Boeroer

Not exactly. I guess 2.03 - but don't pin me down to that. It's not in the patch notes. It's even better to take Spirit of Decay for Bittercut and put a corrosive lash onto it. This not only boosts the sabre's base damage by 20% but also the corr. lash, meaning that it will do 30% lash damage instead of 25% (25 * 1.2 = 30. So you will profit two times from that talent.

I told you bear sucks.

It works. For a long time now. All weapons which do elemental damage only (e.g. Firebrand) or preferably do elemental damage plus physical damage (like Stormcaller or Bittercut) get +20% base weapon damage mod (like Savage Attack does, but without the ACC malus of course) from the fitting talent. It doesn't matter which damage type gets applied in the end. Stormcaller for example will do +20% damage if you take Heart of the Storm. It doesn't matter if it does shock or pierce damage when it hits an enemy. It's always +20% with Heart of the Storm. Note that it doesn't work with weapons which preferably do physical damage plus elemental damage - like Durance's Staff. It has crush/burn and therefore doesn't work with Scion of Flame. If it would have burn/crush instead it would work.

Easy enough without potions. Dual wielding, any ability that speeds you up (Frenzy, Swift Aim, Swift Strikes, Alacrity, Time Siphon) and speed enchantment or durgan steel plus Gauntlets of Swift Action and you're already under 0 recovery. Although with potions it's a lot easier of course. And you don't necessarily have to consume potions of Alacrity. THere's also the potion of power which is much much cheaper and also speeds you up. Or even Svef. From all this talking about DR reduction and attack speed I now am inspired to try a melee mage with dual Bleak Fang and max DR bypass plus Expose Vulnerabilities and Alacrity. 0 Recovery with 3+3+3+1+5+5 = 20 DR bypass sounds quite nice and fancy. It's good that you can pick multiple Spell Masteries from one spell level...

The higher the base damage and the more dmg mods you can add to that (or multiply with that), the less Vulnerable Attack or Penetrating Shot will do for your dps (or even lower it). And lashes don't work with DR bypass - that's a bad thing for fast weapons with low dmg but high DR bypass. Of course it's best if you can have both, high DMG per hit and high DR bypass, like with an estoc.

My Engineer build made use of stacking DR bypass. As does the Sorcerer's Apprentice. So I did make at least two builds that use stacking DR bypass. Penetrating Shot works with all spells that target single enemies and do direct damage and also with those who have not a cone or circle as AoE, but a straight line, like Mind Lance, Rolling Flame and even the weird shaped Twin Stones. Actually, nothing works with cone- and circle-shaped AoE effects except things that are specially made for it, like Penetrating Blast for Blast, and things that lower DR directly, like Expose Vulnerabilities, Hel Hyraf and so on. Nope, also not Ryona's Vambraces nor Effigy's Resentment: Devil of Caroc. Lashes are another thing: Pen. Shot and Vuln. Attack as well as Vambraces and stuf don't apply to lashes. The things that profit the most from high DR bypass are multi projectile attacks like blunderbusses and missiles of all sorts, like Missile Barrage for example. So, a Pallegina build that uses blunderbuss, Wrath of the Five Suns and all kinds of missiles would work best with Pen. Shot, Ryona's Vambraces and ER: Devil of Caroc. If you have a Wizard with Expose Vulnerabilities in the party: even better.

I have a question: melee or ranged rogue? Because this makes a huge difference. A melee rogue with dumped CON will be really frustrating because he will get knocked out very quickly in combat. A ranged rogue with dumped CON would be OK.

Yes, but while Munacra Arrest and Spirit Spiral give you 3 Whisper of Treasons/rest each with +10 ACC, the Ring of changing Heart's dominate spell (2/rest) has no ACC bonus at all. But it's faster. With Whisper it's much easier to crit and the resulting debuffs is great, while dominate only flips the alliance.

Min INT on a barb is usually a bad idea. Especially if you want to use the best barbarian ability of all, Heart of Fury. Usually I'd go for low RES and DEX and high MIG, PER and INT. I have done a six barb party back in the days when disorienting and interfering debuffs stacked - it still wasn't too much fun. This party composition lacks ACC buffs, nowadays also debuffs and CC - and those are the most important things in PoE. While one barb can be a lot of fun, six are not really for me. Not even five or four. Once you hit lvl 11 and pick HoF and use it with the right weapons and talents/abilities one barb usually is enough and more HoFs would be overkill. One priest with five barbs would def. be more powerful than six barbs. Barbs need ACC buffs and also disabled or debuffed foes to be awesome and the priest can provide both. Besides that he can give your barbs a great INT bonus, letting you hit a lot more enemies with carnage.

