Solo play tips (not exploits (PoTD))

[Omnicron]

Very interesting thread

 

Two questions for tips if I may

 

1. Stats

 

I am running my Cipher with Max Might, and high Resolve & Int. No dump stats. This gives me max damage, long stuns & charms, & some deflection and concentration.  Now looking at this thread and other threads it seems that Con is HIGHLY valued for solo play. Aftter messing around with a max health / average deflection barb on PoTD I saw that high health still gets dissolved if you dont have enough deflection so I did not choose it as a stat for my Cipher. So I am actually just really surprised that these stats would work on wizard?: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have huge penalties to deflection everything should hit you all the time and your Con on a wizard does not give you so much with low starting health. And yet it clearly works. Can someone explain where my thinking has gone wrong and suggest stats for a Cipher? I'll keep playing with mine till he dies, maybe it suits my play-style better and I do ok. 

 

2. Any tips for taking on Maerwald?  I just killed him with a PotD party, and he was really tough. Hard to think how I can solo him. My plan is to create a safe area in the room opposite to his. Then start the scripted interaction and run away as as soon as combat starts. Cast figurine once I am out the door. Go hide in safe area. Use figurine to pull them into Beatles in room below. Join fight with bow and focus on Maerwald & spam mental binding to give the Beatles a chance. Sounds like a good plan? Just scared of being 1 shot by him 

[knownastherat]

-14 Deflection is not that huge that everything hits me all the time. What is the alternative? Low Con? The way hits and misses work with additional effects .. I don't like to be stunlocked. Low Dex? I like to be able to cast reasonably fast and have certain recovery even in heavy armors. "Will" evens out with Int, Reflexes with Dex, too bad Concentration but I was getting interrupted and locked even with high Concentration. Interrupt, I dunno. I rather cast Siphon which gives me health and damages enemies at the same time than to cast deflection buff. Low starting health, well yeah tell me about it.  

 

What you are missing is that its about play style. You have some kind of character, does not matter if min/max or gimped or prebuild in-game, and you have to deal with it somehow. Play on strengths and try to avoid weaknesses. its not like .. I tried PotD and could not finish it because I had - 14 deflection. I hope!

 

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edit: if you gonna kite Maerwald get Fleet Feet or other speed buff. Its about timing and bit of luck. I kite him to beetles leaving spiders alone but its probably more advantageous to kill the spiders as you say.  

Edited April 12, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

@Omnicron

 

I think people fuss too much over base stats tbh, I get 18 deflection from my base stats, the other 103 defelction comes from abilities gear and i assume level and class (I counted and it didnt quite add up) 

 

Now the issue with such a low deflection that you have is that everything will crit you, at level ten i have 175 endurance with 17 con, thats roughly 20 HP from my con value and 150 from my class choice (cba to check the numbers), the issue here is that 20 HP is nothing at all compared to how hard crits hit. so imo you get more our of higher defences than you do higher HP, potions are pretty easy to come by so per encounter i can get hit for about 3-4 times my endurance if I need to, comparatively its pretty hard to boost your defences in a similar way.

 

Anyway i would be curious how it turns out for you, given the only other cipher run ive seen relied on S/L to ensure traps and spells hit its a very all or nothing class as far as I can tell. The reason im so in love with monks and chanters is because I see their damage and tankyness as far more reliable.

 

Havng said that when i was fighting the spiders i used like 20 camping supplies, had to keep my summons up and avoid the petrify they apply with AUTOATTACKS. I shat myself a few times I came so close to permadeath, petrify is my least favorite spell in the world it needs a nerf badly but it basically turned me from a tank that got hit for 1-2 damage per hit nto a bit of paper that could get two shot, luckily I had a spellbind remove condition but yea.... thats level 12/13 i think of the endless paths.

 

There was a point in there somewhere...but i cant really answer any questions about wizards, the only wizard ive even looked at was aloth in my first run through.

 

As for maewald its actually much easier than people think it is, get some sugar from the inn and you should be able to seperate maewald from his spirts, if you block the doorway with a figurnine he will cast some aoe on it and he often kills his own allies this way, take down his allies first IMO as they are pretty weak and drop pretty fast, its especially good if you can kill the fire one near him as it explodes. As soon as you see him start to cast eat some sugar and move out of the way, after a few embarrassing misses he will start autoattacking for no damage and you can move in and finish him off. The real trick is just to not let him him his spellswhich is easily achieved by moving out of the way. Same thing goes with the druids you fight later that Ive heard people complain about.

