deactivation of sustained talents by opponent

[joniii]

Are there ways to build a character such that it is harder for an enemy to deactivate its sustained talents? If so, what are they? Thanks

Reason for question:

I have a strong temporal warden (no serious difficult until the end game) playing an insane game. It is in the end game with the final bosses. I have won insane a few times. These bosses are extra tough. However, I believe I could still beat them except almost immediately after the fight begins my sustained talents are deactivated. My temporal hounds are critical for offense and a diversion against very strong opponents.

When the temporal hound and other talents become available again, they are deactivated again within a turn or two.

[Number43]

Did you equip an arcane disrupting item?

[joniii]

No. (Thanks for the input, but I am aware of this problem.)

I have noticed that certain standard opponents frequently, if not always, have the capability to deactivate my sustained talents. I am not sure of the name, but one is black, has good invisibility, and looks somewhat like the front view of a fat bird with the wings folded down (it may be called a dreadmaster--but don't hold me to the name*.)

In the insane version of the game bosses often have this capability, especially the extra ones. After the beginning levels, I tend to run into one about every 5 to 10 levels.

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*I am bad with names. You may have noticed I did not use the names of the bosses in the end game in the original post.

[HousePet]

There is no way to make it harder, but these attacks always have a limited number of things they can deactivate, so getting more can help.
Also, they frequently target magical buffs and sustained magical talents, so more temporary magical buffs can make it less likely for your critical ones to get knocked out.

[joniii]

I have a few sustained magical talents which are all deactivated over a few turns. Your comment implies that the attack is random. So, if I had a lot there would be a lower probability of losing key ones. Correct?

Sadly, the cool-down time for the boss is about the same as my cool-down time to use the temporal hounds again because within a few turns of my enabling it I lose it again.

My conclusion: sustained magical talents can be very powerful, but against the wrong opponent they are more akin to an Achilles heel.

Thank you for your information.

[HousePet]

Well yes, they are the same as everything else. Potentially powerful, not to be relied upon for everything.

[dadito]

You could go in with only 1 of the sustains activated, and wait till he uses the skill to use the other ones, that way you won't have to deal with the cd

[joniii]

Hmm, not a bad idea.
Thanks

[jenx]

If he is using a skill like Entropy, he'll be vulnerable to silence. If you can silence an opponent, that might help too.

Brawlers and PMs have the best ways to disable these sustained talents. They are very hard to counter in general.

[Mordy]

Well most removals aren't exactly absolute. There are ways to prevent most of them :

- Combination Kick can miss (fat chance though!). But the AI will not use it for it's disabling properties. Also it requires one combo point per removal and I bet the AI is unlikely to store them for this purpose exactly
- The new Archer Munition line can remove physical sustains without checks other than hitting.
- Corrupted Negation checks spellsave (also that talent deactivates mental sustains too while the tooltip implies it should only affect physical and magical stuff. It does not remove mental buffs though so the buff part respects the tooltip)
- Entropy cannot be resisted but the debuff can be purged and it's duration can be lowered
- Dissolving Acid checks spellsave. Bbut the tooltip is correct on that one : only removes mental sustains and mental or physical buffs so this isn't what was used against you.
- Disperse Magic is the rather big outlier in that just removes with absolutely no considerations of any save. You can do nothing to stop it. Also the AI for that one only should prioritize it when you have lots of stuff to remove (not sure if that part works at all though :p)

There's also Acidfire that removes them without check but can the end bosses roll the oozemancer antimagic class at all since they are both arcane in the first place?

Of the (most likely) applicable talents used to remove your sustains, 3 are spells and the worse are those you cannot really save against : Disperse Magic and Entropy. Corrupted Negation you beat with spellsave which isn't exactly easy to get enough off. Lastly, Combination Kick is I think unlikely to be used correctly by the AI in the first place (but the risk is there). It's also a melee attack though so just keep your distance!

You best bet is to silence them, pray the next time you get to them they don't roll those talents or plain bear with it.

[jenx]

Hachem Mache's new NPC AI will kill us all !!!!!