Climhazzard

Chanters start battles by being a tank that burns everything around them, that alone is as strong as anything other classes can bring to the beginning of a battle, invocations are merely the turning point. I tend to use "At the Sight of their Comrades their hearts grew bold" followed by Dragon thrashed. So that my frontline starts every battle with a fortitude and will buff to prevent stuns and knockdowns at the beginning of the fight before engagement, then once the frontline has engaged the enemy Dragon Thrashed starts melting everything. You don't need to start the battle with an invocation, they are merely the turning point. If you don't understand how powerful chanter really is I'm going to have to assume like Boeroer that you are merely judging it based on your theorycrafting and not experience.

I remember playing and enjoying pretty much everything Neverwinter Nights (all sequels and expansions), but no part of the story in any of them was memorable enough for me to remember any details now despite having played them multiple times.... Same with Kotor. I do remember parts of the Mass Effect storyline though. Unlike say... BG2, who's antagonist will forever remain in my memory. Even when I'm old and senile I'll still remember that SoB.

There are two Tier 5 chants, one is a large +accuracy and damage bonus to beasts, the other is +100% to healing received.

Chanters are a great class, like others have said. They might come off a little underwhelming on easier difficulties because fights finish before you can use invocations. But their chants alone are quite strong, such as Dragon Thrashed, it'll melt everything on easier difficulties by itself. Once you get to PotD they start to shine since you'll be able to make frequent use of their invocations as well. They are a class I never leave home without when I'm playing on PotD. Their beast killing chant combined with their anti fear chant will turn any battle against dragons in your favor. Their Mercy chant combined with the right healing effects will keep you on your feet through anything. Dragon thrashed melts everything in site. Invocations are merely a bonus if you aren't playing on PotD, and if you are they can be quite strong as well.

I don't really like how unique items are only available through stronghold adventures which are very RNG. On my last play through, the Trial of Iron run on PotD, I rushed the stronghold at level 3, then raided Raedric's keep to get enough copper to upgrade it to 24 prestige before doing any quests. I got it to 24 prestige with only 3 turns passed, and finished the run at around 215 turns, and still didn't get quite a few of the adventure items. I basically got everything I needed, like the Helwax mold, Cloak of comfort, Swaddling sheet, The diving helmet, and a few other things, but it's still annoying. I'd rather just get to the stronghold in due time, rather than rush it. The most ridiculous thing about the stronghold imo though is how taxes are turn based while minion pay is time based. So you basically lose money from it no matter what if you hire any minions, unless you just hire them for a battle then fire them after, like for the stronghold war.

It doesn't interact with the unarmed damage bonus at all, nor receive the accuracy bonus. However a Monk is still a good candidate to use them on since they're good on their own and do raw damage, a Monk has good accuracy and will usually have two weapon fighting, so he can take good advantage of them. They would work especially well with swift strikes, though with Durganized armor and gauntlets of swift action you can be really fast anyways if you turn off vulnerable attack (you wouldn't need it with reaping knives). I'm not sure if the damage from turning wheel or lightning strikes stacks on reaping knives. And I'm not sure if hitting with Torment's reach with them active counts towards your focus gain. I found them to work really well on Barbarian with two weapon spec, if I remember correctly the hits from carnage count towards your focus gain. Monk is probably a better candidate for hitting bosses with the though.

Finally finished this PotD + Trial of Iron run today. Got a good screenshot (first shown below) of the healing amount from a 25% Endurance activation of Silver Tide during my fight against Llengrath. With 27 might (forgot to consume food before the battle) and 85% healing received bonus, it healed for 166 endurance. It reached all the way to Durance who was the guy standing around with that red looking shield. If I ever decided to redo this playthrough (for example: after torment's reach is fixed), I would go with at least enough constitution that the 50% Endurance activation of Silver Tide wouldn't be over healing with 30 might total. With 29 might it's showing 172 healing on the character page, so at 30 I'm guessing it's probably 175, which means I would need 350 endurance to prevent over healing. 14 base constitution with a +2 item bonus would probably be sufficient, 12 with a +2 item bonus if I were able to use the cloak of comfort. Well, I would probably just hope I got the cloak and go with 13 constitution. This run I only had 11 base constitution. Stats were 19m - 11c - 10d - 18p -10i - 10r. If I did it again I'd use 19m - 13c -10d -16p -10i 10r. Screenshot of a Silver Tide activation while fighting Llengrath. Thaos getting wrecked. Arcane dampening hit on the first try and he dropped quickly after. There was a scary moment near the beginning when he succesfully dominated 4 party members though (including Durance), Palegina was able to take care of it. Overall I didn't have to many problems during the run. I very nearly died the first time I ran into a broodmother around level 8 though. And again while fighting the Magran's Faithful bounty. Kana died during the final bounty, so obviously it didn't go well, but he was the only member to go down during that fight. The bosses all went well by comparison.

