Boeroer

In fact, I made a blunderbuss wizard just because of combusting wounds. You don't even need 6 guys. Island Aumaua with Arms Bearer and four blunderbusses. Expose Vulnerabilities + Pen. Shot + Combusting Wounds is so great with four blunderbuss shots. I also added Concussive Missiles and all the other stuff from time to time. It's debatable if this is better than an implement wizard - but it surely is a lot of fun to watch even powerful single enemies die after seconds. Who needs rogues?

Look at Raven Darkholme's "arena" fight (solo upscaled Magran's Faithful) with a tanky shield cipher. Cipher with shield can be tanky as hell while providing good offense, too. The upside of this approach is that you don't have to babysit at all. The downside is a bit lower DPS/focus generation. But with a durganized shield dps is not bad at all because of better speed while defenses are still great. And once you get Reaping Knives (and have somebody in the party who dual wields) your own weapon damage doesn't matter anymore.

Combusting Wounds doesn't work with DoT effects and therefore not with The Dragon Thrashed. Well, it might work with the initial, first hit, but not with the ticks. That's why I recommended things that hit often and quickly, like HoF, Wall of Flame and so on. Multi retaliation is also good with Combusting Wounds. A cipher with Pain Link can retaliate in an AoE for example. If you stack retaliation and use Pain Link, foes who hit you will melt.

Keep in mind that HoF's carnage attacks also can reach enemies that are out of your initial reach. So if you can reach 5 enemies with HoF directly but there are more around in carnage range around each initial target, you will produce a lot more carnage hits than 20. It's one of the abilities that you can pair with combusting wounds. A dual wielding HoF barb loves his Ring of Searing Flames.

Usually a melee cipher can build up more focus than a ranged one, so it's OK to give him more sturdyness to balance out the higher risk of getting knocked out. I like ciphers with shields, but that's just me. There's no particular reason for it other than the higher defense - which I like. Psychovampiric Shield and later Borrowed Instincts stack nicely with the shield's defense and make your cipher quite tanky. This way he doesn't need the thickest armor. With durgan steel on the shield he also hits faster than a two hander cipher or one with a single weapon. A dual wielding approach is nice because your higher speed (+50% dw, +20% two handed style) leads to more focus if enemies' DR is not too high. He has no Full Attacks though which would be nice with two weapons. And of course his defense is worse than with a shield. Your higher speed allows you to wear thick armor and still hit considerably fast. With Time Parasite it's easy to reach 0 recovery even with plate and Vulnerable Attack. A two handed cipher can get good focus even when fighting against highly armored foes. And it's possible to take a reach weapon and use the front line as protection. You can skill more offensively because of that. Durance's Staff is the only reach weapon with two damage types. Llawran's stick has speed. Both are good weapons for a reach cioher. With the additional damage of two weapon style you will do more damage and gain more focus. Weapons like great swords and estocs are also great, but you need more staying power for those. Good weapons in general are those who will give you more focus via direct damage. Enchantments like annihilation or Coordinating and things like Bittercuts corrode damage which can be buffed by 20% via Spirit of Decay help. Annihilation works nicely with ACC buffs like Tactical Meld or Borrowed Instincts, paired with disables like Mental Binding to produce crits and geht even more focus. For sturdyness, I like to take Veteran's Recovery with max MIG and INT plus Fulvano's Amulett or a Belt of Bountiful Healing and put survival to 8 or even 14 for the bonus healing. Most of the time it's the belt because I want to wear the Unconquerable talisman which gives more focus. I no one else needs them, I'd also put on Shod-in-Faith. I also like the Caoe of the Master Mystic on my cipher. So when I get a crit I will turn invisible and won't get attacked further while I can reposition. Paired with heavy armor (Sanguine Plate gives me +4 MIG and +33% speed- good for healing and dps), this usually leads to a very sturdy cipher. The cipher has no self heal but potions also work with the healing bonuses. As I said: with reach weapons you might be able to skill more like a ranged cipher and thus deal more damage than in the front. Things like Savage Attack and Apprentice Sneak push your damage further. If you have a priest and your cipher is your number one killer then use Triumph of the crusaders and he won't die from low endurance. Use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence when health is low.

I doubt that lvl 7 is appropriate for a new player. Darzir will be too hard and you'll have to do Galvino's Workshop, Lagufaeth and several other stuff before you can enter Durgan's Battery. There you will face Sirens and whatnot. That's way too much effort for the prize. An alternative before getting the Barricade can be Sura's Supper Plate. It's retaliation can be stacked with another one (for example Hiro's Mantle) and works with Deep Wounds. Before you can get that any shield will do. The one from the Drake in Endless Paths lvl 5 (Blabla Solace) is great together with Blaidh Golan hide armor because the defense buffs when you get prone or stunned stack with each other, giving you +100 to all defenses. This can prevent you rogue from getting knocked out by ogres and so on.

It no longer works with DoT effects. That was patched some time ago. Scion of Flame and all the other elemental boosters don't work with DoT damage. As far as I know Combusting Wounds is a DoT effect itself. It's hard to monitor because the combat log doesn't say anything about it. But you can witness it's awesomeness if you cast it on an enemy and put him into a Wall of Flame (preferably when debuffed). It also makes a huge difference if you cast it onto a group before delivering a Heart of Fury (=a lot of hits in one second).

Eldritch Aim + Chillfog usually will do the trick. Later you can combine Pull of Eora, Expose Vulnerabilities and multiple Chillfogs plus Combusting Wounds. This works best with multiple wizards. Generally you always want to have this pattern: Buff ACC - debuff/disable foes - deal damage. Just look at the spells which raise ACC, debuff defenses and/or disable completely and then those which deal damage and combine them accordingly. Combusting Wounds is a special one: for each hit the target will get a small burn DoT effect. It's very powerful if you can generate a lot of parallel hits via Chillfogs, Wall of Flames, Concussive Missiles and so on.

Persistence with 1 INT is quite fun. Take 3 INT at the start and then wear that Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection from WM I that does -2 INT , -2 RED, +2 MIG, +2 CON. The full wounding lash damage will get applied instantly. Same with Runner's Wounding Shot and an arquebus as opening shot. Also works with Drawn in Spring of course, but that comes so late compared to Persistence. I had good fun with Hours of St Rumbalt on my first ever rogue now that I think of it. Prone on crit, Annihilation, comes with great ACC. It a good weapon for a rogue. Here you need a bit DEX and also decent INT in order to chain-prone.

Yes - fighter will also work. He can even get 4 Knockdowns per encounter if he wears the Girdle of the Driving Wave. With high INT the Knockdowns last quite long. Esp. if he crits which might happen often because of Disciplined Barrage. A monk can also take Stunning Blows. It's per encounter and is a Full Attack that works best at the start of the encounter because it doesn't need wounds. It has a short duration though. Force of Anguish lasts very long, that's nice about it.

While thinking about great single target DPS: it might be that the cipher is also better than the rogue at higher levels. Think about it: - +40% base damage via soul whip + biting whip without any afflictions etc. - +20% Savage Attack - +50% attack speed via Time Parasite, lasts a long time - Soul Ignition is not super great, but good single target damage when burn DR is low. - Recall Agony. Few use it, but it's a powerful multiplicative raw damage "lash" against single targets. A bit like wounding. - Body Attunement lowers the enemies DR - Disintegration provides a lot of single target damage Plus some nice ACC and defense buffs and disables. What do you think?

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.