Jojobobo

Yeah from what I tested ToTV procced every time on the Bash from the Cladhaliath Stun due to the massive Deflection debuff stunning provides, and as mentioned the build can Stun constantly on hits of the Stun role (with great hit to crit conversion and reasonable accuracy to facilitate crits - which once they start should keep propagating from the Deflection debuff). Deathblows is also easy enough to achieve when Stun is pretty much guaranteed from other Strike abilities or from simple figurine flanking. I really need to test this out fully to legitimise it a little more, currently I'm working on another weird solo Wizard build (not even the other tanky one I've been playing, I've been a little deterred seeing as a I now want to restart it to encompass the 3.08 changes and avoid the pirate gear - it always feels repetitious when you've sunk in 50 hours or so already). Hopefully I'll get round to it soon, but solo runs take ages.

So I don't have access to the beta, but I've been avidly looking at the related threads, and I had a few ideas: 1) Revert Strength to Might. The idea of Might being a combination of physical and magical/mystical potency (with characters not necessarily representing as physically muscular) seems to be a popular one, and Strength now seems extremely niche and unnecessary spell-caster characters for the most part - and instant dump stat. I think healing should probably stay with Might too, to make attribute balance more complex and less by-the-numbers - but it can be moved to Resolve if necessary. 2) I think the increase in casting time is a result of the idea to drop interrupt from every attack - with it now being attached to some attacks - and so casting time was adjusted to fit with the fact spells won't typically get interrupted. Therefore the role of maintaining minimum Resolve in order for a caster to have reasonable Concentration is now out the window. Why not have Resolve decrease spell and ability casting time - probably in a rate of 4 or 5% (and increase/decrease casting time with these reductions until the fit feels right)? This fits somewhat thematically, as you're better exerting your will on the world around you. Keep Dexterity the same, so it can also decrease casting time, but in the standard 3% reduction per point over 10 for all animations/recovery - not just those associated with Casting. A DPS caster now needs Resolve, Might, possibly some Dex, Int - etcetera - to be effective, and we maintain the complex situation of attribute balance we saw in PoE 1. Depending on how ability casting is balanced, this could also be used to discourage non-caster classes from entirely dumping Res. This would solve to be two things: A) A problem of the devs' making - keeping Resolve relevant after eliminating Interrupt for the most part. We're already seeing a (currently) poorly implemented part of this in effect - the increased casting time. Resolve previously facilitated casters to cast spells un-impeded - reducing cast time through Resolve achieves much of the same practical effect, and stops casters being sitting ducks (in PoE 1 they could be sitting ducks if interrupted constantly, in PoE 2 they're now sitting ducks because of the long cast period). Resolve is still very much functionally similar to how it worked in PoE 1. B) Another problem of the devs' making - stopping Strength being a straight dump stat for any casting class not frequently using Summoned Weapons - which currently seems like a lot of them due to the aforementioned casting time problem. I guess the main problem with all of this is that the system is now even more unintelligible to the uninitiated than it was in PoE 1, but it really depends on the kind of broad appeal the devs are wanting/anticipating anyway - so whether that is a problem so much is hard to say. Sorry if I'm talking out of my ass having not played the Beta, but it seems like these are the main problems that are arising. I guess possibly someone else has already suggested something similar, but I thought this was a reasonable solution to preventing both Resolve and "Strength" becoming dump stats (or at least Resolve would be no less of a dump stat than it was in PoE 1 for high melee damage builds, whereas its usefulness is now inflated for casters - just not painfully so like it currently is where you'd have to be mad to dump it). Thoughts?

There could be a chamberpot, you don't know!

Just had a quick read of MaxQuest's thread, and it appears that the main weapon has full recovery as you say, but the Bash attack has half recovery, so yeah it's a little slower. Still as mentioned I like the two affliction rolls for a Rogue, and Thrust of the Tattered Veils triggers more or less constantly with the build. The key thing that was tested was that the Dex and Int allowed for the desired Stun-chaining on Stun-roll hits for the spear, so even with the increased recovery you can still get the chaining that's needed.

