Boeroer

If you pick Spirit of Decay then I'd say Bittercut. But it depends on your crit rate. +50% on crit (+6.75 damage), slash only compared to +20% (+2.7) in all cases, corrode/slash. A difference of 4.05 damage on crit. You woul need a crit rate of 67.5% (crit:(hits+grazes), that's not the crit rate in the char sheet, I believe that's only crit:hit). And then you'd have to factor in the single damage vs. dual damage. If you take Spirit of Decay for Bittercut but no elemental booster for the other sabres then clearly Bittercut because the +5% more multiplicative lash damage will deal more than 4 damage in most cases. Anyway - the difference is marginal. Dual Annihilation is good as well. The best option in my opinion is using Bittercut + Resolution and later Purgatory. The draining on a barb is nice und I think the advantages of Bittercut are not big enough to justify the use of the Helwax Mold in this case (coolness aside). Also: abysmal defenses against poison with two Bittercuts.

Understandable. It's a huge pile of text.

Time Parasite jumps from enemy to enemy and thus can have a very long duration. The duration that's listed is only for one enemy. 6 enemies * 12 sec base = 72 seconds with 10 INT. 108 secs with 20 INT.

True. I wrote about that in the last paragraph.

THE Temaperacl please! Always misspelled, often overlooked, seldomly picked.

Also, stuff like Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst favors Two Handers (HoF aside which favors heavy one handers in dual wielding mode). And then of course special enchantments (that are on two handers or heavy one handers) that you can get early are important to. Tidefall is superb and wounding, Hours of St. Rumbalt is annihilating and overbearing (great combo) and comes with ACC III, Tall Grass is predatory and overbearing (also great combo), Llawran's Stick has speed, Durance's Staff comes with a lash and has two damage types. Those are good reasons to settle for a two hander. Same with the Wizard's melee weapons. Then Shatterstar has double Interrupt value, is annihilating and guarding (good combo for fighter), Resolution is annihilating and reliable, Cladhaliath can be made into the perfect weapon for your needs and so on. Compared to that the most light weapons you can get early are a bit meh when it comes to interesting enchantments (besides Sword of Daenysis, March Steel Dagger and Unforgiven - which all have speed).

Try barb with Novice's Suffering in the early game.

Yes, I thought of early to mid game. I also think that the experiences in the early game (where light weapons underperform) don't help. An example is the barb who can't deal damage at the beginning when he uses light weapons. The damage malus of carnage (-36%), paired with the very low ACC always leads to whimpy MIN damage if you hit at all.

