Boeroer

Hours of St. Rumbalt is the better weapon. Because you can't enchant the Grey Sleeper it's inferior to unique weapons which you can enchant with a lash and even more important: with durgan steel. The only class which can make good use of the Grey Sleeper is the barbarian in my opinion. Another good alternative would be the Blade of the Endless Paths (estoc) or Drake's Bell (estoc). White Spire is also nice. The two hander with the best dps on a high MIG character is Tidefall. If you're looking for max. damage, take that. By the way: why don't you use a marking weapon with Ploi? You're skipping +10 ACC on your Lady of Pain. Very good with Hours of St. Rumbalt.

Yeah, that's the post I was talking about. Good research! Thanks for testing!

Erm, yes, sorry. I meant Reckless Assault. Good idea with the console. I won't stop you. We could put the outcomes into Ben No.3's sticky beginner-thread.

Just make sure that the two afflictions stack. For example stun will suppress prone completely while weakened, flanked and blind are afflictions that (most of the time) won't get suppressed completely. Another good way to ensure Deathblows is to give your rogue a weapon that does stun or prone on crit. Early weapons which do this are Tall Grass, the Temperacl and Hours of St. Rumbalt. Tall Grass and esp. Hours of St. Rumbalt are great weapons for rogues in my opinion. With enough attack speed and some INT you will stunlock (or prone-lock) your enemy while you're attacking him. You can then cause your own second affliction with one of your special attacks (not Sap! ) and you'll have your reliable, self made Deathblows.

I also like it as it is. I mean it's not a simulation of the real life, it's just a game. I can overlook a few logical flaws if the game is fun to play.

It's a mess I'm afraid: Savage Attack and Devastating Blows are mutually exclusive although they are both offensive models. That's because they both belong to the same category (code wise). Don't ask be about the categories. Loren Tyr listed them some time ago and maybe someone who's not using his Smartphone to surf this forum can find it. Vuln. Attack and Savage Attack are in different categories. If I remember correctly Vuln. Attack is a category on its own. It's complicated and I think it's the biggest flaw of PoE that those things (stacking rules, modals, attack speed and so on) are not (or poorly) communicated.

Some traps do very high damage that also vaporizes your health pool. But still he can only die permanently if you turned off maiming or, if you didn't do that, if he was already maimed from the fight against the dragon. Can't you load a savegame? Or are you playing ToI?

Honey Badger! https://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg Or a boar named "Lord of the Flies".

Hehe, glad you asked. Codewise the item spellbinds are mere copies of the original spells. So basically those are seperate spells with the same values at first. Sometimes, when the original spell or ability changes (patch), the devs forget to also change the spell/ability on the items. This happened now and then. Some examples: - Knockdown was changed to a full attack, but on the Girdle of the Driving Wave it's still a primary attack. - Whisper of Treason was changed from average to fast cast - on Munacta Arret and Spirit Spiral they used to be average until the devs realized and changed it there, too. - Combusting Wounds has to overcome fort. The Ring of Searing Flames had an auto-hit until devs realized that and changed it. and so on... So maybe it was intentional that Vile Thorns on Bittercut has (or had - didn't test lately) no recovery and nearly no animation time. Or it's an minor bug. I don't know. But it's quite awesome to spam all 4 uses in a blink of an eye. Especially for a rogue who wants to hit while (short termed) afflictions that trigger Deathblows are still on. Death Godlike's racial ability is generally rubbish if you ask me. Would be nicer if they had a weak form of Come, Sweet Winds of Death as an aura or so. Whatever... The Executioner's Hood is a great item with on-kill effect. Generally speaking it would be good to use Maggots with a char who can build up a lot of MIG and INT. A chanter comes to mind (stats +5 invocations), but it takes some time to cast them. Another is priest of course, but there's no way that he would be good with sabres. Barbs could be nice. They can buff MIG by 6 with Greater Frenzy alone and usually have a lot of INT (I mean they are barbs at last ). And if you use carnage to lower enemies' endurance in an AoE a bit, Maggots could be a nice finisher. Only bad thing is barbs' lowish ACC. Melee wizard could also be nice. He can get MIG and INT bonuses plus ACC via Citzal's Martial Power and spell bindings still work with that awesome buff on. And what about rangers? Dual Bittercut with Swift Aim and so on would lead to 0 recovery, while Maggots might trigger Predator's Sense in an AoE for the stag companion as well. Kind of a ranger/druid multiclassing. Also take Envenomed Strike and Aspirant's Mark. And use the stag helmet...

Ah, good to know. Funny how I forget those things even when I played this part of the game for like a thousand times.

Good advice. I also wouldn't master Tanglefoot or Binding Web. It's just funny to move through the ranks of stuck enemies with a stag helmet and hitting here and there. For a wizard I would always recommend mastering Eldritch Aim as lvl 1 spell. Your afflictions will hit even harder. If you crit your CC spells will last a lot longer. But for lvl 2 Curse of Blackened Sight is indeed a nice option. It targets will and it lasts a really long time. Only downside is it's small AoE, but for a rogue this shouldn't matter. Slicken is too short for my taste, same with Fetid Caress. I find them both a bit underwhelming. Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon and Combusting Wounds are my no.1 lvl 2 spells - but they will do nothing for your rogue I'm afraid. Another way to cause afflictions with a wizard without spells is to use Blast and combine it with an implement that causes stun or prone on crit. It will work in an AoE - but the durations are quite short. Still not a bad option. Sunbeam is a nice spell, I agree. The druid's other great options for causing afflictions that last some time are Returning and Relentless Storm of course, but also Spreading Plague (weakens and hobbles for a fairly long time) as well. It will trigger Deathblows by itself with its two afflictions. The best one is possibly Venombloom. It's foe only (which I like a lot), deals a lot of raw damage and weakens for a long time and has a huge AoE. If you later want the rogue to use spells and scrolls with Deathblows (like Fireballs, Twin Stones and so on) and you need big AoE afflictions for that, then Tanglefoot, Chillfog, Binding Web and all those spells which cover a large area for a rel. long time are good. And Phantom Foes of course - still a good spell if you decide to go for cipher. I seldomly use priests to cause afflictions. They are not too good at that and are busy with buffing most of the time. Devotions + Inspiring Radiance makes your CC guys like wiz and druid and cioher a lot better - so I leave thst to them. But Painful Interdiction is a nice exception and a good advice if you are willing to spend two talent points. It has a huge AoE and can be cast quickly. It doesn't last too long but you can cast Crowns for the Faithful or Minor Avatar before using it which will give you much longer durations with the following spells. Just note that Empowered Interdiction doesn't raise the ACC for the weakening part, only for the dazing roll.

