KDubya

I hate to break it to you, but PoE wizards are already D&D sorcerers as is, with the minor caveat that PoE wizards get less known spells per level than D&D sorcerers but have the ability to switch their known spells thanks to the grimoires. In fact, PoE priests and druids are also D&D sorcerers, but with all the advantages (the ability to cast any combination of spells of any level as long as they have the necessary resources) and none of the drawbacks (their spell selection isn't limited). As someone who doesn't like that wizards can select new spells on level up, I can see a very simple solution to that problem My ideas for wizards : - Make spells per-encounter at an earlier level but graduate their progression. For example, start with one 1st-level spell slot which becomes per-encounter at level 6 and go from there. - I like the metamagic proposed by the OP. - I'm absolutely opposed to the idea of making every spell of a certain level known by the wizard available to him once he is high-level enough! Plus, I don't think this is realiitically going to happen, Adam and Josh apparently believe that priests and druids have way too many abilities available for each encounter, this would just create the same thing for wizards. Making per-encounter spells available earlier is a move in the right direction, but making it one slot at a time (or more) would kinda railroad Wizard-play into using those few per-encounter spells as much as possible until there's a wider variety. I know I'd be hard-pressed to step away from those one or two per-encounter spells for most of the game. Freeing up spell casting is still a good towards more fun gameplay. As to druids and priest having way too many abilities, do you remember where they said this? I'm wondering what it is about those abilities that make them seem too numerous to Adam and Josh (Too repetitive? Too many variations? Too powerful? Not enough power? etc) In the beginning Ciphers were deemed to be broken due to having enough starting focus that they could bang out a few of their biggest powers or lots of their lower powers at the start of every fight and never need to regenerate focus. Now their starting focus is half of what they had, they get one shot and then need to regenerate focus. They seem fine now, balanced and challenging. Everything they have is per encounter but they need to generate focus in order to use it. If the Cipher model of focus generating was the only way for everyone to fuel their spells the game would probably be a lot better and a whole lot more balanced. There'd be no power-napping, no need to self restrain letting loose with the big spells, camping would be done when you need to heal up your health or recharge your few per rest abilities and items. Wizards get more powerful spells than a Cipher but are limited to per rest usage. They need to marshal their resources. To assist Wizards in being useful for the small fights and to be the deciding factor in the big fights, they get Arcane Assault at per encounter and implements which with a few talents are the best ranged weapon in the game - dual damage types bypass all immunities, AoE, DR bypass without attack speed malus and the largest damage boost available at +25%. At low levels your Wizard can easily lead the party in damage, even with limiting spell use to only the big fights. At higher levels the sheer number of casts per rest that you have allow for liberal usage of spells. Just using two spells per battle of level four and up would still let you dominate for six or seven fights, which would still be longer than your melee could avoid attrition health loss. If you need to cast more often you can just rest. Even on PotD you still get two camp rests before you need to either find more, buy them at a store or head back to an Inn. For convenience you can even just use console commands and not go through the time of the loading screens. The complete removal of per encounter lower level spells would still leave Wizards at the top of the power curve even if you try and limit your resting. Power Napping would still be available and allow for complete use of every spell every fight with no downsides at all. The game already allows you to bypass any attempt at restraining or limiting a Wizard's power level with the simple act of resting, why is that not enough?

I've gotten the cross class Paladin Aura on Kana and it works pretty good. The range is the same as the paladin aura and Kana has above average intellect so it helps even more. It is not as good as the paladin aura at +4 accuracy Vs +6 accuracy and 15% (?) graze to hit, but it would let you roll without a Paladin or take a different Paladin aura. With a tank & spank playstyle you won't have Kana on the team in the first place, and your glass cannons have better talents to take while the AoE target, the tank, will be too far away to help his betters. Priest buffs would overwrite it anyway. But if you roll w/o a priest and use a more melee focused group, then a melee Chanter with the Paladin cross class aura can help the team.

