Boeroer

I think both abilites are total and utter crap (excuse my french).

Yeah - but that's with a slow war bow. What are the numbers with a rapier and a dagger?

Also happens to me: tried to apply the damage buff from the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar two times. And what's Zahua's new ability?

Shame on me - you're right. Totally forgot that the 25% chance also works without binding. A pity it doesn't help here.

Oh sorry - I totally forgot number 3. I think the expansions are absolutely worth the money. But I think that also depends whether you have to turn every coin over twice... or not. What I mean: I can totally understand if people who still go to school or university or don't earn much money for whatever reason think twice.

It doesn't require any talents. It is very strong on it's own and uses the weapon focus that you have - no matter which (like a soulbound weapon). Sure, any melee talent will make it even better but it's not desperately needed. I mean what would you gain from Vulnerable & Savage Attack? +5 DR reduction while getting slower and +20% dmg while you get a -5 ACC malus. Instead, cast Eldritch Aim, Meciless Gaze and Alacrity and you will be good. I mean very good. Later you can also cast Citzal's Martial Power and go totally crazy. Since summoned weapons use any wepaon focus, you can totally skill yourself for two handed melee fight with reach weapon - because you will have Concelhaut's Draining Staff (very powerful) and that can turn into 1/encounter after lvl 9. You can use that every encounter and if things get difficult you can always cast the spirit lance instead. Or the warding staff - that's also a lot of fun. And while you're doing great melee damage you can still let spells rain down on your foes. I mean: you don't restrict yourself.

Speaking of that sceptre: I still like my Golden Gaze better.

1) monk = most fun melee class 2) Hiravias (weird and funny dialogues) & Kana (best kermit the frog imitator and cheerful guy)

Ah - going for the duelist look with the Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak, hm?

For the Backlash Beldam build you don't need to be a godlike. Every race works just fine. There's a duelist's hat that is enchanted (the only one): The Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak. It's nice and big and purple and does -1 INT and +2 RES. My dualist monk from Old Vailia used that and it looked awesome with his vailian clothes and his Rapier and dagger.

I hate to repeat myself...

I say it's no difference. Just recruit no one and charge right away. I also was planning to fire my stronghold hirelings because they only die and stand in the way while I'm steamrolling the battlefield.

They are not weak - it's just that every "good" rogue uses kind of the same abilites and talents. It would be nice if you could choose between more good things. That wouldn't make the class more powerful per se, because you can't fit two builds into one character. So a defensive "dodger" build would be a thing that would truly appreciate - if this will cost you some offensive power so be it. I mean Deathblows is very powerful. If you would offer folks a defensive talent that is as powerful at the same level (like "Master Evasion") people would have to decide if they go for an offensive or defensive route. Still doing lots of damage, but less than an offensive rogue.

Well now that makes a huge difference. Monks are UP!

Too bad your lvl 13-guy is a rogue. I thought maybe St. Ydwen's Redeemer might be good - but that's not superhelpful if you're of equal level. You have two fighters and a cipher, a druid and a priest. Surely you can find a way to reduce fortitude since they are not immune to weakened. Painful Interdiction might be possible and then use prone attacks (I also see no immunity to that.) Your cipher can cast: - Phantom Foes: there's no immunity to flanked and their will defense is bad - Fractured Volition: causes Weakened and Frightened against will - Ectopsychic Echo: Relfex is bad but DR is high - it will still cause enough damage - Silent Scream: raw damage, will defense, stun: fits! - Mental Binding: Paralyze, Will defense: dito Druid: - Returning and Relentless Storm: Imunitiy to shock, but not to stun! - Blizzard: slows down and hurts - against reflex - Summon Blights: At some point you will summon a blight that is immune to crush and the Eyeless might take forever to kill it - Hail Storm - Overwhelming Wave if fortitude is debuffed - Plague of Insects - Nature's Terror Terrify and Frighten seems so work, that's good because it's reducing their ACC which is quite high.

It's true that you will be very fast. I don't know if you will be faster than a guy with zero recovery. I can run a test so we can be sure. Is the carnage 1/encounter now or is it still 1/rest? It's not that hard to reach 0 recovery. What you need is dual wielding, Durgan Steel, Gloves of Swift Action and Outlander's Frenzy (or any other ability that boosts Attack Speed). If you have one (or even two) speed enchanted weapon like Strike Hard or Unforgiven or Rimecutter then you don't even need the Gloves. Two speed enchanted weapons let you reach 0 recovery while you can use Vulnerable Attack plus a plate armor without having any recovery. Let's see your points: 1) No, Novice's Suffering doesn't work with spiritshift. That is by design, no bug. 2) Since items do not work with Spiritshift it's only the Wildstrike Belt. I tried the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar once to see if the damage bonus gets applied but it doesn't. I will run the test you mentioned - maybe this afternoon - and will report how it goes. What was that soulbound sceptre? Gyrd Haewanes Stenes? And you spoke of another item that gives one additional use of spiritshift. What was the name of that? It's because I can't console it if I don't know the name (roughly). By the way which difficulty are you playing on? This might be interesting because on PoTD fights last longer so the (somewhat short) duration of Spiritshift gets more important. I'm really curious if the boostet Spiritshift that much as it sounds now. Because I alsway wanted to do a build with it but was disappointed every time because although it had powerful attacks the duration was so short that is was not worth to build something aroud it. Another reason why this is becoming better and better is that the unarmed damage scales with level. So at level 16 I can imagine that the damage is quite high. I'll find out if legendary enchantment can keep up with this.

