Boeroer

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).

Funny that an injury is considered a "hostile effect". I seldomly go down because I usually make heavy use of self healing and seldomly use squishies - so it doesn't make a big difference for me. But when I want to cheese out something like Vengeful Defeat I can't be bothered with those "realistic" hinderances.

Yes,it's nice in theory. But don't rely on it too much because recently I experienced a lot of cases where preservation wasn't applied properly. A bit buggy I guess. Aila Braccia only works on targeted spells (and those are not the ones that target reflex) - but if your rogue's defenses are high enough to provoke a graze when getting attacked by a Cleansing Flame and such then it's a good item. I don't know if Deathblows/Sneak/Deep Wounds get applied to the reflected attack? I guess not... Another synergy with Riposte and rogue is raising defense against Disengagement Attacks via Fast Runner (+5), Graceful Retreat (+15) and an item (+12, all stack) and getting those bonuses on top of his already high defenses when running past enemies. This way you can quite safely provoke Disengagement Attacks which are likely to graze and miss which will then trigger Riposte.

One side note: Frenzy from Sanguine Plate doesn't work with Berserker's Belt and Greater Frenzy. Just in case anyone is wondering. I always give the Binding Rope to my barb (especially if I use a weapon like Hours of St. Rumbalt). The stuck affliction helps a lot to generate crits on the ones that hit you. And Barbaric Retaliation stacks with Binding Rope's stuck retaliation while other retaliations from items (other than Supper Plate) don't.

I like a Badgradr's Barricade rogue. Now that I know your rogue I can think about another synergy... *makes Dr.-Evil-gesture* And that is friendly fire spells which target reflex + Adept Evasion (+ Blaidh Golan when the spell causes prone or stun). Shield rogues can have one of the best reflex defenses in the game when it comes to such spells and stuff like Slicken + rogue (while the rogue tanks) are quite nice. Blaidh Golan will make sure that you always stand up first should you get grazed or hit by your friend's prone/stun spell. I guess also Fan of Flames and Fireball is quite cool if you also add some burn DR to the rogue.

The thing is that a cipher would probably be better off with another one handed weapon when it comes to focus generation (for example Shatterstar or Bittercut) although those flails have that additional lash. Not in your case of course because it's your backup set and you're set on the Weapon Focus. And with probably I mean surely.

And I'm thankful for that. I hate different starting values for classes when it comes to things like endurance, health and so on. Those should be derived from attributes and that's it. It's ok if they start with certain abilites that emphasize on the class as a profession (like giving Constant Recovery to fighters which makes them a lot more sturdy) but to be stuck with a low endurance wizard (even though he's supposed to look like The Rock on steroid abuse) is bad. I like me a meaty wizard.

You can switch off Knockout Injuries in the game option on any difficulty setting, even PoTD. But not on ToI/Expert Mode. I always switch them off because they are simply annoying and do nothing for me - it just destroys Vengeful Defeat as you pointed out. I do the same with gib effects. They make White Worms less useful and are silly anyway. Who explodes and leaves no corpse behind after getting hit by a medieval weapon? I mean besides some spirits and unstable constructs.

Sure, I agree. It's a nice backup setup for your character. I just wanted to point out (with regard to the topic) that the small burning lash is not very good on a flail even for ciphers who have good damage bonuses and might speculate on some additional focus. But I can see that it works to bring the lash through DR if you manage to reliably do crits and are the MC. Then it will do somtehing for your focus - also paired with speed. Maybe one should check if dual flail (Starcaller + Unforgiven) is a good option for a critty cipher - both have that mini-lash. Or if dual torches are an option. Heck - I never even thought about using Justice for a cipher, but it makes some sense now... glad we talked about this.

What is the rogue doing exactly? I mean stats, items and all that stuff? Vengeful Defeat is a weaker version of HoF. Judging from game description it should be the same minus the damage bonus - but when I used it extensively in a playthrough it seemed to have a smaller range of action and generating less hits than HoF does. Maybe that got changed, but I read nothing about it. But it was/is very good nonetheless - especially if you can abuse it with a knockout-revive-cycle. The "problem" with your party is that you have nobody who has a revive ability (besides scrolls). Second chance items are only 1/rest and it doesn't work to bring several of them and switch them out after encounter. You'll only get one use of second chance per rest - not matter how many items with second chance you pile up.

