Nobear

The biggest potential problem I see you commonly running into with so many melee is horrible pathing through chokepoints. You can lessen the impact of this by techniques such as these: a) Try to get enemies to come out from the chokepoints when you can. Having just a bit of Stealth can be useful here, as you can set a trap in a doorway, send your mechanic back a bit, then unstealth to start combat and wait for enemies to come through the door. I personally haven't found a need for Survival at all, or for more than 3 Athletics to reduce the combat fatigue gain, so what I typically do is get 3 Athletics first, then raise either Lore or Mechanics always a few points ahead of Stealth, and you can end up with pretty high Stealth on top of 10 Lore or Mechanics. That's my personal preference, just an idea. b) You might want one barbarian to be at least slightly tanky, and give the other a reach weapon (Tall Grass tends to be a favorite). Even if you don't want any using reach or ranged as primary weapons, I'd recommend giving them all either a reach or ranged weapon to switch to for when you end up in a choke point with no clean way to fix the situation. And you are pretty much guaranteed to run into this at least from time to time, even if you play carefully. Cheers. Edit: The other thing I wanted to say is about your wizard wearing plate. Personally, I have tried the same tough fights (namely, ones with lots of Shades/Shadows) on PoTD with two strategies. First, I tried dressing all my characters in plate and focus firing the tougher enemies (Shades) who spawn the Shadows and whose Shadows die when they die. This strategy was recommended to me, and it sounds logical. However, what I found is that the non-tanks who were getting hit by teleporting Shadows still died, albeit much more slowly, through loss of Health and not Endurance, which you can't avoid no matter how much healing you have. Meanwhile, the plate and interruption reduced my DPS so much that I just couldn't bring down the Shades even focus firing them. I tried the same fight with my ranged wearing their normal robes, focus firing the lower DR Shadows first, and switching to whichever one teleported onto my ranged members, and this worked much better. The fight ended up going much more quickly and cleanly, and I ultimately prevailed. So, personally, I prefer focusing on DPS or throughput for ranged. Even with a control wizard, you want his status effects applied as fast as possible. Wizards thankfully have some defensive spells you can keep at the ready for when they get targeted, so you can have some defense when you need it without focusing on it at the expense of CC/debuffs, which is indirect DPS for your party and which you want active as soon as possible.

lol it's a pretty silly bug as bugs go

Well I answered my own question: the cheese returns!

Yes. I have it instead set to autopause every time an enemy dies (obviously tedious if you're fighting large, weak hordes), and I pause manually when spells finish. That way it doesn't pause when I do an ability like Knock Down where the character was auto attacking before and continues after.

I'm with the other posters on this. I love CC. I've just discovered the awesomeness of a cipher's Ectoplasmic Echo for DPS, but I'm still a huge fan of CC. As others have said, those condition spells can allow your DPSers to go to town. I would not even bother with Confuse, but check out Miasma of Dull-Mindedness. You do the math, and that's -20 Deflection, -20 Will and -40 Reflex! Hey, your DPS is going to be doing some hurt with -20 enemy Deflection: that's equivalent to giving them +20 Accuracy!

Wow, thanks to both of you for that info. I have reported the bug and mentioned it several times, and this is the first time someone has mentioned a workaround. Funny thing about my experience, though, is that I have tried turning auras (both ZF and ZE on different playthroughs) off and on again before, and found the range was just as large as before. For some reason, I decided to turn my aura off and on recently and keep playing. Before I kept going, however, I checked to make sure the aura's range was still huge. It was. I remember specifically that this was in Doemenel Manor, right around the time I hit level 6, and right before I started exploring Ondra's Gift and noticed my aura had suddenly shrunk. So the change was not immediate, but apparently the act of turning it off and on had some lingering effect that only manifested later (perhaps after a map change or save and reload). Now here's a question for you guys: do you know if my aura will grow again over time if I don't keep turning it off and on? Torm, you don't like the cheese, but I find it interesting, and part of me thinks "why not?" It's not like it really makes the game easier (given that I already have moderately high Int and am not going to cheat and dump it now), it just means I have more leeway for now of who I sleep with for bonuses if I want my aura to cover everyone . So if I leave it be, will it eventually grow again, or would I have to go back to a previous game if I wanted to bring back the cheese? The bummer is my last save was from when I'd just barely unlocked the stronghold. Well, I guess if I've permanently broken my cheese, I'll roll with that too. If the game is going to give me cheese, I'll take it, but I won't go out of my way to exploit it. That's generally how I feel in games, which is why I get bored of Elder Scrolls games when I find out how to legitimately optimize my way into effective God mode. I don't consider this bug to be anywhere near that in terms of being game-breaking, though.

