Detailed 3h-4h Hardcore Racing Dualist Guide

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Struyk wrote:

I dont farm any map twice untill there is like 30 minutes remaining. I do almost fully clear every map like western forest etc which gets me to 30-32 by the time I get to vaal in 3 hours.

Bullllllshit. Either you aren't making it to cruel in 3hrs so you are claiming you are getting 3-4 levels over pyramid (I think it's lvl 28 forget exactly, one lvl higher than waterfall lvl 2), which is awful experience. Panda released a video of his route and in it he got to 36, since the GS nerf it seems he hasn't been over 32.

Or you are claiming that you almost make ruthless in 3hrs which I'd like to see a video of your route and so would Panda as you are doing much better than he is.

Dude the more you talk the less I believe. It almost seems you are theorycrafting act 2+ because no one who is serious about these races would seriously think being 30-32 by normal vaal is a good idea or possible in 3 hours.

Have you used this build in any races where you didn't die to back up your claims? All I see on here is one toon you got to 4 before dying.

Hijacking the thread a bit, but don't think it's a huge loss anyway.

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duolc wrote:

Any duelist race guide focussed on actually winning would never be duel wield.

Actually you got this wrong, 1h&shield you should not consider in races because its far too slow in killing mobs, dual wield can do very fine. I have played a dual wield duelist in quite a few races recently and been in top 5 duelists every time (usually spots 1-3, in case you look at statistics you can see a leap in my racing ranks: that's when I switched from sword&board to dual wield). The skills I have been using are Cleave, Dual Strike and Viper Strike for bosses (to reduce reliance on good weapon slots). Also unlike this guide I don't lock myself to swords so I can use 1h swords, rapiers and axes just fine (with 3 weapon types its good chances you find something good and if not, you still got viper for toughest fights).

Maybe I should write a guide because obviously this one is useless to anyone actually doing races.

-Ropetus

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Ropetus wrote:

Hijacking the thread a bit, but don't think it's a huge loss anyway.

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duolc wrote:

Any duelist race guide focussed on actually winning would never be duel wield.

Actually you got this wrong, 1h&shield you should not consider in races because its far too slow in killing mobs, dual wield can do very fine. I have played a dual wield duelist in quite a few races recently and been in top 5 duelists every time (usually spots 1-3, in case you look at statistics you can see a leap in my racing ranks: that's when I switched from sword&board to dual wield). The skills I have been using are Cleave, Dual Strike and Viper Strike for bosses (to reduce reliance on good weapon slots). Also unlike this guide I don't lock myself to swords so I can use 1h swords, rapiers and axes just fine (with 3 weapon types its good chances you find something good and if not, you still got viper for toughest fights).

Maybe I should write a guide because obviously this one is useless to anyone actually doing races.

-Ropetus

Interesting, do you weapon swap if you need to use viper strike and have 2 axes? Or do you normally just have a sword all the time by chance?

It certainly makes it twice as easy if you don't lock yourself down to swords. My statement was pretty bluntly not what I ment, when I wrote it I was thinking in terms of taking just swords. Personally I still think 2h will always be more reliable in the long run over any 1h setup.

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duolc wrote:

Interesting, do you weapon swap if you need to use viper strike and have 2 axes? Or do you normally just have a sword all the time by chance?

By act 2 normal I usually start using weapon swap. I set a fast sword (preferably a sabre, doubly good if I get +1 level to melee gems on it) along with a shield in weapon swap to use in boss battles. After this I generally don't need to touch weapon swap equips for the entire race, unless I find a sword with +1 melee skills. I also set my skills so that viper always replaces my dual strike when I weapon swap to avoid any hassle with skills during battles. For shield I try to find a kite shield for +resists which is helpful in Merveil and Fidelitas. I can also combine this with dual strikes by applying 4 viper charges, weapon swap, dual strike a few times, weapon swap, viper once before charges run out, rinse and repeat to dispatch bosses quickly.

Weapon upgrades is not that bad with dual wield. You don't get a huge upgrade every time you reach the level requirement for the next weapon tier but instead gradually boost your dps every time you find a better weapon, just replace the worse one you have. The main advantage 2handers have is that they only need 4 whetstones and 1 alch to upgrade weapons late while dualwielders have a harder time crafting.

End race farming speed at cruel ledge for a dualwielding cleaver is comparable to a 2h ground slammer.

-Ropetus

Uhm, question: Why is someone with literally zero results in HC races suddenly writing a guide about it? And then there is this comment about DR vs HP:

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Struyk wrote:

Haven't met brutus yet at high level, I did fight vaal like 20 times and he's very easy because you can dodge all attacks. Ofcourse if you get hit by the hulk smash you are dead, or if you get hit by 2 lasers in a row you are also dead

With good HP there is no way 1 single smash or 2 lasers are going to kill you. Is it that hard to realize that high armor means shit without HP? You really need to stop giving other people advice and focus on your own play first.

