Short Questions Thread

Shade wrote:Thanks Zennit, really useful info
Which other two trees did you use? Sounds like Melee was one... other Frost? I'm wondering where / how you solved the single-target damage issue you mentioned.
And... was this char only good in UL or was it good in other end-game areas too?
Edit: You said that you left Immersion at 1 point... patch notes said its damage has been "greatly increased" so I was wondering if that made it worth investing points in now. I'm wondering which skills you smax'd and which 1-pointers were useful? TIA

Mana sorc was a lot of fun to play as a first ladder character. At first I went Ice/Poison for 30% DR (15% from poison Passive, and 15% from ice elementals) straight from the get-go, she had good survivability.

When it comes to the Arcane tree:
One point Immersion
16 Points Familliar (This is just to hit the last mid/late game +tas)
Smax Arcane torrent
Smax Mana sweep
one point Anti-mass.

As I said I started with Poison and Ice, all I did for these trees was:
One pointing up to and including the poison passive (ONLY FOR THE DR% spell damage does not help us). The DR% doesn't get better than 15% no matter how many points. This is where in hind-sight leveling up, I may sacrifice this 15% DR to drop points into the thunder tree and thunder stone for single target damage when Immersion fails to do much damage in destruction.
Smax Ice Passive for defense.

From here, it's up to you where you wanna put extra points, I liked to only put a few into my ice elementals (And their other ice skill that grants extra hp) and put as many points as possible into the melee trees blades cause hey... They have 35k HP. It's insane, their damage isn't bad either!

As for Ubers, I went for Chronofield due to the physical pierce. Since all regular enemies have 0% physical resistance, this will put them into the negative and your mana skills will deal more damage. I did not put a point into the moon cookies. With anti-mass, they were pretty much not required at all.

I did not do anything other than UL with this character. I do not know of her general uber-viability. Her damage just seems... Off, somehow, with even 20k mana. But in UL you can actually spam mana sweep as the elementals don't have MP, so you wont get much mp back, hence you're doing your strongest attack over and over and over and they MELT.

Either way, super fun character, but you'll have a hard time doing endgame things with her I believe. Not saying it's impossible, but, it would take more skill than I have.

PS: If you haven't already,

Oracle

is absolutely amazing.

earthwalker wrote:
Shade wrote:All these MOs that have been removed (esp the 'Enemy Resists reduced by X%' ones...

It seems these were a big damage boost (all the guides I've read use them) so how are we supposed to get round that? Was the idea to make the game harder?
I see damage has increased in a few skills for some classes,but the way it's worded it doesn't sound like it's enough to compensate. Is there some other way I'm missing (docs don't seem updated for 2017).

It's difficult to follow any of the guides that used -%Res MOs before because you think... might not work any more. I just don't wanna waste hours levelling a char and then have to mothball it... but I'm hoping there's a work-around.

By no means a Median XL expert, but it seems that the need for these huge -res requirements were heroic shields on bosses. This concept (heroic shields) have been removed with the damage crunch. I believe that now, the most -res you'd need would be about 95% which should be obtainable without too much trouble.

*Edit* As for a "workaround" I believe they expanded the items that could be shrine crafted to include most if not all items, so you can use your Fascinating and Ornate and (whatever the cold and poison shrine names are) shrines to craft gear with +elemental damage and -elemental resists.

-135% pierce for general monsters, -170% pierce for the "heroic" bosses is the equivalent of last patch's -100%/-199%

Is the Lucky Bonus recipe working? Just tried 50 times with an amulet (rerolling saves) and nothing. For 20% chance this seems a little suspicious.

EDIT:
Maybe it doesn't work with Unique items now? Because I just tried some random rare amulet and got the lucky bonus 2 times in a row. If that is the case, there is no mention in the changelog.

Aiwendil wrote:Is the Lucky Bonus recipe working? Just tried 50 times with an amulet (rerolling saves) and nothing. For 20% chance this seems a little suspicious.

Pretty sure the luck oil bonus affix is determined upon picking the item up the first time. Rerolling the same one over and over again won't produce a successful luck oil if the item doesn't have that hidden quality.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

L H wrote:
Aiwendil wrote:Is the Lucky Bonus recipe working? Just tried 50 times with an amulet (rerolling saves) and nothing. For 20% chance this seems a little suspicious.

Pretty sure the luck oil bonus affix is determined upon picking the item up the first time. Rerolling the same one over and over again won't produce a successful luck oil if the item doesn't have that hidden quality.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

actually works for me
always reroll some random shit amulet to get 1 skill early on

L H wrote:-135% pierce for general monsters, -170% pierce for the "heroic" bosses is the equivalent of last patch's -100%/-199%

Hmmm 199% versus 170%. Is 29% less all that much of a difference? 170 still sounds a lot to get in latest patch.

Zennith wrote:Her damage just seems... Off, somehow, with even 20k mana.

Damn. That's bad news. I'm struggling to find a build that works well in end-game.

Someone mentioned throw barb?

Shade wrote:
L H wrote:-135% pierce for general monsters, -170% pierce for the "heroic" bosses is the equivalent of last patch's -100%/-199%
Hmmm 199% versus 170%. Is 29% less all that much of a difference? 170 still sounds a lot to get in latest patch.

It is a lot to get. That's kinda the point. pierce MO's were removed and pierce stats were generally roughly halved, some like 66% of what they used to be, etc.

Getting -199% to one element was far too easy previously. They want the bosses to be challenging, not gear checks, basically.

I was wondering about the mechanics of "damage reduced by x%" and google gave conflicting answers. How is it calculated (multiplicative or additive) and what's the cap?

Cheers!

GrosFif wrote:I was wondering about the mechanics of "damage reduced by x%" and google gave conflicting answers. How is it calculated (multiplicative or additive) and what's the cap?

Cheers!

%DR caps at 50%. Flat DR has no cap.

Reduces all incoming physical damage by the flat value, then takes your %DR of that number.