Boeroer

That's right. They are a bit bugged. Sometimes the raw lash doesn't get applied and then you have to reequip them.

Although Heart of Fury (1/encounter) now cries out for dual wielding. A Firebrand rogue does pretty aweseome damage by the way.

I agree to all of that. I made a dual cipher build - because the cipher's buffs (that he can't cast on himself) are awesome on a cipher. The reaping knifes trick with dual ciphers is enough reason to take two of them. You get +100% focus that way.

Dex is the least important stat for a dual wielder - but for casting I still wouldn't dump it completely. Low CON + healing can prevent you from going down in a fight, but you will have to rest more often because of health, that's true. As I said I would go the second way I mentioned above and don't dump CON. You can do with a bit lower PER if you use you first power to paralyze or prone you target. Very high RES is also not needed. That's enough spare points to max out MIG and INT without dumping any stat.

I don't think so. Ciphers can get +40% damage bonus with Soul Whip alone. Add +20% from Savage Attack and you're doing good damage without any might bonus. You can also put on an item with flanking bonus (stalking boots or whatever) and concentrate your skill points on survival: +damage vs. flanked targets. Then abuse Phantom Foes: I think you can stack a bonus against flanked of +55%: +10% from the item, +30% from camping bonuses, +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack. All in all that's +95% bonus damage. +20% against flanked with survival is more realistic though and can be achieved quite early. So I'd say +85% MIG doesn't play that major role here, so it's ok to leave it at 10. More PER will be more effective than more MIG. It will let you crit more often (also with spells). But if you want to take a more tanky path and trade a little bit dps for a lot more survivability, I'd take Veteran's Recovery, max MIG and INT and go for 14 survival in order to receive +60% healing - plus a belt of bountiful healing. With 20 MIG and that your regeneration will get buffed by +115%, meaning it will be more than twice as strong. Great in combination with any Potion of Regeneration. Your self heals will be very powerful then. This way you can even wear thinner armor and still survive most melee situations without retreating at all. It's easier to play since you don't have to watch out so much and you don't have to reposition yourself all the time. Then you can of course dump RES and CON and max nearly everything except DEX (which will be around 16) and have a perfect glass cannon. This will provide the highest dps and it even still works with Veteran's Recovery as decribed above, but your health and interrupts will be a problem - so you'd have to watch out like a hawk: getting surrounded means instant KO, eating disengagement attacks can be your end. But if you have a good frontline and manage to disable your current target all the time with Mental Binding and stuff it's also doable. I personally would go the second way, but that's just me. The first approach feels mor like a rogue and might also be a lot of fun to play if you're a bit more cautious.

The ranged monk is much more powerful after lvl 7 and less squishy though - without any special equipment. But he requires more active play and micromanagement, whereas the ranger requires nearly none in comparison (as long as you don't want to micromanage the pet too much). Blaster wizards with an implement with on-crit-effects and Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom is also a very powerful ranged character. Speaking of blast: after you get Rot Skulls with the druid (spell level 6) I would completely retrain to a pure ranged druid with implements and Envenomed Strike. Very powerful!

The link I posted... ? Or do you mean the Stormcaller Ranger? It's a normal hunting bow ranger with Heart of the Storm talent and Stormcaller as the main weapon. It's nothng special talent- and ability wise. Stormcaller itself makes it so powerful. Key abilites besides the usual bow related things are Twinned Arrows and Driving Flight in order to proc Returning Storm as often as possible.

The best ranged chars (in my opinion): - The Long Pain Monk - Stormcaller Ranger - Blaster Wizard There's a class build in this forum for a monk like that. Fortunately, it was written by me. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/87160-class-build-the-witch-doctor-mid-ranged-dps-monk-disabler/

Oh, you didn't put that in? Ks ks ks...

I had no doubt about that. Thanks!

That was also one of my favourites. We should make a sticky thread...

Don't be disappointed by the early game chanter. You can really make him worthwhile with chokepoints + Come Swwet Winds and then White Worms. After lvl 9 he will be great. Stormcaller ranger + shock based druid like Batsh!t is a good combination. Sagani and Hiravias can do this good enough. Remember that in the early game (that's the hardest part) the official companions are one level above hirelings. This makes a huge difference because they have more ACC and defenses as you can get with simple stat minmaxing. So from early to mid game it's more easy with the officials. Pallegina can be made into a pretty nice, tanky ranged burst shooter before she switches to weapon + Outworn Buckler. Take Wrath of the Five Suns and two arquebuses or blunderbusses (if you want to hit targets with low DR like casters mainly) and focus on FoD and on kill effects as well as on supporting with Lay on Hands, Exhortations, Coordinated Attacks + marking and buckler after shooting. Later, with Sacred Immolation, she will be good enough for high AoE damage as well.

I laughed so hard when Direballs (Deathblows with Fireballs) came out.

It was so funny. It still is...

ROFL - Andrea, wielder of Buttercut, where have you been?

