Raven Darkholme

Perception = accuraccy.

Deathblows is nice, but for my personal playstyle having to set up 2 afflictions, even tho easily acomplished is still inferior to just straight attacking. Bear in mind I haven't played with a full party after my very first pt. One thing to be said about deathblows is its compatibility with spells. As Boroer mentioned direballs are quite awesomesauce.

Yes rogues hit hard, but ciphers hit harder is what I'm trying to say. 40% bonus damage through soul whip and 1st talent. A rogue gets 50% but only on Sneak attacks, for cipher I can pick the Apprentice's sneak attack and I'm at 65% on sneak attacks and 40% on all other attacks. Powers are only additional and you can do a lot of damae with them too and also buff your attack speed like crazy with time parasite.

You can achieve Level 1 via normal respec at an inn. Respeccing attributes only works with IE Mod, but you could manually set your attributes via console (plus or minus attribute)

I don't think a cipher shines less on hard. Because of lower enemy deflection their lower accuraccy will matter less. Their damage is higher than rogues without needing afflictions. On top they can have the crossclass talents for 15% extra damage on sneak attacks. They have powers which will also be easier to crit with on hard instead of potd.

If you go no priest just go chanter with scrolls. You can cast scrolls while the chants still automatically work. Most scrolls are priest spells.

I have not quite understood yet, what makes the rogue good. A cipher does better weapon damage and the lower accuracy can be easily compensated by perception and early accuracy gloves from raedrics. On top of that cipher has it's powers. Rogue and ranger are the only classes I would rebalance, that being said rangers are way better than rogues.

Beloved Spirit and Sure handed are awesome, the chanter is the strongest class in this game and doesn't need buffs.

If we talk dps not only through weapon damage but also spells, abilities and the like, paladin level 13 upward (maxed MI high IN) and cipher are also up there but I gotta agree with boroer, monk all over the game and barbarian highest overall.

For longer fights on high level cipher I cast: Heavy ranged shot for focus - Defensive mindweb - switch to melee for focus (dual bittercut) - time parasite - more focus gain - borrowed Instinct - if theres a dragon or similar disintegrate it, if not reaping knives. From that point focus built is more than you can spend, cast whatever. Only mentioned this since nobody posted about long fights in high level as far as I can see, otherwise I can recommend the other posts above.

Yeah apart from my first pt I never got petrified ever again either, but since you can avoid that in PoE also...

Weren't the Basilisks deadly primarily because of they stoned the Bhaalspawn it was instant game over. I don't remember your characters being prone to taking more damage when stoned (though I might be wrong). If they get killed while in stone they permanently die, can't be raised.

Mainly enemy stats, sadly not on all enemies like Alpine Dragon. It's also supposed to add enemies but idk about that, the broodmother on Russetwood map felt kinda strange to me, is it always there? Other than that I mainly felt it to be important that broodmothers have higher stats so you don't kill them to quickly the same goes for most enemies I guess.

I would always start WM on 9 because only then you can upscale it. Level 13 broodmothers are quite awesome foes even tho I killed Alpine and upscaled Sky dragon they still show up as most powerful enemy killed.

Well in DnD terms stone has always been deadly, oh Basilisks and Irenicus in BG.

Didn't know about that cloak. Dual bittercut is jsut awesome, my cipher is rocking it and it hurts real bad and the focus gain is massive.

You can buy the resources and you also get plants and creature parts from your stongholds Botanic Garden and Curio Shop.

I didn't say early game when I mentioned charge, I said it is a unique ability. Torments Reach requires a wound so it's not an off the bat use in a battle. Depending on the circumstance knockdown is much more useful than Torments Reach. It's an extra damaging cc ability that allows you to hit an enemy that cannot fight back and has lowered deflection. Torments Reach requires someone to hurt you and then you just have a bit of extra damage to fight back. I'm not saying it's bad or isn't useful, it's just not the same thing. For me, Knockdown is a much more useful skill than Torments Reach. The initial post of you about the monk said the monk was weaker early and stronger late, which is absolutely untrue. Yes you didn't repeat that when you mentioned charge but you quoted my answer to your first post. Whatever, both monk and fighter can be quite good I personally like the monk others fighter it's a question of personal preference.

Races don't matter that much. Boreal dwarves are one of the better races tho.

Is there a particular reason you want to change your stats? They look fine to me if you absolutely don't want to go below 10. Melee wizards are very good they have buffs other classes dream off.

It's good for any solo class, also for wiz.

one-for-one the fighter has more damage output right off the bat because of their damage buffs. Buffs that monks do not get. Torments reach is great in debuffing and AoE damage, but the output is very similar to the Fighter if you count the passive buffs. Plus a fighter requires nothing to get going. I think they're very similar overall, but the ability Charge on the fighter just puts the monk to shame. The monk has nothing in his/her kit that can destroy 3-4 enemies in the first second of combat. And even though I enjoy the monk immensely I can't get passed the fact that their passive wound generation is completly counter intuitive to what an actual assassin style character should bring to the table, which is to decimate enemies without them being able to respond. That doesn't make any sense, Charge is not early game. Monk has torments reach, fighter has what? Knockdown? Please.

I do agree on the cipher part, but not on what you say about monk. The monk Boroer described is the strongest solochar in Act 1 which I would definitely define as earlygame. It has MUCH more punching power than a fighter.

Yeah also looked at that spell and find it extremely useful.

This.