Boeroer

Wymund is a priest of Skaen and an animancer. Thaos is a priest of Woedica and an animancer. Helig is a wizard and an animancer. Galvino is a cipher and an animancer. Caedman Azo is a wizard and an animancer. It's clear that animancy is not tied to a class and thus doesn't work as a subclass. It could be a type of prestige class - which we don't have.

Huh? What are you talking about Kickstarter?

Awesome in terms of fun (for me). For example: Priest of Berath, focus on highest MIG possible (aumaua or dwarf, Aggrandizing + Inspiring Radiance, Champions Boon/Minor Avatar, Maegfolc Skull and so on), pick up Tidefall and combine it with Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike. Pick WF soldier, Two Handed Style, berathian talent andso on. Cast Cleansing Flame on a boss while wounding, Runner's Wounding and Envenomed Strike are working and see the boss collapse in no time. COmbine it with Veteran's Recovery which is very strong with high MIG, INT and things like Belt of Bountiful Healing + survival healing bonus. The autoattacks are also pretty neat with very high MIG. Wounding profits from MIG bonuses twice - priests are the calss with the highest possible MIG. You can reach 40+ MIG easily and the slaps with Tidefall do a lot of damage through wounding - even against high DR foes. Same works with priest of Eothas + the Acuan Giamas morning star - but since that weapon comes so late it's not worth it - and the other unique morning stars are a bit meh. I never tried a priest of Eothas with shield + flail or even dual flails, but I could imagine that Starcaller + Unforgiven are a nice combo. Or even Starcaller + Badgradr's Barricade. A priest can reach very high ACC with Inspiring Radiance + Devotions + WF + talent + Minor Avatar. It should lead to a lot of stuns + Thrust of Tattered Veils with buffed MIG. Priest of Skaen, played like a rogue: Schemer's Needler It's an old build, but I guess the idea is obvious. Priest of Wael, Llengrath's Staff, Rayment of Wael's Eyes, focus on attack speed, attack from second row. This one is not a melee powerhouse, but still fun. Edit: Forgot the priest of Magran with Scion of Flame and Firebrand. Lots of MIG and ACC, Minor Avatar and Scion of Flame lead to good damage with that sword due to high base damage and Annihilation. Firebrand works with the magran talent, too. You could also add Fire Godlike to the mix for a bit of retaliation if things get rough. All priests end up casting a lot and attacking less in the late game. But until then those build ideas are quite fun and a different approach to the priest class.

I'd say if you give your priest a small shield, weapon & shield style and use him as part-time offtank you're totally fine with your party composition. It looks good. If you want, consider a monk as offtank. Just to try something different than a fighter, barb or paladin. In my opinion monks make the best offtanks. They also work great with the spell holding approach. You don't want them to have too high deflection anyway. All melee (or heavy melee) parties work well. Generally the game gets easier for me that way. Fights take a little longer, but there are less knockouts. I like melee wizards, druids are part-time melee anyway and also some priest builds are really awesome in melee. A cipher gets more focus in melee, too (in theory).

Yupp - exactly. Just travel to Twin Elms and the problem is solved. You don't even need to enter the city itself.

Those talents work, yes. But only for melee weapons. Although ranged weapons, including implements, are wielded with two hands, Two Handed Style and Savage Attack do not work with them. So, to be precise: Firebrand, Citzal's Spirit Lance, Concelhaut's Staff and Llengrath's Warding Staff work with the talents you mentioned. Things like Kalakoth's Minor Blights don't. But that works with Dangerous Implement and the other talents for ranged weapons (Marksman and so on).

Maybe another reason behind this is that it will boost soulbound weapons' usefulness. Since those will improve their quality automatically through the binding process, they don't have the restriction of "enchant it to +1 quality at max". Remember: a lot of players complained that the new fancy souldbound weapons where in fact inferior to gear that you excessively enchanted yourself. Mainly because elemental lashes and durgan steel are so powerful and you can't put that neat stuff on soulbound weapons. But instead of giving soulbounds similar powerful bonuses in the later stages they now decided to limit the gear that could surpass them. Concerning lashes, it's totally ok for me. Not every weapon has to have a fancy elemental effect and it might indeed make things more interesting if enchantments are restricted in a way so that they fit to the weapon and it's unique features. But limiting the quality enchantmens to tier +1 is just wrong. It takes away options and severely punishes people who fancy style and appearance over power. Thus it punishes roleplayers most, not the powergamers. To avoid boredom in the late game when it comes to choice of weapons/shields/armors and so on, OBS will have to place a LOT of different high quality weapons. But I don't think they will go this way. A way out of this would be an enchantment that turns any normal weapon/shield/armor into a soulbound with individual binding steps that you can create. Basically a class build for a weapon. You could limit this enchantment to 1/playthrough like Cladhaliath was. That would be a cool feature... Or just allow to enchant ONE weapon/shield/armor to the max tier with cool enchantments through some scripted interaction. That way you could have it all. You could drag one or two low level items from start to finish and at the same time prevent that all the low level stuff may surpass soulbounds. Think about it: you could share character builds AND custom item builds. Awesome!

