Jimmysdabestcop

House Doemenel actually can have the happiest ending for Defiance Bay if done for the super happy scooby doo type ending. I liked there missions the best and you get to acquire a +2 Plate armor pretty damn early for free. And 10K gold. And a crit damagew multiplier for your character. But more importantly you can still have all 3 faction merchants open to you. And they have 2 more quests then the other factions. House Doemenel merchant opening quest has nothing to do with the faction string. Then later there is a House Doemenel quest in the second village.

Those talents would have to be +30 to be useful. +15 does nothing. Don't bother with them I would say in 80% of all situations.

I finished it entirely in Act 2. But the way the game is setup you can level out in Act 2 if you do everything. Act 3 started I was already maxed for entire party on my 1st playthrough. There are 15 levels to the dungeon. The last level the dragon is probably hardest enemy in the entire game. If you use disabling scrolls, spells, traps you can actually destroy him around level 8-10. Or hey become allies with and not have to fight him at all. If you don't want to spam paralyze scrolls/spells or spam summons probably need to be on levels 10-12 to beat him. With good tactics you can probably clear out everything but the dragon level 8/9. And you can start as early as level 4/5. And for the stronghold the only thing I would waste money on is the garden and I think the curio shop which both spawn items you need for enchantments per turn or day. And then the warden to get the bounties. The bounties you probably need to be on levels 6-9 to breeze threw them. Better at first to use all your money to buy unique items, Helmets, rings, belts, capes, necklaces, weapons etc. As some of the best stuff is bought and some is found. Then like in Act 3 upgrade everything in the stronghold when you have 100k of gold/copper.

Depends if your Priest will be a ranged cannon or a melee fighter. If priest is ranged you can dump a lot more. Plus you will be in robes or clothes so speed will be fast. If you are going front line warrior priest you might not want to min/max. I like Mig - 14 Con - 10 Dex - 17 Per - 10 Int - 17 Res - 10 Give him a +3 might item. +2 dex item and a +2 int item or enchantment. Heaviest Armor and shield until you get the all class herald shield from adra dragon. Focus on defense talents for the most part. If you pick Skaen Priest he can still do some melee damage. +10 acc to clubs and stilettos. And clubs get +5 naturally. There is superb club in game +12. Plus weapon focus ruffian +5. Throw him a +10 deflection item as well. If you don't care about melee damage forget those talents and just use a hatchet for +5 deflection. Doesn't really need Per and Res if you are going shield. But if dont want melee offense you can dump might and max Per and Res. So you have a couple options even for melee priest warriors. Since he is on the front line he can heal and buff your melee characters a little easier. Debuff and disable the enemy as well. Plus tie up 2 enemies with hold the line. I really like the priests trap and pillars spells. I try to focus on disabling rather then buff/debuffing.

I typically deal with by just charming/dominating/mass confusion the enemy. Then its like 2 dozen characters running all over for 15 seconds. Or just throw a prone trap at your members who are dominated or cipher paralyze spell.

Boosting your Deflection and Accuracy and lowering the enemies is pretty basic and easy. And works in most encounters if you are focusing on buffs/debuffs. Ive been focusing on disables.

Eder can focus on dual wielding and say go sabres and stay in his starting armor the entire game. He just needs a +3 Dex item and usually a Dex resting bonus. Plus there is enough might, per and res items as well. Defender and Wary Defender is all he needs and dual weapon talent basically cancels out the only negative from defender. Then the -16% armor penalty. +10 deflection item. And you really dont have to worry about him but he can put some offense out still.

Priests are pretty flexible. Durance a little less so because awful Dexterity. You can turn your Priest into a 2nd line fighter with reach weapon. 1st line fighter. A Ranged Cannon. Durance specific god/religion talent gives +10 to Acc with Swords or Arquebuses. And I feel swords are a little underwhelming compared to other unique weapons. I like custom priest with Skaen +10 to clubs and stilettos and clubs have built in +5 extra. But back to Durance. I would say 2 options are make him a gunner with the Arquebuse. Robes and back of the line. He can heal, buff, and debuff. But I think his best spells are the trap spells. I mean 2nd level trap spells still work on Sky Dragon and other bosses. Just use them as an AoE spell and select the enemy the trap is instantly sprung. Other option is Durance can Defend on 1st line. Focus on shield and all of the defense talents. Even give him the hatchet for +5 deflection. Don't even bother with weapon focus. He will really only be getting damage from his spells and scrolls. Best shield. Best Armor. Something with second chance. Maybe some Dex or Con boosting Items. Get the priest ring for him. His job is to tie up the enemy. Since you are going for max defense his Con won't really be an issue. And its lot easier to buff/heal and sling traps and pillars around from the 1st line. But necessary, Nah. I however couldn't stand Kana. After 1st play through I leave him looking the the walls the entire game. I think he is the worst character. Chanters are cool though just not him. Even by end game I couldn't stand Aloth and swapped him out for Druid.

