cavemandiary

Not really much to discuss, it´s pretty accurate. Fire godlike is better than death godlike, and deserves an honorable mention. Nature godlike is hilariously UP. Orlans and humans are decent for certain builds.

I agree with most of your points, but it baffles me that you didn´t mention the biggest offender of all : The lack of AI.

Mace and large shield works alright. You cqst spells faster than with a firearm, and makes your durability average. Just dont expect to tank much..

Short answer: yes Long answer: pound for pound its the best spell in the entire game.

Bounties for sure. On my first playghrough i did neither od nua or bounties and dinged lvl 11 just before thaos. Did most of the sidequests.

I actually did that - i suggested lowering the 4x dmg to 2x in the OP.

I originally thought the idea (of camping supplies) was decent (not great, but decent), but with more time in I have to agree with you. Fundamentally, there is no difference between resting as much as I want vs. resting only in town (or with camping supplies) other than a whole lot of wasted (real) time. It is somewhat annoying. But in practice, there is. Because you know that restocking your camping suplies is a chore, you are more likely to moderate your use of per rest spells and abilities. This allows the designers to make spells that are deliberately overpowered, but has limited use. And that´s the problem with the Cipher - his abilities are at will, but of "per rest" quality.

I´m an adult min/maxer. First world problems

BG is 17 years old. I played it as an early teen when it came out. It was a great era for RPG´s, but they weren´t exactly known for their balance. But these are different times, with different expectations. What exatly am I supposed to learn? I am already skipping the fence, I am already cheesing as much as possible. But beating the most difficult encounters in the game is less appealing than discussing the overall health and balance of the game. Because the responsibility of self-restraint should not be placed on the player. Why do you think we have balance changes with patches, even in singleplayer games? So your musings serve as nothing but childish outbursts really. I think we´re done here.

I don´t mind them including that option, sort of like how you can tick off maining your companions before killing them. But part of the challenge on the higher difficulties is not only choosing when NOT to fight, but also to kill using minimal effort, and balance out your spell usage with your health, AND the health between your party members. Playing on POTD, you really have to restrict your spell usage for most encounters. Once I figured that out, it became immensely more enjoyable to play.

Wait until you find out that it actually works with retaliation, and the fire godlike passive. And that all of that can splash with carnage. THEN you will begin to question reality.

Stop insulting people please. Not everyone is a star player like you. And personally, I would expect to be able to defeat a dragon without using every little trick in the game if I can steamroll the final boss. E.g. it's not that strange that people find the Adra Dragon way too hard to beat. So again, it's not necessary to insult them for lack of skills nor is it necessary to insult people who're basically telling you that you're insulting people. Anyway, I am glad I had some petrify traps on me. After a dozen tries I went 'f*** this' and had the precise thought OP has: If you're going to cheat, I'm going to cheat. Placed the trap, watched as it got petrified for a lousy 7 seconds, cursed because 7 seconds wouldn't be enough... then practically disintegrated the thing within 3 seconds in an all out desperate attack. After being instakilled by that thing for a dozen times it felt incredibly good to reverse the instakilling for a change! That is the thing that you, OP and quite a few others think this, and other mechanics in the game, is cheating. It is not. Its legitimate. That is why you are newbies. Of course we are newbies, the game has been out for too short a time for anyone to ´be a pro´. So that includes you as well. That being said, having played (and completed) all of the BG1, IWD series, ToEE, NWN1+2 and most of their expansions, and the whole DA series, D:OS, usually on hard or higher and multiple times, I do consider myself rather experienced. Whats your criteria? I don´t think that it´s cheating at all. I just think that it´s overpowered. I like it when combat takes on the approach of multiple solutions to a problem, since it keeps the game fresh and more interesting. But as it is, petrification traps are just much easier than any other solution right now. I mean it´s human nature to skip the fence.

Well, bounties and the endless paths(beginning at the ogres) are not really designed for a level 4 party, unless you´re heavily into min/maxing. You should head into defiance bay. My suggestion is to scrap the ranger and the chanter. Ranger offers little utility, and his damage not that great. Chanter is great on POTD where fights last longer, but on normal he is very bad. Even on hard I was never able to get off his invocations before I had won the fight. Druid and ciphers are both top tier, and will without a doubt make your life easier. Just make sure to pick up mental binding on the cipher.

