KDubya

I always have trouble roleplaying a Barbarian with genius level intellect who comes up with a battle plan revolving around getting knocked out repeatedly in a fight With the new cripple on KO that'd increase the number of rests unless you just keep going with lots of injuries until health damage requires resting.

I really like the way they made Monks. Robe wearing guys are how they are always portrayed. "You know Kung Fu but put on some leather armor and you can't use it" has always felt to be really artificial in every game that had it. Here you have choice - you can armor up and slow down your attacks or go lighter and attack faster. Both styles work well. Due to game mechanics everyone does better in heavy armor for the beginning of the game. Once you gain some levels and your endurance is high enough to give you some cushion, you can go lighter for more speed

Or for fun you can blast open the front gate with a cannon and kill everybody.

If you did use two paladins, how would you build them? Would a tanky MC and more offensively focused Pallegina work? You can go both tanky, both dps, one of each, whatever you want. On PotD I've had Pellagrina with Estocs and MC Kind Wayfarer with TideFall (Greatsword). They did great, two aura, four LoH, four Reinforcing Exhortation, two Sacred Immolation. Two Paladins make for a great team, add in a Chanter (Kana) and you have three strong durable team members that make everyone else better. Sort of a 1 + 1 + 1 = 7 type of thing.

I just meant that the flail attacked fast enough that you could stunlock someone. With Tall Grass you need a minimum of 8 intellect and I think 16 dex to chain prone, higher intellect lets your dex decrease. If you were fast enough and the stun was long enough you could maybe get by with a graze and still have enough time to hit again before the stun wore off. Also I think prone immune is more common than stun immune. Does a stun applied to a stunned target get suppressed or refreshed?

We need to test if the weapon stun that allows for sneak attacks is a true stun that debuffs deflection by like 30. Then you can chain stun like you can chain prone with We Toki. That fast flail Starcaller has a stun on crit effect, plus a missile spell proc. Could work well with a Rogue crit machine or a Barb with carnage.

Also Pellagrina is better than any custom made paladin hireling. So unless you are planning on having two Paladins and trying to decide if your MC should be a Paladin, the answer is Pellagrinna.

Prior to this latest patch I went into the Dozen's HQ to unlock the soulbound Mace that needs some number of human deaths. As Devil slaughtered the entire building the merchants decided to join in as well and died like their buddies. Make sure you do all shopping before starting the massacre.

The spell procs when you get a critical hit with shield bash, not when you get hit with a critical hit.

If you are doing a four man PotD melee team here is what I'd want: 1.) MC - Juggernaut Monk - heavy armor, durable damage dealer 2.) Pallagrina - with the DR boosting aura for the extra hit>graze, heals and reinforcing exhortation, maybe reviving exhortation as well. weapon and shield (outworn buckler for the team buff) 3.) Kana - with the +25% damage lash weaved in with the fear debuff and the Dragon thrash but try and keep the lash up at all times, cross class druid debuff, cross class paladin accuracy aura, AoE endurance regen. Weapon and shield 4.) Devil of Caroc - need someone with 13 or higher mechanics. weapon and shield - We Toki or Sabre with the Balgrdr shield that casts Tattered Veil on Crit Keep within each other's auras, double up on foes to get the flanking. Everyone is durable and in heavy armor with three with shields. Take lore and use scrolls as needed. Make use of all of the weapons that have spells per rest and cycle through them. Replace Devil with an MC Rogue (I'd go for tanky shield user, squishy will just get killed too quickly) OR whatever MC that can start with 2 skill levels in Mechanics (Chanter, Cipher, not sure who else gets) A Tanky Cipher could work well (look at Boereor's Baclash bedlam) or another Paladin, Chanter, pretty much anything that can survive in melee. A Melee Ranger with a jacked pet could be a great fit. Eder or Zahua could fit in somewhere as well. I'd avoid ranged specialists as the other three team mates will not be able to keep the mob off of you and you are missing the other two ranged heavy hitters that most people have so you won't be able to drop the enemy as fast as a full six man team.

