Lampros

It's probably a device to ensure that a class that is already OP does not get more out of hand!

So if you play Expert mode, then you basically only use Foe-only AoEs?

Hmmm, in terms of overall DPS for a Paladin, what is the best 2H? St. Rumbalt? Or Tidefall? Overall, I am inclining toward using St. Rumbalt, because you have a CC effect as well, but then Tidefall has a Superior enchantment, so I don't need to waste a Sky Dragon eye on it - and I will have a weapons-heavy group next.

When I said two hander I should have specified Hours of St Rumbalt. You are dead right when you say that firebrand and rumbalt are the two best two-hander options. I ran A bleak walker with forgemasters fingers for firebrand with scion of flame, merciless hand, dungeon delver etc. With priests champion boon on the paladin I would see crits for over 300 with FoD lol. Although I never tried it with a chanter in the party though with aefyllath ues mrth fyr I could imagine crits over 400. Firebrand is so cool plus it kind of reminds me of those death knight guys around durlags tower which would wreck your face in 3 hits. Are you f-ing serious? 300-plus hits with 1 swing? I think I am going 2H on a dude next time!

Hmmm, the Sky Dragon is an easy fight though. What level did you tackle it on? And what kind of weaponry did your melees use? I think I will run a similarly sturdy group that you ran - except I'd go 2 Paladin and 2 Chanter or 1 Paladin and 3 Chanter. 2 front-line, 2 middle-line pikes, and back row Priest and Wizard.

I am thinking something along this line: 1st line: 1 dual wield Paladin (main), 1 2H Paladin 2nd line: 2 Pike Chanters (probably Tall Grass and Jena's Lance?) 3rd line: 1 Priest, 1 Wizard I might just run 1 Pike Chanter and convert the 2nd Pike Chanter to a War Bow Chanter (Borresaine). Would this be too painful early on? Edit: At least 1 Paladin will be a Wayfarer for the extra heals. And 1 of them will be running Zealous Endurance for the extra DR. So the extra heals and DR will provide some additional survivability to compensate for the lack of a conventional shield user. If that's not enough, I could also make the 2nd Paladin a dual wield as well, but give this guy some disabling weapons like the stun Warhammer.

I used to use that approach, I used to send a fighter in with enormous deflection who was virtually invincible but I got tired of that approach. I don't use a single tank anymore, I generally use two tanky dps such as a dual wield barb with massive healing bonus from high survival and belt of bountiful healing and a dual wield fighter with high hp recovery. I kind of have this thing that I need a dps fighter in the group mainly becuase they are so damn good at taking down dragons lol. I think I might just be bad. PoTD run I did was with two priests and two fighters LOL. Can 2 front-liners without a shield actually tank the harder difficulties? If so, I might try. I guess they have to be Fighters or Paladins?

Don't you still need some CC? Or did you not read them at all, because the AoEs killed so quickly?

Yes, I agree that 6 Chanter may not be the ideal power group in fact, and mixing in some Paladins (and perhaps a Priest and a Wizard for buffs/CC) might be a better path. I would probably run 3 Chanter, 1 Paladin, 1 Priest, 1 Wizard or 2 Chanter, 2 Paladin, 1 Priest, 1 Wizard group the next run.

This is such an atypical RPG in so many ways. Casters with max "Might" and melees with max "Intelligence." Jesus...

I know but the Chanter AoE requires no extra button punching (unless you use Invocations), and the Paladin AoE is literally 1 button per fight - and does not need aim or positioning! I am hella lazy!

It's not just Domination alone really. I just felt that it was faster and less micro-management heavy to simply burn enemies through AoE DPS rather than CC in general. Once I start playing harder difficulties I might change my mind and appreciate individual CC more. But right now it feels like I gain more by bringing another Chanter or even DPS Paladin than a Cipher, since they are sturdier and will do more DPS in most circumstances.

If you are playing "Normal," I would strongly recommend a non-Fighter main tank. Instead, I would suggest either Boerer's Counselor Ploi (Paladin) or - even better - any one of Boerer's Chanter tank builds posted. The reason is that in PoE tanks have difficulty holding "aggro" the way they can in other RPGs or MMORPGs. This is because the AI tends to switch targets regularly and constantly go for the squishier targets. So the better way to control the fight is through either massive DPS (especially AoE DPS) or crowd control (both Ciphers and Wizards are excellent at putting a large group of enemies out of the fight for a long time). And both Paladins and Chanters can do a lot more DPS (not to mention contribute group buffs) while tanking than the conventional Fighter/Warrior type of tanks. Also, both Paladins and Chanters are extremely micro-management friendly. In fact, they are basically on auto-drive and you literally do not even have to click on them for most fights, except perhaps a Paladin performing an odd Lay on Hands heal here and there - or getting rid of a debuff through something like Liberation Exhortation.

