This thread contains all my favorite builds for routine/threatening/perilous. They were extensively tested and are updated to conform with the latest balance changes and information. For me personally many have fallen out of use as I no longer go beneath the perilous difficulty. As a consequence I now have more builds tested on nightmare than I have tested on the lower difficulties. Despite being tailored for the nightmare mode, I believe that many of these builds have merit below nightmare as well.
I'm thinking specifically about the following builds:
-The Murderess assassin build
-The nightmare archer (The Spike Trap variant should require less stats and gear than the Knockout Bomb one)
-The elementalist builds
-The Keeper builds (Veilstrike --> sleep + mana strategy)
Another edit: Armor for players has been upgraded, making everyone more durable. This will probably increase the value of a number of health preserving skills and guard generators. The below guides do not take this into account yet. Some skills may leave the "Why not to get" section but this will take some days if not weeks.
Hi everyone, I'm Yallegro, leaderboard ranker on PS3 and currently doing my best to run nightmare missions. I made this thread to share builds that did not only bring me a lot of fun but also brought me a lot of success when I was just a little runt trying to take on hard missions. Everything posted here are builds I swear by for threatening and perilous missions. Only nightmare requires a different approach.
With maybe a few tiny exceptions, the information here is current and the builds are top of the line and in no way compromised by nerfs and buffs of the recent past. I will try to keep this thread up to date for a good while
My classes are posted in the order they appear in the game which is : Legionnaire, Katari, Assassin, (no Archer, srry), Elementalist, Keeper, Alchemist, Necromancer, Reaver, Templar, Hunter, Arcane Warrior, Avvar, Duelist and Virtuoso
All the builds follow the same model
1 : An intro that sketches the basic philosophy behind the class and the build
2 : A list of the skills + tips on how to use them (THERE’S GOOD STUFF THERE)
3 : A guide on how to use the build as a whole
4 : A guide on how to build it
5 : A list of class skills I advice you to stay away from.
While it of course audacious of me to say that a skill is just bad, DAI is just full of skills that sound good but will make you regret spending points on them, hence this section.
6 : A List of Enemy Status Immunities, relevant for your build
7 : A List of Enemy Elemental Weaknesses and Strenghts, relevant for your build.
Before all that there’s a post with General Tips which are interesting for every player.
Bonus exp: Besides killstreaks, kills and not dying you can add a lot of bonus exp inflicting status effects or just by absorbing a lot of hits without dying. Because mages are great at inflicting status effects they pump a bit more exp into the match. Barrier counts as a beneficial status effect.
Rune damage: Runes only increase the power of basic attacks, they have no impact on the power of abilities. Spirit Blade is the only exception to this rule.
Did you know? You can recover from knockdown, stun and the Demon Commander's panic attack by drinking a healing potion.
Did you know? You can avoid Terror demon warp attacks, the Demon Commander's warp attack and Despair demon "Ice Summon" attacks by jumping as you move.
Kill the archers : It doesn’t matter if you’re great at turtling or if you’ve just killed a dozen warriors, if you let the archers build up during the final fight you will lose. KILL THE ARCHERS
Do not rush the Red Templar Commander : Not only does he have several seconds of invulnerability, he starts his deadliest attack when he is below 60% health.
Use natural cover during the final battle : If you go stand where you can be surrounded by archers you are inviting death
Make friends : You can invite friends to your matches and you can join them wherever they are playing, even in a private match
Need more cloth?
Create cheap staff upgrades from your other resources, then salvage them for bonus cloth
(Thx to Kalgerion Beast for this tip)
Tips for reviving
A common mistake is to try and revive a ally when there are still very dangerous enemies in range. The Red Templar Shadow is a prime example, he will kill then kill anyone who tries to revive his victims. Do everything you can to take him out first. Other examples include reviving allies when there are half a dozen archers shooting at you, take out as many archers as you can before you revive. Avoid trying to revive anyone when you are being targeted by the Red Templar Commander, his combos will kill you and the person you are trying to revive.
+For warriors with shields: Try and revive while having your shield pointed at the enemies for much better defense
Tips for being revived
If you are being revived you may want to crawl towards an ally or away from enemies, depending on the situation. Tanks prefer that you crawl to them. more vulnerable classes prefer that you crawl away from enemies. Whichever the case, if you can crawl to safety behind a wall or pillar you should definitely do so. DO NOT MOVE WHEN BEING REVIVED, this can make it harder to revive you when the reviver is still vulnerable to disruption.
+For characters with Scenting Blood (Reaver, Katari, Assassin, Avvar). If a character has SB it has a much faster crawl whenever it is near an enemy with low health, which is very often when things get tough.
Getting the chests on perilous
If you are a beginning or intermediate player, do not play perilous for the gold.
-Treasure rooms have powerful guardians that can easily cheapshot players, this will lower your chances of completing the mission succesfully
-Veteran players have a highly reduced interest in gold and may not help you
-DO NOT OPEN A ROOM IF YOUR TEAM IS ELSEWHERE
The best potions
-Jar of Bees : Very good for low difficulty boss fights, but rare
-Mighty Offense Tonic : Because this tonic adds to your base weapon dmg it gives an enormous boost to mages, a very good bonus to rogues, but only a slight bonus to two-handed warriors
-Lyrium Potion : A common potion that provides a serious boost to mage attack and mana reserves, not as good as Mighty Offense Tonic though.
-Healing Mist Grenade : A good bit of health for you and nearby teammates
-Rock Armor Tonic : Now adds 200 points of armor, greatly reducing damage from physical attacks
Casting an Area of Effect spell (on consoles)
I am talking about skills like Firestorm, Static Cage or Horror. If you spend a lot of time dragging these you are doing it wrong. You have a white crosshair that determines which enemy you are targeting. By strafing and shifting the camera you can move this crosshair onto other enemies. An AoE spell will automatically be placed directly underneath the enemy you are targeting. Lightly moving the spell towards you, away from you, lef or right will determine wether or not you miss or hit several targets at once. Be careful though as this also applies to Barrier and missing with Barrier can have tragic consequences. To resolve this aim the camera downwards before casting Barrier.
These AoE spells do not spawn underneath the targeted enemy (on consoles)
-Firestorm
-Fire Mine
-Ice Mine
Strafing tips
Bows are less accurate than staves, here are some tips to improve your accuracy.
-Moving backwards while shooting greatly increases accuracy
-When an enemy is moving across the screen you want to strafe in a the direction opposite of where the enemy is going. So when an enemy is moving to your left, you go right and when he goes right you go left.
Types of Venatori mages and the effects of their barrier (not very important below Nightmare)
The mages come in 3 types: Electric, Fire and Ice. This type determines which elements and status effects they are resistant to. Electric resists paralysis, Fire resists burning and Ice resists frozen. On sight you cannot tell which is which, but there's a trick. The mages cast deadly elemental mines, but each mage only casts mines of his own type. Ice can be recognized by his blue mines, Electric by purple and Fire by orange. Now Venatori Mages have the ability to pass on their elemental resistances to the targets they give barrier. So a Venatori Fire Mage can half the damage from fire for his companions, a nightmare Venatori Mage can reduce damage taken from that element to 1. Status immunities do not transfer. Elemental weaknesses are overruled by the barrier buff.
Red Templar Behemoth and his annoying Red Lyrium Wall
RT Behemoth cast this big red wall to separate teammates, trap victims, frustrate melee attackers and block small enemies from being targeted by ranged allies. Here are some abilities that can break the wall (does not activate cooldown)
-Shield Bash
-Mighty Blow
-Charging Bull
-Stonefist
-Walking Bomb, but only if an enemy explodes
-Korth's Might
-Explosive Shot
-Throwing Blades
-Veilstrike
-Wrath of Heaven
-Hakkon's Charge
-Elemental Mines
-Firestorm
-Crushing Leap
-Payback Strike, if you were recently hit
-Leaping Shot's tier 2 charged arrow
to be updated
The attack-cancel exploit
Normally a basic attack sequence consists of a four hit combo (more for daggers). If you are at all unsatisfied by the speed of that combo you can try the attack-cancel to speed it up. You wait until you landed your first hit, then hit L3, the sprint button. You will return to your starting position in the combo. By spamming L3 with proper timing you can hit an enemy a lot faster in a fashion much resembling an old-school hack-and-slash animation. Alternative to L3 you can use "press and hold" skills like Shield Wall or Block and Slash, which even provides a chance to block/counter with these abilities.
Abilities that don't cancel Stealth
-Knockout Powder
-Knockout Bomb
-Poisoned Weapons
-Spike Trap (patch 10) Required upgrade before patch 10
-Yallegro’s Dwarven Champion (Damaging Legionnaire) now with Flying Dwarf variation
Patch 10 Walking Fortress' upgrade no longer reduces cooldown times. Consider using Livid instead
(Walking Fortress' duration has been increased from 6 to 8 seconds. It is falsely listed as lasting 10 seconds.)
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
Patch 10Blood Frenzy passiveis now much better, from 0.5% to 1.5% dmg increase per 1% health lost
Skills
Shield Bash
-Lots of damage, breaks through blocks and causes knockdown
-Without tier 2 it is a clumsy move for closing the distance to a foe
-Useless for hitting a fleeing foe, even with tier 2
-Lead with a basic attack, then follow up with Shield Bash to increase your accuracy
-Devastates guard on enemies, even on tier 1 (Less so on nightmare)
-It can hit several enemies if they are adjacent to the legionnaire
-Shield Bash can punch holes in the Red Templar Behemoth's Red Lyrium Wall
Payback Strike :
-You have to be hit before you use it or it or it is not worth using
-It doesn’t matter if the hit is blocked, negated or countered
-you can use Payback Strike to recover from knockdown, stun, chill, weakness etc
but not burning or frozen
-It hits every foe adjacent to the legionnaire even if they’re behind him
-It’s a terrible move for closing the distance to your target, don’t use it for that
-If you haven’t been hit, Payback Strike can be blocked
Counterstrike
-The taunt of taunts, has immense range
-Can deal a lot of damage
-Especially effective against groups of warriors
-Greatly enhances the efficiency of Payback Strike
-Does not offer much defense against magic or arrows
-Best followed by Walking Fortress
Walking Fortress
-You cannot be knocked down, frozen, chilled, burned etc while it is active
-You can use it to recover from status effects like knockdown, stun, weakness etc
-Mind the brief duration and long cooldown time, use only when necessary
-Tier 2 Walking Fortress loves the beam attack of Despair demon and Arcane Horror
Lunge And Slash
-Deals two hits worth 300% wpn dmg each
-With the upgrade dmg increases based on range and cooldown is negated from a range of 5m or more
-It is generally better to leap from too close than from too far, you risk missing, putting you at even closer range
-There's no reason to not use the skill from short range
-You risk becoming flanked when using this and losing your frontal shield bonus
-The second hit can easily hit several enemies
-May not deliver the dmg you need when on a high difficulty, switch to Payback Strike then
Intro
This build gives you two attack abilities, one big special ability and lifeline skill Walking Fortress. Notably you can’t block, you only have one taunt and you don’t have War Cry or To the Death to feed you guard throughout the fight. Here’s why that is good.
You don’t want Shield Wall because it chokes your stamina and stops you from actually killing your attackers. You don’t want to taunt too much because then you need guard generation and Shield Wall just to handle the attention and it devastates offfense. No offense means you can’t get kills, which means no lifedrain. This means the legionnaire has problems managing health, which makes them cautious to take any actual hit.
In short you end up with a scared little turtle that can’t carry the game.
Using your skillls
To compensate for defense you get tons of knockdown, mostly from Shield Bash and Payback Strike but Counterstrike is a knockdown move as well and can be worth a small killstreak in damage. Shield Bash is your main attack , use it it to break through block and shields and take down dangerous targets. Trying to hit a target by repeating Shield Bash can get a bit clumsy, so use basic attacks to close the distance and follow up with Shield Bash or Payback Strike. Payback Strike is more circumstantial, you need to have been hit for it to deal good damage and a knockdown. Use it whenever you abosrb a hit. Counterstrike will maximize Payback Strike’s eficiency, giving you many targets to knock down in one fell swoop. There’s two good times to use Counterstrike, at the start of a fight to get your guard up and let the enemy waste their damage on your brief invulnerability, or when a mass of enemies is going after your team mates. Be careful to use Counterstrike when Walking Fortress is recharging
Frontal defense
Besides knockdown and brief invulnerability, you will need to learn how to use your frontal defense. I cannot stress this enough, the difference in defense from the front and anywhere else is a difference of night and day. This only increases when you get the relevant passives that up your frontal defense. The front is an area covering about 180° wherever the legionnaire is facing. Always try and keep yourself facing the largest amount of enemies possible. Do not blindly rush forward to get yourself flanked. If you do get surrounded it’s time for Counterstrike or Walking Fortress. If that is not a option, retreat to get your enemies on one front. Also, if you have to retreat : Jump, jump, jump. It really helps
Getting enemy attention
Finally, the best way to get your enemy’s attention without a taunt is to swing your sword in his face. Do whatever you can to get in the way of charging warriors, get between an archer and his target and chase down targets that moved past you with your basic attack. Chasing down is risky however as you allow yourself to be flanked. Do not chase down warriors when still facing archers.
-Get Turn the Bolt (according to Waveband, the dmg reduction mechanic of this passive works very poorly on higher difficulties, do NOT get Turn the Bolt, do get Turn the Blade)
-Get Flow of Battle (unless you have poor critical chances)
-You have Counterstrike or Walking Fortress, now get the other
-Upgrade Walking Fortress
-Upgrade Payback Strike
-Get some passives, I recommend Hamstring and armor buffs
Why not to get
War Cry
-Good defensive qualities but...
-Very short range, at that range you might as well go for a knockdown rather than bait a few enemies.
-If you want to draw enemy attention Counterstrike does a much better job
-From hearsay: Armor buff diminishes drastically over 10 seconds
Lunge and Slash
-A very damaging skill but...
-Can be blocked (less of a problem now)
-Will cause you to become flanked
-Doesn't negate damage with a knockdown like Payback Strike and Shield Bash
To the Death
-Only effective if the enemy can stay alive for a while
-Doesn’t increase your tanking ability as much as you hope it does
-Bad cooldown time
Grappling Chain : Great Description but a clumsy move in practice and worse is that it doesn’t actualy stun anything.
Bear Mauls the Wolves passive: Only effects some melee attacks from the front, disregarding special attacks and archer staggers.
