Boeroer

I'm pretty happy with me. Do you honestly think that my post was aggressive and yours was constructive criticism? We should use more emoticons. I would say I'm the last person to react aggressively to constructive criticism. But maybe I have a problem with my self-perception.

I would build it less squishy, take Veteran's Recovery and some defensive talents - then yes. What works great with chokepoints is summons and Dichotomous Soul as "tanks" while you fire with fists. Kiting is also easy with this.

I looked it up just a minute ago: px1_backer_cape_of_the_master_mystic That's the name. So you have to type: additem px1_backer_cape_of_the_master_mystic 1 after enabling cheats with iroll20s of course. You can find all game objects in this subfolder of your installation folder: PillarsOfEternity_Data/assetbundles/prefabs/objectbundle The names of the files without the file extension are the names you have to use in the console. You can find pretty much anything quickly when doing a text search inside the folder. Some items have really wierd names that totally differ from the ingame names though. For example the Maegfolc Skull is named px2_giants_skull and Hours of St. Rumbalt is named hours_of_st_rumbault, The rings that give you bonus wizards spells are named ring_of_wizardry_a and _b and so on. Sometimes there's a _backer_ in the file name for obvious reasons. So it can be hard to find the right file. But most of the time the filename matches the ingame name. px1_ means it's from WMI and px2_ means it's an item from WMII.

You can simply look it up in the game object folder. If you can't find it I can look it up once I got out of bed...

Then maybe you should vomit and then get over it.

No idea. Maybe monk/druid or wizard/barb or so. Paladin/ranger or paladin/monk or even monk/ranger could be cool as well. I need to know all subclasses first. Chanter/Corpse Eater also sounds nice. I guess I will try a lot of different stuff before really doing my first playthrough. Or Evoker/ranger? Hmmm...

A wizard would definitely add more versatility, especially CC and AoE damage. Chillfog alone may turn hefty fights into easy ones. With Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Blast + Combusting Wounds (combined with Pull of Eora) you also have a great ranged AoE damage dealer who doesn't waste too many spells. If you choose the soulbound scepter (early Act II) you will also have a great auto-attack-CC effect because it can dominate on hit/crit and works with the AoE of implements' Blast. A rogue's mechanics skill bonus is quite handy though. But of course every other character could skill mechanics instead.

Nobody favours Tenous Grasp? It's the only mind control spell that the cipher can use outside of combat at early levels and is has a long range (10m). If you use it from stealth usually all enemies will attack the confused one and you are totally save. Best thing is that you get your focus back at once because encounter starts after you cast it. It's a free confuse basically. I like it a lot. I think most people totally underestimate it.

The numbers over the heads are the numbers in the combat log combined. So if you do 20 physical damage and 10 lash damage the number that pops out of the enemy's head will be 30. Lashes get calculated like so: you hit the enemy and the damage roll is done. Let's say you roll 28 crush damage. The enemy has 8 DR against everything. So 20 crush gets through. Lashes will now get calculated with the pre-DR damage (!), so 28 * 0.25 = 7 burn damage. Lash damage has to overcome 1/4 of enemy's DR. So in this case 8/4=2. 7-2 = 5. You overall damage will be 20 crush + 5 burn. The number that pops out of the enemy's head will be 25. Lashes are more powerful than mere base damage mods like Sneak Attack or Savage Attack or Two Handed Style because of this mechanic. Sneak Attack damage will be calculated within the initial crush damage roll - like all other base damage mods like Savage Attack and so on. It's nothing that goes seperately. It helps overcoming enemies' DR a lot. Base damage is the weapon's unenchanted damage without any modifier. So Sneak Attack adds the same amount of damage bonus to a normal sword as to a superb sword - while a lash will add more damage the better the weapon is.

