Boeroer

Exactly!

Unfortunately, Rot Skulls don't work with Spirit of Decay. The initial hit is crush damage and the corrosive AoE blast is a DoT effect (which stacks) - those don't profit from the elemantal booster talents. But of course (Greater) Wildstrike Corrode cries for Spirit of Decay. Rot Skulls used to work with Envenomed Strike, delivering deadly AoE poison via the blast. But since wizard's Blast and Spirit Lance were nerfed in that regard (they did the same) I guess Rot Skulls were, too.

The items with the best on-kill effects are the Tempered Helm, the Executioner's Hood and the Mourning Gloves. Still, I would never pick Bloody Slaughter (if it triggers at 10%). There are so many other talents which are better. It's even more beneficial to take Scion of Flame solely for your burning lash.

Monks start with the same ACC and -5 deflection compared to fighters while having more health. I'd say they are even in terms of starting values. But the monk has better abilities, I totally agree.

If you want to start strong and keep being strong then use a monk. Best frontliner class in my opinion if you don't mind micromanagement. Bilestomper casts really slowly, yes. You can take more DEX if it's too annoying. But more important: wizards need some levels to be really effective as frontliners. Until then things can be a bit frustrating. Monks start with the best starting values of all classes and they also start with some of the best active abilites in the game (Torment's Reach, Force of Anguish). If you want to hit more often with the Torment's Reach cone then don't use fists but weapons at some point - because the cone has it's own base damage anyways and the fists accuracy bonus doesn't translate to the cone attack for some odd reason. Same for Force of Anguish. If you want to specialize on that then in the early game it's great to use a single weapon, preferably dagger, rapier or spear because of the +5 ACC. For Torment's Reach I would always recommend dual wielding or weapon + bashing shield (the only time where bashing shields are good because their whimpy damage doesn't translate to the cone's damage but they still allow for Full Attacks).

You can make a decent implement druid. He can use the soulbound scepter - and even if you don't need the additional spiritshift it gives you, it still is a great weapon that early in the game because of the raw lash and also the superhigh accuracy. The Golden Gaze is also a good option but comes later. Your goal would be to use Rot Skulls at some point. This summoned weapon is way stronger than the description suggests. It's the best ranged weapon in the game in my opinion. Sadly, it comes quite late (spell lvl 6), but once you have it it's totally worth skilling your druid around its use. That means Marksman, & Dangerous Implement. Rot Skulls has big base damage and therefore the +25% of Dangerous Implement works wonders. Same with Apprentices Sneak Attack (you have enough spells that cause afflictions). Things like Cloak of the Frozen Hunt or Archer's Gloves work well, too. Everything that gives you damage bonuses.

Besides all that asian/monastic/martial arts stuff which is more a matter of taste: The monk is the most powerful non-caster class in PoE. If something's broken, it's that they are superior. Best starting values of all classes, great single target damage, great AoE damage, great disables, sturdy as hell, great "natural" weapon which need zero resources, they can even reflect missiles and targeted spells like a boss (try a monk with Alia Braccia + Soul Mirror). If somebody has issues with the lore and stuff - fair enough. But if one says that monks don't work in terms of mechanics and power in PoE then this person simply hasn't got much savvy (when speaking about monks).

Yeah right. Aloth's starting class is wizard only. Sorry. A post of Josh where he gave some examples got stuck in my brains the wrong way.

I'm sure we can develop something that looks similar but doesn't violate any legal stuff. Of course we'd have to confirm that.

Do ciphers gain focus from overkill? That's new to me. Good to know. Don't forget that a x% bonus to lashes is multiplicative while a crit bonus is only additive. I think that this talent is way too weak (with 10% trigger) because it combines a higher crit damage modifier with low remaining endurance as a trigger. With a slow, heavy hitting weapon you don't need this once the enemy is at 10% - because the next hit will most likely end the enemy anyways. With light weapons a +0.5 crit damage boost will not add a significant amount of damage (+5.5 damage, meh). So it's unlikely that this will end the foe a lot sooner. This is not enough for a talent point. It might still be useful against enemies with a lot of endurance (dragons, drakes, eyeless, ogres), but for the rest it's a wasted talent point in my opinion. At 25% it would be nice though.

Aloth's dodging has improved a lot.

