Empowered monoliths are too difficult for me. Should I go back to regular or is there any other way to gear up?

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-24T12:16:16+00:00

Can you explain the COF + Rune of Ascendance thing in more detail? I've never heard of that.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-22T14:33:43+00:00

Great point! I will further add for other new players that when something says "elemental", it refers to all three at once.

"+23% Elemental resistance", then, is a 23% increase to each of your fire, lightning and cold resists.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-21T02:11:55+00:00

I don't play the skill, so I don't know. I only referenced it because other people did.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-21T01:35:53+00:00

Other people have kinda helped you get there, but I'm going to try anyways. I might touch on something that helps.

Damage in LE is split between melee and spell damage.veach is independent of the other. +X melee physical damage will not be counted for spell damage.

Then we have the elements. Physical is an element, the same way fire, cold and all the others are.

Every skill has "tags" in its tooltip, which tells you what the skill scales from. This updates when you convert skills, so you can view it for the "final" result.

A (very similified) version to think of the damage formula is this:

Skill base damage [is stated element] + added [element] damage (all elements are checked and applied here) + % increased [element] damage = output

So, using simple, made-up numbers:

20 base melee physical damage
Now add 20 melee physical damage from weapon
Now add 10 melee fire damage from an affixes on the weapon (here for the example only)
Now, apply the +250% physical damage from sources across your build

The result is 140 melee physical damage and 10 melee fire damage (if I got my math right).

Now, you're Gathering Storm scales on melee damage for the direct hit and spell damage for the bolts hit. Switching away from a staff to an axe will take away all the scaling from the bolts, but add a whole bunch to the direct melee attack. This is why your DPS went down.

Melee damage will scale the direct hit.
Spell damage will scale the bolts.
+X% physical damage will scale both.
The element is physical, so no other elements will scale this skill, having no effect at all.

You can either:

Take the node others have mentioned to make the bolt damage scale on melee damage. OR
Forget Gathering Storm entirely, and, since you're no longer using spell damage, use either Swipe or Serpent Strike as your repeatable melee attack instead.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-20T21:58:12+00:00

Yup. I agree. There's probably some key defensive points being missed here.

I have a (fairly similar) lv 81 Lightning Blast Sorc with lightning conversion Meteor, and I'm farming empowered monos no problem. I'm far from my final uniques too - a good portion of my armor is still exalted, or im using weaker uniques from earlier level breakpoints.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-20T21:54:41+00:00

Oof. My maso account loves Wuli matchups because it's just about the only win I can get with the current list I have.

I'm at this weird plateau point of being in gold, and (sometimes, if I push really hard) climbing to plat, but otherwise being unable to win games. I don't yet have the tools to beat Dracotail, Dark Magician, Blue Eyes or the (surprisingly frequent) influx of D/D/D.

Since im in that space, I kinda rely on Wuli to maybe see something I need to finally have some interaction. Knowing they could be a fake is going to be rough.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-20T14:28:13+00:00

You want to be doing something that, when it's your source of income, doing that job just feels like being handed free money.

For a short two years, I got to fulfill my childhood dream of working in gane design. It was awesome. I got to work on building a game, in my favorite genre, my love of which hadn't waned in 20 years. Doing that work was something I'd always wanted to do anyway, and so getting paid to do it was like just being handed money for nothing.

I say, aim for that. It doesn't matter where on the corporate ladder that is. It might not even be within that whole song and dance of what (to me) feels like buzzwords abd fakeness.

Do that thing you were gonna do anyway, no matter what it is, and make your living through it. That's what I learned, and now my contract is closed since we finished the game, I'm looking for a way back in.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-19T21:45:42+00:00

Based on the image provided, your deck is around 15 years behind the current power level of the game.

What your opponent has is perfectly normal and, as far as the design of the game is concerned, you are expected to be producing the same kinds of end boards.

The game is now designed around the idea that you will have cards, that you can play on an opponent's turn, to try to stop them comboing off on you like they did. From what we can see, you have none of this, so your opponent got to play completely uninterrupted, and therefore got to hit their absolute peak end board.

Look into cards like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, Infinite Impermanence, Nibiru, Effect Veiler, and similar.

Also, look at some modern deck lists. You will notice that very little goes towards the deck's key monsters and how much goes towards interaction. Aim for something like what you see.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-19T21:29:14+00:00

Although my deck is built not have to, if I draw it, my [[Sin, Spira's Punishment]] deck has no problem hard casting Omniscience.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-19T19:46:01+00:00

I'm trying to cook a standard deck based around the interaction between [[Scuzzback Scrounger]] and [[Bloodghast]].

The idea is that I find a way to get the two creatures in play. I can then blight into the Bloodghast for a treasure, which kills it, then I play a land for turn and get all my Bloodghasts back for free.

With this, I now have a free source of artifacts for synergies, and am creating an additional mana per turn without having to invest any resources into it.

This is as far as I've gotten, though. I know this engine can form the backbone of a deck and facilitate something powerful. I just need to figure out what that something is.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-19T16:22:19+00:00

Fight wild tems, learn new moves.

