Jojobobo

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.

For anyone still interested, Dirty Fight also effects Retaliate - see below. I'm using a dagger/Larder Door, so the only source of pierce here is Retaliate. Thought I'd post again instead of making an edit so the thread didn't get lost. I guess if anyone finds anymore of these weird effects post them up, as soon a I manage to test out Deathblows I'll let you know.

EDIT: Apologies this should have been in tech support, got my tabs confused. Could a mod move it kindly? From a thread I've got in character builds with a Rogue using mace and Larder Door, referring to using Blinding Strike and it hitting multiple enemies: Normally my Bash is the first part of my full attack, then my weapon attack is my second part of my full attack. What we see here is before the bash has had chance to land I already have inflicted blind on the skeleton through Retaliate. Then my Bash lands and inflicts the Blinding Strike damage. Then before my mace attack lands Retaliate has inflicted blind on a gul, then finally the damage of Blinding Strike hits via my mace on the skeleton. I'm guessing the additional debuff effects of your per encounter abilities are somehow not tied to that weapon having landed an attack, they are just applied to the next attack which in this case was Retaliate. The debuff of the second swing is maybe only allowed to be applied after that first swing weapon has made it's attack (hence why the second blinding only comes after the Bash) but after that it's free to be attached either to Retaliate or your weapon attack as before. This is why this is all much more pronounced with dual-wielding/weapon and bash shield. Is this a feature, bug or something that you're not bothered about patching even if it is a bug? I noticed this before all the recent changes to Retaliate, so it's not a consequence of the latest patch.

It'd definitely be worth testing from someone who is a high level (so they can recruit high level inn companions) and has the equipment. Or just console it, for some reason I've not been able to get my console working so I can't test it out like that (says any command I type is unavailable). From what I can tell when this occurs, when I go for a per encounter ability my shield bash won't be applied and instead I'll Retaliate on one foe (plus the per encounter effect), then I'll turn to the other and use my weapon attack and per encounter effect. However, I'll pay close attention to the log when this happens next time to get to the bottom of it. I'm clearing out old maps currently and I'm about to finish Raedric's Hold Dungeon, the Gul gang-bang there should hopefully give me some idea. Dual wielding is good on a Rogue anyway because your second swing benefits from the sneak attack proc from the affliction you inflicted with the first. So for Blinding Strike even if you graze them with the blind effect on your first swing, your second benefits from sneak attack and the increased damage from Blinding Strike in the first place, but also the blinding effect of that second swing is now targeting reflex with is now -20 its original value because the opponent is already blind. Quite often you'll see the first swing get a blinding effect graze and the second get a blinding effect crit because of this, the crit duration being much nicer to then hit them with something else and get Deathblows proc-ing. EDIT: So here's what I got: Normally my Bash is the first part of my full attack, then my weapon attack is my second part of my full attack. What we see here is before the bash has had chance to land I already have inflicted blind on the skeleton through Retaliate. Then my Bash lands and inflicts the Blinding Strike damage. Then before my mace attack lands Retaliate has inflicted blind on a gul, then finally the damage of Blinding Strike hits via my mace on the skeleton. I'm guessing the additional debuff effects of your per encounter abilities are somehow not tied to that weapon having landed an attack, they are just applied to the next attack which in this case was Retaliate. The debuff of the second swing is maybe only allowed to be applied after that first swing weapon has made it's attack (hence why the second blinding only comes after the Bash) but after that it's free to be attached either to Retaliate or your weapon attack as before. This is why this is all much more pronounced with dual-wielding/weapon and bash shield. I'll re-post this in bugs to see whether this is how the devs want this to work, if not whether they're bothered to patch it. Currently I like it as it means more debuffs against more enemies. It's definitely the shield I had in mind. Originally I was going to go Adept Evasion over Dirty Fighting but now with the Retaliation stuff Dirty Fighting has become much more appealing again - with that and Vicious Fighting I should be firing off Thrust of Tattered Veils pretty often. I figured I'd just go Aila Braccia when I need it to compensate for lacking Adept Evasion. That monk idea certainly sounds promising, it'll be cool to hear the results.

