Jojobobo

Yep, was mentioned a couple times Good to know, these forums can move quite fast compared to the dedicated game forums.

Probably something that's already been mentioned in the thread, but on top of what I've mentioned previously I would like: Random number generator (RNG) items in chests, with those RNG items available from a late game vendor anyway or in fixed locations (I know some are available from fixed locations, but not all). I think the current system of fixed items on fixed days encourages meta-gaming but is also a bit of a punishment for those looking to play the game organically as they can often end up with crummy items. By having an RNG system and those items available from a late game vendor (these items aren't unique and are in multiple chests, so it makes sense a salesman would have got their hands on one) I think people would be happier sticking with what they have. Currently because I want certain items and there aren't fixed locations for them, and I don't want to cheat, I just use the loot lists. However, I would rather just do locations naturally as I come to them. A recent example is that I just took the sacrificial pit on Endless Paths level 2 to get to level 5 in time to get Gauntlets of Accuracy which don't have a fixed location, as far as I know aren't sold by vendors and also are pretty rare on the loot lists on the first place - however ordinarily I would just proceed down the levels as normal. They are valid even for end game on certain builds (probably on my current build I'll be using them from now on), so it's a little odd how tricky they are to get ahold of. While the current system is hardly terrible, I think it could be made a touch nicer on the player. By the same dint the Azzuro system also sucks a little, I think it could be improved by having the current system in place - but you can also pay inflated prices for "special stock". I would rather pay 25k gold for a certain item (Hiro's Mantle, mainly) than spam rest at the stronghold. Again, it's not implemented in a rewarding way for the player.

Did anyone notice Paradox's RPG survery? I'm too lazy to search through threads to know if someone's already mentioned it -if it's not a thread than maybe it should be one. Looks as though they're trying to use the survey to prime their next development, which is hopefully a World of Darkness game

With Caed Nua at least, you can attempt it in a couple of hours - being level 3 doesn't make a whole lot of difference in comparison to being level 4 at that low a level so attempting it early is perfectly fine. In that, though it's a little frustrating to retry a few times if you die, you're sinking a relatively short amount of time into it (in terms of an RPG) so I'd say on ToI it's fine to give slightly non-standard builds a shot. I'm just not masochistic enough to want to play ToI. Even going solo, where you rest quite a lot, I imagine the rests you have to put in to ToI to make it work and keep you safe are a hell of lot worse. While it definitely is an accomplishment, dead is dead modes always err on the the side of tedious for my tastes. Besides, any run that completes the game solo PotD can technically have done the same thing as playing ToI if you were extremely lucky - that's good enough for me.

Seems like a nice strategy. Personally I find it pretty easy to let the Shadow lead the pack and go in the bottom right corner. That way he blocks off the Phantoms and you can pick them off one by one, and if you're using Rymrgand's Mantle you shouldn't really have problems (easily obtainable as it's in the inn in Gilded Vale at the start as long as you don't do anything weird like serial rest before you check there). On my current playthrough PotD solo, I even went so far as to clear the whole Caed Nua grounds and also the library where there's additional Phantoms before taking on Maerwald. It was good fun.

Yeah, that's kind of annoying, though it might be too minor to make it to 3.04 :\ True, I still thought I'd mention it however, in case it is a really trivial fix. The Lord Sidroc one is probably a larger annoyance to most people, personally I didn't mind that I didn't get the money as my character uses any excuse to hang people.

If you want party play I would, as you mentioned, go for story companions and as Dr <3 mentioned use fewer of them. For me personally, I progressed pretty rapidly from hard with a party to PotD with a party to PotD solo. Now that I'm playing solo, I think it's my default mode. Probably I'll go party play at some point and wipe the floor with everyone sooner or later for fun, but currently I find the challenge of solo more rewarding than party play.

I guess I might give freeze a go then, thanks for the responses.

Two more minor bugs I've noticed: Hanging Lord Sidroc doesn't provide any money, even though it says it should, and executed visitors can still show up at the stronghold. The noise of the mob at Caed Nua persists after they've left, and even after the Battle of Yenwood Field is finished.

After completing the Battle of Yenwood Field, the noise of the mob at Caed Nua can still be heard even though the mob itself isn't present any more. I know in previous patch iterations the mob itself could return, so the sound effect persisting is likely something that wasn't patched out.

