Climhazzard

​I've been thinking about this too. In my Trial of Iron run I'm tending to keep 5 of the party way off 'round a corner, and send one poor SOB with high mechanics in to open containers. I remember in previous runs sometime failing to detect really nasty AoE traps. Can't quite recall if one ever wiped out my whole party, but I think it may have been close. ​ I've been searching the forum trying to find a "General Trial of Iron Survival Tips" thread, but haven't had much luck yet. ​ LOL, most of my party got knocked out on those two events, Aloth just has low health at those levels. I'm up to level 8 now wandering around in the Endless paths, cleared floor 7 and the room of Adragans there before I left for work this morning, the only knockout my MC has had is from one of those traps in Raedric's. The only other time I nearly had a death (Aloth again... maybe it's destined to happen), was when an AI hiccup caused two groups of ogres to get aggroed on floor 3 near the master staircase. There was multiple instances of the ogre druid's insect plague, and the rock spell that knocks you down. I'm sure it's a bug, sometimes the AI will path off to attack a group in a different room, very annoying especially for Trial of Iron. I don't really want to play with it off, I just have to pay more attention. For Trial of Iron tactics... I don't know what other people usually do. I've been taking a few extra precautions but nothing major... Like I knew about the Adragan's at the final fight on floor 7 of the endless paths, but the party was only level 8 so I had no hard counters to Petrify or Dominate yet, but popping a potion of major recovery for my monk and a scroll of protection for the rest of the party helped the encounter go fairly smooth. So basically trial of iron gives me an excuse to buy and use the many powerful consumables in the game that I've never really touched before. To be honest Moon Godlike Monk as been such a beast that I've been taking it for granted, so I'll probably get wrecked before I finish. I've been thinking about how to prepare my party though. My monk is the only character I'm going for 14 survival on, for the 60% healing bonus. The others (besides my mechanics character), are just going up to 8 survival so that I can level Lore on more characters and have revival options for more party members. After that, my early game armor/item choices are either reducing status effects or give me second chance. Eder's armor is on Durance (nice to have second chance on the guy that can revive/heal), there is a ring in Defiance bay that gives second chance, and some plate you can acquire from level 8 of the endless paths gives second chance. Pike's pride and Blaidh Golan both reduce stun and prone by 50% and are very easy to acquire, these seem like very good options for any characters you don't want to be slowed down by plate. I'm doing talent's a little differently than I normally would as well, like taking veteran's recovery at level 2, which was so effective I'm going to do it from now on anyways. But I also took arcane veil on Aloth, which I never usually take even for my PotD runs. If I do fail, I'll think about what I could have done better, at the moment things are going pretty well.

I don't have much experience building tanks, your defenses seem to favor will over fortitude though. I decided to follow your example and started my own Trial of Iron team, hard rather than PotD, I'm finding might to be a very useful stat for moon godlike since it boosts your healing. If you level up survival for increased self healing you'll basically get a full heal every time it procs if you have high might as well. Basically... 15m - 14c - 10d - 10p - 19i - 10r might have more balanced WIll and fortitude defense, as well as more HP and endurance, but... 19m - 10c - 10d - 10p -19i -10r also has balanced Will and fortitude defense, but trades endurance and HP for bigger heals for you and your team, and should be able to melt things faster late game with your fire aura (get scion of flame too). But like I said I don't have experience building tanks, it's just something to consider.

Status update: Cleared to Palegina and Raedric's keep in short order. Moon Godlike racial and Veteran's recovery at level 2 is making the game a breeze. Made it through to Maerwald at level 3 with no troubles at all. Aloth almost died twice already to trapped containers in Raedric's keep... I need to be more careful. I'm going to recommend people get Veteran's Recovery at level 2 now. I hear what you're saying about constitution. I know most encounters really well though, Dragon's are generally the only opponent that can burst through the self healing, but I don't even attempt to tank them, just distract (summons, run in circles, etc) long enough for pre buffing and to get CC attempts to work. Having a higher constitution would definitely help cover for unseen situations or mistakes though. I already started though, and I like the offensive stat setup, the Moon Godlike feels like more than enough to make up for a lower constitution. If I end up in the the gullet of a Dragon I'll know I was wrong. Typing this reply I realized I nearly forgot to do the Temple of Eothas altogether.

