limaxophobiacq

When you choose a phrase on level up, it shows you numbers indicating that it's duration and damage is going to be affected by attributes, but then in the description when I right click the chant to see the description in my 'spellbook' it shows only the base numbers and in game it appears they are indeed not affected. So either the numbers showing up on leveling up are wrong (like for 15 int and might selecting The Dragon Thrashed, it says it does 46 burn and 46 slash over 15 seconds) or that's what it's actually supposed to be and it not being affected by attributes in play is a bug. So either way something is wrong. Here's what I mean: http://i.imgur.com/OxXiQdZ.jpg (seems like it'll be affected by attributes) http://i.imgur.com/ar1puF5.jpg (but isn't actually)

Bump because game has been out for longer now and maybe someone will know.

Aloth with higher Dex and less Per seems good. Int (16 isn't honeslty that bad) + Dex is better for wizard than Int + Might if you're going purely for status effects over damage, and he's still has +5 accuracy bonus from being a wood elf. As long as you have other characters who can put out DPS I think he'd be fine.

Your companions may or may not have been affected, depending on if you loaded a save from their origin map. I made a point to note down stats before the patch. Both Eder and Kana definitely changed for me. I'm not talking about the attribute bug, the patch notes say under Balance changes (not bugs) that they modified attributes for companions and Itumaak but for me companion and Itumaaks attributes in particular (which seems especially strange since the patch notes mention him in particular) are unchanged.

Companions stats seem unchanged and Itumaak is still straight 10s for me, does it only apply on new game?

Wait, I was just bad, seems it was mostly matter of spreading out more and get them to focus my tank, and not cheaping out on spells an nuking them hard, now I destroyed them with no one going down.

Picked up Sagani and since she was looking for someone standing on a cliff looking over water it seems the game is begging me to go right to Stormwall but the feral druids just destroy me with their lightning spells which keeps stunning me and stops me from doing anything. If this is supposed to be a higher level area or am I just bad? I've not lost a fight before this but druids have killed me three time in a row with their lightning spells. With Saganis dialogue it really seems like this is the way the game wants me to go.

nt

I had a bug were when I left the church ruins in Guilded Vale, with 3 weapons equipt on Kana, his fine Estoc (which was in his 2nd slot and not the bonus slot) would just dissapear every time, and only way I could get out and keep it was to only have 2 weapons in his weapon slots, which is how it's staying now since I dont want to worry about loosing any weapons every time I load an area. It was a quicksave and I've saved over it stupidly but it happened every time I reloaded and tried it again.

This is kind of bugging me honestly, sure it was much like this in many ways in IE games with some low level spells being incredible all through the end-game (mirror image, armor of faith, draw upon holy might, stoneskin which I guess qualifies as low level once you get to 9th level spells, or Swarm Curse in PST which was completely ridiculous) but generally higher level spells were a lot more impressive and I would have thought PoE would have made spells a bit more balanced? I mean, Fan of Flames (1st level) does more damage than fireball (3rd level), equal damage to Torrent of Flames (5th level) with the only downside that it takes longer to cast. Same for druid, compare Burst of Summer Flame and Sunbeam and explain to me how it is that the spell that has the same AoE and range, better damage, and also blinds people, is the lower level spell? Is it really just supposed to be casting times that improve with higher level spells and other than that 5th level spells are not supposed to be more impressive than 1st level ones?

Arbalest is pretty much just better than Aquebus currently. Both are in soldier weapon group though which pike is as well which is also a good rogue weapon.

Oh I didn't think shields affected spell accuracy. I guess enchanted small shields would do. I don't mean to use it to actually try to fight in melee with the wizard, just to be slightly less squishy while casting and for the reflex save bonus. Edit: And yeah all this is for high level when you can cast 1st/2nd level spells per-encounter and shields give bigger bonuses, probaby not worth it early levels at all. I think I heard they use the accuracy from your main weapon. On that note, would a +acc weapon be worth looking at for wizards? I just tried actually, but they dont seem to get more accurate from using a spear or rapier at least. Wood Elf bonus and the paladin accuracy aura OTOH do affect it.

Oh I didn't think shields affected spell accuracy. I guess enchanted small shields would do. I don't mean to use it to actually try to fight in melee with the wizard, just to be slightly less squishy while casting and for the reflex save bonus. Edit: And yeah all this is for high level when you can cast 1st/2nd level spells per-encounter and shields give bigger bonuses, probaby not worth it early levels at all.

IDK, it's like 30+ deflection and reflex with a good shield and I can still use implements early game and just not sink any talents into them.

