DragonDai

No. Only the player character can suffer/benefit from the built in systems. Everyone else is just treated like they are right in the middle...no benefit no penalty.

Chanters are actually REALLY good tanks. Give it a whirl sometime, you'd be surprised.

While there is certainly a lot of "silly" DLC for CK2 (Crusader Kings 2), all of it is optional, and all of it is separated out. You don't want to buy the new artwork, music, or unit packs? That's 100% okay, cause they're in their own DLC and no one's making you buy it. IMO, CK2 has one of the best DLC systems around. When I buy an xpac, I know exactly what I'm getting. I'm not getting charged extra for music I may or may not want or portraits I may or may not care about. And if I do want them, well, those are avaliable too. And if I'm being careful with money/broke, I can wait till they go on sale for 40 cents. So, to be honest, I hope, with all my heart, that PoE gets the EXACT same DLC/Xpac treatment Paradox is giving to CK2. That would mean 3+ years of new, awesome, reasonably priced xpacs, lots of extra cosmetic things (that may or may not be reasonably priced, depending on how much you like them), constant free improvements to the base game, and more content than you could possibly ever consume in one lifetime. Yeah, Paradox, get in here! Give PoE the CK2 treatment! Now that I think about it, that sounds bloody awesome!

All I can say with bugs is that when your game is in Early Access for as long as this game was, or when you have a public beta for as long as some other recentish games have had, your ability to excuse bugs with the "All games have bugs on release" or "Relax guys, it's only been a week since release" becomes a pretty terrible defense. There have been a couple of games in the last year that have released after a year or more of Early Access/Public Beta where the company was alerted to a specific bug or bugs weeks/months before launch, and the game launched with the bug anyway. And, to be honest, it's getting a little frustrating to see games, like PoE, where Early Access or Public Betas aren't solving the problem that they are meant to solve, specifically, bugs. I can't blame all of this on Obsidian, but I they aren't completely blameless.

Not sure if Might affects the damage summons do, but it affects all damage the character possessing it does (unless specifically stated otherwise, like some Wizard spells). So Might affects a sword swing, an arrow from a bow, a fireball from a Wizard, and an invocation from a Chanter all equally. I do not believe Dex makes Chanters chant faster, no. Perception does stack with any attack that can interrupt, including chants or spells that do that thing, but the bonus is extremely tiny. Int will increase the duration of anything, excepting chants, I think (can you tell I haven't done too much with Chanters yet? lol). So it will increase the duration of a buff from an Invocation and it will increase the total time a summon is allowed to stick around. Obviously, if the summon dies, Int doesn't help, but Int will keep your summon from poofing out quite as quickly. As for AoE increase, it does exactly as advertised. More Int means bigger AoE circles. And this is clearly displayed in the ground targeting reticule for the AoE. You'll see and inner circle of one color and an outer ring of another. That outer ring is the increased AoE size from Int. As a side note, that outer ring is ALWAYS Foe AoE only, even on spells that can friendly fire (not relevant to Chanters, I don't think, but still, good info). As to why Resolve is recommended, I think you got the right of it. That being said, the bonus is very small, and it's probably a better is to just make sure the Chanter isn't getting hit, either thru proper positioning if the Chanter isn't tanking or thru high Deflection (via armor, Perception, and Resolve) if they are taking, than by worrying about a tiny bonus to Concentration from Resolve. Anyway, sorry I couldn't be of more help, but hopefully that will set you on the right track.

Oh, totally...agree with basically everything you put here. All I want is for more Attributes to be useful for more classes and more specs. I'd like Resolve/Perception/Con to be at least somewhat useful to my rogue. They don't need to be as good or even close to as good as Might, Dex, or Int. That's what I'm looking for. Looks like we are on the same page here.

Even if there aren't 7th level spells in the game, increasing the level cap wouldn't really be that difficult. You don't even need to add content, just let the player pick more stuff from the previous levels. Wizard would be able to have a large selection of spells, fighters another passive, etc. There are certainly plenty of extras to go around. IMO, the only downside of increasing level cap would be that it would be quite easy to out level ALL the content in the game, making the difficulty SUPER trivial for those that got above level 12. And fixing that would require a TON of extra work. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the extra work is 100% worth is and I think that Obsidian should have already dealt with this issue in a much more positive way than they did ("lets just slap a level cap and call it a day" is a bad way to fix this problem), and I think that they had PLENTY of time to come up with a better solution, but it is what it is. Raising the level cap now would make the end of the game FAR too easy for some people. And while I am sure some people wouldn't mind, I think that'd piss off just as many people as it made happy.

