[HC] Dual Wield / Revered Technology Build

[Lindor 438]

Thx I'll look into it, probably tomorrow.

for anyone else reading, you need to look at scripts/client/keycodes.txt to make sense of the bindings.

 

BTW I have a theory

On 3/8/2022 at 9:11 PM, Lindor said:

combos stop executing and start the regtime if there are no enemies in sight any more or if you interrupt them

There are two types of movement commands: the clicking and the holding. If you click on the map, character will go there. If you hold, character will first go to the point where you clicked and if key is still pressed, then it will follow the mouse smoothly.

You can interrupt combos by giving movement commands. I think pressing W works like that in pseudo-code:

if not char.state == moving then
   do clicking(pos) end
else 
  if char.position == pos then
     do holding end
  end
end

so by pressing W, you're in holding mode until you press combo, which interrupts holding mode, which makes pressing W to give a clicking mode command which interrupts the combo. The solution would be to not allow pressing W to give a clicking command until the combo is done. But then you'll have no way to interrupt combos. If my theory is correct, then it has nothing to do with archangel's wrath per se, but with CAs that require a target.

 

23 minutes ago, Vishanka said:

The Nova will not have any damage problems.

I think I'll have to believe you that, given the level and difficulty you're in you should already start to see the falloff. But I have no idea what's happening. The only two spells which don't have damage issues high level are ice shards and dryad spikes on enemies with big hitboxes because those spells have hardcoded properties which make them super broken OP. Nova should see diminishing returns already.

[Vishanka 236]

13 minutes ago, Lindor said:

so by pressing W, you're in holding mode until you press combo, which interrupts holding mode, which makes pressing W to give a clicking mode command which interrupts the combo. The solution would be to not allow pressing W to give a clicking command until the combo is done. But then you'll have no way to interrupt combos. If my theory is correct, then it has nothing to do with archangel's wrath per se, but with CAs that require a target.

I did an edit in my last post, the mouse is the same behaviour and I think that one is intended.
The autotarget however, I'd be surprised if that could be fixed somehow.

And then there's the problem with spamming a Combo, I had "Baneful Smite" and "Archangel's Wrath" in a combo, and the combo has 0,4s regeneration time and by spamming the button it did like 5 Baneful Smite in a row and then 2 Archangel's Wrath afterwards. That also always has been an issue for me. Extremely unreliable.

 

  

13 minutes ago, Lindor said:

Nova should see diminishing returns already.

The Nova will never kill a boss, I would always grab a %LL weapon with any character when I encounter a boss and slap them with that melee. The seraphim is just lucky to have Archangel's Wrath and Dual Wield, but any Polearm or Twohanded Sword with 4% Lifeleech will be more than enough.
The other spells just need to be able to kill normal mobs and champions in a reasonable amount of time, and I can't remember that to have been an issue.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Vishanka

[Lindor 438]

16 minutes ago, Vishanka said:

I did an edit in my last post, the mouse is the same behaviour and I think that one is intended.

That fits into my theory. Actually if I analyse my movement during fights, most of it is coming from right click onto enemies so the char walks into casting range. Explains why I never had that issue. With nova of yourse you can't do it so easily since it's a char-centered spell and you'd lose lots of damage.

16 minutes ago, Vishanka said:

The autotarget however, I'd be surprised if that could be fixed somehow.

I don't know if this is really a bug. It seems pretty reasonable to me.

I usually put AoEs in first, then chain attacks and then hard hits. This way the more single target dps, the more likely they're gonna be cast on tougher enemies. Works pretty good.

Also doesn't have Archangel's Wrath have an Area of Effect mod? Did you take it?

16 minutes ago, Vishanka said:

And then there's the problem with spamming a Combo, I had "Baneful Smite" and "Archangel's Wrath" in a combo, and the combo has 0,4s regeneration time and by spamming the button it did like 5 Baneful Smite in a row and then 2 Archangel's Wrath afterwards. That also always has been an issue for me. Extremely unreliable.

