Boeroer

Throughout the game you will encounter enemies both with low and high DR. For example higer level ghuls still have 0 DR, but low level paladins will have high DR. But genrerally speaking the average DR of enemies gets higher the more you advance. DR bypass enchantments are nice when used with fast weapons. So look out for that if you want to use fast weapons. Besides talents like Vulnerable Atttack there are also other items than weapons whioch can have this: Ryonas Vembraces (glove slot) for example give you +3 DR bypass. Then there are certain abilities and spells that lower DR - this can be important. If you use fast hitting stilettos (3 DR bypass) with Vulnerable Attack (+5) and those Vembraces (+3) you'll have 11 DR bypass with fast weapons - that's not bad. With the Bleak Fang Stiletto you can even have +14. Stilettos are also not too bad of a choice because there are not only piercing ones in the game. Lagufaeth sometimes drop slashing stilettos. Use those when you meet foes which are resistent or immune to pierce damage. This basically works with all fast weapons (without the inherent +3 DR bypass of stilettos of course). So you can make them work even against foes with higher DR. But against enemies with very high DR all the fast weapons are nearly useless - except the wounding ones like Drawn in Spring and Persistence, because the raw lash gets calculated before DR and immunities, so they will still do good damage against slash or pierce immune enemies or enemies with very high DR.

It's awesome. And all my encounters since lvl 11 look like this... without the arquebus shot. The weaker ones also don't need Comb. Wounds. And look how big the AoE of Combusting Wounds is with that much INT. The good thing about Blood Thirst is that you will have 0 recovery for a quick Barbaric Blow right after HoF - or any other action that you need, like healing and such. Also works after standing up after Vengeful Defeat. Then you need healing very desperately most of the time. Bloodlust is also not too bad because you will most likely also have +20% speed after HoF and Vengeful Defeat. Good to clear the rest of the bunch - if there are any rests. As I said it's easier to use this against smaller targets like kith and more difficult against bigger ones (blobs, ogres, drakes and so on) because of the range. And now imagine you have a full party with a priest for buffing and a wizard for debuffing... :D

Look out for the Iron Circle (ring) for your paladin. It will give you +4 CON (great for fortitude defense, esp. together with Maegfolc Skull) and also gives you more DR when endurance drops. And I think I would use the White Crest on the paladin until Ryona's Breastplate (although I think that breastplate is a bit overrated) because Overwhelming Wave with high PER can make hard encounters easy. What I also expericend is that the Ring of Changing Heart (2 dominates per rest) and Munacra Arret (3 Whisper of Treason per rest) can help a lot. When you face enemies with Insect Plague they will cast it on the charmed foe instead of you. Helps a ton. Both can be used by your paladin. He don't have to wear them all the time and forever of course.

Well, it is not forbidden to use other spells than the poison ones with Bilestomper.

Get 4 Lore and use Binding Web scrolls.

You don't need superhigh deflection to tank him, his slams and breath target other defenses. A Wild Orlan will be permanently buffed because the fear aura of the dragon attacks will (I think it even works when you used a Prayer gainst Fear and are immune, because your will gets attacked nonetheless). Kaylon will know. So a Wild Orlan is pretty nice against all kinds of dragons and kin. Also, I can imagine that a pale elf with Secrets of Rime, thick armor and Rhymrgand's Mantle plus potion of Bulwark against the Elements (does this stack with the DR of the mantle?) is worth a try. The breath should easily be survivable - even if it doesn't miss...?

Ok, walking around like a boss is a legit reason.

Do you even need it? I feel the game is so easy at the end that I seldomly enchant anything to more than exceptional (if it doesn't come superb or better).

Using a draining weapon like Purgatory or Tidefall with HoF is actually quite funny...

Right - figurines also work twice sometimes for me. I also have 3 RES and get interrupted all the time.

Because: best dps of all bows when fully enchanted (the 25% wounding get modified by INT and work like a raw lash - and it stacks). Fast to shoot and reload: good when running around all the time - more shooting and less running per recovery phase necessary. And you can get it very early. Weapon Focus Peasant - like fist and hatchet and quarterstaff, fits a monk. While you run (and can't shoot) enemies still can die from wounding (for Nelson's "Haha!" effect). For a monk with Heart of the Storm also Stormcaller would ne very nice - but it can't be bound to a monk. I mean it's still a good bow even when not bound, but can't compete without soul binding after Durgan Steel gets available.

