aweigh0101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP9rmrFl0fc done! argh been waiting for response and i had it set to private lol oh well thanks it's public now

they should transition the current PoE-style of barbarian archetype into a hybrid paladin type from 2nd edition. his melee prowess already cuts a large swath on the battle field and he's a warrior born and taught (i assume they're taught by their barbie dads or whatever how to properly swing their sword just so to hit 3 guls instead of only 1, etc) and taught to utilize their intellect to navigate, control and impose themselves on the chaos of the front line and thus control it. a disciplined cunning that operates in the reptilian part of their brains if you will. seems to me logical next step to make them "better" is to have their "shouts" merge with their "frenzy" and have their battle cries inspire allies, weaken and crush the spirit of their foe and hey, why not throw in some minor bit of tolkien ranger lore too and in advanced levels have them seek meaning in the land. in-between aoe-CC'ing mobs with tall-grass of course. 1/4 bard, 1/4 ranger, 1/4 paladin and 1/4 warrior berserker. the sorcerer to the fighter's mage, if you will. EDIT: i completely forgot the best thing ever about barbies from 2nd ed. immunity to fear/charm while enraged! they need dat, that would put them on their way.

infintron, i'm playing it right now. i alt-tabbed from my power-gaming to check the game's forums. yeah, i think i like it well enough. i enjoy its combat a lot, and it is very mathematically pleasing if such a thing is an appropriate compliment for a game. the rest of the thing? ehhh i can take it or leave it. sure is fun making party builds tho, and for my money it's the best rtwp i've ever played. just don't tell sensuki i said that.

my last PotD game, on 2.01, i had everyone wear'ing +2 resolve on their Armors, EVERYONE, mandatory! AND i made everyone pick on lvl. 4 cautious atk for that sweet +8 deflection and then on lvl. 6 everyone picked superior deflection for an extra +5. by the time i was mopping up ice trolls in TWM even Grieving Mother had 80+ deflection at level 11 with warhammer and shield :) believe me, high resolve (and also high CON too, i like my big endurance pools for potd) benefits EVERY SINGLE CLASS. the trick is that, as with most of the things in the game you have to really SPECIALIZE in a specific direction. just making a party in the Inn of 6 chars all with 18 resolve doesn't meet the requirements of a High Deflection Character. you need to also take at the very least sup. deflection talent, and i would do my best to convince you to also take cautious attack. why take only one of the two? +13 deflection... for two talents? when we're usually picking at random by the time we hit level 11 cos we already picked all the good stuff? yeah, +13 def, i.e. 13 extra resolve, is VERY significant. for example, a rogue has a base def of 15, and a chanter has a base def of 25. only 10pts of difference. or... only 1 cautious attack's worth of difference. that's the way to see it. the ONLY class i absolutely do not recommend stocking up on resolve/deflection talents is wizards. their base 10 def is beyond saving. plus they have veil anyway. in that potd run i mentioned i remember when i was doing the tier 4 bounties around level 12-13 everyone had excess of 90 deflection at minimum. even my squishies could go toe to toe for a little while with enemy enforcers. it's really satisfying not having to micro-manage them all the time in those situations. the class that can achieve highest total deflection is paladin, if i remember my stuff correctly. 13 def from faith and conviction + deep faith, 8 def from caut. atk., 5 def from sup. deflection, assuming 18 in resolve, ring of deflection +9, and either +2 resolve on the armor or the +3 res ring from TWM (but i don't like it, there are much better rings for those two slots), it's a ridiculous amount. on patch 2.02 would end up 5-10 def higher than fighter doing same stuff/gear, now they end up mostly the same in def. except pallies' huge def also includes saving throws. a good potd rule of thumb is to never ever dump either con or res. it is honestly better to dump DEX or might before con or res, because fights in PotD take a LONG time. it is the complete opposite of the quick resolutions in normal and hard. potd fights take time, and you need to be able to take a lot of hits, every class, regardless of role, cos there are simply too many enemy mobs, and your line WILL break and you will get swarmed. i absolutely do not like glass cannon builds for potd. my potd rogues are sabre/shield/caut. atk/sup. deflection/body control/mental fortress/gallants focus (+4 acc!)/weapon focus and obv. their rogue crit picks. i refuse to spend an entire melee babysitting a dumbass rogue who does mad dmg and can't take a hit.