Mind Control is one of the most powerful things. It not only disables an enemy but also lets him work for you while the other foes are distracted and try to kill him. And because of the hefty debuffs of charming the controlled enemy gets targeted instantly. High ACC is superuseful because with a crit you can charm for more than 20 secs with Whisper of Treason if your INT is good. That's why Munacra Arret and Spirit Spiral are such awesome items: you can use them with classes that allow for very high ACC like fighters with Disciplined Barrage or Paladins with Sworn Enemy + Zealous Focus. Or ciphers with Borrowed Instinct and/or Tactical Meld. And nearly all dragons can be charmed, too.

Cool. Does this also work with Wild Leech? I mean not that it's useful - I'm just curious. A assume that Pain Block still can't be cast in yourself, right?

Funny, I'm building exactly this - with Rampage to ensure even more crits and Mirrored Image plus Haste. But I have to say that the early game is tougher if you don't take some special attacks. Power-Thrust with +15 ACC is quite nice early on though and you have to take it anyway.

If you want to stay in the back line you can absolutely do that. Just note that Gallant's Focus doesn't stack with Blessing. It does stack with Devotions of the Faithful and Inspiring Radiance (which stacks with everything, making it a very powerful talent). Insp. Radiance + Painful Interdiction is also a nice combo. The first raises the ACC of the second which will then lower enemies' defenses. Then you can add a debuff or damaging spell that targets fortitude or will. Also note that Empowered Interdiction doesn't raise the ACC of the weakening attack of Painful Interdiction, just the dazing one from vanilla Interdiction.

@Ben: right. You can wear heavy armor though. The Long Pain works ranged and in melee. Its attack speed is that of fists (fast), it's dual wielding and works with 2 weapon style and you'll have Swift & Lightning Strikes. You don't need Penetrating Shot or anything to slow you down because the base damage is very high, easily overcoming DR. Thus your attack speed is even great in heavy armor. You can alternate between melee and ranged seemlessly and effordlessly once The Long Pain were summoned. They last a long time and only cost 2 wounds. So it's best to start in melee and then retreat and fire from range or take out caster in the back row or kill swarmers quickly. If you want deeper info about the Long Pain you can read the Witch Doctor build. There are all the infos around it and how it can be used: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/87160-class-build-the-witch-doctor-mid-ranged-dps-monk-disabler/ You don't need to follow that build. Just siphon the knowledge around the Long Pain to see if it's something you would like. It comes at lvl 7 - so before that you would play him a a normal monk (which is also a lot of fun). Like barbs, monks can be very powerful AoE melee damage dealers with Torment's Reach. But barbs really suck at ranged combat.

It's still the case. Same with (Runner's) Wounding Shot and also Enduring Flames of the Goldpact Knights. So you could build a DPS goldpact knight with 1 INT wielding Tidefall, using FoD, Intense Flames, Enduring Flames, Runner's Wounding Shot, Scion of Flame and maybe not even Sacred Immolation.

Need more sleep I guess. But a certain 5 month old crybaby has something against it... :/

You could make a build with 1 INT using Tidefall and Runner's Wounding Shots. Those work best with the lowest INT.

Monk with The Long Pain. It's crushing, it works in melee and ranged combat, it has awesome base damage, it's fast and it works with nearly all monk abilities even when their description says they are melee only. And they scale like crazy. A lot of fun!

ROFL - I reread my build and found it. I really can't remember why or when I wrote that. Man... my brain is really degenerating.

Did I say that? Can't remember that... :-o

You need the proper self buffs, like Arcane (Hardened) Veil + Wizard's Double. This setup alone leads to +115 deflection which will make you unhitable for the duration that early in the game. Note that grazes don't end Wizard's Double.

You can keep Hiravias in the back line and shift once the swarmers reach the back line. This "intercepting" approach works pretty well with druids. Pallegina can also start in the second row and after firing Wrath and both FoD shots (FoD = Flames of Devotion, sorry ) switch to melee and fill in the gaps. You might still have two squishier back row guys (GM and Aloth) who need some protection.

I also thought it stacked and am quite sure that it did in the past - but Raven did the PoE-Arena fight with a cipher and reported that it doesn't stack.

Pallegina is a lot of fun if you build her around missiles, blunderbusses and Penetrating Shot to maximize DR bypass. Add Ryona's Vambraces later. Her Wrath of the Five Suns is a great opener and if you follow up with two FoD blunderbuss shots and maybe add some Minor and Prestidigitator's Missiles from items, scrolls and talents she can do really nice burst damage and take out casters quickly before switching so weapon & outworn buckler support mode. All those things do profit from ranged DR bypass. Add Scion of Flame, Intense Flames, burning lash on the blunderbusses and later Sacred Immolation and she will combine superb burst damage and sustained short-ranged dps while being tanky. Try to target enemies with low burn DR because lashes like from FoD with blunderbusses don't profit from Pen. Shot when they have to overcome burn DR.

It's also good for classes which have very high endurance and health, like barb and monk, it gives you a percentage based bonus and the high base value leads to a lot more endurance and health if you look at the flat numbers. But on a wizard with that whimpy base endurance it hardly matters if you have 10 or 5 CON - besides of the fortitude defense of course like Raven said.