Hmm, I found a portrait that exactly matches the first head option, might just go with that.

So, about a month ago I quit playing Black Desert Online for... reasons. In the suddenly large amount of time I had to play whatever games I felt like, I decided to replay Pillars of Eternity with it's expansions which I had not yet experienced. I've played through the game twice since then, both with a Monk MC, first time on hard, then PotD. I've been trying to get into another playthrough, tried a Cipher build and a Druid, both good but I lost interest around level 6-8. After a post of mine in another players Trial of Iron thread, I started tossing around the idea of doing my own Trial of Iron run, on hard difficulty. Decided to go back to the Monk because that's my favorite class. This time I think I'll mix it up a little though. Usually I play female human or elf, for aesthetic reasons mostly, rather than racial. This time I'm thinking about going with Moon Godlike since it's racial will be a lot better for Trial of Iron, and I've never made a moon godlike MC. The human racial is good for a monk, but a bit hit or miss and purely offensive. To start with, I'm looking to improve my stat allocation to something that fits my chosen race better. On my PotD run I went with... 16 might - 13 con - 12 dex - 16 perception - 10 intelligence - 11 resolve(was supposed to be 10 but I messed it up and forgot to change it back) High perception due to playing on PotD, I generally like perception as an offensive stat on any difficulty though, makes things reliable, like force of anguish. I won't go lower than a 20 total in intelligence/resolve, I would go below 10 resolve but I hate getting stunlocked from interrupts and so I can't really imagine using 3 resolve. In other words, no min/maxing. The run was great overall, 2 knockouts on my monk. So, I'm wondering about the healing boost from might. Basically I want to know what all it effects. Does it effect the Moon Godlike racial? Does it effect Veteran's Recovery? Does it effect major regeneration potions used from quickslot? Does it effect the healing proc from shod in faith? I'm asking because I don't really feel that high constitution is necessary for survival on a monk. Imo the key to survival is healing+DR, the healing I get from all of the above, DR I get from Iron wheel. With all those healing effects, high constitution would only really help survive alpha strikes, but those are negated by the moon godlike racial. If might boosts all those healing effects, I'm thinking it might be nearly as valuable for survival as constitution, especially for a moon godlike. Especially once you factor in +healing. With 14 survival and Maneha's armor I'd have 75% healing received, so every point in might will be even better. So I'm thinking about going with... 19 might - 12 con - 12 dex - 15 percep - 10 int - 10 resolve thoughts? Anyways, early game talent order. Was thinking I'd put a priority on Veteran's Recovery, maybe something like... Level 2: Veteran's Recovery Level 4: Peasant weapon focus Level 6: Vulnerable attack Level 8: Two weapon style never have been to sure if i should take vulnerable attack or two weapon style first, guess it probably shouldn't matter to much, but vulnerable attack seems better early on when your base damage is still low. Usually I rush Caed Nua at level 3, especially with how stronghold events work. I've been thinking I might as well do this on Trial of Iron too since it doesn't take long to get there so if I wipe in the throne room I can just start over, but I was wondering how people usually approach the early game on Trial of Iron. I suppose the answer partially depends on what difficulty they're playing on. It's worth noting that I save scummed stronghold events on my last full playthrough so that I could get some of the items I wanted, which I won't be able to do now, so it seems even more important to rush the stronghold early. Anyhow, the most important part of my post, aesthetics. Usually I play female human or elf, I like to play female characters in games. I won't really be losing a head slot by switching to Moon Godlike since I didn't really use it anyways. I like to make my characters look good, rather than using some godawful looking conglomeration of items. Maneha's armor plus the cloak of comfort actually look very good together, and there was a monocle you can get in copperlane that went well in the headslot, but I have a problem... The Moon Godlike portraits look awful. I was wondering if anyone might be willing to direct me to some alternatives? I am going to dig through what I have in the portrait packs I've downloaded, but I don't recall there being anything really good, and I can't seem to find much on the interwebs. Oh I should also note that I'm not soloing nor plan to.

