brasilgringo

dunno. I keep going back to try to watch it again, but having to sit thru the Chinese video ads is killing me lol. He's got a lot of self-healing coming from somewhere .... also I'm amazed at how much damage he is doing, even just on the first megaboss ooze ... Given how hard it was for other people to solo this boss, including to stay alive (on things like Tactician/BloodMage), i'm just curious if other folks can break this down. Is it possible this is not PoTD upscaled?

Hm I saw Whispers of the Wind spamming but maybe someone else can decipher what's going on. I assume the ooze's cleanse attack isn't having any effect here for some reason on his self buffs?

I like the concept of druids, and don't disagree with all the statements above. My only caveats are that, to me, the DOTs for plant/beast "feel" a bit weak even with high Might and Int vs. the direct-damage wiz or priest spells (Storm of Holy Fire, Pillar of Holy Fire, Ninagauth's stuff) ... and Druids feel like they lack 1-2 key self buffs that Wiz/Priest get (e.g., speed buff, pen buff, acc buff). Also Druids have on average long-ish cast times. To me these make them harder to think about soloing, but they are definitely great in parties. Also you do get a lot of "free PL" if you go ancient or even Lifegiver with Spine of Thicket Green. And yes, Greater Maelstrom and the other storm spells are badass and do a ton of damage / utility (stun).

I'm trying to remember if I had to worry about disengagement attacks on the 3 megabosses I tackled solo, and it doesn't spring to mind. I know i killed Doru solo (I think on my Tac/Bloodmage, though maybe it was on my BDD Thaumaturge), but I don't remember disengagement attacks being a thing. I definitely know they hurt me in other encounters, just figured it was part of the mechanics. Nice you found a cool use for the pet!

That's pretty clever, if she just ends up wherever you position her to (with Coord Pos) and doesn't come back. I suppose you could swap her once or twice all the way down to the entrance. Clever. Though for me the largest problem was the Cleansing Sigil.

I still don't really understand what the pet does. I mean, I can read "prevents engagment" - and I see you saying that means that if you run away from mobs that are meleeing you, they don't get disengagement attacks. Is that it? They can still run up and melee you right? What is the point of the pet -- like, what was it designed to do? D&D players didn't like mobs getting disengagement attacks on you?

When I tried this, its effect had a limitation by seconds -- it started counting down from 273 seconds or something, so it seemed pretty clear that it would run out (its effect) within a short amount of game time. Have you had a different experience testing it?

Well, i did some testing and with PL bonuses from Magran's Favor, Sun and Moon, Potion of Ascenion, Otto Starcat, etc. plus priest buffs, a lot of the bosses aren't living thru chain casts of Storm and Pillar with some combusting wounds thrown in for flavor. Adding level 8-9 spells just makes it faster (I hadn't been using, since I was multi-classed, but I modded it). Maybe that's just the secret, to go balls out on non-fire immunes.... thing is, I'm still buffing more than he was, with a lot of acc/crit buffs, pen buffs, and stat buffs ... and BDD or i'd die with all the aoe around me.

Well there you go. I guess he is using Brilliant to get back guile fast enough so he doesn't have to refresh with empower. This magma dragon fight to this point has been one of the hardest I've done. On my Tact/Bloodmage I had to keep the oozes in between me and the dragon so the dragon couldn't bite me, and had to heal thru the fire damage from the oozes (using +fire AR and Revku cloak) and his breath. On my Thaum, it was just BDD-up the whole time. But in both cases, doing damage took me a lot longer basically using the Ninagauth spells -- the beam, frozen fireball, and pillar. I tried this fight the other day on a Beguiler/Ancient and couldn't do it- ran out of resources (no-rest run, not using empower). I guess melee can interrupt him permanently, i had no idea. What's he doing on Priest tho besides the lvl 8-9 dmg spells and throwing in some scrolls.

