Reporting on the "Invincible" build

[brown29knight]

So I have been trying out a build that maximizes "-damage taken" in order to become nearly impossible to kill. A few players commented that they wanted to hear how it went, and I'm ready to report my findings:

Overall, the concept works, but with one major caveat: -damage taken caps at 75%. (Meaning you can lower the damage taken stat to 25%, but no further.) As I did not know this when I began the build, I had invested in multiple skill trees that I wound up not using, and the character is a complete mess as a result.

While the character I built was extremely sub-optimal, there was a lot of good info gained from the experiment:

First off, if you can have 25% damage taken all the time, you have effectively turned your base 100 life into an effective 400 life. Survival is much easier when foes cannot hit for high numbers.

Secondly, it compounds the value of block and vitality. With 25% damage taken, I was able to block several attacks fully per turn. This means it is applied before the block, making block much more effective. Any life gains are also that much stronger when everything hits you for less. -Edit, Block info has been proven false.

Third, bleed and poison are still threats. They do full damage anyway. That said, injuries were much fewer when you are taking less damage.

So how do we efficiently get to and keep -75% damage taken? It isn't easy, but there are a few ways to go about it.

PERMANENT REDUCTIONS:

Arna's ability: 3% Per foe.
Ruby Jewelry: 5% each ring or amulet
Curse of Terror: 5% (and a loss of 5% accuracy)
Helm 5% (Battlemage circlet, Jousting helms)
Chest 5% (Maen Mantle, Geomancer Mantle, Jousting Armor, Norrheim garment)
Cloak 5% (Jousting cloak)
Shield 5% (Jousting/Guardsman shield)
Artifact Tapestry of the hills: 10%

LONG TERM REDUCTIONS:
Defensive Tactics (Warfare) 5% per stack, starts at 5 stacks, stacks lost with skill use
Hold The Line (Shield) 7.5% per stack, starts at 1 stack, up to 4, stacks lost upon being attacked.
Seal of Geomancy (Magic Mastery, with geo spell) 15%
Runic Boulder (Geomancy) 7.5%
Unwavering Stance (Staff) 5% per stack, starts at 1 stack, up to 4
Enough for Everyone (Dual Wield) (Vitality)% Per enemy debuffed, 4 turn CD

SHORT TERM REDUCTIONS:
Setup (warfare) 10% for 2 turns when skipping turn, using stance, or using maneuver
Battle Forged (armor mastery) 20% when using stances or maneuvers

Recommended Reductions and Playstyle:
Play Arna (3% per foe)
Ruby Jewelry (15% for all 3)
Jousting cloak, Norrheim garment, Battlemage circlet, (15%)
Defensive Tactic 25%
Hold the line 30%

Invest in shield and warfare trees, use hold the line, follow up with breakthrough and shield bash. This gives you 60% damage reduction while dazing/staggering/stunning your foes.

Then use defensive tactic, and use basic attacks from then till the end of the fight.

Both hold the line and defensive tactic increase duration as you are attacked, so neither will run out as long as foes are attacking you. Basic attacks will not lower either set of stacks, but being attacked will lower hold the line stacks, so you keep 1 stack of hold the line, and 5 stacks of defensive tactic for the rest of the fight, giving you 65.5% damage reduction for the entire fight.

Add 2 curse of terror items, and you'll be capped at 75%, for just a loss of 10% accuracy, which is easily overcome with the high accuracy of shield skills, and the bonuses of RoT.

[brown29knight]

As you get to distant dungeons, you could add the tapestry of the hills, (10%) Add a unique shield (5%) upgrade the circlet and garment to jousting armors (no change, but better protection) as you find them. With that extra 15%, you'll reach cap without defensive tactics, letting you use it before hold the line, so you stay at 75% while building up your shield skill stacks. You'll also be able to freely use other skills at that point, instead of relying on basic attacks and counter attacks for your damage, or you can drop the curses, and still be at cap.

If you are really lucky, you could also get exquisite gold rings (-7% each) adding another 4% to your -damage taken.

