aweigh0101

i keep forgetting to rebut the "casters can dump res" idea, so i'll do it quick now while it's on my mind. unlike martial classes and their ambivalent relationship with the intellect attribute and how it affects their core class functions the PoE casters have to rely on at least a moderate amount of CONCENTRATION to not have INTERRUPTED that super-duper important AoE heal that if you don't get it off it means you're gonna get party-wiped! obs wasn't on drugs when they gave durance 19 resolve people. sure maybe a 19 isn't optimal, but their reasoning was and is that the priest needed high concentration because casual players would probably rely on the priests healing and buffing and, being literally the only priest npc to recruit in the game aside from inn-adventurers (most ppl don't use those, atleast definitely not when the game came out) they needed to make sure their NPC priest didn't need baby-sitting from the new players who probably didn't understand all the systems. poe is very convoluted, and i don't think anyone here would deny that. they gave him all that RES so the uber-important-for-first-time-players-who-are-casual-and-also-not-Priest NPC would be able to TAKE HITS, and NOT GET INTERRUPTED. that line of reasoning is 100% solid and applies to all casters. obviously good players use their amazing MICRO POWERZ and actually control their units properly so their priest doesn't NEED high RES to avoid interrupted spells because these players KNOW how to utilize the units. Etc. but the REASONING behind having at least 10 res on a caster stands STRONG still, especially on PotD where the huge amount of trash mobs swarm over you randomly at times and you reeeeally don't want that 3 RES priest getting hit just when he's about to cast crown of the faithful or whatever. tldr res on casters is more useful and less dump-able than int on martials.

there is one secret tactic not many ppl know about i read it on ancient writing spam amplified wave as fast as possible do this many times increase finger click strength eventuall you master all can spam forever ancient legends tell of this secret technique can kill a man in his sleep they say

last two potd runs i've gone sans wizard. i simply got tired of spamming slicken man. i needed some SPICE! my favorite current party is: PC-Paladin w/ Great Sword Tide-Fall and backup War-Hammer godynsthur (stuns-on-crit) wielded one-handed for ACC bonus Pallegina w/ Great Sword The Hours of St. Rumbault (prones-on-crit) w/ backup war-hammer strike hard (speed enchant) w/ paladin buckler Eder w/ Drake's Bell Estoc (has extra -3 DR bypass in addition to estoc's native -5 DR bypass for total of -8 DR bypass) and backup warbow borraseine (jolting touch proc) Devil of Caroc (or hired rogue from inn if i'm feeling impatient) w/ Tall-Grass (prones-on-crit, 10% extra-crit modifier, Reach weapon) and backup arquebus Long-Feller which has Reliable enchantment on it Zahua dual-wielding battle-axe We-Toki (prones-on-crit) and Edge of Reason (godlike weapon). his backup is being too cool for school. those are my 4 enforcers, i.e. the front line. as you can tell, i find weapons that prone-on-crit are the most useful and it so happens 3 of them are in Soldier Focus group. the drake bell estoc is the highest-damaging estoc in the game thanks to its additional -3 DR bypass. in order to compete with the blade of the endless paths however it would need to be enchanted to Superb, and dipped in durgan steel. I prefer the bell's huge DR bypass because late game enemies have 20-25 dr and that is very annoying. the other two units are: grieving mother w/ arquebus Pliambo per Casilta which inflicts -5 defenses on hit (!) w/ backup war-hammer strike hard + shield Durance (mandatory on potd IMO) with hold-wall Arbalest that has the Speed enchantment; i carry that baby throught entire game all the way from gilded vale just so i can eventually make it Exceptional and dip the sucker in durgan steel. Not worth making it superb tho, too many other choices. I don't bother stocking durance with backups really, all he needs are his spells (and his hold-wall). I find that a solid wall of 4 tough martial units, in my case them being 2 pallys 1 fighter 1 monk make an absolutely devastating path thru the enemy mobs. and if you keep your formation tight properly they are nigh unbeatable meatshields that can also DPS. i used to think it would be too many melee units but nope, not at all. 3 of the 4 martial units have weapons that prone on crit, and the fourth one, the PC pally, has tide fall. that is a powerhouse combo. and to top it off all four classes represented have very high accuracy too, so they use the weapons correctly. if blockage occurs, then there's a reason there are backup ranged weapons and reach weapons as well as far strategy goes i send the four killers in front and have them create a line then i spam amplified wave w/ GM and spam shining beacon with Durance. before you know it the fight ended wee.

