Two Star Seeker!

[Booneblaster]

i finally found one. came up on a Dvrger tower when i arrived. unfortunately couldn't fight it alone. dvrger had to get in the way. think i might have aided in the demise of one.
but pretty epic to finally see one. still looking for a a starred soldier. no luck.

also, could someone tell me what parry bonus actually does? you get 1.5 times on normal shield, then 2x on weapons. i've stopped using my shield because weapon blocking seems to do just as well for everything. i think i'm missing something. any benefits to a buckler?

[Schalimah]

when an enemy hits you the damage of the hit is reduced by your armor value.
The remaining damage is then applied to you.
If you block, that remaining damage is further reduced by your weapons and shields (if you have one equiped) block armor.
If you block just in time to pull off a parry, the block armor values of your weapon/shield are multiplied by their parry bonus and then applied to the remaining damage.

[Booneblaster]

Originally posted by Schalimah:

when an enemy hits you the damage of the hit is reduced by your armor value.
The remaining damage is then applied to you.
If you block, that remaining damage is further reduced by your weapons and shields (if you have one equiped) block armor.
If you block just in time to pull off a parry, the block armor values of your weapon/shield are multiplied by their parry bonus and then applied to the remaining damage.

thanks. i see. so i'm not taking damage by blocking with a weapon due to the overall armor rating remaining higher than the enemy attack. so the buckler is simply a lighter, but more maneuverable shield, proving more armor than weapons.
i was thinking the multiplier had to do with parry stagger.

[Schalimah]

A successful parry will always stagger the attacker, unless the enemy is immune to stagger.
If enough damage still goes through the parry, it might also stagger you.
The main difference between buckler and shield is that the shields block armor is slightly higher but the buckler has a higher parry bonus (2.5 instead of 1.5).
Tower shields don't have a parry bonus at all and can't parry, but they have the highest base block armor.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by Booneblaster:

i was thinking the multiplier had to do with parry stagger.

Parry stagger is 40% of your current MAX hp, no modifiers for that although enemies have varied stagger percentage. (some a bit more, some a bit less).

Also getting to 85-90% of the stagger bar (idk actual number) will start causing knockback and then progressivly stronger stun effect on player. Any time stagger bar is filed the hit that causes it goes through and the shield/weapon damage reduction is not applied, as if you were not blocking at all (parry or not).

Bluckers are nice becasue you can either parry very strong opponetns early, or parry with not health focused food. 2h weapons also have pretty good parry. But ultimately the values are very forgiving, so you wont really see mobs doing damage if you block. On higher difficulties or when trying to rush content, even successful parry can deal significant amount of damage, enough for bluckers to outshine normal shields and weapons.

[Booneblaster]

Originally posted by ling.speed:

Bluckers are nice becasue you can either parry very strong opponetns early, or parry with not health focused food. 2h weapons also have pretty good parry. But ultimately the values are very forgiving, so you wont really see mobs doing damage if you block. On higher difficulties or when trying to rush content, even successful parry can deal significant amount of damage, enough for bluckers to outshine normal shields and weapons.

woah, mind sizzle here. okay, i think i'm getting it. because the buckler has 2.5 bonus. armor rating upon parry is high enough to mitigate lack of HP food OR lighter armors?? so a round shield is sort of a "lazy shield", and a tower is exceptionally lazy, but still has it's use - probably tanking bosses for a DPS partner.
yeah, i think the differences would be more apparent the higher the difficulty setting/strength of mobs. too bad there isn't a buckler between bronze and chitin. might have tried them more.

[tyrael]

Yes.
Ie: apart from elite draugir you can block or rather parry every enemy in the swamp wearing only lvl 3 troll armor with a bronze buckler; obviously you cant block poison. In a root set armor (from swamp so swamp level gear that needs NO metals) you can parry and block deathsquitos (which become a joke due to root chest piece in large part), fulings, not sure about lox tho. You can also parry and block wolves for example. Ofc provided you have some respectable block level as a skill. Dont rememebr the thresholds tho.

Block and parry are incredibly powerful. parry a fuling with a buckler and 2-shot him. the 2,5x bonus is massive for counter offensive cos they get staggered every time, not you.

[Steve]

After they patched their rarity some time ago. Starred soldiers are usually found inside hive dungeons. I'll see the occasional starred seeker out at night in ML, and *very* rarely a 2 starred one. I've never a 1 or 2 star soldier outside after patch, but that may just be my RNG luck.

I've only seen one, 1 star gjall at night.

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by Steve:

After they patched their rarity some time ago. Starred soldiers are usually found inside hive dungeons. I'll see the occasional starred seeker out at night in ML, and *very* rarely a 2 starred one. I've never a 1 or 2 star soldier outside after patch, but that may just be my RNG luck.

I've only seen one, 1 star gjall at night.

If you're talking about the patch not long after release, the I can confirm that I have seen a few 1* soldiers outside, but is is very rare. I'm not sure if I've seen a 2* seeker outside, and I've never seen a starred Gjall.

I started a new save when ML came out, so I didn't get to experience ML before the initial patch that apparently made it easier. My first death in ML was due to a 1* soldier that I didn't realize was starred until too late!

Playing hard mode now, so 2* seekers are not to be taken lightly.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by Booneblaster:

too bad there isn't a buckler between bronze and chitin. might have tried them more.

There is iron one. Also the mob damage does not scale up much from there on. The frequency or speed of attacks increase, but oozers from swamp deal almost as much damage as strong hitting mobs of mountain, and most mobs in plains or even mistlands. So its not like you need much better blucker, while round shields (silver, black) provide mild improvement to total parry (more base armor x1.5 is better than old blucker x2.5).

Valhaim has quite a bit of these small non linear progressions that balance themselves out. It does not exactly "feel right" but gives the game its flavor.

[Booneblaster]

finally just found one. 1 star soldier. not dungeon. so i got to try out the new mage stuff. ice staff works, but slow. i did help it along with a nice strong thrust up it's butt with my short little poker. that works very well.

now that i have tried it out, it may be that a solo mage is not all that viable, unless you just like it that much. in a group, yeah. but i'll try out the other staves. i will say that the ice staff is great for rabbits. but it gets costly in food to keep your health over 100 or so to effectively parry. maybe, roughly, 30% sooner you are popping your health/stam dishes. it is nice to have the magic pool recharge while you do a bit of thrusting. or use the stam to parry a lot more/flank. but the other staves need much higher reserves to work.