chattius

I don't see sword lore in your list of skills.

I had similiar problems when deciding how I should modify my magic coup in bronze: Sure hit or hard damage. I solved it by comparing rings on level 5,35,65,95,125 ( thats the levels our shoppers are placed). Sure hit is like 30% +.2% per level , while damage is 20% +2% per level. And you can find both on rings. I found out that around level 95 when my magic coup is around level 50 the turning point was arrived. If magic coup is below level 50 then you need less sockets for damage than for sure hit. At level 50 the number is equal and above level 50 choosing hard damage would be better because you would need more sockets to get the damage than the sure hit. If it is not pure melee sure hit is better, because damage rings would work on both: spells and magic coup. On Topic: So the best way to solve the discussion would be: compare rings with fire damage and rings with -regeneration time. And look how much sockets you will need. But you will have the problem that fire focus will affect regeneration malus from the buff. So not as 'easy' to do the maths than for the magic coup modifier. I do all my calculations in sockets: Level 150 shield lore: 7 sockets with block gear, Level 150 fire skin: 5 sockets with reflect, so playing a lancer elf with crystal skin would need 12 sockets to get the defense my shield/sword elf with fire skin has. Than polearms do more damage, so I can substract damage sockets from the calculation, but since swords are overkill already.... I value skills and modifiers with a virtual socket currency. So I sell defense for offense, starting from a build which I know that it works.

I am playing a magic-coup-elf without a weapon skill but with alchemy at level 134 in niob. Since I have no weaponskill I use alchemy to give some extra hit chance versus bosses while I do the hit chance versus champions with jewels: enemy can't evade. My experiences with ranged builds: Stray damage is working and Life leech is working at magic coup. But the damage you do with ranged magic coup is way lower than if you do melee, given same weapon class and both weapons affected by dexterity. I use ranged mainly in combination with shurikens with x% life leech. So a boss with 500000 hitpoints and a weapon with 2% life leech are 10000 un-resisted extra damage each hit. My opinion: going for the ranged skill is probably a waste, because of the lower damage in ranged magic coup. If you play PC and want to test ranged magic coup builds, I would do a build which unlocks alchemy with bargaining, because you will need really good equipment.

Just to avoid some confusion: There are: A) real immunity, which means 100% damage mitigation b) ultra high armour Disregard armour is not working in case A, while life leech is. The comparision with the maths from my last post were for case B obviously.

Weapon, fitting attribute for your weapon, level of MC, arcane lore, mods: (damage, life leech, criticall/stray damage), damage +xx, +x% damage , +x% yyyy-damage ( if yyyy is a damagetype natural to your weapon), buffs which add +x% yyyy-damage (fireskin, fire monkey for weapons with natural fire damage. crystal skin for ice), combat discipline, ...... In difference to most other builds: melee elves spend not much time optimizing their damage, but optimizing their defense, mainly : you do as in soldats post: 40000 damage at 36000 hitpoints. now add doublehits, criticals and +x% monstertype damage which are not shown in the 40000 damage. You have to know which monsters can reflect your damage and how to remove reflecting auras. If you play hardcore I would really do a softcore melee elf first to know which areas are dangerous because of reflectors. I play without weaponskill-mastery because I don't want doublehit and criticals which make it hard to control reflected damage. (well I had an eye surgery so I tend to overlook some reflectors). But not enough damage is really not a problem for a melee elf.

Just found this thread. That is more or less what I was doing when I decided against a weapon lore for my magic coup hardcore elf. Balancing the hit chance against champs to around 100% and using troll tooth with alchemy on bosses for the extra hit chance. Calculations were showing that a weapon skill gave just the difference in hit chance between a champion and a boss, sometimes even less. This may be different for other classes, but it was so for a melee elf with no buff/CA affecting attack value. So melee elf with thain's axe on mobs , shurikens with x% life leech at bosses, and bows versus goblins for fun. Playing hardcore doublehits from a weapon mastery are a risc if they get reflected together with criticals. I think my alchemy elf is best for my play style: better save than sorry in hard core. And bargaining and senses toi equip my other characters.

