Something is wrong...

…with my understanding of this game’s mechanics.

Ok, first of all, I’m not a native english speaker, so please, be patient with any grammatical errors I had to make in this post.

Second, I suck immensely at kiting enemies, and in some place, in my opinion, kiting is not even an option. So 99% of my char, even casters, have to be able to tank almost anything.

Here’s the first question: almost all the builds posted in this forum are not suited to ultimate/hardcore, but all the comments say otherwise. For example, the “Ultimate DPS Blademaster” is just too frail. I have even downloaded the attached save, so the char is 100% adherent to the autor’s idea, but ultimate Fabius has killed me with ONE SHOOT in three separate instances! WTF?

In my experience, to be able to survive, a char MUST have AT LEAST 2200 OA/DA, 2000+armor, 12000+hp, 30+ physical resist, all resistance maxed, a bunch of health regen (usually 400xsec is the bare minimum I accept) and some sort of panic button(mirror, blade barrier…) or a circuit breaker like Menhir’s Will, Giant Blood or, best of all, Healing Rain. It goes without saying that these values changes between classes combination, so a soldier with decent focus on shields can be viable with less DA/armor, but these are my guidelines in general.

Yet in every post DA is dismissed as a trash stat, while OA is of incredible importance, and every melee chars run around with several pieces of caster’s armors, and apparently without dying.

Now the dps part. I have a vitality-oriented witch-hunter with 2700 unbuffed OA, 200% attack speed, +70% critical damage (with Hungering Void), 44000+ dps, Wendigo Mark bounded to Beronath’s Fury and Twin Fang bounded to Whirling Death, plus the Solael’s Decimation proc. This guy has no problem tanking and killing anything, it is a true, immortal machine of destruction, but there’s no way I can kill Fabius in around 15 sec as all these builds and their moms claim to do easily.

In the end. I’m just curious if I’m missing something crucial, because I will love to find an use to all those lovely end-game sets and items, but I often find the result subpar to the just combination of green items. (my pierce-only blademaster use dermapterans, there no way the Deathmarked Claw/Fang can outperform these, even with the procs).

EDIT: I missed your part about maxed resistances, so disregard the beginning of my post.

Your resistances are just as important as DA in most builds. If your bleed, cold and pierce resistances are low when fighting Fabius, he will destroy you. You need a delicate balance of both for maximum survivability. Also, you should look into any skills that may hinder his ability to do damage. Skills that offer missed/fumbled attacks are valuable. Attack speed slows, reduced enemy OA, damage reductions, etc. A combination of these factors will contribute to him not being able to kill you in one to two shots. My Calidor’s Tempest character has 9000 health, 1900 DA and 1075 armor, and can stand face to face with Moose/Fabius without being in too much trouble. Specific numerical thresholds can be something to shoot for, but are not required.

The ultimate dps blademaster has the ability to destroy Fabius very quickly. It also requires more micromanagement than other characters. Mistime one skill or cooldown and you are dead.

I have played several characters with 84%ish in pierce/cold/bleed resistances, along with a 20% damage reduction, and attack speed slow, and you can stand in Fabius’ face all day without dying. Occasionally he will spawn with crazy weapons ( Notched Bone of A Thousand Deaths ), in which case you may die a time or two or twenty, nothing you can do about that.

Regarding the green items, they often spawn without any decent proc, procs that are extremely valuable in the course of a fight. Procs can often make up 50% or more of certain builds dps in a fight. By going all green, you reduce your chances of acquiring some game changing procs that can help immensely in a fight.

You aren’t missing anything. A great part of the builds in this section are a show-off, a false advertisement, or just a plain noob trap.

There are few to enable balanced builds with good survivability, while doing sufficient damage. The majority are pushing offense to extremes and call it a day, while dying like flies. A few of the builds in this section are HC friendly, or require a serious rework to get in.
Let’s not forget a great part of these builds ignore the leveling process and enable the build and its through save file shares, dupes, etc.

Basically, ignore this section, play builds of your own, work hard to improve them and be happy when it works.
I never managed to understand copycats, but to each his own.