Swift Aim + Gunner + max DEX leads to relatively short reload phases and such a ranger with an arquebus is great against those annoying enemies with very high DR like Drakes, Adra Animats and such. Also not bad if you can switch between Vicious Aim and Swift Aim against high defenses like dragons' or armored, defensive bounty fighters and so on. But against normal enemies they are inferior. They could be on par if Powder Burns worked with Swift or Vicious Aim - and if it didn't blind (stupid design decision).

Hehe - well, Long Stride is definetely good for that. It even stacks with Boots of Speed (and also Fast Runner, which gives an additional bonus when disengaging). The enemies will turn away as soon as you start running. The AI turns around more quickly the faster you are. Covering a great distance in very little time is also good in encounters where the enemies won't stop chaising you (like Cail the Silent for example or the Torn Bannermen). It's also great when you get weakened, hobbled or blinded and you're still way faster than the enemy. With Persistence, Heart of the Storm, a shocking lash and Lightning Strikes the single target damage and the attack speed should be pretty good. And with Weapon Focus Peasant you can still use your fists when you need to. And Force of Anguish and Stunning Blows can be a life saver when you get stopped by engagement or get interrupted. Rooting Pain may also be nice to shrug off enemies who came too close. You can also reach pretty good numbers when disengaging with Fast Runner, the cape (or an armor with the same enchantment like Night Runner) and Graceful Retreat. And maybe it's also wise to "retreat" to a single enemy when you get surrounded - via Flagellant's Path? The duplicates can be nice - but can you call them when you have figurine based summons on the game board? Edit: Hey, how about flanking with the two duplicates and (figurine summons like shades and wood beetles, even the Rhymer's Skeletons will work - but they will die very soon) and piling up damage bonuses against flanked targets? +20% from survival is achieved realtively easy. Then +10% from an item and Apprentice's Sneak Attack +15%. That's +45% bonus damage. You could even add the "Good Friend" crossbow for +4 ACC and +25% damage when attacking enemies which also get attacked by your summons- That would be +70% with +14 ACC (10 flanking, 4 from Good Friend). Not so bad. Only that stupid reloading. Persistence is still better I think...

Yeah, that can work well. You have to use ranged weapons when soloing anyway at some points, regardless of the class. But honestly the Long Pain is the much better alternative from lvl 7 on because it doesn't matter if you have those on or your normal fists - only that they are also ranged and have even better ACC. They are better than any other ranged weapon because they do single target damage of an arquebus with the speed of fists, plus dual wielding applies AND two weapon style, too. And most importantly they work with TOrment'S Reach from a distance. I think it is one of the best abilitities for soloing. You don't need to build a glasscannon like the Witch Doctor to make it great. You can go the tanky way and still retreat without losing dps. Or you go the ranged way and go in for melee to get wounds from time to time. They work with nearly all special attacks of the monk (but not Turning Wheel). I think no built with ranged weapons can compare to that. Just imagine running away with Long Stride and Shot on the Run while putting out Torment's Reach onto the enemy who is following you in a nice cone shaped formation...

Second chance is 1/ rest per item. You can swap items after the fight I guess. Like RIng of Wonder/Saint's War Armor/Osric's Family Breast Plate. Of course Vengeful Defeat is much better when you have aparty with one or two sguys who can revive. It's why my "Immortal Martyr" build is really strong despite the fact it's really squishy. You just toss im into the mob, trigget HoF and forget him, then revive. Most enemy groups don't survive this. He has 1 HoF every encounter and as many Vengeful Defeats as you can have rivivals per encounter (so endless with a chanter). Of course it's quite useless against single targets. The more targets the better. It's actually (number of foes in range)² * 2 hits with dual wielding. So 5 enemies generate 50 hits, 6 enemies 72 and so on. It's eays to get a lot of small melee foes into a ragne with max INT so that you can hit up to 8 foes or so. With Ogres, Drakes and stuff it's obviously more difficult to hit more than 4 foes. But you can still use Barbaric Blow for that. It's better to use a 2h with high DR bypass (aka estoc) or with special damage feats (aka Tidefall) when you suspect that the foe that you target initially will not survive the first swing of the Full Attack. Or when you meet slash resistant foes of course (unless you have dual Bittercut). Other than that, 2 sabres are better. Battle Forged with Scion of Flame, One Stands Alone and Blooded is pretty neat. It also triggers Blood Thirst and resets recovery. Very nice together with Flame Shield and Barbaric Retaliation. You can (but don't have to) take all the slow downers like Vulnerable Attack, slow 2handers, dump DEX and so on but still achieve nice attack speed with Blood Thirst + all that Retaliation. That works with other abilities as well - for example I get this a lot when using Barbaric Blow - but WITH the damage. 30% of the time or so it resets the counter and I can do another Barbaric Blow when I get this bug.

