Boeroer

In my memory Pilferer's Grip did -16%. But since I'm an old fart it's possible that my memory doesn't serve me right. Just looked it up: it's -10%. Sorry for the wrong numbers. But still a good item.

Bounties can be hard. I suggest that you go to Stalwart - at lvl 7 it's doable and there are lots of quests.

Of course he will - but only if he uses Sacred Immolation and that comes quite late. Now if he doesn't have this ability a fighter will be a better damage dealer because of his damage bonuses. And I think that nobody says that a paladin under lvl 13 does more DPS. But if he uses Sacred Immolation the fighter will certainly fall behind. I'm also not saying that a paladin is the best DPS guy out there - he surely isn't. But you can skill him for DPS and will have a very sturdy char that does solid and consistent damage at first - and on top of that you will have very useful on-kill effects that help the whole party. If you want to build around that (which can be very effective) than you have to build a dps paladin and not a supertanky one - no DPS, no kills, no on-kill effects. So you will have a very useful party member. He will do way more dps than a chanter and still support greatly with buffs, heals, auras and on-kill effects. After lvl 13 however his DPS and kills will improve immensely and his overall usefulness will go through the roof. I agree that lvl 13 is very late and you shouldn't rely just on that single ability when you plan your (dps) paladin. But you will always at least have a very solid frontliner that not only stays up and keeps hitting for OK damage but also buffs and heals all the time. Until lvl 13 a fighter can be the better face-to-face DPS dealer and is also very sturdy - but he doesn't add anything else to the party. If you want exactly that: a sturdy DPS melee guy that doesn't have to do anything else than hitting enemies - then of course a fighter is a good choice. But saying a DPS paladin is bad overall because you simply reduce him to his +damage abilities is just ignorant. And saying that you HATE it that people do something different in this game than you (and they think it's good) is not only ignorant but generally a questionable attitude. Why would you hate that? It's ok when we don't agree and also bearable that we seem to constantly talk past each other. Screaming HATE is not.

Thanks for the info mate! I'm on holiday with wife and kids atm - when I get home I will look into this.

When you're dual wielding the recovery penalty of heavy armors isn't so bad anyways - in absolute frame numbers. That's because the basic recovery time is way shorter than it would be if you use two handed weapons. So there's a good tradeoff when you dress your dual wielding rogue in plate. Not so if you're using two handed weapons. But anyways you can durgan refine your armor and put on Pilferer's Grip. That drops the penalty from +50% to +19%. You will have good protection, can get into melee earlier and you'll have lesser knockouts while being only slightly slower. That would result in more dps most of the time I think.

That's what +defense against disengagement attacks is for. And nobody said that every stupid mob has to have these special talents that boost disengagement attacks. I just think that these mechanics would make fights more interesting and it would be fun (at least for me) to try out builds that delve in this special area. I tried it - but at the moment it's just neither fish nor fowl. So I just ignore engagement most of the time - which is a pity.

You're welcome. I think Tall Grass is a good choice. It's more powerful in the hands of a rogue or barb - but if you don't have them in your party it's one of the best weapons for you I think. Depends on your build, but still. Merciless Gaze plus Eldritch Aim (and maybe Minor Threat) produce a lot of crits. You should also think about Firebrand on the Forgemaster's Gloves. It's not only a great DPS weapon but also works well with your two duplicate spells. If you play a tanky melee wizard with heavy armor you can easily summon a duplicate and be two tanky dps wizards with flaming great swords instead of this stupid wand the duplicate would wield otherwise. Add that heavy armor "White Crest" from Stalwart and you add some more spells to your duplicate while also adding lots of DR. Then get the boots of speed from Russetwood for two fast tankywizs - or use some boots with spell bindings. Stack all spell binding gear that fits your playstyle with this char - like Cape with mirrored image and so on. It makes your duplicate a second caster and improves your party performance immensely.

Of course it is. It's even no big problem to create a new talent for that. Then nobody has to be annoyed since you could just ignore that talent. The question is if the devs like the idea or not.

Tehehe - right. I'm also wondering why there's two of them. One would have been powerful enough (maybe costing 6 wounds or so). But I don't complain - I love it! Did I already say that I love it?

