Boeroer

That is totally right. A good party composition and good party "combos" (buffing accuracy before attacking, using CC effects and so on) is the key to an easy playthrough. Pure damage will not win battles for you. But it sure can be fun.

For my usual barb I'd go for high MIG and INT, then PER, then CON, then DEX and then RES. High MIG and INT are benefical for a lot of stuff: self healing via Veteran's Recovery and Savage Defiance, buffs like Frenzy, then Carnage, Vengeful Defeat, Heart of Fury and stuff like that. Since you can speed up your barbarian pretty nicely with Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst and also dual wielding if you like, DEX isn't so important for me. With a Two Hander you want to have a bit more DEX than with two weapons. If you have low RES you want more CON, if you have low CON you might want to put more points into RES. High CON is very benefical for barbs because their already high base values for endurance and esp. health will lead to tremendous pools if they also get the bonus from CON. This is good when you rely on self heals with low deflection. Else your endurance will be ok but your health will be low after few fights. High MIG and CON will lead to a great fortitude defense - and that's the most important defense in my opinion. You can dump RES if you're going the high CON road with self healing. Only problem will be interrupts when you get surrounded by mobs. Potion of Spirit Shield helps a lot as does Holy Meditation (from items or a priest). You can also dump DEX if you're dual wielding and use Frenzy + Bloodlust. Especially for the nest ability of the barb, Heart of Fury, you need no DEX at all. But you don't need to. It's perfectly ok to leave the not so important stats at 10 and give the more important ones a 15 or so. What is important and what not is also determined by your role in the party and your build idea. As you pointed out, the Golden Dragon is supposed to be a tank with a shield and therefore doesn't need a lot of CON. But he wants high RES to avoid damage. This is a special build though. Normally I wouldn't put too many points into RES when I'm building a barb. Usually the offensive way is a lot of fun - and you can pair it pretty nicely with Veteran's Recovery, survial bonus for healing and any item that gives +25% to healing received. Also, a Girdle of Mortal Protection is good: it takes away 27% of the critical damage which is near to the damage an normal hit scores. This is very good if you have low deflection and receive a lot of crits. All in all your dps will be great while you will be sturdy as a fighter. This combo of good offense and good self healing is very effective.

I find Powder Burns to be a weak ability, but maybe that's just me. If it would work with Swift and Vicious Aim and the self blindig part would be removed it would be OK I guess.

If you are on steam, try to verify your game cache. This might help.

Plan C: one single chanter with The Dragon Thrashed and boots of speed, running around them in circles.

Who fixed that? Allen Inversion?

After the tears dried: It's one of the best two handed weapons in the game. Comes superior, has the speed enchantment (which is one of the best) and has also marking, which is also great if you know how to use it. As all other weapons in PoE, it's no game breaking stuff. Just a good unique weapon.

Great blunderbuss build: Island Aumaua wizard with Arms Bearer, Quick Switch and focus on max DR bypass (Pen. Shot, Ryona's Vambraces, Expose Vulnerab.) and Combusting Wounds. Cast Expose Vul. and Combusting Wounds on the enemies and then shoot them with your blunderbusses. Awesome! Most of the time you will do additional >100 burn damage with CW. Not the usual wizard build - but one of the best gun wielders in my opinion. Spell Mastery Expose V. & Combusting W. Nice additions are things which generate a lot of hits, like most missile spells and wall spells. Guess I'll have to post that build at some point. Soon I'll have more time, I promise. You can also take a ranger and use one or two Rings of Searing Flames. With Driving Flight this will generate even more hits, but it lacks a bit DR bypass. Not a problem with a ful party though.

One can't see OP's text when on mobile. Guess I didn't miss much. Too lazy to mark it in order to make it visible.

It's Eder speaking. Would love to see him in PoE2 as well.

If you want you can also take Novice's Suffering and skip weapons altogether. Jojobobo of this forum tried that and was very pleased. It's because the damage of grazes, hits and crits don't differ that much with fists - it's a weird game mechanics thing. Since barb's carnage already has reduced accuracy and tends to graze more often, this is a good synergy. Also works well with high might. I think Jojobobo hasn't posted his build yet. I think he did a solo PotD run with the unarmed barb.