Darkspawn edit: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Fear demon is vulnerable to knockdown but instead of being knocked down it hangs its head and keeps floating
The Rage demon (with barrier) responds to knockdown with a counterattack, after the attack it is incapacitated
Enemies immune to taunt : Big Rage Demon, Venatori brute with guard,Hurlock Alpha (brute) with guard, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) with guard
The Katari
Builds 1 : Yallegro’s Katari Battlemaster
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
Patch 10Blood Frenzy passiveis now much better, from 0.5% to 1.5% dmg increase per 1% health lost
Patch 10Pommel Strikenow does 500% wpn dmg, 700% with the upgrade
(New) how to use Block and Slash
Spoiler
A verycool defensive option that is full of hidden "secrets" raising its appeal.
First the basic knowledge:
Block and Slash drains your stamina while active and the counter itself costs extra stamina.
If you do not have the stamina needed for the swing, you will not counter and be hit instead.
Block and Slash only works on melee attacks
Block and Slash will only works on attacks coming from the front (about 120° in my head)
Advanced Knowledge:
-Block and Slash can hit many different enemies with its swing
-During the Block and Slash animation you can not be knocked down/interrupted
-The upgrade raises damage to 250% wpn dmg
Important enemies that can be interrupted/stunned with Block and Slash
+Shielded Warriors can be stunned if you block their smash attack
+The Shield Charge of those warriors can be interrupted with Block and Slash
+RT Knight cannot be stunned, but if you counter his attack he will not do anything for a few seconds.
+Assassin combos can be interrupted but their Flank Attack (going into stealth) cannot be blocked.
+The charge of the Great Charging Beasts (Druffalo) can be interrupted with block and Slash
Important knockdown attacks that can be negated with Block and Slash
+Smash and Shield Charge of Shielded Warriors
+Charge attacks of the Great Beasts
+RT Behemoth Smash
+Brute type Knockdown attacks
+Dragon strikes
Intro
The katari makes for a strange presence on the battlefield, part armored knight, part angry footballplayer. Its role is to oversee the situation while gaining guard with every strike (a passive bonus that isn’t explained anywhere in the game) and using tactical abilities to turn the situation to your advantage. It is not a very damaging class but he’s sturdy and does a good job distracting enemies. The damage he does also increases as you face more enemies at once.The Battlemaster was devised to give you the best balance of damage, survivability and tactical abilties the katari can offer.
The Skills
Block and Slash
-Deals 250% weapon dmg with the upgrade
-Negates a melee attack and counters with a wide swing that knocks enemies down
-Much better in my opinion than Shield Wall and infinitely better than Parry
-Only works on attack coming from the front (about 180° wherever the katari is facing)
-Very effective against enemies that get stunned when blocked (Red Templar Knight, Assassins, Warriors with Shields
-Do not use against : Pride Demon, Big Rage Demon, Venatori Brute, Chest Revenant
-Great at stalling for time before using War Horn/Charging Bull/Mighty Blow
-You can catch a blow intended for an ally
-Can fail against enemies standing higher or lower than you.
Charging Bull
-The katari’s signature ability, great damage, knockdown and guard generation
-Your charge will start in the direction the katari was facing when you activated it
-Your rate of turn is slow, try going for enemies that are already on one line
-Keep charging until you are past your last target, otherwise the hit may not register
-It is good to follow Charging Bull with War Horn or Mighty Blow
-DO NOT ATTACK WHILE TRIGGERING CHARGING BULL, IT WILL STOP EARLY
-Dive Roll improves your ability to do full length charges
-Dive Roll costs you points and Block and Slash
-Charging Bull can charge through the Red Templar Behemoth's Red Lyrium Wall
Mighty Blow : There ‘s a lot to love about this skill. It’s got a big AoE knocking down everything in front of the katari and anything that touches the crater it produces. And it has a short cooldown time. It has two downsides : a large stamina cost and an annoying auto-target system that prevents you from aiming this splash attack to full effect. It is one of the best skills the katari has for preventing damage and new players are advised to read the section on enemies immune to knockdown.
Also: Mighty Blow can be used to create holes in the Red Templar Behemoth's Red Lyrium Wall
War Horn : I see very few players use this skill, which is strange because of its awesomeness. War horn prevents even more damage than Mighty Blow, has a much larger AoE and affects targets behind the katari as well. The reason it is unpopular is because the Panic effect is largely misunderstood. According to ingame description Panic is a confuse effect that ends when an enemy is attacked. Because one may assume that enemies are constantly barraged by attacks, how could it stay active for long ?
Well quite a while actually and here’s 3 reasons that make inflicting panic sound good
-First of, a panicked enemy is programmed to ignore the first and sometimes even second attack after being panicked, so they stay panicked even if you were hitting them.
-Second, even if you attack a panicked enemy immediately, the duration it stays harmless is comparable to that of a knockdown or stagger, with the potential for lasting much longer.
Other good things about War Horn
-War horn tier 2 now hits things,(100% weapon dmg) Rampage counts these hits
-War horn tier 2 now hits things, counting towards the Katari’s guard generation
-Breaks through blocks
-Works on many enemies immune to knockdown (Pride Demon, Red Templar Knight,…)
-War Horn deals 1200% wpn dmg to guard
How to use
You start out by learning how to use Charging Bull
-Hold the button until you are past your last target (otherwise you may brush/miss)
-Do not try to attack while trying to charge, this may cancel Charging Bull
-Try to hit enemies that are on one line
-Try to reach archers
After hitting/missing the last target follow with War Horn or Mighty Blow rely on Block and Slash when your need for defense is great and you just cant use Mighty Blow or Warhorn at the moment. Mighty Blow is a great move for intercepting enemies heading for you or your allies. War Horn is an attack dealing 100% weapon dmg, use it abundantly. When your abilities are cooling down strike away at your enemies to up your guard and wait for an opportunity. For your survival it is often important to charge your way to enemy archers, to use Mighty Blow/War Horn there.
immune to panic: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to panic without his barrier
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to panic: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Shriek Assassin, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
Enemies immune to panic : Fear Demon, Big Rage Demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Red Templar Shadow, (often) White Venatori Mages, (often) Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Chest Guardians, Bosses
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Assassin (Cull the Herd is now twice as powerful, doubling damage against isolated targets)
Patch 10 Spinning Blades now removes debuffs from your target and puts them on other nearby targets
Patch 10 Stealth now offers invulnerability to various attacks
Builds 2 :
- Yallegro’s Shadowdancer
-Yallegro’s Poison Beast
Intro
As assassin your first task is taking out the most dangerous target with Hidden Blades. From there you move to weave in between enemies and stab every ranged attacker or other weak enemy (darkstalker, gibbering horror) to death. When that is done you move to stab the remaining tough enemies in the spine. The Shadowdancer will allow you to do just that, putting a heavy emphasis on Evade and giving you an extra trump card (Spinning Blades) for taking down tough enemies or slashing your way out of an ambush. The Poison Beast aims to do the same but relying more heavily on passives, it never stops the stab and roll routine, leaving enemies to suffer while it evades attacks and places poisonous puddles all over the place.
Important to know is that the Shadowdancer won't have all relevant skills till lvl 16, the Poison Beast is ready a lot earlier.
The skills
Evade :
-Quite damaging once you get the hang of it
-Very tiny hitbox
-Bait melee enemies into touching your “clone“
-Very good for getting around the battlefield
-Very good for setting up backstabs
-Very effective against melee enemies
-Not effective at all against ranged attackers (no worries, you’ll stab those)
-Rolling against an enemy may damage it
-Best way to avoid damage while still dealing 300% weapon dmg to a melee enemiy is to roll backwards, then yo-yo back in and out, rolling in other directions is riskier
-More effective when alternating with Stealth
-Can be used to spread poison around with Poisoned Weapons
-When trying to damage it helps if I think I can kick an enemy with my feet as I roll
Hidden Blades
-Extremely damaging at 1800% weapon dmg
-Is a ranged attack
-Reserve for the most dangerous target
-Hitting the wrong enemy is painful, use R3 to lock on properly
Spinning Blades
-Very damaging at 900% weapon dmg (tier2)
-Deals only 375% weapon dmg at tier1
-Triggers a staggering combo
-Quite good at hitting multiple foes
-DO NOT ATTACK WHILE TRIGGERING SPINNING BLADES, IT WILL CANCEL
-The combo can be broken by an enemy
-Takes a long time to get
Poisoned Weapons
-Ignores armor so does more dmg than you think
-The dmg increase on tier 2 is false, it is 10% not 25%
-Can be spread to several enemies at once using the Evade clone.
-Can be activated from Stealth
-Improves your stab and roll routine, but if you’re no good at that, this won’t be good
-The puddles created by Explosive Toxin deal direct poison dmg and poison enemies. --> 100% wpn dmg/tick in the puddle
How to use
The core build
Your daggers have the best “lunge“ ability of all melee weapons, whenever an enemy tries to move past you, chase him down with your quick daggers. Most people get Hidden Blades first but the first skill I get is Evade. The use of Hidden Blades is pretty obvious, you use it from range on the most dangerous target. Because you can easily hit the wrong target, try to use R3 once a while to lock on to the target you want to kill. Evade is much trickier. It is a great skill to jump from target to target, use it stay ahead of warriors and reach deadly ranged attackers. It is also a great skill to reach the backside of enemies where you can do much more damage with your daggers.
As a damage skill it is most effective against melee enemies. When a lone warrior is about to hit you, roll backwards, you’ll avoid his attack and the clone will damage him. Then you stab your way back towards him and repeat. Do this a few times and the warrior is dead and you are healthy. When you are also facing ranged attackers it gets more compicated. It may be best to roll towards a ranged attacker and just roll away when a warrior comes near. Or you can damage the warriors with your Yo-Yo Roll and Stab until they’re further away from the archers, then leave them and go for the archers.
While Evade is great for short distances, if you need to cover a lot of ground it is much better to use Stealth. If you are walking towards a group while cloaked, try not to uncloak untill you are behind the last enemy. This will give you the highest amount of backstabs and enemies won’t notice you as quickly.
With Spinning Blades
You can use Spinning Blades as a weaker Hidden Blades to take down strong enemies. You can use it to deal lots of damage to groups. Do not attack while triggering Spinning Blades as this can make it cancel. With tier 2 it can knockdown a foe or two.
With Poisoned Weapons
As soon as you’ve thrown Hidden Blades use this ability to start your stabbing routine. Remebmer that Evade clones spread poison as well while this is active, so use Evade when you are inside a group. Because you’re inflicting poison you can switch targets more freely as you can rely on the poison to deal the last blow. It is up to you to switch targets quickly or rush a kill so the enemy can turn into a poison puddle.
-Get your last passives I recommend Hamstring and I was never There
The Shadowdancer
-Get Cull the Herd
-Get Hidden Blades
-Go get Evade to tier2
-Get Spinning Blades to tier2
-If you got good critical chances you can manage stamina with Cheapshot
If you don’t you’ll have to get Dance of Death
-Get Stealth to tier2
-Pick your last passives, I recommend Hamstring
Why not to get
Shadows Strike : Man is this move clumsy, it looks great until you actually try to hit stuff with it. Especially trying to hit them from behind is a nightmare
Flank Attack : It can be blocked. It is very difficult to hit something properly with it and the cooldown triggers for misses as well. It doesn’t do a lot of damage
Twin Fangs : It has always been hard to hit things with this. Now it even doesn’t do any significant damage unless you flank.
Fallback Plan : It has a better cooldown time now but it still leaves you immobilized a lot and you have to manually trigger it, it won't save you if you actually die. Also eats a lot stamina
Deathblow : An inherently good skill, it is just impractical to have a damage skill that only really works when enemy health is below 50%. Spinning Blades or Poisoned Weapons are better abilities, in my opinion.
Important Status Immunities : The Assassin
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Fear demon is vulnerable to knockdown but instead of being knocked down it hangs its head and keeps floating
The Rage demon responds to knockdown with a counterattack, after the attack it is incapacitated
Enemies immune to poison : (often) Pride demon, Demon Wraiths, Chest Guardians
WARNING : This build will challenge your ability to concentrate and multi-task.
Most people play the elementalist as an alternative keeper, sticking to barrier spamming and using Wall of Fire and Firestorm for their defensive merit. I’m here to tell you that that is a waste of a very powerful class. The hyperactive mage is a high dps mage that can switch effortlessly between defensive fighting and full out offense. All you really need is to replace Firestorm with Stonefist and adapt your playing style somewhat. Stonefist is a knockdown spell that will be by your side all the time, combines terrifically with Immolate, shreds archers, stops assassins/Despair demons and deals double damage to the many enemies weak to spirit dmg. Oh, and it inficts the sleep effect quite a lot.
Why I don't like Firestorm
-Doesn't deal a lot of dmg, and only deals it slowly
-Very dependent on Flashpoint and your critical chance
-Takes forever to cast and aim
-Will only knockdown nearby enemies or faraway enemies but rarely both
The Skills
Immolate :
-An extremely damaging skill, but mind enemies resistant to fire and/or burning
-Very few enemies are immune to burning
-You’ll need some skill to before you can use it properly
+When you have a white crosshair on an enemy, Immolate will be auto-aimed underneath that enemy. Use this instead of dragging Immolate towards them
+After auto-aiming, dragging Immolate a bit to right/left/backwards/forwards will determine wether or not you miss or hit multiple enemies
Barrier :
-Probably the most powerful skill in the game
-Tier 2 is great for reducing cooldown times
-always try and cast on as many players as possible, for defense and reduced cooldown times (tier 2)
-Never cast barrier without casting it on yourself as well
-Avoid dragging barrier for long, rather move yourself closer to your target(s)
-Don’t be afraid to tank when barrier is active
-When choosing who to give barrier, take in mind these priorities
+1 Never let the best performing players die
+2 Don’t run after headless chickens if that means dropping nearby allies
+3 Protect the targets most in need of defense : Rogue, 2handed warrior, necromancer
- Barrier has a slightly larger area of effect than the animation suggests.
-Barrier may be auto-aimed at an enemy when you have a white crosshair on one, causing barrier to miss. To avoid this aim the camera at the ground before casting.
-When fighting a High Dragon the area near the trebuchets and steps distorts the aim of barrier, take more time to aim barrier when near these structures
-Don’t just cast Barrier where you stand, drag it a little towards allies while casting
Stonefist
-A devastating spell if you can summon enough mana to use it.
