Adhin

Yeah it's a little weird, you would think they would have +3 bonus athletics + whatever your base spent points are. Wolf attribute allocation also seems like a giant oversite. All animals have 5 int, but wolf just happens to have all 10's? Little weird. Hopefully we see some more balancing changes down the road, but I still think they work fine. As b0rsuk said, there supplementary. A Ranger is the 2 of them combined really. Most games that have Rangers (usually hunters) where an animal companion is a basic feature, they tend to have absurdly pointless dmg but can 'tank good enough' for solo work. We have companions that actually do some solid dmg, seem to be 14-20-ish. The do about same dmg as a 2H'er which is pretty solid overall, least my wolf does, same with Ituumak. Add a Cipher and Priest into the mix with a bear and you could, late game, get there DR up to...30-ish? Universal 30 DR isn't exactly crappy. Course that's 2 other characters to make that Bear like that lol.

So...148 deflection and Addra couldn't land a hit on you, all grazes and misses o.O That's a lot of deflection. On a side note, Ranger companions should totally have those stats

@iKrivotko : and that's not PotD. Toss 50% on top of his deflection to it and... yeeeaaah... That's gonna be a lot of stacking, I'm not even sure anyone can actually get that high. But hey, that 140-ish will at least nullify the crits.

I got a PST playthrough planned where I intend to play through on PotD because 'PST combat was hard and it was mostly conversations'. Anyway, my only real 'tank' is gonna be The Nameless One PC whos a fighter and wont use shields. Gonna use 1H axes or a 2H weapon of some kinda (maybe poleaxe) though im making a concession with him using full plate since going naked a little to impossible. I have a feeling it's gonna suck pretty hard not having the big deflection bonus from Shields o.O I mean they only account for... 36 right? 16+12 with +6 from talent... heh. Balls. He will be a Warrior though for that sweet, sweet self regeneration.

@tdphys : that's weird, would make sense but not sure how any of the damage makes sense going off that. I wonder if fine/superb is considered 'base damage' once its augmented a weapon then? Or if Might bonus is also outside the combining of all skill dmg %. Reason i say that is how do you get 150 outa just a sneak attack crit if nothing is multiplicative? Assuming the crit 50% IS multiplicative, which would make sense but nothing else is... if you rolled max dmg your looking at 124.74 dmg. That's a good 30-ish dmg shy of 150 after DR. Now, if Superb, Might bonus and Skill bonuses are all multiplicative (but lets say all skill bonuses are additive with in there own catagory) that would get you 159.7 and things start making a bit more sense. If that's the case, then he was right about the Wolf thing, both the skill % dmg (12 and 20%) would be added together either way... well maybe. The 12% might be considered the same as a 'fine' bonus or something. Meh, this just kinda leaves me confused as to the exact thing going on with percents. Maybe it's all additive and he just had some freak occurrence.

@Draco: The Displaced Image potion, lvl 3, mimics Wizards version of that spell. Base 45 sec duration, gives +25 deflection and +20 reflex. For tougher fights that'll go along way to keep your fighter line alive. That said my main tank in one playthrough is a Barb DW'ing. Just has a lot of HP and solid DR from armor/passive. Deflection is disgraceful and he'll still keep going for a rather long time (unless he gets super ganked with a lot of crits at once). I'm sure you can make the all warrior group work just fine.

@Dukefx : dmg bonus are multiplicative, attack/recovery speeds aren't. It's been stating a few times. And you can hit for 100+. Friend crit-sneaked for 150 earlier in his game, and I can promise you that wasn't because dmg multipliers where additive. As to the other stuff... yeah pets defenses are pretty low. Bear has some good base DR though. I originally thought we got x1.5 dr boost at 3, and quickly realized it was +1.5 which is a pretty big let down. Either way, bear definitely has the tanky advantage with the base 11 DR. +3 from fear +whatever from lvls. Keeps em in line (other then slash/pierce) with Full Plate. Priest helps out a lot on that front too. Druids good for the regen which is what I'm using atm, shes got a pike so sits on the back lines. I also don't expect pets to 'scale' with PotD. That would be silly unless all of are stats scaled with it which would be rather pointless. That said, would be nice if there was a good deflection boost for pets via some talent or other, atm they sit rather low sadly. Throw a Psion and Priest in the mix though and Bear DR is pretty crazy. ...also, Baldur's Gate didn't have proper pets, they just copied over Wizard familiars which is a pretty big bummer far as I'm concerned. Bear woulda been a lot more useful heh.

