Boeroer

Right, like if you want to get the Rose of Salthollow in Cliban Rilag(CON >= 16) or The Golden Gaze (I think DEX >= 16). edit: I think if you want the dwarven prostitute to join your stronghold you need to have CON >= 18. But I never did that myself.

I think it's always like that: after level 9/10 or so the difficulty starts to drop significantly. Bounties and dragon excluded.

ROFL! I like your love letter and also like the animal companions. Nice trick with the Shieldbearer by the way. Did you know that wounding weapons trigger Predator's Sense of your wolf? So an early weapon like Persistence (hunting bow) is perfect for that. Your pet's damage per hit will match that of rogues then. Makes it even more awesome. Another nice combination: a char with Shod-in-Faith boots who's standing next to the wolf. Once the spell "Consecrated Ground" triggers the wolf will live much longer. What else? A wolf can be a great tractor for your Ectopsychic Echo, too. And with a paladin who knows "Behold the Martyr" even a dead wolf can be of great use. Reinforcing Exhortation also works on the animal companion. A Litany against Minor/Major Afflictions is also good on your pet if you like to send it in first. One of the best things for me is Triumph of the Crusaders - combined with a high dps pet build. It kills fast enough that it gets healed all the time and can't die (unless the target is very sturdy). Your ranger can also help with the killing, just let the pet do the last blow. When you focus on weaker targets and have a Litany on the pet it won't go down as long as it can kill (aided with Persistence). If done correctly, it turns into a supertank with superdamage. You can put Champion's Boon on top if you fell like creating an even more awesome wolf. Edit: By the way: doies anybody know what will happen if you cast "Barring Death's Door" on an animal companion? I suppose nothing...?

Hm... I can't say what's better (dps wise) when you do the math. Kaylon for example will surely know where the break even point with DR is. But for me it feels better if such a ranger has high DEX. Warbows are not very fast - and while you can have one that is speed enchanted it's not the best one overall (it is for dps, but dps is not that important compared to CC/disables and such). There are others war bows which have nice on-crit effects (Borresaine stuns, Sabra Marie cnfuses) so you might want to shoot as fast as possible in order to deliver as much CC as possible. This is also true for Stunning Shots. Stunlocking is very powerful and helps your (and your pet's) dps more than some points in MIG. I would say: if I'd have a chanter with Sure Handed Ila and my items were all durganized and I had the Gauntlets of Swift Action I might favour MIG over DEX. I would have to playtest that (actually never played ranger with war bows - Stormcaller and Persistence are such awesome bows that I never use war bows with rangers - they all go to my ciphers ). But generally I would favour DEX over MIG with a ranger who uses bows and try to stack DR bypass somehow instead.

I would give Aspirant's Mark to the Devil instead to Kana. She has more accuracy an will hit better with it. But it's not too important. The best sturdy setup for the Devil is (in my opinion): Godynsthunyr + Badgradr's Barricade - but both comes quite late. A sabre with a shield would be a good substitute until then. My paladin would get the Outworn Buckler from Gilded Vale's blacksmith (unless I have a very special build) and a marking weapon (like Shame or Glory, together with Coordinated attacks) plus two guns for FoD strikes. Darcozzi Paladini is nice because the special talent "Inspiring Exhortaion" (+10 ACC) stacks with marking (+10 ACC) and Coordinated Attacks (+10 ACC), meaning +30 ACC for one party member every encounter. Or have a look at a thread here in the forum names "Damaging Healbot". It's a nice build idea around a Kind Wayfarer healer paladin. I would recommend a caster in addition to your party. You only have 5 members so far. A priest is always nice. His buffs make the game a lot more easy. The first levels can be a bit lame but once he gets access to spell lvl 2 it's all good. A wizard with Chillfog is also very helpful.

Was Alpine Dragon 17 RES? In order to get the Vembraces? I think it was 17. I think there's a MIG check with 18 somewhere. And somehow the number 19 also rings a bell. But can't say I saw anything above that.

Just turn Kana Rua into your main tank by giving him a shield and weapon & shield talent. Use the chant "Come Sweet Winds of Death" to attract foes and to give them raw damage. Use Whisper of Treason with your cipher whenever possible. It's great to use it before the enemy reaches you - they will turn against each other. Use Chillfog with your wizard. Cast it in front of Kana Rua who tanks enemies so that they have to stand inside the Chillfog. They will get blinded and damaged (even the charmed ones) while Kana's chant will damage them, too (not the charmed ones). Use your priest to buff - not to heal. I mean you should heal with him when things go bad but your primary focus should be buffs and debuffs. Give him Interdiction and Painful Interdiction. That way you will have a strong weakaning debuff 1/encounter which lowers fortitude and will - that is good for your cipher's Whisper of Treason (targets will) and your wizard's Chillfog (targets fortitude). Inspiring Radiance is also very good as an opener to give your whole party + 10 ACC for the initial strike. This game is all about stacking ACC and debuffing enemies defenses as well as disabling them. If you can do that you will always win (against foes that are roughly your level). Your MIG doesn't matter if you can't hit the enemy. Your defenses don't have to be superhigh if the enemy can't hit you because he's debuffed and/or disabled. THe game doesn't work so well if you only run into the fight and start hitting. With those tactics the game should be pretty easy with your gang - even on PotD. I'm playing a solo barb with 3 RES and 2 DEX on PoTD atm and I am in Caed Nua right now. If I can do it you can succeed, too. We also have a guy here who completed the game as a lvl 1 ranger on PoTD. He just used the right tactics. So just try a bit more, you will succed at last.