Interesting. The Chillfog tank was amazing in my playthrough, but I played at Normal, so I have no idea how it would perform in PoTD. Perhaps focus a bit more on "survival" stats and then re-spec once you hit level 9?

I can no longer do without Aegis of Loyalty, as it - in combination with Sacred Immolation - made all the treachery-type of attacks irrelevant. Sure, the Priest can counter it too - but it is less effective, not as readily available, and requires more micro.

No, it's more a case where gameplay efficiency will trump RP - when the two must conflict. I like stat bonuses too much! To each his own Part of what I love about the Paladin is that strict adherence to a code. I am a military guy it attracts me. On top of the fact that the class is really good. If I want to sacrifice innocents I would just play a Bleak Walker or a Goldpact Knight (gives no ****s) but that's me. Have your fun my friend ! I can totally empathize! But I guess I am a bit more willing to bend the rules a bit for results! The problem with choosing Goldpact Knights or Bleak Walkers is that I think Wayfarer builder builds are just way too more effective due to the on-kill heals (and I will have a lot of kills with dual wield/Immolation DPS build). Oh man you have opened another can of worms for me! I just do not think a massive amount healing in POE is useful. Especially if you do not play with Maim (maybe this is why its the case for me) and just play 0 Health means death. Any character who is taking such a pounding that he needs to be constantly healed is going to lose a lot of Health and eventually DIE if you do not end the fight. So I have generally gone the damage approach and leaving endurance restoration to really good passives. I have even forgone Lay on Hands in my current run and I do not miss it. I AM not saying Wayfarer endurance restoration abilities are bad. They are not. Lay on Hands is still really good as are the other healing abilities. But I generally think you just need one or two. These Wayfarer builds that have Sword and the Shepherd, Strange Mercy, Lay on Hands and Shod in Faith boots are just WAY overkill. What I do not like about strange mercy is that sometimes its over heal as there is no one to heal OR you are fighting a one powerful enemy and no adds are left...well the ability will do nothing at that point. Sword and the Shepherd I think is good for a support type that is not using FoD for damage but for a AOE heal (Like a Priests Radiance). If you use it for damage it will hamstring you in that you might not need a heal and you use it..or you try saving it for when you need healing and do not do damage. Granted you could just use it when appropriate and its fine but there is always an inefficient scenario with Sword and Shepherd..you either overheal or do not damage cause you want to heal. This is why I generally think for healing purpose, emergency button scenarios Lay on Hands is the best and is enough (even though I skipped it this time but that's cause of my party set up). A Bleak Walker can just take LoH grab the corrode sabre (wax mold it if possible) and the appropriate talents and alpha strike better then a wayfarer. Also a low Int Golpact Knight will do more damage then a Wayfarer speced the same way with Enduring Flames. But now we are getting into builds and not RP and disposition. Sorry you triggered me on HEALING! I loved healing types in past fantasy games and its a sore spot for me in this game lol I generally agree with you that in this game healing is relatively weaker/redundant compared to similar RPG games. However, I am such a cautious player by habit that it is difficult to break from over-heal/survivalist type of group set-up. Nonetheless, I do agree that even I wouldn't over-stack heals to the point where I'd even add Sword and Shepherd on top of this Wayfarer build. After this discussion, I may actually consider getting out of my survivalist shell and go for a Goldpact or Bleak Walker build!

No, they make you do an additional 25% damage as fire. So if you would usually hit an enemy for 20 slashing damage, say, would you instead hit them for 20 slashing damage and 5 burning damage. The burning damage has to go past 25% of the enemy's burn DR. What's really good about this (and other lashes) is that this isn't 25% of your weapon's base damage, it's 25% of the damage you do after all other modifiers are added. To illustrate this suppose you have a character wielding a two-handed sword who has the Two-Handed Style and Savage Attacks talents and is under the effect of Aefyllath. For simplicity we'll assume they roll a 17 for their base damage (the average value): With two-handed style this increases to 17*1.15 = 19.55 damage. With Savage Attack you might think it increases further to 19.55*1.2 = 23.46, but it doesn't. Instead it increases to 17*(1+0.15+0.2) = 22.95 However with Aefyllath (and all other lashes) the 25% extra damage is applied after all other modifiers, doing an additional 22.95*0.25 = 5.74 damage. If that's not clear it's because I haven't explained it very well, however long story short: lashes are better than other damage increases. Thanks for the comprehensive explanation!

