rheingold

This... Can you imagine having a dinner party at the place, kids running around - Galvino would be sued! Seriously absolutely traps need to be in the game but just more care about where they are placed. Also would be nice if they gave you the tools to disarm them - ie a rogue or the gloves of mechanics.

Truth be told I only took it for roleplay reasons, I find it a bit weird that pale elves have ice and fire resistance, so I wanted to reflect that duality with the character. But, yeah it is a waste of an ability. She only uses scrolls of revival, moonwell and confusion so no direct damage scrolls. Still chanters are insanely powerful at high level. They do great damage and tank like champions. I kinda use the Ondra tidalfists as a gauge as to how good a tank is. And so far every time my chanter has outlasted my paladin by a substantial time. (POtd, upscaled, 12 level consistently). I must try your health stacking as well though...

I have a similar type build currently. "Snow White". Obviously pale elf from white that wends. Aristocrat. Wears the same armour which looks great. Has secrets of rime and scion of flame.... It's a theme build - fire and ice. The ice spell does great damage, and then there is dragon wailed. Very useful character. I have not tried your healing trick, I may do that, instead I stacked deflection. She is sitting at around 130 or so. Probably will reach 140 by the end. Also not min/maxed but I did give her 14 con and the yenwood blade. Chanters don't benefit as much as monks or barbs from constitution but so far she is consistently out tanking my paladin tank.

Great news, I'm in.

Did they have to? As you've already pointed out, there was a perfectly serviceable cottage at ground level. Just because you happened to catch him in his workshop, we should assume that it's canon that other visitors have also? For the record, he also mentions previously having sponsors in the Republics. It's probably safe to assume that sponsorship was generous and that even after it dried up, he still had some resources at this disposal. Which he then supplemented via whatever possessions were acquired along with his test subjects maybe? Look it is possible. But my issue is mainly it's just completely over done. The dungeon just goes on and on. There are too many tests subjects either for the story or for fun. And the traps are really painful. I really think pillars is a great game - one of the best I have played, a great story and game play, but every time I start a new play through I just cringe at having to go through the place.

Yeah, Yeah I will definitely go with that, I really find that min/maxed characters have to many weaknesses. On paper they are awesome, but in practice not so much, way to many compromises. I would really never drop resolve on a melee class, it's just not worth the trouble. Yes I know you can get items to compensate for the shortcomings, but then it's just another compromise... Sure you can use a particular piece of equipment to counter the weakness of say, concentration, but in many cases there are far better equipment options around. Example - using the celebrants gloves on a low resolve monk/ barb to compensate for low concentration. Sounds great until you realize that you could be using gloves of accuracy instead. So lowering stats to eke out every last bit of power gaming, but then you have to use certain equipment to compensate... Seems slightly counter productive....

Um, yeah I get that he uses the devil to find subjects.... But the whole situation with him is really strange.... Again where does he get the resources to build an underground labyrinth, how did the leaden key company and all the previous groups of adventures get through his dungeon? Did they also have to fight their way through to see him. If so, they must have been beastly, how on earth did they die against the ogres later. If they didn't fight their way through, why does the watcher have to. Galvino is actually not particularly aggressive, so why do you have to fight your way just to ask a couple of questions. Which I might add, he is only too happy to answer. The whole episode doesn't make much sense, it's like someone was told, "make a tough dungeon crawl, doesn't need a story, it just needs to be difficult." I wouldn't have minded if the dungeon was actually fun, but it's really painful. Not least because of the traps. And then the blasted rogue is at the end of the dungeon. It's just bad design, it's not well thought out at all. Which is odd because the rest of the game is great.

Is it just me who thinks that Galvino's cottage is just about the worst game design ever? I mean, if you where attempting to make an example of how not to design a level then this is what you'd come up with. It's kinda like a dev gave the tools to his or her 5 year old child and this is what they came up with. Don't get me wrong I love the game and I thought the devs did a great job, but the cabin! Really. It makes no sense from any perspective. An old crazy coot travels to the ass end of the world to experiment/torture people, presumably away from prying eyes. I can live with this, no problem with the character or motivations.... But he gets kicked out of town goes North and finds a small cottage and proceeds to build a huge underground labyrinth filled with crazed test subjects. So where does he get the resources to build his lab? The cottage just happens to have an extensive underground cellar? It's filled with traps and his creations. In spite of the fact that he receives regular visits from adventurers. Who presumably have to kill everything and disarm the traps before they speak to him. So how does he keep his batch of psychos topped up and ready to fight any new intruders? Then there is the rather irritating process of actually trying to speak to him. I can live with the overpowered automatons. It's painful and slow to get through them but it can be done, but the traps.... oh the traps.... In a moment of great game design they have put really high level traps, I have yet to have a character who can actually disable them, short of getting lucky with the gauntlets of mechanics (random drop) or getting the mechanics bonus from Caed Nua or having a rogue. As for a rogue, well the only rogue in the game is at the end of the dungeon.

