Odd Hermit

This isn't true. For some classes, talents have more weight, for others attributes do. Intellect is a huge deal for spell casters. +50% duration on spell durations > any talent or even several talents. It's the single most important thing for me on Priest. I would spend talents on +Intellect if I could.

I soloed the BB with a rogue but I pretty much decided "never again". Solo in this game is just kinda tedious. I'm sure triple crown solo still takes some skill but it's more about patience, learning the fights before hand, and abuse of AI limitations. The players that've done triple crown so far used separate saves to figure the best ways to do most things. And I think so far it's all rogues for shadowing beyond of course.

You used wrong tactics for the dragon, what did you expect? Would end the same way for a lot of chars. As I said, it's not the tankiest build ever, it can tank a lot of enemies however. You can switch to ranged if needed an you can still do nasty stuff with your spells. Retaliation tanking is used vs mobs of melee enemies, which are plenty. OP made it out to be "ultimate" "god-like" and etc. It's not. It doesn't deal that much damage, and it doesn't tank that well. That's my only point. Some of the stat stealing Powers are great, but they don't turn a cipher into something you can call "tanky". Also the set-up necessary to buff this thing up isn't worth the time on most of your average encounters. .

Ah yes analysis paralysis, I get this too. Why I got the beta actually, so I could know upon release generally what I wanted. Any game with a complex combat and character building system is gonna take some time to figure out and you will make mistakes your first run through. I spent 200 hours in the beta and I still ended up with some dumb choices my first play through the release version. Take a generally tried and true build(there are plenty of recommendations around) of a class you like the theme of, play the game through, and then the second time you can be OCD about everything once you actually learn enough to judge. You're never going to figure it out without actual in-game experience.

I tested it @ level 10 vs. Sky Dragon, not even on PotD difficulty just using my first game's save before final battles. It's a waste. The drain spells are still good of course but you get into melee and you lose. The accuracy isn't high enough to have 100% reliable build up and I don't think Tactical Meld and Borrowed Instinct stack anyway. I was still getting lots of misses. Granted, it's a dragon fight, but all that set-up isn't really necessary on small fights anyway. I managed to finally get all of the borrowing spells off, waded into melee, got crit by fire breat and KOed. Deflection doesn't give you reflex and you don't have a shield and this build suggested low per/dex to boot. Getting crit by a breath attack and one shot didn't honestly surprise me at all. I think you're still better of going ranged w/cipher. You can get high accuracy and just Arbalest things, and potentially prone them with crits which is nice. This in no way some kind of juggernaut build.

Sounds great on paper but keep in mind it takes several casts and you have to actually land them. A tank can run into battle with around that level of durability without the need to spend multiple actions building up. It suffers for similar reasons as a mage gish build does in that the elaborate setup has to happen in combat. On the plus side, you don't spend spells/rest. On the downside, you can run out of focus and a few early misses - because your buffs have to target enemy defenses first - can ruin this whole strategy. And until you get Borrowed Instinct, @ 9th level, you're stuck with a minimum dex Cipher. Borrowed Instinct costs 30 focus too, which is pretty high. And if it misses on big tough boss battles(and it will, 'cause plenty of bosses have high will defense) you're pretty screwed.

Because the enemy likes to ignore the melee sometimes and will start nuking your glass cannons before they even cast a spell, or just teleport onto them. Because reloading 20x because you got "unlucky" for any number of reasons when your Cipher melted in 5 seconds isn't fun. Because some people would rather slog through a fight than than tip-toe kite around every fight. Because if you're playing on Hard+ your camping is limited which really limits the WTFBBQ face melting of certain classes for a fair portion of the game, and sure you can alievate that by avoiding fights, but again some people don't want to do that or to spend a lot of time running back to town for supplies/sleep, so having more rugged party members with higher Health pools is an advantage. Its all still min/maxing at the end of the day, different people just have different prefrences or objectives. And finally some people do actually RP in these games to varrying degrees and the thought of their Fighter not being able to hit the broadside of a troll's arse, and only being able to tickle it when he does hit, is unappealing. I'm not having an issue with this. Deflection / endurance don't do much for already fragile classes to prevent this. If anything, dex is the better defensive stat because it allows you to cast fast defensive spells faster. And it has offensive value as well, obviously. Con does very, very little for HP on non-fighter type classes, and Per/Res need to be pretty high before you start feeling substantially more durable. You have to sacrifice way too much offensive capability for too little defensive gain if you go for above 8-10 Con/Per/Res on a Wizard, Priest, Cipher, Druid.

