An analysis of top classes for Solo - Vanilla vs BPM

[Not So Clever Hound]

Happy New Year Deadfire Enthusiasts,

Elric inspired me to finally do this exercise with his very interesting class tiers ranking. While there seems to be already a pretty good consensus regarding the top classes for Solo in the base (vanilla) game, I thought it would be interesting to look at how BPM might change certain dynamics, with the critical nerf brought to the cheesiest of abilities. So for full clarity I'll try to do first a recap of top Solo classes without BPM, then my interpretation of the changes brought by the full BPM complement (buffs, nerfs, summon rework).

Additional notes before starting:

• This is assuming usage of the Community Patch.
• This is valid for Real Time With Pause, I don't know about Turn Based.
• This is for Soloing on PotD (Upscaled) Difficulty, the full game and DLCs and some (in some cases all) megabosses - but not considering The Ultimate which is its own animal.
• This is not excluding cheese (though BPM will de facto exclude some). I consider some level of cheese to be fair game in Solo HOWEVER, I'm not considering builds that require Strand of Favor to be viable. Because then it would be easier to list the few classes that cannot become Solo beasts with SoF abuse.
• I'm blending Single Classes and Multiclasses altogether because here there is no consideration about party synergy, saving a party slot etc. Just pure Solo effectiveness. Also, I'm not mentioning every single class combo, just focusing on the most salient.
• Most importantly, this is really not pretending to be a perfectly exhaustive, objective and accurate class ranking in such a complex game system... So please don't take this as me trying to impose my limited understanding of the game on you, but rather trying to engage in a good discussion with the below blurb as a starting point.  

 

 

----- TOP SOLO CLASSES IN BASE GAME WITHOUT BPM -----

 

 

1) SC WIZARD (BLOODMAGE)

Unsurprisingly, it is the strongest of all by a huge margin, because it has so many mind-blowing tricks available from beginning to end. The true god of cheese in the Deadfire if there ever was one.

• Infinite spells potential from level 1 with Blood Sacrifice.
• Has a tool for every situation with Grimoire Switching, concentrating some of the best offensive and defensive spells in the game...
• ...even more so with Grimoire Imprint spells, giving the opportunity to permanently cheesy-steal any and all Tier 1-7 Wizard, Priest and Druid spell - each stolen spell becoming usable indefinitely. I realize using this simple and hugely powerful bug might be very controversial but its existence is undeniable - and Wizard remains hands down the best class even without it.
• Can prolong any positive effect indefinitely with Wall of Draining or stealing Salvation of Time from a Priest.
• Can become immortal with Barring Death Door and of course straight-up untargetable (invulnerable) forever with Constentin's Temporal Cocoon trick.

 

2) SC ROGUE (ASSASSIN) AND SC MONK (NALPAZCA, FORBIDDEN FIST, HELWALKER)

I put them on an equal footing because Assassin is OP from the very beginning until very late but requires additional tricks (Arcana / Alchemy / Brilliant) towards the end-game in certain SSS, FS and a few BoW fights. On the other hand, Monk starts rough unless playing a max RES Forbidden Fist (for instance Helwalker will have to start with a lot of sneaking around). But as you gain Power Levels - especially the last few Tiers - and gather critical items, Monk will become a self-sufficient killing machine. Both SC Assassin and SC Monk also bring unique playstyles and game experiences.

SC ASSASSIN:

• Invisibility lets you reset 99% of fights (without Berath's challenge activated), to pick enemies as you please and set your own pace.
• Vanishing Strike gives invisibility that doesn't break (OP on its own, insane with Brilliant and total godhood with SoF).
• Incredibly potent offensive abilities, with special mention to Gouging Strike that can trivialize the vast majority of encounters from level 5 on, including some of the hardest foes.

SC MONK:

• Very powerful and synergistic abilities, creating even stronger synergies with specific weapons and items.
• Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch = "I Win" button.
• Infinite supply of resources (including infinite summons).

 

3) THE MANY FACES OF SOLO MULTICLASSING AWESOMENESS

They are in no particular order, all being very strong. Not elaborating too much on each otherwise this post would be turning into a book.

• BLOODMAGE/TACTICIAN - On-demand Brilliant with Chillfog, unkillable Battlemage with Unbending + WoD, play bowling with enemies' faces with Spirit Lance + Clear Out.
• ASSASSIN/TACTICIAN - Kaylon's Glimmer Man Sniper Build. Never stop neverstopping & sniping. Invisibility + Brilliant Tactician interaction.
• BLOODMAGE/PRIEST - Unkillable with BDD, SoT, WoD, can self-buff to oblivion while still packing a serious punch.
• BLOODMAGE/PALADIN - The Lord of Defense, getting every defense past 220 and AR in the 20s. While having tons of heal and all the Bloodmage offense.
• ASSASSIN/BLOODMAGE - The most offensive Bloodmage out there, using invisibility to rinse & repeat, and the Assassin's stellar ACC to land critical spells.
• BLOODMAGE/HELWALKER - Helwalker gives big bonuses to everything a Bloodmage loves. And then there is Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge.
• BLOODMAGE/DRUID - Drown the battlefield in waves of overlapping pulsing AoEs, cast Combusting Wounds + Infestation of Maggots; watch reality melt around you.
• BLOODMAGE/TROUBADOUR - Use summons as distraction to cast in peace. Animated Weapons are immune to cold damage, and Wizard has the best AoE cold damage spells.
• BLOODMAGE/PSION - Beautiful action economy: cast some wizard stuff while generating focus, dump focus on an impactful cipher power, repeat until things are dead.
• PALADIN/TROUBADOUR - Loads of permanent healing, high defenses, summons, brand enemy... sit back and relax. It will take a while, but the outcome is inevitable.
• ASSASSIN/CIPHER - The Megaboss Killer. As an arquebus build, has an answer to almost every tough situation. A bit of Arcana is required later on.
• HELWALKER/TROUBADOUR - Start fight from stealth, summon stuff to keep the enemy busy then stun them all with Mortar Stunning Surge + Invocations. You can do that (and other things) forever.
• TROUBADOUR/PSION - Awesome action economy and interaction between infinite summons from stealth and Pain Link. Constantly regenerating resource pools.
• PRIEST/BELLOWER - Kaylon's suggested build, coming to full fruition pretty late (Least Unstable Coil + Her Revenge/Her Tears + SoT) but with amazing benefits.
• BERSERKER/BECKONER or TACTICIAN/BECKONER - Grave Calling's Chilling Grave + Grave Bound + Confusion abusing build. Can be done with other Chanter/xx combos... in any case if your GPU allows it.
• FORBIDDEN FIST/SOUL BLADE: As DGray62 pointed out below, FF subclass adds a lot to the survivability of the character, with its powerful enfeebling attack that can be infinitely spammed that also heals you and generates resources.
• OTHER NOTABLE BUILDS THAT I DON'T KNOW THE FULL SOLO POTENTIAL OF: Kaylon's Berserker/Devoted with Lord Darryn's Voulge, Powerotti's FF/Steel Garrote, Boeroer's Bloodmage/Ranger. Probably many others that I don't know about or have forgotten about. Happy to edit the list if you have other thoughts.

