The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2

[Caeyrii]

On 4/22/2023 at 10:37 PM, Shai Hulud said:

Pretty sure I can do FF / paladin but it is boring as hell and FF / SG healing doesn't even work with FF so I guess FF / gold pact is most promising. 

How would this go? I've seen it mentioned in a different thread and it made me curious. Tried it quickly but the boars just destroyed me, or eventually will since no post-encounter HP regen. 

[Shai Hulud]

2 hours ago, Caeyrii said:

How would this go? I've seen it mentioned in a different thread and it made me curious. Tried it quickly but the boars just destroyed me, or eventually will since no post-encounter HP regen. 

FF / goldpact knight can cast sworn enemy for +4 armor (lasts four or five hits, and you're hard to hit so it's decent), since multiclassed paladins can't regain zeal until getting virtuous triumph at L16, you would only use this with sworn rival so you get the point back. Take Exalted Endurance. Wear heavy armor. It will break, at least until you find generic legendary plate armor which doesn't for some reason. FF / SG would be better because when you hit things with afflictions you get back health, but this doesn't work for FF attack without community patch, so goldpact knight. 

You don't need post-encounter health regen, just drink health potions at low levels (or even better, sneak past fights), once you have exalted endurance that can heal you, don't recall if it works out of combat, if not start combat stealthed and wait, or just use ring of greater regeneration or trollhide belt between combats. But really it isn't hard to avoid combat until L13, and I've avoided until L16. Probably possible L19 but would require weird pathing. This build is tanky enough to do combat lower, it's just your armor will break and you probably won't have the items you need to control vela yet.

At level 19 you take stoic steel for +3 armor. Assuming you can get the club kapana taga that's another +1 armor, not sure how hard this encounter would be with paladin / FF, might have to be delayed until you have the legendary plate, particularly since with ship battles protecting vela can be near impossible. Might take 20+ withdraw scrolls.

Go pale elf for burn/freeze armor or wild orlan for stats, stats something like 18 / 3 / 9 / 18 / 10 / 19, take iron wheel, with the legendary plate and iron wheel and kapana taga and stoic steel you eventually have armor in 21+ range which is enough most things will underpen. These kinds of builds don't really work in general for ultimate because your armor breaks in megaboss fights, but I found a piece that doesn't, the legendary plate you get in SSS contest of the slayer. This means you have to do the changeling's dance with vela, which is extremely technical though with practice I was able to do it close to 100%. 

That's basically it, you spam FF while wearing tons of armor and stacking paladin defenses so you're missed and grazed and underpenned a lot. Soul mirror kills ranged things. The Wall large shield modal can protect you even more, also block modal with medium shields is good but slows your attacks even more. Can keep up Thunderous Blows but in general not using other abilites because we want the bonus armor from iron wheel. If you could find generic legendary shields they wouldnt break, but I haven't been able to find any, so possibly they don't exist. Shields don't break as fast as weapons or armor if you have 3+ slots and different shields in each one, also not as catastrophic if they break compared to armor. Lots of generic superb shields, could use these and switch to the next slot when they break. Or use the unique shields, but they could break.

I've tried some of the late game battles with this build and it works. For most you just spam FF in fast mode. Hauani O Whe and Dorudugan require different tactics. HOW you need dichotomous souls to separate the gigantic oozes, which is tedious but doable, might have to take turning wheel and +INT gear so their duration is longer (or increase INT at cost of dex in character creation). Dorudugan should be straightforward but isn't because he actually heals when going from weakened to unweakened. I think everything does, but usually the effect is not that measureable except in his case because his health pool is so huge. Probably exalted endurance provides enough healing, can drink some potions if necessary and use the rekvu's scorched cloak to run into fireballs, he should eventually go down just punching him as long as you are careful dorudugan doesn't get by his own helfire barrages. I'm guessing it takes over an hour though, perhaps two.

Hardest part with this build is protecting Vela. You don't have enough withdraw scrolls given how slow this build is so you have to use different methods. There's the belt of magran's ire, you basically just shoot vela with a blunderbuss until the fire blight procs, then the blight follows you into battle. Works okay, very tedious, can accidentally kill vela or run out of blunderbusses / money to repair them. Other method is you cast a spell on vela while holding a whale of a wand, which has a 5% chance per spell proc to charm her. You usually have to web her once she gets charmed or she may run off and get herself killed, but basically when she is charmed in this way she won't move from that spot on the map once the charm duration ends. So this is ideal for bigger maps with multiple fights, also procs faster than the fire blight and you don't have to wear that belt. But paladin/FF has no spells they can cast on vela, therefore you have to use scrolls. Some scrolls like ray of fire proc I think 9 times per cast so you have pretty good odds to proc the charm effect, though ray of fire is slightly dangerous as if your arcana is too high you can kill her, but if kept under 7 or so and she always starts unharmed it won't kill her. Safer route is use binding web scrolls, though this only procs 6 or 7 times. Anyway, I think you can find/craft enough scrolls to use the wand to control vela, and when you can't you use the fire blight. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

I just finished The Ultimate.  Oh... my... Gaun!

