The Perfect Character Build

[RJ 17]

Ever been playing a game which involves building a character's talents and attributes and come across a build that makes you say "Wow...this is pretty much perfect"? The type of build that makes your character nigh unstoppable? Think I've just done that with my Darksiders II Death. I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and decided to go with the "best offense is a great defense" with my stats. All my talent points are in the Zombie Summon and Defense Buff spells, but what I really like is what I've done with my Possessed Weapons (weapons that can eat other weapons to gain their bonuses). I've finally managed to get my full Abyssal Armor set (despite having the game since it came out, I was never able to get it on my first couple playthroughs) which gives big bonuses to my weapon damage, magic damage, defense rating, and critical strike chance. So with the weapons I designed them to give me as high crit damage as possible, as high execution chance as possible, life-drain with every attack, and a high resistance rating so that enemies with elemental attacks aren't nearly as dangerous.

I might not be doing 5K-6K with every critical attack like in a lot of videos that I've watched, but I'm essentially impossible to kill since all my defensive stats are so high. Add to that an execution chance of 60% and I can quickly kill entire rooms full of people with no problems. I just completed The Crucible (a 100 wave survival gauntlet) without breaking a sweat...particularly because every time you pull off an execution in there you get a full-life heal. So yeah, I might not do as much damage as other builds, but it's pretty much impossible for me to die, and with my execution chance so high I still manage to kill things remarkably fast.

TL/DR: In playing Darksiders 2, I've come across a character build that I think is pretty much flawless. What character builds for what games have you come up with that are so good you'd declare them "perfect builds"? Explain the reasoning behind your build's perfection.

I think my Captcha is trying to blow itself up...."This Statement Is False" >.>

 

[WoW Killer]

It wasn't exactly min/max (depending on the content you were running), but my old DDO Acrobat build was something I took a lot of pride in. It wasn't all that viable for endgame raids and stuff, but it could solo a lot of regular content really well. Like really well.

Class split was 13 Rogue / 6 Monk / 1 Ranger. Prestige Enhancements being Acrobat II and Ninja Spy I. You had three different ways to create sneak attacks: you've got Bluff and Feint on separate cooldowns, then also the Dark/Fire combo from the Monk strikes to force out a critical hit, giving you an automatic Blind from a Rad II stick. Resistances were through the roof all around, with Reflex getting to outright silly levels (plus Improved Evasion obviously). AC varied a lot depending on buffs. Had about 50 baseline, which was enough to be unhittable in normal Vale content. Then I could get up to around 80ish self buffed; could solo ADQ with that (too bad that character had no need for a Torc, lol!). Then of course enough UMD to no-fail a Heal Scroll (and use pretty much every buff I wanted). Oh, and this build was fast as anything; both the Acrobat Enhancements and the Monk levels had base movement buffs, and the Ranger splash let me take a sprint boost to go on top. I never did finish getting all the gear I wanted though. I think I worked out I could eventually hit the 100 mark for AC while still getting around the region of 500 HP (and keeping the max UMD of course); would've taken two reincarnations and like four +3 Tomes though.

Haven't played in ages, and I heard they changed a lot of things around which probably wrecks my build. Like I heard they moved a lot of dodge bonuses into a separate percentage based evasion rather than an AC bonus; that'd change a lot of things (not necessarily in a bad way though I guess; might even have meant I could tank epics).

 

[SlaveNumber23]

In Torchlight 2 the Embermage class has an ability which fires multiple homing bolts which deal damage of every element and you could just level up this ability, plus a ton of different passive abilities as well as an ability that buffs your elemental damage. Then you can just stand there spamming the one homing bolts ability and do stupidly strong damage while enemies can't touch you, it takes all of the fun out of the game however.

 

[tilmoph]

In Final Fantasy Tactics, I found a team of all monks, equip armor, with Earth Slash, Wave Fist, and Chakra, with HP Restore for the reaction just would not die and would demolish anything that stood before them. Their base attack was big, their range attacks would ruin basically anything, they had more HP than anyone else, they could run around healing each other, and with Revive they could raise each other from the dead (though that one was pissy about height differentials). And you still had an action set and a movement set to play with. Of course, any magic user with math skills plus Holy was basically a big "Fuck this" button, as long as they weren't actually calculators, since those nerds sucked ass.

