Jojobobo

Hopefully there's no other unsightly bugs then. The Priest sounds fun, it'd be nice to see it in the future. I guess I mainly wanted it on a Barb as both the damage and accuracy malus from Carnage don't really effect it - that and the fact Barbs have a million ways to up DPS which offsets that you can't Durganize your fists (if only you could just dunk them in hot metal, a man can dream). I have to say, playtesting it so far, punching the Valewood bears to death felt really good

So I thought I’d make a thread for provisional, mostly untested builds so people can get them out their sooner and other people can have a crack at them. The reasons for doing this are that testing builds can take a lot of time, when really it can be nicer to share the love and let people play them sooner rather than later – and warping to just do boss fights can be a little unrewarding in terms of a test. Additionally, these builds may be a work in progress – you have a lot of ideas but there’s just one or two areas that you’re not sure on and so you want some advice to shape the build. Lastly, you might just be horribly impatient or want to stake your claim on a novel idea before one of the other brain-boxes on the forum discovers the same secret as you – or any combination of the above. For the builds themselves, I think most of the key details should be there – essential talents and abilities/spells, equipment and attributes. The ones I’m going to post are going to be pretty much class build level with all equipment and what to take at what level – I’ve even written most of the class builds for some of these already – but less detail than this is perfectly fine so long as you hit the key points. I also think by posting in this thread people reserve the right for a proper class build at some point, collaborations are fine as with myself and Boeroer’s that I helped a little on but they should be agreed in advance, purely so no ones’ toes are trodden on. I guess if you want to take some ideas from a build, but also change it a lot to make it pretty much your own class build then feel free – but as a point of courtesy it’d probably be good to let the original ideas man or woman know. So without further ado, I present three of my own based for solo play. Playing solo means it’s going to be a long while before every detail is thoroughly tested so I thought I’d let you people have a go with them. Plus, there’s my egregious impatience Here we go: --------------------------------------------------------------- Working title(s): The Incredible Punching Man, or maybe the Pugilist Class: Barbarian Concept: If you couldn’t tell, an unarmed Barbarian Details in spoiler tags… --------------------------------------------------------------- Working title: The Spry Scorpion (fast, yet defensive, with a sting) Class: Rogue Concept: All-rounder stun-locking Rogue (stun on crit durations fixed 3.04) Details in spoiler tags… --------------------------------------------------------------- Working title(s): The Mirror Man, or maybe the Bulletproof Monk Class: Monk Concept: A ranged reflector Monk full tank Details in spoiler tags… --------------------------------------------------------------- So there we have it! The builds are all more or less complete, they just lack testing. I’m currently focussing on the Barbarian, then I’ll try the Rogue, then I’ll either try the Monk or play Tyranny. Feedback is of course appreciated, particularly if anyone manages to get one playtested before I do. As mentioned, if anyone else have a sweet, mostly fleshed out provisional build, this is the place for them – I look forward to seeing some from you fine people.

Well, in all seriousness, what else are you going to sink your points into? Might as well be CON. I'll post the Provisional Builds thread tomorrow and you'll find out The attribute spread I developed for this Rogue is the most specific I've ever done, pretty much every attribute I can point to and say there is a specific reason as to why it is what it is.

Or you can just take Wound Binding, with my current build plan I was vacillating between that and Envenomed Strike. Given what I said about that my Chanter had enough health and this Rogue would have more, I'm giving the edge to Strike - it's just too good with decent Might and Int.

The combo of decent Con, plate and the Blunting Belt really helps to get a Rogue up to speed early game so they don't take much damage - late game it's not such an issue. At 17 Con, my Rogue would have more health than my Gunslinger build did - and though he was good at distracting the enemy through used of the Animated Weapons he still did have to take some hits, so I think 17 Con would work. Maybe I will just make a "Provisional Builds" thread and sketch out the idea quickly (as well as one or two of my others) - with builds like this it's only a matter of time before someone else resourceful comes up with the same idea on their own so it's nice to stake a claim. It would also be a nice catchall for people in the same boat, I say it's better for ideas to be out their so people can have fun with them rather than me hoarding them for months on end while I slowly play through - when they're complete a full class build can still be written up (things always do change slightly when the build is actually tested). I'll probably make the thread in the morning, the writing part will still take a lot of time even with a brief post of the concept

