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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 7, 2016 13:01:10 GMT
300,000 is from the Fang Blade in Plains of War.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 8, 2016 0:19:09 GMT
Heal skill is starting to look very useful.
So far I can manage to go to Rift Canyon at 3, and Umber Maze at 11. Kill all the Hulks and Intellect Devourers with a super buffed Elementalist Staff and Cleave armor, then switch to Staff of Curing and pop a large group of Battle Devourers with a few Mass Inflict Light Wounds. Ripping Claw to mop up once out of spells. This might kill them too fast to get a respawn right away and do two passes, which would be a shame since the XP is amazing - 146 per two-hit kill.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 9, 2016 1:36:00 GMT
Beholder Prison also looks very nice for grinding, but is treacherous solo. The Eyeballs and Gauths aren't really a problem, testing the Beholders and Mages. Beholders have a DC15 Fort save vs Death, plus the dispel gaze. Sniping them out of invis with decoy summons should work fairly well for safety; I can also pack death magic immunity that can't be dispelled, but I'm not sure yet if it respects death magic immunity. Undispellable Haste would be nice but I can't see a way to fit it right now with my gear setup, not an issue as drinking a potion doesn't conflict with the spell failure. I know there's also a petrify ability in there, probably from the Mages, seems the only way to completely prevent that would be a Stone of Rebirth. I might be able to sneak one out of the Blood Moor.
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Post by dynneroth on Apr 9, 2016 2:42:10 GMT
Some of them have True Seeing so Invisibility won't work. And if you stand too close to the summons, you can get caught in the area dispel.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 9, 2016 2:52:15 GMT
Only the Elder Orb has True Seeing, the rest have been ignoring me. The idea is to cast a summon on the opposite side of a Beholder to turn the cone dispel away.
Further tests have shown this area to be fairly safe with these tactics. Gauths have a nasty onhit dispel, and both Gauths and Beholder Mages have Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm, which chops half my health at Level 12. I haven't failed whichever save is the petrify yet, but it's likely to be DC15 Fortitude, and I'm getting my Fort to 13 from gear, so as long as I snipe enemies quickly enough, I should be making very few saves on that.
I might consider using Silence here, not to start each fight but just once the regular Beholders are dead. That would stop ILMS.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 11, 2016 7:00:02 GMT
Build has performed very well up through the Bandit Chief. XP grind was necessary for a bit around 15-19 as I haven't yet figured out how leveling is going to work at these levels and so I'm not sure when to turn in each quest, but that'll be elementary later, I'm hoping.
Melee is crazy powerful at these levels with the Elementalist Staff, and with both Wizard and Cleric buffs, AC on gear is not important, allowing me to maximize my spellslots and cover immunities and saves however I like. The Beholder Prison has proven very safe, but the respawn is slow, so I expect at some point both the Umber Maze and Beholder Prison will be used side by side. They give very similar XP at the same levels, with the Umber Maze falling off a little earlier.
Bandit Chief was an easy kill with 55 AC, Energy Buffer, and Harm + strong melee. With nine casts of Harm, even their heals didn't mean much. I had put Cleric 11 at level 21 in order to fit a Rogue level for Tumble splash before Bandits, but my AC was so high, I decided the extra AC was overkill. First Rogue level will now be at 22. With access to Heal, I expect Plains of War to be a very viable leveling spot starting at 20.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 14, 2016 1:02:43 GMT
Here's what happened to Cesspool tonight.
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Post by Torin on Apr 14, 2016 5:15:29 GMT
cesspool is not the problem for a soloer, really. No tag, cause of too high level?!
Tricky are Rhazid, all level 32 dragons, maybe shadow pontif, Queen Z (if not bugged), Captain Angus, and most level 40 tags, in particularly Lolth and Immortal + aa headmaster.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 14, 2016 12:30:20 GMT
I just found it amusing. Level was 21, I had killed at 20 but wanted to go back and try another idea.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 14, 2016 20:30:42 GMT
I just wanted to clarify something: I'm posting a lot of stuff about early game content and it may sound like I'm relieved to have made a tag boss work using what's clearly an overpowered tactic for said boss. What's actually happening is that I'm optimizing for speed. For example, on the Cesspool fight, I want to reduce number of casts needed for setup and number of casts needed in the fight. I'm taking my time, often fighting each boss multiple times, trying various tactics, just throwing as much as I can against the wall to see what might save time later. I kinda need to make the most of each playthrough from 1 to 40 since I can't abuse savefiles and this takes so long. I've been gathering information about quest level caps, mapping out gear setups for each excursion, spellbook arrangements, quickslot stuff... just generally getting a lot of work done for later. Remember that the goal isn't just to do this with a solo character - it's to do it FAST! I appreciate input of any kind, though. Please don't think I'm annoyed by the reminders of the late game bosses that will present an actual challenge. We'll see how this build fares against those very soon... the 30s are just around the corner.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 16, 2016 1:17:05 GMT
Formian Matriarch is quite a foe to kill quickly and safely. 50 AB, large physical damage, frequent crits, and high resistances. It's a little tricky to set up correctly, but Wall of Stone and Blade Barrier *can* win the day... I'm trying to find a more efficient way. Orb of Electricity seems promising, Electrical is the Matriarch's most vulnerable element for sure. Inflict spells do next to nothing. I can melee her down, but without high Strength it takes a while. Fire damage also works to some extent, so I may be able to use Combust. Her saves are far too high to have any hope of relying on a DC spell. If I have to melee her, I can muster 64 AC so far, so it's not super dangerous. Haven't tested Interposing Hand yet but that probably works and would be a big help.
