Crucis

Doesn't quite explain why there are so many enchanted pistols in the game. Or why there are so damned few unique crossbows or arbalests. Besides which, this doesn't explain why the DEVS haven't included more unique guns (other than pistols, and, I suppose blunderbuses) and xbows. When it comes to ranged weapons, there are plenty of bows, magical implements, and pistols. Arbalests, arquebuses, and crossbows ... not so much.

Well, Gromnir, animal companions are powerful again, but at the cost of at least 3 of your potential 8 talent points (Resilient Companion, Vicious Companion, and Merciless Companion), which is rather costly. Oh, I suppose it's not too, too bad for a ranged ranger, but when you try to build a melee ranger, it can start looking quite costly. I personally wouldn't recommend the OP play multiple rangers in the same party because it will lead to some crazy micromanagement issues due to the fact that each ranger is actually 2 characters, the ranger and his animal companion. My recommendation for the OP would be to play with the game's pre-made Companion NPC's rather than player-made mercenaries, particularly on his first run through the game.

The accuracy boost you get from FoD is only good for that specific attack. And I suppose you could use both of your FoD's while you have the Firebrand sword up. But that's only good for TWO attacks, and the Firebrand's duration is 30 seconds, so you're going to have a few swings of the blade left without any FoD enhanced accuracy.

Don't get me wrong. A character who burns through a ton of Health because he's getting constantly healed could possibly end up knocked out otherwise. It may just be the cost of doing business, so to speak. And yeah, Consecrated Ground seems like a far better healing spell than any of the Restore END spells. The only advantage that the Restore spells have over CG is that they can be cast up to 5m from the priest whereas CG is a 0 range spell (with a 2.5m AoE radius). Also, a downside of the Firebrand flamesword from the gloves is that, IIRC, it doesn't have any accuracy bonus. As you start using exceptional or better weapons, the loss of this accuracy bonus when using the Firebrand would seem to be a bit of a downer to me.

Actually, I see something like Shod-In-Faith boots as being much worse than 2nd Chance items, because 2nd chance only procs when you get knocked out, but SiF procs whenever you get crit'd. And you can burn through a LOT of HP when you're getting constantly healed without actually getting knocked out. You might never even realize how much health you're losing. Your END may never get all that low, as long as you're being constantly being healed by SiF boots or other sources of regen/healing. It can happen a lot for a high Might Fighter with Constant and Rapid Recovery, plus that cloak that also enhances Recovery.

Eh? He boasts proudly of his killings in the purges. He's just as bad as that woodcutter that Devil wants to kill. Do you think folks dislike him because he talks about using his prick a lot or something? (Which he also implies doesn't even work anymore). I also have no clue how Kana is SJW-like, who is actually pretty interesting, and reacts the most to your adventure, breathing some life into boring questing. I could kinda see Sagani, I guess. She's just a wiki article for a place and people we never see, and sound like we never should see, as it sounds really, really, boring. With the one 'cool' thing being all the woman do the hunting, I guess. It's not really SJW at all though, just boring. On the first paragraph, your point regarding the woodcutter and Devil is well taken. And it's a wonder that it doesn't come up in banter between the two (or maybe it does and I missed it). Durance seems like exactly the sort of person that Devil would really hate. I wholeheartedly agree about Kana. As for Sagani, yeah, I suppose that maybe she's not the most exciting character. But it seems like the nature of her personal quest and backstory would lead to her being the sort of person she is, even if that's not the most exciting character to some people.

I'm not sure that I can say that Durance isn't evil nor terrible. He has done some terrible things in his past that most would see as evil. As for SJW, I had to look that one up. I had no idea what it meant, though I've seen it before (never bothered to look it up in the past). I'm not sure that I'd call Kana or Sagani products of "SJW-pandering". Boring to some, perhaps. But does every Companion have to have a backstory that's so convoluted that they all seem like societal freaks of some sort or other? What's so wrong with some characters who are relatively normal, reasonably well adjusted people?

/facepalm They say it's a matter of taste but if you dislike Durance you have rather poor taste. --- As for priests in general - the class is powerful if played right but not indispensable. In harder fights you can buff your party using scrolls and there are other sources of healing (paladins, druids, items). Finally, saying that Priest outclasses Druid or Paladin is ignorance at best or pure trolling at worst. Particularly, Paladin is probably the strongest class overall and easily the best healer (if built correctly). Actually I think that it's a bit unfair to rip someone for not liking Durance. Durance is meant to be a character that people will like to dislike. Many people will say that he's well written, and that part of that is being written in a way that makes him into an unlikable character. OTOH, I think that Himself's complaint about Durance being "boring religious NPC" is grossly unfair. IMO, *ANY* priest Companion would be a "religious NPC" because priests are by definition religious. If they weren't religious, they wouldn't be priests in the first place. It's that simple.

