Are all NG+ difficulties up to NG+7 supposed to be soloable? (For the class lvl 60 achievements)

[Yours truly, Garbage]

I recently completed NG+3 on the warlock, who I thought to be a godly character... yet it took probably the best run I've ever bloody seen to just BARELY get me through. I cannot imagine taking on any difficulty above it... (best run referring to having items such as: King's Crown, Phoenix Feather, Boots of Freedom, Markham's Amulet, Sceptre of Kings, 5x Armor of King's, Amulet of Kings, Descending Destruction several skill power upgrades and lots of other primary attack power increasing/damage adding items and tons of health upgrades)

My ranger and paladin had no problems getting through at all, even though neither one of their runs was anywhere near as great, I'm actually frightened to think about having to do the same with all other characters aswell though... I try going for Paladin, Warlock, Ranger and Priest first as they have the most important class-title bonuses (imo) that might help other characters get through easier... yet still have no hopes for anything beyond NG+3.

Am I just that awful at the game or do I need to pray for the most ungodly of RNG for every single run from now on, hoping not to get blown into ash by thunderboi?

[Fobbe]

As I am only NG+3 myself I can't quite say something to the higher NG's, but I think that with prper preparations, like fountain buffs, other high rank characters, upgraded items for your character at the anvil, a kind of strategie(focus elites first, what rooms first,....) and then it should be quite solveable.

[Adelion]

Yes, they are supposed to be soloable. However, the further you get the more preparation you have to invest. For later difficulties there is a tavern drink which gives you +40 magic damage on primary attack which gives quite a boost. A popular strategy is also "Comboing" in combination with the drink. This means you attune the Amulet of Vengeance and buy it in shop or craft it on anvil before starting the run. In addition you take the drink for 200 % damage while in combo.

With this setting you have a high primary attack which hurts yourself and as such regularly triggers the Amulet of Vengeance, activating combo with increased damage. Has the drawback that you need some kind of sustain for hitpoints and outside of combo you are not dealing much damage. For sustain you can either take other drinks like health on skills (although not suited for all classes), the chapel upgrade or class inhereit skill like the priest rune. You have to adjust from class to class. You could technically take the Bloothirst Ring as well but you use the second blue item slot better for something like Markham's Amulet or the Amulet of Kings (on lower NG+). You should also start every run with one crafted blue item from the anvil and all shop items bought. You can reroll the shop until you get one of the wished blue items.

In addition, you should upgrade all characters on parallel if possible. The Ranger for example lives from its primary attack crit damage and synergizes well with the Gladiator's guild bonus. The Warlock is a "hybrid" which really benefits from the Wizard's Skill Power Guild bonus. Also the Sorcerer is halfway mandatory as he increases the mana regeneration which helps a lot for the mana eating classes like the Priest, the Warlock, the Wizard and itself.

On the fountain you would do good with Treasure Hunt and Glass Walks as they increase the found items. As negative I usually use Lousy Consumables and More Enemy Overseers (also slightly increasing item count) and recently Miner's Strike. The last one is only recommandable if you are sure you can beat the dragon. Without it you have fork out 9450 gold per run though. If you have the cash it should be okay.

There are other strategies and set-ups which work well too but this should be more than enough to get NG+7 done.

If EVERYTHING ELSE fails you could think about purchasing the DLC which unlocks the Arena and the statues. Both of them can provide quite the boost to your characters. But they are not necessary in the slightest.

[Shurenai]

As covered by those above, yes, it's fully plausible to do up to +7, and even higher solo.. But it definitely will take more prep and knowledge about the game with each passing NG+ - Also, NG+3 is the last new game in which the enemies gain new mechanics, so every run from NG+4 to NG+7 for your warlock now is only scaling the damage you take and the damage required to kill any given enemy.

There are a number of ways of building to accomplish your goals, but if you have the DLC, it reaaaaally helps to go do the DLC for a bit and unlock the statues, and pick ones that synergize with your playstyle, as well every NG that you clear in the pyramid gives you 10 more skill points that you can use attuning things in your anvil. Picking the right drinks, picking the right items from the shop, crafting an item from the anvil, it all adds up.

