Elric Galad

You may want to use the Gauntlets of Swift Action instead and try to get your recovery down to 0. If you pack +65 Accuracy excluding the bonus for single weapon, Superb enchantment, and Weapon Focus (that's another +30) and 50% hit-to-crit conversion, you'll hardly need another +5; attacking faster is better as you'll get more crits in. Well, I suppose it depends on the presence of a priest in my party. Anyway with Tactical Meld, Borrowed instinct, a lot of perception and Deflection debuff, you're right about the risk of overkill. I will check in-game anyway. It's not like I can't change Gauntlet. Crazy Peception on a Cipher may also be a good way for Boss Crowd Control.

I just add a look again at Lady of Pain. Gauntlet of accuracy seems a good item to add to my list.

I have to confess something quite shameful : I have been a Diablo 3 player. I swear that I have barely launched the game since PoE has been released. However, I remember that in Diablo 3, one of the best way to raise your DPS was to stack Critical Damage and Critical Chance. When around 50% of your blow are critical, and when critical hits do 3 or 4 times the damages of normal blows, your DPS becomes suddenly sky high. There was not so many ways to rise Critical Damage and Critical Chance in PoE. But I realized recently that there were much more than during the initial release, because of one change : Durgan Steel. Critical damage are additive, you can get : +50%(base) +30%(durgan steel) +30%(Doemenels Talent) +50%(Annihilating weapons, such as : Purgatory and Resolution Sabra Marie Hour of St Rumbalt Dulcanale (Dulcanale is a Pistol, so Base Critical Damage is only +20%, and it has an accuracy malus.) +10%(Dungeon Devler Talent). = +120% on top of base. = +170% Total. There are also a few items that give +10%, but this is not so impressive and it takes a slot, so I didn't consider them. +120%, that's a lot ! That is equal to what Melee Rogue gets from their various abilities (sneak attack, Deathblows, Reckless Modal) Doemenels talent and Dungeon Delver are only for the Watcher by the way. If +120% Critical damage could be applied all the time, it would be crazy ! Now, how to rise critical chances ? The source are : - Hit to Crit Chance (obviously) - Accuracy - Deflection debuff Hit to Crit chance can be augmented by Rogue abilities, Durgan Steel, Hearth Orlan racial, a couple of weapons Paladin Zealous Focus talent and Priest Dire Blessing/Merciless Gaze (the later two can't be stacked). But this is probably not the best way because 1 Accuracy basically worths 2 Hit to Crit. So the build idea is to stack accuracy like crazy. Good source of accuracy are : - Max Perception - 1 Handed Style (I think this build could be one of the few ways to make 1 Handed Style effective, 12 accuracy could be better than a few more damage from 2 - handed) - Survival (against anything but Kiths) - Some spells like Borrowed instinct, Tactical Meld, Eldricht Aim, various party buff, marking weapons. The best Deflection Debuff are probably CC such as Paralysis, Stun and Petrify. So my idea was to create a Watcher melee Cipher with following characteristics : - Hearth Orlan (Wood elf for ranged variant, or maybe Boreal Dwarf if you really hate Wilders and Primordials) - Per around 20. - Survival at least 4, maybe 10 - Weapons of choice : 1 Handed Durgan refined Purgatory (sabers compensate for 1 handed weapon low damages, and Purgatory is Annihilating), Dulcanale as secondary. Hour of St Rumbalt paired with Aedrin Wrecker (Stun and Prone on crit) could be nice too, but you loose the 1 handed accuracy bonus. - Siding with Doemenels, picking Dungeon Delver after At the Mercy of the Tribes - Picking powers like : Mental Binding (paralysis), Silent Scream (stun), borrowed instinct, tactical meld The strategy would be would be most of the time : Mental Binding -> Attack until target is dead -> Mental Binding -> Attack until target is dead -> etc... If you have too much focus, you can cast Borrowed Instinct / Tactical Meld, or replace Mental Binding by Silent Scream for AoE icing on the cake. The recent buff to Silent Scream and Mental Binding is what makes this build very interesting in 3.0. What do you think of this idea ? Final Note : I think a similar build with a Rogue using Sap, Blinding Strike and Dirty Fighting could be nice too. Apart for Cipher Powers, the choices would be the same. Barbarian could be cool too. They don't have great bonus for crits apart barbaric blows, but as carnage applies a damage penalty to secondary targets, this build would be nice to make penalty negligible.

