Madness Winner - Adventure --- Adventurer

[cctobias]

Won on Madness 1.2.3 with this guy:

http://te4.org/characters/135593/tome/c ... 1dbb3339c1

And on Insane with same build:
http://te4.org/characters/135593/tome/4 ... 751625cf46


Build is Unarmed/arcane combat/stone/unstoppable/meta/conveyance.

Timeless+Meta= 17 turns of unstoppable.

Final bosses have 550k hp for Elandar and 650k hp with 282 armor for argoniel. Although I can do a combo kick which does 20k (highly variable due to procs) damage with the unarmed punches, I literally did 0 melee damage to argoniel due to armor even with 72 APR and had to kill him solely with earthen missiles procs. Had 12 turns on unstoppable left when I killed elandar. Killed argoniel with 3.5 turns left on unstoppable. Was planning to use the elixir of invulnerability if necessary. Did not close any portals. Killed atamathon just for curiosity's sake he is much easier than Argoniel, 50 armor and 300k hp, he dies in 1/3 to 1/4 of the time. Killed him before his concussion ran out.

This is obviously an overpowered build, anything that can win the inflated HP madness is by definition OP. I think this is sufficently OP that even only good players like me can do madness with it. It should have an easier start than most other melee builds due to time shield and conveyance. Its a considerably faster madness run than many other viable attempts. Its does not rely on any perma invulnerable abilties, just 5 extra turns on unstoppable. The start of madness is still very very hard, there is no way around that.

My two deaths were from carelessness, one from a supre long lasting trap and I forget the other one. I had two close calls in Old Forest where Igot lucky. Bad luck= 4 deaths. Not being careless and good luck = zero deaths. So its a viable roguelike build. I wouldn't play madness on roguelike, but some people may want to. 50 turn duration, insta-death disarm traps that you can't possibly see makes roguelike seem pointless to me, but whatever floats your boat. Done a particular way its definitely possible.

I can post a build/leveling guide if people are interested. I believe the build is still viable without extending draconic will. I didn't take draconic until coming back from east on both characters.

Edit:
Shibari says that high armor was probably due to a random class as argoniel has a base armor of like 20 or something. Either way I am glad the build has singificant physical damage that is melee based but not actually melee to get around armor. I couldn't kill a randboss in slime tunnels that had high armor and also 65 arcane resource drain though. He drained me in like 3 hits and I was doing like 400 damage per hit. Conveyance made this not a real problem.

[St_ranger_er]

Very impressive. Congrats. Even on insane start is tough. And my oozemancer dies fast and often. Although he's start skills very effective (in compare to other classes).

Really can't imagine how to raise from 1st level. Will be very interesting to read

build/leveling guide

.

[Mex]

Congrats!

And now to do it again with a "real" class!

[cctobias]

Very impressive. Congrats. Even on insane start is tough. And my oozemancer dies fast and often. Although he's start skills very effective (in compare to other classes).

Really can't imagine how to raise from 1st level. Will be very interesting to read

build/leveling guide

.

Start is definitely tough, this was my 4th try and I had to slightly adjust the order of things and change my startscum equipment goals. Still I think this build is easier start than marauder, maybe not equipment wise, but gameplay wise.

[cctobias]

Congrats!

And now to do it again with a "real" class!

Nah I don't think I want to play madness on a real class, not with the inflated HP. This build is specifically to make Madness doable and less tedious without being invincible.

Frankly most classes either lack the tools to do interesting things on madness (sustain removal etc) or lack the incredibly overwhleming damage that is required after reknor for classes that don't. Also many classes simply lack a sufficient defense as well.

The choices are pretty limited. I view this build as an introduction to Madness for people who wish to try it on "real" classes. It gives overwhelming offense, a viable defense, and sustain removal.

Then if they want to can try a "real" class which takes one of those out.

By that I mean:

AM - defense, removal, with sustained but not overwhelming damage
marauder/zerker - overwhelming damage and defense (unstoppable), little sustain/effect removal
Pally - offense and defense
Necro - not actually real sure, you know better than me

Most other classes are simply not viable I would say at first blush, although alchemist dissolving acid would be great on madness.

Of course if you can get to level 28 (full unstoppable + timeless) on this build it basically starts to cruise once you get a good base of equipment. But getting to level 28 on madness is maybe the hardest part in general regardless of class, including adventurer. In fact I think the part I feel really good about for this adventurers is it finishes and starts strong. Most adventures start super weak and suffer from trying to do too much all at once.

I would go so far as to say that I appreciate creating an elegantly designed adventurer build than can actually get to 28 more than trying to get a marauder to 28. Not that its harder, but its more interesting to me.

