Gromnir

You talk funny. And didn't I kill you in Throne of Bhaal? one reason you were able to kill Gromnir in tob is precisely 'cause we "talk funny." HA! Good Fun!

ever see the movie, the agony and the ecstasy? and no, it ain't a bdsm pr0n thing. is 'bout michelangelo painting the ceiling o' the sistine chapel. the pope is feeling frustrated with buonarroti's progress. Pope Julius II: When will you make an end? Michelangelo: When I am finished! in the aforementioned film, the question and reply are repeated a half dozen times with both the cleric and artist becoming increasingly ill-tempered. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

well, that is kinda the most important factor, isn't it? abilities and talents is of greater importance than starting attribute choices. such stuff is also more significant than starting accuracy, deflection and defenses. vigorous defense, a single fighter ability, grants +20 to all defenses for 15 seconds, and most battles don't even last that long. knockdown, as others have mentioned, is invaluable as it is effectively a stun that also significantly reduces enemy defenses. the paladin abilities, on the other hand, is support based. eder, the fighter companion, does not have great tank attributes, but 'cause of talent and ability choices, he becomes well nigh unstoppable relatively early in the game... and he also does respectable damage. *shrug* the paladin is a support class. if you wanna tank as a paladin, you need be very careful in selecting talents and abilities. HA! Good Fun!

it's a bit... mindless. am not disagreeing that it is a good strategy-- we do the same thing. our rogue, with the fine arbalest we picked up early, typical gets an eye-popping sneak attack. is something not right about starting every battle the same way. we will note that there is a slight possibility that we have our wizard cast slicken immediate instead o' using a ranged weapon... 'cause we almost always use slicken. also, we sometimes have our tank run forward immediately w/o firing ranged, but only there is a potential enemy aoe scenario or something similar. regardless, begin every battle identical is unlikely what the developers were envisioning. HA! Good Fun!

I fully agree with Gromnir, except on this. Or rather, I am probably missing something. What are the advantages of the fighter, multiple engagement? late game DR boost? Wont the fighters defenses be lower anyway? As for the monk, I thought the conclusion was that the monk was an ok tank with some offensive capabilities (as opposed to the other two)? Obviously the monk can negate some (10%?) damage if that is still in the game, and will have slightly more hp/endurance, but somewhat less defense again. Reading this thread, it's like if some believe that D&D invented the name "paladin". I see paladins in PoE like templars or teutonic knights. An order of dedicated warriors/knights. Its just nostalgia, but I think you got it right according to the way poe paladins are described in the game. They have a much broader concept which basically comes down to being part of an organization dedicated to an ideal (i.e. an order). Note: I am a fan of the Paladin concept, not just the D&D one, and when I read PoE lore I thought it maybe would be awesome, specially seeing the Bleak Walkers (not the stuff I am info, but I am glad the game has it). But their gameplay is boring, and usually suck. your concept o' the paladin is not what the developers Expressly announced would be the poe concept. keep trying to jam a square peg into a round hole if you wish, but your concept ain't necessarily the correct one, and it clearly is at odds with what the obsidians told us, in no uncertain terms, would be the role o' the poe paladin. as we said already, we thinks it were a mistake to call the poe paladin a paladin, 'cause some folks simple can't let go. also, paladins don't suck unless you play them sucky. we don't like paladins 'cause we enjoy micromanagement, but their auras and abilities are powerful, and for those who find poe combat frenetic and overwhelming, the paladin is a fantastic option. couple the paladin with a cleric and you got all your support needs well and fully covered. chanters frequent take a bit too long to build up to their invocations, and at least until mid-way through the game, you likely won't have chants that genuine is useful for every situation. the paladin auras are even more general, but they is broad enough to be useful in every battles, and we don't need to wait to make use o' our per encounter abilities. paladins and clerics work very well together... as complimentary support classes. HA! Good Fun!

