The Ultimate discussion thread

1 hour ago, Waski said:

yep, and with some "tooling up"  can bring some decent dps.

 

https://vimeo.com/347785373

Holy crap, I'm jealous, lol.  That went about 1000X faster than my fights go.  One thing that Pillars 2 has, is a lot of depth in terms of strategies available. 

4 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Btw Draining Touch doesn't seem to disappear after one hit anymore.

Did we get a silent patch or something? There are several new (small) changes that suddenly popped up. 

Does it have a duration or disappears after x hits - or how does it work now?

Edited July 12, 2019 by Boeroer

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Did we get a silent patch or something? There are several new (small) changes that suddenly popped up. 

Does it have a duration or disappears after x hits - or how does it work now?

It doesn't show a duration so I assume it's unlimited.

Oh... that seems to be unintended.

It's the weapon with the highest base damage in the game and also targets Will instead of deflection and weakens on hit. Having no duration whatsoever makes it extremely powerful.

Are you sure that you didn't just graze with it? Grazing doesn't remove it. 

What was the situation?

I would like to try out myself but I'm on vacation.

On 7/7/2019 at 8:54 PM, Waski said:

all bounties were done from stealth with kamikaze phantom (effigy&7bolts)

How do you prevent Vela from being aggroed by the monsters? 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Kaylon

Wouldn't you want to give Effort to the phantom as well?

1 hour ago, Kaylon said:

How do you prevent Vela from being aggroed by the monsters? 

basic rules:

-she's scared when she sees fighting 

-don't cast anything agressive (draining touch) close to enemy, Vela will get scared

-keep distance

-don't cast when she is in front of you

rest is the matter of figuring the placemants in test run

35 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Wouldn't you want to give Effort to the phantom as well?

For me it (Effort) was already after I got Brilliant  Departure, after that combat is rather easy and safe- go invis with it, withdraw Vela, cast few phantoms to eat arcane dampeners, buffs, few slicken and pull of eora, nuke

Edited July 13, 2019 by Waski

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Oh... that seems to be unintended.

It's the weapon with the highest base damage in the game and also targets Will instead of deflection and weakens on hit. Having no duration whatsoever makes it extremely powerful.

Are you sure that you didn't just graze with it? Grazing doesn't remove it. 

What was the situation?

I would like to try out myself but I'm on vacation.

I was using it for a entire fight and yes there were plenty of hits in there.

Agreed that it doesn't seem to be intended, tho it's not as powerful against quite a few enemies, because of higher will than deflection (like Dorudugan for example) which only gets elevated by the fact flanked only lowers deflection, not will.

Keep in mnd that before I attacked with the weapon I switched grimoires, idk if the unlimited duration had anything to do with it.

Aha... I may have to test that.

I find it rather easy to drop will on enemies as a wizard since you can cast Miasma + stuff and use a club in the offhand. 

6 hours ago, Waski said:

basic rules:

-she's scared when she sees fighting 

-don't cast anything agressive (draining touch) close to enemy, Vela will get scared

-keep distance

-don't cast when she is in front of you

rest is the matter of figuring the placemants in test run

Well, well... that trick allows monks, chanters and bloodmages to win plenty of fights safely from stealth, just by using summons.

After the fight with Belranga I thought that if she had a Vampiric buff from Galawain my run would be failed 

Killed her with level 18.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Decadency

6 hours ago, Decadency said:

After the fight with Belranga I thought that if she had a Vampiric buff from Galawain my run would be failed 

Killed her with level 18.

Vampiric on the wrong beast can be a major problem, and as far as I know, you can't find out until the fight has already started, which of course on Ultimate means you can't get out of it and change strategy.

One plan I have if Belranga is vampiric, and I'm not totally sure it will work, and it will take awhile, has to be in turn-based mode.  You summon a ranged summon outside of Belranga's vision once the spider lairs are gone, and wait until they are on their last turn, then move them in range of Belranga and attack, after which they disappear instantly as their time runs out.   I also thought of that for the Cavern Crawler if necessary. 

I ran into that on my first test run for Ultimate (without Trial of Iron and w/o some of the other God challenges) when I thought I could do the Maw at lvl 16.  I could have... but the dragon was vampiric and there was no way.  His meteor shower, among other things, heals him for a huge amount.  I came back at lvl 20 and actually won easily by using a crossbow with the interrupt modal, along with the summoned polearm knock down interrupt, and that worked great.  Most of his abilities take him awhile to finish casting, and he doesn't have much concentration, and his life is small enough that you should be able to win pretty easily before your crossbow breaks.

The other buff that worries me is bullish on those spiders in SSS.  Vampiric on the Beast of Winter may not be a problem for your build, but it might be pretty inconvenient for me.  You never know when he might try to bull rush Vela in that fight.  He usually doesn't, but if it does on too long, not sure.  Meteor shower scrolls may help a bit to reduce the time it takes, not sure.

https://vimeo.com/user44259461/review/347983037/1d348e341c

Ok, wow.  So, I'm testing my ranger/chanter to see a leveling path.  All challenges on except expert and Wael and TOI.  I have 52 days left (27 until Maw), I'm in Nekataka, and the huge thing is that Nemnok is dead, which gave me a ton of xp, gold, and, importantly, I don't have to sail back out there later.  And I'm lvl 19 (which is critical for my char, as you then get ancient weapons and can do the Maw).  My only deaths have been in testing some new things, but I have no deaths from difficult situations that I can't avoid (such as a hard stealth or dangerous combat).  There will be some relatively difficult combats later.

