Jojobobo

Cool, I'll be using it myself when I get there. It's taken me a while to clear the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, through a combo of the fights being tough but also extremely repetitive so I've not been so enthused to get through the area. Hopefully now I'm at Caryon's Scar it shouldn't be too long before I tackle all the big bads (Kraken, Adra/Alpine Dragons, Concelhaut, Llengrath and Thaos) to finish the build off properly. I think for my next solo run I'm going to stick to a more or less purist tank and hopefully have an easier time of it.

I've always thought a Firebrand (and burn damage) focussed Fire Godlike Druid with a boar Spiritshift would be cool, going for the war pig archetype where romans would cover pigs in pitch and set them on fire to scare elephants. Never got round to developing the idea though. I think on the whole the sabre nerf is good, but I think the larger issue is some weapon classes are more or less worthless. Who for example is going to use a club over Drawn in Spring? Both weapons have the accuracy bonus, however Drawn in Spring has the raw lash, and with Flick of the Wrist has additional accuracy. It would have been nice to have a least one really cool, interesting and thematic weapon in every class to make you think twice - however some classes do get the short end of the stick.

I had similar levels of fortitude to you with my Chanter. As an addendum to what you said, I found by hugging the right wall I only had to fight one Tendril initially - I'm not sure why you had to take on three! But yeah, CC the sporelings and then whittle down the Tendrils. Probably the easiest way to tackle things is, once you've dealt with the Tendrils on the right hand side switch to something like Persistence and plink away at the Spore from a distance so the left hand side Tendrils are within range - which should be possible with any class. As a Chanter, you can have quite an easier time of it as you can literally let your summons do all the work once the sporelings are dealt with - not a particularly exciting way to handle things but it keeps you safe.

It works just fine as it is with a little patience, however standard tank Chanter would work fine if you don't want to wait and then just retrain at an inn. Go for high Might, high Int, dump Dex, then put the rest into Con/Per/Resolve as you feel like - I quite like Per given it makes your chants more accurate, but Con and Resolve would be more use on the front lines. Use whatever shield you like, you can't really go wrong, and honestly you can use whatever weapon you like too. If you're going full tank, hatchets can be used to up your deflection to an even greater extent - relying on your chants for damage. Healing abilities and items are certainly useful, things like Ancient Memory, Beloved Spirits and Veteran's Recovery - these are less useful late game so you can again retrain them out. Have fun.

You've talked about AllDefences before, so I was hoping that was the case. A +20 shift to fort/reflex/will and +10 to deflection when being exposed to a fear effect (or other will attack - but mainly fear due to the low duration and the fact all boss monsters have it) sounds pretty great. Scrolls of Defence and Defiant Resolve do stack for sure as well, just went and double checked on the Adra Dragon with my Chanter. I guess they must be applied in different ways for some reason.

So, do they stack? I'm thinking of a somewhat unique monk build for my next solo run, and as I like to plan things out well in advance I was curious to know if they stacked up? It's a little hard to test seeing as you'd have to warp to someone who will affect you with a will attack, which can be easier said than done so I was hoping someone might already know. Does Crucible of Suffering also stack with Scrolls of Defence too? Thank you kind people in advance.

As Boeroer said it can be used in any difficulty and/or party play. I make a mention of what you can do differently for party play (e.g. use the Chanter as an off-tank on the front line, paired with a full tank with Crossed Patch, and some people to take advantage of reflex debuffs) so I'd try that. What you need to be aware of is that you only get Silver Flash late game (I got it after 50 hours of play, but that was before fully completing every task and quest Act II, getting down to the Adra Dragon, and completing all quests and tasks in WM part I - so you should be able to get it sooner if you prioritise it). In light of this you could maybe build your Chanter as a standard tank, then respec at an inn when you get the gun - as mentioned I didn't use respecing because I'm a bit of a masochist. I'd say regardless you need to have a high level of perseverance to enjoy the build with the weapon coming so late, it's not one of those builds with an early and immediate pay off and I designed it more or less to have a decent and viable firearms build (a weapon I always love in high fantasy games) when many ranged builds are focussed primarily on DPS. I'm perfectly used to waiting late game for a pay off (in Arcanum for example you can get a blessing in the penultimate dungeon that gives you loads skill points, thereby saving you putting points in those skills so long as you hold out allowing you to spend them on other skills or attributes. This also means loads of quests become available after you get the blessing because of the boosted skills, but as mentioned it is the penultimate dungeon - way, way late game - still it's something I do on that game quite regularly). Basically, be aware of what you're getting yourself in for if you choose the build. EDIT: Got those damnable spoiler tags working on the paragraphs now, they need to be (obviously replace with appropriate square brackets): (spoiler) Text(/spoiler) And not: (spoiler)Text(/spoiler) Normally on other forums it's worked fine either way.

For a tough fight where you'll need the extra DR, I don't think it's too much effort to restock and use it for that. Hit to graze conversion is fine, but it doesn't equal the other Focuses IMO, as Charge can give your whole front and back lines mobility (which will usually do a better job of safeguarding your spellcasters than 3 DR will) and Focus is obviously extremely useful. Classes like Monks can already get 10 DR just for standing around, and an extra 3 DR is unlikely to save your backline from harm. Making it stack seems to me like a good idea.

Another thing I thought I'd mention, which seems to be an unintentional effect, is that Zealous Endurance does not stack with alcohol DR bonuses. In practice this means no one will (or rather they might, but shouldn't) take this perk as alcohol is cheap and ubiquitous and inns restock regularly - on the flip side if they did stack you could get reasonably substantial DR on characters for a time due to the stacking effect. People are still unlikely to take it over Zealous Charge/Focus even if they did stack, but it would at least be worth a little more consideration.

Yeah I blew the front gates open before killing everyone too, it was good fun. I don't think it's actually explained how you signal to the cannons to make the shot, which is a little weird (or maybe it is and my memory is failing me).

I thought it'd be something along those lines, a pity I'm playing an aggressive shoot people on sight character for this run (I wanted to go more or less completionist in a combat sense). I also killed everyone at the Iron Flail Fort too for the same reasons. Good find on the human Berath Priest bit too. What exactly does the Trebuchet Shot do? Again, there's zero information on it anywhere as far as I can see.

Doesn't sound like the fights too bad then for a solo Chanter, luckily for me. The Abbey of the Fallen Moon solo is such a damn grind with all the monks, every single mob is a pain. For the Matron's Horn, where exactly do you get it? Or do you have to be chums with the WM part I Ogres and then it's available on their merchant? I've googled this and searched the forums, but I can't seem to find any mention of where it actually is (though if it is sold by the Ogres that may be a problem as I killed them all a little). It would certainly be handy, as all the other summons from the main game are nothing but distractions at best to upscaled WM part II mobs.

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").