u/IndependentSoggy4199

I enjoy helping people learn the game to get to the power and style that is fun for them. I've been needing to teach a few of the same thing lately on the pve server i live on, so i thought I'd make a post.

• Once you kill Dantos, you can merge traits on weapons. You can separately merge traits on spell jewels.
• Weapon shard traits *do not* need to be of same weapon type!!!! For example, you can transfer that Attack Speed trait you want from a Whip to an Axe!
• Weapon shards do not have to be reconstructed to transfer!!! I saw a person thinking they had to build both weapons before they could merge them.
• Weapon shards do not need to be the same scarcity!!! You can 'transfer up' (or same). That means you can take traits from blue and move them to blue/purple/orange. You can take from purple and move to purple/orange. Orange can only transfer to other orange
• In summation, if you find a blue weapon that has a full strength (5 marks full red diamond) trait on it, keep it! You might one day want to transfer that to an 'end game' weapon later!

Actual weapon shard farming math:

• How best to get the weapon traits you want? Blue shards. Not purple. You heard me.
• ways to get blue shards? Lesser stygian shards at Southern mortium merchant. OR lesser blood soul (tier1 rifts or stygian circle)
• Ways to get purple/orange shards? Greater stygian shards at Northern mortium merchant OR Prime blood souls (tier2 rifts or stygian circle)
• Look at a blue shard as '2 rolls for traits' and a purple shard as '3 rolls for traits'.
• Look at the refinement cost for scrolls vs schematics. How many rolls are you getting if you stop at scrolls and fight lesser souls from stgyian circle. Compare to how many rolls you get if you convert those scrolls to schematics. Don't do it. Stop at scrolls. Farm lesser blood souls. Profit.

Hope that title got your attention.

If you are a player of any particular skill level struggling to beat bosses, this post is for you.

If you can already kick the hell out of the game, this post is not for you.

...I assume you have crafted the gear appropriate for a boss; you're not trying to kill a level 80 boss w/ level 10 gear...

Learn. The. Puzzle.

Strong Feels Advice: For each boss you are having trouble with, spend 4 minutes just 'not attacking'. Don't try to swing at them. Don't try to hit them w/ spells. Just play 'keep away' (from their attacks). As you learn how they move, how they audibly and visually telegraph their attacks, see if you can figure out how to walk away from attack patterns. If you have to veil to learn them, fine. But see if you can learn how to maneuver without needing your veil.

Advice Step 2: Don't hesistate to just reset the fight if you failed to dodge too many times in your learning. Drinking healing potions is faster than traveling from the nearest waygate. Your goal is to learn.

Advice Step 3: Now vary your distance and keep at it. If you were playing keep-away by always staying across their leash zone, now try to stay close. Or vice versa. For most bosses, you will start to learn that they have different attacks they initiate based on how far you are from them. So in Step 1 I assume you got comfortable with either close or far. Now do the other one. (and sometimes there is a 'mid'...also, 'close' and 'far' change per boss).
3.a) You might learn that SOME bosses are MUCH easier to fight close or far. Some you really shoudl NOT fight at certain distances. Most you can be any distance, just dodge different attacks. Honestly, I think 2/3 of the boss are easier to dodge if you stay close to them.

Advice Step 4: Now start to hit them some. See if you can get them to 40 or 50% of their max health. You should expect to see them start to exhibit additional move sets. Go back to total defense mode; learn how to walk away from their low-hp-attacks.

Step 5: MURDER THEM! You are the boss!!

PS - IF you did the above for Normal, realize you might need to do it again for Brutal. All bosses have at least +1 attack in Brutal they did not have in Normal. If you already did the above for Brutal...you should be able to cake-walk Normal bosses.

Lastly, it's a game! HAVE FUN!!!