Undesirable

There's a couple of circumstances where it's not always a great idea to use protection against fear scrolls vs. dragons when an item could be granting it: when you're solo it takes quite a long time to cast one, factoring in all the potions you need to quaff too. So if you have low concentration then enemies may keep interrupting you if you can't give yourself enough space to cast it. I concur that most of the time it is possible to to quaff DAoM then quickly cast the scroll and anything else you need, but if by chance you find yourself surrounded, then perhaps you will be unable to get one off. Secondly, if you have the most important potions on your quick items bar (PoDAoM, PoLDI, War Paint and an Endurance Pot) you're out of room unless you take Deep Pockets, which may not work for every build when you're soloing dragons.

It's good against dragons, because you normally get a bunch of adds to kill and proc Steadfast before unleashing it on the dragon. Plus you have built-in frightened / terrified protection. The only problem is of you want to switch to a better weapon after proccing Steadfast, you lose fear protection.

I haven't been through the entire game with this char yet... I just created him with the console and fought the Sky and Adra Dragons by teleporting him there via console. Strategy is to drink DAoM, PoLDI and War Paint potions, knock the dragon down, kill trash mobs to proc Champion's Boon via Steadfast and then nuke dragon with standard monk attacks, knocking the dragon down again when necessary. I've tried getting to the Bog dragons with the build & equipment above... died to the first encounter in Mowghek Ien. Although I'm not Durganized and I'm not using Caed Nua resting bonus, prostitutes or food. I realize that Moon Monk & dual Bittercuts is more effective for pretty much the entire rest of the game... but wanted to make a specialist build of my own.

This build is now 4k friendly. Race: Coastal Aumaua Class: Monk Background: The Living Lands: Colonist Difficulty: PotD Solo?: Only tested solo PotD against dragons and Mowrghek Îen mobs by warping, leveling and creating items with console (legit stats). I have completed the game solo with a different Monk, but he wasn't as effective against dragons, particularly the Llengrath encounter. This build is effective against all dragon encounters. Game Version Tested: v3.04 Starting Attributes Endgame Attributes: Skills Talents and Abilities: Early to Mid-Game Equipment: Dragonslaying Equipment: Shaolin Dragonslayer vs. Llengrath Test 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzJZ2weDrHE

Well just to be different, I'm gonna say Steadfast, but I think Raven Darkholme is correct to say that Drawn in Spring is the best overall. Actually, I'd like to try dual-wielding Steadfast and Drawn in Spring on a solo Monk also equipped with Blackwarden's Breast. Shouldn't have any accuracy issues.

Just did a bit of testing with the same equipment on two characters, one equipped with BotEP, the other Tidefall, the rest of the equipment listed in my Semi-Lady-of-Pain build above. It seems that against quick-to-kill trash monsters, the BotEP is better, because of the attack speed increase, but as soon as monsters with higher endurance pools come along (ogres) Tidefall starts to catch up. Against dragons, I have no doubt Tidefall is much superior because you can put Beast Slaying on there in addition to a Lash, and dragons have a huge endurance pool. By the way, I tested these guys in a full party (which I call Uber party) and the 2 test chars had a constant MIG of 24, which increased to 27 with the Caed Nua resting bonus.

I've got a build here that is similar to Lady of Pain, but is optimised for the latest version of Pillars. She appears to have huge DPS when wielding Blade of the Endless Paths (seemingly the most damaging two-hander when fully enchanted), but is also no slouch in the defense department (probably doesn't work solo though). She seems to do better than a dual-wielding Monksterslasher Bittercut Monk when in a party at least, as the monk doesn't gain as many wounds to spam Torments reach when you have fighters absorbing all the damage.

Get Shod-in-Faith + Fulvano's Amulet ASAP, dual-wield healing weapons, quaff more endurance potions, read more protection scrolls and invest at least 8 points into Survival. Actually, I still prefer Moon Godlike even when I have all that, apart from when fighting dragons, in which case Iverra's Diving Helmet is indispensable.

The high-level optional boss fights such as Adra Dragon, Alpine Dragon, Llengrath and various bounties may be the only thing that will challenge you adequately. Concelhaut and Sky Dragon can also be a bit of a worry on ToI, unless you know what to expect. You could use IEMod to decrease XP gain across the board. There are also some nasty high - level trash encounters involving afflictions such as paralyze (spiders, Vithrack & Laguafaeth), petrify (certain spiders and Adragans) charm / dominate (Vithrack & Fampyr) they can all end your game pretty easily if you're not careful (which I can see you are).

