MadDemiurg

I'm not exactly exited by the Perception change, as it doesn't look balanced to me (even though PER and RES were too similar before so this option wins form diversity perspective), but the rest of the changes look good. Some major UI improvements and ability scaling. It's hard to tell before release of course, but overall I think this should be a good patch.

Would that be with the Lvl 3 bonus spell talent and an item I haven't found yet (I'm only in Defiance Bay) that gives me an extra Lvl 3 spell? There's a ring that gives 2 extra level 1 and 3 spells (think it's sold in DB) and another one adding 2 extra level 2 and 1 extra level 4 spell, which is found in a specific location. With a talent, you can actually have 7 level 3 spells.

Stealth change is not going to give you ability to restealth in combat, only remain in stealth when the rest of the party fights. This is going to help utilizing backstab without getting immediately murdered though. Overall, issues you're describing are not Rogue exclusive, most of the martial classes have few interesting abilities and feel bland to me. Cipher can use a similar playstyle while being more fun though. Too many per rest abilities? Well some of the high level strikes (withering and... terrifying?) are not strong enough to be per rest, I agree. Shadowing beyond as per encounter would be OP in its current implementation. Finishing blow would also be OP as per encounter. I don't recall any other per rest abilities. I do feel like some of the utility rogue options should be boosted, like escape and coordinated positioning. All strike abilities should be per encounter too. OTOH, deathblows are quite OP and should be nerfed in some way.

Tbh I consider any spiritshift boosting talents a waste, since it becomes pretty terrible past first few levels. You're better off summoning firebrand or rot skulls in the lategame (or even attacking with a regular weapon). Speaking of firebrand and rot skulls, if you're inclined to take WF, firebrand (greatsword) benefits from soldier and rot skulls (wand) benefit from adventurer. Firebrand deals good damage, but has terrible accuracy, so i'd go for adventurer aiming for the endgame. Rot skulls is probably the best ranged weapon in the whole game. If you go for WF you can probably pick marksman along the way as well, rot skulls benefit from it too. For elemental talents pick fire and lightning. Ice used to be good until ice spells were nerfed into oblivion, and corrode would be good if elemental talents worked correctly with DoTs (they don't). That leaves 4 more talents. Defensive talents are actually pretty good on any character. I like equipping my casters with a small shield in the 2nd weapon set in case they get attacked, so W&S style is an option. Superior deflection isn't bad either. If out of options you can also pick some save boosting talent. I also value extra spell talents more than most people here, especially on Druids. Wizards get these neat rings of wizardry and priests get seal of faith. Druids get... wildstrike belt. It's true that you don't need as many spells if you don't solo, but you still can still spam them pretty fast, especially if you use "fast" spells like Talon's reach (which is a good option for straight up dps once level 1 spells are per encounter due to its cast speed). So IMO picking a few of them for the frequently used spell levels isn't a bad idea. Overall this gives multiple build options. You can go 2x elemental talents + shield + deflection + 2 extra spells or 2x elemental talents + marksman + wf adventurer + penetrating shot + shield/superior deflection or whatever. basically any combination of the stuff above. This will hopefully change when Obs finally fixes spiritshift so it doesn't suck.

I'm pretty sure Alacrity + 4x fireballs + blights will be a one of the standard wizard openers. I'm also pretty sure they'll add a ton of new overpowered stuff in form on high level spells and abilities, soulbound weapons etc. What I'm not sure is whether the expansion will pose any challenge at all.

Might be some glitch with DT calculation, I've encountered these a few times. Realistically you should be doing (20-30)*1.7 damage on hits and (20-30)*1.2 damage on grazes at 20 might, which implies less damage. Unless you somehow have much more might? And paladin and fighter tanks are not supposed to do damage anyway .

Updating confirmed talents: Rogue - sneak attack Cipher - whisper of treason Chanter - skeleton summon Fighter - constant recovery Paladin - zealous focus Barbarian - frenzy All likely (much) weaker than the original. Also Eder in one of the expansion vids has 1 use of call lightning and overwhelming wave. One or both of these can be spellbinds or alternatively casters have multiple multiclass talents that include higher level spells later on? Anyway, there's a probability that druid multiclass is Call Lighting, most likely 1/rest. Devil of Caroc has 2 uses of nature's mark, which is more likely to be a spellbind, but can be a druid multiclass talent as well...

I think soulbound weapons should have less raw power (accuracy and damage bonuses) than normal enchanted weapons and make up for it with unique abilities. It would be pretty stupid If they are strictly better.