Pretty sure you won't find it in active effects. But it does show up in the combat log so watch that.

I liked Fallout 4, built a castle on the biggest base site I could find, it was epic. http://imgur.com/a/MQ9zG DA:O was a good game too, simpler combat than PoE but I still enjoyed it quite a lot. DA:2 could only be described as a godawful cash grab trying to capitalize on the success of DA:O... imo. DA:I was probably good but I only rented it and I got really annoyed with the limited inventory before I actually accomplished anything...

Might have been a bit OP. Wend walker + hold the line + defender would put you at 5 engagement slots. And hitting enemies with overbearing guard (prone) would prevent enemies from engaging you back, so you could essentially keep entire swarms of enemies at bay with a single fighter. Well it would be pretty awesome if it did work though...

Ogres have 3 engagement slots, I'm not sure if the 2nd and 3rd slots engage from range though, I don't think they do, but there aren't any ogres left in my current playthrough to check with sadly.

Swamp lurkers would be the bane of low level melee if they did disengagement attacks at their max range. I was sort of thinking ogres might do disengagement attacks from range too though.

I like to use the tentacles as my last mastery spell because their disengagement attacks cause stuck so it's nearly impossible even for a horde of enemies to get around both my frontline then the tentacles, but I don't recall them ever doing disengagement attacks from their full range which is at least equal to a reach weapon. They would be so awesome if they could...

So, I saved and loaded after the Alpine Dragon because I thought that would fix the movement speed issue with Sagani's wolf. The Sky Dragon went very well with no issues at all, but Sagani's wolf is still moving in slow motion. If anyone is bothering to read this, any suggestions on how to fix Sagani's wolf? EDIT: Update: Kicking her from the party didn't fix the wolf, nor respeccing her, or stripping her naked (was worth a try)... argh.... EDIT2: Had to replace Sagani with a custom ranger.

Well... hopefully nobody cares that I'm basically making this thread my Trial of Iron + Path of the Damned boss journal. Alpine dragon went pretty smooth, with a movement speed food my monk basically ran circles around him and the adds at the start. I took the screenshot to show that monks can even knock down dragons, I think it's kind of funny to blast them around with force of anguish (I usually don't have the accuracy buffs to do it, but I was in range of a couple for this). It also shows that I used The Long Pain in a battle where it's completely useless.... (I had proper weapons prepared for this fight, I just forgot halfway through). The movement speed on Sagani's wolf was completely bugged, he could barely move. The spot where he's at in the screenshot (right below the ice blight) was how far he got after moving towards the Dragon nonstop for the entire fight.... Now onto the Skydragon, first with high level scaling enabled.

So, I got bored of this run before I finished it because Moon Godlike Monk is a little to strong for Hard difficulty. I restarted on PotD and have been playing sporadically. Finally got to the Adra Dragon today. It wasn't as good an opening as I would have liked, my monk got knocked down by his first attack, and I didn't even know he had any ranged attacks that could knock you prone. Also, I found out that the cloak that makes you go invisible when you're crit prevents you from casting self buffs when you're invis. I was going to open with a couple buffs on Aloth before casting Concelhaut's Crushing Doom... But with all the accuracy buffs (Devotions of the faithful + BlackWarden's Breastplate + With all your strength slay the beast + Racial accuracy bonus: Beast II) Sagani just stunlocked him right from the start... so I skipped right to killing bolts which the cloak doesn't prevent you from casting, and he died moment's later. Moving on to the Alpine Dragon next, no high level scaling for him either, but I will have high level scaling for the sky dragon and the last 2. Oh, and Kana died on the last of the White March part 2 bounties (The pirates).... RIP.

The "character builds and strategies" subforum, home of the wise and benevolent PoE sages. That would be the place. It's where character builds, abilities, items, strategies, etc... are usually discussed. And some of the people that post there don't seem to post in the general forum.

