Boeroer

He read a lot of picture-books to get that 8 points. Skills are totally irrelevant for this build by the way. Could as well max survival.

I think the Stormcaller ranger is one oft the best builds in the game - and that's without bis pet that can also do a lot of dmg. My rangers are always top of the damage list even without the huge pet's damage. The pet alone does more damage per hit as a standard rogue.

Edit function only works if the post is not too old. I don't know why. It's a pain in the a** if you want to keep your builds up to date.

Thanks. Of course you can always change the style and therefore the equipment. For Badgradr's Barricade you definetely need the White Crest armor. I tried Heldric's Coat - but the blue is a different one. What you can also do is take a plate of the Crucible Knights since you can color it yourself because it has this long piece of cloth running down from chest to feet. I wonder if the red medium shield with harbinger (forgot the name) fits to the Äru Brekr brigandine (+1 move speed).

Right - picking cruel and aggressive is really easy. Clever & passionate is also ok. Stoic and rational are hard because the answers are a lot likec the ones that do nothing. And sometimes honsest answers can be mixed up with stoic or rational. Benevolent is easy to spot.

Stealth 7 was just for sneaking around mobs when combat started and my tankiest char (another paladin) attracted all the enemies. It's not mandatory. 8 lore was enough because of +2 lore from the armor and mechanics were done by a chanter (see, Alex ). So that's why stealth is so high. Also helps with stealing. Chanter opens chests - Dull Runner grabs it. Too bad move speed bonus doesn't work out of combat any more.

Thanks all. The background story at the beginnng is just the altered introduction text from the Bleak Walker's character creation though.

No, I had no problems. He's not supposed to hold the line all the time - he's tanky and all but his role is not that of the main tank. But you could easily swap DEX and CON. Depends how you want to use him I guess. He wasn't even my main char by the way.

