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A-EftP - Singleton (some SPOILERS)


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Playing a singleton on torment difficulty wasn't as hard as I thought. There are some things that will have to be postponed until much later because they require dispel barrier and/or higher tool use. However the three major game winning quests can be done around level 55 and maybe sooner.

 

A bug with Demonslayer giving +75% damage versus demons working for spells cast by the holder means I'll have to wait until v1.0.1 to retry Grah-Hoth and Adze-Haakai. I'll also have to redo the Final Exit by fighting Sulfras and his minions to reach it.

 

Character Building

 

Starting with melee weapons 2, mage spells 2, and priest 1 you can daze swarms of foes and hack them to pieces while also being able to heal. The first 15 levels involves raising melee weapons, hardiness, and parry in order to avoid taking damage. Tool use gets raised once with nimble fingers trait gotten twice to open the hidden switch in the Bat Cave.

 

Next I started raising priest spells to 12 to be able to cast Divine Fire. Spellcraft and resistance help to increase spell damage and reduce damage taken. I also needed some cave lore, tool lore, and mage spells. Most of this comes from trainers especially since by level 16 I had reached Bargha to gain two levels of parry and the first level of tool use. Two levels of cave lore in Formello, Ether in Mertis's quest, and the Giant Land pool give 4 of the 5 levels needed to use the energetic herb patch near the Lava Fields to make speed and energy potions. You need level 10 cave lore to get mandrake root to make wisdom crystals to help level up faster.

 

The build eventually reaches:

add 7 to strength for melee weapon to hit and damage

add 10 to endurance for extra health and 90% resistance to poison and acid

add the rest to intelligence for spell damage and mental resistance

 

melee weapons 12 - 10 from skill points, 2 from trainer

bow 2 - from trainer

thrown weapons 2 - from trainer

-- this give 16 combat skills to get bladeshield battle discipline (30% resistance to damage)

 

hardiness 12 - 10 from skill points, 2 from trainer

parry 12 - 10 from skill points, 2 from trainer

-- with traits this gives 42% parry versus melee and missile damage

-- seeking rapier gives 5% parry

dual weapon 2 - from trainer with traits to use dual wielding

quick action, blademaster, lethal blow, and gymnastics all 2 from trainers

 

mage spells 4 - from skill points and +1 from Tribal Symbol to cast up to Icy Rain

priest spells 12 - from skill points to cast up to Divine Fire and Ward of Elements

spellcraft 12 -10 from skill points, 2 from trainer

resistance 9 - from skill points, at level 60 raise again and use trainer

arcane lore 2 - from trainer with sage lore trait to read spell books

cave lore 10 - 6 from skill points, 2 from trainer, quest and pool

tool use - 4 from skill points, 2 from trainer, 2 from items

-- need at least TU 7 for most important quests

 

Traits

If I did this again I would do it differently. I don't need as much swordmage since I assumed I would need to be a higher level to finish the game and would need Dispel Barrier at level 3 to get the Mercuric Plate. Negotiator isn't needed as well, it just speeds up training.

 

Improve Intelligence 1

Parry Mastery 2

Ambidexterous

Dual Blade Mastery

Swordmage 4

Sage Lore

-- important to get level 3 of minor heal and icy rain

Nimble Fingers 2

Good Health

Robust Health

Perfect Health

-- increase health significantly

Negotiator

-- useful in the middle game to get money for trainers

 

Items

Weapons are always swords with the most common ones the Seeking Rapier for +5% parry and +5% critical damage, Frozen Blade for cold damage, and Demonslayer for bonus resistances and specials in fight versus Grah-Hoth. Switch to the best sword damage versus the monster and in the middle of the game dual wield gives the most damage.

 

Gaining extra action points is essential with two guaranteed attacks it's easier to fight. So Mercuric Chainmail and Quicksilver Sandals near the game's middle and then fight Athron for the Quicksilver Bulwark and use Rune Plate for extra damage resistance when magic is used for attacks.

 

I used the First Expedition Greaves, but other ones will work as well. Radiant Gauntlets or Dragonskin Bracers are about the same with the bracers giving more resistance.

 

Some items improve magical damage like the Incantor's Ring and Sage's Longbow. Cloak of the Burdened is 10% armor, but more importantly 20% curse resistance.

 

Adventuring

 

The key thing is to avoid getting swarmed so Daze is needed near the start. Daze level 2 will ensnare to keep melee attacking monsters from attacking you. So avoid outdoor encounters at the start and come back later when you have more health and dexterity is higher due to more levels.

 

At the start it's sword and shield. By mid game dual wielding works well to do damage and hardiness has reduced the need for a shield. But in the last half of the game it's magic that does the most damage and kills the monsters fast enough that you don't get hurt. Especially for the outdoor encounters where you are swarmed. Even if they have a low chance of hitting me those chances multiply into a chance of most hitting in one round.

 

Getting Minor Heal at level 3 provides for regeneration so you don't have to heal as much. With enough resistance this will do 90% of your healing.

 

At the end before buffing with Ward of Elements I had

84% armor

79% magic

82% fire

77% cold

90% poison

90% acid

90% mental

45% curse

 

This kept most damage to the point that even stun or terrorized I could last a few rounds.

 

Fighting at the end involved letting weaker monsters surround me while I took out healing monsters and bosses. In the last major quest winning fights using speed elixirs and haste for extra actions and then multiple castings of divine fire usually did enough damage to push through even the hordes of Royal Guards on the way to kill Hawthorne. Invulnerability elixirs and potions are needed when facing the possibility of stun and will help survive a Death Curse.