You make a compelling argument, but there are a couple of things to point out; First, the paladin is indeed a weaker tank than the fighter, however there comes a point where adding more tanking ability becomes moot even on POTD. I was running a pale elf darcozzi who was practically immune to fire and cold, and supported her with a cipher (painblock is amazing) and that made her practically immune to physical damage as well, save for some ogres and of course the sky/adra dragon. She never died, except when I did something dumb and got my backline crushed. When she took aggro, she held it, and rarely went below 75% hp. And this was with a non-pc paladin. The engagement limit wasn´t that much of an issue either, as I bought a shatterstar (+1 engagement) and kept it until I got the amazing Sheathed in Autumn sword (also +1 engagement), plus i picked up the +1 engagement talent. I´m not sure if 5 to the engagement limit would have been better tbh. Even if the supportive abilities of the paladin are mediocre, they are better than zero (which is what the fighter offers). The biggest advantage of the fighter over the paladin is the engagement limit, which can be manipulated, and 3 seemed like a good place to be. If you´re going to make a supportive paladin, I would go 2h and kind wayfarer moon godlike. Nigh unlimited party heals, but requires a specific setup, and in this case should be paired with a maintank.

Stop insulting people please. Not everyone is a star player like you. And personally, I would expect to be able to defeat a dragon without using every little trick in the game if I can steamroll the final boss. E.g. it's not that strange that people find the Adra Dragon way too hard to beat. So again, it's not necessary to insult them for lack of skills nor is it necessary to insult people who're basically telling you that you're insulting people. Anyway, I am glad I had some petrify traps on me. After a dozen tries I went 'f*** this' and had the precise thought OP has: If you're going to cheat, I'm going to cheat. Placed the trap, watched as it got petrified for a lousy 7 seconds, cursed because 7 seconds wouldn't be enough... then practically disintegrated the thing within 3 seconds in an all out desperate attack. After being instakilled by that thing for a dozen times it felt incredibly good to reverse the instakilling for a change! Lol, exactly. Oh I am sure that there ways to beat it. I´m under the impression that the breath/stomp hits the entire screen regardless of your position, but perhaps there is a small safe zone behind it. Also, I dislike crafting potions and scrolls, but I know that paralyze, revive and maelstrom scrolls are very good. I just never bothered, since I never needed them.

I went ahead and took your advice on bearform. Made it to level 4 and....nope, just nope. It was too slow. Then I went ahead with the cat, and fared much better. Was able to solo the first wolf camp(impossible with bear, atleast for me) on POTD by bursting down the big wolf, and use sunbeam on the other three. So cat it is...

Coughcipher..cough

Monk has extremely high accuracy, so agreed on this part. Also his abilities are free, and he can still do dmg if he misses thanks to rooting pain. So if anything, missing hurts a monk less than other melee classes (barring the cheesy retaliation builds). By the way, monk works really well with a cipher. Just mind wave your monk, and you get 2-3 wounds instantly, and you get to position your mind wave as effectively as possible, knocking most of the mobs prone if the monk has a decent amount of stealth. If he´s taking a beating, just painblock him.

Either one of them are among the best cipher spells. I will suggest mind blades (even after the nerf) because even though mind wave is awesome (especially with a monk... just target him and you get 2-3 wounds and an empty playingfield) once you get mental binding, Mental Binding pretty much always takes priority except in a few encounters where mobs are funneled in a cone. Mindblades however is great as a fire-and-forget spell, no aiming or strategy required, and doesn´t hurt your party unlike mind lance.

IMO there are multiple ways to build a paladin, as long as it´s not glasscannon. I rolled with a pale elf darcozzi, who was basically invulnerable to fire and cold (which was a good idea, since I had a druid and a wizard). She was all tank, so 3 might and max con/per/res, with enough int for the aura radius. She had lay on hands, reviving exhortation, hasteting exhortation and the deflecting exhortation. So basically a tank that supported with party buffs. Her aura was the dmg reduction one, since I hate resting. She was very boring, and very effective. A more interesting one could be a kind wayfarer moongodlike, with the two passives that aoe heal your team. You´d probably need to go 2h and a fair amount into might though, just to last hit. This one is very effective with a party consisting of atleast 3 melee companions. I´m sure other people have other effective ways to play the paladin. Either one of them need flames, lay on hands, an aura of your choosing, and reviving exhortation (that´s just my opinion), but where you go from there is up to you. Just don´t make a glasscannon 2h bleak walker trying to 1-shot things, unless you play on normal or lower.

