NoSkin the Skeletal Arcane Blade: First win! Ata! Linanill!

[TheSlayer]

Hello there.
Build is below. Read the top only to avoid TL;DR if not interested.
http://te4.org/characters/73546/tome/0d ... 449ed07603

I've rampaged through the game with a skeletal Arcane Blade (normal). Several deaths, two legit (no heat rune/physical cure early) and the rest due to boredom/negligence. For example: my only death above level 28 was using Assault on a simple Elite with Icy Skin when I had crappy cold resistance. Didn't even look, autopiloting, and hadn't realized that Icy Shroud gives +8 res-all at that point, or I'd have been wearing it and not been killed. Other deaths were silly things like trying to outrun collapsing sandwalls. Why? I don't know. I always think that extra move is going to kick in at the right moment (nope!)

After level 30, bump attacks were 4000+ (unresisted on training dummies). Got Size is Everything from bleed damage for crying out loud. I had epic equipment drops. For example, rare gloves with +11 all crits, further +17 on-hit physical were nice for a while, replacing Crystle's. Then got the fantastic Drakeskin ones he's wearing now. The entirety of High Peak was an absolute joke.

Killed Atamathon in 3 turns. Would have still killed in him 4-5 on Nightmare. Took no damage, probably would kill him in just a few rounds on Insane. Crippling him is the best, btw. Linanill refused to run out of mana for a long time. She never got to do anything but heal and teleport the whole time, so I still don't know what her attacks would have done to my 3000+ shields.


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Build:

Staff+shield.
Because it's the best. A shield of Patience does more for an Arcane Blade than all the dual-wield or whatever in the world. Tier 4 simple ego was my shield until stair boss upgraded me (tier 5 of the same of course). Also, Assault is BETTER THAN FLURRY on an AB. Why? It one-hits nearly everything from level 16 on because it is 2 auto-crits (procs Arcane Destruction!).

Most of the talents scale far better with stats than point increases. Usually by 1-3 points, you're just wasting points when you could add another ability to your arsenal. Found myself with loads of not-much-needed points, watching things scale well without investment.

Shield Offense
1/1/1/1 until I ran out of things I wanted, then 1/5/1/1 for kicks. Should be very good if anything ever lived long enough for me to use Block. Used it in final fight once to two-shot the sword-wizard.

Battle Tactics
2/5/0/0 Maxed Step-up around 42, had so many extra points. Fails to trigger often with Arcane Blade because of the way turns are divided. Automatic actions like spell procs seem to break this frequently. Bug?

Combat Techniques
5/5/1/5
Got Blinding Speed around 40, didn't need it but it would be very useful on more challenging difficulty.

Magical Combat
3/1/2/1

Dirty Fighting
1/5/1/1
Highly underrated tree. Cripple is fantastic against everything. Backstab is nice until you outgrow it. If I didn't already have too many points, I'd not invest in it again.

Stone
5/1/1/2
Already had very good physical penetration, else Crystaline Focus would have gotten more attention. Body of stone is cool but you kill stuff so damn fast, you don't care to use it)

Enhancement
5/1/1/1 early, always considered more in Inner Power. Could max physical res with level 1 of Barrier if I ever bothered to use it. 5/1/5/1 later when I wanted to basically never run out of mana.

Picked up Celestial from an escort, but it was marginally useful. 2/1/3/1, Providence for a stat cure seemed extremely attractive after the low levels without stat res or physical wild. I had Barrier on auto-cast when no enemies were visible. Basically an extra ~340HP 10/14 turns for surprises when using z. The abilities scale in a crappy fashion now though. Have they always?

Skeletal is bread and butter.
5/3/3/5, no more would be helpful. I'll max malus reduction in the ID later probably.

Combat Training: 5/5/1/0/0.
Got 5 in armor late, the 1 in accuracy was starting/accidental.

