zendingo

A really nice multi-class with kind wayfarer is helwalker monk because wounds not only increase the damage he does but also the healing from white flames. I've done several variations of the build outlined in the post below and it is fun and very effective. Tank, healer, and dps all in one with great action economy.

Monks are great and can be combined with almost anything to make an effective dps character. One of my favorites in a melee heavy party is a helwalker/kind wayfarer. The extra might and int from helwalker sublclass and duality of mortal presence makes the heals from white flames extemely effective in a huge radius. You really wouldn't even need a separate healer or tank with this character in your party, you do almost all the healing you need with your main dps ability and you get it at level 1. Just give him gear that increases might, (remember cap is 35 so you may not need much depending on if it's your PC), healing, and power level. You can use your fists as weapons. I use it as my main tank, healer, and dps all in one.

As someone who plays these types of games primarily for the character builds and combat, I definitely think a top priority should be addressing the many useless or near useless talents that simply never get picked. Some could be moved to lower power levels where there is a scarcity of worthwhile choices. Others should be buffed, reworked, or just removed. Avoiding power creep is a just poor excuse to leave these issues unaddressed. Part of fine tuning the game can and should include addressing the overall balance of combat. It is better that there is a plausible reason for taking each ability in at least one build regardless of power creep because fine tuning should also include buffing enemies if needed (it's already needed without any other changes anyways). End result should be difficult choices when making builds, plenty of abilities that might be valued in certain builds but not necessarily in others, and not 50% of abilities are auto-skipped in every build every time like it is now. Adjust enemy strength as needed afterwards.

I've had to make some house rules to have fun again. Some builds are just so OP, it takes away the fun because fights last all of 5 seconds. Yet, I can't bring myself to intentionally gimp any character I make. So far my favoriie custom party was based on these rules: 1. No damage from spells unless it's part of a weapon attack (e.g. FoD or Soul Annihilation) 2. No debuffs or CC unless its part of a weapon attack (e.g. Stunning Surge) 3. No AoE unless its part of a melee weapon attack (e.g. Clean Sweep or Lord Darryn's Voulge) 4. No mortars or other AoE ranged weapons 5. No summons 6. No tanks 7. No dedicated healers 8. No single class monks (good gawd) 9. No duplicating the same class in the party The theme of this party is the "Four Godlikes of the Apocolypse" concept by sin tee, but with totally different class compositions. There are only 4 party members, each of them a Godlike. I find the flavor very fun with Godlikes using the portraits in that video. Even with all of the self-imposed restrictions, this party is very strong from start to finish. 1. Moon Godlike Votary (Helwalker/Kind Wayfayer) dual wielding fists. Inspired by this build with modifications. 2. Fire Godlike Brute (Berserker/Devoted) wielding Lord Darryn's Voulge. Inspired by discussion here. 3. Death Godlike Mindstalker (Soul Blade/Trickster). Inspired by discussion here. 4. Nature Godlike Wildrhymer (Troubador/Ghost Heart) wielding The Red Hand. Inspired by this build but heavily modified so as to not duplicate the monk class in my party.

I tried for several hours, but I couldn't replicate this in any way, shape, or form. Has it been patched? If not, then there is some other requirement that I am not meeting.

Thanks Boeoer, that gives me a decent starting point. I've played with plenty of tricksters before, so I think this run will be more about trying to see how much I can get out of streetfighter. If it doesn't work, I may go back and do trickster/soul blade or streetfighter/helwalker. Have you tried Tuotilo's Palm plus monastic unarmed training on the streetfighter/soulblade? Do you use any spells besides Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts? I've updated my initial post in case anyone wants to add any more recommendations.

It seems that mindstalker keeps getting mentioned by multiple people. I've never played a soul blade before or even a melee mindstalker, so this makes it an attractive choice for me. I think I will go with this but I will go the streetfighter route rather than the trickster route, mainly because I have 4 other party members who should be dedicated to keeping the PC alive and well. Feedback on build, gear, and companions is still very much welcome.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried melee streetfighters in the past and found that I was "looking for a fight" 90% of the time. That's due in large part because I normally use a tank who goes in first and gathers up all the enemies. So although I forgot to mention this, I had in mind that the party setup I envisioned could be much more conducive for a melee streetfighter to thrive. I'm not dead set on this, but I am certainly intruiged by the idea. Now would a shadowdancer with helwalker be able to survive without a tank? If a tank is needed, is it going to be too much trouble to start "heating up"? I know late game it should be no problem, but I have to keep in mind the whole journey to late game.

Thanks for the suggestions. I do, however, want to keep the PC as a melee, not a ranged.

