Phyriel

What people are missing in their contemplation about which difficulty setting was ment as "default" is that they are all "default" but for different people. You get people that can't invest much time into the game but still they want to finish it before some next game hits the market so they have lets say 2 weeks to finish it, they won't go for potd trial of iron because they'd never get to mid game not knowing the game at all and having just 1-2 hour to play every now and then. Then you have people with more time, if they also come from gaming places that have baldurs gate etc in background they will want to go for hardest difficulty, they will research forums for tips and tricks to learn the game and its mechanics. Then there is a question which setting is most popular and then why is that... I think popularity reflects quantity of people described above... you got more people that don't have that much time to really dig into games, it has nothing to do with what was ment as default or what is "best". Difficulty settings are pure way of providing people with challenge they are up to... both competence and time requirement wise... although competence comes with amount of time invested so I guess it boils down to time factor alone really.

I didn't participate in beta but I heard voices that casters got very handicapped in terms of casting speed and generally need to be put behind a wall of tanks now to do anything. Do you feel it's gonna make soloing the game as casters impossible or just as in poe 1 it will just take some slow and careful early game before you can grow into something than can hold on their own?

I started poe on potd. I had a hard time in my first playthrough using unoptimized original characters only. I never finished that session, I quit the game in act 2 kind of disappointed by bugs and imo unfinished state of the game, difficulty was fine but then again hard to say how much of my hardship came via potd setting and how much via bugs... I came back after more than a year when WM2 was just launching and I went for solo potd wizard and I finished it that way. I like potd the most because its easy on this setting to be punished by the game when you turn lazy and careless. Also on potd when you get a power spike getting to certain level and unlocking some spells ( yes i'm talking about you GotA and KFR ) you really get to feel that sense of achievement.

Write a few words on wizards. After playing them solo on potd Poe1 i'm in absolute love with the class. With every other casters I found atleast one thing I didn't like... like with ciphers the need to use conventional weaponry to generate focus. Priests having to selfbuff 10 things every god damn fight. Wizards felt so good... im replaying poe1 again with solo wizard and with new items from deadfire its so OP like I don't even have words but thats beside the point. I guess the only pure caster other that wizard that I enjoyed was druid. However I tried druid as a shapeshifter and in end game it wasn't worth the massive investment needed to make it remotely any good (still squishy). I found pure caster druid much better and still used untalented boar form for DR pene vs high end enemies like ancient death knights and dragons. So anyway how wizards feel like? I heard they change how fast you can cast in general in poe2. One thing i loved in poe1 is alacrity as 3rd lvl spell turning you into flashy spell machinegun.

I got to level 13 on that monk, finished most of act 3 but didn't touch wm at all. But yeah Noonfrost (upscaled) gave me a cancer because both dampening magic and deprieve the unworthy there made me unable to really capitalize on flame potion... not to mention those elves got crazy high fire resistance it was pain to kill them. They didn't really do much in return but all those mobs were healing each other for eternity. Being reliant on retaliation that much isn't my thing. Probably should just respec to some totally different build now for higher level content but I'll leave it for now. Im curious about that barbarian solo tho, it seems really much more proactive. You say you used what build?

I vote for spiritshift druid. Super fun to play

So to sum it up... the cone from Torment's Reach would proc stun on hit/crit from weapons that have it. Would also cone damage heal you from damage done via damage to endurance enchantment? Its not "on hit/crit" effect per se.

In that case it seems that Whisper of Yenwood was picked by Dr <3 (Author of "The Anvil" btw kudos to him) purely because it has +con which is the most important stat for this build. I guess in for a "getting pommeled" setup I'll just pick a weapon that have a most defensive bonuses hmm. Maybe Forgotten Tear of the Beloved or Spelltongue for Corrosive Siphon. Wondering how much hurt can Vent Pick + Badgradr's Barricade do :D

Ah thanks so basicly Torment's Reach (if dual wielding) is a hit with 2 weapons that deal damage separately, gets 50% crush bonus and reduce might, all in cone. So if weapons got lets say Disorienting or chance to stun etc it will also proc in cone if I get it right? Thats nice. I got retaliation shield yesterday, using hiros mantle already so I'm trying to find out best weapon setups for that monk. As a main setup i use MH: Whisper of Yenwood Offhand: Misery's End both with burning lash. But I don't know what to use as a main hand weapon for setup with Sura Supper Plate I basicly only want to use 1h+shield setup for scenarios in which I get surrounded by mobs with a lot of disables so when I get chain stunned etc I get 1 more retaliation effect and more deflection for Soul Mirror vs ranged attackers.

Does it proc on hit effects from specific unique weapons? Does it fully benefit from weapon bonuses like DR bypass etc? Also a bit offtopic question: if a weapon for eg Whisper of Yenwood got +20% grazes to hits on it. Does it mean it only applies to attacks made by that weapon or gives a character +20% chance to change graze into hit globally? For eg when using an item ability like combusting wounds from ring of searing flames?

Yep yep all check. Super strong in early-mid game.

