Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

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Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

End game quest line stuff:

I completed the blow up the powder house line for the Huana and there was no follow up quest afterwards to go to Ukaizo. I thought maybe they'd help me when I sailed into Ondra's Mortar but, after I got through it said I made it to Ukaizo with no help. Is this a bug? Am I supposed to get the quest for Ukaizo from someone other than the Queen?

E:

Also does anyone have the Gaun's Pledge DLC but, have it not installed? I don't remember purchasing it.

# ¿ May 19, 2018 13:59

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:26

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Do I have to do anything special to get it to install and work?

# ¿ May 19, 2018 14:03

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

My huana faction questline is broken

# ¿ May 21, 2018 02:40

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

What is this abomination?!

# ¿ Jul 26, 2018 22:33

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I'm going to start one of the god challenges and am going to go with a mostly multiclass party.

I like the bleakwalker/berserker combination, it puts out so much damage and takes hits fairly well. You don't have to worry about the usual confuse problem either because there's a paladin talent that basically negates it.

That's pretty much the end of what I know of good multiclass combinations though what are some other good ones?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2018 19:03

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Are there any new soulbound things in SSS?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 04:43

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

User posted:

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The legion is a failure both morally and pragmatically, so no, I wouldn't say that. And that's even if you grant for argument that military patriarchy is the best chance for survival in the wasteland, because even if it were they're still failing to build a stable military patriarchy.

It's impressive how many people are going full commiesperg here just from the observation that socialism doesn't scale. All of the successful capitalist/socialist hybrid societies are small countries like Norway, which has population of 5 million.

I think your brain has a segfault.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2018 03:27

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I made a history where I empowered woedica and it doesn't seem to be referenced at all. I'm right after hasongo.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 05:48

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Is there a way to add items without breaking achievements? I killed Fyrgist for the Kapana Taga club but, it didn't drop. I'm pretty sure its a bug as I see other people had the same problem so I want to add it.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 15:46

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

pmchem posted:

Has that bug been reported in an official bug report style with reproduction, save game, in tech support forum, etc.?

Yeah, its apparently been around since October.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106338-kapana-taga-wont-drop-after-killing-fyrgist-the-guy-near-volcanic-island-south-of-tikawara/

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 18:18

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

How well does priest/monk play? Priest of Woedica / Forbidden Fist looks like it might be cool.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2019 03:18

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

andrew smash posted:

Yeah that story is absolutely my favorite individual bit of pillars lore and I was so loving excited to wander into it!
Edit: who's the coolest god? I really like Magran and her fondness for the obstinacy of kith and her certainty that if you give the kith a problem they'll figure out a way to blow it up. After Deadfire though Eothas is definitely a true bro.

I'm hoping we meet him again. Also where was my option to join him and tell the others to gently caress off?

E: was it just me or did empowering woedica from poe1 do absolutely nothing?

Azuth0667 fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jan 19, 2019

# ¿ Jan 19, 2019 03:27

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Is there a list of good potd builds and a list of good scripts by role/class?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2020 23:57

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

PoE3 when?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 03:07

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Scorchy posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS8n-pZQWWc

Optimistically hyped.

I'd like to see a game like Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds) set in Eora. Maybe we can go find out what Wael doesn't want us to know about the stars.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 17:03

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I hope we get Eothas back in one of the future installments. Dude knew how to stick it to the other lovely gods.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 14:17

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Give me PoE3 with BG3's graphics, an in-house engine, WOTR's mythic path system, and an orchestral sound track.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2021 00:42

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

One thing I hope is exported from PoE1/2 is how they treated buffs. Sitting there and buffing to the gills every encounter is so tedious. You can't avoid it either because if you do your normal difficulty encounter now becomes a much harder encounter.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2021 13:46

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Furism posted:

I liked the buff system but I didn't like the Affliction/Inspiration thing where stuff would overwrite each other. I prefer to keep both the buff and debuff and let them figure out what's overwriting what, or just math it out (+10 Attack buff vs -5 Attack debuff, ok now I have only +5 Attack).

Although effectively in PoE1 instead of pre-buffing you'd still spend the first few actions of the Priest or Wizard for (self)-buffing but I didn't mind that, because it was part of the actual encounter - you'd have to sacrifice some action in order to throw a buff - so there was a trade of.

I get where you're coming from and I like the idea of just using arithmetic. I think I've played too much pathfinder lately because literally anything is better than the cycle of buff for 5 minutes -> hope RNG doesn't screw you -> rest -> repeat.

