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As offensive caster, self-enchanting fighter with utility, as AoE buff Tank or what? For some reason this combination of the classes sounded the most stupid to me, but now I can't stop thinking about making my PC with that multiclass in the next playthrough. Both classes have poor passives for weapon-based fighting - so maybe evocation wizard + x priest would be the best combo for maximum damaging spell-casting? What's your take on the multi-class?

So, I realize that Evoker Wizards are not supposed to be able to summon, but usually, this isn't the case for Summoning Items. I just got the Skull of Concelhaut and was so stoked to use it, just to realize it is unusable, as only the Watcher can equip the pet, and the Watcher can never use conjuration, being an Evoker Wizard. I just wanted to make sure this is intended, because I think it's needlessly restrictive (making this unique pet useless), and because I really hope it could be changed.

A great tactic has been found. If you use cracking bolt and rolling flame from a long distance, the enemy will not notice the party, which in turn means endless spells. This method allows you to destroy almost any encounter or lure enemies one by one increasing or decreasing the distance. Also, since the spells are power level 2-3, This strategy can be effectively used by any wiz-multiclasses, making the strategy a great way to complete solo PoTD. If you a smart wizard, you should practice sniping. Also, if an enemy encounter contains healers trying to kill someone is pretty useless unless you can kill mob with one blow, but in this case, such exploits are simply not needed. Still great for luring.

I know there is great power in there somewhere. (People have observed so at least.) I on the other hand feel like wizards aren't as...impactful. I have only played up to the 2nd power level so It is too early to draw any conclusions of course but I feel like: 1. In the beginning casting and recovery times are too long for what happens after the spell lands. Do the power levels improve them and make them worthwhile? 2. Enemy AI tends to drop engagement and hunt down isolated, squishy ranged dps. Heavy defensive values alter this aggro behaviour somewhat. So medium / heavy armor doesn't look so bad. This would naturally wreck recovery. So...does that mean increasing dexterity and taking low recovery high casting spells is more favourable? Or just self buff instead of armour? 3. Where is the power? When do you start feeling it? Which spells help turning the tide or devastate the battlefield? 4. In PoE 1 I felt like things were more like in D&D where spells from every tier were easier to cast, had a more noticeable impact, but limited in quantity. I really liked this. In Deadfire, I feel like you just ignore the first 5-6 tiers and hope you get to the good stuff. So essentially what's a great way to build a single class wizard? Can someone teach me how to approach this correctly? Thanks.

I was looking through some ability trees and I just couldn't wrap my head around how powerful some abilities were and the tier they were placed at. Am I missing something here or is this really unbalanced? Here is a power level 6 ability: and here is a power level 9 ability: One does roughly a 1200 damage in 15 seconds (guaranteed because its raw), the other does a 1/5 of that in twice as much time (possibly even less since its not raw damage), and is a higher tier ability. Is there a buff or a nerf required here?

Hello, I would like to ask you whether it's intended or bug that ogre fist (from Form of the Fearsome Brute) is not count as unarmed weapon? I wanted to play monk/wizard as Ogre with high attack speed, but it looks like monk's passive buffs to unarmed weapon doesn't work for Ogre fist. It would be probably too strong, but now it's quite confusing.. Thanks guys!

Because atm they are underwhelming and un-fun. Complained in 1 about that as well. Saying this after a complete playthrough. DnD spells (in any DnD game up to now) were impactful - they felt powerful. PoE spells (except the best spell in the game- chill fog), even with a large amount of perception and accuracy, are unreliable and not worth casting except for crowd control in some situations. See much better results with non-wizards in my party. And the new grimoire/spell system is not intuitive at all. Every grimoire has assortments of spells that I don't like tbh and re-training seems a must for every wizard. With these spell/element resistances in the game, if wizards can not versatile, they end up being useless in half of the fights. Why not let us write our own grimoire and use that as a gold sink as well?

I'm looking to run a pure wizard but i'm out of ideas for weapon prof...magic implements are the better choice? or weapon + shield for defense? also, i really like the idea of a gun wizard, shooting people when i run out of spells. is it viable? which is the most efficient? thanks in advance

Hey all, I can't decide between a Battlemage (Fighter/Wizard) and a Psyblade (Fighter/Cipher). I want to make a character with good melee capability as well as decent magic/casting to help augment that melee ability further and occasionally cause damage with casting. Essentially I don't mind occasionally using jolting touch or mind wave to cause damage (I certainly want to use these abilities), but most of the time I want to stay in melee and fight it out. That means I want to use (most of the time) instantaneous casting abilities as augments, because if I'm in melee I don't wanna spend too much time in recovery (I'm also a fan of heavy armor). I find a fighter is a great base class with a nice mix of defensive and offensive passives which is why I am going with that, though I'm open to suggestions. The Wizard and Cipher both bring casting to the table but they do it in different ways. I usually look at buffs/debuffs in terms of "does this increase my chances of hitting them and reduce their chance to hit me?". I feel the wizard is more focused, or rather, has better options for self buffing (arcane veil, mirror image, displaced image, citzal's martial power) increasing my melee abilities and most/all of these are instant cast. Cipher can do something similar but does it by debuffing enemies more with eyestrike and other abilities. These abilities have long cast times which makes me iffy about how much time I'll spend in recovery. But on the other hand I can get soul whip and soul annihilation for increased damage. This is essentially my problem, do I take instant, strong buffs over soul whip and slower debuffs? If anyone has any one tried these classes, please share your opinion of their effectiveness and just how much fun you had.

Is the Familiar a Conjurer/Wizard summons still random? I can't make a character to find out till tomorrow (darn mandatoryupdates and limited internet data ;o; ) If yes, does anyone have any idea how I can mod/change this? I want to only have the wyrm/dragon thing.

I'm not going to be able to play Deadfire right away so I figured I would get some build advice before hand. As the title says I want to make a Bruce Banner/ Incredible Hulk based character with the scientist background and then Transmuter Wizard as my first class. I was hooked on Form of the Fearsome Brute as soon I heard about it. I know I won't turn green like the Hulk but a raging ogre is pretty great. As far as the actual stats I don't need a min maxed build. I'm more interested in the roleplay and having fun smashing stuff. I would like to multiclass. I think it's a really cool feature and I like the added versatility. I'm leaning towards streetfighter rogue because rogue is usually my favorite class in games and streetfighter should help the since I'd be right in the thick of the fight. I'm not set in stone on rogue though and am open to suggestions for other combos. I'd also like to have decent conversations stats if it can work with this build but I'm not sure how stat checks and dialogue work in this game compared to the first one. Thanks in advance.

I have been playing NWN2 solo for a couple of years now and one of the first things I did was to figure out how to resurrect Amie Fern. She is a Generalist Wizard and great for crafting. She is one of my favorite characters and I keep her right up to the very end of the original campaign. She is not very interactive as she has no dialog after West Harbor. But she does make a very useful member of the party, albeit a mandatory one. I have never seen any references to anyone else keeping her in their party and I was wondering if anyone ever had? I would be happy to explain how if anyone is interested. I almost always play as a Ranger btw, usually with at least three levels of multi-classing. Really like having the animal companion!

