Jojobobo
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Posts posted by Jojobobo
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Yeah I should be sticking around for a little while again, the sequel peaked my interest.
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“Scorpions are nature’s way of saying, ‘Screw you! I’m gonna combine lobsters, spiders, wasps and nightmares!’”
This build provides a tanky Rogue, who also has high single target damage and produces his own status effects through the Stun on crit version of Cladhalíath. Dexterity and Intellect have been pitched so that you can keep an enemy permanently stunned so long as you score a hit on the Stun vs. Fortitude roll that results from a melee crit. In this way, you can have high damage against a single target – while simultaneously disabling other enemies through periodic Riposte stuns as well, giving this build a nice offensive-defensive balance. Hopefully this should subvert the idea a Rogue is a weak class, with defences that are comparable to other solo tank builds but compared to some a great deal more damage.
While the Yellow Flash build also uses Riposte mechanics to great effect, it seems more pitched towards the classic tank style of grinding enemies down with a wounding weapon rather than aiming for high single target damage. The Flaming Porcupine build seems to be much of the same idea as this build, but seems to have weaker defences and a slightly different focus (use of a two-handed weapon for one). As such, I think this build is distinct enough to warrant its own write-up.
Why the name the Sprightly Scorpion? Because scorpions are well protected and defensive, Cladhalíath provides a stunning sting, and it’s sprightly because its attacks are fast enough to chain Stun. And because I said so!
I will say this build is ENTIRELY UNTESTED (apart from the Stun-locking mechanics, which I've just had a play with, making sure the Stun-locking works). I hope to get around to testing it soonish (after Christmas maybe) but currently lack the time. I’ll update the build when or/if I finish testing it (or if one of you kind people do first), however I don’t anticipate their being any problems in terms of solo viability with the build. Without further ado…
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The Sprightly Scorpion
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Difficulty: Untested, but will test on expert PotD solo, no respec, with full upscaling
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Class: Rogue
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Race: Wild Orlan
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Background: Old Valia (Colonist)
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Starting Attributes:
MIG: 17
CON: 15
DEX: 10
PER: 5
INT: 19
RES: 12
Final Attributes:
MIG: 21 (Gift from the Machine, Garodh’s Chorus)
CON: 16 (Rymrgand’s Boon)
DEX: 14 (Viettro’s Formal Footware)
PER: 8 (Elryn’s Jacket, Song of the Heavens)
INT: 26 (Gwyn’s Band of Union, Forum resting bonus)
RES: 16 (Siegebreaker’s Gauntlets)
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Important skills:
Survival 16, Lore 9, Mechanics 5 (boostable to 10).
This gives third stage survival accuracy bonus for +20 accuracy against anything but kith, as well as access to things like Scrolls of Confusion and Paralysis in tougher fights.
Skill point allocation:
Survival: 11 points investment, at 66 points cost. Modifiers: +1 (Rymyrgand’s Boon), +2 (temporary from Jack of the Wide Waters), +2 (Colonist background). 16 total.
Lore: 6 points investment, at 21 points cost. Early game modifiers: +2 (Rundl’s Finery), +2 (Library resting bonus). 10 early game total, for scrolls of Prayer Against Imprisonment against WM part I lagufaeth. Late game modifiers: Viettro’s Formal Footware (+3). 9 Late game total.
Mechanics: 2 point investment, 3 points cost. Possible modifiers: +2 (Gloves of Manipulation), +2 (Artificer’s Hall resting bonus), +2 (Rogue), +1 (Dungeon Delver), +1 (Gjefa’s boon). 10 total, 13 with Rite of Hidden Wonders.
