Where should I drop some skill to add Resist? (Whammy)

[Coragin]

Okay I am so sick of dying to Mana Drain, it has gone from an annoyance to full fledged "Rage Hate Cuss Spewing" when this happens because all these low level mobs are spamming it on me.  Here are my skills...which ones should I lower?  And how much Resist do I need to stop going completely out of mana every time a freaking Imp casts mana drain?
(48 Mana)
120 Swords
120 Tactics
120 Parrying
120 Bushido
105 Spirit Speak
85 Chivalry
50 Necromancy

Oh and wearing skill jewels is not an option for me, I don't like it and wont do it. 

Seriously, you just dont know how bad this is pissing me off, I almost smashed my monitor multiple times due to this.  And this is not like me to get enraged over something like this.

So what to lower?  Why do you pick that skill?  And most important, how much resist will be needed to just have that spell not take ALL my mana?

[Coragin]

Update: Now skilling up Resist and at 95.8 -35 due to protection.  And finally at this level they can only take half my mana and the effect last half as long.  Plus the lowering of the effects on curse, weaken, etc is huge.

I stoned off 120 parrying figure I will try some Ilsh champs and see how I  do. 

Input?

With 0 in parry I can wear a shield right?  For the mods on it.

[Masscre]

With 0 in parry I can wear a shield right?  For the mods on it.

I do believe wearing a shield will impact your DCI drastically. I remember somthing about bushido getting a dci bump and if you wear a shield the bump goes away. So I would not recommend a shield as long as you have bushido.

[Coragin]

Will it show in the status window if I take a DCI hit?

I read that too but it was my understanding is the higher your parry and bush are the more a shield is a hinderance to you.  Dont remember if it was if you only had bush and not parry.

Good thing is I can make a low durability reforged nice shield to test this.

[Coragin]

Update: Did Undead spawn in Ilsh to test with resist and no parry.

No real issues, hp went a little lower than I would have liked from time to time, but Champ never came even close to killing me, hps never went below 70% on me and that with a paragon rotting corpse attacking me at the same time.

Might stick with this and see how it goes.

[12TimesOver]

Update: Did Undead spawn in Ilsh to test with resist and no parry.

No real issues, hp went a little lower than I would have liked from time to time, but Champ never came even close to killing me, hps never went below 70% on me and that with a paragon rotting corpse attacking me at the same time.

Might stick with this and see how it goes.

Not too shabby. I would have thought dropping Bush and keeping Parry would have been the way to go. What are you using Bush for with this template at this point?

I just added resist to my Sampire yesterday after an epic fail at getting the keys for Dread Horn because of the mana drain stuff. Took about 6 hours or so casting Weaken on my Samp with a 110 Eval character on a second account to get to GM. So at this point he's rolling at:

118.9 Swords
110.8 Bushido (20 applied)
110 Tactics
108.8 Parry (115 applied)
100 Necro
100 Resist
70 Chiv
The last couple of points are in Focus which is heading to 0.

Obviously I have to adjust this to fit in 720 or come up with some jewelry slots for skills, right now I'm using the cleanup jewelry set although I'm definitely ready to swap out of those. They're great for getting the extra 400 luck when farming stuff but I don't think they're the best set for solo'ng spawns or peerless. I also realize I don't need DCI as much since I'm using Counterstrike and the DCI can get in the way. That will make some room on the new jewels since I'm using Fey Leggings at the moment which is plenty of DCI (need a little for those HLD shots).

Anyway, how long did it take you to solo undead? Are Ish spawns any more or less difficult than Fel spawns - outside of the obvious potential for getting crashed in Fel or Paragons in Ish?

[manwinc]

Some funny Math for you.

So, with 120 Bushido and 120 Parry, you have a 35% Block chance with a 1 Handed Weapon.

You Always parry AFTER the DCI Check, so this 35% is only applied 55% of the time(100 - 45 dci ). .35 x .55 = ~20% Extra Block chance.

With the New Refinements, you could lower Energy by 6 and then every other resist by 2 Putting all your Resists at 68. This boosts your DCI cap to 65%

Which gives you the same physical Block chance as 120 parry + 120 Bushido. for ~7% increase in damage taken. (30% Damage -> 32% Damage) (30% increase in damage for energy sucks, so not suggested for Unbound Energy Vortex's or anything similar)

Just some Food for thought. With the new Refinements you can literally get the same block chance as 120 Parry + Bushido by lowering your Resists.