SC Bloodmage ubercheese.  All filmed.  Anyone know if there are still patches going?

Big thanks to all the knowledge posted by you guys, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

[Shai Hulud]

13 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

I just finished The Ultimate.  Oh... my... Gaun!

SC Bloodmage ubercheese.  All filmed.  Anyone know if there are still patches going?

Big thanks to all the knowledge posted by you guys, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Theoretically yes, they committed to patches for first 50 and there have been like 15, so they should be giving out patches but I haven't received so much as an emailed acknowledgement of receipt of my submission from december, so... ?

Also congrats, figuring out the ultimate is pretty tough

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

16 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Theoretically yes, they committed to patches for first 50 and there have been like 15, so they should be giving out patches but I haven't received so much as an emailed acknowledgement of receipt of my submission from december, so... ?

Also congrats, figuring out the ultimate is pretty tough

Thanks, yeah it's a lot of research and planning to bring together.  Congrats to you also.

Regarding the acknowledgement, did you get an automated response?  I emailed them this morning once my playlist had finished uploading and got one immediately, so I know my submission has at least reached their inbox.  Maybe we should treat it like any other gaming support ticket and pester them weekly until getting a reply from a human being.  I know Deadfire is old news, but I can't imagine they would go back on their pledge of 50 badges, that's surely not good for business in the long run.

Just for the record, here's my playthrough.  I hereby nominate myself for World's Cheesiest Ultimate.

 

 

[Shai Hulud]

6 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

Thanks, yeah it's a lot of research and planning to bring together.  Congrats to you also.

Regarding the acknowledgement, did you get an automated response?  I emailed them this morning once my playlist had finished uploading and got one immediately, so I know my submission has at least reached their inbox.  Maybe we should treat it like any other gaming support ticket and pester them weekly until getting a reply from a human being.  I know Deadfire is old news, but I can't imagine they would go back on their pledge of 50 badges, that's surely not good for business in the long run.

Just for the record, here's my playthrough.  I hereby nominate myself for World's Cheesiest Ultimate.

 

 

Yeah I got what looks like an automated response from the first email, from support@obsidian.net, and the email looked like a standard auto support ticket request and gave me a  number (66195). Past submissions from like just a year ago generally got some kind of acknowledgement email that someone was looking at it within a month or two...

My subsequent emails didn't get a response, automated or not.

May watch some of your run later, here's mine if interested (blood mage / soul blade), it is also a cheesefest, didn't use potions of final stand or wall of draining but I did lot of grimoire imprints and used strand of favor heavily so I could build tens of thousands of focus and mass zerg enemies with citzal's spirit lance + soul annihilation. My run is pretty long (mostly due to imprints and lot of unnecessary combats to build focus obscenely high) which could explain the delay, though you'd think they'd at least say "hey someone is reviewing this and will be back to you in six months (or whatever)". 

I've been thinking about doing a "legitimate" ultimate run since this one I was still figuring lots of things out and used just about every exploit I could think of. I am pretty sure I can do it without any cheese with at least one or two builds, though it will be very tedious controlling vela without withdraw or cocoons

 

I don't start fighting anything serious until video 23 I think, and the harder stuff is 28 and on.

Just emailed theultimate@obsidian.net (where I submitted it as per instructions) and also support@obsidian.net just to ask if they were still sending badges, would be a little surprised if I get a reply but here's hoping.

