Boeroer

It's totally ok. With this approach I mentioned - being solo and more focused on damage - I (personally) wouldn't even take Interdiction despite the fact that I normally like it a lot... ...because you will run out of talent points. I'd take Inspiring Radiance as soon as possible (ACC bonus stacks with everything, even Paladin's Zealous Focus or the priest's other ACC buffs), then Pallid Hand (will give you the ACC of a fighter), then Aggrandizing Radiance, then Weapon Focus. If you feel that you don't go into melee too often then you can skip things like Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike and take Interdiction and Painful Interdiction instead. In the late game you might get the impression that you're casting a lot and don't go into melee at all except in very hard encounters. YOu can easily retrain then and skip all the melee stuff and totally concentrate on casting damaging stuff with your sky high MIG. On solo you will always have to hit stuff with your weapon if you don't want to rest after every fight - but with a party you don't need to. Haha - thanks. But I think a lot of people know this stuff even better. Esp. the ones that solo a lot - or even exclusively. They are very good with all those neat little tricks and how to squeeze the most out of this game when it comes to numbers. I also do solo palythroughs, but not even 50/50 - more like 20 solo/80 party. I like party synergy too much - even if it makes the game way too easy even on PotD once you see how the wind blows.

All of the deities for priests are ok and get covered in some way. I think berath is the way to go if you want to be a vessel slayer. He really doesn't like cheating death. And he's the most important god in the dyrwood atm.

Just don't be disappointed because of the early game: the priest is squishy at first and can't hit things. You need to level a bit and be patient.

@rogue tank: What Jojobobo posted between spoiler tags works well. However: Fighter also works of course. They are really good with Disciplined Barrage + all kinds of spell bindings and scrolls - while their sturdyness is legend anyway. And once you get Clear Out and Charge (and combine that with Knockdown and maybe a diabling weapon like Cladhaliath, Godansthunyr or Starcaller or something like that) the whole gameplay gets a lot more interesting, too.

If you like Nightshroud: it's a soulbound weapon and therefore works with any weapon focus - it also profits from any of those priest's talents that give +10 ACC to two weapons. Like the Pallid Hand gives you +10 for mace and Great Swords, Hope Eternal gives you +10 to flails and morning stars. Nightshroud works with all of them. So you could play a good hearted but dedicated eoathasian vessel slayer and start with flails - there's a nice early flail in the ruins of the temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale named "Gaun's Share" which is connected to Eothas ("Gaun" is an alias of Eothas). And once you get Nightshroud you could use that. Or you could start with a priest of Berath and use maces right away. A really nice mace for mid game lies in the cellars of the Brackenbury Sanatarium, named "Ravenwing". It's appearence and the whole raven theme fits a priest of berath nicely I'd say. For a shield: if you pick a dwarf the best looks you will get with a large shield (there's Thy Clef with looks great with that mace, also dark colors) - but it will not only lower your melee but also your casting ACC. But of course you'd gain a lot of deflection and reflex. If you decide for this, you could consider to lower RES a bit and put more poits into PER. You would balance out the loss of ACC and deflection you would have enough anyway. Small shields are good, but look a bit funny with maces. A medium shield might be the best compromise, here "Refield" comes to my mind, which has the enchantment "harbinger" that decreases enemies' ACC a bit. It might fit a priest of berath well because church wardens of baerath are called "harbinger" as well as far as I know (see the church in Dyrfort). That shield comes quite late though. A nice substitute may be Ilfan Byrngar's Solace which you can find in the Endless Paths lvl 5. What about dual wielding maces?

Make use of all the charming or dominating items you can get. Like Munacra Arret and the Ring of Changing Heart. It makes soloing a lot easier because all the mobs will attack a charmed enemy and not you. THis is extremely helpful against enemies who come in great numbers and can disable - like Lagufaeth. It's like having additional summons. If Enigma's Charm was'nt so slow I would even recommend that. The build "Drakes Ambassador" combines said chanter with those items, although for soloing you might want to be a bit more defensive than he is. I mean he already is defensive, but maybe one can allocate the stats even better.

BUT: in the early game such a 2h priest is harder to play than most other builds. Until he gets his nice buffs he's squishy and can't hit stuff with his Great Sword. After taking Weapon Focus and The Pallid Hand (Berath) it gets a lot better. At that time you will also have buffs that are good enough. Until then you'd have to be very careful. Soloing with Triumph of the Crusaders is very effective: You will be the only one who kills - so all the heal-on-kill will go to you. With all that MIG you wil get insta-healed every time you kill a foe. I also took Wound Binding at some point because health was an issue, not endurance. You can skip that if you're resting a lot anyway. This approach combines a lot of staying power (because of self healing an defense buffs) with great damage. But you have to be carefull and don't gt interrupted while buffing or positioning - that makes it fun I guess. And it's very satisfying to see all the approaching vessels die from the radiance alone. It's like snuffing out candles, esp. when you meet a lot vessels that are way below your level - like it happened to me in the Endless Paths, lvl 6.

