I'm new to using heroes and never played a W so I wanted some help trying to build Koss. This is what I had in mind:
W/E
Strength 6
Hammer Mastery 12
Air Magic 11
1) For Great Justice
2) Conjure Lightning
3) Signet of Strength
4) Mokele Smash
5) Whirlwind
6) Belly Smash
7) Flail
8) Res sig/endure pain
The idea is basically just to deal as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, the belly smash is just there to help minimize swarming if too many bad guys get aggroed. I'm still kind of trying to figure out how heroes skills work, the main question being...will a hero use their skills in order 1-8 kind of? or will their AI just use the skills furthest to the left as soon as the energy/adrenaline is available? This build wont really work if Koss is just using skills 1-3 over and over again (for example). I would be using a hammer with a shocking haft or grip or whatever, probably a fortutude mod as well.
Also as a kind of side question, what areas have a lot of monsters resistant to lightning damage? I have tried searching Wiki and if you look up the damage type, it just tells you a handful of creatures vulnerable to it. Reason I'm asking is because I figure if I know where there are lots of lightning resistant creatures, i might wanna have another elemental modded weapon on switch (probably earth, since whatever is resistant to air is probably also vulnerable to earth).
edit: after looking at this a 2nd time, where is all that energy gonna come from? the only alternative I can think of is to sandbag whirlwind, and either use hammer bash (i think thats what its called) or equip my monk hero with shield of judgement/signet of judgement. or perhaps glyph of lesser energy, but that would only help with the conjure lightning spell. I guess I should go with the judgement monk skills, although I'm rather skeptical of the monk's AI with those skills working efficiently in conjunction with the warrior's belly smash skill.
Help/Critique Koss build
mf2
stryker000
i focus my warriors more on absorbing as much damage as possible, i would take something like dolyak signet for those long boss fights
FoxBat
Yeah I can see you never played warrior, because that's a pretty bad build. 
If you want to use conjure element, you go for a sword or axe. It's totally wasted on hammer's slow swing times.
You're also spending waay too much mana. And keep in mind heroes are far worse at managing energy than humans.
Here's a recommendation for a really stupid, solid hammer build that the AI can handle.
W/R
Max Hammer, at least 9 Beast Mastery, rest strength or tactics depending on optional skill
Tiger's Fury
Enraged Smash
4 Adrenal attacks (I recommend overbearing, staggering, fierce, heavy but it's not that important)
Optional (Counterattack, "To the Limit", Enraged Charge, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, some other cheap non-adrenal thing)
Res Sig
The 4 adrenal attacks you are going to disable by shift-clicking on them, so the AI doesen't use them. Once the adren in all these attacks is filled, the AI will continually spam Enraged Fury for nearly 100 damage every other attack. To get filled will take as long as your highest adren skill, notice all the hammer ones picked above are 6. You may be able to trigger enraged fury with 4 disabled axe skills at 5 adrenaline, but I prefer the utility of manually triggering the above skills when facing a boss or tough enemy.
I prefer tiger's fury to flail because the AI doesn't have a great idea about when not to use flail so it can actually reach an enemy before everyone else kills it.
Your optional pick needs to be something cheap or rarely used since constant tiger's fury will drain most of koss' mana. Maybe enraging charge if you want to get a bit of run and faster adren. Belly smash or crushing blow would work if you manually activate an adrenal KD from the disabled list, the AI should automatically belly smash afterwards.
There are other ways to do a hammer warrior if you want more utility or AoE, but this gets a lot of pure single-target damage out of it, and it's a really stupid straightforward and boring-to-play war build that the AI excels at.
P.S. uber-tank warriors aren't that great anymore especially for heroes, AI will run after your squishies and Koss doesen't know much of anything about bodyblocking.
If you want to use conjure element, you go for a sword or axe. It's totally wasted on hammer's slow swing times.
You're also spending waay too much mana. And keep in mind heroes are far worse at managing energy than humans.
Here's a recommendation for a really stupid, solid hammer build that the AI can handle.
W/R
Max Hammer, at least 9 Beast Mastery, rest strength or tactics depending on optional skill
Tiger's Fury
Enraged Smash
4 Adrenal attacks (I recommend overbearing, staggering, fierce, heavy but it's not that important)
Optional (Counterattack, "To the Limit", Enraged Charge, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, some other cheap non-adrenal thing)
Res Sig
The 4 adrenal attacks you are going to disable by shift-clicking on them, so the AI doesen't use them. Once the adren in all these attacks is filled, the AI will continually spam Enraged Fury for nearly 100 damage every other attack. To get filled will take as long as your highest adren skill, notice all the hammer ones picked above are 6. You may be able to trigger enraged fury with 4 disabled axe skills at 5 adrenaline, but I prefer the utility of manually triggering the above skills when facing a boss or tough enemy.
I prefer tiger's fury to flail because the AI doesn't have a great idea about when not to use flail so it can actually reach an enemy before everyone else kills it.
