This is my first passive zon, and it's been quite fun. However, I'm simply not doing enough damage. It's only Act V, and I admit my weapon isn't the best, but I want this to be a Melee zon rather than a pale shadow of superdave's passivezon.
Of course I'm pumping strength, and was lucky to gamble a circlet with ~150 elemental damage, but I'm quickly slowing down. Does anyone have any ideas on how I might be able to boost my damage? Or is this kind of zon doomed to fail if untwinked.
Neat, the last word is pretty much the most important one.
I wouldn't say it's doomed, but i doubt you can expect to do this untwinked with a good speed. Done an untwinked zon with a twohander myself for a tourney once (sword of destiny). Had what i thought was a crappy sword at first. But it turned out to be pretty much the best thing that could happen to me. Why? Only 1 thing: prevent monster heal. I was doing crap damage. Had a maxed out valk to do most of the heavy lifting (and to hide behind ). But the only thing that got me through was the PMH. Things took a long while to defeat, but with the PMH i knew they would go down at some point.
A poor substitute could be a poison sc. But that doesn't work as well as PMH.
Low damage is not the same as failure. As Cyrax said PMH will be crucial. I would say a Malice sword is almost a must, the decreasing defence per hit and open wounds will work wonders. Valkyrie and decoy can stop enemies neatly so the safety seems alright.
I have guardianed several characters where progress was incredibly slow att times because I had overlooked certain key parts from the Equipment, and they all had elemental attacks and so on.
Weapons are hard and I suppose the only way to boost damage is critical strike and more strength. On the upside, since the valkyrie can do the work you'll be able to run bosses and so with a lot of magic finding if you are so inclined.
Are you playing FAM or Vanilla?
In case you play with RWM enabled - try to get a Lawbringer sword and use it as a secondary weapon. Or just give it to a barbarian merc in case you don't want additional button mashing involved. Decrepify autocast is the tits!
Also, what is your particular problem? Are you struggling to damage monsters OR struggling to survive while killing monsters? In this case you could re-prioretize your your equipment. And stuff. Yadda yadda.
Edit: what's your level?
Edit: another thought - if you play with RWM, get an Insight beating stick. It's dirt cheap. Also, a Spirit sword could be a good prebuffing weapon when you summon your Valk.
As has been said, PMH/Open Wounds is going to be your best friend. As Maltatai said a Malice weapon is a great investment, even as a weapon switch just to trigger the PMH/OW.
Act bosses fights, if not dangerous, will be lengthy. A source of CB or Static Field (on you and/or your merc) will be a huge help. Black, or Crescent Moon (if you can get the Um to drop) would be interesting runewords on the cheaper end to consider.
I love this idea though, I'd love to keep seeing updates on this project as you progress. This is something I've always wanted to do, so I'll be watching how this goes.
Good luck!
EDIT: I seem to recall hearing good things about the Passion runeword if you can slap it a big sword. I feel like Berserk on an Amazon would just be fun anyways. Something to keep in mind if a Lem finds its way to you.
EDIT2: I shudder to think that I actually remembered that right. If you haven't already, you need to check out Jiansonz's run with Sapphidia in the old Tankazon Tourney.
Interesting. I guess I'll make a malice for now and hope I get the runes necessary to make Kingslayer, Oath, or Passion. Or hey, why not go the whole hog and make last wish
I'm level 40, and just finished Shenk. I did a few runs of the rectifier and Shenk to look for better items and to make Act V a bit easier.
It's easy to survive with an Act 3 cold merc freezing everything and being able to hide behind a decoy and a Valkyrie, but I want to be a hands on passivezon rather than watching my friends beat everything up.
I appreciate the help, and if there's enough interest I'll update every act or so in a new thread.
"Strength" is also a source of CB, and a very cheap one. It can also be made in a dagger, which are weapons you should be looking at, since the blocking speed of amazons using swinging weapons is very low.
If you're untwinked, it will be hard to beat Insight for a Holy Freeze merc as a weapon, although Might will speed things up, and with a merc, Valkyrie and Decoy, you should be safe enough already to be able to forgo Holy Freeze. I think Act 3 mercs are useless, especially without good gear.
Use two Spirits and Lore to prebuff Valkyrie, and pick up every amulet and circlet and glove in case they're +3 P&M (although even +2 Zon is acceptable). If you find a Skill Shrine, it's worth equipping all your buff gear to recast her.
