Boeroer

Honestly there's nothing better for a ranged wizard than blast + implement. Mainly because spell chance or spell striking work with the AoE effect - meaning that they proc a lot faster than without blast if you hit a group. Great implements are the soulbound sceptre and the Golden Gaze. And then there's Kalakoth's Minor Blights which is even better. - especially with Combusting Wounds because you'll generate a lot of hits. On top of that comes the fact that Envenomed Strike works with the blast AoE - that means you can poison a whole bunch of enemies with one shot. This is very powerful. Blast works best gainst groups and does good AoE damage and CC. But against single, powerful enemies it's not the best option. Here, the combination of 3 to 4 quick switching blunderbusses + Expose Vulnerabilites + Combusting Wounds is very good. If you want to take out one single enemy very quickly, this is a good alternative. I'm playing this variant atm. It's alot of fun and I will post a build about it in the future. Basically you pile up as much DR bypass as you can and use Combusting Wounds. Then you shoot the enemy with a blunderbuss. This generates 6 Combusting Wounds. Most normal foes will die, for the rest you'll have two or three additional shots. For me it feels even better than a rogue with blunderbuss. First of all, you can stack 18 DR bypass via blunderbuss (4), Pen. Shot (5), Ryona's Vembraces (3), Effigy's Resentment: Devil of Caroc (1) and Expose Vulnerabilites (5). With Lead Spitter even 21. That alone makes the blunderbuss very dangerous in the hands of a wizard. Few enemies have 21 DR. And if they do, it doesn't matter that much because you also will give them a lot of combusting wounds. And the combination of Combusting WOunds and Expose Vuln. also invites you to cast other multi-projectile spells like Minor Missiles, Bounding Missiles or Concussive Missiles. THos you can add when your blunderbusses are not enough. At the same time, your party also profits a lot from Combusting Wounds and Expose Vuln. This is a good approach when you want to cast spells mainly but want a panic button when you get rushed. Few "rushers" survive such a barrage of blunderbuss pellets... So, you have to decide if you want to focus your weapon attacks on groups (implement + blast) or single enemies (blunderbuss). Your spells - the main source of your power - remain the same of course, so in the end it doesn't make a very huge difference - it just moves your playstyle with weapons into a certain direction. Combusting Wounds + Expose Vuln. are also good for blast by the way.

St. Ydwen is the best choice for sure. And it's also good against other enemies. If you don't want to use guns or a two hander like Firebrand for FoD then dual wielding is good enough. For example dual wielding battle axes or war hammers (one of them Shatterstar which is annihilating) does good damage with FoD. It's "only" 2/encounter, but with a burning lash, Intense Flames and Scion of Flame you get 4 attacks with +20 ACC and +90% burn damage via lash. That is a lot better than Deathblows for example that gives you +100% base damage only. Once you crit (which happens a lot of times because +20 ACC from FoD and also Sworn Enemy's +15 - add some buffs and debuffs before using FoD) the damage of those 4 strikes is impressive. And in a party, 2/encounter is not as bad as when you go solo. Most fights are over pretty soon - so 2 Full Attacks get a big share of all your attacks in an encounter. If you want more damaging attacks, you can take Runner's Wounding Shot. It doesn't do full attacks, but it adds 80% of all the damage you did with the initial hit - lash included. And it even works with MIG. So normally it adds around 100% of your overall damage (not only base damage). This is even better with a two hander or a gun. You could even add Envenomed Strike. With high MIG and INT it's pretty good. It can save the day when tough encounters go south. Sadly, it doesnt work against most spirits or vessels. I once suggested a talent that adds 1 FoD use per encounter. Sadly, nobody at OBS gave a shart.

I'd love to play Path of Exile - but it's Windows only.

With FoD + a bash shield you will strike with the main weapon and with the shield. Both get the +50% burning lash. The only good shield with bash for a paladin is Badgradr's Barricade and that comes quite late in WM I - in Durgan's Battery. Way better than that is the Outworn Buckler that you can buy in Gilded Vale right at the start. It has no bash. The first shield with bash is the Larder Door that you get after helping the smith in Gilded Vale.

Diablo II was awesome. Diablo III is the opposite - at least for me. Somewhere in between something went really wrong with Blizzard. I guess it was WoW.

