Elric Galad

By the way the 2 pets quoted above are the best : wolf for offense and antelope for defense. But it is friday evening and I'm too tired to argue why )

I guess you meant this. Support chars are supposed to synergise with other party members. The only classes I think of that do not synergise that much with Paladins are chanters and priests, who happen to fill a very similar role. That's true but I agree with the above : paladin support is extremely valuable for squishy melee DPS like pet and melee rogue. With proper micro, you can keep them alive, and pet is even a decent off-tank. However, they frequently get hurt. Then lay in hand and reviving exhortations become wonderful. Paladins may not be the best overall support class, but they are the best single target healers... Furthermore, pet high DR synegizes well with zealous endurance and their infinite health pool make "endurance loss/big heal" strategy optimal. Pet synergizes also with cipher pain block for the same reasons. And also with cipher ectopsychic echo 'cause you can send them in the middle of the crowd.

Why can't an engineer be female?In this special case because "The Engineer" is my male Engineer build (you can find in this forum) who uses the same talents - and Pallegina is his wife because... you know... she's female? Not according to Valian law. Not even sure she can get married there. Equality for Godlike ! Except in this case, she couldn't be a paladin...

Yes, they fixed shapshifting. It does really good scaling damages now. And they really buffed the pet too. It is now hard enough to survive PotD. In addition, ranger gers twin shots at lvl 13 which basically doubles their ranged DPS for a small penalty to accuracy. Rangers are arguably the top martial DPS now.

Pallegina's new talents are a bit of a mixed bag. The attack speed for allies (Vielo Vidorio available level 2) has a base duration of only 6.0 seconds which limits its a little bit in terms of use cases since you'll get 13.8 seconds per fight if you don't have any overlap with Palegina's base stats. ... I dunno. +20% AoE attack speed bonus does not seem bad at all. How much is the AoE ? Comparable to zealous aura ? When compared to +20% for 30s from hastening exhortation, it is pretty good. Hastening exhortation is an ability (supposed to be better than talent), take about 2s to cast (Vielo Vidorio is basically a free action combined with FoD), is single target AND PER REST. Honnestly, I find this talent rather nice, even if not OP. Combine both FoD and Sworn ennemy and you'll get a decent 2-Hander/Firearm "DPS" sniper paladin. Open with Sworn ennemy, then FoD with Arbalest, ennemy's dead. Does the Sworm ennemy bonus apply to wrath of the five suns missiles ?

The point is : you usually don't need that much healing. When you REALLY need healing, burning all you spell slot for AoE healing is invaluable, and radiance is ok for small battle. So priest is for me the best. What makes the break is the 7th level full health revive. Nothing comes close to this ro turn the tides in desperate battle. That said, paladin has the best single target heal and revive, and they are per encounter so they are incredibly handy, especially coupled with a suicidal DPSer like pet or rogue. But don't expect the same potential as priest. Druid moonwell deserves an honourable mention too. In my opinion, Druid + Pal is far enough if you don't want to bring a priest. Finally, remember, you can always use scrolls and potions. Therefore, any character can turn into a powerful healer if you desperately need it.

Eldricht Aim is still +9 Acc even with Zealous Focus.

I admit I'm pretty confident about Obsidian ability to balance stuff. Rangers and Paladin have been saved from uselessness, Chanter is soon going to be ok. I was worried about Fighter's defender nerf, but I think it's now ok too... The point is... the game has been released for about 1 year... It did evolve in the right direction but there has always been a gimped class... It's not so hard to make good balance in a party game because no one need balance to be as perfect as MMO. Characters only need to be the best for their own roles. With chanter buff, I sincerely hoped they finally made it. And now they come with a final nerf that does not seem to address any previous complaint. For sure, Ectopsychic Melter and Godmode Wave needed a fix, but why focus ? Ciphers already had their own weakness against boss fight, so I really wonder why they designed such a radical change ? It WILL eventually get fixed but will they suddenly decide to nerf monk wounds or rogue sneak attack for some reasons ?

What one would botter play a cipher now when you can just play a chanter and cast AoE paralysis for 12s (big int) every 8s (low phrases, High level brisk) ? Cipher does not even seem the best recursive CCer anymore... It is sad because all classes finally looked pretty balanced...

So, anyone knows how does Brisk Recitation work and scale excatly ? I've been very curious about it ! And happy new year 2016 to everybody on this forum !

Novice suffering had a lot of bonus damages that scales with might but not with any other bonus (fighter mastery, soul whip, rogue sneak attack, critical hit). This is the same as transcendant suffering. For non-monks, base unarmed damage are rather low ( 5 - 8 ). They are compensated by novice suffering damages which are even higher than transcendant ones' (unintended pun for the connoisseurs). That means that classes with high damage bonus (apart might) are even more sub-optimal with novice suffering... HOWEVER, it makes me think that classes with negative damage bonus wild be less penalized by this style. Yes, I'm looking at you, carnage loving barbarian.

Chanters are apparently going to be buffed soon, according to 3.00 thread.

