Jojobobo

Though there aren't any items that give you +6 in a stat, there are +4 items and when you combine that with prostitute bonuses and resting bonuses you're looking at +9 to any stat (more with food) - which is quite a lot. There also are some skill dialog checks, they're just a bit thin of the ground. Instead of just respecing when I first start and don't have as good a grasp on the mechanics, I'd rather just restart - respecing is a bit much an easy button for my liking and takes a lot of consequence out of picking advantages for your character (which is why I think the Fallout 4 system sucks - literally level up high enough and you can have every perk, no need to roleplay or choose wisely at all). I do understand that Skyrim can be streamlined, but to me that streamlining suited the high fantasy adventure romp you have in the game. Pillars is altogether darker in tone, and so I think a more punishing "adult" attribute system suits the game to a greater extent rather than one that lets you off lightly by letting you respec all the time. I do appreciate that it's in a gaming company's best interest to make a game as broad as possible however, so respecing is good for people who want an easier experience, though it should be considered just an option for the rest. In regards to tanking the dragon, it's much easier to kite with Persistence from what I've seen, so don't be put off the idea of soloing it entirely

Well combat becomes easy if you take the +accuracy +dam talent to fit the enemy type, plus respec all your attributes for a nicer fit on your most targeted defences compared to that enemy. I think respecing worked better in Skyrim, (a) because it had more cost and (b) because there wasn't an attribute system in Skyrim - so the amount of radical changes you could make to your character were fewer. I don't get why people really clamoured for hard IE game and yet also wanted an easy respec to make up for their mistakes - it doesn't make any sense.

It sure would be a nice addition, I suppose it depends on whether you want to dedicate the Paladin more towards that end or not - it's a definite nice forerunner to Sacred Immolation while the enemy is distracted (plus the fact you can use Sworn Enemy more or less as a pre-buff, it's instant cast and you can lead with it from stealth - and Whispers of Treason is now fast cast). You can make your Paladin a mesmerising machine, but on the flip side it's just as easy to have a regular Paladin use these items without any talent cost. Having said that I have been thinking of a mesmerising build for a while, quite possibly a Paladin is the way to go rather than the obvious choice of Cipher. Maybe I'll have a look into it in the future, but as I'm currently playing a different kind of Paladin I'm not bothered about getting into it for the time being - if anyone else wants to give it a go by all means go ahead

Not forgetting that Whisper of Treason has +10 accuracy to begin with, giving you +30 accuracy. It's an extremely strong combo, and not one I've seen people mention (I did do a quick search and brought up nothing - though it was a google search rather than a forum search so correct me if I'm wrong). Not one I'm centring my build around for sure, but it's sure nice tidbit to abuse on the way to what I'm looking to do. Further that +12 Will synergises great with Defiant Resolve, Hearth Orlan being the most common race for Paladins as far as I'm aware. As a huge bonus, Arret Murnarca was designed by the great people at Terra Arcanum - the main place I suggest anyone goes to if they're looking to play Arcanum

Something I've noticed currently playing a Paladin myself is that Sworn Enemy works great with Confused, Charmed and Dominate effects. Obviously the extra damage of Sworn Enemy is good, but if they really are a beefy mofo then sometimes it pays to Charm (Spirit Spiral or Arret Murnarca - Terra Arcanum for life), Confuse (scrolls) or Dominate (Ring of Changing Heart) them instead - often providing you with a crit due to added accuracy and giving you an extra buddy for 20 seconds or so with the kind of Intellect you're running. Give it a shot, and you won't be disappointed - besides Shieldbearers are supposed to be diplomatic so it kind of fits the premise too.

I won't be respecing, out of personal preference - I intend not to for any solo build I play (it was never in the base game, the cost to do so is extremely low and does minimise the aspect of playing a role too in some respects if you can just up and change personality traits all the time). In any case, I found a way to make things slightly more optimal so I shouldn't need the Bear's Fortitude after all - again it's slightly build specific so I'll keep in under wraps for now. Using console commands to look at PotD stats, it seems like Envenomed Strike is kind of a big deal even at the level I'll be having it at.

So related to this paladin, end game I'm going to have 14 Might and 20 Int, as I said the build is going to be quite different to the norm so I don't want to go into why those numbers are as they are (thought part of the reason is just the standard increasing damage and AoE on Sacred Immolation a bit). With that in mind, would it be better to go for Envenomed Strike or Bear's Fortitude for one of my late talent slots? My at 14 Might and 20 Int Envenomed Strike does 73.9 raw damage over 13.5 secs, which is nice (and obviously will be higher as I food/prostitute buff - Maegfolc Skull already being equipped) but do people think those kind of numbers are worth the talent slot? I guess in terms of my fortitude defence against the prone attacks I'll have 20 (base) + 20 (improved Faith and Conviction) + 45 (level) + 30 (Heldrik's Coat) + 8 (Maegfolc Skull) + 6 (Girdle of Eotun Constitution) + 10 (food) + 8 (Celestial Suite) + 8 (Lyrinia) + 9 (Ring of Protection) + 10 (Defiant Resolve) = 174 Is that "enough" against the 155 accuracy or should I really be taking Bear's Fortitude too (it's 34 chances of a miss compared to 44 with the talent)? I'll probably have Iflan Byrngar's Solice in my off hand (and something like the Orlan's Bramble Ring) in case I do get proned in the first place. I'm really on the fence as to what the better play would be.

