The PoE Class Build Arena

[grausch]

Did not do the Magran's Faithful bounty with upscaled opponents, but on "normal" POTD, all it took was some buffs while they rushed and surrounded me, two or three Ninagauth's to leave everyone paralysed and then three Kalakoth's Freezing Rakes and just some mopping up thereafter. All-in-all, the fight took less than a minute with my Frozen Lance build. Not sure how he would have done against upscaled opponents, but he handled the normal encounter with ease.

 

Edit: The CC of Shadowflame combined with the excellent damage output of Freezing Rake leaves very little alive if you just nuke. Since all of these spells are fast casting, it is quite easy to clear battlefields this way.

 

Similar tactics with Brynold worked quite well although I did not get all of his gang in one encounter. They were quite spread out and I needed to go looking for the stragglers after the fight was over.

Edited November 8, 2016 by grausch

[Boeroer]

A wizard who stacks those pulsing things like Chillfog and Malignant Cloud and adda a Wall of Many Colors in the same AoE where he cast Pull of Eora and then pokes with Spirit Lance or uses Kalakoth's Minor Blights can deal enough damage even without using all of his spells.

 

I played a fun priest build with max MIG (over 50) and with his ACC buffs his Shining Beacon + Cleansing Flame and Symbol of Berath (in mycase) whiped some WM bounties alone without any problem. When solo, healing bonuses + Triumph of the Crusaders + potions of Infuse are a great combo. However - I think he might have a hard time against Magran's Faithful because the constant bombardment of spells may be too much. It takes some time before the first enemy dies and triggers Triumph otC. But I think he would have enough spells to kill them.

[grausch]

Yes, I saw some of the priest builds and they are extremely powerful. If I needed to take on one of those with the Frozen Lance and the usual Citzal's combo he I would lose.

 

However, where wizards shine are in the combination of crowd control and damage output. For instance with those bounties you could start with one of the Llengrath's protective spells, cast Eldritch Aim, 3 Shadowflames, 3 Freezing Rakes and have cleared most of the battlefield before Eldrtich Aim expires. Another option is to open with 1 Shadowflame, buff a little and then another Shadowflame before using the 3 Freezing Rakes. Just bear in mind that my experience was with non-upscaled opponents and I have no frame of reference for how much more difficult upscaled opponents would be.

 

Trying to take on these fights without nuking lead to a quite quick death though. The problem wasn't the melee engagements, but rather the spellcasters really were the biggest problems to both these encounters.

 

However, if all you are interested in is the quickest time to finish the bounties, then the above nuking strategy got the job done very fast.

Edited November 8, 2016 by grausch

[Kaylon]

Yes, I saw some of the priest builds and they are extremely powerful. If I needed to take on one of those with the Frozen Lance and the usual Citzal's combo he would lose.

 

However, where wizards shine are in the combination of crowd control and damage output. For instance with those bounties you could start with one of the Llengrath's protective spells, cast Eldritch Aim, 3 Shadowflames, 3 Freezing Rakes and have cleared most of the battlefield before Eldrtich Aim expires. Another option is to open with 1 Shadowflame, buff a little and then another Shadowflame before using the 3 Freezing Rakes. Just bear in mind that my experience was with non-upscaled opponents and I have no frame of reference for how much more difficult upscaled opponents would be.

 

Trying to take on these fights without nuking lead to a quite quick death though. The problem wasn't the melee engagements, but rather the spellcasters really were the biggest problems to both these encounters.

 

However, if all you are interested in is the quickest time to finish the bounties, then the above nuking strategy got the job done very fast.

The upscaled content adds another 10-12 to all enemies defenses/accuracy if I remember well, so it's like the difference between hard and potd. 

[grausch]

 

The upscaled content adds another 10-12 to all enemies defenses/accuracy if I remember well, so it's like the difference between hard and potd. 

 

 

Never played hard - moved straight from a party on Normal to solo POTD. Am considering upscaling in my latest solo playthroughs, but with my limited amount of playtime (3-4 hours a week on average), it can take some time to get to these bounties.

 

With the Frozen Lance playthrough, once I had opponents paralysed, the Freezing Rakes dealt about 600 points of damage if 3 crits hit. Since most enemies were already paralysed most hits were crits. Can't recall the damage output of the Shadowflames, but the nice part is that these spells are all fired off at extreme speeds.

