Boeroer

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.

Well, it has events and listeners and stuff - so it shouldn't be that hard to trigger anything from anywhere in the code. Whatever, this can't be the reason why for example DoTs like Shining Beacon or The Dragon Thrashed don't work with Scion of Flame.

Which animal companion gets wounds? A monkey? Wait: ranger/monk with a monkey as animal companion! First build set...

Why does the size of PoE2 have to be the same as PoE1 + expansions? You could just level faster and then have the game balanced accordingly.

It has nothing to do with unity. DoT mechanics are coded in C# by OBS.

Ah ok. Didn't know that. I hope the beta of PoE2 will also include Linux, because I am using Linux and wanted to pledge for beta access. This is crucial info for all backers who pledge for beta and are not on windows. So I guess I will contact Aarik. Edit: did it - now we have to wait. Usually Aarik responds with lightning speed. Just remember that today is sunday.

Sure... that's the whole point of the thread so far. And I think you didn't understand why a bashing shield is worse than a normal shield. The reason may be that I'm not able to explain it properly.

There's a thread here that dove into that question at length and OBS already noticed. Josh mentioned this discussion in the last stream. Would be better to use that thread I guess in order to have all arguments and points in one place: https://forums.obsid...ashing-shields/

Erm... very provocative statement. What about: "I hate wigs - I never use any of them. Better to just get rid of them entirely..." But wait - it's totally optional to wear wigs. Why complain that they exist? Some people with bald heads may like wigs. Those might want to have wigs that don't drop to the floor all the time while putting them on.

Can't say how many times I read about that confusion between Sly and that weird Death Godlike chanter. Surprised that you try the Ultimate whithout deep metagaming/knowledge. Kudos!

So... did it help?

Sure, but guns already have their place as weapon of choice for limited but hard hitting attacks (FoD, Wounding Shot, Backstab and such) and also have a special modal with Powder Burns. Crossbow and arbalest have nothing. There's no reason to choose a crossbow/arbalest over a bow or over a gun. My suggestion was more in favor of crossbows than in favor of rogues - but I think crossbows suit a rogue better than guns. Mainly because they are not so loud, which should be benefical for a more sneaky approach - while bows would need a lot of discipline and training to master. You could also allow Backstab from far away if done with crossbows/arbalest instead of guns (to loud) or bows (not accurate enough for "untrained" rogues). There's also a unique enchantment called "ambushing". It was put on Fellstroke, a pistol in WM. That would also be a suitable ability for rogues that only works with crossbows and arbalests.

Why? She looks like Sigourney Weaver.

Skill her with max DR penetration… Scion of Flame and give her blunderbusses with burning lash + FoD + Intense Flames in addition to Wrath of the Five Suns. She will do great. I also made use of the cloak that gives you Minor Missiles and gave her Prestidigitator's Missiles. It's a lot of fun to transform her into artillery. The other ranged pal could use a marking gun (that pistol I forgot the name of or that arquebus I forgot the name of) + Coordinated Attacks + FoD + Intense Flames + Enduring Flames (Goldpact) + Scion of Flame. He can then mark for +20 stackable ACC and deal great spike damage with his two FoD shots. You could also add Runner's Wounding shot to get another nice special attack for your gun.

It's a no-win situation I guess.

I guess there's no reason why not. Unity "exports" to both platforms. As long as they don't use plugins that only work on one single platform (like cloaks in PoE) it should be no problem. I can't remember the beta of PoE1, but the patches always came out for all platforms simultaneously.

There's a thread here that dove into that question at length and OBS already noticed. Josh mentioned this discussion in the last stream. Would be better to use that thread I guess in order to have all arguments and points in one place: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91496-from-the-twitch-qa-bashing-shields/

Potion drinking - total disaster. So sad.

Would that be a pack of hamsters? Or what's the correct term?

I agree with this. Yup!

Would be OK if rogues would get some special ability with crossbows and arbalest. They are more quite than a gun and fit rogues better than guns in my opinion. And they have no lobby so far. Rangers have Twinned Arrows or Powder Burns, wizards have Blast - but nobody can do anything special with crossbows or arbalest. Why not rogue? Could be quickload, could be sniper shot...