It depends on the role that you use your Monk for, they are versatile enough that you can change roles as easily as you change equipment. I use my Monk as the tip of the spear, the vanguard of a melee heavy team. From group stealth I start with the Monk and Itumaak approaching, Eder fires a pistol then swaps to sabre & shield, Pellagrina fires a FoD with an arbalest and follows with hammer & shield, Kana fires a pistol and then either goes W&S or Quarterstaff for the reach, Sagani shoots away with her arbalest and Hiravais shoots with Persistence hunting bow, fires spells or goes were-cat. I keep Duality on the other defense to get a crit which activates frenzy (Sanguine Plate) and Shod in Faith boots. The first wound goes for Swift Strikes/Lightning Strikes for +25% attack speed and +25% damage. If wounds come too fast I can swap Duality for another +8 deflection or even swap in a shield for up to another +26 deflection. For attack speed I get +33% (frenzy) +20% (dual wield style) +25% Swift Strikes + 0 (10 dex) for +78%. Plate is in the order of -33% so together I get around +55% attack speed in full plate. (The frenzy suppresses the Swift Strikes) Speed increase is +33% or +25% and then the +20% from dual wield style for +20% when frenzied and +12% when using Swift Strikes while wearing plate. Not near as good as I thought it was. Robes would get me around -10% attack speed or 23% faster than plate but at the cost of 7 crush DR and 10 slash/pierce DR. When you have at least 7 wounds with Iron wheel you'd have comparable DR as my guy in plate who could also take Iron Wheel to stay ahead in the DR race or take another high level Monk Ability which are all pretty good. For Monk Abilities the build choices that I ponder over are: Level Five - Turning Wheel or Stunning Blows - I frequently get 5-10 wounds "in the bank" so to speak as I lay down the Torment's. This would be a 25 - 50% damage lash applied Vs 25% defense which would be substantial. Stunning Blows are nice but only 3 seconds in duration but can be used at the start without any wounds. Level Seven - I like Duality for the defenses. Level Nine - Whichever I did not choose at level five plus Crucible of Suffering for more defense, Enervating Blows for on crit debuffs (does the Might debuff from Weakened stack with Torment's?), or Rooting Pain for a small AoE retaliate type attack? The damage on Rooting Pain seems rather weak and gaining three wounds in a single hit still only responds with a single Rooting Pain. Level Eleven - Was planning for Flagelllent's Path as being able to zip through the enemy formation attacking and debuffing everyone on the way sounds really great. This is also where Iron Wheel is first available. Level Thirteen - The summon twin Duplicates looks really tasty here. How useful is this ability? I am thinking that Turning Wheel might be the better choice at level five since it'd help more in the tough fights where I get more wounds while stunning blows helps more when I don't have wounds. Then take Enervating Blows for a debuff on crit at level nine and grab the duplicate summon at level 13. EDIT - The frenzy effect of +33% attack speed suppresses the +25% from Swift Strikes so you can't get both at the same time. Can any barbarian players tell me if Frenzy stacks with the attack speed buff ability from killing two or more enemies? Also discovered that LoH will suppress the healing effect from the Shod in Faith boots.

The two main schools of thought are to use your wounds as fast as you get them via Torment's Reach - a full attack cone AoE with a small debuff - or to save the wounds to fuel Turning Wheel - which adds +5% burn lash to your attacks per wound. Also the new Iron Wheel gives you +1 DR per wound. For me, YMMV, I prefer the Torment's Reach approach. Wounds only last for ten seconds I think and the fire lash is applied against 25% of the targets armor so you need five wounds just to start to gain. Fists work great as weapons, they do Average Speed damage but at the Fast Speed attack rate. The only downside is they can't get enchantments like weapons can. I tested a dual fist monk against a two handed weapon monk, both level 12, with a superb, kith slaying, burning lash Great Sword. They did virtually the same DPS against identical targets who had the same DR versus crushing and slash/pierce respectively. For stats I like to go with high Might - I can get a lot of speed boosts so I like to go for damage - base dex, high con, high perception, base intellect and base resolve. I like heavy armor with a fist & shield on switch for when I need more deflection. Don't think of Bruce Lee in robes, think of heavy armored guys with big spiked gloves, more like a Templar.

