Boeroer

It would all be OK if they just explained their own mechanics correctly. Doesn't matter what Unity 4 can do and what not in my opinion. Just say that attack speed mods only work on recovery, that they are multiplicative when they stack and belong to the same group - and name that groups - and that they stack additively if they are from different groups. Give two or three examples and that's it. Can't be so difficult. Any underpaid intern who can read this forum could write it down so that OBS could place it in the game.

But that's not the case. The damage and accuracy of the druid's natural weapons scale with level. And certain spells are especially good when you combine them with a melee approach (=spiritshift). All storm spells (Returning, Relentless and Avenging Storm) are a good example, but also Nature's Terror. Due to scaling weapons (= very high base damage at higher levels) which are paired with very potent lashes, inherent DR bypass and attack speed a spiritshifted druid does the highest single target dps in PoE game at high levels just by hitting stuff. But spiritshift is limited of course. As a bonus he can cast all those awesome spells - his best are his CC spells in my opinion. One of the neatest tricks with shifting is to wear spell holding gear like the Sanguine Plate, run into battle, receive a crit and then shift: you will have all the benefits of the spell holdings - like Frenzy - without any drawbacks - like the 50% recovery penalty from plate armor. If you take away the spells from the subclass (which can shift for unlimited time) then the spiritshift form would have to be even more powerful to make up for that, that's true. I would love to see more dedicated talents or abilites for the different spiritshift forms (I mean besides the existing that you can't influence or which are 1/rest :/ ).

I really digged Legend of Grimrock. The atmosphere was great (turn off the lights and use headphones ), the combat system is not too complicated. There you could also do multiple runs like in PoE because there were enough good and viable builds. It's a dungeon crawler like Eye of the Beholder used to be - and it's not too old. Grimrock 2 I didn't play yet because they refuse to release a Linux version like they did with Grimrock 1.

I actually like it that you can't tell which one is the best - even if you understood how the underlying mechanics work. All three have their uses. But you are absolutely right - the mechanics around dmg bonuses vs. lashes, fixed damage DoTs like wounding and also attack speed are very, very obscure (amongst other stuff). This could and should be explained better. My guess is that the designers don't *really* know how this stuff got implemented, too. Look at bashing: obviously Josh and friends didn't know why bashing itself takes away DPS instead of raising it in the most cases.

Tidefall comes a lot earlier than the BotEP. That's one of the reasons I usually favour Tidefall over the Blade. The other is the two damage types. Crits are good for wounding - like you said it's based on the initial damage. This becomes even more important if you get durgan steel. The more dmg mods you add the better for Tidefall - it's a lash after all - while the +5 flat damage of the Blade via DR bypass don't get "buffed" by anything. Marking is a very special enchantment. So I like to give the Blade to somebody who can somwhow use this enchantment. Like a damage-oriented paladin with Coordinated Attacks for example. Good damage and great single ally ACC support at the same time. And last but not least: the attack animation of estocs is a bit boring... But what about a third option: Hours of St. Rumbalt? It has two damage types, it causes prone on crit, it is annihilating (= +50% additional damage on crit). And it also comes quite early. This is the great sword I use most of the time. Fighter's high ACC, combined with Disciplined Barrage leads to a lot of prone-crits with huge damage. CC is much more effective than pure dps in my opinion - and when it's paired with annihilation it's even better. Also works great with high INT. I like high INT on fighters. If you start with a Knockdown then usually the enemy won't get up again.

Ah, ok. Now I understand which break point you meant.

It's great for the early game. Later on you don't need it, but it really helps to get off the starting blocks.

Death Godlike chanter with single haded weapon is a good thing. Come Sweet Winds will get +12 ACC and White Worms also gets the ACC bonus if I remember correctly. And of course things like Phantom and some other invocation fit nicely, too. Vile Loner's Lance might be a good pick. Works great with the Champion invocation that gives you +interrupt. Maybe add Interrupting Blows, too? Together with Mourning Gloves you might have interrupt-lock on single targets. Cladhaliath with stunning + vicious might also be nice. edit: thanks.

