brasilgringo

so is this going to be continued? is this really a viable solo build for POTD?

Holy cow, don't remember having seen this before. Saving Fate: Grants Saving Fate (Revive with 500 Health, Immune to Injury afflictions - Total 3 charges). Note that the item tag on the link cited appears to be wrong (for the Ring of Mule's Wit). This Ring of Reset looks like it would be great for Belranga, surprised it hasn't been mentioned much.

what ring specifically on Mirke? you could always use the "hit once with gouging strike" and then hide behind a pillar near the entrance strategy -- just require patience and alt-tab

I think one of the key points made in the comments above is that casting FF repeatedly isn't worth the cost/risk, as the self-damage/affliction from curse is significantly worse for the monk than the bonus damage from the FF itself. The scaling of the damage and duration of the curse were both commented in some detail, in an analysis that I thought was spot on. In short, you can't really cast FF enough times under the current mechanics. I think the suggestion of having a FF bonus apply to all monk attacks, not just the FF itself, is an interesting potential approach here, plus toning down the self-damage/affliction duration.

In my testing I was getting it to stack to 5 and it did OK damage, but I was spending a lot of time trying to handle the curses through Clarity of Agony, Lone Wolf, etc and gear like Voidward (which I think lowered the damage). It didn't leave a lot of time for anything else. And it's not like the Forbidden Fist even at 5 stacks was "One Punch Man" -- it was doing 100+ dmg but nothing to write home about. Unless I'm not understanding what you can do with the class, it seems a lot weaker than Hellwalker and Nalpazca.

I have a different opinion. First of all I don't think that Assassin, Trickster or Streetfighter are straight out better than a vanilla Rogue. Their advantages and disadvantages balance each other out - sort of. But there are several ways to circumvent the disadvantages and there are builds where certain subclasses are better than others - for example a Trickster is better for a tanky build than an Assassin. I also don't think that the Barb subclasses are worse than the vanilla class. More niche maybe, but there are niches where they are def. better. Berserker is praised - but only because people think the crit conversion and the better inspirations outweigh the self damage - which they don't in my opinion. If you play a high level Berserker it's a big disadvantage actually. And the fact that you can circumvent confusion... well as I said: you can circumvent the disadvantages with most subclasses as you would try to do with any build: build out your strengths, circumvent the weaknesses. Same with the Arcane Archer. I don't think he's worse than a Sharpshooter, Ghost Heart or a Stalker. Sharpshooters actually always suffer from a permanent speed malus that hampers their dps. Against enemies where AR is no problem they are straight out worse than other rangers. Stalkers are only good at melee range and require more micromanagement. With AI it's a pain to prevent Bonded Grief. Ghost Heart's animal companion can't do anything better than the normal AC but costs Bond AND counts towards the summoning limit. But you can find builds/cases where each of those makes sense and is a better pick than the others. The Arcane Archer can hit several enemies with multiple spells using only one shot. As I already said: Imbue: Death at high levels is one of the things that can currently wipe a whole group of dummies with two shots if you build the Arcane Archer correctly. Because of the Arcana-ACC bonus you'll generate tons of crits with your imbue spell, the dmg number of Death Ring can be over 100 for each hit roll, you can at least trigger two ones with Driving Flight and three with an additional jump AND it has the chance to destroy targets that have low health. You can maybe see the synergy with the multi-triggering... Three instances of Pull of Eora with one imbue shot with such high ACC will guarantee nothing leaves that area - especially when you combine it with Binding Roots(!). A very potent CC option - and you need no caster for that and not even a "dedicated" CC guy. The disadvantages can be circumvented easily as with other subclasses: low health isn't a big deal because you will be ranged and thus will plan to play with lowish health and defenses anyway. The ACC pen is non-existent with the right weapons (which are not hard to come by). I tested that class a lot now and I have not the impression that it's worse than the other subclasses. Same with the Furyshaper by the way. The others I have not really tried so I can't say. That there are subclasses that are indeed better than the vanilla class (see Troubadour) doesn't mean that this should be done with every new subclass. Because it's boring if you are forced to pick the same subclass over and over again when you're somebody who cares for power. At the moment I think it's just an assumed weakness than an actual one - like it was at the release of PoE where lots of people seriously found that Wizards are useless. Having to level up a pure ranger Arcane Archer (no multiclass) just to get Imbue: Death Ring seems like a long way to go. The impact at MC levels (stops at fireball/pull of eora) seems less impressive. Maybe I'm not using Pull of Eora right .... Hard to see how a pure ranger can feel satisfying as a solo POTD attempt, too, or maybe solo vet. I guess if you stack Arcana you just go scroll heavy on top of your imbues, and end up using Essence Interrupter or a similar weapon that doesn't suffer the acc penalty. Still, if you're going to stack Arcana and use scrolls, I get the sense that approach would better complement other classes, vs just using Arcane Archer to be able to three-cast or 4-cast death ring (I think if you use Kitchen Stove with the 2-jump ability and driving flight, you can probably 4-cast it). Open to see builds, though.