The Dull Runner is a paladin from the order of the Bleak Walkers dedicated to burn rubber. With blinding speed he reaches the perfect position to shoot enemy casters down in order to bring a swift end to all spellcasting. If three nasty shots from his custom made arquebuses are not enough, he will quickly catch up and stamp the caster's forehead with a fat hammer. Known for his unnatural speed, but also his dullness and bullishness, most nobles will only call on him as a really, really last resort (since he's light on his feet, but slow off the mark). Besides his dopiness, the Dull Runner's behavior generally reinforces cruelty and brutality. The quickest resolution to a conflict is one in which the Dull Runner's arrival is announced and a shot in the crotch immediately follows. To ensure that people believe that no smart comment will ever be given by the Dull Runner, he avoids any dealings where he could be seen as clever given the right circumstances. For the Dull Runner, there are no right circumstances. The Dull Runner won't call off an attack even if his "employer" asks him to or turns forces on him - because he's just to fast to be stopped. The Dull Runner isn't a sadist (at least, not most of the time), and while he's effectively a mercenary, the control that his employers exert over him is fairly limited because he's thick as a brick. Much like the arquebuses he's wielding, the Dull Runner should only be pointed at things you don't mind being completely shattered to pieces. =================================== The Dull Runner =================================== Difficulty: PotD; Version 2.03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin (Bleak Walker) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Island Aumaua -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Rauatai - Mercenary -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 20 CON: 10 DEX: 15 PER: 15 INT: 3 RES: 15 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 7, Athl. 4, Lore 8, Surv. 7 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Armed to the Teeth (a) Weapon Focus Soldier ® Weapon & Shield ® Appr. Sneak Attack or Scion of Flame or Fast Runner Runner's Wounding Shot Remember Rhakan Field Intense Flames ® Arms Bearer (!) Abilities Faith and Conviction (a) Flames of Devotion (!) Lay on Hands Zealous Charge (!) Reviving Exhortation Sworn Enemy Righteous Soul Healing Chain --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: arquebus (Exceptional*, Burning Lash*, Kith-Slaying*) ® Weapon Set 2: arquebus (Exceptional*, Burning Lash*, Kith-Slaying*) ® Weapon set 3: arquebus (Exceptional*, Burning Lash*, Kith-Slaying*) ® Weapon Set 4: Shatterstar (Exceptional*, Burning Lash*) & Outworn Buckler; later: Godansthunyr(Exceptional*, Burning Lash*, Durgan-Refined*) & The Last Tower(Durgan-Refined*) ® Boots: Boots of Speed ® or Malina's Boots Head: Waage's Hat of Leadership Armor: Argwes Adra ® or Äru Brekr Neck: Engwithan Adra Ban Amulet or Cape of Withdrawal Belt: Coil of Resourcefulness Rings: Ring of Deflection, Ring of Protection Hands: Archer's Gloves Quick slots: healing potions, summons, scrolls --------------------------------------------------------------- The Dull Runner uses Zealous Charge, Boots of Speed, The Last Tower(shield) and Fast Runner (optional) to stack his movement speed bonus up to +6 (+7) which makes him the fastest runner there is. He once even beat Fulmineo Prondroni in a race for the cold buffet. This way he can quickly position himself and shoot his arquebueses with Flames of Devotion (Burning Lash+Intense Flames+Remember Rakhan Field+Scion of Flame). With this setup the burn damage is even higher than the original damage from the arquebus itself. On top of that there's also some corrode damage. Because he has 4 Weapon slots - 3 arquebuses and ine melee setup, only 2 FoD strikes are not enough - so he also my shoot foes with a Wounding Shot that does 180% arquebus damage over time +25% burn + Scion of Flame. All arquebuses are also kith-slaying so that most of the time one shot is enough to kill an enemy kith caster. Damage easily goes up to >120 per shot. When his guns are fired, he switches to war hammer & shield and is a good tank that can easily hold the line against most enemies while doing ok damage. The Coil of Resourcefulness spares a talent point because we don't need to take quick switch. Talent points are rare in this build - but you an freely choose from the abilities since only few are really needed. I just took abilities that need no INT to be good - like Healing Chain and so on. That's also the reason I quit Sacred Immolation: the duration is bad, the aoe is too small and the raw damage is quite high (because of high MIG). This guy makes a good tag team with Fulmineo when it comes to clipping enemy casters and stretching out the battlefield. When light armored Prondroni ever gets into a pretty pickle, the Dull Runner comes for the rescue with his blinding speed, Lay on Hands and Healing Chain. And if everything fails, he will just revive the fallen. How cruel is that? Last but not least, his outfit is all green (corrode) and golden (fire) and matches his theme. That's the reason I chose Argwes Adra: it fits beautifully to the Last Tower, so does Godansthunyr. The Outworn Buckler also looks nice because it's green. And you can have it very early. It's herald radius is pretty small because of the low INT though. The hats (Liripipe and Waage's) also look very neat because you can change their colors to green/gold - and nobody else wanted to wear them, so... For more ironic laughs use Liripipe of Thinking. The Last Tower is a bit tough to get early, but it's possible: you have to switch on Zealous Charge and wear Boots of Speed and maybe also take Fast Runner. Put on a Cape of Withdrawal. Get some figurines. Go to Crägholt (even if you're to weak to fight the Torn Bannermen) and just run past them. Since you're superfast and your defenses are quite high that should be no problem. Try to avoid the drunken orlan and the brawlers - they are also very fast and sometimes manage to land disengagement attacks which hurts a lot. From time to time drop some summons to stop the Torn Bannermen to follow you forever (they will try). Run to the Tower and pull the Torn Bannermen with you. When they see the Death Guards and Alghuls, they will all attack each other and you can sneak away to the entrance of the tower. Be sure to drop summons so that nobody will chase you. If you're at the stairs and nobody followed you, wait until the combat ends and enter the tower. Go to the treasure room and pick the lock of the chest that contains the Last Tower (mechanics 10 minimum I think) - tadaa! You have it - and with it the title of the fastest man alive - since it's move speed bonus stacks with all the others. Well maybe some day there will be a barabrian with Wild+Powerful Sprint + Boots of Speed + Fast Runner and he will be faster... but he has to sleep a lot to be that fast all the time - so that's kind of lame. Ok, this paladin build is different - but it's fun to play and absolutely viable for PoTD. Maybe there are other builds that are stronger, but this one gives you some tactical advantages because aof the speed and the huge alpha strike damage. Besides that, he's very sturdy for a dps oriented character - and he just looks awesome! Have fun! edit: maaan - to lazy to correct all the typos today. Maybe tomorrow...

You have a point there. It's just annoying me if a char is so sluggish.

Targeting fortitude is great. There are two afflictions that, when combined, drop fortitude by over 40 points every encounter. That's weakened and sickened. Sickened the cipher can do himself with Secret Horrors - and if you have a priest with Painful Interdiction you have a very huge weakened aoe every encounter. Cast PI, then SH - and then your Amplified Wave will crit like there's no tomorrow. There is no cheaper way to debuff a defense in such a big aoe with such "cheap" powers.

I agree. I love the freedom of classless systems. That's because I like to do builds and with a classless system the different combinations of skills are nearly endless. But as you said: you need deeper skill trees for that or every char will look the same somehow because everbody will only cherry-pick the best skills - if you don't have trees that force you to specialize a bit. But I also like the restrictions that systems with classes give you. You can try to be very creative in order to break the inteneded role that class is supposed to play. ANd it's great fun to find working builds that don't do what the commmon conception of a class does. And therefore I welcome cross-class-talents because they allow you to bend the rules a bit. They are only bad and break the system if there are too many. If you could just pick one - but that one could be any of a foreign class at the appropriate level - that would be ok for me. It would open up so many possibilities without breaking the class system. But that's just my personal gusto.

DEX 3 is a no go for me (these superslow hits just make me throw a tantrum ). I could do that while retraining at lvl 13 when you get Sacred Immolation and don't need to autoattack any more. But on the other hand - game's basically over then.

