Boeroer

Good point!

Barbs with Firebrand (and Scion of Flame) are not underpowered at all. With Bloodthirst and Firebrand I think 9 DEX is fine. High CON on a low deflection barb is always great - that way you don't have to rest all the time because of low health. You might want to wear either Clebrant's Gloves (gives you Overseeing = bigger radius and Holy Meditation, which will boost your Concentration by 30 points). They will help you a lot against interrupts while keeping your deflection down (the way you like it ). The other item you might want to use is the Belt of Chimes. It adds another +25 Concentration. Both items come from minor stronghold quests.

I can see why this works best without shooting a gun.

Yes, the micromanagement can really get tedious - especially in easy encounters where it just slows down your steamrolling because you have to pause all the time in order to switch.

Hi! Knockdown got buffed: instead of being a primary attack it is now a full attack. However - the Girdle of the Driving Wave still gives you the old ability that only does a primary attack. I guess it was just forgotten - in the past this also was the case with all the items that had "Spellbind: Whisper of Treason". When it's casting time was buffed from average to fast the items still had average casting time.

I tried that build (only the Monsterlash part) on the Bleak Walkers in Woodend Plains which have fairly high DR - and the FoD with two Bittercuts and the "monsterlashes" plus Spirit of Decay plus Scion of Flame was higher than any FoD hit/crit I ever saw on my Arquebus-Quick-Switch paladins (like the Dull Runner who was solely build around FoD alphas with all the lash talents and enchantments). I didn't do any math now - but after the first Bittercut-FoD I just thought "Wooohaaa!". I think it's because most of the time the whole Bittercut damage, including the two corrosive lashes and all the base dmg mods gets multiplied by 1.2. With an arquebus only the lashed would get multiplied - and you only get one shot instead of two attacks. And you have a lower cirt damage multiplier on guns. Don't forget that. If you crit with Bittercuts, the crit damage also gets multiplied by 1.2. If DR is very high then maybe the Bittercut FoD is inferior - but I guess it would have to be a very high DR. Then you should perhaps try to lower it before wasting your precious FoDs on that. On the other hand - you can of course always fire a gun from a distance if you meet high DR foes and then switch to bittercuts (without wasting talent points). Everybody has two weapons slots at least. But I like the simplicity of this approach while losing no dps on your FoD. Just run into the fray and start hacking. This would be even better if Runner's Wounding SHot or the Girdle of the Driving Wave would give you full attacks. Sadly, the first only gives you a primary attack and the latter is bugged. It doesn't do the same as the abiliity. Knockdown was buffed to a full attack - but they forgot to adapt the GIrdle. As they forgot it to adapt all the Whisper of Treason items when they buffed the casting time of that spell.

Of course it's viable. I don't think it's as good a a bow ranger, but it's good. With very high DEX and Swift Aim you can reload pretty fast. You can see the difference best when you use arquebuses. On the other hand you can always go for Vicious Aim and use an Island Aumaua, Arms Bearer and Quick Switch. With Powder Burns and Scion of Flame you should reach pretty nasty AoE damage numbers. Don't forget to wear that unique eyepatch when you burn your powder.

No, they are always faster.

It's about the fact that Bittercut's corrosive damage, including all +% dmg mods and corrosive lash, gets multiplied by 1.2. All burn lashes also get multiplied by 1.2. This results in higher FoD damage than with an arquebus shot. If the target has higher corrode DR than slash DR you are right. But Bittercut will always favor corrode damage as long as corrode DR is equal to slash DR (or lower). With Durance's staff it's the other way round by the way. It has crush/burn. Bitter cut has corrode/slash. This also works perfectly well without FoD by the way. And like the Blades of Vanatar said: dual sabres are a lot faster than an arquebus.

Thanks a lot!

Totally makes sense. After our "Monsterlash" conversation I briefly tested a Bleak Walker like this - with dual Bittercut an all the lashes and elemental talents you mentioned above. The FoD strikes are really... devastating! Way more powerful than an FoD arquebus shot - since it's a full attack and the full weapon damage plus lashed get multiplied by Scion of FLame and Spirit of Decay. And the normal attacks also deal a lot of damage because of that trick. So I can absolutely confirm the aweseomness of that part.

The best armor overall (for me) is Blaidh Golan. Combine it with Ilfan Byrngar's Solace and you are unhittable if you get stunned or prone (+100 to all defenses). It's light (= fast enough) but not too light (has ok DR). With durgan reinforcemant it only has a 10% penalty. You can get it very early and it looks great on barbs, rangers or druids - together with a Stag Helmet or The Dunryd Demon or Garodh's Chorus.

That's not the case. At least not anymore. I also thought that at least on-crit-effects didn't work with blast - but they do now. Maybe they changed that behavior in one of the patches. The Golden Gaze's Spellchance increased with Blast since WM1 was out. Exp. Vulnerabilities triggers all the time when you hit whole packs of foes.

