Climhazzard

So... casting a spell depletes a resource that refills at the end of battle and a separate resource that refills on rest? Say... stamina and mana? Exactamundo, but I wouldn't say Mana, let's go for something in more generic terms. Energy spent is energy spent, whether you're a mage or a fighter. Could work, there would probably need to be talents or abilities that regenerated your per battle energy resource so characters don't become dead weight when they run low. It could certainly be balanced to limit the per battle power of vancian style casters, while still forcing you to conserve resources long term so you have them when you need them. However if I understand the arguments correctly, this wouldn't prevent the tedium caused by misjudging your resources and needing to turn back before you hit the next rest stop. Never found this to be a problem personally, obviously you probably can't finish the endless paths in one go, but the rest of the game has plenty of camping supplies scattered around, even on PotD Trial of Iron I'm only finding myself turning back if I want the training grounds rest bonus for a boss fight, which is really a different issue. Personally I'm for creating unique systems for every class, it's just that the more classes you have the harder this gets, and the harder it is to balance them. The per encounter classes in this game ended up being my least favorite, they're the classes I'd most like to see evolve; especially fighter, rogue, ranger, and barbarian. Like... having them receive some passive abilities automatically when they level, so you have more active abilities to choose from when you level, and end up with a class that doesn't just spend 90% of it's time auto attacking. Or maybe picking from a specialization path that automatically gives you specific passive abilities as you level up. Anyways, it'd be ok to limit the per battle power of Vancian's in some way, like a fatigue system. But I fear that if Vancian's are found to be a problem, simpler solutions will come to pass. Solutions like cooldowns. I fear that PoE 2 will get dumbed down in a way that makes it a boring game. Look at Tyranny, cooldown based abilities, instant consumables (also use cooldowns), no friendly fire AoE spells, no classes.... Here's a thought, want to limit Vancian casters? Look at all their Foe AoE spells and change any that don't make sense as a Foe AoE into regular AoE. For example, the druid's "Twin stones". This spell is exploding rocks, how the heck do you explode rocks without hitting your team members... Or even make all or most AoE spells able to have friendly fire, to compensate for this slow down combat movement speed and resolutions a little bit, and implement a "stand your ground" button that automatically makes a character stand their ground without turning off their AI. Combat depth would get deeper than it is now, unfortunately I imagine it would be impossible to properly program the enemy AI to not kill their team members when using their AoE spells, or at least to have them work together to get the most use out of the spells.

I tested Pull of Eora a bit when I first came back to playing PoE (patch 3.03). To me enemies would just get pulled once then walk right out of it, so I didn't use it much, always used the tentacles or confusion spell instead. SInce there is no hold your ground AI option the only time I use Foe AoE is for doorway strats anyways. Like stacking chillfog, expose vulnerabilities, and the tier 2 confusion spell. I really wish there was a hold your ground option other than turning off AI... anyways maybe Pull of Eora was changed at some point because for me it wasn't that powerful.

So... casting a spell depletes a resource that refills at the end of battle and a separate resource that refills on rest? Say... stamina and mana?

From the view point of someone who is neither for nor against eliminating vancian spell casters.... let me ask you this, what is a good alternative? Cooldowns? Currently PoE classes use 5 different resource systems, per rest, per encounter, per damage received, per damage done, and per time (chanter). Per rest and per encounter would both be converted to cooldowns, probably per time too, for the sake of balancing the last two might as well be converted to cooldowns as well. The result? A classless "skill" based game with little difference mechanically in how one character performs over another, Tyranny (I'm not going to judge it before playing it, that's just what i thought when I saw that one of the attributes controls cooldowns). What are some options besides cooldowns? Unique resources to every class? Such as slowly regenerating mana for wizards? Unique resources for every class as well as cooldowns? As long as the solution doesn't equal homogenization of the classes then I'm not against it. I'm not really opposed to the way pillars is currently, but I could see why people would have a problem with it.

Wouldn't bother with Cragholdt until you're level 14, the rest of white march part 1 should be doable at 8-10. It's actually possible to get to level 16 before doing white march part 2 if you're meticulous about doing all the quests. If you're having trouble just go do all the quests around Defiance bay, Dryford, and the bounties from your stronghold, that should probably push you up to level 10. There should be plenty of quests around white march part 1 you can do at level 8 too.