Did Schot post his experience with regen per hit somewhere? Because this modifier drives me insane. I see an effect on first levels , but later on I see nothing. If someone found out a way to reproduce when regen per hit is working and when it is not I would be really happy. Given that my alchemy builds have 3.4seconds regen per hit for 50 seconds at 300 alchemy with a demon tooth trophy I would have a lot of ideas once I know how to make regen per hit working in a reproducable way. It is not working on cooldowns and not on god powers. With 1.8s regen per hit in early game I could spam my magic coup with a reg time of 3 seconds every 2.5 seconds (patch 2.31 was my last testing). So it seems to work but not with the shown numbers.

Which skill you use to unlock bargaining on your dryads? Alchemy? x% life leech shurikens trollteeth to boost attack value leatherhat for attack speed wonder how much damage you will be able to do with left clicks and if it would be enough for bosses

I am quite sure that it worked, but that was at my old melee elves. In new builds I am more on life leech. I will check again when I find the time- more a free game computer as long as my kids are not in bed. The arcane set has ignore armour and I am quite sure that the developers had a magic coup build in mind when giving disregard armour as a set bonus.

I would choose speed lore. Main reason for it would be its defense value which is multiplied with the shield lore per cents. Run speed is experience rate: you are quicker at the mobs. Run speed is defense: you can dictate where you want to fight and can avoid to get circled. The extra hit chance from speed lore frees up a socket or 2. Ancient magic: For resistances there is life leech, which can't be resisted or with sword lore: choose a dagger with ignore armour. Combat discipline: I can one hit normal mobs in niob without double-hit from a weapon mastery or having combat discipline. The problem of a melee elf is not to do enough damage, but to do enough damage to kill while still being able to survive a reflection. And at higher levels I had to reduce the damage of my magic coup more and more. Often I found myself throwing knives on the turtle island when I planed to visit the poison lord. Reflections are hard for a melee elf. You can debuff an reflecting aura with expulse magic, but you have to know that there is a reflector. You have just magic coup, so one of the few ways to fight reflectors is having a weapon in your slots which does a lot less damage whenever you fear that you can hit a reflector.

You got an eye surgery and the doc said that training eye-coordination with computer games would be a good idea. And now you wonder if you can claim extra costs for health regeneration at your tax sheet because you bought a new graphic card and monitor only to train your eye-coordination At least you are back to work earlier cause of the good eye training and so you can work more hours this year to pay more taxes to the state than the computer costed.

Tactic lore: Magic coup can kill normal mobs even with its stray damage in niob. That makes reflected magic coups this dangerous in hard core. As long you are not planing to do left click attacks tactics is not needed in a magic coup build. Spell resistance: I use trophies when I run through areas which I know to hold enemies with rooting attacks. Without alchemy spell resistance to keep your mobility may be not the worst idea. Also I have a weapon slot filled with a shuriken, so at casters I can stay in my expulse circle and throw at the casters outside. Since I am not using a weapon lore my chance to hit is balanced with equipment to hit champions with every weapon at 90% and for the tougher fights I add trophies. I notice that most melee elves calculate their hit chance for their main weapon. So changing to a ranged significantly reduce their chance to hit. You can 'buy' most skills with jewels in sockets. You can buy hit chance, evade, block, and so on. But you have only a limited number of sockets. The overall balance of a build has to fit. If you don't go shield lore because you want to play a lancer then you need something other defensiv: storm focus with cascading shroud and ice storms for slowing, or speed lore for more defense..... You have to balance a character. I played a lancer-elf with hit and run tactics and she was a lot of fun. I did her in 2008 when there was a lot of confusion about melee-elves. But I was without build related deaths with her. Our twins climbing on my knees and disturbing and stuff like this is not build related. 2 tactic lore 3 armour 5 concentration 8 polearms 12 arcane lore 18 storm focus 25 arcane focus 35 speed lore 50 constitution 65 inferno focus I used magic coup as a group killer with high regeneration times and my normal left clicks could do group damage too because the polearm had a chance to hit more enemies. At bosses most of the damage came from x% life leech of a special polearm so even the left clicks did a hell of damage on bosses. I used crystal skin and cascading shroud till begin of platin, then I noticed that physical resistence became less important and that inferno focus with a reflecting fire skin may have been better. So I decided to do it instead of spell resistance which I had planed. The elf made a lot of fun as long I could play her. Of cause with my nowadays experience I would do the skills in another order, but the set of skills I did in 2008 are not unplayable even in 2.40. A melee elf forgives a lot, as long you have life leech from magic coup and GI to life regeneration. And do vitalíty the first levels as a buffer. Feel free to experiment...

