KDubya

Need some more information before anyone can give useful advice. Who is in your party? What level are they? What talents and abilities do they have? What difficulty level are you using?

You said that these are barbarians, don't they have an ability to ignore disengagement attacks and run very fast? Maybe these particular enemies are just using their innate abilities? Maybe other, non-barbarian enemies will behave differently? I am downloading the patch, only 12 hours to go Not sure how long it will take to get the expansion.

Just get the IE mod and you can change whatever you want, even their classes. Make Durance a monk or a paladin. Will have to wait a week or two for IE mod to get updated to 2.0 though.

Can't you just console command your character up to what ever level you want at the start of the game? Should be able to add equipment the same way or at least add massive gold to allow buying whatever you want.

I value resolve more than intellect on a melee rogue, helps with dialogue as well.

I've never read anything good about riposte. It looks like your deflection will be quite poor with reckless assault and a 3 resolve, meaning you'll get hit quite often. Only misses can activate riposte and only 20% of the time. Also with a 3 resolve your concentration will be quite low and you'll get interrupted frequently. But this might not matter if the enemy is busy with someone else when your rogue bushwacks him with a vicious two handed estoc. Another problem might be a really low will save from a dumped intellect and a dumped resolve. Instead of plate might be better to go with leather or something lighter since you won't want to be in a slugfest, so quicker actions will help you kill faster. But that would be going against your whole concept. If you want to run with the concept of plate + retaliation + high con it'd probably work fine. I'd seriously consider dropping the riposte unless it has some sort of redesign in 2.0.

People will just take cautious attack and hold the line and suffer no real penalty. +10 deflection plus engagement. Plus you'll save yourself a free ability slot. I don't think that the choice here is unbalanced in favor of skipping Defender as you are suggesting. Defender and wary defender cost a fighter ability and a talent getting you +2 engagement, bonuses to your will, fortitude and reflex and whatever the penalty is, currently a deflection malus. Cautious attack and hold the line cost you two talents getting you +2 engagement, bonus to your deflection and a -20% attack speed malus. For a meat sack fighter taking cautious attack would mean you miss out on the other defensive buffs in order to get more deflection. Would you rather have more deflection or more reflex, fortitude and will? Sounds like a choice that could go either way, no clear winner. For a durable fighter build going the defender route with fortitude, reflex,and will bonuses with a deflection penalty or an attack speed penalty and better deflection again would result in a meaningful build choice. Or you could skip both and take Confident Aim and Savage Attack for roughly a 33.5% damage increase and have no additional engagements or any defensive buffs. A lot will depend upon how useful engagements are and how bad not having enough will be.

Currently enemies tend to bunch up on the frontline melee, who are the first thing they see. The ranged enemies tend to shoot at the first thing they see which is also the melee guys in front. The number of engagements don't really matter as no one is running past the rugby scrum, everyone just stay in a big ball. Meanwhile your casters in dresses can rain down AoE death safely from the back. Tank and spank, rinse and repeat. The only dangerous enemies are the ones like shades who teleport past the rugby scrum and directly attack your soft targets. This is because all your offense comes from the glass cannons in the back while normally only your non-damaging meat sack tank is ever under attack. When your glass cannons get attacked they can be dropped quickly because they have no defense and dumped con to a 3 for more attack power. If the new AI now attacks the front melee guys until their engagement slots are filled and then continue past to engage your back line casters that sounds like a good improvement. If ranged enemies choose to attack the lowest DR targets that would be even better. This would reward having more melee in order to establish a larger front, perhaps even require backline casters to care more about defenses such as constitution and DR from armor. This would put the glass back into the glass cannon. I usually try and follow the rule of "Shoot the guy in a dress first", the enemy should do the same.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) - A deflection penalty is better as it will have an effect on both meatsack punching bag fighters as well as on offensive fighter designed to tank good enough for long enough. The thing is if you build your fighter to be a meatsack punching bag, you know the type favored by the five casters and a masochist type party, having a penalty to accuracy for a fighter with 3 might (damage penalty), a large shield (accuracy penalty), wielding a hatchet (low damage and a deflection buff) is really no penalty at all. This fighter was never intended to do any damage in the first place so missing more often is a non issue. This fighter's job is to stand in front and take a beating. A penalty to deflection would be a real penalty for this type of fighter. The old penalty to attack speed was also a non penalty to a fighter who was not meant to inflict any damage in the first place. If you build your fighter to be a durable melee combatant then having a malus to accuracy is a real penalty as missing is bad for damage generation. For this fighter anyone disengaging from you will take massive damage so having a large number of engagements is a main part of the build. This fighters purpose is to tank good enough for long enough. Two handed or dual wielders would suffer from the accuracy loss but shield users already have an accuracy malus and an additional penalty would just make the use of a shield not viable for anyone wanting to have a decent damage output. Having a penalty to deflection is also bad as it would either inflict more damage on you or push you to use a shield to offset the penalty but at the cost of damage output. The current penalty to attack rate was a real penalty to this type of fighter. There are two type of fighters that would take Defender, those that were designed to take a beating with no offensive output, and those designed to have a good offensive output while still having enough defensive abilities to survive in melee. An accuracy penalty only affects the offensive fighter, an attack speed penalty also only affects the offensive fighter. Only the deflection penalty affects both types of fighters.

