FAQ
How to Scale my Crit Chance and how much is enough?
Your Base Critical Hit Chance is the most important thing to improve. The
Sinister Quarterstaff has a Base Crit Chance of 12%, which is the highest of any Quarterstaff Base. This Base + the mod " +% to Crit Chance) can provide up to a 17% Base Critical Hit Chance.
The
Way of the Stonefist converts the Critical Damage Bonus mod to "+% to Crit Chance) as well, meaning we can get an additional 3% to Base Critical Hit Chance. Otherwise things like the
Time-Lost Sapphire with Crit Chance, other Jewels, Passive Tree Nodes, etc.... will be your other sources of Crit. You can also utilize the Diamond Flask on
Mageblood or Pinpoint Critical in place of Blindside if absoluetly necessary.
The Blindside support will provide 15% More Critical Hit Chance against blinded enemies, which is why we run Blind II in
Herald of Ice and
Charged Staff. This will ensure most targets we hit will be blinded and give us the bonus. However, this 15% More does not show up in our Tooltip since its Conditional. Same applies for our Daze Effects like
Stupefy and
Dizzying Hits. The minumum Crit Chance on tooltip in hideout with 0 buffs we should want to achieve is around 65%. Our buffs mentioned above and
Charge Regulation will get us to 100% against a Blinded and Dazed Target.
Why
Herald of Ice and when to swap to it?
Herald of Ice has a higher damage ceiling and better AoE than
Herald of Thunder, but is harder to get to work since you have to be Freezing the targets to proc it. This is why early on, we use
Herald of Thunder until you can get enough sources of Cold Damage and Freeze Buildup.
You can get these sources of Cold Damage and Freeze Buildup from your Quarterstaff with Added Cold Damage + Increased Elemental Damage with Attacks, Added Cold on Rings, Gain % Cold Damage from
Heart of the Well, and Freeze Buildup on Passive Tree if needed (
Thin Ice,
Heavy Frost,
One with the River).
Breath of Aldur is also an option but it is socket bound meaning you can't change the rune once placed, only use if absolutely necessary.
Once you've gotten a large amount of Added Cold Damage, you can try swapping to
Herald of Ice. If you notice you're not Freezing stuff and activating
Herald of Ice, then you need some more Cold Damage or Freeze Buildup.
How to Increase Energy Shield?
The biggest sources of Energy Shield is going to come from your Body Armor (
Forgotten Warden), Pure ES Helmet, and Gloves (
Way of the Stonefist Mods).
Once you have a solid base Energy Shield amount, you need to get sources of Increased and More Energy Shield. These can come from the
Time-Lost Sapphire and other Jewels, Amulet Mods (% Increased ES / Global Defenses),
Rite of Passage (Owl Spirit),
Charge Regulation (20% More ES), Passive Tree Nodes, Runes (
Rune of Foundations /
Perfect Iron Rune), and more.
Way of the Stonefist will convert popular Defensive mods like % Increased EV / ES / AR into % More Global Evasion and Energy Shield which is extremely potent. I would try to always have this mod on your Gloves if possible.
I can't put Ailith's Chimes / Culmination II / Charge Profusion II in
Shattering Palm?
The order of the Support Gems is extremely important! You need to first equip Culmination II as it allows
Shattering Palm to build combo. Now that the skill has combo associated with it, you can then slot in Ailith's Chimes since this support revolves around combo. Now that you have Ailith's Chimes which grants Power Charges, you can now equip Charge Profusion II since this support revolves around charges.
Where's
Flicker Strike?
This isn't really a
Flicker Strike build at this point, I've found myself barely using it and its quite finicky and expensive to feel worth using. Can still be used in place of
Pounce if wanted with these supports: Concentrated Area, Perpetual Charge, Hit and Run, Blindside, Elemental Armament II
Why not run both
Herald of Thunder and
Herald of Ice?
Its a bit overkill in my opinion to run both Heralds, especially since I get the Explode Mods on my Gloves from the
Katla's Gloom Mod Pool. I find the 30 Spirit better spent on things like
Mana Remnants for Mana Sustain and
Ghost Dance for ES sustain.
How do I mitigate Slows, especially in Grand Expedition?
The expensive but full proof method is the
Legacy of Wanderlust which will solve all your problems, but is usually quite expensive.
The cheaper method is to stack "Reduced Potency of Slowing Debuffs". This can come from things like the
Soul Core of Quipolatl, Cyclonic Alloy Body Armor Mod, and Passive Tree Nodes (
Freedom of Movement,
Unhindered,
Lasting Boons,
Unyielding, etc...).
There's also the Commiserate support which can be slotted into one of your skills like
Shattering Palm to remove the Chill debuff from yourself briefly. This is a bootleg way, but better than nothing.
Silver Charm can also help but will likely run out of charges fast in Grand Expeditions.
Why
Forgotten Warden over a Rare Body Armor?
The Companion from the
Spirit Vessel Skill granted by the Body Armor can eat up to 15% of Deflected Damage for us. Since we cap our Deflection at 95%, this means most of the time we'll take 40% Less Damage, then the Companion will eat up to 15% of Deflected Damage. This gives us an additional 15% Damage Reduction.
We also can use the Loyalty support which is an extra 10% Damage Reduction and other cool supports like Catha's Brilliance and Amanamu's Tithe.
The Base Defenses on this Body Armor are also extremely high for how easy / cheap this can be. Not to mention the tons of Deflection Rating you'll get on top of it. This Body Armor will be better than most up until you start getting into 2K+ EV 600+ ES Body Armors which will be very expensive.
Can I use
Duality as a budget Quarterstaff?
No, the Finality Buff from this Quarterstaff prevents us from gaining Combo. This will brick the Power Charge generation from Ailith's Chimes!
Is
Shavronne's Satchel really that good and why isn't it healing my ES on use?
YES, its absolutely insane for survivability. Spam your Flask if you trip, get swarmed, or just get low and you'll be saved. If you have a really good flask then you'll really notice how powerful this belt is.
The only requirement is to have an Instant Recovery or % of Recovery is Instant Life Flask. For some reason, when using
Chaos Inoculation you have to be running one of these mods to get any recovery. Otherwise the belt is useless.
More FAQ info to be added......