Braven

Assuming you do not want to abuse the heck out of resting, I would say that the martial classes (ranger, rogue, fighter, paladin, monk, and cipher) all work quite nicely. I like ranger because the ranger's pet doesn't have a health pool (free healing) and can do a lot of the tanking and is a third body. This allows you to stall long enough to unload all of your abilities. If you do not mind resting often, the casters are very powerful because of all the per-rest spells they get. Otherwise, I find them quite weak since their starting stats are much lower, and with only two party members, you can't really afford to just conserve spells for future battles. Also, with lore, you don't really need them since you can just use scrolls for a tough battle and then anyone can be a wizard. For the most fun and best synergy, I would suggest having your two characters specialize in opposite things. Like one is a tank in heavy armor, one is a damage dealer wearing a robe. Or one that heavily focuses on disabling abilities, like interrupts, stuns, and prone, and the other focus and cleaning them up quickly with high damage. Or maybe you have one that is mainly around to buff the other one and heal them. That way, they also generally want different equipment so you don't have to pick a favorite for any given item you find.

You are actually still brave enough to shoot your crossbow?! Nice job! I like how you are not only succeeding, but are able to do so while also avoiding even more cheese like stacking massive food buffs. I consider hit and run at least realistic. The fact eating mountains and mountains of food will result into a greatly improved abilities instead of simply falling into a food coma... not so much. If Noober is not afraid to melee, one-handed style will give you +12 more accuracy ( or +7 since you lose the distant advantage racial). The accuracy potions are also very easy to come by, if you find you need them. Next Challenge: Iron Man Noober!

You make a really good point about trying to make the game into something it is not. But how do we even know this is an RPG game? Because it says so on the box? I would argue it is more of a tactical party-based combat game, with a little bit of RPG theme attached for flavor. Other then picking conversation options (which usually have no real impact on the progression of the game), there is not really that much role playing going on. All inventory items have to do with combat and pretty much every game mechanic does too. Even the so-called non-combat skills all help combat now and really has more impact there than for RPG purposes (Athletics, survival, etc). I guess they unlock a couple conversation options, but that is certainly not the focus. I just find it strange that there is a big focus to "balance" the game with patches, if it is really just about role-playing. Sometimes I think RPG-oriented players are actually the one with the blinders on, thinking that this is a true roleplaying when it is not. I am perfectly capable of "roleplaying" my way to 3 int, 3 resolve, and 18s. I can come up with a backstory to explain it all. Also, who wouldn't want to unload all their spells each battle? In the "real" world, it is unlikely anyone would ever be involved in two different battles in the same day anyway. Also, if I lived in a fantasy world, and were in a possible life/death situation, I wouldn't hold back any punches just because I am too lazy to walk back to the inn and rest few hours. Even if I knew I could win without the spells as long as I take some health damage and pace myself, tell me this: Would you want to be hit with a sword any more than you have to? Those things hurt! Totally not worth it just to find some random farmer's lost pig. If I was really interested in the RPG factors and going after the main bad guy, why in the world did we decide to go to the White March at all? A holiday? Because the PC and all the companions suddenly deeply care about Dwarven Archeology? How can you rebuild a Stronghold with that much damage in like a week and for the same cost as a few nights lodging at an inn. I think I can forgive a min-max stat line, given everything else that is equally not plausible in the game. I guess we all have to determine, individually for ourselves what the game really is and by what rules we use to navigate it. It probably has a different meaning to each person.

