Boeroer

Tehehe - have fun!

That's bad. Maybe a restart will fix it. Last time I checked (it was version 3.05 - do you already use 3.06?) it worked like it should. It's not uncommon for OBS to introduce a whole bunch of new bugs with a bugfix patch though. :\ Boreal Dwarf can also be very good since a lot of enemies at the beginning (oozes, xaurips, trolls, mushrooms and delemgans) are all wilders or priomordials. +15 ACC is huge and it stacks with survival bonuses. That's another thing: survival bonuses only needs 4 survival and gives you +10 ACC which is great in the early game. Stacks with boreal dwarf's racial feat.

Distant Advantage only gives you a bonus if you are not too near. Maybe the distance between you and the opponent wasn't big enough when this roll was done? Although it doesn't look like it... Also, always start with a cc spell before trying to cast a damaging spell. Eyestrike for example will hit better than your weapon attack (targets will which is lower most of the time and has a acc bonus). Once the enemy is blinded you have the equivalent of +20 ACC for your weapon attacks (blinded lowers deflection by 20 points). CC is stronger than damage in the early game. Since your cipher already does good weapon damage you should favour CC over damaging spells. Things like Eyestrike and so on not only make it easier to hit foes, but foes also don't hit that hard anymore. The best way to do it is to a) buff your accuracy (and other stuff like defenses if you feel the need), then b) use CC and then c) deal damage. The first two parts may be skipped if fights are really easy (for example if your level is a lot higher than that of tour opponents). All spells and active abilities get a +1 ACC bonus per char level by the way while auto-attacks don't. So not only the bonus to your base ACC at levelup will help to hit more often. It's quite normal to miss and graze a lot in the early game if you are playing PotD difficulty. After a few levels it's getting a lot better.

The fighters will still not stop attackers just because they hit harder, but the rushers will get punished harder for doing so. Also, since thereare more frontliners, there will be less space for the enemy to run around. Engagement stops the enemy for a short time - if you have two tanks it's more likely that the enemies don't reaxh your backline. Make use of Knockdown. With Overbearing Guard it's easier because enemies will suffer from prone if they want to rush past you. If you give your priest a small shield and a hatchet he can cast relatively unhindered and won't get pummeled that much. Weapon damage isn't very important for a buffing priest anyways.

Tanking with one dedicated tank does not work in PoE. And why should the enemies attack your tank who can't deal damage while the real threat is in your back row? You are doing nothing wrong. The game calculates the high priority targets and when your tank only tickles them then they will move on to your squishies. It doesn't matter that they are engaged by the fighter. Defender is totally useless if you don't combine it with high damage per hit or Overbearing Guard. The solution is to use more melee frontliners, to use chokepoints or to put on heavier armor. This may lead to less DPS or slower casting, but a dead character doesn't cast at all. Another thing is to use CC. A low level cipher can use Whisper oft Treason to turn an attacker right at the start of combat. This guy will normally get attacked immediately by his fellows because charm is a strong debuff which makes him a priority target. Same with Aloth and Chillfog: blinded enemies can't hit things and are really slow moving.

If you want to concentrate all support on your paladin's dps then as companions you want: - Priest for buffing: Inspiring Radiance (stacks with Zealous Focus), Devotions of the Faithful (stacks with Insp. Radiance and Zealous Focus), Champion's Boon and so on - Paladin for more buffing and healing: Coordinated Attacks, 1 marking weapon with Outworn Buckler or 2 marking weapons (dual wielding) - those all stack with the above. If Darcozzi then also Inspiring Liberation (stacks with all of the above, too). Lay on Hands... - Druid: Moonwell, Form of the Delemgan, Nature's Balm and so on. Also good for CC. - Chanter: Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr chant (the burning lash you will receive profits from your Scion of Flame talent and thus the chant wil add a 30% lash instead of 25%). Also great for ciphers since the additional burning lash will increase focus gain. - Cipher: CC, Pain Block, Going Between Also take the Doemel questline and get The Merciless Hand talent.

