IAmRisen and IRD's NW talk

[iamrisen]

Well, I did some investigation of the Rev's killing powerz, and here's what I found:

Shadow of the Wolf: 7 Pierce
Strong Attack: +1
Nighttime: +1
Strength of Darkness: +1
Elite Attack: +2
Blood Frenzy +2
= 14 Pierce. Damn. Criticals can drive that up to 21. Focused Attack can make it 20; a crit on a Focused Bite will deal 30 Nexal. Fucking OUCH.

Let's look at the hit%:

Base: 10%
H2H: +20%
Martial Arts: +15%
AdMartial Arts: +15%
Night: +10%
Strength of Darkness: +10%
Blood Frenzy: +15%
= 95%

Tag on Revenant's Kiss and the Revenant becomes the king of real-time combat. Throw in a Swarm of your choice just for fun.

EDIT: But what about defense?

H2H/Melee
Martial Arts: +2%
AdMartial Arts: +5%
Dodge: +5%
Super Reflexes: +5%
Shadow of the Wolf: +10%
Innate: +8% to +12%
Blood Frenzy: -25%
=+10 to +14%

So if you want, you can sacrifice two damage and 15 hit% for 25% defense. I'd keep the Blood Frenzy.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Heh, I never use Blood Frenzy in live combat, but without it, I have over 40% dodge. However, if I can afford to dick around and am just killing some heavily armored guy that isn't active, Blood Frenzy is awesome. My Rev is HtH/small arms and shoots at 100% without Blood Frenzy. Heh, I activate Blood Frenzy with an ES around and get 120% with Way of Void. Under ideal conditions, I think I could get over 150%.

The only skill I've seen come close to that is the Advocate's Eye of Judgment, which kinda sucks after the nerf, especially since Holy is easier to soak now.

[iamrisen]

My Purgatorio-based Void Walker is now working his way up the experience ladder, and I think he'll do fine with just the Void Walker attacks and practically no magic, save a few utility spells. Tentacles for Electricity (to shock Soldiers and Advocates), Teeth for everything else, Baby Breath for groups. I don't see myself getting into any fights with Infernal Behemoths any time soon, so no Ice.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Heh, I never had the patience for Void Walkers, I look at them and I'm a little kid in a candy store. With the traveling skills and invisibility, and all the innate attacks, there's so much to get and so little CP, I can never decide what to get.

[iamrisen]

The invisibility can be busted by Reveal (Enhanced Senses don't affect it). It has basically two uses: regaining AP unmolested in an out-of-the-way place, and hitting people who can't hit you back.

The first use has a very basic problem: it keeps your MP from regenerating, which Void Walkers need truckloads of in order to operate. So I hope your'e happy relying on your Blood Claws or being shooty, because all your MP will go towards maintaining your invisibility.

As for the second use, it's really only good in real-time fights.

The Void-Stepper build handles the first use; you can find some isolated island in bum-fuck Purgatorio, get your Hide on, and chill where nobody will bother to mess with you. As for the second, you can skedaddle out into the Abyss if you run into an active and just outwait the bastard. Hell, if someone comes flying after you, make him chase you around! It doesn't cost the Void Walker anything to move around in the black depths of Purgatorio, but each space your pursuer moves costs him an MP... and he dies if he runs out over the Void.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Good point. I'd rather rely on travel skills than invisibility, although being invisible is effective. I've survived many times in the middle of Valhalla, regenerating AP after a raid. The idea is to go invisible outside, people generally don't Reveal outside, unless it's a park or something, but outside a regular house is a pretty safe place to go invisible. Still, having someone making an extended invisibility potion for you is a hell of a lot cheaper than the fuckton of CP for Master Invisibility.

Having Stepping of the Corner, Ether/Void Stepping, even Stepping of the Stone or World gate can make you an extraordinary traveler and deadly hunter. A lot of Void Walkers prefer to even shy away from Whisper/Tendrils and rely solely on Breath and Blood Claws, but the Tendrils and Whisper are too cool to ignore for me.

[iamrisen]

Ha ha, yeah, let the local apothecary craft you up an extended inviz potion and save yourself 120 CP. Hooray Defilers.

I think Tendrils and Whisper are going to become more popular with the reworking of the innate Soak abilities, even in spite of their respective nerfs. This goes double with the Enchantment nerfs in play; creating Electric- and Unholy-Enchanted firearms is nowhere as easy as it used to be.

Whisper lets you bypass Clockwork Cloud when you're facing down a Seraph... but so does Assassin, or Blood Taste with a little bit of a damage buff or Bludgeon soak, or an Unholy-enchanted ranged weapon. In fact, Whisper's only advantage over Claws+Taste is more damage in less AP. I think it may be better to save the MP for Breath. In fact, Whisper's best use is probably against Liches, as Death ain't easy to soak and Liches are pretty dodgy to begin with... and are immune to Breath, so you'll want to take those Liches out fast before their undead legions make harmanbargarz out of you (honestly, though, the aforementioned Invisibility potion would handle this nicely, and you could just smack the Lich down at your leisure without the need for Whisper's massive per-AP damage).

