Recommended first build for exploring?

[dante2377]

A few more questions:

just to be clear - for the pre-LL tags, if it's a level 30 tag and a level 27 and 31 do the run, the level 27 still gets the tag right? The only one where party matters is the ones that say "no immortal in party", right?

Now that I've can buy the level 25 gear, which aside from a few weapons seems like the top end town shops, where's a good spot for cleric gear going up (e.g. ones with high level bonus spell slots)? are there set places or is it just random?

In terms of reincarnation, the wiki says that you get all your xp back (assuming you don't take a build with XP penalty and lose legendary XP), but there's been some threads about Reincarnation XP loss, though they are older. When do you lose XP reincarnating?

Dante

[Enius the White]

Sept 21, 2016 12:53:29 GMT dante2377 said:

A few more questions:

just to be clear - for the pre-LL tags, if it's a level 30 tag and a level 27 and 31 do the run, the level 27 still gets the tag right? The only one where party matters is the ones that say "no immortal in party", right?

Now that I've can buy the level 25 gear, which aside from a few weapons seems like the top end town shops, where's a good spot for cleric gear going up (e.g. ones with high level bonus spell slots)? are there set places or is it just random?

In terms of reincarnation, the wiki says that you get all your xp back (assuming you don't take a build with XP penalty and lose legendary XP), but there's been some threads about Reincarnation XP loss, though they are older. When do you lose XP reincarnating? Dante

1) Neither the 27 nor the 31 would get the level 30 tag. Every party member must be at or below the tag level cap, or no-one tags. The "no immortal in party" means exactly that, and is a separate requirement for some later tags where the level range makes immortality viable (having an immo in the party naturally makes tagging a bit easier).

2) There are a couple of good set items as you level. Well randomized loot found in level appropriate areas is a great way to gear up once the stores are below your gear requirement. Adding augs that you find to tailor your gear, as you go, is nice as well.

3) You loose a fair chunk of xp when reincarnating later in the game. The amount scales, e.g:


highergroundpoa.proboards.com/thread/20701

[somes]

Sept 20, 2016 21:24:36 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl said:

Are there any good baselines for AB and AC by levels?

Someone else will be able to answer this better than me. The bulk of my knowledge is for Level 60+ content, I mostly race through 1-60 since IMO the fun really begins in the endgame.

I can chime in here. You can have horrible AB and still hit a lot of things before end game, the LL mobs sometimes needing weapon buffs for the extra AB.

For East Road you want to aim for 60 AC if you want nothing to be able to hit you, but you can be pretty tanky with 50 AC and the concealment buff from Sheath of Stealth.

So basically:

Whenever you need to start doing 20 tags and xp off East Road/Umbre Hulks/POW: 60 AC or higher
25-30: 70 AC
30-35: 80 AC
Xping/Tagging in Zhents if you wanna tank the Dev Crit/Melee Bosses: 90 AC is the bare minimum, but I had tanks with 90 AC and some of them still got owned by Angus with really bad luck in rolls.
Xul-Immo run: I've heard people say you need more than 100 AC, but you can honestly tank a lot with just 100 AC up until the Immo fight, where 110-120 AC is better. Phleg gear is awesome for level 40 stuff and lets yout hit this AC pretty easily, so make sure to get your hand on those whenever you do the run.

LL runs: 120 AC is the minimum, and I remember exactly that the thid run you need exactly 123 AC to not get hit by anything lol (or was it sssithy?). I remember this was the hardest AC jump to get without any phleg gear to help out, and it's often when the "I only play tanks!" players start to suffer with lack of rings and good AC items.

Hells and Beyond: I'm not the best person for this, but I can tell you from experience with just 130 AC and 90% concealment my bard is basically impossible to kill, but I also learned to position better. My wizard and my splashed cleric with CL ego can also hit this AC range, and with EV and Gate up I can tank a few mobs with them as long as the penalty isn't too strong. In limbo my bard was able to tank even in crazy large random spawn battles, but if she tanked everything to give the tanks a chance to be revived/run away, she would eventually die. 140 AC is good enough for hells, make sure to be annoying like me and get UEFs and songs to cover AC penalty. Abyss is 145, but I heard people argue you need more.

[chainlink]

Sept 21, 2016 12:53:29 GMT dante2377 said:

A few more questions:

just to be clear - for the pre-LL tags, if it's a level 30 tag and a level 27 and 31 do the run, the level 27 still gets the tag right? The only one where party matters is the ones that say "no immortal in party", right?

Now that I've can buy the level 25 gear, which aside from a few weapons seems like the top end town shops, where's a good spot for cleric gear going up (e.g. ones with high level bonus spell slots)? are there set places or is it just random?

In terms of reincarnation, the wiki says that you get all your xp back (assuming you don't take a build with XP penalty and lose legendary XP), but there's been some threads about Reincarnation XP loss, though they are older. When do you lose XP reincarnating?

Dante

When you reincarnate a 60+ character there is always an xp loss based on the formula here highergroundpoa.proboards.com/thread/20701 if you take a character to level 40 but do not claim immortality before reincarnating it will set you back to the 870k you need to achieve level 40 so you'll lose anything above this although of course in doing this you do not suffer the same class change restrictions associated with immortal characters.

[dante2377]

when discussing gear, particularly gear that newer players with fresh immortal characters, several people have vey specifically mentioned "rings". are there key rings or ring sets a newer player should target?

