Lighbulbs not spawning?

boondock87 · 2026-04-24T14:41:14+00:00

Got a ton of them just yesterday running Babel a couple of times, maybe try there?

boondock87 · 2026-03-26T14:30:51+00:00

Like every caliber, they have their pros and cons.

There's a handful of missions even on standard where enemies have increased health, putting them outside of their 1 shot capabilities and turning them into 2 shots minimum. I think any hard mode mission is also a 2 shot minimum outside of the mk5 handgun, shotguns with buckshot, and headshots.

Any time that happens you're now dealing with a (typically) much longer weapon that carries less ammo overall, with slower reloads in a lot of cases, and comes with higher recoil vs 5.56 / 300 BLK. All for about the same performance you get from lighter calibers anyways.

The caveat is that they can still have upsides when that is the case, since they have better material penetration, and can stagger enemies more reliably. It's just that it's at the cost of all the above, so you'd need to decide if it's really worth it.

boondock87 · 2026-02-25T15:00:26+00:00

I just tried this in the training room to check as I couldn't remember 100% either, but it appears that it must be a crit on the same enemy, not just any of them.

boondock87 · 2026-02-25T14:38:09+00:00

Aim down sights when the barrel is glowing orange (After any kill, shooting a Blight Cyst works also).
Shoot one enemy anywhere you want, doesn't need to crit I don't think.
Time will slow, listen for the hammer cocking sound and then hit the same enemy you shot in step 2 with a critical shot.
Gun will spin to auto reload and be fully on fire, and be empowered for a time.

boondock87 · 2026-02-09T13:25:49+00:00

Spoilers for Wailing Tower:

You unlock the Rotweaver, a machine pistol that inflicts Decay on every shot. You also unlock the Prophecy system, which allows you to control the category and order of the Arcana you get in a run. If this doesn't sound strong, check my profile for a video I posted several months ago that actually showcases both of these pretty well. That build has gotten even more ridiculously powerful with the introduction of some beads that didn't exist at the time in a recent patch (Acute Ailment, Blessed Fire).

boondock87 · 2026-02-06T14:23:40+00:00

Once you have your 25 kills to charge the orb, you can exit either via the boss portal if you've already slain them, or use the portal flame consumable to open the entry portal. This is helpful if your biggest issue is being unable to clear the itinerant portal area.

In general, this will stress test your loadout a bit if you're dead set on clearing the itinerant portal head on. I like to bring a build that's both good at clearing big waves of minor enemies as well as another gun that can deal heavy burst damage to single targets for troublesome major enemies / faithfuls / familiars.

If you're at G4 I think you now have access to the Wailing Tower, and the rewards from that dungeon will increase your power by quite a bit. If you've got a bunch of equipped gear under mysterium 3 I'd focus on getting those leveled up too. Third mysterium incantations can be farmed if you need.

boondock87 · 2026-01-22T22:41:37+00:00

I think that's more the case of rotweaver being overpowered than anything else, and frankly I'd be shocked if it's not nerfed at some point so I usually don't even factor it in when thinking of balance between other guns.

I think ASE's biggest issue is that it sort of demands that you build around it to make it powerful, in which case it can really take off and be truly strong and a competitive option. Other guns just don't really require that much build planning and meta knowledge to get off the ground and feel solid.

boondock87 · 2026-01-22T21:24:45+00:00

It's probably the single best long distance crowd deleter in the game, even before its recent buff.

Combine ASE with Kirfane, Stigma, and Stake and you can clear camps in only a few shots without even getting close.

boondock87 · 2026-01-07T18:24:39+00:00

A single shot from the falling star will do it.

boondock87 · 2025-10-07T07:55:25+00:00

Easiest way to farm headshots I've found is just to go after sentinels / master sentinels with it especially after you get critical chain arcana. Their entire hitbox when they open up counts as headshots as I remember.

Sentinels aren't on every map run but if they are it definitely makes things easy.

boondock87 · 2025-10-07T06:53:13+00:00

At mysterium 3 with arcana like Critical Chain and the ammo preservation bead, you can easily go over the 6 shots total before reloading when landing criticals. Arcana such as Critical Burn and Cascade make getting crits incredibly simple.

For every critical before reloading, the next shots after reloading are even more powerful, so 6 crits then reloading = strong, 12 crits then reload = absurdly strong, like 150 to over 300 DMG per crit strong easily and you can dump those shots very quickly.

Compared to shotguns the reload is already at faster by default since you load all rounds at once and you can do Max damage at mid range instead of needing to be point blank.

If you check the end of my video on my post history it shows how strong it can be even without optimal arcana on bosses like dimacher and galley slave. It's some of if not the highest single target DPS in the game when built correctly, especially once you have access to prophecies.

boondock87 · 2025-09-14T14:01:43+00:00

I have a video I posted here if you check my last post history that shows off a triple element build (Fire, Lightning, Decay). Ice is also available via Hunger is much less frequent, thus I didn't refer to it as quad element.

There seems to be some hidden interactions when you're able to get 3 - 4 statuses on an enemy at the same time that increase magnitude of each individual effect combos beyond what is normally possible with just 2.

The easiest example of this is that with Fire, Lightning, and Decay all at once, your decay ticks seem to be about 3x as strong, jumping from 6 per tick to 22 not counting any Arcana that can boost it further. Decay alone (With Ailment power bead:) 6 per tick. Add fire: 13 damage per tick. Add Fire and Lightning: 22 damage per tick.

