keyser soze

Congrats! you read a lot and went prepared with two great builds and in co-op, as well, which does make things go smoother. A properly built BeeEffGee is a Boss killin' machine. And nobody does crowd control like a hunter dryad with Darting Assault modded for rotate. Great job and congrats again on a huge achievement for 2 first time players going the distance with their very first builds. Hey thanks. Yeah, this site REALLY helped out a TON and getting a shopper was HUGE. Hated playing him and having to get him into Niob but it was totally worth the time. I don't know a ton about the other characters but I do have to think that I got lucky and basically ended up making the 2 best possible combo of characters to play 2 person co-op on 1 xbox and live through the whole game. You are exactly right that my wife's ability to take down bosses combined with my ability to hog-tie them with vines basically made the game SUPER EASY! She would always have them dead before the first vine was even close to timed out! Heck, she killed a lot of bosses off the screen before we ever even saw them! Couple this was the ROTATE mod on DA that you referenced but don't forget the KNOCKBACK mod which truly makes that skill super powered in mass groups. Once I held the button down the bad guys typically got KNOCKED FURTHER and FURTHER from us before their death! It was so powerful that its almost annoying because it ends up pushing the LOOT off screen! LOL Anyways, game was fun and maybe next winter we will try 2 new characters out again. Thanks to all who answered all my questions and pointed me in the right direction. If anyone ever has any questions for me or about my experience with playing with my wife who is NOT A GAMER, just let me know. Remember, we survived with zero deaths and she even hit the START button several times in the head of battle which brought up freaking menu screens while the action continues and the screen starts to blink RED! Sometimes my reactions to this sort of mistake were not taken well since they were impulsive and loud! LOL

Oh, I will pop in and out on occasion and see if there is any question that I might be able to help out with. Now that summer is here and we can actually do stuff outside in Ohio I just don't have time for games like this that take up a LOT of time. Who knows, maybe next fall I will start up another attempt to run the entire game without death using 2 melee characters instead of the ranged guys. Or a melee tank + magic caster guy. It was fun but I do with the harder levels were harder.... Wish the harder levels had far more DENSE bad guys in it. There should be place that is just COVERED in bad guys! LOL

Well we finally got around to finishing the game this past weekend. Not a whole lot to tell really as we blazed right through killing everything in our path without ever really getting hit. There were a few 2,400ish damage hits taken but nothing that really ever showed up on our health bars. All things considered I am glad I played this game through the winter and had a good time doing so with my wife. Below are a few random comments that I will make about the game, things I liked, things I didn't and randoms. - Game is hardest on silver (first time through) when you have nothing. From there game just gets easier and easier if you take the time to shop for socketables. - Ranged shooters seem over powered with virtually no chance of death - Game is very complex when you first start but extremely manageable after you spend a lot of time reading - World is too big and too sparse of monsters. I would have liked to have seen some dungeons or something just stacked with bad guys - Would have liked to have seen the more difficult levels far more difficult. Perhaps the level minimums should have been greatly upped for each difficulty - Really enjoyed the vastness of the game and the details (in towns and such) - Think more of the quests should have had useful side rewards or at least chance to get usable item to encourage doing them - After playing a couple of RPGs now I think random item modifiers are the way to go versus pre-set items like sets or legendary since random always means that the next item drop might be useful. In this game I felt that after I had my set and and some useful socketables I was done. - More camera angles for playing 2 person co-op on same xbox would have been greatly appreciated. We couldn't even see the bosses most of the time. - Really enjoyed the difference in characters and their skills Overall a very fun game to play with a buddy/spouse on the couch with over the winter months. Thanks to all who helped me out on this site and answered my questions.

wowzers, who's question is this answering? wonder if you clicked in the wrong thread or something?

I visit from time to time but don't post if I haven't played as I don't have much to share unless someone has a co-op question particularly if he is thinking about playing with his significant other We had a good time playing but had limited time once again. Also, we have been spending most of our playing time when we play simply uncovering the map by walking around in the dark spots and lifting the fog or war or whatever its called on this game. Wife really enjoys doing that and does NOT want to hurry up and finish the game. My guess is that after the final machines are dead, her interest will fall off the map.

Wow, looks like not to many people are about this challenge but me! LOL. Well wife and I actually played a little bit over weekend for first time in a LONG time. It was hilarious to play a game that you haven't played in so long. Some things our fingers just did without thinking about and other things seemed to really perplex us. I haven't had the xbox on in a month so my brain had forgotten a lot about the controller. Anyways, we made it to the last part of the game now. We easily defeated that diamond shaped spinning bad guy without ever having him enter the screen. I tied him up with my vines while the wife beat him down with her super gun and he was dead before I had to even consider recasting the vines a second time! My wife made a comment, "wow, that stinks, I kind of wanted to see him..." ROFLMAO! Anyways, onto the last part against the machines. I believe we are level 112 and 111 for anyone who cares.

