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Post by shadowspawn on Nov 8, 2006 6:57:22 GMT
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Post by MilesAtma on Nov 8, 2006 14:01:46 GMT
i use gmw on my other weps, thats why i asked what you meant by blackstaff already having an enhancement bonus. As far as Legendary Level experiences, staffmaster owns single targets and if you take 60 levs of wiz/wm combined you can get 90 conceal and it is enough to duo pyramid with a strong partner (fusa was my teammate on pyramid runs) to help tank. Saves are low in general (meaning less than 60. I have 50+ saves but I didnt hit 50 until near the end of the build, so it can be a prob at times, but tactics and spells/buffs can help there) unless you add a pally lev, but you would lose 5% conceal and I am currently testing an 85% conceal str build to see how it will do in pyramid in a duo role. It wouldnt be my first choice for the boss fight in a duo role using the build I have at the moment. Saves are too low. heartseekers can be a real pita but if you have a strong tank with you the first two levels are great fun. Really does a load of damage. I made a staffmaster out of boredom as a natural progression from the conceal on the pyramid sorc/aa I made and i was curious to see how conceal would do on a str tank. Conceal rocks in those areas where you wont get breached. Staff master is the perfect build to make for str builds in areas without breach and dispell as a threat. Ill post my sm build soon... I think they are straightforward builds in general. Ab ranges from 77 on my scythe/staff focus build and 72 on my hammer/ scythe/staff focus build, and 74 on scim/staff build. Also, I tested how the blackstaff scroll would work and I hate to admit this in case its a bug, but you can get full bonus from the scroll, freeing up intelligence points to spend somewhere else ( if you already have a scroll making toon or know someone to hook you up:) . If you activate the way of the staff and then cast the blackstaff spell from a scroll you should get full enhancement bonus, or at least I have. Even if it is a bug, you wont lose too much since tensers will cover you on ab. edoted a few spelling errors as I may have a mild case of ocd
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Post by lusitania on Nov 13, 2006 15:53:52 GMT
So let me make sure I understand this correctly before I start making up my own build, let me know if I'm wrong at any point: It's a strength build which uses robes and no shield, so the AC is so bad it might as well be nothing, even with the AC bonus from tensers. Instead, it relies on EV, which means it gets hit pretty much exactly 10% (or 15% if not pure) of the time at level 60, or a 19% (and 28% if not pure) chance if they have blind fight (Is blind fight common?). So do you have a really hard time of it before you get high enough to have a good concealment on the EV? You could go dex, only then you're missing out on the whole "staff" part of the staffmaster, and you're left with dual wielding rapiers or daggers or something. At which point you might as well make a bard who gets the same EV, massive AB enhancement bonuses, high number of attacks, and fair assortment of self-buffing spells, only then you get a song too. There are no offensive spells that count as staffmaster spells, so spell penetration is pretty much irrelevant. Thanks for any clarifications.
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Post by flynn01 on Nov 13, 2006 19:19:57 GMT
Lusitania, when you put it that way it sounds bad.... My staffmaster does get hit but with spells like Premonition and Energy Buffer it gets reduced to manageable levels. I did take an additional two great Con pre-LL to cover that though. I also worked in a level of monk and keep the Owl's Wiz buff on for the few additional AC it gives. **the following is the way I see things, I think I got it from another post and tweaked it, original post(er) unknown [maybe Buildmaster Yue]** When it comes to surviving there are 4 main ways: Concealment (spells or abilities or feats) Armor class (stats or Equipment) Damage reduction (spells, Equipment, or feats [inc. Epic Dodge, Deflect Arrow, Epic Warding]) High hit points (stats or ability/spells) Each character needs one major method and a minor or at least three minors to be good at surviving. All builds can be looked at in this way: Arcane Casters including staffmasters: Major in Concealment (consistent, over 75%), minor in Damage reduction. (staffmasters, possible minor in Hit Points, renewable, long-lasting tenser's) Dexer builds: Major in AC, (oftentimes) minor in concealment (around 50% consistent) Palemaster (Autostill build): Major in AC, Major/minor in Hitpoints, very minor in Conceal. Con tanks (Soakers, DDs and Barbs): Minor/Major in Hit points, Minor/Major in Damage reduction, minor in AC. RDD: Major in Hitpoints, minor in AC. Str Tanks: Minor/Major in AC, minor in High Hit points, minor in damage reduction. Shadowdancers: Major in Conceal, Major in AC And it goes on from there.... That's how I see things anyway....
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Post by MilesAtma on Nov 13, 2006 21:31:08 GMT
Lusitania, as a staff master conceal scales for any levs in either wiz or weapon master, also you get more conceal from a staffmaster than from a bard with same amount of caster levels. You will also have a comparable ab and two more attacks with staffmaster over just bard and weapon master. Read the fine print about bard conceal in the item shop. As I understand it they nerfed it a tad for bard.
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Post by lusitania on Nov 13, 2006 22:43:17 GMT
I was exaggerating a bit for effect with respect to the bard comparison- I know tensers will give 2 or 3 more attacks by 60, the EV will be 5% better just from not being a bard not to mention the non-bard multiclassing people take for more attacks, all the caster levels for the SM spells will be slightly better for the same reason, and weaponmaster gets better hitdie and such. I'm certainly not knocking the class- I am after all planning on making my next char a SM and they've been on my mind since I first read about them, I'm just trying to get everything straight. I believe I know what the strengths are, I'm attempting to verify the relative magnitude of the weaknesses, to determine what, if any, third class to take to plug some holes. Right now I'm leaning towards boosting the saves since I can't think of a way to significantly increase AC without losing something I don't want to lose.