Yeah, shields are good, great even. My point was just that these items will make a character tankier but do less damage. General Pillars of Eternity knowledge that is different than previous similar games, such as Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate. In those games you would always wear the heaviest armor, in this game the decision is more complex. If you came into this game with preconceptions from similar games, you might make wrong decisions, that's why it's important to play this game to learn about it. @Slack83er The story does not advance much from the prologue to the beginning of act 2, after that it starts to pick up speed. I'm just telling you this so you know. If you ignore the main story a bit after you finish Caed Nua, doing side quests around Gilded Vale or Defiance bay, you can quickly reach level 6 without spoiling it much. That might give you a better feel for the game and it's classes. Well, when I first started this game I remade my monk half a dozen times before I was happy, so I'm not really one to talk.

Even though you've won already thought I'd add my thoughts from the two encounters I've had with radiant spore, hard and potd. I use a custom formation with one character at the front, 2 other frontline one row back on the sides, hard to explain I guess but sort of like a triangle at the front. Anyways the point is that every tentacle in the room targets the guy in the front with rock spells or whatever. Because of this I could just cast withdraw on him (instead of trying to heal through all the dmg) then back the rest of the team up to deal with the other adds, the fight became pretty simple in this way. My teams were level 16 on both my hard and potd runs when I fought the radiant spore though, high level scaling but I'm sure it might have been easier for me than it was for your level 11 team.

To be blunt, you can't judge a class at all based on your experience of it from level 1 to 4. You need to actually play further into the game and learn its mechanics instead of rerolling your MC everyday. Some Tips and knowledge to help you learn the game... Spacebar pauses combat. Pause combat frequently to make decisions, select enemy targets, cast spells, etc. In the game options you can set when you want combat to pause automatically, such as when a character has low endurance. If 2 melee characters attack an enemy from different sides it creates the flanking debuff which makes the enemy easier to hit, same thing happens to your own characters if they are hit by multiple enemies from different sides. This also happens to be one of the debuffs that enable rogues to sneak attack. When melee attack they engage their opponent, if their opponent attempts to disengage from them (move away) they get a free attack against the opponent. Because of this it is dangerous to freely move around melee opponents, especially with squishy characters like casters. Accuracy determines whether your attacks and spells will miss, graze, hit, or crit your opponents. All attacks and spells use accuracy and roll against different defenses. An attack or spell that grazes does 50% reduced damage and will have a 50% reduced duration. An attack or spell that crits does 50% additional damage and has a 50% longer duration. Your defenses are deflection, fortitude, reflex, and will. Deflection protects you from mainly physical attacks, swords, arrows, etc. The higher your deflection the less you'll get hit or crit from these kind of attacks. Shields and deflection items (such as the ring of minor deflection) improve your deflection score. Fortitude attacks are generally effects like poison or crowd control like prone. Prone causes your character to get knocked down and be easier to hit, for this reason it is a very important defense for your front line characters and fighters. Constitution and Might scores improve your fortitude defense. Reflex attacks are generally area of effect damage spells, examples include fireball, and dragon breath attacks. There are many such attacks, having a high reflex defense will help protect you from them. Reflex defense is increased by dexterity and perception scores. Will attacks are generally crowd control that negatively effect your character. Example include stun, paralyze, charm, and dominate. You can imagine how devastating those effects can be, having high will defense protects you from them. The will defense is improved through intelligence and resolve scores. Your base accuracy and defenses are determined by your class. They all improve as you level up, and can be further improved by talents and items. All spells that target enemies will tell you what defense they target in their description. If expert mode is turned off the target information will tell you what defenses the enemy has, use this information to determine which spells to use against them. If for example they have a high deflection but low will defense, use a paralyze spell which targets their will defense and will lower their deflection substantially when successful. Another kind of defense you have is provided by armor, and certain spells or items. This is damage reduction, DR for short. DR reduces the damage from attacks once they hit you. For example, a normal breastplate has 8 DR, if an attack hits you for 20 damage, 8 of that will be subtracted if you're wearing a breastplate, so that the attack only hits for 12 damage. That is not an uncommon example, so armor is a very important defense to your survival. Armor comes with a downside though, it slows you down by increasing the recovery time after any of your actions, the heavier the armor is the more it slows you down. Shields also have a downside, they reduce your accuracy. Because of this, your tankiest characters which have a large shield and heavy plate armor, are slow and have a hard time hitting their opponents, they don't do a lot of damage. My point is that there is a ton to learn about this game (that was barely the basics). You don't need to learn it all, or any if you play on storytime mode, but learning the basics will make the game much easier for you and more enjoyable. You should also know that most classes don't start to mature until level 6-10, some even later, judging them based on what is essentially the tutorial area is pointless. What I'm trying to say is, get into the game, play it, learn it. Play on whatever difficulty you find enjoyable while you're learning it. What i'm seeing from most of your posts is that most of the advice you've got from all the good responses to your threads has been going over your head. That's understandable as your new and this is a forum full of vets who think everyone plays games like them. As you start to learn the game, go back through your previous threads and read the replies in them, you'll find many of the answers you need have already been posted, if you don't find what you're looking for then by all means ask away until you're happy and having fun with the game. EDIT: I apologize if this comes off as rude, it's not intended to be. Don't take me to seriously anyhow.

