37 réponses à ce sujet

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Greetings people. I have what I believe is the comprehensive Rift Mage build for Nightmare with Trials.

 

Here it is:- http://www.rpg-gamin...35443152a65c701

 

As you can see, there is a big problem - It costs 38 skill points. The maximum skill points available in game is 32 for Humans and 31 for non-Humans (in this case Elf and Qunari).

 

So I either need to get rid of 6 or 7 skill points. Which ones should I get rid ? Should I get rid of Lightning Bolt and Storm passives ? Or should I get rid of Chilling Array and Ice Armor ? Or should I get rid of Winter's Grasp, its upgrade and Mana Surge ? Or should I get rid of something else ?

 

To put things into context - This is not for a solo playthrough, but one where the complete 4 party setup.

 

[PawsPause]

hmm hard to say. I know papacharlie9 might have some good advice. I don't know if this might help but Gyargh did a solo run of the thaig with a rift mage. Check out his channel if you need some ideas. I would personally get rid of winters grasp because if you have ice mine ice array, you can close in on enemies with fade step then use it. if your mana regens fast enough with restorative veil, conductive current might not get a lot of good use because youll always be full of mana, granted enemies stay weakened. no need for gathering storm since you have accessories that can help with cooldown. same goes for rejuvenating barrier in the spirit tree. maybe drop guardian spirit since youll be in a party?

 

so to sum it up, I would drop

Spirit Tree: Rejuvenating Barrier, Guardian Spirit

Lightning Tree: Gathering Storm. Conductive Current

Winter Tree: Mana Surge, Winters Ruin, Winters Grasp.

 

So that's 7 points. If you only need to drop 6, keep conductive current, or whatever passive you want.

[ottffsse]

as I said before, having all three elements on rift mage while nice, will lead to mediocrity, but you can be strong in two elements + spirit and that is enough in any fight really. 

 

so lightning tree is pretty suboptimal all around unless you embrace weakness bug and just go with it. energy barrage is not worth it if you have immolate on rift mage. Lightning bolt is never optimal because you never use a storm pact belt if you are lightning light and your winters ruin or immolate will deal more damage than a lightning bolt even if enemies are clustered.

 

I say just drop lightning tree unless you plan to go all the way in and take lightning cage. 

 

And as pawspause pointed out the passives in it conductive current and gathering storm are i general way less important to rift mage than to other mages. 

 

blizzard with upgrade does enough damage even on nightmare if you have an enhanced winter pact on.  In that setup you expand winter tree to blizzard and upgrade, get rid of the storm tree, keep spirit tree and rift mage as is, reduce fire tree to immolate and upgrade, flashpoint and clean burn. You will do mostly cold damage but a lot (with winter pact) but can start spamming immolates if need be. Your backup party mage should be inferno based necro or ke. you switch out veilstrike and dispel based on situation. 

 

you can go fire heavy as a rift mage too: use an enhanced inferno pact belt, in that case you keep the passives and fire mine in the inferno tree, get chaotic focus (maybe), still get rid of the lightning tree as you will be using immolate instead of energy barrage and since you do not really even use energy barrage getting into lightning tree produces diminishing returns, in winter you have a tough decision to make: either give up the defense of ice mine or the secondary offense and cc of winters grasp + mana surge, I would give up ice mine probably as it is too deep in the winter tree and in between veilstrike stonefist pota and winters grasp you have enough cc. You still have frost step+winters grasp and potentically an ice staff for ice damage should fire be suboptimal which it rarely is. Get the focus ability firestorm as it is especially great in trespasser with lots of focus. It's basically the "fire blizzard" with instant cc in the form of knockdown instead of situational freeze. with inferno pact and this build make sure you get lots of heal on kill/ on hit and encore staff: you need to regenerate a bit of health everytime you have barrier on because your health pool is low. In trespasser and otherwise if you have a way to boost your focus generation somehow this setup if great with perma firestorm. heal on hit + firestorm = immortal rift mage, I did the final battle that way with a rift mage with suberb inferno pact belt on.

 

*in previous patches blizzard + heal on hit = immoratlity too, not sure if that was fixed since the dot fix though. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

as I said before, having all three elements on rift mage while nice, will lead to mediocrity, but you can be strong in two elements + spirit and that is enough in any fight really. 

