Boeroer

Sure works. Also two Zealous Auras are great. Zealous Endurance and Zealous Focus at the same time are awesome - even three paladins are great (focus, endurance, charge). So much healing, so many good per encounter abilities, so much defense. And after lvl 13: so much "firepower".

I think the Cloak of the Master Mystic still has that bug where you sometimes would turn invisible but never turn visible again - until you a) reload or b) some foe hits you accidentially with an AoE effect. Until then you can just wander off and clear the whole map - every attack a Backstab. This happens to me like every time I do a dragon fight. Supercheesy and no fun at all. Ok, the first time it was fun...

chanter tank, druid tank, wizard blaster

I think I said in in some other thread. 3 points of any stat difference make a difference at the beginning of the game, but after that it's marginal. In my experience Pallegina is way better than a hireling until late midgame - simply because she will hit level ups sooner. One level makes a way bigger difference than +/- 5 PER or anything like that. Plus: her special talents ARE awesome. Wrath of the five suns (when build around shooting and missiles and fire) is devastating. She makes an excellent sniper who kills two to three dangerous enemies right at the beginning of a fight despite her low MIG. That's more valuable than most things you can expect from a hireling. And her Sacred Immolation is still great. It's not at it's optimum, but good enough.

Ehm... not entirely. I was more interested in the stat debuffs. But I think it's a hint that now they cause the original stun affliction and not some weird affliction that doesn't work properly. For example the old stun effect on weapons wouldn't cause any stat debuff (and didn't count for sneak attack, that's also true).

Cool, thanks - was just about to search for that post. You saved me some tedious digging.

It's not placed in the game yet. OBS forgot it. But I think they said that this will be fixed with 3.02. Actually a developer in this thread said where to find it then. Have a look at the older posts.

Phew! I'm relieved.

Hehe. If I have time to play today I will try.

Great! Thanks for the info. So it all works with blast - besides Penetrating Shot. Edit: by the way - does the rod cause a proper, regular stun these days or still that affliction that has the name of the weapon and does not debuff like a regular stun?

You're still great Boeroer !Obsidian doesn't have the power to nerf you, and you shouldn't refer to yourself as it ROFLMAO! A good laugh (with whiping tears and all) before I go to sleep.

Yeah - it might be pretty powerful - if it workes with carnage. We'll see.

Why IE mod? Can't you do that with the regular console?

It only procs if you receive a crit. But that happens all the time if you play a melee rogue who's not wearing a shield. Get a crit -> *poof* you're invisible -> switch to your arquebus -> *poof* he's dead. Two times per encounter - it's great.

That's right. Pen Shot only works for the target you initially hit - NOT for the blast. For that you have Penetrating Blast - it's a special talent. The spell chance implements like Golden Gaze and the new Soulbound-Scepter however also trigger with hits from the blast - which is great. I'm not sure about the on-crit-effects. I don't think that the blast does prone or stun on crit for example, but maybe I'm wrong. Didn't test that for a while.

You have to buff and debuff of course. With Gauntlets of ACC, Weakened/Sickened and Brute Force my barb crits a lot. Not against Eyless, Dragons or Thaos of course, but against all those annoying mobs. So I imagine that a Thrust of Tattered Veils here and there might be good. I use that shield on my rogue atm and of course the "Thrust" happens pretty often. It works with Penetr. Shot by the way. And on a ranger with Driving Flight, too.

I don't know it's calculated, but the ACC of the bash attack is only a few points below that of my main weapon. Maybe it's the ACC of the main weapon minus 4 (because of medium shield)?

Actually it's great. Can't image what it does on a barb as soon as bash works with carnage. Aaand it looks good with Drawn in Spring - which is also nice for barbs.

So, the conclusion is, that stealth + Backstab ist not the most overpowered combination. It works with lower-level mobs most of the time. For all other foes you will have to rely on invisibility. You can get that from the Cloak of the Master Mystic (2/encounter), Nightshroud (1/rest), Shadowing Beyond (2/rest) and Feign Death (uhm... don't know atm). Actually, if you combine invisibility with Backstab, Deathblows and Finishing Blow (including Devastating Blow & Killer's Work) things get pretty nasty. You can do it 3 times per rest and with a gunshot you will likely kill every foe in the game instantly if he has lost half of his endurance (if you don't miss or graze). But it's not for every-encounter-use.

I used to be great. They nerfed it big time.

@Blades of Vanatar: Funny, I also tried that. The ice invocations are pretty good. But there are no good scrolls or spell binding items that support the ice theme.

Does Threatening Presence and maybe the Executioner's Hood do the same thing? I mean, drawing attention? I know that "Come, Sweet Winds of Death" of the chanter causes foes to attack him. Which is nice if you play him as a tank.

Well I did it several times before - I know what you have to do- and it worked. But not anymore. At least for me. As I said - maybe just a bug.

It also has something to do with the level cap and the expansions. Lvl cap got raised from 12 to 16. And some of the most awesome abilities (that buffed some classes big time) were introduced with WMI & II. The thing is that the rogue and the barb just got the crappy new abilities while other classes got fancy ones - and rightfully so. It would be fair if rogue and barb's new toys would get some polishing in order tobe able to keep up with the rest. Well, rogue got the flanked/distraction thing, which is really nice - and Backstab got buffed to 150% - but they also were given some really useless oder underwhelming things. And Barbs only got nonsense besides Barbaric Retaliation. I wouldn't mind if new abilities opened up whole new build ideas but didn't fit into the usual build paths. Like the Long Pain for monks for example. It's pretty useless of you want to build the typical monk - but it's so unique (and good) that you can invent a whole new build around that - love it!

Hahaha. "Bottom of the barrel" is a bit exaggerated - but basically right.