Vorad

But it's more fun to kill him

The blights of druid are summoned randomly since you can't pick which one to use I don't think it can be nerfed. Regarding solo class, full defensive build moon goodlike paladin with sacred immolation(max might + flame talent) can be quite fun to play.

After playing it two times in potd one max lvl 14 scaled up and once at level 6 (unscaled) I would strongly advise people to play it at lvl 6. Even if you scale up later on if party is max lvl the fights won't be fair for the ai simply because your endgame party/gear/abilities can overpower them minions easily even if scaled up the fights are trivial by then and easily won. WM at level 6-7 and Siege at lvl 10-11 would be ideal.

Yes my bad I don't know what I was thinking "iron" wheel haha hilarious I just noticed. Yes I was referring to Turning wheel I don't know whether it's working as intended or buged though. It's not just lightning strikes overriding chanter's lash when it comes to bash but also Turning wheel not triggering with bash if chanter's lash is on and only triggering when lightning strikes is on but overriding the chater's lash and I haven't tried with lash weapon on top of that. This is a bit off topic but since I happen to notice it durring the playtest I thought it's best to mention it nonetheless. On the shield itself it's an interesting functionality but I am also not sure if it would profit from two weapon fighting in order to increase the frequency of bash procs. However watching as the build doesn't really profit from aoe it seems perhaps this shield can be utilized with a light armored rogue for some extra bursty single target damage mixed with single target interrupts. I was thinking of a rogue build armed with We Toki + Badgradrs, stun on crit with extra damage + crush damage missile + interrupt... perhaps someone else can think of a more creative approach I hope.

Nice catch! I didn't have much time to playtest but I tried it on both monk and barbarian and I wasn't really impressed with the outcome. Perhaps with a rogue there might be some chance to make it viable. PS: With the monk is semi-decent since torments reach can actually proc the bash and IF it crits then you proc the Veil, I opted for pale elf max Dex but perhaps it might better with orlan and on top of that priest buff. In the end however I can see that perhaps rogue might profit most from this build due to his hit to crit abilities etc. On a sidenote: Bash + Shattered Veil: If both lightning strikes(shock) and iron turning wheel(fire) are up then they seem to replace the fire lash effect from the chanter. If no lightning strikes is active then the chanter's fire lash ticks as usual. Lightning strikes + Iron turning wheel + chanter lash: they all stack for your main weapon attack. (They don't stack with bash though not sure if it's a bug)

Someone being able to carry 1)Spear + shield, 2)Sword + dagger/stiletto, 3)Warbow, 4)Pike all these in one character and swap them on the go, sounds reasonable... no really... PS: Sadly it's still possible with aumaua racial + talent even though one wouldn't be able to move let alone fight in that kind of gear, but then again it's just fantasy so why the hell not there are dragons out there after all.

If you cc them with cipher and priest they both have aoe cc they won't be able to swarm you especially with 3 melee in the front just when you position your melee make sure you spread them out a little bit so that there are tiny gaps between them. That way you cover more ground while still bodyblocking your enemy.

Yes the problem with suppress affliction is you have to cast it on party members after the affliction has been applied. In comparison to defense vs X which can be used beforehand proactively. The only solution I can see to this problem if you don't have the necessary defense vs treachery in this case is to use the Goldpact's upgraded Liberating exhortation as a cheaper single target version of the priest equivalent aoe. Also the minor arcane reflection on wizards works well... other than that chanter's aoe will/fort aura + scroll of defense + circle of protection(as soon as combat starts before the spell lands if your casters got high dex you manage to buff before the enemy lands his dominate/charm/anything). You can start the combat with a paladin in the front since he's naturally more resistant due to faith and conviction etc.

