Boeroer

For solo play yes. With a chanter buddy you could have life leech and a burning lash for your fists. Hm, maybe a drunken chanting brawler would be nice... By the way: how does Heart of Fury with fists look like?

Yeah - but as Loren Tyr pointed out: blunderbusses with FoD are very weak against high DR targets - even if you use Lead Spitter with Penetrating Shot (=12 DR bypass) because the FoD elemental lash and also the lash enchantments don't profit from those DR bypasses - only the initial piercing pellets will bypass DR, not hte elemental lashes. So the burning part of FoD will just evaporate. You have to lower the enemy's DR directly (not stack DR bypass) to make blunderbusses with FoD worthwhile against high DR targets. For soft targets they are awesome. But then: no need to lower DR anyways.

No, besides stilettos there are also all estocs (5 DR bypass) and all maces (3 DR bypass). There's one special estoc that has even 8 DR bypass (Drake's Bell, first bounty quest) as well as one stiletto that has 6 (Bleak Fang, late game). And all guns have inherent DR bypass (pistols and arquebuses 6, blunderbusses 4) Then there are some unique weapons that have DR bypass as special enchantment: - Sword of Daenysis: a rapier with 3 DR bypass, also speed enchanted. Early to get and a great weapon - also together with the March Steel Dagger (speed enchanted). With those two you can play a duelist themed character who hits superfast. - Cat's Claw: a sword with 3 DR bypass, late game - Hearth Harvest: a hatchet with 3 DR bypass, early/mid game And other ranges weapns like two bows and a rod and whatnot.

True - although a blunderbusses is by far the best weapon to use for FoD when you meet foes with low DR (like ghuls, most enemy wizards and such). So the ruffian group is not bad for adapting to different enemies: pistol for the guys in thick armor, blunderbuss for the soft ones. There are some nice pistols out there. The base damage is not as good as those of arquebuses, but the uniques have really nice enchantments. Same with the blunderbusses. Arquebuses don't have such a nice variant of uniques. What you can do in order to make blunderbusses work against most targets is to have party members who can lower DR - like fighters (Sundering Blow, -8 DR, late), chanters (Hel-Hyraff, -5 DR, early), wizards (Expose Vulnerabilities, -5 DR, early), cipher (-7, Borrowed Insticts, mid). I don't know if all those stack - and if it's all worth the fuzz.

It's just an outlook what will become of this fire paladin - of course you don't start with all that stuff. I'm only watering his mouth. I won't dump DEX with Two Handers, true - but you don't need superhigh DEX to make them work. Your main damage source will be FoD and you only have 2 of those per encounter. But with Firebrand those two hits - especially with Scion of Flame - really hurt a lot. Battle Forged - here the +4 DR - is not bad in the early game, too. It's not as powerful as Silver Tid from Moon Godlikes but it scales better with level and fits the theme. You can of course use dual wield fast weapons like stilettos instead and use guns for FoD. It's just that the optics of a aumaua sized Fire Godlike with a giant burning sword are quite... cool?

Chanters are awesome by the way. Can be played with minimum of micromanagement, a lot of tankyness and a TON of damage. One of my most favorite classes for soloing. But what about the fiery paladin with da big burnin' sword? Not appealing?

Sure - until you get durgan steel it's ok - but then they start to stink. They should have introduced more stuff like the sandals - things like pitfighter gloves or even give heavy gauntlets like siegebreaker enchantments which increase unarmed damage or give you a lash and so on. Just to give you something that balances out the (durgan) enchantments of weapons a bit. Yeah, for solo play Shod-in-Faith or Boots of Speed are better. But for a party they are great. They also have a Blessing spellbind.

Dammit - now it's too weak. Does it also work like that with Transcendent Suffereing from monk? That whimpy base damage from unarmed is really bad with Savage Attack and so on. As Dr <3 said, it's better to focus on DR reduction and other stuff then. Since you can't enchant fists this is a heavy drawback.

Ups, added a lot (too much) with an edit...

