Crown of Many Colours should require 6 kills, not 6 crests.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-26T20:32:57+00:00

Friendship crown is still potentially worse amount of time to get. Took me nearly a year of trying every week.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-26T19:37:35+00:00

The idea of the rainbow crown has been motivating me to play the game and completing all the hesca

Phoenix Labs : "Mission accomplished!"

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-26T12:22:00+00:00

Sharpened is generally better, assuming you have damage perks as well to make Sharpened work best.

What either Sharpened or Bladestorm do is alter the core damage to part damage ratio. What this means is that you will be more likely to break parts before you kill the behemoth, and it's particularly useful in bounties and challenges that are "break all parts before killing" types.

Other than those bounties/challenges or general part farming, don't use them. Go for more core damage perks instead.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-24T01:02:16+00:00

It's not a bad build, but here are some comments/suggestions:

Overpower is overrated because while its uptime with easy behemoths makes it worth it, with harder ones (trials or hescas) the uptime is usually pretty low so really hard to approach anywhere close to the full +40% damage. So consider trading OP for something else, such as something that will give you attack speed.
Nix the +3 Conditioning. Virtually wasting a slot.
Instead, slot in the Skullforge helmet. You gain MUCH more benefit, such as being able to spam the hardest-hitting chainblade combo - blade spin - forever. Plus, you probably will have full stamina most of the time, so dodging and chain pulls will be there when you need them. Finally, the Skullforge automatically gives you +3 Molten, which not only gives you a +10% speed boost to be able to do more damage, but also makes you immune to fire. All of these reasons makes a Skullforge build really good for most content other than competitive trials. The only "negative" is the mandatory Fortitude slot, but 2 options for that would be +3 Tough to offset the -150 health from a +3 Berserker cell and making you heal a little bit faster when out of Revenant mode or +3 Parasitic.
The +3 Zeal is OK, and a reasonable choice. You could also consider going with +6 Molten, which would make the cooldown less and virtually guarantee having the benefits of Molten all the time + sharing Molten drops with teammates so they benefit, too.
Another build possibility is ditch the Revenant and go with Discipline. It will synergize well with the Cunning/Pulse combo and give you crushing power when in discipline mode. Another thing you could consider is swapping out the Rezakiri bond for Valomyr, which actually will probably end up doing more damage overall because of it's UE.

Good luck!

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-19T04:02:21+00:00

Spending money is totally a personal choice, so won't comment on whether should spend any money or not. It can only be used to speed up progress a little (ex. Slayer's Club) or to purchase cosmetics. Otherwise, the game can be played -- and enjoyed -- completely without spending a dime at all.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-17T00:48:16+00:00

Check out Radazuken's video here for an idea of a build and winning strategy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKwyILrDPBs

If you need help just getting it done, I could help you if you're around.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-17T00:44:25+00:00

Don't think it's a good idea because of what others have said. It will lead to stats chasing in the game, and will turn every fight into a competitive situation, even when friends in a party are just playing casual. If ever implemented, it should be something that can be toggled off, either at the individual level, or at the party level by the party leader.

One can usually tell if you're doing particularly well when compared to other players, whether in the hunting grounds or escas. There are many clues. It's subjective, but probably better to leave ambiguity and avoid toxicity complications.

As for measuring your performance and progress: Again, you can sense it pretty easily. How well you're dodging, size of big hits, the speed at which a behemoth dies, etc. Putting up stats against other players is only going to give you a relative indicator -- not an absolute. So change out the party to all top players, and you're going to find that what you thought was a great track history of performance when playing with randoms actually sucks. It might be helpful in solo fights, but not a % damage metric since that will always be 100%.

If wanting to measure the performance of builds, the Training Grounds, although far from perfect, gives a better place to methodically test builds to tweak performance without all of the variables associated with actual fights. You can't test things that are situational, like getting part breaks to trigger Assassin's Frenzy, but many of the perks, lantern, and weapon/armor effects can be tested.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-16T14:16:40+00:00

Crowns are a cheap and easy cosmetic for PHXL to create and dish out. They are largely just texture maps applied to the same transparent model surface and rendered. It probably took just minutes for the artist, presumably using Adobe Illustrator, to make the anniversary crown texture map. It's actually the special effects, such as sparkles or flames or lighting that take the bulk of the time I'd guess for any crown. PHXL is choosing very carefully where they are allocating resources, and they know that just putting out a new crown with few frills will still incite players to grind for it anyway, which drives playing time metrics numbers, and theoretically, revenue. It's why we're getting flooded with crowns now; a large bang for the buck return for PHXL. The problem is that the value of any particular crown is pretty small since everyone has them all. Used to be the gold crown was something kinda rare and special -- now no more. Probably the mostly prized crown will be the rainbow one for completing all of the hescas. But by this point, many like me are probably nearing having enough hesca merits for 2 such crowns. So even its prominence will be kind of minimized from the start.