The only things there id suggest changing up would be dumping liberating exhortation, since it doesnt dispel charms, comfusion or domination and neither does it help against stunning. Pretty huge gaps imo. Try out hastening exhortation instead, or actually try out one of my favorite pally picks: coordinated attacks. Either thru ranged fod alphastrike or being first in line to occupy a chokepoint in melee this means p. Much the whole party gets huge acc bonus just for attacking same mob. Very useful since it applies to spell acc too, so mages should focus the pallys mob too. Two pallys can coordinate each other lol its super cheesy. Wiki it, cos I remember they added a dmg modifier to allies making the attacks. In any case you really cant go wrong with pallys healing chain. Way good. the other one id change is scion of flame and instead go for superior deflection I notice you dont have it. Or deep faith, gives 2 def, and +5 fort ref will. Compliments righteousnsoul perfextly.

Adra Animates, regular Animats, and two of the elemental blights are imm. to piercieing, off the top of my head. The animated Crucible Forge Knight-Suits in that one setpiece as well; they're animat knock-offs. A few primordials are imm. to piercing now, but primordial oozes are so bleh you can just keep whaling till your estoc's enchantment kills it off. i sort of guessed guls and revenants and skeletons would be imm. to piercing but i steamrolled them without even remembering to check. oh well. there is one blight only vulnerable to crushing, i THINK it was the earth one?? one of 'em. so far i don't really have any balance complaints about 2.03 immunities. my game plan hasn't changed much, if at all. all the mob immunities i've encountered make perfect sense, yet to run into one that makes me nerd-rage. i don't care about the dragons tho, so tat point about the dragon fights being even MORE reliant on cheese tactics now is no matter to me. i admit tho i WILL miss prone'ing drakes on my way to grabbing tidefall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP9rmrFl0fc

here is the video i recorded. thanks for watching it, in advance. game is running on amd a8-3870k CPU, 3.2 GHz, quad-core, video card is amd radeon 6700 hd (i know, old), but fully capable in most games, and operating system is win 7 w/ 4 gigs of 1333mhz ram. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP9rmrFl0fc

i'm going to record a video of te impact NPC circles have on the frame-rate so you can watch it Aarik, and for others to know. a lot of ppl with bad performance simply aren't aware that the main cause is having circles enabled. due to (someone said this already a few posts above me) due to the game creating all or most of the npc's all at once regardless, and this includes enemies, whenever you are in a high density zone with lots of ai scripts / npcs / etc if you activate show circles and press highlight key you will watch your frame rate drop by 10-20 percent, guaranteed, every time because that is the exact moment game applies certain layers to those npcs, visible on screen or not, for things like anti-aliasing (regardless of if you have AA on or not), and the unity engine is crap at this sort of thing so the previously "ok" npc's giving you an "ok" framerate become a performance drain when their circles are enabled as they immediately double in information being processed/rendered behind the scenes. INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH this is, i think, a directX issue at root, because when i use -force-opengl framerate stays exactly the same regardless of circles on or off. yes, the opengl performance is much worse in general, but i found it VERY interesting it didn't share the problem with the circles that d3d9 and d3d11 do.

