Elric Galad

By the way, Vithrack are more or less natural cipher. If Grieving Mother can appear as a peasant, a Vithrack NPC could appear as an innocent elvish maiden. May the force be with you.

Currently Novice suffering is +5 damages at lvl 1 and +4 accuracy/+2 damages per 3 lvl beyond first (4, 7, 10...). Transcent suffering is +2 damages at level 1 with apparently same scaling. So Novice suffering is exactly 3 more damage than monk's, which is really weird. Is it really intended ? I have also read rumours stating that novice continues scaling at lvl 13, but not monk's suffering. But for this I cannot confirm.

Priest hazard are something like +40 accuracy or even more. It does not seem to scale much with level so the rule behind it seems obscure for me.

Yes, it's the name of the spell, but I have not reached lvl 13 with a druid for now. I've just read about the 20% haste of the potion. It could help if someone had the detailed effect of the potion, especially duration. I would like to know too if it is possible to cast it out of combat, and if potion lasts after combat.

It even works with spells )

Don't you have a save with level 10+ characters without trial of iron ? Then you can go to an inn, recruit henchmen/respec and try ^^

They should. Ilya is a chant so it should stack with other activated abilities.

I think I will follow your advice about Righteous soul, because my shatter-starred paladin is meant to hold the line and Dr Strangelove is indeed a good movie ^^ And a guy called Torm probably knows what he is talking about when it comes to Pallyhoodness. I like zealous endurance because it is a time saver for priest while being actually better that its priest equivalent. But I think some abilities like reinforcing exhortation or hastening exhortation would be more appealing if they had a distinct "unique snowflake" advantage. Take the example of LoH : this ability might not be as good as ultimate healing BUT it is by far better for single target healing. For me LoH is THE perfectly designed paladin ability. A way to do this could be to make exhortations low duration crazy buff. Like 6s +100% speed or 5s +100 deflection or 8s total status immunity. Side effects would be less stacking issues and more interesting micro. I would also feel it fluff-wise more inspired : sounds more like a command and less like a blessing IMHO. Deprive the unworthy seems to be the equivalent of "the ultimate weapons meant to breach antagonist defense and save the world" in PoE world. It's Thaos kryptonite and nothing more. It is indeed very powerful, 100% reliable and reminds me the Inquisitor dispell. But it is far less useful than its BG2 counterpart due to the absence of spell sequencers and similar abilities that made wizard so annoying to kill in BG.

You may be right (especially about spamming slicken) but I'm a powergamer who wants to avoid resting in a way that would break immersion. Resting all the time is contrary to my own bushido ^^ Moreover, all class abilities and not only spells are balanced according to their number of uses, and per rest or per encounter seems to have been taken into account for this purpose. So I believe "my own bushido" is in some way the principle that the dev had in mind when balancing abilities. Having class (or abilities) specialized in either limited or renewable ressource (like cipher vs wizards) is IMHO an interesting part of gameplay. So I think it does matter in practice.

My opinion is that it was a good idea but it is currently scaling too fast. Lvl 15, devotion of the faithfull, confusion and calling the world maw (the super slicken) will become per encounter. I think 1 additional per encounter spell level every 4 levels instead of 2 would be ok. Lvl 3 spells per encounter at lvl 17 seems powerful but not broken.

By the way, hastening exhortation seems meh now that druid can cast a party-wide 20% speed buff at lvl 13 (nature's bounty). But you don't have a druid in your party, so... I am actually torn between righteous soul and healing chain for my lvl 11 fire godlike pally. I feel righteous soul to be a bit circonstancial because it requires charm to target your paladin to be useful. And for hard battle with a lot of mind spells like Raedric return and Vithraak bounty, priest will cast protection spell anyway. Healing chain seems like a per encounter lvl 5 priest spell, which is ok but a bit redundant. I'm not sure how bounce actually works : it seems to be able to bounce several times on the same target. Can someone explain me ? It's a recurring problem with paladin abilities : They are good but priests can do better, they can do it party-wide AND don't stack with Paladin's abilities. Of course there are exceptions like LoH...

Stupid question : does Sacred Immolation has an interrupt value ? If yes, as you're going to have godly perception, it might worth also taking Interrupting blow talent.