Enduring Flames is very good with low INT. Same with Runner's Wounding Shot. FoD doesn't care about INT. Zealous Focus is a must for a dps oriented paladin. Sworn Enemy is great because it lasts until the enemy is dead - no INT involved. Maybe this is a build where Critical Focus is not too bad. You should add Intense Flames and Scion of Flame. This will boost your burning lashes to +120% with FoD - which is quite ouch. Would be even better with an arquebus, but a great sword is also good enough. Other talents are Two Handed Style, Savage Attack and Apprentice's Sneak Attack Your main Weapon should be Tidefall. Its woundig damage gets boosted by high MIG and works the same as Enduring Flames and Runner's Wounding Shot: the lower it INT the better, the more MIG the better. With this setup you will do good damage already. Tidefall is the two handed weapon with the highest DPS if you have high MIG. You can do 2 FoDs with +120% lash damage per encounter and Runner's Wounding Shot with +80% raw damage. If you find a Gridle of the Driving Wave you could add a Knockdown with +20% damage, too. Now try to focus on the abilities which don't use INT or already have very high base durations (like Lay on Hands - still good even with dumped INT). For example, Healing Chain doesn't care about INT at all. Abjuration, too. Edit: With the Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection (Stalwart) ypu can even reduce your INT to 1 which is perfect for wounding, Enduring Flames and Runner's Wounding Shot. At the same time you get +2 MIG and +2 CON which is decent. -2 RES, too...

True. A tank might work somehow, but a tank who can do something else besides tanking is way better.

So... you want the challenge of a higher difficulty setting, but you want it to be easier because it's too hard? I don't want to offend you, but this sounds a bit strange. This game is pretty easy even on PotD once you figured out how the mechanics work and once you know the abilites and spells a bit better. No need for stacking items' attribute bonuses (in that regard). Anyways this won't make the game much easier because the attributes don't have as much impact as you might be used to. 3 points here and there will not make the game a lot easier if you already have troubles on normal. If you follow the rule of thumb "buff yourself -> debuff the enemy -> attack" you should be fine. There are some delicate stacking rules for accuracy (which is the most important value in this game). Those are very good to know. Other than that, I can't help you guys. I never heard or read about such a mod. Why don't you switch to easy difficulty? I know this is not what you asked for, but XP, quests, items and all the important stuff will be the same. The only thing that changes with difficukty settings is the number, type and/or the stats of generic "trash" enemies. You will not miss anything.

That's true. Then the second wind is your last breath. But I discovered this during an ultimate run - suddenly not so funny anymore.

Another thing about Second Wind/athletics: If you have a Fire Godlike then don't use Second Wind (or the watcher abilities) when you are under 50% endurance! You will hit yourself with Battle Forged. At higher levels this is suicide. It's obviously a bug.

Both would be cool. Why not both?

I'd like them to give rogues a few spoons of codliver oil and some anabolics.

They are all three very nice and viable weapons. I would choose the one which "feels" the nicest and is in line with my character and role concept. If you like BotEP and its speed (which is indeed impressive, especially if paired with Durgan Steel and maybe also Gauntlets of Swift Action) then you should take it. And a fighter who can provide Marking (+10 ACC) for an ally is also nice.

I thought I posted the following styles already, but I can't find them. So here I go again:

With athletics it's debateable: I personally would never put points into athletics when I can put them into survival. It's because Second Wind is a slow cast, it has a long recovery phase, it heals for a small amount of endurance only and doesn't scale with level. It's ok at the beginning of the game, but falls off quickly. There is a use though: if you have a character with very low INT, a lot of MIG and no other self healing capabilities (and you are really annoyed by potions or don't want to use consumables) then it can be good to use athletics. I just don't get why OBS decided for linear progression. If you don't plan to use a scroll with a character (or don't want to use scrolls at all) you can complety skip lore. If you want to use scrolls, scythesong's absolutely right. Stealth can be good for Backstab-Rogues or scouts or characters who want to steal stuff unseen - even characters with good (ranged) opening strikes can profit from it because out-of-combat per-encounter abilites/spells (like Flames of Devotion) will be reset to their uses if you manage to fire and hit before you get detected and combat starts. For all others it's completely useless. Mechanics, as scythesong said, is all or nothing. 10 is ok for most cases, but 12+ is more convenient in the high-level areas, because there will be some traps and chests that need it.

