Boeroer

Just tested it: I also can't reproduce this bug. I'm on 2.02 Linux.

It was a bug and didn't stack before. So it was not very clever to take both abilities. Now it's supereffective.

The bests potd-party for me so far was the one with a paladin tank, monk, barbarian, priest and two ciphers. And with "best" I mean it was the perfect balance between fun and effectivity while doing not too much micro. Paladin's Zealous Focus plus Coorinated Attacks plus Priest's Repulsing Seal, Inspiring Radiance plus Painful Interdiction plus Barb's Threatening Presence plus Monk's Enervating Blows plus Ciphers' Mental Binding, Ectopsychic Echo and Amplified Wave made the playthrough supereasy. Adra Dragon died at first try without much planning, so did Alpine Dragon. Thaos was not even worth a laugh. That's because you can stack ridiculous amounts of ACC (more than +60) on one char and a good amount on all others while lowering the Fortitude and Will defenses of enemies by ~40 when stacking sickened and weakened. After debuffing the enemy the Barb (with stunning or overbearing items) will stunlock whole groups while the ciphers will cast Tactical Meld before combat and then (after debuffing) Amplified Wave. The monk I used was an autoattacker and prone-machine with enervating blows and Force of Anguish. He and Mr. Barb ran around and proned the ones that were left over after two amplified waves. Paladin just stood around and shot Flames of Devotion into faces (if needed) and then switched back to his marking weapon and small shield and turned on Sacred Immolation. All this didn't require too much micro after the first seconds of combat. You just set up your buffs and debuffs, let the paladin take aggro, cast 2x amp. wave, pick your remaining melee/ranged targets and that's it. The fact that I only had 2 ranged (cipher) squishies - the rest was relelatively heavy armored melee - helped immensely against foes' AI. Nobody rushed to my ciphers because all these fat bastards stood in the way. Just be sure to equip some reach weapons as backup on monk and barb. As primary weapons I would prefer dual wielding with heavy armor since the recovery time while dual wielding is very short - and +50% of 20 frames is not so much as +50% of 30 frames. The monk can use light to no armor if you took Iron Wheel and can then use the Staff of Lawran (speed) and lightning strikes = awesome speed (+45%) with great auto-damage (Turning Wheel, Blood Testament). Barb can use the quick switch belt and Spelltongue to get long lasting +15% attack speed at first, then switch to main weapons and turn on frenzy. That will stack to +48% attack speed. If you don't want to use a cccweapon but want to go for full speed: I would either recommend Sword of Daenysis plus March Steel Dagger (both +20% speed) plus 20% speed two handed style - resulting in +88% attack speed without buffs from others. Or use a two-handed weapon with speed like the Blade of the Endless Paths. The damage output will be bigger because the two handers' longer recovery time profits more from +speed modifiers and the Blade has DR bypass and high base damage - but it's just so much fun to watch this barb when he's going crazy with his speedy toothpicks. And don't forget to stack all the spell binging gear in your monk when he gets his duplicates. Unlimited Firebrand, Alacrity, Spreading plague and so on is just too good. It's like having two additional powerful meele caster - summons in the party.

Paladin's Coordinated Attacks and items' Marking enchantment stack by the way. I gave my cipher + 60 ACC against the Dragons with Coordinated Attacks (+10) and a marking weapon (+10) on my tank, then Tactical Meld plus Borrowed Instinct (both +20). So marking weapons can be a good choice when you need to stack a lot of ACC on one char.

It's even more easy than using the "official" companions because you can built exactly the party that fits your playstyle. And you can profit from great synergy effects like a barb with Brute Force + Threatening Presence (causes Sickened debuff) and another char that does an aoe Weakened debuff (priest, wizard and so on) plus a cipher with Amplified Wave (targets fortitude) or a monk (Torment's Reach and Force of Anguish target fortitude). Sickened plus Weakened will lower fortitude by nearly 40 - letting the barb crit most of the time even with carnage. The Amplified Wave will crit and the monk's special attacks too. Plus: you can build characters around special unique items like Tall Grass, Forgemaster gloves and so on. Just be sure to collect as much money at the beginning of the game (sell everything to Heodan as long as you can- his prices are hilarious) so you can buy 5 hirelings as soon as possible. Then the XP-gap won't be so huge. Companions have your lvl, but hirelings start with one lvl less than yours, that's why. So... long story short: is's easier.

Whooha. That must be a new bug. Could be related to the fact that it does crush damage - maybe it's considered a physical attack and not a spell attack - which would be wrong of course.

Agreed! Nice idea. Also that would give all the companions a proper use (besides being sacrificed in the blood pool) since I always park them in the stronghold and do "adventures" with them. Would also be nice if they had some impact on prestige/security and would help defending the stronghold. Kana for example would give +1 prestige, eder +1 security and so on. And while adventuring, these bonuses don't apply of course. It should also be said which type of adventure it is and the outcome should be better if you chose a companion that fits the task - class- and skillwise. So - the guarding of a noblewoman should be perfect for a defensive melee char, findig an artifact would be easier with high lore, stealing something from a nobleman -> high stealth and so on. Would also be very nice if these adventures would reward you with a unique item or something very rare like sky dragon eyes and the like. Or a pet that has some cool effect like concelhaut's skull. Doesn't have to be superpowerful. I'm so disappointed that the ethereal piggy does nothing. A weak form of silver tide would have been great vor some form of recovery. Or a bonus to one of your skills. Some pets could discover traps, others could place drop traps now and then, distract, lower your resolve but raise perception... Also: armor and collars for your animal companions. Now how cool would it look if your bear would be wearing a scale mail? Very cool? You're right!