I think there is a reason there are very few adventurers in madness searches, and basically only seejust and me have a winner in it. Not that its impossible and I am pretty sure there are a few even more OP adventurer builds out there (to the point of being obviously "cheap").

But I suspect creating a unique (i.e. someone else has gotten to say level 40 on madness) adventurer capable of getting to level 28 (arbitrary) is considerably harder than people give it credit for and creating one that can get to 28 fairly reliably AND win (i.e. is actually OP, anything that can win madness is extremely OP) is much much harder than people may think. This build has room for variations in it so I am sure its possible.

But I think one interesting but almost certainly completely unintended consequence of madness when considering adventurers is it challenges people to make a complete, efficient, and elegant build. Anything else will either never make it to the end or will start getting its ass kicked in the east.

I suspect a lot of adventurer builds that are OP in the lower difficulties fail miserably in madness. I think its an interesting dynamic.

[Mankeli]

550 K and 650 K, seriously? I've won once on insane and I remember bosses having maybe like 50 K of health (don't remember excatly it was pretty easy which is the reason I'm playing madness).

Is it like even possible to win without unstoppable or archmage shields on madness? And I mean without item vault and on roguelike.

I'm currently trying to play a sun pally on madness/roguelike and flash of the blade of course gives you invulnerability for 1 turns but I'm still missing 27 turns compared to your build against the bosses (assuming I'll get that far, disclaimer: I won't). Well, I guess timeless + sun cloak + Champion's Will will make help with the cooldown and sun cloak + second life prevent direct one-shottings from full health but still.

How an I supposed to deal enough damage with a two-handed weapon without momentum, flurry, arcane combat etc?

Congrats on the win.

[Mex]

The sun paladin win in the vault was due to an exploit which has been patched out, so it's probably no longer possible to complete madness unless you downgrade to 1.2.2.

[cctobias]

The sun paladin win in the vault was due to an exploit which has been patched out, so it's probably no longer possible to complete madness unless you downgrade to 1.2.2.

Yeah I was wondering how that was even possible.

@Mankeli
I think 50k or so is close for Insane. So the HP inflation in madness is considerably more than than you would expect given NM->Insane. Stition's old marauder video for madness is like 10x less HP on the bosses. So the change was pretty huge when they inflated he HP.

Honestly I had no idea how much damage this build was capable of when I first started it off or even after playing it on Insane. Its quite variable and all the procs make it hard to figure it all out. Also the bleeds contribute quite a lot of damage but its hard to tell exactly. I am still not really sure what amounts of damage it would pump out on average.

I believe I had Argoniel bleeding for over 26k damage per turn toward the end when he had about 100k hp left.

But yeah I definitely sympathize with the question. I think a marauder that got unlucky and ran into a 282 armor agroniel like I did might have just been screwed. Even with 200 APR you would still be doing maybe 50% damage at most. 200 APR is a lot. Is it possible? I supposed but you would need to make a lot of sactifices, either way you would do really crap damage I think.

So yeah not only do you need to do a lot damage, but it seems like you can get "unlucky" right at the end and run into a case where even with really good damage without covering all bases you may just get stopped. I think pure melee damage has the potential to get close to screwed at the end in some cases.

The only thing I needed for earthen missile to work was 100% res pen, which is not unrealistic to get with Stone line. But melee needs APR and that is not percent based, its absolute. AND need res pen as well.

[Mankeli]

I think 50k or so is close for Insane. So the HP inflation in madness is considerably more than than you would expect given NM->Insane. Stition's old marauder video for madness is like 10x less HP on the bosses. So the change was pretty huge when they inflated he HP.

This is good info, I wasn't aware that the changes were so drastic between now and before on madness. (I never completed nightmare because it felt like normal but with more enemy HP so just edited the file and went to insane).

I believe I had Argoniel bleeding for over 26k damage per turn toward the end when he had about 100k hp left.

That's some nice amount of bleeding there. This build of yours got me interested in trying an adventurer build myself after my archmage and sun paladin are both dead -which should be soon enough.

But yeah I definitely sympathize with the question. I think a marauder that got unlucky and ran into a 282 armor agroniel like I did might have just been screwed. Even with 200 APR you would still be doing maybe 50% damage at most. 200 APR is a lot. Is it possible? I supposed but you would need to make a lot of sactifices, either way you would do really crap damage I think.

Yeah, this pretty much. I don't see it happening, under these circumstances, eventhough it might be possible in theory.

One question: Does wave of power check armour? I know perfectly well that it's a projected melee attack so the obvious answer would be "yes" but I'm just grasping at straws here. I guess I could just check this from my save as well by beating enemies up but it's too late at night for that where I live in, lol.