Simple - Bending Trunk to stay alive and kill as much as possible, then cast Smoke Veil to replenish resources and reset the fight. Come back and repeat until everyone is dead. I didn't think smoke veil would let you drop combat entirely like a Withdrawal does. I guess I'm wrong. I remember mobs still coming after you. Also I would have thought that the damage from all those mobs would eat through Unbending and Gipon Prudensco pretty quick, given he's dual wielding. Again I guess I'll have to go check. Thanks. I noticed he was using Hot Razor Skewers to beef up his +PEN so if he's switching out his food buffs and then going back to get Alchemy Pool buffs etc, that must get pretty old pretty fast. Otherwise not sure how he avoids being charmed/dominated by Fampyrs unless he's at <50% health and relying on slippery mind? Still trying to figure out what he's doing on priest that I can't on Thaum, unless it's just the level 8-9 damage spells. Again still kind of stunned he can stay alive vs. the mobs even with burst dmg. Doesn't look like he's self-healing much or even BDDing.

Most of his fights are boss battles, not megaboss. For Nemnok he just shows fighting Nemnok alone, which seems odd to me (see my post above). For other fights like Memory Hoarder and Eyeball FS boss (Oracle) he deals with their adds too. I'd like to see how his builds do on maps where you pull a ton of mobs, like Splintered Reef sea-lashed crypt entrance and even Nemnok other floors.

Good replies above. So how is he able to attack so fast and constantly interrupt the magma dragon so it never gets a special attack off -- summoning oozes or biting/wounding him or breath attack? Is it just spamming debilitating strike fast enough (I assume he hotkeyed it) ...and then he doesn't run out of Guile due to Brilliant (he seems to be spamming it faster than I thought Brilliant would recover Guile). How is his priest able to deliver so much damage so quickly? As I said, even buffing my Thaumaturge with Wiz & Priest buffs, it's taking me a lot longer to take down bosses than he is showing -- is his use of level 8-9 priest spells that much of a burst damage advantage vs. me using Storm of HF / Pillar of HF / combusting wounds + activators (missiles, walls) / Freezing Pillar? I stacked a ton of crit gear too. He doesn't even seem to use all the priest buffs I use, like Dire Blessing, Crowns. Also he must cry a bit against fire-immunes, right? Maybe the Tactician/Rogue is worth trying if the hand-mortar approach to flank mobs simultaneously is doable. The baby boar pet interaction is described here: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Boa_Hika_Pass Wiki doesn't seem to show the interrupt chance - is it only 5%? <<Second, i would say, the swashbuckler is the worst rogue melee combo. Shadowdancer / Holy Slayer and Marauder are better. I tried them all, except for the new tactican, what could make it better, but the dps is best for the shadowdancer and holy slayer i would say.>> He went Tactician/Rogue (Trickster?) because he wanted the Resource regen and +PL from Brilliant.

Confirming above that Slicken can shut down casters - used it to great effect on Concelhaut as well as Splintered Reef / Fampyr encounters. It's in the Ninagauth's Teachings grimoire, too! If you look at my recent post about that guys' POTD solo vids, he seems to be using the Baby Boar pet on a super fast melee build to constantly interrupt bosses.

so this guy has started posting some pretty interesting solo POTD videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtb09ow4RpMuFoGBXpkHLlg I asked him to come here and post his builds, but not sure he will. I'm trying to decipher what he's doing. He has a Tactician/Rogue swashbuckler build that seems to be perma-spamming debilitating strike (to create flanked / get back guile from Brilliant) while using the baby boar pet that makes all melee attacks interrupt -- with this, he seems able to kill bosses crazy fast (not sure what weapon speed buffs are in use, looks crazy fast). His video taking down the magma dragon shows the dragon not getting like a single special attack or summon off. He clicks thru his gear and stats at the end of the vids, but doesn't show the ability tree choices. It seemed like a super cool build. My only concern is how it will keep up brilliant on many mobs, not just a boss. Maybe he kills enough mobs quickly enough that he doesn't need Brilliant right away. He also has a pure Priest build that seems to kill bossses faster than I could with my Thaumaturge build, just by a combination of Fire PL stacking and Magran's symbol / Storm of Holy Fire / Pillar of Holy Fire ... it is surprising to me because I remember these fights taking much longer with my build (which also had Pillar and Storm, but not the symbol 8-9 lvl spells) and also was stacking crit gear. Again he goes thru gear and stats, but doesn't show power / ability choices. In one vid he is fighting Nemnok alone (only Nemnok) and I don't know how he did that, as whenever you attack mobs on that level of the lair, they *all* come running including Nemnok (and Raven Darkholme's tip of using an invis spell right after only seems to get rid of 50% of the mobs) I wonder if the core buildmasters here can take a look and try to figure out what he's doing? My first thought was that perhaps the bosses aren't upscaled POTD, just POTD, but I think maybe that's not it. They all just seem to take me a lot longer to kill, even with combusting wounds / wall of fire / chill fog / freezing pillar / Storm of Holy Fire / Pillar of Holy Fire. He also seems to take very little damage in some cases, both on his priest (who I would have expected to take a lot more) and even on the swashbuckler (though he did take some hits on the enchanted armor fight). Thoughts? Hope he comes here to post.

