TOPIC: Validating Playable Best in Slot builds for damage potential

Endgame wrote:

Caleb Coey wrote: Wizard replacing figurine: cat with figurine: bat would increase the percentage chance of getting damage on slide spells which effectively increases damage.

Only if there isn’t a bard or cleric in the party. A level 5 bard with relic lute, a cleric that casts prayer and bless, or some combination will push the wizards ranged attack to +14, which means pretty much auto hit static AC 15.

Edit - pointing out the FoP though, every build should at least consider FoP reaver. Any 2 FoP build could add FoP horror as well.

Yep. And even without that the Wizard is succeeding on a 4.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Daniel White wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Good point. I still think the saves are worth the 1 hit to 1 damage trade though.

Not for a best in slot damage build. As stated in the design theory I will always be taking +damage or +hit over saves.

I did update the Ranger to use Thor's instead of Asher's due to the Crit Range but chose to keep Io's also due to the crit range. Doubled crit range is worth more than ~7 damage IMO

Fair enough. Re: endgame's argument about crit immunity, the build includes bracers of guided strike to address that.

Didn't catch the guided strike bracers on the first pass - that certainly helps. I still think I would personally go with charm bracelets to pump up damage some more, but I've never really gone fishing for crits either. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I'm sliding.

what charms would you add to increase damage?

Glory for 3rd ring which is often Ring of the Drake or Ring of Frost
Draco-Lich for +2 to melee and ranged
Greater Onyx, Fiendish, Onyx, and Wicked for STR

Depending on how you like doing the analysis, Charm of Quick Strike probably belongs in all the builds that can equip it - 30% chance of an extra attack is huge (e.g. if an attack is worth 50 to 100 to you, this charm is worth 15-30 damage per room on average).

Ranger runs Quick Strike and Dracolich.

Rins Ring of the Drake without charm bracelets. Could drop Brooching for Glory and run Ring of Frost.

Giving up critical immunities for a 19-20 immunity build to gain +1 damage via Greater Onyx doesn't seem a good swap at this point.

I haven't looked at the builds, but with Arcane Earcuff you get to 5 charm slots, which should allow you to fit most of these in, unless you are dedicating charm slots to non-damage boosting charms.

A few other "damage potential" increasing items that are sometimes ignored:

Orb of Might for 1 handed melee people

Gauntlets of Might for 2 handed melee people

Helm of the Boar for Melee types: beats out Crown of Might and Redoubt Set bonus all on its own for melee damage, and also frees up Torso for: Bliss Bull Armor or Nether Brute Armor

If you want to get crazy, the Rogue can equip Cloak of the Footpad for +2 sneak attack damage.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Daniel White wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Good point. I still think the saves are worth the 1 hit to 1 damage trade though.

Not for a best in slot damage build. As stated in the design theory I will always be taking +damage or +hit over saves.

I did update the Ranger to use Thor's instead of Asher's due to the Crit Range but chose to keep Io's also due to the crit range. Doubled crit range is worth more than ~7 damage IMO

Fair enough. Re: endgame's argument about crit immunity, the build includes bracers of guided strike to address that.

Didn't catch the guided strike bracers on the first pass - that certainly helps. I still think I would personally go with charm bracelets to pump up damage some more, but I've never really gone fishing for crits either. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I'm sliding.

what charms would you add to increase damage?

Glory for 3rd ring which is often Ring of the Drake or Ring of Frost
Draco-Lich for +2 to melee and ranged
Greater Onyx, Fiendish, Onyx, and Wicked for STR

Depending on how you like doing the analysis, Charm of Quick Strike probably belongs in all the builds that can equip it - 30% chance of an extra attack is huge (e.g. if an attack is worth 50 to 100 to you, this charm is worth 15-30 damage per room on average).

Ranger runs Quick Strike and Dracolich.

Rins Ring of the Drake without charm bracelets. Could drop Brooching for Glory and run Ring of Frost.

Giving up critical immunities for a 19-20 immunity build to gain +1 damage via Greater Onyx doesn't seem a good swap at this point.

I haven't looked at the builds, but with Arcane Earcuff you get to 5 charm slots, which should allow you to fit most of these in, unless you are dedicating charm slots to non-damage boosting charms.

