The Ultimate discussion thread

[thelee]

1 minute ago, baldurs_gate_2 said:

Port Maje ---> Deadlight ---> Sandswept

So Level 6, with hylea's food, hunter background and thief's putty i had 10 or 11 mechanics there.

i wonder if it's level dependent? i was level 15 with 14 mechanics plus hylea's

if so, then my current run can't benefit from it (my real character is well past your point), but good to know if i completely botch this one.

[thelee]

well this weekend has been a two step forward one step back kinda thing. i finally had a minor breakthrough in finding a pathing that gets me to level 16 without burning a lot of time redundantly going to fort deadlight/dunnage to cash in a quest and doesn't involve some insanely tricky stealthy on the ashen bridge...

...but while getting to level 16 certainly makes the endgame feasible, it still doesn't make it easy. i spent a whole afternoon just trying to clear the mobs on the ashen bridge, with no luck... it's all about finding the right combination and duration of buffs to actually kill everything even with bad RNG when it comes to galawain's buffs without blowing unnecessary time since I still feel having to sail around to all the different megabosses and final fights will be expensive. ah well, next time have to do 8 minutes of buffing instead of 7... scordeo's edge can't come soon enough (elder flame bat with hardened is surprisingly bullet spongey)

level 17 is going to be the next sweet milestone, since that'll get me legendary spiritual weapons and then after that level 19 for minor avatar (the +20% weapon damage buff).

Edited June 23, 2019 by thelee

[Waski]

Wouldn't monastic unarmed training be better in the end than summoned weapons  thelee? Ingredients for potion of ascension are relatively easy to come by,  and with brilliant you would have +3PL to jump into mythic. 

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Waski said:

Wouldn't monastic unarmed training be better in the end than summoned weapons  thelee? Ingredients for potion of ascension are relatively easy to come by,  and with brilliant you would have +3PL to jump into mythic. 

fyi - brilliant and potion of ascension don't stack. you have to basically be single-classed for prestige, and then some combination of potion of ascension, or nature godlike plus acute/brilliant/something else to get +3 PL. and that +3 PL gets you to legendary, not mythic. you need +6 PL to get mythic with monastic unarmed training, which requires death godlike, near death, plus prestige, plus potion of ascension. not implausible (and past level 16 my character spends all fights at near death anyway), but giving up a head slot is pretty painful (rekvu's fractured casque) and losing the boreal dwarf bonus is almost lethal for the build IMO (needed against hauani o whe, also helps in FS)

the upshot is that summoned weapons were preferred because they are legendary automatically, don't constrain the build as much (single-classing is also probably lethal) and with a +30% lash (could have been +31% but i had to get a benevolent reputation to complete a quest) they are actually comparable to monastic unarmed training (which dps like normal weapons that have a +30% lash).

there's also a hidden cost in that with spiritual weapon, i can use scordeo's and then summon spiritual weapon, and still have a second, completely unrelated weapon slot in tow, whereas to accomplish the same thing with monastic unarmed training I have to also take arms bearer, so it actually costs two ability points instead of one for the same results.

Edited June 24, 2019 by thelee

[Waski]

@ theIee, I just drinked potion(nobody flanked) ,  I thought I need +3PL (tactician brilliant is passive?) but it is what it is.

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, thelee said:

fyi - brilliant and potion of ascension don't stack.

That depends afaik. If your inspiration (Acute or Brilliant) comes from an item or a passive ability it should stack with the potion. Also see Bardatto's Luxury with the enchantment "Tribute" which will give you a Fit inspiration that stacks (because item based).

[thelee]

Wow, TIL that even inspirations can vary in stacking rules based on where it comes from. Consider me corrected.

I would still lean towards summoned weapons due to the automatic legendary and not needing arms bearer, but it's more of a horse race now.

Edit - this makes the weird treatment of T3 inspirations on beasts from galawains make more "sense".

Edited June 24, 2019 by thelee

[Decadency]

Hey guys. I don't know where to ask but I can't understand this: every time I change a location on my Ultimate run I get a random inspiration (but no buff on me, just a word pop up like "Courageous" or "Brilliant" etc).

[Boeroer]

Sounds like a glitch.

[thelee]

6 hours ago, Decadency said:

Hey guys. I don't know where to ask but I can't understand this: every time I change a location on my Ultimate run I get a random inspiration (but no buff on me, just a word pop up like "Courageous" or "Brilliant" etc).

are you somehow a beast? only thing i can think of is some buggy interaction with the galawain's buff that gives a T3 inspiration.