 

While the Fire Priest does insane damage over time, the wizard usually had everyone paralysed and then did a lot of damage almost instantly. I think the wizard can have the edge if all that matters is the speed at which encounters are concluded. However, if opponents are still standing after the rakes and the wizard needs to use the Citzal's combo then the Fire Priest would probably win the encounters in less time.

[Boeroer]

This all sounds fun. I think nobody expects us to do those encounters with a char that we dragged through a whole playthrough. I will use the console to create some chars for those encounters next week or so. Do we allow all items (also from stronghold adventures) or will we be limited to those that you can obtain during a "real" solo run?

[Reent]

adventure items are stronk!

I'd say: without them!

[grausch]

Well Boeroer, it is your idea and your thread, so you could use whichever methodology you want in your testing. Only thing I would suggest is to keep it constant across all builds, i.e. give all builds access to all items even though they might not necessarily use them.

[Raven Darkholme]

I wouldn't use stronghold items on a solo char, even if console created.

[Boeroer]

Ok. I just want to set the rules. So without stronghold items to keep the thing "pure" solo.

[Kaylon]

I did Magran's Faithful with a chanter and with a few paralysis scrolls they go down really fast. 

[Raven Darkholme]

Working on a cipher for this, but I wanna get to the bounties by at least playing halfway thru the game.

Never noticed how borrowed Instinct gives you +20 to all defenses, always used it for accuraccy only, lol.

[Boeroer]

It also stacks witt Psychovampiric Shield.

 

Yes, the chanter with scrolls is much easier than without.

[Raven Darkholme]

It also stacks witt Psychovampiric Shield.

 

Yes, the chanter with scrolls is much easier than without.

Hm, that's strange for me it is shown as supressed.

[Boeroer]

Huh? That shouldn't be. Last time I tried a tanky cipher (remember the Wild Leech stacking with over 50 DEX I talked about in another thread?) it stacked (3.03). It should stack because Psychov. Shield only raises deflection while Borrowed Instincts raises all defenses - they should be in two different categories.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

It was one of the first things I tried, since as I said above I didn't expect Instinct to raise defenses, so I cast Shield first and then Instinct.

Just retried it, this time I cast Instinct first, then shield, still no difference, the deflection part of Instinct gets suppressed by Shield.

It's no biggie, tho I find the other defenses much more interesting than deflection and + 20/25 deflection is still huge compared to paladins deflection bonus.

[Boeroer]

Is my memory fooling me so hard? I would've sworn up and down that they stacked. But I don't think OBS changed that recently. So It must again be my swiss-cheese-brain.

[Raven Darkholme]

Happens to the best of us.

[Raven Darkholme]

Where can I find a list of the WM and WM 2 areas for the console?

Never used the console a lot before and I've gotten sick of soloing WM with my cipher and just wanna durganize **** (is there a command for unlocking the "recipe"?) and teleport to wm 2.

Only found areas for the base game but not wm.

[Kaylon]

Where can I find a list of the WM and WM 2 areas for the console?

Never used the console a lot before and I've gotten sick of soloing WM with my cipher and just wanna durganize **** (is there a command for unlocking the "recipe"?) and teleport to wm 2.

Only found areas for the base game but not wm.

Use AreaTransition px1_0204_durgans_battery_forge North1 to jump to the last level of Durgan's battery, then you can restore the forge and unlock WM2.

[Raven Darkholme]

Thx a lot!

How do I unlock the map with the bog dragons?

[Kaylon]

You can use UnlockAllMaps

[Boeroer]

Don't forget to add the adra spheres with "additem <blabla_adra_sphere_objectbundle_name> 2" (or is there a way of doing this without them)?

[Raven Darkholme]

Thx a lot guys, appreciate it.

I'll either do the bounty later or tomorrow, to see if the cipher can compete at all.

Defensewise he is awesome but not having a passive AoE might make him slower than chanter.

[Raven Darkholme]

Sorry for double post, but:

Don't know if it's been discovered before, pretty hard using forum search for something like this.

You can attack with no recovery even if you use little savior.

On my cipher I now have Strike Hard, everything is durganized.

I basically build focus with the same speed as I id with my dual bittercut cipher, but have insane defenses close to paladin level (when I use Bororwed Instinct).

Dex is at base 10, at combat start I use Alacrity and during combat time parasite.

Oh and I have plate Armor on.