whimper

I’ve done a solo PotD run with a Sage (the Mirrorback sage build in Boerer’s list). It was pretty fun. I will flag that against big bosses, it was noticeably squishier than my armor-stacking Holy Slayer run. (And it wasn’t on upscaled PotD, just “normal” PotD.) So definitely not as durable as a devoted/goldpact build. A ton of fun against mobs though. EDIT: ...and you asked for stats. The build I ran with maxed Res and Per, had decent Mig and Int, flat Dex, and low Con.

Äh i beat her solo with my Holy Slayer. Brand Enemy does only 2 damage, but gougin strike 9, so 11 damage. You can smoke veil out and wait at the entrance unnoticed until she dies. Ah, should’ve tried that. I’ll retrain, and then it’s time for round 2!

Like baldurs_gate_2, my go to solo builds have been falling short. So I'd definitely be curious to hear if anyone has solo-ed her on upscaled PotD, and if so, with what build. (I even tried the Brand Enemy route, because I can tank indefinitely given her initial state. But unfortunately, even if you never attack, she kills so many of her own spawn that her accuracy goes up pretty quickly, and she can eventually start critting you repeatedly until you eventually go down... I also tried quickly killing all of the hives first, to stop the little spiders from spawning, but I haven't been able to do it fast enough yet (those hives have a surprisingly high number of HPs)...)

Is it doable for newbs like me? And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing? I haven’t tried it with a party yet, so I don’t have a good feel for how difficult it would be party-wise. (Though the above commentaries suggest it’s pretty hard!) But on solo upscaled PotD it’s excruciatingly hard, at least for the builds I’ve tried so far. As in: I’m somewhat doubtful that I’ll be able to do it... (Though maybe that just shows that I’m not hardcore enough!)

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

Better to dump resolve and put it in INT, because you want your hobbled / blinded last long. What does the -8 INT ring do?Bliss: Resistance to Perception, Intelligence, and Resolve afflictions lol pretty much useless. Don't you get the same with captains banquet and without the -8 int?It's certainly true that the Ring of Mule's Wit is of little use if you've eaten the Captain's Banquet, but that a big opportunity cost. Namely, locking you out of all of the other food benefits you could have. For example, I like pairing the Ring of Mule's Wit with Shark Soup, which yields +2 Might, +1 PL to everything, and immunity to all physical afflictions, to go along with the ring's resistance to all mental afflictions. It's pretty nice being either resistant or immune to every kind of affliction in the game.

Just so you know, the Goldpact/Streetfighter build is almost identical to this build.* Obviously, I'm a big fan! (*Which is not unexpected, since there's a logical sequence of decisions that naturally lead to a build of this kind.)

I assume the same would be true for the Devoted build as well? Yeah, I wasn't thinking about the Devoted build, but Devoted does get a +25% crit damage bonus, so Per would probably be the thing to aim for there too.

Re Cauldron bonus: IMO your most important stat is Perception, both to connect with your massive damage bonuses, and because it increases crit chance, and this build wants to take as much advantage of the streetfighter crit damage bonus as it can.

That's not always true... it really comes down to the build. Yes, with dumped Int it really won't be a great addition at all, I agree. It also needs to be said that Courageous is a great buff in solo. There are other means to become uninterruptible, but it's always good to have options. Both reasonable points. You’re right that there are builds/cases where GLoH would be preferable to LoH (e.g., cases where you want to counter an affliction). And likewise, cases where Courageous is useful. I’m not sure how often those cases will arise for this particular build (given the low duration of these boosts, the options of a Ring of Muke’s Wit and Slippery Mind to stave off Resolve afflictions, and the relatively minor downsides of being interrupted for this build (relative to, say, a spellcaster).) Still, both fair points!