I still need to playtest my Rogue idea, it should be survivable and yet still a classical Rogue in a lot of respects - and on par with other classes in terms of what it offers. My new Barbarian idea is probably going to take precedence however - I think the concept is much more broadly appealing than a decent Rogue. As I mentioned elsewhere, it's one of the problems with soloing all the time. I think the biggest issue with Rogues is their low endurance, things like low Deflection can be worked upon but it is hard to properly offset their lack of endurance. For the build I have in mind, I was going to take 17 Con to hit 300+ endurance with Gift from the Machine at level 16 (and retain decent health to boot) - but realistically that's a hell of a lot to sink into an attribute which is not very good. I think they should have been a x5 endurance or health class (with the former they'd be much sturdier, with the latter you could focus on healing them to keep them alive). It's absurd for a fighting class to have both that low endurance/health and that low a Deflection too.

I don't think so all the time, no. I figured the cone was just positioned a little poorly - but it could potentially be a bug. Also, I just found the damage underwhelming in general, but clearly other people experienced different results so keep at it I guess. You don't need to necessarily disable gibs either, unless you have sky high accuracy. They're just the dead bodies resulting from crits, so unless you're critting super often disabling it seems a little cheesy.

I didn't realise endurance wasn't effected, good to know. 6000 is pretty cool, but to be honest I thought 5000 would be enough! It becomes a bit arbitrary in the end, and it's hard to anticipate how much healing you'll actually have access to in order to fill that health (maybe only 3000 is needed after all). As I mentioned with Tidefall this doesn't really work, but either with Dual Wielding as you found or Dragon's Maw and healing weapon both I think would work fine.

Yep, pretty much, still I always use the Phantom 95% of the time White Worms 5% or even less.

I found it extremely sporadic, yes. I think you need to have a really concentrated amount of bodies (e.g. a doorway) for it to work effectively, and you need to turn off gibs (which I never did), even in those conditions it would either do a lot or next to nothing. Other invocations are much more worth your time past the early levels, even early levels I'd say the Phantom outclasses White Worms by a country mile.

My last Barb solo build that I shelved, since it was getting interrupted too much, was a healing based two-hander concept - I think it would work better as an alt one hander and shield concept to this one. Essentially, if you take 19 Con (14 + Iron Circle + Rymyrgand's Boon) you hit 2500+ health, take Wound Binding and you hit 5000+ in a single encounter with any kind of healing bonuses that hit x2.5 (which is not hard to do). Couple this to 21 Might, take a healing item (x1.25) ad then the x1.8 healing modifier (Survival) and you get a x3 healing bonus. For Attribute changes, take Coastal Aumaua. What you need to hit end game is Might 21, Con 19 and Int 16 minimum (from testing 16 will consistently hit a target directly behind you if you're attacking a target in front) - dump whatever else you need to hit those numbers, preferably Resolve. As Boeroer has mentioned, this build has crazy defences already, including Deflection, and the reason why my version of a healing build didn't work IMO was a lack of both Deflection and Concentration with the slow Tidefall (when you get critted, the enemy Interrupt sky-rockets, but if they don't as is the case when you have suitable Deflection, then very low Concentration is fine). I would change the weapon from Bittercut to Purgatory for the healing, with the x3 healing modifier you actually get 60% of any damage dealt with it rather than 20% (I'm not sure on the rate of Dragon's Maw Taste of the Hunt procs - Boeroer would know more on that - but let's say hypothetically if it doesn't proc too often then with the two healing-ish weapons around 40% of enemy health is endurance regen for you). From this I would drop Spirit of Decay and go for the precious Wound Binding. For other equipment, the Lost Periapt of the Winding Path, He Carries Many Scars, Belt of Bountiful Healing, Maegfolc Skull and Shod-in-Faith (possibly, maybe the Deflection is too high, it is any crit after all) do great. Remember that Dragon's Maw also carries another massive Savage Defiance heal, which can be switched into when you back above 50% to receive it (from my testing) so you can always use a different weapon if you like and switch. How do you get 20 Survival for the x4 healing modifier? 1 (Barbarian) + 2 (Colonist) + 2 (any Survival item) +2 (Warden's Lodge - outweighs the bonus from +3 Might with the healing modifier reached) +1 (Rymyrgand's Boon), for the remaining 12 use 78 skill points out of your 90 total. Additional skill cost breaks can be managed by using a relevant prostitute boon, but for me it'd be too tedious to backtrack to the Gift all the time and the boost is only good for one camping bonuserest unlike the Warden's Lodge bonus. This idea is untested, but I'm 95% sure it would work. I was originally intending to have all those heals as well as the Dragon's Maw Savage Defiance as a switch bonus, but the interrupt ruined the build Act III upscaled using Tidefall so I didn't pursue it - with the shield used continually I really think it would work even on solo (5000+ health after all, with moderate to good Defences). You can take Lore 1, and get Lore bonuses from resting, prostitutes or equipment - enough for 4 and Scrolls of Defence which is why I think this would work solo. I was going to call the build the "Healasaurus Rex" (I know, a weird title, and yes it is a little similar to the Accident-prone Squire but with healing on steroids), so I guess consider this the Healasaurus Rex variant - and again entirely untested so use at your own risk. I've now got another Barbarian build in mind, so rather than retread much the same ground as Boeroer I'm going to do that instead, but I am convinced these suggestions will work. Have fun!

