Boeroer

Because: best dps of all bows when fully enchanted (the 25% wounding get modified by INT and work like a raw lash - and it stacks). Fast to shoot and reload: good when running around all the time - more shooting and less running per recovery phase necessary. And you can get it very early. Weapon Focus Peasant - like fist and hatchet and quarterstaff, fits a monk. While you run (and can't shoot) enemies still can die from wounding (for Nelson's "Haha!" effect). For a monk with Heart of the Storm also Stormcaller would ne very nice - but it can't be bound to a monk. I mean it's still a good bow even when not bound, but can't compete without soul binding after Durgan Steel gets available.

Swift Aim + Gunner + max DEX leads to relatively short reload phases and such a ranger with an arquebus is great against those annoying enemies with very high DR like Drakes, Adra Animats and such. Also not bad if you can switch between Vicious Aim and Swift Aim against high defenses like dragons' or armored, defensive bounty fighters and so on. But against normal enemies they are inferior. They could be on par if Powder Burns worked with Swift or Vicious Aim - and if it didn't blind (stupid design decision).

Hehe - well, Long Stride is definetely good for that. It even stacks with Boots of Speed (and also Fast Runner, which gives an additional bonus when disengaging). The enemies will turn away as soon as you start running. The AI turns around more quickly the faster you are. Covering a great distance in very little time is also good in encounters where the enemies won't stop chaising you (like Cail the Silent for example or the Torn Bannermen). It's also great when you get weakened, hobbled or blinded and you're still way faster than the enemy. With Persistence, Heart of the Storm, a shocking lash and Lightning Strikes the single target damage and the attack speed should be pretty good. And with Weapon Focus Peasant you can still use your fists when you need to. And Force of Anguish and Stunning Blows can be a life saver when you get stopped by engagement or get interrupted. Rooting Pain may also be nice to shrug off enemies who came too close. You can also reach pretty good numbers when disengaging with Fast Runner, the cape (or an armor with the same enchantment like Night Runner) and Graceful Retreat. And maybe it's also wise to "retreat" to a single enemy when you get surrounded - via Flagellant's Path? The duplicates can be nice - but can you call them when you have figurine based summons on the game board? Edit: Hey, how about flanking with the two duplicates and (figurine summons like shades and wood beetles, even the Rhymer's Skeletons will work - but they will die very soon) and piling up damage bonuses against flanked targets? +20% from survival is achieved realtively easy. Then +10% from an item and Apprentice's Sneak Attack +15%. That's +45% bonus damage. You could even add the "Good Friend" crossbow for +4 ACC and +25% damage when attacking enemies which also get attacked by your summons- That would be +70% with +14 ACC (10 flanking, 4 from Good Friend). Not so bad. Only that stupid reloading. Persistence is still better I think...

Yeah, that can work well. You have to use ranged weapons when soloing anyway at some points, regardless of the class. But honestly the Long Pain is the much better alternative from lvl 7 on because it doesn't matter if you have those on or your normal fists - only that they are also ranged and have even better ACC. They are better than any other ranged weapon because they do single target damage of an arquebus with the speed of fists, plus dual wielding applies AND two weapon style, too. And most importantly they work with TOrment'S Reach from a distance. I think it is one of the best abilitities for soloing. You don't need to build a glasscannon like the Witch Doctor to make it great. You can go the tanky way and still retreat without losing dps. Or you go the ranged way and go in for melee to get wounds from time to time. They work with nearly all special attacks of the monk (but not Turning Wheel). I think no built with ranged weapons can compare to that. Just imagine running away with Long Stride and Shot on the Run while putting out Torment's Reach onto the enemy who is following you in a nice cone shaped formation...