I'd like 1-2 harder enemies sprinkled across encounters based on your level. Not level scaling enemies, just scaled up encounters if you out-level things. They already kinda do this from normal -> hard -> PotD, if they added it based on level that'd be a solution that doesn't mess with anyone's experience too much - you could still gun through the main quest or do lots of side quest.

Fighter in BG2 had basically nothing interesting to do and was entirely about gear and autoattacking so I'm not sure how you can really point the finger at PoE for autoattack heavy classes. In PoE they did try to allow all classes to be more / less passive active, although certainly some classes could use a bump in the number of actually useful active abilities. As for Kensai/ Mage, yeah. I was like 13 or something. I played the uber builds. But really any caster dual class could be overpowered(Berzerker/Cleric), or some multiclasses(Ranger/Cleric). The game was so full of cheese it was hard to really make a dividing line anyway. The things they let arcane casters do were absurd. And as I've said in another thread, often it came down more to preparation via tons of buff stacking more than any in-combat tactics. PoE has its own strengths and weaknesses but I don't recall any fights in BGII being remarkably difficult, there was just one or two things you had to learn before a certain enemy went from feeling nonsensically overpowered to trivial. Chaotic Commands vs. Mind Flayers for example.

No, it's not the realism. More work clearly went into Wespenfresser's images. LLaney can't spend as much time on a single portrait as Wespen obviously did, I fully recognize that, but I do think the current portraits lack some detail. I'd also like more variation in expressions. Most of the current portraits either have a faint smile or look disinterested. EDIT: I don't want to come across the wrong way here: I do like the portraits. It's good artwork and I appreciate the effort that has clearly been put into it. I prefer the less detailed works. It's the idea of a character and leaves more open to imagination. The more specific, the less it fits with my idea of a character. They also just have a more painterly aesthetic. Not quite IWD level but arguably more appealing than the more comical BGII ones - at least for my taste. The quality is hit and miss with them though while IWD's were all so consistent. However I think IWD was mostly just one very talented dude that had more time to work on it, and thus they share a style because it's all his style.

Has its fair share of issues(so did the infinity engine games...) but I definitely got more than what I paid for.

That's exactly how the old IE games were made. You could run through the main questline and do nothing else and get there much sooner and be faced with a much nastier final battle. It's assumed that players will do at least some side quests in games like this. IWD1 was pretty linear and enemies were generally around your level ... or in high enough numbers to pose a threat. BGII was much more open...like PoE. Hard to pair character progression with open world and not have it lead to out-leveling content for some players.

They weren't intending/assuming players would do all side-content, or probably even most it. They were also likely assuming you'd take companions as they come, which would quickly get you up to a 5 person party. Solo XP isn't too high for a genuinely solo attempt, or for a 2-3 man party. However, you can "farm" the easy stuff while using a small party, and then grab the rest of your party at higher levels. It's tough, if not impossible, to balance this in a way that can please all players. Some people will just do more content than others and get higher level faster. But we definitely don't want something like the IWDII system where you were penalized on XP gains for being higher level which led to weird tactics like "muling". The best thing to do if you want more challenge is probably play "as intended" on hard, or buy hires ASAP and play with a full party on PotD if you want to do a bunch of side-content.

The IE games were more heavily dependent on a few things. Some classes were just far and away the best for the PC to be. I played a Kensai Mage and Sorcerer in BGII and I steamrolled it. There's also a ton of cheesy spells and tactics. But it boiled down most of the time to knowledge more than it ever did tactics. In PoE you need both, but it leans heavier toward tactics. You can't cast a bunch of spells to totally counter a particular enemies' gimmicks. I beat the Demilich by Polymorphing into a mustard jelly. It was funny, but it wasn't particularly tactical it was just one piece of cheese against another.

They include the racial bonuses Elusive Quarry is +10 defense against ranged attacks - which I believe applies mainly to weapons but judging how implement talents work with a bunch of spells it might work against some missile style spells too.