The Golden Gaze, Curoc's Brand and Gyrd Háewanes Sténes are pretty good on ranger, too: with Driving Flight the proc chance goes up a lot (as it does with blast from the wizard) - and with Outlander's Frenzy + Vicious Aim + Dangerous Implement + Stunning Shots that's a nice combo. It's +74% damage with Stalker's Link+Torc and +30 ACC with Stalker's Link. I find the Golden Gaze to be especially good because Exposing Vulnerabilities is a nice spell and gets triggered often. And the two projectiles often hit different targets with Driving Flight, stunning even more foes with Stunning Shots. Not to speak of interrupts - this implement is one of the best weapons for a ranged interrupt build. But all in all a wizard still can do this better I guess. But it's an option if you meet pierce-immune foes or want to have more than two ranged rangers (with Stormcaller & Persistence) in the party...? On A fighter i can imagine that all his dmg mods plus Dangerous Implements add up pretty nicely up to 50% - but then I ask myself: why not use a rogue with deathblows for that (+225%)?

Is there anybody who knows which item has the "Spellbind: Barring Death's Door" enchantment? I just can't figure it out. Or are those scrolls/potions?

But that does nothing for you if you miss.

Look at this build: Bath!t Crazy Works really well with Hiravias - one of my favourite builds of all times. Sturdy, great CC and debuff. Lots of damage for a tank, too. Look at the synergy of Blaidh Golan + Ilfan Byrngar's Solace: not only will you have -50% stun and prone duration, but you will also have +100 to all defenses if you got stunned or prone - because shield and item enchantments stack! This guy is nearly always up and casting.

I'm just developing a Vengeful Defeat build (with an appropriate backstory to explain why he kisses the groud all the time) - and I can only say it's so much fun. He surely needs a priest/paladin/chanter or scroll user to be effective, but the combination of "Barring Death's Door" and 1 health is so much fun. He gets up aaand down... and up aaand down again. He just can't die! And every time he goes down he nukes his surroundings like crazy. You don't need DEX or CON or RES at all. I dumped RES and CON, maxed MIG, PER and INT and put the rest in DEX. Even works when he's totally disabled with prone/stun/petrified and so on. It's like you boosted your revival-abiltity with a nice AoE damage talent or something. And the best part is: the monsters only want to hit him and him alone. He's like living bait which shouts "Hit me!" - and they do! I think I will post a class build tomorrow if I find the time to write it all down.

I find that Holy (+Brilliant) Radiance alone burns most vessels to ashes. Especially if you play a priest who has maxed MIG from the start and uses Maegfolc Skull & Abydon's Hammer and casts Chamion'S Boon on himself before casting the radiance. Does the Sanctifier talent also work with Holy Radiance? Never thought about that. It would be the (perma)death for nearly all vessels I think. Even Eyeless should be afraid of that. Who need St. Ydwen's Redemmer when he has a Brilliant-Radiance with +112% damage. What would that be? More than 300 burn damage on lvl 16 with flawless dispositions I guess...

Any weapon with low damage profits from VA if you hit fast enough. There's a break-even point for every weapon/foe combonation where it makes sense to use it. And it's a no brainer if you have zero recovery even with VA on. Also, for a monk's Resonant Touch it can be important since you have to do 10 DMG to build it up. Same for retaliation: no-brainer. With Twinned Arrows and Blunderbusses it's also good. I mean Penetrating Shot of course.

If you wear items with Spell Holding (like Sanguine Plate or Shod-in-Faith for example) and you receive a crit in kith form then the spell gets triggered. You can then spiritshift and the spell keeps on going. So you could say it works as one might expect. But you can never be sure in PoE.

If you dual wield you don't need that much DEX. And with 3 RES you will get hit/crit a lot. With 3 CON you will go down very quickly. I wouldn't do that. In fact with a Fire Godlike I would try to raise CON as high as possible. Because when you drop below 50% endurance and Battle Forged gets activated you want to have a lot of endurance left (in plain numbers). And 50% of 400 is more than 50% of 200, right? Because you plan to get hit a lot you will also go down more often than others. You can use Vengeful Defeat as an additional form of retaliation. With a chanter, priest of Paladin in the party (or all of those) you will have tons of revivals. So if your barb falls under 50% endurance and starts to retaliate with fire, he will likely go down after some time and retaliate with Vengeful Defeat. This is very powerful if you use it with dual sabres. Also, with dual sabres, Barbaric Blow is good. Add Heart of Fury for the really hard mobs (like bounties). Because you want to go under 50% endurance, you might also want to take Blooded. And One Stands Alone. Those add nice damage to your sabres - if you're surrounded and under 50% endurance. Also take Vulnerable Attack - it's good for your carnage. So if you go down, you will have a +40% damage modifier most of the time and do a big AoE Full Attack with increased crit chance. Most "swarmers" don't survive this or will at least get stopped. Then revive and do again. There's also a pair of rings that is quite funny with this: You can swap 100 endurance once per rest without losing health. So if you want to trigger Vengeful Defeat on your barb - use the ring so he loses 100 edurance and gives it so somebody else. Then revive.

I will publish a "Season 2" of my build series. One build for every class. This time the basic theme is "Twisted Builds". Basically I try to take a class and let it do things that it#s normally not supposed to do. For example I have a rogue who plays like a wizard, a barb who plays like a monk and so on. Those builds are not especially powerful (well in some cases they are), but totally viable for PotD. I hope that this brings back some excitement in battle. Because I will have to change my usual tactics a lot. We'll see what I will come up with.

They are all dual wielding I think. Novice's Suffering doesn't work with spiritshift weapons - it also says it in the talent despription. If you skill towards Spiritshift the melee damage really gets nasty.

Thanks a lot!