-Very innacurate, try to aim for non-moving targets
-Highly effective against archer groups, nearby warrior mobs and assassins
-Complements very well with Immolate
+Stonefist knocks down small enemies
+Immolate burns away large enemies immune to knockdown
+It is much easier to aim Immolate at enemies that have been knocked down
-always aim for the largest/most dangerous group of enemies
-Aim for the many targets weak to spirit dmg
-Quite frequently inflicts the Sleep status effect
-Improves synergy with arcane warriors with Restorative Veil
-Stonefist now successfully triggers a Rupture combo
-Can punch holes in the Red Templar Behemoth's Red Lyrium Wall
Wall of Fire
- Acts as a kind of fly catcher for enemies by halting and confusing them with panic
-Deals significant fire dmg, but its burn is weaker than that of Immolate
-When possible, cast inside Static Cage, Blizzard, Pull of the Abyss etc
-Extremely effective against all dragonlings and animals in general
-Does not uncloak assassins, but the burn does make them more visible
-Try and place on natural choke points
-You can frustrate melee enemies by going back and forth through Wall of Fire
How to build
There’s two ways to go about this : the offensive path which takes you to master the skills of the destruction tree first and the defensive path which takes you through the control tree first. Both have its merits. The defensive path is for obvious reasons the most suitable for taking on heavy challenges early on. The offensive path is more suitable for getting the mission high score, killstreaks and golden kill medals etc, all of which get you a bit more exp. Because the offensive path still gets you Death Siphon to manage your health you don’t have to worry about being a glass cannon.
-Get Guardian Spirit then put two points into Barrier
-Grab Gathering Storm to better manage Immolate and Barrier
-Go down the destruction tree to get Death Siphon
-Put two points into Stonefist
-Get Wall of Fire
-Get in any order Wall of Fire tier2 and Strenght of Spirits
-I never know what to do with the last two points, you already have the good stuff
The offensive path
-Get Immolate to tier2
-Make your way towards Death Siphon and get it
-Get Stonfist to tier2
-Get Wall of Fire or start making your way towards Barrier
-Get Gathering Storm after getting Barrier
-Get in any order Wall of Fire tier2 and Strenght of Spirits
-I never know what to do with the last two points, you already have the good stuff
How to use (starting from the defensive path)
Once you have Barrier and Immolate the playing style is much the same to that of the keeper, instead of Chain Lightning you use Immolate and you won't suffer many mana problems when cycling between these two. Tips on auto aiming Immolate can be found above in the skill section, always try and hit a target weak to fire. As for using barrier keep your mind on your surrounding and always try and stay close to your allies. If a single ally runs of, stick to your remaining team. If two allies run away from you (for instance two warriors) then stick with them. Trying to cast Barrier on yourself and two allies every time is golden and allows you to recast Barrier whenever it ends. Always stay with the majority of your team. Prioritise defending vulnerable allies like rogues, reavers and necromancers. You'll have Winter's Stillness and Gathering Storm fairly early so if you can pick a good spot to spam basic attacks you'll improve the cooldown on Barrier and Immolate and your mana supply, don't be afraid to run though when enemies get close.
You still have Winter's Grasp but you should reserve most of your mana for Barrier. If you can however it is a very good idea to freeze the following enemies: Terror demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Assassin and Arcane Horror Chest Guardian.
Once you have Stonefist things get a lot more fun. With its fast cooldown time it can be used to knockdown most threats and stagger whole groups. You'll also be inflicting be helping out any arcane that's got Restorative Veil. The area damage and stagger is great for groups, use strafing to get past a lone warrior running towards you and land Stonefist on a group of archers, which like cluttering into tight groups. Knocking a foe down lets Immolate do more burning damage, and it makes it easier to hit the enemy/group with Immolate if you have not already done so. It is your move of choice if you spot:
-An assassin: gotta drop these before they kill you
-Red Templar Horror: Needs to be disrupted and is weak to spirit dmg
-Venatori Mage: Best disrupt these fellows and they're often strong against fire
Immolate is better for enemies that can't be knocked down but also smaller enemies like Gibbering Horror and most Demon wraiths (they can't be knocked down) They're both extremely effective if you can aim for the center of a group.
Wall of Fire has a different function. It is not as damaging as Immolate and doesn't incapacitate as quickly as Stonefist. But it last a long time and costs much less mana to maintain than either Stonefist or Immolate. So you can rely on Immolate and Stonefist to get you through a short battle but when a battle drags on you better summon Wall of Fire. Try and keep an eye on the minimap, if you see movement in that red mass, enemies are probably heading towards you and you better place Wall of Fire on a chokepoint. What I've also found effective is to place Wall of Fire underneath yourself when you are already surrounded. In my experience it will do its share of damage as you won't have the mana to Immolate everything.
Once I have everything my mind goes something like this. (Need Defense) -->(cast Barrier), (Need Knockdown) --> (Use Stonefist), (Need damage) --> (Immolate), (Need Sustained Effect) --> (Wall of Fire)
Barrier in particular needs a lot of your mana, so if your party needs your barrier spam you should conserve energy, cast Wall of Fire and use Stonefist/Immolate less often.
On combining Wall of Fire with Immolate and Stonefist
Enemies can only have one burning effect active on them at any time. And the effects do not replace one another (thx Yarpen for this tip). So Wall of Fire does not replace your Immolate burn but Immolate can also not replace the weaker Wall of Fire burn. In practice this is less of a problem than you think. When you cast Wall of Fire there may be enemies already past the wall and you can freely hit them with Immolate. All kinds of ranged attackers tend to cluster in front of Wall of Fire, you can freely hit these with Immolate. Enemies scatter when Wall of Fire makes them panic, reducing the chance that they'll cluster into a group and you'll want to hit them with Immolate. Still, when you see an enemy burning, don't cast Immolate on them. There is no such restriction for Stonefist. Wall of fire does have some grouping ability as enemies halt just before they run of panicked. Exploit these groups with Stonefist instead of Immolate.
Why not to get
Veilstrike : It does no damage, it has a long cooldown time
Flashfire : Not a bad ability but inferior to Wall of Fire or Stonefist
Firemine : Placing this takes time and because of the delay time it cannot be used as a replacement for Immolate. Immolate/Wall of Fire/Stonefist are much more flexible abilities. Still, if you love it go with it.
Lightning Bolt : Is currently undergoing testing as the cooldown time has been halfed, but since it is essentially a more damaging version of Winter's Grasp I don't see it replace any of the above skills.
Firestorm :
-Long cooldown time
-Takes forever to cast and aim
-Limited damage and it is slow to deliver it
-Will often end up hitting either archers or warriors but not both
-May actually get quite good if you have a high critical chance and know how to exploit flashpoint, but assuming your critical chance is low I wouldn't recommend it
Chaotic Focus (passive): While this can sometimes give you an advantage this passive can never be turned of, in a tough situation you will find yourself defensively crippled if you take this passive.
Veiled Riposte: Because enemies are designed to deal low dmg and have high health, the dmg this passive provides is close to laughable. Even on Nightmare it makes no mathematical sense.
Stormbringer: Deals 300% weapon dmg every 15 seconds. Or 20% weapon dmg every second. May hit an enemy that has alrdy died or is resistant. That is bad.
immune to panic: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to panic without barrier
immune to frozen: Ben-Hassrath assassin, Saarebas, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
immune to burning: There are no qunari immune to burning but several are resistant to fire dmg
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to panic: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Shriek Assassin, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
immune to frozen: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Sha-Brytol Mage
Note that you can freeze both assassin types and the Emissary
immune to burning: Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Darkspawn Boss
Enemies immune to sleep (always): Despair demon, Fear demon, Pride demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Assassins, Venatori Mages, Giant, Chest Guardians, all bosses except the Red Templar Commander
Enemies immune to sleep (conditional): All enemies under the effect of barrier or guard. Great Beasts with guard (like the Druffalo) are an exception. (Big) Rage demon
Enemies immune to frozen : Fear demon, Pride demon, Despair demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Shadow, Black Hooded Venatori Mages are often immune, Great Beasts (Druffalo) but not dragonlings and Great Lizards, Revenant Chest Guardian but not Arcane Horror Chest Guardian, Bosses except Venatori Commander.
Important enemies that can be frozen : Rage demons (shrink when frozen), Terror demon, Red Templar Behemoth, White Venatori Mage, Venatori Assassin, Venatori Commander, Arcane Horror Chest Guardian, Great Lizards and dragonlings.
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
Enemies immune to burning : Rage Demons, Fire Wraith, Red Templar Behemoth, (often) Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Venatori Commander
Enemies immune to panic : Fear Demon, Big Rage Demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Red Templar Shadow, (often) White Venatori Mages, (often) Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Chest Guardians, Bosses
Important Elemental Weaknesses/Resists : Elementalist
Enemies weak to fire dmg : Despair demon, Red templar knight, Great Beasts (Druffalo), Cold Wraiths, Chest Guardians, Frost Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies weak to spirit dmg : Fear demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Horror, Chest
Guardians, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies strong against fire dmg : Rage Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Fire Wraith, Venatori Mages Fire type, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings, Venatori Commander, Darkspawn Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Darkspawn Boss, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) and Qunari Shieldman
Enemies strong against spirit dmg :Darkspawn Boss, Saarebas and nightmare green Wraiths
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The Keeper
Builds : 1
-Yallegro’s Golden Standard Keeper
Experienced players will find little surprising about this build. People may differ on some small details but the definitive keeper has Chain Lightning, Barrier and Static Cage as this trio of skills stands head and shoulders above all alternatives.
The skills
Chain Lightning
-Very damaging, dealing 1500% weapon dmg if it can chain between enemies
-Is deadliest when it can chain between 2 enemies, dealing each 750% weapon dmg
-Briefly staggers targets
-Is good for disrupting blocking warriors, helping your melee fighters
-Does not stagger : Despair Demon, Mages and assassins
- Is very good at uncloaking enemy assassins and Fear demons
-Not very effective when aimed at solitary targets, dealing only 250% weapon dmg
Barrier :
-Possibly the most powerful skill in the game
-Tier 2 is great for reducing cooldown times
-always try and cast on as many players as possible, for defense and reduced cooldown times (tier 2)
-Never cast barrier without casting it on yourself as well
-Avoid dragging barrier for long, rather move yourself closer to your target(s)
-Don’t be afraid to tank when barrier is active
-When choosing who to give barrier, take in mind these priorities
+1 Never let the best performing players die
+2 Don’t run after headless chickens if that means dropping nearby allies
+3 Protect the targets most in need of defense : Rogue, 2handed warrior, necromancer
- Barrier has a slightly larger area of effect than the animation suggests.
-Barrier may be auto-aimed at an enemy when you have a white crosshair on one, causing barrier to miss. To avoid this aim the camera at the ground before casting.
-When fighting a High Dragon the area near the trebuchets and steps distorts the aim of barrier, take more time to aim barrier when near these structures
-Don’t just cast Barrier where you stand, drag it a little towards allies while casting
Static Cage
-Very effective against warriors
-Very effective against fleeing enemies like Despair demon, Terror Demon and Venatori Mages
-Works against the Demon Commander
-Paralyes and inflicts shocked
-Very effective against cloaked and uncloaked assassins
-Does not trap the Arcane Horror Chest Guardian
-Not likely to outdamage Chain Lightning on lower difficulties
Fade Step
-Good for evading a mob of warriors
-Good for getting out of range of archers and getting behind cover
-Often risky when used to damage enemies
-It is very hard to pinpoint your destination when not moving in a straight line
-Is good for reaching far away allies to protect or revive them
How to use
Keep your mind on your surrounding and always try and stay close to your allies. If a single ally runs of, stick to your remaining team. If two allies run away from you (for instance two warriors) then stick with them. Trying to cast Barrier on yourself and two allies every time is golden and allows you to recast Barrier whenever it ends. Always stay with the majority of your team. Prioritise defending vulnerable allies like rogues, reavers and necromancers. You can start by alternating between Barrier and Chain Lightning. If the enemies are tough, cast less Chain Lightning to save mana for your barrier. Once you have Winter’s Stillness and Gathering Storm try and pick a good spot and use as many basic attacks as possible between your spells. Before you have these passives, move around as much as possible to cast Barrier on as many allies as possible. Static Cage is powerful but reserve it for large groups and use Chain Lightning on smaller groups.
If a small group harbors assassins however, use Static Cage as quickly as possiblle. When fighting a large battle it works well to cycle Static Cage, Barrier, Chain Lightning, Static Cage, Barrier, Chain Lightning. I recommend getting Fade Step to reach far away allies and escape deadly boss attacks, assassins and knockdown
How to build Yallegro’s Golden Standard Keeper
Two ways to go about it and I can’t decide which is best.
One version goes down the protection tree, gets all the relevant Barrier passives and Guardian Spirit then Static Cage. After that it goes down the primal spirit tree to get Gathering Storm.
The other just upgrades Barrier and Chain Lightning then gets Winter’s Stillness and Gathering Storm. After that it gets all the relevant Barrier passives and finishes with Static Cage. This version is more damaging with a much faster and more powerful Chain Lightning and is able to recover Barrier more quickly
I suppose I’ll call the first the Tactical path and the other the Spammer path
-choose to spend your last points, I recommend Fade Step and Mana Surge
Spammer
-Upgrade Barrier
-Upgrade Chain Lightning
-Go get Winter’s Stillness
-Get Guardian Spirit
-Get Gathering Storm
-Get Knight Protector passive
-Get Strength of Spirits
-Get Static Cage tier2
-choose to spend your last points, I recommend Fade Step and Mana Surge
Why not to get
Disruption Field
-Can only be placed underneath the keeper, limiting its effectivity
-Has a rather small AoE
-Because of the small AoE it won’t slow down many enemies
-Can catch arrows, but because of the small AoE it is not very effective for protecting your whole party
-High mana cost
Lightning Bolt : The circumstances for this to be effective will occur only a stark few times throughout a game. Just stick to Chain Lightning
Mind Blast
It doesn’t do anything, an exaggeration but not by much
Veilstrike
-Long cooldown time
-Many dangerous enemies are immune to knockdown
Veiled Riposte: Because enemies are designed to deal low dmg and have high health, the dmg this passive provides is close to laughable. Even on Nightmare it makes no mathematical sense.
