Jojobobo

I guess that's a fair point, though I would say with Fighters you can specialise in any weapon category to a large degree so they can be pretty diverse in terms of what you set them up with. Plus, with their high base accuracy, they're very easy to abuse spellbindings and scrolls with. Maybe it's because I'm not so interested in party play that I find Cipher's a little limiting - as they do have more than a few powers dedicated to party play.

I suppose that would probably work quite well, hopefully by the time you've used up the initial focus from arquebuses you'll have built up enough with melee weapon (Bittercut with a bash shield most likely) to keep firing off CC. Still x3 arquebus aumaua doesn't scream excitement or innovation. I guess that might just be an inherent problem in Cipher's as a class - they always need a few strong hits to start, and there's only so many ways you can do that. They seem like perhaps the most limited class in terms of having different equally valid builds (obviously you can make different builds, but they're almost certainly weaker).

For clarity, the same lists work fine on mac. It could be that it's different on Linux, and I'm not disputing that Boeroer is getting different results, but is seems a little weird doesn't it? At the same time, I never think any weird bug is impossible when it comes to Pillars.

With regards to Ciphers, I keep wondering without kiting how they can be done solo. It seems to me they're too fragile to go DPS, yet trying to go tanky will mean it takes an appreciable time to build focus. It's a conundrum for sure, I do at some point want to build a solo Cipher as I've always enjoyed mind control builds - but how to do that without trivial kiting seems a little hard to work out. I'm playing a different build currently, I'll dedicate a bit more thought to it after that's done.

As I said, the other abilities in that slot aren't very good - if it was a later option where there are plenty of other alternatives then it would be better but it's not and there isn't. I literally don't know what you're talking about here - that's exactly what I am doing. I'm playing a different class while they fix the problem, which amounts to the same thing as the alternatives you suggested (and it fits more with the metaphor than anything you suggested) and means I don't have to compromise that particular character. I don't know how many times I have to say this - it's annoying when new bugs are introduced when opportunity to rectify them was there and they were informed about it. You're honestly saying that, regardless or how big or small the bug in question is, that isn't at least a little irritating or stupid? Yes it's a small bug, but it's those persistent small bugs (sometimes not so small) and the laissez-faire attitude towards them that I find bothersome. This game should have been a slam dunk favourite of mine, but instead I've had to persevere with it because of these problems rather than just sink in and enjoy it like a should have done. Obsidian have made it an effort to enjoy this game, because these small irritations crop up - in my mind - much too frequently. It's like if you had a 1000 page book, but one of the pages was torn out, and it's out of print so you can't get another copy easily. Is one page ripped out a huge problem? No of course it isn't. Is is annoying? I'd say so, yes. I guess if you're the kind of person who can easily ignore something like that, than that's the fundamental difference between us. However the difference is, in this case it would be that the publisher hadn't actually bothered to print on one of the pages.

I'm getting pretty tired at people aiming insults at me here, which I haven't reciprocated as they are completely needless. Loren Tyr pretty much covered everything in the above post, and I really don't have anything more to say that I haven't said already so I'm not going to bother. I do however enjoy lessons in maturity from someone called Grape_You_In_The_Mouth.

Thanks for being thorough, I just didn't want it to be a spottily applied racial benefit as then I really may as well have picked another race.

So you didn't find it OP (over-powered, I think I'm adapting too much lingo of pokemon forums, unfortunately) against trash mobs and not-so-trash-mobs per encounter? I never got round to testing that far, but I found Barb attacks meaty in any case. I'm happy to take your word as gospel, you've clearly tested play in all kinds of ways, but still I'm curious to hear the greater effects of what I found was OP with lesser effects aren't still OP? You should do a write-up of that ranged 0-recovery Barb, it would be cool - I was trying to find a shades emoji but I lost interest You got the wink nevertheless. The point is, I'm sure the interested community is indebted to both of your efforts, keep on trucking.