Iconic projection has been able to hit multiple times since I don't know when, I'm sure it's unintended as it can heal multiple times per character too and the overall effect is very strong for a tier 2 spell. I've been avoiding it's use since it can be very OP. Torment's reach for monks is bugged in a somewhat similar manner, I think other skills/abilities may be hitting multiple times as well. It's making the game somewhat easier than it should be, and making me hold off on my Trial of Iron runs until it hopefully gets fixed, but at this point it could be who knows how long until it's actually fixed. Making me sad...

My experience will be different since I usually use 3 melee. My last PotD run was my Monk MC, Palegina, and Kana on the frontlines. My Monk ran point in my formation from about level 8 on and had 2 knockouts for the entire run, even though she never wore heavier than medium armor. Palegina and Kana were always right behind but all 3 always shared the load of taking the brunt of the enemy alpha strike, I would leave the other 3 party members in stealth until every enemy aggroed. Monk always procced shod in faith, between that, veteran's recovery, Kana's chant regen, survival healing bonus, and Palegina's Lay on Hands, their endurance never really went down. Their healing would be especially crazy when I swapped Kana's chant from fire to mercy in tougher fights. But you'll only have 2 melee, so they'll need more engagement slots and they'll need to be tougher. I'm not sure how a Paladin compares to fighter in toughness though, if every member of your party carried around major endurance pots that lay on hands would have a bit less utility, and that's something to consider since you're playing on Trial of Iron, and you can equip everyone with resurrection scrolls too. I never use pure tank specs, so my experience there is a bit limited, most enemies in the game can be tanked with high DR, the final boss can be tanked with Healing, for Dragons I usually use distraction strategies. I imagine your success in Trial of Iron is directly related to your level of preparation for every fight, like having every member carry endurance pots, resurrection scrolls, defensive items relevant to the fight at hand such as a potion of absorb elements, etc. I never really wanted to try because I imagine getting wiped on the Alpine Dragon or something after putting 3 days into the run (a lot of spirits tossing around stuns which can't be negated through a prayer in that fight, and major litany is single target). I'm sure something like giving every party member a potion of major recovery to pop at the start of the fight, as well as having the priest cast major litany on himself before doing his other prebuffs, and having a member pop a scroll of protection while he is buffing, would go a long way to making it easier, but you only get one try on trial of iron.

Nothing is wrong, you are a level 1 priest and Calisca is a warrior who has higher base deflection and accuracy scores suited for fighting on the frontlines, just cast blessing (increases your accuracy/damage) before fighting, or let Calisca do the work since that's what she's there for.

