Boeroer

Depends - what do you need 16 RES for? Just because paladins should have high RES or do you want to have it because of dialogue options? I personally would perhaps go for 15 MIG, DEX, PER and INT and put the rest evenly at CON and RES. But that doesn't mean that's a great decision.

Read that post behind the link - then shake your head and read it again!

If he uses Dangerous Implements and drops below 50% endurance, he gets +3 Might, +2 Constitution, +2 Dexterity which stack with everything else. So, for example with Outlander's Frenzy he could have +6 MIG, +5 CON and +2 DEX. But that requires a lot of implement attacks even if he has only 3 CON. The highest benefit would be the looks. Wood Elf of Mountain Dwarf would be better. Wood Elf because of higher ACC and Maintain Dwarf because you can pick Sanctifier, Ghost Hunter and Beast Slayer and have all creatures (besides kith) covered with enhanced damage or ACC. If you put on the Bartender's Ring you can even skip Sanctifier and Ghost Hunter. Last time I took a wood elf, put on the Bartender's Ring and took Beast Slayer, Primal Bane and Wilder Hunter. The enhanced damage (also works with spells) worked nicely. I also put on Archer's Gloves as well as Cloak of the Frozen Hunt for additional 10% spell and ranged damage. With implements I then had 25+25(or 20)+10 = +60% (or +55%) damage bonus against everything but kith (who don't have that much endurance anyway). That's quite nice with the high base damage of Rot Skulls.

Another good thing about the boar is that he has no 1/rest ability but his bonuses are passive. Less fuzz. Yeah, the bear's roar is really really lame. They should have given him scaling DR bonuses or... overbearing. So that he causes prone on crit. That would fit. Err - that rhymed, sorry.