 

so lightning tree is pretty suboptimal all around unless you embrace weakness bug and just go with it. energy barrage is not worth it if you have immolate on rift mage. Lightning bolt is never optimal because you never use a storm pact belt if you are lightning light and your winters ruin or immolate will deal more damage than a lightning bolt even if enemies are clustered.

 

I say just drop lightning tree unless you plan to go all the way in and take lightning cage. 

 

And as pawspause pointed out the passives in it conductive current and gathering storm are i general way less important to rift mage than to other mages. 

 

I got rid of the Storm school spells (most of it) as well as Mana Surge and Rejuvenating Barrier since you will can get your mana back via Weakness with Fire, Frost and Spirit anyway.

 

Non-Human Build :- http://www.rpg-gamin...35443152a65c701

 

Human Build:- http://www.rpg-gamin...35443152a65c701

 

I have tested this build in the base game and it is very powerful. Even against Giants (who are immune to Weakness), it is very strong since you can switch Fade Step for mana regeneration. I didn't record it but Flaming Array, Chilling Array, Fade Step (for mana regen), Stonefist (specced for Guard damage) and Energy Barrage make Giants look like a child's play.

 

My question is how will this build do in Descent, Jaws of Hakkon and Trespasser ? Jaws of Hakkon should be breeze because of Fire and Spirit. Descent enemies can be taken care with Frost, Fire and Spirit. The question is Trespasser.

[ottffsse]

http://www.rpg-gamin...35442a55c60173d

That's my rift mage in trespasser with infernopact. Actually since I was playing in a team and not solo I had firewall instead of barrier. But I leave barrier for now here as it is safer .

[!nick]

http://www.rpg-gamin...35442a55c60173d
That's my rift mage in trespasser with infernopact. Actually since I was playing in a team and not solo I had firewall instead of barrier. But I leave barrier for now here as it is safer .

How do you gear your rift mage, ottffsse? I've found rift mage solo runs incredibly difficult in trespasser, with walk softly and even ground trials.

[ottffsse]

I did not solo. If soloing I would use a blue inferno pact belt with that build (not a purple that is too extreme) and masterwork heal of hit staff and walking fortress armor . and ring of doubt.

Edit: and probably take energy barrage perhaps to get health back and walking fortress up. You need to Regen health and proc walking fortress because you can get koed as a rift mage as guardian spirit has 60 s cool down. Oh yeah and respect if you can clear those special demon or revenant treasure rooms in trespasser alone. Even my necro found the one room that spawns 2 despair demons and rage demon in confined space pretty rough.

If you can get a fire storm off to prone lock everything it's easier. Plus the heal on hit from the staff when firestorm is up can res even a rift mage if you get koed.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

How do you gear your rift mage, ottffsse? I've found rift mage solo runs incredibly difficult in trespasser, with walk softly and even ground trials.

 

The thing with Rift Mage is that the specialization is built with teamwork in mind. The passives and spells of the Rift Mage is that of a controller and a debilitator.

 

Rift Mage weakens, debuffs and controls enemies, as such it works really well with a team.You slam enemies down, you pull them to a centerpoint, you smash them off their feet, you reduce their damage, you make status effects last longer on enemies and you increase damage done to enemies.

 

If you pay close attention, you will notice that Rift Mage does not have passives that lend them well to soloing. They do not have health recovery, they do not have barrier recovery and they most certainly do not have a second chance undeath passive that can be exploited to essentially be immortal. Put simply, Rift Mage is squishier which does not lend well to solos. 

 

Yes you can solo as a Rift Mage but the other two specializations are far better for that. If you are looking to solo as a mage, Necromancer is your best bet though Knight Enchanter is the strongest against boss enemies with no Barrier Breaker.

 

I would actually go as far as saying that Cassandra and Solas are essential followers and the best followers for a Rift Mage Inquisitor.  With both of them there you have 3 characters that can cause Weakness which means you can maintain almost 100% uptime for Weakness which gives you a whole host of benefits.

 

As for a Rogue follower, I would go with Cole (provided you enchant his daggers with heal on hit or guard on hit or waking fortress) because he lacks any ability that can trigger the Shock effect. Varric's Elemental Mines have electric mines and Sera has Flask of Lightning. You can avoid using those two abilities but they are good. Besides, Double Dagger Rogue has a high damage and if you spec Cassandra to be very tanky, Cole and get around and do some serious damage with Solas and Inquisitor providing magical offense and support.