 

[lacktheknack]

In Geneforge 2, I made a Guardian who was really, really good at parry and had high endurance.

What this means:

Arrows or spears = cut from the air.
Magic: Did less damage because of endurance.
Melee: 95% chance of the attacker taking damage themselves.

I also pumped points into his mechanics skills and leadership skills (allowing me to access areas diplomatically/sneakily), all while doing a "no-canister run".

So while my Guardian had pretty much no skill in shaping or magic (shaping is the whole gimmick of the game), he was utterly untouchable in combat, could navigate minefields and could sweet-talk his way into hidden areas. So yeah, as far as getting everywhere and fighting everything goes, he was essentially perfect.

 

[Rylot]

I was building a Half-Orc Rogue for D&D 4e that was a beast. I can't remember how I got there but he could do something like 4d6+7 sneak attack with a shuriken from range at first level. It was nuts. Went with a healing Shaman though, since three other party members chose striker as well.

 

[Plucky]

if i recall, in Final Fantasy Legend, female Mutants had higher agility than Male Mutants, Agility determined some sort of weapon damage and dodge chance whilst Male Mutants generally used swords or something, another similar situation is Kingdom of Loathing's Moxie classes and Saucerors.

In KoL's case, Moxie classes "plink" damage by maximizing their moxie (basically some sort of ranged-orientated stat) that boosted range weapon damage chance and dodging, once you passed enough moxie, you could essentially dodge enemy attacks outside of critical hits, in the case of Saucerors, they could become potential MP fountains by activating Sauce Buffs by tuning their elemental damage and inflicting enough damage (also can be helped by Spell damage bonuses) to absorb more MP/HP from Sauce Spheres than you started with and exerted casting them in the first place. (in game lingo, we call this Sauce Stasis)

Did i mention that KoL is a turn-based combat daily mmo dealie with a limited amount of adventure turns, a semi-intricate system of adventure generation, and an actual New Game Plus for 6 (and more, if counting challenge path) classes..if you consider some of the skills the other classes can learn, you could permanently learn those skills for future lives, turning the lame classes (usually Seal Clubber or Pastamancer) into something more tolerable and burly.

 

[Tallim]

if i recall, in Final Fantasy Legend, female Mutants had higher agility than Male Mutants, Agility determined some sort of weapon damage and dodge chance whilst Male Mutants generally used swords or something, another similar situation is Kingdom of Loathing's Moxie classes and Saucerors.

In KoL's case, Moxie classes "plink" damage by maximizing their moxie (basically some sort of ranged-orientated stat) that boosted range weapon damage chance and dodging, once you passed enough moxie, you could essentially dodge enemy attacks outside of critical hits, in the case of Saucerors, they could become potential MP fountains by activating Sauce Buffs by tuning their elemental damage and inflicting enough damage (also can be helped by Spell damage bonuses) to absorb more MP/HP from Sauce Spheres than you started with and exerted casting them in the first place. (in game lingo, we call this Sauce Stasis)

Did i mention that KoL is a turn-based combat daily mmo dealie with a limited amount of adventure turns, a semi-intricate system of adventure generation, and an actual New Game Plus for 6 (and more, if counting challenge path) classes..if you consider some of the skills the other classes can learn, you could permanently learn those skills for future lives, turning the lame classes (usually Seal Clubber or Pastamancer) into something more tolerable and burly.

*sigh* Sealclubber used to be so good before they nerfed Lunging Thrust Smack.... Still KOL is an amazing game

 

[Arrogancy]

In my Dragon Age: Origins game, I ran a mage who was broken as all hell.

I invested in the Primal tree to get access to some basic damaging spells, mostly though, I wanted Fireball. It's by far away the game's best initiating ability that does good damage. I also spent most of my points in the Entropy tree, giving me access to a number of spells perfect for softening up the opposition.