I wrote it down to test it when I have time to play at weekend. Think I will try the arcane set on my melee elf which has disregard armour as a set bonus. For doing more damage than shown: the monster specific damage bonus like +60% damage versus animals is not shown in the combat art window. For me as a hardcore player which tries to keep his hitpoints above 2 times my maximal reflected melee damage these monster bonus is a big factor which caused 2 deaths because I hadn't it in my calculations. x% lifeleech numbers In the post above I did a test about weakening effect of cobalt strike. I was using x% life leech to test its effect on maximal hitpoints of an enemy. Numbers: No equipment with fix life leech. Magic Coup not modified for life leech. Using alchemy to hit the white griffon when debuffed. Weapon used: Shuriken with 2.2% Life Leech Hitpoints of Griffon: 562698 2.2% of 562698 : 12379 Shown extra damage at 20 hits: 12379 All life leech hits the target unresisted and its always from the maximal hitpoints. Wounds effects, weakening and so on reduce max Hitpoints for a while and therefore x% life leech does less damage. CAUTION MATHS Let's say 3 different monsters: 10000 hitpoints, 50000 hitpoints and 500000 hitpoints all totally immune to your normal weapon damage. 20% disregard versus 2% life leech, and normal hit doing 5 hits doing 5000/20000 damage 10000 hitpoints and 5000 damage: 1 hit in average with 5000 vs 5 hits with 200 leech = 5000 vs 1000 10000 hitpoints and 20000 damage: 1 hit with 20000 vs 5 hits with 200 leech = death vs 1000 50000 hitpoints and 5000 damage: 1 hit with 5000 vs 5 hits with 1000 leech = 5000 vs 5000 50000 hitpoints and 20000 damage: 1 hit with 20000 vs 5 hits with 1000 leech= 20000 vs 5000 500000 hitpoints and 5000 damage: 1 hit with 5000 vs 5 hits with 10000 leech = 5000 vs 50000 500000 hitpoints and 20000 damage: 1 hit with 20000 vs 5 hits with 10000 leech = 20000 vs 50000 I think my current solution with disregard armour from set and socketed disregard armour into my weapon/shield combination which I use at magic immunes, the weapon a shuriken with x% life leech, is close to optimum. X% life leech starts to shine at bosses (at least as long you are able to stop them reflecting the damage). In my melee elf build I said that shurikens with life leech are perfect boss killers and I think even the maths show it now. I used them intuitiv before.

As I listed in the variants section, alchemy is not a must have. For me it added a lot of fun to experiment with trophies and different weapons. For a melee elf my main problem playing hardcore was, that I did too much damage ! I suffered from an eye surgery so I often overlooked enemies with reflection in the stray damage distance of magic coup. A weapon lore with double-hits made it hard to adjust my damage output in a way to survive 2 hits on reflectors with one coup. With a weapon lore and mastery I would want to survive 2 hits which can be doublkehits. So I would have to survive 4 times the damage of my magic coup. So the decision was to get my hit chance with alchemy for every weapon type and stay away from doublehits. Luckily not everyone has these bad eyes. So if you are sure to see all reflectors and are able to avoid hitting them to quickly or always debuff them you can go a full damage build even in hardcore. Just use a low damage weapon set whenever you walk in areas with reflectors. Since you do enough damage you can sacrifice some of your damage sockets to socket stuff to increase you hit chance. If you add ancient magic you could even use cobalt strike on melee reflectors. Its all up to you. Do whatever gives the most fun for you. I like to experiment and I want a lot of possibilities in a build because I lack the time to play much.