"Actively" is the keyword here. Like popping your favorite music tape into the toaster, sitting down and listening to the songs. Or going to a Justin Bieber concert or whatever people do who... actively listen to music.

I guess they meant Spell Binding (Ring of Searing Flames) or Spell Chance (Curoc's Brand). The ring had auto hit, so I assume it's the ring they were speaking of. There s no item I know of that triggers CW when you receive a crit.

That's true. And I really don't know why OBS made it like that.

Also keep in mind that MIG (and INT of course) can help a lot when it comes to (self)healing like with Shod-in-Faith boots, Veteran's and Constant Recovery, Ancient Memory and so on - and also casting damaging scrolls. If you have to use a consumable scroll which will not "regenerate" after resting it's better to get the most out of it. DEX doesn't help at all with those two things. That's why DEX has a lower priority than MIG for me most of the time.

I normally don't listen to that kind of music - but I have friends who do. Honestly speaking I don't actively listen to any kind of music at all...

Well - some invocations can be really helpful, even with 3 DEX. Like reviving, charming and summoning for example. Or paralyzing when you want to set up a cone shaped debuff right before one of your teammates launches a damaging AoE attack. E.g. a monk who wants to execute Torment's Reach and you paralyze the group with your cone first right before he strikes.

As far a I know, interrupts don't get influenced by DEX (of attacker or defender) at all. They will just add the interrupt value (0.35, 0.5, 0.75 or 1 sec) onto your recovery time. Crits and grazes work as usual if I do remember correctly.

Yeah. So it's totally cool to give a melee dps guy who is normally not exposed to attacks 0 recovery AND high DEX. It's just so that most melee frontliners can use a bit of CON and RES and therefore need to lower some other stats - and DEX is the least painful for a dual wielder with fancy speed buffs (or so it seems).

Hehehe - finally someone noticed. I do that with nearly every build (at least the newer ones) - using a song that is already there and twisting it a bit. Most of them are a bit more popular though (see "Ice Ice Baby" with the Chillfog build and so on). Also I think that necroing a build thread is totally ok. They are meant to diccuss and develop.

Chanters have one healing spell, but it's bad (at least that's my conclusion ). But they have an aura that works like Constant Recovery of a fighter, and it has the AoE range of their chants (=very big). It even stacks with Veteran's Recovery. They can reach better regeneration this way than fighters while also healing everything around them a bit while chanting. They have buffing chants and invocations. But those are not too good. The paralyzing invocation is one of the best though, especially when Brisk Recitation has lowered the chanting taime a lot so you build up phrases more quickly. White Worms is also superpowerful if you know the tricks how to make it so. But the most effective approach for me is to combine high "normal" defenses (without chants and invocations, just talents and items) with damaging chants. First of all those chants attrack enemies and secondly most mobs will die before they can harm you too bad. Especially the Dragon Thrashed is so powerful that you don't have to tank long. Just long enough to survive the first 40 seconds or so whithout loosing too much health. One thing with chanters: If you give them 3 DEX and never use invocations you're good. But if you want to build up phrases quickly and then do a lot of invocations please note that your recovery after an invocation will be abysmal and you won't chant in that time. That means not healing as well as well as no quick phrase reloading. So high DEX can help you a lot if you want to use Invocations as quickly as possible. If you don't want to build a tanking chanter but a ranged one I highly recommend high DEX in order to cast things like "Killers Froze Stiff" or "White Worms" or "Seven Nights" and whatnot. Edit: edited the text a bit, sorry...

In my opionion cipjhers are still powerful because of the cheap mind controls like Whisper of Treason. In (solo) encounters you can start by charming one enemy, the rest will hit him instead of you - you can regain focus and then cast Puppet Master (which lasts way longer and is also not too expensive) and rinse and repeat. Against vessels or other immune foes you need to do something else, like paralyzing or Antipathetic Field (awesome when you're soloing and have high movement speed, the casting range is huge) or other stuff, but usually those tactics work great. The problem of focus famine when fighting high DR enemies I overcome by using guns with quick switch. Whenever I need focus desperately I switch and fire. Ciphers more than double their power if you have two of them instead of one. Be it Ectopsychic Echo, Going Between, Pain Block, Tactical Meld or Reaping Knives. Especially Reaping Knives get ridicoulous when they cast them on each other: both ciphers will get the focus from the raw damage they cause as well as the focus from the damag the other cipher does. To basically you doulbe the fopcus gain for both ciphers and you will overflow with focus after a few seconds while doing aweseome damage even against high DR foes. When you combine two flanker Hearth Orlan ciphers (played like rogues) with Phantom Foes, max flanking bonus from camping and items, coordinating or vicious weapons and later reaping knives they are a lot of fun.

