Sock

I also play on hard, and I have the exact opposite issue, but I never build my characters like you do, and that might be the issue. It could also be that I favored chanters very early on, and part of their shtick is building up chants to unleash invocations, so to get the most out of them I need people that can survive until I can unleash Thrice She Was Wronged which typically kills everything. You seem to keep building to extremes, for example the 20 int moon god-like fighter. I have experienced great success with the following builds: Chanter; 14 str/int/res/per, 10 con, 12 dex. This chanter has sword and shield style, hold the line, and ancient memory talents. I use a sword and shield and a war bow. The role of this character is to go where needed, but defaults to archery. I set up two different chants, and switch between them based on where the character is going to be. Burning weapons is on both chants, but one has the ranged weapon chant, and the other has the frost aura for when engaged in melee. With the Invocations, this character can also do massive AoE DPS, and my chanter typically tops the damage chart every single game, and has more kills than the rest of the party combined. Ranger; 16 str, 8 con, 14 per/int/res, 12 dex. Sword and shield, and all other talents based on increasing damage. Another off-tank role, but is capable of locking down 3 enemies (pets can engage two at once by default). Extremely effective at eliminating single targets when working in tandem with pet, with damage levels somewhat comparable to a dual wielding rogue, but is significantly more durable. Almost all hits on the ranger and chanter are grazes, since they both often have 90 deflection/reflexes with just fine shields, and usually end the beta with around 110-120 deflection and the high 90s in reflexes. The ranger can't really exercise the flexibility that the chanter can in combat role, since I found switching to a bow with the ranger will result in fewer solid hits because now the creature engaged by the pet isn't being flanked, and it feels as if my pets get hit a lot more often and a lot harder when my ranger isn't right there with them. Story time: With my flexible chanter, I managed to get off three invocations in a single fight, in the ogre cave when I accidentally pulled all of the spiders except the queen in a single fight. Against a horde like that, the shield was vital until I could build up invocations to clear the room. I've also had great success with a greatsword and warbow combination on my chanter, but it is noticeably more fragile, but the damage is higher. It's not that shields aren't useful, it's that they aren't suited to your play style. I often run with shields, since I find going without tends to result in way too much reliance on the priest to heal. Using shields, I can trek further and play longer without having to rest to recover spells and health, which also means I can keep the Dragon's Rest buff on longer, so everyone benefits from +2 to important combat stats for more fights. Edit: In short, you keep building and playing utilizing "metaknowledge", which is fine. That's what you do. But if you were to play the game on release, you won't have that knowledge, and that's where a shield is going to be extremely valuable. You won't know ahead of time what every single encounter is going to be like, so you won't be able to min-max it like you currently can. Edit2: (I should've waited before posting) I'd also argue that balancing against min-max, for every single aspect of the game, is a nightmare. Somethings are going to be more powerful than others in certain situations, that's how it's always been on single player RPGs. I don't think that the difference between 2h and sword and board is even close to as great as you make it out to be.

Really, I'd prefer to see their spells revisioned. Let your spell selection reflect the diety you've chosen. There are, of course, "general" cleric spells, like healing and blessing and so on and so forth, but perhaps all things related to Fear should be tied to Skaen, etc. Or maybe your diety choice includes a modifier to related spells? For example, pick Ondra and all heals have a larger AoE.

Maybe? I'm not 100%, I only level up when turning in a quest, which means being in town with access to the inn. I try to keep the resting buff on at all times, just incase stats impacted by it can be used in a conversation somewhere. But, I do seem to recall some situation where I was annoyed that my ranger and pet weren't at full health when everyone else was.

