 30% stronger then i was already, with none of the new skills past 75.
Wasnt a hard choice.. do i take taming from 121, to 122? or do i GM 7 other skills first? .. well ? lol

Said it months ago. Everyone will be preeeetty much jack of all trades as this game goes on.
Only people who wont, will be RP'ers who are okay with 0 advancement of a character at a certain point.

 

I wear Light Armour because sneaking around in plate doesn't make a lick of sense.

Well yeah, by balance I think it's safe to say that everyone here is talking about tree vs tree... I don't need to have the most effective build, I just want my build (the one I want to play for the sake of flavour) to be more than mere cannon fodder in combat.

If someone is having an easy time then, at worst, I should have challenge; it shouldn't be near impossible. I should be more effective in combat by mere virtue of leveling up combat skills, but I shouldn't be so behind the curve "just because" I chose the wrong skills. "Choosing the wrong skills" shouldn't be a thing.

A good example of this is "Thrust". When I first started, I thought: "Hey, I'll play Subterfuge. If I play it right, my opponents should die before I even need to fight them. All I really need is Sneak Attack and Opportunity Strike". Turns out that was a bad idea. I had leveled up the blade skill enough but I was still having a really hard time dealing with my foes... even when I was determined to focus on "my one trick". Just by unlocking "Thrust", I noticed a ridiculous jump in my DPS even when the skill was at level 1. I was starting to survive combat encounters a lot more consistently now.

It's a skill that I HAVE to use. You don't make a character build around it, you NEED it to be remotely good with blades in general.

Someone who invests all his time in one or two skill trees is essentially a one-trick pony... that person has to accept that he or she will fail in a lot of situations but the game still needs to allow him/her some level of power-tripping for that one thing he or she is (supposedly) good at. This is not the case in SotA.

I focus in 3 skill trees. Subterfuge, Blade and Light Armour. My dodge isn't effective enough (200 points in Light Armour), I get spotted very easily (500 points in Subterfuge) and my stabs/jabs aren't powerful enough to kill my enemies before they kill me (300 points in Blade).

If the game's various systems can't support BASIC archetypes like "Warrior" or "Mage" or "Thief"... then it fails outright as an RPG.

The problem is how the game computes Adventure Levels. Because it takes more XP to be good at one thing, the system considers you a higher-leveled adventurer compared to someone who's moderate at pretty much everything. The jack of all trades has more tools available and the game is properly labeling difficulty rating for that player. "Oh, a yellow mob? Sure, you can beat that! Look at all the stuff you can use!"

Now @liz_the_wiz comes in and tells me that you CAN focus on one or two skill trees and, not only be good at it, be able to handle 4-skull rated areas to the point where the game overall can be considered "too easy". You can't have a more conflicting message such as this!

If there's only a set of specific skills for you to choose from to get any level of success then what's the point of letting the player choose his skills in the first place? That's why most games have established classes. I'm not saying that SotA needs to downgrade itself to have classes, I'm saying SotA needs to do a better job with its classless system to allow us to experience the fantasy that we want.

SotA's first 10min of gameplay is it basically telling you that you're either a fighter, mage or archer...

...

Oh, I love it... in Skyrim...

 

What does that mean?

What skills are you talking about specifically?

 

Shield of Ice, Dodge, Evasion, Fortify Defense. I don't use evasion. Also, you can get avoid and dodge on the gear.

 

I hadn't even heard of Fortify Defenses before, I use Defensive Stance all the time and nothing else.

Why would it be required to learn Reckless and Berserker Stance before learning Fortify Defenses? Aren't they aggressive stances?

 

@Mr.Blight; Maybe you see "0" reason for 2/3 of the characters to ever take something in blades tree. I guess I must be part of the 1/3 that would not do anything else but blades. Once you get blades up high enough and mix it with heavy armor (Body Slam) and Subterfuge (Sneak Attack) you see how those skills compliment each other. When you can body slam/sneak attack/thrust those T5 mobs and drop them before they come out of the body slam stun you will see what I am talking about. Soothing Rain and Tap soul affords you to regen focus as you go and the four basic defensive skills I use (Def Stance, Glancing Blow, Fortify Defences and Shield of Ice) I mitigate most of the damage if not plain avoid it while dropping mobs fast which is the easiest way to accumulate adv xp. Go ahead and level bladed combat and thrust to 120 and gm Body Slam and Sneak attack and then you may have more than a "0" reason to take up the blades tree. While at it feel free to wear Bronze Chainmail for lower fizzle and 3 pct additional dmg. If still in doubt ask Sara Dreygon who showed me the way of the blade. R/Boris/El Pirata

 

I don't tink it's a matter of equipement or even prior knowledge of the game. First char, pure mage, no equipment mostly, the whole time, all my equipments are at 0 durability and I don't even care. Equipments is only for end game. I have not setuped a buff deck yet, not really min-maxing. Some life magic to heal, searing ray and banish for undead or death life leech for the rest, others stuff work well, I have not played a lot and I destroy 4 skulls zone nude and solo. It's just easy until late game.

