Nobear

Also, anything that affects melee attacks in general, like Vulnerable Attack. However, even though the spirit shift attacks are considered unarmed, the devs have confirmed that the Monk cross-class talent does not work with spirit shift attacks by design. Still, the spirit shift attacks were buffed in 2.0 to the point of being generally considered viable, even if still not as powerful as a caster druid. Some players do find it a fun build though.

Gwisk Glas is a robe that comes with Second Chance, Superb and +2 Might. It's really nice-looking too, almost too nice for Durance but that's what I gave him in my pre-2.0 PoTD play through.

Not fixed.My PC was charmed by Spore and was attacked by nearby party member immediately. That's part of the intended effect of being charmed. The bug would have been if that other party member was also charmed. If you have two characters that are both charmed, they're still on the same side (the enemy's side temporarily) and so should not attack each other. Edit: Nvm, I misread the issue you had quoted.

It's popular to make your mechanic one of your front-row or at least second-row characters, so they can detect traps before someone else in your party trips them! Do this, and/or use the option to auto pause when detecting hidden objects, to help avoid tripping traps. If you detect a trap that you can't disarm, either leave and come back at a higher level, or send your party back and have your tankiest character set it off.

From what I've read, it doesn't necessarily kill their effectiveness. Rather, it's generally a tradeoff. Fists tend to do more damage (maybe there are some exceptions among really powerful weapons, IDK off hand), but some weapons have procs (e.g. on crit effects like stuns), which is the main reason some players use weapons on their monks, even if most prefer bare-handed.

It's a single player game, so it's really up to you to decide how you feel about it. What I would say, though, is that those Endless Paths of Od Nua were actually designed with higher level parties in mind. So if you want the challenge of having to come up with strategies like that even if you progress slowly, go for it. If not, I'd recommend moving on to Act 2 and revisiting Od Nua at a higher level. You could come back and do a few Endless Path levels after every few character levels, for instance. There's no need to clear it all at once.

Comparing enchants of the same rank against each other, undoubtedly. Now some weapons you can acquire remarkably early come with +3 Damaging or Accurate already on them, and I've never bothered overriding these. I've found these weapons to be generally very good for how early you can get them, but not necessarily the "best" weapons you might want to put the very limited high-level Superb enchantment on.

This sounds nice, but how should it be implemented? I think ideally (but least trivially), you should be able to set a threshold per class. Some players, for instance, would want the game paused by default in preparation for a favorite invocation which is below the max-level rank, and would consider it annoying for the game to pause at 3, 4, 5, 6 chants. For a monk, some players might want it to pause at just one total wound (e.g. for Torment's Reach), others at three (e.g. for Flagellant's Path), others at eight (e.g. for Twins, or simply as an alert to start dumping wounds). This system could also apply for ciphers, to auto pause based on the value of a Focus threshold slider. The main con I see against this system, assuming (with little actual basis) that it would take a relatively small amount of programming time to implement, is the possible interface bloat and complexity it could add to that options menu.

Luzarius only plays games going headfirst into the hardest hardcore mode blind, and streams them on his Twitch channel. That's literally the idea behind it, and he finds it fun and there's an audience for that. Great, more power to him playing as he (and his audience) enjoys. That said, what he should not do is take that intentionally limited experience and generalize about an entire class, in a game that's balanced for gamers who expect their mastery to gradually develop over hundreds of hours of gameplay, reading about mechanics, and developing progressively more effective strategies.

Or you could take a paladin main for +6/12/12/12 defenses vs a non-main paladin (and stats that are good for both combat and dialogue) and still have potentially all the classes you mentioned in your party . Unless your choice of main has personal significance to you from an RP perspective... then I'd understand.

Unfortunately yes. I was hesitant to like your post. I guess I am not that affected by it, since I have yet to play a spiritshift druid. Let me be clear that what I do like is the fact that you provided that link .

Andrea says it doesn't work by design, I wonder if that's based on a dev post?

Thanks for the refresher. In that case, I believe the tasks (as opposed to quests) for factions don't have any effect other than whatever rewards and/or reputation they grant. That sounds right. I was going to mention that it seems Ondra's Gift did the trick for me, but I had forgotten specifically which quest. It makes sense that it's the Verzano quest, as it ties in (not to spoil with any more specifics lol!)

Welcome! I will link this post I made and still stand by as far as paladin tank stats. Though, as Ymarsakar points out, there are some advantages to prioritizing Might over Con to the degree that he suggests. One thing I didn't justify in that post: the reason I suggest dumped Dex is that 1) A paladin tank won't be doing high DPS anyway, so he will get less mileage from DPS boosters as your DPS-focused party members will. Conversely, he will get more mileage from things that boost his tanking ability. 2) Even as DPS-boosting stats go, a paladin's abilities are mostly Per Encounter, so you'll mostly be limited by the number of times you can use them in the encounter, not by how little Dex you have. For instance, you'll only be doing two Flames of Devotion per encounter, whether you have 3 Dex or 20 Dex. Those two Flames, however, will hit harder with a bit more Might, and your healing will also be benefitted by Might.

