Boeroer

Hehe - well I hope that with PoE2 things get better when it comes to code and bugs. Thanks a lot.

MIG 13, 14 is also ok. It only affects damage and healing that you do to yourself or to others, not how much healing you receive from others. You can put more points into DEX or PER or so.

Well - for example you can put 15 into everything but INT and RES. Then give INT 13 and RES 10. Or INT 15 and RES 08. Or the other way round if you like RES more. 10 INT isn't too bad after all. This approach would also result in fairly balanced defenses. A few points here and there (like 17 to MIG and 09 to CON and so on) really don't make much of a difference. If you dump something from 18 to 3 or so, that's another story... Making the major stats 16 or 15 and devide the rest evenly is generally a good "non-minmaxing" approach.

Yes, but normally you are in the backline - you shouldn't get hit at all - so you don't need neither high deflection nor a lot of concentration. INT on the other hand gives you longer durations for your Wounding Shot (making it easier to trigger Predator's Sense for the pet), your Marked Prey, your Binding Roots and so on. If you'd use Envenomed Strike, it will also prolong the duration and therefore raise the damage. If you have Twin Sting it will prolong the duration of Plague of Insects (=raising damage) and so on. Sure, it's not the no. 1 stat for a ranged ranger, but I think it's more useful than RES most of the time.

That's all correct as far as I can see.

Not too many. The most useful are items with +2 bonus to survival, mechanics and lore. For survival there's a padded armor, a plate armor and a hat. For mechanics there's only a random pair of gloves - so that's the hardest go get. For lore there's an amulet, a robe and even +3 boots. And there may be more items which I forgot about, but not many. There are also items with bonus to athletics and stealth, but as I said nobody really needs that bonuses unless you want it for roleplaying reasons.

You don't need to pump it all into one char. A bit survival is good for everyone, but it's usually enough to give one or two chars a bit of lore and one does mechanics. If that's your ranger, then great. Fits a dwarven ranger - also for finding traps and so on...

By the way: why exactly do things like Stalwart Defiance, Shielding Touch, Shielding Flames and Inspiring Triumph all stack (also with Reinforcing Exhortation)? I mean code-wise. What's the difference or which "group" are they in? I'm playing a Shieldbearer atm with said talents/abilities and when he decides to fully buff the deflection of my barb tank (who has Stalwart Defiance of course) and pick up Outworn Buckler, too, it gets really ridicilous. Shielding Flame and Insp. Triumph alone stack to a nice +19 bonus to all my party members when I shoot some squishy foe with my arquebus. I also have the impression that Circle of Defense stacks with everything, or is it in the "AllDefenses" section and therefore stacks with the above because of that (but would not with Defiant Resolve for example)? Since all other racials stack with everything (like Wellspring of Life stat bonuses stack with every other stat bonus) and also all talents attached to abilitites (see above, or Inspiring Radiance, Inspiring Exhortation and so on) I guess Defiant Resolve also stacks with everything. I recall that Kaylon said something like that in one of his videos where he kills a dragon with a wild orlan paladin.

I think weapon speed is important, but overrated. On the other hand, dual damage types seem to be underrated in my opinion. So, Bittercut (besides getting a nice, unique boost from Spirit of Decay) ist still one of the best weapons in the game. Only worthless against earth blights. Slash only is a disadvantage - I think the most resisted damage type in the game is slash (no proof for that though). But sabres did so much damage in the past that they could easily make up for the dps loss when meeting resistant foes. Speaking of balancing: did you guys realize that there was a hidden (minor) buff to stilettos when OBS introduced the WM? Lagufaeth stilettos do slash damage instead of pierce. So, as a stiletto-guy it's easy to backup for pierce resistant or immune enemies now without picking up an ugly club or a conspicious sabre. Good thing for priests of Skaen and any other MC who profits from Flick of the Wrist and Weapon Focus Ruffian, too. If they now change Durance's staff from crush/burn to burn/crush I'll also quit my whining that quarterstaffs are left out in the cold. Like Wend-Walker. A late game weapon with the lamestest enchantments (for a reach weapon) of all... booh!

Too random. I seldomly get it when I don't use brute force. Like in every 10th playthrough or so. And it's only speed enchanted, so nothing too special.

If it's viable for solo it's also viable for party play. This one's no exception - you just shouldn't hit your party members with the blind effect, so it could make positioning and targeting a bit tricky.

Stealth only affects how quickly you are discovered after you enter the enemies' range of perception. The range itself never changes. I never put any point into it. Survival 10 is nice for the +15 ACC bonus. I usually leave mechanics at 10 when I have no rogue. Athletics: usually 0 points. Offensive scrolls are great for the party members with the highest base (not weapon) ACC. This can be a fighter or ranger or rogue or monk and so on. Fighters can be really good with them because of Disciplined Barrage. They tend to crit a lot with scrolls. You don't need scrolls to beat the game though. But they can make hard encounters a lot easier. Lore 6 is easy to get and you can cast Fireballs and Twin Stones with it. I like Twin Stones: foe only and good AoE and damage.

