Elric Galad

Alpine is immuned to paralyzis which extremely annoying. If you have a wizard in your party, he's a joke. Without Wizard, it might be a bit more tedious.

Yes Does it work the same with Bash shields ? I tested that shield Bash is even faster than fast weapons (when used with one of them, the bash part of the cycle seems fasters) but I forgot to check how recovery works. For me, it should be the same as Dual Wield except Dual Weapon Style does not work.

So, after checking in-game, the complete list is : Strike Hard is only 0.5s, but it's still an excellent weapon.

Finally someone didn't vote for Riposte

Sure but my initial point is : Does Sneak Attack for rogue cost 1 ability point ? No. So why people compare it with things that costs 1 ability point ? You're right about Stormcaller (or Bittercut). But that's just 1 (2) specific build. Maybe Apprentice Sneak attack could be buffed a bit, but I won't be comfortable with this till Rogue get buffed

In my current play on PotD, I killed Alpine Dragon on the first try (lvl 16 party). Dragon lasted about 15s. Various accuracy buff + Gaze of the Adragan + Wrath the Five Sun for 250 damages It's not false that there's difficulty peak in this game. But they are all optional. So if you want to handle these battle, just get more info.

How much weapon would get a bonus from scion of flame exactly ? 1 ! Durance staff. And of course fire lash. But 20% x 25% is just a 5% bonus. Honnestly scion of flames is far more conditional for martial class than apprentice sneak attack. Pretending apprentice should be 80% of sneak attack is being quite blind about how class are designed.

Persistance is also top DPS of all bows, it's not a contradiction. Persistance vs Stormcaller is just overall DPS vs versatility (multiple damage types) and stun. However, I believe that melee rogue DPS is unmatched. Mostly because melee damages are basically signficantly above ranged. Pet compensates somehow but a well built rogue (no recovery, max dexterity) is far more than pet damage. Sum of pet and ranger damages is probably a bit lower than rogue's. That comparison requires all conditions to activate bonus damages to be activate (DoT, sneak), neglects secondary target damages, considers wolf pet, neglects how convenient ranged attacks are, etc... so it can be debated. As a conclusion, I think ranger is currently a better class, but Rogue should still have the highest single target DPS by a small margin, and less reliably that what twinned arrows provide.

Smell like troll spirit.

You need to restore it first. To restore it you need to kill Maerwald.

I would consider the Soulbound shield for solo survivability but I honnestly don't know what it worths ) Unlabored Blade is nice but its per rest power are made for teambuild and, as you said it is a low damage per swing which is annoying especially because of carnage damage malus. I'll choose preferably a higher base damage weapon for a barb.

This is the hard battle I was referring in my previous posts. I would avoid him for the moments. At the very least, I will never face him without 6-people party. You may try again if you want, just don't be afraid to give up. You can also barricade in the bedroom, pull the merry men and face them on the entrance. It is half-cheese but it should work.

By the way, pet does not count neither.

Thank you for this powergamer's delight, MaxQuest. You should call yourself MinMaxQuest.

Come on, all class base traits are far from equal. If you consider Fighter vs Rogue for example : at start Rogue trades Constant Recovery, 2hp/lvl, health and 15 Deflection against sneak attack ! It's pretty obvious that Sneak Attack is far superior to Constant Recovery ! Base traits like Sneak Attack (or Carnage) should never been compared to abilities, some base traits just don't play in the same league. Compare it to 2h style : same bonus, both are conditional. 2h bonus works as soon as you take a 2h, sneak attack works also with ranged weapons or even missile spell (yes Pallegina, it works). I think it's balanced.

There's just 1 single battle in act I that is significantly harder that all that you can find at Caed Nua. Not sure it is wise to advise doing it.

Mmmm, sneak attack works on missile spells ? Of course, I should have think in it. It's quite logical. (And deathblows work on every kind of spell...) 25% sneak attack would be OP IMHO. It's hard to find 15% damages on a talent, conditional or not (except for cipher biting but that's just a scaling of his base trait). Endgame, it's pretty much always active. I just avoid it early game.

There's difficulty and there's tediousness of Caed Nua for a new player. It's not the most relevent point of the difficulty curve.

Do you realize that the 4 changes you name are almost a carbon copy of your proposal on another thread ? I've only changed the AoE of One Stand Alone and Dragon Leap Prone duration you proposed. You Pseudonym is quoted on the original thread on Character build Subforum, sorry not to have done the same here.

I've never completed the WM companions, but strictly all of other companion stories are inferior to BG II's quests. They are too short with not a lot of additional content. Sagani or Hiravias are not too bad, Durance and GM very well written but are not exactly quests. That's all. The content is rather good but there is just too few content. Discussing with companions is nice but is so so far from Planescape's level. Basically I assume companions was not Obsidian's main target for PoE 1.

No, most Bg spells affected party members. Some didn't, as it is the case in PoE. Do you play PoE with Expert mode ? If not, there should be an area indicator showing the affected zone. Red zone = friendly fire. Yellow zone (due to intelligence AoE buff) = no friendly fire. You'll get used to it. My own spells rarely harm my party. Once your frontline is locked by your tanks, and characters stop moving, you should have no pb to aim anymore.

Maybe, but that's not very smart because Transcendent suffering is nice but is certainly not the main (powergaming) why you want a monk. I'm not even sure it worths a talent. Magic weapon are so good (Durgan, lash, draining, stunning...), even when compared to unarmed monks crazy damage. You take a monk because of some of their wound spender (Torment's reach, force of anguish, swift strike, dichotomous soul) or accumulator (Iron or Turning Wheel). And also excellent base stats.

Or it will create a time paradox that would result in the destruction of the whole Eora. Nothing would surprise me anymore about the way attack speed is managed.

Final advice : once you're done with Maerwall, the game will suddenly become far more easy, except for a few endgame battles. Just don't leave the main road once you enter the countryside area after Caed Nua. You'll soon reach a big town, with a lot of quests, so in case one give you some trouble, leave it for later. I have a horrible memory of my first time at Caed Nua in Normal mode. Now I beat the game in PotD. So don't worry, you'll learn, there's hope. Also before Caed Nua, the Hold final battle is very challenging. You may skip it and leave it for later. You may even switch to Hard once you feel comfortable.

Recurring problem in all RPG : how to balance unarmed attacks ? They eventually balanced them quite well for monks themselves (unarmed does extremely high damage that no weapon can imitate, even if thet lack specials). It's a minor pity the cross class talent is totally crappy. But it's still a pity.