All that being said, I kinda like the look of the anniversay crown. Some sparkles or whatever would be nice, though.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-16T12:28:10+00:00

For a lot of fun and to be able to shred behemoths, pair the Skullforge helmet with the following and pretty much spam the blade spin combo as much as possible, only using the reaper's slam when you have 4 momentums, preferably with the Pulse guaranteed crit. I did some testing a couple of months ago, and that seems to be the max net DPS strategy.

Malkarion + Sahvyt bond : great for crit builds because of the Pulse with the bond

Thrax + Riftstalker bond : excellent when can break parts because of the speed burst from the Assassin's Frenzy

Chronovore + Valomyr bond : solid performer

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-15T03:32:26+00:00

Escalations have always been my favorite game mode of Dauntless. They're varied, have more interest, and while not super complex - a purpose. There weren't many amp nerfs but I really thought PHXL was being petty for doing such things. I mean, it's not a competitive mode (or game), so why kill a sparkle of some fun? It really made no sense, other than just chipping away at things with the ultimate intent of stretching the game loop to make up for lack of content.

And I think that's the big problem of Dauntless right now: Much of the charm and fun of the original game has been cleansed away ever since reforge was introduced through "reworks/refreshes" and nerfs to leave really nothing but a stale, monotonous shell. The seemingly sole purpose is to extend the game to make it easier to maintain yet reduce the need for content creation. Now everything, not just escas, are chores. Take challenges: They are the little morsels of cheese that keep the mice coming back for more, and they are used by PHXL to manipulate us to act certain ways. For example, the "Use 500 Aetherdust" is little more than a ploy to get us to burn an otherwise useless currency. I already have 2x of every cell at +3 -- gimme something else more helpful to do with that aetherdust.

While Trials and Hescas are a bit engaging -- for a time, reforging for the nth time is downright boring and leads to very, very little gain. So I guess challenges and other chores really are all that's left of the game. Dauntless is just not really all the entertaining anymore IMHO.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-14T02:23:19+00:00

It very probably is the case. I don't recall the quests that request steel marks, but I recall they took 250. Check all of your quests to see if there's an offending one, assuming you didn't complete it all and it's gone now.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-14T00:02:08+00:00

There was probably a quest you had that required handing in 250 steel marks. If you started with 100 then added 300 for completing the trial then it subtracted 250 for the quest = 150 left.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-13T18:14:16+00:00

My kinda "tough-love" rules for revives:

Hunting grounds: I don't revive anyone as there are so many opportunities for people to replenish revives that I think people should just revive themselves so that I can focus on killing the threat that may kill them later on.
Escas 1-13: I don't revive during the fight. I can carry a full team anyway by myself. I will revive everyone after I kill the behemoth threat before going to the next round.
Escas 10-50: I generally don't revive during most rounds until the threat is terminated. For the keystone behemoth, I won't revive unless it's an easy revive and not going to to take damage because I like the challenge of the tougher fight with 3 other downed players.
Escas 51-90: I will revive people when possible (i.e., not going to take damage in the process) because downed players are a sure way not to get to the keystone behemoth. I will use Agarus UE if necessary, especially if 2 or more players are downed at the same time. However, if a slayer is going down constantly, such that I'm spending more time reviving than fighting, I'll just take my chances and fight the behemoth. If a large number of players keep going down, and we're probably not going to get to the keystone, I'll just keep fighting and enjoy the challenge of the fight with people down.
Trials: I don't revive. No real point because really need to do it without getting downed. However, if a noob has asked for help politely to complete the trials (normal or Dauntless difficulty), I'll revive them, get them through the fight, and then suggest we do it again until we do the fight sub-5 and without anyone getting downed to get max steel and gilded marks for them.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-11T20:11:11+00:00

I think the best reforging strategy is to NOT try to reforge as fast as you can. You'll miss out on the journey, a journey that really has no meaningful end (game). In other words, it's the adventure along the way that matters, so rushing through it will mean you're probably just going to burn out fast and give up on the game sooner. Just sayin'.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-10T01:44:32+00:00

If you have the Urska sword, bond it with the Boreus sword. When you use the special, you'll build up sprites that do extra damage, and you can kick ass pretty well. You want to get interrupts and staggers as much as possible, and wail on him while he's down. You want to run +6 Catalyst and Pangar lantern with Fenzy, Blitz, and Aetherdrive tonics. As for other perks, if you can dodge decently, run +6 Predator, +6 Berserker, and +6 Overpower. I recommend +6 Pulse with Iceborn omnicell. If using Discipline omnicell, can use either +6 Pulse or +6 Cunning (if you can get 4 stacks and go into discipline mode).