Personally I'd still go for the bash. Recovery is halved when you're two weapon fighting, whether than be two weapons or a weapon and bash shield. This translates into you hitting marginally slower with the spear than with no other attack at all, but you still attack reasonably fast. The Bash is also very useful in giving your Strikes two chances to score a crit on the affliction duration - particularly with Blind which targets Reflex (so the Bash can graze for the Blind effect, but then because Blind massively debuffs Reflex the second Blind roll coming from the spear will often crit - resulting in much longer durations for Deathblows for you). If you're starting to use Purgatory, you're probably better off running with more of the Yellow Flash build posted previously. The Stun on this build is integral, and it's the reason why Vulnerable Attack isn't opted for - because the damage should mostly be high enough that the DR bypass isn't critical (and the added recovery of Vulnerable Attack is also far from desirable when you need to be attacking frequently to chain the Stun). Tanky Rogues are always pretty fun IMO, so I guess whatever you go for you should have a reasonably good time.

Cool thanks, ill go there as soon as i have had Azzuro sell me Scwath Gannek. He is really testing my patience, ive been traveling back and forth for 2 hours straight. At first he wouldnt ever appear, when he finally did it took him ages again to show up again. Meanwhile ive had to defend my stronghold countless times, undead Raedric armies included... Now he keeps offering me Gyrges Guantlets. Im about to explode Yeah it's a pain. I would shoot for Hiro's Mantle over Scath Gwannek - you mentioned you were using Sura's Supper Plate so I presume you haven't gotten it yet? Larder Door is easily good enough as a Bash shield (though Gwannek is better for the spell binding), so I wouldn't pull your hair out too much trying to get it so long as you already have another source of Retaliation. In terms of getting Azzuro's items, what I always used to do was save at the Caed Nua with a pile of cash, play until that's depleted through stronghold turns - then reload and try again. It's very tedious, but it works - obviously it's entirely random how long you'll be waiting for (I think pressing R brings up the rest menu, and if you position your mouse right to click on a Bright Hollow rest plus hit return when the rest thing pops up so it selects to rest you can speed the process up a lot). If you push your stronghold security to above 50, attacks on your stronghold become practically nonexistent.

Something I was thinking about is that if you play Vampire the Masquerade (pen and paper or the games), a vampire's physical appearance never normally changes, but they can still get - even surpassing the limits of human strength. I thought always thought of the approach in Pillars being more or less the same thing, where Might means you could be muscle bound or you could be semi-mystically powerful and strong. I think by giving both healing and spell damage to Resolve, they start to make the mechanics more arbitrary - as all casters are now inherently more tanky and so they will probably have to heavily nerf their base Deflection to accommodate for this (some caster classes had low Deflection in PoE 1, but others like Ciphers and Chanters didn't). This would be totally awkward and counter-intuitive to a balance problem the devs themselves have created, which doesn't really feel like how game mechanics should be produced. I'm not even really a fan of healing being attached to Resolve either, as it makes the complex system of attribute choice in the first game a lot more simple (I'm playing a tank, so I take Resolve - as it's now both healing and defences). I think they need to add a new benefit to Resolve, without assigning it something belonging to a different attribute in PoE 1. Maybe something like casting speed possibly, and have Dex more focussed on recovery speed or only melee attack speed - I don't know.

Any of the areas with Lagufaeth are extremely tough and will require pre-preparation (preferably with scrolls against imprisonment, or failing that Scrolls of Defense and something like the Orlan's Bramble Ring), but Russetwood and most of the outside areas of Durgan's Battery are simple enough and allow for completion a fair few quests. For the initial fight at Stalwart, you can stealth most of the way to Darzir. Head down and left along the docks and then when you hit the a few stalls head straight up the middle of the map. When you get to the top of the map head left again - there's a single ogre you'll need to take out. You should now be in the NW corner, which you can lead Darzir to relatively easily while maintaining your corner positioning.