The Idea Links to articles about melee elves: Videos: If you want to see a video about a melee elf in action, soldats did one: The shield maiden, to test if you like melee elves, which can be changed easily into an ice elf if not: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12525 http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=65974 Magic coup build (maths about magic coup and one of the first in english forum): http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=53875 Elves with two-handed weapon (discussion): http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=61751 http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=60343 Stormy Melee Elf by Geekster (guide): http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=56615 Melee-Elf with perception and bargaining (experimental, but working build): http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=59869 PvP-Melee-Elf my oldest daughter is using to slaughter classmates: http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=64466 The Guide This was never planed as a guide. I wanted to gave a report about playing a very special elf: A melee elf which is not using any weapon lore. The elf is now level 131 hardcore. Playing was mainly done at lan-parties with friends, because the internet connection at our countryside village resulted into too much lag. The idea to this character started when our playgroup created some extra rules: The start chest should be empty and each build should at least use 3 general (green) skills. And of cause hardcore. We play every two weeks at weekends at volunteer fire fighters when doing night-watch. So I had 2 weeks to put some thoughts into the character. It is hardcore, so the main reasons for dying should be covered: You die because you take more damage than you have hitpoints all attribute points go into vitality and choose constitution You die because you receive damage quicker than you are healing the regeneration buff will be modified for life regeneration, together with arcane lore this will result in a nice regeneration even in combat. the main attack magic coup will be modified for life leech and not mana steal. we will use reflection, blocking and evasion to have the chances that we are hit are reduced by multiplication of each of the three In patch 2.40 reflections will become a major factor expulse magic will be used to remove reflection buffs from enemies magic coup will be limited to 40% of my hitpoints- 70% seems save in 2.43 You die because you are surrounded by too much enemies expulse magic will be used to split up groups teleport will be modified to give invisibility at landing Fire traps may stack at your location and can give the damage the same tick fire mitigation from the fire skin buff is used So far we have arcane lore and arcane focus for our main attack and the regeneration buff. We have concentration and inferno focus for the fire skin. We have shield lore and armour lore to allow high blocking. We have constitution to boost our hitpoints. That are already 7 skills. And the rules said 3 green one to be choosen. Should I sacrifice one of the skills needed to give a good defense in exchange for a weapon lore? I decided against it. What will a weapon lore give: Attack speed? Not in this case because magic coup gets it speed from arcane lore. Hit chance? My play experience showed that a weapon lore is needed to hit bosses. If your are hitting champions at 100% without weapon lore already then weapon lore could be replaced by alchemy for boss fights. Unlock weapon modifiers? Most unique one-hand weapons don't have modifiers which have to be unlocked. By not choosing a weapon lore I will hit equally good with any weapon. So I am more flexible in my build: Shafts with reduce physical resists on enemy Daggers with ignore armor Polearms with hit chance to hit several enemies shurikens with x% life leech to kill bosses Bows, pistols, magic staves.... All possible And to get equipment I will use bargaining and enhanced perception. Bargaining to buy the +all skills Jewels with enemy can't evade chance. EP to find uniques. The character Attributes: All points go into vitality. The skills: 02 bargaining (1) 03 arcane lore (2) 05 arcane focus (3) 08 armour lore (8) 12 constitution (10) 18 concentration (6) 25 inferno focus (7) 35 shield lore (5) 50 alchemy (9) 65 enhanced perception (4) The brackets give in which order I will do the mastery in the skills. Skill points settings are done by following rule, top priority to low priority: 1: If a skill is needed to unlock another skill then put points in it till its unlocked. 2: if fire skin is not fully modified yet put points in inferno focus 3: If a skill is not at its mastery yet and there is no unmastered skill with a lower number you can still put points in, then put points in this skill. I used this system to explain what to do at level-ups to my daughter and it worked nicely. And she was only 13. Modifications of Combat arts First modify the regeneration buff for fire tree and life regeneration. Then modify magic coup for damage, life leech and stray damage. Modify fire skin to block arrows, reflect melee and give more fire damage. You can leave the other modifiers untouched till you get a feeling for this character. Personally I modified expulse magic for defensive and debuff power. For teleport I wanted a quicker teleport regeneration. Cobalt strike: I modified it to damage, electrify and critical. It allows me to weaken a big enemy or to hit a single enemy from a distance and have only it alone running to me. Weakened enemies are easier to hit and are themself worser in hitting me. Play experience The start: If you have another character already, sell some items from the shared chest and buy a bow. Bows are best in early game for an elf, because they shoot fast and you kill from a distance. Try to get GI and magic coup runes. Modify GI to fire and life regeneration. Next modify magic coup for damage, life leech and stray damage. As soon as you have concentration try to get unmodified crystal skin as second buff. Use a sword now and do magic coup whenever it has recharged. Modify fireskin to block arrows, reflect melee and more fire damage. If you notice that your hit chance is too low buy jewels with '-enemy chance to evade'. When you get shield lore change crystalskin for fireskin. At level 34 get a shield which has its defense value or block-chance for melee in red and if possible some sockets. When taking shield lore at level 35 use this shield, if it had block-chance in red then it will have a block-chance around 25% now (the higher shield lore, the higher the block chance). At level 50 you are able to use trophies with alchemy. Especially troll-teeth trophies are nice because they boost your attack value for a big amount at high alchemy. Get used to the trophies and where you can get them. If you hunt for a while in orc area you can try different weapons with the boosted hit chance from the trophies. Later you will use trollteeth to hit bosses. If a boss has no reflection a good way to kill him is to use shurikens with +% life leech(look at shops for them). If you notice that you can do left click attacks at boss fights before magic coup is recharged drink