Enki's Guide to Gear for Adventurers

[Char Aznable]

Prologue

I am typing this guide because there seems to be a lot of confusion about what type of gear you need to make your character viable. Right now a lot of people are under the misconception that you HAVE to grind for hours to get legendary gear. This is simply not true, you can actually make your character able to solo the game using only blue and green gear. I beat the final boss of the game wearing green armor and still keep said green armor because of its utility. In this guide I will break down the different bonuses your gear provides and explain to you how to use it to twink your character to your liking. Using this knowledge I not only made my character immune to most types of damage but I even customized his aesthetics to match my preconceived image of him that I had made years before the release of this game.

Bonuses

Cooldown Reduction (CDR)

This is the most over-rated and abused bonus there is. While it certainly has its advantages such as being able to spam spells like Meteor Swarm, keep buffs up indefinitely on every party member, or stack bonuses such as Unyielding Avalanche, you sacrifice damage resistance, speed, AC, and other bonuses in order to achieve perfect 100% CDR. Stacking CDR is ideal for battle mages, fighters, and paladins, due to their constant need to use buffs. Fighters and Paladins can get away with stacking 100% CDR since their Unyielding Avalanche stacks instead of refreshing, however battle mages will have trouble balancing it with AC, damage resistance, and other bonuses.

Action Speed

This determines how fast you attack or cast spells. Casting haste on your character improves action speed by 100% which pretty much doubles it. You can also stack equipment with action speed, this is an essential buff for battle mages. Combining equipment that boosts action speed with haste will result in really rapid attacks, with the right weapon(s) it is very lethal.

Movement Speed

Rangers have the best movement speed due to their skills. However, you can also stack movement speed bonuses on your armor. Mostly you will only find boots that give movement speed bonus, however you will also find it on necklaces and other types of gear. It is very useful for characters with ranged attacks such as mages or bowmen. A ranger who stacks movement speed bonuses on their armor will be insanely fast and able to at least run away from any foe.

Armor Class (AC)

For those of you who don't play D&D this is what determines an enemy's chance to hit you with melee attacks. If you plan to do any melee fighting at all it is essential that you get your AC to the upper 20's if not above 30 unless you stack damage resistance for the three types of melee damage. Heavy Armor is the best but there are skills like Mage Armor that will also give AC. Legendary Armor will give the most AC bonus but blue and pink gear will give you enough.

Damage Resistance

This in my opinion is the most important and most overlooked bonus. There are pieces of green and blue gear you can find in the first chapter of the story mode that give you 50% resistance to two different damage types. There are purple pieces of gear that will give you 75% and 60% resistance to two different damage types. Combining the right armor, cape, and belt can turn you into an invincible tank. But sadly this option is usually overlooked in favor of perfect CDR or AC.

How to use Damage Resistance

Dungeons

There are three types of melee damage. Most attacks you'll face are melee attacks so it is important you try to get these three damage resistances up to 100% or close to it.

Piercing - Usually from arrows or fangs and such.

Bludgeoning - Most enemy attacks seem to be bludgeoning for some reason.

Slashing - I don't come across much slashing damage only a few humanoid foes with swords deal it and they don't deal much of it so this is the least important one to have.


When it comes to non-melee attacks this is what you'll currently be facing.

Fire - Duergar, Mages, and certain demons will use this against you. There are also plenty of fire traps.

Poison - It is very important to get poison resistance because there are a lot of spiders, assassins, etc. in dungeons. Even undead enemies will use poison damage against you. In my opinion poison resistance is the most important non-melee resistance to have since it is the most common and can damage you over time.

Psychic - You will only face this from illithids and the part of the story where you end up having to fight an illithid. My fire set doubles as a psychic set but really you won't have to worry about psychic damage much unless you're going up against illithids.

Necrotic - Some undead and drow use necrotic damage but I've never died from it so I don't even have any necrotic resistance and do just fine without even using a healer or any potions.


Grinding Loot

If you want to grind gear/xp for your character then all you have to do is stack bludgeoning and poison resistance up to 100%. Then load up any map that just has a bunch of ogre zombies for you to kill (Loot Grinder 2.0 is the most popular choice) and tank all the ogre zombies. It will probably take a while since this kind of build is focused only on tanking and not on damage but you can do it and get a lot of exp and good gear. This is probably the fastest way to twink your character without using hacks. You'll probably need to play through the first dungeon and do quests around Luskan to get the right gear to do this, but it is very possible and does not take forever to do.

Other Notes

Damage Attackers - Some gear deals a small amount of damage to attackers but trying to stack this will only cause you to sacrifice damage resistance and other bonuses which are more effective. And since the amount of damage is so small without perfect damage resistance you can forget it actually mattering in the long run.

Heal every 10 seconds - If you don't have any healing abilities it is important that you try to get a couple of rings with this ability. The healing does not seem much but when you are immune to most attacks and take very little damage it can keep you from getting worn down.

