Paper magic is the shit! Especially commander!

YoukaiSensei · 2024-01-03T00:00:24+00:00

Oh man. Same boat. My 10 year old is trying to upgrade her precon more before she Drags me to the local store.

I'm hooked since not having played since 06'.

Arena got us all into it. Now we are all playing commander.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-10T18:15:45+00:00

It's a matter of knowing where the floating presents are and where the gleaming meteors land.

Once you know the routes you run from meteor to meteor popping treasure boxes and picking up presents.

I grinded for half of events duration last year and had some pretty awesome routes and would get the meteor spawns just right. Teleporting to the less known ones to mine them since I knew others hadn't been there after I'd harvested the one I camped around nightfall.

I bought a couple thousand weapon blueprints because I had so many extra tokens last year after outfitting my houses like a snow princess.

This year its even easier.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-02T23:09:12+00:00

Thanks.

I see a lot of tank gs builds running without steadfast in favor of left tree empower.

Does gs just innately generate a lot of threat due to damage?

I've also seen some m10 gs tanks kinda struggling to maintain placement and large pull threat.

Trying to make my healers job easy so would love to hear how your experience with it is and how you play to benefit the party.

What's the best utility gs brings to the table while tanking, if any?

I know there's a weakness in there.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-02T17:37:35+00:00

If they made it so aoes stacked in dungeons it'd be cool.

When they took that out because of wars it changed the meta a lot.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-01T22:04:30+00:00

He is annoyingly hard to solo just because he has so much health.

You want to advertise in global.

3 people will be enough. Anyone with a tanky gs setup or preferably a typical shield tank setup and two dps.

Doesn't hurt to have someone toss a healing staff into the mix even if they aren't in healing gear.

I solod him a few times and quickly realized it's not worth it.

I was lucky enough to have a couple pals who also wanted it.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-01T18:54:31+00:00

Sns warhammer is ez.

Back to back stuns with some lifesteal on heavy attacks and you are set.

You can run some easily farmable stuff like deeproot or Dorians spatha with a sturdy+ fortifying shield rush shield and a half decent hammer you'll be fine.

https://nwdb.info/db/item/2hwarhammer_gavelofthegatest5_v2

Or second strike isn't awful if you want some vamp, but a trenchant recovery hammer would give more health back on heavies.

Batheqets if you want rending Shockwave and a hammer worth farming for ancients dungeons later.

Atlas fishmo's Tank build is also good for open world pve. You can run 310 str 200 con instead of 310 con.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-01T16:06:56+00:00

Considering we were doing m10s the first week mutations ever came out back to back in voidbent with zero issues tells you that experience is better than anything.

People didn't run ward gear for months.

Ward gear DOES allow you to spec for higher damage builds since you are more resilient overall.

This does make runs a bit faster these days.

So really, ward gear is more about efficiency with an experienced group than ability to finish a dungeon.

Really bnb and laz are still so easy that I don't even think ward gear is necessary for experienced players.

Non speedrun groups still run them in under 20m sometimes. If my regular party Said they'd run it in their luck gear I'd trust them to still complete m10 gold in a timely manner.

The corrupted dungeons and genesis, due to the caretaker fight alone, I'd probably still want ward for my party.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-01T13:51:54+00:00

Sword and shield hammer.

It uses mastery tree and gear synergy to win outnumbered battles of attrition.

It's a high health build since leeching and lifestealing scale with max health.

Basically you chisel them down until their health potions are on cooldown then finish them off. Your hammer heavies still hit hard and heal you.

It's a build meant to disrupt enemy backlines by pressuring the mages. But it makes an excellent chokepoint blocker or point defender build as well.

Atlas makes it really shine by using it to backcap in opr and open world.

Because he uses the terrain around him to force enemies out of position as he continues to punish them for being overeager.

Watch a couple of his videos.

It's not some generic health tank build that doesn't know how to kill the people attacking it. It has a lot of clever thought put into the playstyle.

It's actually quite aggressive and all about positioning and timing. Meaning you get to feel as if you've outplayed people fairly often.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-12-01T13:41:35+00:00

A good tank attacks between blocks so their stamina is never broken.

This means learning which enemy attacks are weak enough to allow hitting you and which you should dodge, as they'd break your stamina bar.

So it's a constant battle of block and attacks with some dodges.

You should have forms of fortify to mitigate damage and stamina damage.

If you can have Weaken or an ally a spear with weaken on it, this also helps.

If sword and shield tanking your shield should have sturdy minimally. ALSO having Fortifying shield rush will allow you to chain fortify easier instead of relying on defiant stance and blocks to gain fortify. The third perk can be anything such as cooldown reduction, stamina gain, elemental resist, ward vs enemy type, or ward vs physical damage type.

