KDubya

I don't see the sub par damage with my Monk, granted he is not a Wizard but I'd say he is top of the melee classes. As you say a Rogue is too squishy, and a Barbarian will out damage a Monk but will not have near the defenses. Fists are faster and do more damage than other weapons. At level 12 I tested a monk with fists against a guy with a Superb, Kith slaying, great Sword with a lash. Just auto attacks, no abilities and they dropped their identical targets within a few swings of each other. It was a tavern brawl so only health damage counted and the targets had 1600+ health. With a 20+ Might, 16+ Con, in Sanguine Plate and Shod in Faith boots he is a destroyer. Take the Duality and the better defenses after attacked ability and your defenses are comparable to a Paladin, no stun lock or paralyze for you Maybe one Monk gets locked down with a graze but the other is exacting vengeance on the fish people. Throw in AoE damage from Torment's Reach, Speed boost and Lightning lash from Lightning Strikes and the cool AoE debuffing zipping through the lines that is Flagellent's Path and it is total ownage. And if you ever need to slow down the wounds you can just swap Duality for +8 deflection, swap a small Superb shield in for +20 deflection, or even another +6 with the Weapon & Shield talent.

Also Vulnerable attack affects only attack speed not total action speed. I just ran a quick test counting swings of two guys with the same dex, both in plate swinging Great Swords, one with Vulnerable Attack and one with out. At about the same moment that one guy had 22 swings, the other had 20. This puts it a lot closer to a total -10% action speed malus not 20%. Maybe faster weapons are affected more due to less fixed pause in the action chain. I did another quick test of two guys in plate with great swords one running Vulnerable Attack, hitting two targets with 5 DR robes. The guy using Vulnerable Attack killed his target first by 13 swings. The targets have 1600+ health so it takes at least 100 swings to drop them and their deflection is high enough to not allow crits. I'm assuming that over 100 attacks you'll follow normal probabilities. I tried it with the attackers naked in case the plate recovery speed was affecting the result. I tried it with Exceptional Great Swords instead of Fine ones. Every time the guy using Vulnerable Attack on a target with only 5 DR dropped his guy first. I even tried it with naked monks (level 12) with fists against 5 DR robes and got the same result. DR bypass does more damage over time even with only 5 DR I've seen it stated that -50% armor recovery = -33% action speed. Maybe the -20% attack speed = -13% So like 7&1/2 attacks or 15 w/o and 13 with, which would get you 13x5 = 65 more damage that would have to be made up from the two extra. Somewhere around 37 average damage [2*(Y-5)=65] per hit it'd be worthwhile to turn off Vulnerable Attack. I'd say that Vulnerable Attack is always better unless something has less than 5 DR, which most things do not.

Why don't they make all the Dragons immune to CC such as petrify, paralyze, stun, charm, confuse and all the rest? Then tune the encounter so that you can take a few hits and give that a try. Better than to have cheese be the winning move. What is the point of making the Alpine Dragon (and most of its minions) immune to crush other than to punish melee classes and Monks in particular? Frost immune I could see, but crush? Casters can just use a different spell, what is a weapon class supposed to do when they can't use their weapon?

At level 10 PotD scaled upwards, my Monk is going to come back in a few levels. Most of all the things there including the Dragon are immune to crushing which is rather unfair to Monks

On PotD I did everything I could except for the Animancy trial and the lower half of Od Nua. That put me at level 9. I went to White March and went with the high level option. I cleared everything to the left Russet Wood or whatever and am now mostly cleared to the right at the Falls. My party is a Dwarven Monk in Sanguine plate and shod in faith boots using fists, Zahua in plate using Greenstone staff and TideFall, Pellagrina w/zealous Endurance , Hiravois, Sagani and Kana in heavy armor & shield. Good hit points, good saves and good DR makes the team pretty durable. It also helps that most things are Wilder or Primordial and thus are affected by the Boreal Dwarf bonus. The Glimmer Society bounty fight was real tough, had to fight at the ramp where I could keep a front of three melee. In open ground they just swarmed and beat everyone senseless. I worry that if I went there at level 7 or so, the remaining parts of Act 2 would be a joke when I return at level 10 and I'd be over-leveled for everything. Now PotD with the high level scaling for White March is a real challenge starting at level 9.