Yeah, I should note that when it comes to my experiences with a monk, it's almost always with Zealous Endurance from a Paladin (Palegina), and ancient memory from a chanter (I don't take the upgrade to ancient memory since they turn off if you use an invocation, or so I've heard)

If you are playing on a difficulty lower than Path of the Damned then I just recommend high Might and Constitution for a monk. You'll kill everything long before veteran's recovery or shod in faith run out. Intelligence is nice if you take swift strikes though, helps torment's reach hit more targets, and your prones last longer. Trust me, try the moon godlike monk, it is exactly what you want. Start with 19 might, 16+ con, 12+ perception, rest 10, get shod in faith soon as you can. If you use the build I posted, and run your monk in the front position, you'll start every battle with 10 wounds and full endurance. The only time you can't get wounds is when you're doing super easy fights, which are always over quickly anyways, like if you're doing Defiance bay side quests at level 8+.... Just use medium armor throughout the game, you'll always have enough protection because by the time you need more you'll have Iron wheel. Start with Eder's "Saint's War Armor", upgrade to "Pike's Pride" when you get to copperlane, and consider Maneha's armor when you get to the white march. A little screenshot album I put together illustrating my point, all these were taken around level 10 playing the white march on Path of the Damned difficulty. Every battle is started with 10 wounds and near to full endurance. http://imgur.com/a/GmtEW

How can you even judge the NPCs without actually playing the game? Based on your interaction with them at level 3? You're judging a game without hardly having even played it. People who've played the game through to the end then read your post are obviously going to respond with a negative opinion to you. I've played and enjoyed DA, and all the older games that this one is modeled after. DA has no advantage over PoE in the depth of it's story nor the depth of it's characters. The biggest difference is the depth of it's combat, which is shallow, that may be your thing, for those who enjoy PoE it's not (or perhaps they enjoy both games for what they are). If you want shallow combat you can try story mode which was designed just for that, then experience the actual full story of the game, then come back here and pass judgement, until then you don't have the right.

Agreed. Also.. - The engagement mechanic - The fact there are no dump stats

I always use Aloth and a chart to get the gloves of manipulation, a bit cheaty but then I could make my rogues how I want. To bad I haven't figured out how to make one yet.

Sometimes I think the combat is to fast, literally, mostly when large groups of enemies have high movement speed, like from a chant or aura, sometimes both. Paladin's increase party movement speed, maybe the chanter option should decrease enemy movement speed. Or perhaps instead of the speed modes being slow, normal, and fast; they should be slower, slow, normal, and fast. Either way I didn't feel like it was a problem in very many encounters. I don't like hard counters when they don't make sense, such as most of the hard counters added into PoE. In older games the hard counters made a bit more sense. Like... a golem is hard, you would need to crush it, not cut or pierce it. But ice blights... they're hard, and immune to crushing... doesn't make sense. A fire blight being immune to fire is obvious, but why one type of physical damage and not another? Soft enemies would be a better candidate for being immune to crushing, like oozes, but we don't see that. TBH the hard counters in PoE feel rushed, without a lot of thought put into them, random, if PoE 2 uses hard counters I hope they're a little deeper.

Been trying to figure out how to fit in Escape, coordinated positioning, and shadowstep, for maximum mobility options.... any thoughts on using savage attack instead of reckless assualt? Rogue starts out with high accuracy and it'd give you another ability pick, plus better deflection... Something like... Abilities: Coordinated Positioning Crippling strike Deathblows Dirty Fighting Escape Smoke Cloud Persistent Distraction Shadow Step Talents: Weapon Focus Ruffian Savage attack Two weapon style Shadowing Beyond Veteran's Recovery Vicious Fighting Vulnerable attack Superior Deflection This would give you plenty of options for moving around and escaping, and with a ring of deflection you'd get a higher deflection score than my monk which may or may not prevent you from being targeted by every ranged mob in site. Still ultimately all you're doing is poking butts (or shooting them), with extra mobility to reach them, I'm not really sure how to alleviate that. I guess you pack around scrolls and a blunderbuss to go along with your daggers/swords? All the active abilities seem to have limited usefulness, I almost feel like just killing the enemies before they kill you will be just as good, the main benefit may possibly just be having slightly higher deflection so you're not a target for everything in sight.

