Taudis

Party Looks good to me. I don't have anything new to say about Berzerker/Blood Mage or Blackjacket/Skald, they're both versatile and powerful multiclasses. Single class is a decent way to run Fury. I prefer Ghost Heart with a Cipher for the "drop a bear behind enemy lines" trick, but Sharpshooter is really just as good. Especially if you're planning on using Blunderbusses or Pistols since the upclose PEN should stack with Hammering Thoughts to really cut through AR. Nice thing about using hirelings is you can sort of dodge restartitis by just hiring more. Most builds don't need Watcher-only bonuses. I've played through this game too many times and a good piece of advice is to just hire a ton of level 19 adventurers in classes you wanna try out when you hit 20. A good third or so of the game is post-20, and your quest XP will level them all up to 20 really quick. Single Class Priest v. Tactician Priest I'm a big fan of single class Priest because their PL8/9 spells are quite good (the Symbols!) and getting things like Dire Blessings and Devotions of the Faithful earlier is very nice. +3 PL means they're more accurate than their multi-class variants. Priests also don't have any fast casts, so it takes 17 rounds for them to actually empty their arsenal. You won't necessarily have relevant spells at every spell level of course but between the slower casting and Empower-refill, Priests just don't really need to be Brilliant. So generically, I'd say Single Class > Tactician. In that party, though? The Seer and the Warlock are good sources of low-level mass-Flanked, and every class likes Brilliant in the earlier levels. Later on, the Warlock will probably appreciate the mid-to-high level trick of constant Salvation of Time and Barring Death's Door. Priest of Wael actually gets Free Action spells too, so they'll will burn through their slots quicker. A Tactician/Priest of Wael works in that party, I'd say.