I think most dialogue checks are wanting 16+ so a 12 is not going to get you anything. I like high perception, intellect and high might in order to get the most out of my spells which I use sparingly. Speed from dex is the one I'd keep at base. I'd go 17 Might, 9 con, 10 dex, 17 per, 16 int and 9 res. even with limiting your spell casting you still get alacrity per encounter at 13 for a perma 50% speed boost so I get by with less dex. If you are going to rest every fight then you'd want more dex and less perception as you will just cast more in case you miss or graze.

The numbers are just to illustrate the math. The whole "lash applies against 25% of the enemy DR" is what I've seen from the guys who used to test that stuff, back in the beginning. I am assuming that it still holds true. From reading the combat log it feels about right. I need to actually try and back into the original damage to see if that is what is happening.

I think if they got rid of vancian casters with their per rest or per encounter spells and had every caster use a system similar to the Cipher's focus that it would be a better system. Differentiate between the classes by what abilities they can fuel - give Ciphers the mind control psionic stuff, Wizards the arcane type, Druids the elemental, Priests healing and buffing. You'd start with some focus and have to engage enemies in order to generate more. You could balance the classes by the amount of starting focus, the rate of generating it and the cost of the various abilities. PoE started with Ciphers having too much focus which let them blast out multiple top end abilities at the start. Now with reduced starting focus Ciphers have choices to make and need to balance their casting and their focus generation. They are well balanced now and scale well with the difficulty and at higher level. The same can not be said for the quadratic Vancian casters. You could change the ratio of attacks Vs casts. Have Ciphers with a few attacks generate enough focus for one cast as they are more of a hybrid, have Wizards need to attack less and cast more as they are more caster oriented. You could add in metamagic abilities that would cost more focus but give different modifiers like making something into an AoE, or making it DR piercing or whatever. Have extra things cost more focus and just balance the costs and the rates at which it is generated. Maybe even have something similar for melee types to power their abilities through damaging or killing the enemy. The Monk's wound system works great as a different way to power abilities, PoE2 should expand on that. If people want DnD Vancian systems there are plenty of games like that. Better to make something unique.

I don't think that the engine allows for lateral or rearward movement without turning. You'd need movement via wasd keys instead of mouse click. The problem is not the engagement system, the problem is the enemy AI. In 4wards example of a kiting solo wizard the solution would be better calls for help for intelligent enemies. The bandit should have called his three friends and a few should have flanked you and all should have run you down and beat you to death. Ranged enemies need to consider DR, deflection and maybe threat. For sure they should identify that shooting the guy in plate with a bow is a low reward move while shooting the guy in robes will be a lot better. Give the enemy the ability to recognize that one of your men just cast a spell and that should make him a target for anyone capable of attacking him. Even an animal is going to attack the perceived weakest first. Every fight with kith adventurer parties or bounties my first move is to identify the spellcaster and fill him full of lead and arrows so that he never does a thing besides take the alpha strike. There is plenty of cannon but not much glass in the current system. Casters can wear better armor if they choose to, its time the enemy made that a choice. Currently there is hardly a reason not to wear dresses in the back. Start turning those guys into pin cushions and there be new tactics and equipment choices to make.

I'd go with the lash instead of a slayer. 25% damage all the time or +5 accuracy & 25% damage against one type? Not quite that simple actually but pretty close. The lash takes the total damage roll, takes 25% of it and applies that against 25% of the targets DR for the particular damage type. So 40 damage and 12 DR >>>> 40-12= 28 damage + (25% of 40 against 25% of 12) = 7 So 35 damage total. If the lash element DR was less ( you'd get 40-12=28 + 10-2 = 8 .. 36 total With a slayer you'd get 40*1.25= 50-12 = 38 damage against the one enemy type.

