Boeroer

All time favorite so far might be the Witch Doctor. The Backlash Beldam was also very nice, but they nerfed her to death. I also like barbs of any sorts. The druid I like best at the moment is a boar shifter, max MIG and INT, with Veteran's Recovery and survival (14) bonus for healing and Sanguine Plate + Shod-in-Faith boots. Go in, catch a crit which triggers Frenzy & Consecrated Ground, then shift and deal tons of (wounding) damage while self healing prevents knockout.

I think that's very boring - but to each its own.

I love it that you can tank with any class if you build it right. Well, some don't make super good tanks, but even a rogue can be build in a way that he can stand his ground against 3 attackers and still deal good damage. The Bilestomper wizard tank I did some time ago was a lot of fun for example.

Dammit, I never did that. Sooorry! Have too much fuzz going on right now. Since PoE2 will be released in one year at best I guess I could take some time and update all of my old builds. This one was one of my favourite ones back then - although it's not too gimmicky or special.

Monk with dual pistols? Either the monks in PoE:Deadfire are totally different or it's a rogue - subclass pirate.

Finally all those hours paid off. I wish.

The more wizards the easier the playthrough. Just add one priest. Wizards with shield + Wizard's Double + Arcane Veil make awesome tanks in the early levels. The deflection is so high that you only catch grazes if you get hit at all. Add Chillfog for -20 ACC and your front line is untouchable. You need to rest a bit in the early levels of course.

Damn. Then that was also nerfed. I used Pain Link with the Backlash Beldam + CW and it worked like a charm back then. They indeed nerfed *everything* around that cipher build… not only focus gain by retaliation. I should only post private builds where OBS can't read. They also nerfed Envenomed Strike + Blast and Spirit Lance once I posted that. And they don't even bother to mention it in patch notes. It's mean!

I don't care about lvl 1 at all. Explanations aside: I play the game to develop and enchance my chars while doing an adventure. It's good to start at lvl 1. But what I would really like to do is to keep some items - at least the ones you have with you when Eothas strikes. Some builds don't work properly without the right items... They could even be "dechanted" in quality in some way so that they are not too powerful at the start of the game. As long as they keep their special enchantments (like draining, wounding or rending or whatever) it's all good.

More than one chanter gets really OP once you reach lvl 9. Two priests can be great. Most of the time the start of an encounter is the most critical phase and it's best to be quick. So, two priests could cast Inspiring Radiance and Devotions simultaneously, wasting no time. Same with things like Circle of Defence + Shields for the Faithful or Crowns for the Faithful. The more quickly the buffs are up, the sooner your CC guys can start to do their thing with boosted ACC. And not to forget that priests can be great damage dealers at higher levels.

Every class can be an animancer as far as I can tell. So limiting it to wizards may not be in line with the lore. Would be cool to have animancer as a seperate class (in order to multiclass) which you can't pick as starting class. Concerning whips: they should be reach weapons. And wouldn't it be cool to have the "blunderbuss of whips", the cat o'nine tails. Normal melee range, but 9 seperate "projectiles" with very low damage? Hooray for Vulnerable Attack and Ryona's Vambraces!

Maybe the Deadfire Archipelago is warm because of geological reasons (hot streams, vulcanos, underwater geysirs and so on)? Like Europe has the Gulf Stream...

Maybe they turn green again after the riots settle in Act III? Never tried though...

Depends. They stack though - so it's best if you combine them. For me, fortitude is the most important defense. So I would start with Bear's Fortitude. Then (if I have points to sparw) I would take Body Control. Those two will help to shrug off the most nasty disables like paralyze, stun and so on. Combine it with items like Fenwalkers, Wayfarer's Hide, Tempered Helm, Boots of Stability and so on and you will have excellent defenses against those disables. Of course: if you have a priest with prayers you don't need all of this fort buffing - also no will buffing. Then it's better to go for deflection and reflex.