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Abilities and Talents:
Abilities:
1 – Crippling Strike
3 – Reckless Assault
5 – Deep Wounds
7 – Dirty Fighting
9 – Adept Evasion
11 – Riposte
13 – Deathblows
15 – Withering Strike
Talents:
2 – Veteran’s Recovery
4 – Weapon and Shield Style
6 – Weapon Focus Peasant
8 – Vicious Fighting
10 – Wound Binding
12 – Deep Pockets
14 – Superior Deflection
16 – Deflecting Assault
Quest Talents:
Blooded Hunter
Dozen’s Luck
Dungeon Delver
Gift from the Machine
Rymyrgand’s Boon
Song of the Heavens
Scale-Breaker
The Merciless Hand
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Weapons and Equipment (listing only new enchantments):
Weapon set 1: Cladhalíath (Stunning, Vicious, Superb, Durgan-Refined, Freezing Lash) and Badgradr’s Barricade (Superb, Durgan-Reinforced)
Weapon Set 2: Alternate Stunning or Overbearing weapon, Little Saviour (Durgan-Reinforced, Legendary)
Armor: Elryn’s Jacket (Legendary, Durgan-Reinforced)
Neck: Cape of the Master Mystic
Belt: Looped Rope
Rings: Gwyn’s Band of Union and Ring of Protection
Hands: Siegebreaker Gauntlets
Head: Garodh’s Chorus (Retaliation)
Feet: Viettro’s Formal Footwear
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Weapon accuracy and defenses:
Cladhalíath accuracy 100
Def/Ref/Fort/Will 110/108/108/118
Calculations:
Base accuracy: 30 + 45 = 75
Accuracy modifiers: + 12 (Superb) + 8 (Reckless Assault) -2 (Perception) + 5 (Spear bonus) + 6 (Weapon Focus Peasant) – 4 (Badgradr’s Barricade)
Total weapon accuracy = 75 + 25 = 100
Base level 16 Deflection: 15 + 45 = 60
Deflection modifiers: + 12 (Cape of the Master Mystic) - 3 (Deflecting Reckless Assault) + 30 (Weapon and Shield Style Superb Badgradr’s Barricade) + 6 (Resolve) + 5 (Superior Deflection)
Total Deflection = 60 + 50 = 110
Base level 16 Reflex, Fortitude and Will: 20 + 45 = 65
Reflex modifiers: +9 (Ring of Protection) + 30 (Weapon and Shield Style Superb Badgradr’s Barricade) + 4 (Perception and Dexterity)
Total Reflex = 65 + 43 = 108
Fortitude modifiers: +9 (Ring of Protection) + 34 (Might and Constitution)
Total Fortitude = 65 + 45 = 108
Will modifiers: +9 (Ring of Protection) + 44 (Intellect and Resolve)
Total Will = 65 + 53 = 118
Buffed defenses:
Def/Ref/Fort/Will 160/168/170/148
Calculations:
Deflection: + 25 (Llengrath’s Displaced Image) + 20 (Scroll of Defense) + 3 (Dragon Meat Dish Resolve) + 2 (Golden Whale Resolve resting bonus)
Buffed Deflection total: 110 + 50 = 160
Reflex: + 20 (Llengrath’s Displaced Image) + 20 (Scroll of Defense) + 8 (Mind Grub Perception) + 4 (Sweet Rautai Pie Dexterity) + 4 (Golden Whale Dexterity resting bonus) + 8 (Mantle of the Excavator Perception) - 4 (Elryn’s Jacket unequipped)
Buffed Reflex total: 108 + 60 = 168
Fortitude: +20 (Scroll of Defense) + 8 (Iron Circle Constitution) + 8 (Lyrinia’s Boon Might and Constitution) + 8 (Golden Whale Might and Con Resting bonus) - 6 (no Training Grounds bonus) + 5 (Wit Der Jerky Fortitude) +4 (Pearlwood Chicken Constitution) + 6 (Dragon Meat Dish Might) + 9 (Helsman’s Uniform Fortitude difference)
Buffed Fortitude total: 108 + 62 = 170
Will: +20 (Scroll of Defense) + 6 (Dragon Meat Dish Resolve) + 8 (Mind Grub Intellect) -8 (unequipped Gwyn’s Band of Union for Iron Circle) + 4 (Golden Whale resting bonus)
Buffed Will total: 118 + 30 = 148
Or with +2 Perception Blackwarden’s Breast plus Cape of the Master Mystic, which you’ll likely use for dragons:
Fortitude = 161, Reflex 166
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Playstyle overview:
Using Cladhalíath, every crit on an enemy triggers a Stun vs. Fortitude roll. Stun itself gives a -30 Deflection debuff, meaning that once an enemy is stunned crits against that enemy should occur extremely frequently (with the Deflection debuff, but also with 40% hit-to-crit conversion from Vicious/Dirty Fighting and Durgan-Reinforcement). This provides more Stun vs. Fortitude rolls, which so long as they result in a hit themselves will result in the enemy being permanently stunned with the 14 Dex 15 Int combo. Cladhalíath itself can also be made Vicious as the second enchantment, dealing an extra 20% damage to stunned enemies.
With a permanent Stun effect, triggering criteria for Deathblows becomes trivial. Both Withering Strike and Sever the Soul themselves debuff Fortitude through the Weakened affliction, meaning you will easily trigger both Stun and Weakened in a single attack opening up Deathblows. Crippling Strike and Figurine flanking, as well as occasional Eyestrikes from Elryn’s Jacket, give enough other means for you to get Deathblows easily in a single encounter.
With the previously mentioned massive -30 Deflection debuff from Stun, Badgradr’s Barricade also really starts to shine, with every Bash crit resulting in a Thrust of the Tattered Veils, which itself targets the massively debuffed Deflection and is effected by Deathblows. This combination of effects against a stunned enemy gives you great single target damage, while also being defensively bulky.