Every attribute is important for every build if you aren't min/maxing. Straight 13 would be fine, I'll illustrate for your priest. Might: Improves all forms of damage you'll do and makes your heals more powerful, helps you resist fortitude based status effects that could otherwise lead to your death such as prone. Constitution: Improves overall survivability by giving you more health and endurance, helps you resist fortitude based status effects. Dexterity: Helps you cast and attack faster, reduces recovery times (I think) so you can react to situations faster. Improves your defense against reflex based effects such as dragon breath attacks. Perception: Helps your offensive spells and attacks hit. Improves your defense against reflex based effects. Intelligence: Improves the duration of your spells. Improves defense against will based attacks and effects, such as stun, paralyze, and dominate. Resolve: Improves deflection, therefore survival against physical attacks. Improves concentration, so it's easier to cast spells without getting interrupted. Improves defense against will based attacks and effects. The best attribute to minimize is probably perception, since devotions of the faithful (tier 4 priest spell) adds 20 accuracy, and before you get that inspiring radiance adds 10 accuracy, blessing adds 5 or 6. You could also drop constitution/resolve if you play entirely in the backlines... but I already know you don't want to do that, so for your priest every attribute is important, and 13 across the board would actually work fine if you didn't need higher intelligence/resolve for conversation options. The scores that DreamWayfarer suggested should actually work really well for your purposes.

Concentration is lowered too, you can make up for it with Holy Meditation (level 1 spell), but it's always nice if you don't have to cast a spell in order to cast spells.... Trading a bit of constitution for resolve should be fine, they are both essentially survival stats, and resolve gives you more conversation options.

I would also suggest trading Fighter for Paladin. Lay on Hands is now the best single target heal you can get per/encounter, reviving exortation the best rez, liberating exortation is also very good, plus zealous endurance will give your whole team staying power. Just get hold the line and a weapon that adds an engagement slot like shatterstar. Monk makes a good 3rd melee, like the Juggernaut build in medium armor, but for a 2nd melee on Trial of Iron I think Pally will be a lot better in a pinch than fighter or monk. (Note: I've run through PotD a few times but never tried Trial of Iron anything) I'm not a big fan of cipher since spells like ectopsychic echo require a lot of micro to get the best results, but he's a beast late game with a buffed up warbow, maybe a bit squishy for Trial of Iron idk.

You guys should consider that finding Tidefall on a first playthrough is sort of hit or miss. If you didn't level mechanics on your MC but Aloth/Kana/Grieving mother instead, odds are pretty good that you won't find it by the time you do that fight. On my last playthrough I had the gloves of manipulation on Aloth and I still had to use a scroll to boost his mechanics up enough to find Tidefall after the fight. Anyhow I'd like to suggest using a reach weapon like a pike or quarterstaff if you're set against sword n board, at least until you find a really nice two hander like Tidefall. I don't even give Durance a ranged weapon these days, just let him keep his quarterstaff in one slot and a mace/shield in the other. With a quarterstaff spells like consecrated ground will be in range of all the melee, and if he gets engaged he can swap to mace(or sword, etc)/shield for more staying power. Give him Eder's armor and level it up as you play through the game, with second chance if your priest gets overrun because he got engaged by to many enemies, he can get right back up minus the attention that caused him to go down then heal back up and keep fighting.

The game isn't really meant to be soloed until you're very experienced, that's why you feel slow. Your best level 1 spells are group oriented, your first good spell for soloing is probably consecrated ground in the tier 2 spells, but you'll still be slow if you aren't duel wielding fast weapons. Monk fists count as duel wielding and have a fast attack speed, but he won't solo his way through the game either. Generally you want some frontline classes, 1 or 2 specced to tank and 1 or 2 specced to do damage. I prefer 3 total. Paladin-Fighter-Chanter-Monk-Barbarian-Rogue Paladin-Chanter are my favorite tanks. Give them a shield and heavy armor like plate, get the hold the line talent so they can engage 2 enemies or more with items. Monk-Barbarian are my favorite frontline damage dealers. Wear medium armor and dual wield some good weapons (fists are great for monk), pike is a good non duel wield option for Barbarian. You'll want a priest for buffing and protecting against status effects. A spellcaster or two like wizard-druid. A ranged damage dealer or two like ranger-cipher. Don't bother wearing robes on any class until you're experienced with the game, use hide or better even if it slows you down a little. You can get Aloth and Eder within 5 minutes of entering Gilded Vale, Durance is in the area just south of Gilded Vale, Kana 2 areas east. With them your party will number 5, you'll find the temple much easier, as well as all the quests around Gilded Vale. I don't know about easier difficulties, but on Hard or PotD the Temple of Eothas is easily the hardest thing you can do at a low level, and near impossible solo.