That's the problem. One reason why I suggested afflictions. But maybe that's not very playable, no idea. Or receiving a crit would enrage you? Then the girdle of mortal protection would be the no. 1 item for barbs.

I think you only need 1. Combat log shows that the difficulty oft the traps is 1 if I'm not mistaken.

Models of different categories can be active at the same time. For example Vulnerable Attack can be active while Savage Attack is also active. To know the different categories one must look into the code. Loren Tyr did this but I think he's not active in the forums right now. Another candidate is MaxQuest I guess. Some modals are obviously placed in different categories - for example Savage Attack and Swift Aim. With others it's hard to tell (like my first example).

Not the last time I tested it with the Sorcerer's Apprentice build. But that was some time ago. But dual Bittercuts with 4 Vile Thorns per rest on a rogue are already great. Vile Thorns not only works with Deathblows but also with Deep Wounds if I remember correctly (pierce damage?). And with Bittercut's Vile Thorns you don't have any recovery - they are like instant casts. Don't ask me why. So even if Infestation of Maggots doesn't work with Deathblows the rogue might still be a good choice because of what I said above and because of his high ACC and his hit/crit conversion.

Then it's like focus. I mean the part where you get rage by doing damage. You could also make it so that with missing endurance you gain rage. Like with Blooded. Doesn't have to be too granular. But I like the idea of afflictions making the barb really angry.

I stole it from the Hulk.

For AoE damage I would say wizard. He not only has a higher number of spells from which you can pick your preferred damaging spells - he also can get two rings of wizardry for more spells per rest and he can have blast which is an AoE attack itself. Works like a charm with Kalakoth's Minor Blights if you want to spare spells in trash encounters. Add Combusting Wounds to that and melt even tough mobs with only two spells. You can even deal really high AoE damage in melee with Citzal's Spirit Lance. It's only one spell and you can whipe whole groups with it quickly. I recently played a solo Lance wizard on PoTD, it's very effective. Druid has nice spells, too. Most of his damaging AoE spells also cause powerful afflictions, which is great. But he hasn't the spell variety of a wizard and he can't use "spell saving tactics" to cause AoE damage like the wizard can. Shapeshifting is very powerful, but it's not AoE. To be honest, I would bring both. And a priest. Stronghold turns happen when you advance in a quest. Doesn't matter which one.

Ouch! Great news. Thanks for testing. This calls for a maggot loving necromancer build.

If you have a stag helmet or the wyrwood ring then a wizard with binding web is a nice way. Rogue puts on the stag helmet and is immune to stuck, wizard casts binding web and a whole area is afflicted with stuck. It's a powerful debuff with a low level spell. Chillfog is a great way to cause blind for a long time - but I wouldn't run into it to attack in melee. But with a bow it's nice. Phantom Foes is also very nice. With Phantom Foes you can also trigger the bonus damage against flanked targets that you can get from items and survival. A druid would be another source of afflictions. And don't forget that the fighter has knockdown. A great way to trigger deathblows, as I mentioned in another thread, is a monk with Force of Anguish and Enervating Blows. Preferably with an accurate weapon. He will often trigger deathblows for your rogue with one crit.

Nope. But it works great with beams and Pain Link. If you have a barb in the party then don't throw it away: one of the best items with HoF.

Yeah, but I also play during the night, so it does count.

It would have been cool if barbs had a unique (but simple) resource system like monks (wounds), chanters (phrases) or ciphers (focus) have. One that influences some of their most prominent abilitites, like Carnage and Frenzy and maybe also the Yell. Something named rage or so, where rage would increase Carnage and Yell area and would fuel Frenzy (influences bonus or prolongs duration or so). Then there would be no discussion about INT on a barb. Rage could grow if the barb gets affected by an affliction and would get dampened when he gets healed.

You can play with INT 3 and you will most of the time hit 3 foes at once if you don't flank but stand in the midst and enemies surround you. And you can also have +INT items which also will help a bit. But a lot of the barb's abilities are influenced by INT, for example Frenzy, Bloodlust, Savage & Stalwart Defiance, the yells and shouts and so on. Since most of those already have quite short durations dumping INT has a very noticeable effect and makes those ability less attractive. Longer durations are a big plus if you have a barb - that's one reason why Spelltongue on a barb is so nice. So it is true (for me) that INT is one of the most precious stats for a barb - and it feels weird sometimes. Not because all barbs should be dumb, but they don't have the reputation of being extraordinarily smart either. But I still like PoE's stats system. I have the same "problem" with fighters and monks by the way: can't make them without high INT.

You might consider Basketball. When I was 20, I got injured during a game and couldn't walk without crutches for nearly 3 months. Until today I can't bend my knee completely. Big success!