This seems overly complicated and generally unfeasible with the current game mechanics, not to mention not needed. With your system you'd just spam your most powerful spell every fight, every time. Who cares if the monsters get angry if they are all dead? At least now you need to make some choices as to what spells to carry in your book, perhaps even use scouting to see what lies ahead and adjust which grimoire you use. If you self regulate and limit your rests it adds a strategic component to spell use. If you want to cast spells all the time get a cipher.

It looks OK. If it was me I'd drop some intellect and add it to resolve for the better dialogue, concentration and deflection, but it won't make that big of a difference. Soldier is a fine choice with pikes, greatswords, and the two biggest hitting range weapons for the alpha strike. Adventurer gets you the super effective Estoc but the Warbow, while great for sustained ranged combat, is not the best for a one shot alpha before swapping to melee. Since none of your stats are maxed out any of the races will work for the stat spread you have listed. I personally dislike the godlike race, especially the moon godlike with its OP AoE heal three times per encounter but that is up to you. If you are not planning on standing at the front taking hits, assuming this based on the medium armor, then the coastal Amaumau ability might not get as much use. The free weapon slot from Island Amaumau can be useful in giving you additional flexibility in your weapon load outs - have a two hander, shield and a ranged, or have two big hitting ranged weapons for two alpha strikes.

Does anyone know if second chance is per encounter or per rest?

BG2 was a complete powertrip fantasty popamole... from an AD&D perspective. Holy Avenger in a game? With Staff of the Magi?? These were iconic weapons from the sourcebooks, completely overpowered yes and completely disruptive as any DM would quickly find out if he gave his players one. BG2 and the silly ToB were just about breaking the game and throwing in EPIC LOOT. A lot of people seem to love that (according to internets) but I certainly don't. Baldur's Gate ended at the conclusion of BG1 for me. You guys need to re-do BG1 and BG2 with some mods like BG Tutu, SCS I and II, and a few others. They allow you to choose how to rebalance various overpowered items and abilities to tone down your own power while making the enemy competent and a challenge. You will find a new definition for annoyed and humiliated if you set it for full pre-buffing, TOB abilities for enemies and go into the planar sphere to face Tolgerius (sp?) the Cowled Wizard. You will learn to fear high level mages and liches. Unlike in the vanilla game you'll need a lot more than a few breach spells to get through the multi-layered defenses of a mage.

