89 réponses à ce sujet

[ezrafetch]

Amioran wrote...

Then, I understand what you are saying about spirit, but I will not use +% spirit gear because spirit would be mostly used as auto-attack damage.

As I've said, why use Spirit damage via auto-attacks (without +% to boot) when abusing an elemental weakness is so much better?  Elemental weakness damage bonuses will far outstrip Spirit bonuses.

However, and this is important, the +% critical chance and damage work also for spells. So, since you waste only 2 slots for +crit equipment (and the important ones are not used, since Ferryman is there and RoUC is there) you can stack all other +% elements as a pure magic build, but ON TOP, have the +crit chance/dmg. You don't lose nothing and only you acquire something. The only thing you lose is about 20 points in magic, but sincerely it would not make that much of a difference, not from auto-attacks, nor from spells.

Assuming Falon'Din, the base damage is much lower than a staff that levels with you. 52 vs. 46 is much more of a difference than 20 magic. Add to this halven resistance and higher criticals chance + dmg and I don't see how you can really compare the two just for the +% fire damage on the staff.

Never did I say that I had assumed that the matter is a magic vs. Dex/Cun build issue.  This is strictly a concern of elemental damage types and staff choices.  If we control for "build type", but allow for the difference in staves, two things, I think, skew favor towards ignoring Spirit via Malcolm's Honor.  Comparing Torch of Falon'Din to Malcolm's Honor, Torch has an enormous two slots.  Primeval Lyrium Rune + Rune of Devastation (flat +10% damage, +37% attack speed) alongside the mods on it will make Torch simply a beast, and likely will match (and then some) Malcolm's Honor in DPS.  Then, the fire damage boost is a flat +16% which applies to both critical and non-critical hits.

And if you pass up Malcolm's Honor for Torch, you do lose +13% critical chance, but I am of the opinion that +37% attack speed and +26% damage (Rune of Devastation + staff mods) more than makes up that difference.  At some point, I stopped switching staves to exploit weaknesses when I didn't feel like it because Torch was cleaning people out just as fast (thanks to the increased attack speed and damage bonuses).

Also, I never said anything about spells generating criticals, because they obviously do.  That seems to be largely irrelevant to the current discussion, especially because you said earlier your Spirit staff is primarily for auto-attacks anyways.  But if we're going to discuss spell criticals, +13% "spell critical" not likely going to severely make/break your build when you get much better auto-attack bonuses from Torch (not to mention the all-important spell damage bonuses for Firestorm, an Elementalist's bread and butter).  It's more of an issue of efficiency and efficacy.  Auto-attacks constitute approximately 60% of what I do (at least for me, less for the short battles, more for the longer battles and bosses), meaning that auto-attack gains will largely be "more worthwhile" than spell gains.  I'm not as much of a theorist about the game as others are, but in the grand scheme of things +13% critical damage is outstripped by both auto-attack DPS gains via Torch, while suffering only mild losses of spell DPS, if suffering any DPS losses at all.

When I will be at act 3 I will tell you how it works. I know perfectly that theory is not the same as practice, but, while it is still too early to say, beginning act 2 is much more of a breeze than it was for my usual elemental only mag builds, or FM/BM ones.

I am looking forward to this, given all I've said, and I probably said too much three posts ago, so I'm going to stop discussing this because I'm running on little sleep to watch the Royal Wedding .  I'm skeptical of Malcolm's Honor's (the Spirit tree's overall, too) efficacy, but in this case, I'm actually wanting to be wrong in this instance.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 29 avril 2011 - 12:18 .

[mangiraffedog 000]

OK, there seems to be some confusion about Man-Giraffe-Dog on the forums, notably that it just looks like a Giraffe-Dog. Well... that's the POINT. Why do you think I'm the only one warning you. It's disguised as a Giraffe-Dog until it's ready to take over the world.
OK this is how Man-Giraffe-Dog came to be:


While growing up it was spotted in the wild (but the team was all killed by it and the photos were recovered afterwards)


After which it began its infiltration of humanity, disguised as Giraffe-Dog:


Which leaves us here. Man-Giraffe-Dog is poised to attack and destroy humanity and I'm trying to warn everyone before it's too late. This is totally serial guys. You need to prepare.