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

PS4 user here, thank you so much for bringing Pillars of Eternity to console! :D I've been playing a wizard for awhile and just started getting mastered spells, they don't seem to be working correctly or if they are I would really like some added functionality. The first thing that disappointed me was that the AI behavior seems to completely ignore the fact that these per encounter abilities exist, now this might be as intended... but another check box for mastered spells being used would be great in the AI behavior window. it would really be awesome if Spellsword Aloth would use his per encounter Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff in combat automatically. But that was ok I figured I would just put my mastered spells in the combat radial menu's custom slots. But that doesn't work either, when i attempt to slot the mastered spell it just slots the normal spell version and tells you it isn't in the grimoire if you don't. So to use mastered spells you have to dig through the radial menu every fight. I would really like to know if this is something that could be addressed in a future update or if y'all aren't making changes like this anymore. Also anyone else? Opinions?

I think this subject may interest some people, One of my concern on the 1st Pillars Of Eternity was that we'd get to know & see, every possible Enchantments we could do, like, from the very begining of the Game. And never had the opportunity to find that great treasure containing that awesome new Recipe for Weapons, Armor, Shields or Hats. Pretty sure it was a lack of time and ressources problem for you to make it happen. But now, killing Concelhaut, or Any Archmage should have this feature in Deadfire. Sneaking in his/her own private Library, looking for Unique Spells & Enchantments that only a powerfull Archmage know about. If I'm a Rogue, or have a Rogue, and sees that, an Archmage keeps his personal Grimoire in his desk. I'd like to have the possibility to sneak in at night, and steal it ! Obviously, Yselmir should manisfest & tell the Hero : "Hey, why not steal this Grimoire from him ?". Of course, Aloth, like the p*ssy he is, (I like Aloth...^^) would instantly disagree : "You can't do that ! it's one the most powerfull Mage's Grimoire in Eora, he must have protected it with all kinds of dangerous spells ! Even put a Curse that prevent others to use it !" etc, etc. Ok, all of this to say, I'd like Unique (hidden) Recipes in terms of Enchantments primarily, and maybe Weapons & Stuff in Deadfire. I hope they will be able to push that feature further this time around.

Hi, I'm replaying PoE with both expansions (first time with the expansions - criminal really since I've had the game on release and finished it twice before the expansions hit) and really enjoying it but one thing I would love to see expanded upon in Deadfire is the concept of "wizard duels". It's a fairly small thing to implement but I'm thinking of Baldur's Gate 2 specifically when I think of this - there were a few times throughout that game where magic users talents were brought right to the fore. A few times in climactic battles but a few where your sorcerer/wizard basically has to go one on one with another magic user. The most blatant example of this was in the Underdark where you could take on a series of escalating duels for the entertainment of some tavern patrons. But only your wizard was allowed to fight, and the opponent was also a wizard. This would be awesome in PoE as there are a lot of spells designed to counter/absorb spells and effects but in the middle of the hectic combat of PoE you rarely get a chance to see them used effectively. I think weaving something like this into a questline would be pretty awesome. Again just my suggestion but please feel free to comment!

Ok, so I have been thinking about it for a long time. I see that the wizards have a lot of cool spells but each individual wizard has a build using few of those, I mean why do I get 998 buttons with spells when ALOTH is using 5-6 and the rest are just there like "museum pieces" Actually I think there are two main builds with wizards: - crowd control - pure damage So the first type does not use most of the damaging spells and the second one does not use so much dazzling lights / unconsciousness / paralyze /etc. Do you think I am right or not ? BTW I got the same feeling for ciphers, I need exactly FIVE spells from all we got available. Is it not possible to have less icons in the UI so that it can be simpler to play ? Do you rely on automatic hero control where you can click to auto cast DMG abilites or crowd control?? I never tried it cause I thought it might waste spells in easy encounters, so I microcontrol all chars all the time. Any thoughts??

I'm dead set on playing a death godlike wizard because I love the lore and appearance, but I'm having some trouble deciding on the stats. My first instinct is to min-max, but I feel like I might be a little too squishy. I'm playing on normal, so I don't know how much it actually matters in the grand scheme of things. The builds here seem to be based on PotD, as well as optimal item combos, which I probably wont see until end game.