Your optional pick needs to be something cheap or rarely used since constant tiger's fury will drain most of koss' mana. Maybe enraging charge if you want to get a bit of run and faster adren. Belly smash or crushing blow would work if you manually activate an adrenal KD from the disabled list, the AI should automatically belly smash afterwards.
There are other ways to do a hammer warrior if you want more utility or AoE, but this gets a lot of pure single-target damage out of it, and it's a really stupid straightforward and boring-to-play war build that the AI excels at.
P.S. uber-tank warriors aren't that great anymore especially for heroes, AI will run after your squishies and Koss doesen't know much of anything about bodyblocking.
mf2
Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxBat
Yeah I can see you never played warrior, because that's a pretty bad build.
If you want to use conjure element, you go for a sword or axe. It's totally wasted on hammer's slow swing times.
You're also spending waay too much mana. And keep in mind heroes are far worse at managing energy than humans.
Here's a recommendation for a really stupid, solid hammer build that the AI can handle.
W/R
Max Hammer, at least 9 Beast Mastery, rest strength or tactics depending on optional skill
Tiger's Fury
Enraged Smash
4 Adrenal attacks (I recommend overbearing, staggering, fierce, heavy but it's not that important)
Optional (Counterattack, "To the Limit", Enraged Charge, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, some other cheap non-adrenal thing)
Res Sig
The 4 adrenal attacks you are going to disable by shift-clicking on them, so the AI doesen't use them. Once the adren in all these attacks is filled, the AI will continually spam Enraged Fury for nearly 100 damage every other attack. To get filled will take as long as your highest adren skill, notice all the hammer ones picked above are 6. You may be able to trigger enraged fury with 4 disabled axe skills at 5 adrenaline, but I prefer the utility of manually triggering the above skills when facing a boss or tough enemy.
I prefer tiger's fury to flail because the AI doesn't have a great idea about when not to use flail so it can actually reach an enemy before everyone else kills it.
Your optional pick needs to be something cheap or rarely used since constant tiger's fury will drain most of koss' mana. Maybe enraging charge if you want to get a bit of run and faster adren. Belly smash or crushing blow would work if you manually activate an adrenal KD from the disabled list, the AI should automatically belly smash afterwards.
There are other ways to do a hammer warrior if you want more utility or AoE, but this gets a lot of pure single-target damage out of it, and it's a really stupid straightforward and boring-to-play war build that the AI excels at.
P.S. uber-tank warriors aren't that great anymore especially for heroes, AI will run after your squishies and Koss doesen't know much of anything about bodyblocking. Yeah I'm starting to find out the hard way that the heroes AI isnt much brighter than the moron henchies. One thing i absolutely HATE is how they will automatically attack whatever u attack. For example, i use apply poison, which i then of course shoot every enemy once with. regardless if i lock koss' target or not, he spends the first 8 seconds of combat running halfway to each target as i switch to poison them.
i guess i am just kind of outsmarting myself, trying to get dopey heroes to do too many things. the idea basically was to use conjure lightning to add damage, whirlwind to knock enemies down, belly smash to blind them.
One thing that is more frustrating than anything to me with this game is telling what the hell is actually going on. i have been in some fights and have done nothing, just watching koss to see if his belly smash is blinding them, but with all the stuff flying around and all the conditions, hexes, enchantments, etc, its hard to tell.
In any case, wish i would have had that tip about conjure element before, cuz i wouldnt have put a shocking hilt over the top of the perf vampiric one. Reason i did that is because my ranger has a lightning dmg bow and a vampiric one, and i dont know why, but the lightning bow almost always seems to do more damage, and worst cases, does about the same.
i sandbagged flail because its murder to try and get. the build i have been actually trying is
1) glyph of lesser energy
2) for great justice
3) whirlwind
4) belly smash
5) conjure lightning
6) distracting blow
7) mighty blow
8) res sig
it hasnt actually been all that mad, but i kind of have to monitor it, and sometimes koss uses whirlwind when i dont really want him to. basically he casts the glyph, uses the shout, conjures lightning (costs 0 cuz of glyph), runs up, uses whirlwind(also 0 as long as i get it off fast enough), followed by belly smash. Runs outta energy pretty quick, but sometimes it works out fairly well. usually after the belly smash, a couple of more whacks and he whips out a mighty blow as well.
do you think this will work better/is viable? I guess if i had to i could just take out skills 6 and 7 altogether so other than the main skills i want him to use, he just has res sig. Anyway, the glyph i tried cuz i thought it would be an ok workaround for the lack of energy (plus i added 3 runes for a total of +7 energy. yes, i used energy runes on a warrior LOL).
i do like the idea of using tigers fury as well, though, plus then i think i could get him a pet.
I'm almost tempted to rely on my pet and minions and sandbag koss for one of the elementalists and get some AoE damage going, but i already spent 10K on the hammer (and then like an idiot, modded from the perf vamp hilt i bought it with to a shocking mod
). almost have to stick with the tank now
edit: i have tried manually using whirlwind and belly smash, and it NEVER works. is this a bug with belly smash following whirlwind, or does it have something to do with the fact that a hero is using it? I just tried it about 10 times, and not only will is the AI not bright enough to use belly smash right after whirlwind, but even when i do it manually, it never blinds anything. i run up, use throw dirt, and it works just fine. wierd.
