Gromnir

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85411-faith-convictions-now-still-always/ fight the power, brother. this is one o' those "bugs" that has endured since 3.0. has been repeated reassurances that the issue was, or would be addressed. ... the thing is, am no longer certain what bonuses main character faith and convictions is 'posed to provide, but we do know that +8/+17 is inexplicable. with base +4/+8, we can find no way to end with +8/+17 if the player has maxed dispositions. a good starting point would be for the obsidian folks to at least tell us what post 3.0 faith and convictions bonuses should be. HA! Good Fun!

well, if that is all you want, then consider the possibility o' doing both two-handed and sword & board with a peasant weapon focus. all you genuine need for the high deflection you want with a paladin is the sword and shield talent, the outworn buckler and a resolve that ain't in the basement. keep your dispositions maxed (and wait for faith and convictions to be fixed) and you will have the kinda overkill deflection and reflex saves you wish. add superior deflection eventually and/or make as a shieldbearer to use modified lay-on-hands to increase your own deflection. as we suggested peasant, you will also be able to use hatchets if you feel you need extra deflection in a battle... and bitter harvest is an underrated tank weapon for a fire spamming paladin, no? in addition to burning lash it gots the deflection boosting quality all hatchets provide, plus it gots dr bypass. as for reliably chopping up cc'd mobs, am gonna again suggest going with peasant weapons. that gets you spears, hatchets and staves. spears give increased accuracy, which is nice given that initially you will have average accuracy at best. too many builds is endgame. am thinking folks forget that more than half the game is played at mid and lower levels, and the increased accuracy from spears ain't something to sneeze at for the early and mid-level paladin. ritezzi's thorn can be purchased in dyrford and the vile loaner's lance is available relative early. even better is cladhalíath, a spear that you can custom add numerous different unique qualities. for chopping up cc'd foes, we personal recommend stun-on-crit PLUS +20% damage to prone/stunned/flanked foes. am more a fan o' wild orlans for tanks, but possibly go hearth orlan for the increased crit chance. as stated earlier in the thread, we would also suggest apprentice sneak attack. oh, and you can still have durance's staff and forge master gloves equipped. durance's staff is one o' the more underrated weapons in the game with reach quality and unique crush/burn damage type. make sure to take scion of flame and intense flames. vulnerable attack is gonna benefit any melee weapon type, so is worth considering, but am still thinking you got room for two-handed weapons. players switch 'tween ranged and melee all the time. you can switch 'tween shield and a two-hand weapon. honest, flames of devotion + scion of flame + intense flames + forge master gloves = dead enemies. sworn enemy is not a cc'd mob killer's choice, but is gonna guarantee that at least one foe in each battle is gonna be owned by you. earlier in the game, sworn enemy will help you overcome indifferent accuracy when facing wolves or trolls or whatnot. later in the game it will finally start being useful in boss battles. as for race, death godlike is an obvious choice for extra kill, but we wouldn't ignore orlan for the bonus crit chance or the defense bonus. also might consider island aumaua for the free weapon set. am thinking you need recognize that your character is not gonna be particular varied in support... 'cause you want a character that fills multiple roles with a class that isn't ideal suited for the roles you wish. monk gets you what you want easily, but monk is seeming not an option. well then, am thinking you gotta accept that you will need make some hard choices. HA! Good Fun!

pallegina may be a better option as her unique abilities is arguably superior for dps than any of the main character or henchmen options. take wrath of the five suns, intense flames, scion of flames and eventual immolation. also consider going two-handed weapons and apprentice sneak attack. oh, and get the forgemaster gloves. forgemaster give 3 per rest firebrand, which creates a two-handed universal weapon that does burn damage. for paladin abilities other than fire stuff, knock yourself out as it is all flavor. *chuckle* might as well get inspiring triumph as you will be killing frequent. HA! Good Fun!

step 1: choose the monk class. ... rest is easy. *shrug* there is some nice striker paladin builds around, but you are actual creating contrary to the original design concept. flames of devotion, and dps building talents/abilities were late additions to the paladin class... were concessions to a vocal handful o' folks that pined for more dps from what were original conceived as a low-maintenance and highly resilient support class that were focused on per encounter abilities. monk is actual already what you are asking for, but w/o the support aspect. HA! Good Fun!

more appropriate folk song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcik02ULOlM HA! Good Fun!

