Kaylon

As "useless" as Combusting Wounds with a bit of underpenetration? No, more... But you can always combine it with Combusting Wounds to do a little more damage, I'm sure you can make it work.

The question is, why you don't get hit? Is 142 deflection enough for that? At some point (don't know what triggers it) she stops attacking from range and just tries to come at melee range. Can you explain your tactics here? In the vid. At the beginning I just try to kill enough spiders while avoiding her melee attack. Once her defenses are low enough I position myself in order to keep enough spiders between us and prevent her from closing in. (From time to time I killed a few spiders behind me to lower her defenses a little more.) After that I just attack her until death. Sometimes I summoned the animated weapons and used the bow to attack her from the distance, while sending the melee weapon to kill some more spiders - just for the fun because it doesn't help very much.

The riposte from Akola's Apex Ward is almost useless because the hit is made with an unenchanted weapon, not with your main weapon (and the chance seems to be lower than the 25% advertised).

Any rogue with the Red Hand would come ahead of most melee classes.

It's not very difficult - once you aggro all the melee enemies you place yourself into a corner/bottleneck where you can keep them nicely in front of you.

Here's the long and boring video (paladin/rogue or paladin/cipher can kill her much faster): https://youtu.be/PHiWq0gBvIY With enough regeneration (Ring of Greater Regeneration, Three Trolls Stitched, Fleshmender, Whiteleaf,...) I think it's possible to use this strategy with any class. Ciphers are probably the only class who can CC her effectively using charm/dominate.

How will anyone win this encounter then? A paladin/chanter can solo her. You have to keep her at distance (keep her spiders between you and her) and attack from distance with a scepter (it deals crush damage and penetrates her armor). Cadhu Scalth with the modal activated and the regeneration/armor take care of all the incoming damage. Maybe I'll make a video later with the encounter and the items/build used. PS. Killing spiders lowers her defenses but increases her offense (+1acc/+1dmg/+1spd for every spider killed) so killing too many of them isn't a good strategy.

aoe damage from mortars - but you would have to be streetfighter to take advantage of a blunderbuss. also aamina's legacy with fast attack modal on is very close in terms of dps to red hand and does best of slash/pierce. I am going to run 2 ranged characters and see who prevails: One Red Hand-er and another with Aamina's. I guess Ranger/Rogue is the best DPS combo for ranged characters? Can anything be better? When using Aamiina's you have to take care of the lost acuracy and lower penetration (compared to firearms). I recommend the devoted/rogue if it's not your main (the devoted gives armored grace, +10acc from stance, +15%dmg with mastery, +2pen, +25% crit dmg) because of the low maintenance and great survivability (and unlike a monk you can always add more penetration using a potion). Monk/rogue is great for the Red Hand however - you have Dance of Death for the accuracy buff and wound regeneration, but you have to keep keep up all the time Lightning Strikes + Thunderous Blows (a helwalker/streetfighter can be an option if it's your main - you can lower yourself your health to 50% using Mortification).

Personally I would pick a mix of classes who are able to solo by themselves and who require very little micro: paladin/chanter, paladin/monk, paladin/soulblade, paladin/trickster, etc...

Elemental dots don't ignore armor at all. Combusting Wounds, Brand Enemy, Dragon Trashed, etc. are completely useless against enemies with high burn resistance.

You switch weapons for a better penetration/damage type or you lower their armor using various debuffs.

The leather means I get more recovery time, and the SS garb is more recovery for less reload speed.. am I missing something? If you're using a pet with armor recovery reduction then the bonus on the armor will become greater than the actual armor recovery and you will attack faster than with no armor at all (without mentioning better protection and other bonuses).

Uniques robes, the Misscreant's Leathers (for bows) or Sharpshooter's Garb ( for arbalest, arquebus, crossbow) with the armor recovery pet are better options.

The DOT doesn't stack and if you attack faster than every 3s you will get less than 15% dps increase...

What exactly is PoE 2's resistance system? Are there no 100 percent immunes any more? My first main is a using swords, because of the dual damage, but now I am wondering if sabres are better. You should keep in mind that lashes>speed>other bonuses from a dps perspective, in other words Modwyr (which has both a great lash and speed) is hard to beat. Also, unlike PoE1 where DR crippled them, fast weapons have actually slightly higher dps than the large weapons and are better for auto-attacking - Sungrazer for example is another great weapon.