Sorry, I didn't realize that about French. Jokes are hard to pull off sometimes.

I like to use it with Devil, she has high accuracy while running Reckless Assault and the big shield gets her a huge deflection and reflex boost. Fighters or Monks could also use as they have good accuracy. Everyone else should avoid. With that particular shield the huge hit>graze is really nice, now if it came in a small shield version I'd be all over it.

Its PONY not PONEY I like the suggestions, if Obsidian can't implement maybe it can be modded?

Another great shield to Durgan is Old Gerun's Wall - Superb large Shield with 25% hit to graze, -8 accuracy and +28 deflection. With Durgan you get 10% ranged reflection, +15% hit to graze and -15% weapon attack speed. This makes a total of 40% hit to graze. Add in a Paladin Zealous Endurance and you get to 55% hit to graze. A typical acc=deflection you'd take 0.675 damage 0-15 miss 15-50 graze 50-100 hit 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.5*1 = 0.675 With the shield you'd get 15% miss 35% graze 20% hit>graze 30% hit 0.15*0+0.55*0.5+0.3*1 = 0.575 a reduction of 14.9% Add in the Zealous endurance and you get 15% miss 35% graze 27.5% hit>graze 22.5% hit 0.15*0+0.625*0.5+0.225*1 = 0.5375 a reduction of 20% damage

If you wait till act 3 you can get the spear without joining the Dozens. I dislike their mob rule and their bonus is terrible.

Correct about the eyeless=vessel, splitting up the hammer and the sword is good. A Barbarian with a 25% chance to kill on strike with Carnage is roflstomp. I like the Island Aumaua for starting with an arquebus, Long Feller, for a FoD, swap to Silverflash blunderbuss for another FoD and then wade in with TideFall greatsword. Mechanics wise going with more, 15, Intellect and less, 10, Resolve would be better but I really like the high Resolve hard ass dialogues, even with my Kind Wayfarer. He is Aggressive but not Cruel. I like my MC to be the action movie hero and the hard hitting, durable team leader Paladin built around this template is exactly that.

It's only a +10% hit to crit conversion and crit damage is additive not multiplicative. Its not a bad ability its just not near as powerful as you think it is. With acc=deflection 0-15 miss 16-50 graze 51-100 hit Base damage = (0+0.35*0.5+0.5*1) = 0.675 An Orlan crit gets 0-15 miss 16-50 graze 51-95 hit 96-100 crit (you hit 50%, a 10% hit to crit gets you 0.5*0.1=0.05) Base damage = (0+0.35*0.5+0.45*1+0.05*1.5)= 0.7 damage an increase of 3.7% With a Rogue stacking lots of hit to crit plus accuracy boosts plus some tasty on crit effect makes it much more worthwhile. Personally I like Island Aumaua for the extra weapon slot, Boreal Dwarves for the huge +15 accuracy against the two most common enemy types or a Pale Elf for the elemental DR.

The Vile Loner Spear and the retaliation small shield would be good before you get Dragon's Maw. Could swap to hatchet and shield for pierce immune foes. I like to build offensive tank types and defensive damage dealers - things like Rogues with shields, Monks with lots of defensive abilities (Juggernaut), Two handed Paladins, Damage dealer Fighters and a Barb with a shield fits right in the pattern. For me anyways barbarians have a tendency to go face down in the dirt a lot so adding a shield that keeps them alive longer is a great addition. Once bash procs carnage the damage difference from dual wielding will be lessened.

