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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 11, 2018 16:16:58 GMT
We have the best of all possible worlds! Someone whispered to me that Death of Magic might be able to stop the Immortal's autorezzes, and it does! So now the fight is just the healskip strategy twice. Angry Dome him, burn to Injured, nine Max IGMS, Death of Magic and Barrage, watch him heal uselessly. Rest, repeat with Near Death instead of Injured, and since these are even 75% and 25% indicators, it works exactly the same way and kills him through his autorez. I don't have to drain a single spell, and the fight is so completely safe that I wouldn't even need to bring Rebirths.
The other options I was considering if this didn't work were pretty diverse and I'm a little sad I didn't have to try them. I could hide in the corner to keep him from sidestepping, and count on Silence the whole time on a blade without draining his spells, to push the awesome Vampiric Touch and bug-tentacle damage, although that counts on the blade not approaching me and shutting me down. Vocalize-Gate would be my backup exit strategy there.
One other really cool idea I played around with was just eating his spells. Nobody does this, I think there's kind of a mental block when it comes to his Ruins, people just don't consider it, but the option is there. Everything but Mord and Ruin gets blocked - that's why I was going to switch to Monk. Evasion shuts off Chain Lightning and Firebrand, Globe can also stop Firebrand without a save, Shadow Shield creates immunity to Horrid Wilting, and the IGMS can be stopped by mantles, 4-5 casts per mantle. If I were to switch to Divination, I can stop all his dispels with three Auguries, and with a summon out, possibly two. Divination also grants Contingency, the ultimate answer to Ruin, and Ruin is just pump Fortitude and pray. He'll land one of them on average, but I already had two rebirths, and Contingency stops the instakill cold, since once I run out of autorez, I just rest and get Contingency back and be safe again.
Then the question would be how to execute the heal skip while being cast at. My theory for that was buff, Augury, and soup up for free, bait him into the soup with line of sight, burn him to Injured while refreshing Augury during the dispels, then cancel aoe and go into the Max IGMS during Chain Lightning. As the Ruins are just beginning, I have Death of Magic and Barrage, which can't be interrupted by damage. Continue burning missiles while he keeps Ruining, then rest and set up for immunity to his remaining spells and the standard melee vampirism method you saw in the previous speedruns.
Counterspell was going to be another way to possibly deal with his Mords. Use my own Mords to block them instead of having to switch to Divination feats. I have no idea how well that would have worked, but now we don't have to think about that. He's just dead before he can lift a finger.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 13, 2018 23:18:31 GMT
I have just confirmed that I can do the Immortal fight without Transmute Barrier. That epic spell is now obsolete, and all three Transmutation feats have been freed up.
EDIT: Okay, I had counted on being able to tank Lolth's second form, but I may have just hit a snag. I can make the Discipline checks for sure, but her melee is kind of intense, and I just went in on my XR Theurge to test her AB... it's 100. That is 15 higher than any other pre-legendary enemy I've tested - the Immortal and some drow spiders have 85, Shrike Mother is just below that, Angus has 81. Even after fully debuffing her, she'll have 86 AB to my 93 AC. Armor Skin is looking very enticing in lieu of Transmute Barrier now. It also means Gift of Undeath may not be totally unnecessary. I wonder what her critical threat range and multiplier are. Since third form gets Bigby Swarm, second form can be souped for more reliable damage. I can also Timestop and use my remaining grabs on the offchance one will land, I'm pretty sure second form isn't *too* difficult to grapple.
Also tested her spell DCs and other stuff, things I never had reason to test when operating with a complete shutdown strategy. Implosion and Ruin from her both have DC 45, and her SP is 46. Her Discipline checks were 96 instead of 94, which makes me want to run back in there on a 40 speedrun character, maybe going in as a 55 was scaling her stats or something. Unlikely, but worth a try.
I've been working on the formatting of the enemy database. It has a lot of information gaps, with how selective I've been on testing enemy stats, but it's coming along.
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Post by condude1 on Mar 15, 2018 1:33:15 GMT
Do all three of her forms have the same AB? If not, it might be possible to Bigby swarm the form with the highest AB, not necessarily the 3rd form?
