Voltron

Damn, not this bug again. There was similar one in PoE1 and now it's even worse. Sorry, but game style that relies on a bug isn't something that I might enjoy. Actually, knowing about such bug might spoil the game for some people. You know that you shouldn't use it, but it's something that always available - just click enemy after attack and avoid extra reload times... And suddenly game change from picking right tactic, combining skills and such into 'time your clicks right and you're golden'. Yeah i agree with you, but please let's don't talk about it here or there will be a bunch of guys jump out saying hey u can choose not to use it if you think it is broken Well, I never said "it's not a bug, it's a feature". Whenever you use it or not is up to you till they patch it. Simple as that, nobody force anyone to anything in this game. And well, you are correct- you can choose, or someone stack behind you with knife in your house saying "use reload bug or die? Besides wasn't it you who posted build about Dragon Tarshed triggering Sungraze AOE attacks? It's also a bug and should not happen, yet that didn't stop you from posting it and letting everyone know that they can run it Same is here. He only posted his observations, though; not a fully fledged out build. What's the difference? We both presented some unintended mechanics that work. Or do you think people seeing his post would absolutely never got idea "hey, I can do the same in my game"? Please. No one force anyone to run anything and that should not stop people from sharing their mechanic observations, be it simple post "XY works" or "This is my new build where XY works". Let people define their own fun of what they want to run and use in their single player RPG. Also by highlighting that we let Obsidian now where problems are. Same story, different cover.

Damn, not this bug again. There was similar one in PoE1 and now it's even worse. Sorry, but game style that relies on a bug isn't something that I might enjoy. Actually, knowing about such bug might spoil the game for some people. You know that you shouldn't use it, but it's something that always available - just click enemy after attack and avoid extra reload times... And suddenly game change from picking right tactic, combining skills and such into 'time your clicks right and you're golden'. Yeah i agree with you, but please let's don't talk about it here or there will be a bunch of guys jump out saying hey u can choose not to use it if you think it is broken Well, I never said "it's not a bug, it's a feature". Whenever you use it or not is up to you till they patch it. Simple as that, nobody force anyone to anything in this game. And well, you are correct- you can choose, or someone stack behind you with knife in your house saying "use reload bug or die? Besides wasn't it you who posted build about Dragon Tarshed triggering Sungraze AOE attacks? It's also a bug and should not happen, yet that didn't stop you from posting it and letting everyone know that they can run it Same is here.

Of course I know who this is :D. But in my books it's no a drow, it doesn't have black skin . But my char is more of a hunter than classic assassin so imo it fits her well. Templay assassin doesn't suit me here, not for Bleak order. Maybe if I played it with melee. But this is for hunting

It's not about DPS, it's about burst. Assassins are not from DPS, but from fast kills. Who needs dps if you one-shot enemies from one attack ? I am actually against idea of "assassins" dueling enemies in open, doing backflips, dual wielding swords etc. Assassin should either slice your throat, kill you while you make love with him/her, posion you or shot you from afar. That's assassin for me. Besides there is no better sniper build combo for insta delete than this. Sometimes it's a weapon choice that makes a character build/roleplay, not necessary classes taken. She looks more like Pale Elf than Drow Ranger. I am traditionalist when it comes to drows- black skin and white hair. Any other I just consider some other elf race. I don't think pale blueish skin is true drow, but as I said- I am old RPG gamer and rised on Salvatore books . And she suits nicely a theme of "Bleak Huntress". Besides Bleak Huntresses are not your traditional templars. They are hunters, not warriors.

if you use reload speed trick the items/abilities that speed reload do not do anything, you will still reload as fast and still faster than with all of them stacked.

Give that Spearcaster a try- that Arbalest is a thing of beauty and Skewer is amazing. Not that Dragon Dowyr +50% burn lash + Sworn Rival + Fod+ 10% extra burn lash is not :D. Because it dam is :D I don't want to use melee as I try to roleplay this build . I really loved playing ranger in Divinity Original Sin 2 and I wanted to go back to it here

You are better with Rogue for sniper build than Ranger sadly at this point in game. If you really want to however play ranger I would recommend bleak walker instead of devoted. Higher alpha dmg with FoD + Sworn Enemy thatn with devoted and better defenses while having Lay on Hands for your pet too as sadly pets die fast like fles and are as useful...

