Boeroer

For somebody like me who likes to play those games several times with different party compositions, sidekicks are actually a great thing. Cheap enough to develop some of them but enough dialogues and banter to make then interesting. After the first or second playthrough I honestly give a shart about relationships and companion quests. That's when those sidekicks make a lot of sense. For my personal first playthrough they are not needed. So I guess most people who complain about this idea won't play the game more than once or twice - which is totally understandable then. For me: I love that sidekick idea, yes. It will be fun to develop different builds for each one.

Yes - great, isn't it? Can't wait to try those things out.

I know of no historical example where pirates or freebooters used another naming pattern than other sailors. No sane captain would have used a foul name for their ship. Of course there were more sincere ones like "Revenge" or "Satisfaction". But nothing like bitch, whore or something like that. Here's a list of historical pirate ship names: http://www.allthingsboat.com/boat-names/pirate-ship-names/ Have a look at "The Rose Pink" and "The Squirrel" and tell me again that Mother's Embrace is not suitable. You always have to remember that even the most evil human beings seldomly think of themselves as evil, but want to justify or even block out what they are doing. As long as you don't hate the ship on which you are sailing and are forced to be there you wouldn't give it a disrespectful or filthy name. Every other pirate would make fun of you if you named your proud ship something like "Bloody Bitch" or "Wretched Whore". But of course: if your soul is bound to that ship and you can't leave it then it's appropriate to give it a rough name. So maybe if we decide on the story of the Bastards it will be easier to agree on a name that is appropriate. A lot of suggestions so far are good in one way or the other.

Speaking of high acc builds: carnage is considered a low acc ability because it has a malus when the game starts. What few people know is that carnages counts as ability and thus gets +1 ACC per char level. That means that it has very high accuracy in later levels -more than your main attack. Bash is the same. This adds up pretty nicely. Carnage crits with bash happen a lot at the time you get that shield. So - Badgradr's Barricade is a very good pick for a defensive barb who still wants to deal decent damage. Especially Heart of Fury is great with it. Barbaric Blow, too. Same with monk + Torment's Reach. By the way: bashing shields don't get the 50% speed bonus like dual weapons get. You will attack nearly as slow as without bashing (it has a short recovery like fast weapons). But bash is very low damage, thus lowering your overall DPS compared to a normal shield. That's the main reason why it's bad.

^Correct. Generally speaking bashing shields are crap - with the two known exceptions Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw. Scath Gwannek is also good - but not because of bash but because it has spell bindings.

I successfully tested them with carnage, so I assume they work fine now.

Thanks for the info. I was just guessing why they keep it around 50:50.

Swarm Spiritshift would be awesome! Don't know (yet) what it's good for though.

I don't like AD&D multiclassing. It's so boring. I'm glad OBS is trying out something new that seems to lead to many interesting build options.

I guess the investment reservations have to be backed up first. And you also don't want a bad ratio of backers:investors. While the first ones are "cheap money" (just look how many ingame portraits were "sold"), the second ones can get really expensive so to speak.

There are none (that we know of). But she's also called "The Lady of Lament" which also sounds like a nice name for a ship. Could also be "The Mistress of Mourning" or "The mourning Mistress".

You can vote accordingly then.

Mother's Embrace is indeed a very nice name for that ship.

It works OKish but it's not superpowerful. The problem is that you want to catch grazes in order to trigger retaliation and also riposte. But the rogue's health is so low that - even with fat armor - you have to rest all the time. Deep Wounds works with retaliation, but it can't be stacked.

Yes, pull them out of the room one by one.

It's a nice ability for tanking and stacks with some other ACC debuffs (see the Golden Dragon Build). In the early game it's more valuable for a party than Frenzy. But yeah - you won't find Maneha in the early game...

And what would I do with my beloved White Worms invocation if The Dragon Thrashed would just leave a pile of ashes behind?

This. So many possibilities to find awesome combos. I will put even more hours into PoE2 than into PoE1. If that's even possible.

I can't believe that my build offer didn't lead to immediate complete funding. OK - how can I motivate you further? I mean I can't offer money, that would be really dumb. I know most people who read this won't give a shart - but if we reach 5000$ I promise all my future class build postings will not only be text & picture, but every one will also contain a video of some sorts - to show it in action or to show the leveling or whatever you prefer. Note that I'd have to buy a new computer for this because my current machine will never be able to capture video and play games at the same time. BIBs I hope the internet connection in Bukarest will be nice...

Good question. I didn't test, but it should.

Yes, even though they are dirrent effects (stuck/sicken/piece damage) those ret. items like Binding Rope/Lavender Wreath/Coat don't stack. That's what I wanted to say. Now I also remember that I tested a max retaliation barb. Barbaric Retaliation definitely stacks. Battle Forged (fire godlike) and potion of Flame Shield also stack.

For early/mid game you can try Firebrand. Pick Turning Wheel and Scion of Flame asap. because Scion of Flame works with both Firebrand and Turning Wheel. Later variant a) Tidefall + burning lash. Tidefall is best with maxed MIG because wounding damage scales with MIG. Pretty straightforward. The alternative b) is max PER with Hours of St. Rumbalt + burning lash and Enervating Blows + Apprentice's Sneak. Enerv. Blows causes weakened on crit which lowers fortitude. Force oA and prone from Hours target fortitude. So it's a lot easier to cause prone. Apprent. Sneak will apply a lot because both weakened and prone trigger it. Hours also has Annihilation, giving you double crit damage bonus. Works great with Merciless Hand and other crit damage mods. Try to get gloves of Accuracy. If you crit with Force oA you willdo a lot oft damage, cause weakened, have two rolls against fort. for prone. This is instant Deathblows if you have a rogue in the party. In both cases I would take Veteran's Recovery and rel. high MIG and INT. RES is not so important. Iron Wheel is good. Of course Lightning Strikes. Shod-in-Faith is always nice for monks. Once Iron Wheel is there you can use light armors. I personally would prefer option b. But Tidefall is also very nice. Such a monk is perfect for "behind enemy line" operations. Especially with Flagellant's Path.

Sidekicks is a smart way of answering the "I want a dwarf companion" and the "I want a pale elf companion" factions. I wonder now what the 8th companion will be? A mysterious person of a nondescript race with a cut-off nose?

Remember: there are also trinkets now. What about a telescope or a sextant? What can they do? Well I have no idea... Ouh-uh-uh! What about that: you need that thing to find the Black Isle? And some other nice effect - still no idea...

As far as I know it only worked with active abilities.