I am stunned reading this. Wow, I have no idea where this might come from

Edited March 11, 2022 by Lindor

[Vishanka 236]

Just now, Lindor said:

Also doesn't have Archangel's Wrath have an Area of Effect mod? Did you take it?

It has one, but I did not take it because the "Lock - The fire bolts will seek their targets." mod is OP I need it to hit on every shot and not fly past something. I just have 1 rune into it, it does not deal much damage itself, it's just there for the %LL and celerity

2 minutes ago, Lindor said:

I am stunned reading this. Wow, I have no idea where this might come from

Smash your button faster and you'll have that too.  Even happens on longer cooldowns, for example Nova and Pillar.

Or do you cast your attacks with the mouse? I don't know if it happens then.
I use the keyboard again.

[Vishanka 236]

2 weeks ago I died from a Fire Elemental at level 88, it was not glorious or any important mob, I just did not pay attention and didn't hit space.

So, new round, 62 right now, middle of Platin, monsters level is already roughly 20 level higher and I'll have to do some level catchup before moving on.

Adjusted the character creation date to my birth date by changing the system time, haha yeees I am like that.

She's superstrong right now, Flaring Nova is at level 40 and kills most stuff with one hit and I haven't even reached Mastery yet.

 

I'm so hyped to get her to niob and I am on leave right now so plenty of time to push on

 

[Vishanka 236]

Alright ladies, lv89 and finally dared to face the Garganthropod.

Wanted to get my def skills to mastery but I grew impatient. Crappy Platinum items, I want Niobium quality!

There it is and I still stand. I will finish Platinum now and head on to Niobium and hopefully reach it safely.

For a change of pace I grabbed my BFG and have fun with oneshotting most things with that right now.

[Vishanka 236]

Safely arrived in Niobium, Level 92 and doing quite well.

The Nova Damage is up at 17k, enemy health is around 15k and they are 20 levels above me.

Along with Ancient Magic Mastery within the next few levels it should keep going smoothly.

Divine Protection has only 7 seconds downtime left.

I wonder if I will hit a wall somewhere.

[Vishanka 236]

Running around in Blood Forest, a bit nervous though, didn't want to do that until mitigation is higher.

Divine Protection is doing its thing but I would like to have no downtime.

Sometimes the lifeleech is reflected back at the attacker, I'm not sure why. I chose the modification to block spells but it clearly reflects and I thought the leech was a combat art and not a spell. Nothing else on my items that would cause to reflect the damage. But what do I know

Keeping the guard up.

[kokoka 12]

Lovely build im testing it at this moment (without own pc) so rarely I get to there. 

So all point to int, focus with runes on the divine protection and get the right set + weapons? Only one question is came to me in the picture : why do you use only poison spheres?

If you don't mind and once I finish this build, I'd be happy to upload it for others as a playable character, but I would only do so with your exclusive permission. Of course, that's still a long time. 

Goodlucks anyway.

[Vishanka 236]

2 hours ago, kokoka said:

So all point to int, focus with runes on the divine protection and get the right set + weapons?

Basically yes, I don't have many of the equipment pieces I'm looking for but it's still going smoothly, using mainly npc blacksmith enhancements and runes in my gear so it will also do well without the 'correct gear'.

2 hours ago, kokoka said:

Only one question is came to me in the picture : why do you use only poison spheres?

Do you mean the relics? Most of the time I'm in jungle, it's my favorite grinding spot and the enemies deal poison damage there.

Normally I only mix different relics for bosses.

2 hours ago, kokoka said:

If you don't mind and once I finish this build, I'd be happy to upload it for others as a playable character, but I would only do so with your exclusive permission. Of course, that's still a long time. 

Of course, if you would like to do that, you have my blessing, I appreciate it

[idbeholdME 394]

On 7/22/2022 at 8:57 PM, Vishanka said:

Sometimes the lifeleech is reflected back at the attacker, I'm not sure why. I chose the modification to block spells but it clearly reflects and I thought the leech was a combat art and not a spell. Nothing else on my items that would cause to reflect the damage. But what do I know

It's one of the old mod description discrepancies. The description was saying reflect when it was in fact block (in spells.txt). If you're playing with PFP, it's been changed to reflect to fit the mod description (and also name - Mirror).

