Jojobobo

I usually re-roll until I understand the mechanics enough to make a reasonably optimised character and I've found a difficulty setting I like, which has been four times so far (finally settling on expert PotD and a Cipher because I'm lame). The important thing is to quickly push past the opening area of the game you've done so many times so you can get to the meatier stuff which actually interests you.

Or you could just anticipate where the enemy is going to move and cast the spell there?

What kind of parties do people run around on when they say it's "too easy"? I don't use custom adventurers, and so far that makes at least the initial bit of the game a reasonable difficulty on PotD (maybe not so much later when everyone has leveled up and you have ridiculous equipment). I think if you do things like hire a full party from the off, then it's a lot easier throughout.

For me and the tougher encounters there, I used traps. Both Durance and my main character could lay them, set one a piece and start slapping down Fan of Flames. With a bit of luck you take a few out that way making the fight a bit more manageable - but yeah I know the feeling of finding them a bit overwhelming of PotD.

I think a problem with your build, unless you go with a reach weapon as people have suggested, is that you're going to get interrupted a hell of a lot with that low Resolve; because of this you won't be able to get too thick into the fray and therefore can't make use of the Barbarians best ability - One Stands Alone. A successful Barbarian I was running on hard is below - with the rationale behind my choices in parentheses: Coastal Aumaua - The Living Lands (I was really after just maxing Might here, and the racial isn't dreadful, but obviously the cheesier races like Moon Godlike are better) Might 21, Con 3, Dex 18 Per 3, Int 18, Res 15 (Max might = max damage, max dex = max attack speed, max int = large Carnage AoE and Frenzy duration, middling Res = reasonable concentration, min Per = who cares too much about interrupt or deflection on a Barbarian. Min con is probably the most shocking choice, but honestly even without activating Frenzy my barbarian's con wasn't far off Eder's - with Frenzy it's more than good enough). Abilities - 1 = Frenzy, 3 = Blooded, 5 = Brute Force, 7 = Bloodlust, 9 = One Stands Alone, 11 = Heart of Fury (this build was all about damage and DPS, not fear de-buffs or tanking. Let a dedicated healer worry about your endurance and a dedicated de-buffer worry about de-buffing). Talents - 2 Barbaric Blow, 4 - Accurate Carnage, 6 - Two Weapon Style, 8 - Greater Frenzy, 10 - Weapon Focus of choice or whatever, 12 - Vulnerable Attack or whatever (really just looking again for DPS and the last two at DR reduction, though Vulnerable Attack decreases attack speed it is modal so really you can pick and choose when you do or don't think it's necessary). This guy was vastly my main damage dealer and was taking out close to 50% of my enemies and making most mobs a breeze (it's great how you can target the big monster of the group and watch the little ones fall at your feet too). Give him low DR high recovery armor and something with Second Chance (there's a ring with Second Chance you can get in Defiance Bay, Gwisk Glas if possible later on) and watch the damage rack up. In the end I got bored of Hard because of this and now am trying PotD with a different class for fun, but it was definitely very good at taking stuff out. I'm sure everyone will bemoan my low con, but from experience you really really don't need it.

Am I the only one who thinks fighting in a choke-point or doorway would be what happened in a dungeon? It's precisely what people would do in the same real life situation. And sure maybe they could have given more rooms multiple doorways, but that's the thing about doorways in underground dungeon rooms - in terms of realism people have to dig through the solid rock to make them. The only real issue I think is that ranged characters, unless using some AoE spells, don't hit your own guys when shooting behind them. Having said that, I don't really mind too much - combat is much more varied even with choke-points than most games, and choke-points despite what people say aren't ubiquitous. Lastly, as people said, you don't have to use them - talents like Hold the Line or weapons with +1 engagement make it easy enough for even fighter-less teams to tie up the enemy. I don't think this is something that needs patching at all - it's the kind of thing that can be much more easily worked into the expansion (with expansions usually having natural inclines in combat difficulty from situations like this anyway).

I think it should be definitely nerfed, I'm having an easier time with a Cipher on PotD than I did with several other classes on Hard. I guess maybe the devs thought that their general squishiness would offset their high power, but with one or two tanks thats not such a large issue. Their range of powers with that initial focus allow them to multitask superbly well early fight giving you a strong house edge, then Biting Whip means that out-damage a lot of classes in a single shot too mid-fight and then you easily have access to a lot of focus again. Not to say I'm not loving playing one, but part of the reason I'm having my first serious PotD run with a Cipher is so I could break myself in with an "easy" high difficulty run.