[cctobias]

I think 50k or so is close for Insane. So the HP inflation in madness is considerably more than than you would expect given NM->Insane. Stition's old marauder video for madness is like 10x less HP on the bosses. So the change was pretty huge when they inflated he HP.

This is good info, I wasn't aware that the changes were so drastic between now and before on madness. (I never completed nightmare because it felt like normal but with more enemy HP so just edited the file and went to insane).

I believe I had Argoniel bleeding for over 26k damage per turn toward the end when he had about 100k hp left.

That's some nice amount of bleeding there. This build of yours got me interested in trying an adventurer build myself after my archmage and sun paladin are both dead -which should be soon enough.

But yeah I definitely sympathize with the question. I think a marauder that got unlucky and ran into a 282 armor agroniel like I did might have just been screwed. Even with 200 APR you would still be doing maybe 50% damage at most. 200 APR is a lot. Is it possible? I supposed but you would need to make a lot of sactifices, either way you would do really crap damage I think.

Yeah, this pretty much. I don't see it happening, under these circumstances, eventhough it might be possible in theory.

One question: Does wave of power check armour? I know perfectly well that it's a projected melee attack so the obvious answer would be "yes" but I'm just grasping at straws here. I guess I could just check this from my save as well by beating enemies up but it's too late at night for that where I live in, lol.

To give you a more solid idea of how much damage I was doing. I did a 5 kick combo for 70k damage once(I think in one of the orc prides), which made me say "wow" out loud as I was not really anticipating it quite that high. This is highly variable and is probably the high end of things (meaning I probably got lucky on cripple procs) and is where both my punchs and arcane procs were doing mostly full damage. That hit did 30k on the combo kick part (counting the arcane aoe crit proc with 100% crit ) and then did 40k worth of earthen missile damage (which are much harder to add up without being tedious as they are listed singly). I know I did 70k because I killed the randboss and he had 70k hp left, then did a quick count to check the EM damage.

But consider that hit and that I only have 3 turns left on an unstoppable that I can extend 5 turns longer than a normal marauder or zerker.

AND IN ADDITION

this build has 206% global speed with 182% (with a possible 203% with armor swap) combat speed. Speed, both movement and in general is a major component of the build. In later levels you can cover about 1/3-1/4 of a zone in one unstoppable. Thus he bump attacks considerably faster than a marauder even with momentum (one of the major reasons I did puglisim instead of DW, besides combo kick being super powered on madness).

Not only would I have had to use the elixir of invuln if I were a marauder(assuming same damage), I killed argoniel with mostly bump attacks(one combo kick I think, one axe, a backfist) and a marauder would, I think, be about, give or take, half as fast (but with an offhand attack) especially if you count dbl strike as part of speed increase.

Thus I have my doubts that even things considered rather OP like triple staff wielding Reaving combat (for offense) would actually be as successful as people assume.

I would really like to see what actually turns out to work in the long run for damage, rather than people running on NM and thinking its awesome. I can one shot stuff all over the place on NM with just channel staff and stealth. And even in Insane getting a nice 10k spike is pretty devastating.

On High Peak, everything is level 150, you see at least one randboss or unique with 200k hp per level on HP sometimes multiples and sometime close together. Spiking for 10k seems great even in Insane. You would need to do that 20 times on madness High Peak just for that one thing. Even though that is utterly ridiculous overkill on normal or even nightmare(I believe you would two shot end bosses on NM with a 10k hit). Normal enemies on HP had 30k hp. That amazing 10k spike is suddenly a three shot on NORMAL orcs. Not even elites.

I think a lot of OP adventurers offensive setups will get a rude awakening in madness. Also I think there are probably some not really discovered or at least well known rather good sustained damage ones people have not developed due to the shininess of trying for big hits.

But anyone wanting to try keep in mind. High end madness Normal mobs= 30k hp. You need to blow through 30k like its not a big deal and still have plenty left for the next guy. How do you even test that out? Snaproot had 27k hp for me on Insane (300k madness).

I honestly had no idea if this build could do enough damage. Mex (and a few others, themiffunthief,furey) told me how much hp they had and I honestly just had no idea it would work, I just worked off of how fast I killed them in Insane, increase my phys dam by about 40% and crossed my fingers.

[cctobias]

Killed linalil (or however AM women is spelled) with this character since someone was asking in chat.

For people who are curious she starts at 45k, second version 57k and last rezzed version has 165k hp. So she has about 400k hp in total.

Not sure how much damage she doles out compared to endbosses since I used unstoppable.

[Red]

Cctobias, I salute you. "Merely good" is not how I would describe someone who makes a build like this.

[cctobias]

Build guide for this character:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=42998