you know... one-handed battle-axes (modern terminology for this weapon, but watever) when used by a trained axe man were even more effective than a "hatchet" or any sort of hook/axe in parrying, disabling, catching and hooking. the butt of the battle-axe (this includes inumerable variants, being simplistic here) was also used as an offensive poke and also as a defensive backswing. this is... like, factual man. shouldn't the PoE axes then also a deflection modifier? i assume a nice +10 since they're bigger and shinier. hmm sounds like patch undocumented nerfing to me!

vikings used short swords/daggers with hatchets, twas quite common. i'm sure many many others did too. reason is very simple: the medieval (for lack of an exact term/period) hatchet, or hooking-axe, or sometimes referred to as the "spade" was used to swing and embed it in the enemy's wooden shields, wooden bucklers so as to pull with force and either 1) disarm them of the shield and/or 2) pull them off kilter and towards the incoming dagger stab. oldest tactic in the book. the "hatchet" was also used defensively by forming a crossguard on the main-hand weapon, usually a mace, a dagger of some sort, a short spear (spear + hatchet is absolutlely glorious in terms of sheer versatility of options for disarming / controlling space / nullifying opponent options) or whatever. longswords weren't really that common, "arming swords", whatever. those swords were completely useless against a kitted and armored teutonic knight, for example. instead they would leave the arming sword with the horse and use either a mace/morningstar (beautiful for beating armored opponent as the blows dent and produce shockwaves in the metal that lead to massive concussions) with a hatchet-type "axe" or a second mace in the off-hand. one other thing i remember from some texts was also they liked to use hatchets specifically against poorly made linked-chain ests, these "hatchets" were more reminiscent of a spiked hook tho, and not really the same thing as the PoE hatchets. EDIT: while the above videos were very enjoyable i have to say that in all honesty the combination of sword and dagger-types is almost entirely a Modern invention. in the melee there is almost zero practical use for this combination, as 1) sword is useless in a melee unless it is one similar to the gladius to be used for specific forms of stabbing in combination with their shield or a spear in the off-hand and 2) swords and daggers will not help deflect or block or parry a mace swing. maces and axes were the real bread and butter of the french, german and english medieval melee. and spears of course, those are.. probably the best most versatile weapon ever made. a stick with a pointy end. its uses and applications in the hands of a master are infinite. versus these sword and dagger dudes a french soldier, let'smake him a deserter for extra trauma drama he'd be rocking almost certainly a club or a mace, and a hatchet. first thing he would do to the sword and dagger guy is... knock him out with a 100% lethal slingshot of rock. ok, ok, i'll play along (even tho that is exatly what would happen) he'd just wait for the sword guy to swing and catch a backswing or a ripost with either his mace or use the hatchet in a reverse hook swing. simply put the sword/dagger guy would lose the instant he attempts to deflect or parry either one of the swings, the hatchet swing or the club swing. both of those would get the better of the exchange and poor sword guy would have to say GG. of course, this is all imaginary fantasizing, obviously either one could win this dumb duel. oh last thing carrying around sword an dagger would definitely mark you for getting jumped these objects were pricey.

