mosspit

To be fair, shades and specters popping up suddenly with exits locking up is PRECISELY what I would expect when exploring a haunted building. Trial of Iron basically is meant for those with at least some knowledge of the game so that they can preemptively prepare. Or for those knowing they will restart any number of times throughout. Or a combination of both. No offence, but this rant is in the same vein as complaining PotD is too hard. You do have other less restrictive options. Chalk this up as another "extended" practice run. Oh, this isn't the last instance of spirits popping up suddenly either.

Spell Tongue (WM) - It has accuracy for tanks who usually needs it, and it inflicts attack speed debuff which is fairly useful on key bosses.

There are many threads already explaining tactics for the "hard" encounters not all of them involve "lots of exploit". Actually exploiting is not even necessary if you start the encounter at the appropriate level. Neither "optimization to death" is necessary", any party can work. All you need to do is cast a single aoe prone/stun/paralysis and it's gg from then on. This can be achieved with any kind of party and before people say "casters OP", just 1-2 scrolls of paralysis on any of your toons are more than enough. While this should be acceptable in easy difficulty since easy should be for everyone... I really believe that in potd mode the cc which can easily win you the fight should be toned down a bit. In the event where CC is toned down or bosses gaining immunity, what do you suggest can be done to succeed? "Super" bosses already have inflated stats and saves, high HP and high dmg. CC scrolls still need to overcome their high saves in order to take effect.

Thanks for sharing. It looks really awesome. It's style also matches the default pool of images so using it will not seem out of place. Community content like these really help with the immersion. Great work

Small titbit of info - some of the premade NPCs do not have the total stat points (78) compared the ones you hire from the taverns. Some has more points but Zahua start with 3 less stat points, Devil has 2 less and Hiravias has 1 less. And ppl are still rampaging through the game with these NPCs.

"How do the Melee Rangers play out now? besides a pet and dmg buffing abilities (ones that just make your autos better) what unique abilities do they bring?" No much. Afaik, melee rangers can still use swift aim and wounding shot besides the "casting" skills like binding roots and marked prey. They can still perform as melee I guess. But for me, I don't think melee rangers are particularly exciting. I tried to build Sagani as a melee tank before. While kinda decent, it was quite boring... then again passive tanks usually are.

Pre-2.x, I did an almost full melee playthrough - pally, fighter, monk, rogue, barb, ranger (ranged). I wanted to get the ranger to go melee too, but my frontline is already too crowded even with some party members wielding reach weapons on switch. Post-2.x playthrough, I am using the same composition with some adjustments. Because for me it's fun. To me, the more balanced party composition made battles a little repetitive and this is one of the way to switch things up. I am also enjoying the micro of actively positioning the melee characters.

I see. Enabling conversation options can still be possible. Post 2.x, stronghold give more bonuses. Previously, the rest bonuses were just +1, but now Chapel can give +3 to resolve and Towers can give +3 to perception. If you go for WM early, you can get access to a +3 resolve ring after the first segment. You can get +3 to perception cloak when you clear the Lighthouse in Defiance Bay. So +6 to the stats you are concerned about with relative ease, and that is without food and "quiet time" bonuses. Or, you can make adjustments to your talent/skill selection by choosing those that are not as defensive. Max resolve can still work. As a side note, I like to have someone to be a "super tank" in my party. Their purpose is to hold the attention of the optional "super bosses" long enough for CC of your party to get through or to flat out defeat the said bosses. For normal trash encounters, they will not matter much. This is highly suited to my personal playstyle though, you can still get by without a super tank. But you might need to reload if the key CC effects do not trigger on the bosses. Paladin might serve the roles you mention well enough. Pre-2.x, I done a PotD playthrough using martial classes (no wizards, priests, druids and chanters). At some points, I used scrolls and equipment to bridge the effectiveness gap of my party. Currently post 2.x, I am attempting triple crown using the same party composition (pally, barb, fighter, rogue, monk, ranger - all melee except ranger). All healing and buff done either by Pally or self buff. So it really depends on your party planning and what you want get out of it.

Looking at your monk, i do wonder though... I do not know how low you want to push down might and dex. Personally, I will try not to get any stat below 10. You don't really need to max int - The base duration of debuffs for FoA is long enough, then there are the ones like Stunning Blows that have low base duration and will not benefit much from max int anyways. Max resolve is not a good idea, as a Monk you want to get hit as you need wounds. Above average resolve is enough. You want to get hit but not to the extent of getting crit'ed every other hit. If you are wearing shods of faith, you would want to get crit'ed a few times during battles. Allocate more into con so you have a larger endurance pool. Beyond that, you might need to plan a substitute for devil. You will not get devil that early... Even on the critical path, she's probably at the 30-40% mark, and that's if you get past the enemies to get to her.

While you are at it, check out the blacksmith in the first town. There is a paladin-only shield called "Outworn Buckler" that is very likely the best shield available to you for most of the game, plus it is fairly affordable.

Well for me, I personally think that patch 2.x made Shieldbearers better. Previously accuracy was difficult to raise but now perception got changed. Conversely, deflection used to have 2 stats affecting and now it can't be push to the levels it was before. I also like the synergy between healing and deflection. For a char to need healing, he/she should already be focused on to some extent and so extra deflection will be helping in most cases.

