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As ever, abusing your own CC is a great way to counter enemy CC. Wizard, Druid, and/or Cipher are your best bets for mass CC but most classes have at least a few ways to disable enemies. Make sure to buff your accuracy, debuff enemy defense, and try to prevent/remove any accuracy debuffs to ensure you can consistently land your CC. I would also recommend investing skill points into stealth. The closer you can get to enemies without them going hostile, the better chance you have to disable enemy casters before they cause too many problems. And as other posters have already mentioned you need a sturdy party for PoTD. On my previous run I had great success with a party of Paladin, Monk, Barbarian, Chanter, Priest, and Wizard. I had the first four equipped with heavy armor giving me a solid front line. If a battle was in a more open area I swapped out my casters light armor for something more substantial.

Barbarian - Dragon Leap. So handy to be able to quickly dive the enemy backline and wreck the squishies Chanter - Oh, But Knock Not on the Door of Urdel and Gurdel. Because OGRES SMASH. Cipher - Ectopsychic Echo. Makes an amazing combo with the Barbarian and Dragon Leap. Druid - Overwhelming Wave. Trickier to utilize than some of the other Druid spells, but it can take a lot of enemies out of the fight for quite a long time. Fighter - Into the Fray. It never fails to amuse me when an enemy goes randomly flying towards the Fighter for no clear reason (seriously how does this work?). Monk - Force of Anguish. Because who doesn't love turning an enemy into a bowling ball? Paladin - Aegis of Loyalty. Literally smack some sense back into your allies. Priest - Iconic Projection. Simple but effective and always useful. I get far more satisfaction out of my Priest once I master this spell. Ranger - Returning Storm (via Stormcaller). This is cheating, but I don't care. This is my favorite part of playing a Ranger. Rogue - Escape. Very handing positioning tool. I particularly like being able to quickly close a gap to stun a key enemy with Sap. Wizard - Tayn's Chaotic Orb. Brings all kinds of nastiness to the enemies. The Wizard is way too spoiled with all kinds of amusing spells.

Playing without a Priest is usually more challenging, but you can get by just fine. I'm currently in the middle of a PoTD run with no Priest and I've found it to be a refreshing change of pace and only moderately challenging. My advice for a no-Priest party is to bring along a Paladin and any two of Druid, Wizard, and Cipher. The Paladin has decent healing and a lot of amazing support abilities including some that can help you deal with afflictions (Liberating Exhortation and Aegis of Loyalty). As casters the Druid, Wizard, and Cipher have many tools at their disposal, but in particular they are valuable for their strong CC that will make tough battles far more manageable.

The hunt for ever better gear provides a lot of motivation and reward for players to continue their journey. Allowing early gear to be enhanced to end-game quality detracts from this. On the other hand, allowing early gear to be enhanced to end-game quality allows for a wider variety of end-game builds. You definitely don't want to end up with one weapon always being THE weapon for a specific class or weapon type (like the Holy Avenger in BG2, which also could be acquired long before the end-game). What baffles me is I thought PoE already solved this problem. There is a limited amount of crafting material necessary to upgrade early gear end-game quality. You can make a few of your early favorites end-game gear but you'll definitely want to use some items that already come with high level enchantments. With the White March expansions the total number of upgrades allowed may be slightly higher than ideal, but that's a simple numbers change in PoE2. I think the real issues with limited weapon progression in PoE are the limited number of competitive unique weapons and the act 2 quest explosion. If you wanted to use a Pike, for example, your option is really just Tall Grass, which can be acquired fairly early. The vast majority of game content becomes available early in act 2 so players can seek out much of their preferred gear fairly early on. Stricter pacing allows for a smoother gear progression, though it is debatable to what extent this is worth the loss of freedom.

