Braven

Wizard with arcane veil (at level 2) can take out pretty much anything in the early game, particularly when bundled with the wizard double spell. Though, because it is using magic, not really Gaston-Like. A Ranger's Pet could hold their own with the insane DR and DR-Bypass. Lion with the terrify ability would shut down the bears, I imagine. Add in a moon-godlike melee ranger to fight alongside and it would be no problem. Stealing the plate armor from town before hitting the cave would make things much easier for any character. Fighter should be able to do it just fine with just Rapid Recovery and Constant Recovery and high Might. He doesn't even need a shield (in fact, I think he would do better without one since the deflection bonus of a non-enchanted shield is not very effective early game. Just fighting with a single weapon (+12 accuracy) would be more effective at that stage. He is tough enough to take the hits. Monk (ideally with max CON/MIGHT, veteran's recovery, and pumped up athletics) would be the classic Gaston by punching everything to death with his bare fists.

Fighters can get 3 knockdowns per encounter by level 2 (also helps deathblows and can be used right away in every battle). Naturally high accuracy and Disciplined Barrage can make sure they don't miss/graze. Could be a good alternative to druid/wizard/cipher if you want another front-liner.

For shield, there is only one option: quality. If you have the materials to spare, might as well upgrade them all the way as enchantment limits will never play a role. For armor, if I have an odd number for enchantments, I always get one of the specific damage type protection (only costs one and all other custom enchantments are even numbers). If you have even number for enchantment "anvils" and you plan for it to be end-game armor, you may want to skip it as it could forgo the ability to get legendary or superb later, or a stat boost. Personally, I prefer the stat boost and quality over situational protection since they are always helpful. Each quality enchantment adds 2 anvils (fine: 2, excellent: 4, etc) and the stat bonuses add 2 per stat increase. By the time you get legendary, the game will basically be over (or there will be no more difficult enemies left), so maybe you don't bother worrying about keeping enchantment room for it. Which specific damage protection you get depends on your equipment. Cloak of Comfort and Blunting Belt does not stack with an armor's damage-specific enchantment (it does stack with the quality one though), so if you plan to wear one of them long-term, avoid the slash/crush/pierce ones. The elemental ones can be situationally good because those attacks usually hit for a lot of damage, but any given one is not very common and if you really need it there are other ways to temporarily boost resistance. Crush (if not using the cloak) is probably the best because it helps against quite a few hard-hitting enemies like ogres and monks and wearing plate armor (and/or the blunting belt) is already helping the other physical damage types a lot. For the cloak of comfort character, I would take one of the elemental ones... they are all good in different situations, but I like personally corrode because enemy casters seem to like to target that a lot. If it is a "back-row" character or wearing lighter armor, you may want pierce resistance since most archers target that and it is also quite common in melee too. Or maybe try and balance out your physical DR protections for the enemies that target the better of two damage types. Also worth noting is that it is not actually that good to "shore up" an armor's weakness (like lighting protection for plate) because it doesn't provide as much DR protection since there actually a percentage-based reduction happening in the background that also applies to bonuses. It is better to just accept the weakness or change to a different suit of armor for a lightning heavy fight. For armor stat enchantment, it depends on if you care about legendary (or even superb sometimes). My personal opinion is that both of those come too late and the +2 stat enchantment will benefit from from level 5. By the time you get the "legendary" quality, you will have already defeated the most powerful enemies in the game and no longer need the additional DR protection and having it is just overkill. +1 stat is only useful if you never plan to get the +2 one since you can't upgrade it later. Another thing to keep in mind is that the armor stat enchantment does not stack with bonuses provided by other (non-weapon) equipment. If you have a specific build in mind, you will want to make sure you pick a stat that you won't also be getting with equipment later on. This is annoying because it requires a high level of knowledge about possible items in the game and is why I wish you could remove the enchantment; it really only hurts new players.

Psychovampiric Shield can be cast outside of combat on yourself or another party member for a pre-combat deflection boost (focus is instantly regained). Though, because you lose resolve, it works best to cast it on a 3 resolve character since you can't go under 1, effectively providing +25 deflection for only the cost of 2 resolve. Alternatively you can cast it on a back row companion who doesn't really need resolve.

