Torm51

I am fairly certain that any additional AoE you get from Intellect is Foe only AoE (i.e. the extra AoE won't hit your allies), hence you only have to learn the base AoEs for each spell well enough to avoid any risk of friendly fire. Or have a frontline that shrugs off friendly fire. That's how I deal with it.

Sorry for your luck paladin fanboy mate, but you asked for it! P.S. If INT didn't change aoe of everything I'd enjoy TC more; heck I could paint on the monitor the aoe of a baldur's gate fireball compared to skull trap with pixel accuracy after all these years but those things had the decency of always occupy the same area. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Dude I love the flame. I say that a LOT in the builds forum not cause I am trying to brag (in fact its insanely stupid) But because I am trying to QUALIFY the build to show that the evidence I have for a build is on the toughest level. Except that one thread (TC FOR LIFE LOL!) I was stating that I love TC. For me its an Role play thing. It makes the world feel more dangerous.

So you guys know I play TC so I cant see what the developers say about the response options. This is the second time I do a TC with a Darcozzi and I get one Stoic Point! I got it at level 16 talking to the leader of the Iron Flail....I avoid all Shrug/don't care options and still end up with 1 ARRRGGGG lol. SECOND TIME! I have 4 Clever, Passionate, Honest and Benvolent and 1 Stoic! That's what I get for trying to talk it out...I just think its good RP with a Darcozzi to talk it out even though Aggressive isn't looked down upon...some of those attack options are cruel and that is bad for a Darcozzi. On top of if your order is known for "its love of life" I am assuming most of the time you would try and talk it out before you fight. Maybe avoid death if possible lol. That being said its only a -1 to saves...I am not going to respec and get untroubled faith for a +1 to all defenses save deflection (which stays the same). my last level 16 skill went into Snakes Reflexes which is a much better investment imo. Its just frustrating lol

I fixed it. Just dismissed him. Exited the game. Fired it back up and put him back in the party. Back to 16 CON.

His base is 16 yet he has a 17 CON. I know this used to be an issue where if you saved in the area where the NPC is created his stat values would increase. I am playing TC so I am not saving...Did not notice this until now. I am in the WM2 now so its been a while. Its a minor thing as its only 1 CON but still anyway to fix it? I know there was a patched that fixed it some time ago but it seems to be happening again.

Ciphers have hella AOE ability and yes individual CC I only use on extremely dangerous enemies. Alpine Dragon etc

Ya you can literally spam Tenuous Grasp (confuse) with its low focus cost and keep the dragon weird and inconsistent for a long time while you buff and kill adds. Also Charm works just as well. You just need the heat off of you while you kill adds. Once the Dragon is a lone its easier to deal with. Plus with the Crush Beam (Ecto something) or the Corrode Beam you have great room clearing pack killing ability. Also LOADS of Raw damage Spells With buffed accuracy the Cipher can put a huge hurt on Dragons. Tenuous Grasp targets will so its very easy to hit the Dragon with it.

No, it's more a case where gameplay efficiency will trump RP - when the two must conflict. I like stat bonuses too much! To each his own Part of what I love about the Paladin is that strict adherence to a code. I am a military guy it attracts me. On top of the fact that the class is really good. If I want to sacrifice innocents I would just play a Bleak Walker or a Goldpact Knight (gives no ****s) but that's me. Have your fun my friend ! I can totally empathize! But I guess I am a bit more willing to bend the rules a bit for results! The problem with choosing Goldpact Knights or Bleak Walkers is that I think Wayfarer builder builds are just way too more effective due to the on-kill heals (and I will have a lot of kills with dual wield/Immolation DPS build). Oh man you have opened another can of worms for me! I just do not think a massive amount healing in POE is useful. Especially if you do not play with Maim (maybe this is why its the case for me) and just play 0 Health means death. Any character who is taking such a pounding that he needs to be constantly healed is going to lose a lot of Health and eventually DIE if you do not end the fight. So I have generally gone the damage approach and leaving endurance restoration to really good passives. I have even forgone Lay on Hands in my current run and I do not miss it. I AM not saying Wayfarer endurance restoration abilities are bad. They are not. Lay on Hands is still really good as are the other healing abilities. But I generally think you just need one or two. These Wayfarer builds that have Sword and the Shepherd, Strange Mercy, Lay on Hands and Shod in Faith boots are just WAY overkill. What I do not like about strange mercy is that sometimes its over heal as there is no one to heal OR you are fighting a one powerful enemy and no adds are left...well the ability will do nothing at that point. Sword and the Shepherd I think is good for a support type that is not using FoD for damage but for a AOE heal (Like a Priests Radiance). If you use it for damage it will hamstring you in that you might not need a heal and you use it..or you try saving it for when you need healing and do not do damage. Granted you could just use it when appropriate and its fine but there is always an inefficient scenario with Sword and Shepherd..you either overheal or do not damage cause you want to heal. This is why I generally think for healing purpose, emergency button scenarios Lay on Hands is the best and is enough (even though I skipped it this time but that's cause of my party set up). A Bleak Walker can just take LoH grab the corrode sabre (wax mold it if possible) and the appropriate talents and alpha strike better then a wayfarer. Also a low Int Golpact Knight will do more damage then a Wayfarer speced the same way with Enduring Flames. But now we are getting into builds and not RP and disposition. Sorry you triggered me on HEALING! I loved healing types in past fantasy games and its a sore spot for me in this game lol

