Boeroer

It is very cool. It turns 100% of ranged grazes into misses and reflects them. Outworn Buckler is also very good. No. 1 paladin shield.

Ranged attacks are all targeted attacks which travel over a distance. This includes Necrotic Lance, Missiles, arrows, gunshots, cleansing flame and so on. It also includes the annoying Lagufaeth blowguns. AoE spells like Fireball which you cast "on the floor" don't count. With Pallegina, Aru Brekr and Aila Braccia you will reflect a lot of such attacks back to the attacker. For example the Lagufaeth paralyze themselves and Thaos will cast Cleansing Flame into his own face. It's a very nice setup for certain encounters. I'm pretty sure it stacks. Elusove Quarry is a passive and should stack with everything. Look at the combat log when Pallegina gets attacked by a shot. You can even do it yourself. Her deflection in that roll should be 20 higher than on her char sheet.

Paladins can even get 120% lash for the arquebus shots: Flames of Devotion (50%) + Intense Flames (25%) + Burning Lash (25%) + Scion of Flame (*1.2). It's devastating. Another advantage would be that with Zealous Focus and the +20 ACC from FoD he will not likely miss even when he doesn't take a Weapon Focus for the arquebus. However, a paladin doesn't really fit thematically when I look at the image you posted. If I take that as a basis, I'd say rogue or ranger. The rogue can even take Backstab and do +200% base damage when opening from stealth at point blank. A ranger can reload significantly faster than any other class if you don't like Quick Switch. Later on he could use Powder Burns. Those are the classes that work best with arquebuses inmy opinion.

Ach, my bad. I thought it's Long Tom Saelmonn for a second or two.

Use the cape of the cheat then. One reason why I like builds with Tidefall, Hours of Saint Rumbalt and Tall Grass or Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger and so on is the fact that you can get those weapons quite early but they are so good that you can totally keep and use them until the end. Sadly, the most amazing abilites come at level 7 or even later. You can't rush them like you can with some items.

Everytime my PoE playthroughs end Durance throws himself on a pyre. So he can't be in PoE2 obviously. At first I thought it's Maneha with the cannons (used to be a raider) and the fish (Ondra stuff of some sorts). But it doesn't sound like her.

Yes! A very good item. The reduced duration of paralysis is the best part - especially if you only get grazed by the paralysis. With Blaidh Golan and Fenwalkers you will have reduced affliction durations when stunned, prone and paralyzed. Those are the most common and annoying disables in the game.

You don't need special stats for Spelltongue. Ok, 3 DEX might be a little slow, bit Maneha's stats are good wnough. With prolonged Frenzy and the speed buff yoi get from Spelltong you're fast enough. You can also dual wield with Spelltongue and for example March Steel Dagger and take Two Weapon Style. You will be very fast and it absolutely works with her. Turning the druid into a caster-tank still works. It's also possible to take the boar form and skill around self heals (max MIG and INT, Veteran's Recovery, boar's regeneration, Nature's Vigor & Balm, Moonwell, 14 survival for +60% healing) and wounding damage (boar tusks with max MIG). You will be very sturdy and can to a lot of Shapeshift damage, but you will have to rest from time to time because of low health. Fighters are great with charge nowadays, operating behind enemy lines and taking out high priority targets. For a wizard I used 4 blunderbusses + Pen Shot + Ryona's Vambraces + Quick Switch + Expose Vulnerabilities + Combusting Wounds just to do something different from the usual Blast thing and it was surprisingly good. You can also aim for Sprit Lance and pair it with Knockdown from Girdle of the Driving Wave and Glittering Gauntlets and so on. The Lance turns those things into AoE effects. It also used to work with Envenomed Strike, but I read somewhere that OBS secretly nerfed this, so maybe all the lance AoE thingies I mentioned got nerfed.

