Shoju's 1.0 Stuff.

[shoju]

Marauder.
I lost about 1500 DPS. That sucks.
I gained almost 1k HP. That's awesome.
I lost about 900 armor. That's... "eh" at this point.

Witch:
So far the new build is interesting, but the gems aren't leveled enough to tell how well I'm going to be doing at it, and I'm sure I could use some better gear in slots to make it all work better. Gems are leveled to a point that I can go to the first zone in A2 merc, and kill things, but It's slow going. We'll see how it goes from there.

Ranger:
Is probably a lost cause. I went out of my way to build something with more damage, and a little less survivability than my last build (which was all survivability, but no dps). I still don't have much DPS.

That's frustrating, and the char is probably on the chopping block.

Shadow:
Probably just going to remove the gear, and delete it, since the goal of the char was to build a Reave char, and it's just not a lot of fun with how clunky Reave is early on.

Scion:
I'm sure that my scion will be deleted over and over and over again, until I figure out a build.

Spectral Throw is a blast. I'm currently doing 2h'd throw, and it's hilarious if nothing else.

Animate weapon is interesting, but it consumes the weapon, and you have to have it laying on the ground. That kind of stinks.

Animate Guardian SUCKS. At least early on. I have a level 12 scion, and the guardian doesn't even last 30 seconds before it's dead.

My hope is to do something "Iron Grip" with Spectral Throw as my Single Target attack, and I'm not sure what to do for AoE. Right now, I'm using cleave, but I'm not sure where that will go. It's at least interesting.

Domination League.
Interesting. Shrines are not at all what I thought they would be. I'm not sure if it will hold my interest. Exiles were cool. The shrines.... Are just not interesting.

Overall impressions.
Aura's were not "significantly buffed" as stated. At least, not to a point where they feel worth the 60%. Determination is very meh. Vitality is very meh.

Guilds are a lot easier than I thought they would be. I like it.

The Passive Tree is a lot better.

The Ranger is still very "meh" imo. I'm not sure why I feel that way. Probably because I suck so bad at making a build for them.

The new quests and zones are interesting. I like them. I can't find the Dominus Quest though.

I went to kill Dominus (on normal), and at this point, if the fight lags this bad, I'm never going to kill it without deaths. I'm hoping it was just first day performance issues.

[shoju]

I ended up starting a Scion in Domination. It's interesting.

My build Plan If it all works out.

I'll be doing Spectral Throw, Probably a Single Target, and an LMP'd Version, 2h'd Maces.

[shoju]

Despite my saying I wouldn't be playing in a new league, I'm having an absolute blast on my scion.

I'm currently playing 2h spectral throw, w/ iron grip, working towards res tech right now. I've got some other ideas I found in the build of the week for how I'm going to play it. I might end up working towards EB, to try and support my spectral throw.

[shoju]

I'm posting this mainly for Lenny, we were talking Spectral Throw Scion's this morning, but anyone who wants to get in on the discussions is fine.

My current build: http://bit.ly/HnxML4

Where I'm looking about ending: http://bit.ly/16CIUP4

Not sure if it will stay like this, or if this will be the Scion that makes it to mapping, but It's my first go around,a nd I'm giving it a shot.

[LennyLen]

This is what I'm thinking at the moment: http://bit.ly/17StZva

It's heavily evasion based, dual wielding swords for melee and spectral throw to counter ranged mobs. I'm unsure about how it will handle life and mana wise though.

[shoju]

Piety is dead. I'm scared out of my mind to even attempt Dominus.
My resists are crap
My gear is crap although, I do have a pretty awesome weapon right now.

I killed PIety with my previous Axe. The mace dropped off of a Mob right before the Piety Portal, so I figured I would see if I could kill her, and then get to work on the Mace when I got done. I dropped the 2 scraps it needed to get to 20%, and then Alch'd it.

I'd feel Better about Dominus if I were rocking more than the 2% Life Leech from the passive tree, and a few % in regen. As it is, I'm more worried about the first 2 phases, than the last phase. I'm just petrified that the adds are going to destroy me, and then the lightning damage... Ugh.

