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Post by condude on Jul 17, 2016 15:25:13 GMT
Can you use a BBoD versus TSing bosses? It should speed things up not having to cast vocalize every round.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 17, 2016 18:07:19 GMT
There is no guarantee the enemy will attack the blade during timestop, and hiding in GS with blade out waiting for timestop to happen is much much slower on average than relying on vocalize. Thankfully, there aren't many enemies that use timestop. From what I remember, it's just these two dragons and Hel and one of her servants.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 19, 2016 1:15:27 GMT
Okay, I don't know why this didn't occur to me after fallenwizard helped me test the Gate Conjuration spec thing, but it did occur to me at work today and I spent half the day with my head bursting with new ideas, which was awesome.
Conjuration spec is really REALLY powerful for a speedrun! Being able to slingshot across the world at will means I can save my position after a grind, go do a tag boss or two, and come back without having to run to Zhents again on foot. It also means I can go back to Zhents in the middle of a tag run if I want, and return to the tag after a grind without losing progress.
Gate can also be used before ESF is taken to make backtracking in, for example, the Hidden Cave instantaneous. I've run into a small problem, though - there's no way to unset Gate location. Resting doesn't clear it (thank god, otherwise this would be useless for MOAD and probably useless for anything else too), and there's no simtool command. I feel like a simtool command to unset Gate location would be a very good idea; if you have ESF or lower and can't teleport between areas, once you set your Gate location, it can only be used on that ONE MAP from that moment until the server resets.
Cool thing I learned is that Wizard spec can be undone and a new spec selected if you have ESF in a barred school! This means my leveling build can specialize in Illusion at creation, and respec into Conjuration at level 21, when Gate becomes a port between areas. This saves me from having a lower DC on Weird from 18 to 20 when I first visit Zhents.
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Post by Retribution on Jul 19, 2016 2:03:51 GMT
I don't think you can unset the gate, but you can use !gateset to change it to your current location (you can set it this way first time as well, saves you a slot)
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 19, 2016 3:47:30 GMT
Oh wow, that's even better. The only reason I'd ever want to unset the location is to set a new one without teleporting, and the slot saved will help in Zhents since it means an extra Weird.
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Post by chirality on Jul 20, 2016 5:38:27 GMT
I saw Funky himself say a while back that it's not. So either he lied, or it's not random. I was specifically referring to the idea of splits dictated by time-spent as a debunked myth (tested this quite a few times in quite a few ways, with decent sample sets, back when surviving -hc- lolth fight was something to obsess over learning all the angles for), and indeed I was incorrect about it being random: You're only going to get a lot of splits when she's taking a ton of damage from a lot of sources - eg, with high-level toons in the party, for the most part. Funky In hindsight, that explains why we ended up thinking it was random (since many tests indicated no correlation to time on map(s) or mobs killed, but one thing we never tested was damage-related splitting, which looking back seems like the obvious smh answer anyway)
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 20, 2016 20:31:38 GMT
In other words, going in solo 40, I should have minimum splits? Time to actually get there and do things to her and see what happens, I guess! But that quote from Funky is very reassuring, thanks for posting it.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 20, 2016 21:56:20 GMT
Also, here's the current kill design for Asimathas. Build has 33 Heal ranks at level 30.
Gear setup ========== Hospitaler's Blade (+8 Heal, +2 WIS) Tempered Full Plate (+25% Fire) Dragonbreach (3 + 7 Shield AC vs Dragons, 10/- Slashing) Divine Persistence (+4 WIS) Medic's Gloves (+5 Heal) Medic's Belt (+10 Heal) Cloak of Worldliness (Martial prof) Rhiannon's Constancy (4 AC, KD immunity) Periapt of Wisdom +9 (+9 WIS) Priest's Circle x2 (6789 Cleric slots)
Pre-fight setup =============== Haste Maxed Owl's Wisdom --- Change to Amulet of Natural Armor +9 and Squire's Hat (Fear immunity) Maxed Endurance Cat's Grace Magic Vestment armor and shield Stilled Energy Buffer Shield Life's Grace Divine Power Displacement Stilled Elemental Shield
The kill ======== Greater Sanctuary (can go without this) Spawn Asimathas Activate Defensive Casting Mode Stilled Bigby's Interposing Hand Spam Maxed Inflict Critical Wounds, then Empowered Inflict Critical Wounds. Empowered Destruction can be a backup in case spells got interrupted.
