Boeroer

It's more for solo. THere you can't stick to one weapon anyway. Barb with hammers, maces or axes are fine.

Why don't you just hire a new Gimli in a tavern? If you're not too high a level it shouldn't be too bad with the XP loss. Or is Gimli your MC?

Shatterstar is really good that early in the game.

Actually they have endurance times 6 as health. Monks have x5. In the early gane you can't feel it because their deflection is very low and the difference to other classes is not that big (in flat numbers). But wirh every level the difference in endurance and esp. health increases until they are meat shields. Same with his Carnage: He has an accuracy malus of -10 to carnage, meaning his carnage attacks have 10 less accuracy than the main attack. But carnage is an ability and all abilites get +1 accuracy per level. So at a certain point you hit better with carnage than with your main attack. And it's level 10 obviously. If you take Accurate Carnage (talent) it's lvl 5. So, if you manage to beat the early game with a solo barb it gets a lot easier. HoF is truly nice - but it's still not a supergreat solo class. Not compared to casters. Of course it's a great solo class if you hate resting - like the chanter. By the way: solo barb with Blood Thirst + St. Ydwen's Redeemer against groups of vessels = pure fun!

What do you mean with "better than the paladin"? In which way? The non-flanking part is realy good - if you care about deflection and loss of endurance at all. Tall Grass is nice because you can place Carnage, Barbaric Blow and HoF better, but of course HoF is way more powerful with two weapons (if you don't kill your main target with the first swing - because then no second swing will follow: always initally attack the sturdiest target with HoF when dual wielding). I did an Ultimate attempt with a dual wielding hammer barb with Vet Recov. and Savage Def. and so on and it went really well. I got killed accidentially by a bug (Second Wind triggers Battle FOrged on yourself, killing you when endurance is low). The fat health pool is not an obvious advantage in the beginning, but with every level he gets more meaty until heatlh really isn't a problem.

It heals health (or gives you extra health if it's already full) and doesn't exactly work like the tooltip or the description says. The health is not taken away afterwards. And it also works with healing bonuses from survival and items.

Rogue: The rogue per se has low endurance, low health, low deflection (the other defenses are the same as with other classes). So he really is on the squishy side (even if you give him decent CON he drops all the time in the early game). Keep him in stealth (scouting mode) until most enemies engaged with your melees. Only then attack with the bow. If he's visible right from the start he will get attacked immediately because he has low DR, low endurance and also low deflection. There are a lot of enemies who love to attack those squishies first. If you send him into melee he will die even sooner. Kepp him out of the fray and let the enemies engage with your front line first. That way it's less likely that enemies break out of engagement, risk a disengagement attack and go for the rogue (although it's still possible). After some levels things get better. If you feel it's too bad give him Veteran's Recovery. This will help a lot. And as soon as you get Borresaine you shouldn't have too many issues anyway. (buy it in Copperlane from the aumauan merchant who's located at the bottom right on the marketplace - marketplace is in front of the expedition hall which sits in the upper right of the Copperlane map). There is no real aggro system in PoE. There are just some preferences of the AI. It determines which basic strategy an enemy will choose (like enemy barbs like to go for low deflection for example). If you could kill the Ogre Matron Zolla easily you shouldn't have any problems with Raedric.

? That depends. Several classes can profit from those stats. Everybody who has to do with area of effect abilities/spells and durations (INT) as well as hitting stuff with good accuracy (PER) and causing interrupts (also PER). First to mind come: - barbarian - wizard - druid - cipher - chanter ... I'd say barbarian fits best. But honestly every class has a build where both stats can be important. By the way: for dialogue checks only the stats of the main character count. There are scripted sequences where you can send a party member with fitting stats, but dialogue is always done by the main character.

If you take Fast Runenr you can usually just run away once you get targeted. Enemies don't follow for long if you are faster than they are. And with Shot on the Run you can shoot while running (well, not really, but you can recover quickly while running, stand for a sec, shoot, and run again). Another ability as "oh crap button" would be Escape - or Coordinated Positioning. Although I have the experience that those don't work too well with really squishy rogues. Even though they are instant or fast casts you still have recovery after your attack - before you can escape. Usually you get attacked while there's still recovery left, you get interrupted and again interrupted - you are dead. Running away with higher moe speed always works (unless you are disabled). A geat thing is the Cape of the Master Mystic. It comes in mid game and will turn you invisible instantly once you receive a crit. And a backline rogue nearly always receives crits if he gets attacked. This really saves lives!