If you want him to be more paladin-like, you would need to put more INT into him. This would also be good for Constant Recovery and the AoE of Gallant's Focus as well as the duration of Knockdown, Into the Fray and Sundering Blow (if you want to take that). I'm playtesting a support fighter at the moment and he has max INT because he uses "Take the Hit" and "Clear Out" and also Gallant's Focus. I have to say Take the Hit surprises me. It's superawesome if your fighter is sturdy enough and not the main tank but a second row supporter. It also is kind of an ability that you could expect for a paladin. Clear Out is also very nice. It's only 2 per rest but I can't say how many times this saved my fighter's little hairy orlan booty. With high INT the AoE is huge enough to disable 5 or more (normal sized) foes and send them across the screen. Combined with Knockdown he's a great CC guy (for a fighter) and makes good use of Apprentices Sneak Attack. He uses Tall Grass from second row though, not great swords or estocs. As a wannabe paladin, I would strongly recommend the great sword The Hours of St. Rumbalt. It's lore is that it's a paladin's weapon, and it has Overbearing (prone on crit) and Annihilation (+0.5 crit damage multipl.) and comes with Accuracy III (+12) enchantment. Combined with the fighter's high base ACC, high PER and Disciplined Barrage (a must for a dps fighter in my opinion) you will crit very often, resulting in very high crit damage and knocking the target down. Another plus are it's two damage types (which pikes and estocs lack). The Blade of the Endless Paths is also a nice weapon for such a theme, because it has Marking and can be used to support a fellow team member with +10 ACC. But overall I find the great sword to be the better choice. A front row fighter with 2H and only 8 CON will need strong self healing capabilitites or go down quickly. So I also recommend Rapid Recovery (scales with level) and a Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvano's Amulet for +25% healing. I would also raise surviuval up to 14 if possible (and if you don't wanmt to go for lore), for another +60% healing bonus. You are also very flexible with a +15 ACC bonus against certain enemies then. If you then take Unbending you become unkillable in tough encounters except when health starts to runs out. Unbending used to be superstrong - they patched it in the latest version and I can't say how strong it is now, but I killed an enemy fighter yesterday who had this and it still took forever to kill him. I wouldn't take Unbroken because it's nearly the same as Second Chance on an item, but you have to use an ability point for it (and it's per encounter of course). Second Chance and Unbroken don't work together. If you go down, both will be triggered for no special effect other that both charges are gone. If you go down every encounter (and are no barb with Vengeful Defeat or have a paladin with Behold the Nartyr with you), you are doing something wrong I'd say. And once you get up you will be knocked down again immediately.So I'd skip that ability. In a party you might have scrolls, paladins, priests or chanters anyway who can revive. My goal would be to not go down at all. A good combo of armor and boots would be Sanguine Plate + Shod in Faith. Your deflection will not be too good (no shield) and you will receive a crit from time to time. With high MIG and INT the Consecrated Ground will heal your allies and you (especially with that healing bonus of yours) a lot while Frenzy will last longer with high INT and will add +4 MIG and +4 CON as well as +33% speed. That's way better than the gambeson in my opinion. You can combine that with a Tempered Helm (it's +3 MIG and stuff now stacks with everything after your first kill). It looks good with the Sang. Plate and has awesome bonuses against mind control and some of the most nasty afflictions as paralyze and so on - you can skipt those talents then. If you choose any other item with +3 MIG you can pump your MIG bonuses from items to +10 MIG (Frenzy + Temp. Helm + another +3 item) after you got a crit and killed someone. That's pretty nice. An alternative to Sanguine Plate would be Outlander's Frenzy - but I don't think you can spare the talent point. With Armored Grace and durganized Sanguine Plate you will already be fast. Frenzy, then put on Gauntlets of Swift Action, durganize the great sword and you'll have a attack speed bonus of 1.72 with only 0.15 malus from the plate - resulting in 1.57 speed bonus which is good for a 2 handed fighter ((2 meaning 0 recovery, 1 is normal speed)). And then your high DEX will speed you up further. If you would reach 0 recovery then DEX bonuses wouldn't do a lot anymore for your attack speed. DEX is applied after all the attack speed calc is done - and you can't reduce 0 recovery further with DEX. With the Blade otEP you would indeed have nearly 0 recovery in plate - and DEX wouldn't do a lot for your attack speed anymore. Another reason why I like the great sowerd better in this case. Of course all this speed stuff is late game talk. Before it comes to durgan steel and stuff like that high DEX will do you good. With a 2hander's high base damage you want to take every bonus dmg talent/ability that you get. So Savage Attack, Two Handed Style, Weapon Spec. and Weapon Mastery are great, also Appr. Sneak attack (with an overbearing weapon it's even a must I'd say). If you want to wear the Bartender's Ring (+20% damage to spirits and vessel) and take a boreal dwarf (+15 ACC to wilder and primordial) and then squeeze in Beast Slayer and make your great sword kith-slaying (don't know if that fits into the 14 enchantment points if you also want to put a lash on it and make it superb?) you would do a lot af extra damage against every kind of enemy: +20% to vessels and spirits, +25% to beasts (including dragons), +15 ACC (= more crits) against WIlder and Primordial and +5 ACC and +25% damage against kith. Nice for dps. Combine that with all the dmg mods above and you'll do a lot of damage per hit. But I fear that there are not enough talent points for all of this. Ok, enough from me I guess... need ice cubes, my fingertips are burning...

Yes, high MIG and high weapon damage per hit (from savage attack for example) are great for wounding. The more damage per hit and the more MIG the better. If you would cast Champion's Boon on both you would see that the boar's damage will improve more than the cat's. The cat is better off with more DEX for a lot of speed - which fits nicely with fast spellcasting and Interrupting Blows of course. Nice to see that they both work and that you (as a powergamer) are not forced to always take cat form. Thanks for testing!