Second chance is 1/ rest per item. You can swap items after the fight I guess. Like RIng of Wonder/Saint's War Armor/Osric's Family Breast Plate. Of course Vengeful Defeat is much better when you have aparty with one or two sguys who can revive. It's why my "Immortal Martyr" build is really strong despite the fact it's really squishy. You just toss im into the mob, trigget HoF and forget him, then revive. Most enemy groups don't survive this. He has 1 HoF every encounter and as many Vengeful Defeats as you can have rivivals per encounter (so endless with a chanter). Of course it's quite useless against single targets. The more targets the better. It's actually (number of foes in range)² * 2 hits with dual wielding. So 5 enemies generate 50 hits, 6 enemies 72 and so on. It's eays to get a lot of small melee foes into a ragne with max INT so that you can hit up to 8 foes or so. With Ogres, Drakes and stuff it's obviously more difficult to hit more than 4 foes. But you can still use Barbaric Blow for that. It's better to use a 2h with high DR bypass (aka estoc) or with special damage feats (aka Tidefall) when you suspect that the foe that you target initially will not survive the first swing of the Full Attack. Or when you meet slash resistant foes of course (unless you have dual Bittercut). Other than that, 2 sabres are better. Battle Forged with Scion of Flame, One Stands Alone and Blooded is pretty neat. It also triggers Blood Thirst and resets recovery. Very nice together with Flame Shield and Barbaric Retaliation. You can (but don't have to) take all the slow downers like Vulnerable Attack, slow 2handers, dump DEX and so on but still achieve nice attack speed with Blood Thirst + all that Retaliation. That works with other abilities as well - for example I get this a lot when using Barbaric Blow - but WITH the damage. 30% of the time or so it resets the counter and I can do another Barbaric Blow when I get this bug.

I can totally believe that. I cleared a pack of 8 Lagufaeth just a few hours ago with only one HoF on lvl 11. I'm a boreal dwarf and used +15 survival bonus against wilder - so I had a lot of crits with dual annihilating sabres. And you should pile up everything that increases damage per hit, like One Stands Alone, Blooded, Vulnerable Attack, Frenzy, food & resting bonus for MIG and PER and so on. It's hilarious. And of course the combo of Combusting Wounds + HoF is great. Just look at the combat log how many hits you generate when you target more than 5, 6 foes.

Yes, it's weird and I have to say that dual annihilating sabres seem to be the best option for HoF (leaving any duplicated setups aside like dual Drawn in Spring or dual Bittercut - I can't have those in a pure solo run which I'm doing atm). And yes, you have to aim really carefully, but man is it powerful. Also note that you should aim at the toughest foe in the pack when you are dual wielding. Because if the targeted foe dies while you execute the first swing, there will be no second (same with Torment's Reach and all the other Full Attacks). So sometimes it's better to use a weapons that is slower but hits harder. For example I like to use the Drake's Bell with Vulnerable Attack at the momen (but I also like to switch to Tidefall or such things - I slayer-enchanted those weapons for different enemies), when I know the targeted foe is likely to die after the first HoF strike. You get way more damage out of HoF this way because all strikes will be done with 11 DR bypass. I don't have Ryona's Vembraces yet - that should make it 14 DR bypass. But against tougher foes who will survive the first swing it's better to use sabres. I don't even need Two Weapon Style any more because I seldomly have to use anything else than HoF and Vengeful Defeat. And if something survives normally one Barbaric Blow Full Attack sets the deal. I didn't try out if Bloody Slaughter is worth taking. If foes survive, most of the time they have only a tiny bit of endurance left. So maybe Bloody Slaughter with it's addidional hit to crit and +0,5 crit damage mult can help here? Would give me +2 crit damage multipler with the two annihilating sabres against low endurance foes with HoF or Barbaric Blow. Hm... could mean the difference between barely alive and dead foes. Did you know that you can have two Vengeful Defeats in one encounter (one from second chance of course)? Lure the enemy away from his starting point. Then, when you're about to go down (the second time), call a summon. When you go down with a Vengeance the summon will go on and the fight will not end. When the summon is gone the enemy will normally return to the spawning point and you can get up again. Saved my dwarven a** a few times now.

