whimper

Regarding stats: The only obvious call here is to not invest too much in Con. So your Con investment is good. Both Might and Int increase the amount of healing you get from most of your healing abilities — Lay on Hands, Unbending, Constant Recovery, etc. And those boosts multiply each other. So from a healing/tanky perspective boosting them both equally is the way to go. Might, Dex and Per all increase DPS, and again multiply each other. So from a DPS perspective, boosting them more or less equally is the way to go. Res is a thing to max if you don’t want to be hit. But that’s at odds with high armor investment and unbending, whose effects are proportional to how much you get hit. So there are a number of reasonable spreads, depending on what you want to emphasize. With this subclass combination, I’d be tempted to do something like (post B.B., but ignoring gear): M 18 C 9 D 18 P 18 I 18 R 9 But IMO there are lots of reasonable spreads here (including Res maximizing ones).

If you’re wearing heavy armor, the +4 armor rating will remain a big deal the entire game — when stacked with other AR bonuses, it can make it s.t. every enemy in the game will get massive damage reduction when attacking you. If you’re wearing light or medium armor, then it will be less of a big deal at higher levels. At a certain point, the high level creatures will be able to penetrate your armor with or without it. (It will mitigate over penetration damage bonuses, but those are much smaller than the damage reductions you get from no penetration.)

Paladins are still great in most of the ways you describe: they’re low micro, incredibly tanky, and have some pretty good offensive abilities. Now Sacred Immolation itself isn’t that great without a specialized build. But Paladins are still pretty good.

That actually sounds pretty cool. So you have to do a cost benefit analysis to figure out how much you should lower it's defenses to hit it regularly, without lowering them enough to make it use the injury-inflicting ability...

So what makes it a *mega*-boss?

Just so you know, the Mirrorback and Stop-N-Go builds have been updated for 2.1!

Oh, long pain. Nice. Sounds like a fun set-up with a party!

IMHO, paladin/chanter, paladin/rouge and paladin/monk are all pretty great for solo PotD runs. But since people are throwing out their favorites, I'll chip in too My favorite build so far is this goldpact/streetfighter build. It's very, very tough -- after the first island, I was able to do every fight of a solo upscaled PotD run without using consumables, pulling mobs, or anything like that. That's a pretty nifty set up! And a rare build in which Skald might actually be better than Troubador... I'm tempted to try it! (By the way, did you find going with Skald instead of Troubador to be worth it?)

Updated to fit in new equipment and consumables from recent DLCs.

So I tried Citzal's Spirit Lance in several fights, and there was a dramatic transition from "unhittable artillery tower" to "OMG why is everything killing me?!" In the fights that I managed to survive, Citzal's was pretty nice. But it didn't seem to take them out faster than my AoE spell carpet-bombing did... But maybe an interesting option for drawn out fights where you're going to run out of spells, and need something longer lasting? In any case, given the low con, low AR and extra Helwalker damage this particular build takes, I don't think it's hardy enough (sadly) to survive regular use of Citzal's Spirit Lance... (Now I'm curious as to how these other Sage that rely on it stay alive. I guess they must pump AR or something? Or maybe they're not intended for solo PotD play?)

A quick note on equipment if you’re going Streetfighter: Equipment which kicks in extra defenses as you get more damaged becomes very attractive, since it’ll allow you to get bloodied more easily (triggering streetfighter bonuses), but will make it progressively harder for enemies to bring you down from bloodied/almost dead to actually dead. So (early) Bloody Links and (later) Reckless Brigandine look good as your default armor, the Undying Burden is ideal for your belt, Bronlar’s Phalanx is a great shield, and things like the Protective Eothiasian Charm and Nemock’s Cloak are possibilities (though IMO ultimately suboptimal). In a similar vein, Streetfighter works well with two sets of weapons where the first has either two weapons or a 2H weapon set-up, which you start with, and the second has a weapon and shield which you switch to once you get bloodied. (So you get bloodied quickly, and then can shift to a tanker set-up once you’re there, to stay comfortably in the bloodied/near dead zone.)

