Boeroer

Iirc no megaboss is immue to DEX afflictions - so I guess that's why Grave Calling/Grave Bound is working for all of them (although it's pretty hard to crit a megaboss reliably and their very high RES cuts the already short duration quite a bit). Frostfall only procs very rarely (10% of crits). The duration is longer but imo the freezing effect is not really useful against the big ones.

Not always. Passive effects stack with everything and effects that originate from items usually also stack with everything. Only active abilites normally get supressed by the highest effect. But even there you can find some active buffs and debuffs you can stack as well because they address slightly different stats/group of stats. Example: you can stack deflection-only buffs like Mirrored Image or Arcane Veil with +x-to-all-defense buffs like Vigorous Defense, Borrowed Instincts or Llengrath's Safeguard (up to +70 deflection). You can stack Miasma of Dull-Mindedness with Bewildering Blows and Ben Fidel's Neck (-75 Will) etc.

It does not. You can test this with a Berserker/Druid who casts Form of the Delemgan on enemies. The spell grants immunity to DEX afflictions which removes Grave Bound (the freeze effect of Grave Calling). I just tried Frostfall's Encroaching Frost and it behaves the same. You could also spawn some dex immuny enemies but I couldn't recall any from the top of my head.

I seldomly use them because reflection only works with targeted "real" spells. You can never know if he enemies use an AoE or a targeted spell - so it may be that you cast Arcane Reflection for nothing. I'm not willing to do that too often unless it's clear that I will get attacked with targeted spells (like that superannoying Form of the Helpless Beast and such).

Afaik you can only paralyze foes who are resistant to dex afflictions, but not the ones who are immune. Freezing effects are of the same tier as petrify effects (dex affliction tier 4) - so they get downgraded to the paralyzed affliction once they hit a resistant target. A target that is immune to dex afflictions should be immune to freezing, too - unless Frostfall got its freezing implemented differently than Grave Calling for example.

classic Dad Guards

Trustworthy godess or not - the book of Woedica was added very late in the patching cycle after a lot of players voiced confusion about the motivation of the gods and the history and lore of the engwithans. The book was added to add a bit more exposition/explanation and make things clearer to players. I wouldn't make much sense to then add something that misleads players even further. Also Woedica is not known for trickery or skullduggery but for law, justice and oaths- so why shouldn't one trust that she says what she really thinks/recalls about the whole shebang? She might be an extemely autocratic and even cruel deity but she's especially not know for lying. In D&D she would be a lawful evil goddess.

Death Guards don't need Berath's doing nor blessing to come into existence: In the case of Yseyr he had the determination to serve Berath and retrieve the estoc/kill Lucia Rivan even after he was killed. Lucia Rivan was a Darcozzi - an order which normally isn't known for following Berath (their favored/disfavored dispositions don't really allign) - but she was zealous enough to rise as Death Guard after she was slayn by Yseyr. I don't recalls what she was so zealous about but iirc she was charged with protecting the blade. So when Yseyr wanted to collect that blade for Berath and Lucia wanted to guard it two very strong wills collided, leading to the creation of two Death Guards. Why she laves you alone after sensing Berath's chime? Maybe fear - a priest of Berath is her archenemy and Berath herself wishes her gone? Yseyr/Berath want the blade because it devours souls (or essence) - and that doesn't seem to sit right with Berath. It somwehat imitates what the gods do (feeding on souls to sustain their existence). Maybe it could even be used to gather godlike powers over time - if you'd only slew enough enemies or unlock its greater powers otherwise. Yseyr mentiones that the blade is too powerful to be used by kith/mortals. There isn't necessarily a good/bad side here. It's just two sides wanting something really bad.

Community Patch does this.

Wow @thelee, that's news to me.

It helps to have some experience with programming. But basically it's just an "if this than that" machine. The best way imo is to alter an existing, premade script that will run once you turn AI on.

You need Berserker's Confusion in order to kill your own skeletons with your "Her Revenge" cone though. That will trigger Blood Thirst - as well as giving you a phrase per skeleton kill which in turn lets you repeat the invocation again right away. Without Berserker Confusion it takes a lot longer - at least against tougher enemies who don't drop dead from one use of Her Revenge. It also lets you gain phrases against single tough enemies very quickly.

Yes, that's cool. I also like to use Scordeo's Trophy's "speed everything up" enchantment on a Wizard with Wall of Draining. With the modal and Alacrity you can collect a lot of stacks quickly - and all stacks will last for most of the encounter.

Three Bells Through (and other similar "narrow line AoE" weapons like that one bow - that looks a bit like a harp which I forgot the name of - that fires a straight line on crit or x% hit or something) have a weird implementation. They don't carry weapon effects properly and don't work correctly with Driving Flights and Twinned Shot. And that one bow is extremely funny with Tinned Shot because if the "line" proc happens the two arrows that would normally fly in an arc to the target just go off to both sides in a straight line (hitting nothing).

