Boeroer

I do not underestimate a ranged fighter. I tested that concept thoroughly and it's just not good (at least for me). Make sure to take Runner's Wounding Shot.

You don't know Charge. By the time the paladin gets SI the fighter gets Charge. It has more base damage than SI and works extremely well with crits - and it has a very long AoE "range". It's also a lot faster and the fighter can use it to open the fight and dish out two charges quickly. If the encounter is short then the paladin has no chance to apply that much damage with SI - there's not enough time. Charge is very powerful. Also one of the most fun abilities. Dual wielding actually adds damage to Charge because you will do a hidden Full Attack at the enemy you targeted with Charge.

As I said in the other thread: ranged fighter = meh. Better to use a rogue and give him Vet. Recovery and a sturdy stat spread if you fear that he's too soft.

Pure ranged fighters are not good. Knockdown doesn't work. There are level-ups where you only can choose an ability that doesn't contribute to this playstyle. What works with ranged weapons is Into the Fray, Clear Out. All the other active abilities don't work with ranged weapons. This excludes you from Knockdown, Sundering Blow and most sadly, Charge. The damage bonuses apply and all - but it would be more beneficial to just build a very sturdy ranger, cipher or rogue with Veteran's Recovery. Ciphers do a lot of weapon damage and you'd have the additional powers that you can use. Also a ranged chanter with Blessed was Wengrith + Sure Handed Ila and focus on invocations would be better.

If Blast does :what about Torment's Reach and Turning Wheel? Think about Shattered Pillar + Ascendant.

They are slow but hit very hard after some levels. Great against high DR targets. I can't stress enough how nice it is when you combine a wounding weapon with Predator's Sense. Also their Takedown + Brutal Takedown isn't bad at all.

It should. It's a melee ability. But actually I never checked.

It adds the equivalent of 5 damage to every attack while it slows you down. It depends on enemy DR if its use is benefical or not. It's a no-brainer for retaliation builds and for everybody who has low base damage melee weapons.

Critting with Blast is possible (as far as I know it also gets +1 ACC per level?) and thus you can cause stun to an enemy here and there. But the Golden Gaze is better on a wizard. You will trigger Expose Vuln. pretty soon because of Blast and then its dps with Blast is unbeatable. Two Blasts with every shot, higher base damage and so on. Also more AoE interrupts. On a priest it's wasted. A priest could use Gyrd better than Golden Gaze because it also profits from the special priest ACC talent - so it doesn't matter which priest, it's not necessary to pick a priest of Wael.

That's exactly why I don't use the sceptre for the dominate proc. it's harder to target enemies when there charmed and you have to adijust around them if you want to make them most out of it. It's not needed and Is just a nuisance I agree. The randomness of the dominate means more micro. Especially when your main target gets dominated your char will stop attacking. i prefer targeted mind control. But the insane ACC bonus and the raw lash are very unique and hard to beat. I still like The Golden Gaze better.

For the early game it's very good. Especially with high MIG. The range is ridiculous and the damage is good for the early game, too. Think of it like a Spell Mastery - those come at lvl 9! Since it doesn't scale it becomes a bit moot at higher levels - unless you are a rogue (Deathblows + Deep Wounds) or a ranger (Marked Prey + Driving Flight + Penetrating Shot) - or if you can stack a lot of DR bypass (like I usually do with Pallegina). Or if you take Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver and so on - and crit with it reliably.

It's correct that lashes don't benefit from DR bypass MaxQuest. P.S.: you ninja!