I just tested with a second chance ring and unbroken in 1.06, or whatever the current version is. When I get knocked the first time the combat log says 'unbroken activated' and I get back up. The log then listed an attack by a shade and then listed 'second chance activated' . I then got knocked out again after some more hits. Prior to the experiment I had been knocked out 15 times. Afterwards I had 17 knockouts. Based on this I'd say that the two effects do not stack, as in you can't get back up twice in the same fight. If you have unbroken then a second chance item does nothing for you. I got knocked out twice, first time got back up and then second time did not. If they both work I'd have gotten up again and then been knocked out a total of 18 times. I am not sure if unbroken gets you a better revival than second chance does, as in do you get back up with better endurance and buffs, I think you do based on the perk description for unbroken but the description of second chance is vague.

Here is an offensive themed fighter, similar to what I used prior to 2.0 but should do well with the downgrading of defender and the addition of accuracy from perception. Fighters have the highest base accuracy which is further augmented by weapon enchantments, weapon focus and now by perception as well. he also can take a graze > hit talent, Confident Aim, which will further help his damage output in the toughest fights. Barbarians will do better against groups of weaker enemies, a rogue will do higher single target damage but requires status effects to be applied by others as well as being rather squishy. The fighter is tough enough to stand toe to toe with dangerous foes due to high natural deflection, heavy armor that is further improved with armored grace and naturally high endurance and health that also has a passive regen. Personally, I try not to ever get my main character knocked out and a fighter helps me achieve that goal. The easy fights take longer than if he was a barbarian but against the really tough foes a fighter shines, he is usually the last one standing ..... and then stands up again with a self rez to continue the fight. The Nutcracker Boreal Dwarf Fighter White that Wends (+1 Per) - Any race will work well, I just like Dwarves Might - 20 - more damage and more passive regen Dex - 10 - higher would be nice but run out of points Con - 10 - new malus makes dumping more painful Per - 18 - more accuracy, good interrupts as well Int - 3 - no duration based abilities and something has to be dumped Res - 17 - offsets the will save malus of dumping intellect plus gets you deflection, concentration and dialogue 1 Knockdown - twice per encounter for 3.3 sec due to low intellect, or go with disciplined barrage for +10 accuracy for 9.8 seconds 2 Weapon Focus - +6 accuracy with weapon group of choice 3 Confident Aim - equivalent to +13.5% damage boost 4 Vulnerable Attack - +5 DR penetration modal for tough foes 5 Weapon Spec - +15% damage for weapon group of choice 6 Savage Attack - +20% melee damage modal 7 Armored Grace - +16% action speed due to reduced armor penalty 8 Weapon mastery - +10% damage with weapon group of choice 9 Critical Defense - converts some crits to hits and some hits to graze, you will get hit so this will make it hurt less, helps with spell effects as well 10 Two handed weapon style - +15% damage with two handed weapons Can swap with sword and shield style for a more defensive focus while still keeping high damage. 11 Unbroken - per encounter self rez 12 Whatever - interrupting blow to maximize interrupts, envenomed strike to make use of the high might and accuracy, passive deflection boost, another weapon slot. All together you get +30% might, +15 spec, +20 savage, +10 mastery, an equivalent +10% from the +20% minimum damage from Confident Aim, +15 two handed for +100% damage boost for two handed weapons, +65% for ranged weapons in your weapon group and +85% damage when going with weapon and shield for increased deflection. Plus you have a 20% graze to hit which will increase in damage the tougher the enemy You'll have very high accuracy and do single target damage better than anyone except for a rogue with status effects combined with heavy armor that affects you 16% less than anyone else, a crit>hit and hit >crit passive defense and a per encounter self rez if all else fails. You are a nutcracker, a heavily armored golem of death If you want more tankiness you can swap two handed style for sword and shield style. You lose out on the +15% damage boost from two handed style but gain the +6 deflection plus the shield which also adds to your reflex. You could further the tough enemy approach by adding single weapon style on top of the weapon and shield to get another +30% graze to hit for 50% total.