A few other "damage potential" increasing items that are sometimes ignored:

Orb of Might for 1 handed melee people

Gauntlets of Might for 2 handed melee people

Helm of the Boar for Melee types: beats out Crown of Might and Redoubt Set bonus all on its own for melee damage, and also frees up Torso for: Bliss Bull Armor or Nether Brute Armor

If you want to get crazy, the Rogue can equip Cloak of the Footpad for +2 sneak attack damage.

Generally speaking, for 1H the rare Brawler's mug beats out orb of might, unless you really need the extra + hit.

Helm of the boar + Powered plate add the most damage, if you don't need to otherwise round out strength. The -Ref save penalty is high on the helm of the boar, so I'm not sure its wise to choose it instead of Bliss Bull helm.

Edit - in the theme of the thread where damage is > saves, I updated the 2H fighter build to use the Helm of the boar, and swapped the Tanzanite Cube with an Onyx sphere. +2 more damage total and a mighty -6 to ref save.

Edit 2- since we're tanking saves anyway, I traded the Topaz Trillant for a Jasper Prism. Net result of both changes is +3 damage, -4 Fort, -4 Will, -8 Ref.

Edit 3 - Ugh - you could get really, really stupid and trade Medallion of Valhalla for Charm necklace and then add Fiendish Charm, Onyx Charm, and Charm of rampage for a total of -15 HP, -3 fort, and +1 damage. Not going to do that one though. 1 damage isn't worth that.

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Daniel White wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Good point. I still think the saves are worth the 1 hit to 1 damage trade though.

Not for a best in slot damage build. As stated in the design theory I will always be taking +damage or +hit over saves.

I did update the Ranger to use Thor's instead of Asher's due to the Crit Range but chose to keep Io's also due to the crit range. Doubled crit range is worth more than ~7 damage IMO

Fair enough. Re: endgame's argument about crit immunity, the build includes bracers of guided strike to address that.

Didn't catch the guided strike bracers on the first pass - that certainly helps. I still think I would personally go with charm bracelets to pump up damage some more, but I've never really gone fishing for crits either. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I'm sliding.

what charms would you add to increase damage?

Glory for 3rd ring which is often Ring of the Drake or Ring of Frost
Draco-Lich for +2 to melee and ranged
Greater Onyx, Fiendish, Onyx, and Wicked for STR

Depending on how you like doing the analysis, Charm of Quick Strike probably belongs in all the builds that can equip it - 30% chance of an extra attack is huge (e.g. if an attack is worth 50 to 100 to you, this charm is worth 15-30 damage per room on average).

Ranger runs Quick Strike and Dracolich.

Rins Ring of the Drake without charm bracelets. Could drop Brooching for Glory and run Ring of Frost.

Giving up critical immunities for a 19-20 immunity build to gain +1 damage via Greater Onyx doesn't seem a good swap at this point.

I haven't looked at the builds, but with Arcane Earcuff you get to 5 charm slots, which should allow you to fit most of these in, unless you are dedicating charm slots to non-damage boosting charms.

A few other "damage potential" increasing items that are sometimes ignored:

Orb of Might for 1 handed melee people

Gauntlets of Might for 2 handed melee people

Helm of the Boar for Melee types: beats out Crown of Might and Redoubt Set bonus all on its own for melee damage, and also frees up Torso for: Bliss Bull Armor or Nether Brute Armor

If you want to get crazy, the Rogue can equip Cloak of the Footpad for +2 sneak attack damage.

Generally speaking, for 1H the rare Brawler's mug beats out orb of might, unless you really need the extra + hit.

Helm of the boar + Powered plate add the most damage, if you don't need to otherwise round out strength. The -Ref save penalty is high on the helm of the boar, so I'm not sure its wise to choose it instead of Bliss Bull helm.

Edit - in the theme of the thread where damage is > saves, I updated the 2H fighter build to use the Helm of the boar, and swapped the Tanzanite Cube with an Onyx sphere. +2 more damage total and a mighty -6 to ref save.

Edit 2- since we're tanking saves anyway, I traded the Topaz Trillant for a Jasper Prism. Net result of both changes is +3 damage, -4 Fort, -4 Will, -8 Ref.

Edit 3 - Ugh - you could get really, really stupid and trade Medallion of Valhalla for Charm necklace and then add Fiendish Charm, Onyx Charm, and Charm of rampage for a total of -15 HP, -3 fort, and +1 damage. Not going to do that one though. 1 damage isn't worth that.

