[CLASS BUILD] The Automated Evergreen Juggernaut a.k.a. Unbroken Fist - Solo Upscaled PotD with BPM

[Not So Clever Hound]

The build details are below, and here are 2 videos to give a bit of flavor. 1) The Menzzago encounter in Splintered Reef and 2) the first encounter with Infested Librarians in Forgotten Sanctum. They're not the hardest fights in the game but they're good enough and you can see how the build carries itself all by itself when Menzzagouille la Fripouille and all his friends/tentacles go to town with Missile Salvos etc. to no avail. And when those pesky Lvl 22 Monks with Tier 3 Inspirations try something similar, without success.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Not So Clever Hound]

[CLASS BUILD] The Automated Evergreen Juggernaut a.k.a. Unbroken Fist - Solo Upscaled PotD with BPM

 

 

Class: Unbroken/Forbidden Fist

Concept: Undying single-target melee obliterator that pushes some critical game mechanics to dominate solo on BPM.

Game Version: RTwP. I very much recommend playing with @Elric Galad's Balance Polishing Mod and the Community Patch.

PotD Solo Viable: Yes, all Upscaled.

Megabosses: I farmed Belranga and Dorudugan with Lover's Embrace, did Auranic properly. Didn't try Hauani.

Companion: Nope.

 

-----WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT THIS BUILD?-----

 

 

The great thing about this build is its unique ability to win fights on full AI autopilot in almost any situation, and that it is optimized for the full BPM complement including nerfs.

• Very high Defenses (consistently in the 180-190 range) mean lots of incoming miss, some grazes, few hits and no crits.
• Very high AR (consistently in the 18-21 range) means the vast majority of damage rolls that go through are pushed in underpen or severe underpen which is awesome.
• Very high hostile effect reduction (-82%) means incoming CC or DoT that goes through is reduced to a couple seconds at best.
• Very high Healing (about 50hp/3s) and health pool (over 500hp) means damage is consistently outhealed and health is always near max. BPM is awesome here for the rework of Constant Recovery and Evergreen Vigor, and greater HP from CON.

 

Then, Damage takes care of itself 100% through the FF ability.

• I carefully chose equipment, stats, permabuffs etc. to manage action speed/recovery so that Attack cycle time is 2.2s and FF curse duration is 2.1s. So the curse never builds up and we can keep spamming FF safely.
• Now the nice thing is that with Tactical Barrage and Swift Flurry + Nature Godlike and Hot Razor Skewers, we're almost always at PL10 which is VERY good offensively and defensively. Our Fists do an absolute truckload of damage, PEN is above 17 and Accuracy is in the 150s. Few enemies can take more than a few hits.
• Soul Mirror is great too for dealing damage passively.
• There are a few spots where we need to activate the small shield modal or retake manual control because we lost the Lone Wolf or are affected by an aura that affect RES... but that's in very few encounters (e.g. Boarding fights, fights with Ancient Fire Bat / Fire Drake) and doesn't affect the build's power - you just then have to actively play instead of relaxing and looking at things get pummeled to death.

 

Putting everything together, I was surprised by how strong it becomes. There's a number of high-level encounters where I usually want to think about my strategy a bit, but here I just walk up to the enemy, begin the fight and grab a beer while I watch things unfold. Namely: all of Splintered Reef, the Ancient Liche Battlemage, the Ancient Fampyrs, the Witches, many SSS and FS fights, Dragons, Nemnok etc with no or very limited intervention from my part during the fight.

 

 

-----STATS & BUFFS------

 

 

Race: Nature Godlike

Background: Aedyr – Hunter

 

FINAL STATS WITH ALL PERMABUFFS AND NO-REST BUFFS AS OF 5.0 (without combat buffs):

 

MIG 27 (18 Base +2 Berath +1 Gift from Machine +1 Rabyuna’s Boon +2 Alchemic Brawn +2 Hot Razor Skewers +1 Effigy Resentment Eder (HAHAHAHAHA!))