They are super bad. They scaled much better in POE1 and they actually were doing great damage later in game. Don't know why they changed it - in PoE1 Ranger wasn't really that good of a class but at least his pets were much more useful. They also have waay to low defenses and health and attack speed, and damage. They are garbage right now, which is quite ironic, considering how many things are brokenly OP- companions went other way around are totally UP. If you want to make build with succesfull pet as tank- make Paladin Shieldbearer/Ranger Stalker or Sharpshooter. Focus on building your ranger for damage and just cast Sworn Rival (as kill with return Zeal) and Lay on Hands on your pet. With 20 INT your Lay on Hands will give your pet 10 seconds of immortality so you can keep him alive forever while doing your ranger job which is to snipe people + you have your Ranger heal and you have +1 armor from Paladin aura later. With Stalker that will be +2 armor for pet if 4m from you. It's not really that funny to burn all Zeal to keep your pet alive after first few seconds of fight, but I didn't find anything better than that for solo Ranger build if you want to use your pet. Becuase you can always go Chanter/Ranger and just use summons and forget about you pet since it sucks, but that is not the point of Ranger I think....

None taken. I find it better than standing for 15 sec watching reload animation. If reload was working with Recovery reductions I wouldn't have to use reload cancel

I fully understand your point of view. Switching from Assassin however would remove that roleplay element of being Bleak Huntress. You can still play this build without Smoke Veil. Just don't take it :D

I wrote about it in details in my new range solo build: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101274-class-build-bleak-huntress-holy-slayer-ranged-sniper-assassin-build/ Also about double tap and other range mechanics.

Well, I wouldn't say it's cheesing. It's simillar to reload cancel mechanics from other games like reload and then do melee to cancel rest of reload animation etc. Reload cancel has been in games for years . Also this is the only thing that makes gun sniper builds viable as long reload make them really frustrating to use especially on solo. Not to mention it's the only way we can make "assassin" build work smoothly with Smoke Veil or Shadowing Beyond. Without it we would just stand there most of the time. As for double tap at the start- well, I didn't design this game :D

Before you get to Quick Switch where it really makes difference you can reload weapons as fast as switching to them with Black Jack using fast reload trick . No need to switch that much if you can reload as fast.