1 damage definitely isn't worth that. But since the whole point of the thread seems to be about building glass cannons that only care about showing off how much damage they can pump out, you should be going all in.

The first post specifically say to prioritize hit and damage over Saves, HP, and AC. So by not doing that, you're going against the rules

Fiddy wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Daniel White wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Good point. I still think the saves are worth the 1 hit to 1 damage trade though.

Not for a best in slot damage build. As stated in the design theory I will always be taking +damage or +hit over saves.

I did update the Ranger to use Thor's instead of Asher's due to the Crit Range but chose to keep Io's also due to the crit range. Doubled crit range is worth more than ~7 damage IMO

Fair enough. Re: endgame's argument about crit immunity, the build includes bracers of guided strike to address that.

Didn't catch the guided strike bracers on the first pass - that certainly helps. I still think I would personally go with charm bracelets to pump up damage some more, but I've never really gone fishing for crits either. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I'm sliding.

what charms would you add to increase damage?

Glory for 3rd ring which is often Ring of the Drake or Ring of Frost
Draco-Lich for +2 to melee and ranged
Greater Onyx, Fiendish, Onyx, and Wicked for STR

Depending on how you like doing the analysis, Charm of Quick Strike probably belongs in all the builds that can equip it - 30% chance of an extra attack is huge (e.g. if an attack is worth 50 to 100 to you, this charm is worth 15-30 damage per room on average).

Ranger runs Quick Strike and Dracolich.

Rins Ring of the Drake without charm bracelets. Could drop Brooching for Glory and run Ring of Frost.

Giving up critical immunities for a 19-20 immunity build to gain +1 damage via Greater Onyx doesn't seem a good swap at this point.

I haven't looked at the builds, but with Arcane Earcuff you get to 5 charm slots, which should allow you to fit most of these in, unless you are dedicating charm slots to non-damage boosting charms.

A few other "damage potential" increasing items that are sometimes ignored:

Orb of Might for 1 handed melee people

Gauntlets of Might for 2 handed melee people

Helm of the Boar for Melee types: beats out Crown of Might and Redoubt Set bonus all on its own for melee damage, and also frees up Torso for: Bliss Bull Armor or Nether Brute Armor

If you want to get crazy, the Rogue can equip Cloak of the Footpad for +2 sneak attack damage.

Generally speaking, for 1H the rare Brawler's mug beats out orb of might, unless you really need the extra + hit.

Helm of the boar + Powered plate add the most damage, if you don't need to otherwise round out strength. The -Ref save penalty is high on the helm of the boar, so I'm not sure its wise to choose it instead of Bliss Bull helm.

Edit - in the theme of the thread where damage is > saves, I updated the 2H fighter build to use the Helm of the boar, and swapped the Tanzanite Cube with an Onyx sphere. +2 more damage total and a mighty -6 to ref save.

Edit 2- since we're tanking saves anyway, I traded the Topaz Trillant for a Jasper Prism. Net result of both changes is +3 damage, -4 Fort, -4 Will, -8 Ref.

Edit 3 - Ugh - you could get really, really stupid and trade Medallion of Valhalla for Charm necklace and then add Fiendish Charm, Onyx Charm, and Charm of rampage for a total of -15 HP, -3 fort, and +1 damage. Not going to do that one though. 1 damage isn't worth that.

1 damage definitely isn't worth that. But since the whole point of the thread seems to be about building glass cannons that only care about showing off how much damage they can pump out, you should be going all in.

The first post specifically say to prioritize hit and damage over Saves, HP, and AC. So by not doing that, you're going against the rules

Good point. Though now the question is, 1 guaranteed damage, or charm of quick strike for a chance for an extra slide?

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Daniel White wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Good point. I still think the saves are worth the 1 hit to 1 damage trade though.

Not for a best in slot damage build. As stated in the design theory I will always be taking +damage or +hit over saves.

I did update the Ranger to use Thor's instead of Asher's due to the Crit Range but chose to keep Io's also due to the crit range. Doubled crit range is worth more than ~7 damage IMO

Fair enough. Re: endgame's argument about crit immunity, the build includes bracers of guided strike to address that.

