Boeroer

Hi - don't know how deep your knowledge is, so I will go into depth: Basically - if you want to interrupt as much as possible, you need the highest PER you can get and also attack pretty fast. A PER score of 17 will lead to an interrupt value of 21. If you put PER to 21, it will be 33. That's 30% more. Interrupting Blows adds +15 (like 5 points of PER without the ACC boost). So you will be at 48. But that'S still not enough to land guaranteed interrupts. The base concentration at RES 10 is 75. You have to overcome concentration with this roll: rollDie(1-100) + 48 > 75. The chances against foes with normal RES are ok, but not overwehleming although you put all you have into PER. Every point of PER counts now. So you will have to watch out for stuff (items, resting, food, talents) that give you a bonus to PER. Champion's Boon (+10 PER = +30 Interrupt) and Crowns for the Faithful (+6 PER, +25 RES) are great for this! At the same time you want to lower concentration. That can be done by you (as you said: Threatening Presence is a way to reduce concentration a bit) or by party members. There are some spells or other abilites that reduce concentration directly or indirectly (= -RES). Some are: Expose Vulnerabilites (awesome for a barb, lowers concentration and DR), Miasma of Dull Mindedness (-6 RES means -18 concentration - but the AoE is damn small), Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (it'S just one foe at a time, but it lasts very long and is good against tough enemies), Painful Interdiction (this stacks with your Threatening Presence - you can use Brute Force then), the lvl-1-Chanter's phrase that reduces concentration by 10 (huge range, no ressources needed). Then there's a new item, a ploeaxe, that has an aura that causes -30 concentration. That's superawesome - but it's too slow to be you own weapon. However it would be the perfect support weapon for you. Put it on a chanter abd let him sing that "stumbling over words"-phrase and your foes will suffer from -40 concentration. That alone guarantees you 100% interrupt chance against "normal" enemies. For the tougher ones you just can use the things I listed above. With those combined you can interrupt every enemy in the game 100% of the time - you just have to make sure that those debuffs hit. If they don't, your sky high PER (with Champion' Boon and stuff) is still enough to interrupt even the toughest enemy for a good amount of time. So, my party composition would be: - hearth or wild orlan barb from the White that Wends with 21 PER and high DEX. RES shouldn't bee too low because if you get interrupted you can't interrupt others. Iterrupting Blows, Two Weapon Style, Brute Force, One Stands Alone - Chanter with that chant (and later that poleaxe) - Priest with Painful Interdiction - Wizard with Blast and The Golden Gaze as weapon as well as the spell I mentioned above - The rest is up to you - a cipher would fit in because he also profits a lot from Threatening Presence + Painful Interdiction. A monk also loves the low fort and will defenses For you weapons: you said you want to interrupt and also stun. Well there's just one two combos in this game that fit to this: 1: dual wielding the Vile Loner's Lance and Cladhaliath. The Vile Loner's Lance has a very long Interrupt of 1 sec (instead of 0.5) and Cladhaliath can be made so that it causes stun on crit. Vile Loner's Lance also causes -5 defenses on hit - fits perfectly well with the stun-on-crit. Altough this is a nice combo, it looks kind of weird - if you have no problem with that, I would recommend those - because you can get them early. 2.: Then there's Shatterstar (or was it Strike Hard? can't remember) plus Godansthunyr. Those are also great: both have long interrupts (1 sec and 0.75) and other nice enchantments. +1 MIG and stun on crit for example. And the best part: it looks good on a barb! But Godansthunyr comes pretty late. Another good item for a interrupting barb is Mosquito. That rapier causes interrupts that last for 0.75 and is fast. On top it drains endurance whcih is always cool with carnage. You could combine that with the March Steel Dagger in order to speed up your attack even more - but I think it's not your kind of style for a barb. You want to attack as fast as you can, so try to stack lots of speed modifiers: Frenzy, Gauntlets of Swift Action, Durgan Refinement on armor and weapons. You can reach 0 recovery with dual wieding and a light armor like padded or hide or even durgan reinforced heavier stuff (but then you can't use Vulnerable Attack): Frenzy (1.33) * Durgan Refinement weapon 1 (1.15) * Durgan Refinement weapon two (1.15) * Gauntlets (1.15) + Two Weapon Style = 2.22. At 2 you have no recovery - so there's room for either 20% armor-penalty or Vulnerable Attack. I like Vulnerable Attack - so I'd go for the durgan reinforced monk's outfit perhaps (=0% recovery penalty) and pump survival for +2 extra DR and wear a Blunting Belt and drink some potions of Iron Skin in tough fights. There's also the Helwax Mold: that tiem (from a stronghold quest) lets you duplicate any non-soulbound item. So it would be nice to clone the Vile Loner's Lance or Godansthunyr or whatever weapon you like best for this. Or even that strange poleaxe I mentioned. I don't know if it's aura stacks - but if it does, it would be superaweseome. I think that's all I have to say... edit: oh, forgot: if this is set up properly (high INT is also important) it creates a perma-interrupt-lock in an AoE. No foe is immune to interrupts and they also happen on grazes. It's superpowerful even if you don't use ALL the stuff I mentioned above. Just don't get disabled. Suppress Affliction of Liberating Exhortation are your best friends. Ah, and Frighten (chanter phrase or barbs yell) and Terrify (spell, invocation or shout) also lower concentration a bit - as well as keeping you alive by lowering enemies' ACC. edit2: I just hope the chanter's chant and that poleaxe aura stack - I couldn't test it myself yet, sorry.

This Silver Whatever Blunderbuss is good.

edit: nvm

Dex also makes you reloading faster. So I wouldn't say it's useless on a gunner who reloads often. It's the only way to speed up reloading besides the chant, Gunner and Swift Aim.

