Lokithecat

I thought a Soul Blade / Helwalker would be a really neat High DPS melee character. Found it really effective until I got to my first boat battle, and was blown apart. I was trying an unarmored build, and it was my first attempt, so maybe lacked some knowledge. Found a Berserker / Helwalker to be much more viable, with a much higher Con, and armor at Low Levels. End of the day, it could have just been bad building / inexperience, but at low levels felt very Glass Cannon.

I'm pretty sure there's an issue with Critical Role, for PoE 2, purchased through Origin. The Origin Launcher shows Critical Role, as 'Unlocked', But I can't seem to find any of the portraits which show on their site, and don't notice 'extra' voices. When you launch the game, the main screen (with New Game, Continue, etc....) has 2 Icons bottom left, one showing that Pillars of Eternity 2 is installed (Colorful and not clickable), and another showing 'Free DLC installed' and a description of the Critical role content. This is more of a greyed out color, clickable, and opens a browser to https://eternity.obsidian.net/buy because everyone wants to buy another copy of the game they already own? Is there anything I can do to test / verify if it is there, or any suggestions on implementing it if not? I've tried uninstalling / reinstalling as well as updating, and verifying files.

Get a Large shield proficiency, 'The Wall' is wickedly effective, and if you're shooting everyone than not moving is really not a big deal. You will have to really learn positioning at the start of fights, and get the fighter ability to Pull enemies to you. As said before, if you're a ways off from the enemy, and stationary shooting them, and your melee guys run past you to fight the enemies, the enemies will melee your hitters not the shooter. You'll have to hold off on launching your hitters until they've locked onto your Shielder. Even then, many fights will have you surrounded, so at the least you'll need someone that can off tank, while your main holds the majority of the mobs; or highly effective Crowd Control to lock down enemies. This sort of tank idea would probably work better as an Off tank, that has a weapon set with shield, and another with either a 2 handed Range weapon, or dual 1 handed Range, which it switches to once the adds are dealt with.

1 at creation, more as you level (unless one of your classes is 'Devoted'). Multi gets less of everything, (Empowers, Focus, Divine, etc) and Proficiencies. On the plus side you don't need proficiencies to use anything, it just gives you the toggled special weapon ability.

I'd be happy if they gave you the characters stats, at the same time they asked you about which class. Annoying trying to guess which way to go, and then you find out their stats don't support it. It feels like the class reset, for characters, and companions etc... occurs after the point they are created... like class, proficiencies, stats are all locked in. If you are consoling, seems like there should be a way to use command line change them somehow.

I was a bit annoyed, after stomping the big bad down there, that the Spindle Man didn't seem to care at all. Figured he'd be interested since I accessed some of those lower secrets that he was interested in.

I just threw on some moderate armor to compensate for the wound penalties at lower levels, by mid game I no longer cared. That said my Ber/Hel does have more HP than my Rog/Fig Eder tank character... But throwing the tank out first, letting him draw initial aggro, is more than enough time to self buff the Ber/Hel, and then leap into the back ranks. I probably don't spend Wounds as aggressively as a Shattered monk, who needs to keep burning them to justify the subclass, but my 'basic' attacks do so much damage that most opponents only live long enough to swing at me once before dying. I'm sure some multi of Hel are even worse (more fragile) than what I'm using, Berserker does get a lot more Armor innately than the rest, the exception being classes which can cast a +Armor buff.

'Almost all negative Steam user Reviews are Due to Bugs' And here I thought all negative Steam user Reviews (on any game) are due to whiny children, who's opinion is completely meaningless.

You can always switch people in and out, and develop them all on a play through... you can even talk to them when they aren't in your party on your ship. If you do end up parking one of them for a while, and want to grab him later on, he'll still have the xp of the rest of your party (basically) and you can level them back up to match you so you aren't dragging around dead weight for story reasons.

If you find its too easy to PotD with BoB, then don't use them. If you still find it's too easy, than start some goofy 'custom' difficulty nonsense, and convince others to join you. Don't use Empower, don't wear Armor, only use Level 1 spells, go Solo.... what ever you feel like doing to make the system more painful feel free to do. Don't think that your masochism gives you some sort of justification to remove something that you don't like.

I've been running Berserker Helwalker, and its wicked. I think its much better than Shattered Pillar. It is very unforgiving, and you don't want to attempt it solo, or as a tank. I found 15 Con, 15 Dex, 18 Might worked out well for stats, Nature Godlike. Early game I did borrow Eders armor, mid game with a 20% reduction (one of the leather styles) still attacks very quickly. Wounds get maxed very quickly, but being able to Leap into the back ranks and massacre everyone is quite fun. Gatecrasher gauntlets help a lot, you'll be critting all over the place. Early game spend wounds to survive, 3 - 5 is your happy place, by mid game I found I didn't care about staying near max. You do need to be pro active with healing, try to drop consecrated circles, if you can stand the bird Paladin as a multiclass Ancient Memory + the Defense / Healing Aura is usually enough for a non boss fight.