 

Best Rift Mage Inquisitor Team :- Inquisitor, Sword & Shield Cassandra, Solas, Double Dagger Cole.

[Gya]

All this discussion made me curious, so I started soloing Trespasser with the same build I used in The Descent. Oddly enough, the Qunari haven't been too much of an issue despite their irritating immunities, though battles with multiple promoted enemies take a while. Promoted assassins are a major pain, of course.

 

The demon rooms were tough, I switched out veilstrike for aegis of the rift for two of them which made things simpler, if still a bit slow.

 

The toughest enemies by far, though... Those spirit enemies. Ugh. I got rekt, stupid barrier breaker archers with their ability to ignore stealth.

Spoiler

 

I used heal on hit and walking bomb masterworks. Energy Barrage with a cold staff does less damage than winter's ruin, but gets more heal on hit and walking bomb procs. For some reason, I couldn't find any of my pact belts, otherwise I'd have worn a winter pact belt (inferno for the AH/revenants though).

 

EDIT: Yeah, using a cold staff on a room full of cold immune enemies and then not having any recent save states to redo with a fire staff.... Totally intentional. True pro. 

[PapaCharlie9]

All this discussion made me curious, so I started soloing Trespasser

TL;DR - Rift Mage is viable for soloing Trespasser on NM+Trials. Like most mage builds (offttsse's Necro build excepted), damage output is relatively low and resistances don't help, so battles are tedious.

Great minds think alike! I did exactly the same thing yesterday, using a variety of different Rift Mage build variations. I only did the Darvaarad run, though, not the whole thing. That's a good test for solo Nightmare with all Trials except Rub Dirt On It and Travel Light.

Note to Bayonet Hipshot: Several enemies had Electrical Resistance. Lightning Bolt is not the universal solution to the Trials promoted enemy problem. Several enemies had double resistances. It was particularly annoying that the Saarebas (Qunari mages) had Spirit Resistance.

Long story short, I had the same experience as Gya in the video: tedious, tedious, tedious. It takes forever to kill anything. I had planned to make a video too, but so many battles were long, drawn out sequences of the same attacks over and over again.

I had a pocket full of Tactician's Amulets so that I could adjust my build to the circumstances. This was a life saver. There were many times when I had to switch points from one tree to another in order to have any chance of doing damage.

Here are two example loadouts:

Fire Staff (Wrath of Lovias), Superior Corrupting Rune, proc Immolate

Stonefist/Shatterstone
Veilstrike/Punching Down
Lightning Bolt/Exploding Bolt
Energy Barrage
Fire Mine/Searing Glyph
Dispel/Transmute Magic
Barrier/Elegant Defense
Ice Mine/Chilling Array

That loadout worked fine for the first few battles. Surprisingly, auto-attacks were pretty good for damage output. Also helped with reducing cooldowns and regen of mana. I would occasionally run into an enemy with fire or cold resistance, but not so many that I couldn't find a way to damage them.

However, that loadout failed utterly in the battle right before the dragon -- where Iron Bull goes traitor (though not in this run). Stormtrooper, Saarebas, and two spear throwers. Saarebas had Spirit Resistance, so Stonefist and Focus blast was a waste. The spear throwers had at least Cold Resistance and usually Electrical Resistance and barrier as well. The Stormtrooper had Electrical Vulnerability.

So I switched to this loadout:

Electric Staff (Isana's Song) procs Chain Lightning

Chain Lightning/Arcing Surge
Lightning Bolt/Exploding Bolt
Static Cage/Lightning Cage
Energy Barrage/Energy Bombardment
Fade Step/Frost Step
Dispel/Transmute Magic
Barrier/Elegant Defense
Ice Mine/Chilling Array

This worked okay. My opening attack was to go into stealth. This would cause all the enemies, including the unreachable spear throwers, to gather near the giant pile of gaatlok. I'd Static Cage them and immediately Focus blast the gaatlok. Woooieee, that makes a lot of pretty numbers! Sometimes I'd get lucky and kill one of the spear throwers, but it would not even scratch the Saarebas. For any surviving spear throwers, I used an Antivan Fire grenade.

Then it was a very tedious sequence of go into stealth, wait for EB to be up, EB or CL, then go into stealth, until they were all dead. Took forever.

If I'd stand and fight, the Stormtrooper and Saarebas would double-team me with their leaping attacks and pretty much one-shot me. The cramped layout of the room didn't make Frost Step for escape all that viable.