ATTENTION: while a viable build, there are FAR stronger ways to build a wizard. If you are looking to become the strongest spellcaster, sorry It is just not as bad enough to defeat Thaos on Story Mode with a little bit of cheating (one high level damage spell and dozens of scrolls). "The absence of visible violence allows manipulation to disguise itself as the harmlessness it pretends to be" -Friedrich Hacker This wizard is a build that should make it possible to be a (somewhat) efficient spellcaster and have very high mental stats (per, Int, Res) at the same time. My problem was, I wanted somewhat high Dex for casting speed as well. This means I had to drop con... And might. This is the reason why I chose a wizard: they have a lot of very powerful crowd control spells and suffer the least from having no might, especially at lower levels their CC spells are craziely overpowered. So, let's take a look: Wild Orlan (wonderful stat bonuses (on two mentals, and bonus damage doesn't really help us (so we'll care about neither the -1 might nor about not being a Heart Orlan). Orlan also has lots of racial interactions) Mig 2 (3 base -1 orlan) Con 3 (3 base) Dex 18 (14 base +4viettro's formal footwear) Per 22 (18 base + 2 Orlan +2 helmet of darksee) Int 22 (18 base +4 Gwyn's Band of union) Res 25 (17 base +1 Orlan +4 Siegebreaker Gloves +3 Gyrd Haewanes Stenes) Yes, I know simply switching mig and Res would make him much more potent, but this guy is about roleplay. Don't worry, you'll get very fast extremely precise long lasting disables combined with high dialogue possibilities. It's a power gamer's nightmare, but it's a wonderful roleplay-character. I won't recommend a culture or background, since this guy is all about roleplay and you go with what you like. Notice however that a bonus on mig or con might not be the best possible option . I'd recommend putting a lot of points into lore, it's very commonly used in dialogues (you'll also get a bonus from being a wizard and from viettro's formal footwear) and then survival for the same reason. Talents: In no particular order (!) recommended Blast (!) (makes Gyrd Haewanes much more useful) Bonus spell (pretending on ring choice) or arcenic veil WF: Noble Interrupting blows (!) (the only other way besides Gyrd's dominate we'll do something with that weapon) Marksman or Bear's Fortitude (becomes (!) if you find yourself in trouble more often) (another) bonus spell (again pretending on ring choice) Spells: Lvl 1: slicken (very powerful) Eldrich aim Fleet Feet (early on an excellent panic button) Chillfog (the blind debuff is very good and it'll last quite a bit... Can go for spirit shield instead of you want to get up concentration) Lvl 2: Bewildering spectacle (this thing is ridiculous this early on!) Miasma of dull-mindedness Curse of blackened sight Fetid caress Lvl 3: Expose Vurnablilities Delirious Accelerity of motion (bread and butter spell) Arduous delay of motion Arcane dampener Lvl4: Confusion Maura's writhing tentacles (our only useful damage spell) Pull of Eora Minor arcane reflection (with grimoire imprint, we might only steal damage spells, which isn't helpful) Lvl 5: Arkemyr's wondrous torment Call to slumber Form of the helpless beast (such fun, to cool to pass on) Ryngrim's enervating terror (if you have a rouge, choose Wall of Force instead... Hobbled triggers Sneak attack and it lasts forever (base 20s!)) Lvl6: Arcane Reflection Arkemyr's Capricious hex Gaze of the adragan Death ring (destroying is nice and I don't really see an alternative) Lvl7: Wall of draining Lengrath's warding staff (hear me out: the push enchantment makes this our last resort when everything else failed and your the last man standing) Llengrath's siphoning image Substantial phantom (it has ADoM, so that's good... Lvl 7 spells aren't that great for CC) Lvl8: Llengrath's death haze Major grimoire imprint Wall of many colours (blue, indigo and voilett are very useful for us) Superior elemental bulwark So, a lot of CC... Ultimately it's the only thing we can do effectively (but obviously we can do THAT pretty effectively). We won't do any damage, but we'll contribute a lot. Mainly we need to justify dropping might for resolve Spell Mastery: Lvl 1: Slicken or Eldrich aim Lvl 2: Miasmana or bewildering spectacle Lvl 3: DAoM Lvl 4: Confusion or pull of Eora Equipment: Since we focus on Roleplaying, we'll mainly use stat-pushing items, since dialogue checks work by the numbers. Feet: viettro's formal footwear (+4 Dex, +2 lore) Rings: Gwyn's band of union (+4 Int) and either ring of the selonan or telda's ring (choose your bonus spells accordingly) Head: helmet of darksee (+2 per and an awesome icon) Neck: Cape of the cheat (with so little health, we need a way of getting out of trouble, thus this cape) Hands: Siegebreaker's Gloves (+4 Res), early on I'd recommend Fulvano's gloves (+2 Dex) Armour: Angious Gambeson (DAoM spellbind) or Raiment of wael's eyes (nice synergy with our high Res and arcenic veil), early on I'd recommend Rundl's Finery (+2 int, +2 lore) Weapon: Gyrd Haewanes Stewes (with blast, it triggers quite a few dominantions. The +3 Res is why I chose it over the golden gaze) In a party, this character will play exactly as you would expect her to... As a squishy Uber-crowd-controller. Which mind sound awful at first, but the build has its times. The AoEs are huge, you have especially early on great acc, and your spells roll in quite quickly. I found the character in the end to be an unique one. It is... special Once again: This build is not exactly an ideal wizard. But if you think you would enjoy roleplaying a determined caster, and at least I really did, then this might actually be for you. So... Yeah CREDITS: THANK YOU for all the input Link to the artist's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itspuzzlingme/ Be sure to check her out...

Hey, i found a similar bug in THIS thread, but opened a new thread since it is not the same and that is a beta forum thread. The Unwavering Resolve amulet is not working for my main character, a wizard. The character has 20 intelligence and 4 resolve and gets neither of the bonuses. Amulet works fine on Aloth though. Best regards Yahku