Oh yes, I got to enjoy that Passion Champion Sword for about one act on Hell difficulty. It was glorious.
I was limited to 2h swords but it looks like you are not. I would focus on polearms, since there are so many nice possible RWs for them: Insight, Crescent Moon, Passion, Obedience...
I would suggest pumping Decoy a lot. At high levels (especially if you get lots of life yourself), it can withstand a LOT of damage unless it gets poisoned. It will stabilize the battlefield (more so than the Valk since she moves) and you can pick and choose when and if to move in against a dangerous boss. Unlike the Valk, Decoy has no casting delay so you can spam it all you want (it's really cheap at high spell levels). You will likely have a long range on your weapon and that will be good for this.
I disagree about safety or not being reason enough to ditch a cold damage mercenary in favor of a mighty town guard. What about physical immunity? Going untwinked, there are not neccessarily that many good weapons with elemental damage available. Sweeping through living meaty enemies may be fun but is it worth slogging through ghosts and insect swarms later? I mean, look at all the guardian and mat/pat threads where people even with twinked characters whine about immune enemies because they just had to max out the greatest damage numbers from their one chosen damage type...
About safety and such, if the goal is to be as active as possible and not hide behind minions, I do recommend a cold mage. Enemies engaging your decoy for example can still switch targets when you get in range and a long range weapon is insufficient to prevent that all the time. There are also many who tear through even a maxed decoy (but it's still well worth to max it) in seconds leading to, at best, you having to spend much time recasting it. Having frozen enemies will allow for a more active playstyle. Slowed ones can be really funny too, especially if you find a slowing weapon to stack the effect with holy freeze, but they still swing.
"Strength" is also a source of CB, and a very cheap one. It can also be made in a dagger, which are weapons you should be looking at, since the blocking speed of amazons using swinging weapons is very low.
If you're untwinked, it will be hard to beat Insight for a Holy Freeze merc as a weapon, although Might will speed things up, and with a merc, Valkyrie and Decoy, you should be safe enough already to be able to forgo Holy Freeze. I think Act 3 mercs are useless, especially without good gear.
Use two Spirits and Lore to prebuff Valkyrie, and pick up every amulet and circlet and glove in case they're +3 P&M (although even +2 Zon is acceptable). If you find a Skill Shrine, it's worth equipping all your buff gear to recast her.
"Strength" is also a source of CB, and a very cheap one. It can also be made in a dagger, which are weapons you should be looking at, since the blocking speed of amazons using swinging weapons is very low.
If you're untwinked, it will be hard to beat Insight for a Holy Freeze merc as a weapon, although Might will speed things up, and with a merc, Valkyrie and Decoy, you should be safe enough already to be able to forgo Holy Freeze. I think Act 3 mercs are useless, especially without good gear.
Use two Spirits and Lore to prebuff Valkyrie, and pick up every amulet and circlet and glove in case they're +3 P&M (although even +2 Zon is acceptable). If you find a Skill Shrine, it's worth equipping all your buff gear to recast her.
I can't use a dagger! I made my Strength in a flamberge. 2-handed weapons or nothing. I do enjoy the idea of a Might merc, but I'm finding that it's incredibly helpful to have things frozen. I'll definitely check it out once I get to NM Act 2, but I also would like to use an Act 3 merc simply because it's not another damn Desert Mercenary.
Oh yes, I got to enjoy that Passion Champion Sword for about one act on Hell difficulty. It was glorious.
I was limited to 2h swords but it looks like you are not. I would focus on polearms, since there are so many nice possible RWs for them: Insight, Crescent Moon, Passion, Obedience...
I would suggest pumping Decoy a lot. At high levels (especially if you get lots of life yourself), it can withstand a LOT of damage unless it gets poisoned. It will stabilize the battlefield (more so than the Valk since she moves) and you can pick and choose when and if to move in against a dangerous boss. Unlike the Valk, Decoy has no casting delay so you can spam it all you want (it's really cheap at high spell levels). You will likely have a long range on your weapon and that will be good for this.
I'm going to max Valk, Decoy, Penetrate, and spread the rest of the points between D/A/E and critical strike. Do you remember roughly how much damage you were doing with Passion? I'm at 130-430 ish at the moment (got a new sword), but it's mainly elemental damage.
