Boeroer

All classes can do solo runs on Path of the Damned, yes. Even the barbarian who is said to be the weakest class for soloing can do it. I'm playing a barb on a PoTD solo run atm and it works out nicely - even with a low deflection build like mine (3 RES). But I think I will retrain into a tanky build once I get a good shield with bash (Badgradr's Barricade and later Dragon's Maw) and durgan steel. Bloodlust and Blood Thirst are a pretty neat combination when going solo for a slow but strong hitting barb. They even stack with Frenzy - and Blood Thirst also gets triggered by kills-by-spells like Firebug or scrolls and also by Retaliation and such things. It can turn you into a fast hitter even when you have all the slow things: low DEX, heavy armor, Vulnerable Attack and so on. I don't know if I can beat Llengrath or the Adra and Alpine Dragons with the barb (Concelhaut is easy because you can split his minons easily), but Thaos will be easy because I will be lvl 16 and he will be lvl 12. . The Radiant Spore was always easy for me compared to some other enemies. Don't know why people rate it to be so difficult.

Paladin also starts with 20 deflection, like rangers. Fighters 30, monks and chanters 25. The rest has 15 or even 10. When Sunbeam hits the druid has the equivalent of 40 deflection (and +20 to all tother defenses as well). Combine that with a shield and Weapon & Shield style as well as good RES and he's pretty good at tanking at the beginning of the game. It's the reason I still love tanky melee druids with shields who skip Spiritshift altogether. Of course also because they get Returning and Relentless Storm which let them "tank" like gods against mobs later on.

At the beginning the official companions are much better because they have the same level. Tanky builds (with not-maxed RES) for classes who start pretty squishy (because of low starting values) take some time, yes. And the others will not have so much more health and endurance. Funnily a druid with high RES and Weapon & Shield Style is not a bad tanker (for a caster) right from the start because he starts with 20 deflection and has Sunbeam (which blinds) at lvl 1.

And with that mantle, healing gear and survival bonus plus Chillfog you can actually have a second, quite powerful healing effect while blinding and damaging the enemies besides Veteran's Recovery. And you can trigger it at will. That is - let's face it - supercool! Maybe you shouldn't avoid getting hit by your own Chillfog after all. Health is no problem with Infuse with Vital Essence. I understand that in solo play getting surrounded is not good. But in party play this is one of the coolest tank approaches. A bit like The Dragon Thrashed + Ancient Memory - only with ice. And the stacking of Chillfog is no nice - also because of all the interrupts and the combination with Combusting Wounds. The Bilestomper also works like this. Attract the enemies, cast nasty stuff on yourself and let your friends shoot/cast from afar. I'm also planning a Fireball build which does it this way: dropping Fireballs onto your own head while tanking. You can stack 17 Fireball uses per rest and 1 per encounter with a wizard. SHould be enough for every encounter. Or maybe I try to do that with a Shield Rogue and Direballs + Adept Evasion. He could use things like Binding Web scrolls to set up Deathblows for the Fireballs and wear a stag helmet to be immune to stuck. But sadly you get the good fireball items a bit late. So that build would take some time before taking off. A wizard could live up to the theme right from the start. Also with Combusting Wounds + Wall of Flames (which is superpowerful). Oh, and I forgot Flame Shield, too.

ROFL

Great! I would go for Pale Elf, Crossed Patch and Rymrgand's Mantle and stand in my own Chill Fog all the time. @Sfzrx: the mantle also gives you +5 freeze DR. When you combine it with Pale Elf, Secrets of Rime and a plate you should have >30 DR against freeze. Then you can stand in your own Chillfog (or eat any type of frost damage) - and if it hits you, you will get healed.

I seldomly play fighters so I have no idea what that bug is everybody's talking about. So what is it?

Don't know if it's wise, but I think it will work.