Think I would want Per at 18 as well for better deflection. Maybe a spear or club for the extra accuracy or as hatchet for deflection and forget offense. I would be really tempted to dump Con and Max Dexterity. With the shield, cautious attack, and low dex he is going to have the least amount of attacks in the party most likely. Maybe even drop Might to 10. No bonus to base damage but at least the pally will attack more often. And with a higher Per more interrupts. Can even take the interrupt boosting talent. Reason why I think completely dumping Con would work is. You can go max deflection, shield, and probably heaviest armor. Is Con really needed? You can always give him a +3 Might Item. +2 Int to Armor enchant. And a helmet or necklace with +Per/Res. And there are enough +2 Dex items as well. Plus resting bonuses. Mig 10 Con 3 Dex 18 Per 18 Int 11 Res 18 With +6 Aurora, weapon focus, and a club or spear +5 you should still be hitting enemies if you are going small Pally Herald shield.

I've actually started to like Rangers in melee. There swift aim can cancel out defender penalty and if using a quarterstaff or pike can stand behind there pet doing damage. They can get pretty high deflection if you put point into Per and Res. Don't really need Int if going melee over ranged. And if you make sure they are attacking same enemy as the AI they can get pretty high accuracy. And if need be get 3 slots. Can go quarterstaff to dual spears and war bow when they can't reach anyone. Back to Rogues I almost never used their per encounter abilities and they still basically crited and sneak attack every hit.. My Rogue was 2nd end of game in damage barely under my PC (1st playthrough normal). However by the end of the game I got really tired of using abilities and spells. and besides my cipher I didn't have the wizard or druid really setup as ranged weapon users. Originally focused on spells and class talents. But on Normal and even Hard you can really build any class into anything. I mean it is even totally possible to have a front line wizard. Basically only need to cast 2-3 self buffs which are instant cast. Then you can spam any of your per encounter high damage spells. Plus there are 2 Rings of Wizardy for extra spells. The only class I really don't like is Paladin. It just seems like anything they can do another class does way better. Especially as an NPC since faith and conviction is bugged and only works for the PC.

Not really. Defender slows attack rate by 20% but if you take two weapon fighting it increases by 20%. In essence canceling each other out. The Fighter only need Defender and Wary Defender that is it. And maybe the extra Regen endurance talent. The rest are all offensive talents. And its the only class to have damage modifiers applied to every basic attack. Then its gets talent to lower armor penalty by 16% and a built in second chance talent. good builds of a fighter and a paladin. The fighter will do way more damage and have just as high defense stats.

I think the reasons you bring a Rogue are different then the reasons you have a Ranger, Wizard, Druid, Cipher in the party. The Rogue doesn't really have to be managed. The normal course of an encounter will get them their Crits and there Sneak Attacks. To do any type of damage with those other range classes requires you to actively manage abilities and spells. The Rogue can hold their own weight. Is it the best character to bring along in a fully optimized party? Probably not.

Yes. And its so much better that way.

The cipher and wizard in the party. can blind, flank, and paralyze. Which gets you automatic sneak attack. You want all of them crits to be sneak attacks/deathblows as well. I would probably go soldier. You can use the Arbalest and the Arquebus. Once they fix the Speed Mod on weapons the 1st Arbalest you see will probably be one of the best ranged weapons in the game. If not you have the Wrecker as well. And the Arquebus are extremely good as well. Especially 2 of the named ones. Or go Crossbow, the Wendgar has 10% crit chance (your chance can get upto 40% if you go orlan) and speed mods once the devs patch it. To take advantage of crits you want to bring out the biggest damage dealer. Since the Game Engine uses Percentages for everything you want a high base damage to start with. So then you can apply lash damage, talent damage, crit damage, sneak attack/death blow damage etc. My Rogue was a sniper just 1 shotting enemies all the time. Just make sure that wizard or cipher are doing some kind of AoE debuff for to activate sneak attack/deathblow. Then you can swap out penetrating shot for gunner. And again once the Elemental Talents are fixed by devs you could take one of them as well to increase damage. There is also an accuracy boosting item you can drop on your Rogue as well. Then anything that improves Rogue's critical chance or critical damage multiplier.