It's debatable if druids are the weakest spellcasting class. They have some of the best spells of the game. Besides that, they also have the best deflection of all casters and better ACC than priests and the same as wizards. Other defense values are always the same for everyone. So it's not true that they have poor defenses. Actually the deflection of a druid is pretty good for a caster even without buffs like Moonwell and so on. However - if you don't ever use the spells because you want to spare them (don't do that) then you're always better of with another class - see the cipher like the streaker said. Thing is: if you don't spare spells the game is way easier. The druid has some great low level spells, including summons (blights) which make most early encounters a lot easier. If you're lucky and the right blight forms that is immune to the damage the enemy does - for example a flame blight against xaurip spear wielders - you'll have an invincible summon. Shapeshifting is very powerful, too. But you should take Wildstrike if you want to use it. Just don't rush into battle, you're still too flimsy. Cast spells from afar and shift if an enemy attacks you in melee. So if you like druids in general you can definitely stick to him. If you tend to spare spells and don't like to rest then all casters who use per rest spells are wasted. You will have to rest because of low health anyway at some point - so why spare spells?

Eh? Cannons and a fish? Who's that now?

The scroll casts an AoE spell that gives everybody in range +2 mechanics. You have to place the char with the 10 mechanics into the AoE when casting this. Now, he has 12 mechanics. Then, try to disarm the trap with this guy, not Durance or Aloth (unless they are the ones with 12 mechanics now). You can also select the whole party and then try to disarm. The char with the highest mechanics score will usually go and try it.

They could let you fight against a lvl 16 monk who has +5 move speed and uses The Long Pain and Shot on the Run. Says "HA HA!" every time a party member gets knocked out. Will be the most deadly and annoying enemy ever.

Spelltongue barb is still nice. Since the HoF patch dual wielding barbs with max damage per hit are great. Use a Ring of Searing Flames and then do HoF with Frenzy and Vulnerable Attack - encounter's over. For monk I'd say the Long Pain is still the best. It's basically arquebus shots with nearly 0 recovery and all special attacks like Torment's Reach and Force of Anguish work like ranged attacks with it. Look at the Witch Doctor build. For paladins I recently did a build named Counselor Ploi which evolved around Sworn Enemy + Whisper oft Treason. It also used marking + Coordinated Attacks to boost a companion's ACC. MaxQuest recently discovered that you can dual wield marking weapons and stack marking. So a Darcozzi Paladini could stack Zealous Focus, Inspiring Exhortation, 2*marking and Coordinated Attacks for a ACC boost of +46 on a single ally. You can for example use a fighter with Disciplined Barrage as a partner and use Tall Grass and constantly prone dragons while the marker paladin also attacks the dragon. Tested it, works like a charm. Dragons are just a joke with this paladin in the party. He can also charm dragons. For rogues use a spellcasting aproach. Gather all the spellbind items. Damaging Spells work with Deathblows. And all spells that do pierce/crush/slash damage also cause Deep Wounds. For example with Overbearing Wave you can stun, do double damage via Deathblows and cause Deep Wounds in an AoE. I did a build named Sorcerer's Apprentice that uses those mechanics. There are surely more gimmicky builds.

That's right. Generally speaking, (besides prayers or litanies) high fortitude helps. High MIG and high CON lead to high fortitude, Frenzy boosts your fortitude by 16 (Greater Frenzy by 24), Bear's Fortitude by 10 and so on. I once played a max MIG and max CON barb solo and had no problems with Skirmishers and Lagufaeth.

I'm sorry for your ignorance. Now it's Pallegina speaking by the way. Feather and five suns: no doubt, no?

He has decent RES. Giving him a hatchet and a small shield is a good idea if you mainly use his spells. Small shield only because other shields will give him a malus to ACC - also with spells. Having good deflection and not too low DR will prevent that annoying rushers want to attack him first all the time. I you want to attack with him then you can give him the magran talent and Weapon Focus Soldier/Knight. Then he's good enough with an arquebus/sword. Don't forget that he has awesome ACC buffs for the party that all work on himself, too. The lowish PER doesn't matter much. I also think that's the main reason the devs game him low PER - because he can easily compensate it with spells.