Essence Interrupter, Frostseeker, and Dragon's Dowry are the only ones I've tested (for actual weapons). Theoretically, Thundercrack Pistol should also be exempt, and it's possible that a select few other ranged weapons may be as well after they take upgrades that grant the ability to inflict elemental damage. Caedebald's Blackbow should also be exempt, in the off-chance that the new DLC introduces a way to use it as an Arcane Archer (currently available to PL9 single-class Wizards). Spearcaster (whose accuracy scales with Arcana) gets the -5 Acc penalty even if you upgrade it to Elemental Bolts (+3% lash of burn/corrode/freeze/shock).

Wouldn't it be better to alpha strike from stealth with something like delayed fireball plus fireball or ningauth's fireball, perhaps empowered, rather than arquebus? So you get the assassin bonus as well? Do we know if Blood Sacrifice breaks stealth (due to self damage)? I wonder if it's worth it if you lose empower for stealth strikes, probably not.

I couldn't see any bonus to power level shown when I moused over the tool tip, but i looked at damage and duration, and they didn't seem to change in any meaningful way. I moused over a druid with +1 PL water from watershaper focus, on water keyword spells, and still didn't see anything specific in the tool tip about PL .. though, again, damage etc. changed.

Bem percebido!

So assuming equal Might and Intellect for both classes: (I used a wiki for the attribute numbers, not sure if they are still correct) A SC Ancient Druid gets +2PL over the MC. That amounts to +10% Damage, +10% Duration, +1 Pen, and +2 Accuracy. A MC Ancient/Helwalker gets +10 Might and +10 Intellect. That amounts to +30% Damage, +50% duration, and +100% to Area of Effect size. If the MC can land the DoT and doesn't need to worry about Pen, their damage will blow the SC out of the water. The thing is that this is a narrow evaluation of the two classes and doesn't count other factors like other spells you might use or access to PL 8 and 9 for Druid which has some good stuff in there. Does using spell-shaping to make the AOE smaller benefit from the original intellect-boosted AOE radius? That is, if I shrink down the AOE radius as small as possible using spell shaping, but my "normal" AOE radius is already being made much bigger due to +10 intellect and things like Ring of Overseeing, do I get even more bonus from shrinking it down using spell-shaping?

I'm really just looking for a way to get off the starter island right away and test out builds (that I do level to 20 with the console, and gear up). I'd like a way to warp to, say, Nekataka where I can test builds on encounters and also buy the ships / crew i need. I have tried respeccing characters later in the game (using the character creation console command) but I'm not convinced it applies things like berath's blessings right on the repsec. If there's a simple warp-to command to use from the beach of Port Maje island at the start, that gets me to Nekataka, I'd use that. Thanks.

the Druid spells are tagged with "Counters: Antidote", which I believe means they are Poison, at least that's what people said in the past. Do they explicitly have to have Poison keyworded now?

In some testing, it does not appear that Alchemy skill (20) or +PL for Poison is affecting Druid spell damage that seems to have keywords for Poison -- or to be specific, spells keyworded as having also keyword "counter:antidote" (Insect Swarm, Vile Thorns, Venombloom). Could Obsidian please comment if Alchemy should affect poison damage from Druid spells as such, and also if +PL Poison items (Helm of Grotto Deep, Spider Silk Robe) should also affect poison damage from these spells? And if so, how much / what is the scaling for Alchemy now. Thanks.

