Build Help please: Delver

[Mordosskul]

Hello, playing 1.3 for the first time, and I haven't played since TQ:IT was new. Great work on this mod, it's fantastic.

I started up an pure caster Earth class, and the volcanic orb is fantastic for satisfyingly turning a lot of mobs at once into ash. I chose the spirit tree second to add one point into Ternion, and use the new vitality staves. So far so good... just rolled into Delphi (normal) with only a few deaths under my belt.

I'm not sure where to take it from here... I was planning on maxing out the orb tree, add a few points into stone form, then get meteor. On spirit, I thought I'd level up the skeleton/lich tree to keep stuff off me. Should I use the core dweller instead? I notice no one here has posted on this class combination before - is it non viable in the end game? Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.


Also - The first class I tried was the assassin, which has been posted here as being a pretty sick combo. Would someone please post a rough framework of where I should be putting my points? Because I have a whole LOT of deaths and haven't even made it to Delphi, which is why I rolled up the caster. Not too great at planning this stuff out in advance I'm afraid. I was putting points into the dual wield tree, then into the dodge and dual wield stuff on occult. is this a case of I need to just gain better gear or levels until I see this start to shine?

[malroth]

I might get flamed for saying so but i've found Dual weild assasian is not very good untwinked in act 1 normal. You get small +% bonuses to damage that don't mean jack and diddily with early game equipment. It gets much better once you have access to good weapons and armour, but in the meantime you should probably concider the poison or shadow link trees to give you some flat damage.

As for the lack of discussion with the delver class, thats mostly because the two masteries mesh up so nicely that its almost impossible to make a build that doesn't work. The Volcanic orb/eruption combo can serve as your major crowd control spells the entire game even with just a little -recharge gear. The core dweller is a better tank than the Liche king and holds aggro better, but the Liche king does more damage and drops enemy resistances, use which ever you prefer and some builds even use both. Undead pets absolutely love the damage boosts they get from the earth enchant tree and it will also improve either terion or rupture. Both masteries excel at AOE crowd control so large mobs should die easily whatever you choose to specialize in. For bosses i would reccomend a "of harrowing" staff with a dark medicine relic and using Spirits Terion attack as well as eruption or meteor. As a caster you will usually be quite fragile, put at least one point each in heat sheild, stone form, molten rock and death ward. Heat sheild and death ward require little attention and make you significantly harder to kill even from the first point, while stone form and its upgrade give you a few seconds of near invunerability to use as a panic button or to let potions and spells recharge.

[Munderbunny]

Yeah, pretty much what Malroth said. Delver can be a real tanky caster, or master of pure pet destruction. The synergy between the core-dweller and the liche king is hilarious in action; when both are set to aggressive, they almost always initiate on monster groups with the one-two combo of soul-blight and flaming boulder; the soul blight always lands first, reducing all their resists, and then the boulder crashes into them before they have chance to move out of position. The liche follows it up with some basic attacks, but the core dweller moves close to them, then drops a fissure. It remains powerful all through legendary, even if they aren't insta-nuking mobs.

As far as the assassin goes, it plays better when you do it all Assassiny. :) It's not like a DW conq that just plows through everything; without the Defense Mastery, it's hard to be as tanky, though with good gear, you can turn become a human blender (with decent ADCTH). But, barring that, you're better off to use your skills tactically, and approach different groups of monsters with different strategies. Assassin is definitely not for those who just want casual one-button play.