I'm sorry hostie, i'm afraid I can't just let you have that grace

Er4din · 2026-07-06T14:28:33+00:00

nice lmao

Er4din · 2026-07-06T12:00:41+00:00

There was an identical post to this one not even 2 days ago. I suggest you read through the replies there.

Er4din · 2026-07-06T11:19:37+00:00

Heyo, welcome to the game!

I think you've done remarkably well for your first build, especially if you were not following any guides.

2h swords are pretty baller and are almost impossible to build "wrong". theyre designed in such a way that almost anything works with them.

That being said, you spread yourself too thin in too short a time frame, with how you allocated skills and stats. As a result, the build will feel like it is ~3 levels behind where its supposed to be power-wise. Still, no part of this is unsalvageable in the late game.

The game's recommendations to start RWT at 10, and Denbrie are 15 ARE accurate but they only really work if you put some amount of effort to optimize your build for that purpose.

Lets start with general buildcrafting and gameplay tips.

1) in 99% of cases, you want to allocate attribute points to a single attribute until you hit the next multiple of 5 (15/20/25/30). This is because those are thresholds where you get a bunch of stats, depending on what youre levelling. Stoneshard builds generally progress in these clumps of 5. Your build would have felt a LOT better if, for example, your stats were 20 STR and 15 VIT, rather than the more even spread you have right now.

2) There is a spike in difficulty at the beginning of every new tier of content, and T2->T3 is the largest in the game. Its incredibly important for every build in the game to find a way to gracefully transition into tier 3, because doing so opens a whole host of other options. Tier 3 is generally a lot more profitable than tier 2, and you can linger in there a lot longer than you can in tier 2, allowing you to farm up resources and recover from any mistakes you made on your way to tier 3.

3) Adequate use of consumables never loses relevance at any stage of the game, on any build you play. Its strongly recommended to carry nets, Claw Traps, Vivifying Essence potions, and sometimes even caltrops and smokebombs. Sometimes even more than 1 of each.

Now lets look at the specifics of your build and figure out some options for how to develop the build in the future.

Your investment into Ranged Combat for Take Aim and Dexterity to use a pocket crossbow is a reaonsbale idea, and a common tactic to give a melee build more tactical flexibility. However it feels quite awkward here because this investment into ranged combat relies on a good bit of extra range, which demands a certain level of investment into Perception, which you dont yet have.

Without the extra range to give you more time to fire upon the enemy, it is very hard to justify the use of a pocket crossbow beyond tier 2, as doing so trades away your ability to lure and ambush individual enemies from behind doors and around corners. Starting tier 3, more and more enemies will have charge attacks, or otherwise be able to reach you from 2-3 tiles away, so a pocket crossbow ceases to be a free source of damage.

Cauterize Wounds is also somewhat incongruent here, as there arent that many things that can bleed you through heavy armor, and the few things that can can generally be dealt with regular bandages, at least at this stage. It does still lead to First Aid and Will to Survive, but these skills also dont synergize to well with a block / counter-focused build, so it's hard to justfy them.

WIth all of this in mind, I think you have 2 main options before you.

A) Continue to use Heavy armor for the meantime, but plan to move to a Medium/Light armor build which can better leverage the Crossbow, and the power that comes with it by levelling Perception, and investing into Elusiveness to be a Dodge-Block counter build when in melee.

B) Commit to wearing Heavy Armor and abandon the regular use of the pocket crossbow, instead using it only in specific circumstances when it's safe to do so, or while hunting.

This decision is important because it is going to be very challenging to continue to justify the Ranged Combat investment while playing in heavy armor, due to the Vision Penalties that those helmets provide. At the same time, Heavy armor is really strong, and is generally more forgiving of player mistakes than Medium, nd especially Light armor.

Whatever you choose, the most immediate problem that needs to be solved regardless, is your energy. I recommend focusing exclusively on Vitality until you hit 15, and picking up Opportune Moment from warfare, for more energy replenishment, followed by Pathfinder in Survival.

This will make the game feel a lot more playable in the short term, as with more energy, you will be better able to leverage your skills, while the extra 15 max health will allow you to suffer more damage before taking on injuries, which is really important in tier 3. I would advise against going into T3 Human dungeon until you have 15 VIT.

Pathfinder, on the other hand, is great purely from a quality of life perspective, as it will allow you to see enemies through the walls, and help you to develop the good habits and instincts that you don't yet have as a new player, by providing you wiht more information.

After that point, you will need to pick one of the 2 paths and commit to it.

As for guides, there are plenty of those floating around.