Another reason not to bring a Cipher.

I am interested in how this run goes. Please keep us posted!

A pure newb question: Elemental damage buffs like Aefyllath require you to have some sort of (same) elemental damage to begin with, right? That is, I assume if you are doing 0 fire damage, adding a percentage fire buff to it will still result in 0 fire damage?

No, it's more a case where gameplay efficiency will trump RP - when the two must conflict. I like stat bonuses too much! To each his own Part of what I love about the Paladin is that strict adherence to a code. I am a military guy it attracts me. On top of the fact that the class is really good. If I want to sacrifice innocents I would just play a Bleak Walker or a Goldpact Knight (gives no ****s) but that's me. Have your fun my friend ! I can totally empathize! But I guess I am a bit more willing to bend the rules a bit for results! The problem with choosing Goldpact Knights or Bleak Walkers is that I think Wayfarer builder builds are just way too more effective due to the on-kill heals (and I will have a lot of kills with dual wield/Immolation DPS build).

No, it's more a case where gameplay efficiency will trump RP - when the two must conflict. I like stat bonuses too much!

As for how much it'll affect you, each rank you have in a disfavoured disposition will result in -1 Deflection and -2 to each of Fortitude, Reflex and Will from Faith and Conviction, so at Cruel 2 you'll get -2 Deflection and -4 Fortitude, Reflex and Will. It's up to you to decide how much that affects you efficiency. If you're really worried about this you can always take the talent Untroubled Faith, which removes the penalty for disfavoured dispositions, although of course that means losing a talent point that could be spent on something else. To give you some idea whether or not it's worth it, Deep Faith gives +2 Deflection and +5 to Fortitude, Reflex and Will, so if you have 2 ranks in Cruel and no ranks in Deceptive you'll get more from taking Deep Faith than you would from taking Untroubled Faith. Of course, if you have 3 ranks in both Cruel and Deceptive that is -6 Deflection and -12 Fortitude, Reflex and Will, at which point Untroubled Faith is much better than Deep Faith (though you've got to question why your Paladin is a Kind Wayfarer if he is so cruel and deceptive). Sadly not. You'd think that, for example, a character couldn't be both Honest and Deceptive, and that being Honest in dialogues would reduce your Deceptive rank, but that's not how it works. Once you gain ranks in a disposition you can never lose them. Thanks so much. I have a better idea now. Since I did not accumulate any Deceptive score last playthrough, I assume Cruelty 2 is the worst I will get. And in that case, Deep Faith will still be worth it. I may still take Untroubled Faith though, since I should have an extra level-up point to play with, if I am dropping the Corrosion damage/DR buff talent (I probably will go for a dual disable build - not Bittercut build - this time).

No, it means three ranks in your two favoured dispositions. Basically each time you choose a dialogue option that is labelled with a given disposition you gain some points in that disposition (think of them like disposition XP). Once you gain enough of these points you advance to the next disposition rank. See this page for details: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Disposition#Disposition_gain Very roughly speaking you can reach rank 1 and maybe rank 2 by the end of Act I, and rank 2/3 throughout Act II. It's worth noting that this also means you can get away with a very few dialogue options in your disfavoured dispositions without picking up a rank in them, though be careful as it takes very little to achieve rank 1 in a disposition. No, Deep Faith is a flat bonus to Faith and Conviction. As soon as you pick it you get the bonus. If I sacrifice someone at the blood altar (or something like that) thing and then send food to the ghoul in the tower for two stat boosts, am I going to get Cruelty -2? I only did the tower thing, and not the blood altar. And if I do get -2 Cruelty, is that going to really hurt my efficiency as a Wayfarer Paladin? I am still not exactly sure how the Disposition bonuses and maluses work. Edit: And no way to reduce Dispositions that have gone to minus categories?

Wait, Charge is an AoE?! Hmmm, may be worthwhile to take a Fighter after all...