Boeroer

Your approach is totally fine and correct. Doing it this way will make the game so much easier that even PotD is easy (after a few levels). If you now add a lot of accuracy before casting your debuffs you will reach the point where even dragons are jokes for a party on PotD. You need knowledge about stacking rules for that (and it can be confusing because the rules are not very transparent or consistent). For example with a paladin + a priest you can stack Zealous Focus + Inspiring Liberation + Inspiring Radiance + Devotions of the Faithful for your caster. He will have an accuracy bonus of 6+10+10+20 = 46 for his first CC spell (like Chillfog). Then comes your second caster (who will benefit from Devotions + Radiance + Zealous Focus = +36 ACC, too) who targets reflex with Sunbeam and so on. And then you can follow up with damaging spells that target reflex (like Fireball or whatever). Having two healers is fine. However, I prefer healing effects that don't need to be cast in a special moment like Lay on Hands - because most of the time it's too late then. Although Lay on Hands is very good, I concentrate on continuous healing effects that don't need any action at all ("regeneration" effects like Veteran's Recovery and Ancient Memory for example) or spells that can be cast at the start of combat - even if nobody is injured yet - and which stay active for some time: Consecrated Ground, Moonwell, Nature's Bounty, Garden of Life and so on. This way you don't need to use precious "action time" for healing but can concentrate more on buffing/debuffing/dealing damage in the actual fight. If you look at it this way, I like to have multiple healers in my party which are all not focused on healing but bring some (stackable) healing to the table. But this is just my personal preference.

Yes, before lvl 11 (with HoF + bashing shield) his offense is nothing special, albeit better than the offense of a pure fighter or paladin tank with the same stats. With HoF the whole offense thing will improve a lot. HoF doesn't profit from DEX or attack speed, not damage per second or whatever. It's pure damage per hit that counts and HoF favors high MIG, INT and PER, DR penetration and also accuracy in general. Because of that, at that point it doesn't matter that this char has low DEX and is superslow with auto attacks. His HoF will be impressive - even though his main role is a tank. To be honest this is all this build is about: being very tanky while also be able to shine in offense with HoF, circumventing his sluggishness. Then also durgan steel on weapon, shield and armor will start to speed his auto attacks up a fair bit - so he doesn't feel as slow anymore. Sadly - with a whole party at lvl 11 - you won't deperately need this sudden rise of effensive power because most encounters will be too easy for your party anyway. But it's very convient to eradicate whole groups with a tank (!) and end encounters much quicker than before. It even helps in dragon fights because all the ads can be killed faster and your party can concentrate on the dragon sooner.

Right. But if you can skill around FoD like you could in PoE1 (Intense Flames + special talent like Remember Rhakan Field and such + Scion of Flame and so on) you might want to use FoD only anyway. Also spares you ability points to specialize on one single offensive ability.

It's fun and it's viable. Also because the -34% dmg malus on carnage doesn't gimp your damage (it's only reduced by 2 points). After Durgan's Battery there are certainly better weapon choices, but it's viable until the end of the game. And it's a cool concept. MIG increases the bonus damage, so high MIG is mandatory for this. All other percentage-based dmg bonuses are kind of wasted, because they will only influence the whimpy base damage of 5-8. Savage Attack for example will only give you +1.3 damage - that's not worth the talent point. So you'll have a lot of room for different talents - like defensive ones or Veteran's Recovery or whatever suits your playstyle. Jojobobo did a whole run with this and reported his (positive) experiences. Don't know if his thread can be found easily. Sadly, he didn't write a build description yet.

At lvl 20 it's 11. At least that's the case atm. FoD costs 1 point of Zeal. So - 11 FoD per encounter at max. But FoD will not be as powerful as in PoE1 I presume, even if it scales with level.

In the early game he won't hit much without help and graze a lot. But carnage gets +1 accuracy per level so later in it's not that bad. Still I wouldn't use low PER because carnage only happens if you don't miss your initial target and AoE interrupts are a nice thing, too. If you use Novice's Suffering you can dump PER thoughts. The damage difference between graues, hits and crits are marginal when using Novice's Suffering.

Hi. Glad you like it. Yes, frightening + dazing + high deflection add up pretty nicely.