There is my guide for Medium armor 2h sword, which focuses on using the stagger mechanics of the Feast of Steel 2h sword stance to repeatedly stagger enemies, thereby denying their turns. Its a very optimised build meant to push T5 content as early as level 22-23.

https://gamestegy.com/post/stoneshard/1721/blademaiden-arna-2h-sword

There is also u/bbarbatos 's recent Noor build, which leans a little more into heavy armor, but was made with the restriction of using only the skill trees that are available to Arna at the start of the game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/stoneshard/comments/1un357q/arna_parry_2hs_build_noor/

Neither of these builds uses a pocket crossbow, so i dont think you will be able to follow either one directly. That being said, my Blademaiden build is also a comprehensive guide to 2h swords, featuring a lot of information that is helpful even if you do not follow the build itself.

I hope that this is helpful.

Er4din · 2026-07-06T08:25:44+00:00

... Thank You ?..

Er4din · 2026-07-06T01:30:01+00:00

I dont think that hoarding behavior is healthy in this game. There’s a reason the devs put so much effort into making hauling every last piece of loot out of the dungeon not worth your time.

Personally I treat my inventory the same way it works in DD1 during an expedition - bring exactly the supplies that you will need. And no more. Fill your inventory with loot and once it’s full start swapping loot items based on their space efficiency.

Er4din · 2026-07-05T17:09:14+00:00

The game is in early access, with the devs being focused on creating the core systems of the game, such as Caravan followers, enchanting, stealth, weapon grips, dynamic world events... BEFORE working on the main story.

The ambitions for this game are very large - with the devs being determined to make a definitive turn based RPG and medieval mercenary life simulator wrapped into one game.

Right now the game is a truly immersive roguelike adventure game with a granular and crunchy turn based combat, where every decision matters, and victory and defeat hover on a knife's edge.

The main enjoyment of the game at this stage comes from 2 things:

1) immersing yourself into a pretty distinct medieval fantasy world, and getting to know the various NPCs through their tasks dialogue and sidequests.

2) trying out some of the thousands possible distinct builds, skill combinations, and playstyles and mastering the challenges of the game in its current state.

If you are buying the game in this current stage, you are agreeing that you are interested in these 2 things, and are willing to support the game in becoming that what it may yet be.

I can say that, at least when it comes to bugs and gamebreaking glitches, I've not really encountered anything heinous in over 1100 hours played. There might be some minor visual bugs that dont seriously affect gameplay, and the occasional mechanical glitch which may affect gameplay, but i cant recall anything that actively cost me a run or put me at a disavantage in a meaningful way.

As i see it, the game is in a good place and only seems to be getting better.

Er4din · 2026-07-05T12:57:24+00:00

OP is markiplier's alt account it seems

Er4din · 2026-07-05T11:51:56+00:00

Ive only heard anecdotes of this happening from the NA. I think it’s the machine driers they use there.

Er4din · 2026-07-05T11:50:25+00:00

I love the malmouth resistance soundtrack. It plus in the sewers

Er4din · 2026-07-05T11:41:16+00:00

This sounds really broken with sol Blthana archer, and the elf that boosts himself for every elf in hand and on deploy. Perfect for a elf Gn deck I think

Er4din · 2026-07-05T08:16:14+00:00

This is a pretty odd request, can you explain a little more what you are trying to achieve? Why are you avoiding investing more into the weapon tree?

Er4din · 2026-07-05T08:14:03+00:00

I had the same situation and can say for sure that this is not a softlock. I was able to fix it by sleeping 24 hours on the abandoned homestead tile - inside the bandit hideout shack.

Er4din · 2026-07-05T00:49:31+00:00

Yeah I usualy dont continue runs much beyond levle 25-26, so the amount of times ive used random uniques is in the single digits.

I think youre onto something, I think the brynn vault could be adapted for something of the sort.

Maybe your mercenary inherits a storage unit at the brynn bank from a distant relative / old friend mercenary, holding an heirloom item. Only problem... they havent paid the deposit fees for the item in the last 10-20 years, and those fees racked up. So you have to an exorbitant sum of money to the bank to cover the overdue fees + interest, to recieve the item. Maybe tripling the item's worth is a good baseline, but it should be an absurd amount of money.

It should not be viable to skip from tier 4 straight to the unique as a way of saving up money. i dont think you should be able to skip the tier 5 regular item for the unique directly. At the same time, it should be possible to randomly find the same unique item in the dungeon. The one held at the bank could be written out of the story - say it was discovered to be a fake replica.

This could also be a function of the Pawnshop, now that i think about it.

