Kaylon

If you have a party minmaxing isn't needed. The purpose of a paladin in a party is tanking and support, thus investing heavily in might isn't needed. Personally I would let everything at 10 and then increase equally the stared stats like suggested by the developpers. More important than the stats are the talents you pick - ie auras, exhortations and defensive talents.

It's a matter of choice - personally I prefer to swing a little slower and to be stunned/knocked down less often. When a phantom or a xaurip starts chaining stuns you won't be able to swing at all...

I recommend max mig/con/res and rest in per (int/dex at 3) until your deflection is maxed. Having high fortitude will allow you to deal more easily with enemies using stuns and other disabling stuff. You can go to Raedric's hold rather fast and get your hands on belt of blunting, gauntlets of accuracy, gloves of manipulation and boots of stability. Besides the obvious items you should get fast (plate, worn shield, rings of deflection/protection) there are a few random ones which can turn the tide for some encounters - rymrgand mantle,spellward amulet and rotward amulet.

The game is more difficult than pre 2.0 because the deflection was nerfed and some monsters have increased accuracy (due to perception changes). Even the paladin needs potions to tank the adra dragon now (before you needed 171+ in all defenses to make him graze all the time, now you need 182+). Scrolls/traps were nerfed, immunities were introduced, AI improved and new fights are even harder. The alpine dragon can't be tanked for very long (his wing attack hits with 154 accuracy vs fortitude/reflexes) and since you're all the time flanked by the blights he does only sneak attacks on you (ie 100% dmg even for grazes). Probably the only way to kill him solo is with a petrify trap at the start of the fight while tanking all the blights around you... or blind him and try to kill him from the distance... PS. The paladin still is the most solid class and becomes very fun once he gets Sacred Immolation since you have the best tank coupled with some serious AoE damage. Also you can respec and optimize your defenses for big fights and the rest of the time play a more offensive build.

High resolve is required for tanks - ie paladin or fighter. Shieldbearers paladins are the easiest to play because they're not penalized unlesss they're agressive/cruel which is easy to avoid.

The most dangerous is the petrify affliction because it multiplies the damage you take by 4. It's also one of the hardest to defend against because it attacks your fortitude (very difficult to boost) and adragans have very high accuracy. Also talents like Body Control or Berath's Boon were bugged (don't know if they work correctly now) and were disabled after zoning. Also without food/rest buffs it's not possible to effectively reduce their attacks to grazes.

I just tested with the latest patch and it works exactly the same. As long as he's out of the sight of the others you can kill the adragan at the top without making anyone hostile, however a xaurip will come to attack you (killing him out of sight of the rest will keep everyone neutral also). Since attacking anyone there will put you in combat until everyone is dead you can use your scrolls/summoning items before starting the next fight.

The dragon has slow moving speed and most CCs that diminish the moving speed will root her in place and also lower her reflexes defense even more - spells that blind or binding roots are very good for that. Also, her breath has a limited range - thus it's possible to stay out of her range and shoot/cast spells at her without being hit at all. Like it was already said use always spells that attack reflexes and she will go down very fast. If you lie about helping her it's possible to kill the adragans first, without her attacking, if you stay out of her sight.

You can't tank the Adra Dragon on PoTD without Deflection, Reflexes AND Fortitude over 170 (you need that to take only grazes from her). Even with that you can't tank forever (In the videos I kill her in under 30s) - that's why you're forced to use scrolls - swinging your weapon for 10min at her won't work.

It was one of my first attempts to solo the AD in the early versions of the game and thus I tried to make it as easy as possible. When I recorded the fight (maybe it was patched in the next versions) It was possible to kill one of the adragans without making the dragon/adragans hostile to you - I don't know if it's still possible. If you tried to position yourself as I did and attack the same adragan as I did and it didn't work, then it was patched. However that step isn't needed, you just have to fight all the adragans first - use maelstrom scrolls if you can't kill them fast enough (use that instead the scrolls of nature's mark which are useless in my video)

It hits the nearest enemy in a 20° arc behind your target.

Accurate wounding shot isn't affecting the accuracy of the shot itself, only the chance to apply the effect - which IMO is a wasted point because it doesn't help at all when you simply miss your shot.

You can avoid all the attacks if you stay out of his range. In other words you can use a spell to immobilize him or reduce his movement speed to 0 and then attack him with ranged attacks/spells. Rangers have a very good spell for that with very long duration and which attacks the weakest defense of the dragon (reflex).

In fact you don't need points in survival because you can kill the dragon in under 1min. For my first try I started killing first the minions before attacking the dragon and that's why I feared the buffs won't last long enough - however you don't need to do that (see my videos). The food buffs are needed only for the tough fights, it's not like you have to be buffed to the teeth all the time. If you play on normal with a party you don't even need that level of optimization.

The pet is a distraction, a damage add, use him to kite/pull enemies one by one or for flanking - not to tank.

These bonuses are outdated, the second bonus you get is much weaker now - Eder gives just +2def, the damage reduction from Hiravias/Pellagina is vs 2 types of damage only, the resists from Kana/mother work only vs 2 minor effects, etc...

For ES I find very strange that Int increases also the time between tics.

Ok, then it seems WS gets the same treatment as raw damage dots (damage increased by Mig and duration increased by Int) when it shouldn't. Either they change the damage to raw, either they keep the duration unchanged (10s like in the description) and apply the Int bonus to damage if they want to keep the thrust damage.

In the case of WS are you sure the 0.3 bonus is related to Mig (have you tested different values for might ?)? If that's the case then one bug is here - this damage bonus should be related to your Int, not Mig. The second bug is about the length of the DOT. Adding more tics will increase the amount of damage reduced which will make high Int counterproductive against anything with high DR. The fix for WS should be: - bonus damage related to Int - DOT duration always 10s

If you find the gloves of manipulation you don't need more than 6-7mechanics because you can stack +1 from resting, +2 from gloves and +3 from scrolls (for the rare occasions when you find lv12 traps).

Breath attack vs Reflex Claw attack vs Deflection Wing attack vs Fortitude Fear aura vs Will

I guess new and original isn't always better. Some people like it, some don't. Personally I think there are bigger problems with the game than the language.

OK, I tested myself using fraps/virtualdub how the reload time was calculated and everything is multiplicative like I suspected. Here are the numbers for the arquebus (used the reload time without the delay you have between actions - which is about 5frames): - 10dex, no other buff - 188frames (base) - 10dex, swift aim (1.5 x reload time) - 126frames (188/1.5=125.3) - 10dex, swift aim (1.5 x reload time), gunner (1.2 x reload time) - 105frames (188/1.5/1.2=104.4) - 20dex, swift aim (1.5 x reload time), gunner (1.2 x reload time) - 81frames (188/1.5/1.2/1.3=80.3) - 20dex, swift aim (1.5 x reload time), gunner (1.2 x reload time), chant (1.2 x reload time) - 66frames (188/1.5/1.2/1.3/1.2=66.95) The results are pretty spot on, with the differences within 1frame. Unlike the recovery bonuses, reload bonuses all all multiplicative. Dexterity affects everything (attack animation, recovery, reload) and is multiplicative, while the speed bonuses are all additive and affect only the recovery.

Nice, but like with the wizz it's more CC and damage than tanking - blinding basically works like stuck because the dragon stops following once blinded and you can stay out of his range.

Here's another version of the paladin - this time without using superb armor/shield and Serel's boon... http://youtu.be/v5MTyW9oBIs