Let me know if you get an actual response from obsidian

EDIT: Watched a little bit, lol you actually stole salvation of time and bdd that is awesome. I've done this before but the game became too easy at that point and I abandoned the run, if I'd done a pure blood mage in the ultimate run I definitely would have tried for that though, it's way easier than temporal cocooning vela and trying to proc brilliant

EDIT 2: Regarding spell theft I definitely would have stolen escape and shadowing beyond from a skaenite like beina. Escape is super useful as a movement ability and can be scripted even. I scripted most of my run so in combat most of the time I didn't do much besides press W to cast withdraw on vela who isn't scriptable. I'm thinking about it though and with salvation of time being an AOE that hits friendlies (unlike Wall of draining) you could cast BDD on vela manually and script absolutely everything else, the main thing being if you cast SOT on yourself while standing sort of close to vela she will also benefit, so you'd just have to script self casting SOT every 10s or whatever. Throw in minolettas missile salvos and whatever else spells you want to cast, with frequent blood sacrifice if not brilliant, and I think you'd auto wreck everything.

I kind of want to try this now. Or something sort of similar like a priest / chanter who can cast spells in between SOT, maybe a priest / cipher. Really I think any priest class can do the ultimate, you just have to proc brilliant and be immune to int afflictions. Probably any blood mage / x but it is quite a lot harder to deal with vela, also walls of draining can be hard to place with wael (most annoying challenge btw)

Edited April 30, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah I got what looks like an automated response from the first email, from support@obsidian.net, and the email looked like a standard auto support ticket request and gave me a  number (66195). Past submissions from like just a year ago generally got some kind of acknowledgement email that someone was looking at it within a month or two...

My subsequent emails didn't get a response, automated or not.

May watch some of your run later, here's mine if interested (blood mage / soul blade), it is also a cheesefest, didn't use potions of final stand or wall of draining but I did lot of grimoire imprints and used strand of favor heavily so I could build tens of thousands of focus and mass zerg enemies with citzal's spirit lance + soul annihilation. My run is pretty long (mostly due to imprints and lot of unnecessary combats to build focus obscenely high) which could explain the delay, though you'd think they'd at least say "hey someone is reviewing this and will be back to you in six months (or whatever)". 

I've been thinking about doing a "legitimate" ultimate run since this one I was still figuring lots of things out and used just about every exploit I could think of. I am pretty sure I can do it without any cheese with at least one or two builds, though it will be very tedious controlling vela without withdraw or cocoons

 

I don't start fighting anything serious until video 23 I think, and the harder stuff is 28 and on.

Just emailed theultimate@obsidian.net (where I submitted it as per instructions) and also support@obsidian.net just to ask if they were still sending badges, would be a little surprised if I get a reply but here's hoping.

Let me know if you get an actual response from obsidian

EDIT: Watched a little bit, lol you actually stole salvation of time and bdd that is awesome. I've done this before but the game became too easy at that point and I abandoned the run, if I'd done a pure blood mage in the ultimate run I definitely would have tried for that though, it's way easier than temporal cocooning vela and trying to proc brilliant

EDIT 2: Regarding spell theft I definitely would have stolen escape and shadowing beyond from a skaenite like beina. Escape is super useful as a movement ability and can be scripted even. I scripted most of my run so in combat most of the time I didn't do much besides press W to cast withdraw on vela who isn't scriptable. I'm thinking about it though and with salvation of time being an AOE that hits friendlies (unlike Wall of draining) you could cast BDD on vela manually and script absolutely everything else, the main thing being if you cast SOT on yourself while standing sort of close to vela she will also benefit, so you'd just have to script self casting SOT every 10s or whatever. Throw in minolettas missile salvos and whatever else spells you want to cast, with frequent blood sacrifice if not brilliant, and I think you'd auto wreck everything.

I kind of want to try this now. Or something sort of similar like a priest / chanter who can cast spells in between SOT, maybe a priest / cipher. Really I think any priest class can do the ultimate, you just have to proc brilliant and be immune to int afflictions. Probably any blood mage / x but it is quite a lot harder to deal with vela, also walls of draining can be hard to place with wael (most annoying challenge btw)

I experimented a bit with AI scripting but decided to keep things manual.  I guess it keeps me awake lol.

When I have the time, I'm going to try another Ultimate run on Evoker to get that same sense of 'legitimacy' you're talking about. This means I won't be able to (ab)use Cocoon so will have to work a bit harder in general at keeping myself and Vela safe.  I had a play around this evening on my test save and managed to steal all my core spells from Hanging Sepulcres without Cocoon by casting Binding Web (scroll, because no Conjuration) on Vela in a safe space then charge into combat while she's immobilised so she procs terrified far away and doesn't get aggro.  I also discovered that Major Grimoire Imprint doesn't cancel Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, so the stealing itself was no biggie.  After this point, it's just a matter of managing affliction immunities and being aware of casters that use Arcane Dampener / Cleanse.