Good points. The fact rooting pain can trigger multiple times per hit and works for non-melee attacks are big advantages. It has a stun of some kind too, right? Only working for melee attacks is a big crutch of retaliation focused builds (and the reposite rogue). Rooting pain is also available much earlier. Barbaric retaliation is a level 13 ability, which is pretty late in the game.

I noticed that the heart of fury damage buff can get extended forever with spelltongue. Not sure if that also helps retailate damage or not.

I am not sure I agree that barbarians just get closer to death when taking damage. They have a class ability that grants +25% damage when under 50% endurance, +20% when near at least two enemies (often the case). I am not sure if those apply to retaliation damage or not (UI isn't clear), but that could be a large damage boost. They also have the vengeful defeat ability should they run out of endurance which can be triggered multiple times with "second chance" item or other resurrect. While it is true that monks get to actually use their abilities after they take damage, they start with basically no abilities without wounds, so it is not so much "normal" -> "strong" as it is "below average" -> "normal". The higher endurance of barbarians (particularly with maxed out CON) means that the fire godlike racial will last longer making that retaliation source stronger too. The biggest difference for me, though, is that barbarians actually have a good form of endurance regeneration, which can be extended with spell tongue and doubled with the dragon-maw shield (could switch back to the retaliation shield after the 1/encounter heal triggers). Monks have nothing and must rely on other party members to stay alive or consumable items. Regarding rooting pain vs barbaric retaliation, I don't think the (very small) AOE makes up for the much lower damage. It also has lower accuracy because it targets fortitude (almost always higher than deflection and doesn't benefit from binding rope's "stuck" deflection debuff or Aspirant's Mark) and because it is crush damage, it can be greatly reduced by DR and does nothing to crush-immune enemies like the Alpine Dragon. Barbaric retaliation is raw damage and would often trigger in the 30s for me and I even saw over 40 with critical hits and maxed might. Against high DR enemies, barbaric retaliation does at least 5 times more damage even when not considering accuracy differences. Large groups of enemies die nearly instantly to barbarians already because of heart of fury, one stands alone, and carnage so the fact it isn't AOE doesn't really matter; single target damage is more important. That said, I think they are both fine choices for a retaliation build. I don't think that monks are clearly better and they are both good in different ways.

If you already bound that sword to someone else, there is also a crossbow called "Good Friend" (findable in the endless paths) that also allows casting Holy Power to gain 3 might. Again, switch weapon sets after casting.

Prostitutes? I think one of them grants a stacking +2 might. The soulbound two-handed sword (one that kills vessels) has Holy power castable 3/rest which provides (I think) 3 might and 7 resolve. Can cast the spell and then switch weapon sets.

Barbarian works good for retaliation too, since they have a class ability that stacks with all the other retaliation, a healing ability, frenzy (big health boost) and the highest natural endurance/health of any class. One thing I learned from the barbarian play through is that Aspirant's mark is really good with retaliation. The deflection debuff helps the accuracy of all those retaliation sources. Monk has higher DR potiential, though. Wonder if that makes up for the lesser endurance. Do the lashes help retaliation?

I've always skipped soul mirror, so I don't know if they stack or not. It only works on a complete "miss", which doesn't happen often (or ever, for tough enemies), and even then only triggers half of the time for usually insignificant return damage. If enemies did miss all the time, then why do you need soul mirror? You could just slowly kill them because they are weak. If you have the shield, it seems even more useless since they are now effectively a zero threat. The shield works 100% of the time for both grazes and misses. In other words, it includes a hidden +35 ranged deflection buff that stacks with everything. It is sad that a class ability is so badly outclassed by a piece of equipment. Soul Mirror suffers from the same problem as the rogue's Reposite and it would have been nice if it also worked with grazes. That said, it would be interesting to know if they work together, as it would be fun for entertainment value against those annoying paralyzing dart throwers in White March. Also, I wonder if a reflected "graze" counts as a "miss" for soul mirror.

Correct. Only the shields stack. There is no benefit to having more than one of the others. Rule of thumb is that weapons stack with all other bonuses and shields are considered a type of weapon.