ok, i'll join the discussion then. you know what poe really needs for its guns? a-m-m-o. it doesn't have to be Arcanum-level convulted, or a retread of Fallout : New Vegas' ammo system. quite the missed opportunity IMO; rarity of materials and know-how of salt-peter and gun-powder chemistry would naturally lead to ammo not being that plentiful, and guns being more serious. not a single NPC in the game even makes a passing remark about the booming Eora gun industry, or their awesome repeating reloaders sported in every blunderbuss, and such things kind of matter. plus who doesn't want to play around with magical ammo EHH +1 iron musket ball w/ 15% chance of critical failure and ruining the chamber. hell yes! make guns deadly, and important, and something more integrated into the lives of the people in the game world. when a suspiciously lackwit farmer in a self-professed "slowly dying" town-village called dyrford village; a village farmer whose most prized possesions are a few pigs (legit, it is food) gets pigs stolen by the "local Ogre" gives you an incredibly complex mechanistic firing apparatus, the lead-spitter, like it was a freaking trading card. what happened that guns were so prevalent? nothing about the many, MANY details on the saint's war even mention the word gun IIRC. they do mention the word "bomb", of course, i.e. Durance. why does this poor farmer in a dying town situated in a pathway that's becoming obsolete for merchant trade give away willy-nilly an indisputably expensive object, that even if he wouldn't use he could easily sell? for a few rescued pigs? i take issue with that small example, and with the broader point of the "gun lore". the entire game is a lazy patische of a few good ideas, a small bit of GENIUS ideas, and an over-abundance of lazy and half-assed ideas designed half-assedly and implemented only slightly better. i would gladly give my opinions and some short critiques of the writing, but that would be another thread. the writing is bland, and most of the time amateurish. stand-out pieces of narrative like durance, GM stand out even more because of this. not saying oh avellone the genius as always, obviously, but it's the first time his contributions literally stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the drab writing and characterizations and world-building. i think obsidian's creative peak was fallout: new vegas, and it boasts a much more complex and incredibly, INCREDIBLY well thought out implementation of multiple systems, design ideas, characters and narrative and most importantly a coherent world that reacts to itself. it's why i didn't take this thread seriously, because the guns themselves are so downright boringly implemented in the game i can't believe they're even worth talking about as actually legitimate in some way other than boosting char DPS for builds lolderp. but i empathize with the OP, when i was a teen i couldn't get enough of dual wielding swords. i would only play games that let me dual wield swords. and also, if there is a highly refined gun manufacture pipeline in this bit of eoras why the HELL don't we see the factual ramifications that the gunpowder era brought along? gunpowder changed the world. the closest they get to this is with durance's bomb, which btw i think is 100% the most interesting bit of "lore" in the entire game. a domestic, fanatical zealout committing terrorism not for his personal beliefs but for the beliefs of quantifiable powers of godlike nature. the end-game goes into this topic, but the game itself never even lets use talk about the cool stuff. where are the mortars? where are the cannons? where are the mass, MASS graves for the player to visit, the huge graveyards that the type of rifles and pistols in the game brought to battles? where are the psychological impacts registered in the game? the civil war was the progenitor of the modern american psychiatric industry, speficically because of the trauma the soldiers experienced in this "new kind" of warfare, with cannons and riflemen and mortars and and the odd repeater to be found here and there, decimating dozens of men in seconds. it completely broken them. that's where the term post-trauama and stress disorders came from. and you know what? the worst thing is implementing dr penetration on these firearms. that type of shot would be more akin to concussive or downright piercing. tldr i hope poe 2 has ammo system of some sort, and better crafting. should be good 10/10 would rant again

poe 2 : noscope edition

agreed, i am officially 100% sick of the slow ass scounting in my current 2.03 game. god i miss fast scouting. i'm gonna go dig up the original stand-alone fast scounting mod and see what's what, gonna message the author to see if resurrecting it is possible. chances of what i just typed happening are much more likely than ie 2.03 compatability, as the new ton of stuff added will be a ton of work for whoever picks it up now. the universal a.i. on/off button alone will be a huge PITA to integrate, as it has so much gui-related tentacles and code and agh. would require a complete overhaul of the gui modificatinon part of ie mod, at the absolute least. btw, i use the console to change story npc stats to better reflect a different class that i sometimes give them, as i've already used them multiple times "legit", and changing attributes and changing class works just fine on 2.03 for me. adding items, adding abilities and talents and REMOVING them also work perfectly fine for me. i always, ALWAYS remove TA_The_Bones_Sleep summon ability from Kana as soon as i recruit him, just so his A.I. package doesn't summin the skellies instead of the phantom, like a fool.