You don't lose to much, but some quests have better solutions if you have the right dialog options available, every quest can be solved by a 3 intelligence invalid, the solution just isn't always as satisfactory. I would add as well that the qualifiers on the event panels that come up during various sequences are often related to different stats other than intelligence/resolve, so the opportunity to roleplay is there no matter what route you take. The event panels in The White March expansion are really good, they often take into account abilities, stats, items, or various other things.

Just don't use min/maxed stats from suggested builds, or if they suggest min/maxing then only read the build for the skill advices, they tend to make your character squishy which is ok for a Veteran that knows how to counter every ability from every encounter, but not a newbie. Just study the builds for the talent/item/ability synergies they have. For example the fire priest build has low constitution and very low resolve, this especially makes the early game encounters harder, but the players that make these builds know exactly how to counter every early game encounter so it doesn't matter to them. Like picking up some fan of flames scrolls to counter the phantasms in the throne room of Caed Nua. I wouldn't go below 10 in any stat until you become familiar with the game, it might lessen your late game potential slightly, but it'll make the early game easier if you're not squishy. There unfortunately isn't a glut of priest builds posted. The fire priest will probably be the hardest early game since it's the most min/maxed. Once you figure out where the early game companions are you'll be in for some smoother sailing too. Aloth Eder Durance Kana Can all be obtained in little time without skipping much, get them before you do the Temple in Guilded Vale at least.

Priest is mostly a buff class, he can't do much damage until later on when he gets his fire spells. In general his role isn't to exciting. You'll start off most combats with an Interdiction, followed by an Inspiring Radiance once your front-liners get hit a few times (for extra accuracy and to heal them a little). After that will depend on the priorities of the combat, from your level 1 spells you'll use Blessing for extra accuracy and damage, Armor of Faith for extra protection, Prayer against Fear to prevent the fear/terrify status effects (terrify is a huge accuracy debuff), Withdraw to save teammates whom you can save by no other means. From your level 2 spells Consecrated Ground and Iconic Projection are 2 of your most useful heals, Suppress affliction is useful to temporarily relieve a party member of status effects (usually you would use a Prayer instead but Prayers don't really work on confused or dominated party members so it can help to suppress their afflictions first). Generally each spell level has useful buffs or debuffs, some really useful. In easier combats you literally just use Interdiction, then Inspiring Radiance, then start whopping things with your mace or whatever weapon you chose to use until everything is dead. As for role playing stats... other players are probably more qualified to answer than me, since I always have the option that shows qualifiers for conversation options turned off. I believe you should probably have at least around 16 intelligence and resolve though. And to use items that boost both late game.

Quick gameplay TIP for new players... use sneak mode often to detect hidden stashes and traps, and to get the jump on your enemies. Set gameplay speed to fast (Press D to turn fast mode on or off) to make it less slow when sneaking, and combat speed to automatically switch to slow when combat starts (In the auto pause options).