Excelsior!

[Amioran]

ezrafetch wrote...
As I've said, why use Spirit damage via auto-attacks when abusing an elemental weakness is so much better?  Elemental weakness damage bonuses will far outstrip Spirit bonuses.

A) Spirit halven resistance (no elements can do that).
The staff provides +crit chance (no other staff with same power can do that).
C) You need only two staves. One spirit, other nature/fire.

ezrafetch wrote...
Never did I say that I had assumed that the matter is a magic vs. Dex/Cun build issue.  This is strictly a concern of elemental damage types and staff choices. 

Actually this is the way you want to stear the discussion.

You cannot have the same crit chance/crit damage with Falon'Din as you can have with Malcom's. If you don't take this in consideration then it's obvious what's the better choice, this is not even debatable.

If you want to use Falon'Din as its best a dex/cun build would be not appropriate however (for many reasons that I will not elencate here). So, actually, this discussion is everything about the way the build is made and how it is concepted.

Using Malcom's outside a pure crit build would simply be a waste in comparision to Falon's Din, that's obvious.

ezrafetch wrote...
If we control for "build type", but allow for the difference in staves, two things, I think, skew favor towards ignoring Spirit via Malcolm's Honor.  Comparing Torch of Falon'Din to Malcolm's Honor, Torch has an enormous two slots.  Primeval Lyrium Rune + Rune of Devastation (flat +10% damage, +37% attack speed) alongside the mods on it will make Torch simply a beast, and likely will match (and then some) Malcolm's Honor in DPS.  Then, the fire damage boost is a flat +16% which applies to both critical and non-critical hits.

Sure, again discarding completely crit chance and crit damage. If you don't consider those two points it's obvious that Falon'Din is the better choice.

The question is: is a SPIRIT staff (because you cannot use Falon'Din always, while Spirit you can benefit also against immune enemies since the -50% res) with an high crit/dmg build (that benefits from that staff greatly) better than a staff with much less base damage with two runes slots and a non-crit build (or one much less effective)?

You said yourself you use weaknesses of enemies. This means that you will benefit from the two runes only, at most, 25%-30% of times. Enemies that are immune to fire are much more than enemies immune to spirit, and fire doesn't halven resistance.

And btw the +13% crit chance is not fixed. You will have that stat at beginning of Act 3. By the end the crit chance will increased by about 4-5% (at level 26 it is +17%). If you go with a crit build without a staff you will have to spend many more points on dexterity to reach the same crit chance. So, this must be taken in consideration and IT IS, actually, a factor of builds and not only elemental resistances/weaknesses.

ezrafetch wrote...
Also, I never said anything about spells generating criticals, because they obviously do.  That seems to be largely irrelevant to the current discussion, especially because you said earlier your Spirit staff is primarily for auto-attacks anyways. 

I said that I will not need +% spirit damage because I use the staff for auto-attacks. What this have to do with the fact that its primary use will be just for the critical chance it provides? It is obviously a matter relevant to the discussion. Because, as I've already said:

A) you can use the staff much more often than other staffs and so benefit of its bonuses almost always.
without using the staff and going for a same crit build you will have to invest much more on dex to reach the same results and crit chance is more important than crit dmg (since it is actually the +attack of the two)
C) you can still use other apparels to increase damage of spells on top of the already increased dmg via crit chance/crit dmg.

Now, if Malcom's would have either only one rune slot that would be dreaming, but you cannot have everything.

ezrafetch wrote...
But if we're going to discuss spell criticals, +13% "spell critical" not likely going to severely make/break your build when you get much better auto-attack bonuses from Torch (not to mention the all-important spell damage bonuses for Firestorm, an Elementalist's bread and butter).

+13% (and it's more, as I've already said) are 13 points in dexterity. If you are going to do a crit build then it makes a lot of difference. With a build that focuses primarily on crit damage it is the same as having in an item with +13 magic (with base 50% crit damage, so by the end it is more) for a full magic build.

If you aren't going to do a crit build then it's obvious it will not make any difference at all (or marginal).

Modifié par Amioran, 29 avril 2011 - 01:05 .

[mangiraffedog000]

I've come to warn you about MAN-GIRAFFE-DOG!! It's the single greatest threat to humanity!! RUN AWAY!!



