Boeroer

DA:O's skill system is not very deep, but the game itself is nice.

You can steal spells from Ogre Druids and most human casters (druid/priest/wizard). Those are the ones I had success with.

I also loved Legends of Grimrock. Sure, it's a bit of a different genre, dungeon crawling and all like Eye of the Beholder was. But I put so many hours into it, trying so many builds despite the relatively simple skill system. DA:O was really nice. I especially liked the feature that you could combine spells to a powerful effect (Storm of the Century wtf?). I didn't even finish DA2. Had a bit of Fable feeling - which I don't like.

High MIG and 12 INT is OK. You can use items with bonus to MIG and INT to boost the damage a bit further. Higher INT is also very useful for Binding Roots. It's a great CC ability. It only works against a single foe, but lasts a very long time. And with 5 uses per rest you can spam it in hard encounters and disable whole groups for a long time. Envenomed Strike not only does more damage with more INT (because it lasts longer and therefore has more damaging "ticks") it also triggers Predator's Sense as I said before (I like to repeat myself - I have three little kids ). So it's not very likely that the enemy which suffers from Envenomed Strike and gets attacked by your pet at the same time will experience the expiration of Env. Strike - because animal companions on Predator's Sense (and Vicious + Merciless Companion) hit like trucks and kill normal foes within seconds. If you plan to have a chanter in the team then you don't need Wounding Shots, no wounding weapon and also no Envenomed Strike in order to trigger Predator's Sense. Just use a damaging chant (Come, Sweet Winds of Death or The Dragon Thrashed) and Predator's Sense is always "on". Wounding Shots and Env. Strike can still be very useful though - especially against tough single enemies. You can always retrain in an inn if you feel that some ability or talent doesn't do what you expected.

Seems to be a problem because there's no limit of how often you can hit in disengagement and that there's no cooldown. Reach doesn't seem to be the problem. That and the stupidness that you eat disengagenent attacks while you move towards enemies. Should only happen if your vector points away from them to some degree. Well whatever - it is what it is - and that's another reason why I completely ignored (and still ignore) engagement (except ogres') and all the abilities and talents around it.

I think they just forgot to properly implement reach + engagement. Why shouldn't I get disengagement attacks when somebody passes through my "threat zone"? It's quite inconsistent that I can pierce somebody with a pike from 1.8 meters, but not engage (in this case threaten to pierce) them. Well - now at least I can retrain and remove Defender altogether. Would have been nice with reach, but without it it's officially the most useless ability ever... Overbearing Guard will go into the trashbin, too.

Hi, I'm playtesting a fighter atm who uses a reach weapon and stands behind the front line while Defender and Take the Hit are on. He also has Overbearing Guard. The base idea was that he takes the raw damage from Take the Hit while he himself doesn't get targeted. He has high CON, MIG and INT so that he can easily regenerate the raw damage from Take the Hit with Constant Recovery and all the healing mod stuff. This part works really well. My front line (barb tank inspired by Jojobobo, charming paladin tank also inspired by Jojobobo, Death's Roflstomper priest (working title) ) only needs 3 CON because DR and Take the Hit work very well together. I wonder how a chanter's damage shield would work with this, but that's another question... I also have two implement blasters with Envenomed Strike: a wizard (Kalakoth's Minor Bligjts) and a druid (Rot Skulls). Those two are pulverizing everything but are total glass cannons (on purpose). The second idea behind the fighter was that he prevents foes from reaching my blasters (and also takes their hits) with the reach weapon and Knockdown, Clear Out, Into the Fray and Overbearing Guard. Maybe I'm stupid but this fighter is only engaging stuff when he stands in normal melee distance, not reach distance. I can attack foes in reach distance, sure, but there's no green arrow or line unless I move him into the normal melee range, adjacent to the enemy. Therefore also no disengagement attacks get triggered when enemies leave his reach weapon distance. So... am I doing something wrong or is the praised "fighter + reach weapon + Defender + Overbearing Guard" build not working?

When I want to have many things that turn the char invisible then I still don't need to increment the invisibility status. It can have a duration that gets overwritten when another ability that would also turn you invisible has a longer duration. I see no point in incrementing the invisible status. If you do something that breaks invisibility it should turn you from invisible to visible and done. It's setting a variable like "is_visible" from false to true and that should do it. I get it that there might be other effects attached to the ability that turns you invisible which can also be attached to other abilities - and which should not be turned off when invisibility vanishes. Your last paragraph is a good answer to that. Or to use decorators to implement afflictions/status effects instead of incremented status variables.

Yes, come to the dark side. Best ranger abilities and talents depend on the build, but for the usual ranger those can be (m=melee, r=ranged): - Marksman ® - Distant Advantage (r, Wood Elf racial) - Minor Threat (r, m, Hearth Orlan racial) - Swift Aim (m) - Twinned Arrows ® - Stunning Shots (m,r) - Predator's Sense - Vicious Companion - Merciless Companion - Driving Flight (r, if you use Stunning Shots and/or Stormcaller) - Resilient Companion - Binding Roots - Apprentice's Sneak Attack (m, r) - Wounding Shot (if you use Predator's Sense and don't use Persistence, Tidefall or Drawn in Spring as weapons) Envenomed Strike is powerful if you a) have high MIG and INT, because those stats influence it's damage and b) if you use Predator's Sense. Interrupting Blows can be nice if you already have high PER, but I don't consider it to be especially powerful if you're not planning your build around interrupts. You will get Stunning Shots at some point - which makes interrupts obsolete. As I said, come to the character build forum. The first post there is a list of builds that is fairly actual, it also contains melee aas well as ranger builds. You don't have to follow them, but usually the description of the builds contain a lot of useful info how certain abilities/talents work best and why.

