u/AwesomePossum101x

I've been running a fairly optimised party on custom unfair (respec allowed) and haven't had too much trouble until I run into Playful Darkness. 93AC! Even my best melee fighters (with 60+ attack bonus) had no chance. I did beat him in the end but I really enjoyed it and appreciate Owlcat putting this challenge in the game - it makes all the hours I spent min/maxing my characters worthwhile. I am guessing there might be a few more encounters like this later (no spoilers!).

I am keen to hear how people handle him on unfair? What are your strategies? Is it really possible to hit through his standard (i.e. non-flatfooted/-touch) AC?

For me, it was lucky that I had two party members that target touch AC (a dual-wielding magus and a bomb-throwing alchemist) and a dispeller (Oracle/Angel) and had a bunch of items to summon a swarm of cannon fodders to tank through a couple turns. Still it was super tough; had to try a bit to understand how to position and initiate the fight. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGXvhVFlIh4

Sword Saint is quite an interesting class: there are many ways to build him, either as a single weapon duelist, 2H or dual-wield fighter. This build specifically focuses on dual-wielding. It is absurdly powerful; you can see in this video the sword saint (Lann) did almost 600 damage to Halaseliax at level 14 on unfair. Halaseliax has 67 AC so it's almost impossible to hit for most classes, but Sword Saint has a broken skill - Dimension Strike - which makes his melee attacks target the enemy's touch AC, effectively trivialising the fight.

Class: 20 Sword Saint Magus (the capstone skill weapon mastery is far too good to miss)
Race: not critical, but human is nice for the extra feat and +2 to any attribute of your choice
Attribute: 19 str (+2 from human) / 13 dex / 10 con / 18 int / 7 wis / 7 cha. 13 dex so with +4 dex (belt or cat's grace) we'd be able to get to 17 dex for improved two-weapon fighting. If you have brown-fur transmuter (more on party synergy below), you can even get to 19 dex for greater two-weapon fighting. Alternative: you can also build this as a dex-based dual-wielder, but I like str based build more because you can get very strong str buffs late game. That said, dex can work too (don't forget to get weapon finesse and the mythic version).
Weapon: Kukri. It has to be Kukri because its the light weapon with the biggest threat range: 18-20. With improved critical or keen it'll get to 15-20 - 28.6% crit chance. It's not optimal to use two different weapon types (e.g. rapier+kukri), because many Sword Saint skills target a chosen weapon.
Magus Arcana: arcane accuracy (lvl 3), enduring blade (lvl 6), ***dimension strike*** (lvl 12), prescient attack (lvl 15), Devoted Blade (lvl 18)
Feats: chosen weapon kukri (lvl 0), arcane strike (lvl 1), TWF (lvl 3), double slice + dazzling display (lvl 5x2), weapon specialisation kukri (lvl 7), improved critical (lvl 9), lunge + improved two-weapon fighting (lvl 11x2), shatter defense (lvl 13), outflank or greater two-weapon fighting (lvl 15), greater weapon focus + greater weapon specialisation (lvl 17), hammer the gap (lvl 19)
Mythic Feats/Abilities: core ones are abundant arcane pool, mythic improved two-weapon fighting, mythic improved crit, mythic weapon focus and specialisation; the rest up to you

Party synergy:
- Brown-fur transmuter: the attribute buff from brown-fur really elevates the build (e.g. we can now have greater two-weapon fighting with 13+6dex!)
- Skald: lethal stance, lethal accuracy, inspired rage, good hope all buffs this build's accuracy and damage to another level. Also gives pounce

Notes: Early game will be rough, so you'll need other party members to carry the game a bit. If you don't mind respec'ing, then perhaps start this build mid-game. I also don't have any recommendation for mythic paths, as I played this build on a companion. Lann in the video is respec'd with a respec mod.

Admittedly the swarm can be a bit tricky but Angel's Storm of Justice just deleted them...

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-E7DON5m2E

Full party:

- [main character] Level 10 Seeker Oracle/Level 3 Loremaster with Angel mythic path: AoE damage (via fireballs and bolt/storm of justice), party buffs, enemy debuffs (e.g. Sirocco and Dispel), heal. Pretty much does everything except martial fighting.

- Level 13 Elemental Engine Kineticist: Blue flame + wall build. Incredible initiator (always start with empower+maximised fire wall), deals a ton of fire damage that targets ranged touch AC.

- Level 13 Grenadier Bomber: Holy bomb + fast bomb. A bit like Kineticist in that it does good damage that targets ranged touch AC. But a bit less damage but element is holy which is amazing.

- Level 11 Scaled Fist Monk/Level 2 Divine Guardian Paladin: Punches super hard with dragon style. Paladin dip for smite evil (massive attack roll bonus with charisma modifier) and divine grace (massive boost to saving throws with charisma modifier).

- Level 13 Deliverer Slayer: Dual-wield throwing axes. Basically a machine gun with a million attacks with sneak damage. It's ranged so it does damage a bit more consistently than melee dual-wield. Throwing axes uses strength for damage so it's easy to get damage through strength buffs.

- Level 6 Brown-fur Transmuter/Level 7 Loremaster: The only support in the party. Main job is to buff attributes/size and spam dazzling display to enable shatter defense for the whole party.

Note: companions are respec'd using mod.