 

4) SC CHANTER (TROUBADOUR)

 

I want to mention it here because I'll talk about it with BPM and because it's still a viable, if only a bit boring, way of Soloing the game. Requires Berath's challenge enabled - using traps or the double Alt key trick to start the encounter in stealth and keep it going is huge for a SC Chanter. Possibly supplement with high Arcana to go faster in tough fights. There is just no real reason in Vanilla to chose SC Chanter for soloing over all the awesome multiclassing opportunities available, as Chanter really peaks at Tier 7.

 

5) OTHER SINGLE CLASSES AND MULTICLASSES

 

Many other classes can do fairly well at soloing most of the game, but they will need extensive save scumming, arcana, metagaming to have a chance at hard fights as you hit DLC content. Cruising solo through the "easy" parts of the game can give a false sense of power, and then you hit something like Trial of the Nagas in FFF or basically any big fight in FS and the seemingly strong solo build is... humbled.

 

 

----- SO WHAT CHANGES WITH BPM? -----

 

 

Among other things, the nerf component of Elric's BPM aims at preventing abuse of Blood Sacrifice, Brilliant, SoT, SoF, WoD, Unbending and BDD for a more balanced (less cheesy) game experience. So anything Priest is going to take a big hit, Tactician and Bloodmage are going to take a hit as well (Bloodmage/Priest = ouch). On the other hand, resource regen classes (and Chanters in particular) become more appealing. Here are the most notable points according to me:

 

SC BLOODMAGE/WIZARD NO SUBCLASS: It was already so far up that it remains the absolute strongest class, notably because it can continue to cheesy-steal all kinds of spells for permanent use - so WoD/SoT/BDD nerf don't really matter with a bit of adjustment.

• It's easier in a semi-solo run (i.e. where you can temporarily hire companions in the tavern to steal their spells) but it is very viable in a full solo run too. Just requires more metagaming.
• You can have unlimited summons that are remarkably good at level 7 (Minor Grimoire Imprint on Ancient Druid for Summon Sporeling) in particular thanks to BPM's Summon revamp.
• You can still have unlimited buffs, Shadowflame, Freezing Pillar, Crushing Doom etc. and still some nice Priest and Druid stuff up to Tier 7 spells.
• You can still use the Temporal Cocoon trick to become untargetable, just not forever.
• Minor point, BPM also buffs Tier 9 Llengrath's Reflection which becomes very very useful in certain fights thanks to targeted spells reflection and AoE spell resistance (the Spell Resistance passive is also buffed). Finally a great defensive tool for mage fencing.
• The truly interesting thing is that No Subclass becomes much more competitive than before at high level, because of the Blood Sacrifice nerf and the rework of Empowerment passives. It might be even on equal footing with Bloodmage - unless you truly want to replenish often Tier 8 and 9 spells (which is now more risky to do).

 

SC ASSASSIN/ROGUE: Is comparatively better than before (again, excluding SoF) because invisibility abilities are now less expensive, Great Soul gives +1 Guile and Wall of Flashing Steel can give partial resource regen.

 

SC MONK: Stays basically as strong as in Vanilla.

 

SC TROUBADOUR: I think it becomes comparatively a lot more appealing for Soloing because of:

• The change to Great Soul (giving a -15% phrase duration buff) while Brisk Recitation without Great Soul is put at 4s.
• The buffs to Empowerment passives (empower = staple of any chanter) making them really good investments.
• Also, the buffing of summons including the Dragon and to a lower extent the rework of Boil their Flesh give more arguments to go SC.

 

STRONG SOLO MULTICLASSES:

• In general, multiclasses involving resource regen - Chanter, Monk or Cipher - become comparatively even more appealing than in Vanilla.
• Chanter gets a really good bump because certain "cheap" summons become really great (upgraded Wurms, Drake). Troubadour takes a little hit with Brisk Recitation at 4s now vs. 3s, but I think it's still the best Solo pick in most cases (if only for added flexibility).
• Multi with Bloodmage/No Subclass Wizard remains very good especially if you want to build around using mostly infinite Tier 1-3 spells and cheesy Minor Grimoire Imprint.
• As said before, Tactician (if relying on Unbending) and Priest builds take a hit; especially Priest.

 

----
That's all for now! Looking forward to hearing thoughts and reactions. I hope I won't get insulted too much.  

Edited January 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Elric Galad]

Minor remark : Strand of Favor abuse and similar effect don't work with BPM.

 

Minor question : have you tried using Potion of Enlightenment component of BPM ? This potion is very expensive for every fights. But it provides +1 ressource every 30s, so I expect it would affect balance between classes a lot.

 

Anyway, thank you for every element of visibility you give to my mod.

It's really rewarding to see people using it and liking it.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Elric Galad

[dgray62]

I'd add FF/cipher (preferably soul blade) as a solo viable multiclass. As you note, Not So Clever Hound, the FF subclass adds a lot to the survivability of the character, with its powerful enfeebling attack that can be infinitely spammed that also heals you and generates resources. It doesn't work as well in the vanilla game, but shines with CP and the BPM.

[Not So Clever Hound]

8 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

I'd add FF/cipher (preferably soul blade) as a solo viable multiclass.

Thanks! Added it to the list.