Yeah - it's pretty smart to dump INT (thehe). Since you are alone, nobody other than you will enjoy your auras. May I ask why Goldpact and not Bleak Walker? That way you would even get Faith-and-Conviction-bonuses for being cruel. Or is the burn DoT of the Goldpact Knights so good? I only had Darcozzi Paladini and Bleak Walkers so far and liked the extra corrode damage (together with intense flames) when doing two FoD alphas from arbalest & arquebus to erradicate hostile casters first. But I never did solo with a paladin so maybe you just don't have enough talent-/ability points to spend on that special talents anyway...?

I think we all agree that the recommended stats are for run-of-the-mill builds only.

THat's why I said blunderbuss + cipher drug (Carow Golan). You get +4 focus per hit. Blunderbuss hits 6 times - that's 24 focus per shot on top of your normal focus that you get from soul whip's damage. Even against high DR foes you will receive 30 focus minimum per shot. With quick switch and three weapon slots you can get over 100 focus in a few seconds against high DR foes. Against low DR foes you don't need Carow Golan with a blunderbuss. The weapon tiself has 4 DR bypass, then use Penetrating Shot (+5 DR bypass), Ryona's Vembraces (+3) and use Lead Spitter for one of the shots (+3). So you will end up at 12 or 15 DR bypass. So, for everything with more than 1 DR you can use Carow Golan, for everything else don't. Blunderbusses are great for ciphers if you use them that way.

He isn't playing on PotD so 10 PER is totally ok.

On higher levels focus generation against mobs is not a problem. With an exceptional warbow and The Unconquerable amulet you also get enough focus to cast Amp. Wave after two shots. AS brindle88 said: you just have to pick the weakest targets. Or take quickswitching blunderbusses + cipher drug.

With the introduction of immunities a lot of enemies are now immune to prone. But basically you are right. I don't know why the spell has such a big radius. That's the thing that makes it so good.

Druid with Returning Storm, Relentless Storm and Spiritshift+Wildstrike Shock is your best buddy. Also has lots of dot spells that help your pet with Predator's Sense. Wizard with some shock spells is also nice. A chanter with The Dragon Shlashed also triggers Predator's Sense - but he has only poor shock based invocations. The Sure Handed Ila chant is good at lower levels, but I quit using it after I got the two good, fire based lvl-3-chants. A dual wielding monk with Lightning Strikes and a shocking lash on his weapons might also be very happy to engage the foes that Stormcaller hit. The faster he attacks the better the effect. His 50% shock damage against 0.5*(shock DR - 6) will be great since most of the time this means very low DR - especially against foes in plate.

That's absolutely right. And you'll never know what the game is doing "under the hood" while you test that things. Some console command to trigger some debug output would be nice.

Are you sure about hitting? I think you don't have to land a hit to trigger engangement. For example: a fighter with 5 engangement slots (1 + 2 Defender + 1 guarding weapons + 1 Hold the Line) will engange the enemy that he directly targets first and then the other 4 arrows will appear automatically - enganging nearby enemies. You don't have to hit them all to engange them. If you can't engage while constantly stepping onto the heels of a fleeing enemy then I'd say that's a bug and not intended behaviour. I also didn't experience that a lot. But I have to admit I didn't pay a lot of attention to my own disengagement attacks lately. Maybe I will do a test today with a fighter, a reach weapon and 4 or 5 engangement slots and see if the system is totally screwed up.

No rest for the builders!

I would suggest Shatterstar and Godansthunyr. Both have (secretly) higher interrupts than normal war hammers. I don't know why, it's no official enchantment, but they do. Normal ones have 0.5, Shatterstar has 1.0 and Godansthunyr has 0.75. On top of that, God. has stun on crit. With the high interrupts you don't need to attack superfast, since 1/0.75 seconds per interrupt is very long. You can allow yourself to even use Vulnerable Attack. Also: Shatterstar comes quite early. Take Interruping Blows, Threatening Presence (lowers concentration of enemies a bit) and use Barbaric Yell/Barbaric Shout (dito) OR a chanter with the -10 concentration-phrase plus terrify-invocation) and you have a nearly perfect interrupt build for your barb. DPS is not superhigh, but ok. I tested that two days ago together with said chanter and it's great!

I just had the following idea: why not let other classes pick one (just one) original ability from another class. So, for example, one could choose to pick Lay on Hands OR Zealous Focus OR Faith and Conviction and so on at the appropriate level (or maybe original lvl +1). Or choose carnage OR Frenzy OR Barbaric Yell. That would lead to very flexible builds and still be a unique system - no real multiclassing (that messes everything up). You don't even need to invent new "multiclass" talents. Just define which one could be picked by other classes at certain levels. Fighter with carnage, Chanter with Flames of Devotion - such stuff. edit: Yes, a classless system would be my dream, but classes are also ok.