Priest = MC is indeed a rewarding choice. In my opinion, priest is the most powerful and useful class at higher levels (lvl 9 and above). The only thing at which they suck is the early game.

A good way to make a barb who is not a late bloomer is to give him high might and intellect and then take Veteran's Recovery. This removes the most frustrating part of the barb in the early game: his squishyness. Add Savage Defiance and combine this self heal approach with Fulvano's Amulett or a Belt of Bountiful Healing and 8 points of survival for the +40% healing bonus. Suddenly you are even sturdier than a fighter while dishing out AoE damage. Normal to high CON will give you lots of health which is not too unimportant if you rely on regenerating your endurance. Dual wielding is not mandatory, but surely fun with a barb. Heart of Fury (lvl 11 ability - great stuff) is best with two weapons. I also like Great Swords a lot on a barb. With high accuracy (great if you have a priest) the "Hours of St. Rumbalt" is one of the best options for a barbarian in my opinion. Tidefall is really nice, too. A very nice spear is the Vile Loner's Lance that you can buy in the Salty Mast in Copperlane. It causes -5 to enemies' defenses and has a 1 sec interrupt values which is twice as long as usual. With this spear you should choose high perception and take Interrupting Blows. You can of course use a one handed approach, a shield or another spear.

You should use your priest as buffer for defenses (including prayer) and accuracy mainly. Healing is OK, but buffing is the best part of the priest. The combo I would always cast is Inspiring Radiance followed by Devotions of the Faithful. +30 to ACC that stacks with other ACC buffs for the whole party is a huge advantage at the start of a battle. I personally don't use healing a lot with a priest because I like it when chars can heal themselves with things like Veteran's Recovery and so on. And then I like it if healing abilities are spread over the party. It's too bad if your only healer gets disabled. Paladins, chanters and druids can be good healers in one way or another, too. It's absolutely no problem to play without a priest. But it's right that they can make the game easier. But for example there's a scroll for every prayer. You only need a guy or a gal with lore. The only prayer like things which aren't on a scroll are the (single ally) litanies against minor & major afflictions.

ACC = Accuracy. The most important thing in this game. Durance has prayers. Like Druids (and unlike wizards) priests can't choose their spells, they are always the same. You are lvl 10, so Durance should have lvl 5 spells. That means he has Prayer against Restraint which will protect your party from paralyzing and petrifying. That should help a lot. For Prayer against Treachery you would need to reach lvl 11, sorry. Or you could use scrolls with prayers. But the anti treachery one requires 12 lore.

Weapons don't matter that much anyway. What you encountered are Andragans - very potent casters. They will petrify you and that can be the end. You can make those fights easier if you use the prayer spells that Durance has. Prayer against Treachery and so on. This will prevent domination. Then you should use summons as cannon fodder to distract the enemies. Then durance should use Inspiring Radiance and Devotions to boost ACC by +30, Aloth should cast Eldritch Aim and then, with +45 ACC, he should cast his best disables - same with the cipher with Borrowed Instinct - before the melee guys like the barb go in. The prayers and litanies are one key to an easy playthrough.

Nidhen's Finger or something like that.

Too bad The White Crest's Overwhelming Wave is only 1/rest. You should also try the Swaddling Sheet in combination with not too high deflection. At least that's 1/encounter, multidirectional and foe only.

By the way: the proc chance is not four times as high just because you have four arrows per shot (twined arrows & driving flight) instead of one. The chance is ~34% with those abilities instead of 10%. Still very good!

