MadDemiurg

Ranger is potentially decent as well, since driving flight hist 2 targets and should apply the on hit effect. Also +10 accuracy modal and stalker's link.

Because they do in solo game. In party game every calss can do. But as Kaylon himself wrote above- rangers has good single target damage, but solo game is about AOE nuking/AOE CC, Tanking and healing or tanking and DPS (AOE if possible). Rangers suck becasue they have single target skills. If Rooting was AOE CC then ranger would be quite good. And if his pets were scaling better, because for example Bear can tank some mobs, ok. But put him against CC enemies like Shades, Crystal Spiders or Vithracks and suddenly it is only you and enemies and then ranger suck. Wish Ranger had more skills to build his pets to be super tanks/DPS like Beast Master in World of Warcraft. And if pet choices were better- like drake, big spider etc. If Pets Deflection and, most important, resistance against CC- petrify, domination nad charm were much better- then you could relay on your pet as tank or CC monster and build ranger for pure DPS. Right now pets are more annoyance for me in PotD since they suck as tank, suck against CC and their DPS suck, and if they die- ranger get penalties. My buddy was playing ranger in party in PotD- he was doing great Damage and killing really fast enemy wizards/priests, but solo- no chances, especially in Endless Paths. He is beast on bosses- Blunderbuss DOT stack plus Envenomed Striket DOT stack (both per pellet) and it deals insane damage. But after that- reloaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad...... Envenomed strike does not stack (tested by many people included peddroelm, who did this quite rigorously), Arguments whether class sucks or is good based on solo performance are quite moot since the game is balanced for party play. I must admit I was on the "rangers suck" bandwagon, but after actually using one I'd say that their performance is comparable to that of a ranged rogue, at least until level 11 (dps is a bit lower, but they get extra utility and extra tanking body, which is not THAT bad). I still think they can use some improvements. I get it but each to his own- for me class is great if you can solo game with it. I get that game in balanced by party, but it is up to individual player in single player game to judge what is good and what is not. For me ranger is not good becasue he is only great where all other classes are- in party. That is just and only my opinion. Can you exaplain focus gaining trick please for Cipher? I am curious Well, by now everyone knows the retaliation trick. It's based on it, but it's on steroids. Thing is, you retaliate even to friendly characters and likewise you gain focus from attacking friendlies too. If you eat carrow golan and have draining whip you have +6 focus on hit. Likely more. Now you equip retaliation armor and force let's say, figurine beetles to attack yourself. You'll be getting at least 6 focus per hit (but would take almost no damage if you have high DR). If you stack 2 retaliation items you'll be getting at least +12 focus on hit, but you'll burn through your summons faster. Still, the amount of focus you can get this way is crazy, you are likely not even able to cast spells at this rate. My only regret is that you don't have a "mistress" summon, equipped with leather armor and a whip.

I'd say that if free inns would give you minor fatigue after rest I'd be ok with the current rest system.

Btw this thread has inspired me to try some new tactics vs Adra. So far managed to beat him with a cipher using mental binding permalockdown with nigh infinite focus generation abusetrick. Will also try out druid and priest, since they seem to be largely neglected on these forums. Maybe I'll make some vid later.

Because they do in solo game. In party game every calss can do. But as Kaylon himself wrote above- rangers has good single target damage, but solo game is about AOE nuking/AOE CC, Tanking and healing or tanking and DPS (AOE if possible). Rangers suck becasue they have single target skills. If Rooting was AOE CC then ranger would be quite good. And if his pets were scaling better, because for example Bear can tank some mobs, ok. But put him against CC enemies like Shades, Crystal Spiders or Vithracks and suddenly it is only you and enemies and then ranger suck. Wish Ranger had more skills to build his pets to be super tanks/DPS like Beast Master in World of Warcraft. And if pet choices were better- like drake, big spider etc. If Pets Deflection and, most important, resistance against CC- petrify, domination nad charm were much better- then you could relay on your pet as tank or CC monster and build ranger for pure DPS. Right now pets are more annoyance for me in PotD since they suck as tank, suck against CC and their DPS suck, and if they die- ranger get penalties. My buddy was playing ranger in party in PotD- he was doing great Damage and killing really fast enemy wizards/priests, but solo- no chances, especially in Endless Paths. He is beast on bosses- Blunderbuss DOT stack plus Envenomed Striket DOT stack (both per pellet) and it deals insane damage. But after that- reloaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad...... Envenomed strike does not stack (tested by many people included peddroelm, who did this quite rigorously), Arguments whether class sucks or is good based on solo performance are quite moot since the game is balanced for party play. I must admit I was on the "rangers suck" bandwagon, but after actually using one I'd say that their performance is comparable to that of a ranged rogue, at least until level 11 (dps is a bit lower, but they get extra utility and extra tanking body, which is not THAT bad). I still think they can use some improvements.

