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Glass of Milk posted:You scale to the level of the zone you're in if you're above that level, so the higher level person can join the lower level person. This is true only in a couple of specific circumstances: 1) You're in a Tyranny of Dragons campaign area in an older zone (Neverdeath, Ebon Downs, Icespire Peak, Rothe Valley, Whispering Caverns). 2) You're in a new Elemental Evil zone (Drowned Shore, Reclamation Rock, Fiery Pit, Spinward Rise) In both cases I think it's to make sure somebody who's doing that content faces a modicum of challenge and doesn't get drops that are a total joke. Now, that said, you can share quests with your teammates by opening up your quest journal and clicking the quest path button, and in general the 1-70 PvE content might throw some tough fights at you but assumes you can take them alone, so unless your buddy's a tank or you get 20 levels on them there's no harm in going ahead a bit. Or unless you're both in the 60s. Quest-sharing doesn't work with Vigilance Quests, which have hourly availability and a hard limit of 4 and oh god I'ma need to make a mechanics post about those too, aren't I? Anyways, UPDATES TO EARLIER MECHANICS POST: You do get 400 influence a day, 150/120/75/35/20 decaying, and it actually resets at rollover properly now. Of course the next level of the stronghold needs 60,000 so... yeah, there's that. Glazius fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Sep 7, 2015 |
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Sep 7, 2015 15:55
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Glass of Milk posted:Leveling is still a grind. But with Strongholds and some of the dragon stuff you can start working on endgame equipment and points pretty early on. Okay, so here's the 60-70 DEATH MARCH FAQ, such as it is. WHAT YOU DO FROM 60-70 Morningdawn -- Get your New Gear There's a big tree north of the market in Protector's Enclave. Underneath it is Archdruid Morningdawn and Minsc. (Yes, "you point, I punch" Minsc. New VA, I think.) Morningdawn will have two missions for you - one in Ebon Downs against the earth and water cults, one in Pirates' Skyhold against the fire and air cults. Then Minsc will have a mission against all four in a big scrum back in Protector's Enclave. For all these missions Minsc joins you as a great-weapon fighter ally, which is pretty true to his general loadout in the games. By the end of it all you'll have a complete first-column equipment suit, everything but the off-hand, that will probably be a big upgrade to anything you had previously unless you're coming back from a much older mod where 60 was the level cap and you ground out ridiculous dungeon gear. You get cut-down version of those missions as dailies afterwards, though they don't reward anything aside from a "sealed elemental container" that usually has a T5 enchantment or a refining stone. The Cult Of Elemental Evil - Stay Vigilant Mod 6 introduced "Vigilance Tasks", which are similar in principle to the quests you've been progressing through in leveling zones up until now. Every zone has multiple quest hubs in it, and you move from hub to hub picking up quests and completing them and getting sent to the next hub. Vigilance Tasks are more... explicit about this. Every hub has a main quest, usually with "vigilance" in the name, that just says "complete 8 vigilance quests". Vigilance quests are distributed among several questgivers and rotate on the hour, generally there are about 7-9 of them available, and you can only hold 4 of them at any time, no matter what zone you picked them up in. They also can't be shared among your party. So you grab 4, do them, turn them in, then grab another 4, probably from a different selection, do them, turn them in, and move on. The main quests will have an equipment reward that'll keep you current, and when you've finished three hubs you'll get a quest to take an elemental seed and return it to the tree for a nicer piece of gear. The four zones overlap in level bands and often will nudge you from one to another as you go. Does that seem like a bit of a grind? Well, up until shortly after the release of mod 7, it was 16 quests per hub. Yeah, they cut it in half, and upped quest reward XP to compensate. ...mostly. Let's run down the zones. Drowned Shore (61+, capped at 64) Drowned Shore takes place on top of the Blackdagger Ruins, after the tide came in with a vengeance. Notable enemy groups include the lizardfolk from Pirates' Skyhold, sea hags and lacedons, sea trolls, Water Archons, and the Cult of the Crashing Wave. Let's take it as a given that ELEMENT archons and the Cult of the BAD THING ELEMENT will show up in zones, so I'll mention other notables in the later writeups. Notable equipment upgrades are your off-hand (first hub) your pants (second hub) and your shirt (seed). Drowned Shore spreads out its questgivers deeper into the zone as you go on, and it's the only one of the zones that makes moving between hubs and grabbing the seed anything like a production, with every hub requiring a mini-dungeon to cap off and the seed having its own little quest line to go and grab. Many quests in later zones will talk about the mini-dungeons, happening in one lair per hub, as though you'd been there to do something, but only Drowned Shore actually forces you to go there. If you're familiar with the quests from mod 6, one notable change is that any TARGET: quests, ones that mention a specific dude you have to off, no longer spawn that dude as a monster that anyone in the zone can kill and you have to wait for respawn on - you get a challenge symbol that you interact with, after which they show up. Be careful around the sea in the third hub. Some rather sprawling heroic encounters show up there, and you may find yourself swarmed under by gold-bordered crabs or water archons if you're not careful. Oh yeah, heroic encounters. They're not just for Icewind Dale anymore. Some of them are minor and just spawn normal enemies, others are more major and spawn harder-hitting more resilient gold-bordered versions, like you'd get in a dungeon. You'll usually get at least a sealed container from them with the same rewards as the ones from Morningdawn's dailies. So always take a moment to check enemy groups out before engaging. Also! There's one Zhentarim Agent per hub, and they share a quest to kill 100 enemies in the zone. When you finish you can turn it in and any of them and immediately get another. Keep that bonus XP flowing. Reclamation Rock (63+, capped at 66) Reclamation Rock takes place on top of Helm's Hold, where reconstruction was interrupted halfway through by the Cult of the Black Earth showing up and being dicks to everybody. Additional notable enemies include earth elementals inside the city and slaad, generally on the southern side of Helm's Hold (which is where you'd come in to do Helm's Hold normally - these zones get a lot of mileage from just playing a regular zone back to front). Notable equipment upgrades are neck (first hub) boots (second hub) and armor (seed). Grabbing the Earth Seed isn't as big a production number and it won't be from now on, but it does spawn in on top of an outsized spawn of Cult of the Black Earth fighters. Get used to using the secret passages into and out of Helm's Hold. You'll see the most use out of the one between the cathedral basement and Scar Alley (which your quest path usually follows) and the entrance to the cathedral complex and the forest (which your quest path seldom if ever follows). The second hub may seem underpopulated - one dude who only gives lairs and one dude with three or four vigilance quests - but you actually have to leave the cathedral and go into Scar Alley to meet the questgiver who rounds out the second hub. The Black Earth pull out some bulettes and gorgons to fight in the third hub, so if you want to step on a landshark you're probably better off holding your fire until then, rather than trying to take down the half-dozen that show up as a heroic encounter in the northeast forest. Vigilant Paladins do the same thing as Zhent Agents here - one quest to mow down enemies in bunches, repeatable endlessly. The Fiery Pit (65+, capped at 68) This is not explicitly part of another zone, but notionally it's part of Gauntlgrym and someone who's actually been will have to say one way or another whether they lifted significant geometry from it or just the look. Additional notable enemies include duergar, fire striders, hell hounds, and fire giants. Notable equipment upgrades are weapon (first hub), neck (second hub), and helm (third hub). All the questgivers stay in the entrance hallway for this one and just send you further and further afield, one pair per zone. Your briefing officer does double-duty as one of the questgivers for the third "hub", and the kill-100 requirement changes significantly to be split up per hub - visit three locations and kill 50 enemies in each of the hub's two main areas. The lairs are actually a little neat. In the first hub you have to grab buckets of water and use them as items to keep the bigger enemies from getting back up or to effectively instakill smaller enemies. In the second hub you're knocking dudes away from activating something you want to keep snuffed. Third hub is just kind of a boss rush affair. Spinward Rise (67+, uncapped) This one, I believe, is a genuinely new zone. It shares the Skyhold's general "floating island" aesthetic, but the islands aren't caught in the branches of a great tree or anything jungly like that, they're just free in the breeze. Additional notable enemies include kenku, axebeaks, owlbears, slaad, and cloud giants. Unlike the fire giants in the earlier zone, who were patrollers you could avoid, cloud giants are all over the place in the third hub, often with notable entourages or in groups of 2. You can upgrade pretty much everything in this zone, and you'll want to follow it all the way to the end to get your level 70 artifact main-hand weapon, which only recently got supplanted by the Stronghold weapons that unlock at stronghold level 8, so if you're a goon you should be good for a couple years. This zone only has four and a half questgivers - a kill-task giver, a birdperson, a stoner druid, a Harper, and a dwarf cleric who rarely participates in handing out tasks. Each of them will add new tasks for new hubs as you unlock them. The kill-100 repeating task here is specifically kill 100 cultists, with requirements to kill so many mid-level and high-level dudes in the cult. The dwarf cleric does gate you a little bit in moving from hub to hub - you'll need to beat up cultists for rune pieces and then use the rune on four obelisks on your current island to charge the teleporter to take you higher. One neat thing here is that the Harper will send you after various scrolls or tomes of air, which begin with an air vortex-lookin' thing on a high tower or stone structure that gives you the power of holding down the jump button for like 10 seconds at a time. You'll pull some serious Jumping Flash moves, assuming your connection doesn't leave you in a crumpled heap somewhere. Okay, That Didn't Sound... TOO Grindy Well, here's the other half of it. Quest XP almost compensates for having half the quests to do, but not entirely, so if you ground things out hardcore (with a minimum of daily invoke XP and invoke XP multipliers) you will be pretty high and dry. Want to do, say, a skirmish or a dungeon for variety's sake? Well, tough. There are no new skirmishes in these new zones, no new dungeons attached to them. Just the ones that were attached to the old campaign zones, Sharandar and the Dread Ring and such, only scaled up to 70 now. Your gear might be able to handle it, but you're not going to feel like you're chipping in much if at all. I suppose the only advice I really have is don't blitz to 70. The Stronghold wants you to kill 50 enemies and do 4 Vigilance quests a day. If you've got the time to invest beyond that, heck, roll an alt, learn how the other classes play. Glazius fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 7, 2015 |
