Boeroer

Another point for Tall Grass and Hours of St. Rumbalt: you can get them very early - after Maerwald if you like. You just need coin. Tall Grass is Exceptional and Rumbalt has Accuracy 3 enchantment. That's a big leap in Accuracy right after Maerwald. You can also get Tidefall very early, but the fight is quite tough when you are of to low a level and impossible to find if your mechanics skill is under 10.

I once had a melee cipher with Tall Grass. That also worked well. He did not need to get into the fray and still got some nice focus and damage. With Tactical Meld and Borrowed Instinct (stacks for +40 ACC) on top of the Predatory enchantment (+10% hit to crit conv.) you get crits all the time that trigger the prone effect. Maybe Hours of St. Rumbalt would also be nice in such a setup because it not only has an Overbearing enchantment but also Annihilation, what would make your crits truly devastating and would give you tons of focus. Mind that you can cast Tactical Meld before combat for free - meaning that focus regenerates in less than 1 second after casting.

Then the 2.01 beta patch would serve you well. That's already out. Does anybody know when the final patch will be relased?

I think it's lame. If you compare it to deathblows that stacks with sneak and special attack it stinks. Especially since you can only use it once and under very special conditions.

It is 150% because of sneak attack plus backstab (or used to be - who knows now). Just the +25% from the special attack are missing.

You could try the 2.01 beta patch if you purchased on steam. It contains some bugfixes. Just google "pillars beta patch 2.01" and you will find a link to a forum post that links to the "how to". It's quite simple.

How stupid. Could it be that it worked some time ago? Because I really really think it worked when I tried it. But that was close after release.

I think that's not right. I recall that I used point blank ranged arquebus shots with blindind strike out of stealth to open fights - and backstab worked.

You can check if their stats go up every time you load the game. I think it's a bug. A lot of people complain about this while others didn't experience such high numbers.

But shouldn't you do +150% of base damage? Because of sneak attack + backstab? Or is an attack while using Shadowing Beyond not considered a sneak attack like when you hit out of stealth?

There are some buffs that work out of combat. Tactical Meld for example can be cast before combat. When you start combat you will have +20 ACC and full Focus.

If you can, get Hiro's Mantle from Azurro. He will show up in your stronghold from time to time to sell stuff. You need high prestige (crown symbol) for him to show up early and often. Hiro's Mantle not only has retaliation, but also bonuses to DR, which is great for any melee character. Combine that with Sura's Supper Plate, a unique buckler. The retaliation on that shield stacks with the retaliation of armour or Hiro's Mantle. If you eat Carow Golan (= +4 focus on hit) you will at least get 8 focus when you get beaten without doing something. Vulnarable Attack, Savage Attack, high might, draining and biting whip and everything that effects melee damage also works on retaliation. So you will get a lot more than 8 focus when you retaliate. And since Retaliation always hits and has nothing to do with your weapon, you don't need to worry about your normal melee damage output, your DEX or your ACC. You don't even need to attack with weapons to gain focus this way. Together with heavy armour and some DR rising spells, you can just spam your powers all the time and run around the mobs while casting Ectopsychic Echo or whatever. Just keep in mind that you can't get these items very early.

To get access to Twin Elms one must leave Stormwall Gorge at the lower right or southeast of the map. Then you can go to the Elmshore map and from there you can reach Heartsong which is part of Twin Elms.

Did you go to southeast of Stormwall Gorge and from there to Elmshore first. You can only access Twin Elms via Elmshore.

Level 4 is quite early - if you play on PotD. On easy it should be doable. Just start the fight and run back to the next narrow door. Block that opening with Edér who has to pump his deflection with a shield. The rest shoots a lot or slings spells. That should do the trick.

Raw damage helps a lot. You can get that from Envenomed Strike, Deep Wounds, some cipher powers like Mind Wave and so on. There are also some spells/powers that reduce DR. Body Attunement is one of them. And/or you can use burst damage from firearms. Genereally it's a good idea to do a lot CC (cause prone, stun, paralyze, confusion, charming and so on) so that you can buy time and reduce defenses so that you can crit more often and don't get hit a lot. Best tactic (as always) might be to search for a chokepoint and buff your doorman's defenses like crazy while stacking acc on your damage dealers. Then use CC and tank/shoot like crazy. Another winner might be ectopsychic echo. Even though most of it's damage will be eaten up by DR, a little bit always gets through. DR never eliminates damage completely. You just have to hit a lot. And that is easily done with some CC plus Ectopsychic Echo. You could also try some weapons with anti vessel enchantments. That's all that comes to my mind at tje moment.

No idea - but if trancendent suffering scales as it used to, then you should get +16 acc and something like +60% damage at lvl 14? The wiki is a crappy soirce as usual.

I read somewhere that they make surprisingly good tanks, even on PotD. Somebody also said that a ranger with quick switch Arbalests or Arquebuses and Hold Wall (has speed mod) as the last weapon in row plus swift aim is pretty deadly. You can add the Chanter's reload chant on top of that. And the new multiclass rogue talent of course, if you use your animal companion for flanking.

Erm... it's not the real world date - it's the date in the game. You can look it up when you hold your mouse over this watch like symbol right from your character portraits. Where you also can trigger game speed.

Ah, you're right. Do that!

Can't confirm the question concerning marking since I always used to backup my tank with an offtank that attacks the same target.

Yeah. It's better in all numbers except deflection. It gives you +5 to all defenses (stacks with bonuses from rings or capes and so on) and is only 3 points below in defl.

I also can't find anything useful. The wiki is sooo outdated (like always).

Did you go to Stormwall Gorge after Thaos killed the Duc?

Sounds if you don't use some tactics after all. Especially in Raedric's Hold and The Endless Paths you can use chokepoints a lot. You just need one or two characters with very high defenses that block the door and some damage dealers that use spells, reach weapons or ranged weapons who stand behind them and kill the bad guys. Especially Act I is more difficult than the rest of the game.