Nobear

Wow, so what were bottlenecks like with (essentially) six melee? Or did you always try to kite enemies out of bottlenecks or something?

First of all, welcome to the community! Weapons To add to what KDubya said, another reason you might want to consider reach weapons is that any time you are in a narrow bottleneck like a doorway or a tight passage, only maybe two melee will be able to fit and successfully hit the enemy. Then your melee wizards will be useless unless they are casting spells. If your paladins are both tanks (and they should each take different auras), this would make your melee wizards the obvious choice for using reach weapons. Furthermore, by far the best melee DPS for your melee wizards will be the summoned weapons like Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff or (at higher levels) Spirit Lance. There is no physical weapon in the game that can come close to these. In this light, you may either want a reach weapon, or a one-hand and shield combo (or both to switch between) for your melee wizards. Small shields are especially popular for casters, as they incur no Accuracy penalty, but they boost Deflection (and Reflex if you have the Weapon and Shield Style talent) while you are casting spells or any time other than when you are using a summoned weapon. The summoned weapon will temporarily override the damage/stats of whatever weapon(s)/shield you were using when you summoned it, so while you have a weapon summoned it doesn't matter what was in your hands before. Stats Wizards: First I would ask if you are comfortable dumping any stats, or even dropping them to, say, 8. If not, I would transfer a little bit of Dex into Per on your wizards. The reason for this is that you will gain access to an amazing self-buff haste spell called Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (it's a level 3 spell, so you can get it at character level 5 IIRC), which will boost your speed so high that you won't need Dex as much as Per, although I still wouldn't dump Dex either. Paladins: You might want to consider the effects of Int on buff duration and especially aura range. Depending on the formation you use (and I'm a strong advocate of making custom formations), you may need quite a high Int in order to cover your whole party with your aura. If you wanted more Int, I'd say you could safely drop Con down to 14 and Per down to 10. If you also dropped Dex to 8 (and Dex isn't so important for paladins because you're still mostly limited by the Per-Encounter restrictions of your abilities), you could have a base 18 Int. Deep Faith is also one of the last talents I'd pick, because the effect is relatively small compared to, say, Weapon and Shield Style (a clear must-have which will make a big difference throughout the game). Chanters: Keep in mind that Dex won't affect their chants whatsoever, and for invocations it will only make them cast faster, which is not of such huge importance since their main limitation with invocations is that they take a long time to work up to by racking up chants. If they're ranged, you can safely drop Res to 8 or so, and I'd transfer some of that Dex into Might and Int. Might will affect DPS with your damaging chants and invocations, as opposed to Dex which will only affect DPS with your auto attacks. Int will, of course, widen that area for both chants and invocations. Since you have two chanters, you can either give them different chants, or give them the same high-level chants, but in opposite order. With the latter strategy, it will ensure full uptime on two high-level chants. With the former, you can combine one high-level and one low-level chant per chanter, which will ensure that both high-level chants will receive full uptime, with partial uptime for the low-level chants that you can see as "icing on the cake." Now, because your chanters are ranged, even with high Int their damage/debuff chants probably won't cover all the enemies, so I would focus more on buff chants. Sure-handed Ila is good, although it will only be benefitting your chanters since you don't have much ranged. One must-have high-level chant is one you'll get called Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, which imbues all your allies' weapons with a constant 25% fire damage lash that stacks with whatever other damage they do. Have fun!

Sounds cool and I'm glad you're having fun. Two things I'd like to point out: 1) Are you aware that medium/large shields have an accuracy penalty that applies to everything (including spell/powers and melee)? 2) If you are going melee with shield, you might want to consider Sura's Supper Plate, a small shield, for reason #1, and for the Retaliation effect. Since it's a shield, and weapons/shields are considered a separate source type which stacks with your other gear, you can combine this with another Retaliation item, such as Hiro's Mantle (rare) or Coat of Ill Payment (from a bounty).

lol yeah that's cheesy but funny. Congrats on discovering that it works .

I can't say anything about coordinated attacks at all. A very bare-bones entry about it shows up on the Wiki, but I've never seen it show up on my paladin's ability choices when leveling. Was the ability removed a while back, perhaps?

