tnc

Yup, i have the same experience with my offensive Monk. I only took disable and dps abilities and even the unarmed strikes are really good for most of the game. I guess the reason so many people complain there are some classes that dont work is they just play the early game with them. After defiance bay every class gets op in some way when built right. People especially have the wrong idea about melee dps. They get huge dps and also large numbers of defensive stats too with priest buffs and equipment. There is a level 4 priest spell that both increases your accuracy/might and decreases enemy's. You can stack buffs and debuffs to an insane level in just first 2-3 rounds. You can give -40 accuracy to enemy and +40 to yourself it gets hillarious. ı'm not even gonna talk about deflection it's really easy to buff and for example there are rings that give 10+ deflection for gods sake.

You people love making things seem worse and more extreme than they are don't you. Currently rangers and paladins are just a little bit weaker than other classes. You put some of the strongest classes on pro and meh tier it's funny. For the hardest fights druids, wizards and priests are the best. Druids and wizards can just spam all their spells with cloth armor which is an instant skip button to a tough fight. Priest can give you insane buffs in first 2-3 rounds. You can get accuracy to 100+ deflection to 150+ and might to 35+ it is that insane. Cipher can't do **** in some fights you just cast one high level spell and wait for the focus lol.

In hard they can do anything really... if you believe they are only good on easy then you clearly dont know the game mechanics. Please check the status effects and use them to your advantage. You cant just cast fireballs and expect to win in this game. My barb is offensively built and hits for 50+ damage on level 6 right now and he never goes down coz i'm supporting with casters. On PotD you NEED to cast support spells and debuffs... you can cast them on whole party and give accuracy and deflection bonuses. Debuff the enemy too and you'll gain a huge advantage, if you use proper spells/abilities you cant die in this game not even on hardest mode.

Thanks for this it'll really help. What i love in this game is once you find their weak spot a ten minute fight becomes ten seconds. I was fighting some drakes and xaurip priests today and when i noticed i could charm the drakes with a LEVEL 1 druid spell (they have low will as i see) the fight ended in a blink. :D

Here's a tip you need to both buff your casters' accuracy and debuff the dragon's defenses. For example eldritch aim on your wizard and debuff fortitude (sickened&weakened for a total of -30 fortitude) on the dragon cast gaze of adragan and he's paralyzed. For debuffs Cipher has a single target level 3 debuff that decreases all defenses (fortitude, will, reflex) by 20. In fact i think all casters have some sort of debuff to those stats... You can further increase your accuracy if it doesn't work, there are so many spells that increase it, especially on priest. You can get it to enormous levels like 100+ By the way some disable abilities such as the ones fighter and monks have also attack fortitude. To be honest i don't understand people that use traps and cheese it.

Also, spreading weakened is fairly easy to do with Priests/Wizards/Druids, which lowers fort to gross levels. You're right weakened decreases fortitude even further. I think if an enemy has lower fortitude than deflection, if you apply these debuffs it might even be a %100 critiical hit chance, or maybe a really high chance. Priest has a per encounter weaken effect btw, it's an upgrade to an ability. You don't even need to waste your spells if you go that way! And oh, decreasing fortitude will also help many other abilities and spells hit! For example wizard level 6 spell 'gaze of adragan' that petrifies aoe and attacks fortitude, possibly the best spell in the game!

You need a strong tank with high cc and engagement limit. Send him first wait for enemy to take position while buffing/starting aoe damage spells with your casters. Then send in your melee dps most fights they won't get hit once if your positioning is good. Also i think a priest is really good for your melee crazy buffs on later levels you can start the fight with like +20 deflection buff. Theres especially a nice buff that both increases your accuracy/might AND decreases the enemy's by large amounts. It's level 4 spell i believe. Early game melee dps seem weak that's how it's designed. Too bad people get the wrong idea like rogue or barbs are weak classes. It's quite the opposite especially after you reach act 2. Early on armors really suck but later you can find good armors with low recovery like %15-%20-%25. There are unique light/medium armors that both provide good protection and don't decrease your attack speed much. Enchant them further and you're set. As for weapons two handed weapons are better against high DR targets. Also good for carnage because you hit harder and bypass the DR. For example there's a really good estoc in the game that is top quality and also gives you attack speed. Two handed swords are also good. Two weapon fighting works better on low dr targets because you can attack really fast with the two weapon talent, but less damage per hit.