"Your a cruel device your blood, like ice one look, could kill my pain, your thrill! I wanna hit you but I better not touch (Don't touch) I wanna smack you, but my senses tell me to stop I wanna smite you but I want it too much (Too much) I wanna hack you but your limbs are venomous poison You're poison running through my veins You're poison I don't wanna break these chains" - Arlise Pooper, Death Godlike wandering minstrel, after meeting Bilestomper - Nobody knows Bilestomper's real name. Nobody knows what he did before he became a drainer in Tâkowa. The only thing we know is that one day he emerged from the sewers in a really pissy mood and went of to the Dyrwood, mumbling something about his own patch of well mucked land... =================================== Bilestomper =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Wizard -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Mountain Dwarf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Rauatai - Laborer -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 20 CON: 20 DEX: 02 PER: 10 INT: 16 RES: 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 9, Lore 4, Mech. 10, Surv. 5 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Spirit of Decay Weapon and Shield Style Bear's Fortitude Veteran's Recovery Arcane Veil Hardened Veil Superior Deflection Body Control Abilities Hale and Hardy (a) Arcane Assault (a) Second Wind Mastered Wizard Spells Mirrored Image Noxious Burst Pull of Eora Spirit Shield 1st Level Wizard Spells Eldritch Aim Slicken Spirit Shield Wizard's Double 2nd Level Wizard Spells Fetid Caress Mirrored Image Necrotic Lance Bulwark against the Elements 3rd Level Wizard Spells Concelhaut's Draining Touch Noxious Burst Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage 4th Level Wizard Spells Ironskin Pull of Eora Essential Phantom 5th Level Wizard Spells Llengrath's Safeguard Malignant Cloud Ryngrim's Enervating Terror 6th Level Wizard Spells Citzal's Martial Power Death Ring Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst 7th Level Wizard Spells Ninagauth's Killing Bolt Substantial Phantom Wall of Draining 8th Level Wizard Spells Llengrath's Superior Elemental Bulwark Wilting Wind --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Wodewys (*Exceptional, *Corrosive Lash), Little Savior (*Durgan Reinforced) Weapon Set 2: whatever Boots: Bilestompers Head: Iverra's Diving Helmet Armor: Argwes Adra (*Superb, *Crush-Proofed, *Durgan Reinforced, MIG+2) Neck: Father's Teeth Belt: Looped Rope Rings: Ring of Deflection, Ring of Protection Hands: Bracers of Spiritual Power Quick slots: Traps mostly --------------------------------------------------------------- So as some of you may have noticed OBS put a lot of the spells (and monsters' abilities) that do raw or corrode damage into the "poison" or "disease" category with the latest patches. That can be annoying because nowadays some foes have immunities against poison and disease - namely vessels and such. But it also means that the mountain dwarves' racial ability finally makes some sense. So I figured it might be a good idea to use this ability and build around it (I love to take an aspect of the game and take it to the limit and see where this takes the build - if it's viable, fun to play and so on). I mean piling up defenses against all kinds of corrosion, poison, disease and such things. This would allow me to stand right in the middle of such effects and just shrug them off while the enemy would suffer big time. So I thought about which class might get the most out of it. At first the druid came to mind but then I realized that the wizard has the most powerful AoE spells that fall into that category. Also, most of them are not DoT spells and therefore profit from Spirit of Decay (which I planned to use anyway because of the corrode DR bonus). Wizards can also make great short time tanks because of those great self buffs they can learn. You can't tank forever though and that means you also want to kill your opponents fast. Luckily spells like Noxious Burst, Malignant Cloud etc. are very potent. Especially if you don't care if they also hit you. The tactics with this guy are very simple: - lay a poisonous trap - stand right behind it - start encounter - buff - lure the mob onto the trap - cast all those nasty poison spells onto your own head while the monstes try to kill you - watch them all die while you remain unharmed Let's talk about stats and numbers. I went max MIG and CON because I wanted my fortitude defense to be very, very high. That's because most of those spells and effects (and also the most annoying other ones like paralyzing, stunning, prone and so on) target fortitude. So with the stats alone I get a bonus of +40 to my fortitude defense. My armor gives me +2 MIG, so that's +4 fort. Bear's Fortitude makes this +54. I also wear Father's Teeth (around my neck...) which give my another +18 which leads to +72 fortitude. I took the Little Savior because it's another item that gives a bonus to fortitude which stacks with the rest. +77 now! On top of that you can add the racial ability "Hale and Hardy" which adds +25 against poison and disease. I also wear that nice bulky diving helmet which gives my +20 (and +35 against dragon's breath - which is nice because our reflex defense sucks a bit) and the axe Wodewys which adds another +20 to that (and since it's a weapon it stacks with everything). Now... against poison and disease effects we have a defensive bonus of +142. At level 16 that means 207. Without any buffs, potions, scolls, food or resting bonuses. You can add spells to boost this even further if you need. But honestly it's more than enough to avoid that you hit yourself with your own spells. It will never happen. Well - never say never- but if you shoot yourself in the foot, you will have a very high DR against your own spells (28 without buffs, thanks to Bilestomper's boots). You can always cast Bulwark against the elements to boost that to 43. The other DR values are also pretty good, so with the bulwark you won't be one-shotted by dragons. Thanks high CON, too! But there's more: Funnily, most of the monsters' abilities that are considered poison or diseases also sicken, weaken or paralyze you. Since I took Body Control I gain another defense buff: +10. Aaand the Looped Rope adds another +20 to that (and to most toher afflictions, too). All in all, against attacks that are poisonous or a disease AND do sicken, paralyze, petrify, stun or weaken we will have a defense of 237. You can image how a Plague of Insects (poison, sickening)... never even grazes you anymore - while you're bathing in your own Malignant Cloud (after those baked beans). The most difficult and annoying fights suddenly become trivial if you're at this point. Of course it takes some time to get there. But since I didn't raise my ACC too high I started to avoid my own spell efffects quite early in the game. Your ACC gets better and better, and so do your defenses. Most of the time those defenses are way better than your ACC. It's a good thing to use survival in order to get an ACC bonus against certain enemies. That helps to crit them but miss yourself. I seldomly used Eldritch Aim when I wanted to cast Noxious Burst or Malignant Cloud onto my own head for that reason. Later on you can do that because your defenses will be so high that Eldritch Aim doesn't matter at all - for yourself that is. Of course it still helps hitting foes. Keep one thing in mind: this build ois very slooow. So make use of Spirit SHield. You don't want to get interrupted. With high RES and Spirit Shield this almost never happens - but just keep it in mind. If you think you are too slow there's always Alacrity. And last but not least: this build is fun to play. Micromamangement is quite low for a wizard, he's very sturdy - even against other attacks than poinson and so on. He just looks so adorable in his bulky helmet and his green suit, standing in the middle of the mob and melting them. The Devil of Caroc is a great addition to this build because she's immune to all that poison stuff anyway. So you can tank and she can flank while taking an acid shower together. Awesome! And kind of romantic in a weird way, too. Thanks for reading - good night my fellow builders! p.s.: THis build idea also works very well when you use ice/freeze instead of corrode/poison/disease. Use a pale elf and pick up different gear that allows for more freeze DR and feezing spells and such (Wyrwood Ring, Scath Gwannek shield and so on) and pick up the Crossed Patch that makes you immune to blind. Then stand in the midst of you own chill fog while you await the incoming mobs. Chill FOg targets fortitude so will will seldomly get hit. And if this happens the Crossed Patch will prevent you from getting blinded. Tested this and it also works great. I had to decide which element to use and I took the poison route because mountain dwarves got no love so far and I liked the corrode AoE spells better. But chill fog is a really nice spell throughout the whole game.

Hi all Sorry, if it's already been discussed. Is this only my bug or EP has no access to wizard's spellbind items anymore? It has a bag icon on HUD, and it's panel has some length but contains no items.

This is my first time obtaining this - which should I give it to? They're each story companions (Aloth, Hiravias). I'm leaning towards Aloth for the potential AoE dominate procs from Blast and 1/encounter stun, but it seems like Golden Gaze would be much better for the AoE DR reduction. Alternatively, I'm thinking to put it on Hiravias since refreshing his Spiritshift isn't a bad option as it hits pretty hard and that would free up Aloth for Golden Gaze. I have Durance in my party too and the displaced image on being crit isn't a bad option either, but the other two seem better. Any input would be appreciated

