Melee character without x% lifeleech

[chattius 2,526]

We did some team play with just melee characters. Soon it was boring because of dual wielding kaldurs and x% life leech on sets.

So the next time there will be a few rules:

no x% life leech

all damage has to be done either by weapon attacks or with reflectiing enemy attacks

 

So the tricky question is, if there is no x% lifeleech what is the best character for high weapon damage?

Has more defense put into the character because of fights now taking minutes?

 

 

[wolfie2kX 528]

Shadow Warrior. Hands down, wielding a 2h hammer or axe. He's a tank either by hiding out in the Shadow Veil or with Reflective Emanation.

 

Most of the 2H axes or hammers I've come across with the CM Patch have a good amount of damage by themselves. Add in Scything Sweep and he's a mob mangler. Just call him Maxwell Edison...

 

Edited July 29, 2013 by wolfie2kX

[chattius 2,526]

I started a Shield-basher. The first 12 levels were bronze to build up some defense first and to be able to kill enemies unarmed. Used unmodified skeleton fortification as a support while in bronze.

 

 

The character never used a weapon so far, I modified demonic blow for explosion, poison and life leech. The nice thing at poison modifier is: it adds poison base damage. So not having a weapon and only 3-3 damage rings was countered by higher ca-level. 8s reg-times and 2s reg per hit at level 25.

 

 

Also good to know is how an unarmed/shield demonic blow is executed:

a fist attack and a shield swing = 2 attacks = 2 explosions

If the target is dead at the fist punch the ca autotargets new for the shield attack

 

The attacks are really fast and the character currently finished the octopus in silver campaigne with just fist and shield.

 

 

Skills used:

tactics, armour, death warrior focus, shield lore, concentration, combat discipline, toughness

planed:

damage lore, spell resistance, combat reflexes

 

 

I will take damage lore because it is the only skill that adds more damage when attacking bosses with just a shield.

Combat reflexes or constitution: it will be just 1 point and I will combat reflexes a try because of reduced criticals

[essjayehm 58]

Unarmed melee with no LL

 

Only Chattius

[chattius 2,526]

I lack a certain smilie:

[chattius 2,526]

I may finish the silver campaign with this character this night while I have to sit at telephon because of readiness. I think the character will be around level 43 when doing it.

Anyone interested in a screen shot of equipment (german) or a savefile?

 

I was putting every stat point into vitality. I remember from the dryads that 5 strength is just one damage point. Better placed in vitality I think.

Deathblow is around 50%. Demonic blow has 7s reg time. With temporary buffs up I can spam it with my reg per hit equipment. If enemy is critical hit and I deathblow range: damage can be around 2000. Not too bad for an unarmed character at level 38.

I took damage lore. I don't know if it is of any use, but it is the only skill which may add more damage to this build.

[chattius 2,526]

Level 42

Finished silver campain. I took the whole pandemonium set just because it has the most barbaric look. Items pieces were from 15-45 so not even really optimized. I even had some damage 3-3 rings socketed when I could have replaced them with 7-7.

The hit chance at the guardians was at 73%, 150% when I had alll minibuffs up.

 

When I started I thought that I would just level to reach gold difficulty. But doing the campaign I saved 18 levels. Now I wonder if the damage grows quickly enough with the stronger beasts with more hitpoints.

 

My Inspiration for a shield only character:

http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Fechtbuch_%28Talhoffer%29/Kapitel_6

example from above:

[wolfie2kX 528]

Very cool on finishing Silver...

 

I would presume that would depend largely on how you spend your points when you level up..

[chattius 2,526]

If I am not wrong the silver modifier for demonic blow in sacred wiki is wrong. I think it should be 4+1 per level poison base damage instead 4% +1% per level poison damage.

[chattius 2,526]

Level 59, gold campaigne finished. Think I have to push armour lore to mastery. I hate when the stuff I loot is too high in level.

The character is overly protected, think I have to push a bit more towards offense. But a 66% deathblow is nice. At normal enemies I notice kills with a single CA.

Still use the full pandemonium set because of its nice barbarian look.

 

Remembered what I said in a pen and paper roleplay when I was a student. I had a barbarian and I just killed an opponent instead taking any prisoner.

The priest in the group said I should be more diplomatic. I asked how, he said I shouldn't kill instantly. I should use increasing force to get what I want. Like doing a wound , ask if he wants to surrender, if no, doing next wound, ....

The next battle I was a bit diplomatic, instead doing an instand kill I just cut off the right arm and right leg of my opponent with my twohanded sword in a single strike. He begged that I released him of his pain...

If the wounding was diplomatic, why I was called a barbarian...?

