Crucis

This doesn't resolve any of the issues I mentioned, just like turning off AI won't prevent your characters from standing around idly or attacking if they get interrupted while using potions (or other items). Yes it will. If you control your characters' actions rather than depending on the AI to do it for you, your characters will do what you want them to do most of the time.

I agree that using any significant armor on a monk seems to break many people's role playing immersion.

The solution to your dilemma is simple. Turn off the AI and manage the characters yourself.

Blades, it didn't happen immediately for me. It was probably a few stronghold turns before the crowd showed up again in front of the keep.

There's another helmet that gives +4 Might. Don't remember its exact name, <something>'s Chorus. And there's a ring that will give you +5 (!) Might, for 30 seconds (IIRC) once per Stronghold turn. It's the ring owned by the guy who's trying to take Caed Nua from you. I think that it also has an Overseeing effect as well.

I think that your party needs to be a minimum of level 13, maybe 14, to do well in Craghold. Maybe a really, really good player could do ok with a little less. But honestly, I ran into the same thing when I went there the first time. Craghold is an area not to be taken lightly.

FTFY. I'm playing on PotD with increased exp requirements and I had to postpone searing falls until I had done some WM content. The one pack it contains was far more terrifying than the smaller groups it used to have, I certainly approve of this. The game still has a ton of trash fights, even if searing falls represents an extreme end of the spectrum. I don't approve of removing ANY enemies from the game.

This is one change that most definitely was NOT an improvement. I never once minded these so-called trash mobs. Never once.

Chanters seem to be wonderful tanks with the right stats and equipment. And the best part about getting them in the front line is that should mean that there are potentially more enemies within the area of your chants, particularly the Dragon Thrashed, the Dragon Wailed fire/slashing chant.

Well, that just seems so wrong. Is it a bug?

Upon further reflection, I think that one could almost have a similar build for Kana or any chanter (PC or merc). After all, those 3rd level fire chants are EXTREMELY useful. And as another class that greatly values Lore, a "Fire Chanter" could cast fire spells galore! And, of course, a Fire Godlike would be thematically perfect for a Fire Chanter.

The thing I find mildly annoying about Durance's staff is that here you have quite a nice staff that arguably Durance could use for much of the game, assuming some upgrades along the way. But quarterstaffs aren't one of Magran's favored weapon types, which, IMO makes Durance's staff much less valuable for his personal use. Oh well.

While I realize that this is a Pallegina build, something about this build positively screams "FIRE GODLIKE"!!!! Obviously, a PC build along these lines wouldn't have access to the Pallegina-specific Wrath of the Five Suns ability, but it could still be a very strongly thematic build for a Fire Godlike paladin. Perhaps of the Darcozzi or Goldpact Knights orders, since those orders each have one class talent that buffs their Flames of Devotion with a further flame based effect (i.e. Darcozzi - small fire shield, Goldpact - a fire DoT). It could be a very interesting build. Having said all that, one of the downsides of such narrowly focused elemental builds is that when you encounter enemies that have strong DRs or are immune to that element (in this case, fire), your character may be in a world of hurt unless it has a solid plan B.

You're dreaming. People will be people. That said, I think that your intention of having a thread to discuss Companion builds is worthy, though often the discussion of a single Companion build is enough to occupy an entire thread all by itself. It might be better to have a single thread dedicated to each Companion, if only to make it easier for anyone trying to search out builds for a particular Companion.

Easy. Dragon's shouldn't have huge deflection scores. Frankly, I'm not a fan of dragons in these games anyways. They always seem so illogical. Why do I say that? You have a creature that can fly and can breath fire. Why in the hell is that thing ever coming within weapons range (at least melee range) of your party in the first place???!!! It should be staying up in the air and blasting away with its breath weapons. (I suppose that the adra dragon is an exception here because I'm kinda thinking that it can't fly, though I could be wrong on that.) Beyond that, dragons are just too cliched, IMO. For all the talk about avoiding the old D&D and Forgotten Realms cliches from the old IE games, the devs couldn't resist the biggest cliche around. Dragons. Would it have been so difficult or wrong to have a setting without dragons as the ultimate monsters to fight?

Agreed. Wizards are absolutely incredible. I know when I first started PoE I didn't think they were such good dmg dealers until I realized I normally used buffs on my Priest! Get a wizard going with some good Priest buffs and god watch out. @Dorftek....if the casters could spam spells they would be so OP it would be ridiculous. Even 1-2 well placed spells can totally turn the tide of a tough fight. A couple self buffs with Concelhauts staff will even put out a ton of dps. And on those tough fights when you really want to unload....my god. I just did the first round of bounties at level 7 with my current team. Let Aloth unload in each fight....it was a joke. No kidding, Mocker. If Wizards or any other spellcaster class were able to constantly cast spells at will with no limitations, the game would be so unbalanced in favor spellcasting that it'd be utterly ridiculous.

