mjn693

Sorry I typed your name wrong .. Yes sure whenever you are available. I was just so happy I finally made Ranged/Melee setup work for myself, and the playstyle also integrate really well with new subclasses so I figured I'd share it on forum.

=================================== The Dark Wanderer =================================== Difficulty: PotD, upscaled -------------------------------------------------------------- Patch: v4.01 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Forbidden Fist/Arcane Archer -------------------------------------------------------------- Animal Companion: Boar ® -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Hearth Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: White that Wends - Mystic (optional) -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 2 CON: 15 DEX: 18 PER: 21 INT: 3 RES: 19 -------------------------------------------------------------- Active Skills: Arcana Passive Skills: Insights/Metaphysics (optional) -------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon Modals: Sabres, Pistols, Morningstar -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (®=recommended, !=important) 1: Force of Anguish(!) , Marked Prey (!) 2: Resilient Companion (!) 3: Swift Strikes ® 4: Dance of Death (!), Two Weapon Style (!) 5: Long Stride ® 6: Protective Companion (!) 7: Efficient Anguish (!), Evasive Roll (!) 8: Marked for the Hunt (!) 9: Soul Mirror (!) 10: Enduring Dance (!), Stalker's Link (!) 11: Duality of Mortal Presence (!) 12: Thunderous Blow (!) 13: Torment's Reach ®, Uncanny Luck (!) 14: Enervating Blows (!) 15: Raised Torment ® 16: Turning Wheel (!), Survival of the Fittest (!) 17: Swift Flurry ® 18: Tough ® 19: Heartbeat Drumming (!), Superior Camouflage (!) 20: The Dichotomous Soul ® --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended): Weapon Set 1: Grave Calling (! with Paralysis on Crit enchant) / Thundercrack Pistol (! with - action speed aura enchant) Weapon Set 2: Morningstar (optional) Boots: any Head: Fair Favor ® Armor: Miscreant ® (Lucky enchantment (!) ) Neck: any Belt: any Rings: Ring of Greater Regeneration ®, Power of Money ® Hands: Mortification Binding ® Cape: The Cape of Falling Star (Caution: item is currently bugged causing game freezes, use deflection cape instead until fixed) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! Long time forum lurker 1st time poster. I have beat both PoE games at PotD many times mostly following Boeroer and Nerd Commando's builds, so today I want to share my favorite build on the forum. Let me start by saying this is not a cookie cutter build but rather the most tactical yet rewarding character build I've ever played. Hope you enjoy. Role in a Party: Single target dps, single target crowd control, AOE crowd control, AOE dps .. but, but how is that even possible for one charater? Let's see next section Team Fights Procedures: 1: Identify high priority targets, aka mages,archers,priests 2: Shoot one round of Pistol, waiting frontline engagement 3: Mark a pesky mage, then immediately Evasive Roll to his face 4, Forbidden Fist, if not hit do FF again but not more (if target Fort too high for you, bring Animal Companion for +20 accuracy) 5, Auto attack. If target trying to use any special action, use Force of Anguish to interrupt 6, Grave Calling fully charged, now move to next high priority target with Forbidden Fist then followed with permanent paralysis (3 sec default + 1.5 enfeebled bonus + INT bonus ). In case of paralysis not connecting use Force of Anguish. 7, Rinse and repeat for all high priority targets. 8, If no ranged enemy targeting you, turn on Dance of Death 9, Shoot Thundercrack from long distance, while charging Dance of Death 10, With Duality, you transformed from the dumbest rock in the class to the smartest kid in the room 11, Turn on Thunderous Blow, Swift Flurry, Dichotomous then jump into the fray of enemy main force 12, Imbue: Eora (or Imbue:Web as a poor man's Eora) at point blank distance, make sure you are inside the pull for free wounds and heals 13, Torment's Reach whoever inside Eora, the stun from Torment also make Eora's life easier 14, If energy gang up on you, Evasive Roll out and recharge Dance of Death Priority when Gearing: Focus on evasion for Dance of Death (% resistance is the best or ranged deflection), crit conversion for chaining paralysis ( 5% uncanny luck + 10% orlan + 15% money ring + 10% fair favor + 25% paralysis) --------------------------------------------------------------- Self Q&A: Why Forbidden Fist? Can a normal monk like Nalpazca do the same job? Not quite. Forbidden Fist's enfeebled affliction is likely strongest in the game, and to get it at lv1 is god forbidden. The best use of FF is a combo initiation tool. As it reduces fortitude and comes with -100% heals, but more importantly is the +50% hostile effect duration. That being said, using FF comes with a hefty price and that is why I suggest not stacking more than 2 FF. --------------------------------------------------------------- Why Grave Calling? The 3 sec paralysis on Crit which nobody takes suddenly becomes the strongest CC in the game thanks to Forbidden Fist, with 4.5 seconds baseline. Paralysis itself also has innate hit->crit which helps chain CC. --------------------------------------------------------------- Why ranged & melee weapon setup? Because we don't have any proper ranged and melee build yet. Seriously this setup gives maximum utilization of Grave Calling. Compared to normal duals you only attacks with Grave Calling which means 100% speed boost if we only care about chaining paralysis. Compared to Single hand style, we lose +12 accurary and 20% hit-to-crit, but gained +30% and +15% speed from dual wielding. We already have highest accuracy in the game so speed is more important for chaining paralysis. Last but not least, the - action speed aura from thundercrack also super useful, it effectively means you have more time to paralysis. --------------------------------------------------------------- Why Arcane Archer? This choice is more debatable. Stalker can achieve very similar playstyle, and ask Aloth to provide Eora when needed. But I prefer my build to be self-sustainable, and also Eora normally takes 8 secs total to cast but with Imbue it's instant. AA -5 weapon malus? nope. Grave Calling is frost weapon and Thundercrack is storm weapon, both immune from -5 malus. --------------------------------------------------------------- Why the stat distribution tho? low might: significantly reduce FF damage. Meanwhile 99% damage for this build comes from weapons, and a low score here only reduce total damage by ~10%. low int: reduce FF length. You dont need INT while working on high priority targets, and in the second phase of battle INT will be boosted to 13 which is pretty good. high res: reduce FF length, also making you less likely to be hit so you can continue to Dance of Death high con: reduce the impact of FF. high per/dex: for chain paralysis. This build won't function without these two stats maxed. --------------------------------------------------------------- Is this the type of build that only works at lv20 with full gear? Absolutely not. All the gear I listed can be acquired at lv 6 or 7 when you left beginner island. Grave Calling can be bought (with Berath money). Thundercrack can be stolen with 8 Stealth. Miscreant just follow the non-violent route in Principi quest. The rest can all be bought with money and they are not as crucial. At level 7 you can already start using the dual phase of combat with Anguish and Evasive Roll to take out mages, then jump back in after charging up Dance of Death.

