Jojobobo

You can dump Con because it barely features in conversation. You can get Caed Nua pretty early (level 3 is what I normally beat it at on solo) and you can get enough money to easily build 2 or 3 of the important rest bonus buildings, just fast travel around until they're made. In terms of items, Fulvano's Gloves in Act I give +2 Dex and the Hermit's hat for +2 Int, these could be paired early Act II with Lilith's Shawl for +3 Per and you can grab a custom armor enchant for +2 Res. You can also alternate your gloves to Bracers of All-Consuming Rage for +2 Mig (again early Act II), and you can swap Lillith's Shawl for Finreah's Grace (+3 Dex, again early Act II) when you need a Mig/Dex combo. Throw in food or drugs on top of the rest bonuses, as well as prostitute bonuses, and I shouldn't think it would be too hard to maintain 20s in each stat most of the time. Obviously as the game progresses, better stat boosters become available in terms of equipment, but what I've listed here is a decent starting point. You can probably progress from Act I to II in about an hour and a half, pick up most of these items then return to the Act I quests. Honestly though, it does detract a little from roleplaying to have all dialogue options available all the time - missing out on some dialogue lines is part of the game, and reinforces who your character is and what they're capable of achieving in terms of social interaction. Each to their own, I guess.

Thanks for the clarification, I'll make sure to take Killers Froze Stiff in that case over the Lover Cried for the paralysis-locking, I'll also pick up Ancient Instruments over Urdel and Gurdel too.

Thanks for the tips Dr <3, quite a lot of it I'd sussed out already but it's good for the confirmation. In terms of taking a level 5 invocation, I'm guessing if you don't take it your song starts and stops at fewer phrases with there being a delay between chants? If that's the case, is this delay period affected by dexterity at all so I know whether to dump it or not? I would rather take Urdel and Gurdel over the animated weapons as my build is such that I only have a slot for one late game summon (I'm not getting into any specifics about what I'm doing at this point as the build should be fairly unheard of for a Chanter and I want to make a class build out of it if it's a success - from initial testing my ideas seem to work), does it really suck in terms of Dragon Thrashed stacking to only 5 phrases in a chant? Also, is the +deflection chant ever really worth taking or not? I was going to take Aefyllath as with a weapon burning lash you can get some decent damage out of it, particularly on an alpha strike - but if +deflection really has a lot to offer I may not.

Just started with a Chanter, and holy crap is the Phantom powerful early game. Taking Veteran's Recovery level 2 (Ancient Memory still being bugged I didn't want to take it, plus from what I see Veteran's Recovery heals the same as Ancient Memory in the first place for an equal duration) all I have to do is literally stand there and let the ghost do absolutely all the work. By the time the first Phantom's duration expires, I then have enough phrases to get another and so the process repeats. Beyond that, overlapping Soft Winds of Death phrases let you rapidly drain opponents' health (the wolves in Valewood got destroyed) again by just standing there. It's by far the easiest opening I've had PotD solo. On the flip side, I really wouldn't recommend the skeletons - they do no damage even when they do successfully flank and they go down extremely easily. By Act II, weaker multiple minion figurines (Wood Beetle, Wurm) can be used to soak aggro anyway - and then you can get your Phantom on the case again once they expire.

In terms of optimum invocations for a Chanter solo, what do people think they are? I was thinking: Level - invocation 1 - But Reny Daret's Ghost, He Would Not Rest 2 - White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead 4 - Not Felled By Axe, Nor Broken By Storm or whatever 6 - The Lover Cried out to the Beloved, "I am Yours!" 8 - Shatter their Shackles, Cast off their Chains! 10/12/14 - Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept/The Bride Caught their Ruse and Set to Make Them Pay/The Brideman Slew Thirty 'Fore They Crossed Half the Floor 16 - Called to His Bidding, the Ancient Instruments of Death The things I'm not ever so sure about are whether Urdel and Gurdel are better than Instruments of Death, or whether a summon should be forgone entirely for Killers Froze Stiff. Reny Daret's Ghost and White Worms should be useful early game, giving you a free summon and Worms as a finisher once you've made headway into a mob and got a good group of bodies. Charming mobs is always of massive utility, so The Lover Cried at 6 seems to be the best bet here. Shatter their Shackles should coincide more or less with Vithrack fighting on the Endless Paths level 9. Seven Nights/Bride/Brideman seem pretty optimum for a meaty attack and for the attribute (and so defense buffs). Winds o' Eld Nary could be squeezed in, by they seem more or less on par with Seven Nights by with more phrases needed.