Unsure if that's the case for the Spine as I think most +PL boosting has been nerfed down to +2 across the board. The reason why I'd use the pike is to have the pierce hole covered as well as having the +resto stat buff on the spine. Also Wicked Beast has some other abilities that I think could be useful and more offensive oriented than the staff. Also I like poking things. And being special because no one uses that weapon. It wouldn't surprise me if Poison didn't affect Pernicious, but it hasn't been uncommon for Obsidian to fail to keyword things correctly. One way or another I need to do a lot of testing to see what does or does not work. And I need to see if I can make Assassin/Tactician work for infinite restealth backstabs. Yes I like Assassins. Downloading the beta. I wonder what is the most efficient DoT rotten druid : 1) Single class (+PL) Ancien druid (+1PL Plant/Beast) + nature godlike (+1PL) + Spine thicket green (+3 Plant/beast) + amulet (+1PL/rest) + Elevation Potion (+PL) -> should lead to epic venomblood / plague of insect... -> Firestag / Aspect of Galawain : does they get upgraded by +PL (except duration) ? (never toyed with them yet) You could add Helm of Grotto Deep (+2 Poison PL I think) if you are willing to give up Nature Godlike, and Spider Silk Robe (+2 Poison PL) .... because a few of the beast/plant spells are also keyworded to poison (counter:antidote) and it might buff them further, like Plague of Insects I think, Vile Thorns, and Venombloom? Also if you stack Alchemy skill which apparently still affects poison damage, though I'm not sure how much .... The thing with druid spells is once you get Great Malstrom, there's really no going back ... On a solo druid I have a hard time figuring out how to build for survival and not let the long cast times get me down. One thing to consider is that since there's only a few key plant/beast spells you want, go Lifegiver to also get free healing spell power picks and +2 heal PL, then supplement with the Beast/Plant/poison stuff.... not sure you need to go Ancient, or if it's worth it.

Is there an argument that Paladin/Wiz is better for this approach to using Mage buffs and spirit lance as it is potentially easier to reach 195+ will defense (to defeat Arcane Damper) without external buffs? I suppose Sage can just cast Circle of Protection from a scroll if standing still ... still, Pally perhaps has more tools to help with damage / afflicition recovery. FoD applied in aoe with lance, too. Thoughts?

What's Woedica's spiritual weapon? And their version of incarnate? anyone know? I'm already planning my Woedica run. It's fists and as far as I can tell, it still stacks/scales with Monk fists. There were some comments a while back that only the primary fist (not 2nd fist) were getting the weapon bonus, but it's still pretty good. Doesn't feel as OP as people say.

Circle of Protection will not work with Llengrath's Safeguard as both are active effects of the same type (+Defense to All). Kathrynn Vonn Kiliann the Cat sold in Serpent's Crown gives +1 Int, +5 will. +10 from the will save perk IIRC you need a Will of about 195 to resist arcane dampener. So those should easily put you over the top. Especially if you aren't counting +Resolve or +Int inspirations. I've been playing with an Ancient/Assassin build in my head that focuses on spreading DoTs everywhere. With the +2 to Beast PL from the Wicked Beast Pike and the +Poison PL from Grottos and Spider Silk and what not, it could be potent. Not sure if Pernicious is keyworded to Poison, will have to do some testing. Taste of the Hunt is also interesting as it behaves like a melee ability despite being a spell. By that I mean the DoT benefits from the damage bonus of the weapon. I've seen 75 damage over 15 seconds which pretty fast acting for a DoT. Can use the +Plant staff as well for Wall of Thorns and you have plenty of summons for meatshields that come from Plants and Beasts thanks to the special sporeling summon you get at level one. Can even super size them with the summon buff that you get. That being said from a solo perspective one of the big problems with a DoT focused build is that Paladin/Priest/Druid groups are complete and utter cancer. Especially at high levels. The VTC and Huana vengeance boarding fights are good examples of this. If they don't just spam LoH and other heals to negate your damage, they then cast Withdraw or Beetle Shell and soak it anyways. And that's ignoring the Circle of Protections and the Shields for the Faithful and 200+ Sunlance crits. The extra cherry on top is that all high level Paladin NPCs have Righteous Soul and thus have immunity to poison but it doesn't show on the tooltip. There's nothing quite as tilting as Toxic Striking someone and seeing the immunity message pop up. Theoretically though if you layer enough DoTs on everyone you can overload their healing. Problem is surviving to actually get the casts off without abusing things like Withdraw scrolls and the like. Will have to think on it some more. +3 PL to Plague of Insects is hard to ignore though. Combined with the new boost to Pernicious Cloud I can see this build wreaking Havoc. Will have to do some tests. You can enchant Spine of Thicket Green to be +3 PL Plant / +3 PL Beast, so I think it's potentially better than the Pike? I think Ancient gives you +1 PL, so you'd be at +4 Beast / +4 Plant. I forgot about Spider Silk Robe doing + Poison PL, good call (though it was nerfed down). I don't know how Poison damage scales with Alchemy, but I think it still does even though it the scaling apparently was nerfed down a few patches ago. \\ Some of the key Druid spells like Venom Bloom are coded as both Plant and Poison (I think, they say things like Counter: Antidode - which I think means they are still considered Poison keyword), so maybe the PL bonuses even stack among themselves? I coudn't see any similar keywords for the Rogue powers like Pernicious or even Withering?

