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Rainingfury
Joined 27 March 2024
Advanced mechanics added
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[[Barrier Dust]] is used with a base game metal bar to create imbued bars of the same type. Every barrier enemy outside of a dungeon drops barrier dust, and the amount dropped is proportional to the enemy's health. Acquiring barrier dust is by far the best way to create imbued bars, especially when combined with grinding for a useful item dropped by a barrier enemy. What grinds are useful will be covered later. | [[Barrier Dust]] is used with a base game metal bar to create imbued bars of the same type. Every barrier enemy outside of a dungeon drops barrier dust, and the amount dropped is proportional to the enemy's health. Acquiring barrier dust is by far the best way to create imbued bars, especially when combined with grinding for a useful item dropped by a barrier enemy. What grinds are useful will be covered later. | ||
===(C) Gear=== | ===(C) Gear=== | ||
This is a further upgrade to (B) gear. Although the crystallization effect it adds will be a small kill time boost in all combat scenarios, the effect is too small to justify seeking out. In addition, (C) gear provides no additional barrier damage compared to (B) gear. The main use of (C) gear is to kill enemies in the [[Crystal Depths]], but as we will see later, it is | This is a further upgrade to (B) gear. Although the crystallization effect it adds will be a small kill time boost in all combat scenarios, the effect is too small to justify seeking out. In addition, (C) gear provides no additional barrier damage compared to (B) gear. The main use of (C) gear is to kill enemies in the [[Crystal Depths]], but as we will see later, it is unlikely to be a time save to craft the gear for that purpose. (C) gear can be ignored until the completion grind, if the user is interested in that. | ||
===Summon Attack Interval=== | ===Summon Attack Interval=== | ||
The base speed at which summons attack is 3 seconds. There are 3 items that may speed up that interval: [[Summoner's Blessed Ring]]; [[Summoner's Defender]]; and [[Knight's Summoning Defender]]. These items are almost always a large increase to your kill times but may be difficult to fit into your builds. There are edge cases where this is not true that will be covered in the Advanced Mechanics section, but these edge cases will not be a concern for general progression. All three items may be equipped at the same time with the use of the [[Combat Passive Slot]] for a total of 30% reduction, which results in a summon swing timer of 2.1 seconds. Obtaining these items is a very high priority for barrier combat. | The base speed at which summons attack is 3 seconds. There are 3 items that may speed up that interval: [[Summoner's Blessed Ring]]; [[Summoner's Defender]]; and [[Knight's Summoning Defender]]. These items are almost always a large increase to your kill times but may be difficult to fit into your builds. There are edge cases where this is not true that will be covered in the Advanced Mechanics section, but these edge cases will not be a concern for general progression. All three items may be equipped at the same time with the use of the [[Combat Passive Slot]] for a total of 30% reduction, which results in a summon swing timer of 2.1 seconds. Obtaining these items is a very high priority for barrier combat. | ||
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This barrier regen effect imposes a dps check on the player. If the enemy's barrier can not be depleted faster than it is regenerated, the player will never kill the enemy. The dps check is alleviated by the stacking debuff the enemy accumulates, but if you have to rely on that debuff you are probably not geared enough to farm that content. This effect is particularly oppressive in [[Underwater City]] and against [[Underwater Ruins]] monsters. | This barrier regen effect imposes a dps check on the player. If the enemy's barrier can not be depleted faster than it is regenerated, the player will never kill the enemy. The dps check is alleviated by the stacking debuff the enemy accumulates, but if you have to rely on that debuff you are probably not geared enough to farm that content. This effect is particularly oppressive in [[Underwater City]] and against [[Underwater Ruins]] monsters. | ||
===Barrier Burn=== | |||
This debuff may be applied by the Dragon/Tortoise summoning synergy, by the [[Barrier Burn Shield]] and by the [[Barrier Burn Potion]], with the chances of each stacking additively. A barrier burn does 50% of the enemy's barrier before damage reduction in damage to their barrier. This damage does not apply to the enemy's health bar if the barrier is depleted. Consider having at least one source of this debuff mandatory for doing the [[Underwater City]] dungeon. Having all three active is unlikely to be your best option in each slot, but having two is good. | |||
==Advanced Mechanics== | ==Advanced Mechanics== | ||
For users that want to optimize their own builds, this section will be useful reading. Some of the mechanics in this section are not at all obvious. | For users that want to optimize their own builds, this section will be useful reading. Some of the mechanics in this section are not at all obvious. | ||
===Slows=== | ===Slows=== | ||
We know later enemies regenerate barrier every 7 turns. The debuff applied by this slows the enemy by 5% each time, and when it does each barrier regeneration tick is further delayed. This is an effective dps increase, as there's simply less barrier your summon needs to burn through meaning more of your attacks connect. If we could apply an additional slow we could compound this effect. Fortunately, there are options available. For early game players, the [[Hinder Potion]] is often your best potion option, and mid game (god geared) players may also find it to be their best offensive potion option. The conditions for Hinder Potion to be a good option are as follows: | |||
1) You don't need a [[Damage Reduction Potion]] to clear the content safely. | |||
2) The enemy lives long enough for barrier regen to be relevant (hard to quantify but probably at least two ticks of it) | |||