Barb is a melee aoe dps class with some CC capability, although CC is not that obvious. He's not good at anything else. Some builds can be somewhat tanky, but he won't be a proper tank, an offtank at best. Main ability that makes him good is Carnage. One Stands Alone used to be OP when it was bugged, but this is no longer the case. Most of the other barb abilities vary from decent to slightly underpowered and you can't really go wrong picking them as there are no "must haves". I don't know why Carnage seems not enough for you, it's probably the strongest starting ability of any class. Secondary hits are at -10 accuracy (-5 with a talent) and -34% damage. Since damage modifiers are additive, if you have say +75% damage bonus from might and weapon, you'll be doing 175% damage to the main target and 141% to secondary targets, so damage penalty matters less the more damage bonuses you have. Provided you're hitting at least 3 targets you'll be doing 175 + 141*2 = 457% total damage with modifiers like above (but DT is obviously subtracted from each hit). On PotD you'll often be hitting 5+ enemies at the same time CC comes not from the limited war cries repertoire, but rather from the fact that carnage hits apply weapon on hit effects. So if you have a weapon that knockdowns on crit you'll be able to knockdown groups of enemies with it (provided that you crit). Or if you have disorienting weapon, you'll debuff enemy defenses in AOE. All in all, barbarian is a very limited class in terms of playstyle, but he's really good at what he does.

It increases damage of all beam spells for the duration (including ectopsychic echo and antipathetic field itself). Quite obvious from the description imo. Echo is really easy to use as you control both ends of the effect, unlike field, you don't really need to "run around" with cipher.

Sequencers and contingencies for my wizard .

I'm confident with 170 vs Adra, 150 is a ballpark estimate for some of the higher level enemies. Attack resolution.

Yeah, LoH heal rate is the same, Int changes overall duration and thus total heal as expected. LoH is actually quite strong with 2 uses in 1.06, so making it stronger is not a bad thing. As for INT and exhortations - as I said, depends on the kind of paladin you're making. If you want to tank and nothing else you don't need INT and you don't pick exhortations. However, 2 x +10 accuracy with Darcozzi's Inspiring Liberation and 2 x +25 deflection with reinforcing exhortation each encounter is quite strong and you can throw your exhortations around while tanking anyway. Boosting your party to CC better, deal more damage and take less damage is good. Your choice. Barb/Cipher i won't say anything about as its a whole new topic. As for how much saves you need - depends on the enemy you're facing. To comfortably tank Adra Dragon for instance, you need 170+ deflection, reflex and fort. This doesn't make you unhitable, but guarantees only grazes. To be untouchable you need 205+, which is only realistic with some strong party buffs, but in practice 170+ is good enough. For weaker enemies you obviously don't need as much, although I'd say 150 is still a good mark to hit as many enemies have ~100 accuracy. And as I already mentioned, Righteous soul reduces the efficiency of some of the more nasty will based attacks, so will save is not as critical for paladin.

Why dump DEX? - DEX mostly influences dps (also buff speed, but in latest patch paladin buffs are very fast anyway) and compared to other party members paladin will never be a good damage dealer, so it's better to focus on what you're good at. Why not dump MIG over DEX? As paladins do not have many damage bonuses optimal dps will be somewhere at MIG = DEX probably (for classes with a lot of damage bonuses DEX is more important). However, we're not optimizing dps, and MIG gives fortitude, which is more important, since we get a big reflex boost from weapon & shield style as a tank. MIG also influences stuff like Lay of Hands and some racials like Silver Tide and Battleforged. If you're soloing you want to do damage, so you don't dump DEX entirely. Why dump INT? This is actually a more tough call in a party as it influences many good abilities like exhortations (liberating, reinforcing, hastening, reviving to some extent) and Lay of Hands. Also aura range. You dump INT if you focus on being a pure tank and forgo support abilities in favor of abilities that do not depend on INT like Righteous Soul. Dumping INT allows to get better all around tanking stats. Because of Righteous Soul, will is probably the least important save for a paladin. If I recall correctly, optimal paladin for tanking Adra Dragon was smth like 15/18/5/21/3/15. If you go for identical base will/ref/fort you'll end up with much higher ref because of shield. Additionally, as already mentioned, will is less important if you have Righteous Soul. Overall fort > ref > will for tank paladin.

Retaliate is good, but it's not that good to vastly improve your dps, not after the OSA fix anyway. Moreover there are better classes than fighter to utilize retaliate. And it doesn't help the DEX argument anyway - retaliate dps does not depend on DEX.

All these "damage done" pics people like to post mean very little, cause there are tons of variables influencing them. Very biased depending on your micro and tactics used. If you use a Cipher as a CC bot he won't be top dps for instance. The character you micro more will perform better. Main char always has level advantage over mercs and better optimization advantage over story NPCs In case of per rest classes, also depends on how often you rest and obviously what spells you use Melee dps is like 1.5 times better than ranged dps provided you can keep dealing damage, so comparing them is a bit pointless, you pick ranged because of positioning and focusing advantages Obviously also depends on player's skill with each class Overall neither Fighter nor Paladin have abilities to be the top dps. Fighter is better, but he's nowhere near the heavy hitter category.

Wizards are very strong, but they are not a novice class. Tbh they can even dish out very respectable per encounter ranged damage with arcane assault and blast without even using any spells. Aloth is a poorly built wizard though. Overall classes with per rest abilities are good at handling difficulty spikes, of you want to do some high level content or bounties early they are very helpul. If you play with full party, by the end of the game you'll be able to beat most encounters by just autoattacking, then again you'll have per encounter spells and it's mostly a matter of preference how to kill your enemies. As for whom to hire: tbh it depends on the rest of the party you want to run. if you have only pally and wizard I'd add another melee like monk next. However you can grab a fighter NPC in the first town, so if you do it, I'd hire a cipher next. Cipher overall is a stronger class than rogue, but playing it requires you to have enough game knowledge to pick good powers, plus rouge is a better mechanics bot, as he starts with 1 more point in this skill.