Riposte, Retaliation and Deep Wounds provide an excellent means of crowd control. Riposte itself gives free attacks to surrounding melee enemies on misses and grazes, made viable by the build’s good Deflection, giving you a chance to Stun these enemies with Cladhalíath for a few of seconds. As these enemies are entirely immobile during this time, this reduces the overall damage you’ll take from a melee group, making it an indirect defensive maneuver. Deep Wounds and Retaliation ensure that all melee enemies are constantly taking some raw damage, making them much weaker when you get around to targeting them specifically.
Eyestrike from Elryn’s Jacket has nice synergy with Riposte, Retaliation and Deep Wounds as essentially melee enemies are always at risk of something (miss/graze -> Riposte chance, hit/crit -> Eyestrike chance, all the while taking Deep Wounds raw damage and Retaliation hits). When an enemy has been blinded, their accuracy debuff means that they’ll now tend towards more misses and grazes, and as such trigger even more Ripostes.
For spellcasters, the extremely strong Adept Evasion (75% reflex grazes to misses, 50% reflex hits to grazes) coupled to your reasonable Reflex score means their attacks really aren’t much of a concern. When you couple this to the 20% spell reflection from Durgan-Reinforced Badgradr’s Barricade, and the chance they also have of suffering Eyestrike, they can be comfortably left until the end of combat when you’ve dealt with the melee enemies.
Hopefully this rundown should have given you an idea of the build’s high damage, coupled to some great defenses that marry some of the best qualities of a Rogue and a tank.
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I’ve provided a few other little sections below, for anyone interested…
Attribute score choice:
The attribute scores are important for the build, so I’ve dedicated an entire section to explain the details. Here’s the rundown:
Might 21 – Causes 4 damage Deep Wounds, which is a nice mark to hit, and will grind down anyone attacking you hand-to-hand due to Retaliation. Using the resting bonus to achieve this number is useful, as you can use those points elsewhere early game for things like Intellect.
Con 16 – Produces greater than 300 endurance end game with Gift from the Machine, which is a good benchmark to hit for any kind of tank. Rogues are very fragile in terms of their health and endurance, so if you’re going for a tank Rogue some Con is vital.
Dex 14 and Int 26 – With fully Durganized gear (Cladhalíath, Elryn’s Jacket, Badgradr’s Barricade) a Dex of 14 and Int of 26 each will allow you to chain the Stun effect of Cladhalíath so long as score a hit on the Stun vs. Fortitude roll itself. While possibly a different break of Dex and Int could be worked out to still allow for this chaining, very high Int is desirable to give extremely long durations for the Strike abilities, and also to favour long durations for Scrolls and Veteran's Recovery.
Per 8 – While a Perception of 8 may look odd on a melee focussed build, with a Superb Cladhalíath you still hit 100 accuracy, which is buffable to 120 against a specific creature type with the Survival resting bonus. I’d say considering a shield is used this is a reasonably impressive accuracy score, and when you factor in a 40% hit to crit conversion from the weapon being Durganized and having Dirty plus Vicious Fighting the stun-locking is insane (with Potions of Merciless Gaze moving this up to a 55% hit to crit conversion).
Res 16 – With the gear and the talents produces a Deflection of 110 at level 16, which is 15 higher than an Ondrite Tidal Fist’s accuracy for reference. As you get the greatest chance for Riposte on a graze rather than a miss, this seems adequate for what we’re after – you don’t want Deflection too high, just reasonable.
Race and equipment choices, damage calcs:
The build is in most ways a tank, Wild Orlans are pretty much the best tanks for solo. Other races can be chosen, but I think on the whole they aren’t as good an option and really Rogues need every extra ounce of defense they can get. Godlikes are a no-no – Garodh’s Chorus is by far the easiest ways to squeeze a Retaliation item onto the build, important for spreading Deep Wounds, and so a Godlike really doesn’t cut it.
Cladhalíath has already been discussed, but to look at the damage it’ll dish out in a little more detail, you have:
+ 50% Sneak Attack
+ 20% Reckless Assault
+ 25% Freezing Lash
+ 20% Vicious
+ 45% Superb
+ 33% Might
+ 100% Deathblows
This gives + 293% damage total, giving you 43-63 damage from the base 11-16 spear base. With a bonus 0.7 crit damage multiplier (Dungeon Delver, Durgan-Refined, The Merciless Hand), for 1.2 with the base 0.5, crits should deal in the range of 95-139 – which is pretty damn good seeing as you should put that damage out consistently.
The synergy of Badgradr’s Barricade, Retaliation from Garodh’s Chorus and Elryn’s Jacket is already pretty well covered in the playstyle overview section. Cape of the Master Mystic, Looped Rope, Ring of Protection and Siegebreaker Gauntlets are all there to boost defenses, while Gwyn’s Band of Union and Viettro’s Formal Footware let you reach the numbers necessary for Stun chaining.
Talent and ability choices:
Reckless Assault, Weapon Focus Peasant, plus Vicious and Dirty Fighting give great accuracy along with solid hit-to-crit conversion to keep your damage up. While Reckless Assault may seem strange on a defensive build due to the Deflection penalty, both the accuracy and damage it provides are well worth the cost.