Honestly as long as you have enough dps in your party to not need any from Aloth he's pretty good just running CC, 16 isn't really noticably bad, if your Main character is a DPS wizard you can split the work and he'll do his part just fine. I don't really get the complaints about running out of spells, even on hard and short on camping supplies you can still almost always just travel back home and rest, it only costs time.

Beside not being able to use implements (which isn't really a big deal on higher levels when low-level spells become per-encounter so implements are less usefull) is there any penalty to recovery or spell accuracy from using a shield or can I use hatchet + large shield + weapon and shield style on a wizard for a bit more survivability and still cast spells as well as if my hands were empty?

Not all do, 3rd level chant deals burn and slashing over time.

How is DR applied against damage over time? Is it ignored? Is the total damage to be dealt over the time of the effect reduced by the DR once and then spread over the time period; so f.ex. if you have an effect that would do 50 damage over 10 seconds and the targets have 10 DR you'd do (50-10)/10) = 4 damage/second? Does it absorb the DR amount of damage from the attack and then let throught the rest, so again for the 50 damage it would block the first 2 seconds worth of damage and then you'd take the remaining 40 from seconds 3-10? Some other way?

Yes, but Intellect increases the duration so at 17 intellect (+35%) they linger long enough that you can keep 2 phrases active at all times.

I just want to play a character that plays something like a Fighter/mage or fighter/cleric in the IE games, with decent survivability and damage plus some active abilities. I'd also like a balanced stat-line with every stat in the 10-16 range. From everything I've seen most builds seem to favour really extreme stats and a very specific focus on either tanking or doing damage (aoe or single target) and very extreme stats to be the most effective and I kind of hate that kind of play so I'd really like some way to play near-optimaly without having to do that. Ideally I'd want to play and never have to think in terms of 'tanks' 'dps' etc. ever again. Originally I was thinking Chanter but they seem to only be 'balanced' in that they kind of suck at everything.

Yeah, I originally wanted to make a Chanter, because they seem really cool conceptually, but for weapons if I try to go 2 handed I have no survivabilty, and if I go sword + shield I dont drop but do completely negligible damage against any oppenent that actually matters and in either case my chants are barely noticable (esp. compared to how awesome the flaming weapons chant was in beta) and invocations aren't ready untill battle is over. Wanted to try a ranged Chanter but that doesnt seem all that viable either. My second choice was paladin but I really dont want to just tank but that seems like all paladin are really good for now. I've stopped playing after 15 hours played because I can't find any kind of build thats appeals to me that's in any way effective. The way the game is based around having incredibly specialized tank/control/healbot/dps characters with extreme stats and balanced characters with all stats in the 10-15 range and a balance of damage, status effects, and surivability seem so sub-optimal doesn't appeal to me at all. I just want to play something well-rounded and effective like IE F/M, F/C, F/D, or F/M/T but it seems basically impossble. Cipher with some armor I guess is the closest to F/M but the lore (fantasy psions) and restrictions (no self effects etc.) turns me off them completely. Edit: I feel like even within something like 'surviving attacks' you have to min/max, if you try to go for a balance with decent deflection and decent endurance you get left behind by those who max one and dump the other. So if you're playing a class with low deflection you should forget about trying to get it up to a decent level completely, and if you are playing a class with good deflection you should stack more bonuses on it and min-max attributes (bumping resolve and perception and ignoring constitution) untill it's incredible, at least that is my impression of the system and from seeing what people who seem to know are doing.

The real problem is that the way the attributes were set up was meant to make all attributes equally usefull for all character but its failed completely to do so, this kind of situation should just not have been possible no matter how attribute points were allocated. I'm honestly really dissapointed in finding how incredibly restricted you are if you want to make character that's decently effective in this game.

Just rolled a paladin, it says paladins have a base deflection of 25 so with 15 perception (+5 deflection), 10 Resolve (+0 deflection), Faith and Conviction (+5 deflection) and no shield (+0 deflection) I should have 35 deflection but it says in character sheet I only have 30, my reflex/will/fort also seems unaffected compared to the starting fighter companions.

Bleak Walker/Goldpact Knight Paladin with Intense Flames + Remember Rakhan Field/Enduring Flames + Two-Handed Style can do pretty good damage damage with their Flames of Devotion. Only two hits per combat though.

I want to sing and shoot people, is this competetive and if so how should I allocate attributes? Chants seem nerfed a lot from when I last played beta with the fire damage phrase being moved from 1st to 3rd level. I was thinking Wood Elf Might 13, Con 11, Dex 13, Per 13, Int 18, Res 10 (i dont like to have too extreme high/low scores), and taking the reload-speeding phrase and on 2nd and the movement increasing phrase and focusing on kiting. Edit: Also does the same phrase from multiple chanters stack? Could I get a party of 6 chanters with movement-boost and faster reload to all move and reload super-fast?