Hm, what? :D

The Bleak Huntresses are an ancient female order among Bleak Walkers. Cold hearted murderesses, relentless hunters that strike from the dark, hunting their prey for weeks or even months... for reward and for joy of kill. Not much is known about them, as their targets never knew they were coming. Sometimes it's bullet in the head from tower in city, sometimes arrow in heart from dark woods or heavy belt in spine from rooftop. They come, they kill, they vanish. Always from distance, always precise, never personal. Patient like spiders on web. For them target is just an animal to hunt.... a warm thrill necessary to wake a little spark in their stone-cold hearts... They say bleak huntresses not only take life but also feed on soul, that they need to kill or they go insane. Some say they are vampires or half-demons. Most say it's just a ghost stories. One is sure- if Bleak Huntress is after you- she will hunt you, she will find you, and she will kill you. Level 8 Deadlight Fortress- PotD, scalling only, ony up + difficulty mod. Note that my character is geared up due to B.Blessings, my knowledge of game after 2 full solo games and using a steal method from vendors: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101057-spoiler-easy-method-to-steal-vendors-most-valuable-items/. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzhZVh-dYsw&feature=youtu.be 1. Why this Multiclass for range sniper?: 2. The Build: Bleak Walker/Assassin. We combine high burst from FoD, it's low cost, free Sworn Enemy spam after that and free affliction on target with initial alpha strikes of Assassinate and Sneak Attack to remove most dangerous target/s. Since we do not try to assassinate in melee, we don't need high Sneak skill. We only have to get to position to snipe enemy away. Hence why I didn't took backstab. The further you are- the more opportunity you have to finish recovery and for example use Smoke Veil to dissapear, reset fight and start from Assassinate again or to continue (after reload is done) with another fast Assassinate attack. We have Escape also for when we need to reposition. We have great defenses and self heal. RACE: Aftrer you get specific armor (later about that) Nature Godlike becomes great becasue you start every combat with Wellspring on. Of course Hearth Orlan is also great option. I went with pale elf cause like elfs and wanted to match my portrait . You don't really need to min max race here, though the first two would work much better than elf here . 3. The Range Mechanics for Sniper: There are 4 range mechanics that you need to know and use in order to fully utilize this build: A. Fast Reload- when you attacked a target and your reload animation start, clikc ONCE (and only once) on target you want to attack (either by just attack or ability that attack like FoD). This will shorten greatly a reload animation on a range weapon like Arbalest and Arquebus giving you a huge dps boost. Using this method also allows us to ignore all -Reload Time bonuses like from gear or from abilities. You will reload as fast with them and without them. B. Second free shot after initial shot. With any range weapon after we shot first time from sneak attack before combat start we immidietly have another free shot after it. Dunno why, probably game resets weapons on combat start and since our first shot is out of combat- it happens. So we delete one target and we can either immideitly follow on different one or use second free shot to finish the one we tried to delete innitially. C. No recovery after using firearm. So after a shot weapon need to be reloaded. However that does not trigger Recovery. Recovery and Reload and 2 different things. That means that after a shot (or 2 shots if first was from the sealth) we can use Smoke Veil or Escape to get out of there and play our fight like we want. This won't work with weapon swap as that triggers recovery. D. Smoke Veil usage for Assassination- Smoke Veil makes you invisible, which allows for another Assassinate. However stupid game designe made it that it turn itself off before full duration because it breaks engagment/combat, and you are left in the middle of enemies 2,7 seconds before your invisibility should end. What that means- that means that if you want to use Smoke Veil to trigger next assassination you need to have your weapon reloaded first. That gives you enough time to use it after smoke veil rocovery. If you won't despite having enough time on decription- you won't be able to reload and shot after using SV (even with Fast Reload tric) because it will end. Timing is quite tigh here, but possible to do and it gives that "Huntress" feeling in combat. I will probably put later a mod that fixed that stupidity. Another trick is to use summon from any summon item after first two shots of Arquebus. This will make enemies stay in combat and so make your Smoke Veil also stay in combat. I burnt all my gold so I didn't grab one yet on video above. E. Reload has nothing to do with recovery if you use fast reload trick. I tested this with naked + blazing fury (-75% recovery) and with full Plate +55% recovery armor. That means that you can use whatever armor you like and your dps will still be the same as long as you stick to reload only range weapons. Recovery will kick when using bows. 4. The Stats, the Skills, the Gear: Stats: Max Might, Max Perception is what I would aim for. if you have B.Blessing you can start game with +2 to all attributes too. Accuracy is most important for us. We do not want to miss a shot. Period. For Skills: I went with Arcana for Spearcaster Arbalest Accuracy bonus (+5 base and scales with Arcana and it scales great). It's our main weapon after initial shots with Dragons Dowyr so we want to make sure we can Crit with it and that we hit with it. It scales really well with Arcana. Now before you go with Arcana put points into Mechanics + Stealth so you can sneak and steal Bounding Boots from Deadlight Fortress. With them you can go back to Neketata and steal a lot of good stuff like Dragons Dowyr, Devil Caroc breastplate and many more. After you gear up, respect to Arcana and buy Spearcaster from Marihi in Neketaka. With those two weapons you are pretty much geared up. Buy also Ring of Focuses flame for +10 Accuracy from FoD.