Huh? If the afflictions stack then all things that they do should stack. But even if not: -1 CON and -1 MIG is not that important.

I support that. An additional autosave right after dialogue and before encounter starts would be nice. Maerwald and Adra Dragon are examples when things can really get tedious with all the clicking.

Nicolas' Neckalace?

As an orlan from The White that Wends you can get 21 PER from the start. you can't reach 30 without food and resting, but if you want to build a good interrupter and crit-hitter you should try to max it out: Effigy's Resentment: Sagani (+1), Song of Heavens (+1), Hylea's Boon (+1), that new +4 PER item (forgot what it was), + Preymaker bow (+1) = 29 (or 28 for non-rangers and melee characters). That will give you +19/+18 ACC and +57/+54 Interrupt which is really great. Try that on a barb with Interrupting Blows. I think all stats can be boosted to 27 minimum that way. CON is another stat besides MIG that can be boosted to 30 points (without food and resting): dwarf(+1) + rauatai(+1) + that new +4 CON item (can't remember what it was) + Effigy's Resentment: Durance (+1), 2* Whispers of Yenwood (+4 - need to use the Helwax Mold to duplicate the sword) + Rymrgand's Boon(+1) = 30 (=+100% endurance and health).

Sickened and Weakened stack. No matter if spell or something else. It's a very powerful debuff and can be cheap, too. All spells that give bonus to deflection stack with crowns for the faithful - giving you up to +50 deflection besides other benefits.

You really have to keep an eye on the shooter though and immediately switch after the shot animation to skip recovery. It's pretty insane and that you can rightfully call cheese. But quick switching in general not I think.

Soulbound weapons use whatever Weapon Focus you have. They are universal. So you could say that they all qualify for the same weapon focus. Same as summoned weapons by the way. Speaking of summoned weapons (no, I don't mean brindle88 although he has that corrosive lash on him) - did anyone tested that summoned Blackbow on a wizard yet?

Whom do you mean?

Chanters are not bad. I'm using two of them as tanks at the moment and they are awesome. But what am I doing? It's a brindle88 thread and therefore good arguments will just make him mad. So I say "spellcasters are OP lol"...

Guys! Don't you remember brindle88? "Rogues are OP lol" and "Paladins are bad lol"? The guy who behaves like a five year old trapped in the body of a six year old whose fingers are superglued to (spirit) caps lock and exclamation mark? You really can't be surprised. Tehehe... spiritcapslock

I forgot: what really helps in that encounter is mind control. Then those Ogre Druids will cast Insect Plague in your favor while being clubbed to death by their fellows.

So... using a bugged power is OK, but quick switching blunderbusses is cheese. Using Quick Switch is not cheating. You buy a talent and then you can shoot two to four times whenever you want. After that you have to reload like everyone else. This tastic also works fine without the talent - it's still faster than reloading the guns. If you want to only use one gun and reload, then I strongly advice to get high DEX and the Gunner talent. But then you'd be better off with a bow instead.

Stack as much ACC as you can and stack all the +0.x to crit damage things. Like annihilating on weapons, the doemenel talent "Merciless Hand", Fur Rabbit Gloves, the talent "Dungeon Delver". Also add Bloody Slaughter.

Oh Gods - he's back!

Wait - you mean a crit barb with Heart of Fury lets foes' chunks fly even farther in 3.02?

Can't say it better. I will just sum up: (Island Aumaua) Cipher + Blunderbuss + Quick Switch + Arms Bearer = superawesome. And try to use Ryona's Vambraces! Sorry that was not summing up but adding something - ah well...

Have a look at the the Ascetic Monk thread. We'll use this and dmg mods and add Resonace Touch for the *boom* at the end.

dpa = damage per asskicks?

In my experience (tested this again the other day before 3.0), if Spelltongue prolonged the duration of Suppress Affliction is was like it had been recast on me - and maybe that's the way the devs handle this "stealing" internally: they just add the same buff with 5 seconds so it automatically prolongs the duration of the buff that's already on you. So each time you hit with Spelltonge and steal 5 seconds duration for Auppress Affliction it's like the Spell has been cast again on you (for 5 additional seconds). Seems like they don't have a method to directly set the duration of actiuve effects after they get applied - or they didn't pre 3.0. I had several afflictions like hobbled and weakened and stuff from some Ogre Druids and when I hit them again the suddenly all those afflictions got a "suppressed" message. Don't know if it still works that way in 3.0 though. But this will be easy to test I guess. 3.0 fixed a lot of those gamebreaking tricks (like stacking Disorienting like hell) so maybe the magic is gone.

But then you cause less interrupts.

Hehe - of course you should try. About 2 Resonant Toches: you should deal 2 of them because a full attack hits most enemies twice. Would be weird if it didn't work that way. I tested this ability with those new ranged fists (which are so superawesome that you can easily invent a wohle build around that - Sandals of the Forgotten Friar, Blood Testament, Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes all work with it). And whenever I did more than 20 damage the enemies received 2 charges of Resonant Touch if I recall correctly. Edit: Oh, and you could also test if Ryona's Vambraces work with Rooting Pain (or any other thing except MIG that could boost the damage of Rooting Pain - maybe also these amulets that give +10% to spell damage). Hell - if there would be a way to boost retaliation's damage over 10 it would be superawesome. Fire Godlike with Sura's Supper Plate, another retaliation item and Vulnerable Attack and lots of dmg. mods to boost it over 10 after DR would be so awesome! Wait - does Turning Wheel also work on retaliation? Then just stand in the middle of a mob and keep get hitting until you pull the trigger - boom! Man, you have to test this please!