As Ymarsakar said, faction merchants are unlocked by a quest. You can only choose to align with one of three factions, and your main will get a different talent depending on which one you choose. However, before you make this choice, you can do (IIRC) one quest and one task for each faction. I recommend keeping a save from just before you start doing these quests, in case you accidentally do one that aligns you with a faction before you want to, although the indicators should be pretty clear if you're paying attention. You might want to check out the gear from each faction merchant and buy whatever you want from them, before choosing one to align with. Also, Vincent Agosi didn't have any quests for me at first either. He eventually did as I kept going Defiance Bay quests and tasks in all the districts, but I can't tell you which one unlocked it.

Just a slight correction: PC paladins can get up to +13 Deflection and +27 Fort/Ref/Will with the Deep Faith talent. That's not a correction: both our statements are true. Non-PC paladins with Deep Faith get +7 Deflection and +15 Fort/Reflex/Will, so PC paladins can get up to +6/12/12/12 above that. Aside from Repulsing Seal which Teioh mentioned, I love spamming Iconic Projection, especially when it becomes Per-Encounter.

Watch this video from 1:26 to see the twin summons. What he meant is that you can toggle between weapon sets, only one of which should have a shield. The monk's Duality ability, however, is toggle-able between granting 8 Deflection and 8 to all defenses except Deflection.

Welcome to the forums! Short answer: I second what the others have said about "perfect" builds (as far as stats) not mattering nearly as much as just about any other factor in your perception of difficulty or your success with PoE. Also, I put "perfect" in quotes because, the more you play and read these forums, the more you will see so many different builds that can be debated and are still viable, to the extent that they match your play style. I've played the game extensively before the expansion, but have not yet played the expansion and found the rogue companion. However, the stats you mentioned for your rogue look at least as good as companion stats typically are, so absolutely viable in other words. For a longer answer with possibly helpful links, check out my response (post #2) to this thread.

Well, Barbarian does get a new leap ability at high level with the expansion. Monks, though, have had Flagellant's Path forever AFAIK, but it's always been a high-level ability (level 11). Check it out in that link, you can scroll down to the level 11 section. KDubya uses it to actively zip back and forth, plus damage and debuff whoever is in the way.

Welcome to the forums! There are two links that immediately come to mind that you might want to check out. This is a thread started by another recently returning player wanting to know basically the same things: a brief rundown of the most significant changes that affect party composition and builds in general, and I attempt to give such a summary in post #2. Here is just one good short-and-sweet post on a thread made to discuss the current strongest builds. The post right below it is also good, and possibly an even better summary. To answer your extra question, I and several other players, many of whom would not consider ourselves super-elite gamers by any means, have finished completionist runs of PoE with most (or all) of our allies being story companions. Though their stats may not be ideal for any given role, the differences between average distributions and min-maxed distributions in a party (even on PoTD) are quite minimal compared to just about anything else. In other words, if you have good strategy and tactics, abilities, talents, equipment, etc., your full story companion party will be maybe 95% as effective as a full custom party, so it's not like it'll take any big jump in skill to beat PoTD with one vs the other. There's one other consideration I think is worth mentioning: if you want to have a paladin in your party, the advantage to making it your main is that, as you make dialogue choices that align with your chosen order's dispositions, you can gain up to +6 Deflection, +12 Fort/Reflex/Will above what you could get with a paladin who's not your main. That said, many people have beaten PoTD with a non-paladin main, so this is not a must either. This mechanic, btw, is not new and was probably in effect when you last played.

I was going to suggest a melee Wizard until you specified that lol. So for you, I recommend checking out this build for a heavily-armored monk that zips around the battlefield. Granted, it doesn't start truly zipping until level 11, but with the new level cap of 14 that still leaves a good amount of time to enjoy it. I haven't personally tried it, but it sounds fun and quite possibly up your alley.

So either Lore or Mechanics would be a good choice for the highest skill of focus for your main. Lore would give more dialogue options. Mechanics could be good because you'd have it on a very durable frontline character who could not only detect traps before anyone trips them, but would be able to absorb the damage of most traps if you happened to accidentally set one off anyway. My vote would be for your main to take Lore for the dialogue options, and because paladins start with a bonus point in Lore but not Mechanics. As for good candidates for mechanics in your party, the rogue is the only class that starts with +2 Mechanics, so you could hire a temp rogue Adventurer at an inn and then replace it with the companion rogue when you unlock her in the expansion. This could be a melee rogue who is not too far behind your tank(s) as you are stealthing through dungeons in formation, and would probably detect most traps in time so no party member accidentally sets them off. If a melee rogue is not your style, there are three classes that start with +1 Mechanics: chanter, cipher, and wizard. There are companions of each of these classes in the base game, which means you could unlock them by early Act 2 in non-expansion areas. Again, you could hire a temp adventurer to hold the place of any besides Aloth, who you come across in the first town. As versatile as PoE is, each of these classes is interestingly more than viable as a melee character in the front or second row (second row meaning a reach weapon). And... klinewen beat me to it, with almost the same advice, so hopefully you have some good ideas to go off now! LMK if you're curious about build ideas for making any of the classes I mentioned into effective melee characters. You could pick one to be melee and your Mechanic, and still have the rest ranged if you prefer. Edit: I'd like to add that, even if you pick someone other than your main to be your Mechanic, you could still send your main ahead if you ever felt the need to purposefully set off traps that you didn't yet have the skill to disarm, and a paladin tank will still probably survive most. Save your game first just in case .