The monk/ascendant is likely very micro heavy. Soul Blade is probably the easier of the two, but without having tried it yet my gut feeling tells me ascendant will be better in the long run Helwalker has max wounds of 10; I'm running a Berserker Helwalker, and it outdamages (per hit) everyone else in the party, including Legendary two handed weapons... and between Flurry, and Frenzy, attacks much more often. First attempt at a monk Multi class, I tried Soul Blade, figured the 20% (Draining) would be more damage, but it was too squishy. Berserker added in some much needed Defense / Armor and the damage ended up being a lot higher anyway.

I've ran Eder as a multi with no complaints. He might be a bit soft at low levels, but the Wall modal is easily enough to carry you for quite a ways. By mid game he'll have access to Persistent Distraction (everyone he engages is considered Flanked) and you can easily get him enough +Engage to tank most fights dual wielding actual weapons if you feel like it. Plus Riposte is really strong, if you decide to go with a shield. At worst you'll need to be a bit pro active with healing, but you'll have a higher damaging output tank than a pure fighter.

The Blunderbuss trick works great, built a gimmick toon (with Devoted, multiclass) that way myself. The -20% ? from the class, ends up turning into a permanent +30% (with the 50% from Distracted, which makes you flanked), and if you get your HP low enough to trigger the other part (Bloodied?) its insanely fast. Only thing you really have to watch out for, the Blunderbuss Modal will Friendly Fire your other team mates who are trying to melee whoever you're shooting at.

Maybe its just me, but having two different effects both called 'Spell Resistance' is a bit confusing. There are a few, which specify in the description, which affect Hostile spells only, and others which don't. I guess the idea is that you need to manually read through everything to figure out which it is, and if it doesn't state either way, it should be all spells? It could be simpler, if you called them 'Spell Immunity' which would make them immune to all spells, and 'Spell Resistance' which makes them resist hostile spells. Or something like that. Also, some clarification with the Spell Reflect stuff would be handy, stating all spells or Hostile ones... after all the confusion and awkwardness with Resistance I stayed clear of them, since it was unclear if I'd be reflecting my own spells or not.

In the bar at Dunnage, door is by Lil' Woody

The first stage, 'Speak with Captain Furrante in Dunnage' shows up under 'Nekata - Sacred Stair' when viewed by location in the Journal.

You can always get the missing +Armor through Wizard Spells, or Arcane reading of the scrolls.

Maia (companion) has a unique Ranger Sharpshooter class which is great for back row Mage killing. Her interrupts land pretty consistently, and she's high damage. Plus the tech weapons having Veil Piercing really helps deal with +deflection style mage buffs. Her accuracy can easily be raised up high enough for guaranteed hits, and fairly reliable criticals.

I didn't see anyone mention it here, but I've been running a Monk (Helwalker) Barbarian (Berserker). The damage output is absolutely insane, and very mobile with some mid level Barbarian Skills. Its not great at tanking, you would need to be very judicious on when you use Frenzy (or track HP yourself, or Just keep up over time healing), and if you keep your wounds under control (Spend them or you end up taking +50% damage). Everyone seems to be loving the Shattered monk, for rapid Wound generation, but this seems much more damage output. Routinely having more than 30 Might is just funny, and the Frenzy + Swift Flurry with such massive damage hits tears things apart.

Works great, you can get a large amount of +engagement, to even consider dual wielding while doing this (although it really hurts your deflection). Having large piles of enemies clustered around one character, counting as flanked (Persistent Distraction) really ups your damage (there are a lot of Rogue companions, or +Flank damage items) as well as the +accuracy from the Flanking.

Had this happen as well, received the Gloves after paying off Bene's debt, and I'd already robbed the Wizards home by this point. Doesn't make any sense to go back, return the gloves for no reason, and then have to rebuy them (presumably at a loss of more coin). Checked how much you lose with the 'discount' If you return the gloves you can get up to 600 coins for them, and then you need to buy them for 1,633 (with a 5% discount).

Found the same issue with the Saru-Sichr, thought it might trigger on applying of poison, but no luck. Used a poison, no change. After checking logs, for the Character using it, I did notice there was a damage being applied, 6 per 12.0 seconds. It does stand out, reads as: Pallegrina grazes Cave Grubling. (Poison Dipped (Saru-Sichr) for 31.9 seconds) Mousing over any of the green words on that line brings up the 6 Corrode Damage per 12.0 seconds for 72.0 seconds) Not sure if the time (31.9 vs 72.0) was due to grazing, or if I had applied the poison effect earlier, and noticed it mid way through. Tried getting a screen shot, but no luck with that.