Any tips and tricks for solo (Normal tips for readers added)

[The Virtual Shadow]

Trying to get all characters to NG+2, started with sorcerer and NG+1 is a bit painful for the sorcerer right now, any set ups and stuff you guys use for the more glass cannon characters?

(Some good tips for newer players by Phenir)

[phenir]

If you haven't already, run to the end of ng0 with all the other characters first for a decent boost to all your stats. Particularly paladin for armor, wizard for spell power, and warlock for resistance. This will also help you stockpile ore for upgrading the town. You'll probably also end up increasing the fame of your guild which means more skillpoints.
Make sure you've unlocked all the characters for their respective town options.
Wizard lets you upgrade your spell power which is really important for sorc. He is unlocked by finding old man hidden behind a cracked wall in act 3
Thief offers drinks which aren't that strong at the beginning of ng1 but in ng0 you can find smelly old man for 2 mana regen, on the run for move speed, and ancient spirit for more damage. If your lucky, you could find double thriller early ng1 for a big damage boost. He's unlocked by freeing him in act 2.
Farm gold on ng0 to get enough for blessings at the church, they're permanent boosts to your character. On sorc, I took skill damage, mana regen, and mana costs since his survivability relies on using skills a lot.
For farming gold, I'd take miner's delight and fool's errand drinks. With this, you'll have 125% gold find still but also get double ore. Ore is a good way to get gold once you fully upgrade the ore trader since it makes each ore you find essentially 500 untaxed gold, 1000 with the drink. If you happen to find shaftlocke pickaxe or markham stone, that's even better. By the end of a successful run, you should be +200-300 ore and a significant chunk of gold. That's enough to buy all 3 tiers of blessings at the church in one go.
Take lots of keys with you, especially silver, and don't skip acts if you are having trouble on later floors, you get more items that way if you have shops active. Also make sure to reroll the town shop to get good items. I usually try to go for 2 markham piece with one being amulet for safety then craft a third piece at anvil for more defense.

[The Virtual Shadow]

So just try to farm as much ore and gold as humanly possible and then stockpile drinks and items to get to beat NG+1 Thundersnow

[phenir]

You don't need to stockpile drinks. When your stock runs out you can buy them with gold.

[The Virtual Shadow]

Fair enough, trying to figure out a good plan for the weaker HP characters vs the paladin and priest.

[qestwriter]

Originally posted by phenir:

If you haven't already, run to the end of ng0 with all the other characters first for a decent boost to all your stats. Particularly paladin for armor, wizard for spell power, and warlock for resistance. This will also help you stockpile ore for upgrading the town. You'll probably also end up increasing the fame of your guild which means more skillpoints.
Make sure you've unlocked all the characters for their respective town options.
Wizard lets you upgrade your spell power which is really important for sorc. He is unlocked by finding old man hidden behind a cracked wall in act 3
Thief offers drinks which aren't that strong at the beginning of ng1 but in ng0 you can find smelly old man for 2 mana regen, on the run for move speed, and ancient spirit for more damage. If your lucky, you could find double thriller early ng1 for a big damage boost. He's unlocked by freeing him in act 2.
Farm gold on ng0 to get enough for blessings at the church, they're permanent boosts to your character. On sorc, I took skill damage, mana regen, and mana costs since his survivability relies on using skills a lot.
For farming gold, I'd take miner's delight and fool's errand drinks. With this, you'll have 125% gold find still but also get double ore. Ore is a good way to get gold once you fully upgrade the ore trader since it makes each ore you find essentially 500 untaxed gold, 1000 with the drink. If you happen to find shaftlocke pickaxe or markham stone, that's even better. By the end of a successful run, you should be +200-300 ore and a significant chunk of gold. That's enough to buy all 3 tiers of blessings at the church in one go.
Take lots of keys with you, especially silver, and don't skip acts if you are having trouble on later floors, you get more items that way if you have shops active. Also make sure to reroll the town shop to get good items. I usually try to go for 2 markham piece with one being amulet for safety then craft a third piece at anvil for more defense.