This build is quite interesting, but probably wouldn't work well for me, because of its dependency on all the items with spellbinds. I rarely use bound spells on items, not because they're not worth using, but because I pretty much never remember to use them. With my non spellcasters, I tend to stick with whatever weapons they have equipped and with casters, I tend to stick with their spells. I guess this is why I tend to prefer items that focus on attribute enhancing bonuses over items that have bound spells. But I can see how people who can and do use bound spells on items could find this a very intriguing build.

Actually, Sagani now comes with her own unique hunting bow.

One thing that I'd suggest is that unless you ABSOLUTELY want every possible dialog option, you'll do just fine if you focus on only one, maybe two of PER, INT, and RES, depending on your character and his class' needs. I just finished a party with a Rogue PC who had a very high PER and unremarkable INT and RES scores, and I managed to do just fine. Of course, different classes will have different attributes which will work to your advantage with dialogs. For example, Wizards and most other spellcasters are likely to want a very high INT. Rogues and Rangers tend to like very high PER. Fighters and paladins often like having solid RES scores. Different classes will have a natural tendency to lean towards favoring one of those 3 attributes over the other two.

It would seem to me that a problem with dropping INT too low on the monk is that some of their abilities have durations, whether it's a duration on themselves (like the lightning fists or whatever they're called) or a duration on the enemy (i.e. the stunning attack). The duration of the low level "lightning fists" may not matter much to you, but from what I've seen against monks, the stunning attack is darned useful. And it seems to me that shortening the duration of the stun on the enemy isn't really something you'd want to do. Anyways, just an observation.

They have pruned some content in response to people complaining about too many "trash mob" fights. It was announced it would be just Endless Paths and chapter III mobs, but... https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84358-the-great-patch-30-trash-mob-removal/ Sigh. I've never understood all the b!tching about "trash mobs". I play the game for the battles, and these so-called "trash mobs" are some of those battles. Besides, these particular xaurips weren't just some lone schmucks. They were the support troops for the drakes. They made fighting those drakes harder because you couldn't ignore them, particularly the Xaurip priests.

Indeed, it is known that items you duplicate with the Helwax Mold retain all enchantments you put on them (including Durgan Steel.) That wasn't really what I meant, though of course it's related (perhaps it's just semantics). I meant it in terms of using the Hellwax as a way to effectively get the value of 3 scales instead of just 2.

I don't know if this was a change made in WM1 or WM2, but did people notice that the morning star, Daybreak (IIRC), that you find in the Court of the Penitents has been changed from the silly original release version, which had an anti-wilder effect (i.e. +4 acc, +25% damage)? Now it has a spirit slaying effect on it, similar to the vessel slaying effect on the Redeemer. Honestly, an outright slaying effect almost seems to be a little overboard, though not entirely unwelcome. I'd have just been happy with the simple anti-spirit effect (+4 acc, +25% damage).

What do you mean? Ghosts or what? Never heard of that before... ? Speaking of duplicates, in my most recent (and now completed) party, I found a way to get more bang for the buck out of the bog dragon scales, which you use to upgrade armor to legendary. I upgraded the green Angwes Adra plate to legendary, and THEN I duplicated it, meaning that I was effectively able to get 3 legendary armors for the price of 2. (Of course, I'd like to think that I'm not the first to have figured out this little trick.)

Honestly, I think that if you're going to get the most out of a Priest of Magran, you've got to go Sword (and Shield) and Arquebus, since those are the weapons for which the Magranic talent provides a +10 accuracy boost. As for outfitting the Priest, I'd probably try to use whichever armor seems appropriate at the time. When I've played Durance (pretty much in all my parties to date), I've usually had him in plate. But in my last party, I downgraded him to some excellent scale armor, and it didn't seem to be a negative in combat. The upside was that his recovery time was a bit quicker. So maybe consider putting the priest in scale armor, if you can find a really good set. Or a breast plate or leather. The key is how often do you intend to bring the priest into melee. If the answer is quite often, you may prefer heavier armor. But if you're able to keep the priest off the front lines most of the time, maybe something less than plate would be sufficient. Personally, I wouldn't go for light armor only because the chances of getting dragged into melee are still pretty good, and light armor may not be protective enough (i.e. good enough DR's) for your tastes, but maybe it would. For weapons, I particularly like arming Durance with the Whispers of Yenwood anti-spirit Sword, at least when there are spirits around that need slaying. I may switch it out for a different sword when not facing spirits, but I keep in it in his personal inventory for when he needs it. As for the other equipment, I tend to go for the usual: items of Deflection, items that give bonuses to the other 3 defenses, and items that boost attributes.