[Guide] Permanent bonuses / Approach for a "no rest" run

[Tommy1984]

Another edit. What can I say, I got hooked on this it seems you need to make a super potion and drink it before you can use the bog witches' pool. I drank from it before making a potion and it just polymorphed me into a pig. Drinking again gave me an injury. I reloaded and cleared out the second fight and made a potion and then drank from the pool again, and got the brawn buff.

 

Its totally random what you get. I got the buff from the pool before making the potion ... but only on the third try after being polymorphed to some kind of werewolf and a pig.

 

About the "Good Food, Better Friends": it could be that I missed the moment where I got it. I checked after drinking in Pickled Eel and there was an unknown buff, so I thought I got it from this encounter. But I had this buff without resting, so there should be an option to get it without resting.

 

 

[omgFIREBALLS]

Alright. I'll try to stack con before drinking there. I only started with 12 though so I don't think I can get a crazy high amount :/ has anyone actually drunk the blood without spitting it out?

 

Edit: 18 con to keep the blood down, but no buff. And I tried this with consoled 35 con so I doubt there's ever gonna be one.

 

BTW, I think the Path of the Damned buff is something only enemies are supposed to have, so that you ever got it is probably a bug. Seems to me when I check the details of any attack roll on PotD, there's +15 accuracy for enemies attributed to this buff or +15 to the relevant defense if they're the target instead of the attacker.

Edited June 7, 2018 by omgFIREBALLS

[omgFIREBALLS]

With regards to the pool, there's also

Alchemic Guile: +2 Dex +2 Per

Alchemic Wit: +2 Int +2 Res

 

In fact, you can have multiple at once...

 

 

I accumulated some wounds in the process so I'm off to make another adra potion, but hey. It's awesome.

 

Also, I may be stuck in a cat shapeshift. Hm.

Edited June 9, 2018 by omgFIREBALLS

[gkathellar]

Okay this is super cool and I'm gonna have to try it.

 

Thanks!

[omgFIREBALLS]

A few more notes about the pool. For one, I do not think the buffs are one-time. In my efforts to get all three buffs it sometimes gave me one I already had. Therefore you could take these long before you start your no-rest streak, although by the time you can get here you should already be doing it

 

More importantly, as you save scum your way to all three buffs, DO NOT SAVE while you are shapeshifted by the pool. You might do something like: get shapeshifted, immediately click the pool again, get a buff you were missing, quicksave, then your luck runs short and you decide to reload that quicksave. The shapeshifts are very brief but if you load a save where you've been shifted, the effect never ends.

 

Between resting, luxury hookers, getting knocked out, getting the shapeshift again, getting other shapeshifts again and retraining, nothing was able to clear it. So don't save while you have a temporary shapeshift, or it will no longer be temporary when you load that save. You also don't LOOK shapeshifted so you don't even get that, just your character in underwear with their equipment forever lost.

[TheMetaphysician]

I've run into a number of other semi-forced rests. There are a couple of events with your crew on your ship where some of the options you choose (often accompanied by "X hours passed") make you rest, and there are a couple of other map events (including one on the isle you get the Wael scepter) that remove all your resting buffs. There are always other options, but you should make sure to check your buffs.

[knownastherat]

Is this .. balanced?

[omgFIREBALLS]

It's stupid, but throwing all your per rest at every remotely challenging encounter and resting with water or hardtack afterwards is about as dumb.

[gkathellar]

Is this .. balanced?

 

It's not even totally clear what that means, right now >_>

 

More seriously: probably not, and it's extremely metagame-y, but the concept is honestly just kind of cute and fun and weird enough that I don't think it really needs to be balanced.

[Sergeant Arch Dornan]

5. Bugged bonuses:

Zealous Focus: +5 Accuracy

-> unsure how I got this, picked this up while questing in Neketaka (while soloing as Non-paladin class)

 

Looks like some Neketaka guardians share this aura. I gain Zealous Focus when stay near them and lose it when go away.

[knownastherat]

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

[gkathellar]

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

 

Mostly because it pretty much couldn't happen by accident. YMMV, I suppose.

[Dorftek]

It's stupid, but throwing all your per rest at every remotely challenging encounter and resting with water or hardtack afterwards is about as dumb.

 

Indeed, even more so actually. Several figurines and an empower > rest bonuses.

This is a good carrot imo.

[knownastherat]

 

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

 

Mostly because it pretty much couldn't happen by accident. YMMV, I suppose.

 

 

What do you mean by accident? Did pre 1.1 recovery on DoC breastplate happen by accident?

 

If its possible to stack defenses so high that it makes a player untouchable, how figurines, per rest bonuses, and empower matter? I do not understand what matrix you use to determine what needs to be balanced and whatnot. Seems to me it does not have a rational base. 

