Boeroer

You could open combat with a blunderbuss- or pistol-backstab and then switch to dual sabres. You could also deal backstabs with sabres of course, but they don't have higher base damage than the other slow onehanders anymore, only a mere +20% damage bonus (which is +2,7 damage in average). They got nerfed. So Backstab isn't really great with them. Just ok. If you like sabres then it's cool, but they are not the no. 1 one handed dps option anymore because they lost their high base damage, they only do slash damage and the +2.7 from "sharp" doesn't make up for that. Bittercut's excluded of course because it has two damage types and another +20% can be added by Spirit of Decay. The no.1 one handed option would be war hammers now I guess. But I also think that a rogue with dual hammers looks weird. A reach weapon for backstab is convenient (nearly no micro) and effective, too. But it's not superduper overpowered or something.

The first is the woman you can talk to in the lower floor of Brackenbury Sanatorium. She stands near the entrance of the central hall (not north ward). She got awakened and rememberes a past life where she was rich and fancy. This made her life sour. The second is Serel's compagnon (forgot the name) whom you can find in the Charred Barrel and who gives you the quest to get back his glanfathan/engwythan amulet from Serel.

But that's the best part.

Sorry - I skipped parts of the vid because of mobile internet connection and must have missed that detail.

I guess this even works when you are immune because of a prayer against fear? Because the attack roll vs. your will defense is still happening...?

But it seems the bug is in FoD and not in Zealous Focus?

That's a ton of micro for your everyday encounter, but it might indeed work, you are right. Backsgtab damage stacks with Sneak + Deathblows by the way. If you wait in stealth (or invisibility) until your chosen target has 2 affliction, then you will deal +300% bonus damage - which is really devastating with a gun. I like reach weapons best for backstab. No micro involved when you just stay stealthed until the enemy engages your frontline and you simply attack from stealth. Reach weapons have a decent amount of base damage, you can backstab from he second row - and you get two backstab attacks anyway - if you're dual wiedlung or using a two hander. Sadly there are no annihilating reach weapons. But Tall Grass is nice. As I said before, the real king of backstab damage is Firebrand (which youcan only use from invisibility, because summoning breaks stealth). Hours of St. Rumbalt is also very nice, but you have to get into melee range and expose yourself. However, the high base damage, the prone on crit and the annihilation and the fact that you can buy it rel. early team up very well with a backstab build. An arquebus is also great, but usually you only get one backstab-attack with it instead of two melee/reach swings. Enemies' AI is diverse. Barbarians use to attack the target with the lowest deflection, others like to attack the lowest DR, others the lowest endurance/health and again others will attack casters first. So one can't say there's a general rule how/whom they attack. Somebody once explained it here in the forums, but I forgot to be honest.

Ah, now I get it. Sorry. I misinterpreted your post. Strange behaviour of FoD anyway. It wasn't always like this.

This is so cool. Thanks for the video. It will also make fights against banshees and drakes so much easier. Wild Orlan cipher with Brutal Backlash here I come!!! Could be pretty nice in combo with a wizard who casts Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (-24 will, stacks with direct will debuffs). Or maybe this is a neat way to revive the Backlash Beldam build...

Torm, fine enchantment should give +4 ACC, not +2. So it should be 71 instead of 67 if I understand you correctly. So something weird is happening. But keep in mind that FoD gets +1 ACC per character level like all offensive abilities do.

If you want you can try this one: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/89995-class-build-counselor-ploi-charming-paladin-supporter-tank/?do=findComment&comment=1855024 This build got quite pleasant feedback from this community, so I think it's fun to play. He's not the tankiest paladin there is, but after a few levels he'll tank good enough on PotD difficulty. I would put another sturdy (not necessarily tank) character by his side. On the upside he's very flexible and useful: he can charm like few others (no problem charming bosses), he has the best alpha strike damage a paladin can have, his Sacred Immolation is great without the need for retraining and he's a great supporter. And he covers most dialogue options, too, which makes him a good man character.

Might be that FoD surpresses the +6 ACC. But don't forget that it's a party wide bonus, not only for the paladin. And it might be that the hit conversion still works.

Oh - maybe they altered that. Because it def. used to be inly 1/encounter. The bug was that you stunned yourself with it, too.

You will not kill or even one-shot a lot of enemies after the early game before the rest of the crowd reaches you. If you run away frm a victim as a melee char, you will always catch a disengagement attack that will briefly stop you. And since you can't take many hits, that will be your end. I tried several rogue builds for Backstab and the best tactic so far is to wait stealthed in the second row until the enemies engage you front line and then do the Backstab - either with a reach weapon or with a gun. All other approaches that unclude sneaking up on enemies and kill them asap, then flee most of the time screw up. You would need to disable engagement with Smoke Cloud or with a disbling affliction in order to prevent the victim to hit you if you have to flee early. Smoke Ckoud comes pretty late, but I don't know which other things could work. Escape comes to mind, but after your Backstab you will have recovery time. You click your Escape button but will get interrupted and killed before it your recovery finishes. I tried it and it doesn't work too often. So you either raise your defenses for disengagement (Fast Runner, Graceful Retreat, item with bonus against diseng. attacks like Night Runner or that generic cape) or you make yourself sturdy enough to survive a few hits (Veteran's Recovery or whatever). You could even sneak up, do Backstabs and then switch to a hatchet + large shield setup just for fleeing. That might actually work. Switching to that setup will immediately give you higher defenses - even without weapon & shield style.

Tehehe, who is?

You can overwrite fine with exeptional, superb or legendary. Same with exeptional -> superb, legendary and so on. You don't need to have 6 free points to put superb on an Item that already is exeptional. The 4 points from exeptional will be freed up and be used by the superb enchantment. So if a weapon is exeptional (needs 4) and you have 2 points left you can put superb (needs 6) on it.