am thinking aarik had a long day. after awhile all the numbers likely start doing a kinda fantasia dance in the noggin. is difficult to see things clear. the thing is, am thinking that we is finally on the right track. am seeing movement in the right direction. all we need is to have obsidian explain how faith & convictions is 'posed to work and how it will work when it is fixed. faith and convictions bonuses from dispositions is currently inexplicable to Gromnir. am not seeing how to go from base +4/+8 to +8/+17 utilizing the incremental disposition bonuses that existed pre 3.01. am genuine baffled by the math that has +4/+8 become +8/+17. even so, it appears that the folks at obsidian realize that a problem exists. is a good first step. before the fix is implemented, we must needs make sure that the fix actual addresses the problem, but at least now we is hopeful. our inner jules were getting agitated. HA! Good Fun!

grace rules. am typical not a shieldbearer, but from a recent potd run you should be able to see that our paladin is formidable. grace is a hireling, so she don't have optimal faith and convictions. is pre-battle, so no buffs save gear and +3 intellect from the stronghold. no food or scrolls or active spells. for grace we boosted intellect and resolve and went average everything else. 137 deflection is more than enough to snooze our way through most potd battles, but we can use lay on hands on our self to get that to 149 and have and additional 176 endurance to play with. priest casts crown of the faithful? our perception, intellect and resolve go through the roof. as you can see, grace has decent accuracy with battle axes and swords. she hits stuff often enough to hold baddies. most battles has grace starting off by using a reinforcing exhortation on a squishy, or simply hitting somebody with flames of devotion (110 accuracy?) which confers +10 deflection to nearby allies. depending on the kinda enemy faced, we will then typical use a liberating exhortation opportunity on those party mates most likely to be targeted with a debilitating hostile effect. once the enemies is softened up a bit by priest/wizard/druid/cipher debuffs, likely we go to immolation, which thanks to our ridiculous intellect covers a sizeable portion o' the battlefield and lasts forever. we get 3 per rest of hastening exhortation, meaning we can use it once every-other-battle... or thereabouts. without any priestly or food buffs, hastening for grace lasts 48 seconds, or pretty much an entire battle. etc. the only thing our fighter-tank has that we genuine wish we had for our paladin-tanks is charge. 'course that would be overkill and would only be situationally useful as we don't wanna out-range our zealous focus. HA! Good Fun!

do we now receive points for the fourth disposition? am asking 'cause in the past we only received bonuses for tiers 1-3. but again, am curious how, starting at base +4/+8, Gromnir and everybody else ends at +8/+17. what does each level o' positive disposition confer as of 3.02? if am currently getting benefits from 6 instances of bonus dispositions, then how do we go from +4/+8 to +8/+17? am admitting that Gromnir may be missing something very obvious. HA! Good Fun!

ok, two separate issues. 1) how does the math result in +8/+17 even with a penalty from disfavored? a penalty which we do not have btw. 2) huh? why would we add the deep faith talent to show our faith and conviction bonuses? deep faith is an additional bonus, yes? "ps just to clarify. current base deflection/defenses for faith and convictions is +4/+8. one would expect that maxed dispositions would provide an additional +6/+12 as obsidian stated that no changes to disposition based faith and conviction bonuses were intended with 3.01. +1/+2 for each tier o' disposition advancement, yes? that is how it has worked since... always? while dispositions allow for a tier 4, faith and convictions stops giving bonuses at 3. with two paladin relevant dispositions, that means we got 6 individual opportunities to receive faith and conviction related bonuses-- +6/+12. so, max possible is +10/+20, yes?" should be +10/+20 BEFORE deep faith. explain +8/+17 in the absence of deep faith. with a starting point of +4/+8, how does Gromnir or you end with +8/+17 with maxed dispositions? is possible Gromnir is missing something, so please explain +8/+17. HA! Good Fun!

when fighting monks, drop a seal o' repulsion underneath your squishies before initiating combat, then make sure to hit the collected monks with something that reduces fortitude saves. no doubt one or two o' the monks will do the flagellant's path thing straight to whomever in your party has the worst deflection, but even if your seal only grazes the monks who sudden appear in your midst, that will be more than enough time for your rogue to hit 'em with tall grass and effectively perma-prone them. HA! Good Fun!

even if we had disfavored, how would that result in +8/+17? that being said, no stoic and no cruel for our darcozzi paladini. will try and get a save later. HA! Good Fun!