3) The enemy's barrier constitutes the majority of the time you spend killing it and Barrier Igniter Potion is not available or you are running Dragon/Tortoise or Barrier Burn Shield. (More on these in a bit) | |||
There are other slow options as well. An early game player should consider the Ice weapons, such as [[Ice Sword]]. Both [[Cloudburst Staff]] and [[Water Pulse Staff]] apply slows, and are usually the player's best magic weapon when a shield is not needed. The combination of a slow and an evasion reduction make [[Tidal Edge]], [[Ocean Song]] and [[Ancient Crossbow]] all very powerful options. The [[Quake]] spell's slow is extremely strong but the spell itself may not be a good offensive option. [[Engulfing Vortex Longbow]] is generally considered the best ranged weapon before Throne of the Herald content and it also applies a slow. | |||
===Other Crowd Control and Debuffs=== | ===Other Crowd Control and Debuffs=== | ||
Other crowd control effects can be used in barrier combat for offensive bonuses, though the effects are not as dramatic as slow. | |||
Of immediate note to the prior section, Frostburn applies an additional slow that stacks with the original slow effect. Unfortunately, it can not be applied before Throne of the Herald gear is acquired by which point it has little value in barrier combat. | |||
Stuns, freezes and sleeps reset the swing timer of an enemy. Since the barrier regen counter only increases when an attack swing completes, this is also an effective dps increase. In addition, both you and your summons will benefit from the debuff increasing the damage the enemy takes. Unfortunately it is rare to find gear that applies these buffs and is also offensively useful. Notably, [[Water Pulse Staff]] also applies a stun. | |||
Finally, let's revisit Barrier Burn. Note that this is distinct from regular burns: it affects only the enemy barrier. This effect does 50% of the enemy's total barrier before damage reduction as damage over 2.5 seconds. In other words, your best tool against large barriers is affected by enemy damage reduction, so using the few methods you have to reduce it is likely going to speed up your kills versus other options in those slots. Before toth, [[Fervor Scroll]] will likely be your only option in this regard. In addition, it was mentioned earlier that having two sources of barrier burn is good, but usually not three. In [[Underwater City]] a [[Damage Reduction Potion]] will likely be necessary to enable idling of the dungeon. This can be foregone if manual eating, though your summon swing timer resets when manual eating. If running [[Barrier Burn Potion]] and [[Barrier Burn Shield]] (likely in the passive slot) is possible and not a big loss, replacing Dragon/Tortoise with Tortoise/Occultist may be desirable, or consider toth summons if available. | |||
===Summon Swing Timer Desyncing=== | ===Summon Swing Timer Desyncing=== | ||
'''Combat sim highly recommended if trying to use this mechanic.''' | |||
Consider a weapon with a swing speed identical to the summon swing speed. Let's say both are 3s, which we shall call synced. When the swing timer finishes, your weapon will connect before your summon does, meaning your weapon will always do no damage until 3s after the barrier is depleted. Suppose instead you wear [[Heavy Boots]] to slow your weapon's swing timer to 3.1s. Now your swing timer is desynced with your summon swing timer. Now consider a situation where your summons are able to deplete the enemy barrier in one hit. Instead of your first damaging swing being delayed until 3s after the barrier is depleted, your weapon hits 0.1s after the barrier is depleted. If on average you need two swings to kill the enemy after the barrier is depleted and you deplete the barrier in one summon swing, you will kill the enemy on average in 6.2s with desynced weapon swing timers and 9s with synced weapon swing timers. In this scenario, taking what would traditionally be considered a dps loss is actually a large kph gain! Here are some criteria for when desyncing swing timers will be good: | |||
1) The enemy will usually die between just over 1 and 4 summon swing timers. After that the desyncing effect wanders and is not distinguishable from a normal build. | |||
2) Your summon's minimum hit and your minimum hit are both high. Ideally you want to guarantee the enemy will die within the window above, but if your minimum hit is not high enough, it may only be high probability that this occurs. A minimum hit too low will lose too much time for this method to be worthwhile. | |||
3) You attain desyncing by putting on interval reduction rather than taking off your best weapon for a slower one. There's more wiggle room in this criterion. A 2h weapon may be a good choice, especially one like [[Big o Ron]] which provides a lot of doubling or [[Ultima God Sword]] which can guarantee the enemy dies in the first swing after its barrier is depleted. However, normally you want to attain desyncing by putting on attack interval reduction or taking on or off summon interval reduction. | |||
Taking off or putting on the three summon interval reduction items mentioned earlier are good ways to attain desyncing. In addition, you can use [[Heavy Boots]], [[Knight's Defender]] (sometimes the non-summoning version may be more useful), [[Sand Treaders]], etc. | |||
=Placeholders for now= | One last note: Weapon special attacks usually have finite durations, commonly 0.2s but sometimes longer and not always stated in the tooltip. Combat simulator does not display this time in its attack interval stat, so if you are attempting this strategy, some light testing of special attack durations may be in order. Adding the special attack interval to the rest of the swing timer may make desyncing possible where it might otherwise seem unattainable. | ||
=Placeholders for now, stop reading here= | |||
==Preparing for combat== | ==Preparing for combat== | ||
What summons are appropriate at what point? | What summons are appropriate at what point? Tortoise/Dragon is powerful but when is it worth crafting Tortoise? | ||
==Entry barrier equipment== | ==Entry barrier equipment== | ||
Get barrier touch gem from [[Blind Ghost]] | Get barrier touch gem from [[Blind Ghost]] | ||