UPDATE: Here is the party based on suggestions so far. Further suggestions are welcome. PC: Mindstalker (streetfighter/soul blade) - I've decided to go with mindstalker, which I haven't played since 1.0 and even then it was ranged. Never played soul blade. I didn't go trickster due to rest of party being there to keep him alive. Any suggested build or key abilities? Rogue has so many choices for active attacks - which make the most sense? I tend to limit myself to crippling strike and finishing/devestating blow in other builds. It especially seems like I won't need many if I am spamming soul annihilation. What cipher spells make sense? What support characters would you suggest for this mindstalker? NPC1: Shieldbearer/Unbroken (Lay on Hands, exhortations, and tank) - Will a pure tank be needed? I don't want to harm the PC's ability to get flanked/heating up. NPC2: Troubador/Priest (buffs and debuffs) - Can we discuss which buffs & debuffs should be used? What stacks, what doesn't? How to we get the most out of it? NPC3: Druid/Wizard (buffs anddebuffs) - same as above. NPC4: Furyshaper multiclass (with what? Beguiler was suggested, but as others noted it will need to do damage to get focus.) (Totems) ORIGINAL POST: I'd like to try my next run through the game with the following criteria: -The PC will be a melee character and will be the sole damage dealer in the party. He will get as close to 100% of the total party damage as possible. -The other 4 party members will be set to passive AI. They will heal, buff, and otherwise support the PC, debuff enemies, and will also need to be able to survive themselves. -POTD and I will use a mod to to change NPCs to whatever classes I want. -I don't care about beating megabosses. -I don't want to use summons. My questions are: 1) What class and build would you suggest for the PC? What gear would such a build need? It seems he should be able to be built at least somehwhat as a glass canon with all the other party members as healing and support, but at the same time if he dies it will be very hard to win, so he can't be so squishy that he instantly faceplants at the start of the fight. It seems like he should be more single-target damage oriented so he can kill bosses, but I don't know how much this might be an issue. He will also need to be able to kill all enemy types. There isn't a tank in this party, so will the PC need to carry a lot of engagement slot gear to keep enemies off the rest of the party? On the other hand, I shouldn't build the rest of the party as squishies. 2) What kind of support classes and builds would you include with the party? Are there any that would synergize well with the PC (whatever he may end up being)? Party synergies are always a welcome addition. If they aren't focussed on debuffing, they can probably tank their perception in favor of other stats. I know I am asking a very open-ended question but I appreciate all input.

The solution to frenzy's deflection penalty might be to look elsewhere for survivability. While you could certainly try to compensate for it, I think it is a clue as to the developer's intention for the barbarian class. Some classes can stack deflection, others can stack armor and/or self-healing. In the case of a brute, you can easily stack enough of both through gear and abilities to be near unkillable and still focus on damage dealing in your build. Dump resolve and embrace being a damage sponge instead of a damage avoider.

I'll also throw my 2 cents in and agree with thundercleese that helwalker is fine on a ravager as long as you have other party members to take the heat off and toss him some heals. He will drop fast if focused, so don't let him get focused and he is a killing machine.

1. Does SA mean Sacred Immolation? Why is it SA and not SI? 2. Does the ring only work if you solo?

Nope!

I must have missed this one when first posted. Thanks for linking to it in the other thread. I'll try this build out in my next run.

Favorite: combat multi-classing subclasses AI customization Unlike others here, I really dislike big cities in these kind of games. It's fine the first time around, but I dread it every time I play a new game. So much time wasted NOT fighting.

So up to to lvl 9, before you get Unbending, how do deal with the low survivability? Put on a heavy armor and even a shield if you are still having problems until you get unbending. You also can get to lvl 9 without doing much fighting if you want.

I played this build and it is really a dps build that just can't die in most situations. Send him stealthed into the middle of a huge mob of enemies, activate unbending and absorb the alpha strike while staying at 100% health, then let the rest of your party join the battle. They don't even want to go after your squshies because they think this guy is the squishiest one. The AI doesn't account for invunerability due to self-healing more damage than they are doing.

I should have said this already, but I play on PotD. I haven't even tried any other difficulty since that is what I played in PoE1.

Some good points. I did some tests to see how bad these situations would be. First I took my level 10 party to Splintered Reef. Arcane dampener definitely does shut down the self-healing, so I couldn't body pull the encounter with the Undying Titan and survive. But sending in a pet to soak the dampener did the trick and I defeated the Sea-lashed Crypt on second try with only my ranger dying. I used the Captain Banquet for this fight. There are probably other encounters where it would be worse. I'm not that famliar with the game yet. Undying titan should be immune to enfeeble, the build takes great care to have resistance/immunity to all affliction types. Why does gunfire kill him? Low health total? I couldn't find a situation where this would happen. I tried hunting some high level ships but it's hard to tell whats going on with so many guys on the screen. His health never dipped below 50% though, and most of the time he stayed topped off. I don't think Undying Titan is a pure damage soaker who does nothing else. He is able to focus quite a lot on damage dealing because he doesn't need a lot of defensive talents, stats, or gear. He just happens to be immune to damage most of the time from level 9 onwards so he can function as a tank by body pulling encounters and shrugging off focused fire like it was nothing while he otherwise plays like a melee dps. Sure, but if Unbending does the trick by itself, then what's the point of all the other defenses the unroken/trickster takes? Huge opportunity cost for no gain except in a few special circumstances like arcane dampener that you can't get the enemy to cast on a pet. I'm not trying to over-hype this particular build. I also played an unbroken/trickster and I like it too. I've just been impressed by its effectiveness in actual game play up to this point.

I didn't include tanks in my party much before now, I usually just had several melee dps guys who could split aggro between them and a healer to keep them up. But recently I tried some runs with a tank, but just nothing compares to the undying titan build for survivability. And since that build dumps resolve to 3, has lowish con, and skips most tanky type abilities, it can be built to be rather offense oriented. I think if I did the build again I might gear it for more engagement slots, but I'm not sure they are really needed since the low resolve makes it pretty sticky on its own. I compared this build to an unbroken/trickster build and even though it had the best tank gear it still would go down before the undying titan againt red skull enemies. I will say that I only got to level 10 with both of these builds, so maybe things change later. But right now it seems like glass canon with 1 key ability out tanks pure tanks quite handily. What is your experience?

Here's one from this board: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104638-class-build-the-big-game-hunter-massive-single-target-ranged-damage-wanderer-ghost-heart-helwalker/

This mod adds a major upgrade to the ai conditions you can select. No idea why it isn't in the base game. https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/88

I cant read the stats from my phone. Would you be willing to summmarize the results?

Very nice, thanks for putting this very detailed guide together. I will be sure to try this out next time I start a new game.