CON 15 (8 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Brawn +3 Girdle of Eoten CON)

DEX 16 (7 Base +1 Godlike +1 Rabyuna +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Guile +2 Amira’s Blessing +1 Boots of the Stone)

PER 23 (18 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Guile +1 Savage Cunning)

INT 12 (7 Base +1 Godlike +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits)

RES 35 (17 Base +1 Aedyr +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits +2 Nature’s Resolve +2 Rikuhu’s Blessing +2 Rabyuna +1 Cauldron’s Brew +2 Eviee Pet +2 Token of Faith +1 Solitary Wanderer Ring +1 Boots of Stone)

 

ADDITIONAL PERMABUFFS:

 

Food: Hot Razor Skewers

Adratic Glow

All Trainings

Dawnstar Blessing

Luminous Adra Potion

Nature’s Resolve (Accuracy)

Savage Cunning (Survival)

Galawain’s Gift

Magran’s Blessing

Immunity to all Sigils

Infamous Captain, Bonus Skills, Champion Stats, Port Maje vendor, Fully discovered Map, Bonus Money… invested all 105 Berath’s Blessing Points

 

SKILLS

 
Mechanics 13 then max Athletics, Diplomacy 12 then max Survival.

 

 

----- ABILITIES ------

 

 

FINAL ACTIVES (ALL CRUCIAL UNLESS SPECIFIED)

Fighter: Conquerer Stance (Yep! Best here). Tactical Barrage (key), Refreshing Defenses, Unbending Trunk (optional - I keep it as a panic button but never ever used it. Could pick some nice resistance passives instead).

Monk: Swift Flurry. Iron Wheel.

 

PASSIVES (ALL CRUCIAL UNLESS SPECIFIED)

Common: Fast Runner (Optional). Arms Bearer (Optional). Weapon & Shield. Two Weapons. Tough (Optional). Improved Critical.

Fighter: Determination (Optional). Rapid Recovery. Weapon Specialization. Superior Deflection. Armored Grace. Weapon Mastery.

Monk: Soul Mirror; Crucible of Suffering; Heartbeat Drumming.

 

 

-----GEAR------

 

 

Weapon Set 1: Kapana Taga (Mythic , All Comers, Lone Champion), Tuotilo’s Palm (Mythic, Precision Striker, Balanced Shield).

Weapon Set 2: A scepter or whatever for destroying Sigils early on.

Head: Nothing.

Neck: Token of Faith.

Chest: Patinated Plate (Mythic, Bronze Juggernaut, Constant Rebound).

Cape: Cape of the Falling Star.

Gloves: Bracers of Greater Deflection.

Rings: Ring of Protection + Solitary Wanderer.

Boots: Boots of the Stone.

Belt: Girdle of Eoten Constitution.

Pet: Eviee.
 

 

That's it. Let me know if you have any comments or questions!

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[dgray62]

Thanks for sharing this! BPM's  Evergreen Vigor is indeed nice for any build with significant healing. I was very curious about this when you first mentioned this build in another post. At first I thought you'd go with devoted, until I realized that the Devoted bonuses don't apply to the FF attack. Am I correct in assuming you chose Unbroken for the +1 AR?

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

Am I correct in assuming you chose Unbroken for the +1 AR?

Thanks! Yes because it stacks with the 1 AR from Kapana Taga then all the goodies from Patinated Plate, then Iron Wheel. I wanted to get in the 18+ Range to get consistent underpen on Upscaled PotD.

[NotDumbEnough]

Speaking of insane self-healing, I recently rolled a SC Greatsword Devoted in BPM. The idea is somewhat similar. As a no rest run you use the glazed chops resting bonus (+30% healing received is major). You get Dawnstar's Blessing from Port Maje. Then you stack all of the regen items (ring of regeneration from Bootsuck Bog and Brass Citadel merchant, Three Trolls Stitched, the +healing done% boots from the tree event across the ravine, etc.). With the healing received bonuses you actually get net healing whenever enemies hit you with Unbending Trunk active (75% base heal percentage * 1.45 > 100%) and your insane base region will take care of damage over time that does not interact with Unbending. Basically you regenerate like a troll and gain discipline faster than you use it (10% whenever you take damage).

This was sufficient to solo most encounters, but not those with Arcane Dampener unless I specifically specced for them (max resolve in particular) so it wasn't a true solo build. In practice I ran with a party and due to the insane regeneration just spammed Take the Hit constantly. There's a nice feedback loop between Take the Hit and the healing variant of Paladin's self-immolation, because you effectively cut in half the Paladin's degeneration which just instantly gets healed back.

