mosspit

If anyone is interested, lvl 12 should be the cutoff. Tried to enter Stalwart WM2 at lvl 13 and received the prompt for scaling up. The eyeless battle at Iron Flail is pretty intense. I like it!

Ohhhh what about the faction quests?

Sigh....

Still in character I see Doing a Daniel Day Lewis??

If I may let you in on a dirty little secret... Trial of Iron is considered self imposed too. Although it only retains 1 save file, it doesn't manipulate that save file in an absolute manner. Let me state a scenario - if a particular fight doesn't proceed the way you want, you can actually quit in the middle of the battle. Since the game can't save during encounters, the state isn't persisted and you still can retrieve the previous save state. Most likely during area transition. Also I don't know if this was changed in updates, but you can actually copy and backup savefiles in the savefiles folder including ToI files. I don't know if the note is still around but there should be a file containing a message by Josh (I think) that discourages or frown upon ToI gamers who tries to "cheat" this way heh. So take input from ToI runners, including myself, with a grain of salt. But I do believe Torm is legit though since I believe Torm derives enjoyment (maybe not enjoyment in the strictest of terms ) even in the TC failure. For me, wiping in a ToI run just saps all the interest out of the playthrough. I will lose all motivation in continuing.

Sure. But maybe not useless in that scenario I personally use traps when I deemed it is ok to do so. I mean it is sitting in my inventory, and doesn't penalize me for setting up. After all, it is a "free action" and can potentially do some dmg and/or CC.

Traps? Well, I remembered someone posted a while back of how he/she laid 6 Killing Bolt traps at the feet of Alpine Dragon after faking a peaceful resolution. Apparently able to drop it down to "Almost Dead" once encounter started. Pretty funny in my opinion.

Wait what the.... I am summoning that lance frequently on my Wiz. Don't remember it look like that (gorgeous). I need to take a better look after I summon it next time!

I don’t know if this was changed in one of the updates, or if I am just lucky, but I have consistently found the gloves of swift action in The same chest on the bottom level of Durgan’s Battery in my last three play-throughs (no manipulations). Referring to the link shared by Lampros, the loot you are getting from should be one of the chest in The Foundry. There are 2 possible outcomes which are the Bracers of Deflection and Gloves of Swift Action. For me, there was 2 playthroughs (from memory) from recent times where I did not get those gloves.

Sick! Btw elemental lashes will change the appearance of the weapons too.

Any hatchet will do. After all you aren't gonna melee much so just take advantage of the +5 Deflection. Otherwise equip something that give status like Whispers of Yenwood for its +2 Con if no one else is using.

Hahaha touché!

Btw I wanted to just to give you a heads up since you are doing ToI. Gloves of Swift Action is an RnG drop so you might not come across one in your playthrough. There is loot table manipulation you can do to get the drop, but it is a little tedious in my opinion. Or you can console it in, but I have a feeling you might not want to do it.

But if we can shift to the target Orlan and what makes sense for him alone? Which is the premise of the original post anyways?

Well I mean if the scenario if the Char is Res dumped. Sure Psychovampiric Shield is good. The point is the Orlan Wizard is the one affected by the negative effects of PS. Mind Wave give +10 to Will, Fort and Reflex to the targeted Orlan. PS gives -10 Def, -10 Will, +10 Fort and +10 Reflex to the Orlan. To me, those +10/-10 insignificant as they may be, those stats differences are the qualifiers. Also can we discuss during combat too? What would you do in that situation?

I was just responding to OPs followup question about ciphers (that some cipher spells can target themselves despite what the wiki says because they are considered attacks instead of buffs). Also, OP said wizard was considered because of deflection boosting spells, so I thought it worth mentioning that ciphers have a great deflection boosting spell too that can also trigger defiant resolve. As for the trade off, gaining +25 deflection (+15-25 after attribute drain) and than +10 to all defenses after seems like a good trade to me. Like I said, I think it is more beneficial than casting it on an enemy because you don’t need to lower thier accuracy further. Generally I use mental binding on enemies I plan to attack for the massive deflection debuffs it applies (-50 between stuck on paralyzed). You have no need for further accuracy after casting that. I suppose casting it on a different enemy could help your party more; I was thinking more from a solo perspective. Even if the OP is a wizard, this works. Just have a cipher party member cast it on them. The cipher gets +25 deflection while with mindwave they get nothing. Losing a measally 2 deflection seems better than taking damage, in my opinion. The fast cast is nice though and has a cheaper focus cost. Sure but when I reference Mind Wave I wasn't referring to solo. But to OP's situation. Just to be clear, the point here is to buff the wizard who imo should not be Res dumped. Otherwise as I said, it will counter intuitive to raise the saves of a character who is Res dumped. In the case the trade off is 10 Res, which is 20 less Will and 10 less deflection. And that is out of combat. What about during combat? Would it still make sense to Psychovampiric Shield the orlan wizard instead of an enemy when you can actually lower their defences? Or use Mind Wave on a Wizard Orlan which can proc CC effects, proc Defiant Resolve at the cost of some Endurance?

