koski

After 1.05 patch I noticed Itumaak was dealing insane amounts of damage and I contributed it to the animal companion fixes at first but after it critted for 140 I went to check the character screen, only to find the animal compaion combat bonuses buff stacked multiple times. I do not recall seeing it before the 1.05 patch. Unfortunately I do not have a save from times before the bug, so I can not really tell what went wrong, but I have noticed that it happens when I Quicksave and then load the said save in Dyrfords Crossing Anywhere. Each time the game ends up giving me an extra stack.

If i understood that question correctly, you're talking about graze -> hit -> crit conversion? As far as I know, the conversions only do one step. So a graze can only be converted to a hit and not any further and only hits can be converted to crits etc. Mechanically it means that hit to crit conversion check is done first and graze to hit is done second so grazing attacks never show as hits to the crit check.

Despite his colours, Aloth is actually a wood elf.

I am able to find quite a few good pictures with those criterias from Pintrest though. Have you tried searching from there? From example: asian warrior fantasy asian fantasy witch (admitted, I used witch instead of sorcerer/sorceress)

You're able to change the NPC portraits by just swapping out their portrait files from the data folder to a new one. This also works for player portraits, as they appear to be saved to the save game by name. Ie. add a copy of one of the inbuilt portraits with a different name (say, your charactername_lg/sm) and then you can change them whenever you find a more appropriate image. I am not sure how changing the portraits that affects the game though. Would it break achievements etc. I could also almost swear that changing the portrait that way somehow reset the zone difficulty. I had some monsters missing when I tried it once (on the intro zone, after the ambush on PotD the pack of 3 guys you meet just before the leader turned into just being one archer).

I thought that was a typo and it should be +20 PERCENT. Because +20 is insane. Could be misinformation, but the Barbarian talent One Stands Alone is currently giving you +20 damage to all attacks (whether that is intentional or not), so I would not be surprised if the ranger ability gave the same thing. I've never had a ranger in my party, so I didn't test it myself. Either way, early game burst is what ranger excels at. +20% or +20 does not matter much for the end result/playstyle. Your tactics is to burst one target down with gun switches and then move to (slowly) dps:sing the rest.

She is hardly the worst NPC companion, she just has the worst class to start with (ranger doesn't have much going for them) but at least she has all her stats in order and her talents are not useless. I would actually say Kana Rua is the worst companion now. He does not have great stats for tanking (which chanters would be good at) and (at least used to have) less chants than he is supposed to have as a chanter of his level and has taken an useless invocation (skeletons) compared to say, Phantom. Get him too late (I think at level 4) and he comes with Field Triange, which is practically useless outside doing "less than 10 rests" run. He does have an early level 2 chant when you get him, but that does not make up for the other areas he is lacking at.

From what I've heard, rangers really shine with that early fight burst. Their very high accuracy ensures they never miss and with modals like Vicious Aim, they're able to deal devastating damage with their shots. The thing is, most of their abilities might be wasted from using a regular bow, because their inferior damage (and increasing that damage, at the expense of attack speed is a bit redundant). A lot of people run rangers with double, triple or quadruple guns. If you slap a Marked Prey (+20 damage against single target, per encounter, wiki info) and use your weapon slots to just fire 2-4 guns you'll do devastating damage with no reloading time. It takes a while to get back into the damage game after that but you'll have dealt an insane amount of damage at the start of the combat. Often ensuring that at least one target has fallen before the enemies even know what hit them. Outside that, rangers do not have that much going for them that could not be overdone by rogues using the same weapons. And while rogues rely on status effects to deal damage, but most of those status effects already reduce enemy deflection enough to bring them to the same level as ranger in terms of accuracy that they win out as long as you're able to provide them. Still, ranger doing a quad gun at the start of combat is more likely to bring down a strong foe than rogue is with sneak attack only.

Found a link to some PoE portrait art by Jason Seow. It was posted by him to Reddit.

