Boeroer

That would be awesome.

Pale Elfs don't have to be blue by the way:

If you want to use Spiritshift (and why wouldn't you?) I would recommend one druid with Spiritshift Cat and one with Spiritshift Boar and skill those for shifted melee damage because that is the most fun. Those two are the best DPS forms a druid can have. Any other form is inferior in my opinion (and also in many others' I presume). The cat has very fast hits and the boar has passive wounding damage. While the cat has better dps against squishier targets the boar is perfect against high DR targets. He's also a little bit more sturdy because he has a weak regeneration effect while shifted. Both can be made sturdy with high MIG and INT (you might want that anyway) and Veteran's Recovery. Both will also have nice regenerating spells for themselves and the party which stack with Veteran's Recovery and also boar's regeneration. That way they can go melee without the fear of getting knocked out too soon. Don't dump CON because a lot of resting induced by health loss might become an issue then. Boar could be skilled with lower DEX and cat with higher DEX - just for the sake of further diversification. Since you have two druids, you could give them each two "hater" talents like Sanctifier or Beast Slayer. Those work really good with the high base damage of their claws. Just a suggestion if you don't know where to put talent points. I would skill the druids like so (roughly what comes to mind, no particular order): - Wildstrike & Greater Wildstrike (shock / burn - just to make things different & interesting) - Weapon Focus Peasant - Heart of the Storm / Scion of Flame - Two Weapon Style - Savage Attack - Veteran's Recovery - Fast Runner (convenience only - don't waste time running around while shifted - shifting time is scarce and you can't use Boots of Speed) - Novice's Suffering (definitely not necessary but can be fun - doesn't work with Spiritshift, but you can spare weapons and especially enchantments that way and still do good melee damage while NOT shifted. They work especially well with classes that don't have very high melee accuracy - like druids). - Apprentice's Sneak Attack (it's easy for druids to cause afflictions, this is like a permanent +15% dmg boost) Concerning items: sadly, only one of your druids will wear the Wildstrike Belt which adds quite some additional wildstrike lash damage to your claw or tusk attacks. A nice trick is to use lowish RES and provoke critical hits so that items with spell holding get triggered. For example you can put on Saguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith boots. When you receive a crit both Frenzy and Consecrated Ground get triggered. You can shift now and lose all your items temporarily, but those spells will continue to be active. Both are very nice for a shifted druid. Others are Greenstained Boots and Swaddling Sheet for example. Spells: Relentless Storm is a win button. Two Relentless Storms will totally wreck everything. Even two Returning Storms are great. A very good spell for shifters is Avenging Storm! Druids have good shock and fire spells. Overwhelming Wave is also very good. My must-have spell for melee druids is Form of the Delemgan - also covers the party. It's awesome and it's DR bonus stacks with other universal DR booster spells.

I would give INT 15 and RES 10 - unless you care about dialogue choices... which are only flavor most of the time anyways and lead to no different outcome. This comes to my mind (not fix): - Weapon Focus Ruffian (using sabres with a burning (or corrosive) lash, goal is to get dual Bittercut or Resolution + Bittercut) - Flames of Devotion - Two Weapon Style - Zealous Focus - Scion of Flame - Lay on Hands - Savage Attack - Intense Flames - Spirit of Decay (if Bittercut was achieved and gets duplicated with the Helwax Mold) You should mix in one of the order talents - like Remember Rhakan Field for Bleak Walkers or Enduring Flames from Goldpact and stuff. Strange Mercy and Sword & Shepherd can also be very nice on a dual wielding, more dps oriented paladin.

Maneha is Sigourney Weaver, so...

Remember Persoq!

Cool, now I finished my pledge.

Even if the beta would run on Linux via Wine - I don't see why I should pay 20$ and then be forced to do some weird installation. I would be happy to support OBS during the beta phase with some money and also feedback. But not if I have to install Wine. Call me silly, but I don't like that piece of software on my computer. OBS decision is totally understandable though. I have no problems with Windows by the way. I just don't have it and usually I also don't need it.

Maybe not, that would be too good. Weapons which cause effects "only" on crit (like overbearing or stunning enchantments) also use the weapon's acc against fortitude. Same with weapons which have a spellchance (x% of hits/crits trigger the effect). Since bash is an ability it gets +1 ACC per level it usually has high enough ACC (comparable to the main weapon's ACC). If now every bash would cause a second roll against fortitude for an effect like prone it would be already better than those "on crit" weapons (Tall Grass, Godansthunyr, Badgradr's Barricade, you name it) or those with spell chance (Unlabored Blade, Dragon's Maw etc.). And doing it on every hit or crit with -10 ACC against fortitude is no big difference than doing it on crit only with normal ACC. This would just add another new mechanic while the existing ones (on crit or spell chance) would do equally well. An effect that would be ok if it would apply on every hit and crit would be a push of 0.5 or 1 meter or so. So every time you hit or crit (like 100% spell chance) there would be a push against fortitude. It's not a huge CC effect, but could be used to push a single enemy off of squishy companions or to drive them over the map or into a better position. Could be fun. So, the simplest solution would be to add a on-crit effect or a spellchance to bash without additional enchantment costs. Something that causes either push, dazing, overbearing or stunning on crit or on x% of all hits/crits (although everything more than dazing seems to be too powerful as a general effect). This is already in the game engine and would be easy to add. For special shields, you could still add additional effects or replace the secondary bash effect. For example a polished silver shield could cause blind on crit or whatever.

