claudius

%life leach is the top boss killer. It spawns on: throwing stars, 2 handed: axe, sword, polearm. Also on the legendary item one handed Kaldur's. It cuts through all damage resistance and armor. So you can take down the tree boss and the poison lord etc

I found out something else. With a ice relic in my sword if I switch on crystal skin with the ice damage mod both the ice damage and total damage go up. That is exactly as Flix tests show. But interestingly Magic Coup which is a function of weapon damage does not go up! But magic coup is a weapon CA and if you use a higher base damage sword it does more damage. But the ice damage mod addition to damage does not modify magic coup. I assume this is only true for magic coup, archangels wrath, and spectral hand.

Thanks Flix. I think I will just try and shop a magic staff with the bargaining network.

Flix I noticed by looking at my CA's Before the buff slot say my ravaged impact is 3 seconds. That is with Ancient Bark activated, but without the -regen buff slot With the rare -regeneration buff slot it says my ravaged impact is 2.5 because the -regen slot lowered the penalty to ancient bark. But when I kill my first enemy the ravage impact goes back to 3 seconds.

I'm looking for a one handed weapon with ice damage, and that would be equipable for a high elf.

I found (- reg buffs) 'buff slot' would work right after casting the buff. But when I hit my first enemy the regenerations would reset to the condition without the buff slot. (-reg buffs ) is a rare modifier or jewelry property

Is there a bosskiller spell better than fire spiral?

So can you wear gloves that convert to magic and use a phyical combat art like gust of wind (GoW)? Will it add magic damage to GoW? Could you kill the poison lord with %magic gloves and GoW? nevermind my post is not related to the above ^^ It is a different question I raised. Sorry for the derail.

Flix. People thought that the conversion to magic for % socketable item happened after applying bonuses to damage. So we thought it was like: 50 damage sword. Apply PC mod = zero bonus to fire damage. 2nd after that convert physical damage to fire and if you have a 25% mod then you do 12 damage fire and 38 damage physical. If what you say is true it is like: 50 damage sword. Apply conversion to fire = 50 x .25 = 12 damage fire and 38 physical. Now multiply the fire by the PC mod and you get 12 x +50% (figure to illustrate) and you do 18 fire damage and 38 physical.

I am amazed at the find of %damage conversion to element works with inquisitor damage bronze mod. Everyone always said it didn't. Are you sure? Try equipping a ring that raises fire damage by a % (or magic) see if it raises the converted damage. Then we can sort out this matter a little better. It might only be combat arts such as the bronze modification and not rings.

@Chattius, thanks for commenting. I was only using what dropped so I didn't access the downloadable armory that would hold Detheya's set. I liked the set pieces with three sockets with the crown having %visibility. I wanted the chest piece to that set, but never found it. On bosses I might have used % LIfe leach. Some bosses I killed at range by slowly killing them with vines and edaphic lances. Other bosses I used melee and on those I could have used % Life leach.