If you save all your wounds for Iron Wheel, how do you spam out Torment's Reach or Flagellent's Path? You'd be stuck just auto attacking, with one wound used for Swift Strikes & Lightning Strikes. Plate gets you 7 DR more than robes at the cost of 22% attack speed (plate is -33% and robes are -11%), have a small shield on switch and you can grab another +26 deflection and +26 reflex whenever you need more defense. The cloak does sound nice though, haven't got into White march yet, just the siege at Cragholdt. I haven't such problems. First time I get hit I usually have 7 to 10 wounds. Iron Wheel and Turning Wheel get boosted and I receive less damage and wounds. Then I start using Torment's Reach till all wounds are gone and I receive wounds faster again. Since I'm a moon godlike, normally I'm back at full endurance. Then it starts all over. Iron Wheel has a great mechanic: it prevents you from getting knocked out when you got hit a lot and wears off when you need new wounds. That's way better than heavy armour. Now my monk can do some tanking while still dishing out lots of DPS - even when he's only autoattacking. Sometimes I use Force of Anguish, the enemy flies away and my monk rushes after him. Then I forget about them until I realise there are no enemies left because my monk autoattacked them all to death while I was microing my wizard... My Dwarf Monk is rocking the Sanguine Plate for Frenzy + Dual Wield Style + Swift Strikes + Lightning Strikes = Super Fists of Fury Monk is the most fun character I've had. So far at level seven I've taken Swift Stirkes, Lightning Strikes, Torment's Reach, Two Weapon Fighting, Stunning Blows, Peasant Focus, and Duality of Mortal Presence. I'd like to fit in Vulnerable Attack, Level Nine Monk Ability, Savage Attack, Flagellent's Path, Weapon & Shield Style, Level 13 Monk Ability, Interrupting Blows. Not sure what to take at level 9 and 13 for Monk Abilities. Too bad they took away the free fists as a weapon slot.

Your poll did not have a choice for what I think. I liked the game at launch and think the changes since then have been mostly beneficial but it is not a fundamentally different game. 1.) Ciphers are much more challenging to play instead of easy mode. 2.) Rangers and their pets are now useful team members 3.) Paladin's abilities now mostly scale with level and are useful throughout the game. Areas that still need to be addressed: 1.) If Tank & Spank was a problem, the solution applied was to diminish the Tank part, especially with Fighters with Defender, but the Spank part has been untouched. Tanking can still be achieved but at the expense of not being able to take more offensive builds. A Fighter with a shield can tank as well as a dual wield or two hander Fighter used to but has less damage output. 2.) Fighters in general don't really have much of a purpose. If you took the Fighter's abilities and spread them among the other melee classes and just got rid of the Fighter class it'd probably work out better. It'd make for more diverse build choices. Your Paladin could go for weapon specialization and mastery to be a more martial build instead of getting an exhortation. 3.) Power creep and quadratic, or at least exponential, spell casters. Each expansion will add more levels and the problem will just expand. How do you balance encounters when the possible party set ups can have vastly different power outputs? No easy answer here, hell many won't even see this as a problem

I re-started a few different builds in 2.0 PotD. Got a Monk, a Paladin, a Rogue and started a Cipher. Using all story companions and all of them have left Durance at the Keep, kept his staff though I am not steamrolling the game but I'm proceeding as planned without any Priest on the team. My basic playstyle is to use every per encounter ability every fight, try to keep Itumaak alive with a LoH, use per rest abilities and spells sparingly. Many fights would not cast any per rest spells but if things started to go bad would bang them out as fast as needed. For me, since I save my per rest spells longer than most, the Priest brought nothing to the team beyond Interdiction and the other AoE thing they have. Waiting to use a Priest Buff until after things have gone bad doesn't work very well, since they are supposed to be used before things go bad so that they won't go bad. Priests are pro-active in stopping problems before they happen, Wizards, on the other hand, are great at reactive play styles. Nothing pulls the fat out of the fire better than a Wizard with a full Grimoire. I also am getting great use out of Kana. With a pistol for an alpha strike, Durance's staff for reach and a weapon & shield he is versatile. I mainly use the terror chant to lower the enemies accuracy and the reduced slash damage chant on a loop. Once four chants are set, out comes the paralyze scream and the enemy gets mopped up. With the cross class Paladin chant I can use Pellegrina for the DR booster, maybe even try out using the cross class, DR booster and the charge aura on my double Paladin game.

If you save all your wounds for Iron Wheel, how do you spam out Torment's Reach or Flagellent's Path? You'd be stuck just auto attacking, with one wound used for Swift Strikes & Lightning Strikes. Plate gets you 7 DR more than robes at the cost of 22% attack speed (plate is -33% and robes are -11%), have a small shield on switch and you can grab another +26 deflection and +26 reflex whenever you need more defense. The cloak does sound nice though, haven't got into White march yet, just the siege at Cragholdt.