see, our concern is that it is "fixed." "ps just to clarify. current base deflection/defenses for faith and convictions is +4/+8. one would expect that maxed dispositions would provide an additional +6/+12 as obsidian stated that no changes to disposition based faith and conviction bonuses were intended with 3.01. +1/+2 for each tier o' disposition advancement, yes? that is how it has worked since... always? while dispositions allow for a tier 4, faith and convictions stops giving bonuses at 3. with two paladin relevant dispositions, that means we got 6 individual opportunities to receive faith and conviction related bonuses-- +6/+12. so, max possible is +10/+20, yes?" +8/+17 for faith and convictions when dispositions are maxed? explain. with base +4 deflection and +8 all other defenses, please explain +8/+17 for a level 13 paladin with 4 in both relevant dispositions. perhaps you mean that it is "fixed" insofar as that is how it is and that is how it is gonna stay? definite. firm. broken forever more? am being a smidge snarky, but it doesn't appear that the problem has been corrected, even if faiths and convictions is fixed. HA! Good Fun!

in our most recent potd run, we got excellent use outta devil. against nasty monks at level 12? alpha strike then send send paladin tank and a monk off-tank into the p00p first. onrushing monks is gonna be momentarily occupied by tanks and disabled by slicken or whatnot. chances are that by now multiple monks is prone, weakened, terrified, and flanked. at this point devil switches from gun to tidefall or tall grass, and bolstered by paladin's lay-on, liberating or reinforcing exhortations... and likely a priestly buff such as crowns for the faithful, wades into the mix near one o' our tanky front-liners, and wrecks terrible havoc on lightly armoured monks. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85155-faith-and-conviction-nerf/?p=1790165 ... am having a jules winnfield moment here fellas. so tell us you fixed it...one more g0d damned time. kidding. sorta. HA! Good Fun! ps warning: sweary link

faith and convictions is, at the moment, inexplicable to Gromnir. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85143-26gb-steam-download-302b/?p=1786371 http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83952-v300929-px1-steam-faith-and-conviction-nerfed-of-bugged/?p=1786366 we got a save from ninth level main character paladin with maxed dispositions that has the same faith and convictions bonuses as when he reaches 13th level, so faith and convictions in this patch is no longer level-based. ... am perplexed and am waiting for any kinda feedback from obsidian before we continue with our paladin. that being said, in all fairness, our expectations as 'posed to reality is not resulting in a major difference in gameplay. our expectations were that with 3.1, maxed dispositions bonuses to faith and convictions would result in +10 deflection and +20 to all other defenses for a main character paladin. the current (busted?) faith and convictions is actual providing +8/+17. is not a huge difference. HA! Good Fun! ps just to clarify. current base deflection/defenses for faith and convictions is +4/+8. one would expect that maxed dispositions would provide an additional +6/+12 as obsidian stated that no changes to disposition based faith and conviction bonuses were intended with 3.01. +1/+2 for each tier o' disposition advancement, yes? that is how it has worked since... always? while dispositions allow for a tier 4, faith and convictions stops giving bonuses at 3. with two paladin relevant dispositions, that means we got 6 individual opportunities to receive faith and conviction related bonuses-- +6/+12. so, max possible is +10/+20, yes?

am not sure what advice we can give. is our opinion that some folks min-max a paladin into early uselessness. for us, the paladin is a very capable buffer and as such we want high intellect. play as a shieldbearer or darcozzi palladini tank and we is gonna make intellect our prime attribute. unfortunately, as a tank we also want high resolve for the deflection bonus. drop perception and our average accuracy becomes awful... which is bad for a tank. you need to be able to hit stuff for enemy ai to take you serious. you also gotta do at least some damage or, as already noted, enemies will ignore you. so, is it genuine smarty to reduce might and/or dexterity? constitution isn't a priority for us, but am not gonna reduce it below 9 on our main tank neither. is too many min-max builds we see that hurt a paladin tank. sure, at level 13-16, with optimal gear, handicaps from basement-level attributes can be mitigated, but most o' the game is played at levels 1-12. in any event, poe is a flexible game. we don't need any particular class to succeed. we don't like chanters. we pass on chanters. no great loss. folks who love chanters will marvel at our stoopidity and our inability to proper utilize a poe chanter. *shrug* for some inexplicable reason, we never found much love for the ranger in spite o' obsidian having improved them significant from earlier builds. our parties is almost always missing chanters and rangers. oh well. on the other hand, we like priests and paladins and monks, so our party typical has those. kinda funny, but during the beta we saw any number o' Best Class polls. am not kidding that Gromnir were the only guy that chose priests as the MVP class... evar. great. am thinking it is a good thing that folks can have widely different perspectives regarding the efficacy o' the poe classes. most crpgs that have classes also have obvious and clear winner and loser classes. am personal not a fan o' classes in crpgs, but we concede that obsidian did an admirable job o' making many classes that actual play different and are all useful... though we do continue to have rather serious complaints 'bout the mechanics and balancing o' a few poe classes. poe did a good job on the classes... they did a good job on paladins... with room for improvement. HA! Good Fun!