Might doesn't matter too much, with +50% from Sneak + 150% from Backstab (and maybe +100 from Deathblows later on) the puny effect of might is neglectible. Constitution shouldn't be too low, but I guess 10 will be ok if you kill single foes quickly enough and don't run right into mobs. Dexterity is not as important as you might think. Dual wielding itself gives you a 50% speed bonus, Two Handed Style another +20%. Then you can have things like Outlander's Frenzy (+25%) and durgan steel for your weapons (+15%). So a bonus from DEX doesn't do as much as for somebody who's wielding a two hander or a bow and so on. Perception is always nice for a rogue. The more crits the better. And interruots help you to survive. An enemy that gets interrupoted all the time can't fight back. Intelligence is more important if you're solo - in a party others can provide the afflictions for your sneak attacks and deathblows. But you don't want to gimp your invisibility's duration too much, so I wouldn't dump it. Resolution (for me) is more important than most other stats on a dual wielding melee rogue. I hate to get interrupted. You dps suffers and you will probably get killed. Too many critical hits are also very bad for a rogue's whimpy endurance. Always remember: a dead rogue deals zero damage. So, as you can see, I think you an have a fairly balanced stat spread without gimping your character. If you want to take Veteran's Recovery (which can be pretty nice on a dual wielding rogue to prevent knockouts) then I would raise MIG and INT after maxing PER. Then put points into CON and RES and then DEX.

Not the same, but it got better. Dual wielding sabres seems to be a good choice - because they have high base damage and it seems that you an hit more than once with backstab out of stealth. And with Feign Death dual wielding gives you more hits in 6 seconds because you will hit way faster than with a single weapon.

px1_rapier_spelltongue That's the name you have to use in the console: 1.: iroll20s 2.: additem px1_rapier_spelltongue 1 It will appear in the first free slot in your characters' inventory, not the stash (except there is no free slot in your inventory).

You have to know your chanters. They are way better on highest difficulties than on lower ones, because the fights last way longer. Chanters are very powerful in the early game and then after lvl 9. Early game because you can call that very powerful phantom (which becomes quite meh on higher levels) and because of the "White Worms" invocation which works over and over again on every dead body. As long as you don't reload the dead bodies won't disappear and you can lure enemy groups onto dead bodies over and over again, tank with the chanters until they both have 3 phrase points and then *boom* - enemies are dead. It's very very powerful once you know what to do. And it stays to be powerful even at higher levels. After lvl 9 you can have "The Dragon Thrashed" chant, which does awesome AoE damage just via chanting. And it stacks with itself. So you only need to tank and sing while everything gets killed around you. If you have two chanters it's even better. Those two tanks will jump to the top of your party's damage list. Good if you like him. Bittercut and Sword of Daenysis don't belong to the same Weapon Focus. As long as you didn't pick a Weapon Focus yet, that's ok. But I highly recommend picking one and use Bittercut together with another sabre. Like Resolutuon or any other sabre that you can enchant by yourself. THat way your Flames of Devotion will hit harder and you will have +6 accuracy for both weapons. Lots of ACC bonuses don't stack. I would skip Blessing because it costs you a 1/rest spell that you can spend otherwise. Instead, take Inspiring Radiance for the priest. It adds +10 ACC and stacks with Zealous Focus. YOu can cast Holy Radiance right before you hit with your paladin's FoD strikes in order to get +36 ACC bonus for those two attacks. Darcozzi is great for buffig the ACC of his party members, but you need the talent "Inspiring Exhortation" for that. With it you not only free your party members from affliction, but also give them +10 ACC which stacks with everything. So, he's great as a supporter - also good for the front row. There he could use the Outworn Buckler, which would boost the front row's defenses by +5. With Armor of Faith it's the same: use Zealous Endurance and use the priest to cast other useful stuff. As a second row dps guy he's certainly not the best choice. His higher defenses are wasted and he has no special features for dps except FoD. Here, a barbarian or a rogue would be way better, especially with that weapon. Also a cipher would do better with that thing. It's NEVER wrong to bring a priest. If your druid is supposed to go into melee fight then dumping resolve or other stats that can be crucial for surviving is not a good tactic. I don't like Spiritshift as main dps tool too much because AoE damage or CC spells are mch more important than single target melee damage - but it can be fun and you are very flexible. Casting or hitting, you can do both. However, on PoTD you will be dead even more quickly if you don't watch out. One way to solve the issue is to use camping bonuses which give you up to +60% healing received (14 survival) and then use Moonwell and the priest's spells do get continous healing while you're attacking - or you skip shapeshifting altogether and concentrate on shock damage and CC spells. Druids with higher RES and a shield make surprisingly sturdy frontliners. You can then cast Returning Storm, Relentless Storm and later even Avenging Storm. YOu then will have a caster that is not squishy but still dishes out lots of damage and CC via spells. Way more useful than any conventional fighter tank in a party. - I would keep the two chanters and wait till lvl 9 (Dragon Thrashed) and then decide again - ditch the Darcozzi paladin and take a high PER MIG INT DEX dps barb for the same role: behind the frontliners, poking at the enemies, knockem them prone in an AoE with carnage. Use priests Radiance and Paladins Zealous Focus to buff his ACC. - If you want to ditch either the priest or the druid, I would keep the priest. But honestly I would keep both and use the druid more as a caster and not for melee. If you think the priest is too squishy then give him a shield plus hatchet. He doesn't need to autoattack with that sceptre anyway - he's not good at that. He has aweseom buffs and damaging spells which you should focus on. A preist that does a lot of autoattacks is either a very special build, of very low level or doing something horribly wrong. Or ditch the druid and use a blaster wizard instead. Those are great with the sceptre and dominate lots of enemies all the time with autoattacks. A wizard as well as priests have awesome self buffs which raise their defenses so that they shouldn't get killed quickly. In general: a general PoTD playthorugh gets more easy the more casters you bring. Early game is a bit tougher, but then they outshine everything else. Especially in tough encounters you will see the difference. You can build most casters into good frontliners that are tanky enough to hold the line.

