b0rsuk

I just don't agree animal companions are so weak. They don't scale well, but with Pallegrina / Aura of Endurance and his own Resilient Companion, Itumaak can hold two darguls (level7, Hard playthrough). I'm using Lay on Hands on him very often, and I only had him knocked out once in the last 3 levels of Endless Paths. I have a party of monk, Kana, and Pallegrina on the front plus Itumaak. My Itumaak can survive being paralyzed. Paladin/Ranger has nice synergy. I can't wait to see how Reviving Exhortation/Monk combo works - do they keep their wounds ?

Grieving Mother is a lot weaker in 1.05 for me, but that's fine. I can still manage to cast 2 Pain Blocks a fight (level 7). My party is quite tanky - Pallegrina with Aura of Endurance, Itumaak can hold two darguls on his own (Resilient Companion). It's based on damage dealt now, so the decision to use Weapon Focus: Adventurer (for wands) bites me in the butt now. I guess I need a war bow. Cipher still has an advantage over other casters - he can keep repeating the same spell over and over. Two pain blocks per encounter, I'd be empty after two encounters. Vancian casters require more strategic thought in spending spells.

In 1.05, Hand&Key armor grants Loyal, which adds resistance to Charmed and Dominated.

It would still be powerful if it summoned just a single ogre. But that would require changing the cool name. Making monster ogres weaker is not something I want to see. So maybe bump it up one level ? Make it level4 invocation (in expansion). How else can you limit this invocation ?

Chants are suppressed after using an invocation, I think that's what you mean ? It's not new. This is intentional, to make Chanter play take some thought. You are not supposed to blindly rush to invocations in every single circumstance.

I'm not going to. This is meant to be helpful for creating new characters. Callisca's answers hardly make a difference. Many backgrounds that sounded interesting at first didn't have interesting answers, while others contain hidden gems. And would you guess artisan is a subcategory of artist, not laborer ? Besides, that would be a lot of typing. That said, Callisca is a very interesting and well-defined character. More intriguing than some other companions.

I'd be more worried about outgrowing Ectopsychic Echo, which targets Fortitude. Antipathetic Field is against Reflex, and deals Corrode. Most tough enemies have great Fortitude but poor Reflex. With fortitude attacks being as common in this game, I'd be surprised to ever see a big baddie with low Fortitude. I believe banshees have over 100 for some reason...

Honestly I'm very wary of downloading any unofficial installers, patches etc on Linux. I've left that world behind when I abandoned Windows.

NO SPOILERS

I think I had one crash total, and that was in an earlier patch.

Fun Fact: many libraries do.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy having some interesting tactical choices in combat. The tradeoff of short vs long phrases is such a decision. If chanters are indeed quite powerful, is there really a problem ? There are some balance problems, especially level2 invocations are lackluster (see the thread on the general subforum).

Chanters should remain a bard class. I disagree - the main victim of Sound is not "Gernisc's Kin", but "I'll Catch You". Wurms don't target Will defense. Some monsters have high Will and attempting to paralyze them is not efficient. The wurms are solid damage dealers, the longer the battle the more they rack up. 8 seconds of paralyze is sometimes not enough! In those cases wurms outperform it. They also act as decoys, you can tempt enemies with them, and they're so fast it's easy to make them scatter in different directions. A nerf to the Sound would help balance, but not against wurms. Because it's twice as powerful. Because you may want to use a phrase for something else. Because sources of Frightened are quite common - even ranger's lion can frighten twice per encounter in a good area, for 11 seconds ! When I think about builds, I think of parties, not characters. ----------------- Speaking of chants... At the Sight of their Comrades, their Hearts Grew Bold – Increases the Fortitude and Will of allies in the area of effect. (lvl1, +10, +10) One Dozen Stood Against the Power of the Saint – Decreases the duration of and defends against Frightened and terrified on allies. (lv2, +10) See a problem here ? The higher level chant is strictly worse, unless you count longer duration as an upside. I see only two reasons to ever take it: a) to make it overlap with the superior At the Sight, b) when you have two Chanters in party. Then they can reach 100% overlap.