With that said it was really cool and thematic to remove a debuff with the appropriate buff. It's also really satisfying to cast a few self-buffs on aloth and utterly dominate an encounter. I think PoE nailed it with making buffs a decision worth considering instead of a necessity.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2021 04:31

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I won't get to go to that so someone ask if we get to see Concelhaut in avowed.

# ¿ May 22, 2022 22:31

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

People probably expected a big dungeon or a very epic battle in the end and fighting Eothas would be an obvious example of that. I get why the ending is relatively quick (the game is supposed to be replayable, you don't want story-focused players to be stuck there, narrative reasons make enemy faction battle a walk in the park etc) but people expected a bigger crescendo in the end.

PoE1 ending had a long trek before the final boss and I think there were some fights there. You also had a long talk with a boss just before fighting him. I guess a lot of people didn't get that they're fighting the final boss when they fought the Guardian and felt that Eothas talk is a preparation before the real final boss, just as it usually happens with dialogue-heavy RPGs.

We did get this with the guardian fight then the fight in ukaizo.

# ¿ May 25, 2022 15:45

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I'm still hoping for PoE 3.

# ¿ May 30, 2022 20:48

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

I think it's easier to argue that PFKM is original than it is well executed.

I'm on my Nth replay of PoE2 and I'm irritated by how buggy the game still is - not in important ways, but like UI constantly renders incorrectly or companions play out the same dialogue with me twice - but PFKM devs releasing "enhanced edition" and then "directors cut" while still having a game as buggy and unploshed is something else.

I never got these sort of bugs in my PoE2 runs years ago.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2022 00:04

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

Therefore they do not exist?..

Years ago I got more mejor bugs, like faction leader asks you to do a major faction quest you just did and thus locks you out of this faction quest line. Nowadays I can give you plenty of screenshots of easily reproducible UI bugs. Nothing serious, just adds to eurojunk feeling.

My favourite bug was last week. After Hasongo I got into conversation with the gods, but it seems that I still got ship control in the background. My clicks on conversation options probably moved my ship and eventually I got "someone knocks at your cabin door" popup while I've tried to react to Rymgard's goth talk. Afterwards the game has crashed to desktop.

I'm just shocked, it ran really well for me.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2022 13:26

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

RPG as the genre invites bugs. Scripting can't account for all the possible sequence breaking. Often you've got a lot of AI actors doing variety of stuff (more noticeable in open world persistent world's like Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077). PoE2 isn't bad in terms of bugs, especially now. I can't name any recent RPG that would be better in that regard. It has huge performance issues - I can't get stable 60 FPS on a powerful 2021 machine and I can load a map of England in Assassin's Creed Valhalla in the same time it takes to load a single room map in PoE2 - but this can be explained by an exotic choice of technologies. UI issues don't have the same justifications but those issues are extremely minor.

Nah, compare PoE1/2 to pathfinder km/wotr. The PoEs came out playable and with relatively few bugs while the pathfinder games were a horrible mess for at least the first month. I don't thing RPGs are intrinsically buggy but companys are more than happy to shirk their QA responsibilities.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2022 13:58

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

That's another bug that never happened to me and I double clicked all the time. The only thing I had happen was falenrode's dialog was [node somenumber].

I wonder how many of these are occurring due to engine nonesense or bullshit from the os.

Speaking of that MS Office 2020 has more bugs than the pathfinder games. I don't understand how it got so much more hosed up from ms office 2016.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2022 14:16

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

chaosapiant posted:

Weirdly, seeing this gives me slightly more hope of a Pillars of Eternity 3 at some point. I hope I’m right.

Yes! PoE3 when?!

# ¿ Jun 12, 2022 22:31

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Wicked Them Beats posted:

Avowed has been going through some sort of development crisis with devs leaving the project and talks of it being rebooted, but rumors are Carrie Patel has taken lead on it so hopefully it has a clear vision going forward. She was heavily involved in Pillars so the lore and general feel of the game world should be on point if nothing else.

And while looking for more info on the current status of Avowed I made the mistake of reading game article comments

Commenter: The Outer Worlds is bland and not a great game
Me: ok with ya buddy so far so good
Commenter: because it was too woke
Me: lmao

Reading between the lines I'm translating "woke" as "a woman was involved in writing it." Unsurprisingly these types are not hopeful for Avowed.

Outer worlds had its good points but I couldn't get into it. I don't get the woke hate either, finding parvati a date was an awesome quest line.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2022 02:19

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Mutation warrior rocked it pretty well.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 04:40

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

More games need to take a page from PoE and eliminate pre-buffing.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 16:16

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

It's not like PoE is the first game that fixed the issue. When people talk about Dragon Age they concentrate on stuff that made it mainstream and the new poo poo, but it had similar philosophy. IIRC there were very few actual timed buffs like health regeneration. Most where modal abilities, like speed up the party by lowering your max MP by 20% or something. It also had grazes like PoE so that combat didn't depend on luck as much.

