Getting my ass handed to me in Act 2 of Elite difficulty

Hi,
I’m running this Purifier
Recently finished the Normal campaign and started playing AoM, but it felt too easy. So I switched to Elite difficulty and started the campaign over again.
Act 1 went fine. Good challenge, but still doable. Then started Act 2 where you go after Cronley’s Gang… I’m getting my ass handed to me. Like almost one-shot handed to me. I suppose it’s due to my low Physical Resistance but I’m not sure how to raise it. I tried rerouting my Devotions a bit towards Stag, but it’s still really low.
Regular mobs are doable (though they do noticeable more damage than in Act 1), but bosses? They destroy me in seconds. Nicolas Baltazar in Stanton Mines for example, pretty much one-shots me.
Any tips? Do I have to respec more Devotions? Or perhaps add more into Blast Shield?

armour rating, physical resist can be harder to obtain during levelling, you can as such kinda get away with 0 or close to it all the way to Ult
Main issue people tend to have is just low level armours, being lvl 60 wearing lvl 30 armours because cool/epic-blue rarity
After that it’s often having no absorb increase, by default armour rating is only 70% effective and you need to increase it via comps like Scaled hide in legs
Basic resist, you’re on Elite, all your primary res should be 80 now (except phys ofc)
When you’re fighting cronely bois you’re specially dealing with fire and pierce aside from phys

Nicolas has the added effect of spawning with WYSIWY items, so he directly benefits from the stats of some of the items he wears. So suddenly his dmg can be higher and the basic defences more important.

HP pool to soak, old advice was level*100hp, personally i feel like 150, so if you’re level 50 you have 7500 hp minimum “if not more”

those should prevent outright 1shots, but you can pair it with additional layers of defence like damage reduct, impaired aim/fumble, OA shred, dmg absorb etc etc

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I’m a bit out of the loop, but I’d like to give it a try.

Items and components:

  • Item levels and armor look good to me, but use a Scaled Hide as Gnomish said; maybe complement it with an Ancient Armor Plate
  • Put Mark of the Traveler on your boots und move the Antivenom Salve to your belt - the latter provides bonus armor to all hit zones, as the belt does not protect a hit zone itself
  • Replace one Aether Soul and one Soul Shard with a Wardstone and a Mark of Illusions
  • My default chest component has been Chains of Oleron, unless I am really struggling in some department and I need another component there
  • You have not assigend Demon’s Breath to your hotbar - so, maybe replace Devil-Touched Ammo with Purified Salt
  • If you need more health, you can put Leathery Hide on your helmet and / or Mutated Scales on your gloves

Skills and Devotion:

  • I’d drop Mortar Trap
  • Put a few points in Temper, Ulzuin’s Wrath and Deadly Aim
  • Consider Word of Renewal, if you need an additonal healing skill
  • I’d drop Magi, Stag any maybe also Crane
  • I suggest Hydra and Viper
  • Bard’s Harp is often recommended
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I would say that DPS is low also. One weapon is fire the other is physical… Go with both fire, Purifier supports it. You have no fire -% RR in devos… No flat RR in devos…

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99% of the time when I get more or less one shot it’s because one of my resists isn’t up to scratch. Some of the attacks from cronleys gang do bleeding damage, so that could easily be it. It very quickly starts to hurt if you’re below 80. For example at your 67% you get… 65% more damage than at 80% resist. Maybe just use another silver on your other weapon if you can’t find it on any gear you have available.

More damage will also help leach more life and keep you alive a bit easier (as long as there are enemies to kill :stuck_out_tongue: )

Tips from the other guys are also valid of course.

And regarding your Inferno relic… like the ammo it has an active skill, which you need to assign to your skill bar to utilize the skill. But I think, you are better off with others… assuming this is your first char, you might not have access to all of them:

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Put corpse dust on all your jewellery. I usually go scaled hide on shoulders, ancient armor plate on pants, and hallowed ground or chains of oleron on chest.

Skill wise, you gotta max vigor and vindictive flame. If you’re using inquisitor seal, max that too. In general, you want to ignore the mastery bar as much as possible. That 1 point in Brimstone you have is doing absolutely nothing. Max it or drop it. Don’t put random points into random skills. Get only what you need and MAX IT.

For devotions, do a complete respec and get hydra and behemoth and rhowan’s crown and soalels witchblade.

EDIT: For gear you want shamblers heart, incendiary casque, balthazar’s crest, steelheart girdle. Oh and max steel resolve too.

that’s not true? it grants extra aoe, decent the way it interacts with projectiles, and on dual wield.
A 1pt brimstone on ranged is absolutely better than 0 pt, melee would be a different matter

i also feel like this is less than accurate advice, or rather can atleast lead to some scaling misunderstandings we see among beginners
Not everything is worth maxing despite worth taking (also during levelling)
Not everything requires many points to be worth/sometimes 1pts are ok
Easy example is wps and deadly aim, blast shield, heck even flash bang searing light can fit the bill if one don’t mind the extra button
Deadly Aim you not only don’t need maxed, it actually kind scales poorly so on a pt per pt basis on the latter half.
Wps you also don’t “want” or rather dont’ need maxed, not just because of the scaling, but it’s kinda better to get another wps (15?%) starter point, than a single % more (or not even 1% more) in your existing.
Specially 1pt or breakpoint Ulzuin Wrath can be handy, there is no need to leave it or max it.
As for directly on the build, it could be said Explosive strike explicitly isn’t worth to max or rather go above softcap, because of the scaling change, while each subsequent point (past softcap) then scales better in ex Brimstone (assuming there isn’t overall better like RR or flats or WPS etc)
Word of Renewal again one that doesnt’ require maxing even if subsequent nodes(Vigor/Resolve) are worth more points or even maxing.

