87 réponses à ce sujet

[capn233]

I did end up respec'ing at 14 to go down the right side of Templar to get Wrath and pick up There Is No Darkness for the defense buff.  15 was Block and Slash, 16 was Flow of Battle and 17 was Pommel.  For 18 I finally got Coup de Grace.

 

The enemy that has been really annoying now is the Arcane Horror.  Are there any tricks for beating one with melee in a reasonable amount of time?  It's tiresome chasing them down and having them simply teleport after only a couple hits.  In my team games it never mattered since I always had ranged squadmates who could just shoot it.

[jonmoore86]

I did end up respec'ing at 14 to go down the right side of Templar to get Wrath and pick up There Is No Darkness for the defense buff.  15 was Block and Slash, 16 was Flow of Battle and 17 was Pommel.  For 18 I finally got Coup de Grace.

 

The enemy that has been really annoying now is the Arcane Horror.  Are there any tricks for beating one with melee in a reasonable amount of time?  It's tiresome chasing them down and having them simply teleport after only a couple hits.  In my team games it never mattered since I always had ranged squadmates who could just shoot it.

 Only time ive not had trouble with them is with an assassin. Just use all of your abilities with knockdown to leave them cced as much as possible.

[Cydh]

I did end up respec'ing at 14 to go down the right side of Templar to get Wrath and pick up There Is No Darkness for the defense buff.  15 was Block and Slash, 16 was Flow of Battle and 17 was Pommel.  For 18 I finally got Coup de Grace.

 

The enemy that has been really annoying now is the Arcane Horror.  Are there any tricks for beating one with melee in a reasonable amount of time?  It's tiresome chasing them down and having them simply teleport after only a couple hits.  In my team games it never mattered since I always had ranged squadmates who could just shoot it.

 

Arcane Horrors deal spirit damage. Magic damage reduction does NOT work, I tested this a million times, it simply doesn't.

 

Two tactics work for soloing arcane horrors on a warrior:

 

1. The clever way: go two-handed, spec for earthshaking strike with the fire upgrade, find a pillar, use the pillar to block their missile, and burn them down through the fire. That's how I soloed the Arcane Horror boss in The Descent.

 

2.The hard way: Craft yourself a FULL spirit resistance set. Like, go for 85 spirit, no less. Ignore Magic Resistance, again, it doesn't work. I went sword and shield for the fight in the Library in Trespassers (two elite arcane Horrors and several Poison Archers) but I don't think it's relevant.

 

I never played seriously with specializations, so the extent of my advices stop here.

 

The 85 spirit resist craft is also how I managed to solo Nightmare Trial of the Fools (with all trials active) on a new warrior. No need to try though, it's painful and not really a feat worth talking about. The amount of AI cheese I used to solo In Your Heart Shall Burn at level 5 with all trials was through the roof.

 

The Arcane Horrors in the Exalted Plains were tough to deal with on this all trials run; I was too low level to get Earthshaking Strike, so I had to basically hide in a corner until cooldowns are available, run in and bash, run out and wait. So many wipes without potions

[capn233]

I guess Earthshaking Strike might be helpful, don't know what I would want to drop to get it.  Maybe it would be worthwhile to clear the Lost Temple since it has a trillion of them.

 

I have been using upgraded spirit resist tonics + my base spirit resist from shards when I fight them and just jumping / running sideways or finding something to hide behind when they do their machinegun attack.  It's the tedium of chasing them down a hundred times that is irritating.

[Gya]

I guess Earthshaking Strike might be helpful, don't know what I would want to drop to get it. Maybe it would be worthwhile to clear the Lost Temple since it has a trillion of them.

I have been using upgraded spirit resist tonics + my base spirit resist from shards when I fight them and just jumping / running sideways or finding something to hide behind when they do their machinegun attack. It's the tedium of chasing them down a hundred times that is irritating.

Have you tried backtanking (it's now a thing!) them at melee range with BMTW? If it works on their beam spam, then it means you at least won't have to run to cover, hide behind it and then run back over to them. Might save a small amount of time, assuming it works of course.

