Boeroer

"Bastard's Grip" - a severed golem's clenched fist, made of obsidian, that is mounted on a rod and looks like a mace. However, on critical hits the hand opens and chokes the enemy, causing the "unconcious" affliction for a short time. "Misborn's Slap" - same, but x% chance that the hand opens and hits a second time on the same attack with a backhand stroke - or doing crush/slash instead of only crush "Black Flak" - a hand mortar or blunderbuss with x% chance of casting Smoke Bomb "Chimaera" - a black armor with two additional arms that is essentially a golem, giving you two additional weapon sets. Or a long tail that gives you Knockdown 1/encounter or a scorpion's tail that gives you Envenomed Strike or drake wings which let you do Dragon Leap or <insert fancy idea here>

I'm really puzzling my head over the "bastard" part of that bastard sword. I mean usually you could wield such a sword with either two hands or one hand. I don't know if OBS has planned such features in POE2 anyways, but it would be cool if we could come up with some simple solution how to make that bastard sword usable with either one or two hands. I can't think of any though...

Don't know yet if ths is the right spot or if the original BIB thread is better since it's pinned already...?

Push push! Now that the BIBs crew got funded this has to happen NEXT! Keep the ideas coming! Please...

I would also like something like "Black Bile" because it relates to PoE1 (Aloth's questline) as well as to Black Isle.

Now let's get that item into the game! Suggestions for kind of item and name? - cat o'nine tails (flail): "Squid" - bastard sword (great sword or sword): "The Mongrel" or hey! A ledger (trinket) with some nice passive property - or a 1/rest summon of a random BIB crewmember - with all the "victims" of the BIBs in it. Hahaha... sneaking in through the backdoor. Stuff like that? Edit: Wow - I got ninja'd so hard...

If Maegfolc Skull is the best helmet or not strongly depends on your class and build. One could say that Munacra Arret is stronger or the Executioner's Hood, the Tempered Helm or even the Crossed Patch (when you're a ranger using Powder Burns). But it's true that Silver Tide is strong - especially because you'll have it from lvl 1 on and it's scaling. Even if you'd have helmets in mind that are way stringer than Maegfolc and stuff, you'll never get them at lvl 1 (and their properties wouldn't scale with level). This is also true for Battle Forged, but it starts weaker than Silver Tide and the trigger "50% endurace" also prevents it from being too useful for builds who have mediocre or low health pools.

Twin Sting and Stormcaller are nice as well. Both don't care about Weapon Fo us. Stormcaller with Pen. Shot has 11 DR bypass (so to speak) and thus also works well against higher DR despite being a hunting bow. Heart of the Storm works with it, too (+20% base dmg). But the best way to get full focus very quickly is the Quick Switch way firkraag888 described. It is quite micro intensive though - but ciphers are anyway.

You could set more than one trap in the past. But it was too easy to abuse this and place like a hundret traps before a difficult encounter and then lure the enemies into it. So it got nerfed. Sadly, they forgot to buff the traps. Now traps you tap into (like Sunlance traps) can deal about 200 damage and upwards to you - but when you disarm them and use them for yourself they do like 20 dmg... wtf?

You can buy Forgemaster's Gloves from Dunstan, the smith in Crucible Keep, after you completed the first quest of the Crucible Knights faction (which will NOT lock you out of the other factions). This unlocks that faction's shop at Dunstan. He also sells Shod-in-Faith boots for example and the White Spire. The gloves are not very expensive.

