dgray62

Lampros, you don't need to multiclass as a fighter to boost accuracy. Ranger is probably the class that brings the most to accuracy table, with marked prey (+10), stalkers link (+10) and Survival of the fittest (+10 on targets below 50% health) and Marksman for ranged (+5) and Hunter's claw/fang for melee (+1 accuracy/+1% damage per hit, stackable to 20, against a specific species). Taken together this is a huge bonus. Stalker, I think, is an under-appreciated subclass that is great for melee multi-class builds, especially on PotD, and can give you an alternative to the fighter. Then there's cipher, which shines accuracy wise once you hit PL 5, where you can get borrowed instinct (+20 accuracy and all defences) and tactical meld (aware and +3 engagements for 30 seconds). I believe that the seer can achieve the highest possible accuracy in the game. But you can add ranger and cipher to your multiclass mix to get a bit more variety into your party. While fighters are great, rangers and ciphers also bring useful abilities to the table. Then there's monk. Monks don't bring much to the accuracy table, except for Dance with Death and Enduring Dance, which gives you increasing accuracy and wounds over time, but can be dispelled by hits, which makes it better for ranged builds and caster multi-classes. But monks, in melee, have one of the best weapons in the game, that scale in accuracy, damage and PEN to post-mythic levels if you stack power levels, making them very strong in this area too.

You might consider a steel garrote herald. Once you get the Long Night's Drink chant you can have your enemies virtually perma-weakened, allowing each melee strike to heal you.

I don't play TB, but Haplok (who does, I believe, from his past posts), and he recently posted a FF variant of Frykas' Shadowdrugon shadowdancer build. I suspect that a FF brawler would be fine on TB, but I'm sure Haplok could give a more informed opinion on this. One nice thing with a FF brawler is you would have a lot of inspirations built in, namely intuitive (from disciplined strikes), tenacious (from thunderous blows), smart (from enlightened agony) and quick plus an action speed bonus and a chance to repeat attacks on crit from swift flurry. You would also get fearless, which is great for a FF, who needs to avoid resolve afflictions, and this would enable you to pick a race other than wild orlan. You could pick nature godlike instead, for a near permanent +1 PL boost, once you get thunderous blows, since this ability depends on the 100% renewable wounds resource. You could also pick tactician, in which case you could skip enlightened agony, as you'd be able to get brilliant pretty easily, especially if you have a cipher and/or wizard in the party. If you pick tactician, you'd want to get squid's grasp ASAP to get immunity to flanked, and wield it in your offhand with the modal on for more frequent swift flurry procs. And you might as well wield Grave Calling in your main hand; the party friendly chill fogs when you slay vessels will help proc brilliant. This would be a very sturdy and powerful build, IMO. Uh oh, I sense the onset of another bout of restartitis......

In my first time completing the game, my MC was a SC Helwalker monk in a party, who was strong from the beginning and godlike at the end. You have to be careful about wounds, but you can manage this easily. In a party with some good healers and buffers this is no problem, although it might be a challenge solo. But I love the FF ability; if I were to retry a SC monk MC, it would be FF. Vanilla monk is great too, and is sturdier. Nalzpaca is also fun, although it requires more micro and care when battling mages.

Thanks, Ivanyodorvich, that's good to know.

This looks like a really original build, Thelee. Thank you for sharing it. I was wondering why you took Insect Swarm but not Plague of Insects, which is really a great spell. Was this just due to lack of ability points? There's clearly hard choices to make when multiclassing, since Nature's Terror is a great spell too, especially when shifting. Do you use Community Patch or some other mod? I ask since the vanilla game unfortunately omits the poison keyword from key druid spells that should have it, such as Venombloom.

Powerotti's Rumbling Boar build is one of my favorites. It's definitely worth trying, although as I do play TB I do not know how well it would work there.

The Chromoprismatic staff is arguably one of the best reach weapons in PoE 2. It's a great stat stick for casters, and can be a fantastic melee weapon if you pump up metaphysics, to get a substantial bonus to damage and action speed.