[funkmonster7]

There is also Jorgrim's unique amulet, -9% damage taken. It means not playing Arna, but Arna's trait is only better when facing >3 enemies. Arna's trait would give her the benefit of being more tanky at the start of the fight, but Jorgrim gives the constant benefit as long as he is wearing that amulet. And since it is his unique amulet, you can only get it when you're playing as him.

Edit: oops, missed the part you mentioned about Ruby jewelry. In that case, perhaps Arna is always gonna be better. But I dunno... I guess for the purpose of tanking, Arna is better. I think Arna makes for a better staff/geo hybrid than Jonna is. If that is true, then you can also add Geomancy spells into the list. Although I believe you already know that. ;)

Even just Runic Boulder would do wonders. Or technically, erect 3 Runic Boulders around enemies, if 4 AP is spent so that the final-tier energy drain passive is learned, then each enemy get drained for 6 energy per turn. It refunds your energy cost per turn, provides rocky punchbags for enemies to hit on instead of you, and gives you a total of -22.5% damage taken when all 3 erected. If one of them is adjacent to you, another -10% damage taken. Oof...

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

There is also Jorgrim's unique amulet, -9% damage taken. It means not playing Arna, but Arna's trait is only better when facing >3 enemies. Arna's trait would give her the benefit of being more tanky at the start of the fight, but Jorgrim gives the constant benefit as long as he is wearing that amulet. And since it is his unique amulet, you can only get it when you're playing as him.

Edit: oops, missed the part you mentioned about Ruby jewelry. In that case, perhaps Arna is always gonna be better. But I dunno... I guess for the purpose of tanking, Arna is better. I think Arna makes for a better staff/geo hybrid than Jonna is. If that is true, then you can also add Geomancy spells into the list. Although I believe you already know that. ;)

Even just Runic Boulder would do wonders. Or technically, erect 3 Runic Boulders around enemies, if 4 AP is spent so that the final-tier energy drain passive is learned, then each enemy get drained for 6 energy per turn. It refunds your energy cost per turn, provides rocky punchbags for enemies to hit on instead of you, and gives you a total of -22.5% damage taken when all 3 erected. If one of them is adjacent to you, another -10% damage taken. Oof...

I had listed Geomancy (and the magic mastery, seal of Geomancy) in the lists on top. Thing is, it is extremely easy to hit the cap with defensive tactic/hold the line, so it really isn't needed to become a hybrid melee/mage to obtain that level of reduction.

That was my first build... staff/geo/magic mastery/warfare/armor tree that couldn't die, but also couldn't really fight well either. Way too over-invested in things that gave too little, or were too situational, or weren't sustainable.

And if you are getting the bottom-tier geomancy spells, why not just play a geomancer?

I didn't know about the amulet. That's a pretty good one to use too. There are also phylacteries, which give 6%, but the negative to unholy resist makes them a weaker choice come distant dungeons.

[funkmonster7]

Oops I missed the Geomancy part, my bad.

The idea of getting the T4 Geomancy spell passive is mostly if and when we get the treatise drop for it. It isn't the most essential part of the build, Runic Boulder and its components can be relatively unlocked via investing in VIT. That last spell passive can be unlocked that way as well but I wouldn't recommend that.

Your thread is good information. But I kind of missed the point. Are you trying to make a tanky build that is sustainable in actual gameplay or are you testing the potential of just stacking -% damage taken? I can understand the latter, which is why I said your thread is good info. ^_^ But I missed the part about the "Invincible" build. I don't hang out in Discord so if you're continuing a thread from there, I wouldn't know, haha...

[brown29knight]

I'm not in Discord. I'm continuing discussions from other threads here about build ideas for this new patch.

The goal is an invincible melee character, who gets the majority of their invincibility from -damage taken, then adds prot, resists, block, dodge, etc. as needed to get the rest of it.

Meanwhile they still need to be effective in killing foes, and able to take on the bosses.