Well said.

No, I just like the idea that you can't turn your back to an enemy and walk away without consequences. And that you can't just run through a gap between two enemies when one of them or both are not fully occupied. So a disengagement attack could be a kick with the boot or a hit with the ellbow or whatever - maybe that's why it is invisible But a proper animation would also be nice.

Hey - no need to get c0cky. I didn't intend to hurt any feelings - just a little teasing. All right. Overall: definitely wizard at the moment. Best spell composition for any playstyle. If we're talking about non-casters and melee: definitely monk. Even more since 2.02 because of his new skills (awesome!) and the fact that Lightning Strikes + Turning Wheel stack now. Ranged: I would say ranger because of the improved pets, the new skills (great) and stormcaller. Before that it would have been rogue I guess. It's a pity that he only got this crappy smoke bomb. And we're just talking about "solo" builds - without help from other chars. 'Cause like I mentioned in another thread: individual builds are not as effective as a whole "party build" where all characters use perfect synergy. In such a party individual power is not so important. And we should define if this char should be measured regarding PvP or PvE. At the moment I'm thinking about PvE because there is no PvP in PoE. You can get an impression what classes would be hard to fight in PvP when you go to Crägholt Bluffs and see which classes are the toughest one to beat. For me it was the monks (brawlers) and the fighters were also hard - but of course these nps - especially the warmages - weren't very special builds. And that's just my opinion and I may be wrong. And my personal preferences how to play the game may also interfere with my objectivity. But I think I'm not too wrong.

I like the idea of engagement and disengagement attacks because it opens up another way besides DPS and CC to influence combat. It's just not very useful at the moment because it's just doing some little bonus damage if you break it. Nearly all enemies just shrug off one single attack. That's not very threatening. Having the chance to apply some short CC effect (you would still have to overcome the corresponding defense of course) on the other hand could be very useful even if your base damage is whimpy. I would like it if there where some more talents like Hold the Line and Defender or Gracefil Retreat that concentrate on (dis)engagement. But not only adding engagement slots and giving more defense against disengagement attacks, but also adding more dmg or/and some affliction. Something like "painful disengagement attacks" (can add weakened), "powerful dis. attacks" (adds 20% damage), "crippling dis. attacks" and so on. I mean there's also Interrupting Blows which is very special and is only really useful if you plan a certain build - so why not allow builds around disengagement attacks? That would enrich combat and make it more interesting. Another plus: Graceful Retreat, Hold the Line and Defender would become talents that are not a complete waste. Same with items and spells that give bonus defense against disengagement attacks.

I will give you my account number then.

Sacred Immolation alone puts a paladin in front of every fighter DPS build. At least in PotD where you have plenty of mobs. The good thing about a DPS paladin are the on-kill-effects that can be great. A fighter doesn't have this. Aoe heals and deflection buffa on kill are great if you combine this with Sacred Immolation and FoD. A fighter can be built to be a very good dps guy also, against single targets he's doing more damage, and with the durgan refined Sanguine Plate with Pilferer's Grip and Armored Grace he will have max armor without recovery penalty which is supercool. But he's not contributing so much to the party like the pally does. Whatever - the only problem here is that brindle loves his clichee fighters and rogues and will argue till doomsday to convince you that DPS pallies and tanky rogues are inferior. All I can say is that after countless of PotD playthroughs I still discover nice and powerful builds and party compositions that are not straightforward.

Sorry... double post.

What he said. And yes, they profit from all items you have - except weapons. Best armor for you is the padded one that has spell binding Alacrity - because that means your duplicates also have one use of Alacrity every time you summon them. Then they hit like whirlwinds. You can also give them formemaster's gloves or rotfinger gloves and whatever holds spells. They will be like monky wizards or wizzy monks. It's hilarious and I love it! Or them...