Ehh that +20 deflection buff is just kinda getting you to a Fighters base. You can stack up a fighter, even Eder (who doesn't have optimal stats) over 100 Deflection which drastically improves how little you get hit, completely nullifies crit chances in most situations. Ultimately you can't have 'to much deflection' or well, you can, but you can't get enough in this game to actually 'get there'. For instance lowest accuracy enemy I think is around...20-ish? You would need 120 deflection to make it so they had a 100% miss chance. And your 'probably' not hitting 120 with out stacking some potion buffs and the like. But yeah, if your trying to do super tank (which I don't think is nessesary, outside of PotD). Stack deflection items, get a big ass shield, go shield focus and don't worry about hitting some magical wall of useless overflow deflection cause you wont hit it on anything that matters. -edit- As an aside, Mages can make shockingly good tanks. While there base Deflection is bad, that +20 deflection brings em inline with fighters (technically 5 more). And with the +50 endurance/health self buff you can make it so most dmg you take doesn't actually touch most of your base endurance/health. They're just not ready-set for it like Fighters are and take some lvling to 'get there'. But hey once there lvl 11, you can use that +50 ep/hp buff 4 times, base, per encounter which will refresh that +50 to each. Soo... you know... tanky wizards wooo.

Absolutely no idea. But my Wolf has landed some rather solid base hits. I think it's on par with Sabre. Some basic examples right now. ituumak grazed a Shadow for 13.2 dmg before DT. 13.2! That 'would' of been 26.4 normal dmg hit. Granted, DT kicked in and lower it but you get the idea. 13.2 graze is pretty solid. Now, as far as % go, they currently have x1.12 from lvl, and x1.15 from vicious companion. That's a combined (multiplicative) 1.288 dmg boost. So with out that bonus they would of hit for about 20.5. So... that's the best I can do. I know they can hit, at base, around 20. I've seen lower like 18-ish Now, my Wolf, Paws, grazed for (same fight, lower dmg) 11.7 dmg, that would be 23.4 dmg if it was a normal hit. Same talent/lvl dmg boosts going on so.. if I had to wager a general guess I'd say there dmg range is a class higher then player 2H weapons. Probably closer to Druids shifted form base dmg. Something like 16-24 or 18-24... something around there. Honestly not sure why people think animal companions are bad, there base dmg seems pretty solid and there an additional unit. If this was some MMO there dmg would be like 15% yours... not higher then a 2H'er lol. Definitely feels more DnD in that regard. -edit- Not sure where else to put this so figured I'd throw it out here since your asking about Rangers by extention of asking about companions. Anyway, looks like a lot of 'Ranged' abilities Rangers get actually also work with Melee weapons in case anyone was itchin' to make a Melee ranger (such as my self). Some quick examples? Quick Aim? Works with melee (one of the only ones that actually states this). Also 'Wound Shot' Yeah turns out its wounding 'hit'... works with melee lol. I'm sure Driving Flight is, obviously, ranged only since it's a missile pierce passive but I have a feeling the rest of the modals might allow melee, at least 1 other. Either case permanent 20% IAS is nice. -re-edit- So lowest I've seen my Wolf do is 16.7, that's basically 13 base dmg. So... 13-20 for wolf... maybe? And that was a hit, not a graze. But 13 * 1.288 is about the 16.7 I saw in the combat log. That's about the same as a 2H weapon. As an aside, even though Ituumak has the same Might as players Wolf Companion I think it has a higher base dmg. ...and he just grazed for 14.5 dmg, that's 29 normal hit. No other bonuses besides that x1.288. I'm throwin' my hands up on this one, going by that his range is like... 13-22-ish (base, mind you). Seems like an odd range to have 13-23 though, most stuffs, at most, 6 apart, not 10.