The problem with defining soft fails as anything that slows you down is that it encourages a single, arbitrary strategy (do whatever wins the game fastest). If anything beneficial to your party is considered a "soft fail", then it encourages sub-optimal play, in which case you might as well let the AI control your characters or purposely play poorly. If it is RPG immersion, then it is so subjective that we might as well not have any rules at all, or we should have rules in the game that specifically force players to not abuse things that hurt immersion, like actually preventing people from returning to town and resting in the middle of a quest. If resting is a "soft" fail, then almost anything you do is a soft fail. For example, if you focus on a character with very high defenses, but very low damage output, you already failed because all of your battles take longer just like encountering a game over would. Doing any sort of optional side quest is "failing". A good player shouldn't need that loot or EXP so you must be bad by actually wanting to play the game to it's fullest. By that logic, it is now just a speed game instead of an RPG. In fact, role-playing elements of any kind results in failure... Reading the conversation text of characters you meet is wasted time, just like a game over screen or resting. Carefully considering what weapon you want to use wasted more time than the advantage the weapon provides over an alternative. So now you say: Okay, that is no fun. We will now say that doing something just to play as fast as possible is now the new "soft fail". Where does it end?? Regarding your other point about anything that breaks the RPG immersion could be considered a soft fail. That means all Min-Maxers are inherently failures. Or anyone who posts on this forum asking for character build advice and what stats to take. They should just do what their "RPG hearts" tell them to do and they should adjust the difficulty level accordingly. If we all get to determine what is good immersion, and how often we our party should rest to maintain that, then why have a rest supply limit at all? Our RPG morality should prevent us from abusing resting anyways. If we shouldn't even consider strategy beyond what our "virtual" characters think is best, my fighter would have high tailed it out of Drywood the moment he saw that tree with dead bodies. No way is he risking his neck questing here! I guess I just find having a single failure condition, death, to be a lot more satisfying than hundreds of "soft" failure conditions which are not even official fail conditions and open to individual interpretation. The point of the "hard fail" is not to punish players (reloading is not that much of a setback), but to provide a single point of focus for players to optimize toward. It is about having an unmovable goal that is solid as a rock. A huge, heavy object we can set our picks to finding a weakness in. We will constantly attempt all manner of strategies in order to crush it into tiny little pieces without using the cheat console. The ultimate goal is to cheat death without actually cheating. Then.. when we have done just that, the developers should release a new version of that "hard fail" rock with the "weakness" reinforced (after we had a reasonable amount of time to relish in our victory) With "game over" (or the cheat console) being the only way to fail, the best strategy is currently to rest after every battle and either kite everything in a way that you take no risks what-so-ever (like with Iron Man mode) or go nova every battle. Easy fix - They patch the game with a difficulty setting that actually punishes you for excessive kiting and resting. If you need to do so for a tough battle, you must now give a donation to the priest at the town's temple afterwards and repent for your cheesy sins with a huge pile of gold that is not easy to recoup. Now, with that cheesy tactic squashed, we can all move and discover the next thing that completely breaks the game and I will love every second of the discovery process!

does the conversion also stack of you dual wield Durgan steel weapons? Effectively granting 40% conversion for both weapons.

Speed is also very important for DPS, because it is exponentially better the more you have. It takes a lot more work and items with non-speed dual weapons to get there. However if you can manage zero-recovery bar with stackable double (thanks to wax) single handed wounding weapons, that must be best. The reason for dual weapons being better is because the 20% attack speed talent makes it much easier to reach top speed. Also the offhand Durgan helps more than it probably should because it is not applied additively, but rather multiplied. Is drawn in spring the only 1 handed wounding weapon? (So wax is needed for dual weapon wounding) Dual wielding dagger ranger would be best since you can flank off the wolf and the pet also has tons of damage modifiers because all of your "situational" passive abilities will trigger all the time. Also, swift aim boosts melee speed and has no duration limits.

In that spiked floor, in the endless path, I just let wolfie die, over and over again, in order to scout out the room because there is absolutely no penalty for doing so. Having an immortal pet has lots of uses. Also, I have noticed bugs sometimes where you can both "die", the enemies will wander off and you will both get up again. Or sometimes they will stick around, wolfie will get up, make one attack and get knocked down again over and over. Oh, the bugs.

Oh, and a shameless plug, but my fighter build is called Glass Tsunami and is only a week old. Should be on the first couple pages of this forum. Could give you some ideas, though warning: It is full of item spoilers and does rely on obtaining certain items to be most effective, though all the important ones are easy to get and available early on. If you want a little safer/sturdier version of the build, up CON to around 7-9 and Resolve to around 9. PER can safely be dropped to around 7 with minimal impact on overall DPS. That will help keep the fighter alive in case there is trouble finding all of the endurance regeneration items. Also, he won't need to rest as often and will have an easier time surviving ACT 1.

There is actually a really good 3 Perception build which involves getting items and abilities that raise your graze-to-hit conversion such that you almost never graze despite a lower accuracy. There are also builds specifically designed to turn a low resolve stat from being a bad thing to an advantage (they want to receive crits to activate special items). I even made a build that -wants- the lowest possible CON in order to trigger the "Triggered Immunity" ability more easily. However, a different play style would want the exact opposite stats so there are no hard rules for stats. Unlike other games, there are no "garbage stats". All stats are useful for all classes. For example, intelligent fighters totally work. In short, any stat line will work as long as it fits your play style. The problem comes when your stats oppose your preferred style. Sadly, many people think certain stats are better than others without even having a specific build in mind. It sounds like you don't want to overly specialize in a particular archetype (not a pure tank, not a pure glass cannon). In that case, I suggest not min-maxing. Keep everything around 10 but increase DEX (great for all builds) and MIGHT (helps your auto heal ability, constant recovery as well as damage output), and INT because it helps all your abilities last significantly longer, including your class specific power, constant recovery, which is very important now that it was buffed considerable in 3.0. If you want something less generic, there is a Guy on YouTube, nerd commando, with some great videos that discuss modern builds specifically for 3.0. He has both Russion and English videos, so be sure to watch the English, if that is your language. They are not overly complicated builds and great for a newer player.