I specialized in Arcane Warrior and Blood Magic which topped off my abilities. Arcane Warrior allowed my mage to wear heavy armor and just be invincible hacking away on the enemy when all else failed, while Blood Magic gave me a secondary casting resource and access to some of the game's most broken spells. Both incentivized that I invest in constitution and magic as attributes, which just helped with making me impervious and heavy-hitting.

Every fight I initiate with Fireball which knock-backed the enemy, then followed up with Blood Boil which locked down the enemy, all the while dealing huge damage to them. Add on debuffs screwing over their defenses, paralyzing them, and ruining their attacks and there was no response any enemy could mount. Even if they survived all my spells, being an Arcane Warrior meant that I could go toe-to-toe in a melee contest and simply beat them to death over time.

 

[SoranMBane]

In Fallout: New Vegas (and presumably the other Fallout games as well, although I haven't tried in those), if you bring your Intelligence stat up to 9 or 10 right out of the gate, you'll be able to max out damn near every skill by the end of the game, especially if you make strategic use of all the skill books. You don't even necessarily have to give up on your other stats, since you can bring those up to par later using perks, equipment, and purchasable upgrades. Do it right, and you can create a character that always knows what to do in every possible situation; someone who can pick locks and hack computers on the fly, use literally any weapon effectively, treat deadly injuries that actual doctors can't even handle, and talk down the final boss, all at the same time. It's actually kind of silly, but at least the game makes you work and plan for your Mary Sue.

 

[Tomaius]

How many references to obscure RPGs? Several and now lets add some more:

Lost Odyssey, I'm fairly certain this was the intention but: There are two kinds of characters, immortals and mortals. To cut a long story short, Immortals have much better stats and auto revive after a few turns, but they have to learn skills and magic from mortal characters. With a bit of grinding, you could gain all the skills from the mortal characters and thus you only had to use immortal characters who are hard as rock and hit like trucks.

 

[Kilt'd]

Not a unique build, but in Fallout 3 GOTY, if you start with an intelligence score of 10 and use the right perks, skill books and bobble heads you can max out every skill. Then, a later perk called 'Almost Perfect' allows you to raise all S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats to 9. After that you can collect each S.P.E.C.I.A.L bobble head for a +1 to the relevant stat, making a 'perfect' character.

I don't know if this is possible in New Vegas because of the removal of bobble heads and some skill perks, but the extra 20 levels available with DLC may cancel that out. My work on my next character for New Vegas allows for at least 7 skills at maximum without wearing skill boosting gear or min-maxing, and I could get it to more if I wanted to collect all the skill books in this play through.

 

[Johnny Impact]

I deliberately avoid "broken" builds. I want games to be a challenge. There is zero challenge in looking up some guy's Skyrim poison stealth archer one-shot build on the Internet and just copying what he did. My wizard had to manage half a dozen things at once, all while keeping his distance from the enemy. It wasn't even close to the optimal build, but I liked what I was doing. Sure, I died a few times, but I felt much more engaged. I did eventually enchant gear which lowered my mana costs enough to make the character feel *almost* broken......

 

[Lilani]

I don't mind powerful builds as long as I still have fun. I had a stealth/bow character in Skyrim, and even though it was cheap and easy I still had fun. For some reason it never got old--sneaking through a dungeon and picking everybody off one by one. It was especially fun when my sneak skill got so high that all I had to do was crouch and they'd run by me even if I was standing right in front of them. So yeah, just maxing out on stealth and ranged turned out to be a pretty big winner in Skyrim for me.

Though in Kingdom Hearts I found it rather boring to get the best equipment. Part of what makes the KH battle system so satisfying is landing those combos and watching your enemies explode into little munny and HP balls on the last hit of the combo. But you can get to a point where you're killing them on the first and second blows, and you can't even land a full combo unless you have a huge swarm after you. It's just not as fun that way :<

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Etrian Odyssey 1: Medic + Immunize = faceroll to win.

Some of the builds I had for Maya and Gauge in Borderlands 2 were pretty much broken, and I haven't played it in a while. Now with the higher cap I imagine that I might finally have actual fun playing TVHM, but the new 3rd "we still have no idea how to balance this game" difficulty mode probably sucks just as much ass.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Fallout: New Vegas let's you break the game to hell and back if you know how to.