Why do you unstealth to pull him? Just shoot him out of stealth from a distance while he returns. If you want to use split-pulling a lot you might want to invest in Fast Runner until you get the Boots of Speed from the foot that sticks out of Russetwood's landslide. In my opinion pulling works best with a bow, fast move speed and Shot on the Run. Once the enemy turns around (the faster you are the earlier they will turn) I will shoot him. Once I start running away again they usually turn immediately.

Actually this was revealed quite soon after the fig campaign started. Together with dual wielding pistols. The first artwork of the party on a ship made a lot of people ask about that blueish orlan with two pistols.

I pledged exactly 100$ and I didn't get anything - no nessage, no survey, no badges or anything. Maybe I'll write Aarik about this... Don't desperately need anything of the above, but maybe there's a general bug that prevents others from getting this as well.

I like LoH. With enough INT it lasts quite a while. The trick is to cast it before the recipient gets pummeled too hard. I cast it in foresight. And if it was wasted who cares? It's 2 per encounter. And better waste one use of LoH than being too slow and a party member bites the dust. High DEX shortens long casts of course. So it helps with the casting time of LoH. And it's the only thing that does. Recovery shouldn't be your problem (if you don't spam your useless auto-attacks all the time right before you need to cast LoH). Once LoH is out it's not a big problem if a huge chunk of recovery follows. The casting time is what prevents you from using it as an emergency button. And that is not altered by plate or anything. Only DEX. But it's true: once you do the things Natures Bounty mentioned you don't need LoH a lot. Regenerating is basically healing with no casting time and no recovery which makes it so effective. The downside is a bit of wasted healing here and there.

You might want to skip Vulnerable Attack. Sabres have enough base damage to overcome DR. In most cases it will cost you dps. Infestation of Maggots should have been fixed with the 3.06 patch. Maybe Bittercut's variant was skipped accidentially. I would take Backstab as soon as possible because it's very helpful in the early game where it can oneshot enemies. It works best with auto attacks (=you'll get two backstabs). If you use a strike ability you'll only get one backstab. As a dual wielder I would pick as many Full Attack strike abilities as I can get. Sabres are slow and Full Attacks speed you up a lot. And you get two chances to apply the affliction. With a strike ability the offhand hits first. So I would place Resolution there. I also wouldn't drop CON and RES below 8. Because that would result in a melee rogue who does 0 damage - because he's unconcious all the time. By the way: Bittercut's spellbindings have instant cast and 0 recovery for some reason.

Savage Attack doesn't work with Reckless Assault. Fast Runner stacks with everything. If you find Boots of Speed you don't need it though. Persitent Distraction is very meh. Distracted doesn't Trigger Sneak Attack or Deathblows. Interrupting Blows are not really needed because rogues' victims die fast. For Backstab: you'll get two consecutive melee auto attacks if you attack from stealth or invisibility. It doesn't matter if you unstealth on the way to the victim. It's only important to start the attack (click on the target) from stealth. So it's not too bad. Obviously it favours hard hitting weapons. Finishing Blow it totally useless in my opinion. Since rogues can crit a lot, weapons with Annihilating are nice: Resolution, Shatterstar, Battle axes and so on. A nice weapon is Bittercut: works with Spirit of Decay (+20% damage) and if you put on a corrosive lash you will profit twice from that talent. This will be as mich damage as with Resolution or Purgatory, but it will also have two damage types - what sabres and Battle axes usually Lack. Highest dps is Drawn in Spring, but it comes so late that it's not worth it to build everything around it. The best early setup for max attack speed and thus also great dps is Sword of Daenysis (Rapier, Defiance Bay, Salty Mast) plus March Steel Dagger (Def. Bay, Gordy quest). With thin armor, Two Weapon Style and those weapons you will reach zero recovery quickly. Later I would pick Vulnerable Attack with this setup because it lacks a bit base damage since it's fast/light weapons. Also looks nice - Duelist Style.

Most likely Sneak Attack will not work with the blast of the lance. But maybe Deathblows does like in PoE1.

There are some ways how to "deal with" large shields: 1.: Put more points into PER and lower RES. Extreme example: put PER to 18+ and RES to 4-. That way you will still have normal accuracy - like with a small shield with 10 PER - and your deflection will be the same as with 12 RES and a small shield. This in itself isn't an advantage, it's just shifting some points. BUT - you will also get a higher reflex bonus (+16 instead of + 8 ) than with a small shield (plus weapon & shield style). Basically you trade concentration for reflex. Since a chanter who's focused on chanting doesn't need concentration that's a good thing. 2.: Switch weapon sets. One setup with a small shield, the other with a large shield. Switch to the large shield when you're under heavy fire and back to the small shield when it's save. You can add a third weapon set to this: a single one handed weapon. When you use Dragon Thrashed and don't get attacked you can switch to the single weapon and get +12 ACC for that phrase. Since chanting doesn't get influenced by weapon switching and its recovery you can switch all the time and won't experience any drawbacks when it comes to your chanting. Same goes for your defensive values. They will change immediately after switching. If you take an Island Aumaua (Kana) you will already have three weapon sets and can do this right from the beginning: start the fight with the single weapon, once you get attacked switch to small shield, if you feel you get punished too hard switch to large shield. You can combine 1. and 2. The +12 ACC bonus from single weapon usage and the maxed PER work very well together. and will get you more crits while you are not threatened.

I think there's too much formatting in order to make things look fancy and medieval. A small table in the top right here (weapon pages for examples), a picture there, things like that. You have to put a considerable amount of effort into editing and especially into creating a new page in order to have a consistent formatting. I really like the Dokuwiki approach better. It doesn't look like much most of the time, but it's very simple and quick to edit an create.