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Minor remark : Strand of Favor abuse and similar effect don't work with BPM.

Yes, that's why I wrote that Assassin is better with BPM than Vanilla if you exclude SoF from the equation, as SoF isn't cheesable in BPM but turns any SC Assassin into a god of murder if you abuse it in Vanilla.

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Minor question : have you tried using Potion of Enlightenment component of BPM ?

I haven't installed it yet, but it's a good point and I will. I need to practice it and see how it concretely affects resource management. 1 resource / 30s is nice, but a lot of things can happen in 30s when soloing...  For casters, is the 1 resource a refund on all spell tiers or just one spell of one tier?

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Anyway, thank you for every element of visibility you give to my mod.

It's really rewarding to see people using it and liking it.

Of course, thanks for your continued efforts to build this great mod! 

[Elric Galad]

34 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I haven't installed it yet, but it's a good point and I will. I need to practice it and see how it concretely affects resource management. 1 resource / 30s is nice, but a lot of things can happen in 30s when soloing...  For casters, is the 1 resource a refund on all spell tiers or just one spell of one tier?

It refunds 1 spell of 1 tier at random for each class ressource (as for Brilliant, but without tier restriction from CP/BPM). It doesn't add 1 ressource on the 0s tick.

It might not be enough for solo, but may help sometimes.

[Kaylon]

Tactician/Berserker is solid in a party, but certainly not made for solo.

Also, for me there's a big difference between a class able to finish the game solo (by skipping content and avoiding fights) and a class able to complete the entire game solo (meaning he can beat any encounter in the game). For example a blood mage can't beat the Changeling's Dance encounter without heavy exploits and I certainly wouldn't rank him first.

My top 5 would be:

1. forbidden fist
2. troubadour/paladin
3. blood mage/paladin
4. tactician/assassin
5. forbidden fist/psion (or forbidden fist/soul blade with the CP)

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

45 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

Tactician/Berserker is solid in a party, but certainly not made for solo.

For some reason I thought you had mentioned it for solo but I must have dreamed that up . That explains also a lot - I wasn't totally seeing the solo survivability in many high level fights  

 

47 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

Also, for me there's a big difference between a class able to finish the game solo (by skipping content and avoiding fights) and a class able to complete the entire game solo (meaning he can beat any encounter in the game).

Yes, I think more broadly any such kind of ranking will depend on:

• what one considers as fair game vs. exploits they don't want to use for themselves (e.g. prolonging BDD vs Temporal Cocoon vs permastealing spells vs. switching back and forth to Slayer's Claw for Energized vs abusing SoF left and right... 50 shades of grey cheese)
• whether it is good for each and every possible encounter or the vast majority (and what one considers "vast majority" e.g. Hauani o Whe viable or not, all SSS fights viable or not...)
• what one considers interesting and fun enough to play (you may have noted that I'm a sucker for Wizard archetypes  so I definitely have a biased experience there. On the other hand, I absolutely acknowledge the power of a solo Herald, but I despise its gameplay )

 

So I appreciate you sharing your top-5. I think that we would come up with a very consistent list of, say, the top-20 solo classes without a precise ranking. It seems to be at least .

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Kaylon said:

For example a blood mage can't beat the Changeling's Dance encounter without heavy exploits

Also just on that particular point: I did the Changeling's Dance with a solo SC Bloodmage without any exploit on normal PotD (not Upscaled though) after 1 or 2 tries.

The one class that locked me out of the Changeling Dance solo was an Assassin/Cipher with Guilty Conscience from the Red Hand... impossible.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Kaylon]

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Also just on that particular point: I did the Changeling's Dance with a solo SC Bloodmage without any exploit on normal PotD (not Upscaled though) after 1 or 2 tries.

The one class that locked me out of the Changeling Dance solo was an Assassin/Cipher with Guilty Conscience from the Red Hand... impossible.

I play always upscaled thus I can't tell if there's a difference. However I'm still interested in your strategy because I find this encounter very difficult to beat without great passives. 

Personally I don't find herald boring because it's a very versatile class - you can use summons, invocations and play easily as 1h/s, 2w, 2h or even ranged.

On the other hand, I consider very tedious to pass half of the time to buff or maintain the buffs as a caster...

[Boeroer]

The one which was mentioned was a Bloodmage/Stalker. 

I think Beast's Claw is often overlooked. It's so good when going solo with decent meta knowledge imo. 

Stalker puts additional +5 deflection on top of Beast's Claw (and Arcane Veil, Magnificent Escape and Llengrath's Safeguard) and +1 AR on top of Iron Skin or Spirit Shield. Doesn't sound like much, but when stacking up to some serious numbers it makes a noticable difference. 

I have to say though that I rarely go for maximum effectiveness unless I'm absolutely forced to. 

Changeling's Dance is truly a sh!t solo encounter.

And besides all that the best solo class is obv. Mage Slayer.

[Not So Clever Hound]

@Kaylon I found an old save of this SC Bloodmage and managed to recreate my strategy (no exploit/abuse). I even uploaded a little video below for your reference. Caution: it might be a while before it has full HD given the length of it, and it's as painful to watch as it is to play the encounter . I did it on normal PotD but TBH I cut it so close that I don't know if you can replicate on Upscaled...

Character:

• SC Bloodmage, Human with decent CON and RES, Hylea's Bounty, full No Rest goodies complement (I hover around major Char screen stuff at the end). This dude.
• Fun fact: I tried to wear Furrate's Breastplate with First to the Fight and it does indeed given you +10 All DEF buff for about 15-20s. I didn't know about it or used it in my original run. The +15 deflection from Drawing Parry on Duskfall doesn't work. Maybe other stuff can work.

Strategy:

• Run to the little corner below to limit being ganged up, especially the Cipher ruining your day with Ectopsychic Echo among other things.
• Prioritize more or less Cipher > Monk (ouch) > pet > fighter > rogue > ranger. There might be a slightly better order. You can't bum-rush the ranged targets... too many disengagement attacks in between. Even if you start stealthed, doesn't work.
• The key is to have enough steam (HP, Defenses, Regen) and outgoing damage (ACC, STR, DEX, Fighting Spirit, Infamous Captain...) to kill squishies fast enough to pass the curve where your passive Bloodmage regen outheals incoming damage... before 0 HP. So literally every little bit helps.

