Yevgenii

Who are these Magram, Skaen, and Wael? Were they added while I was away or is it something a priest picks up later on?

Wow that's some interesting news. I wasn't aware that attacks could delay spells, and this explains completely why my priest and wizard would often stall when I would need them to cast something that could save my party. Thanks for that. Is there a better ranged alternative that would allow them to do a little bit of damage without getting too far into the fray? I know that pistols, crossbows and arquebus all have long reload animations and I'd rather not put a bow in their hands as it seems to do no damage whatsoever. Am I wrong in this regard? Are there good bows that wouldn't force my priest to fumble with a crossbow bolt while the rest of the party was getting obliterated?

Thanks for all the input fellas, I've decided to do just as you suggested and made my new druid bear and added a shield/1hander setup to my priest in addition to an arquebus in case crap starts flying fanward. I guess I'll keep the wizard weak since he benefits so much from the other stats and I think with this setup I can keep him breathing long enough. After looking over all of the self-buff spells, I'm surprised there isn't a solo melee wizard guide or something.

I recently fired up my POE again after a long break and noticed that with 2.0 patch the monsters generally don't even look in the direction of a "spank and tank" style tank that does no damage... Which was much to my chagrin as that is what my party was built around - Eder was a punching bag wearing nokia phone-level armor while the other 5 would swoon and faint if they so much as feel the wind of a weak fart. So my strategy was to send in Eder while he gets tickled, and my backline throws AOE without regard for him as he could take a beating and keep on ticking. So now I must restart (I wasn't far into the game anyway and I don't mind it) with a more balanced party and what I want to know is what is the ideal balance of stats for a backline caster? My party is as such: Frontline: PC Monk Paladin Ranger pet for backup Backline: Priest (support caster) Wizard Ranger Druid (mainly focused on AOE damage) How tanky does a backline caster need to be (and what weapons should he or she be using) to avoid the aforementioned swooning? As a follow up question, is two tanky melee (plus ranger pet) enough for the post 2.0 era?