Overlooked Skills

[r00ster 1]

Hey guys,

 

Just more info for you all, if anyone cares

 

Some info on overlooked skills:

 

1. Damage Lore.

 

Doing a test, I found that damage lore pumps out serious damage. This skill is also almost never taken by anyone.

On a test dummy character with this skill at 75 base, 200ish with gear, I was able to tick off 30-50k DoT's on enemies with fire (using a single hand sword even!).

I was able to weaken an enemy so severely with magic that the next hit would almost always kill it.

Slowed enemies were barely able to move. Poison, was like fire DoT's. I was very very impressed.

 

It was like +400% damage/duration of secondaries, with average 87-90+% chance to proc them.

 

This skill with a single aspect character could probably suppliment needing LL% entirely depending on build.

It seemed the dot was based on the Combat Art too, as 'hard hit' Combat Art's made massive dots, ala sacred 1.

 

It also can easily make a damage suppliment for trade/EP chars that forfiet skills.

 

A truly overlooked skill.

 

2. Spell Resistance.

 

Testing on the spiders in the south swamp, I found their dots only ever 'ticked' once. Test char had 0% reduce dot effects/damage. Often, they wouldn't tick at all.

Most minor Combat Art's also became complete non issues. In Ice and Blood this is a major boon to survival. With only 1 buff that did not reduce any incoming damage, I found survival pretty easy to many of the 'new threats' in the addon.

 

Stack this with some other hefty defensive skills, and the toon quickly becomes immortal like. I stacked it with toughness, combat reflexes and it was cruise control from that point on.

 

3. Combat Reflex

 

Just want to mention this, as like Spell Resistances, these are seperate checks than what is provided via gear. That means with 60+% evade from gear, and 60+% from this skill, stuff will have a very very hard time hitting you.

 

Side note - an easy way to make an almost immortal character would be to stack the defensive skills. They grant so much survival when u think each is a seperate check, and like stacking a bit of mitigation with toughness etc.

 

So, what do you guys think are Overlooked skills?

 

Cheers,

Edited May 12, 2010 by r00ster

[locolagarto 15]

Hey guys,

 

Just more info for you all, if anyone cares

 

Some info on overlooked skills:

 

1. Damage Lore.

 

Doing a test, I found that damage lore pumps out serious damage. This skill is also almost never taken by anyone.

On a test dummy character with this skill at 75 base, 200ish with gear, I was able to tick off 30-50k DoT's on enemies with fire (using a single hand sword even!).

I was able to weaken an enemy so severely with magic that the next hit would almost always kill it.

Slowed enemies were barely able to move. Poison, was like fire DoT's. I was very very impressed.

 

It was like +400% damage/duration of secondaries, with average 87-90+% chance to proc them.

 

This skill with a single aspect character could probably suppliment needing LL% entirely depending on build.

It seemed the dot was based on the Combat Art too, as 'hard hit' Combat Art's made massive dots, ala sacred 1.

 

It also can easily make a damage suppliment for trade/EP chars that forfiet skills.

 

A truly overlooked skill.

 

2. Spell Resistance.

 

Testing on the spiders in the south swamp, I found their dots only ever 'ticked' once. Test char had 0% reduce dot effects/damage. Often, they wouldn't tick at all.

Most minor Combat Art's also became complete non issues. In Ice and Blood this is a major boon to survival. With only 1 buff that did not reduce any incoming damage, I found survival pretty easy to many of the 'new threats' in the addon.

 

Stack this with some other hefty defensive skills, and the toon quickly becomes immortal like. I stacked it with toughness, combat reflexes and it was cruise control from that point on.

 

3. Combat Reflex

 

Just want to mention this, as like Spell Resistances, these are seperate checks than what is provided via gear. That means with 60+% evade from gear, and 60+% from this skill, stuff will have a very very hard time hitting you.

 

Side note - an easy way to make an almost immortal character would be to stack the defensive skills. They grant so much survival when u think each is a seperate check, and like stacking a bit of mitigation with toughness etc.

 

So, what do you guys think are Overlooked skills?

 

Cheers,

 

Excellent R00!

 

I have been liking Spell Resistance ever since Ice and Blood came out. I just hadn't really any idea just how effective it was. None of the old Guides have it in there builds. nice to see I was on the right track.

 

And chattius has been favoring Damage Lore lately too. so your tests are great news for us that are exploring the previously thought, useless skills.

[Spunky 16]

Great dig 'in r00, have selected Spell Resistance on my boss farmer Dryad and it helps out a great deal against the TG spells even though I have only invested a couple of points.

 

Any idea if it helps against the traps they cast too?

[FrostElfGuard 9]

Hey guys,

 

Some info on overlooked skills:

 

1. Damage Lore.

2. Spell Resistance.

3. Combat Reflex

 

Damage Lore: works for melee/ranged only IIRC. Since I'm into casters, not very useful for me.... but I agree it is intensely useful for melee/ranged.

 

Spell Resistance: Stopping a hard hit and turning it into a hit... priceless. Goodbye damage multipliers from melee/ranged opponents in the game. I always thought it was a niob shining skill. As I'm still struggling in silver, I didn't think too much of it.

 

Combat Reflex: prevents normal melee hits. This one I thought would be useful early (silver), and useless late (niob). The attack ratings I expected to be just too high in the upper reaches of the game. Not to mention that that high up in the game you should expect combat art only attacks. That is, the regens for the opponents are so low that they should be using as many combat arts against the players as the players are using on them... (or at least, using combat arts a lot more often).