Twinked Bargaining Network (download at Dark Matters Downloads) Downloaded chest of Boneslicers Beat Platinum and Farming in Niob. I died one shot to the Octaglamus so that was a hint that I needed to level up to like 120. I was only at 95 and so I didn't want to grind forever so I end this build. Early going hints to new players: Start out gearing up from your level 2 or 5 niob shopper you downloaded. Buy Niob clothes, but it's hard to find dryad stuff. You should have no trouble finding a shield and sword with sockets. First priority is surving. Eat an ancient bark rune as soon as you can. In silver all you will need to do is eat a lot of ancient bark and modding it as soon as possible. You don't need any defensive gear other than ancient bark. I ate 100 runes in silver and used left clicks to kill. Because of whets runes from 157 Niob smither you can hit and kill. So since we mention whet blacksmith runes the second priority is kill speed. For that 2 whets will raise damage by 100% so just your starting shield and sword you wil have +200% damage. That's all you need to hit and one shot (or two). Third priority is to profit. ARPG is kill loot get more powerful kill harder and harder and so on and so on. We use three mods to accomplish this. % xp - this is the first priority because the learning curve of silver we will get to level 15 and a chance to get sets find valuabes - this is the next priority because we want loot to drop which has sockets. Guess what we fill the sockets with? More %xp and more find valuables. When you have a full set of socketed gear you can switch your find valuables for %xp. % visibility range - this one is the best of all. A lot of people map terrain with this, but I was absolutely astonished with this mod. I ran the whole game almost with +100% visibility. What does it do? You can see all of the enemies on the mini-map. So you can selectively drive up to huge mobs and champions. This helps find valuables because you kill every champion within range. So it 'plays friendly' with enhanced perception and find valuables. You also kill more mobs and receive more mentors potions from dead champions so this synergizes with %xp and find valuables as I mentioned. Ok so you try to find a suit with find valuables. And you clear silver with ancient bark - tons of runes, whets, and profit gear. Boneslicers - This build's theme is boneslicers. You have to download them and you only get 1 per level so you have to put them all in your personal stash and then re-download the boneslicer chest to get your pairs. Your first pair is at 10 and you are able to use them since you take dual wield and sword early on. What is good about boneslicer? Here are the mods... High Base Damage - this is something people forget one comparing to officer sword. It is a legendary item so a level 92 boneslicer has a high base damage relative to a level 92 officer sabre. Imagine socketing a xx-xx ring as an example of the benefit we get in terms of saving sockets for other mods One Gold Socket - ok this is bad. All other swords have 2 at least. I recommend a whet blacksmith rune, because otherwise pulling out the elemental damage item (such as magic, fire, ice, and poison) will lose your jewelry I think. + offensive skills - we use 4 offensive skills so this boosts power. They are: tactics, dual wield, sword lore, and damage lore. % attack speed - Our build only uses 1-5 levels of both dual wield and sword lore. (with + offensive skills and + all skills). Even with only 1-5 points in each of these we still have decent attack speed since dual wield is higher level skill than its base 5. And then sword is higher than its base level and so the % attack mod is pretty big. Even Boneslicers with attack penalty you will still have decent speed though not at cap. Still you save 70 points in dual wield which would be another way to bring it to cap speed. disregard armor - this is good especially since we have 2 boneslicers % chance to halve regeneration time - We will have high level combat arts because we take +100% of this mod. I got 35-40 just from my swords. Ok now for the skill set: 2 Tactics *Max first* 3 Concentration *1-5 points* 5 Dual Wield *1-5 pts* 8 Sword Lore *1-5 pts* 12 Nature Lore *Max first* 18 Combat Reflexes *Max 2nd* 25 Nature Focus *Max first* Note: [Level Nature Lore and Focus high enough to get all the modifications on combat arts that I list later in the guide] 35 Armor Lore 30 points to unlock armor without runspeed penalty [note: we don't need a lot because bark gives a ton physical, regen penalty is small for dryads, and bark and anneal duplicate % armor] 50 Capricious Hunter Focus *enough to mod 4 combat arts* My next priority is more here, for higher ravage impact CA levels including the explode mod which scales from %50 to trigger all the way to %100 chance to trigger at CA level 100 