Boeroer

1a) Yes 1b) No 2a) kind of. If the target gets damaged by 10 points this would add 3 points on top. 2b) It should 2c) no idea It used to do nothing - maybe that changed with the latest patches 3a) It applies every time an enemy receives damage - be it 1 point or 100. Each time damage is applied CW will add 5 on top. DoT effects are especially great for that or Wall of Flame, beams, multi projectile attacks like Blunderbuss or Missiles and so on, very fast attacks and so on. Everything that causes a lot of hits in a short time. It's one of the best spells in the game. 3b)normally a tick is 3 sec - so it should be the later. But the numbers over the heads of the enemies that show you the damage (it's not in the combat log) are always higher. Don't know what happens, but it works really well. It seems like there's just a flat +5 damage bonus every time it triggers - but I don't know fopr sure. 3c)that we can't say for sure since we can't see it in the log. 3d) it looks like it - otherwise it wouldn't be so powerful 3e) Ha! That's a good idea. Somebody in this forum already tried that but if I remember correctly it didn't work - have a look at the thread "Nice item-ability-combinations". I think it was in there. 3f) It should. I would say yes but didn't test that myself. 4a) Yes! It lowers all DR directly by 5. That applies to everything. It stacks with Sundering Blow and other DR reducing stuff (chanter invocation, stormcaller) and DR bypass-talents and abilities like Penetrating Shot, Vulnerable Attack, weapons' and spells' inherent armor penetration, rending and Ryona's Vembraces. That's why I love the Golden Gaze so much (on a wizard with Blast or a ranger with Driving Flight). 5a) Sadly not. Same with all other beams. Would be too powerful (or even more powerful) I guess.

In my game only Outlander's Frenzy says 1/rest. All other cross class talents (that are not passive) changed to 1/encounter with the 3.0 beta patch.

You can still use Firebrand.

That may be right - but it's also a big challenge. I don't do solo runs by the way. I like the synergy effects between party members too much.

And you didn't post that here? Ts, ts, ts...

That's right. The "special" good thing about Weakened + Sickened is that you can have both without using per rest spells. Painful Interdiction and Threatening Presence require no spells (or use Secret Horrors - also not per rest). You can have that every encounter. If you combine this with Brute Force and a disabling weapon like Hours of St. Rumbald or Mabec's Morning Star (or whatever melee weapon does prone or stun on crit) you get a very nice CC effect (it also helps with the prone-/stun-check, not only with the initial crit) while doing lots of dmg without using up spells. Those get on top for the roflstomp effect.

How do you know he was flanked and had no mantle? Did you guys secretly share videos?

I once played a spellsword wizard (aka melee wizard). There's a special AI script for that and it worked pretty well. It doesn't lead to no micro but is way less micro than a conventional wizard. Chanter tanks with damaging chants (Come Sweet Winds and Dragon Slashed) and (s)low weapon damage (aka DEX=3) also require nearly no micro. Doesn't really matter which AI script you choose. Moonlike monk tanks with fists, thick armour and max CON also require low micro if you let the AI do it's stuff. He can collect tons of wounds and spend them for Torment's Reach at once. Give one melee character (preferably barb or monk because they have lots of endurance and health) the thickest armor you have + blunting belt and stuff and try to get as much DR as possible (barb = Thick Skinned, Monk = Iron Wheel). At the same time dump RES and pump MIG and INT. Put on Shod-in-Faith. You will receive crits which trigger Consecrated Ground. Often twice. You will heal big time in a big AoE. If you keep your frontline together and place this guy in the middle they need no other healing than that. From my experience rangers need some micro because of the pets. If you want to use those efficiently you have to micro them. You can just let them guard your ranger of course but in my opinion that's a waste of dps potential. But it's true that this approach drastically reduces micro because you don't have to babysit your squishies so much. Another approach is to have no squishies at all but only sturdy characters that can all withstand serious hits. This will reduce micromanagement a lot. This could be done with heavy armored guys, three skilled for melee with weapon & shield, three with guns (armour doesn't influence reload time). You can still have casters. I once tried out the followind frontline and it worked great: druid tank (weapon & shield) + chanter tank (weapon & shield) + barb tank (Tidefall + Sanguine Plate + Shod-in-Faith guy), magran priest gunner, rogue gunner, cipher gunner. Of course this was not superlow micro because of all the spells I had to cast - but I had no problem with swarming and babysitting and "watch out they broke the line! *micro*". So it was more "rewarding" micro and less annoying.

