47 replies to this topic

[Texasmotiv]

Hello BSN!

 

I have recently finished my poison challenge drudgery and quite conveniently, I am at lvl 19 and I am looking to my next promotion. I can now leave my Stealth/PW/PC/KB build behind that I was using to farm kills and switch to something more interesting. What sorts of builds do people use nowadays for little Luka?

 

I have a handful of questions:

 

-What kind of builds are you all using and seeing success with?

 

-Has anyone tried a stealthless double flask build like this:

http://da-skills.net...110,00100,1D1,0

FoFire+EM spam / FoFrost+SS for shatter so you always have a combo to use and you aren't waiting for cooldowns.

 

-Anyone know what Alchemy Mastery does? What would be a "status effect caused by your alchemy"? Is this poison? Flask Freeze effect? Does it extend the chill/burning/shock on EM?

 

 

I really don't like many rogues. I think the Alchemist is fun and could see myself promoting her many times if I can find a good non-gimpy build that will work in perilous. I'd love to hear what you guys think about making the trash tier class not so trashy.

 

 

 

 

-----UPDATE 6/17/15-----

I have played this build for a few promotions and can give some more detail.

 

Final Build: (lvl 19)

http://da-skills.net...010,00100,121,0

 

Unlock order:

I will usually beeline for upgraded FoFire (level7)

Then upgrade mines (level8)

Then grab FoFrost (level9) -no upgrade

After that I work my way down to upgraded shadow strike (level3)

Then just build in the rest of the passives starting with Ride the storm, Easy to miss, then Killer's Alchemy.

 

This build is very centered around active abilities and the passives are just really icing on the cake with the exception of Ride the storm which will greatly increase the synergy.

 

Playstyle:

This build really shines on maps like FC when you turtle in one place (rooms to the side in wave 3 and 4, Font stairs area in wave 5) so you can predict where enemies are coming from.

 

I will usually litter the entrance with mines using FoFire and EM, then pop FoFrost in between, using shadow strike to shatter and reduce Cooldowns (it's easy to run around to the flank of a frozen pack of enemies. By the time your Frost flask is out, usually it is only a few seconds before the Mines are back up and you can repeat. If you are conscious about it, you can hold off doing your last EM to leave it off cooldown, allowing you to recast FoFire faster (if you do hit the last mines after the Flask wears off, you tend to have to wait until the ride the storm passive wears off before you can re-Fire flask and litter with mines).

 

If you have a mob that is immune to freezing, you can pop FoFire and spam them with Shadow strike. This is usually ineffective as Shadow strike doesn't do very much damage at it's base without bonuses but I have found this better than auto attacking. This is mostly an issue with Brutes, Fear demons, pride demons, Red templar knights. That said if you can set your mines effectively, this is the better way to burn them down if it is not on cooldown and there are no range restrictions (you'd throw your mines past them.

 

Frost Flask is particularly good for taking out Arcane horrors as they constantly get refrozen over the duration of the flask, allowing you and your team to burst him down with no trouble.

 

Weaknesses:

As I have mentioned in posts below, there are some essential weaknesses in the build to be aware of.

 

-Mobs that are immune to freezing (mentioned above).

-You have to be very careful and tactical about where to put your mines. It takes some getting used to but judging the distance and trajectory of an incoming foe can spell success with the mines. Miss and they lie uselessly on the ground.

-Dragons. The mines do not seem to affect the dragon (not sure if a bug or not). And shadow strike is mostly useless. You need to rely on your team to DPS the Dragon. The Dragonlings, however, are like sheep to be slaughtered.

 

 

Conclusion:

This is a fun and slightly unorthodox build that allows you to take advantage of the synergy in the alchemy tree. It helps provide damage, survivability, CC, and combos. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to try something new that completely Differentiates the Alchemist from the Assassin.

[Kungsarme]

After 70ish promotions now I decided to start playing with new skills on everyone. I'm having a blast with Luka using stealth, mines, the fire flask thingy with the brass knuckles uppercut jobber. I never remember the skill names. Something really awesome about hitting the flask, stealthing up to a group or a dragon leg and spamming the street fighter ryu move. So much damage in so little time. It usually is enough to keep my late night inebriated self laughing.

[Texasmotiv]

After 70ish promotions now I decided to start playing with new skills on everyone. I'm having a blast with Luka using stealth, mines, the fire flask thingy with the brass knuckles uppercut jobber. I never remember the skill names. Something really awesome about hitting the flask, stealthing up to a group or a dragon leg and spamming the street fighter ryu move. So much damage in so little time. It usually is enough to keep my late night inebriated self laughing.

