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"All right stop! Collaborate and listen: Chillfog's back with a soothing bliss, um... something pumps the heals of me nicely flows like pure essence daily and nightly. Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know - turn off the lights and I'll glow To the extreme I rock the fight, blow their lights out Light up my stage and freeze d'mobs like a white-out!" - Chillfog himself in his genuine rythmical parlando - "You're as cold as ice you're willing to sacrifice our love you never take advice someday you'll pay the price, I know!" - A Foreigner - =================================== Chillfog =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Pale Elf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Explorer -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 18 CON: 10 DEX: 04 PER: 10 INT: 18 RES: 18 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 5, Lore 8, Mech. 0, Surv. 12 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Secrets of Rime Ancient Memory Beloved Spirits Weapon and Shield Style Bear's Fortitude Veteran's Recovery Superior Deflection Cautious Attack or Wound Binding Abilities Elemental Endurance (a) Second Wind Level 1 Chanter Phrases Come, Sweet Winds of Death Level 2 Chanter Phrases Nothing special Level 3 Chanter Phrases Seven Men The Silver Knights' Shield Level 4 Chanter Phrases Old Siec Level 5 Chanter Phrases Mercy and Kindness Level 1 Chanter Invocations The Thunder Rolled Level 2 Chanter Invocations At the Sound of his Voice Level 3 Chanter Invocations Seven Nights Level 4 Chanter Invocations So Singt Thy Biting Level 5 Chanter Invocations Called to his Bidding --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Sheathed in Autumn (*Durgan stuff) & Scath Gwannek (*Durgan stuff) Weapon Set 2: The White Spire - just for the spells Boots: Boots of Stability Head: White Crest Helm Armor: The White Crest (*Crush Proofed, *+2 MIG) Neck: Rymrgand's Mantle, later St. Borragia's Tears Belt: Belt of Bountiful Healing Rings: Ring of Deflection or Wyrwood Ring, Ring of Protection Hands: Bracers of Spiritual Power or Bracers of Deflection Quick slots: Scroll(s) of Moonwell, healing potions ----------------------------------------------------------------- Alright - so I made this Bilestomper wizard and was really satisfied how this whole "pile up defenses and then nuke yourself" principle worked out. I decided to do one or two other builds that emphasize on that. But none of them should be a wizard - that would be a bit boring. Well, the only other class that comes to my mind when I think about powerful ice spells is the chanter - just because of his "Seven Nights" invocation which is very powerful. "Hm, that's foe only - so no need for high defenses or DR against freezing attacks" I thought at first. But then I thought "maybe I'll stick to that because you might have a ranged wizard or druid in your team who would like to have a tank who doesn't give a shart if he's standing in the midst of a Blizzard or Chillfog". One reason to wear Rymrgand'S Mantle first. So I tried to make a (n)ice themed chanter tank who is very resistant to cold but can do good freeze damage via invocation and also can summon some aid from time to time. What I absolutely didn't want to do this time was using The Dragon Thrashed or the Aefyllath Ues Myth Fyr - because everybody knows those are powerful, right? In order to gain a lot of phrases quickly (to cast Seven Nights) I sticked to lvl 1 phrases only at first. Since I don't like any of the lvl 1 phrases too much except "Come Sweet Winds" I decided to use that phrase most of the time and combine it with one powerful high level phrase in order to accumulate phrases quickly. I will just pretend it's name is "Come, Cold Winds of Death" for this build. Since chanters can't raise their defenses as high as paladins, fighters or monks without losing a phrase slot and also don't have too much endurance or health, I also wanted to make sure he has some good regeneration. And then I played and tried a bit and finally came to the conclusion that I should really focus on that: So I raised MIG (+30% healing done) and INT to the max and I took Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits and added Veteran's Recovery. Then I put on a Belt of Bountiful Healing (+25% healing received) and later also used St. Borragia's Tears (+15% healing done). I also tried to reach 14 survival temporarily in order to get the third rank of the healing multiplier (+60% healing received). Then, when I finally got the phrase "Mercy and Kindness" that does +100% to all healing, I took that, too. So alltogether my healing gets buffed by +230%, or in other words: *3.3. This not only works with my regeneration, but also with Second Wind, potions and scrolls like Moonwell or items like Shod-in-Faith. For my friends around me it's not +230% of course, but still +145% (*2.45) when I heal them - and obviously +100% whith all other heals from other sources. This is a really serious buff. It also works on draining from weapons or the draining phrase "Old Siec" and all other healing effects. To put it in numbers: My regeneration from Veteran's Recovery alone says is about ~135 points every 3 seconds at lvl 16 if I'm not mistaken! I didn't do excessive tests to verify the numbers but I have over 200 endurance and it jumps from nearly KO to nearly full after 3 secs. If that's not enough I can cast a scroll of Moonwell that does ridicilous amounts of healing over a long time now. Or I sip a potion of regeneration. And Moonwell does not only work for me of course but for everybody around me. Same goes for Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits. With my good deflection I didn't even wear Shod-in-Faith because it would'nt trigger often (there's a more offensive "offtank" variant for that at the end of this build). With Brisk Recitation I can put together the following chant: 1*Healing + 5*Come Sweet Winds - then repeat Phrases build up very fast after the initial healing phrase. Every 2 seconds you can 1 phrase. It also makes Sweet Winds of Death more deadly because it stacks with itself. Stacking about 10 raw DoT every 2 seconds is pretty nasty. Also great for rangers' pets and Combusting Wounds. This results in a cycle where I can sing Come Sweet Winds five times in a row in order to build up phrases for Seven Nights and at the same time have uninterrupted +100% healing. Once I hit 5 phrases on the counter I walk to the next tough enemy and try to hit him with three bolts of ice while I also try to hit as many of his friends with the other bolts as possible. Normally you manage to take this one and some more enemies out - also because they got weakened by the Sweet Cold Winds before. At level 16 I normally do about 600 to 800 damage with one cast of this against 5 to 10 enemies with DR 10 to 15. I soon found out that this guy is nearly unkillable as long as he's not petrified and as long as his regeneration still works. But health really is an issue because chanters don't have a lot of it. Not like barbs or monks. Although his defenses and DR are good - in tough encouters like bounties it was not his endurance that caused problems - but his health. So for the first time since ages I tried Field Triage and Wound Binding again. Turns out that all the healing mods also work with those. Field Triage heals 66% of my health now instead of 20% - and Wound Binding gives me 132% instead of 40%. So it basically overheals me. That's ok because it's a healing over time and while it works you might get hit again. I finally chose Wound Binding and skipped Field Triage - but know that with this build both might be worth it. You will walk out of the toughtest fights with 100% endurance AND health. So, it is a very sturdy tank now who also heals his friends on the fly and does good damage with the Sweet Cold Winds plus Seven Nights. Secrets of Rime pays off here. Not only does it raise your freeze DR by 5 - 20% more of the huge damage Seven Nights deals is also not bad. But... "Mercy and Kindness" comes really late. What to do in the meantime? Well, that's the weak spot of this build: it is a quite normal chanter until you get Seven Nights and later on that special healing buff. Use Come Sweet Winds to accumulate phrases, tank and then use your common invocations like summons and so on. But even without those high level things his Ancient Memory heals your party and the Sweet Winds combine raw damage with fast phrase buildup. And you can hit him all the time with frost spells because his freeze DR is 36 (41 with Wyrwood Ring) - even 46 (49 Wyrw.) with the lvl-3-phrase "Seven Men" - or 51 (56 Wyrw.) with a potion of Bulwark. And what he also can do is use those freeze spells from his items. Getting the Winter Shield from Azurro can be difficult, but it's relatively easy to get the White Spire from Dunstan at Crucible Keep. Together you will have 6 ice good spells that also work with Secrets of Rime. I also decided to wear the White Crest armor. It's not strictly ice themed but fits beautifully. And look how aweseom it looks with the White Spire. In fact this is the only reason I added another variant to this build. The variant of the tank is a more offensive melee build who mainly uses the White Spire as weapon instead of weapon & shield: =================================== The Last Unicorn - imagine a fancy fairytale about a unicorn that became human and so on... =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Pale Elf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Explorer -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 18 CON: 10 DEX: 14 PER: 10 INT: 18 RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 5, Lore 8, Mech. 0, Surv. 12 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Secrets of Rime Ancient Memory Beloved Spirits Two Handed Style Veteran's Recovery Weapon Focus Adventurer Wound Binding Savage Attack Abilities Elemental Endurance (a) Second Wind Chants and Invoc.: look down below. --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: The White Spire Weapon Set 2: some good Pollaxe Boots: Shod-in-Faith Head: White Crest Helm Armor: The White Crest Neck: Rymrgand's Mantle, later St. Borragia's Tears Belt: Belt of Bountiful Healing Rings: Ring of Deflection or Wyrwood Ring, Ring of Protection Hands: Gauntlets of Swift Action Quick slots: Scroll(s) of Moonwell, healing potions ----------------------------------------------------------------- Instead of Seven Nights all the time I used more summons and "The Champion braved" as invocations as well als Revival and other supportive invocations. You get pretty fast with that champion invocation - not to 0 recovery, but fast enough to take out swarming enemies quickly while also healing everybody around you with Shod-in-Faith like crazy. The healing with those boots, combined with Ancient Memory times 3.3 is insane. Your whole party becomes so much sturdier just because of this guy. I also used the Will'o Whisps because of the "Unicorn" theme - turns out they are not too bad in the mid game. This variant is all about the looks to be honest.