Heart of Fury: Nobody ever takes Heart of Fury because it's 1/rest and nobody understands what the description really means. So nobody ever experiences what an awesome ability this is (especially with high INT and dual wielding weapons with on hit/crit effects and annihilation). You can win difficult mob fights with this alone. I it would be 1/encounter it would be too good - but maybe 2 or 3/rest would be ok. If you pair this with Combusting Wounds, an ACC buff and deflection debuff, Death's Usher and Bloody Slaughter it gets really ridiculous. Brute Force + Threatening Presence: A lot of people say "Don't take this, it's a trap!". But it isn't if you have another party member who can apply Weakened in an AoE. Suddely your barb becomes a crit machine against mobs whose fortitude is not 40 points higher that their deflection. A priest with Painful Interdiction and a barb make a great team. I play this every now and then beause it's just fun. It is great for DPS, CC and - of course - Heart of Fury. Dragon Leap: It depends what you want to do with your barb. Sometimes I build a "sticky tank": A barb with 3 RES but high MIG, INT and CON. Barbaric Yell, Threatening Presence, Shod-in-Faith, Sanguine Plate, Vengeful Defeat, One Stands Alone and the Watchful Cloak MKII (=you can only be flanked if 5 people attack you simultaniously). Since his deflection is so low everybody wants to hit him and doesn't run towards my backline. Dragon Leap is great for being the first to jump into the middle of the mob and start shouting and hitting. Because of Shod-in-Faith and his enormous endurance/health he doesn't die quickly, even if disabled. If he gets knocked out he dishes out some good damage at least. With a paladin or chanter you can revive him and start all over again. He's like a "CC bait". But I agree that this ability is very situational and should do some more "oomph". Many of the barb's abilities require to build your char around it. That makes most of them either meh or yeah - depending on your build. A barb also is no good solo character. He depends on his team mates and also items. That's why I love barbs so much. What I really dislike are the highest lvl chanter invocations. Man, those are really worthless. One of my favourite classes and see what it can do with it's top-tier invocations: the chanter may summon a... Mushroom! Whoooha! :| Heart of fury annoys me because I don't like Per Rest so much. But I agree it has an awesome potential. What annoys me too is that it is one of the few reasons to play dual wield as a barbarian. Given how carnage works, +15% damage from 2 hander and high base damage are specially sweet for barbarian. So I have choice between Optimizing heart of fury, and Optimizing basic swings. I can prevent myself from being annoyed by this kind of details I do understand why Painful Interdiction could work so well with Brute Force, but there is also an incredible amount of ways to debuff deflection. The very problem of barbarian is that there is too much half-gimped abilities. Bloodlust, seriously ? So much circonstancial stuff for such a low effect ? When it may trigger, the battle is probably already over. Eye of the Storm ? Did any designers even think that it was going to deactivate One Stand Alone ? And the effect was basically pitiful for level 11. Just cancelling a few hits from weaklings... And the shouts ? Why barbarians are trying to behave like casters ? If only it could at least have a fast casting time... Action economy is indeed a martial class stuff... (and that's why Threatening Presence is such a good design by the way). Wild Sprint ? How many mediocre mobility stuff should barbarian get ? Now that Dragon Leap exist, what is the point of this skill ? When you remove all this weird stuff, all that remains are a couple of circonstancial abilities (like Vengeful Defeat, the pessimistic little brother of Heart of Fury ). My own build would be Frenzy, Savage Defiance, One Stand Alone, Thick Skinned, Threatening Presence, Heart of Fury and Dragon Leap. But I wished I had the choice not to take Heart of Fury which doesn't suit my tastes, or Thick Skinned which is not that awesome (compared to Armored Grace, for example). I wish I had non default-choices. I don't say that the class concept itself is bad. Carnage might be the coolest design choice of PoE, lore-wise AND mechanic-wise. But a bit more "Yeah !" "Owww !" and "OMG !" on level up would be cool.

Hehe exactly the same for me !

Frenzy and Savage Defiance are good. Theatening Presence is really nice. One Stand alone is nice as long as you use barbarian as an Off-Tank. With damage malus from Carnage, barabrian are certainly the most "damage bonus" starved of all class. If you hit like 3 ennemies per attack (reasonable in most case), then a +20% bonus damage worth like a +60% bonus. It is still a bit conditional. Blooded does not worth lossing half of you life. Vengeful defeat favors too weird tactics for my taste. Both shouts are pathetic imitation of casters. Thick-Skinned is not very good, but it is one of the rare barbarian ability useful in most cases. Bloodlust is far too much circonstancial unless playing solo, and it is not even powerful enough when activated. Eye of the storm is pathetic as an anti-combo with One Stand Alone. And circonstancial. Dragon Leap seems more a mobility stuff. Barbarian are the only class who can position exactly where they want. I don't think it is a bad ability as it adds something to the build. It is a bit cheap as an ultimate stuff by the way. Wild Sprint is a cheap Dragon Leap. Heart of Fury looks powerful but... 1 per rest. Basically most of Barbarian abilities are either too circonstancial, or just lack raw power. Only Carnage saves the class.

