How to ensure I have the best "Endgame"?

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys, 

 

So, bit of a weird question, but I'm very much concerned with making sure that I have as much of the game to go through as possible, with some of the better equipment on my Watcher, at the very least. Essentially, I don't want to get the best stuff and then have nothing to use it on. So I was wondering what order I should do things in to ensure I have the biggest section of game left in order to use my fully realized build on? At least in terms of items. 

 

Probably the most difficult piece of equipment to get that I'm wanting to go for are the Boltcatchers, which drop from the Steel Preacher. So that's a good place to start. How much of the game would I have had to do to get to the level where I could tackle that challenge? 

[Clawdius_Talonious]

Steel Preacher on PotD is probably a level 12 or so fight IIRC, but on normal it will be easier and YMMV. Got the season pass? There is a case to be made for going to Harbinger's Watch and getting at least to the armor set there, and what you can get or should get otherwise varies a lot. I mean, I am sure Magran's Teeth has some sweet gear, but what you want for a chanter whose using dual pistols and a rogue whose build uses a melee shield combo is going to affect what I'd recommend.

 

I think for a more precise answer we will need your party composition preference, character build and class, difficulty... You're relying entirely on instinct or guesswork otherwise, I have gone through the game to completion 6x myself already not counting times I ran for the end of gold greed and guts, while it was bugged. I have two or three more that  have gotten to the point where I plan to try to drive them through SSS... I think that gives me both more favorite bits of gear and fewer must haves in a way. Nemnok for instance is a hard bit of content and yet has some amazing gear on offer. If you are a quarterstaff user it goes up on priority to level 16 or so.

 

A lot of this will change after the new dlc comes out, there is a fair amount of content you can do at 20. I am going to sleep but I will check back and chime in if that seems useful based on any new info you provide.

Edited August 26, 2018 by Clawdius_Talonious

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Steel Preacher on PotD is probably a level 12 or so fight IIRC, but on normal it will be easier and YMMV. Got the season pass? There is a case to be made for going to Harbinger's Watch and getting at least to the armor set there, and what you can get or should get otherwise varies a lot. I mean, I am sure Magran's Teeth has some sweet gear, but what you want for a chanter whose using dual pistols and a rogue whose build uses a melee shield combo is going to affect what I'd recommend.

 

I think for a more precise answer we will need your party composition preference, character build and class, difficulty... You're relying entirely on instinct or guesswork otherwise, I have gone through the game to completion 6x myself already not counting times I ran for the end of gold greed and guts, while it was bugged. I have two or three more that  have gotten to the point where I plan to try to drive them through SSS... I think that gives me both more favorite bits of gear and fewer must haves in a way. Nemnok for instance is a hard bit of content and yet has some amazing gear on offer. If you are a quarterstaff user it goes up on priority to level 16 or so.

 

A lot of this will change after the new dlc comes out, there is a fair amount of content you can do at 20. I am going to sleep but I will check back and chime in if that seems useful based on any new info you provide.

 

That's a very good question! Right now, I'm looking at a Barbarian/Rogue - So I was thinking of going for Nemnok's Cloak early (Around 7 or 8 with good Stealth) since you can get at that with just the Bounding Boots from Fort Deadlight. Other items include Chameleon's Touch (A fairly early get), the DoC Breastplate (Can be stolen right as you get into Neketaka), the Upright Captain's Belt (Early Principi questline), and so on. After the Cloak, which can be cheesed, the Boltcatchers are probably going to be the ones that require the most work, and you said those could be acquired at level 12. This is all going to be on PotD by the way, and probably not solo. 

 

Also, when is SSS supposed to launch? 

[Clawdius_Talonious]

AFAIK no specific release date has been announced for SSS, so the latest information I've seen on that was "September" which probably means latter half of September given no specific date announcement (unless I'm mistaken it would at least be atypical for Obsidian to announce a release date anything shorter than 2 weeks away). The delay of The Beast of Winter into August may have pushed SSS back into early October at the latest, that depends on a variety of factors I'm not privy to. 

 

The Steel Preacher party IIRC can be split (very slightly, pulling most of the party without 1 add I think) and is usually more a long fight than a difficult one in my experience, I wouldn't say he was more difficult than the other steel golems. Like I said I think the last time I did it on PotD was at level 12, difficulty adjustments might make it harder since it was a three red skull fight at that time and I'm really not sure when the iron golems started hanging up instead of doing their AOE which made them way easier than intended or indeed if that even affected steel golems. I'd take a crack at it at 12 anyway, you'd be able to gauge how much more power you needed and if you could get there with consumables...