Most AoE damage: priest (after gaining some levels). Needs high MIG, PER and INT for that. Best single target damage: druid (cat form or boar form) or rogue (whatever weapon, dual wielding is great for his strike abilites, two handers are better for Backstabs). Best crowd control: druid Best buffs: priest My recommendations (viable and fun to play - at least for me): Moon Godlike boar druid with focus on Spiritshift and self healing MIG: 18 CON: 16 DEX: 14 PER: 13 INT: 14 RES: 3 Or something like that - shift some points if you like. High MIG boosts the wounding lash that the boar tusks have. High CON prevents death from health loss (while endurance gets healed all the time). The goal is to be sturdy despite being an offensive druid and to use spell holding gear that benefits your shifted form. Pick Veteran's Recovery, Wildstrike Shock, Weapon Focus Peasant, Greater Wildstrike Shock, Two Weapon Style, Heart of the Storm, Savage Attack, Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Push Survival to 12. You'll get +2 from Sanguine Plate and will choose healing bonus when camping (+60%). This will boost you Silver Tide (moon godlike racial ability), Boar regeneration, Veteran's Recovery and Consecrated Ground from Shod-in-Faith boots (see below). Put on the Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith boots and also the WIldstrike Belt. When encounter starts use a DR+ spell like Form of the Delemgan, later also Avenging Storm and then use a CC spell like Subeam or Returning Storm or Overbearing Wave or whatever in order to lower enemies' defenses. Then run towards them. Once you get a crit: Frenzy and Consecrated Ground will trigger. Then shift asap and hit the CC'd enemies with your tusks. Once the first is dead: Off to the next! Your self healing will be immense and you will not be easy to kill - however when you get pummeled badly you will lose health. A potion of Infuse with Vital Essence can heal your health without resting! It also profits from the healing bonus. Pick the Doemenel Faction in order to get Merciless Hand and also help the Dyrwoodan looters in order to get Dungeon Delver. This will improve your critical damage from +50% to +90%. When not shifted you can use dual hatchets for better deflection and of course you can always cast spells - preferably shock based spells. This build is not optimal for RES-based dialogue options as you could have guessed. But it is a lot of fun. You could have better dps with a cat form, but nothing is more frustirating than getting knocked out a lot - this won't happen too ofteen with this druid if you don't get too reckless. --- Hearth Orlan Priest of Skaen with Firebrand: The more priests advance the less they use melee weapons because they are so busy casting their awesome spells. THis build takes this into account and pairs the most powerful early-to-mig-game weapon with the damage bonuses of a priest of Skaen. This guy is a flanker like a real rogue. The race is not set but I think orlan background fits both Skaen and also the flanking style. MIG:15 CON:10 DEX:15 PER:15 INT:15 RES: 08 Skill survival to 12 in order to get +20% damge bonus when hitting flanked enemies. Pick Prey on the Weak, Inspiring Radiance, Aggrandizing Radiance, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Weapon Focus Ruffian, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, Scion of Flame. Put on an item with bonus damage to flanked enemies (Glanfathan Stalking Boots for example). All items that raise stats are fine. Try not to put too much recovery penalty on the priest - but enough DR so that he doesn't go down too quickly. Use Consecrated Ground if you feel that you are too squishy. As soon as encounter starts wait in stealth until the enemies engaged your front line, cast Radiance and flank an enemy. Later also cast Dire Blessing, Devotions, Minor Avatar and stuff like that. Your damage per hit will be great. You can use this tactic every time you want to spare spell uses. Else spam your fire spells, preferably Shining Beacon. Here you should also pick the Doemenel Faction because of the same reasons. --- Dumbest rogue with Tidefall This rogue will be relatively sturdy comapred to most other rogues while he will do decent damage via wounding. Best thing for wounding is high MIG and low INT. So wie drop INT to 3 and reduce it further to 1 later (this boosts wounding dps to the max). Race doesn't matter that much. MIG: 18 CON: 18 DEX: 18 PER: 18 INT: 03 RES: 03 You can put 4 points into survival for the ACC bonus, rest to stealth. Tidefall's draining doesn't profit from healing bonuses, so we can skip that. Put on heavy armor at first in order to stay alive. You can reduce that step by step later on if you feel you're safe enough. Grab Tidefall asap (needs 10 mechanics), put on a freezing lash (or any other lash), get the Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection from Stalwart (INT-2, RES-2, MIG +2, CON+2). Get the Cape of the Master Mystic as well. Blunting Belt is good. Boots of Speed greatly increase the usefulness as well. Pick Weapon Focus Soldier, Two Handed Style, Backstab, Runner's Wounding Shot, Vicious Fighting, Shadowing Beyond (also bind Nightshroud for an additional use of Shadowing Beyond), Fast Runner, Secrets of Rime. Crippling Strike, Reckless Assault, Dirty Fighting, Deep Wounds, Deathblows, Sap, Shadow Step, Feign Death. Wait in stealth till enemies come near and want to engage to your tank or whomever or even better snaek around them to reach the squishies. Place two afflictions on enemies with the party while the rogue still is in stealth (skip that if you don't have Deathblows yet), then engage an enemy with auto-attacks while you are stealthed (it doesn't matter if you unstealth on the way to the target). You will get two backstab-strikes with +300% damage bonus because of Sneak Attack, Deathblows and Backstab. then use Crippling Strike, Runner's Wounding Shot, Crippling Strike. Use high move speed to reach squishies quickly and kill them. Also use Shadwo Step to do so. When you catch a crit you will be invisible and can allpiy Backstab again. While yoi kill yopu will gain a lot of endurance - if it's not enough activate Shadowing Beyond and get Backstab once again. If you seem to go down use Feign Death (very short duration here), get back up and again do a Backstab. It's a lot of micro but a lot of fun. Here Doemenel as well. --- All very offensive builds I have to admit. But those were the rogue/priest/druid I had the most fun with recently. Dialogue choices are overrated. You won't miss a lot of things because of dialogue options. I have to admit low INT and RES remove a lot of (rather pointless) dialogue options, but there are still some with PER, MIG and so on. For the best stat spread for dialogues I would pick a tanky paladin or chanter. THose have a stat spread that fits most dialogue options best. Sorry for the typos. Had to write quickly...

