Classes that can achieve The Ultimate in current game?

[Belfaldurnik]

Bear's Fortitude could be beneficial, but I haven't had any data to know that I would be facing highly dangerous attacks against Fortitude. Similarly, I've used Boots of Speed and a movement speed bonus chant for a very long time instead of choosing Fast Runner.

 

Do u mind sharing a bit stats, race, skills, chants, items?
 
Chanters are prob the class I'm less used to, but god a run like that make me super corious

 

First a caveat: Trying to do a replay based on someone's hints or suggestions bears a high risk of spoiling your fun. Pillars of Eternity is awesome enough to play it multiple times and discover your own possibly different solution. Once you are past Maerwald, there are tons of options. How to reach and defeat Maerwald, there are not so many solutions per class/build, I think.

 

Next, there may be Chanter specific topics somewhere in the forum. Post #2 in this topic mentions a few ideas, for example. Some choices are very obvious, some maybe not.

 

Up to level 16, my choice has been an 18/18/6/13/13/10 Wild Orlan Drifter from The Living Lands. Not godlike, because I wanted to be able to equip headwear, and because the option to raise defenses is nice.

 

As one can see, I've been afraid of dumping DEX to 3. Invocations trigger recovery, so beware. Similarly, PER and INT both are increased a bit, because I think both are beneficial. Instead of investing into RES for Deflection, I've chosen talents such as Superior Deflection, Weapon and Shield, items to add +12 to Deflection - and I've chosen the cruel/aggressive path (including Berath's Boon) through the game most of the time, so no need for peaceful resolution during dialogues for a very long time.

 

Early skill focus has been on Stealth, Mechanics for traps/locks and Athletics. Some as required for side-quests or good results in scripted interactions. No big issue though, since retraining is possible, affordable and not forbidden during solo runs. With almost 500,000 money, there are no financial limits. Eventually one doesn't need Stealth and Mechanics anymore and can transfer those skill points into Lore and Survival, for example.

 

For the chants, I've concentrated on the level 1 phrases in order to complete the requirements for the first summoning invocations quickly. From the various summons I've chosen most of them to be prepared for various types of enemies. Not the human skeletons, but even the three Wurms are fun and helpful as ranged attackers in various encounters. And the summoning figurines one can buy or find, too. The Visage of Concelhaut has been my only late game summoning item.

 

Typical playstyle has been with the help of split-pulling of enemy mobs, since often enough it would be too dangerous to defend against more than two attackers at the same time. If player likes using potions (and knows about the game's odd behavior with regard to trying to drink potions in the heat of battle, possibly facing additional interrupts) and other consumables, often more direct assaults are possible too, though. The Dragon Trashed, The Dragon Wailed is not a safe solution for every battle, however.

 

For the last few essential battles, I've retrained to 18/16/5/18/6/15. Still not completely min-maxed. Possibly a few wasted points here and there, such as on DEX and INT, but I have had to start somewhere and try something to gain experience - kinda feared that I would need to kite for an unknown period of time and use a bow for ranged attacks. As a big fan of high DEX characters, going down to low DEX is a huge hurdle, I can tell you.

 

As the melee weapon to use mostly, I've preferred some that restore Endurance - possibly not necessary for a low DEX melee attacker. I've not done much testing. Later dagger and shield with weapon focus Peasant. I've unlocked The Unlabored Blade - again in the newly opened Stalwart Mines - lots of fun doing that despite the time it takes. As the ranged weapons of my choice, I've unlocked Stormcaller and later used Persistence in the second weapon slot to contribute some damage while watching my ogres or animated weapons doing most of the work. Armor I've used those with highest DR. Late game mostly He Carries Many Scars with enchantments. I've used Refined Durgan Steel enchantments only very late due to lack of experience with the dragon battles. It's also been the first time I've carefully taken notes of all the places where to find Durgan Iron ingots. In all previous playthroughs I've never been interested enough in spending time on them.

 

The most annoying bug I've run into is the non-working per rest abilities granted by items. I've posted about that in the tech support forum. Quitting and reloading is required for the abilities to appear, but maybe even that doesn't work always. I mean there are some items that grant priest spells, and it would have been fun to use them, but if facing such a bug, that has been disappointing. There ought to be another patch to fix that.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Belfaldurnik

[B4nJ0]

I didn't want to spoil anyone fun

I was just courious and, to be honest, after having done 3crown with a paladin I'm  pretty much done with solo run.

 

I hoped poe to be a better "hardcore" game, like some modded old style rpgs (like bg2, where some liches fight where so epic) but, honestly, playing solo in the hardest difficult is just a pain in the ass. You either go for a tanky char or you cheese all the split pull in the word (or both).

 

Painfull slowly and boring, after having done it the 1st time it's kinda erase all the fun, at least for me.

Edited May 19, 2017 by B4nJ0

[Belfaldurnik]

I hoped poe to be a better "hardcore" game, like some modded old style rpgs (like bg2, where some liches fight where so epic)

 

Tell more. I'm familiar with the BG series, too, including a very few solo runs, but would you really solo the BG series on Insane or even Legacy of Bhaal mode and continue into Throne of Bhaal even? Lots of cheese and meta-gaming required, both early and for various encounters throughout the game. Absolutely no fun to fight Alchra Diagott or Kangaxx.

Edited May 19, 2017 by Belfaldurnik

[Raven Darkholme]

Baldur LoB is much more painful than PoE Potd.

Any enemy is just hugely inflated, even xvarts are 13 levels higher than on Insane and have +80 hp +1 apr -5 saves and increased Thac0/AC.

I came back to PoE after quite a break and I started several LoB solos just before (still doing one atm) and PoE is a very easy change compared to BG Lob.

The liches aren't really that hard since you can doorcheese stuff like their planetars and on LoB you can't kill those anyway unless you use some cheesy mods.

[Belfaldurnik]

Exactly my thoughts.

 

Just for the record, I've unlocked all BG achievements including the LOB playthroughs. No interest in doing LOB solo, however, and there isn't a separate achievement for that anyway. My comments on the LOB runs can be found somewhere in the Steam forum. As off-topic as it may be, the enemy stats for LOB mode are even weirder. HP are increased by factor 3 +80, not only +80. Soloing the BG series requires much more kiting than PoE.

[B4nJ0]

The only thing that you really have to cheese in bg2 is the quest reward exp stacking to dual without any drawback, imo all the rest is ofc meta gaming, but much, much more rewarding then just stack defenses to the maximum.

 

My paladin in the end wasn't THAT bad (I went for a pretty hybrid DPS dual ced nua sabre build, pre WM) but god, those fights where just painfull slow to do no matter what even if I tried to squeeze in a bit of damage potential.

 

 

I prefear the possibility to play around fights given the meta knowledge of spells, rather then split pull / max saves / whatever, and if that come to a "must have dual classed wiz", let's be it.

 

Back to PoE, at least the chanter seems a bit more fast (I'm doing a potd run with fixed companion, and even kana deliver in melee as an off tank, plus you feel the aoe paralysis // spectre summon so much in low lvls).

Edited May 20, 2017 by B4nJ0