Thanks for the thorough post as usual Gromnir, and no, I don't consider anything you said a spoiler. Saying you get something late in the game is great. Saying it drops from someone that I'd met earlier in the game and would not expect to have to fight later, I'd consider that a story spoiler even if indirect and unintended. Resolution is a good suggestion. I found it on a partial play through on Hard. I find Graze-to-Hit especially appealing for Eder. I was thinking of getting 95% Graze-to-Hit with flails, but now I am thinking I might not want to limit my weapon selection to just flails, as I'd be doing with Adventurer. Maybe it's not worth limiting my weapon selection that much just to get my Graze-to-Hit as high as possible. If I could reach 100% and say bye-bye to all grazes for good, it would be super appealing, but with 95% there is still a chance that my Knock Down can graze. I could still get 85% with a Reliable weapon. Ruffian is what Eder gets if auto leveled anyway, yes? In terms of pure selection, it seems I could do worse than to get Ruffian on Eder and Noble on my paladin tank. Looking at them, one thing I like is that those are the only two foci that have a separate weapon type for each damage type (slash/pierce/crush). While two damage types seems to be enough in practice to cover 99% of situations in PoE, I am also liking the idea of having, say, three different combinations of slaying/lash enchants to best match these damage types. Currently Eder uses Gaun's Share (flail), which I really like for now but which I'll probably replace. My paladin is using Whispers of Wenwood. The -3 Will doesn't seem too bad as her will is already high, and it's Reliable and looks cool. I have both of those enchanted with Fine, Spirit Slaying and Burning, as spirits are what has given me most trouble so far. So what do you think would make the best damage type/enchant combinations if I wanted to have, eventually, three to switch between per tank? For example, I'd probably want one with Kith Slaying, so what physical and elemental weakness do Kith most often have? etc. Ok, this might be an even more involved question requiring more detailed information than my first one, so however much or little you want to answer is fine. Thanks.

My paladin on PoTD is a Shieldbearer with 10/14/4/18/14/18. The thing is, I arrived at 14 base Int by testing that 20 Int was the breakpoint for Zealous Focus coverage of my entire custom formation. The problem is, I experience the ever-growing paladin aura bug I've reported with the latest hotfix, and I guess even when I first got ZF, my aura size was already a bit larger than it should have been. The bug mysteriously disappeared around the time I hit level 6 and Ondra's Gift, making my aura go from larger than the entire map to (I think) normal size. Well, at its current (presumably normal) size, it turns out it doesn't quite cover my party at 20 Int. As much as Aldwyn is not my first choice of courtesan to sleep with, I'll lie with him (her?) and see if it gets big enough. OMG I didn't plan that I swear! Bond of Duty isn't needed for paladins themselves because of Righteous Soul, and for other party members, there are the priest defense spells against various types of CC. Yeah it seems decent, especially if you don't play with a priest, but as you say, not as good as Inspiring Liberation.