To be honest I never tested the Wildstrike Belt with anything else than Wildstrike burn. But I would be surprised if it would "adapt" to your wildstrike choice. But maybe. For a solo druid the scepter is ok if you kite with boots of speed when unshifted anyways. But it's a bit of a hassle. I would never use it in a party for that purpose. The tusks do 20% raw damage instead of 25% like wounding - but besides that they work exactly the same - meaning that this wounding also profits from high MIG as Presistence's, Tidefall's and Drawn in Spring's wounding does. So it should be great. Can't say if it's better than faster claws from cat's form (dps wise), but for example Persistence's dps beats any other bow (speed enchanted or not) just because of wounding - so I guess it can't be too bad. I was pretty satisfied with the performance. Also with the sturdiness of the combined regeneration effects - just looked up an old savegame: I had 16 endurance/3 sec regeneration at lvl 10. I also did a hit (not crit) with 42 pierce damage (against 1 DR - so basically nothing) which resulted in 11 raw damage (with 18 MIG) from the tusks (which stacks). Elemental lash damage was ~30 with Scion of Flame and Wildstrike Burn + Belt. That's like ~70% and not the expected 66%, but who (besides Loren Tyr) knows what's going on there with the belt and how it's bonus is applied. 42 is close to my average damage of ~39. So we can saythat on average I did around 42+30+11 = 83 damage with a normal hit at lvl 10 and MIG 18 with this dude. Maybe the faster cat attacks are better (esp. with Avenging Storm, where speed is key), but this is def. not bad. If I used Envenomed Strike here and there and also Taste of the Hunt (those are not considered spells but attacks and therefore don't slow me down with my 4 DEX but are as fast as my other hits) the mobs got decimated pretty quickly. It would surely get better in terms of dps when I didn't dump DEX, but I wanted high CON. I also considered taking Novice's Suffering plus Sandals and play that druid as an unarmed brawler - so that it doesn't matter too much if he's shifted or not, he would just keep on hitting - but I didn't so that because I had no talent point to spare. If Taste of the Hunt and Envenomed Strike were full attacks I might have done it.

You need survivability if you want to survive some mob hits while you are spiritshifted. You can't kite all the time if you want to deal a lot of damage when shifted because it doesn't last very long. So besides survivability and some oomph you also need a lot of INT. You can get a second use of Spiritshift if you use the soulbound scepter you get from Chancelor Warrin. For druids it restores one spiritshift use per encounter. So you can go in shifted and when it ends kita a bit and fie with the sceptre until you get a second use - then go back in. Last druid I played with shifting was a boar with Veteran's Recovery and again survival 14 for max self healing. He only had 4 DEX but MIG and INT were maxed an CON was also high. Low DEX is bad for casting of course, but not so bad when shifted because of dual wielding and Two Weapon Style. I also put on Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith. I would catch a crit and then shift - Frenzy and Consecrated ground still on. It spared me the talent for Outlander's Frenzy... The boar has a regeneration effect on it's own which is not too strong (comparable to the Cloak of the Tireless Defender) but adds to Veteran's Recovery - but the Boar Tusk wounding is very good with high MIG - like the wounding enchantment. It works quite nicely with Envenomed Strike, too and also with Taste of the Hunt. You can hit every foe around you once and watch them die slowly from the DoT. I add Avenging Storm and Nature's Terror and of course Returning and Relentless Storm. Garden of Life is very good as I said once there's at least one dead enemy on the ground. The rest is spells of course - Plague of Insects is very strong with high PER and Interrupting Blows. I went spretty smooth - but I didn't try the dragons and also didn't finish the playthrough. So I can't say anything about that. Stag carnage may also be nice for tough bounty fights - although it's only 1/rest. The highest damage for your shapeshifting attacks (per hit) you get when you use boar and take Wildstrike Burn + Wildstrike Belt + Scion of Flame by the way. You will have a 66% burning lash that way (and of course wounding on top). But all the great shock spells (like Avenging Storm) of the druid always lead me to Heart of the Storm. You'll only have +54% wildstrike shocking lash instead of 66% burn though. Maybe one could squeeze in both? I mean also good for the spells - Firebug, Boiling Spray and stuff are also worth buffing...

