Jojobobo

If you kill an enemy with the full attack component of an Envenomed Strike while using the Black Path, the poison component instead gets applied to the entire group affected by the Black Path. This is a little overpowered, as you can consistently target weak enemies close to death with an Envenomed Strike to easily exploit this. Below is an Envenomed Strike aimed at a Xaurip Priest: EDIT: In addition to this, The Black Path seems to be benefiting from the added accuracy of FoD on a FoD kill too.

Reckless Assault only affects melee accuracy (not even ranged accuracy, so it's a no go on that front. The base accuracy as you mention is higher, and they can use Sap/Withering Strike/Fearsome Strike for -Will, thereby boosting their accuracy. What I have noticed about a Paladin is you can use Sworn Enemy almost as a prebuff, as in it has a huge range and you can use it to initiate combat, and it's very fast cast. This again gives it a little bit of an edge relative to the Rogue, with attacks being on the whole slower. I guess in party play a mesmer Rogue would still do a decent job, but for solo I doubt it would cut it.

No idea, if I get round to trying the build with the aforementioned schedule (solo builds take a long long time ) I'll give it a look. If not, someone else is free to go bananas in the mean time.

It's an interesting idea, and no I haven't tested it - however from previous similar tests I doubt it would benefit form it. I think the whole match +20 accuracy for an entire fight still takes the cake, and I think Paladins are unequivocally better at tanking than Fighters (with Deep Faith +20 to each non-Deflection defence stat and equal Deflection with a single talent - which is a huge deal, great land mark heals with Lay on Hands and Greater LoH if you want it, Liberating Exhortation to eliminate Flanking, etc.). They're monsters. After my current Paladin, I have a solo Rogue I want to try, but if no one has taken up this kind of Paladin after that then I'll give it a go. I would give it a go, but back-to-back Paladins would be a little boring, and while I can console warp to areas and give myself the perks I'd rather play the game and see how it turns out.

Sorry to double post, but I was thinking more about the mesmer Paladin, and I really do think they're more or less ideally suited for the role. I was thinking about a solo mesmer Rogue, using their per encounter -20 debuffs to achieve the same effect as Sworn Enemy but also with the ability to drop invisibility and watch the enemy tear themselves apart (a classic puppet master/hand behind the throne build) - but it did have a major short-coming, vessels aren't affected by mind control effects. I suppose you could just stealth around vessels (a diplomatic puppet master likely wouldn't want to get their hands dirty anyway) but it feels a bit lame to have such a massive blind spot against an enemy type. Sanctifier may help, especially seeing as I was thinking about dumping Might (doubling down on the idea of the enemy killing itself rather than you doing damage), but still it's underwhelming. You know what Paladins are by contrast good at? Nailing vessels - between Abjuration, Scared Immolation and St. Ydwen's Redeemer they're going to be double dead (plus, you can still take Sanctifier to completely eliminate that blind spot). Sacred Immolation will have great synergy with the high Intellect needed for the mesmer effects, so it really does work well. Really all you need it decent Int and Per, some Mig if you can manage it, and you're done. Take a shield, go full tank, and have a whale of a time. If you're going for that role-playing aspect, as mentioned the Shieldbearers are a perfect fit as they're inherently diplomatic and sounds more diplomatic than convincing enemies to fight for you. Better yet, if you are going solo, most dragons aren't immune to these kind of effects - so by going Hearth Orlan full tank you should be absolutely fine, having defences reasonably far beyond their accuracy. Drawn in Spring and the Outworn Buckler would make short work of them when they're busy trying to kill their chums. I'm currently working on a different altogether more unusual Paladin build, so if anyone wants to develop it it's literally up for grabs. Even if you didn't want to go solo play, I'd think that this build may be better at mesmerising in some respects than the Cipher as you literally have all those resources at your fingertips at the start of a fight rather than having to produce Focus - and you're going to have a great deal more accuracy towards one enemy than they could ever hope for by Sworn Enemy.