I did try doing a Stealth/KB/FoFire/SS build long abo but really didn't like it I felt that due to weird hit boxes and positioning and weird tracking, I usually only got 1 extra hit before the flask wore off and then I was dead in the water. This was before the alchemist buff where Luke increased the duration and shortened the cooldown so I could probably give it a try again.

 

It definitely when I tried it, felt like something that '60% of the time worked every time' (maybe more like 30%).

[Kungsarme]

That's why I specified group or dragon. I can usually focus enough to hit the single target, but in a group or on the dragon... you go flying, and you go flying, and you.... get the picture. Hehe

[Texasmotiv]

That's why I specified group or dragon. I can usually focus enough to hit the single target, but in a group or on the dragon... you go flying, and you go flying, and you.... get the picture. Hehe

[abc1921034518]

FoFire+EM spam / FoFrost+SS for shatter so you always have a combo to use and you aren't waiting for cooldowns.

 

 

 

That is exactly the skills and strategy I'm using too, works pretty well so far in my experience. Flask of Frost makes me quite durable for the duration, SS combo one shots lots of things and theres no need to worry about staying in stealth... but always looking for different builds tho if anyone has other interesting ideas.

[Amartell44]

I have played and promoted alchemist the most by far of any of the classes and I always find myself going back to the same build (after trying out many different ones).

I use stealth, frost flask, knockout bomb & shadow strike. I always see people on the boards saying how weak the alchemist is compared to the other classes but I would honestly disagree wholeheartedly with that.

You aren't going to be soloing perilous anytime soon but that's not really the point of the game anyway... You can contribute tremendously with crowd control and damage with that set up. Set up your teammates or create your own combos with freezing or sleeping enemies and shadow strike as the detonator. KO bomb is great for clusters of mobs... Particularly archers. You can stealth in ahead of your group and sleep clusters of mobs without even having to break out of stealth. This build is amazing in perilous since choke points are often used (or should be at least) and you can just pop frost flask and wade into groups of mobs and freeze them all. You can almost chain cast frost flask and KO bomb (with the right gear and setup) now since they increased the duration on the flask and effectively keep everything locked down and set up for detonators at a choke point... Its amazingly fun and rewarding to just run around freezing and smashing the crap out of everything. I can't help but feel a little smug when my alchemist is topping the leaderboard at the end of the match over all the other "better" classes...

I too am curious about alchemy mastery and what it actually effects... I've seen the question posed many times on the boards but have never seen an informed response about just what is really does.

Anyway that's my input... You can look through my old posts and see I've mentioned this build several times before and for me it really has been the most fun and the strongest / most group friendly build for the alchemist.

[Texasmotiv]

I originally played with Stealth/PW/FoFrost/SS and really liked it. I also love Knockout Bomb. Its one of my favorite skills. In fact, I love all the Alchemist skill individually, I just have trouble tying them all together.

 

I might try Stealth/KB/FoFrost/SS like you suggest as well. I remember loving running with a Katari and setting up combos with KB and they run in and Mighty blow for massive damage.

 

I will probably try both builds out and see how I fair as far as XP generation. I can imagine frost flask and Knockout bomb probably generate a decent amount of support XP as well as more combos for everyone. EVERYONE WINS!

 

[DrakeHasNoFlow]

Flask of fire, mines, flask of frost and shoryuken ftw...

[Texasmotiv]

I went ahead and tried the Dual Flask build last night on perilous. It went fantastic.

 

Here is the build I was using:

http://da-skills.net...110,00100,1D1,0

 

I was enjoying the synergy between the 2 flasks and how there was no downtime.

 

The Good:

1) There is a good amount of synergy with the passives if you use both flasks back to back.

2) Elemental mine spam can be very devastating. Especially when combo'd with Lightning cage or in a small choke point.

3) XP generation is great. You get Support XP for Frost Flask freezing. On most matches I was second behind a highly promoted keeper. With 10k-11k xp on perilous.

4) Frost Flask is all around a FANTASTIC ability. I can't believe I had forgotten. You can become temporarily a tank, CC, and shatter enemies. Works well on Rage demons as you can crit for 7k+ on the shatter due to frost vulnerability. There were a few times that I saved the keeper being rushed by shades just by popping Frost and intercepting the mobs. Just a great ability.