Team 1 Tactician/Wizard - Bloodmage is really the only sub to consider. Do you mostly use Empower to refill? Go Bloodmage. Mostly to supercharge? No-sub. Evoker is pretty good but you definitely don't want to lose Chillfog. Blackjacket/Skald - Not much to say here, other than don't forget Sasha's Singing Scimitar. Very fun with Blackjacket. Amira's Wing, Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff, and Watershaper's Focus are all also nice when you get Eld Nary. Chanters have some pretty high break points for INT and sending PER through the roof is always useful on a Skald, so I'd make this the Watcher on this team just for the BB attribute boost. BTW, two weapon is way better for crits than one-handed. Priest/Druid - Priest is way better single class. Druid is also better singleclassed but pairs well with Barbarian or Helwalker Monk. Druid is a great nuker/controller, Priest is a great buffer/nuker. Subclass-wise, it depends on your role. Priest: Wael is the best generic Priest sub, Skaen has some much needed mobility, Woedica has the best control, Rymrgand is the best nuker. Druid: Fury if you don't care about being the healer, Lifegiver if you do. Ghost Heart/Cipher - Beguiler would complement your Tactician. Soulblade works with the plan to use the leash Powers like Ectoplasmic Echo, since they're pretty cheap and don't stop you from spamming Soul Annihilation. Ascendant is fairly hard to pull off in TB, since you need INT through the roof and you can't actually spam in TB. +3 PL is still very good and it's not hard to ascend. It's 19 INT for a 4 round Ascendance, and 30 INT for 5 rounds, BTW (you can also hit 5 rounds with a 22 INT character who wears Strand of Favor and eats Mari Crudia - that's 22 before the Mari Crudia and Strand of Favor INT bonuses). I'd personally go Beguiler, since its "drawback" is basically meaningless in a team - it will be way rarer that an enemy doesn't qualify for sneak attack. Beguiler is head-and-shoulders the best caster Cipher in TB. Berzerker/Bleakwalker - Not much to say here, it's a decent way to wield the Willbreaker. If you're targeting FORT, don't forget Spirit Frenzy adds Staggered on hits, so you can pretty reliably apply -45 FORT (and a decent WILL penalty from Terrified and the Willbreaker). Team 2 Tactician/Cipher - You're right that Wizard is probably better. Sharpshooter/Skald - 'Fraid that's a non-bo. Skald is melee only crits. If you stay Skald here, I'd make this the Watcher for the same reasons as above. Berserker/Bloodmage - Yup, it's fun. Highly recommend Human or Death Godlike because their racials work really well with hurting yourself and it's also useful to get a notification that it's maybe time for some heals. Blackjacket/Fury - I'm going to recommend Helwalker/Fury as a pretty much straight upgrade. Druids don't really need to be tanky in TB, they just need to resolve Relentless Storm to stop the entire battlefield from acting, and LD Voulge hits hard. You can attack with it and cast with it, there's no need to switch. Some Sort Of Priest - I know you're trying to do hirelings, but single class Vatnir is the best priest. Rymrgand bonus spells actually fill a hole in the Priest spell list (non-fire damage) and Vatnir has sensible attributes for the job. My runner up would Assassin/Skaen. Stealthed Pillars of Fire wreck stuff and rogue passives are helpful on a priest. Team 3 Priest/Beckoner - I personally find being forced to micro every summon in TB very tedious. Once again, I'll mention that a single class Priest is way better at Priest stuff. Troubs and Brisk Recitation are probably also way better at summons. I hate to recommend it (because it gets recommended all the time), but support/summons is definitely best filled by a Herald. Blackjacket/Fury - See above. +15 MIG and +10 INT from Helwalker > anything a Fighter offers a Druid. Everyone Else - Already said my piece. There is some very minor conflict with the Bleakzeerker if you take my suggestion to use a Herald. Bleak Walker is the "worst" Paladin order for a Herald, and the only Paladin order with compatible disposition is Steel Garrote, which is probably the second "worst". Both still make great Heralds, it's just that Kind Wayfarers and Goldpact Knights are the best Herald orders. I'd go with Ghost Heart as the Watcher on this team. No one needs the extra attributes and Ranger Watchers get some good extra dialogue. My Suggested Team Tactician/Bloodmage - Despite seeming redundant, they go surprisingly well together. Getting 2 spells back a turn means you can buff up and still spam. Single Class Vatnir - Could also be a hireling if you get the "unlock all subclasses" mod. Priest of Rymrgand nukes like mad, buffs like mad. It has the same disliked dispositions as Bleakwalker, too, so if you remember to be Honest and Rational in addition to Aggressive and Cruel, you'll have a decent Holy Radiance. Blackjacket/Skald - What you were theorycrafting with this one is pretty much on the money. Here's my big discovery from playing something similar: 21 INT+Tactical Barrage makes The Thunder Rolled into a 2 round stun (at level 19+). Same as above, I'd make this the Watcher. Bleakzerker - You brought this up twice, you clearly want to play it. It's a good build, so you should play it. Helwalker/Beguiler - Complements the Tac/Blood and absolutely wrecks with dual Hand Mortars. Disintegrate is a very nice ability to have in your pocket with some of the health bloat enemies in this game. The typical Helwalker/Ascendant is doable, too, but I really feel like Beguiler is the stronger sub for team play. You could still do the Ghost Heart Cipher here too. Cipher is really the key part of the build - they're just useful to have on a team. If the reason you're interested in Cipher is to do leash tricks with the Ghost pet, then Ghost Heart is definitely the way to go. Some general stuff: Priest/Paladin dispositions are always based off the Watcher. Your hirelings will use your Watcher's disposition, so you don't need the Watcher to be the party's Paladin/Priest. Single class Wizard, Priest, Druid, Cipher, Monk, Ranger, and Barb are all easily as good as most of their multiclass variants. I didn't overly suggest it because you seem interested in multis (except with Priests) but if the reason you're interested in any of those builds is because of one of the listed classes, you really ought to try the single class. Druids are super powerful but boring as all get out in TB, and it's entirely due to Relentless Storm. You listed a Druid in every team, so I assume you want to play one but I really gotta warn you that they trivialize every single combat where the enemies don't have MIG resistance/immunity. They also act as a sort of gravity well in a team, where they heavily push everyone towards DPR so that you can end an encounter before Relentless Storm wears off. I beat the game with one, I personally like absolutely crushing foes but after a while it got pretty boring since every fight was the same and way too easy. Blackjacket quick switch is fun and all but the Dagger/Shield thing loses value in the parties you want to play, since they'll be able to control the enemies well enough that you don't need to tank up super hard. I'd put heavier priority on getting stat sticks for your Blackjacket is what I'm saying here. For example, if you do use Blackjacket/Fury, I'd go with something like Watershaper's Focus, Spine of the Thicket Green, and LD Voulge. Weapons with powerful activated abilities are also worth looking at - I used the Kitchen Stove's Thunderous Report fairly frequently on my last Blackjacket. You should probably prepare to have Serafen on your team for a while, since doing his quest and reaching disposition 2 with him gets you two very useful items - Fire In The Hole (dual Mortars forever!) and Fair Favor (all those Skalds you brought up want this). He slots into the Bleakzerker spot as a single class Barb for the little while you'll have to lug him around.