EDIT. You guys are like keyboard’s ninjas…

Thank you for the quick reply, but I already know how to kill Fabius easily. My question was how almost all the build posted in this forum claim to be able to do it, while lacking precisely what you have mentioned. Only that retaliator warder (Hetzer?) seem to maintain the expectation of his autor.
EDIT: All of these are non-working noob trap??? And the bunch of positive comments???

PS: My blademaster has 6000+ dps respect the one posted here, but 400 less OA. She can kill Fabius in around 25/30 sec,while the other cannot even try due to the one-shoot question.

Odd, I have built most of the builds in this forum that provide videos and such, as well as a few of my own, and they do perform as advertised. Most of them do NOT die like flies. And no, we do not need file save shares, nor dupes. I am sure some use them, but most of the builds you see posted lately do not. Plenty of players have every legendary in the game, as well as many duplicates. Building a character in a few days to 85 to experiment with is pretty damned easy. Don’t be so quick as to label all of the posts/builds as such through your own speculation.

When it comes down to it, as much as I hate to say it, not all players have the capability of managing a certain playstyle. The OP even admits it himself. He claims he cannot kite very well. I have been in multiplayer games with many people who even with a stout build, die repeatedly. A lot of it comes down to player skill also, and not all builds are suited for all players/playstyles.

Because if someone claims that his character can facetank Fabius without potions and kill him in 10 seconds doesn’t mean he can do it all the time. It’s his record, one try out of the 20. It’s not a lie though, he CAN do it…but under good conditions and with enough luck. I don’t know why everybody focus on offense and Fabius became some sort of benchmark anyway…

ANOTHER EDIT…

The fault is probably mine, as i have already stated (see the very title of this post), and everyone is allowed to play his games how he/she want.

However the question remain: I’m not able to build an effective blademaster around the Deathmarked Set (example). He dies just too much against unleechable bosses, and simply take too much damage even against normal mobs.

EDIT: I know my own limitations, but i have played some kiting builds in other games (amazon/sorceress in Diablo 2 for example), but in this game kiting is not an option for me because there’s no teleport. What I’m saying is that without a teleport skill I’m not able to avoid each and every attack that the enemies throw at me, and with some of those build it seems that a single attack can be sometime sufficient to one-shoot you.

EDIT 2: With the right weapons, Fabius has probably the highest DPS of any monster in the game, and need a high DPS char to outperform his pneumatic burst. In my experience, if a char can kill him consistently, chances are that said char can also kill almost anything else without problems.

I am sure many people cherry pick certain videos, however, many of the builds can do it reliably EVERY single time, without the luck factor. Take the Elsa build, or the Stormheart saboteur build…I can kill Fab/Moose/Benn every single time, without fail, or any semblance of being in danger, and they kill quickly too. No need to cherry pick videos in those regards.

Earlier on, nemesis mobs were the way to go when it came to loot farming. Fabius was the easiest to farm rep for, and the easiest to find. He was also pretty damned strong before a few nerfs came his way. IMO, killing Log and running SoT/BoC is a cakewalk with any decent build, and therefore many started making builds with the goal of taking down nemesis mobs as quickly as possible.

I do agree partly with you. I am not a fan of any build that can take 50-75% damage in a single hit or two even while running through trash. That build however, puts out insane damage. When micromanaged properly it becomes absolute death, even to nemesis mobs, as long as care is taken during the fight. Not suited for my tastes, I prefer a build geared more towards offense, but a hair less “glass cannonish”, if that makes sense.

Some people care about performing, and they’re having fun.
Some people don’t, and they’re still having fun.

For my part, I consider that builds presented here are just like : “look, that can be done, and it works great, if you play like that and with those items”

Some builds are also more about the gameplay itself than the how good it performs.

My Witch hunter is able to kill Fabius (30-40s of strategic kiting if you really want to know) without dying and she cleared ultimate SoT, Log, BoC and killed each nemesis she met, in the end.
It’s nowhere near to the perfectly optimized Witch-Hunter and I haven’t presented the build as such. For example, I’m still searching how I could beat the Edge Of Reality boss solo.