As title, in the final battle with Thaos, Woedica's Headsman (the right statue) isn't agroed at the start of the fight when you're solo. This obviously means you can simply evade agroing it altogether until the last minute during the encounter. In fact, the encounter can end prematurely if you kill Thaos and Woedica's Judge without having agroed Woedica's Headsman before combat ends, but in this case the interface locks up (no keys respond except ALT + F4). I've only tested this with PotD, Expert, Non-ToI, High-Level upscaled Sun in Shadow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDEPmt9yTUI

I don't feel too bad about using the Minor Blights cheese seeing as how they nerfed disorienting weapons to dust and introduced immunities.

Best implement is Minor Blights. Basically get blast, penetrating blast, dangerous implements (of course), penetrating shot and as many elemental damage increase talents as possible. Then for spell mastery, get Eldritch Aim, Alacrity and Blights. To top it all off, cast Martial Power for the ultimate auto attacking area of effect pwnage. Mob immune to a certain damage type? Well, no matter; you're going to smash him and his friends with another form of elemental damage within a second or two. Even if you don't cast Martial Power, you still have a deadly Wizard that can knock mobs down, send them to sleep or even petrify them, before proceeding to nuke. I'm almost tempted to say that they make Rangers with endgame gear obsolete, but perhaps the pet and the Wizard's setup casting time levels the playing field somewhat.

I'm sure some people do find it a "cakewalk". But you must admit that when a dragon hits your entire party for 200+ corrode damage when most mobs hit for less than half that... suddenly the player is thrown in the deep end and any prior preparation may help to survive a couple of dragon breaths in case a dice roll fails. Oh hell, I'll just say it: the dragons aren't a bloody cakewalk!

They need to be moderately high to mostly avoid being critically hit (70+), very high to be grazed more than hit (90+), and extremely high to be missed more often than grazed (120+?). Oh, and you'll need to add 20-30 points onto each of those if you happen to be fighting a dragon... On POTD you basically need to be a dragon to avoid being hit by trash mobs (130 in most saves) or disable enemies before they can do anything to you by charming, knocking them down or stunning them (this is reliable on all difficulties). Versus dragons in POTD you need to use every resting bonus, brothel bonus, food and potion buff you can get... and I suppose it's not a bad idea to do this in Hard mode if you're having problems. Dragon Breath attacks Reflex, Wing Slam attacks Fortitude.

Paladin: Ravenwing or Cladhalíath enchanted with 'Critical hits can stun' and '+4 Accuracy and x1.25 damage when attacking the same enemy as an ally'. Rogue: Wē Toki and Godansthuntyr or Resolution and Purgatory. Barbarian: Tall Grass or Godansthuntyr and Cladhalíath enchanted with 'Critical hits can stun' and '+4 Accuracy and x1.25 damage when attacking the same enemy as an ally'. Wizard: Citzal's Spirit Lance or Aedrin's Wrecker or Pliambo per Casitàs. Priest: Aedrin's Wrecker or Pliambo per Casitàs. Druid: Spritshift Attack or Aedrin's Wrecker or Pliambo per Casitàs. Warrior: Sheathed in Autumn or Edge of Reason or Cladhalíath enchanted with '+10 Accuracy to allies attacking the same target' and '+4 Accuracy and x1.25 damage when attacking the same enemy as an ally'. Ranger: Sabra Marie or Borresaine or Aedrin's Wrecker or Pliambo per Casitàs. Cipher: Sabra Marie or The Rain of Godagh Field.

Sacred immolation deals raw damage to the caster, so I guess the fact that it doesn't auto-cast is a safeguard against accidentally killing oneself at the moment.

In new game plus, all the mobs would have to be scaled up to level 13 or more, with the dragons at level 16-17. It also wouldn't be that fun without new itemisation.

This ability will literally finish off anything it connects with. I've had 240+ damage crits with it. If you have the Bloody Slaughter talent then they are going to be utterly decimated regardless of DR (not immunities though, heh). Three only drawback is the 2 pure rest limitation.