No they're too similar to warrant me posting a second similar build, so go ahead and post it so long as you acknowledge me - you've put work into testing it so why not? I'm a chemistry PhD student, so not acknowledging an idea is in a fashion from someone else is almost tantamount to eating their first born child, but otherwise I don't mind. In terms of an acknowledgement, I was thinking, "I hereby declare that Jojobobo, lord and master of Pillars of Eternity, did use his preternatural insight and supreme intellect to combine innate -accuracy abilities of the Barbarian class with a Bash shield to excellent effect in order to produce a defensive debuffer upon which this build is chiefly based," followed by some sort of grovelling/worship emoji. Or whatever you think is appropriate To be honest, you've come up with so many ideas that haven't had builds yet (the Blast Envenomed Strikes Wizard for example) that's it's inevitable that people are going to want to make those builds - I think it's fine so long as credit is given where it's due. When I come to making a Wizard, I'd probably try that build unless I can come up with anything else original and interesting. In terms of the build itself, yeah I was thinking the captain's hatchet was a little too heavy on the defence compared to other weapons. If people are dead keen on it serving as a debuffer, then the hatchet is better, but otherwise it's not as good and to be honest -30 accuracy through Terrified plus Dazed is likely already enough. It's almost certainly a build that, while viable for solo play, really shines in party play as you can have spell casters take advantage of the debuffs - particularly Reflex spells given the -6 Dexterity - 2 Perception from the Terrified + Dazed combo. In real terms, it's also boosting your party's defenses by 30 for the most part, which is pretty damn exceptional. With you throwing Purgatory on top of Taste of the Hunt, it seems like a pretty legit health-draining vampire style build - or as close as you can get in the game. I know you like themes in your builds, so if you were stuck for an interesting theme (which I'm sure you wouldn't be) then there you go. It's weird that the bash bug is temperamental, I would have thought it would have procced more consistently seeing as I experienced it and Loren Tyr replicated it. Who knows? Anyway, have fun making the build

I've got a full build for a tanky barb already (with every character I make I write out the build beforehand), as I said though with bash being bugged with Carnage it feels a little like cheating. I guess if they don't bother to patch it then I guess people will just have to take it as is, but currently it seems a bit lame to play with over-powered mechanics. Does the bash bug get worse with HoF? As in, the bug as it was was triggering a second bash attack after a normal attack, is it triggering a second bash attack per each full attack or isn't it doing anything at all? Or haven't you been able to reproduce the bug in the first place, as others have mentioned?

Not relevant to the build, but I recently found out the "summoning a distraction" technique works for Raedric's Keep too. Scale the wall, agro the guard and run round the corner and summon to keep him occupied, then if you've timed it right the with the archer you can get an in to the area with Beratherite Robes. Then, either kill Nedmar for his key, or if you have high enough Mechanics you don't need to kill anyone at all - allowing you to reach Raedric. Raedric gives XP, and you can fighting him to whenever you want, and loot his sweet castle - independent of how sucky your solo build is Act 1 (for me on my latest build, pretty sucky).

I'm interesting in hearing how the high def disengagement Deep Wounds runner works out. I've got a feeling it's one of those builds that looks good on paper (Dangerous Implements Monk) but in practically doesn't work so well, but I'd love to hear I was wrong.

All the Rogues' effects (Deathblows, Dirty Fighting, etc.) work with Retaliation for sure - I don't know about Battle Forged but I'd imagine they would. As the damage coming off Battle Forged is strong late game, this might make for a pretty decent tanky Retaliation build.

Nature Godlike needs a strong boost, rather than it just being a weaker human. I'd suggest a per encounter (or two per rest) summon with 15s duration that's strong early game but tapers off mid to late, either that or per encounter (or again, 2 per rest) charm beast - or both. There should be more interesting weapons in each class to incentivise their use - currently there's very little reason to use say a pistol (which are outclassed by an Arquebus or Blunderbuss) or quite a few of the other melee weapon options, giving one or two a strong or interesting enchantment could rectify this. I think there also needs to be a slightly more emphasis on making multiple builds for a particular class more or less equally as good as one another. For example a Twinned Arrows Stormcaller/Persistence Ranger is quite a lot better than most other Ranger builds, likewise for a shock focussed Druid. Beyond that, a big branching path in the main quest would be nice with 3-4 branches to help more strongly differentiate different playthroughs. Other than that, I think the current game is pretty solid, so there's no need to radically change the formula.