Kind Wayfarers are nice in combination with kill stealing: they have two powerful healing abilities, one gets triggered when you kill an enemy. You need to do some damage for that so it's good not to skill your paladin 100% defensively. Search for "damaging healbot" in the forum here. I think that build never made it to the index, but it's great. The inventor used Moon Godlike + Kind Wayfarer + Sword & Shepherd + Strange Mercy to build a paladin who heals like crazy. This would work well with dual wielding like described above. You can also add Envenomed Strike. It#s good with high MIG and INT and it will most certainly kill an enemy - triggering healing. Not very kind, I know - but a strange mercy perhaps. What also works and is fun is an offensive paladin build around fire. Use a Fire Godlike - it's racial ability scales with level. It might seem to be weak at first, but later on it can really do a lot of damage. Choose high CON, MIG and INT (and not too bad PER). Choose either Darcozzi Paladini with Fires of Darcozzi Palace or Goldpact Knights with Enduring Flames. Take whatever two handed weapon (focus) you like - for example great sword or pollaxe or estoc or morning star - even pike or quarterstaff or durance's staff works well (it's a very good weapon early in the game because it has two damage types, crush and burn. At that stage there are a lot of enemies with low burn DR).* Then buy Forgemaster's Gloves from Dunstan in Crucible Keep. Those can summon the great sword Firebrand 3 times per rest. Usually the duration is long enough for a whole fight with a party on easy or normal. That great sword is made out of flames and does pure burn damage and works with ANY weapon focus. So, you have that flaming great sword (and it's really BIG) that you can use with your burning FoD, you have a flaming head, you will either cause a burn DoT effect with FoD (Goldpact) or get Flame Shield (Darcozzi). I like Darcozzi better because they are passionate and that's more fitting. Also the other order related talent "Inspiring Exhortaion" is way better in my opinion (stacks with everything). Ant later on you will have Sacred Immolation. All this is burn damage. And it adds up pretty nicely. So now you should take Scion of Flame - it will improve all that burning damage by 20% - also the burniung lash you will put onto your main weapon. Only the Goldpact DoT will not be affected - DoTs don't work with Scion of Flame. Firebrand's base damage - which is already very high - will improve by +20%, this will increase the damage on which the 75% of FoD is based, which will also be boosted by 20%. If you drop below 50% endurance, you will retaliate with fire and gain +4 DR (stacks with Zealous Endurance), that retaliation is also boosted by +20%. Your FoD will give you a Flame Shield that also retaliates which also gets boosted by 20%. Your Sacred Immolation will get boosted by 20%. Put on plate first - later put on the Sun Touched Mail (you get it after you defeated some thiefs who stole a scroll of Wael it's on of the first quests in Defiance Bay). It has 3 uses of Sunbeam per rest. It's a great spell that does burn damage and blinds. Then later you can find the Amulet of Summer Solstice. This also has 3 uses of Sunbeam per rest. Guess what? That spell also gets boosted by Scion of Flame. Never was Scion of Flame more useful than here. Firebrand is annihilating by the way - meaning it has double crit damage bonus. With FoD and Sworn Enemy you will have +40 ACC - this should result in crits. Your FoD will do a looot of damage. Also use all the +dmg mods you can get like Savage Attack and Two Handed Style. Don't use Vulnerable Attack, it's not worth it with such high base damage. Also put on Shod-in-Faith boots if you have nobody else who can make good use of them. It's a nice combo of sturdyness (very high DR and CON and the natural high defenses and healings of a paladin) plus a good amount of damage (2 x burning retaliation, 2x FoD, a flaming sword with good damage). Some of my abilites/talents would be (just what comes to mind): - FoD - Lay on Hands - Zealous Endurance - Intense Flames - Sworn Enemy - Scion of Flame - Savage Attack - Two Weapon Style - Outlander's Frenzy maybe - gives you more MIG and CON and also attack speed but lowers defelction and obscures health/endurance stats. - Veteran's Recovery - only if you feel he's going down a lot despite the +4 DR and Battle Forged retaliation - Weapon Focus what you like - Inspiring Liberation (if you also want to be a supporter - then you might also want to take Coordinated Attacks if you have points left) - Fires of Darcozzi Palace - Sacred Immolation - Behold the Martyr (be useful even if you go down) - some defensive talents like Bear's Fortitude and such - dunno - maybe something else I forgot about. )* I think I would take estoc for Blade of the Endless paths or peasant for Durance's Staff and later also Taluntain's Staff (has 3 Fireball uses per rest) for the second weapon slot. Tidefall is also great, but tide and flames - I don't know if that fits thematically. When you choose to siphon knowledge from Maerwald you can also get the sabre "the Flames of Fair Rhian" in lvl 13 of the Endless Paths. It has has 3 Fireballs per rest, too. You can wear this with the Outworn Buckler or even duplicate it with the Helwax Mold (Stronhold quest item) and dual wield. Then you would have 6 Fireballs per rest, even 9 per rest with Taluntain's Staff. But you would have to retrain then to dual wielding sabres. But maybe that's best because once you get Durgan Steel Firebrand starts to become inferior - until then it's top notch though.

Maybe PoE needs a definition of the term "equipped weapon". I always thought it's the weapons that you have in your hand right now. I agree that the description is confusing though. It also needs an example so that people can understand what HoF truly does. I think that all the descriptions of abilities and talents need simple examples.

