Kinda new to GD here and was wondering if smb can provide me with some advice for lvl-ing up a SB ? I have a lvl 30 one, the dmg is great but mobs like that act 1 Warden guy and Salazar, Blade of Ch’thon kinda wreck me hard.
Basically a step by step guide for the smoothest lvl-ing and what areas should I farm for gear is what I’m asking for as what I read on this thread is the end game gear. Any help is appreciated !
Focus on maxing blade burst/lethal assault, night’s chill, and pneumatic burst. Add in 1pt SS for speed/repositioning. As a newer player I suggest splitting your leveling points pretty evenly between mastery bar and skills. Ring of steel+frost is a great way to reduce damage as well. Try to time it for an aoe freeze right before a bunch of enemies attack you, it will reset their attack animations. All points in physique ofc. Pneumatic/ring spam are pretty important for the survivability part so use them 24/7
Really should be able to tank or mostly tank warden, dodge his attacks if you must. Kill Salazar’s pet asap and immediately move off of any sigil he drops on the ground. Shouldn’t be too hard as long as you do that
You can farm any area for campaign, but try to focus on short/quick runs that feature easy access to boss and high density areas that you’re more likely to get multiple heroes in. Bonus points for easy treasure trove. Don’t do any sort of farming till you are at the end of elite though, it’s waste of time and you can 100% get by with random shit drops until then
Honestly: stay away from their attacks, attack when safe. Salazar kills you if you stand on the ground circles that he casts, don’t stand in those.
Warden: attack him, move away, he will try to run you over or will start casting some small projectiles, avoid those. Attack him again when he is done. Rinse and repeat. Focus your gear on resistances, Life, Attributes, damage. In that order.
For skills, it’s up to you but what was said above is good. I would take nullification and mirror at some point (one point each). Cast nullification on almost any boss and you have half your work cut out for you. Mirror when you mess up dodging strategy. SS is good to cast any time 
Later (much later) One or two SS attacks combos will kill warden and…most enemies really.
PS. If you are playing on “Veteran” difficulty - don’t. You gain nothing from it over “Normal”. It’s just more difficult. It’s ok when you are too strong for the normal mobs and feel bored. Other than that, I am not aware of any benefits.
JoV, i’m curious about knowing why you would should Assasin prefix over Glacial one on those blade? isn’t conversion the best thing?
since there are no more multiple procs on blades, I am not sure blades are worth taking in the first place. I could be wrong bu tI was thinking in taking back OFF instead. It’s base cold, it’s CC for trash…should b e doing decent damage (unlike blades). I could be wrong though. 
PS. If you are playing on “Veteran” difficulty - don’t. You gain nothing from it over “Normal”. It’s just more difficult. It’s ok when you are too strong for the normal mobs and feel bored. Other than that, I am not aware of any benefits.
You mean playing on Veteran doesn’t give more XP or better loot ?
afaik, no. :mad:
Zantai [Officer] 29 Jun, 2014 @ 7:10pm
Veteran difficulty gives mobs more health, more damage, and more tougher monsters spawn. In exchange, more loot drops.
It’s meant for those players who find the first difficulty too easy.
more mobs = more loot =/= better loot. They are (mobs) mainly just tougher and hit harder. There isn’t much more of them. Hardly worth the time really.
edit: I used to play Veteran, but not anymore. Getting to lvl 50 asap and going to Elite is more practical and gives better loot, and more loot and so on.
Veteran mode increases the challenge on Normal difficulty by making monsters stronger and tougher. You will also encounter an increased number of spawns, with a noticeable increase in the spawn rate of champion and hero monsters. With the increase in monster density, you will also notice an increase in the amount of loot that drops, making Veteran mode a rewarding experience for those that can survive its challenges.
So this basically translates into more XP because of more mobs but not more XP per mob right ? And the loot is the same, except more plentiful ?
Edit: you beat me to it
Anyway so you basically rush through normal and then farm elite or ? Also what about Devotion choices ? What / in what order should I take them ?