But it doesn't help the cipher if the small lash doesn't get through. Maybe a cipher with 15 MIG, Savage Attack, Apprenice Sneak, Soul Whip and Biting Whip, exceptional flail (like Unforgiven is) as well as Scion of Flame can manage to bring the small lash through enemies' DR. Let's see: Flail's average base damage is 11. 11 * (1+0.15+0.2+0.15+0.2+0.2+0.3) = 24.2 average damage on hit 24.2 * 0.12 = 2.9 burn damage --> enemies burn DR has to be 9 or lower so that damage comes through (over DR 9 the lash damage is <0.5) 24.2 * 0.30 = 7.26 burn damage --> enemies burn DR has to be 27 (!) or lower so that damage comes through And this is with a pretty good damge bonus setup. Of course it gets better with crits (will add 5.5 damage, 9.9 with Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver), but still... You can see what a huge difference those "few" percentages make because of DR, no DR bypass for lashes and no MIN damage going through - paired with a light hitting weapon. It's better with Justice but still not very good. Originally Lightning Strikes of the monk only added +15% shocking lash. They changed it to 25% because it seldomly made it through DR and thus was useless. P.S.: as a sidenote: if you want to have a constant stream of focus gain for your cipher then try a cipher + priest with Spark the Souls + chanter with Mith Fyr. I don't know why but Sparks generate focus - even more so with an additional lash (if it gets through - amybe also bring a wizard with Expose Vuln.) - and the lash also works for your weapon of course. Thanks MaxQuest for the hint!

If I only had an animated gif with this.

Since implements can now be dual wielded I guess pretty good. With The Golden Gaze and Swift Aim + Driving Flight a ranger already was quite nice - until you hit lvl 13 and desperately wanted Twinned Arrows...

The important part was the last pair. I couldn't care less if Polymorph = Request Show.

Right... so, what did Josh post again?

Even better!

@Braven: Yes, lashes will not be combined and form a bigger lash but instead get calculated seperately. This is also the case with FoD + Intense Flames and Wildstrike + Greater Wildstrike (I think?). Lashes that add up before getting applied are Turning Wheel and Blood Testament - which makes the max 50% Turning Wheel bonus so powerful - same with Torment's Reach's crushing lash of 50%. Lashes are an awesome addition to damage because as you said they are a multiplicative bonus. And right: the higher the lash the more powerful in an exponential way because of DR (unless it's a raw lash). Boosting the normal 25% lash to 30% with Scion of Flame (only 5%) is already a lot better than having an additional 10% lash. It would be neat if DR bypass would be applied before DR is divided by 4 and if there was MIN damage. That would make fast, light weapons more useful. Because atm nobody likes them too much because of DR issues. It's always hammers and sabres and two handers. @Gnomic: In terms of usefulness Justice's crushing lashes (10% + 25%) are as good as elemental lashes. You just can't improve them with Scion of Flame or one of the other elemental boosters. Besides that why should it be better if there's an elemental lash on it instead of a crushing one?

There are several ones that you can kill without the loss of reputation and without bystanders to turn hostile: - moon godlike east of Eothas' Temple (drops first plate in the game) - human middle west in Woodland Trails, under the plateau where you can find Hearth Harvest and all those lions guarding it - Visceris, human druid with a stag helmet in Copperlane. Here you have to time it right that no citizen or justiciar comes near, but it's not hard to do it. There are a lot more, but those three first come to mind.

Not only Unforgiven, but also Starcaller and Justice have this - and every torch, too. The problem with lashes is that they don't have MIN damage - which means that no damage will come through DR if the lash is too weak. The difference between 10% and 25% is immense because of DR. They also don't profit from DR bypass like Vulnerable Attack. In most cases you will not see the 10% lash make it through. You either need a weapon with damage per hit or a lot of damage bonuses (or ideally both) in order to witness such a small lash to overcome DR and be mentioned in the combat log. Flails are fast but low base damage weapons which clearly doesn't help either. With Justice on a rogue you can see some additional crush damage make it through here and there - but it's not enough to make it a great alternative to Tidefall for example.