Boeroer

Haha - Soulpunk... maybe we're witnesses to the birth of a new subgenre. But honestly: when you look at the description of some of the spells - for example druid's, it says that the druid amasses stray soul fragments to form blights. So why couldn't an animancer use this soul fragments to power short-lived constructs? I so loved the spidermines of Torchlight II. They are a little bit like the exploding constructs in Glavino's Workshop - just faster. I say it would fit beautifully into the lore of PoE. And for the "mana" resources: maybe nothing too complicated. I really like the idea that he gains additional "mana" or soul power when a foe goes down, but has some resources at the start of the fight. It's a little bit like the cipher's mechanic, but it doesn't matter who kills the foe. Doesn't have to be the animancer.

Are there buttons with no writing or is it really blank? Can you click in the area where the voices should be? Can you hear the voices when you click? It's a known bug that sometimes the font of buttons or the button itself or tooltips disappear (or to be precise: are invisible) - but you should still be able to click them. If you can't interact at all then this seems to be a different problem.

Don't forget that ciphers do a lot of damage with weapons, too. They are a bit like rogues with spells.

That's a very good tactic - but these are all high level abilities. I think Torm's problem now is the early game (or isn't it?). The Penhelm fight is difficult for low level groups because it takes place in a small but open area with lots of high DR foes that have good defenses. They can take a beat and won't die quickly if they try to reach your squishier damage dealers (if you have some). And they are trying really hard. So - a "classic" party setup with a tanky but non-dps frontline and a DPS-heavy backline is not optimal for this fight (or any other fight against foes that teleport etc.). A party that has no real glass cannons performs better in this case. And if you're level 3 - which is really low for this encounter - you don't have lots of CC capabilities either. Those you have might miss a lot. My overall opinion is that lvl 3 is way too low for Penhelm. Especially if you're doing ToI.

I didn't! Still a good char.

Being a construct raising maniac instead?

Paladin aura + Priest Buff doesn't stack. The rest does. With an hearth orlan rogue and a durgan refined Tall Grass plus buff you can get an absurd hit-to-crit conversion rate.

Shot on the Run might be good then I suppose?

Nice tactic. I guess it would be great if you had +move speed in this case?

I agree that we definetely need an animancer as playable class who uses constructs. I so loved the Engineer and his bots in Torchlight II.

Cheesy way: 1. Arcane Dampener or Deprive the Unworthy (autohit) on the dragon 2. Repulsing Seal (very likely to hit) 4. Quick Switch + Coil of Resourcefulness + 2 arquebus; switch right after each shot to skip recovery bar and reloading anim. 3. Win! Not so cheesy (tested on alpine dragon, maybe adra is immune to fire? Can't remember): A char with high ACC and a Ring of Searing Flames (Combusting Wounds) plus some DoT effects like Deep Wounds, Wounding and so in can bring down the dragon (and his gang) quickly. To speed things up, use Recall Agony on the dragon. It will give you twice the damage from Combusting Wounds. One of the best ways to kill the xaurips (besides casting AoE damage spells) is to cast Combusting Wounds, stack retaliation on any tank (use Supper Plate, ret. armor or Hiro's Mantle, Flameshield, Pain Link and so on) and walk into the middle of the xaurip mob. Since they tend to form clusters it's relatively easy to hit a lot of them with CW. The ones that hit you will die very quickly while you can pick off the casters among them. I also think that the alpine dragon is much harder than the adra one. Maybe it's because of the tight space.

Have you made sure that your mechanics skill is high enough to find it?

The Unity-plugin the devs used for capes doesn't work with Linux. Pets: they work with Linux. You have to put the pet "item" into the pet slot of the main character. You will find the black hound in your stash.

^ that's what I always do.

You mean because of interrupts? I didn't have such problems. Deflection is high enough without maxing RES - and the Ring of Changing Heart adds +3 to RES.

Seriously - what's wrong with the brindle? You enter a thread, start provoking forum members left and right and when people backfire you'll say they are bitchy. If you can't get a barbarian to work in PoTD (after ten times trying) it says more about you than it says something about the barb. I don't have favourite classes by the way. I used all of them in several playthroughs (>1500h playtime) and they all can be great or lame.

MIG is really high. I think it wouldn't hurt a lot if you took away 3 MIG and 1 PER or so.

I would like to add Curoc's Brand. Scion of Flame doesn't work when the weapon does burn damage. I suppose it's the same with K's Minor Blights?

