MaxQuest

Everything Dr. Hieronymous Alloy and 1TTFFSSE said. Plus would add about early-mid game focus generation: The Red Hand is great, but it doesn't benefit from those -85% recovery time, when opening from stealth. I would recommend making the first 2 shots from another heavy-hitting weapon (arquebus, arbalest, rod, hunting bow). It especially plays good with a rod with modal on. So it goes: 1. attack with rod (from stealth; short recovery) 2. attack with rod 3. quick switch 4. attack with red hand (no reload yet) 5. attack with red hand This way you start the fight with 4 shots made in very short time. And even a mundane rod will work (whose modal aoe is also increased by Aloth's Armor and Ring of Overseeing; which you do get way before the main equipment) But will also advice to take a look at Amira's Wing, which is great for 2 reasons: 1. you can get it early and it already comes in superb quality. 2. it has 3 per-rest wind spells: Hylean Squal, Wilting Wind and Winter Wind (it is missing from tooltip; but you get it too). And these effects are great because... they generate focus, and their damage for some reason is also increased by weapon quality. Dealing 100 raw damage with Wilting Wind in 6m aoe (and getting that much focus) is.. nice.

^ Regarding under-valuating immunity to disengagement attacks: Nomad's Brigandine is great on a Goldpact support/tank. Because if he runs to heal someone with Lay on Hands he doesn't get hit - and thus keeps Golden Enmity for longer (as it breaks after 7 hits).

Yeap)

As house2fly already answered, it was an experiment during Beta. Resolve was increasing spell damage and healing done. But in the end it was reverted because it wasn't balanced enough and also was resulting in a lesser number of good builds. You can check these threads: one, two, three, four, etc

You can: - click on Edit - switch to BB code (top-left button) - find all the [.color=#ffffff], remove them and the corresponding [./color] (disregard the dots) At the moment the post looks like this: image (white text is only visible if selected).

Just want to chime in that white font is not visible on mobile that uses IP.Board theme (which has white background)

