Lampros

I have been running without any Priest the last few runs, and I do not miss much except Barring Death's Door. This is arguably the ultimate "oh, ****" button in the game, and I have no way to replicate it now outside of taking a Priest - though I recall there was a scroll or a potion for it in PoE 1. But in PoE 2, I've found nothing of the kind. I know that the Shieldbearer Paladin gives a similar effect as an addition effect to Lay on Hands, but the duration of that is like a third of what I get with BDD. In fact, with decent Intelligence, I was getting 20-plus seconds on BDD. So where I am going to get anything remotely similar? Withdraw scroll or the Refuge potion don't cut it, as they literally knock out out of the fight and render you useless.

Yeah, you could do it in POE1 as well. You just have to manually do so by clicking the manual attack button (little sword), then click on the non-hostile target. IIRC, If you have your AI set to auto attack, you will automatically attack it anyway. I see. And yes, I set them to auto-attack except for my support guy. And once you attack them, do they attack you back or take it until the Charmed/Dominated duration runs off?

P.S. You don't use some form of a jump/run skill to quickly close with a caster and take them down? (I use Charge and Shadow Step a lot, and Barbarians have a version of these, too, no?)

FoD then finish mobs off with barbaric smash (Refund rage on kill) with a possibility to refund zeal on kill (later on with Virtuous Triumph). Between the two refund skills I never ran out of resources on non-boss fights (and they are both full attacks). I wanted the hardiness of the Pally to make up for the zerker's squishiness (and I wanted at least one pally aura for the group as well) and "Fanatic" is exactly what I think of when I think of the Warrior Priests. Sounds about right I am going to start a game with this build in a few hours. It's going to have to be a 2 off-tank front-line with Holy Slayer.

I ran with: Tekehu Xoti (with gear slightly modified) Eder (as a rogue w/ dual mortars) Last slot floated between Serafen and Maia (with slight gear adjusts) until the final quest when I lost Maia. So between the frenzy hit>crit and all the buffs he was a crit machine that synergized with full attack spamming and Last word rather well. Faster DPS/CC-wise, wouldn't this even work better with Fighter/Barbarian? But I guess you didn't want to lose the static defenses?

Well, I may change my mind, but I don't want the AI having my buffs like it always did in PoE 1 when they reverted back to being bad. But I may get a single target ones first to experiment.I dont think I've ever run into this in PoE2 and the durations are sufficient. Ok, I am going to try; and I will cast Disintegrate on you if you are wrong! If you don't kill your foes while they are Dominated, I'm reflecting that Disengration back at you. Wait, you can kill Dominated/Charmed foes? WTF? I don't remember it working that way in PoE 1...

I board every fight with the starting ship, so no idea. Wait till you level up a bit more? Why do you have to fight now?

Low Intelligence seems a bit problematic. Don't Paladin and Barbarians both have a ton of abilities that benefit from high Intelligence - in terms of both buff duration and AoE size?

This build seriously sounds more like Valten (who was dualwield warhammers in some iterations of WFB) than Luthor Huss - whom I assume the picture depicts. And the Bleakwalker is definitely not the right RP angle! But a fascinating build; I did not realize that a Barbarian can reach such high crit rate. I will definitely try this build in the future.

This is a bit ironic, given the widespread image of the Barbarian class as a quintessential melee in most RPGs!

I had questions about the workings and efficiency of certain unconventional dual wield set-ups, and how/whether they work: 1) Pistol/scepter: I thought of doing this because I want a dual wield mid-range support, but dual pistols run into too many resists/immunes to do satisfactory sustained damage. However, I do not want to dual wield scepters either, because they look stupid from my own peculiar RP perspective. So will I get any mileage out of this DPS-wise? And will it hurt - relative to dual wield pistol set-up - relative to casting speed? 2) Pistol/melee weapon: I've seen a lot of this set-ups posted - for instance, the pistol/Singing Scimitar set-up on a Chanter or a Chanter multi-class. But I don't understand how this even works? Won't one weapon always be un- or under-utilized? Besides, if you just point and click auto-attack, then what weapon does this set-up use? Will the character rush to melee - or will he stand back and shoot? Once again, I don't even understand how this works conceptually - much less whether this is efficient. Thanks in advance; and again, mostly I am wondering what is optimal on a mid-range support character who will try to stand exact in the middle of a the 2 front-liners and the 2 back-liners.