 

I mean hell the game TELLS you when they are casting and what they are casting even at the cost of an engagement attack or two (lets say 20 dmg) its worth dodging a nasty spell (easily 30 dmg and up and often applies a condition as well)

[Ceranai]

Can anyone think of a way to kill the adra dragon solo? having now explored a bit more and survived past the initial stages (superb armor with extra corrode DR means i can survive even if they cast breath) Im not sure if its possible. I mean adragans are my 3rd least favorite mob out there and there are enough of them to lock you with petrify for years, the xautrips are more annoying than a problem but they make kiting problematic. I mean i havnt even started thinking about how to kill the adra dragon tbh, 4 adragans are a bad enough fight by themselves lol. 

 

I mean i wanna kill it but im thinking i might just do the quest for the loot. All the dragon drops is a couple of scales which are good for enchanting but... meh. I mean I just keep thinking about the fight and I just dont think its possible. I think in lower difficulties you can sperately pull mobs so you fight it alone but here the mobs are too close together they are connected by sight so I cant reliably attack them seperately, and even so 4 adragans, all i need is for one of them to open with petrify and im down. I mean there is nothing i can do to dodge petrify...

 

 

although i think i may have found a way.... ill be back with the result

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ceranai

[Omnicron]

 

Anyway i would be curious how it turns out for you, given the only other cipher run ive seen relied on S/L to ensure traps and spells hit its a very all or nothing class as far as I can tell. The reason im so in love with monks and chanters is because I see their damage and tankyness as far more reliable.

 

 

S/L meaning the save/load exploit? Ya, I kinda feel I need to rely on it. I do not mind, I am not doing to show I can have a flawless run quite yet, and Cipher seems very dependent on whether the spells hit and can sometimes let you down. For now it is still scary to think you could die if you are not careful so it is enough of a challenge without just being plain frustrating. If I want to try a run which does not use save/load then I'll probably go for chanter

 

Thanks for all the info

 

Edit: Killed him 1st try. I chose not to clear either spiders or Beatles, I ran out as room as fight started and placed my figurine at door. I placed myself at the stairs on the way back out in the opposite corner. Maerwald came for me and ignored the figurine, so I used the figurine  to fetch the spiders. Stunned Maerwald and ran back into his room and closed the door. Slaughter followed  :D So I took no damage and cast 1 spell. lol

 

Also, this is my 2nd run with a Cipher, got stuck with 1st one, and once I knew what to do I hardly had to reload. So I think it might be possible without exploits. I have not been using my food for example, and I really should be.  

Edited April 12, 2015 by Omnicron

[Ceranai]

Going back on my word again ive found a reliable wa to kill the adra dragon solo with a chanter. Its super super super cheesy and pretty much an exploit but if you want a hint ill just say that it involves making your own doorway The adra dragon isnt actually dead yet but will post a screenie when she is. Im still on my non trial of iron but if it works ill do it on my ironman and god help me if she one shots me XD XD XD Ill rage and rage and rage.

 

However im qutie confident ive figured it out and this should be easily reproduceable

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

Never mind havnt quite figured it out yet the big problem is that i cant wear him down coz nothing hits for anything unless he has a debuff on him.

[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.

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)

 

 

Apparently it works with Essential Phantom (level 4 spell). I went down and Phantom  duplicate kept fighting so I let is and it won Not good enough for Iron Man but good enough for me. There is ring with Second Change right? I mean to die is to lose aggro.

Edited April 12, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

So... the cheese is ongoing, this is now on my trial of iron run

 

 

This is going to take foreverrrr, and i cant just go afk because the wurms suffer fatigue, as it is they need to roll 95-100 to get in a hit of 1-2 damage, anything below that misses so when they get fatigued thier accuracy drops and it becomes totally impossible to do any damage. Ont he bright side Im taking damage even more slowly than he is and i used scrolls to get him to half health. Its all or nothing so im not sure if i should get outa book to read or not.... I mean what if something unexpected happens and i die???

 

For those interested in replicating this the trick is to use a spped boost, run past the xautrips up into the treasury, kill all the melee range ones but leave the two archers in teh middle of hte tunnel, the dragon will arrive a minute or two later and if you pulled the archers so that they are in the middle the dragon cant fit through to get to you. You have to be super careful with range as the range of breath (still one shots me) is juuuust shorter than vision, luckily the wurms seem to have longer range so thats all good. This would be so so so much easier if I had planned bmy build ahead for this fight (eg i didnt bother getting the ranged speed buff coz i didnt see the point) and if I had enough accuracy to hit him myself (eg if i was a ranger with marksman.