It's plenty good - I play Tekehu as that fairly often and his Druid sub is not as good as Fury for damage. You might have a hard time actually finding the time to cast those Chanter Invocations, though. I definitely think Helwalker multi or single class Druid are mechanically stronger options but a Theurge is plenty capable of finishing the game on PotD. Keep in mind LD Voulge is Storm PL, not electric. This is good for some things (Druids have some non electric storm spells, and varied damage is nice) but iirc the Chanter stuff doesn't get that tag. As for healing, you'll want to max Might anyways, so your Chanter healing'll be actually pretty good. I'd consider another healer in the party but Fury Druids tend to make fights pretty short, so you probably won't need to worry about it.

Yeah, that 'eliminates' situations when you could get a longer self-damage DoT due to low resolve; or viceversa reduce the self-dot duration to minimum, and even enable a second Immolation before the first one expired. But also wanted to know if you feel that 12 base duration is enough for 4 zeal cost. I'm not really sure you can mess around too much with the base duration, considering it is a self-damage ability. You could maybe do 15 sec, as a nod to TB (way easier to hit 3 round duration that way). I'm more inclined to be conservative and not change it but I don't think that +3 sec is unreasonable. Makes sense.How about the upgrades? Enfeebled and that corrode DoT are both quite potent. But at the same time, both come with caveats: - you can't have enfeebled right now - the corrode DoT builds over time. And although it's most needed vs high-hp targets, such enemies usually have higher resolve. The Enfeebled is awkward as all get out and pretty much requires team play and/or a lot of time to make potent use of it. I also think that if it was broken, it would have been broken at 3 guile. It's not like you need to spam the ability. Does Toxic Strike stack with itself? That'd be my main concern at a cheaper cost, if its spamming potency goes through the roof. Otherwise, I think it's fine. You still do the same thing; you open with it, then use your spam abilities. You just have an extra point of Guile to work with. If it's actually a concern, you can just make the upgrades cost 3 again. I don't think 15 sec delay/build around Enfeebled is worth 3 Guile and I only think Toxic Strike needs the 3 guile barrier if you can stack multiple instances. I feel that Pierce the Bell is the weakest upgrade among those three, because the +20% damage bonus is kinda small for a rogue with sneak attack, deathblows, quality weapon and +25% innate ability bonus. Lowering enemy physical armor by 1, such that party could benefit from it, looks to be more useful. As for Stoic Steel - am neutral for now. But have seen Ensign's suggestion and wanting to gather more opinions on this. Pierce The Bell: It's not as much of an upgrade as the other options but the base ability is quite potent - keep in mind that +3 PEN can worth something like +300% damage. I think the 25% innate ability bonus is a point for it and not against it, too - +45% damage is good enough for 2 Guile. FWIW, -1 AR would not make the ability significantly more appealing because there's several AoEs that give better AR penalties, meaning a single target -1 AR would have a hard time finding a niche. Stoic Steel: I can see why someone would want to change Stoic Steel but IMO any issues with it are inherent to the AR/PEN system and how it intersects with PotD scaling. They're not actually issues with Stoic Steel. There should be avenues to make an AR tank, just like there should be avenues to make DEF or FORT/REF/WILL tanks because some players like to make nigh-invulnerable Watchers. Stoic Steel is actually in a pretty good spot on that front because of it breaking on movement and pushing you towards heavier armors. Trading mobility and speed for armor is both thematic and a meaningful drawback.