priest seals/traps now feature flat +30/40 acc modifier instead of being determined by mechanics. GG obsidian :D *we have to assume this is a battle-hardened priest, and he's not freaking loafing around the house. he is VIGILANT and takes measure. otherwise we coan always rule the rogue the winner using lolsurprise attack. if the crux of the rogue's opening gambit is comprised of un-shadowing and sneak-attacking with blinding strike, which targets what? reflex right? ok, the priest does this: we've established in this scenario that basically the rogue will always strike first. ok, i can accept that. the caveat is that he HAS to land a successful blinding strike, and there is a high possibility of it critting and causing a deathblow. obviously this is an unwinnable scenario for any class if we're talking about dying from a sneak attack basically, which is legit, sure, oh and btw the fighter's auto-rez with double stats + endurance throws a big monkey wrench into the rogue's opening gambit, but back to the priest: rogue lands a full blinding strike attack, priest is blinded, severely debuffed, etc, now according to the game blinding strike has an Average Casting Time and is a Full Attack: Melee type, which includes a recovery time. (lol no escape from the recovery talk) blinded priest whips out Casting Time: "Fast" - Barring Death's Door and makes himself immune to death and unable to be targeted by friend or foe while also regenerating endurance for a set time of 10 seconds. this means he'll finish casting it before the rogue is fully recovered from his full attack ability. once the 10 seconds expire and the priest becomes vulnerable once more (note that the priest retains mobility, unlike withdraw!), he can Casting Time: Fast - watchful presence, immediately afterwards before ANYTHING the rogue might attempt to strike him with, as all rogue abilities for disabling or killing are Average in time to use. now that he's safe from the following, second "strike" and possibly getting one-shotted, he can safely and comfortably begin to to cast Casting Time: HALT - (rogue must save vs. Will, and the spell has +10 ACC modifier to boot) and if it grazes, which it probably will, (the game itself is proof enough of the stupid power affliction-grazing has) then rogue is Stuck, immobile, and the Priest then casts Casting Time: Average - Repulsing Seal on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, on the rogue's chest, wherever he freaking wants. he can keep it right on himself and then immediately cast BDD's again to become untargetable/immune while the repulsing seal remains active. it's really awesome that thing. so anyway rogue goes pronezors then priest casts 9th level spell Avatar, casting time average, to buff himself to oblivion and then lay more traps on top of the prone rogue, effectively perma-stunlocking him as any movement he makes once his prone ends will set off the following trap. his only hope is to make the trap saves, but they exceed 100+ on a 14th level priest, dragon quality numbers heh. if for whatever reason we allow them to bring in one magical item, heh, priest could use murrica arret to cast whisper of treason on the rogue while he's trap CC'd, charm him, then cast withdraw on him as he's now stuck immobile inside the healing cocoon, the priest can escape, or obviously place more magical traps that will auto-spring soon as withdraw ends and he takes any action whatsoever. remember withdraw does not grant mobility. he can even cast Resurrection on the floor under himself, as it is a Revive AoE, not a targetable spell, and have maximum anti-rogue shenanigans insurance. the funniest thing he could do is be a priest of skaen and sneak-attack him to death while he's CC'd from priest traps/withdraw for max lol. Priest has a ton of incredibly useful Fast Casting spells, ppl overlook them. also priest seals/traps are straight up fantasy-land stuff. an 18 INT priest, (21 with +2 int gear and +1 int God Boon from council of stars quest, forget which of the gods is the INT one), casts repulsing seal with a modifier easily above 120, so the graze is assumed, and the duration on a HIT is a ridiculous 10-15 seconds, on a graze it is 5-10 seconds and on a crit it ibasically makes the rogue's uninstall.exe activate. i once critted with it and had a dank spore "repulsed" for 33 secs true story 10/10 would play again.

guns have 3 phases: attack (the firing of the shot), the recovery (the unit is experiencing the gun's kickback, and usually you see small wisp of smoke curling up) and thirdly and this is exclusive to guns the reloading phase, which is where you see them... reloading. Dexterity speeds up the attacking phase, and the recovering phase, but does not affect in way whatsoever the reloading phase. that is hard-coded. the only thing that speeds up gun reloading are the gunner talent, the chanter phrase, and the ranger class ability pick that says so along with higher rate of fire and, if IIRC, a penalty to ACC. the ACC penalty is moot IMO since the ranger's ACC is one of the highest in the game anyway. bar none the best hard-hitting big ass gun is the arquebus. there are only 2 magical ones in the entire game though, that's how good they are. they have the longest reloading phase out of all of the guns in the game. in second place, but not close, just second place, is the pistol. there are many magical guns throughout the game. besides the DPS they do, the other difference is their range. pistols are 8m, arquebus are 10m. to put in perspective, hunting bows, warbos and crossbows are 12m. arbalests are 10m. the difference from 10m (arquebus) to 8m (pistol) is HUGE. numbers seem small, but once you notice just how much more close the ranger has to shoot from you'll understand. take gunner talent when available, take the ranger ability that speeds up rate of fire and reloading, but DON'T take the other one; all 3 guns have built-in DR and all 3 guns hit hard. you do NOT want to slow down your rate of fire with guns just to increase their DPS, they already have huge DPS and the end result of slowing them down might actually LOWER their DPS. that particular talent is only useful if you plan to use a bow-wielding ranger. THEN it's the exact opposite, take that one, and DON'T take the one that speeds up reloading, etc. with a high dex, gunner talent, swift aim, and a Speed enchanted Pistol (you get one in defiance bay) you are going to be slugging serious lead. i don't recommend using blunderbusses as they have been nerfed over time and are no longer the darlings they used to be. there is one legitimate, and very viable synergy between ranger and blunderbuss which is their class ability hobbling shot or however it's called which applies Damage over Time; this ability, and others like it such as Envenomed Strike for example, are applied per-pellet of shot, and blunderbuss' shoot 6 pellets. they're very innacurate though, with a native -10 ACC penalty, and IIRC are also 8m in range, or maybe even 6m. Gotta look that up. They also do very little damage unless all 6 pellets hit, so if you're gonna plan on using lead-spitter blunderbuss for example to take advantage of 6-pellet DoT abilities make sure your ranger is packing very high ACC through gear, stats, or whatever. i wholeheartedly advise against using them since pistols are way better, and faster, and arquebus when handled properly are the best. i remember a ranger i was using for one playthrough used to hit for 60-80 dmg per arquebus shot on a regular hit, and would climb into 100's on a crit by the time he was lvl 12. fun times. mid-level ranger ability Driving Flight is awesome as well. makes gunshots/arrows ricochet off the target and strike a nearby one. also make absolutely sure to pick up Stalker's Link and Stunning Shots, in that order, as soon as you see it available in your level up screen. very important talent for any ranger; if you shoot at the same target your pet is engaging you'll inflict Stun on them with an ACC bonus on the shot, they must save vs. Fortitude to not get stunned. Stun is one of the deadliest afflictions, right up there with petrification and paralyze. Not to be confused with STUCK, which is not that great. the stunning shot, btw, can also ricochet if you picked the driving flight ability earlier on. it's active for any and all shots you make. the ricochet chance depends on some variables, it's not always guaranteed, but it's pretty consistent.