Superior Deflection, Weapon and Shield Style, Deflecting Assault and Adept Evasion give you solid defenses – with Adept Evasion in particular making you ludicrously hard to hit with most spells.
Deathblows and Reckless Assault help to increase damage, with Crippling Strike and Withering Strike (along with Sever the Soul) providing opportunities to get Deathblows in play as previously mentioned.
Riposte gives you extra zero recovery attacks, which should trigger reasonably often with your modest Deflection (as mentioned previously, you don’t want Deflection too high as Riposte triggers most frequently on grazes and not misses). Riposte provides that all important chance to spread Stun to other enemies, immobilizing them and stopping them doing further damage to you for a few seconds.
Veteran’s Recovery provides some passive healing, making the build much more survivable early game (this can be respec-ed out later if you choose to). Wound Binding was chosen to give the Rogue a much needed larger health pool, as health at 4 x endurance is extremely poor for a tank.
Lastly, Deep Pockets was chosen adequately allow for scroll and potion spamming in big fights, but can also be used for more figurines or things like Potion of Merciless Gaze for 55% hit-to-crit conversion.
I did think about things like Envenomed Strikes, but to be honest the damage the build already puts out I would think should make it largely unnecessary. Cautious Attack offers more Deflection, but requires more investiture in Intellect and Dexterity to still be able to chain stuns, so going for higher Resolve and forgoing Cautious Attack seemed like the better option.
Early game equipment:
There’s only one piece of equipment that really matters early game, and that’s Hiro’s Mantle. You’ll want to rest spam to get Azzurro’s encounter, and then patiently wait for him to show up with the Mantle. This is all tedious, but Deep Wounds Retaliation is a godsend for the build, and should tide you over easily until you get Cladhalíath early act III. You can of course use Sura’s Supper Plate instead, but the build does hurt from the last of a bash attack (which gives you two opportunities to proc an affliction on one of your Strike abilities) – so I’d highly recommend Hiro’s Mantle with something like Larder Door up until act 3 (possibly a hatchet as well, for more Deflection and because they benefit from Weapon Focus Peasant).
When you get Cladhalíath, you won't be able to Stun-chain with it until it's Durganized on Stun hit rolls, however you can on Stun crit rolls.
Big boss advice:
Only the Alpine Dragon is immune to Stun, and with Blackwarden’s Breast plus the Survival beast accuracy bonus you can hit an accuracy of 135, hopefully letting you Stun chain on even the meanest of dragons. Using the defense buffs I listed above, you should have an appropriate defense to tackle the big bosses. For the Alpine Dragon, I guess you could try Wē Toki as the dragon is only resistant and not immune to Prone.
Pairing for party play:
You’re stunning all the time, which annihilates an enemy’s Reflex. Something that can easily exploit this shortfall (spellcaster, whatever) is probably the best sort of partner for the build.
You can also think about removing some of the Talents more specific to solo play, e.g. get rid of Wound Binding for something like Penetrating Shot – which makes your continual Thrust of the Tattered Veils even beefier.
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And that’s that! I hope you’ve enjoyed the build, and even if it isn’t playtested I think it’d be worth a try. If anyone manages to give it a playtest before me, let me know and I’ll update the build with your findings. Have a nice day!
EDIT: Re-tested Cladhalíath, and found the previous attributes I listed to be way off. The new set work fine to chain Stun on Stun roll hits.
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@jojobobo - what are the beginning stats on your rogue? Looks interesting. I love rogues but find them under powered on Potd. Any other difficulty they rock.
I'm going to post a class build for it shortly, though as a disclaimer it will be entirely untested as I've got too much on right now to play it through. But, I'd be very surprised if it works anything less than very well on solo PotD. It's supposed to address the conception that they're are one of the weakest classes.
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I'd probably advise against min-maxing on PotD unless you really know what you're doing - otherwise you risk putting a hole in your defences.
I've been thinking when I have the time trying out the Stun-locking Rogue I spoke about in the provisional builds thread I made a while back. The endgame spread for that would be:
MIG: 21
CON: 17
DEX: 14
PER: 13
INT: 15
RES: 21
With a shield, this gives 105 Accuracy using Superb Cladhalíath, Def/Ref/Fort/Will 115/118/110/106 and over 300 Endurance, 4 damage per Deep Wounds tick, and damage on crit (which should happen more or less constantly, with single enemies being perma-stunned and Dirty/Vicious FIghting plus Durgan Refined for 40% hit to crit conversion) of 70-103 without Deathblows, 95-139 with. This isn't factoring in Thrust of the Tattered Veils from Badgradr's Barricade, which given the enemy is constantly stunned should also proc constantly (and as Boeroer has previously mentioned, is effected by Deathblows).