If I did that I'd have a paladin with about -3 resolve... Not sure if it's possible.

I don't think a couple of points of resolve suddenly makes your tank untouchable. Generally for that to happen you have to stack deflection, so it would be a case of high resolve plus the deflection talents and abilities and a shield. So it really depends on whether or not you like the stat. And from a roleplay and concentration, will save point of view I do, therefore I take it. The extra 5 points of deflection don't suddenly make everyone automatically go after my squishies. Though to be honest I don't have a problem with that even if I do have an un touchable tanks mainly because I mainly go melee, just with a ranged Druid and ranger - rest solid combat classes. So really it is less about the actual stat and more about talents, abilities and party composition.

Just a point about vicious aim and twinned arrows, yes you can't use both of them at the same time, but you only get twinned arrows really really late. I get a huge amount of mileage out off vicious aim until then. In theory you could respec once you get twinned arrows and drop vicious aim but I don't like the idea so I end up having both. And let's face it - there are one or 2 fights where the extra accuracy really helps. I'd agree with the takedown pet talent - it is really useful as an extra crowd control tool,.

The system is actually pretty good, yeah obviously it needs a bit of refinement for POE 2, but absolutely no wholesale changes. Best to just tweak slightly otherwise you end up in the beginning again, just with a new system that no one understands. I'd also add that really it's only a tiny handful of rather dedicated people who are really complaining.... For the majority this really doesn't seem to be an issue. You can never design a game for the hardcore theory crafters, if you did you'd go broke. Not to say that I don't find this interesting and think there is room for improvement.... It's just that this being the Internet there is some over exaggeration as to how big the problem is.

Well talking about overpowered I'm running a main as a boreal dwarf juggernaut monk .... And he is pretty much breaking the game.... So much fun though.

Yeah the storm spells are good, but overpowered compared to some priest and wizard spells, no way. Want to nerf them you are gonna have to take a nerf bat to wizards and priests. And it is way to late for major balance changes anyway.

Can we sticky this thread mods please?

It's a patching issue with gog, again... I've had this issue every time there has been a major update. It's related to the load order of the patches and expansions. Easiest way around it is to use gog galaxy, though unfortunately the game seems to redownload every time there is an update. Sadly gog is a mess with pillars all around.

Jeepers what kind of friends do you have?

Relax kiddies, there will be at least one more patch if not a couple more. Funnily enough I am sure Obs are doing their best with limited resources. I'm sure they have less and less people available to work on pillars which is perfectly understandable. Their response in the bugs forum is excellent, but they simply cannot justify spending a huge amount of time and money on the game. The game is in pretty darn good shape at the moment and I'm sure as I write this they are working on the patch which will be released when its ready.

Well come to think of it Torm, a paladin dwarf is well, not very dwarvish! To be honest I love dwarves, always have and I REALLY appreciate the fact that in pillars you can have dwarf barbarians, dwarf paladins, dwarf druids.... Its awesome.

Agree with bb - kinda at least. Cautious attack on a rogue works really well, though I'm not using a riposte build. I am going dual wielding sabres with reckless assault. High resolve, superior deflection, cautious attack and the update to reckless assault which removes some of the ra penalty to deflection. Ends up with good (not great) deflection and does bucket loads of damage, far more than a sword and shield build. And it has really good survivability.

I reckon you can take either a priest or paladin. I normally don't take priests, never liked them from my d&d days, and a paladin, Druid and chanter can pick up the slack. I must admit though, priests are incredibly useful, just not compulsory.

Awesome thanks for explanation.... Man I used to think dungeons and dragons was complicated with its rules...

So taking high dex and two weapon fighting is a waste for a dual wielder? If that's the case, and you took the talent what dex could you get away with? Alternatively if you went high dex, I'm presuming the 2 handed talent is a waste of time?

Surely it would make a difference? You are not inflicting prone with the shield? Also I'd imagine that the dps will be substantially higher. Bash just seems subpar to me.

Has anyone tried a barb with 2 we toki battle axes? Seems like a dual wielding, durgan steel enchanted we toki wielding barbarian would be interesting. Or is it one of those things that sound good in theory but is not great in practice?