Boeroer

My next playthrough will also be with this build (well, 95% of this build. I want to try out Rapid Recovery plus Cloak of the Tireless Defender plus Trollhide Belt instead of Shod-in-faith for a steady +6? end/3sec base and see how that goes). Now that the engagement and disengagement radius is even bigger, I might also go for Defender. Last playthrough my two animal companions were wrecking stuff with diseng. attacks. Then I want to try out a dual stiletto painful interdiction skaen priest as main. Rogue with spells that is. Then my "Prone Drone" auto attacker swashbuckler monk I tested the other day (dual wielding durgan refined Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger and Angio's Gambeson. Uses Force of Ang. and Boots of Speed together with Long Stride). He has +25+20+20+15 = +80% Attack Speed by design without other buffs and can use the Alacrity from the gambeson for his two elemental thugs that use their fists and get +50% Attack Speed for free that way. He's not a superoverpowered DPSer but it's so much fun to watch him go zip zig zag and proning and piercing things without microing. Then I want to use a build that uses Badgrad's Barricade that I'm testing atm. Not sure which class I will use. I also want to try a combination of stormcaller (shock DR reduction) and Black Sanctuary tank (Warding Seal on getting a crit). That's what I need the shod-in-faith for. The seal's shock damage might be nice together with the DR reduction. Also not sure which class(es) I want to use for this. A Druid Tank? Or maybe I'll try an unarmed druid with Novice's Suffering and Skandals of the Forgotten Friar. Does anybody know if the +2 unarmed damage bonus of the sandals also applies to Spiritshift weapons? I know Novice's Suffering doesn't.

Another thing with this shield: it has a 10% chance of reflecting ranged attacks - and the description says it also works against spells. With durgan steel you can add another 10% of reflection. That's quite good. If it works against spells like necrotic lance and so on it would be very funny to see these stupid skeletal wizards nuke themselves from time to time.

You mean Turning Wheel? That's the same bug as pre 2.02, when lighning strikes would override Turning Wheel all the time. Maybe this bash thing slipped through when they fixed that issue. Thanks for testing. Maybe this shield is more fun when you don't use it on PotD - not enough crits there if you aren't a rogue (+hearth orlan). Or you have to stack a lot of ACC with Zealous Focus, Inspiring Radiance and Gauntlets of Accuracy and so on. Maybe I'll try a build after my current playthrough. @Kasajal: I tried a six rogues party once and with it a tanky rogue build with riposte. I have to say it's a wasted talent - at least on PotD. Your deflection is never high enough to let most enemies miss a lot - and this whole riposte stuff happens only when they miss. Instead they graze a lot and that gives you nothing. Ripostes are rare and do nothing special. To make it worthwhile it should happen more often (like 50%, not 20%) or it also should work with grazes. Whatever - it's not worth the skill point.

Quick update: doesn't generate focus. (

I think the that's exactly the case: bash is not influenced by the ACC malus that the main weapon will get. So... I figured out that pure melee skills like Vulnarable Attack and Savage attack don't work with this - but surprisingly Penetrating Shot does. So I think that at least this spell strinking form of Thrust of Tattered Veils is considered a ranged missile attack - maybe that's also the case for the wizard spell itself (needs further testing). So I guess that all talents and abilities that apply to ranged missile attacks will also apply to this spell striking - which is a bit stupid since it's a shield and shields don't work well together with ranged weapons - but there are some talents/abilities that work with melee and ranged weapons (most of the rogue for example). I'm curious if a ranger's stunning shots or driving flight would work with this... or if it generates cipher's focus. Next test will be a tanky rogue with high crit chance and several modifiers like deathblows and deep wounds and so on.

Ok, so I couldn't wait and tested it with my paladin: it seems to have limitless spell strikings! I managed to crit an Ice Troll three times in one encounter with the bash (which has +8 ACC and I don't know why) and every time it triggered Thrust of Tattered Veils (with +10 ACC). The best part is that not only the bash, but also the spell itself received +25% burning lash damage from my chanter's phrase. It seems to be considered an attack from a weapon instead a spell. Now I'm wondering if other modifiers will also apply to this spell (like vuln,. attack, sneak attack, deep wounds, lighning strikes, turning wheel, deathblows, savage attack, FoD and so on)? That would be absolutely awesome...