an editor would be great. modding these 2d art games is insanely tough tho. a nwn2-based creation kit with the nwn1-kit ease of use and intuitieness, unrelated to the dnd brand, something like FRUA but with nwn2 level technology but made specifically for creating modules. hmm, much rather THAT than anything else.

andreacolombo, i want to ask which specific parts of IE mod do you need? and i mean, the core, CORE IE mod features that you can't give up. the real stuff. for me it's the 25% slower xp progression, as it curves the xp rate almost 100% perfect in the current game, and the 1 tool-tip at a time. i use stuff like all spells per rest, double slots on wizard grimoires for more tactical variety, cyan-colored circles, and engagement and recovery removed, and loot randomizer and i also always spec my UI a specific way, with the portraits in a vertical line on the left side of the screen. but i can live without those features. for me, the only truly necessary ones are slower xp progression, and 1 tool tip at a time. the rest are conveniences. the way i see it, depending on what features it is you truly need there's probably way to get them as seperate modifications. all i want right now is a stand-alone xp mod and i'm content.

infinitron that isn't a bug using dual necklace/cape loot setup was original stretch goals but sadly didn't make the cut sawyer tweeted that it's in the works for TWM 2 there is for-hire convocations online for positions at OBS to test long term effects of having two pieces of clothing on your neck simultaenously the last tweet mentioned the placebo group was doing 22% better than the control group which means officially a statistical significance in variation! can't wait for poe 2

i know i was trolling with my earlier post, but being serious for a moment i have to say the writing in general is very bland in PoE. the most disappointing things for me were the companions, although i've grown to like them oer time. but NOTHING like the charismatic, well-written companions in earlier OBS games like your posse from Fallout New Vegas, each one a fantastic char with depth and complete character arcs and competent characterizations. or your posse from OBS' KOTOR 2 game; i mean, Kreia! jesus, hard to get better than that. all the others are good, but kreia is so outstanding they were just icing on the kreia cake. you know what, you might think i'm nuts but I DARE SAY, yes, i DARE SAY that the gang of companions in NWN 2 ORIGINAL FREAKING CAMPAIGN, yes THE OC!!! were better written, more interesting, more fleshed out, and more charismatic. even the very embodiment of the generic cookie-cutter stereotype fighter-dwarf you meet first is funnier and more interesting and has a more coherent, and COMPLETE character arc, with CONSISTENT characterization. we can't say the same about all of the dudes in PoE. sure, time constraints, budget constraints, i know, but that doesn't excuse BLAND storytelling. they're not new at this. in fairness i fully admit zahua nd DoC are 300% better written; that is to say they are more interesting in their interactions with the player and with the world, they act less like information/exposition dumps and act more like real characters, unlike half the OG gang, and have consistent characterization however short it may be. i have high hopes ofr TWM 2 and poe 2 !

as for the OP's original question of what to do with a low-MIGHT ranger, i say give him the drake's bell estoc you get from the first bounty, which has built-in -8 dr, 3 more than all other estocs. have the ranger pick talent vulnerable attack for an extra 5 dr bypass, makes now for 13 total, and when u reach TWM you can sweet talk alpine dragon for a bracer that adds a final extra 3 dr bypass, for a total of 16 dr bypass with drake's bell. that is the best weapon to use on a low-MIGHT character, as the minimum damage on every hit will be 34, every single time.

