I was having a conversation with Darian about how awesome the spell Darkness is, and I thougth I would share it with the rest of the community.
Darkness is awesome, and when combined with ‘Ultravision’ it can be your best friend when you’re xp’ing. Why? Well, unless a creature you are fighting has Ultravision or True Sight, when it is surrounded by magical darkness it is considered blinded. Another way to say it is that you become ‘invisible’ to that creature. What exactly does this mean? Consider this: Invisible attacking creatures get a 50% concealment bonus against enemy attacks and can ignore the dexterity modifier of any opponent unless that opponent has the uncanny dodge feat. Also, blinded creatures have a -4 penalty to all attack rolls, discipline, hide, move silently, open lock, parry, pick pocket, set trap and tumble.
So casting Ultravision on yourself before you start xp’ing and then casting Darkness on your opponent not only gives you +4 to AC against them and a 50% chance of having their attacks miss you, it also takes away all their Dex bonus to AC, which can be HUGE depending on what you’re fighting. For example, Darian said that he was able to hunt the Ice Spiders on the North Face with a build that had a 30 AB using Darkness and Ultravision.
Happy Hunting!
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16 comments:
That's a great tip, Deurack. I'd also like to add a couple things:
1) Darkness is only a second level spell (for all casters) so most builds will have LOTS of those spells to burn, which (as you mention) make it a great "farming" spell
2) Also, it's a spell that doesn't require a somatic component. So, all those bards running around in Heavy Armor can cast this spell and not worry about arcane spell failure.
I've not employed the darkness spell very much myself. I do use 'Word of Faith' on tougher critters and bosses, since the "blindness" aspect of WoF is virtually identical to darkness. Both spells are powerful in the fact that so long as you can cut through your opponents' spell resistance (if any) there is no save... so blindness is guaranteed.
HiPSers do well at North Face too. It takes a while to kill the ice spiders but it's guaranteed max xp for a long time.
First off, another great post by Deurack. After learning this I shall be testing this spell on all of you in the future :P
And since XP'ing comes up I was wondering if there's ANYWAY to PLEASE (I'm begging here) to get "Q" to increase the XP amounts in the beginning areas, say levels
4 - 12? It seriously takes forever, I have been enjoying making many new builds from the tips that I've learned from everyone. But it is very discouraging to make new stuff because of the time involved. Also the 35 - 40 areas need some improvments to help speed things along.
I am a HUGE fan of efficency, If something could be done to help shave a few hours off of a character build then I say DO IT! :) It's becoming more difficult to find time to play, but there still builds I really want to make, but I probably won't because it takes friggin' forever.
The sever is meant to be used for farming and building characters. There is no (RPG'ing) what so ever, therefore I think XP should be increased.
Thanks for listening to me whine! :)
I would have to agree that leveling from 5-12 is kinda tough unless you're a Dex based Cleric. I can take a very long time when you're killing the Kobolds, Undead and animals from Dozo to the Crystal Coast.
Like I said, the exception to this is the Dex Cleric. My God, there is nothing like xp'ing with that build. You can destroy the undead in the Dozo Ruins with 'Turn Undead' at level 4 (maybe 5) and you have enough AC that they cant touch you. Stay in that area until you get to level 9. I know, the xp/kill will REALLY start to get low, but when you're killing 5 monsters a spawn with 1 spell at 85 xp a monster, the xp is still really fast. Get to level 9, run and get 'Haste' put on your cloak, and then go to Newport. Upgrade your AC as high as you can and you will be able to xp in the Sewers for max Xp. Stay in the sewers until level 15 and then go to the underdark. Again, upgrade your AC to the Max and go to the Drow Stronghold for more max Xp.
Doing that, you can EASILY go from level 1 to 21 in a matter of hours. But...that really only works with Dex builds that have a very good AB and buffs, like my all time favorite class, the mighty cleric.
Hope this helps. If you guys think it would help people, I could put it in an original post so more people will see it.
Well...a good Dev Critter with 'Great Cleave' can do the same basic thing, but it wont have the AC to protect it that the Dex build has.
Had to correct myself there :P
I absolutely agree with Deurack. There are certain builds that are more efficient at soloing (and a good Cleric is one of them). Even Dev Crit builds are touch-and-go until you can grab dev crit at 24 lvl or close to it. As far as tricks for advancing: Garble and I partied up last week (a barbarian and a sorcerer). We grabbed the cloak in the smoke shack and two levels fighting harpies (level 11), then went invisible and ran to the UD. There, we were able to max our AC (+5 to everything). This gave my 11th lvl barbarian an armor class of 50! Which should carry her thru another 10-15 levels. Farming in the sewers with that build should be no problem now.
But I see what Simon is saying. There are definite "humps" while leveling that you have to get over. For solo players, that's usually levels 7-12. And for crummy builds, soloing in the Shadow Tombs can be a death sentence.