 

Re: using overlapping skills to create immortality: defense in depth. What isn't stopped by evasion can be shielded or spell resisted (if applicable) or combat reflex (if applicable) or mitigated (toughness?) or huge hp cushioned (constitution) or... the r00ster special: not coming in because the opponent is already dead. Dead opponents don't do much more than dying animation.

 

Re: overlooked skills: the game designers designed this game from the top down... that is: they looked at what they expected level 200 characters to be built skill-wise and designed challenges to match... unlike S1 where they started at the lower levels and didn't think about what things would be like at the higher levels... thus the melee BM that can hit, but doesn't have real damage multipliers (like the melee classes: hard hit, multi-hit and attack)... and the Vampiress with her scalable 8x damage advantage that makes her a real monster--all with just 1 attack rune read (and the rest simply socketed in equipment). Those two examples are the extremes: super weak at the high levels (melee BM, he's untouched by damage, but can't deal out enough of his own), and super strong (just insane damage built with life leech to mitigate the pitiful surivor's damage from attacks that hit all nearby enemies).

 

The design process can't cover all the bases that real world testing will uncover (and share via the internet)--so the game needs to be rebalanced to leave it challenging... any areas not strongly tested in the real world environment run the risk of being unbalanced after the 'nerf' period. Like Disarm skill (who ever took that?) in Sacred 1. With Disarm you could discover that the dark elves royalty were wearing set items---which a BM with high whirlwind (which in effect grants and boosts disarm skill) could strip his enemies. Hardly anybody ever took that skill, and hardly any BMs took the spell... neither were sexy. It didn't do damage... but it sure could make a difference to a squishy character if the melee attacker lost it's huge 'sword' (Demons in Valley of Tears).

 

The primary purpose of the game elements is as designed... it's the unexpected combinations (like Disarm and Whirlwind in S1) that are gems when uncovered in a 'stable' gaming platform. Also known as unbalancing large player-oriented advantages---things that I, at least, would really like to discover!

Edited May 12, 2010 by FrostElfGuard

[vaclaf 10]

Hey guys,

about Damage Lore, this skill works perfect in Ice and Blood with weapons and Combat Arts. I used it as a necessary part with Lost Fusion tree in my Mechanix X-E build. This skill really deserves players attention.

Edited May 12, 2010 by vaclaf

[r00ster 1]

Hey guys,

about Damage Lore, this skill works perfect in Ice and Blood with weapons and Combat Arts. I used it as a necessary part with Lost Fusion tree in my Mechanix X-E build. This skill really deserves players attention.

 

I agree.

I would say it easily competes with LL% attacks if the player does not wish to either wear a set that offers ll%, or use the limited weapon types with ll% available.

Like, sword+shield, energy weapons, dual wield etc.

 

I have to say, I was very, very surprised at the damage output of this skill. Add that to it giving a near 'always' proc rate (80%+!) and it can be devastating.

 

Cheers,

 

Further EDIT*

 

I would also like to note that the mastery values granted, appear to be flat values.

I.e. Shield lores block CC may look small, starting around 20%, but that is a flat 20%, and is also a seperate check than one provided on a shield with the modifier unlocked via shield lore.

 

So a character with shield lore would be checked like this:

 

Block % on shield -> Block % on skill -> Block/Reflect on Combat Art or Buff -> Evade -> Defense Value.

that's a hell of a lot for an attack to make it through.

Edited May 13, 2010 by r00ster

[claudius 104]

Vaclaf and Rooster: did you guys test if you can stack copies of fire and poison dot? If so particularly fire (5 seconds duration) you could do a whole lot of damage if you use something with a fast attack speed (CA or left click)..

 

 

For example if you do 100 damage fire with weapon..... And have +400% to DOT damage.... and do 2 attacks per second.....

 

 

damage per second DOT = 100 damage fire/hit x (1/5 *amount a dot does*) x (5 *+400% DOT damage*) x 2 hits per second x 5 *dots from previous 5 seconds stacking*

 

= 1000 damage per second

 

note: where *something* indicates an explanation of the number to multiply

 

 

Which means that damage lore is multiplying damage by a factor of 10 AND it is multiplicative with smith arts/deathblow/crit rather than additive

 

 

Without stacking dots you only get 100 damage per second which still means you multiply fire and poison damage by x2 which is pretty much a SECOND DEATHBLOW (and multiplicative with regular deathblow)

 

 

 

 

what is additive and multiplicative?

 

Say you are doing + 100% damage from smith arts which is x2.... And you are in deathblow x2

 

That is multiplicative so its x4 (2 x 2)

 

 

But instead of deathblow say you add another smith art that is another +100 for a total of +200. That is additive and you do x3 damage rather than x4....

 

Damage Lore I believe (untested) would be multiplicative but that is actually a good question...

 

I am also unsure whether crit is multiplicative or additive... That would be easy to tell if you had like +700 damage smithing. Then you crit someone you should do hardly any more damage.... just 900 damage instead of 800. But if it is multiplicative you should see some hits for 800 and some for double = 1600

 

Note: looking at the relative values of (smith arts) enhance (crit) and whet (damage) I believe crit is multiplicative because otherwise enhance REALLY has the shaft compared to whet

Edited May 15, 2010 by claudius

[gial 2]

Glad I'm not alone. Although I don't play much anymore, I always pumped damage lore and combat reflexes.

 

Two very valuable skills, imo.