So... did you try?

As said in another thread: I guess things like Concelhaut's Staff + Carnage would be awesome. Also because you can get the Staff so early so there will be not that much waiting to start this combo.

If it's still the case that abilites will not be blocked while using Citzal's Martial Power then I can see some synergies with classes that have damaging active abilites (Torment's Reach for example). Maybe also the spells from another class will not be blocked? A wizard with Concelhaut's Staff + Carnage will also be great in the early to mig game I assume. Both level-1 stuff.

Sawyerman... Sawyerman... Sawyerman...

By the way, speaking of monks and fire lashes: did anybody ever tried Firebrand on a monk with Scion of Flame, Two Handed Style, Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel? I reckon that the high lashes combined with the high base damage of 25 + Annihilation + Damaging III might be pretty awesome? Maybe add Battle Forged and Runner's Wounding Shot as well... Sadly, I didn't...

Eh? There's no doubt that fists are a good alternative for several reasons. But you said there is no reason for a monk to not use fists - and that's not right. I showed that there are several possible reasons why you might not want to use fists. Some or all or none of those points may have impact on your build or your playstyle.

Transcendent Suffering's bonus damage is not counted as base damage and thus is not taken into account when calculating crits, Savage Attack and Apprentice's Sneak bonuses. However, it gets boosted by MIG. And it also doesn't change when you graze, which is a plus. Same with Sandals of the Forgotten Friar. The bonus accuracy of Transcendent Suffering doesn't work with Torment's Reach, Force of Anguish or any other monk ability. No lashes besides Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes. No durgan steel (no speed bonus, no improved crit damage or chance). Fists have no special on-strike effects like spellchance, overbearing or stunning which some weapons have. Those work with Torment's Reach's AoE and especially well with Enervating Blows. So, besides the single damage type there are several reasons why a monk shouldn't stick to fists after the early game. Except if he wants to dabble in ranged combat, because The Long Pain + monk's abilities is the best ranged weapon of the whole game in my opinion (see Witch Doctor build for further info).

Yes - I only meant the focus overflow from Reaping Knives + Carnage or even HoF. If you have two ciphers then it's also fun to cast Reaping Knives on both. Double focus per attack is funny as well and with the raw damage they don't care about DR at all.

It's okay. It's of course readable and not a real problem with the new design/background. It was just a little bit easier with the old plain background - but I think the majority of players uses a computer screen to look at the wiki (where the new design is fine) so it's all good.

Reaping Knives on a barb is fun. Yes, the boar is nice. I like it how he combines sturdiness (stacking self heals like Shod-in-Faith, Veteran's Recovery + boar regen. and then buffing it with survial) with great damage. The cat still does better damage against most enemies I think (there are not too many that have high DR), but I also like it how the boar only has passive abilites and not that 1/rest stuff - which I always spare for a more important fight... that never comes until I rest.

