Jojobobo

I had something similar to the above as I mentioned earlier in the thread, making sure I had to kill Oeros to progress, and as I mentioned Desthwn then talked to me like Sul was the champion even though she was dead. However, then when I actually spoke to Galawain, he did treat it as both were dead. It seems like the issue here would be if a player wants to leave Sul alive and kill Oeros (or vice versa if the quest can't be progressed otherwise), which limits your options in terms of solving the quest in the way you'd want.

You can hover your mouse over the day and night symbol in the bottom centre of your screen. It will say day X (the number of days you've played as that character), then month Y (what month it is and what day of the month you are on). It's the latter you'll want to use to obtain items. In general, I find day 4 at Raedric's Keep pretty good (you can kill one or two guys if you know what you're doing, then talk to Raedric and make the keep non-hostile, then double-cross him later if you so choose). Gloves on Manipulation, Belt of Bountiful Healing and Boots of Stealth are all pretty neat items and can be found in various locations around the keep. Other than that, you could pick the day at the keep where you get Gauntlets of Accuracy, which are good for the entire game (I'm using a set right now right in the end game) and are pretty rare on the loot lists as things go.

To annoyingly nitpick, is there any plan to incorporate the bug with stun on crit weapons having much longer effects than they should mentioned earlier in the thread (link to the fix)? I didn't see it mentioned in the planned fixes, and Loren Tyr mentioned a fix should be easy enough - however I have no idea of coding to know whether that's true or not. It does make Barbarian Carnage quite overpowered, so it's likely worth a fix, especially if it's also and easy fix. On the flip side, though while a little overpowered, it's not exactly game-breaking - it'd just elevate stun on crit weapons over the other on crit weapons for having a lengthy duration.

Cool, look forward to seeing the builds once you've posted them up! I've still got the BioShock Collection I'm waiting to play so I'll likely be taking a bit of a hiatus from Pillars after I've completed this build fully anyway. With regards to the Barbarian build, something I had a bit of a brainwave about was using the Executioner's Hood. With it, you'll have a sickening aura and frightening aura at the same time - and while the frightening aura comes in at -10 accuracy the sickened debuffs will by 14 so it actually hits with slightly above base accuracy. I'm not 100% sure if this is worthy competition for the Maegfolc Skull with its Might boost, but Coup de Grace isn't exactly a bad effect (especially when paired with Purgatory and the Dragon's Maw for more endurance recovery as you mentioned) and the hood looks extremely cool (particularly with an Orlan so you get glowing red eyes) in addition to being a non-standard item pick - perfect for an intimidating badass. It might be worth considering, as I said it's hard to say whether it outcompetes other headgear.

I did a class build post thingie. I've played the vast majority of the game, and though I haven't killed the beefy dragons yet (wanted to wait until I get a legendary upgrade on Silver Flash), I think it's safe to say it's more or less tested. I'll update the build as I go with the big boss fights.