Accessories pretty much saved my bacon. Without Ring of Doubt, I never would have made it through. I had a little heal-on-hit with all parts of the Taken Shape, but once I got the Amulet of Physical Immunity, I switch to that. Very handy versus leaping attacks and the dragon's hurricane, which is very annoying when activated right next to the lever you are trying to pull to let it escape!

I had all of the Pact belts and tried various of them. Storm Pact plus the Storm Loadout above was pretty good. Most of the time, though, the debuff to health from the Pact was too much. Now I know why offttsse said to use the blue instead of purple versions.

Lessons learned

• Veilstrike is your friend. Unless the target has physical immunity, keeping ranged and charging attackers down and weakened makes life for a Rift Mage much easier
• Craft for heal on hit and spirit damage proc, like Walking Bomb. I didn't do either and paid for it
• Keep moving! Those leaping and ranged attacks are deadly in NM+Trials.
• No one loadout is going to be optimal in every situation. Bring Tactician's Amulets.
• Bring all your good Accessories and swap between battles as needed.
• Ring of Doubt and Amulet of Physical Immunity are life savers.
• Use Enhanced, not Superior, Pact belts. Superior debuffs health too much.

[Gya]

I had planned to make a video too, but so many battles were long, drawn out sequences of the same attacks over and over again.

 

Haha, so much this. I had recorded a bunch of qunari kills, but although the non-promoted enemies go down pretty fast, there were always a couple of elites who just lengthen the battles in a tedious manner. Trying to take down a promoted shock trooper with just stonefist? Never again. I guess re-speccing like you did would have helped, but I couldn't be bothered to go back to the Winter Palace to buy the amulets. 

 

That said, the revenant and arcane horror rooms were kinda fun. The rage demon/despair demon barrier spam room, not so much. Every time they refreshed their barriers, I died a little inside.

 

I'm surprised the pact belts didn't help much though. Still, since it seems like I must have accidentally sold them like a genius, that makes me feel a bit better. 

[PapaCharlie9]

 

I'm surprised the pact belts didn't help much though. Still, since it seems like I must have accidentally sold them like a genius, that makes me feel a bit better. 

 

They helped, but for Storm I only had a Superior. I had the Enhanced and Superior for the other two. Superiors debuff health too much. I suppose if I had crafted to double my max health, it would have been a wash, but if you are relying on guard generation, lowering your health also lowers your max guard, so it is a double whammy.

[Gya]

They helped, but for Storm I only had a Superior. I had the Enhanced and Superior for the other two. Superiors debuff health too much. I suppose if I had crafted to double my max health, it would have been a wash, but if you are relying on guard generation, lowering your health also lowers your max guard, so it is a double whammy.

Out of curiosity, what sort of numbers do you see for fire mine with the inferno pact?

[PapaCharlie9]

Out of curiosity, what sort of numbers do you see for fire mine with the inferno pact?

 

I was too busy to notice, lol. All I remember were the warriors that had both Fire Resistance and Physical Resistance, so the glyphs did nothing. Sad.

 

If I have time I'll go back and do a test. There's a spot where a group of enemies don't aggro, so I can try anything I want on them.

[PapaCharlie9]

Okay, I didn't have a lot of time, so I only did no belt vs. Superior Inferno Pact. The Enhanced will be somewhere in between. 

 

I was using a fire staff, so I was also able to compare auto attacks also. Nightmare, but I turned off Walk Softly to avoid wasting time with Fire Resistant enemies.

 

Fire Mine/Flaming Array

 

No Pact belt

 

Auto attack: 353 - 415 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 4352 - 4764

Fire Mine no crit: 1969 - 1994

 

Superior Inferno Pact

 

Auto attack: 854 - 1095 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 11097 - 13140

Fire Mine no crit: 4893 - 6250

 

So, yeah, pretty big buff. On the down side, any hit from any enemy, even with one of their little bombs, killed me in one shot from full health.

[stop_him]

Okay, I didn't have a lot of time, so I only did no belt vs. Superior Inferno Pact. The Enhanced will be somewhere in between. 

 

I was using a fire staff, so I was also able to compare auto attacks also. Nightmare, but I turned off Walk Softly to avoid wasting time with Fire Resistant enemies.