I agree with sapientNode that the ideas stated by the OP would not "help" with min-maxing. I put quotes around "help" because I don't see it as a problem currently. In fact, the general idea of making stats have unique bonuses to specific classes I think is bad and would make min-maxing "worse." Take this example: Diablo III, at least when a friend showed it to me shortly after it came out, had only one stat increase damage for each class. If there hadn't been other non-stat modifiers, gearing would be boring. It feels like hand-holding, where the developer is insulting the players' intelligence by saying "Look, this is the one must-have stat that your class should stack: stack it!" If you do that, you might as well remove stats from the game, as they offer no choice except the one-dimensional "Do I want to be strong, or do I want to purposefully gimp myself?" Within PoE, having each class get one class-specific buff from one stat might not be as bad, since there would still be other stats that are worthwhile to raise, and since stat boosts from the same source type (e.g. multiple items) don't stack. However, it would still create one "must-have" stat per class, which would effectively make it a no-brainer and take it out of the equation of choice. Therefore, out of the six stats, you'd have one less "degree of freedom." That is, there would be one less stat that would meaningfully factor into build diversity.

As you can see, there are people like KDubya who have a good understanding of game mechanics yet choose not to min-max, and he does make a good case for his style. The more you read and play, the more you'll see that there aren't "right" or "wrong" builds in this game. That's not attempt at being PC, that's a statement based on how this game was designed. Fortunately there is now the respec option, for people who always have a better (or worse) idea the next day . Yes, it's possible to design a downright lousy build in the sense that your stats don't match what you'd like to be good at, but the ones you mentioned, Katie, are quite decent if you want to focus more on CC than damage. If not, you could trade a couple of Int for a couple of Might, maybe bring Con down to 8 for a couple more Might... you can always tweak and see what you like best, but as KDubya said, stats end up being pretty low on the list in terms of overall success in PoE. After all, a lot of people (myself included) like to use all story companions for their RP and charm, and clear all fights on PoTD even though the companions have suboptimal stats.

In short, I think that's a good distribution (for ranged, combat-wise). Longer answer below. That is a good point. Here is a recent thread started by another recently-returning player, but focused on dialogue options rather than combat. It depends what's more important to you. In the first response on that thread, Boeroer mentions that paladin support/tanks tend to be optimal as mains, since the same stats that are good for conversations will also be good for their combat performance. In addition, a paladin can gain up to +6 Deflection and +12 Fort/Reflex/Will by lining up the conversation choices you make with the dispositions important to your chosen order, but this mechanic only works if it's your main. So if you wanted a paladin in your party at all, there'd be a gameplay advantage to making it your main, and having the cipher role taken by the cipher companion you can find, or by a hired adventurer. However, you've already started, time constraints and all, and the fact that you're (probably) not playing on PoTD, means it's probably not worth it to you to start over for that. Besides, some people have a special attachment to their main, and that's as valid a reason as any for the choices you make in a fantasy game. Lastly, I'd say that the conversation options are never that crucial to the game. Their importance is largely personal and subjective. With dumped Res, you'll miss out on some opportunities to get your way, to make people believe you, etc. In practice, from a gameplay perspective, this will amount to a grand total of a few quests where you can't get the best possible outcome. Like you might be able to squeeze some more money out of a quest giver with higher Res, and there's at least one item I'm pretty sure you can't get without decent Res, but I can't think of any "must-have" awesome items you'd be missing, or any significant ways it would gimp you in the end. Also note that you wouldn't have any more convo options open to you at 10 Res than at 3 — checks are all from 11 to 20. You could get a few points more with an item and buffs, but your score still wouldn't be high enough to justify 7 points invested that would take away from other stats IMHO.

The source, in this case, is my own personal experience playing extensively with Kana in my party, from Normal to PoTD. I'd occasionally prefer an invocation that required less chants than I'd worked up, and the chant counter would keep those remaining chants that I didn't use. I also tried waiting a long time to see if the chant cap went any higher, and it only ever went as high as required for my highest level invocations. Try it out yourself if you want to be double sure lol.

A couple of posters recently alluded to a recent thread that allegedly mentioned upcoming changes to that mechanic, but when I asked for a link, nobody responded. In any case, no such change has been made to the live game. I believe this would be the thread in question: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82460-confirmed-per-encounter-spells-are-getting-nerfed/?hl=%2Bper+%2Bencounter Thanks. That seems like it'll be an interesting change and add a bit of a strategic element to it, although TBH I had often thought that it would have made more sense to do a gradual transition like poster #4 on that thread suggests. It would have fit with the other types of gradual transitions, like the way you get one more spell cast per spell level per character level up to 4. Oh well, I guess that's not the direction they decided to take, and I'll refrain from throwing a tantrum about it until I have had a chance to see how it feels .

