Boeroer

Then he will be superslow (bad for casting and attack speed) and get knocked out because of health issues all the time. Health can only be healed via resting, special talents (not worth it) and potion (too expensive in early game). Shapeshifting means melee, and you do exactly 0 dps in melee if you are unconscious or dead all the time.

Release time is somewhere in Q1 2018 (which means end of March, right? ) - so I guess it's way too early for beta access.

This is a very low-micro approach (for a druid): https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83775-class-build-batsht-crazy-disabling-druid-tank/ He doesn't use shapeshifting but instead he uses weaoon & shield and concentrates on tanking and casting. It works very well - also because druids have ok starting deflection (for casters). That build is very slow though. You can do something similar but with more DEX and a small shield. Arwen uses a kind of sabre/blade with one edge (in the movies) if I remember correctly. So sabre + small shield would be good and look nice, although you will not use the weapon a lot. Dagger, sword an rapier would be other option. There's that sword "Whispers of Yenwood" which you can find in an urn in Caed Nua (throne room). It will give you +2 CON (stacks with everything because enchantentments on weapons don't get suppressed). That could be a nice weapon for you since it gives you something even though you will not attack with it a lot. Also it's spirit-slaying which fits her history with the Nazgul you know.

You can - for example - send somebody scouting and pulling the enemy. Preferably this guy has a bit higher move speed, but it also works without that. He pulls the enemies to the rest of the party. In this time you can do plenty of buffing. Never just run into a group of enemies and start fighting. Let the enemies run towards you. They can't do anything while they run - while you can prepare for the fight. It even works if you stop at bow or gun range and open the fight with some shots.

I told you (or somebody else) Threatening Presence vs. Psychic Backlash is a bad idea. One should be able to turn it off like a modal. Same will happen with Redfield or Executioner's Hood I suppose. But you can at least unequip those.

I guess they really wanted to do a word play with "Gold Packed Paladin"...

A really nice shapeshift druid who is also very sturdy is: Boreal Dwarf or Moon Godlike colonist from a culture you get +2 to colonist and not +1 RES. MIG: 16 CON: 16 DEX: 10 PER: 16 INT: 16 RES: 03 Aim for survival 12 (you will get +2 from armor, so the result is 14), rest of the skill points can go to athletics. Then use healing bonus (+60%!) or accuracy bonus (+18) or flanking bonus (+20%) when camping - according to the enemies you will face. - Boar form (has wounding and that's incredible as well as regeneration which stacks with Veteran's Recovery and gets boosted by healing bonuses from survival - no crappy per rest ability). Talents: - Veteran's Recovery - Wildstrike Shock - Greater Wildstrike Shock - Weapon Focus Peasant - Two Weapon Style - Heart of the Storm - Savage Attack - Apprentice's Sneak Attack - Merciless Hand (Doemenel): +30% crit dmg - Gift from the Machine: +1 to MIG and stuff - Effigy's Resentment (Edér or Maneha): +1 MIG and stuff - Dungeon Delver: +10% crit dmg - Galawain's Boon: +1 MIG Important items: - Sanguine Plate - Shod-in-Faith boots - Wildstrike Belt - Lost Periapt of the Winding Path The trick is to cast Form of the Delemgan and a storm spell (later also Avenging Storm) run into battle, catch a crit that triggers Consecrated Ground and Frenzy from the items and then shift into boar. The MIG of Frenzy will work very well with wounding of your tusks, obliterating everything with one or two swings (woundig gets buffed by MIG) and your healings will also be more powerful and the higher CON helps to minimize health loss and to boost fortitude. The armor penalty is gone while shifted. Consecrated Ground (up to three times in 1 encounter) will heal you alongside your stacked recovery so you don't need to waste time with casting spells like Moonwell. After you switch back you will still have good regeneration. Retreat with hatchet + shield and cast something if necessary or use dual wielding hatchets for attacking. It's fun!

At least it doesn't rust...

Good. I'd take Veteran's Recovery and Savage Defiance to counter the rel. low CON and he shouldn't be squishy. I did my ultimate attempt with a max MIG, nearly max PER, max CON (because of Battle Forged) and max INT build with only 3 DEX (not needed for HoF at all) and it worked well, too.

