Jojobobo

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.

Something I've noticed that isn't in this guide is that if you get security to 51 or higher, you repel all attacks on your stronghold seemingly 100% of the time. It's a benchmark I try to hit as soon as possible (Korgrak, etc.), as some attacks are brutal (vicious mercenaries, where they all have exceptional weapons, being a big one and they can attack at levels where you're wholly unprepared to deal with them) and to auto-resolve them you usually put yourself around 10000 gold out of pocket through building destruction. Also, remember that you only need prestige and security greater than or equal to 30 for the "best" stronghold ending - so if that's all you're interested in it's a fairly easy benchmark to hit. In terms of money, clearing out Raedric's Keep will give you 10000+ gold and little quest experience as murderating 80 or so guards obviously doesn't add to bestiary experience. Once you've picked up the Adra Beetle figurine, you certainly shouldn't have any issue with clearing this place out even on PotD solo. In general I always get the Curio Shop and Botanical Gardens as early as possible, then get whatever's cheap. I don't tend to fast travel around the map to complete builds as it's nice to have some money to get things in Defiance Bay early. You also can chain rest in Brighthollow to get the new visitor dilemmas and make Azzuro appear with new items once you've solved his problem, if you feel so inclined (Hiro's Mantle can be a nice addition to a lot of builds). In terms of chain resting, if you are trying to spam it for Azzuro items you can reload when you run out of money (hireling wages) and try again - you can get different items each time so repeat until you get the one you're looking for. The final thing I'll chime in is you don't actually need to enter Brighthollow to rest at Caed Nua, saving you the trip if you weren't aware.

I was quite impressed with the Endless Paths in the end. During the Kickstarter campaign I thought I would hate it, and as it got more and more levels added to it I was worried that far too much time and effort were being thrown its way when ultimately it was just an optional dungeon. However, when I actually played it in game I thought it was a lot of fun. I liked a lot of the little quests and subplots you find in there, and I like how the tragic story of the place gradually unfolds as you travel deeper. Exits of the paths seemed to be placed just frequently enough to not make the place a huge chore either. Plus, unique loot and enemies are always enjoyable. So, some sort of mega dungeon remaining in the game would be good by me. Maybe not as mega as the Endless Paths, but I think it added a lot of unexpected worth to the game in terms of a unique location. Apart from that, I agree with everything in the original post more or less - and as others have said I think the no dump stat idea was a great one, as well as making the attributes more of abstract representation of an idea rather as a metric for pure physicality (e.g. Might being general potency, not limited to physical strength). While the length and scope of the game were fine, I think branching paths in the main quest wouldn't go amiss - but as these seem to be the focus of Tyranny I'm sure they wouldn't be skimped on in the first place for PoE 2. I also think slightly more hope and levity could be injected into the game here and there, a dark and serious tone is all well and good (and definitely the side of the spectrum I prefer) but if things are too unrelentingly grim then that itself can undermine the tone as it rings a little hollow. Overall however, Pillars is now a well balanced game that hits enough of the right notes across the board for me to really like it. More of the same for the most part would keep me happy.

I think the stun on crit weapon durations should definitely be fixed (see my thread, with Loren Tyr proposing a fix as per usual based on prone on crit weapons which currently aren't bugged). As a quick rundown they currently last for much longer than they should do, making a Barbarian using such a weapon pretty absurdly powerful rather than just, you know, powerful. Other than that it seems like you have a great set of fixes lined up, and it's good to hear you're now asking the community seeing as this is going to be (probably) the final patch. Keep up the good work. EDIT: Ninja'd by Loren Tyr, teach me to not read a thread throroughly before posting.

I think it's notable that Bethesda took a huge dump on Obsidian with the royalties thing on New Vegas, so why on earth people would suspect Obsidian developing a new game for them is beyond me. Yes, Obsidian gets a paycheck for such a future project, and yes they have a nice Fallout pedigree with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky there - but they really screwed Obsidian with the tough development schedule so I don't see these companies now being particularly amicable. Maybe it's a case of Obsidian/Bethesda being able to look past these prior issues and keep it all business, but as this was one of the things that almost sent Obsidian into administration I can't see it happening. On Bethesda's side 85% wasn't a massively huge target to hit, however to restrict Obsidian so much in terms of schedule they really weren't playing nice. It seems like an eventual World of Darkness angle is much more likely with Paradox, who Obsidian have worked with before and who won't do them over (and besides, the Trokia/Interplay players are still there - even if Cain/Boyarsky are seemingly massively integral to Obsidian's decisions I think their advise on such a game would be invaluable). So I'm expecting huge disappointment for long term Fallout fans, but maybe a glimmer of hope for the World of Darkness fans. Looks like a win-loss for me.

I think Obsidian helming another of the series is now the only thing that could make me return to it, FO4 was wank.

I thought of a Rogue Sniper/Assassin build a while ago, but didn't think it would be viable for solo play in terms of taking out things like Llengrath so I shelved it. In party play however, it should work fine. Details below for those interested:

You don't necessarily need high Might to get aggressive disposition points, if you start fights with people at the drop of a hat you also get it quite easily (I played a 10 Might Bleak Walker recently for a sizeable chunk of the game). I think my favourite thing I did with that Bleak Walker to earn aggressive disposition was Something Secret - I was strong enough for the usual picking Gordy up and slamming him in the ground, so I had to play a different tact. I went and killed Two-Tone Wexel and his crew for the March Steel dagger - initiating it through dialogue to get the aggresive rep, but then as I already had the Oaken Scarab Figurine I went for the dialogue option where I told Gordy his father didn't love his mother anymore. Just the whole pointlessness of it all, killing a bunch of people for no reason then telling a kid his dad was a poon-hound, felt extremely rewarding.

On the otherhand, if you were cool enough you'd have upscale them anyway

I'm pretty sure that the survival bonus still shows as the higher level on your portrait, so do you mean even though it's showing the higher level bonus it's not implemented into any accuracy rolls? If so that's still quite misleading, even if the mechanics are working as intended and it is just a display issue.

I'm just playing the Chanter on PotD solo, no Path of Iron because I'm not masochistic enough Also my build is a weird one so not entirely relevant, as I've said I'll keep it under wraps and until I hopefully do a class build of it (it's a shame a spent 50 hours or so on a Paladin trying to do more or less the same thing in an inferior way ). However, for a general Chanter tank with a shield I'd max Might and Int and then put any remaining points into Con or Per - leave the rest as the base levels. Might is useful to get your fortitude save up, and a shield will cover your reflex and deflection. Might and Int also obviously effect your chants in all the ways you'd want them to, no real need to overthink it.