I suppose that makes Paladins slightly better defensively with the food bonuses as they have equivalent defences (Deep Faith Faith and Conviction giving +10 to 20 base deflection, +20 each to the rest, +5 to each stat for the Chanter giving +5 to 25 base deflection and again +20 each to the rest) otherwise.

So I thought of another thing, give a transparent full run down of class/ability/talent mechanics from the menu screen on the game. Because the class mechanics have been pretty mercurial through the entire process and I took a departure while you released the full expansion, I'm on the back-foot to realise all the changes you made. This would be appreciated by RPG fans so they don't have to consult a frankly poorly updated wiki, and to casual gamers they're not going to care about or consult such a mechanics screen in the first place. A transparent list of what does what, before people even make their character, would be fantastic - this is perhaps the worse game for lack of transparency I've ever seen, and the hack job done to class mechanics throughout the patching process only makes this worse. This game is manual-less in such a stark sense that even modern console games where people have such issues don't remotely compare, galling in mechanics dense game.

Thanks to both of you guys, I guess that makes their chants a lot more worthy. Silly me for ever thinking there would be a fanbase that likes to keep up to date wikis, though it's hard to blame them when mechanics are still being comprehensively edited in the third iteration of a main patch. I stopped playing between v1.0 and v3.0 to wait for the full expansion release, so I guess I'm behind the curve in assuming a developer wouldn't need to continuously massively overhaul class mechanics in between that time. Now let me sit here to feast upon my sour grapes. This may have factored into my current PotD solo playthrough, as I was currently class-building a solo Paladin whereas with the extra knowledge a Cipher may well have been a superior choice now - it's very hard to say.

So chants take less time to, erm, chant with higher level? This really should be mentioned somewhere, anywhere, in game (and I'm not talking about when you're a high level Chanter and it's obvious) or on an external source like the wiki. It seems like something that should be readily apparent to everyone, which it certainly wasn't to me. If that is the case, then yes it sees like Chanters are a slightly stronger contender (defensively) for a tanky build, and they obviously pack more utility as a class on the whole.

Paladins on the flip side have a much higher natural defences over Chanters (there's +deflection, +will and +fort/will chants, but they don't match up to the offerings of a Paladin). Their offensive chants are better than a Paladin's (Dragon Thrashed > Sacred Immolation IMO), and there's more versatility there by use of invocations (summons, charm effects, decent other offensive effects) - but the trouble is running an offensive chant means you can't often run a defensive one as the linger for most of them doesn't continue for the entirety of Dragon Thrashed leaving you with defensive blindspots in your chant setup. Plus there's the fact Ancient Memory still turns off after your first invocation, a bug I know but definitely something you have to factor into playing the character (I presume Ancient Memory does affect the Chanter and not just other party members, I've not played them to a great extent). While I don't see Chanters as a bad option, I find it hard not to find the solid defensive backbone of Paladins somewhat preferable - unless you are going for a kiter rather than a tank. Tanking dragon matches seem to be a tit for tat how high can I get my defences game, which Paladins surely win over any other class. As I mentioned I'm not a Chanter veteran however, so if someone wants to school me on why they dramatically outstrip Paladins I'm all ears.

Yeah it's certainly a little lame, not game breaking in any way but again as a point of developer pride in the game it makes it come off as a little slapdash. I think that's a thing quite disappointing about Pillars, there are literally loads of cosmetic problems but hardcore RPGers don't care because they don't effect gameplay and the devs again don't care so much for the same reason. However if you do have someone new coming to a game, and they're not accustomed to these weird kind of glitches, I'd imagine someone somewhere is getting put off for the wrong reason (trivial cosmetic bugs that could be fixed by the devs) rather than the right reasons (the remaining - though severely diminished - gameplay bugs, problems with narrative/setting/NPC archs, etc.). As a hardcore RPGer, I don't really care - but certainly someone will, or at least it will be the icing on the cake of their legitimate problems with the game.

