your blood, like ice
one look, could kill
my pain, your thrill!
I wanna hit you but I better not touch
(Don't touch)
I wanna smack you, but my senses tell me to stop
I wanna smite you but I want it too much
(Too much)
I wanna hack you but your limbs are venomous poison
You're poison running through my veins
You're poison I don't wanna break these chains"
- Arlise Pooper, Death Godlike wandering minstrel, after meeting Bilestomper -
Nobody knows Bilestomper's real name. Nobody knows what he did before he became a drainer in Tâkowa. The only thing we know is that one day he emerged from the sewers in a really pissy mood and went of to the Dyrwood, mumbling something about his own patch of well mucked land...

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Bilestomper
===================================
Difficulty: PotD v. 3.02
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Class: Wizard
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Race: Mountain Dwarf
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Background: Rauatai - Laborer
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Stats:
MIG: 20
CON: 20
DEX: 02
PER: 10
INT: 16
RES: 10
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Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 9, Lore 4, Mech. 10, Surv. 5
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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)
Spirit of Decay
Weapon and Shield Style
Bear's Fortitude
Veteran's Recovery
Arcane Veil
Hardened Veil
Superior Deflection
Body Control
Abilities
Hale and Hardy (a)
Arcane Assault (a)
Second Wind
Mastered Wizard Spells
Mirrored Image
Noxious Burst
Pull of Eora
Spirit Shield
1st Level Wizard Spells
Eldritch Aim
Slicken
Spirit Shield
Wizard's Double
2nd Level Wizard Spells
Fetid Caress
Mirrored Image
Necrotic Lance
Bulwark against the Elements
3rd Level Wizard Spells
Concelhaut's Draining Touch
Noxious Burst
Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage
4th Level Wizard Spells
Ironskin
Pull of Eora
Essential Phantom
5th Level Wizard Spells
Llengrath's Safeguard
Malignant Cloud
Ryngrim's Enervating Terror
6th Level Wizard Spells
Citzal's Martial Power
Death Ring
Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst
7th Level Wizard Spells
Ninagauth's Killing Bolt
Substantial Phantom
Wall of Draining
8th Level Wizard Spells
Llengrath's Superior Elemental Bulwark
Wilting Wind
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Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended):
Weapon set 1: Wodewys (*Exceptional, *Corrosive Lash), Little Savior (*Durgan Reinforced)
Weapon Set 2: whatever
Boots: Bilestompers
Head: Iverra's Diving Helmet
Armor: Argwes Adra (*Superb, *Crush-Proofed, *Durgan Reinforced, MIG+2)
Neck: Father's Teeth
Belt: Looped Rope
Rings: Ring of Deflection, Ring of Protection
Hands: Bracers of Spiritual Power
Quick slots: Traps mostly
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So as some of you may have noticed OBS put a lot of the spells (and monsters' abilities) that do raw or corrode damage into the "poison" or "disease" category with the latest patches.
That can be annoying because nowadays some foes have immunities against poison and disease - namely vessels and such. But it also means that the mountain dwarves' racial ability finally makes some sense.
So I figured it might be a good idea to use this ability and build around it (I love to take an aspect of the game and take it to the limit and see where this takes the build - if it's viable, fun to play and so on). I mean piling up defenses against all kinds of corrosion, poison, disease and such things. This would allow me to stand right in the middle of such effects and just shrug them off while the enemy would suffer big time.
So I thought about which class might get the most out of it. At first the druid came to mind but then I realized that the wizard has the most powerful AoE spells that fall into that category. Also, most of them are not DoT spells and therefore profit from Spirit of Decay (which I planned to use anyway because of the corrode DR bonus).
Wizards can also make great short time tanks because of those great self buffs they can learn.
You can't tank forever though and that means you also want to kill your opponents fast. Luckily spells like Noxious Burst, Malignant Cloud etc. are very potent. Especially if you don't care if they also hit you.
The tactics with this guy are very simple:
- lay a poisonous trap
- stand right behind it
- start encounter
- buff
- lure the mob onto the trap
- cast all those nasty poison spells onto your own head while the monstes try to kill you
- watch them all die while you remain unharmed
Let's talk about stats and numbers. I went max MIG and CON because I wanted my fortitude defense to be very, very high. That's because most of those spells and effects (and also the most annoying other ones like paralyzing, stunning, prone and so on) target fortitude. So with the stats alone I get a bonus of +40 to my fortitude defense. My armor gives me +2 MIG, so that's +4 fort. Bear's Fortitude makes this +54. I also wear Father's Teeth (around my neck...) which give my another +18 which leads to +72 fortitude. I took the Little Savior because it's another item that gives a bonus to fortitude which stacks with the rest. +77 now!
On top of that you can add the racial ability "Hale and Hardy" which adds +25 against poison and disease. I also wear that nice bulky diving helmet which gives my +20 (and +35 against dragon's breath - which is nice because our reflex defense sucks a bit) and the axe Wodewys which adds another +20 to that (and since it's a weapon it stacks with everything). Now... against poison and disease effects we have a defensive bonus of +142. At level 16 that means 207. Without any buffs, potions, scolls, food or resting bonuses. You can add spells to boost this even further if you need. But honestly it's more than enough to avoid that you hit yourself with your own spells. It will never happen. Well - never say never- but if you shoot yourself in the foot, you will have a very high DR against your own spells (28 without buffs, thanks to Bilestomper's boots).
You can always cast Bulwark against the elements to boost that to 43. The other DR values are also pretty good, so with the bulwark you won't be one-shotted by dragons. Thanks high CON, too!