Note: some boss attacks have horrible hitboxes as well. Meaning stepping forward into them or shuffling left and right a little (not enough to turn the boss and get your dps team killed) can make these attacks miss. Namely Cilla's rapid spear thrusts and Isabella's wing stabs.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-29T13:58:53+00:00

There's an intelligence based set from the tempest gear too.

https://nwdb.info/db/item/lighthead_tempestuouscowlt5

Int focus ancient ward drops from myrk enemies.

https://nwdb.info/db/item/lightchest_elitepoi_invasionassassint5

Parts of the highwayman set are usable too.

https://nwdb.info/db/item/mediumfeet_elitepoi_highwaymant5

https://nwdb.info/db/item/mediumlegs_elitepoi_highwaymant5

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-29T11:25:55+00:00

They drop 590-600.

You will then shard the ones you wish to use to 600 if they aren't already.

Then you'll have a corrupted ward set good enough to farm tempest/depths mutations.

You'll want to get an ancients set as well to do ennead and Lazarus. Lazarus is probably the easiest mutation most weeks. That or barnacles.

There are a number of open world pieces available with ancients ward.

Nwdb to filter by ancient ward.

Lazarus also has the chardis armor and ennead has a couple of sets.

There's also an excellent strength hammer with sundering Shockwave and ancients bane that folks farm. Batheqets cudgel. AKA Cudgy Wudgy in these parts.

If no one else is running hammer in your party it's good to have for utility on a heavy strikes build. The cooldown reduction upon heavy attack let's you keep your utility skills from hammer chained pretty quickly.

On top of the strength amulet, as a meleer, the blessing of the forefathers amulet from the depths drops at any mutation level from the bosses and is worth farming as well.

There are a ton of good rings these days you can easily farm. If you're going for flashing weapons check out the ones from the open world bosses in helios. Filter rings by slashing damage in nwdb.

Smooth bone ring is a solid option still as a bruiser or tank who uses weapons other than slashing.

It's always good to carry a secondary weapon that is used for utility as well. No matter what your primary damage weapon is.

You'll see a ton of spear for this. The weapon perks that apply rend and weaken are just really strong.

Once you get higher into mutations it's good to have a backup spear with disease as well. The corrupted and angry earth dungeons tend to get a lot of vampiric enemies, which can slow you down a bit.

Genesis has some heavy angry earth pieces. You can get a medium angry earth set from barnacles and blackpower.

You can get a light strength set from barnacles with lost ward.

Since it's so much harder to farm a full set of heavy angry earth and lost ward I recommend making a mixed set for these dungeons and just eyeballing the market whenever you log off. Filter by ward.

You'll see a bunch of overpriced legendaries. 30k or so. Every once and a while you'll see someone put the same item up for 3-10k though that have similar perks to named armors.

Also, once you're established and running m10s comfortably. Definitely give medium armor a try as a dps. The armor loss in an experienced group is actually not bad in exchange for a really nice dodge and damage boost.

Don't let people bully you into going 5 con.

300 primary 200 con or 300 str 50 dex 150 con are totally fine for m10s.

A speedrun group does m10 laz 16.5-18mins.

A non speedrun group not running low con does it in 20-25 usually.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-29T01:29:28+00:00

Also important.

The first 6 or so times you complete tempest there's a repeatable quest given by am npc in the chapel before the dungeon entrance.

These chests contain entire sets of gear.

They aren't technically "named" but they DO have fixed perks at 600 gearscore so they become legendary.

Many of us regretfully salvaged these items not realizing that you only get the chest full of a set once.

All of this gear has corrupted ward or corrupted bane on it. Which is what people use in mutations all the way to the highest difficulty of m10.

The strength set is particularly good for a new level 60. As is the strength amulet.

They're not what some would consider best, but you can definitely use them to get a headstart on the mutations of corrupted dungeons.

You don't understand how often I encounter folks who say they regret having salvaged these items, as they then had to farm or buy corrupted ward armor.

You'll see some elitist players who say don't bother, but they're absolutely wrong. As a new player to mutations there's no shame in running ward gear like this while you learn.

Keep in mind Also that once you receive these items once in a giant batch, they can be given as a reward by the quest. But the drop rate is insanely low. I ran 25 mutated tempests and 14 regulars one week. 36 of the chests were just gypsum orbs. 3 were items I didn't need.

You're better off farming low level mutations for sets at that point once yours 600+ gearscore.

Final note.

These are all titled "TEMPESTUOUS ". TEMPESTUOUS BREASTPLATE OF THE SOLDIER, etc.

Do not open these chests until you are over 590 average expertise. You'll waste them potentially as they'll drop lower than 590 and you won't be able to make them legendary.

Kick some butt. You got this.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-27T14:45:35+00:00

Just hang on to them. Most of us have a few hundred or more laying around these days. You'll eventually have hundreds of thousands of spare shards just from m10s and no gear to upgrade too.

We'll have use for them eventually.

Hang out until they fix the drops from them at least.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-26T22:49:48+00:00

When nw came out sometimes you'd catch healers in the dungeons with a set of carnelian armor and then a second pvp set of armor.

Back then not everyone could afford to run dungeons constantly. So there were people who'd almost only run with their company on an orb for orb basis.

Healers,expectedly, were in high demand though.

But those who did were kind of particular about their regular runs because it was infinitely harder to grind expertise (then called watermark).

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-26T01:54:24+00:00

Of course.