Withering Strike should be 2 Guile, plain and simple. It follows the same formula as Blinding Strike (Acc/damage increase plus Affliction, upgrade into either DoT or extra debuff) but applies a lower tier affliction. PER afflictions automatically provide Deathblows, so there's no reason to weight a CON affliction as higher. Lay On Hands upgrades giving a healing bonus is a good idea but I think just adding to their base healing is a better idea. I like the synergy with stuff like Exalted Endurance but the upgrades already increase the complexity of the ability, and sometimes it's better to keep things simpler. Your current suggestions on Sacred Immolation look good for balancing. Stoic Steel and Pierce the Bell seem fine to me. The most I would change would maybe be to push Stoic Steel to PL8, if you felt there wasn't enough reason to Single Class Pally.

The range increase helps, though. I know Animancy Cat (available for purchase in Sacred Stair) boosts summons but there really isn't much specifically for elements spells.

Fury Druids gain +1 PEN and a boost to range on Elements spells.

I think based on talking with NPCs and Galawain himself, you're supposed to view this as siding with Galawain versus siding with the RDC. There obviously should be serious consequences to pissing off either side. Gameplay wise, you're right. The RDC is a way bigger concern than a god and that totally destroys the narrative of the quest.

Whoops, yeah, that's what I get for typing this stuff from memory rather than just going into the game and testing. Ignore the stuff about FoD and Mith Fyr then. RE: Dragon Thrashed and Ring of FF. Long Night's Drink should also get +10 from that BoW affliction acc helm, too, right? I feel like that sort of acc boost is already accounted for in game.

Yup! It's actually a bit borked with enemies that do AoE damage as their auto-attack (notably the mini-Beasts of Winter in Rymrgand's realm), since you can accidentally walk into the rest of the AoE and still get damaged by the disengagement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you just set them up to use the same AL bonus accuracy system as Invocations/Spells? The system should be balanced around that accuracy scale. Offensive Chants napkin math: Single Classed Soft Winds: +9 PL=+9 total accuracy Thick Grew Their Tongues: +2 AL, +8 PL=+10 total accuracy Long Night's Drink: +6 AL, +6 PL=+12 total accuracy Dragon Thrashed: +8 AL, +5 PL=+13 total accuracy Multi Classed Soft Winds: +6 PL=+6 total accuracy Thick Grew Their Tongues: +2 AL, +5 PL=+7 total accuracy Long Night's Drink: +6 AL, +3 PL=+9 total accuracy Dragon Thrashed: +8 AL, +2 PL=+10 total accuracy Hm, not quite. Looks like giving offensive chants a flat +10 accuracy bonus across the board would be enough balancing to keep accuracy roughly consistent with the current character level accuracy system for a level 20 character. They'd all see a pretty big benefit at the level when they initially become available, though - specifically the +10 bonus would make each Chant more accurate than the current system does until levels ~15+ (obviously varies per chant). The higher AL chants could also end up more accurate overall once you start factoring in PL boosts. More conservatively, you could give them all a +5 accuracy bonus across the board. This is a nerf at level 20 but still means each Chant is more accurate at the level you receive it. You could also mix it up and give the lower AL chants a +5 Acc boost and the higher AL chants a +10 Acc boost. Soft Winds and Thick Tongues get nerfed but I'd consider it an upgrade to Long Night and Dragon Thrashed, so maybe a net even for the class. This is all without considering duration scaling, which makes the offensive chants stronger per hit. I'd be more inclined towards giving each offensive Chant the conservative +5 bonus if duration scaling was implemented. A nerf to accuracy but each hit has more value. 5% healing/damage every odd level is pretty much the single class PL progression up until level 15. Factoring in Prestige you only end up 5% behind the current values (but benefit from PL boosts), so I don't actually think that scaling needs to be changed beyond increasing the base value of the higher AL abilities to fit into their slot on the PL scale. Which would look something roughly like: Ancient Memories: 1hp/sec base->1.15hp/sec base Mith Fyr: 15% base -> 18% base (does this scale, actually? I'm honestly just guessing based off FoD being a fire lash that scales) Dragon Thrashed: 4 base damage -> 5 base damage I don't personally have a problem with Multiclass losing out on damage scaling, especially if you increase base damage/healing. Once again, I'll mention that implementing duration scaling would likely help adjust for any loss in potency. EDIT: Missed MaxQuest's post before posting this. RE: Dragon Thrashed scaling PEN. I'm not sure, actually. I just saw posts on the forum about how it doesn't get scaling PEN. Gonna have test that. RE: Fight Another Day. Yeah, that's sort of how it works. More detailed would be: -Auto-miss -Check for effects to trigger on miss -Show Imm. notifications Didn't actually realize why those Immune notifications were popping up, actually, until seeing that game data. I could probably grab a few screenshots if folks're interested, though I won't have time to actually do that until later.

