[b42] cornac bulwark seeking general advice

[turtle]

Some spoilerish things below. You've been warned.

I'm a fairly new player and this is my first character that didn't come to an end in the western teir 2 dungeons. I seem to enjoy suffocating in the sandworm lair. I've been down to 0 lives since... maybe the sandworm lair . I thought I'd post here before I do something stupid and kill the character.

Here's the character:
http://te4.org/characters/22278/tome/71 ... 70fdb9c455

The character has just completed the spider quest, the naga cave, and now the vor armory in the east. I'm considering going to one of the prides next I guess. Or better to go after the resonating diamond?

Any advice about loadout/talents is welcome.

I'm currently working on greater weapon focus and piercing sight. Maybe do shield expertise or shield pummel after that. I'm at the bottom of the barrel in the general talent tree, in my opinion.

Things get scary if I run out of shields+healing, although this doesn't happen much. Resists are pretty weak, but there hasn't been much good gear in this department. Rush, step up, blinding speed, and the movement infusion provide good mobility. Psionic grip is good too. Damage output hasn't changed appreciably since finding the current weapon (on tempest peak?). The character can deliver about 1000 damage with an assault.

There was a very very close call in the orc ambush when leaving dreadfell. Ran out of shields+healing and hit ~100hp.

Does the ring of the dead need to be worn to help with that thing that can happen to my character?

[kevlar]

I believe the key problem is you are low in dexterity, so the bonuses from shield wall are low -> so your defence, armor & hardiness lack in numbers.

Second, your armour is not that good i think, Phis resistance with high armor, hardiness and defence is not so usefull. Better a voratun impenetrable o r of command, with some elemental damage reduction.

Just my 2 cents

Kev

[Frumple]

I'd probably say leave off piercing sight -- perfect strike into an assault -> overpower will kill most things that are naturally invisible or things that are stealthed, so it's not much of an issue. You can manually target squares if you know something's in them but can't see it.

You want shield expertise pretty badly; shields are one of the highest base damage weapons in the game, and SE makes that even better. They're limited to shield offense talents, yes, but SE'll make them notably more painful.

Spellshield was probably a mistake. It's not terrible, per se, but only one save being boosted is somewhat anemic. You almost definitely want to swap out that savior's ring for the glory of the prides. At least swap out nightsong for it. Similarly, you probably want the teleportation amulet on instead of the savior's amulet; having a teleport source on hand that's almost completely unable to be blocked is tremendously helpful, and it takes a bit to charge up after you wear it. So the thing's basically useless sitting in your inventory.

Borfast's is fine, but yeah, you probably want to be keeping an eye out for a better voratun purple or randart, or the plate of the king. Might be some better new ones, I'unno.

Definitely go after the resonating diamond (though watch out for the acid crawlers, ha!) and then go back west and clean up the backup guardians and stuff before hitting the prides. It should allow you to upgrade a few pieces of kit, as well as get in a few more levels. Do be keeping an eye out for plain (white) voratun one-handed weapons (waraxe, longsword, mace); a good one of those turned crystalline would probably let you hit a good bit harder than wintertide. Alternately keep an eye out for ureslak's femur -- after you whack something with it a few times it becomes one of the best one-handed weapons in the game, heh.

And yeah, definitely keep bumping dex. Raising it and cunning alongside each other'd be fine if you're wanting to run a bit of a crit build; you can eventually kick on precise strikes for the dex scaling crit boost (or ignore cunning entirely, max dexterity, and run your crit entirely off precise strikes).

[lukep]

I would swap out some of your equipment, for starters. I'd wear Scale Mail of Kroltar, Glory of the Pride, and strongly consider Poleda the Voratun Waraxe for its +19% damage to orcs (IIRC). I would also keep one teleport (not movement infusion) handy for escaping from swarms on a moment's notice, perhaps by replacing a shield rune with CPD. Also, no Wild infusion is tempting fate a little bit, but you should be able to survive with a Bulwark's passives.

Are you using counterstrikes to boost the damage of Assault attacks? If not, you should be, it is absolutely amazing. Ideally, you should block as much as possible, as that allows you to counterstrike, which more than makes up for the lost time attacking.

For stats, I'd go STR/CON/DEX, and invest in Precise strikes if you want to go for critical hits. The dexterity helps a lot of talents, including Shield Wall, Greater Weapon Focus, and Precise Strikes. The crit boost from Precise Strikes is more than from Cunning, and I didn't find the -10% attack speed too bad on my Sun Paladin winner.

Also, yes, go after the diamond now, go west, clear all the dungeons, then return. It doesn't look like you can get a merchant artifact, but get one (I like shields) if you can. I'm not sure what order to do the Prides in, I usually do Vor, Undead, Wyrmic, Warrior ones in that order, and it seems to work. Just tailor your kit to each and you should be fine. (Fire/cold resist and mobility for Vor, Blight resist/armour or DEF for undead one in south desert, normal-ish kit for the last two)

You need to be wearing the Ring of Death for it to take effect.

[turtle]

Good calls on the kit swaps. For whatever reason, Wintertide averages around 240 when I bump orcs while polenda seems to do about 220. Not a huge difference, but Wintertide seems better for now since it also provides a resist to boot.

Good to know that I have to block to take advantage of counterstrikes .

I hadn't even tried the scale mail because I somehow had the notion only "massive" armors would give me 100% hardiness. Not true!

My crit chance is already 100% and I rarely miss. What would precise strike buy me? The only reason I had any points in cunning was so I could spend some generic talent points, but I foresee primarily pumping dex from here on out (str and con are maxed).