masterty66

Not sure if anyone is still playing Poe1, but whenever I get the itch to play this series I tend to do full runs. It just doesn't feel right for me starting in Poe2. I gotta get the whole experience. And so, one of the builds that caught my eye when replaying Poe1 recently was Boeroer's Sorcerer's Apprentice. Using scrolls plus deathblows is indeed a fun concept. but I thought...what if I took that concept, and applied it to making a Rogue focused not just on scrolls but on spellbinding items as well? The end result was a build that looks actually pretty similar to what he did, but altered in a few ways. But you may notice many of the talents/skills are similar to what Boeroer took. So first off, thanks Boeroer for the inspiration! So the idea behind this build is to pile on lots of spellbinding gear and sit in the back lines tossing around spells. So then, why use a shield and riposte? There's a few reasons for it. Number one, it makes you less likely to be the target of enemies which gives you more time to sit in the backlines and toss your spells around with impunity. As a Rogue and especially once you get Deathblows you can do tons of damage with your spellbinding items and spells. But you can't do that if you're constantly dead due to enemies bumrushing you. The shield helps there. However, it also gives you some flexibility. If you're out of spells or don't feel like using spells on a given encounter you can still flank and do lots of damage since Badgradr's Thrust procs benefit from Deathblows. So this guy should be a capable meleer and spellcaster both. You can use spells to soften enemies up and then wade in and clean up the remains with good melee ability. I also take enough lore to cast scrolls, and mechanics to handle most traps. This guy is a pretty good jack of all trades that way. You should have enough lore I think to cast most useful scrolls like Missiles and such (which benefit from deep wounds and death blows). Keep in mind though this guy carries 4 weapon slots. So you won't always sit there with a shield. When you run out of Fireballs with Flames of fair Rhian for example you might want to swap to Whitespire and toss some blizzards, or swap to Bittercut to use infestation of maggots. etc. You've got options. Basic strategy with this guy is use your companions to inflict afflictions (Painful Interdiction, Mental Binding and the like) and then blast the hell out of them with your spellbindings/scrolls. You can then flank and clean up the few still alive after. You can also use more clever strategies and charm enemies with Munacra Arret and Ring of Changing Heart. Eventually you can use Acuan Gimas to have some fun stealing spells from enemies too. I'm still in the process of playing this guy through and I don't have all the talents fully decided below but most of these should be the general idea. I'll try and revise this once I finish the play to make sure I have the exact talents figured out. But I think you get the idea. Anyways it's been a fun concept so far so I hope someone gets some inspiration from this. =================================== Spellbinding Rogue =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Rogue -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Aumaua -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Deadfire Archipelago - Merchant -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 16 CON: 10 DEX: 13 PER: 10 INT: 18 RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 1, Athl. 3, Lore 8, Mech. 12, Surv. 4 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Weapon Focus Ruffian ® Weapon and Shield Style ® Deep Pockets ® Vicious Fighting Quick Switch ® Abilities Blinding Strike Crippling Strike Deathblows(!) Deep Wounds ® Dirty Fighting Second Wind (a) Sneak Attack (a) Withering Strike Riposte --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Flames Of Fair Rhian (*Exceptional, *Corrosive Lash, *Durgan Refined), Badgradr's Barricade Weapon Set 2: Acuan Giamas (!) Weapon Set 3: Whitespire Weapon Set 4: Bittercut/duplicated Flames of Fair Rhian Boots: Animancer's Boots Head: Munacra Arret Armor: Sun-Touched Mail of Hyran Rath/ White Crest Armor Neck: Cloak of Minor Missiles/Amulet of Summer Solstice Belt: Coil of Resourcefulness/Belt of the Royal Deadfire Canoneer Rings: Ring of Searing Flames, Ring of Changing Heart Hands: Rotfinger Gloves Quick slots: Scrolls, e.g.: Binding Web, Paralyze, Missile Barrage, Concussive Missiles, Bounding Missiles, Crackling Bolt, Rolling Flame, Maelstrom

Finished a playthrough of something else recently and wanted to give this a shot. Started an Aumaua with quick switch 12/10/16/16/16/10 might/dex/con/per/int/res. Gonna amass every last spellbinding item I can and greedily hoard them and blast enemies with them. Tossing enough points into lore to cast a few scrolls too. Should be fun! I'm actually questioning right now whether I even should put weapon focus into anything since I'll be carrying like four different weapons and relying mostly on spellbindings. I'd guess I will melee (or ranged attack) sometimes, but should eventually have enough spellbinding items and scrolls to mostly just do that on many encounters. Rogues have high natural accuracy anyways and I have high perception so maybe I don't even need weapon focus? I figure for most encounters I'm casting spells and maybe occasionally flanking around and hitting the backline once I'm done casting. Or I could just cast spells and then switch to a ranged weapon if I ran out or didn't feel the need to cast I guess.