rangers are very useful in PotD. i ahve very fond memories of raiding the Dyrford underground temple/dungeon that houses like 30 million skaen priests and my indisputable gold-star MVPs were sagani and ituumak. after getting wiped twice in a row due to my bad micro causing adjacent rooms' troops to join my current fight and stomping me, i realized i could just send ituumak into each room, and have him attack the skaen enemy ciphers, who were the most dangerous due to mind control spells. the enemy a.i. is so dumb they'll blow their charm/dominate spells on ituumak, and you have then tons of time to roll in with your crew and take care of them while they're "recharging". needless to say... perma death was NOT on, else ituumak would've died like 30 times over. you know, can itumaak actually permanently die? i know NPC's can, but can the ranger pet!? i actually don't know. sadly i beleive pet-kiting and pet-zergrushing is the only true value of the ranger class. take away the pet, and there is literally nothing they do that any of the other martial classes will do better or bring way more to the table. so yeah i agree the ranger isn't mighty, but the ranger and his pet are a GREAT team and can bring TONS of variety to your party makeup and allows for many great ways to toy and tease the game's A.I., as the pet can do so many things if you know what to do. setting up flanking situations, setting up a knockdown + DoT disable on an enemy (pet gets knockdown ability), and even defense-oriented advantages, as the talent/ability that gives the ranger and their pet extra pluses on saves versus AoE's from enemies is actually REALLY awesome as it covers "AoE"'s like mass charm/confuse, or enemy druid's relentless storm "aoe" of stunning. it's an under-the-hood- sort of thing, as the description doesn't explicitely mention those things, but it works. so it's basically an affliction-resistance ability that's just as good as those available to paladins and monks. if you're not keen on micro-managing the pet every single encounter, which i understand fully due to insane number of trash-mobs, i suggest building a dual-wielder melee ranger and dropping the ranged shtick entirely. ranger has same base deflection and same base ACC as the rogue, but has higher endurance and higher health. sure, ranger lacks the rogue's hit-to-crit talents, and the rogue's or the fighter's +dmg modifiers class abilities, but makes up for it with super high aCC (same as rogue, the two are the only ones in the Very High tier of ACC), which means lots of hits and crits regardless of anything else. set the pet's AI on cautious/coordinated so it only attacks the same enemy your ranger is attacking (this ai script works much better when the ranger is in melee, as opposed to when the ranger is shooting at ranged; when ranged it bugs out a lot and the pet does whatever he wants. total opposite happens in melee) and enjoy pet-knockdowns and pet-flanking and pet-tanking without having to micro him much. about the same amount of micro as a rogue, i think, but IMO more fun micro because pet is fun. moving rogue around every fight so he doesn't get one shotted = not that fun. addendum: have the ranger dual-wield we-toki battle-axe which prones-on-crit (with edge of reason axe which is godlike), or have the ranger use the great sword the hours of st. rumbault or the pike tall-grass for prone-on-crit as well, and have fun mauling every enemy you crit-prone cos then your pet gets to inflict the bite-DoT ability on them, and it's all just downhill for the enemy from there. ranger with a weapon that does -5 enemy defenses on hit, like white spire estoc, for example, also complements the pet as well facilitating the pet's tanking and the pet's knockdown/DoT-bite. may sound like blasphemy but melee ranger is much more effective at locking down enemies due to easier coordination with the pet.

indeed. this build, regardless of the thing tiself, is well formatted and informative of mechanics. not many ppl have the patience or discipline to effectively structure information in a way that communicates broadly. 10/10 would read again. this thread is also where i first learned of the sanguine plate and the shod in faith boots personally i only really learned the game's mechanics when i first played POTD. i'd finished it once on normal, and had abandoned halfway through a Hard playthru when i decided to say, screw it gonna do PotD. it obligates the player to read bestiary entries, pay attention to resistances, immunities and afflictions, and forces the player to often make strategical use of their consumables, such as potions of endurance for the many, many emergency heals on PotD fights you'll be doing, potions of recovery to mitigate the constant onslaught of afflictions, and at least for the first half of the game promotes cooking some food to get an edge. i'd never ever done a single one of those things in the normal or hard playthroughs. it was like playing an entirely new game. so i recommend playing potd if you want to learn to game. now's the perfect time to start a new run, what with 2.03 patch and the slew of new immunities.

