Boeroer

Sure Handed Ila's speed buff stacks with every one of those, the rest doesn't stack. The reason is that Sure Handed Ila is in a different group (code wise) and only affects ranged attack speed and reload - while the others are all in the same group and buff attack speed universially (ranged, melee, casting and so on). Ila's reload buff also used to stack with Swift Aim's reaload buff and also Gunner. Can't say if this is still the case though. Other speed buffs that stack with everything are Two Handed Style (only one handed melee weapons when dual wielding), speed enchantment on weapons (only works when using the weapon for attacks), durgan steel on weapon or shield (same), Bloodlust (barb, universal), Gauntlets of Swift Action (universal) and Anitlei (Zahua, universal). Hope I didn't forget something. All other speed buffs will suppress each other (better one suppresses the weaker one with the exception of Spelltongue's Time Siphon which supresses them all although it's only 15% - for whatever buggy reason).

I think that human is the best race for a barb who wants to abuse Vengeful defeat with the help of paladin/priest/chanter. It might also be good for Heart of Fury, if you plan to maximize the damage per hit. You'd have to take Greater Frenzy and Blooded as well and maybe wear Ryona's Buckle, too. Basically all items that give you something once endurance is below a certain point. You'd just have to wait till Endurance drops below 50% and then use Heart of Fury. Too much hassle for me... It used to be the best race for the Leech build (prolonging buffs endlessly with the help of Spelltongue + Carnage, including Fighting Spirit), but nowadays that part of Spelltongue seems to be nerfed away.

Looks good. Please report how he's doing.

I don't had Charge yet and Zahua has higher DR, health and only -5 deflection. So in theory he shouldn't be forced to rest a lot more often than Edér - unless he gets attacked much harder...?

I like to compensate low deflection on front liners with high self heals (Veteran's/Constant Recovery, healing bonuses), decent DR (early game) and health pool (highish CON) and healing + spell holding gear. This way you can go all offensense with talents and abilities and shift the "improve sturdyness" part to the skills (and sometimes spells), I mean putting 12 or 14 points into survival. The result is always a good damage dealer who is also not dropping quickly in an encounter. This works with every class. Health loss can be an issue, but most of he time I rest because my caster's spell uses are empty and not because of low health, so... not an issue for me.

I consider monks to be more powerful (or to have the potential to be more powerful) than fighters but it's true that monks require a lot of micro, especially when using Torment's Reach, while the fighter does not (necessarily). I just picked picked up Zahua for my last playthrough and parked Edér (only offensive talents+abilities + max regeneration) in the stronghold - just for his questline. I play them both in the same way with the same items (plate armor + Tidefall and so on). I don't know why but although Zahua has a lot more health and not that much less deflection I notice that he's running out of health a lot faster than Edér did. Although I have Iron Wheel. Why is that? I can only guess that Lagufaeth like to attack monks more than they like to attack fighters? When I enter an encounter usually it's Zahua now who gets all the Blowgun-darts. They never bothered to attack Edér. Is this just coincidence or is there a part of enemies' AI that prioritizes monks over fighters?

His parents are from Aedyr.

Depends. The bear had a bit more DR while the antelope had higher defenses. With "Resilient Companion" they were all good offtanks.

DAoM does not stack with Frenzy. I usually give my chanter 12 survival and an item with +2 to survival so taht I can choose the +60% healing bonus. I also will wear an itme with +25% healing bonus. THis all stacks to +85%. It works with Veteran's Recovery and also Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits and makes your passive healing powerful. Dragon Thrashed does rely on ACC. It targets reflex. So high PER is good, but high MIG and INT are more important. You can boost the ACC of Dragon Thrashed by +12 if you use a single one handed weapon (weird). Mob Justice is pretty meh, but it depends. For example Merciless Hand does nothing for DoT effects like Dragon Thrashed and such. But it's good for characters that crit a lot with weapons and for high ACC casters who use direct damage spells.

Another good candidate (actually best in terms of dps) is Strike Hard - but it comes as late as Godansthunyr. Hours of St. Rumbalt is a great weapon. It works also well with durgan steel because the crit chance goes up (=more prone) while the crit damage gets boosted, too (stacks with Annihilating). If you focus on crits and crit damage (Merciless Hand and so on) it's a lot of fun.

Maybe because everybody is biting fingernails because they have to do yet another playthrough now.

Hehe - thanks.

It also helps a lot to prevent rushing. I currently have it on Blast-Aloth as Spell Mastery and since he uses it in every battle he never gets rushed (also uses Iron Skin).

Or look at the Last Tower (large shield). It will give you +1 move speed which stacks with everything since it's on a weapon. Just for the sake of stacking absurd move speed bonuses. Also look at Dimensional Shift - maybe it's cool with beams? You knpw: stun in a beam shaped AoE + beams vs. reflex and so on. Could be devastating with a fighter + Charge. First the fighter charges to the other end of the battlefield, you cast beams on the nearest enemy and pull the figher back with Dimensional Shift, stunning those the fighter charged and dragging the beams across them all. Then the fighter can charge again... should be ouch.

