Build: Weapon: [Any weapon you like as long as it doesn't provide negative stats] At the moment I believe Starchild Claymore is the best for this build. Helmet: Wolf Plate Full-Helm with the Calm Soul Enchantment Body Armor: Candle Plate Armor with the Shelter Enchantment Boots: Wolf Plate Boots with the Aegis Enchantment Backpack: Dusk Backpack Tent: Luxury Tent Faction Holy Mission (Divine Assistance, DON'T GET EXHALTED) Be sure to also get the Elatt's Intervention passive in New Sirocco Skilltrees Skilltree 1: Cabal Hermit Skilltree 2: Warrior Monk (Master of Motion, Flash Onslaught) Skilltree 3: Primal Ritualist (Nuturing Echo) Other important items -Virgin Lantern with the Copper Flame Enchantment (Curse) -Astral Pistol (Scorched, Chill) -Chimera Pistol (Elemental Vulnerability) -Ghost Drum (Haunted) -Sky Chimes (Doomed) -Lexicon with the Inheritance of the Past Enchantment (Casting runes and additional mana regeneration) Other important skills -All elemental boons -Steady Arm -Fitness -Flamethrower -Rune: Dez -Rune: Egoth -Frost Bullet -Armor Training -Efficiency -Torment A little more breakdown: This means that we take 40% less physical and impact damage from Weaken, and 65% less elemental damage, all this before protection/barrier/resistances are considered. There is enough barrier on the build to fully remove any elemental damage from any enemy in the game if the damage they deal is purely in a single element (given hexes/sapped are applied). Because we have balanced our elemental resistances, barrier will always reduce the highest damaging element. This effect is pronounced in enemies which have skewed damage and ignores half of our resistances such as medyse as the barrier will target the correct element (further information in the description). If there are multiple elements, barrier will let through the least damaging element which will then get reduced by our high elemental resistances to Ethereal, Fire and Lightning damage (90%). In the cases where we are fighting an enemy with equal damage in two elements and they have the ability to ignore half of our resitances then we won't be penalized much by it compared to a full resistance build as we will typically have 45% resistances compared to their 50% resistance. Incoming physical damage is almost fully negated by protection. The few enemies which ignore half of our resistances and deals high physical damage, that being the gargoyles, only does around 6 damage (or 3 damage which would require a food buff). For other enemies the protection and resistance together with the weaken hex almost fully bring the damage down to zero. Lastly the impact damage of enemies is not handled well by protection. This is the case because some enemies have 200+ impact damage. Protection isn't going to do anything, even if weaken is applied. The impact resistance of 82% is the highest that I can get without sacrificing the balanced resistances, all elemental resistances, or barrier (which is required to be 27). An ideal tank build needs to handle all the following cases on a single build configuration without swaps: -Impact Damage (300 impact) -Physical Damage (80 physical damage) -High single-elemental damage (75 elemental damage) -Multi-elemental balanced damage (Up to 5 elements at a time) -Multi-elemental skewed damage (From 2 elements at a time, only particular combinations) -Ignore resistance physical damage (60 physical damage) -Ignore resistance skewed multi-elemental damage (Up to 20 damage in one of the damage types)
A more tanky variation by using the Lantern of Souls. To accommodate for the higher ethereal resistance of the lantern we can sacrifice 10 ethereal resistance from out setup. Thus, we can swap to the White Kintsugi Helmet, and the Blue Sand Boots. This will give 100 resistances to Ethereal, Fire, Lightning, and Decay (with weather defense), as well as a higher impact resistance of 86. The lower frost resistance is covered by barrier. This means that you can tank the strongest attacks from the Elite Crimson Avatar without taking damage, as well as the Elite Torcrab (which technically have the highest dps in the game).
Barrier is misconceptually implemented imo. It should block every elemental instance instead of covering your weakness. Protection doesn't discriminate from melee weapons and arrows, for example. It just acts. But hey you really found your way nevertheless! Props!
Because both hexes and sapped reduce enemy elemental damage, that might make barrier a bit broken if it was applied to every elemental instance. I think if they removed the hexes reducing the damage dealt then I think it could be fine. That would put it on the same level as physical damage (which only has 40% reduction). Having a way to reduce the damage by 65% (40%+25%) is just a bit too strong when combined with flat damage reduction. Edit: In a way I kinda like the way barrier only applies to a single element because that makes it really unique compared to resistance. It fulfills a specific role. It's just non-intuitive. Not sure what I would do to improve it though. I actually hope they make protection work similar to barrier in Outward 2 given they are expanding physical damage into slash stab and crush.
@Lesser-Flame one common problem is that some people use Nexus mods.The mods on there are typically for older versions of Outward. I would stick to Thunderstore. Sheenshots has a nice installation guide for Outward mods: th-cam.com/video/PTliQl1PglU/w-d-xo.html Edit: Additionally mods now are made for Definitive Edition. They are not necessarily backwards compatible with Outward because different Unity versions
Build:
Weapon: [Any weapon you like as long as it doesn't provide negative stats] At the moment I believe Starchild Claymore is the best for this build.