What I mean to say it's not like Josh Sawyer was the only game designer who got a holy message from above about how bad prebuffing is. You can clearly see many RPG developers balancing that stuff one way or the other.

I played DA3 last and the MMO stuff left me with bad feelings about the series. I forogt about all of that and I need to play DAO again.

E: I also like how the loot in PoE has cool unique stuff instead of generic +1-4 fauchard.

Azuth0667 fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Aug 13, 2022

# ¿ Aug 13, 2022 17:38

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

ilitarist posted:

Inquisition's problem was following two games where you were expected to do *everything* excluding maybe some very minor sidequests.

For some reason people call big systemic RPGs where you're provided more opportunities to make numbers go up without a narrative purpose than you need MMORPG (which makes, I dunno, old Wizardry games MMORPG style). DAI was decent in that regard but it's obvious not what people expected, and they burned out dealing with journal as if it's a tohdo list.

And about PoE2 itemization - there's a lot to be said for simpler systems. Pathfinder throwing you a ring of intellect +4 that is an obvious upgrade over ring of intellect +3 gives you tangeable reward. In PoE2 there are very few straight upgrades and you're required to think about your current situation a lot to realize if the new item is good or bad. That is cool but you understand this lacks a Skinner box effect, no oomph. And if the item is bad for you you won't even make a lot of money out of it, and money are never important in Obsidian games for some reason.

I call it MMO like because it literally had collect bear asses stuff and grind X enemies quests. There was no greater story or any of that just go do thing. When I think interactive world I think W3 when you stumble into monster camps and get loot or MHW where you're out collecting stuff to prep for the next hunt and a monster roams into the area.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 18:55

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

moot the hopple posted:

To each their own but I think that's a boring approach to item design and game progression. Like okay, I entered a new chapter and now instead of +2 gear, I can buy +3 gear. I made no meaningful decision or interesting character choices here, all I did was keep up with the stats of the new enemies I'll be facing. It's simpler certainly, and you might feel a sense of progression because numbers went up, but it did so in a very flat and predictable way. I don't get much of a thrill from replacing a +2 longsword with a +3 longsword if all I got from it was a bonus to my attack and damage roll and maybe a shinier graphic. I'd much rather have the PoE approach where weapons and gear have interesting enchantments and branching upgrades that allow you to make cool choices or take your build into unexpected, new directions.

This is how I feel as well. I liked the choices when upgrading my gear and PoE did proficiency way better than any other game I've played.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 18:58

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I have to remind myself of that for neketaka otherwise I end up trying to kill the skeleton paladin dude at level 3.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 15:59

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

This is probably a long shot but is there a list of potd viable builds anywhere?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2022 14:15

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Something that can handle the superbosses. They're the only things I haven't cleared before.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2022 15:19

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Huh, I didn't know that existed.

Also it seems that it doesn't sync with steam and all my Berath's blessings are gone. Is there any way to edit a file or mod to enable all of them again?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2022 17:29

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

I forgot how ridiculous the dlcs are on potd.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 03:56

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Fair Bear Maiden posted:

I'm too lazy to search for the Tumblr post (I think it was one?) where Sawyer said it, but Deadfire apparently had enough legs to get the team a bonus in the end, so while I'm sure that doesn't drastically change the considerations made about it since release (especially since these projects are expensive and justifying the expense + long-term support based on possible future profits after a weak release is very hard) it's nice to hear that at least it wasn't a total flop.

Wasn't part of this because of the switch to fig for funding?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2022 16:26

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:26

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

moot the hopple posted:

So the basic gist is that a Berserker's health drain, normally a negative consequence you have to accept in exchange for the subclass' other benefits, actually becomes a boon when combined with a Monk, who'll gain Wounds from the self damage while Frenzied. A Nalpazca monk passively gains Wounds on top of that whenever he's high on drugs, meaning a Berserker/Nalpazca is always gaining a steady flow of Wounds from both sources so he can constantly spam his attack abilities. The two classes synergize further in that they both have abilities that will lower enemies' Fortitude defense. Combined with the morningstar modal which further lowers Fortitude, the key Barbarian passive ability Brute Force which allows Barbarians to target Fortitude instead of Deflection if it's lower, and the hit-to-crit conversion that a Berserker gets while using Frenzy, a Berserker/Nalpazca is able to significantly lower their target's defenses and land huge critical hits, which leads to some crazy things such as getting free attacks and refundable stuns. Here's the build in detail:

Race
By order of preference: Hearth Orlan because they are able to get the highest starting Perception and their Minor Threat passive gives them further hit-to-crit conversion which are both valuable for our crit-seeking needs. Death Godlike are another consideration as their damage bonus to low health enemies synergizes with Barbarian's similar bonus. Humans get added damage and accuracy from their Fighting Spirit passive at half health, which can often happen when you play as a Berserker, but it's not as dependable of a bonus.

