Lasci

PotD, my main character is a druid and I'm only using NPC's. Eder as a tank, Pallegina as a two-hander, Kana Rua as a supportive tank, Grieving Mother as a backliner, and Durance as a supportive caster.

They're all per rest and not exactly stellar. I don't think I've ever wanted to use them on my druid.

I don't understand? Everyone here gave good advice? Have you really not gotten into the game to play because somebody hasn't provided you a build you're satisfied with in several days? Max might and dexterity. The rest of your attributes don't really matter after that. Find a weapon you like and take weapon focus for it. Dual-wield that weapon, then go down the fighter path and gain weapon mastery. Take offensive talents that suit your wants. It's that simple.

Pallegina functions fine beside Eder with her two-hander despite not having optimized stats. Your paladin doesn't necessarily need a shield as long as Eder is the first into combat to distract the enemy.

You hate them for all the reasons I love them! Durance was perfectly flawed and one of the best clerics I've ever seen. I wish I could roleplay a cleric like him -- so staunchly devoted, so unwaiveringly committed, yet he's miserable in his conviction, questioning in his choices, mortified over the loss of his driving figure. And yet, he calls her a whore all the same, damning her as selfish and unforgiving. How great is that? Grieving Mother was so phenomenally reclusive, so unforgivingly staunch, so motherly. She didn't want to be seen, didn't need to be recognized. She bestowed upon mothers -- demanded from them, unapologetically -- a love for their children, even if there was scorn. Her dialogues were also incredibly unique because of the vivid imagery matched with simultaneous ambiguity. And what a way to play with the theme of souls, the mind, and the main character's Watcher powers. That's not to say that I didn't love the rest of the cast. The abused Aloth and his unwanted savior. Eder's farmland charm and deadpan humor; his yearning for brotherhood and family despite how barren the landscape has become for him. Kana Rua's beaming geekiness and optimism. I haven't played through every character's story yet, but so far I'm very satisfied with the impression I've gotten.

I know there's a lot when it comes to interacting with the Grieving Mother.

I like my roleplaying games when they're epic blockbusters that tout the, in my opinion tried and true, dogma of "you're a badass with mysterious powers that has to save the world from itself and the impeding doom brought about [insertbadguyhere]." I think that comparing a video game to a novel is unfair, even considering the amount of text in this game. It's about enveloping yourself in the experience of playing a character who is exploring a vast and unfamiliar world rife with struggle and tragedy and mystery. This game adds onto the standard Bioware plot by adding more weight to the world around you. "Oh no, Fade Rifts and demons are killing you!" is turned into a catastrophe surrounding a widespread illness or curse that is making babies born without souls. It's a conflict that is out of the character's grasp -- something that can't be solved by the brute force of charging headlong into battle and fighting the bad guy. Why are souls not going through the 'Wheel' and returning to newborns? Who is Waidwen? Is there legitimacy in his former claims? Why has Eothas gone silent? Are the gods truly mortal? What is their involvement in the Legacy? Why have they not intervened? How did the player character survive the Biawac? Why do they seem somehow tied to this cult from a past life? How will they traverse the tenuous limitations of their powers as a Watcher to find out the truth? If you're not wrapped up in the world and its mysteries, you're clearly not trying or you're simply pessimistic and unfair to the game itself. PoE is rife with mystery. Even better, it's both refreshing and staggering how often the game takes a realistically grim approach to answering these questions. Sometimes there aren't any answers. Sometimes you're only able to grasp at half the truth. Sometimes there is ambiguity in fate, in purpose, in life. There is no neat or pretty ending to certain quests; just defeat and the barely consoling reward of experience. And the game does a great job of characterizing these concepts in a real world. I don't know what to tell you, other than to keep playing. I seriously think your unwillingness to give the game a genuine chance is killing an opportunity to experience some of the better storytelling we've gotten out of an RPG in a while.

How so? I was hoping to play a priest of Skaen when 1.3 hits. I'm actually quite curious to see if he pulls rank on you late in the game or not. But how are the priest dialogues wonky other than Durance and Edér not noticing if you worship Eothas? Most of the unique class or race dialogue options were sparse at best, but for the clerics it feels particularly bad. Your deity plays such a large role on who your character is and how they function in their daily life, and yet it seems as if each deity gets a certain quest where a wealth of cleric options come in and then... suddenly, you're back to being like every other player character, except you have this huge aspect of your character's life that is never mentioned or touched upon despite it arguably being a driving factor. I mean, I get it -- it's a matter of limited time and resources at Obsidian's disposal. But clerics suffered the most from this.