I think the Gathbin quest line was supposed to address most of that, yes. It's triggered after you first get to Defiance Bay and then travel back to Caed Nua. It starts with a task and then after you complete that you'll get a quest in a few days. For free content, it was pretty good - a mini-expansion almost.

So if you're willing to invest five talents into it you can get +30 accuracy? That's quite a lot, though whether it's worth five talents is debatable I guess. I think so, both WF Soldier and Adventurer were active when I looked so I see no reason you can stack them all up (though as I said, someone should double check this). As you rightly point out though, the Talent investment to get +30 accuracy is a hell of a lot - so it's a little tricky to justify.

White March would be your best bet, yes. There's plenty of areas that should be clearable, plus you get the Ring of Changing Heart which allows you to Dominate enemies and helps a lot with CC. I would recommend picking up Munacra Arret if you haven't already for the same reason (should help with Adragans quite a bit). Split-pulling is your friend, so I'd recommend a lot of that if you're playing solo too.

I tested Firebrand earlier as I was curious, and multiple unrelated Weapon Focuses seemed to stack. Not something I'm looking to exploit, and almost certainly a bug, but if you want to make up for it's crappy accuracy that's currently a way and easy to patch out (though please test it every which way first, I don't want my lazy accusations being gospel). I'd suggest Tidefall personally, it's found in a fiery cave so you can enchant it that way thematically and the wounding lash is great (I think you can still lash it on top of Wounding, it's been awhile). If you can get your accuracy high enough Firebrand is probably your boy (Sworn Enemy, etc.), as it has a naturally higher base damage (20-30) on top of it's Damage 3 enchantment and Annihilation for very damaging crits, butttt... the accuracy sucks so it needs to be accounted for, but but than synergises nicely with Flames of Devotion (with Scion of Flame) too. If you choose the latter have a party composition that focussed on Deflection debuffs, or have a good backup weapon for when the acc of Firebrand just isn't good enough - one of those should see you through. Firebrand is good, but its accuracy isn't, so it'll require more dedication your end to make it work.

Thanks very much! I probably won't get round to playing this now for a little while, as mentioned with the v3.08 changes I would want to re-start the build and seeing as I already got most of the way through that's a little disheartening - particularly with tank builds that don't really pop so much in the first place. I have something new in mind I'll probably character build first. Still, even pacing out in theory an only-graze-or-less build I think is pretty neat. While you can do better with other characters using Wizards Double potions and such, the key draw of this concept is it's all innate and almost entirely per encounter. This play style forms an intuitive and simplistic tank, that can drop some good CC before going full Citzal, plus as I skirted on it the thread the DR can be pushed to 30ish (on top of the very high defences) too. Should be gooood stuff, and was in the slightly tankier 3.07 playthrough that I got a good chunk into anyway.

That wouldn't stack with the Iron Circle, so I doubt it (Yenwood stacks as weapons and shields count separately to armor). Look for an attribute not already boosted by the other equipment, any kind of boost is useful to shore up defences even if not vital for the build.

I think they did a pretty good job with the Stronghold in the end to be honest, I'm not looking to play Sims and I like the dwelling/base of a particular game to feel personal to that game. Part of why I found Fallout 4 so weak is because all your homes/bases, while they allowed for "customization', pretty much tend towards the same dull thing in terms of gameplay as there's only a few set ways to optimise them.

No, some sort of Stun/Prone on crit is needed to make the damage of the build worthwhile as it essentially makes the Rogue's Sneak Attack always on and Deathblows on when you use Strike abilities. A generic spear won't cut it, but other Stun on Crit and Prone on Crit weapons will work, just with less accuracy.

