cavemandiary

As a personal trainer/ strength coach with a degree, I think we should be grateful that fantasy stats have little in common with real life, because flavorwise it would make little sense to gamers, barring ones with weightlifting experience. Strength, for instance, would be the governing stat for swinging heavy weapons faster and harder, while for light weapons like daggers, strength would have little effect on the attackspeed but still potentially increase your ability to penetrate armor. On top of that, it would increase your endurance in heavy armor for short-term (aka anaerobic) fights. For example, an endurance athlete who can deadlift 300 pounds, is asked to do as many reps as possible with 250 pounds, will have zero chance against a strength athlete who deadlifts 500 pounds. The strength athlete will put out many more reps with 250 pounds, because each rep is much less taxing on his system. Besides, strength would increase your run speed ( up to a certain point, then theres a dropoff) and bodytype/relative strength would have a significant impact as well. If you had to follow such guidelines, stats would have to be renamed and expanded to: Maximal strength Rate-of-force development ( speed and agility) Strength endurance (ability to tolerate and metabolize lactic acid buildup..endurance, but not of your health) Vo2 max (ability to use oxygen as an energysource, increasing your endurance also) Technique (precision in movement, and economization of energysystems... dexterity) Physical stress toleration (Hardening of bones and cartilidge tissue due to constant physical stress and pain as seen in MMA fighters and boxers, aka constitution) And each of these can be divided into more specific qualities as well. My point is, let's just be thankful that fantasy stats are what they are; easy to understand, makes sense to the common man, and have zero scientific validation.

Also, on a similar note, do you guys think that the stealth change could leviate some of the above issues? If you could stealth in-and-out of combat as a rogue?

I´ve always been a fan of sneaky-peaky cloak-and-dagger type of characters that migitate damage by evasion, illusion and confusion while dealing tremendous amounts of singletarget damage. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in the POE rogue, for a couple of reasons; 1) Not enough mobility and stealth 2) Too many per rest abilities, too few per encounter To be more specific, I would like to see escape changed to being more responsive(free action perhaps) and perhaps with a slightly longer range. Also I would give my right arm to have some form of stealth on a per ENCOUNTER. Just to be clear though, I do not think that the rogue is particularly underpowered, so obviously such a change would have to be a nerf of something else. I´d like to start a discussion about the "feel" of the rogue, in terms of flavor and fantasy. Do you like the rogue in it´s current state? If no, what would you change?

They are alright on some of the classes that do not have a lot of activated abilities (i.e chanter, fighter, rogue) but I couldn´t imagine using them on any of the caster classes. There´s just too much else to do, that´s better.

I for one really welcome this change - not only does it make a useless stat on par with the godtier trifectas (might, int, and to a certain degree, dex), but also allows for more customization. I´ve really been missing a way to buff the accuracy of my backline.

Maybe, but if this happens (Im not worried, it won´t) you´re effectively punishing players who mostly play these kind of games for the min/max combat tactical experience such as myself. For my first playthrough, I immerse myself in the world. But for any subsequent playthrough, I do as few quests as possible, and play the game for the combat itself and continous progression through the main quest line. Not getting any EXP from the beastiary (which is already too low IMO, and too much from quests) would feel really bad.

Also, sometimes it bugs out. By rightclicking the spell icon at the hotbar, it is reversed.

Simply pick another talent. It is not worth a point. The most annoying CC in the game in charm, which seems to be extremely hard to protect yourself against, and petrify, which is rare. Sometimes (and by sometimes i mean often) the best defence is either damage migitation or just more offensive power.

what? Moonwell is great, but still. Anyway, no class is mandatory. Priest is great though, both early, mid and lategame. Lvl 1 Blessing+armor in a bossfight is a gamechanger, and lategame devotions for the faithful gives a huge advantage to your party. He also have a bit of CC as well as damaging spells, just like the druid, making him rather versatile. I personally never go without a priest, because I like support classes.

Well it´s a great weapon, worthy of rushing to. But you will have a hard time at lvl 5 on POTD unless you heavily min-maxed - and in which case - I think you deserve that excellent reward.

