Ok - so you have already offered good pieces of advice on weapon choices but at the same time said there is really no choice, or rather one - Dermaptean.
But you’ve also pointed out that on Vet / Elite I can go for mixed dmg - physical / pierce.
So maybe there are some other weapons I could (should) aim for on the first two difficulties? Just to keep me on the edge on my seat from time to time when sorting out my drops…
It literally kills me when I think I will be using the same weapon all the time…
So maybe you could suggest something along with the farming locations.
At the moment I am using 2 x Duelist Blade (that has a clvl requirement of 31). Is there better version of Duelist, that could drop on higher difficulty? or is it like in TQ - it is just a blue item and this is it.
Essentially, the empowered version of an epic is a higher-level version, with better / more stats, and sometimes a new ability.
Also, your main aim with weapons in this build will just be an increase in DPS and stats as far as I am aware, so you could just go for any weapon you have that increases your DPS - after all, in Vet and early Elite, it doesn’t matter too much what weapons you specifically have, so long as you can kill the mobs in decent time.
The drops from the shiny orbs from enemies are afaik pretty much completely random (apart from level restrictions) and so you could get the sabres from any of those.
Anywhere there are enemies wielding swords may have a slightly higher chance however, as creatures may spawn wielding the sabre. Steps of Torment has lotsa humanoid skeletons and ghosts and **** wielding weapons just like you, so that could be a nice place.
The difference in chance is so miniscule that I’d suggest just farming whatever creatures grant you faction reputation instead though, more effecient use of your time.
Thanks
The difference in chance is so miniscule that I’d suggest just farming whatever creatures grant you faction reputation instead though, more effecient use of your time." - can u elaborate a little on this? What creatures grant me faction rep? I noticed doing bounty gives good rep with the first village in the game while killing lots of other creatures gives negative rep with other factions.
Well, if you go for piercing oriented constellations (Assassin’s Blade, Harpy, Blades of Nadaan, Unknown Soldier) and especially if you pick Blades of Nadaan 100% armor piercing node, there are simply no other weapons (including any weapon proc) better than the Dermapteran (simple ones like “Superior” “of Alacrity”), until you reach 75 and use the Deathmarked weapons. I’m not sure why people keep recommending otherwise. Simply equip them and you will see a significant dps increase. Two Empowered Duelist Sabres are simply no match against two Dermapteran and the Dermapteran are farmable and at reasonable level ranges (35,52,70 if I’m not mistaking).
Of course if you go for a non optimized approach and with a different constellations setup, any blue/green physical/piercing weapon may prove usefull. Just don’t try to farm specific epic weapons while leveling, as the time spent farming is much better to be used farming elite nemesis or ultimate heroes/bosses when you are 75+. The Dermapteran is worth farming only because a pair of decent (not aiming for the very rare affixes) yellow/green can be obtained in like 1-2 hours and their farming spot is also a good one on elite above level 50 (it has 3-5 heroes and 2 bosses, so you also get a decent chance of epics and lvl50 legendaries).
This is what I recommend once you have 19 Devotion points http://grimcalc.com/build/DFhNnG. Going then at 29 points for: http://grimcalc.com/build/zAOVfB. You get 28 from normal and soon one in elite. After you have different choices. Just make sure you upgrade your items with components and augments and keep the resistances close to max and you will breeze through elite. My opinion is to aim for defensive stats on armor especially (flat hp, resistance) and go full offense on devotions (the devotions gives better dps boosts than armor pieces, especially early on).
It is not worth farming the 35 lvl version as the 31 Duelist are better at that level and without the Nadaan node. You will farm them in the Royal Hive in the Rotting Croplands area (west of Homestead).
You will end veteran at around 50-55 if completing all. Once you are lvl 50, just go back to the Royal Hive and farm a bit for the lvl 52 Dermapteran (the mobs will have levels in the low 50, max level they get in veteran) . You will also have a chance for lvl 50 legendaries. The lvl 52 dermapteran will last you through elite till lvl 68, when you will farm in elite for the lvl 70 version (you may find the Duelist while doing that :)).
When I started ultimate, my dps with 2 Dermapteran (Superior of Alacrity, for convenience I was using one Vampiric of Alacrity and One Superior) was about 24k (no set bonus and mostly blue or reputation items with almost all resistance maxed or in decent range and about 11k hp). Changing to two Duelist, dropped my dps to about 20.5 k, and in reality it is even lower as part of it is physical and that is reduced by armor; and the Duelist proc is not that great. Hell, when changing to Deathmarked weapons you will see the dps drop quite significant, but the bonuses and the procs from the weapons are worth it.
