Jojobobo

The only thing that really springs to mind that is similar is Retaliation for a Rogue, but yeah it does seem like many high CON builds get more benefit out of dumping RES rather than boosting it for all the per crit proc items (Shod in Faith being the major one).

"Giving companions something to do" to me feels a little hollow, as I thought the main point of companions was for them to be interesting and offer something in a narrative sense. To get a load of companions you don't need and then just say I want you to go off on this random adventure because I say so seems to diminish the companion characters' role in the story. I would rather, even playing with a party, only take on companions I want for story reasons - rather than have a slew of them as pointless odd-job men because I want the sweet loot. How does any of that really reinforce roleplaying, rather than it being an arbitrary an exploitative choice of companions you're supposed to care about? In terms of self-elected difficulty, I'm cool with solo PotD being a higher difficulty level. However, is there really a single tangible item that lowers difficulty with what I'm proposing? I really don't think there is, as I said it's just a case of denying options. On my current playthrough, I guess maybe the Helwax Mold would allow me to duplicate a per rest spellbound item and get another use of it - but that's really not so much a difficultly thing as it is "how often can I be bothered to get rest supplies" thing. A lot of the stronghold items just allow for more offense (concentration items), however you can easily play those builds solo already within certain classes so long as they kite (Ranger) - so it really isn't to me a case of difficulty. I suppose some people may think that have a companion in the adventure resolve statement is important, but really who cares if "Sagani" was replaced with "Roger - the cheap guy I hired" instead? I'd wager no one, all people care about is the loot in the first instance. It'd be useful if people said they play solo or not from the off, rather than people who don't play solo saying what restrictions they believe should be placed on solo without experience. I'm not trying to get anyone's back up, but it seems like there's a lot of "it makes the solo game easier" without substantiation of why it makes the solo game easier - which I'd certainly appreciate if anyone has that experience of both play-styles.

A masterful dissemination of the mechanics, as always.

I do get that it wasn't designed with solo in mind, but it seems like it would be an extremely easy change to make. Making a minor tweak to unlock a whole load more solo options seems like a good idea in terms of effort spent to do it in relation to the satisfaction of the fanbase who like playing solo. Not that I'm not satisfied, but more options are always a little better.

The difference is many people aren't happy to cheat, including me. I'm perfectly fine with the status quo, but as I said I don't really feel that making these items available does reduce challenge - just that it frees up more options for builds and role-playing. There's plenty of builds going solo for all classes that are perfectly viable, making these items available just adds more equally viable builds to solo play that you can't have currently. More options to me means more fun, more variation per class and hence more solo-replayability. Beyond that, as I said the distinction between sending some companions and hiring some dude for a one off adventure does feel arbitrary. For people requiring escorts, you can either send companions or pay them off - the paying off presumably equating to them hiring security for the trip (hence why Twin Elms supplicants cost more). Further for dilemmas you often throwing money at them which equates to people being hired as physical security (Azzuro, etc.). There's no sensical reason why this couldn't also apply to adventures. As I said, I'm perfectly happy with the challenge of solo PotD, my current build is getting along fine and on this particular build there aren't even any adventure based items that would improve it (a perfect point of why I don't think these items make solo PotD any easier). However for future playthroughs, seeing as a load of these neat and unique items were solely consigned to party play, it might be fun to have them somehow in solo - beyond more or less cheating as you say. I honestly prefer playing solo (it's normally what I play in games even when companions are on offer, e.g. I always solo Arcanum and FO:NV) and as I said there isn't really a tangible reason why you can't hire a guy (and them not count as a companion) to go do this for you.

So I thought I'd make the thread about allowing access to Stronghold items in solo play, and see if people thought whether this was a good or bad idea. As you can't recruit companions going full solo, I'd imagine you could have an option to hire people (that don't class as companions - kind of like how you can often hire people in the new Stronghold dilemma scenarios) to go get them for you. Whether this would incur some sort of penalty (more turns taken as random minions aren't as resourceful as a companion, or less cash loot demonstrating the hired blade pocketing some for themselves) would really be up to the devs, though obviously suggestions are welcome. I will say this isn't about making solo play "easier", none of the new items really would make things dramatically easier or different to current solo play. However there certainly are a few which if in play allow for more role-playing and/or build options - the Belt of Chimes/Swaddling Sheet would allow for many more low RES builds to be viable on solo play other than kite builds (for those who wanted to play someone weak willed), the Crossed Patch could allow a solo Powder Burns Ranger to be much more viable, the Helwax Mold could allow for duplication of an attribute boosting weapon (i.e. Whispers of Yenwood) to allow for a significant and cool stacking affect, etc. This isn't to say I'm not fine with the current situation, just that it feels a little like an arbitrary restriction rather than something which makes logical sense for it being in place. Thoughts one way or the other would be greatly appreciated, sorry if a specific thread was already produced for this and had been shelved - I guess if there was I need to brush up on my search-fu.

