Raven Darkholme

I'm sure it would be easy to make that particular way of killing it not work. Making every clever, borderline-exploity way of killing it not work... not so easy in a game of this complexity. It would also be a colossal waste of resources and would make the game a lot less fun for many of us who enjoy looking for these things. (I figured out a way to kill Firkraag in five rounds or less relatively reliably, using only two moderately-leveled characters. No (skull) trap abuse, just straight-up spells used as designed. I'm sure it's not even the most efficient way but I figured it out all by myself and I'm still kind of proud about that. Cheesing dragons is a proud old-school cRPG tradition.) Firkraag is a wussy.

Hah, good memories... Lots of fun stuff to do in BG1 - beat Drizzt in duel, kill Koveras, kill the Demon Knight at the entrance of Durlag's tower or one shot Sarevok at the end... Elminster however was impossible to kill... There was a cheesy way to kill him, never did it myself, cause it was an abuse, but apparently it gave a ****ton of xp and he appeared every single time, despite having been killed.

Gotta agree on the issue with the AI tho. Praise SCS for BG.

You nub. divadnothsa don't need that ****.

Hit more foes with carnage, keep Frenzy and Bloodlust for longer, heal more with Savage Defiance, keep more foes sickened with Threatening Presence, make better use of on-hit/crit effects, use Heart of Fury for massive damage, and in general be more useful. Yes, that's on paper... However you rarely find situations with more than 3-4 enemies clustered together. The real question is if it's worth being able to hit 1-2 more enemies once in a while or is it better to strike 3-4 enemies faster and harder all the time. I don't really get your point. Yes, you can play a 3 INT barbarian as much as a 3 MIG rogue, but high INT is clearly better? In a party it might not matter as much, but from the barbarian itself every point of INT is a lot more damage, high AoEs are king in this game.

I don't get the point about immersion. Using consumables is pretty much what you do in this game, that's why they're there. As to AI abusing, keep in mind he's soloing, with a party or even solo paladin you don't need to do this.

So Aragorn fighting big bad bosses is realistic in your eyes?

Fighters are not that good, just use the barb as AoE damager as intended and he is definitely contributing more. I had a fighter in my 3 chicks party (with pala and cipher) and really regretted not to have taken a chanter.

I definitely agree with the point, that they coulda nerfed the stronger powers. But the weaker powers did not really get affected by this (except the new ones I guess), and sadly this way Echo did not really get affected by this.

More accuracy and a bunch of damage talents.

I am quite aware of that, my point is the paladin was never as bad as people made him and the Sacred Immolation is actually WAY stronger than any of those buffs and came months later. The same way the cipher will not be unplayable all of a sudden, especially if you factor in Spell mastery. Well, I think the concern is that these changes are coming at the end of the development cycle for the game. It sounds like White March is going to be the last expansion; after that are they still going to do major balancing patches? So if they don't get Ciphers tweaked appropriately now, there won't be time for the up-tweak cycle to happen. They did 6 or more patches before WM came out. Patches aren't necessarily related to expansions. ;P

This transformed him from unplayable to awesome? :D They also buffed Lay On Hands, gave the auras secondary effects, and maybe other things I don't remember. I am quite aware of that, my point is the paladin was never as bad as people made him and the Sacred Immolation is actually WAY stronger than any of those buffs and came months later. The same way the cipher will not be unplayable all of a sudden, especially if you factor in Spell mastery.

This transformed him from unplayable to awesome? :D

This thread reminds me of paladin threads created before really minor buffs to the paladin. (Sacred Immolation came way later)

Many fighters of legend aren't reputed to be angry at all though, and getting angry in a fight can be very dangerous. Consider the Ronda Rousey/Holly Holm match-up. From where I'm at, Rousey looked angry, Holm looked cool and collected, and she won rather handily. Rousey is a low INT barbarian.

Totally agree with evilcat and Dr. Hieronymus posts here. Idk how much you others abused the cipher before, but to me it was a very cheap and awesome class. The gun cipher even got a little stronger with WM, because of Fellstroke. If you limit yourself to this weapon you now have soul whip with sneak attack combined, Idk if you can further enhance this with the mc talent. Up till Amplified Wave, Ectopsychic Echo is super powerful. Amplified Wave was way too strong and spamable, I'm sorry. This did not get fixed that much by immunities, for me the damage was always the main effect, prone often didn't hit because of high Fort.

I like it how it is right now, Carnage depending on INT. You say INT would stay important, so you're not gonna dump it, what benefit would there be in ahving it depend on weapon size?

Int is the chanters most important attribute and Dex the least important one. Even if it would give only AoE (I doubt that) having a huge AoE is key in trash fights, which are super annoying if you solo.

Yep, yet another major nerf to Ciphers. It is now a glorified rogue that can cast 2 spells/encounter. As soon as the final version of 3.0 comes out on GOG I will gladly pick a cipher again. Heck I might even take Grieving Mother to make it interesting.

You don't see how it is true, that an area attack which hits basically all enemies at once and is passive to boot, does more damage than your autoattack which hits one target and maybe doesn't even do 40 slash PLUS 40 burn damage like the chant does per foe?

Lol.

Solo it might be a problem, because Thaos. Why do you reckon? Seriously, as my only experience with rogue was the pacifist run long ago. Then I used the known approach of splitting, waiting and setting trap. Is there Fortitude check? But indeed, rogue with "invisibility" can breeze through the game as there is no grinding but questing here. With Wiz, as much as I like them, after certain level I just walk in and kill everything. With rouge more subtle approach is required, more planning (like using traps effectively) One of the statues prones you all the time.

Solo it might be a problem, because Thaos.

Yeah, your dps does not come from melee, but from the chants.

For Defiance Bay I'd go with either the Crucible Knights for the +DR or the Doemenals (not sure on the spelling) for the crit damage. I always avoid the Dozens as their bonus is terrible and they are a bunch of yahoos. Lol, Yahoos indeed. For the tribes quest I always pick the resolve reward and in the Council Hylea for resolve and petrify defense. Thanks guys for the replies. Just to be clear. When you say you always pick the resolve reward for the tribes, are you referring to the "Wild Running" passive? Yeah, kill mercenaries, help fangs.