Torm51

Well maybe I am just a bad player. I know every fight and your front line is going to get hit with something. and you just cant hang out in front of the Adra dragon with your priest hes going to exploded by a wing slam for instance. He will likely be far away and out of range for that prayer. Its good to have a second option as Lib has a much better range. Secondly, ya you said it for a Darcozzi its that much better. No reason to skip it imo.

I just have to figure out Act 1 as the squad is going to be squishy at the early stages.

What if its not CON though lol

For my Icewind Dale style less dialogue type run I had this idea for a shooter/ Guerilla group. Its lore friendly as before the Wood Elfs joined with the humans to form the Aedyr Empire they were known to use Guerilla tactics like the Viet Cong, Mujahideen and Taliban. What do you guys think? 1. Quick Switch Shieldbearer Paladin with Zealous Charge/Runners Wounding Shot...Should be called Zealous Retreat lol (Also thinking of Using Pilambo or St. Garams Spark for marking on the run...You guys think marking is worth it in this group?) 2. Storm Druid Tank (google bat**** crazy druid for the build) That's it for the front line. Now the real shooters. 3. Mad Hornet Rogue (google the Mad Hornet Rogue for the build) 4. Warbow Ranger with Binding Roots 5. Kalkoths Minor Blights Wizard 6. Ranged Magranic Priest Alternatively I could dump the Wizard and take a Chanter for the frontline? In an area where it cant run its at a disadvantage obviously as most Guerillas are. But it can still stand and fight. I am thinking of taking two Auras on the Paladin in these cases. Can switch to Zealous Focus when we cant run..or just take Gallants on the Priest but its not quite as good as ZF. The priest will also have a shield with weapon and shield style, the wizard will be an illusionist (Llengrath style) so he/she will be very difficult to hit, the Mad Hornet will have Shadowing Beyond and the Shield Bearer and Storm Druid tank can stand and fight with anyone. So when its cornered I can use per rest abilities to be unhittable with the backline, switch to a shield with my priest, set traps, prone with a wolf pet, AOE Blind with the Wizard/Priest, and have Sacred Immolation, Shielding Flames and Storms firing off. Druid also has great openers to disable enemies like Call the Worlds Maw. Lastly, I think it is can be a good Dragon Hunter (toughest fight would be the Alpine Dragon for this group) group as there is a crap ton of Raw Damage and accuracy in this group. Deep wounds, Wounding Shot, Runners Wounding Shot, Persistence, Envenomed Strikes will pick up on Rogue and Ranger, Venom Bloom and Plague of Insects. It is almost thematic.

! Glad to hear I didn't offend much it was not my intention. I love RP as well so I can see where you are coming from. You actually peaked me for an idea with Fires of the Darcozzi Palace. How hard is hitting for an average? Maybe a retaliate frontline Darcozzi can work. A lot of stuff is weak to fire.

Its factual dude I would like to know what is not factual. but I understand the RP perspective. All good my friend like I said typing and speaking are different things so I can seem mean or something but I am just passionate about the game. Apologies.

And apologies if I came off aggressive not trying to be. I am really happy to see new players around here

We are debating. I appreciate your input but we are both sharing experiencing here. What i am saying is that as much as i understang and appreciate your explanation, my points are as valid as yours, so you are not "trying to make me combat effective"... I may be new here but not to PoE or cRPGs. With all being said, I still think that both skills are not that good on long term as long as you have a priest in your party that can take care of debuff and shieldings. It is a personal preference so there is no right or wrong, that is what I am saying. I may take this in consideration if I roll a paladin for potd. So far on normal I really dont see the need to spend 2 skills like this. I will make a test now since I have 2, 3 levels saved anyway just to see how he progress but only because I am stuck on getting lay on hand in one of the levels. Cheers. playing on normal I guess as ACC isn't as important and you do not have do anything obviously play how you like. But I just did the math for you. You will be more combat effective with that buff then with Fires of the Darcozzi Palace which is a plain weak buff. That's not an opinion that's a fact. With a Priest you are even more combat effecting as you can stack Devotions of the Faithful and Inspiring Liberation....that's a +30 with both...so no matter how you slice it you will be more combat effective with that set up. Whether you are playing on Story Mode or PotD Since you are playing on normal yes as long as you know the basics it doesn't matter what you do.

