FNGRenegade

I've done it myself at 12 with Mithlean and Mithras, it was a good challenge but not that bad. The deflection is mostly the problem so a good way to get that down or buff your accuracy are required. And a good solution vs terrified otherwise your looking at a permanent -20 acc on all your characters.

I should have listened to myself and not upscaled WM1, I'm still doing fine but the DLC I already didn't like just got a lot less fun with the fights being just giant drags not hard but just micro intensive and without feeling of accomplishment after finishing them. I doubt I'm gonna force myself to go much farther then this. I'm feeling a little burned out on the game, I might conitnue my solo run or just go start PoE II without a decent PoE run to continue on. I will of course keep following the rest.

Mira - Chanter Turning in the bounties at the warden Kiran suggest to Mira to take a look at the paths between the keep. Since they are there anyway and don't have any pressing matters Mira decides it's a solid plan and they decent the paths. Having little trouble clearing the Xaurips on the first few levels Mira decides to keep pushing on until they run into an Ogre, asking for some help. Since they might as well see what the ogre can give them for the task, they can always kill him afterwards, Mira decides to agree. The party pushes further into the caves clearing ogres as they go until they reach a big room filled with ogres and their target. Mira thinks for a moment and instructs the group to run a similar gambit as with the bounty for the knight. She and Kiran head off into a parallel hallway and setup for an ambush while Eder and Pallegina set up a defense at a crack in the wall. After the battle has started and Aloth has taken a few hits Mira and Kiran decide to charge in they catch the ogres suprised and Mira manages to get an Echtoplasmic Echo off towards the front line, this was the main reason she was looking for these types of ambushes. Mira is now strong enough to start with nearly enough focus for an Echo and if she manages to get behind the lines in this way the front and back line quickly melt away. After returning to the ogre they decide to push onward. Clearing some more ogres they run into an ambush of their own however. Ogres in front and to the right threaten the party, their druids battering the group with spells. The Ogres swarm the party, luckily for the group this also means that Aloths blast along with DAOM provides the group with insane amounts of damage especially when combined with Kiran in the middle of the fray with his flaming great sword. The ogres inflect large amounts of damage but the group quickly dispatches them nevertheless. They do however need a rest and luckily there is a short cut back to the surface nearby. After some well deserved rest the group decides to clear some more floors until they run into a drake. First dispatching the Xaurips with their usual tactics Eder distracts the drake and points him away from the rest of the group. Mira had already had some time to become familiar with drake minds while fighting the Xaurip priest and she knows this beast has the ability to breath fire which she wants nowhere near herself or Kiran. Unfortunatly Eder seems unable to keep the dragons attention as he moves around from target to target. The drake eventually goes down without much issue though and never even manages to get a fire breath off. Mira however decides this is enough of these damp caves for now, it's time to get back into the city and clear up some more of these tasks. So the group heads back to Defiance Bay and we take a look at their stats (at that point, unfortunately I only have character screenshots I have no idea why I didn't make inventory ones, no talents or abilities either I'll make sure to take some new ones for the end of the next update and include them): Mira Kiran Garragh Note: It seems somehow imgur messed up the order of my screenshots, I remember being level 7 for sure when doing the bounties and the order of the fights in my imgur folder also don't match my notes. I did the report as much as I can in the order my notes were in but I think these screenshots were taken before I started this posts adventures not after. Sorry for the inconsistency, like I said work was very chaotic being the last week before holidays and me leaving my team after the holidays. I'll make sure that further coverage is better.

Currently Mira is quite a lot further I'm typing out another update but I think I'll play a little mroe before I finish it, I usually do the first three bounties around level 7.