Yeah i looked it up, there are 2 armors that do that. I used em and i got stunned for 15 seconds xD There is a helmet that does the exact same, but i does not stack or? And the yellow potions seem to lower it 2. Yeah there are 2 shields, one is little savior, the best shield and you have to fight against vithracks b4 you can get it, so better take the other one, what you find on level 5. I m only concerned about that giant mushroom fight in WM2, there are some vithracks. Non-shield stun/prone defensive items do not stack with each other (helms, rings, armors). However, those will stack with a shield because shields are considered "weapons" and weapons stack with everything. So, for optimal stun/prone protection, use one of the shields (both found in the endless paths) and your choice of other +50 while stun/prone equipment (armor/helm/ring). That will net you +100 to all defense while stun/prone which usually means that almost everything will miss you completely. You can just lie on the ground all day long and laugh at your enemies feeble attempts to hit you. For paralyze, there is a higher level scroll you can craft for immunity or, in the second expansion, there is an item that grants permanent immunity. I like to get that before a certain high-level bounty full of annoying AOE paralyzing vithracki. Yeah, i should have known that before i did the vithrak bounty. But it will help me in od nua and the mines. Helm: He carries many scars +50 defense while stunned Shield: Ilfan +50 defense while stunned Armor: Blaidh Golan -50% stun duration Potion: Potion of Major Recovery -40% hostile effect This should do it, i hope xD There is also a helm that provides both +3 STR and +50 defense while stunned which is strictly better. It is the Helm that you have to find the pieces for in the expansion. Though you need to direct the previous owners actions the correct way to get the +50 defense enchantment. I like that one since it is good to wear even when not facing enemies that stun/prone. Also, in the Endless Paths, you can come across a nice ring which has +3 DEX and +50 defense while stunned/prone.

Yeah i looked it up, there are 2 armors that do that. I used em and i got stunned for 15 seconds xD There is a helmet that does the exact same, but i does not stack or? And the yellow potions seem to lower it 2. Yeah there are 2 shields, one is little savior, the best shield and you have to fight against vithracks b4 you can get it, so better take the other one, what you find on level 5. I m only concerned about that giant mushroom fight in WM2, there are some vithracks. Non-shield stun/prone defensive items do not stack with each other (helms, rings, armors). However, those will stack with a shield because shields are considered "weapons" and weapons stack with everything. So, for optimal stun/prone protection, use one of the shields (both found in the endless paths) and your choice of other +50 while stun/prone equipment (armor/helm/ring). That will net you +100 to all defense while stun/prone which usually means that almost everything will miss you completely. You can just lie on the ground all day long and laugh at your enemies feeble attempts to hit you. For paralyze, there is a higher level scroll you can craft for immunity or, in the second expansion, there is an item that grants permanent immunity. Those are good for a certain high-level bounty full of annoying AOE paralyzing vithracki. The scroll could be an alternative to distraction figurines for the annoying dart throwers in the first expansion. In my most recent playthrough, my max MIGHT/CON barbarian was able to shrug off most fortitude attacks ( most stun/prone/paralyze attacks target that defense). The high fortitude from stats and greater frenzy (increases fortitude by 24!), along with Ring of Protection or "Father's Teeth" made his fortitude go sky-high. Add in barbaric shout to lower all enemy accuracy by 20 (unless terrify immune) and it is actually quite hard for enemies to land a hit. It would be even better with the racial bonus to stun/prone. The +20 Poison defense bonus (mountain dwarf, or equipment) helps for the annoying dart throwers which paralyze (attack is considered poison-type). High fortitude also helps a lot with some of the high damage spells and raw damage attacks enemy casters have.