I checked out a few fights from your run as well and the playstyle looks fun.  You have a serious point about Shadowing Beyond, I might have to pay Beina a visit sometime!

Waels challenge didn't bother me, tbh.  Once I had a sense of rhythm from my test save I just did what came naturally.  For me the stinker is Abydon's - I decided to do The Ultimate after a solo PoTD Herald run and I actually had a blast doing epic 1-2 hour fights against the megabosses.  I really wanted to stick with Herald (I love playing tank characters) so was bummed when I found out how rough this challenge is on your armour.  If I had to change class I was going to go meta, and all my research led me to regard SC Bloodmage as being the cheesemaster supreme.

[Shai Hulud]

8 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

I experimented a bit with AI scripting but decided to keep things manual.  I guess it keeps me awake lol.

When I have the time, I'm going to try another Ultimate run on Evoker to get that same sense of 'legitimacy' you're talking about. This means I won't be able to (ab)use Cocoon so will have to work a bit harder in general at keeping myself and Vela safe.  I had a play around this evening on my test save and managed to steal all my core spells from Hanging Sepulcres without Cocoon by casting Binding Web (scroll, because no Conjuration) on Vela in a safe space then charge into combat while she's immobilised so she procs terrified far away and doesn't get aggro.  I also discovered that Major Grimoire Imprint doesn't cancel Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, so the stealing itself was no biggie.  After this point, it's just a matter of managing affliction immunities and being aware of casters that use Arcane Dampener / Cleanse.

Why an evoker? I've thought about using a vanilla wizard, particularly a vanilla wizard / bellower, which with the right gear is tremendously powerful even without cheese (unless you count wall of draining as cheese, which I don't unless it's combined with potions of final stand or BDD). I didn't know you could imprint from invisibility, that could have saved me some trouble, although I did most of my minor imprints before I had access to ABD. Main problem is I am pretty sure blood sacrifice breaks invisibility so you'd have to already have brilliant and use some cheesy method like strand of favor to prolong it, right? But I'm assuming imprints are out entirely for cheese free runs. 

Binding web works for vela only on some maps. She will still tend to run out of the web unless she's terrified while in the web, and terrifying her while in the web is risky sometimes (like Hauani O Whe can usually symbiote her before you can pull him away). It is very useful though.  And best of all the spider silk robe from menzaggo has per encounter binding web. The best way to deal with her is to cast a spell on her while holding a whale of a wand, then web her when she becomes charmed (has a 5% chance per spell proc). She will stay in that spot until you leave the map. But you either need brilliant, or free spells like psychovampiric shield. For a wizard you could use minoletta's minor missiles and similar spells with high number of procs, but if unlucky could run out. But you can also use scrolls, including binding web, I am pretty sure there are enough scrolls to deal with her this way for any class. Can also use the fire blight. 

8 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

I checked out a few fights from your run as well and the playstyle looks fun.  You have a serious point about Shadowing Beyond, I might have to pay Beina a visit sometime!

Thanks. It was pretty fun. The parts between fights were kinda grindy, and I imprinted more spells than I needed to, but once the character was built up I could just blitzkrieg everything.

Yep, insta-invis with no recovery is very nice, and escape is even better since you can steal that with just minor grimoire imprint.

8 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

Waels challenge didn't bother me, tbh.  Once I had a sense of rhythm from my test save I just did what came naturally.  For me the stinker is Abydon's - I decided to do The Ultimate after a solo PoTD Herald run and I actually had a blast doing epic 1-2 hour fights against the megabosses.  I really wanted to stick with Herald (I love playing tank characters) so was bummed when I found out how rough this challenge is on your armour.  If I had to change class I was going to go meta, and all my research led me to regard SC Bloodmage as being the cheesemaster supreme.

Wael makes ship combat impossible, it's just a bunch of ? it also makes watching ultimate runs very difficult to figure out what's going on because the logs are all a bunch of ? marks. I figured out a lot of stuff from watching other people's ultimate runs. I have enough experience now wael doesn't bother me as much but it was crazy annoying at the time, also figuring out how much money you had was annoying. I would see how many cannons I could buy and then do x = np where n is number of cannons and p is price per cannon to figure out the money. Wael is certainly not the hardest challenge (not even top 5) but IMO the most annoying. Ondra is similar, doesn't add much challenge but pathing around those giant storms means you have to be super cautious on the world map and sometimes take stupid routes because there's a giant storm blocking the direct path.

