Champion: Average DPS?

[Psimon]

I'm well into the game now, with three legendary characters, a growing Vault of items, etc. After a lot of time playing either my Templar or Avenger, I decided to dig out my 1st character, my 66th level Champion.

Here's the crux of my concern: her abysmally low DPS. Compared to either of other characters its incredibly low:

Rimescythe/Phonoi: 1758
Pagos/Shadow King Scepter: 2745.

I could raise both weapon sets to 2244/3385 by replacing her Alcyonious's breastplate with Achilles armor, but in doing so it puts her Pierce Resist into the negative, a quick way to get killed in Legendary. Granted Rimescythe is a low damage weapon, I use it for its freezing power (very useful combined with Warwind). For the most part she uses fast, bladed weaponry (although recently obtaining Sapros might change this )

(I'd post her using Titancalc, but honestly how it works escapes me - there's no submit button, no way I can see to save the page, no way to submit attribute points applied, etc. If someone has a FAQ link for it that'd be appreciated. )

Suffice to say the bulk of her skill points are sunk into warfare. She has nearly all the dualwield and melee skills maxed out. She has 1 point in Warhorn, Battle Standard, Triumph, and Ancestral Warrior. On the Nature side Heart of Oak is maxed, 3 points in Refresh, 7 points in Wolves, and Strength of the Pack & Elemental Resistance maxed out.

Her survivability in SP or MP is fine, I don't have an issue with that. Its just the DPS. To my mind it should be a minimum of 6-8K before Onslaught or anything else kicks in. The dualwielder is the least protected of any warrior class, seems to me it should be balanced by them having the most damage output.

So back to my question, what is the average DPS for dual wielders? Should I be concerned at all? Is there anything I can do to salvage my first character, or should I shelve her?

[Eikorn]

For the Titancalc.com part; http://www.titanquest.net/forums/sit...tml#post147225

[Minervian]

Poinas: Mmmmmm.. do you have other weapons? Rimescythe and Pagos are good for I'd say epic, early legendary, but further than that...

My level64 champion has about that much DPS, if I can hit 2000 it's pretty good to me becos as I've mentioned elsewhere before, the key to an effective champion is debuffing enemies.

Right now your build is really more of a Warrior with some pets, period. It is not a true Champion, if you ask me.

A DPS of 1500-2000 pre-onslaught is ok for a champion IF you debuff your enemies, using Plague and its synergies, plus battlestandard when facing-hard hitting bosses. When you hit a debuffed enemy with negative resistance, for example, your DPS becomes a complete illusion that does not reflect your true damage.

Since you have Sapros, use it! That will double the effectiveness of Plague.

Example. I used to use a green mace, my DPS was about 2400. With Plague, it takes me something like 40 seconds to kill the Hydra. Basically a long time.

With Sapros, my DPS drops to 1500, but it takes me less than 10 seconds to kill the Hydra. I know it's a very short time because my battle standard is still standing there when I open the majestic chest.

But, I acknowledge that as you are a dual-wielder, there is a big difference between your needs and my champion's. Your build's priorities are kinda different. But I still recommend you give Plague a try.

BTW it was recently revealed that Triumph doesn't work, you might wanna take out the points. Also, Refresh from 1.20 onwards is kinda useless, so one point max.

And Warhorn is very useful even in legendary, I suggest more points in that to increase the stun duration.

[Psimon]

Thanks for the link Eikorn. I fill out the form but the URL doesn't change to reflect it . . . .I'll try it again soon.

Yeah, it was my 1st character, and I wanted a warrior or melee artist and not a Champion as such. I chose Nature primarily for Heart of Oak. In retrospect I would have either made her a Conquerer, Harbringer or Haruspex, I think. I am not in love with dualwield either, but it looked like to me that if you pick Warfare, nearly half the skills involve it.

Y'ask me, now I heard they nerfed Champions, mainly the refresh rate on Ancestral Warrior. Fine with me, I don't like pets in more than a supporting role anyhow. They sure could have take the opportunity to spread the love more on the melee skills, especially dualwield. You take such a hit going shieldless, and the damage output doesn't reflect it. IMO the whole warfare tree needs some rework & love.

