Elric Galad

I think it is really poor for offense, but has nice defensive properties, especially the druid, ranger and barbarian version. So giving it to a (ranged) ranger as you do or to a druid, as Thundercat build does on this forum, makes sense. It might even be considered "best in slot item" for them. I don't really see other purposes.

Sorry, it was a little joke. The second colour set is better indeed. Criticism is easy, art is difficult...

This is premium quality testing. Even better because we have clear a general rule now : penetrating shot apply to line spells, single target spells, jumping spells and main target of targetted spells with AoE. It shouldn't work with DoT and lashes (like sunlance). So it should Bypass DR of Silent Scream main target. If it wasn't raw damages ^^ More Seriously, it should work with overwhelming wave, firebug, prone pillar (main target is the onlt one to take damages anyway)... Harder to determine : twin stones (work on line, but not on impact), seven night she waited (work seperately on each line) ? Finally Charge and Flagellant Path should be considered as "melee line spells" and work with vulnerable attack ???

I would really max Dex, so if your race/background can allow it, don't hesitate to put 19 or 20. Second priority is Per. 15 is ok. My last rogue had 13 might. Might is relatively meaningless on a rogue. I prefer letting Con and Res to 10 as Rogue goes to melee. Int is not so useful to deserve a 10% endurance malus.

So you can use golden gaze until Expose vulnerabilities proc, then switch to minor blight for blast festival. It sounds good. Is there any WM II items that has on hit effects ? (Except weapons)

I didn't know that Andy Warhol plays PoE

There are 3 effects from Minor Blight :- Main attack targetting deflection (I think... or is it also reflex ?) - AoE attack targeting reflex (same damages as main attack). - Blast AoE for each main target and secondary targets. Penetrating shot seems to be applied to initial target, and maybe secondary ones (but I can't test it for a few weeks). Blast talent and penetrating blast shall be applied only to the third effects. All of these effects can trigger interrupt even if the logs are misleading (interrupt from blast are confirmed as a single target can be interrupted several times but they are not listed in the blast effect). I'm also curious about Penetrating Shot applied to all crackling bolt and mind lance target (or only the main one). This paranoia comes from Concussive missile where only main target gets its DR reduced by penetrating shot.

It affects the main target of concussive missile, not the secondary ones which is a different effect. So it should work with pillars of faith. That's why I doubt for Kalakoth's minor blight. The main and secondary targets have similar effects so it might be considered as AoE instead of targetted.

An interesting topic to dig out. By chance, does someone know if pentrating shot work with Minor Blights ?

By looking an old thread I found an old post where you were saying this. Other people disagreed. Sounds buggy to me ^^

Yup, but this time I was wrong, it wasn't ever change. I just thouhht I'm wondering what would be the most interesting between a Citzal Lance/melee reach build, a Kalakoth/Implement build... or anything will anyway be meaningless compared to wizard spellcasting anyway, at least for major battles... I wish there could be more specific way of building your wizard. At least this thread is a good example of what could be done ^^

I won't change your party composition either. It's fine. Chanter and pet makes ok tank, especially because pet has infinite health pool and you have a lot of healers. I would just equip priest with Sword and Board, and I would consider the Thundercat build on this forum, as it allow dumping defenses while keeping good survivability. So you'll have 2 tanks and 2 other melee guys to block the way to your squishies. By the I had great fun with a melee cipher with medium armor too. Melee cipher does more damages than ranged one (even if it is less flexible.), so you can be a little less squishy and still deal a lot of damages.

Hehe I'm just starting a new PotD playthrough with almost them party, except no cipher and a second chanter. In my opinion it's totally viable, but you may need more tankiness. Your party doesn't have to be only made of squishies and tank. A simple priest with leather armor and shield can help holding the line : small shield does not cause any malus to spellcasting. Early game, spells are limited ressource so casting speed is not so critical ; late game, durgan steel will negate a big part of armor malus. Furthermore, be sure to pick form of the Delemgan as Druid Spell Mastery for lvl 4. Fast cast party wide 8DR against physical attack will greatly help your survivability. Combo with binding web is great.