I am not sure I buy this logic at all. I am doing my current play through with a paladin MT and I am having tons of trouble with monsters leaking past the tank due to lack of engagements, and they almost always chew on the guy in robes first. The pali is seriously hampered by lack of engagements and lack of knock down. I really hope that if the fighter nerf stays, that pali get buffed with extra engagement and a bash stun or knock down. For now I am just using Eder as an OT to catch and trip the leakers because I find fighting in doorways boring. If the reason for changing Defender is because it was so good that every type of fighter took it, why would they then go and add extra powers to Paladins, who got many buffs in the last patch? Are you having your Paladin and Eder stand in front while four ranged guys in robes nuke the monsters? And this is causing the monsters to slide past your two melee guys and engage the guys in robes? If so that sounds like a great thing. Are monsters set to not eat a disengagement attack and thus stick with their melee engager? Does having three engagements mean that three monsters are effectively stuck?

Taking two different weapon groups is never a good idea. If you want your +6 Accuracy from weapon focus to apply to guns go with soldier for arquebus and pike/greatsword or ruffian for pistol/blunderbuss and various one handed weapons. If you want to use pole axes take Adventurer, as you will spend more time in melee than in ranged combat, and just use whatever firearm you want but without the bonus to accuracy. If you are going with a fighter there is no reason to not take weapon focus, spec and mastery in a single weapon group. This focusing on one group of weapons gives you flexibility inside that group. You get the +6 Accuracy and +25% damage boost to all the weapons which usually includes one handed fast, one handed average speed, ranged and a two hander. Being able to switch between these various weapons and still retain your bonuses is what sets fighters apart from the rest. Better as a fighter to take two weapon styles like sword and shield and two handed or dual wield to further enhance the flexibility aspect. You still will have a "wasted" talent as you can't use them at the same time but you'd be very durable with a sword and shield swap and then hard hitting with a two hander for high DT foes or maximum damage with dual wielding for foes with low DT. If you want someone to just stand in front and be a meat sack better to use a Paladin and get an aura or a Chanter and get some summons or song buffs.

Confident Aim is better than you think it is. If accuracy = deflection then you will get 35% graze. Confident Aim changes 20% of those grazes to hits. This is 0.2 x 0.35 = .07 or 7%. A hit does full damage while a graze does 50% so 7% more hits = +3.5% damage. 20% increased minimum damage gets you +10% average damage Together the two effects get you +13.5% damage which is not a bad ability and it works with any type of weapon. Not sure if it works with scrolls via lore, if so the graze to hit would benefit CC type effects like paralyze. Currently the problem with Confident Aim is that it is available at level 3 when Defender is also available. Defender + Wary Defender is a very nice defensive boost that is really good even for a fighter set up to do damage. If Defender is changed in 2.0 such that it is no longer an auto pick, then Confident Aim will see a lot more utility. If you go with something like this: The Nutcracker Boreal Dwarf Fighter White that Wends (+1 Per) Might - 20 - more damage and more passive regen Dex - 10 - higher would be nice but run out of points Con - 10 - new malus makes dumping more painful Per - 18 - more accuracy, good interrupts as well Int - 3 - no duration based abilities and something has to be dumped Res - 17 - offsets the will save malus of dumping intellect plus gets you deflection, concentration and dialogue 1 Knockdown - twice per encounter for 3.3 sec due to low intellect, or go with disciplined barrage for +10 accuracy for 9.8 seconds 2 Weapon Focus - +6 accuracy with weapon group of choice 3 Confident Aim - equivalent to +13.5% damage boost 4 Vulnerable Attack - +5 DR penetration modal for tough foes 5 Weapon Spec - +15% damage for weapon group of choice 6 Savage Attack - +20% melee damage modal 7 Armored Grace - +16% action speed due to reduced armor penalty 8 Weapon mastery - +10% damage with weapon group of choice 9 Critical Defense - converts some crits to hits and some hits to graze, you will get hit so this will make it hurt less, helps with spell effects as well 10 Two handed weapon style - +15% damage with two handed weapons Can swap with sword and shield style for a more defensive focus while still keeping high damage. 11 Unbroken - per encounter self rez 12 Whatever - interrupting blow to maximize interrupts, envenomed strike to make use of the high might and accuracy, passive deflection boost, another weapon slot. All together you get +30% might, +15 spec, +20 savage, +10 mastery, +15 two handed for +90% damage boost for two handed weapons, +55% for ranged weapons in your weapon group and +75% damage when going with weapon and shield for increased deflection. You'll have very high accuracy and do single target damage better than anyone except for a rogue with status effects combined with heavy armor that affects you 16% less than anyone else, a crit>hit and hit >crit passive defense and a per encounter self rez if all else fails. You are a nutcracker, a heavily armored golem of death