Mira - Cipher Mira was tired of these menial tasks for these inconsequential people. She was glad to receive a missive from that Chancellor to meet in a tavern in the city. Arriving there however Mira immediately sensed something amiss, people were looking around more then normal and trying to gauge their minds she only felt nervousness and danger. As she and her group turned to leave however it was too late, behind her entered that arrogant woman the bodyguard to that lord that dared challenge her for Caed Nua. She needn't speak as her group had already fanned out to intercept the crazy wench and her henchman. Circling around herself however she ran into another guard, she assaulted his mind with visions to attempt to paralyze him however his mind proved to strong. Luckily a few quick summoned creatures through the use of figurines distracted the guard long enough for Mira to regroup with the rest of the team. As she assaulted the minds of the henchman Kiran cleaved them asunder with his flaming sword leaving streaks of smoke in their corpses and the acrid smell of burning flesh. Finally when the fog of battle cleared from the minds of the group no one was left standing. Mira quickly returned to the keep to make sure it wasn't being assaulted but she found it still safe although the lord was amassing an army close by in Yenwood, something to deal with later when Mira had expanded her group of allies. She did however talk to the warden at the keep who had some bounties to take care off, craving a challenge Mira and the group decided to clear up a few and also earn some money for some much needed upgrades to the keep and their gear. First on the victim list was a Xaurip priest, the group spotted him in Valewood but noticed that he had a sizable number of allies including drakes. Kiran suggested a choke point approach and Mira readily agreed considering herself lucky that Kiran was such a good friend and that she had left his mind intact. Eder was ordered to go and draw the enemies to the bridge which could act as the choke point for the fight. He shouted a few curses at the Xaurip and made a run for it. In the mean time Garragh was layering some protections on the group and Aloth was setting up a killzone with some chill fog. The area was wide enough for Eder and Pallegina to grab the attention of most enemies after which Kiran came charging in with his flaming sword in hand while Mira skirted the side lines alternating between attacking the mind and the backs of their enemies. Finally the drakes were cleaned up and shortly after the high priest fell as well to the groups barrage of attacks. For the next victim a different approach was taken, the group split up with Mira and Kiran splitting off from the group and hiding behind their quarry. Then when properly engaged with the other four they would walk up to the back line and quickly dispatch the most dangerous members of the group in the clerics, mages and rangers. After setting up in such a manager Eder and Pallegina engaged while Garragh provided the needed magical protections and Aloth started working on the frontline. After all enemies were properly engaged Mira and Kiran crept up to the back line and quickly dispatched them. The main foe however quickly turned and went straight for Kiran, with the four others unable to help being blocked by the frontline it was up to Mira to keep him locked down while Kiran beat him into submission.Luckily they were more then up for the task and they quickly cleaned everything up. Finally the last foe presented itself in the Black Meadows. For this fight the group just started grouped up quickly went to work on the blights and other enemies that accompanied the foe, however some of them managed to charge past Eder and Pallegina and went straight for Garragh and Aloth. Mira tried to control the battlefield as much as she could however many of her abilities seem to be resisted by the elementals, it was hard for Mira to manipulate the minds of creates so different from her. Worst off all soon after killing most of the elemental Kiran also went down, Mira and Eder will still staring down his giant determination on their faces. I will not let some stupid rock keep me from my destiny, our destiny Kiran! Eder quickly used the last of their resources and summoned three wood beetles to distract the beast while he and Mira went at it with all their might and rage, Mira's anger reflected in Eder's mind due to her manipulations. And finally the beetles managed to fell the creature, good riddance!

I've taken to this approach in Mira's run as well, Slicken is an amazing spell and will ussually give enough time to get up some basic protections and/or summons and even some time to get into position. Also a good note for readric is, if you sneak in and talk to both the roaming priest and paladin (saying things like your new here or your having some fun with one of the acolytes). If you return later without robes they are still friendly, it is dependant on the two conversations though.

I've actually started a little bit of a side project in a TCS run, I already tried this before with a retaliation monk build based on the Anvil and Monklasher builds here on the forums. I've however thought of a couple more tweaks and am rushing the Soulbound belt since that will give me flame shield on crits which makes the early game a lot easier and quicker while your Fire Godlike retaliation still does very little damage. The downside is it depends on tanking and especially early game this is very dangerous as a unlucky crit can end your run, I'm currently on the 4th run with 1 ending on a crit by the sporeling in the compass cave and two by crits on Divine Mark by the Xaurips at the compass. On the other hand this does make for a high heartrate playthrough. I'm now looking to head towards Maerwald. Once I pass this into defiance bay I'll report with some screenshots (I am logging the run but since this will most likely take quite some restarts I'll wait till I have sufficient progress). It is a min-max type run though so don't except much RP reason for things it will mostly be min-max and semi cheesy things like the plate from the backer, random loot manipulation and min maxxed items and stats but otherwise I don't really see this happening. Mira's adventure will continue as well, today is my last day of work before the Christmas holidays so I hope to get a little more time for the playing and reporting.

