Boeroer

Don't know the reasons of mosspit, but with durgan steel a shield makes your main hand faster - which can lead to higher dps than with a two hander which hasn't reached low or 0 recovery (for example if the main hand wields Drawn in Spring). And maybe because of Sacred Immolation, too. Chanter can get "The Champion braved the Horde alone" and it might be more fun to fight with a really speedy two hander (with 0 recovery best dps).

No he cannot. Also because Tidefall is not the best option for FoD. Maybe something like 250 to 260 is possible with Tidefall with a good damage roll and all the dmg mods you can get. Doing that would require a lot of ifs and a lot of fuzz and is impractical, while it's "relatively" easy to get to 1000 damage with Disintegration (you just need a crit and very high MIG and INT). The dps of Tidefall is better though. The damage per hit or crit is not. You have to remember that Disintegration takes a long time. It's not an instant kill. The damage per second is not that breathtaking - it's just nice that you only have to hit/crit once when the time is right - and then the thing just does its work.

Run towards them, hit them or wait until they start with their detonating process and then run away quickly. Preferably with Boots of Speed. They will explode after a while once they start making that "Ohhhh - I will explode soon!" noise. and you will be far away. Alternatively cause prone or other hard CC.

It's a bit annoying - but why do you bother? His summon will work if the skull's near you or not. So it's function is not impaired. I wouldn't waste that much time and efford for a cosmetical thing (skull actually following).

Fires of Darcozzi Palace is pretty weak. I never tried if it stacks with Potion of Flame Shield though. If you can stack a lot of retaliations then an approach with Combusting Wounds becomes interesting even if the retaliation itself is weak - due to the sheer number of hits you generate when you get attacked. Battle Forged on a paladin (would stack with Fires oDP) is also not too great because a paladin has few things that can boost retaliation damage - like monks (Turning Wheel, Blood Testament, Rooting Pain), barbs (One Stands Alone, Blooded) and rogues (Deathblows) have. In itself Fires oDP is not worth a point in my opinion. Don't know why they made it weaker than Flame Shield. Even the original spell is pretty lame.

Cleansing Flame has higher dps because it only lasts 5 secs and has 80 base damage, but the overal damage is still lower even with +8 MIG and +8 INT I think (but I don't know for sure). Does the +100% damage over tick rate work for its own damage, too? Never tested this to be honest. And of course Shining Beacon and similar spells can potentially do more damage, but distributed among several enemies and not to a single one. I believe Disintegration is hard to beat. Also because it's raw damage. The great thing is those DoTs keep on working even when you charm the enemy - or cast Statis Shell on them or so.

I think. That's because it has very high base damage (240) and profits from attributes twofold: Might will increase the base damage (additive dmg bonus) and INT will prolong the duration (multiplicative dmg bonus). And a crit will add 50% duration rather than 50% to base damage - which is much better (not for dps, but for overall damage). So, with 240 base damage, 20 INT and 20 MIG you get over 600 raw damage with a crit. I can't think of any other spell or ability that does that much single target damage. But maybe there is...? Maybe Holy Radiance + Aggradizing Radiance + Brilliant Radiance does more crit damage to vessels when the dispositions are right? Can't say. I only know it does a ton of damage with high MIG and INT, one-shotting most vessels. But it's not raw damage so against immunities or very high burn DR it is not that powerful.

Fortunately that was supposed to be a joke.

I never use Suppress Affliction, too. Only prayers...

What do you mean by "limited skill types"? Like that rogues get more mechanics?

You forget that you can buff the accuracy of one single CC guy into the sky for a short moment - so he can land a debuff on anything. This makes it easier for the rest of the party to then hit the enemy. That's why Coordinated Attacks and Marking are so useful - as well as to know which ACC bonuses stack and which not. For me it's very easy to hit or crit any enemy in PoE with one or more CC effects and then get the party started. But the problem is that you have to find this out all by yourself, or read a ton of info in the forums. If the description of abilities would be better (also in terms of stacking!) this would become accessible for every player - not just he ones that play this game for the 100th time... And then you need no abilities that circumvent defenses (like Minor Missiles now do in Deadfire or like Retaliation once did in PoE). I don't like that approach because it will get abused. Build a char with abysmal accuracy but a ton of MIG and INT and he will still hit with mighty force... weird...

You should add a dual wielding rogue to the comparison.

No, it's just a different way to play. I can understand why you like Lib. Exhortation, it's great. I only need the ability points elsewhere. My priests are build sturdy and can take some spike damage when buffed. Or I use a a scroll. And my dragons don't do wing slams. They get charmed instantly and after that they go prone.

ROFL for Drawn in Spring vs. Bittercut. Yeah that thing is real nice. If it didn't come so late... I also like it on a fighter. I meant ranger with Persistence vs. dual Bittercut rogue by the way. That would be interesting because it was the initial claim. But that's not an order or something. I hope you just have to fill some variables?