[Frag]

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Dominus isn't bad if you have crap gear until Phase 3, imo. You can pretty much single pull the mini-bosses over to the bottom right and kill them easily. Even most of Dominus' moves are telegraphed and can be moved away from before they kill you. The issue comes in Phase 3 where you are forced to stay in melee with him in the holy circle to avoid the blood rain. At that point, you can't gain enough range to avoid taking melee hits and in self-found, non-great gear, he was hitting my duelist for around 20-25% of HP and I had already burned down most of my potions by then. I portaled to town, refreshed and headed right back, to find the blood rain still going and the circle now on the other side of the room. That prompted a log off. =/

[shoju]

Well, Caliga destroyed me yet again today, even after the supposed nerf. It didn't feel any less destroying. triple traps, flying, and detonating without being activated, while the boss runs all over. I had a Rejuv totem running, 3 health pots, and I was running around chasing the boss, and hiding to regen / heal like crazy, and it was just a bloodbath. Took 3 deaths post nerf to kill her. I guess I'm going to have to sell off the crap in my stash, and get to trying to craft something, because at this point, I'm not even sure I want to try and deal with the sporker in P1 of Dominus.

[Frag]

Well, I was in crap (defensive) gear when I faced her as a 2H Sword LMP ST build and had very little issue after taking stock of what she did. Basically, as soon as a trap is tossed into the air, determine its vector and move out of the radius around where it will land, attack while watching for another attack animation or trap toss, and move. Use the Pillars up along the left and top part of the room and the boot/L shaped room divider along the bottom to move out of line of site from the trap explosions when they expire.

If it is hard to spot the trap throwing and moving away, I suppose you could try orbwalking. Assuming you have a ranged skill, anyway.

[shoju]

I ended up taking her at a door, because there were ALWAYS traps expiring, and exploding. Move in, throw, move out, move in, throw, move out, swap rooms when she came into my room. I was able to get her to hit the wall with most traps, so they would explode in her room, and use the rejuv totem on my side of the door.

It just seemed really cheap to do it that way, and it felt like as the fight progressed, she just threw more, faster, that exploded sooner.

[shoju]

I've had a revelation about my build for my scion. It's not very good. It's salvageable, but as currently planned, it's going to pigeonhole my gear choices even further (I hate that), and it's not really "great" for endgame.

So. I've spent some time putting together a new build.

http://bit.ly/1dtxcWB

The Pros:
More Passive Dex. As it was before, I was already at the max amount of Dex the build was going to give me at level 42, and I was going to need to search for it on gear to further level my gems. That's a problem.

More Attack Speed. I like attacking faster, with slower weapons.

More "Dual" nodes. I really like the idea of nodes that give multiple bonuses. It feels like more bang for the buck.

More % Life. Surprisingly, my total Life nodes increased.

CONS:
I'm going to move slower. I really like the 24% armor / eva node that removes movement penalty. I haven't found a way to work it in yet. Trust me, I'm trying.

The build will have a longer... "come together" time in terms of when it feels "solid" in terms of levels.

Even with respec points from quests, I'm going to have to find about 8 regrets to finish making the changes, and I wont be able to complete the changes until A3 Merc.

I should be able to get it working though. I also made another scion last night, to get myself another Specrtral Throw Gem, since I completely missed the part in the writeup on the build of the week, where they say that the shotgunning portion of ST was removed. So, now I get to Support out 2 ST gems. Yay.....

[LennyLen]

I'm finding for me that ST is more effective without LMP or GMP. I gave LMP a try but the damage reduction meant I needed more casts to kill opponents tahn without it and the extra mana cost was too burdensome. Plus not every projectile would hit a target. With a single ST I can cast quickly at two close together targets and hit everything in between with each cast unlike with LMP where only one projectile will strike per target.

[shoju]

I'm going to be using one LMP'd, and one GMP'd for now. Single target / small groups, and massive packs. I had great success rounding things up, and mowing it all down with LMP. We'll see how that works going forward.

