Boeroer

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.

Yes, as I said: weakened plus sickened = ~-40 Will and Fortitude. Combine that with Amplified Wave (targets fort) and you have the perfect spell. I once used said barb and priest together with 4 ciphers and after I got Amplified Wave that I could spam 4 times all encounters where a joke. Really all. Carnage works with everything except: - retaliation (be it battle forged or item induced) - spells (including jolting touch - I think they nerfed this because it was too powerful) Everything else that comes from weapons like overbearing/stunning/disorienting/interfering/draining/wounding/spelltongue effects and so on work with carnage. A good dual wielding barb that wants to debuff and stun at the same time would be one that uses Cladhaliath with stun in crit plus the Vile Loner's Lance that causes -5 defense on hit/crit. The one spear lowers defenses with every hit while the other stuns on crit which is Mord likely to happen when they have -5 defensese. AND Spears habe +5 ACC anyways - making this a great setup.

OK then and my apologies - sorry if I sounded rude.

I use two island aumaua pallys with quick switch at the moment. 2 Arquebus and 2 Arbalests for the FoD alpha strikes and then I switch to outworn buckler/little saviour + war hammers for a great +10 in all defenses effect because this shields stack. And it works great! 4 very fast, very high damage alpha strikes and then lots of tankyness while doing OK damage. If you have on-kill-effects that's also great because you can steal kills easily with the FoD shots and quick switch. But I think great swords like Tidefall or Hours of St. Rumbalt would also be nice. Defenses are high enough without shields most of the time. However after Sacred Immolation + Scion of Flame nothing else matters anyway. I have to say that paladins changed from "Narp" to "Yarp" for me. Not only because of their Sacred Immolation, but also because that you can play them more offensively while still beging very sturdy and supporting your party big time while requiring nearly no micromanagement. I also love the chanter now since I use his 2 short lvl-1-chants to boost all defenses (except deflection) and move speed and then use his huge aoe paralyze invocation. Also nearly no micro while adding up defense buffs with the pallies. The fights are slower now because I traded DPS for defense - but I nearly never get knocked out or CC'd to a point where I would be in danger of loosing the fight.

Nay - Interdiction is not a spell. It's the fast per encounter ability of priests that dazes enemies in a huge area. You can pimp that with two talents: Painful Interdiction adds the Weakened affliction, Empowered Interdiction adds +10 accuracy to this ability. So only one action while the barb runs towards the enemy. The main reason I love this ability is because you don't only turn your barb into a crit beast but also your ciphers will profit so much from this synergy: all will and fortitude defended powers will crit so easily. More so if your barb stunlocks entire groups. Many people think of one single char when they talk about a "most powerful build" while that's not even half as powerful as using and mixing the abilities of several party members to perfection. Of course you need more abilities and talents on your barb - but these are pretty straight forward and I don't feel the need to mention them. Brute Force & Threatening Presence are the key parts here. I think I completed the game more than 10 times on PotD and used all classes and several builds - and I can tell you that CC always beats DPS (of course you need at least one guy that does some good damage). If it wheren't so, six rogues would make the most easiest party - which they are not. It's doable, but it's no fun and not very easy. They just lack CC capability - even if you give each one a weapon with prone/stun on crit it's not enough and it's not very reliable either. A good party composition on the other hand turns PotD to Easy Mode after some time. The barb I mentioned above (with some help from a priest) is a very powerful CC PLUS DPS build in itself while contributing to the whole party performace. He may not be top of the notch concerning single target DPS and he's not the most reliable CC char - but he does both at the same time which is great. This barb and a well balanced monk are the most fun and powerful melee chars I ever had (if you judge from start to end and not just judge the build when it reaches lvl 11+). No fighter nor rogue nor paladin came close to that. They have other qualities though. If it comes to pure power, nothing beats casters anyway. 6 wizards are the ticket to an easypeasy walktrough - with a ton of micromanagement.

All the caster classes that switch from spell-per-rest to spell-per-encounter at lvl 9 are a little more tricky to use at the beginning because of their low stats like deflection, accuracy and endurance and the lack of many spells - and the tendency to spare them until that superhard encounter that might wait around the corner. But once you get more spells because you get access to higher tier it becomes easier. Not just because you have more powerful spells, but because you have more spells to cast until you have to rest. Then, at lvl 9, it all becomes a spell spam fest. And the wizard is best in this regard because his lvl 1 spells are awesome while priest's and druid's are just OK.

Tactical Meld + Borrowed Instinct + Coordinated Attacks + marking weapon (from 2 pally tanks) gave my 2 ciphers +60 ACC - leaving Concelhaut no chance on PotD. The animated weapons however where the toughest enemies in the game for me. They seem to be immune to most CC afflictions.

Barb: high DEX, high INT, high PER, Brute Force, Threatening Presence, Interrupting Blows, stunning or overbearing weapons (Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tall Grass, Mabec's Morning Star and so on), Gauntlets of ACC +5, Sanguine Plate, Shod-in-Faith boots, Blunting Belt, Spelltongue. PLUS a priest with Painful and Empowered Interdiction (important). Do it like so: Barb into the fray, Interdiction, one attack with Spelltongue, switch to your main disabling weapon set and keep hitting. Enemies will be stunlocked. End of encounter. Why? Weakened and Sickened add up and lower fort by nearly 40 points. In most cases that's enough for your barb to crit a lot with carnage. If the enemy is afflicted with stun/prone plus sickened and weakened, he is so weak that he's not a threat any more. The chance to crit is even higher now in most cases now. If you're attacking fast enough, you will stunlock all mobs with carnage. Even if you don't crit you will interrupt. A weapon with high interrupt is nice (Mabec's or dual wielding Shatterstar (1 sec interrupt) & Godhansthingy(stun)) or dual wielding Cladhaliath(stun) and Vile Loner's Lance (-5 defl.). Edge of Reason & We Toki is also very nice. Tall Grass is maybe best because you get it early, it's a reach weapon and it has the perfect enchantments. Barb is best when he can proc afflictions and the like with carnage. That's also the reason why Tidefall is so great on a barb: draining with carnage makes him very sturdy while applying "wounded" with carnage is also very nice when you have one or two rangers in your party. Grey Sleeper is also fun on a barb because of all the carnage hits the special enchantments will trigger very offen.