The Estoc is actually in a weapon group with the Poleaxe, a two-handed weapon that also has two damage types. A match made in heaven, I'd say. Yeah but too bad unique poleaxes in the game suck!! There are only four of them and they have the less useful stats such as 'crits can inflict prone' or '%10 hits converted to crits'. Really bad dps-wise!

Brute Force/Threatening Presence is totally worth it because the other choices you get in those levels are awful imo. (one gives minor DR(the worst ability barb has by far) and another 'one stands alone' which is also awful because you should never engage that many enemies in the first place if you are an offensive Barb! you'll go down in no time) Also you're wrong on fortitude being higher most of the time, and sickened is active on enemies ALL the time so it's almost like a permanent accuracy buff. You should test it, check the combat logs and also the debuff on enemy. They are always sickened and i see on combat log my attack is made against fortitude around %80 of time. After i got those two my crit rate went skyrocketing...

I don't know about classes but there's a really good Estoc (the Best in fact) that gives +10 accuracy to an ally that attacks the same target. Also gives attack speed bonus(huge), DR penetration and it's top quality and still enchantable. It might be a really good choice for two character party.

Estocs and two handed swords are best 2H weapons by far. Estocs give DR and two handed swords have two damage types. Many enemies have high piercing DR and it's the disadvantage of Estocs, but still... Spoilers ahead: The best Estoc in the game is Blade of the Endless Paths. You get it after clearing the Endless Paths!!! I think it's definately in the top five weapons. It gives extra attack speed(1.2) + marked effect (+10 accuracy to an ally attacking the same target) and it's top quality (12 acc. x1.45 dmg). Also 5 DR bypass that estocs have. I believe you can enchant it further. Imo best late game weapons are the ones that give attack speed since it's really hard to get and later on attack speed has the biggest impact on dps. And also endurance leech is really good. There's also 'Drake's Bell' found early in the game, from a bounty quest. It has beast slaying and really effective against Dragons, one of the tougher enemies (maybe the toughest actually, anyone fought that Adra Dragon?) you'll ever face in POE. Btw i just noticed you can charm Drakes easily with a level 1 Druid spell(charm beast). It might even charm bigger dragons, since i think they're also beasts. I think that might need a nerf lol.

My main character is monk and I also created a barbarian in tavern and they both destroy everything in their path.(hard difficulty) Especially barbarian's brute force/threatening presence combo is crazy because it's almost like a permanent +10 accuracy (foes around you are sickened(-10 fortitude) ALL the time, its %100 confirmed, tested many times) and he crits quite often even on carnage attacks. Btw if you don't know what brute force is it is a passive that lets you hit fortitude instead of deflection if it's the lower defense. It's huge. Do not get abilities like Barbaric Shout or self heals on your Barb. You can apply those effects with your casters. Go FULL offensive with your abilities and talents. Take blooded and frenzy too, you'll thank me later when you see the damage numbers. My barb wields two handed swords. Estocs are also really good because you get the best unique estoc after clearing the endless paths and it gives attack speed, really valuable stat. I also give him an item with second chance(you rise again when your endurance is zero) and also boots that let him stay up for 3 more seconds.(found on a special NPC that you can defeat and capture). Perfectly synergizes with the class. As for monk i built mine with swift strikes and lots of cc abilities he has a great damage output and his fists are actually better for most of the game and it just got a buff in last patch. Don't believe people that say otherwise. Also fists deal crushing damage and you can further increase your damage with swift strike upgrade(%10 lightning damage) and also turning wheel (%5 fire damage PER WOUND) I suggest getting only cc and damage abilities on Monk, defensive stuff are not really that good, they give stuff like minor deflection and other defenses. Turn Eder into full tank with shield mastery, he'll have something like 110 deflection in Defiance Bay, he can be a great tank. Let him tank and hit them safely with ur Monk/Barbarian whatever you choose. Min-max your stats towards offensive build. If you pick barb increase your might and dex as much as you can. Constitution is actually not that important!!! The deflection penalty per and res. gives are nothing, later you get huge deflection buffs on your priest. Like +20 deflection! Also there are rings that increase deflection by 10+. It's really easy to increase. Don't forget the hardest stats to increase are attack speed and damage bonus. Thats why high might/dex and abilities that give as are really important. Later on the game unique items that increase your attack speed are the best. Also the ones that give endurance leech.

