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Post by condude on May 17, 2016 1:18:50 GMT
IIRC the farm was really good.
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Post by teleben on May 17, 2016 8:07:14 GMT
I had the stream running in the background and switched over to it every now and then. Some great advice for newbies and I learned a few things myself too. Like the route through PoW without spawning anything.
If you are looking for speed from 1-20 though, I don't think you will beat an Oltum handler. 20-40 will be different, but if you are going to reincarnate then this is irrelevant.
From scratch to 20 it normally takes about 2-2.5hrs even with a pure ranger with tags. That is with a BUR sub, but no most efficient routing.
I think your best bet is start with Wiz or Sor to get to lvl 3 for free, quest to lvl 5 to get Oltum with shop gear (unless that level has changed now), then just alternate between farm/storage and tagging while it respawns. Of course you need a Ranger or Druid level in the first 5. It won't make interesting watching on twitch and will be boring to play, but very fast.
Forget quests once you have Oltum unless they are on your way. The farm xp will be much quicker. Also, always kill the first spawn on East Road whenever you port back to town. You will also get a lot of gold from the farm. You can also leave the staff until you hit 20, which will speed things up. Oltum despawns in the crypts anyway, so you cant get soul stones with him.
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Post by teleben on May 17, 2016 8:09:50 GMT
BUR or Open sub wont actually make any difference for this 1-20 as Oltum will do all the work.
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Post by fallenwizard on May 17, 2016 11:41:44 GMT
Leveling with tags takes actually longer than it feels like - the sheer amount of running around takes up a lot of a time.
Yesterday I did a 1-26 with all the tags, it took me about 6h, maybe 5½ active playing. I died quite a few times on stupid errors, which propably wasted an extra hour - 4-4½h I imagine is pretty optimal for lvl 25 with tags done. One of the biggest questions there is if you can do lith on your way down to spawn of the deep one, I didn't go for it as I was basicly a naked lvl 22 while I was there.
That is with illusion specialized wiz/ranger with oltum and zhents post lvl 18. Quest management would also make it faster, like knowing which quest for each giver you take when you do goblin/kennel/mino/ogre/staff or ice kobo/spawn of uro.
Btw Johan, I sent you few messages few days ago instead of spamming this topic.
Edit: It doesnt take more than 11k'ish gold to get animal emphaty rings for oltum, lvl 5 without money ran can do it - but that gets you less speed potions, but first east road loot spot has you covered for that after first few clears before farm.
Edit2: does anyone remember where wiz slot ring drops (1x lvl 6/7/8/9)?
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Post by johannhowitzer on May 22, 2016 15:34:51 GMT
It's absolutely more important to have a bonus class subrace if Oltum is used. That's a ton of extra kill XP.
Almost all quests are going to be worth it since they're near tags early on, and once you get to third or fourth quest for a questgiver, the XP is good enough that a short trip out of the way will be cost effective. Perhaps all first-tier quests are worth it, since you'll be visiting the shops anyway, cellar for rope / seal breaker, etc. - I think the most likely quests to skip will be second tier stuff that requires a long detour, such as the slime for Marcus.
Reinc also resets quests, I think. It should be possible to do some powerful quests before reinc, then nearly all quests after reinc for a big burst of XP almost removing all grind. Before reinc, certain quest spots are going to be faster than the oltum's kill XP, such as the quests by goblin camp, giving like 15,000 for a minute or two of gathering. Lava King trip too, getting tainted crystal, leopard, graphite, iceblossom, and lava quests in one go for probably 20,000+.
My first Oltum tests will revolve around judging Oltum kill speed and XP yield for XP/minute at the best grinding places, as well as figuring Oltum stats so I can know the most challenging / high XP places to use him.
Also, you can get Oltum at level 4 with Wizard base, or even level 3 if I can figure out a way to skip all East Road spawn triggers. (Although no invis means it's much harder to use Oltum safely anyway.)