Primary attack is a decent suggestion, and you're right about 2 per rest meaning 2 per difficult encounter. I've shelved my solo Barbarian build for the time being, but while I did play it I was finding it incredibly easy compare to other builds. As soon as you get Blood Thirst status-locking, even with Tall Grass, becomes a bit of a thing in Act 2. Besides Tall Grass, being as exceptional two-hander, hits pretty damn hard. Honestly I think Carnage could be taken down to -15 or -20 accuracy, or it should be x0.5 damage. I was finding that sometimes on that Barb build I was hitting enemies by Carnage harder than I was hitting my primary target when they were the same type of enemy, which is a little silly on the whole. I've shelved the DPS build for the time being - though the DPS CC interrupter isn't anything new I thought my massive healing slant may make it worthwhile, but obviously it's not a game-changer in terms of mechanics. Maybe I'll go back to my tank build if the bug has been sorted, with fresh eyes - it's maybe a little more interesting for me than straight up murderating everything level 13 with DPS builds. Even without the 3.03 buff, I think they were an extremely strong class. I never realised because I thought low concentration was a nightmare solo, but it really isn't (Wichts for example, though they interrupt you like hell, if you get one hit in with Tall Grass - which you always do - 5 of them will be dead. Boeroer shines the light as always on these facts). Plus the fact Savage Defiance heals are immense, and if you pair it with Veteran's Recovery (which I strongly recommend taking level 2 going solo - or possibly in general), you have an horrendous amount of endurance recovery which easily makes up for your low deflection. Encounters I've found tricky with other classes on solo have been massively easy with my solo Barb. Literally take a Barb on your team right now!

So when fighting Shadows and they daze you, even though that targets will, Defiant Resolve doesn't activate. Is it because it's an "effect" of the hit? When else doesn't Defiant Resolve come into effect, when you'd perhaps assume it would (targeting Will specifically)? Thanks in advance.

That's still better than any other class solo, as unless you're kiting many have trouble with CC (Fighters in particular) - and so you have to sit there tanking and grinding them down, which is tedious. Barbs are much better, even with HoF, at whittling down a group to one or two guys very quickly. Plus the fact most barbarians are spec-ed for offence, so while they're not as good as a Fighter on one guy they're far from bad. Concerning HoF - it's seems to me like they should have just kept HoF 1 per rest, or increased the per rests (to 2 or 3 - at least not allowing it to be insanely spammable) or had it released at an earlier level (so it's 1 per rest, but you get it early so you get more usage out of it). That would have at least discouraged people obliterating everything in sight every encounter - and as you used it on Magran's Faithful 1 per rest means you use it on the important encounters and not just all the time. I guess hopefully Tyranny or PoE2 will have improved class balance.

Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely pick up Bear's Fortitude now to shore up my fort for the tail attacks. Hopefully what I'm planning now should see me through the game.

By the calcs I'm currently running I should have 142 reflex without any potions, so with the potions too I think I should do more or less okay. I guess I was just wondering about the Int dropping, it does seems a little weird. Normally I'd be all over Scion of Flame and highish Int and Mig for such an effect - are, in other people's experience - high defense tanks good enough not to need it?

...how would I go about it? PotD, natch. I'm thinking of playing a Paladin, but I'm interested in hearing of any of classes who tank rather than kite it. I already have my unique spin on the Paladin I want to take (which I'll keep under-wraps until I do a class build for it) but I wanted to know the core essentials of tanking a beast like that. Normally I go for tanking via healing, and I would plan to kite stuff like the dragon - but tanking via super high defenses I'm not too sure of. I watched and it seemed, among other things, Deep Pockets was important in securing the victory. However, I was a little dubious about the low Int - doesn't that crap on Sacred Immolation, a huge benefit of a Paladin? I don't want to respec my build at any point, so you see what I'm saying about the Int (as far as I've heard, the only Exhortation that affects the player character is Liberating Exhortation, so in my mind there's only 8 abilities to choose anyway - one focus and then the rest that apply to solo characters, Sacred Immolation being one of them). Also, in terms race for solo defense tanking - is a Wild Orlan really the best? I've always been a little dubious that stuff would target your Will defense that often, but if it does I guess it would be the better pick. Teach me how to tank, and now to heal like a sucker that I'm currently doing

I think the weird triggering/not triggering is to do with being interrupted to be honest - ordinarily I play high Resolve builds and never notice these issues then. However with my Barbarian I'm sometimes getting even figurines activating without it counting - which is pretty overpowered with things like the shades if you were of a mind to exploit it.