@Jojobobo: Thanks for the neat tricks with the crate and so on. Good to know for the next run. I didn't do a lot of solo runs so far. Normally - when I have a party - I roflstomp most of the game and kill everything that calls for it. Did you guys know that when you use a figurine at the end of the fight (when you're about to die) and the summon outlives you and vanishes, the game is not over? If you were smart enough to pull the enemy away from their usual spawn point they will return to that after the summon diappears. When the distance is big enough and the encounter ends you will stand up again. Saved my a** a few times. I just lure them away to a good spot - and when I feel I'm about to lose but don't want to reload because I already killed like 80% of them I just pop out that squishy animat or the wurms. It also works with Rhymer's Summun I suppose, making it a quite useful talent all of a sudden...? I also can imagine that a sneaky, stealthy rogue who tries to avoid fights can be fun when played solo. Please report how the tanky barb behaves. I'm really curious. @Dr <3: Would you mind to post your chilly bilestomper variant as a build (how do you call it? Ice Crusher? Rimeclomper? )? I would really like to read it - and more recent builds are always nice. As we already discussed I had to decide between poison and ice and chose poison because of stylish reasons and the wish to make mountain dwarves useful. But I would love to see what you did with ice.

Scrolls?

Oh don't be fooled. At the beginning I had to do a ton of pull splitting and luring enemies into each other. Like the bandits who took the blacksmith's crate: just lured them into the trolls and so on. Temple of Eothas was a split-pull fest. But after that it got better. But as I said it's not optimal for solo. A setup with high RES and a shield plus retaliation would be way better - until you get Heart of Fury. But the enormous endurance and health are great. I imagine a randged chanter with Shot on the Run and Fast Runner (later Boots of Speed) would be quite easy for all this pulling. Works in most cases. And a chanter can always damage things while running away even when not shooting, he can call a summon to distract, tank or stop foes. He has White Worms which is always awesome... Will have to try that out after this one.

Eh, sorry - I meant Coordinated Attacks, not Positioning when I talked about Pellegina.

Sad but true. And for me the common fighter also falls into the category "to make this class really worthwhile, just replace it with a monk". His support abilities are not so great and too short ranged. At least for PotD they both lack enough AoE capability to be effective for my playstyle. They are quite strong in the early game though. The enemy groups are not so big and their good single target damage works without resources. Where wizards/priest/ciphers etc. don't have enough spells or focus yet the fighter and rogue just need to hit stuff to be good. It's during the mid game when I feel they start to fall behind. But there is a way to make a rogue very effective and great throughout the whole game: give him any ranged weapon, high MIG and INT plus Deep Wounds and he will be good with it (like always) and then give him quick switch and all the spell bind items with damaging spells. Spells with the rogue's high ACC and his improved crit effects are working good in general. But once you get Deathblows (which works with all damaging spells) your rogue will be doing ridiculous AoE damage. Deep Wounds works with all spells that do pierce, crush or slash damage, too. Once your per rest uses are empty let him use scrolls. Normally I have a ton of those and don't use them much. He makes a great team with a wizard and priest then: cheap Binding Web + Painful Interdiction set up Deathblows in a huge AoE, then comes the rogue with critting Deathblow Fireballs (aka Direballs), Bounding Missiles, Overwhelming Waves and so on. If he's the main char and chooses Doemenel he can do critical Fireballs with +200% damage just from crits and Deathblows. And when he's out of spells or if the encounter is too cheap he just shoots away with his mean special weapons attacks and will still be very dangerous. You can get 10 Fireballs per rest with duplicated Flames of Fair Rhian, Taluntain's Staff and Curoc's Brand. Then you can get 6 Sunbeams from the Sun-Touched Mail and that amulet I forgot the name of. You can have Blizzard from the White Spire and so on. Lots of spells for you.

It is really hard before you get the disabling weapons which protect you from getting overwhelmed by interrupts - I got interrupted to death a lot at first. But when I placed a wall behind my back or retreated into a corner it was working ok. With my huge endurance and health pool a Potion of Flame shield and Retaliation is quite nice in combination with Combusting Wounds. I should have taken a Fire Godlike and Blooded - I'm under 50% endurance all the time . But a Boreal Dwarf is also good enough. In tough encounters I use a Potion of Spirit Shield as you said. This build is definetly not optimal for solo because it's all offense with my huge endurance and healing as my only defenses (and my stellar fortitude, which prevents the most nasty debuffs), but I knew that before. I could have started with more RES and DEX - but I want to drag this guy from lvl 1 to 16 without retraining (except when I feel that a talent/ability I took is totally useless. Like Barbaric Blow for example which cancels when you get interrupted and then sometimes the 1/encounter use is gone without any outcome). And it seems to be possible. I'm lvl 9 now and will soon finish the last quest from the Leaden Key Acolyte (Heritage Hill). Too bad I can't get the Celebrant's Gloves or the Swaddling Sheet. But besides that it gets more and more easy with every level I gain. I went down the Endless Paths and smashed the Drake without any preparation - just my friend the wall, two nameless sabres and me. Ah, and the Forgotten also got their butts kicked. Bloodlust isn't as bad as I thought: it always kicks in when my frenzy wears off. Somethimes they both stack for nearly 0 recovery in my plate armor. Can't wait to get Durgan Steel...