With monks you can have the idea that a build that uses Dangerous Implements in order to get wouds. I tried a monk with The Golden Gaze once, but it's pretty underwhelming. Some things work ranged, like Swift + Lightning Strikes. If you want to stack wounds it's also of little use, because Turning Wheel only works in melee. I didn't test if Blood Testament gloves work, but I doubt it. In order to effectively spend wounds you'd have to go melee or use them for the two duplicates which come late. Sadly, most of the monks special attacks (even those which don't require wounds) don't work with ranged weapons (The Long Pain aside). Fighters can reach ok damage per hit with ranged weapons. They are one of the few classes that can pile up a few damage modifiers even on ranged weapons, like Confident Aim, Weapon Specialisation and Weapon Mastery. I tried an arquebus fighter once but was disappointed by the damage. Also here, most of the fighter's abilitites are focused on melee or defenses. So at every odd level you have to search really hard for an ability that is not completely useless. I didn't try out bows, but I guess it's the same problem. I also tried a ranged barb (who would have guessed) because of Frenzy + Bloodlust + Bloodthirst. This can result in great attack speed when you fight weak mobs or focus on delivering the killing blow in a party. You can combine that with items that do things on kill, like Tempered Helm or Morning Gloves. And scrolls & spells work with Blood Lust, too. So if you deliver some fireballs and kill somebody, you can spam additional spells like crazy with 0 recovery. At first Frenzy will help to be fast, after the first kill you will have no recovery for the next spell, after the second kill Bloodlust also kicks in and helps when you didn't kill anybody, it stacks with frenzy by the way - then comes another kill and so on - you get the point I guess. Honestly the spell thing is more appealing than the pure ranged weapon thing because it can be. But you can combine it. I wiped out Darzir's whole pack with my solo barb (who has Bloodlust and Bloodthirst) with 10 scrolls of Fan of Flames because after the first two or three scrolls the wolfs were dying, then the spamming started and didn't stop until everyone was dead. It's scroll intense of course, but you can do tough encounters with this approach alone. I wonder if Death Godlike + Bloody Slaughter would be a good combination for this kill stealing barb. Barbaric Blow works with a ranged weapon by the way (without carnage hits), giving you a 1.5 crit damage multiplier together with Bloody Slaughter. It's not too powerful, but it feels better than a ranged monk or fighter. Sadly, the damage-boosting abilities of a barb (One Stands Alone, Blooded) only work reliably when you are in melee range or get beaten, but they also work for spells and ranged weapons. Frenzy, the three yells/shouts, Wild Sprint, Brute Force, Eye of the Storm (very useful for such a build), Dragon Leap (for escaping) and Bloodlust and Blood Thirst work pretty well. I guess to get the most out of the "skip recovery altogether" mechanic of Blood Thirst it's best to use a slow, hard hitting weapon with no reloading - so a war bow. The best ability or barbs, carnbage, is of course wasted with this approach. But I guess you can make a fun to play build around war bow and spell binding items (and scrolls).

That may be right - you definetely have great experience there. But Kazuma has a full party and in my opinion it's a shame when your paladin's low INT prevents his auras (also the heraldic one from outworn buckler) to reach other party members or when all his Exhortations (which are pretty useless when soloing anyway) are too short to be of good use. His supportive aspects get gimped a lot.

I'd say paladin & Witch Doctor (monk build, see index) for the win.

Hu? That's what I wanna have for supper!

Yes - I'm lvl 11 now with nearly the same stats - (swap MIG and CON) and Combusting Wounds + HoF + Vengeful Defeat is really devastating. Only thing is I use max survival for +60% healing and trigger Savage Defiance after being revived. Potions of Major Endurance will heal me to nearly 100% with the healing mods. Eye of the Storm is really good for running away when things get really bad by the way. Tested it before I took HoF instead.