My monk usually has the lowest deflection of all my team members, just so pesky ranged enemies target her rather than my wizard, ranger, or priest. On PotD at least there are more than enough enemies flying around that Hold the Line will help me grab more than one, I take it for all my frontliners to help with battlefield control, seems to work effectively to me, most enemies won't try to disengage if you block their path as well as engage them, Monks and Vampyr being exceptions. It's not really that I don't get enough wounds, just that my build is a wounds spender that benefits from having capped wounds, so more is always better, and the OP mentioned he had trouble with making a monk that could both live and acquire wounds... though just moon godlike + veteran's recovery + shod in faith would probably alleviate any monk troubles he has.

You need to build monks to regen damage instead of deflect it so you can get plenty of wounds without dying, try the following... Moon Godlike, max might. Might increases your self healing as well as your damage. Level up survival for more healing received after camping (always camp before tough fights). Level 1: Torment's reach Level 2: Veteran's recovery You're now basically wolverine but we'll continue. Level 3: Force of Anguish... It's fun and awesome. Level 4: Peasant weapon focus: So it's easier to strike your enemies Level 5: Turning wheel, long stride, or swift strikes (I prefer Turning wheel and building to receive lots of wounds) Level 6: Hold the Line: My reasoning for this is simple, it increases frontline control while making another enemy target your monk so you get wounds more reliably Level 7: Duality of Mortal Presence: Set to "other defenses" to prevent stuns, knockdowns, etc. Level 8: Vulnerable attack: Will increase your damage quite a bit Level 9: Enervating Blows: Synergizes well with Force of Anguish and Apprentice sneak attack Level 10: Lesser wounds: This synergizes very well with wound spending builds, as well as Iron wheel and Turning wheel... I can't hardly understand why people don't recommend it. Level 10 because you'll get Iron wheel at 11. Level 11: Iron wheel: Absolutely essential and amazing monk skill, as much survival as you need when you need it. Take at 13 if you're finding the game easy at level 10. Level 12: Two weapon style: Attack and enervate faster. Level 13: Flagellant's path: Such a fun ability, vital if you want an active mobile monk, which is why I might recommend you take it at 11 instead of 13 if you're finding the game isn't to hard at level 10. Level 14: Apprentice sneak attack: Synergizes with enervating blows and force of anguish Level 15: Whatever floats your boat: I like the long pain Level 16: Whatever floats your boat: Usually I take outlander's frenzy, if you use it at the start of battle you can accumulate wounds faster (it lowers deflection), if you use it after the long pain you can blow stuff up from range easier. Some parts of this build don't really jive, like turning wheel and enervating blows don't work with the long pain, but everything before level 15 is perfect, I just like the long pain for the flexibility it gives the build. The only things that are essential are veteran's recovery, torment's reach, duality of mortal presence, and iron wheel, the rest is arguable, but if you're having problems getting enough wounds I recommend lesser wounds and hold the line, and put your monk in the front! If you play on normal or easy you might have trouble getting wounds period, I don't know. One trick is to run your team in stealth and to unstealth your monk first so he's targeted by every enemy at the start, moon godlike will negate any of the damage received and he'll start the battle with 10 wounds. Also if you do the first quest for the Knights of the Crucible you'll get access to their vendor, there you can buy a set of boots called "Shod In Faith", these are so amazing for low deflection builds that survive by regenerating health that they might as well be considered an essential item. If you don't take long stride, then Maneha's armor is really nice for the healing bonus and move speed. Anyways, I guess this was a rogue thread, but I just tried to derail it with my monk worshiping... sorry about that. Oh one more thing, monk tip, use disengagement attacks to get wounds when you don't have any. Literally just run by enemies to wherever you want to use torment's reach or force of anguish, and you'll have enough wounds to use them by the time you arrive at your destination.