Edited June 9, 2018 by knownastherat

[gkathellar]

 

 

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

 

Mostly because it pretty much couldn't happen by accident. YMMV, I suppose.

 

 

What do you mean by accident? Did pre 1.1 recovery on DoC breastplate happen by accident?

 

If its possible to stack defenses so high that it makes a player untouchable, how figurines, per rest bonuses, and empower matter? I do not understand what matrix you use to determine what needs to be balanced and whatnot. Seems to me it does not have a rational base.

 

Clarification: it couldn't happen to a player by accident. The only way a run like this would realistically happen is if the player made a conscious choice to do so, at which point you're really metagaming so intensely that you may as well be allowed to see what happens.

 

(As a general word of advice, I would hesitate to ascribe motive to an opinion without a significant base of evidence, were I you.)

Edited June 9, 2018 by gkathellar

[omgFIREBALLS]

 

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

 

Mostly because it pretty much couldn't happen by accident. YMMV, I suppose.

 

Not sure I get you but there are accidents here.

 

- OP shouldn't have Path of the Damned buff, seems clear to me that this is simply intended for mobs on PotD. Bug.

- It's probably also a bug that OP has Good Food, Better Friends along with a food buff. Nobody so far has been able to reproduce it.

 

So remove 20 defenses due to those. Then if OP rested they would lose 10 from losing Hylea's bounty and some minor defenses from the pool buff and Nature's Resolve. All in all you could attribute 10-15 defense to the no rest shenanigans. The rest is either from bugs or methods available also to non-insomniacs.

[knownastherat]

 

 

 

It's not clear to me indeed, how +160 defenses is cute and fun. 

 

Mostly because it pretty much couldn't happen by accident. YMMV, I suppose.

 

 

What do you mean by accident? Did pre 1.1 recovery on DoC breastplate happen by accident?

 

If its possible to stack defenses so high that it makes a player untouchable, how figurines, per rest bonuses, and empower matter? I do not understand what matrix you use to determine what needs to be balanced and whatnot. Seems to me it does not have a rational base.

 

Clarification: it couldn't happen to a player by accident. The only way a run like this would realistically happen is if the player made a conscious choice to do so, at which point you're really metagaming so intensely that you may as well be allowed to see what happens.

 

(As a general word of advice, I would hesitate to ascribe motive to an opinion without a significant base of evidence, were I you.)

 

 

As a general advice, I would hesitate to use strawman in an argument. What motive? If there is rational base feel free to present it. Cute and fun is not rational base. 

[omgFIREBALLS]

Also OP stated they invested primarily/solely in Athletics, Mechanics and History. If it isn't spelled out I can explain it.

- Mechanics at the very least because trap injuries will screw this tactic over hardcore

- Athletics for deflection bonus on a certain unique shield scaling with the stat

- History for saving throws bonus on a certain unique cloak scaling with the stat

 

These scaling items and probably all other such were nerfed with the patch, so that's further reduced defenses.

[TheMetaphysician]

I'm not sure this strategy is unbalanced. There are sacrifices you make when you don't rest: you can't use empower, per-rest abilities from items, drugs (unless unlimited), and you have to avoid injuries or else use a very expensive, limited potion. That means avoiding resurrection abilities, which are powerful.

 

I've been doing this, mainly for the +50% healing done buff on my healing tank build, and it is powerful, but I am more scared of traps and characters getting knocked out than I was before, which seems about a fair tradeoff.

[Kaylon]

So as far as I can tell the beneficial effect duration from Zahua's bonus doesn't work.  2nd best is probably Devil of Caroc's, so my next goal I guess is to see if you can sacrifice her and still get her breastplate.

Zahua's bonus works. The increase doesn't appear on buff's description but, when used, the buff duration is correctly increased.

[Myztik]

I'm not sure this strategy is unbalanced. There are sacrifices you make when you don't rest: you can't use empower, per-rest abilities from items, drugs (unless unlimited), and you have to avoid injuries or else use a very expensive, limited potion. That means avoiding resurrection abilities, which are powerful.

 

I've been doing this, mainly for the +50% healing done buff on my healing tank build, and it is powerful, but I am more scared of traps and characters getting knocked out than I was before, which seems about a fair tradeoff.

Empower is a mistake and a crutch and not necessary at all. None of the per rest abilities from items matters at all, drugs are supplemental, and you should be trying to get through fights without people dying anyways. Scared of traps? There shouldn't be a single trap in the game you get hit by.