I keep wondering who voiced him, it's a pretty mighty laugh.

A talent for this would really be a great idea, incurring some cost but giving access to a whole lot of goodies too. I'd love it if they'd consider patching something like that in, but I can't really see that happening.

I don't think a bit of hassle to encourage them to release their patch sooner really would have effected their ability to not factor in new bugs into the game or fix some during the beta, especially when as Loren Tyr pointed out the Fighter bug is one line of code. I think this point would have been more valid if the gap between 3.02 and 3.03 hadn't been so long (I could get that the player base coming off as douchey if they were whining after say a single month) but it had four months almost to the day that they took between those patches. When you wait that long, and then the patch they release isn't to standard and they were pre-warned in the beta it wasn't to standard, it is a little rich. I'm mostly okay with waiting again for the next patch, but really if they'd sorted the Fighter bug in the last patch when they were told about it there wouldn't have even needed to be another patch - the other bugs, while a little irritating, aren't of much consequence (the Carnage bash bug for example, though that doesn't mean it still shouldn't be fixed). They really shot themselves in the foot by ignoring the feedback they asked for, as now they're having to put in even more work into a game they seemingly wanted to be done with by now.

I guess that's a fair point, though I would say with Fighters you can specialise in any weapon category to a large degree so they can be pretty diverse in terms of what you set them up with. Plus, with their high base accuracy, they're very easy to abuse spellbindings and scrolls with. Maybe it's because I'm not so interested in party play that I find Cipher's a little limiting - as they do have more than a few powers dedicated to party play.

I suppose that would probably work quite well, hopefully by the time you've used up the initial focus from arquebuses you'll have built up enough with melee weapon (Bittercut with a bash shield most likely) to keep firing off CC. Still x3 arquebus aumaua doesn't scream excitement or innovation. I guess that might just be an inherent problem in Cipher's as a class - they always need a few strong hits to start, and there's only so many ways you can do that. They seem like perhaps the most limited class in terms of having different equally valid builds (obviously you can make different builds, but they're almost certainly weaker).

For clarity, the same lists work fine on mac. It could be that it's different on Linux, and I'm not disputing that Boeroer is getting different results, but is seems a little weird doesn't it? At the same time, I never think any weird bug is impossible when it comes to Pillars.

With regards to Ciphers, I keep wondering without kiting how they can be done solo. It seems to me they're too fragile to go DPS, yet trying to go tanky will mean it takes an appreciable time to build focus. It's a conundrum for sure, I do at some point want to build a solo Cipher as I've always enjoyed mind control builds - but how to do that without trivial kiting seems a little hard to work out. I'm playing a different build currently, I'll dedicate a bit more thought to it after that's done.

As I said, the other abilities in that slot aren't very good - if it was a later option where there are plenty of other alternatives then it would be better but it's not and there isn't. I literally don't know what you're talking about here - that's exactly what I am doing. I'm playing a different class while they fix the problem, which amounts to the same thing as the alternatives you suggested (and it fits more with the metaphor than anything you suggested) and means I don't have to compromise that particular character. I don't know how many times I have to say this - it's annoying when new bugs are introduced when opportunity to rectify them was there and they were informed about it. You're honestly saying that, regardless or how big or small the bug in question is, that isn't at least a little irritating or stupid? Yes it's a small bug, but it's those persistent small bugs (sometimes not so small) and the laissez-faire attitude towards them that I find bothersome. This game should have been a slam dunk favourite of mine, but instead I've had to persevere with it because of these problems rather than just sink in and enjoy it like a should have done. Obsidian have made it an effort to enjoy this game, because these small irritations crop up - in my mind - much too frequently. It's like if you had a 1000 page book, but one of the pages was torn out, and it's out of print so you can't get another copy easily. Is one page ripped out a huge problem? No of course it isn't. Is is annoying? I'd say so, yes. I guess if you're the kind of person who can easily ignore something like that, than that's the fundamental difference between us. However the difference is, in this case it would be that the publisher hadn't actually bothered to print on one of the pages.

I'm getting pretty tired at people aiming insults at me here, which I haven't reciprocated as they are completely needless. Loren Tyr pretty much covered everything in the above post, and I really don't have anything more to say that I haven't said already so I'm not going to bother. I do however enjoy lessons in maturity from someone called Grape_You_In_The_Mouth.

Thanks for being thorough, I just didn't want it to be a spottily applied racial benefit as then I really may as well have picked another race.