Yeah I originally was going to take Brute Force, cause... It sounds great, fits the character I was going for. Was extremely disappointed to find out the 'vast' majority of enemies have far more Fortitude then deflection making it a wasted ability. It's one of those things they've stated not wanting to have happen that seems to of happened anyway you know? Don't want any useless abilities, want each ability thats situational to be applicable like... 20% of the time. Brute Force? Applicable about 2% of the time... hmmm... yeah no thanks.

This whole half a second thing is really irking me for some reason. How exactly are you getting half a second here? Fist, being 'fast' is an attack speed of 2/3rds a second + 4/5ths a second of recovery IF you have no armor on (and 10 dex). With no armor on, and 25 dex (just to grab a high number) your looking at.. 1.188 seconds combined attack speed + recovery. It's literally impossible for you to do it once every half a second. More so you'd have to be naked as **** to even get it to 1 second flat. Maybe your just hyperboling... probably, considering you'd also have to get hit enough times to even sustain it every 'half a second'. At minimum you'd have to take 16 dmg a SECOND for the 2 wounds, per second, you'd need to spam it twice a second. With 20 con you'd be dead in... 12 seconds at that rate - AT level 12. I think your better off stating an actual reason for why they do more dmg then just blindly throwing out this half a second BS. You kinda sound like those senators on gun control sayin' folks can fire 60 rounds a second with a semi-auto anything (which takes a 5-6 barrel mini-gun to achieve heh). But hey, facts, who needs that ****.

Yeah I think the god choices is mostly just a matter of number of talents and a match for Paladin orders really. No real reason why all the gods shouldn't be available otherwise when you think about it. Like ya said Prudent, hopefully we get more options in the expansion when they can add more talents for that in.

@Zwie, that's... not entirely true. There is Companion AI it's just basically defensive AI from IE games. They'll attack something with whatever weapon they're currently using if they get attacked them selves. Once they're attacking something they will switch targets (usually). I find them switching targets once there targets dead is more likely if you tell more then 1 to attack at once. THAT is technically companion AI, and is close to what I used in IE. I wish I could set basic aggressive levels though with an AI toggle on/off. Mostly an easy of use thing, liked to set my fighters to offensive and use the AI toggle to determine when they would just 'go at it'. Ultimately just means a little more micromanaging on my end, or waiting for the enemy to hit them (which I do sometimes if Im creating a line at a choke point). Either way, there IS companion AI, it's just suuuper basic and stuck in defensive mode from past like-games. -edit- As an aside, sometimes the AI derps up if there 'direct' path is blocked. For some reason they're a bit helmet-special when it comes to going 'around' companions. It's weird, you can be in a massive, open space and they'll run INTO other companions, freak out and then give up. But second you plug up a choke point and a melee wants to get through they'll spend 10 minutes running back and forth trying to figure out a way through when there obviously isn't one. Lots of ways to get around? Must not be away, give up.... no way to get around? Maybe if I try just a little harder ill find away.... The AI is there, it's just not very smrt (yes, s, m, r, t).

Far as I'm concerned the wound mechanic is, off I guess. The original idea I liked, your setting aside some dmg to fuel abilities, If you don't use them, the dmg crops back up later. I can see that being a pain in the ass though so I see why they changed it. What I don't get, however, is how the only part of that they removed was the mitigation? They still go away after awhile and now your taking full dmg while having crappy endurance. Your basically a rogue (with more HP but same endurance) with bad dmg that 'needs' to get hit to be effective. It's... It's just kinda weird, you know? I feel like wounds either need to stick around, through out battles, or... something. I dunno what, honestly, as in this game you tend to drop extremely fast unless you stack DR, or Deflection - or preferably both. Both of which heavily impact your ability to use your wounds. It's like your playing a Chanter with out your resource being automatic. This and Druid Shifting I think needs some hefty updating. Druid one seems obvious, make the form DR update with lvls like Ranger pet does. Monk? I have no idea, maybe do DR% like Ciphers get dmg bonus? %resist while your wounds aren't max? Or bonus DR or something I dunno, it just feels wonky as **** atm, like some cosmic catch 22. -edit- Actually, maybe if we healed per wound expended? That would kind of mimic the concept they originally had. Like... 3 hp per wound used would help...ish. Not sure that would save anyone from dying horribly if there not going tank monk but yeah.