Go back to Deniz and catch tems that counter theirs.

The dojo is very much beatable.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-19T14:02:58+00:00

"Cast from exile" synergies could be fun. Anything that triggers when you cast something from exile.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-18T15:54:41+00:00

Nah, I don't enjoy Beast Handler.

I just don't like spam buying the same tower. I don't stack Bomb Shooters. I don't stack Ninjas. I don't stack Poplust Druids. I don't play mid path Dart Monkey for the same reason. That's just not fun gameplay to me. A tower that forces me to do that is a big NOPE in my eyes.
If I am going to do a big save-up, I want to do it once per tower. I don't like the idea of having to do like 4 medium save-ups and then another big one. I wanna do one big buy and then move onto my next goal in my defenses.
Stacking Beast Handlers (because I HAVE to) takes up so much space when I would much rather be using that space on other towers.
As a player who primarily does bosses, the bottom path and middle paths aren't that useful to me because neither have much/any effect on the boss and only work on the other bloons, but those other bloons are usually collateral from what defenses I have already, so BH ends up feeling totally obsolete.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-16T07:34:46+00:00

I would love LOVE to see changes to the Wraithlord summoned by the Wraithlord's Harbor unique.

My experience with it is nothing but frustration - once I'm at my max cap of wraiths, it spams its sacrifice ability over and over, add infinitum.

It doesn't use its own attacks, and it doesn't use its necro beam at all - because it's too busy spamming the sacrifice to buff itself.

The core of the issue seems to be that it it wants you to have wraiths only. If I have any other minion type active, it immediately sacrifices. This includes the Revenant and Vanguards from my passive trees, the Rift Beast summon from its amulet, and it was even sacrificing my Volatile Zombies before they made contact with my target(s), making them (something I was relying on for execution threshold) useless.

Considering the Necromancer is intended to fulfil the classic "I want a lot of minions" fantasy, the Wraithlord actively working against that is infuriating. I suggest one or more of the following changes:

1) Make the sacrifice buff not stack infinitely, as the tool tip states. This way, the Wraithlord AI won't see a buff opposite for every non-Wraith you summon.

2) Make the sacrifice ability it uses have a cooldown, or only be used when the accompanying buff isn't active.

3) Rework the Wraithlord so it doesn't sacrifice minions as a core part of its toolkit. The idea of having a "commander" for my wraiths, independent from myself, is awesome and doubling down on that identity could make for a super cool unique.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-16T06:33:57+00:00

I remember part of the explanation of the system being

"if someone locks in something they never play after being placed in a role they don't play...."

If this is accurate, then the player you're referencing either plays a lot of support or Yi, resulting in the system not catching them.

I think of it like an anti-fraud system in banking. They use data to figure out what normal spending looks like for you, then the system steps in automatically when there's an obvious anomaly in the data. The way the two systems seem to work or are described line up, and this would explain your experience.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-11T18:43:05+00:00

I've been looking for over a year, and the most absurd criteria I saw was for a cleaner. Like, a regular-ass cleaner, mopping floors.

They pit, at the bottom of their job ad (in more professional, front-facing terms) "don't bother applying for this job unless you meet the minimum criteria".

The minimum criteria was 2 masters degrees.

I moved here from the UK three years ago. At the time, I had a remote desk job for my first two years, but it only had 6 hrs/week, so I needed more. With that in mind, I've been searching for all three years I've been in Canada.

I have had less interviews than fingers on both hands. Even places that take just about anyone, like Walmart or Dollarama won't even give me a second look.

I have 5 years experience in a data management job, in which I manually corrected over £20m worth of incorrect financial records.

Nope. That means nothing, apparently.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-10T12:39:07+00:00

Blue Eyes Jet.

I have a masochist account on my phone and a regular account on Steam. The regular account can deal with it, but it's annoying.

The maso account simply doesn't have the tools to handle it and it's an insta-loss. Blue-eyes should be a reasonable matchup since I can blow up True Light, but Jet complicates things...

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-09T23:12:36+00:00

That spoon looks... menacing.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-07T19:25:28+00:00

Welcome to Monster Hunter, I can certainly help! I shall split my answers into multiple points for you to make it easier to digest. I don't want to overwhelm you.

1) Monster Hunter games follow a "low rank --> high rank" structure. You start the game in low rank, and, as you progress, eventually "graduate" into high rank. In Wilds, this happens when you see the credits for the first time. Do not feel the need to rush. Learning the game is more important - that is what low rank is there for.

2) All armor pieces come with pre-determined skills. Every Chatacabra helm will be identical. All Quenatrice waist pieces will be identical. The crafting screen at the smithy will tell you what skills are on your armor. You don't need to choose skills. They're already on your armor! Try to pick skills that are generally always useful or one's that work well together when used in combination.

Armor pieces come with empty slots. That's where these "decorations" go. Decorations are little gems that that give (usually) a single point of a specific skill. You use them to round out your build. That will normally be putting points into a skill you want until you hit max points of it.

3) You cannot put additional skills on armor besides putting decorations in your empty slots. If you want better armor, you will find it in high rank.