I can totally believe that. I cleared a pack of 8 Lagufaeth just a few hours ago with only one HoF on lvl 11. I'm a boreal dwarf and used +15 survival bonus against wilder - so I had a lot of crits with dual annihilating sabres. And you should pile up everything that increases damage per hit, like One Stands Alone, Blooded, Vulnerable Attack, Frenzy, food & resting bonus for MIG and PER and so on. It's hilarious. And of course the combo of Combusting Wounds + HoF is great. Just look at the combat log how many hits you generate when you target more than 5, 6 foes.

Yes, it's weird and I have to say that dual annihilating sabres seem to be the best option for HoF (leaving any duplicated setups aside like dual Drawn in Spring or dual Bittercut - I can't have those in a pure solo run which I'm doing atm). And yes, you have to aim really carefully, but man is it powerful. Also note that you should aim at the toughest foe in the pack when you are dual wielding. Because if the targeted foe dies while you execute the first swing, there will be no second (same with Torment's Reach and all the other Full Attacks). So sometimes it's better to use a weapons that is slower but hits harder. For example I like to use the Drake's Bell with Vulnerable Attack at the momen (but I also like to switch to Tidefall or such things - I slayer-enchanted those weapons for different enemies), when I know the targeted foe is likely to die after the first HoF strike. You get way more damage out of HoF this way because all strikes will be done with 11 DR bypass. I don't have Ryona's Vembraces yet - that should make it 14 DR bypass. But against tougher foes who will survive the first swing it's better to use sabres. I don't even need Two Weapon Style any more because I seldomly have to use anything else than HoF and Vengeful Defeat. And if something survives normally one Barbaric Blow Full Attack sets the deal. I didn't try out if Bloody Slaughter is worth taking. If foes survive, most of the time they have only a tiny bit of endurance left. So maybe Bloody Slaughter with it's addidional hit to crit and +0,5 crit damage mult can help here? Would give me +2 crit damage multipler with the two annihilating sabres against low endurance foes with HoF or Barbaric Blow. Hm... could mean the difference between barely alive and dead foes. Did you know that you can have two Vengeful Defeats in one encounter (one from second chance of course)? Lure the enemy away from his starting point. Then, when you're about to go down (the second time), call a summon. When you go down with a Vengeance the summon will go on and the fight will not end. When the summon is gone the enemy will normally return to the spawning point and you can get up again. Saved my dwarven a** a few times now.