Exactly) It would also make soulblade much more useful during ship battles with a lot of enemies. At least it would help to avoid thoughts of the "I'd rather have an aoe ascendant right now" sort. Definitely gonna check it on the weekend then. Here we go Priest: Subclasses: Overall: getting spells from other classes is very useful, since in a way you multi-class not 2 classes but two and a half; and depending on the synergy between them player can get pretty nice results. Now let's take a look how many cross-class spells/abilities each subclass gets: Priest of Berath: 4 druid spells Priest of Eothas: 1 druid spell Priest of Magran: 4 evocation spells Priest of Skaen: 3 rogue abilities Priest of Wael: 1 conjuration and 5 illusion spells No wonder many find priest of Eothas to be the least flexible option. And priest of Skaen kinda viable but hard to make an optimal build with (as the player can multi-class into an actual martial class instead) At the same time, priest of Wael has the most variants when it comes to multi-classing. He is great for a debilitator type of character; and also for a plethora of other builds that just need those extra defenses. That's why I would make a few adjustments to these bonus spell selections. Priest of Berath: looking at Touch of Rot and Rot Skulls, this subclass is mostly meant for DoT focused characters. I.e. those who would increase MIG and INT, and ofc have decent PER to actually apply their effects. That's why Holy Meditation looks a bit unfitting from building point of view; and would definitely switch it with Autumn's Decay or Insect Swarm. And Spreading Plague with Infestation of Maggots. Priest of Eothas: 8 out of 9 predefined spells are all about buffing and healing. And it makes you wonder, why Sunbeam is there. This subclass requires either more spells that deal [damage + affliction] in order to support such sunbeam archetype, or get rid of this spell and go full buffer/healer instead. The second way is easier and doesn't clash with Wael. That's why I would swap Sunbeam with Nature's Vigor. Also: having just 1 non-priest spell doesn't differentiate enough this subclass from other kinds of priests. Thus would end up with: 1. Nature's Vigor; 2. Withdraw; 3. Nature's Balm; 4. Circle of Protection; 5. Cleansing Wind; 6. Minor Intercesion; 7. Ressurection or Nature's Bounty Priest of Magran: It's weird that if I want to create a fire priest... Berath and Wael are supperior options. Reason being: the most damage is dealt via DoTs. Ray of Fire and Flame Shield don't look all that amazing, and are the spells that I'll rarely cast. Not to mention that casting Torrent of Flame as rank 7 spell instead of Cleansing Flames just not going to happen. I would much prefer the following spell selection: 1. Fan of Flames; 2. Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon or Combusting Wounds; 3. Fireball; 4. Shinning Beacon; 5. Wall of Flame or Torrent of Flame; 6. Pillar of Holy Fire; 7. Cleansing Flames Priest of Skaen: first of all ask yourself how would you build such a priest in order for him to be competitive and not getting trumped by possible alternatives? Why would a fighter multi-class with Scaen and not assassin/streetfighter/trickster instead? Is bleakwalker/skaen on par with bleakwalker/devout or bleakwalker/berserker? Atm the only evident synergy is between skaen and assassin because of Shadowing Beyond at rank 5; and that's not really enough. Thus suggesting the following selection: 1. Cripling Strike; 2. Spiritual Weapon; 3. Sneak Attack; 4. Confounding Blind; 5. Shadowing Beyond; 6. Eliminating Blow; 7. Minor Avatar Priest of Wael: comes with 5 wonderful wizard spells, a less wonderful Confusion (which was really strong in PoE1 and is meh in Deadfire) and Iconic Projection which just doesn't fit here (because Wael selection is focused on defences and cc; all being effective even with dumped MIG). Also Wael violates the following principle: a priest cannot get wizard spell earlier than wizard. And I am referring to Arcane Veil here, which is a rank 2 spell. Thus suggesting the following selection: 1. Spirit Shield; 2. Arcane Veil; 3. Curse of Blackened Sight; 4. Llengrath's Displaced Image; 5. Minor Grimoire Imprint; 6. Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment; 7. Gaze of Adragan Regarding deities/subclasses: check an updated list here Spells: First I'll list the spells I like - i.e. the ones looking at which I'm thinking, hmm, maybe I can find a spot for priest in my party?: Suppress Afflictions: losing control of your tanks or dps'ers is always unpleasant, this spell gives you time to deal with it. Withdraw: shenanigans stuff Consecrated Ground (before nerf): it's an AoE Heal over Time, meaning that with decent PL, MIG and INT and can result in a decent amount of total healing. The -28% nerf substantially reduced it through, and it feels like it's asking for multi-classing with Helwalker now. Shining Beacon: bread and butter spell for a damage dealing priest. It has 20% lower base damage than in PoE1 and you can't cast 5 of them, but it's still good enough to want a fire priest. Triumph of Crusaders: enables a glass-cannon dps party member with decent self-sustainance. Although a bit fades away in late game, provided that health pools increase faster than healing scaling Devotions for the Faithful (before the nerf): was a very strong spell. +20/-20 acc in medium aoe can