Kazuma

Though it's obvious I didn't think there'd be as big of difference in terms of damage taken with this build compared to a pally. I don't know what I expected given that 10 wounds = 100 endurance. That said the damage with even auto-attacks on Zahua is better than what I'm getting on anybody else in the party. Might have to do with dual wielding, speed, accuracy, and ultimately how hard he tends to hit. vs everyone else using weapon and shield Does take some micromanaging for sure and I quickly moved Shod-in-faith to Zahua. I think my go to strat will be putting my two pally's on either side of him and the chanter behind him in any instance I can't use a choke point. If he gets surrounded he can quickly fall even with the boots. But spamming Torment's works PDQ. Only lvl 8 atm so it'll probably get better further in survivability wise.

Who knows at this point. From another perspective it could be Linux with the problem because of date/time/precision differences that weren't accounted for. Suffice it to say we can all but confirm that Linux is the oddball of the group. Which side is working as intended? /shrug For the record is Pax Empyrean running the Linux version?

@Boeroer - Ah, that may be it. Platform difference. Maybe linux system calls know what random means and windows... well it's windows. Random numbers are hard work and MS is busy patching 20-30 year old security issues these days. Sarcastic jibes aside, it could just be implementation differences within unity itself. Cross platform will always require a little voodoo no mater how much secret sauce an engine claims to have. Ironically in this case the windows version seems to be the one misbehaving. Not that I mind (OBS pls don't fix). I would actually prefer static loot rather than random. So it's a happy accident we can even use a list like this one. I probably should be running PoE on my linux box. Why am I not running it on my Linux box? I'd say my video card is low end but I doubt PoE takes much.

Maybe there's just an excess of cosmic radiation where he lives and it's flipping bits on him. But *only* bits reserved for PoE loot tables. That's some oddly specific radiation but.. Kidding. Maybe it's simply a different version of some API/dll/etc that PoE uses. Same game version. Different underlying system/drivers. Equals different RNG?

That's really odd. I've confirmed that WM random loot is working for me too. I'll have to test on hard mode later to see if I have them same problem. Unfortunately I don't have any convenient saves on hard mode. I haven't checked IE Mod in a while have they updated it to work with 3.03? There was a particular feature that was crashing in the game but I don't recall what it was. At least from what I saw on Nexus. Haven't tried it myself. Hopefully it works for you.

@Boeroer - I was just kidding. Percentage wise you had almost 35% below the hit mark and a 2% crit rate. Nothing to write home about. My unnoticed sarcasm (posts are tone deaf) was due to my anecdotal observation that I miss a lot with white worms Good idea on the WM bounties. I hadn't considered using it outside. I was going to wait on doing those but maybe not now. Iirc there is some gear to be had from them. Have to figure out where the bounties are and if there are any natural funnel points on the maps in question. I suppose you don't *need* a choke point. Especially if it's a single mob. Part of me wants to try them without white worms first. Worms are the backup plan But for sure I'll not clear any maps until I've done them. Speaking of which I haven't done the stronghold bounties either. Many things to do. I'm with you on the exploding bodies. While I admit to playing the fallout games with bloody mess turned on at least the damage done is relatively consistent with the weapon used. Well.. mostly. To be sure it gets pretty old after a while. "Oh, look! Another body in pieces!" Though it's a wonder why cartoon style carnage was ever a novelty. I guess it just works with the tone of that series. @Raven Darkholme - I just realized I've watched your old pally videos when I was just starting this playthru. That's one long video series man.

Lol now that you mention it Kaylon I either stumbled upon your video via google or I must have seen it linked here. Because your video made me realize I had been an idiot for trying to pull it off from the other door. Maybe I subconsciously avoided using a room that had a dead woman in it... but I'm ok using dead bodies I've piled up to kill more people?? The nonsensical virtual moral compass of a gamer.

I might have to look into this. I'm kinda interested now. Is this something you have to download unity to see? Or do you simply need to look through the game files (perhaps an archive that needs extraction)? Not that I can do anything about it. Just curious about the overall workflow of combat. My second guess would be an event issue. But I have no idea what language this is in and if they are even using events. Lol. I'm no programming whiz to begin with but I suppose I should indulge such curiosities to learn more.