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading! A quick intro. I’m a huge Infinity Engine enthusiast. Baldur’s Gate 2: SoA+ToB is pretty much my favorite game of all time (read best game of all time). Playing as a mage and blasting through everything like Irenicus on speed is probably the greatest feeling I can get from dancing pixels on a screen and I wanted to re-create that feeling in Pillars of Eternity. There have been plenty of posts on soloing the game, but the information is not standardized and consolidated. Also, there isn’t much for mages in the way of target gear and tips for expansion content. This guide aims to help with those issues. I’m sure plenty of people have some better ideas than what I’ve written. Please feel free to comment and I will update the guide as we progress. A few things that should be known before reading This is a NORMAL DIFFICULTY solo guide. Should work for hard mode as well. I’m hoping to make a TCS guide in the future. This is a completionist playthrough. All quests have been done (to my knowledge) and all battles have been fought. Both expansions have been cleared entirely. The only encounters that have been skipped are a few bounties that I couldn’t be bothered to do. They shouldn’t be too difficult at max level. This guide allows for picking your favorite race and lifestyle. I played through as an Aedyran Human. Obviously this isn’t ideal in any way, shape, or form. The most optimized race for this would be Wood Elf as their attribute bonuses (Dex & Per) are amazing for wizard and they get a ranged damage buff which benefits a blaster mage incredibly. The most optimal culture is really personal preference but I would go Rauatai for the much needed constitution bonus. This is a casual guide. I don’t care about the solo achievement so I randomly picked up followers to grab their quests and to throw them in my keep to work. That being said, every battle was fought solo and every quest was done solo. If you care about the achievement you can just simply not do this. Picking up followers here and there doesn’t really give you any advantage except a bit more money from keep adventures and a bit more experience from the follower quests. It’s pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things. You’ll be level capped in act 3/WM1 regardless. This guide is for a “blaster” type wizard. What’s the point of being a mage if you can’t nuke throngs of enemies? :D Be patient. Just like in the infinity engine games, the early levels as a wizard solo are a bit tough. You’ll have to rest a lot. It will pay off in the later levels when you’re blasting everything into oblivion. If you’re having too much trouble on one fight, come back to it later. The main plot quests (critical path) are easy as hell (bar white march 2) so you should be fine there. My advice is to leave the main plot for last and then blast through it when you’re insanely overqualified. It’s really fun seeing things melt. Have both expansions installed at all times. This will ensure that every experience point is used. Complete the entire vanilla game up until the point of no return (end of act 3). Before you jump into the pit for the final phase of the main plot, head over to complete expansion content. You’ll be level 14 (WM1 cap) by act 3 and level 16 (WM 2 cap) by early WM1. I never scale the difficulty when given the option. You should be rewarded for being prepared and overqualified, not penalized. My opinion of course. J Now that that’s done, without further ado, allow me to present the guide. I’ll update as I find more out. Race: Elf (Much needed bonus to Dex & Per) Sub-Race: Wood Elf (Amazing damage buff for ranged spells and shots) Culture: Rauatai (Much needed bonus to Con) Background: Aristocrat (Lore bonus will allow using powerful scrolls in early game) Attributes This is a blaster build and we are not intending on getting beaten down. Therefore, I’ve chosen to ditch resolve and constitution in favor of boosting the power and accuracy of our spells. Make sure you loot the barbarians in Cilant Lis and equip your hatchet and shield right away. It helps a ton. If you’re dying too much in the early game, you can take a point out of Perception and 2 out of Intelligence and pump them into constitution. You can respec later when you get tougher. Might: 18 Constitution: Dump Dexterity: 18 Perception: 17 Intelligence: 18 Resolve: Dump Skills Your endgame skills should look as below. They don’t have to be base, these include static buffs. For example my Aristocrat Bonus + Hylea’s Boon + Wizard Bonus gave me 5 Lore points, and I put 5 through level ups for a total of 10. You’ll want your lore to be 10 to use all useful scrolls including but not limited to Maelstrom, Paralysis, Confusion, Prayer Against Fear, etc. Mechanics is great for obvious reasons (detecting and removing traps, finding secret items, etc.). Stealth is pretty much optional (less so in the early game). Eventually you’ll be strong enough to not need to sneak around anymore. It’s still nice to have though for the purpose of getting the drop on harder trash mobs. Survival can also be useful for the campsite resting buffs, although you probably won’t need any for trash mobs. Don’t worry if you botch up the point spread. You can always respec and it’s more about personal preference anyway. Lore: 10 Mechanics: 10 Stealth: 8 Talents You’ll get a talent choice every second level. I like to keep them primarily defensive and utility based as your offensive capabilities will never be an issue. Arcane Veil + Hardened Veil is also very useful in the early game. If you’re having trouble surviving, you can take it and respec later. Level 2: Weapon & Shield Style Level 4: Fast Runner Level 6: Secrets of Rime Level 8: Superior Deflection Level 10: Deep Pockets Level 12: Bear’s Fortitude Level 14: Snake’s Reflexes Level 16: Bull’s Will Spells This pretty much covers every spell I used in the game. I’ll update if I forgot anything. More than 4 are listed in some levels, just switch them out as you need them. Level 2 is a trump card of amazing buffs and debuffs. I would only take Necrotic Lance in longer fights where you are in danger of running out of spells. Bewildering Spectacle is great until you get Confusion. Your end game trump card spells that make things melt are “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst”, “Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake” and the single target “Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt”. Ninagauth’s takes time to cast so make sure you’re not in danger before you cast it. Finish enemies off with “Minoletta’s Concussive Missiles” if you run out of powerful spells. I’ve put a star next to all of the absolute essential spells. Level 1 - Chill Fog * - Fan of Flames * - Eldritch Aim * - Arkmyr’s Dazzling Lights * Level 2 - Concelhaut’s Corrosive Siphon* - Curse of Blackened Sight - Miasma of Dull-Mindedness * - Bulwark Against The Elements * - Necrotic Lance - Bewildering Spectacle Level 3 - Lengrath’s Displaced Image* - Fireball - Deleterious Alacrity of Motion * - Expose Vulnerabilities Level 4 - Confusion * - Essential Phantom * - Ironskin * - Minoletta’s Concussive Missiles * - Wall of Flame Level 5 - Blast of Frost - Malignant Cloud * - Nanagauth’s Bitter Mooring * - Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror * - Wall of Force * Level 6 - Arkemyr’s Capricious Hex - Gaze of The Adragon - Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst * - Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar * Level 7 - Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt * - Wall of Draining - Substantial Phantom - Concelhaut’s Crushing Doom Level 8 - Wilting Wind - Llengrath’s Superior Elemental Bulwark * - Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake * - Minoletta’s Piercing Sigil Spell Mastery Unfortunately with the 3.0 patch, wizards got a massive nerf with the removal of per-encounter spell levels. This has raised massive quality of life issues for soloing as we can no longer ignore resting for the longer dungeons and quests in the game. The per-encounter spell levels have been replaced with “Spell Mastery”. Essentially at the level that you would normally get all spells in a certain spell level as per-encounter, you now only get to choose 1. By the level cap, you will have 4 per encounter spells castable only once/encounter. The spells I chose are essentially my main buffs and the best trash mob spell in our grimoire; Chill Fog. Spells are as follows: - Chill Fog - Bulwark Against The Elements - Llengrath’s Displaced Image - Eldritch Aim