65 Damage Lore *1-5 pts* I never reached high enough level to raisethis one Additional choices - Expert Touch - yes, Our combos use only same aspect. Also would make calculations hard for runes to eat. God Testa - because Acute Mind helps damage and this helps against early bosses in silver. Attributes - All strength. This is partly because I don't take mastery in Dual wield so we need flat +attack to help hit enemies. It also helps damage enemies. Buffs: 1 Ancient Bark. First buff to work on so eat runes and mod it Mods: Rugged (armor) Divert (melee reflect) Invigorate (more healing) Runes: eat 100 runes in silver. I ate about 150 through to the beginning of niob. 2 Sinister Predator. Don't activate it until it is modded as it doesn't help melee without modding. Mod is high priority. Only eat 1 rune as only the mods help us and the ones we chose scale horribly. Mods: Eagle Eye (crit) Marked Shot (adds chance opponents cannot evade attacks) Hunting Focus (- regen hunting) Battle style versus Mobs: We use %visibility to find huge mobs and champions. In silver left click since a lot of bark runes lower regenerations. Gold use Ravaged Impact. You can't be mounted for 2 hits. I didn't even go to mount island ever. You can use modded Dust Devil for some evasion and damage to large mobs such as kobolds or the mist of miasma. Around casters keep golden glade touch up. Ravaged Impact - Mods: Perforate (adds a chance for wound damage) Breach (chance to disregard armor) Blast (chance to hit nearby targets with splash damage) Note: This and dust devil are the only Area of Effect (area effect attack). It works great. With % chance to halve regeneration and rph we will have a high CA level. 1 CA gives 50% chance to explode and 100 CA give a 100 % chance to explode. Runes to eat - At first to 3 regeneration. Once you have +100% chance to half regeneration and about 1.x rph I would put a 6 second regeneration. Be careful of getting 'addicted to certain gear' Golden Glade Touch - this is for dangerous caster mobs and for Bosses. Mods: Flow (increases hp regeneration) Persevere (increases willpower) Diligence (increases duration by 50%) Runes to eat: 1 second regeneration,, 2 seconds once %half regeneration is 100 Dust Devil - honestly the only use I had for this was kobolds and the mist of miasma. I didn't need the evasion as the only things that could hurt my character were combat arts. Mods: Recondition (reduces cooldown) Elongate (lasts longer) [note: with that set up helps with mists of miasma] Sanding (adds damage to enemy standing in it) Runes to eat: Eat as many as you can spare. It really doesn't matter. Bosses: The number one rule is to keep Golden Glade up. Other than that we will lock down the boss with vines with a long duration. Combo with vines is Edaphic Lances. Acute mind can be used with God spell or vines, but don't fail to keep Golden Glade up. Some bosses you can root with vines and slowly strangle. Some throw rocks at you like the Gar Colossus and you should tank. If you can tank a boss then you can rph with left clicks and then throw out tons of edaphic lances. I was not impressed with my boss killer combo. It didn't do as much damage as Ravage Impact. I did savor using it against the guardians because they couldn't hit me and were slowly strangled. For vines and lances I chose 2.5 seconds (5 with %half regen) as an arbitrary goal for vines. Then I looked at lances and took the regeneration to 2 seconds slower than vines duration. Tangled Vines - See above. Throttles bosses Mods: Sprawl (increased duration) [keeps boss rooted just in case] Singe (fire damage) Inent (crit) [we don't use except boss] Runes to eat: 2.5 second regeneration (5 with 100 %half regen time) Edaphic Lances - See above. Hit boss that is rooted Mods: Thorns (more thorns) Thorns (more thorns) Singe (fire damage) Runes to eat: duration 2 seconds lower than duration of vines. Double that once 100 % regeneration.. Acute Mind - raise intelligence for more damage. This wasn't too helpful for the risk it made on keeping Golden Glade up without panicking when you have too many buttons. I didn't want to bother keeping up at all times so I just maxed the intelligence benefit. Mods: Insight (more intelligence) Insight (more intelligence) Last mod not needed 5 spell and combo slots 1 - Ravaged Impact 2 - Dust Devil 3 - Golden Glade Touch 4 - Combo: Tangled Vines + Edaphic Lances 5 - Acute Mind on Boss and Forest Flight for mobs [modded to avoid root Gear - to Hit: whets, -evasion, and Sinister Predator mod of %can't evade Damage: whets, rph (higher CA level), chance to crit, disregard armor, deathblow (wait until not 1 shotting) Survival: [bark does most of this], anneal blacksmith art, evasion boots Profit: Run speed, %visibility, find valuables, %xp Combat Arts: % half regeneration (to 100), rph (1 ring) All: +all skills etc