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Sep 7, 2015 20:23
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I've gone and looked over the stronghold breakdown, and here's a list of what requires you to win at PVP to get: - the guild PVP armor set - the guild PVP structures - the Barracks boon structure (admittedly, the boost to power, XP, and incoming healing is dang good, but it just needs conqueror's shards which in theory you could p2w) And I think, technically, we may have to build but not upgrade one PVP structure to qualify for a Stronghold upgrade at some point? We'll see. If you're just not involved in PVP, a lot of the expense of best-in-slot (and there's a lot of expense for even one best-in-slot) just falls by the wayside, because you can do alright in PVE dungeons without anything that needs a Greater Mark of Potency. And there are just 6 of those right now, in addition to the 2 advanced skirmishes, and I certainly agree there could stand to be more and they could stand to be itemized better than all just feeding into the same two armor sets with a rare chance at some bits of an artifact set. Strongholds, though, seem to have a pretty big PVE component to them all by themselves, and moreso as they're upgraded because I've seen a lot of upgrades that promise to unlock various dailies.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:42
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Goofballs posted:He's explaining how brutally they hosed up the endgame. I understand you're leveling so its not really a problem yet. When you're loving around at 70 trying to find ways to up your power it will start to make a lot more sense. Right! So let's have us another effortpost. This one's about : REAL ULTIMATE POWER: HOW YOUR NUMBERS GET THE BIGGEST Before I really get into the talk about it, let me address some common elements of free-to-play games, get them out on the table so we all can see them, right? The two most common monetization models can be summed up as pay-to-accelerate and pay-to-win, and many games have elements of both. Pay-To-Accelerate: But I Want It Now: This is content you're aware of existing, but there's a timer on it. Pay and the timer comes off. Neverwinter's shot through pretty heavy with pay accelerators, like XP bonuses or just the limit on piling up astral diamonds to buy things. The Stronghold's got a pretty heavy pay-to-accelerate mechanic in it too. The thing with pay-to-accelerate is that there's nobody you're racing against -- you just want to skip the intervening game or clock wait. Neverwinter's PvE follows this model at high levels - you'll have the opportunity to drop cash to improve convenience or skip content outright. Actually successfully participating in all of the PvE content is itself largely possible without any kind of huge-scale coordination or bought-up gear -- though generally not fighting through the Temple of Tiamat raid, because good luck herding 25 pugs. You just have to be willing to respect the pace content unlocks at and find a build for your class that you're comfortable with playing well. Pay-To-Win: Whales vs. Krill: This is content that brings you into direct competition with other players. Usually this follows a rather lopsided model, where everyone can compete in PvP, but anybody who's playing the game for free is basically just another NPC to kill, for someone who's dropped thousands of dollars on bought content. They may provide a challenge, but in the long term they'll lose more than they'll win, and the trick is keeping enough of a free player base around that the big spenders have new and interesting targets. Neverwinter's PvP leans heavily toward this model, where there is a theoretical apex, it's a big jump over what you can get for free, and you can only get there by climbing up a big pile of money. For most of the mechanics I'll be saying "it gets pay-to-win when" and describing why, but again, keep in mind that largely this is describing reaching that theoretical apex to compete against similarly paying players in PvP, not playing any PvE parts of the game. So what mechanics become relevant when you hit the level cap? WAIT, THE EXPERIENCE BAR'S STILL THERE: OVERFLOW XP When you pick up twice as much XP as it took to go from 69 to 70 in the first place - and that's harder than it sounds, since none of the new quests pay out as well as vigiliance quests, XP-wise - you'll pick up a random reward, which may include another power point, so you can get some more powers to tier 4 or fill in the blanks in your power list. I don't know how random getting power points is, if it's at fixed intervals or guaranteed minimum intervals or what. It gets Pay-to-Win when: you get fed up with waiting for the chance of getting a new power point and grab an XP booster. I ALWAYS WANTED A KITTY: COMPANIONS Companions become more and more of a liability in the post-70 game. AI partners aren't that reliable to start with, and the fights are getting more difficult and need to be more controlled. So usually your companion will be a cat bought from the Wondrous Bazaar or one of the many varieties of ioun stone available for zen. Their runestones and equipment will directly feed into your stats, and they don't exist on the battlefield to be killed or attract extra attention. Your other active companions are there mostly for their buffs. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, the cat runs 800k AD, and ioun stones are bought with cash directly. Upgrading companions for better active-slot buffs is also possible and pretty expensive as far as spending AD goes. Getting good gear for your companions is generally pretty easy now that best-in-slot gear, or at least nearly so, is generated from the Gateway game - open chests or beat the boss in a tier 6 Sword Coast Adventure. Some common equipment types in the pure-combat stats, "of the loyal avenger" or "of the striker", can be fairly expensive, but the rest is cheap if you don't want to play for yourself. Runestones will be covered later on, but the Binding Runestone family generally offers the best boosts and those ones are cash-shop exclusives. In fact, they're part of the biggest heading of them all: HOW UNCOUTH, WORTHINGTON: LET'S TALK REFINEMENT They show you the refinement tutorial super-early and it seems pretty simple, right? Feed a bunch of little things into a big thing, pay a trivial cost for an upgrade with a small chance of failure, get a slightly bigger thing. Well, there's all sorts of ways that one gets more complicated, and two of them are that upgrades start costing more and needed more to get there. So, what all is available to refine? YES, IT WORKS FOR PIGS: ENCHANTMENTS AND RUNESTONES As you go up in levels, more powerful enchantments and runestones will drop, capping out at the occasional tier 5 when you hit 65. (You can score the even more occasional tier 6 from a Dread Ring daily chest and, as far as I know, nowhere else.) You'll need to refine to get higher, but you can score the occasional Mark of Potency from refinement nodes and those odds don't look too bad, right? 3K RP to get from 5 to 6, 13K to go from 6 to 7, and you've more or less doubled the power. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, from there, you can quadruple it. There is a Rank 12 available now, but not only do you need Greater Marks of Potency (GMOPs), which you have to buy for 100K AD a pop, you'll often need to feed in another enchantment/runestone of the same rank. Here are the rough requirements: Tier 7 to Tier 8 - 35K RP, 1 GMOP, one Tier 7 Tier 8 to Tier 9 - 100K RP, 2 GMOPs, one Tier 8 Tier 9 to Tier 10 - 300K RP, 2 GMOPs, one Tier 9 Tier 10 to Tier 11 - 600K RP, 5 GMOPs, one Mark of each artifact type Tier 11 to Tier 12 - 1M RP, 5 GMOPs, one Greater Mark of each artifact type. Now, artifact marks aren't too much of a burden to get, mostly because of Dread Ring dailies. So, completely ignoring how you generate the RPs, any wards you might want to buy, and assuming the best luck possible, a single tier 10 needs 8 rank 7 enchantments and 10 GMOPs, and then it's another 10 to get to rank 12. 20 GMOPs is 2 million AD, or about 40 bucks on the market. 40 bucks for a single one of the very best enchantments or runestones. NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS: WEAPON AND ARMOR ENCHANTMENTS High-level gear also includes slots for weapon and armor enchantments, which you can think of as... hmm. Surrogate feat slots, maybe? Without some kind of purchase, they're only available as shards, which need 4 to fuse into 1 functional enchantment, which then functions as a tier 7 for purposes of what it needs to refine and upgrade. It gets Pay-To-Win when: oh, word one, roughly. Every fusion for a weapon or armor enchant happens at 1% odds, which means you'll need to get your hands on wards. Either coalescent wards (guarantee fusing,  per) or a lot of patience and tolerance for bad luck and preservation wards (don't lose components on a failure, 100 for ). It is possible to save up invokes and have a chance at a coalescent ward that way, but it's only a chance at pretty long odds. A single tier 10 enchantment needs 32 enchantment shards and, effectively, 15 coalescent wards, which is a much more certain 150 bucks since you can't really rely on astral millions.Now, enchantments that were available in their whole forms within the past few lockboxes - that's bronzewood, barkshield, flaming, fireburst, frost, and frostburn - are often on the auction block for less than the cost of the coalescents and GMOPs theoretically needed to make them. Still going to cost you, though. THE LAST UNMAPPED CONTROLLER BUTTON: ARTIFACTS You begin the game with one slot for usable artifacts. 