As I mentioned I managed it in 3.02 solo PotD, getting most of the way through Act 3 (I'd been told to go to Burial Isle, after completing a god quest) and well into White March part I. You just need good healing (Moon Godlike plus Veteran's Recovery if you take survival healing bonuses and a Belt of Bountiful Healing, is enough) and Retaliate and a decent bash shield to grind down mobs with Deep Wounds. It can be tough to get a Retaliate item early, but if you chain rest in Caed Nua in Act 2 you can usually get one from Azurro before completing Defiance Bay - after that you're on easy street.

Fair enough, I'm sure the extra trickle of health would be more useful going Trail by Iron. It might be a good idea to put it's both PotD and Trail by Iron in the build environment as I missed it initially, it's quite a feat.

You're doing Caed Nua wrong if you play like that solo. Either stealth it or do it so the Shadow is in between you and the Phantoms and pick them off with Rymrgand's Mantle (which, if you rest once in Valewood like a sane person when you get there because of the fatigue, will be waiting for you in the Black Hound Inn second floor when you get to Gilded Vale so long as you've reloaded at some point) equipped and a long ranged weapon (Durance's Staff works well, with a bow or something to get them in range of the staff as they can dawdle). You need to move to the left on the entrance, I find just to the left of the base of the arch of the entrance (after agro-ing the shadow and phantoms) usually leads to a nice situation. I did this second try on my latest playthrough (which was a pretty damn poor Act I build, it's in for the long game), not after 30! The stealthing, from what I've seen and heard, is even easier - but going completionist as far as I can solo didn't really fit this build. I think this build would work find solo. It's extremely strong ranged with a potential for a butt-load of monk kiting, and with Kaylon we've seen you can easily kite the Alpine Dragon for days with a kity build. I think the main downside with the build if you do need to take 6 wounds, which can kill you in the boss fights, but you can take Mortification of the Soul to make this easier if needs be.

I played a solo PotD build similar to this on 3.02, obviously without Riposte or Adept Evasion then because they sucked. In light of that build, which got pretty far into the game, I would strongly recommend taking Coat of Ill Payment over He Carries Many Scars for the Retaliation effect (even though you don't benefit from +2 Resolve if you're taking Siegebreaker Gauntlets). Retaliation gives all enemies fighting you Deep Wounds, which on tankier builds is a massive benefit. Seeing as I wanted to incorporate Riposte and Adept Evasion into my 3.03 build, the main reason I didn't play it was I've had trouble reconciling those abilities with the build I liked in 3.02. As a party build, where other people can inflict status, this is really nice.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess at least on solo, Starlit Garb is a pretty good pick - 10 spell defence is pretty decent. The main issue is, they look so dorky

If you use a Durgan ingot on clothes, does it offset the penalty of Vulnerable Strike or Penetrating Shot? Or doesn't the game allow for the idea of negative recovery? I'm not a frapsing wizard, so I can't test this ever so effectively. Seeing as I always currently play solo, and will likely pick the option for efficient ingot use, the idea of wasting them isn't so much an issue.

I guess I was thinking specifically for my Paladin, because they have Zealous Endurance and Second Skin already plus I'm aiming for Survival DR bonuses - which means they can have high DR without compromising overly much on DPS. I didn't know if there was some gameplay tweak (e.g. durganisizing clothing, or something insane) that made clothing a preferential option when you could have a little DR with robes or padded (which when combined with previously sources of DR, at least on a Paladin, equates to something much more substantial). Good to know it isn't, so I can keep DPSing my socks off without hindering my DR - in someways Zealous Endurance is like a mini Armored Grace if you pick lower DR armors.

So I've seen a lot of DPS builds use clothing, what I'm wondering is how come clothing is used instead of Durgan refined robes? I know, this is a very exciting thread.

