Boeroer

Godansthunyr is crush/pierce and Thrust is crush. The thing is you can stun+Thrust a single enemy while you can deliver the same via riposte to others who attack you. If you wear the binding rope your riposte-Thrusts have a good chance to be deathblows. I think it's great for riposte. Helps you to tank even more enemies. I mean most people don't want to be attacked at all - but if it happens, it's good to have a chance for riposte. I don't want to generate as many ripostes as possible. That would mean - like you said - that you want the enemy to attack you all the time. I think that's not optimal for a rogue, even one with a shield. For me, Riposte is still not powerful enough to be seen as good DPS source. But it can be good to punish enemies who dare to attack you. That's why I would prefer a disabling weapon for ripostes, not a DPS one. Maybe it's just a different approach.

For me it's mainly to spare resources. And of what use is DR for a ranged char anyway?

Yeah, a rogue with shield and Adept Evasion can stand in the midst of a Fireball rain and won't get hurt much. I used my shielded Devil of Caroc together with my wizard - she's immune to all poison spells, so you can drop Malignant Clouds and Noxious Burst on her head like crazy while she enganges mobs - and also Fireballs and all the other reflex based spells didn't do much to her either. It's a nice combo. I mainly use Gadansthunyr because it makes it easier to set up Deathblows after the first hit of a Full Attack (like Blinding Strike) and makes it very likely that the following bash will crit, triggering Thrust of Tattered Veils which works with Deathblows, critting and destroying the enemy target just with one Full Attack. Unlabored Blade can't do that if it doesn't trigger Firebug. We Toki can do it as well, but it only has prone on crit - stun is better. The main reason though is that that hammer is one of the few weapons that look good with Badgradr's Barricade. It's difficult to find a fit for that blue/white/red/golden pattern.

Badgradr's Barricade procs Thrust of Tattered Veils on critical bash. It works with Deathblows and is the best shield for a riposte rogue in my opinion. I played such a rogue without Riposte (was too bad back then), just Godansthunyr and the shield and he was great. Blind the enemy, stun the enemy and proc the Thrust with Deathblows (and usually also crit). Normally that meant death. At the same time a very sturdy character - I mean for a rogue. I can only imagine how the new Riposte would add even more awesomeness with that stunning + Thrust of Tattered-Veils full attack everytime a riposte gets triggered. I forgot another approach for Riposte: stack as much defense against disengangement attacks as possible: Graceful Retreat (+12), Fast Runner (+5), Cape of Withdrawal (+15) or Night Runner (also +15). You will have +32 defense against disengagement attacks. Now you can use dual sabres (or maybe still even better hatchets) and fight like usual. But every time you run away and provoke disengagement attack you will have a +32 bonus against them, making it more likely that they will graze or miss, triggering riposte. What I didn't test but what would be very cool: Put on the shield from the Drake in Endless Paths lvl 5, stack it with another preservation item. Now, when you get prone or stunned you will have +100 to all defenses, making you nearly untouchable. Maybe Riposte gets triggered although you are prone or stunned. Somebody needs to test this. You can switch to that shield once you get stunned or go prone. You can switch weapons sets in this game at any time, even if you are disabled.

Riposte is only worthwhile if you have high deflection. Because rogues have very low starting deflection, they normally need shields to reach a value where enemies graze and miss them a lot (Riposte only triggers on grazes and misses). Or they need party members to buff their deflection (paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation for example). Riposte is a Full Attack, so it would be best to either dual wield weapons (which does noch much for your deflection, thus limiting the chance to do ripostes in the first place) or use a shield with bash. There is a shield that is perfect for this. It's called Badgradr's Barricade and it's the best option for a riposte build in my opinion - but it's in Durgan's Battery - so very late for a solo rogue. Another alternative might be dual hatchets, they will give you +10 deflection and allow full attacks. If you can manage to rebuff enemies' ACC it could also work.

Yes, that's right. Sadly only invisibility works with Firebrand, not stealth. I used it with the Cloak of the Master Mystic: used stealth to do a Backstab with my normal weapon (Hours of St. Rumbalt, also annihilating and prone on crit), then every now and then summoned Firebrand. When I received a crit I countered it with a mighty burning backstab from invisibility. That was when the cloak still had this endless invisibility bug. But I think it would still work. Hours of St. Rumbalt with a Doemenel rogue is a lot of fun by the way. You quickly set up deathblows just by using one Blinding or Crippling Strike and then disable with prone. I used him for taking out single priority targets such as casters and so on.

