Looking for advise on ultimate difficulty

[ShadzGeeza]

Im a level 100 blademaster with 80% resists on everything except stun a 54% but im still getting 1 shotted fairly often by even mini bosses, are blademasters to squishy for ultimate? is it a case of melee getting screwed over and a ranged/pet builds are the way to go for ultimate?

[baddog993]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

If he is going to try and *find* Belgothians set, that is probably hundreds of hours at least and a ton of luck... until then...

My Nightblade was my first character, so I started with junk and changing over to Cadence literally made the game far easier. Losing all the dual wield procs to max Cadence was a huge dps bonus (just checked, max dmg was 185,000 now).

I'd like Belgothian's also... 560 hours, haven't found one piece. Take my post as 'if you do not have the best gear' recommendation. Since it is so dirt cheap to respec, the OP can easily try my changes and see if that helps before he gets Belgothians (gl with that).:shodan:

Yeah finding a complete set of any elite armor seems to be hard to find in this game. Legendaries are a lot easier to pick up.

[RodHull]

Ignore trying to get belgothians set unless you want to trade for it and possibly risk getting duped gear.

Honestly your build isnt that bad lots of us here are used to super twinked builds so people saying you need more than 2.4k DA are a little off the mark imo, yes none of my builds now have lower than 2.4k ever on ultimate but the first 2 or 3 characters i completed the game with certainly did, one had barely 2k DA.

Your main issue as a blademaster is they are highly gear dependent and extremely bursty but also very squishy, second only to arcanists in squishiness imo.

So I rejigged a few things didnt want to totally rework the build but it helps a little to see how a few minor adjustments can help

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrqod6V

Now personally id redo your whole devotion set up more or less, if your going cold go cold, go balls deep and dont forget defensive devotions generally speaking blademasters dont have issues hurting things its being hurt that stops them. Its a classic mistake we've all done when starting the game focusing purely on the cool offensive devotions.

Also you've committed classic mistake number 2 using to many blues... some blues are really good, the sentinel set for example while generally more for casters is pretty decent, but some of the other items are questionable. Leggings would be better with any good green ones that give resists and health, likewise medal, get a good one that gives health, resists possibly some more OA and DA, drop the widows sting its not good for this build imo, again look for green rings with health, resists etc. Doing this frees up the slots of components your wasting on your shoulders and chest to get health... anyway you get the idea.

I made these same mistakes with my first blademaster... it was painful

[ShadzGeeza]

I guess this is why i play this game more than diablo 3 now, it actually requires thought and knowledge

[FlamingX21]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Ignore trying to get belgothians set unless you want to trade for it and possibly risk getting duped gear.

Honestly your build isnt that bad lots of us here are used to super twinked builds so people saying you need more than 2.4k DA are a little off the mark imo, yes none of my builds now have lower than 2.4k ever on ultimate but the first 2 or 3 characters i completed the game with certainly did, one had barely 2k DA.

Your main issue as a blademaster is they are highly gear dependent and extremely bursty but also very squishy, second only to arcanists in squishiness imo.

So I rejigged a few things didnt want to totally rework the build but it helps a little to see how a few minor adjustments can help

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrqod6V

Now personally id redo your whole devotion set up more or less, if your going cold go cold, go balls deep and dont forget defensive devotions generally speaking blademasters dont have issues hurting things its being hurt that stops them. Its a classic mistake we've all done when starting the game focusing purely on the cool offensive devotions.

Also you've committed classic mistake number 2 using to many blues... some blues are really good, the sentinel set for example while generally more for casters is pretty decent, but some of the other items are questionable. Leggings would be better with any good green ones that give resists and health, likewise medal, get a good one that gives health, resists possibly some more OA and DA, drop the widows sting its not good for this build imo, again look for green rings with health, resists etc. Doing this frees up the slots of components your wasting on your shoulders and chest to get health... anyway you get the idea.

I made these same mistakes with my first blademaster... it was painful

Well what do you what dud, we should be nice and comfy and say he did very good job and nothign is wrong with the build... ofc we are super godlike builds now in all of us but that doesn't mean it's bad and the way to it is bad either. DA for close ranged builds escpecailly in ultiamte at 2.1k is very low and you cannot hide that anyhow.

Sometimes being harsh is better than act nice.

[Včelí medvídek]

Speaking of which.. what OA/DA values are "decent", suggested or "great" at this stage?

[Kdab]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Speaking of which.. what OA/DA values are "decent", suggested or "great" at this stage?

2800 for both OA/DA seems to be what you want at the very least. 3k OA/DA would be great.

[ShadzGeeza]

ok just farmed 2 wendigo barbs and now making 2 redeemers, what am i looking for on legendary gear, pierce and physical damage?

[RodHull]

Originally posted by FlamingX21:

Well what do you what dud, we should be nice and comfy and say he did very good job and nothign is wrong with the build... ofc we are super godlike builds now in all of us but that doesn't mean it's bad and the way to it is bad either. DA for close ranged builds escpecailly in ultiamte at 2.1k is very low and you cannot hide that anyhow.

Sometimes being harsh is better than act nice.