When you solo then Eye of the Storm is pretty nive now because you can just wlk away or reposition without eating any disengagement attack. It also means you don't get stopped by engagement. I a party it's probably not that important though.

If the melee guys are also sturdy you can just spread out and swarm the squishies like the enemies like to do it. But in tight spaes with doorways it can be a bit of a problem, that's true. Flaggellanth's Path and things like escape can help here, as well as Coordinated Positioning and Dimensional Shift. Reach weapons also help a lot. Another reason to use Tall Grass. If you want more ranged but still play a monk you an check out the Witch Doctor build. It needs wounds in order to work, but you can also shoot him in the back and the nstart with his flying fists of awesomeness. Pallegina can be played as a ranged Fire General Observer (leave away the Outworn Bucker part and skill towards ranged combat only). She can use the marking pistol St. Garam's Spark (you get it after you finished the Heritage Hill quest) with Coordinated Positioning Atttacks from the back row. Sacred Immolation will still work because it not only will damage one or two foes in front of your frontline but also heal your party members. And it's also good to destroy any swarmers who want to reach the backline. edit: corrected the mistake with Coordinated Positioning/Attack when speaking about Pallegina.

See? It is great. For me some combinations of individually "normal" things also make great abilities: like combining Chillfog, Pull of Eora and Blast + Minor Blights or Fireballs or Shadowflame. Pull of Eora is one of the best spells in the game for me.

I think her order related talents are great. If you play her like the "Missile General" she can deal great burst damage and alpha strikes with FoD+guns and Wrath of the Five Suns. It also works with Penetrating Shot which means it has 15 DR bypass. And it works with Scion of Flame which you might take anyways because of FoD and Immolation. I played her like a mixture of Engineer and Observer some time ago, with Pen. Shot, Arms Bearer, Coil of Resourcefulness for quick switching, Cloak of magic missiles and Prestidigitators Missiles. For that I also got Ryona's Vembraces for max DR bypass and used Blunderbusses for the shots then. Then switched to Shame & Glory (with Coordinated Attacks) + Outworn Buckler after the alpha strike phase in order to tank and immolate the rest. I was very pleased with her performance. Also note that Wrath directly profits from Sworn Enemy - as well as all the following shots and missiles and whatnot that hit that enemy. Usually her 4 to 5 alpha strikes meant at least two casters or priests less on the enemies' side. I can imagine she works great with the Engineer so that they take out the most dangerous enemies at every start of the fight before melee really starts.

At the moment it's relatively easy - I'm in Defiance Bay and gain level after level because of all the quests. Temple of Eothas was giving me a hard time. For the first time I had to let Raedric go and kill Kolsc. And wichts were a problem while Trolls were not. but since Act II it's easy - at least the main questline. I didn't even go for disabling weapons but for dual sabres. Felt better in most encounters because my ACC still isn't high enough to crit often - and I only have Asporant's Mark and that Wael-quest mail armor for debuffing. Savage Defiance and Veteran's Recovery - paired with Shod-inFaith and my nearly 250 endurance at lvl 7 and something under 2000 health mean I only die after minutes of constant beating. If I wouldn't suffer a ton of interrupts all the time I would be steamrolling. Edit: Hey, I just killed Visceris without any summons and buffs or debuffs at lvl 7. Just strolled by and thought "why not?" and it worked. Nice...