Yes. A ranged caster like wizard with implement is rel. straightforward and doesn't need a build description. In this forum you will most likely find tricky, funny or special builds which are viable nonetheless. Some of them are especially powerful. Some of them are "only" more fun to play than the generic xy classbuild. Wizards with summoned weapons for example are both: fun and powerful. You basically spare a lot of spells (you only need one or two casts - weapon and a buff or debuff to be effective in a fight). And the weapons are really good. Wizard with weapon and shield has some nice synergies on the defensive side: shield, Arcane Veil and Wizard's Double and such things stack pretty nicely.

Hehe - Firebrand is nice. It's also great on a cipher and a backstab-roue.

Lore is only useful if you plan to use scrolls. That skill is for nothing else. Now it depends which scrolls you want to use with a character. If it's mostly defensive scrolls you can take anybody with high INT who is not a caster (because those already have spells and usually don't need scrolls). For example a barbarian, a fighter, a paladin, a monk, a chanter or whatever. If you also want to utilize offensive scrolls (CC or damage) I would give lore to a character with high INT, high accuracy and high MIG (in case of damaging scrolls). Something like a fighter, rogue or monk. Actually rogues are really great for this beause Deathblows (lvl 11) which does +100% damage on targets with two afflictions also works with spells (= spells do double damage). Additionally, spells which deal crush, pierce or slash damage also work with Deep Wounds (Twin Stones, Concussive Missiles, Bounding Missiles and so on). This makes the rogue the no.1 offensive scroll (and spell binding items) user. Usually one character with lore is enough. I give him all the scrolls and let him loose if things get tough. There are some items in the game which will give you +2 lore. This is neat because you only hae to give 8 lore and still be at 10 where you can use the strongest offensive scroll and spare some skillpoints for something else like survival. I consider survival to be one of the best skills. the camping bonuses are really good. For example +10 accuracy that early in the game (with only 4 skill points) is hard to beat.

Barbs have Carnage - they hit in an AoE with every auto-attack they do. Besides that: Chillfog, Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon - and try Combusting Wounds with Chillfog and also Combusting Wounds with a barb's carnage area. It's great.

Huh? What's that? A companion. She is a Barbarian. Ah, ok. That's what I may do. I hope she has reasonable stats. Can I retrain non-custom NPCs? Yes, but not their 1st level choice and not their stats.

In a party a barb with a pike using Heart of Fury is also good. He can place the centre of HoF better than a dual wielder and eventually reach one or two more enemies which may boost the overall damage further than a second swing might do (because of the exponential growth of hits with every additional enemy) - in some cases.

I would recommend a pike barb and a paladin with Outworn Buckler. Barbs and reach weapons go well together.

No, if your MC is lvl 6 you can hire adventuerers of lvl 5. They will be actually higher of level than your actual hirelings.

Try this with a fighter: In the end it's Vengeful Defeat + Second Chance (on Argwe's Adra armor) that saves the day.

They do more damage and can possibly also cause disabling effects in an AoE with their autoattacks (carnage) because things like stunning translate to carnage. In my opinion they are a lot better overall than fighters - in most ways. Just in the early game the fighter is clearly better.

Mind Control is a strong effect that helps a lot against enemy casters. Go and buy "Munacra Arret" from Sonild in Admeth's Den in the Copperlane district. You can buy stuff from her once you finished the first quest of the Dozens (doesn't lock you out of the other factions yet). It lets you charm 3 times per rest is is great on any party member with high accuracy, like fighter, rogue or paladin with Zealous Focus and Sworn Enemy (also look here: Ploi). Another source of mind control would be your wizard with confusion spells. Or use Slicken or anything else that disables those pesky casters completely while you shoot at them. Fighter with a pike can be nice. More battlefield control with Knockdown since your reach is bigger. If it's Gimli you can pretend it's a dragonlance.

Yes, the weapon choice. Barbs are great in any party in my opinion. Also they can be build in many different ways and be fun to play.

Anyways, I only took those talents once. I would never recommend them unless you have a very special build. Potions of Inf. w. Vital Ess. is always the better option. Or the spell itself (as a mastery) if you're a wizard.

It's because usually he has crappy deflection (because he concentrates on dealing damage and not on defenses) and because he's a rogue. Rogues really have terrible starting values for a martial class (except accuracy).

If you rest after every hard fight, why would you want that talent? You heal completely with resting. :D

My main is level 6; and the rest are very close to level 5. If I hire a new Gimli, then he will be level 1, right? I think that's too much to catch up. No, you can hire an adventurer at MC-lvl minus 1. So he would be lvl 5. Costs more money though.