The archmage who can't concentrate

[chattius 2,653]

Once upon a time there was a young elf who wished to be able to cast every spell in the world. But sadly she wasn't good in concentrating on her studies. So she learned every spell but then she coudn't concentrate enough to keep more than one buff up. When she spent time to work on two buffs, she was forgetting some spells. Her teachers were unhappy with her and wanted her to learn the same way as the other students. And a training lesson she accidently killed another student and had to leave the school.....

 

Something like this but a longer story was the german sacred2 homework for my daughter when she asked for a faster graphic card.

Play an elf with all 3 foci and lores, but without concentration, in hardcore LAN to Niob. As an outlaw she has no access to the common chest or our shoppers and smiths.

 

 

I watched her playing at level 31:

 

Skills:

arcane lore, armour, arcane focus, constitution, storm focus, combat discipline, fire focus

 

Attributes:

All vitality

 

Modfied Combat Arts, in this order:

magic coup: 1 rune: change to hit, mana leech and stray damage

teleport: 14 runes: less cooldown, invisibility and explosion

raging nimbus: 1 rune: frequence, less enemy chance to hit, duration

meteor: 1 rune: stun, more and faster

 

Buff;

unmodified regeneration buff with each extra rune in this.

 

Sockets:

half enemy can't evade and half evade, mainly cheap blue rings from shop, double run speed in boots from the griffon or the boar

 

Her early surviving:

Using a bow and each spells she found. Then around level 5 magic coup with a heavy polearm. To my surprise she modified teleport next. Collecting mobs and run in their mid, doing a combination of teleport and magic coup. She teleported to nearly the start point and damaged or killed all surrounding mobs with the explosion or the following magic coup. Then a combination with nimbus and magic coup was added for the time teleport had still its cooldown. With combat discipline all was put in one combination.

I asked why she was choosing teleport first and she said because it has a cooldown so its no mistake to read runes into it to get a nice damage quickly, and the invisibility gives time for the following attacks.

Next was meteor modified and doing a combination nimbus, meteor and magic coup when the teleport combination had to regenerate. Its amazing how few red potions she is quaffing after the first levels.

 

Seems my kids can really be creative if they want something. But I wonder if mana steal will really replace GI later in game as she is hoping. Since I have no time playing currently I watch with interest her progress. How nice teleport for damage worked out early in game was a surprise for me.

[Furian67 15]

Wow mighty fine way to work things. And this coming from your 11yr old? Kids got brains dude. I'll have to try this teleport trick once I have it modes out. I'm currently running your shield maiden at level 105 on niob.

[chattius 2,653]

From my 14 year old. The shield maid was for my second, then we have a 6 year old daughter, who is currently at hospital for some more weeks and mixed twins aged 21 months. Our 14 year old is used to do PvP parties with classmates. She has a nice melee PvP elf for this. I wouldn't asked our 11 year old for creating such a character, she started way later with sacred and the shield maid was her first character.

 

Level 34- and she uses a life leech shuriken now.

[Furian67 15]

Wow still very impressive to come up with combos like that. I'm liking it. Keep us informed on how she's doing with it. I like the added difficulty of no chest or smithing help from higher up. Hope the young one is doing well in her recouping.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Furian67

[chattius 2,653]

Level 41, storm lore added. Keeping Arcane Lore and Constitution at level. Still all attribute points are put in vitality. Bosses are killed with life leech shuriken and magic coup. Next modified combat art is expulse magic modified for maximal protection. She decided against radius to keep fleeing enemies in throwing range.

1 Unique ring which reduce DoT Damage, rest is still blue stuff with evade or -enemy evade. Hit chance is more important than damage to keep the mana and life leech running, and life leech is damage.

Tomorrow morning she will do the machine in silver.

[Furian67 15]

One thing I wish I would have done on the shield maiden was mod the expulse for damage, undead, t-energy. Love this CA for undead. Just wish it did the same to killing t-energy mobs.

 

But then again I modes it like you said for damage, undead, and block incoming magic, which I think at this time at level 111 on niobium is saving my backside. Even with over 40thousand armor, 120% evade, about 40% detrimental magic I'm getting hit for 3000 by the demon fish in the jungle. Well see what dryad island has instore for me tonight.