These all seem like pretty fair nerfs. I have a feeling that single-weapon and dual-wield rogue builds are going to become excellent depending on how much damage those weapons receive.

Anything that starts with 'Mind' from the Cipher is insane. Mind Blades is the most precise AoE in the game -- it hits all enemies because there's usually not enough enemies in a single combat for it to not strike them all, it will never target your allies, and the damage is pretty insane. On a Cipher with light armor, you can get out two or three at the start of a fight and soften up the entirety of the enemy's forces. Mind Lance is similar in its usefulness, but it's a bit harder to line up. Mind Blades is getting nerfed, though. Slicken, Fan the Flames, and Chill Fog are probably the Wizard's best spells, but Slicken and Fog are both getting nerfed. Most druid and cleric spells are useful, if not excellent.

This. I don't think they get it.

Oh, and about playing a Cipher -- they're great because they consistently contribute to each encounter because they don't have any per encounter or per rest abilities, but they struggle in large, difficult, extended 'boss' fights because they have to recharge their Focus pool to cast more spells. They're ultimately a ranged class. You should max might and equal parts dexterity and intelligence. Start every fight with a blunderbuss shot for extra Focus. Fire off as many spells as you want or can -- Mind Blades is excellent for softening up large groups of enemies. It's the most accurate AoE because it typically has the capacity to hit every enemy and it will never hit your allies. Afterwards, grab a bow and fire off shots to build focus.

This was an interesting read. I'll try and answer your concerns and questions with less mathematics because I think that the math people use to 'figure out' this game is dubious at best. I think figure 6 is fairly close to how PoE currently functions, with the following exception: builds that favor focusing on damage or survivability in lieu of the other should be closer to the "overpowered" spectrum, while those that dabble more towards creating a hybrid of the two should ease more towards the "underpowered" spectrum. This game definitely favors extremes over hybrids for a variety of reasons. The way shields and armor work is the crux of this tendency: shields reduce accuracy and armor reduces action speed, meaning that survivability and damage increase inversely. Add to this the fact that the player is fighting against the limited tactical capability of an AI; typically, you can force the AI to become distracted by your 'tanks' while your damage dealers are able to flank for additional damage while avoiding the gaze of enemies that might chunk them. Additionally, a collect of four hybrid characters would never have the capability of two damage dealers and two tanks. You are always going to sacrifice power in either category for versatility and because of the way the AI seems to function, that versatility is wasted. A dwarf of aumaua with maxed might has a much higher damage ceiling than a hybrid (21 might vs. 19). A class that doesn't specialize in defense will have their abilities and talents split between two purposes that rarely intersect. And so on and so forth. But this is mostly moot. I would say that the system is varied enough that hybrids aren't necessarily terrible. The difference between a poor build and a good one is fairly large, but that's not to say that a poor build is altogether bad so long as you don't try something completely goofy. Might applies damage, dexterity supplements that damage with speed, and intelligent supports that damage with increased duration and area. Constitution provides hit points which are then supplemented by resolve and perception's deflection. The system is fairly intuitive and clear and there is room for gimicky builds because of it. I do think you're overcomplicating things, though.

Paladin's fine. You can use your order to influence dialogues occasionally. But priest dialogues have always felt... wonky.

I deeply appreciate your insight, especially about weapons and enemy types to look out for. What would your opinion be on min maxed builds for hard, eg: 21 Mig (playing Aumaua) 3 Con 18 Dex 17 Per 3 Int 16 Res Is this even viable or are there encounters where you would die no matter how good your positioning is? I wouldn't dumb con that hard. Int is fine where it is, though, just make sure you get a Cipher to help set up sneak attacks. You're going to have to be careful with your positioning if your constitution is low, but it's perfectly doable -- especially if you're going to be ranged.

Priests are not a very stand-out class. I have to imagine most people just stick with Durance because he is so fun to be around and leave it at that. If you want a main character with high intelligence for dialogue options, your best bet is to go with a druid, wizard, priest or maybe cipher. Paladin and Fighter are both good, but one of the first NPC's you get is a fighter and he's frankly one of the better build NPC's in the game. You have to wait a little bit longer to get to the paladin. Fighters are decent damage dealers and good tanks. Paladins are good frontliners that are capable of acting like a supportive tank or a damage-dealer with supportive abilities, but they're under no circumstances 'bad'. I'm not so sure if I could recommend priest as a main character choice, though. They're a bit boring in terms of gameplay and the game does a poor job of acknowledging the fact that you're a priest.

Paladins are a supportive class. Dumping intelligence to 3 is going to completely negate your aura. You're not going to have the highest damage output and the most tankiness. It's kinda a 'one or the other' situation.

