whimper

As a rule of thumb, X/Paladin is a good bet. Rogue/Paladin and Chanter/Paladin are probably the two most popular combinations. As Boeroer says, though, not clear there is any “best” solo build. (Not even clear that the Paladin/X builds are “best” — are multuclass contenders for “best” that don't involve Paladin.)

The thread was about the value of the Resolve stat, not the Diplomacy skill. I've been discussing that context. Yeah, I wasn’t trying to weigh in on that discussion one way or the other. Just clarifying that it’s a high Diplomacy skill, not a high Resolve stat, that is needed to get the outcomes Verde was describing.

Multiclasses don’t level their classes separately. Your character advances in level from 1-20, just as with single classes. You just get to pick class abilities from both classes, though at a slower rate and a lower power level.

I believe you get the same loot either way.

Just to be clear, I think Verde was talking about a high Diplomacy skill, not a high Resolve? One can have a high Diplomacy skill and a low Resolve, and vice versa.

You're welcome! Regarding your question: if you choose the right talents, and are going with a full party, you'll definitely be tough enough to survive with either kind of weapon set-up. But you'll do a bit more damage if you dual wield or use a two-handed weapon, and you'll be tankier, and require less micromanagement, if you go weapon and shield. So really, a matter of taste. (Though if you're going Unbroken for fighter, the weapon and shield is especially appealing because you get the extra bonus for using a shield.) Yeah, if you're playing PotD, Per (in isolation) tends to add a bit more to damage than Mig (in isolation) -- roughly 2% per point. (If you're not playing PotD, I believe Per isn't quite as attractive.) But Dex adds more than either Per or Mig -- roughly 3% per point. So if you had to maximize one, and cared only about DPS, Dex is the thing you'd want to max. But those differences are swamped by the fact that you want Dex, Mig and Per to roughly be on a par to maximize DPS (since their increases are effectively multiplicative). So maxing Dex at the cost of having a low Mig and/or Per is a bad idea from the perspective of maximizing DPS. You want them to be roughly on a par, if you want to maximize DPS. (thelee has a really helpful discussion of some of this.) But then there's the fact that Mig is also really helpful for healing abilities, since it boosts all of those too. And a paladin/fighter has a *lot* of really nice healing abilities: Constant Recovery, Unbending, Exalted Endurance, Lay on Hands... That's why I suggested (in the second stat array) sticking a bit more in Mig than Dex or Per. But really, lots of reasonable assignments are good here. As long as you keep them roughly on a par (say, within 3 points of each other), you'll be doing pretty well from a DPS standpoint.

This is the tankiest class combo in the game. If you max Res, you definitely won’t need a 14 Con. A 10 Con is the absolute maximum you should spend points on. And if you sword and board it, you won’t even need that. (Honestly, you’ll probably be tanky enough with this class combo with a flat Res and Con, even without a shield. But I’m assuming you want to be really, really tanky.) You want someone in your party with a high Per (at least 16) to spot traps. Keep that in mind. Mig is very good cuz it increases DPS and healing, and you have lots of sources of healing. Int is good for both Paladins and Fighters, extending durations of lots of abilities. Melee DPS-wise, you get the most benefit from keeping Mig, Per and Dex roughly on a par. So lots of choices. I’d be tempted to do something like: M 13 C 8 D 13 P 13 I 13 R 18 for a super tanky, well-balanced build, or: M 18 C 8 D 15 P 15 I 13 R 10 for a more DPS oriented, but still very tanky, build.

Yeah, Akola’s is also a great fit with this build. Good suggestion! I should try a couple of the SSS fights, and see how well they go with each shield. (My hunch is that it’ll depend a bit on the fight. In fights against foes with irritatingly fast regeneration, I suspect Akola’s is going to better. In the super loooong fights against foes with thousands of HP and dangerous attacks, the extra deflection, AR, and healing you get from while below 25% health — defenses which allow you to more or less hold steady at 50-60 health, generally healing as much damage as you take — Bronlar’s might be better. But have to test them both out to see!)