Somewhere in Old Vailia, 15-year-old Dervide Riso gave his crush, Centa Enricis a carved rod with which she was supposed to scratch her back. A bully, Marco Zaurippi, took the rod and threw it onto a frozen river. While trying to retrieve it, Dervide fell through the thin ice and with him his beloved pet bear Frogfish. They were pulled away by the current. Dervide suddenly found himself in the local library and discovered his ability to "jump" from one place to another. Amazed with his new ability, he left his permanently boozed father and leaped away from home. Frogfish simply drowned that day but was too dumb to notice, so he followed Dervide as a ghooohoohoost. Booo! Eight years later, an adult Dervide lived lavishly on stolen money and fed his Frogfish imaginary golden currywurst nearly every day. One other day, he was ambushed in his home by Lolrand Capon, a member of the Goldpact Knight Paladins, who was hired to tracking down Dervide because of his habit to steal everything that's not nailed down. But Dervide escaped with some nice evasive leaps. Feeling that he needed to leave the hot zone, he returned to Old Vailia, seeking his old crush Centa. Unfotunately she turned out to be ugly like an Ogre Matron who regularly ate directly from the deep fat fryer without cutlery. When Marco attacked him again, Dervide leaped right behind him and hit him with a newly carved rod. A Blast got released and Marcos head exploded! Yikes! Dervide quickly cleaned up the mess and from that point on decided to turn off the gib option in his life menu. He then returned to Centa. After talking, they shared a kiss - brrrr - and "let the rod have a blast". Yikes again! Dervide then invited her on a trip to the Dyrwood because some wacko Rodriguez lord made a call for settlers. Dervide and Centa finally arrived in the Dyrwood by ship. But when they got on shore, Centa tripped over her greasy shoelaces and fell off the gangway and into the Dyrwooden mud. One half-unwitting leap later Dervide found himself amongst some people with a caravan and was a bachelor again. During some neat adventures that followed and which involved going on the nerves of some fake gods, killing a guy with two inbecile living statues with big noses, opening up an ancient forge and killing sevel dragons with magnificent Blasts from his rod he became the Lord of Caed Nua by killing some presumptuous smug. Lots of killing lately, really. Then onother imbecile statue emerged... Yikes! "See you later Watershaper far'well-ahoy fishy boy. I'll have to borrow your back scraper 'cause it will be my new toy." - Dervide Riso while stealing Tekehu's rod - =================================== The Deep Leap =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 1.2 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: untested -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Ghost Heart/Trickster -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wood Elf (alternative: whatever) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vailia - Dissident -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 15 CON: 03 DEX: 19 PER: 19 INT: 19 RES: 03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities | Skills | Proficiencies (a=automatic) 01. Marked Prey + Crippling Strike + Arkemy'r Dazzling Lights (a) | Rod, Arbalest 02. Escape | +1 Arcana (-> 1), +1 Diplomacy (-> 2) 03. Wounding Shot | +1 Arcana (-> 2), +1 Streetwise (-> 2) 04. Marksman + Dirty Fighting + Mirrored Image (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 3), +1 Bluff (-> 3) | Scepter 05. Blinding Strike | +1 Arcana (-> 4), +1 Diplomacy (-> 3) 06. Two-Handed Style | +1 Arcana (-> 5), +1 Streetwise (-> 3) 07. Evasive Roll + Arterial Strike + Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 6), +1 Bluff (-> 4) 08. Gouging Strike | +1 Arcana (-> 7), +1 Diplomacy (-> 4) | Pistol 09. Marked for the Hunt | +1 Arcana (-> 8 ), +1 Streetwise (-> 4) 10. Concussive Shot + Withering Strike + Llengrath's Displaced Image (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 9), +1 Bluff (-> 5) 11. Protective Companion | +1 Arcana (-> 10), +1 Diplomacy (-> 5) 12. Stalker's Link | +1 Arcana (-> 11), +1 Streetwise (-> 5) | Crossbow 13. Driving Flight + Deep Wounds + Confusion (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 12), +1 Bluff (-> 6) 14. Accurate Wounding Shot | +1 Arcana (-> 13), +1 Diplomacy (-> 6) 15. Finishing Blow | +1 Mechanics (-> 2), +1 Streetwise (-> 6) 16. Concussive Tranquilizer + Toxic Strike + Arkemy'r Wondrous Torment (a) | +1 Mechanics (-> 3), +1 Bluff (-> 7) | Arquebus 17. Survival of the Fittest | +1 Mechanics (-> 4), +1 Diplomacy (-> 7) 18. Devastating Blow | +1 Mechanics (-> 5), +1 Streetwise (-> 7) 19. Accurate Empower + Deathblows + Gaze of the Andragan (a)| +1 Mechanics (-> 6), +1 Bluff (-> 8 ) 20. Lasting Empower | +1 Mechanics (-> 7), +1 Diplomacy (-> 8 ) | Wand --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Watershaper's Focus (! - +Ondra's Wrath, +Legendary) Weapon Set 2: Spearcaster (+Pinning, +Missile upgrade) Head: Acina's Tricorn (r - for ranged ACC - also works with certain spells) Back: Magnificent Escape Cape Neck: Charm of Bones (for more Blast AoE and longer DoTs) Armor: Aloth's Leather Armor (+Superb, +Structurally Stable, Known Causality - for the Blast AoE) Waist: Spellkeeper (for the fun) Hands: Burglar's Gloves / Aegor's Swift Touch Rings: Ring of Overseeing (for the Blast AoE), Ring of the Marksman Boots: Boots of Speed Pet: Loki (because it's a Trickster and Loki is the trickster-god And because of Blast's AoE of course) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! The Dead Leap? What's that? It the combination of Deep Wounds with DoT afflictions, Blast with several jumps and leaping around to and fro on the battlefield. What's interesting about this build? It's the Watershaper's Focus! Believe it or not, but when you combine the Focus' inherent jump with Driving Flight and Ondra's Wrath (enchantment of the Focus) you can reliably produce a chain reaction of multiple Blasts jumping around and also multiple crushing waves rolling around so that everything is dead that can't swim. Only thing is: you want to have the enemies in one spot to make this happen - because recovery is so sluggish you can only afford to fire twice: out of stealth and then immediately after (because stealth reduces recovery by 85%). But honestly: two is all you need... So if there's let's say 5 enemies in a tight spot and I shoot them with Watershaper's Focus + Driving Flight, I theoretically generate 3*5 = 15 hits with one shot. Each hit would have a 15% chance to trigger Ondra's Wrath. This would mean a nearly certain proc chance of over 90%. Something weird is going on... But that's not all. Something else is going on. I suspect that the Wrath's crushing attacks themselves jump, too. Because I generate not 15 or even 30, but hundrets of hits with this setup as long as there are enough enemies. Ondra's Wrath usually triggers multiple times as long as there are more than three enemies. Combined with Deep Wounds and for example Arterial Strike I also add so much raw DoT that most mobs just explode in a wave of crushing water *booooom*. Even if some survive they get felled rather quickly by Deep Wounds + Arterial Strike (and/or Toxic Strike and/or Gouging Strike). If you manage to gather the enemy in one spot, encounter is over before it even starts most of the time. Single enemies are no problem as well: I shoot them with Spearcaster + Arterial Strike and leap here and there to make them follow me. They die like with any other rogue. Sneaky crowd control: Who's there? Now that we know that we have to cramp as many enemies as we can into a tight spot, how can we do that? Sparkcrackers? Meh... But doesn't Arkemy'r Dazzling Lighs work the same way? It does! That's actuall my no. 1 reason for picking Trickster And if you don't hit an enemy with it you even stay stealthed. That's important because the recovery bonus of stealth (85%) lets you fine two shots in very quick succession if you start shooting from stealth. So the huge recovery malus of Blast is not noticeable between the first two shots. But two shots of this caliber should be enough for most enemy groups, shouldn't it? It should. Even high level enemies with a lot of health (like Rathuns for example) nearly aloways get one- or two-shotted as long as you can get them to gather in one place. Additional stuff Besides the powerful AoE behavior I also found out that gaze spells like Gaze of the Andragan work with Driving Flight (=two chances to paralyze) and also work with the hat's accuracy bonus. Neat... The cons What are the weaknesses? Obviously enemy gunmen. Since this build is extremely squishy as long as you didn't cast Mirrored Image he can get screwed by ranged enemies pretty quickly. But to be honest I like the "all or nothing" approach. Plays like... This build basically plays like an Assassin without being one. The difference is that you assassinate the whole encounter if everything works smoothly, not only one single enemy. But what about... Now you might think: would a pure Ranger with Twinned Shot be even more devastating? I also thought about that and tested it - but funnily enough a pure Ranger with Twinned Shots doesn't perform half as good as the Scout. I guess it is because of Deep Wounds, Sneak Attack and all the DoTs you do apply. But to be honest I don't really know why the scout performs so much better. I only know that the Scout one-shots nearly every cramped group while a Ranger doesn't - even though the Ranger can generate six Blasts with one shot. If somebody wants to find out what really-really happens: be my guest! Variants (after a nerf...?) Another nice variant is to pick Sharpshooter/Street Fighter instead and use Fire in the Hole and Hand Mortar. The dps is better after the initial attacks because rod's Blast causes 50% recovery penalty. Vids I have huge problems recording the game atm. I get massive flickering blue bars when trying to capture a vid directy from the graphics card. I blame my drivers. What works is Peek (makes short animated GIFs). And if I'm honest I like those even more than Youtube vids for some unknown reason. Maybe because they remind me of Monkey Island? Enjoy (open tags to load animated gif)! --------------------------------------------------------------- Luring enemies to a spot with Arkemy'r Dazzling Lights: --------------------------------------------------------------- One-shot of a group of Rotghasts: --------------------------------------------------------------- Attacking a group of Rathun Raiders out of stealth with Empower: --------------------------------------------------------------- Attacking a group of Rathun Raiders from stealth without Empower: --------------------------------------------------------------- With Empower - without Empower - makes no difference, hehe. Edit: had to rewrite some text because of major forum formatting screwup that put links everywhere. Yikes!

The "Stop-N-Go" or "The Jumping Fortress"* (Holy Slayer) [*Thanks to Dr <3 for this more evocative name.] Introduction: The idea behind this build is take advantage of several defense-boosting abilities that require you stand still (the large shield modal, Bronlar's Phalanx, Stoic Steel), combined with the fact that you count as "standing still" when you use Escape to teleport somewhere. In practice, this build has two modes. In the first mode we rush into the middle of your enemies with two weapons or a two-handed weapon and get ourself Flanked and Bloodied as quickly as possible. In the second "Stop-N-Go" mode, we shift to a heavy shield/weapon set-up, activate our stand-still abilities and spam Sworn Rival. This allows us to comfortably sit in the Bloodied/Near Death zone while enjoying a number of abilities that are conditional on being low health. And when we need to re-position to get flanked again, or need to move to take out potential threats, we use Escape to teleport there. In the latter mode, we're extremely tanky -- we have a high deflection, substantial damage reduction (especially against ranged and reflex-based attacks), multiple sources of regeneration, and a 20+ armor rating -- and we can pull out Lay on Hands in emergencies. And we also have an impressive array of offensive boosts that allows us to quickly obliterate targets around us. Difficulty: Solo PotD v.2.1 (with Berth's Blessing and level scaling) I completed my Solo PotD run using Berath's Blessings and level scaling. Berath's Blessings aren't necessary, but the 50k bonus blessing is recommended, as it will help you get some key equipment much sooner.Classes: Holy Slayer (Streetfighter Rogue/Goldpact Paladin) Rogue gives us a number of great offensive boosts (e.g., Deathblows) and Escape, which is crucial for this build. The Streetfighter specialty adds some fantastic offensive boosts while Bloodied and/or Flanked, which is most of the time. Paladin gives us a number of abilities that allow us to be very tanky, including Stoic Steel, one of the best "stand still" abilities. The Goldpact specialty allows our Sworn Rival ability to provide a temporary stacking armor boost whose cost is refunded when the target dies. And since we kill things very quickly, we can keep that armor bonus up pretty much all of the time. Race: Human The Human bonuses to accuracy and damage when Bloodied are great for this build, since it's built around being Bloodied or Near Death.Background: The White that Wends (Hunter, or anything else you like) The White that Wends gives a bonus for our most important stat, Perception. There are a number of reasonable choices for background, but Hunter probably provides the most generally useful skill bumps (Mechanics).Stats: Might: Very High Constitution: High Dexterity: Very High Perception: Max Intellect: Min Resolve: Medium Perception is our most important stat: since we'll frequently be seeing the massive Streetfighter bonus to critical damage kick in, we'll want to crit as much as possible. And we'll generally have a large shield accuracy penalty to overcome. Dexterity is our second most important stat; it's always nice to be able to do more, and do it quicker. Boosts to Perception, Dexterity and Might are DPS increases that are multiplicative