315dmg melee meets Fearscape, Wildfire, Bone Shield, Evasion

[b0rsuk]

Fearscape, so your escape tools don't matter.
Wildfire, so your resistances and even True Grit don't matter.
Bone Shield, so your attack power doesn't matter.
Evasion, so your rate of fire doesn't matter, and Bone Shield has more than enough time to regenerate.
...and over 12-15 sustains, so that Gauntlets of Dispersion look like Russian Roulette.

Imel the level48 2-handed Cornac Marauder died to an orb guardian in Slime Tunnels, after clearing literally everything in both East and West except the level24 Crypt. He was a 2-handed fighter with Legacy of the Naloren and Unbreakable Will, later of which didn't seem to matter.

http://te4.org/characters/28591/tome/66 ... b16db777ac

I see very little I could have done differently. Namely, I could have entered the fight with Gloves of Dispersion and hoped. The combination of powers on the rare forge giant is incredibly nasty to any melee fighter. Try to imagine a Bulwark in there, not a character with 35% Elemental Harmony speedup and 55% Greater Weapon Focus. Try to imagine ANY melee character. I tried to stunlock him, criple him, and I succeeded. But that wasn't enough, he simply outwaited me. His Evasion had around 8 turns. Maybe Bone Shield shouldn't regenerate while you're stunned ? Gauntlets of Dispersion only work up to a certain point. Then it's just throwing dice, and Fearscape makes sure you can't run away and try again. To add insult to the injury, Fearscape is not a detrimental status on YOU, so good luck trying to dispel it or use Relentless Pursuit.

Before you say something about Heroism, I don't think it would help much in this case and the best Heroism I found before High Peak was +7. I used both my Wild infusions not to clear effects, but mostly for damage reduction in this fight.

I don't have much against throwing dice, but not in a game which takes up to several days to complete and where losing is NOT fun (unlike in games like Dominions 3 or Dwarf Fortress).

[SageAcrin]

Don't fight him.

He's not required to beat the game.

I admit, as far as semi-fixed encounters go, Mr. Crusher is unfairly nasty-I haven't liked him since he was implemented, and I wouldn't take him on with every build.

But that is in fact how I would deal with him with that specific build. Fearscape's not even 10 range(7, I think?), just get out of there as fast as possible.

...also, why did you make a twohander-wielding Marauder? By definition, that's suboptimal. I don't know if it mattered, but having real damage output, like that which comes from damage talents, might have made the difference-getting up to the enemy and doing a ton of burst damage was your only hope. You really had no chance with such an odd build...

(Incidentally, the only dicethrow there is if he has any specific Corruptor skills, like Fearscape. That specific orb pedestal(Destruction) will always produce a Forge Giant randboss with the Corruptor class talents granted to it, and "the Crusher" appended to his name. He's actually always there.)

[b0rsuk]

You call 315 damage (as listed on Attack page of Show Info) low ? I did over 3500 damage to Grand Corruptor in one turn:
- 1/5 Cripple
- oh look, a 10% chance Stunning Blow occured ! Not stun, Stunning Blow.
- oh look, Cripple got an extra strike from 55% Greater Weapon Focus!
- oh look, Stunning Blow got an extra strike from GWF!

Additionally, 2 levels later I would have 5/5 Blinding Speed.

The goal was to build a character with a 2-hander, Greater Weapon Focus and Step Up to stretch out that GWF. I don't think any other class can do that better. Bulwarks would get 2-Handed Training (Berserker, Cry, Death Dance) but you'd need more cat points (3 instead of 2 unless you're willing to compromise on single-target damage). If anything, 2-handers suck, but we already know that. You need a class-specific talent like Dissolve (4 strikes), or the Cursed equivalent to deal with Bone Shield.

Yes, I suppose I could have avoided him. But Fearscape in general is very nasty, I completely forgot monsters can have that talent. I was prepared for accidents: Movement infusion, 2 Wilds, Psychoport in slot.
I wish there was a way to configure automatic warning whenever you encounter a rare with certain talents (like Fearscape). But I guess carefully examining every single rare is a must. I already do that for 95% of them.

[supermini]

Wildfire and Fearscape is too much to handle on most characters. On the other hand, a corruptor/archmage randboss is possible in both farportals and High Peak stairs so I'm not sure what is to be done about it.

[b0rsuk]

But I don't use Farportals.

[marvalis]

I kinda like the idea of making fearscape a detrimental effect on the player.
But that could make it too easy to dispel?
Perhaps.

[SageAcrin]

You call 315 damage (as listed on Attack page of Show Info) low ? I did over 3500 damage to Grand Corruptor in one turn:
- 1/5 Cripple
- oh look, a 10% chance Stunning Blow occured ! Not stun, Stunning Blow.
- oh look, Cripple got an extra strike from 55% Greater Weapon Focus!
- oh look, Stunning Blow got an extra strike from GWF!

Additionally, 2 levels later I would have 5/5 Blinding Speed.

The goal was to build a character with a 2-hander, Greater Weapon Focus and Step Up to stretch out that GWF. I don't think any other class can do that better. Bulwarks would get 2-Handed Training (Berserker, Cry, Death Dance) but you'd need more cat points (3 instead of 2 unless you're willing to compromise on single-target damage). If anything, 2-handers suck, but we already know that. You need a class-specific talent like Dissolve (4 strikes), or the Cursed equivalent to deal with Bone Shield.

