Boeroer

You have to complete quests or advance in them. One turn = one advancement in (or the completion of) a quest. It doesn't matter which quests.

Hm... didn't notice.

Yeah - you can't run into the fray with him in the early game unless you skip Frenzy and/or use a shield. -10 deflection from Frenzy, low starting deflection with the rel. low health of any lvl-1-char is a bad combo. Reach weapons from the second row work well with Frenzy until the higher health (I mean the starting health + the rel. big gains at lvl-up) starts to make some difference. Savage Defiance also helps (Robust adds some AR and healing over time).

Skeletons have swords. Weapons don't scale with difficulty level. Swords have a base PEN of 6. Poor does -2 PEN. And thus they are stuck with 4. I mean without any buff like animancy cat etc. Incidentally just did an Ancient-Brittle-Bones fight on PotD with a lvl-20 Troubadour. I don't know about the tentacles.

Byebye Priest of Skaen then.

I always liked the Furyshaper because of his very useful Fear Ward and didn't pay much attention to the Blood Ward because you can't multiclass with it. I just assumed it was the same as Old Siec. Had I known that it works with DoT ticks I would have played a SC Furyshaper as kind of "support" earlier (since I Iike SC Barbs anyway but preferred Berserker so far). A retaliation Barb with axes is much better as Furyshaper+Blood Ward than as a Berserker though. Only watch out for the Ward...

5 meter radius - there's a marking on the floor that shows the AoE at any times. Enemies don't have to be in the circle - only the party member who wants to profit from the draining. If you combine it with Old Siec (Chanter) you can have double draining. The AoE of Old Siec is usually bigger although chants only have 4 meter base AoE. But usually chanter have high INT. The AoE of the Ward is always the same even if the Furyshaper himself has only 1 INT. But then the summoning duration is very short of course.

At higher levels the Blood Ward has good health. But yeah - if it goes down then that's bad. Luckily it gets healed by all non-targeted healing effects such as Exalted Endurance, Moon's Light, Consecrated Ground, Restore and so on and so forth. You can even buff it with spells like Shields for the Faithful and whatnot - so it's pretty easy to keep if alive even if you let it alone. Lay on Hands doen't work though. Targeted buffs do work. E.g. Barring Death's Door. As Powerotti said Withdraw also works (just tried). Which is hilarious. But you can also guard it. I just placed the Furyshaper in front of it and blasted every enemy who came near with Driving Roar. And everybody else as well because Driving Roar has an insane range. Was supereasy with every encounter I tested it so far. The AoE of the Ward is good and it is incredibly useful for everybody who deals consistent damage. You can basically spare a dedicated healer for glasscannons as long as they can deal enough damage. Tried it with Ancient + Plague spells now and also Wicked Briars. WotEP with Taste of the Hunt was impressive (healing from the spell itself + strong DoT in an AoE). Bloodmage with Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon heals twice. Steel Garrote with Offensive Parry... Barb with Retaliation... althoug those also work fine with Old Siec. It's the DoTs that separate the Ward from the Chant. Pretty wild... Before getting Blood Ward the Fear Ward is also very powerful. It just terrifies(!) everything that has not enough Will to resist. Because of that it gets attacked very seldomly. And you can buff its ACC with Blessing and Devotions and so on.

I guess it is not intended. But you can use it to your advantage: equip Deltro's Cage Helm and profit from a good shocking lash after casting Ball Lightning.

5 base PEN is pretty me though. Good that it scales. By the way: Skeletons' poor swords stay at 4 PEN for all of the game. 4... ...four!

Hi, As you may know Old Siec and Blood Ward both work with spell damage which is very handy for offensive spell casters in the party who suddenly don't need other sources of healing anymore (most of times). So I fiddled around with Steel Garrote/Skald and a Furyshaper and then tried Blood Ward + Old Siec in combination with Dragon Thrashed (because you never know, do you?)... --> Old Sic seems to trigger only once (when the DoT is applied), Blood Ward triggers on every DoT-tick! Tested further with different DoTs like Blood Frenzy, Deep Wounds, Bleeding Cuts, Disintegrate and whatnot and it's all the same: Blood Ward heals 15% of every tick damage (you can imagine with Disintergrate or Toxic Strike it's pretty awesome). Now... Is that new somehow or was is just so that this was missed by everybody? 😄 This makes Blood Ward extremely good and shifts SC Furyshaper to the top of my personal Barb ranking. Just for laughs an giggles I made a Barb with Bleeding Cuts + Panther's Leap + Barbaric Retaliation + Blood Storm + Blood Surge + Blood Ward and my... he refuses to die. Added an Old Siec Steel Garrote/Skald with Offensive Parry (crits from Offensive Parry can refill phrases) and a Bloodmage with Concelhaut's Draining Touch and Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin. I would say this is totally bonkers...

