MaxQuest

I think: both. First of all for RP. And second for deflection. 10 Def might not sound like a lot. But the benefit from defenses is subjected to increasing returns. You either invest a lot, in order to get only missed and grazed, and thus make your DR relevant. Or invest just a little, and rely on cc in order to protect your members, and some freeze DR to manipulate the shades' target preference.

The Spelltongue bonus is tricky. When you hit the enemy, you get a Spelltongue Buff, and the target is affected by Spelltongue Debuff. Spelltongue Buff belongs to AttackSpeedMult category and it stacks with everything. (and yeap, it stacks multiplicatively with Frenzy, Bloodlust and Gauntlets of Swift Action) Also since it is a buff, it basically affects both weapons (if you dual-wield), and spellcasting speed as well. There is a problem though, if you durganize your Spelltongue, it will stop applying the Buff completely; and will keep only debuffing the enemy. (see related bug report). P.S. Atm the workaround is: - keep Spelltongue non-durganized. - make few attacks with it - switch to other weapons

v1. send the frontliner forward to meet them; while the rest of the party runs back. Use sugar. v2. when the dragon says "Leave!", you agree, and attack with a ranged weapon/spell one of the oozes in order to trigger combat. Ofc after proper positioning (for example from low-left corner).

Send a solo tank forward. While the rest of the group should stand outside of the 90° cone (i.e. always watch the direction dragon is facing). You can also make dragon's minions tank him for you: for example charm/confuse a Greater Blight, which is also immune to frost damage, and thus takes no damage from breath. Or you can charm the dragon himself. Do note though - he will regenerate 25% of his endurance when you do this. You can deal with paralyze using: - Prayer Against Imprisonment scroll / priest spells - Using potions of Major Recovery - they will reduce the cc duration on you Note: shades and phantoms don't hit hard, and frost DR is very effective vs their damage. Also they won't appear until you cast/use an attack upon the dragon himself.

CC and proper positioning are the key here. And that's why you need high accuracy. Unless you tell us what's your party composition, there is little else to tell.

You don't need to hit max level to kill them. Nor use any cheese or exploits. Just learn the encounter. Carnage and Mayhem Dragon have respectable melee damage output. Especially Alpine Dragon. And 2-3 AoE abilities, each on a separate cooldown, but without usage limit. Plus a small army of minions that you already mentioned, to distract your attention via charm/paralyze/interrupts/etc; although you can use them to your favor as well. Useful links: Alpine Dragon's army stats/abilites, Dragon Breaths comparison & Alpine Dragon abilities/preferences/cds.

Well: - get Scion of Flame - put your ranger in front - either in flank, and thus you'll need a narrow cone (pistol/arquebus) - or put him in the middle of frontline with a wider cone (blunderbuss) You can take Quick Switch, Arms Bearer, and equip your ranger in heavy armor. Because you will max MIG and INT, your deflection will be so-so. Swaddling Sheet and Shod-in-Faith will help you out.

It's indeed a bug, because elemental/racial_slayer talent tooltips list no exceptions. There is an unofficial fix though: link. And a related thread in tech support.

@Kaylon, I'll take a look on weekend. @fiddlesticks, Yeap. The tooltip can show you: 30s. But if your chanter has 20 INT, the summons will actually last for 45s.

Reminds me of Geralt in a way) I'd say it also depends on what kind of dragons do we fight. Killing those from Dragon Age doesn't cause any remorse for me. On the other hand I wouldn't want to harm the dragons like Villentretenmerth or Saesenthessis. There is) You need 17 RES though (link).

It has less optimal choices, not "non viable" choices. That's what I said) Indeed I do. It's basically an optimization problem, and pleasure comes from solving it. But hey, there are different types of players, and that's ok. There are 4 types according to Bartle, and even more if you take a look at Quantic. And it's not like player tastes are binary (where you either like a specific facet or completely not), it's more percent based. (example). I must note also, that min-maxing does not necessary lead to min-maxed stats. It depends on how the system is implemented. Crudest example: if you have 10 points of something, and there is plain multiplication at hand: 5x5 > 2x8. Now that's bad. Min-maxing character's efficiency in a single-player game, or in a mmorpg which is based on competition is one thing. Min-maxing in a cooperating tabletop is another. Tbh I never played any tabletop D&D games. But my understanding is that if you make a powerful but onesided character - GM will just bring harder enemies that target your weaknesses. Min-maxing the character/build in such environment does seem to have little returns. So one can focus on minmaxing the fun)

It's also interesting if the spells from Ninagauth's Black Pages, Llengrath's Grimoire and The Ironclasped (Concelhaut) grimoires will make it into Deadfire.

It means that supposition has failed. So: - he had 4 ms outside of combat - he had 6 ms during combat in spiritshift form, under effect of Zealous Charge - he wasn't shifted at the end of combat - but when combat ended his ms was 2 (instead of usual 4)?

No idea what caused that bug. The save file could get corrupted, or something went wrong when Hiravias came back and joined your party. Thus no solution. What you could try through is: - remove everyone from party except Hiravias - go to an inn and respec him - remove, and re-add back to party, and see what happens Or you could give up on Hiravias, and hire a custom druid (and if you lost any items, add them via console).