Yep see my test above. Good thoughts. Best thing i learned is you can proc the going-off of Llen Safeguard via the self-damage from Blood Sacrifice (at the start of the fight) and then use athletics or another power to heal up. Also the Spirit Lance will proc the SG self-heal on AOE targets if they are afflicted, either by some affliction you cast (Blindness from Chill Fog, Sickened from Nox burst, Terrified from the Rymgrand spells or even the weapon-effect from Draconic Fury spell -- though sadly Slicken's proning doesn't work). I posted some build thoughts above but could use some help.

OK, so I messed around with Steel Garrote a bit more. Seems like afflictions on targets - like Terrified or Sickened or Blinded - will still allow you to proc the heal on melee attack, without having to have garroted them first with the SG ability. I quickly made a Steel Garrote / Blood Mage (arcane knight) to see how this could work. First of all, for what it's worth, weapons thatt apply affliction procs to mobs also will let you proc SG self-heal off them. I used Griffin's Blade (procs dazed) and the self-heal proc'd off dazed foes. Same for Draconic Fury spell - it applies terrified, and proc'd the SG self heal. Bombs also work (e.g., Cinder Bomb). From my quick testing, you can load up on Pally tankish traits (all the affliction resistance, Poison immunity, etc.) and then do some fun AOE stuff on the mage side (like Noxious Burst, which applies AOE sicken and which you can stand in being immune to poison on pally side) and then go FoD with Citzal's Spirit lance (which hits in AOE). You'll get the SG self heal off whatever you hit in the AOE attack - e.g., 1/2/3 mobs etc. Also the SG self heal seems to be a % of what damage you do, so increasing damage through Paladin's Inspired Beacon + FoD or any other ways (maybe Expose Vuln on wizard side, worth it?) seems to help. I was toying with throwing Revkiu's Cask on him (no interrupts with wound) and Revku's Cape (where fire damage heals you if you carry a wound) and then standing in wall of fire, if i needed extra healing. I'm having trouble damaging myself with any spells though. I'm sure other people here have good tips on how to spread stats for Arcane Knight. With Deep Faith and Llen Safeguar and a shield, i was hitting 150-159 in all defenses (also using the Wahaki Tua neclace which gives +5 to all). Maybe to stack high enough to avoid Arcane Damper, you need to use Giftbearer Cloak (max history) and also max resolve? I'm open to suggestions. I was looking at a stat spread (pre-BB / Gift of the Machine) like 18/10/10/15/15/10. I was using Wakhaki Tua neck (Resistance to Resolve afflictions), Boots of the Stone (resistance to Might afflictions), DoC BP (resistance to Constitution and Intellect afflictions, +2 health restored), undying burden (to stack athletics and get a 2nd Second Wind, for when you double down on Blood Sacrifice), plus Chameleon's Touch and Ring of Focused Flame (for FoD attacks more than anything). Pre buff that's bringing my stats to 19/12/13/15/16/11. Post buffs, that's yielding 19/17/18/15/21/11 -- with Vital Essence and Dext Alacrity. I'm thinking that means I can drop Con and up Resolve and maybe Might/Per. Not sure what people recommend. I was trying to keep might high for +dmg for spells and potentially to impact the self-heals of SG ability, pally Exalted Endur, and Blood Mage HoT - but if also you have to stack Int/Resolve maybe something has to give (not sure if 15 per is too low either). I think the idea here is going to be to try to make a build as tanky as possible from the Pally side and then use the Spirit Lance and AOE afflications to get the SG heal on all hit enemies. The idea would be to stack def to make the Dampers miss, but I heard that needs to be like 190-195? (For some reason, Deep Faith with maxed dispositions Cruel/Rational is only giving me +15 to all defences, maybe it's because of the multiclassing and Pally can only reach 15 when multi? I have no conflicting disposition points, and it looks like I maxed the two favored dispositions). OK, with History at 20 and giftbearer, and Lleng Safeguard (which you can trigger yourself via Blood Sacrifice, then heal up with athletics), and Lleng Displaced Image, I can get to 149 def / 158 fort / 201 reflex / 167 will - that's with weapon/shield style and med shield (the Magran one that is also a weapon) -- however, casting lance those seem to fall to 127 / 153 / 174 / 162 (I assume on removal of the shield and the sword, which is giving +5 to reflex/will/con i believe) ... not quite sure how to push Will higher, maybe Bull's Will trait and higher starting resolve would get you to 172-175 with the lance out. Still feels short of our goal to avoid Arcane Dampers? Anyway, there's perhaps something interesting here in terms of self-heal from aoe attacks using the lance on afflicted targets, plus Blood Sacrifice letting you self-trigger Safeguard and also refilling your spell slots after you buff up. I think the key is figuring out how much grimoire switching you can stand, and also what Wiz spells to take yourself (e.g, Noxious Burst for PBAOE affliction to which you are immune, Piercing Sigil if it's not in your grimoires) .. Buffing your lash with the Draconic Fury spell is nice as well. Open to suggestions. Does anyone know how to make the [warp to] command work, so I can get out of Port Maje for testing more easily? **if the revku equipment isn't going to be super important in most encounter's, maybe the thing to do is either to go Helm of the Falcon (for recovery with the lance) or Helm Of Grotto Deep for more intelligence and then +2 poison PL that should affect noxious burst (I can't see that stacking Alchemy would be worth it here ... Maybe there's a poison/corrode/decay build somewhere out there with Druid that is still worth it). *** FWIW, this is my current attempt to try to stack Will def 27 arcane knight +57 level +12 intellect <--this can go up as it gets buffed by Vital Essence +2 resolve +15 Deep Faith +20 Lleng Safeguard +10 Mangera Chain (this armor is actually pretty sweet) +5 Elite Prowess (Wahaki Tua) +15 Giftbearer's Cloak (20 History) ----> Total 162 up to 177 when buffed and holding Griffin Blade (172 w/ lance) Does not look like Circle of Protection is stacking, however. I can get to 188 with Ripple Sponge due to the buff to resolve (193 holding Griffin Blade, but not with the lance). Open to ideas.