The defences are comfortably buffable to Def/Ref/Fort/Will 165/174/163/136 (Potion of Llengrath's Displaced Image and Scroll of Defense mainly) and your accuracy against beasts can be buffed to 140 (Blackwarden's Breast plus third stage survival bonus).
I'd say with the high accuracy, high damage and solid defences, plus constant raw damage from Deep Wounds which you can distribute through Retaliation the ability should easily be able to hold its own - despite not really having anything maxed or minned. I'll probably post the build up untested in full so people can have a play around with it - I won't be able to have a go at it myself in the near future.
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Soooo, obviously you've advertised the v3.07 patch as the Deadfire Pack, is this supposed to contain the content? Someone found a separate installer on the GoG website, yet it's not under the ordinary downloads list for the game. Which is supposed to contain the content, and if it is the latter could you ask GoG to link to it under their ordinary files list?
Thanks again for all the hard work, it's good that you're still chipping in some support from the game so long after its release.
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Rather weird, but yeah it's listed as free for me, yet isn't in the GoG menu for the game. I guess an oversight of some kind from someone.
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Is he triggered by an event? WM Pt I is, so it wouldn't surprise me.
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I think it's all just incorporated in the 3.07 patch (the DLC I mean). The announcement in the other subforum says "v3.07 - the Deadfire Pack", but given that the other DLC has separate installers it is a touch confusing.
Hope that helps.
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Thank you kindly, MaxQuest.
I think the Helmsman's Uniform is pretty insane. The only thing that offers that level of Deflection is of course the Cape of the Master Mystic, which means as a surrogate your cape slot is freed entirely - so you can use something that offers a high attribute boost (Mantle of the Excavator, Finreah's Grace, Shroud of Morning, etc.).
I'm not a big fan of % affliction chance per hit/crit weapons (as with both the Soulbound and non-Soulbound ones), I prefer guaranteed rolls on crit (We Toki, etc.) - but they still seem decent and pretty interesting, certainly not underpowered by any stretch. Someone should certainly think about slapping on all of Fulvano's stuff now.
The belt is good, but I can't see it surpassing the Looped Rope defensively. Still, with the hat too, I like the idea of some of these higher level attribute boni being concentrated on a single item - certainly frees up other slots without losing too much, particularly with the belt if you aren't too bothered about defensive boosts.
Good stuff, and thanks again!
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What are the new items? Anyone care to share? I'm soon going to have to give up my mac, so I won't be playing the game until after Christmas at the very least so there's not much point in me getting the hefty patches. However I'm very curious if anyone else does install it (preferably with screenshots, if you want a big pat on the back).
Please and thankyou.
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Probably not for a couple of months, my degree course is soon finishing where I'll have to surrender my laptop, so I won't be able to have a good go at PoE until after Christmas. Still I'll be popping in from time to time, I'm very interested about the Deadfire Pack items will be.
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snip
Thanks for the update to the build, seems like you made some great tweaks to make things go along a bit more smoothly.
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How does wound binding work in combat? heals health but not Endurance? If so am I mistaken in thinking that's rarely useful?
It works as normal during combat, healing health but not endurance. What this means is you have much more health to allow for healing endurance, because if your separate endurance heals greatly outweigh your health pool then they're no use. As this variation hits the x1.8 Survival modifier, and has the Belt of Bountiful Healing, the heals you are going to see will be massive - and I wouldn't imagine a 2500 health pool would accommodate them. If someone does test this variation, and finds something you're only healing 4000 endurance points per match then post it up so the CON can be fiddled to allow for that.
As to how useful it would be, it's hard to say. During dragon fights I would say it would work pretty well, it's already pretty tanky so for even a boss monster to overcome 5000 health is no mean feat. Even if the talent doesn't see loads of use, it's quite cool conceptually to have so much health and endurance healing as it's a take on being an ultimate tank - substituting the high defences of things like the Monk and Paladin for good defences and ludicrously high health and healing.
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@jojobobo : going solo of course. But as you know even find azzurro happen not so fast by itself, and rech chlandillah is not so much faster then Godansthunyr, since you can just talk to the dragon, steal the hammer and run away in safety. The rest of build is wm2. So basically you are a rogue with a shield and Deep wounds, that is ok, but is bit boring compared to a faster for example.
You can cheese Azzuro being there, just chain wait at the Stronghold to see what dilemmas appear and then if he doesn't repeat. Then once you've solved his dilemma, do the same for the item. It's definitely tedious, but entirely do-able to get the cloak mid-Defiance Bay-ish.
I guess I quite like builds that pay off after a lot of effort (the Gunslinger was a far worse example than the Rogue) so I think I'd enjoy the pay off more, maybe I'm just more masochistic than you
I finally got the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar plus Ryona's Vambraces on the Barb, and currently doing 31-35 damage with 8 DR bypass - to say the least, it's very good.