Priest is pretty easy, just give him Interdiction/Painful interdiction, and Inspiring Radiance, toss on some medium armor and a shield, he's now ready for Path of the Damned difficulty. I've never played one as a main character, I just pick up Durance. More seriously though, stats to emphasize are dexterity for faster casting in a pinch as well as faster buffing, intelligence for longer lasting buffs, and resolve so you don't get interrupted while trying to drop withdraw on someone who's about to get wrecked. If you're interested in fire priest or other damaging priest builds then you'll want to think about might/perception too (they would probably be more interesting for a main character than a purely buffing priest). I haven't tried any of the priest builds posted here in the forums, I don't recommend minimizing resolve though like they do since you have to have specific items to counter minimizing resolve. I've done several playthroughs with monk though, a couple were on PotD, so I feel better with monk recommendations. My personal preference for unstoppable damage dealer is something like... Talents: Level 2-Weapon Focus Peasant Level 4- Vulnerable attack Level 6- Veteran's Recovery Level 8- Two weapon style Level 10- Apprentice sneak attack Level 12- Savage attack Level 14- Outlander's Frenzy (works great with The Long Pain), (if you took swift strikes you'd want lightning strikes instead of Outlander's Frenzy) Level 16- Any defensive talent picks like bears fortitude, Gallants focus for better accuracy, Lesser wounds for extra ability use or faster max DR from Iron Wheel. Guides say not to take Lesser wounds but I don't really see what's wrong with getting wounds 20% faster on a build that spends wounds and gets 10 DR from capped wounds) Abilities Level 1- Torment's Reach (swift strikes are good but for some reason I just don't care for using them and torment' reach is awesome) Level 3- Force of Anguish (such fun) Level 5- Long stride (wreck from anywhere and everywere), or swift strikes Level 7- Duality of Mortal Presence (Put it on "other defenses" to protect from knockdowns, stuns, etc) Level 9- Enervating Blows (synergizes well with Force of anguish and Apprentice sneak attack, not to mention any team members that can benefit from weakened status) Level 11- Iron Wheel (makes your monk unstoppable, synergizes extremely well with his wound mechanics) Level 13- Flagellant's Path (very fun way to spend wounds) Level 15- The Long Pain (does so much damage, and you can force of anguish from long range, use outlander's frenzy with this for best effect) Stat priorities for me are usually Might/Perception (16-18) then Constitution/dexterity (12-14), 10 in intelligence/resolve. Max perception if i play on PoTD (everything is harder to hit). All stats are good though, you could literally put 13 in every stat and still do great. Pick Colonist (+2 survival) to get 60% healing received bonus from 14 points in Survival (I think it's 14), Synergizes even better with the shod in faith boots and Veteran's Recovery. For Race literally anything works. Offensive choices: Humans, Boreal Dwarf, Heart Orlan (consider that Hearth Orlan's synergize with enervating blows) Defensive choices: Costal Aumaua, Pale Elf, Wild Orlan, Moon Godlike (really good), Fire Godlike Do the Knights of Crucible storyline in Act 2 if you play monk for the extra damage resistance talent and to pick up the shod in faith boots early on (beware that finishing it excludes 2 other storylines, and that finishing them will exclude Knights of the Crucible storyine, they are all short though, and you can safely do the first quest from each one without excluding the others). For monk I prefer medium armors, either something that reduces status effects like "Pike's Pride", or something that improves healing like the armor Maneha comes with. Just any scale mail will work in the early game, like the armor Eder is wearing. But you can always wear plate for those sticky situations where you're finding you need to be tougher. Don't be afraid of disengagement attacks on your monk if he has 0 wounds, they're one of the easiest ways to generate a bit more. Basically while positioning to use Torment's Reach or Force of Anguish you'll get the wounds you need to use them from disengagement attacks. Unfortunately due to the stat preferences for this monk he's not the best choice for a role playing MC, so definitely consider playing around with priest if that's your thing. Don't worry about messing up your stats/talents/abilities to much as you can respec them in game at any rest area like Taverns/Inns.