Aside from that my suggestion for your build would be to switch the food bonus to Glazed Chops. You lose 1 PL but I don't think it's critical. The loss of penetration might be problematic but since the point of this build is to grind enemies down it doesn't really matter if it takes a bit longer to kill them. The +healing received bonus on the other hand makes you much harder to kill and therefore less likely to die, which is a bigger concern than dealing damage more slowly.

[dgray62]

If you switch to another food, you could always pick thunderous blows to make up for the PEN loss?

[Not So Clever Hound]

@NotDumbEnough funny you mention that because Glazed Chops was definitely on my list possible food for this build and I was toying with the idea of doing a Solo SC Fighter milking uber healing/regen and BPM's Toughened Fury afterwards. I had used Glazed Chops with a Fighter before thanks to @Elric Galad commenting that healing received affects Unbending in an OP way.

I decided to stick with Hot Razor Skewers here because my Health is anyway always at or near max without using Unbending at all, which I keep as a "oh sh*t" button but never had to use it. So I think in this case it's more fun to get the extra PL to get uber powerful Forbidden Fist attacks as they benefit both from Transcendant Suffering scaling and normal PL scaling. PL also helps my "core" Healing of Rapid Recovery and Hostile Effect Ending, although of course not as much as Glazed Chops would. But that's already more than enough!
 

9 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

ring of regeneration from Bootsuck Bog and Brass Citadel merchant

Their regen won't stack if you put both Rings of Greater Regen on the same char. However if you have one Greater Regen and one Normal Regen, those will stack. I tested that recently, I think @Boeroer did too.
 

9 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

There's a nice feedback loop between Take the Hit and the healing variant of Paladin's self-immolation, because you effectively cut in half the Paladin's degeneration which just instantly gets healed back.

Nice find!
 

6 hours ago, dgray62 said:

If you switch to another food, you could always pick thunderous blows to make up for the PEN loss?

Yes but spending wounds is kind-of antisynergistic with the build (also why I worked around to ditch Clarity/Enlightened Agony). You want to be at max Deflection, max AR and max CON asap, and stay that way  .

Edited May 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

15 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Their regen won't stack if you put both Rings of Greater Regen on the same char. However if you have one Greater Regen and one Normal Regen, those will stack. I tested that recently, I think @Boeroer did too.

Nope, first time I read about this. I always assumed that two Rings of Greater Regeneration would stack.

[Not So Clever Hound]

33 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Nope, first time I read about this. I always assumed that two Rings of Greater Regeneration would stack.

Ha, I thought it was you, but you were actually in the (old) thread. I found the old thread where actually @Raven Darkholme had mentioned this. But for the life of me I can't find the other thread that talked about Stacking Greater Regen with Normal Regen which does work.

It's hard to test on a char with lots of Regen because obviously you get tons of it. But with a toon with no regen it's easier. I remember testing it and seeing that I would get more regen from Greater + Normal than Greater x2.

[Not So Clever Hound]

I just tested again and I'm right, at least in my game. But there's a weird quirk when sometimes the ring of regen can suppress ring of greater regen when you put them on/off repeatedly. If that happens, just unequip > reequip both rings greater regen > regen and they will stack. But 2 x greater regen don't stack.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

That is kind of weird because all sorts of healing stacks with each other and also passive item effects do stack in general. I guess being the exact same effect is the problem here (as it is with some other items/spells combo like Mask of the Weyc/Arcane Veil or Magnificent Escape/Escape).

Interestingly enough stuff like two Rings of Overseeing stack just fine. But I guess that's "truly" passive or whatever, no idea. 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

29 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

That is kind of weird because all sorts of healing stacks with each other and also passive item effects do stack in general. I guess being the exact same effect is the problem here (as it is with some other items/spells combo like Mask of the Weyc/Arcane Veil or Magnificent Escape/Escape).

Interestingly enough stuff like two Rings of Overseeing stack just fine. But I guess that's "truly" passive or whatever, no idea. 

Usually 2 identical statuses never stack even if coming from a passive... except if they are coded as stackable.

Even weapon qualities have to be stated "stack up to 2" or they won't work when dual wielding 2 weapons of similar quality (yeah, even if the quality mod applies to different sources).

Rings are coded with "stack up to 2" in general. Ring of Protection is an example.

But ring of greater regeneration doesn't have this property, so isn't stackable.