A little weak on the CC and the buff side, but it would work. Chanter phrases do stack, yes. Even Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits stack which will give your party a decent regeneration effect. If you give all your melees Veteran's Recovery, too (stacks with Ancient Memory & Beloved Spirits and is great with high MIG and INT) you will have a sturdy yet offensively capable melee setup. Concerning the chars: Chanters: all cool. From lvl 9 onwards the rest of the party might get bored. Barb: I wouldn't drop CON to 3. Besides the lower health and endurance it will also gimp your fortitude defense which protects you from things like paralyze, stun and prone. Those things can be really annoying. You can get away with 15 or 16 PER and DEX easily. But if you like 3 CON, then I can recommend Vengeful Defeat. It's a great ability for squishy barbs. Turn off knockout injuries though. Try to get the Tall Grass pike asap. Don't waste time with arquebuses. Give those to your ranger or rogue. Druid: I consider bear form to be one of the weakest. I would alsways use boar or cat (if it's only about effectiveness). Boar is nice because he heals while shifted (not a big regeneration effect, but it stacks with Veteran's Recovery and Ancient Memory & Beloved Spirits). But the best part is the wounding damage that boars do. This is one of the best damage enchantments in the game and the boar's tusks have it. The cat hits faster. Both are on par in terms of DPS. It depends how high your MIG is and how high the enemies' DR. Cat prefers lower target DR and more DEX, boar likes high MIG and can overcome enemies' DR easily with the raw damage of wounding tusks, no matter how high the DR is. Ranger: guns are fun. Especially with Wounding Shot. An arquebus or blunderbuss with wounding shot does a ton of damage. Marked Prey and Driving Flight also work great with guns. Just note that Powder Burns does not work with Swift Aim, so reloading will take forever even with high DEX. You might want to try a quick switching approach because of that. Here DEX doesn't matter that much. Maybe an Island Aumaua with Arms Bearer talent for 4 powder burns gunshots in quick succession. This is a lot of fun but requires some micromanagement. Blunderbuss + Powder Burns has a very broad but short arc. You have to get close. Arquebuses have a long and narrow cone and are better for long range shots with Powder Burns. I prefer arquebuses. If you want to reload after every shot you will have a lot lower DPS than a bow ranger. Rogue: since you didn't specify that one I can only guess that it's a ranged rogue. Here anything works as long as you provide afflictions for sneak attack and later deathblows. A nice, early setup is Borresaine war bow with a rogue. Due to his high crit chance, a rogue can cause stun with Borresaine a lot. So you will bring your own auto-attack-affliction. Later in the game there's a bow called Sabra Marie which does double damage on crit (annihilating) and confuses. This would be the best weapon for a war bow rogue and is very powerful. Until then Borresaine is great.

Perception 3 is bad for a barbarian. That's because barbarians start with lower ACC than for example fighters and their innate ability Carnage has -10 Accuracy at lvl 1. PER 3 would lead to -7 ACC on top of that. You will graze and miss all the time in the early game. Another side effect: you won't cause interrupts. Since barbs hit in an area of effect with every weapon attack they are good AoE-interruptors if they have decent PER. If you use a pike you can do with a lot less CON because you can stand behind the front line. If you want to use dual weapons you can do with less DEX because dual wielding in itself makes you 50% faster than with a single weapon or with a two hander. The only thing that works alright with dumped PER is if you use fists and pick the talent Novice's Suffering. With this talent you quickly get ACC bonuses with your fists and a good damage bonus that gets buffed by MIG, but doesn't care much about the quality of the hit (graze/hit/crit). With Novice's Suffering you can get away with 3 PER.

Yeah, I didn't express myself properly. I didn't mean that the staff was part of the detonating device itself but a part of the whole "Godhammer process". But since it is hinted that the staff used to be more powerful I thought it would be neat if the now weaker staff could summon a stronger version of itself. Like a temporary transformation.