Attributes (These will be more guidelines with only a few defined scores. Feel free to play with the spread as you see fit)
Might � Doesn't have to be sky-high as a baseline because we'll have other means of increasing damage and Frenzy will already give us a +5 here. Super high Might is actually dangerous for a Berserker because the self-damage you take from Frenzy scales off of it. You want it high, but not close to max.
Constitution � You'll get +5 from Frenzy on top of an already large health pool. This is your main survival attribute so put as many points in here as you feel comfortable.
Dexterity � This can be average since you'll be getting +5 from Swift Flurry and this multi gets a slew of action speed bonus, recovery speed bonus, extra attacks, and instant recovery from other abilities.
Perception � Absolutely max this out. The goal is to get critical hits so the more points you can place here, the better.
Intellect � I would leave this at the default 10. Technically you can get +10 bonus at max Wounds from Turning Wheel, but in practice it'll hover a little bit below that as you use your Wounds and they replenish. Intellect does help with increasing the size of AoE attacks like Carnage and Raised Torment and also extending the duration of your self-buffs, but you don't really have to invest in here.
Resolve � In terms of deflection, Barbarians start with lower deflection and will get a further -10 penalty while using Frenzy so it will take a lot of Resolve just to overcome this inherent malus. If you're looking to be more tanky, your points would be better spent in Constitution.

Skills
Alchemy is an expected choice since Nalpazca monks already get a skill bonus when using drugs. Note that higher Alchemy only increases the duration of drugs and lessens the effects of drug crash. At high enough levels of Alchemy, the penalty of drug crash goes away entirely. However, Nalpazca monks will still need to take drugs in order to receive healing. Athletics is another good active ability choice to have a per-encounter heal. For passive skills, go with whatever you want to roleplay with, but if you decided to minmax some of your attributes, there's a decent cloak that gives a scaling bonus to defenses based on your History score to make up for any lowered defense.

Abilities
Barbarian
Blooded � The damage bonus at half health is useful but it also serves as an indicator for when your health is low since your health bar is otherwise hidden when Frenzied as a Berserker. Just pay attention to the Blooded icon that shows up by your character's portrait to gauge whether you need to heal at that point.
Spirit Frenzy � This upgrade to Frenzy allows all your attacks to Stagger enemies, dropping their Might by -5 which translates to -10 Fortitude defense. Note that I don't take the further upgrade, Spirit Tornado, because the added Terrify effect only happens at activation and I'd rather spend the point elsewhere for more value
Thick Skinned � Extra armor against all weapon damage types (which further stacks with the +2 armor Berserkers get from Frenzy) and an engagement slot is a lot of value here
One Stands Alone � A pretty decent damage bonus with a conditional that's easy to meet for a character that's going to be in the thick of things
Two Handed Style � A generic damage bonus for our weapon of choice
Accurate Carnage � Carnage damage is calculated off your weapon's damage, however Carnage's accuracy doesn't use get your weapon's accuracy bonus so this passive is useful
Bloody Slaughter � Any additional crit conversion is good and the bonus crit damage is even better
Barbaric Smash � Upgraded to refund the Rage cost upon killing an enemy, this is your finisher move you use on enemies near death to synergize with Bloody Slaughter and spread Carnage to the other enemies left alive around your target
Bloodlust � You'll be killing a lot of enemies back to back so it will be easy to have this action speed bonus on you for most of the battle
Uncanny Luck � Another source of crit conversion to stack
Improved Critical � Another source of critical damage to stack
Brute Force � The pivotal passive ability for this build. Since we're going to have an easier time attacking and debuffing Fortitude for the majority of enemies, this will be a major contributor to getting crits that's not just another method of crit conversion (which has diminishing returns as you stack it but it's still worth doing so in this build since it's the whole point). Anyway, Brute Force gets us on the way to weakening and then wrecking enemies
Blood Thirst � The instant recovery after a kill is like getting a free attack and becomes really powerful once you start chaining kills
Monk
Lesser Wounds � lowers the damage threshold required to get a Wound. This passive along with the scaling self-damage from Frenzy as you gain power levels will generate a lot of wounds for yourself
Combat Focus � Having a source of Concentration is very useful to prevent yourself from getting interrupted at the start of the battle when you need to activate Frenzy and take some drugs
Swift Flurry � The added Dexterity and action speed is great, but the cherry on top is the chance to get a free attack when you crit. Note that your free attack can crit, which can produce another free attack which can crit, and so on and so on. Sometimes this can lead to one-shotting an enemy as your initial attack can chain crit, leading to a hilarious stream of red numbers popping up over an enemy's head before it falls dead.
Turning Wheel � A fire damage lash and bonus to intellect that remains decently high with how quickly you generate Wounds
Raised Torment � This is your main attack ability to spend your Wounds on. A spammable source of interrupt, AoE damage that adds up in conjunction with Carnage, and an AoE stun is a great force multiplier
Stunning Surge � Raised Torment unfortunately doesn't stun its direct target, only the enemies behind it. Luckily, we have another direct target source of stun with Stunning Surge. It's fairly reliable because it targets Fortitude and it refunds its resource cost on crit, and we are purpose-built to exploit both aspects
Enervating Blows � Allows our attacks to impart Weakened, debuffing Constitution by -5 and dropping Fortitude by -10
Heartbeat Drumming � Further increases your chances of getting free attacks along with Swift Flurry