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Post by phalthallus on Nov 13, 2006 23:34:36 GMT
Biggest negatives of a SM (from my own personal experience) are these: AC (covered pretty well by concealment) Poor saves Disspell (no way to get around this, other than a high spell resistance) Having to wear a Mord's Ring in many LL areas The 2nd and 3rd are, IMO, the biggest problems, at least with my SM. I won't be making another until I can use a subby with good SR and/or the ability to either breathe water or walk on sand (preferably "and" if possible). You can check out DragonChyld's Pixie SM for an example of an atypical SM build that does very well. The Spell Resistance does a good job of keeping you protected with your buffs. Even with my Mord's ring on I get disspelled in a LOT of areas. And pixie gets the ability to walk on sand too. In the desert, for example, my SM is nearly worthless, needing his Mord's ring and Lev ring both. You'll run into some of the same problems with a Bane Knight, as far as I can tell. Definitely not me saying "DON'T BUILD A STAFFMASTER!!!", just telling you some things I've picked up along the way to getting my SM to level 49. Hope that they can help you in some small way. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
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Post by mrbadexample on Dec 9, 2006 10:43:51 GMT
Would the build still be viable if you dropped the off hand weapon feats and extend spell for still spell and autostills or will you not have enough Spell craft for them at the same time you took your spell 2nd weapons feats?
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Post by dragonlance007 on Dec 24, 2006 14:36:46 GMT
I have been waiting to make this build for a long time. I wanted to get Stinger first. I always told myself after talking with many people about SM, that I would not make one unless I had Stinger.
Well I got Stinger yesterday finaly.
I proceeded to run this build up in test and found a problem.
Its interesting that no one has brought it up yet...
You say your lvl 40 STR is 32, but it starts at 20 and you add one of your ability points to INT at lvl 20 then you only take 2 Great STR feats, that equals 31 not 32 and your ending ab is +39 therefore. I guess you just made a typo, or have you worked a way around this? Maybe squeezing in another Gr8 STR feat somewhere?? I would love to know what the deal is with this.
Oh, and I am curious as to why you took the Spell Penetration feats? Wouldn't your non-SM spells still be at too low of a caster lvl to be useful even with the SP feats?
Thanks for posting this build, I think its pretty great and seems fun. (except for the saves being low and getting dispeled is never fun lol.)
~DL_007
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Post by shadowspawn on Jan 5, 2007 5:56:14 GMT
Sorry for the late replies, RL has been using up all my time lately Not sure why you would want to, being as you are typically not wearing armor and the requirement for ranger would be moot - effectively making a different build altogether; but to answer your question, no, AFAIK you need to be able to cast 9th level spells. I did, nice catch. Yes. I will be reworking this build shortly. I have taken this build to immo, but deviated a bit to entertain flynn's suggestion of casting 9th lvl spells. IMO it was not worth it. The hardest part I found in playing an SM was the duality of it: am I a caster or am I a fighter? And attempting to have both results in being less than effective in both. It seems to me that you must decide to excel in one or the other from the get go. I will redo this build in the next few days, dropping spell pens in exchange for more STR or possibly extend, etc ...still doing the math
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Post by illandous on Feb 6, 2007 22:01:11 GMT
Hmmm.. I have Mino. What stats would be adjusted for that build? and is it viable in the later lvls? (LL's get it? ;D) compared to stinger of course.
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Post by sayrej on Feb 14, 2007 20:31:16 GMT
Giving this build a shot with only a slight variant here or there to compensate for personal preferences. Only have minotaur atm but I'd say once you clear lvl 17 It's pretty smooth sailing so far (I'm up to 30.) The build drops some serious bombs on whatever my horns are pointing at. Edit: Did great on the immo run and did pretty well for first desert run. Ran into a wall at 42 with the Way of Staff modifier. Unless you stick to the 15/25 cookie build you'll always be hosed with only magic damage as the highest modifier. Isn't really worth the level in ranger imo to cut yourself short like that.
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Post by setekhi on Feb 15, 2007 1:26:15 GMT
I'm thinking about levelling up something like this. The question is, with EV rolled back, how much does it hurt to splash the ranger level? Before it was rolled back people were talking about 80% concealment potentially being too big a vulnerability in some areas, and this build counts on surviving as a strength tank with even less than that. Splashing for two feats you don't have to qualify for is very handy and makes for a clean build, but I haven't seen any talk about this and was just wondering if anyone had any insight on the high-level concealment business (that lost 5% concealment has to count for something).
Edit - Okay, just saw 10% concealment bonus for SMs. While that sort of solves that issue, the question of the threshold for functionally worthwhile concealment for strength tanks remains.
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Post by aommaster1069 on Jun 17, 2007 3:11:33 GMT
How would this build function in hells? I just got a hold of stinger and was wondering out this build would do in hells. If it wouldn't function to well, I am going to build an RDD.
- FyreChyld
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