21 starting MIG, +2 from Aggrandizing Radiance (amongst other stat buffs), +10 from Champion's Boon (or +8 from Minor Avatar), +4 from Abydon's Hammer, +4 from Maegfolc Skull, +1 from Gift from the Machine, +1 from Effigy's Resentment, +1 Galawain's Boon, +3 resting Bonus, +2 prostitute = 49 MIG - I think food bonuses don't stack with Champion's Boon. If you want Gift from the Machine and Effigiy's Resentment you shouldn't pick Eothas or Berath though, because they both don't like cruelty. So your max would be 47. Of course that's a lot of fuzz and partly late game. I normally don't care too much about resting bonuses an prostitutes, meaning I don't travel just to get it, I only take it if I'm there anyway. But the rest you can have rel early and use easily in every fight and get around 35 to 40 MIG: Before I can use Champion's Boon I usually use Holy Might (also nice for RES), then later the Sanguine Plate and then CHampions's Boon or even Mnor Avatar - because it adds more stats and affects the same stats as Aggrandizing Radiance which stacks with everything. This will give me +2 move speed for initial positioning and +10 to all attributes. Those stat buffs, combined with Inspiring Radiance give me +20 ACC (I could then buff more with Devotions for +40 alltogether, survival bonuses aside) and a ton of interrupt power and around 40 MIG, also a lot of DEX for quick casting. My defenses will be buffed by +20 which stacks with every other buff like Circle of Defense and makes it easy to survive the first impacts when I enter encounters. Then I cast Shining Beacon, followed by Cleansing Flame on the toughest foe. If anyone still lives I go and hit them with Tidefall, because it's Wounding Damage is insane with so much MIG and it also works with Cleansing Flame as I said. Same is true for Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike which also get really powerful with a lot of MIG. When I hit any foe with Tidefall + Envenomed Strike, followed by Cleansing Flame, usually that's a death sentence. Later on I mainly use Abydon's Hammer because I'm too lazy for switching and I like the +4 MIG too much for casting and self heals, even if Tidefall still may be the better weapon for dps. And as I said the Holy Radiance then kills most vessels on touch (and heals a lot). But that's also the result of the correct dialogue choices which enhance the damage a lot which then get's amplified by MIG. If I remember correctly it did more than 300 burn damage over time last time I checked. Ouch... Aggrandizing and Inspiring Radiance already buff the ACC and the damage of the radiance's burn damage, which is cool.

St. Ydwen's (=St. Waidwen's) Redeemer is connected to Eothas, Berath doesn't like it when souls don't return to the wheel. Both are fitting I guess. The most effective way to be a great slayer of vessels is to be the main char, have very high MIG (using buffs), picking sanctifier, using the bartender's ring and pick the right dialogue choices. That way you can severely damage vessels with your Holy Radiance. All the minor trash mob vessels will die from it. At higher levels even darguls and later also fampyrs drop dead. Very convenient.

After countless playthroughs with a lot of different builds I now have a melee priest of berath with Tidefall as main weapon, focused on dealing damage and buffing. It's a lot of fun. My approach is to stack as much MIG as possible - I'm also aiming for the Maegfolc Skull and Abydon's Hammer as "casting" weapon. Shining Beacon with nearly 50 MIG is devastating... And Tidefall's wounding gets enhanced by MIG, so great melee damage, too. Especially if you combine Envenomed Strike or Runner's Wounding Shot with Tidefall and Cleansing Flame. Kills even tough foes quickly. Also - with Triumph of the Crusaders - able to solo the game. Another thing is that this priest with high MIG and the right dialogue choices one-shots most vessels with his holy radiance.

Ha! Oh I know what you're talking about. Where did I laugh about anybody's ideas? Would have been the first time. I laughed about the demand that the build ideas we were asked to present should be realistic.

How can Azureith's Stiletto be abused with a rogue (I know how a monk can do it)? I always thought it's inferior to Bleak Fang. By the way: Jolting Touch, since it's a melee attack, works with the monk's lashes (see monksterlasher). That's quite cool. Does anybody know if it would also work with a paladin's FoD? Like when you score a crit with Azureith's Stiletto while you use FoD, will th Jolting Touch also get the burning lash? I don't think so, but who knows? Sorry for being offtopic.

Or have Twinned Arrows - or Cranage - or implements. How do those works anyways? The list is endless - please don't let us do discussions around realism. And I didn't mock non-min-maxing. I mocked using realism as a argument while discussing a fantasy game. By the way I posted the short info that a gunslinging wizard in general might be fun and that it's viable - with those in mind who might be interested if it really works after all the theorycrafting. It also works without quick switch - but you want to fire as many multi-projectile-things as possible while Combusting Wounds and Expose Vuln. are working - hence the quick switching. If you don't like quick switch you can take the Coil of Resourcefulness... kidding! You could substitute blunderbuss switching with more missile spells and spell binding items: last playthrough I found several cloaks of Minor Missiles...