Hopefully I guess it's definitely worth the test, just realised you already mentioned them in the OP

Very, very nice - to be honest to me this seems like more or less the perfect Paladin, and in complete harmony with their party support capabilities. Again, one of the problems with solo play is that Paladins are pretty damn dull - sky high defences but little else to set them apart. Even if I had tried the charming idea solo that I recommended (something I was originally doing back when I sunk 50 hours into a Paladin Gunslinger build rather than a Chanter - basically, it doesn't work as well as the Chanter) it does seem there is something still wrong with pulling enemies and then Charming/Dominating for solo play as the effects can end instantly, and it's not something the devs are going to fix - so it's much better for this to be a party build. Again (again), much kudos for the developing the idea far beyond the bounds that I would have. Really this is much more your build than mine, but I appreciate the nod nevertheless

Thanks again as well, though I think this build was much more largely you. Still, everyone appreciates authorship

Thanks for the co-credit, it's appreciated!

Yeah sorry, was typing while tired, the Gauntlets were what I meant - and I didn't mean necessarily combining it with the Lance effect just having two AoE Prones.

I love it, great job developing the idea! I really like the combo of damaging Bittercut plus Dragon's Maw Hof, switching to a fully defensive mode with Captain Vicollo's Anger and Little Saviour when you need it - it's certainly a neat trick and not something I would have thought of. It's also nice to make effective use of both weapon slots, so many builds just really focus on one so to be using both routinely is quite an advanced style of play. I think with me playing solo all the while there's a lot of items I don't include in my builds, like the Cloak of Comfort and Binding Rope, but the build is definitely better for their inclusion. Again, great work in fleshing out an idea that I only really sketched the bare bones of.

Probably not the kind of thing you're going to have time to fix now, but Liberating Exhortation completely stops Deep Wounds on all enemies until you rest - meaning any encounter where you face a Paladin you'll find Deep Wounds to be pretty much worthless (link). Still, it could be a trivial fix, I know that with things like Flanking they are checked for again so Liberating Exhortation only works to stop Flanking for so long - maybe something similar could be attempted for Deep Wounds.

When enemies Liberating Exhortation is used on an enemy you have effected with Deep Wounds, all enemies (even different groups you attack) from then on are permanently immune to it (it says Deep Wounds is suppressed) until you reload. While the bug isn't so bad as it is fixable with a reload, it does mean Deep Wounds is more or less worthless when fighting any group with a Paladin as you can't fix it mid fight.

Cool, thank you. I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the other bosses too.

Clear Out, and the Lance Knockdown you're talking about. I guess Slicken is an easier way to produce Prone, but being able to do damage while you're at it is quite a benefit.

Nope, Clear Out was the other one I was thinking of - but I guess that's already AoE. Still, two Prone AoEs sound pretty cool.

Sounds like another case where effects can be applied buggily in an AoE, but compared to say the Black Path this doesn't feel buggy - especially seeing as the prone effects are limited in scope to a couple of items (plus it's one of the things the devs have said their definitely not patching, so to me that sounds like an official endorsement to abuse with wild abandon ). I'd bet a Rogue with Acuan Giamas in the same situation would have had a field day with all their Strikes.

You should do a class build, solo-ing with a two weapon Rogue sounds like quite a feat given their extremely shoddy defences. I think by soloing such a boss without incredibly cheesy tactics (my Gunslinger build was worse, because I couldn't wait until later for the weapon) is certainly a legit build already - I'd be interested to hear about it.

I have it pre-ordered, so I should be on there. I want to complete at least one more build before I start a new game however, after having a few on the back burner.