PotD soloable?

[Harsk]

I started playing PoE a few weeks ago. First playthrough was on hard and I found it to be quite easy. Without really knowing what I was doing I gave four of my companions guns and mostly just shot my way through the entire game while my PC and Eder tanked…

Back in BGII I mostly soloed so even though this is probably a stupid question I would like to know: Is PotD still soloable?

 

The reason I say ‘still’ is that I’ve seen people do it, but the only videos I can find are more than a half year old, and as I understand both pertify and stealth (two essential mechanics for solo?) have been nerfed since then. So I was hoping for an up to date verification that it is in fact still doable before I start.

 

In case the game is still soloable I would also like to know which classes can do it and which are best at it. I’m mostly interested in wizard/druid but other classes could do as well.

On the same note I would like to know if there are any parts of the game that aren’t soloable, most importantly Endless Paths. In other words is solo about sneaking past everything till you get to Thaos or can you actually kill everything in your path and do all the quests solo?

 

Finally links to any up to date guides or general tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[PrimeJunta]

Here you go.

[Harsk]

Well, thanks I gues. But as I said, these are all from april/may last year.

[Kardgar]

I think there is an important distinction between solo beating the game, and being able to solo complete any content. Most any class can solo beat the game, however beating any content is another story entirely.

 

I've solo'd the game with a Druid, Paladin, Cipher and Ranger.

 

The druid was the most outright powerful for AoE trash packs, but requires a lot of levels and resting after almost every fight, until you get past level 9, but in practice it still requires a lot of resting, because you tend to open with AoE hard disablers, stun/petrify etc and will need to rest for the next fight. On long fights you can run out of juice and be stuck shooting a bow or running for your life. There are a wide range of mobs who can do no damage to specific blights you can summon so you'll be using this to your advantage. Unfortunately blight summoning is random, so it make take several reloads or summons to get this right, but it's hilarious when it works.  Fight the fire dragon with a fire blight and laugh. Late game you get some serious surgical strike capabilities with casting Calling the Worlds Maw (Petrify) combined with Sunlance or some other potent damage spell for big 250 damage hits.

 

The Paladin was pretty easy, but it's damage/AoE capabilities are low until immolation and so is a slog in the early game. 

 

The Cipher really doesn't shine without allies as a lot of powerful cipher abilities require ally targets, you can use figurines for this, but then you'll be resting every fight or every other fight. Boeroer makes some good builds and I used his Backlash Bedlam Cipher to do retaliation damage while summoning figurines to get your beams and amplified wave off. Survivability is low in encounters with lots of magic/disables, the setup I used was very gear dependent and isn't what I would call easy.

 

My top pick is the Ranger who starts off the slowest but once they get stunning shot (level 11) and the Stormcaller bow (White Match Expac), boots of speed(Chapter 3), it's pretty much top dog in my opinion. There was nothing I couldn't kill with this setup. The Ranger basically facilitates a free tank who requires no resting and who will instantly revive once you leash/get out of combat.

 

The trick is to never fight where the enemies spawn/originate. Pull them back outside of their original LoS and fight. Should your pet go down run away and break combat, and once you walk near your pet he'll be up again and you can re-engage. Stunning shot, driving flight and the stormcaller bow, just locksdown enemies, you pick up the pet talent for additional damage against foes with status effects, hobble, stun, paralyze etc, and it's more damage on top.

 

If I had to make a recommendation it would be the Ranger. The Ranger will be weak and have limited tools for quite a while. I would focus on leveling on quests with no or minimal combat, Once you're level 11 things start to shine, and by the time you have some key skills and items, nothing can stop you. I focused on max attack speed for the stormcaller/stunning strike stuns.