As you are level 40ish and still in normal, consider making a King's Grace in a 3os Tusk Sword or Espandon if you can. Also don't forget about crafted items! Blood boots, gloves, helms, belts, etcetera could all provide a nice upgrade to your current equipment.
As you are level 40ish and still in normal, consider making a King's Grace in a 3os Tusk Sword or Espandon if you can. Also don't forget about crafted items! Blood boots, gloves, helms, belts, etcetera could all provide a nice upgrade to your current equipment.
I think I'm going to up my soulflay that I found, it's a 90%! Should boost my damage nicely once I get the necessary runes.
And I wish I had enough prubies to craft to my heart's content, but so far I've only been able to craft 1 pair of gloves. I think I'm going to keep crafting gloves until I roll some with ias.
I chose death's gloves/belt instead. The mods you get outweigh the 8slot sash.
I'm deciding to update my progress here. Things move slowly on the SPF these days so I don't see any reason for 2 threads of mine to hog front page space. I only got here in '11, but I miss how active this place was (Also, what happened to Kitteh? Seemed to me like he was going to stay here until the internet ended)
My last mini-update showed that I had just finished off Shenk. In the interim I've gotten to Act 2 NM, with quite a lot of item finding happening! I've gotten very lucky
So there's really not much to say about the walk up to Ancients. At the time my weapon was a rather homely rare sword of palty elemental damage . As such, I was doing a lot of watching from the sidelines. However, it was still fun to watch my increasingly powerful Valk rip apart enemies...she's a good friend.
Yes, that is my team of red! We're out for blood In order to be red I'm wearing a simple Mechanic's Ancient Armor of the Centaur, shopped from my bud Laz. I popped in two ptopazes into it. It's a cute little thing, but I desperately want to shop a jewelers of amicae in the future to stuff with sols...pumping strength has left me quite fragile.
As expected, it's only norm.
La-di-da, walk walk walk to the throne. Nothing much happened on the way. I have found that a decoy if left alone will trip Baal's laugh. That's incredibly annoying.
With a maxed Valkyrie in normal it's pretty impossible to have any difficulties with the waves. I only had to back up a bit for Lister and co.
Hiding behind a Valk works wonders.
Onto Baal! I had made a Strength Flamberge for this, as well as some 7%cb blood gloves. What was annoying, and predictable, was for him to create a clone. It got a bit hairy there a couple times and I had to run to restock my potions 3 times I think. It was inevitable for him to fall, and honestly I think my Valk out dps'd me. Even with cb
Of course, he dropped nothing useful. Both small charms did cold damage I think
I didn't bother with running Baal for items. The going was pretty damn slow, and if I want to do a bit of mfing I'll just do Andy for her glitch drops.
Act 1 NM was really annoying at first. My damage was low, resistances low, health low, defense...you get the idea. Also my Act 3 cold mercenary was losing his relevancy as I did little to no damage. What's the point of having frozen monsters if all I'm going to do is look at them?
Thankfully, that changed with the advent of a new hat, and walking stick.
I gambled that coronet off gheed while I was trying for some new boots. It was the first coronet that I've seen on this character, so I thought I might as well try Lazruk was more than happy to give me 2 sockets, so I put a 15@res/7%mf jewel into it. I think I'm going to put a sol for the other socket, and if I do decide to sign my life away to shop for a Jewelers of Amicae I'm going to split the sockets between shaels and sols in order to hit the 86%fhr breakpoint.
The Ribcracker amazingly dropped off some random fallen in the Tower while I was running The Countess. I had forgotten what a unique Quarterstaff was...I grumbled to myself "great, a serpent lord staff". Imagine my surprise. As long as I take out the time to grab a pul and a lum I don't see anything getting in my way.
I really haven't done much mfing at all with this character, things just sorta fell into place as I went. I found pretty much the best 2-handed weapon for my character, which is a bit sad considering half the fun of untwinked is finding your gear! I already have my end-game helm, weapon, gloves, and belt (death's set). On one hand it's a little odd on an untwinked character to have everything I could possibly want. On the other it's a lot of fun bashing away at 13fpa.
A staff-amazon, cool! Just like my Gabrielle (character in my avatar). Ribracker would of course have been her dream weapon (especially since it was pre-RWM so no Insight possible).
A staff-amazon, cool! Just like my Gabrielle (character in my avatar). Ribracker would of course have been her dream weapon (especially since it was pre-RWM so no Insight possible).
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