I've been playing a few Cursed lately, and the addition of 0.03 Hate on hit weapons and resource leech helped greatly in getting to levels 15-20, but I always seem to die at that point. Anyone have advice?
My build strategy: (stats just enough into WIL to get requirements, the rest into STR)
Dual wielding an axe and a dagger, using resource leech if available after level 12, or 0.03 Hate on hit weapons after level 8.
level 1: Armour training, and 2x Ruined Cut
level 2: Ruined Cut, Combat Accuracy
-Kill first boss (Prox, or Norgos)
level 5: dark gifts, Armour training, gloom weakness, 2x Ruined Cut (now lvl 5) and Frenzy.
-Derth Arena: unnatural body x2
-clear all starter dungeons (Norgos, Heart of Gloom, trollmire, rhaloren camp, scintillaring caverns, then Kor pul)
level 6: unnatural body, Bait
level 7: unnatural body
level 8: Vengeful Blessings, Torment, reckless charge
level 9: unnatural body (level 5), Dominate
level 10: Preternatural Senses, Blindside
level 11: Seethe
level 12: Grim Craft (useless), Life leech, Cleave
-Old Forest
level 13: Relentless, Cleave
level 14: racial skill, Cleave
Any build suggestions/strategies?
EDIT: fixed misspelling, it's Ruined Cut, not Ruined Strike.
mid level Cursed help
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mid level Cursed help
Last edited by lukep on Fri Jul 29, 2011 4:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: mid level Cursed help
In no particular order:
More willpower, less strength. Go 2:1 will/str until will is maxed, then 1:1:1 will/str/con on levels you hit the stat cap on will. Once will is 60'd, go 2:1 str/con, or reverse. Consider throwing in dex occasionally to hit dagger reqs or increase accuracy.
Go straight to armor 4, as fatigue shouldn't be doing anything to you.
Bugger cleave until everything useful is done. It's not particularly useful.
Don't bother 5/5ing RC until other things are done. The damage boost from willpower will be plenty after 2-3 points in it, if that.
You're ignoring gloom. Bad idea. You want weakness and life leech 5/5'd asap, and 5/5ing base gloom isn't a bad choice. Consider putting a catpoint into the gloom tree. 5/5+mastery weakness is reason enough for this. Weakened enemies have a massively harder time of violently murdering you. Maxed out weaken will cut enemy accuracy and damage by nearly a third. Max will + max gloom/weaken/life leech is a serious combat multiplier for you.
You probably don't really need so many movement talents. Pick up movement infusion+tele rune if you're that worried about it.
As you noted, grim craft is apparently bugged (?), at th'mo. Invest in the other three talents -- that's where spare generic points go. You've only got unnatural body, relentless, and combat acc/health (once armor 2-4 is achieved, depending on how heavy armor you want. P.S. You want the heaviest armor.) as other generic targets, so you should have plenty to invest. Don't underestimate the initial fateful aura skill -- it reduces the chance of getting bad curses.
Have axe+shield on weapon swap, and use that for your primary weapon set. Use elemental weapons (axe+dagger) plus frenzy for damage.
Otherwise, you seem to be doing mostly alright. Consider getting combat acc twice in those first two levels, instead of armor training. I tend to leave AT alone until I've actually got something I need it to wear, and landing RC hits is probably going to be a bigger deal than a little extra armor, in the early game. You'll probably want acc 5 or so, eventually.
Anyway, s'all I can think of at th'mo. Well, for build-to-this-point.
Later on... RC and a dominate'd frenzy seem to be your major single-target damage dealers, and cursed are (perhaps ironically) a little too flimsy (not much in the way of good burst healing, due to the healmod) to be doing much group fighting. Group fighting's a bad idea for pretty much anyone, anyway, most of the time. Other than that, all you've really got is smash and... assail, I guess. Slash, if you count it. All that's not terribly impressive, so... consider unlocking and investing in the rampage tree, at least through brutality and reflexes. Eventually 5/5ing torment might not be a terrible idea -- it's not very controllable, but it does hit fairly hard.
Mostly, though, you're just going to want to stack willpower through the roof and let gloom murder as much as it can for it. Bit slow going, sometimes, but cursed don't have much in the way of solid dakka.