hardly be under-appreciated. Now through it's just a shadow of former glory. It's still decent, but the fact that it is an active effect, makes it less useful when you have other +acc actives, like a paladin with Zealous Focus Circle of Protection: on average, it's like reducing the total damage your party takes by ~30% and even more on characters with already relatively high defenses Barring Deaths Door: shenanigans stuff and eternal love of streetfighters, berserkers, death godlikes.. Salvation of Time: buffs prolongation and shenanigans stuff Cleansing Flames: respectable damage, and double dps on all party DoT. Superb spell. Storm of Holy Fire: do love the periodic damage. As it also results in respectable total damage amount. Spark the Souls of the Righteous: high damage potential if you have enough summons or dominated enemies. Hand of Weal and Woe: high damage, high healing. Symbol of X: great all around. The rest of the spells, I personally find less useful. Either because of cast times, or because they share the same rank (and they fight for the slot), or because of the nature of the fights. And encounter design imho is the reason why priest inspirations aren't that impactful. Let's take Holy Power: AoE Strong inspiration could be fight breaking, if there was a numerous amount of fights were enemy throws a stun with huge radius and accuracy. In this case priest could run to his party and unstun them. But since I haven't encountered such scenario, it's just a measy give +5 MIG to all in a tiny aoe, and do nothing for 7s. Holy Power would also be useful if there were a lot of high-AR enemies, that would also toss quick Dazed aoes. And the only way to penetrate them would be to get rid of this might affliction. But again, don't really remember that happening. Not to mention that Holy Power has only 1.5m radius, and it would require a squishy priest to run into close range and risk getting focused; or if it's an armored frontline priest, enjoy a quite long recovery. Thus I would rather look at other means to get rid of Dazed. It could be liberating exhortation, or frenzy, some fast stuff. At the same time, if all these inspirations had faster cast/recovery time, it could potentially be unpleasant to play vs enemy priests, who could potentially quickly cancel a lot of hard-cc effects. What gives? - either increase the +stat on all inspirations from +5 to +7, to make them more desirable from +stat/+defence pov; not just as anti-cc - or increase the aoe - or let them give some bonus +acc or +defense - or give 1 inspiration per-rank for free? So these would end to be just situational spells - or prayers and litanies could give one tier better inspiration than they currently do So, here are the changes that I would make: Interdiction: either increase duration from 7 to 8s; or increase the area; or make it 1.5s cast time Restore: this spell doesn't scale as fast as health pools with level. Could get +15% per PL? Holy Power: 1.5m radius -> 2.5m radius, and +5% damage Barbs of Condemnation: target takes damage, and all enemies in 1.5m aoe get -7 to all defenses Halt: immobilize -> suspend beneficial effects and immobilize; or immobilize and reduce range by 50% Holy Meditation: 2.5m -> 5.0m aoe Repulsing Seal: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 1.5s cast + 3.0s recovery Pillar of Faith: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 3.0s cast + 4.0s recovery and 2.5m radius Warding Seal: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 3.0s cast + 3.0s recovery Consecrated Ground: 5hp/3s -> 6hp/3s Divine Mark: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 3.0s cast + 3.0s recovery; optionally could deal 20% less damage, as it doesn't compare with DW Full Attacks, and is taken more for that -25 deflection malus, but being mia for 7.5s is a bit too much; Or instead of casting time reduction; it could deal 20% more damage in order to be somewhat competitive dps-wise Despondent Blows: 1.5m radius -> 2.5m Litany for the Body: 3.0s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 1.5s cast + 3.0s recovery | and Hardy -> Nimble and Fit (rank 4 has a lot of good spells, having this litany provide just hardy, is not enough provided the opportunity cost) Litany for the Spirit: 0.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 1.5s cast + 3.0s recovery | and Acute -> Resolute and Smart Triumph of Crusaders: 80 -> 100 health restored Circle of Protection: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 3.0s cast + 4.0s recovery Searing Seal: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 3.0s cast + 3.0s recovery Champion's Boon: 3.0s cast + 3.0s recovery -> 1.5s cast + 3.0s recovery Minor Avatar: +20% damage with weapons -> +25% damage with everything; +40 max hp -> +80 max hp Crowns for the Faithful: 1.5m radius -> 2.5m; ar as suggested by mosspit: provide tier 2 inspirations instead of tier 1 Rank 9 spells: in addition to their effects, add +10s to Minor Avatar duration if active. And last thing: looking at the possibility of building a soft debuffing priest (wael with interdiction, despondent blows/divine mark, devotions and so on), the rank 2 looks to lack an affliction inflicting spell. Some kind of "Berath's Grasp": sicken all enemies in 2.0m aoe would be really handy. This would enable a low-might debilitating priest that dazes, blinds, and indirectly deals damage by lowering enemy constitution.

