Boeroer

YOu now can abuse healing without health loss like in PoE. If you can stack enough healing sources it's very hard to kill you and you can totally focus on offense. I also liked the old system better. Wonder what made them change it.

In terms of overall power you should drop Pallegina and use Kana as tank, together with Durance, Zahua and Hiravias as offtanks (give Zahua and Hiravias both Veteran's Recovery).

Of course you will have more combinations now because of multiclassing. But as I said: single class character development seems to be very limited now. What's the point of introducing multiclassing if you then take away all the other stuff that made character development interesting? It just feels to much streamlined. I had a similar impression when I compared Diablo III (hate it) to Diablo II (loved it) or when looking at Dragon Age Origins and it's following sequels. Some of you might know that I only played PoE for such a long time because the build options where so plentyful and fun - especially once you discovered stuff that might not be intended - like retaliation giving you focus or combining a Island Aumaua with Quick Switch + 4 blunderbusses + Combusting Wounds. Even after several years and 4K+ hours in the game I can come up with something new that works and is fun because you can play around with the general talents, especially the cross class talents. What's Wrath of the Five Suns without Penetrating Shot? What's my two handed Bleak Walker without his Two Handed Style and his Savage Attack? What's my boar druid without Veteran's Recovery? Am I supposed to multiclass just in order to get Two Handed Style? Or Bear's Fortitude? Maybe it's too early, but I already loathe this. Maybe I'm too much emotionally involved with PoE or something...

Exactly. You can't play a priest now who's good in melee for example. Things like Two Handed Style and so on is now fighter only. Why was this taken away? It's terrible! And usually I'm not known for being a constant complainer... Sure, classes are now very distinct, but also very boring if you don't multiclass. This may be no issue for the players who play one playthrough and are done, but for everybody who likes to fiddle around with builds and likes to do numerous playthrough this new ability system is a slap in the face. I never thought I would use this word because I hate it, but the Backer Beta feels "dumbed down". There you have it, I said it...

A good combo to die sooner I guess. Just kidding - seems to be a nice synergy. You justhave to make sure you don't drop dead too quickly. I don't see Iron Wheel any more (maybe comes after lvl 9) - that would have been good for this.

It's totally fine to not min-max stats on PotD. If you have problems on PotD, stat distribution will most likely not be the reason. Also, the official companions are fit for PotD. Actually the game is easier with the official companions.

The build options seem to be a lot more narrow with single classes because talents got removed and everything is class-specific now. I don't know why, but I have the impression the game looks more cartoony than PoE1. Cartoony is not the right word, but maybe you know what I mean. It's not as... gritty?

Hi! While leveling up I get the feeling that the build options - especially for single class characters - are extremely limited compared to PoE1. Because all talents got removed (or translated to abilites) and there are only class specific abilites now. Talents that used to be pickable by every class (Quick Switch for example) are now part of a calss (in this case fighter). I don't understand this decision. Some classes share abilites (like Druid and Monk both can take Bull's Will or Bear's Fortitude), but it's a lot less than before. Then, some of the best and most interesting talents that altered abilites in PoE1 (like Inspiring Radiation, Painful Interdiction and so on) got completely removed. Now you end up with very similar builds if you are using a single class. Also, this feels like a totally different game. I get a vibe of Tyranny and not that of PoE. Maybe that's just me though. I have to say after 2 hours of playing/testing I'm a bit disappointed. Maybe this will get better when I get more used to the different looks and stuff, but at the moment I'm not very hyped. At least no crashes or hefty bugs so far.

I'm a Linux user as well - but it was made clear from the start that the backer beta would be for Windows only. It was even said that it would be Steam only, now it's also on GoG.

Me too. Activation was successful but nothing new in the library.

Josh was pretty hyped by Wounding Shot. Maybe they tweaked the ranger stuff a little bit so that there was no need for completely new stuff. I'll report how it goes. I guess I will post some beta builds in the build section after some days with the beta. I want to try out at least 5 combos that I have in mind and see if they break the game or not. Hopefully the console commands didn't change...

Windows only

He has one additional rogue who's currently under the effect of Shadowing Beyond.

You knew that with the 3 secs? Sounds like the Beguiler's most useful power will be Phantom Foes.

What I heard in the stream last night: Nalpasca monks will gain a wound every 3 secs when under the effect of drugs (don't need to take damage). I guess this will turn the opinions about them from "meh" to "yay!"

