Boeroer

Yes, you can always leave and come back later.

Luckily for Durance, the Binding Rope only works with melee hits. But it would have been realistic to get stuck when you shoot yourself in the foot.

Yep. Random stronghold quest.

Eh? Other characters that hit you get stuck. It's not even possible to hit yourself in melee in PoE. Very good item that.

Maybe a green Aumaua or wild orlan will do. Or a Nature Godlike? Oops - shame (and no glory) on me for naming it "Shame and Glory" and not "Shame or Glory". Second time this week after Dragon's Bell. You can tell I didn't play that game for a long time now.

@MaxQuest: whooha! Dual wielded marking weapons stack? That is totally new to me and great news. I guess I'll have to add a DW variant to my Counselor Ploi build. Sadly, the only one handed marking weapons you can get are Shame and Glory + Cladhaliath. Looks really weird together. And since two spears also look stupid I guess the only tasty alternative is to clone Shame & Glory with the Helwax Mold.

The domination from the Ring of Changing Heart has no ACC bonus and is only 2/rest while Munacra Arret and Spirit Spiral both have 3 Whispers per rest at +10 ACC. The only advantage of the ring is that it has fast cast and can be cast out of combat. All dragons but one can be charmed. The one who's immune is with Llengrath. But if you charm the other one they will attack each other, so who cares?

It's relatively easy to determine if a party is too powerful for a certain encounter. Take the average level, the quality of equipment, the average damage, the damage done, how many times knocked out, the average ACC, the defensive values, if there are casters and so on. Of course you can't determine if the player has some very weird and powerful builds, but a kith opponent also wouldn't know this. If you want to make it realistic, only examine stuff that is visible, like quality of equipment, number of foes, are there casters, perhaps how high health is (injured), fully rested (do they look worn and exhausted) abd so on. Based on that you could give them a scripting how they should behave - mayybe also based on morale, dispositions and orders they have.

As far as I know you need more than 10 mechanics to find 8 ingots in the mining cart in Durgan's Battery. I don't know for sure because I always have a party member with 12 or more. You'll also need some fighting skills against a certain big, white, winged creature and against a certain humanoid, dried, robed creature to get them all.

Cool, thanks.

But it reduces recovery, too (if any left). The charm + knockdown approach with high ACC is one of the best ways to kill dragons in my opinion. I didn't even have a cipher. Only my charming paladin, melee priest and max INT knockdown fighter. All three sturdy enough to survive a few attacks. As you said: first charm the dragon and occupy him and his ads with killing each other, then later rush in and prone him until he's dead. I also had a barb, a druid and a wizard, but they just watched. So I assume cipher will work equally well - even more charms and other good stuff in the quiver and nearly same ACC if needed.

A pity. The only way that still might work is to use the console to dismiss them and then put them back into the party. I would like to do a play through with them - even without achievements.

Maybe... But even if they do stack (what I suspect) it might not be very reliable. Let's say you have two marking + coordinating paladins and one cipher. How do you make sure only the cipher profits from the ACC buffs and not one of the paladins? Too much fuzz for my taste. If you can figure out a way then I'm all in! For me, the perfect setup is a marking Darcozzi Paladini with Coordinated Attacks, Zealous Focus and Inspiring Exhortation, a priest with Inspiring Radiance and Devotions and a cipher with Tactical Meld casting it on the paladin. That way you will have +86 ACC on your cipher, +96 with Whisper of Treason. It should all stack. You could even add Borrowed Insticts. I think it stacks, too for +106. But thats too much focus waste for buffing in my opinion. +86 is enough to crit-charm any enemy most of the time as long if there's no immunity involved. When you exchange the cipher with a fighter you can nearly do the same with prone. I always crit-proned my dragons until they where dead. As far as I remember there are no dragons who are immune to prone. The +10 resistance mean nothing. Maybe the flying one is immune? Can't remember...

If you manage to save them that's a glitch. I don't know if you can send them to the stronghold. But what is that trick to keep them alive? Never heard of it. Casting Barring Death's Door on them or what?