I went with the monk. The Anvil build. I was afraid i'd have to splitpull, cheese a lot but man this is so much power. Retaliation + Battle Forged + Rooting Pain while using Ring of Searing Flames and Rotfinger Gloves. I went yolo for Sanguine Plate quest at level 6 or 7 and I demolished those fools. I had Merciless Hand by then so Torment Reach made ribs fly all over the screen.

Biggest challenge for me when I was solo were packs that had "Deprieve of the Unworthy" ability. But most of the time it was just enough to initiate combat (as wizard) with frost ray on the guy that uses it to root him in place, run away beyond range from which he can cast it and when ray ends just watch for him to appear out of the fog and drop either slicken, shadowflame, confuse on him. Same goes to enemies that had "Form of helpless beast". Those were easier because they are both squishy casters and cast time of this spell is long so gives you tons of time to react. Worst part of this spell is that after you get out of it (its short duration and you're fast so you can run away easily) is that your grimoire reloads after you're back to your form... so you can't cast spells at all.

Roleplaying:) Honestly after beating the game with solo on potd 2 times now I don't think I'd find real challenge in doing party runs. Although it offers a lot of funny combos and synergies that are satisfying to pull off... something you don't get playing solo.

Ye with multiple druids you absolutely keep full screen of enemies stunlocked forever but you really have to turn sound effects down because its like multiple steel pans hitting the marble floor... constantly. Its the rain of steel pans. Btw its also a funny thing to initiate combat from far far away using multiple tornados, it kicks the combat right in and it gives you all the time in the world to buff up, summon ... multiple firestags and well you know where the fun is:P I called it Highway to Hell combo because enemies have to run thru endless wall of flames and all they enter is milions of volts to spice it up. Really funny combo, doesn't require much micro which is a big ++ for me at this point.

Rip, just asked to have a rough estimate if you were already past some roadblocks but since you got to 16 then I guess it passed viability check:P

I don't mind using doorways and such because ultimately its part of a scenery and its a valid strategy, sometimes enemies jump behind you or use push abilities to knock you out from choke points so its not like AI is hopeless to overcome that. Although in reality its very effective if not for survival then for utilizing aoe to biggest effect. I guess AI could be improved in a way to make them not clump up at the doorway but instead spread in the room, corners waiting till you're free to engage. That would make it so much harder for casters that rely on hitting full groups with aoes. I mostly despise exploiting with kiting to split groups in 3 parts with combat dropping each time etc... Thats lame as hell. As for Ultimate, no I'm not going for it as I'm using IE mod but I also don't really want to save/reload trying to get lucky. I don't mind reloading if I just get wrecked because I don't use something in good order because thats misplay and not rng factor. How far did you get with your barb Boeroer? P.S all that being said I don't expect to have same viability, powerhouse as wizard or (to a smaller degree) druid. I thought that druid was very strong after getting to mid-end game although I ran into some fights that were super tough for druid... then I switched to my wizard and boy that was easy. Wizard is easy mode this class is so broken for solo, gaze of andragan = 200+ dmg rakes even with pretty low might. Veil gives you all the time in the world to buff up to supersaian mode, the only issues were occasional stun->paralyze locks but there is nothing a good confusion can't fix. Anyway after getting Ilengrath barrier spells you're immune to anything. So yea I don't expect to top that kind of level of power with anything else. Maybe a priest but I don't dig it for some reason... too much buffing.

Yo. So I've recently reached lvl 16 on my potd solo runs with druid and wizard. With wizard I'm a bit further, just have part of wm 2 left + its bounties and thats it, just thaos left after that. With druid I kind of got bored and the constant trashing of relentless storm made me dizzy :D I've also started a 6 party play-through with a "tribe" party that consist barbarian as MC + druids (off tank + shifter + ranged/implement) + 2 rangers. But I'm feeling its gonna be too easy now that I nearly beat game twice with solo chars. Especially that druids got so many "enemy only spells" and make nearly all vs beast encounters pretty trivial. So I dunno if I'll do that run. But I'm kind of hungry of playing solo with a melee char. I'm not interested with paladin nor chanter for that matter. I was kind of curious about rogue but after watching The Ultimate finished by rogue I changed my mind because its so much cheese / splitpulling etc I don't dig that. So right now I'm thinking barbarian / monk or maybe a.... fighter? Question is as tho... and I'm afraid I know the answer... Does rolling one of those means very strict cheesing and splitpulling all the way to end game?

