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Need some criticising for my Shadow Warrior!


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HELLO DARK MATTERS COMMUNITY!

 

I got this game because a friend of mine was playing and he convinced two guys to get it, and they convinced two guys to get it, and now we've got a small group of friends here that play! (LAN party all the time) I'm rolling a SW and after a few trial and error characters Ive got one to level 54. Ive only died 4 times and I hear folks talking about making it to level 150+ without dieing so I thought about taking some more points in survivability skills but havent really made enough progress to really try it out. Anyway, here is a list of my skills I currently have, any suggestions/tips will be greatly appreciated!

 

Tactics - 5 (only for dual wield)

Armor Lore - 16

Dual Wield - 54

Speed Lore - 20

Concentration - 30

Toughness - 20

Death Warrior Focus - 15

Malevolent champion focus - 15

Astral lord focus - 15

 

I stacked Dual Wield so high because I like it >.>

I didnt put more points into Tactics because I never saw my % to crit increase as I put more points into it on previous characters. If Im wrong here, correct me but as of right now, It seems like a secondary skill.

Armor Lore - obvious reasons to take

Speed Lore, I didnt take this for the movement, but rather the defense value. I had problems dieing way to fast in on other characters, even with upwards of 2k armor, but low defense, on this character after plugging only 20 points into speed Lore, my survivability has gone up a lot more.

Concentration, obvious reasons.

TOughness, obvious reasons.

I took a skill in each focus because I use a few spells from each. I only use skeletal fort and the stealth from Astral Lord, so if I was going to get rid of anyone it would be that.

In Malevolent champion, I only use frenzied rampage regularly, but I use it A LOT, otherwise I some times use Augmenting Guidon, and reflective emanation. I dont keep RE on all the time though because it already doubles my CA regen time.

Death Warrior Focus, I took it because I am able to spam Demonic blow, and scything swipe almost non stop on trash mobs or bosses. Otherwise I just spam FR from MC.

 

Anyway, criticize the hell out of this and please please PLEASE from you more experienced players perspective, tell me what Im doing wrong and what Could make this better!

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Heya,

 

seems like you are gunning at a tri-aspect build, no? For an SW, that is ok, as tactics lore acts as lore for Both Malevolent and Death Warrior.

 

Take tactics lore up to 75 at least. The crit chance is not all that important, but tactics lore improves your damage too.

 

I assume you are running Grim Resilience and Reflective Emanation, going for Shadow Veil or Spectral Soldiers at level 75? If you keep up the first two buffs up high, your SW should be very hard to kill. I dont read about Grim Resilience, that would boost your Hitpoints ALOT.

 

Are you using Niob smith arts? They help alot too.

 

Lastly, I wouldn't pick speed lore. Weapon speed comes from DW, and armor, or defensive stats are many. Try implementing some more evade for example.

 

Hopes this helps, and if you have more questions, feel free!

 

Greetz

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I will attempt to critique, in brief point form notes :P

 

- Grim Resilience's +hp amount is based off of spell level and the skill "Tactics Lore." So doing as Barriston states, take it to 75 at the VERY least.

- Dual wield can actually be left very low, like 5 points if only to use dual weapons. There are no unlocked modifiers on weapons from dual, it can easily be raised via + skill items forged in gear.

- Speed lore can be omitted for constitution. Constitution is a must for all characters in my book. The expansion only further empasizes this. SW gear tends to give max run speed easily, and attack/defense is actually not his forte. More -evade, cannot evade and reflections/armor from buffs.

- Concentration is fine at 5 points for a two buff SW. Grim Res/Reflective.

- Last choice perhaps combat discipline. Reason: it is actually best to use moves in succession, stacking mod effects. This is an 'experienced' technique.

 

I.e.

 

4 move combo for SW:

 

1. Belligerent Vault = lowers defense (by a lot, very easy to hit enemies), then stun them.

2. Demonic Blow = lowering armor, wounding, generally weakening.

3. Frenzied Rampage = the mainstay of melee SW.

4. Scything Sweep = Cleanup if there are any survivors after the first three moves.

 

All this in one combo, available from one click. CD skill will also further boost damage of combat arts, and lower regens. Imo one of if not THE best skill in the game for all characters.

All characters can have like combos and stacking CA mod effects etc. It makes a character more powerful than comparative characters very noticably. They simply cannot compete (if this is your goal).

 

In your case, however I would suggest constitution as last skill. You don't have it, and it is a must.

 

Lastly, Astral Focus for shadow viel buff, will give you immortality if you read how to do it properly. NOTE however, I did this with mine own SW, and it has totally killed the fun of the game. It is much, much too powerful.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Cheers.

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Thanks for the responses! Some of that information helped. Sorta sad face to speed lore go, and may take a bit to really see the diff in survivability (youd have to be trying to get your self killed early in the game.)

I dont think I emphasized though that I didnt want to use any buffs. I know they provide a powerful advantage in most cases, but what I was trying to avoid was the painfully long regen times. I have however tried Reflective Em and Grim Res, as I raise the level I can only assume the regen times will get worse.

 

Combat Disc.- Ive used it and like it, so I am very excited to try it at level 75. One small thing about that 4 move combo, I used BV at rank one as a means of travel. I am able to outrun mounted players with BV on a > 1 second cool down. Saving me money on ever needing to buy a mount. But if you say its worth the points, Ill pump it up and see if the damage rolls out with it in the combo.

 

Astral Lord Focus - Im actually dropping this because I never use skeletal fortification anymore, and while I like Shadow Viel, as you said r00ster, it gets unfair (though Im not at that point what Ive read it sounds no fun) I dont use any of the Astral lord abilities much at all. I enjoy the MC/SW focus's as they fit my play style a bit more. In your face, flurry of strikes. I did enough sneaking around in World of Warcraft to never go back to that style of play.

 

That said, no Barristan, I was not going for a tri spec, I only ever took astral lord for the sake of getting the mods for the two spells I almost never used to begin with. Also, Ive only made it to gold difficulty, and as Im writing this, Ive already made a new SW to find my way to play with. Thank you though on the advice for Tactics Lore! It was reassuring to hear someone else say the crit was not the selling point for that skill.

 

Concentration at only 5 points? I suppose theres no point in going any higher with it since I dont intend to use a third buff already. (already having trouble using 2 >.<)

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  • 1 month later...

Been well over a month, so excuse the reply. I'll just throw in my own experiences from my brief time with my SW build. He's a beast, and one of the reasons is that I've kept GR and RE at all times. Hardly anything could touch me, and bosses that I once feared due to inexperience suddenly could do little because of all that added hp and defence. The Sacred wiki pretty says it plainly: the benefits you get from keeping buffs on outweigh the disadvantages big time, especially since there is more than one way to mitigate regen times to begin with. I mainly rely on the focuses to do the job, while leaving concentration alone at 1 point. So, really, despite the massive numbers, I wouldn't be too concerned over regen times.

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