More willpower, less strength. Go 2:1 will/str until will is maxed, then 1:1:1 will/str/con on levels you hit the stat cap on will. Once will is 60'd, go 2:1 str/con, or reverse. Consider throwing in dex occasionally to hit dagger reqs or increase accuracy.
Go straight to armor 4, as fatigue shouldn't be doing anything to you.
Bugger cleave until everything useful is done. It's not particularly useful.
Don't bother 5/5ing RC until other things are done. The damage boost from willpower will be plenty after 2-3 points in it, if that.
You're ignoring gloom. Bad idea. You want weakness and life leech 5/5'd asap, and 5/5ing base gloom isn't a bad choice. Consider putting a catpoint into the gloom tree. 5/5+mastery weakness is reason enough for this. Weakened enemies have a massively harder time of violently murdering you. Maxed out weaken will cut enemy accuracy and damage by nearly a third. Max will + max gloom/weaken/life leech is a serious combat multiplier for you.
You probably don't really need so many movement talents. Pick up movement infusion+tele rune if you're that worried about it.
As you noted, grim craft is apparently bugged (?), at th'mo. Invest in the other three talents -- that's where spare generic points go. You've only got unnatural body, relentless, and combat acc/health (once armor 2-4 is achieved, depending on how heavy armor you want. P.S. You want the heaviest armor.) as other generic targets, so you should have plenty to invest. Don't underestimate the initial fateful aura skill -- it reduces the chance of getting bad curses.
Have axe+shield on weapon swap, and use that for your primary weapon set. Use elemental weapons (axe+dagger) plus frenzy for damage.
Otherwise, you seem to be doing mostly alright. Consider getting combat acc twice in those first two levels, instead of armor training. I tend to leave AT alone until I've actually got something I need it to wear, and landing RC hits is probably going to be a bigger deal than a little extra armor, in the early game. You'll probably want acc 5 or so, eventually.
Anyway, s'all I can think of at th'mo. Well, for build-to-this-point.
Later on... RC and a dominate'd frenzy seem to be your major single-target damage dealers, and cursed are (perhaps ironically) a little too flimsy (not much in the way of good burst healing, due to the healmod) to be doing much group fighting. Group fighting's a bad idea for pretty much anyone, anyway, most of the time. Other than that, all you've really got is smash and... assail, I guess. Slash, if you count it. All that's not terribly impressive, so... consider unlocking and investing in the rampage tree, at least through brutality and reflexes. Eventually 5/5ing torment might not be a terrible idea -- it's not very controllable, but it does hit fairly hard.
Mostly, though, you're just going to want to stack willpower through the roof and let gloom murder as much as it can for it. Bit slow going, sometimes, but cursed don't have much in the way of solid dakka.
Re: mid level Cursed help
Yeah, I thought it could hit the same target twice (also hit on talents). I don't think that it can do either.Frumple wrote:Bugger cleave until everything useful is done. It's not particularly useful.
Movement is extremely important for a Cursed. Casting Blindside at an enemy that is at the edge of the range saves you Hate if you are above 0.05 hate drain. Reckless Charge is a mediocre movement skill, but a very good attack, as it hits all nearby enemies every step of the way for near full damage.Frumple wrote:You probably don't really need so many movement talents. Pick up movement infusion+tele rune if you're that worried about it.
I fixed it locally shortly after posting, it works now.Frumple wrote:As you noted, grim craft is apparently bugged (?), at th'mo.
The entire tree is bugged (and I didn't fix this one). Each of the other three use Cursed Touch to determine their chances, so 1/1/1/1 (or 1/1/1/0 without the fix) is the best setup by far.Frumple wrote:Don't underestimate the initial fateful aura skill -- it reduces the chance of getting bad curses.
All in all good advice though, I'll certainly try it out.
Re: mid level Cursed help
My advice would be:
1 - Get the minimum strength and willpower necessary for your talents and pump constitution first. People often like to turn their characters into glass cannons and then die.
2 - Class skills - 1 point on each skill. Max preternatural senses and maybe life leech aura.
