Odd Hermit

The difficulty of Trial of Iron is finding tactics that work as consistently/reliably as possible. Exploiting to avoid the save deletion aspect circumvents that, allowing you to do things that may only work when you have favorable rolls and whatnot. Yes, bad RNG could end a Trial of Iron run, but the trick is mitigating that factor, not reloading to get good RNG yourself.

Especially on a class with "save or die" type powers. You could retry until you get an amazing roll using the "quit if it didn't work" approach.

"Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning." - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai "I would prefer to fail with honor than win by cheating." - Sophocles The Trial of Iron mode has been presented in Pillars of Eternity as a special, optional challenge for players who wish to undertake it. This mode restricts players to a single save game. If the party is ever defeated, the save game is deleted. We do not believe it is necessary for us to police how players manipulate their save game data. You may choose to play Trial of Iron in whatever manner you see fit. However, I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to consider the following: what does it mean to achieve victory in Trial of Iron if the spirit of the challenge has been broken? What does defeat mean if you have pursued victory in the spirit of the challenge? Think upon this and act as your conscience dictates. Thanks for reading. J.E. Sawyer Director and Lead Designer __________ Which kind of makes me wish there weren't steam achieves. You know people will cheat it for internet points or whatever. I think it'd've been better as a personal challenge than something you can show off. Not that it isn't interesting to see how people do it, it kinda makes into a trial and error puzzle game.

One handed style doesn't work while using a weapon and shield. So the build isn't optimal but then, solo is more about item use.

Arquebus does have 2m more range. Not arguing that's enough, but for characters who shoot only once per-fight in the opener that does make it slightly better. Arbalest has 12m and no accuracy penalty and can prone on crit though, so I still choose it despite its lower damage. (22-32 vs. Arq's 24-36)

That is a lot of portraits. Looks like we... ...painted ourselves into a corner 4 dramatically different looking sub-races for just 1 out of 5 races. Obsidian are just jerks to their artists TBH.

Still Arbalest. No accuracy penalty, prones on crits, still high enough damage to punch through high DRs. Or for some classes Blunderbuss has worthwhile applications. I like it for debuff special attacks, since you get multiple rolls to hit, and if you hit with one you get the effect up.

All the casters are strongest damage builds because they also bring strong buffs and control. Paladin(PC for Faith and Conviction) or Fighter make the best tanks. Ciphers and Chanters are strong for longevity and on easier encounters. Rogue is the best for cheesing it solo or for preventing full party wipes with shadowing beyond. Monk, Barbarian, Ranger have the least purpose.

Some things are entirely valid strategies, they only seem like abuse because the AI can't handle them. Encounters and AI scripts just need to be better. And on a difficulty where there are more enemies with higher stats, it just seems obvious that part of a good strategy to dealing with that is divide and conquer.

After maxing might and int and putting 10 points in con and 15 in res, you still have some left points which you can put in dex. Dont forget, that he has buff +20 to all defenses including reflex. Still, reflex doesnt matter because attacks that target it are usually low damaging aoe spells and cipher have highest DT possible in this game, so that damage would get reduced to minimum. Cipher advantages over rogue: -much higher DT -much higher acc -much higher all defenses -more reliable aa damage increase from bitting whip because it doesnt require debuff like sneak attack do and even tho, cipher will deal more aa damage because of higher crits -much more CC and even more aa damage because CCed foes have lower defense stats -have aoe damage spells -more situational spells like -7 DT debuff for high DT enemy -highest single target damage in this game. Recall agony + disintegration = huge damage. -requires only 2 class talents Rogue advantages over cipher: -shadowing beyond -riposte (still, it is waste of talent because only 20%) Uh, AoEs targetting reflex are some of the biggest damage dealing things you'll have to deal with. And they'll kill you through high DR. Especially if you're in the fray as a melee character. Also adept evasion and deep wounds is a bigger deal than riposte, from my testing experience. You could drop riposte but adept evasion and deep wounds make rogue better against some targets than cipher. I'm all for taking Cipher over Rogue for any group composition though. I'm definitely not arguing Rogue is a stronger group class. I think it is, however, better for soloing(which you've said your build isn't for I understand).

