Manty5

Spreadsheets don't reflect considerations like the pet engaging late because otherwise it dies when even slightly focused, every doorway battle depriving the ranger of their pet damage AND their linked accuracy talent because the pet can't reach the enemy, etc. Meanwhile all the ranged rogue needs is debuffs you were gonna place anyway. If PoE was programmed in Excel, rangers would be competitive. Unfortunately...

And what, pray tell, are these debuffs that you're so keen on keeping up for a maxed int duration? Rogue plays better when others are debuffing for him, because every class can debuff better than a rogue can.

When I use Pallegina I usually have her open the fight with a FoD-enhanced arablest or aquebus strike then swap her to warhammer and shield for the rest of the fight. Trying to make a paladin into a damage machine is like trying to teach a horse to sing, but at least she can put an alpha strike into the most dangerous foe. Only characters with high might and accuracy should be using one-handed weapons. You need multipliers to get over the DR bump. Aloth is somewhat in a bad posistion, as he doesn't have enough might to make his Arcane Assault useful, but swapping to guns gimps it further.

I went back and read the developer's notes, compared them to how paladin actually plays, and came up with this: Paladins are a warrior/support hybrid. Their support options differ from priests by being fewer in number and usually not AoE, but individually more powerful (such as liberating exhortation being single target but twice the duration from the cleric counterpart). Paladins are also war-leaders, using feats of martial prowess or even their mere presence to bolster allies. An important point, one I'd like to see the class keep and even expand on, is that Flames of Devotion, on-kill abilities and Aura are interesting in that they are extremely action-efficient - a cleric has to cast a spell and get a buff in return, but Flames of Devotion procs with your attack, which you were going to do anyway and Aura is always-on. This is notable because paladins often wear heavy armor and therefore they can't sit about waving their arms every time they want an effect, or they'd be doing that all day. So this efficiency is something I think is necessary to understand the class properly. So, here's how I would change the class to (I hope) match this burning soul of zeal. Please understand that this change would need balancing, like any change does. So we're examining the overall idea, not so much the details and percentages that can easily be changed. Faith guides my weapon, my sworn enemy falls at my feet. First, I'd swap the roles of Sworn enemy(accuracy+damage) and FoD(pure damage). There are a bunch of complaints that FoD is a waste of a spell that might not even hit. So lets MAKE it hit. Instead of +50% damage, make it +30 accuracy with no damage. This will have... interesting effects with on-crit weapons as well as addressing one of the loudest complaints about on-kill talents in that whiffing the killing blow can be a real problem. When they absolutly must hit something, they now very likely will. Sworn enemy meanwhile functions much like it always has, except with 50% damage instead of its previous effects. He trained his hands to mend both flesh and spirit while his brother trained his sword to wound both body and eternal soul. Here is where we double-down on that wonderful paladin characteristic of efficient actions and further seperate him from being comprable to a cleric. Almost EVERYTHING is now either a lay on hands or a smite, and your choice of talents directly influences whether you focus your overflowing soul-energies twords enemies or friends. Oh, and we're going to fix the classes' scaling problems while we're at it. Sound exciting? Lay On Hands: Unchanged when you first get it. Still one charge of moderate single-target healing. + Each add-on ability listed below adds 10% healing AND one charge of Lay on Hands + With Reviving Exhortation talent: LoH can now be used on a fallen ally and also heals the target for the same amount that he would have recieved if it had been cast while he was standing. There is no extra disappearing stamina. + Liberating Exhortation: LoH now adds the standard LE effect to its healing. + Reinforcing Exhortation, Hastening Exhortation, Inspiring Exhortation, Bond of Duty, Shielding Touch: Same effects as before, but they also add a charge of LoH and 10% healing, allowing a paladin who wants to focus on the LoH half of his skillset to do so. - Greater Lay on Hands is removed. Talents that merely add percentages tend to be boring, and its function is already being handled by the (each ability adds 10% healing). Smite(or other replacement term for Flames of Devotion): Starts with only one charge. * Each add-on ability listed below adds 5 acc to Smite AND one charge of Smite. * Remember Rakhan Field, Fires of Darcozzi Palace, The Sword and the Shepherd, Shielding Flames, Intense flames, Enduring Flames - all work as above except they also add the aformentioned effectiveness and charges. * Deprive the Unworthy: Is now an added effect to smite. Possibly cut the duration by half for balance? So as you can see, the list of abilities is greatly simplified. Everything is a smite or a Lay on Hands, so you're not sitting about waving your hands all day as each situation arises. I realize that sometimes you might want a exhortation without adding the heal to it, but this is the price of minimizing the number of times you need micromanage. Also, having one action do several powerful but specialized things makes the Paladin even more different from a cleric, while both of them remain useful in their own ways. And you get to decide what balance of offence and defence that you want, simply by adding abilities and thus charges. The charges do more and increase in number with each talent, growing as your character does, eliminating the scaling problem. Balance-wise, this is a major change being suggested. Implementation-wise though? The inner workings of most talents are unaffected... they're simply reorganized. Do you folks think that given a proper balancing pass, that this might make paladins more fun, customizable, and address current concerns like the infamous "I whiffed my killstroke" for KW and BW's?