You can go as soon as you get the letter from your steward in Card Nua - which can be way earlier than lvl 8. You can also go there at lvl 6 or so but expect a tough fight (the expansion starts with the defense of the village from Ogres). But it's doable even on PoTD. I did it solo with my current low deflection barb at lvl 10 and it was difficult because of all those cannoneer ogres. I made a 3 INT superfast running paladin (look for "The Dull Runner") for 2.0 or so - for the purpose to get behind enemy lines and take out casters. It works pretty well because he's tanky enough to survive on his own for some time, gets everywhere very fast and does OK damage after his FoD shots. But it's a rather special build.

Two sabres is the best option (concerning damage) for melee AoE Full Attacks like Torment's Reach or HoF - or when the Full Attacks are very limited but have a hige ACC bonus like FoD. You get out the most hits with the highest damage per hit. That is only true if you can reliably hit things with you ACC when dual wielding of course. Besides that I think you are right.

You should look at all the paladin abilities that work without INT. Like Sworn Enemy also Healing Chain is independent from INT. Same with Coordinated Attacks, Righteous Soul (with 3 INT it's maybe not the worst choice and it fits with Aegis of Loyality). Aegis of Loyality and Abjuration could also be good things for a 3 INT pal.

I have two words for you: White Worms. Turns any doorway into a mob grinder. And of course Persistence wouldn't be my only weapon. It's the one I use when kiting with high move speed and Shot on the Run of course. So I can use chokepoints when there's no room for kiting and kiting when there's no doorway and open space... That stupid Dweller will bleed. :D

Let's say they can make the impression that they are weak against bosses when you're not an expert with ciphers. I also think that Bod Attunement, Tactical Meld and Borrowed Instincts for example are absolutely great against bosses with high defenses or deflection. But for real spell spamming you still need some weak targets. Yeah, resting only costs you time in real life, in the game it's of no importance (other than picking your "random" loot).

Right - I was talking about talent choice in general first and then I remembered that we were speaking about Pallegina.

Wizards have very few spells at lvl one and their starting stats for endurance, deflection, ACC and so on are the lowest of all classes. That's why I said they are a bit weak at the start compared to later when they have tons of spells per rest and powerful self buffs which neglect those low stats. They can have blast very early which makes them good at ranged combat, but they don't hit a lot in PotD with auto attacks at first because their ACC is so low. You can use Concelhaut's Staff early on which is awesome for low levels though. Chanters are powerful at the start (good starting values, damaging aura, AoE healing aura, White Worms), are great CC guys during midgame (Killers Froze Stiff) and turn into good dps guys when they hit lvl 9 (the dragon thrashed) or 10 (Seven Nights) while maintaining their tankyness (if they want to). Inf fact, all the bounties (which some people consider to be the hardest part of the game) are easy with a chanter who runs fast and has The Dragon Thrashed. Monks have some tricks in combination with Torment's Reach (has a huge, huge range with high INT, works with on-crit effects and so on), Turning Wheel (works with retaliation) and the Long Pain (look at the Witch Doctor build) which makes them top of the melee classes when it comes to dps in my opinion. No rogue, fighter or barb can compete to this as long as you know what to do. However, they are the melee class that usually is most micro intensive because you have to spend wounds manually in order to get the best out of them.