And crit chance. Since Carnage gains +1 ACC per level you can crit quite often at higher levels if you also take Accurate Carnage and Weapon Focus. But an interrupt build is usually also a good crit build - since you want to have PER as high as possible anyways. Also, crits don't happen as often as interrupts. For example against the Elmshore ogres Godansthunyr is not enough because their fort is very high. But they get interrupted like everybody else. There's also no immunity to interrupt, only high concentration.

Shatterstar is also annihilating which is the perfect addition to Godansthunyr's stun. Godansthunyr in the offhand will result in stuns (with HoF or Barbaric Blow) and then Shatterstar will follow, crit stunned (and maybe some more) with increased crit damage. If you have Merciless Hand, Dungeon Delver, Azalin's Helmet, Shatterstar and do Barbaric Blow (also +0.5 crit damage) you will not do +50% damage on crit, but instead +150% + stun with the first swing and +200% with the second swing which is neat. Guarding (also Shatterstar) is not needed on this barb, but it's the perfect weapon for a dual wielding fighter in my opinion. The good thing about this increased interrupt value on certain weapons (mostly of backer origin by the way) is that it doesn't count as enchantments and this doesn't take away enchantments points (or slots - however you want to call it).

Hehe, exactly. To make things easier, you can turn off the WYSIWYG editor in the top left corner and see the quote tags.

I consider priest to be the strongest class, but it depends a lot on how you play. Chanters is def. the class with the best lazyness/effectiveness ratio.

It's all a big mess in PoE. Attack speed bonuses (most of them, but not all) and reloading speed bonuses multiply, too. As for Twin Sting: good question!

If you let him chant "The Dragon Thrashed [...]" (and nothing else - it stacks with itself) you can witness one of the best AoE damage tools in the game. It even gets +12 accuracy once you give Kana a single one handed weapon (small bug I guess). He's not comparable to a priest though, although he can give a bit of support. Durance could boost Kana's accuracy, intelligence and might and improve Kana's chanting performance with "Dragon Thrashed" a lot. That's the power of the priest - and no other class can do that (for the whole party). There are crtain paladin builds that can also support party members with a huge amount of accuracy and healing and other support, but that's mostly single ally, not party wide.

With PoTD difficulty they are also one of the most powerful classes if used correctly: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/93570-help-i-created-a-monster-6-chanters-vs-potd/ For some the low maintenance is boring, for others it's entertaining. Depends on your preferences I guess. However, the implementation of the invocation mechanics was not really thought through. In PoE1 they are better as chant-bots, not as casters. Maybe in PoE2 OBS can deliver both (also with the help of subclasses and so on).

So, I'm curious: which high lvl ability or feature of rogues is better than Deathblows (that work with spells)? Smoke Cloud? Shadow Step? Feign Death? Sap?

Two handers have more base damage. So they work a lot better with all the dmg bonuses you can get (like Weapon Mastery, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, critial hits, Sneak Attack and so on) since those only boost base damage. Base damage is the damage an unenchanted version of the weapon, wielded with 10 might and bare any bonuses, would do. Against enemies with high DR they are better.

They all use weapon & shield style which gives them high deflection and reflex and they all have Veteran's Recovery + Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits (stacks, so it's 6 times AM + BL for every party member), paired with healing bonus from survival which leads to an impressive regeneration of endurance. They can only die from loss of health - that's why he keeps drinking a potion of "Infuse with Vital Essence": it heals health. On top of that he drinks potions of Llengrath's Displaced Image which gives him even more deflection and reflex. If he's in danger to catch afflictions (from andragans for example) he uses a scoll of Prayer against X. That's my educated guess.

Priests do make the game easier. But not because of heals, but because of the awesome party and single buffs they can provide. So, taking Durance will def. make a playthrough easier if you know how to use them. Below are the most useful abilites/spells of a priest: - Blessing: accuracy and damage buff. ACC is important here. THis will be overwritee nby most other powerful ACC buffs, except Inspiring adiance and Devotions for the Faithful (see doiwn below). - Inspiring Radiance: gives your party +10 accuracy which stacks with any other accuracy buff - Consecrated Ground: funnily this is a healing spell. Cast it prior to any damage you get. Jusat cast in in advance and put yourself in the middle of the party. - all prayer spells: invaluable! Priest is the only class that can grant immunities against afflictions. - Devotions for the Faithful: combined buff/debuff. Most importantly the ACC buff also stacks with most other ACC buffs. - Shining Beacon: very good damage tool, especially in combo with Cleansing Flame - Crowns for the Faithful: insane attribute buff. This results in +6 ACC (stacks) and +25 deflection (stacks with other deflection buffs) and +75 concentration. But you don't necessarily need a priest to have a good playthrough.

