Latest posts for the topic "So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?"

So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

FodderFigure — GMT

In this thread we can discuss: 1. What skills to add first to get us on the right track 2. Why you'd think these skills are important. 3. Discuss a skill and what it does for your type of play. 4. How skills interact with other skills. 5. What exactly various skills do. 6. Etc...

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

FodderFigure — GMT

No replies?

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Since I just started an Artifact char, I'll throw in my initial impressions. First, LA is a difficult class until, I think, around level 70. You should expect that from about level 20 - 70 is going to be a long exp grind. I base this opinion off what I've seen with other good LA players. Around lvl 70 - 90 is when they start to shine. With LW, there's a much smoother progression curve. A good lvl 50 LW player can top the scoreboard consistently and by level 35 with a few levels of vamp, a LW player should be able to survive all the waves except 16. The potential is there earlier on for LW. This is basically what I did with the first 20 levels. A decent player should be able to get around level 20 in about five hours. It used to be the standard advice to tell new players to put all their points into health. Now, the medics do a great job keeping everyone alive and at +150 over base so this is less the case. This is also why the LA class is *much* more appealing now as the necessity to run out your adren with booster is often not a factor. If you are a LW player and know how to use the triple, I recommend you don't put anything in health. The medics will take care of you. If you don't know the triple, put 50 - 100. Experienced player: 50, total newbie: 100. Next, you need Loaded Artifacts 2 and energy leach 2. Then add 25 adren and get adrenal drip 1. Between leach and drip, you should have a surplus of adren most of the time. Next, get your ammo bonus to 50 (this is a mistake I made, waited too long). You can then buy resupply. With the balance of points, max out your weapon speed. Don't worry abut dmg bonus, for two reasons. First, I think wep speed is a better bang for the buck purchase at low levels. Let's say you're shooting a bad guy. Assuming you hit it every time, with max wep speed you do 150% dmg in the same amount of time. This costs you 50 stat points. With dmg bonus, it costs 80 points and each shot will do 40% more dmg. Even though you run your ammo out faster, you have resupply to help. The second reason is play strategy which I'll explain shortly. So here's the point breakdown: You start with 28 stat points. By level 20 you have a total of 133. Here's what I would buy: 1. Artifact class: 1 2. leach 1 and 2: 10 3. LA 1 and 2: 11 5. Ammo max 50: 50 6. Resupply 1: 15 7. Adren max 25: 25 8. Drip 1: 2 Total: 114 9. Put the rest in wep speed. After this, I might split between dmg bonus and health for awhile. Not sure. Play Strategy 1. The first thing is to use the triple dmg ALL the time. Even against weak level stuff. I use a strategy of running right up to monsters and shooting at them point blank with a flak. For stuff far away, I use lighting + triple. If you can't kill something with one close range flak hit, you should activate the triple so that you can. Basically, anything stronger than a nali. The sooner it goes down, the sooner it's not shooting/hurting you, the sooner you collect your adren bonus and exp, the sooner you're on to the next monster, rinse/repeat. This is why dmg bonus is less important early on. By virtue of the triple, your dmg bonus will be 300% when it counts. If you're LW, this might seem strange since LW players are used to conserving adren for tougher waves. With LA, you have adren all the time so you might as well use it. Don't wait to get 100 adren or whatever before you turn on the triple. You need 14 adren to turn it on, which gets you two seconds. If you run right up on a skaarj, brute, assasin, etc. and activate the triple, a point blank flak shot will kill in one or two hits. 2. Head for the medics when you are at 50% of your boosted max. So if a medic heals you from 100 up to 250, head for the medic around 125. 3. On titan waves, or going into them, make sure you have your medic boost and as much shield as you can get. The pebbles can kill you. Then play aggresive with the triple. 4. On wave 12, you have to hang back some. Shock rifle + triple. Like the directions on a firework: light quickly and run away. Don't go for kills, just go for dmg (and therefore exp and adren). You should find a safe spot to snipe/camp.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

320's Strategy is awesome. I did not do as good as this when i levelled. I have put everything in Weapon Speed first then Damage Bonus. It took me a LOoooooong time to level. Try getting Class specific abilities as soon as possible! But i definatelly suggest max Damage reduction ASAP.

4. On wave 12, you have to hang back some. Shock rifle + triple. Like the directions on a firework: light quickly and run away. Don't go for kills, just go for dmg (and therefore exp and adren). You should find a safe spot to snipe/camp.

I caint agree on this one tough. Wave 12 mobs have low Damage reduction. Full Flak hit + Tripple at Point Blank. 2 - 3 Shots and mobs die. This wave is a Xp fest. If i could sustain a booster or something it would be awesome. Problem in this wave... i die very often lol, so take this as an advice :) I will try to write what is my strategy when i get time, but to resume, im a VERY agressive player. I NEVER sniper or hide. I dont know why, im unable to do that...

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

[KitFox wrote:

]320's Strategy is awesome. I did not do as good as this when i levelled. I have put everything in Weapon Speed first then Damage Bonus. It took me a LOoooooong time to level. Try getting Class specific abilities as soon as possible! But i definatelly suggest max Damage reduction ASAP.

Here is my argument against dmg reduction for any class, until a much higher level. I admit this might be flawed or I'm overlooking something. Maybe vortex can expand the issue. Max dmg reduction costs 50 points (each point gets you 0.5% DR). Let's say you have 100 health with max DR (25%) and the monster has zero dmg bonus. That means if the monster hits you with a 100 dmg shot, you take 75 dmg. So, it's like you have 25 extra hp. Starting out, you can buy 26 hp for 13 stat points. You would need to spend 50 in DR for the same effect. Now let's say your health is maxed at 300. Same math gets you 75 extra hp. That's 37.5 stat points in health for the same effect vs, again, 50 in DR. Let's say you have 300 health and a medic heals you to 400. Now with DR, you get 100 extra hitpoints. 100 extra in max health stat costs you 50 stat points. So at 400 health, max health stat and dmg reduction cost the same. At 450, DR has a small advantage, cost-wise. Now, again, I could be overlooking something. But if I'm not, then DR should be purchased only after health is maxed, I think.

I caint agree on this one tough. Wave 12 mobs have low Damage reduction. Full Flak hit + Tripple at Point Blank. 2 - 3 Shots and mobs die. This wave is a Xp fest. If i could sustain a booster or something it would be awesome. Problem in this wave... i die very often lol, so take this as an advice :)

Another 20 levels or so and I'll be in there with ya.

I will try to write what is my strategy when i get time, but to resume, im a VERY agressive player. I NEVER sniper or hide. I dont know why, im unable to do that...

I have the same problem. :?

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

But if I'm not, then DR should be purchased only after health is maxed, I think.

You are right. Wow i didn't tough i had bought my abilities in such a bad way hehe :P Another thing to note. Energy Leech: Try getting level 2 very fast, it makes such a difference its not even funny. And it only cost 8.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Szlat — GMT

320 wrote:

Max dmg reduction costs 50 points (each point gets you 0.5% DR). Let's say you have 100 health with max DR (25%) and the monster has zero dmg bonus. That means if the monster hits you with a 100 dmg shot, you take 75 dmg. So, it's like you have 25 extra hp. Starting out, you can buy 26 hp for 13 stat points. You would need to spend 50 in DR for the same effect.

One other difference is that once you have got rid of this monster, with DR you only need to get 75 health to get back up to full strength, whereas going the "health first" route, you need to get 100 health. With medics around that is a lot easier - there is always health lying around on the map. Before medics, health was always in very short supply, so DR made more sense. Not for the first monster, but the second, and third... For example, assume that between monsters you can only find 75 health. With DR you would live forever (in this example), as you would be back to full health before tackling the next monster. On the health route the second monster would kill you.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Excellent point. As you can tell, I think of DR from the LW standpoint, where vamp makes health limitless and cheap. With artifacts, it's adren and the triple which are limitless and cheap. This might also be why no one wants a vamp 7 flak anymore when I offer it. /:) Or maybe they just don't like me. :wink: The medic class makes the low-level game ten times more viable, not to mention FUN. I didn't really see the point at first with this class, and I sometimes question how much fun the medics, themselves, might be having doing all this healing for the rest of us and making nali cows in their spare time. Still, in terms of improving the low level game, Druid hit a home run.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Mach10 — GMT

320 wrote:

Excellent point. As you can tell, I think of DR from the LW standpoint, where vamp makes health limitless and cheap. With artifacts, it's adren and the triple which are limitless and cheap. This might also be why no one wants a vamp 7 flak anymore when I offer it. /:) Or maybe they just don't like me. :wink: The medic class makes the low-level game ten times more viable, not to mention FUN. I didn't really see the point at first with this class, and I sometimes question how much fun the medics, themselves, might be having doing all this healing for the rest of us and making nali cows in their spare time. Still, in terms of improving the low level game, Druid hit a home run.