No! 11 FoD uses in each encounter for the win!

Like Forgemaster's Gloves will give you the spell Firebrand (3/rest) which summons the weapon Firebrand.

HoF deals more damage, sure. But with Charge you are so fast and mobile while dealing great damage, it's just awesome to zoom to casters, do a Knockdown, zoom to the next and so on. Also great that the target at the receiving end will take the damage of Charge and an additional Full Attack's damage. Most of the time that means instant death. Too bad it comes so late. It would make the fighter a much better class if you could take Charge earlier. You didn't think of Take the Hit + Triggered Immunity. Besides that little trick - I can't remember if the 50% damage was pre DR or not. If it's pre DR it would be benefical since DR would apply twice. But I guess it was raw damage, right? However, the trick is (or was) to build one very sturdy fighter with tons of CON and maxed out self heals who doesn't get hit a lot. I simply used a pike setup for the second row. That fighter could attack from the secons row, didn't get hit by enemies a lot and healed damage he got from Take the Hit via Constant Recovery, Rapid Recovery, CLoak of the Tireless Defender, Survival 14, Belt of Bountiful Healing and so on. A lot of damage gets concentrated on him and is not spread over the whole party, so healing is easy: you only need to heal him. That way you can build your front line a lot more damage oriented. Backside is that you always have to stay close.

Fighter is an example of how a single ability can turn a class from ok damage dealer to totally awesome damage dealer: Charge... @ MaxQuest: If Take the Hit wouldn't be so bugged (in combination with mind control - you will receive the damage of charmed/dominated foes, even if the mind control ended) it would be a very good ability. Tried it with a super-regenerating fighter once and it was awesome for the overall party sturdyness as long as nobody got mind controlled. Also Guarding Stance would be great if it only stacked with other deflection buffs.

Cool. I really like monks with a roguish attitude. Stilettos are a good choice because there are even slashing ones in the game: the Lagufaeth stilettos do slash damage instead of pierce. Just keep two of them with you for the encounters with pierce immune foes. That way you don't need to use ugly clubs or big sabres. A few ideas: - Azureith's Stiletto: procs Jolting Touch. Jolting Touch works with Turning Wheel and Blood Testament, meaning it gets up to +50% burning and +20% raw lash. With your abilities/talents/items it's one of the best on-crit weapons for a monk if you can switch to it once you gained 10 wounds. I would even consider Animancer's Boots (3 Jolting Touch per rest) if you don't have issues with endurance loss. The damage can be very impressive. - Veteran's Recovery: If you take it as first talent it's very beneficial. If you use it as the last talent it's of not much use in my opinion. It scales with level and that's cool, but later in the game you won't have such big issues with endurance loss than you will have at the start of the game (especially with Iron Wheel). Instead, you could think about Vulnerable Attack for the later game. Some dudes have really high DR... Without Gauntlets of Swift action or Spelltongue you won't get to 0 recovery with Vulnerable Attack on, but you'd only have 5 frames. And it would benefit the retaliation of Vengiatta Rugia, too. - Enervating Blows: they really fit the theme and work wonderfully well with retaliation (Vengiatta Rugia), Force of Anguish and Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Weakening is a strong debuff of fortitude, and a lot of cc spells and afflictions target fortitude - including prone (Force of Anguish). And you will deal sneak damage automatically once you landed a crit with weapons or via retaliation. Another plus: if you have another rogue you will cause instant Deathblow conditions with a crit of Force of Anguish. - Belt: I consider Trollhide Belt to be quite weak - even though its regeneration effect has no time limit. But 1 endurance every 3 secs is neglectible. How about the Broad Belt of Power? +4 (+2 MIG, +2 RES) to stats with one single belt is quite awesome. Also a broad belt might look rogueish. - Headgear: Munacra Arret fits nicely to Vengiatta Rugia (I mean visually) - and 3 charms per rest with high accuracy are always nice and strong CC. Like the rogue part of your character talked the enemy into something.

Sounds good. Don't make your damage dealers too squishy and your frontliner too defensive (menaing they can't deal any damage). And I would strongly recommend a priest if that's you first PotD experience.