“Say hello to my little friend!” As a bit of a foreword, this build is designed to exclusively use guns with class abilities, even in the tough boss fights. I’ve yet to kill any of the really tough bosses (the Kraken, Adra or Alpine Dragons, Concelhaut, Llengrath) but all the bounties are completed as is the Radiant Spore and Sky Dragon, so being an impatient so-and-so I thought I’d post up the build and I’ll post up details of some of the tough bosses as I go along. I’m just at the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, so I’m also missing Gwyn’s Band of Union for the time being – but it will come shortly. I’ll post edits up here as I go when I get the big things killed off. EDIT: All the bosses are now complete! =================================== The Gunslinger =================================== Difficulty: Expert PotD solo, no respec, with full upscaling -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wild Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vailia – Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Starting attributes: MIG: 10 CON: 9 DEX: 18 PER: 12 INT: 19 RES: 10 Final attributes: MIG: 11/15 (Gift from the Machine, 15 with Maegfolc Skull) CON: 10 (Rymrgand’s Boon) DEX: 22 (Viettro’s Formal Footware) PER: 15 (Elryn’s Jacket, Song of the Heavens) INT: 26 (Forum resting bonus, Gwyn’s Band of Union) RES: 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skill levels obtained: Survival 11 (Jack of Wide Waters, Rymyrgand’s Boon, Colonist), Mechanics 13 (Dungeon Delver, Gloves of Manipulation, Chanter bonus), Lore 11 (Chanter bonus, Viettro’s Formal Footware), Athletics/Stealth – who cares? These levels weren’t really optimized, I was originally shooting for higher Survival aiming for Lore 8 – but then I quickly found out you really need Scrolls Against Imprisonment in WM part I, so it’s all a bit of a mess. However, I found these levels perfectly adequate for what I wanted to do. -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities and Talents: Phrases: 1 – Come, Come Soft Winds of Death and At the Sight of their Comrades, their Hearts Grew Bold 3 – Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe 5 – Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed 7 – One Dozen Stood Against the Power of the Saint 9 – The Dragon Thrashed, the Dragon Wailed 11 – Choice (I went for Aefyllath, but I think Silver Knights’ Shields would be occasionally more useful) 13 – Her Courage Thick as Steel 15 – With All Your Strength Slay the Beast Invocations: 1 – But Reny Daret’s Ghost, He would not Rest 2 – White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead 4 – Choice (I picked Hel-Hyraf, but rarely used it) 6 – At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff 8 – Choice (I never got much use out of Shatter their Shackles, so I’d probably recommend The Lover Cried) 10 – Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept 12 – The Brideman Slew Thirty 'Fore they Crossed Half the Hall 14 – The Bride Caught their Ruse and Set to Make them Pay 16 – Called to His Bidding, the Ancient Instruments of Death Talents by level: 2 – Veteran’s Recovery (can pick Ancient Memory with the 3.04 fix) 4 – Gallant’s Focus 6 – Gunner 8 – Envenomed Strike 10 – Penetrating Shot 12 – Bear’s Fortitude 14 – Deep Pockets 16 – Snake’s Reflexes Additional talents: Gift from the Machine Song of the Heavens Rymrgand’s Boon Second Skin Dungeon Delver Weapons and Equipment (listing only new enchantments): Weapon set 1: Silver Flash (Legendary, Durgan-Refined, Freezing Lash) Weapon Set 2: Pliambo per Casitàs (Superb, Durgan-Refined, Slaying (Vessel), Corrosive Lash) Boots: Viettro’s Formal Footware or Boots of Speed when needed Armor: Elryn’s Jacket (Legendary, Durgan-Reinforced) or Starlit Garb (Superb, Durgan-Reinforced, +2 Perception) Neck: Cape of the Master Mystic Belt: Looped Rope Rings: Ring of Protection and Gwyn’s Band of Union Hands: Gauntlets of Accuracy Head: Arret Munacra or Maegfolc Skull You can maybe throw in Ilfan Byrngar's Solace with your fist for when you’re being stunned (no other weapons to live up to the gun-only archetype) but whenever I switched to it while stunned I still got beat down so in the end I didn’t bother. --------------------------------------------------------------- I was going to break this into individual sections using the spoiler tags so people only have to look at sections they wanted to, but apparently the forum only puts the first paragraph of a section inside the tags So sorry for the horrendous length of the post, I've put the different topic titles in a nice lurid red so you should be able to spot them easily enough through scrolling. I will however keep the first point in spoiler tags for suspense... EDIT: Turns out I got the spoiler tags working after all. Why would you want to play this build? Why is the Silver Flash so neat? Class choice: Race, attribute, equipment and talent choices: When the build was tested, what worked and what didn’t? Different act equipment and chant/invocation advice: Changes for party play: Big bosses: -------------------------------------------------------------- So there we have it, I hope this has been interesting and demonstrated another sweet gun build (and the only solo one) is possible. Let me know if you have any advice or changes to suggest or if you want me to clarify anything, and I’ll try to catch any typos I’ve made later. Cheers!