Build, to remind folks, is a Theurge, at this point 20 base INT and WIS, also gets Automatic Still Spell I, but Still Spell will work if you don't have it.
Asimathas has 65 AB, down to 55 after Bigby's Interposing Hand. AC breakdown:
10 base 3 dexterity (Cat's Grace) 8 + 9 armor (Magic Vestment CL29) 3 + 9 shield (Magic Vestment CL29) 4 + 4 + 5 dodge (Life's Grace CL29) 9 deflection (Shield CL29) 9 natural 5 tumble (Rogue at 22)
= 78 Total AC
...I might skip Cat's Grace too.
The funny thing was, I was testing this with fallenwizard hanging out in the lair with me, and he decided to see how fast he could go at level with pariah, and he was slower. Quite a bit slower, in fact. Maxed Inflict is terrifyingly efficient, near 300 a pop. Prayer skill boost turned out not to be worthwhile, it's just an 8 damage per inflict boost for an extra 3 second cast. At best, it should break even when I would have needed an extra inflict without the boost; at worst, I wasted 3 seconds.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 21, 2016 9:12:18 GMT
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Post by condude on Jul 21, 2016 16:09:02 GMT
Watched the fight, that was impressive. One last thing though, is there any chance of you disrupting his TSes instead of silencing? Honestly, with the 300s you're hitting, I'm not sure whether he'll ever get a spell off.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 21, 2016 17:25:58 GMT
Depends on the timing. Same with my casting, it's possible to hit a tempo where his breath would always happen when it can't interrupt my cast even if it does enough damage. It would be terribly difficult to set something like that up in my favor, but if timestop does become a problem, I might consider it.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 21, 2016 21:57:36 GMT
Tested Grehnaxas today, here are my results.
- He has a lot of Dodge or Dexterity AC, and I need strong AB buffs to hit him reliably with touch attacks, although using Ghostly Visage to flat foot him is also an option.
- Mantle is the best idea against his Flesh to Stone spells. I can recast it while in GV, and it's a guarantee versus Spell Resistance which isn't. Least Spell Mantle will even soak two of his spells, not just one.
- He's immune to Inflict Critical Wounds, BUT I noticed the log had a different message than for his immunity to Harm, so I think he's immune to level 4 spells and below. Flame Strike landed, but Searing Light didn't. So now I'm wondering about Empowered Mass Inflict Critical Wounds, which is base 7th level and should break through. And I think that might also work for Lithiucshas, going to go back and test that.
- When trying to buff both Strength and AC, Aura of Vitality is a two-for-one, saving me buffing time.
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Post by desocupado on Jul 22, 2016 0:47:26 GMT
I always cheesed some of those dragon by going behind the gold pile. Is Vortex of Teeth 4 or 5?
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 22, 2016 17:59:23 GMT
Vortex is 4, but if memory serves it doesn't respect spell resistance, which also means it doesn't respect spell level immunity.
And yeah I am going to test the gold pile cheese versus my toe to toe strat, and time them - at least for Grehnaxas. For Lith, the gold pile doesn't offer much protection, and for Asimathas, the in your face kill is very likely quite a bit faster.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 23, 2016 2:13:06 GMT
Okay, Mass Inflict didn't work, it's purely a reflex save. I thought the targeted creature was a touch attack.
Right now for Grehnaxas I'm thinking gold pile cheese with destructions, maybe maxed vortex, finger of death, maybe greater electrical orb, hopefully won't have to rest. If resting is an issue, I might kill Grehnaxas at level 30 before reincarnation, so Gate will be available. For defenses, just two buffs - Spell Resistance and Extended Least Mantle. Mantle blocks two nonresists, so if he beats my SR and I see the mantle block, I can recast in total safety if I like. If I kill before reinc, probably empowered Spell Mantle and count for recast.
At this point it's really just about figuring out the fewest casts to kill him and which build represents that.
One thing that's interesting is that none of the 32 dragons has enough SR that even a single SP feat will matter for a full caster build. This may mean shuffling the build feat order around a little.
I'm having some glitches with certain spells. Earthquake isn't showing anything in the log for Grehnaxas, not even immunity, and today doing loot cataloguing, Circle of Death wasn't affecting the kobolds in Kobold Hill/Glade, likewise nothing in the log.
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