Boeroer

As much as I like the general idea and realisation of this build here (because the synergies are neat und fun and it looks awesome in action) I don't think it's that easy in the early game. At least without Berath's Blessings (start at lvl. 4). Imo if you want to play solo like you would play with a party (and are not superexperienced and also don't have a lot of metaknowledge): pick an Arcane Knight (with Bloodmage). The Paladin subclass doesn't matter that much I'd say. I like Steel Garrote because you can drain a lot of health with Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff (stacks with the Steel Garrote's passive) which is nice for Blood Sacrifice and spares you Zeal (no need to use Lay on Hands). You can later even use the Concelhaut's Draining Touch trick* to have an awesome draining weapon with build-in affliction + shield (but that's a bit exploit-ish so maybe not your cup of tea). Shieldbearer and Bleak Walker don't add much though for a solo run imo so maybe don't pick those. The Arcane Knight can have high defenses right from the start (Faith and Conviction + Mirrored Images and also Quarterstaff modal, later Mirrored Images, Arcan Veil and so on), high AR (Spirit Shield + passives), good healing (Lay on Hands) and tons of tools for any situation really, so very versatile. On top of that you'll have a cool summon at some point, too (Essential Phantom). And as soon as you get Wall of Draining you'll be a demigod because stuff like Lay on Hands and all buffs won't run out. The only Achilles' heel is hostile Arcane Dampeners. Some enemies like to cast this as soon as they see you. You can prevent getting hit with it with a very high Will defense (usually the case bc. you want high INT and RES anyway) but also by using Arkemy's Brilliant Departure at the right time and so on. Herald is also a very solid pick and can be played in several ways. More on the summoning side which is always powerful and at the same time sturdy as heck as well. Very versatile, too.

Which bug? That it procs unlimited times? That's intended and was done in one of the last patches because players complained that it's so bad if it's only 1/encounter. Obviously they didn't think about any auras that target Will (dragons, Threatening Presence, Redfield's Harbinger and so on) and which you can't turn off.

As soon as you enter SSS and FS the "kill fast" approach falls flat imo if you haven't any means of staying power or means of avoiding damage.

Ah right. Sorry, I mixed that up. I was able to finish Hauani O Whe with such an Assassin/Paladin and was using Marux Amanth. I don't recall every detail but at lvl 20 you can be rel. sturdy with this (if you want) and Marux Amanth helped to quicken the process and gave me back a bit of resources I guess. The first stage (killing the mountainous ooze) is easy because it doesn't move around and just dies from the DoTs. But I remember that the gigantic oozes wandered around a lot (patrolling) when I was invisible so it wasn't easy to wait out until their health was lowish enough to rush in and prevent the merging. I used Bounding Boots to move around and kite but being able to come back very quickly for an interrupt if needed. I used a ton of scrolls of Thrust of Tattered Veils (auto-hit, always interrupt, cheap, only 1 Arcana needed) and abused Lethandria's Devotion (switch weapon sets to heal up) to spare Zeal. The tons of smaller oozes provided enough Zeal via Virtuous Triumph to be able to use Brand Enemy lots of times. It was very tedious though. Using Sacred Immolation for killing smaller oozes is no problem though if you are willing to abuse Lethandria's Devotion. Obviously that's not exploit-free anymore. I personally would just skip megabosses with a "normal" or exploit-free solo playthrough.