Yes, they do stack. Example from a playthrough of mine: paladin with Flames of Devotion (+50% burn)+ Intense Flames (+25%)+burning lash(+25%) + chant (+25%) gave me +125% burn damage on my FoD strikes. If you then use Scion of Flames you will reach +150% of burn damage. The chant not only applies to weapons by the way. It also adds +25% burn damage to spell damage for example. Or it used to... don't know if it still does.

Retraining in an inn works. Did the same once. You shouldn't create chars after two cubra libre you know. As far as I know the usage of the console always disables achievements. Or are there commands that work outside of "IRoll20s"?

Nothing's faster than 6 ciphers with 6 ectopsychic echos. The Speedful Six!

I also think that this build needs a lot of rework after 3.0. But since it's more about the style & theme this time I am totally willing to retrain this build as long as the looks and items still work. And maybe there will be even more fitting abilities and items in WM II.

It should work. I didn't encounter a single Dot effect that didn't. For Predator's Sense you can also use wounding weapons' Dot or chanter phrases (lvl 1 & 3 Dot phrases).

"This is the life we chose, the life we lead, And there is only one guarantee: everyone of us will face the wheel Test me... I'm the drake's ambassador, I rule all those who oppose Test me... I'm the summoner of fire, I burn all those who oppose Annihilate yourself from all that is real Push the limit of self indulgence No one cares... who you are... step aside... I'll break your mind! Test me... I'm the drake's ambassador, I bear down those who oppose Test me... I'm the herald of fear, I panic those who oppose Liberate yourself from all that is real Push the limit of self indulgence This is the level you could never reach Now face me for what you can't be No one cares... who you are... step aside... I'll take your life! Test me... I'm the drake's ambassador, I dominate all who oppose Test me... I'm the harbinger of pain, I crush all those who oppose" Chant of the Drake's Ambassador =================================== The Drake's Ambassador =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 2.03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Coastal Aumaua® or Fire Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Living Lands - Explorer -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 21 CON: 10 DEX: 3 PER: 16 INT: 18 RES: 10 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 5, Athl. 4, Lore 8(!), Mech. 1, Surv. 9 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Weapon & Shield Style(!) Scion of Flame Snake's Reflexes or Ancient Memory Bear's Fortitude or Beloved Spirits Bull's Will or Veteran's Recovery Superior Deflection® Enigma's Charm or Cautious Attack Abilities (I will not write down all of the names) Towering Physique (a) Invocations Level 1: DR-, DR+, Crush/Stun Level 2: Paralyze, Summon Wurm, Terrify(!), Charm(!) Level 3: Summon Drake(!) Level 4: - nothing -(not worth it) Phrases Level 1: Endurance-(!), Reflex & Move Speed, Concentration- Level 2: Frighten®, Defense against Frighten & Terrify Level 3: Slash/Burn(!), Burning Lash Level 4: Draining (not used) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: The Flames of Fair Rhian(!) & Redfield®(Durgan Refined*) Weapon Set 2: Curoc's Brand (for one additional fireball/rest) Boots: Shod-in-Faith or Boots of Stability Head: Munacra Arret(!) Armor: Fine Plate (*Exceptional, INT+2, Crush-Proofed, Durgan-Refined) Neck: Voice of the Mountaintop Belt: Girdle of Maegfolc Might Rings: Ring of Overseeing or Ring of Protection or Ring of Searing Flames, Ring of Changing Heart(!) Hands: Bracers of Deflection or Spirit Spiral (for 3 more Whisper of Treason/rest) Quick slots: Potion of Flame Shield, Fireball Scrolls, Fan of Flames Scrolls, Rolling Flame Scrolls, Wurm Figurine --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! This build is more of a theme-build than the others I presented so far. I couldn't find any nice item/ability combos that kind of break the game or something like that. That's because it's difficult to find new or "different" builds for chanters that also work for PotD. The chanter has a lot of phrases and invocations - but because of the somewhat suboptimal evolution of the resource system (phrases take longer the higher their level, high level invocations need more phrases) most of them are not very useful because they a) come too late in a fight or b) are too weak ot c) are too situational. Those which are viable are really awesome though - but that leaves not too much room for fancy experiments. So I decided to concentrate on the phrase that I love most (that's "The Dragon Shlashed, the Dragon Wailed") and to spin a theme and story around this. Some of the story you can read in the introduction of my ranger build "Riptide & THe Pit Fright". I only added some flavour text now. The intro text above is a modified version of a song from Kataklysm, namend "The Ambassador of Pain" (no, I normally don't listen to that kind of music, but one of my friends does and the lyrics were so fitting that I