Level 5 or so she's available in WM1

No, it's more a case where gameplay efficiency will trump RP - when the two must conflict. I like stat bonuses too much! To each his own Part of what I love about the Paladin is that strict adherence to a code. I am a military guy it attracts me. On top of the fact that the class is really good. If I want to sacrifice innocents I would just play a Bleak Walker or a Goldpact Knight (gives no ****s) but that's me. Have your fun my friend !

I a Kind Wayfarer that sacrifices people...are you trying to RP like a Paladin falling from grace and turning into a Death Guard??? (Death Knight type)!

I am not certain, but I think that charm effects end if there are no other enemies. I think the game notices that there are no enemies, so it ends combat and, hence, also ends most effects, this causes the charmed enemy to go aggressive again and combat immediately restarts. This is just observation from my own games, I haven't tested it carefully or anything, so I might be completely wrong. That would make sense.

Wait, Charge is an AoE?! Hmmm, may be worthwhile to take a Fighter after all... Well in a way. The fighter charges in a straight line from where he is to the target. Anything in the path gets hit for huge crush damage vs Fort. So the spirits piled on Durance (switched to a shield with him and Circle of Protection so he tanked a bit) and I selected some frost blight across the map with charge. Lined up the spirits and one shotted all of the wraiths and whatever ghostly thing was in there on the way. The blight took no damage cause frost blights are immune to crush but who cares. All the Wraiths were dead. Blights got melted by fire AOE.

Fought the Alpine Dragon at level 14 (Did not want to be WAY over powered for the fight just strong enough). Probably the cleanest Alpine Dragon kill I have had. Except I did it with 5 guys. My party took an early AOE blind from the Dragon that unless I am mistaken is not listed on his abilities. Its called Wing Buffet: Cone Freeze Damage plus blind vs Will I think or Fort (for the blind save). Kana took a Deathblow sneak attack early from the dragon and it hurt bad. He had a stack of Dragon Thrashed on the adds though so they went down with that Chant and Sacred Immolation (Fire damage is uber in this fight. Obviously). Eder: Spirits were literally crushed by Eder's Charge. Spirits tend to not have much HP and low Fort so Charge annihilates them (Durgans battery was equally a joke because of charge and the rest of the AOE damage). All the spirits were dead in one charge save the stunning ranged guys. The charge put Eder in great position for a hit knockdown and a graze (Disc Barrage and Marking from the Paladin. It payed off @ Boeroer. He was out of range for Devotions of the Faithful sadly) Aloth picked them off the ranged stunning spirits that Eder didn't melt easily with Dangerous implement plus Kalkoth's Blights, buffed himself to oblivion at one point he had 200+ Deflection and saves at above 120 (a bunch of the defense spells Llengrath , mirror image, improved Arcane Veil and the Spell that gives does a huge AOE knockback if he gets below 50%) and had a clutch critical blind on the Dragon. Thanks to the Dacrozzi Inpsiring Liberation, Zealous Focus, Devotions of the Faithful and Inspiring Radiance. Every single point of accuracy counts in that fight. PC Paladin: Sworn Enemy plus Ring of the Changing Hart Crit the Alpine Dragon but my AOE had done most of the work on the adds lol. Secondly, my Paladin had the most damage per hit on the dragon as Sworn Enemy plus Quick Switch Arbalest shots put a 120+ Crit and a 50+ Hit. Very happy with the Quick Switch Alpha Strike Paladin builds. He did is job on all ends. Buffed the party, Alpha Striked and tanked the Dragon. Durance: Usual awesomeness. Devotions of the Faithful for everyone except Eder who was out of range and Kana who was taking a dirt nap, Circle of Protection and the killing blow on the dragon with Cleansing Flame. Hiravious: Added to the buffs with the massive Elemental DR buff, plus putting down a Sunlance spell (forgot the name) that "Grazed" The dragon for close to 100 damage lol. Also picked off a stunning ghost and two petrify slimes with a the blinding fire spell plus burst of summer flame. Anyway I know there was a post about this somewhere but just wanted to share my tactic on one of the more difficult fights. Still have a few more very tough fights to go. I will update. PS PS I did crit the alpine dragon with a dominate for 20 seconds but it ended early..was weird. I didn't hit him either. All adds were down so I took the time to buff.