Wrath is a side effect of Sworn Enemy. You have to take Sworn Enemy before you can take Wrath of the Five Suns. So basically it would be: Sworn Enemy (+Wrath). Prestidigitator'S Missiles is really strong at the beginning of the game. At lvl 16 it's a bit of a joke. In fact, I would take it first. It makes a lot of low level encounters against unarmored foes a lot easier. Sadly you will get Pallegina later on, so I don't know if I really would take this again. Maybe I would retrain and take something else when I feel it doesn't contribute any more. But I kept it as a nice finisher for badly wounded targets (to maybe trigger Inspiring Triumph). FoD I would take a bit later when there are guns around (and I don't mean the Disappointer ). At the beginning you can only use it with melee and bows after Anslög Compass maybe an arbalest (that's good). But when you get Pallegina you will all have this so it doesn't really matter at which level you take it. Yes, Arms Bearer is for three weapon slots so that you can have two guns for a FoD shot each and then switch to (marking) weapon + Outworn Buckler for offtanking and defensive support. So a typical attack of me went like: Sworn Enemy (+Wrath), then 2 FoD. Switch to melee setup. Then Pr. Missiles if i have them. In difficult encounters or when I needed to take out somebody really fast from range I also used missile scrolls like Missile Barrage (it's great when you have piled up a lot of DR bypass) or the cloak of Minor Missiles. Spirit of Decay doesn't work with the missiles. They have crush/corrode, where crush is the main damage type. Sadly this doesn't work with Spirit of Decay. It would have to be corrode/crush in order to function. You can take it anyway if you plan to use Bittercut (corrode/slash). Veteran's Recovery is not really needed. YOur recovery will start right at the beginning of the combat when you are not wounded at all (you wil shoot stuff then), so it's a waste in my opinion. You will have Lay on Hands and Healing Chain which is more than enough for offtaking in most cases. I would take Intense Flames I guess. Can make a difference between a dead or a casting enemy wizard. Righteous Soul is a waste in my opinion when there are items and scrolls that grant immunity. Superior Deflection pays off when you take it early. But for thi kind of shooting offtank I would skip it. If you don't take Quick Switch then wear Coil of Resourcefulness. So maybe my talents/abilities would be like (no warranty): L1 Lay on Hands L2 Weapon & Shield L3 Zealous Focus or Zealous Endurance L4 Weapon Focus L5 Sworn Enemy L6 Wrath of the Five Suns L7 FoD L8 Arms Bearer L9 Coordinated Attacks L10 Pen. Shot L11 Insp. Triumph or Reinforcing Exhortation L12 Scion of Flames L13 Sacred Immolation (Lv13) L14 Intense Flames L15 Healing Chain L16 Prest. Missiles for fun or Deep Faith or Marksman or Envenomed Strike or whatever

I would strongly advise to buy the two expansions first (install them) and then start a playthrough. Else you will miss a lot of talents and abilitites even in the main game without the expansions - you will also miss three possible companions who are fun. Also, you don't have to play the expansions seperately. In fact it's not a good thing to do. The expansions are embedded in the main game - not like Baldur's Gate and other games where they are an addition AFTER the main game. The first part of the expansion is played best when you're around lvl 8 (of 16). So completing the main game first will make WM I so easy that it's no fun at all. You can always go to the expansion areas (White March) and come back to the main game. It's lust like the expansions expanded the main game's world and added some maps, companions, loot and quests. And the loot is balanced for mid to endgame - it's not endgame only stuff. The guide you linked is outdated and was also written by a guy who wasn't very experienced with the game. I would throw it in the trash bin. Especially the pros and cons of classes are ridiculously wrong in some cases. I mean the statement "Monk: is outclassed in every major category" is so wrong that it hurts. Paladin: can't tank as well as a fighter. Ouch. Fighter: low damage throughput. Chanter: low damage throughput... (I'm crying now) and so on. It seems like the author wrote this after playing Act I on version 1.0 and then stopped. This game isn't anything like Baldur's Gate - I mean under the hood when it comes to the game mechanics. But there are parallels in the development of a class like you said, that's true. Wizard and Paladin are fun classes and relatively easy to play with the conventional approach which you will know from Baldur's Gate. For the first playthrough I would advise to take official companions over hirelings. They are fun, they give you lore and quests and they are not weaker than hirelings over the whole game (at the beginning - where the game is hardest - they start a lot stronger because they have +1 level compared to hirelings. At the end of the game - when it's becoming easy anyway - they tend to be a tiny bit weaker because of suboptimal stat spread). They also get special abilitites which only they can have.