Well, that was done on purpose to be able to finish him fast once the charm was gone. My big error was to not summon the scarab as soon as my shades were killed and I lost some endurance in the process, when trying to charm. I don't think it's possible to do it with other classes because their disabling spells are too short. However any party with a ranger can make the encounter trivial. Maybe a priest can use withdraw on a summon to block dragon's advancement long enough. You didn't even use the whole duration of 1 roots though and CC can be reapplied multiple times if needed. Realistically 2 15 second CCs should do the trick.

Yup, mind lance is quite awesome. And a lot of mobs have low will (easy crits). Double fun if they line up nicely.

Nicely done. Looks like you somehow managed to bug out the fight so that adra and minions don't all aggro at the same time. Still pretty impressive though, didn't think it was possible in this manner. I think a number of classes can try a similar tactic with disables and keeping @ range.

Tbh my own paladin solo experience is extremely tedious. They deal very low damage, have little utility and don't really come into their own until late game when defence stacking finally pays off and lets you get mostly grazes. You can say they use less "cheese" because they don't have many options apart from facetanking to begin with. A lot of fights that can be easily beaten by the aforementioned cipher at low level are simply not doable by the low level paladin (because facetanking doesn't work). Scroll usage is also quite extensive and can be regarded as "cheesy" as figurines or other consumables, although in my book all of them are totally legit, since they do not abuse any bugs in game mechanics.

Yeah, pally is decent as PC only, but overbuffing the class so that NPCs are also decent is not the solution, solution is fix for the NPCs. PC pally could use some tweaks for his support abilities as well, but his overall tankiness is still a factor and shouldn't be neglected when tuning the abilities.

Slicken, Expose Vulnerabilities, Confusion, Essential Phantom and Call to Slumber are pretty much the top of the class spells that don't really have an equivalent. Cipher has a few skills that are comparable, but the problem is a) casting time, b) they seem to get resisted more and c) Focus only allows typically for two casts in succession before needing to shoot your gun and pray you get the focus you need, and d) by that point, enemies can often be a bit more spread out than you want for your abilities, which almost all have a much smaller radius compared to Wizard spells. Of course, that's prior to Amplified Wave. But you're still talking level 11. Their biggest use is Mental Binding/Tenuous Grasp until then. Actually I wasn't debating but rather defending wizard's power there . As for Ciphers, their spells may "seem" to be resisted more to you, but actually a lot of their spells have higher accuracy and later on they have more ways to buffs their accuracy as well. Few good cipher CC you've missed prior to level 11: Mind Wave (needs proper positioning, but usually not a big deal), Puppet master, Ringleader. Wiz still wins in aoe CC and utility. Would be weird if he didn't. Cipher wins in spammability of his abilities. Another issue regarding "class balance" is how level nine and eleven are game changers for Druids, Wizards and Priests. You no longer have to worry nearly as much about saving spells. Once you hit level nine, the Cipher won't be casting too much more than either of those classes, unless you are fighting something that is taking a really long time. Until then, the Cipher is the Energizer Bunny of casters, but the gap is shorter at nine, and closed at eleven. But then you'll barely even need anything but Amplified Wave every other encounter at that point. Yeah, well, cipher still has the advantage of using their higher level powers on per encounter basis, as well as being competent with weapons, but if the level cap goes up to like 15 in expansion... Per encounter phantom/confuse/devotions of the faithful etc :D. Right now it's still more of less even. AW, being as OP as it is, still doesn't win some of the harder battles by itself.