with respect to each other, so in order to be a DPS machine we want to boost all three. Might is our third most important stat. It's nice -- it boosts our damage and our healing abilities. But the damage bonuses from the Rogue and Streetfighter abilities will quickly dwarf any bonuses Might provides, making this a lower priority than Perception and Dexterity. We want a reasonable amount of Constitution, to allow us to comfortabley stay Bloodied or Near Death most of the time. But this build gets so tanky that after the first third of the game, that a small boost to Constitution suffices. We want our Resolve to be flat. We don't want it to be too high, because we still want to be hit in our warm-up mode, and we don't want it to be too low, because we don't want to be hit in our stop-n-go mode. Intellect is the least important stat, since little hangs on it -- in a solo run we don't care about how big our aura is, we don't have any other interesting AoE abilities, and the only class ability with a duration we care about is Lay on Hands -- and that's partially a good thing, since it gives us more fine-grained control of how much health we have, making it easier to say in the Bloodied zone. For reference, in my run my starting stats were M16, C13, D20, P21, I10, R10. In hindsight this was a mistake -- M21, C13, D20, P21, I5, R10 would have been better. Skills: For the early game, this can be whatever makes things easiest -- I'd recommend starting with a point or two in Explosive and Arcana to provides some AoE options on the first island, and then some points in Stealth and Mechanics. After that you can retrain to take whatever you like. In my run I invested heavily in Explosives, but after level 10 I never bothered using them -- it was easier to just kill things the old fashioned way. Class Abilities: (Highly recommended abilities underlined.) Escape and Lay on Hands (You won't use Lay on Hands in 95% of your fights. But it's nice to have for the toughest fights.) Deep Faith Retribution Zealous Aura and Weapon and Shield Dirty Fighting Any (Crippling Strike, Flames of Devotion, Divine Purpose and Inspired Defenses are all reasonable choices.) Sworn Rival and Riposte Any (Snake's Reflexes, Bull's Will, Bear's Fortitude, and any leftover options from above are all reasonable choices.) Any (Ditto) Exalted Endurance and Persistent Distraction (Exalted Endurance is a little funny -- in a lot of fights you'll never even use it. But it's great in tougher fights, since you can turn it on and off as needed to keep you comfortably in the Bloodied zone.) Any (Any of the leftovers from above or Adept Evasion are decent choices) Any (Ditto) Any (Any of the leftovers from above or Uncanny Luck are decent choices) and Deep Wounds Any Any Improved Critical + Slippery Mind Any Any Stoic Steel and Deathblows Any Gear: (Highly recommended gear is underlined.) Armor: Bloody Links (early), Reckless Brigadine (later). You'll also want a set of legendary plate armor for fights against enemies with strong piercing or corrode attacks. Shield: Bronlar's Phalanx Weapons: ​(Initial Mode): Any nice 2-hander or pair of weapons will do nicely.A couple nice 2-handed choices: Lance of Midwood Stag (you can start wailing away, and when you get Blooded Woodskin kicks in and you can shift to Stop-N-Go mode, keeping the Woodskin armor boost for a while); Voidwheel (the self-damaging aspect of this sword is actually a perk, since it helps you become Bloodied more quickly); Wahai Poraga (you're often swarmed with enemies, so hitting several of them at a time is nice). If you go with two weapons, I'd recommend Rust's Poignard (with persistent distraction, enemies are usually flanked and you'll get the flanking bonuses) and Stalker's Patience (ditto). (Stop-N-Go mode): Kapana Taga (The Lone Champion enchantment gives you a stacking +4 deflection and +1 armor bonus whenever there are no nearby allies (i.e., always); and the Champion's Relic enchantment increases damage with # of people engaged and increases engagement limit, which is great when you're used to being swarmed.) You'll also want to have the Animancer's Energy Blade as a back-up weapon against high AR targets (which is about half of the fights in the BoW DLC). Neck: Protective Eothasian Charm (early): +1 to most important stat (perception) and hefty damage reduction and healing when Near Death? Perfect fit for this build. It's a decent choice for the entire game, or you can replace it with something like Bone Setter's Torc (+ crit chance and + healing for emergencies are both nice) or Claim and Refusal. Belt: The Undying Burden Rings: The Ring of Mule's Wit is fantastic with this build -- it drops our Int to 1, but we won't notice, and it gives us resistance to all Mind Afflictions(!). The Entonia Signet Ring and Ring of the Solitary Wanderer are also nice options. Hands: Firethrower's Gloves, Gatecrashers, Woedica's Strangling Grasp are all decent. Cloak: The Cloak of the Falling Star is great for solo play, and thus great for this build. (Violet Redemption would be perfect for this build, fitting nicely with the stand-still effects theme. Sadly, we can't get it until the very end of the game. ) Head: The Cap of the Laughingstock looks silly, but it's amazing for solo martial builds, effectively increasing our accuracy by +10. And since this build wants to get as many criticals as possible, to take advantage of the Streetfighter bonuses, it's especially good for this build. (It does make our enemies immune to resolve afflictions, but we don't care about that.) Feet: The Rakhan Field Boots are a nice choice, as they effectively give you an additional 1/encounter teleportation option, which also inflicts a full attack on anyone in the way. The Boots of the Stone and Footprints of Ahu Taka are also decent. Pet: Jules (+perception, and bonus to healing is nice for the toughest fights) and Nalvi (+resolve and reduced recovery) are nice options after you get to Neketaka. Avoid pets that give you healing after killing things, though, since you don't want them to force you out of the Bloodied zone! PROs of this build: It's great against single tanky enemies, since it can last forever and wear them down. Once you get the key equipment and your level 10 class abilities, the build really starts to take off, so we have a fun build to play for most of the game. It's really, really tough -- once everything comes together, we can beat every fight on upscaled PotD without having to pull mobs or use consumables. CONs of this build: Certain kinds of enemies can be a pain (e.g., spellcasters); in these cases we'll want to use Escape to teleport next to the most threatening opponents and take them down quickly. Since you lack AoE attacks, swarms can take a while to get through. You can compensate by investing in Explosives or Arcana, but I usually just hacked my way through them. You won't get everything online until fairly late (level 19). But most pieces of the build will be in place (and the build is fun to play) long before then.

"Lash! A-ah Savior of the Universe Lash! A-ah He save everyone of us Lash! A-ah He's a miracle Lash! A-ah King of the impossible" - The Queen that was - <maybe I will insert backstory here... > =================================== Monksterlasher =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Monk -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Fire Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 19 CON: 18 DEX: 04 PER: 12 INT: 17 (maybe lower when not taking Veteran's Recovery, put it into PER then) RES: 08 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 6, Lore 2, Mech. 0, Surv. 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Spirit of Decay Scion of Flame Heart of the Storm Lightning Strikes Savage Attack Two Weapon Style Apprentice's Sneak Attack or Veteran's Recovery (when solo or without healer) Weapon Focus Ruffian Abilities Turning Wheel Swift Strikes Torment's Reach Long Stride Crucible of Suffering Duality of Mortal Presence Iron Wheel Enervating Blows (or Flagellant's Path when solo) Force of Anguish (see above) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Bittercut (!) (*durgan refined, *burning lash, *superb, *slaying(whatever non-kith)) + duplicated Bittercut (!) (*shocking lash, slaying(whatever else)) (you could also use Bittercut + any other sabre or Bittercut + Azureth's Stiletto or Bleak Fang if you don't want to duplicate Bittercut) Weapon Set 2: Azureith's Stiletto ® (=Jolting Touch on crit 1/enc) + Irfyn Brngar's Solace (r - switch to this when stun or prone occurs) Boots: Animancer's Boots ® (3*Jolting Touch/rest) or Shod-in-Faith (against hard hitting enemies) Head: nothing (Godlike) Armor: Blaidh Golan (r - after getting Iron Wheel) or heavy armor like He Carries Many Scars (great when health is low), even Vengiatta Rugia works ok, same with Wayfarer's Hide. Neck: Fulvano's Amulet ® Belt: Broad Belt of Power Rings: Ring of Protection, Iron Circle (r - lots on CON as well as increased DR when endurance is low) Hands: Blood Testament (!) Quick slots: Potions of Spirit Shield®, Potions of Major Regeneration, Potions of Flame Shield(!), Scrolls of Jolting Touch(!) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hey! The Monksterlasher completely evolves around amassing and exploiting lashes using weapon attacks with Bittercut as well as burning retaliations like Flame shield and Battle Forged. I took a monk to do this because of several good reasons: 1. Monks can have very high endurance and health. If you want do use Battle Forged, you want to have those high. If you don't, you will have to rest a lot. 2. Monks can have three lashes besides weapon enchantments: Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes and also a raw lash from Blood Testment Gloves (monk-only gloves). And of course, they can enchant their weapons with a lash, too. 3. Monk's Turning Wheel and also Blood Testment (not Lightning Strikes) work with retaliation! Not only the normal one, but also Battle Forged as well as Flame Shield. That means that with 10 wounds your Battle Forged retaliation will have additional +50% burn damage and + 20% raw damage lashes. Since Battle Forged starts pretty whimpy but gets very powerful at higher levels (scaling) this leads to very high damage via burning retaliaion. Flame Shields retaliation (+50%/+20%) adds to this if you drink a potion 4. Battle Forged + Turning Wheel profit from Scion of Flame. So you will get initial 120% burn damage. This is used to calculate the lash damage of Turning Wheel and Blood Testament. So they get increased, too. ON top of that Turning Wheels' lash damage also gets pimped by 20%. So alltogether you will get this: 120% burn damage + 60% (72%) burning lash + 20% (24%) raw lash (if you calculate the lashes with a base damage of 120% it's 72/24 instead of 60/20 - how you look at it). 5. Turning Wheel and Blood Testment work with Jolting Touch! It's amazing: you hit three enemies with high shock damage and do +50% burning +20% raw lash on top. It makes Jolting Touch so good. Also works with Scion of Flame so that Turning Wheel's damage is 60%. Add Heart of the Storm and not only your Lightning Strikes will do 30% lashes instead of 25%, but also Jolting Touch's damage will be boosted. This has the same effect as with Scion of Flame + Battle Forged + Turning Wheel. Only now it's Heart of the Storm + Jolting Touch + Scion of Flame + Turning Wheel That's the reason why I chose Azureith's Stiletto for my second weapon slot: It procs Jolting Touch on a crit. I also wanted to have 2 Lore of the scrolls. It's a good way to do some AoE damage without using wounds and stay at 10 wounds for maximum lash damage. 6. Torment's Reach adds a 50% crushing lash to the initial target. It's another lash and just awesome. Besides that it's AoE is superbig with high INT and adds a lot of AoE damage. 7. Monks can have unlimited Full Attacks as long as they have wounds. So a dual wielding setup doesn't suffer from low DEX and armor very much because... Full Attacks, you know. This allowed my to dump DEX altogether. I could then maximize MIG, CON and INT. MIG for myed self healing and damage, CON because it has a great effect on monks because of their heigh base end and health. I need a lot of endurance an health if I want to make Battle Forge worthwhile and not rest all the time. And INT to maximize the durations of self heling, buffs and Torment's Reach's AoE cone. 8. Monks can reach crazy high DR which can balance out the lower deflection I have with two sabres and somewhat low RES. But since I want to have a high wound counter and want to receive damage, Iron Wheel is pretty nice to add a lot of DR while getting hit so that only MIN damage comes through. Those are the reason why I combine the concept of lashes with a monk and not a... paladin or whatever. So why Bittercut? Because it has two damage types and because Bittercut's base damage gets buffed by Spirit of Decay. That's because it has the damage type corrode/slash (the order is important). In this case Spirit of Decay works as an +20% addition to base damage, EVEN if slash damage and not corrode damage is applied. I don't know why (I think the explanation lies somewhere in the structure of the code) but it's like that. So on top of things like high MIG, Savage Attack and whatever boosts your weapon damage, Spirit of Decay also adds +20% to that. Besides Stormcaller and the summoned weapons Firebrand, Cadebald's Blackbow and Klakoth's Minor Blights it's the only weapon that does this and is suitable for a dual wielding monk at the same time. Weapons like Durance's Staff don't work like this because they have crush/burn (like I said: the order matters). This makes Spirit of Decay a much better option than Savage Attacks by the way. So that's the reason I took Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay AND Heart of the Storm. It sounds like a waste of talent points, but after testing this build a lot I don't have the feeling it is. I will just quickly list those talents and what they can influence on this build: a) Scion of Flame: - Battle Forged: +20% burn damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes) - Flame Shield: +20% burn damage (see above) - Turning Wheel: +60% lash instead of +50% - Burning Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash instead of +25% - Chanter's Burning Lash (if in party): +30% instead of +25% b) Heart of the Storm: - Jolting Touch: +20% shock damage (which also influences the damage of all attached lashes) - Lightning Strikes: +30% shock damage instead of +25% - Shocking Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): +30% lash damage instead of 25% c) Spirit of Decay: - Bittercut: +20% corrode/slash damage (which also... and so on) - Corrosive Lash (Bittercut, if chosen): 30% lash instead of 25% So - because of this it doesn't really matter which lash you put on Bittercut. Shocking, burning or corrosive work equally well. If you have a Stormcaller guy in the party you might want to choose shocking lashes maybe. If you like burning lashes more go for that. If you want to hurt every enemy no matter what immunities you probably go for one burning and one shocking lash (so you have corrosive/slash + burning lash + shocking lash damage with one weapon setup). Let's see what additional damage and lashes we have when we use Torment's Reach: Two times weapon attack (Full Attack)... + 20% from Spirit of Decay + 20% from Savage Attack + 33% from 21 MIG + 45% from the "Superb" enchantment + eventually +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack (Enervating Blows help) + eventually +50% from crit this combined damage gets used when calculated: + 60% burnig lash from Turning Wheel + 50% crushing lash from Torment's Reach + 30% shocking lash from Lightning Strikes + 30% (shocking/burning/corrosive) lash from enchantment you put on the weapon + 20% raw lash from Blood Testament + eventually +30% burning lash from chanter this results in +118% weapon damage +220% lash damage against 0 DR. You could also use Vulnerable Attack to lower enemies' DR - it doesn't slow you down that much because of the Full Attacks (I did it first but later retrained - so it's not in the build now). Plus you hit a lot of enemies with Torment's Reach AoE. But you also lower your wound counter - so every hit will be weaker than the first if you don't get wounds while attacking. Luckily, whe have tons of endurance and health because of the Iron Cirlce and our base CON. So we can affort to get hit a bit. With Flame Shield we can do the following additional damage while getting hit: + 20% from Scion of Flame + 33% from MIG + 20% from Savage Attack + 15% from Apprentice Sneak Attack (eventually) + 50% from crit (eventually) this combine gets used when calculated: + 60% burnimg lash from Turning Wheel + 20% raw lash from Blood Testment + 30% burning lash from chanter's chant (eventually) Once we hit 50% endurance, Battle Forged kicks in which does the same as Flame Shield (they don't suppress each other) but with much higher base damage at higher levels. This is extremely powerful once you get pommeled so often that you might have to fear that you're getting knocked out. Suddenly you retaliate with more than 100 burn/raw damage with normal ret. hits and a lot more with crits. On top of that comes Flame Shield which is basically half that much damage. This melts foes who insist to hit you - while you use Torment's Reach or Jolting Touch to kill them even more quickly. As a side effect, your DR gets raised by 4, adds to the Iron Wheel (+10) and also to your armor. Your armor value might also be strengthened by Iron Circle. So, that's +14 to your armor, not bad. Enervating Blows also work with all of this - so a lot of foes will be weakened either by your weapon attacks or the retaliations which makes it easier for Apprentice's Sneak Attack to kick in and also makes it easier to send foes prone with Force of Anguish. I do this when I have the feeling that I get beaten too much. All this results in pretty insane damage while you can tank a lot of enemies because of high endurance, DR and great healing mods. I use Fulvano's Amulet with +25% and a +60% healing bonus from camping. This is great when you have any char in your party who heals. Down below I say something about self heals when you want to solo (or don't have healers). But a potion of Major Regeneration always works wonders with this healing mods. If you want to lob Fireballs or other elemental AoE spells onto your Monksterlasher you can do that, too: he has additional +4 DR against burn, shock and corrode damage because of the elemental talents. So it would be +14 or even +18 DR against such spells. Interrupts can be a problem if you send this guy first. So either you have a priest with you or you use potions of Spirit Shield. As i said: For healing I use my party members or potions. In a party that's totally cool. This build is also suitable for soloing. But you might want to get Veteran's Recovery instead of Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Flagellant's Path instead of Envenomed Strike or Force of Anguish (great for escaping when you're surrounded completely and your endurance drops too fast). Also, use an item which raises Concentration and also consider to use Shod-in-Faith. This way you will be near unkillable as long as your self heals work and you have health left. After that Battle Forged can help to clear up the rest of the mob. Also, more Lore is useful when you're solo. Skip Athletics and put more points into Lore when you're solo. He Carries Many Scars's regeneration has no time limit by the way and also adds a lot of DR when your health is low - ao maybe this is a good armor when you're solo. Another thing I discovered lately and which made me choose Force of Anguish: when you use Azureith's Stiletto and use it for Force of Anguish and it crits while doing that... all three enemies who get hit by Jolting Touch also go prone! Hilarious! I have no idea why and it's certainly a bug - but a nice one. OK, have fun. I liked this build a lot. It's tanky and does great dps at the same time, even when disabled (switch to shield setup then!). tl;dr: So the essence of this build is that Battle Forged, Flame Shield and Jolting Touch and of course Torment's Reach work with Turning Wheel and Blood Testament gloves, which makes it worthwhile to take three of the four elemental booster talents if you also use Bittercut as main weapon(s) Edit (24.06.2016): Corrected a thing about Vulnerable Attack - it was still in the text despite the fact that I retrained and skipped it. Thanks to sibakroum for pointing this out. Edit (18.09.2016): I wrote Envenomed Strike instead of Enervating Blows a few times - sorry for that, I corrected it.

I posted this in another thread, but I would like to bring it up for discussion separately. One barbarian that I have had a lot of fun with for PotD is the stun-lock or excessive status effect barbarian. The idea is to have the barbarian use carnage to pile as many on-hit/crit status effects as possible on the enemy - stun and disorienting being the main ones, but also dazed - as well as using passive auras and effects from being hit, such as sickened, terrified and stuck. Attributes: - 10/8/16/18/18/8, or something thereabouts. We want accurate and fast carnage, over as large of an area as possible to proc those crits to shut the enemy down. Race: - Hearth Orlan, to get more crits. Could also bump perception further. Key abilities: - Threatening presence - Brute force (more crits if you target the lower defense) - Barbaric retaliation (does this proc dazed, stun and disorienting?) - Frenzy Talents: - Accurate carnage - Weapon focus (peasant or soldier, depending on weapon choice) - Two weapon style - Interruption (potentially) - Apprentice's sneak attack (what with stun allowing it) Weapons: - Here there is a choice. There are two combinations of weapons that will give you disorienting (-5 to all defenses), and stunning. Either spears (Cladhalíath and Vile Loners Lance), or warhammers (Godansthunyr and Strike Hard). - Each has its benefits - speed and two different damage types for the warhammers, and more accuracy from the spears - Of note is that both Godansthunyr and Vile Loners Lance have bonuses to their interrupt values - which is a nice bonus - Possible to mix and match, but then taking two weapons focus might be good - or take the weapon focus for the stunning weapon Other equipment: - Gauntlets: Glittering Gloves to apply dazed (maybe overkill with stun already - but why not?) - Head: Executioner's Hood to apply a passive frightened effect in AoE - Waist: Binding rope, so foes hitting you get stuck - Potentially Sanguine plate and Shod-in-faith, but that is a great combo for most frontliners. Swaddling sheet could also work, for more synergy when being hit by a crit. - Potentially additional retaliation items - assuming dazed, stun and disorienting triggers from retaliation strikes Total status effects applied: Applied as attacks: - Disorienting - Vile Loners Lance / Strike Hard - Stunning - Cladhialath / Godansthunyr - Dazed - Glittering Gloves (including from Barbaric Retaliation, I believe) Applied as passive AoE: - Sickening - Threatening Presence - Frightened - Executioner's Hood Applied on being hit: - Stuck - Binding Rope Of course, durganize everything to get the speed up there, pile on a Dire Blessing, Devotions of the Faithful, and Frenzy. Crowns of the Faithful or other intellect buffs also work great - get the AoE larger. Edit questions: Are there any more status effect items that could be piled on to this? Would more retaliation be beneficial - or does retaliation not proc the status effects?

"He got a vision. Everything was in flames" =================================== The Boreal Thrasher =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.0+ -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Boreal Dwarf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Living Lands - Explorer -------------------------------------------------------------- The dwarf inside Maegfolc Skull Stats: MIG: 21 CON: 19 DEX: 2 PER: 15 INT: 18 RES: 3 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Lore 12, Rest on Survival -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents: -------------------------------------------------------------- Ancient Memory (!) Beloved Spirits (!) Weapon & Shield Style (!) Superior Deflection ® Veteran's Recovery ® Deep pockets (Optional) / Quick switch Secret's of Rime (O) Bull's Fortitude (O) - Phrases: -------------------------------------------------------------- - Come come soft winds of death - The dragon thrashed, the dragon wailed (!) - Invocations: -------------------------------------------------------------- - Reny Daret's Ghost (!) - At the sound of his voice (!) - White worms (!) (This gem when used properly can do insane damage) - Urdel and Gurdel (!) - Seven nights - Items: -------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon set 1: The Flames of Fair Rhian / Black sanctuary Weapon set 2: Abydon's hammer Boots: Echoin Misery Head: Maegfolc Skull Armor: White Crest (Exceptional, Pierce proof) Neck: Necklace of fireballs / Amulet of summer solstice / Swaddling Sheet (If you get lucky, this item is (!)) Belt: Belt of chimes Rings: Gwyn's band of union + Iron's circle Hands: Gauntlets of accuracy / Bracer's of deflection Quick slots: Every scroll you can spam (Paralisis, Fireballs, Healing, Scrolls of defense and so on) -------------------------------------------------------------- This is a simple chanter build, similar to other ones posted on this forum. This build is very simple, walk with your boreal thrasher into the middle of the combat, get surrounded and start spamming "Double Dragon" (because it stacks) until everyone dies. When you reach 5 phrases, either Urdel and Gurdel or Seven Nights depending on what you need. Boreal dwarf is a very strong choice for a chanter for two reason: the first one is +15 accuracy for wilds/primordial mobs. +15 accuracy means more dragon crits (last longer and deal more damage) and the second one is that you don't care of -1 dexterity. Wilds and primordial usually have high Fortitude defense. I'm going to explain why I choose this equipment. Echoin Misery (A guaranteed proc every encounter because mobs are going to crit you) Maegfolc Skull (Unbending keeps you alive, +4 MIG is nice) White Crest (Overwhelming wave & Dancing bolts is welcome). Another option is Ryona's Breastplate but It looks better on Pallegina. Swaddling Sheet (Another overwhelming wave if one is not enough). This is not a common adventure so before you get it, every item that allows you to spam spells is welcome. Belt of chimes (Concentration is horrible in this char, so it helps a bit. If you have a priest on your party, or you want to use celebrant gloves be free to put whatever you like here) Gauntlets of accuracy (This build is about Dragon thrashed, so landing it properly is the most important thing. You can't have enough accuracy) Flames of Fair for three fireballs/Bittercut. Three fireballs/rest and if you have no use for bittercut on your party infestation of maggots/thorns for more spells/rest. With this setup when mobs crit you there is a lot of pain for them. 2x Warding seal, 1x Overwhelming wave, 1 Ray of Pain. This build works better with a Wizard/Priest/Paladin on your party. Painful interdiction is the opener during the game (dragon thrashed is against fortitude, and mobs usually have this stat as the highest defense so lowering it is a must). Ryngrim's enervating terror is the second option to mass debuff mobs. Put a champion's boon on this character and enjoy massive dragon thrashed damage. A paladin zealous focus is also important because of +6 accuracy and +15% graze/hit conversion (which affect your chants also). If you are going to choose Scion of Flame as one of your talents be aware that it doesn't work with Dragon thrashed (It's a DOT) Abydon's hammer is for stun effect & quick switch before using scrolls. This character with food and spells can achieve a might of: - 21 (Initial) + 4 Maegfolc + 10 Champion's boon + 2 (Food) + 4 Abydon's hammer + 1 Gift from the machine + 1 Galawain's boon = 43 MIG With this MIG every scroll you can use is going to deal insane damage or healing to your party members/foes. The same applies to your crit/proc items. If you want more MIG/INT choose whoever you hate most to sacrifice being Kana the best candidate (+5 resist affliction). Have fun!