had to use this). The idea is that this chanter - as an emissary of a drake - uses fire magic for offense, mind control for CC and defensive talents, armor & shield for defense. She's very tanky but - thanks to maxed MIG and INT - still dishes out good amounts of AoE damage with the chant and can do high burst damage with spell binding items and scrolls. The mind control part adds some nice features to this mix. Since she's so tanky, she can afford to take her time for the casts. Casting Whisper of Treason from Munacra Arret takes forever and the dominate spell is also not the fastest. But that's not a big problem. I'll talk about that later. As I said the whole appearence of this lady evolves around fire, terrifying and mind control. Chanters have some phrases and invocations that do all theses things. I picked them all (see above). To be truly a drake's (or even dragon's) ambassador, you also need to hurl some fireballs or other fire magic. That can be done with the special sabre that you only get if you siphon knowledge from Maerwald. This sabre grants 3 uses of fireball per rest. The wand Curoc's Brand has another use/rest. If you have these items, you can use 4 fireballs per rest which is not bad. For tough encounters the ambassador relies on scrolls. In order to make the fire spells really powerful, I maxed might and intelligence. That also helps enormously with the Dragon Shlashed phrase. For the Mind control part I added Enigma's Charm, the Munacra Arret and the Ring of Changing Heart. This gives you one charm/encounter, 3 confuse/rest and 2 dominate/rest. Now you're like a mini-wizard plus chants & invocations. If you want you can later add Spirit Spiral bracers for another 3/rest confusion, but I didn't need that. The best part (for me) is the shield: it has the very special enchantment called "Harbinger" that lowers ACC of foes around you by 3 points. That doesn't sound too much, but this stacks with frightened (we have a chant for that) and terrified (invocation). Also: I also had two paladins in the party who wore the Outworn Buckler and the Little Savior. The "Herald" and "Harbinger" enchantments all stack when they stand together (INT influences the range of that). So you will get +13 on all defenses for just standing side by side while burning your foes. Defenses where not a problem in this party... But besides that, I just think this shield fits the theme perfectly well. That's the main reason I only wore a fine plate (enchanted to exceptional) - it looked cool together with the shield. The (mini) trick for this build is to apply the Dragon Slashed and THEN charm/confuse/dominate people. That way they still suffer from the DoT damage while they are out of combat for some while or fight for you. If you do it the other way round, they will not be affected by your chant because they will be friendly. That's the reason why it's no problem that all the mind control spells take so long. You don't have to do anything to sing phrases, so you can start to mindcontrol right at the beginning of the encounter. By the time your spell goes off, the phrase will have been triggered and all foes in range will be affected. Speaking of range: With maxed INT, a Ring of Overseeing and The Voice of the Mountaintop you get a really big AoE with your chants. And your AoE of invocations also gets very large. Since ou are a tank, you can easily walk into the midst of the mob and then chant the dragon phrase. Most of the time all enemies will be affected by your DoT. As second chant I chose the frightening one from lvl 2. The defenses are already high, but another +10 from "frightened" is even better. Your chant is quite long now - so don't expect to use a lot of invocations. But when I did, I always tried to stick to the theme. That's why I chose the drake over the ogres and so on. The level 1 invocation that lowers DR by 5 is pretty good though. If you have 3 phrases on your counter, use that and then cast a fireball. The DPS will rise a lot. And then comes my beloved Combusting Wounds (CW): If you have a wizard in your party or sombody else who can apply CW, do it: If you combine CW with the lvl-1-damage chant and the Dragon chant, you will do +10 extra burn damage per tick. Some fast cast fireballs on top will end the fight very quickly then. Ok, I'm off for the holidays. Visiting my parents in law who live on the coutryside. I have no idea if I will be online there or if I have to milk the cows all the time. Anyways - have fun and happy holidays!

I think the paladins in Raedric's Keep are of higher level, yes. But I don't know for sure. What also makes them hard to kill when you're of low level is their fat armor. Fighters are good in early game, so are rogues. And ciphers, too. I see not much room for a paladin to improve at such a low level. He has Lay on Hands though, which is really good from the beginning - even more so with high MIG and INT. Edit: forgot monks - really good at low levels, too. You can have Torment's Reach from the beginning, It really makes a big difference on low levels when you compare it to the things other classes can pick at low levels.