[LennyLen]

I probably should have noted that I haven't invested in any projectile passives yet, as I've been focusing on evasion and dual-wielding passives. ST is my backup for while I'm engaging with melee opponents and a ranged mob shows up. It's also very effective for necromancer type foes since it passes through the mobs in between.

[shoju]

I was able to hammer out some levels last night, and get a large portion of my tree swapped over. I'm still messing it with, to come up with a final version, but I'm pretty sold on the forray into the Ranger / Shadow Area, so I'm working on getting over there (plus, the Dex from heading that way is a major boon right now)

I blew through A1 Cruel, a lot easier than I thought that I would. It was surprising. No Deaths, no painful shrine combinations (I really REALLY think they need to institute a min distance between shrines), and I'm into A2 Cruel. Zone Level is starting to catch back up to my level, so that will be something I'm keeping an eye on, as I didn't stop to farm anything. Fetid Pool was hilarious with ST. I just backed myself against a wall to keep everything in front of me, and chugged Mana Pots as I mowed down the Boss, and anything he ressed.

I'm honestly thinking that I might try and hit 62 before I head into Dominus on Cruel. I've heard some people saying that the step up in difficulty from Normal to Cruel on the fight is steep, and I figure all the levels, and gear I can get will come in handy.

I have noticed that the buffed drop quantity on bosses seems to be on all difficulties. I was unaware. i thought it was just Merc. Dominus littered the entire floor like a burst pinata on normal, and then merveil exploded in similar fashion on Cruel.

Neither dropped anything good, but they were helpful nonetheless.

[shoju]

Level52 in Domination, pretty much completely broke except the Exalt I found.
Gear is starting to fall behind.
I'm in A3 cruel, Will probably need to start farming the catacombs.

[Frag]

Any thoughts to farming Mervail?

[shoju]

Her level is too low to get any gear from sadly I enjoy catacombs runs though.

I ended up trading my Exalt for

Wurm's Molt
600+ Armor 90 HP double resist chest
350 DPS 2h'd mace
Slower Proj
Stun (7%)

The gems were essentially freebies, but I'm pleased.

[shoju]

So, I've played a little since I picked up the new gear.

1.) Stun Gem - I love this thing. There is a noticeable difference when using it on my "Single Target" (read: non-LMP) Sprectral Throw, when fighting Rares / Bosses

2.) I haven't tried out Slower Projectiles yet. I'm still leveling up the gem.

3.) Wurms Molt is amazing.

4.) The new Mace, while cool, is not as "big" of a boost in terms of DPS as I thought it would be, but it's still noticeable.

The Library / Archives. I hope that this is as good of a place to farm in Merc as it is in Cruel. XP is good, Good clusters of mobs, 2 bosses, definitely a nice little place to do some farming, and breaks up the monotony of the Docks / Catacombs.

I am into Lunaris, I have the Waypoint, and I'm thinking I will probably farm out 2/3 for at least 1 1/2 levels (will get me to 56) before I try Piety. Still not sure when I'll feel "good" enough to go tackle Sceptre of God, but I'm sure it will be soon.

[shoju]

After fighting through AWFUL burst lag, I finished up Dominus, and headed to Merc. I am definitely going to be spending some levels on the ledge. My gear has improved dramatically, thanks to 1 Ex / 2GCP in purchases. I wouldn't say that all of it is "map ready" gear, but I was able to plug some very awful, glaring holes in my gear, and pick up a few gems in the process. I also got treated to 3 uniques last night, which takes my total unique haul to 4.

Unfortunately, none of them are super rare

Koam's Sign (had)
Blood Dance
Araku Tiki
Doedre's Tenure.

But, Maybe I'll find someone interested in them, and can start saving for some "map" gear.

Is anyone high enough to have messed with the new level 60 flasks? I'm 55, and I'm going to be getting to that tier in the next week or so, and I'm not sure if the shorter duration will outweigh the hallowed flasks higher amount when looking at health flasks. The mana flasks will be a no brainer for me, since I don't have much of a mana pool.