Strength vs Arcane

[yds]

I wish it was more balanced. Basically, playing strength build on apocalyptic makes it easy mode, while playing arcane is ridiculously hard*. Bosses take reduced arcane damage, and several of them are DPS checks, so I had to respec to strength for those fights. Very annoying. I still enjoyed the game, but I wish it had more bosses like Lust and Abraxis, which could be done with dodge counter-attacks only.

I think dodge counters look sick, especially storm hollow. Countering ranged attacks with lightning bolts is something I've only seen in one other game (Dragon's Dogma) and I can't get enough of it.

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*ridiculously hard in comparison of course, some areas more than the others (Bonelands, I'm looking at you)

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Edit: I'm doing NG+ and arcane still sucks. I finally gave up on it and put most of the points in strength.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Honestly, both are decent. The more points you put into a stat, the more the diminishing returns kick in, so there is no reason not to put points into both until you reach the minimum value per point. Then it's purely preference but Arcane retains much more value per point than Strength, so I personally ended up putting more points into Arcane. I played through the game up to NG+9 on Reckoning, reached the 300 level cap and ended up with my stats at:

Health: 64 (1568 health pool)
Strength: 98 (+313%)
Arcane: 140 (+623%)

And throughout most of my playtime, roughly this ratio for the damage stats has been consistent throughout most of it except the start. Early on, I just pumped health because it increases by a lot per point and doing marginally more damage is not that useful in the beginning. Then I brought both damage stats to the minimum value per point threshold and then usually went 1 Health, 1 Strength, 2 Arcane every 4 points.

[yds]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Honestly, both are decent. The more points you put into a stat, the more the diminishing returns kick in, so there is no reason not to put points into both until you reach the minimum value per point. Then it's purely preference but Arcane retains much more value per point than Strength, so I personally ended up putting more points into Arcane. I played through the game up to NG+9 on Reckoning, reached the 300 level cap and ended up with my stats at:

Health: 64 (1568 health pool)
Strength: 98 (+313%)
Arcane: 140 (+623%)

And throughout most of my playtime, roughly this ratio for the damage stats has been consistent throughout most of it except the start. Early on, I just pumped health because it increases by a lot per point and doing marginally more damage is not that useful in the beginning. Then I brought both damage stats to the minimum value per point threshold and then usually went 1 Health, 1 Strength, 2 Arcane every 4 points.

DPS on strength build is 10 times higher than on arcane build. Simply because you can hit multiple times a second with a regular attack, but much more rarely with arcane. And the damage for a single attack is not that much higher on arcane for the same level.

It would've made sense if, say, arcane counter damage was at least 3-4 times more than a regular attack.

I'm still playing arcane build mostly, with obscure enchantment and storm armor for more damage. I also want to get the DLC armor for more arcane damage, but the increase is still bad.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Originally posted by yds:

DPS on strength build is 10 times higher than on arcane build. Simply because you can hit multiple times a second with a regular attack, but much more rarely with arcane. And the damage for a single attack is not that much higher on arcane for the same level.

It would've made sense if, say, arcane counter damage was at least 3-4 times more than a regular attack.

I'm still playing arcane build mostly, with obscure enchantment and storm armor for more damage. I also want to get the DLC armor for more arcane damage, but the increase is still bad.

Can't say I agree. With the stats above, the fire counter with my Fire Hollow deals 5.7K damage while a normal hit only does about 511 (and I've been playing with the Chaos Bringer armor the entire game, that also boosts physical damage). That is the damage of 11 hits condensed into one. And I use both in combat, not just one. So a hybrid build worked for me just fine. You can't just always be DPSing with normal attacks anyway.

Also, Chaos Bringer armor is by far the best one when it comes to maximizing attribute point value. It gives huge bonuses to both health and physical damage (the 2 stats with the worst diminishing returns), so it is essentially granting you dozens of additional attribute points which you can then put into Arcane Damage to maximize the value. The fact that the Abyssal Armor is missing a health bonus (which would take like 50-60 attribute points to make up to reach the same level as with the Chaos Bringer armor) made me stay with the CB armor from the moment I got it till the end. It will improve your Arcane damage more than Arcane damage dedicated armors because you can take a ton of points out of Health and Strength without the actual values lowering at all and dump them all into Arcane.

One of the later patches that added Arcane damage reduction (a very rare stat) to the Abyssal made it a competitive option, where you basically have to decide between better protection at the cost of a big chunk of health. Some of the special enemy attacks that deal Arcane damage (like the Corrupted Angel charge up projectile) have a tendency to one shot at higher difficulties. But I got around it by just pumping health in combination with the CB armor to not get one shot. The Abyssal also has the comfort of HP and Wrath regen, but even then, I still opted for the Chaos Bringer as 95% of the game deals physical damage to you. Or you can just go perma Z form with the armor dedicated to it, but it makes the game extremely boring :D

Those are the only 3 armors in the game worth considering IMO. Also, definitely do Keepers of the Void ASAP. It will add 4 more Enhancement slots you can utilize for the passive effects.

But all of the above is only for when you already have a ton of attribute points to play with and your weapons and armors already being at or near max levels. If you've just started the first NG+, just roll with whatever works for you.