PotD, Full party. Not fully tested yet. The Trashman is pretty much...for clearing "trash mobs". Cleaving through groups of the various run of the mill monsters and bad guys that are in no short supply. He does this in particularly barbarian-like fashion - with an Axe! Named after Frank's wrestling pseudonym in 'Always Sunny in Philadelphia'. Short, hairy, ornery... kind of like an Orlan Barbarian? This character takes advantage of several changes in the 3.03 beta, which I've noted in bold below. This is not the most durable character to have on the front line, but it's an interesting alternative to the usual Tall Grass/Tidefall/Forgemaster's barbarian that I've stuck to. Luckily there are some items to take good advantage of a lower deflection frontliner. I also like the concept of a one handed weapon w/no shield, and axes in particular, it's just never been particularly appealing as a weapon choice in Pillars... until now. The damage output is actually pretty high due to annihilation, and as a crit-build, it doesn't actually rely too much on high accuracy. I considered a Rogue We Toki build in light of these changes but this just felt like the better way to go and takes advantage of more new stuff. I'm really enjoy Heart of Fury as Per-Encounter with this build, I must say - with We Toki it's almost like your Barbarian has Slicken Spell Mastery. Relative to a two hander build, this is less flexible and lower survivability. I can't sell it as some kind of new amazing build. Knight / One Handed simply doesn't cover as many great weapons(and no reach weapon to hide behind tankier melee), and We Toki is accessed in Act III vs. Act II. Edge of Reason gives you an almost-Tidefall option but is also acquired later. But it gets points for style, I think, combines disables with damage a bit better than anything else(although...Hours of Saint Rumbalt has prone and annihilation too...dammit), and I enjoy the animation far more than watching my barbarian prod things with a pike for carnage. Anyway, here's the build - Barbarian Race: Hearth Orlan - Highly recommend over anything else. Attributes: 15 Might 10 Constitution 10 Dexterity 20 Perception 15 Intellect 8 Resolve ~You can min/max further, to taste. Perception doesn't necessarily have to be this high, you're turning many hits into crits anyway - the +interrupt is still nice though. Abilities(Odd numbers) and Talents(Even numbers): Barbaric Yell One Handed Style - Now converts 15% of hits to crits as of 3.03 Savage Defiance Apprentice's Sneak Attack One Stands Alone - Now only requires nearby enemies, as opposed to engaged enemies Savage Attack Frenzy Accurate Carnage Threatening Presence Weapon Focus: Knight Heart of Fury - Now Per Encounter Stalwart Defiance Dragon Leap Interrupting Blows Echoing Shout - Now foe-only Beast Slayer, or Bloody Slaughter Skills: Survival 12 is great for rank II of accuracy/flank damage Gear: Weapon Set 1: We Toki Weapon Set 2: Edge of Reason Armor: Aloth's Leather ArmorBelt: Binding Rope Gloves: Gauntlets of Swift Action (or Pilferer's Grip if you don't have it) Boots: Shod-In-Faith Rings: Ring of Protection, Ring of Thorns Neck: Swaddling Sheet Head: Garodh's Chorus (or Maegfolc Skull)

-Used on Path of the Damned difficulty, version 3.02 -Not the most exciting or quirky build, but I figured I'd put it up anyway. Paladin Order: Darcozzi Race: Wild Orlan (Optional) Attributes: 15 Might 11 Constitution 3 Dexterity 15 Perception 16 Intellect 17 Resolve Abilities(Odd numbers) and Talents(Even numbers): Lay on Hands Weapon and Shield Style Zealous Charge or Zealous Focus Aspirant's Mark Liberating Exhortation Inspiring Liberation Coordinated Attacks Critical Focus or Bull's Will Aegis of Loyalty Deep Faith Righteous Soul Scion of Flame Sacred Immolation * * * * = Personal preference. I actually like Deprive the Unworthy for many tough encounters, but Reinforcing Exhortation is good too and gets more overall use since it's per-encounter. You can take more saving throw or deflection talents or grab preferred utility. Skills: Get 10 Lore for scrolls and bonus dialogue, and put at least two in survival for the healing bonus. I like decent stealth on all my characters, but not everyone cares for stealth. I found with a melee heavy group it helped with my opening strategies and bum rushing casters better. A few points in athletics are worth it for a bit better heal, Paladins get +2 to it so getting 4-5 isn't expensive. Gear: Weapon Set 1: Shame or Glory, Outworn Buckler Weapon Set 2: Engwithan Scepter w/Kith Slaying and Burning Lash Armors: Hand and Key / Argwes Adra / Ryona's Breastplate Belts: Girdle of the Driving Wave(grants knockdown) / Girdle of Eoten Constitution / Binding Rope Gloves: Celebrant's Gloves Boots: Malina's Boots Rings: Ring of Protection Neck: Lilith's Shawl Head: Lavender Wreath, great item and essential for my preferred portrait and character model - I know that's a Godlike vs. a Wild Orlan, but it kinda works. Role / Playstyle: Early game, you're a PC Paladin, so your defenses are crazy good and you're pretty much a door blocker(or whatever chokepoint is available) for all those melee mob encounters. Your damage will be terrible, but you can open with an Arbalest or something then switch to sword and board. You also have high mental attributes as the PC, and can reach 20 in all of them to pass pretty much all of the good dialogue checks. I recommend displaying the various [Passionate][Clever] etc. dialogue options - many are pretty much free defense boosts for you and don't affect much otherwise. You also don't want to pick stoic, and some stoic options are kind of arbitrarily categorized and placed IMO. Cruel is easy to avoid at least. Mid game, your support has developed and you'll be debuffing with aspirant's mark every encounter, healing, removing debuffs, and boosting the accuracy of your damage and/or control characters depending on encounter. You're also a good character to make use of scrolls and items with spells, since you don't do remarkable autoattack damage nor are you busy casting stuff most of the time. I used Pallegina(Dual Sabres), Zahua, and Maneha(Tall Grass) once I got them for my melee, with Aloth and Durance as my only casters. Zealous Charge and Coordinated Attacks worked well with this setup, allowing my melee to rush down casters. Attacking in unison on priority targets with a marking weapon was quite effective. For some fights I also just attacked Zahua with the Scepter to give him more wounds. You're also a solid character for using Watcher abilities, with high Int/Might/Perception. Later game, you're an excellent counter to some of the more annoying confuse/charm/dominate enemies. That's why you've got the Scepter, really, with the fast attack speed. You're also highly resistant to these effects yourself, and can equip the Hand and Key Armor for encounters where these get spammed. Finally, you pick up Sacred Immolation, and are a decent source of AoE damage while doing all of the above. Also, on those big dragon fights, you're a great "main tank" and since they spam will defense attacking stuff your Wild Orlan racial will be boosting your already crazy high defenses pretty much constantly.

"Maybe I can't die - but I will not stop trying. The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain!" Burl Marrax, about 500 years old, immortal and world-worn Vailian pirate, conquerer and colonist, cursed by a native shaman after mocking his religion... and slaughetering his tribe. Or the other way round. "Some kith kiss me, some kith hug me I think they're okay If they don't give me proper beating I just walk away. They can slap and they can smack But they can't see the light 'Cause the boy with the cold sharp blade Is always Mister Right. 'Cause I am living in a martyrial world And I am a martyrial Burl You know that we are living in a martyrial world And I am the material Burl." Burl Marrax in one of his rare happy moments, singing in the bathtub =================================== The Immortal Martyr =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: ahahaha... no! -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Barbarian -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Ocean Folk -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vailia - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 19 CON: 03 DEX: 15 PER: 18 INT: 19 RES: 04 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 1, Athl. 4, Lore 6, Mech. 0, Surv. 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Accurate Carnage ® Weapon Focus: Ruffian (!) Savage Attack Two Weapon Style ® Vulnerable Attack Bloody Slaughter Barbabric Blow ® Greater Frenzy The Merciless Hand ® Dungeon Delver ® Abilities Carnage (a) Fighting Spirit (a) Blooded (!) Frenzy ® Heart of Fury (!) One Stands Alone (!) Dragon Leap ® Barbaric Retaliation Threatening Presence Vengeful Defeat (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Purgatory(!) (*Legendary, *Burning Lash, *Durgan Refined) & Resolution(!)(*Legendary, *Shocking Lash, *Durgan Refined) Weapon Set 2: 2 * Club (*Exceptional, *Corrosive Lash, *Kith-Slaying) Boots: Boots of Stability or Boots of Speed Head: Rugged Wilderness Hat Armor: Robes of the Tidebringer (!)(*Durgan Reinforced, *PER +2) Neck: St. Borragia's Tears or Glanfathan Adraswen Belt: Belt of Chimes ® Rings:Gwyn's Band of Union ®, Ring of Wonder ® Hands: Celebrant's Gloves ® or Rabbit Fur Gloves Quick slots: Scrolls & Potions --------------------------------------------------------------- First of all: turn off Knockout Injuries! Seriously, this build is no fun with that. The thing is, this build is build around Vengeful Defeat, an ablitly that will give you a very powerful Full Attack - but only if your endurance drops to zero. Since most people try to avoid that, this ability seems to be a bit circumstantial. But what if you want to go down all the time - what if you want to play a character who's sick of life but can't die - wouldn't Vengeful Defeat be a great ability for this character? Or the other way round: isn't this a good excuse to abuse the heck out of Vengeful Defeat? Secondly: we need one or more party members who can revive in order to get the most out of this build. Sure, you can have items with second chance (and we will use those), but if you want to be revived more than once per encounter (and I recommend that), you need a paladin, priest or chanter. Or somebody who knows how to read revive scrolls. Because we want our hero to go down, we can dump CON and RES and don't even need to have a sore conscience about it - because it's proper roleplaying, that's what this is! All those points go into maxed MIG, PER and INT and the rest into DEX. You see - Burl had a lot of time to train and develop great stats - he had a lot of time to read and do crossword puzzles (hence his high INT), to slaughter some native tribes (high MIG), watch some hummingbirds make love (PER) and do some vaillian dancing (DEX). But he's so sick of life and he couldn't care less - so his RES is really bad and his CON also - because he drinks and eats all those unhealthy things that would give others diabetis, a heart attack and liver cirrhosis. But as I mentioned: he couoldn't care less. Now we have the perfect glass cannon. Time to explain how this works: the plan is to toss this guy into the middle of a mob and start swinging. Because of his abysmal deflection and low DR, most foes will immediately turn towards him. While he does good damage via carnage, he will get hit a lot. Because his Concentration is really bad he will get interrupted all the time, which is bad. I mean he couldn't care less as w know - but WE do care, so we put on the Belt of Chimes which gives us +25 concentration. We also put on the Celebrant's Gloves because those will not only increase the carnage area by 10% but also cast Holy Moly Meditation if we get hit a lot - which is another +30 concentration on top. Suddenly it's very hard to interrupt us - but our deflection is still awful - which is awesome! Because we want to use Vengeful defeat a lot, we can also take all those (normally) lackluster abilites and items that do something when our endurance drops under 50% or even when we co unconcious. That's also why I chose the human race: the bonus ACC will come in handy and I'll explain later why. So, pick up Blooded and so on. We want to accumulate a lot of such effects. The Martyr enchantment is very powerful: for 30 seconds you haste your friends - while dying and doing lots of damage. This is not "Behold the Martyr" - that paladin ability is a different thing. It ends when you revive the Martyr. The enchantment however triggers an AoE haste spell that lasts for 30 sec - it doesn't matter what hppens with the Martyr after it was cast. But "Behold the Martyr" can be of use with this build, too. Another nice effect is second chance + Holy Radiance (see the neck slot). Holy Radiance gets triggered after Second Chance - so you get healed a bit AFTER your second chance comback. And your fellows get healed too! Nice! The ring ist also great on this char. Not only does it boost our carnage AoE because of +4 INT, but also dazes enemies around you once your endurance drops below 80%. And who doesn't know that daze is a superpowerful debuff? I chose those two famous sabres because they combine high base damage with Annihilation. High base damage is good for carnage - and Annihilation is aweseome for Vengeful Defeat (and also Heart of Fury and Barbaric Blow). Those abilities not only do full attacks (hello dual sabres), but also give you more crits AND higher crit damage. If you are the main character and trigger HoF or Vengeful Defeat while standing in a mob of badly wounded enemies - with those fully enchanted sabres - you can get the following max crit damage multiplier: +0.5(crit)+0.5(Annihilation)+0.3(durgan steel)+0.3(Merciless Hand)+0.5(HoF or Vengeful Defeat bonus)+0.5(Bloody Slaughter)+0.1(Dungeon Delver)+0.1(Rabbit Fur Gloves) = 2.8 crit damage multiplier. Sadly, it doesn't really work as a multiplier - it seems it just works like any other damage bonus. So I assume it's more like +280% base damage. But hey - also not too bad. I enchanted those to legendary but it also works with exceptional or superb of course. Legendary just happened to fit exactly into the 14 enchantment points pool. Axes also work fine with this. Especially We