Yeah I'm not 100% convinced yet I might just scale it up anyway if I feel like it. I want to finish up act 2 before I head over to WM1 but that's nearly done (I'm quite behind on the reports here). When I've finished up the last of act 2 I should be around level 8 or 9.

Mira - Chanter Mira isn't sure about this so called land of opportunity, so far all it's been is menial jobs for these villagers. Saving people from bears, or their own friends as it turns out, settling farming disputes and clearing out xaurips for charlatans to get a potion that won't even help. The only small bit of excitement were those bandits who robbed the smith's supply wagon, they put up a decent fight although our new friends Aloth and Eder proved they are worthy additions to our group if not completely voluntary. It was interesting manipulating this mind of this wizard, there seems to be a secondary presence there something Mira is definitely planning to investigate further when a chance presents itself. As for Eder, the simpleton is a competent fighter but a farm boy like him was no measure for Mira's tricks, she had him eating out of her hand by the second night. But wait, something interesting did happen in the town of Gilded Vale, Mira conversed with a dead dwarven animancer who told called her a Watcher and told her of another one of these Watchers who can teach her more about this. This was all very new to Mira but she took to her new powers quickly and planned to visit this keep of Caed Nua with haste. There the group only encountered the spirits haunting the place at first culmanating in a big battle with phantoms and shadows in the keeps main halls. Here Aloth proved his real worth with some excellent aim on his Fan of Flames spells, Kiran might still complain that he singed his cloak but he too couldn't do anything but nod with respect as the phantoms melted to Aloth's onslaught. Finally this old Watcher was within Mira's graps, she had been dreaming about seeing his mind the first moment she heard his name... Maerwald. The spiders in the dungeon were quickly dispatched by Kiran who's massive great sword cleaves groups of the monsters like they were made of tinder. And finally Mira is eye to eye with.... a madman. It seems this fool has allowed his power to succumb him, how someone with such power could allow himself to fall this far is beyond Mira. No matter though, someone too weak to command his own will could never have really helped Mira impose hers on others. Aloth bombards the fraud with missiles while Eder and Kiran handle the blights that he commands. Mira sneaks around the side and lays into the fake Watcher while she keeps him paralyzed his feeble twisted mind an easy puzzle to unravel for Mira. Mira contemplates their next move as she sits on the throne of her newly acquired keep. The fool was rambling about something called the Leaden Key, Mira saw in his mind that they were real or at least real to him. Maybe Defiance Bay and the temple of Woudicia was the logical next step it was in any case their only lead. As soon as Mira saw the city however she realized something, this would be an excellent place to first regroup and gather some coin and equipment to better outfit them and it was time to get rid of this singer they picked up along the way he was off little use during the siege of the keep. And thus the party helped out the mostly affluent people of Defiance Bay, killing an imposter mage, finding a lost boy, raiding a ships chest, finding animancy research for a bunch of annoying knights and gaining a new ally in a strange birdlike paladin that Mira had to add to her collection to better be able to study these godlike like Garragh. Note: I'm keeping it light on the combat explanations, to be honest I kind of breezed through this it being the 4th time I've played this part of the game in the last week. Also this party is quite powerful, Kiran does insane damage especially now that he has control of 6 charges of firebrand and Aloth and Mira add the same while also controlling the battlefield. I'm actually even quite happy with Eder who I build for Maximium Engagements (1 base + 2 defender + 1 hold the line + 1 weapon + 1 shield eventually) and Overbearing Guard. Finally our new paladin is amazing since she adds attack speed which is something Kiran and Mira especially like a LOT. The thougher fights I'll cover more in depth, if you guys think it should do the same for the smaller fights just let me know. Oh and a melee Cipher and Barbarian in the thick of it with Echtoplasmic Echo is amazing. One fight later on (no screenshot cause it was trash, assassins in the city) I managed to get the beam over 6 people in total, the way that melted away was amazing specially since Kiran is in the thick as well doing amazing work with Carnage and Firebrand. Final note, I will most likely overlevel a lot of content later since this is a completionistish run, I'll most likely upscale act 3 but I doubt I'll upscale WM1 or WM2 since I've gotten the same opinion as Alesia about WM1 and I don't really like it, I don't think it's hard I just think the though mechanics aren't fun. WM2 will be blind for me so I'm most likely not scaling it just to be honest because if this party dies there I'm not sure I have another run in me, but I'll see that when I get there.