Of all the proposed changes for PoE2 the injury system makes the least amount of sense to me. I always thought the health/endurance system was pretty ingenious and improved the game in multiple ways. Healing could have a much larger impact without being overpowered. No amount of healing will prevent a character from eventually running out of health. Constitution delivered a lot more value when you didn't just need enough endurance to avoid being knocked out before healing. High Constitution really made a difference for front line characters and dumping Constitution had a real penalty even for backline characters (at least after the attribute rebalance). Easier fights were much more compelling when taking the effort to beat them efficiently provided real value. The limitation of a health pool provided much needed encouragement to fully utilize per rest abilities. I personally struggle with the "too awesome to use" syndrome and tend to avoid using any limited resources outside of the toughest fights because I might need it later. Health bars were a convenient way for me to estimate the time until rest and properly utilize the per rest abilities. One of my favorite self-imposed challenges is to require all party members to survive a battle for it to count as a victory. Another challenge I often use (sometimes alongside the first one) is strict resting limitations. In both cases the health/endurance system enhances the difficulty and enjoyment of the challenge. I honestly found the injuries present in PoE to be annoying and would if anything like to see them scaled back rather than expanded in PoE2. Whereas the penalty associated with losing health started out minimal and scaled smoothly up to massively debilitating, the penalty of being injured was pretty binary (have injuries or not) and somewhat random (how often or not is your lowered reflex, for example, going to be targeted?). Injuries via scripted events always felt very unfair, especially when paired with the loss of acquiring a favorable outcome (e.g. obtain an item). It's not like it wasn't super easy to get around this by utilizing reloading and/or a walkthrough.

Beyond nostalgia, I can't really come up with any good defense of the Vancian spell casting system in video games. It was just terrible for game balance because of how easy it was to abuse by frequent resting. The only way to actually make it balanced is strict resting limitations, but this is a poor solution because most players hate being forced to replay already cleared content. I know that when playing Pillars of Eternity I always have to be very careful to manage my casting frequency - resting too often to spam spells trivializes content while being too conservative with spell usage makes the caster classes too dull. The per encounter casting with per rest empowerment sounds like a promising system, though it does have some potential pitfalls. Finding the right balance of total spells per encounter will definitely be tricky. It also might be worthwhile to experiment with casting cooldowns to allow for a higher maximum number of casts without trivializing shorter battles. I also suspect that spells will need to be more carefully balanced than in Pillars of Eternity in order to prevent one spell from being THE spell at each level. For example, Slicken is pretty overpowered but with 4+ total level 1 spell casts I'm never afraid to cast another level 1 spell that is useful at the moment. If level 1 spell casts were limited to 1 to 2 (albeit per encounter), I'd have a really hard time justifying an alternate cast unless the enemies were immune to prone.

Thanks for the advice Boeroer. I've picked out the armor I'd like to upgrade, but I'm still working out weaponry for some of my characters. Here's what I'm considering so far: Paladin - I'm looking for a 2-handed weapon that does massive damage per hit reliably, in order to easily secure kills. It looks like Abydon's Warhammer is my best bet for this, but I'm open to other options. Kana Rua - I'm probably going to stick with the Cladhaliath and Badgradr's Barricade as my default. I'l l also probably use the Blade of the Endless Paths as a more damaging alternate. Zahua - I want maximum single target sustained DPS. I know Fists are pretty good, but I'm not sure if they beat out dual wielding something like Drawn in Spring and Spelltongue. Maneha - I'd like Maneha to have one weapon set focused on maximum single-hit damage and on-hit/crit spells to maximize the value of Heart of Fury. I think my best bet would be The Grey Sleeper or St. Ydwen's Redeemer, but it might even be something utilizing The Unlabored Blade. My second weapon set would be for sustained combat effectiveness. I'm intrigued by the idea of The Unlabored Blade and Dragon's Maw Shield. However, I'm uncertain to what extent Taste of the Hunt stacks or how it interacts with carnage. Durance - I like the idea of Steadfast paired with Little Savior. Pliambo per Casitàs will be the ranged alternate (unlikely to be Durganized). Aloth - I'm going to utilize both Gyrd Háewanes Sténes and Rod of Pale Shades depending on my needs.