Regarding the main topic, when it comes to the atmosphere of the game itself, as soon as you reach the first habitable place(after facing a murderous raid and a soul-storm of sorts where you are the lone survivor) you face a special tree with special fruits hanging from it, the entire atmosphere is bleak and dark and it serves a purpose. It informs the player on what kind of crap-hole he has set foot on. A place where children are born soulless. I don't know about you guys but I don't really think that we should ask for more cheerful and happy circus in such kind of place. Then when you reach Defiance Bay there are some glimpses of hope, apart from the neo-dozzens attacking refugees and any other person they consider degenerate, you also have people actually participating in theaters out in the street, acting for purely entertainment purpose(that comes with a catch but...), you get to meet some kids who are still whole that aspire to be knights one day(that is something at least... kids do still dream in this part of the world), people still do have the appetite for some fun and pleasurable moments take a look at the "Salty Mast"... etc etc. Generally speaking I believe the place is as it should be it's not supposed to be a kindergarten. It's a place ravaged by death, disease, soulless children, mixed with tribal rivalry between the civilized and the tribesmen, surrounded by greedy neighboring nations/countries... to be honest I was expecting the backgrounds/graphics to be even more bleak and dark in some places. But then again aesthetics are purely subjective. Overall in comparison to the quality of background/graphics atmosphere I think it's unfair to devalue PoE they have offered a high quality and polished product(BG was more buggy when it released oh and still is by the way unless you install mods who were created by the fans). Technology has advanced so much now of course and back then they didn't have unity so perhaps comparing PoE to BG it's unfair. In comparison to the stuff being published nowadays and passed on the market as "rpg" I think PoE deserves more praise and support especially since they are trying to revive a genre many of us were longing for... for quite some time now. Oh by the way when it comes to paying attention to detail and the graphics, in the beginning I liked to zoom out as much as possible for better tactical management but lately I find myself zooming in at least half way so I can see even the tiny details. Theoretically you don't have to. It depends purely on the role you are impersonating whether you want to help them or not after all this is an rpg. Also if you choose to save them it can be because of two reasons either for some kind of material profit or simply because you are "honest" and "benevolent" and the game reflects this. If you actually do help them you do gain major friendly points with the faction they represent and then you become for example Champion of Defiance Bay it's far from being a statue but still. As for the good and evil in game and the parallelization of these "ideas" in our modern world there have been hundreds of wise men through the centuries since early antiquity up to modern times trying to define what is what. There is also something else beyond good and evil known as hypocrisy. Both good and bad people are subject to hypocrisy for different reasons. The art of the society pretending everything is cool and we are all cheerful and happy... lets not start pointing fingers now. PS: It's indeed too serious, especially since last time they made an attempt to a joke they got cyber-bullied so hard... but the lovely community didn't support them so much in that aspect back then.

Yes that's exactly the reason why the talent is barely worth taking it will tick out of every single target within the aoe of the Blights so actually blast will tick multiple times within the same aoe area. It's good for cleaning trash minions but when the big DR kicks in then it becomes obsolete and only useful for aoe interrupt but as I said earlier you can keep this combo up for the entire duration of the fight so you don't have to waste many spells(unless you don't mind resting after every 2-3 encounters) also if really necessary you could also drop the -DR/-concentration aoe on the blob of minions.

Eder is like the "best buddie" overall, sadly he chose the wrong career in life so although we might be "besties" when it comes to doing business he is not in my priority list. Aloth although completely a "weirdo" he's kinda useful for being a wizard, durance as well he's so annoying but who doesn't need a priest in this bleak and cursed place to begin with? My favorite are Hiravias and Kanna they can actually tolerate a joke or two. The devil as well has a rather "interesting" personality... PS: talking about Aloth imagine what a "lad" he would be if his "other" side was more dominant...