What exactly do you mean (or want to achieve) by "adding PL scaling" to chants? Don't speak for Kaylon but since I've also advocated for it, the goal for me here would be to: a) Normalize scaling. Having some class abilities scale off character level while others scale off PL is unnecessarily confusing. b) Reinforce the single class/multiclass dynamic. Having a mutli Chanter's phrases be just as potent as a single classed Chanter's phrases takes away from the SC Chanter. c) Fix The Dragon Thrashed. PL scaling grants PEN, making this no longer a trap option. Fairly minor but considering it was an iconic phrase in PoE1, it would be nice if it wasn't totally useless. d) Increase viability of options. PL scaling means extra duration and being able to get more uptime makes it more viable to have 2-3 phrase Chants in your songbook. A lot of phrases are basically stuck in the zone of "Is this better than 100% uptime on Mith Fyr or Ancient Memories?" and for most builds the answer is no. RE: Riposte, Blade Turning, and Disengagement I played a Skald/Trickster in TB who wore Gipon Prudensco, which makes disengagement attacks auto-miss. The benefit-to-cost on actually micro-ing your way through grabbing engagement and repeatedly disengaging isn't worth it. The proc chance isn't currently high enough to spend your time doing it, and that's coming from the perspective of someone who could benefit from the attacks (via crits to build phrases). Maybe you could put a huge stride penalty on Blade Turning? It would limit the amount it could be abused in TB but still allow you to escape engagement. That mightt have some issues in RTwP, though, if the enemies you're trying to escape easily just catch you. Is the system capable of making it break after a certain distance moved? Because that would also limit abuse while allowing the current defensive options.

----------------------------------------- Blackhearted Bellower ----------------------------------------- War Caller: Chanter [bellower] & Fighter [blackjacket] This is a Turn Based build. The premise of this build is to use the free action weapon switching offered by Blackjacket to rapidly change between passive bonus weapons that boost your invocations or defenses, then flip over to Blightheart to help build phrases when you're not casting. Key: ® = Recommended. Not strictly needed but a fairly strong choice. (!) = Important. You'll need this to actually achieve what the build sets out to do. Abilities Attributes, Race, and Skills Equipment FAQ