Anyone? At the very least, can someone let me know if the wiki includes all White March 2 weapons/shields/armor so I can try to put together a proposed list of items for upgrade?

NOTE: Please avoid White March Part 2 and Crägholdt plot spoilers. Item spoilers are obviously acceptable as they are necessary for this topic. I'm in the middle of my first playthrough with the expansions (I've previously beaten the base game) and I just completed the White March Part 1. I chose to enhance the Forge for cheaper Durgan steel, and based on the info I've seen I should be able to eventually obtain 12 Refined Durgan Iron Ingots. This should be just enough to enchant every end-game weapon/shield/armor for my party, though I may need to utilize a couple soulbound items. However, I do not have a sufficient knowledge of the items available to know what I would like to use my limited upgrades on. I don't want to waste my upgrades on items I will later replace, but I'd like to upgrade end games items as quickly as possible to get full value from them. My party and their roles is as follows: Kind Wayfarers Paladin PC - off-tank/healer focused on cleaning up kills to trigger strange Mercy (and wrecking everything with Sacred Immolation). Currently wielding St. Ydwen's Redeemer. Kana Rua - tank and passive DPS and/or buffs (mostly uses the two fire chants). Currently wielding Cladhalíath (marking/coordinating) and Badgradr's Barricade. Zahua - tanky brawler that engages the strongest enemy. Currently wielding his fists. Maneha - off-tank that uses Dragon Leap to dive the enemy backline. Currently wielding The Grey Sleeper. Aloth - disabler/nuker. Currently wielding Gyrd Háewanes Sténes. Durance - buffer and strategic reserve. Currently wielding Exceptional Arquebus; often switches to Nightshroud and Sura's Supper Plate. I prefer heavy armor on most of my party. Aloth sticks to light armor and Durance uses light to medium armor depending on the situation. Please let me know which weapons, shields, and armor you would recommend as end-game gear for this party. Any other gearing advice relevant to efficiently using limited resources is also welcome.

What exactly is Firebrand? The only thing I'm seeing in the wiki is the Druid spell.

Bleak Walker and Kind Wayfarer are two best order imo , BW if going for dual wield damage dealer , KF if you want to go Triumphant path and stack on abilities that reward you after killing enemy ( 2handers are best for this , Starting with Firebrand then Redeemer and Abydons Hammer ) I would not pass helm on paladin , current playtrough i went with god like paladin and i regret it every minute since i went to WM . Especially when Tempered Helm is so nice for triumphant build and looks paladin'ish too ( Then there is Maegfolc Skull which is amazing ) Unless u build full tank paladin ( dont do this with your MC thats boring ) the sole two stats that matter for paladin are Might and INT , as soon as you get Sacred Immolation it becomes obvious . You will get enough defenses from paladins faith and conviction so you dont need to rise RES . FoD and Priest in party will give you more accuracy than you ever need so its safe to leave PER at 10 . I would never raise DEX over 10 for melee paladin ( unless building some kind of light armored Dual Vent Pick paladin ) , you can achieve 0 recovery without any dex with most weapons , especially if you are dualwielding . If going BW i would Max might as hard as i can and have 18 Int (+4 From Ring to make it 22 Lategame) , if going KF i would get atleast 20 Might and 24 Int (with items) Basically same stats just Bleak Walker continues to max might meanwhile KF focuses on having max INT . Starting stats for both you are looking at are : MIG 18+ , Con 10 , Dex 10, Per 10 , Int 18+ , Res 10 . Depending on your Race . CON , PER , DEX , RES you can leave at 10 on any pala build honestly My main advice would be , since your paladin is gonna be main character ( MC ) make it some kind of damage dealing knight , there is no point to take paladin as MC and build him as boring tank who does nothing except tank and some exhortations , you can use Kana for that . Paladins are most interesting to play when you make them into damage dealers . And they can and will cause mayhem trust me on this , both Dual wielding BW and 2 hander KF perform insanely well if built right. Other orders are not really worth it , Darcozzi being most useless , Shieldbearers are nice for tanks , and Goldpact has decentish talent ( FoD leaves DoT) but its outclassed by BW and KF talents by mile . I've decided to go with a Pale Elf Kind Wayfarer, with max MIG and INT. The last thing I need to figure out is which Weapon Focus (if any) each of my characters should acquire, assuming the NPCs aren't stuck with a focus already. I'm thinking of using my party as follows: Tank - Kana Rua Off-tank - Zahua Melee DPS - PC, Maneha Ranged - Durance, Aloth With that in mind, which weapon focus talent would you recommend for each character?

