TWPE

Honestly just build the main keep when you can. Grab the curio shop and botanical gardens when you can. Then just ignore the place entirely if you want. Keeping the place low on prestige is actually beneficial, anyways. Some of the minor adventures have really nice rewards. Minor adventures themselves can become harder to get than legendary adventures by the end of the game. There is no rush at all to upgrading. It's unnecessary.

Okay, let's be clear here. A Fighter's tanking ability on PotD is literally OVERKILL (technically even a Paladin's tanking ability is overkill). You do not need it. It's over-tanking. Kind of like over-healing in an MMO. Every extra bit of toughness over what you need is wasted. That is never a reason to pick a Fighter over a Paladin. There are reasons, but that isn't one of them. Oh and after level 13 a fighter cannot out-damage a paladin without the use of some kind of gimicky lore build.

Also, "And Hel-Hyraf Crashed upon the Shield" has helped me here.

Hmm. Might be worth grabbing Heart of the Storm on party members that have a free talent then. It's hard to measure that spell, but it seems to melt things on PotD.

BTW, does Spark the Soul of the Righteous benefit from Heart of the Storm? From the caster? From the person who was buffed?

Not sure why you're necro posting in this thread. Also not sure why you're talking about D&D Paladins in PoE.

Heh, get used to them. There are much worse things that use those spells in this game.

Ahh, yes. I'm pretty sure there is an audio swap bug as well. I believe the demonic laugh should be coming from your fiance. ... Ahh! Maybe that's the cause of the typo.

The difficulty scaling only affects certain areas. All it does is increase the enemy's stats as far as I know. Adra Dragon does not scale.

Heh, you've done so many tests to make your billions of builds that you're getting them crossed in your head. They say each kid you have, makes you go senile 10-15 years sooner. 3 kids...

Also there is the whole factor of Durgan Steel and Soulbound Weapons hating eachother with that longstanding feud of theirs I made up to justify it in my mind.

There was a point in my first playthough where EVERY member of my party had this scroll (I love lore). I'd even use it to setup my rogue who'd just run through with hobbled immunity picking off everything with sabres.

Yeah, a fighter who isn't built for damage doesn't need engagements unless you go for a build around Overbearing Guard; an ability which, of course, also benefits by having more damage (but mostly just wants accuracy). Overbearing Guard is also far less useful against any enemy that is immune to prone. You definitely can get away with less melee if you want to swap out the fighter for a priest. The druid can be built to offtank if things get crazy and you have a lot cc available already (plus judicious use of summons from trinkets and your chanter can drastically reduce the need for melee fighters in many fights). You could also build the priest to be tougher and have them ready to take aggro off of something that moves to your back line. But yeah, you have a caster heavy composition and they benefit heavily from levels (well the Cipher is good either way, but you know.. more levels never hurt). Even a single level would help here.

Insomnia's keeping me up. Yes this fight is optional. 1- I've only played on PotD so far (and will probably never play on a lower difficulty). I've never used a fighter. You don't need one. Chanter tanks are awesome though. That Paladin you listed strikes me as more of an offtank, but that can work too. 2- I've never used a fighter. So I can't help much here. Should be fine as an offtank though. Fighters are pretty good on the deflection front; which will help slightly to compensate for forgoing a shield. 3- Melee wizards are definitely viable on PotD. Play it like a rogue; except with prebuffing. Make sure you have a means of disengaging (often cc provided by your own wizard, but your party can help here too) in case you draw a lot of aggro and your defensive buffs wear off. Oh and take advantage of your other spells and your reach weapons.

Uhm, meant symbols (of Magran and Eothas). Ahh. I thought as much but I wasn't sure (you had me googling fire sigils lol). I'm utilizing a similar build to this but I'm my priest worships Wael. This does have the benefit of giving me a damage type that fire immune enemies are often weaker to (including several dragons). So, I'm happy with the trade off (I just have to do something about their fortitude first).