Defense leveling

[Gorwe]

What's the best way to use Defense while leveling, what skill is "the skill" that changes the entire paradigm and allows you easy leveling?

[Entropy]

Shield Bash with its modifier and Shield Charge.

[redgreen999]

Batter. Max the lowest tier of spell early. Wear as much regen gear as possible so you can use it every 2.5 seconds or so.

[Gorwe]

Any way to power through the early game fast? It's boring and slow as fk. After playing PoE, van Helsing, Diablo 3, GD etc...this style of progression doesn't...it sucks rn imo. The start is TOO SLOW!

[ZarahNeander]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Any way to power through the early game fast?

No.

Originally posted by Gorwe:

It's boring and slow as fk.

Yes, it is. But lvl8 isnt that far away and tbh, very few masteries have 'killer skills' early

[shane]

I like defense, but it's a slow starter.

[sarcastic_godot]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Any way to power through the early game fast? [...]

One thing that helps is twinking or farming yourself a fast and high dmg weapon - Legweavers' Deathtip e.g.... The quest goal spiders - those with the white aura - in Tegea Cave e.g. can drop that with a 1%-ish chance, there's six of them, so it might take afew runs. But when you rush it, ignoring the critters, it's a one or two minute farming run.

THe Legtip is fast (high basic attack speed) and does quite some poison damage, which is a DoT, so when you switch from baddie to baddie they die somewhat faster.

In the long run I recommend using something blunt for the stuns, though.


Also, as you might or might not know, there's a "game speed" setting in the options menu. Dial that to max, as you're an experienced ARPGer. you shouldn't have probs with that, and your wish will get fulfilled...


[edit] Defense speeds up quite a bit once you get the shield procs - but that does take a while...

[Lobo de hielo]

Defence is exactly what the name implies. Every skill is excellent for turning you into a tank.
You want a fast start? Decide what your secondary mastery might be i.e Earth and start the game with that mastery.
Some skills take time to get going and you do not choose Defence as a fast starter.

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

What's the best way to use Defense while leveling, what skill is "the skill" that changes the entire paradigm and allows you easy leveling?

Shield Batter + its synergy skill gives you a multi-hit attack on a reasonably short cooldown which will help with killing crowds faster. Shield Charge + its synergy as well later on it the tree. Defence doesn't have a good spammable LMB attack with zero cooldown through.

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Any way to power through the early game fast? It's boring and slow as fk. After playing PoE, van Helsing, Diablo 3, GD etc...this style of progression doesn't...it sucks rn imo. The start is TOO SLOW!

TQ is fairly slow at the beginning. It takes a while to get skills and you'll be spending a lot of early points leveling up your mastery bar for more stats and to unlock newer skills. The early parts of normal are pretty tame. Defence is also a pretty slow starting mastery. It's more built around survivability than raw damage.

Most of my new characters are Accomplished heroes, letting me start of at level 40 and at the start of Act 5 normal. Skips the boring early part of the game with a fully fleshed build with all the important tools and get into the higher difficulties faster.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by chris.ferrantegerard:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

What's the best way to use Defense while leveling, what skill is "the skill" that changes the entire paradigm and allows you easy leveling?

Shield Batter + its synergy skill gives you a multi-hit attack on a reasonably short cooldown which will help with killing crowds faster. Shield Charge + its synergy as well later on it the tree. Defence doesn't have a good spammable LMB attack with zero cooldown through.

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Any way to power through the early game fast? It's boring and slow as fk. After playing PoE, van Helsing, Diablo 3, GD etc...this style of progression doesn't...it sucks rn imo. The start is TOO SLOW!

TQ is fairly slow at the beginning. It takes a while to get skills and you'll be spending a lot of early points leveling up your mastery bar for more stats and to unlock newer skills. The early parts of normal are pretty tame. Defence is also a pretty slow starting mastery. It's more built around survivability than raw damage.

Most of my new characters are Accomplished heroes, letting me start of at level 40 and at the start of Act 5 normal. Skips the boring early part of the game with a fully fleshed build with all the important tools and get into the higher difficulties faster.

Yes, now that I think about it...AH -> Epic might not be a bad idea. It'd be nice if AH allowed you Epic(2nd Difficulty) from the start. So that things are more interesting, sub 20(or so) TQ sucks and is one of the major sources of criticism.

[Lobo de hielo]

I am going to say that if you have not played through the game before and you start an Accomplished Hero, you will have only the armour or weapons you get from merchants, you will have no artifact or decent jewelry.
It is slow,slow,slow if you do that and leveling takes a lot longer.
If you can gift a few items it is easy, but leveling still takes longer than normal mode.


Gorwe: "TQ sucks and is one of the major sources of criticism." Whose criticism?

If it sucks why the hell play it!

