META BUILD DISCUSSION Q&A (no peasant builds allowed)

[twin seal]

This is a fairly comprehensive list of current end game meta combos, many of which have great meta use at all points of game content.

[drifting sleet]

anyone got some write-ups on the direction they take fire/priest?

[twin seal]

@scarlet shard And @fathom folio main it. I know @dusty cobalt has an end game build he uses on gauntlet runs. Others too I'm sure. If nobody shows up for it, I have a lot of experience with both skills, but I haven't rolled a set for it specifically.

[uncut basin]

@amber quiver has a build for that too, you could ask her

[drifting sleet]

🙏

[amber quiver]

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/2894

• flesh to fuel on my sidebar

[drifting sleet]

Awesome

[green crest]

Huh. No endgame staff users eh?

(I'm guessing it's a solid solo skill but isn't meta due to group dynamics and either lack of need for a tank, or it isn't the "best" tank)

[twin seal]

Kefchat has played most of if not all of the skills on his list, and any of the combos that he hasnt played, I'm sure he's seen in action. That being said, it's his list, mine and yours would be different.

Staff/shield is the best tank for many places. But same as good dps having multiple skills, some of the best tanks have multiple tank sets.

From a damage perspective, I took both my staff druid and staff fire magic alts theough gauntlet 1 when it was the top dungeon. Both of these performed a bit less than my dedicated dps sets,

But they were also spec'd for farming. I had pockets and windswept boots, and was built for defense I wasn't really needing. My thorns was useless.

That being said, we track our damage on a dps tracker, and it performed better than I was expecting, and it wasn't a flat carry as I expected. I also notoriously die the most in our group, and I died a lot less with staff.

[twin seal]

If kefchats list was "builds I'd be glad to see in a g2 run", I'd agree with most of it.

For the hardest group content, the most dps possible is always the best option. Things dying faster is better than heals.

In the setting of all possible skills, staff sacrifices a lot of dps for mitigation. And that mitigation is so good. It's just overkill with a good healer, bc skins, and other group buffs.

Any player truly ready for g2. One that won't be a carry, you're going to have way more than staff and any other skill maxed. There's a section you're forced to be in animal form. The whole group.

If you had staff/any other skilled maxwd out for damage, it could be used successfully in gauntlet 1/dragon, and some of gauntlet 2.

[green crest]

I don't even know what a lot of these words mean yet. 😉 (Okay, really just gauntlet/g2) I assume I'm over a year away from any of this.

But good to know where things sit at endgame.

[twin seal]

For people who want to get there. Despite the huge task of paying for and leveling skills, it's so important to not burn out.

There's so much to do. A lot of its fun. You don't have to do the parts that aren't fun

[green crest]

Nono, the point of meta is to optimize the fun out of the game. (Kidding of course but man are gamers good at it in general.)

[twin seal]

There's been some prodigies that have come into this game very fast. A lot of people did g1 within a couple months of playing the game. Maca did that with g2.

[twin seal]

Nobody does this content alone. Guilds are a great way to meet people who are capable or want to do gauntlet runs.

Right now there's not many people running end game content. Just peeked, two completions for gauntlet 1 in the last month. None for gauntlet 2. A little less than a dozen for dragon runs.

Been a lot of egg runs, though.

[amber quiver]

G1/G2 in under 2 months 😅

But, I enjoy end game. I like doing dungeons. That’s why I play video games.

[peak pecan]

I see 3 builds involving spider, are all 3 of these poison style builds or is one of them the fabled infinite legs build I'm praying for

Actually I guess an infinite legs build would be with unarmed. NVM

[orchid breach]

thinking playing something with vampire, bc or bat. any advice of a strong build? will prefer one able to solo high level content, like nmc.

[twin seal]

Every end game group benefits massively from bc for skins. IMO bat and bc has better synergy than vampire bc.

If you're just after soloing nmc, I think either skill would work.

If you're thinking you might want to start doing end game groups, I believe bat/vamp is a better pairing.

I know @past pelican is working on bat/vamp, and was excited about it when we were talking after a gauntlet recently.

[orchid breach]

seems most of the synergy of bat / bc is the nature damage. dont see any vulnerabilty skills, so it have troubles with inmune nature mobs?

[twin seal]

nature is another tough element. In the time Ive played nature builds, ive not felt limited in where I can solo. Bat/BC does really well solo in general, and is also a really good group dps/skin build if you build your gear for it.

[orchid breach]

that will be spring fairy gear?

[twin seal]

unfortunately if you want to take it all the way, yes

you do not HAVE to start with spring fairy if you choose bat/bc you can build up to it

it'll still be good, just with an opportunity to be better

[orchid breach]

ok, thanks for the help and advice. i guess direct dmg ring and neck tidal?

[twin seal]

Yes sir!

I think bat hat is now better than masquerade mask for that build. What are you running with it @stone gorge

[stone gorge]

I'm using bat hat

[orchid breach]

mind sharing the build? thanks

[sterile shard]

The list was for DPS builds

Staff/Shield is the default tank build, is super easy to access and is extremely reliable

[sterile shard]

Infinite legs is sadly very underwhelwing. I've heard people playing Spider/Rabbit (cause rabbit has insane kick mods), then slapping unarmed kick mods (cause you don't need to be using unarmed for them to work) on top of it. But even then, it's a lot of investment for an okay-ish single target only build.

@peak pecan but if you're actively playing spider, you should try it out yourself and try to get the most out of it.
Only time i played spider was pre 90, as Spider/BC, with poison mods + running Toes mutation for kick and Infinite Leg mods + Unarmed Kick mods. So was doing poison + infinite legs, and it really wasn't the greatest.

[peak pecan]

I havent invested much into it, but i didntk now about pairing with rabbit, if i get nough to pstart investing into it i will try that out, thank you for hte info

[sterile shard]

Also, the problem with staff (and with most physical damage skills), is the lack of damage increase outside of what everything else already has access to (outside of your abilities own damage mods, Magic ring and +damage generic mods on weapons). There is no helmet with +crushing damage (but we have them for nature, cold, fire, etc). There is no skill that gives +crushing damage accross the board (like many have for indirect nature, indirect trauma, etc.), or armor sets giving + damage with staff or + physical damage (we have that for electricity, nature and some others). And also, there isn't some high vulnerability debuff that you can apply for physical damage, a thing that is extremely powerful on poison, trauma and electric builds.

[sterile shard]

Also, about my list that PC posted.
First, here's the direct link, so you might see what people commented and what other builds were mentioned afterward: #builds-discussion message

Second, this list is based on the following idea: In a "Dragon Run difficulty" content, if rerolled properly, any of these builds will carry their weight and won't require other people to make extra efforts to make up for their output. However, they are not all "Dragon run viable", since a lot of things in there resist nature and psychic.

Third: there is a wide strength gap between some of these builds. You won't get the same damage as Ice/Knife if you play Deer/Druid. Some are good without specific gear, some are good only with infusions (Like Hammer/Shield), and some barely get anything from Infusions (Necro/Rabbit, Necro/WW for instance).

Fourth, since this list is based on "Dragon Run Difficulty", I would not recommend some of the more niche options for Gauntlet 2.
(Even though we recently cleared G2 with a Warden/Priest and Lycan/BC in group, which are not on the list. Thank you full moon)
(Anyways, G2 is a whole other beast, you need so many other things appart from a meta build to complete it)

[uncut basin]

This sucks btw.

[sterile shard]

I'm sure this build does better than half of what is on my list
https://gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5866

[uncut basin]

lol

Too true

[sterile shard]

It has room for everything lol. Only thing i'd like to add is the 2 more mods for Opening Thrust making other attacks stonger.

[uncut basin]

Do /priest like maca for the burst evasion and your golden

[sterile shard]

But i'd be losing + 200% indirect poison damage 😦

[uncut basin]

Oh, didn’t see it was spooder

Just saw all knives

[verbal quest]

Does this function the same for Lycan? Would the 72% direct and indirect for lycan be devastating on a trauma knife or sword build?

[sterile shard]

No, cause knife and sword can already be paired together

those builds happen when no good pairing exist

[verbal quest]

makes sense. what about bunny/lycan? is there just better options for a trauma build?

[sterile shard]

vamp

[verbal quest]

its a lot of aoe though right? isnt that problematic in some dungeons?