 

If you zigzag a bit when pulling the xuatrips you get to the treasury just as you hit 5 chants (if playing chanter) I then summon my drake and use fire breath, activate dragon chant no1. There is a big ass bug that lets you cast the chant twice in a row (ie hits everyone around for 13 once and then again, if you switch between two dragon chants but you have to be quick, even on slow speed and pausing the second my combat log reads Cernai has started chanting i miss half the time, but doing this trick just gives you insane AoE DPS. though if you try to chain three chants together it only woks for the last two so to get the maximum damage you should cast one, switch to the other the instant it starts then wait till you see the dragons then repeat. 

 

To do this i had to talk to the dragon about its fading adra deposit supplies and pretend i was goig to help it escape, when you go towards the tunnel wit the treasure it warns you once, so when you get there pop any food or whatever you need. 

 

Also part of what makes this possible is that wurms attack reflexes not deflection, and the dragon has 112 reflexes and 133 deflection so im not even sure if it is possible to get enough accuracy to hit him normally as he has a pretty much permanent terrify (-20 accuracy) debuff to everyone, like i know when hes coming because i get terrified before i even see him.]

 

Ok got a good book out, timed the time it takes for the worms to get fatigued, its 4 minutes other than that im slightly worried what will happend when my deflection drops due to severe exhaustion but i guess i can only wait and see

Edited April 12, 2015 by Ceranai

[Geistrin]

Ceranai,

 

If I missed it, just tell me the page #, but could you post your:

1. Starting stats

2. Chant choices

3. Invocation choice

4. Which of the above you'd change if you could

 

Also, do you make much use of any particular skill(s)?

 

I've been running solo Chanter PotD as well and haven't had any major troubles, but I can feel the difficultly outpacing my summons/kiting to some degree.  Mostly trying to decide whether to go tanky, melee damage (with extended reach 2h most likely), or ranged.

[Geistrin]

Oh, and also Talent choice as 3.5=)

[knownastherat]

Blood Legacy, Dyrford Village

 

No melee here

 

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even beetles just stand there and soaked few hits/spells. Took while (to just get here) there's 5 of them over relatively large area, some of them moving, and this  is where +% area affect comes handy. Confuse out of stealth. Glad they had red circles.

 

 

tip: its possible to pass through this dungeon semi sneaky. Mobs in corridors and rooms do not necessarily get reinforced. Depending on positioning, where fight stake place, but its possible to get through without kiting or blocking doors just sneaking and picking right place and time by fighting 3 mobs at once most, usually 2 or 1 except entrance and this. No YOLO

 

 

and level 9! Poor Aelys, well, who knows.

Edited April 13, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

Oh, and also Talent choice as 3.5=)

Starting stats were:

 

Maximum might

12 constitution i think

10 dexterity

max resolve

min int

max perception

 

I think or roughly so.

 

If I was to remake this build I would probably put might as normal to put int slightly higher and would max con, so basically i would max the three tanky stats.

 

The reason for this is that both chants and summons SEEM to be entirely INDEPENDENT of your stats. When I look through my combat log etc all the damage and times are entirely fixed, the only thing you are able to affect is the ranges and so if anything int should be higher than might (no need to max it for a solo run as you wont have range problems if you are in melee and if you are kiting you would hit them anyway.

 

For talents I took as many as i could so i went sword and shield, then cautious attack then superior deflection, then scion of flame (having discovered dmg from chants is fixed i would replace this with a different stat) I have second skin from allying with the knights (2 DR) and bears fortitude because I was terrified of petrify and paralyse (they both make you drop in seconds).

 

As i see it there are two cons to this build:

It is micro intensive

Your DPS between level 4 when the phantom drops off and level 9 when you can get the dragon chant is absolutlely crap

 

The pros are:

Survivability, between summons and your crazy good defensive stats it takes something pretty hard hitting to even get close to scratching me. 

THe DPS from dragons chant is unreal, so much so that im expecting a nerf at some point TBH

 

 

ALso invocation wise it doesnt really mater that much tbh. you want phantom, wurms, and either ogres or drakes (not sure which is better). The others dont really matter that much as most of the time you will spam those 3 invocations. Ive considered getting skeletons as well as it would make it easy to flank spellcasters if you drop all three of them right ont op of them

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ceranai

[Incendax]

Also to those wondering the dragon isnt down yet, i had to go to sleep and im dreading loading up again

Do you have an escape option, or are you facing down a dark tunnel of inevitability: victory or death?