Barbarians are probably ideal users of LDV, since hits via carnage apply static charge, and then when you crit, the multiple charges erupt in potentially a huge AOE. Out of the first three types, fighter/wizard is best for LDV since the weapon only binds to barbs, druids and fighters. Or you might consider an ascetic, i.e., druid/monk build. Or, if you prefer, a pathfinder, maybe fury/trickster. You could cast druid spells that apply afflictions and then get in sneak attacks. Trickster would add some nice defensive buffs which druids lack.

A great companion for Konstanten the howler wielding Willbreaker would be Powerotti's Rumbling boar build, a Helwalker/skald wielding Sun and Moon with the flail modal on to debuff reflex. That pair would debuff and crit like crazy. When playing that build, I prefer dual wielding SSS and Sun and Moon, and using the Ring Prosperity's fortune. You crit perhaps slightly less often than if you single wielded Sun and Moon, but I prefer having a scimitar in the main hand so you'll get more powerful swift flurry and heartbeat drumming procs

Mepp22 suggested pale elf, for the added fire and cold AR. The reason for this is because you'd be using Keeper of the Flame with WotW late game, causing fire AOE explosions on each hit. These can hit you as well, and if you're hit they'll also stun you since you'd also be wearing the Stalking Cloak. However, if you use Eder's armor with Veteran's Manuever upgrade, you are immune to the first two reflex attacks that target you. With high enough reflex you can pass through the mayhem unscathed, while flailing, roasting and stunning your foes. For this build, Boots of the Stone are for the times in which you get hit with reflex attacks twice before completing WotW, and pale elf was suggested for added fire AR in these cases as well. Needless to say, the alternate races you suggest would be fine and have their strengths as well. I also really like Mountain dwarf, for the resistance to CON afflictions. This is harder to get from items, and the CON afflictions can be nasty.

I think that Nalzpaca is a great subclass, but you really have to have to be into micro to enjoy it. The Community Patch is available on Nexus Mods. Regarding FF, enfeeble really is an amazing affliction. Once you land it, tough foes melt quickly, particularly if you have DOTs to apply to them; having spell casters in your party is great for this reason. If you have a druid, for example, they can hobble with tanglefoot (which will only affect you for a second or two, giving you a wound) and then melt the enfeebled foe with spells like insect swarm. In my experience, wound generation is slow in the early game, say, levels 1-4 or so, but once you get Clarity of Agony (which is essential for a FF) and Hylea's Talons you'll have plenty of wounds. FF curse and Hylea's Talons create a vicious spiral for enemies, as being enfeebled extends the time that they are afflicted by the unwieldy raw damage DOT.

I agree with you completely, Boeroer. I should try to avoid such hyperbolic language. I agree that the class really needs the cap raised back to 10.

I'm not sure about setting up an AI command to autotake drugs; in fact, when you try to take a drug or potion in battle, it seems that you have to turn off the AI, as the AI constantly interferes with the potion/drug taking animation. What I would usually when playing Nalzpaca is take a drug before entering into a series of battles (say, all of the battles in a single area) and then try to rush through the battles before it expired. If it did expire, or in ship battles, I'd take the drug in battle, but I hated doing this because of the clunkiness of using drugs and potions in battle, necessitating shutting off the AI to do so. Usually I'd get lazy and rest and then not take any drugs, but then Nalzpaca is worse than vanilla monk due to the wound degeneration. In my experience, it's only good if you're really into micromanagement.

Vanilla monk is great too. I don't like Shattered Pillar since this class was nerfed; the 5 wound cap is pretty severe, and it makes turning wheel and iron wheel worthless. Nalpazca is great if you don't mind hoarding and using drugs; they get great benefit from them, and have the fastest wound generation when high. But they take much more micromanagement, and their big weakness is the wizard spell arcane dampener, which sends you into an instant drug crash, which is very dangerous since you can't heal at all while in this state. Personally, I prefer FF for their amazing level one ability, which coupled with high res makes you a tank who can dish out serious DPS as well. Helwalker is ideal, IMO, for dual mortar ranged builds as well as multiclassing with casters.