Edited June 16, 2018 by Myztik

[TheMetaphysician]

 

I'm not sure this strategy is unbalanced. There are sacrifices you make when you don't rest: you can't use empower, per-rest abilities from items, drugs (unless unlimited), and you have to avoid injuries or else use a very expensive, limited potion. That means avoiding resurrection abilities, which are powerful.

 

I've been doing this, mainly for the +50% healing done buff on my healing tank build, and it is powerful, but I am more scared of traps and characters getting knocked out than I was before, which seems about a fair tradeoff.

Empower is a mistake and a crutch and not necessary at all. None of the per rest abilities from items matters at all, drugs are supplemental, and you should be trying to get through fights without people dying anyways. Scared of traps? There shouldn't be a single trap in the game you get hit by.

 

 

Why should I be trying to get through fights without people dying? Why shouldn't I be using the various resurrection abilities the game provides?

 

This is not a helpful comment. My point remains: by doing the no-rest strategy, there are a number of powerful options you are giving up in exchange for the benefits of not resting. Just consider how powerful it is to spam rest, to the point that many people have complained about how powerful it is to do so. Spamming rest allows you to just run over traps without worrying about perception or mechanics and just rest it off; spamming rest allows you to use empower in every fight; spamming rest allows you to use per-rest abilities from items in every fight (including once-per-rest summoning items, which are very powerful); spamming rest allows you to use resurrection abilities as a core part of your strategy without any long-term negatives.

 

Using this no-rest bonus-stacking strategy is balanced by the fact that it requires you to give up the very powerful rest-spamming strategy.

 

Here's another way to ask the original question: which is more powerful, rest-spamming or no-rest bonus-stacking? I think the answer is at least not obvious, and it may well be that rest-spamming trivializes the game more than no-rest bonus-stacking.

 

Edit: One interesting observation that might be made: it may be that it is optimal either to rest-spam or go full-blown no-rest at all to stack bonuses. And it may be that the game is designed to be played doing neither of those. But the mechanics as they've designed them really encourage going full-on one or the other, and that is interesting. One advantage of not going full no-rest, but only MOSTLY no-rest (resting just a couple of times) would be to be able to use the food bonuses that are most valuable at the time. But mostly it seems best to go all the way toward one or the other.

Edited June 18, 2018 by TheMetaphysician

[Braven]

Yep. Both rest spamming and no rest are good. The worst is the intended behavior: resting occasionally. The sad part is that the most logical/realistic option is the least rewarding.

 

No rest could be easily solved by adding fatique that builds up or have it automatically happen while sailing. Rest spamming can be lessened by having bad things happen if you waste too much time. I don’t see why the plot should pause forever; ignoring the dire threat to the world could result in a lot of material harm to the player. Doubt Berath would like you rest spamming.

Edited June 18, 2018 by Braven

[omgFIREBALLS]

I think rest spam is stronger than no-rest, but it's also a hell lot more click intensive. There's an overwhelming amount of per rest item cooldowns you can just throw repeatedly at fights.

 

No-rest is damn good for passing skill checks however. +3 to your Watcher's skills. +2 to to the party's skills. That's worth another 1-5 to the Watcher's skills through Party Assist.

 

As someone who repeatedly plays healbotting herald Watchers, permanent Dawnstar Blessing is great though, perhaps indeed superior to rest spam. Especially considering I use empower almost exclusively to replenish class resources, and later on I just don't need to do that anymore.

 

We could use an update of the original post:

- Add Alchemic Guile and Alchemic Wit

- Make a note that Good Food, Better Friends might not be part of this outside bugs, because it seems nobody has been able to stack it except you OP, and your theory for how you did it doesn't hold up

- Add Sigil of Pain Wardstone

- Maybe also note that Sigil of Death Wardstone (protects against Sigil of Mortality, don't know why the different names) can only be found in two specific locations (Drowned Barrows and off the skull in Sandswept Ruins), so nobody wastes as much time as I did reloading on burial sites

[TheMetaphysician]

Yep. Both rest spamming and no rest are good. The worst is the intended behavior: resting occasionally. The sad part is that the most logical/realistic option is the least rewarding.

 

No rest could be easily solved by adding fatique that builds up or have it automatically happen while sailing. Rest spamming can be lessened by having bad things happen if you waste too much time. I don’t see why the plot should pause forever; ignoring the dire threat to the world could result in a lot of material harm to the player. Doubt Berath would like you rest spamming.

 

Given that rest-spamming is so powerful, any limitations on the no-rest strategy just amount to pushing the player even more to rest-spamming. Which is the more abusive strategy anyway.

 

What the devs need to do is come up with incentives to do NEITHER rest-spamming and no-resting. So anything like a fatigue mechanic or automatic resting need to be balanced by limitations on resting in dungeons or something like that.