As an aside, and really this works for everyone... but if you want your Druid to be in melee range more often I'd definitely take a Psion and a Priest with you. Pain Block and Armor of Faith combined will get your DT in form over the 20 mark. Makes them a little more manageable, but still garbage compared to every other class in melee or even you just with armor on. But hey, 20-ish DT with that attack speed and base dmg isn't half bad if your not the focus of attention, it'll definitely let you do a 1 v 1 if need be.

I've been using one in my Hard playthrough (not as main). Made my holy party, got a Barb primary tank (no shield, DW'ing). Ranger with a bear companion is my other front liners. Which is something to keep in mind, Ranger is actually 2 units. Which does help split up enemies which is one of the 3 main factors in not dying horrible. DR, Deflection, and splitting up damage from the 'group'. Often times a melee goes down because of the swarming dmg. High deflection or numbers is required to mitigate that swarming. You can kinda do both with the Ranger though, Shield focus em up + you have the bear. Add a cleric into the mix with the +4 dr to everyone (way more useful then some people give credit) at the start of larger fights will go along way. Past that biggest issue a Ranger has is complete and total lack of any self heal. Every 'Warrior' class (Fighter, Paladin, Barb) have some means to self heal. Druid/Clerics can heal them selves and others. Ranger, sadly, can't even heal there pet, let alone them selves so you'll want a 2nd group member to do that. Cleric with a pike behind them could manage it easily with the 2nd tier AoE HoT. Chanter with there 2 special passives is an extra 1.2 endurance per sec, belt can net you another +1 which is still half that of a Warriors base lol. Past that definitely get one of the weapons with 20% dmg returned as stamina. There is a SUPER early one you can get in the initial dungeon at the first town. It's a flail, it'll go A LONG way to keeping your ranger from dying horribly due to a lack of self healing, making your Priest/Druid (and chanter to lesser degree) job easier. -edit- Oh and as people have said, Abilities. Just take pet oriented abilities, or anything not related to ranged. Hunters Mark, binding roots as example of general stuff.

Yeah it mostly depends. I think the Blooded one for Barb is at 50% endurance.

Yeah, swords are definitely the general better choice. I ultimately went with sabers on my main just because I liked the visuals, mechanics be damned. So happy to see them get a little buff. The 1 more dmg then swords was... not noticable. As a side note, DR doesn't change even in Path of the Damned. It's identical through out... course, PotD has just about everything else upped by 50%. They get 50% more dmg, more accuracy, more defences and 50% more health. It's a hell of a shift for screwing you over. o.O -edit- Oh, and Path of the Damned is the only one that actually changes stats. A shadow on easy and hard are actually identical. Same everything, its the encounter its self (what monsters show up in a group, how big the group is) is what changes. Rock beetles, always have 30 slash DR (yeah... 30).

Kind of depends, in general faster weapons do more DPS. But 2H (slower stuff) does more to higher DR targets. It can be a good idea to find a weapon catagory that has 2 weapons you want (a 1h and a 2h). DW the 1H, have the 2H as backup. That was my plan though I've found, for the most part, the DW works just fine for most things.

Chanter summons are pretty solid, if for no other reason then they can keep using them and it wont unsummon the previous lot. 2 Chanters can easily flood the field with cannon fodder. Back on my initial Path of the Damned, I had Kara spamming Skeletons to keep shadows occupied. Hell at one point it was just him and Durance, and they managed to finish off 1 mob via skeleton spamming + ranged combat. Just wedged a buncha skeletons between them and the big ass fire blight thing. Current playthrough, chanter I made (as a 2nd char) is using the summon shadow, works pretty good. Though I got enough front lines that I tend to use the -5 DR cone debuff before I toss a summon out... kinda depends if the group im going for is to large or not. Anyway one basic concept you have for tanking is the armor. Yeah skills matter, but armor is the biggest factor from tank to not tank. Heavy armor gives you a lot of DR which is a requirement but slows your attacks limiting your DPS. Light Armor is ok-ish but keeps your attack speed up. It's a pretty simple concept that lets you do whatever the balls you want with any class really. Not sure if armor DR carries over into Druid form but if it doesn't that... actually makes Druids crappy tanks in form. Also you can make a Fighter a pretty good DPS. They weapon catagory talents that boost dmg like Weapon Specialization in DnD. Everyone gets the focus, the +accuracy, but they can up there weapon dmg by a solid amount for that. Could make a pretty mean light armor fighter who wrecks faces as long as hes not having to tank much. Just as an example of light armor allowing for that.