I went back to my 6 wizards party... holy hell things are so easy:P and then I imagined 6 druids O_o 6x returning relentless and avenging storms?? god... as a matter of fact ill go for themed Glanfathan party - multiple rangers + druids and a barbarian, could be fun. I think my ears wouldn't survive 6x storms hammering at the same time. Its already getting unbearable with 1 druid:P

Yea thats what I normally did but this fight is scripted as ghosts appear out of thin air after you grab the key. Its like lighthouse except ghosts are nastier. I thought its a mandatory encounter isn't? I mean its a key you need to get to gain access to the forge level am I right? Anyway about priest, nah I'll skip that idea as I really begin to dislike endgame that is reliant on buffing up each fight. It gets very tedious already even on a druid... It was a challenge before I got tornado because I could ofc initiate the fight with overwhelming wave and get 1 or 2 buffs off before I got enemies in close vicinity but now with tornado that bounce 3 times and change direction I can really pull mobs that are 2 rooms away by planing how tornado will bounce so it reaches them. My record was triggering combat and getting 11 seconds before they got to me without moving or kiting away at all, they just all got hit by disable and then it took them next 5-6 seconds to run to my original spot. When they reached me they had already me waiting with full set of buffs scrolls pots with tanglefoot, venomblood and thorns already waiting infront of me. I can only imagine with priest its a buff fest 90% of the game and then just clearing the floor with overbuffed god. Its fun getting there ofc but it gets meh once u're there and still have like 50% of the content to clear that autopilot way. I liked my 6 wizards playthrough aka circle of the nine, amount of flashy things on the screen got insane at high level but some fights were truly autopause galore with micro buffing and stutter stepping every milisecond;P I need to think about my next playthrough. I'll probably opt for a party without much of tedious buffing so maybe something like ranger + rogues +spiritshifter and chanter + fighter/paladin as tanks

I guess my next solo run gonna be a priest Who needs to stack defenses if you get Litany against major afflictions Immunity to Charmed, Terrified, Stunned, Petrified, Paralyzed, Dominated, Immuity to Weakened for 20.0 sec

Another roadblock, wm1 durgans battery, in the mines on the lower level where you loot the corpse for a key and bunch of wraiths, sirens and spectres show up. I get dimenshional shifted stunned into even more ghosts before I even get to use figurines, cast any scroll or drink any pot. I have time to cast fast spell and thats with maxed dex, gloves of quickness. After stun lands I get my preservation items proc which is ok but I just get chain stunned and I can't do ****, I don't get very damaged when I'm stunned, heck they don't even hit me that often because with preservation procs from both shield and armor i got 170 deflection 200 fort 266 reflex and 190 will so its ok but problem is that somehow... even with that kind of defenses the siren lands paralyze on me... 100% of the time... tried this fight like 10 times and same scenario happens. Once paralyze takes root it suppresses the stuns that warrant preservation status and I'm back to my normal defenses minus paralyze effect ofc and I'm shredded in seconds. Obviously I tried to cast that scroll of prayer against imprisonment, I think I managed once to resist first stun that comes almost instantly and got it off but then it ran out while I was chain stunned and got paralyzed anyway in the end -> rip. Edit: Nevermind, got through, just as always in same sort of situations its a game of cc them before they cc you. Managed to get Relentless Storm before they got me, this bought me time to get scrolls out and it snowballed in my favour. Can't imagine stress when you try to do it legit way without alt f4ing when **** goes south on hardcore mode. Anyway I doubt there were many "The Ultimate" players that done it without wiping 50 times on practice softcore runs or didn't alt f4 when things went wrong or very dicy.

Oh I might play a bit with druid charm on Sky Dragon or Bog Dragons then. Anyway I was close to forfeiting my potd solo run yesterday at Cragholdt, I dunno why I was so hesitant to spam pots and scrolls. I guess I thought I might run short for even harder fights but then at some point I opened my store chest and saw I got enough Topazes for 25 scrolls of Confuse so I just dropped the leash. After getting through Concelhaut I got invigorated and one shoted 2 dragons. Wondering what the next challenge will be. I'm looking forward to Llengrath, Radiant Spore and Kraken fights also got next sets of bounties in Dyrwood and not done with wm1 yet so wm2 bounties also. Also wondering about final itemization. Right now I use: -Head: Hermit's Hat -Body: Vengiatta Rugia -Boots: Fenwalkers -Gloves: Quickaction/Accurate 2 -Belt: Sentinels Girdle -Rings: Protection and Thorns -Cloak: Cape of Master Mystic -Weapon sets 1) Drawn in Spring + Little Savior 2) Forgotten Tear of the Beloved + Aila Braccia I want to toy with Fire Stag and Black Sanctuary Withdrawal I wanna get something better than Vengiatta Rugia as Retaliation is kinda useless for me as I just found out it doesn't work with Avenging Storm.

Alpine down, a bit harder but i went for easy strategy which is confuse scrolls. I was able to have 50-60% chance to land lowlevel dots so I applied them all, after all mobs were dead alpine was "injured" reapplied all dots again, he went after concelhaut visage, buffed up with avenging wrath dropped petrify it landed for 9 seconds, instant scale breaker into boar form - few quick hits for 90+ gg.

Adra dragon down, super easy, druid level 2 spell hold beast and gg. With scroll of valor, accuracy vs beast III from resting I had 90% to land it. Even forgot to use scale breaker until in the middle of fight and didn't use conceulhaut visage at all. Used boar form to finish her off. Boar even without any talents hit quite nicely. I was surpriced adra dragon is immune to petrify but not to paralyze which is like weaker effect. Also not immune to hobbled, prone weakened etc.