Yosharian

So apparently Devil is a rather unconventional 'rogue'... I haven't picked her up yet but from what I gather she has odd stats, locked breastplate armour (ew) and other quirks. I'm currently playing on Hard difficulty. I'd love to use her in order to enjoy her character, dialogue etc, but I'm really unsure how to build her in order to make her work on this difficulty mode. This is my party: Me: Barbarian 2H with high Con, Int and Str (Greatsword user, Firebrand at first then Tidefall later) Main Tank: Zahua using KDubya's Juggernaut build ???: Devil of Caroc Ranged DPS/Buffs/Disable: Hiravias Ranged DPS/Offtank: Sagani (pet build at the moment) Buffs/DPS: Durance My Barbarian build, in case you care: I'm using Eder at the moment so Zahua will replace him as main tank while Devil will function as... offtank? Melee DPS? More ranged DPS? (yawn) I'm really not sure. The only useful information I've found so far is something I found in another thread courtesy of Torm51: I don't have a wizard, have no idea what reinforcing Exhortation is or what Bittercut is. So... Torm seems to think she can be built as a front liner, which would work quite well in my party. I'd love a clearer explanation of this type of build, if anyone understands it. KDubya adds: (I have no idea what Durgan Steel is.)

Wait so Tidefall actually has the Draining effect (the one that restores Endurance)? Woop guess I'm going for that instead of The Grey Sleeper then..

Didn't they change Tidefall to no longer have the Draining effect?

This is my problem with DR bypass - sometimes you don't need that much DR bypass, or any. I have a question which you might know the answer to, Sanguine Plate grants Frenzy, but does this item-granted Frenzy benefit from any effects which claim to alter standard Frenzy? Off the top of my head there's Greater Frenzy (obviously, and almost certainly won't work with SP Frenzies but though I'd mention it anyway) and there's the Berserker's Belt which claims to extend Frenzies by 20%? Also, does your Intellect play a part in the duration of Frenzies granted by SP? (since my character obviously has a ridiculous intellect score)

Thanks. I've been considering switching to a Fighter after all these buffs. Been reading your Lady of Pain build, it's pretty sick.

I didn't realise you could respec EVERYTHING including attributes... this changes everything. But you can't respec companions attributes... sadface. Try this guide out. You don't always have to min max to the extreme of some of these builds but the ideas are solid. Enjoy Character creation and development guide. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 Thank you for the post, it's extremely helpful! Thank you for the suggestion but I am definitely going to go Barbarian now, I'm quite sold on the idea. Also I will be using that monk build with Zahua (as much as I can, don't know his attributes yet so I hope they're good!).

So I've attempted one playthrough so far, a dual-wielding Rogue. I didn't finish the game (various reasons). Now I'm thinking of starting another playthrough. I'm after a character that can dish out damage and be somewhat tanky. I didn't like that my Rogue had to play so cowardly during the last playthrough. I will be playing on Hard mode with Expert Mode probably turned off because it annoyed me having to guess spell AoEs. Probably. UPDATED: ok so I've decided on a class and my supporting party. Will be: Front line ------------ Tank: Zahua using the Juggernaut Monk build Secondary tank: Sagani's ranger pet Ranged/Second line ---------------------------- DPS: 2H Barbarian Ranged DPS: Sagani Ranged/backstab: Devil of Caroc Support/back line ------------------------ healbot/buffer: Durance CC/buff/debuff: Kana Rua So I'm trying to decide between a balanced approach: Mgt: 18 Con: 10 Dex: 10 Per: 10 Int: 20 Res: 10 and balls-to-the-wall glass cannon: Mgt: 18 Con: 3 Dex: 19 Per: 15 Int: 20 Res: 3 And now I'm considering a third option, dumping DEX (!!!!) in favour of CON: Mgt: 18 Con: 18 Dex: 4 Per: 15 Int: 20 Res: 3 The idea being, yes he has the attack speed of a cruise ship, but he hits like a tactical nuke going off (will pick talents/abilities based around making the most of those high recovery time attacks) and has the HP of a small mountain. Anyway current build is: Race: Fire Godlike Background: Old Vailia, Slave Mgt: 18 Con: 18 Dex: 4 Per: 15 Int: 20 Res: 3 Abilities: ---------- 1 Frenzy (respec into this from Barbaric Yell which is better early on) 3 Savage Defiance 5 Blooded (not 100% decided upon this yet but will see) 7 Threatening Presence 9 Barbaric Shout 11 Thick-Skinned 13 Dragon Leap Talents: -------- 2 Gallant's Focus (since I have no Pally and I rarely use Blessing even when I do have a Priest around) 4 Two-Handed Style 6 Apprentice's Sneak Attack 8 Barbaric Blow 10 Weapon Focus: Adventurer (reason I'm taking this so late is because I won't be using an Estoc until I get a really good one - going to rely on Firebrand until then) 12 Accurate Carnage 14 Greater Frenzy BONUS TALENTS: -------------- Second Skin: +2 DR when wearing armor (Winds of Steel - side with Knights of the Crucible) Wael's Boon: +1 Intellect, +10 defense against Confused (side with Wael during the Council of Stars) Blooded Hunter: +1 DR slash/pierce (Save Alwah during Prison Of Ice) Song of the Heavens: +1 DR shock +1 PER (allow Delem to eat 3 birds during Songs of the Wild) Dungeon Delver: +0.1 crit damage (Help Cwyneth during At The Mercy of the Tribes) Gift From The Machine: +1 might, 5% max END (feed the prisoners to Aldhelm during Undying Heritage) PS: my style is pretty min-max so feel free to go all out PPS: Does anyone have Zahua and Devil of Caroc's attributes? I can't find them anywhere.