 

The video:

 

Edited January 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Constentin Lévine]

58 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

And besides all that the best solo class is obv. Mage Slayer.

You can laught but I like Mage Slayer, this class should be very fun to play if the Spell Disruption on melee attack would be applied to weapon's proccing effects (like the AoE of Citzal's Lance or Amra for exemple) or also ranged weapons. With the pulsing "great maelstrom like" Storm rune shot from Thundercrack pistol (not mentionned in the description : 10-15 shock in AoE per 2s for 4s base (5 times with 35 int) ) that would be a stunning version of Writ of Sorcery + frenzy stuff. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 minutes ago, Constentin Lévine said:

You can laught but I like Mage Slayer

Hey Constentin, don't worry: try to talk Boeroer into a Mage Slayer build using Willbreaker to kill Many Lives skeletons and you might have a fan.  

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Personally I don't find herald boring because it's a very versatile class - you can use summons, invocations and play easily as 1h/s, 2w, 2h or even ranged.

On the other hand, I consider very tedious to pass half of the time to buff or maintain the buffs as a caster...

Gotcha. Good thing Deadfire has a flavor for every taste .

[Kaylon]

14 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

@Kaylon I found an old save of this SC Bloodmage and managed to recreate my strategy (no exploit/abuse). I even uploaded a little video below for your reference. Caution: it might be a while before it has full HD given the length of it, and it's as painful to watch as it is to play the encounter . I did it on normal PotD but TBH I cut it so close that I don't know if you can replicate on Upscaled...

I tried the encounter without scaling and there's no difference. However I think you have a mod because your enemies are much weaker...

[Not So Clever Hound]

17 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

I tried the encounter without scaling and there's no difference. However I think you have a mod because your enemies are much weaker...

I don't have any mod there besides Community Patch - otherwise I would have mentioned it Kaylon.

But I'm not sure you can reload the Arena without Upscaling after playing SSS Upscaled as it might count as the same area reload. I just checked the Cipher without Upscaling has 82 Deflection and 94 with Upscaling (I'm of course level 20). Are you getting different values?

EDIT: I hadn't seen your screenshot. These are the values for Upscaled on the Fighter. So my point above is probably valid.

EDIT 2: So the enemies are lvl 17 without Upscaling and lvl 20 with it. For example the Monk has Razor's Edge passive with and not without. Those three levels and access to PL9 is like the difference between going on a date with Keanu Reeves vs Harvey Weinstein.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Kaylon]

2 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I don't have any mod there besides Community Patch - otherwise I would have mentioned it Kaylon.

But I'm not sure you can reload the Arena without Upscaling after playing SSS Upscaled as it might count as the same area reload. I just checked the Cipher without Upscaling has 82 Deflection and 94 with Upscaling (I'm of course level 20). Are you getting different values?

You're right, I unchecked "Only Scale Upwards" while Level Scaling remained activated. Then indeed, if you play without scaling at all the encounter becomes much more forgiving.

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

Then indeed, if you play without scaling at all the encounter becomes much more forgiving.

Right. Then again, I don't know if I would say "forgiving"  but yeah it becomes manageable. It comforts me in the recent realization that PotD Upscaled (which I've been playing almost exclusively after this run) is really on a different level than normal PotD, especially when you hit DLCs.

And this encounter was definitely not engineered so that Solo toons could prevail on PotD upscaled, unless deliberately planning for it. Seeker's path is a lot more "forgiving".  

[Lovecraft1986]

Hello !

First of all, thank you @Not So Clever Houndfor your detailed post(s).
I've been using your builds for some time now and they never cease to amaze me.

Which is why I wanted to call on your expertise to answer my question :

I like to play with the level cap 33 mod and I wanted to start a completionist solo POTD upscaled run (eventually even using deadly deadfire mod).
In your opinion, what would be the best class to solo everything with the following restrictions :

- No consummables (no potions, no scrolls, no figurines, no traps, ...)
- The build has to be able to take on any encounter at any point and never use stealth to circumvent danger (Clearing out the digsite, Gorecci Street, DLCs Bosses and Megabosses)
- No strand of favor cheese (in a perfect world, I would like to avoid grimoire imprints as well but I'm less reluctant to use it if need be)
- Berath's Blessings are ok.
- Mods are ok (obviously !).

Do you think this build exists (with level cap 33) ?

I was thinking about Forbidden Fist/Bloodmage but I'm having some trouble clearing out the digsite, Troubadour/BM (basically your Chilling tunes build) was a cakewalk in comparison but is it able to kill all megabosses with my restrictions ?
Maybe Troubadour/Psion or Troub/FF but I did not test them out...

Anyways, your insight will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

[Shai Hulud]

12 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Hello !

First of all, thank you @Not So Clever Houndfor your detailed post(s).
I've been using your builds for some time now and they never cease to amaze me.

Which is why I wanted to call on your expertise to answer my question :

I like to play with the level cap 33 mod and I wanted to start a completionist solo POTD upscaled run (eventually even using deadly deadfire mod).
In your opinion, what would be the best class to solo everything with the following restrictions :

- No consummables (no potions, no scrolls, no figurines, no traps, ...)
- The build has to be able to take on any encounter at any point and never use stealth to circumvent danger (Clearing out the digsite, Gorecci Street, DLCs Bosses and Megabosses)
- No strand of favor cheese (in a perfect world, I would like to avoid grimoire imprints as well but I'm less reluctant to use it if need be)
- Berath's Blessings are ok.
- Mods are ok (obviously !).

Do you think this build exists (with level cap 33) ?

I was thinking about Forbidden Fist/Bloodmage but I'm having some trouble clearing out the digsite, Troubadour/BM (basically your Chilling tunes build) was a cakewalk in comparison but is it able to kill all megabosses with my restrictions ?
Maybe Troubadour/Psion or Troub/FF but I did not test them out...

Anyways, your insight will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

I have played most build combinations in BPM. With a level cap of 33 I think many can eventually do what you're talking about. The hard part is "take on any encounter at any point" as many builds come online late. 

