Katalmach

The way it ended with Eothas and what he did, it sounds like there could be a really awesome new story arc to follow. Maybe even with a new protagonist

Not real sure what exactly happened. I hadn't played the game since before the update that allowed for turn based mode (which I'm not using) I install the updates, bought Forgotten Sanctum, and got ready to play through the game from the start 4 horrible new "features" appeared for me - Load times between 20 seconds to several MINUTES. This is when I load the game or transition from areas. It's insufferable - Sometimes, game just won't load at all. It freezes and crashes - Characters sometimes toggle into walking mode, even in the middle of combat, which shouldn't happen because the game doesn't allow it - Combat gets extremely choppy. Frame rate will be at maximum, then drop to 20, then shoot back up. It really messes up my placement Anybody have any idea why this is happening? Maybe experience the same things?

Don't know if you're still struggling, OP, but wanted to hop in and try to help Pillars is a wonderful game very dear to many of us, but like any RPG, understanding the mechanics can really help. Having a firm grasp of how deflection, fort, ref, and will stats work will help you stun lock and over power your enemies. Once you understand the game well enough, you can look at an enemy's state line and know if it's going to be too hard for you to kill. Generally, if your accuracy is 10 points lower than an enemy's defensive stats, expect a tough fight. 20 points lower, expect it to be nearly impossible to land anything but grazes. In the lighthouse, you have to set up your team in a way that the shades won't insta-gib your casters. On the first level, put them in the left corner near the door with your front liners surrounding them. You can send a rogue (if you have one) over to pop the door, then Escape back to safety. It really pays to have 4 melee guys, and keep them in front of your casters Use your priest to cast aoe heals and heals over time, while your mage puts ups a chill fog or two to blind the shades. If the blind isn't working, your'e probably just too low leveled to beat it. Easy mode should be doable with a single character. If you're party can't take them, come back later

Wael's Wind seems to be the safest, most effective way to deal with these pests. Unless you are playing on Trial of Iron and happen to accidentally engage Fampyrs (which would really suck), resting and having a sip of that fine alcohol makes them totally useless. Fampyrs without their gaze attack are just slightly tougher undead. I dispatched them with ease on path of the damned

Sounds like your version of this build is more aggressive than mine, which is geared towards passive, unstoppable, steady damage I take Patinated plate because this build doesn't have any abilities that make him effective with weapons, and he doesn't need to cast quickly. Patinated Plate stuns enemies that attack you, pretty damn often, so I found it to be helpful in keeping the Chanter alive, especially if he's last man standing

Had an idea a few days ago, so I fleshed it out and put it to the test. I wanted to share, because he ended up being a tremendously useful damage support character The idea is pretty simple, the torrent of flame just stands there and kill everyone around him slowly while being largely untouchable due to his gear (not so much his stats) Race: Fire Godlike (or Human if you want some kind of helmet, but Fire Godlike's Battle Forged is very useful) Background: Any Culture: Old Vailia, or The White That Wends Class: Goldpact Knight and Troubadour Stats (Stats w/ gear) Mig: 18 (20) Con: 10 Dex: 4 (5) Per: 18 (19) Int: 18 (20) Res: 10 (11) Starting Abilities: Lay on Hands Sworn Enemy Come, Come Soft Winds of Death And Hel Hyraf Crashed Upon the Waves Skills: Athletics Any other End Game Gear: Patinated Plate (with Constant Rebound and Burnished Joints) Nerian's Ward (Legendary, Father's Bastion, Father's Aegis) Magran's Favor (Blazing Core, Enduring Flames) Kuaru's Prize (Spell damage, bonus Intellect and Perception) Ring of Focused Flame (accuracy with fire attacks) Greater Cloak of Deflection Boots of the Stone (+1 Dex, +1 Resolve, resistance to Might Afflictions) Woedica's Strangling Grasp (+2 Might, Garrot, +2 Burn Armor Rating) Strand of Favor (Reduce hostile effect duration, increase your effect duration, +1 Intellect) Reforge the Flesh (heal at low health, +1 Might, +1 crush armor rating) Abilities you MUST take: The Dragon Thrashed, The Dragon Wailed (use this with your Troubador modal so it constantly strikes nearby foes) The Shield Cracks (Lower armor, increase duration when enemies take damage, which is every few seconds) Their Champion Braved the Horde Alone (+5 Might, +2 Penetration, Attacks interrupt on Crit for 30 seconds) Brand Enemy (Burn damage over time, and all your damage done to targets is increased, raising the effectiveness of Dragon Thrash, Dragon Wail) Scion of Flame (+1 Penetration with Fire) Inspired Defense and Stoic Steel (Bonus armor) Zealous Aura (Both Exalted Endurance and Exalted Focus are extremely useful, situation depending) Virtuous Triumph (25% chance to regain Zeal on kill) Weapon and Shield Style Deep Faith (especially if this character is your watcher) Snake's Reflexes (to counteract your low Dexterity) Everything else is up to you Sacred Immolation would be good here for even MORE AOE fire damage, but it does deal damage to you, so unless you have a good healer or maybe switch the items around, perhaps add Constitution, it is dangerous to use in this build, especially because you can't upgrade it due to multiclass I would definitely also take Tough and Uncanny Luck if you can spare the points So very little of the Chanter's abilities are used here. You set The Dragon Thrashed, The Dragon Wailed as your only chant, put it on Brisk Recitation. Every few seconds, you'll launch that attack at everyone, doing the best of Fire or Slash damage. With such high fire penetration and power level, it's usually fire. When combat starts, hit everyone with Brand Enemy, adding more DOTs and boosting your chant damage. If you're positioned right, use The Shield Cracks on a large group of enemies and just watch them melt. Your high deflection, medium shield modal, and Goldpact Knight ability plus all that stacked armor you got should make you nearly invincible on even path of the damned

