Boeroer

Yes, Stalker's Torc is a random item. The Lost Periapt of the Winding Path is an even better late game alternative for this build. It will give you Concentration which you'll lack with this build, additional +2 RES and an additional use of Consecr. Ground 1/encounter for when your boots stop emitting. I disagree that it's of no use to boost the pet's damage. On the contrary. The trick of this build is to combine constant wounding damage with Predator's Sense and the "no health" mechanic of pets with Consecrated Ground (and pet healing, which wasn't available when I did this build). Wounding will constantly let your pet use Predator's Sense which boosts the already high base damage by 50%. Because you flank, you will always trigger Merciless Companion (+30%), too (and also with stunning shots of course) and you can add +15% and +3DR bypass with Vicious Companion. The high (scaling) base damage of the pet will be boosted by +95%. It's not compareable to normal kith weapons with low base damage. Here, the whole damage will profit, not just whimpy weapon base damage. With Stunning Shots + Flanking you will also crit a lot, which means additional +50%. If you also take Takedown and Brutal Takedown (+20 crush dmg) your pet can one-shot a lot of squishy but dangerous targets, and if the foe isn't dead after one bite it's stunned or prone and your Tidefall finishes the job - so attack speed is not that important as with low dmg weapons. This also works extremely well against high DR foes because the damage per hit is so high. You don't even have to stun-lock an enemy because he's dead in seconds anyways. So stunning Shots is a nice addition, but it's not as important as with faster weapons. It's ok if you miss a few attempts to stun. With the high DEX, Swift Aim and Durgan Steel as well as Gauntlets of Swift Action (if you feel you need them) it's still possible to stunlock most of the time though I guess. It may be better to retrain all that in the late late game and put all your dps efford into your ranger instead of the pet. But in early and mid game a damaging pet with all the things I listed makes most fights so much easier. With the support of the ranger, it kills most foes so quickly with one or two bites... This also works with Drawn in Spring of course. You could even duplicate it for dual wielding, but I think it's not necessary to do that. I chose Tidefall because you can get it rel. early and it also heals you a bit which is nice. Wounding works very well with high MIG by the way. If you don't use Takedown with Brutal Takedown there's enough room for improvements on your ranger's melee skills: Swift Aim, Marked Prey, Wounding Shots is quite awesome with a slow but hard hitting weapon, Weapon Focus Soldier, Two Handed Style, Appr. Sneak. And nowadays I would take Veteran's Recovery, too, because high MIG and INT are the perfect preconditions for it - like with Cons. Ground. I did this build when Stunning Shots didn't work in melee, hence the lowish PER. With Stalker's Link and flanking there was enough ACC for my weapon's attack. Now, with Stunning Shots working in melee (and funnily, also with Driving Flight in melee ) I would agree that higher PER would be good.

It's not that easy to kill upscaled Magran's Faithful with Shining Beacon, even if you use all your ACC buffs it tends to only graze and then has to work against the burn DR. If you add Cleansing Flame it gets better. The symbol spell (in my case Berath) also helps. And Storm of Holy Fire is also not bad if you use a potion of Bulwark first and have a shield. But atm I always get killed because my health runs out (not my endurance, with Triumph of the Crusaders + other healings I manage to stay up until health is zero). But I didn't put too much efford into the test (no resting bonuses, no prost. bonuses, no story talants and such things).

Ha, so my Tall Grass was indeed a great weapon for charge. I can't recall I ever missed with the follow-up attack though. Maybe because of Disciplined Barrage.