That depends on the damage bonuses you can stack. Since lashes are multiplicative damage bonuses they work better and better the more damage your physical attack does. But Scion of Flame and the others will only add 5% to the lash damage. So you would have to stack a lot of dmg bonuses so that Scion of Flame for a lash only gets better than let's say Two Handed Style. Example: plain Great Sword with 10 MIG and burning lash against 0 DR 17 slash + (17 * 0.25) = 4.25 burn. 17 + 4.25 = 21.25 With Scion of Flame 17 slash + (17 * 0.3) = 5.1 burn. 17 + 5.1 = 22.1 Now instead Scion of Flame I'll take Two Weapon Style: 17 slash * (1+0.15) = 19.55 slash + (19.55 * 0.25) = 4.89 burn. 19.55 + 4.89 = 24.44 The difference is 2.34 - Two Handed Style is clearly better. Now let's assume we have a fighter with 18 MIG, Weapon Spec and Mastery + Savage Attack and an exceptional weapon: 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.3) = 33.83 slash + (33.83 * 0.25) = 8.46 burn. 33.83 + 8.46 = 42.29 With Scion of Flame 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.3) = 33.83 slash + (33.83 * 0.3) = 10.15 burn. 33.83 + 10.15 = 43.98 With Two Weapon Style 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.3+0,15) = 36.38 slash + (36.38 * 0.25) = 9.1 burn. 36.38 + 9.1 = 45.48 The difference is 1.5. Two Weapon Style is still better but the gap closes (keep in mind this is vs. 0 DR) Now the same fighter with a superb weapon - and he does a crit: 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.45+0.5) = 44.88 slash + (44.88 * 0.25) = 11.22 burn. 44.88 + 11.22 = 56.1 With Scion of Flame 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.45+0.5+0.15) = 44.88 slash + (44.88 * 0.3) = 13,46 burn. 44.88 + 13,46 = 58.34 With Two Weapon Style 17 slash * (1+0.24+0.15+0.1+0.2+0.45+0.5+0.15) = 47.43 slash + (47.43 * 0,25) = 11.86 burn. 47.43 + 11.86 = 59.29 The difference is 0.95. You can see that at some point Scion of Flame would be better than Two Handed Style, but it's a long way. Maybe for a rogue it's more benefical to choose Scion of Flame instead of a base damage bonus like Two Handed Style at some point. But you always have to remember that lashes have to overcome 1/4 of enemies' DR and that means that the higher the DR the worse the bonus of Scion of FLame is compared to Two Handed Style. For classes with only few damage bonuses I thik it's save to say that they are better off with a base damage bonus than with a 5% lash increase. Of course it's best if you can do both. If you have a level up - and no base damgage bonus talents left - you can take an elemental talent and boost your damge further.

Barbarian has Carnage which turns every auto attack into an AoE attack. Barbaric Blow is not superpowerful but can be good with dual weapons and a high crit rate. Heart of Fury is only 1/encounter because usually everyone is dead when you use it properly. It's that powerful. Besides that most weapon effects (draining, stunning, wounding, spell chances and so on) work with carnage - so you maybe can imagine why people like them. They are also the class that can achieve very high attack speed very early. Monks have some abilities that are 1/encounter, but their other abilites (the most powerful ones) are not limited in use as long as you gain wounds. They have an AoE attack that is very powerful and as long as they have wounds to spend they can wipe the floor with whole groups of enemies. And when they don't have wounds you can use the per-encounter-abilites. Both classes have high endurance and very big health pools - so you can afford to do a very offensive build without the fear that they will go k.o. all the time (might take some levels to build enough health so that the difference to other classes is visible). If you are a beginner with both of them I would recommend a stout barb with good MIG, CON and INT, Veteran's Recovery and Savage Defiance, wielding a great sword (aim for Tidefall) and wearing thick armor. Take Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst. This requires low micro compared to a more squishy barb or a monk. A monk requires a lot of resource management but is more powerful if you do it right (just my opinion).