You need to stop at 10/12 to have room for the Superb upgrade. So with Tall Grass you can pick two from - Superb upgrade OR Lash OR Slayer, OR you can pick only the Kith Slayer.

I always took it to be a percentage of the 35% graze rate. So a 30% graze to hit from single weapon style is 30% of the 35% or 10.5% of the total. Single weapon + Confident Aim + Zealous Focus + flail would get you 30+20+15+30 = 95% graze to hit conversion. I just tested at an Inn with a low level Fighter with flail, single weapon style, paladin aura and Confident Aim trying to hit a monk with 50 pts higher deflection then his accuracy. Lots of misses, rest were mostly hits that listed whichever talent converted the graze into a hit. When I turned off the aura and gave him a dagger he had a lot more grazes. Based on this I'd say my assumption is pretty close.

For a weapon lash I like corrode or lightning as fire and frost seem to have more immunes. The only really scarce enchanting stuff are the ones needed to make something superb, Adra eyes or something like that, everything else can be bought at a store. Wow I just noticed that they changed enchanting in that you can upgrade without having double the room like you needed before. Example Tall Grass is 8/12 when you get it, you can place a lash on it to get 10/12 and then upgrade it to Superb for 12/12. Before you would need to have 6/12 to have room to add Superb, even if 4/12 was from exceptional. So no reason to not add a lash first thing and just leave 2/12 empty for Superb upgrade if you want. It even let me add a lash and a slayer to Hours of St Rumbalt, take it to 11/12 and then add exceptional to replace the accuracy 3 that it starts with. Bottom line enchanting resources are cheap, no reason not to slap something on. Just leave room for the few items that would be worth making superb. Tall Grass is one of those items that is worth upgrading.

Don't use a stop watch. Make two merc, give them the same dex and same armor. Give them the same bow. Give them both Vicious Aim and Penetrating shot. Have both activate Vicious Aim and have one activate Penetrating Shot. Pause the game and have them both shoot at one of your other characters. They will shoot the first shot at the same time but after that the guy with Penetrating Shot will fall out of sync and be slower. Then have one activate only Vicious and the other only activate Penetrating. These two will fire at the exact same time. Edit - Also a -20% attack speed is not the same as a -20% action speed.

You'd have -40% attack speed from using both. For a bow using Ranger it still does better damage to use both Vicious Aim and Penetrating Shot. You can replace Vicious Aim with Twin Shot at higher level but you'll always want to have Penetrating Shot on unless the DR is less than five.

Does anyone even bother to take Defender now? In all my games I've re-speced Eder out of Defender/Wary Defender and grabbed Confident Aim and something else like Savage Attack or Superior Deflection. With that Eder hits harder and more consistently with better deflection, only missing out on the +2 engagements which don't seem to make any difference at all. My teams are generally melee heavy with 3 or 4 melee up front and at no point on PotD am I saying "Boy, wish I had some more engagements" Maybe it makes a difference with a tank & spank 1 victim and five cannon approach, but with balanced melee it does not factor. Old Defender was so good that you could go with a two hander or dual wield damage build and still stand on the frontline and face tank everyone. Now I find that my frontline melee is wanting a shield, especially my Fighter. My Defender builds lost 15 deflection from Defender/Wary Defender (and +10 Vs all), another +10 or so from Perception and another +1 from the general downgrade to items for -26 deflection and the non-defender lost around -11. Other then bringing Eder along for his character I'd just leave a Fighter at the keep. If I need tanky I get a Paladin, if I need damage I can go Rogue, or Barbarian and if I need some of both I grab a Monk. As a main character I see little reason to get a Fighter instead of a Monk. Eder is within a few stat points of being as good of a Fighter as you can make. If you don't want a fist using Monk just have him stick to weapons, all his abilities work fine with them as well.

It stacks. It also stacks with the graze>hit of confident aim. Go to an Inn, hire a merc and spec him with single weapon style and confident aim and give him a flail. Have him attack another party member and read the combat log. When those abilities activate it lists them by name in the combat log.

