Boeroer

+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.

I had a lot of fun with the last paladin I played: Counselor Ploi Tanky enough and very supportive. He heals, crit-charms enemies (I nearly always crit-charmed dragons with Sworn Enemy) and passively raises the ACC of a single teammate by +26 if he attacks the same enemy. The priest's +30 ACC buffs with Radiance and Devotions stack with this. You can easily switch from Shieldbearer to Kind Wayfarer or Darcozzi. Instead of deflection buffs you will have more healing (maybe focus a bit more on damage/killing) or more ACC He was superuseful in dragon fights not only because of Sworn-Enemy-charms but also because he would instantly raise his flanking partner's ACC - in my case a fighter with Disciplined Barrage and Knockdown and Tall Grass - so that the fighter could keep the dragon down with prone for the whole fight. He could raise the deflection of the party because of his stacking buffs. And then he can deliver powerful shots with FoD and later have Sacred Immolation. He wasn't the best damage dealer of course, but he made the run so much easier.

Since those fights are completely optional, why would OBS want to leave them out? And why would people complain about them being too difficult? I also don't get it. And by the way they are easy enough (even solo PotD) if you know what you have to do.

What do you mean? For paladin? Or was it a typo and you mean party? Those priest builds work very well. The max MIG part makes them very good damage dealers, too.