 

Fire Mine/Flaming Array

 

No Pact belt

 

Auto attack: 353 - 415 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 4352 - 4764

Fire Mine no crit: 1969 - 1994

 

Superior Inferno Pact

 

Auto attack: 854 - 1095 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 11097 - 13140

Fire Mine no crit: 4893 - 6250

 

So, yeah, pretty big buff. On the down side, any hit from any enemy, even with one of their little bombs, killed me in one shot from full health.

 

Oh man, I look forward to getting that Inferno pact belt then!   My heavy hitting mage gets in 10,000 damage range without it.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

TL;DR - Soloing with a Rift Mage is not a very good idea due to low damage numbers and lack of health sustenance passive (unless if you use heal on hit or heal on kill).

 

Rift Mage is a specialization built for teamwork. Like I stated previously, the best squad would be Double Dagger Cole, Sword & Shield Cassandra, Rift Mage Inquisitor and either Dorian or Solas (Dorian for Trespasser since Solas will not be around)

[Gya]

Okay, I didn't have a lot of time, so I only did no belt vs. Superior Inferno Pact. The Enhanced will be somewhere in between. 

 

I was using a fire staff, so I was also able to compare auto attacks also. Nightmare, but I turned off Walk Softly to avoid wasting time with Fire Resistant enemies.

 

Fire Mine/Flaming Array

 

No Pact belt

 

Auto attack: 353 - 415 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 4352 - 4764

Fire Mine no crit: 1969 - 1994

 

Superior Inferno Pact

 

Auto attack: 854 - 1095 (coincidentally all crits)

 

Fire Mine crit: 11097 - 13140

Fire Mine no crit: 4893 - 6250

 

So, yeah, pretty big buff. On the down side, any hit from any enemy, even with one of their little bombs, killed me in one shot from full health.

 

Now I regret not having the pact belt.  

 

Not sure it would have made a huge amount of difference to the lengthy battles though, since the main culprits for time wasting were promoted shock troopers who infuriatingly happen to be fire and cold resistant. And boy, do they love guard. When they're not jumping on you, they're rampaging to build up guard again.

 

 

TL;DR - Soloing with a Rift Mage is not a very good idea due to low damage numbers and lack of health sustenance passive (unless if you use heal on hit or heal on kill).

 

Rift Mage is a specialization built for teamwork. Like I stated previously, the best squad would be Double Dagger Cole, Sword & Shield Cassandra, Rift Mage Inquisitor and either Dorian or Solas (Dorian for Trespasser since Solas will not be around)

 

TL;DR - Rift Mage solo is for hipsters. 

[stop_him]

Now I regret not having the pact belt.  

 

Not sure it would have made a huge amount of difference to the lengthy battles though, since the main culprits for time wasting were promoted shock troopers who infuriatingly happen to be fire and cold resistant. And boy, do they love guard. When they're not jumping on you, they're rampaging to build up guard again.

 

 

 

TL;DR - Rift Mage solo is for hipsters. 

 

Aw, I made a melee rift mage, and I'm having a lot of fun. Saved me from the monotony of giving EVERY single mage the same load out. I'm actually still not all that impressed with my necromancer so far. She's still weaker than my KE. Having played KE and melee rift mage, I have a lot of fun putting a mage in the thick of things. 

[ottffsse]

I agree, with out the reliable ability to just use a superior storm or inferno pact belt DPS will be way lower and battles longer and tedious with rift mage. The other two mages can use a superior belt pretty well and stay alive , especially if you boost your HP pool on by crafting armor with that property. Rift mage has to play it more safe and pull And split some enemies. Has any one tried it with heart of pride and storm pact in rift? I like that setup on necro as you can get your cooldown on barrier really low with gathering storm and almost always have barrier. I think every last 3rd staff attack may schock though with a lightening staff.

Gya's video has solid tactics when it came to demon rooms. I think I recall I did them similarly in using stuff like bookcases to block arcane horror beams etc. With necro my clear time of stuff kill those despair demons was much faster but they were very dangerous at the beginning of the fight. When they all focus fire you. I recall I went at the start of tge fight 1.) Barrier, 2.) Lightning cage 3.) Energizing step, 4.) Attack for flashpoint 5.) 2x Flame array with one triggering walking bomb 6.) Ice array 7. ) dispel should they get barrier. I first killed the despair demons (had a fire or electric staff not sure which anymore I tried both), and then killed rage demon over minutes as I could chain cc it with perpendicular to my position 3x ice array. But beyond walking bomb dots , eb, and lightning cage and staff and spirit rune I did not have any damage source against the rage demon which was annoying, but I wanted to kill those DDS as fast as possible if you wear any type of Pact belt you have to out DPS those ranged units basically as their hits really hurt.