Glad you enjoyed the read! My original reason for avoiding Citzal's Spirit Lance was that switching to that 2H-weapon means you lose the defensive benefits of Cadhu Skalth and Kapana Taga, which nets a 38(!) point drop in Deflection. And with a 6 con, the +50% Helwalker increase to damage taken, and only middling armor, I was worried that I would have a hard time surviving... I'm playing this build through the BoW DLC right now, and I actually haven't been getting much of a chance to attack with weapons. I initiate combat, kick in Mirror Image and Enduring Dance, and then carpet bomb them with AoE blasts and ray spells. They're usually all dead before I run out of spells. But working in Citzal's Spirit Lance is an intriguing idea. And with the recent defensive boosts that the new gear gives this build, it might be able to survive the drop in deflection. I'll have to try it out and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestion!

DPS-wise, you have four main ways of damaging your opponents: Weapons Chants Invocations Summons How you allocate your stats will, of course, depend on what means of damage dealing you want to focus on. Might and Perception increase DPS for 1-3. Dexterity only directly increases DPS for 1. But it indirectly supports 3 and 4 in a couple ways. It makes you less likely to get interrupted (though if you have another way of stopping interrupts that doesn't matter). And it helps you get off invocations and summons more quickly, which gives you more time to do other things (like attack with your weapons). Finally, intelligence indirectly boosts DPS for 2 and 3 by increasing your AOE, and boosts DPS for 2-4 by increasing the duration of chants (linger), invocations or summons. (Though if you're using the quick chant modal, you won't have any linger time.) As far as which of these you *should* focus on, they each have pros and cons: Weapons: Weapon-damage can be decent (especially if you use damage-boosting chants), and Paladins have a couple nice ways of boosting this. But you generally won't be able to do as much weapon damage as, say, a Barbarian or a Rogue. Chants: Damage-inflicting chants have been weakened relative to PoE1, and are incompatible with defense-boosting chants, so are somewhat less attractive in that respect. But they're area of effect, and so can target many enemies at once, and they're relentless. Invocations: Invocations can be pretty effective, especially against mobs. But they compete with summons, and can only be cast every 20 seconds or so, so you'll want other things to do in the meantime. Summons: Summons can also be very effective, can stick around for a while, and draw enemy attacks. But they compete with invocations, and can only be case every 20 seconds or so, so you'll want other things to do in the meantime. IMO, hedging your bets a bit, and giving yourself several means of damaging enemies is not a bad idea. But there are lots of ways to run a chanter, including ones which focus almost entirely on chants (though these tend to be very slow), and ones which focus almost entirely on summons.

Reckless Brigandine is also pretty nice in solo play (since you get engaged by lots of enemies). The only problem with brigandine is the weakness to piercing damage, which can really hurt in fights against enemies with lots or ranger/ranged rogue opponents. I generally end up running with two sets of armor (plate and brigandine) that I switch between depending on what kind of damage my enemies will be doing.

My main thought here is that if you're playing solo, you'll probably want to be wearing heavier armor than the DoC. Since you're tanking Resolve, you should expect to get hit a fair amount, and so you'll want some other way to mitigate damage; i.e., a high AR. So I second mant2si's suggestions above regarding armor, though you might want to go to Crookspur and buy the Patinated Plate at the start (which you can afford given Berath's Blessings money), since it's the only high quality plate you'll have access to for the first chunk of the game. Along those lines, I'm mildly inclined to think Goldpact is better than Wayfarer here, since Goldpact gives a big boost to armor stacking builds (which you'll probably want to be). But both are good, and if you prefer the flavor of the Wayfarer, then go for it! Regarding the other items: For solo play, Cloak of the Falling Star is much better than the Cape of Greater Protection, so I'd definitely go for that. (And you can buy it early on!) For solo play (IMO) the Fool's Cap is by far the best head-gear for martial builds. It looks silly, but it's so good that nothing else can compete. So if you can stomach the look, I'd go for that. (Also: you can get the Fool's Cap very early on, and you can't get the Blackened Plate Helm until much later.) For pets, the Animancy Cat is probably the best choice if you're planning on summoning a lot, since it gives your summoned creatures a nice boost. Abraham is also nice if you want to lean more heavily on the martial side, since it reduces armor recovery, and gives you little bits of health each time you kill something. EDIT: You'll also want to think about how you're planning on dealing with interrupts if you're planning on summoning. Option 1 is to not get hit (super high deflection), but that's not how this build goes. Option 2 is to pump Dex so you can get those spells off quickly; this would require boosting Dex a bit more than you do. Option 3 is to use some other gear and or consumables to help here (there's an item that makes you immune to interrupts while you have an injury, though that can be a bit of a pain; things that give you Resolute or Courageous will help; Whiteleaf helps; Potions of Spirit Shield helps, ... and so on). Anyway, something to think about! Thank you for the great feedback. I’ll make some adjustments once I get back to my computer (mobile is to hard to format/see for me). What if I didn’t rank resolve so much, when I look at the gear I’m thinking of using I think I can squeeze out 3 points to bring resolve back to 8. Would DoC be more viable then? My guess is probably not... (Or, more fairly: you probably *can* squeak by with lower defenses in a number of ways, especially if you can maneuver your summons to take most/all of the enemies attention. But that's a kind of finicky style of play that can quickly go wrong and require several reloads to get through tougher fights. So it might not be that much fun (depending on what kind of thing you enjoy!). And it's not a great fit with being a frontline DPS-dealer yourself, where you'll be subject to a lot of enemy attacks...)