Defensive Mindweb is the best spell in the game, it turns every party member into a tank. Amplified Wave is the best spell in the game, it causes prone on every enemy in a big AoE and does a lot of damage at the same time. White Worms is the best spell in the game, it can be used to one-shot whole groups of enemies. The Dragon Thrashed is the best ability in the game. It damages all foes in a huge AoE for a ton of damage every 4 seconds just by standing around and it uses zero resources - unlimited per encounter, unlimited per rest, no wounds or focus needed. You even get phrase points for invocations and and it works while you are withdrawn. Blast is the best talent in the game, it works with on-hit and on-crit effects like carnage, but from range. It works with Envenomed Strike so it does it's huge raw damage in an AoE, it has 10 DR bypass and interrupts. And with Kalakoth's Minor Blights you will have a wizard's baby Heart of Fury. Which makes Kalakoth's Minor Blights the best spell in the game by the way. Cleansing Flame is the best spell in the game, because you can kill Thaos easily with it. Holy Radiance is the best ability in the game - it can one-shot most vessels in a huge AoE while stack-buffing group's ACC and healing. Rot Skulls is the best spell in the game. Because it's AoE works with Envenomed Strike and all those DoT effects stack, making it the perfect DPS spell which melts whole groups of bounties in no time. Withdraw is the best spell in the game - because you can use it on a chanter who will still chant - while it stuns him which will trigger stacked preservation so that he gets +100 to all defenses. Useless you say because he is withdrawn anyway. Until you cast Defensive Mindweb and make your whole party invulnerable for nearly a minute. Which again makes Defensive Mindweb the best spell. Chillfog is the best spell because you can have it from level one and it's damage stacks while it blinds. It works with Combusting wounds. Which makes Wall of Flames the best spell when I think about it because you can melt a dragon with it when you combine it with combusting wounds. Fireballs is the best spell because it's fast and does lots of damage and you can pile up 18 uses per rest as a wizard which makes it the ultimate win button for every encounter without fire immune enemies. Whisper of Treason... I could go on all day... Sure, Relentless Storm is very strong, but it also has drawbacks. You can't have it per encounter, it takes hours to cast, it's centered on the caster. It doesn't last that long (not long enough on PoTD some might say). There's a lot of "best" things in the game when you ask different people and it also depends on the encounter and party composition. You don't gimp yourself without a druid and also not without a priest. It's not helpful to state such things as if they were the ultimate truth. I can remember when you asked your first questions in this forum some weeks ago and didn't know a lot about the game - which is totally cool. Most people really like to help newcomers out in this place. But would you have appreciated an answer like "Lol - don't play your dream party unless you want the game to be superdifficult" back then? As I said - it's not helpful in the best case and frustrating, confusing and demotivating in the worst case. And I mean no offense by this. I just want to point out that another approach might be better.

Yeah, it would make more sense if hatchets would generally cause "interfering" (-5 ACC) on hit like some unique weapons do instead of having another form of interfering that just adds +5 deflection.

I'm soloing with a 3 RES 2 DEX 20 CON dual wielding meatshield barb at the moment. Since I got Shod-in-Faith and Veteran's Recovery plus Savage Defiance I can take a beating without going down for minutes. Especially with healing-received bonuses from items and camping. If I think about this tanking power that works with high DR and high (rehealed) endurance alone I wonder how good he would tank with high RES, a shield, Stalwart Defiance (+10 to all defenses) and the things around frighten/daze/terrify/causing fatigue you mentioned. I once made that leech barb with Spelltongue and I still think that can be more powerful than causing fatigue. You can prolong all self buffs for minutes - even the ones from racials and scrolls and potions. I imagine a wild orlan barb (+10 after will attack) with Stalwart Defiance (+10) which will endlessly heal, too and some potions like Llengrath's or something and then add the ACC debuffs. Should work pretty well. Only thing is you have to hit stuff in order to debuff it. Paladin's and Fighter's defense bonuses work even with 2 PER.

I feel the same as DreamWayfarer.

PER 10 is ok if you can debuff enemies with other chars. At the beginning a bit more PER would be nice, but I used 10 and had no problems. You could switch to a one-handed setup every time the Dragon Thrashed starts anew - because the +12 ACC also applies to the chant. Don't ask me why, it's stupid, but it does. And since your chant does all the damage, the increased action recovery from switching is no problem. Stats look good. Make sure to pick up a Ring of Overseeing, the Hermit's Hat and the Voice of the Mountaintop asap. The bigger your chant AoE the better.

Too bad Defensive Mindweb comes so late.