Otherwise, I'm currently running a very similar caster build, except dual aspect with main focus on Celestial Magic. So I swapped Tactics and Dual Wield for Celestial Lore and Focus. Other skills are the same. Still only in Gold though, but doing well so far. Damage is fine, but I'm going to have to start doing something about durability soon  

Edited August 10, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

6 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

If you're playing with PFP, it's been changed to reflect to fit the mod description (and also name - Mirror).

Oh, I'd kindly request to revert that change and adjust the skill description instead then. I think the translation team messed that up.

In the german original description it says nothing of reflection and is called "barricade" or "protective barrier" (Schutzwall)

The reflection mod is for projectiles only.

@Flix ?

[Vishanka 236]

7 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Otherwise, I'm currently running a very similar caster build, except dual aspect with main focus on Celestial Magic. So I swapped Tactics and Dual Wield for Celestial Lore and Focus.

I used to do something alike when I used the high elf model for the seraphim, and then just grab a %LL polearm for bosses.

Radiant pillar will get strong enough but the nova might be lacking behind without all the skill points and I always felt it wasn't even necessary to have nova if you have radiant pillar, so I'd probably drop technology lore.

[gogoblender 3,070]

19 hours ago, kokoka said:

Lovely build im testing it at this moment (without own pc) so rarely I get to there. 

So all point to int, focus with runes on the divine protection and get the right set + weapons? Only one question is came to me in the picture : why do you use only poison spheres?

If you don't mind and once I finish this build, I'd be happy to upload it for others as a playable character, but I would only do so with your exclusive permission. Of course, that's still a long time. 

Goodlucks anyway.

Hi Kokoka! Actually happy you asked her if you could upload the build I think a good number of players would love trying the dazzling rays and twinkles of our mighty Seraphim!

 

gogo

[Flix 5,116]

4 hours ago, Vishanka said:

Oh, I'd kindly request to revert that change and adjust the skill description instead then. I think the translation team messed that up.

In the german original description it says nothing of reflection and is called "barricade" or "protective barrier" (Schutzwall)

The reflection mod is for projectiles only.

@Flix ?

I actually noticed this just yesterday while working in the German localization of PFP.  I'll revert it to Block and change the tooltips since the German can be considered the master.

[idbeholdME 394]

5 hours ago, Vishanka said:

I used to do something alike when I used the high elf model for the seraphim, and then just grab a %LL polearm for bosses.

Radiant pillar will get strong enough but the nova might be lacking behind without all the skill points and I always felt it wasn't even necessary to have nova if you have radiant pillar, so I'd probably drop technology lore.

True, the Lore isn't seeing that much use. But the extra damage on Archangel's Wrath can still be useful. I am also running Warding Energy, and RTL increases the block value of the Gold mod.

My main single target combo is Baneful Smite + Archangel and Pillar for mobs. I will eventually include Nova to keep enemies stunned while getting cooked by the Pillar. At least that's the plan.

7 hours ago, Vishanka said:

Oh, I'd kindly request to revert that change and adjust the skill description instead then. I think the translation team messed that up.

In the german original description it says nothing of reflection and is called "barricade" or "protective barrier" (Schutzwall)

The reflection mod is for projectiles only.

Good catch. If you don't want to wait for the next PFP release, just change entry9 for "se_te_notschild" in spells.txt to:

entry9 = {"et_chance_block_spell", 500, 10, 6, 41 },

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

2 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

I will eventually include Nova to keep enemies stunned while getting cooked by the Pillar. At least that's the plan.

To me it always felt inconvenient to have Nova (close range) and Pillar (long range) in the same build.
I use Assailing Somersault to close the distance to the enemies quickly, that's something where nova lacks behind pillar.