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67761-dps-vs-accuracy-deflection-heres-the-maths-enjoy/ This was from back in the beta when Might was 2% damage per point and Dex was +1 accuracy per point. As you can see, esp. now at 3% damage per point of Might, Might will always win big (like at least twice as efficient) over Perception for damage abilities unless you are getting massive damage bonuses from non-might sources. Perception should only be prioritised over might if you want the interrupts or if you're focusing on CC. In that post they do not account for non-might sources of damage. Factoring them in accuracy becomes better as the foe gets tougher and your damage adds increase. BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) - At accuracy = deflection five points of might is equivalent to five points of accuracy when you get to +120% damage from non might sources.. At accuracy 50 points lower than deflection five points of might are equivalent to five points of accuracy when you get to +37.5% damage from non might sources. The tougher the foe the more important accuracy becomes. example - fighter with +45% weapon, +25% weapon mastery, +15% two handed style, and +20% savage attack has +105% w/o might 0-15 miss damage is 0 16-50 graze damage is .35x.5 = .175 51-100 hit damage is .5 x1 = .5 Total is .675 unit damage With a 20 might you get +30%, add in the +105% and you get +135% 1.35x.675 = 0.91125 Now with +5 accuracy 0-10 miss damage is 0 11-45 graze damage is .35x.5= .175 46-95 hit damage is .5x1 = .5 96-100 crit damage is .05x1.5 = .075 Total is .75 damage With a 15 might you get +15%, add in the +105% for +120% 1.2*.75 = 0.9 If enemy is 50 pts higher 0-65 miss damage is 0 66-100 graze damage is .35*.5= 0.175 1.35x.175 = 0.23625 0-60 miss damage is 0 61-95 graze damage is .35*.5 = 0.175 95-100 hit damage is .05x1 = 0.05 1.2x0.225 = 0.27 Without the extra damage source you get: .3*.675 = 0.2025 .15*.75 = 0.1125 .3*.175 = 0.0525 .15*.225 = 0.03375 Solving for X (0.3+X)*0.675 = (0.15+X)*0.75 .2025+.675X = 0.1125+.75X 0.075X = 0.09 X = 1.2 When you get to +120% damage from non-might sources your five points of might are equal to 5 points of accuracy when accuracy = deflection (0.3+X)*0.175 = (0.15+X)*0.225 0.0525 + 0.175X = 0.03375 + 0.225X 0.05X = 0.01875 X = 0.375 When you get to +37.5% damage from non might sources your five points of might are equal to five points of accuracy when accuracy is 50 points lower than deflection

This and the constitution change together might make build choices tougher by making there be more wants than there are available points. Currently a caster is going to max might, intellect, dexterity, dump con and leave res and per wherever. In 2.0 you'd want to max per, might, intellect and dexterity but for that you'd have to dump both con and resolve. At -5% per con point a 3 con will have much lower hit points than the current -3% per con. Couple this with higher accuracy for everyone and lower deflection for you and combat will be riskier due to being more glass-like. Max perception will be the norm, hitting or missing is more important than anything else. At the early part of the game having +8 accuracy is like being three or four levels higher. It will be interesting to see how things are balanced around this. If it is balanced for 0 additional accuracy then having +8 will tear things up while if it assumes that you will have more accuracy, having base or even less will make it a whiff fest. A two hander fighter can still max might, per and resolve while dumping int but won't dump con into dex anymore or at least not as much. The defender nerf might make it a poor choice for anyone but a punching bag so you'd replace with confident aim for more damage and savage attack for even more. Barbarians will have it rough as they will want might, dex, int, per and res while not losing too much con. They will not have near enough points. Last year I went to Gunsite for a week for pistols and they asked the simple question of "How fast do you need to miss in order to win a gunfight?" Accuracy is king