I'm having LOADS of fun being a medic, I'd have no problem sitting in a corner and only healing. Although, I prefer to roam around the map to get some extra XP by killing some monsters. Usually I only set up camp on the tough waves (6, 12, 14-16). Being a lower level medic is more fun for me than being a low level LA or LW. The core skills can be bought right away, and although I'd like to be able to summon something above a manta or three nali cows it's not a big deal right now, I'll eventually get better monsters. I'm finding myself surviving quite a lot of the tough waves even when I'm not just hiding. Self-healing is like Vamp times 10, and although the medic weapon isn't exactly a flak 5, because it is infinite I can take down some monsters with it. With the combo of healing and killing some monsters I have gotten 1200XP on certain maps as a level 20ish medic.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

I agree, low lvl medics are VERY survivable, and can be fun too. Besides with a little help I made a lvl 20 medic in a couple of days that was out experiancing my Lvl 24 LA character and surviving most maps all of the way through.. In that way they may be a little unbalanced, but I wouldent say to change them because they arent gong to rule the world with all of that healing.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ck — GMT

advice for new LA players: you probably think Damage Reduction or Damage Bonus (or Wep Speed even) are obviously better choices than Max Ammo - well, that is wrong, do what 320 wrote, get Resupply first. I changed my stat points recently to get resupply, and not that i do very good, but resupply feels like playing a completely new game and it was even worth giving up 50 points in Damage Bonus and Adrenal Surge. Obviously because of healers, spending 50+ points on health may not be the best option when you're starting. (so yeah, i agree with 320s beginning stats completely, no need to repeat.) As for LA3, this is a tricky one. LA 2 (breakable Magic wep maker) will not get you a vorpal or a vampiric (of course it can, just pointng out that you need to be very lucky). LA 3 might do the trick but still doesn't guarantee you a vorpal or a vamp by lvl 12/14 and i mean if you spend most of your adrenalin on it. You could effectively spend the adrenalin on other things (yes, i mean triple damage) and probably have better scores. so i would say get LA 3 late(r) unless you feel one with your vorpal shock or sleep with a vampiric flak at home. again, that doesn't even guarantee anything.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Chameleon — GMT

Another good thing to look into is denial. If you spend half the map trying to make good weapons and then you die, you will have to start over with nothing. If you have, at least, denial level 2, you can keep one of your weapons that you made. Plus, you won't have to go running around the map trying to get weapons again. That will help you out when you come back in on those later waves.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

After I get resupply 1, I plan to get denial 3. I might get leach 3, first. Don't know yet. I won't start building dmg bonus, health or max adren again until then. It all goes back to the triple. One decent wep + triple is enough at low levels. When I die, I go get another flak and I'm back in business. I think instead of the resupply route, you could also go the Denial route. I think either of these would be pretty effective. Probably denial is better for noobs that don't know the maps as well or if you tend to die a lot. I'm at lvl 32 and UGH what an exp grind it is. And I'm typically getting 700 - 1000 exp per level. I do remember with my LW char, though, that I would have to play around 10 maps per level.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Now my artifact char is level 58 and starting to win matches more consistently. I'm outscoring my LW char at the same level. The big factors since level 30 are (in order): 1. Resupply 2. Adrenaline Surge 2 3. Speed switcher 4. Denial 3 Speed switcher 1 has allowed me to work some basic combos into my game, most often LG to Flak - a great combo when you're running stuff down. But if you don't combo, don't bother with SW at this level. I thought Denial 3 would make a huge difference but it didn't, really. The medics can keep you alive so much that you only die once or twice in 16 waves. Obviously, this would be more valuable if I died more often. The big boost in points came following the purchase of surge 2. This has allowed me to run the triple even more. Pretty much all the time. Any time I am competing with a LW player for a kill I use the triple to get it, even a nali or a skaarj. Even though I lose a little adren, drip and surge make it up almost immediately. LW can't really play that way without running out of adren pretty quick.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

Given this post ... I'm almost ready to agree with Mystic on the Triple issue (not Flak 5 though) - but not like he originally specified. It is of no surprise to me that you're outscoring WMs - as you say, you can run the triple a lot more than pretty much any WM ever could. The triple can throw off the balance quite a bit - but not in favor of a WM, but in favor of the AM. Add the usual 3+ Medics that are on and you're good to go (for at least the first 12-14 waves) - any benefit a WM might get from vamp is nullified. Really, it's been my experience so far that the only time a WM can really run a triple constantly is against Warlords, Queens, and Titans ... and with Warlords, you probably loose out a bit on adren. Queens can throw things off if they throw up a shield.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

BotFodder wrote:

Given this post ... I'm almost ready to agree with Mystic on the Triple issue (not Flak 5 though) - but not like he originally specified. It is of no surprise to me that you're outscoring WMs - as you say, you can run the triple a lot more than pretty much any WM ever could. The triple can throw off the balance quite a bit - but not in favor of a WM, but in favor of the AM. Add the usual 3+ Medics that are on and you're good to go (for at least the first 12-14 waves) - any benefit a WM might get from vamp is nullified. Really, it's been my experience so far that the only time a WM can really run a triple constantly is against Warlords, Queens, and Titans ... and with Warlords, you probably loose out a bit on adren. Queens can throw things off if they throw up a shield.

Well, Bot, I got a little braggy in my post. WMs have other advantages, though. It's a grass is always greener kind of thing. I described those advantages in detail in the strat thread. The big one is that LW have a lot more options when it comes to combo-kills. The vast majority of players don't understand the concept of 'agro' or the importance of concentrating as much dmg as possible into the smallest time window, so they don't bother with combo'ing. Another one is that vamp allows you to play super-aggresive. You need around vamp 6 or 7 but then you can really stay in the monster's face. Edit: Also, take a look at the current high score table and look how close the scores are. It may be that a few hundred points really do seperate the classes but that would still only be about 10%, really nothing worth worrying about. Player skill is still king by far.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Fro13 — GMT

yeah, I wouldn't worry about it bot. If you start seeing LA players regularly scoring outragous scores, then I would start to worry. I have't seen that happening yet. So, I have no worries. Although, get a good comboing LA player with all the weapons on a good map with a good medic following and you got some room for destruction. I don't see that happening very often though.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

TheElectrician — GMT

Being a (mid-level) LA player, let me throw in my .02 First, I agree 150% that player skill is indeed king. Having a plethera of skills at high levels helps tremendously, but I regularly see lower level players putting up some respectable scores. I have chosen a somewhat unusual path for spending my skill points. I focused first on the basic bonuses (damage red., health, etc.) with the exception of max ammo and adren. I maxed out the other bonuses while picking up LA lvl. 1 and Energy Leech 1 along the way. A player of decent skill can fill up his adren meter pretty quickly, and it hasn't been a problem for me yet, so I haven't bothered with increasing Leech. Maxing weapon speed helps with this too. Next, I went straight to getting Denial 3. This is the LA player's next best thing to LW. Since the flak is my best friend most of the time, I'm going to split my future skill points between getting cautiousness and adren max. I think I do pretty well on putting up decent scores considering my current skills (or lack thereof). I enjoy this class quite a bit, and it still holds tons of potential. :)

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

Couple of things - so get ready for a long BotFodder post: First, having played a little bit of BB (BotBooster) and gotten him established, I took 320's advice for starting points, perhaps with some modification ... Started off getting the LA 2, Drip 1, Leech 2. Then my goal was to get my MaxAmmo up to 50 and get Resupply, as well as get MaxAd up to 150 ... I've gotten those by 23. I'm saving for Denial 2 (which I will purchase at 26 - the requirement being that you be level 25). The long term goals involve, in roughly this order:

WS maxed, with some points into HB. Once both are at 50, Denial 3 (lvl 40).

Next it's mainly a road to max HB, with some points thrown into DB (but only to 10) and other points saved for LA 3 (lvl 51).

5 points will be dropped into DR during the continued maxing of HB (done at 55), and then Awareness (which I don't have on any characters yet but that everyone who I've talked to who does have it says is the bomb) (lvl 57). I should be getting Resupply 2 in there somewhere - perhaps while working on DB. I think it would be less of a need if I've gotten two or three weapons I can work with rather than relying on just the flak like I tend to with my WM. Whoa! Now with that out of the way, one of the things I wanted to start a debate about is the Double Magic Modifier and the Triple Damage. When would you use the DMM over the Triple? Kit found a possibly worthy case when playing with a QuickFoot weapon. I once argued (but realized others were right) that you could get a 17% chance to instajib if you used it with a Maxed+1 Vorp (but you'd want the damage for XP rather than just outright gibbing the target). Maybe if you had an Avril of Force, to get the shots to go faster ... but nahh, how often does a AM get an Avril? I think the only other case where it's truly useful (and again, Kit found it) was with a Protection Maxed+1. While your DMM is running it's a +10, and you've got the equivalent of a Globe running but with the extra damage (not quite at the Triple level) that a Prot 10 would do (but it's only really 10% more, as Prots only do 1% more damage per +). If you've mastered running two artifacts at a time, the easier way to beat it would be to run both the Triple and Globe ... my current keybindings make it an Olympic event to do so. I run an MX1000 mouse, and have the 3 thumb buttons set up for paging backwards and forwards through my artifacts and throwing (space activates). Thing is, the easy button to hit is the one set for "forward". "Throw" can be a bit dicey, and "back" is so far forward that I practically have to take my hand off my mouse ... I know folks suggest the other keys around the direction keys (I'm an SEDF man, with A for jump, C for crouch, V for voice, and then weapons/translocator around those). But since I play my LW, being able to move through weapons more easily is just as important as navigating my artifacts ... I might take another look at my layout ... maybe I can relocate a few things to reposition "forward" and "back" around the movement keys (like R and W, which are currently "flak" and "sniper") and not have it negatively impact my ability to switch weapons ... Okay, enough babbling!

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

WS maxed, with some points into HB. Once both are at 50, Denial 3 (lvl 40).

Maybe i will shock people by saying this, but i dont think Denial 3 is a good idea. It takes 15+20+20 = 55 skill points! I did not buy Denial and now i dont regret it. Yes its harder, but those 55 skill points = 110 more Health. Wich gets you closer to Ghost. Once you have Ghost 2, you most likelly gonna find your Denial worthless because you wont die (well not very often). And right now with Medic class, 110 Health REALLY worth it!! Plus: When you die, your weapon can be taken by someone. You cannot even imagine how cool it is to get 2 Flaks when someone die :) Edit: As for my Key Bindings Space: Jump Z-X : Navigates artifact WSAD : Movement Q : Translocator E : Activate Artifact \ : Throw weapon ' : Throw artifact R : Best Weapon (Flak, Mini, Shock, Link) Additionnal Mouse buttons for instant access to : Sniper, Super Weapon, Enter Vehicule. My current problem you guessed it, The Navigate Artifact. Boy do i hate this. I may reconfigure them to use: Previous [2], Next [3]. I still dream of being able to have a Insta Artifact activation button. Would it be possible to bind a script that rotate to the specified artifact and activate it? VorTeX?

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

I've thought about this ... but then you gotta max your DR before you can get to Ghost! And I won't be shooting for that until a bit later. Still ... I will think about it some. I got a while to go before it really becomes an issue; I've become a convert to the "Mini School of Medics" and should be able to move my Medic up a bit faster than he was going.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Szlat — GMT

BotFodder wrote:

..... When would you use the DMM over the Triple?