2 more unlock at 60, and 1 more unlocks at 70, though the artifacts in these slots only apply their stat bonuses, not their click power. You pick up one artifact for free at level 21, and can get others at the PVP shop or unlock various class sigils by getting two classes to 60 and talking with one of them to a guy named Jarlaxle in the Icewind Dale tavern, who will open a quest for you at the Lord Protector, which will set you to 70 and run against level 70 opposition but unlock that class sigil if you clear it. Once the unlock is done, you can delete the sigil freely since you can claim a new one on any character who doesn't have one, at the claims agent on the west side of the upper plaza in Protector's Enclave. You will lose all refinement progress on a sigil if you delete it, though. Artifacts have over a hundred individual levels you can upgrade them through, but most of the time you're just fractionally improving their stat bonuses. The actual artifact click power upgrades in effects and recharge time in big jumps at 30, 60, 100, and 140. Getting to 30 needs about 22K RP, a Mark of Potency, and one mark and two lesser marks that match the artifact's type. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well. Getting to 60 needs about another 300K RP, a GMOP, and one greater/normal/lesser artifact type mark. 100 needs another 3.5M RP, 5 GMOPs, 2 greater and one normal artifact mark. 140 needs another 7M RP, 5 GMOPs, and 6 greater artifact marks. 60 is actually a pretty reasonable target all told, but 100 and 140 are much more ridiculous. Though they're not as much of an upgrade sink, since the total upgrade cost compares to a single rank 10 enchantment. Of course, if you're looking to complete an artifact set bonus, you'll either need to grind out or buy for a ridiculous cost the click-power artifact that completes the set. The Seladrine set drops in Malabolg's Castle, and the Emblem of the Seladrine is exclusive to there. The Lathander set drops from the Dread Ring Campaign, and the Eye of Lathander is exclusively a rare drop from daily lair chests. The Lostmauth set drops in the Lair of Lostmauth (obviously), and the Horn of Blasting is exclusive to there. Valindra's Guard set drops in Valindra's Tower (duh again), and the Shard of Valindra's Crown is exclusive to there. The Black Ice set drops in the Kessel's Retreat skirmish, and the Black Ice Beholder is exclusive to there. The Imperial Dragon set comes from the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, and the Rod of Imperial Restraint is exclusively a rare drop from the two strongest dragon fights, Venfithar in Rothe Valley and Vilithrax in Whispering Caverns. The Tiamat set drops in the Temple of Tiamat, and the Orb of Tiamat's Demise is exclusive to there. NOW IN WEARABLE FORM: ARTIFACT EQUIPMENT Artifact equipment can go on your main hand, off-hand, cloak slot, and belt slot. Refinement requirements are actually kind of relaxed compared to the other tiers, and it only goes up to 60, with notable breakpoints at 15 and 35. 15 needs 42K RP and one of each lesser artifact mark. 35 needs another 500K RP and one of each normal artifact mark. 60 needs another 4M RP and one of each greater artifact mark. Each artifact comes in two level bands - one equippable at level 60, one equippable at level 70, and the level 70 version has about 50% higher stat bonuses. Artifact main-hand weapons selectively boost one of your at-will powers, and all three major upgrades will improve this boost to at-wills and base damage. They start with an offense slot, 15 unlocks a weapon enhancement slot, 60 another offense slot. The level 60 versions are available through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, but that's a bit of a legacy system since you need two rare drops from dragons to get them in the first place and they're outclassed by the level 70 version, which you get at the end of the Elemental Air zone, about which I effortposted earlier. Artifact off-hand items selectively boost one of your class features, and can generate boosting a feature from another paragon path entirely. All three major upgrades will improve this boost. They start with an offense or defense slot as appropriate for the item type, 35 unlocks an off-stat boost like AoE resist or companion power, and 60 unlocks an offense slot. The level 60 version is buyable through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, but again, it's outclassed by the level 70 version, which you get just for hitting level 70. Artifact cloaks will either boost your AC or generate action points in combat, in addition to their other stat ups. The major upgrades improve the AC/AP gain. They start with a utility slot and unlock an offense slot at 60. Their level 60 versions are mostly defunct and buyable through campaign stores when available at all (Lathander and Seldarine from the Sharandar/Dread Ring stores are account-bind, so twink away) and their level 70 versions, often called "greater", are available through the set locations noted above or from the Temple of Tiamat, either directly as a drop or buyable from the Well of Dragons vendor for 15 Linu's Favor. Or, you know, let other people do the grinding and buy off the AH. Artifact belts will boost one or two of the Big Six stats, STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA, in addition to their other stat ups. The major upgrades take a single stat from 1 to 4 or a pair of stats from 1/0 to 1/1 to 2/1 to 2/2. They start with a utility slot and unlock a defense slot at 60. See above for where you get level 70 versions of all the set belts, which boost two stats. Level 70 single-stat belts are occasionally dropped by Lostmauth and most of them are available for even cheaper on the AH. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, a little bit Pay-To-Win, at least. Getting to 35 is doable, getting to 60 is a pretty long-term investment. The Elemental Fire main-hand and all off-hand abilities are available randomly, and need 4 Cubes of Augmentation, available only as an AD purchase from the Wondrous Bazaar, to unlock a random new slot. The one you want could be the very last one you get, which would run you about 600K AD. The off-hand stat bonus needs 4 CoA to unlock a new type and 1 to reroll a random new value up to 400, so you're looking at possibly 400K for the right unlock and maybe another 100K to get the bonus above 300 if you're really worried about that. Also, swapping bonuses is 5K AD, which is admittedly not that much. Also, unlike everything else listed, artifact equipment doesn't upgrade with enchantments. You need either generic refining stones, a particular boosting type called resonance stones, or to feed it identified green, blue, or purple equipment, with a double bonus if it matched the artifact's slot. If you have a lot of identify scrolls coming in it can be a decent if tedious use for all the trash greens. Lastly, though the greater belts and cloaks are generally in wide circulation on the Auction House, grabbing a specific one for a set bonus can get a little pricey if it's not on in the Temple of Tiamat itemization, but generally those prices don't break 100K. And that's the end of the refinable stuff. Campaigns tie into refinement in a big way and I've got an effortpost on those coming up later, but there's one more thing we need to cover. Well, two more things. There's an even stronger artifact weapon and off-hand set unlockable in the Stronghold.. at Rank 8, which unless we get a massive influx will be kind of a far-off dream to obtain. But the other thing we need to cover is: THE REST OF YOUR BODY: ENDGAME EQUIPMENT In general, artifact equipment is going to be the achievable best in slot. So what goes in all the other slots on your body? Well, the game has simplified this a little, so here's a general overview. Armor (head, chest, arms, boots) has several sets you can collect and covet, the highest-end of which is further upgradeable through Black Ice Shaping, for large amounts of Black Ice and small amounts of Unified Elements. You can get various non-upgradable L120 sets just by playing campaigns - Dread Ring, Sharandar, and Tyranny of Dragons each have their own variant set, and there's also one unlockable at the guild, which we ought to be getting to... within the month, maybe? This will set you up pretty well to do Tier 1 dungeoning and skirmishing, which is everything but Cragmire, Grey Wolf Den, and Temple of the Spider. The Black Ice set is buyable and upgradable purely for Black Ice, and starts out with lower stats than the Alliance set but can be boosted over the short term by investing even more black ice in it. The Alliance set will drop from Tier 1 content, mostly dungeoning, and can be bought for Seals of the Elements, which you also earn from doing Tier 1 content, with a kicker pack equal to dungeon-clear rewards for doing your first dungeon of the day. It's account-locked but not character-locked, which means you can run dungeons on your main to twink out your alts with it. The Burning set is the grand prize coming out of PVP. I don't PVP so if anyone does I cede the floor to them on how you get it and how tough it is. The Elven set doesn't drop directly from Tier 2 content - elemental-upgraded Alliance gear does - but it's obtainable through Seals of the Protector, which you earn from doing those dungeons, again with a daily kicker pack. The rate at which you earn those was recently patched to be on par with earning the Tier 1 seals, at least comparing dungeon clears to dungeon clears. The Dragonflight set is the current best in slot, and in addition to Seals of the Protector it needs people to clear the Dragonflight event, which spawns at the Stronghold for I think 15 minutes every hour, and getting the currency requires defeating two dragons within a minute of each other, which means multiple geared-out teams of 5. Pretty sure this is beyond our ability to produce at the moment. Jewelry (rings, amulets, belts) have their own versions in the various armor sets, but really what you want here are personalized rings, which require getting a character to 25 Jewelcrafting as they're bind-on-pickup to characters. You'll need to craft a tier 3 gemmed adamant ring, which is about a 400-point bonus to two stats with one offense or defense slot, and then personalize it to put an extra slot. Actual personalizing only requires some Arcane Shards, which you can scoop up from leadership chests or which drop rarely, but making the ring needs some Elemental Aggregate and a Dragon Egg, the later of which is notably rare. Personalized belts and amulets also have that extra offense or defense slot going for them, if that's a selling point over the artifact versions. I think, given strong enough enchantments, this might make them preferable stat-wise over artifact pieces, but of course then you're losing out on the AC/AP/character stat and set bonus. Clothes (shirt, pants) are still good when crafted, for a nice spread of stats and an enchantment slot, but again, Dragon Egg and Unified Elements needed, which explains any elevated prices for them you may see. Right, that should cover pretty much everything, though I've probably made some mistakes which other experienced people can correct. Again, this is spelling out what it takes for MAXIMUM NUMBERS. The highest-end PVP may require MAXIMUM NUMBERS, but most solo or casual group content will not need MAXIMUM NUMBERS. Though we'll have to see what crops up in the currently-theoretical Mod 8 and how much of a stronghold buff it assumes you have. Glazius fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 14, 2015 14:38