I fully agree with Gromnir, except on this. Or rather, I am probably missing something. What are the advantages of the fighter, multiple engagement? late game DR boost? Wont the fighters defenses be lower anyway? As for the monk, I thought the conclusion was that the monk was an ok tank with some offensive capabilities (as opposed to the other two)? Obviously the monk can negate some (10%?) damage if that is still in the game, and will have slightly more hp/endurance, but somewhat less defense again. Reading this thread, it's like if some believe that D&D invented the name "paladin". I see paladins in PoE like templars or teutonic knights. An order of dedicated warriors/knights. Its just nostalgia, but I think you got it right according to the way poe paladins are described in the game. They have a much broader concept which basically comes down to being part of an organization dedicated to an ideal (i.e. an order). engagement is underrated in our estimation, particularly in hard mode when facing mobs... but the trouble is that poe mechanics is not easily explained. we suggest looking at videos. fighter engagement o' 3 enemies is a substantial benefit, and the various tanky abilities a fighter gets access to will have him regenerating ridiculous endurance and having short-term defense boosts that exceed even the paladin's defenses. add one or two offensive weapon feats and the fighter's already dependable damage output becomes increased... particularly when coupled with engagement. the monk ad fighter got changed a bit during the beta. people complained that the fighter weren't enough like a bg/d&d fighter 'cause it were almost exclusively tankins, so the developers made the fighter better on offense. am feeling that this were a mistake as it does blur the distinction 'tween monks and fighters. fighters were s'posed to be the best defensive tanks. the monks tanks were s'posed to be able to do more damage than fighters. the lines distinguishing the classes became blurred. a sword and board monk that tanks is an alternative class/build we would recommend to folks who want to play a tank paladin. clearly "monks" is a misnomer as none o' these guys is monastic, but if you think o' them as combat friars, it works as a paladin analog. many monk abilities is functionally defensive in nature, but they is passive. have enemies damage themselves when targeting you with missile weapons? soul mirror sends half damage from missile weapons back to the monk's foe. the duality talent can boost defenses, but is also passive. rooting pain is technically not defensive, but it activates when the monk takes a wound, and it is also passive. 'course, wound management and the resultant offensive abilities also means the monk can do very reliable damage. a sword and board monk may actual be our favorite current tank both 'cause o' how effective it is, and 'cause o' how it shrugs off the typical monk role in crpgs. HA! Good Fun!

josh is visible because he posts and responds to posts, but you give him far too much credit. poe combat has cain fingerprints all over it, and we suspect there is many obsidians who who justifiably bristle at the notion that sawyer were The Guy. *shrug* bg combat sucked. is a rose-hued glasses recollection. ps:t combat mighta been worse. those were ie games too. you give folks the same low-level d&d combat experience we saw in bg and we could expect more than a few justified howls o' derision and anguish. bg2 combat were far better than bg. after numerous ie game iterations, bg2 were actually having some compelling combat, albeit broken in many ways. there were no good reason to play a vanilla thief in bg2. the number o' bg2 insta-kill exploits were excessive... and that actual worked both ways-- one failed save resulted in game over? gear fully invalidated ability scores relative early in the game. etc. poe is game 1 in a new ip. the developers might have an excuse if their combat sophistication were comparable to the woeful example o' rtwp squad-based tactical combat we saw in bg. thankfully, poe ain't having near as horrible combat and character development as we saw in bg. what choices did we make after level 1 in bg? weapon proficiencies? and heck, the proficiencies were pretty damn broad too. there is considerable rebalancing and bug fixing that need be done, but we got an isometric, squad-based, rtwp combat in a fantasy game that uses many familiar features from the ie games. is very much like bg, but not quite as bad. poe is arguably not as deep or broad as bg2 or iwd2 for combat, not yet, but again, this is the first game o' a new system. HA! Good Fun!

Yep, I found out this is... intentional :/ There is a interview that Josh said that they wanted to "Twist things a bit" and so they turned the D&D Paladin into Cleric, and the D&D Warlord into Paladin never heard the d&d paladin being turned into a poe cleric... and it sure don't play that way. however, yes, the poe paladin is inspired not so much by the d&d paladin but by the 4e warlord and the 3.5 marshal. the paladin is a low maintenance support class that is excellent in defense. there is/were some few gun builds that allow ridiculous damage 2x per encounter, but the paladin is a support class. yeah, if your paladin takes cautious attack, sword and shield and a few other talents, you can create an ok tank, but it won't be as good as a fighter or sword & board monk. that is ok, 'cause the paladin is a freaking support class in poe. the paladin gameplay can be boring. there simple is not much to do with a paladin, particularly a tanky paladin. is very little micromanagement necessary to have your paladin stay upright for the duration o' a battle, and your per encounter abilities, while mighty useful, is only situationally applicable. poe paladins is a support class that can be customized to fill other roles with varying degrees o' success. the poe paladin is Not a d&d paladin. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63968-update-56-paladins-and-wild-orlans/?hl=paladin the nature and limitations o' the poe paladin were not a secret. that being said, we did mention, many times, that folks would continue to trip over the naming choices for poe classes. am not surprised by the confusion. folks playing poe won't be able to give up the ghost even when they is told that a poe paladin or rogue don't function same as a d&d paladin or rogue. heck, poe board regulars who read and applauded the linked announcement in 2013 were still fighting to make the paladin a front-line tank who could also dish out melee hurt as recent as beta 480. weird. HA! Good Fun!