 

If you're going Rogue and you're planning to use a large shield, the Soulbound shield in The Beast of Winter content is pretty nice and not hard to level if you're willing to stand around in the Undercity of Neketaka for a bit after you take 1000 damage. There's another tier past that to level that I haven't achieved on any character so far (not because it was insurmountable so much as by then I was done with all the content in TBoW and hesitant to knock down Nemnok/Splintered Reef on characters that didn't already do that just in case they increase the level cap.) I tend to use a shield on Rogue melee characters because of the riposte ability, I'm not sure how much DPS it actually adds or anything, but I love the concept and have yet to feel like it was a bad decision. The Large shield that IIRC comes from the Nemnok fight has bonus deflection as you lose health and might actually be better if it counts as shield deflection and adds it to Reflex as well, it depends how often you activate The Wall I imagine.

 

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what to expect and what you want to acquire gear wise, in Pillars I would often e.g. go to the burial island for the +3 Might ring, or feel like I was missing out when I forgot it was there and ended up doing everything else before it. I never really felt that "Doh!" moment, like one piece of gear could have made a lot of things I had done previously easier if I had sought it out earlier. Part of that could be because much of the content in the base game is arguably too easy, or definitely -was- too easy (I think we're getting a patch before SSS releases, and the base content difficulty and scaling and such has all been increasing difficulty to be more in line with what I expected at launch) but I don't see anything that jumps out at me that I'd -have- to have early for a Barbarian/Rogue. Then again, all of my characters in Pillars 1, every single one killed Harmke and just about all of my characters use imported games. My point being that I didn't even realize Devil of Carroc breastplate was a thing until I saw it in the outfits thread. I don't mind, the Reckless Brigandine is pretty easy to get and comparable, you can make enough noise to pull the monsters in that location to one of the side hallways and I usually snag that at level 7 or something that usually feels ridiculously low (it's usually the first Exceptional tier gear I get.)

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

AFAIK no specific release date has been announced for SSS, so the latest information I've seen on that was "September" which probably means latter half of September given no specific date announcement (unless I'm mistaken it would at least be atypical for Obsidian to announce a release date anything shorter than 2 weeks away). The delay of The Beast of Winter into August may have pushed SSS back into early October at the latest, that depends on a variety of factors I'm not privy to. 

 

The Steel Preacher party IIRC can be split (very slightly, pulling most of the party without 1 add I think) and is usually more a long fight than a difficult one in my experience, I wouldn't say he was more difficult than the other steel golems. Like I said I think the last time I did it on PotD was at level 12, difficulty adjustments might make it harder since it was a three red skull fight at that time and I'm really not sure when the iron golems started hanging up instead of doing their AOE which made them way easier than intended or indeed if that even affected steel golems. I'd take a crack at it at 12 anyway, you'd be able to gauge how much more power you needed and if you could get there with consumables...

 

If you're going Rogue and you're planning to use a large shield, the Soulbound shield in The Beast of Winter content is pretty nice and not hard to level if you're willing to stand around in the Undercity of Neketaka for a bit after you take 1000 damage. There's another tier past that to level that I haven't achieved on any character so far (not because it was insurmountable so much as by then I was done with all the content in TBoW and hesitant to knock down Nemnok/Splintered Reef on characters that didn't already do that just in case they increase the level cap.) I tend to use a shield on Rogue melee characters because of the riposte ability, I'm not sure how much DPS it actually adds or anything, but I love the concept and have yet to feel like it was a bad decision. The Large shield that IIRC comes from the Nemnok fight has bonus deflection as you lose health and might actually be better if it counts as shield deflection and adds it to Reflex as well, it depends how often you activate The Wall I imagine.

 

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what to expect and what you want to acquire gear wise, in Pillars I would often e.g. go to the burial island for the +3 Might ring, or feel like I was missing out when I forgot it was there and ended up doing everything else before it. I never really felt that "Doh!" moment, like one piece of gear could have made a lot of things I had done previously easier if I had sought it out earlier. Part of that could be because much of the content in the base game is arguably too easy, or definitely -was- too easy (I think we're getting a patch before SSS releases, and the base content difficulty and scaling and such has all been increasing difficulty to be more in line with what I expected at launch) but I don't see anything that jumps out at me that I'd -have- to have early for a Barbarian/Rogue. Then again, all of my characters in Pillars 1, every single one killed Harmke and just about all of my characters use imported games. My point being that I didn't even realize Devil of Carroc breastplate was a thing until I saw it in the outfits thread. I don't mind, the Reckless Brigandine is pretty easy to get and comparable, you can make enough noise to pull the monsters in that location to one of the side hallways and I usually snag that at level 7 or something that usually feels ridiculously low (it's usually the first Exceptional tier gear I get.)

 

The only thing that I think the DoC Breastplate really offers over the Reckless Brigandine is the +2 class resources. That adds up to +2/+2 - or two resources for each martial class if you're a martial multi.