[sterile shard]

I would encourage you to refer to other channels for basic questions

[uncut basin]

Nah, aoe is good. More dmg means quicker fights

Tanks should be able to hold group aggro

[verbal quest]

I was just referencing aoe reflect

[uncut basin]

Just gotta be choosy when to hit the button

And it’s not solely aoe so there are single target abilities to rely on

[median lance]

Out of curiosity, the build says druid/WW, but you can't use both skills at the same time no?

[verbal quest]

i thought vampire blood mist builds were just on or off unless that isn't how that trauma build would be built

[uncut basin]

Can use both I think

[verbal quest]

you can

[median lance]

By WW you do mean werewolf right? :p

[verbal quest]

weatherwitching

[uncut basin]

Werewolf is lycan in that list

I’m not really the one to ask about vampire since I’m not one. I thought bloodmist was a skill you choose to use.

[verbal quest]

it is but it lasts 22 seconds and then has a long cool down from my understanding

like if you turn it off

[uncut basin]

You just don’t hit the button with reflect mobs around? I’m not sure I’m understanding the original question now

That’s how song of discord is with bard

[verbal quest]

yeah but you cant just turn it on and off like the songs and then songs are indirect. this is a burst of aoe on a tick and you can prematurely end it but then it has a 60-(length since use) CD. i guess you could just move away from those mobs. i guess i would have to play it to know.

[orchid breach]

what build do you think will bring better solo play (dish dmg and survive) and dps(while groupin) to the table? lycan/vamp or bat/bc?

[sterile shard]

both are strong very viable choices. I'd play the one your prefer. Not sure about damage, too many variables at play here.

[uncut basin]

song of discord is direct trauma dmg per tick, it reflects

but yea, i just move to turn it off

[stray elk]

I'm trying to put together a Vampire+necromancy build, would love to hear honest feedback. Here's what I've got in mind: build link . I don't know how the gear should look like, but certainly want a Nopec's dagger mainhand and a darkness medalion.
The intention is for it to be a dps build for nightmare caves groups/elven trials

[sterile shard]

Looks good overall. I added some changes to get more damage out of it
https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5876

TLDR: when you get all that flat damage from Nopec, Necro Amulet and all that darkness vuln, you want to get all the +% damage on your skills.

[proven shadow]

is AH not viable endgame?

[twin seal]

Currently? My opinion is that it's only okay for solo stuff if you enjoy it. But citan said this yesterday:

The game is still in beta, and the biggest way players feel that is in the way skills are balanced

There have been a LOT of nerfs over the years. But lately, we've been experiencing a season of bringing under-performing skills up to snuff. Knife and Bard are the most recent changes, and both are in the mix for top builds now. Knife has a ton of variations that are top dps, actually.

[twin seal]

In order for it to compete with non-follower builds at end game content, Animal Handling needs to offer damage comparable to what exists for direct builds. On average an item can get +180 direct damage from prophesy enhancements, and there are 4 slots possible that you can add damage to. In addition to prophesy items, there are main/offhand generic mods for direct damage, and that's plus an average of +906 direct damage at level 95. This is on every attack. There's also gear like spring fairy, masquerade masks, nopec's dagger, stitching elemental damgae, potions, and all sorts of buffs on gear that can make some builds over a 2000 damage point multiplier. Currently Animal Handling cannot get any of this at all. Oh wait, you can get the damage on shrill command 🤣

If animal handling pets hit for 2k more every attack, it would probably be enough to make them COMPARABLE to current end game builds.

If animal handling pets hit for 2k more every attack without all the blood sweat and tears of max enchanting, adding prophesy damage, and crafting spring fairy gear, then it will become the easiest route for any player to choose on a first build. Nobody would ever play anything but this.

I don't know what is in store for animals, but I would be a bit disappointed if that huge multiplier existed for anything beyond a max stat player bred animal.

We have to wait and see. I'm sure it's worth leveling for the next little bit, even if it's slower than other options.

[stray elk]

Thank you!!

[molten topaz]

Hello, i was told to come here in search for a good build to pick up and level. Iv read through the chat a bit but i am open to suggestions. Thanks!

[twin seal]

What are your highest level combat skills? And do you want solo or group build ideas? Typically builds lean towards being useful for one more than the other.

Also, welcome back

[molten topaz]

My highest skills are sword/animal handling and i mostly solo. Thanks for the response

[twin seal]

Animal handling is going to have some big changes with the next update. It's hard to know what you'll like for sure, but if you were drawn to it to begin with, you might want to stick with it for a few more weeks.

In the mean time, you can pair Animal handling with a higher output dps skill, like Fire Magic. It's a solid early choice. Level up in areas that drop fire resources. Serbule sewers (slimes) serbule hills fire sheep, eltibule fire spiders, hand cave, goblin dungeon, then work your way up to yeti caves. They drop saltpeter around 1 in 20 yetis.

[orchid breach]

how this builds looks for bat/bc ? https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5884

i droped confusing double, cause with drink blood i can boost nature dmg. I also dont know if drop healing mist and bring another bomb, cause freezing mist seems to do a nice job as a spot heal

[sterile shard]

Confusing double does a LOT of damage

[orchid breach]

but is comparable or better than +120 nature dmg?

i know CD its handy and look like do a lot of dmg, but seems you need to invest like 6? mods for it (2xextra figment, 2x extra dmg, and 2xlower CD)

will love to have a sim to compare it and do an educated guess

[uncut basin]

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5111 this is a vetted players build. I didn't look at either very much, but i would look to people who play it for a solid start.

haste can go on the 3rd bar i think

[orchid breach]

hmm he sacrifices bat stability for confusing. i guess its ok from a pure dps build, but losing a stun inmunity in that game wich is all stuns... dont know

[silk prawn]

Pet bats pull a lot of aggro, also many of these builds expect a tank and are designed for group play

[orchid breach]

ok i fused build and made a confusing + drink blood build

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5888

[silk prawn]

I've never done a BC build without extra-skin mods

[sterile shard]

oh yeah, not point in playing bat BC if you're not going for skins

[uncut basin]

That’s what makes it meta

[orchid breach]

but the mods for skins seems only to offer poison, acid, piercing and slash resists

i mean, the base resists from the unmoded looks like teh valuable stuff

its that such a biggy?

[past pelican]

max hp buffs as well and hp regen

[sterile shard]

All empirical testing lead to the conclusion that the dps loss from adding skin mods was close to non existant

You probably do more damage as Bat/Cow than Bat/BC with no skins
You can however leave the regen out, it's kinda unreliable with it triggering only every 15 seconds. But still, it's on the whole group, all day, everyday

Also, hardest content in the game dishes ALL types of damage, especially slashing and poison

[orchid breach]

bat/cow do more dmg than bat/bc with no skins? how if skins doenst add any damage?

[sterile shard]

What i meant is there are stronger options than Bat/BC for damage dealing.

Bat/Bc brings skins to the table

[twin seal]

exluding players who hide their game activity behavior, there's been 24 players to reach level 90 in vampirism. Curious if anyone's close to completing a level 90 set.

[past pelican]

got done last night!

[twin seal]

congrats, friend. If you had to guess, how do you think itd do on the dps tracker?

[past pelican]

hmmm not sure, the basic vamp attack has a 4.3k bleed on it which is nice

[orchid breach]

can you upload some images with the tooltips to see the numbers?

[weak canyon]

bc makes you a decent group supporter and relaxes the burden on healers (i think). The golem does a big 200 health/armor/power heal every 10s, your healing mist leaves a health/armor dot, and the skins make everyone tanky. It's really nice. I'm also not sold on the skin hp regen mods but i guess you can see them as "your party has a 10% chance to heal a bit of hp when they need it", considering most of deaths are to burst dmg

Also, did any new combos become viable with WW after the recent buffs?

[true halo]

So with the caveat that I don’t expect either of these to end up meta, but they’re experimentation along the way…

I have two build related questions for two different paths I'm thinking about (generally).

1. The one I think is a shorter answer but I could be wrong, Is there currently much in the way of synergy if someone wanted to play a Poison focused Knife Fighter? I know trauma comes up more often, but there are so many neat poison skills. I know if I could Druid/Knife I would in a heartbeat, but not yet!

2. Similar to the trauma bit, I know folks are generally cold on Crushing Damage (slimes definitely make you mourn that a bit), but how are slashing/piercing generally?
   2a. With the new AH adjustments, been toying around with a Knife/AH build again in my head focused around slash/pierce (probably one or the other but for now we'll say both). I've looked over the TEs for Knife to see some good synergy points + panthers have a slash vuln sic 'em attack, but are there sources of boosting I might have overlooked in a general sense?