There are always exceptions to a rule. The rule here is that Might is the best stat for non-Tanks. Yes, Chanters can get away with lower Might in general and VERY specialized Wizards can get away with lower Might. But here's the question...why would you want to do that? Obviously, if you're Chanter is tanking, lower Might is fine, but in all other situations, what benefit does lowering Might and increasing Constitution, Resolve, or Perception REALLY give to the non-tank? You drop Might from your Wizard, choose his spells and talents VERY carefully, and what have you gained? He survives 3-4 hits instead of 2? He's a Wizard...he shouldn't be getting hit at all, ever, except MAYBE by AoE. Same goes for the Chanter. So the issue here isn't that you HAVE to have Might, it's that Perception, Resolve, and Constitution are worthless on non-tanks. The Deflection bonus you get from a 14 Resolve or a 16 Perception isn't significant at all. The extra HPs/Endurance from more Constitution is very very minimal (each point of Con is worth 1.2 extra Endurance and 3.6 extra HPs per level for a Wizard. A level 12 Wizard with 10 Con has 160 Endurance and a Wizard at level 12 with 18 Con has 196 Endurance. That's basically no difference at all. Why would you waste 8 points to get 36 extra Endurance and 108 extra Health when, instead, you could have 24% more damage? So yeah, you COULD give your non-tanks defensive stats (Con, Resolve, Perception), but you're just wasting points. They gain almost no benefit from them at all. Why would you want your mage to draw fire? That's what your tank is for! Your mage isn't a tank. Let the mage do his job and let the tank do his job. It works out WAY better that way. And because of the Engagement system and Stealth, it's VERY easy to make sure your mage almost never gets attacked...ever... I think the thing that a lot of people aren't getting is that, yes, you can make your wizard or your cipher or your barbarian more tanky. But no, making them more tanky in no way makes them better at their job. It does the exact opposite. It makes the worse at their job. You can do it, but it's a bad idea.

I think for Non-Tanks (basically, anyone you will try to keep from taking damage thru tactics, disables, positioning, etc, as opposed to stats), you're best off putting 18+ in Might, 18 in Int, and whatever's left over in Dex. You can easily do 18/10/12/10/18/10 if you don't want ANY penalties, but, honestly, a 10 Perception and Resolve on a DPS does basically nothing. Even a 10 Con is pretty debatable about it's usefulness, but I can see why someone wouldn't want a penalty to HP/Endurance. So if you take just 2 points out of Resolve and Perception, meaning only a small penalty to Deflection, Will, Reflexes, Interrupts, and Concentration, you can have 18+/10/16/8/18/8 and have a character who is superior to both 18/10/12/10/18/10 and 18/10/15/10/15/10. But, honestly, unless you're playing Path of the Damned, the differences between these three stat lines is probably going to be almost unnoticeable.

Monks and Chanters round out the Tanking 4-some in PoE. Paladins and Fighters are the obvious choice, but Chanters and Monks can be just as effective. Paladins, Fighters, and Chanters are best speced 8/8/8/18+/18/18+. A Monk, on the other hand, needs some Con because A.) He's probably not going to have quite as high of a Deflection Score since you'll likely want to run him without a shield and B.) He needs to take damage to use his abilities. So for a monk, I'd likely go 8/14+/8/18/14+/18. This stat line is probably totally acceptable for the other three tank classes as well (well, maybe not for Chanter...he REALLY benefits from the super high Int), but I think the pure 8/8/8/18/18/18 is probably better most of the time. See, PoE just plays differently than other RPGs. In most RPGs, the tank stacks health. In PoE, because of the way Deflection works, if you make your character right and give him the right gear, you're tank is almost never going to get hit with normal attacks. He'll still take damage from time to time, but they'll be plenty of time for him to quaff a potion or get a heal from the Priest before he takes more, so having tons of HP just isn't really necessary. So yeah, if you want a non-Paladin, non-Fighter for a tank, my suggestion is try Chanter or Monk (I prefer Chanter).

I don't necessarily agree that every stat needs to be super-amazing for combat, if that's what you're saying. Could Perception/Resolve/Constitution get a bit better? Sure. However, it doesn't make quite a lot of sense for the smart, perceptive, resolved Rogue to spontaneously be excellent at combat. That Rogue shouldn't be as effective at combat as the Might/Dex/Int DPS Rogues we see, IMO. Maybe the gulf shouldn't be massive as it is now, but there should definitely be a difference in effectiveness between the two, or there wouldn't be much point to putting points into Might/Dex/Int. So what you're saying is that the Rogue who is perceptive, smart, and resolute is bad at being a rogue? Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. Well, not exactly, cause Int can be quite good for rogues. More I was saying that the perceptive, resolute, hardy rogue was bad at being a rogue, but yeah, we're on the same page there. Where we're not on the same page is...if you JUST look at combat (like I said about a dozen times in the post you quoted) why would you EVER make a perceptive, resolute, hardy rogue? There is literally no benefits in combat what-so-ever-at-all. He's just a really really really bad rogue who won't be able to do his job and still won't be able to tank because he's a rogue (or at least not as effectively as an actual tank class). By making a perceptive, resolute, hardy rogue, you are making an objectively inferior rogue for absolutely no reason. Out of combat, for RP, there could be reasons to make a resolute, perceptive, hard rogue. But you know that by doing that for RP/OOC reason, you are making your character objectively worse at combat. And that's a fine trade off to make. But from a purely combat standpoint, it's not a fine trade off. It's not a trade off at all. You're giving away good stats and getting literally nothing in return. To put it another way, you're saying "If I want to make a rogue who is perceptive, hardy, and resolute, he's not going to be as good at combat as other rogues, and that's okay." I agree with you. What I'm saying, on the other hand, is "If I want to make a rogue that's good at being a rogue in combat and is an effective member of my team, in combat, than any points I put into Constitution, Resolve, or Perception are wasted points that go against my stated goal of having a combat-proficient rogue, and that's not okay."