There are 2 bows that have an upgrade called Weightless Draw, which gives a 50% chance to trigger an instant cooldown on a crit. Rogue's have dirty fighting, which gives them a 10% hit to crit conversion, and you can get more with fighter's Disciplined Barrage, or just by sheer accuracy bonus from the Ranger. Swashbucklers and Scouts have some dirty crit chance. I'm using both bows in my full party playthrough on a Scout (Sharpshooter/Rogue) and a Swashbuckler (Devoted (War Bow)/Rogue). I have seen both of them trigger this ability over 6 times in a row. If you trigger it on a target that has 2 afflictions and you're using Deathblows, plus the penetration modal for war bow, and you have Devoted penetration bonus, you do unbelievably high damage, very very quickly, even to super heavily armed targets The 2 bows with Weightless Draw are called Veilpiercer (obtained from the quest New Gods of the Deadfire), and Saint Omaku's Mercy, found in the underground sea lab for the Rauati Quest in Sayuka. Veilpiercer comes legendary, gives a usable ability called Disruptive Arrow that disallows the use of activated abilities for several seconds. It also grants a huge bonus againt spirits, deals 10% raw damage, and is a veil piercing attack (obviously) Saint Omaku's Mercy is geared more for support. It comes Superb. Heavy draw makes it fire 10% slower, but gives 5% bonus damage that scales with Survival (good for your Ranger/Rogue combo), and +1 penetration, which is made even better when used by a Devoted. You'll pierce just about every armor value in the game unless it gets up into the 20s like some of the bosses. One upgradable passives gives you 15% bonus action speed that increases as you lose health, which is great because you'll be squishy. It also heals nearby allies when you score a kill, which will be often So use Omaku's Mercy against normal enemies, use Veilpiercer against spirits and wizards Here's how I recommend you build these ranged rogues (general guidelines, I don't want to look up everything) Race: Hearth Orlan (for hit to crit bonus when attacking same target as an ally) Background: Any, but you could pick one with a bonus to survival for the increased damage Class: Sharpshooter (for Hit to Crit and Penetration options based on range), Rogue (no sublcass, though assassin could work, you'll be using a ton of your resources to go stealth a lot) Rogue abilities (in no particular order, just the most necessary) Dirty Fighting (hit to crit) Two handed style (bonus damage) Counfounding Blind (bonus accuracy, blind, damage over time is super useful) Arterial Strike (bonus damage, bleed damage over time as target moves, and hobbles) ^ use these 2 together to proc your deathblows bonus Devastating blow (200% bonus damage is always great) Deathblows (duh, always take) Deep Wounds (just useful extra raw damage) Ranger abilities (again, no particular order) Driving Flight (makes a separate attack roll, good for that extra chance to score a crit) Marksman (bonus accuracy) Survival of the Fittest (bonus accuracy on targets bloodied or worse) Marked prey (bonus accuracy, take the one that spreads) Accurate wounding shot (+20 accuracy, wooo) There is an ability that I stupidly didn't take, I cannot remember the name of, but it adds 10 accuracy if you attack the same target as your animal companion. Definitely take this, and for increased animal companion effectiveness, give it the 3 damage boosting abilities (30% damage against sneak attack viable targets, 15% straight damage and bonus penetration, and 50% damage against targets who are taking damage over time, with those, your animal companion will wreck serious **** while you attack over, and over, and over again Also, I believe your animal companion counts as a friendly character for the sake of triggering Minor Threat's hit to crit bonus (Hearth Orlan). Abuse that ****, you will crit with nearly every attack As for items, any good light armor. Benwith's armor is great because it reduces the armor penalty. Gloves that give miss to graze, graze to miss or hit to crit work extremely well. For pets, take Trixie, she gives your party hit to crit conversion as well. I think it only works on companions and not the Watcher, but I could be wrong there. I'm not a huge number cruncher, I just do what I find works I will try to make a little video of this build in action sometime