i added up the total dr bypass on drake's bell wrong, it's a total of 16. 3 rending + 5 estoc + 5 VA + 3 vambrace bracers. in any case, wow, thanks a lot for doing the match man! much appreciated. i'll just direct anyone interested in this dr business to the paladin stats/build thread, as it's off topic from immunities. did you do the match for the mistaken 13 i quoted? cos it's 16... as for marking i use this drake's bell on a paladin usually, they can pick class ability coordinated attacks and if your pc paladin + pallegina cheese it up coordinating each other. but yeah, off to the other thread. as for best weapons for critter immunities? i STILL think draining and -5 defenses are the best. the benefit barbs, and all other martils equally well and draining is on tidefall and -5 is on the white spire estoc. there is a spear with -5 def's, the vile loner spear, but i can't imagine anyone ever using spears for anything worthwhile, as even a dual-wield setup for disabling there are better 1-handed weapon choices with debuffs on hit than the vile loner spear, like godynsthur stun-on-crit warhammer and we-toki prone-on-crit battle and also thre's draining sabre purgatory and draining flail too but i never use fast weapons. however, disregarding for the moment prone-immunities on a fair few enemies, there is absolutely no better setup than having 3 dudes in the frontline each one with prone-on-crit weapons (great sword temaperacle, great sword hours of st. rumbault, and pike tall-grass, all 3 from same soldier focus weapon group) great swords do slash/pierce, so you'll only need to switch weapons very rarely only when facing wind blights that are only weak to crushing, and the normally estoc-stumping Adra animats will taste your slashing type from your great swords. fun fact, the great sword justice is i do believe the only weapon in the game with all 3 damage types, slash/piercing from great sword itself and it's unique crushing lash enchantment. there is only 1 other weapon with a unique crushing lash enchant which is actually... a spear, ritezzi's needle, or something like that. can't remember the exact name. not all that useful in the endgame but neat none theless, 1 weapon having all 3 types. soldier focus, as was mentioned above by the other educated posters has warhammers to switch to when in need of crushing, and the group also includes arquebus and arbalests... if it weren't for the 3 unique estocs being so great, there's really no point arguing about which weapon group reigns supreme in versatility and effectiveness. in the estoc group, wanderer, since estocs only do piercieing you'll have to switch to either flail (yuck!) or pollaxe (better!) which does slash/Crushing, since animats and a ton of other stuff is imm. to piercing. unfortunately there is only 1 magical pollaxe, half-mast and you can only get it AFTER encountering the adra dragon. not necessary to kill him tho, just meet him to trigger appearance of an NPC in a specific map that has the thing.