Doing pretty well with this build. Some fights are more challenging because of the slowness. Lagafueth are a bit of a pain because they like to sit at range so I can't easily get them into range to melt them and even with high armor you can take a beating from them quick if you don't get some CC off. I tend to mix it up a bit versus them and throw more insta cast spells like Shadowflame etc. And Durgan's Battery in general was not quite optimal for this guy since all those enemies are immune to poisons and such. But Wizards have other spells that are strong too so in there I just focused more on spells they werent immune to. And some of those like Necrotic Lance and Concelhaut's Touch still worked in there. Now that I recently got Woedwys and will soon have Diving Helmet (got the quest finally, just gotta pick it up at the stronghold) this build should really come together. Taking the game at a slow and steady pace but making progress. Gonna be fighting the White Dragon soon. This guy should be a good tank against that Dragon thanks to his high elemental resists. Still not sure where I'll take this in Poe2, but I have a while to decide still. Lots of game left. It's taking me longer than normal to finish these runs since I've been playing a lot of WoW lately too lol. But I always make sure to get some Poe in when I can.

So I've been playing this and enjoying it so far. One thing that is tricky is getting the hang of party positioning. While my Dwarf is quite resistant to his acid baths, Eder is not, so it's taking some practice positioning him properly :). I've focused a lot of my party members on being more ranged focus. Pallegina for example is using a Blunderbuss and is basically there to defend my backline. Eder I try to position just behind my Dwarf to get some hits on while not getting hit himself. Maybe a reach weapon would have been a better idea for him, but right now I have him dual wielding hammers. One funny thing I've done as well is I gave Aloth a lot of the same type of spells Bilestomper likes to use because why not have Aloth tossing acid spells onto me too? I can take it. It's basically free aoe :). It's an interesting playstyle and I enjoy it a lot for that. It already feels decently strong at level 7 and I have none of the powerful equipment it's going to end up with yet so it should get stronger still.

Well, gonna start with Bilestomper and I'll have to think about which of your class combos to pick when I get to poe2. But should be fun for now :). The marking Paladin will be next up after that but I'll have to give some more thought on how I want to build out that character given that style isn't possible in Poe2.

That's a good point. I suppose the stats are a lot more forgiving in Poe2 if you have that blessing on. I usually do have it enabled on my runs.

Thanks. Yeah I'll have to keep thinking about which of the two I wanna try first. I suppose the Marking Pally even if it doesn't exist in poe2 could still become a Paladin/Rogue or something similar and be still effective, but it would have to be more of a single target dps rather than specifically a marker. I know Darcozzi is weak in Poe2, but the +10 accuracy on Liberating is kinda nice in poe1, and it is a different type of Pally than I have played in the past. But I've also not really played Goldpact so maybe I ought to do that. Both of those Wizard options sound intriguing. Wizards are just powerful in general I guess and so Bilestomper would probably have less issue porting over to Poe2 maybe. Though I do wonder how well the max str/con and minimum dex would play there given the slower casting speed on stuff in Poe2. Something to experiment with I suppose?

Hey yall. Hope everyone is staying safe. I've been debating on a couple of different characters for a new run. Maybe I'll make it easy on myself and just do two separate playthroughs of both. The two I had in mind are a Marking Darcozzi Paladin (since this concept sounds really fun), and Boeroer's Bilestomper. Thing is, I have no idea how these guys transfer to Poe2, and I'd like to continue them there. Is it possible to play those types of characters in Poe2 and have them be still fun? I know Marking isn't a thing any more in Poe2, and I'm not sure if the items exist in Poe2 to support the Bilestomper playstyle. But maybe there's a way to make a rough approximation of either build? I'm getting that character creation paralyzation since I both can't decide on a Poe1 main but also can't decide on how those chars would progess in Poe2 lol. I'd be playing on POTD but I'm not super concerned about min maxing to the nth degree as long as the characters still play fun.