[thelee]

update for anyone else thinking about ultimate run:

1. much of the earlier discussion in this thread focused on tactician/skaen's ability to go invisible, but in practice that invisibility is flaky about triggering brilliant. enemy AI is a little weird about it. so when i don't end up triggering brilliant, i end up withdrawing both vela and myself, which is virtually foolproof (though there are still quirks to be aware of) and lasts long enough that even if enemy AI is doing something weird, the AI tend to reset before withdraw wears off. (as a plus, withdraw will bring vela and myself up to full or near-full health, which shadowing beyond does not do)

2. because of #1, you can probably just get away with any other priest subclass, so long as you always have two withdraw casts available (or at least a scroll or two as backup). in fact, i mentioned elsewhere that if i end up botching this tactician/skaen run, i might end up rolling woedica instead, because increasingly i just use shadowing beyond as an escape spell to withdraw faster, and woedica fists are much better than skaen stiletto/club. (woedica fists at level 17 are legendary monk fists with up to a +31% lash, which makes them arguably the best dps weapon in the game outside of a single-class monk with various +PL or specific mythic-level uniques).

3. that being said, skaen does get two really useful bonus spells: spiritual ally and minor avatar, which i would want to take anyway, so i think they still have a very slight edge over other priest subclass by basically giving me two free abilities (considering woedica gives spiritual weapon for free, it's a net of just one free ability though).

Edited June 25, 2019 by thelee

[Wotcha]

I was wondering if you'd considered Woedica for this reason.  That much raw lash is close to making AR a non-issue (and it being a summoned weapon makes weapon degradation also a nonissue, but you get that anyway because Priest).  I don't know how much you consider AR to be worth worrying about.  I have to imagine that nearly every fight worth worrying about follows the same template of  "1) Activate Immortality Engine, 2) grind everything into paste, however long that happens to take".  The only reason to worry about AR or damage output in general would be if it's somehow taking TOO long for one reason or another.

 

[thelee]

27 minutes ago, Wotcha said:

I was wondering if you'd considered Woedica for this reason.  That much raw lash is close to making AR a non-issue (and it being a summoned weapon makes weapon degradation also a nonissue, but you get that anyway because Priest).  I don't know how much you consider AR to be worth worrying about.  I have to imagine that nearly every fight worth worrying about follows the same template of  "1) Activate Immortality Engine, 2) grind everything into paste, however long that happens to take".  The only reason to worry about AR or damage output in general would be if it's somehow taking TOO long for one reason or another.

i actually hadn't worried about AR until recently, where now i'm fighting tough (high-health) enemies that have both high blunt and high pierce AR, because up until then the bulk of my fights have only been after getting champion's boon, coupled with stiletto's high baseline AR and doing both pierce and blunt i'm always getting some decent damage in (and i haven't needed to fight any pierce immune vessels). fists wouldn't help with that directly, though the raw lash with higher baseline damage would help.

the ultimate cost of high AR would be causing an inordinate amount of buffing time and also producing a long fight - my ashen bridge trouble so far requires me to spend literally like a 1/3 of an in-game day just buffing, and then a decent chunk fighting because half the enemies there I have little PEN against (and their health is so high i wear my non-summoned sabers down almost to dust if i try to use them and i need to reserve all my money for repairing a future scordeo's edge from here on out). with my current pathing i don't think time will be an issue (i am expecting to have something like 55 days to do megabosses, all DLC (i timed FS at three in-game days and that dlc probably is the most combat-heavy, though SSS will require some slow island wandering), and other major fights), but if it does woedica fists can probably help shave off a few days.

Edited June 25, 2019 by thelee

[Wotcha]

Because it's the kind of corner case thing which might make or break somebody's playthrough, I thought I should share an idea I just had reading through the back pages of this thread.  Some of the considered-viable combos revolve around Blood Mage, and a useful spell for it is Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, normally gotten from the reward grimoire one gets after completing Bekarna's Observatory.  But it's also possible to get that spell without leaving Neketaka, if you can kill Arkemyr, because it's in his own personal grimoire too, if I remember correctly.  Maybe even pickpocketing it off of him if that's possible, although I'm not sufficiently familiar with the pickpocketing rules to know if it's in his pickpocketable inventory.  I'd wait to do it until after he gives you the Bekarna quest just in case.  Although I wonder if killing him would have any interesting consequences for doing Forgotten Sanctum later.  Kind of wondering if I should try it out for fun in my current (not-even-remotely-Ultimate) playthrough, to see if there are any entertaining alterations to the FS conversations.

I have no idea if that's any easier or more practical than doing Bekarna (or possibly just worth even though you're planning on Bekarna but not until later), but it was a weird enough idea I wanted to mention it.

 

[Raven Darkholme]

You can't pickpocket the grimoire of Arkemyr, he only has some random stuff in pocket.