No, it is generally considered a bad talent, along with Defender. Most people take knock down, barrage, or confident aim for level 1 and 3 and skip both modal abilities. I think it is kind of natural instinct to dislike abilities that actually harm the character taking them that is partly to blame. Like all abilities, there are some legitimate reasons to take it, which depends on your play style. A DPS fighter who uses a pike or ranged weapon and doesn't expect to be attacked often could use it to help his allies. Or, if you also had a melee rogue fight near you, you could help protect him, even though it harms the fighter. One thing people often overlook with modals is that you don't have to turn it on when it does not benefit you. For example, you could turn on guardian only when an ally is being attacked near the fighter. If the fighter is being attacked instead, turn it off. This can be done a hundred times during the battle if you want.... But that is a lot of micro management most people don't want to bother with. If there was some kind of side-step shield block animation to go along with it, that would be much cooler. But because it just fiddles a little bit with the behind the scenes math, it is quite boring. Though I guess the same could be said for most fighter abilities. Why can't they all be like "knock down"?

Thanks for the links. I read his posts. I never really thought about it like that and he does make some valid points. Yet, I still can't shake off the feeling that I don't like the "per rest" system, and find it is less enjoyable. It feels like the designers are saying, "Here is a vague, poorly defined resting guideline for your chosen difficulty, but if you want to go back to town more or less often, we are totally cool with that because we want everyone to be happy and win on POTD regardless of skill level or character build. We understand that some people just want the steam "achievement", so don't take our difficulty settings seriously and just set up your own, personal house rules to create challenge instead." How does an honorable gamer find and exploit game-breaking combinations the Devs never considered and exploit them for maximum effectiveness if not within a well defined set of rules? Is going back to town to rest the same as opening the console bar and typing "I roll 20s"? Is saving right before a hard battle and reloading when you die the same thing? I really don't like blurry lines between "cheating", "cheese", and "legit super clever strategy".

Many people are treating this change like a nerf, but really it was yet another buff and casters are even more insanely powerful. They can now cast even more spells per battle: 5 per level eventually, if I understand correctly. There is this notion that per rest abilities are "weaker", but that is not true. They are just more annoying because you have to run back to the stronghold more often to rest and/or buy camping supplies, even though they are dirt cheap and lying around everywhere. Unless they actual penalize resting in some real way, besides making people feel bad for doing so, per rest is just a meaningless time waster. What is the purpose of trying to balance a game if the players nerf themselves constantly by refusing to min/max, refusing to rest, refusing use per rest extremely liberally, refusing to use figurines/potions/scrolls, etc... Even though the rules fully allow it. We nerf ourselves more than the developers ever have. If they actually wanted to weaken wizards and/or force them to diversify their spell usage, i suggest this simple solution: First, remove all notion of "per rest". Make every individually named spell once per encounter max so it can't be spammed. Every level, increase the number of per encounter casts you can do per battle. At level 1, one level 1 spell. Level 2, two level 1 spells. At level 3, 1 second level spell, etc. (you can never cast more than two spells per spell level in the same battle) It may seem like at level 16, "Wow, 16 per encounter spells that include two level 8 spells! Totally OP compared to martial classes!" But currently, you get something like 35 spells per battle at level 16, so we are actually not making casters any stronger. If people think that is still too generous, they can create "house rules" about limiting spells per battle just like they already do about resting too often. An alternative, to keep per/rest alive and meaningful, is to make resting have a penalty that actually matters. Maybe give enemies a "rest" bonus too (they spent the time you rested enchanting their weapons or gaining a +accuracy vs Kith survival bonus. If you can, why can't they do it too). The same would happen if you rest at an Inn.

Even if it is useful for a limited rest game.... it is still probably the most boring talent you can pick and doesn't make your character "feel" more powerful. I used to never buy camping supplies, because there are so many just lying around. However, now that survival has gotten a lot better, I do tend to follow this pattern: Re-stock on camping supplies, Rest in stronghold, go to zone, rest immediately just for the resting bonus since it stacks with stronghold bonus and camping supplies are cheap. The expansion just added even more reasons to abuse resting.

