Ancient Magic + Damage Lore

[locolagarto 15]

Hey Folks!

 

I have a new Pyro Build in the works and really wanted to go with Damage lore. Unfortunately it is a secondary skill behind Tactics lore,Sword lore, or Magic staff(None of which will be of any use in this build, from a playstyle standpoint).

 

My Question is: for a huge Damage boost I was gonna go with Ancient Magic + Damage Lore. But I only have 1 skill slot left. So Damage lore requires I use my last skill for a absolutely useless one.

 

Here are the skills I am planning to make mandatory for my build.

 

Armor Lore

Pyro Lore

Concentration

Pyro Focus

Delphic Focus

Constitution

Shield lore

Spell Resistance

 

I don't want to sacrifice a defense skill for an offense skill, so my question is what will net me the best outcome?

 

1. Ancient Magic

2. Sword, staff, or Tactics

3. Damage lore

 

or ?

 

1. Ancient magic

2. Combat Disc

3. Riding, for the extra hp and lower regen while mounted. Which I will be mounted most of the time except for boss runs, maybe.

 

 

edit: Crap!

 

Ugh I can't do either. I am at 8 skills so I would need to drop something.

 

How about ?

 

1. Sword, staff, or Tactics

2. Damage lore

 

vs

 

1. Ancient magic

2. Riding, for the extra hp and lower regen while mounted. Which I will be mounted most of the time except for boss runs, maybe.

 

or

 

1. Ancient Magic

2. Combat Disc

[Furian67 15]

With what we know now do you think ya can do without constitution? Let GI take care of that? Then you have a three skill option again.

[locolagarto 15]

With what we know now do you think ya can do without constitution? Let GI take care of that? Then you have a three skill option again.

 

 

I was thinking about that, but I would replace a usefull skill - constitution with a useless one - tactic, or staff, or sword.

 

and as squishy as the pyro elf is to physical damage I think the piece of mind of tons of HP would be better. Unless I go all Vitality .

[Furian67 15]

Gimme a moment gotta get my "Outside the Box Thinking Cap" on.

[locolagarto 15]

I was able to get away without Constitution on my la Chusa because of the warding Energy Buff and LL% from gear. basically the buff doubles my HP and the LL give me unlimited HP regen.

 

But for this build with no Combat Reflex, or Toughness or Energy Shield I think Constitution Mastery is mandatory.

[gogoblender 3,072]

Ah ha it's a crunch... I love it! Decisions like this, if they work out, just make you glide on air. I'll always remember you saying how powerful Ancient magic was, and that when you finally got it mastered you REALLY noticed the increase in damage. heh, was your words, since I'd had no experience with HE's before the agent that kept me adding points to the skill I was waiting for your words to come to life and they did. The sheet damage increase from ancient magic master was HUGE...plus it's cool to see the resistances slip down everytime I add more points to it. I have only had Damage Lore once on a toon, and it was a few versions ago on a Dryad, and because Dryads have built in secondary into their pipes, that worked out well for that build too.

 

I'm trying to get some time to put together a new HE build as well, I hope when my time for the crunch comes along I make a good fateful choice too.

 

Sacred 2 makes me crazy

 

 

gogo

[Furian67 15]

With my cap on I would for sure take Ancient Magic. And because this is a intel based build go with staff to get that added ranged attack from the staff. Do ya really think you can bring yourself to put pionts into riding? But then again ya might be able to make something out of that too. I've never used riding skill yet, so I can't talk bad about it.

[Dragon Brother 619]

Maybe drop shield lore? Than you have the three skill picks...and can go ancient magic, magic staff, damage lore. Or could you replace spell resistance with expulse maybe? And then...no shield lore or spell resistance and you can fit combat discipline in too! lol...up to you I think...

[locolagarto 15]

For the kind of grinding and boss killing I want to do and as soft as a pyro elf is I am scared to take away defense as valuable as Shield lore for melee and Spell Resist for all the casters. I am gonna have to go without Damage lore on this one and just stick with ancient magic and combat discipline for my major damage boost. I wanna make a Pyro capable of grinding to 200 or boss killing for legendaries. so major damage and defense seem the way to go.