Would someone with image editing skills be able to make a version of Calisca's portrait that has Red Hair instead of blonde? I really love the style of the original portraits and I just can't bring myself to use something random (as they never seem to fit).

How do they take out of the game's atmosphere exactly? The ones I've read have had quite logical stories, presumably from the characters past. They also nicely fill out the cities instead of random "Villager" and "Beggar" NPCs. Aside from being abused for not causing a reputation drop and dropping items way above your level in Gilded Vale, they seem to be a great addition to the game. And even that is not as much about them dropping good stuff as it is about them not causing any reputation loss that breaks the game.

Outside being able to hold 2 more monsters down than any other class, I am having a hard time seeing why fighter is so much better at tanking? Is 15 deflection really such a deal breaker? Because that (and 10 on all other defences) is what you're losing as a barbarian compared to a fighter. And the constant regen, which starts to be better in fights that last a lot longer than 30 seconds. I'd love to see some numbers that demonstrate how much better 15 deflection is on a tank with say... 120~ deflection range (with fighter getting 135~). Fighters have access to much more passive deflection, target engagement and defense bonuses. On top of that, they can instantly regain endurance when knocked out (though this only comes into play at level 12), receive less crits and have have constant regeneration. I've said it several times now, but there's really no equal to the fighter when it comes to tanking. The closest 2nd are Paladins, but even they pale in comparison to the abilities of a Fighter. If you want a tank, get a Fighter. If 15 is much, then I guess. Paladins tanking stats are exactly the same as fighters though, so outside being able to hold 2 more targets they're equal. I never saw the regen as that important on Hard, but I guess it does come into play in PotD. Barbarian should be able to do the same on fights that last less than 30 seconds though. Most fights did not last long enough for chanter to hit 3 verses. The difference would be 25 as soon as you hit frenzy. Plus a barb needs int for his carnage area and frenzy duration, while a fighter can dump int. The points that a barb needs for a good int will come from either the damage stats of might and dex or from the tanky stats of per and res. If you had a barb with 15 int that is 12 points that could be saved by a fighter dumping int to 3. Those 12 points placed in a tanky stat would get you another 12 deflection as well as better saves, concentration and interrupts. The difference now would be 15 base + 12 stats = 27 deflection that would increase to 37 deflection during a frenzy. In the case where the fighter deflection = monster accuracy the barb will be taking crits 27% of the time and 37% during a frenzy. Crits having 50% higher interrupts will hammer your barb that also has less concentration than a dps fighter. If the barb deflection = monster accuracy then the fighter will be at +27 or 37 and be practically unhittable. Keeping your barb safely behind the frontline and using a reach weapon will avoid him being face planted but removes him from actually engaging and "tanking" any of the monsters. You're assuming the barbarian is going to pop Frenzy. Which he of course would not be doing while he is holding the enemies himself. This is not to say he could not frenzy when helping to take the last enemy down if he wants to. You're also assuming the barbarian, whose sole purpose is to be a tank is not going to build like a tank? We're not talking about DPS barbarian tanking vs tank fighter tanking. We're talking about two, equally equipped characters with the exact same (defense oriented) stats. And there the difference boils down to: Barbarian has more health & endurance (240 base endurance) and DT (2, from Thick-Skinned) and less deflection (15 base, 10 from Cautious Attack modal) while fighter has less health & endurance (210 base endurance) and more deflection (25 base, 5 from Defender modal and 10 from Wary Defender) and more of other defences (10 from Wary Defender). Sure, it will harm a lot of barbarians damage potential, but its still going to be higher than a fighters, who has the same build. You're going to be flanked less than a fighter (which is gonna bring down the deflection difference to 5 points against 2 opponents), you're going to be dealing more damage (and thus, contributing to the faster ending of a combat) because of One Stands Alone (which will give you +20 damage, or 15,8 because you'll have -21% from might 3 assuming no items increase it). This can be further increased by Blooded (+50% damage when at <50% endurance). From where I stand, outside tanking more than 3 opponents (which barbarian is not able to do, reliably at least), barbarian should be as good or even better tank than a fighter is. And they are also able to contribute massively with their damage compared to a full tank fighter.