I agree about the resting problem. With unlimited resting, the game is way easier and you can abuse that with any difficulty setting. Doesn't even cost any in-game money if you run back to your stronghold or gilded vale. All the camping supply limitation does is waste the player's personal gaming time. You can always head back to town and return to exactly where you were without danger because enemies never re-spawn. Noober (different forum topic) is trying to prove that even a level 1 solo character, who never levels up, can win the game on Path of the Damned difficulty largely due to resting abuse. It is possible to spam dozens of per rest abilities to kill a single enemy and then run away from the rest in an encounter, then rest and repeat. For that reason, I can totally understand setting your own house rules to increase the challenge. But if you do have such a house rule, I would argue that wound binding is even more useful since it is a very efficient way to avoid having to rest as often. A different recent game, Legends of the Sword Coast, tried to solve that problem by giving out penalties for resting. That is also what my old Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master would do with players who tried to abuse resting; very bad things tended to happen! After all, every wasted minute is a minute that the evil forces of the world can use to grow stronger. I kind of wish Pillars did something like that. Every time you rest, enemies get stronger in some way. However, If it were ever added, I think it should probably be a difficulty option and not forced. Some players would be turned off by that or feel compelled to not-rest, end up dying a lot more, and then be very frustrated.

The purpose for the wound binding is to be used as part of a difficult, single battle. Not to avoid resting, though I guess that is a small side benefit. I agree, it is not needed often and maybe never in a party composition which has a much larger, combined health pool and damage is more distributed (this build is specifically geared toward solo play), but then, is anything actually needed if healing is not needed? Why is more damage needed if you never run out of health? If you think about it, the only purpose to any ability or talent is to help your character not die. If health and endurance is never an issue, then there is no reason to level up at all because your character is never in any danger. Exception being preventing stun-lock, which will kill you no matter how much health you have. Also, I can see wanting to pick a different talent because it makes the game more interesting or fun. This guide is specifically geared toward min/maxing and accomplishing the stated goals of maximum survivability with a single fighter. I can see why people would find this talent (and maybe this entire build) boring, for the same reason as an ultra-defensive solo paladin is boring. You could just auto-attack and take a coffee break and wait for the enemies to slowly die. Is it a good character build that is well optimized: yes. Fun to play: maybe not. I also agree that it is a bad talent for a character that is more likely to die from endurance loss than health loss, so it certainly doesn't work with most character builds. It works best for a build that won't typically die from endurance loss because they are heavily invested in endurance regeneration powers. However, just because a talent isn't universal good for all character builds, that doesn't mean it is a bad talent overall. It is just a bad talent for most builds and a great talent for the build optimized for it. As a side note, this build is not great for a low-rest game. The low health pool and lack of defenses means you will need to rest quite often, even if you are just fighting easy enemies. Wound binding helps a little, but there are still a lot of other builds better suited to that play style.

Next Challenge: Purposely make the worst possible characters through reverse min/maxing and you must defeat all enemies in the game on POTD. You get to level them and have 6 party members, but they must have the worst abilities, talents, and stat distribution combination you can think of. Items are allowed, but they must also be universally considered terrible and have no synergy, and if possible, anti-synergy. Furthermore, all of the character model customizations must be the most ugly and/or funny combination you can come up with. Cheese is only allowed if it is funny cheese.

Nice going Noober! I am rooting for you. I didn't even think about completely avoiding the combat. There is no reason you have to kill them all. The group outside Heritage tower can probably be kited away - most of the enemies are weak and slow and you can always rest after killing a couple since enemies never re-spawn. The small confines of the tower itself will be the hard part. If it were possible to sneak past them to the stairs, that would be ideal. It is only two levels until you reach the top.

Then you missed out on a secret OP, dare I say borderline-broken, talent. Since everyone immediately discards it as useless, no one has truly admired this "diamond in the rough". It is worth around 8 Con (more, if you started with high con). People love talents like apprentice sneak attack, but that is only equal to 5 might in the best circumstances, doesn't help healing abilities like might, and has special conditions to do anything at all. If "bind wounds" description was "let monk spam torments reach 50 more times per battle" and "dead man walking with a 300 second duration", everyone would cry foul and complain that it has broken the game but that is exactly what this talent could do in the right circumstances. It just has the tiny condition of requiring large amounts of endurance regeneration that never ends. Side Note: I was able to keep buffing constant recovery so that it never decreased in duration by using spell tongue and max attack speed tactics. Not sure if the duration stealing works with all enemies anymore, but it did with those annoying paralyzing guys in The White March. The attack speed draining buff also very quickly went over 300 seconds. I imagine you could start the fight with spell-tongue, just for the attack speed buff, and then switch to a different weapon set and the attack speed buff would last the rest of the battle. Spell tongue works best with a barbarian because of carnage, but it still works well enough with a fighter. So far, I have found that the only weakness of this build is the same weakness almost any solo build has. You can easily get stun-locked if you are not careful about getting enemies to attack your figurines instead at the very start of combat. This is particularly true with ranged stunners. If you use it with a party, it has no weaknesses. Granted, I haven't tried to take on a dragon yet... or POTD, but it is still the best I have personally played.