I also saw the graze/crit thing when I did my cipher with fists. It was OK then because ciphers are no crit monsters anyway if they are not using Tactical Meld and Borrowed Instincts all the time. However - all the other dmg mods like MIG, Soul Whip etc. I used worked correctly. Maybe I didn't notice the thing with Savage Attack or maybe I didn't even have that - but I'm pretty sure that the rest worked with the higher damage of Novice's Suffering as base. If I recall correctly, even the +2 unarmed damage from the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar got added to that base. It was some patches ago though.

How exactly do you think HoF works? It has nothing to do with your second or third weapon slot. It uses the weapon(s) in your active weapon slot and does a Full Attack against every foe in AoE range and then triggers carnage for each hit. That means you will hit <amount of enemies>*<amount of enemies> times. So when you target 6 enemies you will execute 36 attacks. You can multiply this by 2 if you are dual wielding. In terms of crit damage nothing comes close to Resolution + Purgatory with HoF. But you won't crit 100% of the time. That's why dual Bittercuts with Spirit of Decay are the best DPS option for HoF - and the fact that Bittercut has two damage types and therefore is effective against most targets except earth blights. All the other weapons you mentioned with on-crit effects also work, but they don't do as much damage as resolution+purgatory or bittercut. What also works nicely are the bashing shields Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw, but they also don't as much damage. Dual wielding with HoF does more damage than a two hander - because of the Full Attack, doubling your hit count. But this is only true if the initial target isn't killed after the first swing of the Full Attack - because then HoF will stop, failing to do the second swing. So it's wise to target the strongest foe when executing HoF with a dual weapon set. What is really nice (if you're not only after damage) is HoF with Spelltongue. This will drain so much duration for your buffs that they will last for the whole fight. Even the damage boost of HoF (+20%) gets prolonged for more than 30 secs usually. And you will steal attack speed for more than a minute easily while taking all buffs away from the enemies. You don't need engagement at all for HoF. Good abilities/talents in combonation with HoF are Aspirant's Mark, One Stands Alone, Blooded, Blood Thirst and Bloodlust, Frenzy, Savage Attack, Galant's Focus, Weapon Focus, Accurate Carnage, Vulnerable Attack, Dragon Leap. Blood thirst will allow to add an attack after HoF without recovery, clearing up what's left of the enemies. Bloodlust will give you +20% attack speed for the same reason and purpose (stacks with Frenzy). I don't know where you got the info that HoF uses all weapon slots or has something to do with engagement. That's not the case. I finished a solo PotD run with such a barb by the way some days ago after we had a nice and fruitful discussion about barbs + HoF in the forums here. The thread should still be there - on the first or second page I guess. Lots of infos about HoF from Kaylon, Jojobobo and others who tested the heck out of HoF.

Very good to know, thanks. Didn't think about blights when I tested Env. Strike. Yes, wizard's blast and Rot Skull's corrosive blast do work. At least with 3.02. I wonder (again) if the 1/rest druid's stag carnage works. But I remember that someone told me it's the same carnage (code wise) as barb's. I guess that was you, Loren Tyr? My memory is like swiss cheese... What I recently noticed: when you have a fear aura (like that from Executioner's Hood) and time your special attacks like Knockout so it hits at the same time as the aura rolls it's hits, then the prone effect will be applied to all enemies who got also got struck by fear.

For paladin I recommend island aumaua with two guns (preferably arquebuses - you can get the first one from Kana - before that you can use arbalests) for 2 FoD shots at the start of the fight without reloading. I also take Quick Switch, others don't. Third weapon set is a melee weapon with Outworn Buckler. Skill for tanky melee. Sworn Enemy and FoD is enough damage and ACC for your shots. You don't need any talents for the guns. Keep in mind that you will get Sacred Immolation at lvl 13. So don't gimp tour MIG, INT and PER. DEX can be a dump stat. CON doesn't need to be stellar either. At some point take Scion of Flame: it works with FoD and Sacred Immolation.

@Slacker: yes, Wood Elf's racial ability works with the Long Pain. If you liked the monk in the early game you should play one.

It was my first rogue mc - first PotD run. He was a hearth orlan with Hours of St. Rumbalt - focused on critical hits. He worked really well - for a rogue. I can't remember the cultural bg. It was too long (and too many runs) ago. I only know that he could prone-lock enemies and that there were no immunities to anything back then...

Drawn in Spring has the highest DPS because of wounding. But it has only slash damage. I like Bittercut a lot because it not only has the same base damage as a two handed weapon and works with Spirit of Decay, but also because it has two damage types which makes switching weapons obsolete in most encounters.