You skill survivial up to 14 and use Fulvano's Amulet or a Belt of Bountiful Healing and give him Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits + Veteran's Recovery + Weapon & Shield + other defensive talents like Cautious Attack and Superior Deflection and start the game with March of the Kamoa until you get Dragon Thrashed. Or you skip the regeneration part altogether and put all talent points into defensive talents like Bear's Fortitude and stuff. That's because you didn't know that Blast works with on-crit effects like stunning and overbearing and also works well with spell chances like that from the soulbound sceptre or the Golden Gaze, making it proc its spell a lot more often (depending on how many enemies you hit with one shot - Pull of Eora helps). You maybe also didn't know that Kalakoth's Minor Blights will work very well with Blast, creating cascading explosions which lead to a lot of hits. This can be used with Combusting Wounds to deal tons of damage. Blast can also be awesome if you combine Penetrating Blast + Expose Vulnerabilites. It'll overcome 10 DR then which makes it powerful against mid-DR mobs, too. It used to be even better: Blast worked with Envenomed Strike so that all enemies which got hit by Blast also got poisoned. Sadly, that got nerfed recently.

Hi! Hm, there are so many good and fun party compositions that I can't say which I like best. Also - with every new playthrough my parties feel more powerful than those before - but I guess it's not because the compostition is so good but because one gets better and better at this game the more often you play it. But I can say how I like to build the official companions lately. Aloth: Aloth is good as the usual implement+Blast-wizard of course. But I also build him the following way and it was a lot of fun: - Main idea: combining Combusting Wounds with quichswitching blunderbusses (=tons of hits which trigger CW) for gorgeous alpha-strikes - critical spells: Combusting Wounds, Expose Vulnerabilities, Eldritch Aim and all missile spells - important items: blunderbusses, Ryona's Vambraces, Ring of Searing Flames, Coil of Resourcefulness - important talents: Marksman, Arms Bearer, Penetrating Shot, WF Ruffian - basic strategy: cast Eldritch Aim, cast Combusting Wounds, shoot three blunderbusses in quick succession. Follow up with missiles or other spells which profit from DR bypass (Rolling Flame, Crackling Bolt and whatnot) Lot of micro but also lots of fun! With Expose Vulnerabilites and all the stacked DR bypass (combined with Comb. Wounds) he is a really good alpha striker. This shifts a wizard away from AoE damage to single target damage (i mean when looking at his weapon attacks). Lead Spitter and Silver Flash are great... An alternative I tried which was also fun: Aloth as Mr. Fireball: - Main idea is to get 17 Fireballs per rest (and 1/encounter) and other fire spells and nuke everything with fire spells all the time without giving a shart about resting. - critical spells: Fireball and other fire based spells, Pull of Eora, Alacrity, Citzal's Martial Power - important items: Flames of Fair Rhian (2 times), Taluntain's Staff, Curoc's Brand, Helwax Mold, Amulet of Summer Solstice, Suntouched Mail, Ring of Wizardry A and B - important talents: Scion of Flame, Bonus Spell 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level, WF Ruffian, Two Weapon Style - basic strategy: with all the items you will have TONS of spell uses, most prominent are 17 uses of Fireball per rest and one per encounter (spell mastery). Good thing about spell bindings is that those don't get deactivated when you use Citzal's Martial Power. So you can use 6 Sunbeams per rest and up to 10 Fireballs per rest with Citzal's Martial Power activated. Together with Scion of Flame that will make thos spells rather devastating. Good strategy is to buff up and then start casting those spells. Starting with Sunbeam makes a lot of sense because the blind affliction will hekp to land more crits with fireballs. Citzal's will give you +8 MIG and also +20 ACC which is rather nice when combined with the inherent +10 ACC of most wizard spells and the +1 ACC per char level. You will have so many spells per rest that you can't cast them all during one encounter if you are with a full party. It's impossible. I think I never ran out of spells before resting because other party members had to rest because of health or other reasons first. Pallegina: Fire based alpha striker - Main idea: build around Wrath of the Five Suns and