concentration potions. Try to keep magic coup around 0.5 seconds regeneration time and its damage at 40% of your hitpoints. You will have life leech from magic coup, boosted regeneration from GI buff, better block from shields and fire skin.... You will get hit less and less and heal faster and faster. And you have a nice amount of hitpoints, but: .... CAUTION: Some enemies reflect your melee damage back to you. Use expulse magic to remove the reflecting aura from them. For expulse magic: If you can remove the reflection aura from blue turtle champions it is high enough. If not read some runes in expulse magic. If you fight against mages, do it in an expulse magic circle to block most of the enemy spells. You can survive 2 reflected magic coups. Don't panic if you see that your coup is reflected. In panic you won't release the mouse buttons and your reflected magic coups will do more damage towards you than the enemy. You have 1 second to release the buttons, use it. Variants Robust Melee Elf If you are knowing all the enemies with reflection and how to avoid them, change enhanced perception for sword lore. Leveling will be way faster in areas with no reflectors if you take a sword with doublehits (doublehits from weapon mastery seem not to work with magic coup in 2.43 PC), but be careful in hardcore: an overlooked turtle, double-hit from sword mastery and all reflected and FECAL MATTER! happens..... If you play on a console: Sadly alchemy is hard to use on consoles. I would change alchemy and perception for sword lore and speed lore/storm focus. Alchemy Probably most players asked themself which use alchemy may have. If I need better hit chance or defense I could take speed lore without putting thoughts into trophies, if I have enough, how long they will still last in a fight.... I would probably never have considered alchemy if it wasn't for a challenge. The numbers below are for level 120, 297 alchemy, Niob (influences some trophies). At this level the trophies are more than 48 seconds up for me. You can only use one of each type the same moment, but several different types. The trophies: branch trophy: +90,9% blockchance root effects, from plants - Nice in PvP vs Dryads or if you know that you have to pass an area with enemies who cast root effects demon tooth: regeneration per hit 4,5s, from demons - never used in my builds. RPH seems to be wrong by factor 10(?) harpy feather: blockchance projectiles 85%, from dryads - used in PvP mainly iron ore: 3000 physical armour, from stone creatures, minotaurs, griffons - makes 12000 with +300% armour value - whenever I fear to take strong physical hits leather hat: +100% attack speed, humanoid monsters roasted joint: 100% healing, animals - It seems to have less delay in its effects. And PvP if healing potions are against rules. skull: +30% critical hits, undeads - I have so many of them that I used them against everything which I knew to be not dead at one magic coup. talisman: 37.5% evade, humans - at hard hitting enemies troll tooth: +999.9% hitchance - being able to hit a boss or tough champion with any weapontype, which is for me life leech weapons. If I run into a melee reflector I use trolltooth and a projectile weapon. The potions: The biggest pink and blue potions last 187.7s. The green one does 50% of my hitpoints, the yellow one -60% regeneration time, and the healing potion is at 100%. Before I would do speed lore I would do alchemy. The mentor potions are nearly permanent, you have more fun in using different weapons because of trolltooth and leatherhat, you can nearly ignore root effects,..... Magic Immunes Magic Coup is overwriting any damage modifier which is socketed. So a magic coup build runs into problems at enemies with magic immunity. If ancient magic will remove this immunity is not proved yet. In my builds I am not using ancient magic. What possibilities does a melee elf have: Magic coup is a melee attack so ignore armour is an option. Life leech at silver modifier can do up to 30% of the magic coup damage. And life leech is extra damage without any resist against it. Life leech (for bosses best +x% life leech) can be found on some weapons. Some tests about x% life leech: http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.c...64&postcount=6 You can optimize your magic coup for physical damage, by not socketing a damage modifier and using a weapon without any natural damage. You can do left click attacks, but this option is more for polearm elves who can use tactics lore to unlock polearms. PvP We planed cavalry builds for a weekend's night-watch at volunteer firefighters. But a nasty car crash ate up most of the time. So we did some PvP in multiplayer LAN doing best of 5 rules. All characters were around level 115. This character versus a Pyromancer Elf: 3:1 - My expulse magic was stronger because I had arcane lore too. His expulse magic was useless against my magic coup. Tactic: cobalt strike modified to reduce stats(weakening), teleport , expulse magic to remove buffs, magic coup, teleport to stun, magic coup, teleport, .... Versus a caster Dryad: 3:2 - Had to learn to use trophies to counter root effects. Versus an Inquisitor: 3:0 - Blocked spells with expulse magic, and his attempt to do melee against a shield with scaled block chance, fire skins reflection and equip and trophies boosting evasion to 90% resulted in not a single hit. Versus an Shadow Warrior: I am curious how I will do against him. We had no time at weekend to test it. The super willpower will be a tough opponent for my expulse magic. And he will not take the fight easy, seeing that players who laughed at my character were loosing in PvP. Is this a guide? Yes and no. The post is mainly to show that you can play funny builds with good planning. If you plan a melee elf on the PC I would play the variant listed under variants. You should know now that alchemy allows to kill a non reflecting boss with trollteeth and leatherhats trophies using a weapon with x% life leech. For myself I was re-reading old builds about any class and whenever I read the build sucks later on when trying to fight bosses in niob, I asked myself could the problem be solved with alchemy? Inquisitor which depends on souls for his chance to hit and has none at bosses, alchemy could be considered. Dryad with nature and vodoo which wants to do bargaining, alchemy to unlock bargaining and get the possibility to kill bosses with life leech shurikens. Shadow Warrior with astral lore and blacksmithing, add ranged boss killing with alchemy You don't need to play this build, but if you stopped to say alchemy is useless then this post has done its job Feedback If you are playing a build with alchemy or now plan to play one, please give me some information. I plan to translate my german Alchemy guide into english and I need links to english builds with alchemy. ToDo I kinda forgot to continue work on this on: it was moved into the guide section in a time when you couln't edit the first article of a thread in the guide section. I added the link collection from my article in the SIF. I am not certain if I will update this guide for the AddOn. I think I will keep it as it is for the people without the AddOn and do an own article about melee elves in the AddOn.