Totally forgot that it applies in the first few seconds that's it lol

Is that a bug? When Eder swings at me out of combat (was testing some DR stuff) he always gets the Sneak Attack bonus. I am out of combat so no status effects are on me and he isnt behind me so I am not flanked. Is this intended? If so is Apprentice sneak attack better then the rogue counterpart? As rogue sneak attacks need the debuffs to apply.

It will work well. The only thing I don't like is that you have too much healing. If you have to use THAT much healing in one encounter your backline will be dead (or maimed if you don't play PotD) before you use all those abilities so healing their endurance will be irrelevant. Since you are going for a 2 handed build I would dump The Sword and the Shepherd. I think a lot of the time it hamstrings you into saving FoD as a heal instead of a damage dealing ability. Also for some reason its AOE does not scale with INT (the healing does scale with might and level). Lastly, If you have a lot of passive healing in your party I would dump Lay on Hands. I know it sounds core to any paladin build but I am currently in a TC run with Kana, Eder, a PC Paladin, and Storm Hiravious (who both have vets recovery) and not only is the healing more then enough its much quicker then Lay on Hands which if you don't use early enough you will be slow to land that critical heal (since you are likely wearing heavier armor). I just hate how SLOW LoH is. It is really good but its slow which I admit can be mitigated. I would replace LoH with Liberating Exhortation. you dispel a fight ending debuff on a damage dealing character and return him/her to destroying things and winning the encounter. That being said a priest has an AOE version but even with high INT it will only last 7 to 8 seconds. With your High INT you can clear those debuffs (assuming they don't get reapplied which happens with the priests dispel also) for 25+ seconds.

WTF? You can Charm Dragons?!!! All but one.

Oh I agree I guess there really isn't anything else to take unless you go super defense which if you are the last guy alive is useless.

I find FoD still useful - but perhaps not so much with an apparently tanking Paladin as you have. I didn't use Sworn Enemy at all except in Dragon fights, because - as you said - stuff died too fast. Agree those fights matter the most and it's good then.

Truth

How about Coordinated attacks for that group set up?

So...I finally stuck with that Chanter like you guys recommended....and its GREAT. The party has a ridiculous amount of AOE its just PURE hurt in all directions. Thing is the usual good abilities like Marking, Sworn Enemy and FoD are mehish in most fights as everything just melts thanks to my mass AOE. By the time I cast a sworn enemy and FoD Charge and the rain of AOE has done the work. Do you guys think those three abilities will still shine against hard targets like dragons? Kana - Dragon Thrashed Dragon Wailed PC Paladin- Sacred Immolation Eder- Charge DW DPS Hiravious- Bat **** Storm build Aloth- Debuffs and Blights Durance- Buff ACC and Defense other AOE Priest effects.

It is recommended for dps. Which builds are you referring to? Note that some builds do not have it as cross-class skills was introduced later in the game's lifecycle (WM1's time? I honestly can't remember) Torm does ToI or Triple Crown playthroughs. So no luxury in reloading for the right sale. Yes I am so dumb it even astounds me.

I notice a lot of melee DPS builds do not have Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Why is this? Wouldn't it, for instance, be superior to a lot of other alternative melee DPS skills that seem to involve tradeoffs? Sure, it is more conditional, but afflictions are not difficult to get. Agree with everything Beor said. I love Mabecs Morningstar but its super RNG (its cool for RP its a Paladin weapon in its history) so you would have to get the Rose Salthollow which is meh and only one damage type. For two handed Paladins Great Swords imo are the best option. Two damage types and no RNG for the best weapon. Is the morningstar from Azurro better than the 2H swords mentioned here? I am going by one playthrough sample, but Azzuro sold me basically everything twice over in my experience, so it's not that difficult to get stuff from him. Besides, can't you almost ensure it happening by constantly resting and forcing more turns and thus getting more RNG chance? I would not say better as its only one damage type. Have a plan for a second weapon as the Knight focus you do not have another two hander for a second damage type. That being said you could take the Fire sword gloves (its a universal weapon focus) and you would be good to go. The stun on crit is awesome. Pretty sure stun is a better status effect then prone BUT St. Rumbalt has two built in damage types and annihilation. With Sworn Enemy and FoD you will be critting a lot.