I think racism is a bit of an easy contrivance in fantasy RPGs, it's simple with some IPs to add in racism and think it adds depth and some shock factor (The Witcher and Arcanum both had smatterings of that). Cultural prejudices require much more effort to work in as they need more of a backstory rather than the effortless "I don't like him because he's big/small/has pointy ears etc." so I think PoE is better for it and not every culture would have the same opinion of every race.

I'm level 8 and I've still not finished the first act, and I've still got more to do before act II as far as I'm aware. Don't get me wrong I'm enjoying the power, but I probably won't feel so happy when I hit the cap very early on.

I have to admit I got locked into the Crucible Knights when I would have rather sided with the thief house for my current character. I didn't realise they were mutually exclusive, and a lot of it seems dependent on what order you visit the various districts of Defiance Bay - which you shouldn't be punished for.

It also means they don't suffer from acting against there faith, so it's pretty net neutral. Faith and Conviction is decent without the boosts from following favoured behaviour, and you can always take Deep Faith for an added extra.

I'm level 8 already and I've still not finished act 1. I don't mind TBH, but I can see why some people have reservations about the current leveling of experience.

All have per rest uses as far as I can tell, which sweet because charges suck.

I pretty sure in development they said companions should epitomise their race or class. Due to that, I don't think making her a unique race is much of a big deal (I mean lets face it, there's better Godlikes out there already - her ability is good but not exceptional). It's also why Sagani has a fox companion, etc. I'm sure there's more examples of companions having unique and interesting traits, but I'm still in act 1 so I wouldn't know.

I like Durance's line in the Salty Mast, something about satisfying his "other staff"... He's talking about his ****.

Didn't know if there was any other settings that I should be aware of, I guess not. Thanks, I'll try that.

So I installed this on my partner's Windows 8 laptop using GOG, but comparatively to my mac the performance seems a lot worse even though the specs are similar. Any options that I should check, etc., to improve performance? All I've done so far is lower the graphics settings - I wasn't sure if there was something more specific that could be done.

I like fully voice acted (like FO:NV) but to be honest now I'm used to it I don't care. I did initially find it a bit jarring when people would voice act and switch to not bothering, but now it just feels like a quirk of the game adding to its uniqueness.

I play expert mode so they're off by proxy, still I think it's the better way to go. Games like Arcanum never had qualifiers (for attributes like Strength to intimidate or for skills like persuasion) and I think it makes it more enjoyable and more varied for future playthroughs.

Okay good to know, hopefully they'll patch it out then.

Has it occurred post patch? It's still going on for me.

As an update, I thought killing these random friendly skeletons would be a good idea and might make them go away - but now the skeleton "corpses" are just appearing everywhere. They clip into scenery and stuff so it is rather annoying. Anyone, at all, also experienced this and have an idea?

So I'm unsure whether this is a hold-over from the before I patched, but occasionally pre-patch Kana's skeletons wouldn't disappear (not an issue I've noticed now I have patched, presumably when they tuned up combat ending properly). After this and before I patched, a new bug occurred where the skeletons are now found on every map I go on in random locations - they just stand there not following me around or doing anything else (I have seen enemies attack them, but even when they die they don't appear to go away on any other maps). I can still summon skeletons, but even when I do this the one's on the map don't go away. I think it first occurred on the Endless Paths level 2, but I don't have any saves from around that time now. Not a big deal as it doesn't affect play, but seeing them everywhere is a bit of an immersion killer. Any thoughts how to stop this? Specs: Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB Software OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion)

Barbarians have terrible deflection and go do reasonably fast when they're surrounded (not immediately, but they're not going to be tanking like a Fighter). I thinking it's just to give them more of a chance in these situations, but yeah it is a pretty powerful ability.

I'd say of the high endurance classes who you aren't expecting to do too much tanking (or just people who are completely ranged in the first place) it's a bit of waste, particularly with Barbarians who buff their Con back to around the 10 mark with Frenzy and Greater Frenzy anyway. Far better to have Dex (more hits), Might (more damage), Per (more interrupt - though again I wouldn't prioritise this), Resolve (more Concentration) and Intellect (greater Carnage AoE and Frenzy duration) than more endurance on top of what is already a sizeable endurance anyway. Also if you do have very hight Might, your Fortitude saves don't suffer either really completely negating that drawback to a large extent too. For me I ran Might 21, Constitution 3, Dexterity 18, Perception 3, Intellect 18 and Resolve 15 for a bit of perspective - for high DPS it's doing pretty well killing over half of all the enemies so far that the party has faced.