I feel that there's a difference between "druid" and "survivalist". I'd like to see the ranger with abilities that actually remove conditions. There are several abilities that repress conditions, but few that actually clenase or remove them. I do like the idea of the ranger beind the dedicated trapper, too. Per-day "natural traps" that take on an effect depending on terrain (forrest is a snare, field is a spike pit, city is some kind debuff, etc). As far as the shared health pool goes, I'm not sure how I feel about it, long term. It provides additional HP (my ranger has had more endurance than my fighter, with just 10 con), it also seems to provide additional healing. I need to test further, but I think that anytime you heal the ranger, you heal the pet for 50%, and both gain a total of 150% healing. I saw once where Benevolence went off and healing the ranger for 4 and the pet was healed for 2, so due to shared health they gained 6hp. Ranger absolutely needs to be better at range. I wouldn't mind a ranged pet, let me tame a beetle that spits acid or something. I think rangers would be better at range if they were able to benefit from all the perks of being a ranged unit. Free selection of targets (not feasible currently due to disengagement attacks on the pet) and removed from damage (due to shared health and the core concept of the ranger class, this is denied to the ranger) being the two big perks they're denied. A ranged pet could resolve those issues.

Can't edit posts? Oh well. (Playing on hard) Did a quick run of killing the two backer NPCs in the tavern (full plate and a fine robe, die die die), Meredith, the two furriers, and then ran through the Temple of Skaen, taking out the beetles and the first five men fought there. My dual saber wielding ranger was a thousand times more survivable than the dual wielding rogue. Further, his damage was twice the rogues; 850 vs 407. Small test, but, I wanted to see if it was viable and it actually is. The ranger benefits from higher defenses in general compared to the rogue, too. The rogue tops the ranger with reflexes, but ranger has every other defense higher than the rogue. I think it's ironic how the ranger is better at melee, while the rogue is better at range.

This is a problem I have frequently. The wording on a lot of abilities and spells is unclear. For example, I haven't seen anywhere when it says "Deals 50.7 damage in 10 seconds.", does that mean that it deals 50.7 damage every second, or 5.07 damage every second, for ten seconds? Or what? All DoT or HoT skills are ambigiously worded.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more ranger talents that benefit a melee ranger, but the talent options are there for a melee ranger to take without wasting a point. Some aren't that appealing, but... Next go around, I plan to use sabers (which come with a DoT), and the ranger talent that increases pet damage by 1.5x on targets suffering from a DoT. I've tried with a 2h weapon and the related talent, but felt that it was still too fragile. Could try a dual wielding ranger, see if I can't just DPS everything to death.

So, I've found myself going back and back and back again to the chanter class. No other class that I've played has been as great as the chanter. They provide all of the things that all the other classes can provide, in a neat little package. - They start with mechanics, so you can learn how to open locks and disarm traps. While any class can do this, it's still worth mentioning, and while we don't know how useful that level 1 mechanics will be in the early game... it's almost a sure thing that it's going to have more practical application than any other skill. - Their invocations do not result in friendly fire. They can summon, buff, debuff, and deal damage with just invoacations. While less "on demand" than wizard spells and of lower damage, invocations are VERY noticable and the class is far from useless while building up chants. -Their chants function like a Paladin's auras, but provide more variety. Any one chant is equal to any one aura, but you can stack chants and get a wider AoE from them, which you can't do with Paladin auras. Their chants are greatly varied, and do not require talent points to learn. - Their class talent, Ancient Memory and then Beloved of Spirits enables them to provide endurance regen comparable to a fighter, but for anyone within range. - The class functions equally well in a melee or a ranged role, and also works great as a hybrid (open with ranged, if something gets away from your frontline then switch to melee and grab it. I don't see a lot of discussion here about chanters, which baffles me. If you ask me, every class should strive for the functionality that the chanter has. They are the perfect "party leader". Not to mention that in every group I run with a chanter, my chanter ends up leading the damage meter by a large margin. I think in my last run, my chanter has 9k damage, compared to my rogue having 4k.

Usually 1 to 1 depending on pull, but spiders in the cave can be worse. I once faced down odds of 5 to 1 due to a bad spider pull, got caught in the patrol path. I only play on Hard difficulty, too. More items, more loot, more options for itemization during the beta. Hard would probably be harder if scouting mode wasn't so useful. As it stands, even without training the skill, I can have my whole party enter any room and then position themselves before I initiate contact.