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I paused at the moment the rogue run, is just too similar to a normal rogue run, at least until you reach 2/3 of the game. All the tools that make the build " unique " comes really late sadly.
Were you playing solo or in a party? I think on solo it would differentiate itself quite quickly, especially if you spam for things like Hiro's Mantle early (which dramatically ups the builds viability with Deep Wounds - and is probably for more impactful then Retaliation in terms of dishing out damage) - but if it is party play I think it would be a little trickier for it to shine.
In terms of the goodies coming late game, when I eventually get round to playing it I'll probably rush to get to Lle a Rhemen for the spear, which I don't think would be too onerous. However you are right, there is a definite wait for the payoff no matter how much you meta-game and rush things.
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I'll be trying it when I get there with my current unarmed solo Barb, I'm thinking Blackwarden's Breast and high DPS. Barb's tend to have defences in the right places (high Fort for example) and decent might to punch through the DR - just keep healing and I think it would be do-able. But no, I would say they're the most ideally suited class for a dragon fight by a wide margin.
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I'm sure that would probably be better, but I like Dex for the coolness factor - the DPS gives the Barb a selling point over being just another tanky Barb. I'm close to getting Dragon's Leap, so maybe I'll get that and have another go at Longwatch Falls, I have cleared quite a bit of the area - just not the monk bounty so I can get the Sandals or the huge group of Lagufaeth to get to the cave and get the Vambraces (you know, the two most important bits of the area to take on for the build
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Sounds good to me. Work has been keeping me busy so I haven't been keeping on top playtesting these. I got as far as Act III and WM Part I with the Barbarian, but damn, some of the upscaled encounters are tough without a tankier build.
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Nice work on a hotfix! As I mentioned, I didn't necessarily think it deserved one in the first place, but it's great you're putting the effort in.
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I'll be sticking around, I don't think I'll even install Tyranny for a little while - plus it's good when Obsidian gets it's first obligatory major bug fix patch out the way. I'm committed to seeing at least my unarmed Barb and almost certainly my solo Rogue I put in the provisional builds thread until the end.
Cheers to you Boeroer for your dedication to the game and making this forum a better place
PS: let's not forget Jojobobo and Andrea... You guys are the only Trinity I believe in
Why thank you, but I will say I've contributed far less than those two fine gents.
PS I did do some builds for Arcanum, once upon a time, if anyone new is ever tempted to play that game - you can find the thread here if anyone's ever interested in playing it. I think that's about the only other game I've done builds for, most of the time I wait until a late patched version on a game to come out and then I'm too late to the party
I'll make a new signature with the PoE and Arcanum links in, and make sure I use it when I use the Tyranny forums to drum up some interest.-
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What I do is...
I) How do you deal with :
- Xaurip Skirmishers and their paralyze early on, it just feels like you are unlucky and you have to reload... and im wondering how can seomeone do the Ultimate Challenge Steam Achievment without some "luck" or what ?
- Same for ghosts in Ondra's "Headlight" quest.
- Anything that can stunlock you etc.
Xaurip Skirmishers can be taken out one by one with your buddy the Animat - he can't keep you both paralyzed so if you send the Animat in first to take the aggro hopefully you can kill him in 10 seconds. If you can't, then buff defensively and try your best or leave them until later. For my current playthrough, I waited until I got the Orlan Bramble Ring until venturing into the Endless Paths - purely because the Skirmishers can be such a pain. For Madhmr Bridge, if you travel from a westerly direction to get there then it's much easier to get the drop on the Skirmisher you'd encounter coming from a northerly direction.
For the Lighthouse, I leave it late in Act II to try, but otherwise I don't find it such an issue. Food buff, use Whiteleaf to stop the fear, possibly wear Rymyrgand's Mantle to heal freeze damage and take some potions with you. It's not too hard.
For Phantoms that Stun-lock you, with someone with adequate defences I'll take them all out - a Coastal Aumaua with decent physical attributes and consumable buffing should be able to hit a Fortitude against Stun (because of the racial boon) of 90ish. So long as you have the positioning to fight them one at a time (which isn't too hard in the grounds and throne room of Caed Nua), they're do-able. If I don't have good defences, I sneak up the southern wall and go straight to the throne room. With the correct position in either of the corners close to the door you can make it so the Shadow blocks the Phantoms attacking you. I then use a reach weapon and a ranged weapon (the ranged weapon to aggro the Phantoms so they come in range of the reach weapon) and pick them off before killing the Shadow - with Rymyrgand's Mantle (see below in my early game walkthrough bit for where you can get it) you shouldn't die. The positioning can take a few tries, but once you have it 90% of the time the encounter will go your way.
If I were going ToI, I would use a Stealth method as Reent mentioned.
II) Where do you find specific awesome scrolls like :
- Bewildering Spectacle, because i'm lvl 8 in my solo PotD and can't get my hand on a single one to be able to craft it for Skaen's Sake !