Maybe Kadal has only 10% endurance of the original value a normal citizen of Defiance Bay has. That would explain why he's a one shot every time. edit: typos - i hate auto correction. :/

DPS with bash is lower than with a normal shield if we talk about auto attacks. Bash itself is not good if it's not connected with a spell chance or spell striking. For full attacks like FoD it's a bit better. It's not considered to be dual wielding by the game. So it doesn't speed you up. Bash is considered to be a special attack from an ability and therefore gains 1 ACC per level. So its overall ACC is not too bad.

Chanter item aka Voice of the Mountaintop and Overseeing stack, yes. Overseeing does not stack with Overseeing. So, Aloth's armor + a ring won't stack.

I'm sorry - please don't crack the whip...

Hahaha - I kinda missed that.

That's because there are no whips in the game. Why are there still no whips? I asked for whips since the beginning, nobody at OBS listens to me. I'm going to drown my sorrow in... whipped cream?

Really?

Yes, there are also some nice items that can raise your concentration as well as the nice potion of Spirit Shield which is lvl1 and really cheap.

How about "The Harem of Pain"?

Yes - you can even overwrite it with "Fine"

I, as a nostalgic old fart, would so love to see that.

I don't know in this case, but normally GameBanshee's walkthroughs are pretty complete.

None. I mean besides enchanting it with a corrosive lash - or using Kalakoth's Minor Blights which are corrosive every fourth shot. The blast AoE damage doesn't have to do anything with the implement by the way. It's a simple crush AoE damage. So it's best to choose an implement with an on-hit or on-crit effect and forget the direct damage it does to the initial target. Besides Minor Blights my favorites are the Golden Gaze and the soulbound Gyrd Whatever Biteme Stenes.

Confirmed. This seems to be new. I didn't experience this bug with 2.03.

Yeah, that'd be good, too.

Yeah - With the pommel of your dagger.

Why don't you give him a torch instead of a club? Looks nice and with the bug you'll have kinda similar damage as with normal weapons. Or don't enchant your weapon even if you normally could and would.

Yes, Bloodlust stacks with everything. But I never experienced that it stacks with itself. At least not with sabres. Maybe it's an interference between HoF, the attack speed & the buff duration stealing from Spelltongue and Bloodlust. When I use Spelltongue with normal auto attacks and get Bloodlust this never happened for me (see the Leech build). You should write up a bug report for 3.04. Maybe they can quickly fix this.

DEX can never lead you to 0 recovery. DEX gets applied after all the attack speed mods got calculated. If you already have 0 recovery it does nothing for your recovery any more. If you have recovery left it will dininish it but can never put it to 0.

Depends on the class. With a wizard you can use Deleterious Alacrity (1.5), Gauntlets of Swift Action (1.15), Durgan Steel (1.15) and you are already near 0. Those speed modifiers get multiplied, not added - so every tiny bit more helps a lot. In this case it's 1.5 * 1.15 * 1.15 = 1.98 where 2 would mean 0 recovery. If you now have a weapon with speed like the Blade of the Endless Paths you can even multiply this with 1.2 and be at 2.38. That means you could even wear durganized plate (-0.35) and be > 2 which still means no recovery. A fighter with access to Alacrity (potion, spell bind item) could even wear durganized plate AND use Vulnerable Attack and reach 2. But this is only possible with the speed enchantment. Other 2 handed weapons will still have a tiny bit of recovery with a wizard, but it's not really noticable. Those speed penalties get substracted instead of multiplied by the way - I know - it's totally intuitive. A chanter can do this with the Champion invocation, but since it only speeds you up with 1.4 instead of 1.5 he will not reach the speed of a wizard, but close. A barbarian can use Frenzy (1.33) and stack it with Bloodlust (1.2). That way he's even faster than a wizard and doesn't need a speed enchantment on a two hander to reach 0 recovery. Although that is a bit circumstanctial. With Frenzy only he's also pretty close. And he also has Blood Thirst which nullifies recovery after a kill. A cipher can use Time Parasite as a wizard uses Alacrity. Both do 1.5. A ranger can use Swift Aim, but since it's 1.2 only he will not reach 0 recovery with two handers - not even with the speed enchantment. Same with a monk's Swift Strikes (1.25) All others have to use Outlander's Frenzy or potions to get near 0 recovery with a two hander. A potion of Alacrity always helps.