Boeroer

I think Azurro still does that. At least he did in a 3.0 playthrough of mine (two times Rebel's Call).

Druid make better "tanks" than wizards. Tanking + Returning & Relentless Storm just add up nicely. I had a lot of fun with such a druid tank. One of my favourite builds - and very simple, too.

Dorftek HAS Rimecutter and is willing to use the Mold - it's all in the opening post. You can go to Lle a Rhemen and use the dial there to skip time really fast: just hit the "wait" option until Azurro shows up.

Duplicating Mosquito would be worth testing

Flick of the Wrist (FotW) working on soulbounds' universal weapon focus: it's not the case any more. At least last time I checked with version 3.01. Best weapon would be Drawn in Spring I guess - duplicated or with the Unlabored Blade. It's wounding enchantment stacks so dps wise this would be very powerful. Also because Daggers have an inherent +5 ACC bonus that stacks with the +4 from FotW. If you are ok with switching weapon sets then four stilettos are also very nice: first set is with Azureith's Stiletto and Bleak Fang - after they triggered their spells (which are 1/encounter), switch to dual Vent Pick (or Vent Pick with Misery's End) or something like that. Vent Pick's spell chance got fiexed in 3.02. Or duplicate Bleak Fang. It has +6 DR bypass (+11 with Vulnerable Attack) - that's pretty awesome for such a fast weapon. And it will proc Touch of Rot twice per encounter.

You can enter Act III. Who told you that nonsense? You just shouldn't jump into the pit ant the end of Act III because there's no return after that. But that's really the end of the game, before the final boss fight. Use Drawn in Spring with Badgradr's Barricade (WMI inside Durgan's Battery). It's bash attack procs Thrust of Tattered Veils on crit. No limit per encounter. Drawn in Spring is one of the best dps weapons in the game (because Wounding stacks and it's fast). And it's the only weapon that looks good with that shield. Flank and use your special attacks (Blinding Strike, Crippling Strike and so on). They will result in full attacks - that means you will hit in very quick succession with the Dagger and the Shield. Lots of the bash attacks will be crits becaue you first strike with Drawn in Spring (which has +17 ACC from the start) which will apply the affliction. Then the bash will likely be a crit and trigger the Thrust - which most of the time also is a crit and does good damage and also interrupts for 1 sec. It's one of the best setups for a defensive rogue who doesn't want to loose too much dps. I use that with the Devil of Caroc at the moment - and she survives in my fronline and does great damage at the same time. I didn't test yet if Two Weapon Style works with bash now. Does anybody know? Later on, when you find the Unlabored Blade, you could retrain to become a dual dagger guy, doing aweseome amounts of damage. Rimecutter with the that Shield may also be nice. It will lower your recovery a lot, especially with durgan steel. For pure DPS try to duplicate Rimecutter with the Mold and dual wield it. That is the best dps-setup with non-soulbound weapons that you can get while it also raises your survivability. Because with two of those you can easily reach negative recovery which means you can wear a thick armor without getting slower. You can reach 0 recovery with sabres only with Gauntlets of Swift Action and durgan steel without using Vulnerable Attack (consumables aside). That's the reason why two Rimecutters are better for DPS most of the time (if we speak about normal "non-full" attacks). Short math excursion: Two sabres: 1.15 (durgan steel on sabre 1) * 1.15 (sabre 2) * 1.15 (Gauntlets) * 1.25 (Outlander's Frenzy) + 0.2 (Two Weapon Style) = 2.10 (2 means no recovery) With Vulnerable attack you would drop under 2 (1.9) - so there will be a bit of recovery. And you can't wear any armor. Two Rimecutters: 1.15 * 1.2 (RC1) * 1.15 * 1.2 (RC2) * 1.15 (Gauntlets) * 1.25 (Outlander's Frenzy) + 0.2 (Two Weapon Style) = 2.9 (lots of "negative recovery"). With Vuln. Attack: 2.7; with a plate armor: 2.2 - still room - you could skip the Gauntlets I guess and still be near 0 recovery. You could also skip Outlander's Frenzy and wear a light armor and still be at 0. Rimecutter and Bargradr'S Barricade: 1.15 * 1.2 (RC) * 1.15 (duragen reinforced shield) * 1.15 * 1.25 + 0.2 (two weapon style with bash ???) = ~2.5, 2.3 with Vuln. Attack, still room for good armor. And you will have nice deflection and Thrust of Tattered Veils on crit. I think that's quite the nice setup. Devil of Caroc is fine. You find her in Galvino's Hut in WMI. For example she can wear Bittercut without getting affected by that poison defense debuff. As a construct, she's immune. If you want to use her, you can make her a bit sturdier so that you can send her into the fray (like I do with that shield) and then send her so attract foes. Then you can drop any poinson related spell on her (see wizard and druid). Because she's immune to that, she wil not suffer, but all enemies will die quickly. Since 3.0 quite some spells fall under that category. A lot of spells that cause corrode damage now are considered poisonous. It hink they did that to buff the mountains dwarf's racial a bit and to categorize immunities better. I also gave her Aspirant's Mark. With her aweseome rogueish ACC she will crit a lot with that and lower deflection and reflex for your comrades' spells.