I just did the Eyeless at Iron Flail Fort and I didn't find them too bad, at least with a Chanter. I guess I'll see how I fare with the later groups in WM part II, but with a Chanter at least you can keep one or two of them occupied with the animated weapons (leaving one weapon off to the side of the group for when they ground pound in case the others die, and if they do bringing it in) and let Dragon Thrashed do the work. You should be able to more or less continually keep the weapons up and avoid their damage, from there it's only a matter of time until they fall. I won't be using Abydon's Hammer (I'm focusing on a specific class of weapons which I'll set out when I do a class build) so I guess I'll be getting a double challenge more or less.

Boots of Stability only protect against prone and push (or at least that's what it says in their description), and I do use Blaidh Golan in such encounters but I still found not being able to do anything pretty brutal even at +50/100 to my defences while stunned on solo - particularly when there's multiple Phantoms in some mobs. At least with petrification and paralysis there's Prayer Against Imprisonment, which with decent Int lasts a good while and most of the enemies who do paralyse are pretty fragile (or some don't really require it anyway - like the Skuldraks whose effect doesn't last long in the first case). The only thing I know of that actually wards against stun is the Looped Rope - but by the time you get that you're past most of the stunning enemies in the game. It's reasons like this that it's beyond me people actually manage to do solo ToI (and I certainly would never play it), as anyone of these encounters can extremely easily kill you. My only guess is some enemy types are avoided in such playthroughs to a large extent. I think paralyse/stun/petrification is my main problem with Pillars, as the effects often last incredibly long and it just feels like a cheap and easy win for the enemy (or for the player, if they use them consistently). Overall these effects greatly diminish my enjoyment of the game as they don't represent any kind of fair or interesting challenge, and not everyone wants to be using a Priest in every playthrough.

The one in the mine is entirely avoidable and is based on picking up the key, so I didn't bother. I do try to clear every map (and have done apart from Stalwart at the start of WM part I and the Luminescent Caves) but when it's such a massive pain in the arse and you've maxed out your journal entries for that enemy type then I don't really see the point. Besides, my character is a little lacking in fortitude so the Phantom stuns tend to kill me pretty fast - the game as far as I'm aware offers very little to protect against stun (I don't think there's any Prayer Against scrolls for it, but I may be wrong). The one in the baths I think I got lucky and got an invisibility proc on Cape of the Master Mystic, so I ran back into the bath room, blocked the door with summons, charmed the Phantoms/Sirens with Munacra Arret and when I could summoned the animated weapons to pick off the rest. If you can avoid being stun locked then Dragon Thrashed makes short work of them anyway. Once the group nearest the baths are killed, you can then focus on the group in the corridor. If I were to do it again, I think just dropping a confuse scroll is easiest way to manage the group, and should grant you similar positioning to what I mentioned.

You're probably best with White March fur armor for a bit of a native american look, though granted it's a bit more like native americans suited to the colder climes (e.g. inuits or canadian native americans).

I'd say it's likely intentional, I'm also playing solo on PotD with upscaling and there's plenty of stuff that's quite frankly ridiculous (e.g. Rogues with 140+ deflection in Brynlod's bounty, and with Deep Wounds. I appreciate that some of the enemies are supposed to be greater than level 16, but to give a Rogue that kind of deflection is insane and it's a little beyond me how it's even possible to out-tank them - fortunately for me I'm playing a Chanter so I could just send animated weapons at them to absorb the continual health grind of Deep Wounds and use Dragon Thrashed, though even that doesn't hit them too frequently). I'm beginning to think that soloing upscaled WM part II on PotD it's almost impossible to play anything but a full tank or kiter, which is weird as Act III and WM part I are perfectly fine upscaled. I'm playing something that's a bit middle of the road (I'm going to do a class build for when I kill something like the Alpine Dragon, which hopefully shouldn't be much longer) and would work as a tank on the lower difficulties, but when you're facing defences well above 100 there's very little you can do other than sit there, buff and throw scrolls at them - so while I'm managing to get through the game I'm not doing much that I was hoping to do with the build. I guess I was expecting the difficulty to present a more interesting challenge, rather than a bit of a dull grinding numbers game. On the flip side, I'm think I'd find hard upscaled solo way too easy - maybe even PotD non-upscaled WM part II, so there's really not a decent option for me personally.

