Elric Galad

Hehe PoE is really a great game. Writing is excellent, background is deep and mature, alien races are well designed. And Combat system might not be perfect, but it is what I expected about Black Isle games spiritual successor. Except Black Isle games were never so tactic and balanced. Team members have clear and unique purpose. They complement themselves in front of adversity, and this is the epic touch I really hoped to see achieved in this kind of RPG : complementary strenghts of an adventurer group in a fantasy setting. The only game that could come close is this good old Guild Wars 1. I've never played MMORPG by the way, so I may lack experience. I'm happy to contibute a bit to this great game evolution (probably because of a frustated passion for game design ).

It is intentional.

I never thought whining could lead to such a collective achievement. But after months arguing about chanter not scaling well, per encounter spells being too strong or fighter nerfed too bad, I feel relieved.

Crown of the faithful is lvl 6. At level 7, you'll have a full-life which is a life saver in this kind of battle. But it's still true you have most party buff between lvl 1 and 5.

Now that powers cost about twice more focus, greater focus should be set to 20 more starting focus. If not, this talent is going to be rather useless (which is not very critical, but an useless talent is not so nice).

Lvl 10 is a bit low. At level 11, Durance will get 2 uses of protection against Domination.

I would say that less frequent and more powerful spells is even more attractive. Anything that would prevent from spamming amplified wave is good news anyway.

Ok, they choosed the "easiest way". But that's ok. I've whined enough on this topic. Let's wait and see what happens now.

Sorry, I was not very clear. Mind blades were good so they nerfed it like crazy (not in 3.0, sorry if I was not clear). Mental binding was good so they nerfed it like crazy. Amplified wave was good so nerfed it AND cipher. The history of cipher in PoE is an history of a class which shines because of a few spells that gets shot one after the other.

Sorry, I do think that Echo is just too powerful. About anything that would get caught in the ray is going to die in seconds. It seemed that there was a bug applying cipher +40% damage or maybe crazy acc buff like old priest seal : damages displayed were almost always higher that the maximum stated in the description (potd). I found it so cheesy that I stopped using it. But the mechanic is so cool that I hope that they will not nerf it to the ground ! Mental binding was nerfed too much. Now you have about 4s cast time for about 5s+ hard CC on single target... they could have kept the fast casting at least. It would not have been OP. They have also nerfed mind blades by the way... Many cipher powers were never really balanced. A lot of them are simply too weak (lvl 7 is just so bad). And there id a few OP powers nerfed one after the other to the point of being unusable. In 3.0 beta, the only thing left to cipher is Echo. And it is even still OP as no martial class will never reach the level of damage of a properly used Echo. But I don't want a cipher that would become a "one and a half trick poney". And I don't want another cool cipher power like Echo to be rendered unusable by a crazy nerf.

So your proposal is to accept focus change and buff all cipher powers except Echo. Mine is to keep focus as it was and nerf Echo. It seems that both would be equivalent. I guess that the dev are going to choose the easiest path... or not.

3.0 might be basically beta of 3.1, or even 3.2. Well, I think it would be stable enough to play and to enjoy. My only advice is to avoid Cipher class for 3.0, because there are big changes incoming, and high chances of further balances.

Which confirms what was said previously : Ectopsychic is just too powerful, dealing damage it isn't even suppose to do (such a fun concept by the way) while other power except lvl 1 & 2 will not be used anymore. Ectotpsychic Echo and Amplified wave are what made cipher "a bit too good". I don't agree about greater focus : it used to be "2 free level" of cipher power. Now it is just 1 level. It doesn't worth it. 10 focus are now a smaller fraction of cipher powers (except lvl 1 of course). Petitioning : Please obsidian, restore focus, keep amplified wave and tactical meld nerfed, and nerf Ectophyschic (but not to the ground, please) !

Ok, things are starting to get clear. Anyone knows which other effects are concerned by Immunity : Unconscious ?

It would even make sense to make her a tank since the last thing you want is a tank getting mind-controlled. Maybe with Riposte and a paladin dropping Reinforcing exhortation ?

I think it's easier to make Melee Companions more or less optimal. Melee NPC benefit from all stats including Constitution and Resolve. For Ranged NPC, you would like to drop Resolve and stay around 10 constitution. How do you benefit from 12 constitution from Sagani ? Or 13 Resolve from Aloth ? It's not strictly worse, but I feel that it is clearly suboptimal. For my next run, I consider taking Eder, Kana and Pallegina but I have trouble to complete my team if I choose to go with 5 Companions. I can't go with 5 melee and a ranged PC, I fear a "melee traffic jam" effect. Yeah, I have a "rather powergaming" approach. Devil of Caroc is a special case : the problem is her stupid dexterity which happens to be the most important stat for a rogue, alongside with heavy armor which makes her even slower. At least she has a lot of unique features...