The Monk AI is pretty good. I have a dwarf heavy armor monk with Swift Strikes, Lightning Strikes and Torment's Reach. With the Ai set to Aggressive (Not Disrupter) and Defensive auto attacks he will bang out as many Torments Reaches as he can one after another when he has wounds. The only issue I have is he sometimes doesn't get the Swift Strikes up first. When I gain access to Flagellent's Path, I might have to turn the AI off in case I want to save up three wounds for that. Or for that duplicate summon. The Paladin AI does a good job of using LoH and Liberating Exhortations. The Fighter will use his knockdowns on the first thing he sees which means I need to keep it off so that I can choose the target and the timing. I'd never even considered having the AI run a caster like a Wizard. He'd blow through all your spells and probably kill half your team with friendly fire

Why do you think they weren't? Here's a point for you to consider. Is it possible to be well aware of the linear warrior, quadratic wizard issue and not consider it to be a problem; not to consider it to be something that needs to be fixed, because it isn't broken in the first place? And the answer is yes, when you are designing party-based single player games, where a single player controls the entire party and what is important is their performance as a team and the player weighs his success as being dependent on party success, unlike party based multiplayer games where each player controls one party member and, while achieving goals remains important, to a large degree the player's personal measure of success will depend on his party member's performance against the performance of the other players' party members. As a designer it can even be liberating, because it frees you to be more inventive and concentrate on classes being good at the roles they are intended for without having to bother overmuch about how they compare to other classes. And it allows you to make some classes much less micromanagement intensive than others (another attribute that is attractive to some players) without having to jump through hoops to give them the same power level. Usually this is done by the simple tradeoff of classes with more tactical options being more powerful when played well, while the classes with fewer options are easier to perform solidly by unspectacularly with, allowing the player who puts together his party to largely dictate how powerful his party is through the selection of party members. (Of course, when you do that you need to ensure that a full party of weaker classes or recommended party setups can fulfill a game on normal difficulty with little trouble). But it is a balance, as there are many conflicting desires, both from the player base and amongst designers. DO the design of POE call for linear fighters and wizards? If so, they have failed magnificently. I didn't bother reading all the project updates during development, but a search of some of the older project updates certainly doesn't suggest so, though it is possible that this changed later in development. Here from update #15, for instance, which had the first rough draft of the four core classes: or from #81 about the role of fighters: contrasted with the role of wizards from #74: In a group centered around magic, the dumb old warrior performs the respectable role of helping control the battlefield via attacks of opportunity, being a beefcake, and delivering a dependable though unspectacular damageoutput, while being able to take more punishment than just about anybody else (at least if you give him a two-hander and a mix of the best offensive and best defensive talents and abilities). It may be a boring job, but somebody has to do it. In a group centered around melee, he'll be standing on top of a mountain of his enemies, by the end of battle, but the battle will likely have taken considerably longer. And I'll completely agree with you on the campaign supply issue; In practice, while it has some impact such as tempting people to save high level spells rather than potentially wasting them and having to buy supplies more often, most of the time it does feel So let me see if I have this correct. By design Wizards are supposed to be more powerful and generally better than the other classes, while Fighters are there to basically be punching bags and blockers. I wish that the Devs had just put that in writing at the character creation screen. I would not have wasted a bunch of time and gotten people all riled up talking about my perceived balance questions. I foolishly thought that there was supposed to be some level of parity between the various classes.