If you want to use conjure element, you go for a sword or axe. It's totally wasted on hammer's slow swing times.
You're also spending waay too much mana. And keep in mind heroes are far worse at managing energy than humans.
Here's a recommendation for a really stupid, solid hammer build that the AI can handle.
W/R
Max Hammer, at least 9 Beast Mastery, rest strength or tactics depending on optional skill
Tiger's Fury
Enraged Smash
4 Adrenal attacks (I recommend overbearing, staggering, fierce, heavy but it's not that important)
Optional (Counterattack, "To the Limit", Enraged Charge, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, some other cheap non-adrenal thing)
Res Sig
The 4 adrenal attacks you are going to disable by shift-clicking on them, so the AI doesen't use them. Once the adren in all these attacks is filled, the AI will continually spam Enraged Fury for nearly 100 damage every other attack. To get filled will take as long as your highest adren skill, notice all the hammer ones picked above are 6. You may be able to trigger enraged fury with 4 disabled axe skills at 5 adrenaline, but I prefer the utility of manually triggering the above skills when facing a boss or tough enemy.
I prefer tiger's fury to flail because the AI doesn't have a great idea about when not to use flail so it can actually reach an enemy before everyone else kills it.
Your optional pick needs to be something cheap or rarely used since constant tiger's fury will drain most of koss' mana. Maybe enraging charge if you want to get a bit of run and faster adren. Belly smash or crushing blow would work if you manually activate an adrenal KD from the disabled list, the AI should automatically belly smash afterwards.
There are other ways to do a hammer warrior if you want more utility or AoE, but this gets a lot of pure single-target damage out of it, and it's a really stupid straightforward and boring-to-play war build that the AI excels at.
P.S. uber-tank warriors aren't that great anymore especially for heroes, AI will run after your squishies and Koss doesen't know much of anything about bodyblocking. Yeah I'm starting to find out the hard way that the heroes AI isnt much brighter than the moron henchies. One thing i absolutely HATE is how they will automatically attack whatever u attack. For example, i use apply poison, which i then of course shoot every enemy once with. regardless if i lock koss' target or not, he spends the first 8 seconds of combat running halfway to each target as i switch to poison them.
i guess i am just kind of outsmarting myself, trying to get dopey heroes to do too many things. the idea basically was to use conjure lightning to add damage, whirlwind to knock enemies down, belly smash to blind them.
One thing that is more frustrating than anything to me with this game is telling what the hell is actually going on. i have been in some fights and have done nothing, just watching koss to see if his belly smash is blinding them, but with all the stuff flying around and all the conditions, hexes, enchantments, etc, its hard to tell.
In any case, wish i would have had that tip about conjure element before, cuz i wouldnt have put a shocking hilt over the top of the perf vampiric one. Reason i did that is because my ranger has a lightning dmg bow and a vampiric one, and i dont know why, but the lightning bow almost always seems to do more damage, and worst cases, does about the same.
i sandbagged flail because its murder to try and get. the build i have been actually trying is
1) glyph of lesser energy
2) for great justice
3) whirlwind
4) belly smash
5) conjure lightning
6) distracting blow
7) mighty blow
8) res sig
it hasnt actually been all that mad, but i kind of have to monitor it, and sometimes koss uses whirlwind when i dont really want him to. basically he casts the glyph, uses the shout, conjures lightning (costs 0 cuz of glyph), runs up, uses whirlwind(also 0 as long as i get it off fast enough), followed by belly smash. Runs outta energy pretty quick, but sometimes it works out fairly well. usually after the belly smash, a couple of more whacks and he whips out a mighty blow as well.
do you think this will work better/is viable? I guess if i had to i could just take out skills 6 and 7 altogether so other than the main skills i want him to use, he just has res sig. Anyway, the glyph i tried cuz i thought it would be an ok workaround for the lack of energy (plus i added 3 runes for a total of +7 energy. yes, i used energy runes on a warrior LOL).
i do like the idea of using tigers fury as well, though, plus then i think i could get him a pet.
I'm almost tempted to rely on my pet and minions and sandbag koss for one of the elementalists and get some AoE damage going, but i already spent 10K on the hammer (and then like an idiot, modded from the perf vamp hilt i bought it with to a shocking mod
edit: i have tried manually using whirlwind and belly smash, and it NEVER works. is this a bug with belly smash following whirlwind, or does it have something to do with the fact that a hero is using it? I just tried it about 10 times, and not only will is the AI not bright enough to use belly smash right after whirlwind, but even when i do it manually, it never blinds anything. i run up, use throw dirt, and it works just fine. wierd.
Amy Awien
Quote:
Originally Posted by mf2
... my ranger has a lightning dmg bow and a vampiric one, and i dont know why, but the lightning bow almost always seems to do more damage, and worst cases, does about the same.
Best thing to do is test it out on the Isle of the Nameless against the standardized suits of armor. Your earlier estimate was inprecise, in the heat of the battle one is more likely judge 32 as being more then 28+5.