I like to double up a poison mini, especially on Titan waves. Convert it to a +8, spray all the titans you can see, then convert back to a +4. Doesn't use a lot of adrenaline, as it is only doubled for a few seconds, but does some serious damage. 1.3^(8-1)*0.05 = 30% current health damage, for 4 seconds - getting towards 700 damage per titan. :twisted:

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

Coolness! I have a fondness for poison weapons. ;) If it actually does set the poison up to do double, that's too cool. Can anyone (Dru, Vortex, KohanX) who's had experience with the code verify? I've gotten the most recent version of the mod decompiled in order to look at a few things (really just stat costs, mainly). I might be able to verify it myself ...

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

55 extra stat points would be nice, definately. I guess you could go both ways. Part of it is definately your skill and play style. If you tend to die a lot, denial 3 is much more valuable. Even with 100 health bonus I tend to die 2 or 3 times per 16 waves. For my style of play, if I don't die once in awhile, I'm not playing hard enough. As for useful double magic stuff, there's quickfoot of course. Also, Kit discovered the protection use. There's also Poison. I posted the math that a poison 10 would do. Such a beast would come in handy on ONS maps (with tons of titans) and when the server isn't killing stuff in fractions of a second (i.e. non-peak times). With all the exp stuff going on, I was playing on morpheos recently and doubled a poison 4 shock. On the money waves I was just tagging as much as I could see, and then doing a second round when I ran out of stuff to shoot at. If there's ever an exp scoreboard, this will probably be a more popular combo. For keybindings, I always describe mine as WASD, since people know what that is. But it's actually RSDF. I injured my back a long time ago and RSDF is much more "ergonomic". It doesn't require torquing your wrist, and therefore pinching the muscles in your upper-middle back between your shoulder blades. It's also right on the home keys (if you know how to type properly). No sliding the keyboard around for the arrow keys or anything like that.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

If it actually does set the poison up to do double, that's too cool. Can anyone (Dru, Vortex, KohanX) who's had experience with the code verify?

Check Druid RPG section, we had a very big discussion on this.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

320 wrote:

For keybindings, I always describe mine as WASD, since people know what that is. But it's actually RSDF.

I guess mine would more accurately be called ESDF then. I'm on the home keys like you ... just that I'm so used to having my wrist to where my index finger hits the E (and it's how I was taught to type) that R would be ... unnatural for me.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Szlat wrote:

BotFodder wrote:

..... When would you use the DMM over the Triple?
I like to double up a poison mini, especially on Titan waves. Convert it to a +8, spray all the titans you can see, then convert back to a +4. Doesn't use a lot of adrenaline, as it is only doubled for a few seconds, but does some serious damage. 1.3^(8-1)*0.05 = 30% current health damage, for 4 seconds - getting towards 700 damage per titan. :twisted:

I believe it was tested and determined that the double-poison effect will only be present if you keep the DMM going. I haven't tested this myself, though.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

I believe it was tested and determined that the double-poison effect will only be present if you keep the DMM going. I haven't tested this myself, though.

The effect will be the one you have hit the mob with. So even if you stop the DMM, effect will still be +10. V0rTeX confirmed here: http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dcforum/posts/list/0/1838.page

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ck — GMT

i will take a different perspective than a lot of people on DMM. i still think it's just not useful looking at it generally, and i'll try to explain that. i know DMM gets useful when you have that 20-22 instagib shock rifle, or when you have an +8 poison with 3(5-8?) titans around you (btw, i'm not convinced with the protection +10 argument, you could just run globe, or use triple +75% reduction you would get with max DR). but i'll go ahead and say that overall triple damage is superior to DMM in pretty much every way. first off, anyone can pick up a triple if they are lucky, with good players this happens nearly every map. so it's available to anyone. now think of a piercing +6 flak, a weapon with no stars, you can hand it out. with max damage bonus and a triple, you will deal very close to 500 damage per shot. now i did some calculations, basically trying to compare the total damage you would do over a given period of time and if i'm not mistaken with RoFs, the values for the damage of +20 vorpal shock, triple piercing and +8 posion mini are pretty close (say, when you are facing 3-4 titans, correct me if i'm wrong). So you're comparing an availble-to-everyone weapon plus an artifact that is most likely available to high level players at level 14, to a vorpal weapon (rare) or a poison weapon (not so rare, but can't share) plus a fast-adrenalin draining artifact and they end up with similar damages. Also, about half of the other magic weapons are still useless with DMM (infinity, piercing etc) whereas Triple Damage turns anything into a beast. i wrote this because i can see how people are trying to figure out (and figuring out) situations where you could use DMM but it feels like a waste of time. DMM is not as useful as it should be right now, Triple damage beats it pretty much at everything. And i know that it was meant to help with only few things, but it doesn't do that so well either, the overall damages seem to be close. soon the triple will be more costly and less available, but I still don't see DMM getting more important. maybe making it considerably cheaper (cheaper than the current triple) and then it might be an option to consider. Right now as it is, i wouldn't mind if it wasn't available at all.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

[KitFox wrote:

]
I believe it was tested and determined that the double-poison effect will only be present if you keep the DMM going. I haven't tested this myself, though.
The effect will be the one you have hit the mob with. So even if you stop the DMM, effect will still be +10. V0rTeX confirmed here: http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dcforum/posts/list/0/1838.page

Good to know. Hurray discussion board!

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

(btw, i'm not convinced with the protection +10 argument, you could just run globe, or use triple +75% reduction you would get with max DR).

Let me explain: Most of the time i run Tripple + I activate/deactivate Globe. But this destroy my adrenaline very fast. With a Protection 10, i get 5% more damage (15% with tripple) And above that i get Invulnerability for 2 Adrenaline / seconds less! Understand? Mmmmm should i have not wrote this here? :?

soon the triple will be more costly

This is not sure. I hope Druid will not do that.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ck — GMT

Let me explain: Most of the time i run Tripple + I activate/deactivate Globe. But this destroy my adrenaline very fast. With a Protection 10, i get 5% more damage (15% with tripple) And above that i get Invulnerability for 2 Adrenaline / seconds less! Understand?

my bad, i was thinking more of the other option when i wrote that; with 75 DR, you could save a lot of adren with just running the triple and having a DR high enough for surviving most of the time. But I can see situations where you would need invulnerability. so yeah, if you are running two things at the same time, DMM is the way to go.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

ck wrote:

Let me explain: Most of the time i run Tripple + I activate/deactivate Globe. But this destroy my adrenaline very fast. With a Protection 10, i get 5% more damage (15% with tripple) And above that i get Invulnerability for 2 Adrenaline / seconds less! Understand?
my bad, i was thinking more of the other option when i wrote that; with 75 DR, you could save a lot of adren with just running the triple and having a DR high enough for surviving most of the time. But I can see situations where you would need invulnerability. so yeah, if you are running two things at the same time, DMM is the way to go.

You kind of lost me here. 75 DR? I believe the stat cap is 50 (half-points), or 25%. NM, I see what you're saying. You're saying flak protection 5 with maxed DR.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

v0rTeX — GMT

For some reason, I never thought of using DMM with protection and poison. I surely will now. I would have to do some instant action testing to confirm, but since Poison is given as an inventory item, it should keep doing the damage it was appointed to do the moment the bullets hit the monster and the inventory is given. Some info for fun, I use Venom weapons on our server. They do base of 20 poison damage each for 30 seconds. For some reason I'm not totally sure of, DB and DR stats do effect how much actual damage is dealt for each second. But as a result, the Triple Damage will also Triple the poison effect too. So for our Venom weapons, TD rules and the DMM does nothing since it has no actual number to double up anyway. My 2 cents on the two arts: I tend to use TD instead of DMM because with a sufficient DB stat, you can just mow the monsters down and collect the rewards. The exceptions are of course Poison + DMM when you need to deal serious damage and are weak, Protection + DMM when you need to stay alive, or Vorpal + DMM when you just need to kill em dead in a hurry. I've always preferred to save DMM for when I need to have alot of the magic effect and not necessarily so much damage done.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

The point isn't that DMM is better than the triple, it's just to show there are some creative and effective uses for it.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

v0rTeX — GMT

Okay I did more testing. The damage a monster continues to take with Poison weapons is based on whatever modifier the weapon had for the initial shot. So if you use DMM to double the poison, it will continue at that level if you shut it off. However, if a monster is poisoned already, and it is shot with a lower value of poison modifier, the timer resets to 4 seconds and the poison takes on the new modifier. So if you plan on using the DMM to double poison, make sure you dont shoot him after shutting it off with the lower modifier. (Although given that the 4 seconds goes by fairly quick it probably isnt a huge issue anyway.)

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

[KitFox] — GMT

I have started a new Strategy latelly. With Quickfoot 5, its easyer to dodge rocks and turn around Queen's shields, so i loose less health. I then started using Maxed Rage Flak 11. I hated rage weapons before, but now i think its on of the coolest weapon in game. I also found that the globe is countering the Health lost of Rage weapons. Its very hard to survive, basically that mean doing 16 waves at 80 health. but its very fun :P

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Fro13 — GMT

Quick question, is there any way to rearrange the order of your artifacts? I tried throwing it and picking it up again, but it puts it in the same spot. I think it's a pain to have the mwm in-between the triple and DMM. I like to try and use both when I can.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

MeanDevil — GMT

is there any way to rearrange the order of your artifacts?

I don't believe there is, I've search high and low so if there is a way I'd be interested to find out too!

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

v0rTeX — GMT

When you toss some artifacts they do appear in a different order when you pick them up again, but it isnt all of the artifacts.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

(DC)DEMONSLAYER — GMT

:?: :?: :?: Hmmmmm, after reading all of the posts for the 3 classes, I'm confused--big time. It has been my understanding that a player should max out, in order: 1. Weapon Speed 2. Attack Bonus 3. Damage Reduction 4. Health Bonus 5. Adrenaline 6. Max Ammo Then: 7. Ghost or Ultima, depending on your particular style of play 8. Adrenaline Drip/resupply At this point, we then can talk about the decision on the type of class you wish to try. Where did I go wrong?