I'd say it's most likely Necrotic Lance from Spellwrights. The only times I've been instagibbed at low levels, that spell was the culprit. Ludrana in Magran's Fork is the first time I encountered Necrotic Lance, and also learned it for myself from her grimoire . Open the fight by CCing and focus firing those casters. Get them out of the fight ASAP and the rest of the fight will go much more smoothly. I'm with you on the general kill order. Not only do casters tend to do more damage to you or buffs/healing to allies, but I prefer cutting down the numbers as early into the fight as I can, which typically means killing by order of lowest DR to highest. When I have just paladins and fighters left, I definitely kill paladins first, as they cast Liberating Exhortation, which makes it hard to keep the enemies CCd or otherwise debuffed. Edit: If you have a cipher, paladins are also probably the best enemy type to charm in those Raedric fights. Casters go down quickly, but paladins can be annoying and hard to kill. Charming one is an effective way to take him out of the fight at the same time that your other DPS focus-fires the worst-offending spell caster (usually either Spellwright or High Priest).

Wow, now that is a really awesome strategy. I'd be inclined to try a 2nd tank instead of 2nd rogue for PoTD but still, that sounds ungodly.

He already has Aloth, and lacks heals, but yeah I think either priest or druid would be good.

Thanks for the ideas. Seems like a weapon focus is probably least needed for a paladin tank compared to anyone else, especially seeing as FoD gets +20 Accuracy built in. I might just end up taking another defensive talent (like Bear's Fortitude; I would have Superior Deflection either way) on my paladin and allowing myself to be open and not worry about what kinds of awesome weapons I might find later in the game. For Eder though, I just don't see many good abilities to take if I didn't take a weapon specialization, in which case I might as well have the same focus and probably mastery too. I think I'll end up taking Adventurer for Eder and none for my paladin.

Either crit multiplier or hit-to-crit would make sense for the offensive portion of the bonus.

This has crossed my mind, but I decided it probably ought to be nothing more than an amusing thought. Without major rebalancing, I think it would turn out to be "He who gets off the first CC wins... unless countered by the appropriate defensive spell in anticipation." I mean, it would create some funny situations no doubt. It's one of those things that would probably be fun to mess around with for a few minutes, so if we lived in a universe where something like that could be created with zero additional time and resources, yeah it'd be kind of a hoot. In our universe, single-player for PoE all the way.

I actually had the opposite frustration: starting with version 1.0.6, auto attack stopped working (for me and at least some other players). I was used to auto attack before, and considered it a convenience, especially when fighting big hordes of easy enemies. Auto attack didn't work for me with summons either before or after 1.0.6. I considered reverting to 1.0.5, but I ultimately decided to adapt, and I have. The advantage is that I play more strategically now. The disadvantage of lack of convenience in fights with big hordes of easy enemies remains. I don't know how your experience is the opposite of mine. What version are you playing, and do you have auto attack turned off in options?

That'd be a lot of bonuses to one stat and go too far IMHO. I do think just adding the armor recovery penalty is an interesting idea though. Another that's been proposed is to have it affect healing received.

Ironically, I saw another thread about the *worst* foci, but I'd like your opinions on the best. A bit of background: I'm playing on PoTD with two tanks. I am thinking of making Eder specialize in flails, because, with all the bonuses stacked, he can get 95% graze-to-hit. With Bonus Knock Down, that should give him plenty of very fast and reliable single-target CC. That said, are there any unique weapons besides flails that have graze-to-hit that I should know about? My main is a Shieldbearer paladin tank without LoH, so I can justify a talent point for a weapon focus that I would probably not take if I were playing a Darkozzi with both order-specific talents. From my experience and what I've read, the Guarding bonus on weapons is actually of little or no tanking value, so I am not considering it when deciding which weapons are best. Ultimately, I could make a decision like picking the focus with hatchets on my main because hatchets all grant +5 Deflection, but I would rather make a more informed decision based on the best choices among unique weapons by endgame. I would be cringing if I found, say, an awesome tanking rapier that I considered better than my current hatchet, but had already chosen a different weapon spec. I know, in the end, +6 accuracy may make relatively little difference for a paladin tank, but it won't be useless and it's how I've chosen to build my character on this playthrough. Note: I ask that you please avoid story spoilers, but I am essentially requesting spoilers about particular items. Thanks!

lol me too! And made it to Defiance Bay a few times even .

Sorry, I meant Penetrating Shot for blunderbuss, just edited the post. I forgot for a moment that the melee and ranged talents that do equivalent things are separated like that. It would sure be important to pick the right one!

