Axlett-Banx

Do you want to feel like an unstoppable juggernaut at all points in the game? Do you like playing solo? Are your favorite buttons Left-Click and W? Then do I have a build for you... As an avid solo player, I've run every class and every play style solo in my decade+ of playing. In my experience, Ravager Barbarian is an S Tier leveler throughout almost the entire game for melees. It has damage, it has durability, it has sustain, and it doesn't need past lives or tomes to do it's job. As such, this build doesn't utilize any tomes or past lives and assumes a 28-point build. Players with access to 32-point builds can choose to put their extra 4 points into Wisdom for a slight boost to Will saves. I chose Human for this build for the extra feat and skill ranks, but you can play any race you like, even Halflings! If you choose not to play Human, simply take Power Attack at level 3, and take Cleave and Great Cleave at levels 15 and 18 respectively. As we level, Falchion is the best in slot weapon type due to it's innate critical threat range. However, you're a Barbarian, if you want to use a Greataxe, who am I to stop you? We'll also want to pick up any Strength and Constitution items, as well as Medium Armors and Sheltering items. Our main low point, in my experience, is right at level 20. Monsters tend to have much higher AC and damage and the difficulty jump between Epic Hard and Epic Elite is huge. If you have access to Saltmarsh, I'm a huge advocate of getting an Epic Saltmarsh set- you can farm it on Heroic Elite at level 20 and you can wear it all the way to level 30. The difficulty should smooth out as you hit levels 21-23, and by 24 you should be feeling like a juggernaut again.

Dragon Disciple is a very strong class for solo play. With access to strong defensive spells (such as Shield, Displacement, and Deathward), high saves, resourceless healing, great single target damage, and decent AoE damage, DD is solid for leveling through almost all points of the game. This build assumes a first life, 28-point build, but works just as well with tomes, 32-points, and/or past lives. If running a 32-point build, I would put either 4 points into Strength for carrying capacity, or 2 points into strength and 2 extra points into Intelligence for UMD skill ranks. If you have 28-points but have access to a +2 Dex tome, you can drop Dex to 15, put 2 points into Strength, and put your level 4 stat increase into Wis instead of Dex. If you have 32-point build AND a +2 Dex tome, drop Dex to 15 and start with 20 Wis. We're also using handwraps for this build. In my opinion, handwraps/TWF works a bit better for lower point-buy builds since you only need to focus on Wisdom, Dexterity, and Constitution. Quarterstaff builds would also need to factor in Strength stat requirements which, while not impossible, is a bit harder to hit. Quarterstaff does have more AoE than handwraps, but that's not a major concern with how much AoE we get from the breath attack SLAs. Plus handwrap animations look super rad.

Many years ago, I set out to make a character that cast spells and fight in melee and excel at both. 75 lives later and I settled on this build... This build hits 34 Bonus Imbue dice, 850~ Cold Spellpower (~900 with arcane warrior stacked, ~1150 with meta's turned on, and another +100 after U81 gear updates), 115 Breath/Burst of Glacial Wrath DCs (roughly 10 more with U81 gear). For Defense, we're at roughly 3k HP with 43 dodge cap, ~300 AC, 95+ on all saves with no fails on 1, 220 PRR, 115 MRR- basically enough to not instantly die all the time. Utility-wise, Hand of Healing is a no maximum cast range AoE heal, Burst of Glacial Wrath plus double Draconic Devastation for some CC, Cold Immunity Strip, Vulnerability Stacking plus Jade Strike damage amp, and (everyone's favorite) Time Stop. This build has AoE for days with dragon breaths, Energy Vortex, and Magus Mantle, but still has great single target damage with unarmed TWF (roughly 2k damage per-hit from just the imbue damage). Is this the strongest build in the game? No. Is it the best? Debatable. Is it really cool and thematic? You bet your sweet bippy.