Moon Godlike Kind Wayfarer, St. Ydwen's Redeemer and Tidefall, Shod-in-Faith, Jack of Wide Waters armor, St. Borragia's Tears amulet, Lay on Hands, Healing Chain, survival 12 (14 with armor, +60% healing received), Veteran's Recovery, Fulvano's Amulet or Belt of Bountiful Healing. Wound Binding, Acolyte's Radiance. Youl will heal all the time - if you kill, if you use FoD, if your endurance drops, if you receive a crit, with LoH, with Holy Radiance, with Healing Chain - while you will have awesome regeneration and self heals, too (+105%). If your health drops too fast - use Wound Binding or potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. With that much healing bonus those will give you back a ton of health.

Nature Godlike monk with max MIG, PER and INT, Tall Grass with corrosive lash & Aspirant's Mark (or Greenstone Staff), Rotfinger Gloves, Ryona's Breastplate or Argwe's Adra or the Colored Coat. Enervating Blows, Envenomed Strike. Bilestompers + Spirit of Decay will give you +10 corrosion DR - combined with Iron Wheel you can have +20 corrosion DR on top of your armor's DR. You can walk into our party's corrosion spells without fear. Instead of Bilestompers you could also try Greenstained Boots + Wyrwood Ring. You can combine this with the Nature's Embrace belt.

Fire godlike Priest of Magran with Firebrand (Forge Master's Gloves), Scion of Flame, Suntouched Mail, arquebus with burning lash. Take the Doemenel questline. Wear the Amulet of Summer Solstice, too. Buff MIG and ACC into the sky and attack with Firebrand and your fire spells (you will have additional 6 Sunbeams per rest). You can add Flames of Fair Rhian and Taluntain's Staff as well as Curoc's Brand as backup-weapons - just for the fireballs (7 per rest). Fire godlike barbarian with Hiro's Mantle or Coat of Ill Payment, Scion of Flame, Blooded, One Stands Alone, Ryona's Vambraces, Vulnerable Attack, Drake's Bell with burning lash, Crucible Knights questline, Thick Skinned, Blood Thirst, Bloodlust, Frenzy, Barbaric Retaliation, potion of Flame Shield. Drop the Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool. Your retaliation and Battle Forged will have 9 DR bypass and Drake's Bell will have 17 DR bypass - great for carnage! Once Battle Forged kicks in you will have 8 bonus DR - if you wear any item with additional burn DR this will stack with Drake's Bell and you will have +21 burn DR once Battle Forged is on. You can walk into your party's fire spells without getting harmed a lot.

Dex doesn't matter when recovery is reduced to 0 by attack speed buffs - so there's no break point in your example (or I misunderstood). You can reach nearly 0 recovery with 1 DEX and the same stuff you listed (there's a tiny fraction of recovery left if I'm not mistaken - but it's so tiny you can't see it). But your attack animation will be a lot slower with 1 DEX of course. A fighter with armored grace could now wear a durganized scale armor and still have ~0 recovery. Same fighter with dual weapons & Two Weapon Style and the same stuff could wear durganized plate and could skip the potion and turn on Vulnerable Attack instead, meaning +5 flat damage per strike (that doesn't scale with anything) against most enemies. He would be as fast as the two hander guy. Somebody would need to do some serious excel-magic to find out which is better overall with standard weapons.

I also had the impression that when I put Fenwalkers + Suntouched Mail on Pallegina in my current run the poison tick rate thingy had no effect at all when you get hit by blowguns. I wanted to run some more tests but what you say confirms my suspicion. I didn not test if Fenwalkers and Potion of Major Recovery stack though. I guess not. The potion doesn't stack with Break Out (like on Blaidh Golan).

They should introduce some items that shift with the druid. I also found it sad that you can't summon weapons when shifted. A were-stag with wildstrike burn and a huge flaming sword would have been a sight to behold...