Hmm yeah I don't know why I didn't think of Barbarian. That allows for some fun multiclass possibilities when importing into 2 as well since Barb is a great multiclass candidate in Poe2.

I was thinking a bit about stuff I haven't tried and despite having beaten Poe1 probably ten times or so (and many more half abandoned runs besides) I've never done a build that used the Unlabored Blade. In fact I generally never bother with it at all since you get it in WM2 which struck me as late. But then I wondered, what if I built a character to use that? What would that look like? Has anyone tried building a character with the goal of using this weapon? Rogue seems like an obvious choice. Fighter or Monk would also excel at it I'm sure. I imagine going for dual wielding it plus maybe Drawn in Spring would be the way to go.

Just wanna say I've been playing this build and I'm I think level 12 now. It's pretty fun. With the high per, might, and dex plus swift flurry plus myriad of Ranger accuracy bonuses, it's just a blender. And the daze effect plus the Bear's inherent tankiness makes this a build where your pet isn't just dying 24/7 which is the usual complaint people have with Rangers. The Ranger itself actually isn't horribly fragile either. I altered the stat spread a little bit. I did dump Res like you did, but I went with 10 con rather than dumped con. That did mean my Int took a little bit of a hit compared to what you run with, so I'm probably not quite as optimal at maintaining dps. Still, I like the increased survivability. Currently using Griffin's and Modwyr. This character has felt like one of the stronger ones I've played and I haven't even hit peak gear or levels yet. Running Eder as a Swashbuckler with a shield and the club that gives more engagement slots so between him and the bear it's relatively easy to maneuver this character onto the squishy targets and chunk them in short order since those two can generally screen my movements. I always make sure to stay close enough to the bear to not take the Stalker malus though. In all a fun character so far.

Think I'm going to try this out since I always wanted to try a melee ranger. I'm a crazy person and running it through Poe1 too of course, though in that I'm going to use Tidefall instead as it's the best melee Ranger wep in poe1. Looking forward to seeing how this plays. Looks like a lot of fun.

Cool build. Scordeo's Edge comes pretty late in the game though. What would you use before then? The Griffin Blade is the lynch pin for the build and that at least is easy to acquire.

Boeroer's suggestion of a Stalker is cool. Couple of considerations here. You multi it with Fighter(Devoted) for extra Spear penetration since you know you're using Spears. You could also do Paladin and pick something like Kindwayfarer or Bleakwalker so that your Flames of Devotions give more utility. You could also do Rogue and choose Trickster (for extra tankiness) or Streetfighter (for extra dps). Single Class Stalker is strong too because Rangers get a great PL 8 ability called Whirling Strikes which will let you wade into big groups of enemies and blender them with your Ranger. Character is straightforward to play you just flank enemies with your pet and make sure you and the pet are always fighting as a team. Not sure what I'd do for Race. There isn't an obvious one that sticks out to me. Dwarf, Aumau or Human I'd guess for the Might bonuses.

Well that's kind of broad. Do you want to be a damage dealer? Would you rather be a tank and use a shield? If I were to do a Spear build I think I'd strongly consider doing at least one of the classes as Rogue. One of the best Spears in the game has a flank damage ability which scales based off of your stealth skill. I could see a Paladin (Bleakwalker if evil, Kind Wayfarer if good)/ Rogue (Streetfighter) being a fun combo. Let the enemy flank you so that you get the bonus Streetfighter damage and then have your Druid or Wizards cast Chill Fog which should apply flanked status to the enemy. You will hit like a truck. Downside is this character might be semi fragile compared to a true tank so you will need to be careful to not let too many enemies flank you. However you would hit very hard. If you want something more tanky maybe a classic Paladin (shieldbearer) and then either Chanter for your other class (Troubadour) or pick Fighter (Unbroken or Devoted). With this character it's straightforward: wear a shield, use a spear, and then either summon monsters to help you tank if Chanter (also use the +heal chant) or if Fighter just tank away and take talents that boost your defenses.

Ah got it thought it was just me. I guess I'll have to remember to turn off AI while I drink the pot and then turn it back on. I mostly only use consumables for tougher fights so not the biggest deal in the world I guess.

