abot

well, it is normally a pure-caster build (with the exceptions of some hard-to-penetrate megabosses with which you may prefer to use monastic unarmed training fists) centered on controlling the battle field with always-up summons with brisk recitation and always recharging chants/spells, summing the summons damage with the cipher spells control and damage (as controllable summons make you able to use a lot of spells targeting them) while possibly keeping player (and Vela if you play with Hylea challenge) away from damage Basically you try to start from stealth placing a trap/a bomb, keep stealth at least until your perma-summons are up, then according to enemy difficulty you keep the summons up from stealth and improve them with fast casting of things like pain link (25% always hit damage back), lately Tactical Meld. If the enemy is not super tough/risky you can wait to have high focus and then go out of stealth and spam cipher spells ascendant style You have so many good spells you can try it's hard to choose, but as the level 1 is the most difficult as you can't respec it, I'd say level 1: Psion: Soul Shock, Troubadour: The Thunder Rolled reason for not getting Whisper of Treason from the start: at a certain point/focus level you may (or not) want to replace Whisper of Treason (pros: cheap) with Puppet Master (not so cheap, but better) The Thunder Rolled is a great control/debuff spell targeting reflex and it even does decent damage, it can get +15 accuracy with the update so it remains always good Then if e.g. you want to try the starting cave you can temporarily get If their Bones skeletons summon to attack the corrosive bats and the rest while you use soul shock for damage. after that, you may want to respec the skeletons with something else, personally I love the wurms, they are the summons I use most until the animated weapons are available Sasha's scimitar is good, least unstable coil is good but the most OP synergy is Grave Calling sabre + Chilling Grave + Grave Bound + Many Lives Pass By stream of skeletons, whenever you kill a skeleton you generate a paralyzing enemy only chill fog. When you have them your build gets 100% more control and 50% more damage other interesting abilities for next levels: For Troubadour: Thrice Was She Wronged + Her Revenge Swept, Its Crash Could Not Be Denied (more reliable stuns), Gernisc Slew the Beast (3 summons, always good with fire-sensible enemies, fast on swamp too, sturdy enough to survive a lot and not so armored to avoid being critted so good for pain link, especially with engaging enemies), (Oh, But Knock Not on the Door of Urdel and Gurdel for things not damaged by wurms/ancient weapons) , Called to His Bidding, the Ancient Instruments of Death for anything else, Eld Nary chants: Come, Come Soft Winds of Death, Thick Grew Their Tongues, maybe Ancient Memory in some rough situations (e.g. The Oratory of Wael to heal Vela from the moving ray while you are busy killing things), Many Lives Pass By (this one is OP) For Psion: Whisper of Treason/Puppet Master, (maybe Valorous Echoes too but only until you get Pain Link, maybe Eyestrike but cinder bombs are cheap and then you will probably get the chilling fog), Psychovampiric Shield (this one is good for a little extra deflection on start, less enemy deflection and lowered will to be able to land borrowed instinct on tough enemies), Mind Blades (great at middle/high level for super fast/easy spam casting on >= 2 enemies), Pain Link, Secret Horrors (control+lowering defenses), Mental Binding (covering paralyze until you get the Grave Calling synergy up), Borrowed Instinct, Ringleader, Tactical Meld, Disintegration, Screaming Souls (Mind Plague/Amplified Wave are good but when your skeletons stream is available you usually have enough focus to be able to use Screaming Souls) Passives: Penetrating Visions, Arms Bearer, Hammering Thoughts, Monastic Unarmed Training, The Empty Soul Modals: medium shield, flail, club, morning star, pike for more specific situations, probably it is easier to take a look at the videos. Apart the no-comments ultimate run upload, I'm currently playing with this build a sort of ultimate-like relaxed test run (you can probably run it a 2x speed if micro-managing of summons is boring, I am a slow speaker and it should still be intelligible), with no iron man/Wael challenge to be able to stream/comment and no Eothas challenge (but trying to emulate it), doing most risky fights for fun/challenge but pointing out those better to be avoided in a real ultimate run, and how to prolong out of combat positive effects with strand of favor like items if you want/need to cheese with them

I don't think there are bad classes, just classes you have not yet learned to use. There are probably classes that are more specialized, but if you play with a party you can easily mix and match different roles. Having said that, if you are thinking about solo play/single cipher class, probably the most versatile (without strand of favor-like cheese) is Beguiler, Soul Blade if cheese is allowed If you are considering also multi classes, I'd go with Psion-Troubadour, with (to try an ultimate challenge run) or without cheese (for anything else) Also Ascendant-Priest of Skaen should be fun after you learn Salvation of Time + Barring Death Door (and a way to get brilliant)

Oh, you are right, I forgot that, it's probably what I ended using on that ultimate run too but I did not remember to add it to the items list yet [EDIT] uhm, no probably I used wahai poraga only in there Amra battle axe with Tempered Fury enchantment, Frenzy without deflection penalty, you can get it from kills does it work destroying barrels too or you need to trigger it from battle? [EDIT2] yep, tested, it works killing barrels too it's a great add on to the list anyway P.S: if anybody has other items to add, please share!

