Boeroer

Or interrupting in an AoE. Few people know that interrupts also work with grazes - so carnage's lower ACC is not a big problem compared to on-crit-effects. Best thing is to combine both.

If you combine the Vile Loner's Lance with a stunning & vicious Cladhaliath you don't need to hit superfast because the stunning lasts a bit longer. It also works well together with the -5 of the Lance. You can use a chanter as partner who wields that new Poleaxe that causes -30 concentration in an AoE and who has that low level concentration debuff chant on. Threatening Presence/Sickened lowers RES by 1, meaning a little passive debuff for enemies' concentration - and also Barbaric Yell/Frightened lowers RES by 2 - even less concentration for the enemy. Barbaric Shout works even better with -4 RES, but it's per rest. Another way would be Miasma of Dull Mindedness: -6 RES. Maybe there are other means of lowering concentration in an AoE that I forgot. But a barb plus a chanter and the (per encounter-) abilites and items I mentioned should be the most easiest way to create a build that interrupts a lot in an AoE without too much fuzz/micro/casting. edit: some numbers: If you have a "no-fuzz-score" of 24 PER (orlan + White that Wends + Lilith's Shawl) and Interrupting Blows you will have 57 Interrupt. You can lower concentration in an AoE (without per rest spells/abilities) by 10(chant) + 30(Zephyr aura from poleaxe) + 3(Sickened) + 6(Barb Yell) = 49 concentration debuff. You will cause an interrupt if: rollDie(1-100) + Interrupt - Concentration >= 51. Enemies with lower concentration than 57 should be interrupted 100%. Most enemies don't have that.

I also like Death Godlike + Bloody Slaughter. I really love Death Godlike + Bloody Slaughter + Heart of Fury + Doemenel's Talent + Azalin's Helmet + Dungeon Delver + dual wielding annihilating Weapons with Durgan Refinement. Ah, and a priest of course.

Ah, so maybe that's why. But I still doubt it's overly difficult. Too bad the survival skill doesn't include an ACC bonus towards kith. It should make a huge difference if you have +15 ACC - especially if your level is a bit too low for the encounter.

And I wondered why Sagani always had this Returning-Storm-Sigil around her when the bow triggered the spell. I thought it was just a visual effect since she doesn't seem to get hurt by it. Or was I just lucky?

Although the hermit's cap you mentioned before was bugged because you had an old savegame and it wasn't updated properly. It now gives you +2 INT an immunity to confuse - but not +1 MIG. Your game just merges both enchantments. That also happened to me with the Sanguine Plate when they took retaliation away and gave it Frenzy - I had a Plate that did both.

Well at higher levels it's all doable by brute force if you have a full party. Once your ACC is high enough and you don't get one-shotted anymore they are dead in seconds.

Ach, you are right. My bad. How could I forgat that? And the bind/unbind - trick? Doesn't work on companions? I only read about that one.

As ottffsse pointed out, it's not only aout ACC but also about interrupt chance. And that is hard to buff besides this one talent "Interrupting Blows". There are some items that give a bonus to interrupt value, but they are few. Another way to enable interrupts is to lower the concentration of foes. That is doable by lowering RES. But again there are not too many afflictions or abilites/spells that do this. A barbarian can interrupt in an AoE which can be a very powerful CC effect because there's no special defense against it and nobody is immune to it. Things really start to get interesing if you combine a high interrupt value with debuffing concentration of the enemies in an AoE and hitting fast with a weapon that has a high interrupt duration (and does good damage or has an on hit/on crit effect, but that's only a nice bonus). Some say that Mosquito is the best interrupting weapon for a barb because it's fast, has a high interrupt duration of 0.75 secs, has +5 ACC and is also draining. Others like Mabec's Morning Star because it not only causes 1 second interrupts but also stuns on crit and does good damage - but it's rather slow. I like the VIle Loner's Lance best because it causes -5 on all defenses on hit, has a long interrupt duration of 1 sec and is not too slow. It's kind of in between Mosquito and Mabec's Morning Star. Then there's this new Poleaxe that has a -30 concentration aura... but whatever weapon: with a Interrupt build I would always max PER. That means orlan from the White That Wends with Lilith's Shawl.

I will do a test tomorrow with a fresh chanter and see where it gets me.