Fighters only have +15 deflection compared to Barbarians. 15 vs 25 (10 difference) and 10 vs 15 (Cautious Attack vs buffed Defender). I still fail to see how that is a lot. Though with the talk about increased mob sizes between Hard and PotD, the +2 targets might really come into play. Any numbers on how many more enemies are there in average? Simple math if you have an attacker with 50 accuracy and fighter with 95 deflection/barbarian with 80 deflection: Fighter is going to take ~0.23 attack damage per hit on average. Barbarian is going to take ~0.37 attack damage per hit on average i e barb tank takes ~1.5 times more damage because of -15 deflection in this case. This difference should be easily negated by 2 DT you get from the barbarian talent, would it not?

My only problem with the Cipher is that I can't manage to get a proper feel of the class. I've always had those problems with psionic classes, there is just no kind of Cipher that I would like to do. I might just go with a chanter as Off-Tank. Fire godlike might be cool, though. Are the higher level summons any good? All I've seen is talk about the phantom, as you get it so early and its a killer at the start. Are the will 'o wisps useless? How about wyrms & drake?

Outside being able to hold 2 more monsters down than any other class, I am having a hard time seeing why fighter is so much better at tanking? Is 15 deflection really such a deal breaker? Because that (and 10 on all other defences) is what you're losing as a barbarian compared to a fighter. And the constant regen, which starts to be better in fights that last a lot longer than 30 seconds. I'd love to see some numbers that demonstrate how much better 15 deflection is on a tank with say... 120~ deflection range (with fighter getting 135~). Fighters have access to much more passive deflection, target engagement and defense bonuses. On top of that, they can instantly regain endurance when knocked out (though this only comes into play at level 12), receive less crits and have have constant regeneration. I've said it several times now, but there's really no equal to the fighter when it comes to tanking. The closest 2nd are Paladins, but even they pale in comparison to the abilities of a Fighter. If you want a tank, get a Fighter. If 15 is much, then I guess. Paladins tanking stats are exactly the same as fighters though, so outside being able to hold 2 more targets they're equal. I never saw the regen as that important on Hard, but I guess it does come into play in PotD. Barbarian should be able to do the same on fights that last less than 30 seconds though. Most fights did not last long enough for chanter to hit 3 verses.

Fighters only have +15 deflection compared to Barbarians. 15 vs 25 (10 difference) and 10 vs 15 (Cautious Attack vs buffed Defender). I still fail to see how that is a lot. Though with the talk about increased mob sizes between Hard and PotD, the +2 targets might really come into play. Any numbers on how many more enemies are there in average?

There are a few things I could think of to help wizards. It is mostly related to Grimoire mechanics, as currently it seems to be a bit redundant. First step would be to: Make the Grimoires be your limit. Ie. a single book holds 4 spells / level and you would have to choose exactly which spells you've prepared in that book. If you've prepared 2 * slicken, then that is how many slickens you can cast with that book without switching to another book. These books are per encounter. So with 3 books, you could have up to 12 spells prepared, with some variation. Then you could either: a) Make them get infinite spells earlier. This would encourage Grimoire switching a bit more as they would want more things to choose from. Maybe 5/7/9/11. b) Increased spell casts instead of inifinite casts earlier. Ie. give a wizard up to 10~12 casts / level, but force them to switch Grimoires mid combat to utilize them all as well as prepare a bit more precisely. I would also love for melee wizard to be viable and it would require the following: 1. Arcane Veil to 2/Encounter, its duration is fine otherwise. 2. Change the duration of wizard spell buffs to encounter. They already have to burn valuable resources to use them. 3. Make blast work with (all?) melee weapons

Care to elaborate on what this graph represents exactly?