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Post by teleben on May 22, 2016 18:16:24 GMT
Just to clarify, my comments were purely running 1-20. The strategy changes beyond that as you can't take Oltum to all tags.
Things like Lava King trip, rope/seal breaker, Anduins staff are not needed if setting a fast time just 1-20. Going further then using Oltum for things like Spawn of Uro, Hendron, Formians, Render at the right level will be beneficial.
The animal friendship rings are now level 2 and ring of hiding level 1. I'm wondering if you can get hiding high enough to sneak through East Road and take Oltum at level 2.
That way pure Ranger with Gnoll for Bonus Class Ranger might be an option. You only get level 2 to start, but 3 kills on farm will catch that up. The problem with Hide instead of invis is the slower movement speed. But the bonus xp should speed things up a lot.
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Post by johannhowitzer on May 22, 2016 19:45:04 GMT
Level 4 is completely free using shop quests though. Any four quests and you're done... probably Elrin, Cogs, Marcus, and Sirina, since those quests are from places you would want to visit at 3 anyway for speed packs, seal breaker / rope, strength packs, and heal packs, respectively. Then just visit the inns and poof 4. Invisibility is a guarantee where stealth isn't in my experience. Plus Wizard over Ranger gets to use Greater Sanctuary eventually, and Weird for Zhents as fallenwizard mentioned in PM to me.
Wizard it is, then.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 14, 2016 15:42:03 GMT
SGDQ is over, so I'm doing some testing on the leveling finally, intending to test the endgame boss potential as well on my way. Wizard with 1 Ranger splash at 4, Ranger gives a bonus feat that can be used for Greater Spell Focus so it's better than Druid.
Weird and Timestop taken at 18 absolutely makes Zhentarim practical. 71.5% chance to kill a Sentinel, increasing to 81% at level 21. All of this with Illusion Specialist and PT - Air Genasi race. I'm currently making a chart of what XP at what level for likely grinding spots, like farm, east road, pow, fox, and zhent. Oltum receives some nice buffs from Wizard, including Displacement, Mage Armor, maximized Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace, and Stoneskin.
Have to rest before every pull, but with GS and a low level summon, you can mass a little and it definitely outpaces Oltum at farm or pow. Also confirmed reincarnation doesn't save your completed quests, so I can do any quests I like both before and after reincarnation without having to worry about saving some for after.
I do have one question: how would wizard specialization function in a Theurge? I'm guessing it would apply to only the wizard spells, and the cleric spells would remain the way they are?
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Post by drunkenboastor on Jul 14, 2016 21:17:07 GMT
Specialization affects cleric spells if they can also be wiz spells. So if you banned necromancy, could not cast energy drain, but could still could cast heartbane.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 16, 2016 5:57:41 GMT
Did a lot of work tonight with the help of fallenwizard. We now know how MOAD will work - Conjuration spec. Testing confirmed Conjuration spec'd Gate can teleport between town and Mother's Lair, and it'll help with Manatakloss and get a great bonus to grab chance. Barred schools will be two of Div, Ench, and Necro, not sure what yet. Conj spec also means I don't have to worry about placement as much in the Crown Sanctum, and can warp directly from lever to lever. - Divination has PWK, Premo, and Gate. Gate and Premo will be too weak, and PWK mostly works single target which is not great mileage for late game kills out of 9 slots. - Enchantment has Rebuke and VOCALIZE, which is currently a cornerstone spell in some strats and would be a bit painful to lose, but not the end of the world. - Necromancy has... Finger of Death. Death magic in general is not going to work after reincarnation, since low ability scores and no necro focus. FOD or Rebuke is a nice choice to have, they do the same thing save for type difference, and I can't think of a spot off the top of my head where Magic doesn't work and Negative does. Can't bar Abj because Mord and too many buffs. Can't bar Evo because Gust, IGMS, some cloud spells, and weapon damage buffs. Can't bar Illusion because Disp, GV, and