Well, one could argue that dual wielding + two weapon style (and also durganized stuff) don't speed up your casting directly - but since your weapon attacks will have very low accuracy you can start casting sooner after you swung your weapon than without those things. This can boost the amount of spells you can put put out in a given timespan IF you are attacking with weapons in between.

Attack speed modifiers only influence the recovery time, not the casting time. Durganized weapons or weapons with speed enchantment only reduce the recovery of the weapons' attacks. But things like Mourning Gloves, Gauntlets of Swift Action, Spelltongue's Time Siphon do indeed reduce all recovery, including casting.

With Vulnerable Attack and still having 0 recovery it's all good. Good thing about rapier + dagger is that you'll have two damage types. Dagger + dagger can be nice because of Flick of the Wrist + dagger's inherent +5 ACC. Sword of Daenysis + Vulnerable Attack + Ryona's Vambraces would have 11 DR bypass, March Steel Dagger 8 DR bypass. That's great with high attack speed. High attack speed is also nice when it comes to casting. You can intersperse spells a lot faster if you don't have recovery on your weapons. Only thing that is always bad with low dmg weapons are lashes - no matter how much DR bypass you stack. Luckily you can use Body Attunement to lower enemies' DR directly.

You can also do that. Thing is that Two Weapon Style and also WF Peasant work for both tusks and fists (or dual hatchets or spears). It's just efficient. If you take Veteran's Recovery as first talent and are not in the frontline you should be good. Novice's fists are not bad in the early game. Especially then you will graze a lot more than later in the game - and as I said the fists don't care as much about grazes as weapons do. In the early game there are also not many crush immune foes. I simply liked it that you don't need to care about weapons.

One time. It will get looped.

Basically it all boils down to: raise your accuracy as much as you can -> use crowd control, including disables, on your enemies -> deal damage -> stay alive.

As I already said, the fight took far less then a minute at lvl 10, not 11. Because I used scrolls + Blood Thirst. At level 11 it would have been a lot easier because of Heart of Fury, but still not as easy as with a caster. It's more risky with a barb (if you want to play him like a barb). You have to get into the fray in order to hit as many foes as possible with carnage. For a caster nearly all tough fights are easier. You place yourself accordingly so that you can't get surrounded and then unleash all your spells, preferably buffs first, then CC and then damage. Most AoE spells have such a big area that you can hit most of the Xaurips + Cail. That way you will kill all the annoying priests as well who - in the barb's case - would start to heal their allies all the time and that's annoying as hell. You can't do anything but use scrolls to deal with that if you can't reach them with carnage. I used 15 Crackling Bolts with nearly no recovery (because nearly every Bolt caused the death of at least one xaurip) and it was good. But this just demonstrates how powerful spells are. And even a lvl 11 character can be killed by Cail if you make a mistake- or one of the remaining bugs emerges (potion drinking for example). This is Trial of Iron after all and you don't want to get too bold.

That's why I don't use squishies. Well, maybe one or two... at max.

Hi. Let's see if I can put it all together from memory: Focus on spiritshift damage and self heals: - maxed MIG and INT - survival 12 (+2 from Sanguine Plate): Healing Bonus III - Veteran's Recovery; works in shifted form and stacks with the boar's own regeneration. - Shod-in-Faith boots (let them trigger, then shift) or Sandals of the Forgotten Friar (to boost unarmed damage when not shifted and get a nice spell bind). Greenstained Boots are also nice. Shod-in-Faith has the benefit of not needing any casting time. It might get suppressed by your own healing spells though. A super potent healing source is Garden of Life, but you have to cast it on corpses. The more corpses the bigger the (AoE) healing. - Sanguine Plate (let it trigger, then shift) - Celebrant's Gloves (sometimes trigger before shifting, sometimes not) - Fulvano's Amulet (doesn't work while shifted, but good when not) - Wildstrike Belt (obviously) - spells and Spell Mastery like Form of the Delemgan, Moonwell, Nature's Balm, Taste of the Hunt (no mastery) or so. - take Novice's Suffering. It doesn't stack with the spiritshift tusks, but in human form you will have quite low accuracy and will graze a lotand don't crit much. Novice's Suffering doesn't care because the base damage is superlow but the flat bonus damage is high. This bonus damage doesn't change on crits or grazes, giving you persistent damage. You also don't need to put any resources into enchanting these "part time weapons". Novice's Suffering also works great with high MIG. - Weapon Focus Peasant (for tusks and fists) - Savage Attack (doesn't work well with the fists, but great for the tusks) - Two Weapon Style - Wildstrike/Greater Wildstrike (whatever element you like) - Heart of the Storm (or Scion of Flame or another element, depends on Wildstrike and the spells you like best). Since Avenging Storm is very good while going melee and I also like things like Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror I would pick shock/Heart of the Storm. But fire also works well for example. - think about Envenomed Strike. It's very good with high MIG and INT. - as for race you could think about Fire or Moon Godlike because Battle Forged or Silver Tide also work while shifted and you won't have headgear while shifted anyway. Dwarf or wild orlan fit the theme quite well. Because your high INT works a bit against wounding's DPS it's smart to attack different foes with each strike if you have two or more enemies that engage you at the same time. With Shod-in-Faith, survival bonus and self regeneration it's hard to knock you out after some levels, but you have to watch your health!

