fieminamor

As with OP, I have a Radeon card and had exact same symptoms. DxDiag in: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lralb4e18pbdhz4/AAC_5ndXRFmPoglVnN4Gwpura?dl=0

I could be remembering incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure I pickpocketed this in my current playthrough. I have the helm and have always solved that quest peacefully, never killing Ezzali.

I concur this happens every time - at least 5 times with me.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! Ill get this added with the information we have that grimoires are the root of the cause They are not. The root of the cause is a ****ed up translation file. If you change the game to English, suddenly everything works fine. Alas, while good for OP, I've only ever played in English. I wish I had such a simple solution.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! Ill get this added with the information we have that grimoires are the root of the cause I have the same (or very similar) problems with Serafen as a Witch, so I'm not sure the grimoire is the root of the problem. I just want to use Whispers of Treason, and I can't even set any conditions (other than Always True), and for Prioritize by, I want to choose Lowest Will, but the only options I have are "Most Afflictions" and "Marked Prey/Sworn Enemy", see screen cap: https://snag.gy/UG6Zgw.jpg

Mostly, the only "suck" of casters in early game is keeping them alive, IMO. They do plenty of damage. For flavor, I am playing a Priest/Magran & Evoker multiclass (burn it all!), and did ~80 damage with Fan of Flames at level 1 (IIRC).

I hadn't appreciated the 0.5 cast time (and wide radius) on Phantom Foes enough. I've just always relied on Eyestrike for half the focus. But with tons of focus, the quick cast time is great, I agree. And oh yeah, I use Mental Binding enough that I shouldn't have panned level 2 spells. It is good. > It just sort of sank in that - contrary to many other RPGs - only Wizards have access to their entire spell canon in POE2 (with the abundance of grimoires), while all other classes have to pick spells when they level up (at the opportunity cost of not taking things like "Tough", or "Snake's Reflex", etc.) I'll probably have to respec to try some of these good cipher suggestions. And/or future playthroughs.

Admittedly, only on my first playthrough, and only for a week and a half. But - without reading in advance to spoil the experience - I started a Cipher Beguiler, and have been very happy with both the power and the versatility. I think people are selling short the impact of Whispers of Treason in the early game - turning a 5 v. 5 battle into 6 v. 4 is huge. And Ringleader pretty much wins battles when you're swarmed by numerous enemies (such as some ship battles). While an accuracy boost (as suggested) certainly would be nice for Beguiler (MOAR CRITS!), the extra range (20%) makes them able to open encounters from distance, and the focus regen when they hit something vulnerable to sneak attack (many conditions), gives them a ton of focus in most battles. ... and then when you get to disintegrate - wham. I'm using Frostseeker, which seems to replenish my focus quickly when I'm low. My only quibble has been lack of survivability, but that's on me, since I went 3 CON, 3 RES. In hindsight, I'd have balanced those more evenly with INT, since the AOE's don't have much radius anyway (yet - at level 13), so adding % to AOE radius doesn't help as much as with wiz/druid powers. I do think Ciphers suffer from a lack of quality level 2 and level 3 (and level 7) powers. Level 1 has several good ones, and Pain Block is amazing for a support power at L4. Ring Leader @L5, And Disintegrate @L6 are boss. And Time Parasite sounds nearly OP from the descriptions in this thread (*drools*). Obviously, not relevant to much of anything, but starting with 2 points in Mechanics and Sleight of Hand makes for much easier early-game $$, too. Farm those traps!

In the super-early game, I found harvesting traps was quite lucrative, relatively speaking. Just make sure one character has some Mechanics points. I started the game with these being on my protagonist, but respecced once I figured out who I wanted to travel with. Obviously, this doesn't help OP, as once you have 14k, you're looking for bigger numbers than traps sell for.