Got a freeze/crash that caused me to hard reboot during the Bleak Oath inside the mill. I think I essentially selected the last dialogue option every time for anyway wanting to reproduce it. Further details here (though what I've put in this post is the general gist).

I got a complete game freeze trying Bleak Oath and had to do a hard reboot. Essentially in the mill in Dyford I selected the final lines of dialogue each time (paraphrasing: "Saw what you did in Whitestone Hollow." Then, "You're pathetic..." Then, "[Attack]", and I got a freeze and had to do a hard reboot of my machine. I'm also a wild Orlan which likely isn't important but featured in the dialogue before the freeze (something about me being a "hairy little cat****er").

You'll eventually kill the Kraken, giving you the legendary enchantment. I guess just wait it out and hope for the best - I'm in a similar boat as I got a little greedy with my enchantments going solo PotD enchanting my secondary weapon to superb and leaving my main weapon at exceptional until I reach the Kraken for legendary. While this sounded like a great plan in theory - in practice I'm now hurting quite a lot from the lack of accuracy on my main weapon, so in terms of making things easier on myself superb to legendary would have been better. For the Chanter, honestly the Dragon Thrashed and Seven Nights are surely the main ways you're getting damage output with them anyway - unless you're going for the damage shield chant? I'd give your chanter something like Persistence and keep them off your front line, the wounding lash gradually will stack up to decent damage because of it being raw even though you've not built the Chanter for damage specifically. I wouldn't commit overly to a poor(ish) weapon that you made a mistake on (the staff).

Wouldn't it permit you three separate rolls though - in which case it ups your chances of getting the maximum length stun/prone? I get that stun and prone don't stack - but adding two additional chances to score one of these debilitating effects on top of stunning shots seems worth it in terms of probability. I'd say the issue is long reload weapons aren't great for kiting - as the reload animation needs to be done while standing still (though it can be stopped and started, so if you get half way through the animation then you'll pick up where you left off when you're still again - which I have to say looks very weird). This means more kiting than normal, and probably doesn't work well in conjunction with stun/prone-locking enemies as all that running around is delaying the time between shots. It also seems a little pointless to stack blind and stunned, as the only effects which are suppressed by stunned are -accuracy and -move speed, which won't have an effect while they're not moving from stunned in the first place.

The reason why I asked about Driving Flight earlier is I'm pretty sure a Ranger with an arbalest and Swift Aim could chain prone effects, they can certainly chain Blind as standard through Silver Flash through my testing (though it's a little useless given that you blind your pet too - and it only works with Swift Aim so no Powder Burns unfortunately if you want to chain blind) and the reload isn't much different though it is slightly longer. With Silver Flash I used Swift Aim, Int 26 (18 base + 1 Old Vailia + 3 resting bonus + 4 Gwyn's Band) and Dex 22 (18 base plus Viettro's Footware), Gunner and Gauntlets of Swift Action and found you can chain it on blind effect crits (with the idea that blind crits perpetuate more crits by hitting on the lowered reflex once you score the first). With Aedrin's Wrecker you're looking at two possible nasty CC effects, and with Stunning Shots possibly a third separate roll. If this does work on Driving Flight that's two guys potentially out of action quite easily - which with the high base damage of arbalests would be pretty neat. Definitely something to think about, and it certainly avoids some of the problems with Silver Flash even though it doesn't hit such a large group (which you probably don't really need it to on a Ranger, considering Binding Roots).

