fiddlesticks

Yeah, I meant Envenomed Strike, my bad. Shame it doesn't work with Driving Flight, but I guess that would have been too much to hope for. Incidentally, I found the post where Loren Tyr talks about Vicious Aim affecting some spells: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83926-best-hunting-bow-for-ranger/?p=1836297

Thanks for the detailed breakdown. You've sold me on the Golden Gaze, I didn't know it had that funky interaction with Driving Flight and Marked Prey. Does the same apply for Blunderbusses and Twin Sting as well? Come to think of it, does Ennervating Blows work with Driving Flight? And do Vicious/Swift Aim have any effect on Missile spells? Thanks for the spell selection as well. There are a lot more spells which work with low-Int than I thought. I definitely like the idea of a spellcaster built like a cannon, though I might give him a gun just for novelty's sake. I dig the idea of a Priest who either doesn't believe in his deity or intentionally tries to spite it à la Durance. Though selecting which spells are acceptable and which aren't sounds like a bit of a hassle. Maybe a selfish Priest who only buffs himself while ignoring everyone else?

Once patch 3.04 is officially released, I was planning to do another playthrough with various "gimmicky" builds to see how versatile PoE's classes are. Two ideas I have in mind are a Ranger who solely uses implements (Wands/Rods/Scepters) and a Wizard with the lowest possible Intellect, and I would like to hear some input from the community on them. For the implement Ranger, the biggest question I have is what weapon I should be going for. There are a Rod and a Scepter with a speed bonus, which would seem to synergise nicely with Swift Aim. On the other hand, there's a Scepter which prones on a critical hit, which would probably benefit more from Vicious Aim. However, it comes quite late, and Stunning Shots seems to make it a bit superfluous. I've heard good things about Golden Gaze as well, but a mere 5% chance to proc Expose Vulnerabilities doesn't strike me as worthwhile. I was also unsure about which abilities work with implements. I assume Stunning Shots do, but what about Driving Flight? And is the extra damage from Dangerous Implements worth the Endurance penalty? Lastly, any good roleplaying ideas for the pet? None of them strike me as particularly wizard-like animals. As for the low-Int Wizard, I'm mostly concerned about the spell selection. Almost every spell the Wizard has seems to depend either on AoE size, duration, or both. I suppose there are the various missile spells, but that pigeonholes you into a very specific niche. What are the best Wizard spells that still function decently with minimised Intellect? I appreciate any responses. And if you have any other fun ideas for gimmick builds, feel free to recommend them to me as well.

Paladin is the best class for The Ultimate achievement in my opinion, though I haven't experimented with Chanters all that much. Being able to outlast just about anything is a great asset in a run where you can't mess up at any point. I'm not sure if other classes can do The Ultimate reliably, mostly because Llengrath is an extremely unforgiving fight. Maybe Rangers can pull it off with heavy pet-abuse?

I don't think anyone will deny that Paladins are the most reliable solo class at the moment. Once you reach level 13, you have the strongest defensive setup in the game combined with a really powerful AoE ability. They're definitely the class of choice if you're going for the Ultimate achievement.

That sounds completely broken. I love it.

Kiting them with Persistence is always possible; it'll just take forever against the upscaled version because so many of your attacks will miss outright. There are definitely more fun tactics to try if you have a full team.

That's a considerable increase, thanks.

Does her Accuracy increase as well?

That's a good point. I didn't even consider the power of Major Recovery potions. It's so rare for a solo Paladin to actually have to worry about status effects in the later stages of the game. Now I wonder what other classes could conceivably solo the fight. Overmind said he did it with a Chanter. I'd imagine Ranger would be possible as well. Maybe Fighters?

Nice job, that looks a lot cleaner than my attempt. Would you say this strategy is reliable for Trial of Iron? It seems like a bad roll on the Helpless Beast spell could easily screw you over there.

There's a new hat in the game which gives you immunity to Blind. That seems perfect for this kind of build. Unfortunately, it's a reward for one of the Caed Nua adventures, so there's some randomness involved in getting it.

I assume they did it solely so that with the Deep Faith talent, you end up with a nice +10 Deflection and +20 to all other defences. Looks very neat, doesn't it?

That's pretty clever. The Alpine Dragon strategy in particular is not something I would have thought of. Nice job.

Yes, it's intended. Faith and Conviction scales a bit weirdly now because you only get 4 points of Deflection for 6 points in your favoured dispositions. So both the first and sixth point don't actually add any Deflection. On the bright side, this also means that getting one single point in a disfavoured disposition will not subtract a point of Deflection. Edit: Kaylon was kind enough to list the exact bonuses you get for each disposition point in another topic. All credit goes to him. Lv0 - 4/8 Lv1 - 4/9 (from 4.8/9.6) Lv2 - 5/11 (from 5.6/11.2) Lv3 - 6/12 (from 6.4/12.8 ) Lv4 - 7/14 (from 7.2/14.4) Lv5 - 8/16 (from 8/16) Lv6 - 8/17 (from 8.8/17.6)

I promise this is the last time I'll necro this thread. I just wanted to say that I did another Ultimate run, and this time, the achievement unlocked properly. So it really must have been an issue with my save file. I'm sorry I wasted your time, Aarik. Thank you very much for your patience and the effort you put into helping me.

You wouldn't happen to have recorded some fights? I'd love to see the strategies a Chanter uses for dealing with Alpine or Llengrath.

Thanks a lot for providing some concrete stats, Esajin. When I compare your values to those I observed, it does seem like the bounties are affected by the high-level scaling. The Faithful Soldiers in my game only had 123 Deflection, for instance.

The title pretty much says it all. Are any of the White March bounties affected by the high-level scaling? What about Nalrend the Wise if you scale Act 3?

I had the same issue (reported here). I thought it was due to save file corruption, but if you're experiencing the same problem, perhaps the achievement is bugged after all. Did you scale any of the content? That shouldn't affect anything, but you never know. Also, just out of curiosity, what class did you use?

That's a fair point. There are some fights which I'm not sure you can reliably solo without splitting up the enemies (Crägholdt Bluffs, Mowrghek Ien, some of the White March bounties), but then I suppose you'll have access to the Boots of Speed by that time.

Sounds like a fun build that's pretty powerful from start to finish. Though I'm surprised you don't pick up Long Stride, I found that to be one of the best abilities for solo runs.

It worked when I tested it back in 2.03. It's possible that they changed it, but I can't imagine why. You'll have to kill Helig if you want to resolve the quest. Which you should always do anyway.

Just as the title says. According to its description, the Concelhaut summon you get from his pet skull is supposed to last for 20 seconds, but I've never seen it disappear until combat ends. I don't know if this is a bug or if the description is simply wrong.

No, the Wiki's wrong on that one; Nedyn and Kurren are both still alive in Act 3. They disappear during the riots, but come back later. Kurren even has some unique dialogue if you talk to him after you've been to Twin Elms.