Boeroer

Also: only a paladin is able to wear the Outworn Buckler, which is the best shield until you find Little Savior and improves his and his fellows' defenses even more. I often chose a paladin only because of that shield.

A Darcozzi paladin would object I guess.

Hehe. Too bad wounding doesn't generate focus. Did you ever test Firebrand + Scion of Flame with a cipher? Maybe combined with Myth Fyr from a chanter? The focus gain should be good...

The best 1h dps weapon is Drawn in Spring - which is a dagger. The March Steel Dagger has speed and is also great because you can get it early. So: rapier & dagger is a good setup for DPS because of those. The Sword if Deanysis has rending and speed, which is a great combination for dps. But two rapiers looks kinda awkward... Mosquito has a tremendous interrupt value of 0.75 sec which is amazing for a fast weapon (which normally have 0.35 sec). And it has draining. It is smaller than most other unique rapiers and doesn't look as weird as a second weapon in the offhand. If you combine mace and rapier the vailian style militia will come and throw you into a pit filled with cheap copies of Finreah's Grace.

What people also sometimes miss is that a chanter who wants to focus on melee (and NOT use the obvious "The Dragon obliterates everything" chant) can deal good damage via his self buffs which he can keep up 100% of the time with lvl 1 phrases after some levels with decent DEX and INT - and later also with "The Champion braved the Horde alone", which lasts surprisingly long. Another nice touch is to use a burning lash on your weapon and sing the "Myth Fyr" phrase and combine it with Scion of Flame. That way you will have a 60% burning lash on your weapon (while others in range also get lashes) which is way better than Sneak Attack and such. It's not as powerful as the Dragon Slashed, but if you want to go the melee road it's definitely good. The Champion invocation also gives you ridiculous interrupts - combine that with high PER, Interrupting Blows and an item that gives you better interrupt values and you are THE disruptor. And as I said: the damage per hit is pretty nice, too. Also works with ranged weapons obviously.

Eh? Do Time Parasite and Alacrity stack?

Why not WF noble? The term "noble savage" is made for this.

Right. The percentage based mods of the base damage only add up. Crit damage is no difference. But crits also prolong durations.

The full attacks are nice - but I agree that there's not enough of them to make a huge difference once the targets get meatier and/or come in higher numbers like Raven said. Maybe that's the main reason why rogues stink on PotD.

Can't say - I never play those.

Invest in survivability during the first level ups. Veteran's Recovery and thick armor will prevent a quick knockout. It's no problem to bring such a rogue and make him viable in a party. You can balance out his squishyness by focusing on a more defensive approach - he already comes with high ACC and Sneak Attack - so no need to boost offense further with talents during the first levels. With a few stat tweaks and some talents you can make him nearly as sturdy as a fighter. Well sort of... Soloing without too much kiting needs a combination of sturdiness and sustained AoE damage. I think that's the reason you don't see a lot of fighter and rogue solo runs. But generally I agree that rogues are a bit underwhelming. Also always the easiest enemy in kith encounters. It's not like you think "oh noo - here comes the nasty rogue!" More often it's "oh noo - there comes the nasty drunk orlan monk".

Sure, it's my fault. :| I lure little kids to the weird side of the character creation and all... I do builds that are unusual or (hopefully) interesting and still work well. Why should I post the obvious? Not very entertaining. I'm not Obsidian's official build encyclopedia where you can find all viable builds - I just do that stuff for my own amusement so I limit myself to the werid stuff like a Barb with a dead wish. That's not necessarily the "best" way (although it's pretty good). That doesn't mean the obvious doesn't work well. For example the great sword wielding barbarian works really well. No need to be a fencer. Sure - there are some nice synergies between a certain rapier and carnage and HoF - but that doesn't make other, more traditional builds bad. Give him a great sword and make him strong and meaty, give him frenzy, bloodlustand blood thirst and he will be good and lots of fun. Aim for the Hours of St. Rumbalt and see the magic of carnage + prone + high damage. Or use Tidefall and look at the tremendous wounding damage and the self heal via carnage + draining. Both variants are lots of fun and powerful. Atm I'm playing a barb tank with weapon & shield and dazing + frightening via shouts - also very nice. And on the other hand - you don't have to stick to the traditional monk. Play him like a fighter with a two hander in fat armor and he will do great. Just pretend he's a templar or whatever suits you. I think rogues are a bit weak compared to the other classes, especially because their late game abilities are not as "wow" as those of other classes - but they still do a lot of melee damage. Also, the impression of paladins is wrong. He's a great mixture of support and sturdiness. And paladins are actually better tanks than fighters. Fighters are good tanks, but even better at other things, like disrupting the enemies' back line without going down. Paladins also have the best healing abilities in the game. Look out for the "damaging healbot". And of course there's no rule that says you can't habe two fighters in the party. Maybe you did a little bit too much research about what's the optimum when you just should have started a game and see where it gets you?

