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Best ways to boost damage for Shadow Warrior (I & B)


hylin

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I didn't notice it too much at lower levels, but now that I'm higher level and in Platinum, I'm starting to feel the "nerf" to strengh/attack that I've read about, my pc sw compare to my ps3 sw is 20+ levels higher, and has better skill/mod choices, yet he feels weaker, especially against bosses.

 

It seems SW is more of a tank character now, still uber defense, but much nerfed offense. So how do people maximize attack/damage for Ice and Blood Shadow Warriors? Some of the things I've thought of:

 

1) More +x-x, +x% damage, +deathblow in sockets and less +all skills and +CA

2) Take Tactics Lore to 200 instead of just 124 for mod points

3) Use weapons with the "+Direct Damage" bonus

4) Take Damage Lore as my last skill, not sure how much this will help (I've left 10th skill open)

5) Socket +x% elemental damage for more DoT (combined with Damage Lore)

 

In regards to #3, what's the best modifier for a dual-wield SW? I usually look for +all skills, +chance to disregard armor, -opponent's evade/+chance opponent cannot evade, +chance to double-hit/critical hit, but I'm not sure if they are better. I figured 2 weapons with direct damage sloted with +x-x/+x% dmg and +deathblow rings "should" be the best weapons, right?

 

So what do you guys think? Thanks in advance for any input.

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Hmm, I played a Captain America build - weaponless and shield- in the CM patch into niob. So a few questions:

 

Do you play CM-patch? It has a set which gives x% lifesteel.

Do you use reg per hit items to boost your CA-level? Attack combat arts have a x% damage part which raises with ca-evels, but most also have something comparable to direct damage which climbs with level.

Base_damage*(1+%directdamage/100)*(1+x%damage/100)*difficulry_multiplyer+damage-from-stats + lifeleech(unresisted)

Think that is the formula, so raising CA-level modifies 2nd and 3rd factor in most ca's.

One of the attack CA's adds poison base damage scaling with CA-level, have to look up which. I am pumping very high reg per hit numbers, problem is if an enemy dies before you could recharge. I keep one CA spammable for this reason. Allows to recharge the main attack.

The optimal socket strategy changes when raising levels. From damage 2-2 rings in bronce to damage 50-50 in niob is 25times higher. X%damage rings raise only by a factor 7 or 8. So late game the damage x-x will have high priority. X% damage you get from tactic lore and ca-levels alrady.

Ah, forgot: casting speed was a must have for my captain america. Since he had no weapon skill, the CA-speed depends just from casting speed. Nearly the same socketing strategy than the Kungfu-dryads or the Waffenmeisterin, who plays with weapons but without a weapon skill to have totally freedom if doing archery, polearms or shield and board.

 

Link to the Waffenmeisterin, weaponmaster:

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/18562-die-waffenmeisterin-the-female-weaponmaster/

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One thing I tend to like - and this applies for ALL characters, not just the SW - and that would be to forge Life Leech runes into armor and weapons. Specifically NIOBIUM level ones - each one gives you +10 LL per socketed rune. Platinum ones give you +8. The Dryad and Inquisitor are the only two who have +x LL runes.

 

Don't get me wrong - the items you've mentioned are all good - but most of the ones you've mentioned tend to all have that one word that makes them less desirable - "CHANCE TO ______" That means simply, there's a chance you will get that effect, but then there's also the chance you won't get that effect. If the item you've socketed gives you a total of +10% chance to _______ - there's still a 90% chance it won't.

 

If you crank up Tactics Lore and have either +xx LL or +% LL, every time your weapon makes contact with the baddie, you get the normal damage + whatever you've got socketed - and that shows up in Orange as Additional Damage. This is a 100% guaranteed boost to damage done. Not to mention, if the baddie is pounding away on your hide, you get to recover some of your health in the process too.

 

I also tend to socket some Regen Per Hit - so I can eat a few extra runes in whatever high powered combat art I favor for that character class and not suffer the nerf of the higher regen time. And, of course, I depend on Concentration and the appropriate Focus for the skill I'm using to further cut regen times to something bearable. On my most frequently used CAs, I try to keep the regen times as low as possible - no more than 2 - 2.5 seconds. That's good in case you swing and miss, you can quickly recover and go right back at him. With enough RPH socketed, you can usually spam the heavy hitting CAs and knock your opponents out fast.