I'd probably go for Pillar (hypnosis) and then BFG with Pelting Strikes and/or Archangel's Wrath to eliminate the Elites.

But you could also do a guide and repot how your build fares, I'd not play it like that so it's interesting for me

Edited August 10, 2022 by Vishanka

[Flix 5,116]

3 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Good catch. If you don't want to wait for the next PFP release, just change entry9 for "se_te_notschild" in spells.txt to:

entry9 = {"et_chance_block_spell", 500, 10, 6, 41 },

 

Yeah it might take me a while.  Funny enough, every single language except German has the "Mirror"/ Reflect chance tooltip text. So I'll have to update all PFP localizations, which I was going to anyway, due to some other discrepancies.

[idbeholdME 394]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:29 PM, Vishanka said:

But you could also do a guide and repot how your build fares, I'd not play it like that so it's interesting for me

I might later down the line.

One unexpected synergy I didn't account for is the full Revelation of the Seraphim set bonus (Life Leech) combined with Archangel's Wrath for easy access to Life Leech without having to have a dedicated weapon for it. Otherwise, the set is probably the most hybrid one in the entire game. One would expect caster bonuses, but it's not really the case as for example Offensive Skills is a partial set bonus on it. Even some of the set items have bonuses to things like Tactics, Life leech per hit, Dexterity, Chance for Critical Hits etc, which are completely wasted on a pure caster.

[Vishanka 236]

8 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

One unexpected synergy I didn't account for is the full Revelation of the Seraphim set bonus (Life Leech) combined with Archangel's Wrath for easy access to Life Leech without having to have a dedicated weapon for it

I don't think celestial magic was ever meant to be played as a solo build but always to be combined with one of the other two.

But to be honest 2 of the 5 spells are completely useless and very few opportunities for the aura to shine. 

 

Only good spell is the pillar, if the lightning could jump up to 5 times it might be worth a thought or if it could lifeleech. I always thought they should've put more thought into cm...

[idbeholdME 394]

4 hours ago, Vishanka said:

I don't think celestial magic was ever meant to be played as a solo build but always to be combined with one of the other two.

But to be honest 2 of the 5 spells are completely useless and very few opportunities for the aura to shine. 

 

Only good spell is the pillar, if the lightning could jump up to 5 times it might be worth a thought or if it could lifeleech. I always thought they should've put more thought into cm...

I think they knew it was not really feasible without access to Ancient Magic, so they made the set bonuses with a hybrid playstyle in mind. That changed with Ice & Blood, but the set bonuses unfortunately remained unchanged.

The Attack Speed slow on Cleansing Brilliance from the Distract mod pretty large and the enemies are definitely hitting me less often thanks to it. As for the damage, it makes for smooth farming north-east of Sar'Thaz. Full of undead and T-Mutants only. I don't think I've ever levelled a character this fast .

As for Baneful Smite, I modded it for single target damage. So Laggard-Potential-Electrocute. The additional jump is not needed since other CAs provide enough Area of Effect already. The DoT stacks, so you can have it running on the same enemy 4 or more times at once.

Hallowed Restoration, I'm using very often. Spammable, basically full heal, guaranteed instant root break, detrimental effect reduction and huge HP regen on top of it.

The only CA from the tree I haven't touched and would say is the only bad spell is Instill Belief. The fact that it makes the enemy friendly and then can't be attacked makes it pretty much unusable. Especially since the converted targets don't follow you. If it made the enemy attack other enemies, but you could still hurt them, it'd be usable on Elites and such at least.

Edited August 13, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

9 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

As for Baneful Smite, I modded it for single target damage. So Laggard-Potential-Electrocute. The additional jump is not needed since other CAs provide enough Area of Effect already. The DoT stacks, so you can have it running on the same enemy 4 or more times at once.

I never experienced an enemy to live that long to be even hit 4 times by electrocute if I have a strong pillar. Usually I will have about 20 enemies around and then I place 3-4 pillars to soak them all in and everything dies and I don't need any other button... for low level I like to combine the pillar with a bow and regeneration per hit to have a stonger pillar from the start but I don't want to deal with regeneration times

For Bosses I'd always use a lifeleech weapon and even meleehit them to death or a bow/throwingstar/bfg and the setbonus.