me too man, heck, even putting aside the ASSUMED damage increase in the Dis-Atk's, as i can't provide proof since the combat log gives no output about DA's at all; it wasn't even mentioned in passing about the addition of a big ole text pop-up that says "Disengagement!" accompanied by an incredibly quick reddish-pink "slash" VFX. now i have to say that having spent the last 2 days playing 2.03 runthrough, i went in thinking that i would have a brand new experience in the big tough fights due to immunites. imagine my surprise when i now can honestly report that i've barely even noticed immunities, as i'm always packing versatile gear/tools for any situation that might arise, rather it is the increased danger of receving a Dis-Atk and i am positive to report as well that it holds very much true for the player versus the enemy as well. never before have the DA's been so GOOD, and it has forced to put the brain to use in a lot of set-pieces and use choke points differently, to really discipline myself to having an effective party composition and to actually use a tactically-minded formation AT ALL TIMES. this is the first time EVER that i've decided it is beneficial, and way more fun to create a true and proper rank and file formation in shape of half-phalanx. 2 paladins form the point of the wedge armed with greatswords (dual types for imm's) with backup warhammers for crushing mobs / 1 fighter and 1 rogue 4 meters behind them armed with pikes so as to use the reach from behind the two paladins / 1 cipher and 1 priest 4 more meters behind but spread outwards towards the edges so as to be able to run quickly towards the "center", the hole in the middle and thus be safe. this lessens blockage situations. the rangers pet is my scout, heh, and he does his own thing kiting is obviously as effective as always, it is a RTWP system and that is inherent in its design, however due to the noticeably increased "disengagement zone" mobs emit you better do your kiting well or get ready to get mauled in the back. i actually had to turn on the option "continue moving on engagement" in the menu just because my usual battle plans of having a scouting unit or a scout team kite enemies back to either a doorway or a wall corner or any place at all that allows to put backs against walls, and they would freaking get force-pulled backwards while running from the disengagement lasso hah. it was mildly annoying but now that i've had time to play and experience this change i can say that it's not a big deal really. it just forces you to be better at the game i.e. you have to plan ahead better and you have to be careful in your plan execution and you should always disable AI and pay attention to your flanks. sometimes it is much better to just take the Dis-Atk from the mob who is too fast and caught you by surprise in the opn and go get some cover and protect your flanks and your allies as well. also always position with intent to flank the enemy yourself, it is the optimal way to control the chaotic melees in the game and own the space. one thing i've done a few times with the ranger pet this run is something brand new for me: i send the stealthiest unit, the scout, to engage the enemy and kite them back to the vanguard meanwhile i then send the pet running towards the mob that is being kited as the scout is returning, i.e. the pet and the scout pass by each other and i then send the pent sideways into a completely different direction with the intent of pulling someof the enemies away completely from the rest of my team waiting in position. this serves the purpose of splitting up big groups in an effective manner, and the most optimal usage is to have the pet try to pull away the enemy mages, who are the worst as you all know. it's quite useful because then while 1 half of the enemy mob is busy getting bushwacked by my party set up wherever they were, the other half is busy whacking at the pet. and once they kill it (not always but yeah, it's a suicide mission for the poor bugger) they never have enough intelligence to go on and join their friends against me. they just stand around the dead pet doing nothing, or bugger off. once i deal with the 1st group that was kited by the scout i go and steam roll the half that was pulled by the pet. tldr: "Disengagement!"

sadness... i hate stuff like that. andreacolombo what do you think of the increased threat-zone on engagement, btw? can't provide photographic evidence but there is also an undocumented increase in enemy damage from their disengagement atks. i approve. fights are more tactical now in the context of PoE-style RtwP. i thought they had succesively made engagement meaningless with each patch but sawyer sure showed me; 2.03 has brought engagement mechanic back to the forefront. visual fx and text pop up and everything oh my! (to test this yourself andreacolombo easiest way is spawn a lion or a human mercenary and go ahead and test out the range at which the mob will force-pull you into his engagement. you will also notice that due to this careless movement on your part produces more engagement blows than ever before. i had a lion 1 shot durance from like, half a lion's body-length away as durance was kiting the lion; dat claw to the back was glorious and magical. first moment i noticed this change)

devs hatched an idea about it

(finished reading the actual thread) Knights of the Chalice is the best tactical turn-based cRPG ever made. Period. I've finished it 5 times and i never do that with games of that type. the guy who made it literally LITERALLY went insaaane after he was done because it is simply a masterpiece, a masterwork; knights of the chalice is a the type of technical and creative inspiration that happen together only once in a life time. the poor man was left broken and is currently locked away living in fear of people emailing for KotC 2. he knows he can never make a superior effort so he burns. Do yourself a big favor and download Knights of the Chalice. it's only 150mb or so. If you manage to win the very first fight with the group of enemy orcs let me know it's a trial by fire sort of game you gotta come prepared. there are no "trash fights". every encounter is a genuine set piece and every mechanic in D and D and in tactical turn-based combat is utilized. i think i'm gonna go play it again right now.

i've taken to using aloth's teleportation spell with another party member that stuns any mob in the line-of-sight between the two. i'd never bothered with it before, but i freaking love it now. not only is it a fun mechanic but it's incredibly effective. haven't checked but it probably has a big ACC bonus, and/or targets one of the weaker defenses in common encounters. it has really good range too, about arquebus shot range.

