Boeroer

+15 actually. Heraldic shields "only" give you +5 to all defenses. But you can add priest's Circle of Defense that also stacks with most things and get to +30 to all defenses. Pretty neat.

Definitely rogue. Or a priest(ess) of Magran of course. I mean "Godhammer Bomb"...

yes eaten completely. There are some unique weapons that have inherent 10% crush lash (justice ? 2h sword and a mace or flail ). Which you will seldom see in the combat log since it very rarely makes it past the 0.25 crush DR. One of the main reason lightning strikes was trash before the buff from 10% vs 0.25 DR .. Ah - thanks. Then that's the reason why I never see the burn damage of torches get applied. You can enchant a torch with any non-burning lash and that will show in the log, but the inherent 10% burning lash won't. I always thought it's just bugged.

Yes. Sneak attack works for every direct melee and ranged weapon attack. Summoned Weapons like Kalakoth's Minor Blights or Spirit Lance's initial hit will also work with it. The blast effect, the crush AoE effect of the lance and so on don't work with it. They also don't profit from Vulnerable Attack and such things. Spells don't! But for whatever reason, spells work with Deathblows, making the rogue the best choice for damaging scrolls.

Not yet. But it has to be something that is readable for humans I guess. So it shouldn't matter much if it's XML, YAML or JSON or whatever format they choose. I know that Unity 5 supports JSON serialization. I don't know about any of the other formats. But Unity 5 is scripted with C# and there are tons of stuff in C# which can deal with those data formats.

In case it doesn't work out, write a PM to Aarik D I'd say. But only then!

Yes, so cool. Josh also said that you would be able to place explosives into other peoples pockets (maybe even poison like in Skyrim? He didn't say that, but I think this will work, too). Explosives can be enhanced with the new alchemy skill. So I assume poisons will have a similar skill. Because they said they have a LOT more skills in PoE2. Did they talk about 20 skills or so? Can't remember, but it was a quite high number (see the Twitch stream with Josh and Bobby Null for details). Edit: Ok, looked it up:

@bonus question: Yes, if you plan to attack with summoned weapons a lot then definitely. All +x% dmg mods like Two Handed Style, Apprentice Sneak and also Savage Attack work well with the summoned weapons because those normally have high base damage. That base damage is the... well base on which all the +x% dmg mods are calculated. You should also think about Runner's Wounding Shot if you have talent points to spare. It adds a raw lash DoT effect that is very strong (stronger than the description suggests). Lash damage is not calculated with weapons' base damage, but on the overall physical damage you do, including crit bonus, bonuses from Two Handed Style, Savage Attack and so on. And it ignores DR completely. It's more powerful than for example Deathblows. But it's only 1/encounter. It can still be used to take down tough foes. You could also think about Envenomed Strike if your MIG and INT are high. Before the latest patch the poinson effect worked with the Spirit Lance's crush AoE. It was a powerful combo, but sadly they nerfed that recently. You can try if the Girdle of the Driving Wave (Knockdown 1/encounter) still works with the Lance's AoE. It used to, causing prone in an AoE. I didn't test yet if it still does. In my opinion, if you don't plan to always use weapon & shield but swing the staff or the lance then I would not take the Weapon & Shield Style. Wizards have some awesome defensive buffs. For example: Hardened Arcane Veil + Wizard's Double will give you +115 (!) deflection. And Wizard's Double will only end if you catch a hit (not a graze). I alsways recommend the Veil talents for melee wizards because it can be like a win button: spam deadly spells or attack with the lance while youre are nearly untouchable. Note that certain buffs like Circle of Defense and the heraldic auras from certain shields stack with that. If you plan to use weapon & shield a lot then I would totally go for the style, too.

Ah oops. Sorry for the FoD against 50%. To be honest a got corrected about that already in the past, but it sticks in my head for whatever stupid reason. Edited my post accordingly. Yeah, it's all a bit weird and not intuitive. Wounding works nearly the same, but without the DR of course. A damage oriented paladin with very high MIG and lowish INT should go for wounding (with Tidefall for example), FoD + Intense Flames + burning lash + Scion of Flame + Enduring Flames (doesn't profit from Scion) and Runner's Wouding Shot (or in this case: Strike). Bonus question from me: if the lash doesn't overcome the 25% DR, is there MIN damage or is it eaten up completely? Never thought about that before...

One problem is that the longer you play the game (meaning, the more stuff you explore and the more items you collect) the slower it gets. Also the loading times and the time it takes to do quicksaves will increase. Especially the unlimited stash can slow down your performance a lot if it's packed with items - especially if you use the sorting/filtering functions. If you have a stash that's full of stuff: try to save and then sell all the items you don't need. See if this improves the performance. Besides that: I have a laptop with 16GB RAM, a i7 and a dedicated Nvidia graphics card on top of my onboard HD chip (hybrid shickeymickey stuff) and I have to play on the lowest settings. If willow whisps or certain blights enter the scene: total fps meltdown.

In order to know if one of us has a similar system: what's your operating system (since you're using Afterburner it's obviously Windows, but which one?) and your graphics driver?