Toki. And Hours of St. Rumbalt is also nice. the damage is lower because - you know - full attack and so on - but the prone effect makes up for that. Another very powerful option would be Firebrand - but it didn't fit the theme so I didn't try that. But I can imagine a fire godlike with that flaming sword and Vengeful Defeat. Those crits are the reason why I want to have a lot of ACC. This is done easily with camping bonuses. WIth the rugged wilderness hat you have 16 survival - which will give you +18 ACC against a chose creature type. ON top of that we have the hit-to-crit conversion of Vengeful Defeat (or HoF) that is 20%. +20% from durgan steel results in 40%. So a lot of crits will occur if you use those. Add some Fighting Spirit (human racial ability) and you're good! The best thing about VD (Vengeful Defeat) and HoF is that you do a full attack at all enemies in range. The range is your carnage area plus a little bonus. All those hits from the full attack trigger carnage. So the more enemies you can reach, the more damage every one of them will get. Damage's growing exponentially if you manage to hit 5 or six foes at once. If you have a priest in the gang you need to use Crowns of the Faithful. It can do so much for this Martyr Barb. Now you may inkle why I wanted to build a character around VD. If you go KO and are surrounded by enemies, your VD will be nearly as powerful as HoF. You will be like living bait: all the mobs will be drawn to you because you are such a squishy. Don't hesitate to cast a lot of AoE damage spells onto your Martyr. You will hit him of course, but also all those mobs around him. Be like King Edward Longshanks! And don't be silly because of frendly fire - this barb loves that! Just keep a reviver nearby for the time the second chance is used up. I can't emphasize this enough I guess: using this build as a decoy will make your life so much easier in hard fights like bounties and stuff. He can buy you some time while you buff/debuff. He's like a living CC effect that doesn't have to rely on ACC or doesn't have to overcome defenses. He's just there and draws enemies towards him. And while being punished for that he really can do some harm. One of he best spells with this is Pull of Eora: the foes will be drawn towards the barbarian and will be whirled around and form a really dense pack: great for your HoF and VD. And while they all try to smash the Martyr, they don't bother the rest of your party who can just fire away. Oh, and I nearly forgot: VD always triggers: if you are prone, stunned, petrified - doesn't matter. Once you go down, you will trigger WD. So your barb can do lots of damage even while disabled. "Thanks for knocking me unconcious dudes!" Another great spell for this is Baring Death's Door. It used to be a pretty useless spell for me - but with this char it's golden. If his health gets really low (will happen after some fights) that's not a reason to stop dying (aka resting)! Cast Barring Death's Door and see the magic! He jumps into the crowd with his 1 HP and *boom* Vengeful Defeat. You revive and *boom* Vengeful Defeat... and so on. Just don't revive when Barring Death'S Door wears off: then he becomes the mortal martyr. His dps drops a lot then if you ask me... I (once again) did the (upscaled) Nalrend quest with this guy for a last test. So that nobody can say this guy is just a funny toon but not playable (I did a whole playthrough with him by the way): two paladins and an invocation-based chanter only stood nearby and revived when he dropped. The bounty was over pretty fast (and Nalrend dead). I still had 1/3rd of health - despite the fact that I had a quadrizillion stings from Plague of Insects. Oh, speaking of bugs: Why don't ants go to curch? Because they are in...sects. Have a nice pray! p.s.: I guess a Fire Godlike barb with a retaliation item would cause even more harm while going down - but I'm a bit fed up with godlikes these days, so... Edit: Here are some impressions if you want to build this as a suicidal genie and as the eternal candle:

I made a character to try and finish the game with as few kills as possible, and I got to 23, but after thinking about some of my kills and reading some comments by MadDemiurg I managed to reduce to the count to 12, PotD difficulty solo I was encouraged to try again by some ideas I had for the factions and the problem I had of not being able to reproduce my stealth through Ciliban Rilag, so I felt a do-over would be appropriate. (see http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78862-relative-pacifist-achievement/) I enjoy this approach to games so I hope anyone else out there like me will benefit from this. Thank you Obsidian for making this approach possible Although there are a few places where the dialogue does not match up, like telling the looters in Madhmr Bridge that I killed their two guards, or telling Saeda that I killed his parents as "Honest" options when I sneaked past them Any Class can do pacifist run, but I think only a Rogue can get to 12 kills due to skills and talents and a priest will follow closely behind (waiting on MadDemiurg for his thoughts on that ) I will give a few tips of stats, items, skills, talents, and how to navigate certain areas with a rogue if anyone else wants to try it. For me the joy was figuring it out, so the guide is nicely sectioned into areas which will allow you to only read the info you want and not spoil anything you want to figure out. Without trying to spoil anything however, I would strongly suggest in investing in benevolent and aggressive dispositions for Stormwall Gorge. Overall the kills for me were 4 in the starting encampment, 5 in Heritage Hill, and 3 when fighting Thaos and his two statues. Everything else can be avoided even if some of it is a bit cheese to get below 19. Purnisc does not count as a kill, so go ahead and complete the quest related to him that way. In terms of XP, you will have enough to get to level 11 but not 12. Before jumping down the pit I had 50050 xp and just before fighting Thaos I was at 60747 xp which included disarming three traps. So there is a little over 10 000 experience down there if you want to skip a quest you can calculate if you will make it to level 11 before fighting him. (Very Important, if you are still level 10 and want the last bit of experience to level up then walk slowly towards the area which triggers the last fight, a few meters before the conversation trigger you get awarded a large lump of xp) General Tips for how to deal with encounters: Switch Auto Attacks off, your character attacking from Shadowing Beyond will make you cry, and you want to avoid your summons killing anything. Generally speaking you can Stealth though everything. Even at 9 Stealth with sugar you can do the Temple in Gilded Vale and at 10 Stealth you can do Dyrford Crossing. Engagement works in a funny way, once an enemy has selected you for an attack it has to touch you to realise you are invisible. Due to this mechanic using Shadowing Beyond can be quite tricky since you have to make sure you have allowed all enemies to disengage so that no one is following you. Also once combat ends, so will Shadowing Beyond, so sometimes you need to use a figurine to lengthen combat so that you can run the full distance while invisible. Choice of Race: Wood Elf seems to be the ideal racial choice since I basically built a ranged rogue and I have a strategy for keeping my distance from Thaos. In my first game however I played a Human because I wanted max resolve and it worked out really well, so I am guessing any Human, Aumaua, Dwarf, or Elf will do just fine I would avoid Orlan since you are getting +2 to Per which you do not want and the racial bonuses do not help you. I would also avoid the Godlikes since any of their abilities is not as useful as being able to wear headgear which grants whisper of treason. Character Statistics: Might: Fairly important to kill Thaos quickly. Fee free to max it and drop Con if you want but I was fine at about 14. Constitution: can be dumped, but I was more comfortable at 10 for when I got hit by mobs inbetween casting a figurine and activating Shadowing Beyond, but if Thaos engages you, you are dead anyway so it is really up to you. Dexterity: For quicker actions and recovery I highly recommend it. I was fine at 16, not sure about the parameters for this one and how dropping or rasing it will affect your game. Perception: Dump it, you never need this stat for engaging or avoiding combat. Intelligence: Very important for the duration of Shadowing Beyond and there is a 19 Int conversation check (which you can easy get to with +4 int rest and buffs). I was fine at 16, but you can Max it if you want. Resolve: I am happy at 18, but after looking at the checks you can get away with 16 if you are happy to rely on rest & items and even food to boost you. The hardest conversation check is 20 in Twin Elms. Equipment: Armour: Angio’s Gambeson is easy to buy in Dyrwood Villiage, and extremely helpful with the movespeed buff spellbind. It has no cast-time or cooldown so you can use this and Shadowing Beyond basically at the same time (there is also some strange behaviour which allows you to cast the buff without going visible while in Shadowing Beyond). Rings: In both playthroughs I forgot about rings, so apparently you will be fine without them. Basically you don’t need Deflection or Saves because you are avoiding combat, even in the last fight you use charm, confusion , and figurines to keep the attention off you. So anything which gives stats or useful skills is awesome. Amulet/Cloak: Glanfathan Adraswen for the lore bonus. Sadly it is random loot and I did not know this, so I have no idea where I picked it up. If you did not find this you can still get a scroll which increases your lore in the upper floor of Hadret House for the last battle (see Skills). +3 Dex cloak from Deomenals should be a fine alternative, same as the rings in reasoning, try find something which increases stats or gives utility. I did not wear anything useful and did fine in my second run. Boots: Stealth Boots which can be bought from Doemenal merchant for rogue, or there is a pair open to any class in Raedric hold dungeon in the trapped container in the room which lets you up to the captain of the guard on day 20. I only swapped these out when I got boots of Speed for the final fight. Gloves: Gloves of Mechanics for most of the game and then Rotfinger Gloves for last battle. I consistently found the Gloves of mechanics in Lord Readric’s study on day 19 on all my games, and I do not think this run is possible without them. If you want to avoid killing Nedmar for the key you will need to have 6 mechanics (which you give points to asap), a rest bonus, and some lockpicks, this allows you to get past the door in time without compromising your stealth ability for other quests. Rotfinger gloves on the other hand is great for the debuffs to allow for deathblows vs Thaos and to slow him down to keep your distance. Weapon: I used fine hunting bow for most of the game until I picked up Lenas Er. I like the debuff the weapon applies and the fact that it has rending and fires quickly Headgear: I used Munacra Arret for the Whisper of Treason which works really well against the Headsman in the last fight. Belt: Same as rings, used belts which increased my stats in both games. Talents: There is no particular order for taking these (I think this was my order?), take Fast runner and Shadowing beyond asap and you should be fine: 1. Crippling Strike: (very useful, helped me a lot even in the last fight) 2. Fast Runner (very useful all the time, helps you keep your distance from Thaos too) 3. Escape: (Very limited application since it breaks stealth and it seems to have a long recovery time, but I would still take it for a few encounters where it works really well to get on the other side of enemies, soonest application for me was in Sewers where Shadowing Beyond was not enough) 4. Shadowing Beyond (essential obviously) 5. Deep Pockets (makes the last fight possible) 6. Reckless Assault (Helps with Accuracy and damage vs Thaos, same as Weapon focus) 7. Weapon Focus Peasant (helped I am sure, still missed 50% of my shots even with this). 