You can go for a "stun-lock" build where you just use level 1 chants and then use the first and second level invocations that stun/paralyze enemies. The second-level one is usually better because it has a longer duration, range, paralyze instead of stun (better debuff), and targets Will instead of fortitude (usually much lower). With high accuracy and intelligence, you can keep enemies paralyzed permanently since the duration often lasts long enough for you to cast again right as it wears off. It also gets better at higher levels because phrases take less time to complete (brisk recitation) and your accuracy is better. Against enemies immune to paralyze, you will have to fall back to summoning. Some tough "boss" enemies are either immune or have too high of defenses for paralyze to work very well. For example, the Alpine dragon. For this type of chanter, your top stats should be Perception and Intelligence. Intelligence helps the paralyze duration and Perception helps spell accuracy, which is important since Critical and Grazes have a large effect on duration. My third priority would be dexterity since it helps with the invocation recovery time (and also helps your DPS with weapons). Paralyzed enemies have a -40 deflection penalty which will help you land better hits with your melee weapons and the "death" chant also targets deflection and benefits from it too. Because of the big deflection debuff, you might want to consider weapons with critical-hit effects (spell-striking, annihilation) which should allow for a decent melee DPS. If you have any way to lower enemy will/fortitude (weaken, sicken afflictions), that will help you land your invocations. I think there is a hat that causes sicken status that can be found which lowers will and fortitude by 14. It is really important to avoid miss and grazes. Because you probably will have a low resolve and constitution (defenses), you need to figure out how to survive for the first few seconds of combat while you wait for your phrases to complete. In a party, you can just stay in the back. For solo, easiest is to buff movement speed stay just close enough to avoid combat ending, but far enough to not get hit. Boots of speed, fast runner talent, and the 1st level phrase that increases movement speed is very helpful for this (and armor that can be found early in ACT 2 which helps movement and ranged deflection). Some encounters you will need to use figurines to distract enemy casters. A shield could also be useful for some encounters, particularly the one that reflects ranged grazes (useful for the expansion that has paralyzing dart throwers). Other items to look for are ones that grant defensive boosts or immunity to afflictions that stop your movement: Stuck, stun, prone, paralyze, etc. I am not sure if you can keep chanting while invisible, but that could make the Cape of the Master Mystic good for staying alive as a chanter, though that doesn't come until pretty late. ------ A second build option is a pure DPS chanter. This is a traditional "tank" build where you plan to do all of your damage with either the higher level frost invocations or with phrases, or both. For this you want high Might, Intelligence, and Perception. All three of those increase the damage of your invocation and chanting. Of the three, might has the largest impact. Might/Intelligence also helps increase your healing abilities to keep you alive longer. Veteran's recovery and ancient memories are good talents to get early. Generally, you want to use a shield for maximum defense (given chanter's low endurance pool) and then just sit there while things slowly die. Interestingly, holding just one weapon and no shield also applies an accuracy bonus to chants and could be useful at the very early parts of the game when accuracy is paramount. Decent constitution is also good to compensate for the low endurance/health and to increase fortitude, the most important defense to avoid the worst afflictions. The main damage chants are the level 1 phrase and level 3 phrase (dragon one). With a full party, the level 3 fire lash chant could also be very damaging. For invocations, the frost ones are best for damage, but they won't be available until later in the game. Probably best to use the stun/paralyze ones early on if you don't want to use summons. With your high accuracy/intelligence, they accomplish the same purpose as a summon (stop enemies from attacking you and increasing damage by lowering their deflection). ------ Most of the other invocations are not very good. Some provide a tiny amount of endurance, others provide defenses to a particularly ailment, or a minor enemy debuff. The problem with those is that you can do the same thing much better by simply crafting a scroll for the few times when you need them. Why have a temporary defensive boost when you can have complete immunity with a scroll? Invocations also stop your chanting for a bit, so they do come with a price to use them.

Int has no effect on the duration of summons (sadly). They are a fixed duration. (12 for the phantom, 20 for all the other ones)

These are the ones I can think of, but there might be more. 6 - Flames of Fair... Saber x2 with wax (weapon set 1) 3 - Staff in Hearthsong (weapon set 2) 1 - Curoc's Brand (weapon set 3) 4 - Base Wizard 1 - Spell Mastery 2 - Ring of Selonan 1 - talent =18 fireballs If you are looking for maximum fireballs for a single encounter, you could add in the necklace of fireballs (8 fireball charges) and 6 stacks of fireball scrolls (30 fireballs). For a grant total of 56 fireballs for a single combat, solo. With 6 wizards, they could each in theory have 30 fireball scrolls (if it is possible to get enough crafting supplies) and also 6 for being a wizard and then we duplicate the necklace instead of the saber... for a total of 241 fireball spells in a single encounter. There are lots of other items that give (often 3) fire-type spells per/rest. if you include fireball-like spells, such as delayed fireball, the total could be increased further.