I'm PotD soloing as a Paladin currently, and I don't find it too bad - I've got to level 14 of the Endless Paths and did all the Act II quests without starting Act III yet, this allowed me to hit level 13 and get Sacred Immolation before WM part I. If you use Munacra Arret, figurines and take Envenomed Strike (which you can always respec out when you get Sacred Immolation) you have enough going for you to deal with mobs and make combat a little interesting. I normally use my two FoDs against one enemy (usually getting the kill), use Sworn Enemy and Envenomed Strike on a second, use Whisper of Treason on a third/forth and pop figurines as I go - which is quite a bit of micro-ing so personally I don't find it boring (well, maybe a little in Act I when you don't have these options). You can always use Whisper of Treason on the Sworn Enemy to score Charm crits easily, but I find it's not usually necessary. I think the beauty of Paladins is that their high defences make them amenable to any weapon combo you want to choose, so even going after The Ultimate achievement you can easily use a non-standard interesting weapon choice without really feeling the pinch. Of course if you want to go the standard route Bittercut with Outworn Buckler and or arquebuses are an easy pick. I wouldn't necessarily worry about high Resolve - I've had 13 the entire game so far without a shield, with Wild Orlan plus taking the Black Path I've found it tanky enough for most uses (with Res 13, Cape of the Master Mystic, Deep Faith Faith and Conviction plus a frightened enemy attacking my will save it's equivalent to 110 deflection). Llengrath's Displaced Image can be used for tough fights as and when you need it to bump up deflection and reflex, I've found that honestly fortitude is one of the more important saves to try and boost as unlike reflex there's no magic potion or shield to make it soar to insane levels and several annoying effects (paralysis, petrification) target it. I still haven't properly played a Priest, but MaxQuest's builds did look rather incredible. Either way it seems like you'll be in for a little wait with either class before them become powerful. I would recommend playing a separate PotD save alongside so you can step by step work out what you can and cannot do at each step easily and go from there.

Taking Rapid Recovery as a talent allows for similar progression to Veteran's Recovery, (not sure on the duration thing, I was playing a Int 10 Fighter when I last played one so it's not something I picked up on). The duration issue definitely sounds like a legit bug if it isn't implemented like Veteran's Recovery, honestly there's a fair few things in this game that should have Int scaling but don't (Defiant Resolve anyone?). You're right though, when I played a Fighter I did find it extremely weird that the cross class talent is actually better at a base level than the base ability it's designed around if you ignore the booster talent. A good way to improve it would be to have Rapid Recovery adding a significant yet modest amount of flat healing (3 or 4 endurance per tick) and have Constant Recovery scale with level, or have both scale with level but have Rapid Recovery also add to the level scaling (say Constant Recovery gets +1 endurance each third level after 1, Rapid Recovery adds an additional +1). It's one of those concepts that's fairly difficult to unbalance in the first place anyway, as it only lasts for the first little while of combat. While this is certainly nice, combat continues way past this point in most tough-ish fights in the first place so even if the Fighter is unkillable for the first 45 seconds of combat due to endurance recovery then it doesn't mean much in the long run. It certainly wouldn't hurt to incentivise taking Rapid Recovery even further, given that Fighters got a major nerf to their defences a while back (which was a little silly considering Paladins and Monks remain the defensive powerhouses they always have been regardless, easily outstripping the Fighters' original and supposed niche).

When using Sacred Immolation, the dialogue lines for friendly fire ("Watch where you're aiming," etc.) play almost every pulse. This can get pretty annoying, particularly with it being a per encounter ability.

Upon reloading a save during the initial Stalwart fight, the "Darzirs fallen, back to the matron now," sound clip will always play on the load screen, despite not having killed them yet.

If you hire the Goldpact Knight for Caed Nua and rebuild the forum he'll often get stuck at the corner of it, twitching about in his walk cycle like a madman. I go to the Craft Hall a lot to sell all my crappy gear (I sell the good gear I might want to look into later to the Merchant Stalls) and seeing him do this every time is pretty unsightly. I would imagine changing his walk path wouldn't be too difficult, and would be a lot better than having him freaking out in every single game in which you employ him and build the forum. Although this is a minor cosmetic bug so barely worth mentioning, I can imagine some new players could be entirely put off seeing it as they'd infer if such a small issue can go unresolved it doesn't bode well for the rest of the game or that it was indicative of a lack of professional pride from the developers over their own work. Fortunately I've played things like Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines in its buggy heyday so my tolerance is a little higher

If you use a +survival item next time you rest using camping supplies, unless you change from the previous option selected, you still have access to the higher tier survival bonuses regardless of whether you still have + survival gear still equipped. This definitely works with +survival clothing, and I imagine it works with the plus survival scrolls too but I haven't tested them. Obviously there's a lot of scope for abuse here, as you can just use the +survival scroll and take a universally nice bonus (+movement speed/healing/damage against flanked/DR) permanently. While this is a bug players can avoid trivially, such a deviation from how the mechanics are supposed to work seems a bit poor.

Yeah I took Zealous Endurance on my solo no-respec Paladin run, and now knowing about the beer stuff I kind of wish I didn't. The Zealous Charge/Zealous Focus combo seems a lot better as you can split a mob with Charge then just turn on Focus to take the guy out. I'll stay the course anyway, and just recommend people take the opposite option if I post the class build - I've already written it but I wanted to wait until I took out something meaty like the Alpine Dragon before posting. Currently level 13 so hopefully I shouldn't be too far off.