according to HW-Info program this is what is happening whenever i encounter the infamous framerate drops in copperlane or any of the numerous killer areas we ALL know about. whenever the game is "running fine" it is using about 30-60% on each of my 4 cores, and 40-50% of the gpu, but when i am in a heavy area the gpu climbs to 97% and the cpu usage goes way down. i assume it means i am currently gpu-bottlenecked in poe? (i can run wasteland 2 great, btw) i have been thinking for weeks that it is a new cpu that i need, but i guess this means it's actually gpu. note: i use an amd radeon 7000 hd card, 2gb vram. i run the game on dx11 mode because it performs better than in dx9 mode. for whatever reason, dx9 mode fills up the gpu usage a lot faster and in more areas than when i load the same scene but on dx11 mode. dx11 mode seems to use my quad-core better i guess. tldr: gpu is #1 for poe, then #2 your cpu?

above: my 3 int pally's zealous endurance aura. whoever says that isn't good enough to cover the pally, and his melee-buddies is just plain being contrarian. obviously it is smaller than a 10 int, or a huge 18 int one. but do you NEED that? i prefer THAT aura size, yes please, and 7 extra stat points. btw, 3 int fighter KD prone is 3 secs, 18 int kd prone is 7 secs. plenty enough for me. he's gonna need to pump per regardless in order to land them vs fort kd's on potd. a 3 int fighter KD that crits due to now able to max out per will last 5 seconds, and it will crit a lot cos with all those extra points, hey, time to pump everything else. the balanced-stat fighter will have a much lower per/much lower chance to land the KD, and much less have it CRIT, so it evens out. and i'd MUCH rather have a 3 sec prone and high per (for example) that also boosts his ACC hugely than a regular-amount INT fighter with average 10-13 PER, who will hit less in any scenario. INT does not affect chanter abilities. go ahead and tweet sawyer about it if necessary. phrases have preset durations and linger, their summons have a hardcoded expiration timer since i believe patcch 2.0 onwards that is not modified by ANY stat, and to put the icing on the cake their chant aura is still huge with 3 int. i'm actually gonna go record some footage of two 3 INT chars: 3 int paladin and 3 int chanter - the point being to demonstrate briefly how int simply does not impact those two classes most key abilities: their aura ranges. (in terms of the context of INT, i mean, not saying that's all they're good for). i was quite surprised really myself, i expected 3 int to produce ridiculously small auras, but nope. btw, my 3 INT fighter i'm using right now has knockdowns that last for 2.5-6 whole seconds if hit (2.5-3.0 secs) or it crits (6 secs) and you know he hits a lot, and crits as well, cos i pumped dat per cos i dumped dat INT!! i noticed another erronous thing someone said as well about int nerfing constant recovery and such. mate, simply put: no. the amount of healing the fighter's const. recov. does to him is determined solely by might, and gear/talents. its duration with 3 INT is 60 seconds, and with 18 int it is 135 seconds. so yeah, that is one thing that is absolutely true. but remember, a few patches ago that thing was unlimited lol. in any case, do you think ppl who dump int on their fighter care about how long his recovery lasts? be honest now! as with all healing abilities, if might is pumped, precisely why the person dumped int probably, to pump might on their character, as an example; well in this fighter's case the might solely determines how MUCH endurance is gained per 3 second "tick", even if the duration of the ability itself has shortened. with 18 might and 3 int, he will heal roughly 15% less in total at the end of the ability than a 3 might, 18 int fighter. just checked. 15% difference in amount of healing, different durations. confusing but the idea behind these percentage mechanics is to balance abilities; easier to modify percentages and multiply additives than to modify decimals and integers with division and add/sub. laziness on part of the developers. paladin healing is also determined almoste entirely by might. lay on hands has a very short duration and you can verify for yourself that 3 int doesn't nerf lay on hands at all. let me explain: durations are modified by int. the resulting duration is a percentage of the original. a 3 sec. lay on hands from 10 int will be decreased to 1 second, maybe a tiny bit more, because the range from 3 seconds to 0 is SMALL. dumping int only wrecks LONG durations, because the percentage amount is drawn from a much bigger pool. in the pally's case the ability in question is affected even LESS than the fighter, as the duration is SO SHORT ANYWAY the loss of int decreases it by a PROPORTIONATELY small amount. and since once again, it is might that determines how much healing the lay on hands DOES, and the point of dumping int is basically to pump the other stats, probably including i dunno maybe MIGHT then it evens out. in fact, unlike the fighter the pally with 3 int but 18 might heals a tiny bit more than a pally with 3 might and 18 int. it's not that one cancels the other out, it's BALANCING. very few ways to "nerf" anything in PoE. sawyer gonna sawyer. this is how the game works. this is also the same reason that, for example, everyone already knows now that damage modifiers from talents/etc are best served by using big weapons, with a larger range of min-max dmg. same thing with durations. it's like a 20 % dmg modifier on a hatchet, versus the same 20 % dmg mod on an estoc. they produce DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT NUMBERS even though it's the SAME modifier on both weapons. the gains on the hatchet are almost laughably small, about 0.5-1.1 extra dmg per swing, but on the estoc it's like 3-6 extra dmg. simply put because of the way stats affect abilities and the way the game handles percentages: out of ALL the stats int is the one that LEAST affects the core functions of the main martial classes in the game. their stuff has short durations, and 100% of the time whatever the martial unit ability is we talk about it is also affected by a second stat, usually might (i.e. healing). on the flip side casters rely on LONG durations and their best abilities/spells need int and benefit LINEARLY the more int the caster has because on top of that those spells are USUALLY not affected by a second stat in an IMPORTANT WAY. ONLY duration is significant, and of course the SIZE of the spell-area. VERY important. and again, only affected by int. a fighter doesn't need 18 int 7 second knockdown to be a good fighter, he can do fine with a 3 int 3 second knockdown. why? because knock down != fighter. casters however were designed from ground up to be specialized in one thing: casting spells. and to cast spells good u need dat int. when aloth runs out of spells... what's the backup awesome thing you can have him do? that's right. a big load of auto-attack, after spamming arc. assault (which only wizards have). caster classes are much more narrow in scope, and this is not a bad thing, i'm just pointing these facts out. fighters/monks/chanters/paladins don't NEED high int and can comfortably dump it without a serious drawback in real gameplay. (as pictured in top of post)