Slicken, Expose Vulnerabilities, Confusion, Essential Phantom and Call to Slumber are pretty much the top of the class spells that don't really have an equivalent. Cipher has a few skills that are comparable, but the problem is a) casting time, b) they seem to get resisted more and c) Focus only allows typically for two casts in succession before needing to shoot your gun and pray you get the focus you need, and d) by that point, enemies can often be a bit more spread out than you want for your abilities, which almost all have a much smaller radius compared to Wizard spells. Of course, that's prior to Amplified Wave. But you're still talking level 11. Their biggest use is Mental Binding/Tenuous Grasp until then. Actually I wasn't debating but rather defending wizard's power there . As for Ciphers, their spells may "seem" to be resisted more to you, but actually a lot of their spells have higher accuracy and later on they have more ways to buffs their accuracy as well. Few good cipher CC you've missed prior to level 11: Mind Wave (needs proper positioning, but usually not a big deal), Puppet master, Ringleader. Wiz still wins in aoe CC and utility. Would be weird if he didn't. Cipher wins in spammability of his abilities.

My point exactly ! Buffs always hit. It's irrelevant as long as you have good hit rate. Which is possible to have you just need to know enemy resistances and some combos. None of the buffs (even devotions of the faithful) are as gamechanging as some of the wiz CC. But devotions are good for buffing up the wizard . Overall, If I had to pick only 1 caster in PotD party, I would probably pick priest. Priest + Wizard are one of the strongest combos for dealing with tough fights though.

I don't ever use them as just a "CC bot", because it would otherwise be an unfair comparison. I wouldn't however, simply have them doing nothing but damage at all times because it's wasting their utility. A paralyze/root or mass flank is much more important to the group as a whole; which makes it harder to judge their overall contribution. But similar could be said of Priest buffs. And I do toss in Mind Blades and make liberal use of Soul Shock (when applicable). They still don't pull ahead of the Rogue however. But I guess if you want to micromanage the hell out of your Cipher and use nothing but Ectopsychic Echo (which takes forever to setup) just to inflate what they are actually doing, while actually slowing down group progress; more power to you. I understand what you're saying about the Wizard/Druid combo, but on my current playthrough I was trying to use one of the Wizards primarily as a bow Wizard. So far that hasn't really been what he's been used for, yet he's still 2nd place in overall damage done (Rogue is only 8% higher), but that is counting all of the AoE stuff, not single target. Although with haste and other buffs up, he's still pretty damn close. The reason to go Ranged Rogue anyway is because I use it to pull from stealth and because it's simply not worth the effort to use in melee on Hard/PotD compared to a tank and all ranged group. You spend way too much time with micro compared to simply killing. I'm still not sold on the Druid though. Outside of Moonwell, I really just used a few AoE spells, and I would rather start a fight with Chill Fog since it's so much easier for the group to focus fire down enemies that are slowly walking toward you, clustered (and usually just end up on the tank) than it is trying to hit them as they are pushed back. Plus, it's not always easy to put the Druid right next to the tank, especially if you don't want to block whoever pulled on the way back (if it's not the tank). Can you use a Druid as the sole healer? No. Can you use a Druid + Chanter combo to keep the group up? Maybe, but you're just hurting yourself by not having a Priest, and if you have a Priest, you won't need the Druid for healing up until Moonwell. Maybe I am actually being a bit unfair though since my comparison is a full custom group, while not ever using a Druid other than Hiravias. But I simply wasn't impressed by his spell selection. I kept using the same four spells through the entire playthrough with the occasional heal or damage reduction, but those were extremely rare instances. I also had him use an Arbalest or stand behind the tank with the Tall Grass Pike. Even with all of that, his damage wasn't so hot. You don't even need to use stuff like ectopsychic echo to be ahead as a cipher. I use if only vs very tough targets (where the setup is actually worth it). Mind blades are garbage on POTD, just a waste of focus. Tbh just soul shock spam easily pulls cipher ahead of rogue on low levels and mind lance/amplified wave at high levels. I usualy use mine as 50% CC/50% damage spells or so and they still deal more damage. That's not counting the damage stuff like ringleader can do, which is not registered (but can be huge). Melee has much higher innate dps, plus in case of rogues reckless assault, which is pretty major. Yeah, you need more micro to pull it off, but the rewards are also bigger. I'm usually running an arbalest/pike combo, switching to pike when it's appropriate (dw would deal even more damage, but much riskier and needs your whole party to facilitate pretty much). Ranged rogue OTOH has like 10-20% dps advantage over a ranged cipher if you count weapon only, which is easily outmatched with spells. For what it's worth in my recent party run which I used for a break for soloing I have the following chars: PC paladin, currently 6.9K damage (large chunk is scrolls and spellbind items, because high accuracy, might and int) armed with guarding rapier, Arbalest/Pike Rogue - 13.6k (would be lower if I went for ranged only for sure), Offtank monk - 15k, also does a lot of tanking, Hunting bow (:D) ranged cipher - 17k, gonna switch to blunderbuss later ofc, Ranger (for now with warbow, final weapon not yet decided) - 11.6K, Arbalest Priest - 6.7K. These numbers usually heavily depend on playstyle ofc. As for healers, you don't need healing at all for the most part. If you need healing, you're not using your CC/buffs right. Even priest is not there for the healing (and for what it's worth, Druid's spells actually heal more). Druid also deals heavy aoe damage with spells - both DoT and burst. If you're not using druid's damage spells - well, your choice. L2 blizzard for instance is stronger than any wiz L3 aoe damage spell (fireball is more spammy if you don't care about burining casts though). Wiz is better at cc/utility, even though druid has some fun CC option like wave (15 sec prone aoe with high int) and relentless storm (pretty much permastunlock if you buff accuracy). You can still buff the **** out of your accuracy and by mid levels almost nothing will resist your spells (also eldritch accuracy). Wiz also has strong conjured weapons and damage dealing summon (phantom). I'd say wiz becomes even better on PotD since stuff like mass confuse becomes more actual for dealing with huge mobs of enemies.

Yeah, you can do that. Although imo any 6 man party without a priest is suboptimal, he's a huge power multiplier. I'd bring a priest if repulsing seal and devotions of the faithful were his only spells.

Fighters have meaningful CC and a taunt/pull skill. Paladin has broken or ineffective support skills that are so limited in scope next to a priest or chanter that its unnecessary. Specifically, Liberation doesn't really help versus things you want it too like Charm/Dominate and priests can provide an AoE version on demand since typically the enemy also gives out an AoE version. Reviving also kills your party member it was cast on without crazy high health/endurance. Long story short, the mix of broken/ineffective = bad class currently. As for the Outworn buckler, this further devolves the Paladin who has superior defenses and should try to play more offensively on the front line to even less DPS. They were never that great at it, but this just exasperates the generalist role they have. Fighters also have higher base accuracy that can be buffed on demand via priests. The Zealous Focus when not bugged has a tiny radius, so effectively, they can maybe give this to themselves and 2 others in a super tight melee formation. Realistically? its a self buff that doesn't stack with the priest one in hard fights. The buckler helps paladins dps because its a small shield (no accuracy malus) with deflection superior to medium shields.The aura stacks with other buffs as repeatedly stated, but resiliently denied... And you too :D? So how does it stack? +1 accuracy and +5% crit (if you spendwaste a talent on it) over bless? That's not called stacking, that's called overriding. Or getting completely overridden by eldritch aim or any accuracy potion for the accuracy part?

Cipher is indeed slightly below ranged rogue on weapon damage, however if you throw at least some aoe spells from time to time easily pulls ahead in terms of damage done. If you spam CC 24/7 you bet you'll deal less damage. However even lower level stuff like soul shock can easily do 100+ total damage per cast. What/when you use depends on your tactics/party composition. Tbh I don't think ranged rogue pulls his weight in a party (melee rogue might if you build around him). Wizards indeed have more nova potential than ciphers and make harder fights easier. Druids have a lot of CC and damage and can make decent offtanks if you build them like that without wasting spells on it, unlike melee wizard. They have a lot of crap spells, but each level has a few very strong ones. If you use them as frontline, stuff like winter wind or L4 wave (which is a huge duration CC) come into play more often. Buffed up druid can permastunlock the whole encounter. They also have shorter duration petrify that targets reflex, which is often the weaker save for tough mobs. Personally I'd prefer wizard + druid over 2x wizards, because that offers more options. Casters are all about identifying enemy weakness and if you found one, 2x is not really needed.

Max effective cipher accuracy is around 160, so yeah, that's like 22% miss chance, so luck reliant. After that though he'll make a nice puppet). And both statues have crap will save (1 is a bit better but still not super impressive). Retal won't work there - Thaos is ranged and there are only 2 statues (that also like to cast spells)

Well, if you get lucky with wiz you can petrify everything from start. Not for Ironman though. Cipher can buff up his accuracy to be super high, but I don't remember how much will Thaos has. It's actually much easier to dominate statues - they have crap will unless Thaos buffs it - even then this can be prevented with arcane dampener ring.

