Solo play tips (not exploits (PoTD))

[Ceranai]

as far as soloing pursic goes i found it difficult earlier so left it till now, its actually remarkably easy if you focus him down asap by surrounding him with shades

 

 

Then if you have any kind of retaliation and high enough deflection and DR the mercenaries are easy- i have 97 deflection pretty much everything misses or grazes me, and im wearing an enchanted sanguine plate

 

 

In fact near the end of the fight i switched to my bow and turned off catious attacks so that they would miss less often, lol i wanted to be hit coz retaliation hits them harder than I do

 

meant to edit my previous post oops

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ceranai

[knownastherat]

You quote yourself now?

 

Good job. I fought him once again in this play through, had different spells, but the result was the same - first try - so I am lead to believe this one goes into the less risky ones. btw at level 5 I was able, not consistently but about 2 reloads, to just run through the temple in Guilded Vale. Not pulling one by one but was able to take on the whole packs. Contribute it to different spell selection and figurine.

[Ceranai]

You quote yourself now?

 

Good job. I fought him once again in this play through, had different spells, but the result was the same - first try - so I am lead to believe this one goes into the less risky ones. btw at level 5 I was able, not consistently but about 2 reloads, to just run through the temple in Guilded Vale. Not pulling one by one but was able to take on the whole packs. Contribute it to different spell selection and figurine.

Oh i havnt even bothered to go back to the temple, it didnt have anything i wanted in it, im confident i could have taken it as soon as i got my wurms, they would easily absorb the damage and stuns and phantoms have terrible defenses anyway so i could just attack from range, plus they are vulnerable to fire dmg.

 

Im absolutely stuck on the main story line, i just dont know how i can deal with the forge knights

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

Trick of the day-

 

Korgrak the big friendly giant:

 

In the cave on dyrford crossing for the farmers plight mission, if you can make it to the south east corner and talk to korgrak you can befriend him and offer him to stay in your stronghold, I then thought if this guy is working for me lets see how tough he is: results below, to get him to follow me i just agroed spiders into his vision, he really doesnt seem to like spiders that much

 

 

pull a spiderling and i notice he doesnt need much provokation to come and lend me a big (and i mean massive, like pretty much as big as me) hand

 

 

So I took him for a walk, its time for the ogre to earn his keep!

 

 

I may have trapped myself on the wrong side of the fight (i cast wurms behind him in case I died so tat it wouldnt be game over if i did die to the spider swarm)

 

 

Infestation cleared, i came close to dying but Korgrak earned his keep, he can go chill in my stronghold. Truth be told I havnt paid much attention to it since i repaired the road but now i may visit to see how korgrak settles in, maybe see if i can take him dragon hunting with me

 

Also ive figured out that unless engaged mobs always target the target with the least resistance to whatever they are gonna attack with so i dont really need to corner hug anymore once i getmy wurms out coz they never attack me anyway

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ceranai

[knownastherat]

Neat use of environment. Cant wait to try him out!

 

The mechanic with having up summons when knock out .. it could work with the Second Chance armor. Do not know where I sold it.

[Ceranai]

Neat use of environment. Cant wait to try him out!

 

The mechanic with having up summons when knock out .. it could work with the Second Chance armor. Do not know where I sold it.

There are other second chance items, tbh i dont the second chance is really worth it, if you died once you will die again, id rather an item that healed me than one that brought me up, but i guess it would give leeway, it would probably work with second chance tbh, the game doesnt end untl your entire party is down, a couple of times ive had very close calls and the summons saved my life, its why even if im winning i make a point of hiding my summons off to the side, I thinkf this is exploitable as well but ive avoided doing so, but on my practice run it seemed to work but no chance am i risking it for my iron run, too far now to go back if i die now i think ill just give up lol (hide summons off to side and you rez when the encounter 'ends' even if you are dead)

[knownastherat]

If I could not find another way and it would stop my progress I would send them off side. Got figurine only yesterday and keep forgetting to use it. When low on health and situation desperate my memory magically refreshes though 

[Ceranai]

If I could not find another way and it would stop my progress I would send them off side. Got figurine only yesterday and keep forgetting to use it. When low on health and situation desperate my memory magically refreshes though 

Well im doing ToI so exploiting that trick isnt really in the spirit of ironman.

 

Korgrak is settling in nicely, making new friends and all, here is a pic for a size comparison, im a wild orlan.

 

 

Now he is better fed he doesnt go raiding for pig herds, which is lucky considereing my new pet piglet

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

So my dps just went through the roof:

 

 

Running maximum might and scion of flame, other than that its full tank:

 

121 deflection

71 fortitude

95 reflexes

72 will

 

for some reason i cant enchant over my sanguine plate so wont be able to upgrade it to superb when i hit level 12 so i think ill switch to something else at that stage, i mean ill still keep it for fights against fast attack speed but as it is i dont really get hit often enough for it to pay off and the dps from my dragon chant>>retaliation.

