taek

I actually purposefully disengage so enemies get free shots at me to generate more damage on my monk so I can kill faster. Sometimes I'll even hit him with my own spells. And a lot of players use Moon Godlike for their monks, who can self-heal massive amounts of endurance every encounter. 8 points of damage taken = 1 Wound = 1 Torment's Reach. Torment's reach can do a ton of damage, considering full Monk lash bonuses and the +50% crush lash and the extra AE cone. Monks are a damage prism, they can take a sliver of damage and reflect it into far more damage to the enemy.

I'm on v1.0.6.0591 and I'm not seeing the Perception change on the char sheet. Are the people w/ the change on a later version?

Dual wielding will generally outdamage 2H even on high DR targets assuming you are using a DPS class (who have damage modifiers) and give them your best weapons. From the PillarsWeapons spreadsheet, taking a Monk who has a lot of lash bonuses (+50% TW, +25% lightning strikes) and a +25% lash enchant with 18 strength and +30% damage enchant, the DPS vs DR 10 looks like Dual Stilettos: 15.00 Dual Sabres: 15.24 2 Hand: 11.07 Estoc: 12.82 This is without any weapon talents like Vulnerable Strike, taking that talent will push Stilettos past Estoc even on DR 16. This also isn't adjusting for Torments Reach (+50% crush lash), crit modifiers, slaying modifiers, etc.. The reason to take 2H weapons IMO is not because they are innately better but because you find very powerful 2H weapons in the game. And in the end that's basically what it boils down to anyway, min-maxing normal weapons isn't that useful because the most powerful enchanted weapons are the ones you'll be using and each one is going to be a per case judgement call.

What direction would you buff them? I don't think they should outdamage Rogues or Barbs or other melee DPS builds. I don't think they should even be even given these other classes have to risk damage and KO to be in melee range. I don't think pets should out-tank tank classes. In RPGs, pets + ranged are usually the safest ways to deal damage and in a balanced system deal the least damage. IMO the reward needs to match the risk, and a pet+ranged damage dealer is on the far end of the low risk spectrum.

Scion of Flame wouldn't affect TR, TR is not flame damage unless you have specifically have a flaming damage weapon. TR is the same damage type as your equipped weapons. It might affect Turning Wheel, but I find myself pretty tight with talent points on a Monk and would never take it personally.

Working for me on PC (v1.06); heal applies to the moon godlike.

Mental Binding is basically Petrify without the damage bonus, -40 deflection/reflex is a death sentence by itself. Along w/ the stealing accuracy, Ciphers are probably the best class at landing hits on POTD. Very strong Soul Whip bonuses...basically unconditional sneak attack. Overall the best non-rest class. Obviously rest classes are better...when you rest If you're going to nerf anything, I'd nerf the penalties on paralyze. Not sure why its so high compared to other disables with generally shorter duration times (prone -10, stun -30). In any case it should be lower than the most powerful CC in the game, Petrify. But they're the same. If you gave a Fighter 3x per encounter Paralyze instead of Knockdown, he'd also be OP at low levels. The issue is Paralyze more than Ciphers IMO.

I went through the same thing on my first playthrough. The reality is: - you don't know what mobs are difficult and easy. My first time Guls looked extremely dangerous, i unloaded spells on them. Turns out they're pretty wimpy. I thought Shades weren't too tough, your typical L1 undead like skeletons. Boy was I wrong. And there is a Shadow type that looks identical with 16 DR and sky high deflection, fairly nasty for L2-L3 characters. - you don't know how big or large the areas are. Saving your spells for Magran's Fork? Not necessary it's tiny. Burned all your spells on the first few encounters of the dungeon below Caed Nua? Prepare for a ton of backtracking for supplies back at Gilden Vale. I found per rest casters awful in my first playthrough. It was much more manageable on 2nd playthroughs because you can now gauge what's easy/hard and have a sense of how big areas are. But your reaction for the first time is totally normal IMO.

I must have a mistake when viewing my paladin, I checked just now with my save and the new effects are 15%. I made some new paladin hireling paladins to verify. Not sure why I thought I saw new Paladin talents (wishful thinking?).

IMO Rogues should take advantage of the fact that they can deal great damage from melee or ranged, and switch weapons situationally. Fire from range when it’s dangerous and go into close combat when it’s more manageable. Other high DPS class that must be in melee like Barb or Monk have abilities that help them survive there, with the limitations that many of their abilities don’t work with non-melee weapons. That being said, I think Rogues pair best not with tanks who have no real threat control, but CC classes like Ciphers or Wizards. I think the not-so-subtle hint about that is the fact that Sneak Attack triggers from cc effects.

There are extra talents as well...they will add +5% to the new aura effects.

Druid's CC is pretty minimal IMO. For the first 3 spell spell levels there isnt anything that reallly stops enemies, you mainly get debuffs like Blind & Hobble. You get hard CC at spell level 4...but then not much else at 5 & 6. TBH, my even my priest is more effective at CC. The level 2 AE knockdown can last like 12 seconds, is Foe only, and has high accuracy as a trap. As a L2 spell it's eventually per encounter. Personally I would not rely on a druid as my main and only CC. But you have a Cipher & Priest as well as a chanter so you've got CC spread all over your party anyway.