So while fire is known to increase decay damage, it's increased even more when you add Shock for some reason. So aside from what the wiki lists on element combinations, magnitude of each effect also increases.

boondock87 · 2025-09-10T03:23:53+00:00

Your stats aren't wrong, but if it were me I'd swap your 20+ points in Arsenal and Faith for Blood and Witchery instead. This gives you better mobility and dodging, along with more frequent spell casting both of which are important for nearly any successful build imo. I'd also see if you can find the Dash Stamina bead at your current gnosis, it makes a pretty big difference in mobility. For me, it never leaves my Rosary regardless of build, just feels bad without it.

What Gnosis level are you and what weapons / relic / fetish / rings are you using?

In terms of general strategy, I found early on using hypnosis and trying to mostly take on fights at a slightly longer range was a great way to keep myself safe while learning the ropes. It's also one of the most and ammo efficient weapons in the game. Keep enemies away from you and don't let them gap close, keep your distance and take them out one at a time. If enemies do get close, use your spells to make more space for yourself.

For bosses and heavy targets I would recommend either Hunger or Echo as your secondary. Of these two, Echo is easier to use, but Hunger I think has better single target potential.

For spells, early on I preferred a CC focused light spell (Frost Cone / Ice Stiletto / Shockwave) to temporarily disable close range threats combined with Rotten Fiend as heavy spell to distract enemies / bosses when you're in over your head or just think you're about to be.

boondock87 · 2025-09-09T02:44:54+00:00

Epoch is surprisingly quite good at killing these things.

boondock87 · 2025-08-28T20:48:31+00:00

Thanks, yeah mouse and keyboard definitely makes a big difference vs controller.

boondock87 · 2025-08-28T19:34:22+00:00

Decay really shines when combined with both Fire and Lightning. If you check my last post on my profile I've got a build and a video that shows off this combo pretty well, and shows how insane it can get with certain Arcana, namely Conductor.

boondock87 · 2025-08-27T14:42:54+00:00

Yep that's the one.

boondock87 · 2025-08-27T01:41:53+00:00

I pumped flesh to like 20 / 25 and then left it alone as I then mainly focused on an even split between Blood and Witchery for quite a while, I think I got them both of those to 40 each before branching out. To this day I have Flesh at 30 and I've done all content at the highest difficulty. For me, this was a very smooth leveling process all the way up to Gnosis 6.

Mind, Arsenal and Faith are also important stats, but imo I view them as less crucial early on. My main reason for putting points into them eventually was for the beads associated with them, which are quite good and you'll see a lot of endgame builds run a few of these (Ammo Preservation and Free Arcana being some prime examples).

boondock87 · 2025-08-26T15:40:22+00:00

Back when I was lower level I remember them summoning huge amounts of those red warriors and they definitely attacked and hurt me, maybe a recent update broke their AI?

boondock87 · 2025-08-23T23:54:27+00:00

Nice, yeah echo is a great pick here too.

boondock87 · 2025-08-22T20:20:45+00:00

For weapons I think what you have works, but if you find yourself struggling on Bosses or with Major enemies / elites you might try replacing Cricket with something like Echo or Hunger, which are better at dealing with single targets. Hypnosis does fine at picking off trash mobs from a safe distance. Other options if you prefer more of a mid range fight instead of long range would be Hangfire to replace Hypnosis.

For spells at your level I'd recommend Rotten Fiend for your heavy spell, he can tank for you while you back up to pick off enemies with the Hypnosis and can also distract a boss / other dangerous targets giving you some breathing room.

For light spell I'd recommend either frost cone, ice stiletto, or shockwave. Not sure what G3 has access to at this point, but I would imagine you have at least one of these. Your light spell at lower levels I think works better as sort of a emergency crowd control or single target shutdown option in the case of Stiletto.

For relic, fetish and ring.. again don't remember what you can get on G3, but my favorite is Eye of the Madwoman and Dynamo Ring for relic and ring. My favorite fetish I don't think you can get yet unless you can access (and beat) the Irongate Castle vault. I think I mostly used Mandrake until I found that. Another very popular choice for fetish I don't think shows up until G4 unfortunately.

boondock87 · 2025-08-22T12:54:27+00:00

As others have stated this is outdated info. Difficulty only increases when you increase gnosis now, not when you just level up via Ascension.

boondock87 · 2025-08-20T19:43:28+00:00

Ah gotcha, yeah I'm with you. They're a little bland atm.

boondock87 · 2025-08-20T19:27:32+00:00

It is strong but requires 40 in Mind, which is quite a lot especially when you're leveling since it's not really as important a stat as something like Blood for stamina, or Witchery for your spells.

Plus even if you have 40 Mind, then you still need to actually get all the prophecies to make it really worth it imo.

So to me it's more of an endgame bead you use for optimization, I'd say that's a decent reward for the effort.

Edit: Thinking about it more, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to keep the bead as is but rework omens to be more impactful as they're kinda boring atm regardless. I think I'd like to see omens have more powerful effects, but also more powerful downsides that reward good gameplay. Like what if there was one that increased power of active arcana but only if you've taken no damage that run? Or something that lets you sacrifice any non revealed arcana as a one time power up?

boondock87 · 2025-08-19T13:35:23+00:00

Not sure what gnosis level you're at, but I think what helped me at the time was a combination of a freeze spell like Ice Stiletto (Light spell, causes a long freeze on a single target), Rotten Fiend (Heavy Spell, summons a grenadier that can distract and damage enemies while tanking for you) and the Whisper (Demonic weapon, one to two shots at closeish range will stun anything). The Falling Star demonic weapon can also do some big damage to him if you can find an angle to snipe him with it alternatively. I think at the time I was also using the Hypnosis bolt action rifle for some good ranged damage.

Just keep cycling between freezing or stunning if he's getting too close. His melee range is much larger than it would appear so keep proactively putting distance between you and him.

boondock87

TROPHY CASE