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

USA wrote:

DEMONSLAYER] :?: :?: :?: Hmmmmm, after reading all of the posts for the 3 classes, I'm confused--big time. It has been my understanding that a player should max out, in order: 1. Weapon Speed 2. Attack Bonus 3. Damage Reduction 4. Health Bonus 5. Adrenaline 6. Max Ammo Then: 7. Ghost or Ultima, depending on your particular style of play 8. Adrenaline Drip/resupply At this point, we then can talk about the decision on the type of class you wish to try. Where did I go wrong?

:shock: :-o You're playing Loaded ? At Level 41?? Holy Moly. b-( b-( b-( You're like one of those wild jungle kids raised by wolves, or a defrosted caveman. "DO NOT BE AFRAID. WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU." Well, there's obviously more than one right way to spend stat points but that method strikes me as a bit... unusual and masochistic. Like the shao lin monk that kicks a tree until he passes out from the pain.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

(DC)DEMONSLAYER — GMT

:D :D :D :D :D Well, suggestions...........I don't know what class I want as yet--leaning towards weapon/adrenaline side-you medics are great and I love ya'all but I like to slaughter and mix it up face to face :D :D :D :D

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

USA wrote:

DEMONSLAYER] :D :D :D :D :D Well, suggestions...........I don't know what class I want as yet--leaning towards weapon/adrenaline side-you medics are great and I love ya'all but I like to slaughter and mix it up face to face :D :D :D :D

Well, the good news is that you can get a decent idea of loaded artifacts right from the get-go. Just create a second character and spend your starting points to get Artifacts 2. The artifact skills are really cheap. Maybe throw the balance in health or adren. You could have the 150 adren to max weps within a couple maps. If you don't see anything you like with artifacts at that point, it only cost you a couple hours' play time.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

(DC)DEMONSLAYER — GMT

320, thanks for the info but you are way over my head...........Please remember that I'm not the fastest button pusher around--I basically use the mouse and 6 keys on the keyboard. As a side note, where can I find the class descriptions?

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

USA wrote:

DEMONSLAYER]320, thanks for the info but you are way over my head...........Please remember that I'm not the fastest button pusher around--I basically use the mouse and 6 keys on the keyboard. As a side note, where can I find the class descriptions?

One place to go is the faq. http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dc/rpgskills.jsp And Botfodder wrote a beginner faq, but I don't have the address off-hand.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Shadow-Yoda — GMT

www.tinyurl.com/lz229 is the address to Bot's FAQ. It kinda gets plastered in the brain after you hear it about 40 times.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

(DC)DEMONSLAYER — GMT

Found it and used it, thanks for all the help.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

Shadow-Yoda wrote:

www.tinyurl.com/lz229 is the address to Bot's FAQ. It kinda gets plastered in the brain after you hear it about 40 times.

I try not to do it too much - but we do get a regular stream of newbies, or folks that start with a couple of the FAQs ... it's just easier to say "Look, you're going to ask the rest of them, so go here and read the answers ... " BTW you don't need the "www" ... just "http://tinyurl.com/lz229" will work.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

There was a question that popped up the other day on my "Banter about the FAQ" post. It was a very valid question, but I wasn't sure it would fit into the "newbie" realm ... and even if it did, the info would be best posted here (as you could actually consider this an extension to the newbie FAQ). The question involved artifacts. So, before getting these questions answered, see the following for the basic FAQ info about Artifacts: Artifacts RPG Skill Description - specifically, the item covering "Loaded Artifacts". The question was: What artifacts go into permanent affect, and which ones only work while the artifact is active? The answers: Boots of Flight: You'll only fly while it is active, though I guess you could be "flying uncontrollably downward until you reached the ground" depending on how high you were when you deactivated them. Electro-Magent: Lets you climb walls and walk on the ceiling until you deactivate it or do something silly like walk into some fire pit somewhere on a wall and die (I talk from personal experience). Globe of Invulnerability: Works only while active. Does not work while you "wish" it was active. Lightning Rod: Works (somewhat) only while active. Magic Weapon Maker: Rumor has it you can cancel its attempt to magic a weapon (with some loss of Adren), but is mainly a "you activate it and get a permanently magical weapon" artifact, and will likely break on you after giving you some particularly useless "positively magical" item. Summon Charm: Based on your adren, it's a one shot "you get a pet for 2 minutes or until the pet dies" item. Disappears after activation. Teleporter: Only used it like once, pretty sure it's a fairly random object - but is also a "click" and pray object. Not even sure if it breaks. Triple Damage: Never breaks but only works while it is active. Double Magic Modifier: If you do the math, for raw damage, see the Triple instead. However, for certain weapons this can be incredibly useful (search for the debates elsewhere). Works only while active. Max Magic Modifier: use changes weapon permanently, but be sure you know what the potential max of a weapon is (see RPG Weapons) so you don't accidentally try to max something that's already maxed. Magic Modifier +1: A permanent change - but with some caveats: first, it *will* work on a weapon that's not already maxed - so be careful with its use. Second, you shouldn't be able to drop the weapon after using this artifact, so you can't share, even if the weapon wasn't maxed when you plused it (although you might get lucky and be able to throw it - but that's likely a bug somewhere in the code). I think that covers all of them ...

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

I can see one other place where DMM might be worth while, havent been able to try it yet as my AM is only lvl 35. use DMM on Flack of Energy, while running Globe and Tripple. I know that I can run the TD and Globe (off and on) with a flack of energy, it seems to me that if you can get that DMM in there it would pay for it easier. Thanks for the thread 320, just having the debate going has helped me make my character a way that is satisfying for me to play.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

I can see one other place where DMM might be worth while, havent been able to try it yet as my AM is only lvl 35. use DMM on Flack of Energy, while running Globe and Tripple. I know that I can run the TD and Globe (off and on) with a flack of energy, it seems to me that if you can get that DMM in there it would pay for it easier. Thanks for the thread 320, just having the debate going has helped me make my character a way that is satisfying for me to play.

It's actually Fodder's thread. I do alright in a pinch. LA is fun, not, IMO as fun as LW overall. But different strokes for different folks. It's still a great contrast to LW. A different play style. With LW you got health and weapon choice as a given. With LA you got power and weapon building skills as a given. Playing LA has made me a better LW player and vice versa. You see possibilities you didn't think about. Like nowadays I might run the triple with LW even on a low adren wave to win a kill when others are around. I can't do it to the same extent as LA, because I'll end up with nothing left when it counts if I do, but in some scenarios it makes scense to do so. Like those little shield guys. Lightning will go through the shield, and triple will usually get the job done in one or two shots. Shield gun does as well, but that won't fit the bill if you're across the map. On the other hand, no LA player does combos, for example. But's it's possible. I was thinking about it for awhile but then I got busy at work and forgot about it. Now I'm just too lazy, I think. It takes practice. If someone did, and did it well, man, LA would kill everything. All it takes is a rocket launcher, lightning gun and a Flak (to fill the gaps). Max all three on tighter map with a few medics running around and you can kill anything, on any level, in under a second. On the open maps, make a good shock or a mini, along with a LG, case closed. I like the extra weapons for LW 5, which really add to the depth of the game. I also kind of like that LW is a roll of the dice. Some days you get just the right weapons, just the right map, and just the right player mix. And your second or third kill barfs up that wonderful Triple Damage. You know the next 16 waves are gonna be good. :wink:

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

While I do not have very high level characters I do have one of each class. I play each one depending on the map, mix of classes that are already playing and the play style that fits my mood. My loaded weapons character is great, he is survivable and as long as there are monsters and I can acutaly hit the keys right he does pretty well. Lvl 56 high score 1617 My medic is fun and helpful to others, I paticularly like it when teamwork lets us pull through a map that we otherwise wouldent have. Lvl 53 high score 1055 My LA I play when Im feeling agressive and want stuff to die NOW, it works despite the fact that he is level 30 something. I do not even enchant weapons anymore, every bit of adrenaline I pump into the tripple up to wave 10, I even ran out of weapons last nite, and killed 2 titans with an unenchanted assault rifle (using TD) Lvl 37 high score 917 As for the thread: Thank you all who have shared the techniques and skills that work for you. Bot you have too much time on your hands man, an analytical mind and obviously the follow thorough to see it to the end. Thank you now let us never speak of this again...... :lol:

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

(DC)DEMONSLAYER — GMT

Well, I'm still learning and building skills. The advice from 320, botfodder, and other players have helped so much, especially on the different classes and the type of playing styles I've seen. Thanks for all the help.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

My LA I play when Im feeling agressive and want stuff to die NOW, it works despite the fact that he is level 30 something. I do not even enchant weapons

This is a good point that I overlooked before. As a low-level artifact player (I'd say up to level 50), I found it much more profitable to use my adren with the triple than to try and make weapons. I used lightning gun and flak almost exclusively and the only time I used the MWM was when I got a negative or something really annoying (like force). If I got a plain, I'd just live with it and use the triple.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