Most of the time i don't stack it because it's boring to cast before every fight. I didn't take that one yet. How is it bugged exactly ? It adds flat +20 damage for all attacks when engaged by 2+ enemies. The tooltip mentions a damage increase, but nothing like that. It should've been like +20% or smth I think. That's a really huge damage bonus, but engaging 2 enemies might be dangerous for my barbarian. I send him last and make him engage one enemy max, i gave him a two hander and he usually hits without any interruption.

Most of the time i don't stack it because it's boring to cast before every fight. I didn't take that one yet. How is it bugged exactly ?

Nice to hear this helped some people. I have the exact same party. Isnt it fun how things get torn into pieces all the time? Ofcourse there are many other viable builds out there but i find this really fun and smooth.

Fire godlike is good for monk but it gets a bit weaker later on since DR bonus stays the same i believe. I picked human for accuracy and damage boost(+7 acc is a lot in this game) but after some consideration i think moon godlike is the best race for monk because you can get wounds, knock down people, auto heal get more wounds heal again and so on. Con is important on Monk since you need high endurance to get more wounds but it does not increase it that much. I have 14 con. My monk is a human and stats are 18 14 18 6 16 6. It's highly offensive but i can keep him alive easily with good positioning and i have a lot of defensive buffs and heal on my priest and druid. Barbarian is also human they both get huge dps once they have low hp and i like the way combat works for my party. I keep them alive and they deal huge damage. Much more damage than other balanced builds out there. So it's dangerous but fun that's how i like it.

I agree spells like paralyze, confuse and dominate can be better than weapon damage since DR won't help against them. The thing is you can still get this dps combo and also 2 casters. Apart from these I have a cipher and a druid at the moment and it covers all i need. It would most probably work on highest difficulty aswell but i'm playing on hard.

I got it on Durance level 4 and it's called 'Inspiring Radiance'. By the way I found out that it can stack if you cast it 3-4 times before fight. It might be a glitch.

I have killed the skuldr pack , with their king........i didnt have any trouble there, just had to reload a couple of times. But its just the shades and phantoms....... their damage avoidance is ridiculous. I mean normally my rogue B'stabs for like 30 damage or so but on shades / phantoms he b'stabs for like 4 damage, not to mention he misses most of the times and the attacks my party actually manages to land on them, are usually grazes. Theres another pack in level two with 2 kings and about 10 skuldr in total i'm talkin about that one.

You're right my druid really shines in hardest fights. I can just unequip my armor and spam aoe like blizzard and get huge advantage right at start. Dont trust the numbers on character sheet when it comes to dps it will say cipher is best coz blunderbuss bypass dr for large dmg but some fights cipher dps just cant be as good as other classes depends on the situation. Btw i'm starting to feel this game is actually well balanced coz so many people claim their class is best in their certain roles. Well done obsidian.

And btw to kill that skuldr pack use doorway tactic block all group with your tank and hit with reach and ranged weapons. That fight is also really hard.

It can be doable on level 3 but if you dont want to reload 20 times take wizard fighter priest and also chanter companions from caed nua(stands at the start of map) they are really easy to reach. Use fire spells and two handed estoc to bypass their dr. Shades and phantoms are rly hard to kill but fire murders them.

I think monk becomes its best when you build him towards cc abilities and also high single target dmg. That means you need to get swift strikes, force of anguish(10 sec+ disable), stunning blows. Keep in mind stunning blows costs no wounds so you can just use it to lockdown enemy and win some fights without a scratch on monk and even on your tank coz fighters also have knockdown and its hillarious in some fights they cant even attack you once. The amount of cc this class has is just insane. I think for race godlike with healing passive might be the best choice coz you get wound, disable everyone around you get healed and disable again with more wounds. At the same time you can focus a single target with swift strikes and deal huge damage especially in mid and late game. Attack speed becomes more important later on because theres very few ways to increase it but lots of ways to increase acc. And damage. Max offensive stats if you want monk dps and use him as offtank. Tank 3-4 ppl with your fighter and 1 person with monk to get the best results. Debuff fortitude with a caster or barbarian and you can hit all the knockdowns. Enjoy your easy difficulty on hard.

I would not take savage attack. Accuracy is very important and it increases your dps anyway since you can hit and crit with high accuracy.

I dont know where u got that from. You get 1 wound per 10 endurance damage you take its that simple.