8. Deep Wounds (also super good in last fight, won’t say no to free damage) 9. Marksman (since I am keeping my distance it makes it easier to hit Thaos) 10. Finishing Blow ( Very useful: In combination with deathblows I got 88 damage on Thaos with this skill. I find Thaos hard to hit and the added accuracy on this skill makes it easier to finish him off. Used it twice in a row when he was badly wounded with the rotfinger debuff and killed him) 11. Deathblows: Makes the most of the Rotfinger Gloves’ debuff. Envenomed Strike looks tempting, but I really wanted to max out on my accuracy. Skills: Stealth: 9 (+Rest +Boots can take you to 12) Lore: 7 (+ Hylea Boon & Glanfathan Adraswen will give you to 10, or you can use a scroll) Mechanics: 6 (+1 from rest and +2 from Gloves of Mechanics gives you 9) Choosing a background which gives you stealth is highly favoured in my opinion: Dissident was my choice in both games. Invest in stealth and mechanics till both a 4. Raise Mechanics to 6, Invest in stealth every level until you are level 8. Then invest in Lore until you get to level 11. At level 8 I had a base of 9 Stealth, 6 Mechanics, and 3 Lore which is just enough to get though Cliaban Rilag and it is the max level you can be for this area on a pacifists run. Because of the skills a rogue starts with favours this I am unsure of whether you can avoid this fight with another class. I never found a scroll which increases my stealth, so if anyone knows of a spawn point that would really help. Cliaban Rilag is the hardest stealth area and you need 12 stealth, for everything else you need 10 stealth. It is a huge investment for those extra two points, so a scroll would really help you pass that one area and allow other classes to get through. In terms of Lore I would love to know where Glanfathan Adraswen spawns, but I used a Lore scroll for my fight with Thaos my second time around and it lasted long enough. The Lore scroll can be found in the upper levels of the Hadret house in a room the far left. It is random loot and I found mine on Day 55: 11 Preestu Mechanics suffered a bit in my second playthough, but I was fine with these numbers and a large amount of lockpicks. You absolutely need the gloves of mechanics since the situations where you need the skill are too spread out to rely on a scroll. Quests and Areas: Here is a list of the quests I did Main Quests: Encampment/Starting Area -Thank you MadDemiurg Fairly simple area but with few unexpected ways in which you can avoid kills. Loot everything and sell to Heodan before going to the wolves (feel free to strip Calista since you do not need her to fight). Calista has no stealth so do the sneaking on your own. Sneak past the wolves and gra the berries, immediately go into stealth once conversation ends and hide Calista in the corner. Stealth all the way to the water skin for her sake and once you click on it she will appear next to you at the stream for combat. You can avoid killing the first two Glanfathan by using Calista to stall them and running away. Combat will end when she is knocked out even though it does not seem like it, so you can sneak past the three Glanfathan who are mid-way. The Final 4 Glanfathan who surrounds Heodan you have to kill. I found it easy flanking and focusing the same target with two rogues. Inside the cave I disarmed some of the floor tiles for a bit of extra xp to clear the way. Send Calista ahead to engage the two spiders which block your way and run past the entrance they block into the room to your right. Either keep sending her into te spiders or send her into the traps until her portrait disappears and sneak out of the cave. Caed Nua & Maerwald (at Level 3) – Thank you knownastherat You want 4 mechanics and 4 stealth for this (think I had 5 stealth) Strategy for getting past the shades: Sneak to the door, conversation will break stealth, so summon Animat quite close to the shade approaching (it tended to tag me) close the door and run to the stairs. Combat should end once Animat is dead. Sneak Past Spiders & Rest. For Mearwald you are lucky that he gets stuck behind his blights so he is really slow. Run out of the room once combat starts and summon Animat in the door to get them to swap to engaging it. Hide yourself in the far corner by the stairs to try avoid engagement. It is tricky not to have them loose interest while also pulling the beetles or spiders to the middle of the room, but it is possible, just practice. Once Mearwald is out of his room room run past them and close the door and hide in the corner. Make sure Auto-attacks are switched off so you do not hit any of them and get the kill. Defiance Bay: The Three Factions – Thank you Kaigen42 The Dozens has an easy 1st quest which is bloodless. The Doemenals need to be joined via Ondra’s Gift. Go to the warehouse for the delivery quest. Choose the option to kill him for Danna once your delivery is complete, but instead of attacking use Shadowing Beyond and go hide. The Doemenals will clear the warehouse for you for zero kills. Now you can get information about the letter and collect the diamond without any kills. The second quest for the Doemenals is the logical choice from here, since it only involves one kill, but you can get past it for zero kills: Agree to side with either Doemenals or Dozens and then attack someone close to the door. Use Shadowing beyond and figurine for a pull and wait by the door for combat to end. You have now burned all your bridges and Lady Webb will give you the invitation you need. Sanatorium Fairly easy, this is where Angio’s Gambeson comes in. Use the +4 Int rest. Food if you want for +2Int. The trick to this area is extending combat for long enough so you can get out. I active my speed buff and rand to the side and cast a figurine and activated Shadowing beyond asap to run away. The reason for the figurine is that if you just used Shadowing beyond straight away combat would end before you are even out of the north ward, which will end Shadowing Beyond’s effect, the figurine helps you extend combat for long enough to run all the way out. While I am here I usually also do the ‘kill’ for the necromancer in the Sewers. Since you do not kill the animancer it does not count, and I pull the Witch thing to the guards or a flesh golem to kill for me. Heritage Hill Fairly easy area, just stealth well and use sugar. A few notes though: On the first level of Heritage Hill tower it is impossible to sneak past to the stairs, and once you trigger combat it will not end until you kill the enemies involved. I asked whether this infinite combat loop is intended and it seems like it is: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/79710-heritage-hill-tower-level-1-infinite-combat-can-devs-please-respond-whether-this-is-intentional/ When coming down from level 3, the conversation will break stealth for the transition, so go down one level in order to avoid the infitie combat drawing more enemies on level 1. You will attract a mob, but use a stealth boost and Shaowing beyond and cancel engagements as needed. Can be tricky, but very do-able. Then Stealth down to level one. In order to get the Adra Beetle you need to get the key. Go into the manor and you do not need to stealth. Trigger combat and summon shades or Wood Beetles close to the door on the left which contains the key, and use the summons to pull them to the exit. Be careful to keep them all engaged. Use escape to jump over if needed and you will probably need Shadowing Beyond to get to the key. Combat will end with them all still near the exit, which is just enough time for you to grab the key before they get back, and you can use your 2nd Shadowing Beyond to exit. Once the tower is deactivated the way to the crypt will be clear. Cliaban Rilag Very simple, you can sneak past quite a lot and use Shadowing Beyond to get to the room with the sporelings. You might need a figurine to extend combat (see Sanatorium) and make sure the ooze does not perma-aggro by not disengaging him. To get through the rest you will need Mechanics: 8 = 6 + 2 (Gloves of Mechanics) and bring a lot of lockpicks. Stealth: 12: 9 + 2 (Boots) + 1 (Resting Bonus) The stealth will get you through the sporelings with some sugar, and the 8 mechanics with some lockpicks will get you through the 2nd level. To have this balance of skills by level 8 I think you need to play Rogue since there is no more xp to level up to 9 (see skills) Stormwall Gorge (Ambush) - Thank you Xaratas If you have 2 Aggressive and 2 Benevolent and a Dungeon in your Stronghold you can avoid this fight Pleasing the Gods I want Hylea’s Boon for the Lore and it is super easy to go and talk to the Sky Dragon and tell her she may have her young there. I also highly recommend Rymrgand. Pray to him to get the shard. Sneak into NoonFrost (mechanics rest bonus for 9 total if you want to save lockpics and disarm the traps) and stick to the left and it is super easy to reach the breach without detection. Give them the shard so that they all leave. Now you can rescue the prisoner and loot the place. If you have 19 Intelligence you can convince Rymrgand that it was a good idea and you get loads of quest xp. Down the Pit (the final Dungeon) The first area is full of traps so you will need a few tries to figure out a safe route. Go left and engage the Spectre with a figurine. Shadow Beyond and run with Speed buff. You want to go through the door by the spectre on the left and then turn right avoiding the trap and then turn right again past the animats. You might need 2 Shadowing Beyonds if you were not lucky enough to get boots of speed before this. Feel free to rest there are plenty of camping supplies and you need minimal resources for the next area. In Sun and Shadow you should find a pair of boots of speed. Very simple to get through, you can simply escape with Shadowing Beyond for the first Drake, and for the 2nd one I use shades to pull the mob down the stairs opposite the door. Getting them to the bottom of that staircase is enough time to go through the door. Defeating Thaos Equip 5x Confusion Scrolls, 10x Maelstrom Scrolls, 1x Adra Beetle, 1x Obsidian Lamp, 5x War Paint (or more scrolls). Wait for the Judge to get pulled towards you a bit. Shadowing Beyond to escape. Summon Adra Beetle. Hit The Headsman with Whisper of Treason. Join battle with scrolls and send beetle in for his AoE. Keep your Beetle between you & Thaos and keep an eye on the charm/confusion durations. I basically used MadDemiurg’s video as a guide as to how to fight him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIDjoea4aHY Other Areas: Lighthouse – Thanks to knownastherat You can do this at level 4 and you do not really need to sneak. To go up is fairly easy, stick to the wall on the left for minimal aggro, use Shadowing beyond the moment combat starts. Through the door and close it behind you. Getting out is far more tricky. I like to use stealth so I have some time to position myself before combat, and the way the enemies behave differs a lot between attempts. You might be able to use escape, but take note that there is a bug with the door which appears open but it is actually closed. You need to summon something, I used Wood Beetles, in order to hold enemy aggro while you position yourself at the exit with Shadowing Beyond. Combat will end with them killing the bettles at the staircase giving you enough time to get out. Dyrford Crossing & Skaen Temple You can stealth to get the egg, and you need 10 stealth + sugar to do the troll (use resting bonus if needed) For Skaen Temple, you can open the way quite easily with enough stealth, but will need to use Shadowing Beyond to escape the encounter and sneak back to get down. I recommend getting a rest to boost mechanics to 9 with gloves with a base of 6 and bring like 18 lockpicks. Fairly easy to get through, you cannot sneak past all of the guards, so in the room just before the leader you will need to use Shadowing Beyond to get into the door. After the conversation they all go friendly and you can loot the place. Northweald Fairly easy area with two quests you can do. Dungeon helps you here once again with resolving the stalemate. Very Importantly, the Stealgar by the body in the north will lock you into infinite combat if you did not receive the quest “Hunter Brother” from Hearthsong. I tested this extensively, and it is very important to get the quest before coming here to avoid kills. I lied in the hearing for the bow. Endless Paths Seems a bit silly to do this, but I was curious: It would appear that if you have Boots of Speed and 12 Stealth and some scrolls, that you can complete the endless paths on a pacifist run without worrying about your kill count, only 18 in total, 19 if you kill the Dragon Hunter. It is worth noting that you can get though 10 of the levels without shadowing beyond or combat, just good stealth and speed Not much in it in terms of items so it would be a bit pointless. I did not explore how accessible various treasures are but you will get the dragon's stash at least. 50865xp before I started, 64467xp after helping the dragon, so about 14 000 xp in the run. Here are my findings for the Endless Paths: Levels: 1: 0 kills 2: 0 Kills 3: 0 Kills 4: 0 Kills 5: 1 Kill (Drake) 6: 2 Kills (2 Dargul in room across the bridge) 7: 0 Kills 8: 0 Kills 9: 0 Kills 10: 0 Kills (12 Stealth, boots of speed and sugar, and understanding transitions is key) 11: 0 Kills 12: 0 Kills 13: 15 Kills ( So much fun! Cleared a room solo on level 11 PotD which I struggled with as a Party on Hard ) 14: 0 Kills (Resolve 20 and Int 17 Needed) 15: 0 Kills (Easy sneak and made a deal with the Dragon) Getting from level 3-8 is definitively the hardest because of all the resources those levels need to get though, and you cannot use the main staircase on level 5. Levels you can bypass without Shadowing beyond, but up to 12 stealth, sugar, and boots of speed: 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 Some you needs less stealth, or as the case is in level 12 no stealth. Quite simple. Levle 8: you will aggro the Vampyr on the throne when you go down, but just give them a summon and run away. Don't even need SB. Level 9: Got though the spiky room, and use sugar, fast boots and 12 speed. For getting past the Vithrack and the Spiders you need to get as close to the petrify trap as possible to disarm it halfway and and stick to the bottom wall of the passage. Level 10. Same as 9 sugar et al. Shades in the 1st room wont detect you. The stairs are blocked by spiders but you can transition down without touching them. You just need to remember that you character takes a few steps while thhe screen fades to black so you need to give him/her the room to do that so you do not start combat. Level 11 is another master staircase I needed a mechanics scroll to get through. I know there is a spawn point for one in Doemenal Mansion on the second floor in the room right by the staircase. Levels you need Shadowing Beyond and a figurine pull. 4, 7 Level 4 is a pain, and you need to get the seal in the room to the South. You probably will need escape, 2-3 Shadowing Beyonds, and a lot of figurines to pull, and any speed boosts you can make use of. Also helpful to boost Int. Level 7 you can de-activate every shrine and get the key, mostly just with stealth and fast boots. Earth blight room you need to use a figurine or a SB , and you cannot do the Rain Blight Room, which is fine because of SB down the the next level anyway and the spawn is not a problem. Levels that need combat: 5, 6, 13 Level 5 is pretty easy. do not wear boots of speed and then you can pull the drake away from the Xaruips into the little room next to the pool. You need to kill him for combat to end. Level 6 is a pain as well, you can get the seal on the left by hugging the wall once you are in the room. The seal on the other side of the bridge I also doubt is possible with a full sneak, but observed that only 2 Dargul are in visual range of the one corner. Killed them and used SB to escape combat and sneaked back in. To go down you will need SB since putting the seals in the door breaks stealth (11 stealth needed) Level 13 is pretty Straightforward. Killing animats in the room the the right is easy enough and then the ghost appears. Then using a figurine to extend combat and running to the room with all the Cean Gwla, cast confusion from stealth, use Adra Beetle and maelstrom. Spirit 2 appears. SB back to main door and make sure you have boots of speed and sugar and 12 stealth to go down to 14.