A skill based warlock for example would want a setup something like this;

Drinks: Evil Infusion, Frenetic Eruption, Wicked Sickness, Starlight Stinger, and Elemental Bruiser.
Starting items: Lucky Hat and Staff of Volatile Casting. (Get one from rerolling in the shop and try to pair it with other useful items at the same time, and craft the other at the anvil. you also want both of these attuned for sure)
Statues: Cedric, Bolgarth, and Wylmir (From the DLC, these make a huge difference)
Blessings: Path of the Magician, Blessing of Intellect, Symbol of Focus, and Divine Strike.
-
All in all, this set up will give you a crazy amount of damage, and the evil infusion drink will in turn make all that damage become a large quantity of survivability for you in the form of skill based life steal.

Edit: Also forgot, if you have the DLC, do the arena some and upgrade your armor/resist at the old gladiator with the arena swords (Try to avoid buying attack and skill power here)

[Yours truly, Garbage]

I have upgraded all characters fully, by that I mean magic shop, blacksmith and potion wise, aswell as got all tiers of the blessings from the chapel for them, I tried "easing" down my run by using the fountain with certain buffs, most recently the treasure hunt one for more items, was obviously using the shop in town before attempting a run and crafted a defensive item that I attuned at the anvil, the only thing I never really tried so far was using drinks, I only really used them for gold and ore farming runs, aswell as experience...

as for the arena, I have a few characters at rank 5-10 but not all of them, it sounds quite mendatory though so I might try ranking them all up a bit....

as for progression I keep my characters all on the same tier of progression, or atleast I try, meaning I try beating one difficulty on all of them and level them all to their newly unlocked level cap before moving on the higher difficulty to not only keep them the same balance but also to unlock their guild bonuses which seems to help a good bit.

I might try the recommended "comboing" strategy, something I never thought of but it sounds quite effective.
Thanks for the tips

[Shurenai]

Oh; I forgot to list fountain buffs/debuffs... Personally the setup I use, but it can be a bit dangerous if you're not used to it is the following:

Positive: Expanded Floors, Gentle Traps, Toppled Towers, Safe Corridors, Plentiful Gifts, Abundant Shops, Glass Walks, Treasure Hunt
Negative: Lousy consumables, Enemy Reinforcements, Elite Reinforcements, Relentless Threats, Enemy Overseers, Miners' Strike, Agile Adversaries, Dry Springs
- Which comes out to +40% gold and exp, You can drop dry springs to get only +5% if you feel the need to use potions frequently.

The primary bread winners in this setup though, are Expanded Floors, Plentiful Gifts, Glass Walks, Treasure Hunt, and enemy Overseers, as it maximizes the amount of items you can get which makes the run so much smoother. Imps and Minibosses have a chance to drop items which is why you want those as well.

Abundant Shops helps you with picking the items you need out of the shop as it gives you a total of 7 options to choose from (9 with fancy plume)

Gentle Traps, Toppled Towers, and Safe Corridors mean you never have to deal with traps unless you want to for an item, you'll never get trapped between death and a hallway of traps, you'll never accidentally get caught in a room with a gargoyle statue makin things difficult, and you can actually take a hit from a trap without instantly dying due to gentle traps. Overall these make the run go a lot smoother.

All the negatives are to pay for the positives. Elite Reinforcements is the most dangerous among them, only select it if you're confident in handling the elite enemies (red hooded archers, red wisps in act 4, etc), Agile Adversaries seems bad at first, but once you're used to the speed increase its actually really easy to deal with for the price you get from it. Relentless Threats arent much of an issue at all, it makes them appear 1 minute sooner than normal, and more frequently thereafter, but if you're attentive and careful you'll never be engaging a threat -and- normal enemies if you know you arent capable of it. Miners strike is basically, you're at the point that you may as well just carry your gold and ore with you, since you dont have a lot left to purchase, your town is maxed, your upgrades are maxed, and so its kindof a freebie as long as you're cautious.

[Whateverman]

Good tips. I'm currently struggling with NG4 on my Ranger, and some of these ideas will help - thanks!

[Darkness]

Just finished Tower NG+7 then NG+8 on my Ranger, and it was really easy.

