Yosharian

Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack can be used together. They're both very good. Vulnerable Attack is excellent early on, and the attack speed loss is negligible. Savage Attack becomes better once you are hitting harder, but it sacrifices accuracy which is sometimes not a good thing.

You REALLY don't need CON. If your rogue is getting hit, you did something wrong.

Try using the following steps: 1) First ensure that the erroneous buffs are tied to the ability itself. This may require some toggling on and off of the ability. 2) Turn OFF the ability. This should remove all buffs. The erroneous buffs will still be tied to the ability. 3) Perform a save. 4) Reload the save (might need to restart client, unsure). 5) Ability should be working correctly. I used this to fix Reckless Assault (rogue ability) and Pellegrina's Zealous +3 DR aura thingy.

I guess you guys didn't see my post. I believe this bug can be fixed by following these steps: 1) Turn off Reckless Assault - this should remove the buff completely 2) Perform a save 3) Reload the save (closing client may be necessary but may not be) 4) Reckless Assault should be back to normal This worked flawlessly for me. NB: 1.03 changed the way this bug worked by attaching the erroneous buffs to the ability itself - thus step 1) should remove them. If it doesn't for you, try toggling it off and on a few times.

OK GUYS I figured out a fix. Turn off Reckless Assault. Save the game. Reload the game. Reckless Assault is back to normal. WOOP WOOP

Really? Nobody has a fix for this? A picture of what Reckless Assault currently does for me: This is beyond a joke. I get -16 deflection when using Reckless Assault now. Turning it on and off does not fix it.

So you re-enabled the modal flag but we still have no way of removing the existing Reckless Assault buff from our characters. There must be a fix/workaround for this. Anyone?

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*.

I remember the first time I played Baldur's Gate 2. I couldn't figure out how the kill any of the dragons for a long-ass time. They seemed almost impossible to beat. It took me a long time learning AD&D before I knew how to take Firkraag down. I also remember trying to fight a Greater Wolfwere and being unable to overcome its regeneration, and thinking that this was the most OP non-boss creature ever! =)

There are a few other threads knocking around. I posted in one of them. Check my post history if you can't find the thread.

Many thanks!

So I'm looking at my Padded Armor and seeing 4 DR, that's all fine and dandy. Then I see my Scale Armor and I see a similar thing plus some Freeze DR. So then I think, oh that's neat, the Scale Armor gives you Freeze DR whereas the Padded Armor doesn't. But then I start thinking, wait, does the Padded Armor give 4 DR against everything? That is, every single damage type, including Freeze, Burn, Corrode and Electrical? Or is it just 4 DR against the physical damage types, that is to say Crush, Slash and Pierce? This is probably a stupid question, but my assumption coming from a D&D background is that standard armor DR would only protect against the physical damage types (Crush, Slash and Pierce). PS: Yes, I know that Padded Armor also has some other damage reduction effects (namely Crush, Pierce, Corrode and Burn). I'm trying to ascertain what damage types the generic, standard DR protects against.

All I'm gonna say is that all spells were not created equally, mess around with different spells and find out which ones are the best. I'm actually curious as to what talents/abilities you guys are picking for your Wizards, I'm not sure which ones to give Aloth. I had to pick one last level and I went for another 1st level spell (I know, I know) because I really couldn't find anything else that would be at all useful.

I'm not sure why anyone would think that one tank would be enough for a game like PoE, and I don't buy for one second that that was a valid strategy in BG2, at least not until your mages became super OP.

One small tip for fighting Shades/Shadows, make sure everyone is wearing Scale Armour or a similar armour that gives you Freeze DR. In addition you can use the Bulwark Against The Elements spell to make your Mage beefy against their attacks.

My basic strategy with my rogue (currently party is level 5) is to open with a ranged weapon, preferably an Arbalest. Arbalest has very high damage and long range, so you can open with this without leaving your rogue in a ****ty position and ending up having to burn Shadowing Beyond charges to escape from charging angry enemies. I have Stealth points on my tank (Eder) and at least 1-2 points on every party member, so that they can be positioned not far behind, or in Eder's case, slightly in front, so that when Stealth breaks, the enemies' nearest target is not my rogue, but my tank. I also have my tank use an Arbalest or other 12m range weapon so that he can fire off a shot as well when my rogue opens combat (as long as your rogue fires within 2 seconds of combat opening, a Sneak Attack will still occur). Following this I wait for enemy targets to gather around my tank(s) then move my rogue into combat, striking against the same target as my tank preferably. If you don't do this, you risk the target disengaging from your tank and engaging your rogue instead. Other strategies include sending the rogue solo against spellcaster enemies or other weak enemies such as robe-wearing priests. Where possible your Rogue should not be taking damage, rather have him focus targets that are busy being targeted by your other party members, especially your tanks. The build that I am using, more or less, can be seen here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71543-wtb-rogue-suggestionsadvice/?p=1594324 Essentially I dumpstat CON and INT, and keep RES and PER above 16 for the combat bonuses as well as role-playing bonuses (persuasion etc). CON barely matters because your rogue should not be getting hit. INT barely matters because the only ability it affects (so far for me, anyway) is Crippling/Blinding Strike, and duration is not a hugely important factor on these skills (it's nice, just not 'put 10 points into INT' nice). In particular the bonus deflection granted by RES and PER keeps your rogue from being too easy to hit, hopefully protecting him from the occasional swipe as he repositions or accidentally draws aggro. Put 1-2 points into Athletics so that your low CON doesn't have such an impact on your fighting longevity. Fatigue is annoying. I wear Padded Armor generally, since you don't want passing rats and stiff breezes to rupture your vital organs, but neither do you want to make your character into a proper tank. Undecided on weapons at the moment. The Backstab talent is singularly useless. There are lots of great talents for rogues, especially dual-wielding ones, and you simply cannot afford to burn a talent point on such a ****ty talent. Any more questions send me a PM or quote me.

Notice: avoid this ability bugging out simply by never trying to turn it off. That is what I have done for the time being. Please elaborate.

LMAO

I currently have Reckless Assault 'stuck' on my character; it cannot be toggled off. Reloading the client causes the game to think Reckless Assault is now off, thus enabling the player to activate Reckless Assaullt again, resulting in the old Reckless Assault being suppressed and the new one overriding. This effect also cannot be disabled.

That could be fun, but won't it take while to be able to acquire a blunderbuss and is ammo for that plentiful enough for your main weapon? I think a pistol volley then getting up close and personal with dual stilettos might work better and is covered by one weapon proficiency,no? That's kinda where I'm undecided as well, Blunderbuss seems like it's powerful but Pistols + Stilettos is a great efficiency combo... In one of the videos a guy is wielding a mace with a stiletto... not sure what to make of that.

80-85% virtually guaranteed. The game is too niche/complex for reviewers in general to give it a better average score. That's my prediction anyway. Yes, I'm a cynical bastard.

Mechanics helps pick locks? Ok. And the others?

So this leads to another question: is there any purpose to levelling Lore, Mechanics, Survival, Athletics or Stealth on NPCs, aside from their combat bonuses?

I think it's really sad that people are throwing hissyfits just because reviewers got early copies. The game is a day away. Are you really that upset that you have to wait another 24 hours? Considering the outright ****ing lies that other companies get away with regarding PC releases (*coughBIOWAREcough*) it's really astonishing how people are jumping down Obsidian's throat for, gasp, releasing the game on release day! PS: not directed specifically at you Madpaddy because your comment was more a case of curiosity than actual bitching

What the hell are they talking about? I created my account ages ago and my key is right there in my account under 'Products', activated it a few hours ago. Not sure why they are having problems.