Didn't catch the guided strike bracers on the first pass - that certainly helps. I still think I would personally go with charm bracelets to pump up damage some more, but I've never really gone fishing for crits either. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I'm sliding.

what charms would you add to increase damage?

Glory for 3rd ring which is often Ring of the Drake or Ring of Frost
Draco-Lich for +2 to melee and ranged
Greater Onyx, Fiendish, Onyx, and Wicked for STR

Depending on how you like doing the analysis, Charm of Quick Strike probably belongs in all the builds that can equip it - 30% chance of an extra attack is huge (e.g. if an attack is worth 50 to 100 to you, this charm is worth 15-30 damage per room on average).

Ranger runs Quick Strike and Dracolich.

Rins Ring of the Drake without charm bracelets. Could drop Brooching for Glory and run Ring of Frost.

Giving up critical immunities for a 19-20 immunity build to gain +1 damage via Greater Onyx doesn't seem a good swap at this point.

I haven't looked at the builds, but with Arcane Earcuff you get to 5 charm slots, which should allow you to fit most of these in, unless you are dedicating charm slots to non-damage boosting charms.

A few other "damage potential" increasing items that are sometimes ignored:

Orb of Might for 1 handed melee people

Gauntlets of Might for 2 handed melee people

Helm of the Boar for Melee types: beats out Crown of Might and Redoubt Set bonus all on its own for melee damage, and also frees up Torso for: Bliss Bull Armor or Nether Brute Armor

If you want to get crazy, the Rogue can equip Cloak of the Footpad for +2 sneak attack damage.

I wouldn't call the +2 footpad damage a crazy decision. It's +6 damage in exchange for +2 on saves and ignoring the damage for 1 attack (shadowskin). In general, I find my current saves are more than fine for Nightmare but not even close (except reflex) for epic (+2 wouldn't matter.)

Check my signature. My ranged rogue build does +26 ranged damage (+28 on sneak attacks). It can sneak attack twice per combat with a crit range of 17-20 and X3 sneak damage. Sliding on a board, I can get a crit 60% of the time (17 isn't terribly hard to get) - combining that with the panther token, I reslide if I find my first slide was off (getting the feel of a table). Base damage for that sneak attack (before weapon damage) is 78+20 sneak damage=98 plus weapon damage (average of 6.3 for another 18.9) =116.9 average sneak attack damage twice per combat. You can bump that up pretty significantly using oils and ammo. My current record is 161 on a single attack.

I'll be re-doing and reposting my melee rogue fairly soon as well.

Fred

Some not-at-all quick notes about the Monk build

Viper Strike Shirt: +3 Dex, set bonus adds +2 Attack and on a crit +5 damage (doubled to 10).
If we use VTD for our crit chance math, then we have 20% to crit. So, 5 damage * 20% = 1 damage avg.
Dex for the monk build is currently 25 , which is odd, so adding this dex resulted in +1 AC, +1 Reflex.

Compared to Shirt of the Oaf (+3 Str, -1 Dex). Current stats of the Monk build are 31 Str and 25 Dex. Results after swapping the shirt would be 34 Str and 21 Dex. Which means the Shirt of the Oaf adds +2 Attack, +2 Damage and -2 AC, -2 Ref.

The end result is that, Shirt of the Oaf is 1 more constant damage vs Viper Strike Shirt's larger burst damage and +2 AC/+2 Ref.

Bracers of Guided Strike: Interesting question here. How likely do crit immune targets need to be for these to be better than either Arcane Bracelets or Charm Bracelets? In the past I have considered the Bracers of Guided Strike to be situational gear.

Compared to Charm Bracelet. Two extra charms. First, Charm of Glory which allows Ring of Frost for +2 damage. Second, Greater Onyx Charm for +2 Str, or +1 Attack and +1 damage. Totals +1 Attack and +3 damage.

Asher's avg dmg = 10.5
Current dmg bonus = 37
Viper's set bonus = 5 * 2 = 10
Average Bonus damage = 57.5

Using VTD's 20% to crit
57.5 * .2 = 11.5 average bonus damage per round

Now, at what percent of mobs have to be crit immune for 11.5 damage to be great than 3 damage?
x% * 11.5 = 3
x = 26%

So, if roughly 1 in 4 mobs are immune to crits then Bracers of Guided Strike are better.

