Portal DPS

[transtemporal]

Forgive a melee newb his newbiness but I am a little confused by the portal DPS thing. My vanilla TWF khopesh destruction barb is still a ways off from the shroud but I like to be prepared so I've been soliciting advice from the melee community.

I got some good advice but some doesn't quite gel with what I know (or what I think I know) about the portals: they are constructs and therefore immune to sneak attacks and crits and have DR 15/-. Testing with my sorc on his transmuting xbow of gtr construct bane in the vale found that transmuting didn't bypass its DR and neither could I crit it, but I did get red numbers from the bane. Is this correct and is it the same for portals in the shroud?

I would've said the best one-handed portal weapon when dual-weilding (for anyone without dwarven war axe or bastard sword prof) was any 1d8 true <alignment> weapon of gtr construct bane. The crit doesn't matter so theres no use trying to find a khopesh, except thematic. Is that right? Or is it better to grab a two-handed weapon to get the extra benefit from PA and use that instead of TW?

In addition, rumours swirl about the various effectiveness of this or that suffix or prefix. If anyone can confirm these, it would be greatly appreciated.
Maiming Would seem to be useless as it only goes off on a crit?
Vicious Deals untyped damage?
Destruction Even if it does work anything fighting it misses on a 1 anyway?
True alignment Seems to be vulnerable. Not vulnerable to holy, axiomatic etc.
Weakening/enfeebling/wounding/puncturing/maladroit/bonebreaking I found this didn't do jack but some people swear black and blue it works

Cheers!

[Twerpp]

Yeah dude just get a greater bane two hander and start swingin away with the rest of us.

[transtemporal]

Yeah dude just get a greater bane two hander and start swingin away with the rest of us.

Hmm, you're probably right there twerpp. Numbers don't look dramatically different and I imagine its easier to get 1 two-handed +5 gtr construct bane than it is to get 2 one-handed +5 gtr construct banes... ouch.

[Hanam]

true chaos of greater construct bane is your best bet. I dual wield them and do quite a bit of damage.

[transtemporal]

true chaos of greater construct bane is your best bet. I dual wield them and do quite a bit of damage.

D'oh. I would've gone CG but I wanted to be able to use axiomatic weapons too.

Are any other suffixes of any use? Destruction etc?

[tihocan]

Are any other suffixes of any use? Destruction etc?

No. Well, maiming works, but not as good as construct bane.

[CSFurious]

if true chaos works then anarchic burst should work

i dual-wield greater construct banes on them with my ranger

i have never experimented with my anarchic burst rapier or shortsword that my rogue just acquired but i think i will this weekend, they should cause ok damage

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Pretty sure they are true neutral and take damage from anything that would hurt a true neutral creature.
They are constructs....but cannot be smited/smitten. Someone said that despite being big unmoving objestc, they apparently have a 40 ref save......something about the Rogue wrack construct ability being difficult to use on them.

They can be destructed, but their AC is low anyway......so doesn't really matter.

[hydra_ex]

if true chaos works then anarchic burst should work

i dual-wield greater construct banes on them with my ranger

i have never experimented with my anarchic burst rapier or shortsword that my rogue just acquired but i think i will this weekend, they should cause ok damage

No, true chaos/law and pure good/evil deal 1d6 chaos/law/good/evil dmg to anything thats not their alignment, and can only be wielded by things that are their alignment (UMD works though). Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy, on the other hand, deals 2d6 chaos/law/good/evil damage to things of the opposite alighment, and can be wielded by anyone, although those of oppostie alignment suffer a negative level while wielding them.

The portals, being true neutral, are not afected by Axiomatic etc, as they are not of opposite alignment, and therefor are only afected by true chaos etc. as they affect anything not chaotic, such as the portals.

[GrayOldDruid]

Probably as good a thread as any to say this :

Transmuting not working on the portals bites. That is saying that NOTHING can bypass it's damage reduction - which is apparently not true. Alignment apparently bypasses its DR. So should Transmuting.

[Thrudh]

Are any other suffixes of any use? Destruction etc?

Pure good works as well (or good burst, etc.)

[hammerstriker1]

the reason you can't bypass the dr, is there is no dr. it is hardness 15. if you do less than 15 dam=0 dam. it's similar to elemental hardness, or barbarian dr.

[CSFurious]

ok, i knew anarchic worked on lawful alignment like the pit fiend

i was getting my chaos & anarchy confused

appreciate the help

No, true chaos/law and pure good/evil deal 1d6 chaos/law/good/evil dmg to anything thats not their alignment, and can only be wielded by things that are their alignment (UMD works though). Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy, on the other hand, deals 2d6 chaos/law/good/evil damage to things of the opposite alighment, and can be wielded by anyone, although those of oppostie alignment suffer a negative level while wielding them.

The portals, being true neutral, are not afected by Axiomatic etc, as they are not of opposite alignment, and therefor are only afected by true chaos etc. as they affect anything not chaotic, such as the portals.

[Falcone]

Vicious works just fine. So likely the best weapons (highest damage output) are Vicious of Greater Construct Bane. True Chaos and Pure Good work as well, so True Chaos of Greater Construct Bane is about as good as it gets without Vicious.

[tihocan]

Probably as good a thread as any to say this :

Transmuting not working on the portals bites. That is saying that NOTHING can bypass it's damage reduction - which is apparently not true. Alignment apparently bypasses its DR. So should Transmuting.

No, alignment does not let you bypass DR, a portal has DR/- that cannot be bypassed by any physical damage.
What you probably mean is that it is vulnerable to (some) alignment damage, which is magic damage, and thus ignores (any) DR.

[Impaqt]

NOTHING bypasses its DR. Viscious, Bane, Chaos, Good, Maiming all do their full damage, but your BASE damage is ALWAYS subject to the DR. (Which I thought was 10.... But Could be 15 I guess)

THey do appear to be True Neutral, But True Law does NOT work for some reason.

[transtemporal]

THey do appear to be True Neutral, But True Law does NOT work for some reason.

Thats an interesting tidbit. They must be law-abiding portals I guess.

There still seems to be a lot of rumours flying around about using enfeebling etc to auto-crit them but I plugged away with a weakening enfeebling longsword for 10 minutes and it didn't do jack. Does that work or is this just a weird rumor?

Cheers for all the suggestions guys.

While I'm at it... is Harry a Lawful Outsider or an Evil Outsider for the purposes of things like favored enemy/bane?

[Oran_Lathor]

While I'm at it... is Harry a Lawful Outsider or an Evil Outsider for the purposes of things like favored enemy/bane?

Both

[Kargon]

Thats an interesting tidbit. They must be law-abiding portals I guess.

There still seems to be a lot of rumours flying around about using enfeebling etc to auto-crit them but I plugged away with a weakening enfeebling longsword for 10 minutes and it didn't do jack. Does that work or is this just a weird rumor?

That are with a ray of enfeebamaling, which since are a debuff and not stat damanage will work. weakenaming of enfeebamalling are stat damanage and will not work. This not allow get crit damanage on the straight weapamon damanage, but what WILL do are make maiming and puregood burst (tier 2 greensteel) trigger on evermary hit.

[Angelus_dead]

That are with a ray of enfeebamaling, which since are a debuff and not stat damanage will work

That hasn't worked in a long time. It did before.