[ottffsse]

Aw, I made a melee rift mage, and I'm having a lot of fun. Saved me from the monotony of giving EVERY single mage the same load out. I'm actually still not all that impressed with my necromancer so far. She's still weaker than my KE. Having played KE and melee rift mage, I have a lot of fun putting a mage in the thick of things.

KE is very straight forward to play. Put on a inferno pact, spam firemine and energy barrage. Get barrier through fade shield.kill stuff. With rift and necro you gave to use specific sequences of spells to get the most out of. Always veistrike with rift to apply weakness for instance at the start of a fight after you have defences up. With necro use casting mechanics to cast energy barrage just after you cast walking bomb and befire the cast walking bomb projectile hits the target to negate mana cost of the walking bomb and or use the apply walking bomb masterwork on your armor to apply more damage from your other spells on hit like your fire mines. (This works on all mages BTW its just necro benifit somewhat more by having their virulent upgrade to walking bomb also apply to the masterwork of walking bomb and you can trigger it earlier manually from your quick slot for an early explosion, or should the master work trigger on say an energy barrage but you want it to be applied on a much larger damage firemine, you can manually detonate it immediately and have it possibly apply again from your next cast if it say a large firemine).

I have tried melee pure melee necro builds and they are not optimal just because of the mechanics of energy barrage and walking bomb where you need distance to stack the cast of wb + energy barrage to get the free walking bomb. Granted it sort if works just because ice array + flame array combo is so strong but the specific necro abilities don't add anything to your benefit of being close to the enemy, which the other two specs do have.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Am I the only one who find it really sad that in order for mages to get the most out of their builds, they have to be up close and personal spamming Elemental Arrays ?

 

I mean the point of being a mage is to fight from a distance via staves and spellcasting. The exception to this is the Knight Enchanter and the Arcane Warrior.

 

Having said that, why don't people consider using Knight Enchanter ? They are perfect for up close and personal Elemental Array spamming, Fade Cloak is an excellent spell ( It negates damage, has a high damage, low mana cost and low cooldown), a charged Spirit Blade does decent damage, they have good mana regeneration at close quarters combat ranges and they can protect themselves from Barrier Breakers via Chilling Array or Winter Winds Blizzard.

[PapaCharlie9]

Am I the only one who find it really sad that in order for mages to get the most out of their builds, they have to be up close and personal spamming Elemental Arrays ?

There is no "have to". It happens to be a efficient use of defense as offense. If you don't like it, if it is objectionable on role playing or esthetic grounds, just use a slightly less efficient attack style.

I've only started using it recently. Then I switched it out to try something else. You don't have to be stuck with it.

[Gya]

I agree, with out the reliable ability to just use a superior storm or inferno pact belt DPS will be way lower and battles longer and tedious with rift mage. The other two mages can use a superior belt pretty well and stay alive , especially if you boost your HP pool on by crafting armor with that property. Rift mage has to play it more safe and pull And split some enemies. Has any one tried it with heart of pride and storm pact in rift? I like that setup on necro as you can get your cooldown on barrier really low with gathering storm and almost always have barrier. I think every last 3rd staff attack may schock though with a lightening staff.

I was thinking about trying that, but I didn't want to lose my crit damage. I think I have a recent old save with a storm pact belt, so if I can muster up the willpower to solo through again, I might try that with an electric encore so that I have both energy barrage and stonefist for those damn elite shock trooper buttholes. Those guys should be classified as a hate crime. Thing is, it sounds like PapaCharlie9 already tried that and it still took a while to whittle them down.

[PapaCharlie9]

I was thinking about trying that, but I didn't want to lose my crit damage. I think I have a recent old save with a storm pact belt, so if I can muster up the willpower to solo through again, I might try that with an electric encore so that I have both energy barrage and stonefist for those damn elite shock trooper buttholes. Those guys should be classified as a hate crime. Thing is, it sounds like PapaCharlie9 already tried that and it still took a while to whittle them down.

I didn't have Hear of Pride, though. That might have speeded things up. The point about healing or barrier buffs is important too, I didn't have any help there either.