My megaboss fights tended to take like two minutes lol, because of escape + citzals + soul annihilation. In fast mode some of them would have taken less than a minute, but I rarely used fast mode because vela is unscriptable. Used it some in sanguine harvest video, where I shamelessly farmed gold and focus.

I think if you don't steal priest spells then priests are cheesemaster supreme, mostly because once you proc briliant, BDD + salvation of time makes the whole challenge including vela extremely simple. But given SC blood mage can steal priest spells, plus the temporal cocoon trick, they are potentially worse in this regard.

Abydon doesn't matter for the classes best equipped to deal with the ultimate like blood mage and priest. But it does make tanky builds borderline impossible, however I think a herald could do it except there's no monastic unarmed training for paladins or chanters. So lacking any reasonable weapons including fists is the main problem IMO. You basically have to use something with monastic unarmed training or summoned weapons which is pretty limiting yeah. A herald could do nearly all of the fights just summoning things, but Dorudugan may be impossible, even with four weapons. I haven't been able to beat him with just summons anyway. Actually with the right weapons I think you could do it before they break, but you'd have to proc a 200% damage conduit or something, and extend it with strand of favor. I think with cheese it is possible, but legitimately, dorudugan is probaby the gating encounter. 

I found some armor that doesn't degrade under abydon's challenge though. Generic legendary gear doesn't degrade at all. But I've only been able to locate one piece, some legendary plate armor you get from Challenge of the Slayer in SSS. You'd have to do a few SSS fights breaking your armor but after that you can just wear the plate which is pretty good protection. The main difficulty with getting it is completing The Changeling's Dance with Vela, which is super hard without cheesing the assassins of the slipper, but it is possible to do with 100% consistency, just very very technical.

I was thinking about possibly doing a goldpact knight / FF. Vanilla FF is annoying because it doen't work with a lot of stuff (like steel garrote, swift flurry, or focus gen) and makes combat very slow but it is still the best monk for tanky builds. A goldpact knight / FF wearing the legendary plate and wielding kapana taga + giftwrapper with stoic steel and iron wheel can get armor in 21 to 23 range. Stacking deflection without shields is a little harder but you can use them, they'll just break in some fights but by the point they break there aren't enough enemies left to care about, especially if you wield multiple shields and switch when they get near broken. It also isn't against the rules to use "toggledurabilitydebug" which shows the state of your gear. The main problem with this build, aside being really boring (literally just stand there and spam FF), is dealing with Vela is extremely tedious, though possible. But I have tested most of the boss fights and they're doable. Dorudugan is problematic for FFs because there is a bug in the game that causes enemies to heal when they go from weakened/enfeebled to not. They only heal like 1% of their health, which for most enemies is not noticeable, but Dorudugan only stays weakened for 3 or 4 seconds and has a massive health pool so with FF / anything he will heal around 200 very often. I think it is still doable but requires respec and using plain fists, which makes generating wounds a lot harder, but OTOH you don't really need wounds, I think he'd go down eventually just standing there punching him it would just take 2+ hours. The hard part then would be ensuring he isn't hit by his helfire barrages, which is rather technical but doable. 

I originally wanted to do a FF / soul blade which I know can do it without cheese with community patch (i've done it), but in vanilla FF doesn't generate focus. Very unfortunate because it is such a fantastic build, not simple either, requires a lot of game knowledge and a wide variety of tactics for different fights, but has enough tools to handle every situation, even without armor. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

23 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Why an evoker? I've thought about using a vanilla wizard, particularly a vanilla wizard / bellower, which with the right gear is tremendously powerful even without cheese (unless you count wall of draining as cheese, which I don't unless it's combined with potions of final stand or BDD). I didn't know you could imprint from invisibility, that could have saved me some trouble, although I did most of my minor imprints before I had access to ABD. Main problem is I am pretty sure blood sacrifice breaks invisibility so you'd have to already have brilliant and use some cheesy method like strand of favor to prolong it, right? But I'm assuming imprints are out entirely for cheese free runs. 

Binding web works for vela only on some maps. She will still tend to run out of the web unless she's terrified while in the web, and terrifying her while in the web is risky sometimes (like Hauani O Whe can usually symbiote her before you can pull him away). It is very useful though.  And best of all the spider silk robe from menzaggo has per encounter binding web. The best way to deal with her is to cast a spell on her while holding a whale of a wand, then web her when she becomes charmed (has a 5% chance per spell proc). She will stay in that spot until you leave the map. But you either need brilliant, or free spells like psychovampiric shield. For a wizard you could use minoletta's minor missiles and similar spells with high number of procs, but if unlucky could run out. But you can also use scrolls, including binding web, I am pretty sure there are enough scrolls to deal with her this way for any class. Can also use the fire blight. 