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Post by desocupado on Apr 16, 2016 1:27:11 GMT
Fomian can be grabbed, as far as I recall. I also think bbod can kill it.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 16, 2016 17:19:21 GMT
Oh, I wish I had grabs or bbod. This is Theurge, though, and I'm level 22 - this means that I could have level 7 Wizard spells, but I would have to give up Harm and Heal to do it. Those spells save too much time to give them up just for a marginally safer tactic on one boss. Thankfully this limitation will be coming to an end very soon as I close in on the higher spell levels.
Today I came up with a few tricks that I think will be very funny to watch. There are some perks to being a Wizard *and* a Cleric that don't come up in endgame play!
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 16, 2016 22:54:52 GMT
Okay, I determined Blade Barrier behind a Wall of Stone to be too precise. The Matriarch will push into the wall so far that it's almost impossible to lay a Blade Barrier that will hit her but not the wall, and even if you got it right, you'd have to place the Blade Barrier before pulling her to the wall as her selection box interferes with targeting. Orb of Electricity was not strong enough for the number of casts I get to be a main strategy.
I decided to just play it up front melee, going in with 63-64 AC (depending on Empowered Cat's Grace roll), Displacement, then open with a Defensive Casting Interposing Hand > Blade Barrier x2 > Stilled Vortex of Teeth. Sonic ring, Negative immunity, she rarely hits and only deals physical, she may crit but it won't kill. The only frustrating part is that the difference in weapon distances or hitbox sizes or whatever means my character will continually backstep from her. To account for this I can move 90 degrees so I'm walking along the Blade Barrier line.
Finally, I can continue leveling. Interesting stuff ahead.
I am considering a major change to the order of my build. Currently I take Wizard to 3 for Invisibility, then Cleric to 9, get GMW in time for the Elementalist Staff, then Wizard to 9 at level 18 and Theurge, then Cleric to 11 for Harm by 20, then a single Wizard level and then first Rogue splash for tumble at 22 (=5 AC). Then I have planned to continue Wizard all the way to 17, which gets Grasping Hand by 25 for dragons (unnecessary) and Crushing Hand by 30 tags. This qualifies for Automatic Still Spell III by level 36... which is sad, just missing the 35 tags. Cleric 13 also hits at level 31, just missing the 30 tags with Creeping Doom.
Instead, starting from level 21 I could take all Cleric except for the Rogue level, reaching Cleric 17 by 26, qualifying for Autostill feats three levels earlier. This would get Creeping Doom in time for the 30 tags, Autostill 3 in time for the 35s, and also be able to take one more Epic Spell Focus feat - my current build gets only +12 GMW instead of +13. The downside is no grabs until 31. That means I can't grab MOC, Asimathas, or Razhid. (Welllll... I might still be able to grab one or two without the spell thanks to a certain item, but it'll be unlikely.)
There's also a question of feats. I have: - Extend, Still, Empower, Autostill 1-3 - ESF Illusion, ESF Conjuration, GSF Enchantment, ESP - WP Exotic and one wiggle feat.
That last feat could be either ESF Enchantment or Maximize Spell. I could also drop WP Exotic for both of them, or if I decide to build for Wisdom, Intuitive Attack. Maximize is a very attractive feat for a speedrun with its consistency, but can't be used with Destruction.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Apr 19, 2016 21:25:53 GMT
Hooooooooly I need to rethink this build a little bit.
Inflicts are way stronger than I had ever thought possible. Shop gear boosts to Heal skill plus ranks plus Wisdom-focused build plus Prayer boost plus MAXIMIZE SPELL = ded. It may not work on everything, but it works on so many things that it would be stupid not to build for it. In many places something is Harm immune but not Inflict Critical immune. Maximized Inflict Critical Wounds can be doing like 800 damage without breaking a sweat, ditto for Cure Critical against undead. I can easily spare the feat; Exotic weapons are looking less promising than they were earlier. Mostly I'm looking forward to that Prismatic bastard sword from Glith, but apart from that there isn't much to work with in the shops, and even the Glith sword - which is not a guaranteed drop - doesn't have exotics, so at this point the Elementalist Staff is looking like the main facepuncher for the entire run. Zen Archery might not be out of the question, though.
I'm not rebuilding this right away, I'm going to see how far the current build can go first since I'm already just shy of the 30s. I can still get a lot of research mileage out of this character. I also have some new ideas about how to calculate the best XP route.
Had a little bit of fun with Wall of Fire's well-known exploit after Spawn of Uroboros closed his door on me. I misclicked on the transition back upstairs after killing all the guardians and all five doors locked, so I found a starting setup idea to skip the boss door entirely. We'll see if the kill count cooperates.
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