[ranger stuffs] yep you're 100% correct. rangers are nice; they are without a shadow of a doubt the best class in dealing maximum DPS with ranged weapons. you can kit a ranger with 19 dex a speed-enchanted pistol (no arquebus have it) or speed-arbalest or one of the op magical warbos, pick swift aim, pick gunner talent, have kana massage the ranger's shoulders with his reload phrase non-stop, and simply put he will fire 1.5x times, sometimes even 2x times the rate-of-fire of any other unit specced with the same gear/talents. and they have a pet that you can use to cheese the mobs and kite them or send it into a room full of mobs and have it aggro them so they waste their opening gambit of spells on it then it dies and the ranger sheds a tear, along with 10 pts of ACC. so... the question is: do you need a unit in ur party that can fire 3 pistol shots in the time it takes your non-specced other unit to fire 1.5 shots with his pistol? do you want to believe in the fantasy of pet-tanking, or accept the reality that pets are useless as they die immediately on potd and make the ranger useless when they do die? i accepted that reality lol i used to use sagani a lot mostly to cheese mobs with the pet and general shenanigas. it's very useful to stealth the pet and kite enemies back to your phalanx unit waiting at the ready in the choke point, eder and pc blocking the door. the pet makes a fantastic sacrifice to galawain as it dies right in front of the chokepoint, while eder and pc hit the first enemy mobs with reach/ranged weapons. other than that, yep. tl:dr rangers are not bad, are even actually good class, but are 100% unnecesary in any optimized party. guess i could've just typed that one sentence heh footnote: poe rangers are in desperate need of some spell-like abilities or straight up nature spells, like all other rangers in crpgs in history since forever. even a basic per-rest entangle in the beginning, then later levels a per-rest barkskin spell from the druid spell list, or maybe the druid spell beetle shell. you get the picture.