kyraeu — GMT

So, with the recent purchase of resupply, max weapon speed, and speedswitcher 1, my LA is doing better than ever. Especially after the first, and then even more after the second. I think I have a lot of weird ideas that help me in my head with playing LA, so I'll post 'em here. I'll start with waves. Waves can be divided into ones which require "active" artifacts, or will allow "inactive" ones. More on that later, but here's a list of which I consider: Inactive waves Waves 1-5 Wave 7 Waves 9-10 Active waves Wave 6 Wave 8 Waves 11-16 Inactive waves are ones which don't really require much attention to survive through. A little dodging, a few pickups, maybe a medic here and there, and you get through no problem. The active waves are ones in which you need to be alert, because they're either big points, or hard to live through. (Keep in mind this comes from a level 50 LA - I have no health bonus or DR.) So, the next thing to do is to divide the artifacts into the categories. Inactive artifacts Magic weapon maker Max magic modifier Max +1 thingee Active artifacts Triple Globe Lightning rod Double magic modifier Simple as that - inactive artifacts are used on inactive waves, and active ones are used on active waves. If you didn't notice, all the inactive artifacts revolve around making weapons, and all the active ones revolve around doing more damage, or staying alive. Basically, the strategy is this - build your weapons on the inactive waves, then use active artifacts on the active waves. Here's what I use on the active waves, myself: Wave 6 - Triple Wave 8 - Triple Wave 11 - Triple Wave 12 - Globe Wave 13 - Triple Wave 14 - Triple Wave 15 - Lightning rod, or more recently triple Wave 16 - Globe Now, as for why? Wave 6 has titans. Always triple titans! Wave 8? The queens will probably attack someone else, and anyways, there aren't that many of them. Therefore if they attack you, you can probably dodge well enough, and therefore want to kill them as fast as possible. Use the triple. Wave 11? If I have crappy weapons I will use this wave to make better ones, but the few titans, queens, and giant gasbags are very sweet to triple, and also help me gain adrenaline for the globefest of wave 12. On wave 12, the globe is my savior. It's the only thing keeping me alive. I can usually get away with using the triple if I can dodge everything, but most times I can't. I usually use the globe, then run up to the warlords with flak or link and kill them. Having surge 2, I can usually lose minimal adrenaline by doing this. The key is to only activate the globe when a rocket (or queen volley) is about to hit you. Turn it off the moment you kill the monster. Usually I can start the wave with 100 or so adrenaline, and come out without having lost it all. It's a tough wave to live through, and before I started using the globe, I died on it all the time. Wave 13? Triple is the best here. Brutes don't move much, neither do the giant gasbags. For me the key to brutes is to not triple every single one, only about every other one. The reason is that each one is not really worth enough adrenaline (with surge 2) to sustain the triple. The giant gasbags, however, are always worthy of the triple. Wave 14? See wave 6. Triple, triple, triple. Wave 15? I used to use the lightning rod. The nice thing about it is that it stops the normal skaarj from firing. But triple + something I can hit with like the mini = a skaarj dead sooner, with less lost adrenaline. Which is why I've started using the triple. Wave 16? Globe for sure. Sometimes if there's a lone titan I'll pull out the triple and kill him, but the threat of fast spawning queens and warlords usually keep me on the globe. A neat trick I like to use is activating the globe with a bunch of annoying monsters around me, and then shooting the deemer at my feet. :lol: Kills most of them and gives me adrenaline! That's just about it. Keep in mind my skillset for this - surge 2, leech 2, drip 2, artifacts 3, resupply 1, and denial 3. Speedswitch, I haven't really played around with it yet, but will buy level 2 soon. As for making weapons, I usually concentrate on flak, link, mini, and shock, in that order. Rocket has betrayed me to suicide and the undoing of denial 3 too much, so I avoid it. Lightning is only good if it's a vamp, vorpal, or there's a nali deserving of a headshot. The thing I like to remember is - the link has the best damage/second (minus the grenade launcher... which is mostly a joke). Good link + triple + monster that's easy to hit = tons of damage + dead monster quickly. Look at the order on this chart... it really helps me out to know which weapon is the best for damage. (That chart taken from the DAWGA RPG FAQ, found at http://www.dawga.com/faq. For those wondering, DAWGA is another RPG server I used to play on a ton. For those not wondering, ignore the last sentence.) I hope this post helps people. If it's not deemed too long, wordy, and inconcise, I may make another one about another aspect of LA'ing. Post edited once to fix a link

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

320 — GMT

That's some excellent stuff, kyraeu. It's interesting to see how your strategy evolves, particularly given you are leveling up with the artifact changes to the triple and Lightning Rod.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

kyraeu — GMT

After having received some praise for my earlier post, I've decided to make another. First off, what are good skills to buy? Allow me to first say that I started my character probably about a year ago - around when the LAs were first released. As a result I had to buy drip, leech, and surge before I could get artifacts. And believe me, I wanted artifacts. Maxer? Doubler? New stuff, sweet! So, the first thing I bought was energy leech level 1 (which cost 5 points then). Just because I needed it, it has to prereqs, and it was new too! Then 50 DB. Then 50 max adrenaline. This took me 2, maybe 3 maps. There were no medics back then, so booster was my friend. Then I bought surge, which cost 5 points for level 1 and 10 for level 2 (now, it is 2 and 8 respectively). However I only had level one for a while, then bought drip 1 (which cost 5 points too). And there I had it. Enough to start buying artifacts! So, I maxed out artifacts, and was starting to have fun with all my artifacts. But I needed more adren! So I dropped 10 points into surge 2, and 10 more for leech 2 (I had a few extra points, and said, what the heck, why not?). Then, denial 3 was released! Ooh, ooh, I want that too! So I got 55 points and spent 'em on denial 3. I loved it, but it was painful with just denial 2 for a while... because you can't switch to weapons you don't have ammo for. Note that I don't have resupply yet. Then, I started to find that I needed more damage! More damage! The triple wasn't enough with 0 weapon speed. So I started building up my weapon speed... to 24. Somewhere in this area the changes to the adren skills' costs happened. I had a few extra points. Some of them might have gone into WS... can't remember though. At that point I started noticing my lack of resupply. It was very painful. I stopped playing for a long time. Fast forward to a month or two ago. I grind for a week or two and get 50 ammo bonus and resupply. All of a sudden, everything clicks. I finally don't need to hunt for ammo everywhere. I'm not a servant of the inf weapons. I can run around and not worry about ammo for the most part. Then I continue with weapon speed and max it. Around here I buy drip 2 as well. Then I buy speedswitch 1, just because I switch weapons a lot. I don't do combos, really. And in the past week or two, I max out my damage bonus. And that takes us to the present. So, cut out the narrative, what'd I buy? 1. Leech 1 2. 50 DB 3. 50 max adren 4. Surge 1 5. Drip 1 6. Artifacts 3 7. Surge 2 8. Leech 2 9. Denial 3 10. 24 WS [insert long break... probably autobought the class skill in here] 11. 50 max ammo 12. Resupply 1 13. 26 WS (to max) 14. Speedswitch 1 15. Drip 2 16. 30 DB to max 17. 10 HP with the leftover I don't really find what I bought to be the best way to go about it. How would I have done it differently, had I another chance to start? First, I probably would have bought resupply. Then probably artifacts 1-3 (you don't want the MWM breaking on ya! that's like a bridge falling when you're halfway across!). Then 50 DB and 50 max adren, and then surge 2. Why surge? What's so good about it? Here it is in a few bullet points. 1. It always works. Got the triple on? Still works. It doesn't wuss out like leech and drip do. ;) 2. It gives you twice as much adren for kills when maxed. For 10 stat points, you can get twice as much adren. For leech, even at level 5, you might be able to rival this - but that takes many more stat points, and doesn't work when the triple's on! A few levels of leech are useful, but it can't compete with surge. After surge, leech 1 and drip 1. Leech doesn't seem all that special to me. Won't help me run the triple. And it gives only a little adren, at the same cost. But it's some. Level 2 of leech isn't that bad of a buy, but don't go any higher. Drip is useful, especially at level 3. It's nice to be able to just sit there and get adrenaline. But it can't compete with other things that will help more. Then, I would max weapon speed. This is very useful... read what 320 said about it. It's better than DB. It also makes it such that you can "steal" kills more, because you fire more rapidly and may get in the killshot more often. Then it opens up a lot more. Drip 2 is a big step up from 1. Level 1 seemed mostly useless to me, but 2 actually helps out. Drip 2 -> 3 is a bigger step, though. Leech 2 is useful, but don't go much higher (it costs too much). Denial 3 should be a priority - it makes the game a lot easier when you get killed. This only happens a few times a map to me, if even at all, but the assurance that I won't have to start all over or mostly start over really sells it for me. After that I say you should go whatever path you want to take. Need health? Buy it. Want more damage? Max DB. Want more adren skills? Buy them. And that's about how far I've gotten. So here's how I would suggest one should buy their skills: 1) 50 max ammo & resupply 2) Artifacts 3 3) 50 DB, 50 max adren, and surge 2 4) Leech 1, drip 1, maybe level 2 if you like 5) Max weapon speed 6) Denial 3 7) Maybe more drip and leech 8) Whatever you want! Depending on preference, you could probably move weapon speed up to rank 3. But no higher. It made a huge difference when I maxed weapon speed. And DO NOT BUY DENIAL 3 BEFORE RESUPPLY. 320 mentioned it as a possibility, but I did and I was sorry. When you die, you respawn with your weapons, yes. But you do NOT GET AMMO for them. That's right, if you run out of ammo with your flak 4, and you die, you can't use it unless you find some ammo or survive the next wave. Which makes it really, really rough. This takes you up to about level 40-50, which is when I really hit the sweet spot. I find I'm making between 1500 and 2000 xp per match, which means levels every 4-5 maps. With all the skills I listed out (twice, in different orders!) I am making about 1000-1500 scoreboard points. That's it for this post. Later I will probably make a few about weapon types, triple usage and tricks, and maybe about warlords! (PS - Sorry if I bored you with my big long post story! This took me the better part of an hour to type!)

So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Jschill — GMT

Wow that is a very good amout of advice for new and experanced la charecters thanks for takeing your time to help us la out.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