Oh, I used white worms a bunch in Raedric's keep it just wasn't an option as I'd already cleaned out all the mobs in the basement except the animancer. Plus the OP isn't using a chanter so I wasn't going to suggest that to him I did use it on Raedric. Though I had to reload a ways back because I made the mistake of making my corpse pile at the main entrance (southern wide door), rather than the bedroom door on the east side. You must have been overleveled when you made that screenshot, had lots of Acc, got lucky, or all the above. I'd have gotten more misses/grazes and no crits Not that I've neglected Acc... I must be unlucky One thing I don't care for about white worms is the sound effect. It attempts to play it for every corpse. At least it seems like it. It just gets loud and distorted with all the overlapping. /shrug minor gripe for an OP ability I'd rather them not touch it and keep it the way it is.

I was still two manning during Raedric's keep and iirc I actually just rushed osrya to bring her down as fast as possible. I left my chanter at the doorway using a ranged weapon. It was slow work but I mopped up all the vessels afterwards. I actually tried using the doorway first but had no luck with her being allowed to live sitting in the backrow. Btw if you're really close to lvl 5 and there's an ability that could help you might be able to level just by killing mobs you haven't filled in the bestiary for yet. i.e. There are boars on the Magran's Fork map. Spiders/undead/vessels at easternwood. etc.. Also keep in mind that picking locks on chests doesn't count as stealing so if you've lacked the stealth to open certain locked chests be sure to pick them just for the xp. It's not a lot but it adds up.

*edit* Way to go on reading comprehension me. Your question was about other hard areas... not how to get past Raedric. Oops. It's a spoiler forum, but *spoilers* nonetheless - I did it in parts myself. Rescued the guy in the basement first and managed to get what I want from the random loot chests - http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Random_loot Roughly speaking I did things in this order - Lvl 3 – Did Blacksmith/bandit quest. Cleared out lvl 1 of town crypt/temple ruin. Floatsom task. Misc map clearing. Lvl 4 – Did Mother's Plea and started Lord's Keep – Cleaned out basement (except boss), Killed bear Lvl 5 – Finished temple and Raedric's Keep, cleared up all maps up to stronghold, got stronghold, got to Act 2 Lvl 6 – Got lvl 6 picking up Pallegina Doing Defiance Bay side quests and a little of the main story has gotten me to Lvl 8 at which point I traveled to Stalwart to start WM1. Ogre's are pretty mean. I three manned it. You'll definitely want to split when you can. This is probably not optimal, but it's what a PotD noob like me did. I'm not sure which approach you took on Raedric, but if you climb the walls you can avoid any mass fighting. Plus you can steal some priest robes and avoid fighting any of the priests on the upper level. The basement isn't too bad with all it's choke points. The main difficulty is on the ground floor with all the mercenaries. But it's doable with splitting and choke points. Food buffs, potions, and even scrolls can help. Especially on Raedric himself. If you don't plan on siding with him I'd suggest not even talking to him (you can always save, speak to him to see the story, and then reload). This way you can attack one of his guards with a ranged weapon and pull them back to the bedroom on the right. Using the doorway as a choke point helps a lot. With luck you'll be able to split the encounter into 2-3 fights as well. Use your ranger to take out the casters in the back if you can. *edit* In regards to your real question - You'll want to spend a fair amount of time in Defiance Bay before you venture further east. Also from what I've read you might want to hold off on doing the battle of yenwood as a duo party. Unless you gather help you'll be facing quite a few enemies. But that doesn't unlock until you've gotten the stronghold and you've completed some other events associated with it.

Besides, mp doesn't really work story wise. One player gets to be the MC and the others his lackeys? Not to mention the combat would be awkward with two people trying to pause. Come to think of it did the BG's have the same issue? Honestly I mainly used MP to load in my own custom characters since you didn't actually have to have a second player to play the came in MP mode. At any rate turn based or full action-rpg would be easier to implement MP for. Even playing solo I sometimes fight with the auto-pause. In MP you'd have to probably decide on a single auto-pause setting (or disable it). And then voicechat would probably be necessary (outside client is fine) so you could let the other person know you're pausing without having to use text chat. Doable but not exactly working out of the box. Speaking of future games... I think it would be interesting if a MP party RPG had backgrounds that weren't just flavor text. If during character creation each background could be chosen only once then each of those characters could serve a different role within the context of the story. Custom characters + MP + Reactivity. One character can be a noble which spends part of the game going to social events with a chance to get directly involved in politics. Well you get the idea. There doesn't need to be a "chosen one". There could be the "chosen few" with backgrounds that integrate into the story in a substantial way. Turn the combat into an SRPG or First person Action RPG affair. I kinda like the idea of the former. Defending a stronghold with mechanics that take terrain, height, structures, etc into account would be nice. There we go an SRPG+MP+GoT+Co-op or Vs game in which the goal is to unite (by force if necessary) the lands against the ultimate evil elephant that everyone is ignoring. It's all been done before but with good writing and interesting characters I'd play it.