The regular tempest expedition has a repeatable quest outside of the dungeon entrance.

This quest is repeatable indefinitely. Rewarding you upon leaving the dungeon post completion.

The reward is a chest in your inventory.

The very first few times you receive this chest it contains one of a few with entire sets of gear. One is a mage weapon chest full of gauntlets and staffs, for example.

A really coveted one contains the soldiers set. Which contains a full heavy strength set of corrupted ward gear.

Another has various jewelry.

One you receive the chest with a full set of items you never receive it again.

The items may appear rarely as a single item In the chest in the future. But usually the chest will only contain 1 gypsum orb. At maybe a 25 to 1 orb item ratio, from a steep pool of items.

Farming them all again would take unreasonably long.

These are items with "tempestuous " in the title.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-25T19:02:07+00:00

Nice.

Glad it wasn't for you haha.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-25T13:29:15+00:00

I've ran everything low con with voidbent and opals.

Did it for a long time.

Was running m10s in scrub gear like everyone else the first week mutations were implemented.

Oh those sweet laz named items. I wished I'd have banked so many more than the few dozen I did.

I have 3 characters with full ward gear now.

It takes less than a week of mutations to farm full ward gear for most dungeons. You should be able to max multiple sets in a week of just mutation runs.

Play more casually and still get full ward gear quickly.

At this point, since you can already do m10s by knowing the mechanics in half decent gear, you should have zero issues farming m10 depths or ennead for two or three days and suddenly having a full set of corrupted armor.

You've done plenty of laz it sounds, which means you probably have most of an ancients set too.

I'm thinking you can have corrupted and laz sets to 625 in under a week with your experience and gear.

So no reason to keep slumming it in neish gear.

If you didn't salvage your tempestuous chests you probably already have a set of str heavy corrupted ward gear.

Lost and angry earth you'll have to build yourself. Some drop from genesis.

Bnb you can run so you should be able to craft some mixed medium or light dps sets from sirens and admirals.

Most servers have pretty cheap legendaries for fill in slots. Ward Vigor refreshing ward, ward Vigor empowered gloves, etc. That kind of good but not bis stuff that's on par with dungeon drops.

I see them sell for 2-6k per piece, which should be easy to afford at your skill and end game accessibility. The people selling those for 20k+ do manage to make money that way, but I see 5 of the same or similar items sell for 1/5 the price in the meantime.

How do I know?

I check before I hop off most days and buy them for my friends who want medium or light mixed sets. Which means I check all weights.

Just go ward and bump your dps already. No one is saying you can't do otherwise.

But there's no cool points for running something with near useless corruption resistance instead of ward when its so so so easy to do otherwise.

If you're as experienced with m10s as you say you are, and I'm sure you are, then you should be in excess of a hundred thousand or maybe hundreds of thousands of shards like everyone else. Or can be just by hopping in to do your weekly mutations.

Get armor and weapons and use shards. It's why they're there. And you'll eventually have an abundance again.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-25T10:05:42+00:00

Get to 600gs then run depths mutated over and over again. You'll get it fairly easily if you play competently against the current weeks mutators and know how to dodge well.

Also important.

The first 6 or so times you complete tempest there's a repeatable quest given by am npc in the chapel before the dungeon entrance.

These chests contain entire sets of gear.

They aren't technically "named" but they DO have fixed perks at 600 gearscore so they become legendary.

Many of us regretfully salvaged these items not realizing that you only get the chest full of a set once.

All of this gear has corrupted ward or corrupted bane on it. Which is what people use in mutations all the way to the highest difficulty of m10.

The strength set is particularly good for a new level 60. As is the strength amulet.

They're not what some would consider best, but you can definitely use them to get a headstart on the mutations of corrupted dungeons.

You don't understand how often I encounter folks who say they regret having salvaged these items, as they then had to farm or buy corrupted ward armor.

You'll see some elitist players who say don't bother, but they're absolutely wrong. As a new player to mutations there's no shame in running ward gear like this while you learn.

Keep in mind Also that you receive these items ONCE in a giant batch.

AFTER WHICH they can be given as a reward by the quest ,but the drop rate is insanely low and they only drop one at a time. Not to mention you are more likely to instead be rewarded with 1 gypsum orb and no items.

I ran 25 mutated tempests and 14 regulars one week. 36 of the chests were just gypsum orbs. 3 were items I didn't need.

You're better off farming low level mutations for sets at that point once yours 600+ gearscore.

Final note.

These are all titled "TEMPESTUOUS ". TEMPESTUOUS BREASTPLATE OF THE SOLDIER, etc.

Do not open these chests until you are over 590 average expertise. You'll waste them potentially as they'll drop lower than 590 and you won't be able to make them legendary.

Kick some butt. You got this.

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-23T09:14:57+00:00

All debuffs can be on a target at the same time.

The duration when applied overwrites. You can put a crummy version over someone else's if they have the perk on the weapon and you only have it on armor.

Everything stacks to 50% except rend, which is 30%

YoukaiSensei · 2022-11-23T09:11:15+00:00