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by slayor3000:

I am going to say that if you have not played through the game before and you start an Accomplished Hero, you will have only the armour or weapons you get from merchants, you will have no artifact or decent jewelry.
It is slow,slow,slow if you do that and leveling takes a lot longer.
If you can gift a few items it is easy, but leveling still takes longer than normal mode.


Gorwe: "TQ sucks and is one of the major sources of criticism." Whose criticism?

If it sucks why the hell play it!

Well, if you browse more critical reviews of the AE, the most common complaint is that it's too slow to get going. TQ itself was just too slow, period, AE has improved on this with speed settings. It's just too slow to get going. But so is GD, honestly.

They both need a good dose of Smash and Grab. Then they become quite epic! I really loved AoM with that(early GD still suxx)! https://www.nexusmods.com/grimdawn/mods/45

[Lobo de hielo]

Actually what to you mean by "slow". Just for the hell of it I started another character and played as I normally would. Reached Level 8, at the Village of Arcadia to do the"poisoned water" quest. It took 55 minutes.
I love playing Defence, but it is not a build you use if you want a fast start. Fast starters are builds like Earth, Dream, Storm, Rune, builds which give some elemental right at the start.

I always have my finger on the A button to pick up charms/relics/money as I go. I rarely use portal to go sell loot, it just wastes time and you pick up much better stuff to sell later on when you have enough bags. I clear all maps and do all quests.

[ZarahNeander]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

.....a good dose of Smash and Grab.

I kinda agree that both TQ and GD suffer from trashmobitis, but Smash and Grab.....different strokes and such, but 99 devo points..why bother with builds, why make choices, when you simply can have everything? That mod is pretty much god mode in disguise.

rant off, sorry for being OT...Zarah out

[Lobo de hielo]

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

.....a good dose of Smash and Grab.

I kinda agree that both TQ and GD suffer from trashmobitis, but Smash and Grab.....different strokes and such, but 99 devo points..why bother with builds, why make choices, when you simply can have everything? That mod is pretty much god mode in disguise.

rant off, sorry for being OT...Zarah out

Go on have a rant. Bad day day at the office? lol.
Take nothing I say as serious, just a strange English humour.

But in a way, yes. I have never seen TQ as a "pure" hack'n'slash, smash and grab. If it was I would not play it. It is (to me) a lot more.

Games that keep getting mentioned in these posts:
Diablo: I do not go to there forum and say the game sucks even though I think it does. I can (if asked and need to find) name dozens of old dungeon crawlers, hack'n'slash with decent game play but all you do is smash and grab, gain a 1,000,000 xp, then go sell the loot. Next level please.

GD: I took a real interest but after checking out everything I could (did not bother with reviews) such as there website, builds, weapons etc. It just seemed they have tried to position themselves between TQ and the Diablo franchise. The builds when I looked at them all seemed so similar, no real replayability. They have 1000's of weapons, but if catergorised they are all very similar just lots of affixes. It seems more of a collectors game (no I do not want to play Pokemon on steroids).

Now Poe is a game (after checking it out ages ago) I would love to play in single mode.
It looks extremely interesting, simple yet complicated. The only thing that puts me off is, I do not play online and they keep re-setting the game. I know they would lose too much revenue making it single player, but damn, the only other game around I would like to try.

Well until the next Elder Scrolls comes out.

Rant on Zarah.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by slayor3000:

Actually what to you mean by "slow". Just for the hell of it I started another character and played as I normally would. Reached Level 8, at the Village of Arcadia to do the"poisoned water" quest. It took 55 minutes.
I love playing Defence, but it is not a build you use if you want a fast start. Fast starters are builds like Earth, Dream, Storm, Rune, builds which give some elemental right at the start.

I always have my finger on the A button to pick up charms/relics/money as I go. I rarely use portal to go sell loot, it just wastes time and you pick up much better stuff to sell later on when you have enough bags. I clear all maps and do all quests.

It's more that it FEELS slow than it is actually slow imo. The general lack of AoE(or big mob groups for that matter), big reliance on Auto-Attack etc...it feels slow.

Originally posted by ZarahNeander:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

.....a good dose of Smash and Grab.

I kinda agree that both TQ and GD suffer from trashmobitis, but Smash and Grab.....different strokes and such, but 99 devo points..why bother with builds, why make choices, when you simply can have everything? That mod is pretty much god mode in disguise.

rant off, sorry for being OT...Zarah out

Nobody's forcing you to spend all 99 devo pts. And, yes, you do feel super powerful there, but isn't that the whole point of these games? When you become a Rambo(or, more appropriate for this game, Achilles / Hercules)...that's when things become awesome. S+G just lets you skip all the boring grind crap and let's you focus on the best parts. Don't see why that would be bad, unless you feel you need to earn your fun. If so, sure whatever.