Boeroer

So I did some quick'n dirty vector graphics to show what I meant with the "standard shape" and the "obsidian edge + inlays" in one of my previous posts. In this case it's the model/shape of a fine great sword in PoE, no changes to the shape, only the textures. This could be done to any weapon with a blade, not only great swords. Of course great swords has the biggest "blade canvas": This could be ivory + obsidian or so... What do you think?

First talent pick: Veteran's Recovery.

Yes, that's not the best strategy when using rogues. They do a lot of single target damage in the early game compared to other melee classes, but you have to babysit them a lot because they have abysmal endurance and deflection (for a melee setup) and no self buffs to make up for this. As I said: Veteran's Recovery and a thick armor help. Less babysitting but also a bit less dps. But you will deal 0 dps when you're kncoed out, so maybe it isn't a dps loss after all. If you reach Defiance Bay and unlock Durance's Shop in Crucible Keep via quest, buy Shod-in-Faith boots. Those will add a lot of survivability to your rogue as well without sacrificing offense. If you use those things you might also want to boost survival a bit (8 points are ok) in order to get the +40% healing bonus and also get Fulvano's Amulet (it's obtainable very early) which will give you additional +25% healing bonus. Those bonuses also boost Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith. That way your rogue will be sturdy enough for most encounters because his self healing capabilites will be very good. Those bonuses also work with any other heals you might receive, including potions. Then comes the part where you will run into health issues. Potions with Infuse with Vital Essence can help a lot here.

Only attack disables enemies. If you find that boring, pick up a thick armor (brigandine is thick but doesn't look too bulky) and Veteran's Recovery. You have decent INT so it will last long enough. It helps with endurance loss without the need of micromanagement. It obviously doesn't help with health loss.

In my opinion you roll a cipher for good weapons damage + mind control. The rest that comes later is only bonus and not really crucial - because who will challenge you anyways when your party is lvl 13+?. But mind control at such early stages in the game and with such good accuracy is invaluable. 3 CON on a melee cipher can work - however, it would be too much of a hassle for me.

Depends how you use and build them. For me, even lvl 1 barbs don't suck. You have to play out their strengths and avoid the weak spots. They have low deflection but good endurance and health. Veteran's Recovery for example adds a lot of survivability - especially when paired with Frenzy and high INT. A barb with a reach weapon can be very beneficial in the early game when you like to use chokepoints. And with reach weapons it's also easier to place the center of carnage better so you hit more foes.

Disable them asap. Knockdown, Slicken and so on. But charming them is the best way to deal with them. They will unleash their Plague of Insects on their fellows and it's foe only. You can use Edér with Munacra Arret if you don't want to use a cipher for that. Edér + Disciplined Barrage + Munacra Arret = crit charms. I only mentioned reach weapons because some people get the idea that Defender + Overbearing Guard might be very good with reach weapons because those have longer reach. That's not the case with engagement which has a fixed range - no matter the melee weapon. If you want a great melee wizard then I would spec for two handers. Citzal's Spirit Lance is super powerful and every dmg mod you can add to it (Savage Attack, Two Handed Style, Apprentices Sneak) is good for it because its base damage is huge. For the times you don't want to summon it you can also use the Parasitic Staff (works with the same talents) or Tall Grass or Llawran's Stick or even a great sword or whatever two hander. Citzal's Spirit Lance + Citzal's Martial Power is absolutely awesome and turns tough fights into easy ones with only two spell uses. Spirit of Decay + Bittercut is also nice. Note that for a wizard it's very easy to reach 0 recovery with dual wielding + Alacrity. This is also very beneficial in order to cast as quickly as possible after weapon attacks. Single one handed weapon use has no advantage for a wizard like it has for a chanter. But if you like it then go for it. Arcane Veil is not meant for every-encounter-use. But Hardened+Arcane Veil + Wizard's Double or other defensive buffs lead to an absurdely high deflection value that will leave you untouchable for over 15 secz. This can be extremely valuable when facing tough foes. In a full party you can totally do without though.