Programming is math in itself is called algorithm an is a rather ancient mathematical term by now. I am very well aware of the mathematical implications on both the physical world and the source coding alike. It seems to me however your either deliberately or not fail to understand the reason behind my expression of indignation regarding your previous totally out of context comment. You start by claiming something like "Immunities, by their very definition, completely limit handling choices" and end your "reasoning" with "blatantly disregard math and science". So you claim somehow this is a topic that violates the fundamental scientific reasoning, and go on about without actually bothering providing any mathematical or scientific proof to your hilarious, absurd and ridiculous claim and parallelization to begin with. It is hilarious and absurd for several reasons first of all because we are talking about the qualitative parts of the game and more accurately the one affecting the entertaining purpose of a game and not it's technical aspects regarding development and engineering per se. It is also absurd because you use the words math and science like bread and butter. Again do you have some kind of theorem or at least a statistical model that can actually prove your claims? Read again my comment, and try to manage and answer to even one of the questions... although I have to admit those aren't truly questions... their nature is more of a rhetorical one. There are many kinds of post I personally would accept to tolerate leaving them uncommented however when one makes such blatant abuse of terms like science in this case that's enough provocation. There is only one thing worse than ignorance and that's sciolism. It's the source from which charlatans in all ages and times have been fouled by, and sadly with the internet things aren't getting any better. My answer to that blatantly abusive comment was way more general however and I do happen to answer also as to how actually the new implementations are going to help in increasing diversity(aka no more one trick pony) in the game... apparently all these escaped your mathematical and scientific analysis. Reminds me of people trying to impose their egocentric theories by perverting or attributing irrelevant quotations of Philosophers or Scientists without having a single clue whatsoever. It's nothing personal really, I don't know you, you might be a really nice person and I'm not judging who you truly are in your everyday life. This is the internet however where anyone is allowed to say his piece of mind and I just can't stand idle while reading abusive comments that's all. PS: Math and science generally are not bread and butter, one has better have at least some basic understanding about them when trying to utilize them in a social discussion which in that case would mean... avoid to use them completely in social discussion to begin with.

hahaha so the "peasant woman" is not so invisible after all... Hiravias though is insane, pity he doesn't appreciate my mom jokes...

Immunities, by their very definition, completely limit handling choices, which is the exact opposite of Variety. For example, if there are 5 different types of damage, but an enemy is immune to 4 of them... you only have 1 choice. Immunities guarantee an increase in monotony. Goodness, Gairnulf. You hop around far too many threads saying things that blatantly disregard math and science lol Please math has nothing to do with it don't bring math as an argument especially in a game discussion. So you wish to provide some mathematical model supporting your claim? Or even better a statistical model on character effectiveness( quantified somehow which would require further knowledge of operations research on top of that) and a number of explanatory variables then we would need the estimates, the bias, the variance explained by your model and so on and so forth... also what kind of model would that be classical or bayesian... perhaps a glmm estimated through mcmc? But because usually common sense is more effective at analyzing things(most people after all even though they are not mathematicians they do poses common sense... most of them) lets see why adding immunities actually increases the variability and playability contrary to your claim(that oddly enough is supported by math and science). Before the changes most of us didn't need to adapt and utilize case specific tactics vs even the most powerful opponents(yes I mean Adra or White joke encounters on potd). What worked for me personally 100% of the time: paladin charges dragon, the rest of the party stays behind and get buffed. The wizard with 100+ accuracy casts slicken, dragon + minions all prone, casters proceed with more debuffs dumping dragons fortitude to laughable levels and wizard again kicks in with a Gaze of Adragan = gg. Rince and repeat for every "hard" encounter... variability much? I think not! It seemed more as a one trick pony to me. Now with the new immunity distribution one actually has to build a party that can work well in synergy and provide answers to all potential dangers, what works vs certain opponents doesn't work vs the other therefore you actually need more differentiation in your party/abilities in order to deal with the potential threats... sometimes less is more. Even with the immunities however personally I don't think anything has changed since the wizard + paladin + priest that form the core of most parties will remain exactly the same due to the fact that they provide you with everything you need to begin with. As mentioned above the only one affected by these changes would be some awkward party comps like 6 fighters or 6 barbarians with aoe stun/prone generally speaking ... no more one trick pony therefore more variability.

Druid could serve well, he's got both cc, debuffs and nukes. However nothing can beat the lategame powerhouse that is the Priest. They got the strongest aoe buffs in game and on top of that in the lategame they got some really nice aoe nukes as well as a decent amount of afflictions. Having a single Priest in the party makes the boss fights so much easier.

I second that, with a 20 base intellect from race + background your linger on 1st level chants is almost equal the duration so you can permanently keep the effects from 2 buffing chants up all the time non-stop. The problem that I see here with chanter is that the "linger" doesn't provide anything on the debuffing chants dull the edge blunt the sword will have a duration of 4 and a linger of ~4 with high intellect but that linger counts for nothing in this case which is sad. So overall having high int with chanter is good when it comes to buffing your party. One of the reasons why I have switched to Goldpact instead of Darcozzi paladin is the early access to counter charm/dominate especially in the early levels it can ruin your party apart from the Fampyrs those spores are nasty as well. In the end as mentioned already it boils down to what's the party composition and what's the goal. If one wants to make use of buffs then int is essential. However even when it comes down to a full melee party personally I don't really like to cramp them up in a tight position 2.5 meters is really confiding, for example if you want to flank a dragon you are not able to provide the aura to your flankers.