[Llama8 8]

I'd probably go with Ancient Magic, drop Spell Resist (spam Expulse Magic if necessary) & take Staff Lore & Damage Lore, but then I always go full Vit anyway...

 

I'd probably avoid Riding since you wouldn't get any benefit from it while killing the Guardians (or the Scorp/Crystal/Carnach), but you would everywhere else.

 

It'd be great if you could fit DA Lore in there as well since it'll give you a bonus to your HP regen from GI & spell nullification with Expulse Magic as well, but I'm not sure you could without dropping some "melee" defence (like Shield Lore), or drop the whole Damage Lore thing (and take Ancient Magic & DA Lore while dropping none of your defences). Ultimately, if you want to see any benefit from Damage Lore, you'll want to be setting things on fire (but not the DoT that's part of Blazing Tempest) lots & it's primarily useful for bosses, since mobs will be finished too quickly to really benefit from the DoT.

[FrostElfGuard 9]

Ancient Magic vs Damage Lore?

 

As a spell caster you need Ancient Magic to lower resists... spells either come with optional DoT or can't proc it.

Damage Lore triggers when you use ranged or melee weapons... so it is aimed at fighters/archers/ranged attackers.

 

If your prime source of damage is spells, then Ancient Magic.

 

If your prime source of damage is Staves, then Staff Lore, Tactics Lore (damage multiplier), Damage Lore (DoT from Staves)

 

If your prime source of damage is Magic Coup ---it straddles melee and magic... so Tactics Lore and Damage Lore should support it. According to the wiki though, they don't. It is an unsupported spell, like the melee mage from S1. But RpH can still be used to regen the spells for the HE.

[locolagarto 15]

Can we confirm that Damage lore mastery will not increase the damage of DOT from Spells such as Blazing Tempest?

 

I may create a quick level 200 test char just to make sure. it it doesn't support Casted Spells then there is no longer a question. Ancient magic for sure.

 

Note: vaclaf in his Mechanix X-E guide mentions Damage Lore Mastery works with all the spells in his lost fusion tree, But mentions dryads and High Elves are still unknown.

[locolagarto 15]

Confirmed !

 

Blazing Tempest is not affected by Damage lore Mastery. I created a test char in LAN and did 260 DOT damage to the wolves in Sloeford. I then added Damage lore and mastered it. Still 260 damage. so for this build at least Damage lore is not gonna help.

[Llama8 8]

Damage Lore doesn't affect the DoTs from spells if the DoT is stated in the tooltip (Blazing Tempest & Frost Flare as examples). However if Blazing Tempest sets a target on fire (in addition to the stated DoT) due to doing fire damage then this second DoT will be affected by Damage Lore. So it is entirely possible to cast Blazing Tempest & get two DoTs (one due to the Combat Arts in-built DoT & the other due to the monster being set on fire from the fire damage that BT does).

 

In Ice & Blood Damage Lore affects spells as well as weapon-based attacks. In pre-Ice and Blood Damage Lore only affected weapon-based attacks. An easy way to test this is to use a fire (or poison) based spell & take Damage Lore to 74 points, cast it & note the DoT, then take it to mastery & cast it again & not the DoT (will be significantly higher than pre-mastery).

 

As I mentioned, Damage Lore will be useful for Ice/Magic chars only in increasing the probability of applying their secondary effects (slow & weaken), Damage Lore is more useful for fire/poison spells as mastery increases the DoT as well.

 

Damage Lore works well with non-DoT spells, like Firey Ember (damage pulses, each pulse can inflict Burning/fire-DoT which is boosts by Damage Lore), Furious Emblazer (fire damage causes fire DoT), Ancestral Fireball (ditto) & the additional poison damage from various SW/Dryad CAs. Magic Coup would be affected by Damage Lore, but since the magic element causes weaken rather than a DoT, the benefit is reduced (ie, more likely to cause weaken).