I'll look at Plague (not so sure what its "synergies" are). I ignored it because I want her to be a fighter, not a caster. Thanks for the heads-up on Triumph. I sunk a few points into Refresh because I wanted near instantaneous refreshing of Warhorn (as I had with Warwind). What about Doom Horn - is it worthless or worth persuing?

Pagos is the most powerful "fast" bladed weapon I've found. I'd actually love to replace it and especially replace the Scepter (I just don't like the weapon). I do frequently move Rimescythe out of there, putting up Sapros, The Furie, or another Phonoi. What -or should I say "where" - are the uber-powered bladed weapons?

Ulimately, I think you're right, though. The character I wanted is not the Champion (more likely its Conquerer or Haruspex). I might just shelve her and work on one of those.

[Poinas]

Originally Posted by Minervian

Poinas: Mmmmmm.. do you have other weapons?

Umm..yup, I have loads. Are you suggesting I should donate some of them to Psimon?

Originally Posted by Psimon

To my mind it should be a minimum of 6-8K before Onslaught or anything else kicks in.

As said, champions might have trouble getting to that kind of DPS even with Onslaught.

And, Psimon, getting three wolves and upping their howling skill which gives +%damage is a good way of increasing DPS. With three of those puppies, one of them is sure to howl so the boost is almost always on, and at ultimate level it gives +85% damage, IIRC.

[apocalypse80]

Get sapros in your main hand and the biggest , baddest green you can find in the off hand.
Or maybe the scepter of the shadow king or a thorny maul.
You'll never again care about the dps number.

My conq (shield , but same mechanics as DW) with sapros and a monkey king relic and a high offensive ability does anywhere between 2 and 6 times his listed "average" dmg with each attack.
6 times average dmg = double critical shield attack.
So I don't care if someone has double or triple the listed dps , I still kill them offensively.

And you can do even better by combining sapros and plague.
Doing 7-8 times your average dmg shouldn't be too hard.

[Psimon]

Originally Posted by apocalypse80

Get sapros in your main hand and the biggest , baddest green you can find in the off hand.
Or maybe the scepter of the shadow king or a thorny maul.
You'll never again care about the dps number.
. . . . .
And you can do even better by combining sapros and plague.
Doing 7-8 times your average dmg shouldn't be too hard.

Right, I'm there. Been using Sapros in the main hand and am currently quibbling over either a Thorny Maul, a relic'd Folg, or relic'd Mymidon's Sting. I've also got a Phonoi setup as a big lifeleecher and am considering it. The other set has Rimescythe and a new mace I found called Malice.

So far Folg seems to be winning out, I put down foes in half the number of swats that I do with any other combination.

I've also reworked her skills and shaved off points here and there and put them in the Plague tree. It says that it only lowers elemental and physical(?) resistances so I'm considering some kind of hefty elemental offhand weapon besides Sapros.

Thanks for the advice!

[Jusupov]

Originally Posted by Psimon

Right, I'm there. Been using Sapros in the main hand and am currently quibbling over either a Thorny Maul, a relic'd Folg, or relic'd Mymidon's Sting. I've also got a Phonoi setup as a big lifeleecher and am considering it. The other set has Rimescythe and a new mace I found called Malice.

So far Folg seems to be winning out, I put down foes in half the number of swats that I do with any other combination.

I've also reworked her skills and shaved off points here and there and put them in the Plague tree. It says that it only lowers elemental and physical(?) resistances so I'm considering some kind of hefty elemental offhand weapon besides Sapros.

Thanks for the advice!

Well you will be doing physical damage. My champion fully buffed does about 7k dps, and with plague he'll tear through anything. Plague+sapros= godly damage since all enemies will have near 0 or even negative physical damage resistances. I have 2 almost identical Colossal maces of reckless power only, so nothing that great for a Champion and most bosses die in the time it takes for plague to recharge.

[apocalypse80]

Actually since almost nothing has a physical resistance to begin with , even in legendary (they get armor instead) and sapros and plague stack additively ; sapros + plague = under -100% physical resistance.

And it's every bit as nasty as it sounds.

Plus , the sapros debuff allows the %health reduction from plague to work on bosses.

[Psimon]

I hadn't considered a Heath Reduction weapon either, although I have a relic'd Rancor in the wings. Despite opposing opinion in another thread, in my experience it almost never works on bosses.

However . . . with Sapros to consider . . . . might work, assuming their resistance to health reduction isn't an outright immunity.