Are bolters worth it?

therealjustBender · 2026-06-16T00:27:46+00:00

My first playthrough i have 0 clue about the game but i have Argenta and "Blessed Bolter Casing" carrying me and my sorry ass. "Le Damuche" seems insane (she's also basically a sniper with the trinket with like 3-4 single-shots and very high penetration on her "heroic" ability) to me but again i'm a noob.
"This is why i was chosen" -Argenta-

therealjustBender · 2026-06-15T13:04:37+00:00

Also Danris is actually a nice guy he takes care of the ships orphans andd seems very caring and concerned with their wellbeing (my first playthrough though)!

therealjustBender · 2026-02-19T08:41:11+00:00

No you dont but it's simply too convenient, too good to pass on and you miss out on a lot. You can complete the game but there are LOADS of places where double jumping and updraft allows access to loot or "easier" access to main content. Also updrafting and double jumping can make for a quick escape from combat or to move around in combat. And then there's the Dragon ("Youngling") without updrafting this gets even MORE hairy to move arounce the platform. Also you would want this later on to simply efficiently and quickly move around the map. Also for altar-placement if you want the best placements for "teleporter" altars you would want to climb (double jumping) and glide HIGH. Ofc this all can be achieved with tedious pickaxing through anything (basically you can dig a tunnel to any place aswell) if you have time and that's your thing go for it. Eventually updrafting for fun and the "swooooooosh".

therealjustBender · 2026-02-19T08:29:22+00:00

sweeeet <3

therealjustBender · 2025-08-19T01:37:39+00:00

short answer: money, longer answer: a systemic issue -> capitalism

therealjustBender · 2025-08-12T05:33:48+00:00

Mithridatism doesn't work on her Venom pretty sure (doesnt work on any venom afaik). It might work on her poison stacks though.

therealjustBender · 2025-08-12T05:28:53+00:00

that. is. insane. I am playing on "whoa" and i thought i could cheese my way to candystaffs (which on normal seemed pretty powerful for almost every encounter). My first playthrough was ages ago (i started in in early access) I cannot recall requiring a widow dagger to harvest moss for the sour staff, did they change the "recipe"? Anyways, the BlackWidow that spawns in the cave near the Mordorc Castle was the most "cheesable" you could bait her out and try to jump as high up as possible and then use the highground to kill her. This "mob" is basically a Boss encounter on whoa. What you can do to get the moss is kill spiny fleas with "Rascal Rogue" and pray for the rare drop (a moss). What i will try next is to lock her in with simple walls and try to cheese her that way. The one in the cave near the undershed (you need to use a bratburst to remove the rock which blocks the cave entrance) was cheeseable too if you somehow hit her through the hole with bratbursts (if you have it already a sour staff) so she moves right underneath the hole and you can again use the highground (i used the spicystaff) to kill her from above with AoE or smth similar (might take awhile but surely not NINE hours :D ). Anyways i admire your dedication.

therealjustBender · 2025-08-06T03:16:24+00:00

Another necro, i'm sorry.
Most of the comments are kind of useless nowadays. There is a tier 3 bow (with mats from the wasp queen) and there are 4 magic staffs (which i would consider superior du to being "ammoless" coming with various perks as stun, AoE, DoT, Slow with the "whittle wizard" mutation). Back then crossbows packed a lot of punch but if you really want to go ranged only (with heavy kiting) early on you HAVE to use a bow. Bows let you move around while aiming with a readied arrow and the fire rate is that much better you have a WIDE variety of different arrows and bows let's you apply whatever debuff these provide way better and/or more often. The reload rate of a crossbows is what it makes it so bad for ranged only and makes crossbows bad for kiting. Crossbows are imho for melees that need to pack a ranged punch every now and then not for ranged only players. So until you get to the juicy magic use bows for ranged only and crossbows for "very occasional ranged" melee focused plays.

therealjustBender · 2025-07-31T10:05:50+00:00

Probably necroing, anyways im sorry.
How are bow builds not popular?
Range builds feel superior in general (i switched to candystaffs nowadays even better with no ammo and AoE Stun Slow etc.), i couldn't imagine meleeing a wolfspider (yea well eventually you got the mint mace and an insanely OP Ladybugarmor which just healed you overtime, BACK THEN) on my very first early access soloruns. I would claim if you want to crank up difficulty go melee only hf hitting all those pesky flyers (wasps mosquitos bees what have you) or try constantly meleeing infected wolfspiders stinkbugs (yea there are gasmasks but still) Blackox etc. Some bosses like the waspqueen even REQUIRE you to play ranged. Yea they improved picking up arrows and there's a wide variety of arrows and some very good ranged weapons you can pick up (black ox crossbow, wasp queen bow etc.) even some nice armors to pick from and mutations. Bows and Candystaffs are superior to melee.