They said so in the Technical Discussion forum - but who knows if that was the "official" statement. If it would be considered dual wielding the recovery should be halved by default also. Then it won't be a disadvantage to have normal bash on a shield any more. You could then make it really worthwhile with Two Weapon Style.

10 PER / 10 RES also works. Doesn't really matter. No difference in overall performance. It's just important to have high MIG and CON and not too low INT (esp. with Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith - but it's also important for Torment's Reach).

Backstab was buffed from +100% bonus damage to +150%. That bonus stacks with the bonus from Sneak Attack and also Deathblows. Sneak Attack's bonus will be added every time because attacking from stealth or invisibility also counts as Sneak Attack. Backstab also works with ranged weapons if you're 2m away (maximum). So - an backstab from an arquebus can be pretty deadly. Daggers or Stilettos however - although the classic weapons for backstabbing, don't do anything special with backstabs and are rather weak because they have low base damage and normally you can't do a lot of backstabs in quick succession. Only exception is Feign Death (see below). There are no potions for invisibility. However, you can backstab from stealth (there's individual stealth now) at the start of the encounter. In addition to that, there are some talents for the rogue which grant invisibility. There are also two items (that I remember) which can be used to become invisible. The talents are Shadowing Beyond and Feign Death. Shadowing Beyond makes you invisible two times per rest and will vanish once you cast a spell or start an attack, but those attacks will count as backstabs. You can use Feign Death once per encounter and it sends you prone and protects you from damage for some time - after that you will get up and be invisible for a base duration of 6 seconds. At the moment this invisibility stays active even if you attack. Which means you can squeeze in some more backstabs if you're fast. The items I mentioned are the Cape of the Master Mystic and the soulbound mace Nightshroud. The cape makes you invisible when you receive a critical hit - which is very convenient because the enemy will stop attacking you. You can then flee or attack with a backstab (which will make you visible again). This works once per encounter and also gives you +12 deflection. Nightshroud gives you one additional use of Shadowing Beyond per rest - so you will have 3/rest. Maybe there are other means of adding uses per rest that I'm not aware of - I don't play many rogues these days. There are also experts on this forum who tested the mechanics of Backstab and exactly know which attacks can be done as backstabs (Full Attacks for example), how big the window of opportunity is and so on.

If you tell me the ingame name I will tell you the game object name.

Since you have high MIG and also INT I guess you want to take Sacred Immolation. If you do that (and maybe also have Flames of Devotion) most people also take Scion of Flame. That also works with the Wrath. It's like a more powerful Minoletta's Missiles spell. It has it's own DR bypass and can one-shot some casters or hurt them severely. Tougher enemies get injured and marked with sworn enemy. Combined with two following shots from a gun with FoD this can be a great opener before switching to weapon & shield. This way your tank can contribute to the offense of the party even at lower levels (below 13) without gimping his defenses too much. I like the Wrath a lot - but my paladins are never 100% full defensive tanks, so there will be other opinions about this. I played my Pallegina like the Engineer Fighter build: good defenses (but not maxed) when in melee mode, but some talents and items for shooting missiles and guns (Arms Bearer, Penetrating Shot, Prestidigitator's Missiles, Ryona's Vembraces, Coil oft Ressourcefulness, Cloak of Minor Missiles). That way I could unleash a whole barrage of flaming balls, minor missiles and burning gunshots at the enemies at the beginning of a fight and then tank and burn with Sacred Immolation what was left. It was effective and great fun - but that's not a 100% tank of course. But works well with you stats.

And Chillfog is one of the best spells there is - especially because you can have it at lvl 1 and it has that great debuff. But until you get that crossed patch the blinding effect is pretty annoying, it targets fortitude - and once you catch that you get hit pretty often by your own Chillfog. With the patch it's awesome. The Bilestomper variant has a defense against his own spells that is >230 without resting bonuses/spells/potions/scrolls or any other buffs that you have to cast. To be honest most of the time it's total overkill. But it spares you the fuzz of buffing - instead you can just cast your poisonous stuff right from the start. I also wanted to make something useful out of a Mountain Dwarf. But as I said: the ice version is also great. Even if you don't manage do completely miss yourself with Chillfog you still have the very high DR of a pale elf which obviously helps a lot - even if it doesn't nullify the damage.