got the reckless assault bug that has, for all intents and purposes, doubled our deflection penalty to -16. a respec would be welcome as there is no console fix and am not sure how much longer am gonna keep playing a character that is broken to this degree.

conning were our new "word" for the day? how sad. for folks who wanted kill xp, we got the bestiary. originally, lore influenced the speed with which your bestiary entries were completed, but in response to the kill xp folks, we got the bestiary xp. incremental revealing o' critter strengths and weakness is s'posed a feature o' poe... which is also kinda sad. HA! Good Fun!

on the other hand, the current mechanic makes stealth usefulness rather suspect. we were hoping, beyond hope, that obsidian would implement the stealth fix (or fixes) they had referenced before the game were released. will stealth get a fix with a patch? do we need wait for an expansion? at this point, the expansion would appear more likely. we get very little value from stealth. any character can scout. stealth adds a slight increase in how close one may approach foes w/o detection, which is only useful for setting traps and would be valuable if we could position the stealth character appropriately before battles. have party stealth drop makes our scout a proverbial sitting duck for the cf mobs that is ubiquitous in hard mode. at the moment, in Gromnir's experience, stealth is the least useful poe skill. HA! Good Fun! Really? Because all my characters have Stealth.. and my high-Stealth rogue plays a very important part of my strategy - he's the one who can get close and scout how many enemies there are, enemy types, etc. This isn't as useful if you are doing your third playthrough, but for first playthroughs it's extremely useful. If you want to talk about useless skills, there are a few others that need to be looked at first *coughSURVIVALcough*. use o' consumables can be invaluable. extend duration o' such is likewise useful. we typical can scout very well with even a low stealth character. the density o' mobs in hard mode make poe scouting a bit limited, so that even with extreme high stealth, we will be discovered as the screen is frequently filled with enemies. low stealth character can get close enough to see front line o' foes and get away undetected... which is usually what we can manage with our high stealth character. perhaps because you got stealth on everybody, you don't realize how it is almost complete unnecessary. currently, stealth is good for setting traps (wish we had more) and for aiding in stealing as high stealth allow us more time to get away before inevitable detection. HA! Good Fun!

Actually, no, that's not true but it doesn't really matter as people censor things all the time (e.g. if you know your grandmother doesn't like swearing you might self-censor cursing while around her). It's still censorship. self-censor is a far different thing. don't confuse the two concepts. HA! Good Fun! But Obsidian can also choose not to self censor and whoever thinks the joke is in poor taste can choose to not play the game or patch it out themselves correct? if that is what they decide, then sure. there is no organization with authority over obsidian that is gonna be able to compel them to take out the backer silliness. no censorship. self-censorship? complete different. folks who don't self-censor is typically suffering from mental or neurological conditions. is different. thank goodness. HA! Good Fun!

Actually, no, that's not true but it doesn't really matter as people censor things all the time (e.g. if you know your grandmother doesn't like swearing you might self-censor cursing while around her). It's still censorship. self-censor is a far different thing. don't confuse the two concepts. HA! Good Fun!

on the other hand, the current mechanic makes stealth usefulness rather suspect. we were hoping, beyond hope, that obsidian would implement the stealth fix (or fixes) they had referenced before the game were released. will stealth get a fix with a patch? do we need wait for an expansion? at this point, the expansion would appear more likely. we get very little value from stealth. any character can scout. stealth adds a slight increase in how close one may approach foes w/o detection, which is only useful for setting traps and would be valuable if we could position the stealth character appropriately before battles. have party stealth drop makes our scout a proverbial sitting duck for the cf mobs that is ubiquitous in hard mode. at the moment, in Gromnir's experience, stealth is the least useful poe skill. HA! Good Fun!

nobody is forcing obsidian to do anything. there is no censorship... period. HA! Good Fun!

