Boeroer

Yes, if you want to retrain anyway that's a good approach. I was arguing from a no-retrain-perspective. VA is also good if you are under 0 recovery (mathematically) and can squeeze in VA without speed loss. THen of course it's a no-brainer. It's also better/more benefical whenever you do multiple weaker hits passively or with one attack (Barb's Carnage and retaliation and so on).

Hm... I still think FoD is useful against annoying enemies like casters who stand in the back row and usually don't get touched immediately by Dragon Thrashed. You can kill them even before they can finish one single spell. But I use two arquebuses and maybe even a third one with Runner's WS and don't try to do melee FoD attacks because of the reasons you describe. So yeah, maybe melee FoD is a bit underwhelming once you use Sacred Immolation + Dragon Thrashed + Relentless Storm.

Justice's crushing lash is inferior to a burning lash if you consider to take Scion of Flame (you should from a dps-perpective). Even without Scion of Flame it's no advantage to have a crushing lash instead of an elemental one. They work exactly the same. But of course I would also use it until I get something better. Vulnerable Attack: let's say it's a 10% speed loss. So if you attack 10 times without VA and 9 times with VA, then this one additional attack has to deal 45+ damage on average to make VA useless - if enemies' DR is at least 5. With FoD in the mix, a crit here and there, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, good weapon enchantments, bit of MIG and a 30% burning lash this is common. Especially if using Tidefall. Even if that "average additional hit" would be lower and VA wouldn't lower your dps you will not gain a lot of damage for one talents point. Great Swords usually make sure you don't do MIN damage most of the time. Also, Vulnerable Attack doesn't work with lashes. That means that FoD and the lash on your weapon will get nothing from it. With Scion of Flame instead you would get more bonus damage in nearly all cases. Runner's Wounding Shot is better in this case, too. Let's say you hit for 50 damage, then it would add 46 raw damage on top (gets boosted by MIG if I'm not mistaken). The harder you hit the better it gets. Very nice once you have Durgan Steel and better weapon enchantments. So my conclusion is that Vulnerable Attack is not worth it on a two handed paladin. But others might see that differently of course.

If you hit an enemy for more than 10 damage he will get one charge of resonance. Every enemy can get up to 10 of those. If you then use Resonant Touch every enemy who is in the AoE will suffer raw damage for each resonance they collected.

Oh wait - I forgot Rot Skulls - a great summoned weapon of the druid which is very powerful (comes quite late) and can also be used by all classes because it's bound to "Father's Teeth", a necklace that only has a few charges of Rot Skulls which don't recharge. But it comes a lot earlier tha the original druid's spell and it also gives you +18 fortitude which is neat (the necklace, not Rot Skulls).

Yes, they just replace what you havein your hands at that time. They are usually very powerful compared to the normal weapons you can get when you get access to the summoned ones. For example Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff has higher base damage than a normal staff, drains endurance and comes exceptional which is supergood at level 1. Firebrand has huge base damage, a bit ACC bonus and huge damage bonus, is annihilating and does burn damage. It also works with Scion of Flame (gets +20% base damage). It is the hardest hitting melee weapon if you leave Citzal's Spirit Lance (also summoned weapon) aside. But you can't enchant summoned weapons and thus they lose most ot their appeal once you get access to durgan steel, dragon scales and such. Citzal's Spirit Lance is always great because it's like turning your wizard into a barbarian with a badass pike - and it comes superb. Firebrand is the only summoned weapon that can be used by all classes because it's bound to those gloves.

Forgemaster's Gloves.THey summon Firebrand 3/rest. It's very good until you get durgan steel.

Mabec's Morning Star is the second best morning star because it has stun on crit. That is great, but besides that it's pretty meh. The best one is Acuan Giamas, but it comes so late that it's of no avail to plan builds around it. The greatest joke is the morning star "Daybreak" which has a nice enchantment but comes shortly before the latest fight in the game (from where there's no turning back). No idea why they placed that nice weapon there. Cruelty maybe...

Yeah, it still has those issues. At least the +25 deflection works properly. I recently tried a "behind the lines" rogue with Escape and the Cape in order to get one more use per encounter. This totally messed up both abilites - as if the game didn't know which one I already used and which not. At one point both were blocked until save/reaload because the game thought both are still "active". I couldn't activate them anymore. So... not so well implemented.

Don't know if Escape cancels the beam. I never tested this. Monk and FIghter work very well. Also tested Paladin with Zealous Charge: good as well. The perfect dragger micht be a Chanter because he can be useful even if he's just running around, trying to connect the beam with as many foes as possible.

I guess every class could work well as "anchorpoint" for the beam if Cape of the Cheat is equipped, right?

The phantoms' stun has a longer base duration I guess. And if the roll vs. fortitude crits then the duration is even 50% longer.

Chanter's Killers Froze Stiff also targets will - but I never saw an enemy chanter use this. Actually I never saw an enemy chanter use any invocation at all. Why is that?

That person was actually me. Nowadays I'm a huge fan of boar druids.

Yes, that's my favorite late game rogue: 2 Flames of Fair Rhian sabres and Talunthain's staff fpr 9 Fireballs per rest. Also Curoc's Brand for an additional one. Ealry on you can get Sun Touched Mail of Hyran Rath and a bit later the Amulet of Summer Solstice. That makes 10 Fireballs and 6 Sunbeams per rest which is very good with Deathblows (= double base damage of the spells). Also works well with a fighter and disciplined Barrage. Bot classes lack a bit of AoE (if you ignore Charge and Clear Out). Sunbeam is also great for rogues because it blinds for a decent amount of time. But no, I meant a quarterstaff as melee weapon. Except wizards with Concenhaut's Staff I know of no build that is focusing on a quarterstaff. Durance's Staff and Llawrans Stick are viable options, but they are not very exciting either. Same with morning stars, swords and pollaxes.

