Boeroer

Yap, that's right nonetheless.

My favorite dual weapon setup for a rogue by the way is dual war hammers, not sabres.

Or just give him ok MIG, CON and INT and pick Veteran's Recovery. It really helps.

Higher INT mostly for bigger AoE (Zealous whatever aura, Sacred Immolation), better heals (Lay on Hands, Veteran's Recovery if you want to take it), longer buffs (Exhortations) and so on. It also influcences the AoE of the Outworn Buckler's "herald" enchantment should you want to use it. Also affects duration of sumoned weapons (Firebrand). Overall it's a pretty importatn stat for a paladin (unless you're using a very special build). I don't say you have to max it, hust that it's unusual to have low INT on a paladin. You only need RES for some dialogue options (which will not alter the course of the game or give you anything special that you can't get otherweise) and a bit of deflection and concentration. So, you don't have to max it either. You don't have to max anything actually. This paladin can work well with somewhat balanced stats.

He didn't say that. As far as I understood from previous information (streams) paladins and priests will have more than three subclasses - because every order/diety works like a subclass and there will be no base class. But of course this may have changed.

I still didn't send it. Will do soon, I promise!

Yes, I was talking about Path of the Damned. I can't really remember a playthrough with a rogue at Normal difficulty and I never played on Hard. So my advice may be bad if you're not playing on PotD.

If your INT is high (I guess it is) I can also recommend Hours of St. Rumbalt. Because Sworn Enemy, Zealous Focus and Flames of Devotion lead to a +42 ACC boost, crits with FoD are common. And Hours of St. Rumbalt will do extra damage on crit and also cause prone for a rel. long time (because of crit-prone can be paired with high INT). If you also put on a burning lash, pick the Merciless Hand (Doemenel), Intense Flames and Scion of Flame then the FoD attacks can get quite nasty. Another alternative with the same talents/abilities is Firebrand (Forgemaster's Gloves) which works very well with FoD and Scion of Flame. Tidefall is also very nice. Only thing is that its wounding damage will get spread over a longer period of time when you have high INT while it would get applied quickly with low INT (a bit weird). So, the DPS with Tidefall is highest if you have 1 INT. It's still a great weapon even for max INT characters though.

You mean Tidefall with dumped INT max MIG I presume? With Hours of St. Rumbalt you might want to have high(er) INT in order to prone-lock. Another nice alternative is Tall Grass with a rogue. You can attack from second row which means you can focus even more on offense and you won't drop down as much. By the way there is no "general" build. It depends a lot on your party composition. The dual sabre, all offense rogue might do a lot of dps on paper, but in the game he will go down so often that he might fall behind a more sturdier but less offensive build that can fight longer and thus deals more damage over the course of the game. You can make a squishy rogue sturdier by adding Veteran's Recovery - but this needs MIG and INT to be effective. I'm currently doing a 5 rogue 1 cipher playthrough with 5 different rogue builds: dual sabre spellbind build, riposte/strike build with Badgradr's Barricade, retaliation/missile build with Sura's Supper Plate/Starcaller, Backstab build with Tall Grass/Firebrand/Cape of the Master Mystic, Tidefall/Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection build with 1 INT/1 RES/max MIG/max CON, using Runner's Wounding shot as main attack ability. And funnily it's the Tidefall build which did the highest damage so far - by a big margin. Then follows the pike backstabber and then the dual sabre rogue (who has the additional advantage of Sunbeam 6 times per rest). This gives a hint how powerful Tidefall is. But it also shows that the max CON and the draining from Tidefall pay off. He has no other healing source. But he's as sturdy as the dual sabre rogue who has Veteran's Recovery.

Edér can pick Armored Grace which reduces recovery penalty. Also, when dual wielding you will be 50% faster. Take Two Handed Style as well and you will be hitting pretty fast in plate armor. Killing Maerwald before clearing the whole level is totally OK. You will not miss anything.

Spear spiders' high DR penetration is correct.

Yes, that would be awesome. You can do it with shift + click in PoE - but you have to know what you're doing and you'll get no feedback if you did something wrong.

Chanters can be build with heavy armor and weapon and shield, yes. You can also build them differently, but the tanky approach will definetely work. Other caster: it depends what their role is. A melee caster needs more armor than a caster who sits in the back row. More armor means longer recovery time (=less action speed). Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff is so powerful because it has higher base damage than a normal quarterstaff and it comes exceptional. It's a good spell because you can deal a lot of damage with it and only use one spell. And since it's a reach weapon you can even attack from the second row - so you don't need to put on plate armor but can hide behind your front liners if you wish. Later (spell lvl 5) on you can also summon Citzal's Spirit Lance, a pike - that weapon is even better. A melee wizard is absolutely viable and fun. Mirrored Image doesn't go away completely if you get hit. Its bonus gets reduced after each hit (not graze - if you get grazed nothing happens) - until it's gone. The description is bad. Wizard's Double will give you even more deflection (+40), but will go away completely once you got hit. It's the same as with Mirrored Image: if you get grazed nothing will happen. Only a hit (or crit) can remove it. This can be exploited with Arcane Veil (+50 deflection) + Hardened Veil (+25): Those all stack and will give you +115 deflection. It's very difficult for enemies to hit you then - so it will stay for a long time. In my opinion Edér is a lot better if you put him in thick armor and give him two weapons like sabres or war hammers and skill him for offense. His Constant Recovery + Rapid Recovery + the chanter's Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits will make sure he doesn't go down easily. And Knockdown is much better with two weapons than with weapon & shield: you will get two Knockdown strikes instead of one - so if one misses you will have a second chance. I don't like fighters as tanks because they can do nothing else than standing around - no support, nothing. If build offensively they are still very sturdy but can deal good single target damage with high accuracy.

