Kaylon

Devil of Caroc is the ideal candidate for the pool because she's unhappy and will die anyway no matter what you do... (also she gives the best bonus... )

Inner Death Monk ability can hit with one attack for several hundred damage per ONE strike. Can you beat that on Shapeshifter/Rogue? 500% Crit Damage + Empowered will beat anything. And monk also have almost no recovery and you want to run in lighest armor possible and Shattered Pillar has not resource cost and each time he damage he gets them back. Back to Bleak Walker/Berserker: Also worth to mention (mentioned by SaruNi in other thread) that Berserker PL VII Blood Thrist allows you Recover immidietly after kill for 10 second which lead to Two-Handed weapons having 0 Recovery time during combat. At point of 0 recovery Two-Handed > Dual Wield. 0 recovery on Two-Handed weapons! That will out damage any dual wield. Which makes Berserker/Bleak Walker even more scary late game. Empowered Inner Death might do several hundred dmg but can be used only 2 times per rest, while the berserker can achieve 0% recovery only if he one shots everything... The rogue shifter on the other hand can do 100dmg on average with every hit while being also very fast without buffs or resources.

The class with the highest (single target) melee dps is the shapeshifter/rogue. Sneak Attack + Deathblows + Deep Wounds + Dirty Fighting + Uncanny Luck + Improved Critical + Persistent Distraction + Greater Wildstrike coupled with dual wield, no recovery penalties from armor and claws upgraded for free to legendary level, free heals, no resources required...

I think you will recover those talents later through the game...

Didn't check everything but from what I saw swords are probably the new best choice in PoE2...

It's true, SI does now 43 self dmg/tick and scales with your might (reaching 60-70dmg when you're fully buffed) becoming completely useless unless you want to play a masochist...

Wow, they managed to nerf shield's enchantments by 75%

Thanks for the quick answers PS. I hope the damage from Sacred Immolation doesn't count as hits against Gilded Enmity...

A few quick questions: - Stances and auras can be active at the same time? - The upgrade of the endurance aura heals also the paladin or only the allies? - How many hits the Gilded Enmity can take before breaking?

I think the resistances to a single type of afflictions just downgrade their tier by 1, no matter what defenses you have. While the others work like the ones from PoE when a bonus is added to your defenses when you face those afflictions. I suppose for a character with low-medium defenses the first type is better, while for characters with high defenses the second type is more interesting because it can help resist the afflictions completely...

B-but... Twin Arrows Shot has no accuracy penalty and works with any ranged weapon! And can be used only 2-3 times per fight...

The ranger class looks like a big joke...

The damage of SI(25base) + Combusting Wounds(10base) is roughly equivalent to 2xDT(2x20base). SI+CW suffers however vs enemies with high burn DR. Also a chanter with 30INT is able to stack 3xDT with maxed Brisk Recitation - which is close to the dps of a DW barb and over a huge area...

I think it's always the same - MAX dmg is 150% of MIN dmg...

Comtessa's Gage and Confident Aim work differently. Confident Aim increases your min damage (like Boeroer explained) while Comtessa's Gage reduces your variance by 25%. Example: Weapon doing 40-60dmg Confident Aim (adds 20% to min dmg) - new dmg will be 48-60 (min dmg is 40 and 20%*40=8 ) Comtessa's Gage (reduces variance by 25%) - new damage will be 45-60 (variance is 60-40=20 and 25%*20=5) Confident Aim + Comtessa's Gage - new damage will be 51-60 (first the min dmg (40) is increased by 8, then the new variance (12) is reduced by 3)

Personally I would build the paladin like a solo tank because he should ensure the survival of your party and always be the last man standing (and should stay like this until the end for Defensive Mindweb). For the cipher I would start as a ranged fighter/cc and then evolve towards a 2w fighter with 0% recovery later. PS. A Skaen priest can become also a pretty good melee fighter under Defensive Mindweb.

You don't have to return after a month, you just have to use the console to advance the time one month and check...

The item order is either random, or changed from what they had listed before. None of the items are in the order they have on the wiki. And the fact that I managed to get an item three times in a row three days in a row speaks for itself. Getting an item 3 days in a row is very common if you check the tables. It's very possible they changed the tables, however I doubt the items are random... I told you the way to test if the items are random. Now if you choose to believe they're random, that's up to you...

If the loot tables were changed then it was in one of the latest versions of the game. The fact that you found different items doesn't mean they're random, it just means the loot tables were changed. To test if they're random you should first check if the same day of each month you get a different item - which I really doubt it.

Personally I consider paladin, cipher and priest the best overall trio because it has great synergy and versatility, it doesn't require constant resting and by the end of the game it can deal with any encounter without any difficulty because of Defensive Mindweb.

Use a figurine to pull them away from you. After that you can engage them from a better spot or simply skip the fight...

While in PoE already the armor system was arbitrary and artificial, in PoE2 they managed to make it even worse - probably for the sake of originality (because I can't see other reasons)...

Maybe Ad&D had many rules but they were well documented and the game mechanics were simple to understand. On the other hand PoE has complicated game mechanics, the rules seem often arbitrary or not well documented and the items/abilities descriptions are often confusing or misleading. I had to test lots of items/abilities in PoE to see first if they work and if they do it like expected. Now it seems I'll have to do it again if I want to play PoE2...

It was disappointing to see how Obsidian promptly "fixed" the armors with a dedicated patch, while the arbalest was left untouched...

Yes, maces ans spears should have the same speed as sabres - it was probably an oversight.