Dragon will re-spawn every 10 mins regardless of using "the trick" - which seems to re-spawn him immediately. The Trick - kill the dragon, and immediately use the teleport to get outside cave. Make sure the dragon is on your "last 3 opponents" from overview screen. (DO NOT KILL anything else before teleporting). When outside cave, kill 3 things (which takes the dragon off your overview page), and re-enter the cave. This should ensure he respawns immediately. It has been reported that it "sometimes" doesn't work (ie once in a while) but I've done him 15 times in a row without him not appearing. Yes, he drops loot everytime. So I think the quests you really want to do are (if you haven't): Hagelstein (quest starts in Atamark's Gate in Human realm) - has 2 minibosses iirc... Terus (Undead Legion quest) - has miniboss + Boneslicer legendary sword reward Blind Guardian - for the instruments and the rockin' video Demons! (Seraphim Island) - for the "experience" (round 3 is brutal!) definitely the "toughest" quest if you're not prepared for it. Not too bad in co-op, although I haven't tried in Niob yet... The Quests thread here / on wiki should point the particulars (person to start quest, etc). There is a dragon that I haven't ever seen (evil-only characters, though) but I think that's it for our console versions, as far as interesting quests, etc. Thanks, I will use this when we play next.

Glad to hear you're still trudging on! Ahhhh, the Dryad dragon cave, my favorite in the game, by far! Many enemies, variety of enemies, ending with a bossfight... awesomesauce! I assume you know the trick to immediately re-spawn the dragon? The "fun" part of the mini-quests... sorry I don't understand My gauge for that is the reward at the end. Legendary mounts (obv), Blind Guardian, General of the Undead Legion being the first to come to mind. Hagelstein (sp?) isn't too bad either (no quest reward iirc, other than map %, but you do get to fight a couple of minibosses). Empty Office Quest - I'll do this if I need to level up before moving to next difficulty. The hammer is good, but not so good I'll spend the required amount of time to get it every chance I get. Have fun in the Wastelands! Nope, how do I respawn the dragon? does he drop items every time? by "fun" quests I guess what I meant to say are quests that you guys would suggest are MUST BE DONE before you would quit playing the game. I don't want to do every silly quest in the game unless it takes me to a place that I otherwise wouldn't go, takes me to a boss/monster that I would otherwise not face, gives me a prize that I otherwise would not see, etc.... The ones that you listed for me are they searchable based on your descriptions? We stumbled on that Dryad dragon cave and it was AWESOME. I was SHOCKED that something this cool could be undiscovered by us at level 111 in Niob! I want to uncover all other such "cool" things before we even think about finishing the end bosses at which time my wife's interest will fall off the cliff.

Short update. We got to play some this weekend and made it half way through the Dyr-Laigh quests. My wife has decided that we are going to take our time, clear off as much of the map as we can and do all side quests because when we are done with the final boss she sees zero reason to play any longer. So rather then fight that I am going to roll with it. Here are a few things to note about our gaming time. 1) I am level 111 and she is 110. 2) I took a shot by the Forest Guardian I think when he was VINED and he did 10,000+ damage to me!! It was by FAR the most damage I have seen done thus far and sort of woke me up a little to pay attention to what I was doing. Also, in Niob this dude has AWESOME regen health. My wife (the BFG SEPH) was barely shaving off his HPs without me helping! It was fun to watch and take notice, a boss that I actually mattered for! 3) For the first time we went out to those islands off to the right and down into a cave and WOW, freaking awesome experience, awesome amount of bad guys and a DRAGON to fight to boot! We will be going back there for sure as this was pretty darn FUN! I think I need to focus on visiting at least all the "major" places on the game and doing all the fun mini-quests. Is there a good guide of "can't miss mini-quests"?

Wife and I played for around 1 hour today for first time in at least a month or more and had a good time. It was funny because it took us a while to remember what buttons did what. She had a very hard time with her 3 buffs! LOL Anyways, wanted to comment on one thing that I had not mentioned yet that I believe is the key reason we ROCK with little chance of death. The KNOCKBACK mod on my Darting Assault plus a little more off of a couple of socketed rings REALLY makes the game safe. Half the time I end up pushing the bad mobs further away from us then before I started shooting.... We are now at the island before the last part called Dyr-Laigh. Things could get a lot tougher here with those dudes that shoot lightning at us. I will keep you all posted as I hope we get to play some more this weekend/week. I hope to finish the game very soon if possible. I believe our level 110 is enough.... wait, let me get back at you after we get hit by some lightning dudes who to date have been the scariest guys in the game thus far. Heck, my wife can't even hit them.

If you build a "random build" that doesn't really have a plan you will eventually be hitting the "reset button" on those characters but I can see that process being fun if she is down for COUNTLESS hours of replaying the same parts of the game on the same difficulty levels.