Man, my solo run through SSS felt absolutely brutal. : P I’m kind of hoping the difficulty level of these new PotD fights won’t be as hard as SSS. Otherwise I’ll feel obligated to try to solo it again... : P

How do you feel the difficulty level of the new PotD content compares to the difficulty of the SSS fights?

I tried this equipment for the first time, and it seems utterly ridiculous: It is basically Charge with AoE damage? Whoa. Yeah, they’re pretty sweet. I owe Boeroer for pointing them out to me!

Spells like Stasis Shell don't block the merging. An ooze can merge with an imprisoned one just fine. A solo cipher can use Stasis Shell to keep the oozes separated - use it first on one ooze and draw the other away to the other side of the map. Then use then Soul Ignition, Disintegration and imprison the second ooze, return and imprison again the first ooze, repeat until the second ooze dies. PS. Killing both oozes at the same time is a bad tactic because you'll have then 4 oozes which can merge (only oozes of the same size can merge). Interesting. Have you managed the solo it this way?

I think that’s all you need to do. I’ve found a fair amount of variance in how long it took for the event to trigger, but is should eventually happen. How long have you been sailing around for?

Yeah, you’re right that I was unconsciously slipping into thinking in terms of solo games. : P I agree that the effects of a multiplicative damage reduction factor, when employed with other damage reduction factors, would be something the needs to be assessed in terms of balance. It doesn’t seem *that* unbalancing to me off the top of my head, but I could well be missing something!

I’d be happy with either a healing received tweak to Con or a multiplicative damage reduction tweak to Con. One perk with the latter, though, is that it would be more generally useful to all classes. I.e., if Con adjusted healing received, it’d be more useful to (say) Paladins than Barbarians or Monks, since Paladins have a lot more sources of healing. Whereas if Con adjuster damage reduction, it would be equally valuable for Paladins and Barbarians and Monks (and Rogues, and...). And I like Con being equally useful for Monks and Barbarians!

Yeah, this one was tough, but I was able to solo it on upscaled PotD with my Holy Slayer. You get to keep your food benefits, benefits of drugs taken before the fight, your pet benefits, the benefits of passive class abilities/talents, and modal class abilities. So Holy Slayer (which has lots of passives, and a regenerating aura) is a good choice here. You don't benefit from any equipment, can't use any consumables, can't cast any spells or use any active class abilities, so spellcasters are screwed. Here's how my fight went: I used Whiteleaf right before entering the arena, equipped a pet which heals you upon killing, ate the Honey Wine food, and had the Paladin's aura set to Exalted Endurance. Together, that allows you to regenerate a reasonable amount of health. When the fight started, I ran to the bottom of the screen, right to the left of the part of the platform that's fallen away, to limit how many of them could attack me at a time. Then I killed them off one by one, starting with the monk, then cipher, then running out to take out the rogue and then ranger, finishing off with the animal companion and fighter. (Again, the rogue's passives still work, which makes dishing out damage quickly a lot easier.) Tried it, does not work. I got 105 deflection and i die in a couple of seconds and deal nearly no damage at all. Wtf is this fight.Huh. Well I just tried it again, and beat it on my second try. One thing is there's clearly some RNG here -- on my first try I kept getting hit and stunned, and was down to a quarter of my health before I reached the corner. I then got cornered by the Fighter, with the Monk and Cipher out of range. The second time I made it to the corner with most of my health, and got cornered by the Monk and Cipher, the ideal targets. Also some weird glitches regarding when Persistent Distraction kicks in; sometimes it would kick in, and sometimes not. Anyway, as far as trying to find what the differences are, the most likely possibility is differences in stats and talents. Here's what I'm running with. Streetfighter/Goldpact, level 20 Deflection in changed form: 113.4 (20 Holy Slayer, 57 Level, 14.4 Deep Faith, 16 Large Shield, 6 Weapon and Shield Style) Stats in changed form: M 16, C 13, D 20, P 22, I 10, R 10 Passives showing up in changed form (omitting Berath's Blessings, food, drug and animal companion effects): Adept Evasion Bear's Fortitude Bull's Will Deep Faith Deep Wounds Dirty Fighting Divine Purpose Exalted Endurance Improved Critical Persistent Distraction Practiced Healer Retribution Riposte Snake's Reflexes Stoic Steel Streetfighter Uncanny Luck Weapon and Shield Style Anything on that list missing from the build you're running with? Yeah, i should have wrote that i play not with my holy slayer atm, i play with a thaumaturge and i don't get that nice passives. So i think, it is not possible with a caster class to do it, at least not on potd upscaled. Oh, yeah, casters are totally screwed. I tried this fight several times with my Sage build, but was never able to stay alive long enough to take down more than one of them...

