User:Vyn/Doombringer

The following notes based on the character below:

Ulisil: Shalore Doombringer (nightmare/adventure)

Made this character because I wanted to play a melee character for a change of pace and unlock the Ogre race, which is guaranteed with a Shalore.

General Impressions

• Doombringer really has incredible damage output when using Destroyer. This makes a good combo with the Shalore's Timeless racial talent. Maybe that's not a surprise since everything is better with Timeless however.
  • Elandar just died in three attacks after taking a turn to use a Rune of Dissipation on him.
• Most of the doombringer's talents are spells, so the class is very vulnerable to being silenced. The extra effects on talents can often be resisted by casters with high spell save too. The stun on Incinerating Blows and silence on Fiery Grasp would often bounce off casters with high spell save because of this.
• Losing all Vim to Mana Clash can really hurt a doombringer, as the resource is difficult to recover quickly, so one needs to be extra careful around anti-magic enemies. Demonic Blood and Abyssal Shield both provide buffs that depend on your current Vim too. You can still activate your talents even without Vim, but it will cost you 2x the amount in life instead.
• Tirakai's Maul seems like an ideal weapon for doombringers. Putting a fire gem in the maul allows it to deal AoE flameshock damage on crits, which is basically a better stun. It seems to be applied with physical power rather than spellpower too, allowing one to stun enemies with high spell saves. The fire element can also benefit from the resistance debuff provided by Fiery Torment to create big damage bursts. You can also easily switch the maul's element type to work around enemy resistances with ease.
• Reckless Strike is also a great attack since it completely ignores resistances. It's a lot of fun to one-shot enemies like Grgglck the Devouring Darkness that have 100% resistance to all damage, and would normally requires special mechanics to overcome.
• Darkfire has huge AoE reach. Even though the doombringer is supposed to be a melee fighter, this ranged spell is great for pulling enemies from around corners, so you don't need to risk poking your head out and getting pulled/teleported into a dangerous situation.
• It is worth putting some points into willpower, as this improves your stamina pool and Vim recovery on enemy kills. Stamina can be a problem in the early game, becomes easy to manage after acquiring Destroyer, then turns into a limit again if you get caught in a battle longer than Destroyer's duration.

Deaths and Threats

• First death was due to forgetting to activate scouting talent before descending stairs in the Dark Crypt. My light radius was too low to notice that I would immediately aggro several enemies in the dark. Despite recognizing the initial mistake, I thought I could push throw and used a turn to activate my wand of clairvoyance, instead of just going back up the stairs. Once I saw I was surrounded, I thought the enemies could still be defeated with a few quick attacks after activating Destroyer, so I did not just turn on Wraithform and a movement infusion to escape through a nearby wall. The elven cultists soon showed my folly by using Dark Portal to displace me several times, waking up half the enemies in the level and putting me far away from nearby walls I could go through.
• Second death was in a High Peak spider vault. I killed a faerlhing with Disruption shield, and was walking through the resulting arcane storm, when the damage suddenly doubled and killed me. It turns out another faerlhing had died nearby and popped its Disruption Shield shield too, and I had not noticed that I was walking into two very high damage AoEs. Nearly all of my escape/heal options were unused since I was being greedy and thinking I could just tank another turn before using a my Blazing Rebirth for a full heal.