bugs need Ill focus. Can't bar Trans because Timestop, GS, and GMW. My choice right now is probably Div and Necro. Asimathas fight was tightened up, now uses ~11 buffs instead of more like 18, trims the casts in the fight, and I had completely forgotten about Elemental Shield, which should remove all need to heal during the fight. Ten casts were enough to slay him, with 64 Heal I was doing nearly 300 per cast. The leveling process right now looks like Rowan to 3, town quests to 4, Oltum and quests to 18, then to Zhents with Weird. At 18 with open sub, Illusion spec Weird has 71.5% chance to kill the enemies in the Hidden Cave. Idea would be rest, GS, drag mobs with badger, timestop, Weird a large group, repeat. Zhent between tag gathering until 30, do a handful of 30 tags maybe (like hags), then reinc to Theurge. Troll King last at level 30 so I can snap to 31 between King's room and Lith, picking up Bigby's Grasping Hand (Clr 17 / Wiz 13 / Rog 1 = 31). Can use -spell failure armor and shield during Lith for more grab slots, then 33 picks up Autostill 3. Autostill 3 is something I'm considering necessary for Lolth right now, since Bigby's Crushing Hand can't be meta'd and the armor I'll eventually want to use will have failure. Otherwise I could mix up a lot of feats. Still need to see if Rogue splash is necessary or if Theurge pixie or CC OL/DT will be enough for books and crown. Work on this is speeding up a lot as more and more ideas start flowing in. Economy is solved. Endgame build is nearly polished. Leveling build works very well. Multiple gear setups have come together (many people underestimate what shop gear is capable of). Having a perfectly reliable rest method for MOAD means this run can absolutely work solo. Not easy, but there aren't any worrying barriers to entry anymore. Conjuration spec was the missing piece, so major thanks to fallenwizard for inspiring that choice and testing it for me! I think right now my biggest headache is not knowing what controls the Lolth spider aspect spawn count. Going theory right now is number of Droghers killed; if anyone has any insight into this, I'm all ears.
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Post by condude on Jul 16, 2016 15:01:00 GMT
IIRC the Lolth spawn count is triggered by time taken after the gates were opened. The less time you take, the fewer Lolthspiders you get.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 16, 2016 17:47:55 GMT
You say that, but recently with a group that blazed through very fast, we had 6-7 spiders. I've seen as few as one or two. Could it be partially based on that but also somewhat random?
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Post by condude on Jul 16, 2016 18:21:16 GMT
That's completely possible. It might also be based on the time since point of no return? If the party in question stopped for a while before opening the gates, that might have contributed.
OTOH, I'm not 100% sure it's based on time. I could just be dead wrong.
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Post by chirality on Jul 17, 2016 2:53:19 GMT
an old myth that was debunked
it's random
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jul 17, 2016 4:45:00 GMT
Did some testing on Lithiucshas tonight. Strategy I went in with was open the fight in GS, bestow curse on him, then silence and start vocalizing Bigby's Grasping Hand. With GSF Conj and no spec, hands were failing, I had to GS and leave to rest, second set of hands I managed to finally land one. Then backed off, set bugs and evards, and loaded him up with Destructions, after which I discovered he's immune to Inflict spells. Evards also can only hit on a 20 roll and even with bug vulnerability was doing bad damage. Turns out his SR is too low for Bestow Curse to be necessary, but the grapple check is a problem. I can't go without Silence because of Timestop. I think this means the strategy will be to begin in GS, set bugs away from him, Silence him and drag him to the bugs, then vocalize Destructions until he dies. Maybe FOD or Rebuke as well. Going without grabs is almost certainly better even with spec and maybe ESF; it may be safer, but I'm likely to need a rest so it's also a lot slower. With Energy Immunity and maxed CON, even his breath isn't much of a threat. an old myth that was debunked it's random I saw Funky himself say a while back that it's not. So either he lied, or it's not random.
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