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Well, I promised this earlier, so let's have another effortpost. THE CAMPAIGNS -- THINGS TO DO IN PVE WHEN YOU'RE 70 Sharandar was the first campaign zone, consisting of daily refreshed PVE content with some other attendant bits and bobs. In future releases additional campaigns were added. The Dread Ring, Icewind Dale, and a much less "endgame" campaign called the Tyranny of Dragons that later got an endgame presence in the Well of Dragons. Now, the campaign zones unlock at 60 and you can just walk right in. Kind of walk right in. There are some prelude quests in a couple of places. But you'll be running up against the harsh reality of numbers: Sharandar's enemies are level 71, the Dread Ring is level 72, and Icewind Dale and the Well of Dragons are 73. Also, the experience is kind of crap compared to the vigilance quests, like 1/10 the payout in some places, though you will pick up random trash greens that probably have better stats than your quest reward blues, assuming you've got enough fight power to kill your targets in the first place. So I guess, try if you want, but if you're having trouble clearing the Sharandar and Dread Ring intro quests you will not get on well in the zones themselves. But this is an overview of what the campaigns are, how they operate, and any rewards and other features tied to them. Most campaigns will have quests that refresh daily at rollover and weekly on Mondays and some kind of progressive unlock structure. Campaigns operate through Campaign Tasks, which are accessed from the little banner icon in your menu bar. A task can be greyed-out, indicating you can't even try it; orange, meaning you're missing some requirements; or yellow, which means you're clear to attempt it. Campaigns will also grant Boons, which are like tiny feat trees available from the "boons" tab in your character sheet. Generally boons will start out as simple statistic bonuses and upgrade to neater effects, like a chance to proc 20,000 arcane damage on all your attacks or slowly building up a rampage counter until it gives you a bunch of power and critical strike for a short time afterward. SHARANDAR -- GET A JOB YOU HIPPIE ELVES The "To the Furthest Forest" quest will spawn an "Old Sharandar Ruins" area at level 60. The quest is a pretty straightforward run through a woodland landscape that gives way to the more fey aesthetic of Sharandar, introducing the Redcaps who'll be your main opposition in the new zone. Take the time to look around if you're curious - you won't be back here, as the area vanishes from the world map, replaced with a portal to Sharandar. Zone Structure, Currency, and Unlocks Sharandar contains three subzones: the Blighted Grove, the Moonlight Fens, and Malabolg's Outpost. Each has three questgiver contacts and its own mini-lair and major lair. Sharandar has five currencies: Gold Crescents, the general currency; Feywild Sparks, the factor-of-time currency; and Vibrant Seedlings/Abjuring Charms/Ilyanbrunen Blades, which are currency specific to each subzone. The zones unlock in order: currency from the Blighted Grove is needed to unlock the Moonlight Fens, currency from which is needed to unlock Malabolg's Outpost, but each subzone will be available indefinitely after you've unlocked it. Once you've completed the zone, you'll get a chance to buy Ilyanbrunen jewelry, which is generally not worth it, cash subzone currency in for Gold Crescents, or obtain a Fey Blessing enchantment, a utility-slot enchantment with a chance to spit an account-bound level-appropriate enhancement into your inventory, generally rank 4 or 5 - remember that enhancements can be used as fodder for ranking up other enhancements or for artifacts. Fey Blessings are considered Rank 8 for purposes of upgrading. The Combat Just a quick primer on Redcaps: there are two little guys, Powries and Witherers, and they're both annoying. Powries will charge up a rune attack that drains your entire action point die if it connects. Witherers will float up into the air and fire a blue beam at their target to completely recover its HP. Yes, even if it's a dungeon boss. Clear the chaff, people. Also, the fomorian witches will create a big circle effect that will turn you into an animal when it finishes, effectively disabling you. Nothing notable here, but it's kind of funny to see your companion wolf turn into a more different wolf who doesn't know how to fight. The Daily Quests Each subzone contains three questgivers, two of which will send you to areas in that zone to complete specific tasks, the last of whom will give you a kill or interact task that can cover the whole subzone. Rarely one of the questgivers will instead give you something to do in the mini-lair: the Feydark Breach for the Blighted Grove, the Quickling Den for the Moonlight Fens, and the War Makers' Camp for Malabolg's Outpost. These mini-lairs are short affairs and don't really have much challenge over and above the zone as a whole, aside from one notable fight - a fomorian shaman in the breach, a fey witch in the quickling den, and three destroyable catapults which summon adds in the camp. There is a treasure chest to loot in the last room of each, but it's just a regular lair chest. Every subzone will also have one questgiver with a daily task to clear out the proper lair for each subzone: the Gnarlroot Caves for the Blighted Grove, the Witch Fen for the Moonlight Fens, and the Tower of Celadine for Malabolg's Outpost. These are proper dungeons, with a full complement of skill nodes and side pathways and a lair boss with That One Boss Trick of summoning adds. However, you can only open the reward chest with a Dark Fey Key, and while you can pick up one daily from the leprechauns just outside each dungeon, they share a cooldown. The keys stack so you can save up three and then clear everything out, but just keep in mind that if you go full-throttle you won't be getting full rewards from two of the lairs. Celadine is the one with an actual chance at a new companion and some neater gear. In addition to that, the elf by the central grove will have a daily quest to collect three Feydark Crystals from any unlocked area and reinforce the tree there. That quest awards 10 sparks and 7 crescents; every other quest will award 1 crescent and 1 location subcurrency, and I think there's only 1 crescent in the lair reward chests too. About the only extra advice on offer is that if you want to do all the quests one day, get them all at once and read everything before doing anything. Often, you can get some cross-subzone stuff going. Later subzones will require you to get things from Thorns or Giantsouls, which are Redcap types you may fight in earlier subzones and they'll drop the thing there. Same with gathering up Cyclops eyes - they have a presence in all three subzones, so you might notch most of those early. The Weekly Quest(s) Weekly there'll be a lair called the Arcane Reservoir. Hop in, clear it out, and be mindful of the bombs the Redcaps set and how they explode. That's 50 sparks. Other Notable Rewards Everything awards Thaumaturgic Stones, which are a special type of refining stone that only works on enhancements and runestones. Aside from the quest for feydark crystals, every daily quest awards a minor stone worth 2500, every proper lair has stones worth 5000 in the end chest, and the weekly offers stones worth at least 10,000. In addition, the lairs are guaranteed to award enhancement shards. The Gnarlroot Caves award terror weapon enchantments, which inflict bonus necrotic damage and drop the defense of what they hit. The Witch Fen awards feytouched weapon enchantments, which make your encounter powers siphon attack power from your enemies and give it to you. The Tower of Celadine awards elven battle armor enchantments, which improve your resistance to crowd control. Like all other shards, they're effectively rank 6 but need to be combined into a rank 7 enchantment, and always combine at a 1% rate. Other Notable Challenges Also associated with Sharandar are the "Master of the Hunt" skirmish and the "Malabolg's Castle" dungeon. The skirmish is a simple affair, with battle arenas gated off by retracting vines that ends in a fight with a Horned Man-inspired boss, who likes to charge around the place trampling everyone . It awards a few Gold Crescents and has a chance to drop a shard of barkshield armor enchantment, which creates an ablative shield around you that stacks and periodically renews. Malabolg's Castle is pretty much War Maker's Camp writ large, until Malabolg dies in act 2 of 3 leaving you to chase down Valindra in an effective preview of the next campaign level. The final boss is actually one of her pet dragons, who will take off for strafing runs at 75% and 25% (don't stand in red if you want to live) and the whole time Valindra will be off-screen harassing you, throwing down rune-circles which explode for serious knockback, occasionally grabbing someone in a giant hand that needs to be destroyed, and summoning a powerful warrior through a "soul casket" that needs to be clicked on and destroyed. In addition to rewarding like a T1 dungeon run, Alliance armor sets and all, it drops parts of the Seladrine artifact set, which restores some health to you after you take a large hit. One of the campaign tasks will grant you a key to an extra dungeon chest at the end. THE DREAD RING -- YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE TUTORIAL ALREADY, DIDN'T YOU You'll pick up "The Ashen Battlefield" at the same time as "To the Furthest Forest" and it functions similarly - run through the trenches of a battlefield, preview the Thayans and Thayan accessories you'll be fighting. It ends on kind of a neat note where the adventurers from the promo video show up at the end to help you fight a chufty undead opponent. But again, you only get one shot at it. Afterward it's replaced by the Dread Ring. Zone Structure, Currency, and Unlocks There are no unlocks in this