I've been messing around with various builds, restarted sometimes losing a party to a mistake. I posted I would start a Roleplaying run to setup for PoE and I got to about the end of act 2 when I got really bored with the party. Not so much the combat or the main character but just running four good parties through the game got me kind of tired of it. I did some solo run attempts to take my mind off it but I came back to the fact that I really liked RPing the "evil" out of themselves melee party I had which came to a quick end due to some mushrooms in the catacombs. So I decided to start a new run with a better party that wasn't so good or evil but more interesting (at least to me) to RP. I held off on posting till we were well into act 2 to see how it would turn about a bit later didn't want to start then abandon the run. Also using three normal NPCs, let me know what you think of the idea. Our characters Mira never knew how different she was growing up, her father being a woodsman for the local lord meant she was always far away from the people in the city. Growing up hunting with her father it never occurred to her the connection she had with other people. She always felt close to her father, often knowing what he would say or do before the thought would even enter his mind, but she thought this was because they were never far apart. That was until she met Kiran, he was the son of one of father's old friends from home, a rowdy boy strong but intelligent. He wemt hunting with Mira and while they were stalking their prey she felt that same connection as with her father, even more she found that Kiran was very susceptible to her suggestions not going against her once. Deciding to further investigate the feelings she was having she did some further testing back home with Kiran's father and he too was easily manipulated by Mira. Over the next few years Mira went out hunting alone more and more, but little did her father know her prey wasn't found in the woods but rather in the nearby town. Mira there would charm and manipulate the minds of men and women alike to hone her powers and feed her ambition. These people would bring her money, secrets and pleasure, whatever Mira desired. When Kiran came to visit one winter he told her he found out what she was doing talking to people in town and he knew that she was a Cipher. Mira was worried what her father would think of this and considered using her powers on Kiran to prevent Kiran from telling him. Before she could however enter his mind Kiran said "I've been thinking about this for a while and I think together we can do things like no one can imagine, I will follow you wherever you lead me as long as you let my mind be my own.", Mira agreed and the pair left the woods behind. During the next few months roaming the nearby lands Mira and Kiran heard about a place called Dyrwood where it seemed opportunities were plentiful. An evening while discussing their plans to head over towards this area at a local ale house they suddenly noticed a moon godlike at a nearby table focused intently on their conversation. The moon godlike saw they noticed him and walked to the pair "Magran needs me in Dyrwood strangers, I hear you are heading that way?", Mira immediately tries to read the strangers intentions but the moon godlike's mind is so unlike anything she's ever see it's hard to make out anything. "You will need to be a lot stronger cipher to be able to manipulate a servant of Magran" the man says, "I am Garragh and if you'll have me I'd like to join you on your journey to Dyrwood.". Mira and Kiran don't completely trust the strangers but he seems useful on the road and it gives Mira a chance to practice her craft on this strange man. Like I said this party is already quite a bit into act II as you can see by the levels. I have screenshots of most fights and some extra's. I'll post some more as I have the time, unfortunately this is a busy week as it's the last week of work before the Christmas break.

Very interesting numbers Alesia_BH although I do feel that these numbers leave an important (maybe more important for me as a melee cipher) factor behind. And that is attack and recovery speed. After taking a 2h Firebrand Cipher to around level 8 or 9 I found that even though she did a TON of damage, I would often find myself needing to quickly crowd control something or respond to something and because the recovery time of my swing was so long it would take me too long to get that ability off. This time i'm playing a dual wield Cipher and I'm having a much easier time controlling the battle. Something to keep in mind with discussions of firearms vs bows for sure.