in the typical crpg, quest resolutions is largely insular and discreet. it makes sense to keep quest resolutions insular and discrete as crpgs is attempting to give the player at least the illusion o' choice. wanna save the village o' Burblestack from raiders doesn't prevent you from siding with the slavers who is gonna sell child elves for labor in the salt mines o' Nur. that is where the problem o' game evil starts. the guy who does random acts o' carnage and badness is always gonna seem psychotic. w/o an overarching plan, the player who wants to do evil is necessarily gonna be viewed as a complete nutter. if the ultimate goal is to drive back the Alien Invasion from Commonwealth space, then it seems kinda ridiculous that you is running around perpetrating petty acts o' violence and larceny. other than at the main plot points, your acts o' evil is gonna necessarily be... pointless. can't be part o' a larger plan if is gonna be kept insular. tyranny, we suspect, is gonna offer a genuine rationale for many acts o' despicability. if the goal is to be gaining influence with various factions, then am s'posing you is gonna be offered many bribe, blackmail and boondoggle options. as manifested and others observed, there is reason to believe that there is gonna be more significant strategy elements in tyranny. build your powerbase through manipulation and terror? sure, why not? the ultimate goal is gonna more easily facilitate terrible acts by the player than will the typical crpg. ... the thing is, am suspecting that you is gonna run into the same old crpg problem with many quests. if tyranny has many optional and tangential side-quests, then those is gonna need be insular and discreet. only give choice to do bad is no real choice. each tangential quest is still gonna offer a spectrum o' choices and each such resolution is gonna be largely self-contained. no doubt we will have some kinda reputation tracking, but nevertheless, unrelated acts o' violence and graft is gonna, as the linked page at the start o' this thread amusingly observes, result in behavior that any reasonable person would describe as psychotic. you are gonna be able to do evil in tyranny. it is likely that doing grand-scale acts o' terror and graft will be reasonable given the narrative. unfortuntaely, as the linked page observes (http://humanresources.paradoxplaza.com/) burning down a coffe shop 'cause a regular were rude to you, or spending two weeks stalking the guy and rearranging his furniture to make him think he has gone insane, is ridiculous options. if tyranny is a crpg with insular and discreet quest resolutions, many o' such is not gonna "do evil character well." without reasonable purpose, evil is gonna be relegated to madness for explanation... which is mighty unsatisfactory. HA! Good Fun!

nobody said that you had to like the poe paladin. many folks in this thread is pointing out that they find the paladin to be efficacious. you disagree. fine. example-- Gromnir doesn't get much use from the chanter. the chanter can be made into a worthy tank and its invocations can be brutally powerful, but it just don't work for us. if we want multiple chants from our chanter to be active, we actual need two or more chanters in our party. we don't even want one chanter, so why would we take two? also, while the chanter invocations is useful, we do not like being a hostage to the chant count. for the majority o' poe battles, we want powers we can use at will... or at least at the start of a battle. we don't much like chanters, but would be ridiculous for us to claim that they is poorly designed or ineffective. particular for longer boss fights, a chanter can be a powerful addition... to somebody else's party. dunno what to tell you. is not as if the folks who see use from the poe paladin is all deluded and you is the sole voice o' reason. has been more than a couple o' paladin solo potd videos and builds shared on these boards. even so, nobody is forcing you to play the paladin. don't play it if you do not wish to. 'course given the vastly different experience o' many other potd players, you is gonna need accept that your experience is hardly a dispositive or conclusive judgement o' the poe paladin for any save yourself. HA! Good Fun!

the paladin is designed as a support class. given obsidian espoused goals for the class, paladins is 'posed to be a resilient support class that requires relative less micromanagement to be effective. while offering less flexibility than a priest, the paladin buffs is situationally powerful, and the paladin can be made durable enough to be a party's primary tank w/o resorting to min-maxing. we got no difficulty in proclaiming that paladins successful fulfill the stated goals o' the developers for the class. that being said, folks has come up with some highly effective strikerish builds for the poe paladin. am less o' a fan o' paladins than priests if one or the other is the only dedicated support class in a party, but paladins and priests make an extreme effective combo. heck, our most recent paladin potd run (currently on hold due to continuing faith and convictions bugs) is highly efficacious as we typical utilize both pallegina and our main with pallegina utilizing a bow and exploiting the effect-on-kill abilities while our main paladin tanks. given the goals o' obsidian for the paladin, we find little room for complaint. HA! Good Fun! ps shortly after release there were considerable criticism o' the paladin... which we didn't get. claims that fighters were better tanks than paladins seemed wholly misguided. after all, the paladin were a support class. the observation that the paladin, while effective enough in the tank role, 'could support far better than any fighter build, were seeming ignored. another frequent complaint o' the paladin were that it were not as effective in support as a priest. 'course such folks ignored the fact that paladins were far more resilient than priests and that they typically required less micromanagement than a priest. claim that priests were better than paladins in support mighta' even have been true, but such claims ignored that priests and paladins played very different and that both were effective at supporting a party. not as good as a fighter at tanking and not as good at support than a priest were s'posed a meaningful critique. misguided.