* A moderate amount of stealth(2-3) on all chars lets you avoid some pointless fights and pre-position on others. * High stealth on your lockpicking char lets you send him to loot entire areas, especially friendly areas where stealing in the open would provoke a fight. * Moderate survival (2-5) is important on all your chars. I'd recommend 3 on casters and 5 on frontliners. * Most chars should have 2 lore. That's enough for level 1 scrolls, and level 1 scrolls can be quite powerful. * Have a mix of high-survival chars and high-lore chars so that you can give the potions to the former and the highest-level scrolls to the latter. * Interestingly, the best results come from giving high survival to casters (especially cyphers) and high lore to frontline tanks. Many of the really damaging scrolls cause friendly fire, so frontliners can use them with impunity, and casters can chug an accuracy potion and start critting with spells. There are several focus-based consumables that a cypher should have for tough fights. EDIT: I just read that mechanics skill affects trap spells, so if you don't have a rogue, making your priest into your Mechanics/Stealth char sounds like a very good idea.

What I'd do to fix rangers is make the pets' mental resistences sky-high. You have a mental link to your companion, you should be able to share your courage with them. Also, I'd give the pet an aura that can only affect the ranger. For example something like wolf granting the run-speed aura the paladin gives, so that the two of you can run as a pack. That would make it so that in open fights, the ranger has an easier time moving to a flanking position.

Actually, I find it best to do the beginner quest for each faction before ACCEPTING the second quest for the faction I want to stay with. Beginner quest opens up the vendor for the faction (though one of the vendors wants a quest of their own fulfilled). Once you accept the second quest for the faction, your choice is sealed.

You speak much of what the dev's plan for the paladin is... but what I haven't heard is how that's supposed to fit in with their vision of the classes playing differently based on what stats you have - like how an intelligent fighter can go for long-lasting knockdowns, or how you can use defensive talents with offensive stats to DPS... or go with the standard route of high armor and retal armor. Speaking only of one fixed developer vision of the class seems a bit myopic, I think. And one that's somewhat at odds of them having several different paladin orders... different visions of what a paladin can be. Perhaps one change that might make more paladin builds viable would be to make the activated abilities of paladin into a single resource, perhaps called blessings. So say you have 4 blessings at the start of combat. That can mean 4 smites, 4 lay on hands, 4 exhortations, or any combination of these. So a bleak walker or kind wayfarer would be using all their blessings strategically for getting kills and triggering their own abilities, whereas a more support-oriented paladin would be choosing abilities more carefully. You might even let the resource recharge based on getting kills, so a bleak walker arquebuser could potentially be getting a kill (and thus refilling the charge that they just spent) almost every shot, whereas a less damage-oriented pally would be looking to rebuild their stock of blessings with weaker hits. The reason for and idea behind this is it lets a paladin play to their strengths - one that has a lot of might would be using more lay on hands and smites, whereas a intelligence-based paladin would use the same charges for longer-lasting buffs and debuffs, and hope that he gets the odd leftover kill for more of them.

I'm posting this while trying it out so that I can share the idea and get feedback on it as well. Maybe build posts should come in 2's, since that number lets you have 4 of the written NPC's per playthrough. Also, 1/3 of your party will be built your way, allowing for builds that work well together. "Face" Character: Tanky Shieldbearer Paladin. Race: Moon Godlike. Str: 11 Dex: 4 Con: 9 Int: 20 Per: 17 Res: 17 I believe the Shieldbearer of St. Elga to be the best paladin you can have for a player-character, with great int/per/res for conversations and the acc/def bonuses help the other character a lot. The STR is for the healing waves, the INT is for max duration on the deflection bonus and max AOE for the aura and moon healing. Might is enough to make the healing worthwhile. The build can be made more effective with 18's in per/res taken from might, con or int. Weapon mix: A one-handed weapon or a ranged weapon(some players like to open combat with a ranged volley) for landing hits with shielding flames, and a weapon/shield mix for tanking because paladin shields are awesome (at least I've heard that both the beginning game one and the endgame one are). Consider using a flail(graze2hits), since the class itself only has average accuracy and grazing on your shielding flames strike is a bad idea. Choose Zealous focus for accuracy, shielding flames for deflection, and choose your other talents for even more deflection. Your attacks will be very slow, but you only need to land 2 good ones to keep the deflection bonus rolling. I've heard there are armors that can grant riposte. Grab the heaviest one of those you can find. Hireling: Speed/Finesse Barbarian (Hearth Orlan, 1-handed style). Freed slave from the Deadfire Archipelago. Str: 16 Dex: 19 Con: 10 Int: 18 Per: 5 Res: 10 The goal of this character is to generate lots of accurate hits, seeking to spread weapon-based maladies via crits (which raise the duration by 50%) It gets that accuracy through the paladin's aura, one-handed weapon style with accurate weapon types that also have disabling or debuffing conditions, and reducing enemy defences through Brute Force->Threatening presence. Accurate Carnage and Vulnerable Attack for damage improvement, The Hold the Line and One Stands Alone combo for even more damage, and Bloody Slaughter. Once you have bloody slaughter you can have your party target the high-hp enemies while carnage criticals kill the wounded. Fairly common disabling weapon enchantments include: * -5 to all defenses(which is effectively a +5 acc bonus for every party member, including you and yorur carnage) * Stun on Crit(glorious) * Lifesteal The first two are enhanced by your high INT score. There are some weapons that cast offensive spells on crit as well. I initially thought to make him a moonlike with 19int 20dex, but I already have one of those for the other char and there's only so much cheese a man can stand. Sorry.