It will only count up to the number of phrases that your highest level invocation requires. So if you got six phrases on a high-level chanter, you could indeed use two low-level invocations back to back.

A couple of posters recently alluded to a recent thread that allegedly mentioned upcoming changes to that mechanic, but when I asked for a link, nobody responded. In any case, no such change has been made to the live game.

First, I second what Boeroer and Ineth said. Boeroer has definitely taught me some things I didn't previously know, particularly about ciphers, or just given me fun ideas to play with (some slightly gimmicky in the sense that he can tell you how to exploit certain item combinations, but I can appreciate that kind of deliciously fun creativity). In his post here, he covered the basics well. Note that his suggested stat priorities are, as I mentioned, slightly different from mine, but it's hard to go wrong with either, and one thing we agree on is that Per is quite important for a cipher. On Normal you should be fine with 11 even if it's suboptimal, though my vote would be in favor of the version with maxed Per at the cost of Res. My rationale is that, as a ranged CCer, most of the time you should not be getting hit anyway, and improved accuracy of your CC (and auto attacks that build focus to cast CC) will help you — and your whole party — survive better by controlling the battlefield better. Now, as Ineth says, NerdCommando (who made those videos) has a good understanding of game mechanics. I would take his build suggestions, however, as a source of ideas rather than an ultimate authority. Instead of offering one or two good build suggestions for each class that are flexible, he offers several very specific builds that each have their strengths and weaknesses, and may or may not fit your preferences. One of the cool things about PoE is the diversity of viable builds and variations of these builds, some of which synergize better with some party compositions than others. So there's no such thing as one of his build ideas being "wrong" per se, since they are each viable and tested within their niche. That said, as I mentioned above, my vote would go for his variation that maxes Per at the cost of Res: it will be more useful to your main and your party as a whole in a wider range of situations.

Firstly, you're welcome! 1 point in Per? What do you mean exactly? Your lowest base attribute score is 3 (2 for certain races, 4 for others). Do you mean 1 above dumped, or 1 above average (11)? And are you sure this video was for version 2.0+? Because Per went from being a dump stat for ciphers to being a stat most players max on a cipher. Accuracy is good for anybody, but for a cipher in particular it's helpful so that your CC (e.g. Mental Binding) will more often land (even against tough bosses), and more often crit rather than hit or graze, so it'll last much longer on average. If you're really playing on Normal, which you can check in the options menu, you could get by with just average Per even if it's not optimal. In PoTD, enemy stats are higher, including defenses, so accuracy is even more important for PoTD than for the lower difficulties.

I hear you in that I haven't found/made time to play PoE almost at all, since 2.0 and the White March came out about the same time that school started back up for me . I can also vouch for the time investment that just fully keeping up with this forum alone can take. I tell myself that I shouldn't play the game as long as I've got homework and studying to do, but TBH, I think I could have finished the expansion by now if I hadn't been keeping up with the forum! Do you remember what month you last played, or what patch version you had at that time? It's hard to know exactly which changes will affect you personally the most. For starters, what difficulty are you playing and what classes are in your party? The biggest change overall has probably been in 2.0, changing Perception to grant accuracy instead of deflection. It's now considered essential for CC, good for DPS, and dump-able for a pure tank. However, pure tanks are also less popular than they used to be. Even paladins, for instance, now have at least some offensive capability due to the new high level Immolation ability. Some players are still going the pure tank route and dumping both Dex and Per on their paladins, whereas others are maybe dumping Dex but keeping Per at 10 or so. The Perception change generally means that your own characters with above average Per have become squishier (less tanky) yet deadlier (more accurate). The compounding effect is that enemies with above average Per will be easier still to hit, while being deadlier still to you. This, along with the change from 3% to 5% health/endurance per point of Con, makes Con generally more desirable across the board, although there are still players who will dump it on ranged characters, and keep it about average on most frontliners (monks did and probably still do get the most benefit from high Con, as their abilities depend on getting hurt). For a cipher, it depends if melee or ranged, but my opinion on stat priority for ranged would be something like Per>Int>Dex>Mig>Con>Res. Others have argued over many a page of posts about, say, whether Dex or Might are more important, and cases could be made for a lot of tweaks to this order of priorities, but it's no doubt that Per, Int, Dex, and Might all play a role in a cipher's CC/DPS ability, with Per and Int being especially important for CC. 2.0 also introduced an AI system, which you can turn on or off or adjust per character at any time. Try it out if you like, but be forewarned: a lot of players have found that many things about microing their characters, especially when it comes to tactical decisions about spells, are still better done by hand. Some players have arrived at a sweet spot where they trust the AI to manage one or more characters, but they micro the others, and even override the AI or don't let it control, say, Per Rest abilities. If I make this post any longer, you might as well browse the rest of the forums. I hope that gives you a good starting point to have some weekend fun. And unless you're playing on PoTD, there's no need to sweat getting things "perfect." Oh yeah, even on PoTD, you can respec your characters at any inn now, so jump in and know you can always tweak a mistake or change your mind for a bit of gold.