I've been playing a lot of builds in ultimate-like conditions, some with deadly deadfire on, level cap 20, testing against megabosses, DLC content and such. These builds I am confident can solo everything without cheese

FF / soul blade
SC FF
Barbarian / Devoted or Barbarian / Black Jacket
Barbarian / Ghost Heart

The last two I've only tested high level content and some of their survival abilities come on late, particularly with the savage being dependent on savage defiance for healing, so I'd run some kind of a forbidden fist or the brute.

FF / soul blade will be stupidly strong by level 33 since you'll get the high level FF abilities plus cipher's shared nightmare. SC FF already has enough penetration at L20 to beat everything, if you kept leveling it you'd just benefit from more accuracy and damage from transcendent suffering power level mainly, but that also levels with multiclass.

There are a lot of builds that can do like 90% of the content or even 99%, but many have trouble early on or can't beat specific megabosses without cheese or at least consumables. Hauani O Whe is probably impossible without a cipher or some kind of summons (without consumables, or going way out of your way to get Mechanical Marvel). Dorudugan is impossible for some tanky builds that don't do damage fast enough. I think troubadour / psion can do nearly everything by late game, I don't know about on the way, but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to beat Dorudugan. 

I would advise against blood mage. It was nerfed pretty hard. Wall of Draining is much weaker and blood sacrifice prevents healing. There may still be some blood mage / X builds that can solo everything, particularly by level 33, but not as you encounter things. The strongest blood mage / X builds in BPM are mostly melee builds IMO. Troubadour / blood mage is interesting and has a lot of late-game versatility, but without consumables your healing is going to be extremely limited early on. Even once you get ancient memory plus blood mage passive you will heal something like what a fighter would get from constant recovery alone. I think this build will not be able to beat Dorudugan at L20, and HOW would be extremely difficult. But at L33, I have no idea, with the power level boosts to healing maybe it makes a big difference. 

Forbidden fist builds are going to be your best bet by far IMO. In addition to the two I listed, ravagers, cantors, votaries, brawlers, wanderers, and sages (melee focused) are all quite strong, though I haven't tested them as much, and HOW while possible with dichotomous souls can be rather difficult.

With FF you get your strongest attack at Level 1, and as long as you balance INT/RES/DEX correctly and choose items that reduce hostile effect duration, you can spam that attack, which had tremendous penetration, good accuracy and damage, enfeebles enemies, heals you, and produces wounds. Pure FF fighter builds are not that interesting to me since you mostly just spam FF, part of why I like the transcendent more.

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I should also note when you reach Tier 9 in multiclass builds due to the Level 33 mod, many multiclass builds become absurdly strong. Many classes have Tier 8 and 9 abilities that provide resource regeneration, which is reasonably balanced with a level 20 cap that limits in most cases said resource regeneration to single classes. Fighters, paladins, monks, rangers, rogues, and barbarians all gain varying amounts of resource regeneration, and certain combinations will become quite broken. Also, I'm unsure if shared nightmare works on other classes spells. If it does, then cipher/casters could become extremely overpowered when their spells cover the entire screen (e.g., a hierophant could possibly use citzal's spirit lance to hit everyone on the screen and use soul annihilation on all of them). In other cases, like paladin / troubadour, you can easily regain paladin resources from chanting many lives pass by, and fighter / x martials as well as ranger / x martials become much stronger for their resource regeneration. Until that point you would be reliant on potions of enlightenment in long battles with most classes, but you don't want to use consumables, so... this basically just leaves combinations with renewable resources, i.e., monks, chanters, ciphers, blood mages, paladins, and their various combinations. Again, FF / soul blade ticks all the boxes...

Edited April 15, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lovecraft1986]

Thanks @Shai Hulud for your input.

I never played with BPM, I usually play vanilla with the community patch. Would that change your perspective ?

I know the base game quite well but I haven't taken on the megabosses or played Forbiden Sanctum yet. From what I read in your post Forbidden Fist would be bécasse it is obviously OP and Soul Blade would help for megabosses through Soul Annihilation (did I get that right ?).

How would go about building this character ? Max Res and Per, medium Dex and Int ? Use tuotilo's + fist for sturdiness, eventually Wotep against big crowds for group Soul Annihiliation ? Later Seeker's Fang to charge focus rapidly ?

How would that build fare on Maje Island ? Should I rely on whispers of treason for digsite+gorecci ?

Is SB mandatory because of SA against megabosses or would Ascendant work as well as long as I have disintegretion ? I'm asking because I like ascendant a lot but I guess it would be less synergetic since it would spam spells and not use FF attacks while ascended.

Do you think that Troubadour/FF could do the trick as well or would it fall short against megabosses or in FS DLC ? I find that early access to summons trivializes Maje Island way more than missing your charm spell and getting one-shotted by a Deadly Deadfire modded Boar...

Lastly, I'm currently in my second reading of Herbert's Dune cycle so I feel like I have to listen to Shai Hulud  

Thanks again,

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Thanks @Shai Hulud for your input.

I never played with BPM, I usually play vanilla with the community patch. Would that change your perspective ?

I'm assuming since you posted in this thread you are planning to play with BPM. If you plan to play vanilla, yes that changes things. There are a number of nerfs and buffs in BPM that overall remove most of the more broken combinations and end up favoring tanky builds that can also do damage like FFs. There are many many changes which you can see here