We still have two annihilating sabres in the game - one can be obtained very early - so battle axes are still a bit underwhelming until you get We Toki. And there's Bittercut. Not only the values of a standard sabre or battle axe or whatever define which weapon type is the best - also the unique ones (and when they can be obtained) will influence "balance". And since we have three really nice unique sabres in the game it will still be one of the favourite picks I guess.

Why? Just crop a nice picture so that only the face is on it. Resolution is good enough most of the time.

Good nerf I say. Now 2handers make more sense. And war hammers and swords will get more love.

Here are my portraits that I made myself with the help of gimp when I absol. couldn't find anything that fit (I usually do): All except the first one (island aumaua chanter) and the last (hearth orlan dw sabre rogue - my my very first MC) I used for an evil playthrough with a Bleak Walker as main - and most portraits of PoE are simply not evil looking. Not great pieces of art, but they did the job. When they are smaller - in the gui - they look ok. Edit: I just remembered that the evil stag druid wasn't photoshopped by ne at all - I found the picture on deviantart.com and build a character around it instead!

Yes - for orlans you have to use a picture of an elf, goblin, gnome and so on and do some photoshop-magic - or gimp magic in my case. Aumaua, too, but it's rel. easy to paint some pattern on a face.

Go to deviantart.com. Search for "dwarf ranger" and "dwarf crossbow", "dwarf marksman", "dwarf assassin" and so on. Plenty of great artwork (and loads of crap, too ). And google's picture search reveals some great pictures if you search for "dwarf ranger" etc. (the following is my favorite - 100% boar ranger ): This one I also really like - that great hairdo:

That could also explain it. Defenses of foes are higher on PotD.

Hm. Have a look at the character sheet and hover over your ACC value. A tooltip will pop up. What numbers are shown? It should start with 30 base ACC from ranger, then +x from level and so on.

Wait - the vampires in the south of the cave with all the darguls? With the female leader? Sweet - didn't know thay.

Yes - or using a different tactic without knowing. For example if you flank a lot before (using a cmpanion and the pet to sandwich an enemy) and now you don't it will make a huge difference at the beginning of the game. Or if you used Blinding Strike before with a rogue and now you don't - things like that.

If your PER hasn't changed much I'd say it's just bad luck. Sure you picked Boreal Dwarf again and not Mountain Dwarf this time?

You shouldn't dump RES - there's just not need to max it with a large shield. Dumping RES and then trying to tank will get you interrupted all the time. A melee cipher with sabre and shield will still gain the same or even more focus than a ranged cipher. So focus generation is not a big problem. Before the nerf you had to do nothing to get focus, now you have to hit things like any other cipher.

That's right. Spiritshifting doesn't prevent you from casting spells, so you don't loose the ability to dish out CC and AoE damage even if shifted. The non-shifting variant that is "Batsh!t Crazy" is simply a more tankier and convenient front line druid for everyone who likes less micro (after all, running around spiritshifted and striking things while the duration is quite limited is a bit stressful). I like tanks (=less babysitting), but I hate it when they can't do any damage. This guy can really tank AND do nice damage and CC at the same time. Some dps spells of the druid are cone shaped, friendly fire spells that are great from the front line - but while you are shifted you normally don't want to stop and cast spells, you want to hit things while the shift lasts. So, the tanky version allows you to stand in the middle of the fight without the fear that you might go down soon - while all the spells that work best when you stand near to the enemy can work at their fullest potential. Things like Returning & Relentless Storm, all the cone shaped spells and so on. With the storms up and being very tanky even without buffs, this druid can be put into the fray and stunlock nearly all enemies while you can micro other party members. This is a good and effective build for Hiravias for example - because a lot of people want to micro the MC a lot, but don't want to put too much time into controlling all the companions all the time. The other variant I play every now and then: after getting Rot Skulls I retrain the druid like an implement blast wizard and will summmon Rot Skulls as a standard opening move in every tough fight. This clearly does more damage than a spiritshifted druid. That's why I use spiritshift only until I get Rot Skulls - unless it's a build that evolves around spiritshift itself of course. For example I played a boar shifter with Veteran's Recovery and maxed CON, MIG and INT and maxed self healing bonuses. This form is also very tanky (for a shifted druid) while doing great damage via Boar Tusks (it's raw wounding damage that stacks like with Tidefall/Drawn in Spring/Persistence). It's damage gets better and better the more MIG you have (it not only boosts your initial damage, but also the wounding damage - MIG pays off twice here) - which also makes you self healing more powerful. So things like Frenzy are great for it. This is a great combination of sturdiness and melee dps. It's not as tanky as the Batsh!t, but can survive in the front line without too much babysitting and can withstand 2- 3 foes hitting it. It does a bit less damage against low DR foes than the cat form when it's maxed oput for melee dps, but it is sturdier, meaning the boar won't go down easily and may even deal more damage overall because it doesn't get knocked out. Against high DR foes it even does better dps than the cat - because of the wounding that causes raw damage.