Crucis

I haven't gotten to where Mirke is in the game yet, but it really seems like a shame for such a nice portrait to be wasted on a minor NPC. It would be nice if they could do something more with this portrait. Maybe use it for a new Companion or Sidekick in one of the DLCs. Or if not that, just rename the portrait files and put them in with the other player-usable portraits. It's a shame because the gamepedia POE2 wiki listed her as a sidekick prior to release and I was looking forward to using her in a party. So I guess that I'm hoping that maybe she ends up getting upgraded to Companion or Sidekick in one of the DLCs.

From reading the posts in this thread and thinking that it just doesn't sound like there's an easy choice, a choice that's an obvious one for the player who really wants to play the good and benevolent Watcher. However, consider this. I don't know exactly what time period the developers envision Eora to be in parallel Earth's history, but I'm thinking somewhere around the 1500's to perhaps up through the 1700's. Now ask yourselves just how good and benevolent any major power was in that time frame on Earth. Oh, there's no doubt that many of them might have had some good points, but they also had their bad points as well. In fact, I'm thinking that the Deadfire area is feeling a good deal like the Caribbean region in that time frame during the age of pirates. The pirates are obviously bad guys despite how much they may get romanticized. But the other powers hardly had perfectly clean hands, and each had their own motivations that most likely weren't in the interest of the natives. And even if you choose to not side with any faction, you can often just end up as the enemy of them all rather than a true neutral. Basically, if you're not with me, you're against me. Arguably, the only true way to say to heck with every faction would really be to just leave the Deadfire entirely. However, you can't do this because of the giant gorilla in the room, the Eothas colossus. And choosing to remain neutral while trying to deal with the Eothas problem apparently leaves dodging cannonballs from every faction. And that leaves me considering this. Is the greater good better served by staying neutral and taking a harder road trying to solve the Eothas problem, or picking a faction to make it easier to work on the larger problem posed by Eothas? Interesting dilemma.

I will say that it's rather interesting in its own way that at least 3 of your companions are tied to factions; Serafen to the Principi, Maia to the Deadfire, and Pallegina to the Valians. And at least a silver lining is that there's no secret about it. I suppose if one really didn't want to get so involved in the factional intrigue and risk losing a valued companion, one could always refuse to use any of these three for long and transition to using non-aligned companions or sidekicks. But even then, it seems that the companions/sidekicks also have other dispositional issues that could cause you to lose them. What's a poor "Good and Benevolent" Watcher to do?

You shouldn't buy or play PoE, then. You won't be happy. Buy and play a different game. You should be happy. Joe Or I can play POE and make my considerable displeasure know as I see fit.

I don't forget the pet, however the discussion was about the ranged damage potential... And right now the ranger should be considered the pet and the animal your main. But the animal companion is part of the damage a ranger deals. So with Marked Prey, Stalker's Link, + animal companion, the ranger is fairly lethal. I've always considered the animal companion a sort of ranged weapon, part of the ranger ethos. That said, I do wish the ranger had a boost or two with ranged weapons. You know, that whole "range" part of "ranger" thing. Or at least reduce some of the malus effects of the talents/skills. Still one of my favorite classes and an effective multi-class choice. Joe OTOH, I consider the animal companion to be a pain in the posterior and NOT part of the Ranger ethos. A/C's should have been a level 1 ability that you got to choose whether or not you wanted to have one as a ranger. Not everybody likes dragging around a damned pet that you have to dump ability points into when some might prefer to put them entirely into the Ranger and not worry about the bleeping animal. Not to sound negative but are you for real? Ranger is a pet class, don't like it? Fine take a Fighter or Rogue for your ranged dmg. I am absolutely 100% for real. (To paraphrase Nick Fury from Iron Man 2, "I'm as real as it gets.") I never EVER "troll". I find trolls, people who only post crap they don't believe just to rile others up, to be disgusting. I completely believe what I wrote. Never doubt that anything I write is something I believe (as long as you are reading it in context). Furthermore, I didn't suggest doing a way with pets entirely. I suggested making them an OPTION. As for rangers being a pet class, I call Bovine Scatology. PoE is based on the old BG and IWD D&D games, where rangers were NOT a "pet class".