If I'm going to have Aloth and/or Kana in my party at all times is it fine to have one of them as my Mechanics expert? Are Athletics, Survival, and/or Stealth worth investing points in on every character? If so, how many? How impactful are the Kind Wayfarer bonuses? The endurance gain on Paladin kill in particular seems like it would be annoying to trigger. What exactly makes you like the Boreal Dwarves and dislike the Moon Godlike? Is this a personal preference or is there legitimate power-gaming reasons? I Resolve as important as I think or is it not very essential now that you can't stack deflection via multiple attributes?

Alright then, I've got my party decided now: Paladin (PC) Chanter (Kana Rua) Monk (Zahua) Barbarian (Maneha) Wizard (Aloth) Priest (Durance) With that in mind, let me start going through questions I have regarding character creation: Race - my party already has plenty of Aumaua and I don't like my PC as an Orlan, so I'll probably go with a Moon Godlike or a Pale Elf. The question is simply if it is worth giving up a helmet or not. Order - which is best for my party? I don't really have any objections to any order from a role-playing perspective. Shieldbearer or Darcozzi look to be the most useful for this party, but I'm open to other ideas. Attributes - I assume Resolve is extremely important for a Paladin and I think Intellect is desirable for enhancing aura radius. Are any of the other attributes particularly important or useless for a Paladin? Skills - I don't fully understand what the new skills. What is most important for my PC to have nowadays, Athletics and Survival? Which of my characters should pump Mechanics? How about Lore? Should everyone in my party get a little bit of stealth, only the front-liners, or is it something I should ignore entirely with no Rogue? Once I figure this out I should be set to start my run. I'll definitely have questions about optimal weaponry and talent/ability selection, but that isn't an immediate concern.

Depends on how you play them. Zahua has nice stats for a Monk, and despite Manhea's stats not being optimaly distributed, they are probably decent enough. Devil is trickier, due to mediocre DEX and armor you can't remove, but with her above-average RES and status-effect immunities from being a construct, you could give her a shield and a stun/prone on crit weapon so she could off-tank. Unfortunately It doesn't sound like the Devil of Caroc is a good choice. With that in mind, which of these options sounds more appealing to go with Kana Rua, Aloth, and Durance: Paladin (PC), Zahua, Maneha Paladin (PC), Zahua, Sagani Rogue (PC) Zahua, Pallegina

You can now choose their abilities and talents from level 2 onwards. Their attributes and level one abilities are untouchable, however. OK, that makes sense. There isn't any unofficial methods of editing their attributes, is there? Assuming that I don't figure out how to edit NPC stats, are any of the new companions weak enough that it would be problematic for PoTD difficulty?

It is my intention to pick up a couple of the new companions as I haven't yet experienced them. If I thought it would work in my party I'd take all three. Am I to understand from your comment that you cannot customize the NPCs at all? I thought I had heard the devs were planning to allow players to reset the talents and/or stats when NPCs are first acquired, though I may not be remembering correctly.