 

So Something like this

 

Early game more defensive build/Balanced build

 

Late game

 

High Might

Low Con (I don't like going lower than 6-

Max/Near Max Dex

Max/Near Max Prec

Int - Whatever availability points you can toss in to boost status duration

Low Res (I don't like going lower than 6-

 

Stormcaller bow

Clothing Armor (Can swap to whatever Robe you like once you get Durgan's Steel)

Gauntlets of Swift Action (Core Item)

Boots of Speed (Core Item)

 

The remaining items you can mix and match to get the right stat balances you need

Dex 3 item

Might 3 item

Prec 3 item

Cloak of the Frozen Hunt (10% ranged damage)

Archers Bracers (10% ranged damage)

 

important Talents in no particular order for late game

apprentice sneak attack* (you always have a debuff on every mob)

wounding shot*

driving flight*

stunning shot*

twinned arrows*

 

WP Peasant

marked prey (late game for big targets)

Pet Resilience

merciless companion

vicious companion

stalker's link

binding roots

[Raven Darkholme]

A lot of useful advice

I agree with most of your points, but the cipher is one of the most awesome solo classes for PoTD and was also my first completed game solo.

 

I started playing PoE a few weeks ago. First playthrough was on hard and I found it to be quite easy. Without really knowing what I was doing I gave four of my companions guns and mostly just shot my way through the entire game while my PC and Eder tanked…

Back in BGII I mostly soloed so even though this is probably a stupid question I would like to know: Is PotD still soloable?

 

The reason I say ‘still’ is that I’ve seen people do it, but the only videos I can find are more than a half year old, and as I understand both pertify and stealth (two essential mechanics for solo?) have been nerfed since then. So I was hoping for an up to date verification that it is in fact still doable before I start.

 

In case the game is still soloable I would also like to know which classes can do it and which are best at it. I’m mostly interested in wizard/druid but other classes could do as well.

On the same note I would like to know if there are any parts of the game that aren’t soloable, most importantly Endless Paths. In other words is solo about sneaking past everything till you get to Thaos or can you actually kill everything in your path and do all the quests solo?

 

Finally links to any up to date guides or general tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

You might find my most recent vids useful they are all after Ver 2.02 dropped:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzscMCQ3321tZnhMkVkMjshoDKzyRRf2s

It's no guide but shows you how to solo PoTD.

[Harsk]

Thanks a lot for both of your very informative answers.

 

I gues solo is a bit more tricky in this game than in BGII where Sorc and Ken/Mage just steamrolled everything... Probably a good thing.

 

Ranger sounds interesting, but I'm a bit worried about it not coming online until lvl 11. I Killed Thaos at lvl 10 (with party and on hard, but still).

 

Could you maybe comment a bit more on the distinction between completing the game and doing all content? Would you say that completing all content solo is possible and with which class?

[Raven Darkholme]

Thanks a lot for both of your very informative answers.

 

I gues solo is a bit more tricky in this game than in BGII where Sorc and Ken/Mage just steamrolled everything... Probably a good thing.

 

Ranger sounds interesting, but I'm a bit worried about it not coming online until lvl 11. I Killed Thaos at lvl 10 (with party and on hard, but still).

 

Could you maybe comment a bit more on the distinction between completing the game and doing all content? Would you say that completing all content solo is possible and with which class?

You don't start BG2 with a level 1 char.

Ranger gets good once he can permabind people maybe he/she referred to that.

Completing the game means you kill more dangerous enemies like Dragons.

While almost every caster can do that with ease, martial classes have it hard if they don't want to cheese, barbarian has it very hard vs Adra Dragon for example.

Paladin is the best purely martial class for doing all content, wizard the best caster.

[Kaylon]

The ranger is one of my prefered classes and in open spaces the ranger is really good and can solo indeed most encounters - kill even the adra dragon - however I'm waiting to see a viable method to kill the alpine dragon as a ranger.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Kaylon

[Harsk]

Thanks again for answers.

 

I like rangers as well, mainly because they don’t have to sleep every 2 mins in order to fight.

 

How do you even get to the Adra dragon though, let alone kill it? There are quite big groups of mobs on the way there, so do you just 'hit-n-run' pick them off one by one? In my experience the bear can tank for approximately 5 seconds :S (Btw the bear the preferred companion, right? … or am I missing something?) How about Raedric and all his friends. Is that doable?

