Braven

Another question I have is: Does sneak attack and/or deathblows work with the spell fireball? If so, the rot gloves (or druid) could trigger AOE deathblows with spreading plague (and -20 or so to reflex) and then you could go to town with the 3xrest fireball spellbound items. While alone fireballs are not particularly powerful late game, with a 150% damage buff on an AOE spell, along with scion of flame, they could be pretty devestating. Could add in fire godlike too for deathblow retaliation. I think there is something like 10 or so fireballs possible from spellbound weapons (with wax to duplicate one of them). Finally, with adept evasion and a shield, the rogue could stand right in the middle of the fireball blast zone if needed. The mail armor with that blinding fire attack would suit a fire rogue well too.

Hmm, that is pretty good. Escape is good anyway for the deflection early. I guess they get cut down quick enough with melee. My thought was to rely mostly on those gloves in defiance bay for death blows when needed which cause 2 long lasting ailments on like 6 enemies. Seems like it would help the retailation attacks and applied quickly instead of having to hit each of them individually hoping for crits. That opens weapons for other enchamtments since the stun is not really needed now. Though the double damage type of hammers is really nice since we can’t just switch weapons without losing the shield. Stunning a caster could be nice just for the shield procs... I think that is like a 20 deflection debuff. Sadly, the shield hits first with full attacks.

Oh yeah, forgot you can’t queue the ranged attack since it needs to be within 2 meters and it will just fire right away. Thinking backstab is not worth the trouble. Sneak attack blunderbuss could be a good opener though. While You get two off with duel-wield, I think the total damage is still less. With a two-hander, it takes too long (with a low dex build)

Maybe just sneak attack is good enough with the blunderbuss. Casters are usually pretty weak. Extra talents would be nice to make the melee side better. Vulnerable attack for melee bypass and veterans for more healing. My main issue with the high deflection rogue is that it does nothing to help kill off ranged attacks; particularly spell casters. I guess there is a good shield for that, though.

I was thinking about a hybrid rogue who opens with a blunderbuss shot and then switches to saber/shield. Question: Does penetrating shot work with that shield from Durgan’s Battery? The veiled thrust on critical hit. Blunderbuss benefits a lot from DR-Bypass and if the shield does too, then the talent is an added bonus with no speed penatly in melee. Saber works well for reposite attacks and belongs to the same weapon focus group and blunderbus has the highest single hit damage, assuming you can reduce DR down to zero. With leadsplitter, penetrating shot, and ryona’s gloves, you can get 15 DR bypass. Add effigy bonus and 16 bypass is possible. Could make for quite the backstab. Or 12 DR bypass is probably good enough (no gloves or effigy) Question 2: Does afflictions apply after all 6 projectiles hit or after each individual one? (For deathblows and debuff effects) The idea is to switch between a couple guns to one-shot ranged casters with backstab or charm them. Then switch to a reposte-shield build for taking out the melees using though gloves that cause two afflictions to trigger deathrattle and Resolution saber for the high damage and draining effect to help heal up the grazes. Kind of talent heavy though. Talents: Weapon focus - ruffian Penetrating shot Aspirants Sword/shield style Superier deflection Cautious attack Backstab Shadowing thing

No, I am pretty sure it was fixed in a patch.

Sure! Fists will do the most damage in the early game, but eventually weapons will eclipse them later in the game due to unique enchantments. I personally like weapons with the deaining enchantment on monks and with retailation builds. More heath means more retailation and wounds. That can help make up a bit for the lower damage. But don’t expect miracles. The amount of endurance drained is pretty small. This build had fists in the second weapon slot I think mainly because it is a different damage type (crush) while the swords are pierce and slash. You could put something else there instead or just not switch weapons. One nice thing about leaving fists in that weapon slot is that the character model looks a little cleaner without having extra weapons strung to it’s back or hanging from the waist. The real monk concept is the “wounds resource” not the “fist” weapon option; that is completely optional. I just wish monks had a catalog of “powers” like the cipher to choose from when spending wounds, instead of just two or three. Spamming Torments Reach over and over can get old after a while when playing solo.

Yup; for boss fights, I have +15 Defense set-up going. And I, too, use that reflect shield until I get Little Savior. In fact, I use 2 of them, since you can kill the monks after the quest to get a 2nd copy, LOL! Oh really? I didn’t know you could kill them for a second shield. Haha!

With the paladin-specific shield included too, you can get +15 to all defenses, party wide. While the added defense of two saviors is nice, you get it so late in the game (at least I don’t venture down there until near the end). I actually like that small shield that reflects ranged grazes the best of all shields. There are a ton of enemies that have some sort of ranged attack, be it arrows, spells, or slime. If you rush to ACT 3, and then go back and do white march and side quests, you will have it most of the game. Sure, it doesn’t help at all sometimes, but when it does, it really helps a lot. 100% graze-to-miss and A free attack. Granted, it is only helpful if your shield holder is the one targeted. Unless the AI is smart enough to avoid attacking them. In a full 6-party group, i guess the reliabilty of savior or outbound buckler is better.

