Tard the Paladin
Grandmaster
If you are choosing the defense relic then parry is a must. You might not want parry on your characters build but you must have it if you want to see decent gains on your talisman. Remember that you must have armor class 100 to see full gains. Its 1% xp loss for each AC under 100. If you are at 90 AC then you are taking a 10% xp loss. You can always drop parry after your talisman is level 10. If you don't have parry then you probably aren't going to see level 10. A good suit of magic plate is going to give you ~65 armor. Throw on a fortification heater shield and you're looking at around 115-120 AC. This is a good starting point because your shield gives a ton of AC but it takes the most damage so you'll see your AC start to diminish.
The talisman xp boost from the Sigil that Minax current holds (forget the name) only works on meta pets. I'd like confirmation on this but I'm pretty sure this is the case. It does not work for meta dexer talismans.
Don't be tempted to throw your relics onto your talisman in the order that you find them. Quench and Remedy are by far the best relics. They are exponentially more useful than leech or recoil. Recoil makes no noticeable difference in gameplay. Remedy and Quench also take a lot longer to level up than leech or recoil. Only certain mobs will proc them and their cool down timer are longer. Leech and recoil proc no matter what you're fighting therefore they will level up quickly. They are also not very useful. This is why I suggest putting them on last. Specifically, I'd put recoil on last.
Those of you with good fashion sense will notice how well a defense talisman accents a nice suit of platemail. Platemail is going to keep your coveted Armor Class high. But wait you say, bone armor gives the same armor and no dex loss. Yes, and you will repair/throw away 10+ suits of bone armor in the time it takes you to send one suit of platemail to your favorite blacksmith. Bone armor goes to shit quickly. Platemail keeps your AC up and lets you fight a lot more mobs before your armor class is reduced and thereby ruining your XP gains. And if you get pk'd, your platemail is still there on your corpse. If by some chance it did get looted, well its cheap on the vendors too!
Shields. They go to shit quickly and it saddens me. I hope you have a smithy. I'll go through 6 shields at Barracoon.
Let's talk about mobs!
The higher the hit pointers the better the gains. But choose your mobs wisely. For instance, mobs that cast a lot of spells tend to leave you healing and running rather than gaining XP. They also die faster. An ogre lord will give you good gains but the macing damage will ruin your armor in no time. Dragons seem to be a great fit. If your quench procs early then you will avoid firebreath damage for a good long while. This lets you lower the dragons HP before the quench wears off. The firebreaths after that won't deal much damage because firebreath damage is proportional to the dragon's HP. I can tank an elder dragon paragon this way. A dragon paragon will give you around 1k XP.
The talisman xp boost from the Sigil that Minax current holds (forget the name) only works on meta pets. I'd like confirmation on this but I'm pretty sure this is the case. It does not work for meta dexer talismans.
Don't be tempted to throw your relics onto your talisman in the order that you find them. Quench and Remedy are by far the best relics. They are exponentially more useful than leech or recoil. Recoil makes no noticeable difference in gameplay. Remedy and Quench also take a lot longer to level up than leech or recoil. Only certain mobs will proc them and their cool down timer are longer. Leech and recoil proc no matter what you're fighting therefore they will level up quickly. They are also not very useful. This is why I suggest putting them on last. Specifically, I'd put recoil on last.
Those of you with good fashion sense will notice how well a defense talisman accents a nice suit of platemail. Platemail is going to keep your coveted Armor Class high. But wait you say, bone armor gives the same armor and no dex loss. Yes, and you will repair/throw away 10+ suits of bone armor in the time it takes you to send one suit of platemail to your favorite blacksmith. Bone armor goes to shit quickly. Platemail keeps your AC up and lets you fight a lot more mobs before your armor class is reduced and thereby ruining your XP gains. And if you get pk'd, your platemail is still there on your corpse. If by some chance it did get looted, well its cheap on the vendors too!
Shields. They go to shit quickly and it saddens me. I hope you have a smithy. I'll go through 6 shields at Barracoon.
Let's talk about mobs!
The higher the hit pointers the better the gains. But choose your mobs wisely. For instance, mobs that cast a lot of spells tend to leave you healing and running rather than gaining XP. They also die faster. An ogre lord will give you good gains but the macing damage will ruin your armor in no time. Dragons seem to be a great fit. If your quench procs early then you will avoid firebreath damage for a good long while. This lets you lower the dragons HP before the quench wears off. The firebreaths after that won't deal much damage because firebreath damage is proportional to the dragon's HP. I can tank an elder dragon paragon this way. A dragon paragon will give you around 1k XP.