Thanks. It was pretty fun. The parts between fights were kinda grindy, and I imprinted more spells than I needed to, but once the character was built up I could just blitzkrieg everything.

Yep, insta-invis with no recovery is very nice, and escape is even better since you can steal that with just minor grimoire imprint.

Wael makes ship combat impossible, it's just a bunch of ? it also makes watching ultimate runs very difficult to figure out what's going on because the logs are all a bunch of ? marks. I figured out a lot of stuff from watching other people's ultimate runs. I have enough experience now wael doesn't bother me as much but it was crazy annoying at the time, also figuring out how much money you had was annoying. I would see how many cannons I could buy and then do x = np where n is number of cannons and p is price per cannon to figure out the money. Wael is certainly not the hardest challenge (not even top 5) but IMO the most annoying. Ondra is similar, doesn't add much challenge but pathing around those giant storms means you have to be super cautious on the world map and sometimes take stupid routes because there's a giant storm blocking the direct path.

My megaboss fights tended to take like two minutes lol, because of escape + citzals + soul annihilation. In fast mode some of them would have taken less than a minute, but I rarely used fast mode because vela is unscriptable. Used it some in sanguine harvest video, where I shamelessly farmed gold and focus.

I think if you don't steal priest spells then priests are cheesemaster supreme, mostly because once you proc briliant, BDD + salvation of time makes the whole challenge including vela extremely simple. But given SC blood mage can steal priest spells, plus the temporal cocoon trick, they are potentially worse in this regard.

Abydon doesn't matter for the classes best equipped to deal with the ultimate like blood mage and priest. But it does make tanky builds borderline impossible, however I think a herald could do it except there's no monastic unarmed training for paladins or chanters. So lacking any reasonable weapons including fists is the main problem IMO. You basically have to use something with monastic unarmed training or summoned weapons which is pretty limiting yeah. A herald could do nearly all of the fights just summoning things, but Dorudugan may be impossible, even with four weapons. I haven't been able to beat him with just summons anyway. Actually with the right weapons I think you could do it before they break, but you'd have to proc a 200% damage conduit or something, and extend it with strand of favor. I think with cheese it is possible, but legitimately, dorudugan is probaby the gating encounter. 

I found some armor that doesn't degrade under abydon's challenge though. Generic legendary gear doesn't degrade at all. But I've only been able to locate one piece, some legendary plate armor you get from Challenge of the Slayer in SSS. You'd have to do a few SSS fights breaking your armor but after that you can just wear the plate which is pretty good protection. The main difficulty with getting it is completing The Changeling's Dance with Vela, which is super hard without cheesing the assassins of the slipper, but it is possible to do with 100% consistency, just very very technical.

I was thinking about possibly doing a goldpact knight / FF. Vanilla FF is annoying because it doen't work with a lot of stuff (like steel garrote, swift flurry, or focus gen) and makes combat very slow but it is still the best monk for tanky builds. A goldpact knight / FF wearing the legendary plate and wielding kapana taga + giftwrapper with stoic steel and iron wheel can get armor in 21 to 23 range. Stacking deflection without shields is a little harder but you can use them, they'll just break in some fights but by the point they break there aren't enough enemies left to care about, especially if you wield multiple shields and switch when they get near broken. It also isn't against the rules to use "toggledurabilitydebug" which shows the state of your gear. The main problem with this build, aside being really boring (literally just stand there and spam FF), is dealing with Vela is extremely tedious, though possible. But I have tested most of the boss fights and they're doable. Dorudugan is problematic for FFs because there is a bug in the game that causes enemies to heal when they go from weakened/enfeebled to not. They only heal like 1% of their health, which for most enemies is not noticeable, but Dorudugan only stays weakened for 3 or 4 seconds and has a massive health pool so with FF / anything he will heal around 200 very often. I think it is still doable but requires respec and using plain fists, which makes generating wounds a lot harder, but OTOH you don't really need wounds, I think he'd go down eventually just standing there punching him it would just take 2+ hours. The hard part then would be ensuring he isn't hit by his helfire barrages, which is rather technical but doable. 

I originally wanted to do a FF / soul blade which I know can do it without cheese with community patch (i've done it), but in vanilla FF doesn't generate focus. Very unfortunate because it is such a fantastic build, not simple either, requires a lot of game knowledge and a wide variety of tactics for different fights, but has enough tools to handle every situation, even without armor. 