Sounds like a pretty sweet build, making the most out of invisibility backstabs as many different ways as possible. I'd normally advocate high INT, but to be honest base 10 seconds should be enough after a per encounter ability to then use invisibility and get in a Deathblows backstab. For the stronghold items (Belt of Chimes and Swaddling Sheet), you'll need to send a companion to get them - so it depends how strictly you want to solo (as in, you can recruit a companion just for that purpose but then the game will state you've had someone in your party). If that's the kind of thing that'll bother you retraining some points into RES, or chugging Spirit Shield potions like no tomorrow. It's a bit of a shame there isn't a talent to boost concentration, as it seems by not having one you're only really penalising solo players as party players can just get the aforementioned items. I'd love to see a class build when you get far along with this build, I'm currently playing through with my own tank Rogue on solo which I'm waiting to crack into the game with until posting up the build (it's already written up).

To be honest, most of the time I find it a little better to save those per encounter abilities anyway. Sure your alpha strike isn't as strong as it would be if the game wasn't bugged, but it means you can dish out more consistent strong hits over the course of the encounter.

I really have a strong liking for Rogues. People seem to think they're now out-matched in terms of DPS, and they probably are, but they're so easy to use and I think they're realised very nicely conceptually (taking broken DnD Backstab mechanics and making them more sensible). Also I think they're extremely versatile, I'm currently soloing a tank Rogue - because of their easy ways to increase damage (Reckless Assault, Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Dirty/Vicious FIghting) coupled to their naturally high accuracy it's trivial to maintain a good damage output while investing heavily in your defense. With Sneak Attacks/Dirty+Vicious Fighting/Deathblows now working with Retaliate (and Retaliate triggering Deep Wounds) their ability to tank is now even better (at 21 Might Deep Wounds does 4 damage per tick, and if you have Intellect 20 you're getting 5 ticks, so in a minute you're doing 80 damage from Retaliate for just sitting there against all melee foes), and then when you think about spell scrolls also benefitting from Deathblows there's a literal crap load of roles they can have. So yeah, Rogues = good.

It definitely does work with sneak attack, see my thread here. This is for 3.02, where they made Retaliate roll to hit - which so far seems beneficial more than anything.

Same thing happened to me after stripping, I wanted her clothes to sell to Heodan early seeing as he buys stuff for ludicrous amounts.

My console doesn't work for whatever reason, so I can't! When I arrive at White March and get Spelltongue, I'll definitely give it a look, but that's not going to be for a while.

I tried Mabec's Morning Star in the first Stalwart area and found it thoroughly unimpressive (hoping the Wilder bonus and Stun chance would make me mow down the ogres). I haven't tested yet whether weapon affects go over onto Retaliate attacks, but so far I don't think so (things like lashes don't) so that aspect of these weapons likely doesn't have that utility.

You could play around with the chanter multi-class skellie summon to drum up some cheap disposable flanking friends too. Of course, that talent loses it's allure after a while but might help in the early levels. It's a good idea if you're into retraining, however for this build currently I don't want to (which is why I've restarted 6ish times trying to hone it, one where I'd gotten all the way into Act III and WM part I). I feel like if you're going defensive, builds can be pretty tight for talents - particularly with so many defensive ones on the offing.

I was having a think about this build and the idea I mentioned elsewhere of trying this with Triggered Immunity (which as Boeroer pointed out wouldn't work so well with a Fighter as you're not hitting enough enemies). However, would Spelltongue work with Torment's Reach to hit more enemies? MaxQuest's post here seems to suggest the AoE works with some weapon effects, and Monk's already have great defensive effects like Crucible of Suffering - plus Ryona's Breastplate can give them Triggered Immunity. Definitely worth a test.

I'd say one man's unpleasant cheese is another's delicious cheese sandwich. I'm playing solo as a Rogue, and using Shadowing Beyond I split most tough groups. I guess this does feel a little less cheesy with a Rogue as physically turning invisible makes logical sense that it would cause enemies to lose you, while splitting a group with high move speed does feel less logical (do the other enemies lose interest, etc.). In fact, I guess beyond giving an extra sneak attack getting the Rogue out of the fray is pretty much what Shadowing Beyond is built for. Even with move speed split-and-pulling, depending on the situation I think it can still make sense. As Kaylon points out as casters have to be stationary to cast in makes sense that they could easily be left behind if you were to run far enough away from them and fast enough while non-casters are in pursuit - why would they give chase when they become separated when they can't even be sure where you are anymore because you're so far away? I think ultimately people should just play however they feel comfortable, killing half the group that you've split-and-pulled is still going to be a challenge.

Steadfast to me looks good, particularly if you're a class which gets 25% chance of Champion's Boon on kill, and immunity to Frightened and Terrified plus an extra resolve are definitely useful. Gyrd Háewanes Sténes is decent on a Druid, as 20% Restore Spiritshift on hit or crit is definitely a reasonable chance at proc-ing, plus the +3 RES is useful as is the raw damage and insane accuracy bonus. Further with a Wizard, a reasonable per encounter spell that stuns seems to be nothing to be sniffed at, and the raw damage works nicely with their Blast abilities. Overall, I think the Soulbound weapons are fine. You're not going to be out-DPSing some of the better non-Soulbound weapons - however a lot of the abilities attached to them seem very nice.

To be honest, when I've tried the console recently I only ever get "this is not available at this time" regardless of what command I use. Maybe it's a bug.