If there's a solo POTD build for this, I would do it in a heartbeat

As much as I love Cadhu Scalth, I'm finding the accuracy penalty a bit much for POTD solo .... maybe it's not as big a deal on a tank. I've switched to Nerian's Ward / medium sheild modal on my caster multis for solo POTD.

See the Electric Dyselxic build post of my Deathless Thaumaturge build post. You need to hit something like 194 Will to reliably resist Arcane Damper casts ... however note that the higher-level Arcane Cleanse is unresistable (as far as I can tell) and will also bone you. For Will stacking, try Llegrath's Safeguard (which you can cast before combat initiates, and trigger by Blood Sacrifice so it is active at combat start) -- and also items like Griffin's Blade sword (+10 will I think, enchanted), Katherine von Killen cat (+5 will pet), and Mangera's (Magnera?) Chain armor (enchants to +10 will I believe). Wearing those you can resist the Arcane Dampers if you get to 194+ (note that Blood Mage suffers a defense penalty against opponents at Bloodied or lower health -however by that point hopefully most mobs are about to die and you won't suffer if they cast on you). The only other method for AD avoidance is to watch the tiny little icons over the mobs heads and try to interrupt them from casting, using Thrust of Tattered Veils (scrolls or spells) or something that constantly interrupts them (Slicken is 100% win for this - it will carry you past Concelhaut and Splintered Reef) and prevents the cast. Or if you see them casting, you can use a Withdrawal potion or scroll to tough it out. I find watching the icons hard / hard to see, so chain-Slickening mobs works great for me to avoid the cast happening (Slicken is in Ninagath Teaching grimoire I believe). Another cool option when it works is the Writ of Sorcery from Priest of Woedica class, which shuts down spell casting for 20-30 seconds on enemies. The Arcane Cleanse issue is super annoying as it doesn't have a readily identifiable icon and can't be resisted - Sigilmaster boss has a sigil that uses it, and some mobs (like those on Deck of Many Things ship, if you aggro them) also do. In this case, you just have to heal through the lack of buffs. I had to switch all my gear to healing gear and use potions and scrolls until I got the Cleansing sigil down at Sigilmaster boss.

Yeh, sadly Chromo Staff only one ... nobody has modded any, either. I asked i the mod forum... can't find any mods ....

Any updates on this?

What's the deal with Sungrazer? I remember it being used in some builds a while ago, but I thought it had been nerfed. It does AOE on scoring a crit - so are you just scoring so many crits via Avenging storm that it's worth using as your offhand? https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Sungrazer I never see it used in mage builds any more? It's always Sun and Moon for the PL.

I like the idea from Boeroer of Furyshaper/Fury ... just in my experience if this is a solo build, your wards will die too quick for fury to be worth it. If it is not solo and you can keep the heat off the wards, go for it.

You can stack accuracy and +PEN on a build like my Deathless Thaumaturge (no-rest)....then you just drop massive AOEs or small AOEs on foes like Pillar of Holy Fire critting for 283 in AOE or Storm of Holy Fire critting for 160+, or the Ninagath spells ... you just have to live on the edge to do it. I like it a lot more than plinking things with a bow, but that's me.

One other battle I use to test -- for lower levels, I imagine -- is Hasongo Lighthouse (where you have to click the Adra Pillar after clearning the room). It's after this that you get Gift of the Machine bonus from POE1 import. Hasongo is I believe the 2nd place you're supposed to track Eothas (or maybe 3rd, after Poko Kahara). So I'd imagine it is meant for level 10-13 or thereabouts? You can F11 into the Lighthouse.

is it me or is the AI button missing on turn-based?

Grimoire switching appears to eat 1 round,from what I could tell last night. Makes it harder to do as part of a wiz rotation. Wiz does have a lot of free action buffs, VS other casters (druid, priest, cipher). The level one cipher spell that creates a toxic beam seems to be doing very high damage in 1 round.