Boeroer

I find the one raw DoT on it which increases with focus just nuts. It ticks for 30+ dmg easily when ascended iirc. And it's not even the only raw DoT on the weapon...

The skeletons can be nasty because they are immune to pierce damage. But you can lure them one by one etc. so they are more manageable than the whole Drake possy.

Hello, Pernicious Cloud has a huge base radius (5m) centered on the Rogue - and deals really nasty DoT in an AoE. It is not foe-only. Like all AoEs with friendly fire (for example Fireball), Pernicious Cloud shows its AoE indicator with a red circle (the friendly fire part) and a yellow, bigger circle which usually indicates the foe-only part. However, with Pernicious Cloud - and that's the only ability I know of that behaves this way - the yellow circle also does friendly fire. Since the AoE can be very big this makes Pernicious Cloud quite bad if you play with a party or anywhere near neutral bystanders (city etc.). Bit sad given how many ability points you have to invest to get there. Because this behaviour is totally not in line with the rest of the game I call the current implementation faulty. To fix it there are two variants: make the whole AoE indicator red (like for example Storm of Holy Fire . this wouldn't fix the problem that the ability is difficult to use if you're not alone - but at least it will communicate its effect in the proper way) make the yellow area foe-only I would like to propose one of those fixes for the Community Patch. @MaxQuest@Phenomenum would that be something to consider? Others please chime in, too! Maybe I missed something or this was discussed before.

Sounds like a reasonable attribute distribution. I guess I'd put 2 points from DEX to INT but that's mostly cosmetic I guess. Just keep in mind that if you play with a party the Enfeeble effect is not only useful for your own effects (and stuff like Stunning Surge, Whisper of Treason, Puppet Master etc. won't even profit from MIG but only from INT and Enfeeblement) but also for all the time-limited effects of your whole party.

You can also go through the training area with the skeletons. If you return to the arena after finding Oderisi: there will be no Drakes etc. and the animancers + Aloth will wait for you outside the cage.

Yes, it's a bit much. Maybe Obsidian wanted to show that you don't need to fight every encounter but sometimes have to avoid fights. They did so with the bear cave in PoE. But that was a side quest. Gorecci Str. is also a side quest, but I don't understand the digsite. You can sneak past the Drake etc. - but chances that new players will become extremely frustrated are quite high. At least there should have been some tutorial-like warnings of explanations that it's always an option to void a fight and that XP from fighting is not very high anyway.

Well the normal boar form isn't weak, it only has a far shorter DoT duration (3 sec base compared to 15 sec base of the Shifter!). If you keep pummeling the same enemy you wouldn't notice it - until it's an enemy with very high health. But if you hit an enemy, then the next, then another one etc. it becomes superobvious. Keep in mind that the Helwalker I used in this case not only has +10 INT (so the duration is ridiculously long) but he also had Instruments of Pain. You'd just be standing there and maybe move a bit here and there but could attack a lot of different enemies with very little movement. Bang - bang - bang: three enemies are doomed to die with only three strikes. This type of combat could also be done with a Ranger/Shifter with Wounding Shot + Evansive Roll or Rogue with Ring the Bell + Deep Wounds + Escape. Fighter with Tactial Barrage and Clear Out (=AoE Boar Dot!) may also be worth a try. It could melt whole groups with only that one use of Clear Out...

Edér again

I would go mediocre on MIG because the curse can be really nasty before you get some more "-x% hostile duration" and +RES abilities and gear - and it scales its dmg up with MIG of course. You don't need to have superhigh INT because of the same reasons and you'll get Duality oMP/Turning Wheel (up to +10 INT) later. With the Berath Blessings vendor in Port Maje you can get an Amulet of Greater Health which makes things more easy-going in the early game - so you don't need high CON either. Later I would try to get some regeneration gear which helps to counter the health loss from the curse and Hylea's Talons (which I recommend for wound generation). While the durations of those hostile DoTs will get reduced by RES and -x% hostile effects stuff (e.g. Clarity of Agony), regeneration gear's effects will not. Voidward Ring also helps. Usually high DEX is always good - but in this case it's not too bad to have a somewhat mediocre DEX score that prevents you from spamming Forbidden Fist too quickly. I like high PER on MC if I go with official companions because none of them has very high PER which can mean you will miss some secrets/traps etc. It will be difficult to get it very high though if you don't want to really dump some other attribute. With Forbidden Fist the attribute distribution is tricky since you want to go max RES but also some other attributes are nice to have. Points are scarce and you'll have to make some sacrifices. Berath Blessings extra stats are especially nice in this case.