I'm looking at sword and board because the shield tree adds huge defense and 2 attacks that have fixed accuracy and can have high damage. (I have 1-shot bandits with a buckler, can't imagine how much a Brynn pavise would hit for) The fixed accuracy means I can take curse of terror without worry, further lowering my damage taken, and a couple unique shields could further lower it.

And while I haven't got the build there quite yet, it is looking good so far.

[funkmonster7]

Oh, sorry Jorgrim's amulet gives -6% damage taken, not -9%.

[jotwebe]

The new Seal of Reflection gives 50% damage ~*reflection*~ which is something that combo well with a damage reduction build (and First Aid, which is extremely good currently). I'm running a geomancy (focused on runes and stone armour) Arna to try and wring the most out of that. Since IIRC damage reflection is calculated before resistances and damage reduction this should combo well with a reduction strat.

[Plaje]

Nice, was still very curious about this.

With 25% taken doesn't that mean if you're wearing good armor you just never take damage? Assuming an armor of 10, I don't know many attacks that do over 40 damage in one hit outside of crits, so at 25% I'd expect armor to prevent almost all damage, until it degrades.

[brown29knight]

I had never got to the point of 10 prot, I was still in the 5 Prot range with my test character. I was taking a lot of 3-4 point hits, so yes, I'd assume you'd be pretty much invincible with 10 prot until your armor degrades.

[funkmonster7]

I didn't mention this because you specifically used a shield build, but Enough For Everyone gives -10/11% damage taken when having an enemy with that debuff on him, and at least two enemies adjacent to you. And this debuff is permanent until the afflicted enemy's death. Or at least according to the skill description, I haven't gotten far enough to test the validity of the skill.

The skill also doesn't say it doesn't stack on itself, meaning if you have two enemies next to you, both of them have this debuff (the skill is spammable enough, it is 5-turn cd while DWing, with Deflect and other skills being able to lower the cd), you might have -22% damage taken, along with +20% dodge chance, and some counter chance etc.

Meaning if you play a heavy armor DW build with say, dual maces, the more enemies you have around you, the worse it gets for them because you have near max -% damage taken, high dodge chance, high counter chance, and the best thing is once you learned Unstoppable, if the enemy with EFE dies the effect gets freely given to a random adjacent enemy (not sure if it prioritizes those without the effect though).

Originally posted by Plaje:

With 25% taken doesn't that mean if you're wearing good armor you just never take damage? Assuming an armor of 10, I don't know many attacks that do over 40 damage in one hit outside of crits, so at 25% I'd expect armor to prevent almost all damage, until it degrades.

There you go, a way to use EFE. I'm not trying to start a fight here, but this is a fact. Assuming the skill works. I'm actually currently testing a build like this now with Arna, although I'm not using dual maces, I'm testing a sword/dagger, utilizing a counter-based build that incorporates EFE.

Just for clarification, the offhand might not end up being dagger, I don't have a lot of SP so I might end up DW swords in the end. But the main reason for the focus on swords is Fencing Stance with additional block/dodge chance, although with this build I'm aiming to go for a Str-based DW build, one that focuses a bit more on blocking, wearing either medium or heavy armor later on. Everyone has tried dodge builds already, I don't want to parrot the same strategy in this testing phase.

[Plaje]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Meaning if you play a heavy armor DW build ...

Just for clarification, the offhand might not end up being dagger, I don't have a lot of SP so I might end up DW swords in the end.

Ah yes, the ser Arthur Dayne build. Spoiler alert...

Jokes aside, unfortunately there are easier ways to cap -damage with simpler requirements, so there's still no reason to do that and my original point still stands. You proved my point for me. I don't want to derail this thread though so if you want to keep going on this we can go back to the thread made for it.
Although, I think brown should add it to the OP in case people want to try some kind of -damage dual wield build.

I am very interested in brown's build and I have plans to try something similar to what he did, now that I know there's a cap and we can just work on builds that always cap -damage for permadeath.

The only question I still have for brown is, does -damage also reduce bleeding and burning and other passive effects? Or hits only? Judging by the description it sounds like it should reduce everything, but I know better than to assume that. Should be easy to test by just taking some damage, popping the relevant abilities and using a surgeon kit or whatever that item is that causes bleeding.