Because the animation is directly tied to how many shots you fire in a given length of time. This is also why the Chanter chant, that gives x2 reload speed and other benefits, is so amazing for a party that uses guns/arbalests/crossbows. Faster animation = faster attacking = more DPS. The less frames the game uses in between attacks, the better it is. Yep. And the difference is rather significant. I.e with dual stilettos, robe, max dex and 20% IAS mastery, you can cast spells faster than one/second. Thats great for bursting down, or quickly chain/cc with mental binding to rotate your group.But the cipher is very very squishy, even with body attunement and borrowed instincts. A ranged cipher can just sit back. I don't personally think that a melee cipher is viable outside of easy and normal mode. Just way too squishy to be on the front lines. If you´re good at rotating body atunement and borrowed instincts, it can work as an "off-tank". But the idea is more to use ranged weapons when the fight starts, but switch to DW once the bulk of adds have been removed and your focus bar is relatively full. The idea is not to use the weapons themselves - but to chain your abilities back-to-back and react to any threat immediately.

On my 4th playthrough now, which is my 2nd POTD one. I´ve decided to roll a druid (which i never really had much playtime with) and was wondering what peoples experience is with his shapeshifting form. I´m aware of the old argument that SS is really good early game, rather weak lategame. But still, which is your preferred form? My idea is to use my Druid mainly as a caster, with dual weapons for the faster cast speed, and mostly resort to SS for defensive purposes. Cat form seems the most promising, since it attacks much faster than the other classes. Probably a good way to dispose of the immediate threat. The bear felt really slow, and the active very weak. Wolf looks interesting, but knockdown is per rest and druid has low accuracy, and I wont be running towards things, but from them (and disengagement doesn´t care about how fast you run). Boar alright, since I dislike per rest abilities in general. Stag is probably also out of the question since we won´t be engaging large groups in melee as a druid, but rather finish off the stragglers that get past the tank quickly. I guess I´ve answered my own question. Which form do you prefer, and why?

I always go chanter but that may be coz my first run with a pally left me utterly underwhelmed with them, like fair enough he tanked well but he did nothingelse lol Again, this is just about playstyle. Considering they possibly get a /encounter rez, auras, heals, damage burst, etc.. your statement doesn't make sense. However I will say that Paladins are also not designed to be tanks in the sense that the game requires them to be. The game is about extremes, if you want a tank, you have to completely invest in being one, meaning that the Paladins abilities are most likely not properly utilized. The Paladin is a kill stealing class. It's designed to last hit mobs brought low by allies which then grants the party bonuses, usually in the form of endurance. If you make a paladin tank, you will almost NEVER last hit anything and you aren't going to be taking the talents that grant the bonuses in the first place. So all you're doing is being a sub-par fighter with some support. Better to have a real fighter who actually has the talents to make an amazing tank if that's what you're trying to achieve. This is of course, discounting everything but min/max. Well I´ve seen a lot of discussion about paladins making subpar tanks compared to the fighter, and while it is true that pound-for-pound, the fighter wins, the utility brought by the paladin is pretty valuable. Personally I used my paladin as a supportive tank with zero damage, but who had a teamwide aura, clutch heal, revive and 2 buffs for my main DPS (deflection and attackspeed). While I do think the fighter is the better tank, he does nothing for the team to help them kill faster.

I was about to say this. Monks make above-average tanks, but the amount of damage they can do with minimal offensive investment is pretty balls. They do however require a ton of micro.

The thing about these ratings, is that they vary depending on your team composition and general playstyle. Also, are we rating them as a whole, or based on their level? Because higher level spells tend to be better (but certainly not always). For me, armor of faith is 9/10, I open every fight with it, because I try to minimize the amount of times that I need to rest, and damage reduction is the most effective way of doing so. The same goes for blessing, as +10% dmg and 5 acc. is more or less equal to 20% crit, except it has a much larger aoe. Atleast we agree on Devotions for the faithful (easily his best spell), as well as shining beacon and withdraw. Repulsing seal is also a 10/10 in my book, as it can be placed tactically before the fight, and is one of the most effective ways for the priest to dump aggro. Iconic