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Thanks a lot for the very good advice! I'm unsure about the exact type / style of Weapon I will end up with (as I have not finished the game, yet) so I don't want to pigeonhole myself into a specific Weapon setup apart from the summoned weapons which I will definitely use. There is always the option to retrain a character, though, right? For now, I'll run with Arcane Veil (which allowed my char to solo the bear cave at lvl 2 and seems super OP so far) and see where that leads me. One more question: Do you ever hit enemies with "normal" (aka not-summoned) weapons as a Melee Wizard? Or do you mostly cast CC, self-buffs and so forth, then run in and hit people with the summoned staff/pike etc.?

I have another question about something that's confusing me: Most guides for Melee Wizards say that Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff & Citzal's Spirit Lance are the go-to enchanted weapons to use in the big/hard fights. Then, also, most guides I saw recommend to skill "Weapon & Shield Style" for the very good deflection bonus..but when I equip the summoned weapon, won't I lose this bonus? The enchanted weapon is a two-handed, right? I don't understand..why would I skill Weapon & Shield if I don't make use of it in half of the fights (whenever I used summoned weapons) If what you want is waiting for your main tanks to get engaged, and then attack from behind with reach/summoned weapon, then you can do without sword & shield style, just get ready to cast arcane veil every single time things go wrong and the main tanks get overruned. If you want to do some actual tanking though, sword & shield style is one of the best defensive stat buff you can get. Parasitic staff and spirit lance are great damage dealers but they won't make you survive 3 vs 1 situations. A front row wizard needs to do some crowd control first, with fan of flames spam or stuff like confusion or sleep ; then he can summon a weapon once ennemies stop targeting him. Thanks for your reply: So, if I understand correctly, we only get the sword & shield style talent for protecting us while we're casting spells from the back. Once we summon the parasitic staff or spirit lance, the talent doesn't apply anymore? Do we ever go to the frontline and hit/auto-attack enemies with NO summoned weapon (carrying sword & shield) or would that be a waste of time? Bonus question: Wouldn't it be a good idea, then, to get the "Two-Handed Style" talent, so our summoned staff etc. deals more damage?

Thanks for your advice, I ended up taking: MIG 15 CON 10 DEX 10 PER 16 INT 17 RES 10 I have another question about something that's confusing me: Most guides for Melee Wizards say that Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff & Citzal's Spirit Lance are the go-to enchanted weapons to use in the big/hard fights. Then, also, most guides I saw recommend to skill "Weapon & Shield Style" for the very good deflection bonus..but when I equip the summoned weapon, won't I lose this bonus? The enchanted weapon is a two-handed, right? I don't understand..why would I skill Weapon & Shield if I don't make use of it in half of the fights (whenever I used summoned weapons)

Alright, I started a sweet Hearth Orlan Wizard who will become a 2nd/3rd line DPS Melee Wizard with a bit of tankyness (hopefully) through self-buffs..but mostly I want to focus on damage and leave the tanking to my (two?) tanks, probably Eder & Pallegina.. Anyways, can anyone give me advice on my attributes? I am not sure if this is a good distribution of points, given that I also want to be able to get some of the dialogue options due to high Int/ Perception etc. This is what I got, any comments/critique? MIG: 16 CON: 7 DEX: 12 PER: 16 INT: 17 RES: 10 Is it possible to maybe go 1/2 less RES and put that into DEX? Or will that make me too squishy? How important are the RES dialogue options I would be missing out on? Thanks!

Thanks for the info, sounds like a blast! Are there any tips you can give me in regards to party composition? I suppose our main character counts as a sort of secondary tank, right? So, that would make me want to play with something like: 1. Melee Wizard / Tank (Main Char) 2. Main Tank 3. Cipher (Grieving Mother) 4. Priest (Durance) 5. ? 6. ? Do I need more DPS? More CC? Maybe 1 more tank, too? Also: From a roleplaying perspective, which companions did you find most rewarding to play with?