Hi, I just noticed the following thing: The medium unique shield "Badgradr's Barricade" has the enchantment "Spell Striking: Thrust of Tattered Veils" and bash. So the first thing is it will unleash this spell if you do a crit with the bash attack, I assume. But the second thing that is different to all other spell strinking itms I encountered is this: it has no description like "1 per encounter" like all the other spell strinking items have. Since 2.03 you also will see these spell strikings as inactive symbols next to your special actions (special attacks, spells, spell bindings, spell holdings etc.) together with a number how many charges are left. Badgradr's Barricade doesn't add such a symbol. So I assume it has unlimited charges per encounter? This would be quite powerful and whole new builds could emerge around that shield. Otherwise the shield is quite underwhelming. So - can somebody verify my assumtions? If not, I will have to go and generate a char that can try this out - but I'm really too lazy for that right now.

Not only solo. This is very useful for every party composition. An undestructible blocker/tank is always nice. Instead oft nerfing it the enemies could just choose a different target if they can't harm the blight.

The only "unarmed" talent that does not work with the druid's spiritshift weapons is Novice's Suffering. This is not a bug but intended, since it would be too powerful.

Good point with the blights. Didn't think of that before - it's brilliant. So it will be nerfed...

Well - immunity to prone makes my priest cry. A lot. No more Sabra Marie early on.

If you reach Defiance Bay, go straight and after the Fox&Houd turn slightly left (the road where you would run into Gordy) to meet backer npc Visceris, a druid. He's pretty tough but drops a stag helmet for +1 Dex and +2 Athletics.

You need to read the note that you find together with the crate when you do the quest for the smith in Gilded Vale. If you don't read the note you will not be able to access the gem shop. No, wait - you can use high might in dialogue to force the guy to sell to you I think.

This would be my approach: Race: Death Godlike Abilities/Talents: Prey on the Weak, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Weapon Focus Ruffian, Two Weapon Style, Vuln. Attack, Savage Attack, Insp. Radiance., Bloody Slaughter. Maybe Aggradizing Radiance for per enc. self buff before lvl 9. Maybe Painful Interdiction for setting up Sneak Attacks by myself. Items: Sanguine Plate, Shod-in-Faith or Glanfathan Stalking Boots or Boots of Speed (together with Aggr. Rad.= +5 move speed!), Ryona's Vembraces (another +3DR bypass) or Pilferer's Grip, Garod's Chorus or Duryd Demon vor Azalin's Helmet, Blunting Belt, Ring of Changing Heart, Finrea's Grace, Misery's End. Stilettos, Vuln. Attack and Ryona's Vembraces add up to a great +11 DR bypass. That combined with dual wielding speed and frenzy plus self buffs from Aggr. Rad. (+6 might e.g.) and spells should boost your DPS a lot. Sounds fun - I might try it in my next playtrough.

There were several people here who said that it's absolutely viable. Some of them even tanked and killed the Adra Dragon. Your thoughts and ideas seem to be solid.

Did you "find" these things via console or did they appear in a real playthrough? Never saw anything like that before ingame. OK, the battle axe can easily be missed because it looks like all the others. But the plate looks different.

Wrote a bug report. I found an old posting from may that said the same thing (vers. 1.04). Nobody ever answered to that.

It's 2.03 and still doesn't work. Argh!!!

The special enchantment "stunning" on several unique weapons applies an affliction that is not the "normal" stun that you geht from spells vor special attacks. Instead, the enemy gets tagged with "Weapon Name (x sec)", where weapon name may be Mabec's Morning Star and so on. This affliction doesn't trigger sneak effects, it doesn't lower any stats (deflection, reflex and so on) like a proper stun affliction would normally do. That's quite useless. Overbearing weapons on the other hand will cause the normal prone affliction like spells and special attacks do. Why are these two enchantments treated differently? There's a proper stun affliction in the game - why not use it? In my eyes that's a bug.