A couple other things to consider on ability choices for the Goldpact/Streetfighter. Two rules of thumb I think it's worth keeping in mind: One rule of thumb is it's not great to have too many abilities competing for the same resource, because that usually means you won't use more than a couple of them, and the rest will rarely, if ever, get used. Another rule of thumb that bears on a lot of your choices: If you're dumping Int, effects that rely on duration (often, though not always) become a lot less valuable, and so may not be worth it. Some more specific thoughts:I'd personally switch the order of Flames of Devotion and Lay on Hands, since the latter is a "save your bacon" kind of ability that can really make the first island easier, whereas Flames of Devotion is a mild damage boost that doesn't do that much for you on solo PotD, especially at low levels. (It gets better as a way to burn off extra Zeal from Virtuous Triumph at higher levels.) After one of the recent upgrades, Greater Lay on Hands became worse than Lay on Hands (IMO), because it costs twice as much Zeal. That means GLoH yields less healing per Zeal than LoH. (And the perk of GLoH is especially minor if you're dumping Int, and only get the Robust inspiration for 5 or so seconds -- definitely not worth an extra Zeal!) Eternal Devotion isn't that great if you're dumping Int, IMO, since the added damage effect won't last very long. Crippling Strike is decent because it's a cheap way to boost damage (+2 penetration, +25% damage) if you have left over Guile, and (I believe) it scales nicely with PL. Likewise, attacks which boost raw damage of the attack and don't rely on duration effects (e.g., Finishing Blow) aren't bad. But Rogue attacks that cost a lot of Guile in order to inflict some affliction for X seconds aren't that great for this build, since (again) if you're dumping Int, the affliction they impose won't last very long. For similar reasons, on this build, Debilitating Strike isn't much better than Crippling Strike. So it's not clear it's worth an ability slot (though it's not clearly terrible, either). Likewise, the Beacon abilities are duration effects, and so aren't that great for Int-dumping builds. So I think you actually have a fair amount of room to fit other things in, if you like. (I'd recommend Escape early on-ish (before level 10), since you encounter a lot of "wizard hiding in back" fights in Neketaka, and Escape is great for those fights.) 
 Other things to consider which are boring, but probably better for this build than most duration-dependent abilities, are passive boosts: things which add resistance to physical afflictions (say), or Bull's Will, Snake's Reflexes, and Bear's Fortitude, or Practiced Healer (to boost Lay on Hands and Exalted Endurance), etc. None of those passive abilities are great. But they'll add (small) boosts to your character 24/7, unlike many of the duration-dependent abilities which will never get used.

Re the Goldpact/Streetfighter: You might think about fitting Escape in somewhere. I found it immensely useful as a way of teleporting behind waves of bodies to quickly kill the squishy spellcasters in the backlines. You have Deep Wounds listed twice? You probably want Stoic Steel as one of your lvl 19 picks. It's really good. (And, of course, I'd recommend fitting Weapon and Shield style in there. But if you want to try to make it through the boss fights without sword and board-ing it, go for it! You can always retrain if it doesn't work out.)

If OP dumps some of the Might and stacks Resolve wouldn’t that make it so she doesn’t have to use a shield? Well, boosting Res from 11 to 18 gets you +7 deflection. Shifting to Bronlar’s Phalanx gives you up to +46 deflection (and a bunch of other defensive benefits as well — a similar boost to reflex, large shield modal for half damage from ranged and reflex targeting attacks, extra armor and regeneration when below 25% health). So I’m pretty confident that just boosting Res isn’t going to be enough for the toughest fights... Of course, that doesn’t mean one couldn’t do both — boost Res instead of Might, and have a shield set-up to switch to when things get tough. (I’m inclined to think boosting Might is better, for the reasons I gave above, but this is something about which reasonable people could disagree. And it’s certainly the case that both options are (IMO) very strong.)

As far as Might on rogues: it's certainly true that, as dunehunter and Manveru123 note, all the damage boosts you get from rogues make it the case that the extra damage you get from Might doesn't add that much more. So, as a rule of thumb, it's not worth boosting Might with rogues. But, IMO, this is a special case, for two reasons. (1) Might also increases all of your sources of healing (Exalted Endurance, Lay on Hands, and (I believe) any sources of regeneration you get through equipment). And boosting that healing by +30% or so can be very useful when tanking through tough fights, and makes you substantially harder to put down. (2) There aren't any other places where you could put those stats that would do you more good. You've already maxed Perception and Dexterity. You don't need more than a 10 Constitution. And Int will help you by increasing your LoH healing, while Might will increase your LoH healing, and your other kinds of healing, and provide a 30% damage boost on top. I could see someone arguing for boosting Resolve instead of Might, if you really wanted to go for the "hard to hit" angle. And to be fair, that's not a terrible way to play things. But (a) it's kind of counterproductive with a streetfighter who initially wants to get hit a bit so they can get Bloodied, and (b) it's a bit of a waste carefully boosting your armor as high as you can if you're never going to get hit. So with this particular set-up, it strikes me as a case of there just not being anywhere else to put those stat points that would do more for you than Might...

