DreamWayfarer

I played on PoTD, and the hostile Wizard with two Goldpact Knights on Magran's Fork didn't spawn. On the Caed Nua main hall, I believe there were less shadows and more phantoms, but I am not sure.

Besides bestiary XP, most of your experience comes from finishing quests, so I'd guess that the answer is yes. I think so, but you will have to change it before visiting the maps for the first time. Yes, the expansion is side content not a mini-sequel.

Bow cipher is also strong . It is just that quick switching guns allows you to generate loads of focus as the battle starts, and then unload many spells without stoping to recharge. Other weapons may provide more long term power, but guns give the most focus when the fight beggins.

If you are into metagaming, there could be some benefit by makingbit easier to buff it into the required levels, but if you aren't, it isn't really worth it.

Noooo!! Once you start rerolling, you never stop!

Well, she is no tank, quite far from it. The Scholar of Pain worked well on a party with sturdy casters who don't really need dedicated tanks and a damage focused frontline, but I don't know how she would perform compared to a more traditional damage dealing fighter in a different composition. I know that in longer, more drawn out fights she loses a part of her charm as Barrage and Frenzy run out and the big foes, despite having taken loads of damage, are still standing. I plan to eventualy make a side-by-side comparison of her and AndreaColombo's Lady of Pain, whom inspired this build, but what really matters for now is that investing in the supposed "dump stat" is very viable for Fighters.

Well, I am a serial re-roller, so I can't comment on good uniques or the subtleties of high level skills. On armor, I generaly go for something a bit heavier than padded. Hide armor is what I generaly feel confortable with, for a melee char. And since dual-wielding has a naturaly shorter recovery period, armor penalty is not felt as heavily. For weapons, I generaly either use pike+arquebus or sabres+pistol, depending on my party. I generaly use guns as openers instead if a backup proper, but if you want to have slightly greater flexibility, I would suggest sabres and pistol, because the other two weapons require either penetrating shot or vulnerable attack. With a free talent slot, you can grab Gunner so you are less gimped if you are forced into ranged. I thought Reaping Knifes summoned a weapon for an ally. So unless you wish to have a multi-cipher madness (which sounds awesome), it would be something to allow youbto cast without stoping to attack, which would be more useful for a Cipher focused on dealing damage with spells, although with high DEX, INT and PER, less than awesome MIG doens't matter that much if a barbarian is giving you infinite focus to spam to your heart's desire.

Low CON high INT immortals on the way.

Nice backstory. Although unnecessary, since some nomadic Pale Elf tribes migrate to the South of the Arquipelago during very harsh winters. Which would also give more opportunities for pirates to capture her, so it actualy works even better... Not really, since with 16 RES you are relatively safe against single foes, and if your enemy is too strong or there are many foes your survival will depend much more on your other party members, since it is only 1/encounter. And it is better spent dealing damage, since Rogues eventualy earn better 'oh #%@&!' abilities.

I generaly use a balanced stat spread(the steam guide puts way too much value on minmaxing anyway), investing more or less equaly into INT, PER and DEX, perhaps giving a preference to DEX, and keeping other stats between 10 and 8. You don't need MIG that much for your weapons because it only stacks additively with the bonus damage from Soul Whip. Yes, you won't deal much damage with your powers, but focusing on CC and debuffs is easy on a cipher, and will help you get away with average CON and RES and less tanky base stats.

Well, in that case I will just drop the attribute spread that I am using. My Scholar of Pain served me well enough in a party without hirelings at act 2 PoTD, even against those Forge Knight bastards. Pale Elf 17 MIG 08 CON 19 DEX 10 PER 16 INT 08 RES I think that maybe I could get better damage from lowering DEX to max MIG, and that Island Aumana could be a more effective race choice, if less aestheticaly pleasing to me. Compared to Edér, my Scholar of Pain dies slightly earlier, but does much more damage during the beggining of the fight, and the greater duration of Barrage is quite noticeable. I equiped her with Tall Grass, since I had no barbarians, but she really did shine with Firebrand. Maybe it is not an as effective user of Tall Grass and Firebrand as a properly built Barbarian or Rogue, but the Scholar of Pain proved herself versatile, durable enough to hold the line against multiple foes, and very good at throwing Fans of Flame throught entire mobs.

The stats aren't horrible, but you could have gone with more DEX, since the bonus damage from Soul Whip stacks additively with Might, but action speed multiplicates your damage.

