Boeroer

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!

As we already discussed in another thread: Gotta love my cipher-barb. Soul Whip + Heart of Fury = Whoooohaaa! Or my druid-monk-paladin: Wildstrike Burn + Greater Wildstrike Burn + Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + Flames of Devotion + Intense Flames + Scion of Flame. Such things need to get balanced or the whole game will be a joke even at "Supertricky Pothole Path of the Uberdamned".

Sadly, you can only have one wall. If you cast a second one the first one will dissipate. But you could use Chillfog, Malignant Cloud (or druidic equivalants) and so on to cause more AoE hits for Combusting Wounds without doing anything.

Yes, Doemenel would be the best faction for this build I guess. Unarmed crits get calculated properly, it's just that the small base damage is taken into account and NOT the bonus of Novice's or Transcandent Suffering. Those bonuses get added AFTER the crit damage got calculated with the whimpy base damage. That's the case why crits don't do a lot of damage compared to hits. It's the same with things like Savage Attack, Weapon Spec. & Mastery and all other +x% dmg mods. So you shouldn't waste points on those when you are using Transcendent or Novice's Suffering all the time. Better to go for speed and/or lashes instead (Lightnig Strikes, Turning Wheel, Blood Testment Gloves or Gauntlets of Swift Action and so on). But on the other hand, this is also true for grazes: they do nearly the same damage as hits or crits would do. So, it's kind of balanced. You can use this for gimmicky build - like a char with 3 Perception or so - because it doesn't matter that much if you hit or graze. The only thing that raises the bonus damage of Novice's and Trancendent Suffering is might. So, as a fist fighter you want to have very high MIG - but you don't need that much PER. TLP however are considered summoned weapons and therefore work like all the other weapons, not like Transcendent Suffering. Because their (already high) base damage scales with levels, all +x% dmg mods work really well with them. That's why I suggested the hater talents and also items which raise ranged damage. Crits work like all other +x% dmg mods, so the same is true for them as well.

Yeah, the stronghold hirelings are more like low level summons. They cost money, sure, but it's better than being targeted by all attackers. If I do no "pure" solo runs (meaning that I will take in the official companions to do stronghold adventures, but don't add them to the party) I always take the hirelings with the most prestige. Don't know if this really helps with the stronghold adventures and Azurro, but I like to believe that.

Grab a stag helmet. When you autosolve you will have to rebuild structures every time. It's expensive. If you hire mercenaries with the barracks it's not that hard to win those battles.

Erm, never bothered to check that.