My main thought here is that if you're playing solo, you'll probably want to be wearing heavier armor than the DoC. Since you're tanking Resolve, you should expect to get hit a fair amount, and so you'll want some other way to mitigate damage; i.e., a high AR. So I second mant2si's suggestions above regarding armor, though you might want to go to Crookspur and buy the Patinated Plate at the start (which you can afford given Berath's Blessings money), since it's the only high quality plate you'll have access to for the first chunk of the game. Along those lines, I'm mildly inclined to think Goldpact is better than Wayfarer here, since Goldpact gives a big boost to armor stacking builds (which you'll probably want to be). But both are good, and if you prefer the flavor of the Wayfarer, then go for it! Regarding the other items: For solo play, Cloak of the Falling Star is much better than the Cape of Greater Protection, so I'd definitely go for that. (And you can buy it early on!) For solo play (IMO) the Fool's Cap is by far the best head-gear for martial builds. It looks silly, but it's so good that nothing else can compete. So if you can stomach the look, I'd go for that. (Also: you can get the Fool's Cap very early on, and you can't get the Blackened Plate Helm until much later.) For pets, the Animancy Cat is probably the best choice if you're planning on summoning a lot, since it gives your summoned creatures a nice boost. Abraham is also nice if you want to lean more heavily on the martial side, since it reduces armor recovery, and gives you little bits of health each time you kill something. EDIT: You'll also want to think about how you're planning on dealing with interrupts if you're planning on summoning, since those take a while to cast. Option 1 is to not get hit (super high deflection), but that's not how this build goes. Option 2 is to pump Dex and cast-time-reducing abilities so you can get those spells off quickly; this would require boosting Dex a bit more than you do. (Reducing *recovery* isn't so important, but reducing casting time is.) Option 3 is to use some other gear and or consumables to help here (there's an item that makes you immune to interrupts while you have an injury, though that can be a bit of a pain; things that give you Resolute or Courageous will help; Whiteleaf helps; Potions of Spirit Shield helps, ... and so on). Anyway, something to think about!

One quality of life suggestion regarding perception and solo runs: I've found that you can notice pretty much all of the traps in the game with a 16 perception. (And I do mean 16 -- with a 15 you miss a bunch.) So if you're playing solo, it's nice to have at least a 16 perception while in "exploration mode". You can get an easy +3 perception early on (pet on first island, amulet on first island, mask from the oathbinder's sanctum), so that brings your initial perception investment down to 13. So, as a rule of thumb, it's nice to start solo runs with at least a 13 perception. That said, this is more a quality of life thing than anything else, since you can always rest after getting injured by traps. (And with high enough defenses, you can just run through them, and they'll miss...)

It depends a bit whether you’re aiming for a summon-focused build or a martial-focused build (with intermittent invocations). Res is only worth investing heavily in if you’re aiming for an amazing deflection score as your primary defense (which Paladin/chanters are well positioned to do if going sword and board, given the further boosts they can get from Divine Grace and chants). Deflection boosts have increasing retirns, so this is really a choice between a max Res and a flat (or even dumped) Res. Dex is good to help minimize interrupts for spells with long casting times, like summons. Also really good for martial builds, since it’s effectively a damage multiplier with the damage boosts you get from a high perception and might. So it depends on what style of play you’re aiming for, really.

