MadDemiurg

He did use breath 1 or 2 times after buffs and it missed. I replayed it a few times and he used it more, but unluckily he got a bit stuck when I actually recorded. As you've see I had 160 fort with buffs and could've reached 170 with some stat changes or even 180 with orlan. I also had an unused second chance. I was monitoring what adragans where casting anyway so that I can intercept it if needed. Wiz has enough reflex to tank the breath with buffs even without blind, which is the only ranged attack. I'll check the boon later. It's doable with only 1-2 scrolls if you use hard CC (not necessarily petrtify), but I wanted to show a straight up damage approach.

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The vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqEKduc3IUM&feature=youtu.be Disclaimer: The vid is using console generated char, all items/talents are obtainable in the game. However some of the items (little savior to be exact) are not obtainable before defeating the dragon (although it might be possible to sneak into the treasury, has anyone tried that?). They are by no means necessary though, and only present since OP has taken the liberty to use superb armor/shield as well (which are definitely not obtainable without defeating the dragon). Stats/talents are not really optimized, cautious attack is a complete waste for instance since it does not stack with better wiz buffs (forgot about that). Stats are M 18 D 19 C 3 P 4 I 19 R 15 (standard glass cannon wizard). Talents are W&S, Superior deflection, Deep pockets, Bear's fortitude, Snake's reflexes and Cautious Attack. As I said CA is a waste and the only really indispensable talent is W&S, others you can skip with a bit of stat tweaking and go for stuff like veil/fast runner/caster talents. In the vid the dragon got stuck between xaurips for a few sec, but I freed him with maelstrom. I did the fight several times to ensure I can repeat it. It is actually possible to die if you attack the dragon upfront before you get your buffs up, so it's actually better to attack the minions first and buff, but I wanted to demonstrate a facetank approach. however, with second chance item you're guaranteed to survive and get all your buffs up and running (I had it, but didn't need it), and then it's very difficult for the dragon to touch you. It is possible to raise deflection further with stuff like mirror image. As seen in the video, I had 30+ seconds on most buffs after the dragon died (I actually wanted to use smth else than scrolls but martial prowess was still active and I didn't have a backup dps weapon) and I had enough casts to rebuff it 1-2 times more. The fight is much easier if you use hard CC though and doable without any scrolls in this case. Probably i could've recorded a better vid, and optimize the char better but I don't want to spend more time on it. Edit: I'm pretty sure I can do priest and fighter as well (and priest buffs last waaay more than 10 sec, but I'm not sure I want to spend time on it)

Wizard done, video in progress. 170+ reflex without going midget and with glasscannon stats.

I haven't actually tested if unbroken makes you lose the buffs, but second chance does not, so I don't see why it should be any different. For fear aura you can use recovery potions. Yes, you'll lose an item slot, but I think you can get away with it. For wiz it's more like 3 min, but it won't take too much time to take out the dragon for them. In a party - yes, they're better off as DPS/CC. But even a glasscannon wiz can have good defences on demand. +40 ref is quite easy and wiz is likely to have high dex. And this is theorycrafting anyway, not building for a real party/solo playthrough. Half time to keep the buffs up is a huge exaggeration - wiz buffs are almost instant. As for priest: Champion's boon: +20 Fort, +20 Ref, + 10 deflect Crowns for the faithful: (Per bonus is suppressed) +25 deflect, +62 will Both long duration +15 to all defenses of top with circle of protection/scroll of defense All this stuff stacks

I'm pretty sure Chanters don't need higher level invocations needing more time to charge AND higher level chants being longer. The intention of the 1st one is to make higher level invocations "more expensive", however that's probably the worst mechanics out of all casters (cipher's higher level powers are more expensive, but they also generate focus faster with high level weapons, and vancian casters just have a separate limit for each level). One solution would be to instead make the lower level invocations cheaper with level while maintaining ~12 seconds minimum mark for the highest level. The intention of the 2nd one is to make lower level chants useful at high levels probably, but again it turns out not that great. Instead of making higher level chants longer linger duration of lower level chants can improve with level so you can mix up several of them for instance. I think at least one of these two needs to be changed. That been said, chanter IS quite powerful atm, but this despite these mechanics rather than thanks to them. High level chants are powerful enough to validate the chanter without any invocations and an extremely cheesy part about chanters is that they can dump pretty much any stat. IMO all their damage should scale with might and summons should have duration to fix this issue. Maybe dex should speed up chants as well (although that sounds silly). If base chanter mechanics are changed some invocations would need rebalancing however.