It was said somewhere that you can pick from all the beasts in the game. With some restrictions of course. Too big ones are out obviously. But we already had an animat, a lagufaeth, a wyrm, a spider and so on. Concelhaut's Skull is a superpet for example. So - a lot seems to be possible. May I plant the idea of a wicht that has a mild frenzy aura and a mini-heart-of-fury into your mind? Thanks!

It needs balance and that's difficult. Sometimes it's pure fun to obliterate some ****y bandits and stuff - but if it's too much it's just boring & tedious. A good example are those fampyrs in lvl 8 of the EPs. All the encounters are the same. The first one is OK, the second... why not? And then it starts to get annoying. Same with some Lagufaeth encounters. In the late game a lot of people just put the game on fast mode, select the whole party and point & click on each enemy - one after the other - until all are dead. No buffing, no casting, just run and hit. That's not the optimal approach, but it's the fastest way (in real time) to success. That's a clear sign that those encounters are de trop.

However, they said that they would store game objects and savegames and other stuff in a more readable format so that modders may edit them more easily. That's something.

All I can say is: BOOOOOOOOOOO!

The expansions in PoE are not small sequels like with BG and BG2, but blend into the main game. WM I is for chars of lvl 8+ while WM II is for high lvl chars. It's totally cool to travel to the White March, do some quests and then return to the places of the main game, do some other stuff, then returning to WM and so forth. I would recommend playing PoE with WM I & II. The expansions add some nice unique items and other neat stuff as well as three additional companions which you can use in the main game, too. The expansion really "expand" the game.

Well. You drink so much that you forget everything. After that, the barkeeper helps you to remember. Sounds totally plausible to me.

Yeah sorry. I'm superbusy at the moment and have only time to post some stuff here and there, but not to work on a proper build description. Said priest is a lot of fun. Basically because very high MIG is supergood for wounding (Tidefall) and also wounding get's accellerated by Cleansing Flame. In that case high INT + wounding ist not too bad because else it would be difficult to cast Cleansing Flame on a wounded target or vice versa. Had a lot of fun with it. General approach is to get as much MIG as possible (dwarf or aumaua, +1MIG background, Aggrandizing Radiance, Champion's Boon or Minor Avatar, items like Maegfolc Skull) and get high ACC (Insp. Radiance, Devotions, WF Soldier, Berathian weapon talent). I paired this with Veteran's Recovery because it's so good with that much MIG and high INT. I also added Envenomed Strike for the same reason. I also added RUnner's Wounding Shot because it's superawesome with high MIG - esp. in combo with Cleasing Flame You will do good melee damage (not like a shifted druid or a deathblow rogue, but really solid) and still can cast stuff. I specialized on damaging spells like Shining Beacon and so on. Shining Beacon with over 40 MIG and high INT, paired with Cleansing Flame and supported with Tidefall's wounding + Runner's Wounding Shot and/or Enevenomed Strike kills everything, including dragons, in no time. I also played it on solo PotD and it was viable and a lot of fun (after a difficult beginning). Later I switchd to Abydon's Hammer just for casting and had around 50 MIG with it (including resting bonuses and such) during the hard fights. Damaging spells and also healing with 50 MIG is quite the show.

The message will be wrong then - in hindsight. If the DR changes during the duration ot the DoT effect then the ticks have to deal with the changed DR. This can be good - for example if your wizards casts Expose Vulnerabilities on an enemy that already suffers a DoT effect: the ticks will then the lower DR more easily. But when the DoT still is working and Expose V. wears of the ticks will have to overcome the higher DR again.

@MadScientist: I thought you meant things like Necrotic Lance, Touch of Rot and Autum's Decay. Those have an instant damage part, followed by a DoT effect. Usually it's around 50:50. My answer was aimed at those things. Sorry if I confused you guys.

All companions indeed have a couple of optimal builds that can suit them.But there are few scenarios when you need something specific. For example I may like Aloth, but he is not super fitting for Zeblastion or Bilestomper builds And he wouldn't be with other stats - unless you could also change the race.

Roasted orlan I presume.

White Coaaast!

An ooze who likes booze!

That would be a good thing. I hereby support it!

I have three kids, one of them is five years old. I guess I'm pretty prepared to pull the orlan brat's ears.

You made a Youtube channel for the BIBs? Splendid!

Do you use VSync?

Not yet. She can't wear Munacra Arret - that's a drawback for the charming aspect of this build. On the other hand she can unleash Wrath of the Five Suns when she uses Sworn Enemy which is pretty cool. Maybe one yould substitute Munacra Arret with Enigma's Charm until you get the Ring of Changing Heart and Spirit Spiral. Thanks, Torm51. Good to have you back!