\ Later in game grab Blackblade's Hood from quest Shrewd Proposition for that +2 Percpetion and 15% Hits to Crits from range weapons (combo nicely with Dirty Fighting). Faster you can grab Acina's Tricorn from Tikawara for +5 Accuracy as reload speed bonus does not matter. Or you can use whatever headgear you want If you went Nature Godlike later you wil want to grab Gipon Prudensco armor as it grants Bravado at the beginning of fight which will trigger Wellspring every time you enter combat. Your main weapon is Spearcaster. It's absolutely phenomenal weapon. High alpha, fast reload and most importantly "Skewer" ability from upgrade echantment. It givies is 2 HIGHT BURST DMG cone aoe piercing shot that also immobilize all targets hit by it + you can use arbalest knochdown with it. It can be use out of combat so you can assassinate whole room of enemies with it using it from Stealth . It's absolutely great as that 2 shots will finish every melee fight. Not to even mention empowered. Our Second Weapon is Dragon Dowyr, for initial 2 burst shots with modal on and it's +25 accuracy. It also has great +25 burn lash that can be upgrade to +50% lash. It has also nice secondary multi projectile enchant that I am yet to test. For Pet go with any pet that boosts Ranged dmg. One I am using gives 10% damage to range attacks and +3 accuracy. For Gloves I went with Killer Gloves as it gives flat 10% dmg boost to attacks which is important for us. For Boots: Bounding Boots are really good as they allow you to use their Leap while still being in stealth. Any onther boots are good. Rings: Nothing new, The one from Deadlight fortnress that gives +3 defenses per enemy (stack to 5) and Ring of Focused Flame for +10 Accuracy to FoD. Belt: Any you like. Cloak: at first Deflection cloak, later the standard Giftbearer Cloak for that defenses boost. Cloak that gives you second Escape and the one that gives +15% dmg from Sneak Attack is great too, but pretty late game, unless you rush main story. Best Thing about this build is you can get most of the gear right from the game start: both weapons, armor, rings, gloves and deflection cloak. And you are ready to go. 5. Modals Due to fast reload trick + double tap at the beginning of combat from stealth you always want to have Arquebus Modal on- it gives +25 Accuracy ensuring hit and high chance for crit damage right from start. Don't turn that baby off. Same is with Arquebus Prone on every hit. On every hit. Very useful against mages or fampyrs as you can knockthem down, fast reload, knock them down again. 6. The Abilities: For your Assassin you pretty much do not want to waste your resources for anything else than Escape and Smoke Veil. So don't take like me Crippling Strike and then Escape. Take only Escape and then go Smoke Veils and passives: Two-Handed style, Dirty Fighting, Defensive Roll. Later on I would only grab: Finishing blow, Strike the bell maybe for that +5 pen and Shadowing Beyond. For Bleak Walker you want FoD, Sworn Enemy->Sworn Rival, Deep Faith, Zealous Aura, Eternal Devotion, Retribution (which works well with this build as you can take couple of hits when you reload and that will boost your next alpha strike). Later grab Lay On Hands and focus from here also on passives. 7. The Gameplay Pretty much same from early to end game. Start with Stealth, inital shots to delete 1 or two targets. Switch to Spearcaster, turn on modal, wait for recovery ,cast somke bomb, delete another enemy with FoD triggering Assassinate because invisiblity, mark another one with Sworn Enemy, delete with FoD, reload, cast smoke veil, delete. Or delete from either Smoke Veil or Stealth whole group with Skewer shot or two. If fund yourself surrounded, use Escape, cast Smoke Veil, reposition, delete enemies. Rise n Repeat. Due to double tap after innitial Stealth attack you can combine deleting key target (like mage for example) and then use immidietly Skewer to immobilize or kill group of enemies giving you enough time to reload, smoke veil- delete or cast second Skewer. But you have to start from Spearcaster, not from Dragon Dowyr to do it. As attack from smoke veil DOES NOT trigger double tap. Only when first attack is out of combat. This build requires little more planning and knowledge and positioning then just go it and proc stuff with Swift Flurry, Cleave etc. Even if you are catch in melee Paladin Defenses will help you a lot to survive. Build Scales very well in his assassination job due to high alpha dmg and Sneak Attack + Assassination Scalling. For bosses use double Dragon Shot or start with Skewer for immobilization, use Sworn Enemy + FoD for Affliction...you catch a rythm, no? From all my testng this one I found out to be most classic high burst sniper build. And you are not slave of devoted choice and you can enjoy various weapons too, especially range ones. And because of Spearcaster Arcana + Arquebus modal you don't need extra accuracy at all. And +2 Pen is imo not worth sheer + 70% dmg bonus from FoD + Sworn Enemy.