Ha! You should have listened to my recommendation and use a sabre & small shield and max MIG and INT plus Vet. Recovery incl. healing bonuses. Now you have whimpy damage with a war hammer and don't build focus. Or take the same approach but with an estoc. Drake's Bell is waiting for you. Less survivability but more focus for sure. Edit: MaxQuest - as far as I remember there's only one dragon who's immune to charm. And that's one of the two who are with Llengrath. There it doesn't matter much because you can charm the other one. Or did I miss one? I think that I charmed every dragon but this one in the swamp with my Counselor Ploi paladin (Zealous Focus + Sworn Enemy + Munacra Arret).

What KDubya said. Max MIG and CON is totally fine. Lots of INT, too. Your theoretical DPS will not be as high as with more DEX, but you will be a lot sturdier. This can also lead to more damage because you don't get knocked down. I did a solo run with such a dual wielding boreal dwarf barbarian with max MIG, max CON, max INT and 3 RES and 2 DEX only plis plate armor and it was fine. Potion of Spirit Shield helps with the interrupts you will suffer from low RES. Later on there are itemitems that help. Or a priest in the party csn cast Holy Meditation for you. Concerning attack speed: You not only have two weapons (50% speed), Two Weapon Style (20%) and Frenzy (33%) but also Bloodlust (20%, everything in thst list stacks) and Blood Thirst (recovery = 0 after kill) to speed you up. DEX has an impact of course, but it gets mitigated a bit by this bonuses. Fat armor is also totally OK for me. Especially in the early game it's good to have high DR. Later on you might feel that you can do with a bit less. Then, with Frenzy + max MIG and CON you will have an awesome fortitude defense and that's the best part. The most nasty disables target fortitude and you will be able to shrug most of them off. Did that with my barb, paralyzing attacks from skirmishers and lagufaeth didn't threaten me. Once you reach lvl 11 you will take Heart of Fury. At that point your DEX doesn't matter at all for your DPS. You want to do as much damage per HIT as possible. This includes Vulnerable Attack, Frenzy and so on. You will kill a lot of foes with HoF, which triggers Bloodlust + Blood Thirst. You can then finish off the bystanders with max speed boost and maybe a Barbaric Blow. So your stats are perfectly fine for a dual wielding barb. For a two hander he would be too slow. But with dual wielding it's OK. My recommendation with max MIG and high INT is always Veteran's Recovery in order to become even sturdier than a fighter after some levels. Savage Defiance isxalso good and also Shod-in-Faith boots. As long as you get healed you will not go down. Your immense health pool will prevent death from health loss. You can raise your stats only via items (permanently as long as you wear them) and consumables and spells/abilities (temporarily). There are some story talents that raise your stats as well, but it's not much, usually one point to MIG and such. So in my opinion you don't need to retrain at all. Just keep on going. Attack speed is a bit overrated. It doesn't help you at all if you get knocked out or disabled. But that's just my opinion. I like my characters (at least the melee ones) sturdy enough so that they don't lie on their faces instead of attacking. What difficulty level are you using?

With a maxed Holy Radiance (>40 MIG,level 16, 3+3 dispositions) you can do nearly 400 damage to vessels if I remember correctly. Brilliant Radiance however is totally useless in my opinion. It doesn't do a lot of damage to non-vessels and you don't need that tiny increase against vessels. I'd never pick it again. Tested it - it's not worth a talent point. I like Inspiring Radiance because it stacks with everything and let's you hit better with your party's debuffs at the start of the encounter, which makes fights easier. And since I always use the Insp. Radiance at the start of the encounter I also like Aggrandizing Radiance because it let's your spells last a bit longer, hit more precisely, do more damage & healing and so on. And you'll have +2 move speed which is neat for a melee priest who wants to reach his target quickly after buffing. And like it was said above, the gimped healing only affects you, not the party (doesn't matter for me anyways because I simply ignore the healing part anyways).

Because then the long recovery from casting Frenzy (which takes away dps and duration of frenzy) will be much shorter. Drinking a potion causes no recovery. I think that was the point.

I think it's also determined how you resolve the situation when Heodan is held captive by the bandit leader. With enough INT you can argue in a way that Heodan will not get injured when the leader releases him.