If I'm not mistaken in v3.05 they do change loot tables implementing some kind of 'shifts' to it. And truth be told, I'm quite happy with that. I have never used those tables and even avoided to study the information about them. In Baldur's Gate I always use a Item Randomiser mod and I love it. Having a metagame knowledge of where you can get a specific loot item seems to me if not totally cheesy but non-sporting and immersion breaking for sure. I prefer my characters to use what items they randomely get through the normal gameplay flow rather then plan their builds around some specific set of items and rush through the game just to get those items as quickly as possible. It might not be the same change since this is not just a shift in days, I see loot in places it shouldn't show up in even and between runs its different even for the same character. 100% agreed on this being a good thing though Serg although like Alesia_BH I found it hard to ignore the knowledge once I had it, I'm just happy that it's changed now so I have no idea anymore. I just thought it was worth mentioning although it did still work a week ago so that would mean that the steam version was updated in the past week orso. As far as runs go, I've been playing my run as prep for PoE II but I have to say I had a lot more fun roleplaying my out of themselves all melee party then my current one. Also while the melee cipher is performing very well (using Firebrand) I'm so far a little tired of the amount of micro required. I'm not sure if I'll be posting about this run or even finishing it at the moment, it might also be that I'm getting a little PoE tired after 4 full runs in a row and some partials and solo testing. I have an idea to use Mithlean's run for PoE 2 as a "good" run and maybe retrying another "evil" run but I'm still doubting between the party I would want to use for this. Or I might finish the Ciphers run anyway she is already quite a way into act II, I just haven't reported on it yet since I was unsure what I wanted to do.

Strange been trying some solo builds cause I got a little bored, it seems the random loot list is now really random getting different results on day 20 each time. Did they update the game again? Am I just missing something important?

I have to say I haven't tried it, I used stormcaller which was amazing and basically brought her damage fast past Aloth who was almost 25k damage above her (70k vs 45k) and just two hours after she caught up.

Yeah, I found I already knew the aoe of most of the spells pretty well. Especially if you build your casters with a lot of int which basically expands the Extra AoE that hits only enemies and not your party as I understand it. It's a little harder to for example set up a perfect kill zones with the aoe going up the the toes of your tanks. But honestly I mostly noticed the issue when I accidentally shift click a good weapon and it goes into my stash and I'm sighing like oh... yeah now I won't be able to use it until I rest with a big risk I forget even when I do cause it's a little later. And it kind of promotes risk avoidance, I noticed I rested a lot more when peoples health were low because if they run out of health they die, it's not really harder it just makes you more risk averse which is not something I particularly enjoy. You can argue that no reload runs do that too but I actually don't really play them like that, I play normally the no reload part is only there because otherwise I feel there is no use. It's easy to doze off while playing when you can just reload the save right before the fight anyway. Especially in a game like PoE which makes 4 autos aves every time you zone if I don't play no reload it becomes a snooze fest for me.

I'm not sure I've been looking at it as well but I have to say. Focus generation was ussually not a problem and deflection is easily solved by not getting hit or controlling what is trying to. And the 4 int would wreak havoc on your AoE and durations of your control to be honest. I'll carefully say I'm not a fan.

Dael'or - Catacombs The group went off into the catacombs in search of the secondary entrance to the temple of Woudica. They quickly ran into another group of those strange smelly mushroom creatures. They setup for the fight and everything went well, for some reason (Xzarth thinks his initimidating presence) most of the mushroom creatures stayed back relying on their troll friends to do the heavy lifting and those were excellent pray for Dael'or tricks. However suddenly one surged in on the left of the group and knocked down Sartda who quickly went down completely being surrounded by trolls and on her back. This created a hole in the line which suddenly the mushrooms rushed through surrounding the party and knocking down most if not all. Furthermore being completely immune to Dael'or's mind tricks both charm and paralyze they seemed unstoppable. One by one the team went down, first proszk his true cat form wearing off as he hit the ground. Then Zhara let off a quick burst of flame as she fizzled out. Finally Xzarth looked at the last two left with a mad gleam in his eye and said "It seems these smelly mushroom's will be bathing in our blood tonight!". And with these last words the rest of the group got trampled by... smelly.... mushrooms.... I learned quite a bit from this run short as it was. I learned I'm not gonna be doing Expert mode again but I am going to tweak my settings a bit for next run. I also quite liked some builds and wasn't impressed with others. Now this might mean nothing at this low level but I will for sure recycle some while changing up some others for a next run. I'll follow suit with Jaheira's witness and make this a roleplaying run to setup the world for PoE 2. And since I'm a real goody goody usually when playing RPGs the party will be a lot different from this one although it might contain some of the same builds. Coverage might be a bit more sparse though I'm not sure yet, I wanna focus on doing a completionist run and the thought of describing much more then the big fights seems disheartening.