I can also corroborate that they don't stack. Also, Herald suppresses equivalent item enchants for some players (including me), but apparently not for others. I and others have written about this, but I don't know if the devs are even at a consensus about how it should work (i.e. should it stack, and should it be party-wide). To check if this affects you, you must enter combat to notice if it does, because the Outworn Buckler effect only activates in combat. In addition, the chanter's chants that boost defenses also suppress item boosts of the same type. This doesn't seem consistent with the idea of sources from items vs spells. IMHO a chant should be considered a spell. PS: to the OP, keep in mind that the paladin with Zealous Focus should have relatively high Int for his aura to cover your back row. Depending on your formation, this could require over 20 Int after buffs. You do have the 4 Int resting bonus, and can easily get 2 Int from an item to help you out. The other paladin can have lower Int, assuming you don't care so much if your back row is well-defended.

I could see a toolset like you describe being less time-consuming and more likely to be an improvement than what I was thinking. It would still be time-consuming, of course, so a decision to go that route would have major implications and would ideally take into account, among other things, a survey across the player base of just how popular this idea would be compared to more single-player content produced by the devs themselves.

Basically, we don't know for sure whether Hold the Line plays ANY role in actually holding enemies. We do know that it plays NO role in avoiding Flanked. The only use I have read about for it is offensive (more opportunity to hit an escaping enemy with a disengagement attack), but I'm not even sure if this works. Even if it does, the value would be only situational and not defensive. So yes, with the game as it is, I would take Superior Deflection and ditch Hold the Line for my tanks, and I would not use the Guarding bonus on certain weapons to determine how good they are for a tank.

Yeah, I'm guessing the studio is probably not big enough or set up to handle multiplayer in a way that wouldn't effectively put development on the single player game on hold. I'm thinking even a half-assed job of multiplayer would probably set them back at least as long as an entire expansion would; and, from the survey showing that the majority of the player base wouldn't even be excited about a co-op mode, let alone something more MMO-ish, I'm also betting that a single player expansion would be much more popular than the half-assed job of multiplayer that could conceivably be possible in the same timeframe.

First I'll point you to this thread, where I make a request to improve Hold the Line, and also ask a very similar question. To (sort of) answer yours, technically there is no aggro system in PoE in the sense it is implemented in, say, WoW. In other words, an enemy's decision to attack a given party member, AFAIK, has nothing to do with how much healing or damage they have caused. I vaguely remember reading that some enemies will tend to prefer attacking the member with the lowest DR, but I have long since forgotten where I read this or whether the source was reliable. I would like to better understand what goes into an enemy AI's decision about who to attack, or whether it's just random. Now, as I relate in a subsequent comment to my thread, I've found that most enemies will stay on the tanks equally well regardless of the tank's engagement limit, as long as the tanks start the fight some distance ahead of the other party members. I like custom formations for this. It seems to be only a minority of enemies who will choose, for whatever reason, to break free and hit on a ranged member. It seems to be more common for an enemy to switch targets to a melee DPS than to a ranged. So, to answer your question the best I can (or anyone but a dev can AFAIK), Hold the Line and the Guarding bonus on certain weapons both seem to be of little or no defensive use, currently. In practice, if you are building for the current build of the game, I would not take Hold the Line or consider Guarding when choosing weapons. But, if you want to help me get a dev's attention for an answer and/or improvement, that'd be cool :D.

That's exactly what it would be. Yeah, hey I've made so many mistakes or suboptimal choices playing this game. Personally, I'm OCD enough that I feel compelled to restart each time, or at least go back to a previous save from before I made the suboptimal choice. You should probably consider yourself fortunate if you're not that compulsive. You might consider taking Untroubled Faith and acting as aggressively as you want, but you would of course be giving up another talent to do this, so it would be its own tradeoff. If I were giving advice to myself, I'd say to just beat the game first on Hard, then seek perfection on a subsequent PoTD play through. I don't listen to myself, though, so I insist on getting it perfect on PoTD before I even played much into Act 2 on Hard .