It is very difficult to succeed at all checks. Remember, there are also physical checks (that use STR/CON/DEX), though I think some of them can be done by companions, and also ones that use skills (Lore, Survival, Athletics, etc). It is not practical to be good at everything, and in someways I think it is less fun from a RP perspective, since a good character has both strengths and weaknesses. You can't really mess up stats in this game; particularly with a paladin. I think it is a lot more tempting to min-max a character that always stands far from the heat of combat, firing a long bow or wand. They don't really need any of the defensive stats, but a paladin benefits a lot from every stat so you can't really go wrong.

I wonder if there is some way to kill dragons with massive DR and health, combined with barbaric retailation. With max CON, barbarians can reach several thousand health. Add in Binding wounds and it might be possible to reach 10k. Barbaric retailation is raw damage, so it doesn't matter that dragons have really high DR. I am not sure what the highest passive CON is, but here are some off the top of my head without consumables: 20 Dwarf starting 1 effigy resentment 4 ring 4 duel Whispers of Yenwood (copied with wax) 2 prostitute 3 rest bonus 1 god boon = 35 Con, which is 125% more endurance/health On top of that, there are temporary ones like +6 from greater frenzy, food bonuses, and so forth. At level 16, barbarian would have: 720 endurance (from 35 con). With a 6x health muliplier, it is 4,320 health (I think). Lost health while buffed with temporary bonuses will effectively be free, further increasing the health pool. With binding wounds, field triage, and greater frenzy boosted might/con, you could probably have over 10k. If you get hit in melee by the dragon, say 100 times, before running out of health and deal 10 raw damage per retaliation (we will assume a lot of grazes), that is 1,000 passive damage to the dragon. The main problem is endurance regeneration. I am not sure if stacks of moonwell scrolls can keep up, even with maximum healing multipliers, high might, and high INT. I think that build would also want max DR (legendary plate, thick skin, second skin, etc) and enough defenses to avoid critical hits. The scars armor could be good since it buffs DR further when "low" on health, which is a large amount with a max health barbarian and would have the range doubled because of the binding wounds talent (that you would wait until almost out of health to use) Another race option could be Fire Godlike. Then you get more DR at under 50% Endurance and an additional retaliation source. Not sure how easy it would be to consistently stay under 50% endurance without dying, but given the huge endurance pool, it might be possible. Having a maximum number of retaliation sources is probably better than absolute maximum health since eventually you run out of endurance regeneration and more retaliation will kill the dragon (and everything else) quicker. I think someone said that Fire Godlike retaliation scales really well so it could still be a very significant damage addition. The biggest downside of fire godlike is that you miss out on a helmet and there is a really good one for dealing with dragon breath (which you want to negate since retaliation triggers on melee, not breath attacks). You also miss out on max item might and the +2 racial might nad +1 racial CON. Might is really important since it helps both endurance regeneration and retaliation damage. In fact, Might is probably still better than CON since more health doesn't help if you can't gain endurance fast enough. For stats, you have very little need for DEX or Resolve, so those get dumped. You will want max might, con, perception (retaliation rolls accuracy). Decent INT is helpful for endurance regeneration duration and carnage range for killing off the minions with heart of fury.

That is about it; handle the extras and provide distraction duty while another class deals with the dragon. For solo, I suppose you would need the usual cheese tactics most classes are forced to deploy. Tons of scrolls of confusion, tons of pre-buffing with food/drugs/etc, extra item slots talent, and then just abuse the poor enemy AI by attacking from afar.

For my cipher, I have thought of 3 combinations, all with zero recovery and the same weapon animation speed. 1) Blade of the Endless Path (highest damage, even without additional DR Bypass) 1.5 (alacrity or time-parasite) x 1.15 (durgan) x 1.2 (speed enchant) = 2.07 (padded armor) 2) Strike Hard and shield (highest defense) 1.5 (alacrity or time-parasite) x 1.15 (durgan) x 1.2 (speed enchant) + 1.15 (shield durgan) = 2.22 (scale armor, or robe and vulnerable attack) 3) Dual Speed Weapons (middle ground) 1.5 (alacrity or time-parasite) x 1.15 (durgan) x 1.2 (speed enchant) x 1.2 (speed enchant) x 1.15 (durgan) = 2.85 (plate armor and vulnerable attack and recovery to spare) With gauntlets of swift action, you can actually do vulnerable attack with all three styles, or use wear heavier armor