add more features that are like it and an snipe enemies at the start of combat. Then follow up with "support mode". - critical abilites and talents: Sworn Enemy, Wrath of the Five Suns, FoD, Intense Flames, Scion of Flame, Penetrating Shot, Marksman, Prestidigitator's Missiles, WF Ruffian or Soldier (blunderbuss or arquebus/arbalest, I prefer arquebus), Coordinated Attacks, Sacred Immolation, Arms Bearer - important items: Cloak of Minor Missiles, 2 arquebuses or arbalests (will most likey prone on crit because of Sworn Enemy + FoD = tons of ACC) OR 2 blunderbusses (when concentrating on squishy targets), scrolls with missile spells, Ryona's Vambraces, Outworn Buckler, Shame or Glory or Cladhaliath with marking enchantment. - basic strategy: use Sworn Enemy with Wrath and follow up with Prest. Missiles, then both FoD-Shots. Usually this will kill one to four enemies (depends on their endurance pool). Switch to melee setup an support your main melee guy/gal with +20 ACC and herald aura. Use Sacred Immolation then, too. Great alpha strike character and also very useful after that. Edér: "Behind the Lines" - Main Idea: stack regeneration effects to be very sturdy even when going the full dps route, then get behind enemy lines and cause trouble with good single target dps and CC. - critical abilites and talents: survival 12 (+2 from Sanguin Plate) for +60% healing, Two Weapon Style, Spirit of Decay, Savage Attack, Disciplined Barrage, Armored Grace, Knockdown & Bonus Knockdown, Rapid Recovery, WF Ruffian, WS Ruffian, WM Ruffian, Confident Aim, Charge (what did you think? ), Apprentice's Sneak - important items: Sanguine Plate, Bittercut & Resolution or Bittercut + Bittercut, Cape of the Cheat, Boots of Speed, Belt of Bountiful Healing, - basic strategy: use Escape to get behind enemy lines asap after buffing, then use Knockdowns and Charge and go on their nerves. Alse great char to "carry" Ectopsychic Echo from a cipher. Hiravias: Batsh!t Crazy or the usual Spiritshift build Griving Mother: War bow cipher or two hander cipher mostly (using estocs or great swords or pikes - love Firebrand on ciphers with all the fitting talents!) Kana: He's best in full tank mode with Little Savior in one setup and a single weapon in the other with 100% Dragon Thrashed. I also like to use Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits + Veteran's Recovery, combined with high survival for awesome automatic self healing (and healing others). Also works well with the Chillfog build, although that can be easily developed out of the common Dragon Thrashed build. Maneha: Hours of St. Rumbalt with focus on crits. Using Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst. This is really powerful after a few levels because carnage get +1 ACC per level - and with Accurate Carnage it soon catches up with your normal ACC. Crits which cause prone n an AoE and also are annihilating just rock. Another nice "quirky" build which is fun is Drake's Bell with Vulnerable Attack & Ryona's Vambraces, also with Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst. DR bypass of 16 with carnage is fun. For late game it's always better to use dual wielding, Ring of Searing Flames and focus on Heart of Fury though... Zahua: All about the Long Pain. Especially with Anitlei (= 0 recovery with Swift Strikes and durganized robes) this is a lot of fun. Rest like Witch Doctor build basically. Sagani: Stormcaller or Persistance - nothing fancy. The Golden Gaze is fun, too. The spell chance works with Driving Flight (= more procs) and Dangerous Implement + Vicious Aim + Outlander's Frenzy add up nicely. Also fun with Swift Aim in order to get near 0 recovery. Stunning Shots with two projectiles is also good. Devil of Caroc: Godansthunyr + Badgradr's Barricade + Binding Rope. This is quite awesome. The stun from the hammer + stuck lead to Deathblow-crits all the time - also with Thrust of Tattered Veils from the shield. This is one of the few builds where Riposte is not too bad, too. Durance: Fire priest build basically. Or giving him Inspired Flame and WF soldier, Runner's Wounding Shot and Firebrand. Firebrand works with Inspired Flame as well as with WF Soldier so you can use it with very high ACC (like a fighter) and it's really good with Aggrandizing Radiance + Minor Avatar (if you don't want to waste spells). All those are not necessarily the best builds when the game ends, but they are rather good in the mid game because you won't have to rely on end game gear - when the game is supereasy anyways.