I just checked and it still works as it used to: Overseeing gives you a +10% range bonus with Carnage (10% to the base radius, that's basically the radius with 10 INT). I made a lvl 1 barb with 10 INT and targeted a random guy in an inn: The translucent yellow circle indicates the range of carnage with 10 INT. The dashed circle around the barb is the reach of the weapon, NOT carnage range. Not I put on a Ring of Overseeing: Note the tiny, even more translucent ring around the yellow Carnage area. That's the 10% increase. It's marginal. Overseeing is much better when you use it on ability/spells that have a big base radius. Carnage's base radius is not very big, so Overseeing doesn't do a lot. High INT is much better to expand your Carnage area. But of course if you really want to max the range of Carnage you have to use it. A chanter for example who wants to extend his Dragon Thrashed range as much as possible can stack Voice of the Mountaintop (+20%), Overseeing (+10%) and high INT. Because his base chanting radius is so big, this leads to a notably higher AoE increase (not percentage-wise of course, but in flat numbers) than with Carnage.

It seems that the damage numbers are higher in PoE2.

Last time I checked it did increase the yellow indicator circle. But the increase is not that visible because the base range of Carnage is mediocre. 10% is not that much, too. You can see a bigger effect on chanter's chanting range for example because it has a way bigger base radius. But I have to admit that I tested this a long time ago while I played around with several barb builds. It may be that Obsidian changed that, but why should they? But to be sure I will check later today and report. Always good to know if something got changed "secretly", so thanks in advance for pointing this out.

Best choice for reaping knives is obviously a barbarian. Total focus overflow. Monk is great, too. The knives raw (base) damage, paired with Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel, generates good focus. And since the cone of Torment's Reach is not influenced by your weapon choice you don't gimp the monks AoE damage at all.

A might stacking barbarian works really nice with Novice's Suffering by the way. MIG buffs the flat damage bonus of Novice's Suffering. All other dmg mods that boost base damage (crits, Savage Attack, One Stands Alone, Blooded and so on) don't though. But on the other hands the base damage malus of grazes and Carnage also don't do much. It's a very nice apporach for the early and mid game. Another thing that works extremely well with high MIG is wounding - like on Tidefall. Wounding damage also gets boosted by MIG which leads to high wounding numbers.

It does affect Carnage

They just get the best collection of summonend weapons in the game.

We had nearly the same thread some months ago. It includes an answer from Dimitri Berman (developer), too: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91396-better-looking-armors/page--1

There are war hounds in PoE already (Battle of Yenwood Field) who also have a nice howl. I guess it would be pretty easy to transform that into an animal companion.

Yes, since he will not get hit a lot I give him the stats of a ranged rogue: dumped CON and RES. High INT is nice with a backstab rogue because invisibility lasts longer which gives you more time to reach the targets you want to destroy. High move speed is also kind of important. Backstab helps in the early game, too. There are not many abilites that give you such a high damage bonus that early in the game. Just make sure your steakth keeps up. An item with +2 steakth helps a lot in the early to mid game if you also want to take some points of survival or so.

You can start with Concenhaut's Parasitic Staff (profits from the exact same talents as the lance) and later use Citzel's Spirit Lance. The staff is a VERY powerful weapon in the early game. Not only does it come exceptional, but it also has higher base damage than the usual quarterstaff.

It works like a normal pike in regard of talents (e.g. Two Weapon Style, Savage Attack), but only the initial hit is affected. That's still good because the lance has high base damage. Things like Apprentice's Sneak also work. The Blast is it's own AoE effect and its damage can only be boosted by MIG and crits (also Merciless Hand and +crit damage items). It works more like the Blast from implements or Torment's Reach than Carnage. Dangerous Implement or Penetrating Blast don't work. As you said, it works with every weapon focus (it's universal).

The micro isn't that bad. What you basically do at the start of every fight is to wait for the enemy to reach your frontline and then poke from the back row. If your stealth is high enough you don't unstealth before the enemy is in reach and you get two attacks with +150% base damage. So basically it adds no micro. It's like two free +150% boosts per encounter. Cape of the Master Mystic also doesn't add micro. The only thing that adds micro is Shadowing Beyond. This also works with a gun, but you usually don't get two shots with backstab while it's easy to get two stabs with a pike. The best melee weapon for Backstab is Firebrand from Forgemaster's Gloves. But this you can only use with invisibility because the summoning obviously drops your stealth. But if you plan to use Shadowing Beyond I would summon Firebrand before that. The combo of high base damage, annihilation and backstab is pretty impressive. That's - of course - a lot of micro.