Boeroer

If you don't plan to use a Goldpact Knight and take his Enduring Flames, it's not very important for your own dps until you get Sacred Immolation, as you already pointed out. If you use weapons like Tidefall or Drawn in Spring, it's even better to have low INT. But some dps talents like Envenomend Strike will be bad with low INT. There are some abilites of the paladin that don't use INT and can influence dps (if not yours then that of allies), like Sworn Enemy, FoD and Coordinated Attacks. But some of the best are gimped (at least for your fellows) when using low INT, like obviously Lay on Hands and the Zealous Auras.

Right - because gloves don't work while shifted. Celebrant's Gloves are special because once Holy Meditation got triggered it carries over to the shifted form.

But who says that everybody has to win those fights? They are optional and some of the more difficult ones (albeit still easy enough if you know what to do). If the rest of the game is doable for you, why complain? It's like complaining that sporty people can jump over the fence while you have to take the gate. It's not necessarily the fence's fault.

So... you compared the survivability of a fighter in heavy armor with a monk's in light armor? That's a bit like complaining that a fighter in light armor is less sturdy than a fighter in heavy armor. By the way: one of the best plate armors in the game (He Carries Many Scars) is an armor that was made for a monk (see description). So in PoE lore it's not weird that monks wear heavy armor.

You mean while in orlan form?

You should have given Veteran's Recovery to the monk and give him an equal item setup. If you do this, he will have the same sturdyness while dishing out more damage and more CC. But I agree that playing a dps fighter with a two hander can be satisfying - I like Charge a lot, but sadly you need to level a lot to get it.

THey can be boring, but if you also use a lot of spell binding items they play more like hybrid casters and that can make them more interesting until you get those abilites that make them a bit more interesting - like Clear Out and Charge. Also, the ring of searing flames is great on a fighter with dual (or triple with postion of Flame Shield) retaliation: together with Disciplined Barrage the Combusting Wounds spell will have a bonus of +35 ACC - you'll also hit dragons easily and the retaliation will add a lot of hits to the enemies surrounding you. Also, items with mind controll spells like Munacra Arret work very well with Disciplined Barrage: often you'll crit with the charm (+30 ACC) which leads to some buddies who stay with you for over 20 secs if you also have high INT (which I recommend). I recently charmed the upscaled Alpine Dragon for more than 20 secs and it did all the work for me. By the way: Clear Out also works with ranged weapons...

Yeah, like that. PER 15 INT 16 is ok I'd say. Another thing: few people realise how good the Belt of Mortal Protection is. It's description says something like "receive 27% less from critical hits" and people think "well, only 27%, I'll skip that", but in fact 27% of 150% damage (from crit) is ~41% of the normal 100% damage. So you nearly receive the same direct damage from crits as from hits. It makes low deflection and the threat of getting killed by crits less fearsome from early to mid game. I combined that with Shod-in-Faith and Fulvanos Amulett. That way you will have a good setup with early items that keeps you alive should you receive a lot of crits. It doesn't prevent longer durations from crits though.

Well - 5 of the orlan's options are with one NPC alone. The next best is pale elf with 7. Not too bad and totally fits the White that Wends.

It was. I used plate, Veteran's Recovery and Consecrated Ground and had to rest a lot. And at the beginning I often switched to a shield. But after some levels it got a lot better. I had to skip some encounters first and came back later. For example the three bandits in the Valewood were too much for me at that time you come from Cilant Li's. I played with max MIG, high INT and good PER, low CON+RES and DEX at 10. Didn't completely dump anything this time. Holy Power and Meditation balance out lowish RES and Concentration. I didn't retrain stats. For most afflictions there are prayers and litanies. And healing via Triumph is great if you can kill fast enough. So your CON doesn't matter too much. Only thing is health.

So this affects those buffs which should immediatley stop when enemies change sides again. They don't get cancelled and will not wear off - like Zealous Focus, -Endurance and -Charge, Take the Hit, chanter's supportive chants and so on. That should be easy to reproduce without a savegame. A solution would be to not allow charmed enemies any buffs at all - or to correctly cancel any buffs that have no (or infinite?) duration because they are auras of some sort.

Sometimes you have to reequip them. Sometimes a realod helps. Or restart the game. I've had issues with the Blood Testmanent Gloves (and also with spell chance items) since the beginning. Sometimes they work, the next time they won't (until I do one of the above).

Ha - what a terrible name for an archmage. Sounds more like a character who burps a lot. I guess most people don't even know how to pronounce it. It normally is "Börör", but sadly few websites let you use "umlauts" when registering. I could imagine a burly but gnarly old guy, headmaster and founder of an adventurer's academy. A place where you can go if you want to discover your true potential and then unlock it. Like doing ingame character builds. There you could also hire mercs - but maybe special ones that other players developed. It would be our character build list - but inside the game. Hm, the more I think of it the more I like this idea. Ok, if somebody from OBS reads this: Come on, do it! Do it! You can even start a crowdfunding campain just for this small addon. I guess most people who write in the character build forum would pledge for that. You can even get my voice for grumpy dialogue lines - I have a fairly low voice and a nice german accent. Everybody likes a good, harsh german accent...