But even with auto attacks a Wizard is better off than anyone else. With three talents you get AoE, DR penetration, and +25% damage with a minor raw damage effect. No one else can add AoE to their attacks besides a Barbarian with Carnage. Everyone else who wants DR penetration has to take a -20% attack speed malus. No other talent adds +25% damage. Implements do the same base DPS as every other ranged weapon. You could make an effective implement using Wizard who would probably lead in damage done just with using your auto attack, let alone using the Blights which also benefit from all the same talents. Add in penetrating shot for more DR bypass, the cross class sneak attack which would be applied with the AoE, enchant a lash and add in the appropriate elemental damage booster. Sure it'd be boring, but it just goes to show what lengths the game goes to, in order to make Wizards fun and useful at lower levels. I hated Wizards in IE games before 5th or even 7th level unless they were Fighter/mages who could fight as well. I really like low level Wizards in PoE, they nailed the useful but fragile aspect. At higher levels Wizards can overcome any of their inherent weaknesses with spells which are limited by uses per rest. You had to choose when to expend the resource. The per encounter makes you not even have to choose to expend the resource, the only limit is the time it takes to cast which can be overcome when you get Alacrity at level 3. Perhaps the answer is to not have any per rest abilities or spells in the game. People will just rest abuse if needed so why even have the mechanic. Just tone spells down sufficiently on the assumption that the most powerful will be spammed, add in a cooldown timer on the more powerful abilities and there you go. Any limitation on resting is a tedious anti-fun measure, so how else do you apply any limits on use of really powerful per rest abilities and spells other than to remove them? At least in PoE Wizards aren't required to defeat other Wizards like in the IE games. I can just choose to not use them once their power curve goes quadratic. Translation : Nerf wizard plz QQ too OP Then you say you are anti-tedious and anti-fun yet you are bassically suggesting the murder of a class fun factor because its "OP", you dont even mention the other spell casters, everything you throw is against the wizard, you dont fool me dude, your feelings are still hurt by the cipher nerf, i didnt asked for it and probably you were like me back then, trying to prevent that to happen and since you couldnt do that then you have to get revenge on the class that is on top now, whisch supposedly is the Wizard. Not sure what you are going off on here. In other threads you complain about how the game sucks and you call people Fanboy as a childish insult but when the discussion is about your favorite class you get real defensive. I talk mainly about the Wizard because I use them more. I don't like buffing classes so I leave the Priest behind and like Aloth more than the Druid. They probably have broken abilities as well but I'd guess not as much as the Wizard does. I actually like the changes to Cipher, makes it more fun and unique than the other casters. My personal solution is probably just going to involve not using Wizards after a certain point. The Devs are not going to change anything so I will do whatever in order to keep my game fun and interesting for me. Oh!, you are following me now, good to know im too important for you to be noticing every little thing i say. Thing is you like any other person that wants to attack for the sake of attacking are taking all what i said out of context, let me quote myself from another thread: By your own reasoning per encounter spells could be removed, spells could all be changed to slow casting speed and their effects severely downgraded and that would be fine since you could just get a mod instead of whining about it. Thanks for showing me the light. I now see that the correct answer to everything is STFU, Learn to play NooB and get a mod if you don't like it. Edit - It chopped off part of your post, not sure why?

But even with auto attacks a Wizard is better off than anyone else. With three talents you get AoE, DR penetration, and +25% damage with a minor raw damage effect. No one else can add AoE to their attacks besides a Barbarian with Carnage. Everyone else who wants DR penetration has to take a -20% attack speed malus. No other talent adds +25% damage. Implements do the same base DPS as every other ranged weapon. You could make an effective implement using Wizard who would probably lead in damage done just with using your auto attack, let alone using the Blights which also benefit from all the same talents. Add in penetrating shot for more DR bypass, the cross class sneak attack which would be applied with the AoE, enchant a lash and add in the appropriate elemental damage booster. Sure it'd be boring, but it just goes to show what lengths the game goes to, in order to make Wizards fun and useful at lower levels. I hated Wizards in IE games before 5th or even 7th level unless they were Fighter/mages who could fight as well. I really like low level Wizards in PoE, they nailed the useful but fragile aspect. At higher levels Wizards can overcome any of their inherent weaknesses with spells which are limited by uses per rest. You had to choose when to expend the resource. The per encounter makes you not even have to choose to expend the resource, the only limit is the time it takes to cast which can be overcome when you get Alacrity at level 3. Perhaps the answer is to not have any per rest abilities or spells in the game. People will just rest abuse if needed so why even have the mechanic. Just tone spells down sufficiently on the assumption that the most powerful will be spammed, add in a cooldown timer on the more powerful abilities and there you go. Any limitation on resting is a tedious anti-fun measure, so how else do you apply any limits on use of really powerful per rest abilities and spells other than to remove them? At least in PoE Wizards aren't required to defeat other Wizards like in the IE games. I can just choose to not use them once their power curve goes quadratic. Translation : Nerf wizard plz QQ too OP Then you say you are anti-tedious and anti-fun yet you are bassically suggesting the murder of a class fun factor because its "OP", you dont even mention the other spell casters, everything you throw is against the wizard, you dont fool me dude, your feelings are still hurt by the cipher nerf, i didnt asked for it and probably you were like me back then, trying to prevent that to happen and since you couldnt do that then you have to get revenge on the class that is on top now, whisch supposedly is the Wizard. Not sure what you are going off on here. In other threads you complain about how the game sucks and you call people Fanboy as a childish insult but when the discussion is about your favorite class you get real defensive. I talk mainly about the Wizard because I use them more. I don't like buffing classes so I leave the Priest behind and like Aloth more than the Druid. They probably have broken abilities as well but I'd guess not as much as the Wizard does. I actually like the changes to Cipher, makes it more fun and unique than the other casters. My personal solution is probably just going to involve not using Wizards after a certain point. The Devs are not going to change anything so I will do whatever in order to keep my game fun and interesting for me.

