IAmRisen and IRD's NW talk

[iamrisen]

I don't know about the Advocate thing. Their Unholy immunity takes Hellfire out of the equation, and Song of the Word still HURTS like a BITCH.

I think the best way to take out an Advocate in a real-time battle is with AoE attacks. Hit all the Advocate's buddies and he'll be more inclined to fire off a Sublime Sacrifice. Either that, or he'll be the last one standing and you can probably Whip him to death while stealing a decent amount of HP.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Yeah, but IB's can slice right through an Advocate with their tail. I'd still use a Seraph against one, but it'd be weird.

[iamrisen]

IMHO, the best demon to take down an Advocate is a Defiler. Just Dark Heart him into irrelevance and then ignore him. He's not going to have more than 64 MP, and it's very unlikely that he'll be at capacity when you run into him. Six Dark Hearts and he's out of the fight.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Yeah, Advocates get eaten up easily. However, one particularly effective Prayer can change that. They're still pretty weak though.

[iamrisen]

This is why you start with a Poison and follow it up with an Agony Curse. Pray through that, sucka. Ooh, you got Unkillable? Fat lot of good it'll do you. You'll still take 7 damage from every successful attack. Don't like that result? Praying again will cost him 12 HP, as well as two more rapidly-depleting MP. He's got a maximum of 86 HP; that's eight Prayers to get it right before he dies.

I LOVE AGONY CURSE.

[ImperialRedDragon]

My DO does over 20 points with Eyes of Doom and he isn't even maxed, add Agony Curse, I'll do like 30. So yeah, a DO can effectively cut through that.

[iamrisen]

There's something else that's cool about Dark Oppressors: see that MP cost on Eyes? Looks expensive, doesn't it?

Dark Heart.

Agony Curse is also a reason why I like autohit magic. Eyes of Doom there? If you're using it on an Agony Cursed T3, you're looking at base 10% + Ranged Combat 35% + 20% Spell Combat + 10% Battle Magic + 15% Eagle Eye = 90% accuracy. Assuming no soak, that's 22 damage, 19.8 average. Arrow of the Magus deals 14 damage with 100% accuracy... and costs an ASSLOAD less CP than the Eyes of Doom combo.

Eyes of Doom: 19
Ranged Combat: 10
Spell Combat: 20
Battle Magic: 40
Eagle Eye: 10 = 99 CP.

OTOH,

Arrow of the Magus = 12 CP.

In order to do the same average damage as Arrow, Eyes would only have to hit at 63% accuracy. You can get 60 with Ranged Combat and Eagle Eye for 20 CP; you can get 65 with Ranged Combat and Spell Combat for 30 CP (probably the better choice, as Eagle Eye can run up an MP bill).

You can't get this kind of efficiency out of an autohit spell without Agony Curse; the extra damage with no chance to miss is just too good to pass up. Not even Nexus Empowerment can give this kind of boost... and even Nexus Empowerment is still subject to soak.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Yeah, DO's can make great use out of auto-hit spells, especially Arrow of the Magus. I also have the Crushing and Thousand Razors (Mistake) but I wanted Eyes of Doom simply for the Art of Overkill.

[iamrisen]

Hey, ain't nothing wrong with overkill... but I think I'd rather spend that 90-odd CP on the Life Vampire tree. If I've got any Void Walkers in my faction, I know they'll appreciate a steady supply of Soul Ice.

[ImperialRedDragon]

That's the beauty of it. I can get the spells, along with every single DO skill there is.

[Prisonner Of Today]

C'mon, go slightly off topic, just once, so I can lock and move this thing! I dare you!

[iamrisen]

...so yeah, my crafter Wizard is coming along great. Steady XP... and one advantage of the crafting comas is that I can ignore him for a while and not worry about losing AP because it goes over the max.

[ImperialRedDragon]

Yeah, my crafter Wizard is only about a month old and is almost tier 3. I've slowed down with leveling, though, since I switched factions with him and get less armor components now.