Does the code for Defiant Resolve always check to see if the player is Wild Orlan before proceeding? If so perhaps the players race variable is getting wiped out after the first defense check (for dmg)? I have no idea. Just a possibility that might explain why it triggers for primary will attacks but not secondary.

Gamebanshee is slow? Hmm.. There was some site google was directing me to recently that was failing to load frequently. Maybe that's the one. <- Terrible memory. Anyhow thanks. I have to get to gathering gear for Zahua now that I have him. Though I suppose the speed malus is not so great for him. Could always use it on my pally once I dump CON for INT. But then I lose a ring slot for defenses. Hrmm. Anyhow didn't mean to derail this thread. @Torakka - Your pally build looks fine. You didn't min-max the stats as much but it's probably better than what I started with. I dumped both dex and int. Now I'm going to have to respec to raise my INT and lower/dump my CON. Though your approach seems a bit more reasonable. Though I probably will shave a couple points to keep MIG higher. Like so - MIG: 16 +1 the living lands, -1 Wild Orlan CON: 12 DEX: 5 PER: 10 +2 Wild Orlan INT: 14 RES: 18 +1 Wild Orlan This is what I have now - MIG: 18 +1 the living lands, -1 Wild Orlan CON: 18 DEX: 8 PER: 10 +2 Wild Orlan INT: 3 RES: 18 +1 Wild Orlan I'm not saying this what you should do. I'm just thinking out loud.

All I know is that it didn't help my Wild Pally either so I'm thinking it must be targeting another defense. Kana pretty much won me those fights with his chants+ranged weapon. Next time I'm not going to bother with stealth boots (there are plenty of other sources of stealth) and get the ice mantle (forget it's name). I do get a chuckle out of things trying to confuse me. I'm wearing the hermit's hat atm so they're just constantly triggering defiant for me. Another one I saw mentioned was getting a fear immunity item and then fighting things with fear aura. Always on defiant.

Might have to do that myself (the console thing). No worries. Was just curious. Trying to fill out my gear now that I have 4 characters. I can use snerf's folly or something else for now.

Speaking of the Iron Circle... Can I assume from what you said Boeroer that it's from a random drop/chest? The wiki doesn't have a source and I could only find one thread that mentions it here. Well at least from google. I guess their bots are slacking and haven't indexed this thread yet. 6 threads found through the forum search. Seems like people are using them in their builds but nothing about how to get it. Btw you play with a looooot of different builds. Do you cheat items in to do initial testing or do you play the game start to finish during the process? Either way you have a lot of patience

Ironically I found playing solo somewhat easier (full disclose only in Act II on my first PotD playthru atm). At least in terms of managing positioning. You can often stick your solo character in a tight corner and the mobs will queue up in a line to attack you. If you have two characters you can sometimes get it to work but not often. But that's only helpful when the mobs have no ranged attacks. The best way to keep from getting overwhelmed is kiting/spliting imo. Especially in open areas but can also work inside if you have a fair amount of room. Basically pull with ranged weapon +mov buff and run until one or more of the mobs turn their backs to you. Stop, hit one with another ranged attack and repeat until you've arrived where your party (other character) is parked. Sometimes it's difficult to pull them very far or reduce their numbers but most of the time it works. Use in conjunction with real choke points and you win. If you have a chanter pulling all the mobs to a specific kill zone has the added benefit of white worm usage. More bodies = more damage. Which leads me to the point I was ultimately trying to make - If you have your paladin tanking in a doorway choke point you can have your second character standing right behind him if you want or at the edge of his aura range to try to avoid AoE's plopped on his head. So you get the the benefit of Pally Aura, ranged duo character can fire past him, and you have to worry less about how the later tanks. Granted there will be some fights you're thrown into a melee without such preparation. That's why you'll want even your ranged characters to be on the tanky side. For the first act I ran Pally + Chanter (Kana) and quite often did as I described above. So often that I started to forget I had a weapon and shield equipped on him for times he was getting hit. I've since picked up a second Pally (pallegina) and gotten the Shod-in-Faith boots. Most would probably put them on a frontliner but I stuck them on the chanter. Now when a mob breaks away and attacks him it often triggers the boots and I don't have to worry about his health (as much) as my other characters switch targets to w/e is hitting him (Also gave him healing gloves as mobs like to target him when they can). Paladins w/Chanter Aura + Draining weapon + Tank spec... just don't go down in mid levels. At least to regular mobs. I find health going low a bigger problem than endurance. You'll have to rest fairly often to keep your health topped off (or pick up one of the healing talents). But Pally/Chanter might not be for everyone. DPS at lower levels (aside from white worm abuse) can be pretty slow (but is supposed to be great later once they get their DPS auras). My next playthru will probably focus on "the best defense is a good offense" approach. Some of my early encounters were fights of attrition. Slow. @Dr <3 - You just reminded me of my old Wow frost mage. Back in the day I farmed world drops forever until I got these two ice rings (forget their name) that had a %chance to freeze things that hit me. Which combo'd nicely with increased damage against frozen targets