Looking through my modules the numbers are a little... weird.

2019: 9 creatures, 1 immune to crit
2018: 10 creatures, 3 were undead but the module doesnt mention them being crit immune nor list the Guided Strike type tokens in its call out
2017: Need to break this one down in more detail
Dancing Among the Stars: 12 crit immune, 1 non-immune (that you could skip fighting)
Moongate Maze: 4 creatures, 2 crit immune
2016: 8 creatures, 4 crit immune
2015: 9 creatures, 2 crit immune... 1 room had 10 non-immune creatures
2014: 7 creatures, 2 crit immune... 1 room had 10 crit immune creatures

Throwing out the outliers of Dancing Among the Stars, and the 2 rooms with 10 creatures

Total: 47 creatures, 11 confirmed crit immune (3 more should/might have been)
23% or 29% of creatures have been crit immune over from 2014 to 2019
So, those 3 creatures from 2018 might be the difference.

Crit chance is likely less than 20% in a real dungeon though.

Charm of Awakened Synergy: If you don't swap the Bracers of Guided Strike out, then Charm of Glory for Ring of Frost is more damage here.

Jasper Ellipsoid/Prims: Feels slightly cheaty since they are completion tokens for an event in Nov, but I guess they could have been in the treasure pulls or Patron rewards or something.

I'm not sure if any of these results in changes to the build, but its some ideas for you.

Presenting the following builds for consideration. Note, I did not follow the rules, both builds used the following:

Build must have max treasure
Build must have 20 or greater saves in all categories
Build must have 60 or greater HP with max CoAS

Polymorph Melee Druid
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/33c2f9dc-cdc1-466a-b790-c1f472099363

Spell Druid
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/2dbe3ae2-246b-4f8b-b2e0-e762ef15410e

Endgame wrote: Presenting the following builds for consideration. Note, I did not follow the rules, both builds used the following:

Build must have max treasure
Build must have 20 or greater saves in all categories
Build must have 60 or greater HP with max CoAS

Polymorph Melee Druid
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/33c2f9dc-cdc1-466a-b790-c1f472099363

Spell Druid
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/2dbe3ae2-246b-4f8b-b2e0-e762ef15410e

Both look really good to me.

Here is one that tanks saves further for more melee damage, and uses spell swapping as well:

Polymorph melee druid, w/ spell swapping, lower saves, and better melee damage..
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/e0084dd2-6a6a-4437-8849-31ee9d96d26e

And here is a balanced druid that tries to be roughly as good as a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard.

Balanced Druid - +30 Spell damage, +22 heal, +37 poly melee damage, 21/17/21 saves, 68HP.
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/3d9abf8a-8d38-49d5-adfa-932e0427c9c4

Endgame wrote: Here is one that tanks saves further for more melee damage, and uses spell swapping as well:

Polymorph melee druid, w/ spell swapping, lower saves, and better melee damage..
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/e0084dd2-6a6a-4437-8849-31ee9d96d26e

And here is a balanced druid that tries to be roughly as good as a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard.

Balanced Druid - +30 Spell damage, +22 heal, +37 poly melee damage, 21/17/21 saves, 68HP.
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/3d9abf8a-8d38-49d5-adfa-932e0427c9c4

I don't understand why Mike Steele complains about the druid when you can put up stats like that in all three categories.

Adam Guay wrote:

Endgame wrote: Here is one that tanks saves further for more melee damage, and uses spell swapping as well:

Polymorph melee druid, w/ spell swapping, lower saves, and better melee damage..
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/e0084dd2-6a6a-4437-8849-31ee9d96d26e

And here is a balanced druid that tries to be roughly as good as a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard.

Balanced Druid - +30 Spell damage, +22 heal, +37 poly melee damage, 21/17/21 saves, 68HP.
tdcharactercreator.com/#/character/edit/3d9abf8a-8d38-49d5-adfa-932e0427c9c4

I don't understand why Mike Steele complains about the druid when you can put up stats like that in all three categories.

you've not ever watched his participation in token design then.

If a token doesn't benefit Druids but helps any other casting class it's OP and Druids should be added to it.

He literally petitioned to be added to the Mad Evoker's Charm this week. Saying the Druid should gain access to a token that's been Wizard only for 6 years.