concerning 2.: You can indeed chain commands with shift - and I also think it works with spells. The only thing you have to bear in mind is that you only have to use shift when you apply the spell on the battlefield, not while choosing your spell. It's like [pause]->[choose spell]->[click on battlefield to apply it]->[choose another spell]->[shift+click on the battlefield to apply it] and so on. It works for me - at least for special attacks and stuff. And I also remember (I hope correctly) that I could chain buffs with my spellsword wizard at the beginning of a fight. 4.: limaxophobiacq is absolutley right (shame on you for that complicated name! ) Let me add that you can see the accuracy (I call it ACC) that is used for each spell if you hover your mouse over the spell icon. It also says which defense it will have to overcome. You can tell by the little symbols: shield=deflection, strongman=fortitude, winged boots=reflex and brains=will. If you hover over the enemy on the battlefield it will give you infos about his defenses (if that enemy isn't completely new to you. In that case you will see a lot of "?"). If you compare the ACC of the spell and the defense of the enemy you get a pretty good idea how your chances are. Also have a look here: Attack Resolution

A good approach to roflstomp PotD is to carefully craft the party around synergy effects. Like Combusting Wounds + DoT, Predator's Sense + DoT, Expose Vulnerabilities/Ryona's Vembraces/Penetrating Shot/Sundering Blow + multi projectile attacks/high attack speed, Weakened + Sickened + Fortitude and Will attacks, Weapons' on-hit effects + carnage, Concentration debuffs + Interrupting Blows and so on.

I see...

@Tennisgolfball: Nonono - it's like this: If you say that pop music is bad, then you also imply that everbody who listens to pop has a bad taste (which may be true by the way ). It would be wiser to say "I don't like pop music" instead of saying "pop music is bad". Everybody will get your point but nobody will be offended. Win-win and stuff... It's only wiser if you don't want to offend people of course.

It was a graze too, but grazes are converted to misses and reflected (you can see how it works when I show the logs for the first one). Ahhh! That explains it (couldn't read the log too well on my mobile).

Hehe - whining and RANTING! Cipher's are a bit of a rogue/caster mix. Since they can get an "always on" passive damage mod of +40% it's ok if their powers aren't as powerful as the spells of a "real" caster. But they shouldn't be worthless either. Maybe this nerf/buff achieves this - we'll see...

Would be even more awesome if he used a rod named "Machete" instead of a great sword named "Justice".

It should. As far as I know it works with every ranged weapon.

So everybody who does solo playthroughs is a garbage collector? I would be more careful about calling people names.

Hehe - nice. But huh? Did the Cleansing Flame miss at the end of the fight got reflected because of the durgan reinforcement? Because the shield itself only reflects grazes I thought.

It all depends how you play. If you like to sip a potion all the time then "Increased Consumable Duration" will be far more useful for you than a "Received Healing Multiplier". Whatever - I always used to give my non-mechanics chars Lore 10/Survival 10 (or 10/9 or 8/10 or whatever). Now, with Second Wind and the camping bonuses, I'm trying to spread the points more - which it a good thing. Sometimes Lore 4 or 6 is enough for a certain scroll that I'd like to use more often and so on.

Did you start a new game after installing 3.0 beta or did you use an old savegame from 2.03? Maybe that's because the spell is updated but the item is not?

Hahaha! Still too sad you can't give your party a name. "MmmSync" or something like that. But at least you can name your songs (how about "Bye Bye Bye" or "Fry Fry Fry?").

Only if your level is on par with theirs (or higher). So, not at level 10. But it would do a lot of raw damage if the "destroy" gets triggered. He said he has the expansion but didn't play it yet. That's a pity because now - with level 10 - you're a bit too mighty for that content - except Crägholt of course.

Josh Sawyer said before this nerf that they wanted to prevent ciphers from spamming high level powers as well as opening up every encounter with a hefty sucker punch like Amplified Wave. That's ok for me if the high level powers get buffed and focus gain is a bit higher. 0.25 focus per point of damage to 0.35 focus per point of damage is an increase of 40% by the way. That's not bad at all and better than any item, drug or talent that you can have. And since it's you new base focus gain, maybe it stacks multiplicatively with the other focus gain buffs. Although I have no idea how these modifiers are calculated to be honest. But I guess that these items/talents just stack additiveliy like weapon damage so it would be: 0.35 focus + 0.35 * 0.25 (Talisman) + 0.35 * 0.33 (Draining Whip) = 0.55 focus per point of damage. If it stacks mutiplicatively then: 0.35*1.25*1.33 = 0.58 focus per point of damage Not much of a difference. Before the buff it would have been 0.39 or 0.42

That's new. And good. Druids have OK base deflection. So making them a tank is not that weird. They don't have lots of self buffs or any class talents that boost their tankyness further - but at the same time they have good CC spells. They only have to tank until their first CC sets off. My druid tank had all defenses over 100 at lvl 14 (with items, without MC talents, resting bonuses and consumables). He was a pretty useful tank. It was a good tactic to wear the Blaidh Golan hide armor and other stuff that helps against prone (or raises your defense if you got proned), let the enemy gather around you and then cast "Calling the World's Maw" on yourself.

Yes. Stag Helm now has immunity to stuck.