See title, though the game says you're going to hang him to take his money, he doesn't actually provide any money if you do this. Further, executed guests are still showing up too. I thought it was related enough to mention it here.

I'm getting a decent piece of equipment soon and will be wanting to lash it for use for the rest of the game. I know that there's been these kind of threads before, and that corrode is often regarded as a decent lash. However I also noticed that both of the bog dragons are immune to corrode. In light of all this, what is the best lash to deal with as many boss monsters as possible? Comparing the dragons, nothing incredibly obvious springs out at me in terms of a best lash.

So even though I'm only going solo PotD, not ToI, I thought I'd still chip in more of what I'm finding with the Chanter. A big thing I've noticed is that you don't have to do anything strenuous to hit level 9 and get the Dragon Thrashed. Leave all the bounties, Winds of Steel pt 2, The Wailing Banshee (whether or not you choose to kill off Lilith, it's still hard to get to the top floor without stealth), Cinders of Faith, a Return to Court, all of the Endless Paths and all of the Dyrford Village stuff until later - if you do every other quest and task and so long as you've been clearing maps (up until Woodend Plains at least) and disarming traps plus unlocking doors you should hit level 9. If The Forgotten or Missing Sentries proves too hard, mix in some of the easier Dyrford Village quests and maybe clear out level 1 of the Endless Paths (the giant spider gives a large amount of XP) and you should still hit level 9 fairly easily without trying anything overtly dangerous. Now I've hit level 9, I now see why the Dragon Thrashed is such a big deal. Literally you can kill anything in more or less under a minute (usually less than 30 seconds for non-tanky enemies) in Act II, nothing can survive the chant. What's more, not matter how you've built your Chanter (i.e. assuming high Intellect only and middling other stats), there's never really any opportunity for an enemy to hit you in the first place. If you drop figurine summons, then you can either follow that up with a Phantom summon or Killers Froze Stiff, and with even slight corner positioning there's no way the enemy is going to reach you. While this is helpful until you get the Dragon Thrashed, when you do get the chant it's bordering on the ridiculous as you remain more or less completely unharmed. I've now also got Seven Nights, and it just adds insult to injury, as it serves as rather insane burst damage on top of the already high DoT of Dragon Thrashed. Of all the solo classes I've tried (Rogue, Paladin, Fighter) the Chanter is above and beyond strong, I'd say easily the best contender for the Ultimate achievement though my knowledge of the Vancian spellcasters isn't great so maybe one of them could do it better.

Well done on this front, it's a bug I found particularly vexing. I was considering a Rogue build at one point who used Ring of Changing Heart and Shadowing Beyond to dominate people from the shadows, however I realised with the bug still in effect (and a Sking mentioning a fix wasn't planned in the thread) that such a build really wouldn't work in practice. Hopefully this will also get lumped into the fix pile making any such charm/dominate build much better. Even on non-dedicated builds it's still annoying in general when abusing Arret Munacra early, having my 21 sec durations on a crit lasting 2-3 seconds in reality. It can make or break certain encounters when you need that distraction to last its full duration going solo.

I'm really enjoying the Chanter right now, I guess I like the idea of passives and Chanters have passive effects in spades. I just got The Dragon Thrashed, and boy people weren't lying when they said it's strong - but I've still enjoyed the class up until this stage because of the sheer versatility. I guess of all the classes, I think the Druid is a bit of a let down from my perspective. I would have wanted a greater emphasis on the spirit shift, perhaps unlocking it as 1 or 2 per encounter at higher levels. On the flip side, I don't think they're in any way a bad class - just not tailored to my taste exactly, but obviously everyone has different tastes and someone will like them perfectly as is.

Make a bug report, and mention it in the 3.04 patch thread (the thread where they're accumulating current bugs to fix, probably for the last time). Hopefully they'll get it sorted in the next patch.