Unkitted Wizard is definitely better, strictly speaking, but I'm up for Evoker since the spell limitations will add a layer of challenge, thus forcing me to think more creatively (it already has done, a lot!) while empowering my favourite nukes .  Personally, I don't propose going completely without cheese - after all, The Ultimate was introduced as a final update challenge so everything in the game is technically 'working as intended'.  From SOF to your generic legendary armor that never degrades.  If Pillars were a live service game, even the most esoteric means of bending the rules would be patched out eventually.  My point is, I think most people who look at The Ultimate and think 'yeah, I wanna put myself through that' are hoping to discover something unique and break the game in some original way that showcases a playstyle they invented.  I would consider any Ultimate run legitimate - good luck getting to level 16 and making yourself invincible without archmage-level knowledge of this game - but to be truly satisfied with my own run, I would need to know that I have done it with a build I created.  Sounds like that's what you've got going on with Godlpact / FF, so I hope it works out for you.

 

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

Unkitted Wizard is definitely better, strictly speaking, but I'm up for Evoker since the spell limitations will add a layer of challenge, thus forcing me to think more creatively (it already has done, a lot!) while empowering my favourite nukes .  Personally, I don't propose going completely without cheese - after all, The Ultimate was introduced as a final update challenge so everything in the game is technically 'working as intended'.  From SOF to your generic legendary armor that never degrades.  If Pillars were a live service game, even the most esoteric means of bending the rules would be patched out eventually.  My point is, I think most people who look at The Ultimate and think 'yeah, I wanna put myself through that' are hoping to discover something unique and break the game in some original way that showcases a playstyle they invented.  I would consider any Ultimate run legitimate - good luck getting to level 16 and making yourself invincible without archmage-level knowledge of this game - but to be truly satisfied with my own run, I would need to know that I have done it with a build I created.  Sounds like that's what you've got going on with Godlpact / FF, so I hope it works out for you.

 

Yeah I mean of course the ultimate runs are legitimate despite cheese, and I didn't mean to disparage your run or anything, so please don't take it that way. Maybe "legitimate" was the wrong word for me to use, I used "legitimate" with quotes initially because I meant tactics that people don't generally regard as cheesy. Because AFAIK nobody including myself has done an ultimate run with more straightforward tactics, so it's just a personal challenge really, to see if you can do a challenge that was intended as borderline impossible without even reaching for the broken tactics, which is regarded as particularly impossible (though I don't think it is).  

Everything definitely does not "work as intended" though, certain things are bugs or oversights (imprints, strand of favor infinite extension). But yes other things like BDD + SOT or Temporal Cocoon trick while possibly unforeseen exploits are not bugs and arguably "work as intended". Temporal Cocoon thing for example is just a consequence of the spell listing paralyze as a hostile effect and the untargetability as beneficial.

At this point I don't think anyone is breaking the game in some new way, however, outside of very minor discoveries like unbreakable armor or whatever. The blood mage deification, spell theft, etc., as well as priest deification, tactician cheese, strand of favor, the many items and their significant procs, all of it is well known (at least by like a dozen people lol). 

There wasn't anything groundbreaking about my ultimate run. I mean nobody had done a hierophant to that point but the soul blade focus building was already known, grimoire imprinting, etc., I just combined it with citzal's spirit lance for maximum carnage.

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

16 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah I mean of course the ultimate runs are legitimate despite cheese, and I didn't mean to disparage your run or anything, so please don't take it that way. Maybe "legitimate" was the wrong word for me to use, I used "legitimate" with quotes initially because I meant tactics that people don't generally regard as cheesy. Because AFAIK nobody including myself has done an ultimate run with more straightforward tactics, so it's just a personal challenge really, to see if you can do a challenge that was intended as borderline impossible without even reaching for the broken tactics, which is regarded as particularly impossible (though I don't think it is).  

Everything definitely does not "work as intended" though, certain things are bugs or oversights (imprints, strand of favor infinite extension). But yes other things like BDD + SOT or Temporal Cocoon trick while possibly unforeseen exploits are not bugs and arguably "work as intended". Temporal Cocoon thing for example is just a consequence of the spell listing paralyze as a hostile effect and the untargetability as beneficial.

At this point I don't think anyone is breaking the game in some new way, however, outside of very minor discoveries like unbreakable armor or whatever. The blood mage deification, spell theft, etc., as well as priest deification, tactician cheese, strand of favor, the many items and their significant procs, all of it is well known (at least by like a dozen people lol). 