But even with auto attacks a Wizard is better off than anyone else. With three talents you get AoE, DR penetration, and +25% damage with a minor raw damage effect. No one else can add AoE to their attacks besides a Barbarian with Carnage. Everyone else who wants DR penetration has to take a -20% attack speed malus. No other talent adds +25% damage. Implements do the same base DPS as every other ranged weapon. You could make an effective implement using Wizard who would probably lead in damage done just with using your auto attack, let alone using the Blights which also benefit from all the same talents. Add in penetrating shot for more DR bypass, the cross class sneak attack which would be applied with the AoE, enchant a lash and add in the appropriate elemental damage booster. Sure it'd be boring, but it just goes to show what lengths the game goes to, in order to make Wizards fun and useful at lower levels. I hated Wizards in IE games before 5th or even 7th level unless they were Fighter/mages who could fight as well. I really like low level Wizards in PoE, they nailed the useful but fragile aspect. At higher levels Wizards can overcome any of their inherent weaknesses with spells which are limited by uses per rest. You had to choose when to expend the resource. The per encounter makes you not even have to choose to expend the resource, the only limit is the time it takes to cast which can be overcome when you get Alacrity at level 3. Perhaps the answer is to not have any per rest abilities or spells in the game. People will just rest abuse if needed so why even have the mechanic. Just tone spells down sufficiently on the assumption that the most powerful will be spammed, add in a cooldown timer on the more powerful abilities and there you go. Any limitation on resting is a tedious anti-fun measure, so how else do you apply any limits on use of really powerful per rest abilities and spells other than to remove them? At least in PoE Wizards aren't required to defeat other Wizards like in the IE games. I can just choose to not use them once their power curve goes quadratic.

A single use of LoH will heal more and do it faster than Unbending. Plus you can use LoH twice per encounter. Add in Greater LoH and the comparison becomes laughable. The only real synergy with any of the classes and going below 50% endurance is the Barbarian, but he is not on the list.

The stats for the companions aren't min/maxed, there is no 3 con glass cannon but they all are more than usable on PotD. Take Eder, for a general purpose Fighter his stats are pretty close to what you'd pick if you could. You want a high might, high con, with the rest it doesn't matter as much. Even his higher than average intellect helps with all a Fighter's duration based abilities which now are more of the core of a Fighter. Aloth would have a higher Might score if you built him but what difference does it make? Maybe you could pick up 12% more damage but its not as if he is a gimp. In my groups he is at worst second in damage output, beaten by the PC if at all. Even Durance with his super Resolve score still does what a Priest is supposed to do which is cast buffs as well as the next Priest. Make use of his higher than normal deflection and put him on or near the front lines to cast his regenerating battle spells and he is perfect.

A damage Fighter will be a better single character but a damage Paladin will bring more to the team. Individually he'll do less damage but he will get all the usual Paladin goodies that are so great. Even better if you have another Paladin on board.