^ They also require fine-tunning. It's just too long to write in one go.

I like the idea of reducing the discipline cost, and compensating it with lower damage. I find this to be an utility ability, as it allows to: - bring an enemy closer (such that a squishy debilitator could place a short range cc) - daze - lower enemy AR - and that's something I'd like my party dps'ers to benefit from; not the fighter himself (because a dps fighter will just use Penetrating Strike instead) Numbers and aoe can be tweaked) Do like. Player can use pulsing afflictions (like Vissage). Or time and land the leech right before an affliction expires on target. Are you sure that Disintegration gets worse with higher INT? There was a missconception in PoE1 regarding Disintegration because of it's tooltip effect and description. But it's damage was actually increased by INT. And afaik so it is in Deadfire. With high MIG, INT and PL you can deal 900+ raw damage with it. That's a point. Full Attacks with 1H getting bonus accuracy - looks a bit moot. Because many FA abilities already have accuracy bonus, and players will be asking if these bonuses stack or not. Well, definitely like having only 2 separate effects then Hit with both weapons if DW; or roll max damage otherwise. Fair point Not a single time In current state of the game, ascendant for me is a damage dealer. He deals damage. Let Lifegiver, Wayfarer or Helwalker/Priest (that already tossed his DoTs) handle the healing part) Again, fair point) That's why I suggested to increase the damage of damaging powers; and additionally buff those listed.

I agree, in at least general terms, with everything above except this; given that the change to per encounter casting makes focus a hindrance rather than a help, I'd just as soon get to max focus on my Ascendant ASAP. The focus mechanic isn't a benefit, it's a hindrance, and most of the time it's just getting in the way of doing the fun stuff, the necessary ante you have to pay before you can really start to play. As such, I'd be fine with it being even easier to raise focus. I'd probably be ok with doubling the starting focus every Cipher gets at the start of each encounter. My current problem with ascendant is that when I reach max focus, I don't really feel that ascended. I can spam powers, but the result is not really better than what I can do with evoker or fire-priest. At the same time while Ascendant actually can somewhat compete, especially when multiclassed with helwalker, streetfighter or barbarian (for bloodthirst), other subclasses can't. That's why I proposed to increase the powers' damage. As for 150%->125% Draining Whip specifically for Ascendant - it's a first non-stingy nerf that came to my mind. Something to compensate for the overall powers buff. At the end of the day if a player wants to have max focus asap in an important fight he will have it, as there are means at his disposal, like: - Storm Rune Shot from Thundercrack - Wild Barrage from Kitchen Stone - the +% action speed from Dragon's Dowry is also nice As for non per-rest means there are full-attacks with Fire in the Hole (in MH) and Xefa's Empirical Explication/Scordeo Trophy (in OH). With Cutthroat Cosmo, Acina's Tricorn, double effect from Sure-Handed Ila and streetfighter/lightning_strikes/bloodthirst/time_parasite you can fire really fast. Add Shared Flames, Baubles of the Fin and optionally Xoti's Lantern with Aefyllath... and you get max focus in 1-2 full attacks or in 3-6s ^^