Well the effect of lowering the Res of the team mate seems counter intuitive, at least in OP's case as he is trying to buff up the Wizard's saves. Psychovampiric Shield is one of the effects I though of too but decided not to voice it out due to the above-mentioned reasons. Mind Wave on the other hand just reduces health. And during actual combat, it is fast cast plus the resultant propagated wave still has the CC property which will affect enemies. Pyschovampiric Shield will stand to benefit more if it was cast on an enemy, in my opinion anyways.

In case this slipped through the cracks.

When I wrote that post, I was actually thinking about adding the leveling methods. In the end I decided against it, as they could be considered nuances and the methods will seem a little "micro-nature". But I guess I should have included those. A little disclaimer - some of the processes will seem gamey/gimmicky. Leveling of Nightshroud: Overview - when intentionally leveling Nightshroud, you should leave your offhand empty. This will give the mainhand attack a +12acc bonus which will help with Priests generally low acc. - most soulbound have criteria which are kill X number of enemy types or deal X dmg to a certain enemy types. So it will be desirable to leave fodder enemies littered across the opening area of the game. - you probably need to do some micro to put your party in idle mode so that they don't accidentally kill steal 1. 13 Blind Procs One of the easiest criteria to clear. Just hit your own teammates. Can be done out of combat. To quicken the process, unequip deflection boosting items on the teammates. If health gets too low, rest up. So it is more convenient to do this at Caed Nua. Just remember to save and reload after you first bind the weapon. There is a small issue where the game doesn't register that weapon is binded to give the blind proc without a reload. 2. 13 Humans or 65 enemies For 13 humans criteria, I will leave the following fodder enemies alone until I reached this criteria. Not to say these are only ones available but these are the ones I personally will go through if I need Nightshroud unlocked. Also note that - the enemies must be humans. Kith groups usually have Aumaua, orlans and elves. So don't be surprised if killing a kith type enemy doesn't get counted. It is likely the enemy is not a human type - killing the human with Barbs of Concentration proc from the weapon doesn't count as a kill by the weapon. This one is hard and rng dependent. Way around it is to leave more human enemies available as a buffer just in case. On the actual enemy locations - humans from Brave Derrin quest. Right side of Ondra's Gift. If you show them the dagger you gotten from the quest earlier, you can choose to attack them. - kith enemies on the right side of Maewald's room in Endless Path lvl 1. - Skaen temple questline. Plenty of kith enemies and accessible around the time you get Nightshroud - Devil of Caroc personal quest. The woodcutters are very desirable as there is a good number of them in that encounter and they are weak. 3. Kill 3 Cean Gŵla or 13 enemies The 3 Cean Gŵla locations I know that are easily accessible in the early game are - Lilith in the Wailing Banshee in Ondra's Gift - Cean Gŵla with the 4 enthralled justicars in Heritage Hill - Cean Gŵla which spawns when you get the Greenstone Staff in Longwatch Falls However, there is chance that you kill those with Barbs of Concentration and screw up the kill count. In that case, the Battle Sirens in Durgan Battery also counts as Cean Gŵla too. For me, I prefer to fulfill the 13 enemy kills instead by killing random xaurips, spiders and wichts I left alone in areas between Glided Vale and Caed Nua.

Well, it depends on the setup. I am commenting based on my situation - 4man, ToI PotD, less support due to no Priest. My strat is very CC heavy. The "free" Overwhelming Wave proc doesn't use up any cast time and gives more breathing room for my party. For boss fights I will probably swap it out for something else, but for trash encounters it really shines. Especially for the lagufaeth encounters.

Quick Question: What is the level breakpoint for the upscale option to appear for WM2? I read up that it is apparently 12 but since this is a ToI playthrough and the scaling option is a 1-time prompt, I don't wanna mess this up. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks for your kind words

Just so you know, my recommendations to you for a Cipher were also based on Trial of Iron mode. I basically sticked to ToI after my 3rd playthrough. Hmmm so a Death Knight appearance? He Carries Many Scars should be nice then? It also has passive regen. And on ToI I find although regen is nice, Tidefall's regen should be sufficient. It depends on how you use your Cipher. IMO, it might be better to prioritize taking up other passives like Bear Fortitude after your dmg talents. I find it annoying and even dangerous if the Cipher is proned/stunned.

It works I tested it. You can also cast Mind Wave on your fellow wizard. And the wave effect will still hit foes not your own party.

How about this. Create a Wild Orlan Cipher with Mind Wave (lvl 1 spell). Character needs to be at least lvl 2. Cast Mind Wave on yourself or another Wild Orlan. Defiant Resolve activated. Can be done out of combat too. Focus will be refunded since not in combat. So technically just costs some health (Not endurance). Not to say you cant still go via the MoDM method. If you do just note that Cloak of Protection and Ring of Protection can't stack.