That's true with a caster cipher which this is not. Plus it has low dex and heavy armor which means you take awhile to get casts off. It'll depend on the enemies being faced, of course, as well. The stuff leading up to the final boss includes shadow type enemies that attack fast and stun, and you'll struggle to get many casts off or generate a lot of focus against their fairly high defenses. This is where retaliate+draining weapon allows you to succeed by sheer outlast potential and passively dealing damage just by getting hit. You'll kill faster than rogue vs. many things, but rogue can skip more combat and is more durable against some of the more irritating enemies in the game it seems like, by virtue of adept evasion.

Tested a tanky variation of the build. It's about the same solo viability as rogue when it has to fight stuff, honestly. It actually took me longer to kill things, though this is using moon godlike. Deep Wounds TBH is a bigger deal than you'd think on PotD. Cipher has some strong combat abilities but they're so heavily reliant on: 1 beating will saves. 2 not being CCed. Rogue's durability overall was higher due to adept evasion - in spite of cipher's higher base deflect. Cipher couldn't keep all drain buffs up all the time so much of the stats boosts were pretty temporary. The focus generation from retal is nice but still found myself running dry + with a low dex build and heavy armor it takes a long time to cast and enemies can sometimes disrupt. Cipher just doesn't dramatically change the way you play solo vs. rogue. It's still going to be reliant on having move speed buffed, dragging enemies, using particular items at key points, etc. etc. I think it's just way easier to go the shadowing beyond route still. The cipher is so much more potent that you'd want to slog through tons of combat with it. It'd add a dramatic amount of play-time necessary to complete a solo run I think. Fair enough. I still would say dropping both per and dex is making this character too vulnerable to reflex targeting stuff, which is what many high damage spells in the game are.

It's a cheesy retaliation build(retal will likely be nerfed anyway) that's mostly just a maybe viable alternative to rogue for soloing but is of no value on the actual difficult fights which are all side content. The people jumping the gun here are the ones just assuming it's amazing without actually playing it. It's a gimmicky niche build that will be weak up until certain items and spells are gained, and even then it's far from the best for that one particular niche. I went into the game, built this, tried the Sky Dragon and even some of the Burial Isle fights before the boss. I doubt you could even take the final boss with it as this thing died to an animat on hard difficulty because its reflex saves are so poor. Odd Hermit, You come across as an arrogant jerk. People are playing the build right now. It's no more gimmicky or whatever than any other build. Your pathetic attempts to always be right are tiring. No point in discussing it with you at least - you are merely a troll now. People have already finished the game with this build. Grow up. It is gimmicky because it relies heavily on retaliation which is quite obviously broken levels of overpowered currently. Any build capable of soloing will require some serious cheese though, of course. But gimmicky is still a reasonable description.

I attempted Cipher in the BB, and even just Tenuous Grasp was pretty nuts for soloing. In the long run though Cipher's lack of shadowing beyond got me stuck at key points the rogue was able to bypass using shadowing beyond. Granted, the BB =/= the release game and you have more freedom to out-level content in it. Especially now that they doubled solo XP bonus with the patch, which is pretty major for soloing.

Riposte isn't really necessary I suppose. I haven't tried to perfect a rogue build yet. The main thing is cipher = no shadowing beyond. Shadowing beyond lets you do so many things you can't with other builds. The rogue isn't as good for combat but most of the time you only need to defeat enemies 1 by 1 as solo if you're cheesing well and running away. It's not about high damage it's about being able to damage all targets and outlast. A rogue is perfectly valid for that. Most solo builds will end up cheesing items to do most of the hard work anyway. Summoning stuff, traps, etc. A cipher build isn't likely gonna solo most things without doing the same nonsense as a rogue build, sans rogue's trump card. There are items that allow spell casting as well, I've found one that even casts whisper of treason. +Rogue = higher trap accuracy. +1 Mechanics doesn't seem like a lot in the beginning but it saves a lot of skill points in the end. I think I'd take 4 lore as well to use the +3 stealth and +3 mechanic scrolls as necessary. A cipher could be built similar to the rogue - not dumping perception for one would make it way more survivable than the OP's build. I will try one out, built for tanking rather than dying to reflex targeting abilities

Solo tanky riposte retaliation build using a draining flail and the retal shield > this build. I tried both just now against the pre-final boss stuff. The rogue takes almost no damage to endurance, deals plenty, while the cipher does more damage in the short term but gets fairly quickly wrecked. Rogue also has access to raw damage on retaliation which bypasses any DR. Edit: Rogue BTW has one of the best defensive talents in adept evasion. For solo anyway, with a high deflect build. Converting grazes to misses is AMAZING with high deflect builds. I also use the reckless assault modal as necessary. It's 1.2x melee damage and +8 melee accuracy for only -8 deflection. One of the best modals in the game. It's up all the time and is great with retal.