better than Fort Where Shady Will Be Sleeping Alone For The Foreseeable Future, eh? given the alternatives if mrs. shady weren't so understanding, Fort Not Quite As Awesome But Much Easier To Clean Up sounds positively delightful. also, aren't you on the ulcer diet? is pretty much 0 dairy, 0 alcohol, 0 spicy and 0 fatty meats... and avoid tomatoes too, yes? ... shady is a vampire fan and as such you will understand when we admit that we would rather go on the r.m. renfield diet than be on the ulcer diet... though we do not drink alcohol. HA! Good Fun!

elliot could slide... or not. after the combine, more than a few teams leaked that elliot were a terrible interview. sometimes such rumors is little more than a cheap attempt to drop the value o' a player in the hopes that he will linger a couple spots. if you pick at 9 or 10 and you think a player may be gone at 8, you got some motivation to drive down a player's stock. is cheap, but it happens. 'course sometimes you see a player have their draft selection go into free-fall mode and as often as not is 'cause o' genuine concerns 'bout a player's mental hardware. also, ramsey's stock has been rising o' late... am not particular sure why. regardless, ramsey may not be available at 4. bosa, however, might be. is another ohio state player who is likely to lose some money (nobody is gonna weep for bosa if he slips from original 1-2 guestimates to 4-5) over concerns largely unrelated to performance on the field. HA! Good Fun!

Same I kept dropping the Y in tyrannygame.com Let's just say that's not what I wanted to see and I'm glad I'm not on a work computer we take some solace in knowing we ain't alone in our... difficulty. HA! Good Fun!

But what about Lost Boys? I mean, I get disliking the other stuff, but there are exceptions! in all seriousness, the only vampire story we has genuine enjoyed in the last 30 years is i am legend. am speaking o' the novel, 'cause the movie kinda broke our heart. oh, and lifeforce were funny... though it weren't s'posed to be a comedy. am betting that whenever patrick stewart gets a bit full o' himself, his friends break out a lifeforce vhs tape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efd9zcjn5JM honorable mentions: jessica biel, blade trinity salma hayek, dusk til dawn anne parillaud, innocent blood all terrible movies, but jessica and salma were hot, and anne were inexplicable adorable. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting that poe were a particular difficult game to balance various gameplay demands. example: after every ie game, the pendulum swung. based on weight o' feedback at the time, bg had far too much pointless mowing o' wilderness maps, but folks loved duralg's tower. 'course iwd were too "linear" and even bg2 didn't have enough exploration for folks. so poe developers mistaken (perhaps) attempt to find a happy medium? is no such thing. make a game that largely eschews smallish encounters and quests that enhance gameplay hours and exploration and you got folks complaining. place greater emphasis on exploration and folks complain that such resources coulda' been used on more raedric's keep kinda stuff. am suspecting that a rather significant amount o' poe padding coulda' been removed w/o it being missed... but only in retrospect. take out much o' the filler and padding content and people would then lament the paucity o' exploration. developers got our sympathy. HA! Good Fun!

our dyslexia is making the title an issue as we tend to drop letters, but we will get over that. the core concept is probable the least significant aspect for Gromnir. starting point is that the bad guys won? from our pov, that is star wars, willow and almost every western ever made. meh. is an isometric, party-based crpg being developed by obsidian as a new ip. good. sold... for now. am gonna be enthusiastic until something drastic occurs. is this the crpg that re-introduces packs w/i packs bag exploits and time to bake bread? is this the crpg that resurrects armour class and irrational "saving throw" progressions? get 20 hours into the game only to discover that we didn't have enough skill points in X or a high enough Y attribute to progress? as long as obsidian avoids such anachronisms, am expecting that we will give it a shot. HA! Good Fun! ps am also relieved that this ain't a vampire game. am knowing that shady and others like vampires, but we got a reflexive dislike for vampires. 'tween anne rice, blade and twilight, we could go 20 years w/o missing vampires in any sorta media. we even hated only lovers left alive and that were barely a vampire film.