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438

The most relevant ones coming from vanilla are probably these

• The "brilliant" effect is weakened - for caster classes it doesn't restore a spell of any tier but gives a cycle of a spell in tiers 1 to 3, then tiers 4 to 6, then tiers 7 to 9, so it is no longer possible to cast your high level spells, let brilliant restore them, cast again, etc. For non-casters it is basically the same, though there is a 3 second delay for all classes before you get resources
• out of combat effect extension is removed - strand of favor, cabalist's gambeson, and ooblit cannot extend effects out of combat. 
• priests are significantly weakened - barring death's door no longer prevents death but provides a damage shield. Salvation of Time cannot indefinitely extend effects
• tacticians are weakened - tactical dilemma now requires flanked OR bloodied (not AND), and gives a harsher penalty. Brilliant tactician requires you be hurt or better and not flanked. Unbending is also weakened, as in vanilla it stacked indefinitely. It is still useful, and constant and rapid recovery last indefinitely so fighters overall are still quite good.
• blood mages are weakened - blood sacrifice has a recovery and prevents ALL healing for 6 seconds after use, making it much harder to use. In addition, spell restoration is split at tier 4 and tier 7, not tier 3 and tier 6 as in vanilla. This means level 7 spells restore with probability 1/3 not 1/2, and level 4 spells probability 1/2 not 1. In addition, wall of draining is half as strong as in vanilla, so you need roughly twice as many enemies to drain for it to be useful (generally 4+). Potions of Final Stand also have a fixed duration. Basically, blood mages are much harder to play in BPM and the kinds of builds where they are still good tend to be tanky and favor restoring tier 1 to 3 spells, since these are the only ones you will always get back.
• troubadour is slightly weakened - brisk recitation reduces phrases to 4s from 3s, but the class is still quite good and often the best pick for a chanter
• monks are slightly weakened - whispers on the wind costs 9 wounds making it hard to spam. Dichotomous souls costs 6 wounds instead of 4. Multiclass monks are only affected by dichotomous souls, which is still very usable at 6 wounds.
• assassins are stronger than before, given cheaper resources, and an assassin could do the whole game, I didn't mention it because the playstyle is IMO simplistic and cheesy: attack things with assassinate buff, go invisible, flee combat, regain assassinate buff, attack things, repeat.

Many other changes, like various buffs to barbarians, rangers, paladins, rogues, fighters, and summons which indirectly buff summoner classes

See the change list in the link for a full description, but most changes not mentioned are minor and improve the game in various ways 

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

I know the base game quite well but I haven't taken on the megabosses or played Forbiden Sanctum yet. From what I read in your post Forbidden Fist would be bécasse it is obviously OP and Soul Blade would help for megabosses through Soul Annihilation (did I get that right ?).

Forbidden Fist attack builds more focus than I think any other attack. You can often get like 90 focus in one attack. Ciphers add a ton of versatility but the most important thing for POTD upscaled is your accuracy and defenses are improved. The cipher spell borrowed instinct gives +20 accuracy and +20 all defenses. It is easy to land against most enemies given ciphers can debuff will in various ways and the empty soul gives +10 accuracy to attacks targeting will. Psychovampiric shield also debuffs enemy resolve by 10 (meaning -20 will, and -10 deflection) effectively giving you +10 accuracy against that enemy's deflection. Phantom Foes has a huge AOE and flanks anyone in it, giving you effectively +1 penetration and +10 accuracy. These all stack, so you can gain +40 accuracy against deflection from ciphers.

There's also many useful CC spells like Mental Binding (paralysis), Secret Horrors (mass debuff), Whispers of Treason / Puppet Master / Ringleader (charm/dominate/dominate+charm).

And enfeebled from forbidden fist gives +50% hostile effect duration, so everything you punch that doesn't have a constitution resistance gets +50% duration on all these cipher spells. And bosses tend to be immune or resistant to a lot of things, but often they have no resistance to constitution afflictions, and in the worst case are generally just resistant (like dorudugan). Outright immunity to constitution afflictions is so rare I can't even think of anything that has it, though there's probably something. 

And soul annihilation is really really good. With a FF / soul blade you gain focus fast enough, even with casting the previous mentioned spells you can use soul annihilation every 15 to 20 seconds at max focus. The raw damage indeed helps against megabosses (everything really). 

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

How would go about building this character ? Max Res and Per, medium Dex and Int ? Use tuotilo's + fist for sturdiness, eventually Wotep against big crowds for group Soul Annihiliation ? Later Seeker's Fang to charge focus rapidly ?

So three stats are at play in determining the appropriate duration of forbidden curse from the forbidden fist attack

1. intelligence - unfortunately intelligence boosts the duration, though you can still max intelligence if you want to wear the tankiest armors
2. resolve - the higher your resolve, the more the duration is reduced. It won't be displayed correctly in the window though so getting it right takes some trial / error or previous experience. Generally you want resolve as high as you can get it
3. dexterity - you want to attack with forbidden fist no faster than the actual duration of forbidden curse. To find the actual duration of forbidden curse, just check the character sheet immediately after using it on something. If it it say 2s, then you don't want to attack every 1.9s or the curse will build up. Ideally, you want to attack every 2s, but higher is fine, just not lower. In effect you can use dex as a dump stat. Wearing robes or devil of caroc breastplate (or lighter armor) you can still attack every 2s to 2.2s, even with dex 3, partially because of monk's swift flurry action speed buff 

Also you want items that reduce hostile effect duration, and abilities that reduce it. For a FF / soul blade this means you want up clarity of agony / enlightened agony when you get it, and you want the ring of the solitary wanderer when you get it. Until then, you may have to wear heavier armors to slow your attack slightly, or use small shield modal, or even the haymaker modal which add recovery time. It sounds complicated but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly I expect. You just don't want the curse building up, because it causes a lot of raw damage. 

I've been meaning to post a thread with this class build, I may do it later, but I'll go over the main points here. These are my ideal stats for wearing robes. These are modified stats, with berath champion stats and various boons.

17/25/10/26/18/30 - starting stats 12/14/3/21/13/15

You don't have to max resolve because psychovampiric shield will get you to 35, but you may want to max it anyway, in which case I'd start with 9/13/3/20/13/20 or something like that

Wild Orlan is the best race for this build IMO because perception and resolve are both useful and we don't care about maxing might. The other races are fine though, besides godlikes. Forgoing helmets can be really bad in certain fights and cap of the laughingstock basically gives you +10 accuracy. Fire godlikes are cool because of the armor but you don't really need tons of armor because FF heals you (though you can go that route). 

Tuotilo's shield is usually best, FF has its own attack so the weapon you use only matters with respect to its passives. I.e., holding a dagger with dagger modal gives you +10 melee deflection, so daggers are good early game. Once you get to Dunnage, buy Squid's Grasp. The immunity to flanking and attempted parley are very useful. The club Kapana Taga is a decent alternative (get that from the ship that patrols Forgotten Realms). I'll post a screenshot of example high level equipment.

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

How would that build fare on Maje Island ? Should I rely on whispers of treason for digsite+gorecci ?

