Boeroer

Hehe, thanks. I just looked it up at Steam: I've put nearly three thousand hours into this game. I can't say how this is even possible - but sometimes I leave it open (and paused) over night, so that's def. not the exact number of hours I actively played the game. But I played it a lot, that's for sure. The number of characters I've played or tried I can't guess. Hundrets maybe.. But most of my time I'm using the console to try out build ideas - and 90% of the time they don't meet my expectations when I test them solo or with a supporting tank as distraction against bounties and other high level content. But when they seem to be fun, I do a complete PoE playthorugh with them and then I post them if I'm satisfied. It's hard to test support capabilities if you are solo, so I always use a complete party with the builds I've cumulated so far. However, when it comes to numbers, rules and mechanics, I'm not the expert here. I just like to build classes in unusual ways. And I'm not the only one for sure. I mean look at the build list - so many awesome ideas that lead to great builds.

The paladins and champions in Raedrics Hold are very tough. No need to change anything. Your bear will do a TON of damage after you give him "Merciless Companion", "Vicious Companion" and "Predator's Sense" while using Wounding Shot on the targets the bear attacks. Alternatively, you can use any ability of any party member that causes a "damage over time" effect on the target the bear attacks. If he has Predartor's Sense, he will rip everything apart after two or three hits which suffers from such a DoT effect. Even paladins...

Good thing about chanters is they can be good tanks and impressive damage dealers at the same time. Same as barbs and monks by the way, but chanters are king in this "hybrid" discipline. Any class can tank well if build properly, but that may take some time, lvls and knowledge. If you can grasp and embrace the mechanics of a monk I think there's nothing that is more fun in PoE. Some of their abilities are so satisfying when applied in combat. But people tend to either love or hate them. However, they are quite powerful, but require more micro than chanters for example. I'd say they require the same amount of micromanagement as casters. A Kind Wayfarer paladin can be a lot of fun if you combine the ability to kill with all his healing capabilities. He has two special talents besides Lay on Hands and Healing Chain that heal allies - one when using his Flames of Devotion ability (burning lash 2/encounter) and the other when killing enemies. This can be done with any weapon style (weapon & shield, 2 handed, one handed or dual wielding). If you combine Flames of Devotion, Intense Flames, Scion of Flame and put a burning lash on your weapon you will cause massive, massive damage those 2 times per encounter. And the rest of your attacks will be fierce enough, too. Later on, you get Sacred Immolation. After that you will kill a ton of enemies just by standing around, healing your allies non-stop. Search for "damaging healbot" - it's an unfinished build in these forums which has a lot of cool ideas around this. I personally would go for Fire Godlike, using Forgemaster's Gloves to summon Firebrand and another 2 hander as backup (another great sword or an estoc maybe or even Durance's Staff) - just because of the fire theme. Being a burning monster out of hell and at the same time calling yourself a "Kind Wayfarer" who heals friends by killing foes sounds funny... Moon Godlike also makes a lot of sense with such a build.

Depends on difficulty and whether you have full party or not. Even then I'd say it's pretty tough at lvl 4 for a beginner.

Sure, why not. I think both will work. Her high MIG and rel. high CON as well as her low DEX and normal RES make her more suitable for the more meaty, less defensive type with dual sabres, Frenzy, Bloodthirst and Bloodlust I guess. THat way HoF is optimized and she can reach great speed even with 9 DEX, the thickest armor and also after Frenzy wears off. With Hof, you tend to kill at least two or three foes - so Blood Thirst and Bloodlust trigger right away, letting you attack directly after HoF without recovery and then with +20% speed from Bloodlust (which stacks with Frenzy). It's ideal for finishing off the last standing foes. Combining Vengeful Defeat with that also makes a lot of sense. Wit a proest, paladin or chanter in the party or with a scroll or second chance item you can use Vengeful Defeat (it's like HoF light) more than once in a tough fight. With that setup I soloed every bounty on PoTD - sometimes you make a mistake and it horribly fails, but normally an optimized HoF + eventually Vengeful Defeat turn everything into minced meat. It's a risky strategy when soloing because you have to be in the thick of the battle to get the most out of HoF, but it's a lot of fun. It's all about the positioning and the right timing to be honest.

Now it is. It used to be quite meh. I mean + 2.5 starting focus... pfff.

Right! I also thought about that combo. Once I have the hood, I will retrain and skip both yells/shouts that I currently use. Then there's room for Frenzy (just too good for HoF and fortitude defense and my deflection is already very high) and Threatening Presence. Coupe de Grace is guaranteed with HoF.