Same

Before they 100% fix the balance I will sadly probably move to different game. Maybe test one or two builds more. Sadly Obsidian is really slow with balance, as many of those things require just editing numbers/prefixes in gamedata files to fix/balance (which is what I did with couple, took me 15-20 min of Notepad +++ work....).

It's too strong and it's a reason why I don't bother to solo anymore with Monks and Fighters (Paladin's are still imo ok). You see problem with Monk is that from the start the have access to most damaging weapon till you start finding best unique enchant melee= fists which scales crazy on monk (too crazy), have low recovery, crush dmg (best melee dmg overall in game imo) and -20% Action and Quick from start, making it superb for picking Nature Godlike and having perma +2 Power Levels from start of the game without really any cost as you want to use Swift Strikes in any fight anyway. They also Then there is their crazy synergy with a lot of range weapons and melee weapons because of only LEVEL III (!) Swift Flurry, which you get pretty much after couple of easy quests in Neketaka (you can easly get lvl 8 fast in Neketaka, gear up and go for Deadlight, Old City etc.) which synergyze crazy with everything. If it was just melee I could understand but it can also proc on range weapons too. Now add to that how early in game you can get best 2h sword in game, pair it with Fighter Cleave stance and you can go home. After that Level III it's just more crazy for monk. He has huge power spike too early in game. Also Helwalker for example is squishy on paper, but pair him with fighter, paladin or wizard and you can offset his increased damage taken by crazy defenses + couple of easy gear. Pure Shattered Pillar is even less fun.

Same as Boeroer, I didn't bother to make builds right now... Maybe when the game is fixed. Well, there are still builds that do not include any of such things (like procing of procing of proc), which my next one is about where I tried to focus on not using any proc of procing effects. However I agree that currently there is simply to many "proc proc" mechanics around that just doesn't make sense. I see you actually couldn't resist testing Sungrazer after you have seen my nuking build :D Sungrazer itself is great. The problem is why the hell it does proc out of everything :/

Burn Baby Burn definitely outdps Sword Singer build, but it relies heavy on gear (Magran Favor + Sun and Moon and Sungrazer), while Sword Singer shined just from multiclass combo. For Wizard imo best would be Figher/Wizard or Helwalker/Wizard due to Wizard crazy Deflection boosting spells so if build well you won't get hit a lot as Helwalker monk so you can keep your crazy boosted dmg. Get hit enough at the beginning of fight to get 10 wounds and then pop deflection spells and go to town. Fighter or Paladin with Wizard defense spells would be just untouchable. Though I just don't like wizards in general so I didn't do much solo attempts with him, so don't take my words as 100% true.

This too, I use Smoke Veil, and try to do some action. After my recovery time is over I see my character attempting to do such action. However despite me seeing that I still have 3,7 seconds of invisibility game suddenly ends my Smoke Veil effect and I am in middle of enemies. I wonder what genius designed that....

Exactly like that, Meteoric + EE.

Belive me if there is something to maxed this build have it . It may not hit that oftern but when it crits you for 190 damage its enough

I am working on new build, however Smoke Veil seems bugged to me. I use it, I should be invisible and immune to engagment for 8,7 seconds. However after I use it I am being visible and attacks like 1 second after it and it does not last as long as it should. Is it bugged or do I miss something?

I was wondering when people will find it out :D I was using it for awhile to gear up on solo runs early :D Well, now everyone can cheese grind :D