As long as it works it's not wrong. May get boring though. It is still a good way to win fights if you are underleveled. For example I still use that approach (crouch into a corner) when I go to Crägholt Bluffs very early only because I want to loot some exceptional weapons for free.

If I remember correctly the +12 from one handed wielding also works with the White Worms invocation and the Killers froze Stoff invocation, but no other invocations. It was some time ago since I tested this, so maybe that changed or I don't remember correctly.

Oops - so you won't get that 20$ from me.

I think scaling the godlike bonuses would be the easiest solution. They already did it with Battle Forged (fire godlike).

Hehe - stupid autocomplete feature on my smartphone. Sometimes it's a lot fun though. I remember good old Buttercut instead of Bittercut and Rodriguez instead of Raedric in this forums.

from Josh Sawyer during the PoE Kickstarter campaign Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/316398

A good combination of effectiveness & fun for me: - Veteran's Recovery (+ healing mods from survival, items & eventually Mercy and Kindness): makes everybody sturdy as long as MIG and INT are ok - Heart of Fury: mobfight win button - Carnage: great mechanic - The Dragon Thrashed: mobfight win modal - Mercy and Kindness: combine it with Constant or Veteran's Recovery and as long as there's health your nearly unkillable - White Worms: cheesy as hell when turning off the gib option and piling up bodies at chokepoints - but a lot of fun, too - Combusting Wounds: great in combination with any kind of effect which generates a lot of hits (Kalaloth's Minor Blights + Blast, Heart of Fury, Wall of Flame, Blunderbusses...) - Pull of Eora: best CC spell in the game in my opinion - Coordinated Attacks (+ marking weapon): +20 stackable ACC on an ally, passively(!) - awesome - Flames of Devotion (+ Scion of Flame + burning lash + Intense Flames): so satisfying in combination with gunshots - Inspiring Radiation: +10 stackable ACC for the party per encounter(!), awesome - Devotions of the Faithful: +20 stackable ACC for the party and also a strong debuff for enemies - the best buff in the game - Relentless Storm: that sound effect! Aeseome CC + damage combined. But mainly: dat sound effect! - Rot Skulls: much more powerful than most people think. Totally worth to retrain a druid to be a ranged implement user. - Charge: fast, tons of damage for all enemies in line and the target + full attack on the target. The best "rushing" ability there is. Superfun to pick of casters. - Force of Anguish: come fly with me, come *smack* fly... best slaps in the game - The Long Pain: come fly with me, come fly away and *smack*... monk's submachine gun... ...there are a lot of others, but those came to mind first. Must've been the ones that impressed me most.

ROFLMAO!

Yeah, why not? There already are headgear items in PoE1 that could have worked like that: - Lavender Wreath - Crossed Patch - Munacra Arret I mean there's no logical reason why a Moon Godlike can't wear a monocle. Death Godlikes: not so much. But I guess it was just too much fuzz to make such distinctions - from the devs' perspective. Understandable. Maybe they can do it now if they have the time and the money.

Then it must be an australian accent...

Just note that shields which are larger than small will give you a malus to your spell's accuracy. So, a medium shield will give you -4 ACC and a large shield -8. A small shield makes you more sturdy (although not as much as medium and large ones) but doesn't lower your accuracy - it has no drawbacks to use a small shield while spellcasting.

Stats look fine for any type of paladin. No real weaknesses, that's good. If I would want to build a paladin based upon that stats, I would also say that a tanky frontliner would be optimal though. Give him the Outworn Buckler (a small shield that you can buy very early in the first town you reach, it's one of the best items in the game if you consider how early you can have it), pick Weapon & Shield Style and a one handed weapon that you like and you're good to go. Your defenses will be very evenly balanced. your high MIG + CON will lead to good fortitude defense (against stun, prone, paralyze and so on), your high INT + RES will lead to high a will defense (against dazed, charmed, dominated etc.) and your reflex defense which will get no bonuses from stats will get boosted by Weapon & Shield Style. Deflection will be good because of RES and shield as well. As long as you're not playing on Path of the Damned Difficulty for your first run you will have no problems with your paladin. But you can't expect him to be a very good damage dealer. See him more as a tanky supporter. The shield will emit a defensive aura - that adds to his supportive role. He has really nice single-ally-healings and other nice things. If you like persuation, you can also try to combine "Sworn Enemy" with an item that can charm enemies (Munacra Arret). You can read about this in this build: Counselor Ploi If you want to follow that build instead of just pick up some inspiration: it is not necessary to have the exact same stats, items or race.