PoTD is pretty hard at the start, on hard I usually do Caed Nua at level 3 so I can start getting stronghold adventures sooner, I can do it on PotD but it's a lot more dicey... like I went through 5 fan of flames in the throne room on my last playthrough without killing a single phantasm. It was on Trial of Iron and I only barely pulled through the fight. Later on it sort of depends, most of Defiance bay isn't really hard on either difficulty, but some encounters can be a lot tougher on PotD. If you're finding the game to easy on hard, definitely try PoTD. Once you figure out the right combination of buffs, debuffs, and crowd control, hard is no longer a challenge, but PotD can still be one.

Man read the description on the Wizard spells... Tier 1: Chill fog = AoE Blind, Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights = Foe AoE dazed, Slicken = AoE Prone Tier 2: Bewildering Spectacle = Foe AoE Confused, Binding Web = AoE stuck, Curse of Blackened Sight = Foe AoE blind, Fetid Caress = Foe Paralyze Tier 4: Confusion = Bigger Foe AoE Confused, Ninagauth's Shadowflame = AoE paralyzing fireball, Tentacles = summon that cause stuck with attacks Tier 5 Call to slumber = Bigger Foe AoE prone, Form of the Helpless Beast = Foe polymorph Tier 6: Arkemyr's Capricious Hex = Huge Foe AoE Paralyze, dazed, or sickened, Gaze of the Adragan = Foe AoE Petrify (an extremely powerful debuff) Tier 7: Concelhaut's Crushing Doom = Very powerful single target prone, Tayn's Chaotic Orb = Chain lightning that causes Petrified, Paralyzed, Stunned, or blinded Tier 8: Wall Of Many Colors = Wall spell that does a lot of damage plus causes petrified, dominated, and paralyzed afflictions. In other words, they're all there and they get more powerful as the game progresses. All I'm seeing from your post is a lack of PoE knowledge TBH. Item progression is awesome as well, with many interesting items that don't automatically make your character an OP killing machines, but have many different synergistic mods that you can build characters around. In case you were wondering, item progression and spell/ability progression both improve with the white march expansions. Really I can only agree with your point on the main story. But even that becomes more than just a personal vendetta... when you consider what Thaos is, what he's done, and what he's created. Whatever your reason for stopping him was at the start, it will have huge impacts on the world's setting.

Crossed patch is a little hit or miss, plus you only get one, but having a bunch of toons running around with stag helmets on while you spam binding web everywhere seems like a really fun and intimidating way to enable sneak attacks, lol. My problem with rogues has always been that their best abilities are all passive and/or extremely limited... like, why does rogue get strikes they can only use once or twice per rest when other classes such as monk or cipher get abilities they can use many times per encounter, or casters get entire spell lists they can choose from multiple times per rest. This thread is giving me some ideas though, hope it continues to. Pale elf might be a good idea regardless of crossed patch since you could use litany against minor afflictions as another option to counter blind. With a stag helm and litany against minor afflictions you could stack up binding web and chillfog. To bad they both use fortitude saves for their afflictions. EDIT: Now that I think about it, Litany Against Minor Afflictions will protect your character against pretty much all the best early game sneak attack enabler afflictions.

The Cleansing flame Thaos uses is strong enough it would probably kill him if it reflected and hit him. I think on PotD+High level scaling his cleansing flame was doing around 300-400 damage. If reflected attacks have to make a hit roll though it would probably miss if you hadn't yet used arcane dampener or some other ability to negate his defenses. He goes down pretty fast once you hit with arcane dampener anyways, it would just be fun if you could get him to kill himself somehow....

Class tiers aside (cipher is not #1 by any means).... the best way to do lots of damage with a cipher early game, melee or ranged, is to make best use of ectopsychic echo. What you'll need is a spare melee party member who is somewhat durable and fast, Sagani's wolf for example. Once you have enough focus cast ectopsychic echo on the wolf (or party member of choice) and have him run behind your enemies, that's about all you have to do, it's strong and will take care of your enemies quickly while you hit stuff to get more focus. A monk with long stride makes a great target for ectopsychic echo too.

The damage from Sacred Immolation works with Aegis of Loyalty, so if they both have both then they'll basically be immune to charm, dominate, etc.