[PapaCharlie9]

I guess Earthshaking Strike might be helpful, don't know what I would want to drop to get it.  Maybe it would be worthwhile to clear the Lost Temple since it has a trillion of them.
 
I have been using upgraded spirit resist tonics + my base spirit resist from shards when I fight them and just jumping / running sideways or finding something to hide behind when they do their machinegun attack.  It's the tedium of chasing them down a hundred times that is irritating.

It's a bit of a shock to learn that the Lost Temple and Shard collecting might have a useful function after all.

Is machine-gun mode survivable if you charge into it? Pity if not, since the AH is locked in place for the duration of that attack. How about using upgraded Antivan Fire? If you cover most of the battlefield with DoT, it will teleport into damage. I think you can only have one active at a time, though.

Does Grappling Chain work on it? If not, do on hit Masterworks proc on Grappling Chain, even if the target resists the physical effect? That seems to be the case for Hook & Tackle, but since Grappling Chain just seems to fail if the target resists, there may be no procs.

In general, if you can find an on hit Masterwork that either boosts your rare but non-zero close quarters hits on it, to wear it down more quickly, or find a proc that effectively gives you CC on hit (like Pull of the Abyss from FT Nevarrite), that might help. Granted, these are basically poor-man's equivalents to having party members do special purpose attacks. Unless you are going for a purist solo run, I don't see that there is that much choice. Bees are basically like having an extra damage-dealing party member, after all.

[capn233]

Have you tried backtanking (it's now a thing!) them at melee range with BMTW? If it works on their beam spam, then it means you at least won't have to run to cover, hide behind it and then run back over to them. Might save a small amount of time, assuming it works of course.

 

Actually haven't tried that much.  But I am not sure I would get the opportunity.  Typically what happens is that it will start with its basic attack, I charge it and get a swing or two in, then it teleports and goes into the stream routine.  With Spirit Resist up, I can actually charge through it and live if I want, although over the engagement it requires health pots since I will get drained and it takes a long time.  Basically I can't usually get in more than two or three hits before it teleports.  The exception is when it does its little charge up knock down thing, where I can hit it more than that.

 

It's a bit of a shock to learn that the Lost Temple and Shard collecting might have a useful function after all.

Is machine-gun mode survivable if you charge into it? Pity if not, since the AH is locked in place for the duration of that attack. How about using upgraded Antivan Fire? If you cover most of the battlefield with DoT, it will teleport into damage. I think you can only have one active at a time, though.

Does Grappling Chain work on it? If not, do on hit Masterworks proc on Grappling Chain, even if the target resists the physical effect? That seems to be the case for Hook & Tackle, but since Grappling Chain just seems to fail if the target resists, there may be no procs.

In general, if you can find an on hit Masterwork that either boosts your rare but non-zero close quarters hits on it, to wear it down more quickly, or find a proc that effectively gives you CC on hit (like Pull of the Abyss from FT Nevarrite), that might help. Granted, these are basically poor-man's equivalents to having party members do special purpose attacks. Unless you are going for a purist solo run, I don't see that there is that much choice. Bees are basically like having an extra damage-dealing party member, after all.

 

Lost Temple of Dirthemen is probably going to be completely useless for me, but I finally did the elven glyphs in Exalted Plains and unlocked that area.  I usually go there, it has some shield that is ok for an npc with 5% damage for each enemy in 8m.  Shards aren't bad either, it is 20% max resistance per elemental type and you also get the belts if you want to use them.  Better when you got an amulet of power of course.

 

As above, I can survive charging through the stream, but most of the time they have been doing that after teleporting away, and so by the time I get to them its really only a couple swings before another teleport.  Wasn't really able to CC them with any power.  I haven't had much luck trying to hit them with Mighty Blow since the animation is slow.