But there's more: Funnily, most of the monsters' abilities that are considered poison or diseases also sicken, weaken or paralyze you. Since I took Body Control I gain another defense buff: +10. Aaand the Looped Rope adds another +20 to that (and to most toher afflictions, too). All in all, against attacks that are poisonous or a disease AND do sicken, paralyze, petrify, stun or weaken we will have a defense of 237. You can image how a Plague of Insects (poison, sickening)... never even grazes you anymore - while you're bathing in your own Malignant Cloud (after those baked beans).

The most difficult and annoying fights suddenly become trivial if you're at this point. Of course it takes some time to get there. But since I didn't raise my ACC too high I started to avoid my own spell efffects quite early in the game. Your ACC gets better and better, and so do your defenses. Most of the time those defenses are way better than your ACC. It's a good thing to use survival in order to get an ACC bonus against certain enemies. That helps to crit them but miss yourself. I seldomly used Eldritch Aim when I wanted to cast Noxious Burst or Malignant Cloud onto my own head for that reason. Later on you can do that because your defenses will be so high that Eldritch Aim doesn't matter at all - for yourself that is. Of course it still helps hitting foes.
Keep one thing in mind: this build ois very slooow. So make use of Spirit SHield. You don't want to get interrupted. With high RES and Spirit Shield this almost never happens - but just keep it in mind. If you think you are too slow there's always Alacrity.

And last but not least: this build is fun to play. Micromamangement is quite low for a wizard, he's very sturdy - even against other attacks than poinson and so on.
He just looks so adorable in his bulky helmet and his green suit, standing in the middle of the mob and melting them. The Devil of Caroc is a great addition to this build because she's immune to all that poison stuff anyway. So you can tank and she can flank while taking an acid shower together. Awesome! And kind of romantic in a weird way, too.

Thanks for reading - good night my fellow builders!
p.s.: THis build idea also works very well when you use ice/freeze instead of corrode/poison/disease. Use a pale elf and pick up different gear that allows for more freeze DR and feezing spells and such (Wyrwood Ring, Scath Gwannek shield and so on) and pick up the Crossed Patch that makes you immune to blind. Then stand in the midst of you own chill fog while you await the incoming mobs. Chill FOg targets fortitude so will will seldomly get hit. And if this happens the Crossed Patch will prevent you from getting blinded. Tested this and it also works great. I had to decide which element to use and I took the poison route because mountain dwarves got no love so far and I liked the corrode AoE spells better. But chill fog is a really nice spell throughout the whole game.
Edited by Boeroer, 16 April 2017 - 01:21 PM.