Sure. With the Golden Gaze it works pretty well. Because of Driving Flight you can hit multiple targets and Exp. Vuln. will proc more often - like with Stormcaller basically (without Twinned Arrows - although Golden Gaze has that built in). Swift Aim helps with speed of course. It also stacks with the Sure-handed Ila chant. But with Vicious Aim the damage is also pretty great. Lots of crits that way. And you always have two different damage types. With Vicious Aim and Dangerous Implement you will have a damage bonus of +45% and more ACC. It's not too bad, really. You can counter the speed loss with Outlander's Frenzy - also helps with the damage a bit. It's not as good as a bow ranger with Twinned Arros, but it's viable. And Expose Vuln. is a really great spell - especially if you basically get if for free while you're doing damage. Maybe with high MIG/INT and Aspirant's Mark and so on that ranger would be a decent support/debuff/dps guy. I never used that idea for a playthrough, but I might try some day.

Just pull enemies with another char and drop prone right at the start on encounter. Now all we need is 0 recovery and max DEX in order to fit as many backstabs as possible into 6 seconds. Or we take an Island Aumaua with four arquebuses, Arms Bearer and Quickswitch plus Coil of Resourcefulness to skip recovery after shooting and do four arquebus shots with afflictions and backstab bonus - ouch!

It may not be superduperoptimal, but it's totally viable to take Secrets of Rime for a druid. You will still have access to all the other non ice spells. Most of those don't even profit from any elemental bonus damage talent. You'll have Winter Wind (which is nice), Blizzard (nice debuff on top of the damage) and Hail Storm (huge AoE). Those are nice spells for dps. I see no problem there. Actually, chanters have the most powerful freeze spells when it comes to pure damage. And they can cast it without per rest uses. But they can't spam. Wizards with Chill Fog, Shadowflame, Bitter Mooring, Freezing Pillar and Freezing Rake are also very nice.

Nice! You crafted and refined a build idea which I was thinking of from time to time. But I never had the time to do a playthrough with such a barb. I'm sure this works nicely. And the best thing is that you can get those spears early. I would recommend the Executioner's Hood (looks good with the Wayfarer's Hide) for the head slot - it has a frightening aura and that lowers enemies' concentration even further. You could skip Barbaric Yell then. Your best friends wil be priests with Painful Interdiction & Crowns for the Faithful, a Wizard with Expose Vuln. and a chanter with "Stumbling o'er words" and that Zephyr Poleaxe. You should write a PM to AndreaColumbo since he's manageing the class build index.

The original question was "pc-vs-hired-pally" by the way.

Generally yes. Less immunities and the debuff is more hefty. You can get that from Godansthunyr (war hammer) and Cladhaliath (spear), too.

Does nobody know anything about this? I find it pretty annoying. Also, the patch notes say nothing about this - only about retaliation not being an autohit anymore. That's ok with me - although it's another unnecessary nerf...

Now the rogue is considered to be the weakest class - please do new video!

I had exactly that. Err.. without Minor Blights. The Golden Gaze with nearly no recovery, Interrupting Blows and Penetrating Blast ist great. It's all Expose Vuln., interrupts and dying.

Dual Wielding sabres is good for barb's dps because of the high base damage of sabres. You need a bit of base damage to compensate for the loss of damage from carnage. It only has 60% of the original damage I think. That's not too good if you have low base damage since it has to overcome the normal DR of foes. Dual wielding with faster, lighter weapons might result in lower damage overall because lots of it gets eaten up by enemies' DR. You can counter that with Vulnerable Attack and other means of DR bypass though (rending, Ryona's Vembraces and so on). The only thing that is not so great about sabres is that there is not one which does something nice on hit/crit. Two Handed weapons have the advantage of higher base damage but are also a lot slower. But there are some nice two handed weapon with special on hit/crit effects that work especially well with barbs: Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tall Grass, Tidefall, St. Ydwen's Redeemer, Grey Sleeper, Mabec's Morning Star and so on. We could also take weapon & shield into account. When bash will work with carnage, this is a good setup with those bashing shields that do something on hit/crit. Namely Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw. The Maw's enchantment for barbs is very nice. Imagine that with the Unlabored Blade... phew. Drawn in SPring with Badgradr's Barricade is also a great setup. I#M just playing this with the Devil of Caroc and it works great. For some reason Thrust of Tattered Veils will now shoot twice every time I crit with the bash... but hush! Don't tell OBS!

Swift and Vicious Aim also work by the way. If anyone was asking themselves that question (which probably nobody did)...

Yes, it does. With that, durgan refinement (or the Engwithan Sceptre) and Alacrity you can easily reach 0 recovery with implements. Did that with the Golden Gaze (2 projectiles) and it was great.

Happens all the time for me - since WMI was released.

Well - when they cast Iconinc Projection they are kind of cool.

I just start the game, use the console to give me some nice items and level up to 16 and then I teleport to Thaos and that's it... Sounds a bit like

It surely is a nice idea and a fun ability.

Absolutely right. But I have to say that in this subforum I only meet reasonable people (except the occasional brindle here and there who does no real harm). Maybe it's because we are all full nerds.

Reach weapons might be an option. With Llawran's Stick and durgan refinement you can become pretty fast and do good damage with your Soul Whip. Dual Wielding with Outlander's Frenzy or Sanguine Plate might also be good if you play more like a rogue. I mean the damage is not that much lower than Sneak Attack's.

I always turn off injuries on K.O. It's just annoying. Especially for this kind of build obviously. You can play that barb as a disciple of Zahua's philosophy - with Novice's Suffering and monk's outfit and so on. Would totally make sense.