In part I of this topic, the goal was to more or less get close to 200+ in as many defences as possible, in light of the +20 Deflection +20 Reflex/Fortitude/Will introduced by the pirate outfits in 3.07 as part of the Deadfire item pack. This was to be achieved by using Wizard's Double, which offers +40 Deflection and so long as you're not hit/critted by any attack roll (not just those targeting Deflection). As mentioned in the previous thread some attacks seem to break Wizard's Double whether they hit you or not, but these are very unique circumstances from what I've seen and for the most part Wizard's Double works as intended. Buutttt... in 3.08 these uniforms are now going to get a nerf to +9/+9 in the respective defences. This is significant, as this now means the best possible Deflection granted by clothing is by the Cape of the Master Mystic at +12, meaning an 8 Deflection loss from the build due the +20 originally offered by the outfits. Bummer. This prompted me to re-evaluate what the goal of the entire build should be (rather than just looking to hit arbitrarily high defences as I was doing before) and see whether, with the loss in defences due to the pirate uniform nerfs, if I could still meet this specific goal. So here we go: What's the point Jojobobo (of the build, of course)?!?! So I decided the new underlying goal of the build should be it is now to obtain grazes/misses only, in all defences. As Boeroer pointed out in the previous thread, Wizard's Double is broken by a hit/crit with any attack roll no matter what defence it targets - so if you want to maintain it graze/miss only is a must. On an attack roll where your defence minus opponent's accuracy = 0, on the 1-100 attack roll 1-15 results in a miss, 16-50 results in a graze, and 51-100 results in a hit. Every point of defence you have over an opponent's accuracy is subtracted from the attack roll, broadening that miss chance and reducing the hit chance. As the standard window for a hit is from 51-100, you need defences 50 higher than the accuracy of the opponents attack to ensure graze/miss only. Naturally this means I need to know how accurate boss monster attacks are in order to ensure I'm 50 defence over them, which I've tested out and will get onto in a little bit. What was learnt in the 3.07 test of the build Attribute Spread, Race, Talent Choices and Spells In terms of designing the attribute spread, what I did was assume max Resolve and reverse-engineer the levels of the other attributes to hit the levels of defence needed to get grazes and hits from boss monster attacks (with is done with simple algebra like I did in the first thread, taking opponents accuracy +50 - what I would need in a particular defence for graze/miss - then subtracting all the bonuses I would get to leave me an amount of defence that had to be made up from innate attribute scores). However, that's not exactly presentable, so instead I thought I'd lay down the attribute spread and show the work up to specific defence scores in the next section. So... Defensive Benchmarks In terms of defence, I checked my saves just before a few key fights on a old character to see what the enemy was hitting. I didn't have a save before Magran's Faithful, but I think if I'm a good match for Thaos I shouldn't be too troubled by that particularly bounty. Here are the accuracy benchmarks, and the required defence therefore to get a graze/miss: Alpine Dragon wing attack 154 accuracy vs. Reflex. 204 Reflex needed. Turisulfus attack 134 accuracy vs. Deflection. 184 Deflection needed. Turisulfus Wing Slam 150 accuracy vs. Fortitude. 200 Fortitude needed. Turisulfus Fear Aura 150 accuracy vs. Will. 170 Will needed with Looped Rope and Mental Fortress. Thaos Cleansing Flames 141 accuracy vs. Deflection (his pesky Symbol of Woedica gives him +30 acc). 191 Deflection needed. I also checked the Kraken and Concelhaut, but the accuracy of their attacks weren't as high as the benchmarks set above. Defiant Resolve procs all the time against dragons, and so can be factored in there, but not against Thaos. From here I wanted two separate defensive modes... Deflection/Reflex/Fortitude/Will - 184/204/200/170 (at least) for the Alpine Dragon/Llengrath fight, and... Deflection - 191 for Thaos without Defiant Resolve (buffing the other defences as normal). Alpine Dragon/Llengrath mode: Thaos mode: Conclusions Overall this post demonstrates how on solo a Deflection/Reflex/Fortitude/Will spread of 188/205/204/173 can be obtained for the Llengrath fight, which with buffs against fear effects (+20 Looped Rope, +10 Mental Fortress) means that for most of the fight the dragons will only be capable of grazes or misses (predominantly misses) and Llengrath herself will outright miss you all the time (or close enough to it, her accuracy is way lower than the dragons). Likewise it demonstrates that 192 Deflection is possible for the Thaos fight, 51 points higher than his Cleansing Flames accuracy (I know his grazes with that still hurt a lot, but again he should be predominantly missing, and one or two grazes are do-able). I also wanted to address the nerf to the pirate armor coming in 3.08 and how that effected the build concept from the previous thread. With working out the necessary Deflection needed for Thaos, and throwing in Mental Fortress to keep my defences up against Turisulfus's Fear Aura, the answer is not very much. With the addition of Envenomed Strike, this build should work as an extremely tanky front-liner with some heavy hits to boot (you can go for Plate with this build and with Second Skin, Iron Skin and a DR survival resting bonus hit 30+ DR - on top of the already massive defence scores). Naturally, I'll be restarting this character and avoiding the pirate armor to ensure it's solo Expert PotD viable, so it'll take me quite some time before a full class build surfaces, but the bare bones of it are all here for anyone wanting to play it a little earlier. Hope someone enjoyed, I thought the drilling down into enemy accuracy in this thread added a lot in demonstrating how Wizard's Double is maintainable even in the hardest of fights. Have a nice day!