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chattius:

No, I don't have the CM patch, mainly because it took me some time just to get I&B working and stable enough to play. For CA's, I tend to use +all skills/+CA items to boost CA levels, I do use a bit RpH, but not much. I try to mix eating runes combined with +all skills/ca and maintain regen of around 4~5s. So combined with combat discipline and the couple of RpH items I have, my combos are fairly spammable.

wolfie:

Good call! How can I forget about the deadly LL% (maybe because as a melee SW, I don't see that modifier much). I'll have to go hunt for some. As for the CA and RpH, isn't 2s~2.5s kind of low if you socket RpH rings? I mean, can I just eat runes where my CA regen is 7~8s and socket 3~4 RpH rings? My chance to hit is pretty high because I've socketed items to limit enemy evade, so recharging with RpH shouldn't be a problem.

 

My problem is that I hit fast, don't miss much, and CA recharge quick enough to spam (while FR is landing those multiple hits), but I would like to boost my damage more, especially against bosses. I would like to raise my CA levels too, but I'm still working to put points into the 2 aspect focus skills so I can eat more runes. Ideally, purely from a char level standpoint (lv110), what number of runes and CA levels should I be at for my Frenzied Rampage and Demonic Blow and my 2 buff CA's? From reading both of your replies, I get a sense that I'm lower than average.

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LL% is indeed rare regardless of which class you're playing. It only pops up on weapons with yellow titles. But it can be worth it on occasion if you find something good that has it. Most of the time, it's been my experience it pops up on weapons I don't have any skills with - such as pole arms when I'm doing swords or hafted weapons.

 

That's why I put my energies on the fixed LL which is common enough.

 

As far as socketing vs eating runes goes... I tend to socket as many RpH rings/ammys as I can find with the highest values I can find and squeeze into my armor. By say, level 80 in Silver, I usually have 3.5 RpH socketed. At tha point in the game, the highest RpH is about 0.6 per ring.

 

I still make regular contributions into the appropriate Focus skill as well as into Concentration to keep regen at a reasonable level. I try my best also to keep the # of runes down to keep regen at under 3 seconds. I usually prefer using my primary CA - instead of using a regular swing of the weapon I'm using. The problem is - on occasion - even with Tactics Lore pumped up, you CAN still miss. And when you do miss with your CA, 8 seconds is an awful long time to wait for it to regenerate. Your only choice at that point would be to use a regular swing of the weapon (left click) and hopefully that makes contact with the baddie so you can get some RpH action. The actual number of runes eaten in ANY combat art has to do with:

 

a.) Concentration - how high do you have it?

b.) Focus skill for that CA - how high do you have it?

c.) Most importantly, how high is the regen - with buffs active?

 

Done right with the right weapons, you can get your character to do 1 hit kills. My Temple Guardian uses Dedicated Blow mostly and I've got his skills set up so he can walk up to anyone and unleash a 1 hit shot and kill the bugger. My Seraphims usually wind up with similar abilities. I can usually take out an entire mob of baddies with a dual wielding Seraphim with Pelting Strikes.

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I kept my concentration at 1 (~30 with all skills), my 2 focus skills are around 60ish (with all skills/ca, my ca level without penalty is 52). I've saved some points to dump into my 10th skill (whenever I pick it). My regen (with both buff on) is currently ~4s for FR (~15 to 20 runes iirc) and slightly lower regen for DB (~35 to 40 runes). I was planning to take both focus to mastery first, but I think I might start to pump more into concentration as the regen bonus is much better per level and it reduces both aspects for the skill points spent. I'm just not sure which skill is better for rune eating/CA level at my level so I just went with mastering focus first.

 

Thanks for the replies, both of you guys gave me some great ideas (and also got me to think about some stuff that you didn't even write in your posts lol). One final question, I've found items with -regen penalty from buff (orange color mod), are these better than -regen% rings/-regen smith stones?

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Thanks for the replies, both of you guys gave me some great ideas (and also got me to think about some stuff that you didn't even write in your posts lol). One final question, I've found items with -regen penalty from buff (orange color mod), are these better than -regen% rings/-regen smith stones?