That's bad. When I used this setup with a barb it worked like a charm with carnage. Entire groups were stunlocked for the whole fight - but he had no sneak attack of course. I mean it doesn't matter if it's the "official" stun or just another affliction with the same name as long as it works like it. Some other weapons also apply effects like wounding but when you take a look at the enemy it says "Tidefall x sec" instead of "wounded". But that's OK because these effects work with Combusting Wounds or Predator's Sense. But if this special weapon stun doesn't trigger sneak attacks - that's just stupid and must be a bug. Thanks for finding out!

Did both several times and both ways are absolutely viable. DPS will maybe be better when you're dual wielding sabres. In that case you can dump your INT because you won't need it. But using an overbearing or stunning two-hander with good INT is a lot of fun and effective. You can get these weapon very early. Tall Grass is good for the extra prones, Hours of St. Rumbalt is great because it not only prones, but also has +0.5 crit damage multiplier. Dps-wise that's better, because if the enemy is prone your next hit will have a higher crit chance - resulting in more prone duration and more crit damage. If you can buy the stunning Mabec's Morning Star from Azurro, then you can also use that together with Interrupting Blows. Stun is more powerful than prone. One handed weapons that cause afflictions on crit come very late. But you can always retrain. Shatterstar (longer interrupt, annihilation) + Godhanthingy (stunning, +1 might) warhammers with interrupting blows is powerful. So is We Toki + Edge of Reason. There is one exception to the rule that one handed weapons with afflictions come very late: Cladhaliath comes quite early in the game when you choose the dozens. The following combination is very nice and often overlooked: use the stunning enchantment for Cladh. plus either the vicious or coordinating one. Then you'll have a stunning spear that does either +20% dmg when the target is stunned (nice synergy with itself) or has +4 ACC when you attack an enemy together with a teammate. Second, use the Vile Loner's Lance. It causes -5 defense on hit. Put the Lance in your right and Cladh. in your left hand. You will hit for -5 defense and then attack with Cladh. for stunning - repeat. On top oft that comes the fact that all spears have +5 ACC. That's good for causing crits. Together that can be +18 Acc for your stunning blows without buffs from others: -5 defense(lance), +5 acc(spears), +4 acc (coordinating cladh.) and +4 from mob justice (dozen's reward talent). You will crit very very often and can combine this with minor threat from orlans and durgan refinement for even more crits. That's one oft the best setups I ever encountered - the only thing is that dual wielding spears looks kind of odd.

I would think the monk is your best friend: he has good defenses, good DPS and good CC and is fun to play. His special attacks are fun to use. All in the same build. I also believe that his starting deflection is now higher than that of the paladin since pally's was nerfed a bit in 2.03. With defensive talents you can easily reach a very high deflection, but maybe you don't want to pump it too high because of wounds. And you can always switch between high defl. and other defenses. That's very flexible. If you take a moon godlike (which gives good synergy effects with the wound system) you will have a powerful and fun char.

There are some unique weapons that do dual damage where the normal ones only have one damage type. For example there's Bittercut (sabre, slash/corrode) and Stormcaller (hunting bow, pierce/shock). I also think that Great Swords is one of the best choices generally and Soldier the most versatile Weapon Focus group.

I was replying to your anti-barbarian rant. You stated that barbs are bad and of course rogues are better - as always. That build is even good when you don't use a priest. Interruping also occurs without crits. You can also use the grey sleeper if you want to proc on-hit effects more often with carnage - also works nicely. This build just goes from good to superb when you have a priest in your party, that's all. And it depends what you mean by "overpowered". This build is overpowered because it does four things at once: tanking, aoe CC, aoe damage, aoe healing. Even without stunning it's still more powerful in terms of how it influences mob encounters as a single rogue. The rogue is better at killing one tough enemy and is overpowered in that regard. Maybe you should rename your thread into "highest DPS build", then we all agree its Rogue for melee, pat your shoulder and go on - if it is that what you want to happen for your own personal thread. May that's a little boring though...

Paladin's history: Buff, nerf, buff, nerf - true story. Sad one though. They already have less accuracy than fighters, monks and rogues. Sure, Sacred Immolation is a very good new skill - but why do you have to nerf deflection then? It's enough to rebuff fighter's deflection which was destroyed with the defender nerf. All this nerfing without mentioning it is annoying.