I'm still more Serial than ever guys.

Modifié par Luke Barrett, 29 avril 2011 - 07:53 .

[cihimi]

^ wow. what an a s s.

[ezrafetch]

Amioran wrote...

A) Spirit halven resistance (no elements can do that).
The staff provides +crit chance (no other staff with same power can do that).
C) You need only two staves. One spirit, other nature/fire.

If you're abusing the elemental weakness, that damage gain will far outstrip using Spirit on an enemy not weak to Spirit.  I'm pretty sure having the correct damage type is +100%, which implies that you're losing out on +50% damage by refusing to switch to the correct type.  You only need three staves to really cover all damage types anyways: fire, cold, electriticy, so what's one extra stave?

The question is: is a SPIRIT staff (because you cannot use Falon'Din always, while Spirit you can benefit also against immune enemies since the -50% res) with an high crit/dmg build (that benefits from that staff greatly) better than a staff with much less base damage with two runes slots and a non-crit build (or one much less effective)?

You said yourself you use weaknesses of enemies. This means that you will benefit from the two runes only, at most, 25%-30% of times. Enemies that are immune to fire are much more than enemies immune to spirit, and fire doesn't halven resistance.

Note that I said that with the Primeval Lyrium Rune + Rune of Devastation, Torch of Falon'Din is good enough that it's sometimes just not even worth the effort to switch staves unless encountering immunities or weaknesses that need to be exploited for the sake of speeding up the battle (Shades, Abominations come to mind).

Also, have you tried to attack a Shade with a Spirit staff?  Still immune there.  The -50% resistance only applies after checking for immunities.  It's not going to break an immunity (it's no D2 Conviction, that's for sure).

I'm also pretty sure that it takes pretty much to level 24+ for Malcolm's Honor to match with Torch of Falon'Din (I am not wise in the ways of how the items scale up).  That's far too late for my tastes.  I get Torch as soon as it's available, meaning I get 5-7 levels of tearing dudes up with fiery goodness.

Amioran wrote...
The rest: *snip*

I wanted to address the above couple of points, but I'm totally sure this discussion took a terribly wrong turn somewhere.  I thought for a long time that it was about Spirit damage, but then it was about Dex/Cun, then it wasn't, or something.  And then mangoatgiraffebeardogpigdolphincowchickenwhalething has, well, diluted the thread.  So now I'm really done.    I'm still interested in seeing how your playthrough turns out, though.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 29 avril 2011 - 07:16 .

[rumination888]

Amioran wrote...
<snip>

Torch of Falon'Din can give +12% crit chance. I'm just sayin'.

The only enemies I've noticed with actual magic resistance are mages(on nightmare, anyways). Mages are already weak to spirit, thus making Spirit's extra function pointless. Spirit cannot remove immunities. An enemy that was resistant to an element on Hard and below becomes immune to that element on nightmare. Thus, on Nightmare, Spirit loses one of its major advantages.

Modifié par rumination888, 29 avril 2011 - 07:47 .

[IN1]

Mages are already weak to spirit

Actually, I don't know what to think... I know I have them listed as weak to spirit (following the Official Strategy Guide). However, mages I've encountered in Act III and Crazy Loner in Act II were spirit-immune.

Modifié par IN1, 29 avril 2011 - 07:50 .

[ezrafetch]

IN1 wrote...

Mages are already weak to spirit

Actually, I don't know what to think... I know I have them listed as weak to spirit (following the Official Strategy Guide). However, mages I've encountered in Act III and Crazy Loner in Act II were spirit-immune.

I faintly recall a similar thing happening to me too, much to my surprise.  I won't have time to check until late tomorrow, but I can try running through the final battle siding with the Templars and try using Spirit "things" and see if it the spirit immunity pops up for me too.

Is it possible for Elite/Boss-rank mages to have a different set of immunities?  Only explanation I can think of off the top of my head.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 29 avril 2011 - 08:11 .

[IN1]

ezrafetch wrote...

IN1 wrote...

Mages are already weak to spirit

Actually, I don't know what to think... I know I have them listed as weak to spirit (following the Official Strategy Guide). However, mages I've encountered in Act III and Crazy Loner in Act II were spirit-immune.

