djinnxy

I can't necessarily say monk was my favorite in the first one, but it was certainly my easiest run through. Late game my favorite was probably barbarian. Chances are I'm going some combination of monk on the first pass. Some monk specialist with devoted, bleak walker, or soul blade is most likely. I haven't decided for sure.

Might is definitely king so you end up with some resistance to prone, paralyzed, sickened, stunned, etc. The problem is that something must be dumped to make better use of other stats and that is usually resolve. Now you're up against charm, fear, and other such afflictions. The only good ways to survive a short bout of one of those is the added health from con, remove the status, or high intelligence. This makes resolve slightly more important for non-casters or non-barbarians (because of buffs.) Also in some cases monks can use int, but that's a whole other problem. Some fights have vs. will saves. Most fights have vs. con saves. You can build a character with balanced stats, however you will end up with something similar to some of the premade companion characters. There were some of those in the first one that made almost no impact on combat, which made it hard to want to complete their little dialogue/quest. Without knowing how big of a role resolve plays in conversation I can't fully weigh in on that aspect yet. In the first one resolve was for the chatty character and constitution for the combat. With all factors added any major deduction in con has resulted in save scumming from repeated death for me. I've tried and just can't dump con in the current state. We'll find out soon if that's still the case. I'd be only slightly more inclined to want healing received to depend on resolve.

Seeing as nobody has commented one way or the other on this yet... I think if you wait till next week opinions on tiers will be running rampant, although not in the beta section any longer. (Assuming the last time I heard the release date is still correct???) It may take some time to get the overall picture of each combination and gain perspective, though. Give it a couple days after and the me first rash of youtube capitalists will be on it. Personally if I stay up for 50 hours straight to play it's for me and not everyone else, but more power to them.

I'm not going to argue that might isn't by far the most important stat in the current state of the game. I will put forth the assertion that perception is probably the second most important barring a great need to make up for armor speed penalty that is. Most of the heavy hitting right now is done stacking one shot abilities and/or critical hits which benefit more from the accuracy than from repetitiveness. I'm not saying there aren't cases where dexterity would be more important to a build, just that in most cases right now it's not. I've also found that a few points in con makes a slightly bigger difference than PoE in part because the armor penalties are so restrictive that robes are the go to source of protection.

I fully expect a game that will also be on console... I'll let you form your own opinion on that. That said it is still in beta.

Penetration: Modified the Penetration system slightly, along with how Penetration displays in the mouse-over tooltip in combat. When your Penetration is below the target's Armor, there is now a gradual reduction in damage. The current values are (and may be tweaked as we play with them a bit): -1 Pen = 75% Damage -2 Pen = 50% Damage -3 or more Pen = 25% Damage It's still 100% damage up until you are at double Pen, and then 130% damage from there. Along with this change, Penetration will now ONLY display on the combat tooltip when you are either BELOW Pen, or you don't yet know the target's Armor value for the damage type you'll deal. This is taken from the patch notes. Afaik this didn't exist in poe. I like the way it works. It's possible that's been tweeked since and I missed it...

Glad u like the familiar... Yeah that... tried it a four times maybe. With that fully functional it would even the odds on overall dps. Cast time on it should be nil to begin with. In conjurer's current state it is close to evoker. It is by no means absolute top tier. I'd give it a 2nd or 3rd tier, directly below evoker. If the ogre was fixed it would bump transmuter up as well. Enchanter isn't terribly useful except multi-class tank or to add tankiness to a class that isn't tanky. The same tankiness can be said for illusionist with the exception of limited usefulness mixed with rogue. With the current state of gameplay tank has very limited use anyhow. Beta heavily favors strong dps. Resolve is now the go to dump stat. Illusionist currently has probably the second most useful special ability for specialist mages behind the evoker special.

It works well as nature godlike. You still have access to enchantments for the self buff to racial for power level. Max might, perception. Some int and con. Take the acid pen bonus. Necrotic lance and noxious burst are the bread and butter. Forget the staff spell. Use scepter or rod. I did a run through with it and it comes close to evoker for over all damage at the end. There is a lack of 4th level conjurer spell choice which would be a problem after release.

Conjurer is pretty ok too.... er I mean yup they all suck.

Nah. It's not terrible though. Bleakwalker or devoted mix well with barb. I give soulblade/hellwalker my stamp of approval though. I ran moon godlike. Max strength. Perception/Constitution secondary. Dump resolve. Haymaker on at all times. Lightning strikes on till you run out (which never happened before everything died.) Dance of death every time you can get away with not getting hit for a few seconds. Single hits from soul annihilation were 100-150-ish.

A companion, whose soul you can shape to your own will? I like that;-) I'm thinking that would be best in the original game release, but as it is already in a dlc topic... It could be a free dlc which allows me to impose my will on another soul. That way we could still call it free will.