Yes, I also noticed that draining isn't influenced by healing mods. That kind of stupid and not consistent behaviour, but well... They fixed the Tempered Helm (and maybe some other items which do things on kill or other special circumstances) in one of the latest patches. Now it indeed stacks with everything. My solo priest of Berath now casts his Shining Beacons with Abydon's Hammer in hand and gets nearly 50 MIG and over 20 INT - and then switches to Tidefall. His wounding damage is otherwordly - but takes some time. His Envenomed Strikes plus wounding plus Cleansing Flame however even kill dragons. Very good that I can't die as long as I cast Triumph of the Crusaders + Shining Beacon on the mobs that surround him and as long I have some health left.

1.: I didn't test that, can't say. Never use them... 2.: Yes, they stack. The -6 shock DR is a debuff that is attached to the target (and also works for your team mates) and the +5 DR bypass of Pen. Shot is attached to your attack. Ryona's Vembraces (+3 DR bypass) and Effigy's Resentment (Devil of Caroc, +1 DR bypass) also stack. You can reach 15 DR bypass with Stormcaller that way. 3.: Yes, they stack with everything.

Besides Dangerous Implement you can use Marksman and Penetrating Shot - although the later is a waste in my opinion. You want to have high ACC with the initial crushing shot so that the corrode AoE-splash happens. The AoE is quite big with enough INT so an Envenomed Strike with Rot Skulls can hit a lot of foes. Runner's Wounding SHot is also an option, but it only works with the initial target, not the AoE. But because of the high base damage of Rot Skulls it's still not bad. Rot Skulls itself is great. The corrode DoT stacks. It's easy to kill the whole group of ogres in front of Nalred's Cave with it in no time. Of course it's of not much use against poison/disease immune enemies. But you always have your spells... Don't know if they patched Avenging Storm with retaliation. That would really be sad. Used to be a lot of fun.

Whooha! Mr. Colombo, long time no see.

Once I get Rot Skulls I retrain into an implement druid. I don't use Spiritshift anymore then. I combine this with Envenomed Strike (works in an AoE then) and all the good stuff for implements, including Dangerous Implement and Boots of Speed. Rot Skulls is crazy powerful, even more so with Env. Strike. You have to kite a bit though, but enemies die very quickly. Besides that, you can also build a tanky weapon & shield retaliation druid with Heart of the Storm (skipping Spiritshift): Avenging Storm works with retaliation, too, adding lots of shock damage to the retaliation hits. You can add Moonwell, Veteran's Recovery and Garden of Life for endless self heal and do damage and CC with Returning + Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror while attacking with your weapon (Spelltongue is nice because it speeds you up and steals duration for your buffs like Woodskin or FOrm of the Delemgan and so on, any other fast weapon is also great, your main damage comes from Avenging Storm). It's a fun solo build and tanky enough after a while because you can pick all the defensive talents. Druids have 20 base deflection which is not too bad for a caster. You don't stand there though, you have to (re)position yourself from time to time because this is no paladin of course. But all the lightning aroud you turns most foes into dust quickly enough. And you can eat some nasty hits without kneeling down. Garden of Life is very strong once there are some dead bodies on the floor. Blights can help you to tank. Since they are immune to certain damage types, somtmes they last for the whole fight and won't go down. So... druids builds can be pretty different and still be good. Against dragons you will need scrolls, as Dr <3 said.

I soloed everything with said barbs - except the dragons. I'm pretty sure you can solo everything with every class - with tons of scrolls. But I didn't use scrolls at all because I had survival 14 for max self healing. The vid with the barb and HoF was from Kaylon - he also did a solo run with such a dw sabre barb. He also did solo runs with paladins and rangers. I also read of somebody in this forum (quite a while ago) who used a spiritshifting druid and killed the adra dragon (pre WM) and who said it was not too difficult.

