idbeholdME

And if you tried the leveling spots like the toxic elementals outside of Thylysium or southeast of the Swamp (IIRC from 6 years ago) with statue buff maintained by potions, I think you would just fly through the levels. I remember I grinded a lot of levels in the swamp with a statue buff after I disabled the experience penalty before I stopped playing back then. Went at a pretty decent rate. I wouldn't say that bosses are the way to speed level. I don't mind a bit of farming and effort to hit the max level so optimally for me, I would finish Niob somewhere around 170 range. Then the last levels would be an option to grind if I wanted. I don't rush through the game at all though. Even on silver, I explore every corner of the map and finish every quest. Right now I'm on level 48 and am like 30% done with the second act on silver after 43 hours of playtime (probably a few of those are alt-tabbed but even then). Only after finishing silver, I rush through gold/plat to go into Niob. I also plan a pure speedrun through the game on bronze in full Visibility Range gear to get the highest map revealed %. But I take Silver as the "Main" part the game has to offer. So if your goal is to play on Plat/Niob ASAP, I can understand the need to hit it fast. After my long pause in playing this game, I'm sure that your settings would feel way too fast for me. I just think that the philosophy of "Every subsequent level should be harder to reach" should be maintained, especially when nearing the cap. That would be hard to do with an exponentially increasing bonus experience for kills. Using a bargaining network for new chars just kills the point of the game for me. Just slap +skills into everything and you're done. My first character was incidentally a HE with bargaining. Think I stopped at level 129 as bargaining started to take on irreversible diminishing returns. So I just have her now as a Niob shopper mainly for jewelery. But every new character that wants to make use of that has to reach those levels so it's not problematic. I don't mind using the blacksmith when I've already reached Niob before but also admit that using full powered Niob arts in silver is overkill. The tweak made it less drastic and I can still reap the rewards of having played the game before. I get the feeling that even if I went through the hassle of leveling up a Blacksmith character very high, I would end up not using it for anyone but him because it would be even stronger than the NPC ones. Only for socketing rings and amulets into lower tier sockets. I might still toy around with the blacksmith levels to find a more even middle ground. Or if it gets too boring/imbalanced, I will just start a Gold LAN game after I reach 60 and put those regular arts in.

Also one more interesting parameter: BlacksmithSkillForDiff = {1,20,60,105,150}, It sets the NPC blacksmith's skill level. Now I think that pretty much everyone who has been to Niobium just puts Niob blacskmith arts into items for their new characters, which makes them completely overpowered for many levels. Now IF you already have Niob unlocked (and have all blacksmiths unlocked so you are not cheating anyway), you can use this parameter to make it way more balanced. Just set them all to 150 and you will get much more appropriate stat bonuses for the current difficulty (the silver values are ~55% of the niob ones). I have been running for 5 or 6 levels now in gear full of niob blacksmith arts and I feel bad because the game is no challenge at all on silver and will not be for a long time. I just purged my items and put these in and it is a much better feeling. This will allow you to have much more enjoyable leveling experience without feeling brutally overpowered but just plain old overpowered .

My thoughts: More experience for quests is definitely good and rewarding for people that do them and not just grind enemies. Made this change to my balance after reading this actually, as it is a great idea. Removing the experience penalty was the first thing I did with my first character ever that reached level 100 and I do that in every aRPG I play if there is one (did it in Diablo 2 too). Experience penalties in aRPGs are just annoying and it is a lazy way to make the player grind longer for no apparent reason (most likely multiplayer which instantly becomes void when playing single player). I'm not sure about buffing the experience gain after level 100 though. It might get out of hand quickly and in the end might make for faster leveling than before 100 (with all the other bonuses to experience you did) Increasing the experience from monsters by that much is not wise IMHO. Again risking getting out of hand with stacking experience per kill gear, statues and such. Too fast leveling will make the player grossly underpowered as enemies scale with you and you can't find adequate gear as you constantly keep dinging new levels. Might not be a problem for people who have niobium unlocked or are just veterans but it might make new players struggle. I would recommend 25% max. The removed penalties after 100 do more than it might seem at first. EDIT: Oh one minor thing. I would put the second value in QuestExplow to 37 or 38 to keep the consistency.