Last time I did test this you could cast different beam spells on the same target. You need high casting speed though in order to stack them. Alacrity and low armor penalty help a lot. Funnily enough INT doesn't do anything for the beams (range and duration are fixed) so you could dump INT completey if you'd only want to use beams (which I doubt, but theoretically). As a side node you can only use one wall spell at a time. Combusting Wounds does get triggered by the beams' "pulses", yes. As MasterCipher said: the range is only the casting range. If you stack lots of move speed bonuses you can cover a huge area with those beams. Things like Boots of Speed, Fast Runner and Alacrity stack, so you could end up with +6 move speed without a lot of hassle - which is superfast. Also, running away lets enemies follow you in a straight line - very useful, too. You'll need high MIG to raise the dmg, high PER to ensure more crits and also interrupts and I would also use high DEX in order to cast faster. If I remember correctly either Vulnerable Attack or Penetrating Shot and also Ryona's Vambraces work with beams - but I may be mistaken here.

Oopsala. Must have missed the "for free" part. Even better.

Every style has its bonus and no penalties. Single handed weapon use gives you +12 ACC and the style a 15% hit to crit conversion. Weapon & shield gives you higher deflection and the style raises his even higher and also gives you more reflex. Dual wielding removes the melee attack speed penalty (equivalent of a 50% speed boost) and the style adds another 20%. Two Handers have higher base damage and the style gives you additional +15% damage. None of them has penalties and I think it's good to keep things consistent and don't make too many exceptions.

They didn't say that it's for free though.

The text says that everybody who owns PoE will be able to download the Deadfire Pack DLC (which has new items and portraits).

New items for PoE, eh? Dammit! I thought this was my last playthrough. Will this never end...?

All three races are fine. Pick what you like best visually. I would never build a fighter for ranged combat (I tried several times and it sucks in my opinion). Their innate sturdyness is wasted and their best abilites are for melee combat only. Nearly every other class besides barb is better in ranged combat than a fighter. You can build Edér as a dual wielding fighter (I like dual war hammers) or as a pike user (tall grass), having max regeneration and using Take the Hit to reduce damage on the whole front line - it works wonderfully (but only if you don't use mind control abilites - because it's a bugged combo). I would def. pick Aloth because you are terribly short of CC options atm. 12 MIG doesn't matter that much. Wizards have awesome spells. If you focus on CC then MIG doesn't matter at all. And CC is one of the keys for a good playthrough (besides accuracy). Or try him as melee wizard from 2. row with Concelhaut's Staff and later Citzel's Spirit Lance - powerful throughout the whole game. If you want to use mostly official companions I would skip the barb and take Kana instead for the front line - with weapon & shield. From lvl 9 on he will start to take over the lead as best damage dealer with The Dragon Thrashed chant (sadly not on the char sheet because the game fails to log the damage of Dragon Thrashed) and fullfills the same role as a barb (killing mobs) but with less hassle. But he also works with a pike or a quarterstaff from 2. row. Another way would be to give him a ranged weapon and use Sure Handed Ila. It stacks with everything and also lets your other ranged chars shoot faster. But honestly nothing beats Dragon Thrashed. In the early game the Phantom is very strong, as is White Worms (if you deactivate gib effects in the game options menu): bodies can be used over and over again and if you pile enough of them at a chokepoint you can one-shot whole groups with it.

Don't cling to builds. You can easily adjust stats - important thing is the core concept of the build and most of the time a few stat points don't change that. With the Golden Dragon the concept is to be an "active" tank: to be able to stack effects on the enemies which lower their accuracy (daze, frighten and so on) while at the same time raising your own defenses. This way you make your whole party sturdier (enemies hit less often) and you can "tank" quite well while at the same time you'll do some decent AoE damage. Also works with 15 MIG or 15 CON or whatever. The high MIG in the build is good for raising the self healing and the damage of Heart of Fury - but this all also works with less MIG. 3 CON is very hard for a low level barb and nothing for beginners.

Don't put foolish wishes into my mind.

Yes, they do. I already tested a chanter retaliation build with Battle Forged and Mith Fyr, but it wasn't terribly effective because of chanter's lowish health pool. Needs tons of potions or Wound Binding (which is only good with a lot of healing bonuses). And it's also difficult to keep him under 50% endurance if you use Ancient Memory/Veteran's Recovery/Beloved Spirits. It also seems to be a bit quirky to get to 50% endurance, then hit with a good amount of Battle Forged retaliation, draining good endurance from all the burn damage and hop over the 50% hurdle, loosing Battle Forged in the process. Maybe a good way to lose a lot of health without using Battle Forged too much. With multiretaliation (retaliation on helm or armor + Supper Plate + Flame Shield) and DR bypass and reduction (Vulnerable Attack, Ryona's Vambraces, Devil in the Pool, Hel Hyraf) it's cool. Or hot... You'd just have to look at the retaliation not as damaging tool but healing tool. One could also try to NOT use all that regeneration and only rely on draining to heal - you'll have more control over the healing/draining for Battle Forged and spare three talents. Hmhmhm... maybe I have to test. I will def. try out the Bleak Walker with the Rose to see if it's fun to play. Always Tidefall/Rumbalt/BotEP is kind of boring...

And like Swift Aim and Marked Prey and Wounding Shot and Stalker's Link for example? There are only three abilities that don't work in melee if I remember correctly: Twinned Arrows (which is bound to bows), Vicious Aim and Powder Burns (which is bound to guns). That is way better in terms of melee/ranged flexibility than a fighter or a barbarian I would think. There is no dedicated melee-only ability though. Maybe the Stalker gets some.