Hmmm, how does Driving Flight work with Prone/Stun on Crit Weapons? Can it hit more than one guy? I would test, but laziness gets in the way.

Here's a post that will answer most of your questions, particularly how the speed benefit works. In terms of no armor penalty, 0 x anything is still 0 so you won't feel a benefit to your recovery. However all the other phases (attack, reloading, etc.) will still be sped up by Dexterity. It's for this reason a fair number of melee builds leave Dex at 10 but look to minimise recovery as this already significantly increases DPS, obviously Dex in addition is even better but you'd probably have a better investment going for the other attributes.

Should the Yellow Flash Rogue build have a feature on this thread? I'm guessing the mosspit didn't PM AndreaColombo or Tigranes for hosting, but IMO it's the best Rogue build you can find addressing the mechanical changes from 3.02 to 3.03 for Riposte. Definitely worth hosting if it's slipped through the cracks.

There still seems to be a bug with Galawain's Maw (I know the original bug of combat not ending did get fixed). Sul will often get into fights without the play character even having to enter the Maw proper (just re-entering the Maw a few times), getting herself killed. Paradoxically, this only allows for the ending of the New King and the Old Queen where she is named champion after you kill the bear. I made a bug report in technical issues, but there isn't really anything more to say. Maybe just changing the area where the other lions patrol would fix this.

Sul will often get into fights and get herself killed on re-entering Galawain's Maw a few times, this results in the ending of the New King and the Old Queen where Sul remains the champion beast - regardless of the fact that she's, you know, dead.

Just did a quick test, they do suppress unfortunately. As other spells like the Brideman Slew Thirty also don't stack with any kind of food, it's probably best to assume all those kind of spells will suppress food bonuses. Still for soloing, or just parties lacking a Priest or a Chanter, it's pretty neat.

I never really looked at drugs that much either, but Whiteleaf definitely seems to have benefits which outweigh its cost with or without Mind Grubs. Something I didn't mention in the first post is that you can use the combo to easily hit Intellect 30 so long as you maxed it at character creation, and so double durations for all effects: 18 (base) + 1 (Godlike race or Old Vailia culture) + 4 (Gwyn's Band of Union) + 3 (Forum resting bonus) + 4 (Mind Grubs) = 30. Doubling any kind of CC duration is very nice and can make a world of difference in tough fights.

I've never seen anyone mention combining these two, so I thought I'd make a quick thread mentioning it (maybe it's old news?). For those of you who don't know, Mind Grubs found in the Luminescent Caves in White March part II offer high attribute boosts (+4 Per, +4 Int) at the rather terrible cost of being sickened (-10 Fort, -10 Will, -many other attributes further reducing defences). By taking Whiteleaf at the same time, you're immune to sickened giving you those juicy attribute boosts at practically no cost (the cost being Whiteleaf crash - 15% less max endurance - if your fight lasts for 10 minutes, and slightly slower attack speed). Further, Whiteleaf can be pretty good against boss monsters already if you don't want scrolls of Prayer Against Fear clogging up your inventory and you're not happy to use Steadfast. Given that the defences offered by the Mind Grub are pretty high because of the attribute boosts (+8 reflex in particular) I'm surprised no one has mentioned this combo before (I couldn't find anything searching the forum or googling the two). I got seven Mind Grubs when I cleared out the caves which is more than enough for all the big boss fights in the game.

I think on a long enough timeline most of them do crop up. I've sunk about 50 hours into to my playthrough now (finishing off Act 3, then doing WM part 2, then the boss monsters) and I think I've seen most of the items come by once or twice, so I think it's just a waiting game. Then again I'm playing solo, so they're all useless to me! Does saving and reloading before you generate a new turn work? I thought how these adventures were generated was random, in which case reload spamming before you finish a quest might help you get something you're after.