KDubya

I agree with MaxQuests analysis - a Cipher is the best choice, especially if the main as there are a few quest rewards that add to the skill. Hopefully in the next game they take an idea from Tyranny and combine Stealth and Mechanics into Subterfuge. That way a Rogue would not have to choose between being the trap monkey or actually being able to be stealthy and "rogue like"

One guy with like 4 or 5 Athletics is good for handling some story book challenges, past that a single point gets you a minor heal which is good enough. Without any stealth you still identify enemies before they see you, thus letting you set up for a sneak alpha strike. Getting extra stealth is not needed. One guy with mechanics to 13 is all you need. Everyone else should go with Survival as it has really good bonuses for camping. An increase of 40-60% of healing is huge as is the accuracy bonuses against specific enemy types.

My list would be: Fallout 2 Fallout 1 Baldurs Gate 2 Fallout New Vegas Baldurs gate 1 Dragon Age Origins Pillars of Eternity Never Winter Nights 2 Skyrim Deus Ex

WHAT! Consequences from your choices and actions in a role playing game? The Horror!!!! Next people will be asking that quest givers be made essential and that we have like a compass or something to direct us to where we need to go.

The paladin's Zealous Endurance aura helps as well with it's hit>graze conversion. You will probably get paralyzed anyway but you want that to be from a graze not a crit. With decent endurance and DR you can survive getting attacked during a graze. At higher levels you'll be able to push the hits to grazes and the grazes to misses. This is pretty much the defense I had for my Juggernaut Monks.

For straight up first shot damage I'd say a Cipher with Apprentice Sneak attack. It'd be at +55% damage, while a Rogue would have +50% plus whatever special attack they used, be it blinding strike, crippling strike or whatever. You won't have the two afflictions needed for deathblows on the first shot without a bunch of micro which would get real tiring really quickly. Another choice would be a Paladin using the Flames of Devotion alpha strikes with the Arquebus. The 50% fire lash hits really hard with an arquebus. A Ranger built for melee who starts with a quick gun shot would probably look the part better than the psionic or the holy warrior. Plus you'd get a pet. go with Drawn in Spring and the pet talents that get +50% damage from DoTs and you'll be set for a duo of deathdealers.

I've always felt that min maxing stats can make PotD much harder by creating serious weak points that can lead to difficulties. The early guides on Steam all had extreme min maxing, as if the author thought that unless it was min maxed it was not a build. For me balanced stats - everything at ten - and then adding the rest to two or three stats that you want to emphasize is the way to go. Perhaps solo PotD requires min maxing, but I've never gone for solo.

My last PotD run had a four man melee team: Juggernaut Monk 3.0, Pellaginna (hammer and shield), Devil (Starcaller flail and Blgdr barricade), and Kana (shield and various weapons with spell casting charges). All were melee and they kicked ass. The combined regen auras from Kana + Veteran's Recovery + Gallant's Focus (Kana) + Zealous endurance + fear chant (Kana) + fire lash chant (kana) = a really durable team that could handle everything, required minimal rest and could whip out scrolls if ever needed. Adding a barbarian and a ranger with stormcaller to the above team would have been really easy. If you are not opposed to doubling up on classes a second Paladin or Chanter would make things really easy, could replace Devil as her main use was for the Mechanics skill.

This is pretty much what I do as well. After going back to the starting area and doing the quests in Gilded Vale I like to make for the Anslog's Compass and clear that first then clear the other wilderness areas complete. Will pick up Kana and then go back to do Raedric's and full clear kill everyone there.

Sell all that you can to the merchant in the caravan at the start of the game, he pays more than anyone else.

I also like to try and get to the inn at level two so I can hire level one guys. Then go back to the starting area and clear the traps and the rest of the monsters. That way the hirelings are just 3000 experience behind me.

Those Forest Lurkers are one of the reasons that I usually use Boreal Dwarves for everything. The innate +15 accuracy against them and many other early tough enemies makes a huge difference in the early game which is the most difficult portion of the game.

The stats in Dragon Age were exactly what you'd expect and thus had no bearing at all on how you built a character. It was obvious how you were to build them and there was no reason to deviate. In Tyranny the stats are similar to Dragon Age in that they do only and exactly what you expect. Mages dump strength, warriors dump (or at least not pump) intellect and everyone pumps finesse for the accuracy and deflection boost to light armor. It is very predictable but makes for little variation in character builds. In PoE there are lots of ways to build a character and the stats all do different but useful things. Building one way makes some aspects stronger as opposed to going another way with the stats, but all can be the "right" choice depending on what you want to do. I really like the stat system in PoE and consider it the best I've ever come across in a game.

I would not sweat having everything in might and con, it'll work fine. I am of the opinion that since Barbarians and Monks have the highest Constitution multipliers that it is better to double down on that bonus and add even more Constitution. With Savage Defiance, Veteran's Recovery, Shod-in-Faith boots and the two Chanter Regen auras you will pretty much be unable to be killed. The beauty of the game is that there are lot's of ways to build a character, just identify what you want out of it and optimize for that.

Here are a couple of quick pointers: Set up the game's auto pause in the Options. I like to pause (and stop movement) when finding a trap, and when finding enemies. Then I have it set to pause when combat starts, after an ability is used and when someone dies or is seriously hurt. Set up the game in Options to automatically go to "slow time" during combat. Frequently pause the game in order to review the combat log and to re-issue commands. This will let you come to grips and to learn the mechanics of the game. Doing this you will come to understand how the various defenses work, how armor and damage threshold works. You will then understand why an Estoc is the most damaging weapon and why and when you want two handers. The magnificence of PoE is in it's intricate mechanics and understanding how to tweak things to get what results you want. Taking a team with synergy that makes the total more than the sum of its parts. This is where PoE is much different than Tyranny, in Tyranny there is not much for synergy or a need to understand the mechanics, just make the most powerful dude and add in three other dudes.