campaign. The zone itself can be thought of as three approaches to a central Thayan spire, which will let you into the Dread Spire, the Phantasmal Fortress, or the Death Forge depending on how high up they take you. There is, however, a time-relevant mechanic such that you can get into one of those lairs free per day for bonus rewards, on a rotating weekly schedule that also determines what contest is active in the overworld zone. Monday and Friday are just bonus Vanguard Scrip, the generic currency, but the other days give you a chance at Greater Marks of the various artifact types. You will quickly get access to a gauntlet that opens a ghostly floating version of a chest at the end of these lairs, the rewards for which upgrade through various campaign tasks. There isn't a neat utility enchantment at the end of the tree, just some (probably) outdated gear. Boons are racked up in parallel with decoding of the Thayan Ciphers you find in each daily lair -- and only while following the lair quest. No running the same thing multiple times to speed things up. Anyway, the currency. You get Vanguard Scrip from the various missions, and Thayan Ciphers and Thayan Scrolls from the daily tower raids. The Combat If you remember the devils from Helm's Hold you'll have a good grasp on the only notable supporting enemy. There are some undead but undead are made to be chaff. Oh, also some Howlers, big ol' cat things with an AoE pounce attack. They're kind of neat. But the stars here are the Red Wizards. Conjurers will throw a big ol' fireball or create a snowstorm around themselves, Illusionists will summon exploding rifts or make two copies of themselves that like to stand in front of the recticle, and Conjurers will bring in more dudes - tiny circles bring in Imps, larger circles bring in a Legion Devil, and no circle at all will bring in a giant red circle with a Xeg'Ya at its center, a legacy-named creature from the Negative Material Plane notable here only for a) its complete squishiness and b) its rapid-fire drain on your Action Point die that isn't significant but will interrupt pretty much any daily by running you out of gas during the windup to it. The Daily Quests Most days will center around Sergeant Knox picking you a lair and three out of the dozen or so NPCs from throughout the game who've shown up in the siege camp to be questgivers activating in response, giving you quests around that lair approach. Saturday and Sunday let you choose the lair and the questgivers are more scattershot. These quests award Vanguard Scrip and an artifact bag with 5000 RP worth of random artifact stones. There's also the lair itself, which I've already talked about the rewards for. Also once per day, you can forge a gauntlet to open those bonus chests, if you don't have one already. One thing to keep in mind - generally you can stick to one area to finish the quest, but there is a daily quest in the rotation to place wards on 3 piles of coffins, and the Arsenal and the Quarry have two coffin piles each. The Weekly Quest(s) Weekly, Sergeant Knox will tell you to go kill three Red Wizards in the easiest weekly ever, for a chest with I think 10000 RP worth of stones in it and a catchup bag of Thayan Scrolls. Other Notable Rewards Artifact stones only work on artifacts of one type, which can work out alright for you if you've done enough of the unlock quests to have all three types available, or two types and one from your free artifact at level 21 or so. No extra enchantment shards here or anything, but the gauntlets top out at sometimes giving you a tier 6 enchantment of one of the basic types, and a chance at the Lathander set, which gives bonuses on resurrection. Other Notable Challenges Also associated with the Dread Ring are the "Dread Legion" skirmish and the "Valindra's Tower" dungeon. The skirmish is a single large battle arena that pits you against waves of undead, then Thayans, then portals that summon devils. The extra portal in the second wave summons those shocktroop guys, and while you may not be able to focus it down before it spits one out you can at least stop it from getting two out. Valindra's Tower actually starts with you thwarting Valindra, that thing all those daily quests were supposedly for, so good job there, and then chasing her back to Thay to wreck house through a giant gauntlet of the various types of Thayans. Her end boss form will have very familiar tricks if you've done the Malabolg's Castle fight (if not, look up), but here's her countdown. At 75% and 25% she does a strafing run, except with stripes that all pass through the center of the tower rather than running in parallel. Also slowly tracking ghosts with a big necrotic aura tick, so just square up with your team which direction you're all running and try to stick to that. At 50% she summons eight or so Soul Caskets, which won't explode into kickass warriors if you all split up appropriately to deal with them. At 10% she summons way too many Soul Caskets, so just ignore them and pour the damage on. Rewards here in addition to Alliance pieces are the Valindra's Guard set, which improves your control powers and control resist as a set bonus. There's a campaign task for a key to another chest at the end. TYRANNY OF DRAGONS -- ENDGAME IS IMPRESSIVE, BUT NOW MINSC LEADS! DAILIES FOR EVERYONE! Yep, this is a campaign that unlocks as you get access to various zones, while you're still leveling. It takes place in (unused? freshly added?) areas of the Neverdeath Graveyard, Ebon Downs, Icespire Peak, Rothe Valley, and the Whispering Caverns, and while you're there you will be level-capped to something appropriate for the zone, which will grant you rewards on par with your proper level through some arcane codewizardry. Of course, your equipment can outclass these areas and you'll likely be steamrolling everyone if you come in at endgame. Zone Structure, Currency, and Unlocks Each new area is pretty small and there's one new attached questgiver - back at the main hub at Neverdeath and Icespire Peak, more attached to the new area in the other three zones. The zones do unlock in level order in that various "assistance tasks" will need to be completed several times to unlock the next one, and the unlock procedure for the next zone will generally involve doing the two dailies each zone has on offer, to get you familiar with what's demanded. There are lots of currencies here - Cult Secrets are for dailies in the first three zones, Dragon Sigils for doing daily lairs and for dailies in the last two zones, Arcane Lore as questgiver rewards for the whole thing, Dragon Hoard Coins as a more global reward. And a couple more in the Well of Dragons, which will be its own thing later on. There are plenty of rewards to collect and covet, but most continually-relevant are the Dragon Hoard Enchantments, which have a percentage chance to drop either Resonance Stones, which specifically improve artifact equipment, or generic Refining Stones which are gemstones that will put RP into anything, including the 5K Flawless Sapphires and 10K Black Opals. Still account-bound, through. When you complete Whispering Caverns you'll unlock the Portal to Tuern, which is a one-off quest that unlocks the skirmish and lair in addition to a new weekly. The Combat There will be overworld dragon fights in every zone. Pay attention and learn how the dragons operate - this is your only chance now that most of the dungeons are gone. Black Dragonwings are the minions but if they complete their rune charge they'll basically hulk out and be really annoying and fast attackers. Whites will do a giant extended spin attack that spits out freezing boulders in every direction. Greens are archers with a powerful line attack and an area trap that will root you if you're caught in its center. Blues are melee fighters with a directional shield that completely blocks attacks, though you can hit them from behind to break it. Assassin Drakes hang back and spit, Rage Drakes get in and do a regular spin attack. Oh, and there are red (fire) and green (poison) golems who will do a big wind-up sword swing with a tiny arc and a giant damage potential. The Daily Quests Daily, Harper Boward in Protector's Enclave will have a quest called "Common Cause", which wraps up three subtasks - kill 25 cultists, do a lair from another contact in Protector's Enclave, do the daily non-dragon quest from a zone contact. Every zone contact will also get two quests, one to kill an overworld dragon, which isn't needed for Common Cause, and one to do one of their starter tasks over again. You can potentially pick up a lot of campaign currency per day, but there's the hassle of getting there and finding a zone instance where the dragon spawned. The lair quest will lock you to and spawn at level 70, so people group up for it all the time. It doesn't have gold-bordered enemies or anything, so two people or three if you're low-level will be enough to clear it. The Weekly Quest(s) Weekly, Harper Boward will task you to defeat one of the cult dragons for a kicker of Arcane Lore pages. If you've done the Portal to Tuern, you also get to do a redux version where you fend off a cult assault on several fronts. Other Notable Rewards The cult dragons have a chance to drop bits of the Imperial Dragon set and components to a level 60 main-hand weapon, which was a bigger deal back in the day. They'll also drop (and tasks will reward) Draconic Enchantments, which boost three parameters and which I've found to be more useful on offense than defense. Overall, four Draconics are a slightly bigger boost than four other Enhancements boosting the same things in the same ratios, but it's your call whether all of them are actually useful. Other Notable Challenges Once you've done the Portal to Tuern, you'll unlock the "Shores of Tuern" epic skirmish and the "Lair of Lostmauth" dungeon. The skirmish is a running battle through Cult of the Dragon forces, with a possible interlude for some very lost Icewind barbarians or just more dragon forces, and it ends in a battle with a dragon sorceror and two Rage Drakes. Killing a Rage Drake will power up the sorceror. Killing two will stack the buff. It may be useful to have someone occupying one of the drakes while you kill the other one and the sorceror. It actually takes a dungeon key at the end and drops Alliance gear, with a chance for a book to unlock tier 4 boons. The Lair of Lostmauth is a series of big setpiece battles with hardly any filler, making it a popular target, and I think it's technically supposed to follow right after Shores of Tuern. Clear four random groups in the overworld (usually this will be three golems and one patrol). Fight a drake rider who splits from his drake at 50% and gets a powerup if it dies first. Go through a randomly-determined section of Lostmauth's approach with more platforming down the door to the left and more