I see you too are getting better use out of your chiper Alesia. is Alyssa still mostly ranged or does she get into melee as well?

Dael'or - Compass and Caed Nua Zhara wouldn't let up, this woman was all alone in the world now that her sister had perished at the ruins. Zhara always was alone and for some reasons feels pitty for this weakling. We have nothing better to do so we might as well see if we can shake down this midwife and see if a potion falls out. We head off to the Compass and find out this bloody woman wants us to kill some Xaurips, she wouldn't even take gold! The party is thinking about turning back but Zhara won't let up about the woman and Xzarth is now shouting something about bathing in Xaurip blood. "This woman better be able to reward us properly for this" Dael'or says as she turns away and walks off, knowing the rest will follow. On the trek to find the Xaurips the party spots a suspicious cave with 2 Xaurip guards. Could this be their lair, the woman mentioned north east but no cave. Going inside to investigate Xzarth spots some sporelings and immediately shouts out a challenge. The sporelings come running to the party quickly swarming them. Dael'or tries to charm one but unfortunately the simple brains of the sporelings makes them immune to complex thought and apparently charm. Luckily three of the sporelings start hitting Xzarth and Zhara while the other is quickly dispatched by Prozsk in true form. A lot of healing is required to keep Xzarth and Zhara standing but Sardta is more then up to the task and the party cleans up the mushrooms. No Xaurips in the cave though so the party heads back out, finally they found the Xaurip tents and this time Xzarth is smart enough to setup for an opening volley with bolts before shouting and jumping in as usual. He scoffs at the suggestion that he might have been afraid of the sheer number of Xaurips though, "It's a good thing, these small things don't have much blood if there were less we wouldn't have much for bathing!" he shouts while cleaving one Xaurip and bashing another's teeth in with his shield. "You are all lucky I'm keeping the priest and Skirmisher charmed, or you would be standing there paralyzed while they poke little holes in you." Deal'or bites as she brings another of the Xaurips into her control. Finally all the unfriendly Xaurips fall and the charmed ones have their throats unceremoniously sliced by Dael'or. The party heads back to that blasted woman and find out she actually has another task, she needs something from the sporelings. If they hadn't already killed them anyway Dael'or would have stabbed the woman there and then, however since they had they might as well finish this and see if the pregnant villager has anything resembling a reward. She did, it wasn't much but at this point the main reward is Zhara has finally shut up about it. It's time to see if this old Watcher can help Dael'or make more sense of this whole business, off to Caed Nua. Encountering some spirits in the courtyard the group has some trouble until they combine blind from Dael'or with the terrifying screams of Xzarth to cower the spirits (who knew spirits could be terrified). This way the group cleared the courtyard in relative ease and breached the keep. Inside they found a big group of spirits that were dispatched without much issue using the same tactic of blinding and terrifying the spirits while focusing them down as much as possible. With so many members of the party standing toe to toe with the spirits their damage was spread and easily healed up by Sardta. The spiders in the cellar provided more of an issue, they quickly swarmed Zhara and took her down. The rest of the group managed to form a line and break up the spiders though making the damage more manageable and they wen't down soon after. After which the team finally met the old watcher, it was finally time for some answers. Or was it, this guy was nothing more that a lunatic, mumbling about past lives and the horrible things he had done. The only useful information he spouted in his endless tirade was something about a group called the leaden key and the temple of Woudica. Just another place to investigate, this old watcher is going to pay for not being more useful. The watcher summoned some blights to his aid but it was no use, Xzarth and Zhara took care of the blights along with Proszk and Amatersu while Dael'or and Sardta bashed in a paralyzed Maerwald's skull. This gave the group access to their own keep which was a nice upside after all the disappointment that was the old watcher. Giving some orders to the sentient throne, who would even believe the group when they mentioned that, they moved towards defiance keep. There at the inn they ran into a group of adventurers who looked like they just came off a big score. Dael'or saw her chance by grouping up the team between the tables and quickly dispatching of the mage and priest of the group while the rest formed a wall between her, Sardta and their burly guys. Afterwards it was a simple matter of using some charm to turn the dwindling numbers against themselves and the group got their loot. This got Dael'or a nice shiny new dagger, perfect for stabbing people who didn't deserve charming. And the group decided to take some well deserved rest at the Goose and Fox.

Dael'or - Gilded Vale and surroundings Xzarth was sick and tired of this blasted porridge and Xzarth being unhappy was always infectious. Mostly just because the brute wouldn't shut up about this grave injustice to his stomach. The party had heard the old cook might be kept somewhere around Valewood so the party set out to look for him and maybe claim some bear pelts, they had heard from a villager that someone got murdered by some bears up in Valewood. Perhaps the fool had some valuables on him and even if he didn't, bear pelts always yielded a decent amount of coin. In all their haste however Zhara forgot to don her armor which she only noticed when the bear quickly punished her for this mistake. She was lucky Proszk was in the process of charming the bear as he hit her. "If this was one of my pack this smoldering fool would have been nothing more then a pile of ash." he exclaimed. In the end it appears the fool in the cave was betrayed by his friend, betrayed by his own weakness more like it thinking he could depend on his fellow man. Nevertheless Sardta atleast manages to find a stash with some minor trinkets in the cave and proposed to see what the knowledge of this villagers deed might be worth to him. After the man payed us and left with the dead man's women, e threatened some dwarf to leave the miller alone since he offered some gold pieces for the job. Then we finally got out of this town towards Magran's Fork to see if there was any loot to be found there. This time Zhara donned her armor, she wouldn't be dependent on any of these people especially not that deranged cat lover. They wandered around killing some wolves until they ran into a Forest Troll protecting a corpse. Dael'or quickly proved her worth by paralyzing the creature while the rest of the group beat into it. After meeting a strange man named Durrance (they allowed him to be their lackey by managing their possessions and following them around) the group happened upon two paladins and a mage. Without warning they opened fire instantly knocking Sardta out with a necrotic lance, Dael'or however charged the mage and quickly paralyzed her with a flick of her wrist while proceeding to fill her with holes with her trusty rapier and dagger. In the mean time the rest of the brutes were ravaging the paladins. At Black Meadow our friends ran into the thieves who stole the shipment from the Smith, now Dael'or couldn't care less about this smith but she knew that the reward for bringing his shipment back should be a fine one. The group was looking to set up for an opening volley with ranged weapons when suddenly they were scared up by a cry as Xzarth ran straight at the bandit's campfire screaming "Flee fools for Xzarth is here to end your worthless lives!". The rest of the group saw that the shout had intimidated the group of bandits so they saw their chance clear to charge in behind him, get some hits in and quickly reinforce Xzarth with some magical defences. After Dael'or managed to charm some of the bandits to help in the battle it was all over but the looting. Note: As I'm getting further in the story from Caed Nua on most likely I'll skip the more mundane fights but since these are the starting fights and often not that easy I thought I'd cover them also to get in the flow of the story telling. If you have feedback on this please let me know, I know the story doesn't always read well I see that later when reading back my post however I'm also trying to balance between having the story be great and actually also spending some time playing.

Good point Serg, it would just be TC I guess. Already missing my stash access and targeting circles I have to say. I don't think I'd do this again, I feel so far expert mode adds more tedium compared to difficulty maybe just tweaking the settings without expert mode is more fun. I do like a lot for example not having he dispositions and missing options up there, makes it a lot easier to role play your character without worrying if your disposition will be what you want. Some times even though I think of my MC as clever an aggresive option seems to fit better but me being a min-maxer at heart then has trouble picking that especially if playing a paladin or priest.