It depends. If you can't cast Body Attunement yet a blunderbuss is really bad against high DR targets and you have to take Penetrating Shots, too.

Yes - when using Firebrand I skip DR bypass and missiles completely and focus on movement and melee crits.

One thing I would really like to see is AI scripting for buffing. It's so tedious to click on "fighter->Disciplined Barrage, wizard->Alacrity, priest->Holy Radiance" and so on at the start of every single fight - because it's so repetetive.

Another point for Firebrand: it actually needs no resources at all to be awesome. Aaand it uses whatever weapon focus you have. So you are not limited to WF Soldier.

Yes, as I said in my first post: blunderbuss + lashes against high DR is bad because lashes don't use DR bypass. Against low DR it's obviously one of the best alpha strikers. I think blunderbusses are better suited for rogues, ciphers, fighters and also wizards. Because those don't use big lashes but can stack high dmg bonuses and/or have an ability to lower DR on the enemy (additionally to stacking DR bypass). If you intend to use your paladin on squishy targets mostly then a blunderbuss is great. You can use a pistol to hurt the high DR targets better. Another alternative is Firebrand. With Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, Zealous Focus, Sworn Enemy and all that fire related stuff you can deliver devastating FoD-crits without having more than two weapon slots for more than one gun. Of course it's only 3/rest...

War Bow is a solid choice for a ranged cipher. But I would really like to see a cipher with The Golden Gaze. Soul Whip, Biting Whip and Dangerous Implements plus Apprentice's Sneak Attack add up nicely to a total bonus of +80% base damage. Too bad the cipher has nothing like Blast or Driving Flight to tune up the proc chance of Expose Vulnerabilites. Of course Time Siphon is nice, but it comes rather late. Another nice variant for a cipher is Firebrand (Forgemaster's Gloves). With its high base damage and annihilation it works extremely well with Soul- and Biting Whip as well as with crits (which do happen a lot if you use Mental Binding for example). You can also use gear that gives +10% against flanked targets and add survival-bonus to it (up to +30%, +20% is more realistic) and then use Phantom Foes to trigger this. Phantom Foes also works with Apprentice Sneak Attack. Scion of Flame boosts the damage of Firebrand by 20%. Add Savage Attack and Two Handed Style and you'll pile up the following dmg bonuses: - Soul Whip: 20% - Biting Whip: 20% - Flanking bonus: +30% (+40% in theory) - Appr. Sneak: +15% - Two Handed Style: +15% - Savage Attack: +20% - Scion of Flame: +20% ------------------------- = +140% weapon base damage without enchantments and MIG (Firebrand has Damaging III which adds +45% damage as well). With Damaging III this adds up to +195% at 10 MIG. On a crit this will be +295% (without Merciless Hand). Of course you can only summon Firebrand thrice per rest - but you can use an estoc or great sword for backup. Actually Justice is not bad because lashes do generate focus and justice has two of them: a 10% crushing lash and an additional +25% crushing lash. Of you manage to get that first lash through DR it's not bad for early to mid game. Later, with elemental lashes and durgan steel I would perhaps use Rumbalt or Blade of the Endless paths. But nothing beats Firebrand in the early to mid game if you can stack a lot of dmg bonuses.

Yes, they do. Especially Missile Barrage is powerful in that regard - Concussive Missiles, too because they work in an AoE like Combusting Wounds does. If you want to utilize Combusting Wounds more you can use blunderbusses (6 hits at once) with high DR bypass. But those are really bad against high DR foes with Flames of Devotions (lashes don't use your DR bypass at all). Missiles of any kind are also better with DR bypass of course. For the marking/Coordinated Attacks part: you could also use dual Cladhaliath which then can have the Coordinating enchantment as well which will give you +4 ACC and more damage (+25%). Shame or Glory would be nice in combo with Fire Godlike (both would trigger their benefits at 50% endurance). Of course dual spears do look a bit weird.