kyraeu — GMT

OK... with the recent amount of chaos and the occasional complaint about the new difficulty, I will try to help you LAs out with a few tips for surviving on the later waves... as I have had to change my strategy quite a bit. Not only are the key waves (the "active" ones listed earlier) significantly harder, but also the normal ones are as well. I am now using the triple less frequently - most of the time on waves 6 and 14; about half the time on wave 8 (depending on whether they're really hurting me or not); sometimes on waves 11, 13, and 15; and almost never on waves 12 and 16. Why's that? Isn't the triple great? Well, yeah, but if you're going to die in five seconds while tripling, yet survive say a minute while globing, then globing is definitely better. It depends on the situation and the weapons you have which method you use, although I find that globing through 12 is kind of hard, with around a 50% or 60% success rate, and globing through 16 is really hard, with a 50% or lower success rate. I will go through each of the key types of waves, and try to help out... although this is really a shot in the dark, since I'm having problems too, and I'm not sure what's making me supposedly better at surviving than you. The Inactive Waves - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10 These I find fairly easy to survive, with a few exceptions. The nalis have become especially nasty, and if I can't kill the skaarj quick they usually take me down to low health before I can get them. The lightning skaarj and nali also seem to be a lot better at hitting. As a result... I've had to become a little quicker at switching to my globe (especially when the grenade nalis stick grenades to me - I usually don't get to it before they blow it up though). 3 clicks "up" (previous, I think) from the magic weapon maker, 1 up/previous from the triple. This doesn't always work, as sometimes I am too low on adrenaline. In which case I run and trans as fast as I can in the other direction. Stop for medics whenever you can. You never know what might be around the corner or coming from behind you. It's usually not possible to stop during the key waves, because you'll get a rock in the face or a rocket/queen/nali in the back. The Titan Waves - 6 and 14 Not much has really changed here strategy-wise (ie. you still triple), except they are a lot better at hitting. This means, move a lot. But you can't rely on just moving anymore - they know to aim where you're going. You have to move and usually dodge a ton, especially on the wide open maps where you're usually being aimed at from multiple directions. I usually get blindsided on the wide open maps, which leads to much frustration. Then there's the small maps, where you don't have to worry about them coming from all directions - but they still have a habit of sneaking up behind you. If you don't have a spectator watching your back, you're probably going to die unless you run until they're all coming after you. Then it becomes a balance between shooting a tripled flak/link/mini/whatever and ducking back to safety, and waiting for the pebbles to subside. Reading back through this part the advice is pretty crappy, but just move really erratically. I can't really explain it, but it's a combination of moving and dodge-jumping, and maybe with a few dodges. Bunny hopping doesn't work very well, but is probably a little better than just plain running. The most important thing is that if you get overwhelmed, trans away to a defensible/safe position. There's no saving you if you're tripling in the crossfire of 5 titans, but if you trans away down an empty hall or into a safer area, you might be able to lure them one by one into a hallway, or buy yourself enough time to globe + point-blank deemer them. It is more important to survive to kill lots of titans than to rush in a triple a certain one, so stay back a little more than you used to. I've learned this the hard way by dying on the first rock of the wave a few times, while eagerly tripling my flak and rushing in. Don't stay too far back, but don't get so close as to be easy pickings. Entering these waves with a lot of adrenaline is not necessary, but I've found it helps more than before. Usually about 50 or 60 is enough to ensure the chain reaction of triplage and spree kills to keep your adrenaline going strong. The Queen Wave - 8 Not much has changed here. Make sure you don't get snuck up on by a nali. The biggest difference is that it's harder to dodge the queens now. If one is attacking you, sure you can probably handle it with the triple when she drops her shield. If two start to attack you, apply the transing away method above - or pull out the globe if you have adrenaline to spare. Otherwise, triple. Staying safe is more important than getting points this wave - I usually stay back unless they teleport near and just beg me to triple them. This goes for all the waves with queens - ever noticed that they (sometimes) sit still for a while after they teleport? That's the key time to attack them. If you can, get around where their shield is not/will not be, and hit them in the back with link/flak. If you can switch to the triple real fast, switch it on. If tripled, they'll usually die before they start moving. If they're hurt it'll work too. Otherwise get ready to have to dodge and wait 'till the shield goes down. If anything sneaks up behind you while you're taking advantage of the queen's lull in activity, make sure to either globe or dodge, or both! Entering wave 8 with a lot of adrenaline is usually unnecessary since you can probably kill at least one queen safely for needed triple/globe fuel. Although, it definitely can help. Don't waste your adrenaline on the globe if she's not interested in you, because it's just not worth it. If you aren't getting pummeled by something while you're globing, you shouldn't be globing at all. The Odd Waves of Medium Difficulty - 11, 13, and 15 These were all waves you could safely triple on before. Now you have to concentrate on dodging a lot more, and sometimes globe. 11. It's a hodgepodge of everything. Triple the titans unless they get dangerous. Triple the queens unless they gang up on you. The giant gasbags are annoying if they get to smack you, other wise relatively easy. Triple them if you have the adrenaline - otherwise kill them normally (ie. no triple) to save adren for the carnage of wave 12. Warlords, usually just run. If you have a good warlord killing setup (ie. null), then feel free to charge in if health is of little issue, like if a medic is right on your tail. Other than these guidelines, exhibit the same caution as with the inactive waves. 13. Used to be way too easy, now is quite a bit harder. The giant gasbags are annoying, especially if their fireballs get your number. Dodge a lot, and make sure that a nali doesn't sneak up behind you while you're hitting the gasbag. (I'm not so good about watching the radar so that's usually what gets me, if anything, on this wave.) I know it really seems like overkill but I've found myself globing on the brutes if I have the adren. Just because they, if anything, have the ability to do the most damage in the least amount of time with their rapid-fire rocket launchers. Don't globe on all of them or you'll run out of adrenaline too quick. Only globe on ones that surprise you or when you're on low health. This is a terrible wave to die on - you lose the momentum usually needed to get through wave 14, and if you have resupply 1 like I do, you don't get the well-needed ammo boost from the beginning of the wave (which you may have missed on 12). Make sure you leave a little adrenaline to get the triple started for the titans next wave, though. Run away or globe (+ deemer?) if there's a mob of 3+/4+. 15. This is just like a nasty version of the inactive waves. Have the globe at the ready for a tight spot, other than that follow the same general guidelines for the inactive waves. Don't overexpend your adrenaline on any of these waves as you need it for 12 and 16 especially, and having some for 14 helps. The Waves from Hell, containing Queens, Warlords, Nalis, and sometimes Titans - 12 and 16 The only real difference is that 16 has titans, which makes it a little easier, and a little harder at the same time. More on that later. There is really no difference between these two. One has titans, but not very many. They are both VERY hard and near impossible for an LA to survive, yet somehow I manage to survive around 50% of the time. OK, I am going braindead right now. I have typed out all this stuff for too long... I will finish this later. If no one replies I will just edit - otherwise I will make it a fullfledged post of its own. These 2 demon waves deserve one anyway. Hope this helps in some small way, since lately it seems everyone has been getting a little discouraged. I do too, and when I do I just take a little cooldown time for a map or two and then hop back into the fray. Just don't get too discouraged... because when you admit your defeat, you're done for.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

TIMMY — GMT

really nice post there kyr.........i guess, out of the 3 classes, the LA class is the most tedious class to play as......it sounds like u need to pay attention to everything if u don't wanna die........i like playing as a WM and medic just coz i listen to music every time, i don't usually focus on the game when i'm playing, and i like charging in a huge mob most of the time :D........I still have my old Leeroy Jenkins RPG attitude coming out in FPS games lol :D

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ECHO — GMT

I'll agree with what 320 has said about being LA makes you a better LW and vice versa. LA requires more attention to defense and LW requires more attention to offensive. I thought I'd add a little here since, as of now, there are more artifacts to choose from. At the time this thread was started it was clear that the expendable artifact of choice had to be the triple. The triple is indeed very useful, but it's often wasteful to have it running constantly because of the delay before it can be shut off. I initially tried this strategy but was frustrated because I was often stranded without any adren, what with the startup costs for most artifacts being at least 10. Having a slow weapon speed doesn't help either. Instead I've been using the Lightening Beam. With the beam all adren spent directly results in damage. So many times the beam saved me where the triple would have taken longer. Some monsters are insta-killed by the beam, and with its long firing range, it's possible to kill something before it has a chance to get close enough to damage you. And it's like firing two weapons at once, which helps out with low weapon speed. I've had to change my strategy slightly to incorporate fast moving targets, like the vampire gnats, so the bolt comes in handy too. I have not tried any of the bombs/blasts because of their high adren requirements, but I eagerly await the return of the damage and invulnerability spheres. Those look uber cool. As for magical weapons, I usually only MWM my flak and link. If it's something of interest, like vamp, energy, or piercing, I might max it. I try to keep maxing/MWM-ing to a minimum because I only have 150 adren at the moment and I feel that it is better spent on damaging monsters rather than making weapons. Pretty weapons aren't going to do you much good while you're dead, so you may as well get as much XP in the small timeframe you have to do so. This is one of the reason why I have not bought Loaded Artifacts 3 yet, an unbreakable MWM isn't useful at a low level. I can see someone arguing that pretty weapons will allow you to kill more, but for 100/150 adren I could use the beam plenty of times and get more adren back in the process. This is especially critical at a low level when 100/150 adren can sometimes take up to an entire wave to save up. I do have denial 3, but the main benefit I see, other than saving something valuable like vamp, is not having to scurry around the map to collect weapons. Again, that takes away from time damaging monsters and puts you at risk for being slaughtered. Speaking of being slaughtered, it's easy to be overwhelmed at times. That's why I always find a safe spot to plant my trans. Preferably near some source of health. One weapon briefly mentioned here was quickfoot, however the actual quickfoot skill was hardly talked about at all. I added levels to my quickfoot skill early on as a LW and have never regretted it. I plan to do the same with LA. There are too many benefits to not do it. Queens/titans/warlords are easier to evade, health items can be consumed faster, and the faster you move the more opportunities you have to kill. I have already seen an increase in score since I purchased quickfoot 1. As of level 40 I have the following: Loaded Artifacts 2 Energy Leech 2 Resupply 1 Adrenal Drip 2 Denial 3 Quickfoot 1 Weapon Speed 14 Health Bonus 54 Max Adrenaline 150 Attack Bonus 16 Damage Reduction 4 AmmoMax 50 One thing is for sure the low-level assist has spoiled me. I know that once I hit 41 I'll have to back off a bit and stay away from mobs. Regeneration and ghost were nice to have, so I will max out my health bonus ASAP, then damage reduction, ghost 1, ghost 2, smart healing 1 (possibly sooner if it seems necessary), ghost 3. Then more smart healing, max attack bonus, weapon speed, quickfoot, and core adren skills (leech, drip, resupply, surge). Additionally I'll more adren points where I see fit. I'm not sure yet if I regret not getting adrenal surge sooner. I suppose it would justify running the Lightening Rod frequently, but if I were to bump up my attack bonus that would mean I would loose out on heath bonus. I'll wait and see.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ECHO — GMT

