Synkh - VHHC Arbiter (Caster Vanquisher)

[Dragonfly]

I believe you are thinking it through correctly indeed.

Also, progress at last! Shock trap is brilliant. Found a nice wand, too, woot.

Things are working surprisingly well this time, i think it's all the extra armor. Strength investment is probably a waste but i'm going to follow it through anyway just to make sure, heh. I am using a couple of nice strength pieces though, like my gloves which have 40 armor. Also got lucky with a helm with 15 mana leech, and some nice health leech gems, so as long as i remember to use heal and draining touch, i don't even need potions at the moment (well, except for emergencies :P).

[dreamrider]

Off and on I have wondered, given that polearms have a reach of 1.5 and do not count as ranged weapons (incidentally an argument in favor of fast, high DPS polearms, if you have the coordination to do it consistently), if someone were to mod in an enchanted bullwhip with a range of ~3, should it be treated as ranged or melee or enchanted or 'all of the above'?

(DEVS: TAKE NOTE - This would be a really cool Unique weapon!!)

Dreamrider

[Dragonfly]

From a programming perspective, i would imagine "melee" and "ranged" would be seperate individual flags/settings, rather than being determined/calculated by the exact range of a weapon - purely to keep things simple.

Also, i made it to the black palace - and was immediately 1-shotted by a zealot's lightning bolt! I guess i need alot more than 100 electrical absorb... (i did have 350-650 physical damage absorb though!)

(I was level 26 btw - should i have been higher?)

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[Rusty]

Sorry for your loss. In this case, upping your elec resist won't help. IIRC the zealot attack will KO you regardless, unless you have a mod in. It was a glitch in the game. But don't let them stop you. You can and will make it through the Black Palace.

[Dragonfly]

Oh excellent, thankyou for that information! Far from discouraging me, i am renewed with vigor! For you see, right before that happened, i was hit by one and survived (with about 1% health remaining).

SOON I SHALL BE INVINCIBLE!

[Dragonfly]

Okay, turns out it definitely is a bug then. According to this post:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19818#p172363

(confirmed by many others) it seems that while fixing the attack to actually do damage (apparently it didn't before 1.15), they also went to reduce the damage from 90% to 50%, and instead accidently increased it to 150%. So it should do about 1/3 (or less, since resistances are a flat absorb amount) of what it does now, which puts it back in line with most of the damage in the game, at least in my experience.

I grabbed the mod he mentioned and edited the changes accordingly... i was going to just leave it, and stack stupid amounts of resistance along with the stupid amounts of armor i had going... but if it was definitely an accident to increase the damage, then i suppose i might as well just fix it, right?! (I was trying to avoid mods if i could)

I will still use the death as a chance to re-do my character anyway though, heh.

[dreamrider]

For What It Is Worth:
Elec Res of ~500 (~600 to be more comfortable) and caustious expectations that you will be shot at any moment makes the Black Palace very doable for a Vanq.
Having a pet with Frost or something that he shoots off the edge toward nearby threats is helpful also.
Carrying Web active, and shooting a continuous pool of it right in front of the 'magic mirror' booby traps, alternately with continuous Ricochet or ES is also a good tactic.
Oh, and Shoot, Run away, Shoot, Run away, Shoot, Run away. Never stop until you actually see the the large metallic looking ladies lying on the ground.

Never try to 'run through' a Black Palace level. Move through methodically, and KILL EVERYTHING, leave nothing moving behind you, from as far away as possible.

Finally, don't fight Ordrak in the big room. Retreat to the "small" room and make him and his pals come after you. You'll never keep up with the spawns in the big room.

dreamrider

[Dragonfly]

Your post was so full of challenges (of the nature "that sounds like a challenge, good sir!") i don't know which one to vainly bang my head against first!

I will work on my elec resist though, good to have some idea of where i should be there, thanks :)

Oh and it turns out resistances DO scale from defense (i thought otherwise - i blame the misleading defense tooltip!), so that should help fo' sho'.

[dreamrider]

Actually, I consider the main value of the Def Attribute to be the way that it muliplies resistance, above the way that it magnifies Armor.

dreamirder

[Morbus]

I apologise, dreamrider, you are right about the STR / DEX. I also know this, when I remember and think carefully. But I have not looked at the game for some days now, I was busy, and I can easily misremember things. The important thing is that, as you say, the magic damage can only be equal to ranged or mêlée or smaller, never higher.

[zekrom]

Dragonfly, check out the release notes for v.1.15. A couple of the Arbiter Skills, um, Flame Trap and Shock Trap, I think, scale with Pet Mastery as well. (NOT Flechette Trap, darn it!)

dreamrider

whoa dude!!! u dint know that? i thought everyone knew it. anyway... even flechette trap scales i think...ALL THE TRAPS scale.

[dreamrider]

zekrom,
Are you sure, guy? I recall reading Travis' post on this fix. He was quite specific that "Flame Trap and Shock Trap now scale with Pet Mastery". Double chedkced the release notes. They say it the same way. Are you trying to say that all the other traps already scaled with Pet Mastery, before release 1.15?

I have never seen that mentioned or implied anywhere else.

dreamrider