@MaxQuest: You meant The Rain of Godagh Field. Another option is Sabra Marie which has Annihilation (=+0.5 crit damage mod) and fits the cipher theme perfectly well. Blunderbusses used to be the top weapon for ciphers for one (or two) simple reasons: - Draining Whip gave a flat +x focus bonus per hit - so any weapon with multiple hits (blunderbusses do 6 with one attack) where best. - Carow Golan drug did the same: it gave +x focus on hit with the same result: blunderbuss was the way to go. Both got nerfed to +x% and therefore blunderbuss is not that great anymore - except if you can stack DR bypass a lot (Lead Spitter + Ryona's Vambraces + Penetrating Shot + Effigy's Resentment: Devil of Caroc) and add Body Attunement (steal DR of target). Then blunderbusses are still great. But they need more preperation as you can see. So an arquebus is more convenient and will produce the same results without that much fuzz on high DR targets.

If you want to deal damage you have to go the alpha-strike way. FoD with Sworn Enemy, Intense Flames, a burning lash on the weapon and Scion of Flame leads to top alpha strike damage (more than doubles your initial dmg roll). You can add Runner's Wounding Shot for the same setup in order to get a third powerful attack. You could add Envenomed Strike if you have high MIG and INT for the really tough boys... and that's it then. Auto attacks will never be the domain of the paladin, but his alpha strikes can be very effective. Taking out one or two dangerous guys right at the beginning of combat can be very nice. If you want to go the retaliation way you have to take Vulnerable Attack and Ryona's Vambraces and maybe also drop Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool in order to bypass as much DR as possible (9 in this case). If you take a Fire Godlike it can be worth it because Fires of Darcozzi Palace, Flame Shield and Battle Forged should stack with double retaliation from shield + armor or helmet. You should use a Ring of Searing Flames, because combining Combusting Wounds with a lot of hits is a good way to use all those weak but plentiful hits. Wreathing FLame does not stack with Flame Shield by the way and is superweak. Edit: and then there's Sacred Immolation of course. Spelltongue does not prolong Sacred Immolation. I guess it's because it's implemented differently than buffs. It's a bit like a Foe-only-Chillfog you carry around with you and that also wouldn't profit from Spelltongue. You forgot that crits with Sacred Immolation are powerful because the 20-30 is base damage. If you also get Merciless Hand + other crit damage mods you will deal a lot of damage when you crit. THings like Zealous Focus can help to crit more often - same as Distant Advantage (wood elves) because SA's radius is so big with enough INT that enemies at the edge of SA will get hit with bonus ACC (which stacks with everything) - or Fighting Spirit (humans).

Always the hardest part.

However, taking the sneaky route and only fight when you can't avoid it or use Shadowing Beyond (and the Cape of the Master Mystic) can also be a lot of fun.

I had 17 DEX. Maybe that's a reason why I thought I saw no recovery. I also found another possible reason why I can't see recovery from time to time although there should be a tiny bit left: My computer and the graphics card are rather old. In fights with a lot of combatants and/or graphic effects (blights, whisps and stuff) the fps go down so massively that display of recovery can get skipped entirely. Glad that the calculator works properly. Awesome stuff! It already helped me to spare a lot of time with a max-DEX-chanter build I was toying around with. Sooo convenient...

Well with expansions installed you can now go to Twin Elms, buy your preferred stuff and then do WM I and II. It's kind of quirky, but that way you can enjoy your favorite gear a bit longer. Before the expansions came out I felt the same. I still fell a bit angry about Acuan Giamas (morning star). One of the best weapons in the game (especially for rogues) - and it comes sooo late. It's a shame. Same with the superb Daybreak (morning star) that you can find right on the way to the last fight. It feel a bit like a slap in the face if you are a fancier of morning stars and then the two most awesome ones can be found around 5 minutes before the game is over...* * and another good one can only be bought from Azzurro, that "King of Random" of Eora...