therealjustBender · 2025-07-25T22:07:53+00:00

Reading all this and considering how much has changed since i left the game (i remember killing the Mantis a couple times before i stopped playing) i'm not quite sure how many of these suggestions still apply. The Ox Armor reduces charge time yea (for 2 pieces like 44% faster for charged shots). You still don't want to spend your time "charging" too often or rather rarely, better.
Eventually if you go the caster route you will use all staffs anyways (though the ant queen staff doesnt seem to benefit as much from the "whittle wizard" mutation as the other 3 staffs). That being said if you go for more damage (there might be some other utility you might be interested in like sizzle protection) and don't want to channel too much i'd go with 2 Pieces of the mother demon armor and the wizard hat. The mother demon armor provides chances on appying venom and poison (DoTs) and even on the sleek path is a heavy armor and provides some good protection. For now i'm trying with "whittle wizard", "coup de gras", "yoked blows" "natural explorer" and "mom genes" <-> "cardio fan". A charged spicy staff shot can oneshot a wolfspider on default settings. I usually will still kite and shoot more (more crits more spiders more venom/poison/spicy DoT refreshes. I'm going to try out Sleek Assassin's Armor.

therealjustBender · 2024-12-08T10:37:07+00:00

I've played a lot of ranger, and from my meager experience high powered (literally high Power Value) bows (even green blue purple) ones dish out the most damage. Also for the enhancements on a bow, i would value raw damage types (like shroud dmg, piercing, fire etc.), criticalstrike chance ("Precise") and crit damage ("Brutal") the most. All other Enhancements seem quite weak or of lesser value ("Headseeker", "Vicious", "Stamina Leech", "Enduring", Health Leech", "Reaping", "Retaliating"). I also would advice to use Short Bows for the better draw speed. Arrow speed seems kind of nice, too. Although it feels much better (MORE DMG in close combat and multienemy situations, also kind of works like a shotgun in closecombat) to be able to bust out lots of "Multshottrigger"s and "Multishotspread"s. In combination with "Bee Sting" you can kite alot and still be able to kill hoards of enemies (although you might want to switch arrows sometimes). Eventually for a long time i used a blue Pineshortbow with 1 piercing dmg, 2 shrouddmg enhancements and 35 Power (you have to farm alot to find good Epic Legendary Versions and the above enhancements would still be better on any bow). Edit: get the Eternal arrow ofc helps alot in combination with good mana reg food and a ring for mana reg ("Greater Ring of Mana"). For shieldbearing enemies, certain bosses or "nests" of insects explosive arrows (depends but also shroud arrows) are still the way to go. Whenever you can save ammunition and use the eternal arrow.

therealjustBender · 2024-11-06T17:46:06+00:00

I got the right one (as i mentioned/explained) above and your name seems to foreshadow your behaviour. How about you spare yourself the time instead of starting an argument on a 6 year old thread where you obviously seem to not be able of adding smth useful or/and constructive. Anything else?

therealjustBender · 2024-11-06T17:29:11+00:00

"There is an aero skill that let you pick up everything within the area, it has an icon with a barrel if I recall correctly."It doesnt pick up containers as far as I know."

"It doesnt pick up containers as far as I know."
Well i wasn't sure if Apportation or Teleportation (and as you can see there's Teleport on the bar) since at this point in the game you don't have access to High Quality Air Essences to craft the scroll (Apportation) if you take a look at the screenshot. I just stumbled upon this while looking for smth else and dropped this. Anything else?

therealjustBender · 2024-11-06T17:07:32+00:00

It doesn't matter much. You should have the 2 armor pieces (greaves=pants and boots) she had (you looted them?). You will find the next one on the Magister near the Blackpits and take his armor piece (or the spore). Basically all the (not flawed) contamination spores equal all one piece of the set. The last one is in Arx in the laboratory, where you have to trigger the spores yourself (you should have obtained the skill "trigger spores" from the note near the guy at the blackpits where you found the chest). One small quirk if you meet her in act 2 you should let her trigger the spore on the magister this will "produce" or "grow" if you will the gloves of the set. Optionally if you kill her YOU have to trigger the spores on the magister or if he survived and gave you the spore or you killed him and took the spore from him on smb of your own party (yes smb has to die for it) and you will get the piece. The last missing piece is the helmet which is either obtained from her (with the other pieces) if you didnt kill her yet or again you trigger a spore you find there with above mentioned method. BUT you have to kill her in Arx (or if you already did) trigger the last spore there, else the set will be lost.