So, as 3.08 is going to heavily nerf the pirate outfits (from +20 Deflection +20 other defence to +9/+9), I'm going to post a part two thread and shelve this one because enough of the information is soon to be obsolete. I'll link in here when I've posted the new thread up. EDIT: Here's part II.

No I just had only Soft Winds of Death at the start, if you just put a single Phrase in a Chant it will repeat over and over. As Soft Winds of Death is fairly fast Phrase, it makes getting your Phantom invocation out even faster - and is kind of a necessity seeing as your DPS with guns is pretty shoddy early game (though of course that's all part of the fun). Certainly Phrases are situationally useful, so you can have a few separate Chants prepared and use them when you need them sort of thing. Just Soft Winds of Death is good for quite some time though.

If it's a bug, write a bug report - it's what the technical issues subforum is there for. Sounds like a powerful and broken combo on a lot of builds if it's as you described (zero recovery), though as mentioned I have no personal experience with the items so I can't really weigh in.

I rarely play anything but solo (never take on any companions even for adventure equipment), so it's really not my wheelhouse I'm afraid. I'm sure I've heard of Boeroer or someone else talking about those kind of items not stacking, hopefully one of those wise sages can clear it up for you.

Check out the Act I section of the "Different act equipment and chant/invocation advice" heading, it gives the some early game advice. The Chants/Invocations/Talents listed in the build were my picks for particular levels.

The Battery is pretty hard from what I remember, so I'd hold off longer personally. Any other bash shield can do the trick to an extent, though Sura's Supper Plate of course has Retaliation.

The defence boosts stack, individual defence boosts (+Deflection, +Reflex for Llengrath's) stack with defence boosts that apply to everything (+all Defences for Scroll of Defence). They patched in at some point the ability to get the spear on solo (it was blocked for a while), I forget the specifics but it's perfectly possible to get it solo. I can't find the a specific thread to verify what you need to do, but it can be done (my old solo saves have it, where I didn't use the console at all). EDIT: Here's a link for why solo Cladhalíath now works.

I always thought that Might in PoE 1 while it could be about physical strength it could also about metaphysical potency, and so it was never really a case of, "It feels weird to have muscley wizards casting high damage fireballs because they can bench 350 lbs," as they could be potent without being physically muscle bound. It also seems to have made Might a dump stat for a lot of spell casting classes (though some, i.e. those using summoned weapons a lot, will still take it), whereas in PoE 1 it seemed like the original ethos was no dump stats and I think that was achieved to a reasonable extent. I don't know, I guess by only tying healing to Resolve and not spell damage it would again only be relevant on tank characters, and the concept of Might effecting spell damage in a sort of metaphysical way isn't a concept some players can easily wrap their head around - so it's probably for the best. Still, it seems like there's more cut and dry situations where a stat is dumped compared to PoE 1 where an even spread was often desirable - even if some characters mainly avoided dumping Resolve just to avoid being interrupted all the time and not for any other benefit (and obviously from the class builds thread, some still did).