EDIT: looks like you already looked at bleed in the OP. Darn, guess we can't be completely invincible. But that's what potions are for, I guess.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Plaje:

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Meaning if you play a heavy armor DW build ...

Just for clarification, the offhand might not end up being dagger, I don't have a lot of SP so I might end up DW swords in the end.

Ah yes, the ser Arthur Dayne build. Spoiler alert...

Jokes aside, unfortunately there are easier ways to cap -damage with simpler requirements, so there's still no reason to do that and my original point still stands.

I don't care if there are "easier" ways to do this. I'm just proving it is doable. Your point was the skill is "useless" i.e. it is not achievable.

If the EFE approach becomes easier to achieve than the standard shield method, then are you going to jump to this side of the camp and claim that there is no reason to wield a shield anymore? I doubt that.

You're the one being passive aggressive here, not me. Spite me all you want, you're only proving your own idiocy here. I'm only trying to prove that the following is still somewhat achievable with a dual wield build:

Originally posted by brown29knight:

The goal is an invincible melee character, who gets the majority of their invincibility from -damage taken, then adds prot, resists, block, dodge, etc. as needed to get the rest of it.

Meanwhile they still need to be effective in killing foes, and able to take on the bosses.

I've never claimed that DW is easier, in fact I've known for a long time the shield build is easier as far as tanking is concerned. If you want the easy option then by all means go with whatever you consider optimal. But if you're criticizing a skill tree because it is not easy it is a player skill problem, not the skill tree problem. Get over yourself.

[Plaje]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

I don't care if there are "easier" ways to do this. I'm just proving it is doable. Your point was the skill is "useless" i.e. it is not achievable.

If the EFE approach becomes easier to achieve than the standard shield method, then are you going to jump to this side of the camp and claim that there is no reason to wield a shield anymore? I doubt that.

You're the one being passive aggressive here, not me. Spite me all you want, you're only proving your own idiocy here. I'm only trying to prove that the following is still somewhat achievable with a dual wield build:

I've never claimed that DW is easier, in fact I've known for a long time the shield build is easier as far as tanking is concerned. If you want the easy option then by all means go with whatever you consider optimal. But if you're criticizing a skill tree because it is not easy it is a player skill problem, not the skill tree problem. Get over yourself.

Only one problem, "there are easier ways to get these bonuses in other trees" was actually the point of the DW thread OP, go read the OP and stop derailing. With hold the line + the shield you are already better than EFE. Brown's build is still better. I give you credit where credit is due, you found something I didn't think about and I think it's worth brown adding it to the OP. But shields are clearly better for what he is doing and for what this thread is about.

EDIT: well, better in 1v1. You are correct that EFE is better for 1vX as far as -damage% goes. Bonus points for only requiring two points as well, might be worth having a DW on swap but losing the shield block is rough.

EDIT2: actually I guess berserking reduces damage by 30% if you're willing to reduce your hp to 1%. Maybe there's something there if you're crazy enough, I don't know. I'll let brown work it out :)

[Plaje]

Just a note I guess, seal of cleansing also grants -10% if you cleanse something. Not very reliable though.

[brown29knight]

Thank you both. You are both adding quite a bit to look at/think about.

As to the bleeds/burns, -damage taken does not reduce them, but fortitude does. Therefore getting a decent fortitude will help keep you invincible.

While I'm taking a look at the concept as a whole, I am also looking to do it efficiently. DW is not going to let you reach the cap unless you have already lost a bunch of life, have EfE up, pop defensive tactics, then just auto-attack, which costs you a lot of offensive/ attack skills, which is knida the whole point of DW in the first place. So no, while it could work in theory, I'm not going to seriously examine it. I'll leave that for the dual wield fans to read the thread and extrapolate their own builds from there, if they so choose.

That said, using SOME -Damage taken to help survive while you DW through a horde, may be a very valid tactic. Even a solid -30%/-50% could go a long way.