Equipment
Armor � Devil of Caroc Breastplate. Primarily as a way to get rid of the Confused affliction while using Frenzy but the heal upon crit upgrade, extra class resources to use for buffs, and increased recovery are all relevant for our build
Weapon � Saru-Sichr and The Willbreaker. There's only two unique morningstars but that's okay because they're both good. Saru-Sichr is more of your early game weapon because it's available for free depending on how sneaky you are. Both have good, stackable effects but the key component is the morningstar modal which drops Fortitude by a whooping -25 points
Helmet � Maw of Ingimyrk for the +2 Perception. Helm of the Falcon's increased recovery for two handed weapons is a good stepping stone before you do the DLC
Necklace � Protective Eothasan Charm for the Perception. The automatic heal is also very useful for Berserkers and their hidden health bar
Cloak � Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak again for the Perception. Giftbearer's Cloth with stacked History skill if you want more defense. Three Trolls Stitched is also good for the regen early on to mitigate the Berserker health drain
Gloves � Gloves of Accuracy or Gloves of the Dungeon Warden for +3 accuracy which is the main point of relevance for the build. The first set you get very early and the second set just has an extra per-rest ability.
Rings � Ring of Prosperity's Fortune for the crit chance bonus and Voidward to mitigate the self-damage from Frenzy. Early on when you don't have all the money to activate the full bonus for RoPF or when Frenzy's self-damage hasn't reached the level at full power levels, the Greater Ring of Regeneration is a fine option
Belt � The Maker's Own Power. The added armor and Might is relevant but the per-rest ability is your safety net and guarantees that you won't get yourself killed if your not paying attention to health
Boots � Boots of the Stone. This slot doesn't have any essentials so you can substitute whatever you want
Pet � Abraham. The recovery bonus is great and the health return upon kills will really pay dividends

Gameplay
How it all comes together. When you first start combat, activate Frenzy, snort some drugs (Svef or Deadeye preferably for the accuracy, or White Leaf for the mild health regen), and activate Swift Flurry. You should already have enough Wounds to use Raised Torment on whatever enemy has the lowest Fortitude to stun enemies behind him. As you attack, you'll apply Staggered, Weakened, and Body Blows which cumulatively debuffs enemies for -45 Fortitude. That's an unparalleled amount that even dedicated spellcasters would struggle to reach. With their Fortitude defense tanked, you can use Stunning Surge to reliably crit and stun for free any enemies who are directly targeting you and then use them as a pivot point to further stun enemies behind them with Raised Torment until you have most of the enemies near you stunlocked. Then it's just a matter of picking off enemies based on the lowest fortitude score so that you can get free hits and crits off them while using Barbaric Smash as your finisher when they are at low health. The beauty is that enemies get weaker and more vulnerable as you attack them while you keep getting stronger by killing things for increased speed and health return.

This isn't really a solo capable build so in terms of party makeup, having an actual tank to deal with damage is useful. While the Berserker/Nalpazca can stay safe by stunning and interrupting his opponents, he still needs a tank to draw all the frontloaded damage while he buffs himself. A healer is also very important; a priest who can cast Triumph of the Crusaders would take care of any health concerns for this build and the accuracy buff from spells would have added value. A Chanter/Paladin with healing auras would also be a decent teammate; that's what I actually paired this build with when I made this character and I didn't have too much trouble keeping him alive with all the passive healing.

More of these, this is awesome!

# ¿ Nov 16, 2022 22:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity II - Suddenly Turn-Based

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