A new entry for the worth-prolonging items list, in case it is not common knowledge already, many thanks @jaggedjimmyjay82 for the hint during the streaming Lover's Embrace dagger: Frenzy (25% action speed, -10 deflection, Strong, Fit for 15 sec) from Lover's Quarrel on female target enchant, get it by critting Vela (more safely with a shield equipped)

Same build next try, or something different?

Ah, that may be different, I think I got the few loot from the underground floor well before receiving the quest, when the Naga were not yet there, then that one time I went down after getting the quest with the naga already there and tried to go out without fighting the dragon went away

I am not sure, but I think I remember it even triggers after receiving the quest to investigate the guild events from Onekaza. After that, once you enter the underground floor of the guild you cannot go out without killing the dragon even if you don't talk with the guildmaster. I think I died like that during one of the test runs ([EDIT] or at least got the message about the dragon going away if that was a non-ultimate test run) [EDIT2] by the way, for anybody interested in swapping times, I realized 2nd table I posted some time ago is probably not realistic, as when swapping/buffing with inventory opened time goes at 24x probably only during the few animation frames, compared to the time you spend on combat (where I think spell duration = real time seconds) or traveling (where you don't buff, time is stopped when you don't move and goes much faster when you move) it should be less relevant so a more practical table is probably like this (with day = 27 hours instead of 26 like assumed in 1st table) SWAPS SEC DAYS 0 1,0000 0,00 1 1,1000 0,00 2 1,2100 0,00 3 1,3310 0,00 4 1,4641 0,00 5 1,6105 0,00 6 1,7716 0,00 7 1,9487 0,00 8 2,1436 0,00 9 2,3579 0,00 10 2,5937 0,00 11 2,8531 0,00 12 3,1384 0,00 13 3,4523 0,00 14 3,7975 0,00 15 4,1772 0,00 16 4,5950 0,00 17 5,0545 0,00 18 5,5599 0,00 19 6,1159 0,00 20 6,7275 0,00 21 7,4002 0,00 22 8,1403 0,00 23 8,9543 0,00 24 9,8497 0,00 25 10,8347 0,00 26 11,9182 0,00 27 13,1100 0,00 28 14,4210 0,00 29 15,8631 0,00 30 17,4494 0,00 31 19,1943 0,00 32 21,1138 0,00 33 23,2252 0,00 34 25,5477 0,00 35 28,1024 0,00 36 30,9127 0,00 37 34,0039 0,00 38 37,4043 0,00 39 41,1448 0,00 40 45,2593 0,00 41 49,7852 0,00 42 54,7637 0,00 43 60,2401 0,00 44 66,2641 0,00 45 72,8905 0,00 46 80,1795 0,00 47 88,1975 0,00 48 97,0172 0,00 49 106,7190 0,00 50 117,3909 0,00 51 129,1299 0,00 52 142,0429 0,00 53 156,2472 0,00 54 171,8719 0,00 55 189,0591 0,00 56 207,9651 0,00 57 228,7616 0,00 58 251,6377 0,00 59 276,8015 0,00 60 304,4816 0,00 61 334,9298 0,00 62 368,4228 0,00 63 405,2651 0,00 64 445,7916 0,00 65 490,3707 0,01 66 539,4078 0,01 67 593,3486 0,01 68 652,6834 0,01 69 717,9518 0,01 70 789,7470 0,01 71 868,7217 0,01 72 955,5938 0,01 73 1051,1532 0,01 74 1156,2685 0,01 75 1271,8954 0,01 76 1399,0849 0,01 77 1538,9934 0,02 78 1692,8927 0,02 79 1862,1820 0,02 80 2048,4002 0,02 81 2253,2402 0,02 82 2478,5643 0,03 83 2726,4207 0,03 84 2999,0628 0,03 85 3298,9690 0,03 86 3628,8659 0,04 87 3991,7525 0,04 88 4390,9278 0,05 89 4830,0206 0,05 90 5313,0226 0,05 91 5844,3249 0,06 92 6428,7574 0,07 93 7071,6331 0,07 94 7778,7964 0,08 95 8556,6760 0,09 96 9412,3437 0,10 97 10353,5780 0,11 98 11388,9358 0,12 99 12527,8294 0,13 100 13780,6123 0,14 101 15158,6736 0,16 102 16674,5409 0,17 103 18341,9950 0,19 104 20176,1945 0,21 105 22193,8140 0,23 106 24413,1954 0,25 107 26854,5149 0,28 108 29539,9664 0,30 109 32493,9630 0,33 110 35743,3594 0,37 111 39317,6953 0,40 112 43249,4648 0,44 113 47574,4113 0,49 114 52331,8524 0,54 115 57565,0377 0,59 116 63321,5414 0,65 117 69653,6956 0,72 118 76619,0651 0,79 119 84280,9717 0,87 120 92709,0688 0,95 121 101979,9757 1,05 122 112177,9733 1,15 123 123395,7706 1,27 124 135735,3477 1,40 125 149308,8824 1,54 126 164239,7707 1,69 127 180663,7477 1,86 128 198730,1225 2,04 129 218603,1348 2,25 130 240463,4482 2,47 131 264509,7931 2,72 132 290960,7724 2,99 133 320056,8496 3,29 134 352062,5346 3,62 135 387268,7880 3,98 136 425995,6668 4,38 137 468595,2335 4,82 138 515454,7568 5,30 139 567000,2325 5,83 140 623700,2558 6,42 141 686070,2814 7,06 142 754677,3095 7,76 143 830145,0404 8,54 144 913159,5445 9,39 145 1004475,4989 10,33 146 1104923,0488 11,37 147 1215415,3537 12,50 148 1336956,8891 13,75 149 1470652,5780 15,13 150 1617717,8358 16,64 151 1779489,6194 18,31 152 1957438,5813 20,14 153 2153182,4394 22,15 154 2368500,6834 24,37 155 2605350,7517 26,80 156 2865885,8269 29,48 157 3152474,4096 32,43 158 3467721,8505 35,68 159 3814494,0356 39,24 160 4195943,4391 43,17 161 4615537,7830 47,48 162 5077091,5613 52,23 163 5584800,7175 57,46 164 6143280,7892 63,20 165 6757608,8681 69,52 166 7433369,7549 76,47 167 8176706,7304 84,12 168 8994377,4035 92,53 169 9893815,1438 101,79 170 10883196,6582 111,97 APPLY EFFECT ROW NUMBER + 1 SWAPS TO ACHIEVE DURATION IN SEC/DAYS (ASSUMING 1 EORA DAY = 27 HOURS, GAME SPELLS DURATION IN COMBAT = REAL TIME

