Increasing DPA without Spending Money Part I

Hi Guys,

Sorry for the long delay, but as I've been asked by many players how to increase DPA, I've decided to share my confusion with the world here. Been very busy so again, apologies to players like Bulia, Evil Lynn, Vero, and the entirety of ENN for taking so long to write this. In addition, I will try and post this in several parts to control the length of the posts and to give me more space to make corrections or additions if I remember something else.

Right. Let's get down to business:

1a) First thing to do would be to maximize the damage modifiers in your build. This means increaseing Herosim and Banes, and we will consider Heroism in this post. T

The first thing to consider here is increasing Heroism, and even at lower levels, there are some items/sets that are useful to equip when fighting Bosses. Some examples of sets are The Howling from R2, Basilisk's Rainments from R3, and Rising Sun Armor in R4. These 3 sets are a good example of sets that provide a Heroism bonus to your build when a certain number of items have been equipped or better yet, give you a Heroism boost on their own (like the rising sun suneate).

Of these sets, I think going after the items from the Rising Sun set would appeal to most players because a) that set is optimised with a Physical Build in mind and b) the Rising Sun Suneate boot is really one of the most useful items early on as it provides +1 Heroism on its own, has a purple socket, and provides another +1 bonus if combined with just 1 other piece of the Rising Sun set! That is a potential +3 Heroism bonus already!

Other things that you should do to increase Heroism at lower levels is to try and loot the Vampire Skull Pendant from Xonia in R1 (very nice item, and it provides a bonus to loot Epic Bosses too!), and the Talisman of the Old Codex (from a Dragon Bull in Red Pastures), as well as complete PvB quests to get Megalomania scrolls.

(N.B. Megalomania is nice at lower levels, but I personally don't think you should bother to increase it past Level 3 or 4. You get Heroism 2/Tenacity 1 at Level 3, Heroism 2/Tenacity 2 at Level 4, and Heroism 3/Tenacity 2 at Level 5. Its just not worth it (the smite cooldown drops to 10 mins at LvL 5, so if you rely on that, maybe its worthwhile), trying to get the Megalomania Scrolls needed unless you eat Epic Portal Bosses for breakfast! And at that point, I bet that you are more interested in the other types of loot that the Epic Portal Bosses drop anyway!)

Of course, the ultimate PvB/PvCB armor set is the Dimensional Drifter set from the various Portal Bosses. The Cow King, Oblivion Emperor, and Bone Giant should be easily accessible to all players, as Portal Items to the Red Pastures and Crow's Hill Crypt are crafted, while the Dark Oblivion Portal item drops so often as a daily reward that I have never had to buy it from Coraline. The Visitor's Pass to the Crashed Spaceship has also dropped for me occasionally, but the Portal Item for the Dragon's Lair has never dropped for me so you might need to buy it.

(N.B. To get Blood Diamonds, disenchant accessories, scrolls, and other stuff you don't need. I feel that loot that you get from the earlier regions (R1-R6) is best for this as many of you will have no trouble beating creatures or Epic Bosses from these regions and items like the Insectoid Carapace, Bokken, Wingclipper, Amulet of Untainted Blood, and Sylvan Cloak yield a surprising number of Blood Rubies, espeically since they drop quite often! Once you have lots of Blood Rubies, visit Coraline to convert them to Blood Diamonds. Alternatively, Blood Diamonds can be obtained in a trade with other players, or simply purchased in the Underground Market.)

The items you want here are the Crystal Skull of the Cow King from the Red Pastures, and Doomwalkers from the Oblivion Emperor. Those 2 are the easiest to get, and with just those 2 items equipped, you should get a significant boost to your damage potential because they come with procs like Devastate and Chain Attack. Slap some inscriptions that increase Heroism on them, and you increase your damage potential even more!

(N.B. Ghost Ink can be obtained via a PvE quest in Dark Oblivion--you're going there anyway, so always complete that quest--or by paying 800 BB to Coraline.)

You really want a 3rd piece of the Dimensional Drifter set though, as that 3rd piece gives you a Heroism set bonus, so make sure you keep hacking away at an Epic Portal Boss until you get what you want!

Getting the first piece of the Dimensional Drifter set will be extremely difficult, as your DPA will most likely not be high enough to defeat the Boss without spending close to 1 bar (or more!) of your bloodlust at the start. I did it by spending the entire 24 hours on beating Epic Bosses when I opened a Portal, and spending 4-5 bloodlust bars on it, depending on how often I log in. Having items that increase PvB loot % really helps here, so go after that Vampire Skul Pendant and that Talisman of the Old Codex (or craft the Unholy Trinity Staf from the Infernal Planes)! That really increases your odds of a good drop!