Wizards are a powerful class to begin with and their power comes from their spell arsenal. That being said I think we lay the foundation of how one could pick a path for his wizard. We need to realize wizard's spells are finite(apart from low level ones later on in the game and that will change with next expansion). So as a wizard you have a limited resource to begin with. The question raises on how you are going to manage this resource. Are you willing to spend all of it in 1-2 fights or would you rather prefer to conserve it for a longer period? If you imagine your wizard as blasting through enemies with his most powerful damage spells then you could build that way. Get all the elemental damage talents + spells and for every fight start nuking the opponents with all you've got. There is also the other option of picking utility spells which allow you to control your environment or opponents, these spells got longer duration so you might only need to cast them 1-2 in the entire fight. Again the choice is yours on what you really like to play and how you envision your wizard. All these being said one need to consider the nature of fights in PoE. Most fights lets face it are just trash minions with barely average stats even in path of the damned difficulty(apart from Act 1). Therefore spending all your arsenal on trash minions in my opinion wouldn't be very effective from a wizards perspective. Another class like ranger, fighter, rogue, monk, barbarian etc can make short work of these pests just by utilizing their simple attacks or per encounter abilities. Furthermore your opponents most of the time although harmless they tend to have a decent amount of hp meaning that you will need to cast multiple fireballs on average to deal with them if you choose the nukers path. Wouldn't it be more productive to debuff them only once and let your other teammates clear the trash? By lategame you got minions with more than 500 hp you will need to spend 4-5 high level aoe nukes on them. Taking under consideration all of these personally I train my wizard in a more generalized fashion so that he can provide support to the team, be able to maintain constant pressure on the opponents and if really necessary able to land some heavy nukes whenever I feel like it. My fully leveled wizard looks like this: Talents with leveling order: Arcane veil Blast Dangerous Implement Interrupting Blows Scion of Flame Secrets of Rime Bloody Slaughter Stats: Might 15 Constitution 3 Dexterity 20 Perception 19 Intellect 18 Resolve 3 Race: Wood elf Background: Dreadfire Archipelago The purpose of the build is to be versatile depending on what the current situation is. First of all here we got some sustain damage with Kalakoth's Minor Blights + Blast + Dangerous Implement you might want to cast Deleterious Alacrity of Motion first. With this combo you can clean the floor with most of trash encounters through the game. If you happen to face some powerful foe then you got enough debuffs in there to apply conditions like blind, weaken, terror, hobble, -DR, -resolve. Usually Chill fog + Miasma is all you need other times a combination of Slumber/Gaze/Slicken might be required. Taking under account the new changes on immunities there will always be some kind of affliction to which the boss will not be immune to and the wizard got them all. Last but not least if you can't apply your afflictions/conditions because of immunities then the high perception combined with the talent + wall spells will allow you to keep your enemies interrupted most of the time. You can apply multiple layers of wall spells they all stack and even if the opponent is immune to the damage type he still gets hit so the interrupt kicks in. So the purpose of the above build is to be able and answer to any kind of threat. You could toy around with the talents a little bit since some of the choices are really useful in early game but not so much in lategame. You might wish to retrain at level 14 and change the blast and dangerous implement for the two leftover elemental talents(lightning and corrode). Bear in mind that it's always useful to have some scrolls for backup on my wizard I keep 2-3 scrolls of Maelstorm(if I want some extra direct damage nuke) and 2-3 scrolls of paralysis just in case. Hope this helps and enjoy your game!

Another option could be chanter in full plate with a heavy main weapon( e.g. Tidefall ) and secondary set of hand weapon + shield for emergencies trained for damage/cc invocations. This one could potentially act as a spell-sword as well( however he will be sub-par to ciphers damage wise).