The only area I ever used the Heal was in an half-afk-fog-farming macro with pillar. To me it was always worse than healing pot and I also experienced it to be unreliable or too slow because of the non-instant casting animation or the fact that it will also heal companions instead of yourself and as I only play hardcore I don't want to deal with that issue.

I was fond of trying the aura farm but to me it really has a slow damage frequency even with the correct mods. I always need to stop and let the aura do it's work, if it was just running by it would've been more fun than waiting. Same with the temple guardian and icy evanescense and fiery ember, it just feels... slow and inconvenient.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by killing everything with 1 or 2 novas and jump into the next pack.... but blowpipe dryad is a bit faster still.

 

[idbeholdME 394]

2 hours ago, Vishanka said:

I never experienced an enemy to live that long to be even hit 4 times by electrocute if I have a strong pillar. Usually I will have about 20 enemies around and then I place 3-4 pillars to soak them all in and everything dies and I don't need any other button... for low level I like to combine the pillar with a bow and regeneration per hit to have a stonger pillar from the start but I don't want to deal with regeneration times

For large mobs, definitely pillar. But for single strong enemies like magic resistant Elites or bosses, I spam the Baneful Smite + Archangel combo. Can't really afford tanking the bosses to hold them in the pillars. Plus the Baneful Smite slow works on bosses and stacks too. Even the reliable Weaken from the Silver mod comes in pretty useful.

2 hours ago, Vishanka said:

The only area I ever used the Heal was in an half-afk-fog-farming macro with pillar. To me it was always worse than healing pot and I also experienced it to be unreliable or too slow because of the non-instant casting animation or the fact that it will also heal companions instead of yourself and as I only play hardcore I don't want to deal with that issue.

I only use the heal and potions are my emergency backup. The bonuses of the Hallowed Restoration are also great. The bronze regen keeps you topped off, even in boss fights, the silver root break is a great utility and the gold detrimental effect reduction is definitely welcome too. I wouldn't have been able to kill the Dragon boss in act 5 on Gold with just potions. The fact that you can spam the heal without it losing effectiveness, like potions, is very convenient.

2 hours ago, Vishanka said:

I was fond of trying the aura farm but to me it really has a slow damage frequency even with the correct mods. I always need to stop and let the aura do it's work, if it was just running by it would've been more fun than waiting. Same with the temple guardian and icy evanescense and fiery ember, it just feels... slow and inconvenient.

It's holding its own for me so far into late gold. 2-3 ticks of damage kill normal enemies. Not enough damage to quickly kill elites, but giving them one or two BS+AW combo is usually enough. The radius also increases with levels, so once it's pumped a lot in the late game, it's going to cover most of the screen.

[Vishanka 236]

31 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

The fact that you can spam the heal without it losing effectiveness, like potions, is very convenient.

But it's inconvenient to me that you need to use a combat art and can't use another combat art that does damage instead, kill speed is the best defense for me; plus when you are stunned you cannot use the combat art, but pots always work... I tried to use it 10 years ago but didn't get far with it; as mentioned just for fog farming since nothing interesting ever happens during the fight.

Root can be circumvented by assailing somersault and that will also teleport you to your next enemy

34 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

Can't really afford tanking the bosses to hold them in the pillars.

Yeah but why don't you just grab a polearm with %LL for bosses and your setbonus and melee them down or archangel's wrath if you don't want to facetank? Should be quite significant damage together with the setbonus. I don't use nova for bosses either, just run and shoot and spam potions

[Vishanka 236]

Since I've lost my savegames a while ago... at lv 130 or something... I'll start over, and this time in "hardmode hardcore"

I've deleted all health potions from the droplists and exchanged the heath potions from the trader with the green ones.

I've also removed gold drops.

Let's do this!

Edited May 7, 2023 by Vishanka