Thank you. There is no penalty for shooting at close range. But talents/abilites like Marksman and Distant Advantage (Wood Elf racial ability) only work when you are more than 4 meters away (I think it's 4, but maybe 5 or so, can't say for sure). So you would lose those bonuses if you shoot from point blank (if you took them in the first place). Those two are the only bonuses that work this way if I'm not mistaken. On the other hand: with a rogue you can get a Backstab bonus with a ranged weapon when you are shooting from a very close distance: 2m or less gives you the Backstab bonus (if you shoot from stealth or invisibilty, +150% base damage). Gunner will reduce the reload speed of blunderbusses, yes. It reduces the reload time for every weapon that has a reload phase: crossbow, arbalest, pistol, blunderbuss, arquebus. It will only reduce the reload time and nothing else. As a side note: armor penalty will not get added to the reloading phase, only the recovery phase. If you don't want to use gun switching (with multiple guns in your weapon slots and Quick Switch) then Gunner is recommended, yes. It stacks with Swift Aim and also Sure Handed Ila. But in this case the stacking is multiplicative which reduces the individual effect of each additinal bonus - the more reload bonuses you stack. So with Swift Aim (50%) + Gunner (20%) and Sure Handed Ila (20%) you will not have a reduced reload time of 90% as one might think (if you added the values), but instead it's "only" a bonus of 68% because you multiply them instead. Still good to stack them. If Pallegina uses an offensive scroll she would lose the marking of the weapn because she will not attack with it, but I think she will retain the bonus from Coordinated Attacks because she's attacking with a spell. But it would have to be a targeted spell like missiles or Stag's Horn. I don't think it works with AoE spells that you target on the floor like Fireball (all speculation). If she uses a scroll that is not offensive (prayer, buff and so on) she will surely lose both. I would not give her lore but survival as you said.

Casting Reaping knives on oneself is a bit uneffective. But why not make it possible?

You could? But you can't see how? Hehe :D

No wait. I just tested it ingame and actually it only benefits the ranger. Mea culpa! THe pet doesn't get +10 ACC. I must have confused this with marking when I was testing all those +ACC things I spoke about above (using Cladhaliath and flanking and so on). I remembered incorrectly. So forget what I was saying about Stalker's Link: it only gives the ranger +10 ACC. Still good, but does nothing for your pet's ACC. But I tested my wolf and bear that I have in an old savegame and they both had 88 ACC (without any buffs, attacking alone) at lvl 13 which I think is pretty solid. My rangers only have 89 at that point (with Twinned Arrows + Stalker's Link = +/- 0) - so pretty similar. And that's with Weapon Focus, an exceptional Stormcaller and 19 PER. Therefore I can't see why the pet should have troubles hitting things.

Doesn't the in-game description say that both profit from Stalker's Link? I thought so...

The wiki is totally outdated on that matter. Stalker's Link got changed a lot since the release. It just gives you and your pet +10 ACC if you attack the same target. No need to be opposite sides or whatever. Just attack the same target and +10 ACC will happen. It's like a vice-versa marking. You can combine it with a marking weapon on the ranger (pet gets +20 ACC, ranger +10), with a coordinating weapon (pet gets +10, ranger gets +14 and +25% damage) or with both (Cladhaliath can be enchanted to be marking and coordinating) and you can also combine that with flanking which will result in the equivalent of another +10 acc for both. So, imagine a melee ranger with a marking & coordinating Cladhaliath (also gets +5 ACC because it's a spear) who has Gallant's Focus, Stalker's Link and flanks with his pet. Pretty high ACC gain for both. You could even add Mob Justice from the Dozens an get another +5 ACC for the ranger.

I was curious. Now this is what you'll find when you google "Swan Gula": Dammit, how do I resize pictures in bbcode again?

Maybe you shouldn't put PoE rogues either into one corner or the other. Why can't they be both nowadays? A shock trooper with a great sword and scale armor - a duelist guy with padded armor + rapier + buckler, a one handed dagger thief. They all say "rogue" to me. So for me Edér and also Ydwin can fit into the rogue class. Maybe it's a broad variety, but which class in PoE isn't? I think OBS saw your frustrating dilemma and thus decided to make the base class rogue a more sturdy kind of shock trooper (Josh talked about that a while ago) while the new Trickster, Assassin and Street Fighter resemble other facettes of popular rogue figures/classes like thugs, thieves, stealthy killers and so on.

It's a bit harder to read. Bright letters with a dark background picture that has some brighter parts on a small screen is more fidgety than with a plain dark background for example.

Its buff duration stealing got nerfed a lot. And also its speed bonus doesn't stack with Frenzy, Swift Aim, Alacrity and such any more.

Yes,Two Handed Style only adds 2.55 damage on hit on average (on Tidefall). It's something that I take if I took every other talent that fits my char. Same with Apprentice's Sneak (even worse) and Savage Attack. Although if you combine them all (+8.5) things become interesting. When going solo your approach is def. a good one. Especially against casters and ranged salves you want to have high defenses at the beginning of a fight.