With this level of min/max a fighter would only be below paladin by 17 fort & ref (and 2 above in deflection) with passives only and 22 defl/3 fort/ref above with vigorous defence although it won't last too long with dumped int. But since you can sacrifice 22 defl in stats you don't have to dump int (you can also use scrolls of defense if more time is needed). After he resurrects via unbroken if killed he also has a big bonus to saves. Wiz can best that deflection and reflex, but not fort unless he uses martial prowess. With martial prowess he can beat that fort as well. Fort is mostly needed for melee in that fight though, which you don't have to do (and if you do might as well use prowess). Priest can pull off some crazy saves given enough buff time too.

It's possible to go without W&S style just fine, pick caster/utility talents instead. W&S probably is the best style talent though, and reflex bonus it gives is too high I think. Other styles are simply not worth it usually (well, dw is decent, but not for wiz). 2h style 15% damage applies to the base damage only, so it's pretty bad. However, I think as of 1.05 wiz conjured weapons have massive base damage, so maybe it would work a bit better with them. It's still in 2.5 (regular 2h) - 3.75 (conjured 2h) damage range, so not too great. Not sure how shield is bad from rp perspective. I can see how a caster might want to have 1 hand free (so 1h style), but from 2h, dw and w&s w&s is the most practical if you fry enemies with spells anyway. Pity you can't dual wield shields (for double bonus).

They both hit allies just like ray of fire. Ray of fire also damages the primary target while antipathetic field does not. Let's nerf everything so noting is good anymore!

Nature godlike racial is probably the worst in the game, and they give up helmet slot. Death godlike is petty weak too. Humans aren't exactly terrible but subpar. Mountain dwarves are awful, boreal are too situational (although very strong when it applies). Elves are both good, pale being somewhat more situational. Moon is stronger than any other racial. Orlans are decent, wild is again a bit situational though. Aumauas - Island are good for quickswitch, ocean are kinda mediocre.

+2DR did not, but +4 deflection and reflex from superb shield surely did. Jolting touch scrolls are probably bugged in a way OSA was - they are carrying stats from some early beta version. The spell deals way less damage and spells seem to be consistent with scrolls for the most part. I suppose these will be equalized at some point. But it's possible to use malestrom scrolls instead anyway (although that would require way more lore). Serel's boon is also a one time bonus. I suppose you can "save" it for this fight specifically but looks a bit stretched. A question to the OP: why do you have all the food bonuses applied twice? It shows effects of the 2nd bonus suppressed in the charsheet. Is there any bug that makes them stack nevertheless?

More like one of the few racials that aren't crap. Also moonlikes are way more OP in general.

Yes ? What item ? What items can be used to take care of Charmed, Dominated ? Charmed and Dominated count as the most scary afflictions. If you want peace, prepare for war. No one likes to attack the strong guy. Using your logic, having a gun at home is only good when someone is attacking you. I'd rather have people in the neighborhood know I have a gun and not attack me. If they don't target the Paladin, it's because the ability is doing its job. Righteous Soul is good to have on a paladin, because he can keep enemies from reaching you, and help party members. I'd rather have one of my ranged characters charmed than Eder. Paladin can heal, revive, use Liberating Exhortation. Because paladin is so hard to disable, it's a good idea to make him your party's Lore Guy. Then he can use scrolls to deal with emergencies when everyone else is disabled. Charmed and dominated are not that scary solo since enemies don't attack you when you're charmed, and in a party as I already said it's not useful cause nobody's charming the paladin. Enemies won't charm the paladin righteous soul or not, period. I'd actually be really pleased if they went for the paladin instead of the wizard, but that just doesn't happen. So not buying that argument. It's a theoretically useful ability that rarely gets used in practice. As for items, recovery potions reduce duration of all afflictions, including the ones affected by the righteous soul. Specifically vs frightened/terrified you can also use protection against fear scrolls.

Righteous soul would be pretty good if anyone targeted paladin with the effects it counters. It's decent solo, but it doesn't counter the most scary afflictions and it's not that it can't be replicated with some item use if needed.