I also get same result, normal fights usually cakewalk and you will have a lot of utilities to win them, but bosses fights is hard, mostly because of their armor and big hp pools, I don't know how Devoted/Berserker can kill BoW dragon, but other 2 builds with Paladin/(Rogue, Monk) is pretty stable and can win such fight Yeah, I found the second BoW dragon fight with the Devoted/Berserker to not be too bad if you use the spirits — that godhammer blast does a LOT of damage! But the initial BoW dragon fight without spirit support was a huge pain for the Devoted/Berserker. I ended up retraining everything just for that fight, focusing entirely on passive abilities that wouldn’t run out, shifting to a sword and board set-up with the Animancer’s Energy Blade (even though I had to eat a -10 accuracy penalty), stacking armor and corrode armor boosting items, and stacking regenerating items/food/drugs (ring of greater regeneration, honey wine hen, whiteleaf). Basically: turning into a poor man’s Paladin! That (and healing consumables) did the trick. But yeah, it was a huge pain...

So what's the solution with a greater number of mobs with diminished CC capabilities now? Just AoE spam?This is what I’m wondering about solo play. I really feel like like Wizard is more than capable to solo. Or wizard/multi. But on a melee front, what can take care of the mobs?I'm not sure I get why there's a particular worry about mobs... I've done four complete solo PotD runs, three of them martial, and none of them had any particular problem with mobs. But to answer the question: martial characters can take of mobs by using AoE weapons, using AoE class abilities (Carnage and a synergistic weapon are especially good here), or by just being very tanky and killing them one by one (preferably paired with a means of quickly teleporting to the backlines to take out the wizards first). (For reference, the three martial builds I've done solo PotD runs with are: A Helwalker/Darcozzi that's a mixture of this build and this build. This Streetfighter/Goldpact build. A Berserker/Devoted loosely based on this build. The first used weapon AoE effects to deal with crowds. The third used Leap to take out the wizards first, and Carnage and Lord Darryn's Voulge to clear out the rest. And the second used Escape to take out the wizards first, and then used armor stacking and high single target DPS to take out the rest one by one.) I guess the worry is the first 10 or so levels and the first island. Without pulling mobs in certain maps it seems almost impossible near the beginning. Ah, I see. Yeah, solo PotD fights are definitely tougher in the early levels (whether you go for a martial build or a caster build). Since you can sneak past pretty much all of the first island, and then level up to 10+ doing non-violent quests in Neketaka, it's not something you need to worry about unless you want to go out of your way to fight things at low levels. (But I get that you might want to do that. And if so, more power to you! In that case, some Paladin multiclass is probably the way to go, since they get substantial defensive boosts very early on. (Goldpact/Troubador is probably the easiest option.))

Updated to fit in new equipment and consumables from recent DLCs.

So what's the solution with a greater number of mobs with diminished CC capabilities now? Just AoE spam?This is what I’m wondering about solo play. I really feel like like Wizard is more than capable to solo. Or wizard/multi. But on a melee front, what can take care of the mobs? I'm not sure I get why there's a particular worry about mobs... I've done four complete solo PotD runs, three of them martial, and none of them had any particular problem with mobs. But to answer the question: martial characters can take of mobs by using AoE weapons, using AoE class abilities (Carnage and a synergistic weapon are especially good here), or by just being very tanky and killing them one by one (preferably paired with a means of quickly teleporting to the backlines to take out the wizards first). (For reference, the three martial builds I've done solo PotD runs with are: A Helwalker/Darcozzi that's a mixture of this build and this build. This Streetfighter/Goldpact build. A Berserker/Devoted loosely based on this build. The first used weapon AoE effects to deal with crowds. The third used Leap to take out the wizards first, and Carnage and Lord Darryn's Voulge to clear out the rest. And the second used Escape to take out the wizards first, and then used armor stacking and high single target DPS to take out the rest one by one.)

Huh, weird. This is pretty much the opposite of my experience. I generally find mob fights doable with a wide range of classes (blanket AOE spells for spellcasters, charge/leap/escape into the backlines to take out the squishies for martials), but the boss fights hard for all but certain kinds of high-endurance builds. Maybe we’re trying different kinds of builds. (Or there are some good boss-beating tricks I’m not using... : P)

A silly question, but how do you craft potions in the new interface? (The crafting button just leads me to the menu of weapons and armor I can enchant.)

I get that its supposed to be a challenge. But, really pulling mobs to kill one or two at a time, thats so lame. Are you saying we cannot take a ship full of pirates or the first island drake fight (at equal character level) and not win? This is absolutely a balance issue at that point. If you go for a tanky enough build you won’t have to pull mobs after level 7 or so (depending on when the build comes together). After that, you can almost always just facetank. So no worries!