Immune to (Restrain/Paralyze/Unconscious/etc.) - These effects are usually found on gloves, bracers, or helmets. If you want to solo dungeons it is important to get immunity to these types of conditions if you can. Being restrained or unconscious can mean instant death against certain encounters.

Increase damage of type dealt - Some equipment will increase the amount of damage that attacks of a certain type will deal. This is helpful but trying to stack too many will cause you to sacrifice damage resistance which often leads to death.

Chance to (Restrain/Charm/Withering/Blind/Etc.) on hit - You'll find weapons with this type of bonus. It can help a lot being able to blind or restrain enemies in battle and I've used the restraining weapons to save a lot of fellow adventurers from certain death. My vorpal scimitar even has a chance to instantly kill on a critical hit, and it is very satisfying when I manage to do it on the first attack.

Chance to become Enraged on hit - Some gear will let you have a chance to gain fuming when you are hit. This will add a +20 bonus to the damage you deal with every single melee attack. Combine this with haste and you will rip through enemies easily. It is easy to incorporate into a damage resistance tanking build since some necklaces have this bonus.

Summary

Stacking damage resistance is the quickest and easiest way to be able to solo dungeons and grind xp/loot unless you're a fighter or paladin, in which case you should just stack CDR up to 100% and spam Unyielding Avalanche. Stacking CDR for mages and spamming meteor swarm is overrated since you'll just kill all your allies with AOE spells then die yourself due to you having sacrificed defense to get perfect CDR. It might work for Loot Grinder 2.0 where all 100 ogre zombies are standing in one spot but it fails miserably when your party gets ambushed from all sides in a dungeon crawl.

[AshLancer]

Nice, this is really helpful. Thanks!

[Char Aznable]

Originally posted by Alex:

Nice, this is really helpful. Thanks!

You're welcome, I was just frustrated with everyone thinking they had to have all perfect legendary equipment to keep up. I'm still using mostly blues and can solo any dungeon and any boss.

[Char Aznable]

Originally posted by spacehamster Boo:

I dont undersatnd why you are doing this?

Because people keep posting about how you have to spend hours grinding for legendary gear when you don't even need it to solo any dungeon and any boss. Anyone can solo a Demonweb Terror or Demonic Shadow with the the right green or blue gear.

[MoNKeZi]

Great write up.

I'm not really into min-maxing but having all of this information in one place is handy for reference.

Thanks.

[Space Hamster Family]

Originally posted by ancientmithraldragon:

Originally posted by spacehamster Boo:

I dont undersatnd why you are doing this?

Because people keep posting about how you have to spend hours grinding for legendary gear when you don't even need it to solo any dungeon and any boss. Anyone can solo a Demonweb Terror or Demonic Shadow with the the right green or blue gear.

did you buy the game?

[Char Aznable]

Originally posted by spacehamster Boo:

Originally posted by ancientmithraldragon:

Because people keep posting about how you have to spend hours grinding for legendary gear when you don't even need it to solo any dungeon and any boss. Anyone can solo a Demonweb Terror or Demonic Shadow with the the right green or blue gear.

did you buy the game?

Yes a long time ago silly.

[Rexie77]

Originally posted by ancientmithraldragon:

Originally posted by Alex:

Nice, this is really helpful. Thanks!

You're welcome, I was just frustrated with everyone thinking they had to have all perfect legendary equipment to keep up. I'm still using mostly blues and can solo any dungeon and any boss.

The right gear matters more than the color. You will find greens & blues that will last you 'til 20.

[Char Aznable]

Originally posted by rswag:

Originally posted by ancientmithraldragon:

You're welcome, I was just frustrated with everyone thinking they had to have all perfect legendary equipment to keep up. I'm still using mostly blues and can solo any dungeon and any boss.

The right gear matters more than the color. You will find greens & blues that will last you 'til 20.

Yeah there are greens that give plenty of damage resistance.

[~Draugkir~]

Nice one op.

Should be stickied.

Originally posted by spacehamster Boo:

did you buy the game?

Just look to the right of players name. If you see a little white mouse, its not Boo, its a sign that the player has the game.

hehe.

[Bradge]

Has this guide been impacted by any of the changes to the game, such as the unlockable skill trees for those who do the companion quests?

[Char Aznable]

Originally posted by Bradge:

Has this guide been impacted by any of the changes to the game, such as the unlockable skill trees for those who do the companion quests?

All the information presented in this guide is still accurate. However players may find new ways to use said information with the new skill trees, and there are a couple of things I omitted intentionally that may be more useful when combined with certain unlockable skills. The main thing is to try and get equipment that works well with whatever skills you have.

For example, if you use Elemental Weapon and it deals lightning damage get gear that adds even more lightning damage to your attacks, and also get Static for a chance to stun on a hit. I did that, and combined it with the Enraged effect in order to deal massive damage with my swords. I haven't studied every skill tree extensively though so I'm sure other players will be able to find other ways to build powerful characters if they want.