I guess that's because it's not direct damage but DoT and needs a bit time to build up. Most enemies, if you attack them one at a time - die before it becomes obvious. But if you use it against damage sponges or divide your attacks between mutiple opponents it becomes fairly obvious imo. I only tested it vs. dummies which are Rotghasts basically. They have high health but quite low defenses and they just melt from the DoT. In my tests I hit a dummy with one(!) Full Attack with a Helwalker/Shifter with +10 MIG and INT - and it was almost enough to kill them. Unlike some other raw DoTs like from Stalker's Patience etc. this raw DoT stacks! And with high INT it reaches absurd durations with a Shifter Boar. Two Full Attacks from a non-optimzed test char and I get ticks of 30+ raw dmg for over 30 secs. Maybe it doesn't even feel overpowered when you play in a "normal" way - it's just so different from the non-shifter boar forms. I think they should all work all in the same way (although it's of course fun to discover those things and play around them for a bit ).

Depends on the enemies you are facing. For example Blaidh Golan is good against Ogres because they knock you prone quite often. Wayfarer's Hide is better against other enemies. In general the Wayfarer's Hide is better. It comes later though - so I would simply use Blaidh Golan until I get the Wayfarer's Hide.

As far as I can tell it's only the Shifter.

Slight is less than minor.

With Scheemer's Needler I would pick Doemenel as well. Fits 100%. Misery's End is not good, but you also get a big pile of money in addition (forgot to mention that). You can get Cladhaliath later with every faction - after once Act III is unlocked. So your Druid can still use it if he wants. But if he's in melee a lot I personally would train him around Shifting/Wildstrike. As long as a Druid is shifted he has the potential to do even more melee dps than a rogue while still being able to cast all his stuff. I mean unless you want to use him with shield etc. and be more tanky.

But the looks!

It's not much if measured in seconds, right. But in order to maintain a somewhat similar dps a Rapier has to be faster than a sabre - because its base damage is lower: 12 (Rapier) vs. 16 (Sabre). Roughly speaking the sabre has 33% more base damage which has to be compensated with the Rapier's 33% faster (or 25% less slower) recovery. If the Rapier is only as fast as a Sabre it's already worse - if you can't stack the modal's ACC. If you can use the full ACC bonus effectively that's a different story of course. Vanilla sabre at 10 DEX with no recovery penalty will use 4.7 secs per attack cycle - while the Rapier + modal will use 5 secs per attack cycle. The time difference is not much of couse. But if you can't profit from the increased ACC it's a rel. big dps loss. In the early game however the Rapier's higher ACC is great and the modal is fantastic. Especially when paired with one handed usage it's really hard to miss stuff. You'll have +5+12+20=+37 ACC after all - which is an immense bonus early in the game where you often won't have access to other ACC buffs. And it's great for things like Soul Annihilation or other weapon maneuvers you don't want to miss with (Knockdown and so on). Still, when looking at the uniques I'd def. go with sabres.

Maybe something like MIG 16 CON 10 DEX 16 PER 16 INT 16 RES 04 You need to use your defensive buffs in order to not get interrupted a lot because of your bad RES and mediocre CON. A Priest with Holy Meditation also helps. Use Infuse with Vital Essence if your health is running low. If you want a bad-ass looking melee makge there's nothing more stylish than Argwes Adra imo. Later there's also a helm for it. Both can be obtained in the mid game. If you like Sanguine Plate's look than that's also fine. The fitting helmet will also come later. Here's the four plate armors that have fitting helmets: White Crest (Stalwart Village), Argwes Adra (Endless Paths of Od Nua), He Carries Many Scars (Readric's Hold in Act III), Sanguine Plate (Defiance Bay) For more inspiration about stylish gear combos in PoE check out this thread:

Scordeo's Edge and Grave Calling are more powerful than any Rapier a Helwalker/Devoted could use imo - so in terms of potential power I would opt for the sabres. Don't forget that Scordeo's Edge has "Adaptive" which is giving you up to +20 stackable melee accuracy which is already better than Rapier (+5, +9 when using Rännig's Wrath) + modal (+20 but slows you down a lot and it's not stackable with other active ACC buffs). Grave Calling is just ridiculously good if you have vessel summons - but even without the lash and especially the paralyze effect are very potent. I believe the Grave Bound paralyze doesn't even get lowered by resistances and immunity(?) since it's some special sauce. With high INT from Monk Adaptive: Blade Cascade, Chilling Grave and Grave Bound are a lot better, too. Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming always use the main hand for additional attack rolls, even if the initially proc off of the offhand. That means you should use Scordeo's Edge in the main hand to proc Blae Cascade as much as possible I guess.