Hmmm honestly unsure, may give it a run through later. I usually stealth Maje island. But if a FF build can't do it there probably isn't much that can. If you start at level 4 with berath's blessings that would help more than you'd think, since you'd be able to pick up psychovampiric shield and clarity of agony (or weapon and shield style might be a better pick at that point, I'll have to test it). I don't generally build characters based on how they'd do on maje island which is why I'm uncertain...

If you're willing to go just a little out of your way and circle back, you can easily reach level 4 if you skip the cave and do the quests in maje without fighting. Then once at L4 I think you could circle back and clear the cave and gorecci street. 

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Is SB mandatory because of SA against megabosses or would Ascendant work as well as long as I have disintegretion ? I'm asking because I like ascendant a lot but I guess it would be less synergetic since it would spam spells and not use FF attacks while ascended.

FF is strong enough I wouldn't call it "mandatory" to pick soul blade, but ascendant is not at all synergistic. This is a build about stacking accuracy and punching things. You don't need to cast disintegrate except in rare cases. The only megaboss where soul annihilation makes a huge difference is Dorudugan, but overall it increases your damage output quite a bit. You may have trouble damaging Dorudugan fast enough without it. And disintegration is cool but you won't be able to land it reliably on megabosses.

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Do you think that Troubadour/FF could do the trick as well or would it fall short against megabosses or in FS DLC ? I find that early access to summons trivializes Maje Island way more than missing your charm spell and getting one-shotted by a Deadly Deadfire modded Boar...

Maybe... I have tested cantors some, but not nearly to the extent of transcendents. It's a different kind of build, you wouldn't be able to face tank things as much, you'd be eventually relying on instruments of pain, which you'd use to cast forbidden fist from a distance behind your summons (note you can do this anyway eventually with dichotomous souls), and enduring dance can give you +12 accuracy, though you'd fall way short of what a transcendent can get. But this build is really dependent on instruments of pain, which you don't get until level 19. So it would play very different before that, I expect you'd have to do a lot of casting summons from stealth and letting them fight which may violate your conditions.

11 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Lastly, I'm currently in my second reading of Herbert's Dune cycle so I feel like I have to listen to Shai Hulud  

Thanks again,

Bless the maker and his water. May his passage cleanse the world.

-------

gear from top left counterclockwise

cap of the laughingstock
strand of favor
devil of caroc BP
ring of the solitary wanderer
boots of the stone
grog
girdle of mortal protection
ring of greater regeneration
bracers of greater deflection
giftbearer's cloth

weapons: squid's grasp + tuotilo's palm (accuracy enchant, inward spikes). I do have seeker's fang in one of the slots but don't usually use it. The raw damage only procs with heartbeat drumming and swift flurry (though this happens pretty often), so in situations where you don't get flanked it is a pretty good rapier. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Lovecraft1986]

Thanks again @Shai Huludfor your detailed answer.

I will test this build when I get the time.

I was asking about Troubadour/FF especially because of Port Maje. I don't like to stealth at all and the wurms summon trivializes any encounter on Maje Island.
I played a vanilla Troubadour/Bloodmage on Maje Island and it wrecked everything but I stopped that playthrough because I wasn't sure if the build would be able to perform against megabosses.

If I were to play vanilla+community patch, do you think that a Troub/FF, a Troub/BM or a Troub/Psion would could also be the kind of build that I'm looking for ?

[Shai Hulud]

9 hours ago, Lovecraft1986 said:

Thanks again @Shai Huludfor your detailed answer.

I will test this build when I get the time.

I was asking about Troubadour/FF especially because of Port Maje. I don't like to stealth at all and the wurms summon trivializes any encounter on Maje Island.
I played a vanilla Troubadour/Bloodmage on Maje Island and it wrecked everything but I stopped that playthrough because I wasn't sure if the build would be able to perform against megabosses.

If I were to play vanilla+community patch, do you think that a Troub/FF, a Troub/BM or a Troub/Psion would could also be the kind of build that I'm looking for ?

I've been meaning to test this build more at lower levels anyway. Trying Port Maje with fighting everything hostile.

If you start with 20 resolve and 13 int, forbidden fist curse lasts 4.4 seconds, which is too long even with dex 3 and brigandine, which makes fighting more annoying as you'd have to alter normal attacks with FF. I guess you could use the small shield modal or haymaker. You could also dump intelligence but once you get clarity of agony and ring of the solitary wanderer, 13 is perfect, so I'm starting at level 4. You said you were okay with Berath's Blessings. 

l1 - swift strikes, tenuous grasp, weapons club + small shield
l2 - whispers of treason
l3 - lingering echoes
l4 - clarity of agony, psychovampiric shield, weapon dagger

With clarity of agony and psychovampiric shield, the curse lasts 2.2 seconds. In a robe you attack with swift strikes can attack every 2.3s, so robes are perfect for fast attacks. Once you get dawnstar's blessing the healing you get per attack is pretty good and generally favorable to wearing heavy armors. 

Small shield modal is useful if you need to increase recovery time. Club modal is useful for enemies with higher will early on, so you will land psychovampiric shield or whispers of treason or tenuous grasp. Dagger modal gives +10 melee deflection, better than early shields. 

Easily cleared the boat.
Saved crate. Immediately rested with Hylea's Bounty.
Found dagger on beach. Weapon set 1 is club + dagger, weapon set 2 is dagger + small shield
Easily cleared beach
Cleared sea cave I wouldn't say easily, but was able to do in one try. Sea bats were a little tricky without kiting them, but keep one charmed and try to use it to flank others. Rusted Copper Construct and Revenants seem hard but pull skeletons away, kill them before revenants and construct arrive, keep construct charmed while killing revenants, then kill construct. Rotghast and revenants also not trivial but doable. Rotghast will is super low so hit him with tenuous grasp then WOT and you always hit/crit, keep him charmed, similar to construct fight. Once 1v1, he hits like a truck and has high armor but you can keep him interrupted with FF and finish with soul annihilation.