Reaping Knives and Defensive Mindweb are superawesome. As a first time player I wouldn't think about high level abilites and spells too much though - because it will take a long time to get them. Also I wouldn't focus too much on classes which ae a bit complicated to use or to grasp. A monk for example is very powerful and fun to play (in my hands) but it takes some time to really get the hang of it - they also mean a lot of micromanagement. If you have no problem with that then great. Today I think they are the best and most fun melee class - but I hated them at first. A lot of beginners like rogues a lot because they will deal very good damage in the early game compared to most other classes. Their "power curve" isn't that good, but for beginners the early expression is important to pervent frustration. They are also a lot better on normal than on higher difficulties (for reasons see below). For the same reason fighters are good picks for beginners. Decent single target damage and CC options, very sturdy even when build offensively. Chanters are easy to use as well and don't need that much micromanagement. They are a bit slow and some say even boring, but they have some awesome(!) tolls in their belt if you know the tricks. Barbs are great for beginners as well if you can get around the fact that they start off a bit squishy. They will get meatier with every level. And they are good AoE auto-attackers who don't need much maintenance after the first few levels. Paladin: alsways a good pick. This can't go wrong I guess. Ciphers: I would use a cipher's power mainly for CC and not so much for damage (some exeptions). The reason is that ciphers do good weapon damage and ahve great CC powers. If you use CC to lower enemies' defenses and then hit them you are dealing good damage while reloading your focus - while you only deal damage with powers and focus will be gone. Of course if you can use powers which do both at the same time than use those. Whisper of Treason (and mind control in general) is a very powerful tool! Enemies will focus their attack on their former friend and this takes the heat off of your party. All "vancian" casters start a bit whimpy but become very useful after some levels. Wizards have great CC and also damaging spells and are very versatile. They also have great self buffs. They also have the best summoned weapons for ranged as well as for melee combat. Druids are good for CC and AoE damage as well. In addition Spiritshift is an extermely powerful melee tool if you build around it. I would recommend skilling this as a first timer because it's a lot of fun and very good right from the start. It doesn't gimp your spellcasting if you invest in Spiritshift, so why not? My favorite are boar and cat form beause both have the best damage potential (cat against light armored foes, boar against thick skinned targets). I also consider priest to be the most powerful class in the game. Not only his Painful Interdiction is nice (it truly is), but his real assets are his accuracy buffs. Inspiring Radiance (+10 ACC) and Devotions if the Faithful (+20 ACC) stack with most other accuracy buffs you can use, giving your party +30 accuracy in order to use CC and damaging abilities with great precision and effect. They are also quite easy to use (besides the micro that you'll have with all casters). Now for the ranger: rel. easy to play - you only need to watch out for the pet. It can't tank in the beginning but should be used for flanking instead. If you want to deal good damage with the pet and ylso deal good singel target damage with your bow you might want to get the hunting bow "Persistence". It is the bow with the best potential damage in the game - but more importantly, it causes wounding which will trigger the pet's "Predator's Sense". This way you will make sure that Predator's Sense is always active as long as you two attac kthe same target. Persistance can be obtained quite early - and this combo makes a noticable difference. Pets with the best damage: wolf (has higher base damage) and stag (has an AoE ability like the barbarian, but a bit smaller). I perfer the wolf for maximum single target damage (the higher base damage is very benefical when adding a lot of damage bonuses like Predator's Sense). For AoE I'd use classes like barb, monk and casters. In general the official companions are better than hirelings - especially for the first time player. That's because they start one level higher than hirelings. They might not have the ideal stat spread for your build ideas, but one level makes a much bigger difference in the early game than a few stat points here and there. Once you gained several levels your minmaxed hirelings will indeed be better because the XP gap closes - but PoE is especially tough in the early game and gets easier and easier the more you advance. And right in that tough early game the offcial companions will be better and help you more. But of course you will not get them all at once - so I'd mix official with hirelings. Officials are also more interesting for the first timer because they have quests and do banter and all that. Since you are playing on normal: here there are way less enemies than on Path of the Damned (PotD). That means that high singel target damage is more valuabe on normal than on PotD. Because of that rogues and rangers perform a lot better than when playing PoTD. Fighters and Paladins and shifted Druids, too. Also, chanters are a bit slow and people who play normal difficulty report that they seldomly use tha chanter's invocations because the fight is over before the phrase counter is full. Barbs hit a lot better on normal than on PotD because enemies' defenses are lower and the barb's accuracy maluses don't hurt as much. I'd take that into consideration.