Well, I may change my mind, but I don't want the AI having my buffs like it always did in PoE 1 when they reverted back to being bad. But I may get a single target ones first to experiment. I dont think I've ever run into this in PoE2 and the durations are sufficient. Ok, I am going to try; and I will cast Disintegrate on you if you are wrong!

Well, I may change my mind, but I don't want the AI having my buffs like it always did in PoE 1 when they reverted back to being bad. But I may get a single target ones first to experiment.

Spells generate focus? LOL, I didn't even know that - I thought only auto-attacks did, ROFL

Here's the popular Swashbuckler Riposte build: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104050-character-build-the-iron-hammer-swashbuckler-unbrokentrickster/

So comparing paladin and fighter, if I was going to tank and add in a wizard, which would you say was better? Battlemage or Arcane Knight? What about Swashbuckler compared to holy slayer? I value the ability to "hold aggro" above all in a tank - more than survivability. So I prefer Swashbuckler Riposte build the most. It can fairly reliably lock down 6 or more enemies easily, because enemy AI won't want to dis-engage and eat the massive dis-engagement attack that will also knock you down. It's probably the only build that can actually "tank" in the traditional RPG sense of holding aggro so the more fragile party members can be protected. Its DPS is also surprisingly high, too; because the Riposte fires off nonstop v. multiple engaged enemies. But with a caveat: I am only at level 10 with this build, and I re-starting, because I do not like my ranged build.

If the paladin is built as a tank, they're probably about the same as fighter. Paladins get Faith & Conviction/Deep Faith, Inspired Defences, and Stoic Steel, plus a bunch of other stuff that is comparable/the same as fighter. That's not taking into account Zealous Auras or other active abilities. Oh, I meant I prefer the Holy Slayer as off-tank only because I am now using a full-fledged Riposte Swashbuckler build as main tank On the relative merits of Fighters v. Paladins as tanks, I think it's comparable, too. Paladins probably have a bit more survivability (higher constant defenses and many self-heals), but Fighters can "aggro" better - so to speak.

Got it! I hadn't even considered the Cipher as a nuke caster - just as a CC caster!

RDC for Royal Deadfire Company. Just for RP purposes which is why Maia is the companion of choice here. The wizard would have selfbuffs and offer utility and maybe a debuff or offensive spell here and there when (if) needed along with having its natural tankiness from being a paladin or fighter. SC Ascendant cipher is going to be Ranged character. On RDC, got it! On the Wizard multi-class tanks: Oops; I read a bit too quickly. I didn't realize that the other part of the Wizard multi-class tanks were either Paladin or Fighter. In that case the concern about being too fragile is overblown. But utility? Not sure; I guess you have Wizard debuffs, but there is also the problem with getting interrupted as a front-liner. I just think that, unless you are solo, tanks are better served by multi-classing Paladin or Fighter with anything but a Wizard or other primary caster. I love Holy Slayers - my favorite front-liner, though better as off-tank/DPS than main tank. And yes, I'd advise any tanks to be multi-class of either Fighter or Paladin.

I am not sure if iron man mode is the way to with buggy games like this - especially buggy games where saves are frequently, mysteriously deleted. Unless you are using periodic manual saves.

What's "RDC campaign"? Sorry if this a common term. I am a relative newb. As I said, I am a relative newb, so take with a grain of salt: *I am not in favor of Wizard tanks. A lot of your defenses are buffs that can degrade with time - or with Arcane Dampner/Tranquilizing Shot, etc. **Maia has a tremendous potential as a pure gunner DPS. So I would go with a Scout. ***Is CIpher a melee or ranged?

Yes, my Goldpact/Devoted basically needs 0 consumables. This build also does enough damage that it shouldn’t need more than the drugs for wound generation, healing pots and food. Avenging storm is just fun, try the helm out. I would say my streetfighter/goldpact can solo every fight in the game on upscaled PotD without non-healing consumables, but there’s one exception: I’ve needed other consumables — and luck! — to get through the Contest of the Seeker fight in SSS. I've yet to try the last DLC except the first few fights.

By the way, it's fantastic that you posted the scripting video, too. Too many folks who post builds don't, but it's all-important for folks like me who does very little manual.

What makes Barbarian/Cipher so good? And doesn't Ranger bring a lot more than mere Accuracy? What about Tranquilizing Shot - or the DPS and effects increase from Driving Flight?

Good stuff! Does this bug still exist? I've heard some AI scripts used to get repeated in an infinite loop when the activation conditions get eliminated mid-activation.