Boeroer

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.

There is a approach for a party fighter with great swords which makes him very sturdy and also do great damage: high MIG and INT, Rapid Recovery, Cloak of the Tireless Defender + any regeneration item like He Carries Many Scars plate armor. Then use an item which buffs the healing that you receive (Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvano's Amulet or Maneha's Armor - +25% healing received each), optimal would be to also get St. Borragia's Tears from a minor stronghold quest (+15% healing done) and get survival to 14 (you only need to have 14 when you camp, you can use items with a survival bonus for that - so having 12 survival is enough) in order to get +60% healing. You self healing will be so good that you won't go down easily even when you receive a lot of hits on the head all the time while swinging your sword. In very tough encounters, whenever a priest or druid drops healing spells on you you will get so much healing even from the weak spells that you will survive. Then later grab Tidefall a some point and your healing via draining (that Great Sword turns 20% of the damage you cause into healing) will make you even more sturdy. It's a low micro, fun to play approach that works on every difficulty setting with a party. When you suffer from low health then consider taking Wound Binding - it will restore your health completely (and not just 40%) once per rest because of all your healing buffs. Or sip potions of Infuse with Vital Essence now and then. Those also work with your buffs and will restore over 200 health. Have a look at old "The Engineer" build in this forums and combine his healing capabilities (plus survival) with the skills and style of the "Lady of Pain" which you can find here as well (look into the build index, they are both in there). It will be a great build for PoTD.

OK, thanks.

Great swords are fine. They do two types of damage which is very handy on PotD. You will find nice unique great swords (one that wounds the enemy and heals you with every strike, two that can knock over enemies when you land a critical hit, one that destroys vessels aka undead, one that does additional crush damage - that one you'll get early and so on). It's one of the weapon groups with the most uniques. Then there are estocs which look like more tapered great swords, but do only cause pierce damage. But they have inherent DR bypass and are good against heavy armored foes. A fighter with a great sword and thick armor can be tanky and deal good damage at the same time. He has the right abilities for it. He will not have to switch weapons a lot when he meets immune-to-that-damage-type enemies because his weapon has two damage types. I wouldn't choose a great sword when I want to do the absolute minmax build, but they are totally OK with a fighter - also on PoTD.

Not with a chanter who uses White Worms. In fact, with said chanter the whole castle is a joke once you have a few bodies piled up in some doorway... The bears are tougher then: no bodies for his White Worms.

Maybe, but at the moment bash will hit twice (it's a bug) - so if you have a shield with an on crit effect or a spell chance like Badgradr's Barricade/Dragon's Maw, then their special attacks (Thrust of Tattered Veils or Taste of the Hunt) will be triggered more often than before. Does the wounding "lash" of Drawn in Spring count as seperate hit for CW?

Torment's Reach and Turning Wheel you can have from lvl 1 on. So that's powerful enough for soloing per se. Monks are great in the early game. Tanking Dragons for longer than half a minute is only possible with an all-in defensive build. But you don't have to tank them in order to defeat them. For every dragon there's a trick.

And because - let's be honest - the high level abilities of a barb used to be pretty underwhelming. I mean HoF 1/rest was pretty lame while wizards could use Alacrity and Pull of Eora 1/encounter, rangers got Stunning Shots and Twinned Arrows and stuff like that. At higher levels mobs don't die from one HoF alone. But yeah - if you target 5 enemies with your HoF and dual wield you would get 50 hits if i'm not mistaken; 10 for each enemy. So they would each have 10 combusting wounds which will do 5 burn damage per tick for the rest of the duration of Combusting Wounds. With 20 (+INT) seconds duration this would mean 35 extra damage per one CW instance after 2o+ secs. Times ten = 350 against 0 DR. But against high DR it will be more like 70 or so. So it depends I guess. I will have to test that once I hit lvl 11. Could be really drastical if I combine that with the bash bug which hits twice (=75 hits with HoF) and a unlocked Unlabored Blade (Firebug will proc 2.5 times on avarage hitting 8 enemies every time -> meaning 75+ (2.55*8 = 20) = 95 hits total). But I guess nothing survives that and can still suffer CW after that. Maybe a dragon with adds. I tried out a Wall of Flames (which hits very quickly) wizard with Combusting Wounds yesterday and I have to say I wasn't too impressed by the performance. Combusting Wounds doesn't only come from rings and a wizard, but there's also a wand with spell chance by the way (Curaoc's Brand). Not that this is of much use for a barbarian.