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Intriguing optimization. I'm curious as to why priest spells and divine fire won out over mage spells. It can't be for unshackle mind (the priest spell that everyone loves) for a singleton...is it the sphere (as opposed to cone) blast, or am I not thinking of something at the moment? Especially given the lack of dispel barrier, which even with piercing crystals causes one to miss out on some nice loot.

 

Also, and this is probably something I should have figured out on my own: who makes wisdom crystals? I don't recall those on my playthrough, but I was probably just sloppy in that respect.

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I made a mistake, level 12 is needed for Ward of Elements which has a limited number of scrolls and on torment you need to counteract the hidden -36% resistance penalty. On normal and possibly hard it isn't as important.

 

I suppose you could get by with lower resistances and heal more often, but I've had several fights where I just barely survived to heal. Maybe with higher health from endurance I could have a more mage spell oriented character.

 

Divine Fire is a sphere rather than cone area of effects, but you could get by with Icy Rain and Lightning instead for most places. I really want Dispel Barrier and I only have one spare piercing crystal left for just looting.

 

Wisdom Crystals are from the Witch in Dharmon.

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Things you could pick up with some care to avoid combat using a boat include:

Steel Broadsword in Giant Lands on body

Blessed Plate in cache in Waterfall Warrens needs cave lore 4 but it's -20% to hit chance

Aranea fang, Graymold and Mandrake Root for three quests to improve abilities and get potions

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Update -

 

I got past Sulfras the hard way by adding another dragon's demise to my list. This took 4 tries to finally get surrounded by minions that could keep Sulfras back far enough that I wasn't getting terrorized for 8 turns. I still needed an invulnerability potion because Sulfras got mad as was starting to do 800 to 1000+ damage with three attacks possible per round.

 

The Final Gauntlet is now just a grind to the Exit to the Surface. I'll then be level 58 and waiting for Jeff to release v1.0.1 so I can finish the game.

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Im deranged. I want to make a summoner/thief build singleton and i dont think it will work. But it still sounds cool. Have any advice? I want to use melee, backstab and fight with a monster by my side to reap the sneakiness gain. Would it be more wise to use trait bonuses to add to my monster levels and go with mage spells, or should i go with priest spells? Which is better for summoning?

 

Edit-Forgot to mention, Im probably going to be playing on casual or normal, if that makes a difference.

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Difficulty makes a huge difference since the harder difficulties give you hidden minuses to armor and resistances that make you take more damage. For lower difficulties a mage will probably give you more useful spells especially when you get blink to move around to avoid monsters and dispel barrier to get to the good loot.

 

Using traits to increase your summons makes sense since they will be stronger in their ability to hit and have more health to last longer in fights.

 

The downside with backstab from the one time I tried it was that the summon monster will move around on it's own to chose it's next target. So you may not be able to backstab. Also some monsters use range attacks and won't engage monsters.

 

Priest summons are consistently shades, but they mostly have cold based attacks that won't work when you fight undead. Of course they are more resistant to cold, poison, and mental attacks. Mage summons are random and one member mentioned that Call Beast was frequently giving him unstable masses that would explode and damage him when they die.

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Im not soloing but i am using a 2 man party and its better to have shades for most of it. Even though the undead fights are harder, unstable masses for mage summons just downright suck. I dont know why they are even there because i lost a few fights when they exploded, killing everyone.

 

The best piece of advice i have is to stay almost attached to your summon to make backstab excellent. It does suck that you cant tell the summon what to do, but if it did it'd be geneforge or avadon. Its kind of cool actually as it randomizes your fights.

 

You should have little problems so long as your cautious.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Originally Posted By: Othar Trygvassen: Gentleman
Intriguing optimization. I'm curious as to why priest spells and divine fire won out over mage spells. It can't be for unshackle mind (the priest spell that everyone loves) for a singleton...is it the sphere (as opposed to cone) blast, or am I not thinking of something at the moment? Especially given the lack of dispel barrier, which even with piercing crystals causes one to miss out on some nice loot

While waiting for v1.0.1, I'm trying out a mage singleton. At level 31 I got dispel barrier and I'm working my way through the Slith dungeons. Now I can go back and loot magical barriers since I don't need to conserve piercing crystals.

The difficulty is about the same as a priest primary spell singleton. Spell energy usage is lower with mage spells.

I think the hardest problem will be swarm undead and golem encounters since divine fire has a better area effect than the mage spells.
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I can tell you that, for the most part, lightning spray works pretty well against undead. I was going through the Spiral Pit earlier and had my entire party outside of my primary mage wiped out in the final battle, and had forgotten to pick up any Return Life scrolls before heading in. Arcane Summon and Lightning Spray, and a generous serving of healing stuff, got her through the battle and all the way out.

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  • 3 months later...

Since the Windows release is just around the corner, I was wondering if you guys had any other suggestions for making successful singleton builds. Is it wise to focus on melee combat/survivability early and then pump magic later on? Are priest spells better than mage spells due to better area of effect? Any tips for the early game in terms of getting good equipment easily and/or which areas are good to explore first?

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Since you have a limited amount of spell energy early in the game it's better to rely on melee combat and use spells for healing and daze.

 

Focusing on either mage or priest spells will work with different types of singletons. A mage will get to dispel barriers and gain access to more areas and loot. A priest won't have to worry as much about encumbering armor.

 

Try to avoid outdoor encounters since you will have more trouble with swarms early in the game. Do the easy quests first and gain levels. Try to use doorways and narrow passages to keep fewer foes from attacking you and the fights will be easier.

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