Went to Nekataka and bought 20 Wael's Winds. Hit the tavern and added a Herald (Shieldbearer/Troubadour) that uses the fire/slash AOE, and a Harbinger (Street Fighter/Troubadour) that uses the the phrase that weakens enemies. Ploughed right through those damn Fampyrs like they were made of butter. My original 3 party members were having trouble even without Wael's Wind, but the tons of added damage and healing from the 2 Chanters made it much easier Can't thank you guys enough. I can progress now

So there's this island in the south eastern corner of the map where Fampyrs are in charge. I'm helping a self aware undead man called Copperhead or something, to defeat these Fampyrs And I just cannot win. I'm on non-upscaled Path of the Damned, and nothing works since they've updated and nerfed a lot of items. Potions of Body Atunement gives +8 defense against Mind Afflictions, but even on an Inquisitor I tried (Paladin Cipher with maxed out Resolve and Intelligence, all defensive talents, Iron Will AND Bull's will, with potion of atunement) the Fampyrs still crit his 150+ Will defense and he gets dominated My main is a Psiblade (Devoted/Cipher) with Modwyr so he's totally safe. My Crusader (Paladin/Devoted) and Cleric (Eothas/Unbroken) also get dominated or charmed, and my Psiblade, although a huge damage dealer, is unable to hack his way through several Fampyrs and a swarm of guls, plus his own team mates Does anyone have a build, ability, item, or potion suggestion for me? Maybe a tactic? It seems literally impossible to win, I've tried every high damage or high defense class combo I can think of (even though I wanted to beat the game with only 4 characters), adding a 5th hero only seems to add ammunition for them to use against me! I'm losing my mind here, friends!

I run Eder as a lock down character. I'm running through the game on POTD with story companions only. His defenses are so high he can hardly be touched, and once he engages, nobody can leave combat without getting thwaked real good I've got him as a Swashbuckler, heavy shield you get from the Rathun bounty that increases his deflection by up to 20 as he loses health. He's got the upgraded fighter stance that lets him engage +3 enemies and if they leave, they got hit with a prone attack of opportunity. He's got the defensive buff that gives +15 all defenses, persistent distraction, and deep wounds. When he runs into combat, he can engage up to 4 enemies, all of them are considered flanked and distracted, queuing his sneak attacks, and anytime they miss him against deflection, they take a hit that causes raw bleed over time Also, he's got that weird paddle looking sword that gives him bonus deflection for every enemy engaged. I think once he's stuck in, his deflection is like 110 at level 12. Pretty nasty. That frees the rest of my party to alpha strike the enemy real good Maia: Ranger/Rogue running a pretty rogue oriented party. Her shooting is very accurate and queues sneak attacks because I have so many rogues in the party. The bird also has plenty of viable targets thanks to 4 characters running deep wounds Aloth: Wizard/Rogue I found his stats to be pure ****e and his spells too inaccurate to be a high damage dealing wizard, so I made him a duel wand/scepter wielder. Coupled with sneak attack and spells like chill fog and combusting wounds, he can churn out a considerable amount of damage and debuff from range I use some other companions but I couldn't tell you how they fit into my party. They're just kind of there