Frenzy does indeed get influenced by Spelltongue. Shod-in-Faith boot's Consecrated Ground gets prolonged, too. Lay on Hands the same. All buffs and heal with fixed durations that I tested work with it, including potions, drugs and scrolls. I didn't test food because it has enormous duration anyways. I did a lot of testing with a barbarian + spelltongue: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83388-class-build-the-leech-barbarian-time-bandit-tank/ I didn't test Sacred Immolation though and I can't say if it will get influenced. It has a fixed duration, but at the same time it's also weird because - as you already noticed - it doesn't show up in the UI and seems to be coded differently than the usual buffs. You will have to try out for yourself I'm afraid. My guess is that it works. If you use Sanguine Plate and use high MIG and INT you could think about using Veteran's Recovery as well (spelltongue works here as well). Most of the time I then can skip Lay on Hands - or use that as emergency button only. Since it's difficult to determine your endurance while Frenzy is on and when to use LoH, Veteran's Recovery can help a lot to keep you alive without watching at the green/orange/red question marks of your frenzied paladin's concealed endurance all the time. Just note that most of the time you will not be able to attack fast enough to prolong your buffs endlessly like a barbarian can do. Because paladins don't have carnage they only hit one enemy at a time with spelltongue. You would have to attack with very high speed in order to accomplish endless extension of your buffs. But nevertheless it prolongs the buffs and that's great. It works a lot better on enemies who are buffed! Then the durations you leech will be bigger than from those who don't have buffs. You will still leech duration from those, but a lot less. You can use this and charm enemies, buff them with some minor buff and when they turn back hostile you can leech the buff from them.

Scion of Flame is always a good pick fora paladin who uses any kind of burn damage - even if you don't have Sacred Immolation yet. Flames of Devotion and also Intense Flames as well as your weapon's burning lash will get boosted by it. So instead of having +50% + 25% +25% burning lashes with FoD you will have +60% + 30% + 30%. This will often result in higher burn damage than physical damage with FoD and is awesome.

Hiho! There's no special icon or anything. You can see that it'S active because there's a ring of deadly fire emanating from your paladin every few seconds. You can only check if Scion of Flame works with Sacred Immolation (it does, so no worries) if you watch Sacred Immolation's damage in the combat log and see if there are hits which roll higher damage numbers as they are supposed to. For example: Sacred Immolation should do 20-30 burn damage per hit (just exemplary numbers). Now the hits (not crits) in the combat log should not extend 30 burn damage (pre DR). Now if you take Scion of Flame you should be able to see hit rolls that do more - up to 36.

Were-Boar who is addicted to Mind Grubs...

Erm... what?

No, it's all about adding up lashes. Torment's Reach's cone shaped AoE is not based on the weapons you wear. It has its own base damage which is always the same, no matter if you have tusks or great sword or whatever. But the initial hit uses your weapons of course and with the additional +50% crushing lash the damage will indeed be devastating. One thing that bothers me a bit about the ever-shapeshifting druid is this: what do you need items for? Besides the Wildstrike Belt and spell bindings or spell holding gear that triggers before you shift it would make no sense to use any item. This limits the build options a lot.

Tehehe - right.

Yeah, like EVERY gun (and also arbalest) has. If you enchant the Disappointer with any quality enchantment you actually remove the disappointing part with the quality enchantment.

Single weapon only if you can kite (with Boots of Speed for example) and if there are no enemy casters.

I didn't say anything different. And obviously I chose 100 as base because you can easily add 50% to it. Not because some creature does 100 damage per hit or something. In fact I do not exactly know how the Girdle works when additional damage bonuses are at work, but it's not taking away 27% of the crit bonus damage alone - that would be quite whimpy. And my tests and the whole playthrough indicated that it's calculated differently. I saw no big difference between hits and crits.

Yeah, only the ones who are immune to fire.