3500 is pretty achievable just from a standard dualwield build's Flurry, and it's on-call, instead of a...roughly 2% chance. GWF Flurry breaking past that is pretty common. It also would have done six hits, which would have knocked out a Bone Shield pretty fast.

Twohanders don't suck, they're just not about burst damage. Unless you're a Wyrmic. Berserkers, the main wielder of two-handers, have a lot of durability oriented talents and around 300 more Life at endgame, to balance that focus out. They deal with Bone Shield poorly on base, but if you're really worried about it, swapping on anything with melee projects(damage on melee hit) lets you counter and melt a Bone Shield specifically.

(And yeah, I would probably have went for a Bulwark if I very specifically wanted a GWF twohander wielder, though Marauder is pretty comparable... I'm just not sure why you value this specifically. It's a good sustainable damage source, but you lose Wyrmic's damage talents or Berserker's Bloodthirst/Mortal Terror/Unstoppable/Stunning Blow options...I mean, it's not actively bad, but you are doing a sidegrade build on what is one of the worse classes in the game.)

Yes, I suppose I could have avoided him. But Fearscape in general is very nasty, I completely forgot monsters can have that talent. I was prepared for accidents: Movement infusion, 2 Wilds, Psychoport in slot.
I wish there was a way to configure automatic warning whenever you encounter a rare with certain talents (like Fearscape). But I guess carefully examining every single rare is a must. I already do that for 95% of them.

Yeah, look at rares. Especially rares that are at point-blank range. Especially rares that are Forge-Giants.

Wildfire and Fearscape is too much to handle on most characters. On the other hand, a corruptor/archmage randboss is possible in both farportals and High Peak stairs so I'm not sure what is to be done about it.

Personally, I'd just be happy with them sticking to randomization, rather than having a fixed boss capable of it.

I admit, it teaches an important lesson, to a degree, but mostly it does that by killing people that think they can smash everything up. I'm not sure that's the best way. Maybe downgrading the enemy to something like a Duathdlen Corruptor would be better? Gives a bad scare without ripping you apart...

Though personally I feel like the Archlich teaches enough important life lessons about "No, really, you should run at least a little", without being totally impossible for the crafty player to kill on a few weaker builds...

[Mewtarthio]

The Slime Tunnel bosses shouldn't really surprise you unless it's your first time getting that far. I mean, you knew you were up against a Forge Giant Corruptor, and you knew you were playing an experimental sidegrade on a pretty difficult class. I'm a bit surprised that you didn't just psychoport away the second you activated the pedestal.

As for inspecting rares, it varies. I can generally guess what class a rare is by its sustains, then take a closer look if it seems dangerous. It's always a good idea to double-check rares whose base monsters are already elites, particularly such insanely dangerous elites as Forge Giants.

As for farportal/stair guardians? You should always inspect those. Always.

[Hachem_Muche]

As for farportal/stair guardians? You should always inspect those. Always.

I think this is the most important thing to take away from this. Never take on one of these without knowing what it is and having a plan to defeat it. You're not supposed to be able to beat every random boss in the game, and by the time you're ready for the High Peak you've probably encountered at least one NPC that you had to run away from.

As for dealing with Fearscape in particular, I agree that it can be a challenge.
Looking at your character sheet, I noticed that you're not carrying the Fiery Choker. Last I checked, it's a 100% drop from Fyrk at the end of Charred Scar, and it's amazingly useful for fearscape encounters due to it's fire affinity. My S.O.P. for stair guardians that have corrupter talents (almost always given away by their sustains) is to see if they have the Fearscape talent, and then NEVER start the fight until I have the Choker and gauntlets of dispersion equipped. (Teleport away immediately if needed to not give them a single shot at me before I'm ready.)

[SageAcrin]

It looks like it's not 100%(anymore?). (As a note, though, it can be randomly dropped, and there's few artifact amulets in that level tier; I very commonly get it, as such.)

However, that doesn't mean that your strategy is invalid; Stacking up 70% fire resistance is often a good enough defensive counter.

You do, of course, have to do enough damage to overcome the Fearscape regen, as well, though.

[b0rsuk]

I would have noticed if Fiery Choker dropped from the poison-vulnerable Faeros, because I value it. I generally err on the side of keeping too many situational items, for example I typically care around 3 body armors with me.

Fearscape is a bad example of a rare you run away from. Rather, it's something you can't run away from unless you spot it early. I mostly have a mental map of sorts and know what I can expect from various classes. When I saw a corruptor, I thought "blight, acid and my resistance is not too bad to that". Like Massuk, the forge giant corruptor has 1 talent that can doom you if you don't know exactly what's coming.

I made a 2-hander Marauder because I like experimenting with builds and using things in unintended ways. GWF, Step Up, 2-hander is a good synergy. I agree it's not amazing, but it was fun making it work. And I'm bored with dual-wielders. Shield-based Wyrmic is on my list of things to try, I'm starting to look at lack of Shield Wall as a bonus. The resistances can be emulated with Spine of the World, you no longer apply for the greatest Wyrmic prodigy so it's not a big deal spending one.

[LordKarasuman]

Wait, Crusher is a guaranteed boss? Here I was thinking I got the short end of the stick in randomness when I came upon him, good lord.

On Easy-- EASY, I only barely managed to get him down to like 50% with a Sun Paladin, and that was only after managing to land a bunch of lucky Stuns and Confusions (off of Anmalice). Then he offed me in an instant once I couldn't keep my Barrier->Shield->Healing Light chain going... and this was on the second life I attempted him.