Helmet: Wolf Plate Full-Helm with the Calm Soul Enchantment
Body Armor: Candle Plate Armor with the Shelter Enchantment
Boots: Wolf Plate Boots with the Aegis Enchantment
Backpack: Dusk Backpack
Tent: Luxury Tent
Faction
Holy Mission (Divine Assistance, DON'T GET EXHALTED)
Be sure to also get the Elatt's Intervention passive in New Sirocco
Skilltrees
Skilltree 1: Cabal Hermit
Skilltree 2: Warrior Monk (Master of Motion, Flash Onslaught)
Skilltree 3: Primal Ritualist (Nuturing Echo)
Other important items
-Virgin Lantern with the Copper Flame Enchantment (Curse)
-Astral Pistol (Scorched, Chill)
-Chimera Pistol (Elemental Vulnerability)
-Ghost Drum (Haunted)
-Sky Chimes (Doomed)
-Lexicon with the Inheritance of the Past Enchantment (Casting runes and additional mana regeneration)
Other important skills
-All elemental boons
-Steady Arm
-Fitness
-Flamethrower
-Rune: Dez
-Rune: Egoth
-Frost Bullet
-Armor Training
-Efficiency
-Torment
A little more breakdown:
This means that we take 40% less physical and impact damage from Weaken, and 65% less elemental damage, all this before protection/barrier/resistances are considered.
There is enough barrier on the build to fully remove any elemental damage from any enemy in the game if the damage they deal is purely in a single element (given hexes/sapped are applied). Because we have balanced our elemental resistances, barrier will always reduce the highest damaging element. This effect is pronounced in enemies which have skewed damage and ignores half of our resistances such as medyse as the barrier will target the correct element (further information in the description).
If there are multiple elements, barrier will let through the least damaging element which will then get reduced by our high elemental resistances to Ethereal, Fire and Lightning damage (90%). In the cases where we are fighting an enemy with equal damage in two elements and they have the ability to ignore half of our resitances then we won't be penalized much by it compared to a full resistance build as we will typically have 45% resistances compared to their 50% resistance.
Incoming physical damage is almost fully negated by protection. The few enemies which ignore half of our resistances and deals high physical damage, that being the gargoyles, only does around 6 damage (or 3 damage which would require a food buff). For other enemies the protection and resistance together with the weaken hex almost fully bring the damage down to zero.
Lastly the impact damage of enemies is not handled well by protection. This is the case because some enemies have 200+ impact damage. Protection isn't going to do anything, even if weaken is applied. The impact resistance of 82% is the highest that I can get without sacrificing the balanced resistances, all elemental resistances, or barrier (which is required to be 27).
An ideal tank build needs to handle all the following cases on a single build configuration without swaps:
-Impact Damage (300 impact)
-Physical Damage (80 physical damage)
-High single-elemental damage (75 elemental damage)
-Multi-elemental balanced damage (Up to 5 elements at a time)
-Multi-elemental skewed damage (From 2 elements at a time, only particular combinations)
-Ignore resistance physical damage (60 physical damage)
-Ignore resistance skewed multi-elemental damage (Up to 20 damage in one of the damage types)
A more tanky variation by using the Lantern of Souls. To accommodate for the higher ethereal resistance of the lantern we can sacrifice 10 ethereal resistance from out setup. Thus, we can swap to the White Kintsugi Helmet, and the Blue Sand Boots. This will give 100 resistances to Ethereal, Fire, Lightning, and Decay (with weather defense), as well as a higher impact resistance of 86. The lower frost resistance is covered by barrier. This means that you can tank the strongest attacks from the Elite Crimson Avatar without taking damage, as well as the Elite Torcrab (which technically have the highest dps in the game).
Barrier is misconceptually implemented imo. It should block every elemental instance instead of covering your weakness. Protection doesn't discriminate from melee weapons and arrows, for example. It just acts.
But hey you really found your way nevertheless! Props!
Because both hexes and sapped reduce enemy elemental damage, that might make barrier a bit broken if it was applied to every elemental instance. I think if they removed the hexes reducing the damage dealt then I think it could be fine. That would put it on the same level as physical damage (which only has 40% reduction). Having a way to reduce the damage by 65% (40%+25%) is just a bit too strong when combined with flat damage reduction.
Edit: In a way I kinda like the way barrier only applies to a single element because that makes it really unique compared to resistance. It fulfills a specific role. It's just non-intuitive. Not sure what I would do to improve it though. I actually hope they make protection work similar to barrier in Outward 2 given they are expanding physical damage into slash stab and crush.
how did you get the mods to work my guy? All my mods dont work since they are no longer being updated by their creators.
@Lesser-Flame one common problem is that some people use Nexus mods.The mods on there are typically for older versions of Outward. I would stick to Thunderstore. Sheenshots has a nice installation guide for Outward mods:
th-cam.com/video/PTliQl1PglU/w-d-xo.html
Edit: Additionally mods now are made for Definitive Edition. They are not necessarily backwards compatible with Outward because different Unity versions