If fighter is too boring and you played paladins a lot already then take a monk. Put him in heavy armor and take Veteran's Recovery asap (I know I agreed a bit earlier that it might be overkill - but after the experience with the priest I would recommend it again). Should work well. If you take a wood elf then also take The Long Pain at lvl 7 and create a ranged/melee hybrid class (look at the Witch Doctor Build for tricks and inspiration - don't follow it exactly, it's more for PoTD experts). You will get a very versatile monk who is also able to deal the same damage from afar as in melee. You don't need to be in the thick of battle all the time. If you want to be more sturdy, look at the Juggernaut build. That's a build which works on every difficulty setting and doesn't minmax anything. But I wouldn't take Wood Elf then. What is really cool with monks is Moon Godlike. It's really good for your survivability and also gives your party healing. It fits the wound mechanics of the monk beautifully AND the combination of monk + Monn Godlike (= touched by Ondra) has a really cool roleplaying aspect later on in the game (WMII). In both build despriptions there are also infos about mechanics or how to play a monk.

@ Ben No.3: I agree to most things you say. But the reasons why I recommend a fighter for our beloved noob are already written above. When you can't bring a priest through the tutorial (which I can understand) then it's also likely that a monk is not the best choice for you. Maybe it is nonetheless, but a lot of beginners complain about the monk - that he is a weak class, that they don't get how to play him and so on. A lot of new players seem to need a bit more understanding of the mechanics in order to value the monk. A fighter on the other side is very easy to play and won't give you a headache. It's pretty obvious what works and what not and (that's my main point): he is the most sturdy and forgiving class in the beginning of the game. As some people here may know, fighter is the class I like the least (followed by rogue), because the normal fighter is very "straightforward" (in a somewhat boring way for experts) - but that's no reason to not acknowlegde it's advantages. This is not about my preferences - it's about finding out what might be best for Slack83er's first playthrough. Edit: ROFLMAO: Slacker posted before me while I was typing and destroyed my statement.

Jojobo(bo?) did that thing with Sworn Eneny + mind control. I tested this approach with a wood elf fighter with disciplined barrage - that almost always results in crits with Munacra Arret. The Whisper spell itself has +10 ACC, Disciplined Barrage adds +20. I like that. I'm currently doing a playthrough with a Tall Grass fighter offtank with all the mind control items and scrolls who stands behind the front line with Defender + Hold the Line + Overbearing Guard + Take the Hit - dropping foes who want to run past the front line while "taking the hits" for the main tanks while healing himself and others with Shod-in-Faith and Constant Recovery and potions of Infuse and so on. The mind control just adds some nice active options to this otherwise very low micro char. I like your approach with a ranger, too. There are some nice synergies. Would be so nice if there was an animal companion that could confuse once/encounter - like a Raven vor something like that.

A monk with shield and veteran's recovery will be very sturdy - comparable to a fighter whom you skill defensively, only slightly lower deflection. You don't need to play him the usual way with double wielding (although this might be the most "powerful" way to do it). He will still do a lot more DPS than a fighter tank and also have better CC options. What he lacks in deflection he can easily compensate with higher endurance and health and some nice abilities later on. But you have to gain a few levels first. However, the easiest char to start with for beginnerd IS a fighter. The combination of self heal and the highest starting deflection in the game from lvl 1 on makes him the sturdiest guy out there. Others can catch him, but they need some levels and until then the fighter has no match when it comes to survivability. So if you have problems with keeping your char alive right from the start then choose fighter.

Very nice stuff. It would be very cool to use your script and knowledge and put such a neat graphic onto every wiki page of a weapon. I could even make an online tool which would take your char's stats and tells you what weapon you should use - but I don't know if it's worth the effort and if it can reliably tell you what's "best" - because the game is more complicated than that. But determining the highest DPS weapon for one single char under certain circumstances should be easy enough. One could even put in the whole bestiary and make charts for a character with a certain weapon and how it performs against all the different enemies (of course some things like the Redeemer would make this a bit more difficult). If I only had time for that.

To be honest with you: all those dialogue options you can unlock with high RES, PER and so on don't matter for the storyline at all. They are just options for a more "cool" or clever or resolute approach im conversations. You normally don't gain extra infos or so. Some checks are necessary to get a certain item without a fight or to prevent fights to solve a quest. But if you're willing to fight you don't loose anything I can think of. What does matter are your dialogue choices concerning [Rational], [stoic] and so in if you are a priest or paladin. If they don't line up with your god's or order's dispositions you loose potential.

To find Tidefall you simply need a mechanics value of 10 on any of your characters. If you meet a guy named "Cail the Silent" then you should search his place in stealth mode.