Thanks for your reply! I am now (still) torn between two choices: a) Melee/Tanky Wizard b) Melee Cipher (Preferably Dual Wield) With the Tanky Wizard, I'm concerned about the problem that I would have to rest quite often due to all of his potential lying in his spell-buffs, right? How cumbersome would this get on HARD mode? Cipher doesn't have to rely on resting which seems attractive, but I've often read that Melee Cipher is too fragile and not really comparable to a ranged Cipher (which I, however, absolutely do not want to play, melee 4 life ) If you would start the game anew, as your first playthrough (and I want this to be my "definite" playthrough as I'm super tired of rerolling), would you rather play Melee Wizard or Melee Cipher? Either way, I want to play as Orlan, if that matters at all (probably not)

That sounds REALLY cool, I might just try that out. Does the sneak attack thing apply to auto-attacks only or also to spell damage? Also, since I, too, want to play as Orlan 100%, what do you prefer, Hearth or Wild Orlan? Finally, would you mind giving some advice on stats & spells that are must-haves? Some do's and don'ts? I have 0% experience with wizards in this game except some microing of Aloth from time to time.. I remember "Slicken" was super good.. is this still the case?

Thanks for your replies! A melee tanky wizard / spellsword kind of main seems like a very fun character to play as. And the last time I played, I wanted to get rid of Aloth, anyways, so... A couple of questions: 1. I want to play on HARD with a party completely consisting of story NPCs, I really liked Eder or Pallegina as tanks & I am interested in recruiting the Cipher NPC (had not met her yet) as well as Durance as Priest. What would be a good 5th/6th pick as NPC? Is the Rogue companion from the DLC any good? 2. What are some good & CURRENT guides for a tanky wizard? I have found a lot of outdated discussions but not much that fits the latest patch. What would be a good build, what are good starting stats (that don't completely gimp my dialogue options) I do NOT want to 100% min-max everything but I DO want a little bit of challenge, if that makes sense. I'm not interested in reloading a fight 100 times but it's okay if I am stuck for a while on the harder boss-fights. Basically a healthy & balanced mix of roleplaying, enjoying the story but also enjoying the challenge of the combats.

Hello there, bit of background: longtime BG2 + Expansion player, loved isometric/infinity engine games since forever. Backed PoE and was SUPER hyped to play it on release..that was ~2 years ago and I quit the game about halfway through because it felt..unfinished.. there were SO many bugs and stuff and I wanted to come back and play it from start to finish when all those kinks were ironed out..well..that time is now, I guess. I just bought the 2 expansions and am ready to start a new playthrough.. only problem is: I have NO idea what class to roll.. My playthrough 2 years ago was of an Orlan DPS dual-wielding rogue, who I mostly liked, but the Rogue class felt kind of boring after a while, very much "one-trick-pony".. 1. Send in tank to pull aggro 2. Send in rogue from behind to backstab / sneak attack Then I remembered that, back in the day, I played a fighter/mage multiclass character in Baldur's Gate 2 and LOVED it because of the flexibility in fights. There were always a lot of decisions to make and ways to react to different situations. The cipher would obviously fit the bill in that regard, but I'm not sure that a) A Melee (I don't like ranged) Cipher would be fun and b) I read somewhere that most of the Cipher's skill are useless except a few super overpowered ones that you basically had to use later on ("Amplified Wave"). Is that true? Another option for an interesting hybrid might be either a tanky wizard or a monk? But I've heard that the monk's combat system is kind of broken/wonky and I'm also unsure about a melee tanky wizard..sounds cumbersome/hard to pull off. TL;DR: I am basically struggling to decide on a character that fits my taste: I want to play on HARD mode and also want to really immerse myself into party dialogues, the story and everything as I have not finished the game once. I would like to play the most "interesting" character that has a good mix of both DPS and versatility. Bonus question: Is there any way to play a sort of mage/rogue hybrid? A spellcasting backstabber? That would be my favourite, I guess Thanks for reading and thanks for the help in advance!