You didn't look very hard when it comes to fighter - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83612-class-build-the-engineer-shocking-dps-fighter-artillery-tank/ As for the others I dunno. I mean the main mechanic of the monk is to receive wounds. There's no reason why you can't stand in melee range with a ranged weapon but Long Pain sounds like the thing to use if you want longer range on a monk - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/87160-class-build-the-witch-doctor-mid-ranged-dps-monk-disabler/ Know even less about barb mechanics. Haven't tried one yet. Nothing says you can't put a ranged weapon in any classes hands. Will it be optimal or even viable? /shrug.

@Boeroer - I guess I need to go back there once in a while then. Besides that I should probably make sure I rest until adventures are done so I have a higher chance at more of them, while simultaneously giving time for things to build. Afaik I need some of the gear from them. *Edit* - Man I need to keep my mouth shut when I'm tired. I thought it said days remaining on the adventure but it's turns. So I guess there's not much you can do but plow thru quests and hope you get the quests you want. Also I think Kaylon was advocating raising INT after the early game as well Thankfully my heraldic shield is on pallegina so no loss there. @Kaylon - Looks legit. I never got around to using figurines as I was using zealous charge to kite/split. Wouldn't have occurred to me that they could get charmed until it happened. Would have assumed Aegis was useless solo. The fact that you have Abjuration must mean it's not situational or at the very least I haven't seen the end of spirit packs. Edit - Have to say I'm not a huge fan of manually resolving bandit raids on the stronghold. For whatever reason auto-pause doesn't kick in. Nor does it use your positioning or even formation when it teleports you to the new map/area. I'm sure if I was a little higher level (another LoH) or had a full party it wouldn't be so bad but it predictably turns into chain healing my chanter as they all go for him. Just a minor gripe for me. I'll just auto-resolve and deal with the damage for now on. Not that I can't win the fights. I just find them tedious. That said I didn't have any hirelings, I guess they'd be fodder to keep my chanter from being ganged on.

True enough. He's not really a team player as it is. Well some of his abilities benefit a party. Stats are min-max for solo. I'll probably respec his stats once I pick up the monk companion and have another tank. Then he can be offtank/support. Speaking of which I'm not even sure when/what level/where he is. I suppose I'll have to look that up. I think Boeroer mentioned you can start part I of the expansion at around lvl 8. Do I need to wait till then? Edit - I'm liking this pallegina build and I don't even have the third weapon set yet. It's nice to have someone to take out the ranged quickly. My paladin has just been eating their arrows/spells. Though really I'm just not used to having some burst dps. Tanky Pally DPS = slow.

You know I've been looking for the stats for sacred immolation for a while. The question comes to mind, I look for a while, and then get sidetracked. All the forum posts I find just talk about it in general terms so I found a video that showed the in game description around January of this year. Dunno if it's changed since then but I'm just going to throw this here - Sacred Immolation (Lv13) 1 per encounter Speed: Average AoE: Self Target + 4.44m Radius from caster @18 INT AoE Duration: 42 sec Effects: Self: 6 Raw Foe AoE: 25-38 Burn vs Reflex @12 MIG Allied AoE: +12.7 Endurance If I did my math right this is the base numbers - Sacred Immolation (Lv13) 1 per encounter Speed: Average AoE: Self Target + 3m Radius from caster AoE Duration: 30 sec Effects: Self: 6 Raw (Assuming this is static) Foe AoE: ~25.5-35.8 Burn vs Reflex Allied AoE: +12 Endurance And here's the pathetic Radius @ 3 INT - 1.74m! I'm thinking the auras have to go unless I change stats. Is abjuration a single target ability or is it like priest turning? Though the fact that you mention it means it's probably not an AoE dependent on INT. I assumed Healing Chain was affected by INT too but it jumps targets rather than be a proper AoE. Also if you have less than 5 members in your party can it hit the same target more than once? Or will it only hit any given member one time per cast? For that matter I'm not sure how many casts you get. Another one to look up if I can find it. I stumbled on a thread here talking about how Aegis of Loyalty will trigger it's cleanse on any AoE that hits charmed party members i.e. Sacred Immolation. That's pretty cool but it still is constrained by low INT. I could keep his INT low but there's a lot of abilities that become almost useless. Things to consider. Otherwise something like this would make more sense - L1 Lay on Hands (Lv1) L2 Weapon and Shield Style L3 Flames of Devotion (Lv1) L4 Deep Faith L5 Sworn Enemy (Lv5) L6 Scion of Flame L7 Coordinated Attacks (Lv7) L8 Body Control L9 Righteous Soul (Lv9) L10 Superior Deflection L11 Healing Chain (Lv11) L12 Bear's Fortitude L13 Abjuration (Lv13) L14 Unstoppable L15 Aegis of Loyalty (Lv7) L16 Bull's Will