[gogoblender 3,070]

If I am not wrong the silver modifier for demonic blow in sacred wiki is wrong. I think it should be 4+1 per level poison base damage instead 4% +1% per level poison damage.

 

 

Chattius, can you edit this or can I do it if it's correct?

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,526]

It seems to be base weapon damage of the poison type. Same as if a weapon has poison base damage. I don'T know the correct english name of the modifier right away. So correc it in the wiki if you know.

[chattius 2,526]

I think I should rename the character: Kuno, Ritter des Ordens des lila Schildes --- Kuno, knight of the order of the pink shield

Pink, everything is pink.... Level 70 and being in the desert doing the gold campaign. Enemies are level 87.

Fights are slow so survival bonus is not low. Not much risc, but everything I find is way too high in level. Level 90 set items in the chest and I can't use them ...

 

I could use a Kanka set with x% life leech, just found the missing boots. Had most of the set from older characters already. But I try to stay away from the Kanka even it is tempting to use it. ... Vade retro satanas!!! I won't use you...

[chattius 2,526]

Platin campaign finished. Boss fights took around 3 minutes each. But that was somehow to be exspected: unarmed level 76 versus a level 98 plati n Boss.

The CA-damage was close to 4000, and it are doublehits with explosions, so group control was possible. Deathblow at 70% so double damage quite quickly.

[chattius 2,526]

NIOB: SW78 vs 118 white griffon

First time that I had to run. Loosing the buffs is not nice. So I put some time in socketing

Full Pandemonium set , all platin level 90 stuff. Socketed some x-x damage rings from a level 100 niob shopper.

The hard hit is now doing 6010 damage. It is a fist and shield double strike with explosions. Deathblow is at 67%. Normal fighting is no problem in Niob. I can spam the attacks with 6.1s reg per hit and hard hit having a regeneration time of 10.2s. But it are double hits you remember?

 

I got me a level 90 Kira shield from my melee elf. Only 2 of them I found, one is level 90, the other 180.

The shield is nice, with a single point in shield lore I have 60+% block chance vs ranged and melee.

 

Skills I mastered:

1-3: combat discipline, tactic lore, combat discipline

4: armour lore

plan

5: working on damage lore, mainly because it is the only other skill adding damage. Not sure if it is useful at all.

[wolfie2kX 528]

er.. Combat Discipline gets mastered twice?

 

Um.. How do you do that?

[chattius 2,526]

Should be death warrior focus I think

[wolfie2kX 528]

Ah.. That makes more sense..

[Augmint 109]

I took damage lore. I don't know if it is of any use, but it is the only skill which may add more damage to this build.

 

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/14253-mechanix-x-e-ice-and-blood/

Damage Lore discussed in this thread. Seems to have changed in Ice and Blood / CM patch.

[chattius 2,526]

The problem with damage lore in my unarmed build: YOu can't socket physical to poison modifier because the character lacks a weapon

So all he has is the silver modifier: 1 poison base damage per CA-level.

It is not how damage lore works but I don't know if the poison damage I dish out is enough to make damage lore a good choice. But as I said, it is the only skill which adds some more damage once mastered,

[chattius 2,526]

Some close battles where my brave shield basher followed the old saying: run away to fight another day....

The scorpion boss was too hard. So doing some leveling first to maximize spell resistance. Finished the scorpion and the crystal, now approching great machine in niob at level 113. Still fighting unarmed and not using x% life leech.

Funny character, it is one which gets better and better the higher in level. Not like these inquisutor mages who do hard at high levels. Just started to put points in toughness and only a single point in shield lore to boost the Kira shield to 75% blockchance versus melee and ranged. A single point into combat reflexes, ... so a lot of points to be spend in defensive skills to free sockets for offense.

200 runes read into both buffs, into hard hit, into the temporary buff, ... Just need enough reg per hit to fight the 11s regeneration time. But 5.5s is enough because of the double hits. 2s are in the set gloves so just 3 garnets wit reg per hit in sockets.

[chattius 2,526]

FINISHED NIOB

So here is the begin of something like a guide, even I doubt that someone will replay it If there is interest I could upload the character and perhaps we have a Spielberg who could do a video.

 

The Captain America Build

Best to played with CM-patch, but at least AddON
The build needs the regeneration-per-hit item modifier which wasn't in game before the AddOn. It is in the console variants of the game.