Here's the thing. Sure and 8/8/8/18+/18/18+ tank is going to suck vs fort and be not so great vs reflex. But all you have to do is go 10/10/8/18+/14/18+ and suddenly, you're tank is 100% fine. Get a few buff spells going if there is a particular combat that is troublesome, but most of the time, you'll be 100% fine. The issue here isn't that super min-maxing will leave **** in your armor (literally and figuratively in this case lol), but that there is basically no real diversity in builds. Is the character a tank? Yes? Okay, max out P and R and get a healthy dose of the rest, based on your preferences, it really doesn't matter. Is your character not a tank? Okay max out I and M for casters or M and D for not casters and get a healthy dose of the rest, based on your preferences, it really doesn't matter. So doing it "right" (in terms of combat, not RPing/out of combat stuff), means having two stats as high as they can go and the rest are basically meaningless. On the other hand, if you do it "wrong" (again, based solely on combat, totally ignoring the OOC/RPing stuff), you are making a blatantly suboptimal character who is just straight up worse at his job with no upside (outside of RPing/OOC uses for stats) that a "correctly" built character. In other words, there aren't any meaningful choices when it comes to attributes in combat. Either you spend your attributes well (and by "well" I mean 2 stats maxed and the rest irrelevant) or you do less good in combat than you could (likely WAY less good). There are no meaningful choices there. Now, I keep placing a caveat for Roleplaying/Out Of Combat. It's totally reasonable to say "I'm going to give my rogue an 18 perception because I want to RP a very perceptive rogue and I want to see the out of combat options that come with having a high perception." That's 100% legit. But sadly, it comes at a cost. Your rogue WILL be worse (and likely a LOT worse) than a rogue that doesn't do this and instead maxes Might and Dex and has a good number of points in Int. Now that's a trade off I'm sure a lot of players will be happy to make. But the thing is, it isn't a tradeoff the players should have to make in the first place. It's a bad choice. It means that if you want to RP your character via their attributes, you might have to make a suboptimal character for the combat portions of the game. That's super lame, and it's certainly not interesting. Sadly, I am not sure there is a good fix beyond a pretty serious rework of the attributes. I think there are a lot of good ideas in this thread (and others like it). I like the idea of Con doing more so that it's actually useful. I like the idea of Perception and Resolve having some more/better offensive effects than they have now. And I'd like to see damage matter for tanking (so that a tank can't just dump Might and be a meat shield). But I'm not sure I'm best qualified to make suggestions towards improving that. Hopefully stuff will change, but, at best, I am skeptical it will.

From what I've seen/experienced, it seems like there are exactly two builds in this game, statwise, unless you are purposefully gimping your character/choosing stats for roleplaying reasons. You either max Resolve and Perception and put the rest into Intelligence, or you max Strength and Intelligence and put the rest into Dexterity. I know there are some niche builds that don't fit those two cases, but I think that about 90% of characters could have 18+/8/18/8/18/8 for non-tanks or 8/8/8/18+/18/18+ for tanks. For the tank, you could theoretically make the case that spreading the 18 in Intelligence over to Might or Constitution or Dexterity might not be a bad idea to keep their defences up, but even then, 10/10/10/18/12/18 isn't REALLY that much different, and I think the bonuses to durations of effects (like knockdown on a fighter tank) is probably superior to a couple extra points in Fortitude or Reflex. And if you're about to say, "Well, no one is forcing you to min/max." that's true. But why make a suboptimal character? I already put an exemption for roleplaying at the very beginning. Yeah, if you REALLY want to RP a super resolute Barbarian, go for it. The game really excels at making your choices matter in non-combat settings, so it's 100% viable to make non-min/maxed characters for roleplaying purposes. But there are a ton of people who play these sorts of games and couldn't give two craps about RPing a super perceptive wizard. They just want to have fun blowing stuff up with a fireball. And your super perceptive wizard is going to be WAY less good at that than your extremely mighty wizard is. And beyond that, even if you're stating a character for RP reasons, if you don't invest points into Might as a rogue, you're gana have a bad time on anything but Easy. Oh, and if you don't invest points into Might as a Barbarian, you're gana have a bad time on anything but Easy. Also, if you don't invest points into Might as a Cipher...well, you get the idea... I don't know. Maybe it's bias, maybe it's me being stubborn, but I spent a LOT of time since release just playing with the character creation portion of the game, and every character I make comes out with almost identical stats. It's disheartening. Something needs to be done. And, TBH, the fact that the stat system is in the shape it's in at release is, IMO, a pretty poor reflection on Early Access/Kickstarter titles, Obsidian, or possibly both. The game shouldn't have been released with this kind of glaring flaw attached to it. And that's a real shame.