So apparently now Retaliate is affected by sneak attacks with the new patch. While it's still only doing 6-10 damage unadjusted by Might as far as I can tell (so you're only looking at max 15 damage with the sneak attack), for a Rogue they seem to be getting more damage out of this then normal. Add in Retaliate can now crit, and if it's affected by Sneak Attack I see no reason for it not to be affected by Dirty + Vicious Fighting and Deathblows, though I haven't tested it. Look below for one of these Sneak Attacks - the damage done is definitely from Retaliate, I'm only using weapons with crush damage otherwise: Throw in dual wielding, and a Rogue's per encounter abilities, and you can applying the debuffs in an area. You go to activate Blinding Strike on an enemy, but if another enemy hits you they get blinded through Retaliate - and you hit the original intended target and blind them as well. Then both of these enemies get affected by your Retaliate sneak attacks and Deep Wounds if you have it, doing even more damage if you're using Vulnerable Attack and/or Ryona's Vambraces. Whilst this isn't meteoric damage, it's still a very nice extra effect - particularly if you are critting on any of those attacks. Thought I'd share this little tidbit as I don't think anyone knows about it yet. I'm still currently working on a solo PotD Rogue tank build with a bash shield (essentially dual wielding) - I'll post the class build when I've done something major (slain a dragon, completed the main story) to prove that it works PotD solo. Suffice to say I'm using this dirty trick frequently.

Bookmarked for future reference, thank you kindly for the hard work.

Thanks for the tip, Dulcanale was another one I had my eye on - rending is always a sweet effect especially on a gun and especially as I was intending on using penetrating shot in the first place. St. Guaram's Spark probably also works well with the pet and/or figurines that you need to use on solo, albeit you can't change the lash.

I was making a pistol build with Forgiveness (the only gun with the speed enchant), but as I was going solo I hadn't got too far with it yet (or even gotten Forgiveness yet - I wanted to play a law-bringer sheriff type so killing the Doemenels in that quest is quite tricky if you want to do it immediately in the Goose and Fox like I ideally want to). However running around with a Fine Disappointer (sounds like a nickname for someone's manhood) in Act 1 worked pretty well high dex, might and per going solo. Guns obviously have a lot higher base damage, so I'd say your DPS is going to be at least comparable to Twinned Arrows more or less (considering Swift Aim and Twinned Arrows don't stack) - and if you give your pistol a flaming lash plus take Scion of Flame I'd imagine your Powder Burns damage is going to be quite brutal. The main flaw is all those cool additional item effects you're missing out on (Wounding on Persistence, Returning Storm on hit/crit on Stormcaller, etc.), but from what I was experiencing it seems entirely workable.

I think it's useful on a tank as normally you're looking more for steady yet solid damage and not necessarily for high DPS. It's also useful when for shield bashing to make some or their normal measly damage get through. I'm currently running a Dex 4 tank on PotD solo with Larder Door and Vulnerable Attack, and with the bash and my weapon I'm still rattling off an attack every 3 seconds or so - which is plenty good enough for me.

I find the Deceptive reputation a little annoying, as it doesn't differentiate between what lies you tell. When I first started playing a Kind Wayfarer in v1 playing on Expert, during the quest A Mother's Plea I told the white lie to Aufra in letting her believe the potion would work - thinking as Ranga points out a positive outlook may help her out and that this white lie would be better for her. As such I was hoping for Benevolent rep, but instead got Deceptive. Further playing as a scoundrel type in recent playthroughs, during the Final Act Lumdala will try to get you to frame Gaderman. If you agree to this, even if you snitch on Lumdala you still get Honest rep, however this completely overlooks the fact you have lied to Lumdala by saying you would frame someone else. You're also not really given any clear benefit here for lying, you don't owe Lumdala any favours and Kurren is going to reward you either way - so even if you are trying to play as the shifty scoundrel lying comes off as a little stupid here. I think what would have been better was if the character received Deceptive rep if they told a malicious lie or they benefitted off the back of one of their lies. There's too many examples where Deceptive rep is simply rewarded for acting evasive or contrary, which most of the time in the game feels pointless.

I'd appreciate if a mod would just delete this thread. Thank you to the first poster, for shutting it down off the bat for a miss-key. I'm currently of the salted-earth mentality - if someone wants to query the same thing then go ahead but I'm already done and bored. Teach me for venturing out of the PoE threads. Literally, can a mod delete this.