Nah, incrementing or decrementing something that is boolean in it's nature (being invisible, being alive, being pregnant...) is worth a facepalm. There's no need to beat around the bush. Any solution that uses more than one state of invisibility when in the game you can either be completely invisible or completely visible is a bad solution.

No, that's right. But after that you can still do the other factions' initial quests.

I love fantasy, I hate Terry Pratchett's stuff, I loved BG, IWD and NWN, liked DA:O, hated DA2 and DA:I, liked Skyrim and love PoE. It's complicated obviously. You can't boil things down easily to a point where you can say: "That's why everyone likes it". Unless you don't do a big survey you can only say why you liked or didn't like it. For me, PoE is silly enough (you just have to play a char who's hunting for the clever disposition). It's epicness is good enough for me. I also like it's seriousness and sobriety. I really like it that items don't do things that are too weird and powerful. There could have been more diversity in the effects, true, but it's also cool that most unique weapons don't stand out so much and follow a certain set of rules - or should I say "set of effects" that are put together like Lego. And with WM OBS introduced quite a bit of weapons which have truly unique features like Bittercut, Stormcaller, St. Ydwen's Redeemer and so on. Designing and especially developing and testing such unique features (which you can't reuse in the game) costs time and money. Lets not forget that PoE had a small budget and a rel. short development time compared to many other games of that quality and scale. I also like that they started the rule system as a streamlined one. They only got caught up in too much fuzz on the way. I mean look at the many different ways damage can be applied (direct damage, damage over time which depends on MIG and INT, damage over time which depends on MIG only and so on) and look at the six (?) categories of stuff that influences recovery time. But still I appreciate the effort. For me, PoE is definitely not soulless.

Then it's time for a complete party retraining session.

Ciphers have Psychovampiric Shield and Body Attunement for +25 deflection and +7 DR. They can be played in the front line. Veteran's Recovery is a good pick as well. They even work well with a shield and a sabre (preferably Bittercut because it has two damage types and works with Spirit of Decay which adds another +20% to damage). Pain Link is another great power for a front line melee cipher.

Just note that Scion of Flame (and the other elemental boosters) doesn't do anything for DoT effects like Cleansing Flame and Shining Beacon. It only affects direct burn damage. But the priest also has some of those spells: Storm of Holy Fire is only one of them, like Ohmega said. A very hefty combination is Shining Beacon + Cleansing Flame. Cleansing Flame not only does damage by itself, but also doubles the damage of Shining Beacon. Shining Beacon alone is one of the best dps spells in my opinion.

Right.

NeverchangearunningsystemI'dsayjustmaybetakeabreathinbetween. Seriously: when you have no problems, why change anything? Priest can not only heal and buff, but also debuff and deal a lot of damage. So turn one priest into a supporter and the other one into an offensive caster. Can't do wrong with that. Priests are powerful. Especially when they gained a few levels.

Do Crucible of Suffering and the potion stack by the way? That would immediately end all afflictions, wouldn't it?

Ranged ciphers are easier to play. But with melee attacks you will get more focus because of the higher attack speed and/or the additional dmg mods, but you will more likely be knocked out. Luckily you have spells that disable foes. Ciphers are sort of hybrids: they do a lot of weapon damage with their soul whip but they also can cast really nice CC and support spells. They just can't spam them in quick sussession like wizards/priest/druids can. They balance this out with pure per encounter usage (or better: per resource) and the higher weapon damage. I mean +40% weapon damage through soul whip without any drawback is a lot. The more weapon dps and the lower the enemies' DR is the higher the focus gain will be. So a melee cipher with a two hander for example could use following things to raise damage per hit: - Soul Whip (+20%) - Biting Whip (+20%) - high MIG (18 MIG: +24%) - Savage Attack (+20%) - Apprentice's Sneak Attack (+15%) - Damage bonus to flanked targets (survival, items, up to +40%) - Two Handed Style (+15%) For a total damage bonus of +154% just by casting Phantom Foes. Maybe his weapon is exceptional, then he will be at +184%. An elemental lash will also add a lot of damage and focus. This is pretty nice. He will kill things quickly but also gain a lot of focus per hit. If you give him a reach weapon he doesn't even need to be super sturdy and can reach enemies easier without running around too much. I tried Durance's staff once and it's nice because it's the only reach weapon with two damage types. Llawran's staff is cool because of the speed - together with Time Parasite you will be hitting very, very fast with lots oft damage per hit.

I so support this: clear that invisible mess up please! Also, the line "this.m_ownerStats.InvisibilityState--;" is worth a hefty facepalm...

The first "faction quests" can all be done. With the second one that follows you'll choose your faction. You can always unlock all factions' shops.

Yes, it does. Come, Sweet Winds also does.

Shoot low DR stuff. Use Whisper of Treason. A lot. That's it basically.

Yepp.

Maybe. It was ridiculously good when they introduced it. At least I had the impression back then.