Hi, Here is the build I plan for my ranger 2.0. She is now level 6 and she is wonderful. Wolf pet with Resilient talent is a decent offtank in PotD, especially because of infinite health, and deals good damage. In 2.0, Pets were indeed greatly buffed. Ranger herself is an excellent sniper with Wounding Shots and an arbalest. I plan to switch to bows later. Race : Wood Elf. This build is also quite compatible with Sagani, in spite of less optimized stats and less universal racial bonus. Stat (not fully min maxed) : Mig 19 Con 8 Dex 19 Per 16 Int 10 Res 6 Pet : Wolf. It does 14% more damage than other pets due to better base damages. This might not be so impressive, but keep in mind that base damages are multiplicative modifier, not additive. (Antelope seems nice too for its +7 all defense.) Level 1 : Wounding Shot (for damages and to trigger Predator's Sense and Merciless Companion pet bonus.) Level 2 : Resilient Companion. Good enough to have your pet as an off-tank in PotD. Level 3 : Predator's Sense. Crazy if you can apply a DoT. My plan is to have a melee character with Tidefall, and wounding shots or druid's swarm as backups. Level 4 : Vicious companion. Good damage now with 3DR Bypass added by 2.0 ! Level 5 : Stalker's Link. 10 accuracy is always nice. Level 6 : Marksman. 5 accuracy is always nice. Weapon focus is better, but I want to keep using my arbalest for now and specialize in bows later. I want to try to avoid respec. This is the tested part of the build. Now my future (and untested ^^ ) picks : Level 7 : Driving Flight. Baby carnage. Also good for per-hit effects like disorienting. Level 8 : Merciless Companions. Now your party start to have enough debuff to turn your pet in a baby rogue. Level 9 : Binding roots. I think it is the longest crowd control of the game (30s), basically take a melee out of combat. And even Thaos has melee guards ^^. Fast cast is also nice for action economy. Level 10 : Penetrating Shot. Time to switch to bows. Or maybe blunderbuss just for 1 level ? Level 11 : Stunning Shots. Time to switch to bows. Even better with Twinned Arrows and hunting bow. Level 12 : Weapon focus peasant. For Lenas Er. And the backup hatchet ^^. Or maybe Adventurer. Level 13 : Twinned Arrows. A bit less than x2 damages. Also almost x2 chances to stun. Level 14 : Apprentice's sneak attack. For even more DPS. Armor : Light one. Maybe with a bit of DR and good unique effect like Gwisk Glas, or just Berathian Robes. Weapon of choice : Probably Lenas Er. Good attack speed which synergizes well with Stunning shots, DR Bypass and disorienting effect. Disorienting seems nice for debuff and synergize well with Driving Flight. Does anyone know if disorienting stacks with itself on multiple hit or stack with spells ? I will also build the soulbound bow too. It certainly has some good per rest abilities to unlock, even if I think Lenas Er has more consistent bonus, especially because it can be buffed by * some special material *. But you don't need to choose your weapon focus for Soulbound Weapons, so I'll pick Peasant anyway. I think I managed to plan all the DPS abilities / talents I wanted and still having enough available for Crowd Control and Resilient Pet. That was my idea and I hope it will work very well ! If someone has any suggestions, they are welcome. I will update when it will be fully tested.

Or maybe Survival could work on potions. Or maybe bonus from Survival could make food bonus last REALLY longer.

The wiki is incomplete. Sometimes it is also false.

Woodend plains is a very difficult map. For example, you can run into groups of something like 5 Pwgra and 4 Brimsurfers. That's a very difficult fight because Brimsurfers, even if they don't have a lot of abilities, keep regenerating for the whole battle. Sometimes it is better to just avoid messing with them.

The funny thing is I discovered it while fighting a party of 4 druids that were casting it repeatedly and destroying my party meanwhile my own druid stayed idle. Not fair ^^

This is not completely true. Paladins are not strictly better at damage dealing and CC. Of course they have a lot of support abilities that makes them overall better. The problem is that Monks are strictly better than fighters at damage dealing and CC while being almost as tanky or maybe more now with iron wheel. There are not enough unique fighter abilities to compensate for this.