I faintly recall a similar thing happening to me too, much to my surprise.  I won't have time to check until late tomorrow, but I can try running through the final battle siding with the Templars and try using Spirit "things" and see if it the spirit immunity pops up for me too.

Is it possible for Elite/Boss-rank mages to have a different set of immunities?  Only explanation I can think of off the top of my head.

Anyway, I think I was relying on OSG way too much Double-checked: both Blood and Circle mages ARE listed there as weak to spirit.

[Amioran]

rumination888 wrote...

Amioran wrote...
<snip>

Torch of Falon'Din can give +12% crit chance. I'm just sayin'.

Yes, with 46 damage that it's the same as a level 20 general staff and that you take when you are level 21-24. Very good.

At level 24 (mid act 3) you have 52 damage with a leveled staff and +17% crit chance (again with a leveled staff with +crit chance on power 1, as Malcom's).

Do you know the difference 6 points of damage in a staff make for spells? Surely more than the +10% damage from devastation. The only thing you get more is +attack speed, but again, since you can use that staff (Falon'Din) very little endgame (if you want to actually damage something)  it doesn't really matter.

Modifié par Amioran, 30 avril 2011 - 10:06 .

[ezrafetch]

Amioran wrote...

Yes, with 46 damage that it's the same as a level 20 general staff and that you take when you are level 21-24. Very good.

At level 24 (mid act 3) you have 52 damage with a leveled staff and +17% crit chance (again with a leveled staff with +crit chance on power 1, as Malcom's).

Do you know the difference 6 points of damage in a staff make for spells? Surely more than the +10% damage from devastation. The only thing you get more is +attack speed, but again, since you can use that staff (Falon'Din) very little endgame (if you want to actually damage something)  it doesn't really matter.

+16% fire damage
+8 fire damage

Sounds like 10% is already made up there.  And the fire damage works on the most important spell in the arsenal to begin with, Firestorm.  +16% Fire Damage also will almost always cover the base damage differential, especially if you're stacking +Fire%.

Modifié par ezrafetch, 01 mai 2011 - 05:45 .

[tonnactus]

By the way,why the item decription for the keepers staff not just is +24 fire damage???

[ezrafetch]

tonnactus wrote...

By the way,why the item decription for the keepers staff not just is +24 fire damage???

Two things: there's a straight +8 damage mod and a +Fire% damage mod.  So its auto-attack damage is 58 Fire Damage / 79 per second.  The +16% applies after the flat damage boost, as far as I know (IN1? Where are you? IN1!!!!!!!!!!!!).  If it's the other way around...57 Damage / 77 per second.

But the real gem is that the +16% Fire damage mod will apply to any fire-based attacks, so Firestorm gets a hefty damage boost.  That's why it's so good for Elementalist mages.

I'm not sure how/where/when a Rune of Devastation applies in the damage formula if you decide to rune your Torch that way: I somehow didn't find the recipe so I went with a Rune of Fire instead.  It will obviously increase autoattack damages (63 Damage / 86 DPS or 59 Damage / 80 DPS depending on the calculation), but I'm not sure if the Rune of Devastation's +10% applies to spells...if it does, then...woooooooooooooo

So if you socket it, Torch is by far the best Unique staff in the game, especially for mages who like to go on the offensive.

[GenericPlayer2]

I downloaded and installed the packs (the combo deal). Since my current playthrough is a mage I only just posed around with the other class items as opposed to playing with them. The Malcom staff is nice, but I would not say overpowered. Some of the items evole with you, while others have some very heavy level restrictions. To me it seems like BioWare saw how popular evolving items were in the mod community and acted on it - so good job there. In addition, I am very pleased that they gave us a pair of matching daggers instead of the one dagger or a mismatched set. All daggers in the game should be sold/looted in a pair of two - in my opinion anyway.

I have some comments on the art work - overall I am pleased withe the appearance of the robes and armor - even though the gold warrior plate has something that could be used as a crumb catcher. However, I am displeased to see the continuing trend of obnoxiously oversized weapons. They look horrible. Whatever effort was put into the textures is ruined by the comical effect of wielding chair-sized daggers or car-sized great-swords. Weapons like Maker's Kiss and Arm of Adruil all demonstrate excellent art work without the need to go extra large.