Boeroer

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.

Yes - look at the Batsh!t Crazy build (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83775-class-build-batsht-crazy-disabling-druid-tank/).It's tanky enough and a great walking CC effect with the storms. Once cast, Relentless Storm doesn't care about DEX and armor penalties. As long as you stand upright it will keep on cracking. Those are the reasons I nearly never use pure "traditional" tanks like paladins or fighters. They are too limited and no fun.

True. Once I have a priest I have zero use for things like Righteous Soul or Aegis of Loyalty. And in my case an alpha-strike-skilled Pallegina is tanky enough even without defensive talents. I also don't use fighters as tanks: they only can tank then and nothing else while a chanter can tank nearly as well (he only has 5 less starting deflection) while dealing a shartload of damage just by standing around. Fighters on the other hand are very nice as disrupting units: sturdy even when skilled for DPS. Anyway - if you want to combine high dps with good tankyness in one companion there's no one better than Kana in my opinion.

Yeah - also, a percentage bonus based on actual stats would lead to absurd and exponential power growth.

I hope the emails don't have to be the same and there's some other way to connect the fig pledge to the backer portal. I use different email addresses for every account I have. But if I remember correctly that was no problem when I backed Lords of the Eastern Reach at Kickstarter.

The rogue class is underwhelming per se. Especially on PoTD. The good thing about chanters is that they can be skilled to be total tanks and still can deal a hell lot of damage via the Dragon Thrashed with no drawbacks. The dps from the chant is not dependent on DEX and recovery at all. So slowness is no problem at all. And they also keep singing while prone or withdrawn. To be honest such a chanter is one of the easiest ways to do PotD solo - so how can't he be great in a party, too? Pallegina can be build into an excellent alpha striker while retaining a good amount of sturdyness (as all paladins). But unlike a chanter, she has to give away defensive capabilities in order to deal good damage. But Wrath of the Five Suns, combined with Pen. Shot & Ryona's Vambraces as well as Scion of Flame and Sworn Enemy is a great tool to take out nasty casters. And when you took Scion of Flame already you can also take Intense Flames for your FoD. It's true that Pallegina hasn't that much MIG, but the huge bonus the burning lashes give you make up for that. I mean look at this: you FoD strikes will have the following lashes: 50% (FoD) + 25% (Intense Flames) + 25% (weapon lash) - all those get multiplied by 1.2 because of Scion of Flame. You will do 120% burning lashes with FoD. This is huge and WAY more powerful than Deathblows or even Backstab. Lash damage is calculated based on the actual damage roll you do, including things like Savage Attack, Two Handed Style, crit damage and whatnot, not only the weapon's base damage like Deathblows does. Thus, you will reach way higher numbers with Pallegina's FoD strikes that a rogue will with Deathblows. Sure, it's only 2 per encounter (sometimes 3 if you manage to attack from steath), but you can add Runner's Wounding Shot which works the same (80% raw damage lash, not mere weapon base damage bonus) and Wrath of the Five Suns. And suddenly all enemy casters are dead. Later she will do a lot of damage with SA even if her MIG is not that great. And once she delivered her FoDs, Wrath and Runner's Shot I can always switch to support and tanking mode with Outworn Buckler. That's why I nearly always build her as alpha striker offtank and not as a pure tank. But as I said: she then has to give away some defense. I found that Hours of St. Rumbalt is a great weapon for her. Firebrand is also nice in the early to mid stages of the game. Dual Wielding is also not bad for FoD, but since I also use Runner's Wounding Shot most of the time I go for 2H or guns + Quick Switch with her for her alphas. That's the main reason I would always choose Kana as tank over Pallegina. If Pallegina is your only source of healing on PotD, you should consider to bring Hiravias. His healing spells (Nature's Vigor/Embrace, Moonwell) are like buffed versions of Constant/Vetereran's Recovery and can be cast on top of each others, making other healings obsolete most of the time. If you add Kana's Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits and maybe Consecrated Ground you need no other source of healing. Maybe the chars die from low health, but not low endurance. I also like to add Veteran's Recovery on the chars which will get beaten frequently. Usually I never have to cast Lay on Hands or other single target healing spells in those "oh crap" situations because they seldomly happen.

I once played a wizard tank (Bilestomper) and it was awesome. He had 2 (!) DEX, thick armor and a shield. Sure, his castings took way longer, but he seldomly went down. All that 0 recovery stuff is of no use if you fall on your face when enemies look at you. If you already have good deflection via shield then things like Wizard's Double work even better. Since that spell only gets removed when you receive a hit (not a graze) it can last quite a while. And all the grazes get catched by thick armor quite well. A dps blaster wizard with low deflection and low RES can use (durganized superb) robes plus Spirit Shield and later Iron Skin to reach high DR while retaining 0 armor penatly. It should be sufficient to survive a swarmer even if your defenses and endurance are poor. If you also have a druid then combine it with Form of the Delemgan to reach crazy high DR - for a squishy caster. Another good way to distract attackers is casting a duplicate. It's also not bad to put on a Girdle of Mortal Protection because it lowers crit damage to that of normal hits (100 + 50 = 150; 150 * 0,73 = 110). With ok DR, it's the crits that will kill you, not the hits. It's better than a Blunting Belt on a low deflection char. A leather armor will take away some dps, but will help to survive. It's up to you to decide if you need it or not. I personally like my casters to be not squishy because I like to fight in loose formation, swarming enemy casters and so on. Others like to protect their casters at all costs and don't need DR on them as much. My experience with my playstyle is that it's not worth the fuzz. If I build a party in a way that everybody has decent defenses and everybody can deal good damage the game becomes easier for me. That is because even if somebody goes down it doesn't mess up my whole party composition. Some parties have big problems when their dedicated dps guy(s) get knocked out because their tanks and supports can't kill anything on themselves. Another fun thing for ranged wizards who go into casting mode can be a switch to hatchet + Aila Braccia. With (hardened) Arcane Veil + Wizard's Double you can reach a lot of deflection, add Wood Elves' defensive bonus against ranged attacks and usually you will reflect all those nasty spells and shots that would normally take you out. Lagufaeth and others love to target the wizard in the back. With this shield they will get punished so badly. Sadly, it comes so late.

Great news - they are totally in line with me.

Yeah - but even then my thinking is: Why is this a problem of Empower while it's not a problem with all the other stats which get absolute bonuses on level up (and not percentage based ones)? I mean you could say it is a problem that the fixed endurance bonus has less impact at higher levels - but nobody complained about that, right? It's always like this: if you level up from lvl 1 to 2 it feels like you took a big step - and you did. If you level up from 19 to 20 it's hardly noticable (except you get a very potent new ability). That's also the reason why in later levels the new abilites have to be more powerful than the older ones - else a level up wouldn't do much for you anymore.

Sure, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the percentage of the increase is lower at higher levels if you stick to a flat number that is added every level. That's true for Empower but also for all the things I listed - also for deflection and accuracy. Because you always get the same bonus on levelup no matter how large your pool already is.

You get the same rewards with the backer portal. Don't know anything about slacker backer stuff.

But MayQuest - that's the case for all things that get raised by a fixed amount every level. Like deflection, endurance, accuracy and so on. The relative gain of +10 accuracy is lower on higher levels than it is on lower. If you have 30 ACC and gain +10 ACC it's a bigger increase (percentage wise) than getting raised from 90 to 100.

He's obviously douchebagndere.