Skill/Spell/Aura Trumping

[alstein]

Poisoning/poison or flaming weapon from an empty vial is another option, as that will also do damage over time.

Can Reflect damage be reflected?

[DeathKnight1728]

Afaik, the only way to beat those juggernauts like taris is to have a defense so high that they barely can hit you and...to slowly but surely (and patiently) wittle them down with attacks while running. Another thing ive noticed that has helped me so far is to use either demon roar from the demonologist or terrorize from the reaver. They both lower defense and chance to hit alot. A lvl 20 terrorize lowers defense and attack -600. A lvl 20 demon roar lowers -300. Demon roar can also be used 4 times-That is -1200 defense and attack !!!

[m0stly_harmless]

I appreciate all the posts! Glad to see I'm not the only getting trounced on every-so-often.

There are a few tactics I might just have to try. Keeping in mind the stupendous variety of characters we play, posting what seemed to work with said char makes this thread a beneficial repository of info.


(BTW, my char in question is a Weaponmaster/Sorcerer and yes, every Thunderbolt I handed out to this baddie one shotted me. I eventually caved and skipped town. )

[DeathKnight1728]

The problem for me is usually major hasted and thorns. Thorns is bad when fighting against a death night and almost a nightmare when its a mimic. When a mimic or shifter is major hasted, there's only so much you can do as they are faster than even attacks such as berserk which is at .6 seconds. Giant mimics are tough too but they generally fall to my characters pretty easy as i am more defensive and if they cant hit me, then i eventually get em.

[Crisses]

Originally Posted by m0stly_harmless

(BTW, my char in question is a Weaponmaster/Sorcerer and yes, every Thunderbolt I handed out to this baddie one shotted me. I eventually caved and skipped town. )

I think that Thunderbolt has a bug and isn't supposed to do that. needs the developer to make a ruling on it. Maaaaaybe that's a stat that can be fixed in a plugin...doubt it's hard coded.

[Arjun123]

My level 39 Thief/Druid, in a level 38 town, encountered one of these monstrosities yesterday. It was the "Superboss Grog," a giant undead wailer with 100% thorns and superfast regeneration. I tried various strategies to defeat it, but after dying about a dozen times I gave up. With a dex potion, I had about only a 12% chance of being hit by a level 39 monster. Grog couldn't hit me, but my own attacks would hurt me far more than they hurt him. I was one-shotted by the thorns at least several times. Maybe it would be a good idea to tone down the thorns a bit, or perhaps add upgraded projectiles useable by all classes at higher levels. Fire Bomb/Ice Bomb are pretty much useless at higher levels. And please do not reinstate the penalty for abandoning towns. Monsters like this make abandonment a necessity, and the multiple deaths already inflict a large enough penalty.

[Manumitted]

Originally Posted by Arjun123

My level 39 Thief/Druid, in a level 38 town, encountered one of these monstrosities yesterday. It was the "Superboss Grog," a giant undead wailer with 100% thorns and superfast regeneration. I tried various strategies to defeat it, but after dying about a dozen times I gave up.

Did you try de-training your Thief skills and pumping Earthquake and Earth Mastery? Earthquake has such a long range and such a good chance to cause cave-ins that you could keep your distance and bury/trap him in that overpowered hazard if the main damage didn't get him.

[Arjun123]

Originally Posted by Manumitted

Did you try de-training your Thief skills and pumping Earthquake and Earth Mastery? Earthquake has such a long range and such a good chance to cause cave-ins that you could keep your distance and bury/trap him in that overpowered hazard if the main damage didn't get him.

No, I didn't try that, Manumitted, although it is an excellent suggestion. For some reason, I don't like the idea of de-training skills and training in new skills just to defeat a single monster, although this is probably the only alternative to town abandonment, in the case of this character. It would be nice if skill points were sufficient to train in a broad array of skills, but in the case of this character, I find that I have to dedicate the lion's share to the dagger mastery and stalker skills just to keep up with the monsters. Most of the remainder go to Strength of Stone and Disarm Trap, as it's nice to run around (faster, with SoS) disarming every trap in sight for extra XP.

[DeathKnight1728]

Arjun im not sure if this will help but, theres a skill on the druid that adds 25 armor. If you cast that at a decent level (8-10), it might absorb the damage you take from nutcase thorns guys. It would be wise to cast it before you go into stalker form. It lasts 5 minutes so you shouldnt have to recast it much. Im not sure if this will help.

[Arjun123]

Thanks, DeathKnight. This too is a good suggestion as well. I've invested a bit in Barkskin (2 levels, +50 armor), but this clearly was not sufficient to make a dent in the thorns damage. My approach with this character was to invest heavily in offense. By level 39, with a 56 DPS dagger I am able to inflict over 300 DPS while in Stalker form with Strength of Stone cast. I can thus one- or two-shot most monsters, and even take out most bosses very quickly. The limitation of this build, however, is exposed by these major thorn super bosses. My rapid flurries of attacks result basically in almost instant death! It happened so quickly the first time I actually had no idea how I died; only when I went back, and checked out the boss more carefully did I realize how this happened. Clearly, there are builds that would bolster defense, although at the expense of offense. I think I'm going to let this character rest for awhile, and try out a Demon Hunter. I was intrigued by your Bale 1-Eye character, and would like to try out this class myself. They seem have an interesting mix of offensive and defensive capabilities. And my thief/druid character found an amazing legendary 80 DPS Blood Reaver axe that would be perfect for this build. Thanks for the inspiration!