Yeah, so about that... Let me just note that (IMO) you'll probably want to have two weapon sets, one of which is a weapon and shield set-up. The first you can use while trying to get Bloodied, and the second you can switch to once you get Bloodied (so you don't die). For the toughest fights, there is (IMO) a pretty much optimal weapon set-up for this kind of build: Animancer's Energy Blade and Bronlar's Phalanx. The Animancer's Energy Blade does raw damage, and so completely ignores armor. This is huge against crazy bosses who have armor that's off the charts (though it's suboptimal against low armor targets); I found myself doing about x4 more damage with it than with my default weapon. And Bronlar's Phalanx is perfect fit for boss fights with a Streetfighter -- it gives an increasing (up to +20) additional deflection bonus as you lose health, and has an enchantment that provides a +1 stacking armor bonus and regeneration if you hit Near Dead (25% health). So switching from a two weapon set up to using Bronlar's Phalanx will increase your deflection by up to +46(!), increase your (already pretty amazing) armor by 1, and give you yet another source of regeneration. In my experience, this has an enormous effect on how survivable these uber-boss fights are. With that massive deflection boost, the bosses will often miss (triggering ripostes), and more importantly, will never crit you, and so never get the penetration to go through your armor. That makes a huge difference to how much damage they can inflict on you; to the extent to which exalted endurance, a ring of major regeneration, and Bronlar's Phalanx (when you dip to 25%) provide enough regeneration to almost entirely offset the damage they're doing (with Lay on Hands being something you can still whip out in emergencies). TLDR: You'll probably want to have a weapon and shield set-up for the toughest boss fights, and so will want to sink a feat into Weapon and Shield style (even if you don't want to use that set-up all the time).

Streetfighter gets +30% Damage from Sneak Attack and +100% crit damage while bloodied and flanked, what pretty much outdamages every other matial class. And here is where streetfighter gets a huge vote. The majority of fights involve swarms of enemies. the faster you can kill the swarm the faster you can move on. I think I've build my test wrong in this case, the starts are probably not going to make the streetfighter tanky enough. How is this achieved? I never noticed it during any of the fights. How does that work? the automatic deathblows, I've built a street fighter before and feel like I've missed out then... Survival wise will the streetfighter catch up to the devoted later in the game? As for the boar fight, I'll switch back to medium armor and give it another retry. In the end what would you say the more optimal build is? Devoted or Streetfighter? That ring... that seems super OP "Resistance to Perception, Intelligence, and Resolve afflictions" Doesn't resolve raise your deflection though? and isn't that a good thing wither either devoted/paladin or streetfighter/paladin? For the perception comment. I feel like i want to max perception with a devoted class to achieve over penetration (I believe that's how it works, though I've been wrong so many times in this thread it hurts). I think a minimum of 16 perception will allow you to see every trap in the game as well won't it? Yeah, LoH is the one ability you kind of care about that gets hit by the low Int. But combined with Exalted Endurance and a very high armor, I've found LoH to still be good enough (with a maxed Might) to get me through boss fights. And there's a weird way in which the smaller healing bumps you get from LoH with a low Int is good for a Streetfighter, since it makes it easier for you to control your healing, and keep yourself in the Bloodied zone. But yeah, there is a cost. But that cost is easily outweighed (IMO) by all the benefits you get by plunking those 13 points into other stats instead... I feel like the majority of the time I'd be using up all my zeal on Sworn Enemy since i'd want to remain gilded as much as possible, for that reason i don't see using LoH of FoD as offten. Also i don't think Exalted Endurance stacks with gilded, so that leaves you with the accuracy aura or the stride aura. Not even sure which on to pick at this point. of course this is all if streetfighter is the clear winner here (and it seems like the majority of people are leaning that way). If devoted is the winner I'd definitely want to get that INT way up there so disciplined strikes can last longer. Yeah, I’m inclined to think streetfighter is the winner (especially after lvl 10+). Re Zeal: Sworn Rival returns the Zeal investment once you kill your target, so you only need one Zeal to use it as much as you want. (And since they’ll die quickly against a streetfighter, you’ll get the armor bonus a lot!) Re Exalted Endurance: the armor bonus won’t stack, but it’s the limitless regeneration that makes it amazing, not the armor bonus. (Especially great for streetfighter is the fact you can turn it on and off to keep yourself in the Bloodied zone.) Re Deathblows: Persistent distraction actually inflicts two conditions, so as long as you’re next to them, Deathblows will automatically activate. It’s pretty amazing.

I agree that, in general, it’s not good to dump Int. And I agree that LoH is very good. (It’s so good, that it’s still really good even if you dump Int!) And I’ll grant you that the Res vs Int tradeoff is something one could reasonably debate making a different choice about. I think you might be underestimating Per here, though. I think Per is pretty good in general, but it’s *really* good for this build, because of the massive damage boost to crits streetfighters can get. That makes accuracy increases, which increase crit chance, significantly more valuable for this build than for most. (I also think the benefit of getting resistance to all mind afflictions is pretty amazing, and so a non-trivial factor that weighs in favor of dumping Int in this case.) My easiest upscaled PotD solo run was with a Goldpact/Streetfighter built roughly along the lines I described, so I know that this stat line works. But that class combination is such a strong combo that there are probably a lot of different stat lines one could run it with, and I grant that one could reasonably question whether this particular stat line was best. (Though I’m still kinda inclined to think it is!)