I find that many weapons were very strong at the release, but overnerfed in v1.1. Few quick examples: Scordeo's Trophy:Opening Barrage: 15% -> 5%.​Yes 15% was insanely broken with fighter's old Charge ability. But now with 5% the speed build-up is kinda slow, taking into account how fast the fights are. I would buff it to 7-8%. Ball and Chain:Irrepressible: +100% Damage -> +15%.That bonus is additive. So it's bassically: On hostile effect expiration briefly deal +2.5 bonus dmg. Provided that it doesn't proc often even +50% is balanced enough. Indomitable: 25% Chance -> 10%It's kinda hard to make a build around "10% chance to Recover immediately when Critically Hit in Melee" because it is too unreliable. Make it at least 20%. Eccea's Arcane BlasterElemental Shot: Fire 40% Chance -> 10%.Elemental Shot: Force 50% Chance -> 20%. Elemental Shot: Frost 20% Chance -> 5%. Elemental shot effects are too weak/unreliable now. I would buff 10%/20%/5% -> 33%/33%/15%. Not to mention that the fact that this pistol deals raw damage is not enough to compensate for such base damage. Also I'd take a look at some inherent weapon properties. For example compare Accurate (+5 acc) with Arcing Blows (10% of Grazes converted to Hits). If you had accuracy equal to enemy deflection: - 15% graze, 50% hit, 1% crit After equiping corresponding weapon you get: - 15% graze, 50% hit, 6% crit (with accurate) (0.5 * 0.15 + 0.5 + 1.25 * 0.06 = 0.65) - 13.5% graze, 51.5% hit, 1% crit (with flails) (0.5 * 0.135 + 0.515 + 1.25 * 0.01 = 0.595) Arcing Blows property needs 30-40% graze-to-hit conversion in order to be as good as Accurate. As for classes... Fighter: Subclasses:Devout: good as is Unbroken: good as is Black Jacket: in addition to quicker weapon switching, could also get Deep Pockets Pure Fighter: in my oppinion is a bit weaker than subclasses, since you can work around their cons, but really benefit from their pros. On the other hand I wouldn't change this for now. Abilities:Into the Fray is not impactful enough. Would increase the Dazed duration from 5 to 7s. And buffed Lower their Guard: instead of -10 AR for 1 attack: -7 AR for 4s. Power Strike cost is too damn high. 3 discipline with possibility to refund 1 on crit, looks more promising. Cipher: Overall:Tbh I find Ascendant to be the only strong type of cipher right now. That's why I would reduce his Draining Whip focus generation bonus by ~25%. But at the same time would buff cipher damaging powers by ~15% and would increase accuracy or reduce cast time/recovery on a several echo/deception powers. Subclasses:Soulblade: it may look cool, but it's basically a subpar trickster. It asks for some splash damage to be good enough on PotD. For example: using Shred powers leaves a 5s debuff on affected enemies; and when you use Soul Annihilation it hits all marked targets in 2.5m aoe, besides the primary target. Beguiler: 20% extra range is weak when so many powers have 5m range. What beguiler needs is extra accuracy with deception powers. Otherwise ascendant can do the same thing, but better. Ascendant: good as is Pure cipher: in theory is a cipher that would cast low and medium-costed Echo powers. And in practice that's not efficient enough because of their recovery times. Solution?: reduce recovery on echo stuff that costs 50 focus and below; especially defensive buffs. Powers:Mind Wave: a bit weak as it is now. Prone is no longer a disable with duration. And even interrupt doesn't make it worth enough in practice. Since it's an utility power, it could also inflict a 3s confuse or 2s dazed on hit enemies except the primary target. Whispers of Treason: it was godly in PoE1, it was good in Deadfire before the nerf. And now it's just decent. But being decent is not enough to get cast. My current run is the first one out of 6 cipher play-throughs were I didn't even learn it. All in all I would nerf it's duration to 11s, but would increase it's range to 8m and speed-up it's cast time from 3s to 2s. Valorous Echo: never casted/learnt it. Enemies don't interrupt enough. The recovery is too long. And pure cipher is not good enough. This really needs a 1.5s recovery max. Tenuous Grasp: this is not good enough for debuffing, but can be situationally ok when used against a target that has INT and RES inspiration. The thing is that in practice you usually just don't give a damn. Yes it may take 1-3s longer to kill a resolute target, but your cipher won't be sitting on 4s recovery. I would either make Grasp also inflict Distracted, or would reduce it's recovery time to 2s. Mental Binding: 6s paralyze + 10s immobilize -> 7s paralyze + 7s immobilize. And 3s recovery time. Fractured Volition: how about reducing the duration 20s->15s, but inflicting Enfeebled instead of Weakened? Otherwise it needs shorter recovery Wild Leech: is weak and boring. Make it fun! E.g: steal one random inspiration from the enemy. If it has none: you lose one random inspiration and affect the target with tier-3 affliction of the same type. Soul Ignition: this power is completely superseeded by Disintegration. Change the targeted defense from Fortitude to Will and we are golden. Detonate: at the moment it only detonates if cast on an enemy that is Near Death. Make it detonate if it just kills the enemy. Defensive Mind Web: it was redundant in PoE1. And it is weak in Deadfire. Increase the break counter from 1 to 3 hits. Or let it be 10 hits total on anyone in the party, and after that the web breaks completely; but while it's active it also allows to share perception. Haunting Chains: is kinda weak for a rank 9 power. Let it act like Concelhaut's Crushing Doom. I.e. casting haunting chains places a 12s debuff on target that pulses every 6s and affects the target with Terrified and Hobbled for 12s. More classes to come... Btw, besides weapons and classes, I find that full-attacks, racials, AR system and too a smaller degree: attributes do also require fine-tunning. First of all: Full Attacks As suggested many times: make full attacks when wielding one weapon roll max damage. So: - if you DW: you hit with both weapons. - if you don't DW (i.e. you use 2H, 1H or 1H&Shield): you hit with that one weapon, but hard. Alternatively it's ok, if there are even 4 variants (but it will be harder for new players to memorize): - FA DW: hit with both weapons - FA 2H: max damage roll - FA 1H: bonus damage on crit or bonus accuracy - FA 1H&Shield: either same as with 1H, or some utility, like: lower enemy penetration by 1 for 4s, lower enemy accuracy by 10 for 3s, etc. Racials, especially Moon and Fire godlike ones need scaling. Also we were told that all godlikes will have 2 racials. But that's a discussion for a separate thread. AR system makes it easy to tank without shields whatsoever, because you can already reduce incoming damage by x4, provided that you have AR by 4 or more points higher than enemy penetration. Tbh there is no quick solution to this. But changing the threshold from 100%/75%/50%/25% to 100%/75%/50%/35%/25% or 100%/75%/55%/40%/30%/25% and increasing deflection given by shields by 4 points could be the first step.