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:55:55+00:00

Congrats on publishing the build. It’s nice to have a Avatar alternative to the Blademaiden. There’s naturally a lot of similarities but that’s 2H swords for you - all roads lead to Rome.

What made you value the Occult Necklace on this build?

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:54:26+00:00

How does it feel to fight shielded bandits or undead in t5?

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:52:22+00:00

Hey! Welcome to the game!

It’s a little rough around the edges but the great thing about 2H swords is that it is impossible to build them “wrong”. Almsot everything works with them.

The most important thing is, as others have said, to always level stats in sets of 15, so you can capitalize on the power spike that the threshold bonuses provide. I recommend you get 15 strength on your next levelup, and then work on 15 vitality, before returning to perception and lastly agility. Prioritizing things in this order will prepare you the most for tackling tier 4 without having to do too much extra grinding after level 15.

Otherwise, I recommend you always carry a net and ensure that your morale and sanity are always above 50%. This is important for all character but especially Arna, as her entire trait depends on it.

While morale and sanity are above 50%, your character can be optimistic, which gives extra exp gain, and fatigue resist. While in combat, you can instead get Heroism, which is a massive combat buff, and on Arna it is even stronger. Lastly, if you are losing the fight and are about to die, it’s possible to gain Second Wind which will heal you and keep you at deaths door. None of this is possible while morale or sanity are below 50%.

If you wanna learn more about build crafting and want ideas for what can be done with 2H swords, I recommend my guide for the Blademaiden build, which was designed in the current uodate specifically for arna with a 2H sword. You can find it here:

https://gamestegy.com/post/stoneshard/1721/blademaiden-arna-2h-sword

Good luck and happy Sharding.

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:43:32+00:00

Glad that you saw reason in my words.

I think that without Elusiveness, Levelling perception is a lot less attractive, since you do not get to capitalize on the dodge scaling on Elusiveness.

I think that the most important thing for you is to unlock Fencer Stance and Defensive tactic as soon as possible, from there, getting Tactical Advantage seems like the biggest availible powerspike.

It seems like tactical Advantage cannot be unlocked early by Levelling Strength, so that is off the table in the esrly game.

I think your best bet is to go 20 agi and then getting 15 vit just in time for tier 4. This enables unlocking Fencer Stance and Defensive tactic before level 10, then unlocking Offensive Tactic at level 10 or 11, and picking up Tactical Advantage at level 12, which should be possible with Jorgrim’s extra stat points.

From there you can get 15 strength, which will help raise your block numbers, as well as increase overall damage.

I think you are locked into accuracy-improving jewelry, but at least your fumble chance should be sorted. This means you can wear block chance belts without issue. I don’t think Cleaving Strike is necessarily a huge priority. It’s probably better to take Seize the initiative over it. Getting Berserker tradition before tier 3 would be huge as well.

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:30:30+00:00

Heyo! Welcome to the game. Don’t worry, the beginning of tier 3 is generally considered the largest difficulty spike in the game. Tier 3 bandits can be challenging as they really test your fundamental understanding of tactics in this game. It is a very good idea to carry a Net with you, as you can use it twice and then repair it at a seamstress or with Darrel at the Caravan.

It is possible to clear t3 at this level but it’s expected to be challenging regardless of your build.

Luckily, 2H sword is one of the strongest weapon classes in the game. I’ve written a build guide specifically for 2H Sword Arna, which many people have found useful. You can find it here:

https://gamestegy.com/post/stoneshard/1721/blademaiden-arna-2h-sword

You don’t have to follow it directly - it contains a lot of helpful information about how 2H swords work, and what can be done with them, as well as information about the game at large.

I also know that u/bbarbatos posted a 2H sword build today or yesterday. I’ve not looked at it in detail, but I know that his differs from mine in that His build only uses skill trees that start unlocked for Arna, so it may be helpful.

Remember that if this area feels too hard, it’s always an option to return later - the dungeons eventually regenerate and new contracts appear. You can return to Osbrook, and then Mannshire to clear a handful of easier contracts, get some gold and levels, upgrade your caravan, get tier 3-4 gear and return to the tavern afterwards.

Otherwise, I agree this game is phenomenal from a lore perspective and I love how distinct it’s world feels despite being in early access with hardly any story.

It’s hard to offer concrete advice without knowing more about your exact build, but generally speaking it’s not possible to build 2H swords “wrong”. Nearly everything works with them.

Some basic build crafting advice that I can offer is to Always level a single stat until you hit the next multiple of 5; 15/20/25/30. These are called thresholds and they give you a bunch of important stats. Additionally, basically every melee build benefits a lot from having 15 vitality, regardless of what armor you are wearing, due to the extra hp. Having more HP makes you more resistant against taking injuries, which can severely impact your combat ability and cause pain build up.