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 15, 2018 8:14:56 GMT
Forms 1 and 3 spend a long time casting rather dangerous things before they ever move into melee anyway. Form 1 opens with Mord and is very easily grabbed by a level 7, form 3 opens with Implosions and Ruins and is absolutely the one I want to use Bigby Swarm on. If I need more chances to grab form 2, I can alternate grabs and GV, and if I run out, Bigby Swarm and rest for another one.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 15, 2018 23:52:45 GMT
Yikes. I've been sitting in Lolth's room with her for a long time casting level 7 grabs at her over and over, and so far, I have failed to land even one grab on the second form. Third form has been grabbed 10 of 42 tries. So it looks like I need to reverse my concept - I need to Bigby Swarm the second form, and try to grab the third under Timestop, and if that fails, rest for another Bigby Swarm. Going to test this a little longer to get a better sample of the chances on third form so I have some idea how many casts to prepare. Just kidding, I don't need any more sample data since it's not worth trying more than four casts. If I have to wait for a second Timestop for 45 seconds, there's no reason not to just rest and slap her with the epic hand.
The good news is that the changes to the build are opening up extra spellslots and more damage from each slot. Max Icestorm is a key spell in clearing the drow from her room, and it's getting a big damage buff, so I can afford to clear both archer groups instead of waiting for a soup to run its course. I also shouldn't need to grab the archers across from me. In fact, I recently found out Lolth herself is partially vulnerable to elements, she appears to have about 50% immunity to all of them and no evasion. Her reflex is kinda high, so reflex spells still won't do much, but Icestorm does very respectable damage, competitive with non-maxed IGMS - EVEN WITHOUT the rebuild for tons of extra Lore skill. I need to finish these tests to confirm the rebuild is 100% better than the current build, so I can reincarnate this silly old build level 40 into new build and run around seeing what I can blow up. That's really what's holding me up right now.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 18, 2018 17:26:20 GMT
Lolth and Immortal fights confirmed to work with new strategies. There was a minor issue where the Immortal was able to make me drop my staff, even though he didn't reach me with any melee damage, but that's very unlikely to be a problem, I have extra resources for that fight. If I lose a 9 slot, I will just use an extra regular IGMS before going into the heal skip setup.
Reincarnation to new build is now online. Here it is:
Human, PT - Air Genasi, Lawful Neutral 11 STR, 8 DEX, 12 CON, 17 INT, 16 WIS, 8 CHA at creation
1 Wiz - Extend, SF Illus 2 Wiz 3 Wiz - SF Evo 4 Clr - WIS, Plant and War domains 5 Clr 6 Clr - SF Conj 7 Clr 8 Clr - WIS 9 Clr - GSF Illus 10 Clr 11 Clr 12 Clr - WIS, GSF Evo 13 Clr 14 Wiz 15 Wiz - Maximize, Empower 16 Wiz - WIS 17 Wiz 18 Wiz - GSF Conj 19 Wiz - Theurge status 20 Wiz - INT, SP 21 Wiz - Armor Skin 22 Wiz 23 Wiz 24 Wiz - INT, Epic Skill Focus Lore 25 Wiz - GSP 26 Wiz 27 Wiz - ESF Conj 28 Wiz - INT 29 Wiz 30 Clr - ESF Illus --- Reincarnation get --- 31 Clr 32 Wiz - WIS, ESF Evo 33 Wiz - Epic Warding 34 Clr 35 Wiz 36 Wiz - INT, ESP, SF Necro 37 Bard - max Discipline and Tumble 38 Wiz 39 Wiz - GSF Necro 40 Wiz - INT, ESF Necro
New build trades out Transmutation feats for ESF Illusion (Weird, Starfire, double duration GV), +10 Lore (+10% stacking damage on elemental spells), and Armor Skin (recoups 2 of the lost 3 AC from Barkskin by dropping Transmutation). Bard is included instead of Rogue; the pixie can handle all the locks anyway, and Discipline provides some extra safety against Lolth form two. Monk and Bard are interchangeable for now, as I have no use for UMD for now, and Evasion won't do anything for me by the time I get the splash class. Very simple to switch them if I need to. Also, ESP is kept for now, I will test a variation of the new Matron strategy that assumes 44 SP instead of 46, and if it works just as well, I can remove ESP and put in Epic Skill Focus Concentration instead.