I mentioned this in a recent thread, I found resting (with one of the Caed Nua resting bonuses) and reloading fixed it. This was with the movement speed resting bonus from survival causing the issue in the first place, so maybe it's not that related - still worth a shot.

Thanks for the response Sking. For clarity, it's not single enemies I'm talking about - it's enemies in groups. Somehow how they're still not targeting their buddies fast enough and so they're still registering as a single enemy which makes the Charm effect end prematurely. Even then, the encounter ending issue is a rather severe problem - maybe it's not related but it seems similar. Combat will literally just stop and instant restart (and with it those Charm effects, which is why I think the issues have common ground), which as I mentioned doesn't recharge per encounter effects but will cancel effects you have active - this also happens with groups and can be brutal. I do tend to pull enemies to areas where I have better positioning, but even so the majority of the time it's still not far enough for them to want to wander back to their starting position so I'm not really seeing why it would end prematurely. Given that the encounter system is the crux of combat in the game, it being defective semi-frequently in solo play can be pretty problematic.

Yeah, can this really be looked at in some fashion? I appreciate the "fix" might not be so simple as I suggested above. Quite often in solo combat I'll have the fight sewn up, (a Whispers of Treason hit for 12 sec, a figurine out, the relevant defensive buffs like Prayer Against X, Sworn Enemy on a target) and either (a) the Charm effect will go instantly for no reason or (b) the entire encounter will finish and instantly restart, cancelling all my active effects and so making me die pretty sharpish - per encounter abilities do not get refreshed in this process (even if they did I wouldn't want to be using x4 Flames of Devotion anyway because it's cheating, however I would obviously re-use the Sworn Enemy that gets cancelled). I'm currently trying to fight some Cean Gwlas in level 13 of Od Nua, and one of these outcomes is literally happening 4/5 encounters - usually the encounter cancellation and restart. Maybe this is something unique to solo play or my strategy, but it's incredibly frustrating to lose an encounter time and time again through no fault of your own - I've literally been at this single encounter for an hour already. I know this game isn't designed for solo combat, but still encounter mechanics do seem inherently flawed if this is happening so often - solo or not.

Something specific I've picked up on is I think the enemy petrified and paralysis attacks need their durations severely shortening. As far as I can tell Adragan Petrification is 10s on a graze, 20s on a hit and 30s (!) on a crit. Likewise for Vithrack Exarchs and paralysis. For a player character by comparison, Mental Binding and Killers Froze Stiff give 8s paralysis, and Gaze of the Adragan 6s petrification. I think the base duration on hit here should be 10s, so 5s for a graze and 15s for a crit. This means that getting hit by one of these effects it's not quite the instant death sentence it is currently - particularly on a graze. And yes I know there's scrolls or a priest you can use for immunities, and you can of course shore up your defense against these attacks, but these are late game options at best. I also realise these enemies are low endurance, but I'm not a fan of situations where I completely kill them or they completely kill me - a little give and take seems a bit more fun. So if not for a patch now, I think the durations on these kind of mechanics need revising for PoE2.

Didn't spot that, good to hear a new patch seems to be more or less confirmed.

With my solo love I'd rarely be suppressing it in the first place, but it's certainly something to be wary of. I always find Eldritch Aim a little short-lived to be terribly useful. In terms of wanting to switch weapon groups, my main thinking was that none of the on crit status weapons are covered by Ruffian or Noble slightly discouraging sabre or Drawn in Spring use in your offhand for high damage. Having them all feel equally favoured is certainly nice from that standpoint, even if 4 accuracy won't be making a crazy difference.

It would be worth fixing for the durations alone it seems, a fixed 3 sec duration (which as you say is occurring because ApplyAffliction is considering it a crit) which is then multiplied by Int (which should be high on a Barbarian) is quite a powerful thing. As I mentioned I was testing in full plate, so the fact you can have that high a DR and still chain status together is a bit crazy. I guess I'll hold off on making a Barb until this issue is resolved or until they say they're not going to make more patches, I would obviously want to try and pitch my attack speed plus armor to a level where I could reliably stun a group so given my aversion to respecing I'll wait to see what the score is. It's also not as simple as that anyway, because even if I did respec to up my Dex to make a given armour group viable I'd have to lower a different attribute which are all currently pitched at the level I want them so it'd throw the build out of whack. Either that, or I'll just do my testing with Wē Toki instead to get an appropriate Dex which will work if the the stun weapons are patched, and also use Wē Toki in the mean time. You certainly seem to getting to the bottom of these problems quickly Loren, maybe you should ask for a job