 

Edit #2: An interesting test would be to see whether Damage Lore works with the physical DoT (bleeding, or whatever you want to call it). During the beta Damage Lore had a display bug where it showed increased change to do all elemental effects (including bleeding), but that was fixed & I'm not sure whether it boosts the physical DoT.

[claudius 104]

Take CD and Ancient Magic

 

 

Or sword lore and damage lore. The sword of the blood dryads also has a big % fire damage though I think its only 1 socket. Your fireskin buff will multiply the fire damage of BD sword further (first) then (next) MC converts it to magic damage. That is if you have the right modding on fireskin (fire damage not recharge).

 

Sword lore allows % LL 2 handers against bosses. Or sword and board for defense. Put Magic Coup at the end of your combo (no CD so only 2 spell combo maybe Meteors/Coup? And use the rph to kill the boss. Coup has a HUGE increase to chance to hit above and beyond the tool tip... So you need not socket towards 'to hit' more heavily than a few whets for damage. You also get a big weaken effect from coup.

Edited June 23, 2010 by claudius

[locolagarto 15]

Take CD and Ancient Magic

 

 

Or sword lore and damage lore. The sword of the blood dryads also has a big % fire damage though I think its only 1 socket. Your fireskin buff will multiply the fire damage of BD sword further (first) then (next) MC converts it to magic damage. That is if you have the right modding on fireskin (fire damage not recharge).

 

Sword lore allows % LL 2 handers against bosses. Or sword and board for defense. Put Magic Coup at the end of your combo (no CD so only 2 spell combo maybe Meteors/Coup? And use the rph to kill the boss. Coup has a HUGE increase to chance to hit above and beyond the tool tip... So you need not socket towards 'to hit' more heavily than a few whets for damage. You also get a big weaken effect from coup.

 

Sadly the HE can't use a 2-H sword can she?

[Spunky 16]

Nope, she cant.

[claudius 104]

sad indeed. What about polearms? Are they first tier?

[locolagarto 15]

sad indeed. What about polearms? Are they first tier?

 

No 2-H poles either. She can use 2 hand staff though, I have never seen one with LL%. But anyway this build will not be using Delphic tree except for Grand Invigoration and Expulse.

 

She is at level 55 at doing awesome

[Spunky 16]

She can use polearms, but it wouldn't be much of a use anyway as you will not be using MC.

[Furian67 15]

The meteor storm this crazy pyro can throw down is insane. I had to disable my camera shake so it wouldn't make me sick. Life Leech % won't even be needed for this minx!

[nomad13 2]

Does this skills work well together, What I mean is if I use this skills on my melee SW does the Ancient Damage lowers the enemy armor and increases the Damage Lore total damage ?

Edited June 23, 2010 by nomad13

[locolagarto 15]

Does this skill's work well together, I mean if I use this skills on my SW does the Ancient damage lower's the enemy armor and increases the damage lore total damage ?

 

Since we already had an active topic I moved yours in here.

[essjayehm 58]

Does this skills work well together, What I mean is if I use this skills on my melee SW does the Ancient Damage lowers the enemy armor and increases the Damage Lore total damage ?

 

Logically, yes. I haven't tried it myself yet, only had Damage Lore on a Temple Guardian, and I believe that console Damage Lore Mastery doesn't work properly, so I haven't played with it since. But I'm pretty sure you're right about that.

[Llama8 8]

Does this skills work well together, What I mean is if I use this skills on my melee SW does the Ancient Damage lowers the enemy armor and increases the Damage Lore total damage ?

 

No, Ancient Magic won't affect weapon-based CAs (there's a flag on each CA in the spells.txt - "causesSpellDamage = 1," means it's a "spell" & will be affected by Ancient Magic, "causesSpellDamage = 0," means it's weapon-based & won't be affected by Ancient Magic). Damage Lore only affects the elemental effects (burning from fire damage, poison DoT from poison damage, slow from ice damage & weaken from magic damage), it makes them more likely to happen & mastery increases the damage (fire & poison DoT only) & duration.