I believe that about 75% of the players do send Durance to "escort" the bad guests of Caed Nua.

This dragon is immuned to Stun and Paralysis. My druid was so happy to discover this... Hard CC effective against him are only Confuse/Charm/Dominate and Petrify (and some Prone in 3.0).

Priests are the omnipotent class in pillars of eternity. (well, not only in PoE by the way.) Having small AoE for most of their spells is a restriction they can live with.

Stuff like lvl 7 single target cc spell like stasis field would be good if they were instant casts, and bypassed all enemy saves and resistances so guaranteed the effect no matter the enemy and immediately. Exactly ! This spell should have some unique feature like a crazy Accuracy bonus ! As general rule, weak spell is not a big issue for class balance, as long as each spell level has a couple of good spells, and a couple of circonstancial ones. For Cipher and Chanter whose spells share the same ressource, it is not even a problem if a spell level is completely crap (cipher level 6 and 7 spells are currently not very good, for example.) It is not nice, but not so bad. Weak abilities is much more a problem, especially when they invalidate some class build, or when the single top level abilities are not balanced. For example, at level 13 : Twin Arrows, Sacred Immolation > Dichotomous Soul (nerfed in 3.0) >> Dragon Leap, Sunder Blow, Sap Barbarian class is a good example because none of their level 9+ abilities are real game changer IMHO. (except possibly Heart of Fury, but "1 per rest" is not so nice.)

At level 13, monks get +3 acc (not 4) and +2 damages. I suppose they'll get something similar at 16.

Mmmm should we speak about 7th druid spell ? Nature's bounty is good but not super convenient to use. Call to the primordial seems a bit random. If only it could summon an adragan instead of ooze... What do you think about this spell ? The elemental DR spells is a bit circonstancial and has a too low duration. A few additional seconds would be ok. But druid needs to get a damage spell at this level. Elemental storm or whatever... they are suppoed to be the damage dealing spellcaster... Stasis field is crap too by the way.

No Alacrity or Immolation ? That's hard. I suppose you hate monks too...

I like this one for a "no caster challenge". Just don't forget to take some Lore on many characters (4+ is not so expensive) so you'll have backup casters for hardest fights.

I'm a party RPG control freak and I have never switched ON the AI.

You cannot use Vengietta Rugia on the devil. Her default armor is basically her body.

Very interesting. This could be critical for party composition. Do you automatically get this stronghold quest ?

Can you duplicate enchanted items like a durgan-refined dragon-eye-superbed Hour of Saint Rumbalt ?

I think barbarian are in a better position now that casters cannot cast AoE spells all day long. Barbarian AoE DPS is crazy. And contrary to thief, they are decent off-tank. Not the level of fighters, paladins and juggermonks of course. Low deflection is misleading, they have crazy endurance, and a beasty self heal. However, it's true that their lvl 11 and 13 abilities were really disappointing. I hope they could get some raw power this time.

And a barbarian with St. Ydwen's ? Wouldn't he wipe Concelhaut's minion ?? And Lich is a vessel, isn't it ?

Do you need that many talents on a chanter with high Might and Int ?

So if it is for RP reasons, I would say that you should not worry about stiletto neither. They are decent stiletto anyway. Even if they are slightly less good than saber (I'm not even sure) they would still be strong enough to play with.

With right Int and Mig, field triage will restore about 1/3 of any character health. In any case, Vital Essence does not play in the same league.

Just for information : Lion (and bear) has a crappy base attack speed (not related to dexterity) for some reasons. Antelope will do appeoximately 1.5 more damages (from what I remember). Antelope stronger thqn lion is fun (and a bit sad). You can keep Lion, of course, but it is not an optimal choice.

There's np precondition here, but your reputation changes instantly to Cruel 1 if you were neutral before. (nice if you want to do the Effigy's later without effort) "Tell me again, Aloth, you are a willing servant of the leaden key, aren't you ?"