- Any other spells you can advice.
I literally craft most scrolls I want to use, I think if your build is incredibly dependent on scrolls to win every encounter then something is going a little wrong. Scrolls of Defence are the ones I'd most recommend, a level 4 Lore spell that shores up your defences significantly. Confuse scrolls are also extremely handy, but they're more of a late game thing I'd say.
I think some spell bindings, like Shod-in-Faith Consecrated Ground or Arret Munacra Whispers of Treason, can be incredibly useful and I'll use them on most solo play-throughs when I need them.
III) A simple guide/walkthrough to know where to go and what is the most convenient for early stages steps by steps.
(Ex : go to Gilded Vale, have at least X mechanics for this and that, get to this map and loot this, avoid that, come kill this at X lvl, if you do it all correctly you would normally reach lvl X etc).
My standard play is...
1) Sell loads of crap to Heodan, literally anything I've got going (including the four herb ingredients you find at the start) apart from a weapon and some basic armor. He buys for loads of money.
2) I find Mechanics 4 good to hit, with Gloves of Manipulation you can hit Mechanics 6 which will let you complete Buried Secrets easily (I forget if less Mechanics can work). You hit level 3 very fast for 12 skill points, and Mechanics 4 takes 10, so you can spend one of your points level 2 on Survival - which is useful for a Valewood rest. I think you can get away with less Mechanics on the whole (I showed somewhere how to hit 10 with the scroll with just 2 points in the skill), but on the whole for solo runs I find it easier to take more.
3. Rest once in Valewood, take out the bandits, Xaurips and if you can as well as the large group wolves if you can (the wolves I usually can't) then head to the Gilded Vale.
4) Get all the quests in the Gilded Vale, enter all the houses you can for map XP and finish Late for Dinner which should let you hit level 3, hitting enough Mechanics to unlock the chest in the top of the Black Hound Inn and get Rymyrgand's Mantle (it should be there on the day you arrive, so long as you have reloaded a save already, if you haven't things can get screwy). Also, you can finish Against the Grain. The idea here is to hit Raedric's Keep by the late 3rd and early 4th of the month to get some decent gear on the loot lists - though keep in mind these do not work for everyone. They work for me consistently however, so I'll continue playing this way for as long as I can
5) Head to Magran's Fork, sneak to get to the Adra structures and pick up the fine weapon off the corpse. Get the route to Anslog's Compass, but don't travel there yet. Head to the Black Meadow.
6) Head south on the map, sneaking to avoid the Wicht, and get the fine bow by the camping tents, as well as map access to Madhmr's Bridge, but don't travel there. Then backtrack to the start of the map, and sneak to the bandit camp. You can reclaim the smith's crate by sneaking from a north-easterly direction with the correct timing, and this can be done with 0 Stealth. Then head to Anslog's Compass.
7) You're here to get Fulvano's fine crossbow, but I usually kill the initial Xaurip group too. Now, if you have the time (bearing in mind hitting Raedric's Keep by month day four), head to Anslog's Compass, rest, and do the smuggler mission - as well as kill one of the backer NPCs for his pistol, and stealth over to the westerly campsite and pick up the fine hatchet. If not, then don't sweat it.
8. Head back to Gilded Vale, and rest if you haven't already at the inn for free. Finish the Watcher quest, and the Smith quest and kill the backer NPC for his plate, as well as Aloth or Eder if you can manage it - Aloth is the easier of the two. With any luck, you should have enough money from selling your stuff to get the Bronze Horn Figurine (I'm a backer, so I sell Gaun's Pledge to Heodan to start with to get a cool 2k, but I think with my fine weapon scrounging you should be able to get it, particularly if you sell ingredients, potions, and anything else you can get your hands on).
9) Head to Raedric's Keep, scale the wall, and rest. Time it so you can kill the guard round the corner on his own by leading him back to the area where you scaled the wall, using the Bronze Horn Figurine and whatever crazy abilities your class has. If you can't do this, what you can do is use the figurine to aggro the guard then run away from him and if your timing is correct then you'll avoid the archer and should be able to enter the keep through the first door you come across. Wear the Berath's Priest robes and talk your way through, the dialogue checks aren't high and if you miss then you can reload and make sure to avoid those people. If you have Rogue levels of Mechanics, you may be able to lock pick the door in the library giving you direct access to Raedric, otherwise you can kill the priest (Nedmar, is it?) and get his key for the same access. When you speak to Raedric agree to help him (even if you don't want to, you can speak to Kolsc again again to go back on your double cross) and then everyone in the keep is friendly. You can get the Belt of Bountiful Healing (somewhat useful) in Raedric's bedroom, Gloves of Manipulation (highly useful) to the study south of the bedroom and Boots of Stealth (somewhat useful) from rooftop access.