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I think you can multi with Priest of Berath and pick up Rot Skulls too, that way? Ref SG self-heal: The self-heal seems very weak. On Reddit someone is saying that the heal procs off any hostile effect, including things like Persistent Distraction from rogues ... I didn't test this. https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/a27c7f/what_do_you_think_of_the_new_subclasses/ Your wizard/sharpshooter comment got me thinking about some builds. I guess the question is do you gain enough from going Sharpshooter to make up for what you lose from Wizard (higher level spells) ... maybe a self-buffing wiz focused on something like Red Hand using -reload time items? With one or two strong AOEs. Could go Blood Mage I guess.

To get the heal from Steel Garrote you have to have used the ability on the mob you are attacking (maybe in Melee only) ... so at a minimum, you have to spend time/zeal tagging mobs with the ability first ... frankly an arcane knight of a different subclass may give you more mileage, including the one (St. Elga) where the lay on hands prevents you from being killed for (x) seconds?

FWIW I was testing Steel Garrote and it looks like the self-heal procs of attacks on any targets afflicted with an affliction like blindness, sickened, terrified, etc. it seems that the self-heal from melee attacks only happens when you attack someone you've paralyzed with the 2-zeal Steel Garrote ability you get . The good news is that heal will crit (I think) if you're weapon attack crits. Actually it looks like the sellf-heal is a % of damage dealt, which explains the scaling with crits but also means you can use +dmg powers. Running some tests with 18 might in Gorecci Street, I was getting normal heals of 7-8 on afflicted garroted enemies, but they went to 14-18 when I crit. By comparison, the upgrated Sanguine Great Sword was healing me with three tics of 5-7 heal. Exhalted Endurance was healing for 6 per tick, while Devil of Caroc BP was doing ticks of 1-3. I did some more testing further down this thread. there may be something to an Arcane Knight SG using Spirit Lance to proc the heal off all AOE-hit afflicted enemies (using AOE afflictions like noxious burst, to which Pally can be immune, or AOE blinds including Cinder Bomb - not to mention that if you use Draconic Fury spell your own weapon will proc terrfiied on mobs in aoe, also giving you the SG self heal). It seems like a bit of a drag to have to hit the target first with the SG. If you're doing you're job, they'll be dead in 1-2 hits anyway, which won't provide a lot of healing back. Maybe a fast, low-damage (speed dagger with Pukestabber?) approach if you're trying to max heal? Not sure how it scales with might or deep faith or anything. But it doesn't look particularly interesting.

Are you dropping combat with one of the Smoke Veil powers? Because shadowing beyond for me doesn't seem to drop combat. Maybe I have to get really far away with it active. On Splintered Reef, there must be 15 mobs that all come a running in the dock-area encounter before you get to the castle. On Harbinger's Watch at the clifftop, by the spirits, attacking would end up calling over all the mobs including from the Bear / Kith camp. Seemed like a lot more mobs than I remember in either place.