Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

My hope is that WM 2 will add some guns with alternate damage types, like sagani's bow, etc.

Part of the solution here is making sure you have at least two damage types available so you can deal with extremely pierce-resistant enemies. I'm waiting to see what new weapons are available with WM II before I make any judgement calls. If you're talking about blunderbuss ciphers you can switch to a pistol for high DR opponents, but that doesn't help vs. pierce immune opponents.

Godlike abilities just seem weak because you haven't seen yet how many awesome helmets there are. If anything Nature Godlike need a boost.

Overall seems good. I'd have never had the patience to write out an eval of each race and each power like that, I'd have just stopped at "wood elf good" and "these powers good, other powers bad" My first thought was "you aren't really discussing equipment" but then I got to the end and you admitted that section needed work. Leadspitter is definitely preferable to Scon Mica because they just changed Disorienting and it doesn't stack with itself any more, so now Scon Mica just gives -5 all defenses instead of -30. So yeah use Leadspitter if you're going blunderbuss. (You can also go bow or pistol but that's a whole other discussion). Most guides ignore equipment in the early game, but the early game is the most important. Big Tip: you can get all the components for a basic Accuracy enchant by the time you reach the tree in Golden Vale. Drop that basic enchant on The Disappointer and it wipes the "terrible" enchant, giving you a very effective pistol in Act 1. I disagree a little with the stat spread just because going full glass-cannon con/res 3 on PotD will lead to a lot of problems getting one-shotted (or at least it would for me). Personally I don't like going below about 6 Con. Of course if you do that you have to take those points out of a primary and thus have to choose a more specific role (damage or CC), and that in turn effects which powers you'd pick. Talents: I think it's important to recommend a specific order. Lots of talents are not-bad at some point but most are best taken at specific levels. You touch on this with greater focus but it applies to a lot of other talents also -- for example, I generally find it best to take Penetrating Shot around 8th level (when you first start running into enemies with really high DR) and I like to take the weapon skill talents like Ruffian around 4th or 6th (which is generally the time you're hitting Act II and start to have real choice in gear instead of just using whatever you find). As to powers: 1) I would suggest you try playing with the new-and-improved puppet master. I think it's now preferable to Whisper of Treason even given the higher cost. It lasts significantly longer, especially with a high Int, and it casts faster, and thus it's *very* useful for getting rid of aggro or monsters running past your front line to tag your squishy, squishy cipher. 2) Depending on your party composition a few of the powers you recommend are a lot less useful. For example, if your party includes a chanter, the Chanter's fear phrase is going to be a much better source of Frightened than Secret Horrors. On the other hand, some status effects like Blind are so good it's worth doubling up on them.

Blunderbuss is still the highest per-swing alpha strike weapon in the game, even more than an arquebus, and the ruffian group has a nice overall synergy with pistol, saber, club, etc. Only weakness of blundy is high-DR enemies and the cipher has the tools to address that.

Challenge accepted. This may take a while. The problem is I can think of at least three cipher builds that look viable now, but I'm not going to have playtime to test any of them until WM 2 comes out at least. First is blunderbuss CC-focused cipher with max dex/int/per, 6 con, 3 resolve, as above, but a different power set given the current revisions. Second is a high might, low-int cipher focused on damage dealing powers or powers with fixed aoe/duration (beams, etc.) Third is a retaliation melee cipher. I suspect there are viable builds for all three but it's gonna take a lot of time to tease them all out.

Yes. I think the main secret to PotD is understanding how to use debuffs and CC effectively. If you feel like you're having to wear plate on everyone to survive you're probably making other mistakes that are leading to your back-line getting swarmed all the time.

Basically you have to AoE them back harder than they're AoE'ing you. Single-target damage won't cut it. One nice tactic is to armor up Hiravias, have him waddle to the front line, then cast Returning Storm. Or do the same thing with scrolls. Defensively, Suppress Affliction on your own guys is really useful.

Possibly. I find so far that I'm still picking essentially the same powers, I'm just delaying some of them. Before, I'd grab biting whip, draining whip, ruffian, penetrating shot, and after that it was sortof open ( Gunner? Marksman?)(In prior 3.0, Greater Focus?). Now that they've added two (four) extra levels, I think the progression is greater focus, biting whip, ruffian, penetrating shot, draining whip, (gunner) (marksman). It's a change in what order you get powers but not a big change. Said another way, by the time you get to the point where you might think about re-speccing away from greater focus, you're probably running out of good talents to pick anyway. Of course that might change with WM II if they add new awesome talents.