it boggles the mind. *shrug* poe is a commercial product, so this ain't a free speech issue... period. obsidian is trying to make money, and they gotta needs be more sensitive than the typical misanthropic college undergrad. ... the bit o' backer nonsense is harmless to Gromnir, but it offends some. take same bit o' backer drivel and make it reference jews or blacks or a dozen other traditionally disenfranchised groups and we would not be having this conversation, would we? only the most obtuse and social inept 'mongst us would fail to recognize that obsidian needs be careful 'bout including crude racial and religious content in their games, not that we don't have a few such folks posting. hell, some o' our more prolific posters on this board has run afoul o' moderators 'cause o' their pro-nazi iconography, and that is simple message board postings. such board stuff is censored immediately and without apology by the board moderators. have such stuff in a game has a much greater chance to harm obsidian reputation, so one would expect greater sensitivity in their commercial releases, yes? poe ain't the south park game. again, the backer content don't concern us personally, but there is no free speech issues. there is no evil censorship worth fighting. HA! Good Fun!

Level 8 is basically end game, you will have plethora of options by then. Being able to grab Durance at lvl 2 with already 3 mechanics is much more useful especially when Aloth is pretty garbage without slicken. Kana with his might/int/lore makes him the ideal scroll user. Also fits his personality. within 10 minutes o' getting aloth, we were able to level. so, what were the first spell you chose? on the other hand, all the companions is teh suck at mechanics. even if you put all points into mechanics from 3 onward, they is still missing the tougher disarms... and we would much rather be having better mechanics at the end than the start. durance is best 'cause he gots a 1 point advantage for a few levels over kana? and yeah, with kana's 7 starting lore, he already got a useful second skill. regardless, a we already noted, they all is terrible. were a trick question. HA! Good Fun!

the point is that the advantage durance has begins to disappear. aloth and kana is paying for skill points in mechanics at a cheaper rate than durance. skill level 2 costs aloth 1 skill point. skill level 3 costs aloth 2 points stead o' three, and so on. *shrug* they all suck, but durance only has an advantage early... til level 8? HA! Good Fun!

trick question. the answer is: none o' the companions is best. sure, durance starts better, but w/o the innate class boost, he don't have a genuine advantage over the other companions. *shrug* pick between otherwise terrible options is not having a genuine "best." HA! Good Fun!

funny, we were gonna same... though am expecting we got complete different pov on the issue. oh, and am complete disagreeing that the attributes were better before accuracy were removed. accuracy was/is too important to link it so heavily to a single attribute. have one attribute that were effectively essential were not only running counter to the design philosophy o' poe, but it were stoopid. the poe attributes ain't near as significant to overall character success as folks are imagining. whether that is a good or bad thing is debatable, but we believe it were intended. "What i dont like is how unflexible current builds are. I feel like game is pushing me towars strict tank/glass cannon builds with really bad characters inbetween, on Hard that is. Nor BG, nor nwn2 had this problem. And i dont see HOW can you roleplay on hard with ironman." this is just not true. our first character (hard mode) is proving to be a very impressive melee combatant, as well as giving us many dialogue options that would otherwise not have been available to us. m 10 c 10 d 10 p 18 i 14 r 16 for a dual-wielding rogue, the above is horrible attributes as far as any mechanics monkey is concerned, and yet we ain't gnashing teeth and pulling hair in frustration. our character is effective in and outta combat. from a pure mechanics perspective, talents and abilities quickly become far more important that starting attributes. from a rp perspective... well, as we said, we ain't feeling handicapped. quite contrary. HA! Good Fun!

two songs we like... and can't explain why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsDxvAErTU how the hell could Gromnir like a jimmy buffet song? *shrug* both songs make us smile. HA! Good Fun!

the two most common complaints for every ie game: it was too hard it was too easy is no way for developers to win. HA! Good Fun!

beginning attributes are important, but not nearly as important as ability and talent choices will eventually become. people fixate on poe starting attributes, but that is a mistake. use the companions as a comparison. the chanter companion, kana, has useful attributes for a chanter. is not ideal attributes, but his attribute spread is better than most o' the joinable npcs. however, what is the point o' good attributes if kana's abilities are cringe worthy? am gonna need a few level-ups to make kana genuine useful to us. eder, on the other hand, has crummy starting attributes for the tank role we wish for him to fill. nevertheless, he gots ok starting talents and abilities (though ruffian weapon focus is perplexing) and as soon as we added the defender ability, he became more than satisfactory in his role. folks is complaining about aloth attributes, but a poe wizard is far more a function o' his spell selection than anything else. we gave the joinable wizard slicken at the first opportunity and with discovered spell books we have been able to add a few other o' our favorite spells. aloth attributes has not prevented him from being a major contributor. am much concerned about grieving mother. if we don't get her soon, she may be too level'd to be useful. is not her stats that will make her useless, but rather her talent and ability selection. unlike a wizard, we can't simply add the "spells" we want to he repertoire. also, with 11 classes, there was a need to make each class distinct from each other. make distinct is functional resulting in greater specialization. the poe paladin's role is that of a low maintenance support class that is excellent in defense. if you wish to make a paladin that does jaw-dropping damage, you are gonna need work very hard at it, and you still won't be as good as a rogue. you are gonna have a difficult time making a character genuine unplayable because of your starting attribute selections, regardless o' how borked they may appear to some o' the mechanics junkies who post on these boards. on the other hand, if you is building a character that don't exactly coincide with the role obsidian chose for your chosen class, you is gonna need be a bit more thoughtful with your talent and ability choices. HA! Good Fun!