 

Quite importantly getting knocked prone DOESNT stop you chanting so i just need to watch out for stuns i think

Edited April 11, 2015 by Ceranai

[knownastherat]

DPS is everything in solo. There is so little time sometimes and mobs hit so hard that no defense will save one.

[Ceranai]

DPS is everything in solo. There is so little time sometimes and mobs hit so hard that no defense will save one.

Yea being able to tank helps:

 

 

 

If anything i would build him even more tanky as i just found out that your level 3 aoe damage chant is totally unaffected by might and from scion of flame, thats a wasted talent point....

[knownastherat]

What I meant was that its not possible to tank solo PotD. Its not endurance race but dps race. To be able to take some hits and metee seems unavoidable in certain situations and I take it as given.

 

How far are you? I am trying to outlevel and outgear in DB and around. Hit level 6, trying to avoid fights if possible but since I can reload sometimes greed and curiosity takes over

Edited April 11, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

What I meant was that its not possible to tank solo PotD. Its not endurance race but dps race. To be able to take some hits and metee seems unavoidable in certain situations and I take it as given.

 

How far are you? I am trying to outlevel and outgear in DB and around. Hit level 6, trying to avoid fights if possible but since I can reload sometimes greed and curiosity takes over

Im currently clearing the endless paths wanna see if i can solo the whole thing.

 

So far most things dont hit hard enough to kill me so i can heal any damage and my level three chant does 40 fire dmg and 40 slash damage to everyone around me. I have the firgurines to throw out distractions if i come across any troublen but this chant has turned the game into easy mode again lol

[Ceranai]

Jesus christ petrify is such a joke my god its almost funny

[Ceranai]

made it to level nine. I am the new vampire king :D me and my pet dragon. Its raining dragons:

 

 

Not sure i can go lower, vithraks are too luck based, i mean i can dodge some of the cc with figurine spam but im not really prepared enough to deal with the paralyse spam

Edited April 11, 2015 by Ceranai

[knownastherat]

Do you get good exp and/or loot there? I have not touched the spider queen yet. Just clearing rooms when I stop by.

 

----

 

Speed casting into Bewildering Spectacle

 

 

 

 

Wanted to fool around with Wall of Fire but ...

Edited April 11, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

Do you get good exp and/or loot there? I have not touched the spider queen yet. Just clearing rooms when I stop by.

 

----

 

Speed casting into Bewildering Spectacle

 

 

 

 

Wanted to fool around with Wall of Fire but ...

I get lots of mats for enchanting and scrolls and potions, im now on level 14, plus some pretty good unique gear (eg a superb sabre)

Edited April 11, 2015 by Ceranai

[knownastherat]

14? Wow good to know.  I guess I will **** around a bit then go to check it out. Wiz is not claustrophobic.

[Ceranai]

Like this guy dropped a superb axe that drains endurance called the edge of reason::

 

[Ceranai]

Fiaally figured out how to clear level 14, had to use a couple of semi exploit l found :/ but i needed the dps and I needed to split them coz of the stun lock. So yea despite the thread title I broke my own rules, i did two things i consider exploits, i abused the ai pathing, and I cycled between two dragon chants, this makes your damage go through the roof as ill explain:

 

The dragon chant does a total of 40 fire damage and 40 slash damage, as far as I can tell these numbers are fixed but the game could be lying to me as i cant see the actual value of the enemy HP so im relying on the combat log. The chant applies a DOT at the start of chanting and damages at the start of chanting and every two seconds after that meaning each DOT hits for about 14 damage combined. Again not 100% on this number.

 

Now this spell already does a LOT of damage to opponents but if you cycle between two chants that both apply the dot you get the first hit every time you start chanting. Whenever you stop chanting the dot duration goes down to like 1 so you cant apply limitless DOTs to the same enemy but you CAN hit it for 14 about 5 times faster than the DOT would normally hit. Needless to say this lets you absolutely NUKE the crap out of any squishies in your nearby vicinity.

 

So i figured out how to separately pull each of the mobs present on level 14 (apparently you can avoid this fight with high int which if you can DO because you dont get much from them and its a very hard fight) the fight doesnt end till they are all dead even if they arent engaged with you (meaning a passive endurance regen will let you get back to full HP between pulls, so:

 

For the paralysing Adragans these are actually the easiest to deal with, you just need a summon up and if you are tanky enough they will always attack your summon not you, even with high fortitude its hard to avoid the paralyse but its not that big of a deal, if you made it down this far you should be able to deal with these anyway

 

For the spirit of Caed Nua you want to blow all your cooldowns, he hits hard, terrifies you, and is tanky as hell so the best wa i found to deal with him was to drop a couple of hazzard fields down (or petrify if you have access to it but i didnt) and just try to hide behind your summons. Like i said this is the guy who is gonna be hardest so use everything you have if you need to as everything else you can take down with summons and chants. THe most important thing is that his deflection is high enough that your chant misses more often than it doesnt so do NOT use the cycling trick, if it lands you wanna get the full duration out of the DOT.