[Harsk]

oh, one more thing. I've been wondering how Swift/Steady Aim works with DR.

 

The way I understand it DR just reduces any incoming attack with X amount. So lets say our target has 10 DR. If we boost our attackspeed with Swift Aim we will land more but smaller hits whereas if we choose Steady Aim we’ll land fewer but larger hits. So lets say you hit the target 3 times for 10dmg with swift and you hit 1 time for 30 with steady. Wont the DR reduce 5 dmg 3 times from swift resulting in a total of 15 dmg while it’ll only reduce 5 dmg 1 time from steady resulting in a total of 25dmg?

 

So in general isn’t it always better to attack slow but hard?

[Kaylon]

Thanks again for answers.

 

I like rangers as well, mainly because they don’t have to sleep every 2 mins in order to fight.

 

How do you even get to the Adra dragon though, let alone kill it? There are quite big groups of mobs on the way there, so do you just 'hit-n-run' pick them off one by one? In my experience the bear can tank for approximately 5 seconds :S (Btw the bear the preferred companion, right? … or am I missing something?) How about Raedric and all his friends. Is that doable?

The pet is very fast and you can pull monsters one by one using him and kill them (when you have enough space of course). The pet doesn't have to tank vs tough monsters, you use him just to draw their attention. He pulls let's say 3 monsters and when they see they can't catch him they'll give up and will return to their spot; at this moment the ranger shoots the one left behind and the monster will try to attack the closest enemy to him which is your pet; the pet runs away again, the monster gives up, you shoot him, etc... repeat until death.

[Kardgar]

A couple of things. You gain more experience when solo, so you'll level up faster than your full party play through. It's not hard to get to 11 with minimal combat utilizing stealth through a lot of the game.

 

Low level I recommend using a fine warbow with vicious aim, and penetrating shot early on. I used a fine one until Defiance Bay then picked up Borrisain from the vendor. I used that in conjuction with a fine hunting bow and alternated out a septer from the Ondra Septer quest (attack speed). You'll want the septer for pierce immune mobs such as blights. You'll do mediocre damage with almost no staying power and very few tools in the toolbox. Early solo game Ranger is all about Figurine summons like most solo potd runs. Beetles, Shadows and Adra Beetle. Keep the wurm/horn and others in your inventory to swap out once you've used the others but need to press on without a rest.

 

Your whole early game goal is to avoid combat when possible (at least those you can't win without breaking a sweat and get to chapter 3 where you get some major items for a solo speed setup.

 

Unfortunately for the Ranger your pet is not very good at stealth and makes life harder than that of the rogue for getting through areas. This mechanic can be circumvented in a manner by leaving your pet behind on places where you just need to go in and out to get a key or a quest item. On any quest where you have forced dialog or forced interaction your pet will teleport to your location and you can avoid the need to stealth the pet through with you. 

 

Alternatively you can send your pet ahead to pull enemies out of the way and run them a different direction then you stealth through. That's how I got the remains in Eothas Temple without killing all of the slimes/spectres. Same with the Adra septre pieces in Ondra, just drag the mobs away and go get and get what you need and get out.

 

The Boots of speed pretty much guarantee your survival provided you can run. I use +1 movement talent and sugar or farmers spread early game until I get these. You'll need to dig up the unique loot/day spreadsheet someone made in order to locate these items, or download IEmod and use the loot shuffler feature to shuffle loot on reloads to get these two items. The gauntlets and max dex will have your speed north of 50% and one potion of deleterious alacrity of motion you're doing double damage. 

 

Once those two items are secure you can go get Lenas Er (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Lenas_%C3%8Ar) and respec and drop vicious aim and penetrating shot and get swift aim and steady swift aim. With the built in -5DR on that bow, it's more than enough to punch through and pushes you up to 70% base speed. From here forward things are now much easier and will continue that way until stunning shot/twinned arrows. I would hop over to the expac and then get the stormcaller, afterward you can do pretty much any content with minimal risk, although prepare to kite.