You can hot key anything at least.

Honestly resting is just a throw back to the IE games which was neccessary because spells had to be memorized and sleep to activate. But almost every party had some kind of cleric dual or wizard dual. You can easily have parties in PoE without spells per rest. I honestly don't see the need for 3 different magic systems either. 1 for divine casters (priest/druids) one for arcane (wizrds) and 1 for ciphers. Should have chose 1 and made it universal. If Ciphers were loved so much then why not use their focus magic for all spellcasters?? Then could have just made resting at inns and gotten rid of camping all together. Unless I lose track of a member because of trees, objects, or spell effects I very rarely ever have had to camp for HP reasons alone. And 1st and 2nd level spells become per encounter base its insane. Priests and Wizards have rings. Wizards have 2 rings. No spell boost items for druids. But they all have extra spell talents.

Pause remove tress too!!!!!!!! Or just the leaves. For the love of god please

It reminds me of Fallout NV hardcore mode. In the end it didn't enhance the game or make it more difficult it just eventually became annoying. Should have either stuck with per rest or per encounter universally. Not this some class per encounter and some per rest. Same thing for talents and items. Could have just made the items have charges and be able to be reloaded. If you thought per encounter was going to unbalance everything then rebalance the aspects. Maybe enemy's would need more End/HP or more Might. Or perhaps you get less uses instead of 4 per rest make it 2 per encounter. Or use the Cipher magic for every caster. Ever one has Focus. Different classes maybe build it different etc. Its just when you take the game overall big picture all of these different aspects of the game are in contradiction with each other. Everything has its own individual rule or exceptions etc. There are 3 different magic systems in the game! One for Ciphers. One for Priests and Druids and then another completely different one for Wizards. Honestly it makes no sense to have 3 different systems. It doesn't honestly take away anything from the game for me. But if it was the 1st cRPG you picked up you probably be more confused playing PoE then an IE original game. and if there is going to be a PoE 2 then I would like things like that to get sorted out. And agreed camping is just an inconvenience for the player. No matter on what difficulty. If you can just fast travel to an Inn with no consequences. Might as well have removed camping made resting Inn/Village/Stronghold only and gave more emphasis on HP healing.

I guess my point is why does the Chanter constant Endurance talent (ancient Memory or whatever) set at 4m but all of the Pallys are 2.5m base? And all of their chant buffs are much larger then the Pally. Ancient memory is like tacked on the normal chants its not even a full abilitiy like the Pally modals but it has better base range. Pally has the smallest buff range out of anyone at base 10. Its ridiculous. And this all has to do with the Attribute System being Percentage based instead of direct numerical increases. Its why if you have squishy range class you can dump Con because it doesn't matter since their gain is so small the dump or max of it doesn't really effect it a lot. Like say a dump or max of a fighter's con would. But I'm not saying change that system. You just have to set the base numbers up enough to actually be effected by being Maxed or Dumped. And the Pallys auroras aren't.

If you are going full ranged Cipher you don't really need Resolve. Since you will be back in the line. And Cipher have good range on spells. No matter what you will be squishy. So might as well drop Con all the way to 3 instead of 5. Max Int, Dex, and Might. Per and Res can stay 10. Talent you take marksman first more accuracy for spells just like the wood elf's racial bonus. Then you could weapon focus soldier and use either the Arbalest Arquebus. Now some people like to go Blunderbuss because you can recover Focus faster. But unless you are playing potd I never needed to recover focus that much. The Cipher has a lot of AoE disabling spells. Paralyze or Prone etc. Then later mass confusion. Which will allow the rest of the team to take them out pretty fast. I rather have my Cipher hitting as hard as possible with the ranged weapon. Getting focus wasn't even an issue for me on hard. Either way you will still need the Gunner talent as well for faster reloads on all crossbows and guns. So marksman, gunner, and whatever weapon focus talent. The rest can be your cipher talents. increase max focus and focus gained per hit etc. You also pick up a Priest. Dont under estimate his trap spells. They even work on bosses. Pretty disabling. I played more disabling spells/attacks then mass AoE damage spells overall I guess.