I played a tank Rogue to level 13 or so solo until my laptop got fried, this was before the buffs in 3.03. Though it sounds like you're not actually playing solo anyway with the talk of a Paladin? I dumped Dex and took high Int (16, to hit 20 with Gwyn's Band) plus Con (18 with Rymyrgand's Boon) and Might (so that it'd hit 21 naturally, with 4 damage Deep Wounds), used Larder Door (would have used Badgradr's Barricade when I got it) and Drawn in Spring (with I managed to get before Act 3), with White Crest Armor for Overwhelming Wave for AoE Deep Wounds and Hiro's Mantle for Retaliation. The idea, being Moon Godlike and with Veteran's Recovery plus using Belt of Bountiful Healing and the x1.6 Survival Bonus, was if you stay alive for long enough the enemies die because Retaliation is doing raw damage all the time (the main reason as to why I dumped Dex, as my source of damage was coming from Retaliation - it was pretty funny killing Vithrack's who'd paralysed locked me this way). The 20 Int, 21 Mig, 18 Con gives you 1200 health approx (from what I remember) and the healing to match and make use of that whole pool. When you add in things like Combusting Wounds from the Ring of Searing Flames and Envenomed Strikes (in a similar way to Boeroer's Mad Hornet build but going for tanking instead of DPS) you can easy drain the enemies health without much difficulty. Shadowing Beyond also is a great help solo, allowing you to half finish mobs and come back to them after a rest or always secure perfect positioning. The main reason why I haven't picked the build back up (my hard drive was wiped, so the save was lost) is that with the improvements to Retaliation and Adept Evasion I was actually having a hard time working out where to squeeze them onto the build - as they weren't good enough to take in 3.02 so I didn't bother. Now that they are good enough, I had concerns that is I took too many of my per encounter attack abilities away I would never be able to stack them and get Deathblows (before I was taking Blinding Strike, Sap, Crippling Strike and Withering Strike - axing a couple of these or other nice abilities, like Dirty Fighting, is easier said than done). So I can confirm those builds work (I was well into Act 3 and a bit into WM part I) - I doubt you would be able to tank boss monsters but with Persistence and Deep Wounds I would say kiting them isn't out of the question. I wouldn't use Escape personally as Shadowing Beyond does the same thing but better. If you were buddying up with a Paladin, you'll do even better.

That does sound ideal for the . EDIT: So I just tried Whispers of Treason against the Forgotten with Sworn Enemy solo PotD, and completely annihilated them level 8. Used +1 movement from survival so I wasn't straight out murdered on their first hit, then used Sworn Enemy on Hassan and let him do my dirty work (scored one crit on him for a 20s duration and two hits for two 12s). Between Hassan, three Envenomed Strikes, two FoDs, the Adra Beetle and the Shades they didn't stand a chance. While this sounds like a lot of per rest resources, considering I didn't need to crack into all my per rest figurines I'd say it wasn't actually that bad.

You can always use Sworn Enemy against different targets anyway, so it's not a big deal. It be intentional, as to stop say 4 Paladins with 2 arquebuses a piece straight up annihilating any enemy in the game. Something I've been having fun with on my Paladin, though not relevant to Shieldbearers, is the Black Path talent for the Bleak Walkers - which I've not really heard anyone talk about before. If you're playing with a standard Sacred Immolation setup with high Int, than the radius is pretty large. As it's -10 accuracy, you can see it as a +10 defense buff to all your defenses (and your party's) which I think is pretty decent if you're trying to tank in the first place. Beyond that, with FoD you're bound to get some kills, and the Black Path also works with kills from Envenomed Strike poisoning (which I wasn't sure it would do, given that's not a direct hit - it this way you can get a steady stream of kills on the go). I'm recommend people giving it a try, you know for the 5% of you wanting to play a Bleak Walker who doesn't just pick up Bittercut and horribly murderate everything.

I think they're about on par. I'm playing a Hearth Orlan currently, and the Defiant Resolve racial is pretty lack lustre (considering it's supposed to be one of the better ones), but the addition of a helmet slot is nice. On the flip side, Moon Godlikes get rather enormous heals (195 at level 16, without factoring in Might scaling or Survival/item bonuses) and Fire Godlikes do pretty hefty retaliation damage. Boreal Dwarves and Island Aumaua also have nice racials. If you're going for a kiter, this all becomes irrelevant as you may as well always take a Wood Elf.

See title, while far from game-breaking bug it's a little disappointing playing a Hearth Orlan with high Intellect only for it to not factor in that Intellect. It is a duration based ability, so I'm not seeing any reason why it shouldn't be affected.

You can use to console to unlock all entries, if you want to keep your main character free of cheating just do it on a level one character and use it for reference. I would normally just refer to the wiki in these instances, but it's not fleshed out enough by half. Gamebanshee does have a bestiary, but there's no PotD adjusted stats.