cavemandiary

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.

Don´t mind if you do!

10%, really? Guess it´s time to respec.

Haha - I don´t know the ranger could do the same thing. Sacrificial lamb is a fitting term indeed.

But the point still stands: You have to perma-CC the adra dragon, otherwise it will 1-shot non-tank with it´s breath/stomp, which is unavoidable. I would like to see someone keeping the AD permastunned while dealing with the adds - without petrify - on POTD. I will hold my breath

Leadspitter can be acquired pretty early, and gives you a ton of focus. The downside of using guns however, is a very slow casting animation. That is sometimes problematic for those "clutch mental bindings".

<insert stupid image because I have no thoughts of my own> Was there something in particular you disagreed with? Because the original poster decided the Adra Dragon was in their own words "unbeatable" by "conventional" tactics which is hilariously untrue. It has high defenses and does high damage. Thats all it has going for it outside of the mobs that join the fight but because you cant auto attack it to death people keep claiming it's cheating or cheese filled or other nonsense. Therefore it would not be surprising to me if they are then foolish enough to find the use of any debuff, like confusion, to be "unconventional." As such the OP's argument that petrify is leaps and bound beyond other debuffs was highly flawed. It rested on them using 6 traps and then using the barbarian with jolting boots combo to own adra dragon which is a whole other issue entirely. Ultimately I agree that petrify is nearly an insta-kill but it is not leaps and bounds beyond the other disables like prone and paralyzed. It is better than them in that foes take increased damage beyond the extra damage decreased defenses bring but it is a higher level debuff so that is not entirely unexpected. So unless your picture was supposed to represent you having a headache due to your ignorance maybe next time try understanding what is being said. If you have an effective way of dealing with the adra dragon on POTD, please share. Also 6 traps was just to make a point, it was unnessesary as the first one triggered. Meanwhile jolting touch is not OP when used against singletarget, as no splash targets are available!

Well, petrify is leaps and bounds ahead of any other debuff in the game. Nothing comes even close. 4x damage and a huge deflection debuff is a deathsentence, to friend and foe alike. I just beat the adra dragon on POTD, after about 30 attempts of promising myself that I wouldn´t join the "dark side" I finally realized that since the adra dragon doesn´t fight fair either, why should I? So, I took armor off all my guys, put down 6 petrify traps in a line, and lured the dragon into them. After he was petrified, I had druid cast hailstorm, priest cast pillar, wizard cast minolettas concussive missiles, and barb cast jolting touch(from boots). It died instantly. POTD adra is obviously designed to be unbeatable by conventional standards, and petrify is that answer. But the real question is, why does a debuff quadrupple your damage taken? Should it not be something along the lines of double?

yup!

Nah, monks are actually pretty balanced. Paladin and ranger could use some love, (and chanter too, he is basically only useful on POTD if you min/max) and obvious exploits skews class balance, but in general I think monks are great. He was easily my MVP on a hard playthrough.

You forgot the fact that with high might/int at lvl 12, you can cast two of them back-to-back, which effectively kills every single trash mob on anything but POTD. The few that are left standing, don´t feel too good. Mind plague IS better on POTD though.

Pretty much repeating what I already pre-emptively wrote in the OP.

Fire godlike

Back up the bear with a cipher - painblocked bear! Yeah!!

Here is a tip for those who are in Twin Elms, but are moneystarved: There is a merchant in the Hearthstone Marked who will buy items at a much higher price than any other merchant. Probably a bug?

For some builds, it is very good. If you already have a high accuracy, -5 isn´t that big of a deal, whereas 20% extra damage is rather significant. Also, any char that is going to dualwield fast weapons (especially stilettos, since -DR works especially well when stacked) should take vulnerable attack. And yes, they stack.

You find them right at the end of act 2, during the escape of defiance bay. It is found on a corpse, right in front of you.

IMO, It is the few KEY abilities that are really, really OP. Mental Binding, has no place as a lvl 2 ability. It is way better than Silent Scream(it´s nearest counterpart/upgrade), which is 2 levels higher. Borrowed instincts allows you to never miss your abilities, and generate focus quicker (more hits = more dmg = more focus drained), Mindplague is equally ridiculous, but the one ability that really takes the price is Amplified Wave, which can clear an entire screen with max might/int when thrown back-to-back.

i prefer to think of it as tactical, I mean i could never solo with my chanter without some tactical blocking As far as I am concerned, beating the game solo on POTD demands some respect, regardless of how you do it.

So, here is a little cheese that I just discovered, and wanted to share with you: You only need two things: 1) A doorway, or something that can be blocked 2) A priest Block the hallway with any char (doesn´t matter which), then cast Withdraw on them. They are now effectively immune to everything, but they still have a hitbox meaning that will continue to block the door. Feel free to unleash all your level 4-6 spells on the poor suckers frantically trying to get past..

Probably what was intended, but sloppy programming/oversight I guess.

..For my hired barbarian(1 level lower) to have done more damage than my tank paladin, in twin elms. One stands alone with retaliation on a fire godlike max int/might barb is just crazy broken, especially with the jolting touch boots. Granted, this interaction is probably bugged and unintentional*, and tank pala is not exactly known for doing a lot of DPS, but still it was pretty funny looking at the statscreen, considering my barb had been in my party for 5-10 minutes, while the paladin had been in my party for 22 hours of playtime. Not suggesting that you do this, but if you want to cheese POTD, this is one way to do it. *OSA adds 20 flat damage to your normal attack when engaged with 2 enemies, each of your retaliations(with the retaliation mod found on a couple of items), your godlike ability when below 50% END, oh and jolting touch works with carnage (I was instagibbing ogre druids on POTD with it).

None of those sell Pilgrims Crown. But in a3 you can buy exceptional and even superb weapons. By then it is probably redundant.

Durance and GM were my favorite. Guess i got a thing for chris' writing.

Tenous grasp bro afaik its the only ability that makes enemies terrorized.