Help with a Duelist run
Hi everyone,
I'm not great at shattered and haven't played much since the duelist was introduced.
This run got me an early RoF and then a recent RoW. I haven't used any upgrade scrolls yet. Not a ton of great equipment. How do I play this? Brawler's stance seems pretty great, especially if I find a weapon with a lame special attack.
Once identified, I usually only use the scrolls of upgrade after the first boss.
In the best of cases I can withhold them for so long that I can skip an armor or weapon class early by lowering its strength reqirement through upgrading.
So that's what I would try while you're on Floor 4. The first Boss is manageable the way you are set up now. Keep those scrolls until you find a better weapon.
Yes, I try to hold onto the first three scrolls, although sometimes I feel like it bites me in the ass. Not so on this (still ongoing) run.
What's the current strat for final armor? I feel like it used to be +4 plate for any character, basically.
It usually will bite you. Skeletons in the Prison will destroy you if you don’t use upgraded armour. The explosion damage is doubly-reduced by armour, so you don’t need many upgrades to neutralize it, but +0 armour is not good enough.
Also note that upgrades to armour reduce the strength requirement like this +1, +3, +6, +10 for -1 to -4 strength requirement respectively. As an aside, this sequence is known as the triangular numbers:
This checks out, because -5 and -6 reduction is at 15 and 21.
As soon as you reach 13 strength, try on that Mail Armor. If it's not upgraded, it's worth using a scroll on. I don't know how Ring of Force and Duelist interact, but I do know that Rapier damage is not enough for the Prison. Unequip the Rapier if you need to.
Yep, that was the plan. Worked for a while really well til YASD.
Check out RoF on duelist! Just like everyone else, having a weapon equipped makes RoF a way worse bonus than going unarmed. There isn't a special RoF attack either.
But, the duelist has a whole extra mechanic called Brawler's Stance. You can be in it always. While in it, you do RoF damage but can use weapon abilities and proc enchantments. However, your weapon ability recharges at half speed.
I also came across a Horn of Plenty, so at any time I could snack from it to increase my charges by 1 (first T2 talent iirc). Worked great.
If you aren't very good at the game yet putting the first 6 upgrade scrolls into the RoF is definitely the safer bet.
RoW is fun but you still have to be lucky enough to find good stuff to carry you to level 23 where you really start farming.
I've played for a million years (but again, not since duelist) but I don't do challenges and have a 5% winrate. I kinda think I'm about average?
But got it, I don't want to be even a little risky all the way to 23, I'll stick stuff into Force.
I have no idea what average is. I'm sure Evan would know. The game has all kinds of telemetry. I'm curious what the average win rate is, only including people who have played for at least, I dunno... 50 hours? I'm sure tons of people try it, lose a bunch, and never play again. I wouldn't want to include them in an average. I also think early losses from people who did stick with it should be excluded because they were still learning. So, maybe only count games after a person's first win. That would be a good cutoff.
I have a 34% winrate (85/251), and some of that is with challenges, but I have never won a 6-challenge and gave up on it. 3-challenge was enough. Meanwhile, some players here eat 6-challenge runs for breakfast. Those people are on a different level, but I think I'm pretty ok.
Nowadays, I only play 0-challenge once in a while for fun.
I have 18/634 (about 2.9% win rate), mainly because when I beat the game one way, i want to make it harder. So a lot of the deaths are from me trying to win 7 challenges after ascending with 6 challenges three times. I think the average would not really be telling anything because of the difference in playstyles.
I like to upgrade RoW to +2 if I get it early; it's a good investment, you can hope for some +1/+2 armor or weapon and some bonus scrolls or potions.
In this case I'd put +2 into RoW and then consider upgrading RoF -- depends on if you find a weapon with good enchantment, if you struggle with skeletons etc.