Jojobobo

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.

You can dump Con because it barely features in conversation. You can get Caed Nua pretty early (level 3 is what I normally beat it at on solo) and you can get enough money to easily build 2 or 3 of the important rest bonus buildings, just fast travel around until they're made. In terms of items, Fulvano's Gloves in Act I give +2 Dex and the Hermit's hat for +2 Int, these could be paired early Act II with Lilith's Shawl for +3 Per and you can grab a custom armor enchant for +2 Res. You can also alternate your gloves to Bracers of All-Consuming Rage for +2 Mig (again early Act II), and you can swap Lillith's Shawl for Finreah's Grace (+3 Dex, again early Act II) when you need a Mig/Dex combo. Throw in food or drugs on top of the rest bonuses, as well as prostitute bonuses, and I shouldn't think it would be too hard to maintain 20s in each stat most of the time. Obviously as the game progresses, better stat boosters become available in terms of equipment, but what I've listed here is a decent starting point. You can probably progress from Act I to II in about an hour and a half, pick up most of these items then return to the Act I quests. Honestly though, it does detract a little from roleplaying to have all dialogue options available all the time - missing out on some dialogue lines is part of the game, and reinforces who your character is and what they're capable of achieving in terms of social interaction. Each to their own, I guess.

Thanks for the clarification, I'll make sure to take Killers Froze Stiff in that case over the Lover Cried for the paralysis-locking, I'll also pick up Ancient Instruments over Urdel and Gurdel too.

Thanks for the tips Dr <3, quite a lot of it I'd sussed out already but it's good for the confirmation. In terms of taking a level 5 invocation, I'm guessing if you don't take it your song starts and stops at fewer phrases with there being a delay between chants? If that's the case, is this delay period affected by dexterity at all so I know whether to dump it or not? I would rather take Urdel and Gurdel over the animated weapons as my build is such that I only have a slot for one late game summon (I'm not getting into any specifics about what I'm doing at this point as the build should be fairly unheard of for a Chanter and I want to make a class build out of it if it's a success - from initial testing my ideas seem to work), does it really suck in terms of Dragon Thrashed stacking to only 5 phrases in a chant? Also, is the +deflection chant ever really worth taking or not? I was going to take Aefyllath as with a weapon burning lash you can get some decent damage out of it, particularly on an alpha strike - but if +deflection really has a lot to offer I may not.

Just started with a Chanter, and holy crap is the Phantom powerful early game. Taking Veteran's Recovery level 2 (Ancient Memory still being bugged I didn't want to take it, plus from what I see Veteran's Recovery heals the same as Ancient Memory in the first place for an equal duration) all I have to do is literally stand there and let the ghost do absolutely all the work. By the time the first Phantom's duration expires, I then have enough phrases to get another and so the process repeats. Beyond that, overlapping Soft Winds of Death phrases let you rapidly drain opponents' health (the wolves in Valewood got destroyed) again by just standing there. It's by far the easiest opening I've had PotD solo. On the flip side, I really wouldn't recommend the skeletons - they do no damage even when they do successfully flank and they go down extremely easily. By Act II, weaker multiple minion figurines (Wood Beetle, Wurm) can be used to soak aggro anyway - and then you can get your Phantom on the case again once they expire.

In terms of optimum invocations for a Chanter solo, what do people think they are? I was thinking: Level - invocation 1 - But Reny Daret's Ghost, He Would Not Rest 2 - White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead 4 - Not Felled By Axe, Nor Broken By Storm or whatever 6 - The Lover Cried out to the Beloved, "I am Yours!" 8 - Shatter their Shackles, Cast off their Chains! 10/12/14 - Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept/The Bride Caught their Ruse and Set to Make Them Pay/The Brideman Slew Thirty 'Fore They Crossed Half the Floor 16 - Called to His Bidding, the Ancient Instruments of Death The things I'm not ever so sure about are whether Urdel and Gurdel are better than Instruments of Death, or whether a summon should be forgone entirely for Killers Froze Stiff. Reny Daret's Ghost and White Worms should be useful early game, giving you a free summon and Worms as a finisher once you've made headway into a mob and got a good group of bodies. Charming mobs is always of massive utility, so The Lover Cried at 6 seems to be the best bet here. Shatter their Shackles should coincide more or less with Vithrack fighting on the Endless Paths level 9. Seven Nights/Bride/Brideman seem pretty optimum for a meaty attack and for the attribute (and so defense buffs). Winds o' Eld Nary could be squeezed in, by they seem more or less on par with Seven Nights by with more phrases needed.