Stormbringer: Deals 300% weapon dmg every 15 seconds. Or 20% weapon dmg every second. May hit an enemy that has alrdy died or is resistant. That is bad.
immune to paralyzed: Benn-Hassrath Assassin, Saarebas, Qunari Shocktrooper WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
immune to sleep: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to sleep without barrier
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
immune to paralyzed: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Sha-Brytol Mage
Note that the Darkspawn Boss is vulnerable to paralyzed, he is not vulnerable to other status effects
Immune to sleep: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the shriek assassin is vulnerable to sleep
Enemies immune to shocked: Electric Venatori Mage (1/3 mages), Storm Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Horror
These important enemies can be paralyzed : Dragonlings, Rage demon, Fear demon, Despair demon, Red Templar Shadow, Venatori Brute, Venatori Mages, Venatori Assassin
These important enemies can not be paralyzed or contained : Pride Demon, Big Rage demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Great Beasts, Chest Guardians (except zombies)
Note that dragonlings can be paralyzed but not trapped by static cage and static cage traps but doesnt paralyse the Demon Commander. I don’t think the Red Templar Commander can be trapped. The Venatori Commander cannot be trapped
Shocked enemies that are weakened are afflicted with sleep instead (courtesy of Yarpenthemad)
(List of sleep immunities courtesy of Wavebend)
Enemies immune to sleep (always): Despair demon, Fear demon, Pride demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Assassins, (White only) Venatori Mages, Giant, Chest Guardians, all bosses except the Red Templar Commander
Enemies immune to sleep (conditional): All enemies under the effect of barrier or guard. Great Beasts with guard (like the Druffalo) are an exception. (Big) Rage demon[/spoiler]
Important Elemental Weaknesses/Resists : The Keeper
Enemies weak to cold dmg : Rage demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Fire Wraiths, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies weak to spirit dmg : Fear demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Horror, Chest
Guardians, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies strong against electricity dmg : Red Templar Horror, Spiders, Pride Demon, Storm Wraith, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies strong against spirit dmg : Darkspawn Boss, Saarebas and nightmare green Wraiths
Enemies strong against cold dmg : Despair demon, Red Templar Knight, Cold Wraith, Chest Guardians, most Great Beasts (Druffalo), Frost Dragon and dragonlings, Sha-Brytol Mage, Qunari Spearman and Qunari Shocktrooper (brute)
The Alchemist
Patch 10Elemental Mines now deal 225% weapon dmg each. Go play Alchemist
Patch 10 Stealth now offers invulnerability to various attacks
Builds 1
-Yallegro’s Full Dwarven Alchemist
Intro
Spoiler
The most interesting trick the alchemist has is to use Flask of Fire to throw an amazing amount of Elemental Mines. I can easily throw 5 Mine volleys if I am not interrupted. Each mine volley is worth 2025% weapon dmg, not counting burning damage and the additional mines. (a full bar of stamina is worth another 4050-6075% wpn dmg). So that is at least 10125% wpn dmg I throw onto the floor. Now they won’t all effectively hit enemies for all kinds of reasons but a large quantity of damage remains. Especially effective is when you can spam 5 volleys onto a single tank.
Without this trick your alchemist is just an assassin without Hidden Blades and Flask of Frost instead (also no Cull the Herd). I didn't want to make an assassin imitation because the alchemist doesn't even have price moves like Deathblow, Hidden Blades or Spinning Blades. I didn't include Stealth for several reasons: I don't like Shadow Strike, I wanted the skillslot and Stealth is often abused by players to survive a match while doing nothing. In the end I had an alchemist that had only alchemy skills and performed better than all the alchemists I had made before. Enjoy
The moves you’ll have are Flask of Fire, Elemental Mines, Contact Poison and Flask of Frost.
These skills were tested as well but proved inferior to the combination of Elemental Mines and Contact Poison : Flank Attack, Shadow Strike
The skills
Elemental Mines
-Very good potential damage, capable of doing 2025-8100% weapon dmg without burning and additional mines (since patch 10)
-Detonating mines stagger foes
-Mines will be thrown in the direction you are facing, do not throw while retreating
-Very tricky to throw onto enemies
-Many mines will not hit a foe
-Mines predetonate when hit by friendly or enemy AoE spells.
-Quite ineffective against enemies already close to you
-Quite ineffective against enemies far away from you
-Try and throw against walls and other objects to shorten the range.
-Can be spammed to great effect with Flask of Fire
-Works with the Savage Thorn guard generation ability
Toxic Cloud
-Deals a lot of damage, contrary to what the skill description may suggest
-Can only be placed underneath the rogue
-Has a short range
-Only the undead Chest Guardians are immune to poison dmg
-Demon Wraiths cannot be poisoned but still take direct poison dmg
-No enemy in the game takes only half dmg from poison
-Damage does not double when used repeatedly wth Flask of Fire
-Due to the range, it is a risky move for a rogue
-Combines very well with Flask of Frost
-Makes assassins visible but does not uncloak them
Flask of Fire
-With the upgrade it is used to spam abilities over and over
-The knockback it provides is not very good
-Ride the Storm combined with Flask of Frost will increase its duration
-Cannot be used to trigger Flask of Frost without cooldown
Flask of Frost
-Very good damage reduction
-Very good for freezing enemies
-Seems to freeze enemies before they can land a blow
-Works on archers if they are close by
-Ride the Storm combined with Flask of Frost will increase its duration
-Combines very well with Contact Poison
How to use
Flask of Frost mode
The most powerful move the alchemist has is probably Flask of Frost. This ability functions as a Walking Fortress that is also a War Cry and freezes just about anything that comes near you. You’ll still need those taunted foes dead before it wears of though and that’s where Toxic Cloud comes in. Toxic Cloud has a short range and can only be created directly underneath the alchemist. This is why it combines wonderfully with the damage reduction and taunt of Flask of Frost. With Contact Poison in place your DPS is about 200-300% of what it would have been had you only been using your daggers. And that is for a single target, Toxic Cloud will hit everything in the area, and enemies that leave will still suffer from poisoning.
Flask of Fire mode
You will be alternating between Flask of Frost and Flask of Fire throughout the game. Flask of Fire is mostly there to spam Elemental Mines but throw in a free Toxic Cloud as well, whenever you can. To be able to spam Elemental Mines you must not use Elemental Mines outside the Flask of Fire duration. If you have gotten the upgrade for Elemental Mines, the stamina cost acts as a kind of safety ( if you are out stamina then you cannot use Elemental Mines after Flask of Fire has ended). This safety is not perfect however as you can regain stamina through the Dance of Death passive. To be really safe, watch the Flask of Fire icon appearing above your skills and don’t use Elemental Mines when it is gone. With Flask of Fire and without Ride the Storm you can be sure of using Elemental Mines 4-5 times. Toss these mines against walls and other objects to shorten their range. Try and walk up to a group to toss the mines directly onto them. Toxic Cloud complements your minespam as the poisonous area covers the area directly around you (which the mines cannot reach). When facing foes coming from all directions, try tossing mines in opposite directions to create two deadly barriers at once.
While you should safe Elemental Mines for Flask of Fire, Toxic Cloud can be used more freely and in combination with Flask of Frost.
If you are being attacked by melee enemies try moving back a little to put a giant cluster of mines between you and them.
-Get Toxic Cloud to tier2 (A bug allows you to get the benefits of the upgrade with just 1 point invested)
-Get Flask of Fire tier2
-Get Elemental Mines to tier2
-Get Flask of Frost tier2
-Get Explosive Toxin
-Get Ride the Storm and Killer Alchemy
-Grab whichever passives you want
Why not to get
Shadows Strike : Man is this move clumsy, it looks great until you actually try to hit stuff with it. Especially trying to hit them from behind is a nightmare (opinion)
Flank Attack : It can be blocked. It is very difficult to hit something properly with it and the cooldown triggers for misses as well. It doesn’t do a lot of damage
Twin Fangs : It has always been hard to hit things with this. Now it even doesn’t do any significant damage unless you flank.
Parry : Very vulnerable to lag
Poisoned Weapons :
-Not better than Contact Poison
-Not better than tons of mines (opinion)
-Will not be buffed by Cull the Herd like it would be for the assassin.
Knockout Bomb : A lot of enemies are immune to sleep, I'd rather spam mines than sleep and I'd rather spam mines than use Elemental Mines once than use a Knockout Bomb. See here for a full list on sleep immunity: http://forum.bioware...eference-guide/. Comatose upgrade does nothing.
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to sleep without barrier
immune to frozen: Ben-Hassrath assassin, Saarebas, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
immune to frozen: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Sha-Brytol Mage
Note that you can freeze both assassin types and the Emissary
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
Enemies immune to poison : Pride demon With Guard, Demon Wraiths, Chest Guardians
Enemies immune to frozen : Fear Demon, Pride Demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Shadow, Black hooded Venatori mages (half the time), Great Beasts (Druffalo), Revenant Chest Guardian, Red Templar Commander, Demon Commander
Important enemies that can be frozen : Rage demons, Terror demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Assassin, Venatori Commander, Arcane Horror Chest Guardian, Great Lizards (except one) and dragonlings
Patch 10 Walking Bomb can now no longer be triggered early but has higher explosion damage.
Patch ?? Walking Bomb and Horror can now deal critical hits
2 builds :
-Yallegro’s Classic Crowd Curser
-Yallegro’s Speedy Necro
Both these build start out the same way but one goes on to acquire Blizzard and Ice Armor whereas the other then acquires all kinds of cool offensive passives. Performance whise the necromancer with Blizzard is the strongest, dealing more damage and being able to absorb much more damage. The downside is that it takes a long time to acquire the necessary abilities and passives meaning this necromancer won’t be fully operational untill level 15-17. The other necro has all relevant skills by level 12 and can enjoy cool passives and tier 2 abilities as soon as possible
The skills
Winter’s Grasp
-Very incapacitating against lone targets
-Immune to terrain irregularites and blocks
-At tier2 it deals 400% weapon dmg to the primary target
-Can be used to freeze Arcane Horror Chest Guardian, Venatori Assassin, Red Templar Behemoth and the Venatori Commander
-Not very effective at damaging groups (tier2)
-Chill is a fairly minor status effect
-Very interesting combo with Virulence
Horror
- Can critical hit
-Incapacitates many dangerous enemies immune to knockdown and/or frozen
Examples : Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Venatori Brute, see below for full list
-The area of effect grows a bit bigger at tier2
-At tier2 if only costs 35 mana
-At tier2 it deals considerable damage to groups
-At tier2 use it to deal double damage to targets weak to spirit dmg
-Does not incapacitate Bosses, assassins or Chest Guardians see below for a full list
Blizzard
-Allows for use of Ice Armor
- Does double damage to many enemies that appear in large groups such as Rage demons, deepstalkers and gibbering horrors
-Outside the damage area, there is a much larger area that still chills foes
-Tier 2 removes cooldown from Blizzard, allowing it to be spammed and canceled at will
-Combines well with other AoE abilities and extremely well with Static Cage
-only rarely freezes foes, even with tier 2 (12 seconds required)
-Virulence doubles or triples the rate of freezing but it still doesn’t happen consistently
-Will have to be moved a lot to keep it effective
-Cancelling Blizzard can get a bit clitchy
Walking Bomb
-Can critical hit
-Must have tier2
-DOES NOT REQUIRE TARGET TO DIE BEFORE SPREADING, use the manual trigger
-Devastating damage and knockdown when triggered inside a large crowd
-As innaccurate as Stonefist, aim carefully
-Strafe away from lone warriors to take aim at groups of archers further away.
-Not very helpful against lone targets
-If the first target survives the trigger it is no longer affected by Walking Bomb
Flashfire
-Faster casting time than Winter’s Grasp
-Quite accurate but vulnerable to terrain irregularities
-Can be blocked by shields
-Very effective against Despair demons
-Has a rather low damage potential
-Gives the necro a fire spell
-Killing an enemy with it + Virulence will spread panic
-Helpful for triggering Virulence on a frozen target.
Rush your necro down the gravelord tree to acquire Death Siphon as quickly as possible. This skill dramatically increases your survivability. Get Walking Bomb up to tier2 then get Gathering Storm and Horror Tier2. Here’s where the builds split off.
Classic Crowd Curser Specialization
Get down and get Blizzard, then Ice armor and Blizzard Tier2. Make sure you have Virulence and Power of the Dead. You could opt to replace Winter’s Grasp with Fade Step
Speedy Necro Specialization
Spend your points on :Flashfire, Winter Stillness, Winter’s Grasp Tier2, Virulence, Power of the Dead, Unsullied Victim, in that order. Or you can choose to put points into Fade Step rather than Flashfire
How to use
Core Build :
As the necro you have the ability to seriously incapacitate enemies from a safe distance, but you will need to know which enemies are vulnerable to frozen and which are vulnerable to panic so consult the tips on status immunities I listed below. Use Horror and Winter’s graps on the most dangerous enemies vulnerable to their effect. With tier2 Horror becomes a seriously damaging spell, especially on the many enemies weak to spirit dmg. Read the section on auto-aiming to make the most of Horror. Walking Bomb is the most destructive spell you have but it is only effective when used on a group of significant size. Always try and hit the center enemy of a group that hasn’t noticed you yet. Don’t waste it on a group of only two enemies unless you are out of other spells. Walking Bombs spreads when you manually trigger it so time this as well as possible. Walking Bomb can be tricky to aim, it is vulnerable to all kinds of terrain irregularities such as steps or railing. It travels in a straight path so it may hit a warrior charging at you instead of the intended target and it may simply miss. To minimize this take your time aiming at an unsuspecting group and strafe to get a better look at crowd further away. Both Horror and Walking Bomb are quite effective at short ranges. Boss Commanders make natural targets for Walking Bomb as both players and enemies tend to crowd around them, use them as your default target (DONT IGNORE THE ARCHERS).
As necro you will be spending a lot of time spamming basic attacks to shorten your cooldown times. If you havn’t got Winter’s Stillness kite as much possible, and even with Winter’s Stillness you should kite a lot to avoid attacks and spot better targets for your spells.
Classic Crowd Curser :
You now have big powerful spell to throw on enemy groups and dead enemies will continue to fuel the spell and your other spells. Some things about Blizzard : It can be turned on and off at will. It has got a hidden « chill radius » much larger than the damage radius. You only need to be next to the chill radius to activate Ice Armor. The damage radius isn’t huge and you will have to move it a lot to keep it effective. Blizzard will make your Horror and Walking Bomb more effective and your necro will be able to take a lot more hits. If you start a new fight I find it best to use Walking Bomb and Horror, then activate Blizzard with the rest of the mana. Blizzard might deactivate but you can just start it back up once enemies start dying. Use Blizzard to keep yourself afloat while Horror and Walking Bomb recharge. Try and stay close to your blizzard but if you spot an archer group there’s no harm in throwing Blizzard/Walking Bomb/Horror on them and retreating behind a wall untill they’re all dead. Summon Blizzard whenever it is handy, if you need some help killing a single foes or just need protection while targetting an archer group. If your team fails to kill enemies however, you will choke. And in these situation it very helpful to have Fade Step to buy time until your mana returns. Fade step will also help you reach your Blizzard or leave it quickly when too many enemies crowd around you.
Note : I no longer get Fade Step for this build, instead I keep Winter’s Grasp. But I’m quite hard to take down and I’m very knowledgable about when it is better than Horror or Blizzard.
Speedy Necro :
You are much more flexible and nimble than the crowd curser. You are also more effective against lone targets. As a cost, you are more vulnerable to damage and have to rely on Walking Bomb and Horror to do any significant damage.