 

Starring @Sara Dreygon & @Boris Mondragon !'
"Coming to a skull level 5 theater near you!"
Rated (R) for unrelenting bladed violent terror ...
~TL~

 

I dont think your really understanding my post.

Yes. I understand how strong blades are.
No i see no reason anyone who is playing as primarily ranged, would take blades. ( rough 1/3 ) and yes, some mages are running blades, but majoriy would/are running wands. or Wand shield. (1/3)
So...Yes. Sara Dreygon runs blades.. but then she would be part of that 2/3 who probably has no reason to ever take Ranged Combat ?

So.. i would think that most main casters and most main bow users, dont see a reason to take blades..

same as most main fighters and most main casters dont see a reason to take Ranged..


So ... yes. I think your mis understanding what i was saying.
Blades are good? But being a main archer.. i have 0 reason to up bladed combat. Same as my mage groupies probably dont either.
Just like the blade users i play with, dont have much reason to take up ranged combat.


Kinda on par when i say at least 1/3 (bow users in game) of people have 0 use for Shield skill..

But, yes. I know the game enough to know how strong blades are, and how to make a blades character work =P

 

@MrBlight; I definitely misunderstood your post and was not aware you were using bows. I know one person that is an archer/mage who uses blades only when farming to save on arrows/regs and do understand why in your situation or that of a typical mage blades or any other kind of melee weapon would not be useful enough to invest time/xp into it. I cannot see myself using bows as its not my style of play and also invested heavily in earth/water magic. Thank you for the clarification. R/Boris/El Pirata

 

Its a fair point, really. Even starting at persistence where there were no real functional quests to get xp in your pool and things weren't nearly as polished as they are now, those of us who knew "what to do" got up to 4 skull zones within a few days, or even easy 5 skulls. I remember at the start I spent like, a day in soltown catacombs, then kicked around in a couple of 2-skull zones and by day 3 I was killing corpions and wolves in eastreach gap and getting those lovely cottonbushes. This was with no equipment whatsoever other than the crap you start with or could craft with very little effort. I have always thought there were far too many 1, 2 and even 3-skull zones because after you've been in the game a week you'll never visit them again. We don't need dozens of zones of this level, especially now that we have new outskirts zones as well full of quests for the new player. I'd think we need maybe 1 or 2 of these zones near each starting area and everywhere else should be beefed up accordingly.

With regards to the armor debate, I've spent a lot of time wearing light, heavy, or a mix of both, and my current methodology is a mix (using heavy chest) as the heavy armor skill tree is far, far, better for my purposes than the light armor skill tree. If light armor had say, active/passive skills that buffed INT or DEX to equate to heavy armor's STR bonuses, then it would still be a maybe. The change to acrobatics skill to make it give dodge I thought may be the redemption, but a total of 4 dodge at GM (far less than the dodge skill or even what you'd get from wearing crappy leather set) is underwhelming, and even stacking gm acrobatics, full leather and gm dodge skill, I fail to be impressed with how often my character dodges anything. Not even often enough to give a number, its "once in a blue moon" against just about anything. However, as I am usually a magic user, I prefer the low fizzle and focus bonuses of cloth, thus the mixing of types. Honestly, switching from light to heavy skill tree was a no-brainer, the only thing I even remotely miss is the sprint skill, and that's kind of sad.

 

There are lots of reason to pick up blades. It is a great tree. I like to follow a purist build and might one day get it myself.

 

I see tons of benefits wearing heavy armor and I usually recommend it over leather to most people. I do think that it would be better. I picked light armor for my Archer for the stat bonus that it provides and also I like to move fast and fire fast (Sprint + Flute + Flurry). I usually face tank most mobs. I can run into the middle of a siege catapult and tank all the mobs there as long as I kill the marksmen first and have my buffs up. I mostly just picked one and went for it and made it work.

 

I know mages that have taken Blades and also Ranged so that they can solo certain bosses. I also know Bow uses that have taken blades to also do better against a certain boss.

 

Out of curiosity, do you guys play in Free-Attack or Auto-Attack mode? I ask because I've noticed that I'm killing a lot more reliably in Auto-Attack mode for some reason. I guess charging an attack isn't that practical?