A sidenode: If you want to use invocations a lot I wouldn't drop DEX too much (if not 100% tank mode). Nowadays you will have a recovery phase after every invocation in which you don't even chant. That phase can be rather long and with dumped DEX it takes forever to start chanting again. So your phrase counter buildup will be a lot slower and also your dps with damaging chants. I did some simple tests because I wanted to find out if you can chain cast "The Killers Froze Stiff" at lvl 16 with max INT and Brisk Recitation (lvl 1 chants take only 2 secs) and took a tank approach (DEX 3). That's when I found out that I gimped my invocation speed so hard. On the other hand, with very high DEX and speed buffs you can reach impressive invocation rates. I want to play a solo chanter next, too. With Persistence as main weapon, using low level chants for fast invocations like summons and White Worms and other invocations as bread an butter and NOT The Dragon Thrashed. Other than that: Cladhalitah + solo chanter, the agony of choice: - Stunning + Vicious: the obvious solution. With Vile Loner's Lance it's a bit easier to stun and spears have +5 ACC, but chanters are still no crit monsters. But luckily you have a paralyzing invocation which can trigger the stunlock once and you might have good chances against wilders and primordial anyway. Stunning sets up it's own mini-sneak attack from Vicious (which is weaker than coordinating, see below). Also works together with bonus damage against flanked targets and Apprentice's Sneak Attack if you use summons to flank. - Marking + Coordinating: Good combination for a solo chanter who uses summons: your phantom for example gets +10 ACC and you get +4 ACC and +25% damage. In the early to mid game your phantom will stunlock this way on hit - so no need for stunning enchantment on cladhaliath, right? Here also the flanking bonuses can add quite some damage. With this setup one could also imagine to take the Dozens' side. It's not too bad when you plan to flank a lot: another +5 ACC - so basically +19 ACC (Mob Justice + Coordinating + flanked) as well as up to +70% weapon damage when flanking (20% camping, 10% item, 15% Apprentice's Sneak, 25% Coordinating). It's like rogue's damage with more ACC when you and your summon attack the same target. In theory I like this even better than the first (and more obvious) approach. I used this on a chanter tank in a party and was quite pleased. You can also go for Stunning + Coordinating of course when you plan to flank with summons.

Dual Wielding is only superior in my opinion when you have Full Attack abilities like Torment's Reach or Heart of Fury. Besides that I think it's all quite comparable - although I would like to buff the Two Handed Style from 15% to 30% so that it makes sense to take a Great Sword and not a one handed sabre or a sabre with shield.

Yeah, it mainly costs time. That's why I said: ...where you can rest for free and get +3 bonuses, too. The one stupid case in the Endless Paths where you could get stuck because you took a shortcut and jumped into the pit is neglectible. It's a bad situation though. But it also could happen without casters - like when your health is low, your figurines are empty and so on. I wanted to point out that spells per rest are not so bad because resting doesn't cost that much (except time). Stacking resting bonuses is nice, but also neglectible in a party compared to the raw power of wizard's/priest's/druid's spells which they can spam if they need to. In easy encounters you can do without spells - and in the tough ones you rule and rest afterwards. Resting is a very small price for this kind of power. So, saying that the necessity to rest a bit more often makes wizards/priests/druids weak is wrong. That's what I wanted to point out.