About the paralyze: I suspect you ran into Lagufaeth or Xaurips. In case of Lagufaeth: Some of them have poisoned blowdarts which paralyze even on a graze and they have high accuracy and attack speed. You can counter that by using the small shield Aila Braccia (it turns all ranged grazes into misses and reflects the shot - so the Lagufaeth who only graze will paralyze themselves instead of you). Or you use buffs for both deflection (avoid getting grazed by the shot) and fortitude (avoid to get grazed by the paralyzing poison). This is less reliable though. The easiest way is to become immune with the help of a Priest's prayer spell. I guess a immunity or resistance vs. poison might also work (Paladin, mountain dwarf). As I said you might encounter similar problems with Xaurips - melee Xaurip Skirmishers to be precise (spear attack that paralyzes on graze iirc) and also Andragans (petrifying gaze). The Andragans are especially bad because their petrifying gaze lasts for a long time and their ACC is very high. Those are considered the most annoying types of enemies because they are hard to deal with if you don't know what's going on. So I feel your frustration.

I understand the problem but unfortunately I don't know the answer. Since Obsidian didn't develop the console versions they won't have any direct influence on the console versions and can't just add anything at this point. The PC version of the game is rather old so this forum isn't monitored nor very busy anymore. I fear you might not get a satisfying answer here. Paradox did the console port of PoE 1 and Versus Evil did the port of PoE 2 after Obsidian finished and finally patched the PC versions. Both companies might have their own forums for their console versions where one might find more info about this problem.

I can totally see ancient Wild Orlans hunting down other kiths for meat though. Thinking about certain pygmy tribes and so on...

It seems this whole "checkers vs. chess and TB has more depth and also soldiers train with TB instead of RTwP" bit was just there to emphasize how strategically/tactically or even mentally gifted OP is - compared to those moronic RTwP players who just drool on their pause keys to introduce some depths to their dull combat experience. Unfortunately hefty minmaxing was involved to achieve this kind of mastermind. Getting "self perceived intellect" up to 20 required lowering "social competence" to -5.

Wards - like other summons and Walls - are separate entities and unfortunately don't profit from your energized inspiration. But of course once enemies get crit by a Fear Ward you don't need to interrupt them anymore anyway. So yes, Furyshaper is a great pick imo, especially in combo with Helm of the White Void and Ben Fidel's Neck (the helm won't help the Ward, but it makes it so easy to hit with Ben Fidel which lowers Will by 10 bc. of frightened and then another 10 because of the upgrade which stacks). The Fear Ward has rather bad ACC. If it doesn't crit it can't terrify enemies with solid RES long enough - so all will debuffs do help a lot. An energized Berzerker/Skald with Many Lives + Blightheart and Blood Thirst - spamming Her Revenge - will interrupt most enemies in range all the time due to muktihit attack + no recovery and only 0.5 sec casting time PLUS chant and stagger procs. But he will do not much else than casting Her Revenge (can get quite boring - but also easy to script). Also it's worth debating whether the interrupts have any impact or not because enemies will die from Her Revenge so quickly...

Afaik all direct damage spell-like and attack-like effects that get applied by weapons/are enchantments of weapons scale with the weapon quality. For example Chilling Grave (Grave Calling), Extinction Event (Sungrazer), Thunderous Report (Kitchen Stove), Run-Through (WotEP) etcpp. and especially all those 1/rest stuff enchantments that are on several weapons but nobody notices because they are "only per rest". But since they scale with weapon quality they can become really impactful.

Iirc if you add Spirit Frenzy to a Troubadour's Brisk Recitation (while Energized) you can get two hit rolls every three secs for potential crits/interrupts. Afaik both rolls will profit from the Helm of the White Void if you combine The Long Night's Drink with Spirit Frenzy. And this combo also lowers fortitude even more for more future crits. Of course you'll override Frenzy's strong inspiration with energized For me the advantage over a chanter/caster combo like chanter/druid (just speaking about interrupts via energized) is that both rolls happen passively: you don't need to "sacrifice" any action time since the chant + stagger rolls happen on the fly. You can add fast invocations then (again double roll) - like Ben Fidel + Spirit Frenzy. No AoE pulsing besides Brisk Recitation unfortunately. If you have the time to cast some pulsing spells: that will pay off, too - of course. Completely different action economy though.

Yes indeed. PoE had three different acts. The entrance point to act 3 was Stormwall Gorge. The access to act 2 was "guarded" by Maerwald in your stronghold. In theory it should have been easier to balance encounters and also to design quests and develop the narrative. Can't really say if it was easier since that depends on a lot of other factors ofc - but I guess you know what I mean. Also act 2 was kind of big compared to 1 and 3 I think - so that took away a bit of this particular advantage maybe?

So... you thought that making your entrance into a forum by posting presumptuous and insulting hot takes about a game mode would yield frantic applause? You might not be young anymore, but you're definitely not mature.

So... typical Orlan.

Why wouldn't it be able to crit in the first place? I thought the only thing that does a hit roll and can't crit is Carnage...?