Let us know how it works out. I personally had better results with 1 tank+offtank instead of 2 tanks+offtank. Mainly because of doorways and pathing. A blunderbuss cipher instead of a 2nd fighter would make your life much easier imo. u sure about the interaction between flames of devotion and larder door?

Good. Now try the Adra Dragon

That was me, and yup you´re right i misremembered. By the way, if you aren´t playing on a very hard difficulty, have a rogue, you can actually get Tidecaller 2h superb sword very early by going to the pools of fire. The dragon isn´t that hard to beat, but you need like 9-10 mechanics to find it. Still, it´s one of the best 2h in the game. Just

Pretty much identical to how I build my cipher, who I cleared POTD, including the Adra Dragon with (with a team, not solo). It´s strange how many of the lower level cipher powers are vastly superior to higher level ones(even without accounting for the reduced focus cost, as in the case of mental binding which could easily be a level 4-5 spell)

Perfectly congruent with real life #foreveralone

Not that much of a tradeoff, actually. The +5 to all defenses includes deflection, making the shield effectively +13, only 3 points behind a large shield, and you can enchant it to be fine/exceptional/superb in order to keep up high quality shields. Plus, as a small shield, it doesn't have an accuracy penalty, which is nice if you're leveraging Flames of Devotion. Personally, I really like Lay on Hands. Even with minimal Might, the damage healed is still significant for the first five or six levels, and a high Intellect gives you more ticks of healing to make up for the lower per tick value. In that stage of the game, even my Fighter tank sometimes encounters levels of hate that overwhelm his defenses and endurance, so the extra bump is handy to keep people alive. I like playing a Shieldbearer and taking the Shielding Touch talent to add the deflection bonus for even more damage mitigation. You´re not alone. I think LOH is a solid skill as well. By the way, there is a suberb shield found in the treasure pile of the adra dragon known as Little Savior, which also has Herald. I guess it´s kind of moot though, since the A.D is the toughest encounter in the game and anything after that poses no threat (even thaos is a cakewalk)

I managed to beat POTD with a paladin as my only tank, and a barbarian in medium plate, who barely qualified as off-tank. Just support the paladin with a cipher (painblock) and make him a pale elf, and you´re immortal to almost anything.

I see. But to be honest, I would never forego V.D, it´s just too good to pass up. Barrage? Could probably skip that one.

I´m not even mad than durance is at the top of the list. He is easily one, if not the, best written character, with the most depth. The fact that he is "disliked", is imo perfectly congruent with who he is.

Pretty much voicing what others have said: Petrify is cheese, because currently it is hands-down the most effective way of dealing with the A.D. Petrify really should be 2x dmg, and the A.D´s breath should be nerfed. But that´s just my opinion.

It quite specifically says melee only. It quite unspecifically doesn´t.

Not that I disagree, but Vigorous Defence is also affected by INT.

I think that theres one important point about the whole paladin vs fighter debate that hasn´t properly been brought up: There comes a point, where, even on POTD, adding more tankyness becomes obsolete. In theory, more tankyness is better, but in reality there comes a point where your tank has barely lost a quater of their health, while your backlines are near dead and have no spells left. You´re already immortal against anything but the two dragons and thaos if you add something like a cipher (painblock). But you still need to rest. Even the best tank, and clever placement, results in your backlines taking some form of damage occasionally. This is where the paladin really shines over the fighter; His tankyness is "just enough" and as an added bonus, is able to support his team with auras and buffs. And let us not forget the awesomeness that is reviving exhortation. As far as I am concerned, the biggest difference between the two classes lies in the engagement limit, but picking the +1 talent, and using a +1 weapon (shatterstar-->sheathed in autumn) brings you to 3 engagements, and I´m not sure that 5 engagements would make it much better. Would I like to see paladin buffs? Sure would. He is already my #1 tank pick currently for potd.

Lacking enemy AI or lack of companion AI? I am into micromanaging the whole group so the latter doesn't bother me at all. Either way, we've already gotten a response from the devs about it - they couldn't fit it in for release and plan to implement in either patch or expansion. I'm hoping it comes with enemy AI improvements, 'cause that's what bugs me more since enemies are just too predictable/simple right now. I was referring to companion AI, as it gets pretty tedious to micromanage 6 companions, but that´s just me I guess.