I turned 41 today (that's level, not age ;) ). Oy. It's been tough without the assists, but I've been able to manage. But let's think positive things. For instance, I've developed a new appreciation for protection weapons. I've found the globe to be most helpful on titan waves. Don't use it much otherwise. And a safe trans spot saves me about every 3 seconds. Bottom line? Keep your monsters close... and your medics closer.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

kyraeu — GMT

This is my very pronounced opinion on LA'ing here, so just take that as a disclaimer. I would STRONGLY urge you to get your attack bonus up to 50 and then buy surge 1 and 2 (which cost 10 points altogether). You get double adrenaline for killing things. This makes titan waves adrenaline-fests, and essentially makes every monster worth twice as much adren as usual. You can use, in theory, everything twice as quickly. You can booster much easier. Triple, beam, globe, you name it. Surge opens up a completely different world for LAs, and I'm sure that most of my fellow LAs will agree that it's very very useful. (They might not agree you should buy it now. I bought it very early on and was NOT sorry at all.) I would also strongly (yet not as strongly, I suppose) urge you to max weapon speed out soon. With your low health bonus, you might want to get HP bonus up to 100 or something before maxing out weapon speed, but it's another world of difference. Especially on titan waves. I'm telling you, if you maxed out weapon speed and got surge 2, you could triple through titan waves and get insane experience. Maybe even use the berserk combo, too. (Haven't tried that one out as an LA yet.) More XP equals more leveling, equals more points, quicker. In my opinion, going for health will help, but not so much as going for those two core skills. If you think it's just too suicidal to drop everything and go for them, you'd probably know better than me since my LA started out when things were a ton easier. If you reject going for them straight-away, then I'd suggest that you stop with health sometime before maxing it and get both. Maybe when your HB is 100, maybe 150, maybe something that isn't so round. Or maybe drop 5 points into HB every level, and the other 2 into WS or DB. I'm around level 80, and I maxed out my HB and DR for the past, I don't know, 20, 30 levels. So I suppose I started thinking about them later than you did. I maxed out my WS and DB and had surge before I even started thinking about health. (Then again, it was a lot easier back then. We didn't get the lowlevel assist stuff, but we didn't need it so much.) Right now, I'm saving for ghost. Do I need it? I suppose it's the logical next step. Having leech, drip, and surge 2 (and artifacts 3), I thought I might want to work on them, but eventually the higher difficulty made me choose ghost. But with max HP and DR, I find I don't die all that often (no more than 3 times a map, usually. denial 3 is a lifesaver when I do die), although I do have to globe a bit. Smart healing seems useful, but I don't think that getting just slightly more health justifies spending 15 or 20 points (however much it is for the first level). I'm intrigued by your choice of quickfoot. I've almost bought it (and maybe powerjump) in the past, but decided I needed the core adren skills, and then health, instead. I like the QF weapons, but how useful are levels 1 and maybe 2, really? I might think of picking them up once I max ghost, and put off the adren skills a little bit (more). Speed switcher, I find, can be a lifesaver. I have level 1, and it's pretty useful. I'm a weapon maker type of person most of the time, and once I have a good flak, link, and mini I usually beam. But whenever I make a freezing or null, it's useful to hold the monster (say, a warlord or skaarj) in place, and then switch to an energy or piercing. I occasionally go for a vorpal shock, but usually end up giving up or not even trying. (Usually I decide to either beam stuff or go for the vorpal. I usually try for the vorpal, get combo master, then give up and beam stuff.) Your aversion to the triple is understandable. It's fairly useless except against the big guys (titans, warlords, queens), and except against titans, I usually find the globe a better choice. The beam is, without a doubt, the new triple. I still triple on the titan waves, and it just works for me better than the beam. Maybe if I got awareness (instead of using the poor man's awareness: AKA, the colors on the radar) I'd like the beam better. Enough of my long-windedness. I look forward to hearing your personal opinions in the future, ECHO, especially as you advance through the levels. Nice to see that people are actually trying out the LA class... since it seems it's rarely really ever played 'round here.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Fro13 — GMT

kyraeu wrote:

I would STRONGLY urge you to get your attack bonus up to 50 and then buy surge 1 and 2 (which cost 10 points altogether). I would also strongly (yet not as strongly, I suppose) urge you to max weapon speed out soon. In my opinion, going for health will help, but not so much as going for those two core skills.

I would agree with kyraeu. With DB and Weapon Speed maxed our, you'll be able to dish out a lot more damage which means way more xp. Combine that with Surge and you'll have a huge flow of adrenaline coming too. Since you already have denial, dying just isn't all that bad ;). I wouldn't worry about health and ghost until you get those things maxed. I've made a character in each class, and the 2 most important skills are Weapon Speed and DB. Damage=XP

kyraeu wrote:

I'm intrigued by your choice of quickfoot. I've almost bought it (and maybe powerjump) in the past, but decided I needed the core adren skills, and then health, instead. I like the QF weapons, but how useful are levels 1 and maybe 2, really? I might think of picking them up once I max ghost, and put off the adren skills a little bit (more).

If you're like me and run around a lot, then even lvl 1 and 2 are nice. You probably won't notice a huge difference with lvl 1, but by lvl 3, you'll be loving it. If you find yourself running around most of the map(which I believe you do), then I would definitely get it.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ECHO — GMT

I maxed out my weapon speed right off the bat as a LW. The problem I ran into was that I would fire off all my ammo extremely quickly with resupply 1 and I'd be left running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I figured that keeping a reasonable weapon speed as a LA would put off buying more resupply for a while and allow more stat points to be spent elsewhere, but I may reconsider. I was leaning more towards damage bonus since that would boost energy leech considering it's damage based. Plus that would push me closer to buying surge. I'm continuing to pour more stat points into health bonus. Medics are abundant, so the more I can hoard the better. I may bump smart healing up in the priority queue. Despite the large number of medics, it seems there are quite a few new players who do not have medic awareness and therefore never see me with my feeble 8 HP. So as it stands: HB --> DB --> surge --> smart healing 1 --> quickfoot 2 --> ghost --> etc. Weapon speed pending. I may add a little here and there as I progress. I think I will stop with DB at 50 and continue with more at a later time. HB - not sure yet. When enough is enough I suppose. All I know is 318 medic-ed HP is not enough to get around with the new monsters. Quickfoot helps the most when a monster (most notably queens) spawns next to me and instantly starts wailing away. Sometimes I can double jump away, but that's often not the case. Level 1 is a noticeable difference from having nothing at all, though not nearly as much as any level ? 2. I guess I find quickfoot worth while because I try to kill more monsters than make weapons. My LW character has speed switcher, so I definitely see the advantage of having it. Mainly for escaping tight situations with the trans. It seems like there are twenty different things I need to purchase at once. Yikes. It's understandable that most people go with the LW or medic classes. It's easy to spend points fairly frivolously without penalty. LA requires careful thought in order to be successful and I think that is what scares most people away. I have noticed a small number of people choosing the LA class lately, but most end up quitting before they reach level 40. It's tough to be patient when I'm used to being a high level LW and constantly being in the enemy's face. But the challenge to adapt to new abilities is what makes the game interesting.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

Been playing a LA character for about a week. I have one thing to say, Damage is king! get your adrenal gathering skills up and use your artifacts that directly damage creatures. at level 31 last night 1 pulled a wicked sick and a 1330 score and did not lose playing by myself till wave 16. when I looked at my kills the telling thing was that I had only killed bout half the creatures with weapons, the other half were all killed with rod, beam and bolt. when you get a killing spree going, use your artifacts to perpetuate it and the adrenalin tends to come faster and that lets you use your artifacts more.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

There's an opinion that the Beam (and maybe the Bolt) are seriously over-powered. If I didn't like goofing around with trying to get really cool weapons like vorps, I'd probably hit a decent flak or an energy weapon and stop, and just Beam everything else. I've been pondering the weaknesses in those two artifacts and I'm wondering if maybe their adren usage should be based on a monster's MaxHealth, and not it's current health. The play style right now for me is to pound something down until I feel truly threatened - then Beam it. For most monsters (Titans included) I can make a profit in adren with Surge, if they're mostly damaged. It's a great kill thieving artifact ...

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Szlat — GMT

BotFodder wrote:

I've been pondering the weaknesses in those two artifacts and I'm wondering if maybe their adren usage should be based on a monster's MaxHealth, and not it's current health.

The adrenaline used is dependent upon how much health the monster loses. So if you take 30 health it might use 5 adrenaline, 300 health 50 adrenaline. If you have enough adrenaline, then the health taken will match the monsters current health. I don't think basing it on the monsters max health will work any better. It would only be worth firing at a full health monster, and in that case you might as well stick the triple on.

BotFodder wrote:

It's a great kill thieving artifact ...

Possibly. I find I use it the same way you mentioned: Hit them with weapons until they are about to cause trouble, then take them out. I also find it very useful for gasbags etc where I can't get close enough with a flak. However, as for kill stealing, is it really any worse than a lightning with triple? Hit the triple, fire, and you cause 210 damage for 20 adrenaline. If the lg was a +4, then it would be about 300 damage. Just a vorpal by itself without the triple will do 140 damage. That is quite capable of stealing most kills without adrenaline.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

BotFodder — GMT

If you're not up for modifying it's usage adren wise, maybe you should put a timer between actual attempts. I can walk into an area with a bunch of slightly damaged titans and beam beam beam killing them all very quickly. The LG has a cycle time - maybe the beam and bolt need one too.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Szlat — GMT

With weapon speed set to 50, LG fires about once a second. You perhaps could fire the beam more frequently than that, but you have to aim at a different monster each time. The time delay on weapons stops you firing too rapidly at the same target. You don't get the same problem with the beam, cos either they are dead or you haven't any adrenaline. I am not necessarily against nerfing the beam or bolt. However, I compared it to the LG/triple to show it isn't really that bad.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ECHO — GMT

Szlat wrote:

With weapon speed set to 50, LG fires about once a second. You perhaps could fire the beam more frequently than that, but you have to aim at a different monster each time. The time delay on weapons stops you firing too rapidly at the same target. You don't get the same problem with the beam, cos either they are dead or you haven't any adrenaline.