Did you not read or watch any of the fig updates and twitch streams/transcriptions? Because nealry all your questions and assumtions already got answered (he's a MALE orlan, dual wielding pistols and so on ). Also "cipher/barbarian" in this case doesn't mean that he starts as a multiclass character, but his starting class has to be either cipher OR barbarian. You can multiclass with everything else then if you like. So, the chances that we see a barb with focus in ranged combat didn't increase because of this companion, but I would still welcome such an approach. He also starts with a hand mortar by the way. Edér will be either rogue or fighter, Xoti either priest or monk, Blue Man Dude has to be chanter or druid. Funny thing: Aloth can either be wizard or barbarian (hello Iselmyr!).

I know that he said that about Death's Usher (Death Godlikes' racial ability). I never saw this about Bloody Slaughter. @MaxQuest: can you check? That would be worth knowing. Death's Usher + Bloody Slaughter for the win!

Had to look up what "to teabag" means...

In solo, it's a great advantage of the monk over the barbarian that he has a cone-shaped attack rather than a circle shaped. It means that staying in corners not only lets you survive more easily, but also helps your damage output (all enemies will line up in a cone-shape) while with a barb it will lead to less damage.

He has a moon crescent on his forehead. He has fins and other aquatic features. Ondra is the goddess of the sea and moon (among other things related to that). His head is covered with some wierd growth. So it's pretty obvious that he is a godlike who's "blessed" by ondra - like moon godlikes are. Maybe just a variant of moon godlike, maybe a standalone godlike version. I think it's the former. Moon godlike racial ability is called "Silver Tide". I don't think they will (or want to) come up with anything more fitting.

Cool

The best defense is a scroll of Prayer against Treachery (requires 12 lore though) or a priest with Prayer against Treachery. Your whole party will be immune - which is a lot less fuzz than having to hit your flipped team mates with an Aegis-attack.

Sure. You can get Cladhaliath after Act II, when you travel to Twin Elms, even if you didn't join the Dozens. The dungeon is open for everybody then. Maybe you can get Shame or Glory if you kill Clyver (head of the Cr. Knights). That would mean that you don't have to joind the Knights. Since you can also kill Wenan (head of the Dozens) in order to get Cloudpiercer that might work, but I never tried it with Clyver. If it works you could actually get Cladhaliath + Shame or Glory while joining house Doemenel.

Sounds nice. Although a paladin with a marking ranged weapon might need less running around. Did you think about Cape of the Cheat (if the path is blocked)? Or did you perhaps use Fast Runner + Graceful Retreat + item with disengaging bonus (boots or armor or cape) for a total bonus of +32? He could also use a shield just for the way to his target to prevent hits. Because I can imagine that all the disengagement attacks can be frustrating once there's no open space and you have to run past enemies.

Also works with Shame & Glory + Cladhaliath. Of course you need to clone Cladhaliath if you don't want to join the Crucible Knights.

For me the really nice and "unique" unique items (Spelltongue, Bittercut, Redeemer and so on) with unusual enchantments as well as the (mostly) great new abilites also played a major role. I mean who doesn't love Sacred Immolation and stuff?

Also did a quick test on the barb+carnage+marking. Confirmed: carnage doesn't work with marking.

Yes, he still gets the bonus for target A because he's the only one (besides the paladin) who's attacking A at the moment. Fighter doesn't interfere here. Yeah - this makes a marking paladin (or any other build that uses marking) even more useful. Who would have thought that this idle time after casting (=cancelling the attack) is such a nice thing to have. While casting untargeted AoE spells (doing the animation and so on) the marking is not claimed - the game only checks who gets marking once such AoE spell hits. It's awesome. Maybe a caster will claim marking right away during casting time if he uses a targeted spell (missiles or such). I think he does. So in combination with marking you would want to use non-targeted spells. So spells like Nocrotic Lance, Missiles, Bolts and whatnot and the whole cipher class don't benefit from this "quirk". It's not really a quirk though.

Ha - I know what happened I guess. I tried it with the same character/spell setup that you described and got the same results. So rejoice, you're not going insane or something - and you made no mistakes. However, marking and CA still work as intended. It's just that a caster switches to idle right after his spellcasting. Once the wizard switches from casting to idle, he will not "call for" the marking bonus and therefore the priest will claim it automatically. Then, after tjhe priest's spell hit, the wizard can use the marking again if he's casting again. Only if the two spells hit at the exact same time only one caster will get the bonus. Since this rarely happens, this is great news for casters + marking. Really great. You just have to make sure that nobody who is using weapon (auto)attacks claims the marking, because then it will be "blocked" for all others. He will not turn idle after every weapon attack and thus the marking will not be free to "float around" like it does when a caster attacks and then immediately turns idle. I guess this can be used best when you turn off AI completely (as I always do anyway). Hope you can follow me...