[sterile shard]

i pretty much completed my Vamp/Bunny set a few weeks ago. It feels nice. Far from the greatest dps but it holds its own. But I dropped vampire a few days ago. I play too many things to burden myself with the blood upkeep.

Btw, there's a bug with the "Exsanguinate dots are added to Overwhelming bite". The "Lifedrain + Exsanguinate dot" mod is added twice. It must mistakenly add the Lifedrain dot as well.

@past pelican ⬆️

[teal quarry]

You can Poison knife focus with AH

Using a bee

[twin seal]

@golden nebula is playing druid/Knife as poison, and I'm pretty sure he'd say it's useful. I got to sit in on a g2 run he did with chompy running a knife/Archery poison build. They were able to buff each other and debuff their enemies for added synergy. Things were melting that run really fast.

As far as AH with the changes, it would be less viable in something like g2, not because of the damage, but it would be because of the liability of having a pet. You'd still have to navigate precise pulls, mobs with reflect, and a build swap for when you have to be an animal.

I'm hoping at some point to do a g2 run with a maxed out AH player. My group runs a dps tracker that parses everyone's damage. None of us main AH, but we've brought other AH players on runs we've ran the tracker. It's not a dramatization to say AH players and their pets added up to a couple hundred thousand points of damage where our core group was doing a couple million points of damage. This was old AH obviously.

[true halo]

I thought you couldn’t do Druid/Knife because of the metal weapon problem

I’d love to be wrong on that

[sterile shard]

The issue with Knife and poison, is that Knife itself doesn't do much poison damage. Venomstrike is extremely bad and it's best poison skill (duelist slash which applies an AoE dot) requires knives in both hands.
So that's why Knife/BC and Knife/Druid are subpar in term of Poison damage

What you need with Knife is a strong main skill that does a lot of poison, Archery being the only one, and probably like Daguin pointed out, a bee as AH, now that it has been boosted.

[twin seal]

There's a thing that happens where some people think their build is really good because there's no way to compare it to anything else in the build. I know it's harsh to come to meta chat and see someone call something a bad build. But there are huge discrepancies between a top build, and someone's favorite build. Often times 5x-10x number variances.

[sterile shard]

I played AH/Knife with Poison Bee before and the bee was barely doing anything. Now it's probably worth using.

(Note that it's Chompy that is using Knife/Archery, Broken is Druid/Archery)

[twin seal]

Dirks are offhand and enable knife

[true halo]

Oh, does it only check mainhand? Never realized that.

[sterile shard]

This will answer your question about slashing and piercing
#1352433163686907944 message

[golden nebula]

Druid/archer - shares fill with bile, and +17% indirect damage for all sources
Knife/archer - shares tons of poison vul in AOE
Spider/druid - huge poison damage itself, to share with others in group
Bard/Archer - poison damage for the group WITH bravery to buff blitz shot in group full of archers.

This group would do INSANE damage

[sterile shard]

Probably need like half a poison to kill Dragon with this 😛

[true halo]

Got it - didn’t realize slash/pierce were equally buff lacking necessarily even after reading that last night. Don’t read while dealing with a sinus headache, it doesn’t work as well as you’d like.

[sterile shard]

Slashing might be better now that Slashing Debuff from AH Cats are Burst

And sword can be quite potent with slashing damage.

I'd love to do an non poison archer, but there is no synergy for piercing damage, no synergy worth using.

[golden nebula]

Would AH/necro with focus on slash damage from skele cat go ok you think? The necro root spell has slash vul on it as well + what the cat can provide.

[true halo]

Necro/AH can be incredibly finicky from what I’ve experienced, not that it couldn’t theoretically work

Almost certainly not a G2 candidate though

[twin seal]

There's a lot of potential with whole-group synergy. I've been in runs with 3x knife/sword dps, and everyone using marking cut made things just disappear. There are a ton of potential skills, some of which wouldn't even be viable on their own, that could synergize to a really good combo.

[sterile shard]

Before an actual discussion on the topic can take place, we have to see how well pets perform with the new buffs. Do they actually keep attacking enemies without creating disaster pulls. Are all these buffs really as good as they seem?

But then, Afaik, skeleton warriors don't do that much damage and have no AoE (compared to ratkins that have high damage, a aoe burst attack and a lot of electric vulnerability available)

[golden nebula]

Yeah, and the tank using UA with the poison vul on neck. Then have a healer, something with a damage buff for ranged attacks/poison. That would be sort of the full group

[sterile shard]

Btw, On necro Provoke Undeads works on ALL undead pets, not only your own. A bunch of necros with ratkins is a fucking mob grinder

And the Rebuild/Heal undead do the same, heals ALL undeads

And makes them ALL more resilient

Makes me want to get my Necro/WW out

[twin seal]

Before this update, there were no meta dps builds for group content that main'd AH. None that I'm aware of, at least, and I am lucky enough to have powerful friends in multiple guilds that I've been invited to run with. Not one of the successful groups I've been a part with used AH, without the AH player being an out right carry.

I think that's why kef and I (and likely others) are interested in what it looks like now

[golden nebula]

What is interesting to me about the new skill mark target is the + pet damage. I assume it is ALL sources of pet damage. Which might be interesting to see a group around it.

[sterile shard]

DId you like, both mistakenly replied to me AND spelled my name wrong at the same time? 😄

[twin seal]

From looking at the new mods alone, I don't think its enough to pull AH into the spotlight of dps, but I know paper numbers mean very little. It's possible base stats play a big enough part that the numbers are way bigger than they look.

[sterile shard]

One of the most potent change i see is the addition of a lot of AoEs and the Aggressive Seek stance

[twin seal]

I'm a filthy phone poster most of the time. And I swear my autocorrect is evolving in reverse.

[sterile shard]

And then the Added Bonus Crit Chance and Added chances of double damage

Those things will stack to VERY high numbers

[golden nebula]

Still no way for AH to benafit from the +direct damage though

[sterile shard]

No, but TBH, I wouldn't be surprised to see AH being quite competitive nonetheless

[uncut basin]

well theres a whole mess of people who defend it with their lives, so maybe one of them will put together something reasonable

[twin seal]

Citan eluded in the post he made before the buffs, that AH is best as a solo skill. If this is by intention, the skill obviously got way stronger. But back to my statement before about seeing AH on gauntlet runs in the past, I would need a multiplier of x5 to compete with top dps. It probably got a multiplier of x2.

[sterile shard]

That Mark Skill is a * 30% on top of everything btw.

[twin seal]

But, I haven't played it since the changes. I'm sort of on a build diet until 100 comes out. Seeing huge numbers from an AH player may change my mind. I have a full set of AH/fairy magic with a max stat frost bee I could re-roll. My heart just isn't in it yet.

[sterile shard]

I guess i'll have to try it

[golden nebula]

I can't do anymore builds right now, rolling mods makes me want to burn my computer down.

[twin seal]

From what I gather these are either solo players, non end game players, or solo non end game players.

Staff is one of my absolute favorite solo skills. It enables me to do so much more by myself than any of my gauntlet dps builds.

But if I brought it on a g2 run, I would be carried by better dps

[uncut basin]

it was a joke

[golden nebula]

Would I would love right now too is a new dungeon. Some of my favorite builds are stuck in a spot where their damage types suck G2 or dragon etc.

[true halo]

Thanks for fielding my questions btw. I know I wrote an essay’s worth of them

[twin seal]

My most recent build was taking bard/druid from 80 to 90 with the recent bard changes. I've always loved that build, and now is better than ever. Can't take it on a lot of end game content because of nature immune. It should be good for the next dungeon which I imagine is a shit ton of demons.

[twin seal]

Brother, we're nerds here. I'd rather talk about this stuff all day than talk to my real life friends most of the time. 🤣

[worldly oyster]

Numbers wise the combo probably does some of the highest single target damage in the game in a controlled enviroment. Obviously you will never get that in actual runs and it has so many downsides, upkeep and risks but It truly does churn out damage when ramped. Makes me wish we had million HP target dummies just for such. I've never been in a group with another user of such though so i cant even imagine the absurdity it could reach. Albeit the literal legion of doomnados would make it hard to see .

[sterile shard]

I've got my ratkins doing crits upward to 13k

[uncut basin]

damn

[sterile shard]

That's without other necros.