A build I really wanted to play was a tank based around Silverflash. Blinding enemies dramatically drops their accuracy making you more defensive, and I believe if you spec-ed just right you could get hits in to keep that effect going permanent. However, of course the gun is super late game pretty much - and there's no decent stop-gap build to fill that gap in the meantime. I too tested a Dangerous Implements Monk, but found I couldn't really maintain very many wounds, so I wouldn't recommend it. In terms of a class that might actually be able to get something out of a gun build, Chanter's have the reload speed chant so I think if you paired that with high movement speed Dragon Thrashed and kiting you might be able to get something workable out. My main concern is you can't make the reload speed chant linger over the entirety of Dragon Thrashed - so the reload speed would drop just before I was about to reload, which would make me sad. What annoys me about guns is that they are only useful pretty much as alpha strike weapons, apart from on a Ranger, and Ranger's do more damage with Twinned Arrows and Stormcaller. While I'm all for running a build because it looks cool and it's what you like, when you get that feeling it's so un-optimised compared to what you could be running it's a bit of a drag. DAoM Wizards may also be good, but again what's the point when you could be running an implement with blast. I guess a Cipher could do it (i.e. run three arquebus alpha strikes then a pistol on backup) but you really may as well have a different ranged weapon in that last slot in terms of DPS. And I get that historically these weapons wouldn't be fired a great deal of times so it's realistic, but currently we're in a situation where using a pistol is completely pointless - which is lame. I don't know, if I even think of a good gunner concept I'll definitely make a build up for it, but currently I can't see anything that good.

I think that, in terms of the whole per rest argument, things like the Stalwart Village encounter in WM part I did a good job - you literally couldn't rest, and so to an extent had to think carefully. While it might be nice to increase the cost of resting, peppering the narrative with these kind of encounters would also help.

Last time I checked, which was admittedly a while ago, it didn't work. Thanks for letting me know.

You can't enchant the Cladhaliath spear if you go proper solo, you don't have anyone to stand on the symbols Nor can you get the Blood Pool boosts, sadly. If I were you (and what I'm planning for my own solo Chanter), I'd go max Mig, Int and Res - the first two for heals and stronger Chanting effects due to AoE, the latter for just the Deflection bonus. You can dump Dex, you're hardly going to be a DPS machine. Per and Con can likely be base, though maybe run the numbers on Con to make sure you're comfortable with the health you're getting. I'd also take the Fear Phrase, as that effectively bumps your Deflection by 10. From there on I'd just go full defensive and use your Invocations for summons. Equipment choices - things like Cape of the Master Mystic (most Deflection in game) and Ring of Protection. I'd take full on defense talents, and also healing talents (Wound Binding, Veteran's Recovery) and Ancient Memory/Beloved Spirits (which I think was just patched to also affect the Chanter? Maybe those heals always did, I don't know). I've played this kind of tank with other classes, and it does work fine. I've never properly played a Chanter however, so I'm sure people will have much more in depth advice - but bottomline this tanky base works.