I had a lot of fun with Pillars of Eternity in the past, but after completing a PoTD run I decided to give the game a break until the expansions were both out. Now that I've finally got around to buying the expansions I'm excited for another play through. As I plan out my party I could use some advice from players more familiar with the current state of the game. The party I'm planning on using is: Paladin (PC) Chanter Barbarian or Monk Rogue Wizard Priest In my previous PoTD run I used a full custom party for maximum effectiveness, but I will be using NPCs this time. With that in mind, I have a few questions: To what extent can you customize the stats and abilities of the NPCs? If you can't completely customize the NPC builds, would I be better off shifting my PC to one of the other classes to avoid using an inferior NPC? Would you recommend Zahua or Maneha as a more enjoyable character and/or better fit for my party? (Please refrain from spoilers) Would I be better off using my rogue (the Devil of Caroc) as a ranged or melee character? Assuming my PC is a Paladin, which paladin order would you recommend as the most helpful to pair with this party? Please feel free to answer as many or as few questions as you would like. Any other related advice is also welcome. Once I finalize my party composition I will have additional questions regarding attribute, skill, and weapon selection.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80782-potd-adra-dragon-strategy/ If you are still struggling let us know what your party is and if you have any specific questions.

I haven't tried the beta patch yet but I assume Chanters will be even more irrelevant than they are now. The Perception change allows for increased DPS and more reliable CC, while reducing tank potential. This would presumably punish a slower combat that heavily utilizes tanks and summons, making it far harder for the Chanter to reach his higher level invocations. The supposedly improved AI might draw combat out a bit longer, but unless enemies are better at preventing and avoiding CC it probably won't make much of a difference.

I'd say Slicken is a far worse offender thatn Chill Fog. It's really hard to beat an almost endlessly spammable AoE CC that targets reflex.

I would think that Barbarians now have an even greater incentive to build around CC on crit weaponry, particularly the Tall Grass pike. This was already reasonably effective and +10 accuracy should help a lot. For your build you'd take a Hearth Orlan with a standard DPS build similar to what any ranged character would use. Max PER and INT, dump CON and RES. The rest can be split as you see fit between MIG and DEX, though I'd personally prioritize DEX. You'll definitely be extremely squishy, particularly early on. A reach weapon and frequently incapacitating nearby enemies should mitigate this to some extent. If anyone cares to test this let me know how it goes. I've been warning for a while now that bonus accuracy may boost CC to (even more) game-breaking levels of effectiveness.

It was my understanding that with the current system if your party is in scouting mode and any individual is detected with the yellow or red circle that your entire party was then detected (not sure if it was supposed to be changed/fixed in 2.0). Is this or is this not correct? If the whole party is scouting and some are in view of the NPCs and thus have yellow or red circles but I have one or more without a colored circle then are you saying they can go ahead and steal without consequence even with partial party detection? Or does it function that if a single party member is detected then everyone's circles would be showing yellow or red? Detection works differently with enemies and NPCs. Once enemies detect one of your characters combat starts and your entire party is pulled out of stealth. With NPCs around you can remain in scouting mode regardless of whether or not you are detected. Because of this you can have the majority of your party detected but a character without a red circle could still steal successfully. Just make sure you select them specifically or by default the closest character to the container will steal from it.