Killing him is not that easy on lower level, but definitely possible since one can start the fight in the sw room with only 1 imp in there, vela will get feared and one can close the door on her.

[Decadency]

Hey guys. Does Concelhaut have a permanent Brilliant? He can casts Arcane Cleance spell as many times as he wants.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Decadency

[Lamppost in Winter]

Concelhaut ignores resources, as do other Lich enemies.

 

 

In general, it seems like non-Kith enemies (Pwgra, Rathun, Lagufaeth, etc.) ignore resources.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Lamppost in Winter

[Decadency]

6 hours ago, Lamppost in Winter said:

In general, it seems like non-Kith enemies (Pwgra, Rathun, Lagufaeth, etc.) ignore resources.

I thought he was like kith. Thanks. Need to keep distance from him.

[Decadency]

Well... My game crashed in a fight. When I loaded the game my save was in place where I started playing 1 hour ago. Was pretty scared that it could break or delete the save. I hope it's ok if I'll replay all of that.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Decadency

[wildeyn00700]

Great thread, guys.  I'm actually trying a different character build angle than what I've seen here, and have gotten very close to proof of concept.  It is a character type I developed when they first beefed up PoTD over a year back, since I wasn't aware that you could stealth past the digsite and I was trying to actually beat the fights there at lvl 4.  The build is designed to initiate combat with an animal and then summon with chanter before enemies get anywhere near you, which locks most fights.  When I saw Ultimate, I noticed that my build still had potential.  I actually couldn't imagine any other build succeeding, but I was unaware of the the brilliant cloak and how to use salvation of time, so I think that you guys are onto something very possibly better.  Still, since my approach is different and is turning out to be surprisingly promising, I'll explain more:

I haven't played Pillars since then, over a year, so I am ignorant about so much regarding combos and about how to use the priest/brilliant thing, how to get to 0 recovery with Scordeos, or how to kill most everything right away with a monk.  I was also ignorant of how to use stealth.  A couple of years ago (approximately), I did do TCS in Pillars 1 with a monk, and Ultimate in Pillars 1 with a chanter.   20 years back I was a Magic the Gathering proplayer with the most pro-tour points worldwide.

Anyway, when I saw Ultimate was a thing again, I figured I'd start working on it and see how far I got.  I've learned a lot from you guys about so many things (such as what I mentioned above) I had no idea about.  However, my character concept works without many tricks or combos - a ranger/chanter (troubador).  Using a combination of turn-based and real-time, and playing a game with the combat-critical god-challenges (including Vela and Galawain and the per-encounter no-regen one) on to see if it is possible (since so much of the content is new to me - I just did beast of winter for the first time yesterday, and haven't seen SSS or FS at all yet).

I know the following so far: I can get to lvl 20, no issues, because you can actually win most any fight you want with this combo while protecting Vela (via keeping her out of the fight except for specific problematic fights such as water dragon and beast of winter).  I beat the water dragon using 3 withdraw scrolls, and used 4 to beat the damn Beast of Winter who conversation-teleports you and vela and then those adds spawn right on top of her.  The lava dragon was vampiric which stymied me at lvl 16 but I [reloaded and] came back at lvl 20 and beat him turn-based with crossbow/pike interrupts to interfere with his vamp regen, especially from his meteor shower that would otherwise give him massive vamp-based heals.   (By the way, TheLee, with this build, the fight against the lava bats and drakes on the bridge is no problem and goes quite fast.

I beat the undead dragon in a similar manner, but with more skill and tension involved since he dives on you.  Notably, though, I beat the undead risen dragon first attempt with only Naxia (sp) and ignoring the other two buffs/areas in the white void.

I beat Dorudugan but it took forever; I'd spec differently in the future to up my main char damage (for most fights I rely on summons, especially because of item degradation).  Also I beat the Spider Queen first attempt (I watched a video so I had some idea of what to expect).  Haven't done the the Ooze or SigilMaster, but both look fairly possible.  Beat Concelhaut and of course the Cave Grub (the grub I actually did at lvl 10 or 11, but I probably wouldn't recommend that and my weapon would have degraded a bunch if I had that challenge on).  Haven't seen Forgotten Sanctum content yet, but this is pretty promising.  As to actually getting so good with the details that I actually complete an actual run successfully, I am doubtful.  For now, proving the concept to be possible (or not) with this build is interesting to me.

I think that for your combo salvation of time builds, real-time is a must, but otherwise, such as for my build, turn-based is often massively important.  It is buggy in towns, and takes more real-life time, but it actually takes less in-game Eothas-challenge time for many combats.  And, for my build, there are many fights that I couldn't possibly win [in Ultimate] with real-time, but can easily do turn-based.  For example, the undead dragon that chain-casts Concelhaut's Siphon is easy to interrupt in turn-based but (at least for me) impossible to deal with in real-time.  Chanter ancient weapon summon special abilities (WS, KnockDown, FoD) are hugely great, but very hard to use well in real-time, unless I am unaware of how to use the AI properly for that.  And even if AI worked with those, doing their abilities (especially the pike knock-down interrupt) at the strategically right time is too hard for me in real time.