Another advantage of scrolls over spells is that caster classes have bad accuracy. However, you could have a fighter, further buffed by disciplined barrage for +20 additional accuracy on top of his stellar accuracy, critically hitting left and right with scrolls that have an attack roll. (Same with spells bound to equipment) It makes no sense to me that fighters are naturally better scroll users than wizards. But that is how the game works. I think it would have been better to have seperate melee and magic accuracy stats (instead of building it into spells themselves to compensate).

Yeah, traps are useless in my opinion. You can also only lay a single one (to prevent a player from leading a monster group into a giant pile of traps) and they have terrible accuracy and lack-luster effects.

Just think of that sanguine plate as your warrior’s pajamas. That is why it is the festive red color; probably got it on christmas (or perhaps Berath-mas?) morning. We are actually adding realism to the game by making our party members change thier clothes before going to sleep. It is kind of like switching out per-rest items after you use them; it is extra work, but it is an option if that +2 survival need is psychologically making you wear armor you hate just so you can get a 60% multiplier. You could just switch around armor when resting before a particularly hard fight, like a dragon or bounty quest only, as a compromise. I agree, it kind of falls into the mindset of “well, I could just run back to the stronghold and rest after every battle so I can nuke per-rest abilities all the time”. In the end, everyone must decide for themselves what is “smart tactics”, vs “too much work”, vs “cheesy”.

The + survival enchantments are useless because you can just put it on right before you camp and then take it off right after you wake up and still keep the survival bonus. It is basically a “laziness” enchantment. Maybe it was fine plate I really liked. I know one of them looked good, but I don’t remember which. The inventory icons at least of the exceptional weapons look really nice. I can’t say that I have ever actually equiped one (except for guns). One nice thing about the Scars armor is that you can get it to legendary AND do the +2 stat enchantment (but not damage-proofing) since its built in enchantments only use 1 anvil each. The endurance regen is probably better than a conditional DR proofing. And who knows, maybe that bonus DR when under 25% health might come into play occasionally (though I usually rest before I get to that point)

I like scrolls of immunity to X. How many fights do you really need immunity to terrify? Dragons and that is about it. You will probably find that many scrolls even without having to buy any. Scrolls of confusion are also better than caster versions and can make some really hard battles Trivial. I try to avoid using scrolls unless I keep dying and can’t win without them since it feels a little cheesy (like cheating) to me. Usually just against dragons while soloing. Same goes for potions. I make an exception for summoning figurines. I guess because they are not a consumable. Still, I only use them when i wouldn’t be able to win very easily otherwise (like to distract perma-stun enemies).

I like the way plate looks - too bad there aren't any good uniques that justify using them (especially when you consider how much it slows them down)...Well, I think there are some good uniques. Sanguine has the frenzy enchantment, with that active and durgan steel, you esstenially have no recovery penatly at all. Also, keep in mine that there is a big jump up from mail to plate in terms of DR, 3 more reduction instead of the usual 1DR per 5% speed penatly. In other words, could say that all plate armors have a hidden bonus enchantment of +2 DR. Or “free crucible knight faction bonus (second skin)”. I also think think the bonus DR for pierce and slash that playe has is very powerful. Many enemies like lions and wolves (and kith with great swords) have dual damage types of “slash/pierce”, so having both of them Increased together is better than it seems. Most ranged attacks are pierce too and it is the most common enemy damage type. I usually further give my plate bonus crush DR, the third most common type (unless I plan to wear the cloak of comfort since its bonus DR gets suppressed if you enchant your armor with pierce, slash, or crush). Maybe non-unique exceptional plate is actually one of the best in the late game. Because it doesn’t have any (for you, useless) enchantments, you can upgrade it to legendary quality, apply your choice of a +stat, and give it a damage-type-specific DR increase. Plus, it looks great.

Some of the best looking armor and weapons are the non-unique ones. Like “Exceptional plate”. Enchantment-wise, they are strictly worse, but they look so much better.

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).

In the end, none of these are really worth it. A 10 second buff to all defenses for only 10 seconds is not really a big deal and damaging yourself in the middle of battle or wasting focus is kind of self defeating. You would need to do it multiple times to make it last the battle and then you would be dead. I think the vampiric shield defiant resolve trick really works best when cast on yourself as a cipher MC playing solo; Otherwise, if in a party, do it only before combat where it has basically no downside since the focus is free and enemy targeting is not an option. The +25 cipher deflection is worth it alone.