i suggest you set desktop rez to the one you want the game to launch at "normally", as if you weren't gonna downsample, then use the DS tool, be it gedosato or whatever. it should work then. also it won't work if you have multiple monitors. or a Mac. might not work as well because... unity. unity engine games will only ever launch in the actual, factual true-blue resolution that you wish them to ONLY IF YOU SET THE GAME TO THE SAME REZ AS THE DESKTOP. ONLY THEN. ever. *NOTE: true-blue = verified by using LCD monitor's information menu option to see the rez actually being used. *NOTE 2: some unity games may require you to set the resolution you want the game to use (i.e. the same one you just set your desktop to, to play the game) by editing the game's registry entries. PoE is one such case. easy to do. wasteland as well before it got its first patches. NOTE 3: unity engine games also never, ever, EVER support vsync. it's straight up broken in all unity games, regardless of whether you set it on and are using a tool that tells you onscreen hey man, vsync is on! etc, NO. NO. this can be verified by using a tool to see the latency in-game in milliseconds. radeonpro does it, for amd. you can then do a simple math division with the refresh rate and the resolution and you'll see it's not synced. also it's obvious cos they tear. unfortunately unity will never be good, this resolution issue you bring up is officially a bonafied "feature" of the engine and not a bug, and probability of unity 5 update being good is... sub-zero.

let's get real for a sec tho by far the most power-gamey of the enchants is burning frankly because it stacks with 1) fire-lash song of Kana 2) of all the enchant elements it is the most reliable one to deal consistent damage and not worry about enemy immunity 3) stacks with Paladin class (Pallegina) flames of devotion ability 4) looks cool however you can use whichever you want, truly, it's not a thing that will weaken your "build" or whatever. the only reasons i picked that one is cos more class abilities enhance it, but it's a minor thing really. also some unique weapons have a special "crushing" enchantment you can't normally put on your own weapons. this one is by far bettr than the regular elemental enchantments. also i don't recommend picking one of the elemental talents in level up JUST to enhance your sword's lash. if it's enhance a few spells and ALSO the sword, then yes, but JUST for 1 weapon then i think it is a big waste of a level up talent pick. just saying cos i did that sort of thing when i started first playthrough thought you'd like a heads up.

the chanter was an experiment, believe i agree with you about dumping int on chanters... partly. from what i play-tested int 3 chanter has the following advantages: the chanter has BASE deflection of 25 and BASE accuracy of 25. since pally's got their base def nerfed in 2.03 down to 20, chanters are now the only class with 25/25. what keeps them from being known as melee/martial archetype is they have caster-tier endurance and health progression. they can talk the talk, but when focused can't walk the walk. dump the chanter's int to 3, make him whatever that has +1 to con so you can max it to 19, and you still have 16 points to spend. put resolve on 18, that leaves 8... how about then put 3 in might, 3 in dex, and 2 in perception. (remember, base 25 acc). level 1 chanter then has: 13 might / 19 constitution / 13 dex / 12 perception / 3 int / 18 resolve 25 deflection + 8 from resolve = 33 deflection as base 25 base acc + the 2 perc points makes = 27 base acc the 19 con bumps his end/health a very great deal, and yes since con is percentage based and proportional to their multiplier believe me i know full well that some argue it is not intuitive to pump con on classes with small end. multipliers. however after playing this build and many others i now do in fact say that it is ALWAYS useful, very VERY useful to have a large endurance pool. for any build. but obviously this 19 con example is only for this chanter example i'm giving. ok, anyway, the retard chanter chant aura once you check it for yourself in-game is still good, so decide right then if he'll be melee or ranged. why? cos if melee, pick all phrases that either buff the chanter and also phrases that debuff the enemy, so he'll whack 'em in melee while having +10 fort, +10 ref, +will, DoT'ing his engaged enemy (and maybe 1 or 2 more) with winds of death (the hit/crit ACC of winds of death is determined his perception modifier, by the way, just FYI. it's damage is also affected by his might); also debuffing by 10% slash/pierce enemy damage, and when he gets an invocation he can either summon or debuff their DR, or use the terrifying invocation, or whatever. really, anything is good. the point is that he will have EXCELLENT stats for either melee'ing or ranged shooting and as a chanter, almost complete 100% freedom in talent choices since all chanter picks are complete garbage. he's the jack of all trades master of none, and now being the only class with 25/25 acc/def, AND complete freedom in talent picks, he's the no-brainer class choice for a generic "anything" build. the phrases/invocations are just a nice bonus. unfortunately regardless of how high you pump a chanters stats or whatever he will always be just that, the jack of all trades. yes, it is true his inocations don't rely on INT for anything except one or two of them, and their durations expire on a timer, but the class itself is just blah. footnote: the melee variant of this chanter would benefit most using the dragon thrashes phrase and the fire lashing phrase, to pump his damage, while the ranged variant suffers because a regular chanter, with pumped int, would be a GREAT ranged unit as he would buff your backline with il-nocked phrase, but this retard chanter can only buff his own personal reload speed, which is still great mind you. the only other class that can buff their ranged reload/speed is the ranger! and he can't extend it to others either! so it's not that big of a loss. tldr obs should implement storyline affectations with your stats, like fallouts et all. in fo1 and fo2 and f: nv dumping int means you can barely form words and it changes how they talk to you in dialogues, and even a lot of quests are changed and it's a complete different experience playing as low-INT in fo1/2/nv. stuff like that would help prevent this admittedly asinine mathematical exercises in min/maxing.