I feared they had used the direct translation from any dictionary. Koryphäe... that's like a exceptional expert. The Vithrack Expert, sure. But if that's the official translation then what can we do. I corrected it right in the quote. Embarrassingly I also had an error in the following sentence because in between I switched from "die Mixtur (sie)" to "der Trank (er)".

Yes, it will not only have an effect on the ending slides once you finish the game but also ever faction gets you a special unique item and a special talent. That depends on the class/build you are playing. The Doemenel faction gives you higher crit damage (+30%) and a unique stiletto named Misery's End, Crucible Knights give you +2 DR and the sword Shame or Glory (which is the only way to ever dual wield two marking weapons) and the Dozens give you +5 ACC if you attack the same target as an ally as well as the spear Cladhaliath (but you can get that one later with every faction - just way later). They are just universally useful if you play a somewhat defensive character and they are easy to get. If you want more spell uses you can use the those other rings of course. But resting is cheap and there's also spell mastery - so those rings lose a bit of their appeal later in the game. For some builds rings like Ring of Searing Flames make a lot of sense, some want a ring with Preservation - it depends a bit. It wouldn't say there's one ring you always should wear.

It works with Instruments of Pain so I don't understand where the issue is. You can use all melee abilities at 6m range then, including Forbidden Fist - and that allows you to use Enduring Dance more efficiently because you won't get hit much. That was my whole point - it doesn't get invalidated because Forbidden Fist is a melee attack. You do not have to sacrifice those - why would you? Activate Enduring Dance, then Instruments of Pain from stealth and start Forbidden FIst punches. Not long and you can summon Dichotomous Soul. Or cast Dichotomous Soul first and Intruments of Pain after that. Besides that it depends if OP wants to use Dicotomous Soul in the first place. That's right, but the 50%/pervents healing bonus is very good still and not that hard to apply because grazes work well, too. Helm of the White Void gives +10 ACC to Forbidden Fist by the way but not to Enervating Blows. Precision Striker (+5 ACC with unarmed attacks) works woith Forbidden Fist, too, but I didn't check if the fortitude roll is also affected. I didn't mean against bosses but more in general. But against bosses it can also be nice - if those bosses have ads. You can domiante them for the whole encounter basically which is very useful. As Forbidden Fist/Beguiler I very often turned multiple enemies into long time puppets. Charming also works. You then have all the time in the world and can enjoy Enduring Dance etc. This is obviously not a valid stragety vs. Megabosses but still very effective in most other fights (SSS for example) and fun to play.

But +x to all skills has very little effect in an ecounter. And usually you'll become brilliant in an encounter. If you get an empower point from Brilliant priodically you can use it in every fight to refresh resources or empower an ability and still get back to full from 0 to 4 (or whatever your max is) without resting. I think that's pretty cool. It's absolute garbage for a Bloodmage though...

I find Enduring Dance worth it even if I only activate it in stealth and wait until I got a few ticks of +3 ACC and some wounds while teammates buff the party up and try to debuff the boss. Then I can come in with rel. high ACC and wound count and use the Forbidden Fist - even more than once of the Enfeeblement doesn't graze on the first try. Not only does this make my other stuff like Psychov. Shield and Disintegrate etc. more powerful but also it prolongs the stuff all my teammates are putting on that enemy. And then it's just cool imo that you can always use a crush attack - even if you are wearing a Rapier + Tuotilo's Palm or whatever setup. Rännig's Wrath would be my first unique choice and then later the SSS soulbound rapier which is just nuts with Cipher.

Yes, afaik Community Patch didn't address this yet. It simply wasn't know until recently.

Cowardice triggers if you are too far away from any ally (4m). Imo no problem if you have more than one ranged character - or just stand behind the frontline. The term "ally" usually includes summons and animal companions, but I didn't test it with Cowardice since I seldomly remove my party members from the group unless they are meant to be high mobility strikers. Debonaires totally fits because Jack Sparrow only fights if there's no other option but rather likes to talk his way out. That's why I would also like Beguiler - but focus on the charming/confusing parts that fit the character. Debonaires have their own kith charm ability so that would fit I guess. Not stuff like Disintegration Amplified Wave and so on.