This means that I should be able to easily do the Eothas challenge, with a lot of room to spare.  Also, I have a zillion withdraw scrolls, and all my bond points.  I'll just have to win fights that I've already won in testing (although Galawain's can always throw in some surprises).  I'm not actually doing Ultimate in this run.  This is a mirror.  But that turned out far better than I expected, xp-wise. 

Being able to do Nemnok at lvl 16 after visiting that middle-north Huana island for the Crookspur slave master is huge in terms of travel time and xp and all that.  The key to Nemnok is to use Wurms and stay pretty far away, so you don't trigger him teleporting, and very rarely trigger his Siphon.  Then, it is just a matter of time (took me about 2 hrs in real life of doing about 20 hps a turn, as he has 15 fire armor and a zillion hps; it feels like he has more hps than Dorudugan or something, although that probably isn't true).

In the video, I scroll through my saves to show my general path, but it should be noted that I tried going to Tikawara but reloaded and did not actually go there yet in this run.  I'll go there at some point, probably next, and then I'll probably do the mega-bosses.

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

38 minutes ago, wildeyn00700 said:

I don't have to sail back out there later.

But what about Belranga? I did the same thing with my previous run.

4 minutes ago, Decadency said:

But what about Belranga? I did the same thing with my previous run.

Not sure what you mean?  You mean that Belranga is close to Nemnok anyway?  Yeah, then I have to sail to Belranga, but still I don't remember her being as far as Nemnok.  Even if it doesn't save much sailing time, the xp is probably worth just doing it that way.  I don't remember very well the exact location of Belranga - I've only been to her island once.

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

4 minutes ago, wildeyn00700 said:

Not sure what you mean?  You mean that Belranga is close to Nemnok anyway?  Yeah, then I have to sail to Belranga, but still I don't remember her being as far as Nemnok.  Even if it doesn't save much sailing time, the xp is probably worth just doing it that way.  I don't remember very well the exact location of Belranga - I've only been to her island once.

Yeah. Your time is actually awesome. I just mean that Nemnok->Belranga->Ashen Maw is a cool route.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Decadency

16 minutes ago, Decadency said:

Yeah. Your time is actually awesome. I just mean that Nemnok->Belranga->Ashen Maw is cool route.

Yeah, I'm amazed at the time myself - thanks.  That makes sense, about that route.

But, for my character,  I went back down to Crookspur from Nemnok, and nabbed 2000 xp exploration bonus just a little to the left and south on the way, turned in the Tip of the Spear (killing Huanu leaders) quest (I don't need Scordeo's Edge and I've only had to go to Deadlight once), then went to Dunnage and turned in the quest to the Pirate leader and got Fleetbreaker, an amazing Xbow, and then went back to Neketaka to turn in Beina and Dywgas bounties, and talk to the queen for an absolute ton of xp.  I went from lvl 16 right before Nemnok to lvl 19 that way.

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

Well... I've got 41 left days and I'm in Neketaka but I've killed Nemnok, Belranga, Fire Dragon, Concelhaut, Watershaper's Dragon, Giant Wurm. I'm pretty sure I've got enough time now.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Decadency

3 minutes ago, Decadency said:

Well... I've got 41 left days and I'm in Neketaka but I've killed Nemnok, Belranga, Fire Dragon, Concelhaut, Watershaper's Dragon, Giant Wurm. I'm pretty sure I've got enough time now.

Wow! congrats!  That's insane!  And you are on actual Ultimate, right?  Seems like you have a ton of time.  I think that your build is much less likely to die than mine is, once you are high level, as I understand it.  I haven't actually played it, but it sounds like that is how it is for you.  Just be humble around Rymrgrand, lol.

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

Just now, wildeyn00700 said:

Wow! congrats!  That's insane!  And you are on actual Ultimate, right?  Seems like you have a ton of time.

Yeah I'm addicted to this challange. Spent ~350 hours on it already :E

2 minutes ago, Decadency said:

Yeah I'm addicted to this challange. Spent ~350 hours on it already :E

<grin> yeah, I'm at the point where I think I'll do it also.  When I did Ultimate in Pillars 1, my wife was on a 2 week trip home to Russia.  Now she is there again for a couple of more weeks, time for Pillars  2 Ultimate...

I assumed that I'd run into a block that I couldn't get past with my build, and have to learn to play a mage/priest or something like that, but it is looking doable now.

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

Almost died on Nemnok btw  was on fast mode for buff and forgot to turn off auto attack action

9 hours ago, Decadency said:

Almost died on Nemnok btw  was on fast mode for buff and forgot to turn off auto attack action

what do you do for the gigantic oozes to keep them from rejoining?  get your attack speed super fast, or use some sort of spell to mess with them?  Is there a testing version of working on this, such as in Victor's streams from before?  Or is there a spell that lets you spam interrupt with in an area?

Edited July 14, 2019 by wildeyn00700

1 hour ago, wildeyn00700 said:

what do you do for the gigantic oozes to keep them from rejoining?  get your attack speed super fast, or use some sort of spell to mess with them?  Is there a testing version of working on this, such as in Victor's streams from before?  Or is there a spell that lets you spam interrupt with in an area?

you have to interrupt them or split (lure one out with)

 

1 hour ago, wildeyn00700 said:

what do you do for the gigantic oozes to keep them from rejoining?  get your attack speed super fast, or use some sort of spell to mess with them?  Is there a testing version of working on this, such as in Victor's streams from before?  Or is there a spell that lets you spam interrupt with in an area?

Ah... that was a problem for me but Vic helped me a lot. First I though that split is a good idea but Vic said just to use Concelhaut hammers and Sliken. So it's easy to do it this way.

 

Also I wanted to ask. Is there any chance to stay with rest effects in SSS?