It's a cheesy retaliation build(retal will likely be nerfed anyway) that's mostly just a maybe viable alternative to rogue for soloing but is of no value on the actual difficult fights which are all side content. The people jumping the gun here are the ones just assuming it's amazing without actually playing it. It's a gimmicky niche build that will be weak up until certain items and spells are gained, and even then it's far from the best for that one particular niche. I went into the game, built this, tried the Sky Dragon and even some of the Burial Isle fights before the boss. I doubt you could even take the final boss with it as this thing died to an animat on hard difficulty because its reflex saves are so poor. Again, You can go with 10 dex an W+S if you want to, it wont lose that much retal focus and have decent deflect and good ranged dps (plate impact is minimal on firearms). You can do bosses like sky dragon with disintegrate or resort to usual petrify cheese with traps as most classes would. The build is extremely flexible and can do melee/ranged/cc/tanking/kiting depending on the situation. It's your own fault that you're not using this flexibility. I tested the build OP put forth, we're talking about different builds at this point. And if I ever decide I want to be masochistic and do triple crown it's just gonna be a rogue similar to how I soloed the beta content. Solo is just so much easier and smoother with a rogue. You get shadowing beyond to nope the funk out of bad situations making it much more forgiving. Well, we can hope that the severity is not so high, because Mind Blades got severely thumped. I don't even bother using it anymore. It barely even tickles anything. RIP Thrice Was She Wronged

Eothas' temple and Readric's are optional. You don't need them to do the MQ. You might want to return to them later at higher level though. You can get a lot of XP w/out any serious combat while solo.

It's a cheesy retaliation build(retal will likely be nerfed anyway) that's mostly just a maybe viable alternative to rogue for soloing but is of no value on the actual difficult fights which are all side content. The people jumping the gun here are the ones just assuming it's amazing without actually playing it. It's a gimmicky niche build that will be weak up until certain items and spells are gained, and even then it's far from the best for that one particular niche. I went into the game, built this, tried the Sky Dragon and even some of the Burial Isle fights before the boss. I doubt you could even take the final boss with it as this thing died to an animat on hard difficulty because its reflex saves are so poor.

You can't afford talents for both melee and ranged with this build. You could use an Arbalest perhaps, rather than Blunderbuss which is much more reliant on penetrating shot. But you're in plate with terrible dex so your output will be extremely poor. I would think taking decent dex + using weapon and shield style is better for this build. The reflex saves are way too poor with the OP's stat spread. There are some really strong 1h weapons including ones that drain endurance on hit. And with that set up I wouldn't use fire godlike, I'd use moon. A bonus is that frees you up to use some stronger unique armor + the retaliation shield. The issue with being a pseudo-tank in a party though is you just take too long to set-up and many fights it's just a tedious process to let your weirdo cipher build do his thing while a well optimized group can be done with most fights before the cipher has finished beefing himself up. And you have to have something beating on the cipher in the first place, which isn't always ideal as it'll never be durable as actual tank build. I'd sooner just send a regular old paladin tank - mine has retaliation shield + a 1h with marking - and let the rest of the party do their thing from a safe distance. And on tough fights - such as dragons - the cipher build is mostly dead weight as I found out immediately.

Why not have them in a better spot so I don't need to remove a feature for visibility of other parts of the UI?

I'm especially curious to know how XP works when you're soloing - I hear there's some sort of soloing XP bonus or something... but wouldn't a solo character already get all that XP meant for a six-character party? Essentially it's +10% for each character slot empty. 5 total = +50%. You gain less total XP from all sources, but it's split between fewer characters, and the net result is +10 to +50% depending on party size.

I think this image is enough to explain the situation and I think it's obvious what needs to be changed here.

High DR doesn't reduce a 100+ fire breath attack enough. I'm sure you can down groups of your average mooks with it but that's not the real test of a build. Anybody can build a cheesy retaliate+drain tank for that purpose. A rogue is better for skipping the things such a build can't handle as well, if the purpose is solo. This build's reflex saves are too damned dire even with high DRs. This build doesn't add much to a party composition that any old cipher can't already.

Game absolutely doesn't need to and shouldn't be balanced around solo players. At its core it's party based and it should be balanced that way, even if that eventually means solo is nigh impossible.