Well, Cape of the Cheat (=Escape) or Dragon Leap are indeed the best ways to reach as many foes as possible. If you can hit 5 or more foes the fight is normally over before it begins (with dual sabres that is). I always send the barb first when he has HoF (after his ACC got buffed a bit). With a wizard Pull of Eora is really nice to amass a lot of foes, then use petrify or paralyze before jumping in with the barb and trigger HoF. I have little concern about jumping into the fray to be honest. The barb only needs enough concentration so that he's not interrupted to death. If HoF is not enough to kill most foes then he has Vengeful Defeat and Second Chance. That "HoF light" will finish off most of the remaining mobs. Then, with a chanter/priest/paladin or a scroll, you can rise again if necessary. Another good way (without jumping or escaping into the fray) is to use a reach weapon from the side - it only allows for one "round" of HoF, but you can place the hit way better than with a short range weapon - normally reaching more foes this way. Tall Grass comes to mind. It's predatory enchantment is not too bad for HoF. Or hey - a superb Llawran's Stick.

Erm - I don't think he was too serious.

I mean if you can kill all bounties solo on PotD I'd say it's proof enough that a build is viable.

Great! I love the combination of blinding + Dragon Thrashed + immune animated weapons in solo run. Never thought about that. Blind is such a powerful debuff. Only yesterday I was thinking about how to raise a chanter's ACC (and how to lower enemies' defenses) for better The-Dragon-Thrashed-hits. Besides the obvious Killers Froze Stiff or scrolls nothing useful came to my mind. Should also work nicely with any party. By the way I'm currently doing a playthrough with your paladin-prince-charming and the barb supertank (shield, frighten, fatigue, Stalwart Defiance and so on) and it works really well. Will post both builds (besides one or two others) after finishing off Thaos. There I will def. mention that those are your inventions that I merely playtested. The idea of Sworn Enemy + Charming alone is not enough to "fill" a whole paladin build. So I added some tweaks here and there.

TUB's spell chance is broken somehow. If it triggers it only does 1/encounter. And it doesn't work with HoF at all. On-crit weapons also don't seem to work correctly. I only see 1 proc when I do HoF with them. However, Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw work really well with it. You'll deliver tons of Thrusts of Tattered Veil or Taste of the Hunt with them when doing HoF. Way more than you should. For optimal HoF you want dual wielding. Vulnerable Attack, lots of DMG mods like one stands alone and Frenzy on and weapons that hit as hard as possible - so dual sabres are an obvious choice. With that and a bit of luck you can nearly one-shot the hardest bounties.

Hehe. Sounds nice. Make sure to pick up Persistence - it's wounding is great with low INT. @Slacker83: I guessed so. That's why I said you shouldn't read that special part.

The Lady of Pain is fun. The Engineer build is a tank with shield and tremendous self healing that has some nice burst damage after a while and is not worthless in melee, too. Note that some - or most - of my builds are 2.x versions. They are also not 100% optimized for PG, but make some minor compromizes so that they stay true to their style, basic idea and indiv. backgroud. However, they are absolutely viable to beat PoTD difficulty. I did a playthrough with all of them. They still work the way they are advertised, but you can add some of the new talents/abilities and items now. But if you get the basic idea of the build I think it's easy to squeeze those in. Feel free to report in those threads if you discover something new or which new feats work great. The builds of mine which *don't* work with official companions are: - Monksterlasher (needs to be a Fire Godlike) - Backlash Beldam (it's beauty was destroyed by OBS - it doesn't work at all atm. - Scheemer's Needler (needs to be a priest of Skaen) - Bilestomper (should be a Mountain Dwarf) The Devil of Caroc can be build as a Mad Hornet without problems - but her racial feats, her armored body and her stats make her more suitable for melee. I still have 4 or 5 builds in the pipeline - but don't wait for those. Could take me weeks to finish my curr. playthrough with them and write the builds.

Yeah I can't even say when it was changed. All of a sudden it gave +10 starting focus as well. Maybe they did it along with the cipher rebalance which also made all the powers above lvl 1 super expensive (basically +10 focus for every spell level instead of +5).

It gives you +10 max focus as well as +10 starting focus (this was added in a patch to make it worthwhile). It doesn't scale. It lets you cast powers of a higher level at the start of the combat - which can be pretty nice. The max focus itself is not so powerful if you spend focus asap. But combined with the starting focus it's a viable pick.

There's only the priest's litany against stun. But there are a lot of items with either high defense bonuses against prone/stun (like boots of stability) or preservation items (including two shields that lets you stack preservation) or even Breakout items (-50% or -33% duration) so that prone and stun shouldn't be a such a big issue as paralyze or petrify can be. And the sanguine plate can also be good in such encounters: Frenzy raises your fortitude defense quite a bit via +8 to the related stats.

Would be nice if they tweaked difficulty not by raising stats like crazy, but by adapting AI behaviour. At the moment - no matter the difficulty setting - enemies are dumb like pebbles. Like casting Tanglefoot and Calling the World's Maw on themselves all the time, running in circles around my party to reach someone who's standing in the middle, that sort of stuff. It would raise the difficulty a lot if foes with brains (like kith an so on) would have better tactics. Like not breaking up their formation when they see there's no spellcaster, spread if there is, better tactical movement and so on. That would mean a lot of work though. More than just tweaking stats.

Hilarious find! Need to evolve a build around that asap. There's an item with minor spellbind "Pain Link" - forgot which one it was (starting to build...)