Please take a look at Corpse Eater subclass. Firstly the flesh commune ability casting time of 3 secs is absurd for a 50hp heal. Then after mid-game all corpses explode somehow(crit?) and my barb can't eat anything.

I think Ranger is the strongest single-target dps in game, but its play-style might be perceived as boring. Other people may feel rangers are lacking abilities but truth is you only need Marked Prey and Wounding Shots to be effective, considering the resources are limited. Melee duel wield ranger has the highest accuracy of any melee class and hit hardest on single target. With Evasive Roll you can get to any mage or archer and insta delete them. Ranger is also especially good on boss due to accuracy and raw damages.

Berserker/Street Fighter is my favorite melee build now. Honestly this is probably the only build that features two handed weapons that is not completely inferior to duel wield. This build is inspired by one of Nerd commando's youtube so you may want to check that out. Might & Int: dump (both stats are useless. It's fine if you don't want to dump Might, but a high Int is detrimental to your party as berzerker) DEX,PER,RES,CON: max Key Abilities: Frenzy & finishing blow Key Items: Bloody Link (ft. deadlight merchant) Unique Poleaxe (Old city) The idea is to stack bonus when 'bloodied': Blood link bonus, Human race bonus, barb bloodied bonus etc. In terms of style you want to get flanked and get bloodied, then you become a real fighting monster.

