Boeroer

But you have to spend your wounds quickly because after 10 your Rooting Pain won't trigger any more. Rooting Pain has a nice synergy with Combusting Wounds (Ring of Searing Flames) by the way. It gets even better when you can add Pain Link via cipher.

Yes, it's a nice side effect. Given enough enemies, HoF with Spelltongue also prolongs all currently active timed effects, even from potions/scrolls and so on for... like... forever. It's debateable if this is more powerful than the sheer damage or massive CC you could cause with other weapons, but it's nice nonetheless. Hm, I actually never tried out HoF + Spelltongue + Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence. I can't remember if it has a healing over (very short) time or if it's instant (haven't played for some weeks now). If it's the first, a trah encounter could restore your whole health...

It should be applied every time. Every new hit prolongs the time the spped buff lasts. Normally you can see it in the character sheet under active effects.

+45% to damage is not bad of course (maybe added by +20% from higher MIG from Frenzy), but a lash should be better if the burn DR is not ridiculously high. Maybe the raw retaliation helps. Blood Thirst and Bloodlust ould be a good addition. They also trigger when retaliation kills stuff, making your attacks very fast even in the fattest armor with a two hander like Hours of Saint Rumbalt (I love that thing on a barb).

That sword is quite mediocre anyway.

What makes this special monk very good at retaliation is Turning Wheel + Battle-Forged + Scion of Flame + Blood Testament. But I guess that Battle-Forged + Blooded + One Stands Alone + Scion of Flame + Barbaric Ret. is also a nice combo. One should try and post a build.

Abydon's Hammer doesn't work. A priest is mandatory. A cipher could use Wild Leech, a wizard Martial Power and so on. But Pallegina doesn't have any self buffs for MIG nor do your other team members have sufficient buffs for her. And also Pallegina's MIG is quite low. They raised it a bit in a patch some time ago because before it was even impossible to upgrade Steadfast with Pallegina even if you had a priest.

By the way the wood elf racial not only provides bonus acc when fighting from a distance, it also gives you higher defenses against ranged attacks. Stacks with everything and works with the shield, too. Besides the obvious high deflection classes like fighter, paladin and monk, a melee ranger with Alia Braccia can have +15 defense against ranged attacks and +15 against AoE attacks (stacks with everything) which, combined with the deflection and reflex bonus from the shield and gives him fairly high defenses against everything that doesn't hit him in melee. And those guys you can pulverize quickly with your animal companion.

Erm, but why would you want to fight him? He will give it to you if you deliver the undamaged missive from the dying monk in Elmshore. Anyways, that shield is the best item if you are annoyed by Lagufaeth. Even the Broodmothers fry themselves from time to time with their Cleansing Flames.

Or the wise wouldn't throw good leftovers away if you can turn them into a tasty casserole and spare some money.

You'd have to raise DEX and wear light armor to reduce the recovery after invocations (those can be long and also prevent you from chanting phrases). So if you want to cast invocations as fast as possible, you have to reduce your recovery time. You can then for example use a reach weapon in order to stay behind the front line and don't get knocked out too often. Most invocations have a chone shape and their range is not too big, so you won't want to stand too far away from your friends and foes. Reach weapons seem to be good for that. Your Dragon Thrashed chant will also reach enough enemies that way. I can also imagine a bow chanter with Sure Handed Ila. It stacks with his "Champion" Invocation and turns him into a gatling gun. This guy, too, shouldn't run too far away from the front line. With his very high attack speed he may also be a nice candidate for Stormcaller. It triggers a stunning invocation by chance with chanters and the faster you shoot the better.

Yes, exactly. You could wear the Sun Touched Mail of Hyran Rath and the Amulet of Summer Solstice and gain 6 Sunbeams per rest. It's a nice starting spell because of its blinding component. The armor is one of the best looking pieces in my opinion, too. The char's name would have to be Jerry Lee Lewis of course...

Druid = no. 1 single target melee damage dealer via shapeshift (NOT rogue) and also great at doing AoE damage via spells. CC is also very good. Great class, not my personal favorite though.

Characters who need micromanagement and are versatile while having the ability to nuke are monks, melee ciphers, melee wizards and shapeshifting druids. The monk has an ability called "The Long Pain" which makes him extremely versatile because it lets him use his abilities in ranged and melee combat, while tho othes have nice spells/abilities/talents for melee as well as for ranged damage. Most fun for me are the monk and the melee wizard. Even a melee priest is fun, but he needs more time to bloom. With the exception of the monk all these chars have in common that they start a bit weak but grow very powerful after some levels because they are spell dependent. You need levels for more spells or more focus. The monk starts strong and keeps being strong - although he has no spells to add, but his abilities make up for this.

The Blackbow itself is nice, but it comes way too late and is not that powerful regarding the spell level. Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom or Citzal's Spirit Lance are better in my opinion. It (or maybe a weaker version) would have been a nice summoned weapon at earlier levels to build an arcane archer around. I just realized that you can cast 7 Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on a dragon's head... Fireballs by the way: I always wanted to build a dual sabre wielding fire genie wizard with the maximum of 17 (or was it 18?) fireballs per rest. No time.... no time.

Yes, that may happen. You will also most likely lose some of the hirelings that defend your stronghold (Orderless Disciple, Goldpact Knight, Blooded Thug and so on, those guys). And you will lose some money, too.

If your movement speed is high enough you can pop a summon to distract the phantoms and then run past them to the throne. Normally they will let you go because you are too fast and they return to the summon. Crouch into the northeastern corner and wait till encounter ends. The dialogue with the steward will start and after that the phantoms and all other enemies outside in the yard are gone.

Rogue with Persistence is actually not bad. He can also set up wounding damage for the ranger's pet with auto-attacks. He's only limited to single target attack. If you make him a 1 INT superdumb archer the wounding damage will get applied instantly, Runner's Wounding Shot will be the same - and you can still take Deep WOunds because it gets refreshed on hit anyways and doesn't stack. Only Envenomed Strike is not an option then.

I used a melee priest (berathian with Tidefall) with focus on maxed MIG in the front line. With Veteran's Recovery and max healing-received-bonuses he was tanky enough after some levels. Of course a chanter can be more sturdy and less micro.

Yes, but what I meant is: Symbol of Eothas is just a better Circle of Defense (wait a second... isn't its name Circle of Protection? ). You can't stack them and therefore the later has to be more powerful (because its spell level is way higher) to make any sense. +20 compared to +15 is not so much more - the more important part is the duration which is a lot longer.

Thank you. It was Jojobobo's idea of a paladin diplomat with Sworn Enemy + Munacra Arret that led to that build.

Look at Faster than Light. It's supertough but so much fun. It's one of those few games I played even more than PoE. I think you only have to tell people in advance that it's going to be tough. Most people won't complain then.

Those poor spoiled kids.

It doesn't stack with Circle of Defense.

It's basically like Circle of Defense, but stronger. But it's a level 8 spell, so it should be powerful.