The +40 damage drink changed my life, and made me main my ranger again.

To be more safe, you can roll shops until you have 2 items from the Markham's set, and then you forge another - you'll be able to start with extra resistances, and the more items you get, the stronger you'll get. This snowball option makes it easier to offset the negative defense/resistance eventually, not to mention a nice constant boost on everything.

But of course there're other priority items you can shoose to be more offensive, or to fit more your character's role.

On fountain, I'm always using these:
Expanded Floors +1 (sometimes, it makes more safe to finish as you'll have more items, but takes quite longer)
Genle Traps +2 (so I can rush on some traps without dying)
Plentiful Gifts +4 (Imps can give tons of Ore on later levels, sometimes extra items)
Glass Walks +6 (more loot potential per run)
Treasure Hunt +6 (more loot potential per run)
Enemy Overseers -5 (more loot potential)
Miner's Strike -6
Agile Adversaries -6

Statues from the DLC also increase a lot your potential, but I haven't really farmed them to make them shine.

I'd say the main problem is the class you're going for. Paladin, Rogue and Ranger are easier, at least for me - I guess casters only shine with the proper statues leveled, and tons of guild bonuses.

Either way, finishing the game with alts will give you guild bonuses and increase your potential. Most of my alts have +1 or +2, and were carried in multiplayer games.

[Yours truly, Garbage]

Originally posted by Darkness:

Just finished Tower NG+7 then NG+8 on my Ranger, and it was really easy.

The +40 damage drink changed my life, and made me main my ranger again.

To be more safe, you can roll shops until you have 2 items from the Markham's set, and then you forge another - you'll be able to start with extra resistances, and the more items you get, the stronger you'll get. This snowball option makes it easier to offset the negative defense/resistance eventually, not to mention a nice constant boost on everything.

But of course there're other priority items you can shoose to be more offensive, or to fit more your character's role.

On fountain, I'm always using these:
Expanded Floors +1 (sometimes, it makes more safe to finish as you'll have more items, but takes quite longer)
Genle Traps +2 (so I can rush on some traps without dying)
Plentiful Gifts +4 (Imps can give tons of Ore on later levels, sometimes extra items)
Glass Walks +6 (more loot potential per run)
Treasure Hunt +6 (more loot potential per run)
Enemy Overseers -5 (more loot potential)
Miner's Strike -6
Agile Adversaries -6

Statues from the DLC also increase a lot your potential, but I haven't really farmed them to make them shine.

I'd say the main problem is the class you're going for. Paladin, Rogue and Ranger are easier, at least for me - I guess casters only shine with the proper statues leveled, and tons of guild bonuses.

Either way, finishing the game with alts will give you guild bonuses and increase your potential. Most of my alts have +1 or +2, and were carried in multiplayer games.

I recently beat NG+3 on all characters and am moving onto NG+4 now, which my ranger and paladin have already beaten that aswell, especially my ranger does not seem to have any problems with these difficulties, I completed NG+4 on my very first try, whereas my paladin already struggled quite a bit more, my ranger didn't even have an amazing run either in terms of items...

But yeah, I started using
Expanded floors, gentle traps, safe corridors, glass walk, treasure hunt and destroyed spawners with lousy consumables, miners' strike, agile adversaries and enemy overseers this seems to maximize item potential and also make the game a bit easier overall.
I should probably try ranking up my characters in the arena as some of them have no ranks at all and dependingly have no defensive bonuses

[Darkness]

You're doing quite well, imo, I think I'll try going as far as I can with my ranger, and probably dump the game, haha. I don't find it funny enough to play with most classes to keep finishing the game with them.

Anyway, do you have any strategies with drinks, starting items (shop + magical anvil) and statues? That's as far as we can try to optimize (and farm, in regards to statues) to make NG+ easier.

Also, I'm no expert or anything, I started playing "recently" and just got into my first hundred hours in, haha...

[FlyingSockCat]

Beat at least the normal game as every character for that sweet guild bonus, and then attuning items at the anvil gets hella useful in the higher NG+s. I found attuning the stormcaller and earthsplitter as some of the best options, as it increases their bonus attack chance to 20%