Take in mind the following order
1.Flashfire :very effective against single targets/ Almost no effect against groups
2.Winter’s Grasp :Very effective against single targets/ Reasonable effect against groups
3. Horror :Reasonably effective against single targets/ Very effective against groups
4. Walking Bomb : Ineffective against single targets/ Extremely effective against groups
When engaging enemies it is important to know which spell is best to use. So when you are dealing with lone targets, you use Flashfire first, then Winter’s Grasp and then Horror. You don’t use Walking Bomb against a lone target unless you have no choice.
When you spot a large crowd the order is reversed and you try to use Horror and Walking Bomb first and Winter’s Grasp and Flashfire last. Once you have Virulence you can forfeit your natural tendency to cast Winter’s Grasp on still healthy targets. If you now kill an enemy under the effect of Winter’s Grasp you will freeze several targets at once. The panic of Flashfire is trickier to spread as you have to kill an enemy with Flashfire to spread it to other enemies (thx for this tip). Either way Flashfire will help you kill an enemy that is frozen. The panic produced by Horror is almost impossible to spread around. As I recommend you get Winter’s Stillness for this build you will be able to cast a lot of spells will standing still indeed but be cautious. You are vulnerable to damage and you have poor means of escape (unless you opted to replace Flashfire with Fade Step). Make sure you read my list on status immunities below.
NOTE : If you don’t like one of the a abilities I suggested, you can replace it with Energy Barrage. Energy Barrage is not a perfect ability but it does help the necro take down single targets, something they’re otherwise not very good at.
Why not to get
Spirit Mark :
-Enemies are designed to have high health and do low dmg
-Players are designed to have low health and do high damage
As a result your minion may do disappointing damage if you are decently strong (still true on nightmare)
-A lot of minions are clumsy and spend a lot of time ignoring or missing enemies.
Energy Barrage : A good bit of dmg potential but lacks the ability to incapacitate like Winter's Grasp, Horror, Walking Bomb and it leaves you vulnerable while casting
Ice Mine : A cheap way to get ice armor but lacks the flexibility of Winter’s Grasp and the damage of Blizzard
Fade Cloak : Fade Cloak gives you the idea that it is a good idea to get close to an enemy with the necro, it isn’t. Also you can’t receive barrier during Fade Cloak, which is tragic when it happens. However, many powerful and skilled players have used it in combination with Fade Step for a good bit of fun and damage dealing.
Important Status Immunities : Necromancer
Appreciating the chill status effect : A simple movement speed decrease which yields several small but tangible advantages
-Enemy warriors take longer to reach ranged characters and are more predictable
-Enemies can be kited more easily, if you don’t know what kiting is --> google
-Melee characters can run down enemies much more easily (THIS IS IMPORTANT)
-Causes enemy warrior charge attacks to fail as they "misjudge the distance"
immune to panic: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to panic without barrier
immune to frozen: Ben-Hassrath assassin, Saarebas, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to panic: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Shriek Assassin, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
immune to frozen: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Sha-Brytol Mage
Note that you can freeze both assassin types and the Emissary
Despair demons are immune to frozen but not to panic, panic is very effective against despair demons
Terror demons are immune to panic but not to frozen
small Rage demons are vulnerable to panic and frozen but big Rage demons are immune to panic.
Fear demons are immune to both panic and frozen
Pride demons cannot be frozen but are vulnerable to panic
Red Templar Knights are immune to frozen but not to panic
Red Templar Behemoths can be frozen but are immune to panic
The Venatori Commander can be frozen
White Venatori Mages are often immune to panic
Black Hooded Venatori Mages have varying immunities.
Red Templar Shadows are immune to both frozen and panic but Venatori Assassins can be frozen
The Revenant Chest Guardian is immune to panic and frozen but the Arcane Horror Chest Guardian can be frozen.
Surprisingly, Frost dragonlings can be frozen and chilled.
Important Elemental Weaknesses/Resists : The Necromancer
Enemies weak to cold dmg : Rage demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Fire Wraiths, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings,Darkspawn Emissary
Enemies weak to spirit dmg : Fear demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Horror, Chest Guardians, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies strong against cold dmg : Despair demon, Red Templar Knight, Cold Wraith, Chest Guardians, most Great Beasts (Druffalo), Frost Dragon and dragonlings,Sha-Brytol Mage, Qunari Spearman andQunari Shocktrooper (brute)
Enemies strong against spirit dmg :Darkspawn Boss, Qunari and nightmare green Wraiths
The Reaver (The reaver now regenerates health on hit by default)
Builds 1
-Yallegro’s Advanced Reaver
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
Patch 10Blood Frenzy passiveis now much better, from 0.5% to 1.5% dmg increase per 1% health lost
Patch 10Pommel Strikenow does 500% wpn dmg, 700% with the upgrade
Yallegro’s Advanced Reaver
The advanced reaver is fully devoted to the use of Dragon Rage and has a much larger damage output than the basic reaver. I recommend dropping Mighty Blow for Combat Roll. Combat Roll allows you to instantly recover from knockdown/stun or the Demon Commander’s panic attack and get back to hitting and killing things. This is important because the reaver needs to hit things (Rampage/Auto-heal) or kill things (lifedrain) to stay alive. It will also save some stamina so that you can use Rampage without delay and allow you to occassionally dodge warrior mobs and archer fire.
Devour
-You'll be using this skill for a while
-Heals a little but is most effective as a quick stun move.
-Use it to intercept charging warriors before they strike
-Use it to interrupt archers
-Use it to break through blocking
-After using Devour there is a delay time before you can start attacking again
-Devour will likely miss a target standing lower than you.
Dragon Rage
-Holding Dragon Rage triggers an alternative basic attack
-The combination consists of two single hits followed by a double hit
-The double hit deals double damage
-The game remembers where you are inside the combo for a while, for example you can kill a foe with the first two attacks, then walk up to a new foe and land the double hit
-Dragon Rage does not regenerate health with Rampage (except when a bug occurs)
-During Rampage Dragon Rage costs no health
-Dragon Rage can be blocked by warriors ! Avoid enemies that can block !
-Switch to the basic attack when blocked, this breaks their block for some reason
-Has a large hitbox, easily hitting several enemies at once
-Dragon Rage is extremely good at hitting enemies that have been knocked down
-Except when using Rampage, the basic attack is better for lunging at enemies
-Dragon Rage does not regenerate stamina on hit
War Horn : I see very few players use this skill, which is strange because of its awesomeness. War horn prevents even more damage than Mighty Blow, has a much larger AoE and affects targets behind the reaver as well. The reason it is unpopular is because the Panic effect is largely misunderstood. According to ingame description Panic is a confuse effect that ends when an enemy is attacked. Because one may assume that enemies are constantly barraged by attacks, how could it stay active for long ?
Well quite a while actually and here’s 3 reasons that make inflicting panic sound good
-First of, a panicked enemy will the first and sometimes even second attack after being panicked, so they stay panicked even if you were hitting them.
-Second, even if you attack a panicked enemy immediately, the duration it stays harmless is comparable to that of a knockdown or stagger, with the potential for lasting much longer.
-Third, the reaver exploits panic by combining two passives :
Deathblow and Flow of Battle. Together they increase damage against panicked by a lot and cut significant seconds of Rampage’s cooldown time.
Other good things about War Horn
-War horn tier 2 now hits things,(100% weapon dmg) Rampage counts these hits
-War horn deals 1200% wpn dmg to guard
Rampage :
-Increases dmg output by about 44 percent
-Best used for healing mid-battle than for increasing dmg at full health
-Best used with Greatsword or Greataxe because
+ they hit faster than a maul
+ they can hit muliple enemies
+ they are more effective at hitting moving enemies than the maul
- Does not actually heal 20 percent of your max health per hit, as you level up and your max health increases it heals noticably less
- A bug can cause Dragon Rage to not regenerate health with Rampage, switch to your basic attack when this happens
-This bug rarely occurs when you are hitting large enemies/bosses with Dragon Rage
Combat Roll
-With the upgrade you recover from knockdown/stun/panic
-You do not recover from burning (how illogical :-/)
-Dodge behind walls to escape archer fire
-Use it to escape when facing too many warriors
-Can be used to flank enemies, avoiding their ability to block
How to use
Even with Dragon Rage you will still use the basic attack a lot because it is better for lunging at enemies, breaking block, regenerating stamina and regenerating health. What I tend to do is lunge towards an enemy with the basic attack, check that my health is regenerating, then finish them of with Dragon Rage. Dragon Rage can be blocked so try and kill things like archers, Red Templar Horror, and Large enemies before trying the warriors. You can break their block by using either Mighty Blow or War Horn. Switching to your basic attack after being blocked with Dragon Rage somehow breaks through their block (this does not work on warriors with shields). War Horn is now a serious damage skill, so use it freely whenever you are inside a mob or need to panic a tough enemy. Still, War Horn is most effective for when you are facing a lot blocking warriors, when you are taking too much damage or need to slash seconds of Rampage's cooldown time, using the Flow of Battle and Deathblow passives. Use Combat Roll to get back up from every stun and knockdown (also works on the Demon Commander’s panic ability). If you are not regenerating health (during Rampage) while using Dragon Rage, switch to the basic attack immediately to get you back to full health, then try again. The reaver is quite vulnerable to archer fire, make the most of natural cover and just quickly kill the archers before they kill you.
Don't forget that War Horn can do 1200% wpn dmg to guard, which is especially helpful on nightmare, but also against all High Dragons and Pride demons
immune to panic: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to panic without barrier
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to panic: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Shriek Assassin, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
Enemies immune to panic : Fear Demon, Big Rage Demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Red Templar Shadow, (often) White Venatori Mages, (often) Black hooded Venatori Mages, Chest Guardians, Bosses
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Templar
Builds 1
-Yallegro’s Vanguard
Patch 10 Line in the Sand now locks the player in the wall. I have not been able to test how this effects gameplay.
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
If you’re going to play templar, you’re going to need Wrath of Heaven and Spell Purge. Together these abilities form a devastating spirit dmg combo and it is by far the strongest combo any multiplayer character can perform. On top of that Wrath of Heaven makes you a menace to demons by default. There are other skills the templar can take but you will never build a more damaging templar if you leave out the wrath of heaven combo.
Concerning the other two skills you can take along there’s a bit more room for experimentation. I strongly recommend Shield Bash for the damage and knockdown it provides. For the fourth skill you can choose between Horn of Valor, Line in the Sand or just keep Shield Wall and spend the extra points on passives.
Line in the Sand is the best thing the templar has to make up for its lack of good taunts and guard generation. By halting enemies from moving past you they will be forced to confront the templar, making Line in the Sand an indirect taunt. Line in the Sand will also keep enemies on the templar’s front where its defenses are much stronger, so Line in the Sand indirectly ups your defenses.
Horn of Valor is a hard ability to rate, doing a lot right and a lot wrong.
The good :
-Is easy to get for a Wrath of Heaven build
-Doesn't actually add a real 35% increase, more like 20% per individual, stil decent when added up (courtesy of Yarpenthemad)
-Since the recent armor buff it now adds greatly to your armor rating (+15%)
-Can be used a lot
The bad
-Drains vital stamina away from the Wrath of Heaven combo which needs 100 stamina
-Standing still exposes the templar to danger
-Using it wastes opportunities to use Wrath of Heaven/ Shield Bash to full effect.
-Unimpressive buff when you have few people in the room
-Doesn’t help much if your team consists of noobs
I would advise people stick with either Shield Wall or Line in the Sand untill they have enough experience managing their stamina with a Wrath of Heaven build. You’ll also need experience at discerning oportunities where you best use Wrath of Heaven/ Shield Bash from opportunities where you can better use Horn of Valor (Enemies are too far away or too spread out).
The skills
Wrath of Heaven
-Devastating against demons
-Devastating against all when combined with Spell Purge
-Range is similar to that of barrier
-Can be made to damage mages and several red templar units with Mageslayer passive
-Long cooldown time
Spell Purge
-Mostly used for a combo with Wrath of Heaven
-Can be used to dispel magical mines
-Can be used to dispel the Storm Dragon’s special attack from you and allies
-Does not fully dispel most enemy barriers
Shield Bash
-Lots of damage, breaks through blocks and causes knockdown
-Without tier 2 it is a clumsy move for closing the distance to a foe
-Useless for hitting a fleeing foe, even with tier 2
-Lead with a basic attack, then follow up with Shield Bash to increase your accuracy
-Devastates guard on enemies, even on tier 1
-It can hit several enemies if they are adjacent to the templar
-Enemies that are getting up from being knocked down will not be knocked down again
Line in the Sand
-Need tier2 to be of significant size
-The wall has a hole in the middle where the templar cast the spell, occupy it if you can
-Only appears directly around the templar
-Will be facing wherever the templar was facing when it was cast
-Enemies may glitch through it
-Despite many failings, still useful for managing frontal defense and Wrath of Heaven
Horn of Valor
The good :
-Is easy to get for a Wrath of Heaven build
-Has unlimited range
-Increases the damage of every party member by 20% at tier2 ( is not 35%) (courtesy of Yarpenthemad)
-Since the recent armor buff it now adds greatly to your armor rating (+15%)
-Can be used a lot
The bad
-Drains vital stamina away from the Wrath of Heaven combo which needs 100 stamina
-Standing still exposes the templar to danger
-Using it wastes opportunities to use Wrath of Heaven/ Shield Bash to full effect.
-Unimpressive buff when you have few people in the room
-Doesn’t help much if your team consists of noobs
How to use
Get Shield Bash as quickly as possible and use it to damage, break blocks and knockdown dangerous enemies. Get Wrath of heaven to tier2 before getting Spell Purge, this solves some practical problems with triggering the combo in only 2 seconds. Once you have it is important to realise that the Wrath of Heaven combo is a trump card and not something you can use to consistently like Shield Bash. Try and hit at least 3 targets when unleashing the Wrath of Heaven combo. A good way to get a lot of targets is to head straight into a large mob, just be careful not to get knocked down. If after using WoH you don’t have enough stamina for Spell Purge, just hit a stunned enemy until you regain enough stamina, this should usually save the combo. After using WoH try and hold your exact location, Spell Purge and WoH have the exact same range and if you move a little you might miss a stunned enemy with Spell Purge. You should use your fourth skill as little as possible to save stamina for the combo, but use Shield Bash to your heart’s content.
Appreciating the Mage Slayer passive
Obviously you will do more damage to mages with this passive but there are several other creatures affected by this passive namely: Red Templar Horror, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Shadow, Red Templar Behemoth and all the Chest Guardians. These enemies will take 700% weapon dmg from Wrath of Heaven and will take 10% extra dmg from everyone in the party because of the Champions of the Just passive.