I discovered that cautious attack gets suppressed by vampiric shield and borrowed instincts, making it basically worthless for a cipher. I feel like talents should always stack with abilities. Ironically, gallant focus does stack with borrowed instincts, even though it doesn't stack with other classes accuracy boosting abilities like priest blessing and fighter's accurate barrage. I wish there was a rhyme/reason for whether things stack or not. The only way I have managed to get "always miss" level of deflection is by using consumables like potions of wizard double, along with max resolve and all defensive talents. The vithracki undead are difficult to defeat for solo ciphers because they are immune to charm, paralyze and stun. They have a paralyze secondary attack and quickly murder figurines. Super high deflection or paralyze immunity (late game item, or scroll) is the only way I have found to kill them solo. "Defense against" items are worthless since you can't get defenses high enough to prevent grazes. I am thinking high lore (for immunity scrolls) is the easiest route for dealing with the troublesome enemies, when playing solo. Then, just go all out offense for all other enemies since you can just charm/paralyze them for defense and the added offense helps speed things along.

I think DR bypass is great, at least in the early game. Fast weapons have an average base damage of 11, and bigger one-handers are 13.5. A typical "good" damage modifer is +20%. That is equalivent to just over 2 DR-Bypass for fast weapons. Vulnerable attack is over twice as good by that comparison, and still better even when considering the recovery penatly. A mace with 3 DR bypass does a bit more damage than a Saber with a 20% mod. True, a few enemies have very low DR, but they are weak fodder where the extra damage doesn't really matter anyway. Some exceptionally high DR enemies (dragons) may nullify DR-Bypass completely because you still do min-damage even with a lot of DR-bypass. This DR-favored math would be true if base damage never changed and all modifers were additive. However, I think "lashes" might not be helped by DR-bypass. I also seem to remember hearing that weapon quality actually adjusts weapon base damage, thus buffing additive damage modifers while not helping DR-Bypass. Can anyone confirm if this is true? I wonder if in the late game, the speed penalty of vulnerable attack would be too harmful compared to the benefit (with lashes, superior+ quality, etc). Assuming you can't nullify it with lots of stacking attack speed buffs.

I feel like Ring of Changing Heart is not the same as puppet master, either. When I have used it in the past, the duration was always pretty pathetic. I do like Puppet Master's domination with Cipher because of the longer duration and quicker casting, compared to Whispers. Midway through a battle it is a more efficient use of your time. My standard battle plan is: 1) vampiric shield up before the battle begins 2) start the encounter 3) whisper charm 3 enemies; if possible spell casters 4) attack a couple times with weapons to generate focus 5) cast puppet master 6) repeat steps 4-5 until there is one enemy left 7) when there is only one enemy left, perma-paralyze them to death with mental binding. Against packs of vessels (immune to charm), it is more about finding a choke point and just beating them up one by one with paralyze. For mushrooms (immune to all of your disables: charm/stun/paralyze), I buff up defenses and use the hat that prevents confusion and then use damage spells (soul leak, detonate, or disintegrate) to quicken the battle and minimize health loss. Against ones that can prone, use standard anti-prone equipment.

Yes, most are just for flavor, or provide a very short-term benefit. Some allow you to avoid fights. A couple conversation options with stats are "traps" that actually have a bad outcome. A couple of the the toughest boss battles in the game can be avoided with conversation options that have stat requirements (in the expansions). Also, there is one (good) quest-related talent that has a stat requirement in the second expansion, though by then you should have no problem buffing it up if you desire that quest result. If you know where they are, you can just temporarily buff your stats with food/drugs/prostitutes/items, or spend a couple thousand gold to retrain to those stats and then retrain back. There are also some items you can't get without high Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. But they are not very good/important items. I believe you need relatively high dexterity in order to get one of the durgan ore pieces, which might be beneficial for a full party. Sadly, almost all the time, the options you choose in conversations are 100% role playing and make no difference at all (at least if you are not a paladin or priest). Like most role playing games, Pillars gives the illusion of choice when really all the options have the same net result.