Yes, the 3.04 patch will change how people see 2handers. At the moment the only disadvantage of sabres is their single damage type. And you can go around that by using Bittercut. 2handers have some of the best uniques because you can get them early and they have some nice enchantments (Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tidefall, Blade of the EP, Tall Grass etc.). Esp. great swords with their 2 damage types are good. But the high base damage of sabres and the ability to dual wield them and therefore get +50% speed as well as Full Attacks is obviously better. Also using a shield while having nearly the same damage or using one handed style is better - if you don't look at uniques but only judge the plain base weapon. When sabres' damage will be changed from higher base to a mere +20% bonus, 2handers will be a real alternative. The difference in damage per hit between dual wielding swords and using a great sword is very obvious - especially against enemies with high DR. +20% damage is a lot weaker than higher base damage - especially if you have a lot of damage mods like rogues, ciphers or fighters have. But atm sabres are the best option for DPS.

You can do anything with the build-in console, you don't necessarily need any mod. But that will deactivate achievements

Frenzy will not only give you a bit more damage and speed, it also boosts your fortitude by 16 points (even 24 with Greater Frenzy). That's a hidden gem. Who cares for -10 deflection. Bloodlust stacks with Frenzy, so it's not too bad - especially with a two hander. It speeds up any action, not just autoattacking. Blood Thirst also triggers when you kill with spells or retaliation. 0 recovery spell casting with AoE spells is pretty nice in hard encounters. Nobody else can do that. I killed Darzir's Gang with scrolls of Fan of Flames when I was soloing with a barb. Both are good when you have HoF: after HoF both will be on - you will be able to add an attack right after HoF (Blood Thirst) - like Barbaric Blow - and then continue with +20% speed for the rest of the fight. Fun fact: when you use Spelltongue with HoF you will not only have 15% attack speed from Spelltongue for a looong time, but also Bloodlust and Frenzy will have huge durations and will last until the rest of the fight - as well as the normally very short damage bonus of HoF (+20%) which gets prolonged a lot because of the man many hits you generate with HoF. All other things like Savage/Stalwart Defiance will also have ridiculous durations after HoF with Spelltongue. Blooded is nice when you want to have <=50% endurance or lower anyways. Like when you are a Fire Godlike and want to stack retaliations or when you want to abuse Vengeful Defeat. Blooded works with everything, also spells and leaps and shouts. Same as One Stands Alone, which is also good. Both stack. I don't use it if I don't plan to hit 50% endurance frequently. I think Thick Skinned is not too bad when you take it early and later retrain for something else. With a Blunting Belt and Thick Skinned you can easily do with a much thinner armor at the beginning of the game. Later on it becomes less powerful. DR can't keep up with the damage output of enemies so it doesn't matter that much towards the end of the game. Eye of the Dragon: I think it's one of the most useless abilites in the whole game if you have a party. I can imagine it's nice for soloing: You will be of higher level than most monsters most of the time and thus will have free movement and will suffer no disengangement attacks. Echoing Shout works with Blooded and Blood Thirst and also triggers Bloodlust - it can be seen as a powerful spell - especially because it's range is so huge and it bounces. In close quarters it can be really devastating. It's also nice to have with a barb with high move speed, kiting a bit so that enemies follow you in a straight line and then turn around and shout. Dragon Leap is great in combo with HoF. I love it! edit: man, never got ninja'd so hard.

Deathblows with "normal" weapons is not as powerful as one might think. Especially with weapons which you normally would associate with rogues, like daggers and such - small, fast weapons. That's because their base damage is low. Deathblows "only" doubles that base weapon damage. And you need to keep up 2 afflictions for that. Normally an enemy is dead anyway when it suffers from 2 afflictions (most of the time one of them is a disabling one) - it may take a little more time to finish it off but disabled is disabled. It would be cooler if Deathblows would simply upgrade Sneak Attack - so that you still need only one affliction. Remember that you get Deathblows at level 11 - a level at which the barb gets Heart of Fury for example. And nobody can seriously argue that those two are on par. Druids ca get a +50% or even +60% lash - now that's powerful especially with those hefty base damage from claws. Lashes are not claculated with weapons base damage, but the actual damage they do. Crits and all dmg mods will be taken into account. That's why shifted druids normally do 100+ damage hits at highter levels without the need to cause any affliction and fuzz like that. And on top he casts spells like Relentless Storm which prevent that he gets hit. And you then can even pimp that lash damage with things like Scion of Flame. So the druid outperforms the rogue not only in single target damage, but he also has spells which deal AoE damage, cause CC and whatnot. I'd say it's not fair. If a rogue is supposed to be THE single target dps machine he should have something with less fuzz and more ooph. Or he needs more staying power. Or something else that makes him unique. THe only thing in whoich rogues are good is the earlygame because they start with that +50% damage bonus which is great that early in the game. With anything that has high base damage Deathblows is nice of course - like guns. But they are so slow that when you miss the point where an enemy has 2 afflictions you have to wait forever for your second shot - and who knows if the 2 afflcitions are still up then. It's a micromanagement hell. That's why Fireballs or most other spells become nasty things when Deathblows get applied. Instead of 30 damage a Fireball would do 60. It's basically double damage with spells. A high level rogue is the prefect scroll user because of that. But I don't think that was intended.