And with the latest necros changes, your pets a super damn tanky now, so all necros healing each others pets and buffing them, can get quite crazy

[worldly oyster]

It's just unfortunate the zombie got left behind in all the pet changes. It fits well in to the build mod wise but ends up being the biggest pain in the ass to upkeep and barely hits harder then one Tornado. Doesnt really have a focused purpose. That sounds about right though as they average 5-7.5k a non crit depending on vuln stacked.

[true halo]

For Sword/Knife, I’m trucking along comfortably with a modified version of the endgame builds (IE: running decapitate for burst damage while leveling) but I noticed one variation among the GE builds I was curious about - any idea why some use the piercing attack vs sword slash (the basic everyone gets this basic)

Given mods are shared between both, guessing personal preference but could be some One Weird Trick situation

[sterile shard]

It doesn't matter at all.

I think i use opening thrust on mine

[summer fractal]

Anyone got a staff/shield setup on hand?

[true halo]

Gorgon Explorer has a few that are probably solid for building a baseline off of - it's how I set my (non-endgame) staff/shield setup and it's been working well.

[twin seal]

Are you wanting it for tanking end game content?

[summer fractal]

I’d say so, also just to get a conceptual basis for the amount of mitigation generally needed at the highest level

Amount of investment into threat, etc

[plain quarry]

I've been really enjoying Lycan/warden if anyone has a build suited for it, I'd love to compare to what I have been running.

[twin seal]

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/4019

This one's from RubiscoStorm. He's done gauntlets with this build.

[summer fractal]

appreciate it! this helps a lot

[sterile shard]

Lycan/Warden is not something that will give outstanding result. No one really plays that. Actually, no one really plays warden, it has fallen from grace SO heavily, it is really not recommended for "end game" stuff. However, it doesn't necessarily mean Lycan/Warden can't get the job done.

If I was making the build, I'd do a Trauma Lycan (Claw, BIte, See Red, Sanguine Fangs, Pack attack, Blood of the pack) With all trauma mods (especially the ones making all abilities (Including claw) apply 3 dots).
Then i'd add the Warden Mods for extra indirect trauma.
Then i'd add what Warden does best, which is AoE Fire dots, so Controlled Burn and Aggression Repellent.
Then i'd add Coordinated Assault for extra melee potency.

It's also worth noting that Apprehend is nice to have in the last part of a Dragon Run, lots of annoying static enemies that can be pulled.

[plain quarry]

Okay! My back up would be hammer and something else

[true halo]

Hammer/Ment, Hammer/Necro, Hammer/Shield are all pretty solid. I'm guessing Hammer/Shield is for tank players that don't want to use staff for some reason but there might be a damage synergy I'm not considering there other than "both do crushing damage"

[sterile shard]

Hammer/Shield can dps in 2 ways.
One with electric damage, cause shield has a mod for it.
Other one has shield doing the heavy lifting, but requires a lot of end game stuff

Can probably mix in some crushing for electric hammer/shield cause of shield crushing vuln mods.
Or it can also greatly benefit the group with its many group wide buffs (Shield Team and Way of The Hammer)

[true halo]

...I did not consider using Elemental Ward to Elec boost your hammer attacks.

Unironically appreciate that opening of eyes because I was dabbling with Hammer/Shield into the 40s but as a crushing build and it was working fine but didn't feel quite as impressive as the wiki made it out to be.

Turns out because I was assuming the electric half was for mentalists and not actually 3 different options to work that.

[plain quarry]

I may go hammer shield

And just mess with Lycan/warden on full moons

[orchid breach]

sadly warden is in a bad shape, theres no reason to roll it, cause it really doesnt bring any big upgrade to any animal form

[plain quarry]

Just want to weigh all of my options before dedicating time. What about Lycan/AH?

[sterile shard]

For now, AH is nowhere to be found in any meta build. It might change with the latest improvements, but it hasn't proven to be reliable yet.

[twin seal]

I've been rolling and testing AH at end level with a max stat frost bee. I can say that there are going to be end game meta combos with Animal handling now.

[true halo]

Neat

[sterile shard]

I've been testing tigers. They are dumb as hell as usual. So much dps lost from the pet taking ages to attack or switch target.

Testing with physical bee soon.

[summer fractal]

kefchat do you have a gorgonexp xxxx for cow/unarmed? my animal alt adventure begins

[sterile shard]

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5847

[summer fractal]

legend ty

[ionic sorrel]

I made this back in the 2020. it's not exactly top secret, but its a damage calculator. I think there are some gaps with the game today, not to mention I never added dots: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kySOjOabg4d8EjZPeOrefSW6Rklhe3vAvYeRNiLK-ww/edit?usp=sharing
It's fun to theory craft with, like a no-armor UA build can //kick// up some comical numbers. The gif link shows you how to fill it out once you copy it to your own drive.

[abstract vortex]

idk if this is an old question but can i ask the difference between the vampire combos, specifically vamp/sword and vamp/knife? and what the builds do differently? thinking what to pair with my vampire

[green crest]

To be fair, they are orange cats so being dumb is just realism

[rustic idol]

group archery build? rn i have arch/fire

[sterile shard]

archer/knife, archery/druid and archery/bard (all poison blitz shot crit spam) are the best builds

I theorycrafted this fire/archery build though. It's base around the same idea, since Fire has mods for +basic attack damage
https://gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5849

Fully rerolled, it would probably get the job done, though i'm hesitant to recommend it

[abstract vortex]

How about good vampire builds and combos?

[sterile shard]

#builds-discussion message

[abstract vortex]

what works well about vampire lycan, bard, sword, and knife?

I'm tossing up between them and cant really imagine those build functions

[rustic idol]

those all have more aoe dps than fire archery?

[sterile shard]

at end game, they will have the same AoE DPS and deal more single target damage

[twin seal]

Meta used to be aoe dots. then mobs were given the resilliant mechanic, as well as changes to AOEs (some got repealed), burst reply, and reflect changes.

Where it lives now is sort of a case by case for what battle is in front of you. There are times where AOE DOTs are still the best strategy. But what it seems like is required for serious group content, is melting down the immediate threat. In Dragon runs, thats typically the Osslars or the Spriggans. It can be much better for the group to have a single target strategy. Even better when there's group synergy like chompy said earlier.

The game is really close to being balanced. Yes certain combos are better. but on their own, each skill is fairly comparable, with a few weak outliers. Wolf, Unarmed (damge wise), Druid, and Warden are the glaring examples off the top of my head. If these get fixed, fire damage would become one of the weakest skills available, unfortunately, as its numbers are lagging behind other combos.

Skills like staff I think are fine. It's not the highest output dps, but It's really really good for solo play, and can be a part of a tank set to hold agro off of 4 other heavy DPS.

All this is in flux, too. Setting your goals on one build to do everything is going to be a huge disappointment. Players should expect to have multiple high level loadouts if they're looking to complete all the content available. This is true for solo and group play.

[abstract vortex]

Could you combine vampire and staff to make a crazy solo build? Or would the synergy just not be there..

[twin seal]

I dont really look at vampire as a solo skill. Solo play to me is foraging wilderness, and farming things to sell. The limitations of not being able to regularly do this outside seem to lend solo play towards other skills. And yes, there's not expressly great synergy between Staff and vamp. But sometimes builds work when its just two powerful skills on their own. Ice/BC is an example. Not a ton of synergy, but its a great combo.

Staff is great for solo, absolutely. It should be paired with a high DPS skill. Vampire can be a high dps skill, but I dont think its worth the effort when other skills can be just as effective. If you are hell bent on being a vampire and a solo player, you may love vampire/staff.

[twin seal]

Im still missing a bunch of mods for this build. It's a roughly 41 second kill on the healthy dummy. for refference I've seen some of the best skills kill it under 30 seconds. Lots of room for improvement, but here's what my AH frost bee is doing when paired with fairy magic.

14k crit from the bee's basic attack at the end

[past pelican]

I've been mucking around with dominate solo, with ranged mod its quite fun playing 'fight club' making mobs fight each other but with the pathing bugging in dungeons like NMC was a bit clunky

[twin seal]

here's fary magic/hammer killing the dummy in 20 seconds

[green crest]

What's broken/sub-par about druid right now?

[pale turtle]

Are those Training Dummies in Serbule?

