Boeroer

Hi, I had an idea the other day that a nature or fire godlike barbarian with all the "under 50% endurance" abilities/talents and Vengeful Defeat might be effective in terms of dps, but hard to manage with all the revives and so on. So i figured that I could abuse Dead Man Stands (boots) + Veteran's Recovery. These boots delay unconciousness for 3 sec. So if you drop to 0 endurance you will still stand for 3 seconds. It has no charges and works every time you hit 0 endurance. The description says it's possible to get healed in this time. So I guessed that Veteran's Recovery (that ticks every 3 seconds) would be enough to raise your endurance to 2 or 3 so that this KO-timer would get reset over and over and you would basically be unkillable (health loss aside). Not only that - the description of Vengeful Defeat says it triggers at 0 endurance. So I believed I found the ultimate barb-build: No resolve or constitution needed. Just make a pure glass cannon, jump into the fray and let them hit you, and when you drop to 0 endurance - *boom* - Vengeful Defeat triggers. Then Veteran's Recovery would kick in, you don't get KO'ed, you get hit and - *boom* - Vengeful Defeat. I made a barb and gave him all the items that do something special when you hit 50% endurance (basically +10 ACC and +30% dmg): Ritezzi's Thorn, a custom crafted Cladhaliath, Ryona's Buckle and so on. Long story short: Doesn't work. Obviously Obsidian discovered this exploit before I did and made it so that when you hit 0 endurance with Dead Man Stands on, all your active abilities just shut down. So Veteran's Recovery will not work. Also: Vengeful defeat doesn't trigger on 0 endurance, but on unconciousness when you drop on the floor. The damage of Vengeful Defeat then is absolutely crazy because of all the damage and ACC bonuses - but it's just a one hit wonder (tehehe). So bye-bye overpowered masochist barb build. Of course you can still use second chance items, a Paladin with Reviving Exhortation, a Priest and a chanter to revive the barb and repeat that - but it's a lot of microing and not much fun. On the other hand I just made a tanky rogue with Badgradr's Barricade. I didn't think much of it and just gave it a try - but it turns out to be a fantastic build: Deflection above 100 (that makes Riposte worthwhile against mobs) and very solid dps. Not the dual-sabre kind of dps, but still very high. And he can be in the front lines too. Another good thing about him is his aburd high reflex defense above 140. Everything that targets reflex doesn't touch him most of the time. And when it does, Adept Evasion kicks in. On top of that, he has a 30% chance to reflect all ranged attacks (spells also) back to the shooter/caster (durgan refined Barricade plus Golden Scales). I just use this guy to murder spellcasters. If they use reflex-based spells they are dead. They either get beaten or kill themselves. The core of this build is the medium shield Badgradr's Barricade that casts Thrust of Tattered Veils (ToTV) on critical hit with the bash. Rogues (especially Hearth Orlan ones) can crit a lot. While the bash itself has a very low damage output, the ToTV's damage is solid. Best things about it: all the universal damage modifiers of the rogue like sneak attack, deathblows, deep wounds etc. also apply to this. Plus- and that's quite funny - Penetrating Shot works with it. At first I thought that's stupid. But now I think that's quite good: you can activate Penetrating Shot, which gives +5DR bypass to ToTV, but it doesn't slow you down because you're in melee. It's a bit expensive to get +5 DR bypass just for your left handed crits - but on the other hand it has no downside (besides losing a skillpoint). I combined this shield with sabers first - but when I got the Forgotten Tear of the Beloved flail (and later a durgan refined Starcaller) I retrained for flails and also used One-Handed Style. That way you have a 60% (80% on Starcaller) graze-to-hit conversion. You will almost never do a graze which is quite ok for dps against high deflection foes. ANd the Starcaller itself is awesome with the spell striking and stunning. But any good one-handed weapon will do. The Vile Loner's Lance for example is also a nice item with -5 defl. on hit, making it even more likely to crit with the bash to trigger ToTV. So, which nice combinations did you discover? Which worked as you expected and which didn't?

Pathfinding is horrible. Sometimes two chars meet in battle and both decide to turn, let's say, left - then they both run side by side like if they decided to take a walk in the park - hand in hand. Romantic... and stupid too.

Sad news for the monk: Spell Binding items do no longer work with his duplicates. Bye-bye free Alacrity. But besides that: just tested the Prone Drone monk with the setup I mentioned above. Added Fast Runner at lvl 14 for a hilarious move speed bonus of 6. For dps it would be better to take Apprentice's Sneak Attack though, but this is more fun to watch. With a durgan refined robe, durgan refined dual wielding speedy weapons (Sword o Daenysis + March Steel Dagger) and Swift Strikes on there's no recovery bar anymore - even when I use Vuln. Attack. The puny damage of the rapier/dagger got pimped by Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes, Savage Attack, lashes and superior enchantment. Together with Ryona's Vembraces he has 11 DR bypass for the Sword of Daenysis (rending) and 8 for the Dagger. I just solo'd Nalrend the Wise and hit him for 20 to 60 points of damage every half second or so. That's better than I expected. As I said: no recovery bar visible (without any potions and food and spells). It's just *pierce*slash*pierce*slash*. :D If you turn the AI on and let him use Force of Anguish and Swift Strikes aggressively you can just fire and forget him. He runs around, prones enemies and tiggles them with his speedy toothpicks. Moon Godlike, Iron Wheel and Blunting Belt plus crush-proofed Gwisk Glas for survival. If he goes 1:1 the enemy is perma-interrupted. Very nice auto attacker - needs nearly no microing. Love it! Maybe I will use another race so that I can wear the Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak together with some vailian cloth outfit to spare the durgan ingots and to make him really look like a noble duelist with rapier and dagger. Style is important! So now I have companion number one for my own Lady of Pain. Excuse me, I have to test the next idea...

A small shield from the Alpine Dragon's den. You get Sabra Marie and Black Sanctuary. It casts Warding Seal 2 times per encounter when you get a crit in your face. Maybe a char that totally delves in getting crits (spell holding)/dealing crits (spell striking) would be interesting: jolting touch stiletto plus black sanctuary - when all charges are gone switch to Bleak Fang stiletto and Badgradr's Barricade. Together with Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith and Cloak of the Master Mystic and so on. Might be fun. This cries for monk since you need high ACC as well as good health. Does carnage still do this crazy things with jolting touch?

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.