No, worries. I was just making sure I wasn't mistaken as I've been numerous times As an aside this was what I planned for my MC Paladin tank but from what you said there's probably at least one thing to swap out. Tbh I didn't spend much time on this and copied it from a video I saw. It was enough to solo the first 4-5 levels and there are respecs /shrug Build: MC Solo(ish) Paladin Order: Goldpact Knights Race: Wild Orlan Bg: Living Lands / Merchant Stats: MIG: 18 CON: 18 DEX: 8 PER: 12 INT: 3 RES: 19 Skills: Stealth 3, Athletics 2, Lore 4, Mechanics 12, Survival 5 L1 Lay on Hands (Lv1) L2 Weapon and Shield Style L3 Zealous Charge (Lv3) Zealous Focus L4 Deep Faith L5 Flames of Devotion (Lv1) L6 Scion of Flame L7 Coordinated Attacks (Lv7) L8 Body Control L9 Righteous Soul (Lv9) L10 Superior Deflection L11 Sworn Enemy (Lv5) L12 Bear's Fortitude L13 Sacred Immolation (Lv13) L14 Unstoppable L15 Liberating Exhortation (Lv4) L16 Snake's Reflexes Of course with his Int he's not going to have much of an aura. Gear Head: Maegfolc Skull Chest: Aru-Brekr Ring1: Deflection Ring2: Protection Boots: Fenwalkers Belt: Girdle of Eoten Consitution Hands: Gauntlets of Accuracy Neck: Spellward Amulet WS1: Drawn in Spring/Aili Braccia WS2: St. Ydwen's Redeemer Admittedly focused on solo play so I'll change it up a bit now that I have 3 members.

Oh, duh. For some reason I was thinking wrath was attached to FoD. Oops. Can you actually respec a companion's level 1 ability? Pallegina comes with FoD as her first pick. Not that it matters. As you say you don't get her till later. Lvl 6 atm so I only have one lvl till I pick up LoH below. Good to know on the dual dmg type buffing. Righteous soul a waste then. I think I have that on my MC build might have to adjust that too. Deep Faith > Superior Deflection anyways. Or at least more well rounded defense. I'd like to fit Quick switch just so I can wear w/e belt but I suppose it's not a big deal in the end. L1 FoD L2 Weapon & Shield L3 Zealous Endurance L4 Weapon Focus L5 Sworn Enemy L6 Wrath of the Five Suns L7 LoH L8 Arms Bearer L9 Coordinated Attacks L10 Pen. Shot L11 Reinforcing Exhortation (Lv9) L12 Scion of Flames L13 Sacred Immolation (Lv13) L14 Intense Flames L15 Healing Chain L16 Deep Faith or Marksman I'll probably swap Zealous Focus in on my MC Pally as Charge is becoming less important (besides there's consumables+chanter+equip). Therefore Zealous Endurance seems like the right pick here. I was thinking Weapon Focus for ranged attacks would be overkill but blunderbuss have -10 acc from the start, right? I suppose Sworn Enemies 15 Acc buff still helps but it's not as huge a buff as a result. Between Inspiring and Reinforced I like the idea of the later more. I can control when it happens whereas Inspiring may not be active when you need it. I can decide on the last talent later when I have a feel for where my Acc is at in practice. Or for that matter how squishy she feels w/o Deep Faith. Thanks again

On the bright side that means it's less likely to be your savegames (though not completely ruled out). Troubleshooting can be time consuming but I think you'll get it. Good thing these lists were dependent on RL time as people having their time sync'd to different sources could lead to small variations. Though this is more likely a problem on a business network where the time source would likely be a local server rather than the internet.