Boeroer

No Problem - could have been the case that it doesn't stack anymore with 3.0 - so testing was not in vain. Trollhide belt and any other regeneration item (He Carries Many Scars and so on) indeed suppress each other. I just noticed that the Mantlke of the Dying Boar doesn't get suppressed by Constant Recovery and the cloak, but by any other regenerating item. The Mantle of the Dying Boar lets you regenerate a lot more enduracne per tick - but it only works under 33% endurance. It's quite nice for any character (like blooded barbs, fire or nature godlike) who gets a bonus when under 50% endurance but doesn't want to go down after that. This mantle can keep you at 33%.

Just looked into the Cyclopedia:

But that's from April 2015. I thought they changed that because it was so lackluster. I think I will ahve to look into the files myself.

The engagement limit of a character has no influence on his butt getting flanking - as far as I know. There are certain abilities and items that can increase the number of foes needed to flank you (One Stands Alone, Rupek's Watchful Cloak Mark II). But your additional engagement slots don't do that. You automatically flank if you engage an enemy (that's a must) that is already engaged by one of your team members and you stand on the opposite side (with some tolerance).

Right - Aspirant's Mark is great. It's AoE is big, it's duration long and you can cast it fast - foe only. And it also lowers reflex which might be nice for your buddies (if you have some).

He? The belt does the same as the amulet. So you can have the cloak AND 25% healing multiplier. If you haven't found it yet the amulet is better than the cloak of course. edit: Oh yes, 2/encounter - right. My bad. Still not good against big mobs as in PotD - but great against thick bosses. Maybe Ryona's Vambraces (+3 DR bypass) will be better than Gauntlets of Swift Action. But one would need to do some math (counting frames and so on) to be sure.

Just did a quick test and it still all stacks: First Constant Recovery entry ist the original one of the Fighter plus Rapid Recovery (modifies Constant Rec.). The second one is from the cloak that also modifies Constant Recovery and gives a bonus of 2 points per tick (in this case 2.4 beause of MIG). Then below you see the armor with 1.2 (also MIG, base is 1). Nothing gets suppressed. The thing is that an item enchantment normally doesn't supresses an ability (as long it's not from spell holding or -binding). And because the cloak doesn't just add a regeneration effect but modifies the ability it stacks with the armor. So altogether this guy with MIG 17 has a regeneration rate of 15 points per tick. With the Belt of Bountiful Healing and Survival bonus he will get 45% more out of this - meaning ~22 points per tick. You can boost that further with the new chanter's phrase that does +100% healing. That would be ~37 points per tick then. And you could also take Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits for even more healing (around ~46 per tick). That's if you have one chanter. Since Ancient Memory and stuff stacks, you could also add 5 chanters with that talents and have... I don't know how much points per tick but I think about 96 on your fighter. The chanters could also use Veteran's Recovery. They would not be like the fighter but also not bad. Maybe about ~50 points per tick. You see where this is going...

Not yet, but soloing I can just auto attack and win every battle without really trying at all, or any risk of death. It is only if I am purposely trying to die that details like extending the health pool even come into play. It will probably only matter for the hardest fights in the game like Adra Dragon and whatever waits for me in the expansion. By then DPS will be through the roof with 0 attack speed and sunder blows. If i wait until level 15, it will probably be a cake walk with triggered immunity. So, I really don't think hard would be much different. POTD will be the real test. I am now thinking that sundering blows will be very powerful with 0 recovery attacking. If more endurance regeneration is desired with Unbending ability, the worst Ability is now Weapon specialization. 15% additive damage bonus is quite minor compared to the hundreds of damage sundering blows is capable of. Sundering Blow is just 1/encounter against a single foe. I see how this is nice against bosses and stuff - but how is this helping you with a band of Ogres Druids for example? Or did they buff it?

It didn't in 2.03. What gets suppressed is the Mantle of the Dying Boar that would be quite good otherwise. Other than that, it all stacked. Also Chanter's Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits.

I thought "low endurance" means 25% nowadays. Or in other words when your enemy's tooltip says "Badly Injured". 10% is "Near Death". Am I wrong?