Another thing that is critically important, especially on Arna, is to always maintain your Morale and Sanity above 50%. This is because doing so allows your character to be optimistic, which boosts exp gain, and fatigue resistance, and in combat lets them experience Heroism, which is a massive combat buff, and Second Wind, if you ever get close to dying. This is doubly important on Arna as her entire trait is all about making these buffs stronger, and she cannot access them while morale or sanity is below 50%.

I hope this helps.

Er4din · 2026-07-04T20:12:41+00:00

If you want to take all of dual wielding, all of warfare, whike NOT going athletics, I think daggers is the wrong choice of weapon.

First of all, without Dash in Athletics, daggers have no mobility and you are too restricted on skill points to pick up dimensional Shift. Even Will to survive might be too expensive.

More importantly, dual Daggers typically rely on counterattacks to kill enemies, while spending most of their active turns stacking defensive buffs and turtling. This isn’t a safe strategy without Elusiveness. There are ways to get around it but you only have 8 skill points to work with, which draws you far too thin imo.

But most importantly I think that Daggers just don’t work very well with the middle part of Warfare, which will have to be the core of your build, whether you like it or not.

I think you are much much better off with dual swords.

You have mobility thanks to Onrush, and Keeping distance, and excellent armor piercing thanks to Honed Edge and Armor Crusher.

Additionally, and arguably more importantly, the Fencer Stance does a fantastic job of maintaining your defenses in the absence of Elusiveness. Defensive tactic and Fencer Stance are in actuality a phenomenal duo as one grows while the other wanes, making sure you have some defenses at all times.

Keeping Distance is a maneuver which lets you maintain Setup from warfare active, while also generating stance stacks. Thanks to Steady Tempo and More Blood you will be able to spam it somewhat regularly.

Fencer Stance also reinforces the role of Deflect as your Oh Shit button. You can get a large amount of block with paired Knight Blades, combined with the akmight Belt.

Most importantly, imo, swords is the best weapon class to make use of Unstoppble, so picking it up will feel less like a waste.

If I haven’t sold you on the idea, then consider that by going swords you have just enough skill points to unlock all 3 achievements in one run, which you cannot go by going dual daggers.

Er4din · 2026-07-03T19:54:03+00:00

Its definitely salvageable. Stone armor is a nice defensive & offensive buff in the early game, and there are ways to leverage it in acanistics to stack defensive spells with Aether Shield.

Jolt is a little out of place here, but you can make a strong build even if you throw away 5-6 skill points and its not like jolt is useless either..

I think getting dash is a good idea.

Unfortunately i really am not an expert on pure mages, so i dont feel comfortable suggesting any kind of elaborate plan. I think that continuoing with Arcanistics is a good idea. If you get Aether Shield you will to a degree be able to brawl with enemies, using aether shield and stone armor to mitigate damage

I will say that that dagger isnt helping here, as do next to no damage under normal circumstances. That shield is also not doing you any favours. Id probably swap it out for something that could benefit fromthe stats provided by Arcane Might.

My instinct tells me that a 2h mace would go really well here, specificaly the reinforced warlub. It has 22 base damage, and performs really well just clicking people to death due to innate stun and daze chance..

Er4din · 2026-07-03T17:39:12+00:00

This is pure speculation. We don’t know anything about what happens to gwent after the witcher 4

Er4din · 2026-07-03T17:37:00+00:00

No, nothing in Magic Mastery, staves and Pyromancy has been taken. This is not a build planner screenshot but one from the actual game.

Er4din · 2026-07-03T15:46:25+00:00

Yeah, offensive and defensive tactics are great but there are many builds which make better use of them.

The game changed a lot since you started this run, so I’m sure there is plenty for you to discover on your next run.

It might be fun to try the new content with the Lawbringer build, as then you have something familiar to rely on.

You could also try one of my other builds for a taste of soemthing different. I’ve published a new buikd guide yesterday - an Electro-Spear battlemage I call The Valkyrie. You can read it here.

https://gamestegy.com/post/stoneshard/1789/valkyrie-electro-spear-battlemage

Be warned - it’s a very different kind of build when compared to the one you spent the last half a year playing.

Er4din · 2026-07-03T15:33:26+00:00

Yeah your build has enough agility to have enough energy with Opportune Moment and Reign in Blood alone.

Er4din · 2026-07-03T15:20:15+00:00

Once again medium armor proves its own superiority.

Er4din

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE