Ichthyic

According to the manual, it happens at higher levels than what the game allows. Probably in the expansion. It changes per-rest to per-encounter for lvl 1 spells, then 2 and so on as the wizard levels up. I tried that on a mage, and found that you actually don't need high resolve, as it's pretty rare you're getting hit if you position it right. Plus, your base deflection scores are terrible compred to a fighter or paladin, or even a chanter, so the bonus from high perception and resolve to deflection doesn't help as much as you might think. OTOH, your spells suck if you have either low intellect OR low might. so, no, I wold recommend putting your points into: intellect might dexterity perception resolve constitution In pretty much that order of importance. the perception is mostly for interrupt ability when you hit with your spells, than for deflection defense. though it also helps a tad with reflex, which is good if you fail to interrupt someone tossing a fireball or lightning bolt at you. con is the dump stat, simply because again, the idea is to keep your mage *away* from taking damage. this would totally be the glass cannon build; the exact polar opposite of what the OP wants, but... there it is anyway. unlike the priest, which is more magelike than clericlike in this game, mages here are pretty much like mages in DND, and seem to work best played that way IMO.. aside from the fact you need might to boost your damage with spells.

just to be clear though, there are no clerics in POE. priests are more like divine mages than the old DnD cleric class. putting heavy armor on priest and sending into your front line as a meleer is a waste, unlike the old cleric. took me a while to adjust to that, but I'm there now. painful interdiction and seal spam ftw.

druids are also fun to play; very versatile, and I don't think you run into one to add to your party early on. but yeah, there are no monks. rogue is good too. I found myself actually making a custom one to add to the party once I first hit town. handling traps is actually important at hard difficulty, and there's a ton of xp to be gained besides. retaliation rogues are deadly. speaking of which, since you're considering cipher, try adding retaliation to it if you do go for that class. you'll see why. in fact, retaliation would be a good choice for your monk as well, given the very high deflection.

in another thread, someone figured out you can use retaliate with your cipher... and they generate focus on retaliation. if you have used a cipher, you can figure out what that means.

that might be because there are at least 3 classes that are far more suited for melee.

bah, the best way to play durance is: painful interdiction. start off with that for every fight. look up the specs for what that does. it's like a curse and slow and interrupt all in one. don't forget: supress affliction. then there's seal spam (there's more than one seal...) >>youtube.com/watch?v=HuxYUrKKq3g<<

like some others noted... since chanters can basically do anything and still chant, I use mine as my scroll user. you can make and find and buy a myriad of VERY powerful scrolls in this game, both offensive and defensive, but typically most of your characters are attacking, or shooting, or casting a spell. but your chanter.... has both hands free. give them a decent lore skill, and fill their pockets with scrolls. then there is no need to wait for their invocation, you can have them "invoking" every turn if you want. even cheap scrolls can be very valuable in battle. I suppose it takes a bit more micromanagement than a lot of folks would like, but I find it adds a lot of variablity to the game that I personally enjoy. plus, Kana almost always has some off color remark to make everywhere you go.

also, radiance has decreasing value as you gain levels, it makes a good finisher, if you have a bunch of nearly dead targets nearby. instead, try interdiction. painful interdiction is a great thing to start combat with, I have found. really throws the enemies for a loop (weakens, interrupts and slows!), it's VERY fast to cast, and has a huge radius. it's not the damage in that case, it just weakens every opponent immediately. It's like dropping their level by two to start every fight. cast blessing next to increase your own teams damage relative, and now it's like you have 3 levels seperating you from your opponents. divine mark is a good single target damage dealer, especially against fire sensitive opponents. I also frequently use halt, repulsing seal, and pillar of faith to immobilize enemies, making them a non threat for a round to several rounds. pillar also does good damage. another spell I make fairly frequent use of is "suppress affliction", which laughs in the face of anything that tries to use a DOT or basically any kind of disability spell on you, as since your priest has high Intellect, your protections will always outlast any disabilities cast on your characters, thus essentially nullifiying them entirely. awesome spell. so yeah, priests are a great class in this game, but MUCH more like how I would have played a mage in any of the old infinity games, instead of a cleric. once you adjust to the idea that priests in POE are not really meant to be melee tanks, but back row casters, they become very useful indeed.

the damage varies, depending on whether you get a grazing hit, normal, or crit. the chance to hit with it goes against the target's fortitude defense, though I *think* you also need to actually hit the target (overcome deflection) before the poison rolls against the fortitude defense. per hit, it averages about 2-3 damage per second, for 5-15 seconds, or thereabouts, depending on how good the hit was. it's raw damage, so it bypasses dr and armor. it can stack, at least from the same source; not sure if also from multiple different sources. you can indeed, with the right weapon, do some serious damage with it.

...confirmed by testing that yes indeed, poison bypasses armor. it goes up against fortitude instead of deflection as well, and that determines whether you get a grazing shot or a crit, etc. tested against my paladin, who has 21dr against piercing. 4/6 hits, and the only damage was from 2 crits for 2 damage. but the poison... 4 grazes... grazes mind, because the paly has very high fortitude saves, even so.... did 55 damage total. so yeah, poison bypasses dr. so I myself would prefer it for the blunderbuss over penetrating shot.

OK, was toying with my blunderbus, yeah, I get it doesn't do well against high DR... but I had a thought.... what if evenomed strike works PER projectile, instead of just per attack? nothing in the description says it doesn't. so, decided to try it out on my next level up. whoah. yes indeedy, all that raw poison damage is PER PROJECTILE. my very first attempt (sorry Aloth; he's my favorite guinea pig) resulted in: 5/6 poison hits, 1 graze, 2 crits, 2 normal target is now taking.... 12.2 raw damage per second... for 15 seconds. that's a ton of raw damage. O.o next question: does raw damage from different SOURCES stack? so... where one blunderbus with poison bullets does that... how about 2? 3? 6? if they all hit at the same time... could you really be doing 70-80 raw damage per second? so, give everyone envenomed strike, give eveyone a shotgun, er I mean blunderbus... have them all fire at a target at once... even if the target has FULL dr against the bullets themselves, you can still just stand back and watch your target melt nearly instantly from raw poison damage. I'll test that tomorrow, if nobody else does before then. in any case... my prediction for the next patch is they will make posion damage, at least from the same source, unstackable in the next patch. or have they already? don't plan to use 1.03 myself. will wait for 1.04. another test... against heavy armor. my paly has 21dr against piercing damage. blunderbus hits, 2 crits out of 4 hits for... 2 damage. ...envenom hits.... 4 grazes. raw damage total: 55. so there you have it. grand total of 57 damage, 2 from the actual weapon, and the rest just from poison. oh, also, that's against fortitude of 70 (likely why they are all grazes). ...second attempt: 5/6 hits, 1 graze, 1 crit. total physical damage: 3 total poison damge: 150! ...that's from a SINGLE attack from a blunderbus mind, against a paly with really good fortitude defense!

you might want to think twice about envenomed strike.

I experimented a bit myself. anything with 10dr or over you should be using a pistol instead of blunderbus. it does too little damage per shot if your opponent is heavily armored. against 5dr and under, it's a beast. think: shotgun vs rifle. same deal. also, since it has multiple projectiles, I wondered if something like envenomed strike would trigger on each projectile... yup. first attempt: envenom hits 5/6 times. target is taking.... 12.2 raw damage PER SECOND, for 15 seconds. ouchie. IIRC, raw damage entirely bypasses armor, so take that talent if you want your blunderbus to be useful pretty much against 90% of the opponents you will face. might also try penetrating shot, and fast reload. though really, for my money, it looks like blunderbus + envenomed strike is a great combo. I'm guessing that probably will get nerfed such that poison effects will not be stackable from a single source in the next patch.

I decided to experiment with the blunderbus vs pistol myself. yeah, blunderbus fires 6 shots, but each does a little over a quarter of the damage a pistol shot does. what's that mean? it means, if you use it against something with 10 dr, and you aren't very mighty yourself, you could end up doing zero damage as none of the shots will penetrate the armor of your opponent. otoh, against something with dr 5 or below, you will do considerably more damage with the blunderbus than a pistol... provided all the shots hit (they usually do from my experience). also, I was levelling up, and wondered... what about penetrating shot? yup, basically penetrating shot removes the average dr from most enemies, and makes the blunderbus superior by far. also, i saw.. envenomed weapon. huh. 3 uses per rest, raw damage over time. nothing in the description about it being per shot or per attack. decided to try it... whoa. it's per projectile in the case of the blunderbus... which means you STACK all that raw poison damage... SIX TIMES. first attempt: 5/6 hits with envenom. result: target is now taking 12.2 raw damage... per second... for 15 seconds. how many targets you recall have 150hps or more? it's a death sentence! so, if you take your blunderbus, give it some enchants (like fine and corrosive damage; I'd make it a slayer of kith too) take the skills: penetrating shot and envenomed weapon you will be a death dealer supreme against anything with DR 10 or under, which is like 90% of the opponents in the game. also, even against high dr opponents, you will still be doing the raw damage from the poison. my guess? as soon as this gets figured out by the devs, they will nerf it to be envenomation on single "attack" only, and make it so the poison does not stack per projectile. also to test: does poison from the same skill, but a different user, ALSO stack on the same target? so now... 2 characters with blunderbuses and envenomed weapon...