The stat spread that I included under the spoiler was for v1)For v4 I would go for: -19/9/15/14/18/3 if you use scrolls or DoT chants (assuming that dot chants duration is still affected by int). -19/9/15/18/14/3 otherwise Reasoning being: Amount of FoD usages is limited. And those invocations are not spamable. So when they hit, they better hit hard. Hence high MIG and PER. 9 CON is enough on herald to not die to focus fire. For survivability there is AR and healing. No need for higher health pool. DEX will help finishing those invocations faster (4.5s cast + 3.0s rec). So lower risk of being interupted. And 15 dex is nice in the sense that even if paladin is hobbled or immobilized he wont get dex malus. As for RES.. those 7 points would only decrease damage taken vs deflection by ~15% for such a character. Which is not worthy enough and can be discarded.

Let's think what options do you have: v1. wayfarer/skald with high MIG focused on low-level offensive invocations.This one heals with white flames, occasinally tosses LoH and Liberating Exhortations. "The Thunder Rolled" and "At The Sound of His Voice" will cost 2 phrases; and are the main invocations to use. On average you can cast the new invocation 6s after recovering from the previous one. 1 phrase gets auto-generated, and 1 more you can get from a crit. In the worst case scenario (if you don't crit) it gonna be 12s. v2. wayfarer/skald with dumped MIG, focused exclusively on exhortations, beacon and cc invocations.But I think, unless you imperatively need Shared Flames in your party, the linked skald/trickster will perform better. v3. wayfarer/skald with maxed MIG focused on spell-damage invocations, specifically on "Seven Nights" and "Bitting Winds".Basically a regular paladin, but who can also toss a heavy invocation once in 16-30s. v4. wayfarer/troubadroud with maxed MIG focused on spell-damage invocations just like the previous variant.This herald with Brisk Recitation turned on will be able to gather 5 phrases in 15s. So it looks strictly better than v3, but you lose linger. v5. wayfarer/troubadrour with maxed MIG focused on spell-damage chants, specifically Soft Winds and later The Dragon Trashed.Theoretically these chants will deal more damage with Brisk Recitation off. But unlike in PoE1, Dragon Trashed is kinda weak in Deadfire. So until a corresponding buff, this approach looks kinda moot. Out of these I would advice either v1 or v4. v4 looks like the one which will allow you to deal most damage. While v1 is something I'm currently using on a custom companion in my party, and do like it for versatility and utility.

It is. After the nerf, Soul Annihilation is dealing damage equal to: current_focus / 4 + 10. And as reported by Cawyn from reddit, the focus generated during SA swing itself doesn't matter now. So, basically using SA increases your DPS by 30-45% on average. Now, let's take a look at ascendant. A decent one can max focus in 3-8s. And after that spam powers for 15s. For example Amplified Wave, where 1 hit deals more damage than cipher's auto-attack. And you often hit 4+ enemies with it... For spell-damage oriented cipher: Bread and butter: (from top to bottom) - Amplified Wave - Mind Blades - Soul Shock Situational: - Silent Scream (for example you want to stun that fampyr asap; and deal some ~aoe damage in meantime) - Disintegration (vs bosses and high hp enemies) - Body Attunement / Phantom Foes (to lower AR of bosses and Iron Constructs) - Dominate/Ringleader/Stasis Shell (helpful to separate the enemies in two groups, deal with one now, and with those cc'ed later; but increases time-in-combat) - Secret Horrors (if you have no other Frightening/Terrifying spells; but want to disable enemy abilities) - Borrowed Instinct (if you need extra accuracy) (especially nice on an ascendant/streetfighter, since the cast time is 0.5s short, and recovery can be halved by the passive) - Recall Agony (if your party lacks consistent dps, and you need to kill that 1 target with available but limited nukes) Other rank 1-7 powers are too situational and most of the time you either won't need them, or have other party member that can do same stuff but better.