I have just the thing for you! http://www.gamebanshee.com/cgi-bin/search/banshee_search.pl?_layout=Pillars_Items_Page&_cgifunction=search&Pillars_Items.id=963 It is Mythic! Which is surely better than +10! And it is the only two handed hammer in the game. If you put it on a Barb it'll even be AoE! Sure maybe you've basically beat the game by the time you get it... but what better reward could there be?! If only there was a way to make it push/prone on hit...

Overcoming challenging obstacles is a reward in and of itself, the player doesn't need a +15 sword of epic awesomeness to feel accomplished after beating a challenging battle, and making a balanced game is the first step to providing challenging obstacles in that game. I'd make the argument that this game has great itemization, yeah some will look at a sword with the marking ability and think it's a piece of junk, but someone else will understand it's actually great for a support based melee character. The fact that there is itemization that is good for a support style melee character (Paladin for example) is what makes the itemization good, you can find items that support most kind of builds you could come up with. There are weapons with increased engagement slots for your tanks, there are weapons with stun properties for your rogues, there are weapons with increased attack speed or damage penetration for DPS madness, and many more. It is a lot better than a linear progression that gives you no choice at all... something like... Sword +1 Sword +5 Sword of awesomeness +10 Sword of Epicness +15 Sword of Epic awesomeness Which is a progression I've seen in many other games, and I never once felt it was rewarding to go from a +5 weapon to a +10 weapon, the only thing that is different is the number. But coming up with an interesting build that is supported by a property on a weapon you found, that is rewarding, and that is what Pillars of Eternity itemization has.

I usually find that Llengrath's Displaced image plus a buckler is more than enough protection for my wizard, pop arcane veil if **** really hits the fan. Never found much use for Wizard's Double or Mirrored image, even on Path of the Damned + high level scaling. My perspective is from one that never solos though.

You're sort of posting in the wrong forum to get the best replies. But anyways, personally I find the most effective ranger is one designed to take the most advantage of the stormcaller bow. http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Stormcaller I use http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85513-class-build-storm-plague-caller/ as a model, it works very well. It's what I usually use for Sagani. For the final ability I usually use vengeful grief. Pretty sure I fit marked enemy in there somewhere too. I don't like per rest stuff and the pet heal is tiny. For the last 3 talents I usually use Heart of the storm, Apprentice sneak attack, and Veteran's recovery (I take Veteran's Recovery on every team member sooner or later). If you're new to Pillars I wouldn't recommend Min/maxing as much as that build does, don't take any stat below 9 or so. I usually equip a pair of hatchets in my offset to use if she gets engaged. The link to the build explains all the reasoning behind all the talent's and abilities, for example using wounding shot + predator's sense. (Your wolf can do 100+ damage on crits endgame) Before you get storm caller you can use Persistence which can be acquired fairly early on the 4th level of the endless paths. It's possible to acquire stormcaller by level 8 or so pretty easily, but you can get persistence before then. Oh and I guess this reply assumes you have the first part of the white march, which you may not. Persistence is probably the best bow to use if you don't (It helps activate predator's sense and does raw damage over time). Don't take heart of the storm if you can't get storm caller.

I'm not a fan of "wacky", but like fantasy, including high fantasy, though mostly enjoy dark fantasy. That fantasy is or should be "wacky" is an entirely baseless claim. Yeah BG had more wackiness, but that was hardly the soul of BG, and making PoE the same would not have saved it's "soul". Assuming PoE really is missing it's soul.

Please focus on bug fixing. Torment's reach, confident aim, Iconic projection, ancient memory turning off by invocation, there are many balance breaking bugs in the game right now. And don't forget draining wall, it's completely messed up right now, nearly game breaking by itself considering how bad my FPS dies once a few people walk through it.

Staff sort of makes your Cipher look like a Sith, so that could be a plus too...

Cipher basically has to be built as a physical dps class. One route that works well is gunswap, as mentioned above, it's micro intensive though... like, shoot, swap, shoot, spellcast, swap, shoot. Suitable for a MC but not really for your 6th companion. Other options are weapon reliant, warbow or reach weapons work good, warbow is the least micro intensive. It really comes into it's own when you get a superb durganized warbow, durganized armor, guantlets of speed, and high level spells. Before then you'll be relying on ectopsychic echo a lot, mindblades, mental binding, puppet master, and maybe phantom foes to support your rogue. TBH it's one of my least favorite classes because it's power curve is really steep (unless you go the gunswap route, that works fairly early on), and it's heavily reliant on weapon/item quality to gain focus. Early game, soul shock spam; Midgame, ectopsychic echo; Lategame.... bam, super strong.