Dael'or - Cipher - Meeting the crew So I got Dael'or to The black hound and picked up what will be my party. It will be a rugged gang, out for themselves. Most of them are based on things I've wanted to try out and draw some inspiration on builds in this forum and other places like reddit. I've tried limiting the dump stats a little but perception is just too important in my mind so some are quite min maxed. I'm ok with this though seeing I'm imposing other difficulties on myself like making this a mostly melee run with no back line. Barbarian Tank based on lowering accuracy and having a high health pool was because I saw on the sky dragon how good accuracy reduction can be and with this being a TCS game I'd rather have high HP tanks then something like a chanter which has a low health pool. Monk Retaliation based tank again high HP for the TCS run and I love the idea of two build I saw on the forums, combined a little of both with some tweaks of my own. I was really doubting between a rogue or a druid, since I eventually settled on a spiritshifting focused druid I thought why not make my priest of Skaen and get some rogue action going like that. She will be using the club that can with the dreadfire pack which hobbles and weakens on hit which seems like a solid fit with Skaen. Dael' or - Melee Cipher (Dual Wield) No one has heard of her before and that's how she likes it. She moves in the shadows preferring to manipulate events but she's also not opposed to burying a dagger in someones back who needs to be dispatched. She's never been one to move around in a group but present circumstances feel threatening and she's not one to discount a broad back to hide behind or a wicked blessing to keep her save. Xzarth - Barbarian Tank (Sword and Board) Exactly the broad back Dael'or was looking for, Xzarth is a madman who leaps into battle on a whim always the centre of attention and loving every second of it. His body covered in more scars then any lesser man could have endured, Xzarth is always looking to add more "pride" to his body and more deaths to his tally. Zhara - Monk Tank (Dual Wield) Zhara appearance has always turned people's opinions against her from a young age in the monastery where she was raised the other children avoided her company and left her to her own devices. This meant early on in life Zhara learned to depend on her own and learned to take a hit or two. Zhara doesn't need anyone else, she's fine on her own but she is looking for a new challenge, a challenge she feels this group might be able to provide for her. Amaterasu - Barbarian Firebrand Amaterasu was always fascinated by fire, the way it consumed without prejudice, burned without judgement, took without care. As she watched her hut burn down she heard her parents scream as the fire took their spirits. She hadn't meant to burn them as well but the fire needed to be fed. Fire is always hungry... Sardta - Priestess of Skaen (Dual wield) Mad they called her, insane for giving up the priesthood and leaving the temple of Berath. But she had seen, Berath was nothing but a falsehood, he was nothing compared to the real power that Skaen could offer her. She always knew she was different from those pious fools, always wondering how their trinkets and food kept disappearing, never seeing the truth that was right in front of them. Those fools will learn and maybe these fools can help Sardta with that. Proszk - Druid (Spiritshift focussed) Proszk isn't a druid that due to his connection with nature can take on the spirit of a cat, Proszk knows he is a cat forced into this weak pale body. He remembers being at the head of the pack, hunting in the frozen wastelands with his brothers. He can taste the blood of his prey on the wind as he stalks them through the snowy forests. He is a cat just waiting to be set free, maybe a watcher can help him finally realize his true potential.

Also a great plan and a fun run. I was wondering about PoE II by the way i saw the discussion and I do agree having at least 2 or 3 parties that have something ready to go sounds like a good plan. Are the people who haven't run PoE II yet going to run it blind or will you do a run just to get a feel for things? I kind of liked that a little of Mithlean's run was blind (from Act 3 on) but I'm sure that means I will die before the run is over.

Aww, man I was looking forward to following Jez Watt's solo exploits. Those rogues are nasty not one miss and all upper 10s low 20s hits with sneak attack. I can't believe just one getting by can mess up the run like that. Too bad Jeiheira's witness.

Dael'or the Mellee Cipher I've decided to do something completely different from the previous run and since people said we should give melee cipher a go maybe that will be the main focus. But I'll do you one better, this will be a melee focused run. We might use an opening blast of Arquebus fire but other then that everyone is going melee. Our only casters will be buffing/de buffing/healing so a priest and a druid (with spirit shift for melee). Also this will be a Triple Crown run, so PotD Trial of Iron and Expert Mode, which also means Injuries on and if your Health reaches 0 you are toast. Because of this I will be doing it with mostly if not all custom characters and completely expect this to fail horribly and fast.