Boeroer

A patch increased PotD and difficulty of Port Maje et al. significantly. Maybe he remembers the time before that. And scaling will influence the enemies as well. But there is no random dice roll on encounter design. Those skeletons in the optional (!) area are particularly tough now - compared to the rest of the digside. If you have level indicators active you can see that they are usually at least two levels above you (I believe) which is a big difference so early in the game. Also if you use hirelings wich at this point may be one level below your MC (and thus three+ levels below the skeletons). These skeletons (and Gorecci Street) are like the Bear Cave in PoE. If you are not willing to skip this fight but can't figure out how to do it then good luck with your very short game.

If you'd use Flagellant's Path it would be better than pretty good.

Did you read what I wrote?

Because they are better?

Dire Blessing *is* that spell. The low-level AL1 buffs (Holy Power and Blessing) are still relevant later on because enemies also get better about using might and perception afflictions. Am I like the only one who tries to counter or protect their party members from these effects? +50% recovery time in particular is extremely brutal for anyone and given how common blind and disorient is I will use Blessing (even after getting Dire Blessing) to cancel them out. I'm not following...doesn't Blessing just give you +5 Per? Are you saying it also removes or reduce Per afflictions? Even so, why not more strategic casts of Dire Blessing than taking up two slots for essentially the same spell, major and minor versions? For that reason I would not call Blessing "great". You are writing/reading in this forum for such a long time and didn't know that afflictions cancel out inspirations (not reduce: the cancel each other no matter the tier) and vice versa? Hilarious! If you didn't know lots of other players will have also missed that. No wonder everybody is complaining about weak priests... I make sure my priest has as many different party-inspirations as he can get because of this. So I can always remove them. In case of Blessing it's quite cheap to remove Blind from the whole party (after you step out of the Chillfog's area ).

Don't know how he's doing it, but with Dance of Death you get a wound every 3 secs, if you are a Nalpasca 2 every 3 seconds. Add any form of damage (including self through Hylea's Gloves or whatever) and you'll have plenty of wounds all the time. So while executing Whispers (which can last quite some time) you can already gain 2 wounds, maybe even 4 without receiving any damage.

That is in the engwithan digsite and it's supposed to be supertough. It's also completely optional so just turn around and do other stuff. Totally ok. Boarding fights are tough in the early levels as well. Most crews are above your level. Try to sink them in naval battle until you leveled a bit. In naval battle your char level doesn't matter at all.

You are confusing Blessing with Dire Blessing. Those two do different stuff.

I like it. For Spell Level 3 the damage is actually pretty good, too.

Speaking of max CON with a Helwalker: Did anybody test if Skullcrusher's "Marrow-Drinker" enchantment (+10 max health per kill) does scale with CON? With Iron Wheel and up to 30+ CON this could be pretty cool. "Amulet of Health" and "Tough" do not so I think it's the same here - but maybe somebody knows?

No idea. But since the dmg is whimpy anyways...

Yes - Whispers of the Wind makes you invisible and thus you get the Bushwack bonus for all attack rolls. He's usng Blade Turning against the melee attacks a lot which is good. Receiving no melee dmg meand no need for healing. And he builds up a lot of Resonant Touches with fast fist attacks. Against few targets Whsipers of the Wind + Resonant Touch can be really good when using dual blunderbusses. Every target ususally gets 8 stacks of Resonant Touch per jump (means ~200 raw dmg) - and as long as there are two targets the jumping will not stop prematurely. The damage done by WotW (+Powder Burns) alone is great but not enough to kill bosses. But then hit Resonant Touch and it's usually over...

Beast spells from Druid such as Plague of Insects are great because they do raw damage (some of them) and most are foe-only. The direct damage isn't that high, but the damage over time is great if you take into consideration that you only spend 1 spell use for it. For example Plague of Insects does 90 raw damage for in spell use as base. With a crit you are already at 120 dmg. With 20 INT and a crit you are at 180. And that's per enemy in a huge AoE. ALso sickens and removes Concentration(!). I think it's fabulous. Of course those spells work better in parties that are more "slow but steady".

