Ælfwine

I didn't realize that the latest patch increased Veteran difficulty. I thought I was just running into an increased difficulty because it was DLC. I did take 5 Thrust of Tattered Veils scrolls into the fight, but my attempts to interrupt just keep getting negated by the Messenger's Concentration. And I'm not sure how his Concentration is increasing after I reduce it. Part of my current difficulty is that I'm just not sure how the mechanics for his behavior work. What determines your Accuracy when using a scroll? Is it based on your currently equipped weapon? I also don't see Concelhaut's Crushing Doom listed as an available spell for Aloth.

I think I'm just going to quit this fight for now. I've spent about 6 hours trying to win it and I can't. I had half a dozen Insect Swarm and Plague of Insects scrolls and they all missed with less than a 30% chance of success. I got the Messenger down to Bloodied again and tried a Rusted Armor scroll, but the only person I have capable of casting that only had a 6% chance of success. And any time I do get his Concentration down he just gets it back again, meaning he can use his siphon without repercussion. And since every physical attack I do has at least a -25% Penetration I can't do any significant physical damage. Is there any way to tell what the icons for his pending attack represent and what the effects will be? Hovering over it doesn't do anything. This is almost enough to make me not even want to continue playing this game at this point, even though I already have ~200 hours in.

Thanks for the ideas. It may require me to respect a couple of these people. I'm swapping out Konstanten for Pallegina, who I've multiclassed as a Chanter/Paladin. I'm hoping that her summons can help distract a bit if nothing else. This is really the first point in the game where I've had to slow down combat and focus on tactics playing on Veteran, and I'm only in Act 2 of the main story. I've never even bothered to worry about interruptions and breaking concentration. Hopefully the other DLC don't drive me as crazy as this one. I've been trying to win this battle for 2 days, and I've never got the Messenger to Nearly Dead.

The best I've been able to do against this enemy is getting him Bloodied, but his siphon always gets him back to Hurt, by which time my party is basically worthless. My physical attacks cannot do penetration so I cannot do damage fast enough to get past this point. How do I approach this beast? Here is the party I'm using: PC: Level 20 Paladin Konstanten: Level 19 Barbarian Tekehu: Level 18 Druid Ydwin: Level 19 Cipher Xoti: Level 19 Contemplative I'm on Veteran difficulty. Any advice would be appreciated.

I'd like to be able to just listen to the voice acting in this but I have difficulty doing so for one reason: they intersperse unspoken narrative lines with the dialogue. No matter how hard I try I simply can't pull my eyes away from the text to make sure I don't miss any description. It's a very serious issue.

I'm almost at level 20 without yet having met you-know-who in Magran's Teeth or doing any DLC content. Is it safe to say that I still have quite a bit of game left that will be experienced at max level?

What I've been doing is taking the character with the most HP and just running them past the trap and hoping for the best.

Is there a way to remove undetected traps? What I mean by this is that the cursor will change to a trap icon even if you haven't detected it. I'm not sure if you're really supposed to see that to begin with.

What does this indicate?

Which was really the original concept behind me creating this thread. I was wondering if there was something more I should know about the mechanism in place. It wasn't intended for some elitist to come in here with his equivalent of 'git gud.'

Sounds like you're the one that has a problem. Try relying on facts and not assumptions. It makes you look stupid.Fact: it's possible to play through this game on POTD with level indicators turned off entirely and never have any serious problems. Try taking off the training wheels. Why don't you try not being such an arrogant ass? Just try it. No thanks. It's a freakin' game, a simple form of entertainment. And I certainly don't pay heed to the words of those with pompous attitudes.

Sounds like you're the one that has a problem. Try relying on facts and not assumptions. It makes you look stupid. Fact: it's possible to play through this game on POTD with level indicators turned off entirely and never have any serious problems. Try taking off the training wheels. Why don't you try not being such an arrogant ass?

Sounds like you're the one that has a problem. Try relying on facts and not assumptions. It makes you look stupid.

You can't say that 20 is perfect when you can reach that well before the end of the game.

What say? Just by selling off unused gear?

I'd settle for gold. Unlike PoE1 I don't seem to have an extravagance of money in this game. I'm at level 13 and only have about 10,000 cp.

It doesn't seem like you get an excess of experience in this game. Leveling is a rather slow process, I feel. However, even so, I think there's too much content for the level cap. Not that I mind all of the content: the more the better. I just don't enjoy playing the last quarter or so of the game at max level with no further abilities coming in.

One thing I don't like about the 'hover over' system in combat is that it doesn't tell you when your attack type will do absolutely nothing due to immunity or some other reason. Sure, I can glance over at the current effects to see it, but I'd rather it just say 0% instead of 100%. Sometimes it also doesn't show you your attack type (slashing, crushing, etc.) next to the percentage. I'm still not sure what that indicates.

This is something I noticed with PoE1 and I'm sure it's been discussed before. Why are there so few player levels in these games? The content to leveling ratio seems askew. It seems like you can hit the level cap before you are even halfway through the game. It was especially bad in PoE1 where the level cap was only 16.

So the numbers I see on an opponent are not DR numbers but the actual Armor value versus that sort of attack?

When I Shift-Hover over an attack in the combat log the damage breakdown never mentions DR based on the type of attack. Shouldn't this reduce the damage before arriving at the final damage amount, a la PoE 1?

What are these that I get for achievements? Do they serve any purpose?

I do have all 5 members, but I admit that my gear isn't fully enchanted at this point. But I don't think that should make that much of a difference. My current problem is that we are just getting overwhelmed by the number of 3 skull enemies in a single fight. I will fully enchant my equipment (I have about 25,000 cp right now) as much as I can (though some of the current enchantments will cost 15,000) and see how much it helps.

When you are bartering with a merchant who has ship gear (cannons, sails, etc.) is there a way to see what is currently equipped on your ship so you can compare?

I don't think I have a system-wide setting causing these guys to stay at high level, as other quests did not maintain the unexpected high level baddies after I gained a few more levels. When I encountered the first wandering enemy I was able to isolate him and take him down by himself, but with the others it seems I can't pull a single enemy. The whole team seems to want to participate in squashing me. At what character level have people successfully gotten through this tomb? My party is level 11 and still getting destroyed here.