Barbs seems the way to go specially because we can abuse weapon procs. I guess I would need very high dex/per to abuse them right? You need high PER, not necessarily high DEX. Dual Wielding, Two Weapon Style and Frenzy will lower your recovery a lot so high DEX is not needed. It would be useful when you decide to use Tall Grass because there's no dual wielding and two handed style then. But it's ok then because with a reach weapon you can park him behind the front line and poke from a distance. You don't need that much armor and CON then and can put something into DEX.

It doesn't negate it, it only doesn't do as much for you as if you'd have a slow weapon or even one with reloading animation. At first the your recovery gets calculated and after that the DEX bonus gets applied. So let's assume you have 100 frames of recovery and 20 DEX (30% speed bonus), then your 100 would be reduced by 30% which would mean 70 frames (don't know if it's calculated like that, most certainly not, but let's just pretend it's like this to make my point clear). You'd win 30 frames because of your DEX. Now, with dual wielding your weapon recovery gets halved. Two Weapon Style lowers this even more. Most other speed mods get multiplied with that. You might end up with - let's say 20 frames of recovery (or even zero if you can stack a lot of buffs). Now look at your bonus you get from DEX: 30% of 20 is 6 frames which will give you 14 frames for 20 DEX. You only gain 6 frames for an investment of 10 points of DEX. In the first case you gained 30 frames. The ratio of DEX to frame gain is 10/30 in the first case and 10/6 in the second. If you have reached 0 recovery and put your DEX to 3 you won't see a lot of difference while attacking. You will be a bit slower because DEX not only lowers your recovery, but also speeds up the attack animation itself (and reloading animation - those are not affected by "attack speed" buffs). So it's not completely useless even if you have 0 recovery. However - it does less for you than with slower "base" recovery. That's why DEX is not super benifical for your attack speed when you already have a very fast recovery phase. BUT - some of those speedups like Dual Wielding, Two Handed Style and Durgan Steel and so on only affect weapon attacks. Every other action like drinking potions, casting and stuff will be superslow in animation and recovery if you have 3 DEX. YOu will get interreupted a lot while drinking or casting if you stand in a mob and DEX and RES are low. Your superslow animation will start all over again when you get interrupted, it's a chore. I play a solo barb atm with 3 RES and 2 DEX and 0 recovery - but when it comes to drinking and casting I have to be supercareful not to get interrupt-locked. But I like the challenge.

Time Parasite speeds you up like a potion of Alacrity would, but for a longer duration - and it slows the enemy down. Like Alacrity, Frenzy and stuff it gets multiplied, not added. It is expensive. Normally I don't start with it. My "usual" cipher is an Island Aumaua with 4 weapons sets, three of them fiulled with guns, and the Coil of Resourcefulness or Quick Switch. Last weapon set is melee with shield or dual wielding. I usually go for +20% against flanked as a camping bonus and put on an item which does +10% to flanked and Archer's Gloves. And I also add Apprentice's Sneak Attack. With Biting Whip I will have a dmg. mod of +95% without MIG bonus for my shots. So I start the fight with a low cost mind control spell like Whisper of Treason, then usually Phantom Foes. Then I shoot all my guns and will have max focus. If I see that focus will overflow then I stop at no. 2. Then I cast Time Parasite and go into melee. With 0 recovery you will generate focus very quickly and you can cast CC spells again. If I have Reaping Knives it's the spell I want to cast before Time Parasite. With this strategy it feels like it's worth the focus cost.

A monk with dual weapons and high CON is absolutely great and sturdy anough, Torment's Reach is a Full Attack meaning that he will strike with both weapons in quick succession causein an AoE crush cone which can be huge each time he swings - but he is not low micro. A fighter can be a good low micro hybrid between dps and sturdyness. Knockdown is also a Full Attack. A high CON/MIG/INT barb with thick armor, dual weapons and Shod-in-Faith boots plus Veteran's Recovery and Savage Defiance is low micro and sturdy.

Speaking of party synergy once more: The Devil of Caroc is really good as a frontliner rogue with shield - preferably Badgrad's Barricade + Godansthunyr war hammer or a sabre. Then pair her with a wizard who does poison AoE spells like Malignant Cloud or Noxious burst (like Bilestomper wizard). She's immune to that - so you can just drop those spells on her while she attacks foes. Some of those spells will weaken which also counts for Sneak Attack/Deathblows. It's an aweseome team. Mad Hornet is a build that you would want for a hireling I guess. The stats of the Devil are not so cool for that build and more importantly you can't take off her breatsplate - which is cool for melee but quite useless for somebody like the Mad Hornet.

The description of Time Parasite is a bit misleading. With high INT I constantly get a duration around 90 seconds which is enough for most fights on PoTD if you have a party.

Hahaha... somewhat true.