http://te4.org/characters/182577/tome/9 ... 00d9838672
So here's my first Insane win. It's also my first attempt at Insane at all, so that's neat.
This
could have been a roguelike run; I died once in the elven ruins (oneshot by temporal warden, didn't realize second life was not active), but I had the Blood of Life by then, and dominated that fight in the next couple of turns. But who goes RL on their first go in a new difficulty?
This run was also done without vaults, since SOMEBODY called me mean names for using them. Naturally, I didn't find a single pair of dispersion gloves the entire run, despite a near full clear and 7 farportal trips...
Reader, I implore you. Don't go to High Peak without them.
Don't do it. Do fifty farportal runs if you have to.
Build
This is the usual Ogre 2H Staff/Shield deal I've been going with for my last couple of runs. There's a few tradeoffs for going with a staff rather than a typical 2H, namely 1 generic lost, smaller weapon selection, and weaker endgame shield damage. However, being able to dump STR in favor of pumping DEX/CUN early has minor benefits, and staves will have benefits that are doubly useful via Arcane Might. Many artifact staves have 180%+ MAG modifiers once Arcane Might is up - Rod of Sarrilion, Gravitational Staff, and the Crystal Staff are all examples I found in this run. With big MAG equipment, and Brandish running over 300% weapon damage, Counterstriking with it generally did fine damage; over 3.5k in Dreadfell, and 7k by High Peak. By the end 35%+ Crit Mult staves usually win out over the fixedarts in DPT, unless you require huge damage to break through Armor.
My inscription setup rarely changed at all throughout the game; I started with 1 Shield, 2 Wild (Phys/Mag and Ment/Mag), neglecting a movement until past Dreadfell.
I ended with 1 Reflect, 1 Shield, 2 Wild, 2 Movement, but the basic Shield was introduced to replace a Phase Door right at the end. By that point, I had about 35% Res All, and the Wild Infusions were almost enough to reach the cap, so I dropped the Phase Door; random teleport is too much of a hassle for a Pally, though there was one situation I deeply regretted having no ready teleport on hand...
Prodigies - Arcane Might / Draconic Will. Arcane Might is what I felt was the best damage improvement since I was going staff. By endgame I had a superfluous 140% phys crit and appreciably high DMG and phys power. Draconic Will I finally took for the first time this run, and it's the GOAT. Anyone reading this who hasn't tried it - use it!
Outside of the final encounter, Barrier/BiL/Reflection is more than enough as far as shields go. A third Shield rune was just a precaution for the final encounter (and man it was super necessary). I rarely used it, and rarely needed a shield other than what I opened the fight with.
The Run
Overall, the beginning kind of sucked, and the end sucked. Going staff means you have poor offense early on, and need to float points into weapon mastery to stay on par. If you switch to staff early, you need a shortstaff since Grisly Constitution probably isn't online yet. Getting fully online generally happened on around the mid 20s, though you won't be at max power til you find a usable staff and acquire Arcane Might. Generics are tight the whole time.
I was fortunate enough to find Bolbum's Big Knocker on the Grand Corruptor, and from that point on, I dominated almost every enemy all the way up to High Peak. The Master was double KO'd before Providence went down, and the Ambush was similarly annihilated. The Orc Pride dudes were tougher, but also went down rather quickly once I could get on them in 1on1.
I had no fear of randbosses at all; Paladin's durable, and reasonably strong. There were only two enemies I encountered who were more trouble to kill than they were to avoid (both unusually deadly bulwarks), and I was actually pretty excited to find lots of uniques and randbosses when Tracking a new area. GOTTA GET DAT LOOT! I farportaled a lot, in hopes of dispersion gloves, but instead got
regular great loot.
Without any dispel, Elandar basically had his way with me. Turns out the rod of Spydric Poison is great for locking up Argoniel, but I could not deliver any kind of damage to Elandar at all. Even though he Fearscaped me (at 400 damage a turn, too), I wasn't able to put any kind of pressure on him. I had to abandon him for later. Argoniel was no threat to speak of, though Elandar giggling while shooting random shit at me all day, teleporting me whenever he felt like, fearscaping at random, etc...certainly made it worse. Oh, and a dualthedil demon guy (the darkness ones) barfed darkness into the entire arena, blacking out
everything. Once I'd closed the portals and KO'd Argoniel, so began the half-hour battle of trying to whittle down a random teleporting jackass who moves at double your speed, turns invisible, and can't be seen unless in melee range anyway.
Fortunately, I was wearing 60% on-hit slow (seems like that's the cap), and a crippling shield, so his speed bonuses were mostly brought in line. The constant teleporting in the darkness while invisible I managed to negate by using the Arcane Eye of a "of the Brotherhood" hat, allowing me to at least track him. Eventually, after much grueling effort, he went down.
And all of this could have been avoided if I just vaulted some dispersion gloves.
PALADIN TRICKS!
Crusade lowers 4 random talent CDs by 1. If only one thing's on cooldown, it lowers that one ability's CD by 4. Flash of the Blade is 1 turn invincibility, Brandish is your heavy hitter, Reflection Runes (especially with ScarScripted Flesh) are significantly more spammable, and so on. It's not a super powerful trick, but it can be handy.
Suncloak is reasonably good purely for its CD reduction ability. 6 turns is enough time to cast Barrier, Path of Sun, Providence, Absorption Strike, Brandish, and Crusade. It will pull the CDs of each ability down by an appreciable amount, especially Providence. If Retribution is activated while it's up (and on Insane, it will...), then its CD is decreased as well!
For those who can ignore Fortress, Chant of Resistance provided me with 20% res all at endgame. 35% base Res All is not bad at all, and I wore a +5 ResAll hat for a majority of the run. At 40%, Wild Infusions can push you to the Res Cap and provided the usual benefit of erasing silences, brainlocks, stray stuns, and so on.
Path of the Sun is an okay scouting skill. But what's really handy, is using it to provide a path that gets you adjacent to enemies in one turn, while still providing an escape for a few more. A bit of clever digging can provide a route that will allow you to fully prep and get in melee without wasting any turns to movement.
I acquired the Black Plate and used it through the end. For the most part, this is an unimpressive piece of armor, but there's a secret use to it. Link of Pain is instant, and will allow you to KO a random enemy by wrecking the local big guy. But that's using it backwards.
The Sorcerers and High Peak bosses often have huge Res All. By allowing a random mook to hit your shield, you can CounterBrandish him for upwards of 7k...and transfer 73% of that damage onto, say, Elandar. Sure, it's only a single hit...but given how durable they are, and how little Res Pen Paladin gets, it's a
really effective use of a turn.
I feel like Insane isn't nearly that bad over Nightmare. The jump in enemy power is pretty well mirrored by the player's jump in equipment kickassery. I may stick with Insane from now on.
OTHER NOTES!
- 100% Immunity is god tier, but 99% immunity is worthless.
- Tryble, just vault some god damn dispersion gloves.
- On-Hit Slow and Cripple, together, kick ass.
- Paladins are da best. SMITE EVIL!
- I think my next run with be a madness adventurer that's basically an enhanced paladin, just to see what Madness is like.