If playing on the console, and I have to believe you are by posting here, if you have a shopper you will likely want max socket able holes you can get your hands on period. (dmg mitigation and %LL are perhaps only 2 exceptions to that) However, since set pieces do indeed contain max holes, might as well get the bonus that goes with them. However, trading a few sockets for a couple of set bonuses seems counter intuitive to me since you can get such great mods on rings/ammies if you have a nice shopper and some time. Having said all that, if you have said shopper, you likely can do whatever you want because it doesn't really matter because the game becomes pretty easy if you build your character right and socket your gear with ideal stuff.

Wow, you have hopes of turning her TO THE DARK SIDE... good luck with that! LOL Yeah, I think you have a great strategy, go have fun and see where it takes you. That is how we started out as the SEPH and the HE. We both just picked and went but after a number of hours of realizing that if I didn't even bother to hit my attack button it made almost NO difference to our gaming experience I became frustrated and bored and had to plead for a "do over".

Alright, feels like I'm getting a hang of the mindset surrounding this game, sure is nice to have some nice folks like you all to help one out though Regarding my Inquisitor being the punching bag I suppose I'll have to dump a load of points into vitality and be on my tippy-toes! Now just an hour more of work and then off home to start the carnage, too bad I couldn't get tomorrow off haha... Well sounds like you guys will play much more relaxed then I am capable of playing so not sure you can really go wrong. Here are a few things that I did to make sure that I could cope with playing with my wife. (I use to be a fanatical gamer mind you and she does not play games) 1) Pre plan out BOTH builds and have it on PAPER so there is NOTHING to think about when you level. This REMOVES any stress on where to put points on either of you. You can still have hours of fun planning and she can too if she is into that but write it out so you don't have to worry about "messing up" in the game. 2) If you plan on playing these 2 characters through the ENTIRE game (meaning through NIOB) then I suggest you at least make sure they work well together in the later levels. When my wife and I first started out she took the BFG SEPH (we stumbled on this by accident really since she just wanted to play that character based on looks and we put 1 point into everything to test) and I took the Pyromancer elf.... well it could not have been more boring if I tried. My fire was completely worthless and unless we were fighting a boss I might as well have not been there. I was pretty much just there to help carry loot which got SUPER boring after a while. 3) I do all my wife's equipping of items, socketing, managing of points, runes, etc.... She loves just playing the game with me, killing stuff and having fun. She does NOT want to get bogged down in the minutia of character optimizing at all as it turns her off. 4) If you plan on playing through NIOB you will HAVE to have access to a shopper somehow, someway unless you don't mind dieing a LOT! 5) One combination that I think might be fun would be a shadow warrior army guy along with a high elf. This would give you guys some meat shields and both characters would be helpful through the entire mid to late part of the game. If after a while you start playing and you simply would like to restart with the most powerful DUO available for 2 people co-op IMO, hit me up for my builds and I will pass them along. We started with nothing (although I did make a bargainer and ran him up with our guys to buy us stuff. if you are interested in doing that look up the DRYAD VD Bargain builds or hit me up as they are wicked easy/fast to level up) and we are cruising along in NIOB arguably easier then we did in SILVER! Other then 1 set piece of equipment, we are not using anything that we did not find ourselves on our main guys. Now my VD DRYAD shopper is a completely different story as I gladly accepted handouts to run him up with minimum gaming time. You other option would be to make one of your main characters a shopper (likely the high elf IMO). Can you tell I enjoy talking about this game and strategizing even more then playing?! LOL

Hi there. I am the guy referred to above who plays this game with my wife. Many moons ago I was researching the exact same thing as you are doing. Here are a few questions and answers based on my game play thus far. By the way we are level 110ish and almost through the game on the hardest level with zero deaths. Questions 1) Do you care if you die at all? Dieing effects Survival Bonus which effects quality of drops. If you think you never want to die and you don't have great gear to start, I suggest going with RANGED character. 2) how good at stick skills is your girl friend and does she like to die? playing 2 person co-op on the same xbox and same tv can make melee a tad bit tricky. 3) Will one of you control the view perspective or both? regardless, RANGED shooting is FAR, FAR easier then melee for co-op IMO. 4) do you want the game to be hard and slow, medium or easy to get through? getting through the game with an untwinked melee character in co-op view would be HARD without dieing a number of times I think. 5) do you need your characters to be evenly powered so that 1 is doing all the killing? Something to consider if one of you goes with the BFG Seph as she is mighty powerful and can make the other one pretty bored. 6) will you make a shopper to follow along or does one of your characters need to be a shopper? Baaah, there are more but whats the point. As me any questions you might have and I can tell you all about our experience as I took the RANGED DRYAD and wife took BFG SEPH. Early and mid way she was far more powerful but as we leveled up I started killing mobs much faster then she can but she rocks if fighting 1 or 2 bad guys like its no body's business. The only downside to our builds is that we are a tad TOO POWERFUL and the game actually got EASIER as we climbed in difficulty level.