Antipathetic Field can be a reload trigger if the enemy you targeted moves unexpectedly and the beam hits your party. So watch out! Ectopsychic Echo is lot safer to use since it's foe only.

Ach dammit - I meant "Tidefall (with LOW INT)" - sorry! But you already figured it out. No, with a fighter I consider INT to be very useful - so I wouldn't lower it and I also wouldn't take Tidefall I guess (unless I do a very special type of fighter with no Disciplined Barrage and other stuff that profits from INT). I was just talking about Tidefall's dps potential in general and didn't meant it as a recommendation for your fighter. BotEP should be great.

@Fluffle: I can't send stuff from my paypal-address. It's just an alias that leads to my "real" email address. How do we want to solve that? Of course the email I would send you would be originated from the the same domain... since I have my own and it's my family name. So that might not be too hard to figure out. What do you say?

^ I completely agree. Lore is needed for casting scrolls. So, if you want your Edér to be able to cast a Fireball every now and then or to use a Prayer against Fear, he'll need a bit of lore.

Tidefall (with high low INT) might be the number one dps two hander (I'm pretty sure it is). You have to realize that the wounding damage is calculated before DR and then gets applied as raw damage. This enchantment is a lot stronger than elemental lashes. Not only because of the raw damage, but also because high MIG buffs the wounding damage even more (this is special and doesn't work with the usual lashes). So, it adds a second lash that totally circumvents DR. And if you INT is really low then the complete wounding damage gets applied very quickly (under 5 secs) and it stacks, too. I'm playing a high-MIG-rogue with 1 INT + Tidefall + Backstab at the moment and I have to say the damage is so good (even with grazes) that it's jawdropping. At the same time the draining numbers are so good that this guy is almost sturdy even without any other self healing. I reached 1 INT by dumoing it to 3 and then putting on the Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection (+2 MIG, +2 CON, -2 INT, -2 RES). Now I have 1 INT and 1 RES and a reeeally crappy will defense. Sparing Sky Dragon Eyes is a good point. Since BotEP comes superb this is an advantage. If you nuke everything into the ground with Shadowflame then you certainly don't need prone.

I like the BotEP, but I would never trade my Hours of St. Rumbalt for it (if I have a class/build which is capable of having high ACC, decent INT and is not too slow). Here are my reasons: - two damage types: huge advantage over any weapon with single damage type - prone chaining: after the first crit your target will most likely suffer from prone, lowering its deflection even more, which leads to a higher crit chance. - survivability: prone enemies don't hit you or others - very high crit damage: it has Annihilation, which will give your crits +50% damage (additional to the usual +50%). Add the Merciless Hand (+30%), Durgan Steel (+30%), Dungeon Delver (+10%) and Azalin's Helmet (+10%). Your crit damage bonus will be +180%. Combined with the high base damage those crits are devastating. - the higher the level, the more crits: as shown, crits with Rumbalt are better than crits with BotEP. The more you advance in the game the easier it is to score crits. - great enchantment composition: Annihilation and overbearing is a great combo as shown above. And Accurate III is quite cool because it gives you a lot of ACC early, but you can still remove it and put on better quality like superb and so on. So Accurate III doesn't block enchament points like Marking of the BotEP does. BotEP has Marking, which can be a very strong enchantment, but it doesn't do anything for your own dps but takes away enchantment points that you could invest otherwise. So, for me it's a nice weapon for a paladin with Coordinated Attacks for example or any other support char who also wants to deal good damage, but the composition of enchantments and the single weapon damage type doesn't seem to be too great for a dedicated dps guy - even though it has speed. To be honest, I would even take Tidefall before I would consider BotEP for my two handed dps guy. Especially if my INT is lowish but my MIG is high.

Bad luck. I once had the same with shimmering cloaks or rings of searing flames.

Yes - if you want to use Blast as a DPS tool. Imagine you hit four enemies at once with Blast and now, with Penetrating Blast, you'll have 5 more DR bypass. That's like +20 damage per shot. And it has no drawbacks. It's not a blast effect on its own. Penetrating Blast just modifies the normal Blast.

Great! I hope there are still amulets and cloaks with spell bindings (like Amulet of Summer Solstice and Shimmering Cloak).