Never had this and never heard of this before. So I can't help you with troubleshooting, sorry. Maybe you should send a PM to Aarik D if you don't get an answer withing a few days. Since the dev team is feverishly working on PoE2 it might be that they overlook this. But please make sure it's really a bug (just saying). Maybe the riddle wasn't solved properly? Maybe you miss something to solve it properly (item, quest steps, something like that)? No idea. But if it is indeed a bug, it's a severe one and you should be heared and it should be fixed.

True. But at least shouts have no recovery anymore.

@bonus questions: - Those are two independent rolls. - yes, if they are 25% lashes. A corrosive lash on a weapon will have to overcome 25% corrode DR. A FoD lash of 50% will also have to overcome 50% 25% of the burn DR. A wounding lash will bypass DR completely. A talent like Intense Flames will not increase the original FoD lash but add a second one. It will not increase the original lash from 50 to 75%. So a paladin who uses FoD with an arquebus which has a burning lash and who also has Intense Flames will attack with three lashes: 25% against 1/4 burn DR + 50% against 1/2 1/4 burn DR + 25% against 1/4 burn DR. In this case Scion of Flame would be very beneficial. Same for druids with Wildstrike, Greater Wildstrike and Wildstrike Belt. Although the last has some weird, powerful mechanics. Or monks with Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + burning lash on a weapon... and so on. You can see why blunderbusses are not good with lashes against high DR targets. Pen. Shot and all DR bypass things only apply to the initial hit, not the lashes. Things like Expose Vulnerabilities are good in this case.

Have a look here: https://clips.twitch.tv/obsidian/HappyCrowGrammarKing

Nope. Only raw damage DoTs bypass DR completely. The other DoT ticks have to overcome a fractional part of DR. Concerning INT, there are diffferent types of DoT effects: ones that do more damage with more INT and others that are not dependent on INT. The first group works in a way that INT adds more of the same ticks and therefore adds damage with ongoing duration. So here higher INT is better. In the second group the overall damage is fixed and gets spread over the duration. Obviously, in this case it's benefical to have low INT because the damage is applied more quickly. The first group are things like Envenomed Strike, Shining Beacon, The Dragon Thrashed and Deep Wounds for example. The second group would be wounding enchantment, Boar Tusks (druid), (Runners) Wounding Shot and also Enduring Flames (Goldpact Knights). For healing effects: There are a few healing effects which are instant and therefore don't rely on INT at all (Triumph of the Crusaders, Healing Chain and so on). All the others work better with high INT. INT will always add more healing ticks. For more in-depth knowledge on DR and DoTs let's ask Dr. MaxQuest: "Dr. MaxQuest, please take over!"

Actually when I killed the Adra Dragon for the first time and went to her treasure I felt so sorry for her being so poor compared to me that I tossed some thousand coins onto her corpse...

Have a look here: https://clips.twitch.tv/obsidian/HappyCrowGrammarKing

Awww man! Now I want one. Nope, no diks in PoE1 actually. Only a white worm that comes close...

Yes, I did. Several times. Still don't like the concept.

As I said: best companion to combine tankyness with high damage. I didn't say he's the best tank overall. By the way 25 starting deflection is pretty decent (paladins only 20, fighters 30) and with the two lvl 1 chants for boosting all defenses except deflection he starts as a better tank than a paladin. Summons on top of that. And later on the Dragon Thrashed is so good that it's OK to have a bit less defense than the perfect 100% tank who can do nothing else than survive. Another nice example of a tank who can still deal good damage is a defensive monk. Way better than pure paladin and fighter tanks for party play in my opinion. Even a barb tank - or let's say meat shield - is better than that after some levels. But sure: that's only my opinion and is based on the way I play the game. But since I find PotD to be quite easy while others struggle I guess it's not the most ineffective one. I don't say that my way is the best way for everybody. Most likely not. But it doesn't hurt to hear different approaches I guess. For solo play it's a bit different though. But even there said chanter rocks the house. Kaylon should know, he beat some WM II bounties solo on PotD with such a build.

It's not worthless. There are cases where an elemental booster is a good pick. For example if you use Spirit of Decay with Bittercut + corrosive lash you get +20% weapon damage and +5% lash with no drawbacks. It's WAY better than Savage Attack which you would pick without second thought I guess. Same with Stormcaller + Heart of the Storm. Also - your example with one fireball assumes that said wizard can only cast one fire spell per rest. Of course then an additional spell (= +100% damage) would be better than +20% damage. But once you cast more than 5 fire spells per rest the +20% damage per spell is better than a single additional spell. And it also helps to overcome DR which is not even considered in this calculation. Most of the time - if you look at the damage after DR - the talent leads to more than +20% damage increase. Especially if you have a lot of lashes an elemental booster is great. Monks with Turning Wheel and a weapon with burning lash can boost their lash damage from 75% to 90% - and that's a multiplicative increase. Same for paladins with FoD+Intense Flames+burning lash: 100% to 120% lash damage. Also multiplicative. Have a look at the Monksterlasher monk build who uses three of those talents which give him tremendous damage boosts. So - those talents are perfectly fine, even can be very powerful, if you know how to use them. Not "meh" at all. But sadly, Secrets of Rime does not boost the Phantom's damage. Only your own - for example Seven Night's freeze damage.

Well - since when is wearing a kite shield piratey?

Or the White Mainland Legitimates.

Yeah - no surprise. But it never hurts to point out those things again from time to time - because new users will not know stuff like that. So thank you.