O.o uh, no there isn't.

LOL

If BG2 had only come out last week you'd be raging on it for the exact same reasons. PoE is not harder than BG ou BG2, not in the slightest. I still recall, 20 years later, getting slaughtered by fire arrows shot by goblins in the very first warehouse I entered in BG. obviously, that made an impression. BG, the original version, was very tough, it took many hours to overcome the learning curve and figure out where/what/when to attack things. it's one of the things that made the game memorable. also, I think with this game, like in BG, some people move too fast. if you are fighting the lion pride, and you're level 3, you're underleveled, and surviving that fight SHOULD be very difficult and require much re-rolling (like trying to solo the bear in the cave at level 2). not saying the OP was level 3 themselves when they did that fight, but with 76 deflection, it kinda sounds about right for level 3, and I have seen posts from several people claiming the game is too hard, when they were in areas that are populated by monsters twice their level. I agree that grease (call it what it is) should not be changed in the way it works, as it is a classic spell. instead, make the saves against it easier (say, give enemies +10 or more on their reflex throws), since it is a level 1 spell. simple. the idea of making it only trigger once goes down a bad path; sets a bad precedence. basically, this game already wants you to bottleneck your enemies as your primary tactical method of dealing with numbers. the more spells they nerf that affect movement speed, the more this will become your only reliable strategy. that's no good. In fact, it should be going the OTHER way. things that cause hobbling status (like web) should be MORE effective. make hobble cause your movement speed to go down to 25% of normal. as it is, hobble is only noticeable as an effect over very long distances, and those are rare in this game. open UP alternative tactical strategies, instead of closing them off.

wow, that's what you got out of my response? there is no point talkign to you. you are entirely delusional*. *I know, because I read it in the freshman pych text I studied at uni 30 years ago.

yup. you're a bible miner. figured. because you are not trained in any kind of diagnostics wrt to mental health care. sorry, just like reading WebMD doesn't make you a doctor, reading that book doesn't make you a doctor, either. your ignorance speaks literal volumes. you should quit while you're already 20 feet deep in a well of your own design. ... or should I get all armchairy MD on you and claim you have a displacement disorder, and you're trying to rationalize it?

fine by me. mind if I express my opinions on my own until then? kthxbye.

He's mentally ill because Gender Dysphoria is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. you strike me as the kind of person who would quote mine Leviticus. you have NO idea what you're talking about. none. it's like if you said that a runny nose is a sign of infection by Ebola.

Could have saved us a lot of trouble just saying that you were a transphobe instead of dressing it up in that whole freedom of speech cloak. Throughout every single thread I never saw you condemn the repeated and serious use of kill all men. At best you merely deflected from it. Yup.. its ok for them to use it but no us.... that's democracy for you.... 1 twitter transvestite vs 77.000 backers what on earth makes you think it was only ONE person who complained? because you think you saw someone say so on a reddit or 4chan thread somewhere? lol.

...until it's your turn to get offended. then you will be DEMANDING your right to be offended. seriously, what you are asking here is nothing less than for people with complaints about something to simply not participate. what if that complaint was about slavery? or miscegenation? I suppose you'd tell them all simply to avoid living in places that have slavery.... I got a little poem for you to read. you need to learn it, and understand it, or you will one day be a victim of it. ...If you don't know who wrote it, or why, it's something you should spend some time finding out.

other possibilites to make keep defense more interesting... -put a use to all those extra weapons and armor you find that you can only sell for next to nothing. instead, use them to equip your mercenaries. the better the equipment you give them, the better they will do at repelling attacks, and the fewer of them you will need to do so. Make it so each upgrade you give them increases their relative strength over normal by .25. so, say, 4 mercs with fine weapons are equivalent in strength to 5 mercs with normal weapons. give them fine armor as well as fine weapons, that goes up to 4 mercs so equipped being worth 6 normally equipped ones, etc. have it cap at 1 magically equipped merc being worth 2 normally equipped mercs, which would be at the level where they have exquisite weapons and exquisite armor equipped. each merc would need an upgrade to exactly what they came with when you hired them, so if you hire a mage that is using a scepter, to upgrade, give them a fine scepter, etc. that would be a good use for all that junk, and save you money long term on hires.

I actually found Durance's storyline by far the most interesting out of any of them. In fact, having played every infinity engine game ever made at least twice, I'd go so far as to say his story matches up with any of the best companion stories in any of the other games. he was directly involved in the key event of this entire history, and has been touched by it profoundly. how can that not be interesting?