[Not So Clever Hound]

@NotDumbEnough since you're playing your SC Fighter, I'm curious if you know whether self damage e.g. Hylea's Talons or Voidwheel would trigger BPM Toughened Fury? I'd want to build such solo character very defensively for the hard fights, so in easier encounters that might not help generating enough Discipline to be fun, unless I can count on some self damage when needed.

[NotDumbEnough]

You will have a net gain of discipline unless you fight something that hits very slow and hard like Dorudugan. Otherwise for 99% of encounters you get hit enough that you have more than enough discipline to use Unbending forever. But for megabosses you have the potion of enlightenment, which is enough to keep Unbending up half the time with high intellect. With high deflection and regen you should be fine though it would take a very very long time to kill megabosses.

[dgray62]

I wonder how the healing on the fighter side compares with a steel garrote paladin for a FF/SG votary build? Can it match the healing whenever you strike afflicted foes as well as the pretty awesome healing from exalted endurance? Paladin also has the innate bonus to all defenses that never goes down and requires no zeal, plus great armor boosts. I'm not saying that a votary would do better than a brawler. I was just interested in some comparison about their relative survivability playing solo on PotD upscaled. I haven't yet tried the brawler, but I know from experience that the votary is very durable.

[NotDumbEnough]

Paladins lack concentration unlike the fighter who has lots of it. They would likely get interrupted to death without any real chance to fight back especially with heavy armor. This is a problem I met often with my SC Devoted and a different SC Furyshaper playthrough. Even if you can single-handedly outfight the enemies with sheer damage, armor, health and regen, etc. you can often get interrupted to death.

[dgray62]

Excellent point, thanks!

[Kaylon]

On 5/4/2022 at 5:26 AM, NotDumbEnough said:

Paladins lack concentration unlike the fighter who has lots of it. They would likely get interrupted to death without any real chance to fight back especially with heavy armor. This is a problem I met often with my SC Devoted and a different SC Furyshaper playthrough. Even if you can single-handedly outfight the enemies with sheer damage, armor, health and regen, etc. you can often get interrupted to death.

I never had such a problem. You can't be interrupted if you don't get hit and a FF/steel garrote has one of the highest passive defenses in the game (behind a helwalker/paladin). Also there's no doubt in my mind that a votary is more durable because better armor, defense and passive healing (arguably the best) with no weakness against Arcane Dampener/Cleanse. The fighter has probably better dps due to the higher attack speed, but not by a large margin considering the dmg buff of the paladin.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Kaylon

[Constentin Lévine]

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Paladins lack concentration unlike the fighter who has lots of it.

Paladin get Hands of Light for 2 zeals and as solo character, Virtuous Triumph can help to regen the 8s base of courageous.

*

By memory, sometimes (didnt test deeply that phenomen) the courageous inspiration stay until combat end, so after the buff itself is over.  That work with Effort, maybe also with other sources of courageous like Hands of Light. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 hours ago, dgray62 said:

wonder how the healing on the fighter side compares with a steel garrote paladin for a FF/SG votary build?

BPM Fighter Constant Recovery gives me about 30HP/6s at max level + FF curse/negative status effect end gives about 39HP + the option of Unbending Trunk which I didn't use. Defense-wise, Fighter is competitive thanks to the mix of passives and actives, especially deflection which you have a couple points more from the start of the game, conqueror stance, superior deflection, refreshing defenses of course... Here indeed the big selling point of Steel Garrote is that they have purely passive goodies. But on top, this Fighter has about +15 Accuracy and +15% damage always on, the awesome Aware and Acute inspirations... Basically it has less but enough survivability while being more offensive.

[Not So Clever Hound]

46 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

a votary is more durable because better armor, defense and passive healing (arguably the best) with no weakness against Arcane Dampener

At 180+ Will and 80%+ negative effect % reduction, Arcane Dampener is never a problem anyway.

They're very very close. FF/SG has a defensive edge, FF/Unbroken has an offensive edge.

EDIT: FF/Unbroken has the perk of not having to roleplay an a**hole for full defensive bonus  

Edited May 4, 2022 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

Keep in mind that the Unbroken gets +1 AR when wearing a shield. Paladin's Exalted Endurance (the AR part) doesn't stack with Iron Wheel's AR bonus. So in the end it's Stoic Steel + Inspired Defenses vs. Shield Mastery if I'm right. Inspired Defense is worth not much if you get attacked by different sources of dmg simultaneously (like in the Splintered Reef fight above). 