There wasn't anything groundbreaking about my ultimate run. I mean nobody had done a hierophant to that point but the soul blade focus building was already known, grimoire imprinting, etc., I just combined it with citzal's spirit lance for maximum carnage.

I didn't think you were disparaging my run in any way, no no.  I guess I was just doing some lofty thinking on why I had done the run in the first place, felt a little unsatisfied by the result, and wanted to do it again on a more challenging class.  Your enthusiasm for the Goldpact / FF reminded me that the real joy of such challenges lies in creative theorycrafting.  Since I largely just copy-pasted strategies I had seen in a bunch of other clips and forum posts and mushed them together, it left me feeling uncreative afterwards and I felt the need to justify myself.

[thelee]

On 4/29/2023 at 4:20 AM, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

I just finished The Ultimate.  Oh... my... Gaun!

SC Bloodmage ubercheese.  All filmed.  Anyone know if there are still patches going?

Big thanks to all the knowledge posted by you guys, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Hey congrats! Welcome to an extremely exclusive club.

I hope both you and Shai Hulud get verified soon.

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

@Shai Hulud Obsidian's Product Services Manager, Samuel Chin, replied to me (for my timezone) in the middle of the night yesterday.  The message was very much personalised and said that he said that he would be looking at my submission over the next few weeks.  If you still haven't heard anything, I'm pretty sure there's a communication blockage between you and Obsidian - spam settings or something like that.  Definitely try to reach them again, maybe with a different email address.

[Boeroer]

You usually also can reach Sam here in the forum when tagging him: @SChin (hello Sam ).

[Shai Hulud]

12 hours ago, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

@Shai Hulud Obsidian's Product Services Manager, Samuel Chin, replied to me (for my timezone) in the middle of the night yesterday.  The message was very much personalised and said that he said that he would be looking at my submission over the next few weeks.  If you still haven't heard anything, I'm pretty sure there's a communication blockage between you and Obsidian - spam settings or something like that.  Definitely try to reach them again, maybe with a different email address.

Wow...

What email address did he send it from (the domain at least)? The spam thing doesn't make any sense to me. I get emailed from support@obsidian.net every time I get a forum notification. I also got the first auto-reply, just silence after that. And there's no spam filter for *outgoing* mail so they definitely got my email with attached files. I have a very common @hotmail.com email address, don't think their spam filter would flag it. Unless they're sending replies from a really weird email address I don't think they'd be tagged as spam, but I haven't seen anything in my junk folders anyway. 

@SChin Has no one received my submission from way back on 12/29/22? I got an initial auto-reply and that's it. Have tried submitting twice since then. 

[SChin]

Hey @Shai Hulud,

I'm sorry if we missed your submission

I looked up your registered email and based upon that looked it up in our support system.  It seems you've been sending us emails but when our folks tried to reply back, we would get this auto-response back from the email system:

Whether or not your email is actually full or not, I'm not sure, but for some reason our system seems to think it is and won't send our replies out to you.

Regarding The Ultimate, if you want to try emailing my work email, I can send you a DM and contact you that way so we can go through your submission.  If that works for you, please let me know.

Sorry about the trouble this has all been.

 

P.S. Thanks for the ping @Boeroer  

[Shai Hulud]

3 hours ago, SChin said:

Hey @Shai Hulud,

I'm sorry if we missed your submission

I looked up your registered email and based upon that looked it up in our support system.  It seems you've been sending us emails but when our folks tried to reply back, we would get this auto-response back from the email system:

Whether or not your email is actually full or not, I'm not sure, but for some reason our system seems to think it is and won't send our replies out to you.

Regarding The Ultimate, if you want to try emailing my work email, I can send you a DM and contact you that way so we can go through your submission.  If that works for you, please let me know.

Sorry about the trouble this has all been.

 

P.S. Thanks for the ping @Boeroer  

I couldn't find your work email so I messaged you on the forums

[ValkyOfApocrypha]

Hey all,

I just wanted to say that my run was officially verified today! \o/

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I am really looking forward to receiving that badge - probably another couple of months down the road haha.

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the summer!

[thelee]

On 8/15/2023 at 2:06 PM, ValkyOfApocrypha said:

Hey all,

I just wanted to say that my run was officially verified today! \o/

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I am really looking forward to receiving that badge - probably another couple of months down the road haha.

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the summer!

been slammed with BG3 so this is a bit belated, but many congrats!