Boeroer

Thanks. Which one do you want to use - the one with the shield or the one with the Estoc? I have to say in a party with more sturdy frontliners the estoc guy is more fun. Because oif his higher DEX he can dish out invocations faster (DEX reduces the recovery after an invocation which will stop your chanting). So his dps will be better and you might not need the high deflection of the shield version. If you need extra tankyness then I would use the first one.

If they say a ranger can out dps a rogue they mean the combined damage of ranger + animal companion. And as long as both are alive and hitting that might be true. Don't forget that rangers can shoot not only two arrows per shot (which is like Deathblows against 0 DR) all the time while the pet can punch through almost any DR, but you will also always stun with every shot - with Driving Flight and Twinned Arrows you will stun up to three enemies per shot. Your pet will crit then and do Sneak Attacks and you will crit a lot, too. That forms a good synergy with Apprentice's Sneak Attack for persistent 15% damage increase. Also, with Twinned Arrows I think it's smart in some cases to use Penetrating Shot. It will give you the equivalent of +10 damage per shot. As I said, I don't think DEX is better for dps on a bow ranger, but power does not necessarily equal high dps. With a bow ranger is it more important (in my opinion) to shoot as fast as possible in order to stunlock enemies and/or to proc as many Returning Storms, confusions and whatnot as possible. This is way more important than a few % dmg from MIG in order to punch through DR. But as Kaylon said: normally a bow ranger dumps CON and RES and has plenty of points for both MIG and DEX (and PER). And if you already are near 0 recovery (higer levles) I would go for MIG since DEX doesn't do as much for you as in the beginning where you hadn't that much speed buffs.

You are right. Same with Rose of Salthollow. You can send a party member to get those items. Also in the WM where you can save the two villagers (Kaylee and Lurgolder) from the burning house you can send party members.

You should at least take one invocation of the highest level. If you don't, your phrase counter will stop at the higest invication level you have. If you only have tier 3 invocations, the counter will stop there. If you don't plan to use Fireballs I won't recommend Scion of Flame. The Dragon Thrashed is a damage over time ability. Those don't work with Scion of Flame. You still gain +4 burn DR though. With the Drake's Ambassador I used Fireballs a lot so it was ok to use Scion of Flame - and it also was fitting the theme.

One of the best things about the Devil is that she's a construct. She can't get mind controlled (nice if you go against Dank Spores, Vithracks and all that stuff) and she is immune to all poison spells (there's a lot of that. Many vessels do that for example). You can use her to attract foes and then drop Noxious Bursts and Malignant Clouds and whatever AoE freidnly fire poison spells you have on her head. She won't feel it. Also great for tanking enemies who do poison damage like all the blobs and whatnot. She was a great team with my Bilestomper wizard. Standing side by side an bathing in bile while the mobs melted... awesome! You can also give her dual sabres. You want a bit or armor on a dual wielding frontliner or flanker anyway. And her high RES helps against interrupts. Also: Bittercut's poison defense malus won't do anything to her. I even once gane her dual Bittercuts with the Helwax Mold. Vile Thorns come out like an instant spell (despite the real druid's version) and works with Deathblows. You can dish out 4 quick Vile Thorns that way in a blink and clear whole groups if you need to. Or you pair Bittercut with FLames of Fair Rhian and get 2 Vile Thorns and 3 Direballs™ per rest. With Aspirant's Mark she will be like a powerful rogue/caster hybrid. Edit: Just watch out when you have a caracter with St. Ydwen's Redeemer who gets mind controlled. He might hit the Devil and then there's a chance that she's instantly dead - I mean like removed from the party, not k.o.

Just a suggestion: maybe you want change one fighter for a chanter? With Ancient Memory, Beloved Spirits and Veteran's Recovery as well as Rise Again he can be really useful and will prevent party wipeouts. He will have the same regeneration than a fighter but also heals in an AoE and deals more damage at the same time. Great trick is using chokepoints and cast White Worms over and over again (turn off the gib option in the game options) until you get The Dragon Thrashed. This makes the gameÄs beginning - Act I basically - very easy compared to using a fighter (also because you already have one). Once you hit lvl 13 I would retrain the paladin intoi a Sacred Immolation monster (max MIG and INT, high PER). I had a Dragon Thrashed chanter team up with a Scared Immolation Paladin once and the game got way too easy on PoTD. Anopther nice trick is to use the chanter with a damaging chant (first Come Sweet Winds, later The Dragon Thrashed), blocking a chokepoint with him and cast Withdraw on him. He will be invulnerable but won't stop singing, damaging foes. Mad Hornet will go down very quickly if you don't watch out. I mean it's ToI after all. Maybe give him a bit more CON? Or Fast Runner...

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.