Blackthorn Mace n Shield vs regular one?

[Tabin]

Is the Blackthorn Plate Helm Mace and Shield strictly better than the regular one because it supposedly provides stam loss protection AND 1% LMC? I'm not sure what type of armor regular mace and shield classifies as. Anyone know?

Any recommendations on how to farm minax blackthorn captains? Builds? I couldn't find any resist info on them. AI or DS better? I'm assuming typical sampire template would work fine. Bushi + chivalry to get the close to 300% dmg modifier bonus since there is no slayer type for them. Although I did hear there is some weird bug that weapons with Hit Lightning act like slayers. Not sure if that only works for AI, regular hits or DS though.

 

[Tuan]

Yes, the blackthorn version gives stam protection, 1% lmc, and can be refined - it is strictly better. The normal glasses are leather, I guess, in that you get no stam protection and they can't be refined.

There are 2 versions of captains - ones that have a lot of resist, and ones that have 0 resist but 3x the hp. AI the high resists, DS the 0s.

The hit lightning trick works on all hits that trigger the effect.

Typical sampire is ok, except against the assassin and necromancer templates - these have the corrupted leech, so leech templates don't work on them. Overall you're probably best with a bushido paladin than any template using Vamiric Embrace.

 

[Tabin]

Yes, the blackthorn version gives stam protection, 1% lmc, and can be refined - it is strictly better. The normal glasses are leather, I guess, in that you get no stam protection and they can't be refined.

There are 2 versions of captains - ones that have a lot of resist, and ones that have 0 resist but 3x the hp. AI the high resists, DS the 0s.

The hit lightning trick works on all hits that trigger the effect.

Typical sampire is ok, except against the assassin and necromancer templates - these have the corrupted leech, so leech templates don't work on them. Overall you're probably best with a bushido paladin than any template using Vamiric Embrace.

Thats exactly what i need to know! Thanks!!

 

[BeaIank]

You miss too darn much there for a sampire to work and there are two captains with corrupted aura.
I run a 6x120 Swords/Tactics/Anatomy/Chiv/Parry/Healing there with two broadswords:
100% poison, 50% Hit lightning, 81 HLL, 81 HML, 30 Hit stam leech, 40 DI for the captains that don't have corrupted aura
100% cold, 50 Hit Lightning, 50 Hit lower attack, 81 HML, 40 DI for captains that have corrupted aura.

I run the chiv mastery for the extra 15 mana on this toon. Onslaught is not of much help there, sadly.

For those that spawn with 0 resist I use crushing blow, for the ones with normal resist, I use AI.
For the sampire captain, you can use a 100% fire undead slayer weapon for extra damage.

Each city pod will give you around 50 minax drops, and once you get the hang of it, you will likely be able to clear the ones with easier spawns in 2 hours, maybe 1 hour and a half.
And you will learn to hate it when the active pod is the Minoc one. The terrain there is really unfavourable for you when you are starting each phase of the pod.

 

[CorwinXX]

Melee Archer can do it fast and easily.
Classic Archer can do it slightly slower.
As to melee chars the best I used was: Mace, Tactics, Anatomy, Chivalry, 80 Bushido (for Honor), 100 Ninja (Images), Resisting Spells (you can replace it with healing). The only dangerous boss was swordsman with WW (slow down and kill copies with the same hit).

 

[Tuan]

I also had good success in there with my Vampire/Paladin guy, for me the worst masters were the mace and the fencer - the 80 HP AIs from the fencer weren't fun. If I swapped the Necro for bushido I think I'd do pretty well too.

 

[Tabin]

I tried this today in both Fel and Tram. The blackthorn captains are located in the blackthorn dungeon on the north end right? All the mini towns were empty except one, which had MASSIVE amounts of demon spawn (bone demons, succubus, regular demons). I tried clearing the demons but every time I had to run from a captain, it would spawn even more.

How are you guys clearing this area? Seems like the demons never end.

 

[BeaIank]

You have to clear the spawn for the captain to become vulnerable.
The problem is that the spawn IS very thick and can be a major pain to clear at the very first stage and once you damage the beacon down to 70% of it's HP, specially at some towns.
And you got VERY unlucky, as the daemon spawn is the worst to handle of them all, seconded by the fey spawn.

Usually, what I do is run in to the closest spawn to the pod border, get the captain aggroed on me and run away from the pod. After a while the captain will be teleported back to it's original location, but it will teleport some or most of it's spawn to where he was, outside the down. You can deal with that spawn easier that way. Rinse and repeat till you have defeated all the spawn and have room to breath.

If two captains are too close to the border, keep on doing this till both their spawn are cleared then try to manoeuvre them in such a way that you have some breathing room between them as well. If you can't do that, run away from the pod till they are teleported back, wait 2 or so minutes for their aggro to clear and then move in slowly to the pod to try to aggro the closest one on you without triggering the second one to attack you.
After a while he will be teleported back to his original position, but will run towards you. Keep doing this till he is dead so you have a beachhead to work the next captains.