am reposting an earlier post that we has, for all intents and purposes, posted 'bout a dozen times already: we got three characters we is still juggling for our first play o' poe, and all three were more than serviceable in our many bb hours o' gameplay. dual wielding priest o' berath or eothas. (maces or flails) or dual wielding rogue likely to use spears. stat breakdown is almost identical for the priest(s) and the rogue: m 10 c 10 d 10 p 16 (18) i 16 (14) r 16 priests will take lore and some athletics skill. rogue will choose stealth (fingers-crossed that obsidian fixes stealth) and lore. what made such characters powerful or weak in the beta had less to do with starting attributes and more to do with talent and ability choices... and weapon choice too. the poe starting attributes are significant, but they are no more impactful than were the starting attributes in d&d 3 point-buy. is our opinion, stated more than once, that people is getting too concerned about the mechanic impact o' attributes. mechanically, talent and ability choices will quickly eclipse the importance o' attributes in poe. HA! Good Fun! ps we will note that 3e d&d starting attributes were actual more significant 'cause o' the threshold issues with saves and bab n' such. an extra wisdom or intelligence point could actual have long term impact that does not similarly exist in poe. most d&d attribute significance were due to post level 1 inflation, but even so, the starting attributes had more importance than poe 'cause o' thresholds. end repost we got over 10 hours invested in the game as 'posed to possible hundred-plus hours from the beta. am current playing the rogue, but am kinda regretting not going with the priest, for rp reasons. regardless, while our level is only 4 (the beta took us from 4- 8 ) Gromnir's rogue build is not struggling. yeah, is amazing just how much our meta-knowledge in the beta made battles simple, but even with the tendency for encounters to develop in ways unexpected, our non-optimal rogue build is hardly handicapped. genuine annoyances so far is limited to a handful o' bugs, the illogical companion skill, ability and talent selections, and the remoteness o' a place to buy camping supplies. our lack o' strength is not keeping us from exacting comparative impressive damage on all enemies. do not sweat the starting attributes. sure, for a tank you need build deflection, and those starting resolve/perception deflection points seem invaluable. 'course eder is doing just fine tanking for us in hm, and with proper talent acquisition, we suspect he will get even better. also, if you were to build a dedicated interrupter build, perception would, we suspect, be a must-have as perception and a single talent o' dubious worth is your only options to boost your base interruption score. however, for most builds, the starting attributes is far less significant than many people believe. this is a crpg. poe is kinda an old skool crpg. given how important starting attributes is in many old skool crpgs, it is understandable that folks would assume similar importance for poe starting attributes. the assumption is largely misplaced. HA! Good Fun!

Low int penalizes AoE and duration - the object of the build being that it doesn't need either. That's more-or-less all. well, not exactly. the 3 int also modifies will saves. you is gonna start with a 17 will save. at level 8, your will save is a 38. you can somewhat counter the impact o' near guaranteed failed wills saves by taking bull's will, but that does cost a talent, and talents is vital. you are gonna face many will saves in the game. something to consider. is still a powerful build, but it would be good even w/o tanking int. HA! Good Fun! Yeah, but you counter loss of will by pumping Resolve. Which adds to your will saves. Thus you're starting with even more will saves then your default 10res/int stats. Precisely by 5 more with 16 Resolve. it doesn't quite work out that way, does it? you actually have worse will saves with the 3/15 split on intelligence and resolve as 'posed to 10/10... but that is precise why it makes sense not to tank int. take 10 int and 15 resolve (not that we suggest doing so for a rogue) gets you 30 on will saves as 'posed to 17. regardless, we sure as heck don't want worse than 10/10, but am s'posing we is more concerned with saves than is some other folks. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!