[teal quarry]

yeah in the player stall market area

[twin seal]

to be fair, its plenty powerful in specific builds. I just dont want to play those builds. It helps heavy nature dot abilities like deer, cow, (one of the best solo farmer builds) and works okay with the new bard, and some poison builds, like spider, but both archery or knife make better poison choices than druid, IMO. I would like to see it have better pairings with things like hammer (club in this case). although I haven't seen it since the new WW changes, but even then, its because Witching got stronger, not druid.

Solo druid is already nuts, though. Brambleskin is great. But brambleskin is useless as a dps in a group.

[abstract vortex]

hey what does Lycan/Bat even look like? Is it a bat using wolf abilities or vice versa? Do you switch between the forms?

[true halo]

It’s all Lycan but Bat has trauma mods that work for both. However Citan has noted that’s unintended and not staying

[abstract vortex]

Oh I see so it's not rly a thing

Like you can't use the bat abilities as a wolf ahah

[weak canyon]

tbh if ice/bc was nerfed to the point it didn't work.. what would be the viable build paths left for ice?
Basically knife and bunny. So if someone didn't want to play an animal but wanted to play an ice 'magey' build, they'd be outta luck

For a game with so many skills, i do wish there were more skill combos that were viable. Ignoring shield cus that's a tank build.
Bit weird knife has the ability to turn all its spells into cold but fire, which has the 'it's just heat manipulation magic' lore, can't.
Though maybe there's some more planned skills/combos not yet implemented

[twin seal]

fire/ice was a top meta at one point. Around the time of Fae realm's release. There used to be mods for calafaction that gave a 90% debuff to ice attacks. This was my favorite version of ice, but it's plenty powerful on its own.

I don't think we're in the season of hard nerfs, probably a couple more skills being buffed. the balance is close, but yes, the combo options tend to be narrow for most skills when compared to what's possible.

[weak canyon]

I'm guessing fire/ice was better when flat specific element dmg mods werent a thing like now in endgame.

[twin seal]

https://tenor.com/view/why-not-both-why-not-take-both-gif-11478682

[sterile shard]

But yeah, fire fell from grace when its indirect fire mods were nerfed and when everything got so much flat damage. Fire has high flat damage already, but really weak multipliers, so atm it is weak.

[safe lichen]

Is Druid/WW still a thing?

[twin seal]

Before the ww changes it was probably b tier. I'm sure it's A tier or S tier now when taken to max.

[safe lichen]

And Druid is still the best combo with WW after the WW changes?

[twin seal]

Sheer damage numbers? Probably. But it depends on how you want to play it.

It's not the most riveting playstyle, but using an xbow to pump up both epic attacks is probably the most dps.

[safe lichen]

Alright thanks, I shall go with Druid/WW then.

[silk prawn]

I recently got yellow gloves and added the healing over time for pulse of life. Planning to swap the power restore on calm skies for +nature damage on the shield as well

@safe lichen

I love WW/druid, it is a little lackluster in NMC due to all the nature mitigation but the aoe healing/armor/power from the build is great and makes reflect mobs a lot less dangerous to deal with

Also swap out the ring cloud trick mod for the new one that buffs channels if you cast during them

[green crest]

How is it solo?

[silk prawn]

quite good imo - the passive healing from calm skies and healing sanctuary is substantial and I've been able to solo plenty of stuff

[teal vine]

I'm late to the party, but how is hammer/ment(fae) setup? I'm assuming lightning, but I am currently ment/necro and am struggling to figure out the right skills and mods. Been thinking about hammer for awhile, but was somewhat wary of how easy we get stunned for melee. Anyway, any tips on hammer/fae would be quite appreciated!

[twin seal]

This is the same build from the video, but i've upgraded the shield, ring, and amulet with foretold damage, and the gloves I've replaced with crafted linen.

this is thunderstrike self buffed.

This build works without a chet's club, but obviously a lot less on thunderstrike.

Here's how I ran it at level 80, but this was when we could have 7 mods on gear. RIP.

this is with an xbow, and you just pump up really big hits from pound to slag and astral strike. I saw crits upwards of 70k on things like trolls. This is when 80 was max, and before prophesy items.

[weak canyon]

wow 13k dmg..btw is title doing anything or just for flair? 😛
i'm half convinced titles give invisible stat buffs now

[twin seal]

It's time for thunder

[keen mortar]

So I’m curious about the Fire/BC and Ice/BC combos listed on the meta list. How much synergy do the two actually have, or is it more utilizing the support buffs from BC and just going all in on Fire/Ice respectively?

[silk prawn]

BC has a lot of damage types and potential synergies but it feels like there isn’t any single damage type that is especially noteworthy. Typically folks run BC for the support (extra skins being the most notable). I know of a lot of people who have a BC build but tend to only run it if we don’t already have a BC in the group

[keen mortar]

I’m trying to wrap my brain why fire works here because BC has no fire abilities to my knowledge

(I’m workshopping a Priest/BC build and trying to decide if I derive my damage from Priest’s Fire, BC’s acid, or a mix of the two.)

[teal quarry]

Bc has mod for all bombs to ignite

The synergy is with indirect fire damage

[keen mortar]

Ahhh gotcha

Well in that case not a lot of, if any synergy between Priest and BC other than the healing lol

[drifting sleet]

Yeah mostly just indirect mod on flamestrike

[keen mortar]

Flame strike and righteous flame both have indirect mods right?

Or I guess it doesn’t stack

[drifting sleet]

I think righteous flame does have it i.just didn't want to say it definitely without being able to check atm

[keen mortar]

Well to be more specific

Does the DoT from Flame Strike and the DoT from Righteous flame stack separately?

Or would it only be one fire DoT?

[royal moon]

Getting the impression that Unarmed without Lycan isn’t really a meta option? Currently running Unarmed/Ment but would prefer to switch sooner rather than later if it won’t work long term (assuming I want to be a valuable member in high level content)

[uncut basin]

Both those skills make other skills better. I feel like they aren't suppose to be what does the dmg, or at least how they are now. Unarmed is a tank skill, or primarily used as one. The other things it does well is make stuff squishy for trauma, which is heavy in lycan, and can boost Nice Attacks and Signature Debuffs a bunch. Mentalism boosts all sorts of damage types and can heal. They just don't shine on their own and neither are powerful enough to make you shine when they're together. This is all just my humble opinion of course as someone who's played this build. You could play this build, run around soloing open world, do dailies and run dungeons. But if you care about numbers, or your time, you wont like it.

[royal moon]

Thanks for the info. I saw sword/ment on the meta list and may try that insteaad

[hallow sage]

For dps builds in endgame groups, would fox/priest or fire/priest generally be more useful and wanted?

[silk prawn]

I’ve run G2 with folks who have a fire/priest build

[golden nebula]

Both fox and fire with priest are in the list of meta builds. But I am not sure which fire or fox offer better damage/group stuff at all.

[hallow sage]

Yeah I was aware of this but since the performance of some builds on that list is quite a bit better than others I wondered how these two stacked up against one another.

[wintry cloak]

Fire priest should outperform. However, fire is on a downward trend so it might not be true at 100. That said, it's best to use fire priest as a second DPS build along with something else that isn't fire, switching depending on the mob. This is because using fire priest (100% fire damage type) against fire resistant mobs is kind of griefing; if you ever play fire priest against droaches, you'll understand.

[fervent crag]

For Psy/Deer what mods should I be focusing on? I currently focus on the extra mock damage+base damage increase for psy/deer abilities and cuteness overload/king of the forest are psychic. I don’t know if I am doing it correctly right now but when I’m solo I can do most content in my level range (outside of needing resistances to damage types) at 70/72.

[uncut basin]

@elfin hedge

[elfin hedge]

For solo dmg I do use Mock, Ridicule, But I love (stun and 25% dmg debuff) and Cause Terror. From deer its King of the forest ** (nice attack debuff 25% rage attack - helmet generic mod) and Cuteness Overload. Positive reinfo (i like it cause of the extra poison mitigation and power restore) modding for health restore together with inspire confidence** (+ all direct dmg mods). Forest Challenge (15% elite dmg reduction + stackable hp buff and minor heal), Deer Bash (stun), Kicks (stackable fire resist), Doe Eyes.

King of the forest and Cuteness Overload are kind of poo poo dps, but king of the forest can me modded for extra physical reduction and Cuteness Overload for extra heals and in combat speed (nice for kite)

And ofc 100% projectile evasion on bouncing speed

Used to run Soothe instead of positive reinfo but dunno like the extra heals better after adding the dmg via mastercrafted/foretold.