Do you think that's still true for solo play?... I agree that with a party build Int is great for a paladin -- it makes your aura bigger so you get include more allies, makes your Exhortations/Commands on allies last longer, and makes your Eternal Devotion and Lay on Hands abilities last longer. (And it's also good if you have a specialized build using Sacred Immolation, but I take it that's not what we're going for here.) But (putting Sacred Immolation aside) only Eternal Devotion and Lay on Hands are tempting in solo play. And Eternal Devotion (IMO) doesn't end up being that great, for the same reason that active abilities generally aren't that great in solo runs in general. Namely, you don't need them for the easy fights, and they run out too quickly to have much bearing on the tough (and extremely long) boss fights. (Moreover, since Eternal Devotion and Lay on Hands are both competing for the same resource -- Zeal -- you'll almost never want to use Eternal Devotion, since you want to save up all your Zeal for Lay on Hands.) So that leaves Lay on Hands as the main beneficiary of a high Int. And when you weigh that against all the other benefits you get from putting those stats elsewhere (and the benefit of getting to wear the Ring of Mule's Wit for virtually no cost), it seems (IMO) that dumping it is pretty appealing...

Yeah, LoH is the one ability you kind of care about that gets hit by the low Int. But combined with Exalted Endurance and a very high armor, I've found LoH to still be good enough (with a maxed Might) to get me through boss fights. And there's a weird way in which the smaller healing bumps you get from LoH with a low Int is good for a Streetfighter, since it makes it easier for you to control your healing, and keep yourself in the Bloodied zone. But yeah, there is a cost. But that cost is easily outweighed (IMO) by all the benefits you get by plunking those 13 points into other stats instead...

One final note about your test: while the stats you choose look great (IMO) for a solo Goldpact/Devoted build, I'm not crazy about them for a solo Goldpact/Streetfighter build, which gets significantly less from the Int investment. For a Goldpact/Streetfighter, I'd be inclined to instead go for something like this (pre BB): M 18 C 10 D 18 P 18 I 3 R 11 Couple that with the Ring of Mule Wit to give yourself resistance to all mind afflictions(!) and you're looking pretty good. (True, the Ring gives you a -8 Int penalty. But that stops at 1 Int, meaning you only take an effective -2 Int penalty. And Int doesn't really do much for you anyway...)

...and at later levels also gets automatic Deathblows form Perdistent Distraction, in addition to all that. And a number of other nice offensive boosts too. As Theosupus and Raven note, testing up to level 5 on the first island is not representative. DPS-wise, goldpact/streetfighter is much better once it comes together (at around level 10). That’s about 1/4 of the way through the game. (One other note about your test: I take it you were wearing brigandine against the boar. That armor is a very poor choice against piercing. So that fact will skew you’re assessment of heavy vs medium armor.)

I’m with mant2si here — if you’re going solo goldpact/streetfighter, heavy armor is better than DoC. To spell out why a bit: 1. We can divide fights into the relatively easy fights, which usually don’t last long, and the really hard fights — generally boss fights — which last forever. For really easy fights, you can get away with wearing whatever. But the extra resources don’t really matter, because you’d beat them anyway. For the really hard fights, the extra resources don’t matter, because the fights take way too long, and the opponents have too many HPs, for an extra use or two of an active ability to matter. What matters are passives and abilities (like having a high AR) that won’t run out. 2. Armor yields increasing returns. So you generally don’t want to to go halfheartedly for armor. Either largely ignore it, and wear something with a fast recovery time, or go whole hog. And if you’re not going whole hog, you might consider something other than goldpact, since goldpact really lends itself to armor stacking, and isn’t that great if you’re not.

https://abload.de/img/unbenanntafdga.png Wow. That’s pretty crazy, cuz none of those three effects usually stack... Submit a bug report?

Yeah, when I tried using Gilded Enmity with potions of Spirit Shield or Ironskin, they didn’t stack for me... EDIT: (Which is evidence that Nemnock’s cloak is bugged in some way.)

Goldpact/Devoted will be tankier. But Goldpact/Streetfighter will have a much higher DPS, especially after level 10+, when you get Persistent Distraction. If you go for armor stacking, I find Goldpact/Streetfigher to be more than tanky enough (since high armor makes it much safer to stay in the Bloodied zone), especially after level 10+, when you get Exalted Endurance. (I've found Goldpact/Streetfighter to be much tankier than Devoted/Streetfighter, which I know you tried.) IMO, Goldpact/Streetfigher is a better package than Goldpact/Devoted. But that's not surprising, since Goldpact/Streetfighter is mixing two classes whose abilities fill in each other's weaknesses (mixing a super-tanky but middling offense class with a fragile but super-offense class), while Goldpact/Devoted is mixing two classes whose strengths overlap (a mix of two classes that are very tanky but have a middling offense).