Yeah, this one was tough, but I was able to solo it on upscaled PotD with my Holy Slayer. You get to keep your food benefits, benefits of drugs taken before the fight, your pet benefits, the benefits of passive class abilities/talents, and modal class abilities. So Holy Slayer (which has lots of passives, and a regenerating aura) is a good choice here. You don't benefit from any equipment, can't use any consumables, can't cast any spells or use any active class abilities, so spellcasters are screwed. Here's how my fight went: I used Whiteleaf right before entering the arena, equipped a pet which heals you upon killing, ate the Honey Wine food, and had the Paladin's aura set to Exalted Endurance. Together, that allows you to regenerate a reasonable amount of health. When the fight started, I ran to the bottom of the screen, right to the left of the part of the platform that's fallen away, to limit how many of them could attack me at a time. Then I killed them off one by one, starting with the monk, then cipher, then running out to take out the rogue and then ranger, finishing off with the animal companion and fighter. (Again, the rogue's passives still work, which makes dishing out damage quickly a lot easier.) Tried it, does not work. I got 105 deflection and i die in a couple of seconds and deal nearly no damage at all. Wtf is this fight. Huh. Well I just tried it again, and beat it on my second try. One thing is there's clearly some RNG here -- on my first try I kept getting hit and stunned, and was down to a quarter of my health before I reached the corner. I then got cornered by the Fighter, with the Monk and Cipher out of range. The second time I made it to the corner with most of my health, and got cornered by the Monk and Cipher, the ideal targets. Also some weird glitches regarding when Persistent Distraction kicks in; sometimes it would kick in, and sometimes not. Anyway, as far as trying to find what the differences are, the most likely possibility is differences in stats and talents. Here's what I'm running with. Streetfighter/Goldpact, level 20 Deflection in changed form: 113.4 (20 Holy Slayer, 57 Level, 14.4 Deep Faith, 16 Large Shield, 6 Weapon and Shield Style) Stats in changed form: M 16, C 13, D 20, P 22, I 10, R 10 Passives showing up in changed form (omitting Berath's Blessings, food, drug and animal companion effects): Adept Evasion Bear's Fortitude Bull's Will Deep Faith Deep Wounds Dirty Fighting Divine Purpose Exalted Endurance Improved Critical Persistent Distraction Practiced Healer Retribution Riposte Snake's Reflexes Stoic Steel Streetfighter Uncanny Luck Weapon and Shield Style Anything on that list missing from the build you're running with?

I like that suggestion — tying Con to a multiplicative damage reduction/increase wouldn’t create widespread balance issues with other parts of the game (like having Con boost healing percentages), and it would make investing in Con/not dumping Con more attractive. Not sure 1% would do enough to motivate me to treat Con differently. But maybe a 2% addition/reduction per point above/below 10?

Yeah, this one was tough, but I was able to solo it on upscaled PotD with my Holy Slayer. You get to keep your food benefits, benefits of drugs taken before the fight, your pet benefits, the benefits of passive class abilities/talents, and modal class abilities. So Holy Slayer (which has lots of passives, and a regenerating aura) is a good choice here. You don't benefit from any equipment, can't use any consumables, can't cast any spells or use any active class abilities, so spellcasters are screwed. Here's how my fight went: I used Whiteleaf right before entering the arena, equipped a pet which heals you upon killing, ate the Honey Wine food, and had the Paladin's aura set to Exalted Endurance. Together, that allows you to regenerate a reasonable amount of health. When the fight started, I ran to the bottom of the screen, right to the left of the part of the platform that's fallen away, to limit how many of them could attack me at a time. Then I killed them off one by one, starting with the monk, then cipher, then running out to take out the rogue and then ranger, finishing off with the animal companion and fighter. (Again, the rogue's passives still work, which makes dishing out damage quickly a lot easier.) Hmm, does the skill system still work in this battle? So more alchemy, would provide more whitleaf heal. Happily, it does. With max alchemy I was able to get 400+ seconds of Whiteleaf, which was enough to get me through the fight before it elapsed.