aside from potentially coming of a bit nitpicky there,
it’s more from the (potential) perception of past interactions, beginners/newcomers can possibly take advice a bit too literal sometimes, so careful phrasing could matter if not direct clarification.
Many times we’ve seen the “max it adherence” leading to equally poor skill allocation in beginner GT’s asking for assistance

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Yes, sometimes maxing is not optimal. But putting 4 points into mortar trap is even less optimal. If it was maxed, it might do appreciable damage. Currently, the skill points are tied up essentially for nothing. The mortar trap line should instead go into brimstone. Drop 1 skill to max the other.

My personal strategy is to max every skill I use to see it’s full potential. And if I don’t like what I see, I might unmax it.

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not disagreeing on that part (wasnt’ the part i raised either right?)

that’s the exact thing i’m illustrating, this is actually less optimal in many cases
WPS, deadly aim, WoR, Flashbang/Searing Light
You even directly mention Vindictive Flame which is one such prime case; if you’re not regen focused (or even if so), you breakpoint it at 11, because past that it scales poorly on the speed portion, making your skill points more costly attempting to max it - saving you 5pts to invest elsewhere/for better gains

hence the “phrasing” portion mattering (imo), or potential clarification for the less applicable parts.

Generally it’s a good idea to invest some decent amount of points in a skill instead of taking 12 different ones. Something I tended to do early on. :smiley: When I open old characters I always wonder what I was thinking having a few points in ‘everything’.

But you definitely don’t want to max it, also on skills that cost energy to maintain, you might get into trouble if you max it too early.

Also disagree that mastery bar is unimportant. It can actually help quite a bit early on with hp and stuff. Assuming you have some points invested in a skill to do damage of course.

for sure, general advice (imo, now :sweat_smile:) would be to “always”/frequently max a main dmg skill or two
in this case that’s done fire strike/explosive strike

there was a time where i applied the pump mastery bar “1pt stuff on the way”, get tier 40-50 relative early.
I feel like, while it might have worked decently back then or atleast fine for my comfort, the game patches has just made the max a main skill(or two) “immediately”/early all the stronger and more relevant.
But if when that is done/we’re past the early game, it becomes a mix between what do we weigh more up/down, either in a potential optimal sense, or personal enjoyment.

i think deadly aim is a good example, because unlike fighting spirit, it doesnt’ scale as good. Fighting Spirit i’d recommend maxing and max it early, Deadly Aim not so much, 1 or couple of points done, move on.
Whether or not you wanna rush for Aura of Censure or not on a purifier i wont really raise an eyebrow over to or from.
For me i think it’s mostly about, past the initial/general advice, or what’ applies to early game, it’s about beginning to make the distinctions for mid to late game too. Not all nodes are equal, some are good, some is a 1pt enabler, some is softcap some is breakpoint worthy (and climbing mastery bar might have variable worth from build to build)
-and the trick is learning both that, specially with all the information and advice floating around.
(aside from then applying it in a way that fits one’s own enjoyment, ex with mortar, less optimal for sure, but some might find it fun)

suppose i’m trying to say, it makes me sad when i see someone at lvl 50 with like 12+ points into deadly aim, and they barely have like 1000 OA/unable to trigger it decently even on target dummy :sweat_smile: - it was the wrong early game “main” skill to max :woozy_face:

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starting from scratch in elite difficulty is more difficult then beating Mogdrogen or any other super boss in ultimate.

If you do however want to make the game easier then consider getting more devotion points from either normal difficulty or crucible. Also playing a pet build is usually easier when playing straight up elite or ultimate difficulty. This is because elite/ultimate is balanced around finishing normal first. Both your defence and offence will be low for a long time if you start fresh in ultimate or elite.
So you sort of need a build that physically dodges your opponents hits. Ps your health is what my pet builds have at level 23. That is because I play in a super easy way and get devotion points in crucible. The absolute opposite of your high difficulty game.

For late game remember to stack -rr to around -100% or more. RR is the absolute easiest way to stack more damage. It works wonders even in the fairly early game.

Your class combo is very gear focused, and in my honest opinion quite difficult to play.
I doubt I would have even made it to act 2 starting fresh in elite and playing your class combo.

i’m getting the distinct impression OP didn’t start as lvl 1 on Elite?

having 33 devos would also suggest it’s not an Elite fresh run, (less than half that available by act 2)

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Here’s about how I would do this build. Almost pure demolitionist. A useful amount of health regen. Resists not maxed, but they could be with a few different affixes on gear. I haven’t playtested this, so can’t vouch for it’s performance. But take a look: