Boeroer

Take classes that provide a lot of different CC options. They will provide the afflictions needed for sneak attack and deathblows while at the same time this will prevent enemies from attacking your rouge. Classes like wizard, druid and cipher. Those are no good auto attackers though. The monk with Force of Anguish, paired with Enervating Blows can push a single enemy towards your rogue, disabling him for a long time via Probe and also weakening him, triggering Deathblows for your rogue to finish the enemy off. It's a nice tandem. Priest has some awesome buffs which are also great for rogues.

The only trick in this build is to use the very long linger time of the healing phrase to sing very short phrases in order to build up the phrase counter quickly.

In the early game I surely do apply Accurate I or even Fine and an elemental lash. It helps immensely - and since the early game usually is the hardest part it makes sense to enchant some basic weapons. But I also don't waste too much resources on those. Usually I know what armor/weapon I want for my char and then I sink all the good enchantments into it.

Another reason why I like the sanguine plate on a boar druid. The boar also has a passive regeneration effect when shifted. Sure, it's not that big and doesn't scale with level, but together with Shod-in-Faith, Vet. Recovery and max healing received bonus from camping it adds up pretty nicely and makes you more sturdy while shifted. I guess I just like passives.

Rofl The encounter I like best for testing builds in a realistic environment are the ogres in front of the Elmshore cave. They hit very hard - so you can see if your defenses are good enough. They don't have too high defenses, so you don't need to debuff all the time like you would do against other bouty groups. They have a ton of endurance and you can do a lot of attacks, collecting a lot of data. They don't have too fancy resistances or immunities. They have around 10 DR which is not too high and not too low. And they are slow - meaning you can test kiting without too much stress. Usually, when a build can solo those without splitting he can solo the whole game. I never managed to beat those guys with dps melee rogues, dps melee rangers and dps melee fighters without kiting or pulling. They are just too tough and hit too hard. But if you use a tank for distraction who eats all the plague of insects then you can have great data while attacking them. Did the druid have the Wildstrike Belt by the way? It adds another lash. I would agree that a boar druid has better DPS throughout the game than the cat. His wounding is passive while the cat has only one flurry per rest the boar will always cause wounds. You can also count Returning + Relentless Storm. The forst per encountet. Sure, it is a multiple target spell. But it ALSO damages your priority target. Nature's Terror is also a great spell while shifted. The surrounding enemies will be terrified. This helps with survival, too. And Nature's Terror adds shock damage without having to stop swinging. You don't need to drink a potion to get low recovery. Put on sanguine plate and let the enemy crit you. Then shift. Frenzy will nearly last as long as the shifting.

Backstab + Sneak Attack + crit = +250% base damage. That is nice for a single hit of course. Too bad a rogue can't backstab all the time.

Choose normal difficulty and just try. I started PoE the first time without a clue what to expect and what to do and it still was fun. Learning by doing you know.

Cool you want to try. You don't have to play through the whole game for that by the way. You could buy two hirelings in Gilded Vale's inn and then use the console to level up and get all the gear and enchantments you need. That way I test new build ideas before using then in a complete play through. Spares a lot of time. If you want to do that and can't figure out how it works or can't find the right commands don't hesitate to ask. It's quite simple but sometimes the commands are a bit obscure and some internal game object names are spelled wrongly or differ completely from the ingame lore or item description. Example: Maefolc Skull is Giants Skull and The Hours of St Rumbalt is The Hours of St Rumbault and stuff like that. You can find the correct game object names for the console in the game object folder on your hard drive.

Huh, the spell description makes it sound like this isn't the case: "The beacon disappears if the ally is revived." Is this wrong? If so the ability suddenly became a lot more appealing. You're talking about paladins' "Behold the Martyr". I meant the enchantment. There's one WMII amulet that has it (forgot the name). I mentioned it in my "Immortal Martyr" build. It triggers a big AoE haste spell that affects all in range and then lasts for a fixed time. It's not a pulsing effect linke Behold the Martyr. The first thing I do when starting a new playthrough is deactivating the party AI. I can't stand the sight of my party members running around each other trying to reach a certain position as if they were doing a casting for the Benny Hill Show. Especially if you have gun wielders AI will totally destroy your tactics. And if you have quick switch AI is totally screwed, too.

I always try to reach path lvl 4 with my first entry - but it's usually tough. The reasons are Resolution and Persistence of course. Once I have those I quit and come back later.

Yes - Avenging Storm getting the wildstrike lash was totally game breaking. Good they fixed that. When I first tried that druid my jaw dropped to the floor until I figured out that there was this bug. But still impressive performance. It's even better if you skip Outlander's Frenzy and put on Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith, run to your target and catch a crit, then shift. You'll have even more speed, more MIG and END and waste no time for casting. Rogue can do the same of course.

Tehe - all good. Keep on celebrating!

It's really hard to say. It also depends on the type of pet (wolf and stag do more damage than the others, bear and lion are esp. slow and so on), how you play and if you want to focus on micromanagement for the pet, if you can keep it alive with tactics (no health + persistent healing is really good here), if you have persistent wounding or other dot effects and afflictions at hand and so on. Only thing to say is that they hit hard but a bit slow. Concerning speed: The martyr enchantment on late game items helps a lot here. You can pit it on a barb with Vengeful Defeat and second chance or the priest's reviving Guardian. The hastening will still work even if the barb gets revived. Paladin's hastening exhortation may also help. When I played the Riptide ranger (see the build list) it felt like they did equal damage because I was so amazed by the numbers the pet scored with permanent predator's sense. But that's just a feeling, no hard data and all. If you think about all the enchantments and equipment the ranger will have at the and of the game I would say he will do more than his companion.

Glad you made it happen without a restart. That would have been frustrating. The Endless Paths seem to be designed in a way that you have to clear one/two or three levels, then retreat, do something else and come back later. It's even impossible to pass a certain door if you didn't solve another quest of the main plot line in Defiance Bay.

A Happy New Year to you as well. I made pizza with my kids (which was fun) and fell asleep while bringing them to bed, waking up at 4:35 am (which was abit frustrating). But why the "bla bla"? I just answered the question to the best of my belief (and experience). I guess... I had some sparkling wine when I wrote it... Happy new year to all you forum members as well (even brindle88, if you're still reading ). I wish you all good health and contentment.

AoE beats single target in this game for sure (mainly because most difficult encounters have a lot of not too sturdy enemies). Pure tanks who can't deal damage don't work so well in this game. Enemies tend to run past them and eat the weak disengagement attacks, then disturb or even kill your backline. There is no taunting machanic or something. If your tank can also deal good damage then he will be more effective. There are a few exceptions to that (for example Defensive Mindweb). You don't have to use casters to deal AoE damage by the way. There are several classes who can deal AoE damage without spells: monk, barb, chanter for example. Even the fighter and paladin can do that later on. You can beat the game with single target damage, too. It's especially helpful against bosses and for quickly taking out high priority targets. So - as always a good mixture is not a bad thing. But the real "key" to success in this game is high accuracy, crowd control and disables/debuffs (meaning lowering defenses and prevent retaliation). Then add good defenses. Pure damage will not win the game. If you can get those first things working you will beat anything no matter how you apply damage. An important thing to know are the stacking rules - let me tell you they are awfully documented. Edit: added a bit more text.

I never managed. And I really tried when that druid > rogue discussion came up back then. Not with annihilating sabres nor with dual Drawn in Spring and also not with dual Bittercut (although that's quite neat with the two damage types + Spirit of Decay + corrosive lash). It works with Missile Barrage + Deathblows though. But that's a bit limited.

Who said "lol nerd"? As far as I know nobody did that. This has been a civilized discussion so far and I would be happy if it stays this way. I also wouldn't say that you should blindly trust the "vets" - who can define what that is - but if some people who played the game quite a bit and did a lot of research and testing all tell you their experiences you maybe should keep an open mind and consider that there might be a slightchance that they don't talk total nonsense. Especially if they report about tests that have been done inside the game and outside of a highly theoretical and maybe outdated spreadsheet. You can still present a testing setup where a rogue build beats a druid in single target DPS throughout the same encounter. I tried to post several builds for every class here in the past and sunk countless hours into planning, testing and playing those builds. And sadly there's a reason why I only posted two rogue builds so far and both are no melee rogues: it's not because I hate rogues (I don't). They just don't perform as well as all the other class builds I tried. Not in terms of fun (which is highly subjective) but also not even in the terms of dps. You can't solo bounties with them. It's possible with any class exept rogues if you don't want to split pull and draw the invisibility card all the time. And nowadays it's even worse when compared to other classes because those got really neat abilities during the expansions. That's no proof of course,but those are hints that cope with my general impression that rogues are the weakest (and most one-dimensional) class atm. If you want to keep up with barbs, casters and monks in terms of damage and you only can deal single target damage it better be really really high or really reliable. I mean there are some builds that work quite well, like the shield rogue with Badgradr's Barricade for example. It's fun enough. It's just sad that even such a creative idea gets outperformed by most other classes that can even add something else than single target damage to the party. Concerning Finishing Blow: I think we talk past each other. It's a not too good DPS ability with weird mechanics that has very limited uses per rest. It has not much impact on your DPS. Not like Charge or Wildstrike or Heart of Fury or whatever else do which too can use per encounter and are even more powerful when used properly. So I don't think it's of any value to say rogues are good damage dealers because of the very circumstancial Finishing Blow. It is now what Heart of Fury was before the buff: a bad joke. It would be a whole other situation if it would be a per encounter ability or even a (weaker) passive ability: more bonus damage the lower the endurance of the target - now that would have been a cool ability. They can do good single target DPS, true, but they are not the best, that's what's sad about the whole situation. Because they can't do much else than that.

The only nerf I would do to druids would be to take away spellcasting while shifted and make Spiritshift a modal. That would be enough for me. They don't feel more power- or useful than the other classes except rogue. Mind that a spiritshifted druid "only" does single target damage and easily gets outperformed by a barb or chanter when it comes to overall DPS. By the way: I played a solo barb in PotD and did every encounter and had not much problems. No kiting involved after some levels. You can't do that with a rogue. They start off weaker than a rogue though. But barbs can catch up and overtake quickly. But since this is about rogues, let's talk about sensible rogue buffs.

They deal good single target damage but are not the best choice for that while also being more flimsy than any other class that profits from going melee. They have no class-specific means to do anything in an AoE - so they should really rock at affecting single targets. That's the main problem. Plus: the high level powers of rogues are very unexciting. They deserve a buff. If OBS would tweak stealth/invisibility in favor of rogues, or basically in favor of backstab, that is a buff for me and would be welcome. By the way if somebody comes up with a trick or build how to make the rogue more useful and powerful in the mid to late game (besides using Deathblows + Deep Wounds + spells, which is fun) I would be more than happy to change my mind... again. He's not awful and terrible, he just feels a bit weak compared to other classes. He's supposed to be really good at dealing damage because he can't support and his CC is very limited. But to make up for his lack of AoE damage his single target damage numbers are too low and it's too much fuzz to keep them up. Just my opinion. A single ability or an improvement to an ability could change that. Look at barbs (new Blood Thirst, improved HoF) and fighters (Charge mainly for me).

No, I was right: http://guides.gamepressure.com/pillarsofeternity/guide.asp?ID=29959 Just try to reach the Master Staircase. It should be doable with some split pulling and using doorways as chokepoints.

Eh? Isn't there a Master Staircase that leads up to the surface at lvl 5? Or does my memory fool me?

Finishing Blow is just useless. It generates very high numbers if the endurance is already very low, overkilling like crazy. You can't rule it out in the way you did it. You need to know how much endurance was left and take that as the "real" damage that was done. No creature in PoE that gets hit by a 1700 finishing blow had more than 100 to 200 endurance left I would guess. Lucky crit means that your damage roll is high, too. It doesn't mean that you have to be lucky to land a crit. Most rogues will have a 50/50 hit/crit ratio. I highly doubt that the rogue will come out on top of anything except getting knocked out. But feel free to do some encounters with a rogue and a druid and report how it turns out. But this time my bet is on the druid.

You have to remember that one lucky crit with an arquebus + Finishing Blow + whatnot and whatever doesn't say anything about your dps - damage per second. For example the highest single target melee DPS (not highest damage per hit) generally comes from Drawn in Spring, the highest ranged DPS from Persistence - when wielded with 0 recovery. Both because of wounding with high MIG values. Both weapons are not doing exceptional high damage numbers per hit. But in terms of DPS they are top. They also work great against high DR targets despite being fast and light. High numbers per hit look impressive, but they are no proof of DPS. And please let us not talk about Finishing Blow when we talk about rogues' DPS - one of the most useless and overrated abilities of the game. It nearly does zero for overall DPS. It's just a cosmetic effect for your char sheet. They should call it "Overkilling Blow". It's as useless as Bloody Slaughter - which is sometimes recommended by people who like Overkilling Blow in order to generate those high numbers. Let's call it Bloody Laughter. Your overall DPS will be high if you can constantly score high numbers with every hit AND if you can hit as fast as possible (preferably with 0 recovery while having Vuln. Attack on). This counts for single target damage as well as for AoE. A druid usually hits like a truck with high speed (although not 0 recovery most of times) and doesn't have to look at afflictions or whatever. Every successful graze/hit/crit will cause around 150-250 damage and his DR bypass can be great, too. If he chooses boar and has wounding he's doing absolutely great against high DR targets as well as against low DR targets. He can push this further with Avenging Storm, doing massive shock damage on strikes and also when getting hit. He can stunlock his opponent without any time loss while hitting him, causing lots of crits and at the same time prevent other enemies from hurting him. And let's not forget that his lashes and also Avenging Storm/Relentless Storm can profit from Heart of the Storm which will multiply his overall shock damage which is more than 50% of the damage he causes - by 1.2. A rogue's power curve after lvl 11 is flat. I mean which significant boost to DPS or even damage per hit come after Deathblows? I can't think of anything with big impact. The best thing you can do is to improve your equipment with durgan steel and maybe smear a dragon's or kraken's eyeball over it. But even then: not too long ago we had a discussion where we compared (in game, including tests) a perfectly build 0 recovery rogue with dual Rimecutters (durganized and lashes and so on - a strong setup on paper, one of the best for dps) to a cat druid with wild strike shock. I have to admit I put my bet on the rogue back then. I was proven so wrong - it was a shame. And the druid doesn't even need any fancy item for this besides the wildstrike belt. That's only the "theoretical" advantage of a druid. Then, if you compare both in a real playthrough it's so obvious that the rogue is so much weaker. It hurts. It makes you angry at the druid and you feel pity for the poor rogue. That's why I say that he should be made better at doing rogue stuff. And I don't mean killing people with 1000+ damage hits who have 10 endurance left... For example: a really cool ability would have been if the rogue could do one single opening attack out of stealth which halved the endurance of the target. Do you remember "Stasis Field" from Diablo 2? Quite the opposite to Overkilling Blow. If Bloody Slaughter would then be changed to be triggered at 50% instead of 10% endurance that would be nice. And please don't say thay I just don't have enough experience or that I didn't find the right build yet...

You could do that and respec after you get HoF. Because 1 HoF at the start with Spelltongue in a big group will give you enough duration for the rest of the encounter.