I suppose that makes Paladins slightly better defensively with the food bonuses as they have equivalent defences (Deep Faith Faith and Conviction giving +10 to 20 base deflection, +20 each to the rest, +5 to each stat for the Chanter giving +5 to 25 base deflection and again +20 each to the rest) otherwise.

So I thought of another thing, give a transparent full run down of class/ability/talent mechanics from the menu screen on the game. Because the class mechanics have been pretty mercurial through the entire process and I took a departure while you released the full expansion, I'm on the back-foot to realise all the changes you made. This would be appreciated by RPG fans so they don't have to consult a frankly poorly updated wiki, and to casual gamers they're not going to care about or consult such a mechanics screen in the first place. A transparent list of what does what, before people even make their character, would be fantastic - this is perhaps the worse game for lack of transparency I've ever seen, and the hack job done to class mechanics throughout the patching process only makes this worse. This game is manual-less in such a stark sense that even modern console games where people have such issues don't remotely compare, galling in mechanics dense game.

Thanks to both of you guys, I guess that makes their chants a lot more worthy. Silly me for ever thinking there would be a fanbase that likes to keep up to date wikis, though it's hard to blame them when mechanics are still being comprehensively edited in the third iteration of a main patch. I stopped playing between v1.0 and v3.0 to wait for the full expansion release, so I guess I'm behind the curve in assuming a developer wouldn't need to continuously massively overhaul class mechanics in between that time. Now let me sit here to feast upon my sour grapes. This may have factored into my current PotD solo playthrough, as I was currently class-building a solo Paladin whereas with the extra knowledge a Cipher may well have been a superior choice now - it's very hard to say.

So chants take less time to, erm, chant with higher level? This really should be mentioned somewhere, anywhere, in game (and I'm not talking about when you're a high level Chanter and it's obvious) or on an external source like the wiki. It seems like something that should be readily apparent to everyone, which it certainly wasn't to me. If that is the case, then yes it sees like Chanters are a slightly stronger contender (defensively) for a tanky build, and they obviously pack more utility as a class on the whole.

Paladins on the flip side have a much higher natural defences over Chanters (there's +deflection, +will and +fort/will chants, but they don't match up to the offerings of a Paladin). Their offensive chants are better than a Paladin's (Dragon Thrashed > Sacred Immolation IMO), and there's more versatility there by use of invocations (summons, charm effects, decent other offensive effects) - but the trouble is running an offensive chant means you can't often run a defensive one as the linger for most of them doesn't continue for the entirety of Dragon Thrashed leaving you with defensive blindspots in your chant setup. Plus there's the fact Ancient Memory still turns off after your first invocation, a bug I know but definitely something you have to factor into playing the character (I presume Ancient Memory does affect the Chanter and not just other party members, I've not played them to a great extent). While I don't see Chanters as a bad option, I find it hard not to find the solid defensive backbone of Paladins somewhat preferable - unless you are going for a kiter rather than a tank. Tanking dragon matches seem to be a tit for tat how high can I get my defences game, which Paladins surely win over any other class. As I mentioned I'm not a Chanter veteran however, so if someone wants to school me on why they dramatically outstrip Paladins I'm all ears.

Yeah it's certainly a little lame, not game breaking in any way but again as a point of developer pride in the game it makes it come off as a little slapdash. I think that's a thing quite disappointing about Pillars, there are literally loads of cosmetic problems but hardcore RPGers don't care because they don't effect gameplay and the devs again don't care so much for the same reason. However if you do have someone new coming to a game, and they're not accustomed to these weird kind of glitches, I'd imagine someone somewhere is getting put off for the wrong reason (trivial cosmetic bugs that could be fixed by the devs) rather than the right reasons (the remaining - though severely diminished - gameplay bugs, problems with narrative/setting/NPC archs, etc.). As a hardcore RPGer, I don't really care - but certainly someone will, or at least it will be the icing on the cake of their legitimate problems with the game.