Personally I'd go straight in at PotD, I'm a fan of playing games on their hardest setting and found that "Hard" after a certain point became extremely easy (really after Act I it's much easier) - and I'm not even a veteran of IE games. Going PotD straight away will definitely have a more brutal learning curve, however I think it's much more rewarding in the long run. The key thing is to pick and choose quests and areas to clear out early game (you'll be hard pushed to complete every quest and clear every area early on) and then you can come back to them when you're stronger have a fairer time of it. I'm currently playing solo PotD, but even with party play there should be a decent level of challenge to be had.

Mole-rat Cipher, obviously.

Nice build as per usual, it's great how you represented the character's death-wish through the games mechanics. One thing you could do is change the helmet to Retaliation Garodh's Chorus. You only need to be wearing the Rugged Wilderness hat as you rest to get the Survival benefit, after that you can take it off (retaining the bonus of the higher level of survival) and put one a different helmet on. I checked in Technical Support whether this was a bug or not, and the devs said that's how it's intended to work. Though admittedly, it would kinda ruin the jaunty pirate look you've got going on.

I thought I'd make a thread to collect some ideas about how to optimize a build, so when people come looking to make a build they have some basics covered. Any and all suggestions are welcome. I guess one of the key things I've noticed is you really need to evaluate combinations of talents and attribute scores that produce an equivalent effect. For example: On my current character (a tank Rogue) what I was running was RES 14 and PER 9 to start with (looking to hit PER 10 end game with Song of the Heavens - having played 10 PER previously I knew it would be enough). As my DEX was also low, I took Snake's Reflexes to shore up my Reflex. I had also taken Superior Deflection, however I didn't have any free talents dedicate to Deflecting Assault or possibly Cautious Assault. However I then realised if I take 5 points from RES and stick them in PER, and take Deflecting Assault over Snake's Reflexes, the key things I cared about (my Reflex score and Deflection) both remain the same however now I have +5 accuracy relative to the previous setup. The cost is a little Concentration - however as I'm boosting RES with items and resting bonuses to the mid teens later in the game I don't really care about that. The advice here is you really need to evaluate if you can achieve the same effect in a different way and look if there are more benefits to be had taking a different tact. This is especially true when you factor in the attribute benefits of items on a character: do you early on want to take 4 points from INT and stick them into a more valuable attribute to the build, as you're fine using the Dunryd Demon early game and late game you have a free ring slot (as in, there's no other ring you're really bothered about using) so you can then use Gywn's Band of Union. Maybe you could put those 4 points into DEX, now letting you use Boots of Speed as you've hit the DEX you wanted instead of using Viettro's Formal Footware. So that's the main thing I've learnt from trying to hone my build, does anyone else (particularly skilled build makers) have advice they'd like to share to help out new players wanting to make a build?

The point of healing endurance is you have access to more of your health over the course of that battle so you can fight for longer, it also useful if your taking heavy hits early on you don't get knocked unconscious. To add to what KDubya said, what you should be looking for ideally to optimize this process is: endurance + endurance you recover per encounter = health. If endurance + recovered endurance is greater than health it's pointless as you're going to die before that point, and obviously if endurance + recovered endurance is lower than health than you're not going to have that full health pool to play with. For an example on my current character (I'll put it in spoiler tags for people who don't want a huge amount of clutter in the thread): The bottomline is, if you're looking to optimize your a character who isn't looking for external sources of endurance healing, figuring out a number where endurance + endurance recovered = health is definitely the way to go. If you do have other members in your party using heals, then you can factor in which ones you're likely to use in a difficult encounter in the endurance recovered part.

I was curious, what kind of level of testing do people want for a Class Build? The original "How to post a class build" guidelines say completion of the game before you post it, but going solo PotD and trying to do a completionist run with WM I and II takes a long time. For my current build, I've set myself the limitation of no respec-ing so every time I've thought of a tweak I want to make to it I've restarted (which I'm going to do again today) - however one of the early iterations of the build was played well into Act III (most quests before Sun in Shadow), went down to level 13 of the Endless Paths and got most of the way through WM I going solo PotD so I didn't know if that was enough for me to make a post of it. I think if an early poor iteration can make it far into the game, my new and improved design would assuredly be better - however it's going to take 100 hours to approach completion and test it out comprehensively.

Obsidian Lamp gives Shades which provide Flanked plus Blinded. Though it's per rest, that a solid Deathblows right there playing solo. As I mentioned, Retaliate can apparently spread debuffs slightly around groups - use something like Spreading Plague from Rotfinger gloves and it becomes even easier to spread the sneak attack proc-ing debuffs around. If you have high enough intellect, it's easy enough to chain different debuffs so you get crits. Withering Strike lowers will and fortitude which Sap and Crippling Strike target respectively, Sap lowers reflex which Blinding Strike targets - etc. Targeting anyone on of these defenses when it's now at the -10 or -20 leads to easy crits, which with mid teen intellect leads to huge durations and hence plenty of time for a crap load of Deathblows even lacking good dex. I used to think Deathblows was too much of a situational waste on a Rogue too, but it really really isn't.