Boeroer

The best spell overall is obviously Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp. For that totally overpowered thing they should expell him (Kalakoth) from the circle of Archmagi because it violates the Ghevena Convention or something.

For a pure melee single target character they may be equally good.

Ranger (Geomancer). Driving Flight + Watershaper's Focus (+Ondra's Wrath) is very good and can one-shot mobs. Also the accuracy bonuses vs. single targets like Marked Prey, Stalker's Link etc. work with spells. And Concussive Tranquilizer with a rod-Blast is even better than Arcane Dampener or Arcance Cleanse. Also: Binding Roots! Great with Infuse with Vital Essence.

The unique pikes in the game are... well... mnyeah... kinda "special".

Yes, that's a pity. I mean you can rush the main quest get the thing and then do all the side content - but that feels a bit awkward.

Yes, stuff like that would be cool. Doesn't need to break the game or something.

I do! They even look the same.

I think that's just an oversight.

Espirs is one of the best weapons in the game for me: it's Ghost Blades proc on kill - and it doesn't matter how you kill the enemy - DoT, AoE, whatever. You don't need to kill with the Blade but can also do it with a spell - as long as you are holding the blade. That also means that the Ghost Blades will proc more Ghost Blades if they kill something. And it also heals on kill. The more enemies around the more healing. A stat bonus (Ravenous Soul Hunger) of +3 to certain stats on kill can be achieved easily by a Devoted/Streetfighter who can usually kill his first enemy very quickly. It stays until combat ends. That weapon is very nice for melee/caster chars, but I guess a Devoted/Streetfighter also works very well. Since the Ghost Blades have a cone-shape it's best to attack from the flanks (like a Monk with Torment's or a Chanter with cone invocations) and not get surrounded. Else it's difficult to hit additional enemies with them.

I'm still hoping for a whip or a cat o'nine tails (mechanically a flail) and finally some "unarmed" weapons like Brass Knuckles or Pitfighter Gloves (that prevent you to grab a weapon properly so they are not for the gloves slot but the weapon slot). We have those Hylean gloves now which are cool - but they are not doing anything special for unarmed combat.

Most abilites of the ranger work in melee combat. There's even a subclass (Stalker) that leans more towards melee combat (more armor, more defenses when sticking together with your melee pet). So a single class melee ranger is viable - and for those Whirling Strikes is very good. It not only does a Full Attack on all enemies in range (dual wielding prefered) but also adds a raw DoT effect that is quite potent. Of course it's not that useful for a ranger who specializes in ranged weapons.

It's Latin and the opposite of "bonus". You can use it in English like you use "bonus". But afaik in English it's mainly used with financial stuff while in German you use it more broadly. Maybe that's why people use it more frequently here: there are some Germans among us that might not be aware that "malus" is not very common in English.

Not the same developers. Balancing is not done by the people who write characters. Hence no time would be wasted.

Huh? I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you misread something that I wrote? I can't remember even answering to you for the last couple of days. What do you mean? I'm serious - I can't remember. Edit: if you mean this: I actually liked it. I know that the request was very complicated and didn't expect it to happen - and if it would, then not so soon. I just liked the coincidential wordplay that my queue got queued. Seemed to be so fitting. Other than that I have really zilch ideas what you could possibly mean.

This was explicitly mentioned as new intended behaviour in the patch notes and thus can't be a bug.

I hope not.

You mean Nalpasca/Wizard or Soulblade/Wizard? I think the monk wins because Swift Flurry + Heartbeat with an AoE weapon alone is pretty crazy. If you paralyze some foes with Ninagauth's Shadowflame and then poke them with that combo flurry/drumming/surge/lance... Ouch!

Yeah, it's pretty devastating, isn't it? The new cloak from the Deck of Many Things is at least as good as the Mantle of the Seven Bolts for such a setup.

Haha - good find. And there I thought Obsidian did buff an item. Silly me... Of course they nerfed the discription. That actually makes sense. "If I were Control..."

Wizard/Soulblade with Citzal's Spirit Lance and Draining Whip is also very good. Soul Annihilation dumps raw damage onto every enemy you hit with the Lance's AoE. And you're at full focus after one attack (if you can hit several enemies). Good offtank as well because of the self buffs.

That penalty got removed.

Ha funny! I just wanted to do a Lone Wolf+Clarity build - but just to check if I can become immune to all afflictions when simply triggering it at the start of every fight. Didn't came to my mind that it would also prevent self raw damage to happen. Does it also work on Berserker's Frenzy and Alacrity? I suppose so...?

It depends on the enemy's accuracy. There is no hard cap. But if you look at the mechanics of attack resolution you can see how high your defense has to be so that an enemy with a certain accuracy can only miss. Attack resolution is ACC - defense + d100 roll = attack quality. Attack qualities are: 0-30 = miss, 31-50 = graze, 51-100 = hit and 101+ = crit. Now if the enemy has 50 ACC and his best dice roll is 100 you need a defense of 120 to make sure he always misses: 50 - 120 + 100 = 30 (miss). If the enemy has 100 accuracy you need a defense of 170. And so on. This why an Arcane Knight with Wizard's Double can be fun: the spell lasts forever as long as you don't get hit. If the +40 lift you over that line (that an enemy can't hit you) the spell will not go away.

You can buy them in a lot of places, they are quite cheap and you find enough of them. You can even craft them by yourself (wasn't possible in PoE). In the beginning you might want to budget with drugs and only use them when you must, but after Port Maje you can use them at the beginning of every fight. I don't use them for the easy fights though - because why bother. Nalpascas get +10 Power Level with drugs - that means they last a lot longer and are better. Alchemy does the same. So you want high Alchemy as well. How did we get from "cipher as offtank" to Nalpasca though?

It does not do DoT. Instead it pulses with freeze damage which has to overcome freeze AR every time. So the damage usually isn't that good. The blinding is very good for a lvl1-spell though.