Further lowering the sneak attack or dropping it won't solve this, the issue is really that the other subclasses are better than no-sub in the niche it has over Trickster - damage. I think Trickster is in a pretty good place right now, and it's fine if no-sub is the loser in that set of subclasses considering we have three big winners (Trickster, Streetfight, and Assssin) and a sub with a strong niche (Debonaire paired with Whispers of Treason). It's important to note too that 4 companions/sidekicks have vanilla Rogue as a subclass, so it probably gets played way more than any of the other subs. Another point: No-sub is a reasonable beginner option, since the other subs are definitely harder to play. The game after all isn't geared 100% towards veterans. Split it with base Chanter. Give base Chanter the best linger and leave Troubadour with Brisk Recitation. Bonus: Remove the Chant radius nerf from Bellower and the +1 Summon cost from Beckoner since they now have a "new" penalty applied; the removal of the longer linger. Maybe boost Skald with a fairly small hit-to-crit chance, like 5%, so it's not left out? It's the only sub that I feel like is anywhere close to as good as Troub right now but it'd feel weird to buff the others and not Skald. Anyways, the point of the combined buff/nerf is that the reason Troub is so desirable is also partly because the other subs have really big penalties. If that's too much for "polishing", just remove the linger from Troubadour and make Brisk Recitation "always on". Brisk Recitation is plenty powerful (and frankly more interesting than the bonus linger letting you be better at being passive) and not having Troubs also be able to maintain 2 Chants at 100% uptime would be enough of a nerf to bring them in line with the rest of the Chanters. Withering Strike could easily just cost 2 Guile instead of 3. Or keep it at 3, remove Perishing Strike and upgrade Weakened to Enfeebled. It's frankly a bit insulting that you can apply a tier 3 affliction for 2 guile at PL2 but a tier 2 affliction costs 3 at PL4. Ring the Bell could stick an accuracy bonus bonus on one-handed weapons, I suppose. I'd personally like to see Strike the Bell moved up from the cramped PL3 to PL4 and given a small boost for being higher level (an acc bonus? more damage?), since I find its upgrades mostly suffer from the fact that the base ability has so much competition at its PL. Do what thelee keeps saying; make Chants get proper PL scaling. You'd probably have to lower the base damage of Dragon Thrashed and Soft Winds to keep them from being totally OP but really Chants should work like everything else in the game. Bonus suggestion: Give Chanters the elemental PEN abilities, and keyword Dragon Thrashed to Fire. Note that this could also be a solution to the "Troubadour is too good" issue, since presumably PL would apply to Chant durations and slowly allow the other subs 100% uptime on 2 chants at once. Even if Troub hits 3 chants at 100% uptime, it's only 50% better than other subs at maintaining multiple Chants rather than 100% better. High level Fighter definitely isn't underwhelming. I think the real solution here is to have the ingame tooltips be more transparent about how PL-scaling affects martials - it's actually quite helpful and completely non-obvious.

I've always played Blood Mage as a spell spammer that tries to keep up the PL boost and cast the same spells over and over. As for weapons, the Wizard side wants defensive ones/stat sticks/utility and the Assassin side probably wants high base damage ones to go with Backstab. I'd consider Quarterstaff as a first pick for the big defensive bonus and decent base damage (plus you'll probably use Chromoprismatic later) or Morningstar for the modal to help land your #1 early game spell: Chill Fog. Battle Axe and Medium Shield is also not a bad call. Medium Shield has a decent modal and is good past the early game because one of the better passive healing item is Lethandra's Devotion. Battle Axe modal should in theory do more damage from an Assassin-boosted strike and that weapon category also has a somewhat desirable stat stick in Magran's Favor (I prefer Chromoprismatic on the elementally diverse Wizard but you do have some good fire spells). Dagger and Hatchet also age reasonably well as defensive weapons, and can pair with Wizard buffs for more Riposte procs if you build that way. Marux Amanth has a very desirable boss killer effect and is super easy to upgrade on a Spellblade if you go Dagger route.

Underpen is a very severe penalty but I think of it in comparison to a normal ranger - you're still getting a huge accuracy buff and some small AoE damage over what a non-Arcane Ranger has in exchange for a fairly low impact penalty. I really can't wait for it to get fixed, though. I'm having a ton of fun with the broken version, I can only imagine how great it'll be when it works properly. I didn't know that about Web. I've been running a hireling Arcane Archer through SSS and mostly use it as an opening volley to delay the enemy while I set up buffs or wait for AoE spells to go off, so I haven't been concerned with pulses. I sometimes get Fireball to PEN on PotD upscaled but that is 100% because I only use it against fire-weak opponents - Imbue: Death is my default. I brought up Imbue Death since I recommended single class. I do think single class is better than multi with AA, with maybe the exception of Paladin since Sacred Flames bypasses the penalty and they get extra Fire PEN.

