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Post by fragment on May 31, 2007 9:34:20 GMT
My slinger is level 47 now. I cannot currently recommend this build, as it is underpowered. The defense is very good, though. YMMV. Damage output is no longer a problem.
Goals: Make a full divine slinger. Get max AB out of it. Don't bother - too much - with epic spells, gets 2 of them anyway
Race
Use any with +dex and +wis, and +con also helps. Massive +dex bonusses can be traded for no +wis bonus. Already having a feat in the feat lists helps very much.
* = small subrace, cannot wear large shields
Free: Gnome - Svirfneblin*, Hobbit* Secret: Pixie*, Thri-Kreen UR: Yukio BUR: Furchin*, Erinyes, Half-Kyton, Zenythri
This build will be done with:
"Thri-Kreen" (secret subrace) - requires Human (changes Appearance) DEX +2, INT -2, WIS +2, CHA -2, increased base movement rate - fast, free feat: Alertness, free feat: Ambidexterity, free feat: Armor Skin, free feat: Deflect Arrows, free feat: Immunity to Sleep, able to walk on quicksand , speaks Thri-kreen
Feat wishlist
Pre-epic: Luck of Heroes, Toughness, Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus Sling, Improved Critical Sling, Rapid Shot, Zen Archery, Great Fort (or better), Blind Fight
Epic: Great Dex feats, Great Wis feats, Epic Prowess, Armor Skin, Epic Weapon Focus Sling
Legendary: LL Luck
Abilities
Get dex as high as possible, wis to 19 before level 38 (and to 20 later), rest into con.
Str 8 Dex 18 (20) Con 15 Wis 14 (14) Int 8 (6) Cha 8 (6)
Level progression, Thri-Kreen
All ability increases into DEX. All levels are cleric levels. Skill points go into tumble cross-class and concentration. Read a spell focus book at level 40. I suggest abjuration, for aegis.
Cleric domains: Strength, Trickery.
For the thri-kreen - he already gets armor skin - it would look like:
1 luck, toughness 3 point blank shot 6 wf sling 9 rapid shot 12 improved crit sling 15 zen archery 18 blind fight
21 epic fort 23* great wis 1 24 epic weapon focus 26* great wis 2 27 epic prowess 29* great wis 3 30 great con 1 32* great wis 4 33 spell focus enchant 35* gsf enchant 36 great dex 1 38* esf enchant 39 great dex 2
40-60: LL luck, great dex 3,4,5,6,7,8
Playing
(This section was written before the GMW was corrected.)
Use a sling from the start, and cast spells like a cleric would up to level 15. At level 15 you get the bullets and divine slinger status. Only ever use one bullet, and use custom text macros on hotkeys instead of switching between bullets. Buy acid bullets for bandits, as fire and cold cant harm them, up to level 20. Check the buffing spells, especially important are divine power, gmw and entropic shield. Playing will become better and better now, up and including to the drow area, where you enjoy the fact that you do exotic damage. After that, the fun is essentially over.
LL areas: Buff your guys up with gmw, fw, aegis and girding. You're quite good on the defense, so act as a dex tank and pack rez scrolls beside your mass resurrect. Keep shooting bullets to avoid flat-footedness (this is big!). Find out what bullet to use on what mob, and prepare for constant switching. If there's nobody in the party lowering the SR of enemies (bard, lifethreader), use breach bullets on mobs. Also use breach on Ssith mages, they love it! Use your 5 or so harms on the mobs which have no SR and can be harmed (like scorpions in the desert). Don't bother with interposing hand or knockdown bullets, these are not practical to use.
Damage output is roughly 2/3rds of normal dex tanks plus whatever I can do with harms. comparable to STR tanks.
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Post by Acaos on May 31, 2007 16:28:03 GMT
Don't bother with interposing hand or knockdown bullets, these don't work. Do you mean these don't function at all, or their DC is too low? They both worked when I tested them, but may have broken somehow. Acaos
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Post by fragment on May 31, 2007 17:23:47 GMT
Don't bother with interposing hand or knockdown bullets, these don't work. Do you mean these don't function at all, or their DC is too low? They both worked when I tested them, but may have broken somehow. Acaos They do function, I just tested them. I'm clearing that up the original text. Regards!