Yeah, this one was tough, but I was able to solo it on upscaled PotD with my Holy Slayer. You get to keep your food benefits, benefits of drugs taken before the fight, your pet benefits, the benefits of passive class abilities/talents, and modal class abilities. So Holy Slayer (which has lots of passives, and a regenerating aura) is a good choice here. You don't benefit from any equipment, can't use any consumables, can't cast any spells or use any active class abilities, so spellcasters are screwed. Here's how my fight went: I used Whiteleaf right before entering the arena, equipped a pet which heals you upon killing, ate the Honey Wine food, and had the Paladin's aura set to Exalted Endurance. Together, that allows you to regenerate a reasonable amount of health. When the fight started, I ran to the bottom of the screen, right to the left of the part of the platform that's fallen away, to limit how many of them could attack me at a time. Then I killed them off one by one, starting with the monk, then cipher, then running out to take out the rogue and then ranger, finishing off with the animal companion and fighter. (Again, the rogue's passives still work, which makes dishing out damage quickly a lot easier.)

Refreshing defense is pretty awesome...

Maybe my focus on solo runs biases my experience, but I’ve never found Con to be of much use tanking. Either you have a balance of damage mitigation (AR/deflection/defenses) and damage recovery (regeneration, healing) that balances out the damage done to you for long enough for you to take them down, or you don’t. You can change various variables here by (say) increasing the speed with which you can take them down (DPS), or by giving yourself more time by improving damage mitigation or healing. But I’ve found Con to have little impact on this; you need enough Con to ensure that the little swings in randomness that perturb your health don’t kill you, but other than that it’s not of much use. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t sirvive a challenging fight with a 10 Con, then you won’t be able to survive it with an 18 Con either. That said, this may be more true in solo play, where fights tend to last a long time, and the effects of any extra “padding” a high Con provides has little effect — if you’re going to be taking several hundred points of damage over the course of a tough fight, padding your HP by another 20 points or so isn’t going to make much difference. In party play, where damage is much more spread out, increasing your Con might do more with respect to increasing your survivability.

I think Con for sure could use a boost of some kind. As is, it’s hard for me to see any reason to have a high Con. Res, at least, is an important stat for at least some builds.

Sadly, the problem still occurs for me: sporadically, whenever the guardian goes into the regeneration mode and knocks my PC prone, they’re permanently prone, everyone ignores them, and nothing further happens until I force quit.

As baldurs_gate_2 says, it's definitely doable. There are lots of Aggressive check opportunities, and enough (though fewer) Cruel opportunities. But if you prioritize Cruel responses over Aggressive ones, and generally choose one or the other of those options when available, you should be fine. Two warnings: 1. First, some Aggressive options will throw you into fights you don't want to get into. It's generally OK to skip those options; there will be enough Aggressive conversation opportunities to max you out without them. 2. Second, you have to be careful to not get things like bits of benevolent dispositions -- one benevolent choice is enough to give you a bar of it if you're a Bleak Walker, permanently lowering your Deep Faith bonus. And (more frustratingly) some quest choices/conversation options will leave you with a benevolent disposition even though the dialog checks themselves don't warn you of this. (For example, if when talking to the Prince in Neketaka you suggest that he leave the black market working, you'll end up with a benevolent disposition, even though none of the dialog checks indicate this beforehand.) So you'll want to save before dialogs, and before accepting quests, to ensure this doesn't happen. Hmm, just one wrong click can mess you up? What if you simply don't take Deep Faith? Then you will be stuck with +10 defense bonus, but that won't be lowered regardless of what you do - and you have a free skill point to work with, no? That’s true. But Deep Faith is so good, it’s hard to imagine not taking it... :/ (Compare it to the Fighter’s Superior Deflection talent, which isn’t available until PL 5).