Solo PotD barb is quite easy - once you get Heart of Fury and use second chance + Vengeful Defeat you can obliterate even the most hefty bounty fights. It works with an offfensive dual sabre approach (with lots of CON) or with the tanky approach (stacking daze, frighten, sicken and fatigue with high deflection from weaon & shield). HoF also works well with Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw. However - a barb somewhat stinks when it comes to fighting dragons. Maybe they are all doable, but I didn't try more than a few times. All fights with more than 5 enemies are pretty easy though, thanks to the mechanics of HoF and Vengeful Defeat. The more, the better... which also answers your last question. Monks can also do that - as well as priests or wizards. Ciphers have some very nice buffs - but they can't cast them on themselves. Back in the days, when retaliation did generate focus, I did a solo run with my Backlash Beldam build and it went smooth - but again dragons were a bit of a problem. Can't survive too many dragon wing slams - even if you retaliate like a pro. And nowadays retaliation doesn't give you focus any more, so... Maybe a ranged cipher can do it. Can't see why druids can't do it.

Well - he uses a gunshot at the beginning of combat and the Wood Elf racial also grants higher defenses against distant attacks - so it's not completely wasted. But maybe yes, a Pale Elf might be a better choice from a powergamer's perspective.

Nope

Yeah - I guess the terms "slow" and "average" in the dexriptions are a relic from the early days and never got changed.

Maybe that's why they are exactly as fast as the slow one handers like spears, swords and sabres. The descriptions says "slow" when you look at 2handers and "average" when you look at the slower 1handers - but in game they both take the same amount of animation and recovery frames to attack. A bit counterintuitive, but it's like that. So... a great sword has exactly the same speed as a sword in this game. But a 2handed weapon does indeed more damage and can punch through armor more easily than a 1handed. Usually an 2 handed variant is a lot heavier - but there's not much speed loss (if it's not too front-heavy) because you can swing it with two hands. But it's way easier to fell a tree with a two handed axe instead of a one handed one. You can translate that into the game with more damage or DR bypass. More damage seems to be ok for me. THey already do more damage, just not enough to make up for the high defense and speed bonus of a shield or the huge speed bonus of dual wielding.

Ok, you took wood elf out of nostalgia, that's totally ok then. Sadly, Savage Attack + Reckless Assault don't work together. It's either one or the other (modal). A pure DPS fighter and a sturdy rogue (without shield, but Veteran's Recovery and stuff) can be played quite similarly. The rogue has the better mechanics skill of course.

No, I meant since Driving Flight allows to stun secondary targets even in melee with Driv. Flight it maybe also could be used to generate more hits that trigger spell chances - because there has to be some kind of hit roll for the secondary target, or not? Just an idea - most certainly it doesn't work this way, but who knows?

Sure!

And then use Crowns for the Faithful on top. Hope Grubs'n stuff don't get suppressed by it?

Yeah that is fun to watch - Missile Barrage and Bounding Missiles with Driving Flight are also fun. Does Rolling Flame and such spells also work with it? I don't guess so... But because of the greatly reduced damage of the second hit it's not too powerful. For items with spell chances and stunning shots this doesn't matter though. You generate more procs (and stun more enemies) with driving flight - that's what makes it so valuable in my opinion, not the whimpy damage. But a melee ranger with Grey Sleeper could be fun. Since Stunning Shots + melee also works with Driving FLightI it may be that Driving Flight + Stunning Shots generates more hits that make it more likely to trigger Paralyze, Twin Stones and Invoke Vessel (a bit like carnage does)? Twin Stones would then also use Driving Flight for that hilarious effect...

They use your equipment except weapons I think. You can see that they wear the exact armor and headgear that you wear. It's not too difficult to tell if they profit from the enchantments of your gear: summon a phantom in battle and let it get hit. Watch the log. Then reload, take off your gear and try again. You should see differences in edurance, ACC and defenses when the gear is off. If you don't, they don't get any bonus. But I recall they not even run faster with Boots of Speed, but even shoot faster with Gloves of Swift Action. But I haven't tested the phantoms for a while. Spell Bindings on items are no longer usable (sadly). OBS reduced the usage of spell bindung from [all items] to [rings only] to [nothing]. It was kind of abusable because after summoning those items always had all charges, even if your own item was empty. Imagine those items with limited charges like Father's Teeth with Essential Phantom or the monk's twins.