To make use of the racial ability you'll want to get your endurance below 50% yet still be alive. To me that lends itself to something with some higher base health like a melee type. To me that'd be a: 1.) Barbarian - at lower health you can get barbarian buffs as well as the racial for more angry when hurt Hulk action 2.) Monk - racial would be like a super wound buff 3.)Fighter - go for more damage less tanky so that you can activate the racial 4.) Paladin - Again go for more damage less tanky Not sure how it'd be for a Rogue since if everything goes right you never get hit and if you do start to get hit you're looking to escape not double down on the damage output. Use a dwarven body size and call him "Goat Boy The Angry One"

Hey is that true? Doubt it unless it was changed in a patch at some point. As an aside for anyone curious about it, if you want to spot every trap/secret thing in the main game you will ultimately need a mechanics of 14 or better. Might be higher for some content in white march haven't played it yet since waiting for 2.02 patch. I think having eleven and using three lockpicks is enough o open the hardest chest I found at Concelhats tower. My guy with ten mechanics could not open them. Also a few trapped containers I could not even tell that they were trapped with a ten mechanics skill while in scout mode. Ten mechanics can be achieved with any starting class, by level 14 my Fighter could have gotten to level eleven but past that would probably not be viable due to the ever increasing skill cost. To get 14 mechanics you're going to want a rogue with a mechanic boosting culture for the free level 3 at start. That and/or getting those mechanic gloves.

Maybe I am attributing the underlying issues that you list here as being caused by the per encounter mechanic when it is a few specific spells than need to be adjusted. Or not.

Well, then do whatever you want im gonna still use per encounter spells even if i have to use a mod to achieve it, and since i doubt this will be implemented anytime soon i will finish my game with my "OP" wizard per encounter spells so i hope that at least gives TC diarrhea and everyone else that is QQing for nerfs in sp games and i doubt i will finish the game a second time, who knows, i dont think so since even with the AI and some improvements the combat still feels like a mess and cheesy, but thats another topic, thing is the only enjoyable thing for me is to use my Wizard and knowing im gonna get per encounter spells soon, the reward after having to rest every single time i ran out of spells. Eliminating this reward from the players that choose spellcasters is just gonna make the game more tedious than already is, which is not good for the game BUT whatver, shoot yourselves in the foot if you want and like i said, if this becomes a "talent" then people will cry about that talent being too powerful... You already have a choice, you dont need the devs to do what you can already achieve, you dont want per encounter spells, mod the game, thats it, there is no need to impose your BS on everybody else and make the devs to waste resources and time on something that is nothing more than a tantrum, thats what mods are for, to tweak the game as you personaly feel it would be better for your experience, but when you are crying and trying to make this changes to everyone else then it becomes a problem and you bet your ass im gonna stand against it. I am sorry that asking a question is offensive to all of you. STFU and learn to play NooB should be used more often on the forum, cut down on all that offensive discussion. If discussing the topic makes you all mad just don't participate. This isn't a college campus where different thoughts need to be shouted down. Other than my original playthrough on hard I have switched to PotD. Not that that would matter. Having a permanent +50% action speed, +25 deflection, +20 reflex and a 50% graze to hit for deflection and reflex plus a free +50 endurance every battle would still be the move of choice. What spells would you rather the devs address? My thought is that instead of rebalancing the spells you could delay or stop access to the level three and soon to be level four which is where the game breaking potential starts to take hold. I'd be interested to see what specific spells and abilities you'd rather have changed.