Thank you for this! :)

[phenir]

I forgot to add some things.
Turn on exceptional consumables in the fountain. It turns those crappy 15 mana refills into pretty good 75 mana and it stacks with apothecary upgrade for 150 mana back. This lets you use skills more freely which means more damage and less risk. In acts 3+, lichs and other casters have a chance to drop mana refills.
For lesser hp characters, and really any character, it's a good idea to agro enemies and then pull back around a tight corner. This forces ranged enemies to group up as they move to get line of sight on you and makes dealing with archers and especially lichs less of a headache. Sorceror in particular can make good use of this with his frost orb by throwing it near the corner so enemies run through it.

[The Virtual Shadow]

Could benefit to re-title the thread to drag new comers here, pretty good stuff to share there. Also i can handle NG+1, its when i get to ThunderSnow on NG+1

[phenir]

Thundersnow is the easiest boss in the game if you fight him a certain way. I always just stand under him, stomps be damned. While standing under/inside him, he won't use any of his attacks besides stomping and wing beats. Most classes will do so much dps under him that he won't live very long and you get a guaranteed potion refill just before the fight. Sorceor, ranger, and wiz all benefit hugely from being inside his hitbox. Sorc and ranger because you can hit him with all your projectiles from spread shot attacks and wiz because fire ground stacks so a couple meteors and he'll melt. Other classes are tanky enough to withstand the stomps. The only thing you need to watch out for is the occasional wing knockbacks when he gets lower health. These can knock you in front of him and trigger his ice breathe. The ice breathe lasts long enough that he might do another knockback and force you into the starting point of the frost breathe which is instant death. Knockback isn't an issue though if you have boots of freedom. If you don't have the boots, then you'll have to pay attention to his wings so you know when to move to the side to avoid the breathe. I've successfully used this "strategy" on all characters up to ng3 and the one class I have cleared ng4 on as well.

[The Virtual Shadow]

Isn't the stomp large covering most of the body and do insane damage.

[phenir]

Yep, it does 315 physical damage according to the wiki, but by that point you'll probably have around 50% or more mitigation from armor. Most classes have some kind of damage reduction that will reduce that even further. Sorc has his frost barrier for another 50% which means they effectively do <80 damage. Easily manageable with potions and you should have ample health if you found/bought markham amulet or some of the lower rarity health items. However, the stomps don't cover the whole body. I'm pretty sure he always alternates them so you can evade them easily or stand to one side so you only ever get hit by one stomp.

[The Virtual Shadow]

If you are quicker then the stomp which isn't always easy, but i do see the idea, though on NG+1 the damage is increased and armor is reduced, have to get as much armor as possible.

[The Virtual Shadow]

Just saw some dude with over 80 items, so much hp regain and stuff and was able to stand in front of the dragon with -1% magic resist and just take almost nothing on NG+6

Once my characters are maxed should be able to handle getting gold and ores for items and such

[Garrett P.I.]

I was trying to finish out the rest of the achievements as well a few months back but hit a wall with all classes on NG+2, even after having completely upgraded the town to max. Here was my setup for each class that made getting past NG+5 cake-

Drinks
1 Crimson Death
2 Incendiary demise
3 last sin
4 wicked sickness
5 starlight slinger

Church blessings
1 shield 20%
2 mana 100%
3 skill cost 25%

Fountain
+ extended floors
+ bigger bottle
+ treasure hunt

-lousy consumables
-enemy reinforcements
-exhausted ore veins

Armor/Shop Items
-Amulet of Vengeance
-Ring of Transmutation
*this entire build hinges on having at least these 2 items in you inventory before you enter the dungeon since it relies on being in combo mode as much as possible. Make sure you have both items attuned. Keep rolling the items at the shop until you get one and then forge the other at the magic anvil.

The rest of these items are not vital, but make the run that much easier, especially if attuned. Personally, when I was rolling the shop items for the Amulet of Vengeance or Ring of Transmutation, I tried to make sure I got one of these items as well. Particularly the Markham gear. I usually got lucky after about 20 or so rolls.
-Staff of volatile casting
-Wand of spell piercing
-sword of kings
-kings scepter
-Markham gear that increases attack and magic
-…there’s an item that puts you in combo mode each time you use a potion. I forget what it was but that was also very helpful

Be sure to grab 15-20 of each key from the shop!