Sadly I lack the time to play that often, so I am mainly playing Jack of all trades characters. I have one character which I am really good and that are melee elves. For all the other classes I did builds where I added as much variants as possible: be it to be able to follow discussions in the forum or to help my oldest daughters who both play sacred 2 at 14 and 11 years. I played a whole level with my alchemy-vodoo-nature-witch in gold from 50 to 51 doing only bare-handed attacks for damage. The Witch can play Am-boosted-staff/shield, totem, nature magic, ranged with life leech shurikens, .... and I wondered if Kungfu too. 02 vodoo lore 03 shield lore 05 vodoo focus 08 concentration, 12 armour lore, 18 tactic lore, 25 alchemy 35 nature focus 50 nature lore The 10th skill was planed for ancient magic. But now I wonder if damage lore would be useful for a kung-fu dryad. Any of you ever considered a kungfu-dryad with the current items, skills and Combat Arts? Or is everyone waiting and hoping for knuckles in an Add-On? Currently the base damage has to come from damage rings. I was doing the hit chance and attack speed by planing mob runs which were filling up my inventory with the needed trophies for the alchemy skill. How good will damage lore be in adding damage to a kungfu dryad? There are no weapons, so no damage modifiers. And only one CA which does change the damage type.

@DTS: Do you mean the totem-only guide or the changes to insert bargaining? I will answer for the bargaining part: Alchemy will allow to throw shuriken at maximal speed and with a high hit chance. But you need trophies for alchemy. Trophies are like potions they are gone after using. So in difference to the dual wield build the alchemy is mainly planed in the totem-dryad to assist in boss hunts not for doing experience at normal mobs. At bosses and champions with reflection: no reflection: The damage output of both will be high enough melee reflection: dual wield has to reduce damage or use nature magic, alchemy-totem: totem, life leech shurikens, nature magic,... ranged reflection: dual wield no problems, alchemy-totem: all, except that shuriken could be changed to life leech polearm or armour piercing sword ca reflection: dual wield left clicks, alchemy-totem: left click shurikens with life leech ca and melee reflection: dual wield: reduce damage, alchemy-totem: left click shurikens with life leech melee and ranged reflection: both nature magics all reflected: dual wield: reduce damage, alchemy-totem: try to debuff the reflection, reduce damage, better healing cause of alchemy If you read how much I typed : 'has to reduce damage' you may understand that my main hardcore character, a melee-elf, has no weapon skill at all. I do all in vitality and limit my damage to 40% of my hitpoints. So I am able to survive 2 of my reflected magic coups which has stray damage which can hit enemies you weren't aiming for. Double-Hits from a weapon-lore would add to the unpredictable amount of reflected damage. The question shouldn't be which build does more damage, but can you do enough damage which isn't reflected. Since I won't have much time playing this summer all my new character follow the better save than sorry route and use alchemy for more flexibility. Because I play hardcore and I wouldn't like nasty surprises in the Add-On.