Yeah - I reckon if you already have a good CC option then Aloth may feel a bit redundant. Especially if you have some "preferred" chars whom you invest a bit more micromanagement on and then Aloth is just an addon. Some classes or builds don't work so well if they are supposed to work on their own mostly. Concerning Chillfog + Combusting Wounds: it works even better if you cast two Chillfogs over each other. Then you'll have twice the pulses for Combusting Wounds (obviously). Granted: this takes more casting time. In the early levels I try to cast Dazzling Lights to lure (will get refunded because our of combat), then engage with a frontliner or two to keep the enemies where they are while casting Chillfog out of stealth so that the tank(s) are in the foe-only zone. The second Chillfog can follow immediately because of stealth mechanics. Naturally Combusting Wounds then takes some time because of the recovery from casting the second Chillfog. I cast CW last because of its shorter duration. If you have spell shaping then you can adapt to a lot more situations because sometimes there are only few hard enemies and sometimes a ton of trashy ones. I find it quite weird that Combusting Wounds works with Chillfog at all - since it's freeze vs. fire - but it does. Concerning friendly fire: that's why I like tanks with lot of engagement slots, large shield + modal and resistances or immunities. I don't care about Pull of Eora if I'm wearing Upright Captain's Belt or Slicken when I'm wearing Rekvu's Fractured Casque - and so on. Also Adept Evasion is great on a Swashbuckler tank with large shield if you have a Wizard in the party (I often use Edér like that).

It also seems that many players don't really understand the grimoire mechanics which are a great asset. Not only can you achieve an insane pool of spells for every task that may find you - but they let your wizard pick only passives or non-spell abilities (most extreme case) and still have a broad selection of spells at their disposal. Of course this is not as relevant for single class Wizards as it is for multiclass ones since SC Wizards don't have an overabundance of passives to begin with. But still the grimoire mechanic is a big plus compared to Priest and Druid.

Grimoires though

Did you check if it went away with retraining?

I just guess your whole approach isn't Wizard-friendly. Which is ok. Mine is not Rogue-friendly. I always come up with some nice Rogue or Rogue multiclass - but when it's centered around single target damage it always turns out to underperform due to the nature of my general tactics which often include heavy CC and (friendly-fire) AoE. Since you are playing PotD and don't seem to struggle it seems your tactics work well. If they don't blend well with Aloth then maybe it's time to swap him out. If your encounters are more fast-paced and maybe less controlled and you need some fast AoE CC + damage I'd add somebody like Mirke as Shadowdancer or SC gunmonk with dual mortars or something: great AoE dps and CC via Stunning Surge and Streetfighter's passive via Powder Burns.

Do you mean that Eyestrike (which only does one hit roll and blinds for 12 secs) is better than than Chillfog (which reapplies a 15 sec Blind every 3 seconds AND deals significant damage (not per pulse, but overall 30-50 base dmg)? Don't cast in on you front line I'd say. It's invaluable if you want to shut down enemy casters and ranged units. When combined with something like Binding Web or Mental Binding or any immobilizing effect it will cramp enemies in such a tight space that a) you can hit them all at once with even smallish AoEs and b) they can't reach you. Preferably you'd cast it from stealth after you lured the enemies to one spot with Dazzling Lights. Then shower them with Combusting Wounds + AoEs. I win most bounties way above my level with such an easy approach. Melees just intercept the occasional runner. Nobody's actually doing that much besides the Wizard. Level-4 Wizards have several good spells that can make all the difference, e.g. Chillfog + Combusting Wounds. Regarding all your comments on this it seems you have that problem that I initially brought up: you don't know how to employ a Wizard. Your biggest issue is friendly fire. That only shows that your tactics and maybe your whole go-to party setup is not ideal for a Wizard - it doesn't mean that Wizards have no impact in general. Also players that argue that casting takes too long: if you cast you first spell from stealth it takes no in-encounter casting time. The recovery will be almost 0 then, too (-85% recovery time). That means two impactful spells like Pull of Eora + Binding Web or Slicken in ~4 secs (usually less because Alacrity, DEX and other speed buffs). Besides that all other casters suffer the same sluggishness, including Cipher, so that's not a thing that can be held against Wizard specifically, especially since Wizards do have a good and rel. early speed buff. The main problem seems to be that party composition and general tactics are just not suited for a "normal" Wizard. Same reason why some players complain that Chanters are so slow while others think they are great.

Low level spells like Chillfog, Slicken, Miasma and Combusting Wounds, Repulsive Visage and so on are so strong, I can't understand how a Wizard can feel weak at any power level. Like in PoE (where one of the early complaints were that Wizard are useless while in reality it's one of the strongest classes of PoE) you have to grasp how to best employ a Wizard. Sure, the late Power Levels are especially awesome for a Wizard, but also in between there are some spells that can completely change the outcome of an encounter. For example: if you have several guys with AoE then Binding Web + Pull of Eora is invaluable. If you have beams, walls and pulsing spells or multiprojectile attacks then Combusting Wounds is very good. If you want him to be a simple nuker you'd have to make sure he's getting his ACC boosted and also his PEN. But often I find plain old damaging spells to be the least effective choice for a Wizard. Stuff like Fireball sounds and looks cool - but that one-time AoE damage usually is not a game changer. Wall of Draining or Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure on the other hand...