No, "worst ever" is absolutely NOT just an expression. It's an example of an inability to express one's self, to communicate in a competent manner without having to fall into hyperbole. Saying that something isn't meant to be taken literally is nothing more than an excuse for an inability to express one's self competently.

That depends, if you're wise enough to perceive a majority, then opinion is common sense. I pity people who are presented against their personal view every so often, surrounded by fact and pattern, but still thinking its opinion. "Hypocrisy is like blinking, everyone does it a lot and forget that they are doing it." And yet at the same time, some people will claim some things to be "facts" when they're nothing more than theories and opinions. And then get all huffy when their "facts" aren't treated as such. Such people often then try to silence opposition to their "facts", whether by intimidation or other more aggressive means. This may not happen here much, but it certainly does IRL.

Jerek, unless you have the Gloves of Manipulation and/or the scroll that enhances Mechanics skill, and/or perhaps even a Mechanics skill boost from an inn or your stronghold, I'm not sure that a level 5 party could have a character with a high enough Mechanics skill to even spot where Tidefall's hidden. I suppose that it's possible though. (And I'm thinking you probably know this, not that I think about it.)

The "hat" is an eyepatch, but it also comes with the mild negative of -1 (or maybe it's -2) to perception. But I suppose that it might be worth using if one wanted to use that Powder Burns ability.

You could have a category for mind-altering (allegiance altering) spells, I suppose.

Honestly, a popup window seems far too meta-gamey to me as well. I like your thought that a better way would be to have the dialogs with each faction's leader include language that should make it clear that you are aligning yourself with that faction, without being immersion breaking or too meta-gamey about it. I think that there are definitely ways for well written dialogs to do this. With the Doemenels, it might involve taking some sort of blood oath. With the Knights, it might have their CO telling you that if you accept this mission, other groups are sure to learn about it and refuse to work with you. And the Dozen's CO might say that if you accept this mission, you're now "one of us", and that the other groups won't like that, yada-yada-yada.

No doubt that Durance is slow. OTOH, because if his very high RES, he's pretty well suited to being a battle-priest who can get in melee without getting massacred. Oh, I wouldn't make him a front liner myself. But as a second line off-tank, he can hold his own well enough for a while, if the party needs him to jump into the melee wall, as long as you have him properly armored for the job. IMO, He also does best when off-tanking, if you stick to swords and arquebuses, and take the Magranic class talent that gives a +10 accuracy bonus with those 2 weapons.

I agree that it's a no win situation. The problem here is though that with only one Companion of each class, if there's a Companion that some people don't like, there isn't a second Companion of the same class to use as a backup plan. Of course, given how relatively deep these NPC's are (in terms of voiced banter, etc.), adding additional Companions would greatly add to the expense of producing the game. Actually, you can't finish Durance's quest this way. Oh, you can probably progress through a lot of it, but the key event in bringing the quest to a conclusion occurs during the main storyline. And obviously, that will only happen when it happens. As for GM, it's possible that her quest could be finished that way. I don't recall anything in her quest being tied to any story line events. People can get along without a priest in PoE, though I will say that if your play style is heavily dependent on priestly spellcasting, it might take you a little while to adapt to not having a priest along.

Himself, don't presume to be the voice of common sense. Your "common sense" is just your opinion, nothing more, nothing less. An opinion you have every right to have, no doubt. But even saying that you opinion is "common sense" is an opinion in and of itself. You may think that your opinion is common sense, while other may see it as anything but common sense.

I think that such a decision might be situational. A melee ranger with a pet with the Predator's Sense ability would value the DoT effect of the Dawn in Spring dagger. OTOH, doubling Bittercut is also going to mean that you've doubled the Poison defense penalty. However, if one is intending to have Devil of Caroc use a pair of Bittercuts, that Poison penalty is moot since she's immune to poison.

Yeah, I just feel like it's a waste talent, but the game is sometimes a bit unfair in what it lets you do. I had to let Gordy have the March Steel Dagger because apparently the only other options available to me we to threaten him or to lie to him, to my mind there ought to have been an option to simply say "I don't think this dagger is suitable for a child" and not have him reveal his secret, but apparently that didn't occur to my Paladin. Edit: to add, if this wasn't my first PotD playthrough I might consider taking it, but at the moment I am being a bit more powergamey than I usually am. I basically agree with you. IIRC, that small quest where you get a medicine for a pregnant woman in GIlded Vale requires you to either tell her that it's not really a medicine, or you tell her a little white lie to let her think it'll work, and you get tagged for being deceptive. Being tagged as deceptive in this situation seems rather wrong to me. It's not like you're doing it for personal gain. You're just trying to ease the mind of a pregnant woman with a little white lie and a useless, but harmless potion. That hardly seems to justify a "deceptive" reputation point. Deceptive rep points should be reserved for more self-serving, deceitful actions, not deceptive actions taken for altruistic, benevolent reasons.