combat to the right. Fight twin fire scorpions, one of whom you may wish to have someone lure away, and get kind of a preview of the many kinds of red Lostmauth will expect you to not stand in. Stop a last desperate cult attack, with dudes who look gold-bordered but are actually weaker than regular cult fighters. Lostmauth is just damage zones damage zones damage zones in your face all the time. Parts of his platform will get submerged in molten gold to split the party, the ceiling will drop on you, fireballs will zip out and knock you around, and that's in addition to conventional dragon pain areas. At 50% he'll fly off and the platform will get almost totally submerged and you'll have a few people dodging around a tiny pentagon (each pick a point, move to the center to dodge), and when he comes back more of the platform will sink at once and he'll get a gaze attack - get someone else between you and him and it'll hurt them much less than it would hurt you. You can party-wipe here to nothing more than bad luck - if you had the numbers to get through the twin fire scorpions, you have the numbers for Lostmauth. Both the skirmish and the lair have campaign tasks granting them keys for an extra chest drop. ICEWIND DALE -- FROM THAT ONE GAME, WHAT WAS IT CALLED AGAIN? Icewind Dale used to require a third-tier boon from either of the first two campaigns to unlock. It doesn't, now, you can just catch the boat and you're there. It is, however, a hard zone to fight in. Zone Structure, Currency, and Unlocks There are two subzones - Icewind Pass and Dwarven Valley. Unlocks are all gated by a daily task to give you town reputation, which at various tiers will let you unlock Dwarven Valley, various levels of Black Ice crafting, and improve daily quest opportunities and rewards. The Portal to Tuern shows up on the map here, but it's not unlocked through this campaign. It's just, the portal's up here so it shows on the map. Reputation is kind of a currency here, but it piles up automatically. The currencies are Konig Coins as generic, and Auril's Tear and Dwarf Gold as subzone currency. And of course there's Black Ice. Nodes of it spawn in the outer world - small nodes with three chunks, or big nodes with six, and they're first-come first-serve. This is the raw kind, and will need to be refined at a 10% loss (which turns into a 10% gain if you have good enough craft tools). Also, there's factional PVP, with the Ten-Towns and Arcane Brotherhood competing for the rare resource. Pick a faction and go - you can't form a group with the opposing faction, even in PVE, and the chunks of ice you pry out in PVP zones are 20% stronger. Various costumes and short-term buff potions unlock for purchase in town, and you'll get rewarded daily with some that you have to run around and pick up. The Combat There isn't much in the way of tricky combat in Icewind Dale. Everything just hits hard, comes in numbers, or both. Barbarian Shamans can make everyone invulnerable but them and summon a bear pet that dies when they do, and Beast Handlers can call reinforcements, but that's about it. The Daily Quests The faction you pick will have its leader give you a daily quest to collect some raw black ice and complete Heroic Encounters in any Icewind Dale zone, for reputation and Konig Coins, which is largely the only way to get either of them. For each zone, Icewind Pass and Dwarven Valley, there are two generic quest-givers and one faction quest-giver, who will award some refined Black Ice and their subzone currency for completing their quest. At a certain level of reputation, the faction quest-givers give more challenging quests that... don't have any increased rewards, actually. Invest in the inn and you'll unlock a daily quest called "The Need for Mead", a street brawl in Caer-Konig that has the chance to contain a yeti fighter, who will drop a treat that gives you a chance at getting a yeti companion. The active bonus is a chance to get a 10% damage boost when you're hit, which is pretty keen and also increases your model size if you're into those sorts of shenanigans. If I had to pick a side, I'd say that the Arcane Brotherhood's quests are generally less hassle to complete than the Ten-Towns, on average. The Weekly Quest(s) Weekly your zone contact will send you to a lair called Biggrin's Tomb, for 50 Konig Coins, your other major source of them. This is worth grouping up for, just mind the faction limitations. It's largely undocumented, but there's another weekly in Dwarven Valley - the dwarves will drop a Hammerstone Hammer, which gives you a quest to find the Hammerstone Anvil and fight the queen for a nice kicker of Black Ice components and generic refining stones. You know how there's this giant face in the mountain with Moradin's Altar on top for the Atonement Quest? Yeah, she's in there at the end of a tunnel of dwarf fighters. No branching paths or anything, just run up to her. Other Notable Rewards Black Ice Enchantments drop here occasionally, which I've found to be more notable on defense. In addition, there's... kind of a zerg going on. People just mobbing around the Heroic Encounters in a rough clockwise circle in the southeast corner of Icewind Pass. Just look for the one furthest back in the circle and pop in. Generally if you participate you'll get at least 75 Black Ice and a Peridot, and crucially the Peridot isn't account-bound. If you're willing to zerg around for a while, no team required or anything, you can make a decent bit of AD selling them on the AH. Dunno how that'll hold up in the new economy, but there you are. Also if you need Bear Rider spears for one of the Arcane Brotherhood, each barbarian fight is guaranteed to have one in it, so you can grab one for much less of a tussle. Other Notable Challenges Also associated with Icewind Dale is the "Kessel's Retreat" epic skirmish. The skirmish is largely an overworld affair, big fights against undead and barbarians which spit out black ice pickups and enchantments like candy, before you go into the tower, get introduced to black ice golems, which are pretty much just reskins of the Rimefire ones, and then you fight Akar Kessel, who is... basically a Touhou. He can shoot three bullets in a spread wave or summon a crystal which bursts into eight. Also he summons black ice golems which can be lured on top of him to actually freeze him when they explode and die. This skirmish is how you get the Black Ice set, and there's a task for an extra key. THE WELL OF DRAGONS -- THE ENDEST OF ENDGAMES You can just walk in here at level 60. You probably shouldn't. Zone Structure, Currency, and Unlocks There are three lairs - the Thayan Shelter in the northwest, the Cult Prison in the northeast, and the Drake Pens in the southwest. Thayans migrate down to the southeast and mix with the Cult of the Dragon, there and in the center of the zone. So many contacts from previous zones set up shop around a reclaimed horde south of center, and there's a lot of variation on who gives out quests on what day. They all award a new currency needed for campaign progression called Fallen Dragon Fangs, and adding to the hoard pile will get you Linu's Favor at 1 per 1500 points of stuff (coins are 1 point, coffers are 15, treasures are 200) which is also obtained from clearing the Temple of Tiamat mega-skrimish. There are no unlocks here, everything's available from word one, it just depends on the day. The Combat There are some new drakes here. That's about it. Hunting Drakes spit out ice that adds Chill stacks and can freeze you, Ambush Drakes will vanish and pop out to whack you, and Guard Drakes are big HP sacks that tend to knock you around. Also if you're used to the Cult being kind of a joke because you were effectively overleveled for them, prepare to experience the tyranny of large numbers. The Daily Quests Things work out Dread Ring-style here, in that three of the panoply of quest-givers will activate on any given day. Sometimes those quests will include a lair, sometimes they won't. All three lairs are pretty serious business and will be challenging if your archetype has trouble soloing, especially the boss fights, which often start out with some strong additional spawns and bosses who hit like a truck. People often have them stocked from previous days, so don't hesitate to group up. The two most annoying quests are Thwarting the Cult, which requires you to biff cultists in heroic encounters, and Fetch Quest, where a spirit wolf creates glowies for you to activate, but they often don't stick around for the length of a combat if you're a slower-paced fighter. The Weekly Quest(s) Elminster, because of course he had to get involved at some point, will give you a weekly to clear out some token amount of both factions and claim and return 15 hoard coffers, which drop rarely enough that this can actually take all week if you just do the other dailies and don't want to get involved with the dragonzerg, about which more later. Other Notable Rewards Draconic enchantments drop here, too, at Rank 5. At 45 minutes before the hour, every hour, the five Heralds of Tiamat fly down, in kind of a loose hexagon with the Temple of Tiamat as its empty top point. For that reason people usually start off fighting the Green Herald and sweep around clockwise to Black, to cut down on total travel time. Each Herald will usually drop 2 or 3 hoard coffers, a draconic enchantment or several unbound Resonance Stones, and a consumable item that buffs you against dragons and persists through death. Zone chat explodes at this point and people pack into instances 40 strong. This is the dragonzerg, and it's less casual than the Icewind zerg but still pretty rewarding to participate in all the same. The boss of each lair is supposed to have a rare chance to drop a key which will unlock a new companion for you, who often yells for help during the lair boss fight. Haven't seen one myself. Other Notable Challenges Well, there's the Temple of Tiamat. Here's how it's supposed to go: you get brought in as 25 dudes, and form up into five teams of five based on the colors. There's a clear-out and introduction to the zone where you fight five cult priests and pick up the item they drop, which you need a free belt slot to equip and use. Each one acts a little differently, but most will protect you from the zones of dragonbreath Tiamat's heads spit out, or alleviate their aftereffects. Then there's a sequence where you have to protect three priestesses from a big wave of devils while Tiamat breathes all over you, and when they've all had enough free time to charge, Tiamat's barrier goes down and you can get in and fight her directly. Here's how it actually goes: nobody picks up the items, the ones who do pick them up never put them in a belt slot, everyone tries to zerg and dies repeatedly. I've just given up trying. And that's your guide to campaigns. You're welcome.