 

[Tuan]

Yeah, the Demon spawn is really a pain, especially when you get the bone daemons with 20k hp that you need to kill to get to the captains.

The Demon spawn is the only one where I will go in with my mage, and clear out the spawn for a few captains, then bring the meleer in to kill the captains.

 

[Tabin]

how do you guys tank and fight the captains? I'm having trouble with pretty much all the captains. 30 to 40+ damage hits really kill my stamina. On top of that, missing so often makes it so stamina leech isn't giving me back enough stamina. I end up being a sitting duck waiting for death if i try to tank it for even 10 seconds. Tried the hit few times, then run to edge of town method but it takes toooo long. Like 30min for one captain. Probably cuz I get 3-4 swings in before I gotta run.

Do you switch to a faster swinging weapon?

Weapon: 75% HLL, 75% HML, 50% HSL, 50% Hit Lightning, 25% DI 100% poison damage - Hammer pick (similar to broadsword)
70+ all resist after protection and vamp form, max HCI, DCI, and 53 LMC (running studded armor, plate helm, chainmail chest)

Here's what I'm running:
120 mace
120 chiv
110 tactics
100 anatomy
100 necro (turn this off when Im fighting necros)
100 parry
80 healing

 

[BeaIank]

I can tank them without much trouble with the template I posted above. Most captains save the mêlée ones die within the duration of one Enemy of One, unless they have 0 resist and 5 times HP. Those can take 5 or so minutes to fall, and a macer with those stats can take 15 to 20 minutes to die.
You need to run from time to time to heal when facing macers/swords/fencer captains, but most of the others can be tanked easily by applying bandages as soon as you take any minor damage.
And you should ALWAYS run away when the mage captain shouts "You will burn to ash". She will be casting an AoE spell that stuns and dismounts you shortly after.

I also refresh my stamina by using divine fury when it gets too low. Usually the 120 parry keeps me safe from being hit too much during it's duration, and I still keep around 25 DCI during it anyway.

I never tried vampire form there, so I don't know if they are switching to undead slayer weapons. I only get hit for over 30 damage by macers and fencers.

 

[Tuan]

Vamp form is OK in there, except against the Necromancer and Assassin, with the corrupted aura. I use VF most of the time.

As for a faster weapon... I use longswords, and rely on my shield (10SSI), a jewel with 10 SSI, and the 15 SSI from 120 Chiv and 20k+ karma Divine Fury. When potted, I'm at 19x stam, even when cursed, so 1.25s swings are not usually an issue. I also wear more metal armor than you, but that's probably not a huge difference maker.

50% HSL + the occasional extra DF should be good enough for stamina.

Why on earth do you have 100 Necro, AND Healing, AND 75% HLL. When I use vamp form, I leave the healing and the HLL at home. Also, why did you reforge for 100 elemental damage on a weapon that you should be AI with every hit (or at least 80% of them)? Reforge for 100 HML, and with 53 LMC you should be able to AI nearly every time. I run 100 HML, but only 48 LMC, then again, I probably average quite a bit more per hit since I have 120 Tact/Anat and have a bigger hitting weapon. Consider to leave the HLL at home, and add 40% HLA (50 is overkill IMO - it has been disussed elsewhere).

I do swap to a faster weapon when the bard hits me with that infernal unbreakable slowing nonsense - but this is just a matter of ROT damage, and not a question of survivability.

 

[BeaIank]

Why on earth do you have 100 Necro, AND Healing, AND 75% HLL. When I use vamp form, I leave the healing and the HLL at home. Also, why did you reforge for 100 elemental damage on a weapon that you should be AI with every hit (or at least 80% of them)? Reforge for 100 HML, and with 53 LMC you should be able to AI nearly every time. I run 100 HML, but only 48 LMC, then again, I probably average quite a bit more per hit since I have 120 Tact/Anat and have a bigger hitting weapon. Consider to leave the HLL at home, and add 40% HLA (50 is overkill IMO - it has been disussed elsewhere).

The macer/swords/fencer captains are showing a behavior similar to the animal taming consume damage mastery since the latest publish, so if you hit them with physical damage, you will spend a whole night there trying to kill them.

Bearcorpse posted a video in the link below showing the issue:
Blackthorn's bugged?

 

[Tuan]

Hmm, I am just now doing the beast master captains, and just did a fencer. I did not notice this to be the case. Took me about 12 minutes to kill her (she was 0 resist high HP variety) but much of that was because I had to keep her lured a bit away from her "spot" since there was 2 more captains right there, so I kept having to wait for her to run back over to me...

I will keep going and see what I see.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I'm thinking that "Stagger" should work remarkably well against the Captains for a Macer, significantly slowing down their attack speed.