Err... paralyze, stun and prone target fortitude most of the time, mind control stuff targets will. The most annoying and the stuff you mentioned target fortitude and thus MIG and CON help. That's basically it.

I would skip Vulnerable Attack. With a two hander it will lower your dps in a lot of cases - instead of boosting it. If you like offense then I would take Intense Flames, put a burning lash on your weapon and also take Scion of Flame. This will boost your FoD bonus from 50% to 120% (against 0 DR). Scion of Flame is also good for your burning lash in general and for Sacred Immolation later on. For that you might want to have higher Intelligence though. Savage Attack is not bad either: FoD gets +20 ACC and +1 ACC per level which makes the -5 from Savage Attack quite unimportant, especially if you also pick Sworn Enemy. And Zealous Focus will outweigh Savage Attack's ACC malus while auto-attacking. Another good talents is Runner's Wounding Shot. It will give you an additional per-encounter ability and works very well with hard-hitting weapons. I would suggest either Tidefall or Hours of St. Rumbalt (actually a paladin's weapon which might be nice from the role-playing-perpective).

I think your points were answered correctly and in a decent manner and not "slandered" by any means. You shouldn't turn to sarcasm if you get proven wrong. Just try for once to accept and acknowledge that somebody was right with a detail while you weren't. It's no big deal. You don't need to agree wholly to my opinion, but making snarky comments when somebody just clears things up (while a short "Oops, got the Driving Flight/Twinned Arrows thing mixed up" would be more appropriate) doesn't show grandeur.

@firkraag: Please read again: I said Twinned Arrows have no reduced damage (which is correct). Twinned Arrows and Driving Flight are two seperate things. Twinned Arrows will fire two arrows at once with -10 ACC but normal damage. Driving Flight will make sure that every projectile will hit another target behind the inital one in an 20° arc. I never said that Driving Flight has no reduced damage because that would be wrong. And people here will back my opinion when they think it's true. They will also object me if they think I made a mistake. That you still say that actually shows quite well what I meant.

Great! I really feared it was broken.

No, it's +150 base dmg bonus all together. Another +50 would be too weak at level 11. Look at what other classes get at lvl 11 or 13. @firkraag - I never said that Driving Flight has no reduced damage. In fact I wrote in my first post that it has only 60% damage. Please don't post false accusations. Also, I still can't see where Kaylon used 4 arrows. His base damage calcs use two arrows as far as I read it. So Driving Flight's damage is not even in. But it may be that I missed this. Reading long calcs on the phone is sometimes hard. Why I won't answer further in detail: Your problem - or better: my problem with you sometimes - is that you tend to post things that are extremely generalized, massively exaggerated or wrong. That is not a problem per se, it happens to all of us sometimes (although most of us only make strong claims about two classes when they actually played them both till the end). But whatever, mistakes happen. But then, even if several other users come around with more experience in that matter, do some math, give some examples or other good arguments you can't ever admit that your initial statement was not dead on. You will start to get upset (or so it seems) and flail around verbally (although you seldomly insult people, which I appreciate). We've been there several times now and I think it is of no avail if I further answer to you at length in this matter. I have no problems commenting/helping/objecting with other topics though since I think I can seperate that. Especially when I post you seem to get very annoyed - although I try (at least) to post in an objective and mature manner. Maybe my tone upsets you, I don't know. But it takes time to write these things and also to check some facts here and there and it's no fun if I do all that and then face this reactions (mainly ignorance). So I really think it's way better for the whole topic when Kaylon answers your assumptions and questions. Your reactions to him are a lot more calm. That way you won't be distracted that much by irrational objection towards me.

Yes - works really well. Reason for rogue is that Deathblows doubles spell's base damage and that Deep Wounds works with spells that do crush/Pierce/slash damage. But this works as well with a fighter: more accuracy and sturdiness, less damage.

Man... I guess I'll let Kaylon answer this...

In this game monks are different. They don't need to be unarmed and they can wear any armor. Heavy armor is even better in the early game. Also using weapons instead of fists is better in the long run. And any offensive char who operates in the front gets damaged. In this case you will get something out of it. Lovely! I think there are some people here who agree with me that monks are the no.1 dedicated melee class. They just require more micro than the other melees because you put out "casts" all the time. So they play like a mixture of fighter and caster - somewhat comparable to melee cipher.

Stalker's Link doesn't need flank and stuff - as Jerrek already said. It was changed pretty early after release. Nowadays it gives you +10 ACC as soon as the pet attacks the same enemy. The wiki (where you seem to get your info) is severely outdated on some pages. Stalker's Torc adds +20% damage to this. If Stalker's Link should be taken out then Minor Threat (Hearth Orlan racial) of the rogue has also to be removed because it triggers on exactly the same conditions. Twinned Arrows have no reduced damage. Kaylon's calcs included everything you just said. Please read more thoroughly! It's debatable if 15 MIG will result in numbers that justify the statement that the dual wielding rogue will severely outdamage a ranger. We still haven't taken into account that Driving Flight will add even more damage. Sadly, I don't know the exact dmg malus of it so I can't calculate it's damage with Kaylon's numbers.