[chirality]

Sept 22, 2016 9:16:54 GMT somes said:

from experience with just 130 AC and 90% concealment my bard

achieving 90% conceal on a bard is pretty impressive, wonder how you pull that off

joking aside, why's the ac so low?

[condude]

Sept 22, 2016 14:45:10 GMT dante2377 said:

when discussing gear, particularly gear that newer players with fresh immortal characters, several people have vey specifically mentioned "rings". are there key rings or ring sets a newer player should target?

The "rings" being referred to are immunity rings. They drop randomly on LL runs (and even can drop in some high level pre-LL zones IIRC). The rare variation, which is by far the most common, gives 75% to one element, and 50% to another. If you use the right two rings, you can generally be immune to most elemental damage on a run. Some runs (like Dustbone) you don't want to try at all without the right rings, due to crazy AOE kickback.

There are UR and BUR varieties too, but the main difference is that they come with 25% to one exotic immunity (magic/positive/divine), that help towards covering those immunities.

The rare rings are generally not too tough to find, with a few dropping on almost every LL run. As a new player, I'd highly recommend taking these rings in loot splits, at least until you can cover every element.

[somes]

Sept 22, 2016 15:59:50 GMT chirality said:

Sept 22, 2016 9:16:54 GMT somes said:

from experience with just 130 AC and 90% concealment my bard

achieving 90% conceal on a bard is pretty impressive, wonder how you pull that off

joking aside, why's the ac so low?

I'm not sure. I followed builds recommended to me, she hits 134 AC with girding up. I haven't had too much issues with that amount of AC.

[Mister Pin]

And just where did this whole conversation go? Play what you want - get on game- and if you show that you want to stay in game- old school players will be there to help, if you ask.

[tank]

Sept 25, 2016 17:08:04 GMT Mister Pin said:

Play what you want

well that's dangerous

[chirality]

Where was the conversation supposed to go? Was it supposed to stay in Safe Space? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but mine are better. I find that pharlan tailsex on the RP server is the best way to deal with hurt feelings, so meet me on 119 and we'll turn that frown upside down.

I can't speak for anyone else's objective for posting, but the thread title did in fact ask for a recommended first build for exploring, and that's exactly what I provided.

If someone wants to play whatever they want, what would be the point of asking for recommendation on a first build to explore? If someone asks for a recommendation on a first build to explore, what would be the point in telling them to play whatever they want?

[dante2377]

The thread is going exactly where I asked for it to go - I'd asked for recommendations so that I wouldn't "waste my time" and what would give good exposure to the server. I've been playing the newbie cleric from Poli's thread and it's been going pretty well - blast things with spells and when that runs out or to conserve on weak mobs, I found a sickle with 5 damage bonuses (including 2d12 fire which goes to 4d12 fire). No EB on it but +9 from GMW does the trick. I've heard that mother of corn needs a mage and I haven't found one at the right levels (just under 30) to join me yet, but all in due time...

[madzapper]

Sept 27, 2016 0:33:41 GMT dante2377 said:

I've heard that mother of corn needs a mage and I haven't found one at the right levels (just under 30) to join me yet, but all in due time...

If it's a caster cleric, use destructs. You need someone to tank while you rest outside the house, though.

[dante2377]

Question about Seals and Keys....do you guys normally bank them after your quests...I've got an entire bag of holding and more of keys, should I just stash them except for the ones I'm actively doing (e.g. the farm house key for mother of corn)?

also are the preLL tags roughly in order of difficulty? or does it vary a bit e.g. I was able to solo my way to the Shadow Elf Lord in his tree hut and kill him (combo of spell damage and just melee him to death), a level 33 tag. Is that a sign that I should try the 32 dragons or mother of corn solo? or no. My buffed AC is 86 at level 30 (sitting on 3 levels of XP).

What color are the various boss dragons? I'm assuming that Blue (lithiucsas) is immune to electricity (e.g. don't bother with Storm of Vengeance for that one), do the others have standard elemental immunity?

thanks..

D

[somes]

Sept 28, 2016 16:52:11 GMT dante2377 said:

Question about Seals and Keys....do you guys normally bank them after your quests...I've got an entire bag of holding and more of keys, should I just stash them except for the ones I'm actively doing (e.g. the farm house key for mother of corn)?

I just dispose of them in the garbage bin most of the time. I'm not in a hurry to level new characters, except for the Shadow Pointiff tag. I hate doing that one, and I'll bank the seals for it if I have extras.

also are the preLL tags roughly in order of difficulty? or does it vary a bit e.g. I was able to solo my way to the Shadow Elf Lord in his tree hut and kill him (combo of spell damage and just melee him to death), a level 33 tag. Is that a sign that I should try the 32 dragons or mother of corn solo? or no. My buffed AC is 86 at level 30 (sitting on 3 levels of XP).

For your first question, sometimes. The level 30 tags are harder to solo and you'll need a group, my only toon that has been able to solo them was my level 30 sorc helper with auto still. Well geared melees can as well, but a lot of the times it will take a long time to kill the tags. You'll eventually roll consecutive 1s to Angus as well, and get insta killed.

What color are the various boss dragons? I'm assuming that Blue (lithiucsas) is immune to electricity (e.g. don't bother with Storm of Vengeance for that one), do the others have standard elemental immunity?

thanks..

D

Yes usually colors are indicative of their immunities. Keep the colors in mind for your first hell run, they will be important. HGX can help you tell what immunities a certain boss has if you are willing to download and install it.