With regards to the whining issue, looks like a certain amount of whining from me and others seems to have dramatically improved how Obsidian is dealing with the next patch and they also seem to be having a much better back and forth with the community in general. I guess if a small amount of whining leads to a better, more polished game that the developers are taking more care over, I'm perfectly happy to be a so-called whiner

You could go for a cult of Galawain, who are devoted to the idea of survival of the fittest and so despise the civilised society of Defiance Bay which shields its inhabitants for the savagery of the outside world. By the same dint, they're right at home in Twin Elms and have great respect for the different tribes. In terms races for the main character, I'd go for a Nature Godlike (the worst of the Godlikes, but a nice fit for the party). Classes which suit the party would be Ranger (Sagani), Barbarian, Druid (Hiravias), Chanter and then your choice - but steering clear of the more civilised classes like a Paladin. Galawain is also the god of pursuit and discovery so you don't necessarily need to shy away from some of the more academic classes like a Wizard. In terms of outfitting your party, get all hunt/nature themed items like the Stag's Helm, Cloak of the Frozen Hunt, Cloak of the Fox and Hunter, Cloak of the Dying Boar, Ring of Thorns, Persistence and Husk of the Great Western Stag. Should be quite an interesting way to play the game, and an easy theme to work with.

But you can use Winds of Death and a pistol? In fact, you can spec any a Chanter anyway you damn well please (ranged DPS, etc.) and still have them do supplementary damage with their chants. How is doing more damage on a group, and still getting attacks, and having access to damaging spells from time to time, a bad thing - particularly when the phrases overlap and do much more damage than you're claiming (if you stack up 3 levels of Winds of Death with the overlap, then that's Deep Wounds level endurance drain on a whole group - yes?)? If you're not happy with the DPS they do, then spec them towards weapon DPS early game and enjoy it when they get the stronger DPS phrases later (not that the early game ones aren't good, regardless of whether you choose to see that or not). I played a Rogue tank solo PotD with Retaliation and Deep Wounds, and they killed whole groups with ease because of a similar health draining effect (enough for me to complete most of Act III, probably the whole game, but my laptop had a meltdown so I lost my saves). A Chanter does the same thing, but also paralyses the entire group for quite some time while it's happening - so you and none of your team mates are taking damage. For some reason you have a fixation on damage and DPS, but isn't it good occasionally to have a tank that can be gradually whittling people down when all your glass cannons fail? Maybe hard difficulty is too easy, and the only way you find a game satisfying is to be a DPS monster so you like difficulties where you don't need to tank. There's plenty of ways to play any rpg, a slow burning tank is equally as viable as a burst attacker or a DPS attacker. If you don't like the play style - don't play it. You also might want to stop asking people to try and convince you to play a style you frankly don't seem to like, as no one is getting anywhere. Why make a thread asking a question just to not listen to any of the rational answers to that question?

I think they have changed it, at least the description is changed to say it should affect the Chanter in game. I'll stick with Shackles, seems much more worth it against Vithracks and Adragan. Thanks!

I think you need to actually play the class rather than theory craft about it, you won't get a good sense of what's going on until you try it. Would it be nice to have a summon straight away? Sure, but it's hardly much of a hindrance as it doesn't take hardly any time at all to get 3 phrases out when you get to Act II or so (who cares about the gameplay in Act I? Every class is underdeveloped then) and the phantom summon is extremely powerful - how else can possibly stun with regularity, e.g. per encounter, that early game? Best of all, when the phantom runs out, you're already almost there to summon another one if you're chaining a level one phrase like Winds of Death (which is a great idea, because it does reasonable damage). If a fight is a little tougher (trolls, etc.) then you're adding an extra guy to your 6 party team seeing as you can continually bust them out - if you can't see the value in that I don't know how best to explain it to you. For invocation debuffs like Killers Froze Stiff, they also don't take long to accumulate the phrases for and they make the damage of the rest of your team sky rocket because the deflection and reflex buffs are huge - as Boeroer mentioned you can even paralysis lock mobs allowing your party to go absolutely crazy on their asses. Again, this is all stemming from an unlimited resource - no need to rest or faff about. You really just need to play the class, or pick a different class that you like the look of more. People have now described every angle of why Chanters are good (huge defensive buffs to the whole party in the tougher fights, crazy CC, adding an extra member to your party pretty much, huge damage AoE spells, etc. etc.) so if you're still unconvinced there really isn't much more that anyone else can say. As experienced players we're not all in collusion to lie to you about the awesomeness of Chanters just to make you play one when they actually suck and so make you sad - honest