You still do a fair amount of extra damage - Death Ring has huge base damage - so while underpen is annoying, it's really not the end of the world. Imbue Web is a nice CC ability, too, that isn't as reliant on scaling. The main appeal is the Acc combined with a heavy hitting weapon like Spearcaster - you crit all the time and do a ton of damage. I also just realized that I misread OP and they said Arquebus and not Arbalest. So here's a different rec: Blackjacket/Bellower with Blightheart. Fighter side provides defenses, passive damage buffs, and lets you free action switch between Sasha's for the opening Empower and Blightheart for actual attacks. Chanter side gives you a lash with Mith Fyr to hit even harder and gives you AoE damage options.

Single Class Arcane Archer with Spearcaster. Single class for early access to stuff and extra Bond.

WRT to enchanting, you should be able to buy everything but Adra Ban. The Treasure Trove in Dunnage stocks Emeralds if you're high enough level, Reagent is sold by both ingredient stores in Periki's Overlook as well as the animancers in Sacred Stair. Both the Treasure Trove and the jeweler in Serpent's Crown should have all the other gems. If you don't have enough Adra Ban, you're SOL, no one sells it. There should have been a ton in FS, though. WRT to the ring, Shrimp & Co are over by the cobbler in Queen's Berth listening to the musical brother if you did it peacefully. Shrimp has the ring and you can pickpocket it if you don't wanna kill them. Not sure what happens to them if Maia dealt with the situation. If you killed them and sold the ring, you just gotta remember what shop you sold it to - unique items don't disappear from inventory.

Suggested Polishes Review (Spoilered for length): RE: The whole Priest/Druid thing: I don't think they need to step on the toes of the Wizard and have a huge amount of spells accessible. Wizards being able to use books to expand their knowledge is thematic and fills a niche. The vancian casters all start to feel same-y (with each other not necessarily within their individual class) at the highest levels, and I think wider spell access for Druid and Priest would only expound on this problem. I also feel like their spell access being off actually specifically a Priest issue. Druid subclasses actually have good auto-picks at every level and Druid spells in general (with one or two exceptions) aren't situational. Most of the CC has decent damage riders, and each spell is very good at what it's supposed to do. While I don't think one Fury is going to look very different from another Fury, it will look fairly different from a Lifegiver or an Ancient. An individual Druid will cast the same spells over and over of course but they don't step on the toes of other subs, which I think is a fairly successful design - you really shouldn't be able to use a trinket to rapidly change from being a Lifegiver into an Ancient. The only area Druids could use some buffing in is Shifting. I think the Priest could use less situational spells and more passives. I'd love to see improvements available to Holy Radiance and possibly to have each subclass gain either a modified Holy Radiance or a similar 1/encounter thematic Power of the Deity ability. Some spell level rebalancing might be helpful too, I suppose. Priests definitely have certain levels that are underwhelming. IMO each level should have two strong damage options and two strong healing/buffing options. They could maybe also use some more Shock/Acid spells to justify having Spirit of Decay and Heart of the Storm.

They should be good enough on PEN with Hammering Thoughts, 11 at legendary and best of two types. Ring of the Marksman helps with PEN too if you got it. You'll definitely get a lot of underpen notifications from them no matter what but if you're aiming at groups, you should be able to PEN something. Definitely respec for Draining Whip. That's your biggest issue. It's wildly better than Biting Whip.

You made sure to pick Draining Whip and not Biting Whip, right? AoE weapons are usually best for quick focus, and Serafen's Hand Mortars are the best AoE weapons. Other strong options are the Watershaper's Focus w/modal and Frostseeker. It's only 1/encounter but the Kitchen Stove Thunderous Report can do a couple hundred damage that fills your focus. Non-AoE, Essence Intterupter is my favorite, followed by dual wielding Swords or Warhammers. Dual-Damage types are pretty useful. I've got Ydwin dual wielding Modwyr and Griffin's Blade and she fills focus pretty fast.