It's absolutely your decision how many party memners you want - but there's no noticable difference between 5 or 6 party members when it comes to experience gain and leveling. If you want to grab an official companion later then it's all OK. If you want to use an hireling it's not too wise to wait for too long because the xp-gap between you and a newly hired adventurer will become bigger and bigger the more you level before hiring.

You don't need minmaxing at all, not even for solo PotD. But it can be fun and it can squeeze out a little bit more performance in those special areas you planned your build around. But it also leads to vulnerabilities. The trick is to work around those vulnerabilities while keeping the advantage of the maxed stats. As I said: fun!

Even if they are completely underpowered in the late game they can still eat some nasty disables that would otherwise hit you.

Does he indeed have perfect memory? As far as I understood the special thing about him is that he remembers his past lives after returning from the wheel while every other soul doesn't. That doesn't necessarily mean that he has perfect memory.

First it was Eder, now it's Aloth - the website changed. First it was pipe and grain and talking about Eothas --> Eder No it's a book and a key and talking about god's secrets and the Leaden Key --> Aloth Next will be an arse on a pyre and talks about being a douchebag --> Durance

That will work well. Minmaxing stats is not necessary because they are are not superimportant in this game anyway. Sure, 5 points more in a certain stat is good, but you will not gimp your character if you give him 13 MIG instead of 18. That's a nice thing about this game. The difference between 18 DEX and 3 DEX or 18 CON and 3 CON is very noticable though. And if you feel you could use more DEX and less MIG for example, just go to an inn and retrain a bit until you are pleased.

If you are at an inn and open the dialogue for resting or shopping, you will also see a dice symbol. That's the one for retraining. Every inn has it. You will retrain everything from lvl 1 on. A ranger can even pick a different animal companion. For a wizard it's even better: You can fill some grimoires with all your spells before retraining and then, when retraining, pick different spells than those which are in your spell books. Then, after retraining, you'll relearn all your old spells from your books and you'll have the most aweseome variety of spells. Health can only be healed via resting or with four other things: - Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence - Infuse with Vital Essence spell - Wound Binding talent - Field Triage talent Since camping supplies are cheap or lie around for free and there are a lot of inns all over the place (and rooms are cheap, too) most people don't use the two talents. Concerning your complaints: you just need to play a bit longer in order to get a feeling for it. The game mechanics are not supercomplicated, but there's little information about it in the game. You have to find most things out yourself (or ask in the forum). For starters: it's all about accuracy vs. defenses - buffing and debuffing. If you figure out how to do this the game's easy. Don't waste your priest's spells and time for heals. Use him mainly to buff your party. After that, use wizard and druid to debuff (or even disable) the enemy. Anything that causes afflictions is good. Only then attack with all damaging thingies you have.

Time siphon does not stack in quality, but in quantity - meaning that you will only get +15% attack speed (but this 15% stack with any other speed buff except itself) but the more often you hit the longer the duration will get. With a barb for example you will have 120+ seconds after a few attacks and then you could switch to another weapon setup and use the speed buff for those 120 secs.

Theoretically it works this way. In practice you won't be fast enough to prolog your buffs endlessly with a fighter - well, it might work with dual wielding and a second weapon with the speed enchantment and Two Weapon Style plus high DEX. It's more easy to do this with a barb, because he hits multiple targets via carnage. A fighter can't do it that easily. It works best if you hit foes that have active buffs, then you'll steal more time for your own buffs, but if you hit generic mobs you will most likely not gain endless durations. So: you will extend your durations, but maybe not endlessly with a fighter. If you want you can read my Leech barbarian build for information around Spelltongue. I described how it works in combination with the barb's self buffs. Pretty sure you can siphon some knowledge for your fighter.