Anyway, the “goal” of the game is the “goal” you decide it to be. No one is going to blame/mock you if can’t facetank whoever it’s cool to say you can do.

(I have never been a great fan of face-tanking in any game… It’s too much like your stats are fighting for you while you’re having a coffee. I like being in control and having to actually drive my char through the fights. Just my opinion)

That blademaster build was posted by a total noob who doesn’t understand the game at all and used downloaded gear and instant max.lvl characters. If you want builds that actually work have a look at jajaja’s, that guy’s a genius.

I think when someone says “Ultimate viable”, it means that if it’s managed fairly, character can survive 95% of the content of Ultimate. So not being able to defeat Fabius(which is one of strongest enemy in the game) is not a reason for the toon to be absolute garbage. The sample values ( resistance-OA-DA-etc.) that you have given in your post, are not reachable for every build type. So, according to you, there is no logic behind leveling up certain builds because they will never reach the levels that you stated in your post; I think this is utterly false.

However the question remain: I’m not able to build an effective blademaster around the Deathmarked Set (example). He dies just too much against unleechable bosses, and simply take too much damage even against normal mobs.

I presume you tried to tinker a bit with that set then.
As you probably know, the 5-piece bonus is a 30% chance to avoid projectiles.
Try to build around that, the bonus is just there for just that. My current Blademaster is wearing a full Deathmarked set and some other gear combined to get 32% chance to dodge and 66% chance to avoid projectiles(PB active). (Does not affect Spells)
I also got him Turtle Shell if he gets hit by a truck which does not mean Turtle Shell proccs whenever that happens, since I have all resists maxed, round about ~2100DA, 1600Armor and 9300HP. Furthermore I have some proccs on the gear which allow me to get to almost 100% avoid and dodge for a short period of time. Damage is still incredible with 2350OA and 35k DPS(not counting Beronath’s Fury stacks). The only problem was late elite because I play the build on Hardcore.

](http://postimg.org/image/dfbt7gxg1/)[/IMG]

](http://postimg.org/image/j66kyxutt/)[/IMG]

The first is a new adcth with-hunter who still need to be tuned. The second is my blademaster. All stat are with only permanent auras buffs and without procs. I want to be able to make something different, but at least this effective.

To add what has already been said, if you refuse to kite at all, you are at a disadvantage. You also have to be aware of reflect and Blade Barrier. If you built one of these super high DPS builds, reflect might be what kills you more than anything.

I see your frustration and I personally have experienced a portion of it.

In my view, one of the pedestals of ARPG survival is this: “No matter how high your dps is, your dps will always be ZERO when you die.”

I understand that not everyone wants to kite or like that kind of playstyle. That’s fine too, but when choosing a GUIDE to follow, one must be alert to the playstyle employed by the author.

Granted, I find that melee characters in general, even with 1,200+ armor, max resistances, 9k+ health; tend to take more damage than rangers and casters who can kite.

When authors say “Ultimate viable,” I take it to mean that it can handle all the plot-based enemies from Act 1 to Log. Nemesis is the exception to the rule, let’s face it, it is called “Nemesis” for the very reason that it can RIVAL your abilities and is the ultimate champion of its ilk.

I don’t follow guides that just display their characters’ strength and are not honest about its limitations.

I would look carefully at the build videos, when is the biggest spike damage taken by the character? How does the author recover? What are some defensive mechanisms in place from devotions and masteries?

If a character requires BiS gear (esp. entire sets) to survive, I suggest you look elsewhere because either the character has some serious ultimate survival issues or not enough skills or masteries to enable it to survive without BiS gear.

Here’s some misunderstanding.

I do not mind to kite in some specific situations with some builds. But if the build is advertised as ultimate/hardcore capable and then i have to kite/avoid every single “yellow” enemy because a single hit can be the last then something is wrong. As I have said, the fault is probably mine, because every comment on those posts is positive. So the build is working. Only that it’s not working for me.

Also I consider myself not a completely beginner in those type of game, and I’m fully aware that some mobs can reflect damage, like Fabius with his blade barrier (but i consider this to be a major problem mostly for Dot builds).