First of all: basically everything you reported you read was not true. I mean except the post before mine of course, those are great. Every class in PoE has it's niche and there's no class that is significantly worse than the others. However, there are situations in which certain classes shine and others fail. I will quickly address your points: 1.: Wizard: one of the most versatile classes in the game. You can build him as a tank, a superb ranged autoattacker, a spellspammer. he has it all: self buffs, utility spells, great CC spells, great dps spells and most importantly fpr me he has a mechanic with implements (wands, sceptres, rods) that lets him do AoE damage and on-hit and on-crit effects in an AoE with his autoattacks. So he can be even great when using no spells at all. But the ones he has are awesome. Peapole who say wizards are useless didn't play one longer than lvl 3 or so. Because that's thre drawback of a wizard: he starts quite weak but gains more and more power with every level. Resting is no problem: there are cheap inns all over the place and you can use camping supplies in the wilderness which cost nearly nothing. YOu can even rest in your own stronghold. Travelling costs nothing but time and fatigue from travelling doesn't exist any more. 2.: Rogues are different from wizards: they start as a strong, but squishy damage dealer but then don't gain as much power per level than a wizard or some other classes. However, their starting ability "Sneak Attack" is very powerful. But as you already mentioned they are (and stay) squishy as long as you don't build them to be more sturdy (and loose dps potential in that process). A good compromise is a ranged rogue because he will not get beaten to death that often. Rogues are not the number one dps character in the game though. Not even for single target melee damage, because the druid does that better when he is spiritshifted. A ranger does more ranged damage, barbs and casters do more AoE damage and so on. Plus: the rogue can only be awesome if he has a party which supports him with afflictions. So wizards, druids and such are good friends of every rogue. What they are really good at (and this can be a game changer) is to take out dangerous enemies very quickly before they can do harm. They have some abilitites which support that. 3.: Who said that monks are horrible (in terms of power) should pack his things and go. Seriously - for me the monk is the number one melee class - and I don't think i'm the only ine who thinks like this. He combines sturdyness, high defenses, awesome AoE and single target damage, CC, speed and even ranged damage to a powerful class. The only thing is: he's micro intensive because of his wound system and his special attacks if you play him traditionally. But beides that he's very powerful. Fighters are very sturdy and solid single target damage dealers - not as good as rogues, but not bad either. They keep on hitting even if under pressure. When a rogue falls over a fighter just laughs. I find them to be quite boring but they are solid. Barbarians have a higher damage output than most melee classes (only second to monks when he has wounds to spend) because they always attack in an AoE. However, their single target damage is not very special. They start with low ACC and defenses and seem to be squishy at lower levels because of that. In fact at first they seem to be a totally useless class, because they go down all the time and can't hit a barn door, but with every level they gain ACC (like everyone else) and like monks they gain tremendous amounts of health and endurance which let them become sturdy warriors. They just need time and are dependent on good weapons. You can play them defensively, offensively and also as AoE-Crowd-Controllers. As rogues they do profit a lot from buffs, debuffs and CC, so a wizards, druids and priests are good for them. Paladins combine very high defenses with great support and healing abilitites. They can also deliver high burst damage which can take out dangerous foes quickly, but they only can deal great damage twice per encounter until later when they get something called "Sacred Immolation" which is an AoE burning aura. Besides that they can turn any mediocre character into a great defender or dps guy just by buffing their ACC or their defenses. Besides that they are the best tanks in the game if you need something like that. 4.: He is a bit like a Mesmer, yes. Mind Control is abig part of his portfolio. Like an inversed monk (who needs to get hit in order to fuel his abilities) the cipher needs to hit foes in order to get focus with which he will pay for his spells. He does nearly as much single target damage as a rogue at the beginning, so he's not only a caster but also a good autoattacker. His low- to mid-level powers are not as powerful as the spells of wizards and other casters (in general), but he can use them as often as he has focus. Late on he gets some really good spells though. He is also a good supporter. His mind control spalls can turn really difficult fights into easy ones. Against tough foes he can become a bit useless - because if he can'tdeal a lot of damage he will run out of focus soon. So be sure to alwys target weak foes with a cipher in order to get as much focus per hit as possible. What's left are chanters, druids and priests. Those can all be build into great characters as well. Look into the build index, there are good inspirations for what you can do with every class. If you want to play a wizard then pleas do it. It's a wonderful class. You just need a bit of knowledge about the game machincs and what each spell does. But I think it's most fun to just go and find out yourself. Basically you can't go wrong with a wizard in the back row who uses implements with Blast for autoattacks and cast a spell every now and then. Secret tip: Envenomed Strike is an offensive talent that everyone can get. Pick it up as soon as you have Blast and an implement. It works with the blast and will poison everybody in blast range. That is superpowerful in the early game and will outbalance the weakness of the wizard in the first few levels until he gets more spells.