For Bosses: x% life leech for the damage. It does the leech from the maximal hitpoints, not the actual ones. So 2% life leech from a 500000 hitpoint boss are always 10000 unresisted extra damage. My last 3 characters use alchemy to get the chance to hit and attack speed for weapons with x% life leech. For normal mobs: 2% from 5000 are just 100. Disregard armour and x not x% life leech may be better.

Yes, I did some fun, turned off all buffs on my melee elf, used a life steel shuriken, alchemy and left clicks to kill some of the niob bosses. My bargaining-perception-melee-elf uses alchemy instead of weapon skill and she is hardcore do 130 now. All you have to do is to hit (non reflecting) bosses with a life leech weapon fast enough and stay alive. I do the hit chance on bosses with alchemy because I don't have much time playing and alchemy allows to use each wapon with a good chance to hit and maximal attack speed. At 300 alchemy: +1000% attack value with a troll tooth and +100% attack speed from a leather hat. Lasting for 50 seconds. Since my shurikens have more than 2% life leech I am able to kill a boss in the duration of a single trophy. Shuriken and bearded axes (pole-arms) are the weapons a melee elf can use with life leech. And both would need a left side weapon skill to unlock the needed weapon skill. So I was choosing alchemy, I never regretted it. My new PvP-dryads and the shadow warrior smith use it. Sadly Alchemy is a bit hard to use on consoles.

All values for 300 alchemy: Talisman in tough fights for 37.5% evade If the character would have tactic lore skulls with 30% would be useful too. But criticals are useless if you do melee just for lifeleech. In PvP I use: Twigs to block root effects, if fighting dryads with my melee elf which needs mobility against nature dryads. feathers to block ranged: not used with my elf because of fireskin skulls: 30% more criticals.... iron ore: 3000 more physical armpur before % armour value is applied, my elf gets more than 20000 physical this way. I did some stuff about alchemy in my hardcore-melee-elf guide which uses alchemy and bargaining to unlock it. Post 29 I think. Chattius' guide for Hardcore-Alchemy-Melee-Elf I wrote a Guide to Alchemy for the german forum and I am slowly translating it. The main problem is that most of the links in it are to builds in german language so I probably have to do a total rewrite.