I get your examples and find some of them amusing . Here I would say that there is not a significant opportunity cost to getting 10 Lore on all characters (except your mechanic, who wants at least 10 Mechanics if not more). What I'd compare it against is the value of other skills. Survival: It's just 5% extended duration per point on your consumables. Regardless of what game we're talking about, I don't know about you, but that seems pretty weak to me. I mean, if this were some MMO where that might make the difference in beating the enrage timer on a boss because there was some artificial limit on consumable use per fight, maybe, but in PoE I don't see where it would make a truly significant difference for any reasonable allocation of points. Athletics: As others have mentioned, you only really "need" 3 points for all of your characters (to minimize in-combat fatigue gain) except maybe one with 6, who you can select to pass certain checks in a few scripted events. Stealth: This is the one skill I'd like to mention as potentially useful that hasn't been mentioned yet. Pre-2.0, I would give most of my party members 3 Athletics and 8-10 Lore (except for the 10+ Mechanics member), but I'd level up Stealth alongside Lore or Mechanics to about half its value. 2.0 introduced individual stealth. Previously, when one member was detected, your whole party would be detected. Now, you could have only some characters be stealthy, and they wouldn't be "brought down" by the unstealthy oafs in your group. This allows, for instance, a backstabbing rogue to be a bit more viable than before, since he can remain stealthed and deliver his opening blow after the tank has been seen. All this said, I still think there is some value to having at least a few points in Stealth for everyone. If nothing else, it can help with pre-combat positioning. Opening a fight on your terms, versus having to waste valuable time sending some party members running around and possibly taking disengagement attacks, can make a significant difference in the outcome of the fight. Mechanics: Lastly, the reason I say your Mechanic should have at least 10 points in the skill is because, even before the expansion, there were a few traps (e.g. in the lower levels of Od Nua) that you couldn't disarm even with 10. I think those required 11, but I'm not sure, and I'm also not sure what the highest mechanic checks in the expansion are. +Mechanics gear was also harder to come by than +Lore gear, unless you used an exploit to "unrandomize" "random" items. I consider this too cheesy for myself, but to each his/her own. I also don't know whether the expansion has brought any new +Mechanics gear, or added any other ways to acquire it (e.g. vendor). FWIW though, most of those traps that couldn't be disarmed with 10 Mechanics in the base game were CC traps that you could just trigger out of combat and wait out. A few might have been super deadly traps, but in that case I remember sending my paladin tank way ahead to take the hit. With the 2.0 Deflection nerfs and Accuracy buffs, I don't know whether a paladin tank is still reliably able to trigger these most-deadly of traps and survive. In any case, I'd rather have an extra point of Mechanics on my mechanic .

Hey Katie, Glad you could find some more time to play. Now, I know you're generally a busy gal and don't want to read through the forums, but in this case the thread right below yours is very apropos: here are my thoughts on paladin orders (which aren't the most important aspect to a paladin overall, granted). Sorry, I just had to tease you a bit there! Now, moving on... Here are my thoughts on stats for a support/tank. There are other kinds of builds for paladins, of course, including healing, melee DPS off-tanks, and even ranged. It depends what appeals to you. Basically anything that gets up close and personal (i.e. not ranged) is going to maximize that combat benefit of high Res, which it sounds like you want for dialogue options anyway. There are some other players, like Torm, who can give you good paladin advice, and have really put their ideas to the test post-2.0. I played extensively before 2.0, and I've kept up with the changes and with this forum, so I can tell you what I think would work well and what's popular with other players these days, but you might be helped even more by searching for posts on this (build) forum written by, say, Torm, or hoping that he comes around and links some of his best ones. That's about all the time I have myself right now. Sorry if this post is not as helpful as it could have been because of that, but I hope that gets you started making your dream team! Also remember that you can always respec at any inn, so IMHO you might as well just jump in and start with something, knowing that you won't have to restart again, because you will have already picked the class you want for your main, and you can change just about all the important stuff as you go. Oh, and for race, Moon Godlike is generally considered the most OP. Some players avoid it because it's too strong. Have fun!

Yeah, PoTD changes enemy attributes, which indirectly affects certain other things. Con affects health/endurance, Per affects accuracy, Res affects deflection... but none of these affect DR.