Median 2007 1.23 B

[Brother Laz]

Sorry for the delayed reply; thought nothing had happened here, as usual...;)

'1) I'm obviously not investing into any of the bow skills. However, Death Metal, and Death Core are both in one of the bow trees. Are they worth an investment? Can they be used with a melee weapon in hand?'

No melee weapon, and they are weapon-based, meaning you need a good bow to make them worth it.

'3) Roughly how many points should Retailate get?'

Enough to cover a large-sized crowd - ~6-7.

'3) Lionheart and Radience seem to be pretty useless for a Retribute/Retaliate meleezon. Would they be worthwhile, if I made a good investment into the two spell trees?'

Lionheart does keep you alive. It may reduce the chance that you get hit, but if the monsters are not hitting you, you don't lose life and can inflict damage in the meantime, even just single target damage. It basically slows the fight down, but is very useful against some of the stronger monster packs.

'4) How is magic missle at all useful? 16-33 damage, 1 bolt at level 1?'

It can get up to ~20 bolts and 700 damage per bolt at high levels with the synergy. If there is only one enemy within range, it delivers 10K+ damage per cast. Pow.

'5) How do Blood Star/Blood Storm do in terms of damage?'

Bloodstar is a powerful single target spell - 5K damage is attainable. Bloodstorm does puny damage, but spams out missiles at a rapid rate, at multiple targets. It really adds up, but is somewhat hard to use on moving enemies.

'Is that kind of build workable?'

Yes, but I'd max out the physical synergy to Hex, instead of Hex itself, if you're doing little spellcasting. Also, you don't really need too much elemental backup power - some enemies are strongly resistant to physical, but nothing is immune to it.

Stormtouch is almost useless in 1.23, but has received a major power boost in 1.24 (coming soon, 18.sep.2006). Ditto for Pagan Heart (in fact, their power boosts come from synergies to each other).