AndreaColombo

^ it is, thankfully.

Can anyone with the beta patch confirm whether the Confident Aim ability was fixed?

The Grey Sleeper is rather strong in my opinion. As for attack speed calculation, there have been entire threads dedicated to the subject. PoE is generally bad at communicating how its mechanics work, but that doesn't mean the mechanics are bad. If you really want to know how fast you attack, do a frame by frame analysis. If you don't, eyeball it based on this chart (part of it is outdated, but close enough.) Damage calculation in PoE is as easy as it gets because the game does it for you. Equip a weapon and the UI will tell you exactly how much your min and max damage is. Of course it varies from character to character: They have different MIG scores, just like different characters had different STR scores in IE games. The same sword doesn't have the same damage output on Imoen and Minsc.

There are skills that are not worth pushing past 3-4 points on each companion, like Stealth or Athletics. The benefits you get from investing more than 3-4 points are too small compared to the cost. Lore is good for some conversation options, but less than you would think. Other than that, I would have 1 or 2 party members pump it to 10 so they can use all scrolls; it is not necessary for the rest of your party to invest in it (but you can have a 3rd party member with some Lore so they can use some scrolls in case the 10-lore guys are knocked out or otherwise unavailable for using scrolls.) Likewise, you only need one party member with high Mechanics (at least 10); it is not necessary for the others to have it. Survival is generally considered a bad/useless skill but I beg to differ. Like Lore, it offers some conversation options (not many) but what I like it for is the increase in duration of the one potion that can make your DPS skyrocket: Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. I always have at least 10 ranks on my main, and some ranks on the rest of my party as well. It also increases the duration of food, which I make ample use of.

SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Select the protagonist and go to her character record. Click her Stealth score and observe it lists the following bonuses: +2 Dungeon Delver, +1 Blooded Hunter, +1 Lilith's Shawl. Further observe the total score is 6, thus implying I only invested 2 points in Stealth. That is not true, as I invested 4. Scroll down the character record until you get to the list of talents. Click on Dungeon Delver to read its description. Observe it never mentions any bonuses to Stealth. The same steps can be followed to observe a +2 bonus listed to Mechanics, where the issue is even more obvious: My Mechanics score is 0 and rightfully so, since I invested no points in it. Yet clicking it says I get +2 from Dungeon Delver. The issue has been there since the base game released in March. I guess those bonuses were originally part of the Dungeon Delver talent, yet when they were removed the textual part was retained.

SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Observe Aloth has a dialog icon on its portrait, indicating he wants to discuss something with you. Click that icon to initiate dialog. Select the first option (the one marked as [Rational] that says the fabricated gods served their purpose.) Observe that after Aloth speaks his answer, Durance intervenes saying that the "half-souled elf is right." The interjection is spoke in Durance's voice, yet Durance's name and portrait do not appear next to it.

Interesting. I may run another batch of tests on a new game to double-check then. EDIT: Still getting only 50% more damage from crits. Guess I'll try again on 2.03.

Aarik, do you know whether this was fixed for 2.03?

... And I wondered why I could finally enjoy the game without using the IE Mod to disable engagement! Thankfully the mod still offers the option, should the devs have a change of heart

Why must a Paladin have high Resolve? They can easily do without if you're building for DPS instead of defense.

Interesting. Good thing it is not a generalized bug Is it possible to verify the game's cache on a GoG install? Otherwise I can live with the issue; it's rather minor since I can just access his inventory to make him pop back up.

The Priest spell Champion's Boon gives +5 DR (among other things), so you could wear lighter armor and use that spell instead. Then again, the DR bonus from the spell stacks with that from armor, so using both is still better. That said, my Fighter wears plate armor and uses a two-hander with Vulnerable Attack and her recovery time only lasts 15 frames. Use Durgan Steel on your armor and on a Speed weapon, take the Armor Grace ability, pump your DEX score and sip potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion like your life depended on it, and you'll be fast regardless of what you're wearing.

If you tackle the adra dragon at level 14, you can just physically maim her even without knocking her prone. Blinded, Sickened, and Weakened would still work too.

Sure; here it is. To make him visible I must access his inventory; just moving him around leaves him invisible for me.

Hi mukurome, what game version are you on? 2.02 or 2.03 beta?

Not sure, honestly. I haven't really done much at all with him in the first place: Basically I recruited him, leveled him up, gave him equipment and saved. In fact, I've just tried to load an earlier save and do exactly those very things, and upon saving/reloading he was invisible. Odd stuff; never happened to me before with any companion or character.

What game version are you running? WF definitely works - and shows - for me.

^ all credit goes to KDubya for that build

If there's no bar overhead, there's no recovery. Only a 4-frame delay that can't be eliminated for it is not affected by any mods; I guess it's there to avoid animation glitches or other silly behaviors when you speed up like that. Don't look at me with that, though. My main build is a Fighter and I can get it down to 15-frame recovery with a two-hander and plate armor

Dual-wield durgan-enhanced weapons, wear durgan-reinforced hide armor, start with 18 dex + 3 from item + 3 from resting bonus in Caed Nua + 2 from Rauatai Sweet Pie, and sip a potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. Voilà - no recovery. (of course also take the Two Weapon Fighting talent.)

St. Ydwen's Redeemer also isn't bad on Paladins. The Divine Mark proc is quite dandy.

I perceived it as happening before the game. It explicitly says Sagani's quest for finding Persoq is nearing 5 years, whereas when you meet her she says she's been out looking for him for 5 years already.

SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Observe that one of the six party members is invisible. Select him and observe it is Hiravias. Further observe that moving him around doesn't make him visible. Select the whole party and access the inventory. Back to the game, observe that Hiravias is still invisible. Access Hiravias's inventory. Back to the game, observe that Hiravias is now visible. Odd bug; not really sure what might be causing it. Never had anything similar before.

Josh on Something Awful: New Stronghold content seems interesting. It's not going to make the Stronghold BGII-grade, but it looks like they'll add some much-needed flavor. I'm not big on the change to Survival as I like my potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion to last as long as possible Option for Knockout injuries is potentially interesting to add some challenge, though I'm not sure I'll be using the option; personally, I'm much more interesting in the fine-tuning and up-scaling of Act III and IV content. The change to per-encounter spells isn't mentioned in the 2.03 patch noes, which is interesting considering how big of a change it is. Either it didn't make it in, or it was forgotten but that seems odd.

Looks like a female to me as well. If she really is from Raedceras, she might have some very interesting banter with Edér and Durance. Really looking forward to trying a Barbarian NPC, too. Hopefully she'll have all her legitimate stat points and they'll be allocated somewhat decently.