Oh, I'll do that instead! I'm collecting every word of advice from you guys, since I find all of your answers and insights very interesting! So I'll bother you some more ( ) and ask you something also about monk, priest and druid, some classes that I really like in pen and paper D&D.. I read somewhere on the internet that druid can be very tanky if you shapeshift into bear, and also read that monk is kinda unnecessary for any group... so I'll take your advices once more... Thanks fellow players! The only class that isn't unnecessary for any group is really the priest, he counters status effects much better than any other class with his Litany's and Prayers. But if you know the game well you can even do without the priest. Monk is in fact a beastly class, he's great, look up the Juggernaut build in the builds index for a good place to start with monk (except take Iron Wheel which the build states as optional, at the earliest level available, and figure out how to acquire the shod in faith boots since they're great for monks). Druids can be tanky in their shape shift forms but it doesn't last terribly long so it's best to build it out to do great damage imo, it's base tankiness is high enough to save your druid from trouble, building up its damage will eliminate the trouble altogether. The Talents for such a Druid are pretty simple too, basically like... Weapon Focus: Peasant Two Weapon Style Wildstrike Shock Greater Wildstrike Shock Heart of the Storm by the time you get those you'll probably do 100+ damage per swing in spiritshift form. I'm not a Druid expert but I don't think the form you choose really matters that much, I like stag for the extra defenses and the Carnage ability completely wrecks when combined with the damage from spiritshift. The Druid companion you can get for your party, fairly early on, makes an awesome candidate for a spiritshift Druid if you don't take one as your MC, his Stelgaer form just shreds anything in the early game. Builds index: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85492-the-obsidian-boards-build-list-last-modified-20-jul-16/ They are all viable and up to date, many are item dependent (requires knowledge and know how to acquire said items as early as possible) but spiritshift builds are not, as well as the Juggernaut monk (except for the shod in faith boots which are highly recommended for any beefy low deflection front line classes such as monk or barbarian). Monk builds don't typically emphasize any conversation stats good for a main character though, especially not the Juggernaut, except for perception but it's a lesser conversation stat compared to intelligence and resolve.

Don't get the wrong idea, if you're not in it for the challenging combat the Barb is a fine pick. He'll take a licking and keep on ticking, so to speak, while not requiring a lot of extra care from you (as long as you aren't min/maxing his stats). But for the same reason he's a boring class, so if you want to get the most fun from the combat he might not be your best pick. As an example I know a few people that lost interest in PoE mainly I think because their first class pick were hands off classes. Barbarian, FIghter, Paladin, Chanter, and Ranger, imo, are all hands off classes. They have a few abilities you'll be using but for the most part you don't need to worry about them much. Rogue requires a bit more hands on due to needing proper positioning to get the most out of his abilities. Monk can be hands off but can also be hands on since you'll get more out of him by positioning for Torment's Reach, wound's management, and Force of Anguish usage. Wizard/Druid are probably the most interesting classes to play due to their large selection of spells, Wizards are less newbie friendly though since you have to pick which of their spells you want to be able to use and that requires a better understanding of the game. Priests are buff botts, yet an essential class due to their ability to hard counter all status effects. Cipher is an interesting class, but requires knowledge of game mechanics to get plenty of focus for spellcasting. Well to be honest, you probably don't want to many hands on classes in your party, probably 2 or 3 at most, though everyone will have their personal preferences. I personally prefer classes that can go either way for my main character, like the monk, or a Druid that just shapeshifts when spell casting isn't required to turn the tide of battle. Druid would be a great pick for a new player imo, since shape shifter builds are very simple, require very few items (wild strike belt which is easy to get is the only item that even buffs shape shift form), yet are very capable spell casters when the going gets tough. But you said that you're in it for the role playing and not the combat, so those hands off classes are probably a great pick for you, I don't know. Don't heed me, just get into the game and learn what works for you!

As you're just learning this game, only you'll be able to answer that question. Most character builds don't really start to mature until level 8-10, but some even later than that. I normally wouldn't recommend Barb to a new player, as they're kind of a hands off class, which I find a bit boring, but if you're playing for the roleplay that might not even matter. Nor do I recommend min/maxing to new players, as it creates weaknesses that you don't have the experience to overcome. Try to play at least to act 2 or a bit longer before you make any big decisions, you'll probably be around level 6 by then and starting to understand the game somewhat.

With quick switch and the belt there is no delay as long as you swap before the recovery phase kicks in. Doing so eliminates the recovery phase altogether, which I'm guessing is unintended.