it is one of the Ultimate targets, and this is the one place you can kill it so if it escapes it is game over (same as Red Dragon)

Psion-Troubadour. You can clean the Dig Site (and even Gorecci Street mostly from stealth though as you are too low level to risk having Vela seen by the enemy during the fight) and maybe still manage to finish the Ultimate Challenge with it

Maybe troubadour/psion (again LOL). Make enemy trigger a trap from stealth, keep summoning / giving summons (at -85%recovery from stealth) 1 / 3 pain links = 25% damage back to attackers, (pain link on renewable party summons is super if enemies can use disengagement attacks). Repeat until max focus gained, then go out of stealth and start spamming e.g. Soul Shock for cheap on your wall of summons

Well, yes, apart Psychovampiric Shield most of them need some party member to target, so do not work with mage summons, they go well with e.g. chanter/priest/ranger with summons you can command so going solo you probably better multiclass

just a note I think lingering echoes is 10%

well you start from the effect duration description in seconds, usually it is at least 3 sec. Then you can in theory calculate 5% increase per point of intelligence > 10, but not really needed. if you don't have Wael challenge enabled it should be already visible in the tooltip. then in that table you look for the row having about that duration in seconds e.g. assuming I have a 3sec positive effect and 16 INT, it would be something like 3 + 30% = 3.9 sec, so about line 14 then you look for the desired duration e.g. to prolong for about 80 days max challenge duration it would need in theory about line 134 - 14 (the starting time line) --> at least 120 swaps about the swapping time, there are a couple ways to do it that I found working well first one is to select an alternative object to swap e.g. strand of favor - another necklace, and single click while hovering over the (e.g. neck) slot. This is slow but the most important thing is to count the swaps so you would not be able to do it super fast anyway on the ultimate challenge (and this is what people playing the challenge usually do). second one is to put the alternative object in the player personal objects area and double click it, it is faster but harder to count. this option can be used e.g. with a mouse macro to do it really super fast and easily if you are not doing the ultimate/not using wael/on a test playthrough as you can just start the macro, wait a minute and stop it when you see duration: infinite (it works more or less like swapping the Lethandria shield from AI script)