Dammit! I remember that it did - looong time ago. Why not anymore? So stupid...

Yes, a reach weapon really helps to get the best out of carnage. Speaking of prone on crit: I used Hours of St. Rumbalt early on and even at lvl 9 I couldn't disable a lot of folks (also WF and PER 19). In a party you have so many possibilities to lower deflection, as a solo barb not so much. I used Aspirant's Mark and survival ACC bonus and it still wasn't as good as in a party. Dual sabres is still better than Hours of St. Rumbalt in most cases for me. It's also better because I use a Ring of Searing Flames quite often. It's better to hit faster with that thing so that you can stack as many combusting wounds as possible with carnage. I'm curious how Combusting Wounds behaves with Heart of Fury. In a big group it should result in a lot of hits that apply combusting wounds. Should be devastating...

The mantle is of little use against enemies who don't deal freeze damage.

Island Aumaua backstabbing arquebus (or blunderbuss) Arms Bearer Quick Switch rogue for the win! Lots of micro, but lots of one-shot kills, too. Add Deep Wounds Prestidigitator's Missiles, Ryona's Vembraces (when using blunderbusses), Cloak of Minor Missiles and Missile Scrolls, too. Powerful and is not getting in the way of all the melee guys.

Next thing I'll do is a White Worms abusing solo chanter. Hm... sounds kinda gross...

And if you find Rhymrgand's Mantle and combine it with plate then Caed Nua and Temple of Eothas lvl -1 will be a lot easier (if you don't want to sneak and pick locks all the time). It feels like you're only losing health, but not endurance. Very powerful item if you know how to use it. Maybe even more so when you're a pale elf.

Hehe - might be, never experienced that. I always lure the wolves to the bandits...

Just beware: interrups will be an issue at first.

Using a ranged rogue is inferior to a ranger in terms of dps - but not that much. So going ranged with Persistence and Deep Wounds and so on can be good. To prevent swarming you can either raise the deflection and DR of you rogues (enemies' AI looks for this) or you use you wizard to confuse or use Binding Web while the rogues wear stag helmets. The latter also helps with Sneak Attacks and Deathblows. Proven comps with a rogue is everything that sets up Sneak Attack and disables so the enemies can't attack the rogue. For example your Priest can cast Painful Interdiction (=weaken) and the wizard can cast Binding Web and you will have deathblow-able foes in a wide area. More than one rogue is not the best option (in my opinion). I know a lot of people love rogues because they do a lot of single target damage. And they can be useful for tanking out tough single enemies pretty fast. But the more rogues you add the more difficult your playthrough will be. But that's only my experience. I had PoTD playthroughs with one rogue, two rogues and even six rogues. The last one was the least pleasant playthrough I ever did and also the most difficult one (with a party). So I would say thinking that adding more rogues makes a party stronger is a rookie mistake - without wanting to offend anybody, I did it myself. However - to make two rogues work the same applies as for one rogue: AoE afflictions and disables. And maybe a thicker frontline. But stag helmets + Binding Web is a pretty solid way to get them going. One stag helmet you can get from VIsceris in Copperlane by the way (backer nps druid who stands left of the inn). Two rogues can be great alpha-strikers and take out the most dangerous foes at the start of the fight with Backstabs + Sneak (or even Deathblows) from arquebuses or blunderbusses/pistols. But you have to be at 2m range max to deliver Backstabs. So make sure you have either Fast Runner or Boots of Speed on them so that they can retreat behind the front line pretty fast. In my experience Escape is too slow (maybe they changed that). YOur paladin can join the team alpha strike with FoD from a gun. That way three enemies will be dead pretty soon. If two tanks are not enough to keep the enemy away from your rogues, your wizard can be build into a good offtank as well without loosing a lot of usefullness for CC. Put him into heavy armor and give him a shield to which he will switch when enemies reach him. He has awesome self buffs which should do the tanking job pretty well. Same with the priest. Give him a shield. He has great defensive buffs which will not only enhance the tankyness of your paladin and chanter but also for him. You would have 4 guys to guard two rogues - that should be enough.

