Boeroer

@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!

MaxQuest - a witcher from the books, not the games. I still think a chanter would be nice. Aard: could be the lvl 1 invocation that stuns and pushes. Igni: obviously The Dragon Thrashed. Yrden: everybody with mechanics can place traps. The chanter can also have drop traps. Or the Killers froze stiff. Quen: the -10% damage chant & the 30pt damage shield chant Axii: there's an invocation for that. Most of the invocations are cone shaped. Best thing is: you can name your chants accordingly.

Apart from katanas of course. A single katana wielding master swordsman could have won the 30 years was on his own I don't know. There were no wet, rolled up strawmats to annihilate.

But aren't the Hanuta or Huana or what they are called a bit "archaic" in some ways? They could rely on throwing spears, harpoons, slings and stuff like that.

I am a powergamer and I didn't care.

Pfff spoilers. Tehehe. We just don't care. What to spoil if there's no game yet?

I want to raise it as my own - I'm a orlan at last. I will teach it the secrets of powergaming, hahahahaha!

Yeah, stop it. I want a somewhat tamed wicht as sidekick.

2. definitely better game mechanics than BG/BG2. And a lot more freedom on how to build your character. A lot of things a viable even on the highest difficulty setting. 5. Wizards can totally be played with any kind of armor and any kind of weapon. You can easily play a melee wizard in plate armor, wielding a two hander and also the wand swinging cliché wizard - and everything in between. It's not possible to multiclass, but wizards have a lot of awesome self buffs and also summoned weapons which let you have a lot of fun in melee. Have a look at those two exemplary wizard builds which are from opposite sides of the spectrum: A tanky melee wizard: Bilestomper A frail ranged wizard: Hurtstacker Just to get an impression how different classes can be build - and still be fun to play.

Hehe. edit: Eh, I meant "then in PoE2, follow up with..." obviously. Sorry...

Yes, you can retrain at any inn and also at your stronghold. Costs a little bit of money. But watch out for your grimoires! Since you will lose all your spells and pick new ones at level up you can scribe all your known spells into your grimoires before retraining (unique spells you learn via quests don't vanish, you will keep them automatically). Then, when retraining, you can pick spells you didn't have learned before. After that you relearn your old spells from your grimoires. Cheesy! That way you can learn all the generic spells in the game. Do I ever hit enemies with normal, non-summned weapons? I do a lot when I use an implement (wand/rod/scepter) with blast - because the blast effect works with spell chances and on-crit effects: for example a rod that causes stun with every crit also stuns enemies when the blast crits. So you can have single target CC effects turn into AoE effects. Another nice implement is the soulbound sceptre which has a chance of dominating enemies on hit or crit (aka spell chance). This also works with the blast AoE. When I'm playing a melee wizard then most of the time I will not use a non-summoned weapon. After some levels you have enough spells to always be able to summon your preferred weapon and in case of two-handers you even have three spell levels to pick from: lvl 1 for staff, lvl 5 for lance and lvl 7 for another staff. Usually I never run out of spell uses for those after the early game. But since those weapons have an universal weapon focus I can use any two handed weapon I like as "normal" weapon should there be the need to attack with it. I can then pick my weapon focus accordingly for that weapon. A pike (WF soldier) could be good or a great sword (also WF soldier) - or even a staff (WF peasant). Durance's staff is pretty neat for example - because nobody else normally wants to use it as main weapon. But it's the only reach weapon with two damage types, making it a good choice for a two handed backup weapon.

Every class can wield swords, estocs and great swords - so it all comes down to the Witcher's magic that you'd want to emulate. So maybe a wizard. Or a fighter with a lot of spellbinding items and scroll usage. Rogue would also be possible, but maybe a bit squishy. I could also see a chanter as witcher. They have some effects via invocations and phrases that match with the witcher's stuff. I would use great swords or estocs. there some really nice unique ones in the game.

And don't forget archmage Dull-Mindedness!

ROFL - brilliant! And also true...

I could have lived without it - but I don't object it either.

No, I don't think it's hard to do. Actually the stats of the official companion in PoE are balanced enough so that they can be turned into all kind of roles and builds while staying true to their appearance and background story. For example I play Edér as a dual wielding caster rusher at the moment. 90% offense, only 10% defense (roughly). Works totally fine. Companions have a huge advantage over hirelings: They start one level higher. This makes the early game with companions a lot easier than with hirelings. And later on the differences in stats are mitigated anyway because cumulated level bonuses and talents/abilites are much more important and have way more impact than some stat points in the perfect places. I would agree with you if we had some companions who have dumped stats, like 3 INT or 3 MIG or something like that. But since we don't have those, they work quite well in all kind of builds. p.s.: I play PotD only