Boeroer

At level 10 the Lagufaeths should be doable even in Longwatch Falls I think. Never tried them with scaled content because I like to go to Stalwart as soon as possible to fetch all these nice unique items.

I'm pretty sure he's not more effective. Like... a 120% sure. He's doing great things against one single target, no doubt about that. I also like my Twinned Arrows ranger. But he's not doing this in an AoE like the barb. Driving Flight doesn't work with on-hit-effects (except the x%-trigger things like Stormcaller and others of WM have). Plus: Lenas Er, Stunning Shots and Twinned Arrows come really late AND your pet has to be alive and kicking to trigger stunning shots. I prefer Stormcaller since you can get (and unlock it to exceptional) way earlier. This guy debuffs whole mobs - not just one single target. Not only with the bebuffs but also with interrupts as a bonus. If you combine very high INT with an overseeing item and the enemies are not too big (like ogres) you easily can reach 5-6 foes at once. With Barbaric Blow and Heart of Fury (if you need a debuff NOW) even the Vile Loner's Lance is enough - and that thing you can have very early if you want.

What about a chanter with all defense +10 talents, sup. deflection, cautious attack and the Dragon Slashed chant? It's a little bit like Sacred Immolation but comes earlier. Plus you can have very flexible buffs if you need them. And summons. Are his defenses still too weak for soloing?

More FoD uses (however achieved) would be so cool. I love my gunslinging paladins with Intense Flames, burning lash and Scion of Flame.

Thanks to this thread I could invent this: barb disabler Thanks a lot guys!

Speaking about gear-centric: barb disabler

Yeah, as I said: if your defenses are high it's nothing - if they are low it's your death sentence.

I gave the barb Aspirant's Mark (should be 1/encounter after WM II comes out) and all speed stuff and shouts, VIle Loner's and Strike Hard. They are not only disorienting weapons, they also have nice interrupt ratings (0.5 and 1.0) so I also took Interrupting Blows. Behold the power of the Disorienting Roflcopter: :-D And that's without the terrifiy-shout! Heart of Fury is a BIG thing here also: Because it does a Full Attack in an AoE PLUS carnage you an stack up the disorienting effect to ridiculous amounts. But even without it the defenses are whimpy. Groups of tough enemies suddenly become soft, wet toast. Have to try if you also can achieve this with one weapon (Vile Loner's) and shield. Hammer and spear really gives you the look of an imbecile. Will post a build when WM II comes out... edit: the fortitude and reflex defenses are not known - they should be nearly as low as the rest. Fort might be a bit higher (20-30) because ogres have a lot of that.

Erm... did somebody else notice that the disorienting enchantment effect stacks on enemies? We heard about the blunderbuss Scon Mica's Roar: that it causes 6 times -5 defense to a total of -30 defenses. So after reading in the Attack Speed 2.0 thread I figured maybe this also happens if you hit fast enough with melee weapons. I made a barb with all the attack speed stuff so he will hit as fast as possible and gave him the Vile Loner's Lance and Strike Hard (looks crappy, I know), both are disorienting. Then I developed this a bit further and gave him the White Spire and Wodewys for his second and third weapon slot and took Quick Switch. Now I ran into a bunch of Ogres and startet hitting. Soon after that Wodewys triggered Nature's Mark - that caused a long lasting debuff of 10 points to deflection and reflex in a pretty big AoE (maxed INT and Ring of Overseeing) - now I switched to the White Spire and hit everybody for -5 defenses and switched to the dual weapon setup and caused another -5 plus -5 from both weapons. As I had guessed, these debuffs stacked. So the Ogres had -25 deflection and reflex and -15 fortitude and will for a short amount of time (I also used Threatening Presence and shouts to debuff them further). And then - because I was pretty fast - the defenses of the Ogres dropped really fast because I was hitting without recovery and although you can't see it in the tooltip, the disorienting debuff of Strike Hard and Vile Loner's Lance started to stack "internally". I looked at the defelction and it dropped from somewhere near 50 to 20 and further - then staying there. Obviously the first debuff ran out and I hit the point where there was a balace between outworn debuff and new ones applied. Together with Threatening Presence and shouts the defenses of the Ogres were really really low. THey were not disabled, but easy prey for the rest of the party. If you skip all that quick switching and just go for the Lance + Strike Hard (or even for the Lance and a small shield) and try to get crits to prolong the debuff duration plus max INT for long duration this may be a nice, reliable way to heavily debuff in an AoE without to much micromanagement and with litte resources. Have to test this further if it's worth a build...