Ah, yes. It bestows -3 to Accuracy and targets Will; I must've gotten confused. When I first tried it before TWM was out, the shield would target the wielder as well. It wouldn't bestow the Accuracy penalty on them, but if it scored a crit, it would trigger Frenzy from the Sanguine Plate, which was pretty nice at the beginning of combat Not sure it still works like that, though. When it happened to me was a very long time ago. If it still works like that it would be a must-have item for any Wild Orlan! His Stalwart Defiance would be up all the time.

I never use it. It's per rest.

How come? You can simply buy it in Twin Elms. But as far as I know it only loweres enemies' ACC by 3. No will debuff. And other than Little Saviour, you have to hit with that aura. Still a nice shield. Another nice option for such a tanky fighter is the Executioner's Hood instead of the sanguine plate's helm. It also looks nice with the plate and gives you that sweet frightening aura that helps even more with tanking. Together with Redfield you'll lower enemies' ACC by 13.

I meant that limiting the character customisation because there are only a few portraits is not a great idea. I wasn't saying that the game couldn't use more portraits. I also didn't say that everybody should make their own portraits with photoshop. I was just pointing out a solution for a problem. DonÄt know if the OP is able to do so, but it might have been an option. If you ask for a special character portrait (here in the forum) you will usually find someone who has done it, knows where to find one or is even willing to make you one. So it's not a problem you can't solve. I agree that more portraits would be great though.

Hehe, that guy's so funny. Together with Hiravias he put several smiles on my face.

Another approach is running through hazard fields like Chillfog or Malignant Cloud that your wizard casted. You'll reach debuffed enemies and also get wounds. It's friendly fire, but monks like pain, don't they?

Yes, you need hits from enemies if you want to unlock you full potential. The good thing with a staff is that you can run behind your front line once things get too hefty for you and then you can still spend the wounds from the second row. That, or you take the talent that can give you wounds OR you lets your friends shoot you in the back. You can also take some abilities like stunning blows that work without wounds. You can then open the fight from the second row and then come forth and engage when you need wounds.

There are also special options which can be unlocked if you have a certain background - clergyman for example, or if you are a preist of a certain god. Those are few, but they are there. But what I mean is not that you unlock special answers, but that choosing the right answers that match with your god's or order's dispositions will give you bonuses. For a priest of berath this means: if you choose a lot of stoic an rational answers and avoid cruel and passionate ones, your holy radiance becomes more powerful. With paladins it's their defensive buff via Faith and Conviction. Other classes couldn't care less for dispositions. Their values don't get influenced by their reputation.

Erm... theme? Don't know. Nature Godlike just fits the Greenstone Staff aesthetically. But anything that is green would, I can think of a monk that is also part druid. You could use Aspirant's Mark which is great anyways. It will ad a little bit of druidic feel. Instead of using Nature Godlike you could also use a stag helmet with any other race. For example wild orlans look nice with all those "rugged" items like hide armor. Put on Blaidh Golan from the Sanatorium, later maybe Wayfarer's Hide from the WM Ogre's Cave. You'll look like a druid and have some of his powers, but you will also be a monk. With the Greenstained Boots you will also get a spell holding called "Nature's Trek" - adds more druidic stuff. Get a belt of Nature's Embrace - it gives you Woodskin when you receive a critical hit. Put your focus on disabling rather than dealing a ton of AoE damage. This can also be lots of fun. Use Force of Anguish all the other diabling abilites and also The Long Stride so that you can zip around the battlefield with high speed in order to take out dangerous foes like casters quickly. Use Flagellanth's Path to get back to your team members. You could then add some scrolls like Moonwell - it's nice for monks. Sounds quite nice now that I read it again. Funnily i did it the other way round in my current playthrough: I made a druid who's also part monk. With fists...

Monk's abilities all work with melee weapons, too (besides The Long Pain which summons.. well... fists ). So it's totally viable to use any kind of melee weapon. There's even a soulbound staff that binds to monks - but I don't like it too much because of the looks. But combined with Torment's Reach it can be pretty good. And it will look awesome on a Nature Godlike monk I'd say. The first good staff is Durance's. It has a burning lash which is great that early in the game and it has crush/burn damage which is very handy if you meet crush resistant enemies. I always keep it as a backup staff beause of this. Then there's a speed enchanted quarterstaff named "Llawran's Stick" in lvl 3 of the endless paths. It's good enough to carry it through the whole game. The staffs that follow are not as great in my opinon. But some might be nice for special build ideas - like Taluntain's Staff which gives you 3 Fireball uses per rest. So yes, it will work. You'll miss out the Full Attack of Torment's Reach - but besides that, it's all cool. You can even use Torment's Reach from the second row that way.

Or you just don't know how the mechanics work... yet. It's even possible (and not too hard) to kill all the dragons in this game while being solo on PoTD difficulty. Did it myself multiple times. It can be challenging, but it's not insanely difficult. You just have to know this game. Killing Firkraag in BG II also was difficult. But once you knew the tricks it was kind of easy. For example: I always used the unkillable wizard's eye for distraction. There are similar things you can do in PoE. Using confusion scrolls for example...

I find a lot of high quality stuff at deviantart.com. Sometimes I even find a nice picture and then build a char around it.