Magic Missile was awesome because you could interrupt spellcasters with it, and interrupting them in the middle of casting a really amazing spell meant they lost that spell. Whereas in PoE the spell is cast anyway 1-2 seconds later. Interrupts are really not that important in this game. The other thing that made MM good was that it did the BG2 equivalent of 'raw' damage. Whereas in PoE the spell targets.. deflection is it? Something like that.

2 survival is like BALANCE to that broken armor tho Is it? Why?

The enchanting system is just really uninspiring. Inability to remove enchantments, finnicky total enchantments limit where you have to 'game' the system to get the best enchantment combination, etc. And the magical equipment in the game is just really bland. Like the Sanguine Plate with its +2 survival taking up a valuable enchantment slot... wow... that's so useful >_>

If you mean Reviving Exhortation, then I'm pretty sure you wouldn't because it doesn't do what it says it does. It claims that it restores the character at something like 300 Endurance and in a bit of time, takes away half of that (i.e. something like 150 Endurance). What it actually does is restore the character at maximum Endurance which for any character I can think of is less than 300 and for most characters you'd ever want to use this on, is less than 150. On the other hand, it does take away exactly the numerical value of Endurance mentioned in the description (not half of what was restored) so most characters will simply drop after the duration expires and even very durable characters will be reduced to very low health. It's extremely situational. The only usage I can think of is when you have a caster down who needs to cast just one fight-changing spell. Given that you shouldn't be in situations where party members are down in the first place, it's more or less worthless. Ah. I worried it might work like that.

I felt exactly the same way about Durance until I got more into his story and understood more about the history of the Godhammer and the wars. Now I'm glad I put up with him, but I don't actually like hanging out with him. I'm into Act III now and feel like I'm finally getting a grasp on the various gods and factions. I don't think the game would be as immersive if I hadn't brought any of the companions with me. I'm more interested in story than combat, so for me, it's important that companions are part of and contribute to the world in which the story takes place. Hmm ok, well I'm just about getting to that point so I'll bear that in mind!

Thanks, that explains a lot.

Zealous Focus isn't replaceable by the Priest's Inspiring Radiance. They stack. You can't use Holy Radiance before combat either.... not unless you're not patched to 1.03 for some reason. And even though Blessing's accuracy modifier doesn't stack with Zealous Focus, its 1.1 damage modifier does. Blessing + Zealous Focus gives you 6 accuracy, 1.1x damage, and 5% hits to crits (this isn't suppressed by Dire Blessing's hits to crits either). The only aura thats questionable is Zealous Endurance because its completely suppressed by Armor of Faith. So Zealous Focus (which boosts accuracy) stacks with Inspiring Radiance (which boosts accuracy when you use Holy Radiance)? Why do these two abilities stack when other similar effects don't? I actually don't like using Blessing very often because I prefer to save Level 1 spell uses for Armor of Faith. Anyway at the moment it seems like the game does a very bad job of communicating to the player what stacks and what doesn't stack, which is odd because I would have imagined that this would be a hugely important design goal from the very start. Gotta be honest.... Monk is a class on the opposite end of the spectrum from Paladin in my opinion. Why? Monk can be TREMENDOUSLY broken and powerful, but achieving this demands that you babysit the monk and micromanage a lot. Every time that Monk gets a wound, you use it. And if the Monk has 10 wounds? Prepare to pause combat every half a second to re-assign another wounded punch, because that's how fast the monk punches. It's tedious perhaps, but the reward payout is tremendous. Paladin seems like the opposite end of the spectrum. You need absolutely minimal micromanagement for the Paladin....but you also get minimal payout. Overall, it's a lazy man's class for if you can't be bothered to buff accuracy and DR with your Priest. The problem is that realistically speaking, if you can't be bothered with two buffs by your priest, you're gonna get slaughtered anyways. There's also not exactly two alternative priest spells in tier 1 that seem like equally viable alternatives to those two, so it's not like you get more mileage out of your priest because the paladin is there. I gotta be honest... the way you describe the Monk makes it sound precisely the sort of class I want to play =) Shame there's no NPC monk...