Just note that Defender doesn't work with some other offensive modals for example Savage Attack. Could mean dps loss for your Edér. Sadly, disengagement attacks are not full attacks, so the best option would be a melee weapon with highest possible damage on hit. This would be Firebrand. But Tidefall comes close and is also good on Edér because he has only 10 INT. Wounding works best with low INT and high MIG, so I'd say Tidefall is your best option for disengagement-attack-damage. If you also want to cause prone with autoattacks on crit (and Edér can crit a lot with Disciplined Barrage) I would recommend Hours of St. Rumbalt. Also nice for dps with the annihilation enchantment (+0.5 crit damage). Synergizes nicely with durgan steel. Reach weapons like pikes and quarterstaffs don't engage with bigger range (reach), so they have no advantage when using anything around disengagement.

Boots that give you Dragon Leap or Charge or Escape. Pretty handy when boarding ships *zoooom*!

Wait-wait-wait! What about "The Black Belt"? It would give you martial arts powers, aka Transcendent Suffering? Or what about a summoned weapon? Would that be possible? That way we could get two items into the game. A ring/gloves/trinket that summons a powerful, black weapon entirely made of obsidian (appearence like OBS wishes). Like Forgemaster Gloves basically.

What about the "Black Isle Plaster" - heals all your injuries 1/rest? What would be easiest and won't interfere with ingame 3D-models and stuff would be a weapon with the usual appearance, but a different set of colors and/or materials. So, things like an obsidian sabre, stiletto, dagger or rapier would fit the pirate theme best. But on the other hand that's also pretty boring stuff - unless you'd come up with some really creative combination of the usual enchantments (because new, unique ones we make up will also not be implemented). So... the shape of the item can't be too different from items which will be in the game (but we don't know which weapon types and shapes will be in, erm...). Great situation that! What about a wooden sword with the shape of a "usual PoE2 sword", no matter what that fial shape will be, but the edge is made of obsidian, fused into the wood. This would not require a different 3Dmodel but only an easy texture change where the inner blade apperes brownish and the edge is jet black. Maybe also some obsidian inlays. It's a mystery how the creator of this blade was able to craft obsidian in this way, but the sword is light and supersharp (for example - come up with other enchantment ideas please). Could still be of Huana/animancy/shamanistic origin and might have onve been a weapon of revenge - the Huana shaman of a nearly extincted or enslaved tribe wanted to kill raiders/colonists/whatever with a weapon which looked like the ones they brought into the Huana world, but which consisted of the materials his tribe used and was infused with the magic of his tribe. Was also used to execute and sacrifice a lot of captured foreigners to their god(s). Maybe Skaen in a different appearance got int otheir heads at some points. Something like this. I also really like the idea of putting an ability onto this item like the Girdle of the Driving Wave gives you Knockdown or the Siegebreaker Gauntlets give you Cleave and so on. Because of that, and the possible backstory/lore I still like the idea of putting Blood Thirst on the weapon (= 0 recovery after kill). This would best fit to a slower, two handed weapon. So I think I'll vote for melee weapon made of obsidian.

Speed is on Rain of Godagh Field, not Borresaine. Borresaine has draining instead. I mean last time I looked at those. Persistence is a great bow, maybe the best when it comes to DPS when you have high MIG, but it's better with low INT and a paladin usually has high(ish) INT. Borresaine's stun however profits from high INT, so I'd say it's the better choice for this special kind of paladin - especially with FoD since that favours damage per hit and not damage per second and the +20 ACC from FoD is great to trigger the stun. @MortyTheGobbo: Of course it's your decision, but I would not take Critical Focus but something else instead. 5% is awfully low for a talent point, especially early in the game where one tends to graze a lot. It's better later in the game when it's mostly about hit or crit - but even then there are better talents to spare your points on. I don't take into account that the hit-to-crit conversion also works in an AoE (aura) though.

Advantages are: - melee attacks do AoE damage ("Carnage") - very high endurance - very high health - Carnage gets +1 accuracy per char level: only class they gets +1 accuracy per level for auto-attacks - on-hit/on-crit effects of weapons work with carnage and therefore AoE, will trigger more often. Lots of powerful appliances come from this. Great synergy with Carnage's +1 ACC per level. - highest possible attack speed buffing (self only) of all classes. Can reach 0 recovery attack speed with two handers without consumables. - the most powerful special attack (melee) in the game (Heart of Fury). Kills most trash mobs with one attack if positioning and build are right. There are also some drawbacks of course...

You really didn't read the opening post, did you?

Hi Fluffle. We will also have the new item class "trinket" in the game. It will get a separate slot and will provide bonuses. This can be anything from an instrument to a vodoo puppet and whatnot. Maybe include that option in the poll, too?

