Devil is in the details Questions

[hfb]

Greetings,

I am unable to find answers to these questions. Any help would be most appreciated.

1. What is the process by which I get off hand attacks with a Shapestrong Barb build with a double weapon and a shield? (I have all the 2wf feats. I have the shapestrong item. I am lvl 40 and immortal, if that is relevant. I have tried all of the combinations of changing size w/ the shapestrong item, relogging, and even resting that I can think of.)

2. Does Greater Weapon Focus-Unarmed Strike transfer to Shifter shapes if one has Legendary Form Focus in that type of shape, if so at what level of focus?

3. Is it the case that the Artist feat provides only access to song levels 61 and 62? Is it the case that the only way to make use of the Artist feat is by customizing the bard song so that lvl 61 or 62 is purchased with the pool of song points?

4. I assume that HS greater restoration potions do not mitigate the deleterious affects of the Hells as does the casting of the spell by a cleric. Is this true?

Thank you for your help.

Happy hunting,

The Dancer

[buddhamind]

Nov 13, 2011 7:48:17 GMT hfb said:

3. Is it the case that the Artist feat provides only access to song levels 61 and 62? Is it the case that the only way to make use of the Artist feat is by customizing the bard song so that lvl 61 or 62 is purchased with the pool of song points?

This is correct. The Artist feat "unlocks" your bard/curse song to level 62 max. Then, if you have enough song points and Perform skill, you can access level 62 via the !bardsong command.

Similarly, the Legendary Artist feat unlocks your song to level 63 max. Plus, it gives you secondary bard/curse songs, which means you can allocate your song points in a different configuration and hotswap using the !opt bardsong command.

For each point allocation, you need twice as much Perform skill as song levels. So even if you have the Artist feat and enough points to get your Bardsong AC to level 62, it will be limited unless you have 124 Perform.

[BigStick]

In addition to buddhamind's reply, the Artist feat will add those 2 levels throughout the lifetime of the character, so at level 10, a beard with this feat will have access to songs up to level 12.

4. HS potions do indeed work in Hells just as a GR cast by a cleric, though not with the same duration available.

[digs]

Nov 13, 2011 7:48:17 GMT hfb said:

1. What is the process by which I get off hand attacks with a Shapestrong Barb build with a double weapon and a shield?

Use Shapestrong to go Large, equip your weapon and shield, and then use Shapestrong again to return to Medium size.

[simpetar]

Nov 13, 2011 7:48:17 GMT hfb said:

4. I assume that HS greater restoration potions do not mitigate the deleterious affects of the Hells as does the casting of the spell by a cleric. Is this true?

GR from the HS potions is cast at caster level 13. In order to receive immunity to area penalties, the CL has to be 41+. A short answer to this question would be "no". In fact, they *do* make you immune to area penalties, but only for a very short time, about 1-2 seconds by rough estimation, not even 1 round, so you probably will not notice. They still do however other thing that GR should do: fully heal you and remove many damage inflictions, level drain, daze etc. at the same time. They do not remove effects that need special care (such as high levels of blindness or festering wounds) and they are still potions, therefore you may not drink them when you loose control over your character (fear, confusion, petrification,...).

simpetar

[FunkySwerve]

1-6 seconds, on GR pots, actually. You'll be immune until the next 6-second-interval heartbeat reapplies them.

Funky

[hfb]

Greetings all,

Thank you very much.

I will experiment with the method outlined here for Shapestrong.

Confirmation of my suspicions regarding bard song and GR pots is very nice to have.

Again, many thanks.

[Deleted]

That bit of shapestrong info will probably get you further, faster, in the mod with a good tank build than any other single thing. Check "the best tank overall" thread from a few weeks ago.

[Raj]

Please, don't confuse newbies.
A tank is the most underappreciated and unneeded toon for end game areas atm, and while playing one is easy, gearing a good one is harder than gear a caster, not very newbie friendly.

While tanks alone can't go anywhere ( even 40+ lvl areas take ages to complete with just unbuffed tanks ) casters alone can run even the hardest areas ( 40+ lvl areas solo, 60+ lvl areas in just a party of 3-4 in good time, any of those ) .
There're many tales of people parked at Cania ( and getting there took some time ) with a tank that could never join a Nessus, that suddendly decided to play a bard or druid and were so sought after that becoming multiple demi from scratch was faster than joining that last run on the tank.

Making a tank as first toon just in order to ''farm enough gear/subraces and then make a uber caster'' is a fail myth, tanks can't farm alone and undergeared ones are a drag for the party, a lot more than a undergeared caster that relies mostly on buffs; that, and how many times do you see runs shouting for tanks and not going only for lack of them, compared to how many runs are aborted for lack of casters...

[joe15552]

So much tank hating going on... I'm gonna go make a pure fighter now.

[chirality]

Good luck with that...I used to be a defiant pure tank builder...as well as a defiant fighter CC builder....pure fighter is worthless, and even my 38/2pal build is a joke...no reason to not get two other classes in the mix...I love the pally splash, and pal/rog is cool but best bet is really to do WM in there also.

[magecat]

I think xDD is probably the easiest tank to run. There are soem pretty good ones in the Open Sub forum.