 

If POTA works, then maybe I should just switch to Sulevin since I have it (the regular one, not crafted version).  Less damage than Asala MkIII (no Hidden Blades, etc) but it might be worth it.

 

edit:  I tried Antivan Fire on one of them, actually it was the one in the last Spirit door, but that was a lot of levels ago and I don't think the grenade was upgraded all the way.  It just sat in the fire when I threw it from long range, but the damage relative to its health was pretty low at the time.  It might be something I should revisit.  Actually I might have tried to use one on the Arcane in the chateau in Emerald Graves, but it was a bit hop happy.

 

edit2:  Forgot that Sulevin has a level 20 restriction.. guess I will have to wait to try it.

[PapaCharlie9]

Lost Temple of Dirthemen is probably going to be completely useless for me

When you said "Lost Temple" the first time, I thought you meant Solasan, which lead me to the comment about Shards.

Sulevin to proc PotA is a start, but you also need an ability you can spam to proc it. That's why I was on about Grappling Chain. Maybe Combat Roll? Does it proc on hit?

[capn233]

When you said "Lost Temple" the first time, I thought you meant Solasan, which lead me to the comment about Shards.

Sulevin to proc PotA is a start, but you also need an ability you can spam to proc it. That's why I was on about Grappling Chain. Maybe Combat Roll? Does it proc on hit?

 

Don't think Roll hits at all at base.  I am not sure if Chain causes a hit that can proc on an enemy it can't pull.  I think if you use it close on a target that won't be pulled you still kick it though.

 

Not that it is all that fast, but probably auto-attack with search cancel has the most frequent number of attacks out of the powers available to me.

[Cydh]

I never tried, but maybe you could try to replicate pull of the abyss with the pulling version of Whirlwind? Man DA:I was so long ago.

 

Anyway, Earthshaking Strike is a great skill with the Fire upgrade. I highly suggest you give it a try, it might not be optimal at high end against target dummies (or dragons) but it's a ton of easy damage.

[Mr Fixit]

I seem to remember someone saying that the Walking Fortress cooldown reduction doesn't work anymore? Or did I mix it up with something else?

[capn233]

I seem to remember someone saying that the Walking Fortress cooldown reduction doesn't work anymore? Or did I mix it up with something else?

 

Yeah in the olden days if you took Siege Breaker then every hit you took reduced your cooldowns.  That was removed when they rebalanced a bunch of the powers.

 

Also FWIW regarding the discussion of Arcane Horrors, Sulevin's POTA doesn't seem to do much of anything to them.  I couldn't really tell if it would CC them at all, usually they teleport away too soon when I would enter melee range.  The proc is also extremely short in duration anyway.

 

I was obviously way overleved for Lost Temple of Dirthamen since I was at 20 and mundane enemies there are 11.  The rooms with dual Arcane Horrors were still relatively dangerous.  I ended up laying down some Antivan Fire and breaking LOS with them to try and get them to repeatedly float into the fire, as well as using my melee attacks.  Still pretty tedious despite the level disparity.  All in all no great reason to even go there, since the "reward" is mostly the mid level shield, and you can't do this mission solo in the strictest sense.

 

Another note is that I probably shouldn't have bothered to get the Shockwave upgrade to Antivan Fire since that component does have FF and I can't lazily drop fire on myself.  Also makes it twice as expensive to equip.

 

I actually have had a crafted Axe of the Dragon Hunter laying around for a few levels now which increases the offense of my character fairly substantially, which is in part why I have been avoiding it.  I also have maybe the third best armor despite the fact that I was able to acquire Superior Battlemaster Armor schematic the first trip to the Wastes after unlocking Short List.  As looks are important, and I don't want to look like an extra from a Dickens story with a little plate strapped to my coat, I have been running Sturdy Battlemaster Mail and Ferelden Soldier Helmet to look the part, with a splash of "hot rod red".  I suppose if I wanted more damage I could try Superior Prowler for dex or cunning bonus.

[Mr Fixit]

Yeah in the olden days if you took Siege Breaker then every hit you took reduced your cooldowns.  That was removed when they rebalanced a bunch of the powers.