Ether, when it comes to the faction quests, you're free to do the quests that open up the factions' stores to you. But if you take a faction quest from their boss, IIRC, that is the action that will tie you the faction. But I can see how this is all more than a little tricky to decipher if you don't have experience with the game. I think it may have bit me in the butt once or twice at some point.

No - you only get flanked and suffer from -10 deflection. But you will get interrupted like hell I guess. That's no fun because the animations when shooting are very long even without getting interrupted all the time. Is there a penalty to being engaged by a melee enemy if you're going to shoot that enemy with a gun? No and sorta yes. It depends on whether your character is a Wood Elf and/or if you've taken the Marksman talent. In both cases, clearly shooting at a melee enemy with a gun will be well below the range which would trigger the long range accuracy bonuses for Wood Elf or Marksman, so I'd say that the loss of a bonus is in itself a "penalty". But there is no direct penalty beyond that.

I'd suggest that this is why the Untroubled Faith in-class talent is useful, because it allows you to ignore the effects of those negative dispositions.

I feel the same way about Sagani, as well, Jerek. It just feels wrong to have her using anything other than a bow, or have her wearing anything but leather or hide armor. And I think the same would apply to Hiravias for pretty much the same reasons. They're both people from hunting cultures, and from a role playing perspective, both seem like they'd be far more comfortable in hide or leathers than fancier armors worn by city folk. Of course, I tend to have a relatively strong dislike of guns and slightly less of one regarding crossbows (FYI, I'm including arbalests under "crossbows" here). I don't like that guns come with an innate -5 accuracy penalty, and then I further don't like that guns and crossbows are so slow loading that there's another talent in the mix, Gunner, that one feels somewhat required to take. I guess that taken together, these things rub me the wrong way regarding guns and crossbows. I just don't like having to buy an extra talent just to feel like I'm getting the most out of a crossbow or gun. As for Pallegina as a second liner wearing a breast plate, actually I don't think that that's so bad. The way I've played my last two parties is that I kept my second liners who would start battles in ranged mode (and try to stay in ranged mode, if things worked out in a way that let them) in medium-ish armors, just to have a better recovery time. And a character who has pretty good innate deflection on its own can do just fine in melee wearing breast plate. I won't say that they're quite as durable as someone in plate. But they can usually do well enough, particularly if the breast plate is good.

The pathfinding AI really annoys me no end when my characters INSIST on taking the longest path around the melee to get to the target I tell them to go after. I see them start in the wrong direction, and I'll tell them to stop and re-issue the order. And they'll just keep on doing the same effing stupid thing, time after time after time. I will say that it hasn't driven me to quit, but it does annoy the ever-living hell out of me.

That hes very well written is not in question, I agree to that completely. But hes still the most annnoying NPC thus far. The issues are, in no particular order: 1- Balance. I can ATM trade him for Aloth, Kana, Sagani or Pallegina. None of these 4 are nearly as useful as he is. 2- Priest class. Its a very cool class with so so many options and background, unfortunatelty its stuck campaign/story-wise with that annoying NPC. (Custom hired adventurers are ridiculous, no matter how bad Durance is, hes still a lot better than an empty, ZERO content custom created randomic priest party member.) 3- Durance quest. Have to carry the guy around and be constantly poking him for dialog, as if he wasn't annoying enough, devs found a way to make it worse. Religious background in games or NPCs is cool, problem is, PoE is a new and fresh setting. This whole thing with soul manipulation and animancy and gods here and there are a major reason that makes this game hard to digest, they could/should have sticked to simpler things, at least until people grow more familiar with the newly conceived setting. But alas common sense is underrated in fantasy circles. That would be discussion for another topic though. 1. Like Tigranes said, Durance is very useful TO YOU. But others seem able to get along without him well enough. 2. I'm not so sure that I'd call mercs "ridiculous". Just because you get a lot of enjoyment out of Companions doesn't mean that other players can't get along fine with silent mercs in their party. Heck, I've often had a merc rogue in my party (particularly early in the storyline), simply because I prefer having a rogue in my parties to do traps and locks work. Do I wish that a/the companion rogue was available a lot earlier in the story? Sure. But she's not, so I have to work around that absence somehow. I will say that, generally speaking, I enjoy having Companions in my party over silent mercs, but it's not the end of the world either. 3. Durance's quest is no worse than Grieving Mother's. And depending on one's tastes and preferences, some might find her quest worse than Durance's. As for the religious aspect of the storyline, well, it is what it is. Would a simpler, less religious story line have been better? Maybe. But I think that the writers of PoE were trying for something more involved (?) or deeper (?) or more adult (?) than a simple adventure story, for better or worse. As for common sense, what you see as common sense, others may see as something else, and I'll leave it at that.