Pre-Fight Buffs Consumables Unlike in the infinity engine games, our spell buffs can only be used in battle. Apparently spell casters in Eora are on some kind of honor system. That being said, we can still acquire extremely powerful pre-fight buffs. These come in the form of consumables. There are all kinds of consumable buffs including food, drink, and drugs. I tend to stay away from drugs because they usually cause a debuff after the main buff expires. There is no need to use these consumables for trash mobs. You’ll only need them for boss fights and other major encounters. To use these consumables, simply click the crafting button in your inventory screen, and pick the desired dish. If you don’t have the ingredients, you can buy them in various marketplaces. Most food ingredients are fairly cheap (except dragon meat which will break your bank at 3000 gold/serving). Once the food is crafted, simply drag and drop it on to your character in the inventory screen and you will see the buff on your portrait when you return to the game screen. They usually last roughly few minutes. You should have a full stack of the following consumables for major encounters: - Dragon Meat Dish - Rauatai Sweet Pie - Farmer’s Spread - Ixamitl Ricepan - Pearlwood Chicken - Casita Casserole - Ale Resting Buffs In addition to your consumable buffs, you can also acquire a passive rest bonus by staying at inns or from your campfire if you have skill points in survival (they do not stack). Arguably the best rest bonus comes from a tavern in Dyrford Village called “Dracogen Inn”. The highest end room in this inn (Dragon’s Lair) grants a massive attribute boost (+2 Con, +2 Mig, +2 Int). Unfortunately it only lasts one day. For a longer 3-day bonus, your keep’s rest bonuses are excellent as well and let you choose a single attribute for a +3 buff. Make sure you upgrade your keep! Prostitute Bonus In Defiance Bay’s Ondra’s Gift district, you will find a tavern/brothel called “The Salty Mast”. It contains various prostitutes that confer great bonuses for their “services”. The greatest thing about the prostitute bonus is that it will stack with your inn/campsite bonus making for a great attribute buff. Obviously, you can only benefit from one prostitute’s buffs at a time. For even more good news and hilarity, if you have at least 19 dexterity (which should be easy with buffs or gear), the prostitutes will be so impressed with your performance in bed that they will give you back your money resulting in a free buff! There are great prostitutes for both major sexual preferences, listed below are the best of each gender. - Lyrina – Female Prostitute (+2 Con, +2 Mig, +1 Athletics) - Aldwyn – Male Prostitute (+2 Per, +2 Int, +1 Lore). Quick Slot Items Like most RPG’s of this nature, Pillars of Eternity allows you to put on-use or consumable items in your quick slot for use during battle. With the “Deep Pockets” talent, you’ll have 6 slots in total. Your standard layout should be: - 5 Scroll of Maelstrom - 5 Scroll of Paralysis - 5 Scroll of Prayer Against Fear - 5 Scroll of Prayer Against Imprisonment - 5 Endurance Potions - Obsidian Figurine You can change these as you need to. Some of the more difficult fights require certain approaches. You’ll want extra accuracy during any dragon fight so you can replace “prayer against imprisonment” with a “flask of war paint” for the great accuracy buff. Scrolls of Confusion are also indispensable for tricky fights. But this set-up should do you for the overwhelming majority of the game. In the early game you can switch out maelstrom and paralysis for more figurines as you won’t have high enough lore to use them yet. Best In Slot Gear & Enchantments This gear set up worked wonders for me. I made a point to explore every map and get every item (to my knowledge). The main point of your gear set up is to get as high a buff as you can on every major attribute and every major save. Usually the highest attribute buff is +3 until you hit White March. At that point you will begin to uncover +4 items. Keep in mind that many of these drops are random and certain items/enchantments are dependant on what you have equipped. For example, if your random belt drop was the +3 constitution belt, you won’t be putting a constitution enchantment on your chest armor. Gear buffs do not stack and you can only have 1 of every attribute. If I missed anything too good to ignore, please post and I will update. Until you get the items posted below, use anything you find following the rules above. For example, until you get the “Mantle of The Excavator”, a great alternative is “Lillith’s Shawl” found in the Lighthouse of Ondra’s Gift, Defiance Bay. You can check various sites with item databases to map out what you need. By the end of the game, I was wearing the following pieces: Gear Item: Garodh’s Chorus Slot: Helm Notable Stats: +3 Might, Retaliation (Variable depending on your choices during quest) Game: White March 1 Location: Reward from quest. You’ll need to gather the 3 parts of the helm from Russetwood, Stalwart Village, and Durgan’s Battery Main Floor. Item: Starlit Garb Slot: Chest (Robe) Notable Stats: DR: 9, +10 vs. Spells, +2 Athletics Game: Vanilla Location: Part of a quest in act 3. Robe can be found in a hidden stash in one of the dwellings in Elms Reach, Twin Elms. You’ll need to follow the quest until you get the map for it. Item: Ring of Protection Slot: Ring 1 Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +9 to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Location: Random drop in various locations. You can also buy them from one of the merchants in Copperlane, Defiance Bay. Item: Ring of Deflection Slot: Ring 2 Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +9 Deflection Location: Same as above. Item: Boots of Speed Slot: Feet Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +3 Movement Speed Location: Random drop in various locations. Item: Girdle of Eoten Constitution Slot: Waist Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +3 Constitution Location: Random drop in various locations. Item: Mantle of The Excavator Slot: Cloak/Neck Game: White March 2 Notable Stats: +25 vs. Poison, +2 Survival, +4 Perception Location: West Tower, Durgan’s Battery Item: Bracers of Spiritual Power Slot: Gloves Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +10% Spell Damage Location: Random drop in various locations Item: Hearth Harvest Slot: Weapon Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +5 Deflection, +25% Burn Damage Location: Corpse in Woodend Plains Item: Little Savior Slot: Shield Game: Vanilla Notable Stats: +5 to all defenses, +50 Defense while stunned, +50 Defense while prone Location: Adra Dragon’s treasure horde. Enchantments You can enchant your weapon, shield, and chest armor. They should all have the highest quality enchant while still making room for the amazingly powerful “White Forge” enchant from White March 1. On your chest armor, the +2 attribute enchantment should be whatever you need based on what’s dropped. Remember to not overlap attribute bonuses, they don’t stack. Strategy & Rotation Positioning Proper positioning is absolutely imperative in solo play. Whenever possible, you must pick your battlefield. Some of the hardest fights in the game are the ones that plop you in the middle of a field surrounded by a bunch of strong enemies. The most ideal position is to bottleneck your opponents through any narrow space such as a doorway or a corner whereby only 1 or 2 of them will be able to hit you. In some of the trickier fights, this will be the difference between succeeding and dying. If there aren’t any good bottlenecks around just make sure your back is against a wall of some sort. If the enemy manages to get the flank debuff on you it will seriously effect your defenses. Trash Mob Rotation A “trash mob” is identified as any non-boss or major encounter fight. They’re essentially just the regular inept minions you fight in the wilderness or in dungeons. They’re mostly just fairly weak annoyances with the exception of perma-stun mobs like vampires and some ghosts. The White March 2 mobs are also pretty tough. You’ll have quite a time in the “Stalwart Mines”. That said, you could take out nearly every trash mob in the game with the following rotation: 1. Chill Fog (Make sure to cover as many enemies as possible) 2. Bulwark Against The Elements (Buff) 3. Llengrath’s Displaced Image (Buff) 4. Ironskin (Buff) 5. Eldritch Aim (Buff) 6. Concelhaut’s Corrosive Siphon (Again, hit as many as possible) 7. AoE mobs until dead (Use any area of effect spell) This is the