With monks you can have the idea that a build that uses Dangerous Implements in order to get wouds. I tried a monk with The Golden Gaze once, but it's pretty underwhelming. Some things work ranged, like Swift + Lightning Strikes. If you want to stack wounds it's also of little use, because Turning Wheel only works in melee. I didn't test if Blood Testament gloves work, but I doubt it. In order to effectively spend wounds you'd have to go melee or use them for the two duplicates which come late. Sadly, most of the monks special attacks (even those which don't require wounds) don't work with ranged weapons (The Long Pain aside). Fighters can reach ok damage per hit with ranged weapons. They are one of the few classes that can pile up a few damage modifiers even on ranged weapons, like Confident Aim, Weapon Specialisation and Weapon Mastery. I tried an arquebus fighter once but was disappointed by the damage. Also here, most of the fighter's abilitites are focused on melee or defenses. So at every odd level you have to search really hard for an ability that is not completely useless. I didn't try out bows, but I guess it's the same problem. I also tried a ranged barb (who would have guessed) because of Frenzy + Bloodlust + Bloodthirst. This can result in great attack speed when you fight weak mobs or focus on delivering the killing blow in a party. You can combine that with items that do things on kill, like Tempered Helm or Morning Gloves. And scrolls & spells work with Blood Lust, too. So if you deliver some fireballs and kill somebody, you can spam additional spells like crazy with 0 recovery. At first Frenzy will help to be fast, after the first kill you will have no recovery for the next spell, after the second kill Bloodlust also kicks in and helps when you didn't kill anybody, it stacks with frenzy by the way - then comes another kill and so on - you get the point I guess. Honestly the spell thing is more appealing than the pure ranged weapon thing because it can be. But you can combine it. I wiped out Darzir's whole pack with my solo barb (who has Bloodlust and Bloodthirst) with 10 scrolls of Fan of Flames because after the first two or three scrolls the wolfs were dying, then the spamming started and didn't stop until everyone was dead. It's scroll intense of course, but you can do tough encounters with this approach alone. I wonder if Death Godlike + Bloody Slaughter would be a good combination for this kill stealing barb. Barbaric Blow works with a ranged weapon by the way (without carnage hits), giving you a 1.5 crit damage multiplier together with Bloody Slaughter. It's not too powerful, but it feels better than a ranged monk or fighter. Sadly, the damage-boosting abilities of a barb (One Stands Alone, Blooded) only work reliably when you are in melee range or get beaten, but they also work for spells and ranged weapons. Frenzy, the three yells/shouts, Wild Sprint, Brute Force, Eye of the Storm (very useful for such a build), Dragon Leap (for escaping) and Bloodlust and Blood Thirst work pretty well. I guess to get the most out of the "skip recovery altogether" mechanic of Blood Thirst it's best to use a slow, hard hitting weapon with no reloading - so a war bow. The best ability or barbs, carnbage, is of course wasted with this approach. But I guess you can make a fun to play build around war bow and spell binding items (and scrolls).

That may be right - you definetely have great experience there. But Kazuma has a full party and in my opinion it's a shame when your paladin's low INT prevents his auras (also the heraldic one from outworn buckler) to reach other party members or when all his Exhortations (which are pretty useless when soloing anyway) are too short to be of good use. His supportive aspects get gimped a lot.

I'd say paladin & Witch Doctor (monk build, see index) for the win.

Hu? That's what I wanna have for supper!

Yes - I'm lvl 11 now with nearly the same stats - (swap MIG and CON) and Combusting Wounds + HoF + Vengeful Defeat is really devastating. Only thing is I use max survival for +60% healing and trigger Savage Defiance after being revived. Potions of Major Endurance will heal me to nearly 100% with the healing mods. Eye of the Storm is really good for running away when things get really bad by the way. Tested it before I took HoF instead.

You can go as soon as you get the letter from your steward in Card Nua - which can be way earlier than lvl 8. You can also go there at lvl 6 or so but expect a tough fight (the expansion starts with the defense of the village from Ogres). But it's doable even on PoTD. I did it solo with my current low deflection barb at lvl 10 and it was difficult because of all those cannoneer ogres. I made a 3 INT superfast running paladin (look for "The Dull Runner") for 2.0 or so - for the purpose to get behind enemy lines and take out casters. It works pretty well because he's tanky enough to survive on his own for some time, gets everywhere very fast and does OK damage after his FoD shots. But it's a rather special build.

Two sabres is the best option (concerning damage) for melee AoE Full Attacks like Torment's Reach or HoF - or when the Full Attacks are very limited but have a hige ACC bonus like FoD. You get out the most hits with the highest damage per hit. That is only true if you can reliably hit things with you ACC when dual wielding of course. Besides that I think you are right.

You should look at all the paladin abilities that work without INT. Like Sworn Enemy also Healing Chain is independent from INT. Same with Coordinated Attacks, Righteous Soul (with 3 INT it's maybe not the worst choice and it fits with Aegis of Loyality). Aegis of Loyality and Abjuration could also be good things for a 3 INT pal.