Boeroer

Once you take Iron Wheel you can skip thick armors. It will guaratee you that if you have no wounds you will get them fast - and when you have plenty you will have a lot of DR. But I always wear a blunting belt on my monk - at least in early to mid game.

Do you think that a Girdle of the Driving Wave would be nice? That would mean one more Knockdown use per Encounter...?

Yeah - but with the console you can't see how good they are once they are unlocked completely. Or wait... is there a command for that which I missed?

Nice idea - but I think only spells from priests, druids and wizards (all that have a "per rest" spellsystem) can be stolen and then cast. You will steal spells from chanters and so on (log says something about stealing three spells - even mentiones the neames) - but they won't be added to your action bar for some reason. It's either bugged or intended - don't know yet. Played around with my priest of Eothas and that morning star and that's what I found out so far (don't know if that's always the case). Also tested it on a barb with similar results.

The single target melee damage of a spiritshifted druid is unmatched by any other class (rogues included) - but spiritshift is short and there's only one way to regain a spiritshift use during encounter (new soulbound sceptre, bound to the druid and unlocked). Basically you take Outlander's Frenzy or Sanguine Plate, Weapon Focus Peasant, Two Weapon Style, Vulnerable Attack, Wildstrike Shock/Greater Wildstrike Shock/Heart of the Storm and wear the Wildstrike Belt. Then you want to master Nature's Mark (or later Dancing Bolts, when defenses tend to be very low in comparison to your high ACC) and Returning Storm. Don't take Taste of the Hunt - it doesn't work properly with spiritshift (can't remember why - just tested it one week ago or so and it was completely useless). Your move will be like : At the beginning of the encounter, start to cast Returning Storm while the tanks engage. Then cast Avenging Storm (if you already have it) - then Outlander's Frenzy, then shift and move in. By the time you cast all that spells you will be free to choose which enemy to pick. You will go there and kill him with one or two strikes (crits with 140 and above are normal, even normal hits do over 100 dmg if the roll is ok). It's a good thing to have increased move speed. You want to move fast once you're shifted. You don't want to waste any time with running around. So Resting Bonus is good. So is Fast Runner (if you can fit it in). But as I said: your shifting time is very limited. And it's a lot of fuzz and casting to get there every encounter. It's very powerful in terms of melee damage but also a pain in the <lower bodypart with cheeks> in terms of micro. I like it best nowadays when I don't use this setup as a flanking striker like a rogue, but as superawesome emergency button when the oh so smart AI rushes to my backline. At one moment he's just a druid with low deflection and low DR, casting stuff - and once the rushers come in *poof* I'm a man-stag out of hell that does *thud-thud* and the enemy's vaporized. Of course: you may not use the dhift every encounter - but you don't gimp you casting that way. You are still a great backline caster. And when the time comes that shifting is needed it's very satisfying. An the other hand - I do like the tank approach even better. That is: skipping spiritshift altogether and only take the defensive talents, put on a shield, wear hide armor. Then you're a good sticky tank (enemies won't rush past you a lot - you're a dangerous caster with not too high DR - they tend to stick to that) with tons of CC capability.

I'd love to see a solo PotD playthrough with a Barbarian. No one seems to try it though. I would - since it's one of my favorite classes and everybody says he's no good for a solo game (which is true for a standard barb) - if I only had more time. But I'm not a solo player by heart (at least in PoE) and expect that the learning curve will be very steep.

Haven't tested with a Wayfarer Paladin. But when it procs on Pallegina, allies get +20% speed buff from Vielo Vidorio Oh - very nice! Would be really weird if it didn't work with Sword & Sheperd then. Damn - now I regret I haven't a paladin in my current playthrough.

Faith and Conviction on companions/hirelings now scales with level. It's ok. Well, I use to give my MC paladins four weapon slots, three guns and a shield setup and Quick Switch. That way they do some nice, serious burst damage with FoD shots and can tank and support like ever. That's a lot of micromanagement - a bit too much for my taste. But it's so effective.

And it's really, really hard in PoTD if you're not a monk, ranger or wizard.

So - how do you think any other class manages keeping 2 or 3 enemies engaged on it, without letting them escape?

There is also an option to go for Vent Pick. 15% of FoD on hit/crit and thus "sword and shepard" proc. Now also chant that +100% healing phrase, and suddenly your party doesn't have endurance limit, only health pool That's a really nice idea. Maybe this doesn't work though - like Greater Frenzy doesn't work with the Frenzy from Sanguine Plate. Maybe only the FoD from the Paladin himself (and not the one from the Pick) gets coupled to Sword & Shepherd. But it's definitely worth testing

If you also want to take a Bleak Walker into your evil party (and who doesn't want to do that?) I would recommend making him the PC because of Faith and Conviction and the ideal stat spread for dialogues. And there are two quests which are related to Bleak Walkers - I think you get special dialogue lines if you're one, too. But that's just my taste I guess. Concerning items: there are so many good items now that I really can't decide what to wear and what not. So I don't think you will have a problem with item shortage. A priest will never be weak just because he isn't the MC. The later the game the more he will cast and the less he will attack in melee. Those few PC talents don't make a huge difference. But of course - +0.3 crit damage multiplier is nice. But a priest is OK without it. A rogue may cry though.