 

Wiki doesn't note that change. Does it mean that Siege Breaker now only improves guard?

[PapaCharlie9]

Wiki doesn't note that change. Does it mean that Siege Breaker now only improves guard?

Yes. Bookmark this post:

http://forum.bioware...pgrade-toggles/

[capn233]

Bump to revisit this:

 

Arcane Horrors deal spirit damage. Magic damage reduction does NOT work, I tested this a million times, it simply doesn't.

 

Don't know if this is something else that is version dependent but I took a look at this in my game since I had a lot of mats and decided to craft a few Helms of the Inquisitor with different defenses / resistances.  Specifically one with +13 magic defense, another with +25 electric resistance, and the last with +25 spirit resistance.  I was at level 20 and went to a rampart section in Exalted Plains with Arcane Horrors at level 11.

 

I had the magic defense helmet equipped first, and with it I had a total magic defense of 46 as well as spirit resistance of 30%.  Cleared undead and went up to the Arcane to let it hit me.  With its barrage attack, all of the spirit damage hits appeared to be in the mid 40's.  Adding on Spirit Resist Tonic maxed that stat at 80% and the barrage did 12-13 damage per hit.

 

I reloaded and switched to the electric resistance helm (control item basically), which dropped magic defense to 33 with the same 30 spirit resist.  This time when the Arcane did the barrage attack, the hits were in the mid 50's.  After spirit resist tonic, barrage hits did 15-16 damage.

 

Spirit helm gave me 33 magic defense and 55 spirit resist, and the barrage attack did mid 30's damage per hit.  Combined with spirit resist tonic, barrage hits were 15 or 16.  Not unexpected that this one combined with tonic wasn't any better than the electric helm + tonic since I have enough base spirit resist from shards in combination with upgraded tonic to max resist at 80.

 

In any case, it appears that at least in the vanilla current version of the game magic defense is reducing the damage per hit from Arcane Horror attacks.  I don't want to do the math to make sure it is in the expected multiplicative combination with the elemental defense though.

[Cydh]

it was a long time ago, but with capped magic and low spirit, I'd take volleys of 35 damage in the face (x10), but with like low magic and capped spirit, I'd take volleys of only 8-9 damage (x10).

 

Everything else being equal, of course.

 

I found a couple screenshots I took back then. No spirit tonic was used, I didn't even know those were options lol

 

Spoiler

"with capped magic resist"

 

Spoiler

with capped spirit resist

 

 

Now I'm not saying you're mistaken or whatever, just my own experience

[capn233]

So the low spirit resist and low magic defense numbers were the same?  Strange if so.  I think I didn't overwrite the quick save at Victory's Rise, so I can get some screenshots this evening.

[PapaCharlie9]

Now I'm not saying you're mistaken or whatever, just my own experience

When testing, make sure you verify your stats in combat and any status effects on you. If you had a debuff on you that you didn't realize in the first screenshot, that might explain the difference.

Some gear and perks that buff attributes aren't active until actually in combat.

[capn233]

Reloaded the quick save, ran basically the same tests again.  Target is a Level 11 Arcane Horror at Victory Rise.  This is for the current version of the game, no SP story DLC just Collector Edition stuff and Black Emporium.

 

Setup 1 - Magic Defense Helm

 

 

 

Magic Defense 46
Spirit Resist 30
Damage 42-46

 

Setup 2 - Magic Defense Helm, Spirit Resist Tonic

 

 

 

Magic Defense 46
Spirit Resist 80
Damage 12-13

 

Setup 3 - Electric Helm

 

 

 

Magic Defense 33
Spirit Resist 30
Damage 53-57

 

Setup 4 - Electric Helm, Spirit Resist Tonic

 

 

 

Magic Defense 33
Spirit Resist 80
Damage 15-16

 

Setup 5 - Spirit Helm

 

 

 

Magic Defense 33
Spirit Resist 55
Damage 34-37

 