If you're making a pure tank paladin 3 INT is the way to go. I'd dump both INT and DEX and max everything else. However, aura radius is not the only concern when dumping INT as your exhortations are going to be quite bad with no INT and they're quite powerful in 1.06. So for support pally dumping INT is a no go.

Both bows and guns have their pros and cons in 1.06 for cipher, which is definitely more balanced than in previous patches. Superb unique warbow actually has 20% attack speed but it doesn't work :D. It would be very good for ciphers once the speed mod is finally fixed though (hope for the next patch), as its one of the best pure dps mods. If considering unique weapons, even a hunting bow build can be quite good, as Lenas Er is a superb hunting bow with disorienting and rending, which is one of the best enchant combos. You can delay weapon focus until level 10 easily if you pick marksman first so you can use warbow for the majority of the game and switch to Lenas Er once it's available. Ideal cipher weapon would probably have rending and attack speed (once it's fixed). There's actually a rapier with these.

Depends on your build. If you go for a bow or a melee build you can squeeze in an extra talent. If you go for a gunner or a quickswitch build you really don't have any extra room. Overall it's a good talent for earlygame but lategame it's not great as you gain a ton of focus from weapon hits anyway and greater focus doesn't scale with level (tbh I think it should). Still it's not the worst choice you could make. Don't pick psychic backlash next though :D.

Orlan barb with Belkar Bitterleaf personality please. Not opening up Blast would be a missed opportunity IMO. The game already suffers from firearms being the only realistic option for ranged DPS builds. Being able to add AoE to rods would make them competitive without overpowering them. I'm not opposed to this (would be quite fun actually), but with 90% probability this is going to be a spell.

I think most weapon dps builds would go for SA and Carnage multiclasses. I don't think that wizard multiclass is going to be blast. And as stated all multiclass abilities will be weaker versions of original ones.

From what I gathered there's going to be only 1 multiclass talent per class, which would be a weaker version of the "main" ability of the class. Obviously some classes (spellcasters and classes like monk) have no "main" ability, so it becomes more vague for them. Confirmed abilities: Multi class rogue - Weak sneak attack. I'd expect smth like Skaen priest SA (20%). If it would stack with Skaen priest ability (most likely) priests would be able to get 40% SA with 2 talents. Multi class cipher - A charm spell. Most likely single target and with per rest limit. Speculations: Fighter - Minor constant recovery (smth like 1 endurance regen). Monk - Improved unarmed damage? Or smth like per rest swift strikes. Paladin - Faith and conviction is the "main ability", however non paladin classes have no favoured dispositions (except priest, but I doubt there will be a special case for them). Maybe smth like a static boost for defences , on the level of deep faith talent or a weaker FoD/LoH. Barb - minor carnage? can easily be OP. To be balanced should be a either a per rest ability (then it can be a full power carnage) or some static damage aoe like wizard's blast. Ranger - Per rest call animal (basically a figurine talent). Chanter - no idea, probably some kind of aura. Wizard - some per rest or per encounter aoe spell, possibly with some minor debuff like daze. Priest - per rest or per encounter aoe heal. Druid - either some kind of per rest/per encounter aoe or a per rest shapeshift (with the current state of shapeshift would be a joke talent) Overall my predictions are that barb, rogue and possibly paladin multiclasses are likely going to be most useful, and caster multiclasses are going to be quite bad, but we'll see.

In my experience interruption is too wonky to rely on it and it mostly delays the enemies from using their abilities, not prevents it. It is not that bad if you can afford it, but in case of paladin you get more value from other stats (and you still interrupt well with low dex, just not that often). There are much better ways for taking out enemy mages in a party than charging to them and hoping for an interrupt. In 1.06 exhortations have no recovery (the grey bar above your character if you're playing without expert mode, that shows up after most actions). Obviously it still takes some time to cast them (and this time is affected by DEX) but generally you spam them fast enough even in heaviest armor (since they have no recovery armor recovery penalty doesn't matter). DEX is still important for reflex, but if you go max PER and W&S style you can dump it. You can also try to make a dps paladin build with DEX, but it would be suboptimal in this role.

For PotD ToI i would add some defensive talents for your spellcasters, for instance carrying a light shield does not hinder spellcasting, so switching to weapon and shield when engaged and picking W&S style talent is a solid option. Fully dps specced wizard can tank very well with proper spells and abilities. For optimal party I would also go full custom. Aloth, Durance and Kana are all very far from optimal. You also have too little dps (rogue has no aoe and none of your casters is optimal for dps). There are quite a few cheesy combinations you can pull off with a full party, for instance something like priest + paladin + 4 tank chanters will be a complete cakewalk for the most part. You can also swap some party members during playthrough if you're not particularly fond of their performance at a given level.