- snowmen (NM or HM)
- Icy dragon swords (NM)
- Ice imps in southern shiverpeak
Here I will talk mainly about snowmen, for many reasons :
- They are packed in bigs groups (10-20) which is what you want when you use barrage
- There is no XP gain, very interesting as the build requires you to die
- 3-4 high end chests per run, this is good for chest runners
- Fair amount of gold items
- In HM, different tomes (Mo, P, D)
Ok, now let's look at the enemies we are facing ...
- No disenchant => maintened enchants are good here
- Interrupts, knockdown, daze => spells are not suited here, even 1/4 sec cast ones can fail.
- Cold damage => all snowmen deal cold damage, this is great for us
.Now the build ... First of all, we need to be invicible. Protective spirit may fail because of daze or kd, protective bond is a maintened enchant that is launch at the start, it cannot fail, it cannot be stripped, as long as you have energy. And it reduce dmg to 5% of your maximum hp, this means that if you have less than 40 hp, you take 1 dmg per hit !!! Take a noob armor with only sup runes => you have 105 hp. Add a survivor insigna on legs or arms => you have 110 hp. Now enter the dungeon and die => you have 38 hp. Of course, this assumes your bow do not have +life. Because you will not gain XP, you will always have 38 hp.
You have 38 hp, and lose 1 hp per hit, with 8 @protection, you lose 4 energy per hit. But as you are taking elemental damage, you can use storm chaser. At 16 @wild, it lasts 21 sec with 20 sec reloading, so it can be kept up indefinitely, and it gives you 5 energy per hit !!! It is a stance, it cannot be interrupted.
We have used so far 2 skills, but we need life regen and damage. We are at [email protected] and 16 @ wild, so we can only use one more attribute. We will use balthazar's spirit for even more energy, 2 energy back per hit is good, it allows to finish snowmen 1vs1. Watchfull spirit adds 2 pips of regen, and requieres no attribute points ; with only this you can tank 5-6 snowmens in HM. We need more life regen to tank more snowmen, "feel no pain" gives 5 pips and last 12 sec / 15 sec @10 norn title.
With 3 slots left for the damage, we will be using barrage, it works wonder as snowmen are packed, and it works even if you are dazed. Moreover, it do not kill all snowmen in the same shot => kills 1 per 1 = more drops. The only problem : it does not work if you are KD, so we will use "I am unstoppable". Finally we will add more damage to barrage with another shout : "I am the strongest".
Summary of the build (R/Mo):
Wildness survival : 12 + 1 + 3
Markmanship : 10 + 3
Expertise : 2 + 3
Protection : 8
- Storm chaser
- Barrage
- I am unstoppable
- I am the strongest
- Feel no pain
- Watchfull spirit
- Balthazar's spirit
- Protective bond
Short bow with +5 energy and without +life
Usage:
- Enter the dungeon and die
- Cast Protective bond and balthazar's spirit on yourself
- Aggro the first group with storm chaser
- regain energy and activate : "Feel no pain", "I am unstoppable", Watchfull spirit
- Kill the snowmen with barrage + "I am the strongest"
The run (10-15 min in NM, 15-20 min in HM):
- Kill the first 2 groups, except the glimmering snowman (you can kill him without using barrage, but it slows down the run and add only one kill)
- You can kill the 3 snowmen on the bridge just after the 2 giant snowballs
- You can kill the the first group near the map, only if the second group is far from the first one.
- Kill the 2 groups before the lock
- You can kill the angry snowman, this will give you 1-2 more chests. In NM, no problem, you can then clean the last snowmen group with freezie. In HM, you will gain XP if you kill the angry snowman, you will not be able to kill freezie, but it can still provide 1-2 more chests.
Advices:
- Storm chaser needs 8 energy, be carefull when it blinks.
- You should move during the 3 sec when you do not have "Feel no pain" to dodge some snowballs.
Screenshots :
As I play under linux, there are some glitches. Couldn't take screenshot in english (the game crashed), so these are in french
.Notes :
- I am not a native, my english is perfectible
- One run in HM gave 10-15 event items during lucky weekend
- You should carry a normal salvage kit for white items
- I believe you can drop req7 max inscribable golds in NM (see discussion in other threads, this is my point of view, don't post here if you want to flame this)
)
too bad :x