What is the best melee weapon for your rogue can't be answered universally. It depends on your build and how you play. If you ask 10 experienced players that question you will get like 20 different answers. But probably the answer you'll get the most is sabres. A rogue who takes a lot of special attack abilities like Crippling Strike, Blinding Strike and so on profits most from using two weapons. Those special attacks are full attacks - meaning that you will hit with each weapon in quick succession - even if you're a slow guy otherwise. Singe Weapon usage is widely considered inferior to any other style except n the early parts of the game where you will have a lot of misses. Using companions for debuffs is - in my opinion - the best and fastest way to enable sneak attack and death blows. You can do it by yourself - but debuffing enemies should be your number one priortity anyways so why let the rogue do that? He should focus on dealing damage. Ideally you want to raise your ACC and lower enemies' defenses at the same time. If you have two weapon sets for melee weapons then you don't need to worry about different damage types on one weapon. For example a rogue who wants to use Estocs can easily switch to a Pollaxe in his 2. weapon slot if he meets enemies who are immune to pierce damage. Normallly you can do this with every Weapon Focus group. For example Ruffian has pierce (Stiletto), slash (sabre) and crush (club) - Soldier has pierce/crush (war hammer), slash/pierce (great sword) - Adventurer has pierce (Estoc), slash/crush (Pollaxe) and crush (flails). So you don't trap yourself with a special Weapon Focus in terms of damage type. However - it can be quite convenient to have two damage types on one weapon. Sabres have the highest base damage of all one handed weapons. Since all damage bonunes (+x% damage) are calculated with that base damage, it's a good bonus for a rogue since he stacks a lot of those damage bonuses. The fact that there are two sabres in the game that also double your bonus damage for critical hits make those two sabres ideal for rogues who tend to crit a lot. However - it's not only damage you should consider when planning your rogue. Although I have to admit that dual sabres is always a solid choice for a melee rogue. I - on the other hand - like to use characters that are sturdy but also do ok damage. I seldomly build melee glass cannons or pure tanks nowadays. I want to have a party of six in which everybody is doing damage and everybody can at least stand a few hits without kissing the ground. For me the game is way easier this way. The "old" apporach of using a sturdy or tanky front line that holds off the enemy while my glass cannon backline or flankers do all the damage is so much fuzz and the outcome in terms of damage dealt is nearly the same as if everybody just deals ok damage. THe difference is that I don't have to babysit all my squishies. The good thing is you can achieve this with nearly every class - rogues also. What I mean is you make him sturdier but still ensure he does good damage. You can do that with a shield. His dps will suffer, true, but a rogue with a sabre and a shield still does a lot of damage - while suddenly being able to be at the front line without passing out all the time. The netto outcome for me is that those rogues do even more damage at the end of the day because they don't go k.o. all the time. But that's just my gusto and approach.

I tested it a long time ago. As far as I remember I tested it with potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. There's a Belt of Bountiful Healing that does the same. It's a fairly common random find. If you have that AND the cloak it's the best combination I guess. Of course one could argument that a blunting belt is still better. But in terms of regeneration I think that will be the maximum (besides raising MIG and INT). So, for maximum regeneration you would need: Constant Recovery + Rapid Recovery + Cloak of the Tireless Defender + Belt of Bountiful Healing + He Carries Many Scars + Survival Bonus. The only thing in this list that comes late is the plate armor. That thing is like it's made for your build.

Shod-in-Rave.

The DR bonus only applies while your health is below 25%. As soon as you reach 25% or higher it vanishes. At least it used to be so. I didn't test this for a long, long time. And it's only the armor's DR that is taken into account and gets multiplied by 1.5, not your whole DR. Again: it used to be that way - no idea about the present state. With a plate that's quite nice - but still a bit situational. For your build it might be a good synergy though.

Unfortunately this is not right. It gives you +50% DR if your HEALTH is lower than 25%. Isn't that what I said? (without giving the exact percentages). Oh, is it HEALTH instead of ENDURANCE? I never realized that! That could make a huge difference for my low con Fighter Build, if so. Does the "scars" armor work the same way? Yep. It's the same enchantment.

With Fast Runner, Long Stride or Zealous Charge, Boots of Speed, Survival Movement Bonus and The Last Tower shield you can get a +9 move speed bonus. Try it out! It's hilarious.

Unfortunately this is not right. It gives you +50% DR if your HEALTH is lower than 25%.

What do you mean? PER? It's needed for the damaging chants (Come, Sweet Winds of Death, The Dragon Thrashed) as well as for all offensive invocations. Of course you don't need it if you only want to use summons and buffs. But if you drop DEX and PER your reflex will be abysmal no matter which shield you use. By the way the "White Worms" invocation is one of the most powerful spells if used with cleverness: lure all enemies of a map to one choke point and kill them there (don't reload because all the dead bodies will be gone). Then, when you face encounters that are really tough on that map, retreat to the pile of bodies and use that invocation. It works over and over again on the same bodies. I used it to clear Crägholt Bluffs with ease. Commander Beralrion, that poor lass... died from 30 explosions that came out of his former comrades. Like this:

I have to add that I use the outworn buckler (Pallegina) as well as little savior (Kana). So all my defenses would be -10 each without them. I also use Redfield on Hiravias which also works like +3 to all defenses - but since it's a passive ACC debuff aura I don't take it into account here.

That's why 3 DEX and good PER are not a problem. With the higher PER you can compensate the -8 ACC from large shields while you get lots of reflex and deflection out of it. So basically you have better results if you have 18 PER and a large shield than 14 PER and a medium shield. But that is even better than 10 PER and a small shield. That's because you profit two times from the shield's deflection value: it raises deflection AND reflex.

It will give you one wound for 8 damage instead of 10. I like it - but many say it's not worth it.

Well chanter tanks can do very well with 3 DEX as long as you give them good PER (reflex will be bad otherwise).

My tanks currently have: Me, chanter: 127/116/120/124 on lvl 14. That is more than I need in 95% of all encounters. Dragons are a different issue of course. Kana: 117/110/120/114 Hiravias: 112/108/126/114 Pallegina: 102/100/128/112 With two chanters who have the Dragon Thrashed you really want to avoid to get mind controlled. If you ask me why I play with 4 tanks (or "tanky" characters): They are not pure tanks but also deal lots of damage - which basically makes the game supereasy.

Crit bonus damage should also get multiplied. At least it says so.

If you want to dual wield and use Swift Strikes then DEX 10 is ok. But I think I would do like 15/15/15/15 for the first four stats. But I doubt it will matter after the first few levels.