With a wizard, on every spell level there's at least one spell that is superawesome - from lvl 1 on. Even without WM. Chillfog, Combusting Wounds, Alacrity and Kalakoth's Minor Blights, Pull of Eora and many more. I love the wizard's spells. Such a big variety and for every build idea you can find something that fits - from tank to glass cannon, from melee to ranged. Druids and priest also have awesome spells, just look at the Storms or Shining Beacon and such - but sometimes I have the feeling that they have some spell levels where there are only mediocre or circumstantial spells.

Ok, did you take Turning Wheel? It works with Battleforged retaliation, adding a fire lash to it up to +50%. Both work with Scion of Flame, boosting the retaliation damage even further. I did a monk build on that as well which can solo even PotD WM bounties. Look for "Monksterlasher" in the build index if you are interested in the mechanics of Battle forged+Turning Wheel+Scion of Flame.

Yeah, that can be fun. Then you don't need Torment's Reach. Force of Anguish is nice when you have very fast attacks (lets you put down a lot of foes in quick seccession) and also a lot of wounds so you can keep using it. I once made a special monk build for this when patch 2.0 was out. Look for "Fulmineo Prondroni" in the build index. I guess you also have The Long Stride and/or an item which speeds up your movement? Because Force of Anguish gets really powerful if you can run very fast and reach foes quickly. And I also would favor Boots of Speed over Shod in Faith with a monk who is focused on Force of Anguish. A very good alternative (or even addition) to fast running is to use The Long Pain (ranged fists) - because Force of Anguish works with them. So you don't even have to run towards enemies to knock them prone or to follow them to finish them off. You can protect your teammates while standing in the center of the battle. Look at my Witch Doctor build when you anre interested how th Long Pain works. That abilitiy is awesome for a disabler monk.

Try out Firebrand (summoned weapon from Forgemaster Gloves, you can buy them in Definace Bay at the smith of the Crucible Knights after solving their first quest). It's great for backstabs. It has a huge base damage, which is good for backstabbing, anbd you can get two backstab swings instead of one gunshot. It also works with Scion of Flame (boosting damage further) and does burn damage - most enemies' burn DR won't be higher than their slash/pierce/crush DR. In fact there are a lot of enemies whose burn DR is lower. It also has Annihilation, meaning it add +0.5 to your crit damage multiplier. Since rogues crit more often than any other class, this is also nice. And it works with every Weapon Focus - so you can easily choose any Weapon Focus you like - Firebrand will work with it. There's no need to build your rogue around it. You can keep it's uses for backstabbing or for enemie weak to burn damage and fight with any other weapon of your choice in other fights. One example is using Tall Grass for normaly fights and having Firebrand for pierce immune/resistant foes. But watch out: this combo doesn't work against Flame Blights.

Hehe - I find it funny that your title says "effective way to win" - and then you don't use chanters because they are too effective. Force of Anguish is nice, that's true. And very effective. Using +15 endurance boots instead of Shod in Faith is not the most effective way either. The +15 don't get influenced by MIG or INT or healing-received bonuses or whatever. +15 is also like nothing on higher levels. One point of CON would give you way more than +15. Shod in Faith on the other hand will give you a lot more endurance - usually between 10 to 15 per pulse while pulsing over a long time if you have a bit of MIG and some healing-received bonus from camping and/or an item. Do I see it right that you don't use Torment's Reach? I mean you can play monk like that, but either it's a build for a special purpose (more focused on single targets) or you're gimping his performance - especially because you are dual wielding. Torment's Reach is a Full Attack with a huge AoE. But if you're happy with his performance that's great. Everybody plays this game differently and there are lots of ways to be successful.

For the barb there's a late pollaxe that has Overbearing. If the wizard's using blast: take Envenomed Strike (I know, I repeat myself). For your rogue: there are slashing stilettos instead of the normal piercing ones. Lagufaeth drop them. They look like daggers. Great choice when you meet pierce resistant/immune enemies and don't like to use sabres or clubs. First charming item is Munacra Arret. You can also try Enigma's Charm - it's quite nice for a high ACC rogue. Next item is the Ring of Changing Heart from Darzir with 2 dominates per rest. For your fighter there's Waage's Hat of Leadership. I think it can be bought from Vincent Dwellier, but I'm not 100% sure. I guess I would like Edge of Reason best. Priest: The only thing that looks a bit like a sling with it's animation is an implement.

Wait a minute, are you saying that I can envonomed striked multiple enemies with only 1 charge because of the Blast aoe splash? If the answer is yes, can a priest do the same somehow? I want to abuse that + cleansing flames soooo hard now... The answer is yes. But as far as I know there's no way to do it with a priest. Only splash damage from implements (Rot Skulls counts as one) seems to do this.