Dual-wielding is fine. Single weapons is fine. Two-handers are fine. Ranged rogues are fine. Seriously. There are very minute differences between these builds and, frankly, your 'build' is rarely going to determine what weapon you have to use. Play through the game with a rogue that has max might and dexterity and use every weapon choice until you find something that you like. Don't choose a weapon focus ever. Don't choose a weapon style until you're comfortable making that choice through your own experiences. There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. And ignore the hilariously inaccurate psuedo-math that everyone is throwing out there to make their particular brand of a class seem better than everyone else's. tl;dr don't take backstab or escape, max might and dex, and experiment with what weapon type/style you want to use.

Druid shapeshift is amazing until about level six or seven, at which point it is alright but falls of significantly. But this is fine, because by then your druid has a collection of excellent spells that he can use to tear through the opposition. Druids are very good in this game -- easily more consistently useful than a wizard and absolutely than a cipher in longer 'boss' fighters in which a druid has the time to unload a string of its powerful spells. Max might and intelligence and it's hard to go wrong with your druid.

Fighter or Paladin is fine for a tank. The fighter has more raw tanking ability, but the paladin serves to better support the rest of the team. It's not a bad idea to have one of both in your party. Druid and Cipher are both good DPS. Druid has the advantage early because shapeshift is so powerful in the first portion of the game. Cipher never has to worry about per rest abilities, but a druid will able to do more over the course of a long combat than a Cipher will. Basically, druids are better at long 'boss' fights where you use a lot of abilities and Ciphers are better at contributing a lot to every encounter. The druid wants maxed might and intelligence. The cipher wants maxed might and good dexterity and intelligence. Priest is pretty hard to mess up. Just make sure he has high intelligence. Chanter can serve as a decent off-tank. Put him in heavy armor and a shield and stick him up at the front. His stats don't particularly matter; it's not a bad idea to give him decent constitution, intelligence, resolve, and perception if you want him to serve strictly as a tank.

Two-handed style does not work with guns. I would probably put the intelligence elsewhere, but otherwise your stats look fine -- you're spread between tanking and doing damage, but that's not a problem unless you're really, really set on min/maxing. There are nice +5 deflection rings early on. Make sure to use one of those. If you're going Goldpact, you might as well get their order specific abilities: Enduring Flames and Bond of Duty, which work with Flames of Devotion and Liberating Exhortation respectively. Otherwise, relax. There really aren't any 'bad' paladin abilities -- they all provide their own degree of useful support to the team. Just pick what you feel would help supplement your team.

Paladins are supporting tanks or damage dealers. They will not deal your highest damage or tank as well as your fighter or monk. They will tank better than your enchanter. Paladins have auras (which support the party), a per encounter heal, a per encounter revive, and a mix of high defenses and decent offensive abilities depending on which order you're a part of. They aren't meant to be the end all be all of tanky or damaging classes -- they supplement the tankiness and damage of those classes. Yes, Eder can generally tank better. But can he heal? Can he revive? Can he give an increase in accuracy or crit chance? No. Paladins aren't necessarily tanks. They're more of a tanky, damage-dealing, supportive front liner who can lean towards either damage or taking hits.

Swap one of the priests out for a druid and you should be fine. There's no reason to take two priests on PotD; a druid will provide much more damage and support than a second priest. Alternatively, you can take a chanter instead of that second priest, which can serve as an off-tank to support your frontline.

Backstab is bad. So is Escape. Max might and dexterity and experiment with weapon styles until you find something that satisfies you -- don't pigeon hole yourself into playing with a specific weapon style or weapon group early. Wait until you get to level six to choose a weapon style. I honestly don't recommend picking up weapon focus on anybody but a fighter. Start every fight with a gunshot from stealth for high damage. Then run behind your tank line and wait for them to distract the enemy before moving back in -- assuming you're melee and not ranged, of course. That's literally all there is to playing a rogue. Just experiment a bit. Ranged, melee, dual-wielding -- whatever. You aren't punished for not sticking to a specific weapon in this game.

The differences between wood elves and hearth orlans that you guys are arguing are small, tiny, nit-picking details that are still at the mercy of a d100 roll. Their efficacy varies wildly based on what that roll is and how high -- or low -- your accuracy is. You're also assuming that both races are in the most ideal situation, which is rarely if ever the case. Seriously. These differences are practically negligible, as is the difference between a 'god' tier of races and your supposed 'garbage' tier. The racial benefits are neat little bonuses rather than groundbreaking, character-defining abilities.