Halp! How do I resist magic with Bulwark?

[rado907]

Every game it's the same thing - I'm invulnerable to all melee and stomp everybody, until some mage spawns and two-shots me.
What do I do?

[Fluxia Lumionia]

Well over all, the only thing you can really do is collect armor with large amounts of elemental resistances. The Shield is probably one of the best things, as if you have any resistance on there, you can use it to block those elements. I don't know however if the % value means anything when you're blocking.

Secondly is the skill tough skin or whatever it is, that gives you a resist all effect.

[cultivahabas]

You can join to Zigur too but you gonna lose the posibility to use all your runes and items infused by arcane forces, but give you the anti-magic tree. It's so useful versus mages. I can't help you more than that, I'm declared a filthy magic user, always a necromancer :)

[rado907]

I think I should just play a bit more carefully lol. I should take some skill that allows me to bail out from tough fights.

[Gluecost]

healing infusions/shielding runes (they do not take a turn to use, so useful little heals), teleporation/phase door runes if you need a good escape of some kind.
if you need to be precautious, dont face down a single mage unless you can close the distance with rush, or are confident enough to tank the damage!
good thing to bear in mind is the fact, casters have cooldowns much like you do, so its generally a good initial burst of damage, followed by recharge time... Usually.

[Dekar]

The resist % on shields doesnt matter regarding block, either you can block a damage type or you can't. Also other egos than resistances often grant the ability to block a certain damage type, so if you any element on a shield that you would like to block, equip it and check the block tooltip.

[Fluxia Lumionia]

Isn't there an Ego that gives like a small % of every resist?

[rado907]

Thanks for all the help!

In my current run, I made two changes that have worked very well:
1) I try to overlevel the content as much as possible. So now I do ALL low-level dungeons before I go even to the Maze (though the Maze is typically easy for my Bulwark).
2) I got a shielding rune of the warrior.

I managed to complete "Act 2" where you do the maze, the forest, the wormhole, and the mountain for the first time!

I think that during my next playthrough I'll get a teleport rune to be able to hightail it out of there in case of emergency.
I'll probably also start thinking about stacking resists with gear bought from the vendors. One of my deaths was to the lightning giants in the mountain.

[Knifight]

Basically I've had the most luck by doing some of what's listed above, but also making sure I've got rush or similar abilities to get in on the mage fast and kill him before he gets too much damage out. For Bulwark, don't hesitate to use half your inventory just to carry around as many extra shields as you need so you can block whatever comes up. You can usually find that most dungeons focus on mainly one or two types of damage and have the right stuff equipped early on in new places.

[rado907]

Friends, my XI-th (or whatever) Dwarven Bulwark finally broke through. I am now level 40 and at the final dungeon of the game. I only suffered one death, and it was very avoidable (adventure mode). Here's what did it for me:
- Infusions and runes are extremely powerful. I popped my first two category points into infusion slots. Ended up with a regen, two shields, a heroism, and a phase door. Alternating the two shields and the regen keeps me healthy, and the heroism and the phase door are my seldom-used but invaluable panic buttons.
- Constitution trumps dexterity for this character imo. I threw many points into constitution early on, and maxed out Thick Skin for a great 15% flat damage reduction.
- The other three skills that stand out are Rush for closing down enemies, Assault for dealing massive damage, and Dwarven Gold for obtaining insane saving throws.
- I juggled resistances here and there. Especially at the Daikara.
- It's best to conduct difficult fights near the stairs so that you can escape to heal. Yeah, it's a bit cheesy, but what can ya do.
- I got a lucky drop in the Maze - a tier 5 sword - but I should have been fine even without it.
- With this getup, I stomped many evil monsters, and even managed to crush the Orc Ambush that starts off the main plot. My only death (so far...) came when I escaped from an assault on an Orc Fortress, only to be hit by an Orc raiding party... I still could have survived, but made a mistake.

Fun game :D.

[rado907]

OK, I won. I suffered three more deaths along the way - on level 5 of the end dungeon, some crazy Thalore Assassin (or whatever) spawned, and killed me three times. The final battle itself was very easy.

I think I'll make a Paladin next :). Maybe try Roguelike difficulty...

[Devin]

Congrats! My only winner so far was a dwarf too.
Dwarves are awesome.

[rado907]

Originally posted by Devin:

Congrats! My only winner so far was a dwarf too.
Dwarves are awesome.

The Dwarven Gold passive is insane. Once you max it out, you become almost invulnerable to negative effects.
Plus Dwarves are cool in general, yeah :D.