I have to admit I also never take Liberating Exhortation (except when I want Inspiring Exhortation on a Darcozzis because it stacks with everything - which is so important). It's because I always use prayers and therefore seldomly suffer afflictions I can't handle. But I know every fight in the game, so it's easy to plan ahead. The exhortation is good if you get surprised.

Yes, make sure you have a paladin with Coordinated Attacks + a marking weapon, maybe even Insp. Exhortation, a priest with Insp. Radiance + Devotions + Champion's Boon & Crowns ftF (and Dire Blessing maybe) and that you took Tactical Meld and Borrowed Instinct. Just speculation, but if you time it right, your ACC bonus should be more than +100 on top of your +1 per level, +your base ACC + the innate bonus of Disintegrate. So maybe +200? This should lead to a one-shot. Or one-melt... No immunities involved.

Mith Fyr applies a 25% burning lash to all direct damage, including all spells, yes. This includes party members' spells, powers, abilities, scrolls, invocations, spell bindings and whatnot. If it does direkt damage (no DoT like Shining Beacon or Envenomed Strike's poison damage) it gets a +25% burning lash. 30% if the party member has Scion of Flame (not the chanter but the party member who causes damage). Ahhhrgh, I forgot that you will miss that quest in Act III if you don't kill Raedric. Dammit, sorry. I only thought about the early game. But you can always go back to Raedric and kill him before Act III - so nothing is lost yet. He's a lunatic anyway.

It's not a glitch, it's intended. It's in a different group (code wise) than the usual deflection buffs because it raises all defenses. Cloak of Comfort works the same. It's short, yes, but due to the stacking it can make you untouchable (shift the miss/graze border in your favor) for 15+ seconds with decent INT. Nice in the really hard fights - not so useful in your everyday trash encounter. Which spells you use often and which not is an individual choice, too. A niche spell for you may be a preferred spell for somebody else. For example I know that AndreaColumbo loves Suppress Affliction and even takes the Mastery while I almost never use it. I like Triumph of the Crusaders and Spark the Souls of the Righteous while other players never touch them (maybe they don't know how good they can be with the right synergies). Hopefully they don't cut any spells. It's ok for me if I have to concentrate on a few spells while I level up, but please let me pick from a big pool. Who knows what I want to do with my priest? But all in all our opinions don't diverge to much on this matter I guess. You now can choose you favorite spells and forget the others that you wouldn't use anyways.

Also new: reverse pickpocket your whole stash of 500 xaurip spears into a guard's pants.

Circle of Protection stacks with nearly everything while things like Shields for the Faithful doesn't stack with other defection buffs. That's why CoP is a good spell and not a useless one. But yeah - I also don't use 75% of all priest spells in a playthrough, bit it depends how you play your priest. Spamming Iconic Projection is still good because it only has to overcome 1/4 of enemies' freeze DR. Used to ignore DR completely, but 1/4 is still not bad.

Cool! But... am I stupid or is the png too small to read the numbers? Or maybe both? This is with Tidefall I presume? Would be nice to see this with dual Bittercut...

Higher base damage? Ah - you mean because of 2 * base damage (Bittercut) compared to 1* base damage (Tidefall)? I did some calculations with Bittercut, Tidefall, Hours oSR, Firebrand and arquebus under normal conditions against 0, 10 and 20 DR and Kaylon is right: 2*Bittercut is overall the best option because it's hard to beat the two strikes with a lot of dmg bonuses + lashes - compared to one strike. Obviously: the higher the DR the smaller the gap. Against 30 DR Tidefall will be the better option I presume. Until late game, when you get access to powerful enchantments and durgan steel, Firebrand is number one (assuming you crit a lot with FoD). But for auto-attacks Tidefall is better. Also if you include Runner's Wounding Shot. Even Hours oSR is better at some point (enough speed) if you assume a decent crit rate. And the prone on crit is obviously very nice, too - since it leads to less damage that you get and more crits on the target. So all in all: if you combine all the damage you do during an encounter... maybe it doesn't matter that much?

One thing to Circle of Defense: as far as I know it only does +15 to all defenses? However: it's short - but unlike other defensive buffs it stacks with most other things. So for example Outworn Buckler + Shields for the Faithful + Circle of Protection = +45 to deflection and +20 to all other defenses party-wide. Also the Shieldbearer's talent that raises deflection on kill and also Inspiring Triumph stack with everything. You can make a pretty sturdy party out of dps chars if you let your Shieldbearer kill stuff and have a priest at his side.

And for her as well!

You can give him more CON in the early game and retrain later. As soon as you have most of the accuracy-debuffs (dazing, frightening and so on) and a decent deflection you can lower your CON. And it doesn't have to be 3. In the early game your deflection is quite low that you can't tank very well because of health issues. Youc can also use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence to heal some health.