I have a lot of Knockouts on purpose when I use a barbarian with Vengeful Defeat. Besides that I don't have them that often. In Trial of Iron you can't turn off Knockout Injuries. Usually I don't play with dedicated tanks but sturdy frontliners who can take a beating but won't try to hold a lot of enemies singlehandedly. I also don't use DPS glass cannons. That way my party never collapses just because the main tank gets disabled or I can't kill stuff because my DPS squishy goes down. I like all classes except rogue. Not because I don't like the class itself, but because it lacks interesting abilities, is tedious to play and is not very effective for all that afflictions hassle (except early game). I also did solo playthroughs with every class and agree that casters like wizard and priest are easier than martial classes. Priest is special because he has all the prayers and also all the good ACC buffs. You can't substitute spell spamming. This barb is a special challenge. Especially because I go full offense and only survive through self heals and carnage-cc and interrupts. I'm aiming for the Ultimate achievement with this. Bounties will work, but dragons might prove to be too difficult, we'll see. I already have serious issues with Adragans despite my very high fortitude defense. My general rule of thumb is that accuracy beats everything else in this game - so that's my focus. One reason why I like paladins and priests. Dragons are a joke if you can always crit-charm or crit-prone them with a char whose ACC you buffed into the sky. Barbs and monks are special fun for me because of their mechanics. I can't record vids and play at the same time. My hardware is to weak. I run PoE at minimum graphics (resolution 1920*1080) and still have fps drops in certain maps. I will soon buy a new machine, but it will not be sooner than July I guess.

As long as he is using a damaging chant most enemies should stick to him. Always send him in first before the others unstealth. In my opinion, everything related to engagement (Hold the Line, guarding, Defender etc.) is pretty useless.

Lvl 10, not 11. The fight gave me the xp for the level-up. Tough encounters are always easy with casters. Rest before, unleash all spells and win, then rest again. Chanter or paladin at lvl 10 would take some time to kill him, bit less risky for sure. With a barb it took like 1 minute, but it's more risky. Especially because my barb is dual wielding hammers and has no shield. RES is 3. Good thing is that a barb with decent CON can take a lot of beating at lvl 10 - with enough self healing capabilities. A caster will die quickly if he gets surrounded (shouldn't happen, but might) because his health will run out. Ever tried Cail solo on PotD with a level 10 character - no kiting, no pulling? A paladin could do it of course, but it'll take forever. Now at lvl 11. I'm doing WM I - and the Craig Ogres in Stalwart, including Darzir, were a cakewalk. I sneaked Godansthunyr from the Sky Dragon's place and now also carnage's ACC leads to some stuns every now and then (exceptional enchantment). I carry the stunning hammer in the offhand because that's the hand that attacks first with Full Attacks. HoF will first stun most enemies and then comes Shatterstar with the high Interrupt and the annihilating crits. Works pretty nicely so far. Also, Battle Forge now starts to really do some serious damage. Next talents/ability will be Blooded and Scion of Flame I guess. Since I'm below 50% endurance all the time (and only drink potions or activate Savage Defiance once I hit around 20% endurance) this should be OK and add +45% damage to Battle Forged and +25% to Barbaric Retaliation.