Cragen

Anyone know if its possible to get the +4 int ring without having to restart the game? I've installed the beta patch, but the ring isn't in the Vault of Forgotten Thoughts unless I'm looking in the wrong room.

So far for me, the Magran's Faithful bounty by FAR. Honestly seems broken at this point. I never got around to finishing the game so been doing a full playthrough with a Barb on POTD. Been some difficult fights and whatnot but nothing I couldn't overcome, but this bounty is kicking my ass its not even funny. Every single NPC got 150 will/fort/deflection so no matter what I throw at them they just shrug it off like its nothing. They got 3 priests so Storm of Holy Fire just insta kill anything that is in the area, but there isn't really enough room to move around. And then you got the druids who will kill anything that gets remotely close to them with firebug. So far I just end up running out of resources before half the group are dead. Been trying to get Eder to tank all the melee while I send the rest of my party behind them to pick off the priests one by one. Using Aloth to try and crowd control as much as possible, but at the end I just don't do enough damage. Eder runs out of health and can't stay alive anymore and they just slaughter me after that. Update! Somehow manage to pull it off in the end. Think that might be the first fight so far where I've damn near run out of spells on Durance and Aloth and had to ress people multiple times just to squeeze out slightly more damage.

Around level 12 you can start doing most dragon fights. Does require a bit of clever thinking in terms of positioning and using summoned monsters to really make it doable.That was at least my case on my current POTD run. Kana should really be renamed the dragonslayer for the help he brings to killing dragons. The Adra dragon I'd sneak towards the treasure hoard, quickly AoE down the Xaurips and start moving up towards the treasure. This limits being bumrushed by all the adds. Then I had Kana just spam Ogres to act as distraction for the dragon while my party kills the adds that run up without any danger. Kill all the adds then the dragon should go down easy. Either by prebuffing with priest for massive acc+damage increase to just blow it up before it wipes your party with AoE or just control it with paralyze. Generally that tactic works for all of the dragons. Using summoned adds to distract while you clean up adds and give you time to use a priest to buff to the max before burning down the dragon.

Indeed Flick of the Wrist was applied to all soulbound and summoned weapons. I don't know if they changed it in 3.0, but I doubt it. Sadly it doesn't work with all soulbound weapons anymore. Tested it on my Barb with Grey Sleeper and Blade of the Endless paths. Both give me the same amount of acc, but unlabored blade gets the extra 4 acc. So really only worth it if you plan on using daggers.

My Barb with max str and int and everything else at 10 managed to get it after a lot of frustration. I had 3 extra dex and pers from items and had the Caed Nua 3+ pers buff. Seems like its mostly just RNG from my experience, think I got it when I won 3 times in a row. Weirdly enough the dice games I got the talent in 2min when I went there for part 2 of White March but could never get it during part 1. Same with the flick the wrist talent.

I'm running a 100% POTD playthrough now with my PC Barbarian with max str and int and going for 2h build. Forgegloves early on and soulbound weapons towards the end game. Been using Aloth, Eder, Durance, Kana and Pallegina. Eder is my main tank and Pallegine works as off tank/secondary melee dps, Kana and Durance and Aloth are all range, though Aloth is the powerhouse as far as range damage goes. Worked well so far, just finished White March part 1 and done everything but the last part of the act 2 main story. So far its been pretty easy as far as fights go.

I tried with a Barb with 20 str and 20 int and 10-12 in everything else and I lost damn near every game. Would love to know what needs boosting to up the win rate.

I've been doing POTD with my offensive Barb, Eder as main tank, Pallegina as off tank, and Aloth, Durance and Kana as range dps/support. My Barb and Aloth are for the most part the heavy hitters. I'm sure if I didn't spec Eder pure tank he'd hit a lot harder, but so far its worked pretty well. Running through Caed Nua now at level 7 at level 7 so will see how far I get before I need to keep leveling. Sure there are far more optimized parties out there, but had everyone except Pallegina in my old playthrough that I didn't finish so want to run the game with them.

I've had great success so far with the standard max mig and int Barb running the Forgemaster Gloves and building around that. Only level 7 so far in my current POTD run, but suspect that I will respect when I get the Abydons Hammer. Max might with that hammer just seems to funny. Thor-alike Barbarian smashing faces. Barbarians from my experience is pretty dependent on gear and party support for added accuracy early on. Things like Sanguine Plate works amazingly well since it stacks with int and Barb talents so as long as you get crit once in a while you pretty much got perma frenzy.

Would love to get some input on companion builds and compositions. Haven't really touched Pillars since it was released. I played up to late act 3 as a paladin with Eder, Durance, Aloth Grieving Mother and Kana. Now that WM2 is out I'd love to do a full 100% play through on POTD but without any premade companions, but so much has changed since the last time I played so not really sure where to begin. Plan was to either go Barbarian or melee cipher. Eder as a tank seems pretty obvious and guessing Pallegina as well. After that I'm really kinda stumped. Honestly not sure what other NPCs would complement the party. Right now I'm sorta tempted to just go with Kana, Durance and Aloth since you get them early and try and build them for range, but the NPC stats are kinda horrid so honestly not sure what would be the best route.

Great update, hope further ones go into even more details. Also, 3ds Max is better than XSI and Maya!