[yds]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Originally posted by yds:

DPS on strength build is 10 times higher than on arcane build. Simply because you can hit multiple times a second with a regular attack, but much more rarely with arcane. And the damage for a single attack is not that much higher on arcane for the same level.

It would've made sense if, say, arcane counter damage was at least 3-4 times more than a regular attack.

I'm still playing arcane build mostly, with obscure enchantment and storm armor for more damage. I also want to get the DLC armor for more arcane damage, but the increase is still bad.

Can't say I agree. With the stats above, the fire counter with my Fire Hollow deals 5.7K damage while a normal hit only does about 511 (and I've been playing with the Chaos Bringer armor the entire game, that also boosts physical damage). That is the damage of 11 hits condensed into one. And I use both in combat, not just one. So a hybrid build worked for me just fine. You can't just always be DPSing with normal attacks anyway.

Also, Chaos Bringer armor is by far the best one when it comes to maximizing attribute point value. It gives huge bonuses to both health and physical damage (the 2 stats with the worst diminishing returns), so it is essentially granting you dozens of additional attribute points which you can then put into Arcane Damage to maximize the value. The fact that the Abyssal Armor is missing a health bonus (which would take like 50-60 attribute points to make up to reach the same level as with the Chaos Bringer armor) made me stay with the CB armor from the moment I got it till the end. It will improve your Arcane damage more than Arcane damage dedicated armors because you can take a ton of points out of Health and Strength without the actual values lowering at all and dump them all into Arcane.

One of the later patches that added Arcane damage reduction (a very rare stat) to the Abyssal made it a competitive option, where you basically have to decide between better protection at the cost of a big chunk of health. Some of the special enemy attacks that deal Arcane damage (like the Corrupted Angel charge up projectile) have a tendency to one shot at higher difficulties. But I got around it by just pumping health in combination with the CB armor to not get one shot. The Abyssal also has the comfort of HP and Wrath regen, but even then, I still opted for the Chaos Bringer as 95% of the game deals physical damage to you. Or you can just go perma Z form with the armor dedicated to it, but it makes the game extremely boring :D

Those are the only 3 armors in the game worth considering IMO. Also, definitely do Keepers of the Void ASAP. It will add 4 more Enhancement slots you can utilize for the passive effects.

But all of the above is only for when you already have a ton of attribute points to play with and your weapons and armors already being at or near max levels. If you've just started the first NG+, just roll with whatever works for you.

Thank you for all the advice. I'm nearly done with NG+, that's why I started doing the DLC. I'm still only at level 79 though. I made a bad decision to use all my NG visages early, so now I have to farm a lot of souls to level more.

[Whipsaw]

Arcane is stronger lol, especially the [near] infinite havoc build: Panoply of Champions armor (+10 and above is enough), Obscurus in whip, Enoch and Chaos in any weapon for the passive stats. Havoc your way from start to finish, way faster and more damage than any physical build. Obviously you cant do this on your first play through but on NG+.

[yds]

Originally posted by Whipsaw:

Arcane is stronger lol, especially the [near] infinite havoc build: Panoply of Champions armor (+10 and above is enough), Obscurus in whip, Enoch and Chaos in any weapon for the passive stats. Havoc your way from start to finish, way faster and more damage than any physical build. Obviously you cant do this on your first play through but on NG+.

Havoc is exception. I meant the other arcane abilities, especially the perfect dodge counter. That's my favorite ability and the main reason I chose arcane build. Havoc is very strong, but I prefer not using it in boss fights, only against some annoying regular enemies on Apocalyptic mode. I'm also pretty sure the Havoc form duraction is severely reduced in boss fights, even with all the buffs applied.

[Whipsaw]

You can use Havoc form start to finish in every boss fight except those that are interrupted mid fight like Lust for instance.

[yds]

Originally posted by Whipsaw:

You can use Havoc form start to finish in every boss fight except those that are interrupted mid fight like Lust for instance.

For some reason in my game it didn't work that way. When I turned on the Havoc form on regular enemies, it lasted for a long long time, but when I turned it on in boss fights it was over in 10 seconds. And it's not a subjective feeling either. I'll see if I can record some proof.

If I had access to full duraction of Havoc form, second Wrath fight would've been a joke.

[Whipsaw]

Make sure you have about 50-60 attribute points in Health, if you dont have that much in Health your Havoc form will disappear after a few hits from a Boss (Reckoning difficulty, not sure for lower difficulty).

[yds]

Originally posted by Whipsaw:

Make sure you have about 50-60 attribute points in Health, if you dont have that much in Health your Havoc form will disappear after a few hits from a Boss (Reckoning difficulty, not sure for lower difficulty).

Oh. No, of course I don't have 50 points in health. I'm level 80, and I put all points in arcane. I have 1 point in health.

[Whipsaw]

Well to make this build work, you'll need at least 150+ levels, which prolly means NG3 and up

[yds]

Originally posted by Whipsaw:

Well to make this build work, you'll need at least 150+ levels, which prolly means NG3 and up

Lol, I guess maybe one day. This game is not that interesting to replay. I already did NG+

[Corona Scurrae]

Originally posted by yds:

Originally posted by Whipsaw:

Well to make this build work, you'll need at least 150+ levels, which prolly means NG3 and up

Lol, I guess maybe one day. This game is not that interesting to replay. I already did NG+

yeah unfortunately. it's fun to do another playthrough every year or so.