Another "hump" is the 35-40 range. I understand that it should take a while to level a character that high. Unfortunately, it can become monotonous. Usually, I'm stuck on the north face fighting ice spiders and ants from levels 32 to 40. Crag cats, beetles, and dev spiders on south sheelo are too difficult to solo against. What I would like to see is another area where 35-40 lvl PC's can level without constant threat of death (i.e. beetles).
Deurack is right. A dex based cleric can lvl so fast, it's almost a "game mistake" :)
But I like a challenge, if leveling every build were easy, it would be too boring and funless..
Don't forget the best bashing feat: Knockdown. It helps you level a lot, when you are a lowbie and even on higher lvls.. not so much when you reach sheelo tho..
One can really say it's easy to xping when he's soloing an arcane spellcaster. That's the real challenge..
"One can say it's HARD to xping.."
This topic could be linked to tips and tricks. "Wtf, my build sucks" too. All three of them.
They have a lot of useful info there. Terry posted a very interesting thing about AC types. Very informative.
LOL, Deimonos is right about the solo caster!
If you notice a sorcerer named "Mors Erebos" that is perpetually frozen on level 8, say hi. Mors is my "pure" caster... which is a nice way of saying, he sucks donkey balls in the Badlands.
Don't mistunderstand what I'm getting at. I dont think XP'ing should be "easy" so to speak. I just feel the reward should be higher for the effort that is put in.
I feel that the difficulty of the beasts is okay, i.e. if you have a crappy build it's still gonna be difficult. But if you have a good build then man, the time saved would be tremendous.
On a side note, I will link these helpful posts under "Tips & Tricks"
caster's level up to 22 like lightning.
1-9 in the ruins. As D pointed out one spell one kill works well with the zombies there. The damage reduction from ghostly visage is about all the defense you'll need.
Level 9-11 is harder but you can co okay with harpies and evocations.
Level 12-18 are pretty easy, turn invisible, sneak up to the vampires and cast undeath to death. Finish off any that make the save and repeat. (did i mention you have +12 to your casting ability and +20 to ac from underdark buffs)
18-22 is drow farming. Again invisibility to sneak, followed by wail of the banshee OR GMS. forceful hand is good for the clerics before the get spell resistance up. At 22 you've about peaked as a caster. Your next big improvement will be epic warding.
After 33 there's almost no point. (HP and spell pen are the main improvements) The creatures keep getting harder but you're almost completely topped out.
Leveling as a caster gets pretty entertaining once you get Epic Warding and Acid Sheath. Walk around the North Face and spawn tons of Ice Spiders, then let them commit mass suicide on your Acid Sheath while you stand there and giggle maniacly. Another wonderful spell is the Maximized version of Firebrand. Does 90 pts of damage to everything in the room, great for killing Trogs, Ice Spiders, Druids and Bears, ect. Fomians are immune to fire unfortunately, but it works wonders on the rest.
BTW, if I'm playing a caster, I usually get my primary stat up to 20 or so and then start pumping Con. Belpheron has a Con of 44 and as a result has over 1100 Hp. Comes in handy when soloing Trogs.
haven't had much luck with spells that have saves.
Max Firbrand would work pretty well if you have more than 4 critters. I'll need to try spawning a small horde and than spaming.
True, Firebrand has a save, but only for half damage. So at worst, you're doing 45 damage to everything in the room while they're damaging themselves on your Acid Sheath while you do it.
Also, for the 'Pure Mages' out there, use the Bigby spells to your advantage. The Bigbys spells allow no saves, only Spell Resistance. Belpheron only has 29 Wizard levels and as a result cant 'grab' things very well, but a build with at least 38 levels of Wizard of Sorcerer can use Bigbys Forceful, Grasping or Crushing Hand to 'grab' opponents, hold them helpless and then torture them to death in the manner of your choosing. My personal favorite, when I have some time on my hands and I'm feeling a bit sadistic, is to cast a few Evards Black Tentacles under their feet and just sit back and watch the fun. Evards has a save to avoid being paralized, but not to avoid the damage. Fun Fun Fun.
Back to DARKNESS.
Something noone has mentioned, and it's the biggest bonus. Darkness breaks Line Of Sight. It helps split up spawns so you can fight them one at a time. It can take a few tried and a little work, but it's better than fighting 2 trog guards at once.
Also, when you don't have HiPS, you can only go back into stealth mode when you are out of Line Of Sight...
Does that give anyone any ideas?
Caster Soloing:
If you don't have Epic Warding yet, you can use Stone Skin or Greater Stone Skin, with your Acid Sheath. I did fine killing ice spiders with my Wizard that way. Before stone skin, and damage shield, just use a staff with true strike. You have to rest after you use all your 1st level spells, but that helps you save on heal kits.
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