Raven Darkholme

As long as you don't solo 8-9 deflection don't mean that much. Solos will be harder but still doable. Going for high Con is smart, whether you need 18 idk, 12-15 sounds fine.

Party on hard. For several reasons, I never finished the game so far, despite all kind memories of Baldurs Gate and the original Dragon Age (hoping for 2.0. to fix a few things). So I'm a relative noob. Everything works on hard and i mean EVERYTHING. That's because hard is not hard at all Con got buffed and Deflection nerfed.

A crit kills sky dragon a hit nearly kills him. Maybe it's 25 per second?

Melee rogues have the highest single-target DPS in the game, but lack AoE, which is basically what he said. Don't think even the single target dps of a rogue can keep up with spells like Disintegration. It definitely doesn't keep up with the overall dps, which is all that matters in my book.

Melee or ranged? If ranged, you don't need to focus on survivability at all, even on PoTD. In 2.0 you might not want to dump Con, but the last thing you want to do is wear heavy armor. Your DPS and Focus gain will be more important to the survival of your party as a whole than will your personal survivability. In the fights that actually pose any threat to your back row at all (that can't be countered with the appropriate priest spell), like ones with teleporting Shadows, I have tried it both ways. Equipping my back row with plate armor, they still eventually died despite lots of heals, because their Health will eventually wear down and you can only heal Endurance. The same fights were easier when I had my back row in robes, and had them CC and focus fire any Shadow that got to them. I don't even have this problem with a party of 3, my cipher survived all 3 levels of the lighthouse without in between resting, even though her health steadily depleted. Ofc she was wearing plate back then. Now I finally saw the light and gave her the robe from the Vithrack bounty, but she's level 12.

Awesome. Variety is better than I thought. Mind you I only soloed with cipher, monk and paladin before. So how does the fighter survive this? Maxed IN for extra long duration of the defence buff?

I don't think anything remotely similar is possible with another class, lol. And I guess if you get your gear without leveling 2 is enough. Also in 2.0 2 will be very easy because of PE. You'll probably kill him with hide armour or clothing then.

Lol, I didn't even need fan of flames. https://youtu.be/kszrT2FYGtM

I see a pattern. :D

So I created a wizard in 1.06., since I want to solo 2.0 and White March with one. I built him with 2.0. friendly stats, max PE even though it's not that important in 1.06. As soon as I got to Valenwood, I wanted to test his soloskills and went straight to the bandits. I was shocked how fast I killed them with just Arcane Veil, Eldritch and Parasitic staff. It wasn't even funny so brutal. None of my solochars ever killed them lke that on level 2 and without items (I wore hide armor, lol.) Then I got cheeky and went to the bear, but lacked the hp to beat him like that. Later today or tomorrow I'll go to gilded Vale, level to 3 and get some gear. (no figurine, lol.) I think I will beat his ass badly.

If you keep PE at 10 in 2.0, your offense is pretty much exactly what it would have been in 1.06, so hardly screwed. For pure DPS might is still better for everyone who lacks massive +% damage bonuses, this was shown ages ago when accuracy was based on Dex. Pala had NO offense in 1.06. thats the problem., I agree with you Paladin will never be an offensive powerhouse but aren't the heaviest hitters in the game lacking in Aoe as well? or am I missing something? Rogue and Ranger don't have very good AoE but they can brutalize enemies. Maybe my hybrid/offtank type with a Paladin isn't possible. You need too many stats I think..either go offense or defense. I don't see rogue and rangers nearly in the league of spellcasters.

Have you testetd the effect of Survival? Edit: Oh, nvm I was thinking figurines for some reason.

You're not gonna tank adra as cipher, so Fort pretty much doesn't matter. 18/9/10/3/19/19 Seems safe to me.

Only problem with your strategy is, you've got to do the easy defiance bay quests at some point and will get less use out of the xp, than if you did them before the bounties and Od Nua, since leveling up becomes slower with additional levels. Other than that, good on showing how early you can do these with your setup.

If I rolled a cipher in 1.06. I'd probably not max any skill. You can get Might from starting 16 up to 20 just by generally being a ****. Same goes for Res. So definitely don't go beyond 16 in those skills, you probably can get away with 14 because of resting bonuses and cheap food.

As pala lacks AoE it will never be an offernsive powerhouse. But if you don't max PE in 2.0. your offense is pretty much screwed.

Right, didn't think this through. Dex will be close to max for many Ciphers, so no way to transfer points there. In general, playing 2.0 beta now, it seems that one needs more defensive stats than before. I remember Eder being less squishy, my 2nd and third line are in melee more often. But I still think that points in CON aren't a very efficient way to boost survivability. Any better ideas? Armor we mendtioned already, what about RES? Ciphers really don't have much in term of escape skills... Um, just use Ectopsychic Echo? Cipher is the only squishy class, that does not need to worry about melees attacking them at all.

I've got to add, that you don't need to max deflection on a cipher. Mine had one of both stats at 10 or even less and still soloed PotD successfully. Whether you have 100 def on level 12 or 110, doesn't matter that much. In 2.0. END will be the ciphers best defensive stat for solo.

Crits for barb won't happen regularly before 2.0, but with better perception ofc it will be viable.

Since I have Wave I use Echo way less, too. But don't forget it's a level 11 spell and Echo still has its uses.

Don't forget, CO also gimps health if dumped, the boots only heal EN.

10 is fine, don't dump it, don't max it.

In 2.0 CON will be worth more than now. Now as I see it CO 9 or 10 is enough if youre melee and ranged you could even go lower. In 2.0 it might be worth going 10 with ranged and 12 or more with melee. But your point about DEX is nearly moot, at least for a cipher who would pretty much max DE anyway.

Your other attributes don't get weaker in 2.0, they stay the same. In the end a char in 2.0 will be stronger because accuracy is hard to come by so buffing perception is huge.

Thanks. I subbed to you as well, nice work on killing that drake. Yeah mods like SCS would shoot the replay value of PoE through the roof.