If you don't have high defenses they will just perma-paralyze you forever with their blowpipes. That's why they are really devastating if your level is too low or if you don't have high deflection and fortitude or some other means of defense that counters this affliction. They are also superfast and love to swarm you - you can't outrun them without boots of speed. So if you have squishies they will be most likely dead since on PotD there will be a ton of Lagufaeth. Then: in Russetwood or Durgan's Battery they are a bit weaker than in Longwatch Falls - at least that's my impression. If you reach lvl 9 or 10 they are not very difficult anymore with a party - or if your defenses are top-notch like a solo paladin's surely are. edit: and stop playing solo paladins! I want my 12 Ogres!

The armor will emit a Threatening Presence of course.

^ Superexactly! I also found it's more important to have fun while playing (a not to messed up build helps of course) than being superpowerful. Even on PotD you will encounter fights which are too easy. Then the fun drops. So OP build = more fun doesn't work. Especially if your OP build needs more micromanagement than you can bear. It can be as Op as you like: if things get tedious it's just not worth it. One example: combine Quick Switch and the Coil of Resourcefulness. Now equip two arquebuses. Fire, switch, fire switch... there's no reload animation - it starts and then gets skipped if you switch right after the shot before the recovery bar appears. If you use a rogue this setup is super OP. You can also do that with two melee sets that deal different effects - like White Spire and Hours of St. Rumbalt. If you switch after each swing there will be no recovery bar. You can just pump MIG and dump DEX, put on plate - all without penalties. It's superduper OP - but at the same time so annoying that I would not do it for more than 5 minutes. Maybe it's a nice option for soloing though.

Well - some of my builds totally evolve around an item - but that's the fun of it (for me): finding nice synergies between items and abilities. So "theorycrafting" and approval is exactly my thing. But at the same time the game just works perfectly well without it.

What always works and is good fun with low micro: High MIG, high INT, good CON, good PER, ok DEX, low RES. Put on Shod-in-Faith (the high MIG and INT are also great for anybody who stands near you), get Sanguine Plate (you don't need Frenzy as an ability then), grab Tidefall. Don't run into battle as the main aggro guy, but don't wait too long either. Your deflection will be low and most of the time the enemies turn towards you and stick to you. You will be hard to kill because of high DR and constant healing (draining via carnage is huge, Consecrated ground also wotks when you're disabled) while doing good damage with Tidefall (+25% wounding in your huge carnage area). It a really nice mix of AoE damage and tankyness. Until you get Shod-in-Faith you want to stay behind sturdier guys and use a pike.

To be honest you can do great builds just with generic stuff that you enchant yourself. But of course some effects on unique items are powerful if you know how to use them perfectly well or even abuse them to break the game. Some items just give a build a nice twist - like turning a 3-RES barb into a tanky healer with Shod-in-Faith boots or something like that. I think the most precious thing I would lose is fun. edit: typo

Barbarian, two axes, here we go: Right hand: Woodewys axe Left hand: We Toki Maximum PER, lots of DEX, lots of INT, MIG doesn't matter that much. Go to a mob of enemies after your tanky guys engaged and start hitting with Wodewys - because of carnage Nature's Mark will trigger in an AoE very soon, lowering defenses of the mob by 10 - We Toki will start to crit via carnage also - everybody wants to lie flat on the face. Great setup. Edge of Reason with it's draining is also great. Draining via carnage lets you regain endurance like a boss. Who said that battle axes are bad? That must have been somebody who knows nothing. Was his name John Snow?