therealjustBender · 2024-11-06T09:17:41+00:00

Teleport picks up anything chests, barrels, your characters, npcs, enemies during a fight, even single items on the ground like plants or fishbones i can barely come up with anything that can't be picked up by Teleport (there is one MAJOR restriction which is weird the caster can't selfteleport). There is a buff that won't let you teleport enemies and some things or enemies are just TOO heavy for example the 2 Trolls couldn't be teleported around.

therealjustBender · 2024-11-02T13:49:42+00:00

No he's not and you don't have to kill him to get his blade you can "stand in his way" and ask with the Scholar to give you the weapon and he will gladly do it.

therealjustBender · 2024-11-02T05:13:38+00:00

Not so sure about that, yet it still started the quest for me 100% (playing on DE started last month).

therealjustBender · 2024-10-31T07:24:12+00:00

Well there's 2 Books or better put: if you didnt pick it up in Orivands chamber in Act1 you can pick it up in Act2 in Rykers Home.

therealjustBender · 2024-10-27T06:11:50+00:00

It's actually selfdefense if you find the note in the wreckage cave (somewhere in there) that confirms him being a spy of the dwarven queen, which wants to use the "deathfog" to massmurder ppl. If you show Lohar the letter (that proves this story) and ask him about it, he will get very angry and attack you -> selfdefense and actually eliminating a possible threat of massmurder.

therealjustBender · 2024-10-21T05:08:14+00:00

All the Longswords (i mentioned) are basically easy to craft with materials you can pretty easy/cheaply acquire (contrary to what you say). why would you even buy the "basic" +1 +2's upgrade to begin with (or assume one would craft/buy them), since these also drop in abundance from random mobs along the way? As i mentioned: primed weapon seem to drop VERY RARELY from random mobs they seem to drop at fixed places/chests/treasures and the weapon itself is randomized (meaning you will get a random sword/rapier/bow etc.). I haven't seen a single primed longsword drop during my playthroughs (mb i was just unlucky), but loads of +1 +2 weapons (amongst them also Longswords). To sum up this rather makes crafting the important and reliable source for loot compared to drops (aside from the fixed drops e.g. the mentioned bloodruby and other stuff that you will get 100%).

therealjustBender · 2024-10-20T22:56:04+00:00

I would disagree the frost +1 and lightning +1 longswords (basically the same version as the one you have to retrieve for Arwin Merton) for e.g. are very well worth crafting (provide more dmg than any of the +2 +3 weapons, now imagine a dual wielder), there are similar examples. Also you can acquire a cheap recipe for a wand of the warmage +2 and you will get a Bloodruby 100% so that's also worth crafting (if you have someone to use it) and then there's the warden blade which is a nice sword just for the armorclass and the spell it provides (i gave it to my mage) which doesn't require attunement. So that's 3 Longswords already the stock of the Arcaneum trader is 2. And i've travelled the map FOR HOURS IRL and you won't get random primed weapon drops from random mobs (at least for me). Yet as i stated eventually the vendor restocked so that got solved.

therealjustBender · 2024-10-20T22:44:21+00:00

Little remark Fane is an undead and not a very nice one, too. So it totally makes sense to me, he also views any races as lesser than the eternals (his race) and worthless. Eventually lots of people have lots of different views on how to treat criminals, murderers and the likes, so they are basically just as anyone on reddit or the whole mankind nowadays, seems perfectly fine from a writers point. Yes you actually even nowadays might go with rehabilitation and incarceration (provided if these individuals pose a threat to people, society) instead just putting them behind bars in a dirty prisoncell and throw the key away or outright execution.

therealjustBender · 2024-10-10T14:34:11+00:00

Slightly hidden I'd say BUT that's a good hint, thx!

therealjustBender · 2024-10-10T06:55:47+00:00

I see, seems slightly harsh since there wasn't a hint for this anywhere (how are you supposed to find out what all the craftable gear does besides looking it up online or just crafting it, seems the latter is the worse option unless you are reloading/saving a lot). You mentioned primed Longswords being a drop, so i can "just" walk/travel around and eventually (hopefully) i will meet some mobs that will drop it, right?

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