Nice guide with really good formatting and presentation. Now a few questions/comments. 1.) Why go with a 10 intellect? With a 3 you'd have 7 more points to put somewhere, perception could be good for more interrupt currently or more accuracy after 2.0, more resolve would be good to reduce being interrupted or even more con to give you more hit points as you plan on getting hit anyway. knockdown goes from 5 seconds to 3.5 seconds which is long enough compared to the benefits of 7 more stat points. Is it for the duration of the shod in faith boots? 2.) The return on another +1 might is less than what +1 dex would get you. 37 might and 22 dex does less dps than 36 might and 23 dex, especially if you have the +25% from mastery and the +20% from savage attack. Going with the Dread Archipeligo for the dex boost might be better. 3.) Boreal dwarf would be a comparable substitute. The might would be the same, dex can still be a 17, 18 with Dread Archipeligo, and the +15 accuracy to two of the more common enemy types is a noticeable buff when it is in play. You'd lose out on a second arquebus shot unless you added in the perk that gets you another weapon slot that I can't think of the name. Plus you'd be a dwarf which is infinitely better than any other race.

I don't see how you figure that dual stilettos are the de facto best way to use carnage. Carnage itself has a radius centered around the target based on your intellect and the damage is a percentage of your weapon's base damage. So a bigger hitting weapon will cause a more damaging carnage. Carnage damage is affected by enemy DT so you need bigger hits to get through or else you are stuck at the 20% bleed through amount. A two handed reach weapon, the pike or the quarterstaff allow you to safely engage from behind a strong defensive frontline. This would give the highest survivability for the barbarian plus give the largest base damage to be applied as carnage. A non reach two hander does not have any advantage beyond different enchantments or the estoc with its DT bypass. Dual wielding would give you more carnage attacks but at a reduced amount. If enemy DT is an issue more, weaker attacks are not usually the solution. If enemy DT is minimal then going fast dual wielding would be the best. I would think that going with soldier weapon focus would let you go two hand reach with pikes or dual wield war hammers for more carnage attacks plus ranged arquebus/arbalist, or peasant weapon focus for two hand reach quarterstaff and dual wield spears which also have +5 accuracy. If I was going for ruffian weapon focus for stillettos I'd rather use the sabre for the increased damage. It all looks to be pretty well balanced, better to just role play and pick what fits your character concept.

There is no way for the developers to stop you from abusing per rest abilities by resting after every fight, just like there is no way other than Trial of Iron to stop save scumming. Just because the game lets you does not mean that you should. Every game ends up with a broken economy, PoE is not any different. They do go ahead and just give you a limitless stash as playing inventory management was a pain in the old IE games. Just think of it as a team of mules that carry your stuff. Set it to limit access to only in camp or towns and it works fine. You need to exercise self restraint.

Unarmed (monk fists) are affected by two weapon style so you get the increased attack speed, very useful. A game bug lets you wield a weapon in your left hand and get to add in your fist damage when you do a torments reach. It gets the +12 accuracy from holding one weapon. You can't single wield a fist but you can use a shield. Maybe with a fist and a shield you could take single weapon style and reap the small benefits but I've not tried that. Penetrating isn't required with a 9DT bypass weapon, guessing some sort of firearm?, but will do more damage per second against higher DT enemies. With a bow you'd get penetrating shot and just leave it on all the time. With a firearm you'd only want it against the higher DT enemies. If you have nothing else to take it isn't a waste.

Even without taking wounds monks can dish out some good single target damage. Fists are as fast as daggers but hit as hard as swords. If your frontline monk is not receiving any wounds it means that you are winning the fight If you take wounds it means that you can now win the fight faster with torment spam.