You can solo the game quite easily (compared to many other classes) with an Assassin - or any Rogue, but Assassin is the easiest imo - without taking an "abnormal" route. Even better in my opinion is Assassin/Paladin. I personally like Assassin/Goldpact Knight best. One key are "neverending" damage over time effects: Gouging Strike (Rogue), True Love's Kiss (from the Dagger Lover's Embraced) and Brand Enemy (Paladin). The other is Smoke Veil (Rogue). You can apply True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike with one single handed, highly accurate attack from stealth. You will then have a very short recovery (attacks from stealth have a -85% recovery time) and can then use Brand Enemy (which is an auto-hit and has 0.5 secs casting time and 0 recovery), then use Smoke Veil and retreat out of sight. The combat will not end until the enemy is dead. You can win any encounter this way except those where you can't retreat out of sight.* Thus boarding fights must be avoided and the Water Dragon must also be solved peacefully. And of course you can use stealth to avoid fights altogether if you feel like it - because the method I described above is time consuming. Then some fights are not even in a normal path but totally optional - like Megabosses. )* there are few others where you need to use Marux Amanth in order to destroy a near death target, most notable the Ooze Megaboss. If you're not using Berath's Blessing points to reach lvl 4 right away (and start with Smoke Veil) you need to play the first levels carefully and not pick unnecessary fights. Luckily Goldpact's Gilded Enmity is there from lvl 1 on to help with survivability if you must fight. As soon as you reach Smoke Veil you can use an arquebus + modal to one-shot most enemies from stealth with Flames of Devotion until you get Gouging Strike or Lover's Embrace or Brand Enemy (first you only need one of these). If they can't be one-shotted you can turn invisible which will end combat and quickly (after regaining guile for more Smoke Veils) fire again from stealth before the enemy has healed up. If you don't roleplay your Assassin/Paladin or incorporate stealthy parts etc. to have some variety in gameplay it can become a bit dull though. Because it's a lot of waiting until some enemies are dead. Especially those who heal themselves or get healed. So kill priests etc. first.

You can use all weapon types without modal. In some cases the model isn't even that useful (e.g. Great Swords). Large Shield modal on the other hand can be very useful in certain situations, even if only used seldomly.

? That is Oathbreaker's End

Does Windows 7 have DirectX 11 support? Sorry, I have no idea - I'm on Linux since Windows Vista came out.

Hi, let me tag the community/social media managers for you because otherwise I guess this will not get noticed. This error might affect more players. Oh mighty @Aarik D and grand@Shyla, I summon thee to cast a glance on this poor fella's problem!

Yes, it's also annoying that you'll only have 1 cast of that 7th spell tier without using Grimoire oVW - which then requires you to use Blood Sacrifice more often (because Zandethu's Draconic Fury is on the same tier as Wall of Draining for example). It may be cool with a dedicated melee Druid/Wizard Spiritshift build for a party (where you might not need WoD that often) but I guess not great for solo.

You understood correctly. Wearing a medium shield will reduce your accuracy by 4 points. For weapon attacks but also for spells. With a large shield it's -8. Small shields do nothing to your accuracy - so those have no drawback for spellcasting. Somebody coded it that way. --- Since you asked for weapon affects that also affect spellcasting: weapons that give you an attribute bonus (e.g. Godasthunyr +1 MIG or Abydon's Hammer +4 MIG) will also affect your spellcasting of course (more MIG = more spell damage). Another weapon that somewhat has an effect on spells is Spelltongue: the action speed it drains from enemies works with everything, also spellcasting. But it doesn't stack with stuff like Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. I don't recall any other weapons in PoE that did something good for spellcasting.

Usually that's not the case. Weapon effects usually only affect attacks with that weapon, not spells*. On the (bad) flipside a shield that has an accuracy malus will also lower your spells' accuracy. There's one exception that comes to my mind: Single one handed weapon usage (gives +12 accuracy with that weapon) will also give +12 ACC with offensive chants (e.g. The Dragon Thrashed). I guess it's a little error that never got fixed.

Usually it's like that: if the items in the container have a red background the theft will get noticed. If the background is not read it's cool.

If you need a tank or blocker the Dragon is cool. Especially if you have an Ancient in the party whic can cast Wild Growth on the dragon (it has no duration and will last until the dragon's summoning duration is over). It will have a ton of health and good AR then. And while its auto-attacks are rubbish its abilities are very good because of Power Level scaling. But I would also say that Ancient Weapons are more universally useful. Still... summoning a dragon... it's just very cool.

I actually never thought about prolonging Lifegiver's Spiritshift with WoD so that you wouldn't have the PL drop. Neat! The casting speed is indeed great.

I don't think that it implies that. But anyway: I didn't say that nor did I mean that. "Immature" has a negative connotation but boing young is just... being young. Being young is cool. But I guess we can agree that younger people - generally speaking - like different things than older ones. Just generally speaking. I really liked Throne of Bhaal etc. a lot. Didn't say you did. I just wanted to make it clear that I wouldn't be against it if it were an option - but wouldn't want it as a default ending. No. I didn't say nor meant that you specifically did that. I just speculated - based on personal experience - that age or nostalgia may be a reason some people like those endings better. And why I personally don't long for such endings anymore (because older now). You must not take what I wrote as offense. I wasn't meant that way. I was just engaging in armchair reasoning. If you don't agree with what I speculated that's no problem.