Frontal defense
Besides some knockdown and a killer combo, you will need to learn how to use your frontal defense. I cannot stress this enough, the difference in defense from the front and anywhere else is a difference of night and day. This only increases when you get the relevant passives that up your frontal defense. The front is an area covering about 180° wherever the legionnaire is facing. Always try and keep yourself facing the largest amount of enemies possible. Do not blindly rush forward to get yourself flanked. If you do get surrounded it’s time for Wrath of Heaven. If that is not a option, retreat to get your enemies on one front. Also, if you have to retreat : Jump, jump, jump. It really helps
Getting enemy attention
Finally, the best way to get your enemy’s attention without a taunt is to swing your sword in his face. Do whatever you can to get in the way of charging warriors, get between an archer and his target and chase down targets that moved past you with your basic attack. Chasing down is risky however as you allow yourself to be flanked. Do not chase down warriors when still facing archers.
Fourth skill tips, when do you use them ?
Horn of Valor
-Enemies are too spread out for Shield Bash or WoH
-You are covering from archer fire and it is too dangerous to leave that cover
-You are fighting a boss
Line in the Sand
-A Large mass of enemies is headed towards you
-You are worried about getting surrounded
-You want to protect allies behind you
-You are retreating, might as well leave a wall behind
Shield Wall
-You are low on health and cant use Shield Bash or WoH
-You want to block a boss attack (which generate enormous amounts of guard)
-You want to block a Chest Guardian attack which generate enormous amounts of guard)
-You have stepped on a magical mine
-Shield Bash will stun warriors with shields if they attack you (Shield Bash is still better)
-You want to disrupt a fierce combo (assassins, Red Templar Knight,…)
-Remember that blocking with low stamina makes the block fail at the cost of stamina.
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
Enemies immune to stun : Same as knockdown but wraiths can be stunned
Important Elemental Weaknesses and resists : Templar
Enemies weak to spirit dmg : Fear demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Horror, Chest Guardians, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies strong to spirit dmg: N/A (these enemies can't be stunned)
Patch 10 Spike Trap has cooldown reduced from 12-->8 seconds and the upgrade now adds bleeding dmg
Patch 10 Elemental Mines has damage/mine increased from 100 to 225% wpn dmg
Patch10Stealth now offers invulnerability to various attacks
THIS GUIDE IS DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR USE WITH THE GRIFFON BOW or Hakkon's Wrath . If you take any other bow you may not like the playstyle I’m suggesting here.
Intro
I remember my first question when looking at the hunter: "How is he any different from the archer". This saboteur build exemplifies that difference, a short range archer that uses deadly traps. Recent buffs for traps and hunter passives have made this strategy only more appealing
- +25% damage for enemies within 10m (On the Razors Edge)
- Doubling of trap damage
- +50% increase to the power of Throwing Blades
The griffon bow is best suited for such a playstyle because it can easily hit several targets at mid-short range, but even more importantly BECAUSE IT CAN LAND 3 ARROWS AT ONCE ON THE SAME TARGET and only if you are at point blank range.
Spike Trap VS Elemental Mines
Let’s start of by stating that they are both good traps. Spike Trap is best at close range. You can effectivily blow up the enemy right in front of without having to take damage, making Spike Trap a rogue equivalent of Shield Bash or Fade Cloak. Spike Trap is also the better trap for doing damage to a single target. The short range of Spike Trap also has a downside. You can throw Elemental Mines on a group of enemies of enemies that are a little further away. You can throw them on enemies moving past you or on enemies attacking a nearby ally. Spike Trap can’t do that. Elemental Mines also has a better chance of exploding and disrupting at least some enemies. The wide range it covers makes Elemental Mines infintely better at uncloaking assassins. Spike Trap needs to be placed diretly onto an enemy or directly in front of an enemy headed towards you. If you don’t do that there’s a good chance it won’t hit anything. By comparison Elemental Mines can be thrown almost carelessly in the direction of some enemies and they may very well be effective that way. Damage wise they’re about equal but Elemental Mines has some cool status effects but Spike Trap is much less vulnerable to predetonation than Elemental Mines as it tends to ignore AoE spells.
In Short : Spike Trap is effective at close range. Elemental Mines is effective at medium range and can uncloak assassins.
The skills: If you have trouble managing your health you can replace a skill with Fallback Plan
Explosive Shot
-You’ll be using this for a while until you replace it with Stealth
-Most effective at knocking things down from long range
-Quite effective at damaging a group
-Very helpful aganst Despair demon
-Pitiful against enemies that can’t be knocked down
-You’ll be immobile while aiming which is dangerous
Throwing Blades
-Deals 750% weapon dmg at tier1 (Throws 5 blades, not 4 at 150% each)
-Staggers a foe until the last knife is thrown
-Very good stopping power against a lone warrior or assassin
-The sunder effect is quite trivial if you have a decent bow
-Can only be used at short-medium range
-The stagger effect is considerably reduced if you hit more than one target
Elemental Mines
-Very good potential damage, capable of doing 1000% weapon dmg without burning
-Good for uncloaking assassins
-Detonating mines stagger foes
-Mines will be thrown in the direction you are facing, do not throw while retreating
-Very tricky to throw onto enemies
-Not all mines will hit a foe
-Mines predetonate when hit by friendly or enemy AoE spells.
-Quite ineffective against enemies already in front of you
-Quite ineffective against enemies far away from you
-Try and throw against walls and other objects to shorten the range.
-Much more efficient for the ranged hunter than for the alchemist
Patch 10 Elemental Mines has damage/mine increased from 100 to 225% wpn dmg
Toxic Cloud
-Deals a lot of damage to groups
-Can only be placed underneath the rogue
-Has a short range
-Only the undead Chest Guardians are immune to poison dmg
-Demon Wraiths cannot be poisoned but still take direct poison dmg
-No enemy in the game takes only half dmg from poison
-Due to the range, it is a risky move for a rogue
-Combines very well with Stealth or Fallback Plan
-The only move the hunter has to deal serious dmg to a group
-Can make assassins visible but does not uncloak them
Spike Trap and How to use Spike Trap
-Very good at close range
-Very fast to deliver a knockdown allowing you to use it like a Shield Bash
-Deals 500% wpn dmg which is pretty good for a rogue
-Place Spike Trap in front of an enemy headed towards you
-Has a small hitbox, if you can’t bait an enemy to step on it it probably won’t detonate
-Can hit several enemies at once, but only if they’re directly next to each other
-Can be placed from stealth if you want to get the upgrade
-Unlike Elemental Mines it is not at all effective at uncloaking assassins
-Generally more effective against a boss than Elemental Mines
Patch 10 Spike Trap has cooldown reduced from 12-->8 seconds and the upgrade now adds bleeding dmg
Stealth
-Increases movement speed
-You should move away from enemies while cloaking or you may get hit
-Stealth combines with many passives to increase damage
-It takes a while before you fully cloak and enemies lose sight of you
-Increases dmg of the first attack from stealth by 50%
-Tier 2 heals you of all elemental status effects (burning) but not knockdown, stun etc
-Taking dmg while cloaked makes you uncloak
-Don’t count on it to keep you alive if you have inadequate Heal on Kill %
-Improves your ability to place Toxic Cloud
-Improves your ability to do triple arrow attacks considerably
-Good for getting in a flanking position, which not insignificantly combines with the hunter's innate Cripple/Hamstring
Strafing tips
Bows are less accurate than staves, here are some tips to improve your accuracy.
-Moving backwards while shooting greatly increases accuracy
-When an enemy is moving across the screen you want to strafe in a the direction opposite of where the enemy is going. So when an enemy is moving to the left, you go right and when he goes right you go left.
Griffon bow tips
-Archers are the most desirable desirable target for a triple arrow attack as they get no advantage from being close to you and you get triple damage
-If an enemy if further than 10m it is generally not worth rushing up to them to do a triple arrow attack. Throwing Blades will get you a feel for how far this is.
-You don’t need to approach an enemy already heading towards you, choose to shoot instead
-If an enemy is large you can do triple arrow attacks from a safer distance
-If an enemy is large it may help to circle him at close range to avoid his attacks.
-The Griffon bow is superior to all other bows in regard to slaying a boss
How to use
You start out by using Explosive Shot to knock down threats, Fallback Plan will at least give you some health management. Explosive Shot will continue to be a good friend through the early stages of the build until you can replace it with Stealth. Elemental Mines are best placed where you expect enemies to pass by. Do not wait for enemies to come very close to use your mines or you will throw them over their heads. Sometimes you can throw mines against a nearby wall to shorten their range. Once you have Throwing Blades use it to deal with anything dangerous within range. Don’t be afraid to walk up to a foe to use Throwing Blades as it deals six times the damage of a basic attack. Staying within 10m will also help you hit several enemies at once with your griffon bow and set you up to do triple arrow attacks. Toxic Cloud is best placed within a group of enemies. If the mob is nearby you can strafe towards them and place the trap. If they are further away, drop your basic attack and run to them instead. If they are further than 10m and you have no Stealth, don’t bother and wait for a better opportunity. Toxic Cloud will deal serious damage to a group. After placing Toxic Cloud you can strafe back out, hitting several targets with your griffon bow. Try and stay near the trap to get more enemies to walk in and stay in it. With Stealth you gain a number of tactical advantages. You can use it to shoot triple arrows in an enemie’s back, throw mines into a group of enemies, set up a more powerful Throwing Blades and you can pinpoint Toxic Cloud and place it faster. Stealth will also help you flee from approaching warriors, heal you from deadly burning attacks or electricity traps and just help you cover some ground when you need to.
-Get Elemental Mines tier1 (do not get the upgrade !) Or get Spike Trap tier1
-Get Throwing Blades tier1
-Get Toxic Cloud tier2 (A bug allows you to get the whole skill + upgrade at tier1)
-Get On the Razor's Edge Now increases dmg by 25% within 10m
-Go down the survival tree to get Stealth tier2
-Get Explosive Toxin, Sadism, Knife in the Shadows in any order
-Get Pincushion if you are using the Griffon bow/Hakkon's Wrath
Sadism provides extra stamina whenever you take dmg, even if you have barrier (or guard) active.
Why not to get
Full Draw
-Leaves you immobilized
-Cooldown time is high
-The sleep status effect will never last more than a few seconds (practically)
-Too many ability point required to reach it
Evade
-very small hitbox
-Being a ranged character you will not damage many enemies with it
-Stealth will be more helpful in dealing damage and avoiding damage (imo)
Leaping Shot
Skill has been re-appraised because:
-Blocking of the shots by warriors has gone down significantly, shots now pierce greatshields
-Ability can be used to recover from knockdown
-I've learned a great deal about how to use it properly, see my guide on the archer in the nightmare section
I still feel it doesn't combine terrifically with a short/medium range build but it is at least competitive with skills like Toxic Cloud or Elemental Mines. Without Opportunity Knocks (archer passive) this will not be recharge as fast as it does on the archer!
-Potentially very damaging but...
-Combines horribly with people trying to give you barrier
-The shots can and will miss a lot
-May bring you out of range
-Combines poorly with placing traps and using Throwing Blades because it takes time and moves you back
-Combines very poorly with On the Razor's Edge which is a good 25% dmg bonus
-Consumes too much stamina for combining with the other skills in the build
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger: all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Fear demon is vulnerable to knockdown but instead of being knocked down it hangs its head and keeps floating
The Rage demon responds to knockdown with a counterattack, after the attack it is incapacitated (Happens when his barrier is on)
Enemies immune to poison : Pride demon (when they have guard), Demon Wraiths, Chest Guardians
The Arcane Warrior
Builds 1
-Yallegro’s Earth and Sky Arcane
Note: The Arcane Warrior suffer from a bug that can leave him stuck at 50% mana, use Chain Lightning, Stonefist or Fade Cloak when this occurs. Pointed out by ThatbruhyouDK and Kmeeg
Patch 10 Spirit Blade functionality has changed! It now builds up damage as you deal damage with other sources and expends the charge when you use Spirit Blade. This makes the ability really strong if used rarely and really weak if you just spam it.
Spirit Blade has been nerfed T_T.
But that’s good. Spirit Blade spammers weren’t getting the most out of their arcane anyway. The idea is simple. You get Restorative Veil and tier2 Stonefist to manage your mana. You use Gathering Storm to drastically reduce cooldown times and tear your enemies apart between Stonefist and Chain Lightning. You are now highly effective at long and short range. You are much less hindered by blocking, which was such a annoyance when using Spirit Blade. You generate lots of knockdown and you don’t have to waste time reaching enemies or missing with Spirit Blade.
The skills
Chain Lightning
-Very damaging, dealing 1500% weapon dmg if it can chain between enemies
-Is deadliest when it can chain between 2 enemies, dealing each 750% weapon dmg
-Staggers foes briefly but not always
-Is very good for uncloaking enemy assassins and Fear demons
-Not very effective when aimed at solitary targets, dealing only 250% weapon dmg
Stonefist
-A very powerful spell if you can summon enough mana to use it.
-Combines with Restorative Veil to increase your mana supply
-Effective in almost any situation, single targets, groups, Bosses
-Very innacurate, try to aim for non-moving targets
-always aim for the largest/most dangerous group of enemies
-Mana regain from Restorative Veil is inconsistent
-Aim for the many targets weak to spirit dmg
-Sometimes inflicts the Sleep status effect (when the target is shocked)
-Stonefist now successfully triggers a Rupture combo
Fade Cloak
-Negates all status abnormalities, including knockdown, stun, panic, burning etc
-Deals a lot of damage but has a very small hitbox (area of effect)
-Be careful, you cannot receive barrier while using Fade Cloak
-Too small and light to shake of a whole group of attackers
Spirit Blade
-A fallen ability since the nerf
-Still effective against foes weak to spirit dmg
-Can still hit multiple foes at close range
-Still effective against Barrier and Guard
-Can be blocked
-Slower and less accurate than basic attacks.
Using your skills
Start by using Chain Lightning and recharging it with Gathering Storm. Reserve Spirit Blade for nearby foes weak to spirit dmg. Once you have Stonefist and Restorative Veil, Stonefist becomes your lead attack. Aim it into the center of groups and follow with Chain Lightning to recharge your mana. Recharging your mana doesn’t always work as well, but keep using Stonefist followed by Chain Lightning and you should get plenty of mana for additional casts. Fade Cloak is not for hugging enemies because they’re often too fast, too spread out and trying to hug means no basic attacks, which means no cooldown reduction. Instead use it whenever you get knocked down, stunned or just get too much attention from warriors or archers. Keep using spells and basic attacks while Fade Cloak is active. Your main targets are groups, especially groups of archers which make a great target for Stonefist. If you are facing a lone enemy that just happens to be resistant to your staff dmg, or weak to spirit dmg, you can use Spirit Blade.
