Raven Darkholme

Why would you want to pick up cruel? With my cipher I never chose the option even though it didn't matter.

So solo(!) Paladins are definitely more capable than Fighters. This is especially notable in low levels if you pick Darcozzi and their flame shield right at level 2. Its not as strong as regular retaliate but for 2 its pretty awesome.

After I beat the game solo with a cipher on PotD and killed everythibg except Adra Dragon I now started a Darcozzi solo. Pretty confident he will perform well.

I am on the final map now (with Thaos), only to get there I killed shadow drakes and Adra animats. My new strongest enemy defeated according to stats: Animat. Wait, didn't I kill a whole group of those right after Act 2?... (Back then I also killed my first Adra animat in Cilaban...)

Stealth your way to the main hall, hugging the south wall. In the main wall stealth your way to the statue tsking the north pass, you will get quite near some phantoms but with high enough stelth you should make it till the dialogue starts. Dialogue breaks stealth, so after it you will have to fight. Run into the corner right above the statue (northwest, east of the door) you need fast runner. once in the corner summon your animat in front of you. have the animat slightly on your right side, when you face the phantoms, so you can go to its left, so you cna cast fan of flames. you can have up to 6 scrolls by then, 3 scrolls are enough to kill all phantoms, be careful not to hit your animat, maybe you need to drink eldritch aim before casting to improve your hitrate. After you killed Maerwald the remaining shadows and phantoms outside disappear.

You definitely don't need petrify for the dragon.

First off: I think your whole approach is wrong. You use a squishy class, to make up for the fact, that in a group your squishies got targeted by enemies. You should learn soloing with a more durable class and come back to the cipher later. As to your build: your CO and RE are way too low, DE is not really important if you tank. Stiletto and dagger afe not good, in the becinning use hatchet and shield for more deflection. Phantom Foes is useless solo, as you attack only one foes deflection, except for mind blades which got nerfed hard. Draining Whip is not a good first talent you need deflection or damage. I'd suggest a monk with dumped IN and DE and maxed RE and CO to “learn the ropes“.

The only time I found Ankhegs hard was on my first BG playthrough ever, even then I realized you could just hit them with sleep or command for free and they won't get up until they are dead. In later playthroughs on higher difficulty I never understood again why I ever found them hard, I just killed them so fast even without sleep. Shades on the other hand can be annoying if you solo with a caster squishy class. For a party they have lost their first playthrough danger to mee as well though.

Ok, thx, then I didn't waste my sky dragon eye.

I habe both weapons but can't decide which one to use. Purgatory is already superb enchanted, and also with corrosive lash. There seems to be no room for a lash on Resolution after it gets the superb enchant.

I'm soloing.

When I look in my character record, the most powerful enemiy I defeated is listed as Elder Wolf. Yet I killed the sky dragon, undead Raedric, Fampyres and I guess many more stronger enemies...

Wow those rotfinger gloves are insane. War paint plus gloves was enough to disintegrate twice ftw, didn't even need borrowed instinct or tactical meld.

Yep that was my plan, too. :dWill try it tomorrow.

Hm, I preferred undead Raedric. ;p But I will try your suggestions, thx.

So I just tried to kill the sky dragon with my solo cipher level. 12, but it doesn't seem possible. My spells don't hit her because her fort and will def is over 110. Best bet atm seems to do borrowed instinct on the wurm and melee the mother, but with only 110 def and 111 attack I don't see how I kill her before she kills me.

In normal cipher should really be fun, since it's kinda squishy but still barely works even in PotD. The damage output is huge, which at least for me is a fun part.

Your spellcasting doesn't really suffer, if you retaliation tank. Alone the focus gain is worth the slower casts. Ofc this is a pure solo build, why would you do that in a group? I reached level 12 now, skydragon will be next.

Killed undead Raedric. That fight is nearly impossible for solo cipher lol.

I now reached the “magic“ level 11. It's plain obliteration. First thing I did was kill the archdruid of the Ethik Nol. Normally not an easy fight solo, but I just hit the boss with disintegrate first, summoned 3 Shades and spammed Amplified Wave onthem, I hardly got hurt...

Moonlike is an awesome race for cipher.(and every other class/build) Riposte as stated before is quite bad. Just fight the doemenel assassin group in Olan's Gift if you have bad rep with them and in the whole fight you will get hit by riposte maybe three or four times. Cipher is awesome with retaliate because it synergizes perfectly with focus builsing, you will never worry about having to little focus again, you don't even need draining whip. You need good nerves for the fights since you get hit a lot, but you also kill extremely fast. I rarely use endurance potions or any consumables for that matter.

Since I am nearly level 11 in solo Potd with my cipher I willshare info, but haven't the time right now. I used Perception as second dump stat it works quite well.

In my Potd solo I now reached level 10 and my biggest fight yet was killing Simoc for wanting me to kill a kid. I didn't even bother using environment cheese anymore, best strategy by now is to stand in the middle of your enemies and shoot a mind lance first, then detonate whoever is wounded most. Him exploding just does insane damage to his allies. As soon as I reach 11 I guess I will spam Amplified Wave all day and disintegrate on dangerous individuals.

That makes FOD really bad on Blunderbusses. It generally isn't the best paladin skill... Generally? Uhh.. It's.. generally the best they get, in the reliable damage-boosting department. Your choice is either that or Lay on Hands. Flames of Devotion just shouldn't be a Lash, or Lash functionality should be reworked somehow. It's so much better for slow high-damage weapons than it is for fast low-damage weapons. If you feel the paladin is a damaging character, sure... Me I see him more as a support tank and leave the damage to the big boys, cipher, rogue, barb, heck even ranger...

I haven't come across a whole blamed exchange with npcs that goes on for at least 5 minutes and is really funny all that time yet in this game. In BG2 I found myself quicksaving before I talked to the adventurers led by Tess Ironeye (Rasaads Quest) and reloading several times, just to try out all dialogue options.