man, what i hate the most is corrosizelash's super ugly looking drip-drip-drip VFX. it's the reason i never use it. i hate the fact that my rogue's dual sabres are leaking acid all over a poor guy's tavern wooden floor burning a hole to china and no one notices. the varnishing cost alone must drive the innkeepers crazy! best looking enchants imo are burning (it's aight) and winner is the godlike looking spirit-slaying enchantment, and second place freezing lash. best looking over all is putting freezing lash then spirit slayer, the spirit slayer's red hue blends very well with the white-hot glow of freezing enchant.

sorry, i perhaps should have specified intent of thread. i will re-title it. i talk about classes/abilities a lot on other threads. thank you for pointing this out.

assuming that when creating the unit you have the attributes all set to 10's then this means fighters, paladins and monks, the 3 best martial classes can all dump INT down to allowed minimum of 3, freeing up a godly amount of 25 extra stat points to distribute. 25 extra points would allow these 3 classes, who don't need int for ANYTHING, (come at me bro! i'll argue this to the death with tons of reasons!), to have 18's in 3 attributes and 1 point left over lol. just as an example, you may distribute as you like sir priests, druids, wizards and ciphers can't dump to 3 ANY state, unfortunately, so they're stuck with the normal 18 points to spend on char creation, assuming 10's are on the board. please note that 18 includes the extra 3 pts you get from race/background/geography. if that detail "bugs" you, then it's 15 pts to spend on char creation, BEFORE picking the extra stuff, and dumping INT to 3 allows you to spend 22 points. this is the most important detail of the martial classes, and the biggest reason fighters and monks especially are indisputably the best classes to pick when creating a character whose job is to hit and take hits during melee. barbarians can't dump int as that would completely disable their ONLY special feature, so they're in the same boat as the caster classes. (paladins can safely dump int as well since an int 3 aura still reaches 2.5 meters, and can be further boosted with boots of zealous command, ring of overseeing to reach 3.1 meters, which is enough to cover him and two others fighting in melee side by side) EDIT: for the skeptics in here, please by all means go right now and create a 3 INT pally and look at the aura size. it's still usable. VERY usable. and besides all the aura one should need is 0 meters long, i.e. all i care about is my pally having either +6 acc or +3 dr, heh. as a side-note, i experimented with 3 INT builds of caster classes as well and from what i saw basically dumping int will completely destroy effectiveness of: ciphers, priests, wizards and druids. HOWEVER interestingly enough Rangers AND Chanters CAN and SHOULD dump INT to 3 because even with 3 int the ranger's DoT ability lasts for 3-5 seconds, and that's enough for me. i'd much rather have 7 extra pts to spend on the ranger and max out his dex, might and per for ultimate ranged DPS. the chanter was quite fun to build with 3 int because he basically becomes a pseudo-paladin then, with +5 more base deflection but with less end/health. the chanter with 3 int's chant-zone is still quite big, twice the size of the 3 int paladin's aura size. you'd think it would impact him more but it doesn't. the 3 int chant zone is bigger than an 18 int barbarian's carnage zone! so if you're planning on making a melee chanter, with melee-oriented phrases, go ahead and dump his int to 3 and watch him kick ass in melee. 3 int melee chanter singing come winds of death, boosting his fort and his will +10 w/ lvl 1 phrase, and summong dragon fire later on and enhancing his own weapon with fire damage phrase and his front-line buddy's as well if they're back to back. as with paladin you can also increase the 3 int chanter zone w/ voice of the mountain top item and with ring of overseeing. note that the second reason dumping int on these "martial" classes is a good idea is because both paladins and chanters, (won't even bother mentioning reasons for fighter/monks) do not rely on DURATIONS. chanter summons as of recent patches EXPIRE ON PRE-SET TIMER and also chanter phrases' linger have preset durations. only their weakest invocations are affected, the ones that can stun or paralyze, those have miniscule durations then with 3 int. buuut... just summon ogres brah, gg. The caster classes can't dump ANY stat and be truly effective, but they don't need to really since their best use comes from their spells, obviously, and that trumps EVERYTHING.