@Why: are you soloing? If not, use 4 premades, one handsome male hero and a female hireling to be his girlfriend and partner in crime.

Crowd control specialist? Nah, fighters are unfortunately too limited on that regard. But now, few foe types are immune to prone, which means their CC is an welcome addition if you aren't already dumping INT.

Afraid I can't really help you right now, since I am a serial re-starter, am no minmaxer, still haven't played the patch 3.0 official release, and was still testing the build for the first time when it hit.

But on TOI you still have infinite reloads. It is just that have to reload from character generation . Higher risk I admit, but in the end the only thing you lose is time, and some of us find that higher risk does not mean higher reward. In fact, it can sometimes mean less reward, because of the stress. And the cassino analogy is a bad one, IMO. You don't get paid money, or in this case have hours added to your day, when you finish an Act on PoE. No, the reward comes from being able to push through challenges by being prepared, creative or resourceful enough to beat the challenges as they come. If having higher risks forces you to change your tatics and be more creative, wonderful. But being able to reload does not make a game easy, and it is not equivalent to "immortality cheat".

That isn't true at all. You are still immortal, you just need to reload from the character creation screen :/. I mean, what is the point? The risk is wasting time either way, which IMO is boring. The difference is that on PoTD you have to struggle a little more to learn the right tatics. That is the point, learning to be able to progress. You act like it was a roulette and you just had to roll it enough times to win, but it is not. There is player imput involved, and the quality of said imput determines victory or defeat. It is not a dice, it is preparation, trial and error.

To be fair, when roleplaying I take INT to mean not all aspects of intelligence, but the ability to make abstract connections between pieces of information, to quickly extrapolate what will happen based on what you know, and even some measure of mental discipline. A character with little INT to me is someone who sees things directly without grasping or even considering their implications, but not a complete moron. This also allows for a 7 INT char to share many dialogue options with a 17 INT one without things being unbelievable. But I still don't minmax, as I find that attributes lower than 8, or at most 7, just look unbalanced and weird to me.

Man I was totally not impressed until I got to the bottom. It is all about the pokemon's man! All seriousness her top right pic would have made a great grieving mother replacement pic.Which one? The Shadows for Silence in The Forests of Hell cover?(Aka: middle aged woman with silver knife surrounded by ghosts) If you mean that one, I agree.

Well, the OP has said he does not want to drop anything below 8 if possible.

I would lower DEX to 18 or MIG to 8 instead, since RES is the most important attribute for conversations.

Yeah, but with a ranged Rogue and a hunting bow, or with a Concussive/Bounding Missiles scroll, you could apply it on many foes(AKA, Boeroer's Mad Hornet). But then, the OP wants a melee Rogue, so you are right. I will edit my post.

Wood elfs are not too good a race for a rogue that will be on melee most of the time, even if you open with guns. If you want an elf, Pale Elfs are always a solid pick. If you are willing to try other races, Island Aumana have great flexibility with the extra weapon slot, and can do some serious burst damage by quick switching guns. Hearth Orlans are also very good, since you will generaly want to flank foes with a Rogue anyway. For the attributs, I'd suggest droping Might a bit to invest into Perceotion and Dextery, since the bonus damage stacks additively, and sneak attack already gives you +50% damage. More DEX and PER could serve you better. There are some builds that benefit from INT, like applying Deathblows(was that the DoT skill? Long time since I played a Rogue) with Concussive Missiles scrolls, but I woudn't raise it above 14 on a rogue of mine. And I would suggest taking Crippling Strike instead of Blinding Strike, since it is 2 per encounter and you generaly use other party members to disable your foes anyway. EDIT: I would suggest this, but I am no Rogue expert: Pale Elf Deadfire Arquipelago 10 MIG 20 DEX 08 CON 16 PER 08 INT 16 RES

I didn't say I did. It is just that I don't really like encounters on wilderness areas on general, since they feel like filler to me. But I admit sometimes filler content can be fun.

I Agree on most, although I did find GM interesting at first. It is just that she seems so centered on the hollowborn crisis that she feels somewhat one-note, and the lack of interaction with party members do not help. However, I've felt she is genuinely unnerving and scary, specially with how there is no way to be sure how much influence her power has over the Watcher, or if she is the master of her illusions or a slave to them. If they played this angle better, I feel I would give her another try.