Outside being able to hold 2 more monsters down than any other class, I am having a hard time seeing why fighter is so much better at tanking? Is 15 deflection really such a deal breaker? Because that (and 10 on all other defences) is what you're losing as a barbarian compared to a fighter. And the constant regen, which starts to be better in fights that last a lot longer than 30 seconds. I'd love to see some numbers that demonstrate how much better 15 deflection is on a tank with say... 120~ deflection range (with fighter getting 135~).

As far as I've understood, Barbarian is not that squishy? Aside from 10 less starting deflection from start and 5 less deflection and 10 other defenses because of Wary Defender. This is assuming you're running with Cautious Attack (+10 deflection) instead. The only real downside is being able to hold 2 less opponents, but on many fights even on Hard I handled in doorways, where engaging more than 2 was not really an issue. I was hoping One Stands Alone would help reduce the numbers faster too. On hard, I rarely needed a second tank in addition to the NPC Fighter, so I figured that since he was able to hold 4 targets and I was rarely left with more than 1 for Off-Tank, I would do just fine with 3+2 (Main + Off-Tank). Another option is to make the Fighter and put lower emphasis on the Off-Tanking aspect. As for ciphers tanking, from what I've read you can do wonders in heavy armor with the help of Psycho Vampiric Shield and Body Attunement. Pain block can further be used to help the main tank. This is not likely the most optimal route of course, but like I mentioned before, it might be doable when the main tank can hold his own, possibly when the maximum adds you'll have to put on the Off-Tank is 1~2. What I am wondering more, is whether the damage reduction from heavy armor is the key, or if you could get by it by focusing on draining the DR and Deflection and using blind while wearing lighter armor instead. I mean successful eyestrike alone makes the enemy get -35 ACC. That should easily offset any deflection deficiencies. A for priest tanking, its the same case as with barbarian. They start with 10 less base deflection and get 5 less deflection and 10 other defenses from modal. Aggrandizing Radiance can however brings this difference to 2 less all other defences and 11 less deflection (with Cautious Attack covering the remaining 10 from Wary Defender). The only real problem is the loss of speed from heavier armor. Which might or might not be a problem as I never had an issue with priest casting speed (nor did I need their spells that often). Tanking however does not exclude them from casting endless strings of level 1 spells, as long as they stand ground long enough to grab aggro.

I finished the game on a regular, NPC based run on Hard and my next intention is to min-max my way through the game with my own custom party. Currently I've been thinking of the following setup: Priest (Magran) - Arquebus / Sword & Shield and Heavy Armor - Mostly using Arquebus & Ranged Barbarian - Sword & Shield / Crossbow - Main Tank Rogue - Arbalest / Warhammer - Mostly using Arbalest & Ranged Druid (Wolf) - Spear (& Shield) / Hunting Bow - Early Off-Tank (With Knockdown, I don't like bear) & End Spell DPS & Ranged Wizard - Wand/Rod - DPS & Disabler The last spot is something I am not sure of. I would like to make a Cipher as the PC due to it fitting best, but I'm not sure if the barbarian can handle another ranged member. I was hoping I could build one that might even Off-Tank late game, but I am not sure how I could pull that off. The biggest problem is that I would not want to make it into a plate wearing character. Would a Kensai type Cipher be able to survive at all? And by Kensai I mean cloth or light armored, maybe with Estoc (Biting Whip) or Saber (Blunderbus synergy with talent)? I am also interested in the Mind Hunter type of gameplay (dual wielding daggers or stilettos, blunderbuss for some good starting focus), but I am guessing that also requires light armor and won't be able to Off-Tank. Should I give up on the Barbarian and make a Fighter as a tank instead? Or should I maybe delegate Off-Tanking to the priest? What would you suggest as the last party member? If it is not a cipher, who would you make into the PC?

The thing about ROLEPLAYING is that even though you got an option to lift the guy as a flimsy elven wizard, you don't pick that dialogue option. Just as you do not pick the [Attack] option when you're playing a diplomatic character. Just because it pops there as a dialogue option does not mean you have to select it. A lot of the options in the game are there to mold your character. The ones displayed in dialogue do not represent the character you play, until you actually click on them.