When you take a wizard or druid who use implements: Take Envenomed Strike. With a wizard, take it as soon as you get Blast, because it works with Blast's AoE. It's great. If you want to play a druid and you want to use Rot Skulls, take it as soon you get that. Env. Strike works with the AoE of Rot Skulls. Both Variants are powerful and make certain encounters like bounties way easier, because you can cause about 100 raw damage per foe in an AoE - 3/rest.

Ok - so, what exactly do you do with those?

That's because Fearless and Overbearing Guard are lvl 7 abilities. GameBanshee: Fighter's abilities Pillar's "official" wiki says it's lvl 5, but it's often outdated and sometimes just wrong.

Go ahead an do it.

Moon and Fire can be worth it in my opinion. Moon starts strong but becomes a bit weak later on - but it stays to be good in a party. Fire is the opposite: starts weak but becomes very powerful with the right talents and abilities. I scales with level and it's the only godlike racial ability which you can directly influence with talents (Scion, Vulnerable Attack, Savage Attack...) and abilities (all universal damage buffs like Deathblows, One Stands Alone, Blooded and so on, melee lashes like Turning Wheel...).

No, but Deathblows do.

A barb with HoF 1/encounter is not very item dependent. Give him any 2 sabres and he will be great. I'm playing one solo (PotD) atm and he's very much endgame viable.

Ciphers also have Tactical Meld and the paladin could use a marking weapon + Coordinated Attacks, giving the cipher +40 ACC. Looks like a great combo. I made that mesmerizing chanter build once (Drake's Ambassador) with all those mind control items and also Enigma's Charm, paired with Fireballs and The Dragon Thrashed. When you think about it you can easily translate that to the paladin with Sacred Immolation. Maybe fits even better. This is great - you should evolve a build around it. I mean the paladin also has things like Righteous Soul and Aegis of Loyality which fit the theme pretty well. Put on Hand and Key as well!

I think it's a good thing that "best" not only depends on your party composition, character level (thereare certain levels which boost a class a lot, linke lvl 9 for chanters and barbs, lvl 13 for paladins) and difficulty (e.g. chanters are more useful in PotD) but also on your playstyle, your preferences and the tricks you know. It also depends a lot on the special build you are playing. For example I think that the Witch Doctor monk is one of the most powerful character I ever played - and that from lvl 7 on. The combination of very high AoE damage and CC (if you have a weapon with on-crit effect) with ranged attacks and blinding speed makes this so devastating. And it works in every party and well as solo (if you build it a bit more sturdy). Or look at a rogue whom you use as Deathblow spell caster with all the spell bindings and scrolls you can get. He's impressive as long as he has spells and still does his single target damage thing when he has not. So at least you'd have to make a sheet, seperated by difficulty, where you have all levels from 1 to 16 and determine which class could be best at that level. And a even more thorough approach would be to compare all the builds you know, not simply classes. Given that some classes can be build very differently.

Hm. Using Sworn Enemy to ease mind control spells is smart. Never thought about that. Now that Sworn Enemy is a per encounter ability this is really a nice trick. You can get Munacra Arret with 3 Whisper of Treasons per rest and +12 will relatively early and later you can pick up the Ring of Changing Heart with 2 dominates per rest which also gives you +3 RES. Cool twist on a shieldbearer, I like it. Munacra Arret looks really nice with Osric's Family armor by the way.

Yes, you can. You will be hitting quite slowly with your weapon then (and drinking potions and casting scrolls will take noticably longer), but a shieldbearer support paladin tank is not the best dps char anyway. Your Lay on Hands and Exhortations will be fast enough even with 3 DEX and your reflex defense (which will suffer) gets boosted by Weapon & Shield Style. If you want your healings to be stronger and last longer then put the points into MIG and INT. That's also good for the AoE of your auras, the damage per Flames of Devotion use and later Sacred Immolation. You could also put some points into PER if you like - especially if you plan to use Sacred Immolation later on (which I totally recommend). But my focus would be to further boost MIG and INT (especially when you're not playing at Path of the Damned difficulty). You don't have to dump DEX completely of course. 3 DEX is just an example and it works well.

Listen to Loren Tyr, for he knows the code. In short: yes, DEX can be important for casting. It lets you cast faster. Since some abilitiy usages can take a long time (aka "slow" casting speed, it's in the description of the ability/spell) high DEX can really make a differenc here. But a paladin's abilities (Lay on Hands, Exhortations and stuff) normally don't take very long to cast /use, so you don't gimp yourself with 10 DEX. Other stats are more important for a melee paladin (namely MIG, INT and also RES and PER).