The thing about Sword and Shepherd that I don't like is that it activates off of FoD which I generally use for my first and sometimes second attack. That early no one has been damaged and the heal is wasted. Strange Mercies kicks in during the fight when damage has been taken, can be used an unlimited amount of times and with some micro can be activated when needed. I've always had more beneficial talents to take besides Sword and Shepherd, but Strange Mercies I'll take at level two. As long as one of the front liners has Shod in Faith it works fine. I usually throw them on the guy with the lowest deflection which is usually not the Paladin, even a two hander one. Maneha is a great candidate for the Shod in Faith. The extra defenses from Fenwalkers or similar boots go well with Faith and Conviction to double down on your Paladin's already high defenses.

I've used a kinda similar paladin but had resolve at 15 instead of intellect. The intellect version would probably be better other than dialogue and deflection. Also I did not take Sword and Shepherd. It makes for a really enjoyable paladin that has a big two hander, can hit reliably and hard, just not that fast. Definitely not an aura bot or someone that the enemy will run past but a sturdy melee that can dish out damage. Grab TideFall and an Arquebus or two and you are an Alpha Striking machine. Now that Strange Mercies scales the heal is quiet noticeable, about 2/3 rds of a LoH but in an AoE. Just one per battle is appreciated, multiple activations is just insane. It also has a nice on screen effect with a flash and a big ringing noise. It is my favorite Paladin order ability.

it is a good way to buy Vithrack brains for upgrading to exceptional. Free crafting stuff shows up in the chest which helps with crafting. Basically once you get to level eight and have built the shop that sells the brains you can upgrade everyone's weapon to exceptional and add a lash easily and cheaply. Going beyond exceptional is severely limited due to extremely rare components. You can even make up a few specialized generic weapons with the various Slaying enchantments - a Kith one for bounties, a spirit one etc. The extra accuracy and damage can make a big difference. At level four adding a Kith slayer to a Fine Estoc can really make a difference clearing out the castle.

interrupting Blows adds a flat +15 to the interrupt roll, the same as having +5 Perception.

Flick of the Wrist is +4 accuracy to daggers and stilettos, you get it by winning games of Orlan's Face knife tossing at the inn in Stalwart. If a Ranger with base 10 Perception (not counting any bonus from resting or equipment) with their highest base Accuracy can't reliably hit then every class will be missing and anything besides a Monk or Fighter (the only other high base accuracy classes) will be whiffing like crazy. Another +4 accuracy from a 14 Perception won't make that big of a difference. Plus we're talking about a melee Ranger, double teaming an enemy is the whole point of the build. You need to double team to get Stunning Shots which stuns on every hit, and once stunned you get another huge accuracy boost; Stalker's link for additional accuracy;, applying a DoT to activate your pet's +50% damage; to activate flanking for more accuracy and to activate sneak attacks for more damage. Unless the pet is dead you really want to attack the same target. If an enemies deflection is that high then the team would be better served by debuffing the enemy or buffing the team. Having a high Perception is great but you just run out of stat points and something has to be left at base 10. I'd never dump Perception below 10 but sometimes you can't afford to raise it.

Would it be better to have your MC Ranger use one of the weapons and Sagani use the other? 1.) Keeping a DoT effect going on whomever your pet is attacking is the key to getting lots of damage. 2.) Keeping Stormcaller firing quickly is the key to proc'ing Returning Storm 3.) You can't do both #1 and #2 at the same time....... I like the use of Twin Stings and maximizing the pet damage, it makes for a nice thematic change from the typical Stormcaller twin arrows build. But then it shoehorn's in the Stormcaller build on top of it all. If you went all in with Twin Stings - Knight weapon focus, Swift Aim for the big reload boost, Gunner for even faster reloads and Interrupting Blows to make use of the big interrupt from crossbow, would that be better?

I skip reviving exhortation as I don't need it. In a really tough fight Kana can use the revive invocation or someone can just use a scroll. I agree that reinforcing is pretty solid, having two paladins lets them start each fight buffing the other. Helps keep Ranger pets alive as well. Aegis of Loyalty is just great, a Priest can make you immune but can't clear the charm. Aegis combined with the AoE of Sacred Immolations keeps you clear of charms and converts your team back for a long time.