A revised table about number of item swappings needed to prolong effects for X days, based on hopefully more correct formula: 1 in game day = 27 hours, game real time speed = 24x so 1 sec = 24/(3600*27) = 1/4050 days APPLY EFFECT SWAPS TIMES TO ACHIEVE DURATION IN real time SECONDS and in game DAYS e.g. starting form 3 real time sec effect duration, you would need about 134 - 11 = 123 swaps to reach 80 in game days effect duration, starting form 30 real time sec effect duration, you would need about 134 - 36 = 98 swaps to reach 80 in game days effect duration... SWAPS SECONDS DAYS 0 1,0000 0,00 1 1,1000 0,00 2 1,2100 0,00 3 1,3310 0,00 4 1,4641 0,00 5 1,6105 0,00 6 1,7716 0,00 7 1,9487 0,00 8 2,1436 0,00 9 2,3579 0,00 10 2,5937 0,00 11 2,8531 0,00 12 3,1384 0,00 13 3,4523 0,00 14 3,7975 0,00 15 4,1772 0,00 16 4,5950 0,00 17 5,0545 0,00 18 5,5599 0,00 19 6,1159 0,00 20 6,7275 0,00 21 7,4002 0,00 22 8,1403 0,00 23 8,9543 0,00 24 9,8497 0,00 25 10,8347 0,00 26 11,9182 0,00 27 13,1100 0,00 28 14,4210 0,00 29 15,8631 0,00 30 17,4494 0,00 31 19,1943 0,00 32 21,1138 0,01 33 23,2252 0,01 34 25,5477 0,01 35 28,1024 0,01 36 30,9127 0,01 37 34,0039 0,01 38 37,4043 0,01 39 41,1448 0,01 40 45,2593 0,01 41 49,7852 0,01 42 54,7637 0,01 43 60,2401 0,01 44 66,2641 0,02 45 72,8905 0,02 46 80,1795 0,02 47 88,1975 0,02 48 97,0172 0,02 49 106,7190 0,03 50 117,3909 0,03 51 129,1299 0,03 52 142,0429 0,04 53 156,2472 0,04 54 171,8719 0,04 55 189,0591 0,05 56 207,9651 0,05 57 228,7616 0,06 58 251,6377 0,06 59 276,8015 0,07 60 304,4816 0,08 61 334,9298 0,08 62 368,4228 0,09 63 405,2651 0,10 64 445,7916 0,11 65 490,3707 0,12 66 539,4078 0,13 67 593,3486 0,15 68 652,6834 0,16 69 717,9518 0,18 70 789,7470 0,19 71 868,7217 0,21 72 955,5938 0,24 73 1051,1532 0,26 74 1156,2685 0,29 75 1271,8954 0,31 76 1399,0849 0,35 77 1538,9934 0,38 78 1692,8927 0,42 79 1862,1820 0,46 80 2048,4002 0,51 81 2253,2402 0,56 82 2478,5643 0,61 83 2726,4207 0,67 84 2999,0628 0,74 85 3298,9690 0,81 86 3628,8659 0,90 87 3991,7525 0,99 88 4390,9278 1,08 89 4830,0206 1,19 90 5313,0226 1,31 91 5844,3249 1,44 92 6428,7574 1,59 93 7071,6331 1,75 94 7778,7964 1,92 95 8556,6760 2,11 96 9412,3437 2,32 97 10353,5780 2,56 98 11388,9358 2,81 99 12527,8294 3,09 100 13780,6123 3,40 101 15158,6736 3,74 102 16674,5409 4,12 103 18341,9950 4,53 104 20176,1945 4,98 105 22193,8140 5,48 106 24413,1954 6,03 107 26854,5149 6,63 108 29539,9664 7,29 109 32493,9630 8,02 110 35743,3594 8,83 111 39317,6953 9,71 112 43249,4648 10,68 113 47574,4113 11,75 114 52331,8524 12,92 115 57565,0377 14,21 116 63321,5414 15,63 117 69653,6956 17,20 118 76619,0651 18,92 119 84280,9717 20,81 120 92709,0688 22,89 121 101979,9757 25,18 122 112177,9733 27,70 123 123395,7706 30,47 124 135735,3477 33,51 125 149308,8824 36,87 126 164239,7707 40,55 127 180663,7477 44,61 128 198730,1225 49,07 129 218603,1348 53,98 130 240463,4482 59,37 131 264509,7931 65,31 132 290960,7724 71,84 133 320056,8496 79,03 134 352062,5346 86,93 135 387268,7880 95,62 136 425995,6668 105,18 137 468595,2335 115,70 138 515454,7568 127,27 139 567000,2325 140,00 140 623700,2558 154,00 141 686070,2814 169,40 142 754677,3095 186,34 143 830145,0404 204,97 144 913159,5445 225,47 145 1004475,4989 248,02 146 1104923,0488 272,82 147 1215415,3537 300,10 148 1336956,8891 330,11 149 1470652,5780 363,12 150 1617717,8358 399,44 151 1779489,6194 439,38 152 1957438,5813 483,32 153 2153182,4394 531,65 154 2368500,6834 584,81 155 2605350,7517 643,30 156 2865885,8269 707,63 157 3152474,4096 778,39 158 3467721,8505 856,23 159 3814494,0356 941,85 160 4195943,4391 1036,04 161 4615537,7830 1139,64 162 5077091,5613 1253,60 163 5584800,7175 1378,96 164 6143280,7892 1516,86 165 6757608,8681 1668,55 166 7433369,7549 1835,40