That's right. When auto-attacking then the fast weapons are better - as long you don't face quite high DR or if you have means to lower DR or to bypass DR (or both). Or they have wounding which makes Drawn in Spring the weapon with the highest potential dps gainst nealry every enemy that is not immune to slash damage. But why don't rogues, barbs, fighters and so on use those weapons more often? I guess beseides the DR issue most people like the heavy one handers more because they are better with all abilites that have limited uses (most of them Full Attacks which makes dual wielding heavy one handers even better than using a two hander in most cases). Rogue's strikes and blows (except Sap), Fighter's Knockdown and Charge and Sunderung Blow, Paladin's FoD, Monk's Stunning Blows, Barbarians Barbaric Blow, HoF and Vengeful Defeat, Ranger's Wounding "Shot" and so on are all better with heavy one handers or a two hander than with flails, daggers, rapiers and the like. And since most melee classes do have those abilites it's logical why the heavy one handers are used more often. Even Drawn in Spring is inferior when used with Heart of Fury for example. Bittercut is the best option for HoF, FoD and the like (only speaking about damage). All classes or builds like ciphers, priests, chanters and so on who don't use those abilites may be better off with the fast, light weapons in the long run (after they get some dmg bonuses and DR bypass)... But only if you ignore the fact that there are no light weapons with two damage types (besides stilettos - not in one weapon, but there are Lagufaeth stilettos that do slash damage while the others do pierce - you still have to switch) - which again is a big drawback in my opinion that seldomly gets adressed. It simply sucks on PotD if you can't deal damage because a) you graze a lot in general in the early game (bad for light weapons) b) you don't have decent damage bonuses c) you only deal MIN damage because the DR is too high, also because of a) and b) (esp. true when using single damage weapons - or if the enemy is immune) A very special ability in this regard is Torment's Reach: the faster you are the better. Because for the AoE it doesn't matter how low your weapon damage per hit is: it has its own base (crush) damage. And the use is not limited as long as you have wounds. So - for a monk with TR fast weapons are the best pick - like two flails, two daggers or two clubs for example. With a melee cipher I simply hate it if I always have to pick the low DR (or non-resistant or -immune) targets in order to get decent focus - because it can mean you have to run around a lot (=dps drops a lot). That's another reason besides two damage types why I think flails are not as good for ciphers as they seem to be on paper. Although the cipher without any Full Attacks, with decent dmg bonuses and not much use for wounding seems to be the class that profits most from Unforgiven and Starcaller and such. I think because of all those reasons light, fast weapons don't get used as often as the heavier ones. Doing calculations while assuming the optimal situation and all is nice and great to compare stuff. But it's very hard to factor all those things in that happen in a real playthrough. I think most people who play rogues prefer heavy one handers because they simply made the experience that those weapons work better than flails, clubs, rapiers, stilettos or daggers. It would have been smarter from OBS to declare Primary or Full Attacks not as a single or double strike (no matter the sluggishness of the weapon), but to allow more than one strike based on the speed of the weapon. A Primary Attack for light weapons could mean three swings with the same weapon while heavy one handers and two handers get two swings. Full Attack would simply add one additional swing (just some random thought). This would have made the lighter weapons more attractive for those x/encounter abilites. Now we have rogues who do "Backstabs" with a two hander or a blunderbuss instead of using daggers, ah well... My priest of Eothas uses Unforgiven by the way. It's very good with Aggrandizing Radiance + Minor Avatar if you just want to smack people instead of casting them to ashes.

Yes, it stacks. It's the same thing like Tidefall's wounding, only 20% instead of 25%.

Against very soft targets Unforgiven is of course way ahead. When only doing crits Bittercut and Shatterstar will be behind until you attack targets with around maybe 15 to 17 DR I would guess - and Shatterstar would be in front of Bittercut of course (because 0.5 is more then 0.4). With a more realistic hit:crit ratio of 50:50 I would supect that this shifts down to around 10 to 12 DR and that Shatterstar obviously loses ground compared to Bittercut. Can't say what Vulnerable Attack will do for Unforgiven at that point, but nothing good for the lashing part... But the main reason why I mentioned Bittercut and Shatterstar and why I think they are better for a cipher is dual damage. I can't say for sure how this factors in but it's a pretty big advantage in my experience. Encounters where you can't get good focus are really annoying. There's also Strike Hard which has speed by the way. Firebrand (with some dmg mods, critting a paralyzed enemy) is pretty much the best focus tool you can get in the early to mid game, I agree.

Minor Blights do have an AoE effect of course, but in PoE1 every hit from that AoE created a seperate Blast. That's what makes the Blights so powerful.

I would make one druid boar. The dps of the slower, but wounding tusks is better against mid to high DR while the cat is faster and better against low to mid DR. And for the sake of diversity. It's also nice to stack self healing buffs on the boar (his shifted regeneration effect stacks with Veteran's Recovery and also works with healing bonuses from survival).