However, most of the time there are only a couple of ennemies who are able to charm, and they usually charm only 1 character at a time. Only 1-2 Fampyr or Vithrack is not so annoying. There are actually only a few fights in the whole game with several "charmers" : Raedric 2, the pale rider company in WM, Vithrack bounty and 2 or 3 fights Od Nua level 12. Plus Thaos and his horrible area effect confuse / DOMINATION. Not sure if it is applicable only when scaled to lvl 14 or in PotD. If you have a priest, protection against treachery would be OK for these few endgame fights. If uou don't have a priest, then... There should be scrolls... (and against paralysis too).

Not bad idea. Spell targetting deflection are usually single target. This would also make them more interesting to use.

At very munimum, suppress afflictions and liberating exhortations should work on charm / confuse / domination. This is the main reason why these status are so much more annoying than any other hard CC. Current setting is just lazy design. Remember that WM part 2 will apparently be about Vithraks...

In PoE, ennemies stats doesn't change until Path of the Damned. Until number of ennemies change. So basically Builds for Easy, Nomal and Hard are more or less the same. AoE abilities tends to be a bit more powerful on higher difficulties, but that's about it. On Path of the Damned, Ennemies stats do change, but not that much. That is not Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury. Accuracy tends to be a bit more efficient in Path of the Damned, but that's all. Note that it doesn't mean there are no changes between difficulties. Just that the same build tend to work in about all modes.

For a first-time skilled player, I would say Nomal until Act II, then Hard.

I know 2 RPG where you can "defeat" final Boss by Speaking by the way. They are so famous that it will probably not be a new information for you, but in case you're interested...

It has been argued on this forum that Soulbound Weapons are rather weak, at least when compared to major endgame weapon like Tidefall or Dragon-eyed Tallgrass. There is also the problem of Durgan Steel : Even a Fine weapon can be upgraded with it, but not Soulbound ones. I suppose the Dev didn't want to add the possibility to Enchant them because their enchant level would be a mess as their properties are not fixed once for all... My opinion is that such unique weapons deserve a bit of raw power. As they are already Superb, the most obvious choice would be a little Lash property. Currently, the fact they miss it means they do less regular damage than most topdog weapons and that's a pity... I don't think it would make them overpowered (They would still miss Durgan Refinement. But this is not so bad as it saves Durgan Steel for other weapons.) They could get the lash at Upgrade level 2 for example. Even without Durgan refinement, this would make them a bit more competitive. By the way, I don't think it is too hard to add from Dev perspective. Then, the funny thing would be to choose their lash effects. I think the following ones would fit really well : - Stormcaller : This one is obvious -> Shocking Lash. - St Ydwen Redeemer : Holy Weapons share a common trait with Demonic Ones : They like burning their ennemies down ! One of Redeemer's effect (Divine Mark) already does fire damage by the way. -> Fire Lash - Greenstone Staff : Do you know what is green and hurts ? Either a Demonic bean or Acid ! -> Corrosive Lash - Nightshroud : For the night is Cold and full of Terror -> Freeze Lash - The Grey Sleeper : So there is no elemental lash remaining... However, there is already a weapon that has another unique Lash : Justice and its Crushing Lash ! Crushing Lash would fit really well a weapon that can already "throw rocks" -> Crushing Lash IMHO, it fits so well that it sounds like destiny.

I understand the point but it would be horribly hard to affect boss with debuff. CC are a bit a pb but debuff are OK. Especially because debuff are often the only way to affect them with attacks. It would make accuracy and defense too powerful IMHO and gap between accuracy and defense too hard to overcome.

Usually not but you have a couple of exceptions to take into account: - Wizard blast talent only works implements - Many ranger abilities only works with ranged weapons - Twin arrows from rangersonly works with... well... bows - Many abilities from fighters (knockdown, sundering blows...), barbarians (carnage...) and monks (torment reach...) only works with melee weapons - skills labelled full attack (blinding strike from rogues, torment reach from monks) gets 2 attacks for the price of 1 when used while dual wielding. That makes them better with 1 hander. - priest got a talent that gives them huge bonus with their deity favored weapons. For example, priest of Magran gets a bonus with arquebus and sword) Then you have lot of less direct advantages that favors certain weapon style over each other. For example paladins tends to be tanks so you'll usually prefer 1 hander and shield. If you pick Flame of Devotion ability that works only with 2 attacks, you usually prefer using it with big slow firearms... etc...

Sundering blow with blunderbuss would have been tons of fun ^^ But uou can still sunder your target and then blunderbuss it with your teamates ^^

Lay on Hand is by far the greatest single target heal of the game. It scales with level, Int and Mig. IMHO, it is far better than FoD at lvl 1. I don't know if it worthes it at later lvl.

I wonder whether flagellant path is necessary... Your monk will be so fast that it will be able to reach about any target. If engaged, you can just disengage, taking an attack is not a big pb for monk. It can still be useful in some situations, for sure, but it sounds a bit as an overkill for me ^^

Do you know if stormcaller is the same as bittercut for elemental talent ?