Huh? Back in da club?`

Disciplined Barrage works with spells/scrolls. That and the high starting accuracy of the fighter make him a good scroll user if your INT is decent. I did not test if Confident Aim works with spells, but it may well be. There are some fighte abilites like Into the Fray and Clear Out that already work like spells (they don't use your weapon and have their own base damage, range etc.). If you combine Disciplined Barrage and Merciless Hand (story talent from the Doemenel Faction) you can get some nasty crits with spells.

Agreed

As far as I know there are no armors with breasts in PoE - except the metal body of the Devil of Caroc. It's not only a breastplate but the actual body of the character - and a "piece of art" as Galvino states. She can't take it off so it seems to be ok to form her body in that way. She's still a woman after all. It doesn't have nipples as far as I remember. So why all that silly talk about armors with breasts in PoE?

http://c7.alamy.com/comp/HM8PCB/female-breastplate-pre-columbian-artifact-museo-del-oro-gold-museum-HM8PCB.jpg Pre-Columbian Breastplate from South America

India, 18th century.

Besides the valid points Blades of Vanatar and rheingold made I'd generally say a fighter is better in the early to mid game while a barb is better in the mid to late game. Depends a lot on difficulty setting (PotD at higher levels favors barb's AoE approach - because there are a lot more enemies), your party (if you already have a lot of AoE damage but lack decent single target damage and CC you won't need a barb) and the specific role of the fighter/barb in your party - but the high level abilites of a barb are more powerful than those of the fighter (again: generally speaking) while the low level abilites and the better starting values of the fighter are better in the early game. Early game is the hardest part by the way.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Varahi_breastplate%2C_India%2C_Kerala%2C_18th-19th_century%2C_brass%2C_HAA.JPG

Because the chance is nearly 50% (roughly speaking) to cause an interrupt against Durance. Whatever - I said that Interrupting Blows would not be my favorite pick, too - also because of the reasons you mentioned. I would def. prefer Weapon Focus. Brutal Takedown is good in a full party and if you planned to use Takedown anyways (because more CC is always good). As I said before, its crush damage only has to overcome 1/4th of DR and can help to one- or two-shot enemies which is nice. The weird DR thing makes the 20 base damage a lot more useful. Also don't forget that 20 base damage is not bad per se. If you crit it's already 30 crush and it gets added on top of your takedown attack wich already does great damage - so no time loss for this additional crush damage. It's like adding a crushing lash to your takedown attack like FoD does. Of course it's less damage than Dragon Thrashed (what is not? ) - but in this case the damage is applied instantly and comes in a spike (if you pile Predator's Sense and so on with Brutal Takedown) - and if it doesn't kill the enemy immediately it sends him prone. And all that while your ranger can still fire arrows. In this last playthrough I was impressed by Brutal Takedown which I never picked before I have to admit (got 100+ damage crits with Itumaak at lvl 10): recent Brutal Takedown thread I didn't play a lot of games for quite a while (except "Faster than Light") until I started PoE. Mostly because there weren't a lot of CRPGs that I liked. I don't play that much PoE recently - but I wanted to do one last playthrough with a priest of Eothas before Deadfire beta comes out. Actually I'm spending a lot more time on these forums than playing the game. Has become sort of a hobby and helps me to not completely forget my english lessons.

Interrupt is calculated like so: interrupt value + d100 > concentration = interrupt occurs. So if you have an interrupt value of 48 you will interrupt Durance with nearly every second attack. In my opinion Interrupting Blows is not worth it unless you have a very special build - (in my case it would be a special Barbarian, Druid or Wizard). With a ranger you can bypass enemies' DR via Persistance (wounding = raw damage), with Stormcaller (-6 shock DR on hit) and/or Penetrating Shot and/or Ryona's Vambraces. If you don't have Stormcaller yet Persistance is the way to go. You animal companion can punch through DR easily if you give him some talents like Predator's Sense, Merciless + Vicious Companion and Brutal Takedown. Penetrating Shot is quite cool with Twinned Arrows because it's +10 damage per shot instead of "only" +5 against targets that have DR5 or more. With Starcaller Penetrating Shot is only effective if the enemy has more than 10 shock DR (or ist immune to shock). With the chanter I would use the Ogres as blockers. Do you have a priest?