5) Build is fun! Super fun, you always have something to do, you contribute to both damage and support and you are an AOE rogue with great survivability.

6) So much self-revive its silly. If there were a high level dagger with HoHit, it would be helpful here. You would be an unkillable zombie. Hokill is very useful with this build. Sadly I am still waiting on my Superb ring, and I am making due with the 5% ring.

 

The Bad:

1) I played a few dragons (Storm) and I was completely useless. The Mines for some reason don't detonate under the dragon until it jumps. And then I only hit with a couple. The rest of the mines just sit there untouched. I did try FoFire and shadow strike spam but this had mixed results as SS doesn't do much damage by itself when not from stealth. It does however work like a charm to reset your cooldowns of you pound the dragon's back leg. But reset the cooldowns for what? The mines don't work.

2) No evasive maneuvers. You have frost flask to cut damage but you can do nothing to avoid a tail swipe or a dragon kick. You just have to stop DPS and run out of the way. But with the medium-long animations of shadow strike and mines, I found myself exploring the fade more than anything in the dragon fight.

3) Shadow strike shatter is 'one and done' You can freeze and then you can shatter once. Then you are just auto attacking a big block of ice for a few seconds. This is fine if you are being helped by other people but if you are alone or you "got brave" (as I call it) you may not kill everything before they thaw out of ice. It would be nice to have deathblow instead of SS so that you could spam if it killed the target. or perhaps patch in that cooldown reset like deathblow, just for the Alchemist.

 

The Ugly:

1) I do not have the superb cooldown amulet but I feel like it would be incredibly helpful with this build. There are just a few extra seconds of waiting for Mines to come off cooldown so you can respam. I think this is just long enough to be outside of Ride the Storm's duration. You can do flasks back to back but when you do, EM is not off cooldown yet. I will try with my 10% CDR amulet and see if that helps.

 

 

Overall I really enjoy this build and would recommend it to anyone. Luka is a great team player without being a kill stealer or primadonna. I think that Luke did a great job of tweaking the Alchemist to make this kind of build possible. The only further buffing suggestion is give Luka a spammable precision detonator for frost flask. Or patch Flask to give the 'reset skill cooldown on shatter killing the target' inherently so that you could use any precision detonator in her trees if that is not too OP.

 

 

TL:DR- Try FoFire/FoFrost/SS/EM, it's awesome.

[kmeeg]

I had SO much fun the other day. We were doing perilous runs with 4 alchemist on Orlesian Chateau and everything went BOOM BOOOM BOOOOM!!!

 

The core builds were always:

1) Elemental mines

2) Fire flask

3) Ice flask

 

Then people either used:

4.1) Shadowstrike (shatter combo)

4.2) Flank Attack (perma stealth)

 

When we had 1 party member leave and a new one joined, his imminent response, once he saw the group composition: "Oh my lord!".

 

Rarely have I heard so much laughter, giggling and active microphone banter. I highly recommend it to all.

[Thiak]

After 70ish promotions now I decided to start playing with new skills on everyone. I'm having a blast with Luka using stealth, mines, the fire flask thingy with the brass knuckles uppercut jobber. I never remember the skill names. Something really awesome about hitting the flask, stealthing up to a group or a dragon leg and spamming the street fighter ryu move. So much damage in so little time. It usually is enough to keep my late night inebriated self laughing.

 

you brought me to this idea:

 

http://da-skills.net...010,1C100,1D0,0

 

you don't really need stealth, because you have Flank Attack.

 

multitarget:

pop Flask of Fire, poisoned weapons, spam flank attack

 

singletarget (e.g. dragon):

pop Flask of Fire, poisoned weapons, spam shadow strike

[Kungsarme]

I'll certainly be trying the double flask and the flank attack builds brought up here this weekend. Need to bring cunning about another 20 points anyway, been spending a lot of time playing everyone up to 20 and promoting all at once because why not. Boredom is strong... or is it procrastination.... hmmm, let me go level something and ponder that.

[kmeeg]

A good tip is to use a high base damage dagger in the main hand and then an offhand dagger with an effect. Then the mines hits hard and blows things up/ poison / lightning / heals.

 

A combo could be:

1) Dragon dagger

2) Agony / Walking Death / Wicked grace/ Lady Jocasta's Revenge/ Audacity ... ect

 

Btw. if you use a low damage dagger in the offhand, maybe consider using something else than 'Flank Attack'. (Flank Attack use off-hand damage)

[Silversmurf]

Taunt/Freeze/E.Mines

 

Next wave please

[Drasca]

Parry all day every day! You don't need any other abilities.

