Raven Darkholme

Haven't been to Def Bay in a while but I will give firebrand a go, I have 200k anyway and since I haven't been to Cragholdt yet that seems like a nice and underleveled place (I'm maxed lol) to test out stuff.

The 2 opening shots with FoD are always nice. On low level try to always get a pistol/bb/arquebus/arbalest shot in to engage not only great for FoD but also many other chars in your group. But yeah your main damage will come from immolation but even tho it's quite late, Kana and GM were always lower in total damage than my paladin in my trio, GM mostly because she comes quite late and I had to use a hireling before also stuff like disintegrate doesn't seem to count for more than the initial damage. Between 9 and 13 Kana never caught up in the statistics but I'm afraid those are not representative because ticks just don't seem to count and dragon memed chant has ticks, too. Right now I understand the high damage of the pala cause of my 24 MI without any food or resting bonus (just Garodh's chorus) SA hits like a truck.

Hm, then I'd probably combine shatterstar with slashing damage is there an interrupt weapon for that, too?

Not quite sure about spirit shift but it should. The order in itself doesn't matter but at least for paladin the choices you do in dialogue also matter for hireling. You can always dumpo Res on backliners, for Con I wouldn't go below 10 but that's just personal preference and safe, not absolutely necessary if you know what you're doing.

Yeah dragon slashed coupled with 20+ Int destroys any high dr targets by stacking (don't use invocattions until it's stacked. What level are you? If you have reaping knives with GM cast it on the barb or Devil and you should destroy them, too. Aloth's summoned weapons should also do wonders. If you are quite low level Ectopsychic Echo works well if you have Mi bonuses on GM.

Couldn't find a lance or pike doing a quick search, but before you are durganized you will be quite slow with a 2hander compared to a dagger.

It doesn't? I can't seem to find the corresponding patch notes, does it target deflection now?

Well I'd say Mosquito is flat out best being a dagger and all, if you duplicate it with Helwax I don't even wanna begin to imagine what a barbarian with carnage will do to whole encounters if built for attack speed and interrupt.

Yea I noticed that the other day too, when you talk to companions in Brighthollow their quest advances as far as pure dialogue goes, so if Durances doesn't require you to go anywhere you're totally fine with completing the quest that way. And you also get to send him on stronghold quests, wouldn't want to miss that dual Bittercut.

I didn't yet but I might test it a little later. I looked at firebrand not too long ago, but I don't like it hitting reflex since most dragons have quite low deflection compared to reflex (Adra has slightly higher def but both almost the same, one of the Bog dragons has insane deflection, but you can charm that one) Once I switch to melee my focus built is insane anyway, especially as soon as I have Time parasite, I've almost stopped going for reaping knives but it's good fun against less squishy targets, I just can't spend the focus anymore. Main "problem" is focus build before mindweb, but I have a ****ty exceptional arquebus and I don't wanna go pistol cuz range. It's still not a problem since worst case scenario I have 75+ish focus and one melee strike easily builds enough.

Casting reaping knives on the chanter whilst having 0 attack recovery also makes it very viable in melee, but then again that counts for everyone even rogue. In the initial post I missed the part about the op saying paladins suck. As others here stated, that couldn't be farther from the truth. The paladin has always been an awesome tank and group supporter. With the addition of sacred immolation it also became one of the best damage dealers, if you max Might and go with high Int. With the addition of Defensive Mindweb to the cipher a "tank" generally got raised in usefulness by a massive amount, since that spell transforms your whole party in a tank, ofc each retaining their unique abilities. My paladin in my trio party is not even optimised and has in combat with the use of Llengraths potion (you only need to use it on the tank for mindweb) 152 deflection 172 Fort (she is also Coastal Aumaua, wears boots of stability and little savior), 162 Reflex and somewhere in the 140 will range. No other class has this widely spread defenses and even tho it's useless if the rest of your party gets roasted, with mindweb now you have the amazing ability to transform all your party into monsters. The paladin already supported the pparty with various abilities this is just a further form of support. Not possible ofc ithout the cipher who is also amazing support, whilst being a vicious attacker. (And yes my high defense paladin still has maxed Might and almost maxed Int and with SA still a damage monster)

Whoops, maybe I should have tested it before spouting nonsense. I assumed since it doesn't show suppressed if you hover your mouse over the character and since it does 2 different effects (attack speed steal and straight out buff) it wouldn't suppress each other which is partly true but the part about 50% attack speed is suppressed, my bad. At least by jumping ingame and testing it on GM I can confirm she also rocks with tidefall even tho slightly less than with dual bittercut.