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Post by fragment on Jun 22, 2007 0:34:32 GMT
Reconsidered statements about damage output. I just took him through DB, the damage output was OK.
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Post by jackpace on Aug 3, 2007 21:17:33 GMT
Since you focused on dex and wis, are you wearing robes or armor?
What level did your damage start to compare to strength tanks?
How do I make those macros...
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Post by fragment on Aug 4, 2007 3:03:45 GMT
Since you focused on dex and wis, are you wearing robes or armor? What level did your damage start to compare to strength tanks? How do I make those macros... 1. Robes and shield, of course. You use either dex or wis to shoot, and both can be used for AC (wis -> monk level and zen archery feat, but can't wear shield) as well. The WIS feats are only to be able to cast 9th level spells so that I can get epics. A WIS-based slinger would be a different build. The build idea is to have a high AB, so that the damage on the bullets has a chance to apply. 2. The "strength-tank" comparision came from a desert run, where I used a tool to compare my damage output to various others. Generally, I started to do noticable damage at level 20, when the acid bullets became available, so that I could damage bandits. You have to find out what damage types work where, the slinger plays much like an arcane archer. You cannot just switch on fire and expect to be able to do much damage everywhere - you need to use all the elements and exotics. You have to remember things like: screelings, acid damage; sanders, cold damage; dust elementals, fire etc. In some areas only two damage types might be needed but you have to switch constantly. In others, you can use exotics to hit everything where the AA has to switch between elements. You need to read the logs, and ask people ("What works against living sands?" should elicit some response). Your damage output is thus dependent on your knowledge and skill. 3. Right click the quickslot, in the 12 o'clock position select "custom text macro".
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Post by ultimabob on Aug 4, 2007 5:15:50 GMT
1. Why 40 cleric? How come no splash like 1 Monk or some Paladin?
2. If you get 3 full BAB levels, it says that divine power will grant a legendary levels BAB increase up to tier 1 (basically +3 more AB). Is that boost part of the +20 cap. LAB works by adding 15 non-magic AB and then putting in a malus or somesuch. So I wonder how all that works with the +20 cap. Usually you can go over 20 to counter a malus - maybe Tier 2 LAB guys can match Tier 1 by just getting +23 magical ab?
3. Have you been to Hells? How does this build compare to a fully tricked out AA build?
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Post by fragment on Aug 4, 2007 12:41:15 GMT
1. Why 40 cleric? How come no splash like 1 Monk or some Paladin? 40 cleric levels give access to magic and knockdown bullets. KD is generally not worth it, so it's a decision between magic bullets and evasion. I picked magic bullets, but missing evasion surely does hurt. 2. If you get 3 full BAB levels, it says that divine power will grant a legendary levels BAB increase up to tier 1 (basically +3 more AB). Is that boost part of the +20 cap. LAB works by adding 15 non-magic AB and then putting in a malus or somesuch. So I wonder how all that works with the +20 cap. Usually you can go over 20 to counter a malus - maybe Tier 2 LAB guys can match Tier 1 by just getting +23 magical ab? I don't understand that ... if I can test something for you in the test area, send a personal message, I will message you the results back. 3. Have you been to Hells? How does this build compare to a fully tricked out AA build? Only to Tia, where it went very well until I met the consort breath Damage output is distinctively lower than AA (especially if you know to use imbues). Defense is better and I have more equipment options since I wear a shield. No evasion means no dragon tanking. AAs don't get girding or aegis, duh.
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Post by ultimabob on Aug 4, 2007 20:15:18 GMT
Thanks for info.
This was what I was talking about:
"Divine Power: Increases Legendary BAB to that of a fighter at casterlevel 41 and higher, if the character has at least 3 levels in 1/1 BAB classes."
