eoc dng: hex and novite kiteshield

[jrkerr]

Okay I grant that I remember how players would be joking about bronze armour pre-eoc because you could just as easily wear iron armour, and so bronze seemed truly superfluous.

 

The novite kiteshield available for sale from the smuggler is no joke (especially because there is not always an antifire shield on start tables for everyone), and acts basically like a free bind with your start-checked load out.

 

Its 1300 coin and allows you immediate best use of any action bar with 4 weapon specific basics*, 2 weapon specific threshholds**, 2 shield based basics (resonance and preparation), 2 defense basics requiring no shield (freedom and anticipation), 1 shield based defense threshhold (revenge), and 1 shield requisite defense ultimate (rejuvenate).

 

I got used to the abilities with hex because its a shieldbow, and then translated it to use of 1h melee weaponry. I swapped a primal maul for a primal warhammer and it works great because its fast too (not "fastest" like hex though). 1h weapons have the same accuracy as 2h, and the damage winds up being the same if you keep using revenge as often as possible. Boosting revenge damage is actually easier to do when meleeing with a bad shield than meleeing with a good shield or ranging with a good shieldbow too.

 

* range - pierce, bind, frag, ricochet

* melee - slice (or punish), kick (or backhand), fury, sever

note I opt for the like abilities that prevent use of the other with the lower cooldown time but still parenthetically mention alternatives. ie: you can't combo the kick to backhand.

 

** range - rapid fire and bombardment

(snap shot feels underpowered for its cooldown time)

** melee - slaughter and assault

 

The only remaining difference is one of style.

1h can't damage a group with aoe abilities.

2h can't convert damage input to increased damage output and/or healing.

shieldbows can do both of the above, but you need to keep picking up your arrows.

 

all 3 thus have the same relation to large dungeon clear time (assuming you hope its about 15 to 20 minutes on a free for all theme world with strangers).

 

loading out as a focused battle mage is different because there are so many spell weaknesses, and no good use a mage can make of a shield without wands available yet.

 

its not totally different for hybrids or tribrids because you would still make good use of the novite shield with a melee weapon bound in your load out because they take way too long to smelt and smith. shieldbows and staves can be made on the fly forward and really don't need to be bound into your load out if all you want is the 115% class vs class bonus (eg: using range attacks on a mage).

 

 

take note that primal chainbody is used here -because- its less defense than primal platebody. plate has more magic defense than chain at eoc. chain, nonetheless, has the same lifepoint bonus, so it makes it easier to invite being hit, and then you can modify how much damage the hit actually is with use of a tank ring. This is key to making use of the revenge ability where any hit, even if only for 1 point of damage, will boost your output damage by +10% up to 10 hits for +100% damage that lasts 10 seconds with a 20 second cooldown that starts underneath the 10 seconds of revenge. Double damage half the time is the same as having 2h weaponry like mauls or spears that are felt to have 150% the damage of 1h weapons. The 840ish accuracy against range as seen above translates to 840ish accuracy against mage if you re-equip with a gravecreeper shieldbow btw (and forgotten rangers seem to drop those often enough you need not plan to cut wood to make one).

 

edit: I guess I don't have a forum signature. Hrm. This is me: http://www.gamefaqs....tributions/faqs

[Jeff Delu]

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