I just hit level 8 with my Chanter (just PotD solo, no ToI) and I was wondering what do people think is better: Shatter Their Shackles or Rejoice.. Two Fingers (and yes, I did have to phrase the latter like that, I couldn't resist)? I plan on getting Seven Nights/Bride/Brideman/Instruments for my final 4 invocations (big damaging spell, + defenses from Bride and Brideman, decent CC immune summon), and already took Killers Froze Stiff so I only had room for one. I have the One Dozen chant for fear already, so I was thinking Shatter Their Shackles was a better idea, plus Prayer Against Fear scrolls are much easier to get than the late game paralysis ones (and the lore requirement is much lower). Still the immunity to fear and terror with Rejoice.. Two Fingers is pretty lengthy. As I'm trying not to respec I kept a level 7 save just in case you all call me a moron and tell me Two Fingers are always better than no fingers.

I think it was Tim Cain mostly, wasn't it?

Chanters don't remotely suck early game, I'm playing one solo PotD currently and just got to level 7 (soon level eight, stupid no disable smilies option stoping me using the actual number with a bracket after it) in Defiance Bay. Act I tactics: 1) Winds of Death is a constant drain on health, have a chant of just that and the endurance drain is quite good. 2) Reny Daret's Ghost is OP, stun plus his damage is an insane effect and the fact you can easily spam this guy several times a battle (also great for split-pulling in Act I if you're going the solo route) is beyond powerful - especially as you can use the Bronze Horn Figurine while you wait the first time in tricky battles. 3) White Worms can be used situationally to reasonable effect as clean up at the end of a fight. Act II tactics: 1) Use the Act I tactics as well as... 2) Killers Froze Stiff and the new figurines are a powerful combo, allowing your figurine summons (particularly the Shades) to hit paralysed enemies extremely hard on their dramatically debuffed deflection score - and all the while they are taking damage from Winds of Death. When you run out of figurine summons, switch back to the Phantom summon/White Worms for a finisher. 3) Whispers of Treason from Munacra Arret exacerbates the Killers Froze Stiff effect, giving you extra guys to hit the enemies' debuffed deflection from paralysis. For this reason, I wouldn't ever recommend taking The Lover Cried - Munacra Arret does the same job at +10 accuracy. This as I said is all on solo PotD, most fights I'm taking very few hits because of these combos. How you chose to dish out your weapon damage when playing like this is kind of negligible to be honest, so think about how you want to play mid game and build towards that. You really only need to stress Intellect on a Chanter, with Might being useful to a lesser extent. Anything else you can build pretty much how you want so long as you're not minimising a load of attributes, so don't stress about it too much. Also, going solo and completing all Act II content apart from the Endless Paths (getting down to level 14 with Od Nua) on a Paladin I reached level 13 before trying White March part I. Even with a party, hitting level 9 and The Dragon Thrashed shouldn't be too far off if you have a bit of patience. On an unrelated point, where are all the Tyranny development details? I had a lazy look at their website the other day and didn't see the kind of mechanistic detail people keep drumming on about.

I guess in addition to the bugs, now is probably the time to review any mechanics that might be working in ways that weren't anticipated. The ones that spring to mind are: Blood Testament raw damage and Turning Wheel burn damage applying to Retaliation, Battle-Forged, Flame Shield and Jolting Touch. This allows for your combo of retaliation strikes to easily stack up to above 100 damage per hit, which is by all accounts pretty high especially when you can sit pretty on your Iron Wheel and Battle-Forged insanely high DR (in conjunction with whatever absurd armor you want to wear, as you don't even really need to actively attack with the retaliation effects). There's also the fact to consider that Turning Wheel is an extremely early ability, so you can start using this combo in a fashion as early as Gilded Vale. I know for me now, there's no way I would have a Monk with these effects active as they almost totally eclipse what you can do with other Monk builds. Blast producing AoE Envenomed Strikes and Runner's Wounding Shots. It seems a little counter-intuitive that Carnage (where you could directly apply poison to a weapon and have it make contact with multiple foes) doesn't allow for envenomed strikes but Blast (where whatever projectile you're using explodes making it unlikely the poison would carry over distance in the the air, or something like that) does. The internal consistency just seems a little off, really either both or neither should be working in this case. I'm not necessarily saying that these effects are bugged or broken, but it might be worth reviewing if they are working as intended or not as they do see to be on the highly powerful side. Some of these effects seem to err on the Reaping Knives with Monk unarmed side of things which was patched out.