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I have always picked the Refreshing Finale enchantment when using SSS, and never tried Encore. This is typically because when I play a chanter I get SSS ASAP, usually at level 7, when my phase cap is still three, making Refreshing Finale the natural choice. But I can see that Encore would make sense from a late game perspective, especially if you were already planning on resting frequently. I will consider this possibility this time around.

There was a thread on this topic recently that you might find helpful. A Helwalker SC monk was the first build with which I completed the game, and it was a lot of fun. In a party, you don't need high resolve; I dumped it, kept CON at 10, and boosted the remaining stats. The run was a lot of fun; monks start strong and end up godlike at the end. If you would like to keep resolve high, you really should try a SC forbidden fist. They are very durable, far more than a Helwalker, and the FF curse is devastating. It does a huge amount of damage late game since it scales so nicely with power levels. Enfeebled is great because it extends all negative effects. You can easily permastun/paralyze foes with stunning surge and Grave Calling with the grave bound upgrade. Mepp22 suggested a build for a SC FF monk in the thread linked above. Wound generation isn't a problem; with high resolve, clarity of agony and Mohora wraps for food, the curses expire very quickly, healing you and giving you a wound. You also gain wounds quickly if you use Hylea's Talons.

On the other hand, Forgotten Sanctum is arguably the most difficult and dangerous DLC, with the most opportunities for permadeath. With the risk come the rewards! That said, by the time I get to the DLCs I'm usually filthy rich from piracy and bounties.

Thanks, Thelee. That is exactly what I was thinking. I am finishing up a run using your fire dancer build and thought that this would be a nice alternative. Although I'd lose the very nice Helwalker monk buffs and abilities, this would make for a more flexible caster, with very strong fire, electric and cold attacks. And a great thing about the chanter is you get a really great power at level 1, Thrice, which becomes amazing when upgraded to Her Revenge, especially for a bellower. The problem with a Priest of Magran MC is you don't get a really great spell until level 10, although when you do, you shine. Your fire dancer, with all of its PL boosts, melts most mobs with Shining Beacon, and significantly weaken most bosses too. I thought it would be great to have both, for a build that would be almost entirely a caster wielding stat stick weapons like Sasha's and Magran's favor. There's a nice rhythm here too; cast an invocation, then cast a priest spell or two, then another invocation, etc.

I'd like to design a MC to take full advantage of the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's gear on upscaled PotD. I was thinking that an optimal build might be a bellower/priest of Magran multiclass. My reasoning is you could start the empowerment fun quite early, when you get to Neketaka, with Sasha's singing scimitar and the Her Revenge invocation. While troubadour is clearly the most popular chanter subclass, I was thinking that bellower might be best on PotD for the PL boosts to the invocations. Late game, when you have the Least Unstable Coil and Weyc's gear, empowered Storm of Holy Fire would be the best spell to proc third tier inspirations from the coil as well as the +3 PL boost with Weyc's wand, to be extended via Salvation of Time. And I was thinking that Priest of Magran brings the most firepower, complementing the chanter's powerful electric and cold attacks. If anyone has any alternative suggestions for such a build, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for the clarificarion, Elric.

For the fire godlike fire shield scaling, could you scale via character level rather than PL? That way MC characters wouldn't be penalized, which would make sense, I think, since it is a racial ability rather than a class ability.

So if you rest with food, then save and reload, the food +PL bonus will become passive and stack? Interesting! I never noticed this, but then PL boosts are not obvious, and require a bit of work to ascertain.

Thanks for the clarification. This being the case, I see that stone of power is useful mid-game but no longer useful when you get better buffs, Am I correct in assuming that +PL buffs from food are active too? If so, it would be better to use alternate foods for builds with better active PL buffs.

Just for clarity, I am currently using Stone on Power on my MC, using thelee's fire dancer build. What does the SoP's +1 PL not stack with? Does it not stack with the +1 PL from Nature Godlike? If so, I'll use a different necklace.