 

For the primal wind things you need to watch out for the stunlock, its painful and risky but if you get in close and use the chant cycling trick above you can get them down very quickly so unless you have the worst luck you should be fine. These were the only fights i was really worried about for my trial of iron save because even stacking stun resistance etc you can get stunlocked to death, that and I was wearing plate so i was most vulnerable to chock dmg. If possible you want to charm one or two of these right at the begining and pray that they get killed by their own team.

 

The other named spirits are tough but straight forward fights, i mean the risk is really from the main spirit and the wind things.

 

The cloak that the boss spirit drops is only JUUUUUUST good enough to be worth the difficulty of the fight, it is a great cloak but that fight was probably the hardest ive had so far coz i had to juggle so many different things at the same time (items rationing, endurance management, making sure i had enough DPS, breaking the AI, avoiding stunlocks like they are the plague

Edited April 11, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

**** that..... gonna have to come back when im level 12 or something but its stupid that he one shots you right at the start, where is the skill in that

[Incendax]

Did... did you just die?

[Ceranai]

Did... did you just die?

No but on my non iron man run i died 3 times before i decided it was too risky. There is literally nothing I can do if he opens with the breath, it crits for 195 corrode damage and I have 175 HP. Waaaaay too risky, i mean if i can level to 12, and get better gear and guarantee i dont get one shotted then ill come back. I mean im brave not stupid, no point going into a fight where I can get one shoted and there is absolutely nothing i can do to dodge it. Like even with speed boosts I cant run from the blast radius fast enough.

 

Im thinking if i come back when i have 200 or so HP, kill the adds first (i read that if you accept his quest to go kill the dragon hunter you can go and force attack his adds), stack 5 major potions of restore health, open with speed chant and kite, she moves super slowly so it shouldnt be a problem to kite forever if I can avoid that ****ing breath. Then I can spam drakes at her. I havnt survived long enough yet to work out if she has health regen or not.

 

If she does have health regen then Im gonna need to use paralyse scrolls, not sure if one or two stacks would be enough, but if i have 5 pots thats about 800 endurance to work with assuming i use them efficiently, If im gonna kite and spam drakes i wont need a figurine so i could get with 2 stacks or paralysis scrolls and maybe 5 wall of flames, im thinking if i can keep her on some form of hazard field thats the most reliable way to take her down. 

 

I also still need to pick my other level 3 chant and invocation. The fire one is awesome but i dont really wanna get close to her so thats out. But yea im still level ten so i think this is definietly a fight i need to come back to.

 

If she doesnt have HP regen then that makes it muc much much easier, i can spam summons to wittle her down, takes forever but this run has like 20 hours of play in it now no way am i gonna restart if i fail now. Im also thinking I wanna be stacking reflexes for the AOE she does.

 

If im honest its tempting to just do her quest and get access to the treasury that way, like the only thing she drops that i want is adra dragon scale for the highest level enchant. But i want the dragonslayer achievement  (not enough to risk permadeath though).

 

Anyway think thats enough for today, have a few quests to turn in like the forging of the blade thing

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ceranai

[drumther]

Nice to see this thread!

 

I'm looking at related threads for soloing PotD. So far I've seen 4 builds doing solo there, that is: summoner tanky chanter (cool name!), cipher, riposte tanky rogue and fire godlike retaliation barb.

 

I'm going to give it a try to a combat wizard. However, I feel like all these run-around based builds can be really dangerous against packs with ranged attacks. Like bandits packs with archers that can hobble you.

[Ceranai]

Nice to see this thread!

 

I'm looking at related threads for soloing PotD. So far I've seen 4 builds doing solo there, that is: summoner tanky chanter (cool name!), cipher, riposte tanky rogue and fire godlike retaliation barb.

 

I'm going to give it a try to a combat wizard. However, I feel like all these run-around based builds can be really dangerous against packs with ranged attacks. Like bandits packs with archers that can hobble you.

Don't forget to give monks some love, Less flashy but they have great base stats, particularly accuracy which is the hardest stat to boost in game. Sadly their late game plateaus somewhat relative to spellcasters but they don't get nearly enough love

 

As far as the range thing goes that's relatively easily solved with a spare set of heavier armor, or one of the biggest tricks I've learnt is in abusing how the ai targets, they will target based on the defence stat they are attacking ie me lee attacks target the lowest deflection unless engaged, but on top of that they peel off the defend casters a great emergency button when you are surrounded is to cast a figurine right on top of the enemy squishes, they will usually all disengage you except one or two and go to help their caster, giving you time to position etc

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ceranai