Sure do. Including the chanter phrase that adds another +25% burn lash.

Armor Efficiency bonus? Never heard of that before...

You can have Abydon's Hammer in the right hand and Steadfast in the left hand. But you have to wear Steadfast in your left hand when you obtain the hammer via the quest. This doesn't give you +4 MIG? And the bind/unbind/bind trick?

I always thought that fight was too easy. But I never tried at lvl 8. What two levels can do for you...

Item enchantments don't stack. Only exception is weapons/shield. That stacks with everything. That's a reason why you can have two retaliation effects with Sura's Supper Plate and any other retaliation item. Or why the +1 MIG from Godansthunyr stacks with everything. The Adra Dragon is easy compared to the Alpine - maybe just my opinion.

Nice - can you still steal the wrong bottle first?

If you pump MIG like crazy you not only will experience a very high fortitude defense, but also do more damage to the dragon. You can also pump CON quite easily in order to get high fortitude: Girdle of Eotun Constitution + Whispers of Yenwood = +5 CON, then add all the other buffs for CON and fortitude that you might have. I wonder if a wild orlan barb with high CON, high MIG, PER and DEX and Frenzy + Stalwart Defiance and the appropriate talents would be good enough to tank that beast? While hacking at the adds? At least he can get +20 on all defenses from Defiant Resolve and Stalwart Defiance? Or a monk with the same attitude? The great thing about the paladin is that he not only tanks the dragon but also supports his party at the same time.

Well in theory - but it wasn't enough. As I said in the build description above: It also worked on non buffed enemies but didn't steal 5 secs but less. Don't know why. With carnage that was still enough to keep the buffs running. With the wizard and Alacrity and stuff it wasn't. Taht wasn't too bad for the wizard because he also has Draining Wall wich works well together with Spelltongue. Also: dual wielding will make Spelltongue hit less often than if you would use it with a shield or one-handed. Despite the higher attack speed it would only hit every second attack. I don't think you can be that much faster itch dual wielding to make up for this. Kaylon will knoww more about that. You can of course duplicate it with that new stronghold item (Something Mold). That would be quite hilarious - I wonder if the attack speed buff would stack...

Keep in mind that the barb is (or was) ideal because he could steal multiple times with one strike because of carnage. I tried this with a 0-recovery-wizard and it's much harder to steal enough duration so that buffs never wear off. Once you get to the WM you can get it. You just have to defeat some Lagufaeth.

Have a look - the stair in the upper right is the master stair:

Yes - but it think it doesn't stack with any other ability or spell like Champion's Boon and stuff. Except Wellspring of Life. That stacks with all I think. At least that stacked with Greater Frenzy when I did a quick Vengeful-Defeat-Barbarian.

Hey guys. Maybe they nerfed this in 3.0 beta and 3.0. It was quite overpowered on a barb. I didn't test that. With 2.03 it worked like described in the opening post. As I said above Spelltongue also stole duration for your buffs when the enemy didn't have any (visible) buffs. Maybe they fixed that so that it only works if the enemy really has some "active" buffs on and not if they are just plain old trashmobs? I believe that there are always some kinds of "internal" buffs on enemies that give them special abilities but were not intended to count as "real" buffs like priest's spells and so on - similar to all the gear that enemies wear that you can't loot but which gives them special DR or abilities (Ice trolls have an invisibe second chance armor, skeleton fighters have an unvisible armor...). Or did the descpription of the blade also change so that it merely steals attack speed now? However - I will try to test this in the coming days and tell you what happened.

Argh - you are right.

I think you can do that with every official companion because there's also dragon meat. Or does one of them have a MIG score unter 9?

The max you can have is +19mig (+3(item)+1(Godansthunyr)+3(rest)+2(whore)+10(boon)) Add: +1 from Gift From the Machine, +1 (Effigy's Resentment: Edér) +1 (+4 instead of +3) from non-weapon-items, +3 (+4 Abydon's Hammer instead of +1 Godansthunyr), +3 dragon meat, +1 Galawain's boon - should result in +29 edit: forgot that dragon meat gets supressed by Champion's Boon. So it's 26 instead of 29. You can hold Abydon's Hammer in one hand if you get it via quest. Just put Steadfast in your left hand before obtaining the hammer.