ACC bonuses will usually apply to ALL your dice rolls against defenses (melee attacks, shots, spells and so on). There are spells/abilities that only raise melee or ranged ACC (Reckless Assault and whatnot), but Eldritch Aim is universal. It will boost your spells' ACC as well. It's short, but if you can hit your first crowd control spell with its help, you basically won the fight most of the time. Chillfog is a pulsig spell. It will last a long time and will do a pulse every 3 seconds which blinds for more 3+ seconds and also does freeze damage every 3 seconds. So basically most foes will be blinded all the time and get freeze damage every 3 seconds. That's the reason why it works great with Combusting Wounds: every pulse the enemies will also get new Combusting Wounds which will all stack. It's a very powerful combo at such an early stage. Curse of the Blackened Sight targets the will defense of enemies. Chillfog targets the fortitude defense. Shades and Phantoms have lower fortitude than will, so Chillfog is the better pick. If you meet enemies with high fortitude (trolls for example), then use Curse of the Blackened Sight.

Marking Paladin (marking weapon or even dual wielding marking weapons, Coordinated Attacks, Zealous Focus) is great ACC buffing for a single ally (+26 or even +36 when dual wielding) without casting any spell.

Burning lash is my favorite as well. Also because some of the best things do burn damage (Myth Fyr, Firebrand, FoD, Sacred Immolation, Battle Forged, Turning Wheel and so on). And then, when I'm already planning to pick Scion of Flame, I will also pick a burning lash for my weapons of course. 30% instead of 25% is great for a lash. Spells aside, I think there are too many abilities with burn damage in the game and not enough with other elements.

Cool!

Can you guys also add a description that dual wielding already reduces recovery time by 50%? I mean it doesn't, it just doesn't add a penalty like the other styles do - but how can one explain this in an elegant way? And where to put it? Because the game doesn't tell you this stuff.

Companions stats are totally fine for PotD. Caed Nua is tough. It's ok to struggle there. You have to follow the pattern "buff ACC (like with Eldritch Aim) - do CC (like Chillfog, also use flanking) - deal damage". If you found it, give your main frontliner Rhymrgand's Mantle - it will heal nearly all of the damage the spirits will do. Fan of Flames is not as good as people think. If you still want to use it, cast Chillfog after casting Eldritch Aim. I know that those spirits have high freeze DR, but they will get blinded because their fortitude is their weakest defense. Once they are blinded (-20 reflex), use Fan of Flames. If you already have lvl-2 spells, use Combusting Wounds + multiple Chillfogs. It's not the freeze damage that will kill them, but the burn damage from all those parallel Combusting Wounds. Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon is also good against them.

When I did the ultimate with a barb (got killed in Act III if I remember correctly because of a bug with Battle-Forged or so) I skipped those unneccessary encounters. You only have to do the dragons, archmages and bounties. It's always very helpful to drop a weak summon that eats the first wave of CC (and dies). Buys you time. Same with a dominate from Ring of Changing Heart. It works outside of combat, that's really a great thing. You dominate an enemy, encounter starts, all the initial heat gets unloaded onto the dominated foe. Priest solo is tough at the beginning (few good spells, bad starting values) - and then it gets easy. Max MIG/INT approach with Shining Beacon - Cleaning Flame wrecks everything. And as you said: lots of immunities - so most o the time no need for certain defensive talents or -items.

But you can use buff and potions when using Shadowing Beyond - or can't you? Not quite sure atm. It might be intended - that's OK. But there's no feedback or any hint why you can't do things. You can click the icon and then it seems your char is going to execute it. But then the "action icon" will be empty and... nothing happens. If you don't pay attention you char will stand there and do nothing. So either those things like buffs would have to be greyed out - or at least there should be a hint in the description of invisibility and the items/abilites which are connected to invisibility.

What exactly Do you mean? Does Wrath of the Five Suns confuse enemies when you have Sabra Marie equipped and do as I describend above? And maybe also the crit damage modifier (+0.5) gets applied? That would be funny.

No, that's not an active ability, it's just a buff. It has to be an "attack" - so to speak. Only things that do an attack roll (ACC + dice roll against enemies' defenses) get this bonus. So, it's CC spells/abilites and damaging spells/abilites.

Another buggy thing: Invisibility from the Cape of the Master Mystic prevents you to do anything but executing offensive actions. You can't drink potions, do a self buff or whatever. Since the whole thing was bugged as hell in the beginning and still doesn't work 100% properly I guess this one is tricky. And one could check if the Bartender's Ring works like the hater talents or how it's coded. I guess it's dmg bonus doesn't work with (AoE) spells and DoTs? Just a minor thing though...

I agree with Kaylon. Most of the time 10% lashes (like on torches, Starcaller, Justice and so on) will do zero damage because they are eaten up by even low DR. This is especially bad with weapons which are fast but have low base damage. Those tiny lashes sometimes manage to get through if you're a rogue or somebody else with very high dmg mods and/or high crit damage mods (which are dmg mods as well ). There's a reason why they buffed the monk's Lightning Strikes from 15% to 25%: they didn't do any damage at all. If you can stack some lashes those smaller lashes make some sense at least.