Edit - sorry, my daughter send this while sitting on my lap. Will post later. :D

Yes, that would be sufficient. But you only will get all that *1.15 durgan stuff and strike hard quite late - so maybe you want to have more DEX so you will be a bit faster as long as your recovery didn't hit +100%. One handed weapons with speed that come quite early are the Sword of Daenysis (Vincent Dwellier in the Salty Mast), March Steel Dagger (quest "Something Secret" with Derrin in Copperlane), Unforgiven flail (quest "Cinders of Faith" - where you can also get Tidefall), Spelltongue (kind of speed enchanted, chest in the map Durgan's Battery - not inside the Battery itself, left side of the map near a destroyed cart ). All the others come to late to build a char around them. But that's just my opinion.

No, it does not. The only offense related abilities that work in melee (and have nothing to do with the animal companion) are: - Swift Aim - Wounding Shots - Marked Prey Hope I didn't forget something. Even Vicious Aim does not work as you said and I really don't know why.

I just did a quick test with a tank that's specced for disengangement attacks: very high deflection, DR and defenses, low damage (so that the enemy wants to leave you and go for your glass cannons), but high ACC and a stunning weapon. I took defender in order to get more eng. slots so that more enemies eat disengagement attacks when they try to pass me. Result: not one single enemy got critted or stunned...? Seriously that ability is total crap. Especially since you can't use it together with Savage Attack, Cautious Attack and so on. I know that defensive modals are exclusive - but first of all Defender is not defensive anymore and secondly: why Savage Attack? Stupid...

Let's see... (for a barb you don't need Saguine Plate. With Sanguine Plate anybody can be a barb though) The things you listed are enough if you also have a DEX bonus: 1.33% (Frenzy) * 1.2 (Strike Hard) * 1.15 (Durgan Refined Strike Hard) * 1.15 (Durgan Refined 2. War Hammer) = 2,11. Add Two Weapon Style: 2,31 Now you could put on a durgan reinforced plate (-0,35) and have Vulnerable Attack (-0,2): 1,76 If you have a DEX score that gives you +20%: 2,11 - no recovery. Did I do it right? Edit: forgot something that turned the whole statement upside down.

But then the system would have to be revised. It can't be that when I walk onto a guy I get like three disengagement attacks just because I ran in a slight curve and not 100% straight. Disengagement attacks shouldn't happen at all when I enter the threat area - they should happen when I LEAVE! At the moment - when I try to flank an enemy who has more than one engagement slot I eat more than one disengaement attack. That's just stupid. It would be totally ok to get some if I wanted run run past him - but for the I would have to leave his reach and THEN I should get hits, not before. As disengagement attacks have a bonus to ACC it could be a nice setup to take defender, high ACC and a weapon that does prone or stun on crit. THat way disengaement attacks with defender would have some usefulness. IF the on-crit effects work with disengagement attacks - don't know.

Did you use that tactics on PotD? Normally this group would be swarmed and your wizards would get targeted by casters and archers. In the beginning of the game there aren't very big mobs. Later one or two sturdy guys just aren't enough. But at the beginning - especially with chokepoints - it's a good strategy. The staff is so good because wizards have very poor base ACC, low endurance (even if they didn't dump CON) and it's the only way that they can take part in melee fights a lower levels without being completely useless. At lower levels it's quite a sacrifice that you have to cast a spell for every encounter - unless you like to rest a lot of course.

Ah come on. If they would drop Tall Grasses and the like you would love that your stronghold gets attacked. Every time!

I would say both abilites are pretty worthless. If you're a supersquishy then +10 deflection will do not much for you. If you're not so squishy you can stand a few slaps on your own. Defender was nerfed to uselessness because engangement - as you said - is nothing that you can build on. Enemies have too many hitpoints to stop them with one Disengagement Attack - even if you're specced for damage it will not be enough to stop any enemy that rushes past you. So, best is to not rely on a single tank but build a solid frontline instead - and even then you will have to watch out. Another approach is to not use glass cannons. It's enough to give your backline a bit of DR and deflection (without wasting a precious ability point of the figher) and they don't get rushed anymore. Doesn't have to be superthick armor or a 100 deflection. You can even feel the difference when you put them in hide armor and put on a ring of deflection.