Con is maligned because back-range characters often don't get hit and front-line characters are often better served by raising deflection so at least they don't get crit as much. In any case con PUMPING is often ignored in favor of the other stats, so few builds use more than 10.

It depends on the paladin's order. Some orders (like kind wayfarer) need to land deathblows for the special effects that happens when they get one. For those, it's best to sacrifice dex in exchange for might, since it's much more important to get one good blow on the right mob than it is to have overall high DPS. A shieldbearer pally doesn't even need to do that, she just needs to land the flaming hit for the deflection bonus to kick in for the party.

Problem is that that line of reasoning ONLY justifies the initial stat distribution and first couple of levels. If the level 4 talents (for example) were truly essential to the character's personality, then you wouldn't have a choice over them... not if you got the fellow at level 2, AND not if you let him smoke his pipe at the crossing until you're level 5 from quests. No plausible justification exists for letting you choose their level 4 talents under one set of your personal circumstances and yet not the other. Exactly. It's even worse for the first playthrough, because character-rushing is somewhat spoilery but not character-rushing increases the difficulty.

Paladins are good for the same reason chanters are: They can accomplish other tasks while doing their buffing. * Caster wants to grant +accuracy buff? takes time to cast the spell. Paladin wants to do the same? It's already on. Same with DR aura. * Priest wants to heal the party? Lets get our fragile, clothbearer butt into position, assuming we aren't engaged away from the party of course, and start casting. Wayfarer pally wants to do the same? Well, since we're already in the front line, lets hit someone which we were gonna do anyway and if we get a kill, out goes the heal. * Want a deflection bonus? Well you COULD wave your hands around casting and doing nothing else for those seconds, or you can just ask the nice shieldbearer pally if he wants to buff the damage of his opening arbalest shot. Tough choice. Given how much of the fight is determined in the first few moments, it's actually pretty nice to be able to do two distinct benefical actions at once, and that's the reason for the pally. I'm not saying pallies and chanters are uber, and I'm not even sure they're as good as another class might be. What I *am* saying that "burst buffing" is a heck of a lot harder to notice than burst damage is, but consider that a shieldbearer pally can give the party a +acc AND a +deflection buff before the first enemy is done falling over from his opening arbalest shot. And he can do that for every fight. Think about it.

Think of tank monk as a chanter with only one song: "Flat on his butt, the foe dealt no more damage" I think that there's a lot of room to build a monk badly, because people don't always take into account that you can spend your wounds(control-based offtank), or you can keep your wounds(turning wheel DPS), but it's difficult to do both and survive all the wounds that doing both would entails. Also, there aren't enough attributes in the world to be excellent at everything.

But to answer the question you actually posed... no, there is no way whatsoever to turn off companion levelling. If you want to build the companions to your liking during your first run, you have to follow a walkthrough to pick them up as early as possible, bypassing all quests until you get them. Which is a whole heck of a lot MORE immersion-breaking then allowing players to pick abilities when they get the companions.

A question about death godlike as a possibility for the choice for barbarians instead of only for paladins: Since carnage is percentage based, wouldn't having a death godlike barb continuously targetting the most-damaged enemy result in improved carnage damage to everyone? Or does it work out that every enemy getting hit by the AOE rolls a check against whether the enhanced damage applies to it?

I wonder if the ideal isn't more like choosing in conversation what a companion's two primary stats and some of the skills are. Something like this: Eder: Eder grins. "And that's when we sprung our little surprise." 1: "You had hidden the mines in the ditches before you retreated." (Eder: INT as primary stat) 2: "Your people were just faking being broken and ambushed them as they pursued you" (Eder: RES as primary stat) 3: "You noticed that their heavy armor would just bog them down in the heavy terrain" (Eder: DEX or perhaps PER as primary stat) Etc... The game would actually give between 15-18 to the primary stats. This would give you more control than what's happening now, but you still wouldn't be able (and expect yourself to) munchkin your companions without cheating or mods.

Excuse me? Do you see anyone here advocating putting 3's into dump stats? No? Well then.