yes, also having blind/paralyze from the chillfog you can free a couple previously used spell/ability slots from cipher (e.g eyestrike. maybe mental binding too but that targets will so it is still of use) or chanter trees and choose different ones (I find a problem with this build is you have so many yummy spells/abilities you'd like to use but not enough slots for all of them)

some more things to try: if you have a heavily armored/hard to hit enemy with multiple engagements, wurms summons + pain link are great: 25% of disengagement damage back to enemy if you invest the time to move the summons back & forth (I mostly killed the fire dragon like this) if you need to disengage yourself but the enemy is hard to hit/resistant to telekinetic burst, aim for a nearby summon instead, the AOE will push you out of danger oh, and the well known chill fog sabre + skeletons chant is probably the most OP thing for chanter/cipher

I am actually level 17 in Ashen Maw (I just level up before fighting the fire beasts), hard to compare waypoints with different levels, but anyway my point is: regardless how you spend not-mandadatory-for-the-challenge time (e.g. I like to do some bounty battles soon if possible, more stealth oriented classes/playstyle may want to get sandsweep XP and reach ultimate waypoints like hasongo and ashen maw sooner) having faster sailing ASAP will give you more time to do anything else you may like/need in the total run

Hmm ok so do we agree that going to sandsweep/dorudugan island (I mean, you don't need sandsweep at all when you are ready for dorudugan, even more time spared) is better done only when you have a fast ship (regardless if you try port maje->sandsweep or port maje->dunnage->sandwseep, both are not optimal in the long run with eothas challenge/ultimate challenge, first one being better than second one but still not optimal)?

I was mostly expressing my opinion about this point, I think it (going to dunnage first) is not a time waste, on the contrary, going there (I mean in the dorudugan island) at the start with a still slow boat is the time waste in the full run economy, better to visit the island once with a fast ship when you are ready for dorudugan

I'm not sure it's worth going to Sandswept Ruins if you play with Eothas challenge on, you get a lot of XP anyway in solo and it's better to aim for a faster sailing speed ASAP (you can hire a navigator a get better sails before leaving port maje). Also no need to rush Hasongo for the strand of favor, you can steal the cabalist gambeson in Neketaka

I don't know with other classes , but in my experience with psion troubadour not having weapon abilities, paralyzing Dorudugan with the chillfog on the ultimate is very hard and probably not really worth even reserving a weapon slot for a morning star modal to lower dorudugan fortitude (and you already need a weapon slot for the arqueblunderbuss used to spawn the fire blight), paralyze is too short anyway, all in all it is faster to flank with summons and hit with monastic unarmed fists. The chill fog helps mostly with a little elemental damage

one psion/troubadour trick: if you are engaged by a tough enemy, you can target a nearby summon with telekinetic burst so you are pushed away from enemy without risking a disengagement hit

Yes it works with debuffs duration too, IIRC the one thing it does not help with is beams duration

I have used strand of favor like item swapping to prolong several out of combat items buffs (e.g. tenacious) and it has been accepted in my psion/troubadour ultimate challenge run, so unless using it to prolong single class assassin vanishing strikes is considered differently it should be allowed

another interesting effect I realized can be prolonged swapping strand/gambeson/ooblit: unstable soul essence bomb, +1 health restored per sec