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Sep 19, 2015 02:51
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FelixReynolds posted:If you're ever short just let me know and I'll stock the Gbank with whatever level you need. I cleared out tons of the low-level ones ages ago because most people were up at the level cap but if we need to start stocking sub-70 essentials I'm more than happy to. Well, the highest-tier scrolls work on all items, and I added about three more stacks of them to the gbank just now, so go hog wild.
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Sep 19, 2015 08:02
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Fog Tripper posted:Currently finding the gateway dice game more engaging than the online MMO. God help me but I am tempted to purchase a couple more epic companions solely for that. A fully leveled blue companion is pretty good even in tier 6 dice game dungeons; the only thing purple and orange companions do is upgrade your base 6 dice. So if you've got alts and you want to, save up for the class packs. So here's a question - as a greatweapon fighter, I'm pretty much a damage hose, with buffs and debuffs that affect only me and my attacks. What can I do for the team as a whole? Daring Shout and IBS will stick combat advantage on a bunch of things with marks - any feats worth taking or powers/features I overlooked? I went weaponmaster.
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Sep 22, 2015 13:16
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Goofballs posted:hidden daggers, it stacks I meant in the "how do I build for non-self-only buffs" sense. But thanks for that! I didn't see it as a stacking buff onscreen, but some work with the training dummies proved otherwise. Hmm. Battle Fury says the buff is shared with teammates, but at reduced strength, and it doesn't seem that big on me, and I like Daring Shout for the survivability and determination bar as much as for the marks.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:58
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I don't know if they're going to nerf contribution rates or not, but right now with Black Ice Shaping packs in the lockbox rotation, cryomancers are going really cheap in the AH, and they can be refined up into grandmasters worth 12.5k labor, which is like half our current stronghold capacity for labor. Of course, we still need influence in huge quantities, and running heroics at 400 a day (or 345 a day if you do the 3 the Ranger wants you to do) is the only way to get that right now. I know we've got a lot of lowbies in the guild and I'm half-tempted to see if just getting set to 70 in the stronghold will let somebody survive long enough to get participation credit for an HE.
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Sep 23, 2015 03:43
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Yeah, convenience boosters like mounts or the XP underwear or account-wide blue companions from the class booster packs, or even bags since you can unequip those and pass them around, are better purchases. VIP status might be worth looking into, since it unlocks several nice summonable conveniences, including a bank window, a merchant (though just a profession merchant, the consumables one is still from the Aurora's artifact) and a signpost that'll open your travel map from anywhere. Plus enough dungeon keys and scrolls to offset most of those usual AD expenditures. Just don't buy more of it than you really see yourself playing the game for, and also try to wait until you get a 15% off anything coupon from an invoke bag.
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Sep 28, 2015 16:27
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Robo Reagan posted:Ah, I'm not huge on the ranged DPS dude not doing ranged DPS all the time. Sticking with paladin now since I went knee deep in skeletons in the starting dungeon then blasted them with my god powers. You will still be as tanky as you were without any Oath at all. The Oaths apply additional riders to your encounter powers in addition to working like more conventional paragon paths, but I haven't got a paladin so I don't want to say anything definite one way or the other about what Oath of Protection-specific tools are necessary for maximum tank.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:30
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Lunimeow posted:Well I just recovered the last elemental seed, I'm about 3/4 through level 67. Am I right in assuming that the last 2 1/4 levels will be from vigilance tasks/dailies? Unfortunately, yes. With the cut-down requirements there is kind of a big void there.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:53
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Lunimeow posted:Woooo I did it, just hit 70! Congratulations! New and wondrous vistas of grinding have opened to you. Baron Porkface posted:I was thinking of getting some Zen on Xbox, what should I spend it on? Have you got a blue (+80% speed) mount? If not, buy a purple mount. Mounts unlock for all characters with one purchase, and the convenience of getting everywhere that much faster cannot be understated. Have you got the inscribed garments? If not, buy that. +20% XP on all your characters as long as you're willing to wear them, which can be to and through 70 since they scale and you can really only craft replacements anyway. Have you got an augment companion (no presence, just a stat stick)? If not, buy one on your main. Do you find yourself making frequent runs to sell vendor trash and get irritated? If so, buy a bag. Do you wish you had more space to hold onto things you rarely use? Buy some bank slots or expand your shared account bank (though it's half the slots for a higher price). Have you got a blue companion you're satisfied with? If not, pick one of those up. The class booster packs offer blue companions for all characters and a single bag. The big-money packs (Knight of the Feywild, Guardian of Neverwinter) are a purple mount and a companion, with the Dragonborn pack being an artifact and a bag for everyone instead. The relative worth of these things does depend on how varied your stable of alts is. Do you see yourself playing for a while? If so, buy at least 4 months of VIP. This unlocks a summonable signpost that will take you to the world map from anywhere on any map, which is a pretty big timesaver, in addition to the daily drops of dungeon keys and ID scrolls to cut down on casual AD expenditures.
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Oct 3, 2015 14:27
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Lunimeow posted:So what are some good ways of making AD? I feel like I should be hitting the RAD cap daily but i'm not even getting close. The vectors are pretty limited right now. I think you get bonus astral diamonds from your first two skirmishes/dungeons/PVP wins/possibly foundry arcs? (not sure on that last one) and then some pittance related to the expected clear time. The easiest way to hit the cap is to do epic dungeons and salvage the drops for rough astral diamonds, which will net you about 3k for jewelry, 4K for gear, 5K for the armor slot. +1k if it's purple rather than blue. From the stronghold's perspective, purple items are worth 20x the equipment points of blue items, if you're trying to decide whether to shard or donate something. Always check around fallen dungeon bosses, there's a chance they may have dropped a blue or purple piece of jewelry or gear. You can still clear a decent amount of AD from using leadership, by getting up to level 23 and 24 and selling the unbound peridots and resonance stones that drop from the chests on the auction house, but I don't know how that market is going to hold up long-term. You also get rough astral diamonds from the rare level 20 tasks that require marks of gratitude to clear, but there's a lot of buildup there in rescuing prisoners, cashing them in for marks, and then cashing the marks in, to say nothing of waiting for the rares to arrive. I think there's still a pretty big payout in joining the icewind zerg. Just find the giant group of dudes running around the southeast corner of Icewind Pass clearing out the easy heroic encounters and participate, then sell the unbound refining stones you get at auction. There's a decent payout for the resonance stones from the Tiamat Herald encounters, which start up 45 minutes after the hour in the well of dragons and are also often zerged for.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:57
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Flesh Forge posted:Are all the dungeons they took offline back around Module 6 really still offline? They haven't even gotten one of them back up again? Really? I think they brought Temple of the Spider and Grey Wolf Den back online, only launching with Cragmire Crypts, but don't quote me. I mean, that's not a lot and I want more too. Heroic Encounters... well, Heroic Encounters work out alright in the Stronghold, when in theory you've got a guild to draw from. Getting pugs to do anything but zerg is kind of a pipe dream, though.
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Oct 9, 2015 06:10
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Flesh Forge posted:I hope it actually got saved I had time to open the event reward before the server went down, so here's hoping you find yours in your inventory before it comes back up. And it looks like it'll come back up to another double XP weekend, featuring the Tower District skirmish as a scaling event with an orc wolf striker green companion as the "grand prize", so to speak. As soon as servers come back up I'll confirm/deny that they've also patched in AD rewards for the various weekly campaign quests. It's just 3K per so not that much to write home about, but it is soloable AD. ETA: Denied, no mention in patch notes. It remains a future plan. Glazius fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 16:05
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Congratulations for everyone on chipping in and running stronghold heroic encounters to get us up to level 3. Well, construction is happening to take us up to level 3 and it'll be done in 2 days, anyway. Beyond this point we don't really need influence to hit our next big milestone, though we will need it for future projects so if you catch some guildies on feel free to rack it up. What we do need, however, is a shedload of Tyranny of Dragons campaign currency. If you've got extra stuff lying around, feel free to kick it into the chest. We're also going to need a lesser shedload of Sharandar currency, if you've got some going spare.