Greater Focus is still very useful at higher levels because it always lets you open the fight with a power one rank higher than you would otherwise.

Yeah I agree about Whisper. It's too strong now and I don't understand why it got buffed (though I'd still recommend against taking it, because I think Puppet's the better overall option now). If anything I would have given Tenuous Grasp the fast-cast speed and left Whisper at Long.

Yeah, the accuracy bonus needs to be halved also (I said that every time I said they needed to halve the DR bonus). I'd still prefer Mental Binding were fast-cast and a second shorter, rather than slower and longer. In release it was a perfect oh-**** button and the class needs that. Though now I guess Puppet Master is that instead. Oddly, the description for Antipathic Field has changed and now says it only effects enemies. ("Enemies caught in the beam.") It still actually does hurt allies though (tested, poor Aloth).

Nice interaction with pain link too I bet.

It's only got four charges, though. And there's no way to recharge these items (confirmed from Ropekid on SA). Honestly, that last one, the Celebrant's Gloves, are my favorite of all the ones I've posted. They're amazingly good if you're playing a crit-hit-soaking, low-resolve, high-dr barbarian tank. They keep you from getting interrupted (+30 concentration!) and extend your Carnage AoE. Anyway, got another last night: http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/322374420288687804/7B23C1C4F4AAB177275DD5E3EDBBA8B3258EDBCA/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/322374420288688495/DCB74747240B0520AE8C601B40791177BC8C6616/ Not that great but it does have a really good-looking graphic.

Same problem here. Came here to check and see if it was just me. Here's a savegame: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLUM8IkX78adVJUeW1DYnRlZnM/view?usp=sharing

I believe the only side quests that can't be completed after Act II are Aloth's personal quest and assemble-the-scepter quest from Ondra's Gift, because both route you through the inside of the Sanitarium. I've been told you can even complete The Final Actwhich involves a character in Dunryd Row.

Ok, now this is hopelessly outdated. It's still getting me "likes" though which concerns me. Moderators or someone, can the first post be edited with a "this is outdated don't use" or something?

It's a little annoying because I like hitting Act III to buy stuff from merchants, doing white march, then returning to Act III.

It's just "disorienting" now. I'm so disappoint =( A single effect for all such weapons. Doesn't stack.

I've found a fair number. Most of them are just a few charges though. Once I finish downloading the patch I'll take screenshots of the ones I've found so far. Ok, here we go: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616910097 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616910042 (I think this is one? not sure) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909993 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909940 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909878 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909680 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909594 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616909457 http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/322374420284631429/B250D60769B70CF2C50EAC6FC74B21E95BC19918/

One instance of this that I've seen, at least, seemed to occur with my cipher on rare occasions where the spl target moved during the casting animation. My cipher would freeze in "casting" pose and constantly rotate towards the spell target without the spell ( or rather in this case Power) actually ever firing. I'm not sure if that's the same problem these folks are talking about or not. Either way it was a fare problem and difficult to reproduce and usually fixable by just casting a different power one time.

I respect Avellone's work immensely. I'd even call him a genius. But sometimes geniuses have a hard time compromising their vision for the good of a larger project, which is my overall impression of what happened here. It doesn't sound like there was any bad-guy here just competing artistic(edit: and commercial) visions. PoE was always going to contain some inherent design compromises due to the nature of the nostalgia-RPG market. Some people want a new Planescape:Torment, some people want a new Baldur's Gate 1, some people want a new Baldur's Gate II, some people want a new Icewind Dale, etc., and you're trying to satisfy all of them with one game.

Does Carnage apply Marking to all the Carnage targets, or only the primary? What about Coordinating? Oh, and if you're wearing a Girdle of Mortal Protection, am I correct that you take less damage from a critical hit than from a normal hit?

I've had this problem happen with summoned skeletons. Goes away if you reload though so not a major issue.

For what it's worth, everyone's reaction is different, but I don't personally read this game as anti-religion. For one thing, it's just stated that . That's not a statement about the existence of Gods; it's a statement about the abilities of the Engwithans. Despite claims otherwise, the Engwithans didn't have infinite knowledge -- it's at least arguable from their reliance on Bronze that they didn't even understand modern metallurgy and steel! For another, . I'm not particularly religious but overall I thought the game was at least roughly fair to all religious viewpoints, at least philosophically and given of course the fantasy setting. In some ways I think it's more of a comment on fantasy genre conventions for fantasy deities than it is a commentary on real-world religious belief.