[Ceranai]

 

Also to those wondering the dragon isnt down yet, i had to go to sleep and im dreading loading up again

Do you have an escape option, or are you facing down a dark tunnel of inevitability: victory or death?

 

Yea it would be scary if it wasnt happening in such slow motion, as it is its just tedious, i mean i knew it would take a long time but this is draining all the fun out of the fight. However having thought through all my options i cant think of any plan that is more reliable than this one. yes a petrify trap+ nukes would work but the gret thing about this pull is that for whatever readons the adragans (which cast petrify on me=game over) dont follow the drake into the cave

[Ceranai]

aaand now its bugged so that i can no longer move or anything WTF....

 

maybe because i left it on overnight????

 

God what a waste of time... sort this **** out obsidian XD

 

Im going to have to restart the game, no matter what I do my character cant move or do anything. The question is should i try to stay true to the spirit of ironman and do the exact same thing again or come back at level 12?

 

I cant decide, guys? I mean that fight went on for like 2-3 hours last night and was still going strong, if i hit level 12 im not sure what difference it would make tbh. I guess if i got more wall of flame scrolls I would probably be able to win it without this trick but i dont know where to find nay more burnt ladies. I just dont think i have the willpower to do the entire fight again just because it bugged.....

 

I mean its still a stalemate because the skirmisher hits me for like 1 damage every few minutes but my drakes are now too tired to hit the dragon at all so eventually (like several hours) i will die.... The only difference i can think level twelve will make is extra deflection, enough i think to make it impossible for the skirmisher to hit me at all.

 

 

So. Given how boring that last fight was Ive decided to have a bit of fun before going back to it so this is me wallking up to raedrics front door and knocking loudly:

 

 

I was just like bro you think you're tough. you havnt even seen mah dragons.

 

Im not even sure if i can be bothered to do the fight again at all. It was working like he was close to death when it bugged out but the boredom factor was insane lol 

 

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!!!

 

 

 

In the game of thrones you win, or you die

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ceranai

[Incendax]

I cant decide, guys? I mean that fight went on for like 2-3 hours last night and was still going strong, if i hit level 12 im not sure what difference it would make tbh. I guess if i got more wall of flame scrolls I would probably be able to win it without this trick but i dont know where to find nay more burnt ladies. I just dont think i have the willpower to do the entire fight again just because it bugged.....

There is nothing legit about death by silly glitch. Especially a glitch like yours.

You didn't get caught by a momentary glitch you could make up for. You aren't trying to blame the game for your own mistake.

You literally cannot move your character. You are just sitting there. Unable to do anything.

 

I would not consider this a violation of Ironman if you restored because of such a slow and stupid glitch.

 

I WOULD say you have to repeat the fight despite all the tedium. You decided to go into that fight with Ironman on, so you cannot back out of it now. No waiting until Level 12, even if that might have been a good idea in hindsight.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Incendax

[Ceranai]

 

I cant decide, guys? I mean that fight went on for like 2-3 hours last night and was still going strong, if i hit level 12 im not sure what difference it would make tbh. I guess if i got more wall of flame scrolls I would probably be able to win it without this trick but i dont know where to find nay more burnt ladies. I just dont think i have the willpower to do the entire fight again just because it bugged.....

There is nothing legit about death by silly glitch. Especially a glitch like yours.

You didn't get caught by a momentary glitch you could make up for. You aren't trying to blame the game for your own mistake.

You literally cannot move your character. You are just sitting there. Unable to do anything.

 

I would not consider this a violation of Ironman if you restored because of such a slow and stupid glitch.

 

I WOULD say you have to repeat the fight despite all the tedium. You decided to go into that fight with Ironman on, so you cannot back out of it now. No waiting until Level 12, even if that might have been a good idea in hindsight.

 

Well its a good thing i didnt finish that book then... here it goes attempt number two. Last time all 5 of my paralyse spells missed so maybe if im luckier this time his HP will be lower when i start this trick. Oh well see you in hell dragon! I did take a detour to raedrics for a bit of fun but my gear level items etc are all the same so lets GOOOOO

 

So 4/5 paralyse scrolls missed again but the walls of fire did more damage anyway. My greatest tip for this fight is to hoard walls of fire, i cant find anywhere in game to replace burnt ladies so if at all possible save them up for this (if you intend to fight this fight the way i am)

 

So thats phase 1 and 2 done (pull and kill xuatrips followed by dumping as much DPS from scrolls as you can) now its time for phase 3 the boring bit.... I think a ranger or wizard would deal with phase three much better, you need ranged DPS, or even a cipher actually. 