3 - General skills - 4-5 points in combat accuracy, ignore armour training and weapon mastery mostly. Get relentless 5/5 as soon as possible.
4 - Category points - Get an infusion slot at level 10 and Rampage at level 20. Find a quality shield rune.
5 - Single axe + dagger is great at start but you need to graduate into 2handed axes at some point for more damage.
1 - Get the minimum strength and willpower necessary for your talents and pump constitution first. People often like to turn their characters into glass cannons and then die.
2 - Class skills - 1 point on each skill. Max preternatural senses and maybe life leech aura.
3 - General skills - 4-5 points in combat accuracy, ignore armour training and weapon mastery mostly. Get relentless 5/5 as soon as possible.
4 - Category points - Get an infusion slot at level 10 and Rampage at level 20. Find a quality shield rune.
5 - Single axe + dagger is great at start but you need to graduate into 2handed axes at some point for more damage.
Re: mid level Cursed help
I'm not sure about this. A battleaxe gives about 30% more damage (from STR mod, and physical power) and I think that the new cursed weapons will let me do at least that much more damage with a dagger. For example, a dagger with 10% chance to cast level 6 bleeding strike on hit raises average damage by about 40%, not counting itself or other egos. A double bleeding strike dagger is rare, but you have a long time to find it, or many others. The additions to skill masteries are good as well.Dervis wrote:5 - Single axe + dagger is great at start but you need to graduate into 2handed axes at some point for more damage.
I should try Rampage, as it looks like it would be very good in boss fights, and my gauntlets (5% chance of 2 resource leech) do a lot to keep my Hate up. It looks like it has a 3% chance to trigger when you are hit for more than 8% of your HP, so the cooldown isn't too much of an issue.Dervis wrote:4 - Category points - Get an infusion slot at level 10 and Rampage at level 20. Find a quality shield rune.
Re: mid level Cursed help
Most recent attempt (Higher race) made it to Reknor 4 before dying at level 33. My biggest problems were:
Enemy armour and defence: Cursed have two ways of dealing with defence, pump weapon accuracy, or use Rampage. Weapon accuracy is very expensive, and Rampage has a short duration and long cooldown. If you can't kill the enemy in 9 turns, you have to wait at least 100 more.
Escape/healing: My inscription setup was Wild/TP/regen/Shield. I would have liked two healing infusions in addition to the Higher regen, but needed the TP for escape (Blindside is as close as they get to an escape skill) and the Shield for fighting (not affected by healing mod)
I had Hate management pretty much covered, as two items gave me 11% chance of 4 resource leech (0.2 Hate). This meant that a single enemy having its life leeched was enough to maintain my Hate levels through a drain of 0.02 per turn. This allowed me to stay above 10 Hate pretty much the entire time, giving me more damage and 23% resist all in total.
Enemy armour and defence: Cursed have two ways of dealing with defence, pump weapon accuracy, or use Rampage. Weapon accuracy is very expensive, and Rampage has a short duration and long cooldown. If you can't kill the enemy in 9 turns, you have to wait at least 100 more.
Escape/healing: My inscription setup was Wild/TP/regen/Shield. I would have liked two healing infusions in addition to the Higher regen, but needed the TP for escape (Blindside is as close as they get to an escape skill) and the Shield for fighting (not affected by healing mod)
I had Hate management pretty much covered, as two items gave me 11% chance of 4 resource leech (0.2 Hate). This meant that a single enemy having its life leeched was enough to maintain my Hate levels through a drain of 0.02 per turn. This allowed me to stay above 10 Hate pretty much the entire time, giving me more damage and 23% resist all in total.
Re: mid level Cursed help
IMO, Highers of a class that pump willpower don't need regen infusions, they have a racial talent for that (even if it needs 5/5 points to get its cooldown to something resembling an inscription). Instead of regen infusion, a good healing infusion may have helped more. Unnatural Body 5/5 would also help, as would an item or two which boosted your healing modifier. As to defence... well, yeah. Defence sucks, combat accuracy on a cursed is a sucky necessity. STR and DEX help though. Not really sure if I wanna say combat accuracy should be made a part of weapon mastery talents and then removed as a separate talent, but it'd probably help cursed a lot if it did.