Haven't tried yet, but was thinking about it. 1H style can be nice on a skald (that doesn't have full-attacks) or a character that is built around weapons or abilities with onCrit effects. Like Dorftek already mentioned the Stunning Surge with Hand Mortar; or for example with Kalakoth's Minor Blights. On a multi-classed skald with cheap full-attacks though, I would still consider dual-wielding accurate weapons. - Full-Attack with 1H rapier: 0.5s (attack) + 3.0s (recovery) - Full-Attack with rapier (with modal) in MH + dagger/club in OH: 0.5s (mh attack) + 0.5 (oh attack) + 2.1s (oh recovery) Instead of 1 hit (with +12 acc and +20% hit-to-crit conversion) in 3.5s, you make 2 hits in 3.1s: 1 hit (with +20 acc) and 1 hit (with +0 acc).

It's definitely harder than at release, which especially feels on Gorreci Street. But still easier than in PoE1 overall. Can't tell of the late game. My party is level 11. But I did and do encounter a lot of 2-3 skull enemies. As for challenges: - by itself Berath's Challenge doesn't really make the game harder. You don't have many knockouts with a good party. Not to mention having emergency resurrection scrolls. But with Trial of Iron and inability to pause you will have to play much safer... which usually means sturdier team, less risks and longer time-to-kill. - and regarding Magran's Challenge: inability to slow down is not a big hindrance. Already am playing at normal speed. But inability to pause is a biggy. Without pausing, it will take longer to issue all the commands; and characters might be less time-efficient. Good AI behaviors help to some degree though.

Let's approach your question as a problem to solve. The requirement basically is to find the best build between following 11 combinations: - priest of skaen - priest of skaen / barb - priest of skaen / chanter - priest of skaen / cipher - priest of skaen / druid - priest of skaen / fighter - priest of skaen / monk - priest of skaen / paladin - priest of skaen / ranger - priest of skaen / rogue - priest of skaen / wizard Plus figure out the best subclass if multi-classed. And bonus points if going Skaen is superior to other deities. You know.. nothing fancy/stellar comes to mind. The most obvious synergy is, as Dr <3 mentioned: skaen/assassin. The important thing here is that you get bonus Finishing Blow uses, Shadowing Beyond (for Assassinate) and Escape which might be used with Salvation of Time. As for weapon, let's think: you start from stealth. Offhand weapon won't get Assassinate bonus nor stealth recovery bonus. Thus: - while you can assassinate: heavy 2H or unique weapons with dps oriented per-rest procs - when you run out of means to going invis: heavy DW (if you have guile left) or The Red Hand (otherwise) for steady dps. For example you can open up from stealth with: - Dragon's Dowry, - Skewer from Spearcaster, - Thunderous Report / Wild Barrage from Kitchen Stove - Storm Rune Shot from Thundercrack - Rod with Modal on While for steady dps to consider dual-wielding two out of: Xefa's Empirical Explication, Fire in the Hole, Kitchen Stove, Thundercrack, Scordeo Trophy. You could also consider: - priest of Skaen / bleakwalker or wayfarer, who mainly deals damage via full-attacks but can also occasionally toss Lay on Hands, Liberating Exhortation, Divine Mark or Consecrated Ground. Plus Cleansing Flames and Storm of Holy Fire in the late game. - priest of Skaen / sharpshooter with Thundercrack/Scordeo Trophy spamming Accurate Wounding Shot with Finishing Blow. Cleansing Flames should also double wounding dps. P.S. Wouldn't say that these are really good and specialized builds. But should be viable enough.