Tendrils is mainly for use against Eternal Soldiers... it's one less damage against them than Whisper for less than half the MP. And ES's don't have damage auras to worry about. The way that Way of Earth is now, Electrical damage is the only way to go against Eternal Soldiers, and since Tendrils is H2H and you probably won't make it through T2 without using Blood Claws... yeah, Tendrils all the way. Or you can hold out for Kiss of the Clouds (whose accuracy, unfortunately, you'll have a bitch of a time getting over 50%). Tendrils almost totally obviates Fist of the Eel... almost.

In fact, screw it; since you're pretty much inevitably going to be dropping the 30 CP on Cast Spell, drop the 11 CP on Fist and the 10 CP on Tiger Claw (which you would have used anyway for Tendrils) and save yourself 19 CP.

So yeah, no Whisper and no Tendrils. Blood Taste and Fist. And Tiger Claw.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of VW's lately that just get BotDC, then travel skills, Enhanced Senses, stuff like that.

[iamrisen]

Breath first, eh? Well, it is an ass-kicker of a skill. Even moreso than Senses, apparently.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Er, those were in no particular order. Most get Stepping of the Corner/Enhanced Senses or Corner and BotDC, any combination of those three.

[iamrisen]

I'd probably grab Corner and Breath first, or maybe just Corner and then level as fast as possible to get Voidstep. Save that travel AP for attacking. Senses comes next, then Breath.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Speaking of Pariah exits, how those Infernal Behemoths? They're still probably boring as fuck, but at least they're still more powerful than they were, which makes sense. I'm not so sure I get the +5% accuracy, though, that seems more like a Void Walker thing, but they're got some pretty cool skills.

[iamrisen]

Behemoths are tanks, straight up.

Infernal Frenzy makes them evil as all hell in real-time battles, as mundane damage simply can't touch them. They have a max HP increaser. They've got Fire Resistance. They've got Chitinous Armor (whose weak point, as we know, is Cold). They've got their own regeneration ability, which stacks with the Pariah's. And of course, they've got the Pariah's Blood Taste, which works with Whip of Suffering (and if you ask me, it's worth the 60 AP to max the Melee tree for its effects), which deals Magical.

The Infernal Behemoth is a mass-damage-dealing, soak-and-heal monstrosity that lumbers into battle and behaves in as obnoxious a manner as possible, refusing to die until it's down to its last AP and last few HP, at which point it flips the enemy the bird and explodes.

It's a tank. A mean as hell, AP-soaking hateful bitch of a tank. They belong front and center in any demonic raid. I'll crunch some numbers with regards to their stats in a sec.

[iamrisen]

HP at level 30: 71 from levelling + 10 from Stamina + 15 from Fiendish Bulk = 96 HP.
Innate attacks: 9 base each (different damage types, though) + 1 from Strong Attack + 2 from Elite Attack + 5 from Bloodlust = 17 damage. Hellfire can jack that up to 23 (ignoring 4 of the target's soak in the process, plus potentially another 3 from Weaken), change the damage type to Unholy, and soak every point it dishes out if it's done with Whip of Suffering.
Defense: Chitinous Armor protects against everything but Cold. Fire Resistance gives fire immunity. Infernal Frenzy gives them temporary mundane immunity.
HP regeneration: 1 per minute from Lesser Regeneration + 3 per minute from Greater Regeneration = 4 per minute for 15 minutes for an outlay of 15 MP. And they're regaining HP with every swing.
Hit%: (Assume Whip of Suffering) 10% base + 35% from Melee tree + 5% from Stygian Bloodletting + 5% from Roar (it's an AoE that gives a dodge penalty to anyone it affects) = 55%.

With the massive HP drain from Whip of Suffering and all its damage boosters, the Regeneration abilities really don't seem worth it at all... and they'll probably still be active when it's time to detonate, having only restored a dozen HP or so, so screw 'em. Just stick with Whip and Blood Taste.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Plus, they get Unholy Aegis, which negates the extra done by the Seraph's Greater Smite (Their great enemy) and are tougher against Holy damage now. While a Seraph can get 58 MP and 106 HP, they're not even that great against them now. I think the only classes I'd send against an IB now are a DC, Rev, ES, DO, probably an NC, and a Wizard.

Advocates couldn't realistically kill one in real-time combat now, and the Wheel can't do it anymore, either. Rev's wouldn't be able to use Revenant's Kiss effectively, due to Burning Aura, but if you're partially ranged, like my Revenant, that's not a problem. Still, you're right, IB's are the tough bastards that they were intended to be now.