After seeing your vid about the solo unarmed guy who used mirrored image I restarted my own char (not solo) and skilled him for max offense + Mirrored Image. That spell is so good for a melee guy. I combined it with Rampage (Power) and most of he time the damgerous guys are dead before Mirrored Image runs out. There's also some nice synergies like Know your Enemy (Verse) + Evasive + Mirrored Image: IF you get hit your dodge goes up while Mirrored Image goes down. Evasive always lets you use dodge instead of parry. She has a +20 dodge stance - and in the early game you can even give her the Fatebinder's shield which gives you add. +24 Dodge. She becomes more tanky the longer the fights last and usually is the last one standing if you take out casters first (which you should). Tyranny encourages you to specialize. The more skills you use/train the faster you will level, which is bad because the enemies scale while your many skills are still not very high. It's better to use only one or two skills and max them out. This will prevent faster leveling while still giving you power. To be honest: the game is fun so far but that leveling system + scaling is total crap in my opionon. Very obscure and couterintuitive. Also, some talents seem to be really useless. Of what use is it to have a small chance to hit twice or thrice with basic attacks when the game encourages you to use as many special attacks as possible? Other talents on the same tier seem to be very power- or useful. Well maybe I'm just not proficient enough to see the sense in it. @Arena: fast casts are not very helpful if you get grilled after a few seconds. So either you kite or pull (which will prolong the fight) or you try to tank (which means you can't put all your efford into offense & fast casting). But I agree that a wizard has a big advantage because he can pile up some really nice defenses while casting very quickly with Alacrity. It's just quite touch to cast all those self buffs before they obliterate you.

Some are pretty awesome though. For example Verse's talent that lets her gain +2 Dodge and Parry every time she takes damage (stacking). Combine it with Mirrored Image and she becomes very tanky without loosing her offensive potential. And the Fatebinder's Power talent that will give him +15 ACC on kill (stacking) is quite awesome, too. You can build the party in a way that the others are mainly tanks/supporters/healers and the Fatebinder does most killing with (AoE) spells/talents. After killing a few squishies he's doing crits only. If you have enough healers who keep you above 35% health to avoid wounds you can't go down because there's no health mechanic like in PoE.

Yes, it combines the crush damage of charge with the full attack. There isn't even an animation for the full attack - you will just see the red numbers popping and can read the info in the combat log.

Sure. But I'm still trying to fully understand the mechanics and finding out which talents are good and which are not.

Actually, a barb with Heart of Fury has no match when it comes to dps. It can be boring, true, but of all the high level abilites HoF is one of the (if not the) best. Add Veteran's Recovery to a barb and he's as sturdy as a fighter after some levels.

That's right. You don't realize how good they are unless you use them for some time and meet foes with parlayzing attacks like skirmishers, banshees or lagufaeth.

I agree that high INT is great for fighters. It also prolongs your Constant Recovery and is very benefical if you want to use Clear Out, Triggered Immunity and Unbending.

I don't know if they changed something sice you played your fighter, but read again what I wrote. It doesn't use weapon damage for the AoE effect (by AoE I mean the line from starting point to target). But when you arrive you will do an additional Full Attack. It doesn't say that int the description though. This combo severely damages the target or kills it. The rest of the enemies you cross "only" gets damaged by the charge's crush damage. This makes it one of the best "caster slayer" abilities there is. Operating behind enemy lines is fun with such a fighter (if he's also sturdy enough). I used it in my last playthrough with Tall Grass and it was aweseome. However, it's even better with dual wielding because of what I said.

Another way is to use Aila Braccia with high deflection. It turns 100% ranged grazes to misses and reflects the projectile back to the attacker, paralyzing him. Also works with single target ranged spells like Necr. Lance, Cleansing Flame and such.

Dual wielding war hammers is good. You already named the reasons: great uniques, two damage types. Take Charge later on. It's superawesome - especially when dual wielding. When arriving at the target you will not only deal the "AoE in a line" crush damage of Charge, but also deliver a full attack. Most normal foes die instantly.

Do it!

That's true. And I love The Long Pain. They don't have the ACC and graze/crit issues (I guess), work in melee and ranged and work with nearly all monk abilites. Nowadays, I use it on every monk I play.