Direct/indirect nature and psy mitigation mod on helmet. poison/trauma/psy endurance mod on gloves and boots, Field Prophylactic first aid skill, psy% meditation - works amazing for reflect mobs

[fervent crag]

thanks deer god :3

[proven shadow]

im curious about psy/ment and necro/ment are there any example builds?

[pale turtle]

Psy/Ment seemed super easy to get good results from. I made my own build on Gorgon Explorer and it worked out. Not a pro so .....should be folks on here who min/maxed it more than me

[sterile shard]

Everyone play psy/ment. You'll get good results out of it. For Necro/Ment, you want this item: https://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Vemuta's_Attention_Focuser

So you can throw a 7-8k pain bubble every 10 seconds, on top of everything else

[golden nebula]

Does anyone got a vamp/sword build put together? Curious what that looks like/plays like.

[sterile shard]

Get your trauma dot stacks with parry and riposte up to the max, then use Blood Mist to wreck havoc

[sterile shard]

Something like that: https://gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/6027

[summer fractal]

so im looking into a dps build for my cow when I'm not in the moood to tank, does anyone have a druid/ah poison wasp build setup post patch?

[sterile shard]

https://gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5940

[fervent crag]

Any Lycan/Psy example builds?

[proven shadow]

is there any cow/ua build examples?

[uncut basin]

https://www.gorgonexplorer.com/build-planner/5349

[proven shadow]

thanks!

[uncut basin]

OK, I wanted to make a shortened list of DPS builds that are still good WITHOUT having foretold and mastercrafted gear. So they may be better to chase for new players? Poor players? That being said, the builds that use foretold/mc pieces will almost always out DPS the builds in this list. Also, most of the builds on Kefchats list will do comparable damage if rolled properly. These builds however rely on one of two things to do the majority of the damage. Pets, or indirect damage. The builds on this list are as follows: Pet Builds! Animal Handling got a huge buff and some builds pump out crazy damage now, although most of them rely on genetics to be powerful. The Rat/Cat/Bear all suffer from low attack speed, which makes them unqualified to be on this list. AH/WW, AH/Spider, & AH/Archery. All three of these use the Fae Bee which is a poison pet and is immune to poison so it doesn't reflect on itself. For all three of these youre going to use EVERY ah mod that increases damage. WW has a pet buff and poison vuln(prob the strongest of the three), Spider has some poison boosts and a poison vuln, and Archery has 80% poison vuln. The other sides of the build all make the bee better. It's a weapon, not a friend(I guess it could bee both). The honorable mention here is Chopjaw. Chopjaw has a crazy dot thats tied to Sick Em'. Run AH/Knife to trauma vuln the target and use Sick Em' as often as possible and youll see good numbers(probably, thanks Tunechi). Necro/WW. Crazy electric synergy. It's almost pure Ratkin skeletons + AoE Storm Shield that also boost electric damage and protects against indirect electric, so they suffer lower reflect. + Electric Vuln through Spark of Death, Deathhold and Deluge are going to be your focuses on the build(Thanks Kefchat). To be continued..(not Nitro)

Damage-Over-Time Builds! These builds suffer from...well, time... The crazy direct damage builds do all their damage right away. These need time to do damage, so they may not seem great against trash. Where they really shine, is against bosses. The first on the list is Rabbit..again Rabbit. Bunny has one of the craziest psychic mods in the game imho, but has yet to be confirmed as intentional. Play Dead's mod adds a flat amount of psychic damage, but IT ALSO AFFECTS DOTS! You'll run into the same issues with these builds that you will with any psychic dmg builds, they don't do shit against plants/mants/brains/golems, but they'll wreck everything else. Bunny/Necro. Boost your psychic with bunbun, run all the psych dots in necro. Mentalism is another less potent option for the same reason. You'll want to get a Imuta's necklace so you can use pain bubble every 10 seconds, but its all indirect psychic. Sword/Knife(this was my gateway drug into meta builds). Both sword and knife have the ability to run all their trauma mods without worrying about what mod to take over the other. Run all the trauma mods. Bleed em dead. Simple. WW/Druid & Spider/Druid. These are builds focused on nature & poison dots respectively, and the ones I'm least familiar with. They seem pretty straightforward though.

Again, these builds will still be out damaged by people running foretold/mc pieces, but they are still very strong without them. Even stronger with them.

And as always, this is just my opinion. I'm not the most knowledgeable, but ive seen some shit.

[wintry cloak]

Have we ever received confirmation that the play dead mod is working as intended? It comes off as a mistake, like how finishing blow used to boost indirect

[uncut basin]

no, but it has been reported.

[sterile shard]

I thought a lot about it before making the build. I suppose it isn't entirely intended. But I assume it has been done this way to boost Play Dead's latent damage.
Also, the mod doesn't state "direct damage".

But ultimately, I played the build and then dumped it, it does good damage, but it's not as good as the top builds even without Foretold items. And it's a bit clunky to use, very easy to die since all your damage come from 3 attacks, you dish a whole lot of damage right off the bat and don't have play dead to escape aggro.

So in term of game balance, it doesn't break anything, especially since it requires a very restricted form. It might have been overpowered before the AoE Dots nerf, but now I honestly thing it is balanced.

[ionic sorrel]

I'm not in a resource position to test necro /ww but the zombie is poison damage. I think there is potential there. But I don't know what the ww pets are like dps wise. And well, idk about the zombie either. I know off the cuff it's weak, but after 5 mins it should be solid.

[worldly oyster]

Unless the tooltip is wrong or I am mistaken from memory I could have sworn the zombies abilities were classified as crushing. Regardless overall the damage from each of the pet types turns out to be around the below with just ones own buffs. Mind you there is a little wiggle room due to mods taken but it's relatively around these.

Ratkin: Max in the 7-8k mark when the target has the max stacks of electric vuln available. Generally you will be getting 5-6k though

Zombie: Exceedingly rare to get it to max stacks in most content but if so you will get it around 5k an attack.

Tornados: With the new changes and extra tornados you generally have 4-6 out at once, barring them staying alive of course, with the higher level ones hitting for 3400 and 3200 for lower level ones.

It's a crazy amount of damage single target wise overall but your mileage is going to drastically vary for a plethora of reasons.

[weak canyon]

ww tornados sound kinda insane for a single boss burst build, only problem being you cant spawn 5 tornados right as you engage boss 🤔

[worldly oyster]

If you pay attention to Tsunami casts as the mod is every other you can summon then Tsunami for the debuff and instant reset of tornado to recast after. So while not instant your second abilty press in combat will get you at 4.

[weak canyon]

so 4 tornados doing 3k dmg a second?

or is the interval different

[orchid breach]

doing a ah/druid poison build. is there any equipment that increase poison or ah pet dmg output?

[twin seal]

No equipment will boost it, but buffs from other skills, or debuffs placed on enemies will increase the bee's damage

Mods for AH for the pet attacks will be great. Get all of the basic attack mods for AH, and absolutely get the DOT mods for AH

Poison synergy is probably the strongest group dps tactic at the moment

Archery, Knife, AH, WW, Druid, Spider. Mix and match, throw in a group, things will melt

[orchid breach]

yep druid with fill with vile buff that can be put on pets and other poison players looks so good

[twin seal]

There's a toxinball club that the elves can drop in the elven judgement. Venompiercer gloves from the spiderlaird. Those will buff YOU, not the pet, though

[orchid breach]

nice, ty for the advice

[rustic idol]

weather witching can mod to poison?

[twin seal]

AH/WW went from one of the worst possible combinations, to one of the best with the last skill update

[rustic idol]

target pet? so u can use it on other allied pets

be the team poison boost

[twin seal]

I get's cast on a single "pet" but doesn't have 100% up time, so you'll only ever be able to target one thing with it.

[weak canyon]

you dont have the mod that makes the shield apply to all pets?

[orchid breach]

yes theres a WW mod that does that

shame cant do ww as deer, or went ww with AH or Druid

[rustic idol]

whats a good second dps to pair with a psych/ment player when u have a tank and healer already?