…and that build, along with occasional save scumming, made getting everyone past NG+5 simple. Even Thundersnow with his massive HP pool went down astonishingly fast. I hope you find at least some of that useful. Best of luck!

[The Virtual Shadow]

Seems like i need to start farming a lot of gold, tend to use the shortcuts to try to get to the final fight faster.

[Trashbag]

I'm still pretty new myself, but the things I've found that work are

1. Progression
-Get your first four skills as early as you can. Upgrade the Guild Hall to Level 3 and you should get access to all of them. Many classes only find their full potential when they have a complete tool kit. Some of them like the Thief and the Priest have really good passives too, or perhaps the Warlock who has a really good primary. Consider putting a point or two into those early as well.

-Get the Apothecary, and get all her first tier upgrades. If not all, then ESPECIALLY the extra charge. As a new player, these lifelines may save your ass.

-Get that gold and xp. You'll want as much as possible. Try to open the Tavern so you can start finding the drinks that boost xp and gold gain. Open the fountain and curse yourself with whatever you feel comfortable taking.

Reinforcements and Lousy Consumables are an easy pick for me, but it's up to you whether you want to take things like the trap buff or elite enemies. Never take the confusing potions, Lock Up, or no ore. The latter two are counterintuitive to your gains, and the former WILL end your ass. You'll forget you equipped it, try to drink a potion in the heat of a fight, then run into the enemy and die instantly. You're liable die quicker, but you'll gain WAY faster.

-Get the first tier of Blacksmith upgrades, and maybe go for the second when you have the ore and gold to afford it. This will help you edge out the second and third zone enemies.

-Beating the first and second zones as Paladin is a cinch, but you're likely to hit a wall at Zone 3. However, abusing the methods listed above means you'll be raking in gold on the first two Zones alone, so he makes for a solid early grind class.

-Take the shortcut once to get the combo bonus. DOn't do it after, or you're missing out on an easy 3000+ gold.

-You shouldn't have to worry about the Ore Trader too early, but if you have some ore laying around, drop a couple tiers in that and you can sell extra ore if you happen to be low on cash and need a little more to set up for an extra run. Don't go crazy, though, because you still have a lot of ore to spend.

-Don't spend in dungeon shops unless a). They have a really REALLY good item for around 300, or b). XP boosters.



2. Gameplay
-Circle-strafe. Channel your inner Doomguy and kite melee enemies around in a circle. This is especially valuable for characters who have a melee primary like Paladin, Thief, and Warlock. Thief especially thrives on circle-strafing. His kit practically revolves around it. No pun intended.

That said, some classes are corridor creeps. They may be effective circle-strafers, but might not have the tools to walk into a room full of enemies and just go to town. They'll have to thin the herd. These are your classes like Ranger (who thrives especially on lining up enemies), Priest to some extent, and Warlock. Yes, Warlock is in both classes. If he can find room to start kiting, he does fine, but he's often very defensive and will need to back up and around his enemies to maximize his potential. It's generally ranged enemies that hold these guys back from diving in, so be sure to target them when you can.

-Do not be stingy with your skills. Especially if you're playing a spellcaster. Those mana costs might be daunting at times, but it regenerates faster than you expect, so you shouldn't worry about not having enough. Be liberal with its application.

-Each class is overpowered in their own way. But they also each have significant weaknesses. Learn what those strengths and weaknesses are and play around them.

-Stand right next to dart shooters when you try to pass through them. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but trust me - it makes it way easier to time and position your movements. Plus, you can move down a little if you need a little extra space. This should help you get past the Prison's DEMON POISON ARROW BASTARD TRAP that you can only correctly evade 50% of the time. You'll know it when you see it.

-If you are not confident about where you are in the game, drop your gold and ore ASAP. Better to eat a 24% tax than lose it all.

-Wells refill all your health and mana on top of all your potions. Be sure to exploit that when possible.


That's all I can think of right now. Hope that helps.

EDIT: Did not read the NG+2 bit. Yeah you should probably know all this. Still, this isn't bad for all the really ,REALLY noob bois.