Just imo but i wanted to add my 2 cents. A squishy cipher on PotD seems like the shortest path to frustration for a new player no matter how experienced you were with previous similar games. Cipher's have ramp up time on their resources (even worse on PotD because it's hard to hit enemies in the beginning), their defensive spells generally have an average cast speed, they can't pull themselves out of the fire on demand like many other classes can, and enemies will often target your squishiest guy. There are many differences in the combat mechanics of PoE and the combat mechanics of similar games like Baldur's gate, there's a lot of new stuff to learn. Hard is a better option imo, or a different class. With 3 constitution and resolve you'll spend most of the early game dirt napping after a single enemy decided to swat you. Plus some encounters automatically put your MC in the front at the start, they make having a squishy MC even more frustrating for your first run. You may have more luck with classes a little more similar to their counterparts in older games, wizard for example. Shapeshifter druid is really strong class for a first run too, between inspiring radiance and blessing from your priest, and nature's mark from your druid, it's almost like playing on a lower difficulty. Plus shapeshifting talent builds are simple and effective, with little to no item reliance. Anyhow, I guess he probably already started so he'll be making his own conclusions now anyways.

If you examine the combat log in the following image, you'll see where the hit to graze conversion on Zealous Endurance saved Kana from getting pancaked in a similar manner to my MC. It's usefulness when soloing may be iffy, but it's undeniably good for a team.

Not sure when it was added into the game, but Chanters now automatically get a talent called "Brisk Recitation" that improves as you level up. At level 16 it gives you -50% recitation time.

All interactions outside of combat that aren't between your MC and your companions are between your MC and NPCs only, there is plenty of RP there that deals with only your MC. Combat in this game is a complex tactical affair that rewards you for thinking about and understanding it's interactions, as others have said, in the vein of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. It's not about roleplaying one guy, it's about deep tactics involving your party, you can roleplay outside of combat. If that's not your thing maybe just try storytime mode? It should be noted that certain classes require a lot less micro to be effective... such as... Ranger: Set his AI to: Cautious - aggressive - aggressive, you can now literally ignore him forever while he shoots stuff for you. Monk: Take torment's reach and set him to aggressive - aggressive, he can be ignored most of the time. Fighter: Set fighter to aggressive - aggressive, ignore him forever Barbarian: Set barb to aggressive - aggressive, ignore him forever Chanter: Set chanter to summon -aggressive, ignore him forever You can build any class to require less micro, wizards are really powerful when you micro them but you can build them to do decent damage with a wand when you don't want to. Obviously even simple classes like fighter will be a bit more effective if you tell them what to hit occasionally, and though monk will do very well if built right and ignored, he'll do amazing if you micro him. What I would do if I wanted to focus on my MC during combat is play either a priest, wizard, druid, or cipher. These 4 require the most work, then I would conform the rest of my team to not require much micro. Wizard or Druid are especially fun classes, but Wizard requires a deeper understanding of his spells to play than Druid. Most melee classes don't require much work, though lining up a good torment's reach or force of anguish can be quite rewarding as a monk, or using a timely lay on hands or liberating exhortation as a Paladin. For the most part though all you have to do is stick them between the enemies and your casters. Anyhow, not really sure where I was going with this... if you really don't like it perhaps you could try storytime mode? It's an easier difficulty designed for players that don't want to worry about the combat to much. Also every companion has their own questline and storyline, don't write them off so easily. How you interact with them during their questline is reactive and will determine their part in the ending sequence of the game.

Had to open the log up to see what had happened, before he went down she had full endurance and decent health. Got pancaked, lol. If I try this on PotD I need to remember to equip another non crushing weapon in my alternate weapon set, all I had was a fist/spear (Cladhaliath), and seemingly everything in the place is crushing immune... Something to note about Moon Godlike potential... at level 15 with 27 might, 60% healing received from survival, 25% from armor, and 100% from Kana's Mercy chant, silver tide was healing for 150 endurance per activation. EDIT: ^ This is actually wrong. The healing showed on screen doesn't show overhealing. On my PotD run I got a screenshot of it healing for 166 without the Mercy chant.