Takolin

You're increasing the amount of characters in a party every few weeks. What'll be next? A wizard/ and/or priest being fed brilliant from the cypher to sustain buffs/damage? Soon you'll have 5 unique characters (monk, herald, ascendant,...)

I agree. Currently I'm running a pure blood mage with relatively high might (20 something with berath's blessings and gear) and I Blood Sacrifice stopped being a hindrance after a while on PotD. So only the beginning was rough, though as I tend to ignore empower due to forgetting it exists, I get a lot of mileage out of blood sacrifice for casting spells. Party: Eder: Sword and board swashbuckler on the frontline. He got amazing when he got persistent distraction and some defensive gear. Cantor hireling (Hellwalker + Troubadour): Casts a summon at the start and tries to keep it up, debuffs with the shield that cracks and then plays as a 2hander monk. Ydwin: General suppor character: debuffs enemies, pain block if needed. Will give brilliant to the characters that need it (mage or healer mostly). Universalist hireling (Lifegiver + Eothas): Heals and buffs. Shoots stuff with an arquebus while idle.

So I came to PoE2 after a long break as all dlcs are available and I want to main a wizard (blood mage subclass) as a main but I'm stuck on stats. Role: nuker I got this so far: Max perception because if you don't hit, you do 0 damage. Dumped resolve Constitution is around 10,because I want to use the blood mage ability effectively. But now I'm unsure on how to divide dex, int and might as they all have their merits Might: easiest way to increase damage/hit Dex: faster casts = more casts (and ranged weapon hits). Blood mage should be able to cast more spells than an another wizard in the long fights. Can be easily buffed by casting dex buff on self (fleet feet or DAoM). Is DAoM a wise choice for a blood mage who'll already take more damage. Int: longer duration on self buffs and dot spells (combusting wounds). (can be buffed with infuse of vital elements (with con as well) Companions Eder: fighter/rogue tank Ydwin: CC cipher Teheku: druid/chanter support bot TBD

I'm more annoyed by the facts that it breaks my AI scripts. I have self buffs on autocast if the inspiration is not active (at the start, when it elapses or when it's removed by an opposing affliction). But when arcane dampener hits, it spams the scripts because the inspiration is gone. Pity I can't add a condition 'not affected by arcane dampener'.

On my veteran play through, I actually respecced Aloth out of most of the spells half way through the game and into nearly all the passives as grimoires give you all the spells anyway. But so far my MC (nature Godlike shattered pillar) is leading the damage done as I'm too lazy to fully abuse empower on Aloth.

Can anyone explain the ability 'the long pain' for me. Is it just the standard fists of the monk but then ranged or am I missing something? From some limited testing, I don't see any change in stats after casting them, but wanted some confirmation whether it's worth it.

* NOTE: I am something of a difficulty fetishist (though not on the first couple of playthroughs). But even I realize that it's a side challenge that the vaaaaaaast majority of the user base not only won't care about, but would be upset to find out that things were cut just so folks like us could scratch an itch. By the way, it would be extremely interesting to know what percentage of players do more than one playthrough (you mentioned "first couple", and this caught my eye). In my view, PoE 1 had a replay value of exactly zero: there was nothing random in the game, and the world was totally static except for the choices you made as a player. I really liked playing the game, but having got to the end, I can't see why I would ever want to start another game. (No criticism implied here.) Different class, different party composition, different choices made during the game, different difficulty setting, solo game,...

Shields also add an engagement slot and there might be some high level shields who're worth equipping (as a tank). But it's a choice between more offence (dagger in OH+modal + 2 weapon style talent) vs more defence (Shield in OH + weapon and shield style). If you're going for an unbroken fighter or shieldbearer paladin, shields are pretty much a given considering the extra bonus those classes give if you equip one. Pity I can't spec Eder as an unbroken.

You can always start out as a fist monk as in the beginning of the game, fists will probably be a no brainer. If towards the middle/end of the game, weapons are a lot better, it'll be an easy switch if you don't go fists for RP reasons (with possibly a respec if required). Not sure if you can change race as well as stats/talents/...

I'll probably start playing on the 10th. Work and other hobbies are keeping me from playing sooner. But 10th and 11th are days off for me so I don't mind.

My planned party at the moment is Eder - Fighter - main tank Aloth - Wizard - CC/damage Xoti - Priest - buff bot and healer Serafen - Cipher (or witch) - CC/damage PC - Nature godlike shattered pillar monk with fists - damage/OT

As far as I've noticed, they last until you either Rest or take more drugs. Makes for interesting game play depending on the availability of the drugs/crafting materials. Either have 1 character being on drugs most of the time or just abuse the system for all party members prior to a hard battle and rest off the negative effects (+healing of wounds,...).

When I leveled my multiclass characters up to level 4 and level 7, my watcher (fanatic) got 2 abilities while my adventures from the inn got 3 abilities. In the screen shots you can see my fanatic getting bloodlust and Eternal devotion and my spell blade getting gouging strike, debilitating strike and expose vulnerabilities. As a sidenote the screenshot of my fanatic somehow says it's my brawler in the upper part which is also incorrect. Not sure what's supposed to be the correct amount but the discrepancy should not be there.

Thanks for all the help. The reason there's no priest, is because I didn't like the class to play with. The wizard will indeed use the dominate scepter with the blast talent.

Hi I just finished my 1st playthrough on normal and I wanted to give PotD a shot with the following party. - Paladin tank (watcher for extra stats on Faith and Conviction) - Monk off tank (monksterlasher) - Chanter as 3rd melee (focus on chants) - Ranger (Storm and plague caller) - Wizard (Skeletor but not completely) - Ranged Cipher 1: Would this composition work for PotD? 2: How do you build the cipher? - I'm assuming min resolve and lowish (or min) con and then pump might/int/dex/per but how much con can you sacrifice on PotD? And if you don't minimise con, how do you distribute the other points? Focus would be mostly damage as the wizard's main task will be debuffing. -What powers and talents are worth it in 3.3 (again mostly focus on damage with some back up for debuffing/CC if the wizard is down or the situation calls for it). -When do I switch/respec to a war bow or is that viable from the start? The whole zero recovery thing confuses me a bit. 3: What skills do I focus on for the party? 1 char with enough mechanics but what about the rest. Is the heal from athletics worth it and how many points? Are the resting bonuses from survival worth it and which to take? Is lore still king or is it enough to have 1 or 2 chars with high focus on lore and the rest enough to cast revival scrolls? Thanks for the answers.