It wouldn't make them that much stronger. You always have to "pay" as a cipher - in focus. You you'd have to decide whether to use Psychovampiric Shield OR Painblock for example. When you decide to use both you'll lack the focus for CC or damage. To be honest: if the cipher wouldn't have such cheap mind control spells soloing would be a lot harder. They are the main reason it's easy. I can't see why wizard can have a "free" Iron Skin 1/encounter if he wishes, but the cipher can never cast Pain Block on himself. You could say that the wizard's buffs have limitations, too: they are only working on himself - while the cipher buffs are only for others - as a kind of principle. And that's a fair point. That's why I suggested a talent or the power I decripbed above. You'd have to pay for this "extension" - in talent points or focus.

ROFLMAYONNAISE for "real pen and paper". You're killing me...

There is no balancing reason why the cipher shouldn't be able to cast things like Pain Block or Going Between on himself. Wizards or priests can buff themselves into the sky and go melee, a druid has spiritshift and a few buffs/healings that work on the party AND on himself - only the cipher has this limitations. It's not that those powers are especially powerful if you cast them on yourself or something. There may be some arguments against it if you refer to inner game logic (using the souls of others and whatnot). That may be the reason why all other self buffs of the cipher (like Psychovampiric Shield, Wild Leech and Time Parasite) need an enemy to be cast onto. But one could introduce a talent or ability that allows self buffs without using the souls of others and name and describe it accordingly. Ha - you could even create a power where you could project your soul into enemies (a bit like Thaos can) while your body is left in a kind of stasis. You could then cast your own powers on yourself. That would be funny and would also work around that inner game logic.

ROFL because of "realism".

OK - tested the firearm-wizard with 4 blunderbusses, quick switch, combusting wounds and expose vuln. aaand it's awesome. The best part is that you can use this little trick early. At the time you find your first blunderbusses you'll have lvl 3 spells. Only thing that comes a bit late are the vembraces. But it also works nicely without them. The focus on single targets with a wiz is a fresh approach for me and quite effective - because you never lose the potential to nuke things, but you can also snipe an annoying for in no time if you need to.

It may also be that you have to unequip and reequip the item. Sometimes that also happens with spell chances: won't proc at all until you reequip or even reload.

Fighters are more fun if they can run fast. At least that's my opinion. That way Knockdown is also more useful and more fun. Once you can get Clear Out and Charge the fighter is not as passive anymore and can do a bit AoE damage - but the best part of it is Charge's instant teleport across the battlefield. And they are sturdy enough to run behind enemy lines without dying quickly, even without shield. Nice disruptors!

Mourning Gloves' speed bonus doesn't stack with Frenzy.

Well it does a lot less damage than Battle Forged. Battle Forged scales with level, so at higher levels you can clearly see the difference, esp. because Turning Wheel's +50% bonus works way better with higher base damage - to overcome DR and such. With the Monksterlasher I saw a lot of 100+ hits from it. Scion of Flame does it's part, too. It raises both Battle Forged AND Turning Wheel's damage. With normal retaliation you need high DR bypass (from Ryona's Vembraces, Vuln. Attack, maybe even Effigy's Resentment) to make it worthwhile. And even then it's damage is still a bit whimpy. But you don't have to be at 50% endurance, which is a plus of course. I forgot if Enervating Blows works with retaliation. If it does, it would be a nice plus. You could wear that Lavander thingy and use retaliation to apply both sickened and weakened if you get hit. This will help a lot with Force of Anguish and such things.

Yes - only that Battle Forged does like 20 times more damage at lvl 16.

Hi! v3.03.1047 PX1 PX2 -steam, on Linux: Let's pretend you have a wizard with that soulbound scepter and a fighter with "Take the Hit" in the party. Now, if you dominate an enemy with the soulbound scepter - in my case a troll - then said troll will profit from Take the Hit if he is in the fighter's range. So if you hit the troll while he is dominated, you will hurt your fighter, too. "Ok" you might say, "then don't touch the troll unless dominate wears off", and right you are. Only that Take the Hit still works even if the troll is no longer dominated - meaning you have to switch off Take the Hit or move your fighter out of reach or he will die from raw damage while you try to kill the not-any-more-dominated troll. Maybe I'll upload a savegame later. I have to find a proper situation where you can reproduce this issue without too much fuzz... I can't say if this also happens with other types of enemies or with charmed. It was really obvious with trolls because of their high endurance. I had to put aside the soulbound scepter and take another one for the current playthrough. Now I'm a bit sad...

I could do it - but honestly atm I'm too lazy for all that fuzz, switching branches and stuff. I just hope for the best.