Can't believe you killed Eder, man.... I went for a Paladin Chanter build based around limitless self healing and stun locking. My deflection didn't even matter that much, so by end game I duel wielded for the attack speed. I was a Kind Wayfarer so my flames of devotion healed me, twice thanks to duel wield. I had the saber that increases action speed and the Mowyr which also increases action speed. After a couple hits, my average dexterity and heavy armor didn't even matter, I was swinging like I was naked with maxed out dex. The one invocation that gives you quick, insightful and brilliant was OP because I could churn out endless Flames of Devotion for the accuracy buff and healing. The chants I used were +10 deflection and the healing over time one, plus exalted endurance. I ended up deleting that character after I beat the game, but there was also some kind of healing item too, so it came out to like 6 or 7 health per second, plus flames of devotion and deflection around 115. Unkillable. I breezed through the game on the 1.0.1 build

I'm an American from the south but I don't have an accent like from Louisiana or Texas. Xoti's voice made me want to gouge my ears out. And that stupid idiot kid from Eder's quest and all those idiot Dawnstars made me cringe whenever they said "Gaderian Bosc" outloud. It's awful, that whole accent is awful. I don't mind it in real life, but I don't know, hearing it in a fantasy setting threw me off and I don't like it. I feel like that whole accent is a result of a decline in education haha. Just....terrible Eder is from Dyrwood and doesn't sound like that. He does sound like a regular American from the south. The Dawnstars all sound like they screw their cousins and live in a swamp

Bindings? Is that refering to an item, or just any action speed enhancing ability/item? I have not found the latter to be so. I wielded 2 sword, both gave increased combat speed, and I took duel weapon fighting, and that also gave a significant increase

As of the current build, I can't play the game. I can't even get through character creation without the game closing. It doesn't crash, per say, it just closes. It happened with my other 2 characters, one is on Ukaizo, the other one had just reached Neketaka, both of those games would close shortly after loading them. I guess I have to wait until June for them to fix whatever it is they broke

I soloed the game on POTD upscale with a Chanter/Kind Wayfarer. They are unkillable. All I used late game was the chant that gives 10 deflection, and the chant that heals you for 1 point every second. I took very few chanter abilities once I reclassed. What I did take was the one that gives you Insightful so your class ability pool regenerates. Unlimited Flames of Devotion that heal me. Late game I was a duel wielder with deflection still at 115. My Endurance Aura got upgraded so it also healed me for 3 points every 6 seconds or so. My self heal was so high I couldn't be damaged past bloodied. I had unlimited duel wielding FoD strikes that healed me and of course give the +10 accuracy so even against enemies immune to fire it was worth using Try it out. I highly recommend Troubador, though. I went with Skald thinking I would be more spell based, and it was a mistake. Weapons are better

I know this bothers some of the casual players, so it's directed at the hard core ones I just beat the game on POTD solo. A few days ago I scrolled through the achievements and there were 4 hidden achievements. I know that Josh Sawyer had wanted to make the TCS and difficulty achievements hidden so that less hard core players could get 100% completion if they wanted to, but now it appears they are gone. I was very irked not to get the achievement upon completion of the game. I would have taken the storyline companions along with me if I had known they were gonna f*** me like this. I feel like I spent over 60 hours playing through solo for no god damn reason now What gives? Are they coming back? Does anybody know?

It pretty much stays the same. It retains bottoms up, the fire/frost damage buff, the action speed buff, and it's exceptional. When you complete its quest, you can upgrade it to legendary, which is nice

Beckoner seems quite powerful. I would personally mix him with another class for survival reasons if you're playing POTD. I am running a chanter/paladin, the passive defense buffs make me almost untouchable. I'm a skald though, not a summoner. If you want to run a summoner, just take all the summong chants as a beckoner and upgrade them. The skeletons will create more skeletons, the ogers will sweep enemies, the dragon will replace itself when it dies. As a multi class you won't be able to upgrade the weapon summoning, but it's powerful in its own right anyway There really isn't much to playing a summoner. Your summons don't benefits from any kind of buffs, but they do heal, so maybe take the ancient memory chant to help keep them in the fight a bit longer