Reloading can be canceled (unlike recovery) so you can always cancel the reloading phase and start casting instead. Iirc the switch in PoE cancels recovery as well as reload and thus a caster who can Quickswitch with Coil of Resourcefulness might be able to skip spell recovery completely. It's been a time though so maybe I remember this detail incorrectly.

Rofl. Hilarious. On the other hand: foes with low Resolve will have longer charm than buff, correct? Maybe cast some Miasma or Psychovampiric Shield first...

Chant's base AoE is a bit smaller. About investment in INT: Depends on the phrase - and when it comes to support phrases: how tight your party usually positions itself when fighting. For example: if you are using an offensive phrase like Dragon Thrashed you might want it to have a bigger AoE than if you are using Ancient Memory. If you usually fight in a close formation you can get away with a smaller AoE with support chants as well.

I want to inform you once again that Obsidian has not much to do with the console ports and thus can't add anything to them.

That is one of their purpose. Second is that you can learn spells from them if you don't already know them. Like at level-up, but you invest some money. You can also write spells that you learned into grimoires. That way you can give yourself a portfolio of spells at your disposal in every fight: you only need to put the right grimoires into your quick slots. For example you could fill one grimoire with damaging spells and the other with self buffs. Now - if you retrain (respec) you will lose all spells you have learned from grimoires and at level-up and pick new ones at re-level-up. But if you wrote all your spells into grimoires before you can pick those spells at level-up you didn't have before and afterwards learn the old ones from your grimoires. That way you can gather all spells but unique ones: Unique grimoires sometimes contain unique spells. Once you learned those spells from the grimoire you can never unlearn them. Even a retraining will not delete them.

Single weapon usage is good in the early game because there you'll have the most trouble even hitting things. One handed usage gives you an instant +12 accuracy which is a lot in the early game (with your base accuracy still so low). LAter +12 is still good, but not that impactful anymore because as you can imagine once your overall accuracy is quite high 12 points isn't that big of a chunk anymore. Let's say you start with an Accuracy of 30 - then +12 is a 40% increase. If you climb to let's say 100 accuracy then +12 is only an increase of 12% which isn't that impressive anymore. It also doesn't help that the best outcome of high accuracy - landing a critical hit - only gives you an additive damage bonus (meaning it's only 50% of your weapon's base damage - this never scales). So critical daamage isn't a multiplicative damage bonus and thus it scales very badly: it doesn't at all. So a critical hit doesn't raise your overall damage by 50%. It merely adds a bit of flat damage: 50% of your weapon's base damage. And keep in mindthat you don't really crit all the time and not that more often with sngle handed usage once yozr basic accuracy is already good. At the same time dual wielding gives you something like a 50% attack speed increase (not really, but just to keep it simple). As you can imagine attack speed is a multiplicative damage factor: if you hit twice as fast with the same weapons then you just plainly double your dps. If you attack 1.5 times faster you raise your overall dps by 50%. This is always the case and stays viable throughout the whole game as long as you can hit reliably (accuracy is good). Then some classes have Full Attacks (Paladins, Fighters, Monks, Rogues mainly) that strike with both weapons. That is powerful. Another advantage of dual wielding. Because of that dual wielding is vastly better in the late game and starts being better right after the early game. Two handed weapons: depends. When it comes to normal attacks and against heavily armored foes they are good. Rapier + Dagger is a good pick for a character who mostly does autoattacks. That can also be a rogue. First of all they are very fast and the rogue's damage boinuses help them to overcome enemies armor better. With Full Attacks they are a bit inferior because those are limited and ususally you want to use them with high damage weapons like sabres because you want to get the most out of them. But with auto-attacks stuff like Rapier & Dagger has better dps. And also there are two early very good Rapier & Dagger in the game. This is also kind of important of course: that you can find good, fitting gear early. Speaking of Rapier & Dagger: I once made a fancy fencing monk with that setup and it worked really well. So that's PoE's character concept in a nutshell: a lot of things work. Fighter can be a good dual wielder. Knockdown is a Full Attack and so is Charge (comes late but is very good). If you build him pure dps he's still no glasscannon but can reach good damage output. Not on rogue level but good. At the same time the fighter will go down a lot less. Dead chars don't deal damage. Good thig about PoE is that it's quite hard to make a trash character. Sure, you can build really powerful stuff - but it's hard to make a truly weak guy. My first char was a Barb and it was great. Next a Rogue: also great. Druid: great. And so on... In terms of fun: everybody is different. I enjoy two handed Barbs, all kinds of Monks and melee Wizards a lot. But Barbs have a special place in my heart. Fighter is good but a bit too dull for me as main character. I can't predict what you might like or not though. But I know there are certain combos that a) are easy to get early and b) were more fun for me than others. Classes that start strong and thus don't frustrate new players are Fighter, Rogue and Monk. Monk is a bit complicated to play for a first-timer maybe.