Conveyance 1/1/5/0
(Teleport fail due to upgrade is a debilitating and pointless mechanic)

Aegis 3/2/1/1
I'd like to put a few more in Shielding to get the extra turn maybe, but it mostly scales very badly. Aegis is the exception, but as I can cast only 3 shields (with Patience shield) it is definitely at its most cost-efficient at level 1.

First Prodigy: Flexible Combat.
Because more Arcane Combat procs are good. And with any decent gloves you'll pretty much always have 100% critical on unarmed strikes, so they're all procs.

Second Prodigy: Steamroller.
Self-explanatory. Although you want Drakeskin/light gloves, as Flexible Combat does use a small amount of energy/time. Seems I get to use/keep the bonus more often when using light gloves. Otherwise you'll easily use 1.5-2 turns on one special attack, which is bad for multiple reasons. Feel free to correct me if I've got the wrong idea about this, because in that case it's a major, disruptive bug.

Artifact purchases:
Cloak of uselessness,
Belt of insane ass kicking (wearing)
Statboosting helm of Infravision (not very useful really, but better than alternatives. If I didn't kill things so damn fast and have so many exit strats already, I'd just put on Earthrunes of mana regen)

[TheSlayer]

The game gives me this URL for my AB winner:
http://te4.org/characters/73546/tome/0d ... 449ed07603

Blank, as you may notice. By the way, can anyone tell me how to make chat show up in-game when online? I can't see it or access it even when connected to te4. Thanks!

Edit: Just complete an achievement online to update your character's sheet.

[Faeryan]

The character sheet doesn't look overly special. Is this char all about using the staff proc damage bonus from accuracy?

[Moander]

The character sheet doesn't look overly special. Is this char all about using the staff proc damage bonus from accuracy?

What does the staff accuracy effect do anyway? I tried looking at the code and it looks like it gives you a damage % increase?

[Faeryan]

Looking at the items I assumed it gives 4% damage per 1 accuracy point for on-hit procs.
With this char's 80+ accuracy his stone lobbing on hit proc would do 300% extra damage.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[TheSlayer]

Looking at the items I assumed it gives 4% damage per 1 accuracy point for on-hit procs.
With this char's 80+ accuracy his stone lobbing on hit proc would do 300% extra damage.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You've hit the nail on the head! Although this would be a very strong build without it, I'm experiencing a boost of ~180% damage increase overall from the damage-per-accuracy bonus. Doesn't much matter, as the character has an effective 4500 health/shields when properly used. It's silly to kill Ata in 3 rounds, but he'd still die with zero risk even in 1.04. Even on Nightmare, and perhaps with little risk on Insane. Assuming you could survive randy bosses to later fight the ubergolem.

I never did figure out why my Arcane Destruction procs were hitting for about 4x base damage. Thanks for spotting that! It was the most profoundly disturbing mystery of the whole game. However, the gloves give a massive bonus to base melee damage for all attacks in any sustained combat and the combination of +physical damage, +physical penetration (could have been 80%+ if needed, instead of throwing points around for giggles at the end) and very high crit rate (91% physical, 61% spell by level 38 without temporary boosts) mean that this build is solid in all circumstances. Everything died to massive, massive overkill at all times. HP dipped below 900 less than 5 times the whole mid-end game, while being totally careless and running every farportal I could. Tone the damage down by as much as 75% and he'd still tank everything rapidly.

The most notable thing to me is that the tier 4 Shield Offense build always gives Arcane Combat procs. This means that from level 20 onward you can basically 1-shot every mook in the game. That was true in 1.04 as well, though it seems it wasn't much discussed.

[TheSlayer]

Still looking for help about chat? I know this isn't strictly the most appropriate place, but I'd like to be able to chat.

I'm running an "upgraded" Adventurer version now with dual-wield and Temporal, so I can have global speed and my Time shield with dual-wield talents. I threw Fungus on there just to make him stupidly unkillable. +shield and +regen on healing is just wrong. And so right. Yay regenerated turns!

It's incredibly synergetic. Willpower means very high mana, so I'll be sitting pretty with my wads of sustains. But that's for another topic.