Melee wizard in plate works just fine with every party. You can get bracers that reduce armor penalty by 16% (Pilferer's Grip form the guy in front of the inn in Stalwart) and you can use Durgan Steel im the White Forge of Durgan's Battery to refine your armor for another -15%, leaving your plate at +19% penalty which is awesome. There's no more gear to reduce the penalty, but you can reduce recovery time itself with your spells (Alacrity) and speed enchanted weapons like the Blade of the Endless Paths (estoc) or Lawrans Stick (quarterstaff). Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff and Czital's Spirit Lance now use any Weapon Focus you have chosen like soulbound weapons do - so there's no reason to use Weapon Focus Peasant or Solider for your "normal" weapon. And you can also durgan refine your weapon for even more speed (= less recovery time). Search the forum for AndreaColumbo. He writes great posts about bis tests concerning recovery and how to minimalize it with skills, enchantments, spells, potions and so on.

I think drty is right about engagement being broken somehow. The only good thing about it is that it stops enemies when you engange them (if you triggered that option). But honestly I don't care much and play around it. Which means I give no second thoughts to things like Defender, +engagement items and Hold the Line. I just use three or four sturdy frontliners (animal comp. included) and that works fine. But you can't say drty is not right. It's actually a very good idea that disengagement attacks cause some form of affliction and/or a very high chance of dealing a crit. You are turning your back to an attacker - such stupidness should really be punished. A new talent would be OK for that. One that lets you choose which short timed affliction you want to cause with a disengagement attack or something like that. Choose between longer hobbled, mediocre prone and weakened or short stun or whatever. That would give more engagement slots a real purpose and make the whole engagement system way better.

Ha - after a crit some enemies sometimes fly away and float in the air when I pause directly after the crit. After verifying the cache I had no further issues with missing weapons - I have no idea if this is just a coincidence.

Put her/him in your party and attack her/him till she/he's dead. It's like deleting - but more fun. It has no negative side effects.

Didn't say it was smart.

Like Andrea said: use all kind of attack speed enhancements, because that lowers recovery (and recovery only). Plus: take Armored Grace (this is going to be boosted to -20% armor recovery penalty next patch) and get Pilferer's Grip (from the guy in front of the inn in Stalwart), that's another -16% armor penalty. Durgan Steel refinement will add -15% on top of that - leaving you at (50-20-16-15) zero recovery malus (since you can't have negative numbers). Using any other armor than plate or brigandine with this setup would be a waste - because you can't get lower than zero. This will give you the thickest armor and the lowest recovery penalty possible. It's like wearing cloth. Even without the new patch you end up at +3% - which is like nothing. Pilferer's Grip you can get very early if you want and even without Durgan Steel (which requires some game time) you are at +18% (or +15% after tje patch) - which is like wearing robes. Another way is to get one of the capes that has the spell binding of Mirrored Image and the robe from the merchant in Stalwart that casts Mirrored Image when you receive a crit. That way you don't add DR but a solid +25 deflection. So - now you have your base recovery time and can reduce this further by using speedy weapons like the Blade of the Endless Paths and so on. With Durgan Steel it gets even faster. And you can wear the Sanguine Plate that lets you go frenzy when getting a crit - that means another +33% speed. You will be very fast - like AndreaColumbo said. He did lots of great research on (recovery) speed.

You need a certain mechanics skill to discover that lever. And you need a certain skill of english to get help in this forum. Who would understand me if I would nur auf deutsch schreiben?

Advantage of the barb: normal aoe damage and relatively weak aoe cc plus being more sturdy. A barb gains great benefits from shod-in-faith boots because he seldomly runs out of health - while a rogue will go down all the time because he will run out of health. Witout health all healing is of no use. Shod-in-faith work best with low deflection barbs (and monks). Advantage of the rogue: very high single damage and relatively weak single CC. As I said: 6 rogues are a pain in the ass. They are great damage dealers and finishers when a single enemy is cc'd and that's what they are good at while the barb is for attacking groups of enemies. Both are great but you can't say one is generally better. It depends how you play the game. The above "build" I mentioned works great - better than any rogue or fighter I ever had. And by better I don't mean pure dps but overall game experience. Low micro after weapon switch, very tanky, doing good aoe DPS and CC. I also love rogues and I use thema all the time, but a high DPS rogue needs more care and sometimes has to wait before he can join battle. Fighters I don't know. I don't like them a lot so I don't have that much experience with them as I have with the others - tje good thing is they are sturdy while they do good damage - but I think the barbs carnage is just a more interesting feature.