full version of the rotation. Obviously you won’t need to go this crazy for most of the trash mobs. For example, in the early game you wont have access to Ironskin (level 4 spell) and you might not want to waste your few level 2 casts on buffs that aren’t needed. You also won’t need concelhaut’s regeneration because mobs won’t lay a finger on you when blinded by chill fog and you won’t need the accuracy bonus from eldritch aim. Therefore, you’ll be able to skip steps 2-5 and go right to nuking the enemy down with either Fan of Flames or Arcane Assault. Remember to cast Chill Fog in such a way that you are enveloped by the yellow part of the spell radius. This ensures that if enemies get behind you they will still be blinded and damaged by the spell. Concelhaut’s Corrosive Siphon will leech health from the enemy, which is great to have in any fight. Understanding the concept of divide and conquer is of pinnacle importance to success as a solo mage. Often times you will be surrounded by a group of powerful enemies. Confusion! Confusion! Confusion! While confused, the enemies will waste no time beating on each other while you cast buffs on yourself and blast them into oblivion. Have it in your spellbook as well as scrolls in your quick slot. This is huge for dragon fights as you can keep them friendly while you blast them to death. Make sure to buff your accuracy (Eldritch Aim/Flask of War Paint) and Miasma them first! Dragons have insane saves so even with your high perception you will miss constantly if you don’t buff yourself and debuff them. Extremely Difficult Fights These are a few encounters I had trouble with and how I ended up beating them. It goes without saying that you should be fully buffed for all of these fights (except the Eyeless and Cragholdt mobs, they’re just tough trash). Minoletta’s Burst, Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt and Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake are your end game can opener spells. They hit like a truck and can down the toughest bosses in the game quickly. The problem is surviving while you buff yourself, debuff them, and take care of their annoying minions. When in doubt, before you start blasting them, keep your enemies confused or paralyzed and make sure your accuracy is buffed (Eldritch Aim/Flask of War Paint) and they are debuffed (Miasma). For dragon fights add “ Scroll of Protection from Fear” to the mix as their terrify aura will cancel out your accuracy buff. Undead Raedric (Act 3: Vanilla) If you happened to put the psychotic lord of Gilded Vale down in act 1, you’ll be “thrilled” to know that you’ll see him again in act 3, freshly raised as a Vampire. If that isn’t bad enough, he’s got an entire coven of bloodsuckers backing him up. This fight puts Bodhi (Baldur’s Gate 2) to absolute shame. This guy is tough and hits like a truck. Make sure you run down the stairs and into a corner so they can’t flank you. Make liberal use of confuse. At this point you won’t have enough spells to take this walking corpse down so make sure you have some Maelstrom scrolls (if you can use them) or other AoE scrolls. If I remember correctly, they have a pretty significant cold resistance, so Freezing Pillar might not be as effective. Go with Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst. Don’t waste it if they’re confused into friendliness, it’s a foe AoE. This quest gives an insane amount of EXP so make sure you do it! Adra Dragon (Od Nua Level 15, Caed Nua: Vanilla) The one and only “Master Below”, Adra Dragon is a seriously tough fight and you’ll probably have to load the game a bunch of times before offing her. There are a few strategies for dealing with this one. You can see them all being executed to perfection at MANoob100’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MANoob100/videos?shelf_id=0&view=0&sort=dd My favorite method is the “Barrier Strategy”. Be sure that you talk the dragon into telling you about the dragon slayer that is after her. She will offer you a deal to leave your keep if you kill the slayer for her. After you tell the dragon slayer of her plans, you will be taught the “Scalebreaker” ability. This will do wonders for every dragon fight in the game. Go back to the dragon and prepare for a fight. Your rotation is as follows: - Run to the far left of the map - Cast energy barrier where the dragon will be coming - Essential Phantom - Prayer of Protection from Fear (on you and your phantom) - Llengrath’s Displaced Image - Eldritch Aim - Scalebreaker - Arkemyr’s Dazzling Lights - Miasma of Dull Mindedness - Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar - Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror - Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar (X2) - Malignant Cloud (X2) - Finish dragon off. Remember that all of these AoE spells should be hitting the dragon and any of his minions that break through. They’ll be a pain. You can also make use of confusion to make this fight even easier. Alpine Dragon (Cave, Longwatch Falls: White March 1) Arguably the hardest fight in the game. After about 50 tries, I finally put the little bastard down without a scratch on me. I pretty much followed Kaylon’s awesome strategy shown here with a few minor changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBPgwipx3OM As for all of these encounters, you’ll need all pre-fight buffs on you for this fight. Make sure you hit up Dracogen Inn and The Salty Mast. Grab your food buffs right before engaging, and make sure you equip anywhere from 10-15 scrolls of confusion. One full stack of scroll against fear is essential as well. Try not to hit any of the dragon’s minions, you’ll be using them for their weak saves to confuse and distract the dragon. Quickly run to the bottom left corner when the encounter begins. If one of the creatures is on to you, confuse it immediately. If they’re lagging behind and not yet in your view, use the opportunity to thrown a protection from fear scroll on yourself. Accuracy is a must in this fight and the dragon’s terrify aura is as good as being blinded. You’ll need all of your high damage spells to take this guy down. Personally, my 2 “I win” spells are Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst and Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt. They do insane damage and high saves are worthless against them. It’s important to understand however, that Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt will constantly miss unless you are immune to terrify (scroll), have an accuracy buff (Eldritch Aim/Flask of War Paint), and the dragon is debuffed (Miasma of Dull Mindedness). So remember that in between confusing the minions to distract the dragon, make sure all buffs and debuffs are up. Keep confusing to buy yourself time to cast if they aren’t. It helps a lot if the dragon itself is confused. When the dragon is friendly, you can hit it with Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt. When it isn’t friendly, run up behind it while it’s attacking its own confused minions and spam your Minoletta’s. Use “Scalebreaker” at your own discretion. When it dies, clean up the surviving trash mobs and claim victory! Concelhaut (Cragholdt Bluffs: White March 1) One of my favorite quests in the game, Cragholdt Castle is a really cool zone filled with epic mage battles that are just challenging enough to be fun, but not annoyingly hard. The first thing you’ll have to do is take care of the mercenaries laying siege to the castle. They’re insanely annoying trash mobs that are going to take some patience to deal with. Use your trump card spells like “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst” and “Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake”. “Confusion” is also your friend here. When you finally reach the castle (a much more lax atmosphere), you’ll find that the first thing you have to do is knock off Concelhaut’s 4 apprentices. You can also make a deal with them, but I chose to slaughter them all. The fights are fun and fairly easy, be sure to make use of the amazingly convenient doorways. The vithrak apprentice is a bit of a pain, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble. Eventually you’ll reach the liche lord Concelhaut, archmage of Cragholdt. The good news is you’ll pound him one on one, the bad news is he has a hefty little undead army with him. Make sure you’re fully buffed as opening the door to his quarters will make you fatigued. You might as well run back to Dyrwood Village and Ondra’s gift to get your bonuses before you walk in. Try to lure out Concelhaut’s minions before engaging the