Yeah well even in a team the paladin tanks best. I always play mine as alpha strikers who shoot two or three times (2* FoD, 1* Runner's Wounding Shot) with an arquebus or blunderbuss and then switch to outworn buckler. Works like a charm and combines very high burst damage with great tanking abilities. But of course you can build a paladin who doesn't go into melee. There is a build in this forum "Darcozzi Forward Observer" or "Commendatore" who used Coordinated Attacks, St. Garam's Spark (Marking) and Inspiring Liberation to pump his buddies' ACC by +30. He was 100% ranged and the build sounded like great fun.

I used that invocation to clear whole Crägholt Bluffs. It also works against tougher enemies and higher DR - you just need some more bodies. One good trick is (if you have the possibilities) to cast Expose Vuln. on the mob and/or debuff them further before casting White Worms. If it crits the damage is high enough to go through thickest DR. And two or more chanters with that are even better of course.

It's pretty powerful. OBS will at least buff it in a way that you can't reuse the corpses over and over again - I guess. Another thing is: you have to turn off the gib option in the game options. If an enemy explodes into chunks there will be no body.

But... if you can go to level 12 of the Endless Paths - why can't you go to Crägholt Bluffs for a short visit? I mean you shouldn't aggro all of the Torn Bannermen - just a few Pyromancers to get some nice robes. Divide and conquer and so on...

WM Part 1

You can't cast foe-only spells on a charmed foes I think - because they are considered friendly. Other than that, you can do anything to them. They don't give you focus though.

Depends on your level I guess.

The good thing about this build is that you can wear a simple hatchet from lvl 1 to 16 if you want. The weapon damage this chanter does is neglectible. As I said I like the Sabre "Flames of Fair Rhian" from the Endless Paths that you can get when you siphoned knowledge from Maerwald's soul. Not because of the weapon damage, but because it has 3 uses of Fireball per rest. Another nice variant is any one handed weapon with the "Marking" enchantment. Shame and Glory would be such a weapon - Cladhaliath can also be crafted to be marking. That way you can give a party member +10 ACC when they flanl your target - resulting in +20 ACC so to speak (-10 deflection from flanked, +10 ACC). But as I said: any hatchet will also be fine.

Yeah - they "may" because there's a roll against fortitude that may fail. It's like any other attack that causes prone - like Knockdown or all the other weapons with prone on crit: You first roll the damaging hit against deflection - and if that crits there wil be a second roll against fortitude to determine if the target also gets prone. So the prone effect "may" fail despite the initial attack being a crit. I don't think so - but I'm not 100% sure. Please report what you find out.

May I ask why you want to buy some and not enchant fine or normal ones? Because of the looks I guess? Crägholt Bluffs is a good source for exceptional robes. There are definetly other sources because at the end of WMII I seemed to drown in except. robes. But I can't really tell where they came from other than Crägholt Bluffs.

A little thing I want to add concerning defenses and stats: If you wear a shield and use Weapon & Shield Style you can dump DEX and PER a little bit more more because your shield will give you extra reflex. This way you can balance your defenses despite having a dent in your stat spread. Another thing: if you take PER 18 and use a large shield you will have the same ACC as if you had PER 10 and used a small shield. The difference is that with the large shield you will also have a lot more reflex and deflection. There are no other disadvantages when wearing a large shield than -8 ACC. What I want so say: you get more defense from your stat points when wearing a large shield and raising PER - without gimping your offense too much. In fact you're more flexible: If times are tough you can switch to the big shield, but when you want to use an ability that has to land or if you want to cast a spell you quickly switch to a weapon setup with a small shield and suddenly have +8 ACC - then switch back to large shield. So you might want to consider wearing a large shield and raise PER instead wearing a small shield and leave PER as it is.

The Vent Pick is not too bad. When I first found it I didn't realize at once that it's already durgan refined. But still: the FoD Spellchance might be really nice once they fix the bugged proc (or update the description accordingly to 1/encounter). And there are two stilettos that have a spell striking: Azureith's (Jolting Touch) and Bleak Fang (Touch of Rot). If you have both and let them proc once each encounter, that's some nice AoE damage for free. Also Bleak Fang has a DR bypass of 6 by itself and is fast. So I wouldn't say it's only good in early game. It's not the most powerful weapon type atm, but it's viable.

Lagufaeth? There's tons of them and they are all dangerous. Bounties: same. Crystal spiders: also. Ogres, too. Enemies in the Battery: a lot. There are a buch of enemies that come in great numbers and are dangerous enough for your squishies. One sticky tank alone can't glue them all in place. Don't get me wrong: it'S a good thing that this works - but I'm not convinced that one is enough. By the way: Chanter tanks with a damaging aura also draw a lot of attention. I rarely see any mobster leave a chanter tank once they engaged. Maybe they classifiy them as caster and want to bring them down asap. Same with druid tanks. So maybe a mixture would be nice.