Some players prefer Fade Step to Fade Cloak and you’re free to do the same.
However, Fade Cloak protects against knockdown/stun/panic, which is often the one thing that kills an Arcane. Fade Step also screws up your camera a bit, making it harder to aim Stonefist and keep using basic attacks.
-Spirit Blade is an effective alternative to basic attacks when you can hit more than one enemy with a single swing
NOTE : If you have problems managing your mana supply you can take Pull of the Abyss tier2 (instead of Spirit Blade or Fade Cloak) to generate more weakness. Normally your mana supply improves naturally when the fighting gets tougher and you can hit more enemies with Stonefist
-Get your last passives I recommend Combat Clarity, and Conductive Current
NOTE : If you have problems managing your mana supply you can take Pull of the Abyss tier2 (instead of Spirit Blade or Fade Cloak) to generate more weakness. Normally your mana supply improves naturally when the fighting gets tougher and you can hit more enemies with Stonefist
Why not to get :
Mind Blast: Doesn't really do much
Flashfire: Not worth your limited mana when you have Stonefish and Chain Lightning
Veiled Riposte: Because enemies are designed to deal low dmg and have high health, the dmg this passive provides is close to laughable. Even on Nightmare it makes no mathematical sense.
Stormbringer: Deals 300% weapon dmg every 15 seconds. Or 20% weapon dmg every second. May hit an enemy that has alrdy died or is resistant. That is bad.
immune to sleep: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to sleep without barrier
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to sleep: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the shriek assassin is vulnerable to sleep
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
Enemies immune to shocked : Pride demon, Storm Wraiths, RT Horror, Electric Venatori Mage (1/3 mages)
Enemies immune to weakness : Giant, Red Templar Behemoth and Fear demon
Shocked enemies that are weakened are afflicted with sleep instead (courtesy of Yarpenthemad)
(List of sleep immunities courtesy of Wavebend)
Enemies immune to sleep (always): Despair demon, Fear demon, Pride demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Assassins, Venatori Mages, Giant, Chest Guardians, all bosses except the Red Templar Commander
Enemies immune to sleep (conditional): All enemies under the effect of barrier or guard. Great Beasts with guard (like the Druffalo) are an exception. (Big) Rage demon
Builds 1 : Yallegro’s Son of Korth (Now with 3 variations)
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
Patch 10Blood Frenzy passiveis now much better, from 0.5% to 1.5% dmg increase per 1% health lost
Patch 10Pommel Strikenow does 500% wpn dmg, 700% with the upgrade
Intro
The Avvar is a fast moving warrior with access to a devastating splash attack, Crushing Leap. To keep himself alive the Son of Korth uses the combination of Ice Smash, Hakkon’s Charge and Chilled Defense. You won’t just get a lot of knockdown out of Hakkon’s Charge, Ice smash combined with Chilled Defense gives the avvar a damage resistance of 60%. This is the equivalent of more than doubling his health and he still has access to Fire Smash which can increase his damage output by 50%. On top of that he has the War Horn attack. If you’ve seen my Katari and Reaver, you know I love this ability. Fully equiped he is a hard thing to topple and a nightmare to enemies weak to fire and ice.
Edit: I've added two variations on the same build, the Lady's Revenge one is an all out offense variation that cares little for defense, the one with Rage of the Avvar is the most defensive of the three provides some heavy duty defense but is not as flexible as the original
Notes: Offensive Son of Korth with Lady's Revenge
One of the most intensive builds I've played, you hardly have time to use all your skills. What you definitely need to do is avoid canceling Ice Smash with Storm Smash. Likewise when you have Lady's Revenge active or want to activate it, aim to use Fire Smash to increase your damage output. This build is the easiest to complete, having all relevant skills 3 levels before the War Horn version.
Notes: Heavy Duty Son of Korth with Rage of the Avvar (Nicknamed: Mountain Behemoth)
I figured since the Son of Korth aims to have a 60% damage reduction with ice Smash and Chilled Defense, why not go all the way and up damage reduction to 100% (you can't, 80% max). If you add Rage of the Avvar you can do just that. Stand inside a mob and cast it to enjoy 10 seconds of invincibility or near invincibility + Dmg boosts. Still, there aren't as many good opportunities to use Rage of the Avvar than there are to use War Horn and you won't always have all the defensive buffs. When for instance I'm facing a tough Red Templar Horror and Red Templar Knight I'd rather have War Horn then try to Ice Smash+chill+Rage of the Avvar. This build takes just as long to complete as the War Horn version as Rage of the Avvar doesn't need to be tier2 to have the desired effect.
The Skills
Korth’s Might
-An extremely versatile skill
-At tier2 gives 8 sec of +50% damage if you just used a fire skill
-At tier2 gives 8 sec of +35% damage resistance is you just used an ice skill
-Quite a slow ability
-Looks like Mighty Blow but has no knockdown
-Still as effective as Mighty Blow for intercepting enemies and giving them a brief stun
-Can exploit elemental weakness but also suffers from elemental resistances
-The chill caused by Ice smash gives you +25% damage resistance with Chilled Defense
-Korth's Might can be used to create holes in the Red Templar Behemoth's Red Lyrium Wall
Crushing Leap
-Devastating ability with a fast cooldown time
-Huge area of effect
-You deal 25% extra dmg to targets set on fire by this ability
-You will always do a leap before attacking
-Leap becomes longer or shorter depending on how far the target is
-Length of the leap can be altered by speed bonusses or the chill effect
-Use on enemies weak to fire dmg
Hakkon’s Charge
-Has Guard Smasher even if you don't have that passive.
-Always deals cold dmg
-Can knockdown enemies just like Charging Bull
-Much faster than Charging Bull
-You can steer better than with Charging Bull
-Can be used to cover great distances
-The tackle is followed by a more powerful strike that deals cold dmg
-Learn to aim this strike
-More suited than Charging Bull for short bursts that may only hit a single enemy
-Less suited than Charging Bull for lenghty charges, deals less dmg and gives no guard
-CAN BE BLOCKED BY SHIELDS !
-The chill it causes gives you +25% damage resistance with Chilled Defense
-If Hakkon’s Charge is cancelled by an enemy attack, the cooldown is not triggered
War Horn
-Tier2 deals 100% weapon dmg
-Panic works on many enemies, including very powerful ones
-Combines well with Hakkon’s Charge
-Exposes Asssassins (assassins don’t panic)
-When used after Crushing leap it deals an extra 25% damage because of a passive
-Hits enemies behind you
-Tier2 devastates guard
-Can be used to break through blocks and shields
Note: The Chilled Defense passive also activates when you are chilled or frozen
Lady's Wrath
-Can deal critical hits
-Deals "damage over time" two times faster than other DoT abilities (so 40% wpn dmg is actually 80% by comparison)
-Very large AoE
-Somewhat makes up for the Avvar's lack of knockdown mitigation by dealing dmg while incapacitated
-With upgrade it can be active 90% of the time
-Extra interesting with the new factions being so vulnerable to lightning
How to use
The first move you need to master is Hakkon’s Charge. You’ll be relying on this ability to sprint great distances, knockdown foes and setting up Ice Smash. Unlike Charging Bull, Hakkon’s Charge is not suited for charging through endless ranks of enemies. This is because the initial hit of Hakkon’s Charge isn’t very damaging and because Hakkon’s Charge gets interrupted by enemy shields. It is however much better than Charging Bull at simply rushing towards a single enemy and knocking it down (you can also do this at close range). Hakkon’s Charge is followed by a much stronger attack and you would well to learn how to land this on the enemy you just knocked down. Another thing HC is very important for is setting up Ice Smash. Now this can conflict with your other abilities. You’ll often want to use HC to charge towards a group and immediately follow with Crushing Leap or War Horn. I you use Crushing Leap however you replace Ice Smash with Fire Smash forfeiting a powerful defensive bonus. So what I do pretty much all the time is use HC, then Ice Smash then Crushing Leap/War Horn. Skipping Ice Smash usually makes me feel really naked. Another important things to know is that Ice Smash has to hit something or you won’t get the bonus, takes this in mind when using HC. On the whole I would recommend that you use Ice Smash religiously and Fire Smash opportunistically, you don’t need Fire Smash to stay alive, but you do need Ice Smash.
Still sneak in Fire Smash whenever you can. Using Crushing Leap is fairly simple, you reach a mob then plunge. You can use War Horn immediately after or save it for a different mob. Last but not least, the avvar is a master of dealing massive elemental damage so read up on the elemental weaknesses/resists I listed below. If you recognize an enemy weak to ice or fire, know that you can use Fire Smash/Ice Smash to double up on that damage.
Lady’s Revenge : Combines rather well with Hakkon’s Charge but it can cancel your better better Ice and Fire Smash and has no defensive qualities if you don't kill your enemies.
Flurry of Storms : You need an otherwise useless passive (Clear a Path) just to be able to cover the stamina cost, and then it is still only viable inside a mob. Not very versatile, or helpful against a tough enemy.
Chilling Tremor. If the avvar had a third ice skill this might be viable but with the limited chilling options and short range this skill won’t freeze many enemies.
Rage of the Avvar : You have to activate it in a mob, so you take a lot of damage just to cast it and it very rarely functions at maximum capacity. I find it much more efficient to stick to Ice Smash and Fire Smash
Bear Mauls the Wolves passive: Only effects some melee attacks from the front, disregarding special attack and archer staggers.
Pommel Strike
-Very hard to hit something with
-Does not combine with Avvar elemental passives
Grappling Chain : Great Description but a clumsy move in practice and worse is that it doesn’t actualy stun anything.
-Does not combines with Avvar passives
Earthshaking Strike:
-Fire dmg is back to normal so that is not very interesting
-Burn prevents burning by elementalists (Burn doesn't replace burn)
immune to panic: Ben-Hassrath Fire Thrower, Qunari Spearman, Ben-Hassrath Assassin, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, qunari commander
Note that the Saarebas is vulnerable to panic without his barrier
immune to frozen: Ben-Hassrath assassin, Saarebas, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) WITH GUARD ONLY, Qunari Commander
Darkspawn edit: immune to knockdow/stun/stagger: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Sha-Brytol mini brute, Darkspawn Boss
Note that the Emissary is not immune to knockdown/stun/stagger
Immune to panic: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Mega Shield Genlock, Shriek Assassin, Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Sha-Brytol Assassin, Darkspawn Boss
immune to frozen: Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Sha-Brytol Mage
Note that you can freeze both assassin types and the Emissary
Enemies immune to panic : Fear Demon, Big Rage Demon, Terror Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Red Templar Shadow,(often) White Venatori Mages, (often) Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Chest Guardians, Bosses
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
Enemies immune to burning : Rage Demons, Fire Wraith, Red Templar Behemoth, most Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Venatori Commander
Important Elemental Weaknesses/Resists : Avvar
Enemies weak to fire dmg : Despair demon, Red templar knight, Great Beasts (Druffalo), Cold Wraiths, Chest Guardians, Frost Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies weak to cold dmg : Rage demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Fire Wraiths, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings,Darkspawn Emissary
Enemies weak to electricity dmg : Fear demon, Shieldbearing Venatori Warrior, Venatori Brute, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Shielded Darkspawn Warrior, Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Darkspawn Boss, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) and Qunari Shieldman
Enemies strong against fire dmg : Rage Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Fire Wraith, Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings, Venatori Commander,Darkspawn Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Darkspawn Boss, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) and Qunari Shieldman
Enemies strong against cold dmg : Despair demon, Red Templar Knight, Cold Wraith, Chest Guardians, most Great Beasts (Druffalo), Frost Dragon and dragonlings,Sha-Brytol Mage, Qunari Spearman, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute)
Enemies strong against electricity dmg : Red Templar Horror, Spiders, Pride Demon, Storm Wraith, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
The Duelist
Builds 1
-Yallegro’s Elusive Grabber
Patch 10 Bear Maulsthe Wolves now reduces all enemy melee attacks from behind to 1 dmg
Flashing Steel
-The duelist’s best elusive grabber
-Briefly staggers all enemies it hits
-Can grab elusive of a dying enemy
-Combines really well with Keelhaul
-Targets have the have vendetta marks for the best possible damage
Ambush
-You leap forward much further if you target an enemy than if there are no enemies
-Deals massive damage to foes attacking other allies
-is an elusive grabber
-Placing vendetta often aggro’s enemies, foregoing the damage boost
-Very good for reaching enemies
-Taunts an enemy, which is generally a bad thing
-With the upgrade the taunt is an advantage, giving massive stamina regen.
-Ambush will not leap you to an enemy that’s offscreen, use your camera
Bolt
-Play like an archer at the cost of stamina
-The most reliable vendetta placer
-Can be used to finish of weak enemies
-Can deplete your stamina quickly if you overuse it
-Strafe to place vendetta on as many targets as possible
Keelhaul
-Immobilize works on many enemies
-Good damage and vendetta placement
-Works great with flashing steel
-less damage and range than Broadsides
Broadsides
-The duelist’s most damaging move, use as often as possible
-Knocks down the primary target
-effective at short and long range
-Accuracy is decent but not perfect, prefer immobile targets and groups
-Is inconsistent in creating more vendetta marks
-Will hit targets in a radius of 5 m around the primary target
-Will only place vendetta marks when sniping at targets beyond 10m
How to use
Start by using Bolt to place vendetta marks and use Flashing Steel primarily to get some elusive. Strafe a lot to hit as many different enemies with Bolt as you can. Once you have Ambush you can use it to step in after placing vendetta marks. This should help you recover some stamina after using Bolt. Using Ambush properly can get a bit contradictoy. If you hit an enemy with Bolt or Keelhaul to place vendetta, they’ll likely target you, making you lose a 600% weapon dmg bonus. For this reason you’ll use Ambush either as a step in move that grabs elusive or as a move that does massive dmg to an enemy attacking someone else, but not both. If you already have full elusive, do not place vendetta before using Ambush, therefore getting you more dmg. If the target is still alive after Ambush you can try and use Bolt to strafe away from them. If you have chosen to take Keelhaul, reserve it’s use for when you have at least two targets or when you really need a vendetta mark. If you have chosen to take Broadsides you do not need to be as patient, use it whenever you need a big shot but try and aim for a group. Both Keelhaul and Broadsides serve as lead attacks, mind that Broadsides only places vendetta marks at a distance of 10m or more. While your main abilities are cooling down rely on Bolt to place vendetta marks that you can grab later. If I see I’m close to getting Flashing Steel back I always hit the target with Bolt first. When I use Ambush I will sometimes start with Bolt, depending on my need for elusive. This build is extremely effective again the high dragon because you can grab elusive of the dragon faster than it can come up with attacks, and you’ll be taunting it too, so that’s GREAT.