By the way, I've done other interesting tests with following conclusions : - Kalakoth blasting blast has apparently returned. Each single hit of summoned Kalakoth minor blast triggers blast. As Kalakoth has an AoE, each hit in the AoE triggers a separate blast, so each ennemy in a pack can recieve multi-blast (as well as potential interrupts). So now, it's like a baby version of Heart of Fury. I thought this one had been patched. EDIT : Apparently, I imagined it was patched. So it works, and it is most likely the best way to get interrupt. - Apprentice's Sneak Attack applies to each Kalakoth hits in the original AoE, but not to blast hits. - Apprentice's Sneak Attack applies to each Citzal Spirit Lance hits in the Citzal's AoE. (Citzal's is described as "blast" in the flavour text, but it is appently a totally different effect.)

Mmmn, I just said that I don't know about monk's clones. Maybe they're different.

Confident aim does work on every spell, as deathblows. The wording on the tooltip is not so cryptic about it. Preservation from items usually DON'T stack. However, enchantments from weapons and shield do stack with everything. That's the reason why you see Little Savior preservation stacking. But thank you for your finds.

Bonus damages used to be additive. Annihilation on crit meant +50% damages. Spirit of Decay should have meant +20% damages. This has been the case since the beginning of PoE. OR there are hidden rules or modified stuff.

Did Damage modifiers get changed by the same guy that designed attack speed ?

So to answer my own questions : None of the above boost your clones. Clones does not get the passive from their original character. Basically, clones have their own stats which seems to be pretty high : My Substancial Phantom had an accuracy of 111 and 30 interrupt, and his Minoletta's missiles did more damage than Aloth's (and his rather bad Might). These values were not changed by Weapon Focus and Interrupting blows. He didn't get constant recovery. I can't be sure about Electrical Damage talent, but I think it didn't apply. I got the impression that Blast applies, but the AoE of the Phantoms are not blast but some Built-In Electrical Attack with an AoE. So they probably only benefit from non-weapon items. I have no idea about monk's clones working the same or not. It worths noticing that lvl 4 Essential Phantom has DIFFERENT values than Lvl 7 Substancial one, with only 90 Accuracy and 12 Interrupt. So it's not only about spells. In conclusion, Phantoms are pretty solid summons with good stats, but don't mind them when you're choosing your talents.

I my opinion, if your party include a wizard you should suggest not taking Tanglefoot as Spell mastery. With Delemgan form active, Binding Web basically becomes Foe-only which is the only Tanglefoot only defect. And Sunbeam is such an excellent alternate choice ! I noticed about form of the Delemgan last week. I think it wasn't noticed initially because the only online description (WMII Data miner topic) is about its 3.0 version which was "only" 5 DR buff, and because its description is a mix of too many things to be quickly understood. Furthermore, druids have so many good 4th level spells that people probably were not too eager to find alternate choice when Form of the Delemgan was released. If Form of the Delemgan has been a 7th level spell, more people would have been aware of it (sad but true). I would rank it the 3rd best party buff of the game after Crown and Devotion of the Faithful.

Melee ranger are a good choice as ranger is a very good class. Basically you loose twinned arrows and driving flights which are truly awesome skills. You win defensive bond (which is IMHO only interesting with melee ranger), and probably better stunlock with stunning shots because of better attack speed of some melee weapons, especially when dual wielding. Superior damages from melee attacks compensate for the loss of double attacks, but you loose ranged flexibility. I find melee ranger overall suboptimal, but it has a few perk where it is superior.

Is this even possible? Just use your "magic savegame trick" and you won't have any problems.

Chanter's phrase is a DoT. DoT are now the only exception. It is not good, but at least there are not so many subcases like for stacking/non stacking effect.

Sure, I'll try to do a bit of testing today. Yesterday I focused on testing salvation of time combos and it worked perfectly with arcane veil ) Yes spirit of decay was for the high level clone's necrotic lance. Of course, it isn't worth it but it may be a minor reason to think about a Ice/Corrode moor wizard main reason would be the lvl 8 black bow. This bow attacks WILL instead of deflection which can be very useful against some ennemies. Thank you for the tip about electrical damages. I was indeed wondering about it too since I just remembered the clones did electrical damages. Unfortunately you're right about wizard missing electrical spells. Maybe a 4 elements wizard could be fun ? Just to have the best possible wall of many colours

Binding web and form of the delemgan can be a sick combo by the way (immunity to stuck) especially considering bonus to kiting from form of the Delemgan.