Boeroer

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.

It's a build! The items are essential as is the Painful Interdiction. What use is it to plan individual OP-builds that don't work well in a party? It's a party based rpg. And who said he's a glass cannon? With shod in faith that are the perfect item for a in-the-fray barb and a heavy armor he becomes very tanky. I don't drop resolve (which would be stupid because of Gattung interrupted) and I don't max might and dex. Only PER and INT should be maxed because it makes you hit and interrupt more often and also influences the radius of carnage plus causing longer disables. Only things that could stop him were disables like stun/prone/paralyze. He hasn't superhigh defenses so these afflictions will hit him from time to time. But everything else he just shrugs off. Because of his immense health pool he never runs out of health before the others have ro rest. Both spell holdings of Consecrated Ground will be activated in most fights because he will receive crits but that doesn't stop him because of bis thick armor. After that happens, he just can't get down because 2 parallel Consecrated Grounds to a ton of healing (him and allies around him). The good part of him is not only his CC capability (remember - most hits interrupt anyway, a lot of crits will occur after debuffing) but also that he can do decent (not superhigh) aoe damage while tank a whole horde of mobsters and having the chance to disable them completely for the whole fight plus provide aoe healing. He does that all at the same time and once positioned and set up he doesn't need any more micro. He is abolutely great and requires no resources like focus or spells per rest. And the Painful Interdiction isn't even for him. The -40 fort and will are absolutely great for ciphers, mages, druids, monks etc. in your party. He is of course not the best 1:1 DPSer but that's not the point. You can buff his DPS extremely when you use Firebrand from time to time or switch to more tankyness plus aoe wounding with Tidefall. You can do a lot with this guy - but not soloing. One of the most "powerful" builds I ever discovered. Maybe I should just do a video and post it in an extra thread with a detailed build description. I'm not saying that rogues are weak. They just do completely different things.

Brindle, brindle, brindle... ts ts ts. Don't you read what I wrote? The interrupting/disabling barb only works properly on PotD if you not only use Threatening Presence and Brute Force to lower the defenses of the enemies, but also a priest that casts Painful Interdiction on the mob. How can you say a build is crap when you don't do it properly? I also bet you didn't even try it out properly. My build suggested Mabec's Morning Star, the stunning warhammer or Tall Grass. Did you use this? If you're attacking enemies that still won't get critted by carnage, you can cast the Inspiring Radiance from said priest (+4 acc), use a paladin for another +6, add Gauntlets of Accuracy and take accurate carnage (which I would do anyways). Altogether: -40 fortitude and will for the enemies, +15 acc for you (+20 for your carnage). Add interrupting blows and max out perception with items. I used this build in a whole PotD walkthrough and it was one of the best I ever had. All my rogues were good of course, but this barb was just amazing. You just read stuff, make assumptions and then you caps-lock-rant about how inferior biilds are compared to rogues and fighters. They are not! It all depends on your party composition. If it wheren't so six rogues would be the absolute best party. But they are not! They are a crappy party. You just concentrate on DPS to much. But pure DPS doesn't make the game easy. For you it's: lots of DPS = OP - which is totally wrong. It's the mix that counts.

Yes - my paldins are not only walking torches, but also island aumauas with quick switch and arbalests. Also note that when you fire your first FoD shot from stealth outside of combat, you will have 3 FoD uses since the engine will reset the uses to 2 after combat starts. So that's sneak - fire FoD shot - encounter starts - you still have 2 uses of FoD. A fourth weapon set is good on one of the paladins in this case. I use an arbalest first because of the range, then two arquebuses and then I switch to shame & glory + outworn buckler. All casters should be dead by now. The other pally just shoots two times and then switches to marking Cladhaliath. Another funny effect of two pallies with two marking weapons in the front line, combined with Coordinated Attacks, is: they give each other +20 acc when they attack the same target - and that also applies to their sacred immolation. That means that even hard to hit enemies will get burned away if you concentrate on them.

I have nearly the same front line setup at the moment: two semi DPS/tank paladins with sacred immolation. I just added a chanter with the slah/fire hazard chant. Just chilling around, sipping a beer and burning everthing around. For the fat bosses I have two ranged rangers and a lazy cipher. Just awesome! Only stupid thing: I didn't take Wayfarer - now I'm sad that I have only Inspiring Triumph in kill.