I don't forget the pet, however the discussion was about the ranged damage potential... And right now the ranger should be considered the pet and the animal your main. But the animal companion is part of the damage a ranger deals. So with Marked Prey, Stalker's Link, + animal companion, the ranger is fairly lethal. I've always considered the animal companion a sort of ranged weapon, part of the ranger ethos. That said, I do wish the ranger had a boost or two with ranged weapons. You know, that whole "range" part of "ranger" thing. Or at least reduce some of the malus effects of the talents/skills. Still one of my favorite classes and an effective multi-class choice. Joe OTOH, I consider the animal companion to be a pain in the posterior and NOT part of the Ranger ethos. A/C's should have been a level 1 ability that you got to choose whether or not you wanted to have one as a ranger. Not everybody likes dragging around a damned pet that you have to dump ability points into when some might prefer to put them entirely into the Ranger and not worry about the bleeping animal.

If you want to go with the "choose no faction", does this mean that you can have no dealings with them, or does each faction have a final quest where if you accept it, you're all in with the faction? I'm playing a good and benevolent Watcher, and at the moment, all of the factions that I see seem rather morally questionable, each in their own way, to put it kindly. And I'm not entirely sure how to sail these waters in which the faction sharks swim.

Maybe the devs decided that players have enough to learn regarding subclassed characters without having them have to deal with subclassed companions as well. To be honest, I'm not all that impressed with a LOT of the subclasses. Seriously. Just look at the Sharpshooter ranger subclass. It sounds good in theory, but when you realize that you are still saddled with a pet that requires a lot of abilities to be half decent so that you can avoid having the pet get nuked and the ranger getting stuck with Bonded Grief constantly, it becomes pretty damned clear that the Sharpshooter subclass is pretty damned lame. Arguably, the Ghost Heart subclass can produce a better sharpshooter because it's not burdened with a pet that requires you to spend a bunch of ability points that really should be going towards creating a superior sniper. Rangers should have never been automatically saddled with animal companions. Animal companions should have been a selectable passive right at the start that you could choose to take or not take. And in the choice of not taking the A/C, you'd be freed up to build a pet-less ranger who wouldn't be burdened with the cost of pet related abilities. And if you did choose to take the A/C, well, that was your choice and your responsibility to build up said A/C. I would have liked to see a monk subclass that was more weapon focused at the expense of unarmed damage (particularly fists) in some way. I could go on and on, but I think that I've said enough for now.

Is Sharpshooter even worth taking as a subclass? I ask this question for this reason. The Sharpshooter still has a pet to careful and provide abilities for, which means that you are giving up a fair number of ability points that otherwise could go into developing a truly dedicated sniper. OTOH, a Ghost Heart having no pet, if you choose to never call your spirit pet, can dedicate all of those ability points into the ranger himself. And this above all else makes me wonder if the Ghost Heart is really the better choice for an optimized sniper Ranger.

Part of me is happy that ranged weapons work with the weapon style abilities. OTOH, it seems rather silly to me to think that, for example, that a "Two Handed Style" should train a character to gain the same benefit for both a Greatsword and a Warbow. Then again, at least it's an ability that a ranged weapon character can take to enhance his ranged weapon abilities, particularly rangers who have so few non-pet related abilities in the first place.

This is good information. I asked this very same question last night in a thread of my own, and it took 12 hours to get a response, and even then it felt like pulling teeth because I had to reply to my own thread just to get it back to the top of the subforum. Very annoying.

I don't know. It seems to me that at some point, some class options start to go against the basic nature of the character's personality. Eder just doesn't seem like the sort of person who would be a priest or a paladin to me. OTOH, I suspect that there are other characters whose personalities are more open or perhaps less well defined, and thus we can more easily see them as different classes. Furthermore, I think that when one is constructing a companion NPC's personality and dialogues, you have to keep in mind the NPC's classes when writing that dialogue. And if you have too many class options that seem to go beyond their basic character, it could make it difficult to impossible to see them saying certain things as one class option that they might with another, if too many class options were allowed. For example, with Eder, he takes a rather relaxed view on religion and faith, and seems rather distrusting of people who are overly zealous about their religion and faith. And I don't see how a character with that PoV could ever be a paladin or priest. It would seem completely out of sync with Eder's basic personality. I could see him as being more likely to be a fighter/ranger than a priest or paladin, or even a monk. Or possibly a Fighter/Barbarian.

I'm an old school BG/IWD veteran who's also played POE1. And I'm only playing on Normal. IIRC, I don't think that I ever played PoE1 on anything but normal. I never felt the urge to try a harder level. I realize that some people don't think that they're challenged enough if they don't have their party defeated from time to time. I personally don't care about that. I just want to have fun. I don't want every fight to be a boss level fight. I don't denigrate fights against mobs of lackeys as "trash mods" or whatever. I'm playing to have fun and to enjoy the experience.