Rushing to the special magnetic energy sniper rifle and one-shotting most of the enemies in the game, using the "Pyromaniac" perk to double the damage of the already amazing Shiskebab, rolling a high-luck character and abusing the gambling system to gain practically infinite money, using Boon to murder everything, using VATS to kill everything, rolling a high INT character and maxing out everything, crit-stacking by taking all the perks that increase your crit chance, abusing the "Dead Money" DLC to get infinite stimpacks, abusing the "Old World Blues" DLC to get the armor that auto-uses stimpacks...

Probably the best part of Fallout: New Vegas was grabbing all the overpowered items and abilities and then applying them liberally.

 

[thejackyl]

About the only thing I can think of was my Sorceress from Diablo 2.

From levels 6-31, she's practically worthless because of saving points, from level 32+ I'm popping a point into:

Frozen Orb
Meteor
Ice Mastery
Fire Mastery
AND all their synergy skills

Every Level. By level 44, I could solo act 1-2 on Hell with very little difficulty (Duriel was still a pain). And don't get me started on my Necromancer... He was so OP I crashed other players (summoners ftw), he could solo Hell naked provided he could get a few initial kills.

Other than that, Fallout.

I forgot my starting build, but I had 10 Strength, Perception, Endurance, Intelligence, and Agility, 2 Charisma, and 8 Luck. 14 Action Points, Aimed shots with 95% accuracy from maximum range, low cost and 50% crit chance or higher. And the best part? It was all completely legit. Only had a small bit of sequence breaking (going to the BoS outpost first instead of the town you're expected to.)

 

[ItsNotRudy]

In Fallout: New Vegas (and presumably the other Fallout games as well, although I haven't tried in those), if you bring your Intelligence stat up to 9 or 10 right out of the gate, you'll be able to max out damn near every skill by the end of the game, especially if you make strategic use of all the skill books. You don't even necessarily have to give up on your other stats, since you can bring those up to par later using perks, equipment, and purchasable upgrades. Do it right, and you can create a character that always knows what to do in every possible situation; someone who can pick locks and hack computers on the fly, use literally any weapon effectively, treat deadly injuries that actual doctors can't even handle, and talk down the final boss, all at the same time. It's actually kind of silly, but at least the game makes you work and plan for your Mary Sue.

While it's possible to do so when doing everything perfectly and turning over every stone in the right order, just casually playing through I prefer my Brotherhood build. Focusing on Unarmed and Energy Weapons, since some of the stats overlay nicely. And all your basic weapon and armor needs are centered in one place, where the ammo is also easy to find. I usually start the game by sneaking from Goodsprings to Veronica for early Brotherhood access.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXEGt_zRBwQ mini-guide I recorded if anyone is interested)
Otherwise Energy weapons are fairly non-existant the first 5 hours.

I find Energy weapons convenient to take down enemies from a larger distance, if there is an elevation difference/water in the way (Honest Hearts Im looking at you) or simply for ass shootouts (like visiting McCarran as a Legion supporter) Unarmed weapons (lol) are good for smaller brawls and fighting tough bosses, as Unarmed items can stun or knockback.

 

[Mordekaien]

You know, how in DnD when your paladin sins he loses all of his abilities till he repents and gains his god's favor again? Well as it turns out, in Neverwinter nights 1 you still retain your abilities, even though you can't take another paladin level. So, you can make a paladin, give him mediocre strength, constitution and dexterity, but make his charisma pretty high. Then play as a good guy till, about level 10 after that you should have all the skill points and feats required for blackguard prestige class. Then you proceed and slughter the nearest npcs, choose all the evil options, et voila! You have paladin/blackguard, that has all of his abilities and bonuses from both classes. And those saving throws based on charisma? They do stack.

So I ended the game being a beast that couldn't be killed by anything, and could use both divine strenght/ bull's strenght and other things you get from being blackguard and paladin. And you get a sneak attack too.
It was so horribly broken I had to start again to have somewhat challenging game again. Having like +12 on all saving throws was huge.