Wipe out the town. You'll find lots of clothes. Even a few hats.

Different source, but seems to be the same issue. I've turned some of my priest buffs into permanent buffs, too. Not sure how, but for whatever reason my chanter currently has 87 accuracy. Further, my weapons are reporting double the quality and enchantment bonuses. My fine war bow is providing +8 accuracy and +2.3 dmg, which is twice what it should be.

If I try to purchase an item I can't afford, and then sell items that I have to make up the difference, if I sell more items than needed, I will not recieve any gold over the purchase price, regardless of the balance listed. In other words, if I have 2k, buy an item for 4k while also selling 4k worth of goods, I end up with 0 gold, when I should end up with 2k.

Or, alternatively, mages can get off their high horse and take a step back and realize that they are just as valuable to a team as anyone else. It may be disappointing to not be the "strongest guy in the room" anymore, and instead they are sitting at the table as equals.

I'm glad you liked it, but... Medreth isn't much of a challenge, and I'm pretty sure you would've been able to gank him even more effectively with a fighter, monk, or rogue built for damage. It's possible that I could have, yes, but my ranger still brings things in addition that the rogue, fighter, and monk do not. The ranger still has the pet, too, which still does open up different tactical options. However, just my pet and ranger were able to take Meredith out without any other assistance, and without taking any damage. While that can happen with the other classes, my point is it can also happen with the ranger which I think is pretty significant, since like everyone else in this thread, I found rangers to be underwhelming when used as a ranged unit. They also obliterated beetles, and the team took out the full party guarding the dragon egg without anyone going down. There seriously is something to a sword and board ranger.

Was it a direwolf? Was the ranger's father beheaded by a sadistic boy king? It was! And then he went to war, and then was seduced by a wiley temptress' grandmother, and died at his uncles wedding. It was all very tragic.

I just did something different, and it seemed to be working really well. I made my ranger into an off-tank, and set him and the pet wolf in to tag team creatures. I picked the weapon and shield talent, and they alone handled Meredith like a pro. Maybe I've been looking at the class all wrong. Maybe they're not meant for ranged dps, maybe they're meant for melee dps. Teaming up with their pet leads to flanking bonuses in a lot of situations, and if you take the talents that are useful in melee (like +accuracy when attacking same target), they're a very effective duo. Up until this moment, I was completely sold on using a chanter as my character when PoE goes live. I need to test more (ran into a bug where my pet vanished, icon and all), but I think that a sword and board ranger might actually be effective.

So, just a crazy thought, but... What if not all animal companions had to be combat related? What if you could pick, say, a field mouse companion and as a result your ranger benefits from a significant perception boost, and perhaps significant skill bonuses for spotting traps and the like. In other words, if you pick a non-combat companion, you gain personal perks on the ranger. This still fits within the theme of the ranger, but allows for more variety with ranger builds.

The Ranger's problem is that even with the animal, it's damage is too low. With the pet serving as a liability due to disengagement, the ranger's coordinated attacks with the pet should be signficantly higher than any other class, even the rogue, while it's attacks without the pet should be average with all other classes. They need something more significant in the damage arena, since their pet's are extremely fragile.

I think that for the damage they do, beetles are exactly the right size.

Some men are longer than others I see you've been talking to your mother about me again.

Ah, you're right. It does reflect it in the combat log. So, the problem is simply the display.

All characters I make only have their class bonuses to skill, and not any additional from cultural bonuses.

On the stats sheet on your inventory screen, where it lists all of the defenses. Deflection stays the same.

Have to agree with Sensuki. I don't need a whole bunch of glittery and glowy stuff while I'm planning.

Unless it's a hidden modifier, my deflection doesn't change when wielding a two handed weapon or a one handed weapon.