This is my build currently: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GWxkj2 <- is it ok or ? I haven’t put any points in any Devotion yet (7 points) and have 9 skills and 14 stats unspent.
Been playing this build a couple of months on and off and picked it up again right after the expansion came out. Was lucky enough to find myself an mythical olexra’s chill on day 2. i’ve put 1 point in both in flashfreeze and absolute zero, realy like the extra cc. maxed out mirror for extra facetanking 14.9 cd at the moment and took Rumor from my 5 new devotion points for the extra -cold rez.
Dont have upgraded a lot of the old setup yet and dont even have al the BIS items for this build yet but damn this build is solid, the journey to ‘‘The’master of flesh’’ was a breeze
Big ups to the author of this build! only con i have is that i dont realy want to play any other class anymore, it plays so fluid and fast when you get the cd reduction.
Veteran just slows you down with loot you don’t really care for and tougher monsters that are harder to kill. If you are very new to the game, it might not be bad to switch to Veteran when you get to level 30ish so that Elite doesn’t catch you by surprise. If you are really a veteran, you mostl likely have twink gear in stash so loot doesnt even matter. 
So Elite is like Veteran in difficulty ? Or a bit tougher ?
Well that’s the thing, I sort of have crap gear so I need to farm it. Only Elite+ is worth it tho ?
Anyway I’m thinking about maxing out Nightblade 1st and then finish with Arcanist. I’m trying to make heads or tails of the skills that I come across but when it comes to Devotion pts I’m totally in the dark. Especially with the prerequisites it’s hard to find the order in which to put them so I kinda need some help.
If you have something to convert than it might be, but since your both weapons are cold dmg you dont have anything to convert, thus Glacial prefix isn’t so useful. Assassins prefix is here because of +2 to shadow strike, w/o it you couldn’t up SS to 26/26 w/o + SS badge of mastery.
But again this is merely an example and it would be worth testing options with magie prefix for extra % CDR and +SS bom, also Lox daggers could be even better choice, etc.
I took it more because I used to put one points in BS and not from some kind of necessity, OFF can be nice option also and even w/o BS or OFF you can do good, with ABB and RoS for trash clearance, noting mandatory about that 
Sure. I will need to experiment with options a bit when I get to S.Breaker again. Honestly, I never liked Blades, even when they were multi-procing. I tried them and they were extra work to me and I didn’t really need them.
Veteran can be turned off/on whenever you want. It’s sort of closer to Elite so you don’t get shocked by difficulty spike by going from normal to elite.
The gear I mentioned is sort of crafted and found gear that works from level 1 to level 20 (or more) and is good for almost any build so you don’t care about what drops from monsters. It’s gear that you got with other builds and hold in your shared stash for just those leveling purposes.
If you don’t have blade you lose ADCTH and 15% pierce res. Maybe if clairvoyant hat is switched for ravager dreadgaze but you lose some DPS.
I am not seeing Blade Spirit giving my toon anything but some damage from summon itself and whatever proc you put on it (will affect it).
Anyway, if we are talking about the max Lvl85 era, I have my Toon with max res etc. I am using a slightly different build, a tad more defensive.
Could you tell me on which skills did you bind - Whirlpool / Elemental Storm / Rumor / Blizzard ? It doesn’t show celestial power in skills tab.
Little up on this …
Which sword is better for SS between double Loxemere (crit dmg) or double Spectral long sword for the +2 to SS skill ? (+4 for dual them)
26 points is the SS cap. Original build has +1 to SS on one weapon (none on the other). If you choose weapons that will give you +4, you are wasting 3 points to SS.
Yes i know this cap thing, i just asking that because for now i’m in lving phase with a blade master ( lvl 79) i don’t have all this + skill item yet( with the double spectral sword give me +4 to ss , i hit only lvl 24 for ss) and i’m just wondering which one will perform better loxemere crit dmg or the skill bonuses from spectral sword :rolleyes:
use loxmere and one other with +2 SS until you get to craft badge of mastery or find whatever is it you are missing. Loxxmere sword has cooldown for SS. It seems negligent but it really isn’t