SimpleEnigma

I went down to 7 then Raedrics then Defiance Bay. Since I got to Defiance Bay it has been pretty easy. I think only a dragon has given me much of an issue since.

Does the game in general get much easier after od nua/raedrics keep? So far everything since has been a cakewalk in comparison (I'm doing dyrford village stuff now). It has me strongly considering bumping the difficulty to hard.

I put a fire enchant on Resolution does that count for theme points? Sabre and small shield is working better than I thought it would for getting last hits. I am going to try dual wielding next. The build had a tough time with the ogres on od nua level 3 but otherwise has continued doing quite well.

If I am sticking with 2H weapons is there a different 2H weapon that you think would work better than Tidefall?

It's still early game but so far I've really enjoyed this build. Went with a Fire Godlike with a 16/8/10/12/15/16 stat spread. I've compensated for the lack of perception by going with Zealous Focus and priest buffs. I am tanky enough that I haven't faceplanted yet, squishy and damagey enough that mobs have been sticking to me (especially with Shielding Flames making my allies less appealing to attack). Again I'm not far in the game but this has been the smoothest start yet of all my many starts. Talents/Skills so far: Flames of Devotion>Shielding Flames>Zealous Focus>Faith & Conviction

Would I be better off going 16/8/10/12/16/16? I originally took perception to 14 because with being so slow i wanted to make sure my attacks actually hit. I do want high perception as this will be a PC and a persuasive character fits the whole lore of Shieldbearers being exceptional diplomats. This build is my idea of a highish resolve character that isn't completely worthless on offense. That's also why I took Zealous Focus - to get more hits and maybe crits.

After reading 2.2 billion guides and trying to come up with one that would fit me in my search for the "perfect" first play through I finally had an idea. The overall idea is he makes everyone a tank (more realistically just tankier) while doing actual tanking and hopefully respectable damage. -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin - Shieldbearer -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Pale Elf, Fire Godlike, or Moon Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Aedyr- Clergyman -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 16 CON: 8 DEX: 10 PER: 14 INT: 14 RES: 16 -------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon: Tidefall -------------------------------------------------------------- Key talents: Flames of Devotion, Shielding Flames, Zealous Focus, Inspiring Triumph ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The idea is to use high defenses from Faith and Conviction, plus healing from Tidefall to compensate for the 2H weapon and low constitution. FoD charges would be saved for trying to guarantee a last hit (hopefully a crit) to get a double buff of defense for the party from Shielding Flames and Inspiring Triumph. What are everyone's thoughts? I still haven't made it too far in the game, but I figure "I hate when Aloth, Durance, etc get blown up by someone streaking past the line. What if I just made everyone tanky? That would be the ultimate tank right?" This isn't a PotD build or anything but is it a viable build that isn't too badly gimped?

I am considering the axe & shield rogue build on the steam guide that has high resolve. That or a 2H Paladin tank.

As I'm still searching for that perfect watcher I really connect with I keep giving a lot of thought to which conversation options I want to enable. I've seen the number of unique conversations each class/race/background/etc can give you. However they are not all created equal. Some are just flavor text - I remember one Kind Wayfarer option that pretty much said the same thing (with same result) as the benevolent option. Others seem to change the conversation more dramatically like intelligence. I assume that the stat based ones have the bigger impact but are there any particularly among the class/background/etc that have more impactful options? For instance while I haven't played a priest it seems like the Eothas comments would play a bigger role (even if just RP wise) than a Kind Wayfarer making generic Good Samaritan type comments. Also please avoid spoilers as I've still only made it as far as level 6.

I read the 2.03 patch notes threee times looking for druid changes, saw none, and now am wondering if my sarcasm dectector is broken or if I'm missing something obvious.

I browsed this forum all the way back to October and only saw one topic related to Druid... and it was a simple question on what weapon buffs work for shapeshifting. What gives? What I do see is that they are strong overall and also like to have high PER and INT which makes for a good convo MC. Are they boring to play? Is there only one build that's good? I haven't made it far enough in the game yet to get the druid companion so I haven't really seen how they play. It seems the 3 pure casters in general don't get much build love.

If you end up going ranger I would check out the nerdcommando steam guide specifically the Great White Hunter build. His builds tend to be min maxy but at the very least his talent discussions are interesting and he goes into pretty deep detail on what he considers the best talents for a gun focused ranger.

From one character creation addict to another, happy rerolls. Each time I load a save I am assaulted by the embarrassingly large number of characters I've made and I haven't even completed Act I yet.

I've had enemies target someone with higher armor further away than the character next to them. I wonder if each mob checks the effectiveness of its attack versus all characters and if one is especially vulnerable it will switch targets. Probably weighed against the damage it will likely take disengaging. But this is just me hypothesizing based on what I've seen in game and what I've read; no structured research. I can attest to the monk low deflection early game issue. My poor monk just gets destroyed if a mob with CC attacks him or gets interrupted to death. Durance can only bail him out so much! Is there any early game monk help thread?

It was supposed to be a modification of the Stupid Pally build. However I just don't think he ends up tanky enough. However in the process I realized a Strange Mercy style paladin build would be really fun. It involves me giving up my quest to have high resolve but in my experiments with high resolve characters I wasn't very impressed with the outcomes the high resolves answers got me.

How about this for a 2H DPS Paladin build? MIG - 18 CON - 11 DEX - 10 PER - 18 INT - 3 RES - 18 Essentially a beefy dps paladin. Sadly my buffs/auras will be garbage but it should be otherwise effective right?

Thank you for the feedback. I played through Act I so I've spent a little time with Durance. Interesting characters are my favorite part of these types of games. What would be a less min max type tank build? I am not completely opposed to having a tank character, just that particular build was frustrating.

I finally picked up Pillars of Eternity when it was on sale on Amazon and I haven't quite settled on the perfect class for me yet. I've played through the early game on a few different classes so I have a feel for the pace/flow of the game. From what I've seen in-game and online religion/gods play a big part in the story so a priest/paladin seems to make a lot of sense. I am leaning paladin since everyone seems to really like Durance. I'd also rather not be a pure tank so I am not redundant with Eder. I did try the Anvil of Dawn build (pure tank I know) off the popular Steam guide and being completely worthless offensively wasn't very fun. Really my only requirements for a build are decent damage with high resolve and intellect. I'm playing on normal so I don't need a hugely optimized build. Any suggestions?