Right. But other boots are also great. For example Fenwalkers or Boots of Stability.

Also: six wizards can cast six parallel wall spells. Beams of all sorts are also nice for CW by the way. The cipher's beams have the longest casting range and are most convenient to apply in my opinion. By the way: it's great fun to use a ranger with binding roots to root an enemy in the back line in place and then use Antipathetic Field on that fixed "anchor". What annoys me most about Ant. Field is that you have to micro and run around a lot if the anchor moves.

Why not make a front line consisting of a chanter, a monk and a cipher? If you don't limit yourself with one single tank but instead use three sturdy melees, each of them doesn't need to be too tanky to stand ground. I once had a chanter, a (non-shifting) druid and a shield rogue as frontline and it worked well. So chanter/monk/cipher should work even better. Give them heavy armor, shields + talent and Veteran's Recovery + survival's healing bonus and off you go (monk also works with high CON and without a shield). Put the chanter in the middle, give him Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits and you will see how awesome the regeneration of your front line is. Easy to make up for some points of deflection with good regeneration. For the backline I would use a wizard or druid for CC/afflictions and a priest for buffing. I would place the priest in the middle of the formation and the wiz/druid and rogue in the back. That way everybody can profit from the priest's Inspiring Radiance, Blessing and Devotions and also Consecrated Ground. Maybe a priest of Wael with a staff would be fun. He could hit through the front line with his reach weapon. Later on the chanter can sing the Mercy & Kindness phrase and then alternate Sure Handed Ila and a tier 1 phrase in the long linger time. The M&K phrase will double all healing. It stacks with survival bonus and bonus from items (Fulvano's Amulet and such). Your party will have no healing issues whatsoever then. Ciphers can reach pretty good defenses with a shield and Vampiric Shield and later Borrowed Instincts. Their focus generation is good enough with a sabre. Try to put a lash on the cipher's weapon asap. And don't drop MIG. It's even possible to take a large shield and go for max PER and lower RES in order to neglect the -8 ACC. In terms of defense that's better than a small shield because you will have the same deflection but get more reflex. With a priest it's easy to buff ACC, so no worries.

Stretch goal: whips. I mean as weapons. Seriously... I'm asking for this since I set foot into this forum. OK, to make it a more appealing stretch goal let's call it "exotic weapons". I mean nobody's neutral about nunchakus and stuff, right?

I once made a superior torch with a burning lash. It was the ubertorch. I'm really sad that you can't give items custom names.

Ah - now I remember: it's because of the +15 defense bonus agaist disengagement attacks when you break engagement. Pretty handy when you want to gain some wounds in melee and then retreat. The beam is just a bonus.

Erm... now that you said that I really wonder why I wrote Echoing Misery. Maybe it's a leftover from another build I was doing before. I usually take the same text file and edit it before posting. Have to check that.

Yes. In fact Kalakoth's Minor Blights + Blast and Heart of Fury are two of the best ways to generate a lot of hits in short time for CW.

Yes. For example Concussive Missiles on the same spot where CW hit will trigger 5 CW DoTs on each enemy because the spell creates 5 projectiles which explode. If you cast it repeatedly every time you will cause 5 additional CW DoTs in an AoE. Also works with blunderbuss. Each shot causes 6 CW DoTs. Quick switch four blunderbusses and you will get 24 CW effects - but not in an AoE obviously. My "Hotshot" wizard build uses this effect. Coming up next as [CLASS BUILD]. In a few days or so.

I have. But if 5 makes the game better (somehow) and the designers truly believe that then it's ok for me. I guess it also lowers the complexity of the party banter scripting if you only have 4 companions instead of 5 - like who answers to whom and what reaktions can we see when X is in the party and also Y and Z - and so on.

Great, thanks for the info. I'm, on Linux and it's sad that I can't see cloaks in PoE. The rest of the game ran quite smoothly and without any crashdowns - even though my hardware is not very potent, being a laptop from 2012. Thumbs up for that!