Yeah thanks Boeroer, I did another test on my barb and the destroy vessel ability propagated through carnage. This was after I powered up the sword to lvl 3 though. Previously when I was powering it up, I could have sworn my barb didn't activate the ability... I'm pretty sure I wasn't grazing excessively, my barb has base perception of 16 and took accurate carnage. In any case, I am happy with the outcome on the powered up version

Yeah I was wondering... In order to level up the sword, I had my barb go solo against the undeads in Heritage Hill. It will be obvious if the ability proc but I dont think it did in my case.

My point was that I don't even know what the scrolls do, or if they are even worth using or not. I have no idea. Not everything built into a game is balanced or useful. It is very common - especially in a complex game like this - that certain things are valued higher than others. In my Dark Crystal example, let's say some skills give you 10 DC's or 50 DC's and that fiagamagig gives 1000. But what if everything you could make with the DC's are totally irrelevant to the game? Yes, you are making the "maximum crystals" - that is a fact about those choices - but that doesn't mean you're winning at the game or that it was a good decision to get them. There was no judgement. Another example: You have a potion that can restore all of your health. It's the best potion in the game. Other potions in our hypothetical game only restore 10% or 25% tops. But in this game, you can increase your defence so high that you never take damage - making all of the potions worthless. You see, everything is related. And to someone who doesn't know what the consequences are to those relationships, it is very difficult to know just how good or bad something is by maxing it - especially with such limited skill points. I do understand the points about lore and what-not. And I thank you for that. But my point was that without an actual judgement call and just stating something that the game gives you, it pretty much means nothing to a new player who does not know what the consequences of these decisions actually are within the game. "Picking the white faeries gives you the most glitter." But what does that mean? Is glitter useful? So it's important to get the most glitter? What if it wasn't useful, but you spent a lot of resources getting it anyway at the cost of other useful things, like sparkles? This is what I mean. When you view the scrolls in the crafting section, you can specifically see what they do. And torm51 also gave good scrolls to use. If I may add, include Scroll of Moonwell and Scroll of Revival. I'm sorry I really don't see the consequences that you are referring to, nor do you need to explain further. You won't get stonewalled because you put in points into the "wrong" skills. The respec option enables you re-allocate points anyways.

The point is not about not knowing about what scrolls there are. If you have lvl 10 lore, you can cast all scrolls available to you. This is to future proof your decisions in terms of scroll casting, giving you the flexibility in terms of scroll casting. And you can preview what scrolls are available by checking out the craft menu under lvl1 - lvl5 scrolls. In any case as others has mentioned, the point allocation in skills is quite flexible. 3 pts in Althetics, have 1 char pump mechanics, and the rest do as you see fit. I don't intend to advocate min-maxing in any ways, but you can at least start from somewhere.

If your pally is going for maxed lore (lvl 10) Go for either Artist or Autocracy instead. The +2 lore they give saves you more points in the long run. Choose your region and background, and go back to edit your stats. As long as you are not going to for base stats that break 18, background will not matter much. I don't even know if I was going for max lore. I'm not "going for" anything, as I have no idea what the values actually impact. I mean, if you only needed 6 lore to get all of the relevant dialogue options, then going for max lore would be nonsensical to do, but if you needed max lore to experience a lot of cool differences in the game that give some unique benefits, then maybe it is worth doing. The thing is, I have no idea. I actually want people to sort of tell me. I guess what I'm saying is that I really have no concept of the consequences of my decisions. And unfortunately, I am very busy these days - I'm older and work a lot - so I don't have a lot of time to experiment and learn slowly what other people already know. I really need to rely on other people's experience for information. For this point in time, max lore (or rather lvl 10 lore) enables you to cast the highest level scrolls. Thats one reason to "max" it.

If your pally is going for maxed lore (lvl 10) Go for either Artist or Autocracy instead. The +2 lore they give saves you more points in the long run. Choose your region and background, and go back to edit your stats. As long as you are not going to for base stats that break 18, background will not matter much.

Greetings and Salutations, So I have a question about Carnage - Does it work with the proc effects from Soulbound Weapons? I have St Ydwen's bound to my barb, but I can't seem to get the "Destroy Vessel" ability to activate in a manner I want. With 25% proc rate, the effects should be fairly noticeable against vessel.

Well for me, I approach character building in the sense of survivability first. Invest enough in survivability to reliably get past battles and put the excess in offense. That said, I like the endurance modal. The DR is good at the start and the hit to graze conversion scales decently to end game. Before the addition of the graze conversion, Focus is my modal of choice though. And assuming you have WM, you can take up Gallant's focus on someone else in case you don't have 2 pallys. Granted the radius is smaller, +4 compared to +6 and it lacks to graze to hit conversion, but it is still decent.

Even during pre-expansion, I found ranger to be a pretty good class. Just avoid treating the pet as a tank. Driving flight and stunning arrows is very effective. Post-expansion as others mentioned, ranger pets got buffed. I haven't progressed my latest playthrough up to max lvl yet but ranger's twinned arrow skill looks awesome.

I am curious how ppl consider difficulty in a RTwP game though? Is it difficult when you have to reload a fight a few times? Or when a few party members gets knocked out? Or if you can't roflstomp over the enemies? (And yes, I am implying the subjective nature of it)

If I'm not mistaken it exists. At least I read about Haven't personally verify it though, as I can't bring myself to do it lol.

Another way to approach Raedric is to intially agree to take out Kolsc for him, and then attack him later. This way you can re-position your party members better for the assault, for eg positioning your dps/cc characters next to the priests and mages and take them out asap.

Because he are level 1. The max level of the adventurers you can hire is 1 below that of your PC.