You forgot the worst part, they can constantly summon more Shadows to fight too! Not in POTD. Debuffing them in that seems futile. They should let the shades summoned by this lamp summon shadows. With their own Obsidian Lamp Figurines. Then it would all make sense. And Fort is their weakest defense. They have high will and I believe reflex is their highest which most low level spells target. There's a Druid spell that targets fort but it's freeze damage so pffffffffffft. Cipher probably the best against them at low level since Eyestrike targets Fort and is a pretty good debuff.

Heavy/Light/No armor And maybe helmed/hooded as well. I'm a fan of those when I'm making full hired adventurer parties.

There's a priest spell that extends durations by 10s. Also buffs aren't short if you make custom characters with 19 int, which I do for all my casters.

Aumaua, Dwarf, Godlike. Classes IDK, any class can wear any armor so it makes little difference to me.

I have a strong dislike for the in/out of combat state being such a gamey feeling system as well. That said I think pre-buffing, without other changes to adjust it, would reduce my enjoyment of the game as it is right now. There are some buffs that would become no-brainer pre-buffs if I could cast them before combat and it would get tedious. You can argue preparation = smart, but it's a game and if it reduces fun / increases tedium that's an arguable position.

Their attributes are just numbers and wouldn't change their character in any way if they were distributed better. It's an entirely arbitrary connection. Especially considering how many iterations they've gone through giving various bonuses. You could still even do ironman PotD with them it just is far from optimal.

OP's character wasn't necessary crappy, just not what he wanted out of his character. Some people also just want their character to be good at everything at once and it leads them to end up being good at nothing which is the state of the companions right now. All of the companions can work fine if only because the combat isn't too painfully difficult especially on Hard and below. But relative to a custom build, yes companions including Pallegina suck at everything. I used Flames of Devotion and Arbalest on her, she was basically good for two sort-of hard hits(if they hit) and then relegated to babysitting squishier characters, which many other builds could do better while doing other things. Her damage in melee is weak, her damage at range is weak, her durability is mediocre. I've also tested the immortality of Eder, and post-bugs, he's not really durable nor is his damage output great. He has too many points in con which is the worst attribute unless you're going pure tank which Eder cannot really do until late game since he has weak Per/Res. I can make a character that does better damage and tanks better and is basically better in every way with just lower endurance that I could make up for by eating some food if I really wanted. And companions also take some pretty awful talents. So even if you think their attributes aren't a big deal, there's still that problem.

Pets cannot tank on PotD, bear or not. Use him as a flanker and be cautious about it. With flank debuff + the talent that gives +10 accuracy while attack same target as your pet, your ranger can be pretty good against high deflection enemies. I still think they're a weak class but there's a niche for high accuracy in PotD. Stag is also not good for Druid. Wolf is the best for the prone. It's a good emergency engagement breaker. The extra defense and carnage thing on the stag are pitiful. You could take any form for RP reasons but Wolf is far and above the rest for PotD IMO because you can actually get something off you with it.

It was a common and dull tactic to just buff yourself like mad and spend less than the time you spent buffing to kill an enemy. I'm not 100% anti pre-buffing but this is definitely better than having to cast "immune to getting completely wrecked by save or die stuff" before fighting enemies with such abilities, and definitely also better than stacking a bunch of long duration stuff every time you rest as well. Wasn't really interesting casting a bunch of +2 attribute for 9 hours sort of spells before going off and fighting stuff. I think the solution is turning a few spells into "upkeep" spells that come with pros/cons and take up a spell or two. This would give some of the Wizard buff spells a purpose. Still, Wizard would also need some other options to really make gish builds work but it'd be a step in the right direction without adding any tedium.

There's a talent you can check called Transcendent Suffering. @ Level 4 you should be at rank 2 of it giving you some accuracy and damage. Still, melee weapons are just better. I would try 2x Maces, Spears, or Sabres of Fine or better quality perhaps and see if your results turn out better. Also, Turning Wheel + Swift Strikes + Lightning Strikes add a decent amount of elemental damage to your attacks. For a dual wield monk it's probably a good idea to get those two abilities and talent.