I've heard somewhere that if you attack one-handed you'll hit more often in a given time frame than with a particular weapon than you would with two weapons (as in you get less recovery per weapon, but when you consider you have to wait while the other weapon attacks for that first weapon to hit again - the rate of that weapon is on the whole slower). I've not tested it myself so it may be a load of rubbish, and of course if you have Helwax Mold duplicates of your status inflicting weapon it's by-the-by, but there is that consider. I think another important thing to remember is the on-crit effect is a separate roll (so you roll to attack and get a crit against deflection, when this occurs you get a second roll to stun/prone against fortitude). While Stun dramatically lowers deflection, ensuring more vs deflection crits and procs of further Stun rolls - the opponents' fortitude isn't debuffed at all by Stun or Prone effects. In this way, one handed ensures greater accuracy on the second roll against fortitude (from what I saw playing a rogue, the status roll uses the same accuracy you roll against deflection, I don't see why this would be any different for the Barbarian) and so likely longer Stun durations than two weapons - and again I think the hit-to-crit conversion would also apply to the fortitude roll. When taking these factors together, I think a one-hander could definitely be more effective at Stun-locking than two weapons - which at least for party play I think is their main utility. Even in solo play, given that you're doing a better job of Stun-locking, your DPS doesn't really matter as the opponent isn't getting an opportunity to attack. DPS is only really important if your opponent is doing you a decent amount of damage themselves, otherwise any amount of damage will do just fine. Personally, I will still be taking Two Weapon Style on my solo run, as with Strike Hard and Godansthunyr as I mentioned my accuracy difference to a one hander is only 7 - so I think the DPS is worth it. All that said it could be that that 7 accuracy when you combine it with 35% hit to crit from duganization and One-Handed Style may well give me an easier time of it by ensuring the crits on the secondary effect - so it's a difficult call to make.

Since I'm in the probation purgatory allotted to all newbies, you may have missed my post above, but I'll reiterate that I don't use scrolls, potions, or food. Shod-in-Faith was sufficient for my healing needs before Boots of Speed, and I haven't really missed them since. My revised build of Voltron's was originally an experiment to see if Moon godlike was actually indeed required, and I feel so far that that's definitely not the case. I think it comes down to how much status effects annoy you. I know status effects annoy me a lot, which is why I was attracted to Voltron's build in the first place and sought to build on it, and race choice is part of that for me. Anything that will soften the blow of status effect annoyance helps my sanity. Now that said, Moon godlikes are far from bad, just not the go-to requirement they're often made out to be imo. There's also opportunity costs involved. Building on healing in the way you suggest means equipment slots are increasingly funnelled to that endeavour at the expense of other possibilities, in this build's case anti-CC measures. If we take your example, to get that level of healing we're losing a helmet slot (godlike), cloak, belt, and any benefit a different racial might grant. I'm not denying the utility of a build with that much healing (particularly if you're determined to tank every tough mob straight up rather than kiting/splitting), but in that case you're probably already looking at a different direction for the build anyway. For one, Long Stride might become a bit redundant in that case. Of course in all this, I have to admit I'm biased, since I just personally really dislike the look of the Moon godlikes, so if at all possible I'd rather use something else in most builds. The ones I feel most sorry for are Nature godlikes. Someone throw them a bone and buff them already! I was talking about Moon Godlikes in general, not exclusively for the purposes of this build. However, it is interesting you say that Shod-in-Faith was enough without having to take more healing measures. I suppose if you are kiting all the while, the amount of hits you'll be taking will be rather reduced anyway. I find that even with defence stacking, it can be tricky to hit certain levels to make sure negative effects really aren't a problem for you. However I suppose if anyone can do it, the Monk or Paladin would be the best.