 

Anyway time to sit back and watch, if it gltiches again im done. Even im not sadistic enough to do this three times

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ceranai

[Incendax]

Well its a good thing i didnt finish that book then... here it goes attempt number two. Last time all 5 of my paralyse spells missed so maybe if im luckier this time his HP will be lower when i start this trick. Oh well see you in hell dragon! I did take a detour to raedrics for a bit of fun but my gear level items etc are all the same so lets GOOOOO

Maybe step side to side a little bit to try and avoid the bug this time. It might be a memory leak, so a fresh reboot might help prevent it from happening this time as well. Good luck!

[Ceranai]

 

Well its a good thing i didnt finish that book then... here it goes attempt number two. Last time all 5 of my paralyse spells missed so maybe if im luckier this time his HP will be lower when i start this trick. Oh well see you in hell dragon! I did take a detour to raedrics for a bit of fun but my gear level items etc are all the same so lets GOOOOO

Maybe step side to side a little bit to try and avoid the bug this time. It might be a memory leak, so a fresh reboot might help prevent it from happening this time as well. Good luck!

 

The wurms wouldnt even be needed if i had more wall of fire scrolls... like i think if you had 29 wall of fire scrolls the adra dragon would just drop. as long as she stays standing on it for the duration im 99% sure that many walls of fire would kill her. Shame you cant buy burnt ladies anywhere or this would be my go to strategy..

 

Is it bad that the noise the dragon makes every time she is hit turns me on?? XD I hate her so much at this point i just want her to die. I might come back on easy with a full level 12 party and nuke her down over and over again and dance on her corpse. I didnt think it was possible to hate a fictional monster so much XD.

 

Ive also been doing some number crunching. I need 97-100 to score a graze on it per wurm attack with the terrify debuff but no others, so thats 3/100 chance of a 1-2 damage hit, i get three attacks, on normal speed i timed the wurms attacks to be once per 7.5 seconds, so three attacks every 7.5 seconds, with a chance to hit of 3/100. 100/3 is 33.333 recurring so it should on average take 34 (rounding up) attacks to score one graze, the time for 34 attacks is 80 seconds, lets round that up to a minute and a half so thats a DPS of 1.5 (assuming its random if it hits for 1 or 2) every minute and a half, 3 damage in 3 minutes, some thats one damage per minute. The dragon has 500 or so HP ive read online, the scrolls of fire took it down to about a quarter hp so this fight will take about two hours. 

 

I have 800 HP and atm without any fatigue im being hit for nothing, hopefully with severe fatigue i wont die faster than the dragon.

 

If it looks like im in danger of losing if i pause when the wurms fire and cast to replace them i cut the time between volleys down to between 5-6 seconds but that obviously requires much more micromanagement but if i needed to i could squeeze that extra DPS out

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

**** YOU DRAGON HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[knownastherat]

lol maybe we should forget about achievements? I know its 21st century and there are achievements for watching TV on X1 but ... what does it matter? Cant put it on CV and getting laid? Doubtful. That someone with behavioral psychology degree set artificial goal for us does not mean we have to care.

 

Is my solo legit since I put a bunch of nudist into a pub? According to Steam not but Steam can kiss my ass I know what I am doing and how. Its possible to edit local files ffs! These achievement are worth nothing from competitive point of view.

Edited April 13, 2015 by knownastherat

[Ceranai]

lol maybe we should forget about achievements? I know its 21st century and there are achievements for watching TV on X1 but ... what does it matter? Cant put it on CV and getting laid? Doubtful. That someone with behavioral psychology degree set artificial goal for us does not mean we have to care.

 

Is my solo legit since I put a bunch of nudist into a pub? According to Steam not but Steam can kiss my ass I know what I am doing and how. Its possible to edit local files ffs! These achievement are worth nothing from competitive point of view.

Its about beating the game, not just the dragon. They made that dragon virtually impossible to kill but I found a way to kill it solo that anyone can repeat and doesnt rely on petrify or anything. no idea what you mean by nudists btw

[knownastherat]

I meet NPC, hire them, and they turn out to be nudist who like to stand in pub which happens to be against "solo achievement" .. lol? So I disregard this stupidity and play my own game .. solo.

[Ceranai]

I meet NPC, hire them, and they turn out to be nudist who like to stand in pub which happens to be against "solo achievement" .. lol? So I disregard this stupidity and play my own game .. solo.

I'm not sure what you gain by doing this other than making yourself ineligible for the achievement? Why would you bother with this, if you want their gear you can just kill them