Only the damage gets buffed. But with WF Soldier, the berath talent for great sword (which will give you the same ACC as a fighter) and Inspiring Radiance, buffed by Devotions now and then will give you so much ACC that you will not miss anything. Aggrandizing Radiance is very nice in combination with Minor Avatar as I said before. Since I want to stack as much MIG as possible, +2 to all stats is not bad. Together with MinAv you'll have +10 to all stats. Or take Champion's Boon and you'll have +12 MIG. Together with max starting MIG, the story talents like Gift from the Machine, Maegfolk Skull (must have for a berathian priest imo) and later Abydon's Hammer you can have around 50 MIG while casting (including Radiance) and 4 less when attacking with Tidefall. TONS of spell damage and also great melee damage. Holy Radiance will destroy nearly all vessels in range and Envenomed Strike + wounding + Cleansing Flame with over 40 MIG will wreck any enemy who is not immune. Shining Beacon with ~50 MIG will deal with the rest... I also took Vet. Recovery because with a LOT of MIG and healing mods like I suggested it's superpowerful. Combined with Consecrated Ground and Triumph of the Crusaders you can't die from low endurance. But the early levels are tough. Low starting endurance and deflection will make you squishy. And your starting ACC is quite poor, too. I took Vet. Recovery as my first talent and then focused on raising ACC. After some levels it's great. I wanted to write this as my next build but I don't have time for that at the moment since my family and I were moving from flat A to house B. You can't imagine how much stuff we accumulated during 4 years... over 50 cubic metres. On topic: Bittercut and shield is a good setup. And Spirit of Decay also works with Antipathetic Field as far as I know. For me, Spirit of Decay + Bittercut is way better than Savage Attack, even if it's only for the weapon. Both cost one talent point, but while Spirit oD will give you +20 weapon damage AND +5% lash damage and has no downsides, Savage Attack only gives you +20% base damage and takes away 5 ACC. So for me there's no question that Spirit oD is worth it if your main weapon is Bittercut.

Yeah sure. I totally agree. I just wanted to mention the max selfheal approach again because I think it got lost with all those answers. It's a nice way to stay alive while skilling mainly for offense.

Yeah, but that's not level 2.

I mean just imagine the focus gain a cipher with carnage would have. Totally OP. But I guess it would be fun.

Or put on Sanguine Plate. No animation and no recovery.

My first suggestion of using Veteran's Recovery, Belt of Bountiful Healing and Shod-in-Faith, paired with high MIG and INT and using survival's bonus healing is still a good way to become quite sturdy - weapon doesn't matter. If you add Moon Godlike you will definitely only go down because of low health. Sadly, draining (like from Tidefall) is not working with those mods. If it would I would totally recommend Tidefall for this, too. I love that weapon. Drake's Bell, my bad. I'm so sorry. It also looks really nice. As far as I know there are not too many enemies who are completely immune to pierce damage. The ones that come to mind are flame blightsfor example. Some are a bit resistant to pierce, but 8 points of DR bypass will mitigate that I guess. If I remember correctly, crush and esp. slash damage are more resisted than pierce. And if you meet immune foes you can always switch to a poleaxe. Same style, same weapon focus, different damage type. @JerekKruger: Tidefall with a max MIG priest of Breath: yes, it's a fun concept and it's quite powerful, too. As a MC this priest's Holy Radiance wrecks all vessels except Eyeless - but you can use the Redeemer or Abydon's Hammer against them. I also added Envenomed Strike, because it's awesome with so much MIG and INT. And the best part: it works like a charm with Cleansing Flame: hit with Tidefall (wounding dot) using Envenomed Strike (poison dot) while Cleansing Flame is on and witness one of the fastest ways to kill a single target. Aggrandizing & Inspiring Randiance's bonuses will apply to the Radiance's damaging part by the way. Usually I cast Devotions, then Minor Avatar and then Radiance for +10 to all attributes and +10 ACC. Then I go into melee. Usually I do 50+ damage hits without wounding. Wounding does more than 20 on top if I remember correctly. Not bad for a priest. Wounding damage takes some time because of high INT but that makes it possible to cast a Cleansing Flame onto ththe wounding while it still lasts.