Is a solo character run on Old School possible?

[Ienjoyvidyagames]

What class would you need to be to do this? I assume you'd need a really good initial blessing kessen too.

[IronOctopus]

It seems like this would be so hard at the start. You’d almost need to take a Commoner character for the extra skill points, and try for a muli hit attack skill paired with a multi hit kessen.

If you could survive long enough, I think a warlord with self heal on hit, elemental attacks to try for free kessen, and the pride kessen for AOEhit+heal would be pretty reliable. But I have no idea how you’d survive long enough to get set up.

Out of the gate, Ronin is my choice. Hob commoner with a martial background and the kessen that damages and blinds. Get the row-hit skill with your starter points and then go for evasion and riposte?

Pick the pious voice of your choice and pray hard to the mother or father at the start of each fight, if you’re into that kind of thing. Couldn’t hurt.

[slartifer]

Long term it seems like the levelling that is obviously required would make Noble a much smarter choice than Commoner -- you'll eventually end up with more skill pts than you need anyway.

It does seem that a class with good evasion and riposte is probably the only real option. The levelling required otherwise would be extra insane. I'm a little worried about magic attacks, though, which you can't evade quite so easily; while high elemental resists are eventually possible w/ Amulets (esp if you were to go Elf Stormseeker), non-elemental magic is still a thing from enemies (I think? not actually sure I've seen much of it yet) -- and that Stormseeker route does reduce your evasion scores meaningfully. (Well, as does using the Amulets.)

Warlord passive healing, nice as it is, is very small -- a 25% chance of 10% healing, when maxed... not super reliable really. I suppose if you're really relying on ripostes, though, you can just defend most of the time. Maybe, with enough extra grinding, that is enough?

[anramses]

Long term, Elf SoulCaller would probably be the best, especially if you really grind. However, however surviving until you you get soul drinker and the power word kill skills would be a nightmare. Probably have to go noble for the stats as well for initiative and damage, which would make start even tougher. However, ability to completely alpha-strike any 6 unit random encounter for 15 mana or a power-word kill is just too strong. stormseeker would also be quite feasible as is warlord. If the auto-circle skill on Sohei had higher proc rate then that would be a game changer.

Ronin problem is lack of healing. Damage-wise it would be a good choice.

[slartifer]

The problem with Soul Caller is that without meaningful evasion, you will die instantly any time either (a) you have bad luck with initiative, or (b) late game enemies use abilities like Heavenly Swords. Which a few of them do use (and without even having to Face the Sky first, as far as I can see)

[IronOctopus]

Originally posted by slartifer:

Long term it seems like the levelling that is obviously required would make Noble a much smarter choice than Commoner -- you'll eventually end up with more skill pts than you need anyway.

I totally agree in the long run noble is the only choice. I just can’t imagine surviving the first fight without access to a multi hit attack.

I actually might try this with a Sohei using the priestly background. I wonder if a lot of points on healing circle would keep you alive long enough to get a couple levels in.

[IronOctopus]

I got krumped first fight over and over till I gave up. -1 for solohei.

[Ienjoyvidyagames]

Healing the damage doesn't seem to be the way to go. The enemies can hurt you so badly that your only options is to dodge or block it.

If you could get lucky with getting a group of enemies that only contains like 3 people, then you can earn enough EXP to level up and then buy more parry and block levels.

On a warlord at least.

I considered ninjas because they have that magic dodge move, but they don't get a counter attack.

The idea of blocking and then retaliating with counters is a pretty good one.

Soul Seekers get great resistances to every status ailment and can straight up buy magic resistance, but they have the weakest parry moves of the front line classes.

It's a tough choice.

[Ienjoyvidyagames]

With more testing, I've found that you can almost always win your first fight if you pick the Tiberius kessen in the beginning.

It deals magical damage and a lot of it, 1 shotting all the dog enemies and allowing you to 1 shot the gremlins.

This gets you to level 3 right away.

[slartifer]

Cool!

I wonder if any other Kessens can accomplish that? Tiberius doesn't do much for a solo character long-term, whereas e.g. Agamon's long-lasting disease debuff could be amazing.

[Ienjoyvidyagames]

Probably. The easiest encounters are the 3 giblings or the 4 corpus creatures.

You have to defend on every turn before you intend to heal using a salve, otherwise you won't be able to heal yourself in time and you'll die.

Once you're able to level up, then you're actually able to grind.

It remains to be seen how long I'll have to grind a warlord to be able to beat a Sapphire Lamia.

I'm thinking I'll switch to an elf storm seeker if I can't win against her.

[IronOctopus]

I was able to use Svolkoroth’s poison to get through the whole first fight vs 3 gibs by just defending.

It’s on now. Solohei is back in action.

[anramses]

Soul caller going strong so far. Just about ready to finish floor 4. Actually been pretty easy so far. Key thing is to manage your empowers. Also go fire to start as many enemies are weak to it in the first few floors.

Also grind on the Yokais that is the most effiecient route especially when you can clear 3 or 4 per run.

[stormseekergames]

There are 2 people doing a solo old school run with a Sohei that I've heard of on the game's discord. One is already into chapter 4.

[Inasogard]

Its rough starting out, but once ya get going its super fun. Im running a Sohei atm, just starting floor 16 and already level 111.

First few levels, is all about getting healing circle up, turtling by using defend, potions and letting Charge vs Spear help you return damage. Some levels you will need to farm for experience before hitting the bosses. Circle of Blight is great for clearing out groups and also for some boss / yokai fights if you can sneak it in there.

A few of the bosses, if you die, pay attention to the mechanics they use, you can get in your Blight Circle one round and Defend the next when he is about to use his big strike. Then the next round ya get first action to use a potion if needed.

[IronOctopus]

I started a warlord sololdschool run last night. The first few levels were really tough. I mostly had to wander around and run from fights until I got free kessens, hope svolkoroth’s poison hit everyone, then defend and hope my parry/block would carry me through a couple turns until they died.

After that, I could use my kessen freely, then get in fights and defend until I generated some charge and run away. Summon cowardice indeed.

But after I was high enough level to respec my points from shield/parry into controlled rage, the whole thing shifted dramatically. Most fights left me with full hp and I could pretty much grind indefinitely.

My plan is to re-max out shield/parry and riposte, then see if I can make it through the first yokai fight just by defending. 50% damage reduction might lower everything to under the 10% threshold for controlled rage.

Incidentally, I noticed that defend says “heals 2% hp” but, at least for this warlord, that’s -maybe- happening once per fight, and often never happening at all. Is there some condition for getting life back on defend I don’t understand, or is it not working properly? 2% doesn’t seem like a lot, but I’m seriously counting on it with this character.