Honour Mode tips?

[Rip The Skin]

Tired a run solo with the popular Divine Archmage build and after struggling for about 10 hours ended up getting killed off. Any tips of suggestions on beating Honour mode?

[Schrader]

Are you doing a 4 man? Duo lone wolf?

Regardless, make sure you build your characters properly.

[Yojo0o]

Take your time, and don't take risks. Having meta-knowledge of the various challenges you'll face is pretty essential. There are extremely few moments in this game where you're forced to take on enemies that are higher level than you, so you definitely shouldn't force anything like that. By the time you're in act 4, of course, this stops mattering as much.

I pulled it off with a pretty straightforward aero/hydro build, pivoting into a heavy-crit aero build once I had access to big crit weaponry in act 2. Aero was my weapon of choice, since I had sufficiently big damage as well as stuns, so it felt like a better choice than pure-damage options from pyro and geo. That said, I'm sure the build you tried had the potential to do the trick.

Not sure what 10 hours means to you, so if you had a more specific point in the game that you got stuck at, we might be able to give you more specific advice on how to overcome.

[Razorblade]

Invisibility. Get Smoke Cover and Bless it, get the Blessed Smoke skill, have Han find you Chantrelle once per level to make invisibility potions, get Chameleon Cloak, etc. You always want to be able to escape.

To that end, having a high wits characters is great for escaping ambushes. You can't be surprise party-wiped if you always go first.

[Potatoflesh]

Number one tip is to NEVER, EVER chain your party together. If you run into a insta-death trap or a really tough encounter, one party member dying is better than a wipe. Plus if you do actually want to bring more party members into combat, time stops for everyone in combat if it's your turn so even if your other party members are on the other side of the map they can come in turn 1. If you are aware of the enemies I recommend putting your initiating party member in a hard-to-reach high ground spot, hitting with a ranged attack (Fossil Strike works wonders because it also slows) then delaying their turn. The enemy will burn AP trying to get to you, then when it's your guy's turn you can bring everyone else in. Normally if a party member enters combat while it's already in progress they get delayed to the end of the current turn, but if you bring them in near the end of the turn it's really good for you because all of your party members can act one after the other without the enemy getting a chance to act. Plus if your party has high initiative they'll probably get to go first the next turn as well, so it's like two back-to-back full party turns.

The price of Resurrection scrolls doesn't scale throughout the game so you can be really liberal with them once you get past Act 1, if one party member dies you can just send in one of your other guys to rez them. The only time you are actually forced to have your full party together are the boss fights between Acts 1 and 2, at the end of Act 3, and at the end of Act 4, so as long as you have a plan for how to do those fights you'll be fine.

A lot of people recommend duo lone wolf but I did perfectly fine with a four-man party, plus I could take more risks because I have backup party members if I need to rez. I also used some cheese strats that required three party members.

Even though I had a four-man party, though, I did most encounters with one or two party members (no Lone Wolf). Tactician really ain't that hard if you have a plan and set up before battle, abuse Glowing Idol of Rebirth, and pick off enemies one at a time then retreat. I killed the final boss in a single round on my blind playthrough; as long as you know how the game works you shouldn't run into any encounters you can't win even if you haven't seen them before. Make sure you use the weed merchant in the tavern basement in Act 2 and Green Tea when you hit Act 4 (make sure you combine the tea leaves with the tea pot to increase the effect).

Edit: oh wait you're doing a solo run. Well, I haven't tried it myself, but I've been theorycrafting a build that I think could do it. Play Fane and get Elemental Affinity and the Mask of the Shapeshifter back ASAP so you can TF into an elf. The primary skills will be Aerotheurge, Pyrokinetic, Scoundrel and Warfare, with a few levels in Necromancy, Hydrosophist, and Polymorph for skills. You'll want to be using an Air or Fire staff most of the time. Blood counts as a Necromancy surface for Elemental Affinity and Flesh Sacrifice puts blood under you so you can spam powerful Necro spells like Grasp of the Starved and Blood Storm to deal heavy physical damage that scales with INT. If you electrify the blood it also counts as an Aero surface which lets you do 1-AP teleports and other crazy stuff. Ice Fan and Hail Strike are busted CC options because every hit can Chill the enemy which lets you Freeze with a single skill, but I don't think they're worth putting a lot of points into Hydro for because they're better for CC than for damage. If you get into melee range you can buff with Master of Sparks/Sparkstriker and hit with something like Battle Stomp or Whirlwind to proc a bunch of fireballs. If you're wielding a staff melee damage scales with INT so the only damage stat you need to level is INT, leaving a lot of points to dump into Wits, Memory, and Vitality. With Fane you also have access to Play Dead and Time Warp for more brokenness. This build can deal both elemental and physical damage at both melee and range, which should let it get through most of the game with minimal respeccing.

[Vipirio]

bloodmage did a good thing for me as a solo honour mode run but playing carefull is the most importand thing to do in that mode even if you play with a built that is good for a solo run

[DrunkPunk]

Turn off autosave so if you accidentally wander into a fight you can't win, you don't risk the game saving right when the battle starts

[Bullett00th]

You still have one manual quicksave which you can reload if you find yourself in a battle you don't want to be in (provided autosave didn't trigger).

The Escapist talent will save your butt in sticky situations as well.

I'm doing Honor mode with 2 friends and we're cheesing the hell out of the game. By that I mean buffing the party mid-dialogue. It's a nasty exploit but hey, whatever works.

[Rip The Skin]

Thanks a bunch to everyone who replayed, this info will be helpful once I start up again. You guys had mentioned a bunch of things I had not thought of to try so thanks a bunch for everyone's time.

[sethmage]

i finished game on tactician, now i'm trying to get honour with 2LW and i'll have Glowing Idol of Rebirth in the inventory, just in case, lol

[gregfromthepeg]

The tips above about aero and invisibility and stuff are all spot on. I used invisibility a lot.

I tried a couple of times before I did it, and really the only thing different is I was willing to steal. A LOT. I usually don't do much stealing. But stealing enough to keep my gear at my level every time made the fights far easier. In the past, I had always tried not to steal. But in my honour run, I had almost every piece of equipment leveled up every level (not necessarily weapons) and it made such a difference. I generally keep my equipment within a level or occasionally two. But keeping it right at my level made even more of a difference.

[Potatoflesh]

Originally posted by gregfromthepeg:

The tips above about aero and invisibility and stuff are all spot on. I used invisibility a lot.

I tried a couple of times before I did it, and really the only thing different is I was willing to steal. A LOT. I usually don't do much stealing. But stealing enough to keep my gear at my level every time made the fights far easier. In the past, I had always tried not to steal. But in my honour run, I had almost every piece of equipment leveled up every level (not necessarily weapons) and it made such a difference. I generally keep my equipment within a level or occasionally two. But keeping it right at my level made even more of a difference.

But if you steal you're committing a sin and you can't pass the path of blood