The paradox of the barbarian is that all their abilities are between meh and ok while carnage by itself is so great that he fullfills perfect his purpose. The reason is that carnage is only an additive (but negative) damage modifier and accuracy penalty. When you start stacking positive damage modifier and accuracy buff, it compensates for carnage penalties, which means you attack zone with an attack almost as powerful as your main attack. That is the reason why they scale so well. In my last playthrough, my barbarian was my top damage dealer (higher than rogue by a small but relevant margin) while being also more tanky than other damage dealers thanks to crazy endurance and self heal. Basically, abilities you pick are just a bonus. Furthermore, they synergize extremely well with per hit effects like special weapons (tall grass) or interrupts. But once more, this is due to carnage and nothing else (except maybe frenzy).

My party is almost lvl 6 so I have done act I which is said to be very critical, including Raedric Hold. As one of the pet problem was scaling, I have to check it works also at high levels. My pet is a wolf, not bear, I have a Paladin with zealous endurance and Herald shield and I picked the Resilient Companion talent. This information can be interesting to evaluate his defenses. My pet dies about 1/3 in encounters but this is mostly because I often use him as a meat shield (or echopsychic echo anchor). By the time he's dead, the battle is usually almost over. As I said this is a strategy to mitigate party health loss. In difficult battles, I use him as a flanker to keep him alive and he does good damage (8 DR bypass added by the patch). Of course, he is not as resilient as a tank, but this would be totally imbalanced. He's just half of a character after all. By the way, I believe that double shots is also a crazy buff to ranger DPS, especially when compared to rogues.

Did you buy the expansion ? You need it for play dead. For twin shot, you need to be lvl 13... which also requires White March.

You're not totally right : rangers have been fixed and really seem fine now. I'm playing in PotD and pet and ranger are almost as useful as 1 party member, except they are 2. Pet's infinite health is just so sweet in this difficulty setting and they now do a respectable amount of damages. High level abilities of the ranger herself seem to be very good too with stunning shot, double shot and the longest CC spell of the game (binding roots). For now, she's mostly a caster sniper with an arbalest and wounding shots. I believe that chanters need an important rework about how they scale. My point is, people felt paladins weak so they were buffed. Same for the rangers. Both in a very satisfying way IMHO. Therefore, I'm pretty confident for the fighters. My only current fear for balance is that wizard may get per encounter confusion at level 15. Per encounter spells was a kind of Pandora's box...

Yes, my monk on the frontline was meant to spam Force of Anguish and repulsive seal is golden. I also have a druid for CC and I hope my ranger will be a backup CC at high level with binding roots and stunning shot. This is a bit the reason why I didn't take a wizard : their massive CC that shut down an entire battlefield sounded a bit too plain to play for me ^^ Furthermore, the good point with mental binding nerf is that it makes alternate cipher CC spells suddenly more attractive. I'm going to try a bit puppetmaster or tenuous grasp for example ) Mental binding is still viable for team damage focus. -40 deflection, even for 5s is just so nice.

Nope. Yes. Njall has been arguing for quite a lot of time on this thread and others linked to the same topic. Don't come without arguing and expect a long and detailed answer.

You have a couple of choices. The chanter is nice (even if it scales not so well) but apart for your passive chant and an invocation from time to time, you're not going to get a lot of activated abilities. In your case, I think cipher will be perfect. It has a lot of abilities, is very versatile and very fun to play. For RP option, all abilities help but Resolve, Perception and Intelligence are the best. Cipher benefits greatly from Perception and Intellect. But this is not critical as in 2.0, most classes benefits from at least 2 of these 3 stats. Cipher have also lots of unique dialogues specific to their class. Paladin are nice but you're not going to get more than about 5 activated abilities. They are nice to play in a full party, but as your main character you're probably going to like a more active characters. Priests are incredibly versatile spellcasters, they have also specific dialogue option based on their deity. But be aware that are mostly support character : they'll more going to make your party shine than shine by themselves. Furthermore, the priest companion has a very good story and 2 priest in a party is a bit redundant. Basically, for a lot of activated abilities, you'd rather take a spellcaster : wizard, priest, druid, cipher. The other classes are really nice too, they have less options but all cool to have in a party as they have unique playstyle.