Yes, in this case it's not good as a main weapon (unless you like gimped characters ), but nothing prevents you from being smart and keeping it in your 2nd slot to use it at the start of each fight - that's what I do.

Personally I wouldn't recommend Sasha's Scimitar to a skald. The empowering ability is nice but it works once per encounter. The other ability however is based on the number of phrases you have and if you're using offensive evocations often your bonus will be very small. To generate phrases through criticals there are 3 weapons I would consider: Rannig's Wrath (highest accuracy), Min's Fortune (chance to crit is increasing with every hit) and Sun and Moon (hits twice). PS. I know you said you want to play single class chanter, but maybe you should also consider a chanter/monk for their great synergy (the monk adds 10int, fire lash to your offensive invocations and has a chance to hit twice with melee attacks) which helps the skald more than another 2 PL as a chanter. The monk can equip also a small shield which uses his fists accuracy for hits giving you the chance to generate more phrases on top of higher defenses.

What accuracy has the boss?

The PL bonus is multiplicative for both spells and martial abilities, there's nothing different for SI.

Your focus is depleted only when you hit single targets. When you hit multiple targets the focus can replenish at the same time and it always worked like that.

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows. It is not higher then (sneak attack boosted) Amra aoe damage, Eager Blade aoe damage or Engoliero Ghost Blade damage. While those alternatives have the benefit of killing the primary target much faster and less worry about optimal positioning. Of course you can't trigger those effects on every hit, but with a Rogue you probably shouldn't spam SA on every hit either, as that would be a damage loss. Sorry, but those weapons don't come even close to the AoE damage of the WotEP. And yes, a cipher/rogue will be able to spam SA every hit against multiple enemies. My experience is different. And if you spam SA every hit, you're actually lowering your damage output by not taking advantage of Crippling/Devastating Strike. SA damage at 10-30 Focus is entirely unimpressive. If when you hit multiple targets for 30-40 damage you get only 10-30focus then your entire game should be different...

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows. It is not higher then (sneak attack boosted) Amra aoe damage, Eager Blade aoe damage or Engoliero Ghost Blade damage. While those alternatives have the benefit of killing the primary target much faster and less worry about optimal positioning. Of course you can't trigger those effects on every hit, but with a Rogue you probably shouldn't spam SA on every hit either, as that would be a damage loss. Sorry, but those weapons don't come even close to the AoE damage of the WotEP. And yes, a cipher/rogue will be able to spam SA every hit against multiple enemies.

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows.

WotEP applies SA to all targets - right now the rogue/cipher does the best AoE damage and replenishes focus at the same time against multiple enemies. Second is the monk/rogue with the WotEP because it hits twice pretty often against multiple enemies.

Tbf pala/chanter with Eld Nary is not even close to single class chanter with the upgraded Eld Nary. It is still better than summons tho, since summons lack Pen. Eld Nary is strong but it has big drawbacks - long cast time, targets fortitude and is rather expensive. The best solo build for me is the Darcozzi/Skald spamming Thrice Was She Wronged - a rather effective and cheap AoE spell. Deltro's Cage/Black Plate for armor, Sun and Moon with modal to debuff reflex between casts, the medium shield with health regen, ring of greater regeneration, etc... Basically unkillable with endless AoE attacks and able to deal with any encounter without abusing consumables, kiting or splitting enemies right from the beginning. This is exactly what I think a solid melee solo build sounds like. I personally don't want to deal with the cheese of kiting or splitting enemies at all, I don't want to take Svef every encounter. what race would you choose and what are your starting stats? Pale elf with max mig, int and per. Dex is left to 3, while the res/con depends on what you're comfortable with - personally I go with 3 con and max res while using Hylea's bounty to max my defenses and later stack all the bonuses/rest since I don't need resting. Start with flail and medum shield modals (which stay activated all the time) and best armor. That's a pretty nifty set up! And a rare build in which Skald might actually be better than Troubador... I'm tempted to try it! (By the way, did you find going with Skald instead of Troubador to be worth it?) While the skald/troubadour need the same time to gain the resource for a cast, there are some advantages to the skald: - the starting phrases of the skald will allow him to cast twice as many invocations at the beginning compared to a troubadour - you can keep 2 chants at the same time (while the troubadour needs brisk recitation to be able to cast fast enough) - crits with the weapon can add more phrases from time to time allowing more casts.