Status effects and the new "tier 4" enemies
Jue, 07/11/2019 - 17:31
With the advent of more difficult shadow lairs aka "tier 4" and it is in parenthesis because it is not officially confirmed, status effects become considerably stronger while five star weapon damage falls off. If this trend continues, we'll likely see statuses play a larger role than pure damage, as it currently does in shadow lairs.
The big one seems to be curse. Curse does damage when enemies attack, and this seems to be based on how much damage they deal. This means that a stronger enemy that lives longer and gets to attack more will take a LOT more damage. Gran Faust suddenly makes sense, to the point of outclassing acheron in red roarmulus.
Fire and Shock deal more damage based on tier, whereby fire is based on enemy fire defense which varies based on enemy. The enemy with the least fire defense, and a hard coded defense debuff when lit, is the ice cube, which happens to be found all over ice queen. Shock and maskeraith quills would stack excellently with this, and given the extended lifespan of the ice cube would get a greater chance to do more damage. Other enemies that are effected include dust zombies and all of the swarm enemies except gremlins. Ash of Agni and voltaic tempest are the obvious choices, but celestial vortex may actually see legitimate use, as would all other fire weapons. Of note are flamberg for ultimate gloaming wildwoods and fang of vog, who can deal serious damage and serious amounts of fire. Pepperbox would be a decent option if not for the existence of blitz needle and grim repeater, which could be paired with status weapons for higher results.
Poison reverses the buffed menders' healing, as well as debuffs harder than ever before due to higher enemy stats. Red roarmulus would benefit enormously from venom veiler and obsidian crusher/edge, as it features a good deal of menders, etc. Plague needle, while stronger, still does not have a home but could see use in the future.
Freeze/sleep and stun kind of lose out, as they don't change much, but are still useful for slowing enemies or trapping trojans/deadnauts, holding enemies back, etc. though I would recommend shying away from them.
I plan to test these theories on the shadow lairs, but am interested in others experiences.
Dom, 07/21/2019 - 00:43
#2
The issue I see with plague
The issue I see with plague needle is that ultimate gloaming wild woods are poison themed, red roarmulus and ice queen don't really do it justice, and the various zombies and undead in ultimate fire storm citadel resist poison. I think it would be OK for shadow lair Vanaduke, but I don't see it gaining as much traction. That being said I haven't really tested it, and who knows what we'll see come out two years from now.
==========================
I did another shadow lair, this time utilizing statuses against ice queen.
The result was that curse wasn't nearly as strong as I first thought, but that fire and poison were about as strong as I figured they would be, dealing their full damage and allowing me to better clear the lair more reasonably. I just wish we'd brought a second venom veilor to poison lock better as well as voltaic tempest for additional damage.
Mié, 07/24/2019 - 09:05
#3
.
It would be great if devs confirmed the T4 enemies on Shadow Lairs. Putting a lot of efforts on making new strategies and investigations toward it just to see it fading way with a update would be very frustranting.
Mié, 08/07/2019 - 01:28
#4
Will you be running an RT
Will you be running an RT run? If so, I know a friend having trouble finding a party, maybe you could take him along?
I've been traveling since the update, so I've had almost no time to play, so I know very little of this. But thanks for laying out some new ideas.
Given the rest of your argument, your dismissal of Plague Needle surprises me. Is it because it either kills one target instantly (rendering the poison pointless) or spreads poison to a group but not as well as Venom Veiler, etc.?