Port Maje - quested around, got dawnstar's blessing. This +50% healing (and other boons to a lesser extent) is so good that you want to plan your run around not resting. This is easy with the no forced rests mod.  Without, a bit trickier but still doable. If you want a different food than hylea's bounty, better to head straight to neketaka, buy the hot razor skewers or whatever and come back later for the blessing. I like hylea's bounty, and FF attack usually has good enough penetration. Also if you're very lucky you may find some reagent in Rinco's house. Other times the container has solution or rune powder or gunpowder. With the reagent you can craft luminous adra potion before leaving port maje. But it's only there like 1 time in 5 or something like that, just makes some early skill checks easier. I found gunpowder. Anyway, stuff I bought from unique item vendor and others: death's maw, boots of the stone, girdle of mortal protection, stinky pete, amulet of greater health, and ring of minor deflection (you don't have to buy all this, but I'd at least buy the boots of the stone and probably death's maw). 

Gorecci Street: After Satehuzi Harbor I am L5, I chose Draining Whip (mental binding also good, probably grab at L6). If you started at L1 you'd probably be L4 here. Not a ton of difference. But this fight is extremely difficult at L5, it is a well balanced group with high defenses and good penetration. You can choose to path straight to Engwithan Waystation and stop by Gorecci on the way back at L6/L7 which I'd recommend. I wouldn't advise just rushing in and fighting everyone at L5. But I tried anyway. Pick up the necklace and head south, you can kite these three looters away from the other group even without traps, though it is slightly tedious. The main looter has very high will so I hit him with a club, then tenuous grasp, psychovampiric to get his deflection down, then proceeded as usual. Every time you land enfeebled you double the duration of his debuffs. The fighter has "determination" which gives him 91 deflection vs FF. Have to 1v1 him, and it's still hard. Would highly recommend doing this at L6/7 when you have mental binding. Oh and I hope you aren't planning to attack Ilari, that would be borderline impossible, probably even at L7. 

Upaho Waro Woods: Don't attack the nice old man. But if you do, this encounter is actually pretty easy, just use tenuous grasp on the boar, treason the boar, then tenuous grasp on the old man so his spells hit friend/foe. 

Xaurips: I've never actually tried to kill the xaurips, usually just scatter them. It is pretty easy. If you enfeeble someone THEN charm them the duration is much longer, so sneak attack stone-tooth then TG then treason, pick off the little ones etc. using enfeeble + treason as needed. Not much point though, you don't get much loot from this. 

Engwithan Digsite: Killed everything with a lot of patience and several reloads. You need to do some kiting unless you want to reload constantly. You simply don't have the capacity at this point to face 7 attackers at once. You can take 3 or 4. Traps are the easiest way to kite, but you can do it without consumables, though I don't get the limitation. I came just shy of level 7 before having to kill the monsters unfortunately, that level would have helped a lot because hammering thoughts (several enemies here have 10 AR vs crush and we have 9.3 pen) and swift flurry. Now about 7.5 after leaving the island. 

----

And to answer your last questions, no I don't think troubadour / blood mage can do all the content. I mean you can with vanilla + CP, but only if you're using the wall of draining deification process and/or Strand of Favor, which I'm pretty sure falls under both cheese and consumables. Troubadour/psion is a really good build, though I am 99% positive at the very least Dorudugan is impossible without using SOF (or stabbing him with lover's embrace and drinking a potion of invisibility, very cheesy), as well as some other encounters one might skip. Troubadour/FF is going to have not great accuracy, and may not have enough DPS to kill Dorudugan. Hauni O Whe is pretty difficult and technical but possible if you know exactly what to do. Basically I'm not confident any of these builds can do a completionist playthrough. Maybe they can, with someone more skilled than I am, or if you're willing to reload endlessly etc. And like I've said with troubadour / FF it really doesn't come online until L19 with instruments of pain, and by that point (L20 anyway) you'll also have access to dichotomous souls summons which are some of the best summons in the game (behind maybe instruments of death), so I don't think there's much synergy there, you're basically using summons at lower levels and then at higher levels punching things, which I guess you can do just fine with a level cap of 33. But cipher's shared nightmare is so much better than anything high level chanters get.

Why do you have all these constraints like no consumables? You're making an already difficult game much harder and no offense whatsoever but if this is your first solo POTD upscaled run I don't think you're going to have the game knowledge necessary to do this even with builds capable of doing it. 

-------- (edit)-------

It sounds like you're looking for an invulnerable build that can just run into a room and kill everybody at every step in the game. Transcendent is not that. I'm not sure that build exists honestly. The early game is hard because you don't have the equipment and abilities needed for your build. For summoning builds and guys that just punch things the distinction is not as large as with other classes.

There are some tankier builds that will have a slightly easier time early in the game than transcendent, and Godlikes (particularly fire) can make things easier. But even the super tanky builds like votaries, brawlers, sages, and ravagers (also arcane knights) get most of their super tank abilities at tier 5+ That's when fighters get unbending, barbarians savage defiance, mages llengrath's safeguard. Paladins don't get their super tank ability stoic steel until tier 9, though you could use sworn rival from level 1 for +4 armor with goldpact knights, though it breaks after a few hits. Also they get deep faith early. Godlikes have an advantage early because they come with unique bonuses, like fire godlikes have +2 armor when bloodied and their ashen skin ability is like a permanent fire shield, and the tradeoff (no helmet) is no tradeoff early given there's only one decent helmet even on Port Maje, but mid to late game you may be wanting more accuracy or the ability to prevent interrupts and being able to switch helmets is usually better than godlike bonuses. Particularly when fighting dorudugan, he will constantly interrupt you if you aren't wearing rekvu's fractured casque.

Brawlers do come online relatively early, since you get disciplined barrage immediately, plus constant recovery, plus forbidden fist. A fire godlike unbroken / FF would be pretty tanky. I think you'd have problems with Dorudugan but if you don't mind stabbing him with lover's embrace, drinking a potion of invisibility, and coming back a couple hours later, then that could work for you. 

Same with psion / troubadour though that is a more interesting build IMO, and one I outline here. I don't think you'll be able to beat Dorudugan, not at L20, but if you fight him at L33 it is likely possible. You'd have to do more than just summon things though, like summon things and shoot him constantly with Essence Interrupter might work. Or take monastic unarmed training, your accuracy/damage/pen scale with power level so by L33 it could be doing pretty good damage. I think the summons scale indefinitely also, so they might start doing better damage. But I assume Dorudugan will also scale with you? So you may get like 18 penetration but maybe his armor is 24 at that point, who knows...

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Shai Hulud