My beam usage normally has a delay of at least 1 or 2 seconds to aim, unless the monsters are lined up, then it might be faster. But like you said, if you use it too fast it will zap your adren. Without adrenal surge it seems to be a pretty even trade. I will see how much that changes in several levels when I buy surge. If it is 'kill thieving' we are worried about, it's easy to kill much more with a rage lighting or flak. Plus, I would much rather have someone quickly take out a titan or warlord attacking me than hold back and give it the opportunity to kill.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

kyraeu — GMT

Honestly, aiming the beam is almost unnecessary. I usually just keep pressing USE ARTIFACT USE ARTIFACT USE ARTIFACT really rapidly and try to get my crosshair on the bad guy. Eventually they go down. If it's something that's about skaarj strength, I usually haven't lost any more than 20 adren, if not gained some, even if it's at full health. I guess I use it like the bolt, but I actually know what I'm going to hit. And it's a lot cheaper.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

I don't usually use the beam and bolt so much, I use the Rod a lot, I do not have surge yet. I have not been enchanting weapons much either because I have not gotten my damage bonus up. I have been concentrating on my adrenaline because every point is more "damage" that I can store to directly deal to multiple monsters at once. I play at night when there are not many people on if any, so its important to the play style required to be able to kill lots of monsters in a short period of time, of course they don't have much health because I am only level 34. Twice now I have made it to wave 16 with just the bots, the experience is a lot higher than I received when I was playing my medic or my Loaded weapons character through these levels and that was during the experience boom.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

XXBucketHeadXX — GMT

I am a decent low lvl LA player my main char is my LA because it is my favorite class of them all. I like to think of the waves like this [b]Wave 1-4 I try to make good decent weps but I only have LA 2 so sometimes my MWM will break. But if you have LA 3 then you should make weps all throght these waves Wave 5 I like to save adren till it is full on this wave because next wave is the titan wave. But if i get max adren at the start of this wave i would most like use the beam aganist a few monster to lower adren then build it up again. Wave 6 I love this wave I usually would have already made a decent flak so i just use the triple and go to town with the titans I thnk it is a simply wave Wave 7-11 If i died on wave 6 then i seem to die almost every wave till the end of the game. But during the waves i use the beam against small monsters(Krall,Skarrj,and Brutes). But if there is a room with loads of small monsters and I have lots of adren I will switch to bolt and just hit my use artifact key till im out of adren. Wave 12,13 I usually dont survive these wave. But I just try to save adren for the titan wave. Wave 14 I do the same thing for Wave 6 Wave 15 16 I am the first person dead on these waves so most of the time I just leave my computer for awhile till thw map is over so get info from somebody else for this wave

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Grizzled_Imposter — GMT

I see, mine is more like this: Wave 1 run around getting all the weapons that are available. Max a good bonus weapon (anything with a good damage bonus, or infinite ammo). Wave 2-5 kill monsters until I hear double kill, turn on the Rod. With the kill spree running I can usually get to around monster kill and keep half of my almost 200 adr. Wave 6 run tripple, but mostly just try to stay alive. Wave 7-16 usually spent dead most of the time. run Rod while alive, try to wrack up some kill sprees. I occasionally have finished a map successfully with this character as low as level 21, even with the new monsters. thats better than my level 72 healer or my level 76 weapon master. The monster change has truly made a difference in how well my older characters do on maps.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Spacey — GMT

I just got a PM from someone asking what I would recommend for their lowish (still getting the freebies) level LA player, since they said "you are one of the best AM players". Gee... I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I will admit the following: 1) Spacey (_e) started out as one of the LA switchovers (I was something like the second or third LA after Dru opened the class up), and that happened around level 60 or so. Either way, that was a long time ago in a game far far away. 2) mc^2 (incase you have not figured it out, E equals M C squared, and so is a second LA player) is still rather low. How low? See this. 3) My style may not match other players styles. But with all of this, here are my opinions and reasoning. First, this LA player has leech 2, LA2 , drip 1, and denial 3, with the requisite MaxAmmo of 50. In addition, they have their max adren up to 150 (which means they can max), and a couple of bytes of weapon speed (e.g. 16 pts). for their level, I would say pretty good. I have leech 3, LA3, resupply 1 and drip 1, and find myself wanting to get to 150 adren (I am at 141) and have denial 3. But they have a few more levels than I do at 26, so... With this in mind, what would I be planning? First, I would personally take the next skill to be LA3. There is much to be said about having an unbreakable MWM (it may be only a 33%, but statistically this says that you use it 3 times, it will break... on average). Next would be to consider drip 2 in the near future, along with surge 2 when you get to damage bonus of 50, since you have the 150 adren. But at this point, I would probably say to leave the adren itself directly alone. Note, I am not saying immediately, but getting the most of the damage and kills you do is rather silly. About like not taking the essentially free money your employer might give you by matching your 401(k) contribution up to your 6% point. ;) After this, the next major adren point is 200 adren, which gets you the next level of artifacts... but for them, you need to be getting adren even faster... and staying alive. What can you do to get adren faster. Well, for every N% of additional damage caused either by weapon speed or damage bonus, you have an increase of N% in your adren. How? Well if D is your additional damage bonus, and S is your speed bonus, then things would be quite straight forward, but for one thing. You have to spend 2 pts for every 1% of damage bonus, but only 1 pt for 1% of weapon speed. And do, if D and S are the points spent, we have the following: 0.5% * D + 1% * S = % adren gain So, on initial inspection, I would say to spend points on weapon speed. But then, the second wrinkle comes into play... you run out of ammo faster, and will need to spend points on resupply, especially for those low-ammo maps. Depending on the weapon (and its fire rate and max ammo), you may find that that even with the 2:1 ratio, you could end up better off spending it on damage bonus instead. Complicated, isn't it? And that is even before you consider that a damage bonus of 50 is required for surge (at least, last I checked). Now, you also need to be able to stay alive to use your adren. This is where health and damage bonus come into play. If a monster is doing 100 pts of damage, it takes 2 RPG points to drop that damage to 99. But that same 2 points spent would actually get my health up to 104 from the base 100. Looking at a potential damage of 300, if I max DR to 50, the 300 drops to 225. But that same 50 points spent on health would put me at 200 health instead of 100. So I am surviving the smaller monsters better. Add a medic with medic 3 healing you, and suddenly you are at 350 health, which means you would survive with 50 health to spare, while if you spent it on DR instead of health, the same situation would leave you with only 25. And so, I favor health. And so, which to choose between damage (WS/DB) and health? Play around with things a bit, and if you find yourself constantly running out of adren, put some points into WS/DB. Constantly dying with lots of adren or out of ammo, favor health. My goals... well, as soon as I get 150 adren, I am going for denial 3 (getting at least denial 1/2 at the same time). That achieved, I am going for 200 health and 50 DB... That opens up surge, and with another 50 spent in DR, I can then go for ghost. BTW... we have been talking about how we do waves... it is changing a bit, particularly as we have the monsters in the waves change, but it is basically this. Early waves - Try to make a good flak and/or RL (nice damage bonus, or like an energy). Nali's... go for the headshot... you are silly to pass up the free 10xp and 10 adren, esp as a LA. I might occassionaly switch from the MWM to the rod to kill those vamp razor flies, but these waves are almost always MWM or possibly max. Oh, and I also try to get rid of bad weapons I might use, such as the sniper or LG, even for a plain one. Wave 5 - Store up adren for the titan wave. Wave 6 - TITANS! Lightning bolt. Waves 7-11 vary. I might still be trying to make a good flak, RL (these two, piercing or energy preferred), and shock (piercing or vorp). If I am in pure score mode as opposed to attempting for a bingo, then piercing or energy flak or a vorp shock means I go for the kills. From here, it depends greatly on how I have done so far. Good weapons, I start using the bolt (no triple) and tend to get a bit agressive, esp with spacey. With poor weapons, or with mc^2, I tend to get a bit more cautious... try to stay alive. Alive means scoring, even if I am scoring less in a given time. :) I think with how many maps we are now winning (or how few), I would actually advocate upping the win bonus, and perhaps 2x the points if you are still alive at the end. The new bugs have made it all the more frequent that we win with only one or perhaps two players in my experience. And as usual, for a post like this, realize, YMMV.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

ECHO — GMT

I still maintain that an unbreakable MWM isn't that useful at lower levels. My LA character is about level 52 and I still don't have loaded adrenaline 3. Maybe I'm just not picky enough to have it constantly running (though I can be very selective while playing as a WM). My game plan is pretty simple compared to others. I mainly try to score two decent weapons within the first three waves (flak and link). After that I mostly use the beam and bolt, occasionally using the triple on a large target. Waves 12 and up are mostly spent hiding, running, or some combination of the two. The very last wave I use up my adren as quickly as possible because I'm not likely to survive very long. I've been taking a break from my character, but I'm still building weapon speed. After that I will probably bump quickfoot up to level 2 because I go out of my mind dealing the transition between quickfoot 5 on one character and next to nothing on my others.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

blade_TX — GMT

To my surprise I am actually enjoying my adren character. It is by far the easiest class to level up with as a low level player, I broke 1000 on the score board before I even reach level 25. I took a different approach with this character than I normally do, usually I start with health and DB, but this time I decided to get all class specific abilities first, and adrenaline. I use the shield gun as my primary gun no matter what class I am playing (with a shield gun you don’t really need DB or ammo). So I use the shield gun to kill monsters close to me so I can keep my adren up and the bolt to kill things out of my reach. That alone with no real effort in enough to get an 800 or 900 score on any given map. So all in all I am very surprised. Right now I am only level 39 with no extra health, DR, WS or ammo, so like Echo I spend most of my time after wave 12 running.

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

RoadKill v3.4 — GMT

haven't played my Am too much but they are fun I noticed that with the right map (knowing were the DD is ) a low level AM can score very high , I hit 1000 with my AM earlier than with my Medic I've taken a similar approach as Blade getting most all specific abilities to at least lvl 2 then going to increase health and ammo a bit

Re:So you want to be a Loaded Artifact Player?

Akuma — GMT

if you are already experienced with using TD, Globe, Lightning, etc...basically if you know how to play with adrenaline heres the order i'd suggest a new build: 1 adren mastery Loaded artifacts level 2 50 db 50 max adrenaline surge 1 surge 2 energy leech 1 adrenaline drip 1 I think you will be exactly level 20 at this point and you will be killing effectively with a TD and surge 2 giving you adrenaline. Also you'll be maxing your weapon's magic stats. Next work on max weaponspeed, resupply 1, max db. Rest is arbitrary. I think the biggest mistake is getting 50 ammo bonus and resupply 1 before u get surge 2. Surge 2 is the most magical thing about your class you got.