 

Game Video: Character fighting the orc cave

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/332-youcanthidewmv/

Chapter 1: The Idea and the main attack

There are several ways to use a melee weapon:
using a big two-handed weapon
using two single-handed weapons
using a single-handed weapon and a shield
using empty hands
using a shield but no weapon

The two-handed does enourmous one hit damage but lacks the shield for defense.
The dual wield variant is doing weaker but two hits.
The sword and shield sacrifices a second attack compared to dual-wielding but offers more protection.
Worser than any of the 3 variants in any aspect.
So last of the variants is the shield and no weapon. The whole character idea is based on the fact that demonic blow considers this variant as a dual-wielding attack. When doing a demonic blow the graphic shows a punch with the left fist followed by a swing with the shield in the right.
Any x-x damage ring socketed will be working on two attacks. By having a shield we free defensive sockets for x-x damage rings and +allSkills jewelry, best both in a single ring. *allSkills will bring more defense again, so even allows more x-x damage rings, ...

So how do get the idea working:
Doing a look at the spells.txt and the tokens we choose

tokens = {
entry0 = {"et_mult_weapondamage", 1300, 2, 0, 9 },
entry1 = {"et_baseAW", 200, 350, 0, 5 },
entry2 = {"et_damage_any_rel", 400, 100, 0, 5 },
entry3 = {"et_chance_bleeding", 197, 3, 1, 5 },
entry4 = {"et_damage_areasplash", 745, 5, 2, 9 },
entry5 = {"et_debuff_reduce_armor", 500, 10, 3, 9 },
entry6 = {"et_weapondamage_poison", 40, 10, 4, 9 },
entry7 = {"et_life_leech", 30, 15, 5, 9 },
entry8 = {"et_chance_deepwound", 200, 2, 6, 5 },
},

mult_weapondamage: This multiplies base weapon damage by (1.3+0.02per_CA-level)
baseAW: this brings 20+35per_CA-level base attack value
damage-any_rel: this brings 40%+10% perCA-level damage. Adds to tactic lore, combat discipline and any x% damage in items
damage_areasplash: 74.5% + 0.5%per_CA-level chance that nearby targets are hit by the attack
weapondamage_poison: 4+1per_CA-level base poison damage
life_leech: 3+1.5per_CA-level life leech damage

The modifiers
area damage vs bleeding
Most fights are versus groups so most time will be lost when having no group control
poison damage vs reduce armour
When finishing the niob-campaign the CA-level will be around 100. So why to choose poison damage over reduce armour?: Reduce armour is probably just for physical armour. An enemy with 100% physical damage mitigation would be immune. So having another damage type in the attck is not too bad.
The poison modifier will be 104 base poison damage. This will be multiplied by 1.5 because of mult_weapondamage. So we are at 156. The damage _any_rel will add 1040% damage, that is more than tactic lore and combat discipline added. This poison damage will be in both hits and even doubled if deathblow is triggered.
In my opinion poison damage wins against reduce armour at short fights versus the many normal enemies. At bosses we have longer fights and using a sigil set from CM-patch will bring -x% enemy physical resistance. This modifier will add up in longer fights.
life leech vs deep wound
Again it are the many fights again groups rather than the few against bosses. with around 900 life leech in each attack the deathblow level is reached earlier. And it brings some healing.

[chattius 2,526]

The Equipment

Used when finishing the niob campaign at level 115.

 

 

 

 

[chattius 2,526]

Some forgotten damage data:

Level 52, all buffs at malus and demonic blow at ca-level 35. This results in a reg-time of 7.6s. Reg per hit is at 3.9s. No x-x damage rings socketed in normal slots.

 

Weapons to be compared (demonic blow modified for buildin base poison damage):

Mirror Shield with an average damage of 24 (3 rings with damage 8-8)

two-handed hammer with an average damage of 180

 

Mirror shield left click: 224

Mirror shield demonic blow: 1116

 

Hammer left click average: 550

Hammer right click average: 2050

 

The demonic blow with the shield is a very quick double hit and recharges itself.

The hammer demonic is slower and needs an additional normal attack (with smaller hit chance) to fully recharge. Video analysis is something like 3 shield demonic blow in the time of 2 hammer demonic blows.

 

So the damage calculation is like:

6 exploding shield hits with each 1114 damage = 6684 on main target

2 exploding hammer hits with 2050 damage + 2 normal hits with 550 = 5200 on main target

 

When growded the shield with its 6 explosions wins by far. At bosses the x% life leech of the hammer wins. So our smith which was started 18 month back has no weapon skill. Late game ( in our case around level 119) the equatations are a lot easier: CM-patch and completing full Kanka set with it x% life leech was only shield attacks for most of the time.

 

Not in the equatation:

Deathsblow: more attacks triggers them earlier

Weapon skill: would boost hammer attacks. But eats one skill and everyone who wants to jump quickly has casting speed at 50% so the shield demonic blows would be at 150% too.

Damage Modifiers: shield only doesn't allow you to change weapon type

Defense: with x-x rings in the normal slots a shield can make a lot of a difference. Be it a 5 resistances shield early on or a 5 damage types mitigation shield with an artamark star socketed late game