Well, that rather seems like the weapon is very very strong, not so much ranger itself. Where to get the bow tho? You get Frost Seeker on Neketaka by leaving the city and heading west into the woods. You have to kill some spores and maybe some lurkers to get it Ranger/Rogue is really nice with Frost Seeker because each of those projectiles will sneak attack, adding tons of damage to the otherwise low damage arrows it fires If you are playing a single class Ranger, I imagine that if you use the twinned shots ability, it would fire 6 arrows, but I don't have a ranger so I couldn't tell you for sure. I imagine it would be pretty powerful, but probably not fired by a single class ranger Honestly, the ranger in Pillars is meant to synergize with the pet. You can play an archer by running a rogue, a fighter, or a swashbuckler. The ranger isn't just an archer. You get the best effect when you have a decked out animal that does sneak attack, bonus penetration, and extra damage on enemies who are taking damage over time. Take the accurate wounding shot and all those pet abilities, and the coordinated knock down to do tremendous damage Rangers on their own are poo. With their pet, they are outstanding. I highly recommend Ghost Heart, to avoid bonded grief. That way you can devote ability points that would have gone into heal pet and revive pet, into something more useful, like pet buffs and stat boosting passives Frost Seeker is pretty much a must, it's like the only bow in the game that's any good, although for a gun ranger, duel wielding pistols or using the soul bound rifle might not be too bad

In general, the blunderbuss will be "better" for rogues because each individual projectile will makes its own attack roll, crit on its own, sneak attack and pen on its own. You get your crit chance, crit damage and sneak attack percentage high enough, and the blunderbuss will shred just about anything currently in the game The downside of course, is the really horrible range they have. You'll have to get super close. Be ready to duck out

I'm running upscaled POTD solo as a Paladin/Skald My defenses are so high I can hardly be touched My passive healing is ridiculous. I have the chanter Ancient Memory mixed with the raw damage over time chant that heals you, plus the enhanced paladin aura that also heals you. I'm a kind wayfarer, so anytime I get low health, I can suppliment that healing over time with that flaming attack that heals me. I wield the talking sword and the shield that counts as a weapon, so I strike twice and i'm back to full health It's ridiculous. I'm about to level up and get the fire aura chant, and last level I took the paladin passive that increases fire dmg penetration. Constant, endless fire and slash damage surrounding my unkillable tank while I perma-CC everyone with a paralyze that also inflicts fear debuff It's quite nasty

I'm also finding it ridiculously easy, but, this is the first version of the game. As I recall, POE1 got significantly harder over time as the Obsidian team tweaked it. I remember watching the dudes who had originally beat it on triple crown solo talking about how it was nearly impossible with most builds in the game's final form Right now I'm playing on Veteran with everything upscalled and seriously regretting not going back and starting over on POTD. I beat the original on POTD with the storyline companions as an added challenge, but decided I would just play the storyline this time. The lack of challenge actually got me less interested in the story and more interested in trying to find something worthy of my time to kill I'm running myself as a Devoted (War bow)/Rogue (no subclass). I don't even need the modal because almost every single shot over penetrates and nearly every single one of them is a critical hit, most of which are sneak attack because I can spam the bleeding wound thing (can't remember the name). With 3 projectiles from Frost Seeker all over penetrating, critting, and causing sneak attack, I drop most enemies to half health with a single shot, and then the damage over time alone finishes them off. Eder is a Swashbuckler. With the defensive fighter stance, a ton of items for deflection, reposte and persistant distraction, he locks down half the enemy combatants and then just sneak attacks them in the face. If they try to run, they get auto proned and finished off by my arrows The other companions hardly even do anything, honestly. They're there to block bodies while I annihilate everything with my bow I don't know how far you got, but I reached a point in the story where I encountered a dragon. I was super hyped because I thought it might be like the Adra dragon. I didn't have a single companion or myself get down to even half health, and the battle was over in about 5 minutes... ...it took me two dozen tries and hours of my time to defeat the Adra dragon. I yearn for that experience again I guess I'll beat the game solo while it's still easy, if only for the achievement