Setup 6 - Spirit Helm, Spirit Resist Tonic

 

 

 

Magic Defense 33
Spirit Resist 80
Damage 15-16

 

****

 

In the mechanics thread, the interaction between defense and resistances is shown as multiplicative in a manner similar to this (ignoring other modifiers which should be constant):

 

Damage_Taken = Base_Damage*(1 - Defense)*(1 - Resistance)

 

Assuming this is working correctly then the above setups would have been taking the following fraction of base damage per hit:

 

Magic Defense Helm: 0.378

 

Magic Defense Helm + Spirit Resist Tonic: 0.108

 

Electric Helm: 0.469

 

Electric Helm + Spirit Resist Tonic: 0.134

 

Spirit Helm: 0.3015

 

Spirit Helm + Spirit Resist Tonic: 0.134

[Bigdawg13]

1) Maybe I'm just slow these days (mentally) but why are you testing electric resistance at all against an arcane horror?  

 

2) Was spirit resist ever in question?  I thought the "real" question was whether generic magic defense has any benefit or not.

[PapaCharlie9]

1) Maybe I'm just slow these days (mentally) but why are you testing electric resistance at all against an arcane horror?  
 
2) Was spirit resist ever in question?  I thought the "real" question was whether generic magic defense has any benefit or not.

Electric was a baseline: a resistance known not to help at all against a spirit attack. If magic resist numbers look like electric resist numbers, magic resist is not doing the job.

Spirit resist test is also kind of like a baseline: does equivalent magic resist reduce damage to the same level as equivalent spirit resist?

[capn233]

The short answer is that these three helmets were already in my inventory since I crafted them to swap for different enemies before I decided on a whim to take a look at Arcane Horror damage vs magic defense in the current version of the game.

 

The longer answer is basically what PapaCharlie9 said.  I included the electric resistance helm because I did not expect its resistance to contribute to any mitigation of the Arcane Horror attacks.  On the flip side, I did expect the spirit resistance helm to contribute to mitigation of that attack, and it was included as a point of comparison as well.  Also I was thinking I might try to verify the relationship between defense and resistance to make sure they stacked as per the formula, but the RNG applied to each attack makes this a bit irritating.

 

I probably shouldn't have listed each as a different test in the post, it is really just one test with multiple trials.

[Cydh]

I should probably give it another test, but your method is sound and so are your conclusions.

 

I'm 100% certain having Magic Resistance at the cap didn't cut it for me. It was easy to get with the armor from Jaws of Hakkon. Now the only difference was that I was playing a Dwarf. Maybe the racial 25% magic resistance is buggy and doesn't get applied, and the character sheet was lying, displaying an 80 where it should have displayed a 55.

[PapaCharlie9]

I should probably give it another test, but your method is sound and so are your conclusions.
 
I'm 100% certain having Magic Resistance at the cap didn't cut it for me. It was easy to get with the armor from Jaws of Hakkon. Now the only difference was that I was playing a Dwarf. Maybe the racial 25% magic resistance is buggy and doesn't get applied, and the character sheet was lying, displaying an 80 where it should have displayed a 55.

Were you using your Inquisitor or a party member? Party member defenses are capped at 80%.

[capn233]

I should probably give it another test, but your method is sound and so are your conclusions.

 

I'm 100% certain having Magic Resistance at the cap didn't cut it for me. It was easy to get with the armor from Jaws of Hakkon. Now the only difference was that I was playing a Dwarf. Maybe the racial 25% magic resistance is buggy and doesn't get applied, and the character sheet was lying, displaying an 80 where it should have displayed a 55.

 

Might have been broken in a previous version of the game.  I don't know.  I didn't really pay close enough attention in previous runs since I had a full party and largely used Barrier for most of my defense needs.

 

Were you using your Inquisitor or a party member? Party member defenses are capped at 80%.

 

I thought defense for anybody was capped at 80.  Granted, I have never tried to get it as high as possible on the Inquisitor.