I think a TB stickied thread would be nice but I'm sure folks are waiting for it to come out of beta since the information is otherwise going to be frequently made inaccurate. Plus it takes time for people to actually realize the implications of what's good and bad. I still see people trying to claim Dexterity is bad in TB. Besides the fact that it adds stride (fairly important in a lot of fights), anyone familiar with D&D minmaxing can tell you good Initiative and going first in the turn order is one of the best ways to win combat.

Starting Stats: Max PER, max INT, then everything else to your liking. I dumped CON and pumped RES. You should probably boost DEX in RTwP and you can't dump it in TB because you'll eventually be a caster and at the start you're still a controller and want to act before the enemies. Weapons: 1st set is Sasha's Singing Scimitar and a stat stick. I've been rocking Marux Amanth for extra defense while casting and the boss killer ability but I'll switch to Weyc's Wand once I get it. This set isn't very necessary until you get Lovers Cried Out because that's the 1st invocation actually worth empowering. 2nd set is Kapana Taga and Rannig's Wrath. It's all about bonus accuracy and flanking immunity. Club modal helps land your invocations in theory - in practicality the only enemies you need help hitting tend to be immune to your invocations. Still nice for your party members. Chanter Side: Thunder Rolled, Shield Cracks, Killers Froze Stiff, Lover Cried Out, and Eld Nary for Invocations. Soft Winds, Long Night's Drink, Thick Grew Their Tongues, and Many Lives for Chants. I also have one non-offensive to increase max/starting phrases - it's literally just whichever one costs the most and I rebuild as new ones become available. I do occasionally use Ancient Instruments of Death once I grab it. My prepared Chants are Long Night's Drink/Soft Winds for trash mobs, Thick Grew Their Tongues/Long Night's Drink for some boss fights, Thick Grew Their Tongues/Many Lives for other boss fights, and Long Night's Drink/Many Lives for interrupt immune bosses. Rogue Side: Persistent Distraction, Dirty Fighting, and Confounding Blind are the only important abilities to pick. I use Ryngrim's, Mirrored Image, and Llengrath's a lot. Very big shoutout to Ryngrim's plus engagement - this passively refills your phrases via disengagement crits very well. I personally built it as a Riposte build but that doesn't trigger pretty much at all until you can stack Cloak and Bracers of Greater Deflection with the improved graze range. So, no Riposte until you're partway through SSS. Except for... Disengagement! If you get Gipon Prudensco, that armor provides a very interesting immunity to disengagement - it makes disengagement attacks auto-miss you. This is extremely powerful in TB where you can run around after casting and use Riposte crits to refill your phrase count. In actual play, the character is far more of a Chanter/Illusionist than a Rogue and spends 90% of the time casting. Your role is primarily debuffing, and then damage dealing in the late game with Eld Nary. My build is very similar to Ascaloth's Cunning Duelist: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101088-class-build-the-cunning-duelist/ I dual wield instead of going all in on One Handed and prefer Kapana Taga to Squid's Grasp but most of the principles of the build are the same.

I remember beating it by having Konstanten and Pallegina target the Porokoa with Killers Froze Stiff any time it was going to use a special attack (after one of them applied The Shield Cracks). Swash Eder's job was to keep Confounding Blind and Club modal stuck on it. Vatnir did his usual boss fight routine of Devotions for the Faithful, Dire Blessings, Salvation of Time x2, then heal/nuke as needed. My Mindstalker Watcher dealt with the young crocs (Konstanten and Pallegina helped when they could). It was a bit of a slog but I never felt like I was in danger because the Porokoa spent half its time paralyzed, and the rest in Blinded/Interrupted recovery time. I did have to micro more than usual to make sure everything was timing right but it wasn't complicated once I was in the flow of it.

Pretty much anything but Soulblade would be fine for a ranged Cipher. I also wouldn't recommend Ascendant for someone just coming out of PoE1, since the flow of it can be kind of weird to pick up especially on top of all the other changes. So, Beguiler if they like control powers and No-Sub if they prefer damage. If they were playing the Blunderbuss Cipher in PoE1, my biggest recommendation would be to grab the dual Hand Mortars more than concern yourself with a subclass. That's gonna be the closest thing to the PoE1 Gun Cipher.