That's right. If your recovery time is already zero then DEX does exactly nothing to your recovery rate. However, it also speeds up your attack animation. But if you want to use the Sword of Daenysis and the March Steel Dagger then your attack animation is rather short anyway because those are fast weapons. So I'd say if you leave DEX at 10 you wouldn't notice any difference to a 20 DEX character. But that's only for melee attacks with those weapons of course. Keep in mind that Sword of Daenysis is pierce damage only and daggers are slash damage only. My ultimate goal would be dual wielding Strike Hard with the Helwax Mold. You wouldn't have to switch your weapons ever because of immunities I guess. That would be 1.33 (Sanguine Plate's Frenzy) *1.2*1.15*1.2*1.15 (dual durgan refined Strike Hard) + 0.2(Two Weapon Style) = 2.73 Enough space to fit in Vulnerable Attack and the plate itself. Even without the plate and Outlander's Frenzy there would be enough room to use Vulnerable Attack and an armor with 35% recovery malus - like a durgan reinforced plate. You don't even need the Sanguine Plate - it would just spare you a talent point.

It's not affecting them if the chant didn't hit them. There's a roll every time a chant's effect gets applied on foes. Because the base radius is already quite big, high INT and also Overseeing (+10%) and The Voice of the Mountaintop (+20%) do a lot for your AoE. Those % numbers apply on the radius, not the acreage of your AoE. So let's say you have 20 INT and an overseeing item and th Voice of the Mountaintop then the radius will increase from 4 m to 6.4 m - which is awesome.

I just read "Who else wants an arian" and my heart stopped beating. Anyway I would love to have an arena - but an arena in which you could fight other players. Not a problem with a turn based system - but what about this pause-thingy we have here?

Sounds good, but I guess you will start with normal stats and retrain when you got those items and abilities, or not? If not the beginning of the game will be so horrible for this Prof. Dr. Rogue. Actually I want to try a build that is a bit of a rogue wizard: high MIG and INT and all spells that cause crush/slash/pierce damage in an AoE - combined with Deep Wounds. Maybe even an implement like this new soulbound scepter is worth it. It deals 15% raw damage after all - should be good with all those damage mods...

I'm playing on linux. My biggest thanks for all your work!

The monk seems to really bug infested right now. Look at this: One monk did that to me with one punch of Force of Anguish. We named this "Force of Fury". I think it's the same bug that is causing this. p.s.: I still won the fight.

That's right. After Act I even PoTD becomes quite easy if you have a full party. I just steamrolled Cragholt Bluffs and Concelhaut. I think I had to rest once because of low health on a squishy. That's not the fault of my party - I just think my level's too high because I always do every stupid quest and task I can find. Maybe you will need those OP powers badly against whatever awaits you in the second part of the expansion.

Hehe - that's the first time ever that I read that rogue's damage is too low. There's no other class that can achieve a rogues damage output against a single target. How comes that you have the feeling it's too low? Deathblows + Sneak Attack = +150% base weapon damage. Sounds rather high to me.

Ok, we don't want to offend you, we just want to discuss this. Let's take the heat out of this before it gets hot. Frenzy + Cat speed buff + potion doesn't stack. The fastest one will suppress the others. Two weapon style does stack. You're right that claws and stuff have a faster base speed than most weapons - but that doesn't help to reduce recovery to zero. Speed modifiers from abilities (including potions) and item like weapons and gauntlets work multiplicatively on your recovery time. Two Weapon Style gets added after that. As a spirit shifter you don't have items to reduce recovery. So you will only have abilities to reduce your recovery. It is true that your recovery is already short. But you can't reduce it to zero. Any other character who wants to can achieve this. It doesn't matter how high his recovery was before: if he reduces it to zero it doesn't matter how long it took to recover before. I think you don't know exactly how attack speed works. I mean no offense by saying this. I just think we should have the same basis before we begin to circle around each other fruitlessly. But when I look at this then I'm very sure that spirit shift attacks are fast. But any character who uses items can be faster. And rogues will then do more damage also. But they can't cast spell which makes spiritshift still awesome: dealing lots of damage while being able to cast is good. I just don't think it's OP. These new items you mentioned sound nice. Can you tell me more about them? I mean if they come late it's not so OP as if you could get them early. At least we could built a decent spirit shift guy now. Before it was a bit UP, but this sounds rather cool