Edited October 19, 2009 by Furian67

[chattius 2,653]

Level 53:

Ancient magic was added on 50. Its interesting that she said, that she could imagine to play an arcane only, ice only and perhaps a fire only character without concentration: Adding bargaining, shield lore, alchemy and riding or spell resistance (fire only lacks in combat art block/reflect).

If playing the character again, a change would be to modify teleport for explosion before modifying magic coup and do crystal skin as main buff in early levels, because you have to collect enemies and need protection. regeneration is not that important because of the cooldown of teleport. When magic coup is modified as a second combat art and has stray damage, regeneration is needed and crystal skin is changed for crystalskin as buff.

A life leech shuriken is a must have in gold.

[Furian67 15]

How's the little Mage doing? Is she getting closer to that new vid card? What kind will you buy?

[Chareos Rantras 0]

Nice concept, I hope she'll survive till Niob

 

 

cheers!

Chareos Rantras

[chattius 2,653]

Not sure which video card, something in the 150-200 euro class. Highend cards are for millionairs or people with only one kid. We have 5.

 

She did the machine in gold at saturday, and playing slowed down a bit, because this week school started again after 2 weeks of autumn breaks. I think she is level 60+ in platinum currently.She said she has to optimize equipment, because she needs close to 100% hit chance to do the mana leech play style.

She was more putting weight on defense, and now she has to trim a bit towards hit chance with the jewelry.

 

Using a melee weapon and magic coup she often runs into something I call a 'Samurai-Krebsgang' = 'samurai cancer-like move': keeping the distance with sword up and walking slowly sidewards.

 

 

For maths:

If you do vector arithmetic of your position and position of the enemy, You get a direction vector towards the enemy. But if something blocks the direct move the character is not moving till the obstacle but it like moving the whole distance which would gbe needed to reach the enemy in a rectagular 90 degree angle, means sidewards.

You have to break combination , and re-target quickly if seeing this.

 

If you hero is at (xh,yh) and the enemy at (xe,ye) then the way to the enemy is (xe-xh,ye-yh). But if there is something in the way the character walks like (yh-ye,xe-xh) but with the movement animation towards the enemy.

 

Stones in high grass, other enemies ... if something like this is in the way onplain terrain the character starts this Krebsgang till it moved the distance to the enemy but sidewards, then it tries to hit again. If the target is on top of your screen you move all the way right on your screen.

 

But if you aim at a close enemy mid in a group , the character walks only the small distance to the enemy sidewards, tries to re-aim, but probably another enemy is in the way now, so this can end with the elf running a circle around a group of enemies without being able to hit the enemy in the mid.

 

To prevent this, shurikens seem to be a nice option if you need magic coup in a combination.

 

I think everyone has seen this strange running of his character in close combat sometimes.

[Schot 415]

What a great deal and idea Chattius. I hope she makes it! Since she is level 60 in Platinum am I right in assuming that she only needs to reach Niob. Not necessarily level 140? Oh and is she playing in Ice & Blood or pre?

 

Explosion is an awesome mod for Shadow Step. So much fun. I like mine with Sanctuary. At level 140 the Sanctuary mod is lasting as long as Shadow Steps regen/cooldown. 8.1 seconds which is quite handy.

 

Very nice description of the melee obstrustion problem. That has been driving me crazy to no end with my Shadow Warrior. I've been trying to find a solution to that problem and although I'd like to just switch to ranged I can't really since I've invested so much into Hafted already. Hopefully once I've modded Beligerent Vault to stun opponents I'll have an easier time at least.

 

Good luck to your daughter Chattius!

[chattius 2,653]

Totally forgot to update this thread: she did Niob and she got her card. The next cruel action of me was to promise my daughter a new vaultingbelt for our friesian horse if she writes a summary about her character. We discussed a bit, and she will start a character in virtual 4 player LAN (maximum our machine can handle). It will melt this character with the shield maiden of our second daughter and adds even some bargaining.

 

02 bargaining

03 arcane lore

05 armour

08 ice lore

12 arcane focus

18 ice focus

25 shield

35 constitution

50 ancient magic

65 fire focus

 

The playstyle of this character is obvious: spend half the time at shops to buy the gear which is needed: RpH, -enemy chance to evade, block Combat Art, ....

 

RpH and life leech from magic coup are planed to free the character from concentration.