There is also the very remote possibility of shifting around the starting ability scores, to 10 STR, 12 DEX, 12 CON, 16 INT, 16 WIS, 8 CHA - this gives me 2 more AC at the cost of a little weight capacity and 1 INT ability modifier. Losing that can potentially cost me a level 9 spellslot, which would somewhat break the current Immortal boss strategy, so I'll leave that option for later.
I forgot to record during today's testing, hopefully I can get video of the new Immortal strategy very soon.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 18, 2018 22:50:35 GMT
Veedio.
Immortal from engagement to dead in six minutes. This saves 20 minutes, without accounting for the prep time and the changes to the build that will save more time all over the back half of the run. We are steadily approaching the ten hour mark.
You may notice I am being very careful with wall placement - it's easy to put the wall in slightly the wrong place and let him through.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 19, 2018 22:53:41 GMT
WOWWWW we're in business. Matrons take 220 from Max IGMS, just tested the new build with 116 Lore, and Matrons are taking 340 damage from Max Icestorm.
For reference, that will kill Matron De'Nat in 3-4 casts. Not sure which, as I was testing against Khur'aan, but that's enough to kill under Timestop without setting up first.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 21, 2018 2:12:44 GMT
Got around to testing the epic spell situation regarding barred schools. Not only can you not obtain epic spells in your barred schools, if you bar the school after you get the spell, then try to cast the spell, the epic spell item just vanishes from your inventory.
So to keep Divination unbarred in the endgame, and Legend Lore on the table, I have to be unspecialized, or bar Enchantment and Abjuration. Abjuration means losing access to Mord, Breach, Stoneskin, and most painfully, Energy Buffer and Shield. All my elemental resistance and 2 AC would be gone. Especially with the crit immunity ring on the "soon to be cut" list, I think unspecialized is the preferred situation.
Thankfully, there are only a handful of Gates that would be affected, and those not by much. Some Gates from map to map will just become Gates to the exit of the first map that leads to the second map, and the biggest one, the Gate from the docks back into Axilar's area, can still be done specialized, and !despecialize then used just before grabbing Death of Magic. Almost all the Gate usage after that point is across the same map and not terribly far. Matron Gates are same-map, Immortal wall Gate is a few feet, and while I was using Gate after the Queen Matron to rest in town, the changes to the Immortal run have created a vast surplus of ring charges, so I can just pop the ring in the Crown Sanctum instead.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 29, 2018 20:07:13 GMT
Matrons are looking really good. I'm a hair's breadth from just not having to buff at all for them; if not for the need to breach the matron, I could manage the whole city without a single buff. I'll see what I can accomplish with a black blade - it should distract the other enemies long enough to breach the matron. There are also only nine casts of Max Icestorm in the new strategy, and I have eleven without using slot rings. My tests used only one lore ring, I'll get back down there and test with two. The only matron that took five Icestorms to kill was Gur'atsz, and she's under Bigby Swarm.
Regarding the ESP feat, the main change this would cause is using Greater Spell Breach on the four matrons, I already use Mord on the Queen and in Lolth's room, and losing two SP in those places won't give me a chance to miss. The new matron strategy already uses regular breach on level 8 anyway, to make room for more Icestorms, so switching to Greater loses absolutely nothing. ESP is now a dead feat, and the build can switch to Epic Skill Focus Concentration. I can't see any other useful feats to replace it with, maybe Toughness?
Gate functions just fine in the houses without specialization, I can hop from matron to book chest in every house but De'Nat, and for that house, I can easily use a warp point that's a little closer, and use GV to get the rest of the way. With ESF Illusion, as well as not picking up the shield, GS is a lot less important, extended GV can get me through most of the city safely, which means I can go faster and not be held up by the GS cooldown.
Since I had a set of sithyrrs after this, I snuck into Mat'Lis'sk for a moment to check the AB on Skirmishers and Longbowmen, the enemies I'll face in Lolth's room - I wanted to know how necessary the crit ring would be. They were smacking me around pretty hard, but not critting much, and I wasn't using Epic Warding. Both enemies have upwards of 79 AB, and I can be crit immune to anything 71 or lower, so during the Timestop to grab Lolth, I'll pop the Longbowmen with Bigby 5, and use Battletide and Prayer when Timestop runs out. This should be plenty with Epic Warding to forego Gift of Undeath.