[green crest]

Something/Battle Chemistry

Ice, Fire, AH would all be solid I think

Not necessarily 1000% optimal but BC just helps things run smoothly I think

[drifting sleet]

Need to sit down and find all the mods that are like "attacks do foo more damage"

I love ice with Psy cause the fear turns from "run away" to "stand in place"

[ocean agate]

how do people get the All direct damage green equipment mod? Especially on top of the additional craft point mod

[twin seal]

Enhancing damage on Mastercraft or foretold items. We have damage for main/offhand and jewelry in game. Enhancements for armor aren't in game yet, and are likely to be defensive/speed/inventory

There's rng involved, so your damage may vary

[ocean agate]

Aha I knew there was a reason I was keeping the jewelers kit

Thanks for the info

[twin seal]

Here's Spider/Animal Handling killing the dummy in 16 seconds

[sterile shard]

Dem 1k ticks

[stray elk]

What's an acceptable/competitive time to kill that dummy for a DPS? I read a comment by Lice from years ago that it's 40sec, but I think that was before direct damage on foretold gear

[twin seal]

There's a lot more to a build than dummy kill speed, however this ah spider build has zero prophesy damage.

40 seconds is still not a bad time. But explosive builds can do it faster! Would love to see more people post their dummy times.

[orchid breach]

i have AH/druid and WW/druid. iwll post mines after update

[abstract vortex]

Are there good staff combos out there for duoing dungeons?

[orchid breach]

my AH/Druid build killed the dummy in 24 secs, but its like at 3/4 gear wise and 0 direct dmg but the base ring and with some defensive mods cause i use it to tank bosses. my WW/Druid took 37 secs (0 direct dmg augments but base ring) but its 80% AoE

so in my humble opinion for a boss killer poision seems so good, but for trash the nature version goes ahead.

im pretty sure others willhave better timers, better builds etc, just wanted to share my numbers

[silk prawn]

I got ~13s with archery/knife - 3/4 items have infusions.

[sterile shard]

Same. ~13s as Ice/knife

[twin seal]

Are y'all counting one Mississippi two Mississippi on these? Click record, friends! We all want to see!

[golden nebula]

ill try to record some later, archer/druid varies a lot because of crits. some kills i had (testing now) were as low as 9 secs and as long as 13-14 secs. 2/4 infusions.

[silk prawn]

This was with 2 crits

[orchid breach]

amazing, even fae die at long distance when you were killing the dummy

[twin seal]

Now we're talking!

[twin seal]

I got down to 12 seconds on Spider/AH

[sterile shard]

I'm using the windows chronometer

[uncut basin]

3.5/4 infused & wrong distro horn

think thats 11-12 sec

0/4 infused

4/4 infused

even with all the pots and mk. 4 my bard is better

with the ah builds you could get sub 10 secs if you get lucky with crits

probably

[twin seal]

It's crazy how close everyone's builds are, with entirely different skills abilities and mods

It's a shame foretold is getting nerfed. Easy to guess dots will be on top again like it was before foretolds 🤣

[uncut basin]

yea, my bard is better than yours for who knows how long..

since, you know, you run the dots in yours

[twin seal]

I don't run shit. I listen to the bee.

[uncut basin]

lol

[abstract vortex]

Hey what are these infusions? Very cool vids all! Just idk what the 4/4 infusions thing means

[uncut basin]

putting extra flat damage on foretold/mastercrafted weapons and jewelry

4 pieces, mainhand, offhand, necklace, ring

[weak canyon]

whats that poison with knife

but hm, ye ice knife does seem primarily knife. didnt even shardblast there..

[green crest]

How is it getting nerfed?

[weak canyon]

there's some screenshots of a dev i assume talking in game global about it

in #general

[orchid breach]

i think the problem is the short HP of the dummy. combat need to last like 10 minuts to get an idea of dps

im pretty sure then some builds will shine over others

[twin seal]

The gyst was it's been decided there's going to be a cap on damage increase which is heavily rng based as it exists.

All of the items will either be wiped, or refunded. And likely when 100 comes out.

All is subject to change.

Opinions are mixed, because currently things are the closest to balanced they've ever been in the history of the game, and undoing direct damage puts the entire meta back in indirect damage, which is where it lived prior to the damage recipes and mod wipe

[twin seal]

When you have 4 dps capable of killing a dummy in 12 seconds, even world bosses will die before most players can get a full rotation in. Solo play is the main way to experience extended combat. I'd go as far to say any extended combat is having trouble with dps.

100k is more than even gauntlet elites, and more than most curse bosses

[past pelican]

try the 1 million hp goat above the crypt!

[twin seal]

It's always gone!

[past pelican]

yeah 1 day cd or so, i like it to test pet builds, can autopsy

[weak canyon]

you mean a cap lower than the +180 average we currently have? or the removal of the rng and being able to go beyong 180

[twin seal]

No idea. It's my favorite mechanic ever added, and I can't imagine what they want to change

[orchid breach]

also armor on bosses will put direct dmg to health build ahead from dd futher

[twin seal]

Yes , and dots!

[weak canyon]

yeah it worries me i have no clue how they're changing it, i also like the mechanic and was hyped to soon start upgrading my items

[green crest]

I'm not really into endgame yet but just from my understanding of the mechanic...not really crazy about something being that much of a resource sink. And in some cases there only being a single mob that will sometimes drop the item needed

[orchid breach]

unless all bosses start to pop as resilent

[twin seal]

Right now poison group synergy is the meta, and immunity or resilient aren't really issues. There's also great group synergy and debuffs for trauma and nature.

With dot builds it's much less important for the foretold upgrades TODAY and will be moreso when they are nerfed.

[orchid breach]

thats true, the dot meta make foredtold lot less important

[twin seal]

There's absolutely no need to roll prophesy today, especially if it's going to change. Some of my most powerful friends haven't rolled any yet and are saving every resource for level 100

[twin seal]

Dots were always meta. This only got evened out from direct damage with the removal of mods from max enchanted AND the addition of foretold upgrades.

[sterile shard]

Unless they want endgame content to have incredibly more health than what we're facing right now, infusions as they are atm are totally overkill.

I'd expect them to just reduce the direct damage from infusions, and then add options for mitigation, indirect damage and healing.

About the "dots were always meta". Even without infusions, i'm not sure if it would still be the case atm. Remember we now have the Resilient mod on mobs and AoE dots damage reduction. Plus a few extremely competitive direct damage builds, due to (more or less) recent changes: Ice/Knife, Bard and Archery.
So, i'm thinking the game would actually be MORE balanced right now without infusions, and would stay balanced if infusions would be available for all types of roles.

[golden nebula]

I wonder if it would be better to have no items in the game with flat damage, no tremor bows, no astounding magic ring, etc. and then have these infusions be the end game progression. That way more gear is valuable outside the one ring for example and infusions end up having a special space.

[weak canyon]

hm, if items didnt have flat damage, then the items with + dmg to abilities might actually be useful, but then there would be no power spike at endgame when you finally craft/get some dmg items, so your first dmg spike will be when you infuse items.. which is well the last dmg spike

[twin seal]

I don't believe you actually think resilient is the shut down for dot builds when the entire meta is currently debuff synergy... for dot builds.

Knife sword trauma dots or wolf/bat because this is still a thing

Archery druid ah spider ww knife for poison

Druid and bard for nature with bc bat cow and deer.

If the argument is look how strong ice is, ice is only better vs one dot build, but two dot debuff builds will out dps two ice/Knife or bunny players.

Removing prophesy items would put literally every other dd meta behind any dot meta. By a huge distance.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me what build is most powerful. You and I are going to play that powerful build.

But we just had multiple players share dummy times for direct damage, and dot builds and everything was hovering right at the 11-15 second mark. I don't know how you think direct damage is better than dots right now. I used yellow room level 90 items without a single foretold boost and tied telkas ice/Knife with 4 prophesy pieces AND potions.

I have a yellow chet club which should be one of the most uniquely overpowered items in the game for reducing an aoe down to 8 seconds. I run it with 3 prophesy items and fairy magic, which is the most niche possible combo that can only be played this effectively on a narrow limiting path. And it doesn't even come close to my sword knife or AH poison build. I couldn't justify playing it in a group run without prophesy damage, and even so I know I'm leaving dps off the table compared to my other sets.

Tuning ice combos with knife and bunny down is the most balancing nerf that could happen, and I don't even think nerfing ice is the answer, because ice ran without knife or bunny isn't a meta for damage.

