Boeroer

They said longer than Bastard's Wound (which I never played, so "eh?") and a bit shorter than White March. Whatever - there are plenty of nice new items in it. If you include the Deck of Many Things (free DLC that also came out today) it's a LOT of new items.

Ninja-Orlan, Ninja-Orlan, Does whatever a ninja can writes a post, any size, slides it in while you still type. Look out! Here comes the Ninja-Orlan...

I like it a lot better this way.

There are gloves that give you +2 mechanics: Burglar's Gloves They are in the chest you described... Haha! Nah, kidding - you can buy them from Iolfr in Neketaka.

The DLC adds more content to the base game and is not a sequel. It's designed for chars of lvl 14-16 but scales properly (if you activated scaling). All items and sidekicks you pick up can be used in the main campaign as well. So I wouldn't advise to finish the base game first and then tackle the DLC. It is surely more fun to slide in in between in order to use the new stuff you can find/buy for the rest of the game.

Assassinate works from stealth and invisibility (which are two different things). Same as Backstab. So Backstab and Assassinate are more related to each other than to Sneak Attack. Assassinate has no range delemiter like Backstab has though. Assassinate, Backstab and Sneak Attack (and Deathblows) do stack! Combine with a powerful multiplicative bonus like Flames of Devotion and you will one-shot most things from stealth or invisibility. There are now some new assassin's boots in the game (since today) that make you invisible after a kill (1/encounter). They don't give you additonal Smoke Veils. Maybe that got changed from beta to release?

You can use the console to check out all unique items of the deck of many things. THey all start with LAXD_. So just type iroll20s<hit enter> <reopen console> giveitem LAXD_<hit tab> and you can cycle through all of them.

I was talking about the weapon, not Shattered Pillar though.

Different enemies use different criteria for deciding whom they attack. For example enemy Barbs go for lowest deflection, enemy wizards often cast Necrotic Lance on the party member with the lowest endurance, some others go after low DR. So there's no general recipe how to keep enemies engaged. One thing that works quite well to prevent rushing: don't make your backline pure squishies. It makes a difference if they are wearing leather armor or robes for example. Also CC is a more reliable way to prevent rushing than "keeping aggro". If you charm one enemy you do a lot more for your backline than trying to hold off the mobs with your front line. For example: Charmed enemies get debuffed pretty hard and thus often turn into punching bags for their former buddies. It also helps if your backline has high move speed. Enemies realize very quickly if they can't catch you because they move too slowly and will turn around soon. It helps of your engaging tank does serious damage with his weapon - that way disengagement attacks pose a real threat. If you have a hatchet with 0 dmg bonus and a shield enemies will just leave and break engagement - because you can't harm them. These problems are most obvious on PotD difficulty because there are more enemies. At lower difficulties it's not that bad.

Hello, this build works like on day one because mechanically nothing got changed. You can add one talent and one ability though because this build was done during WMI and we had only 14 levels then. Now it's 16. With 10 RES and 10 CON life as a tank can be tough at lower levels and I don't recommend using it as a single tank. Together with another tanky frontliner it's alright. Its advantage is being tanky while dealing a lot of AoE damage at the same time. It works well with a Paladin buddy or another Chanter in the front line. Chanters' damaging phrases like Soft Winds and Dragons Thrashed stack with each other - Ancient Memory's healing does as well. So - two chanters are better than one. I personally don't like fighters as pute tanks - they can only soak up damage then, don't add anything else to the party and get boring. I like them better when played more offensively.

Weapon and Shield Style can be used, of course. Once you switch to a weapon + shield setup it will work. It does nothing if you dual wield fists, but for more versatility it can be good. I didn't take Turning Wheel because it doesn't work with the Long Pain (or at least didn't when I made this build). I wrote about it in the opening post. Besides that I'm a big fan of Turning Wheel.

Yeah - like Deltro's armor can make you immune to shock damage. Just different triggers.

@Ascaloth: that's nice, thank you. @thundercleese: do you also have issues with Barbaric Blow (or upgrades) + Torment's Reach? When I use Torment's Reach I nearly always get the 20% bonus of Barbaric Blow - even the +50% when I crit with Torment's Reach. As if the bonus from Barbaric Blow was given to my char permanently.

No need: I just tested it and the self damage will not cancel Dance of Death. I also remeber reading this in one of the first patch notes after release, but I wasn't sure. Now I am. With Berserker/Nalpaska/Enduring Dance you will generate more than 1 wound/second without even touching another being. It's pretty hilarious. *Sigh* - another build that wants to be explored...

Blooded, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst work no matter what you use. They are not tied to weapon use at all. Melee = hand-to-hand combat. No ranged combat. Only exception is Instruments of Pain which gives your melee weapon a +500% range increase which makes it a ranged weapon - but abilities tagged with "melee" will still work.

That's like saying "I'm the guy who adds extra salami and gorgonzola to the pizza when it arrives - so I want my pizza faster".

Hehe - I never thought about Berserker Frenzy giving you wounds. Why on earth didn't I? I also forgot: does self damage like Berserker's Frenzy cancel Dance of Death? Because if not I'm wondering why nobody has made a Berserker/Nalpasca with Enduring Dance yet... max wounds while frenzied & stoned all the time. I call it "The Mosher". :D

I don't think that putting an accuracy malus on the offhand will balance things unless it's a huge malus - and that's just not a very pretty thing to do. Doing max dmg roll (two hander) and enhanced crit damage (single one hander) is already pretty low hanging and easy enough to implement I think. And it sets Primary and Full Attacks apart. If you solve the problem by nerfing DW Full Attacks then for two handers and single one hander those two forms of attack will still be the same. I mean if that's one's design goal then fine of course. It's just a little... boring?

Haha. The blue ninja!

I think the patch mentiones Full Attacks and says that the second (offhand) attack will not add additional mortification if you crit with it as well. So I don't know how they fixed that: working on the Full Attack mechanic so that it will not refund twice or working on the refund mechanic itself so that it can't refund more than your mortification was before using Stunning Surge. Given Obsidian's history of patching with PoE I guess the first, hehe.

@OP: yeah nice. It's the other way around compared to my momentary MC who uses mostly nukes (after some levels) and plays like a "light" tank. @1TTFFSSE: Shh! Posting a build around that soon. By the way: the damage of Wall of Flame ist not enough to heal you. 10% of such low damage ticks usually get rounded to 0. Nuking yourself with Fireballs and stuff is neat though. I can get away with wearing cloth armor (for the style). While the Casque can be obtained rel. early the cloak comes pretty late - so you need an alternative approach before using that "trick".

I don't think that they don't proc off of themselves now. Patch notes say it, but I have my doubts. With Spirit Lance, big AoE and thus lots of enemies hit I still get endless chain reactions that pulverize the whole mob from time to time. Yes, the AoE crits of Spirit Lance also trigger the refund of Stunning Surge. Atm the refund works in a way that you get 2 resource for every crit, so usually you get more than you spend up until your max mortification.

Opressive Media you mean: "DO IT!"

Haha - ok. But I wonder why you were able to start casting that summoning in the first place. The button should have been greyed out/disabled and you shouldn't have been able to start to cast the stuff in the first place. Maybe that's the real bug here...?

Fun fact: in its first iterations the Sanguine Plate had the Retaliation enchantment instead of the "Spell Holding: Frenzy" enchantment that it has today. When it got changed I thought "Aww man!" - but after countless playthroughs I really don't know why I thought that in the first place. Stupid past me...