As seems to be the case with most players, I didn't like Durance at first. He's a grumpy and opinionated religious zealot who's quick to blame others for passing judgment, but is among the worst offenders of passing judgment himself. However, I find some of his banter, especially with Aloth, to be pretty dang funny, because you can feel the other companions feeling super awkward, and occasionally fighting back and making a retort he totally deserves right back at him.

Pretty sure that's what they intend to do. Wut? Where's this other thread? Link please.

This. I'd be very surprised if Immolation's accuracy wasn't brought down by a medium or large shield, but a lot of paladins prefer certain small shields anyway, and this is just another advantage to going that route.

In addition to Stealth skill, Move Speed also helps, as you're more likely to bridge that gap before the circle fills up.

Are you sure? It's my impression that the medium/large shield penalty affects everything, including melee and spells, but that weapon accuracy bonuses don't help spells. I thought I'd observed this in the combat log, but it's been a while TBH.

The "random" item drop tables did indeed change with patch 2.0. Here is the first post on the main checklist thread that started providing updated info for 2.0 and beyond.

The corrode lash will probably be useful in more situations than any slaying enchant will.

I believe this was changed in 2.0.

Do your pally and Eder both have Weapon and Shield Style yet? You didn't specifically mention it, but needless to say, it's a must-have for anyone who's going to be using a shield most or all of the time. Inspiring Radiance is indeed a great one to get on Durance. Even at level 6, you have enough other healing spells that it'll be worth casting Divine Radiance toward the beginning of combat not for the healing, but simply for the accuracy bonus (that happens to stack with other accuracy bonuses, which is unusual since most similar effects of the same source type suppress each other). The only time you might delay casting Holy Radiance is if you are waiting for vessels to get in range. Other talents I find highly useful for Durance are Interdiction, Painful Interdiction, and Empowered Interdiction. Priests have enough good class talents that you hardly have to choose any non-class ones, but you may eventually want Scion of Flame for example. For Aloth, IMHO there are better choices than the additional spell slots. I guess they're ok if you want to rest less often before those spell ranks become Per Encounter, but one more cast still won't be night-and-day. Remember that you were curious about trying Minor Blights. If you haven't tried it yet, I would at least try it and see how you like it. The talents you'll want for that are Blast, Penetrating Blast, Weapon Focus: Adventurer (equip a wand, and Minor Blights are also a wand), Marksman, and Dangerous Implements. I'd do Dangerous Implements last, since by that time, the health loss won't be too severe. The really cool thing is that at level 13, both Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and Minor Blights become Per Encounter, so you cast them in that order in every fight and do great consistent AoE auto attack damage. You could also cast Merciless Gaze and Eldritch Aim in-between Alacrity and Minor Blights, and for the super tough fights you could finish off the buff sequence with Citzal's Martial Power . Just a thought to see how you like it, but that would be a Minor Blights wizard in a nutshell. There is one quest in Dyrford Village that's related to the Doemenels that you might not expect (Cat and Mouse), but it definitely doesn't affect the crit path. About those rogue items, some of them are purchasable from a merchant (for the Doemenels, it's the woman in the back on the second floor, after you do her side quest). It's possible to do that and the side quests from the other factions to gain access to their respective merchants, and buy the items you want before you (optionally) kill them. Of course, play how you want. If you prefer to RP that you want nothing to do with the Doemenels including doing even a little dirty work or buying some dirty goods, feel free to RP that way :D.

Your doubt is one I once shared. It turns out they do stack, because they are considered different effects (Deflection only vs all defenses). It's the priest's Shields for the Faithful that doesn't stack with Reinforcing Exhortation. However, consider that the priest spell is a level 5 spell (so will never become per encounter for the next couple of expansions), and its radius is small. In this light, I cast my vote for taking Reinforcing Exhortation. How many melee do you have again, including pets? Just being able to boost your other paladin's deflection is a nice bonus by itself.