They'd be more challenging for sure in a straight up fight but they'd be able to start with six ranged sneak attacks that'd be devastating. Give a few heavy armor and shields, a few with reach weapons, and a few with bows. Everyone would easily have good stealth and a few in mechanics would let you use traps more than normal. It sounds like one that'd be interesting to try. Most of the others either fall into the super easy (Wizard, Druid, Cipher, Ranger) or the monotonous (Fighter, Chanter) Now PotD, Trial of Iron six Rogues, that I'd like to see.

My Paladin PotD party took him at level four in a stand up fight initiated from dialogue with out any cheesing. Honestly did not think I could do it, thought I'd have to come back later. My team was MC Paladin (Island Amaumau Kind Wayfarer, w/plate, fine pike, war hammer & shield, and arquebus, also had Strange Mercies), Eder (plate, Sabre & shield, Disappointer Pistol enchanted to accurate), Aloth, Kana (plate, fine weapon & shield, Durance's Staff enchanted to fine, arbalest), Hired merc Paladin (plate, Gaun's flail & shield, arbalest), and hired merc Ranger w/Boar (warbow w/vicious aim) First move was to shoot everyone in a dress using FoD and the ranger's special. After one shot everyone but the ranger and Aloth went to shields and the two with reach weapons set up behind the shield users. The melee guys held formation keeping each other alive with their four LoH, ranged guys picked off the archers one by one and casted AoE spells on groups. Even had a few of the frontline melee fire off a volley of fan of flame scrolls. In the end I was out of spells, down to just Aloth, ranger and Eder all hitting Raedric for minimum damage until he finally dropped. My earlier Monk party took the Kolsc option both for role playing and I did not think I could take him. The Kind Wayfarer would have to try and stop him or else hang up his spurs. The key was dropping their casters quickly and then trying to focus on one enemy paladin at a time so they couldn't out heal me. The other key was the enemy concentrated on my four guys in plate instead of going after the much softer wizard and ranger in leather. Plus having four LoH spells and a few Strange Mercy heals carried the day. The loot from full clearing the place sets you up for some good shopping.

I went in cold without any foreknowledge with my Monk, he has 20+ might, 19 con and 18 perception with his normal items on and 1 or 2 survival. Was able to prop up the beam without tools, could have grabbed the ring but didn't, was able to grab the girl but could not put the fire out. The winter spell casting shield was on another character. If I had brought that shield I could have saved both. Seems sort of biased in favor for casters, especially if 3 con can manage it. Should have let you jump through the fire and take damage, or make a save/ survive an attack roll. If you fail you'd need to send in someone else to save your first character or have them perma die.

I'd like at least some of the enemies act like human controlled characters, especially the bounties. For example I'd like the enemy to all have ranged weapons on switch and start off with a full ranged volley and shoot anyone who looks to be a spell caster in robes. That's what we do, they should do the same.

With Kana I can have him sing the burning weapon chant and then the frighten chant and he starts back with the burning weapon chant before it wears off. His higher intellect is what lets him do that. A level three chant lingers long enough to fit a level two in with it.

double post

Maybe the issue is that four is too big of a number. It gives you enough options to cover all possible contingencies and once you figure out what four to take you never change. Maybe it'd be better with only two or three spells per level in your grimoire? You'd probably need to swap them at some point then

Is being limited to four spells per level the issue? I guess I don't see the problem. You pick the sets of spells that best serve your team and play style. My Aloth's grimoire will look a lot different from yours, because my team and my play styles are different. Some spells are just so good that everyone will have them in their grimoire, some are more play style dependent. With PotD not being overly challenging as it is, how will game play be improved if Wizards can spam every spell every battle without concern for saving any for use in the next battle? You can already do this just by resting more. If the new Grimoire makes Wizards more powerful I'd have to say again that at the current balance they are the cat's meow now. If all spells are reduced in power such that the new Grimoire system brings them back to their current power level again what is the point? If all grimoires are different, one of them will be better than any of the rest. It always works out like that, and once you get that grimoire you are back to the current never change grimoire's again issue. Maybe someone can mod something like what you are looking for? I am not sure what is or is not available via modding with PoE.