This is a tank build for PotD. It's designed to be an unmovable object, putting up with any punishment your enemies throw at you, while providing a modicum of support for your party. It does very little else. If you want a tank you can micromanage, or one that can deliver a respectable amount of damage or CC, you need a different class. Also, I would recommend this build only for the Watcher, since Faith and Conviction is currently bugged on hireling Paladins and you need those extra defenses. Note: There's a lot of discussion on this board about whether Paladins are weaker than other classes (yes) and what should be done to improve them. I'd prefer if that discussion remain in preexisting threads and not migrate here. This is for taking the Paladin class as it currently stands and making the most useful tank of it we can, not for debating what the class should and should not be. Race: Wild Orlan has the best ability bonuses for pumping Deflection, and Defiant Resolve gives you a nice defensive buff when Will gets targeted. As an added bonus, Orlan PCs seem to get more race-specific dialogue than other options, thanks to Fantasy Racism. Your other good options are Coastal Aumaua for the bonus against Proning and Stunning attacks, since those break your engagements, or Moon Godlike if you want some extra healing for you and your party, though later in the game you might find that your Endurance doesn't dip much or very often. Pale Elves are also nice for the added DR against Fire and Frost. Order: I recommend picking based on how you want to roleplay your character. If that's not a factor, you could consider them based on order-specific talents, but to be honest, most of them aren't useful for this build. Of the talents that are useful, most of them are only useful for getting through the early game and don't scale well beyond that. Since the Darcozzi Paladini have the one order talent that's useful the whole game, I recommend them if you don't care about roleplaying factors. If all you want is to get Faith and Conviction up quickly, however, you might go with the Goldpact Knights, as Rational and Stoic seem to be very easy to raise quickly. Attributes: The build I used for my PotD run was Might 2/Con 15/Dex 3/Per 20/Int 18/Res 19. After seeing how little use I got out of that extra health beyond the first few levels, though, I'd be inclined to swap Might and Con for better healing off of Lay on Hands. In fact, since the base durations on a lot of your abilities are pretty high to begin with, the best route might be Might 17/Con 3/Dex 3/Per 20/Int 15/Res 19, though that might give you trouble extending your aura over the whole party. I wouldn't bother with Dexterity in any case, as you don't have the melee damage to care about attack speed or enough active abilities to worry about how quickly you can fire them off. You can't dump Might and Con or your Fort defense will be terrible, and if you dump Intellect you're weakening Lay on Hands and might have problems getting your aura to stretch over the party. Skills/Culture: Take either Aedyr or Ixamitl Plains for the extra Resolve to keep Deflection and Concentration high, and grab your favorite +2 Lore background. Your stats and lack of anything better to do make you one of the better options for scroll-user in the party and it gives you more dialogue options. You've got a good baseline in Athletics already, so if you want to pump that too for scripted interactions, you're in good shape. Survival unlocks a few dialogue options if you have it in the 4-6 range (though I spotted one at 9) and can provide a nice boost to the duration of food and potions if you have points to spare, but I'd rely on someone else for scripted interactions with it. A little bit of stealth is nice for positioning, but otherwise skippable (I've only seen one dialogue option unlocked by Stealth, and that was at level 4, for the record). Abilities/Talents: Now to the nuts and bolts of the guide. I'll go level by level. Level 1: Lay on Hands. The tooltip on this one is misleading; it's actually one of the more powerful heals available in the early game, especially if you have high Intellect to boost it. It's single target, so only really good for helping a party member who's getting focused, but for that job it's better than what Priests or Druids will be able to provide for several levels. It can even be used on yourself if you need it. Level 2: Hold the Line. You need that extra engagement to tank properly, end of story. Level 3: Aura. This comes down to preference and party composition. The elephant in the room is the Priest; two of the Priest's bread-and-butter buffs, Armor of Faith and Bless, don't stack with the bonuses provided by Zealous Endurance and Zealous Focus, respectively. I prefer Zealous Endurance anyway, because it's only slightly worse than Armor of Faith, and that makes for one less spell your Priest needs to cast. If, for some reason, you aren't running with a Priest in your party, you might want Zealous Focus instead to make up for the missing accuracy; you can also take it and the Critical Focus talent if you want to stack hit-to-crit conversion. I prefer holding choke points to kiting, so I don't see much use in Zealous Charge, but if it fits your tactics, go for it. Level 4: Weapon and Shield Style. Cornerstone tanking talent which gives you a nice boost to deflection and shores up your Reflex defense, which is hurting a little from dumping Dexterity. If you're playing a Shieldbearer, you might consider Shielding Touch, as the deflection bonus is still pretty useful at this level, especially since you're already using Lay on Hands on allies getting focused by melee or ranged attackers, in all likelihood. The bonus doesn't scale, though, so it will become negligible later on. Level 5: Liberating Exhortation. This is not a very good ability. Most debuffs are AoE, so this is like trying to put out a forest fire with a tea cup full of water, and you can't even use it on Charmed or Dominated party members. At best, you can use it to negate a paralyze or stun on a party member you need active, or neutralize accuracy debuffs on one of your casters before they fire off some CC. If you're playing Darcozzi, though, you're about to get a talent that will make it worthwhile. Level 6: Inspiring Liberation (Darcozzi). +10 to accuracy for 20 seconds (boosted by Intellect) twice each encounter is nothing to sneeze at. The fact that it also cancels any debuffs on your ally is icing. If you're not a Darcozzi, just move up the schedule of defensive talents, or you could slip in Critical Focus if you grabbed the Zealous Focus aura. Level 7: Reviving Exhortation. The best of a bad lot. It's an encounter revive, which isn't bad per se, but the ability is currently bugged. It'll get your ally back up, but it'll probably drop them back down after the duration is up thanks to the massive Endurance penalty it inflicts. The only other option here that's worth anything is Deprive the Unworthy, which is useful in a couple of fights, but most of the tough enemies you encounter aren't tough because of their buffs, and you probably have someone else who can suppress buffs. Edit: Alternate Pick: A few people recommend taking Sworn Enemy here as an accuracy boost and a way to slip in a bit more damage. It works well if you've got a weapon property that debuffs on a hit/crit, like Disorienting or Stunning. If you're not playing a Darcozzi, you could even take this at level 5 instead of Liberating Exhortation, in case you want Deprive the Unworthy or are holding out for a bug fix on Reviving Exhortation. Level 8: Cautious Attack. More deflection. Level 9: Reinforcing Exhortation. Once again, the best of bad options. Your Paladin probably doesn't have anything better to do, so dropping a Deflection buff on an ally taking heat is something at least. Assuming your Priest can't be bothered to lay down a Circle of Protection or the like. You might consider going back for Deprive the Unworthy instead, if you need that buff suppression. There's also Righteous Spirit, but enemies don't seem inclined to try to Charm or Dominate your Paladin in the first place so it's somewhat marginal. Level 10: Superior Deflection. More deflection. You might actually be doing pretty well on deflection by now, in which case you can swap this one with the level 12 talent. Level 11: Hastening Exhortation. Finally something good. Attack speed buffs aren't that common, and now you've got one that lasts 30+ seconds. Level 12: Deep Faith. Rounding out the defensive bonuses here. Now, if you aren't playing Darcozzi or didn't pick up Critical Focus or any of the other order talents, you have a spare talent here. There's really not that much left that's useful. You could take Greater Lay on Hands, but you probably stopped relying on that ability a long time ago. You could take Fast Runner or Graceful Retreat for those times when you really need to re-position your Paladin, but that doesn't come up much at all. Your Fortitude defense is probably still lagging behind your other defenses, so you could always take Bear's Fortitude. This is why I'm not too opposed to taking an order talent that helps you out in the early game but doesn't scale; once you've got those core defensive talents, there's nothing else to take, really. Equipment: Grab a hatchet early for the extra deflection and use the best shield you can find. Your weapon damage is unimportant, so look for something that has a good support special. Shatterstar and Measured Restraint both have Guarding to give you an extra engagement and can be obtained relatively early. If you think you're just fine with two engagements, you could use something with Draining, but you probably don't hit hard enough or often enough for that to be significant. Look for something with Disorienting or Marking (assuming that one actually works) to help your allies out instead. After you retrieve the stolen shipment for the blacksmith in Gilded Vale, you should buy the Outworn Buckler, strap it to your arm, and never take it off. The Herald ability provides a +5 bonus to all defenses, including Deflection, to your entire party. That makes it a +13/+5/+5/+5 shield. Make it Fine/Exceptional when you get the resources and level necessary, and it will treat you well. Aside from those considerations, try to keep your Paladin equipped with the best Of Deflection/Protection items you can find, and prioritize Resolve and Perception boosting items while also boosting Might and Intellect if you can. The best Resolve/Perception boosting items go in the Neck slot, so focus on getting Rings for your protection items. If you need to stretch your aura further, the Boots of Zealous Command can be bought from Winfrith in Dyrford. There's not much else that's useful for you in the Boot slot, so you may as well. There you have it, a tough tank with some situational support abilities that you can point at enemies and forget about. If anybody can think of a good talent I've overlooked for that last non-Darcozzi talent slot, let me know.

Can Admin Delete? Somehow I double posted? (Browser crash) See this one http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/79761-12-kill-run-class-build-and-guide/