I'm PotD soloing as a Paladin currently, and I don't find it too bad - I've got to level 14 of the Endless Paths and did all the Act II quests without starting Act III yet, this allowed me to hit level 13 and get Sacred Immolation before WM part I. If you use Munacra Arret, figurines and take Envenomed Strike (which you can always respec out when you get Sacred Immolation) you have enough going for you to deal with mobs and make combat a little interesting. I normally use my two FoDs against one enemy (usually getting the kill), use Sworn Enemy and Envenomed Strike on a second, use Whisper of Treason on a third/forth and pop figurines as I go - which is quite a bit of micro-ing so personally I don't find it boring (well, maybe a little in Act I when you don't have these options). You can always use Whisper of Treason on the Sworn Enemy to score Charm crits easily, but I find it's not usually necessary. I think the beauty of Paladins is that their high defences make them amenable to any weapon combo you want to choose, so even going after The Ultimate achievement you can easily use a non-standard interesting weapon choice without really feeling the pinch. Of course if you want to go the standard route Bittercut with Outworn Buckler and or arquebuses are an easy pick. I wouldn't necessarily worry about high Resolve - I've had 13 the entire game so far without a shield, with Wild Orlan plus taking the Black Path I've found it tanky enough for most uses (with Res 13, Cape of the Master Mystic, Deep Faith Faith and Conviction plus a frightened enemy attacking my will save it's equivalent to 110 deflection). Llengrath's Displaced Image can be used for tough fights as and when you need it to bump up deflection and reflex, I've found that honestly fortitude is one of the more important saves to try and boost as unlike reflex there's no magic potion or shield to make it soar to insane levels and several annoying effects (paralysis, petrification) target it. I still haven't properly played a Priest, but MaxQuest's builds did look rather incredible. Either way it seems like you'll be in for a little wait with either class before them become powerful. I would recommend playing a separate PotD save alongside so you can step by step work out what you can and cannot do at each step easily and go from there.

Taking Rapid Recovery as a talent allows for similar progression to Veteran's Recovery, (not sure on the duration thing, I was playing a Int 10 Fighter when I last played one so it's not something I picked up on). The duration issue definitely sounds like a legit bug if it isn't implemented like Veteran's Recovery, honestly there's a fair few things in this game that should have Int scaling but don't (Defiant Resolve anyone?). You're right though, when I played a Fighter I did find it extremely weird that the cross class talent is actually better at a base level than the base ability it's designed around if you ignore the booster talent. A good way to improve it would be to have Rapid Recovery adding a significant yet modest amount of flat healing (3 or 4 endurance per tick) and have Constant Recovery scale with level, or have both scale with level but have Rapid Recovery also add to the level scaling (say Constant Recovery gets +1 endurance each third level after 1, Rapid Recovery adds an additional +1). It's one of those concepts that's fairly difficult to unbalance in the first place anyway, as it only lasts for the first little while of combat. While this is certainly nice, combat continues way past this point in most tough-ish fights in the first place so even if the Fighter is unkillable for the first 45 seconds of combat due to endurance recovery then it doesn't mean much in the long run. It certainly wouldn't hurt to incentivise taking Rapid Recovery even further, given that Fighters got a major nerf to their defences a while back (which was a little silly considering Paladins and Monks remain the defensive powerhouses they always have been regardless, easily outstripping the Fighters' original and supposed niche).

When using Sacred Immolation, the dialogue lines for friendly fire ("Watch where you're aiming," etc.) play almost every pulse. This can get pretty annoying, particularly with it being a per encounter ability.

Upon reloading a save during the initial Stalwart fight, the "Darzirs fallen, back to the matron now," sound clip will always play on the load screen, despite not having killed them yet.