I was curious if that increase in Legendary BAB fell under the +20 magic cap. To keep it on topic, that might affect a decision to splash levels as a slinger. Or it might not :-)
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Post by cathedralmaster on Aug 4, 2007 21:51:01 GMT
Thanks for info. I was curious if that increase in Legendary BAB fell under the +20 magic cap. To keep it on topic, that might affect a decision to splash levels as a slinger. Or it might not :-) The LBAB as I understand it is scripted and doesn't fall under the +20. As for whether you should splash for it (having made a wisdom based slinger myself): For a pure cleric slinger: +15 (BAB) +10 (epic levels) +12 (LL bonus dependant on control class) +27 (b buffed main stat) +16 (GMW) or whatever you think you can count on + 0 (WM bonuses) + 3 (WF/EWF) + 1 (Prowess) --- 84 ab, 88 with full buffs, 91 if you take the LL WF, at lvl 60 with a slinger with a 64 main stat. Compare that to an AA of Flurry design: +16 (BAB) +10 (epic levels) + 9 (LL bonus dependant on control class) +27 (b buffed main stat) +16 (GMW) or whatever you think you can count on +15 (enchant bonuses) + 3 (WF/EWF) + 1 (Prowess) --- 97 ab, 101 ab with bard song, 104 ab with LL WF with a main stat of 64. The big difference comes from the enchant arrow (free) feats of AAs which doesn't fall under the +20 cap for AB. As far as the KD bullets go, fragment is right as far as the hells are concerned, they're near worthless. With the present numbers, even with a palemaster draining a max amount of strength you still need to roll a 17 to kd anything (and it's only 1 round if you suceed) and that's only for 2 types of creatures, a third can be kded on a 19 assuming the three aren't immune to knockdown, and the rest such as kytons, erinyes, hamatulas, osyluths, etc. have strengths of 92+ making them invulnerable to it even with a palemaster's drain. As for non-Hells, why bother? In the time your wasting kding one creature - and you have to be constantly pinging them to keep them down - you can just use damage bullets to kill them. That leaves you with magic as the only real benefit which is of questionable use at best considering most of the stuff in the LLs have 5 magic resist to start off with and magic seems to be the most worthless of the damage types as far as the hells are concerned.
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Post by Becb on Aug 6, 2007 16:58:48 GMT
Can someone explain this for me please.
!damintegrate (requires 40 character levels) -toggles whether or not to integrate added damage into the standard damage packet; added damage will be equal to 1/3 of slinger level (to a maximum of +20) if this is enabled, but will not cause a second hit of kickback
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Post by Becb on Aug 6, 2007 17:06:50 GMT
And how about taking 3 barb for uncanny dodge and for the GMW thing. Then 1 or 2 lvls of monk for evasion. You would still have 35 lvls or cleric
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Post by fragment on Aug 6, 2007 21:02:10 GMT
Can someone explain this for me please. !damintegrate (requires 40 character levels) -toggles whether or not to integrate added damage into the standard damage packet; added damage will be equal to 1/3 of slinger level (to a maximum of +20) if this is enabled, but will not cause a second hit of kickback In later areas intended for "legendary" characters, monsters often damage you or the whole party back when you damage them. This is called "kickback", e.g. on the desert run you will encounter 5 mobs who kickback you for 100 cold, 100 negative. 100 cold, 100 negative is easy to be immune to (neg potion, and some cold % and /), but it's not so easy to be immune to fire, acid, cold, magic and negative all at once, which means you will have to accept that you're hit by kickback and drink some heal potions on the way. Slinger bullets, like AA arrows when they use dustbone bows, damage the opponent twice: once their normal, listed damage that a non-slinger character would get when they use a sling, and once their divine slinger extra damage, which is switched on with the specific damXdamagetype command (e.g. !damRco). Two damages, two kickbacks. The integrate command is to reduce the amount of kickback by half as it integrates the two damages into one damage type. The cost of that is lower overall damage. I have it quickslotted, but never used it so far.
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Post by oropher987 on Sept 21, 2007 1:42:44 GMT
Is there a way to calculate the additional damage on the divine bullets for 55 cleric levels versus 60? (Unless this is a secret). Unfortunately I do not have the time to build both toons (I am not asking about the additional hit damage such as cold, elec, etc. but rather the inherent bonus on the divine bullets).
Also, I have tried (only on 1 server) to use the !damIntegrate. Although, the message was sent to my log and on screen, I did not see a difference in the combat window when attacking--as I said, I did try it several times that night but that was about 2 weeks ago.
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Post by phalthallus on Dec 2, 2007 19:44:07 GMT
I was wondering if anyone ever determined if 3 1:1 BAB class levels was required to get the most AB out of Divine Power or not. I'm finally thinking about making one of these, and this would potentially have a pretty big impact.
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