I'm not singling out Wizards here, its just that I have a lot more experience with them. I'd assume that Druids and Priests have an equal opportunity to use per encounter spells to their benefit, perhaps excessively well In Baldur's Gate Wizards start really bad. Really low hit points, can't hit anything, can't wear armor, can only use crappy slings and get like one spell. It takes several levels of baby sitting a wizard to get to a level that it feels powerful. By the middle of the game in BG2 you are really powerful, at the end you are supreme. People fear high level mages for a reason. In PoE Wizards don't start off as worthless. The twice per encounter Arcane Assault is a great spell, implements do damage per second as good as bows or firearms which gets even better with a few talents adding DR bypass and AoE. This is like carnage but with the equivalent of DR bypassing bows. Wizards are still less sturdy than other classes and but do fine. Nothing to change here yet. Even getting the level one and two spells per encounter did not really change the power curve that much. You could grab the +50 endurance buff with your first action, maybe grab an Eldritch Aim or Wizard Double for defense. All of which takes time away from casting the big spells. I'd make time for the endurance buff, but that is just what I'd do YMMV. No complaints as far as I remember on the forum. Level one and two had some utility type spells, single target CC, minor damage, all useful but nothing game changing here. Now with the expanded levels you get level 3 per encounter, and with a ring you'll have six. Level 3 has some really useful buff spells like the +50% action rate Alacrity and the Displaced Image that gets a big deflection, reflex and 50% hit>graze, the ever useful blights and the standard fireball/noxious burst. With Alacrity available every battle using it is pretty much a no brainer. At the start you go Alacrity, then the displaced image then the +50 endurance. Prior to this level setting up this layered defense would have used two of your possible six casts per rest and effectively limited you to three battles or you'd hold back in reserve for the tougher fights. Now there is no reason to hold back. For a normal encounter you can then throw out three fireballs or noxious bursts with your Alacrity enhanced casting speed and still have one cast left to get you around a minutes worth of blights that are enhanced with your implement talents. You can do this every battle. For the hard encounters you still have all the rest of your level four, five six and seven spells., all of which will also benefit from your +50% alacrity speed buff. Assuming that you get level four spells per encounter in the next expansion, you can start with a barrage of at least four Confusions which would devastate the enemies. Or better yet the new improved freezing fireball spell. And you'll be able to do this every encounter. What will be a limiter to the above tactic? To kill the party in the first five seconds of every encounter? Have every enemy use Dragon Leap and go after the Wizard? I don't see how you can balance with level three as per encounter. Level three spells needs to be as useful as they are now for all the levels before you get to 13th as they are limited by the per rest mechanic. People have always had the option to use as many spells as they wanted and just rest more. What could be done: 1.) Nothing. At the next expansion you get level four per encounter at level 15. - Easiest solution, takes no effort from the Devs and judging by many of the comments in the thread, it'd be the most welcome. Like limiting your rest you could self regulate to maintain your own level of balance/cheese tolerance. 2.) Reduce the power of spells so that having them per encounter is not game breaking. - Terrible Idea in my opinion. 3.) Eliminate per encounter spells - Not a good idea after having them be available already. Back in the Beta this might have been the better design choice but that horse has already left the barn. 4.) Change the rate at which per encounter spells are gained - Maybe have them start at an earlier level but not be all of your available casts. At level seven you get one first level spell per encounter, at level nine you get a second, at level eleven you get a third first level and one second level, at level thirteen you get your fourth first level and your second second level spell, at level fifteen you get your third second level and your first third level.

Regardless of class, if you are going to engage in melee you want to be wearing as much armor as you can. You can try and use him like a rogue, lighter armor and engage on the flank but the enemy will turn and hit you. Granted you will have a lot more hit points than a rogue and should have more deflection as well, but it will still hurt more than if you had heavier armor. For me I'd give him plate and a fist & shield in one slot, double fist in the other. Try him with lighter or no armor and see how he does with your team and your style.

I finally got White March downloaded and continued my highest characters game. He had previously won the game but I went back to a much earlier save where he was still max level. I had skipped a lot of content at the end. This is only on Hard, party is main Estoc Fighter, Eder Sabre & shield, Sagani war bow, Kana hammer & shield, Grieving Mother hunting bow/quarterstaff and Aloth. Only Aloth gets the per encounter spells. Once I hit level 13 Aloth would start every fight with Alacrity for +50% speed, Displaced image for +25 deflection, +20 reflex and 50% hit to graze for both, and the +50 endurance buff. This only takes a few seconds. Then I blast out a few Noxious Bursts and if there is anything still standing throw on a minor blights with all the trimmings and lay waste to everything. On the tougher bounties and Sky Dragon I had to use spells beyond level 3. Level seven spells are sweet, that orb is a great fire and forget and the phantom spell gets some useful spells as well. I understand its fun and that people could just rest anyway, but it trivializes most encounters and makes every non caster look like a chump for not being a caster. The cipher gets one shot, actually she has to attack first to get enough focus for the time parasite (which is pretty cool) and then has to attack enough times to get focus back. Still powerful but feels balanced.

If you are just going to shoot one time at the start of combat for the free sneak attack and then swap to melee you can skip Gunner as you won't be reloading.

If you dump intellect its nice to add the same number into your resolve just to keep the will save neutral. Dialogue, deflection and concentration aren't bad either. That still leaves you with 10s in the other four stats with 18 points to spread. I totally agree with the importance of dex and perception. 10 Might, 10 con, 19 dex, 18 per, 3 int and 18 resolve works well. Less damage at the start but once you start stacking the damage modifiers you won't notice the Might.