So in this case the AR advantage of a Paladin may not be as high as perceived initially, also because you can get Shield Mastery right from the start while Stoic Steel comes very late. But of course Stoic Steel can reach higher values if played correctly around it.

Steel Garrote's life drain is pretty handy - but I suspect it doesn't work with Forbidden Fist ability in the vanilla game? I mean since it's not a weapon attack. Or does it still work because it's a melee "spell"? I'm using the Community Patch where it's tagged as melee weapon attack so I don't really remember if that worked in the vanilla game or not(?).

I like Unbroken in general, but what I don't like too much about them in a solo game is the lower Reflex. Of course Tuotilo's Palm and Weapon & Shield style will balance that out - and I guess that makes it a non-issue in the end. But (only for for solo) I feel a bit bad about that. On the other hand I managed to play a solo SC Furyshaper with abysmal Will and have fun and success with it anyway, so maybe that's negligible, too (also because Reflex isn't as crucial as the other defenses in most cases it seems). 

It's a bit of a shame that the improved disengagement mechanics of the Unbroken/FF won't get used in a solo run (unless you use some terrify effect like from Endre's Flog of Obedience or so, but it's an inferior weapon, so that's not the best option for a solo run in the first place I guess). 

What the Paladin compared to the Fighter doesn't have is the build-in Power Level bonus that is Tactical Barrage. I guess that's a drawback when it comes to the scaling of Forbidden Fist/Transcendent Suffering in order to take it over a certain threshold?

I wonder how a Bloodmage/FF would do when using Wall of Draining in combination with all self buffs including Enlightened Agony. The curse duration must be really short and the constant healing would benefit Blood Sacrifice a lot. But I guess somebody already did this an posted it and I simply forgot...

Edited May 4, 2022 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I like Unbroken in general, but what I don't like too much about them in a solo game is the lower Reflex. Of course Tuotilo's Palm and Weapon & Shield style will balance that out - and I guess that makes it a non-issue in the end. But (only for for solo) I feel a bit bad about that

Even with the lower starting Reflex, it is still my strongest defense by endgame, at 190+.

8 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

What the Paladin compared to the Fighter doesn't have is the build-in Power Level bonus that is Tactical Barrage. I guess that's a drawback when it comes to the scaling of Forbidden Fist/Transcendent Suffering in order to take it over a certain threshold?

Exactly. FF/Fighter/Nature Godlike can consistently get to PL10 without per rest items or consumables. Which is really nice for the FF attack which benefits from scaling left and right.

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I wonder how a Bloodmage/FF would do when using Wall of Draining in combination with all self buffs including Enlightened Agony. The curse duration must be really short and the constant healing would benefit Blood Sacrifice a lot. But I guess somebody already did this an posted it and I simply forgot...

It would be short but remember that because of inversions, adding multiple hostile effect reduction modifiers isn't going to do much past a certain point. If you have 35 RES, it gives -75% reduction, and everything is going to be pretty much marginal after that. Enlightened Agony will get you to -85% or Lone Wolf would get you to -82%, but the 2 together + Mohora Wrap + Strand of Favor + Cabalist Gambeson would maybe bring you to -88%... Basically combining just 35 RES + Enlightened Agony or Lone Wolf gives you best return on investment.

[Boeroer]

Yes, but with Enlightened Agony you could maybe spare the cast of Infuse with Vital Essence (I guess you don't need the Fit inspiration due to Iron Wheel anyway) and at the same time get the reduced hostile effects duration. And should you get hit by stuff like Arcane Dampener you can recast it and shave off 5 secs immediately which often removes hostile effects on the spot.

Too bad Iron Wheel's AR bonus doesn't stack with Spirit Shield and Llengrath's Safeguard etc.  

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 minute ago, Boeroer said:

Yes, but with Enlightened Agony you could maybe spare the cast of Infuse with Vital Essence (I guess you don't need the Fit inspiration due to Iron Wheel anyway) and at the same time get the reduced hostile effects duration. And should you get hit by stuff like Arcane Dampener you can recast it and shave off 5 secs immediately which often removes hostile effects on the spot.

Yes it would be a nice synergy. FYI the max I managed to reduce the Curse across different FF builds gave a duration of around 1.3s. FF typically has low to avg INT which isn't great for Bloodmage BUT you could take advantage of Beam spells since their duration is fixed!