The Opposite is also True for Parry Toons. Drop your DCI to 20% And Increase your REsists to 75/75/75/75/80 (30% damage->25% damage 25% damage  -> 20% in Energy ) Almost a 20% Damage reduction across the Board for all incoming Blows including spells. 

You go from a total Block Chance of 65% to a block chance of 48% with a 1 handed weapon and 52% With a 2 Handed Weapon.

The Resist Bump is Literally like riding an armored Swampy. Without the Armored Swampy.
 

[Masscre]

Some really good info. Now does this also stack with an armored swampy?

[Coragin]

12x

I am going to do some Navrey runs this week I need at MINIMUM 2 Tangles.  So I will be there a good while and me thinks this will be the perfect fun we have been wanting.

On Ilsh Champs....

They are the EXACT same as Fel champs minus power scrolls.  But good money when you get a replica every other spawn + 300k gold per champ.  And the refinements they drop, usually 4-6.  But as far as boos power, they are the exact same as their Fel cousins.  It take a different amount of time per champ depending on whom I am fighting.

(Times are assuming its a fresh spawn with 2 red candles)
Baracoon - < 1 Hour
Undead - 1 Hour
Demon - 1.5 hours depending
Spider - Close to two hours due to out of mana on stage 2, mana leech does nothing.
Dragon - 1.25 hour for spawn + 20 min to kill Rikktor after logging in archer.
Lord Oaks - No time yet, since last time I could barely hurt him. I believe this is due to his queen being up.

Now this is just me working the spawns, I have quite the collection of replicas, tiles and stuff.  Since I cannot find a good vendor spot, this is my way to make cold hard cash and get pinks/replicas/monster statues/tiles/etc.

Plus its just plain old fun. 

Also I do NOT have hit area on any weapon of mine.  Here is why and maybe someone can help me.  When I do a champ spawn I am not in war mode, so the mob closest to me is always my target.  Unlike war mode where you are constantly double clicking the nearest target.  Well hit area does the SAME THING, then I have to turn on war mode, try to quickly double click the closest target over and over.  Otherwise I could knock off at minimum 20 minutes off my champ time for each one.

So if there is a way to ALWAYS target the npc right next to you in war mode, I would have to make a whole new set of weapons with hit area on them.  Since I am about max stamina so I dont need SSI anymore.

If any of you know why this happens and how to correct it, you would make my year.  And thus this is how I have been soloing champs for years now. 

Off to do some BOD's and make a super slayer 100% Elemental Dmg set for champs who do not spawn friends in the fight.

Anyone asking why on 100% Elemental dmg its easy.  If you know what you are fighting and what its lowest resist is and you are using a 100% weapon, you never ever have to use consecrate weapon.  Ever.

[manwinc]

I'd still suggest SSI on your gear/weapons. Having maximum stamina is good, but once you get hit hard and your stamina drops, you are kind of SOL on a toon that relies on Physical Blows to heal themselves. Unless you are just talking about whirlwind weapons for Low End Monsters.

Just get your hands on some whetstones, remove the damage increase, go STamina, Mana, Area, SSI, Slayer and own some Stuff.

[Coragin]

Well manwinc maybe you know why targeting of the nearest closest mob to you gets all funk as soon as hit area goes off.  I would love to do hit area, but once my current target dies (say im surrounded by 30 ratmen at champ spawn) the next auto target i get is usually not next to me and rather far away.  Unlike out of war mode where you will always have the nearest mob targeted.  It is irritating.  But I would be elated to have some hit energy area, cold area, fire area.  So please let me know if you know a fix.  Even if its a macro button to target nearest. I have not been able to get any of it to work.

[tehmt]

classic client macro:

(SelectNearest) (Hostile)

(AttackSelectedTarget)



that's how i do that, works fine for me. no ?

cheers

[manwinc]

What Tehmt Said, but you combine it with toggle Primary



Primary
Select Nearest Hostile
Attack Selected Target

And just mash that over and over again

[Coragin]

Thanks guys!

Time to make some new weapons.

By the way is that Whetstone a one use thing?  Or is it indestructible?  Because I dont wanna go to shame and kill the bosses of each level like 30 times per boss lol.

[manwinc]

One time Use Sadly.