Spiritshifted Boar with maxed self heal can tank quite well while dealing tons of melee damage. But he needs more resting because of health issues. But since he needs to rest anyway because of spells that's ok. The other shifted forms also work, but the boar adds a bit more regeneration while doing additional wounding damage, too. But maybe the boar isn't exactly the type of animal that you would associate with hunting (ony as prey), so maybe the cat, bear or wolf fit better. With a weapon and shield approach (like my Batsh!t Crazy build), combined with the caster-centered CC like Returning and Relentless Storm and Moonwell (+10 to all defenses) a defensively build druid can actually tank like a boss. Druid's Starting Deflection is 20. That's good - for a caster. A druid with Hunting Bow (WF Peasant) when not shifted also works well. Of course the main source of damage will be his spells of his shifted form. I even did an unarmed approach (Novice's Suffering). I didn't want to waste Durgan Steel on weapons you only use when not shifted. It worked out pretty well. Since the druid doesn't have very high melee ACC the bonus from N. Suffering helps - and if he grazes he almost does the same damage as if he would hit or crit because of the weird mechanics of unarmaed damage + unarmed bonus damage. The bonus damage gets applied AFTER graze or crit modify the base unarmed damage (5-8 ). So your damage is very consistent. And you can take the same talents for both: fists and claws.

Yes, with the monk's fists the crit/graze thing is not bad at all. I was referring to normal unarmed damage (which the monk doesn't have). I don't think they will hotfix this - it's in the game from the beginning and some reports were made - nothing happened so far.

A right. The monk got a special treatment. No wonder Novice's Suffering generally sucks.

What about a druid? They are all about nature, and they even have a lvl 2 spell called "Taste of the Hunt". Druids are powerful and fun to play.

MIG also works for the dmg bonus of Transc. Suff. and Sandals by the way. Is unmodified unarmed damage 10-15? I thought it's lower. Like 5-8 or something, can't remember. You have to take into account that crits don't do as much damage with fists. The +0.5 crit modifier only works with the base damage of fists. Same is true for grazes. In the later game you will do more crits than grazes if you're not solo. They are crush only, while Bittercut has two damage types. But the biggest downside is that fists's ACC bonus don't apply to most abilitites of the monk: Torment's Reach, Flagellanth's Path, Force of Anguish - those will not get the ACC bonus. WHich is lame. They are still very good weapons (maybe the best for monk) for early and mid game.

Since the monk doesn't have that many dmg mods (like rogue, cipher or figher) the sabre nerf makes not much difference. And the lashes don't care if the overall damage comes from base damage or dmg mods. Fists have some accuracy issues - for example the ACC bonus of Transc. Suffering doesn't work with the AoE cone of Torment's Reach.

YOu can use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence to restore health without resting.

Cape of the Cheat only gives you Escape. If you plan to build a character around stealth/invisibility I would suggest a rogue with the Cape of the Master Mystic (1* inv. per encounter), with Shadowing Beyond (2/rest), Nightshroud (1/rest) and Feign Death (1/encounter). If you combine that with Backstab (+150% damage) and Sneak Attack (+50) you an deal some nice damage when attacking from stealth or invisibiliy. With this setup it's best to use heavy hitting weapons like an estoc or a great sword, not daggers. The number of attacks you can deal out of steakth/inv. is limited, so you want to hit as hard as you can with your weapon, not as fast as you can.

A melee wizard is viable and powerful, too. But if you want lower maintenance, then a ranged wizard is the better choice. Most of the time you will use different stuff for late game crafting - and you will also have plenty of it. So craft all you want. Amplified Thrust hits your ally without any check and bounces off to the nearest enemy - then the usual hit roll will occur. I don't consider it to be a very useful spell. Whisper of Treason for example is a lot better. Athletic only gives you a 1/encounter self heal which is kind of lame - esp. in the late game the healing is not noticeable. I ALWAYS skip it.

Will, Fortitude, Deflection and Reflex are "only" defenses. Your ACC + dice100 roll has to overcome those defenses. A roll can result in miss, graze, hit or crit. There is only one accuracy and it's the base of ALL your attacks. This is influenced by class and PER. It can get bonuses from using an ability (usually +1 per level, some abilities have additional bonuses) or from using a spell (usually +10 or +15) and also improves per level. And of course you can take talents that boost it for certain things - like weapon focus, marksman and so on. Whatch the combat log in the lower right of your screen and hover over things like "MySuperChar misses Xaurip Skirmisher". You will get more info that will tell you the ACC that was used for this roll as well as the defense it was rolled against and the damage reduction (if there was DR involved). So, tl;dr: there's only one ACC value and it's based on class, PER and level. Will, fortitude, reflex and deflection are your defenses.