All classes can do solo runs on Path of the Damned, yes. Even the barbarian who is said to be the weakest class for soloing can do it. I'm playing a barb on a PoTD solo run atm and it works out nicely - even with a low deflection build like mine (3 RES). But I think I will retrain into a tanky build once I get a good shield with bash (Badgradr's Barricade and later Dragon's Maw) and durgan steel. Bloodlust and Blood Thirst are a pretty neat combination when going solo for a slow but strong hitting barb. They even stack with Frenzy - and Blood Thirst also gets triggered by kills-by-spells like Firebug or scrolls and also by Retaliation and such things. It can turn you into a fast hitter even when you have all the slow things: low DEX, heavy armor, Vulnerable Attack and so on. I don't know if I can beat Llengrath or the Adra and Alpine Dragons with the barb (Concelhaut is easy because you can split his minons easily), but Thaos will be easy because I will be lvl 16 and he will be lvl 12. . The Radiant Spore was always easy for me compared to some other enemies. Don't know why people rate it to be so difficult.

Paladin also starts with 20 deflection, like rangers. Fighters 30, monks and chanters 25. The rest has 15 or even 10. When Sunbeam hits the druid has the equivalent of 40 deflection (and +20 to all tother defenses as well). Combine that with a shield and Weapon & Shield style as well as good RES and he's pretty good at tanking at the beginning of the game. It's the reason I still love tanky melee druids with shields who skip Spiritshift altogether. Of course also because they get Returning and Relentless Storm which let them "tank" like gods against mobs later on.

At the beginning the official companions are much better because they have the same level. Tanky builds (with not-maxed RES) for classes who start pretty squishy (because of low starting values) take some time, yes. And the others will not have so much more health and endurance. Funnily a druid with high RES and Weapon & Shield Style is not a bad tanker (for a caster) right from the start because he starts with 20 deflection and has Sunbeam (which blinds) at lvl 1.

And with that mantle, healing gear and survival bonus plus Chillfog you can actually have a second, quite powerful healing effect while blinding and damaging the enemies besides Veteran's Recovery. And you can trigger it at will. That is - let's face it - supercool! Maybe you shouldn't avoid getting hit by your own Chillfog after all. Health is no problem with Infuse with Vital Essence. I understand that in solo play getting surrounded is not good. But in party play this is one of the coolest tank approaches. A bit like The Dragon Thrashed + Ancient Memory - only with ice. And the stacking of Chillfog is no nice - also because of all the interrupts and the combination with Combusting Wounds. The Bilestomper also works like this. Attract the enemies, cast nasty stuff on yourself and let your friends shoot/cast from afar. I'm also planning a Fireball build which does it this way: dropping Fireballs onto your own head while tanking. You can stack 17 Fireball uses per rest and 1 per encounter with a wizard. SHould be enough for every encounter. Or maybe I try to do that with a Shield Rogue and Direballs + Adept Evasion. He could use things like Binding Web scrolls to set up Deathblows for the Fireballs and wear a stag helmet to be immune to stuck. But sadly you get the good fireball items a bit late. So that build would take some time before taking off. A wizard could live up to the theme right from the start. Also with Combusting Wounds + Wall of Flames (which is superpowerful). Oh, and I forgot Flame Shield, too.

ROFL