As long as companions were brought up so many times already; quest companions who's original stats can be manipulated to not suck would be a major plus. The ability to multiclass yet include their base class would be just awesome.

I'm running a pure Conjurer Nature Godlike in this run through. I'm adding it to my top tier stuff above. Base stats max Might and Per. No staff. Dual weilding scepter wand only for when I'm out of spells. A crit from an empowered Necrotic lance is a beast.

@ OP : That's an easy answer. I want what everyone wants in dlc. 100,000 quality game play hours (after the base game 100k hours) for 1 USD.

If it is mortification I will simply never take that ability. That was one of my favorites from 1.

I've tried numerous things. Here's just a few of my favorites and not so favorites so far. Favorites. 1 Assassin/Bleak Walker - (pre-crit nerf) 2 Devoted/Berserk - Can wipe out everything on the map including your party. 3 Devoted/Hell-walker - The reasons are fairly obvious 4 Pure Shattered Pillar - ^ 5 Troubadour/Fury Moon Godlike - Respectable Aoe and can tank. 6 Shattered pillar/Shifter Nature Godlike - Tap lightning strikes for the power level buff > release an aoe > shift cat > cats claws and watch everything just melt from the speed. 7 Bleak Walker/Soul Blade - Alternate between flames of devotion and soul annihilation for some nice single hit damage. 8 Pure Evoker Nature Godlike - grab a couple enchantment buffs and spam power leveled aoe. Not-So-Favorites 1 Anything rogue post crit/assassination nerf 2 Ranger pure or otherwise. I've tried a few. It's supposed to be a striker and all 8 above are much more striking. 3 Priest. You can either be the quarterback or the kinesiologist. Take your pick. Still good to have one in the party, just not for the main. 4 Most combinations of cipher or pure cipher. I love the idea of psionics (bring back Ascension syfy!!!) , but every time I get one that looks good on paper it's like letting a balloon go before you tie it in game play. I (of course) haven't tried everything. Some things I've tried from forums that work well for others I can't make work. Play styles vary. And to finish off my disclaimer I also don't claim that any of this will or will not work like they did for me if others try/have tried them.

Yeah that. It's a little hard to catch up with such a refined rule set in such a short time. Pretty good considering the number of years between this and that.

Well whatever the reason for it the shifter/monk nature god like was at or near the top of numerous builds I tried for dps. I'm not one to pretend to know all the ins and outs when many things are still not clearly stated what exactly does what. All I can verify is the start to finish results of beta with the same party composition every time. 2 + vague description = 2 so I can't go by that. I have to rely on trial and error and end of run stats.

In case it was glossed over; Swift strikes gives swift, which triggers the racial ability to buff power level.

Nature Godlike : Shifter/Monk. Max strength and do whatever with the rest. Lightning strikes, dual wield, lesser wounds, natures vigour, your choice of claw damage. Pretty sure lots of combos after that will work. One of the best I've tested for dps.

Prior to the nerfs to crit damage and assassinate the highest damage I had on multiple builds at the end of the beta demo was on an assassin/bleak walker (running classic and all encounters @ level). Since the update I haven't bothered trying one again. With greatsword you could one shot 300. The titan would go down in one or 2 hits. Other fights you could one shot the 2 toughest mobs while your party cleaned up the trash.

Before the critical hit nerfs I ran an assassin/bleak walker through. Two handed was the way to go for assassinate with flames of devotion. I haven't tried it post nerf but the damage was absolutely monstrous prior to the update.

We have seen only one type of ship and little variation in cannons, except those spawned with console commands. Still, I believe that foundation are solid. I don't think it will be a main point of playing a game, but as a sidecontent on your way to the game proper its good. I looted a better cannon from boarding one earlier today. It shot farther and did more damage.

There isn't much to go on right now with only 3 enemy ships, a ghost ship, and some flotsam. As it is, it is not worth sinking a ship. It's either run away or attempt to board for what little loot and ship upgrades you can get vs. ship repair costs and medicine for injured crew. Unless sinking a ship in the future gives some loot or massive xp, the only reason i can see to sink one is for a quest. The way the few quests are now it may come down to siding with the humanitarians who save the minority fish people or the globalist Vailan trader faction vs the protectionist cult and sinking the others' ships??

Chanter/Druid fury is decent. Moon godlike with soft winds of death. I took all the hardest hitting aoe spells and the chanter cone electric. Most damage done and most damage taken with only one ko and only the temple left to go. 4 in athetics and the druid spell that heals 50 and damages for emergency heals. Medium armor dual hatchets or dual fists. My last run through was an evoker heavy on missile attacks. Nature godlike and a couple enchant spells for constant power level boost. Good times.