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i think the biggest change in 2.03 is the UNDOCUMENTED increase of enemy engagement "threat-zone", in addition to the also undocumented text pop-up displayed on a disengagement-attack. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/ "the disengagement attacks' dmg values were increased/tweaked because I DEFINITELY notice in my current run on potd taking MUCH more damage, and MANY more disengagement attacks than ever before (due to the increased threat zone). the combat log does NOT specify the details of the disengagement-attacks so i can't present "proof", but all you have to do is get into a fight with some lions and try to kite them from close (i.e. just make them chase you) and you will immediately notice the lions "trapping" your unit as soon as they get close and immediately inflicting a disengagement-attack for considerably more damange than i've ever noticed before. i picked lions to test with because they're fast, and unlike other mobs they don't give up chasing you (perhaps this is ALSO due to the 2.03 increased threat zone ranges). there is a very noticeable and new distance at which some enemies can land the disengagement-attack on your unit that was not there before." NOTE: i play on potd, and it is POSSIBLE these changes i am detailing don't happen on other difficulties.

i think the biggest change in 2.03 is the UNDOCUMENTED increase of enemy engagement "threat-zone", in addition to the also undocumented text pop-up displayed on a disengagement-attack. I also opine the disengagement attacks' dmg values were increased/tweaked because I DEFINITELY notice in my current run on potd taking MUCH more damage, and MANY more disengagement attacks than ever before (due to the increased threat zone). the combat log does NOT specify the details of the disengagement-attacks so i can't present "proof", but all you have to do is get into a fight with some lions and try to kite them from close (i.e. just make them chase you) and you will immediately notice the lions "trapping" your unit as soon as they get close and immediately inflicting a disengagement-attack for considerably more damange than i've ever noticed before. i picked lions to test with because they're fast, and unlike other mobs they don't give up chasing you (perhaps this is ALSO due to the 2.03 increased threat zone ranges). there is a very noticeable and new distance at which some enemies can land the disengagement-attack on your unit that was not there before. NOTE: i play on potd, and it is POSSIBLE these changes i am detailing don't happen on other difficulties.

i want to mention that Durance is only level 5 here, btw. just arrived to DB :D acc 93 on traps already aha. thanks magran, you whore.

yes, this is completely normal. this happens to EVERY poe player, the severy of the performance drop depending on their harware of course. some have their 60 fps drop to 40, for example, others like me have their locked-at-30 fps dropped to 20, etc. the issue is the npc models are made in a such a way that their complexity doesn't play nicely with the unity engine's way of layering assets and so quantity of npc models will kill framerate. reason specific areas like copperlane and such kill framerate "for realz" is that not only are they densely populated but also issue #2 is the game/engine "creates" npcs/objects ALL THE TIME, regardless of wheter they're inside the players field-of-view. and when you activate the feedback circles under NPCs, this further compounds the problem! seriously, pause a battle just when say 3 enemy mages cast a spell and like 5 of their enemy frontline are fighting your party, right when it's chugging the MOST, pause it and enable circles/highlight-interactables and watch the framerate plummet drastically. the way i see it the best possible remedy would be to re-enable the SelCircWidth console command that was in the beta and in earlier versions of IE Mod that lets you increase or decrease the SIZE OF THE CIRCLES. i can't test this theory, since the command was removed by OBS, but i assume making the circles THINNER/SMALLER would greatly help in large scenes.

made it public! thanks for letting me know.