I like Vanishing Strikes, but imo Gambit with 100% crit conversion is better suited for party setup. Pure "Assassin stuff" where you backstab and assassinate from stealth and invisibility often requires too much work and attention to be effective for me in a party. It profits a lot from good setup and stealthy gameplay and is more "tactical" - which often leads to a situation where you park your party somewhere and do invisible stuff with the Assassin alone because the other party members will only mess things up. At least that's my experience when I don't use the Assassin with a caster combo but as "original" roguish weapon hitter. I remember my finished playthrough with an Assassin/Priest of Skaen: at some point it accidentally turned into a 95% solo run. Streetfighter with Gambit can just run along with the others since it's not really complicated. Solo it can be great, too - especially once you also include weapons with on-crit effects like Rust's Poignard, Ball and Chain and such. Even bosses like Dragons and the Beast of Winter will be perma-prone and you can uphold this way longer than Vanishing Strikes because of the almost guaranteed refund. But I like it better with a party because it makes it much easier to debuff enemies' defenses so you can't really graze or miss. As I said I really like Vanishing Strikes and the whole invisibility shebang - but it requires some "special" gameplay to be fun in my case. I mean you can also combine both and do Gambit while invisible from Vanishing Strikes of course as an Assassin (for a Streetfighter that doesn't make a lot of sense bc. he'll lose the flanking - unless he's bloodied). But the use of Vanishing Strikes already takes you under 100% conversion if you didn't get up to a lot of max Guile. One has to say that a Rogue with Gambit turns into a total One-Trick Pony. You can retrain then and only pick passives + Gambit - because you won't use your Guile for anything else anymore except maybe Gouging Strike and Smoke Veil in some special cases. Edit: ninja'd by Kaylon.

Mostly correct I believe. I think it works on some neutral NPCs that are on guard as well. At least I remember that (not yet hostile) guards in Fort Deadlight reacted...? But shop-dudes and such: nope, they won't move. Rokowa's Fingers will work though.

Yes, Beguiler's mechanic is pretty broken because it applies the deception's affliction first and only then checks whether you'll get focus back or not (which will always be the case if you don't miss). What is pretty cool about Beguiler/Beckoner is that you can use summons AND mind control to turn a whole army against one remaining enemy (or a few). But as I said above: that works even better if you have one Beckoner and one Beguiler, not necessarily a Beguiler/Beckoner. Because you can cast that stuff at the same time and don't have to cast everything one after another. Still fun build of course.

No, the only thing that unlocks the Assassin's passive are attack rolls from stealth or invisibility. Beguiler does nothing special for an Assassin. Actually I find it's a suboptimal combination. Maybe. Just know that SC Rogue may feel a bit less interesting at first - because you have less options. But on the other hand you'll unlock new abilites a lot faster - and spamming Gambit can be a lot of fun.

I don't. That would be the same as usual (in fantasy CRPGs) and feels a bit like an appeal to everybody's secret delusions of grandeur. That was cool when it happened with Ultima IX or Throne of Bhaal or something back then. I was much younger and liked that "I'm so special" treatment. But I don't read the kinds of books nowadays that I read back then. I don't watch the same kinds of movies anymore. I grew old. I actually found it kind of refreshing to have a somewhat surprising yet anticlimactic ending and not the typical "you're important and you get it all" stuff. I mean if it would have been one of many possible outcomes: fine with me. But as the most probable "default" ending? Nah... I suspect Josh Sawyer (who is about my age) felt the same and that's why we have that unusual ending. Maybe it's just not satisfying for younger audiences in general - or audiences who still feel young and/or like nostalgia and being reminded of games they played a long time ago - no idea. But on the other hand: the ending is a massive cliffhanger. PoE3 could easily lead to an outcome that you hoped for. One can see that it's just an opener for a thick metaphysical and political plot for another sequel. Unfortunately Deadfire sold so poorly at release and in the first year that a PoE3 was off the table for the longest time. But yesterday I learned from Josh (on Twitter) that Deadfire makes a profit since last year (and continues to do so - it's on sale with a bundle currently, 75% off). So maybe... maybe you might get your "ascension" to godhood, who knows?