If you have enough regen per hit socketed and socket -opponents chance to evade and +chance opponents cannot evade then your chance to hit can easily rise over 100%. This means that you don't have to worry about a CA missing, especially since they have a built in attack modifier which increases their chance to hit further. This means socketing any regen based bonuses is compeltely pointless. Also, fixed lifeleech is a poor way to increase damage. As wolfie says a niobium level rune gives +10LL whereas fixed damage runes give up to 50-50 damage as chattius says which instantly gets multiplied by all your damage multipliers, an easy choice. Admittedly you can probably find/shop rings with much better than +10LL so with some careful socketing based upon the second modifier on the ring it may be possible to use fixed LL, but I'm not sure what levels LL gets too in plat/niob.

With melee toons it's always been a simple approach for me. Get chance to hit over 100% for hardest foe with proper socketing, socket a couple of defensive things like +chance to evade and then fill the rest with fixed damage rings, a total of about 50%-60% db, any more requires too many sockets, some blacksmith +damage% to increase those and a couple of spare sockets for anything else I feel I'm lacking. Careful choice of gear can easily give you 20+ sockets to play with, even more is easy for a dual wield character wielding 2x3 slot weapons.

The good thing with fixed damage rings is they can spawn with +all skills and other useful modifiers, but you can end up spend a long time shopping if you get tempted into it enough.

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yeah, I don't have any +x-x/all skills, I usually just look for +x-x with +damage%, RpH, deathblow, or limit opponent evade. Shopping is fun if only for a little while, any longer it becomes work, and who wants to "work" while playing games, lol

 

I didn't realize that RpH combined with -regen is overkill, I always feel a combination of two bonuses with synergy is better than one, I'm probably dead wrong though. I'm not the type of player that tries to figure out the math stuff, I usually just go with it :) ok, whew! all those great info has given me a lot to think about (I hate "thinking" when I'm relaxing and playing games haha), now to put all those good ideas into practice...

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I would prefer focus over concentration. Late game your ca-level will be above the malus, causing a drop in casting speed. Also focus allows higher ca-levels. I had 200 readin runes in main attack with my SW around level 140. Of cause a kungfu dryad is even easier, buff shortens hunting ca extemly.

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  • 3 months later...

1) More +x-x, +x% damage, +deathblow in sockets and less +all skills and +CA yes

2) Take Tactics Lore to 200 instead of just 124 for mod points I wouldn't do that because of the diminishing returns

3) Use weapons with the "+Direct Damage" bonus no I don't think it is good but % LL is the top bosskiler in the game

4) Take Damage Lore as my last skill, not sure how much this will help (I've left 10th skill open) I would take tactics, Malevolent Champion, Death Warrior (assuming your not astral like most of my builds) the next thoughts on damage would be combat discipline and damage lore. You also MUST have the lore of the weapon you use.

5) Socket +x% elemental damage for more DoT (combined with Damage Lore) no the game converts to elemental damage AFTER applying the eg %fire damage mod.

So say you do 100 physical damage with your sword. You have +%50 fire damage and a laval chunk of 50% of physical converted to fire.

The game says "100 physical damage x 50% fire does not increase the physical damage" "or it increases by only %physical or all channel. NEXT the game applies the lava chunk. So the %fire never kicked in.

 

In regards to #3, what's the best modifier for a dual-wield SW? I usually look for +all skills, +chance to disregard armor, -opponent's evade/+chance opponent cannot evade, +chance to double-hit/critical hit, but I'm not sure if they are better. I figured 2 weapons with direct damage sloted with +x-x/+x% dmg and +deathblow rings "should" be the best weapons, right?

For a shadow warrior I think - evasion and %cannot evade are efficient in hitting things, more than whets. Whets are very good but with more of them there is a diminishing return. Add %100 to damage from whets double damage, but adding an additonal 100 (for 200 now) only raises the damage by a factor of 1.5 rather than 2 (for double). Deathblow is also very powerful. I cannot speak for direct damage, but on bosses should be %LL (lifeleach). You also must use combat arts which enhances damage so +CA frenzied rampage can be good.

Are you using buff suits? You can search engine on the forum. But these raise your buffs without as much of a penalty to regeneration meaning you can have more runes in a CA than you could with the same level of buff you got eating runes.

ALSO another thought on I & B one of the most powerful mods is +recharge/hit which will probably allow you to eat 200 runes if you spec a lot. The lores Malevolent and Deathwarrior should be chosen and leveled to raise combat art level.

So what do you guys think? Thanks in advance for any input.

Edited by claudius
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