Not that I doubt- but if that is the case- why so many people say that Paladins are garbage in this game. I mean being able to solo Endless Paths for me is best to show which class rocks, which do not. If Paladin can outlast Endless Paths- then why people still say that they suck. I do not understand this... :/ Game is not balanced for solo - In party paladin generally contributes much less than other classes. Even more so if you would use the tank build with dumped int, since support abilities are almost null with this. Plus it takes a lot of min/maxing and maxed level to get there. Until then paladin solo is a huge pain in the ass. I think they've got to do smth with defense mechanics if they raise the level cap - since overstacking would become even easier then.

Don't remember the spiders acc, but I'm pretty sure pala can have 100% resist against spiders. Vithracks - not so much, since you'll probably dump int on a tank. Fighter is out of the competition really, he can only buff up his defenses for a short time to be on par and even then paladin can buff them further with a scroll. But given the abysmally low damage of tanks "short time" won't cut it.

Don't binding roots have an attack roll and duration though? Having doubts that ranger would be able to land it consistently enough. Base acc 63 + 12 level + 10 vicious aim + 10 potion = 100. Bout 30% miss chance. Also, how would you do any damage? Even arbalest would mostly just tingle the dragon. +5 Marksman, +5 Wood Elf, I think Eldritch Aim Potion's +15? Targets Reflex, which is the Adra Dragon's worst defence. Base Duration is 30s and you get 5/rest. Three Envenomed Strikes with a high-damage weapon would get you some of the way. Beyond that, you've got probably 2 minutes to just wail on the dragon. I expect it'd work out alright. Marksman doesn't work with spells, the potion is 5 more, yeah, wood elf would give another 5, so probably 10 higher. Still not convinced. Plus you have the ads to deal with as well. Ow, yes I forgot Chanter. This class can easly get Endless Path done (easy mean as easy as this achievement is for every other class). Crystal Spiders and every other paralyze/petrify mobs are pain even for retal barb. Sanguine plus Sura plus regen potion plus stack might, iron skin potion and Potion of Llengrath's Displaced Image. I had a lot of stealth so what I did was to get close, run inside pack of mobs (or lure them to part of area where I can be surrounded or bottleneck) and immiediety hit Stalwark Defiance, AOE Terrify from shout, buff and well...retaliate. I stacked as much Endurance and Condition as I could, since I knew that Defensives rolls won't help me much (even with 120 Fort/Will they still CC me...) Defiance plus regen potion did the job, debuff around was also nice. I was loosing health like mad, but also gaining it. Mostly mobs just nuked themselfs since it was like 5 hits for every mob around in first few seconds 30-50 each, and then fire from Battle Forged. I also had Second Chance ring on me. Also boots Shod-in-Faith help here. You can also try to nuke them with Jolting Touch from Animmancer boots but I wanted to keep it safe. Ow I went there level 12 mind me, so I that also matters. Moon god like would have it easier really. OSA might be broken but if they fix it- barb has nothing to do in solo PotD then. OSA is the only thing that make him good really. Shame, but thats reality. For example I don't think Monk could solo spiders or vithracks. You need ton of CC or insane AOE DPS for them. Although somebody here said that he did EPs with Orlan Paladin. I wonder then what was his tactic for crystal spiders and Vithracks. Paladin can have crazyass ref and fort for dealing with Adra. So crystal won't be able to land petrify on him. Vithracks are another story however, as they attack will with extremely high accuracy, and you can't max out all 3 saves. So they're more problematic but probably doable with heavy scroll usage.

Don't binding roots have an attack roll and duration though? Having doubts that ranger would be able to land it consistently enough. Base acc 63 + 12 level + 10 vicious aim + 10 potion = 100. Bout 30% miss chance. Also, how would you do any damage? Even arbalest would mostly just tingle the dragon.

Cipher, Chanter, Wizard - for sure. Priest, Druid - untested but likely. Tactics heavily depend on the class. For chanter it's kite with speed chant and block paths with summons for instance. Wiz is mostly about essential phantom and counter CC. Cipher - kiting & confuse to let mobs kill each other or figurines + amplified wave or retaliation tanking + mind lance depending on the mobs. Btw, how did you avoid melee petrify mobs like crystal spiders form oneshotting you on a barb? You deal retaliate damage, but at x4 damage done to you that hardly even matters.

Chanter has 5 less accuracy and no Faith and Conviction, which is quite major (+11 deflect and +22 to all saves upgrading to +13/27 is nothing to sneeze at). OP part about chanter is that he can go full tank and unlike pala still do damage though. Priest is a terrible frontliner with health = 3*endurance unless you like to rest very often.