I don’t value the will save at all in this situation. If they needed will then they wouldn’t need to cast a spell on themselves to trigger defiant resolve; the enemy would do it for them. This strategy is specifically for encounters where the enemy has no will attacks (and thus will defense is not relevent) I agree this works best with low resolve. Wizards typically have low resolve anyway since Might, perception, and intelligence is important for a lot of spells and Con too due to low endurance pool and fortitude being the most important defense. It is just hard to find the stats for the relatively small amount of deflection resolve provides (particularly when wizards can get +75 deflection on demand from a talent when they really need it bad)

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 (+23 after attribute drain) and than +10 to all defenses after seems like a good trade to me. You lose the -10 deflection and -20 will on an enemy. Though, that is not an option if prebuffing outside of battle. Generally I use mental binding on enemies I plan to attack for the massive deflection debuffs it applies (-50 with stuck and paralyzed) so the extra -10 doesn’t really matter. I suppose casting it on a different enemy could help your party more; I was thinking more from a solo perspective. Or casting it on an enemy before mental binding or a charm, etc for the will debuff. It might not always be the best, but I think it is a valid strategy. I kind of want to try it now myself in-game.

I totally agree. Why not just duplicate Little Savior and give +10 to everyone - which is what I am doing on my current PotD run? Well, little Savior requires going to the bottom of the endless paths and defeating a terrifying beast. Defiant resolve is available at level 1. Also, they both stack so why not both?

Moon god-like can make the early game a lot easier since it gives you a great self-heal. This is probably the best overall since the early game is the hardest part of the game. God-likes can't wear hats which is a bummer in the late game when you find some good ones and the racial healing becomes less important. With a full party, this is not a big deal since you can just give those hats/helmets to a different party member. Coastal Aumaua is good for the stun/prone protection. Getting knocked prone or stunned is really bad if you are relying on endurance-draining weapons as your primary healing source. Even if it isn't your primary source of healing, if you are on the ground prone, you are not dealing damage which is your job. Fire god-like has battle-forged that I believe can trigger sneak attack and deathblows when you get hit, but that won't shine until near the end of the game and you need maxed out CON to make it work well. Also, I am not sure it would really work well with rogue just because their endurance pool is so small. Hearth Orlan is good if you plan to use "on-crit" weapons (and are not soloing) Really, it doesn't matter than much which race you pick. Probably best to go with which one you like the look of best.

I wonder if the soul bound sword Steadfast triggers defiant resolve. In that case, you could have a buddy give you a whack with it. Ciphers can target themselves with the level 2 power, vampiric shield. This was probably a developer oversight, but lets take advantage of it. This, too, can be cast outside of combat and targeting yourself should trigger defiant resolve. Granted, I think defiant resolve only lasts 10 seconds and is not affected by Intelligence. Using vampiric shield on yourself is a good idea anyways because it raises your deflection by +25 and has a long duration (net 15 deflection if you have at least 11 resolve, since it drains 10 away). Out of combat, the focus immediately replenishes and it doesn't do damage. This works best if you start with only 3 resolve; a tempting thing to do anyways with cipher since they benefit a lot from more offensive stats. This is because you can't go below 1 resolve. With 3 resolve, you only lose 2 for a +23 net deflection boost. If you are using drugs or wearing the hat that lowers resolve by 2, you get the full +25 deflection with no downside at all and another +10 to all defenses from defiant resolve. You can then continue casting it on yourself periodically during the battle. It is probably worth more casting it on yourself for the +10 to all defenses than just lowering an enemy's resolve; just be sure not to buff your will defense so high that you miss yourself. Having only 1 resolve helps this as it keeps your will defense relatively low.

I guess for maximum survivablity, you do both the damage shield and massive endurance regen at different times in the battle. At the start of battle, do the healing multiplier chant until your veterans, etc durations run out, than switch to the damage shield chant and dying boar mantle. Most damage happens during the first minute of battle while the enemy uses thier abilities up. After that, they just auto attack and the damage shield should be enough. You can actually attack very fast with The Champion invocation. Swift guantlets and speed-enchanted weapon will still allow you to wear durganized plate armor and hold a shield with zero attack recovery. With the shield that reflects grazed ranged attacks, many enemies will kill themselves so you don’t have to attack them.

They can just sit, huddled together to overlap their tiny chant auras with 3 int and watch 12 summoned ogres slowly kill the enemy (outside of your chant radius so those brutes don’t use your precious damage shield). As they die, just invocate more to take their place. That build requires zero stats since summon durations are not dependent on intelligence. I guess high dex to prevent your shields from going down during the invocation recovery. Too bad you can’t hold a shield in each hand and have no weapon.