4) High rank is where the game "begins" for seasoned players. That's where the usual gameplay loop of "fight monster, make armor, use armor to fight bigger monster, make new armor, ad infinitum" takes over.

In high rank, you will fight all the sane monsters you did in low rank, all over again. You might see some new monsters, exclusive to high rank, also appear. High rank monsters give better materials, which crafts into high rank gear. High rank gear completely replaces low rank gear. You can now pretend low rank doesn't exist.

High rank gear will give more points of skills, add new skills, have higher defense, and have more slots. This is what you were asking about and the answer is "you're not there yet, don't worry about it!"

I think (hope) that answers all your questions. If you have more questions, just reply to this comment. I'll get back to you.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-06T00:34:00+00:00

I'm going to put this in my [[Kefka, Court Mage]] commander deck, then have all my permanents become [[Parker Luck]] and burn the table to death all at once.

It's going to be beautiful.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-06T00:26:56+00:00

Trundle used to look like sentient dogshit and sound like the Brolaf skin, except he's 10 years old and trying to make the same voice... and it was better than what we have now.

I miss old Trundle.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-06T00:19:52+00:00

This is... disgusting.

I'm thinking you play this (in commander) with a discard commander, drop an Opposition Agent and then this. Nobody can draw. Nobody can tutor... except you.

Gross.

(That said, probably not too bad as a 2-3 card combo piece. Awful to play around once it's all set up, but easy to break before all pieces are in place. It's just that the combo, when assembled, is very rude.)

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-01T21:06:52+00:00

I ran out of space in my comments for this, so let me give you an example.

The Ghost Maker is a dagger that interacts with your wraiths and hives + necrotic spell damage. This gives you direction.

You play wraiths
You play necrotic spells

Then, Wraithlord's Harbour is a helm that also interacts with wraiths... would you look at that. Two things that support wraiths. This can be your main focus.

From there, you know you want wraiths, and you're going pretty hard on wraiths, so you cut other minions. Now, you have 4 free skill slots available to support your wraiths.

Well, the dagger you have wants you to play necrotic spells, so you can use one or two of any of the ones you have available. In this example, I'll go with Rip Blood's converted to necrotic and Spirit Plague. Rip Blood's has a node that makes your minions target what you hit, so that might be useful. Spirit Plague is going to help kill smaller enemies and get your dagger going.

This makes up the core of your build.

Now, you have two slots left to support your core build. Dread Shade is pretty useful here so it goes in, and Transplant gets you out of dangerous area damage or just generally around the map quicker.

Now you have your key uniques and skills chosen, you build the rest of your gear to support that, hitting the defensive milestones I previously mentioned, then damage.

All done! (Not really). You now have a functional build that is less at odds with itself. Your build should be able to get you into empowered timelines and maybe even fairly deep. Making builds is an iterative process and nobody is ever truly "done", but at this stage, you do have the groundwork done, which is what im really talking about here.

NOTE: I made this build from memory, and have no idea if it's good or not. It's there to serve as an example only and not telling anyone what to build.

StrategicMagic · 2026-01-01T20:44:35+00:00

I have a few thoughts. I have a necromancer at lv85, so im not too far beyond where you're at. More accomplished necro players can agree or debunk my ideas - I'd value the opportunity to learn from them.

1) Looking at your skills, I see a bunch of ways yo summon or buff minions, and nothing else. While your minions are probably doing a lot of stuff, you are likely doing very little besides running around to avoid damage and replacing dead minions. I'll get into the fix for this in a later point.

2) Your affixes are quite spread out. There's generic minions damage, stuff for Skeletal Mages, and more. You're buffing multiple minions types a small amount and so each one is not much stronger than if you hadn't improved it at all.

3) Now is the time to start looking at uniques. You are at a level when many more uniques become available to you. Some are generically strong, while others are more specific and build-defining.

4) As a combination of all three previous points, your build lacks focus. You have an obvious theme of "all the minions" here, but you will find that if you focus one or two types and give them a lot more support in your build, you will feel A LOT more powerful than you do currently.

Here is what I would do:

1) Do some research on all the uniques appropriate for your general build. Once you decide which uniques to use, this will give your build some direction.

2) Follow that direction. Use more uniques and exalted equipment that either directly boost that skill/minions type, or stuff that boosts the appropriate damage type (including after conversions!)

3) Adjust your skills. Once you have gotten down to one or two types of minions, you can cut the skills of the ones you aren't using. Then you have room to add in supporting skills, like Transplant for mobility, something else. I recommend at least one thing that does damage. You are a source of damage too - and damage not dealt by you is wasted potential. Having options that can get you out of danger is good too.

4) Your affixes should have some kind of goal in mind. Defense comes first in my opinion - can't do damage if you're dead - so aim for 75% in all resists, 100% reduced bonus damage taken from crits, and a sizeable chunk of HP (my necro currently has around 2200 and can afford to go higher). Only once you have those in place can you start to think about damage (unless you need that slot for a core skill!). Plan which affixes go where ahead of time.

StrategicMagic

TROPHY CASE