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I like making a 10 might, 13 con, 13 dex, 16 PER, 10 int, 16 resolve paladin for hybrid Tank damage sponge and then i do the following: - flames of devotion has built-in +20 ACC which usually means it'll crit and it can be used with melee and ranged weapons - faith and conviction when developed fully will be +11 deflection and +22 for the 3 defenses. p. damn good. - deep faith talent further +2 to def and +5 to 3 defenses - zealous endurance pick means (yes, 10 int, i know, not the point) this guy has essentially built-in 3 DR. better than the 1 dr barbs get on their DR talent, heh. not as good perhaps as 1 dr per wound on a monk, but the 3 dr of the pally is always on, no exceptions no conditions. basically he gets to wear the best plate mail in the game, a platemail with its normal dr + 3, all the time. this is very important. - coordinating attacks means you attack your first enemy, and and any ally that attacks the same enemy will get +10 ACC (or was it 15?) on their attacks. if you have two paladins in the party, say PC + Pallegina, they can coordinate-attack EACH OTHER an Arquebus FoD alpha-strike for ultimate cheese, one giving the other the 10-15 ACC bonus and vice-versa. (p. sure it's more than 10) - righteous soul talent pick for +10 versus frightened/terrified/charmed/confused/dominated, which stacks with mental fortress, and RS also decreases the durations of those afflictions by -5 seconds. FIVE SECONDS. much better than the comparable monk's saving-throw talents that actiate only after first being afflicted, IMHO. - since he's rocking 10 might, i don't bother healing, that's what Durance is for, and normally he wouldn't do much damage but i slap drake's bell on him etc (i've gone on enough about this lol) and the end total of -16 dr bypass means his estoc swing has dmg of 18-26 (exceptional enchanted drake's bell damage range) + 16 dr bypass, which means you add that 16 to the minimum damage so he'll do minimum of 34 dmg on every hit without a single dmg modifer. NOT TOO SHABBY. the 13 dex / 13 con / 16 per / 16 res stat spread means he'll be slightly faster than the average bear, enjoy a nice pool of health/endurance, have 31 base ACC on leel 1, 1 point higher than a rougue with 10 PER. (rogue builders usually skimp on PER cos of the native 30 acc), and in 2.02 had base 31 base deflection on lvl 1 as well, but now on 2.03 have five less making for 26 base deflection with the stat spread i propose. in any case, this guy will tank great, pretty much never miss his estoc swings, do a minimum of 34 damage on every Hit, (the minimum outstrips the maximum! so even the smallest dmg mod, like +3 might from gear, or +20% dmg mod from Sav. Atk., will mean a crazy good dmg dps for a 10-base might pally). he'll also have assuming wearing exceptional unique plate which is 16 dr + 3 dr from endurance aura that's 19 dr, plus blunting belt, and the crushing dr enchantment protection on the armor, plus +2 dr talent from crucible knights, plus +1 dr blooded talent from the Fangs in Oldsong, plus.. is there any more dr to be had? gift from the machine? i forget what that gives. point is this guy is a TANK. meatshield with guaranteed 34 minimum dmg on every swing hit, extreme high DR (+22-+23 dr, i believe, without taking into account blunting belt which covers types not flat value), deflection comparable to fighter/monks (though the 2.03 -5 really hurts ) and able to per-encounter guarantee coordinated flames of devotion crit-hits hopefully to activate say, an arbalests prone on crit, OR perhaps Cloudpiercer Warbow's crit jolting touch. (was it crit or proc? either one works just fine! and if you swap the estoc for a Great sword, you'll lose all of your DPS but you will gain guaranteed FoD crit-prones from temaperacle/hours of rumbault. up to the user! edit: to achieve -16 dr bypass with drake's bell estoc you need the Vambrace Bracers from the whtie march. you can get them having resolve 17 (my build has 16 res, only need one small food snack to bump it) and you can talk down the alpine dragon in TWM and he gifts you the bracers for free. you can do this as early as level 6! the only obligatory combat you'll face on your way to having a cup of tea with the alpine is the ice trolls that attack stalwart when you enter TWM, that's all. if you can kill an ogre, yeah sorry not trolls, tehy're ogres, you can go get the bracers. drake's bell estoc has built in -3 dr bypass ON TOP of the native -5 dr bypass on an estoc, for total of 8, then we add a further -5 dr bypass from talent vulnerable attack, for 13, then a final 3 dr bypass from the bracers for 16 total dr bypass. the toughest enemies in the game, such as end boss thaos, the dragons, vithracks, etc, have generally 20-25 DR. even though i built him with dumped might, base of 10, the 16 dr bypass per-swing means each hit will do a guaranteed MINIMUM of 18 + 16, (18 is drake's bell enchanted toe xceptional's min dmg), which is 34. KRAZY stuff.

kdubya, i'm too lazy to do the math so does the extra -3 DR bypass from drake's bell achieve DPS parity or better versus blade of endless path's speed? not taking its superb into account since drake's bell can also be superb'd if desired. on this current playthough i'm using drake's bell for it's Rending, it's native -5 DR bypass, and the -5 from VA and the -3 from the Vambrace bracers you get in TWM for -13 dr bypass. i suspect it won't out-dps the BotEP's due to it's speed enchantment, or it migtht i dunno, but i realized that the huge -13 dr b ypass achievable with drake's bell COMPLETELY negates any need for the wilder to pump Might, so it becomes the perfect melee weapon for any unit whose class or build requires a little bit of dumping might. with 17 resolve you talk alpine dragon down and he gives you the bracers for free. essentially you only need to be strong enough to mow down the ice trolls attacking stalwart and u can make a direct beeline to the alpine and get the bracers before even halfway thru the game. I usually roll high RES / high CON builds almost universally on martial classes on PotD so it doesn't leave much room for might, so for some cases like say, a 10 might paladin with 16's in con/int/res would normally not really get much out of a speed enchantment on the weapon, due to lower damage spec, but -13 dr is enough to make the tanky unit still able to contribute formidably in the DPS front. and you can durgan steel that thing too, of course. does durgan speed stack with BotEP's native speed enchant? if it does, then it's a moot point. BotEP now seems pretty much tailer made for being used by a fighter, doubling-down on speed with high dex, armored grace, pilferer's grip and a speed weapon. they get 2 class ability dmg modifiers so other than the rogue they're the best ones to get good use out of the thing. a low/average might Chanter would also get very good use out of the -13 dr bypass from drake's bell, since any good chanter has to dump so they can max int, and since they don't heal might is a prime candidate. tldr i just realized dr bypass makes up for units that lack dmg modifers.