You can only place one trap? I never really used traps; you are probably right. As for figurines, I think I did miscount. Only 5 can be gathered without any combat. The easiest bounty quest has a 6th, but that is the worst one anyways, so I wouldn't bother since you can only hold a max of 4 and can always rest after combat. Is it possible for wolfie to start dialog? In that case, your PC could just be in a whole different room, far away and kite them out. I don't think I have ever tried to start a dialog with my animal companion.

I think the Sanitarium is doable. Maybe plant dozens of traps right outside the prisoner's cells which will immediately go off at the start of combat? You have all day to completely setup that room. Also, you can hide in one of the cell door ways to create a choke point. By then, you could have a total of 6 figurines, if needed. None of them require fighting to get (though you only have quick item slots for 4). Likely, you will need to slaughter some helpless people for gold at some point. There is also that one hat item that can be obtained from a store allowing 3 uses of whispers of treason. I believe there are other items that also allow charming and target will. Most enemies have a low will defense, and as a non-caster, you have the around a level 4ish accuracy with spells. Should be good enough with high Perception. A strategy could be hiding behind a door, using figurines as meat shields, and then charming enemies such that they just kill each other. One big advantage you have, that other players don't, is lots and lots of time on your hands. If you load up with items that provide powerful per-rest abilities, you can just unload the whole arsenal every battle and then rest to use them all again in the next battle. Figurines can be the meat shields that give you time to use them. For speed unloading those abilities, you can use a potion, or to save a quick item slot, use that armor in Dyford that increases action speed by 50%.

I wonder what the relative value of Hunter's Mail would be for a high-Regeneration fighter. It would stack with flat endurance regeneration and healing multipliers, I imagine. I wonder if it would stack with unbending too. Though I have always thought mail armors were the worst kind (unless you are going against slash, I guess).

I was never a huge fan of Eder as a conversationalist and the paladin can serve a very similar role as him and also passively buff everyone else and has great party abilities. If you want less micro management, keep the fighter and cut out the ranger or cipher. To optimally use ranger, you have to pay close attention to ensure they are attacking the same enemy, pet is flanking, and so forth. And another body to keep track of. Though, she will do fine even without those synergies. I also found I often didn't use my ciphers focus optimally with a full party. If you don't use a Mage/priest spell, though, it is not a big deal since they are per rest. Though ciphers are really good anyways just auto attacking if you forget. So I guess it doesn't really matter. With a full party, the game is super easy, so it is more about which characters you personally like the best.

Good point. Lashes have a different DR they are compared against, so It is not always a simple damage multiplication or addition. Non-25% percent lashes are either better or worse, because as I understand it, they are always compared to 25% of the DR of the lash damage type (even if the lash is not 25%). For that reason, I was never impressed with turning wheel because most of the time enemy DR ate up 80% of it. Usually I would only float a couple wounds before using them, and it would sometimes not even show up due to being so small and rounding to zero. If I actually tried to hoard wounds, they just expired for very little benefit. I have personally seen strange lash numbers I couldn't explain in the past, so who knows how buggy it is.

It is also worth noting that to get a unique to the highest quality enchant, you have to first kill the hardest enemies, which kind of defeats the point, since those are the enemies you needed the best weapon for anyways. Soul bounds are much easier to get to those high quality enchantments. So, even if they "could" be better. In practice, it doesn't really matter once you fully upgrade them. I think the best use case for uniques is if you want extremely high attack speeds. Or you have some kind of Gimmicky build, like perma stunning or extreme endurance regeneration, or never ending buff extension (looking at you, spelltongue). For more standard, general purpose builds, soul bounds are great.

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Belt_of_Bountiful_Healing That is what the Wiki said, and I thought I remembered it being that way in the a past. Must of got buffed in 3.0. (A lot of things got buffed a lot, I am noticing) Now I understand why you recommended it.