So I'm curious, what do people think is better - one handed or two weapon on a Barbarian? I thought seeing as it relates directly to the build, posting here was a reasonable idea. For one-handed, you get a +12 accuracy boost, you 15% crit to hit from One-Handed Style. Both these factors combine to get those vital crits on the enemy group, and help to secure crits for the on-crit status effect roll - giving you a greater likelihood to get some hefty durations there too. Further, I read somewhere that crits add 25 to your interrupt roll, though it's hard to say how this weighs up against two weapons attacking more rapidly and each having an interrupt roll. Though you won't deal as much damage using HoF, if you're so good at disabling a whole group than burst damage - or better DPS in general for that matter - becomes a little irrelevant, as the enemy won't be doing much of anything in the first place. And, as Boeroer said earlier, you can just switch to two weapons for your HoF alpha strike, and then switch back. On the flip side, DPS is good for two weapons as you are attacking very quickly. You can have your second slot taken up with whatever you want as your HoF will already be beastly. Further if you Helwax Mold your one-hander, you would think that you still might be edging the stun-lock effect of just using One-Handed Style. Going solo, I'm not going to have the luxury of the Helwax Mold - but one combo of two weapons does stand out. Godansthunyr has meaty interrupts and the vital on crit effect, Strike Hard has Disorientating for a -5 defense debuff. The Stun and Disorientating effects stack, meaning that the difference is just 7 accuracy, which isn't too bad at all - while giving you better DPS (remembering that Strike Hard is also a speed weapon). In any case, it's certainly a tricky thing to call. What are everyone else's thoughts?

Kaylon had this to say about the bug in a different thread: Do you mean bash doesn't hit twice when Taste of the Hunt procs? Or bash doesn't hit twice with HoF (as in each hit, doesn't generate a single additional hit on a different target)? Or just that you're not seeing the bash bug altogether. As both Loren Tyr and I tested the bash bug it would be weird if you couldn't replicate it, however perhaps with another effect in play the bash effect behaves correctly than it does in your average attack (which seems bugged, as mentioned). In fact I didn't see the bug at all, but I was focused mostly on HoF. However from what I read about the bug it doesn't seem to happen all the time... I guess it's a little inconsistent, it'd be nice if the root causes could be pinned down.

Weird, inconsistent bugs certainly are a treat. I'll add this mention to the bug report I made.

I posted a two weapon Fighter build here that worked well on PotD playing solo, I just haven't done a formal write up for it as I hadn't killed anything big (one of the dragons, etc.). For how to change the build from two weapon fighting to two handed weapon, I would move points out of Perception and into Dexterity so you hit faster seeing as you only have the one weapon (leaving Per at the base 10 mark). Make all the "Peasant" talents and abilities into "Soldier" so the benefits now apply to Greatswords, and you could also change Savage Attack to Superior Deflection to keep your Deflection above 100 end game (though I'm talking about "end game" here, if you follow the build you will be hitting consistently high Deflection throughout the game as a result) - plus this means your accuracy doesn't take as much of a hit, it'd be just a three points shy of mine (which is nothing, in practical terms). Depending on party composition, Fearless is likely a lot less use to you with a Priest/Paladin as it was to me on solo, so feel free to change it. Also the build has a natural defensive and healing-orientated slant (while maintaining modest DPS), but again if you have buffing and healing party members to make up for it then maybe you don't need to be so defensive so can take more offensive talents and abilities (though I would say this guy as is would be a very solid damage dealing tank - which can be of even more use to some parties). For weapon choice (as others have said), The Hours of St. Rumbalt can be bought in Act 1 from Dyrford Village (it's expensive, but so long as you keep your other party members' gear pretty naff you should be able to afford it, I've just bought Tall Grass from there solo in Act 1 which is even more expensive so it can be done) - just keep going east on the map after Caed Nua and don't pick any fights with mean-looking druids. In late Act 2 (or whenever you're strong enough) you can pick up Tidefall - this may even be better than the hatchets my own build was running as healing plus wounding is pretty sick. You can't really beat Tidefall two-handed, so from there on you're set. The one thing I would mention is Confident Aim is currently bugged and does a chunk more damage than it should do currently. My advice would be avoid it for the time being and respec in 3.04 when they should fix the problem - or you know just take it now and be an OP killing machine. Seeing as I played pretty much this build solo on PotD (two hatchets are going to have a pretty similar damage output to one great sword) into WM I and practically into Act 3 (I hadn't done Cliaban Rilag yet, but as it is on the critical path I could have breezed through that place no problem) I can guarantee it works and is good. I would still be playing it now, if not for the bug and me not wanting to respec - so I'll have to be good and wait.