Speaking of which, Gift of Undeath is only used after the Shadow Lord, since it requires level 34. The only things with high enough AB and threatening enough crits would be Angus and the Shrike Mother, so I need to go back and check how the AC stacks up in those places... but I think Gift of Undeath is officially out of the route! No more coin toss at Lithiucshas to see if it's a real speedrun! That's so strange to me, I thought that ring would be necessary forever.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 1, 2018 19:03:40 GMT
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 8, 2018 18:18:24 GMT
The Bestiary has been released! Again, in its own thread. highergroundpoa.proboards.com/thread/25518/bestiary-level-1-40I'm not sure if anything else I have would be useful to anyone, but if I come across anything, I'll post it when I can. For now, I'm going to say this is the last major chunk of information you're going to get from me.
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Post by axis16666 on Jul 9, 2018 5:18:23 GMT
awesome journey bud...well done
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 10, 2018 2:29:54 GMT
Thanks! We're not done yet, though. I want to do one more big pass, clean up the XP and killcounts everywhere, and bring in a host of new strategies. I'd like to see how low the time can go, within reason; we're definitely approaching the ten hour mark, maybe 9:30, it's hard to tell.
Anyway, I've been meaning to try this for some time. I present... the Four Matrons, no resting, and only one defensive buff, Spell Resistance. I sped the video up a little to match the song, but at regular speed, with good execution, this strategy can get all four Sithyrrs and books in eight minutes, down from 13-15.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 17, 2018 0:34:50 GMT
A little peek inside what I'm doing with number crunching right now, trying to minimize kills needed as far as possible by minmaxing XP gain per time spent and trimming down to bare killcounts when possible.
First, the server boosts kill XP if the population is low. Base XP appears to happen around 40 people online, then below that, there's a small boost, and around 20 that boost doubles. Since the server tends to hover in the 20s and 30s, and rarely seems to peak over 40 these days, I'm assuming that smaller boost in my numbers. I want to assume low end so I can't be screwed out of my strats once the population crosses the 20 mark.
In my ballpark early routing, East Road starts at level 4 and ends at level 7, roughly speaking. If I account for every kill I have to accumulate and the quests I turn in, East Road starts at 7164 XP. The first thing I have to do on the East Road coming from the Oltum is drain off its spells, and the five-Rogue group is far safer for this than the Chief group - the mages there will kill the Oltum for sure. Those five Rogues bring the XP to 9939, just short of level 5. So the first kill I get in the Chief group will get me that level.
The regular Bandits and Mages have the same XP yield, but the Chief is a bit higher. I want to assume the worst case scenario XP-wise here, which is killing something other than the Chief first. This causes the Chief's XP to be lower, and since it's a larger chunk, this hits harder than if I kill the Chief first and take the lower XP for being higher level on a different enemy. So now I have the Chief group down, and my XP is 12,845. Next, there's a lone Archer by where the Rogues were, and on the same side of the road in the trees, a second five-Rogue group. These are static spawns at this level, they will never be any different. Killing these brings XP to 15,962, and my level to 6. The last Rogue gave me lower XP than the other four due to the level up.
Now we have an interesting issue. All remaining spawns except for the three normal Bandits by the town gate are randomized. They can have an Archer and two Mages, two regular Bandits plus a Rogue... again, here, I will assume that I get unbelievably bad luck and get all Rogues, the lowest-XP enemy. This scenario could be impossible, but I don't want to have to reroll the spawns over and over and see what the worst composition is for each trigger. Following this logic yields the precise lowest XP I can get from the East Road.
All this testing, and moving on into later areas, is affected by server population. I had to stop a test abruptly tonight because the population dipped under 20, and this weekend I was completely unable to do the main XP testing and did some enemy stat testing instead, as the population was just over 40 most of the evening.
This should give you some idea of why - aside from real-life stuff taking priority - I've been pretty quiet lately. This is a long, boring process and gives me very little to share with you. But in the end, this kind of thing can save small amounts of time all the way through the run, resulting in hopefully a very large time gain by the end.
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