A Darcozzi Paladin who gets Liberating Exhoration and upgrade it at the next even level. The talent is called "Inspiring Liberation" and adds +10 Accuracy to the ally. Bond of Duty is for Goldpact Knights so you are looking at the wrong order or something that is out of date. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Inspiring_Liberation Here you go. Also you are wrong on the nothing eye catching. It is the single best Exhortation a Paladin has. In the late game if you do the difficult bounties you will take a huge amount of debuffs like blind and targeted terrifies etc if you are playing on PotD you will get hit at some point no matter how good your defenses. Enemy accuracy is too high. If you are blinded and terrified from a spell for example you will not hit a thing and your defenses will be very low. You will die or be a non factor in the fight. If you are in a party clearing a Paralyze or Petrify from an ally can change the tide of a fight. An ally can go from a petrified about to be a knocked out target to cleared and fighting fully party member for a minimum of 20 seconds (base if you have 10 INT). The only other ability that does this is the priest third level spell and the AOE is TINY and even with a 20 INT it only last 8 seconds. A Paladin with a 20 INT can cleanse a powerful DPS party member or him/herself and turn them from a CCed useless character to a fully functioning and buffed ass kicker. This has literally saved my Triple Crown runs more then once. If you have a priest in the group and play it perfectly every time and are able to get status effect immunity on the entire party every single fight well then you would not need it. That being said on a Darcozzi I would take it anyway on PotD as Accuracy is DPS and DPS is life in this game. It has literally saved a Triple Crown Playthrough This right here. Liberating Exhortation is incredibly powerful. Removing all debuffs for the duration (which is huge, especially with high INT, one of the best Paladin stats) is crazy good. Some fights go from teeth-gnashing hard to cake walks with a timely Liberating Exhortation. Frankly, it's hard to overstate how good it is. I always take it on my Paladins. Always, and all of them. Every single time.

One is the ability that clears all debuffs and the other is the talent that upgrades it yes they are two different things that come in one package. When you upgrade Liberating Exhortation they happen at the same time. If you want to be combat effective get your weapon focus AND Inspiring Liberation and you will have a stacked +16 Accuracy while you are under the effect. (if you just get the weapon focus it will be +6) that is much much more combat effective then a weak retaliate and weak freeze DR. Lastly a weapon focus will do nothing if you have a -25 ACC in a fight because you are blinded and Dazed while having a -ACC priest debuff on yourself. You will hit nothing and be combat ineffective. You cast Liberating Exhortation on yourself and now you have you are no longer blinded/dazed and have your weapon focus plus + 10 ACC (netting you +16 ACC) and you are much MORE combat effective. I am trying to make you combat effective!

Fires of the Darcozzi Palace is pretty bad. Even as a retaliate it is weak and waste of a talent. Unless maybe you are going for a super niche retaliate build its just bad.

Wait, you can cast Liberating Exhortation on yourself? So Inspiring Liberation can affect yourself? This changes everything. You absolutely can. Liberating Exhortation is the only Exhortation (command) that you can place on yourself. It is clutch on PotD where you need every point of accuracy in a dragon fight. What you have to be careful with not getting into the rhythm of using just as a buff and depending on the enemy treating it like the cleanse (temperory cleanse there is no permanent cleanse in this game lol it all comes back after the buff wears off it just suspends debuffs) that it is. Because sometimes you can use it at the start of a fight and someone takes a debuff and you have use up your second Liberating to get them out of the debuff. Again remember that all these "remove debuff" abilities in POE just remove it for a temporary period AND the debuffs can be reapplied while your under the cleanse affect. Although the AI usually does not continually spam debuffs. It seems that have some type of cool down mechanism that we don't. "shrug" Darcozzi Paladin here I come. @Rique: ACC is Accuracy, one of the more important stats in the game. The Darcozzi Paladin talent Inspiring Liberation adds a +10 Accuracy buff to the Liberating Exhortation talent, making it a powerful debuff remover and accuracy buff, that should stack with mostly anything. Yes I know that accuracy is important. And I totally forget about their second exclusive skill! lol Got it. Well I didnt get it on my build but I have 2 or 3 levels saved. May give it a try. But still you need to spend 2 skils for this (liberating exortation and inspiring exortation) to a +10 accurary boost and a very situational protection (charm). I am personally more moved to get a two handed sword weapon focus or/and combat for perm accurary and damage increase. Lets see. Thanks for the input! https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Liberating_Exhortation That's the ability Its not just Charm. It is every single debuff in the game. Prone, Paralyze, Petrify, Stun, Charm, Confused, Dominated you name it it clears it. You are reading Bond of Duty which is the upgrade for a Goldpact Knights Liberating Exhortation. Which yes IS situational and makes allies IMMUNE to Dominate effects for a duration plus clears any debuff. So if you don't have a priest Bond of Duty can also be good but more situational. That being said Liberating Exhortation in any build is worth it. Even without the Darcozzi Upgrade.