Just for test I tried ultimate Fabius with one Crimson Spike and the Deathmarked Decapitator (no other set pieces and still crap dps, it dropped to about 17k with those two items) and it was not really possible as the damage was to low (and fabius was hitting to hard to be able to outheal). The two lvl70 Dermapterans did the job, with a bit of running around but without dying (not farmable by any means with that dps, but doable if encountered by chance).
I am doing a lot of farming (exp, silver; deprived sanctuary and west marsh as mobs there are always 1 or 2 level higher then me; and it lets me test different tactics and get to know game mechanics) so I migh be a little higher level.
It is actually cool how items drops and mobs scale with my level - so I will get my dremapterans still in veteran and will be fully prepared to enter elite
cannot wait to hit clvl 50 then
And once I have got my pair of claws what do I socket them with?
And these DPS - the only way I can see dps is when I compare equipped weapons - in my toon sheet there is no dps position…? and then it says - 130 dps less in red or 13 more in green…
The average dps is shown in the character screen Tab 1/ Damage per second. For an auto-attack oriented character this is a decent enough indicator (you should also consider the procs damage: devotion, items, etc).
As far as augmenting. Just use what you have available at that that level.
More defensive component: Imbued silver and Purified Salt (the resistances are nice especially at low level, plus you get bonus damage against a significant part of enemies in acts 3+). If you do not have life per damage use a Haunted Steel on your main (Order of Vigil blueprint or drop). Offensive: I used Blessed Steel for the skill for a while (for the Resistance reduction on single target) and Vicious Spike.
End game you will want Shard of Beronath on the off-hand and either Haunted Steel (if no other source of life per damage), Oleron’s Blood (if not using Kymon ring/amulet augments), Blessed Steel (if no other flat resistance reduction) or one of the defensive components.
For augments use Essence of Ch’thon on main hand and Outcast’s Bastion on the off-hand at level 50. Earlier use Troll Wart Powder or Dermapteran Chitin.
Another nice bonus of farming the Royal Hive is that you will get Homestead reputation quite fast in the same time.
If you go all piercing, ignore any +%physical dmg. But keep if mind that any +flat physical damage is very good. The bonus flat physical damage is fully converted to piercing (if your weapons do 100% piercing as the Dermapterans do) and this conversion takes place before any +%dmg is considered, resulting in using your +% piercing dmg.
For example: you have +50% physical damage and +200% piercing damage from gear. From a constellation (like Oleron) or from one piece of gear you have a flat 10 physical damage bonus (mentioned in the constellation or gear description as physical). This damage will be converted to piercing and then use the piercing modifier (disregarding the +% physical modifier), resulting in 30 piercing damage bonus. It is the same for skills. For example a skill like Oleron’s Might (granted by the Oleron’s Blood component) does a %weapon damage plus extra physical damage; if you do 100% piercing damage due to using Dermapteran, the extra physical damage done by the skill is fully converted to piercing and will use the piercing multiplier.
I just fooled around homstead and hive - cleared all up at clvl 43 and in one run I ended up with: 6 x yellow dermapteran and 2 x green. Green: superior dermapteran slicer of the swamp and puncturing dermapteran slicer of the rifthoud that require clv 40 and 36 respectively. those two almost equal 2xduelist but they are without any relics so with relics they might do almost the same dps - 2 x duelist 2560 dps, 2 x green dermapterans - 2445 dps. btw, they give +2 amarasta each.
EDIT: 2 x duelist outdamaged already in the dps section by approx 30 and my favourite blade spirit also got a big spike in dmg. socketed the same - this relic that gives pierce dmg and pierce per cent.
That’s what I said, is not that hard to get decent ones; just look for one with attack speed instead of the swamp :).
The good thing, which is not so easy to see in the character sheet is that with the Duelist weapons, part of your dps is physical (which is reduced by armor), while with the Derpamperan all damage is piercing; the sheet dps does not consider mobs armor or resistances. And much more important and that is not considered or showed at all in the character sheet is that you reduce much more the mobs resistance to piercing due to Night’s Chill. From my experience, for the same shown sheet dps, a pure piercing will do significantly more real auto-attack damage, due to the the previously mentioned points. As I’ve said the only exception is when the weapons have very good procs and currently that is only the case of the Deathmarked weapons, which also provide the set bonuses (even with them pure single target damage, like on the training dummy, is about the same accordingly to tests).