mage himself. It’s important to take out that nasty death guard separately. If you get him and Concelhaut together, your chances of survival are low. Once you lure out and kill the death guard, you can safely engage the rest of them (although luring out and killing as many as you can is recommended). Cast your buffs, make sure you’re immune to fear, and spam “Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake” to clear the minions. Concelhaut himself is immune to ice, so as soon as you kill the minions; buff your accuracy, try to “Miasma” him, and spam your “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst” until he falls. You’ll need to be immune to fear for this whole fight so make sure you’re using scrolls. Llengrath (Mowrghek Ien: White March 2) After taking out Concelhaut, make your way back to Stalwart to finally find out who was behind the siege of his castle. It is none other than the archmage Llengrath. There aren’t many encounters before you fight her, go to the zone that unlocks once you get the quest in Stalwart and make your way to the Northwest of the map. You’ll run into a few packs of her druid minions, you should stomp them fairly easily. They’re way easier than the mercenaries in Cragholdt. Before you enter the forest clearing, make sure you’re fully buffed with food and inn/prostitute bonuses. It’s worth noting that if you give Llengrath Concelhaut’s little Kangaxx head and choose your words right, she’ll let you off with a nice permanent buff to your attributes. To hell with that jazz I say, WE FIGHT! As is impossible to miss, Llengrath is accompanied by 2 young Bog Dragons and one inept druid apprentice. Just like the Concelhaut fight, they’re all manageable on their own but become a nuisance due to the fact that they’re ganging you. As soon as the fight starts, run the far right corner. Buff yourself up while they’re still coming to you. - Bulwark Against The Elements - Llengrath’s Displace Image (How ironic) - Ironskin - Scroll of Prayer Against Fear - Scroll of Defense - Eldritch Aim As soon as all you buffs are up, spam “Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake”. You’ll need to get all 4 of them within the AoE radius. After your third and last rake, Llengrath and her apprentice will be dead. Now for the 2 lizards. These 2 hit pretty hard so you wont survive by just standing your ground and casting. Thankfully, unlike Llengrath, they aren’t immune to paralyze. Whip out a scroll and incapacitate them both. Re-buff your accuracy and “Miasma” them. After that just keep re-paralyzing them before they break free and spam “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst”. One should survive after the 4th cast, finish him with “Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt”. This fight is actually pretty easy, might take a few tries though. You have now officially destroyed the 2 (formerly) most powerful mages in Dyrwood. You may now proudly proclaim yourself Archmage! Llengrath and Concelhaut’s grimoire contain never before seen exclusive spells that only you will have. They’re amazing, make sure you read through them and try them out. Radiant Spore (Stalwart Mines, Stalwart: White March 2 This one is another doozy. In fact, this entire quest is quite difficult. The cavern you will have to navigate to find this optional boss contains arguably the hardest trash mobs in the game. Massive packs of Vithraks (Obsidian’s answer to D&D’s Mind Flayers) and their slaves will charge at you with a vengeance. Paralyze scrolls work wonders against them, and they’re quite soft so they’ll die with minimal effort. The challenge is pretty much surviving their onslaught and constant stunning. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. Use summons to distract them and use Confusion on the slaves. Eventually you’ll reach this massive annoyance of an encounter. It’s essentially a giant boss level spore (Obsidian’s answer to D&D’s Myconids). Upon engagement, the spore will try to interact with you. Unfortunately you won’t have the constitution or resolve to make this fight easier, so just choose to attack it or you’ll get a debuff. As you might expect, this boss is pretty soft and will die quickly. What makes things incredibly complicated is that it’s tentacles hit like a truck and it’s accompanied by an army of charmed Vithraks. The first thing to do is run to the rightmost part of the screen. You’ll see an area that will block the spore’s line of sight to you allowing you to deal with the vithrak’s first. Spam “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst” to take care of the vithrak warriors and sporelings. The lone vithrak caster should be easy to deal with using some mid level damage spells like “Malignant Cloud” and Minoletta's Concussive Missiles.. Once you kill the caster and it’s summons, run back behind the cover, heal and buff yourself. A “Scroll of Defense” will help a lot here. Have summons get the spore’s attention, buff your accuracy, debuff the spore with “Miasma”, and slam it with 4 Killing Bolts. If it’s still alive, finish it off with Malignant Cloud or Minoletta's Concussive Missiles and make sure to run back behind the cover to heal if you need to. The Eyeless (Various Areas: White March 2) Technically a trash mob, but insanely difficult if you don’t know how to fight them. They can kill you almost instantly, they’re immune to confuse and blind, and they have a load of hit points. One thing they can’t resist however is our trusty old “Scroll of Paralysis”. Paralyze them before they get off the insta-kill eye laser move. Then just blast them with anything until they’re dead. It only gets tough when you’re fighting 2 or 3 of them at a time. You’ll have to paralyze all of them at once or you’re dead. “Kalakoth’s Freezing Rake” is amazing for these encounters as it does a load of AoE damage and is cast almost instantly. Keep re-paralyzing them before they break out of their current paralysis. If they knock you on your arse you’re pretty much gone. Again, you’ll get the hang of them after a few encounters. The Kraken (Final Boss: White March 2) Ondra’s little pet will be the last thing keeping you from the expansion’s final objective. This is actually one of the easier boss fights in the game, but you’ll be vaporized quickly if you don’t know how to approach it. This thing has a bunch of tentacles that will assist it in trying to kill you. Don’t waste spells on them. If the Kraken dies, they die too. Run right up to the Kraken’s head and spam “Minoletta’s Precisely Piercing Burst”. This encounter would be easy as pie if 2 Eyeless mobs weren’t triggered when the Kraken is at about half-life. Make sure to get a paralyze off to disable the 2 Eyeless before they start hitting. If anything is going to kill you here, it’s going to be them. I actually managed to paralyze them and the Kraken at the same time. Finish off the Kraken first to get he and his tentacles off of you, and then keep re-paralyzing and blasting the 2 Eyeless using my Eyeless strategy above. Overall this fight isn’t that hard, you’ll understand what to do when you’re there. Conclusion I think that pretty much covers it. If anyone thinks of anything else, please do not hesitate to post. I’ll be putting this guide up on the PoE forums as well as Reddit. Thanks again for reading and a really special thanks to everyone who is supporting this genre of gaming. I can’t wait for the next Pillars of Eternity. Take care! - Bathory 2016 Game Version: 3.01

I recently fired up my POE again after a long break and noticed that with 2.0 patch the monsters generally don't even look in the direction of a "spank and tank" style tank that does no damage... Which was much to my chagrin as that is what my party was built around - Eder was a punching bag wearing nokia phone-level armor while the other 5 would swoon and faint if they so much as feel the wind of a weak fart. So my strategy was to send in Eder while he gets tickled, and my backline throws AOE without regard for him as he could take a beating and keep on ticking. So now I must restart (I wasn't far into the game anyway and I don't mind it) with a more balanced party and what I want to know is what is the ideal balance of stats for a backline caster? My party is as such: Frontline: PC Monk Paladin Ranger pet for backup Backline: Priest (support caster) Wizard Ranger Druid (mainly focused on AOE damage) How tanky does a backline caster need to be (and what weapons should he or she be using) to avoid the aforementioned swooning? As a follow up question, is two tanky melee (plus ranger pet) enough for the post 2.0 era?