Also by the way, the Hanging Sepulcher with the eulogies is straightforward with this build - you can just kill the mobs.  You can sort-of do it at lvl 10, or by lvl 16 (which is when you get Ogre sweeping attack) you can do it quite easily. 

 

- David Mills

 

Edited July 2, 2019 by wildeyn00700
smoothing out language and correcting errors

[Wotcha]

Welcome, Wildey!  That's very interesting, to hear of a completely different evolutionary approach.  That's one of your advantages being away from the game for a while, you are free and clear from the groupthink that tends to happen as people cluster around the things already proven to work.

The one piece of advice that may be of use for you would be to look into Effigy's Husk for use against vampiric enemies.  It has a -50% enemy healing aura out of the box, and an enchantment to bring up to -75%.  The aura only has 5m range so you can't sit completely out of the fight to employ it, but you only need it to deal with specific healing enemies.  You have to be bloodied for the aura to activate though, but that shouldn't be too hard to safely achieve for you because you can have summons beat on you to bring you down.

I find it particularly interesting because I tend to ignore non-ghost heart rangers because of the tremendous utility of placement and REplacement, although it conflicts with summons which is why I would never have considered your build.  I had considered the possibility of using a regular ranger pet to safely open combats, but hadn't made the connections you had.

Otherwise, I'd love for you to keep exploring your own corner of the strategy space, and telling us what you find!

Edited July 2, 2019 by Wotcha
clarification of effigy's husk

[thelee]

5 hours ago, wildeyn00700 said:

Anyway, when I saw Ultimate was a thing again, I figured I'd start working on it and see how far I got.  I've learned a lot from you guys about so many things (such as what I mentioned above) I had no idea about.  However, my character concept works without many tricks or combos - a ranger/chanter (troubador).  Using a combination of turn-based and real-time, and playing a game with the combat-critical god-challenges (including Vela and Galawain and the per-encounter no-regen one) on to see if it is possible (since so much of the content is new to me - I just did beast of winter for the first time yesterday, and haven't seen SSS or FS at all yet).

<snip>

Haven't seen Forgotten Sanctum content yet, but this is pretty promising.  As to actually getting so good with the details that I actually complete an actual run successfully, I am doubtful.  For now, proving the concept to be possible (or not) with this build is interesting to me

good to see someone experimenting with a different approach with good success, I'd like to know more about how your build plays out because frankly I'm a little surprised that a straightforward troubadour/ranger can be so effective and safe.

the only thing I'd be truly worried about are the fights in SSS and FS (which you said you hadn't tried yet) where you don't have a lot of maneuvering room and Vela might not have a safe place to be (especially when fighting the security system in FS), though maybe you can stock up on enough withdraw spells to make it work.

[Wotcha]

That's the thing that seems exciting to me, is that it presents a small enough attack surface that the number of fights that need Withdraw scrolls starts to approach the number of Withdraw scrolls that can be reasonably obtained/crafted.  The technique of suicide-bombing with your pet to open up combat in perfect safety from any distance, and then sending endless waves of summons to whittle everything down, has nearly 100% coverage in what is killable.

It's uncertain if it's close enough to 100% to be scroll-able for the remainder, but it's impressive just to be in the realm of consideration.  Somebody's got a workable build idea that isn't "be a priest".  Will wonders never cease.  I also like that it's potentially viable in turn-based.

[wildeyn00700]

5 hours ago, Wotcha said:

That's the thing that seems exciting to me, is that it presents a small enough attack surface that the number of fights that need Withdraw scrolls starts to approach the number of Withdraw scrolls that can be reasonably obtained/crafted.  The technique of suicide-bombing with your pet to open up combat in perfect safety from any distance, and then sending endless waves of summons to whittle everything down, has nearly 100% coverage in what is killable.

It's uncertain if it's close enough to 100% to be scroll-able for the remainder, but it's impressive just to be in the realm of consideration.  Somebody's got a workable build idea that isn't "be a priest".  Will wonders never cease.  I also like that it's potentially viable in turn-based.

Thanks - that Effigy's Husk ability is something I totally forgot about.  It'll be fun to keep up with progress on this thread, from you all and from me (until and unless I run into a full block with FS).

If you are curious how I have done any particular combats with this build, let me know.  I use a boar of course.

[daven]

Havent kept up with this, anyone done it?