No rest for the wicked.

Eh, right. Confused the lore with that of the Redeemer. Which is also not a bad choice of course - especially as backup weapon against vessels. Still THe Hours of St. Rumbalt is somewhat suiting for a faithful, paladinesque fighter. You could choose the clergyman background.

@ Jojobobo: Yes, you are right - there would be a slighty higher chance to get a stun-crit result when you score a weapon crit before (and only then) - but since you will cause stun anyway with any weapon on hit I would then focus on a weapon enchantment that has more to add. Like Wendgär's predatory enchantent for example or Good Friend's coordinating one. Coordinating is a very nice enchantment for a ranger because he wants to attack the same target as his pet anyway (because of stunning shots & stalker's link for example) and then can benefit from +4 ACC and +25% damage all the time. There are not too many things that can boost ranged weapon's damage, so that's nice. Or Twin Sting of course which I find to be very nice - especially the Plague of Insects part. Hehe - you are right with blind and stun - they do kind of stack but it's not very effective. --- A bit of theorycrafting (Slacker83 shouldn't read this if he doesn't want to get too confused ) A Boreal Dwarf with Stunning Shots, Stalker's Link (+10 ACC), Bartender's Ring (+20% dmg to spirit and vessel), Stalker's Torc (+20% dmg), Beast Slayer talent (+25% dmg), Appr. Sneak Attack (+15%), Archer's Gloves(+10%) and Good Friend (+4 ACC / +25% dmg) with kith slaying (+4 ACC / +25% dmg) enchantment will have the following "passive" ACC/dmg bonuses when attacking the same foe as his pet (not including the math for more crits because of stunned, the ACC survival bonuses with 10 survival, Marked Prey or quality enchantments like fine, exeptional etc. - those would add on top of the following): - Primordial: +29 ACC / +70% dmg - Wilder: +29 ACC / +70% dmg - Spirit: +14 ACC / +90% dmg - Vessel: +14 ACC / +90% dmg - Beast: +14 ACC / +95% dmg - Kith: +18 ACC / +95% dmg Now add marked prey, +15 survival (except against kith) and the quality enchantments and do some math with crossbows' base damage and you can see that it's quite awesome. You could also stack +40% bonus against flanked targets with boots and survival, buit it's a bit of a hassle - I like the +ACC from survial more. I think for a ranger Good Friend is even better than Wendgär once it's enchanted to superb. With stunning shots and your sky high ACC you cause crits all the time - you don't even need Wendgär's 10% hit-to-crit conversion I guess. Twin Sting is also very nice because of it's raw damage, the auto-superb enchantment and the two shots without reloading (you shouldn't move between thoise two shots because then it doesn't work). The best thing is of course the Plague on Insects that has a much higher chance than 25% when you use Driving Flight: ~43% instead of 25%. So nearly every second shot will trigger this special version of Plague of Insects - great! @Slacker: Boreal Dwarf as ranger + crossbow is a good combo. Both in terms of power as well as lore and roleplaying. I would take a wolf or stag (let's call it moose in this case ) as animal companion.

It's cool. Your chanter will not even reach 0 recovery with his 40% invocation and durgan steel: 1.4*1.2*1.15 = 1.93. Minus armor penalty of maybe 0.2. Even if you add Gauntlets of Swift Action you could then use Vulnerable Attack without slowdown - nice weapon dps from the back row I'd say. Or give it to the fighty fighter. Knockdown & Clear Out plus quarterstaff fit nicely. I like Clear Out (it's one of the few things on a fighter I like). If your barb is going to get HoF please consider dual wielding (anything) - even if you just switch to that special weapon setup for HoF only and then switch back to your usual weapon(s). It will end most trash encounters at once - you only have to reach as many foes as possible. It also works perfectly well with a weapon & special bash shield like Badragdr's Barricade or Dragon's Maw (playing a barb tank with that setup atm - 0 knockouts so far at lvl 11 by the way). Godhansthunyr + Dragon's Maw also looks very neat.

Right - maybe having two options is better with ToI. But even if you look for more defense then Inspiring Triumph might be worth it. Especially with Sacred Immolation it's very nice. The buff seldomly wears off then because you tend to kill an enemy every now and then even without FoD.

Revive you have with Durance or scrolls, he also has Prayer against Treachery at lvl 9 (or 11) - so what for do you need Reviving Exhirtation, Aegis and Righteous Soul? If he's killing stuff regularly you could pick Inspiring Triumph. It's defense bonus stacks with everything like Durance's Circle of Protection. Together they can give the party a defensive bonus of +27 (including Outworn Buckler) that stacks with everything else. If you want to improve his FoD a lot you could pick Intense Flames and Scion of Flame. The later boosts an intense FoD's burning lash damage from 75% to 90%, boosts the weapon lash from 25% to 30% (lets you deal more burning damage than initial damage actually) and is great for Immolation, too. I did both with my current paladin (Shieldbearer) and added Shielding Flames and Shielding Touch (also stack with everything) as well as Reinforcing Exhortation and it's great.