It is a mandatory skill for any caster for sure, but the weapon CAs only receive a portion of the bonus. With base damage of Soul Hammer, Pelting Strikes and Archangel's Wrath being 86, 62 and 57 respectively, I tried in character editor (removed all gear and skills that could change damage) with all CAs being level 1 (AW was modded with salvo) to see the effect o CD on them. The results are: When CD was at 76% damage bonus, the numbers became 121, 89, 79 respectively. That is 53%, 57% and 50,6% efficiency of Combat Discipline on these CAs. When CD was at 90,4% damage bonus, the numbers became 129, 93, 83 respectively. That is 55%, 55% and 50,4% efficiency of Combat discipline on these CAs. So that is almost half of Combat Discipline being wasted on the relevant skills. Yes there is also the cooldown reduction which is nice but that 50% of the damage bonus lost is really putting me off. It would essentially double my damage at level 100 instead of 48 if the CAs were affected fully. The only relevant thing in this build that CD would have full effect on is Battle Stance. Should I still pick CD despite all this instead of a fully effective skill like Constitution or Enhanced Perception? Is the damage needed? I had only one character that finished Niobium and that was 6 years ago so I don't know... I am of course keeping all these CAs at level 1, the cooldown is not worth it but I am currently mostly left clicking my way to victory with the occasional AW salvo on champions. The EP tooltip is fine (even in normal Ice & Blood), it's just the bonus overview doesn't list the bonus CtFV. So not sure if it is working.

I get what you mean, but I wanted to make a character specifically utilizing shields. I would have probably taken all 4 of the defensive skills, but they probably cannot fit into my build. Some additional notes: I will probably drop Combat Discipline as it affects the related combat arts (Soul Hammer, Pelting Strikes and Archangel's Wrath) at below 50% efficiency from my testing (the damage part). Probably not worth the skill slot. Thinking about either Constitution or Enhanced Perception. I've been experimenting with EP (made a test char using the editor) and the Enhanced Perception Bonus does not show up on the bonus overview. Is that correct? Does the skill work anyway? Thanks for the welcome.

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking about ditching Warding Energy and taking both Toughness and Constitution, but then it would be like most characters that I made in the past. I wanted a change so shields ARE going to be in my build. Good to know that my suspicion that Toughness would be more beneficial to energy shields was correct. I should focus on improving shields as much as possible and not compensate them being weak by additional health. Cheers.

Hi. I last played the game 6 years ago and now decided to come back. Still having great fun. Currently playing a BFG Seraphim (level 21 or so) and I'm having a conundrum. I know that Constitution is generally viewed as the better defensive skill, but am I correct that Toughness will have better synergy with E. shields? Because the damage reduction is applied before the shields and shields absorb an absolute amount of damage, they will be able to fully absorb much stronger hits. It also has great synergy with Armor Lore. Still not sure if it beats out the sheer HP gained from Constitution though. My thought process is that if Shields are going to be my main buffer against damage, the Health without Constitution should be sufficient to take the hits. But then there are critical hits which go through shields much more easily and higher health would be more beneficial. For those interested, here is the planned build: Revered Technology Lore Revered Technology Focus Concentration (BFG, Warding Energy, Battle Stance) Exalted Warrior Focus Combat Discipline Ranged Weapons Tactics Lore Armor Lore Warding Energy Lore and either Toughness or Constitution * A small note to the build: I plan to rely on energy shields heavily for defense (with Warding energy and Divine protection). Which of the 2 (Toughness/Constitution) will give me more survivability? Or do you think I should drop some other skill and take both? I feel like losing any of these skills would be a great loss to the overall power. Even had to drop the formerly planned Enhanced Perception to fit Combat Discipline in.* So the main question is, which skill is better with energy shields. Thanks in advance for any insight/opinions. PS. I didn't read any guides (build related). I like to theorycraft the builds I'm going to play myself, not just straight copy others.