I'd say +1 accuracy/level on claws should be a baseline, caster druid or not. It still won't make shapeshift better than a level 1 wizard staff spell, which can be used like up to 7/encounter at levels 9+. Since druids get the shape in any case it is really weird to have an ability that becomes completely useless with levels. Getting bonuses from jewelry or some equivalent scaling bonus probably should be added as an improvement to the basic shape as well. Otherwise, again, shifting is pointless once you get better items. Everything above that (extra duration, DR improvements, extra damage, abilities improvements) can probably come with class variants/extra talents/whatever. Having multiple shapes as well, if that's ever implemented. From RP perspective, i think a fun option would be to add smth like a "Feral shape" talent that: Greatly increases shape's stats Locks you out of spells when shifted Adds a "spell holding" like effect for the shape, so whenever you take a critical hit you shift automatically (Hulk mode)

Arcane assault doesn't really need party members to work and scales just fine with level (+1 accuracy/level, being an ability). It also benefits from all items you might have that influence aoe, damage or duration on any way. Interdiction scales in the same way. It surely works better with a party, but that's because it's a support ability. Shapeshift doesn't help anyone but druid (and it actually hurts him on mid-high levels). I'm ok with shape having subpar accuracy compared to melee classes. I'm not ok with it becoming gradually worse with level. As for shape diversity, I agree that tweaking shape stats would help to differentiate them and make shifting more fun. However, I'd like to see the shapes fixed in their current state first at least. Doing both that and tweaking stats would likely cause issues if done simultaneously, not mentioning needing more work.

If you mean "ciphers can do more in trash encounters that doesn't really matter in the first place since you can beat them with little to no health lost" then yes. If you made a list of the top spells in this game, cipher spells would be all over it. Nope?

I'm not trying to impose my opinion on anyone, I'm merely stating it. It kinda works in literature if it's well written but I've yet to see a visual depiction of such fight which wouldn't look completely ridiculous, As for realism in fantsy - surely fantasy is not realistic. But there's a thing called suspension of disbelief. Without it, you might as well add some Tom&jerry style scenes where a character gets completely flattened only to walk away like it's noting a few minutes later.

You don't need to kill them for the ring though. Good to know. I've always killed them for loot :D.

Yep, you can enchant one at level 4. You can also get a guaranteed +5 deflection ring for free if you kill that pair that killed a guy in the bear cave.

It looks more like 4e than it does any other D&D system, which is the relevant point. The per encounter/per rest ability split happened in 4e. The strongest push for "aggro management" mechanics happened in 4e. Attempts to bring casters more in line with the power of other classes happened in 4e etc. etc. Of course it's closer to 4e compared to 2e than a 2e game . But it's still much closer to 2e/3e than to 4e by itself. Casters have mostly per rest abilities (turning to per encounter later on though) and martial classes have almost no abilities. In 4e everyone gets more or less the same amount of per rest/per encounter/at will abilities. Engagement is a glorified AOO, I wouldn't compare it to 4e defender mechanics or god forbid the atrocious aggro based systems.

To be fair, I find the image of a warrior fighting a dragon with a sword completely ridiculous (and any visual adaptations that try to portray this, PoE included, look completely ridiculous as well unless the dragon is cow sized or smth). The only thing more ridiculous is fighting a dragon while dual wielding daggers (which is a pretty silly combat style in the first place). If going for relative realism and suspension of disbelief, the only way to hurt smth with the size of a dragon would be to carry a portable ballista (which would require several people and/or horses to move it) or use your fellow wizard's "summon rocket launcher" spell. Just my 2 cents.

It works more or less with the current level cap, but if it's ever raised to say 20 (and thus 5 level of chants and invocations) it will show that the design is fundamentally broken. I think chanter's lower level invocations should become faster to charge with level (while current max level maintaining the long charge timer). This would require some rebalancing of the invocations though.

If you mean "ciphers can do more in trash encounters that doesn't really matter in the first place since you can beat them with little to no health lost" then yes.

As an aside, I find the fact that we never got a proper turn-based CRPG with the 4e system (and probably never will at this rate) to be one of the biggest missed opportunities in CRPGs. Slightly more on topic, maybe the changes to Cipher focus will make the focus-boosting amulets slightly more attractive options. Has anyone found a guaranteed spot to pick up a Talisman of the Unconquerable? Yeah, it's probably the most cRPG friendly edition as well. Which is why there was much said about Balance Man's supposed fondness for 4e during the backer beta, and how that system had more influence on PoE's design than something atrocious like BG2's 2e. The end result looks noting like 4e though.