Coolio!

I hope not. Wildstrike damage got applied to Avenging Storms when that was introduced. And it was way too powerful so it got nerfed quickly. Imagine Returning Storm or Rot Skulls getting +60% shocking lash damage. Why play any other class then? The druid would obliterate everything in solo mode. And imagine the complaints once a player has to fight such a druid and the whole party gets stunned and one-two-shotted by a Relentless Storm. Not funny...

I hope they put really ridiculously difficult (but optional) fights into PoE2. I don't mean that the enemies should be invincible, but that you need to have a good strategy or have to discover weaknesses in order to beat them. Does anybody know Titan Souls? It's a game that only does boss fights and they are supertough. You have to find out in which way a boss can be defeated. An approach like that (not 100%, but a bit in that direction) would be nice for certain fights on PoE2. I once posted a brief example how such a fight could be done: your enemy would be a monk with the Long Pain (skilled accordingly), very low to 0 recovery and +6 move speed (Boots of Speed, Long Stride, Fast Runner) and immunity to stuck and very high defenses against most other disabling afflictions - and he would be scripted in a way that he would kite like crazy and use Force of Anguish, Stunning Shots, Skyward Kick and Knockdown from 12 meters away all the time. He would be sooo annoying and difficult to beat if you would just try to hit him in melee. And if you shoot him je would just get more wounds. You would need to find a way to disable him in order to get him. But things like Battle Forged and retaliation gear, paired with Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes as well as Rooting Pain would even make the process of killing him in melee painful - so you would have to do it in ranged combat while keeping him disabled. Stuff like that... So basically it's nothing unfair, but stuff the player also could do - but used in smart ways so that it really becomes a challenge. Another thing could be a rogue with Backstab and a blunderbuss, stacked DR bypass and a lot of Shadowing Beyond uses who uses randomly placed traps (hopefully trap mechanics will be better in PoE2) to cause afflictions and then delivers Deathblows-Backstabs from invisibility - and vanishes again. Not this "giant Kraken with five hundret arms and a ton of endurance who one shots you". That is kind of boring...

You confused health and endurance in your previous post.

Retaliation doesn't generate focus anymore. Bittercut's base damage is not a lash. It's the usual, direct damage. Lashes are: - Wildstrike - Greater Wildstrike - Wildstrike Belt - enchantment lashes on weapons (burning lash etc. also crushing lash) - Flames of Devotion - Intense Flames - Remember Rhakan Field - Turning Wheel - Torment's Reach (+50% crushing lash on initial target) - Lightning Strikes - Myth Fyr chant - Blood Testament gloves and maybe Recall Agony (not sure, but I saw some strange behaviour around focus generation when using this). Maybe I forgot something else. Vulnerable Attack for cipher makes sense if you are using weapons with low damage per hit. Usually those weapons are relatively fast (except blunderbuss and Golden Gaze). For other setups it's not too useful most of the time.

Your level is too low and you don't have retaliation. This build is better at higher levels. Solo PotD is especially tough in the beginning (Act I). You will have to kite and pull & split a bit no matter the build. No build is tough enough to tank everything in PotD that early in the game. After more levels, when your build unfolds, it becomes easier.

Right: lashes have no MIN damage and will deal zero damage if 1/4 of the corresponding DR is too high. DR bypass is ignored by lashes. So Penetrating Shot or Vulnerable Attacks Ryona's Vambraces and also rending don't do anything for your lashes (this is why blunderbusses with lashes are bad even if you stacked a lot of DR bypass). If you can lower enemies' DR directly (Stormcaller, Expose Vuln., Hel-Hyraf, Sever the Soul, Body Attunement and so on) this is the best way to get focus out of lashes. With this "trick" it's also possible to get good focus out of Justice's double lash. Because elemental lashes do generate focus. The crushing ones also do. Wounding however does not. It works like a lash when it comes to appliance, but it's a DoT effect. Those never generate focus. @dgray: stats look fine. If you're about to use more CC/disable a than damaging powers then I would put more points into PER and less into MIG. If you want to use Veteran's Recovery then keep high MIG.

It's THE perfect weapon for a "Tank & Spank" setup. Ouh... we could call it Spankenstein! *stein (german) = stone. Obsidian = kind of stone... somehow

Hehe, it can't translate it's own sh!te. Funny!

Which means...? Google Translate doesn't want to translate that for me for some reason.