Do disagree. There are 11 single-class and 55 multi-class options. Ideally I'd prefer choosing out of 66 variants. But if between SC and MC one has to be better than the other, I would rather choose from a larger pool (55 > 11).

Do like a spell-damage oriented streetfighter/ascendant. Also was considering a cc-focused ascendant/assassin, if crowd-control would become as good as in PoE1.

Minor bug on v2.0 / steam / win 8 (v.6.3 build 9600) Clicking on "Save Game" was doing nothing: screenshot P.S. Loading an older save fixed the issue, but still it's something that is not intended to happen) Edit: happened thrice already. The only thing in common is that I am manually saving ~ every 5-10 minutes, and often overwriting. After about 5th overwrite clicking on "save" button stops to work, and only a reload helps. I don't remember having such problem before v2.0

Will need to check that then)

Hmm, aside from the already mentioned gh/beckoner: Fury of Eothas Soulblade of Eothas Corpse-eater/Sharpshooter Lifegiver/Beguiler Trickster/Conjurer

I have checked it just now. The mouseover tooltip and description at character creation were updated and do contain the ("Does not count abilities") note: example I was thinking my memory is playing tricks on me. but that note indeed wasn't there at release: youtube_vid_1, youtube_vid_2 Valid point. Now that a player is informed from the start, I'm more ok with the current wound generation conditions. Maybe that was the dev idea, that Shattered Pillars should benefit less from amassing wounds for the passive benefits. But do agree raising the wound count limit would be a good start. At lease from 5 to 8.

Tooltips that appear when you mouseover your weapons show the action/recovery/reload time reduction. 21 DEX provides +33% action speed bonus. Which is the same as -25% action time (1/1.33 = 0.7518). 19 DEX provides +27% action speed bonus. Which is the same as -21% action time (1/1.33333 = 0.7874). So seeing 25% reduction was correct when you had 21 DEX. And seeing same 25%, was not correct when you had 19 DEX. Or the game was already taking those extra 2 DEX in account.

In my previous run I used The Red Hand on Maia but completely forgot about the Double Tap. I remember being puzzled on why do titans spawned by the Ukaizo Guardian are getting insta-killed Before that I tried Spearcaster on her. And that Knockback was nasty when she was dominated) But do agree with 1TTFFSSE that knockbacking enemies was kinda annoying in practice, plus it was de'engaging them from frontliners. Btw there is one more thing to take into account: opening from stealth grants -85% recovery/reload time bonus. But it gets wasted on The Red Hand since there is no reload between 1st and 2nd shot. A character that has access to Quick Switch, might want to open with another 2H weapon (e.g. Dragon's Dowry or a good rod with modal on, and after that quick switch to The Red Hand). Did the first run with cipher (devout/ascendant) in light armor as well, specifically Miscreant's Leathers. But now, that early game was a bit increased in difficulty, I find heavy armor to be nice even on ranged dps'ers if they attack from 5m or closer. Also I'd say which armor to choose, depends on your party composition, amount of hard-cc and your range with weapons and powers. Ascendant generally wants as low armor recovery penalty as possible in order to get the most out of ascended state. But it depends on how low AR he can get away with without getting much aggro, and not getting focus-fired by enemy rogues or Necrotic Lances. Speaking of ranged ascendant, you can try the following armors from top to bottom and stop once you feel comfortable: - Effigy's Husk/Humility - Sharpshooter's Garb (if you use arbalest/arquebus/crossbow) - Miscreant's Leathers - Aloth's Leather Armor - Fleshmender - Devil of Caroc Breastplate (bonus points if you multi-class with rogue/barb/monk/fighter/paladin since you get +2 to resource pool) - Nomad's Brigandine For example my lvl 7 ascendant/streetfighter wears Deltro's Cage atm, but that's because: - it's early game - she stays at 5m range (blunderbuss range) - recovery penalty from plate armor is not that stingy due to streetfighter speed bonus - do use Soul Shock often But once I'll get access to Amplified Wave, will most likely equip Miscreant's Leathers, Aloth's Leather Armor or one of those robes.