I think this is a case where overly focusing on realism would get in the way of balanced and fun. It would not be a good idea to restrict the Barbarian to two handed weapons and reduce the number of viable build options. I just visualize it as the Barbarian either making one powerful, sweeping blow or launching a flurry of rapid attacks. I would also like to note that dual wielding as the Barbarian is not a clearly optimal choice. A pair of basic Stilettos will hit for an average of 11 damage and the resulting Carnage will deal 7.3 damage. A two-handed weapon will hit for an average of 17 damage and 11.2 from Carnage. Against an enemy with 5 DR it would take about 3 Stiletto Carnage hits to match one two-handed Carnage hit. In general dual wielding is better against low DR enemies and two-handed weaponry better high DR enemies (though things get weird against enemies with incredibly high DR). As a melee DPS class Barbarians are in a tough spot as they have to balance damage output and survival. Two-handed reach weapons offer a convenient solution to this dilemma by allowing Barbarians to attack from behind the front line and stay alive while minimally armored. Reach weapon also make it far easier to avoid engagement, giving the Barbarian the freedom to reposition to wherever his carnage can be best utilized. Thus it is not surprising that one of the most popular Barbarian builds involves utilizing a certain Pike that can inflict prone on crits. My guess is that a lot of your problems are a result of playing on a lower difficulty. I have long disagreed with PoE's design that only boosts enemy stats once you reach PoTD - easy/normal/hard differ only in the quantity of enemies. This results in a very uneven difficulty scale. Going from normal to hard is a bit more difficult; going from hard to PoTD is a massive jump. CRPG veterans playing PoE for the first time are in a particularly bad spot, as PoTD is likely too difficult while any other difficulty becomes increasingly trivial as competence and levels are gained. My hope is that when 2.0 comes out the enemy stats will scale up smoothly with difficulty.

The only relevant skill for stealing is stealth. Mechanics is needed to open locked containers, but unlocking a container you can steal from does not count as stealing. You are also welcome to look inside these containers - only once you take something does it count as stealing. To steal without producing a response you need to not be seen while you are doing so. If you are in scouting mode any character without a red circle can get away with stealing. This is why stealth matters - the higher your stealth the closer you can approach enemies/NPCs without being detected. If you are spotted stealing you still take the items, but whoever spotted you will typically go hostile. There is at least one case where you'll be called out but not attacked (a container upstairs in the Black Hound Inn), but I'm not sure if this is the case anywhere else. My guess is that Gilded Vale is so early in the game they didn't want players who didn't yet understand the mechanics inadvertently turning NPCs hostile. I am not aware that stealing results in any reputation loss or disposition gain, but I could not say this is definitively the case.

First and foremost, make sure to grab the Scale-Breaker talent (agree to help the Adra Dragon escape but then fess up to the Falanroed). To win the battle you need to accomplish the following: 1) Buff your accuracy and/or debuff the Adra Dragon's defenses Using Scale-Breaker first thing helps get the ball rolling here. Use at least exceptional weaponry and utilize every accuracy buffing spell/ability you have (the Priest is the best option if you're using one). I believe the dragon has a fear aura which lowers your accuracy. Prayer against Fear (via a Priest or Scroll) is a quick way to deal with this. 2) Don't get hit by the breath attack Stick close to the dragon and she'll typically melee you instead of using her breath - you should probably rush in close as soon as combat starts. Ideally you want her CCed whenever possible so she can't hit you with anything 3) Keep the Adragans CCed The last thing you need is Adragans turning your own party against itself. Try to get a summon or two in position to eat any charms the Adragans use before you land your CC on them. 4) Deal as much damage to the Adra Dragon as possible before your (de)buffs expire Freeze and Slash will deal the most damage while Burn and Shock are highly resisted. Attacks targeting Reflex will have an easier time landing than those targeting Deflection or Fortitude. Raw damage is great for bypassing the DR. "Cloud" spells are nice because they get many chances to hit (and once they do they'll likely debuff the relevant defense). 5) Stay alive As always try to get your tanks tying up the dragon and any other enemies that aren't CCed. Buff your defenses if possible and try to keep heals active whenever possible - Consecrated Ground in particular is a reliable option. Some other tips: The real MVPs for this fight are the casters - Druids, Priests, and Wizards. The more you have the easier this fight will be, as they can pump out an incredible amount of powerful spells when they are high level. The best and easiest CCs to land are Paralyze, Stun, Blind, and Charm. Charm obviously turns the Dragon to your side temporarily, which causes her to start wrecking the other enemies and gives you a brief respite to heal and rebuff. The other listed debuffs reduce deflection and reflex by a significant amount, providing a significant boost to your damage output. Don't be afraid to go all out with food, scrolls, potions, and figurines. That said, if you know what you're doing you can definitely beat the battle without using any of these.