[weak canyon]

welp skills can be balanced post whatever rework they do, though might take a while. But yes ice without knife or bunny doesn't seem that strong. I like my bc all rounded build though because i don't think that much dps is needed for the content we have currently. Imagine if there was a claw that turns all BC spells into cold though 🥹

[green crest]

Are there BC claws that do this for other damage types right now?

[weak canyon]

i only know of the icesnake that does that for knife really

[uncut basin]

fire sword

piercing/slashing staves, piercing hammer

[sterile shard]

Archery is mostly direct damage (blitz shot and acid explosion). It has indirect, but most damage comes from direct. Spider has crazy chunks of direct damage as well (but its better part comes from indirect, i agree). Bard also has insane direct damage, don't even need prophecy with all flat you get from bard gear and nature mask.

And ice/knife isnt the best single targetter out there 😮

[uncut basin]

As soon as we get some gear that benefits slashing/crushing/piercing a whole swath of options become available.

and competitive

the infusions feel like overkill to me where they stand

on the flip side, they feel like the first truly end game grind I have seen in the game….

which i like, time investment/reward shit

[teal quarry]

Unfortunately this is the second time they have done this and decided it wasn't implemented correctly

The beauty of beta

[uncut basin]

What was the first?

[uncut basin]

How long ago was that?!

[teal quarry]

2018

[wintry cloak]

I made like 5-10 million selling slabs during dangerous weapons. I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like "add 2 damage, but 2% chance your weapon breaks" - it turned into people rolling greens and blues for +200 damage

might be different now that you can get free gear literally everywhere in the fucking game

the only requirement was that it be magical

[green crest]

Where? All I see drop is proto-phlogiston

[wintry cloak]

yellow room and secret chests

they added a bunc hof secret chests, I think this most recent update

[green crest]

Okay, but again I have yet to actually get a decent piece of gear from the yellow room, just phlog. I had the impression it only gave red and lower

[wintry cloak]

You're unlucky and, if it really depends on getting an item from that room, people will usually bring alts

so you're getting 8-10 (I haven't done it for a month or two) pieces per character every 24* hours for just bothering; *72

not even getting into gear from the secret chests, which I haven't regularly done

[green crest]

Oh I thought it was 3 day cooldown. Well then lol

[wintry cloak]

oh wait, I mispoke, sorry

it is

[ionic sorrel]

@twin seal can you test the spider/ah build vs the dummy with some bum poison bee off the street? I'm curious about how much an effect that would have the maxed out Bee vs. ie would the difference be the same as a build using maxed out infused vs not.

[abstract vortex]

What makes a bee maxed out?

[drifting sleet]

Breeding

[green crest]

The RNG in this sounds even worse than what we have now and I feel like in both cases they’re just missing the mark. This isn’t an ARPG. There isn’t the abundance of loot to justify that level (or the current one) of randomness and variation

[weak canyon]

is it? feels like youre almost done gearing in a day or two after reaching max level if there wasnt foretold and mastercrafted..

[orchid breach]

i did 80% of gearing in 2 days with under 200k in mats. no mastercraft, but full yellow. some i will not say gearing is hard

a lot of builds work nice with no mc o foretold

in other words, gear is abundant

[weak canyon]

i'm a month+ in and was about to start going for foretold etc and was prepping mats etc until i saw about the system being reworked :x

[twin seal]

Probably a good time to hoard the materials until we hear more.

[weak canyon]

yeah i think ill just sell them and level my skills instead

[green crest]

Yeah but what I mean is that you will randomly get between 60 and (some crazy amount) of damage

Feels bad to get the right drop only to have it consistently burn a durability point. Yeah it averages to 180, but super expensive randomness kinda feels ick. Especially on things like hammer where you need hippogriff feathers

[weak canyon]

eh i won't argue about your ick but its was a cheap way of giving people something to grind that doesnt really matter all that much. 180 is the average, to get anything meaningfully more, you're looking into many many tries, only the wildest and richest would even try

[pale turtle]

@twin seal it would make gearing alot less interesting in my humble opinion

[golden nebula]

What do you mean? +10 damage is more interesting than something for a speical skill or a new effect? Something like that?

[pale turtle]

I guess I am different...I just hope the game gearing keeps us all enjoying it....so hard to please so many different player types. Glad I'm not a dev

[golden nebula]

Too real, I wouldn't want that job either! Though im real glad they doing it! hehe

[rustic idol]

whats the main and offhand for human psych/ment

[twin seal]

Shield if you aren't going prophesy. Not a shield if you are. Orb is probably easiest to add prophesy damage

[teal quarry]

Niali's Hammer foretold (still looking for this) / Umrad Shield foretold

[teal quarry]

The cost to improve both is excessive compared to other options, but this is the meta channel I guess.

[orchid breach]

oh yeah. only builds for the rich here 😄 these channel is about to talk whats the best for endgame

i needed a psy/generic shield, so i ended farming hobgoblins at ff

[teal quarry]

should have held out for 95 foretold tbrh

by the time that dropped, we'd get shield crafting tho

[abstract vortex]

Why umrad shield specifically? Kinda just looks like any other shield to me

[pale turtle]

Simply because it dropped with Prophecy so you can put Direct Damage on it....current end game chase is mostly looking for Prophecy dropped Necklace,mainhand,and offhand

[twin seal]

the best shield (currently) is likely the nameless guardian's from G2, which gives 10% crushing mitigation. second place would be the elven shield from elven trials which gives 10% piercing mitigation

[abstract vortex]

Mmmmm interesting

Ty

Good info

[uncut basin]

honorable mention is hobgob with a buncha armor.

[teal quarry]

Because I don't really run group dungeons besides eggs. In this case the build is just a meme to destroy bugs 😋

But they asked about a non META combo in a META channel so I gave them a realistic answer

[abstract vortex]

@teal quarry so you're more a solo player? Im interested in solo/duo play at late game, what builds and content do you run?

[teal quarry]

I main fire magic/battle chemistry for utility, but the vampire/knife fighting build I'm working on far out classes it for DPS in group play.

[sterile shard]

Step 1: Play Vampire/Druid for AoE Nature dot on Blood Mist.
Step 2: Be bard druid but worse
Step 3: be sad

[abstract vortex]

The best thing I found about blood mist was the bug where you get to be a mist permanently

Even in the character select screen

[peak pecan]

Sentient blood fart

[rustic idol]

whys orb easiest and arent they reworking that?

[orchid breach]

cause the mats used to upgraded. simple as that

[sterile shard]

Whatever they change with the infusions, i'd expect the recipes to stay the same.

[orchid breach]

patch notes, all infusions now use casino chips!

[quaint mountain]

Some items like orbs and staves take Weaponized Sandpaper to upgrade. One recipe uses gems and Vervadium. Both can be bought, or produced in a steady stream. Far easier than most things.

[golden nebula]

Thinking of doing a vamp build. Which one do we think is the better right now of these?

Vamp/sword or vamp/knife? I see sword may have higher trauma damage on it, but knife giving trauma vul might make it better? Hard for me to tell?

Also, how does vamp/necro compare to those? I kinda like the idea of having vamp/necro as a build that could be in any form.

[uncut basin]

I dunno, personally I think Vamp needs a boost. It doesn’t seem worth the downside for as little power as it provides. I haven’t seen ANY vamp build keep up with a top tier meta build.

I want to make a vampire, i really do. Its super cool, it's just not there yet in power for me.

[stray elk]

I am assembling a no-minion vampire+necromancy dark dps build. First off you should be aware of how many drop only items you want for a Darkness build (Nopec dagger, Ruxandra bite, Prairie Dog coat, Darkness masquerade mask, ratkin shaman belt ). Very time intensive to get

I don't want to talk about performance since I am a noob and my build is only about 70% done(not even including prophesy direct damage boost). I will say that the fact that you have to put some of your mods + ability slots into indirect psychic is a red flag. Also, it sucks that your big damage nuke - deathgaze - is not something you can just spam, due to it causing fear

[sterile shard]

Afaik Lycan/Vamp is competitive

With the many Trauma vulns Vamp has, i'd go with Vamp/Sword

[orchid breach]

i played vamp/psy. the ONLY upside vs psy/menta was you can make enemies vulnerable to psy dmg, making you able to kill that damn plants.

[pale turtle]

Them plants/bugs on a Psy/Ment build are easy... run run run away !

[uncut basin]

sorry, let me clarify. I dont think any BIPED vampire build is competitive. If i can't drink the cool-aid(telka's teeth) i aint playin it.

[sterile shard]

You can drink it as an animal!