It is also true that avoid/evade can be an excellent defensive complement, so much that every one of my nightblades reach at least 30% in both. But even in this case you have to be capable to soak the damage incoming from the other 2/3 attacks that instead hit you. Some of these build have around 1300 armor and 1700 DA. With these stats, every mobs can crit you, and most bosses can crit you for a staggering amount of damage, and you do not have the required resist/armor/reduction to take the blow and survive.

The pic of my blademaster in my previous post is just there to show you what i consider to be a well rounded char, without any significative weakness. Yet, just a few hours ago, I was reading a guide of a nice sorceror with a very nice DPS of around 52000, but with no defense, very little armor and resistances. How can he survive??? And that build was specifically advertised as ultimate-capable. I just do not understand.

My concern is also that i want to find a way to use what you call BiS, but all my char end up wearing 7/10 of green items (see the pics above), because the sets (maybe with the exception of the Markovian Fortress) are vastly outperformed by the just combination of rares.

I’ve also reinstalled the game, just to be sure.

That chara download is VERY outdated, you have to make changes for it to be playable, go through the posts in that topic or go have a look at amonthar’s build. With the right setup you can definitely facetank fabius and shar’zul without any issue and without oh shit skills like blade barrier or clusters. If you’re failing then it’s player error somewhere. It is definitely glassy, and you definitely have to time health potions and skills, messing up likely means dying but if you’re playing properly it’s more or less 100 percent chance of success/0% chance of dying.

If you are referring to Uberjager, he was arguably the most knowledgeable on the forums regarding blademasters when he posted. If you asked him anything specific about any blademaster related skill, procs, devotion or gear he would be able to answer. He tested everything, and was always the first on the forums the figure out alternatives everytime blademaster got nerfed. People who don’t talk to him don’t know how much he tested stuff to optimize his setup. Blademasters are at the moment superior to everything else most likely because we are more optimized gear/build wise largely due to uber. I think with optimization other builds like some of Jajaja’s may be stronger then blademaster. I think his spellbreaker build is potentially better then blademaster, his fabius time is quite close to blademaster, but his aoe definitely better and it’s not even fully optimized yet.

Uber didn’t use downloaded gear btw, there was no downloaded gear at the time. He also didn’t cheat max level, he leveled it the hard way, undergeared through ultimate like most of us who rushed through ultimate. Theres more that uber hasn’t shared in detail with the community because we kept getting nerfed every patch, we need something to fall back on if we get more nerfs lol.

To be clear, I do not want anyone to take offense, as what I said about that blademaster can be said about almost every other build posted here that I have tried. Just a bit too frail for normal gameplay, and IMO absolutely not suited for hardcore.

It looks from these values like you are determined to soak every attack that hits you. I myself like to be able to survive anything that hits me too, however, its not always the solution. Some attacks are well telegraphed, so you can kite them. Or maybe cast mirror before they hit you, or something else.

I think none of my builds fully meet your requirements. Some are meant to tank, but none are full tanks like that.

There is a problem with glass cannon casters in GD, that seem to be the old Titan Quest heritage. Casters are not given active defenses that can help them in every situation in the game. They have crowd control, but it never works on bosses. There are no movement and evasion skills.

There was an old discussion here about movement skllls and the official reason to not implement them was that enabling them to transport you over obstacles is too expensive. Movement skills do not have to do that however, they can be implemented like those in Torchlight, it is basically shadow strike/blitz that can be clicked on terrain, rather than a monster. Why we can’t have that was never explained as far as I am aware.

Then, with many monsters using charge skills that always connect, like shadow strike, movement skills won’t even be very useful in GD. If several manticores shadow strike you simultaneously, there is no way you will avoid all of them, you will take some hits anyway.

The dual class system adds to this in that you can potentially build a character with best defenses while also using strongest skills. Why devastation and aether ray are denied to tanks in heavy armor.

This fellow is probably one of the closest ones to your requirements, while also being a caster.

Can’t have that much armor with caster armor though