 

Stormcaller changes the whole field for you now that you do shock damage and you aren't faced with very many mobs that have high shock armor. Unfortunately you lose swift aim with twinned arrows, but thats the price you pay for double arrows. 

 

After you have the above setup you can focus on beefing your pet up, wolf or antelope (or whatever you like) and focus on managing where you fight. The worst scenerio you want to avoid is letting your pet die where mobs spawn or originate, it will stay dead until you clear them all, and in most cases will be to much pain in the rear to do so without the pet to hold agro while you stun and otherwise murder them.

 

So you send the pet forward and agro and then run it back to you. You fire at the pets target or have them attack in sync and stunning shot goes off once on the target and once on the bounce, then stormcaller procs and the whole pack is stunned. Rinse repeat until the pet is low or things are dead. If the pet is low prepare to fall back. Back out of vision of the mobs and let them return to their location. Walk forward and your pet will get up. Repeat the process

 

This will not be necessarily on a lot of pulls, most pulls you end up stun locking and critting everything into the ground, but fights with sirens/banshees/wizards and those horrible lagufaeth's, you'll just have to focus on the nasty ones and pull and reset until you can manage. 

 

A final thought on all of this, a large part of all of this is just experience with the content and know how mobs/quests and mechanics work. My very first Pillars play through was on POTD/expert with a solo wizard. It was a fun way to learn in my opinion.

 

I have actually had a party once in the game, six Rangers if you can believe it, it was obscene.

[Kaylon]

There are 4 bows worth mentioning:

- Persistance (ch.2) - highest damage bow vs single targets in the game (even vs high DR) - which can be enhanced even more with Combusting Wounds (Ring) and Predator Sense pet

- Sabra Marie (ch.2) - casts unresistable confuse (base 9s) on critical hits - becomes VERY VERY strong when durgan enhanced and coupled with twinned arrows and a potion of Merciless Gaze - you can turn impossible battles in easy fights with this bow - but probably impossible to obtain as a solo ranger 

- Stormcaller (ch.2) - strong vs targets with low shock DR and vs packs of trash mobs which can be tanked by the pet at choke points

- Lenas Er (ch.3) - highest perma stunning potential because its defense debuffs stacks (you can lower a target fortitude by 20-30 with it) - strong vs single targets and at choke points

Edited January 8, 2016 by Kaylon

[Harsk]

Again, thanks for all the very informative answers! I really appreciate all the effort you’ve put into explaining things.

 

Here’s a little recap of my progress so far…

 

So I started my solo ranger potd yesterday, and I just got to Defiance Bay. Build is something like 18, 6, 18, 18, 10, 6. 5 points in stealth and rest in mechanics so far, but when I get mech to 7 I’ll put 3 points in athletic and rest in lore probably. Wood elf, +might and drifter for stealth/mech.

Atm I’m using a fine war bow with Steady Aim and I went to Raedrics hold and got myself gauntlets of accuracy, blunting belt and combusting wounds ring (using day of the month – everything lined up with day 17). I also bought the smith’s figurine and got ring of defl/prot.

 

To begin with I just stealthed around picking up all the hiding stashes and doing easy quests (mostly to get cp for figurine), but when I got to the temple under the hanging tree I started to realize how powerful the ranger actually is. I guess I haven’t mentioned that I played around with a solo rogue a little bit before, so I had a pretty good idea of how to get by until Defiance bay. But with the rogue I found that as soon as I couldn’t stealth past everything I got into trouble mainly because I couldn’t really tank anything. The ranger on the other hand… Not only can she stealth around just as well as the rogue, she can do better because she can just kite mobs out of the way with the bear while I sneak past. But the best part is, that most of the time I don’t have to because with the unlimited endurance of the bear plus the ability to kite and isolate mobs I can pretty much kill anything I come by atm. I definitely do not find rangers to be weak to begin!