I did a PotD Kind Wayfarer with a team that did quite well. Was a Island Aumaua with two arquebus and Tidefall. Used the flaming sword from the gloves a lot as well. Had 18 Might, 15 Perception and 15 Resolve with everything else a ten. The high Might made up for the normal intellect as far as heals and damage goes, the aura size was sufficient to cover the front melee guys and any ranged had to step in a little closer but still worked fine. I had another Paladin, Pellaginna, on the team as well as Kana so there was a lot of beneficial auras, regen and what not going around to buff the entire team. Early game I'd micro to get the kill shot for the heal (took it at level two) as it really helped, later on he would still manage a few kills per battle without any extra work. Dropping Resolve and putting into Dexterity would make him much more damaging and lose out on some dialogue and a little deflection. Sounds like a fine trade off.

If you are playing with the descriptors off for the dialogue choices (and you really should for a role. not roll, playing game), then the easiest dialogue choices are for the Kind Wayfarer. The reason being that they have the easiest to avoid negative dialogue of Dishonesty and Cruel. Not lying is very simple and Cruel is also easily avoided. Benevolent is usually easy to aim for and Passionate sometimes gets mixed up with Aggressive but both are acceptable. I find an ass kicking champion who aggressively and passionately vanquishes evil to make for a good Kind Wayfarer and the scaling AoE heal on kill is a game changer at early levels.

Rooting Pain can proc multiple times off of a single powerful hit????? I had always assumed that it was one proc per hit not per wound sustained. Due to that I always through it into the trash category. Learn something everyday

I'd say Monk is better than a Barbarian for the retaliation because when a Barbarian gets damaged he just gets closer to death but when a Monk gets damaged he gets more powerful. I'd think fist and shield would work well for this, they have fast attack speed and average speed damage. Plus it'd look much cooler

I like going for either the Resolve dialogue or the Intellect. The resolve involves a guy with a lot of conviction who does the right thing not the easy thing. The Intellect guy is more like a rules lawyer looking for the clever loophole that skewers the bad guys deception. I have trouble having a guy who can do both, just doesn't make sense to me. I've taken a PotD Island Aumaua Kind Wayfarer through with Might 18, Con 10, dex 10, Per 15, Int 10, and Res 15 wielding two handed swords and two arquebus for FoD. He did great even with a ten intellect. With the casserole and an item you'll have 14 Intellect all the time which is plenty for aura range and the higher Might can handle your heals. The team was mainly melee so everyone stayed close together anyway so auras were fine.

I'd go with a theme party. Like a team of six Dwarves or something like that. Since there won't be any banter you'll have to roleplay the team all by yourself and this'd give you a story. Or you could go for a pack of Rangers with all different animals or six Rogues working like SEAL team six. The hardest part will be in the beginning and will actually be harder with custom party as they'll be one level behind where the story companions will be and one level makes a big difference early.

I am a big fan of Armored Grace. It add's a lot of DPS to your guy, lets you attack faster while wearing heavy armor.

I am also on the "play PotD without a Priest, Wizard or Druid team" Give me a Paladin and a Chanter as the core team of self supporting melee and that's all I'll need. Add in a Juggernaut Monk to benefit from the buffs and you are good to go. The other three positions can be filled by whatever. Added bonus is that everyone is per encounter so you can just keep rolling without resting concerns. If the game was harder I'd optimally add in a second Chanter focused on ranged and summons, a Ranger to benefit from the second chanter and a Cipher for overall awesomeness. If something like a bounty is giving trouble just drop a few Confusion scrolls and there are lots of spell charge items that can be swapped around after using their spells in an encounter. I personally find the immunity spells to be cheesey. I also find only the dragon fights make me think that I should use other scrolls more often.

PoE definitely wins out in diversity of power builds. There are lots of power builds in each class and all can be successful if done right. In Tyranny power builds get reduced to #1 - take Magic to get the three +25% weapon imbues, #2 - Profit With a possible dip into Riposte to passively kill everything faster than you can actively attack them. Now don't get me wrong - I really enjoyed Tyranny, well worth the price, but once you "solve" the powerbuild it comes down to a near single answer while PoE has multiple answers. You won't be reading about Boereor's awesome quircky but oh so effective Tyranny builds because there are not multiple paths to greatness. The game is of course easy enough so that you don't need to be optimized but when one build is double or triple the power level of another, the powergamer in me has a hard time rolling with the gimp.

In all of my PotD playthroughs, primarily with melee heavy teams, I've always taken the DR penetration ability with the -20% recovery and never thought twice about it. Whether it was a Tidefall wielding Kind Wayfarer Paladin, a Juggernaut Monk, Pellaginna with a shield or an Estoc they all took it. I'd have to look at Kana the Chanter to see if I had it on him or if I was starved for abilities. Whenever I've tested in tavern brawls DR bybass has always done damage faster. Even when the target had only 5 DR and the weapons were two handed swords the one with the DR bypass did more damage faster even with the -20% recovery. Now this was done with exceptional level gear and a single lash, perhaps with higher levels of enchantment and more lashes the results are different. Regardless the game is easy enough that taking or not taking the ability will not affect the overall outcome. I just like the fact that with it I do not have to worry as much about enemy armor and the animats are a lot easy to deal with in melee.