Internally you get tons of guile from crits, but when the attack is done it is "cropped" to 4 max (2 per shot I believe). You can observe that when looking at the multiple hits Gambit produces with Hand Mortars. Gambit grants bonus damage based on remainging Guile. During a mortar attack the guile seems to jump to enormous hights which means absurd dmg bonuses like +260% (that was common against lowish defense enemies) for some of the attack rolls. I mean I guess that's what's happening. Can't explain those dmg bonuses otherwise. So, yeah - you get back Guile with AoE crits (and jumps) as well. Also Sun & Moon gives you two chances to get back Guile. I haven't tested WotEP. Chromoprismatic Staff & Greater Maelstrom: I suppose all four, but I didn't test. It may also be that each dmg type only gets its dedicated PL bonus. This is the case with Sun and Moon for example, where one head gets PL/ACC bonus from fire PL/Ring of Focused Flames while the other does not.

a) This is a total vanilla barb, no special build. I don't think there's anything like that (offensively) besides special builds like Deltro's Helmet + scrolls, a SC Monk with Mortars that can sustain that much AoE dps while at the same time controlling the battlefield. It's just one ability and you don't have to adapt your build to it. Sure, it's PL 9 - but the statement is falsified with this single observation. And then do a Ravager, Warlock, Tempest, Witch (Berseker/Ascendant for example) or Shaman and please judge again if they don't contribute a lot to offensive power. d) Group buffs of a Paladin? You mean besides the auras I presume. Because a Paladin is not good at group buffing compared to a Priest. Barbs have nice stacking buffs (Frenzy, Bloodlust, Blood Thirst, Shape Ward: Frenzy...).

can't empathize with that viewpoint because every single-class priest i've ever rolled/recruited has picked up dismissal Yeah you. But ask around how many didn't because they thought it's too situational to be worth a scarce point at that power level. It only works for lower level vessels and spirits (the raw damage on higher level ones is negligible). Better keep the Red Hand at... hand, have a Pal with Abjuration and/or bring Grave Calling and/or Hel Beckoning - and spend the point for something else. Also the other PL8 spells are rather nice and maybe I want Great Soul if I like empowering my spells. I never took it. I would take it as no brainer if I had a bigger spell portfolio to cast from. So for example if I could get a trinket like "Berath's call to the Wheel" or so which would give me some additinal spells around vessels and spirits to choose from (like grimoires basically - doesn't even need to be 2 per level) and which I could put into the quick slots as well - that would give me way more room to think about picking a more situational spell at level up.

This time you mean?

I also meant that there is little motivation to pick a situational spell even if it's really good in some cases. Look at Dismissal etc.

That's quite fun and satisfying as well. But the downside is that it takes a lot of time to build up that many charges. I guess that's the reason the satisfaction is so high at the end. I find it exceptionally good with AoE attacks. In my case hand mortars of course (but I guess it also works with the cone from WotEP or Karabörü's crit-cone or Engoliero's Ghost Blades etc.). Since it's flat dmg it gains so much more by using it with multiple hit rolls. Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch + AoE is just... crazy. And the best part: you can do it over and over again because it's both fueld by wounds.

Yes, the new system hurts priest and druid most it seems. Could have been kind-of-fixed with special trinkets I think...? Because it did the trick for wizards.

Did that stop you before? I can't imagine what it would look like when you have 5 party members with pikes/pollaxe/great swords and time it so that they all do Clear Out at the same time... preferably after surrounding the enemy. Berserker/Nalpasca is a great way to drown in wounds and spam abilities like Torment's Reach 24/7. Once you get Savage Defiance you can do without external healing (given you don't get pommeled too hard).

If you face higher level enemies with high defenses and high AR then high ACC surely will help you overcome both. I didn't say that I rely on crits to penetrate armor. I said that it helps. Lots of grazes still means a lot of dps loss - no matter the crits.

They are awesome. Damage, Debuffs, Healing all in one package. I also prefer single class.

- Beguiler (single class - better spamming than Ascendant, awesome CC) - Monk (the versatility when it comes to char building is unmatched - also great single class) - Barbarian (one of the best single classes - see PL 9 shouts; also great multiclass passives) - Debonaire ("WTF???" you say - but 100% crits on all charmed enemies is so much fun to play with. Run around with Beguiler). - Druid (everything in one package) This is just a momentary snapshot.

I think it also heavily depends on how early you want to tackle certain encounters (bounties etc.) in order to get certain gear earlier. The highest obstacles there are high defenses and AR. High ACC helps with both.