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cGramma wrote:

Uhm, question: Why is someone with literally zero results in HC races suddenly writing a guide about it? And then there is this comment about DR vs HP:

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Struyk wrote:

Haven't met brutus yet at high level, I did fight vaal like 20 times and he's very easy because you can dodge all attacks. Ofcourse if you get hit by the hulk smash you are dead, or if you get hit by 2 lasers in a row you are also dead

With good HP there is no way 1 single smash or 2 lasers are going to kill you. Is it that hard to realize that high armor means shit without HP? You really need to stop giving other people advice and focus on your own play first.

I don't know if oversoul smash is buggy or not but it definitely 1 shot my duelist at 75 from full health (3.6k). At the time I think I had 2 endurance charges which puts me right around 38% DR. So basically he hit me for 5k or more. Pretty brutal and unexpected considering every other attack he did was completely harmless. Lasers were hitting me for about 8%-10% of my health so I figured I could easily facetank the smash. Nope.

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cGramma wrote:

Uhm, question: Why is someone with literally zero results in HC races suddenly writing a guide about it? And then there is this comment about DR vs HP:

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Struyk wrote:

Haven't met brutus yet at high level, I did fight vaal like 20 times and he's very easy because you can dodge all attacks. Ofcourse if you get hit by the hulk smash you are dead, or if you get hit by 2 lasers in a row you are also dead

With good HP there is no way 1 single smash or 2 lasers are going to kill you. Is it that hard to realize that high armor means shit without HP? You really need to stop giving other people advice and focus on your own play first.

Yes but you forget this is a race, if you want to end up first place you cant afford 15 life nodes. For 4h rave the 3 armour nodes are more then enough to survive anything and oneshot any monster when race is about to end for maximum farming efficiency.

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Struyk wrote:

Yes but you forget this is a race, if you want to end up first place you cant afford 15 life nodes. For 4h rave the 3 armour nodes are more then enough to survive anything and oneshot any monster when race is about to end for maximum farming efficiency.

Go tell that to Panda :D.

-Ropetus

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TheAxiom wrote:

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cGramma wrote:

Uhm, question: Why is someone with literally zero results in HC races suddenly writing a guide about it? And then there is this comment about DR vs HP:

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Struyk wrote:

Haven't met brutus yet at high level, I did fight vaal like 20 times and he's very easy because you can dodge all attacks. Ofcourse if you get hit by the hulk smash you are dead, or if you get hit by 2 lasers in a row you are also dead

With good HP there is no way 1 single smash or 2 lasers are going to kill you. Is it that hard to realize that high armor means shit without HP? You really need to stop giving other people advice and focus on your own play first.

I don't know if oversoul smash is buggy or not but it definitely 1 shot my duelist at 75 from full health (3.6k). At the time I think I had 2 endurance charges which puts me right around 38% DR. So basically he hit me for 5k or more. Pretty brutal and unexpected considering every other attack he did was completely harmless. Lasers were hitting me for about 8%-10% of my health so I figured I could easily facetank the smash. Nope.

lvl 68 map vaal or merc vaal? He was talking about merc vaal and the smash will usually get you down to 1/3 of your hp. Keep in mind that the smash is half fire, half phys dmg. I think we all have had these weird occurrences where you barely get out of melee range and the smash still hits you from like half the screen. But from my experience with plenty of life based marauders, rangers and duelists it really shouldn't one-shot you when you have at least ~2,5k hp, 40%+ DR and max fire res. These aren't outrageous stats by any means, I hit those thresholds easily with all my life based builds.

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TheAxiom wrote:

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cGramma wrote:

Uhm, question: Why is someone with literally zero results in HC races suddenly writing a guide about it? And then there is this comment about DR vs HP:

"

Struyk wrote:

Haven't met brutus yet at high level, I did fight vaal like 20 times and he's very easy because you can dodge all attacks. Ofcourse if you get hit by the hulk smash you are dead, or if you get hit by 2 lasers in a row you are also dead

With good HP there is no way 1 single smash or 2 lasers are going to kill you. Is it that hard to realize that high armor means shit without HP? You really need to stop giving other people advice and focus on your own play first.

I don't know if oversoul smash is buggy or not but it definitely 1 shot my duelist at 75 from full health (3.6k). At the time I think I had 2 endurance charges which puts me right around 38% DR. So basically he hit me for 5k or more. Pretty brutal and unexpected considering every other attack he did was completely harmless. Lasers were hitting me for about 8%-10% of my health so I figured I could easily facetank the smash. Nope.

From what I have read around the forum Vaal's smash can crit just like any attack. If you happen to be hit when it crits no amount of defence will save you from getting one shot-ed.