Be patient. The game is designed to drop your items eventually. Once your DPA goes up by a bit, and you can defeat more Portal Epics using 1 bar of bloodlust, I split the number of Bosses I would handle into groups of 5 or 10. Once I got the number (remember, no 30-minute cooldown for Portal Bosses) of Bosses I wanted, I went to do something else so it did not seem as tedious! The other bonus of defeating so many Bosses is that you will likely get other very useful items, like Megalomania Scrolls, Traveller WoC's, Epic Portal Boss Weapons (to craft the Stormbringer's Bladestaff), and rare crafting materials for the most powerful items in the game.

That's it for Heroism. The next section will cover Banes, other damage modifiers, and weapons.

Can an item drop if it is above your use level? A lot of the good portal loot requires higher level to use, but it might be worth going after them to hold on to until you can use them. I say this because I didn't spend much time in portals, and now at lvl 110, the bosses are very challenging due to the advanced toughness proc. If portal loot is a goal, you should probably start after it early (like maybe level 40-50).

Also remember to avoid portals until you are lvl x8 (ie 28, 38, etc) or so, since the opponents level up with you. If you go in at lower levels, you will lose a lot.

Yes. Loot can drop in the Portals even though you can't use them. I'm like you Ben, and only started hitting Portal Bosses at LvL 100 (!!!!), so I am well aware of the difficulties you face!

(N.B. Maybe I'll write a short post about this, as Cow King is no longer the easiest to kill at when he is at Level 110 if you meet certain criteria).

However, anecdotally, I know players that got the boots from Krampus during the Silverlight Lake event (only usable at LvL 94) even though they they were nowhere near that level, or getting the Scimitar/Cow King's dagger around Level 20-30.

In short, I don't think you can craft an item until you hit all the level and attribute requirements (i.e. you can only craft the Stormbringer's Bladestaff at Level 103 now, even though the items that make up the Bladestaff are available long before then).

On the flip-side, you can get loot to drop that you can't currently use or equip, until you hit the level or attribute requirements to do so. In terms of Portal PvE loot (that great physical damage set from Silverlight Lake is a good example), its definitely advantageous to start as early as possible, as the creatures start getting progressively dangerous procs as you level up!

Not so sure about starting Epic Portal Bosses early, as I had a real hard time with the 2-3 I tried to beat at lower levels. Partially attributable to lack of experience with the game, but I feel like the weapons and acessories that really make a difference are only available at higher levels. Therefore, some of the strategies I write about are not applicable at lower levels, particularly those involving BB weapons or Epic Portal Boss weapons because of their high level requirements!

What I did was visit the Portals at lower levels, collect Portal Boss Summoning items, then start hitting the Bosses seriously only when I felt I was powered up enough around Level 90+.

(N.B. "Powered Up" for me meant a Nova Blade, Megalomania 4 (Total Heroism of about 16 from all sources), Blacksmith's blessing 2, a Traveller Servant, + 50% Holy damage, Penance 8, Judgement 6, Final Judgement 2, the Frost Ram Mount, and chest, boot, glyph, and belt armor from The Truth set of R6. Not very impressive, compared to other high-level build, but this was good enough to take down 1 Epic Portal Boss--I went after Cow King first--using 3/4 bar of bloodlust, which was about 580 at that time.)

That's not to say these strategies don't work before the good weapons are available, as the strategies used in increasing Heroism, collecting scrolls, and using mounts/glyphs/servants work at lower-levels too!

My comments in the post above are really relevant only to tackling Portal Epics early, as they are meant to be as deadly as you are, and I feel that the power curve only tilts in favor of the player at the higher levels because the best weapons and accessories are only usable then.

(N.B. In contrast, most Portal Creatures--besides the Epic or Legendary in each should be easy to defeat as long as you remember to engage when you are Level *7 or *8; where * is 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. as described in Ben's post above. So its advantageous to start early, as normal creatures drop useful loot--like the Talisman of the Old Codex--too!

*7 worked for me. *8 works for Ben. Try this out with your build. Depending on what type of build you have, damage type you use, amount of damage you do, and portal you are in, this can vary. You will have to test to see what works for you.)

Much thanks to all your efforts Gwen.

Oh, wasn't signed in.

now in german, please...

Eh ... Honk ... could you help with the full German translation? I am quite sure I will start apologizing for "horrible German ppl" again if I do it ...