Well - I think the +3 resting bonuses that last for 3 rests are pretty good now.

Thanks - spilled my wasabi nuts all over the keyboard. I guess that's what the squirrel does - creating drop traps in a nutshell.

What does the communist part do?

Again: Novice's Suffering doesn't work on spiritshifted druids and never will.

Spelltongue together with another speedy weapon like Sword of Daenysis (speed, rending) is indeed nice.

You have to do the first task for them to unlock him. Shod-in-faith are great. If you run out of spells a lot you should try the Parasitic Staff for your last remaining lvl 1 spell.

A good trick is to switch off Cautious Attack, use a gun at the beginning of a fight and fire a Flame of Devotion into one's face - then let the enemy surround you. When they are engaged, switch to shield and turn on Cautious Attack. This way they don't run past you at first because your deflection is so high. When they engaged you, they don't tend to disengage. Your engagement doesn't seem to bother them.

I thought it still didn't work and maybe never will. In 2.01 it didn't.

You only have to do the first quest of a faction to unlock the shop. This doesn't lock anything. You can always unlock all three shops. It's the second quest for a faction that binds you. The ambassador will only give you that quest if you solved the quest with Pallegina/Maestre Verzano in Ondra's Gift. Help or kill Verzano and then speak to Pallegina. Then go to the ambassy in First Fires (don't forget to pick up the Obsidian Statuette there). Pallegina doesn't have to be in your party to get the quest. I'm not even sure if you have to pick her up at all - I think it's enough if you did the Verzano quest. The gear is also great for monks. Frenzy plus Consecrated Ground - what's not to love? Although the 33% speed override the 25% from Swift Strikes. But you can turn that on when the frenzy expires or you add the lightning talent. Or you just skip swift strikes (saving an ability and a talent) and take something else. Or you give the plate to somebody else in your party. Barb, rogue - everybody without his/her own speed ability who goes melee works.

Rending doesn't effect the lash. So don't the gun inherent penetration, vuln. attack and penetrating shot. Ryona's Vambraces with 3 penetration may work though - since they even work with spells.

I forgot about Spelltongue! That's also a great weapon if you combine it with a second speed enchanted weapon of the same weapon focus - like the March Steel dagger or the Sword of Deanysis. Together with Swift Strikes or Swift Aim or Frenzy that's so superfast. Add a potion of Alacrity for absurd speed or wear that padded armor that holds the spell. A Barb is best because he inflicts all the stealing via carnage. With him you can even use a nice trick: hit once with spelltongue - you will have +15% speed for a looong time then because of carnage - switch to your main weapon via quick switch or the belt that gives switching bonus - attack with frenzy for +48% of speed for the rest of the fight. I used that tactic together with Mabec's Morning Star on a barb and it's very powerful. You can stunlock entire mobs with this because you hit faster than they can recover - even if you don't crit but just interrupt them.

And it steals buffs too - that's even better.

Really? You hae to be clever of course: first talk to the dragon the friendly way so you could leave in peace. Then cast all your seals on him and lay Gaze of the Andragan traps. Then equip scrolls of Valor and Defense and Paralysis plus some dps scrolls then shoot the dragon in the face. Cast your scrolls and buffs, keep casting Repulsing Seal under the dragon's ass while he's still prone and fight your ass off. Should be doable even at lower levels than 12. I think I normally do it at 8 or 9. But of course I need some tries.

The last thing is important. I would love to see a complete ability/talent tree or something like that (I know most skills stand alone) when I level up. So I could plan what comes next and what requirements I have to meet (lvl, ability) and which skills don't work together (e.g. Swift Aim and Twin Arrows).

Depends on the base damage of the weapon. On a dagger it's not so big. On Firebrand it's really noticable. It's also good for an alpha shot from a gun or arbalest, combined with (runner's) wounding shot. That way the dot is even bigger and you get sneak attack bonus anyway, since you started the encounter (preferably from stealth). I never tried sneak attack + backstab + runner's wounding shot. That should be a pretty awesome alpha strike. Theoretically you could also add deathblows to that, now that indiv. stealth work, or with shadowing beyond - but that's not very likely to happen a lot of times.

I can also imagine that Veteran's Recovery combined with Beloved Spirits and a Trollhide Belt vor something like that could add up to a nice effect on a chanter tank

Cheesy easy peasy Rogue with Cloak of the Master Mystic - get critted a lot by fear aura and never turn back visible because of that bug - cut the dragon to pieces while beging invisible... But you are right - normally you wouldn't get that bow very early. I forgot that I cheesed (accidentially). But with two priests and a lot of summons you might win even if you're not of high level.

You can't say which weapon is the best for a certain class, as you can build every class for different purposes. For example an interrupting/stunning barbarian built would need war hammers or morning stars, since there are some unique weapons that combine high interrupt with stun effect. If he wants max DPS he would need Tidefall. Another thing is: how early can you get a certain weapon. Some weapons are so good because you can pick them up very early. What overall use is purgatory when you get it after 90% of the game is done? That's why I think the following weapons are "best" for building a certain idea around it: Tidefall, Tall Grass, Hours of St. Rumbalt, Mabec's Morning Star (if Azurro shows up early), Shatterstar (later combined with Godhanwhatsoever), Borresaine, Sabra Marie, Bittercut, Hold-Wall, Firebrand (from Forgemaster's Gloves), Outworn Buckler, Cladhaliath, Lead Spitter, Stormcaller.