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Oct 22, 2015 08:48
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Flesh Forge posted:[1:03] [System Notify] The Guild Hall at the Stronghold Keep has been upgraded to level 3! Yep! We had just enough dragonbux to build a quarry, so I did that and now we're queueing up level 4, which will finally let us level up the marketplace and unlock guild armor. Most notably, level 4 needs about 300k in dragonbux, but Common Cause and the Well of Dragons will both give out the equivalent of 800-900 a day.
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Oct 24, 2015 13:37
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Flesh Forge posted:Uh ... patch ... deployed? 3GB, no patch notes? I think that was just the preload for Underdark going live. As for AD, well, I'm glad they're addressing companion costs.
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Nov 17, 2015 16:10
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Flesh Forge posted:Spiders and Devil Whatever were pretty easy as well. Yeah, there are three tiers of basic stronghold HEs, identifiable by their map icons. The hooks are soloable at 60, and easy with a duo; the diagonal slashes are soloable but boring at 70, and cake with three or four; and the vertical slashes are duoable (* Crisis) or trioable (anything else) and a fun time for a whole party. Great that we've got the marketplace up and running!
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Dec 10, 2015 04:29
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krylon666 posted:My guild invite (hastur@ep0c) did go through - so thank you for that! At what level would you say you actually feel a class's play style? Or how far would you recommend sticking with one class to see if it's one you'd like to take to high end levels? I'd say level 10, when you grab the tab power, you have all the essential mechanics. So from a general play flow perspective it's set. But it will vary based on build. Icy Terrain is a pretty core part of my Control Wizard build and that's not there until 30.
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Dec 16, 2015 17:07
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MartianAgitator posted:GWFs don't get Hidden Daggers until level 65 but it's so absurdly powerful I can't imagine a build that wouldn't run it. Yeah, but it's not really a style change. "Cycle this power to keep doing more damage" isn't new. GWFs build determination and then spam basic attacks, and while the specifics might change, the general flow doesn't.
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Dec 17, 2015 16:44
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Flesh Forge posted:Great Weapon Fighter gets PRESS TAB FOR GOD MODE, Guardian Fighter gets PRESS TAB TO PUT AN X ON A GUY THAT DOES LITERALLY ALMOST NOTHING USEFUL Well, it forces that guy to grant combat advantage to everyone. It's no YOU ARE FILLED WITH DETERMINATION for DPS, but with that and Into The Fray going you've got acceptable kill power. Mind you, having played everything else, I wouldn't go back and start with a GF either.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:05
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Flesh Forge posted:Maybe I don't understand combat advantage correctly but doesn't everyone get it except the guy who has aggro? It just rubs salt in the wound when a white tier tank pet takes aggro from you too. Surprisingly, no! Okay, so find a chump enemy and a featureless gray plain, or near enough. Now go give them a hug and look at their feet. There's a little grey arc at their feet, the opposite side of you. Right? Okay, now find a training dummy or something and pop out a melee pet. Let the pet run up to it, and circle around so you're standing in the grey arc. That should make it turn into a purple circle, and then your damage numbers get the combat advantage sword after them. That's generating combat advantage through flanking. But there are other ways. In fact, any vulnerable state generally grants combat advantage, visualized as that purple ring at their feet. Knock someone prone? Freeze them solid? Proc Nightmare Wizardry on a crit? Combat advantage. Marks of all types generate combat advantage too. That's why the GWF feat for bonus damage on a marked enemy is so good, especially with Daring Shout.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:30
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FelixReynolds posted:This one is what I would recommend- https://nwobattleground.wordpress.com/mod-6-high-crit-build-for-pve-gwf-destroyer/ The Lostmauth bonus isn't, like, crucial to this whole affair working or anything. It's not like there's a better build if you can only get the Black Ice set or whatever, that's just the damage cherry on top of the damage cake. You'll still be dealing out ridiculous damage numbers, doing critical strikes all the time, and getting filled with determination like a kid in a striped shirt. Largely what does that is the perpetual-motion machine that is Destroyer, which gives you determination for doing damage and gives you lingering damage buffs after determination ends that get you back into it faster, which also improves your survivability because of the damage resistance and temporary HP that you get when you're in determination. But it's hard to get a GWF drastically, unplayably wrong. Just keep in mind you can only get one capstone, and you can only get the level 4 and 5 abilities of the feat tree before that capstone, and pick your powers accordingly.
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Feb 13, 2016 01:33
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I got kind of burned out on this game. I powerlevel through the main quests to hit 60? Is the GWF still amazing DPS with good defense? In general you can powerlevel pretty hard with a gateway script too, since they only nerfed leadership AD generation. But yeah, main quests unless they're running a skirmish event, and the GWF is a blowtorch up until endgame, where with Flying Daggers and various other damage boons it becomes a plasma torch.
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Mar 18, 2016 16:09
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WARDUKE posted:Looking to start playing again and rejoin the guild. How can I figure out what my full username is in game to post it to this thread? Right-click on your character portrait.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:33
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A new console got me thinking about control schemes and I figured I should share mine. Here's what I've got wired up to the Xbox controller plugged into my PC. Left stick: WASD, click to jump Right stick: Mouselook, click to push-to-talk D-pad: item slots (left/up/right for 3/4/5) and mount (down) LB + RB: at-wills on left and right click LT: shift for dodge roll/sprint/shield RT: chorded with face buttons X/Y/B: encounter powers on Q/E/R A: Interact RT+X/RT+B: daily powers on 1/2 RT+Y: artifact power RT+B: tab for marking/determination/whatever I find this splits things reasonably between the hands and doesn't get too tangled, while avoiding the keyboard problem of frameshifting your fingers over and pounding down your entire 3 potion slot trying to activate a daily.
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Jun 2, 2016 01:27
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Bobby Deluxe posted:It's not that I don't want to pay money. Right up to the point that I found out about the bag thing, I was pretty much set on working out the best thing to spend some zen on, and now I just kind of feel sour about there being no legit way to get more bag space. I have no idea where content rollout stands for the PS4, but the Tiamat fight will drop bags on occasion, and those are tradable. No clue if or when the economy will get those to a reasonable price for you, though. Hoovering up random greens is kind of a mug's game, though. In contrast to other MMOs, they're not worth much to sell unless you burn an ID scroll, which is another real money ratchet. And basically until you hit 60, nothing besides AC and weapon damage on gear will have big enough numbers to actually impact your play; feats and class features have much more impact. (Also until you hit 60, you probably shouldn't be necking healing potions fast enough for their affordability to be a long-term concern.) Also also concurring with the poster above. You'll get 18 slots from clearing blacklake, and 12 more from the graveyard, in addition to 12 from the Savras campaign, if they turned that on.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:41
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Semisponge posted:Yeah that's been a problem forever :\ It's down to mob selection. That map is already given to difficult spawns, and that's not including the ghosts that come with. You really only need like two-three people, even at a fairly fresh 60. More don't hurt, but.
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Jul 29, 2016 14:01
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Paul Zuvella posted:I rerolled a paladin because the warlock seemed boring as hell. Yes, blacklake is still kind of tutorial town, being your first adventure zone. Afterwards you'll unlock your last unique class mechanic and be able to double up points on powers and start picking from your first feat trees. Variety opens up quite a bit from here.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:12
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acumen posted:I think I figured it out. I got a couple epic enhancements - not runestones (their names for all the enchanting mats Keep in mind that each point of any statistic that isn't AC or weapon damage is .25 percent of the value it feeds into. So 230 power is about half a percentage point of extra damage.
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Aug 4, 2016 17:14
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) . I socketed my lowbie armour with them for some pretty large stat boosts and 11% exp bonus, and bought a couple more from the Tourmaline Bar shop too.
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acumen posted:Yeah I discovered that, they sure add up though when stacked. I'm up to almost 30% crit chance on my GWF now. Yeah, it takes a ton of mats. Or . PC guild finally hit level 5 and changed the overworld, and we've got a lot more ahead of us.As far as completing zones goes, check your campaign flag - every zone should have its own little clear bonus associated with it. ...or isn't that in for you yet?
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Aug 4, 2016 21:13
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Pooncha posted:. I guess that's there if you don't feel like waiting for the one that's 15 percent off to anything. It's certainly rarer.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:46
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Bert Roberge posted:PC Gateway's been down for 5 days due to 'botting' with the devs being mysteriously silent. Huh. I wonder if someone worked out a way to bot Sword Coast Adventures.
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Sep 13, 2016 23:02
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