Its actually weird Rogues have Backstab at all. The way Sneak Attack works that is the true backstab and it works in melee or range. They should just remove the rogue backstab talent and add a per encounter rogue only poison talent or some kind of throwing talent. That would be kind of cool.

Every time I read a variation of this it decodes to: "I want to be able to dump Intellect on my Pally without consequences." No its actually the opposite. Even with 18 Int the Aurora is small because its boosting a small area to start with. So in essence the way it is setup you can dump Int now. Perhaps 6m is to big at 10 maybe 6m at 18 Int. So around 4m at 10 then. Right now you dont need a Pally with high Int because even with high Int its still to hard to get any range and duration does little for him. If you are boosting something that is small by increasing Int whats the point? Take the Wizard the reason you want to max Int is because most durations and AoE are decent size and a increase of >30% means a lot. Max Int on something for 2m or lasts under 6secs is basically pointless you aren't getting a lot out of Max Int.

Honestly right now you can't even bring up Faith and Conviction for the Pally since it doesn't work for Party members only the PC. And as a party member the Priest can have just as high defense. Use the herald shield from adra dragon and have higher accuracy. Skaen Priest with club is +21 accuracy not counting enchanments. There is a ring for more spells so you can put 2 talents on offense and the rest on defense. There is a Paladin Aurua Ring but its still small area. Honestly his Aurora should be base 6m at 10 Int. Sure the Priest has lower HP so can't last as many fights but his defense without spells buffs is basically the same since the party Pally doesn't get any boosts for reputation. Factor in spells and trap spells its no contest. And if you are looking for straight buffs you can go Chanter over Pally. Can't defend as good as a Pally, comes close, but buffs are way better and way larger. Honestly think its the weakest class compared to the other classes. Maybe if Faith and Conviction will work for Party Members it will be better. Currently if you want a Pally you are forced to play with it as your PC and that sucks.

Thats a good point. Paladin with a Fighter and say a Monk/Fighter/Ranger/Barb would be pretty good. You could Flex out the Priest. Make him a cannon and have a slot for say club and shield if he has to go melee to protect back liners. Then you could also have a cipher, wizard/druid. Not a bad Party and I can see how the Paladin better the more melee characters you have. I would really like a dual wielding spear Ranger with Bear for that build.

It really has a lot to do with party composition. I mean you could Three frontliners and Two 2nd liners with reach weapons and 1 Range. 3 FL, 1 SL, 2 R, or 1 FL ,1 SL and 4 R. The more people you have in front line melee the more of both worlds you can have. You don't need 1 person max defesne and another max DPS you can spread both around. Take the Rogue with Tall Grass or the Barbarian both can go light armor with reach weapons. Rogue will maximize crits while the Barb maxes out on AoE Carnage. Then you could still have 1-3 front line melee character and 1-3 Ranged/SpellCasters. Depending on how you want to set it up. If you are only going 1 Front Liner. Then you might want to Max Defense because he will always be surrounded and you will be lobbing ranged or AoE spells or hitting with reach weapons. But if you are going with 2-3 Frontliners then you can take 2-3 defense talents and the rest class specific or offensive. Like the Monk gets his Monk +8 deflection talent it stacks with Cautious giving another +10. And he can take two weapon talent to cancel out penalty of cautious. So many different combos. Sure if you are playing with all the Difficult Settings at max you have less combos. But normal sky is the limit. You can even get a Priest with High Defense. Go shield. And all defense talents. Pick Skaen and you take talent +10 to clubs and stilettos. Then take ruffian for another +6 to clubs. And clubs have +5 natural. So that is +21. Later +12 once it is superb. You can stick with might around the middle and max out Dex and Int. There are plenty of +3 Might items if not just enchant his armor +2 might. He can still cause OK melee damage becasue even with shield his accuracy will be really high. He can go frontline to cast buff/debuff but the trap spells really shine. Even against the sky dragon those trap spells work. Then there is still the complete balance party. 3 front liners and 3 ranged/spell casters. With 1 ranged being a rogue who can alternate between range and reach. Point lots of options you don't have to worry about the Absolute Perfect Party combination. Even on hard you don't have to worry.