It depends on how you build the aforementioned meatbag. Intellect affects Constant Recovery, Unbroken's buff duration, Unbending, Knockdown, Vigorous Defense, Disciplined Barrage, Clear Out's duration, aside from any debuffs you might get from MC feats and/or items. It's actually a pretty decent stat for a defensively-oriented fighter (if I were building a pure tank, I'd dump dexterity instead. Might affects healing, perception helps landing those knockdowns and hitting with your draining weapon, so you at the very least want to avoid a penalty, constitution increases your endurance, resolve boosts your deflection and intellect affects pretty much all of your battlefield control abilities and the duration of your defensive and offensive buffs). But if you're building an auto-attacking dps machine, sure, dump away. Hence the sentence in the brackets.

It depends also on party composition, I run 4 caster and 2 melee(paladin + chanter) having max int on paladin really helps with party management and deployment. In a full melee party maybe you could get away with dumping int but the statement cannot be generalized for each party. All in all the only one who might actually get away with 3 int is the meatbag... fighter I meant(and even that is dubious because some of his buffs are semi decent to have them last a bit longer than minimum) .

Regarding ailment immunities if you spam wall spells with high interrupt build that's more than enough to keep the dragon's and any other "boss" technically cc-ed during the entire fight without actually stun/prone/paralyze/petrify etc. I did a test from an old save I had vs Adra and I could just keep her busy with 4 wall of fire(damage immunity to fire is not important she still get's hit hence interrupted) and 4 wall of force, That's 8 checks vs interrupt per time-stamp. Adra dragon couldn't use most of her abilities during the fight, my paladin was keeping her busy while the wizards cast Citzal's lance and finished her off, her minions adding to the fight aren't really a problem.

Lately I am running with an Islan Aumaua maxed Might, Resolve, Intellect Goldpact Paladin. The reason being the defense vs prone/stun which comes in handy especially in early game. Also the maxed might can help later on with sacred immolation and Lay on hands, furthermore the counter charm/dominate upgrade to his liberating exhortations will prove useful vs fampir and vithrak alike. Before that I was running Moon goodlike maxed Might, Resolve, Intellect, Darcozzi Paladin with accuracy buff and aoe heals it worked decently through the entire game however not being able to use a helm was a bummer. I think both options are viable from early game until lategame.

Any kind of character that needs high deflection really, you could try a full defensive paladin.

Blade of endless paths is ok but since you might face some immune to pierce perhaps weapons with dual damage might be prefereable. Sadly Poleaxe are not really special their enchantements are prety average so the other 2 hander I would consider is the greatsword. If you go with Tidefall you got a decent 2 hander that hits hard enough adding the raw damage dot into the equation plus the extra survivability with heal drain not to bad and you get dual damage slash/pierce just in case. If you go with weapon focus soldier you got a realy versatile arsenal to pick from since appart from greatsword you get also warhammer which is realy nice 1 hander solution taking under account also critter immunities. I would really like to see some better Poleaxes in the upcoming expansion though... the ones so far are mediocre to say the least.

The way I see it from the chart is: two handed weapon + heavy armor has a 4 sec attack cycle: 1s attack + 2 sec recovery + 1 sec penalty(50%). With a -20% recovery on your heavy armor you would be at 30% recovery penalty or 0.6 second recovery penalty due to armor for a total of 3.4 sec attack cycle instead of 4 sec... that's a boost of (1- 3.4/4) x 100% = 15% dps. Nah, I think, a sawyer has stated on there, there is two different types of recovery periods, 1. Normal recovery time 2. Armour recovery time So armoured grace and items like pilfers grip will only affect the armour recovery time not the entire recovery time. Can a senior person please confirm this is correct? We need a senior no newbs I don't see the contradiction if 1 sec attack from 2 hander then you get 2 sec normal recovery and on top of that 50% penalty from armor meaning 0.5 * 2(Normal) = 1 sec recovery penalty from armor, with the ability instead you get 30% penalty due to armor leading to a 0.6 sec recovery penalty due to armor instead of 1 sec. The way I see it from the chart is that armor recovery penalty is applied based on normal recovery. do you agree there are 2 types of recovery, normal recover and then armour recovery and armoured grace will only affect the armour recovery? "-20% armor speed penalty": so it appears it's not a flat -% on the armor recovery penalty(which I considered above without careful wording) apparently in that case, yes it's effect is much smaller in the case of 2 hander that would be just a 0.2 decrease overall ~ a meager 5% gain in dps!