[Texasmotiv]

What build would you use with parry, Drasca? I would like to try it out but can't justify losing a combo for something situational. If only we had more ability slots...

[Drasca]

What build would you use with parry, Drasca? I would like to try it out but can't justify losing a combo for something situational. If only we had more ability slots...

 

Situational? It is spammable, with no cooldown and low / negative stamina cost (it gives you stamina when successful).

 

I've actually had fair success with Dual Flasks, Toxic Clouds + Parry, but mostly for amusement purposes. I leave green farts everywhere, and hole up behind a chokepoint where enemies are forced to smell my stink, and are unable to attack me successfully (between the TC and the Parry) I could swap out one of the flasks for KOB or TF / SS if I wanted to as well.

 

The damage from parry alone isn't awesome, and this is the very definition of an exotic build, but alchemist is do-able this way.

 

Use Nameless blade as your off-hand, to increase your damage from the chokepoint mobs here.

 

This is by no means an end game time efficient build, because alchemists suck, but it is quite funny to watch.

 

Also totally possible to solo the Dragon this way, as most of her physical attacks can be parried, her magical attacks can be evaded and she is not immune to poison.

[Luke Barrett]

I've actually had fair success with Dual Flasks, Toxic Clouds + Parry, but mostly for amusement purposes. I leave green farts everywhere, and hole up behind a chokepoint where enemies are forced to smell my stink, and are unable to attack me successfully (between the TC and the Parry) I could swap out one of the flasks for KOB or TF / SS if I wanted to as well.

 

Personally, I run mine with Flask of Frost, Toxic Cloud, Parry and Shadowstrike. Plays more like an offensive Legionnaire than a rogue

[themageguy]

Personally, I run mine with Flask of Frost, Toxic Cloud, Parry and Shadowstrike. Plays more like an offensive Legionnaire than a rogue

Interesting. I guess you upgrade FoFrost to taunt enemies into your toxic clouds and then parry?

Im going to have to try this.
Though alot of the time i end up still using the grenades- BOOM

[LordInfamous99]

Lots of great information here. Alchemist is my most promoted class and its not very close(19) vs Assasin(10).

My Perilous build is Steath and all the dmg passives for flanking ect. Frost flask with no upgrade, Poison cloud(could swap mines with no upgrade or flank attack) and Shadow strike upgraded with ring.

very reliable but Ive been looking for another build so thanks for the ideas.

[Amartell44]

Personally, I run mine with Flask of Frost, Toxic Cloud, Parry and Shadowstrike. Plays more like an offensive Legionnaire than a rogue

Luke... Maybe you could be kind enough to give us the lowdown on what the alchemy mastery passive actually effects. I assume mine effect durations, but what about poison or flask durations? An official answer would be awesome!

[Rundagutz]

I use the following...

http://da-skills.net...010,0B100,010,1

 

For weapons, i use dragon dagger in the main hand and wicked grace in the offhand.  What this does is when i hit or use my mines, the mob is typically poisoned.  When it dies, it leaves poison clouds all over the place.  So essentially, I'm spamming explosions and poison clouds all over the place for kills and support damage.  I tend to spend most of my time stealthed so that I can get to priority targets or groups and come in from a flank.  Depending on the situation, I either blow stuff up, or melee it down.  I use flank attack for mobility, to get back into stealth, or on archers that run away before I can kill them.  

 

Don't play with Drasca with this spec though.  Depending on what time it is, he'll whine about the explosions hurting his eyes.  lol

[Texasmotiv]

I use the following...

http://da-skills.net...010,0B100,010,1

 

For weapons, i use dragon dagger in the main hand and wicked grace in the offhand.  What this does is when i hit or use my mines, the mob is typically poisoned.  When it dies, it leaves poison clouds all over the place.  So essentially, I'm spamming explosions and poison clouds all over the place for kills and support damage.  I tend to spend most of my time stealthed so that I can get to priority targets or groups and come in from a flank.  Depending on the situation, I either blow stuff up, or melee it down.  I use flank attack for mobility, to get back into stealth, or on archers that run away before I can kill them. 

 

That is interesting using the Poison on the OH dagger to proc explosive toxin. I didn't know the passive would work with the weapon proc.

[Shadohz]

Pop-up Blocker build:
Stealth, Flask of Frost, Shadowstrike, Knockout Bomb