For Eder, I'll do something like this : Hybrid Tank DPS with strong alpha strike Lvl 1 : Knockdown (it's not like if you had choice )) Lvl 2 : 2 Handed Style Lvl 3 : Confident Aim Lvl 5 : Weapon Specialization : Soldier Lvl 6 : Weapon Focus : Soldier Lvl 7 : Armored Grace Lvl 8 : Weapon Mastery : Soldier Lvl 9 : Critical Defense Lvl 10 : Superior Deflection Lvl 11 : Unbroken Lvl 12 : Runner's wounding shot Lvl 13 : Sundering Blow Lvl 14 : Apprentice's sneak attack Get a 2-Hander and an arquebus / Arbalest. Open fight with a Runner's wounding shot from range. Switch to melee 2-hander and hit. For melee weapons, I would go Tidefall or Grey Sleeper, with St. Ydwen's Redeemer as a backup for vessels. Alternatively, take ruffian weapons with dual wielding syle and pistols/blunderbuss. (Soldier or ruffian are the best for alpha strike.) Get also a good armor (35%+ penalties, I would say Coat of Ill Payment.). Fighters have good bonuses with ranged weapons, so it is a good way to benefit from something that your Juggernaut Monk doesn't do as well.

So, they probably considered Prone immuntity was too frequent and changed it to Immunity : Ground and Immunity : Unconscious (along with prone resistance for dragons). As far as I understand, Gound immunity refers to ground spells like Slicken and Calling the World's Maw. But what does Immunity : Unconscious refer to exactly ? Is this related to spells like "Call to Slumber" (Which is basically the ost convenient of all spells) ? Or maybe Cipher spells like Mind Wave and Amplified Wave ? Does that means that Prone effects that are neither related to Ground or mind effect like Knockdown, Takedown, Force of Anguish and special weapons effects now work on almost everything (except maybe blights) ? Thank you in advance !

I would swap Minoletta's for Alacrity for capital fights. You never know how much time they could last, having additional Alacritys is probably a good idea... Only paranoids survive.

Also works of course. But it lasts much shorter and only provides half of the speed (+25% instead of +50%). It gives you some bonus MIG but doesn't boost your move speed. And hopefully it becomes 1/encounter as all the other cross class talents. The main interest of outlander frenzy instead of alacrity is that it saves your mastery for another good lvl 3 spell like Kakaloth's, blur, fireball, etc... Lvl 3 is one of the best spell lvl IMHO.

It used to work because chants used to apply an "item buff" for some reasons.

Modals and spell don't stack usually. Cautious attack don't stack with any deflection buff spells. Paladin modals don't stack with priest armor of faith and blessing (that's why they added graze to hit/hit to graze effects). Even rogue reckless assault melee accuracy buff doesn't stack with devotion of the faithful one. This is not a bug, dudes. I don't say it is a wise design choice by the way.

Not 100% sure lore-wise. She's more like a cold-blooded killer IMHO.

The problem is that other companions are far less unique (except Devil of Caroc). So the build that could be found are also applicable to hirelings or PC. The question is more : which known builds could also work with companions ? They have additional constraints, (Stats, race and level 1 power) but no additional benefits. Fetid caress cast on an ennemy engaged by Devil is an okay combo because as a vessel she's immune to Sickened. No other Companion-specific ideas )

Honnestly, I think survival bonus would be balanced if they didn't stack with Inn AND Caed Nua bonus. When you camp, you should be able to choose between still lasting Caed Nua bonus OR (exclusive) Survivale Ones. That is what survival is about : adaptability and ability to sleep anywhere without penalties. Currenlty, sleeping at a campfire after leaving Caed Nua is strictly better than sleeping at Caed Nua which does not make sense... By the way, one should also be able to choose between Caed Nua and survival bonus when sleeping at Caed Nua. And one should also be able to choose between Inn, Survival, and still lasting Caed Nua bonus when sleeping at an Inn. I agree with Boeroer : Pallegina may not be the best, but she is the most unique now. If I want a DPS NPC Paladin now, I think I'll bring Pallegina in my party. Side-note : you may want to take scion of flame for her now : it applies both to wrath of the five suns and Immolation (and gives +5 Fire DR), so it may worth it at lvl 14+.