A Darcozzi Paladin who gets Liberating Exhoration and upgrade it at the next even level. The talent is called "Inspiring Liberation" and adds +10 Accuracy to the ally. Bond of Duty is for Goldpact Knights so you are looking at the wrong order or something that is out of date. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Inspiring_Liberation Here you go. Also you are wrong on the nothing eye catching. It is the single best Exhortation a Paladin has. In the late game if you do the difficult bounties you will take a huge amount of debuffs like blind and targeted terrifies etc if you are playing on PotD you will get hit at some point no matter how good your defenses. Enemy accuracy is too high. If you are blinded and terrified from a spell for example you will not hit a thing and your defenses will be very low. You will die or be a non factor in the fight. If you are in a party clearing a Paralyze or Petrify from an ally can change the tide of a fight. An ally can go from a petrified about to be a knocked out target to cleared and fighting fully party member for a minimum of 20 seconds (base if you have 10 INT). The only other ability that does this is the priest third level spell and the AOE is TINY and even with a 20 INT it only last 8 seconds. A Paladin with a 20 INT can cleanse a powerful DPS party member or him/herself and turn them from a CCed useless character to a fully functioning and buffed ass kicker. This has literally saved my Triple Crown runs more then once. If you have a priest in the group and play it perfectly every time and are able to get status effect immunity on the entire party every single fight well then you would not need it. That being said on a Darcozzi I would take it anyway on PotD as Accuracy is DPS and DPS is life in this game. It has literally saved a Triple Crown Playthrough

Wait, you can cast Liberating Exhortation on yourself? So Inspiring Liberation can affect yourself? This changes everything. You absolutely can. Liberating Exhortation is the only Exhortation (command) that you can place on yourself. It is clutch on PotD where you need every point of accuracy in a dragon fight. What you have to be careful with not getting into the rhythm of using just as a buff and depending on the enemy treating it like the cleanse (temperory cleanse there is no permanent cleanse in this game lol it all comes back after the buff wears off it just suspends debuffs) that it is. Because sometimes you can use it at the start of a fight and someone takes a debuff and you have use up your second Liberating to get them out of the debuff. Again remember that all these "remove debuff" abilities in POE just remove it for a temporary period AND the debuffs can be reapplied while your under the cleanse affect. Although the AI usually does not continually spam debuffs. It seems that have some type of cool down mechanism that we don't. "shrug"

It affects the damage of the lash your burn enchantment, yes. All fire damage you do. PS As an avid Darcozzi player please tell me you took Inspiring Liberation. + 10 ACC To Liberating Exhortation! with Sworn Enemy a DPS Darcozzi is a bad ass smiter. He is only second to a DW Bittercut x2 Bleak Walker (they get two lashes if they spec it. Fire and Corrode) in damage but he is more accurate! Liberating Exhortation is awesome offensively as it clears debuffs which reduce your accuracy like blinds etc. If you cant see you cant hit anything! Sorry I know this isn't a build thread but you said Fires of the Darcozzi Palace and you got me thinking.

Update. Frozen Crown Successful. I have another cannon watcher. nice. I appreciate the input guys. That's my second Darcozzi. I just LOVE the +10 ACC for debuffers and Dragon Proners...its hard to beat. Also I like playing a Wise Crack, Fiery, Justice Seeker who is a good guy. Hates to see life snuffed out for evil or stupid reasons. I had a really cool RP for him this time around too. I think anyway lol He was my only Darcozzi not from Old Vailia. He was a Merc like Maneha but from the Living Lands fighting in one of the many battles in Old Vailia. His companies contract was to kill a darcozzi princess. After successfully assaulting a darcozzi stronghold the hunt was on for the princess as it seemed she was not in the castle. He and 2 of his Merc companions finally found the princess and her body guards trying to escape through a trap door below the keep but he found that he could not murder this princess for money. He betrayed his mercenary partners and killed them both. He then left with the Darcozzi who were helping the girl escape. After successfully escorting the princess to safety he spent weeks in a cellar. The Darcozzi Commander and the family ruler in the area decided that instead of executing him they would Knight him for they saw that he had a fiery passion for life and that he had done exactly what a Darcozzi Paladin should do. Defend and risk their lives for the family.