I wanted to make a thread like that myself. Not Felled by Axe, Nor Broken by Storm – Increases the Slash and Shock Damage Reductions for allies in the area of effect. As useful as a square *****. Slash is one of two most common damage sources, enemies start dealing it right away, not after a 12 second delay (best case). If you badly need slash and shock resistance - and few encounters have both - 12 seconds is a lot of time to get hurt. If you can last those 12 seconds without taking damage, you most likely don't need this invocation. Compare this to Dull the Edge, Blunt the Point which covers two very common resistances and comes instantly because it's a phrase. Thrice Was She Wronged, and Thrice Justly Avenged – creates three bolts of lightning causing shock damage to any in their path. A sub-par Fan of Flames / Winter Wind, much more vulnerable to DR. If you want something like that, just use a scroll. Becomes obsolete quickly as you level up. And Hel-Hyraf Crashed upon the Shield – Reduces Damage Reduction of enemies in the area of effect. (-5 DR) Has a Fortitude check, and that's the highest defense for most monsters. You can probably build a party around this - have many fast attacks, animal companions, hunting bows etc. But Thunder accomplishes much of the same, it lasts 5 seconds vs Hel-Hyraf's 12, but stun is stun. At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff – Paralyzes Enemy in the area of Effect. (8s) Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch You, Ben Fidel" – terrifies enemies in the area of effect. (12s) Same area, same cone, same defense (Will). It's hard to make a case for "I'll Catch You". Shatter their Shackles, Cast off their Chains! – Decreases duration of and defends against Hobbled, Petrified, Stuck and Paralyzed. Ha ha ha ha! If you need this one, your Chanter is likely paralyzed too ! Add Stun and Prone to the list and I will consider it. Or make it a phrase. Terrible if you like using your invocations, you probably will need to wait several seconds to use it. It might be useful if you use your Chanter strictly as a ranged attacker, and have his invocations "on standby", reactive rather than using as soon as possible. But this focus on reactive invocations needs a whole dedicated Chanter build I guess. The Bride Caught their Ruse and Set to Make them Pay – Empowers allies in the area of effect with bonuses to Dexterity, Perception and Intellect. One of the three boosted powers is Intellect, and Intellect is rarely useful in late stages of a battle, because many powers and spells are already used. If you hold off with using them just to benefit from the +5 Intellect bonus, you're fighting "naked" as you wait. I think I'd rather use the equivalent invocation that boosts Might, Con, Resolve. I see possibilities to build a party around this, though. You would need classes that can continue using various Int-based powers for the entire battle. Monk, Cipher, Barbarian maybe ? Two chanters ? But it looks good for an interrupt party. My Son, Do you See your Sisters across the Moor? – summons two Will O'Wisps. This comes on the same level a the invocation that summons 3 wurms. Wisps are extraordinarily wimpy, they're in the Temple of Eothas. 15 Fortitude!!! What was their special power again, Charm or Confusion ? The Lover Cried Out comes at the same level. Oh, But Knock Not on the Door of Urdel and Gurdel – Summons two fearsome ogres to fight for the party for the duration. I like it as much as one can like Double Minigun or Super Flak Cannon in Nuclear Throne... but let's be honest. If it summoned only one ogre, it would still be good. Which means this invocation is imba as hell. Overall, I think level3 and level1 invocations are reasonably good. Level2 have the most outrageous balance problems. Niche invocations, weak creatures, stuff you need to build a party around to get any use out of.

As I said, you're trying to play Kana as a caster.

You are trying to shoehorn Chanters into the "caster" group. They are not. They are souped up bards. They are working as designed, providing passive support most of the time and occasionally casting something powerful. There are low level phrases which are still good on high level, for example Dull the Edge, Blunt the Point. Enemy Slash/Pierce damage * 90%. If you stick in on an Adra Dragon, who deals around 60 damage per hit, damage is reduced by 6. Really, most of them.

Human gets +7 Accuracy and 15% damage.

Luzarius, I'm afraid Marked Prey is working as intended in 1.05. Which means it adds a +20% damage lash instead of +40% damage lash. Yes, it's instant now, but damage went down.

My first playthrough on Normal: I killed everything in Endless Path except the very last boss with a level 10 party. You can probably do better than that, I was close to killing that boss and could probably do it with better tactics.

Yes ? What item ? What items can be used to take care of Charmed, Dominated ? Charmed and Dominated count as the most scary afflictions. If you want peace, prepare for war. No one likes to attack the strong guy. Using your logic, having a gun at home is only good when someone is attacking you. I'd rather have people in the neighborhood know I have a gun and not attack me. If they don't target the Paladin, it's because the ability is doing its job. Righteous Soul is good to have on a paladin, because he can keep enemies from reaching you, and help party members. I'd rather have one of my ranged characters charmed than Eder. Paladin can heal, revive, use Liberating Exhortation. Because paladin is so hard to disable, it's a good idea to make him your party's Lore Guy. Then he can use scrolls to deal with emergencies when everyone else is disabled.

Righteous Soul also protect against Charmed and Dominated. Ever heard of that ?

What an understatement. 1) Righteous Soul gives +15, not +10. That's 50% more already. 2) Even if it goes through, duration is reduced by 5s. 5s is a lot in PoE combat, especially that many of the powerful effects last only several seconds in the first place.

Stuff like Merciless Companion is listed on the companion's character sheet. They have their own section on ranger's page.

Hey, it's a fantasy game ! Let's kill dragons with thrown sausages, because talking about realism in a fantasy game is ridiculous ! Wearing panties on your head grants you ability to teleport short distances, use that if you endurance is low. You get +40 Deflection and Reflex against dragons while sowing potatoes, so if you can lure a dragon (using a frying pan) to a party member who's sowing potatoes, the fight will be much easier. As long as you remember to dip the sausages in deer urine, the dragon will be Dazed every 4th hit. Then use a slingshot to shoot his eyes out. You can craft a slingshot on Belafa, and the car tyres are found in a chest can be found on the 3rd level of Valewood.

I have three front line characters in my current game - PC monk, Pallegrina and Kana. Am I doing it wrong ? Itumaak has plenty of support, this is on hard. I send him in after the initial engagement, or just place him between two frontline characters so it can only be engaged by a single enemy.