Well he did do a good job its a damn sight better than most peoples first builds I see on here. Look heres how I see it, sure i could rewrite his build chuck in tons of purples and super rare greens tweek the way it plays to be some cookie cutter thing, but what would they really learn from that beyond 'well i need lots of gear i dont have access to and wont have access to for possibly 100s of hours unless i trade for it' and I always presume most people prefer to find their own way in a game like this.

2.1k is low for me sure, but my first two melee toons had comparably low DA, my first character i beat the game with back in vanilla before AOM had 1.8k OA. IMO to much is put onto having super high pumped up DA/OA, sure they are very important stats for most builds (though not all my pet summoners have trash OA/DA) but will they stop you getting instagibbed? No thats a much more complex formula relying on layered defenses, circuit breakers, having good sustain, good CC. Just having say 3k DA will not stop you getting killed if you dont have those in order.

And seeing as how they respectfully asked for help i dont see a need to 'be harsh' you can suggest things without rubbishing what they've already achieved and without waggling your epeen around saying how much better your build is that took 100s if not 1000s of hours farming to complete.

They are a new player so offering advice based on what you have available is literally redundant.

Originally posted by Kdab:

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Speaking of which.. what OA/DA values are "decent", suggested or "great" at this stage?

2800 for both OA/DA seems to be what you want at the very least. 3k OA/DA would be great.

Very subjective not as clear cut as people think.

I made a battlemage yesterday who has 3.2k OA and 3.1k DA without temporary buffs, also has 3300 armour and 100% absorption, maxed resists, she plays like crap, dies to trash mobs in AOM if she gets overwhelmed.

By contrast my bleed warder has 2.7k DA and 2.6k OA and literally cakewalks everything in the game except lokarr, she can even kill mogdrogen and ravager (though granted it takes ages but still)

OA and DA are important to not get critted and to land crits, but since they capped the lowest chance to be hit DA is not nearly as powerful as it used to be. once you go above 2.6k it has diminishing returns imo and often for builds that have good other forms of defense like heals, immunity, CC its often better to focus your strength elsewhere

As an example i have a spellbinder who has 2.4k DA but he also has near enough 7 seconds of damage immunity and good CCs so he rarely even gets hit

[ZarahNeander]

Imo there's really no excuse for having lowish DA. Yes, you might have to spec out of sexy offensive devotions and you might have to replace that +100% xxx dmg augment/component with a defensive one (Edit: looks at the 2 roiling blood in the rings), but then, dps doesn't matter once you're dead.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

Imo there's really no excuse for having lowish DA. Yes, you might have to spec out of sexy offensive devotions and you might have to replace that +100% xxx dmg augment/component with a defensive one (Edit: looks at the 2 roiling blood in the rings), but then, dps doesn't matter once you're dead.

Totally depends on your build though some dont need super pumped up roid levels of DA, some do granted, and its definitely a must for facetank type melee characters, but not everyone.

[ZarahNeander]

I'm not talking about super pumped, but 2.2k is definitely too low. Esp. since it would be easy to change the (useless) roiling blood for runebound topaz and speccing out of olerons for i.e solnem watcher, at least for now. Also none of the jewellry has augments though dunno if that's tools issue

[RodHull]

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

I'm not talking about super pumped, but 2.2k is definitely too low. Esp. since it would be easy to change the (useless) roiling blood for runebound topaz and speccing out of olerons for i.e solnem watcher, at least for now. Also none of the jewellry has augments though dunno if that's tools issue

Id broadly agree as you can see in the tweaked version i posted for him i fairly easily got the DA to 2.6k, and i didnt notice the amulet lacked an augment.

I was merely responding to the people earlier in the post stating you need 2.8k and to get belgothians set etc which seemed imo farily pointless advice for someone clearly still new to the game and learning.

[Kdab]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Id broadly agree as you can see in the tweaked version i posted for him i fairly easily got the DA to 2.6k, and i didnt notice the amulet lacked an augment.

I was merely responding to the people earlier in the post stating you need 2.8k and to get belgothians set etc which seemed imo farily pointless advice for someone clearly still new to the game and learning.

While some of the suggestions dont immediately help him, knowing what to aim for can still benefit a new player.

Also, I'm not really sure what's so bad about 2.8k DA which since it's easily reachable. You can even do it now with your tweaked version by just slapping on one Runebound Topaz and switching all the jewelry augments to Survivor's Ingenuity. 2.75k DA if he doesn't have the Topaz blueprint. Now if he still doesn't have Devil's Crossing revered by level 100 ultimate then he really needs to work on that.

Though I do agree that trying to reach arbitrary numbers without paying attention to everything else can have bad results.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Kdab:

Though I do agree that trying to reach arbitrary numbers without paying attention to everything else can have bad results.

That was more my point, as i said ive made builds with DA of over 3k that died to trash mobs, its just one part of a much bigger picture. And focusing on as you say arbitrary numbers without really understanding how everything works doesnt really help and you just end up with character that looks good on paper but actually is a bit crap.

And theres nothing bad about 2.8k i just dont think its as required as other people do, i mean the OP clearly has no experience in ultimate (hence the post) my first few toons all got through ultimate with nowhere near 2.8k without to many issues.

[ShadzGeeza]

So after a day of farming etc etc this is where im at.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2MkWlmZ