I have eaten 100 runes in ancient bark. I can test this out but it is tedious to shop all the test amulets (+skills, items with socets and +CA, -regen buffs) So if anyone knows what do you think I should do? Should I eat 200 runes and make a -regen/skills suit? Or should I stay at 100 at make the buff suit +ancient bark (up to 200)?

Wow I read the link. +skills also work. Blows my mind!

I couldn't find the guide to buff suits in the guide section of the forum. But briefly the idea is that you put on an armor piece that has + of a specific buff. For example you could have a wing with 2 sockets and battle stance runes in the wings. Next when all of your buff suit is on you cast the buff. Afterwords you take the buff suit off and you still have the buff as cast at the higher level. And the beauty is that + combat art level from gear including runes only gives you one half the regeneration penalty. Ok so that's for the beginners. But my question is if I use equipment that has - regeration of buffs will this affect my buff after taking that armor off? I ask because I have a 2 socket shield with - regeration of buffs that I think is called the unyielding wall.

How much leach did you use? (If you remember). I used 12% on my character. I had/have bargaining so I could add more. Do you know what damage type those spikes that are summoned do?

Hi, I tried a firespiral/purgatory battle mage. I was wondering if there is a better magic to kill dragons. The fire dragon is particularly hard. And Anducar seems unbeatable to me without spam dying. I have room for some magic other than fire magic for these bad butt bosses.

You mean Ruthless mutilation instead of scything sweep. Awesome guide and a very interesting combat art.

Thanks for the comment, Flik. I think the main hindrance from no Armor Lore is less access to armors without penalty to movement speed. Ravaged Impact doesn't 'play nice' with a unique mount. So I am going to take Armor Lore and Nature Lore to raise armor mods and regeneration respectively. Those will fit in place of voodoo and speed lore.

I've got a idea for rebuilidng. I still want to make an armorless dryad. Drop voodoo focus and speed lore and add combat discipline and nature lore. Kill bosses with tangled vines from a safe distance The tale of the blade dancer will come eventually!!!!!!

Chattius, that could be. I think also I had 1 second where Golden Glade Touch was not active. It lasted 12 seconds and had a 13 second regeneration + cooldown.

Keep the ideas coming. Flix, this was just an experiment. I was stacking as many offensive skills bonuses as possible because boneslicer gives a big bonus +offensive skills... As far as slow movement, I wasn't slow because I didn't use any armor giving my self a penalty. I'm trying to decide if I should make a change or just level up higher and go with this build. I was only level 81 on platinum Carnach and that's maybe part of the problem.

I'm using a niob smith as resources and buff slot with niob runes. It's a boneslicer build

Hi I am trying to build a dryad and am in Platinum. The trouble is under seraphim island. The little mobs can hardly hit me because I have combat reflexes maxed and maybe 4 anneals (niob)... A dragon champ killed me but that was because I had no fire relic specced. With relics up now I beat the dragon boss. So I got to fight Carnach and he just killed me! I was using goldenglade touch every time it wore off recast. And I was using a combo of black curse + ravaged impact (melee) to try to kill him. But like I say I died. What is the problem do I need more anneals? Here's my analysis of why I don't take armor What is armor lore good for? % armor increase - anneals and bark do this regeneration penalty of armors reduced - dryad armor is not heavy use higher level armors without speed reduction - THIS IS ONE THING I AM MISSING unlock bonuses - no I am using set pieces So is my analysis good? What can I do? Here is my build Melee Dual Wielding Bone Slicers!! Tactics 75 (ravage impact, Sinister Predator, and dust devil modded) Concentration 75 Dual Wield 5 Sword 5 (unlocks awesome boneslicer mods) Nature Focus 31 (ancient bark and goldenglade touch modded) Speed Lore 1 Combat Reflexes 75 Damage Lore 1 Capricious Hunter Focus 20 Voodoo Focus 31 (black curse and moribund animus) I am guessing I need more anneals. I also think there is a gap of time in golden glade where I was vulnerable. My cooldown and regen is 13 seconds but the duration is 12 seconds. Can I fix with gear? Or throw the build on the scrap heap?

Most people probably know this... But I call it 'hot pan, hot oil, hot food' The method you first heat the pan quite hot. You can test with a drop of water and it boil off. Then you add oil. You give the oil a chance to heat. This time no water or it will pop out hot oil onto you. Then you add the food. The goal and reason is to have the food sizzle when added. I am guessing it sears the meat so that it stays juicier. Again, a lot of people already know about this.