Why? Because at range you're still only going to fire the gun/wand in one hand, and in melee you will only swing the weapon you have in the other. Dual wielding two ranged means you'll be firing two weapons at range, swinging two weapons in melee, and every active ability that says they are a Full Attack means that you attack with both weapons during the active ability. Examples: Flames of Devotion and most rogue abilities are Full Attack. If it says Primary attack then it is only your main weapon that does the damage. So, a guy holding two pistols using an ability that does Primary attack will only apply the ability with his main hand pistol. Backstab works like this, and it is why two handed weapons work better for it. Although, one handed style isnt bad either. So, a pistol and a sword dual wield means you fire a little faster, but all those Full Attack abilities will work like Primary Attack abilities using the range weapon at range and the melew in melee. One handed you gain about 12 accuracy plus if you take the One Handed talent convert like 20% of hits to crits. I cant remember if it's 20% off the top of my head. So, you fire slower, but you will hit a lot, and get a possibility for crit conversion. If you crit you will get over penetration, and do much more damage. So, damage wise dual Wielding 2 melee, or 2 ranges comes out in the lead. I would say one handed style is next in line, but two handed is close. The critting from one handed and the damage it can do makes it for me, and the attack speed of two handed makes me sad. Then last comes dual Wielding a mix of ranged and melee. It attacks faster than one handed, but not enough to overcome the accuracy bonus of one handed or the damage of two handed. It also has a benefit of not sitting through weapon swap recovery, but that still isnt enough for me. On Full Attack abilities you are right, but not all class setups featuring Full Attacks and on many occasions ranged/melee can out-perform 2 ranged or 2 melee damage-wise. 1) your off-hand weapon is inferior example: Exceptional Pistol + normal Pistol vs. Exceptional Pistol + sabre(or whatever) Ranged/melee combo wins here because both setup shoot at same speed but with ranged/melee you only shoot with Exceptional weapon, while the dual pistols' damage is the average between Exceptional and normal ones. 2) by extension if your main weapon is better than off-hand then ranged/melee is better Ranged/melee is essentially a variant of single weapon style that trading +12 accuracy(which otherwise get from single weapon) for +30% speed and unique weapon enhancement from off-hand.

There's dragonling in poko kohara.

Where exactly do you get the Aldris Blade? You could also use Beza's Toothed Blade, which gives an armor penalty on a critical hit. You could also combine this combo with the Gatecrasher gloves which give knockdown on critical hit. Dragon lair in Ashen Maw. It's in a really tiny container near treasure hoard.

You can lose Pallegina quite early in game during the feuding families quest.

I really like my DW Stalker-Soul Blade multi class. To be a great tanky melee dps I look for the following: 1) dps bonus: candidates: rogue, cipher 2) teleport-like abilities to navigate in battlefield, as a melee you really don't want to get stuck with enemy tanks: candidates: rogue, fighter, ranger 3) attack speed bonus: candidates: barb, monk 4) accuracy bonus: candidates: fighter, ranger 5) not a glass: basically no rogue-cipher Of all options I think you want to pick either one of Rogue or Cipher, as their damage bonus are significantly better than others. I chose Cipher because I suspect soul blade has even larger single target DPS than rogue but also provides much better flexibility with cipher powers. Then to pair with Cipher especially soul blade I need accuracy more than attack speed, and also a teleport ability since Cipher has none. This leaves Fighter-Cipher and Ranger-Cipher. With a defensive pet (boar or bear) I think ranger has consistently more Accuracy (mark prey+stalker link+ upgraded wounding shot+ extra body for flanking)than fighter.

My impressions with ~50 hours so far Eder: died in the initial ship battle -.- Aloth: I successfully converted him to be the main tank (since Eder died) with Battlemage multiclass which really shows the flexibility of the new class system. RP-wise his quest seems especially short compared to other companions. Xoti: Priest-Monk multi starts out really bad, but as she gain levels her power grows exponentially. I'm really impressed by her combat wise after ~lv10. Another note is both her sickle and shield have great upgrade opportunities. My only issue is her quest feels very promising in the beginning but ended unsatisfactorily. Serafin: Barb-Cipher spec. I really like dual-wielding guns in this game and Serafin is the best companion for that role. I play a stalker-soulblade melee killing machine and I just need pain blocks and other buffs so Serafin fills this role perfectly while providing range damage. His carnage is completely wasted but I still found most of the barb abilities useful. RP-wise he is a nice little orlan pirate which I find pretty cute. Pallegina: Left me after I killed Valera. Maia: geomancer spec. Combat-wise really great with Arquebus and supporting speels. RP-wise her romance feels really.. short? Also left me when I decided to help Huana crown. Teheku: I find his voice really annoying so he stays at deck until both Pallengina & Maia left me. Still don't like him.

Not a vendor but I've looted multiple pyrites after naval combats.