Items: - Shod-in-Faith boots - on a char who is near the pet most of the time (also see Riptide build). - Lost Periapt of the Winding Path - same - scroll of Moonwell and so on Cipher: - Pain Block - cast it on the pet - Going Between - same - Defensive Mindweb - if you have a real tank in the party your pet will be near unkillable Chanter: - Ancient Memory - Beloved Spirits - Kindness chant Priest: - Triumph of the Crusaders - as long as the pet kills enemies, it will get insta-healed. - Consecrated Ground - if the priest is near the pet - Watchful Presence - Watchful Guardian - Crowns for the Faithful - +25 RES, meaning +25 deflection - Shields for the Faithful - another +25 deflection - Circle of Defense - +15 to all defenses, stacks with the above - Armor of Faith - more DR without speed loos is alsways good Paladin: - Lay on Hands - best single target heal like zeldagaiden said - Reinforcing Exhortation - +25 deflection, doesn't stack with Shields for the Faithful - Zealous Endurance - more DR is good, doesn't stack with Armor of Faith Druid: - Nature's Vigor - not only heals, but also raises endurance by +15% - Nature's Balm - heals faster, stacks with Nature's Vigor - Moonwell - heals and raises defenses by +10. Doesn't stack with Circle of Defense, but with all deflection-only buffs - Form of the Delemgan - great spell for pets: +8 DR to weapon damage and shock+corrode (stacks with everything, also Armor of Faith or Zealous Endurance) and immunity to stuck - Garden of Life: very powerful continous healing if there are enemy corpses

Vicious Aim also works with some of the ranged targeted spells - as does pen. shot. But it's only the +20% damage that gets applied. Another great ability for scoll casting is everything that speeds you up, esp. Blood Thirst. But there's nothing that beats a rogue who casts Combusting Wounds + Missile Barrage + Deathblows with max DR bypass.

I didn't try it in the last few weeks, but normally it should work like this: Shift (hold it) + click target no. 1 then click target no. 2 and so on - then release shift. If it doesn't work OBS may have changed the queuing. The processing of the queue also stops if one of the targets you clicked on dies or changes sides (charmed or dominated for example). If this all doesn't work and queuing is broken then you could retrain for low micro: dump INT to 3 and don't take Envenomed Strike. You can then wear the Hat of the Diseased Yak (RES+2, INT -1) or the Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection (MIG and CON +2, RES and INT -2). This will leave you with 2 or 3 INT. You can put the points from INT where you want. Low INT is perfect for wounding damage and also Runner's Wounding Shot. It applies the same damage than with high INT, but in much shorter time. If you keep firing at one target, Deep Wounds with low INT is no problem because it gets refreshed after every hit. Unfortunately Envenomed Strike is bad with low INT (damage increases with INT) so we skip it. Such you would turn the multiple target Mad Hornet into a single target Dumb Hornet. Micro would be near zero if you don't get attacked and if others provide afflictions for your Sneak Attack and Deathblows. Persistence also works against pierce immune targets: pierce damage will be blocked but wounding still happens.

Actually a barb with Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst is the official boss of spell slinging. Too bad he hasn't that many spells.

Whom you can't see under all that armor. But without the helmet: yes! With a beard please!

The only one handed weapons with marking are Shame or Glory and Cladhaliath. This is the oneand only setup where you can dual wield marking weapons. Or you use the Helwax Mold to clone one of them of course. It's a good question if this is better than Outworn Buckler. I guess it depends. A darcozzi paladin with dual marking could buff a single ally's ACC by +46 - not bad at all. On the other side - +5 to all defenses (stackable) is also a good thing. Charming with Munacra Arret and Sworn Enemy is fun and works on any enemy who is not immune. The +10 feom the spell itself, Zealous Focus, Sworn Enemy and Distant Advantage (with Wood Elf) add up nicely to an ACC bonus of +38. I did not miss once as far as I can remember, not even dragons. @MaxQuest: if you have Strange Mercy (and maybe Inspiring Triumph and maybe Executioner's Hood) you will have to steal kills. It's not that hard. Just support your people until an enemy is nearly dead, then strike. If you kill somebody with FoD you will trigger two heals - most of the time this would be overkill, but it can be a real lifesaver if an ally's endurance is very low. Actually, I did a "mercyful" Executioner Paladin build with Strange Mercy, Sword & Shepherd, Spectacular Spetum, Coordinated Attacks and the Hood plus Insp. Triumph. It worked quite well. I didn't do a whole playthrough with it though.