And PoE1 indeed does not have "non-viable decisions". Bow barbarians don't count) That's the point of min-maxing... to make the game (or a specific encounter) as easy as possible. And what does it mean "not needed"? Once you have beat the story, it's time to start and test the boundaries of the game, explore it's ins and outs, and check how far the optimization can go. Because... it's a pleasure in itself. Also it's great when there comes a new difficulty with new patch or expansion. Like Dark Mode in Witcher 2.

Well, you've spotted it yourself: Zealous Charge. There was a problem with Spiritshift and boots of speed. No wonder charge gives you a similar problem. The base run speed during and out-of-combat is 4. But you do benefit from movement increasing effects only during combat. I haven't looked in the code, but I suppose what happens is: - you run at speed 4 - you enter combat and your speed becomes 4 + 2, because of Zealous Charge - you spiritshift, and probably the movement speed is hard set to 4 - spiritshift ends (*) and 2 is subtracted from your current speed. (*) you can check if this problem occurs only when spiritshift is ended due to combat end; or always.

Betcha it not gonna happen) As it would be a very sensible boost. On the other hand if Reaping Knives Claws would become applicable to your Animal Companion...

The power builds will try to combine the best of two worlds classes) I am also quite interested in: - how far Deathblows and Minor Avatar will be able to pump DoTs damage. - how will Barbaric Blow compare with Flames of Devotion - how strong will Their Champion be, provided that chants will no longer be ranked - cipher with Twinned Arrows, and a mobile pet for Ectopsychic Echo - the mechanics behind Torment's Reach, and it's interaction with Citzal's Lance, Carnage and focus generation. - cc-focused wizard/fighter frontliner (min MIG, max INT/PER), with Disciplined Barrage + Knockdowns and per-encounter Bewildering Spectacle, Confusion, Shadowflame and so on... But first of all we need to know the scaling formula for abilities' damage and duration in function of power_level.

Yeap, Dragon Trashed chant will be affected by Scion of Flame (it's fire component), Racial Slayed talents, plus it will be registered in "Total Damage Done" section on character's sheet

From what we know, Obsidian are going to make the inner mechanics of Attack Speed system more transparent and intuitive. Plus things like speed, armor and other recovery-affecting stuff will also start influencing reloading_duration. Source: This made me thinking how exactly could the speed system be improved: 1. the game should clearly communicate all phases of action cycle and stick to the same terminology everywhere. 2. tooltips should specify the correct phase that is getting affected. For example in PoE1, speed tooltip reads "+20% Attack Speed", when in fact it reduces recovery. 3. if the tooltip reads "+20%" then.. it should be +20% (at least in the absense of other effects). And I think this can be achieved even if we don't touch the attack duration. Example: Link to spreadsheet. Pros of this approach: - player can calculate in mind how much will his attack rate get increased from taking x talent or using y buff. - reloading weapons are now fully affected by speed, armor and other recovery-affecting effects. - armor penalty is heavier now, in line with the tooltip values. - reduced gain snowballing when approaching zero-recovery. But this is compensated by the fact that other speed categories are now as important as AttackSpeedMult, and will have higher impact when pushing for the last mile. - flexibility. You can easily change recovery_factor without breaking anything; relative speedup will be the same. You can also make attack_duration getting decreased when recovery becomes negative (i.e. remove the hard-cap), without fear of getting to extreme 0 attack-duration. Formulas: P.S. Few questions regarding terminology: - how would you name the blue phase? In PoE1 it was named "attack" or "totalAnimation" (if in code). But this also refers to buffing/casting animation and potion consuming. - how would you name the green part? - how would you name the yellow phase?: "recovery time" or "recovery duration"? We can't just use the term "recovery", because it will lead to duration <> speed confusion.

Right Hand/ Left Hand ?

It's not like there is much of a choice between uniques from these two weapon types.. There is the classic barbarian build with Tall Grass. It's less dpsy/bursty than Tidefall/BoteP/DW Sabres builds, but it has the ability to inflict prone on crit; plus the predatory property makes it a bit easier. There are also a few niche/situational builds like: - Tal Grass fighter with Overbearing Guard and bonus Engagements - The Wind's Arm fighter, who debufs enemy concentration; and is used to help an interruption barbarian - Wizard with the summoned Citzal's Lance (which is considered a pike iirc)

I was hoping there are some additional advantages Don't get me wrong through, I find immersion being very important, even through I usually min-max. Many games implemented it somewhat askew... WoW also had the usage based 'weapon skill'. It was especially funny to go in the wild as max-level warlock and auto-attack with {dagger, sword, staff and wand} in order to max the respective skill. Agreed, a plain 'usage based' progression would not suite PoE1/Deadfire. It could be interesting through, if game designers would find a way to remove the chore/grind part, and add some tactical or strategical planning instead. Having an extra decision-layer doesn't hurt, but adds to game depth. As for retrainer... as usual there are pros and cons. The main pro was already named by MortyTheGobbo. While the main con (immersion aside) for me is: you can make a character that especially optimized for early game; and later respec for the late game build; and if the difference is sensible enough, retraining does no longer feel optional (if you minmax) rather a must.

Yeap, Disintegration is awesome) You only use Soul Ignition before you get access to Dis. Or if the target doesn't have that much endurance. On another hand if the enemy doesn't have much, it either dies to AoE or to hard-cc + auto-attacks / direct damage.

Chuckled at Holy and Holier Befuddlers. On a serious note: Transcendent seems ok, but for other options... I would take community' multiclass titles any day.