Actually here is one thing I've found annoying about having Ai enabled: How do you make sure your guy drinks a potion? I swear every time I tell them to do it, they stop doing it. It only seems to work if I turn AI off and then have them drink the potion. Otherwise they start the action to drink the pot and even if they're not being attacked/interrupted they decide to avoid the action to do something else. Kinda annoying.

This is what I use as well and I haven't noticed the AI spamming it too often.

I have experimented with different ways and the best/most fun AI setup for me is the following: 1) For any melee/ranged dps classes, I have them setup to auto cast their self buffs. Eg, Fighter disciplined strikes, Monk Swift strikes, Barb Rages, etc. I also let them auto cast self heal stuff like Second Wind and Savage Defiance. Then I'll pick one melee ability for them to spam and set the AI to do that. And if it's a Ranger or Paladin I let them do Sworn Enemy/Mark Enemy too. This leaves them not necessarily using their full range of abilities but enough so that I don't have to baby them. I still step in manually if I want to use an ability that requires more care like say Heart of Fury or Charge. 2) For casters, I set them up to use Second Wind, and that's all. I fully micromanage all of their spells. The only exception to this is Wizards. I set all my Wizards to self cast their buffs at the start of combat because I'm not having Aloth click 10 different spells every time when I can have the AI do it. What this leads to is an experience similar to the Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate et al which I love and am used to. In those games melees don't have a lot of buttons to click, so it's mostly point them in the right direction and let them fight and it's the casters that require the attention. With my AI setups that's what I do here which means I spend most of the combats carefully targeting my spells while being mostly hands off with my melees beyond pointing them in the right direction. I do still step in and micro as needed (eg casting lay on hands on the right targets, etc). This takes some of the burden off of me of having to click the same buffs all the time while still leaving the important decisions to me. If my PC is a melee or ranged dps char and not a caster I don't usually use AI for them as I prefer to micro my own character. So there you have it. I've tried different setups where the AI controls more decisions and where the AI controls none and this is my preferred way to go about it. It leaves most decisions to me but takes out some of the more burdensome ones like constantly clicking Disciplined Strikes and all that. Why leave that to myself when I know that I just want those abilities up all the time? But with my casters what I want to cast can often change fight to fight (aside from Wiz buffs) so I leave that to me.

That'd be a hell of a lockdown character. Not much on the dps probably, but who needs that when you can lock down 5-6 enemies while the rest of your party kills at their leisure. Meanwhile with the Dire Talon you have zeal for days to cast lay on hands and exhortations constantly on party members.

True. I guess they're more like an off tank due to the limited engages. They would be providing a lot of aoe healing with White Flames spam and all the zeal you'd get from the summons though so even if enemies weren't engaging the Paladin they'd be providing value that way. Maybe the best setup would be that and some type of Fighter with Guardian Stance tying up all the enemies while the Paladin heals them with lay on hands and white flames and the rest of the party provides the dps.

That would make for a pretty tanky character as well. Just grabbing engagements all the time and proccing summons while being virtually unkillable thanks to Paladin defenses, shield, and white flames. Sounds like a fun char.

Is there a max Zeal number you can reach or can you go over what you start combat with? I'd think a SC Kind Wayfarer dual wielding Dire Talon and whatever else would be pretty nice. Steel Garrotte or Bleak Walker doing the same would also work but Kind Wayfarer maybe gets the most benefit for dual wielding since their heal procs twice.

I assume the summon has to actually die and not just unsummon in order for it to work?

I'm working my way through a run right now with a single class Priest of Woedica. I've liked it well enough. Still some miles yet to go on this run but I'm already starting to think about what I'd play next. I'm into the expansions at this point so it probably won't be too long before I'm done. I was thinking maybe a Monk or some type of melee dps build but there's so many possibilities I'm a bit overwhelmed with choice paralysis! With casters it can be a simple decision to go single class simply because the PL 8 and 9 abilities are typically great and so is getting the better spells faster. But it seems for most melees outside of Monks the consensus is to multiclass. I'd probably be playing RTWP on Potd for what it's worth. God challenges probably Ondra, Galawain, and Skaen. unsure about others. I'm using Abydon on this run but might not again because while it has made the game more difficult it feels a bit much to constantly be checking my inventory after every fight. It was interesting to use but maybe won't do so again.