It is pretty powerful but it's also a lot of fun considering how much everyone hates shadows & shades. I think it should just be much more difficult to obtain or excessively expensive.

I suppose this is a bug, but zealous endurance (and I assume the other auras) have a map wide range. I can fight on one end of the map with my paladin on the other end and still get the aura effects. Definitely a bug...seems to have happened after a combat but it normally works within a range.

Zealous Endurance: +3 DR, 15% of incoming hits reduced to Grazes Zealous Focus: +6 Accuracy, 15% of grazes converted to Hits

I'm downloading now, but what does everyone think about 1.6 which is heavily focused on Paladin tweaks? Lay on Hands increased from 1/Encounter to 2/Encounter. Base healing value was increased from 20 per tick to 25 per tick and Greater Lay on Hands increased from +7 to +12. Flames of Devotion was given a +20 Accuracy bonus. Spell Holding: Blessing Accuracy bonus reduced from +10 to +5. All Zealous auras set to the same size. This decreased the size of Charge, but increased the sized of Focus and Endurance. Bonus Graze to Hit rate added to Zealous Focus. Bonus Hit to Graze rate added to Zealous Endurance. Sworn Enemy will no longer call a hit reaction when applied. Endurance reduction on the end of Reviving Exhortation was reduced. Suppress Affliction base duration lowered from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. All Exhortations are now set to recover immediately. Reinforcing Exhortation now grants +25 deflection instead of +15. Hastening Exhortation lowered to 9th level (was 11th).

I fixed that for you.

Then don't pull?? It's a SP game why is it so hard to simply not use mechanics you don't like? Isn't that the entire point of a SP game to customize your experience and not have to taken into account how other people want to play? I also find pulling immersion breaking...which is why i always charge all my party into encounters full speed and never hide behind doorways. Thankfully mages can wear plate and use a shield in this game.

DA:O took 6 years to develop. I can't wait that long for POE2. The current direction is great, I'll happily pay for more POE with no drastic changes and more of the same goodness.

Monks has easily been the best DPS class I've played so far, but perhaps I don't know all the tricks and tips for a Rogue. The best monk weapon arrangement by far is fist + 1H weapon for the 1st half of the game. You get the +12 accuracy on the weapon (because you are not dual wielding or 2H), you still hit for extremely good damage with your bare fist. Accuracy is the most important stat for higher difficulty and at low levels. The Jolting Touch Stiletto is a weapon that works particularly well with Monks because all your Monk passives like Turning Wheel and Lighting Strikes apply to the spell damage. It also works well with Stunning Blow, if your Stunning Blow procs the Jolting Touch (very likely since you double hit with Stunning Blow and are likely to crit due to stun lowering enemy Deflection by -40), the Jolting Touch jumps will also Stun giving you a small AE stun. Monk abilities synergize so well with weapon enchantments, IMO barefisted Monk is the worst way to play them. Also covered in another thread, some weapon properties like +accuracy or +crit damage bonuses such as a battle-axe will apply to Torment's Reach.

Cipher is the most micro it the game along with monk. It's worse than Wizard due the single target nature of their spells and beam effects instead of the Wizard's large circular AE and cone AE. I keep a chanter for low micromanagement, but since you already have one the next would be ranger. You don't need to position them, just keep their modals on and , and have them autofire for decent damage.

Oh damn...that sounds like it will be fun to abuse. I've wanted to make DOT based party anyway.

I don't know. Can someone explain if Wildstrike behaves like Lashes and if they really don't apply to spells? If so, then Spiritshifting is quite underwhelming for casters. Fortunately the game is already too easy even on PotD and Druids have access to fantastic spells (despite the nerfs in 1.05, heh). Wildstrike is a lash. It does not affect spells. It only affects shapeshifted damage. It is a VERY low return for a talent point. Should probably be worth 1/2 a talent point if that was possible. If you want to buff Druid melee you're better off taking a non-Druid melee talent, because later on weapons may be more powerful than your shifted paws and the normal talents will affect your shapeshifted melee anyway.

Great, tell me what you find out. Perhaps it's just RNG, I didn't know TR's damage range was so wide, most weapons have a tighter range.

Several abilities will work, including Disciplined Barrage and Clear Out. And of course you have all your passives as well. And for all intents & purposes it's just a fighter who is using a 2H weapon instead of sword & board. I don't see why it wouldn't work any better or worse than a 2H fighter other than you can't use the melee talents obviously. 2H fighters tend to be not as damage dealing as dedicated DPS classes like Rogue or Ranger but they are much sturdier and don't require much micro (if any). You might also want to go Island Amau with Quick Switch and rotate long reload weapons to start battles and get a strong alpha strike from range going...although this gets into heavy micromanagement.