Generally speaking: a shield leads to lower DPS than dual weapons or two handed weapons. Bashing shields - due to their bad mechanics - are even worse. But there are three shields in the game which can lead to an increase in DPS compared to a usual shield: - Sura's Supper Plate: it has retaliation which stacks with other sources of retaliation. While retaliation itself is not very powerful, you can use it to apply things like Deep Wounds (rogue) or stack so many retaliation hits that it works really well with Combusting Wounds. And against squishy targets with low DR retaliation is a great thing. - Badgradr's Barricade:it procs Thrust of Tattered Veils every time the bash crits (unlimited times per encounter). This is not as unlikely as it may seem because bash is considered to be an ability and thus gets +1 ACC per char level. This means that the bash attack normally hasn't much lower ACC than you main hand. Additionally Thrust of Tattered Veils works with Penetrating Shot without slowing you down, it works with Driving Flight, too. And best of all: it's damage gets doubled by Deathblows. So you can imagine that a crit-focused rogue or ranger can make great use of it. It's also great for barbarians who use Heart of Fury and Vengeful Defeat. - Dragon's Maw: this has a Spell Chance: Taste of the Hunt. It will trigger that spell with a certain chance when you hit or crit (not graze) with the bash. Taste of the Hunt adds raw damage and also heals you. It's not as offensive as Badgradr's Barricade but it makes you even sturdier and also increases DPS. It's very nice for defensive barbs in my opinion. There is also Scath Gwannek, the shield that Azzuro sells. Basically it lowers your melee DPS, but it has spell bindings of Winter Wind which can be very useful and does some good AoE spell damage.

Yes. Make your backline sturdier. Shift a bit DPS to defenses and/or more DR and/or more endurance and self-healing like Veteran's Recovery. Then make your frontline do more damage while still keeping a good amount of sturdyness. This usually leads to an easier playthrough but encounters will take a bit more time. Perfect for a chanter by the way. The reason it that you'll seldomly have the situation where your DPS guys get knocked out and you are screwed because you can't kill stuff anymore. It also leads to less stress because you don't have to bodyguard the DPS guys all the time because the enemy likes to pick those off. That's why I recommend wizard or druid frontliners - or even barbarian tanks. And why my fighters are not tanks, but rushers who try to reach enemy casters and deal good damage and CC, but are sturdy enough to survive those things. Of course: if you manage to find a chokepoint, the approach with one supertank who blocks them all and five DPS guys is still very powerful. But in WM there can be open areas and some enemies really like to rush squishies or take them out with ranged weapons and nasty spells like Cleansing Flame.

Yes. The Helwax Mold. It's from a stronghold adventure. What to use it on? It totally depends on the stuff you use. For example, if you have two guys with shields, then one could recommend cloning Little Savior. That shield has an enchantment called "herald" which gives +5 to all defenses (stacks with everything) in a big aura, usually covering the whole party. If you clone it you will have two auras that stack, giving you +10 to all defenses. Dual wielders like to clone their main hand weapon. Bittercut (sabre) is very popular because it not only has two damage types but it also works with Spirit of Decay (gives you +20% weapon damage) and has spell bindings. Another good choice would be Drawn in Spring, since it's the one handed weapon with the highest potential DPS (if you have high MIG - because of wounding). Then there are other awesome things you could clone. Like a ring of wizardry (Ring of the Seloan and stuff), Forgemaster's Gloves, Shod-in-Faith boots or whatever. As I said: it really depends what chars and items you use. In my opinion it's very effective to stack those herald auras. If you clone Little Saviour and also have a paladin with the Outworn Buckler you will have +15 to all defenses which stack with all other defense buffs. Makes your party a lot sturdier. P.s.: Blood Testament gloves are powerful if you also have Turning Wheel and like to stack wounds. They will give you +2% raw lash per wound you have. That's +20% raw lash once you have 10 wounds. This will stack with Lightning Strikes' lash (+25% shock) and Turning Wheel's lash (+50% burn) and will lead to tremendous DPS increase. Not only because it's raw damage and thus ignores DR, but also because lashes are calculated based on the actual damage you do (including all damage mods like high might, critical damage bonus etc.) when you hit - it's not only an increase of weapon base damage like other things like Sneak Attack or Savage Attack are. Thus, +20% raw lash leads to way higher damage numbers than Savage Attack with +20% base damage. The gloves also work with retaliation. If you want to know in detail, read the Monksterlasher build (in the sticky build list). If you like to spend your wounds asap then there are other gloves which are better.

Doesn't matter, beer was spilled.