Ehh not sure I'd say they're terrible tanks. Mines doing better then my fighter does. Only thing the fighters doing better is keeping more things tied up which is, arguably more important. DR makes a bigger difference more often then a random chance though. Unless you can get that deflection so high it starts being the 5% chance of a 5% chance like in DnD anyway. Like I've said though, in the same situations my Barb survives about the same as a Fighter. Certain situations one does better then the other. But my Barb always, ALWAYS last longer through multiple fights. And that is what I was trying to get at ultimately. Other classes just lack the HP to keep up over multiple fights compared to the Warrior classes.

Barbarian has the highest HP value of any of them and has a skill that can regenerate a large percentage (all of it for the first 3-4 lvls, 70-80% late). That is ultimately your biggest factor unless you like resting all the time. Cleric, for instance you could make into just as tanky as anyone else, but your going to be limited in there overall health total. You could still do it though, you ultimately need good armor, throw a shield on go defensive. Clerics, since you mentioned em, have plenty of heal related skills. including an AoE heal over time. Chanter, for that matter also gets a group regeneration. Takes 2 talents, but it ends up being 2.8 endurance a second. Think Warrior is 2-3 base +1 or more with a talent point. Anyway, point is its similar but Fighters start with it and it's self only (and stacks with Chanters). And that's where you walk into the health issue again. Warriors will ware there health away in 1-2 battles and they have more base, more per lvl, and a higher multiplicative for there health total. Some endurance/health examples at lvl 10 Fighter: 168 endurance x5 that for HP (840) Chanter/Priest/Druid: 144 endurance x4 for HP (576) Barbarian has a higher base then Fighter, and x6 for HP totals. But like I said you can make anyone survivable in melee and be a front line fighter - they just need the armor and maybe some constitution. Preferably with some reliable method to heal through some of the combat. But even with that, the middle/low end hp classes will ultimately not last as long through multiple encounters and might pitter out on a single encounter (actually had a fighter have that issue). -edit- Oh, one last thing I forgot. Wizards have the least amount of health, overall. But they get a T2 spell (which is... lvl 3?) that will give the Wizard +50 max Endurance/Health (as well as healing for that said amount). Wiki says it only lasts 15 seconds, but then it also says its +100 endurance which it's not... least not what it says in game, and I forget the duration in game. Anyway, point is, you can make a Wizard a tank but it'll require good timing and paying attention. That spell can, ultimately, give a good chunk of health and endurance to prolong how long they last through out multiple fights since it's temporary totals. Plus they get a lot of other buffs for defenses and stuff that you can add to the mix.

Bumping just once in case someone who has any idea wtf is going on with this just missed the thread.

Yeah, it's weird... I swear it happened not when leveling. At 3 he had 100 endurance, and I remember he had 597 HP (which is less then x6 >.<)... then outa no where he had over 900 health at some point. Now, at lvl 4, he's at 120 Endurance but 1084hp. So yeah.. I'm confused. This happened before I got the keep, btw. Before I hit lvl 4 (which was just after obtaining). So.. yeah, super confused. Not sure if it's just a bug or if something else is causing it. Not seeing anything in the char sheet that would explain health never matching up (either slightly less or way the balls more).

So, playing a Barbarian, supposed to have x6 health as endurance. I can't seem to find any information on that changing, or scaling with level past just x6 endurance. Make a new char, he has less then that, 3 lvls down the road (lvl 4) and now he has like 9.0583- more HP then endurance. No special talents, and it's not just at this lvl it went all crazy. Every time any character levels up the amount per endurance seems to increase slightly like it's on some weird exponential scale. Anyone else notice this? Or was there some kinda HP change where keeping it static wasn't work? It's all extremely confusing atm.