Oh another fellow German. You don't miss a lot of content from the companion quests, Kanas for example is pretty ****ty and so is GM's. Never used Durance for long he annoyed me too much. :D Yes you can start playing without the expansion it just gets added to your save.

edit: I'm an idiot.

In BG I never used Keeper before I completed the game without it (didn't even know about it then). But when you go back to an old game and wanna have some fun with it you might get a lil crazy about what your char should look like. In PoE I haven't used the console for a long while and haven't even downloaded Keeper, but it certainly is helpful for correcting mistakes (less so since respecs, that's why I stopped using it) or adapting companion stats. Sure you could also build uber chars to get your achievements easier but let's be honest the game is a lot flatter than BG and it would be a lot less fun. (No illegal multiclasses and so on)

First of all your post had me laughing prtty hard, good job. (In a very positive way) If you really want to do a lot of damage with your weapon I can only advise cipher. Cipher is less squishy than rogue and also buff itself. But I'm not gonna lie it's not a char you learn how to melee with in 1 day, ranging is a lot more inituitive (and less fun). Also you get to use powers which are ofc partially spells, but you could just use buffs and debuffs to accentuate meleeing.

If you own the game nobody can inhibit you from using a savegame editor. Oh the crazy characters I built with Shadowkeeper just for fun.

This theory about full attacks sounds to me like it only works in quite low level with a) targets having less health and b) there not being enough targets to use up those abilities. I don't think a level 16 rogue has as much slaying power as a cipher of the same level, even if the cipher only uses a handful powers for selfbuff and then stops using focus and keeps meleeing (which is ofc not advised). This gets crazier if you solo and the rogue can't easily deathblow anymore, since flanking only works with summons and you have to inflict other afflictions.

4-head? As in the meme? Seriously tho, the companions are not that bad, since you can level them yourself if you disable auto level. I'm rocking pc paladin + Kana and GM, but you can also use pc cipher, Eder, Pallegina and Aloth as you wish. I personally find bigger parties unnecessary micromanagement and anythingabove solo gets very powerful with level, even two man/grills. The expansions give you more levels and awesome items, without it parts of the original game will be harder but still doable.

The waiting is the reason I never use stasis, I once used it myself by mistake, I wanted Time Parasite. Turns out you can't run out of sight and let the debuff expire either, so a lone simple Lagufaeth kept me waiting for the whole duration of it. The only dragon that can't be charmed is one of the bog dragons I think.

Haha even tho that's the most awesome use of Stasis Shell I ever heard of, if you have to roll with a will attack why not charm it staright away? As to mindweb a priest is not needed at all, just hav a paladin or chanter with maxed defenses and the godmode is real. I have a 3 man party right now with pala, Kana and GM, pala provides defence, Kana chants for reflex, will, fort and ofc dragon slashed (in dragon fights also beast slaying), and GM does arquebus shot into mindweb and then goes ham with dual bittercut.. I only had slight focus trouble at start of adra dragon fight since I couldn't build focus vs. the dragon herself. I then distracted her with the pala built focus off a xaurip and went into my usual combo of mindweb, focusbuild (now on the dragon herself Kana also provided with protection from fear), time parasite, more autoattack, borrowed instinct, i then went into scalebreaker and disintegrate but realised that on cast she was already near death. That 175 accuracy crit still looked good especially since I didn't use acc potions or scroll of valor.

I also would rather see deathblows working on 1 affliction, since you can almost always flank a target without too much fuzz.

I just confirmed your post that Ravenwing is one-handed so I'm not sure if I understand your last post. All war hammers are one handed.

Ravenwing is not two handed but it's only good early game. If you absolutely don't want to dual bittercut cuz rp, then I would take war hammers like Godansthunyr or Strike Hard.

Frenzy is very good and not at all suicidal. A difference of 10 deflection and hp will never matter but +4 CON will probably give you more survivability than you lose. Can't help you with yell vs shout but I personally would probably keep per encounter since I hate to spam rest. Blooded is very good on a barbarian since you can myx your endurance so below 50% will still be more than your other chars (unless you ahve a monk). Savage Defiance is quite good but not a must take, depends whether you are confident in healing with potions since they are kinda bugged. Bloodlust and Bloodthirst are awesome on barb as are all on kill effects since you do area damage. I wouldn't take thick skin DR is pretty ****ty in this game and you only get +2 and only on physical damage. Eye of the storm seems a waste to me since you can simply disengage. Echoing shout seems like something I can't judge without having tried it, which I haven't but it seems a waste to me.