I recommend going down the Step Smartly tree first as this gives you a better balance of Vendetta spamming and Elusive grabbing
-Get Ambush tier1
-Get Flashing Steel tier2
-Get Unyielding (unless you have no or very little lifedrain)
-Go down the No Quarter tree to get Keelhaul or Broadsides
-Get Savvy, Dead men Tell no Tales and Salty Sea Dog (according to Wavebend, the dmg reduction mechanic of this passive works very poorly on higher difficulties, do not get it on difficulties beyond threatening)
Upgrade Broadsides or Keelhaul if you have not already
-Spend your points on Kirkwall Kiss, Black Mark, Avenger and Ambush tier2
Why not to get
Gangway: If you want to speed towards a foe, Ambush is more damaging/faster and get you elusive. If you want to to step away from a foe, Bolt will do more dmg and add vendetta marks
Swashbuckle: A good way to waste precious elusive on a single attack.
Important Status Immunities : The Duelist
Enemies immune to knockdown/stagger : all Wraiths, Pride demon, Red Templar Knight, Red Templar Behemoth, Venatori Brute, Chest Guardians, Great Beasts (Druffalo) and dragonlings, Bosses
The Fear demon is vulnerable to knockdown but instead of being knocked down it hangs its head and keeps floating
The Rage demon responds to knockdown with a counterattack, after the attack it is incapacitated
The Virtuoso (Sing Along is now fully functional, the below guide does not yet take this into account)
Builds 2
-Cool Beats Supporter
-Power Chord Blaster
Patch 10 Blood Frenzy passive is now much better, from 0.5% to 1.5% dmg increase per 1% health lost
Barrier has received some nerfs and armor has received some buffs. For this reason it is advised to also use A Little Knight Music when supporting or attacking.
intro
Zither is unique in dragon age, he's the only character that can carry more than four abilities into battle (much more). While this would be extremely advantageous, Zither's power is limited by practical problems with switching his abilities and the fact that some abilities are just way, way, way more powerful than others.
I initially played Zither as an adept supporter, chaining many supportive songs together to boost everyone's performance.
I no longer due this for two reasons:
-Zither is a lag magnet and chaining many different songs is the laggiest strategy of all.
-Performance was never as good as when I just focussed on getting the most out of two very good songs.
There's 3 songs competing for best place
Cool Beats: A powerful and cheap Damage over Time spell with a powerful AoE component.
Hometown Anthem: A Barrier spell with huge range and flexibility
Power Chord: The game's best dispelling ability and a potentially devastating AoE spell and combo detonator.
Hometown Anthem should be your go 2 ability whenever you and the team are in need of defense. It is available to you right from the start, can be buffed several times with passives and always offers good defense whereas the value of competing songs like A Little Knight Music, Enforcing Ballad and Sing Along is quite circumstantial.
That leaves you to decide between Power Chord and Cool Beats as your offensive option. Having at least one good offensive option allows you to regenerate health with Heal on Kill and switch your strategy to better fit the difficulty and circumstances. Now why pick the one or the other.
Power Chord:
-You have a Hakkon Staff and a high crit rate. This would decide in favor of Power Chord immediately (unless Cool Beats starts critting)
-You want the ability that is most effective on Nightmare and higher
-Very effective at dispelling venatori barriers/mines and also barriers on Despair demon and Demon Wraiths
-Riskier to use than Cool beats as it invites you to walk right into enemy groups
-Switching between support and offense is harder than with Cool Beats because fire/fire/elec is more different from cold/cold/cold than fire/fire/cold (Cool Beats). You'll also have to walk back and forth between allies and enemies if you want to switch strategies.
Cool Beats:
-Can be used from a safe distance and lets you stay near allies.
-Switching between Hometown Anthem and Cool beats is easier than switching Hometown Anthem to Power Chord
-Very effective against faraway enemies
-You can easily cast A Little Knight music while switching between Hometown Anthem and Cool Beats
-Will give you at least +10% defense to all when coupled with Winter Music passive.
The skills
Cool Beats
-When Cool Beats hits a foe for the first time, it triggers the secondary effect once
-Does not cause chilling or freezing
-Is twice as damaging as Walking Bomb but still less damaging than Immolate
-Combines well with the virtuoso’s ability to strafe and avoid foes
-Combines well with the virtuoso’s reliance on basic attacks
-Very cheap and spammable
-Generally accurate but can still miss, check for cold damage before switching targets
-Throwing even one into a concentrated group is devastating (with tier2)
-You will need experience using the auto aim to hit many different enemies
+( strafe to hit foes further away)
+(« swing » the camera to auto target enemies more to the left or right)
-The damage from the secondary effect can far exceed that of the main effect
Hometown Anthem
-Extremely efficient barrier generator
-Using non-barrier abilities is harder than it is with the keeper and elementalist
-Get mana regeneration passives and the Knight Protector passive to help with stacking
-Even a small bar of barrier can withstand a lot of damage
-Much better for protecting melee and ranged characters at the same time than the standard Barrier.
-Much more efficient at supporting arcanes than the standard Barrier
Power Chord
-Best dispelling ability in the game
-Best combo detonator on any mage, turning sleep/stun into a whopping spirit dmg hit that causes panic
-Deals triple dmg to enemies right next to you --> Hug your enemies
-The amount of barrier dispelled is based on your gear, stats and level
-May not dispel a magical mine if it is still spawning
-Can dispel effects like Storm/Frost Dragon special attacks and burning
How to use (with Cool Beats)
The virtuoso has a bit of a problem mixing defense with offense. For this reason you will often be either spamming Cool Beats a lot or Hometown Anthem but you can’t quickly switch from the one to other. When the going get tough you turtle up with Hometown Anthem. When you are facing no serious opposition, use Cool Beats to waltz through it. If you are about to face a large mob, try and throw a few Cool Beats and then up your defenses with Hometown Anthem. Once you have enough barrier and mana, try and sneak in a few Cool Beats, then switch back to Hometown Anthem. Opening Set is a fabulous passive so make sure you use plenty of basic attacks to keep yourself from running out of mana. When you want to spam some Cool Beats however it is often a good idea to let go of the basic attack. This gives you better speed which helps you hit more targets faster. It also gives you some great kiting potenial. If you were facing only melee enemies, you could just spam Cool Beats on all of them and run about until they drop death. You cannot do this however if you insist on spamming basic attacks.
How to use (with Power Chord)
How much Power Chord you use will depend greatly on how strong you are. Minimally you will just use Power Chord to dispel enemy barriers and magical effects, and also damage the bigger crowds. At best you will waltz through the game just spamming Power Chord (with a lot of help from Encore) and using Heal on Kill to sustain your health. Never neglect your basic attack as you will need Opening Set to fuel your assault. Whenever you use Power Chord there a brief second or two where you move at full speed (not strafing). Use this to evade melee mobs and enemy projectiles or place yourself in position for the next Power Chord attack. Offense or defense, it is your choice where your mana is best spent.
-Go down the Crowd Pleasers tree to get Knight Protector passive
-Get Encore
-Upgrade Cool Beats then get Conductive Current (or Power Chord tier 2 and get Conductive Current later)
-Get Power of the Dead and then Infernal Music
-Get Winter Music (you can also get this defense boost before or anywhere in between the previous 3 steps)
-Get Blood Frenzy (might want to get this earlier with the buff)
Why not to get
Enforcing Ballad, Sing along, a little Knight Music : often unnecessary when you can cast Hometown Anthem
Mark of the Riff : Pretty, but has a fairly limited effect on the outcome of a battle, maybe this is better at low lvls.
Powerchord : Causes too much lag =( (may no longer be true >_>)
Important Elemental Weaknesses/Resists : The Virtuoso
Enemies weak to fire dmg : Despair demon, Red templar knight, Great Beasts (Druffalo), Cold Wraiths, Chest Guardians, Frost Dragon and dragonlings
Enemies weak to cold dmg : Rage demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Fire Wraiths, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings, Darkspawn Emissary
Enemies weak to electricity dmg : Fear demon, Shieldbearing Venatori Warrior, Venatori Brute, Deepstalker and Gibbering horror, Shielded Darkspawn Warrior, Hurlock Alpha (brute), Megashield Genlock, Darkspawn Boss, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) and Qunari Shieldman
Enemies strong against fire dmg : Rage Demon, Red Templar Behemoth, Fire Wraith, Black Hooded Venatori Mages, Inferno Dragon and dragonlings, Venatori Commander,Darkspawn Emissary, Sha-Brytol Mage, Darkspawn Boss, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute) and Qunari Shieldman
Enemies strong against cold dmg : Despair demon, Red Templar Knight, Cold Wraith, Chest Guardians, most Great Beasts (Druffalo), Frost Dragon and dragonlings,Sha-Brytol Mage, Qunari Spearman, Qunari Shocktrooper (brute)
Enemies strong against electricity dmg : Red Templar Horror, Spiders, Pride Demon, Storm Wraith, Storm Dragon and dragonlings
Besides the base difficulty setting, these factors also impact difficulty
-First of, the Ferelden Castle map is harder than the 3 others and yields more exp.
-More players make the difficulty rise
-Higher lvled characters make the difficulty rise
-Playing more powerful classes makes the difficulty rise
+The aforementioned Power Rating is a rough predictor of this mechanic
-Characters with more promotions make the difficulty rise
This is the first time I am hearing this. Is this based on something? Or am I out of loop?
This is the first time I am hearing this. Is this based on something? Or am I out of loop?
fire mine is great btw
An episodes of Friends sprung to mind :
I'll be interesting to see how this works out for those who play in random PuGs as all these new difficulty mechanics seems to be geared towards those who are similar in "power" (that is, if this is something new that's planning to roll out soon)
The difficulty stuff is new to me. Is this personal observation or proven? (link or actual data)
Also, I do like the following Builds:
Reaver: War Horn, Dragon-Rage, Devour, Rampage...having devour helps regaining some emergency HP and can break any block.
Arcane Warrior: Fade Step, Fade Cloak, Lightning Chain, Stone Fist...Imo Spirit Blade is weak compared to the Fist....though I'm getting the Fist at last usually.
Avvar: I like Lady Wrath instead of the War Horn...multiple almost animation free dmg ability.
Elementalist: Don't like the Firewall...very ineffective, not a great damage dealer, too...I like my Firestorm instead....good crod control, decent damage...cooldown can be negated by passive crit ability.
Edit: Stonefist on Elementalist? Heretic! Fire Mine! Burn all stalkers
I feel youre a little late to the party. Drasca, Penguin and Mortiel between themselves have pretty much covered all the builds for all the classes, with lots of discussion in their respective threads.
That said, its good to see more OC here. Good post OP
Pity 95% of the playerbase never have and never will read this forum. A lot of the work Drasca, Penguin, Mortiel, Spacev3gan and others have done has not even been read by many.
Well done on the post though as it clearly took a lot of time and effort.
Also, my mobile phone crashed loading this post
I'm up to 57 on the leaderboard now and I do not consider myself powerful or great at this game (mechanic wise) but I am learning all the time.
My strategy: Button bash, Hulk Smash
ParthianShotX, Hang3d Man, Kungsarme and 1 other like this
Routine, threatening, perilous and everything in between Besides the base difficulty setting, these factors also impact difficulty -First of, the Ferelden Castle map is harder than the 3 others and yields more exp. -More players make the difficulty rise -Higher lvled characters make the difficulty rise -Playing more powerful classes makes the difficulty rise +The aforementioned Power Rating is a rough predictor of this mechanic -Characters with more promotions make the difficulty rise
Base on my experience, knowledge about damage, enemies, spawn points. Matches played solo, with pugs, with highly promoted ppl, without full party.
I call it not true at all. We probably play different game.
As for the build, nothing new on the planet. I've seen/played/tested pretty much every setup you got there.
Hey, you're the guy who sends me messages about how I should play when we're in the same lobby. It's pretty annoying. Also I should've saved the messages where you told me that stonefist is better than firestorm and I don't know what I'm doing because I was using disruption field and fade cloak on keeper, they were funny.
Opinions, man, opinions.
Also, some of these builds are old as balls so I wouldn't go as far as calling them "yours"
If you think your builds are that much better than mine, I will gladly go into a lobby with you, then get the highscore every time. The end
Second: My builds are not designed to be new for the sake of being new, it is a list of good builds that I use.
Third: I know there are other build threads but I felt the need for an update as you can't tell which builds are outdated and you can't tell if the build makes sense on a difficulty higher than threatening
Fourth: The difficulty increases are a real thing, but I do not know the mechanics. If you've never seen a difference with a game full of assassins or full of arcanes, that is your problem. If you don't believe me on the promotions, play a game with silence 85, you WILL NOTICE.
To Nibyl: Hey you're the guy who has more points than me but can't ever seem to play as good as me. Also the "Yallegro's" bit means it is a build that I use, that I composed it on my own time and THAT I YALLEGRO recommend it.
Now I hope there's not another ton of people ready to defend a skill they just like.
If you think your builds are that much better than mine, I will gladly go into a lobby with you, then get the highscore every time. The end
Second: My builds are not designed to be new for the sake of being new, it is a list of good builds that I use.
Third: I know there are other build threads but I felt the need for an update as you can't tell which builds are outdated and you can't tell if the build makes sense on a difficulty higher than threatening
To Nibyl: Hey you're the guy who has more points than me but can't ever seem to play as good as me. Also the "Yallegro's" bit means it is a build that I use, that I composed it on my own time and THAT I YALLEGRO recommend it.
Now I hope there's not another ton of people ready to defend a skill they just like.
Uh oh...
THUUUUUNNNNNDEEEEERDOOOOOOOMEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
Kalas Magnus, Courtnehh, nibyl and 3 others like this
If you think your builds are that much better than mine, I will gladly go into a lobby with you, then get the highscore every time. The end
Second: My builds are not designed to be new for the sake of being new, it is a list of good builds that I use.
Third: I know there are other build threads but I felt the need for an update as you can't tell which builds are outdated and you can't tell if the build makes sense on a difficulty higher than threatening
To Nibyl: Hey you're the guy who has more points than me but can't ever seem to play as good as me. Also the "Yallegro's" bit means it is a build that I use, that I composed it on my own time and THAT I YALLEGRO recommend it.
Now I hope there's not another ton of people ready to defend a skill they just like.
Good job ignoring the fact that you're spreading misinformation and in some cases plain outdated information.
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haha