 

So next up is all the Defiance Bay quests…

 

When would you say it’s realistic to go Endless Path lvl 4 for the Persistance Bow (and lvl 2 for Stalker's Torc)? Also what kind of chest would be good (if any)? I guess I need ring of thorns and Pensiavi mes Rèi, but they seem hard to get atm

[Kardgar]

I never wore armor on my Ranger until I got Durgan's Steel as I wanted max speed, you could use Angio's Gambeson from Dyrford for the haste use it has (1 per rest). I recommend you focus on getting levels and getting those core skills first then go through and pick up all of the various accessories you want. You can do it before, it'll just be a lot more reloads with the second choice. You can use the +3 dex cape until you get a ring of thorns. You buy the cape from the Doemenel vendor after a trivial quest. Lots of easy exp in Defiance Bay, you'll be level 9 without breaking a sweat there.

[Kaylon]

If you were able to beat the ghosts in the throne room you should be able to reach lv4 too. For chest use cloth until you can enchant Gwisk Glass with durgan enchantment.

[Kardgar]

I haven't ever seen this mentioned but a Ranger doesn't have to fight the ghosts in the throne room. You stealth your pet forward to trigger the forced dialog which will open the door, you send the pet to the stairwell in the now opened door to die. Ghosts reset, and you stealth right downstairs, fight avoided.

[delfador]

My top pick is the Ranger who starts off the slowest but once they get stunning shot (level 11) and the Stormcaller bow (White Match Expac), boots of speed(Chapter 3), it's pretty much top dog in my opinion. There was nothing I couldn't kill with this setup. The Ranger basically facilitates a free tank who requires no resting and who will instantly revive once you leash/get out of combat.

 

Probably a dumb question, but: aren't Boots of Speed after the point of no return, near the end of the main quest? Do they show up somewhere else?

[Kardgar]

 

My top pick is the Ranger who starts off the slowest but once they get stunning shot (level 11) and the Stormcaller bow (White Match Expac), boots of speed(Chapter 3), it's pretty much top dog in my opinion. There was nothing I couldn't kill with this setup. The Ranger basically facilitates a free tank who requires no resting and who will instantly revive once you leash/get out of combat.

 

Probably a dumb question, but: aren't Boots of Speed after the point of no return, near the end of the main quest? Do they show up somewhere else?

 

They do show up before then. I make a bee line for them from the Bloodsands as soon as I have access to Chapter 3.

[Boeroer]

No, you can get a pair in Russetwood - where the landslide is. It's in the northeast I think (dead body, only legs visible).

 

And they are also random loot in several chests all over the Dyrwood. I remember finding them in the Temple of Skaen (Dyrford Village) and in the Endless Paths (behind the wall that only opens when you siphon knowlegde from Maerwald's soul).

Edited January 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Harsk]

I haven't ever seen this mentioned but a Ranger doesn't have to fight the ghosts in the throne room. You stealth your pet forward to trigger the forced dialog which will open the door, you send the pet to the stairwell in the now opened door to die. Ghosts reset, and you stealth right downstairs, fight avoided.

I actually did exactly that   I'll go have a look at Endless 4 anyway tho

[Harsk]

After A LOT of kiting I now have Persistece at lvl 7. I put Burning Lash on it and switched to WF:Peasant... Looking forward to trying it out tomorrow.

[Boeroer]

I got it yesterday at lvl 4.

Ogre Druids are just a colossal cheek.

 

I use it with my rogue though. Looking forward to get Tidefall for my ranger. Need 2 more mechanics first...

 

Edit: roflmao - I totally forgot this is a solo thread. Level 7 is impressive then. Because of Ogre Druids and stuff.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[Harsk]

Yeah Ogre Druids are terrible. Had to kite for 5min for each one and try to soak their spells with mr. bear.

 

Why Tidefall for ranger? Do you get bonuses from second weapon set?

[Boeroer]

No, melee ranger build: Riptide & The Pit Fright

 

I'm doing a playthrough with 6 of my "special" builds I posted here in this forum - just to make sure they also work well together.

 

- Dull Runner

- The Backlash Beldam

- Fulmineo Prondroni

- Riptide & The Pit Fright

- Mad Hornet

- Zeblastian Hurtstacker

 

So far (lvl 4) it's quite easy.