10) Now, the world's your oyster! Finish off remaining Act I quests in whatever order you like - apart from Lord of a Barren land which is much easier to finish Act II if your killing Raedric (by all means, try it now, but in terms of saving yourself a hell of a lot of time it is so much easier to kill it. Plus it's better if you kill everyone in the castle for 10k+ of gold, which can be tricky if you're trying to kill Raedric so early). I mentioned earlier that you can lure away the Anslog's Compass Xaurip to complete that quest (the Xaurip group otherwise is pretty easy, and you only need to kill the one wayward Sporeling in the Sea Cave for the potion).
You can complete Buried Secret's by hitting the hidden switch in the westerly spider room to get to the bell door easily, then in the second floor take out the Shadows you find in the corridors. With the locked door around the middle of the map, you should be able to unlock it to get to the area to complete the quest. To kill the Phantom, lead him and the Ooze back to the doorway (he more often than not keeps behind the Ooze, meaning it can't hit you, it depends on your defences as to whether the Ooze will do its spit attack rather than the initial chase which you want) then kill him with a ranged or reach weapon. Make sure to kill companions for their phat lewt, and also if you can clear the boars from Magran's Fork as they offer a lot of XP, as well as any stags you come across. Particularly tricky encounters can be left for later (the rest of the Temple of Eothas) or maybe kited (the Forest Lurkers in the Black Meadow).
11) For Caed Nua, I've mentioned most of my strategy above. For the Spiders, use of good cell positioning and a Beast rest bonus (I'd recommend For Maerwald himself, kill him if you can or lead him to the beatles if you have a build that starts weak. From there you can head to Dyrford Village as it sells nice gear and you can kill companions on the way, or just head straight to Defiance Bay.
12) In Defiance Bay I get the Oaken Scarab and Obsidian Lamp Figurines immediately, then I do quests - prioritizing easier ones and leaving harder ones (The Wailing Banshee, the second part of Winds of Steel, Cinders of Faith) until later in the act when I've levelled higher. Getting a Ring of Protection from the loot lists for Woedica's Temple is a good idea, as otherwise they are expensive or you only find them guaranteed much later.
There you go! By no means the only way to do solo, but I find it a nice way to get through the early stages of the game speedily.
IV) Tips for crafting :
It took me ages to realise that there is ton of Adra in Caed Nuas when i was desperately looking for some...
Find out what ingredients you need for what you want to make, which vendors sell them and then stockpile when they restock throughout the game. For example, on my current Barbarian, I'm already tapping up Curnd for Tâ Ondra Tara periodically as I anticipate I'm going to need Scrolls of Valor late game - I've already made about 20, and I've some of Act II left. The animal parts can be the hardest to get as their sold in the smallest quantities, Cartugo in Ondra's Gift sells them as does the Curio Shop at Caed Nua. Vitrack Brains can be found at the same places, as well as the necessary jewels for exceptional weapons and armor from Curnd.
For general pointers, never pick up keys to rooms you can unlock yourself for XP. I think pretty much everything else relevant to solo early I've already covered. I hope that was some help
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,So... I've been able to reproduce this but! Only in the Stalwart ogre attack scene. I've been checking other scenes like this one (awkward combats after FMVs, transitions, SIs, etc..) and cannot find another case.
There is an Accuracy lose in some Ogres (four or five) after loading the auto-save. Though it seems those same Ogres have an insane Endurance boost. The difficulty should be preserved however, because all Ogres in the Drazir party seem to be complete.
I'm definitely going to give this some more love, but as it stands I can't see us taking an immediate action (hot fix). Going to bring it up to the decision makers though, and see what they think.
I got your backs
- Sking
P.S. There is a debug command 'ToggleCharacterStatsDebug' that will show NPC stats when you mouse over them. Careful with this command, it will be 'ON' until you restart the client.
Good to know you tried, and if it's localised to the Stalwart fight it's not a huge problem. I guess hotfixes should really be reserved for something entirely game-breaking, which this really doesn't seem to be. In any case, thanks!
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I think this is being blown out of proportion a little, I was mainly curious to see if Obsidian were open to a hotfix rather than insisting on one. The bug does in some fashion seem avoidable, so it's not a huge problem at all - but as it's on the critical path, at least in terms of the expansion, it might be worthy of a hotfix.
Plus, if it's only confined to Stalwart, which I think is the case then it's just a few encounters in a whole game full of more difficult ones. An annoyance, to be sure, but a fairly minor one - especially when you consider Obsidian have pulled out all the stops and done a great job on the patch otherwise.
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No it is not, you fool, you foolish fool!
But it is very easy to enchant to fine...
).
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Deadfire DLC items from v3.07?
in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
Thinking about it some more, even if you wouldn't want to use the hat in the long-term it will be an incredibly useful item to have through most of the game - particularly on a lowish Resolve character who can easily trigger Confuse (which is an extremely powerful spell).