Fast attacks and lots of crits sounds like a Berserker/Streetfighter with dual daggers. Or at least anything else with Streetfigher, not necessarily Trickster. Played one with Marux Amanth + Pukestabber and all the speed goodies (Alkohol, Devil of Caroc + Abraham, Two Weapon Style, Frenzy, Bloodlust, Heating Up, Blackblade's Hood and so on) and all the dmg goodies (One Sands Alone, Blooded, Barbaric Smash, Bloody Slaughter, Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Blood Storm, Deep Wounds etc.). It's incredibly fast once you get flanked and has very high crit damage bonuses with Barbaric Smash, especially against near death enemies and when bloodied. You need to watch out for the seld damage though. The AR is quite good but you still are vulnerable when flanked. DoC Breastplate can be used to heal you on crit and you can wear Voidward & Ring of Greater Regeneration + use Stalwrd Defiance, but still good to wathc him closely. Monk/Streetfighter is also nice. Devoted/Streetfigher is sturdier while still great offensively. "Classic" rogue like that would be a single class Streetfighter, no? Gambit with DoC Breastplate and the right tavern bonus can bring you over 10 Guile rel. early. That means 100% hit to crit with Gambit which lets you spam it nonstop (until you roll a miss or graze, then you'll lose Guile). Also the dmg of Gambit raises with high Guile and leads to great numbers.

I guess "POD" is Might? Imo the problem with low CON isn't mainly the lowish endurance but the low health. Wizards don't really start with good health to begin with and the level-ups aren't great either (in that regard). Unlike a party Wizard one might consider taking Infuse with Vital Essence as spell mastery when going solo. It will offer you actual health gains which even persist after combat, scales with healing bonuses (such as from camping/survival and of course MIG) and can somewhat counter that problem. It can make stuff like Wound Binding obsolete. Of course you can always rest and just get to 100% health right away. But that can also be very inconvenient at times due to the limit to camping supplies on PotD. Also in some (long) fights it's not the low endurance that kills you (if you have enough sources of normal healing) but the low health. For endurance I found that Veteran's Recovery isn't the worst pick for a melee or solo Wizard, at least for the early to mid game. I found Munacra Arret to be a very useful item when soloing, no matter which class. I also never use tables/spreadsheets etc. I just take what's in the box. I also try to avoid consumables. But that's just me.

Why/how is that?

There are several combos that can boost summons. But actually - since the buffing/support for summons doesn't have to be done by the one summoning - it's better to use party synergy instead of multiclass-synergy because the action economy is much better compared to doing all stuff by yourself - imo. That means I would recommend a SC Beckoner and supporting his summons with another party member. Also because the upgrade of Animated Weapons with a Beckoner is very good (8 weapons). The Beckoner himself can already support with phrases (e.g. Mith Fyr + The Arrow Sings ) and Animancy Cat etc. Also Edér with the pet slot can be considered. You can have two pets then which both can be used to support summons (e.g. Animancy Cat + Harley). You could then use a SC Priest with Spark the Souls of the Righteous (very good with multiple summons like 8 animated weapons or lots of skeletons for example) and of course the usual priest support stuff, Paladin can provide an Shared Flames, an Aura, Inspired Beacon and Exhortations, a Cipher can provide Pain Block etc. Ancient can cast Wild Growth on your beast or primordial summons (hello 2 supertanky dragons) and so on... If a multiclass is more interesting to you: I would pick either Darcozzi (Flame Shield on summons), Kind Wayfarer (healing summons and giving them a lash with Shared FLames at the same time) or Shielbearer (BDD on summons), all Priests (general support like all Priests do), Psion (Pain Link, Valorous Echoes, Tactical Meld etc.) or Ancient (general support + Wild Growth on primordial and beast summons). If it's not only "passive" support you are looking for with buffs but want to actively help with debuffs, CC and so on then of course a whole lot of combos come to mind. Like Monk with AoE Stunning Surge, Wizard most prominently I think with all the CC spells, Druid again... But in this case you's have to spread your attributes more. If you focus on the summoning and support via buffs you could easily drop PER for example since you'd never try to hit an enemy.