Lmao. I didn't realise the DR aura didn't stack with Armor of Faith. Sigh. So the Paladin is even more useless than I thought.

I find Durance to be really annoying, RP-wise. He's preachy and holier-than-thou and at the same time he's such a naive moron. And whore this whore that, god it gets old fast. And the ET thing with his staff is just embarrassing. I haven't completed his quest yet so can't comment on that 100%, but it's kinda boring so far.

Mind Blades and Mental Binding are so ridiculously strong it makes everything else look ****. Most of my fights revolve around my other characters attacking or doing whatever, and Grieving Mother spamming those two abilities. As well as Durance's +DR spell, that spell is super important as well, but only in more difficult fights. I get what the Cipher is supposed to be, but right now it feels way too strong.

"Rouge" 10/10 Just out of interest, why ranged?

So I'm about level 9 with my party and this is my experience with the Paladin so far, using it in a secondary tanking role: 1) Doesn't tank as well as my Fighter. 2) Some active abilities aren't useful: - Lay on Hands doesn't heal enough points - Fire attack doesn't seem to do much and isn't useful for a tanking role - Rez ability doesn't seem important - I feel like if an important member of my party drops then I've made a mistake and I hit reload 3) Auras are by far the best thing the Paladin has to offer, I've been using the +3 DR one and it is excellent, but the range is very small and limits its use. 4) Second best thing about the Paladin is the ability to be resilient to charm/dominate etc. 5) The ability which removes debuffs on your allies, this is an interesting ability but it doesn't remove charm/dominate which is pretty much the only reason I took it, if I had the chance I would definitely take something else instead. Overall they are 'ok' but compared to the omg-tanking of the Fighter or the endless-machine-gun-of-pain Cipher, this class just isn't sexy enough. I feel like if I was playing Iron Man or Path of the Damned, I might want that rez ability though.

I'm just giving my feedback, who said anything about Obsidian murdering my family? If anyone's being dramatic its you...

9/10

I think there's merit to both systems. Pillars has made some great changes, but also the BG series still has some superior elements. Let's at least credit Obsidian for having a good try, and hope they improve on it in the next iteration.

1) Consider just giving up for the time being and come back later. It's slightly annoying, I know. 2) Wizards are allowed to wear armour. Armour reduces Freeze damage, especially certain armours. 3) Bulwark Against Elemental Damage or whatever that spell is called, is great against Shades/Shadows.

I am really disappointed with the Stronghold. 1) The bonuses from resting can't be combined, despite the flavour text implying the opposite. So basically they are a complete waste of time because you might as well dump 200g into resting at an Inn to get a much better bonus. 2) Vast majority of the shopkeepers offer absolutely nothing of worth. Complete waste of money. 3) Brighthollow is just a pain in the ass to get to, I have to go through 2-3 loading screens just to rest there, then go through another 2-3 loading screens to get back to the World Map.. are you ****ting me? Did a blind, lobotomized monkey design this feature? 4) Hirelings seem like a waste of time; they die too easily in the special encounters and mostly cost too much to just have lying around for the purposes of increasing prestige/security. If they at least got rezzed after fights then it wouldn't be so bad. 5) Nobody interesting moves into your Stronghold. The game needs a Deckard Cain-type character (or three) who you actually want to visit and talk to, to make the place seem more alive. It's just a really uninspiring place to visit, and as I've already stated the gameplay benefits are very limited. Still better than the BG2 Strongholds, but at least they had semi-interesting quests tied to them. Really I'm only dumping gold into this place for the sake of completing it. I really couldn't care less about the place aside from that.

Lmao, of course. It's one of the most overpowered spells. Instant cast, long range, almost never fails (for me anyway - Hard difficulty), fairly cheap to cast. This spell is borderline overpowered when combined with other classes that can take advantage of the paralyze.