Ya my bad +15 for Circle of Protection. For support priests I usually master it. Unless you are casting scrolls of defense all the time.

Who did your debuffing the Cipher I am assuming?

1. third level priest spell gives +20 to all defense if you stay in the circle. Does the same thing as Scroll of Defense. Except you dont have to stay in the circle with the scroll so that could be an option. 2. Kana wears the White Crest Armor and Helmet , Little Savior and a hatchet. I just went max deflection and other defenses with him from the start with him. In the early game he would summon and kill ranged guys with the hard hitting ghost. Once you hit lvl 9 I just Dragon Thrash, Dragon Wails and he melts stuff. 3. Aloth has Llengraths spells (the early and late game ones) and does damage through Kalkoth's Minor Blights and the talent Dangerous Implements. He also has penetrating shot for the implements. He hits pretty hard. Plus he is a master debuffer and escape artist thanks to being unhittable for a duration. 4. Formation x (Fighter) x (Paladin) x (chanter) x (storm druid) x (wizard) x (Priest)

My current Triple Crown which is 95% complete has these 6 so if you want to do 5 you can look at these and take what you like if you like them. You can google these builds I am using all story characters. 1. Council ploi but he's a Darcozzi 2. Bat **** crazy Druid 3. Dragon thrashed dragon wailed Chanter 4. DW DPS warhammer Fighter with Charge 5. Illusionist Wizard. Meaning he has arcane veil+ hardened veil, wizards double, all of the Llengrath defensive spells. He can temperaroly become unhittable for about 30 sec. if he takes aggro he can blind the offenders and you can DPS them down. 6. General buff priest with weapon and shield style and a large shield. Throws up circle of protection and changed to a shield if he takes hit. It's durance he's got 19 resolve with a large shield if he takes hit he's very hard to hit with just that.

Then its not THAT easy hehehehehehehehehhe. I am joking to each his own my friend. This is a fun topic.

Magran's faithful bounty on PoTD is an insanely hard fight. It's actually worse if you have a smaller party because the casters in the back spam firebug and will annihilate a small team. Forget about stacking reflex they have so much accuracy it doesn't matter lol. I found the only way to beat this on PoTD was to quickly lock down the casters in the back to stop them from casting firebug and then drop a symbol of magran to blind then a venombloom etc. Then send a barb in and heart of fury them down xD I used summons to take the damage, and confusion to turn them on each other. And ya confuse annihilates these guys. Also although they have high ACC front liners with a scroll of protection or Circle of Protection will not get hit very hard with fire bug. my back line had a great defense also. Aloth as an illusionist is unhittable and durance with weapon and shield style + Circle of Protection can be defensive enough to only take hits or grazes for a bit. In a game with no agro a lot of people build back liner glass cannons. I think these are type of characters that have issues in these type of fights. Vancian casters have the ability to be both good defensively and offensively. Especially wizards. A druid storm tank with a preservation enchant is a god. A priest with a large shield and Weapon and shield style can switch while hes being focused and then go back to offense attack mode for more ACC when he/she has breathing room.

Play Triple Crown at this point. You have died repeated times correct? I think at this point this will be your challenge. It is not that you cannot win the fights of course you can but can you win every big fight throughout a play through without making mistakes and dying. Cause there is no reload. Have fun at Cilant Lis after an 80 hour play through but you played to late into the night and botched Lllengrath.

Brought out Sagani to finish her quest and I speced her for max pet damage and...holy crap. Itumaak is hitting for about 94 on average and critting for 130+. Sagani herself also hits hard obviously. This might go into my Goldpact Knight play through....Keep those dangerous enemies dotted while Itumaak eats them. Quick Switch Arbalest with Enduring Flames + Dawn in Spring while in melee? Maybe spec Reviving Exhortation as I have doubts about Itumaak in melee and eating Wing slams and Tale Swipes... You could go Tidefall and do two Dots in one swing... That could be really good against Dragons (all the raw dots going out..fire damage sucks against most of them except the Alpine). Lots of raw damage going out with high ACC. Well I guess if you gave the ranger Wounding Shot and the hunting bow with the wounding enchant you would not even need Enduring Flames as a dot would always be up.

Oh ok my fault! Awesome!