If you are playing the PC-version: I would drop combat discipline and constitution. I play something similiar in PvP duels with backup after duels. I just took tactics instead bargaining. 02 alchemy 03 vodoo lore 05 bargaining 08 vodoo focus 12 concentration 18 shield lore 25 armour lore 35 nature focus 50 nature lore 65 ancient magic The beginning is a bit tough. I would do all attribute points till level 65 in vitality. Socket vodoo runes with totem or animus. You will do life leech damage which will heal you and you assist your animus and totem. Socket some rings with enemy can't evade if you notice a dropping hitchance and therefor not enough healing through life leech. I wouldn't jump quickly to silver but do some trophy hunting in orc region for trollteeth trophies first. You have alchemy: use the concentration potions when your totem regeneration time is still high. You have alchemy: don't save your mentor potions for later, you will have enough of them later. You have alchemy: Use roasted beef and healing potions in a mixed sequence. Healing potions loose power if quaffed too quickly after the last one. Life become easy ones you get the nature spells and got used to alchemy. You can kill a (non reflecting boss) with alchemy alone: Take a shuriken with x% life leech. Use trollteeth and leather hat trophies. You will have your attack value boosted by 1000% at alchemy 300 and +100% attack speed from these trophies. Even without tactic lore: If your shuriken has 2% life leech and the Boss 500000 hitpoints: Each of your hits does 10000 extra damage which can't be resisted and is healing you. Now add your animus and totems..... A dryad with bargaining is a nice character to test alchemy since you need a left skill for unlocking it anyway.

We tried to do a video, but our play machines are not the newest (5 kids). Once the frame rate when doing a video is down to 8 frames only it is hard to control your riding. You have to use the keyboard keys to change forward and backward movement, because as soon you run into an enemy the charge stops. And the regeneration times are a big problem too, sad, but true. She is already considering to try out a polearm elf instead a dryad, because the 15 seconds of acute mind are really short and only useful to make some funny things, but not for levelling a rider. You always have to unmount the horse to cast acute mind. But polearm elves rely on their defensive Combat Arts to survive, all stuff which can't be done on horses. So perhaps again a dryad becuase she uis one of 3 character with ancient magic and has second highest intelligence and can do combat reflexes for polearms (which are a must for group control I think). Perhaps completly stay away from nature and do vodoo focus to have the animus as indoor boss fights. But I really hope that a patch or the addon will fic horse Combat Arts.

Horse Combat Arts are spells, so ancient magic and intelligence boost their damage. Do you think that a character can kill with horse Combat Arts allone on higher levels? My daughter is trying to do a horsewhisperer with acute mind just for fun. She can kill a whole group with charge the few seconds acute mind is up with her level 41 character. TIA Chattius

From the german patch 2.31 changes file: "Mehrfachattacken-Kampfkünste, die mit Fernkampfwaffen ausgeführt werden, haben nun eine Begrenzung der Anzahl der Projektile auf drei. Modifikationen können diese Begrenzung aber erhöhen." Patch 2.34 added a forgotten Inquisitor CA to this. Don't think that there were changes after this. So for all classes now: Multiple attack Combat Arts are now limited to 3 projectiles. Modifications can add projectiles.

Well my wife always said that I am only able to do one job after the other else I would forget what I am doing because men would have a single task operating system in their brain. But woman are able to do several jobs the same time, so say my wife and my daughter. So my daughter says she is doing homework, while she sits at the computer masacring classmates in sacred and uses a headset to phone with friends while at the same moment she should babysit our 18 month old twins. So women seem to have an advantage in game play because they have a operating system able to multitask in their brain. But I am training my multitasking ability in the local pub when I am frustrated because of my outdated operating system in my brain. I am now able to do 2 jobs the same time: Lifting a beer with left hand and using right hand to lift a finger to order the next beer.