So you didn't find it OP (over-powered, I think I'm adapting too much lingo of pokemon forums, unfortunately) against trash mobs and not-so-trash-mobs per encounter? I never got round to testing that far, but I found Barb attacks meaty in any case. I'm happy to take your word as gospel, you've clearly tested play in all kinds of ways, but still I'm curious to hear the greater effects of what I found was OP with lesser effects aren't still OP? You should do a write-up of that ranged 0-recovery Barb, it would be cool - I was trying to find a shades emoji but I lost interest You got the wink nevertheless. The point is, I'm sure the interested community is indebted to both of your efforts, keep on trucking.

Primary attack is a decent suggestion, and you're right about 2 per rest meaning 2 per difficult encounter. I've shelved my solo Barbarian build for the time being, but while I did play it I was finding it incredibly easy compare to other builds. As soon as you get Blood Thirst status-locking, even with Tall Grass, becomes a bit of a thing in Act 2. Besides Tall Grass, being as exceptional two-hander, hits pretty damn hard. Honestly I think Carnage could be taken down to -15 or -20 accuracy, or it should be x0.5 damage. I was finding that sometimes on that Barb build I was hitting enemies by Carnage harder than I was hitting my primary target when they were the same type of enemy, which is a little silly on the whole. I've shelved the DPS build for the time being - though the DPS CC interrupter isn't anything new I thought my massive healing slant may make it worthwhile, but obviously it's not a game-changer in terms of mechanics. Maybe I'll go back to my tank build if the bug has been sorted, with fresh eyes - it's maybe a little more interesting for me than straight up murderating everything level 13 with DPS builds. Even without the 3.03 buff, I think they were an extremely strong class. I never realised because I thought low concentration was a nightmare solo, but it really isn't (Wichts for example, though they interrupt you like hell, if you get one hit in with Tall Grass - which you always do - 5 of them will be dead. Boeroer shines the light as always on these facts). Plus the fact Savage Defiance heals are immense, and if you pair it with Veteran's Recovery (which I strongly recommend taking level 2 going solo - or possibly in general), you have an horrendous amount of endurance recovery which easily makes up for your low deflection. Encounters I've found tricky with other classes on solo have been massively easy with my solo Barb. Literally take a Barb on your team right now!

So when fighting Shadows and they daze you, even though that targets will, Defiant Resolve doesn't activate. Is it because it's an "effect" of the hit? When else doesn't Defiant Resolve come into effect, when you'd perhaps assume it would (targeting Will specifically)? Thanks in advance.

That's still better than any other class solo, as unless you're kiting many have trouble with CC (Fighters in particular) - and so you have to sit there tanking and grinding them down, which is tedious. Barbs are much better, even with HoF, at whittling down a group to one or two guys very quickly. Plus the fact most barbarians are spec-ed for offence, so while they're not as good as a Fighter on one guy they're far from bad. Concerning HoF - it's seems to me like they should have just kept HoF 1 per rest, or increased the per rests (to 2 or 3 - at least not allowing it to be insanely spammable) or had it released at an earlier level (so it's 1 per rest, but you get it early so you get more usage out of it). That would have at least discouraged people obliterating everything in sight every encounter - and as you used it on Magran's Faithful 1 per rest means you use it on the important encounters and not just all the time. I guess hopefully Tyranny or PoE2 will have improved class balance.

Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely pick up Bear's Fortitude now to shore up my fort for the tail attacks. Hopefully what I'm planning now should see me through the game.

By the calcs I'm currently running I should have 142 reflex without any potions, so with the potions too I think I should do more or less okay. I guess I was just wondering about the Int dropping, it does seems a little weird. Normally I'd be all over Scion of Flame and highish Int and Mig for such an effect - are, in other people's experience - high defense tanks good enough not to need it?

...how would I go about it? PotD, natch. I'm thinking of playing a Paladin, but I'm interested in hearing of any of classes who tank rather than kite it. I already have my unique spin on the Paladin I want to take (which I'll keep under-wraps until I do a class build for it) but I wanted to know the core essentials of tanking a beast like that. Normally I go for tanking via healing, and I would plan to kite stuff like the dragon - but tanking via super high defenses I'm not too sure of. I watched and it seemed, among other things, Deep Pockets was important in securing the victory. However, I was a little dubious about the low Int - doesn't that crap on Sacred Immolation, a huge benefit of a Paladin? I don't want to respec my build at any point, so you see what I'm saying about the Int (as far as I've heard, the only Exhortation that affects the player character is Liberating Exhortation, so in my mind there's only 8 abilities to choose anyway - one focus and then the rest that apply to solo characters, Sacred Immolation being one of them). Also, in terms race for solo defense tanking - is a Wild Orlan really the best? I've always been a little dubious that stuff would target your Will defense that often, but if it does I guess it would be the better pick. Teach me how to tank, and now to heal like a sucker that I'm currently doing

I think the weird triggering/not triggering is to do with being interrupted to be honest - ordinarily I play high Resolve builds and never notice these issues then. However with my Barbarian I'm sometimes getting even figurines activating without it counting - which is pretty overpowered with things like the shades if you were of a mind to exploit it.