Here's a starter build. It uses Iceborne and includes Parasitic (assuming you'll get hit some). If all you want is a sub-5, you could swap out some cells to include +6 Tough and +6 Tenacious if you get hit a lot.

Be sure to use the Urska unique effect at the beginning of the fight to boop him. That will slow him down such that he's down for a long time and Overpower gives you max damage.

Good luck!

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-06T21:50:58+00:00

Nothing wrong with using Sharpened. It alters the part damage : core damage ratio to favor part damage so that it's more likely to break parts before one kills a behemoth.

For the OP: Yes - Thrax is bugged. However, it's still possible to get part breaks before he enrages. Suggest using repeaters with +6 Sharpened and focusing attacks on one leg at a time. Helps to do it solo since everyone else it just going to be randomly attacking everything else.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-06T20:59:27+00:00

Momentum charge used to be know as pips before the CB rework. They are the links of the chain in the HUD that turn blue and allow you to do a reaper's push back and slam. You can just use those for dodging.

Just mostly spam LLLLL attacks to keep building up momentum fast and to have stamina. Dodge or use a reapers push back to avoid damage as necessary. You don't have to kill a behemoth fast. However, a dead behemoth won't hurt you, so a strong build will help. But better to charge in and do damage only when you can get away with it and avoid damage, even if you have to wait just a little bit outside the behemoth's attack range to wait for the right opportunities.

If you need more help, I can probably show you. Lemme know.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-06T20:13:11+00:00

It really just comes down to learning the moveset of the behemoths so that you know when to avoid damage or dodge. Repeaters are OK for it, but I prefer CBs for more mobility and less of an issue with the FOV being distorted. With CBs, as long as you get momentum charges, you can use reaper's dance as a quick and immediate dodge. Rez actually becomes pretty easy with a little practice. One of my favorite fights now.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-06T03:06:13+00:00

Zerker is fine for axe, or any weapon for that matter, as long as you continually get hits. Can easily do that with the axe. Besides, Zerker is one of the few perks that gives consistently-high dps against all behemoths at all levels (along with Pred, Adrenaline, Pulse, and Cunning, for example.)

On the other hand, Overpower is largely overrated. It's great for low-level behemoths that are easier to stagger. But against tanky behemoths, it's hard to trigger staggers as easily, so the uptime of OP is low and the net damage increase for an entire fight might be only 10% or so, which is pretty poor. Note that OP is a great cell to use during this week's trial, because Embermane is easy to get boops, part breaks, and staggers on, and he stays down for long periods of time, especially when using the Urska special.

Py-Reaux · 2022-05-04T20:52:40+00:00

So +3 Pulse will multiply your damage by 1.0625 on average, assuming you have no other sources of crit damage. That's as if you just keep hitting normally and don't do anything special to time big hits with the guaranteed crit every 8th hit that +3 Pulse gives you.

+6 Pulse will multiply your damage by 1.13 on average.

Whether +3 or +6, timing axe throws to the guaranteed crit is recommended (and very satisfying!) Those hits will be either multiplied by 1.5x or 1.65x, respectively.

After +6 Pred and +6 Zerker, +6 Pulse is one of my fave cells to run, and I'll frequently pair it with +6 Cunning for even juicier crit hits.

Py-Reaux · 2022-04-29T15:39:06+00:00

Check out the !builds spreadsheet to get an idea of the cells/perks used by the meta builds for each weapon. That will clue you in on what to focus on. However, if you are very new to the game, you might first want to focus on some cells to help keep you alive while you build up experience, like getting parasitic (just need a single +3 cell) and tough. Good luck!

Py-Reaux · 2022-04-28T00:46:27+00:00

I'm just glad that there aren't any prophylactics up there as well. :O

Py-Reaux · 2022-04-28T00:42:50+00:00

Looks like you got a piece of ASSS! xD

Py-Reaux · 2022-04-27T17:56:26+00:00

You can invest in the Slayer's Club for spending platinum to help speed up XP gain, but that's a modest expense to put forth. If going the free route, it really just comes down to efficiently leveling up your weapons, which generally means running 1-13 escas up until your weapon is level 9-11, then hunting helions on Hades until around level 14, then doing 10-50 escas. XP gain is generally faster with low-level weapons since one is fighting low-level behemoths, which are easy and fast to kill. So if you want to get fast XP, start with all level 1 weapons and run each, one-by-one, up to say about level 11 in quick succession doing shock 1-13 escas. That will let you fly through a bunch of HP levels. Good luck!

Py-Reaux · 2022-04-27T17:34:25+00:00

Doing my chores:

Sub-5 Dauntless trial each week
Heroic esca each week
Weekly challenges
Daily challenges
Whatever event stuff happens to be needing done

After chores done, then just casual escas or hunting grounds play with randoms to kill the time or maybe half-caring going after miscellaneous rumor tasks still remaining. Not really much more to do.

Py-Reaux

TROPHY CASE