I’m not ashamed to admit it. I play a Str/Int build, I never got the fun of abusing staves or crazy focus regen dagger builds. I pretty much had to rely entirely on lightning charge and throw runes to kill the Crucible Knight consistently.
I really enjoy a challenge, I do, but there’s something about that fight between getting kicked off the edge, dealing with his ranged stuff, dealing with his AoE stuff that just isn’t fun, that deserved cheese.
Two handed weapons not generating more focus that their faster counter parts in addition to slow swing speed in addition to their exceedingly low damage make them seem utterly worthless. Im killing things LONG before I stagger them. I’m packing a ton of armor and every hit drops me to 50%. I’m just not enjoying the game having to rerun the entire crucible every time he smacks me around.
Falsted was an awesome example of a good boss fight, took me a lot of tries but I felt like I was making progress in dodging and parrying; the twins were terrible (the whole room aoe that required specific dodge direction and timing where you couldn’t dodge again on a mistake or parry and ate the final spin meant instant death so that was awful), and now the knight is just boring…are people really killing him that consistently with just dodging and the terrible damage weapons do? I’m maxed level, btw, full plate armor upgraded, weapons fully upgraded, fully socketed.
I have that one crazy idea for a build i want to try. Know the enchantment (purple) curse: take 28% more dmg.
I got one 2 pieces combining that with “reflect dmg taken”. I my mind that basically screams for a build where you stack up dmg reflection.
I will let you know if i got it to work or not. The probability is very high, that i just die even more horribly now lol
Not sure what the root issue/trouble is, but this is my suggestion. I like to be at 300 focus in total(+100 focus ring, or +100 focus apple pie food in combination with a few points into focus). Use the blink rune, it makes the fight easier as you can simply port behind the boss while it is animation locked and easily do damage.
The first phase can be quite fast, just make sure you enter the fight with full focus, and use all the weapon oils(plague, frost,fire,electricity, normal blade oil) just before you start the fight as they will greatly boost your damage. Have the large focus flasks/potions selected for quick use if you run out of focus in the middle of the fight, for food I suggest the 100 healing and 50 focus if you can get your hands on it. Try to stagger the boss while it is casting the ground AOE fields, so you will not have them for the rest of the fight.
For second phase, well, not much i can say, blink is just awesome here. Again, I just try to stay behind the boss and stagger when needed(the ground slams)
PS: the 2% heal on damage dealt ring is quite nice
I just respecced one of my characters to a Str/Int build to use the legendary 2h-hammer (Cinder & Stone). He’s running on full plate with ~1k armor, heavy equipload, with 200 hp (buffed with Sirlion) and only 200 focus.
Combat is slow against EK but my kills are pretty consistent. Mostly face tanking him, hitting with rune skills for max damage, and only fat-dodging his charge ability and those magic attacks.
No issue with focus coz I literally stack 2x focus regen on my gears. I also have 2x health regen and some ‘chance to heal x% hp on damage taken’ enchants on my gears.
I never had a chance to try focus based builds before the changes, but I am still having a blast as an electric battle mage. Using cursed crone, that can be bought from eleanor, and socketed the 2 runics from sinners crown. And still generate a lot of focus for me to use. Parrying, and just normally attacking. Right now, i’m dedicated to do the boss in crucible without getting hit, and it’s bloody hard. But that’s because I intentionally nerfed myself so the fight can be still fun & so skill actually matters, instead of just cheesing the hell outta him.
A lot of the trouble with EK is learning that not every dodge should be diagonal or INTO him contrary to what fromsoft teaches you. When he charges at you it’s a LOT better to dodge fully perpendicular to the direction he’s heading. And for when you do get hit the solution is twofold
run at least 500-700 armor(yes obtainable with cloth even), 800 & up can happen with upgrades/good rolls on the armor % up affix.
Think of it like Monster Hunter, eat sirloin platter & other foods that give buffs for 10 minutes they will most likely last the entire fight
this one is optional but if you don’t/can’t do just a cheese build run lifesteal at the cost of HP. The plague ring is a pretty normal drop I feel for a ring and it will make it so you can’t use focus anymore without potions or parries but it does give you breathing room for healing.
But yeah tbh my cheese & non-cheese builds haven’t changed that much. My current bow only build I couldn’t run just focus regen anymore for knockdown shot but that’s it
Yeah. Though I did notice a significant drop in the way my focus recovers now still.
Speaking on the focus changes since the patch, Ive noticed that both here, on the subreddit, and on YT, there has been a significant lack of, and drop off, of people talking about builds since a little before and after the patch compared to before. Especially on the reddit where it felt like practically every other day there was at least 4+ build posts.
Im not sure if its because people got tired and are waiting for a significant update to keep playing, or if people are too afraid of more nerfs to the point where they are keeping more things close to their chest. Though I did notice even with that that there are less people talking about builds and combos anymore probably because they dont want them to get nerfed.
Making builds right now is very discouraging because a) many of the affixes arent working as intended and b) The change which the stat system is going to receive in the future with the addition of the talent tree.
That is how I feel about it at least. Also I did most of the things I wanted to do with the current system.