This is a very likely problem with considering upgrading any single sidekick to companion status. There will always be someone who would prefer to see sidekick B upgraded rather than sidekick A. Personally, from what little I know, I'd prefer Ydwin, because she seems so unique, though the idea of such a cosmopolitan looking Pale Elf seems at odds with the idea that Pale Elves come from what feels like the frontiers of civilization on Eora. Still, I haven't run into any of the other sidekicks, but I have seen their pics and class options. She just seems like the most interesting one to me.

My problem is that there are not enough class options. That is, there's only a single priest. And only a single monk. Oh, and BTW, they're the same companion!!! (Oh, wait, Rekke can be a multiclassed fighter/monk.) At the same time, there are four different characters who can be either single class or multiclass rogues. Ditto for barbarians. Jeez. I don't mind a limit of 3 options to each Companion or Sidekick. I just wish that there was a more even distribution of the classes amongst the various 11 NPCs with their 3 options.

dejarik, I guess that I'm just annoyed that so few people replied to my simple post. I'm glad that you did, but it's just annoying that you're the only one.

I wouldn't agree with this entirely. Eder does presumably bring rogue skills to the party. Of course, if one doesn't value Mechanics and just charges right in like a bull in a china shop, well, then I suppose he does seem superfluous. But I'm the sort of player who enjoys carefully moving through dungeons and caves searching for traps and such. It just seems like an important part of the whole role playing experience to me. But to each his own.

Hunting or War Bow? Because if it's a War Bow, I could really enterain the Devoted/Monk build with it and the icy barrage bow. But yeah, Rangers are just... like what am I suppose to pick, some pet skills? Out of all the companions, I had the hardest time making level up choices for the sharpshooter, since most of the skills just seemed bad. I used to love playing Rangers back in the BG/IWD days. But with the animal companions added to Rangers, I've grown to almost, not quite but almost, hate them. Even Ghost Hearts. The problem is that there are soooooooooooo damned many pet abilities that there just aren't that many for a Ghost Heart to use to build up a pet-less Ranger!

Bows, no. Xbows, yes, IIRC. Regarding the choice of ranger subclass, regardless of the benefits of playing a sharpshooter, I think that Ghost Heart may be a better choice for a truly dedicated sniper. Why? Because if you're playing a Ranger other than the GH you're going to have to put some ability points into your pet to at least help keep it alive and not get blown away battle after battle. With the Ghost Heart subclass, you have the option to ignore your ghostly pet entirely and have no need to select any abilities for it, which means many more ability points spent on your character. This whole pet thing is still annoying to me. The devs are so stuck on Rangers having to have pets. Why, oh why, couldn't they have made choosing to have an Animal Companion into a ability to choose, perhaps at character creation? Sigh.

I guess that it's just a matter of taste. I don't find the ability to reach out and shoot the enemy boring at all. Good way to keep all those pointy swords out of a character, after all. But for what it's worth, you can play a tanky Stalker if you want to get up close and personal ... and let those mean, nasty guys swing at you with their pointy swords!

Honestly, I'd feel nekkid without a priest in my party for healing duties, but that's just me. Though I suppose that with 2 multi-classed paladins you're not in that bad a shape for healing. I can do without a wizard as long as I have a cipher. I suppose you'll be OK. I'm probably no further along than you, seeing as I just picked up Maia, though I held off on picking up Pallegina.

Thanks for replying, dejarik. The thing is that one isn't always in a position to do such a test, i.e. if you don't have a character in need of a level up.

Come on, people! Over 100 views and not a single friggin' reply?

I don't know about the rest, but hearing that Xoti has feelings for Eder is no shocker for me. They're both Eothasians, both come from farming backgrounds. They seem to have a lot in common, though IIRC Eder's a bit older than Xoti is. As for Pallegina, I never thought of her as being particularly anti-religious, though I suppose this could easily be something new for this game. That'll stink though because Xoti is the only priest among the companions or sidekicks. And, at least in PoE1, I always loved having Pallegina along.

This may be a dumb question, but here goes. Do the weapon style passives work with ranged weapons? I didn't notice anything in those passive ability descriptions that limited them to only melee weapons, but ya never know. After all, a bow is a 2 handed weapon, so can you use the Two Handed Weapon style with bows, for example?