But which Lash is best? And which Slaying? Skip slaying, it only blocks points for the good enchantments. Lashes: just mix the lashes in your party like you want. Just don't do 6 times the same lash. Paladins with Flames of Devotions might want to get burning lashes.

I almost never put a slaying enchant on my weapons. As for lashes: try to mix it in the party. A paladin wants to use a burning lash most of the time. but for the rest it's a matter of taste. I for example choose the lash based on the color theme of the character or if it fits his main weapon. With attribute bonus on armor I would wait until I have other items (rings, cloaks and so on) which give you attr. bonuses. Those don't stack(!), so wait until you see which attribute has no bonus yet and then enchant your armor accordingly. Proofing depends. If you wear a Blunting Belt you might want to choose crush proofed. Generally freeze proof is a solid choice as well. If you enchant an armor with a weakness then watch out: for example a chain mail wich is weak with crush damage has a -50% malus for its DR value when it comes to crush damage. SO the mail has base DR of 9. But the -50% malus for crush makes the crush DR 5. If you enchant such armor with crush proofed, you will not add +3 DR to crush. Instead it works like so: (9 base +3 crush proofed) = 12 * 0.5 = 6. So you basically only added 1 crush DR. So avoid that by all means. Instead, build on the strength of that armor. Mail is great against slash, it has a +150% bonus. If you enchant it with slash proofed you will get 9+3 = 12 * 1.5 = 18. Just switch armor if you meet foes (scout ahead!) who deal damage which you are vulnerable to.

With dual wielding you will do two strikes that do a knockdown attempt. It's calles a "Full Attack". Full Attack means that if you have two weapons then you will hit with both. And obviously two knockdowns at the price of one is good. Also a good dps tool in the early game. Two Handers are also ok, but in the case of knockdown where you have a disabling effect connencted to your attack it's better to have two chances instead of one. In terms of damage it's not much difference. Same with paladins' Flames of Devotion: it's a Full Attack. So you should either use a hard hitting weapon for Flames of Devotion - or dual weapons like sabres, hammers, swords, spears or maces. Not the light weapons like daggers and so on! Because your Flames oD uses are limited to 2/encounter and you want to get out the max damage out of it. The most effective way is to use two (or three) arquebuses with Flames of Devotion (+Runner's WOunding SHot) and then switch to melee mode. Of course this means more micromanagement. Paladins can be great at taking out high priority targets and deal great burst damage. So it's viable to build a paladin focused on damage dealing. But sustained damage per second (dps) is not the paladin's domain until lvl 13 where he gets Sacred Immolöation which is just great. But that's lvl 13... Don't pput heavy armor on the back row unless you have issues with KOs. Heavy armor slows them down a lot. This also affects casting and so on. If they don't get attacked at all you can give them simple clothes which cause no slowdown at all but also grant 0 DR if unenchented. Casters are the strongest classes in PoE - so don't forget to use their spells. The order of the talents/abilites is mostly determined by level anyway. So it shouldn't matter too much which you take when. Rule of thumb: favor everything that gives you accuracy, take that asap. Same with everything that does flat damage or other bonses that don't scale (Aspirant's Mark, Inspiring Radiance, Envenomed Strike and so on). THose are most effective in the early gamne and loose power in the later gamne (or better: they don't scale and therefore are less effective).

Yeah, but concentration starts a lot higher than interrupt. No defense in the game gets to do a roll on top of its value. It's always a dice roll against a static defense. Same with interrupts. There are also quite some abilites/spells that increase concentration or RES a lot. But the enemy AI doesn't use those a lot (except Spirit Shield and Holy Meditation which I see quite often - sometimes even Crows for the Faithful which will give you stackable +75 concentration). Buffing interrupt is not that easy. There's only a talent and late game items and the bonuses are not that high.

It's 1 use per encounter. The spirit has to be of lower level than you in order to get destroyed. Else it only gets 65-75 (base) raw damage (like Redeemer basically). It's nice against stuff like Battery Sirens - but of course it's a quite circumstancial ability. If you take this you could also take Ghost Hunter, Sanctifier, the Redeemer and the Bartender's Ring and be the party's dedicated spirit- and vessel-killer.