What is 2wf? St. Ydwen's Redeemer - map Durgan's Battery, at the northern edge of the map, between Galvino's Hut and the Battery. It's THE BEST weapon gainst undead. Works with any weapon focus and binds to paladins. For spirits enchant any weapon you like with spirit-slaying. Ravenwing is nice. There's also "Whispers of Yenwood" which you get very early in Caed Nua's throne room (in an urn right at the entrance). It comes with Spirit-Slaying and gives +2 CON. It also looks kind of cool.

For me, it would be OK if the rogue's abilities were just a bit stronger and his starting values not so crappy in comparison to fighters and monks. Sure, ACC is nice, but why have deflection and endurance to be so low that they fall on their face every time an enemy looks at them. They have no spells to make up for this like for example wizards or ciphers have. Atm, ciphers are the better rogues. Making Deep Wounds stack would be an easy and powerful change. Making Finishing Blow blow less. That "more damage the more dead the target" thing is just bad. Make it so that it gives a massive dmg bonus when the target has <=50% endurance. Make Smoke Cloud also weaken or blind targets. Make Shadow Step trigger Backstabs. Give certain weapons like daggers and stilettos bonus Backstab damage or give them auto annihilation when a rogue wields them or even better: give them higher base damage with a rogue. A talent that heightens crit damage like the Merciless Hand. Maybe both of the crit converter abilities/talents could do this. Add some rogue only items that are really good. For example a belt or gloves that add a 10% corrosion/poison lash to every weapon. Make stealth worthwhile: let the rogue enter stealth again during combat. Maybe 1/encounter. Make traps worthwhile when rogues lay them. For example they could have higher damage or do sneak attack. Let rogues lay more than one trap. Let them drop traps in encounters. Such things would keep them non-mystical while making them interesting. Then make Clear Out per encounter so fighters get some love, too and we're good.

A rogue with dual Flames of Fair Rhian and Taluntain's Staff = 9 Fireballs per rest... and all spell bindings he can get besides that, making him a caster basically. Damaging spells work with Deathblows (not sneak attack). Fireballs on Deathblows = double damage = Direballs.

Only rogue that is fun for me atm is the "Direballs" rogue.

Barb and monk may overlap a bit. If you play the monk more like a disruptor in the enemy backline then they work together perfectly well I guess. Or a barb who engages from the flanks instead of standing in the middle and the monk in the fray instead could also work. I can always recommend a priest. His buffs make every party a lot better and every playthrough easier. He needs a few levels to show his awesomeness. Chanters are always nice if you want dps power combined with tankyness and low micromanagement. Wizards are very flexible and awesome disablers and have good self buffs. Druids are less flexible but more sturdy (without spells) and also have really good CC and damaging spells. Spiritshift turns them into single target melee dps monsters that have no match - but it doesn't last too long. For me, rogues are the weakest class overall atm and I seldomly recommend them. Paladins: awesome support and sturdyness combined with good burst damage and some great order specific talents. After lvl 13 good DPS, too.

This is true if: - you run straigt into an encounter (no preparation time) - for the generic trashmob fights (buffs too much fuzz - select all, pick atarget and autoattack ) - your level is too high compared to the enemies (it can't get better than crits, so why bother) and/or - difficulty level is below PoTD (which is the same as the point above basically) And it can be true if you have lots of squishies in your ranks that get knocked down quickly. In those situations it can be better to start with disabling/CC and attacks right away. But if you scout with your tank first (so that you're barely in range for ACC buffs like Insp. Radiance) and trigger the encounter so that most enemies will engage him first you will ahve enough time for ACC buffing and debuffing before you start attacking. As I said most of the casts can be done parallel with a slight shift in timing and not necessarily sequencially.

This is a good post, though I wouldn't wait to cast Returning/Relentless Storm untill after buffs are cast since they re-check your accuracy and intelligence every time they hit, which makes them great spells to open encounters with immediately since they'll still take advantage of buffs cast later. That is right. Spell with pulsing or returning hits like Chillfog, Relentless Storm and so on can be cast right away. Every pulse will be rolled with the actual accuracy of the caster. And some of them take forever to cast anyway - so when you finish them a priest might have cast Insp. Radiance and another buff in the meantime.

Monk throughout the whole game I'd say. After lvl 11 it's barbarian because of Heart of Fury and his huge endurance pool (which he gains through level ups). My current barb tank (!) has dealt 90k more damage than my second best dps char - my wizard - and at the same time he's the sturdiest member of my team (all lvl 16). But as I said: monks are good dps guys and sturdy right from the start.

Maybe you become pumice stone when petrified?