omgFIREBALLS

A lot of it is in your list of active effects, simply listed as the effect's name and what it does. There's no summary of your counters to resolve afflictions, but if you have Divine Purpose (paladin, +20 saving throws) and Fearless (fighter, resistance), they will be listed there. Certainly that list can get very long though, so it wouldn't be bad if these stats were summarized more tidily.

Yeah, I figured as much, but considering the massive attack rate differences you can get outside TB, that sounds really harsh. High dexterity dagger user wearing light armor vs. a low dexterity tincan swinging a modaled war hammer, mace, sabre, battle axe or quarterstaff. One attack each! Spend it wisely, for example by not being the dagger user. Oh well, TB didn't interest me to begin with, but even less now ^^

Wait, really? Why would anyone take dexterity then? Reflex save and dialogue checks? ^^

Yeah, priest would be a closer match. To me it feels like a mystic is a believer but not necessarily a preacher. Also, you might not believe in any of the Eoran gods but rather in fate, which I don't think any of them govern. That would also mean there's no dogma for you to follow.

Never played a philosopher, nor have I even memorized the mystic dialogue options. 19 sounds like far more than I've seen. I'm jussaying they don't seem conceptually similar.

No, I don't think they will assume your philosopher is from Ixamitl. In my playthrough I'm a mystic, which is exclusive to The White that Wends, and I don't recall anyone assuming the latter because of the former (though they would be correct). Then again, I don't think mystic has given me reactions, just unlocked some responses, but none of them have been "As someone who definitely hails from the cold ass place from which hail also a bunch of madmen who are fond of hail, snow, ice and general awfulness and Rymrgand himself [...]" Mystic and philosopher seem rather different to me by checking their descriptions, BTW. Mystic: You've never been able to explain how the universe guides your path. Behind every task you undertake is a feeling of cosmic direction. Philosopher: You are most at home inside your own head, analyzing the nature of the world and its inhabitants. Another thought: It would be annoying from a game designer perspective to link backgrounds to cultures in conversation lines, because if they ever decided to make a unique background (like Philosopher - Ixamitl Plains) no longer unique, they would have to edit all those lines. Also while writing them, the writer would have to know what the "current idea" is of the whole background/culture matrix. Much easier if they can just think, might there be an interesting exchange here if there's a philosopher involved? If there's an Ixamitlite (this is 100% the term now) involved?

He is immune to mind afflictions, so only the weirdo spells outside the inspiration/affliction system will work. Psychovampiric Shield should. I prefer to open with Borrowed Instinct, and that's what I was trying to do repeatedly throughout the fight. I occasionally had his will reduced by Bewildering Blows and constantly by Hunter of Hunters (Ngati's Tusk on a survival pumped character), my cipher had a healthy amount of accuracy (Exalted Focus, The Empty Soul), but I actually never managed to land a spell. The chance wasn't horrible, but my cipher had many jobs and couldn't keep trying over and over. There also wasn't some easy extra monster I could cast Borrowed Instinct on to have more accuracy for when trying Dorudugan. If anyone has a neat trick (item/spell) for spawning a useless hostile monster, sigil, totem or just a damn barrel, that would be awesome to know. The point stands that it's really hopeless to methodically crack open someone you have a very hard time landing anything on, who is immune to half your tools and who will greatly reduce the duration of those that work. On an easier boss I could constantly have Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric Shield up and still have focus left for other jobs. It's obviously a lot to ask that this should be easily accomplished with a mega boss, but it doesn't even happen that I can do it by blowing all my focus on it. I'm getting nowhere near it. Maybe I would have had a different result if I prioritized Psychovampiric Shield over Borrowed Instinct, but I suspect it wouldn't have made me feel like this boss suddenly had depth. I also tried to figure out the answer to dunehunter's question (I'm curious too), but I don't have anything conclusive yet. I figured at this point @MaxQuest would have told us ^^

Another advantage of the staff is that you only "need" to make one weapon mythic instead of two. About the raw damage AoE enchant however, I didn't find it very exciting. It seemed to be only about 15 damage, and judging from the description it takes five hits on the same target for it to trigger. My staffsmacker was very pimped up and generally things didn't survive five hits from her. The damage reduction however, is like 15% fully stacked with pumped metaphysics. I only tested the AoE enchant very briefly (one fight on fampyr island), noting that it wasn't very exciting damage (five hits for over 100 and then a bonus hit for 15, yay?) while the damage reduction sure felt significant, especially considering, as I said, that the extra reach doesn't keep you safe against some bosses.

I've now beaten most of the base game content, all of SSS, Belranga and Dorudugan (my first kill ever). I've been consistently happy with the performance of this character. The party is a bit less durable than I'm used to, but it's worth it. The only real disappointment is that the extra attack range doesn't mean anything against some bosses, because they can reach me anyway. I set my eyes on this staff because I wanted to be safe from the annoyance of mobs simply targeting the lowest deflection character in range. At least the modal saw some use.

I've finally killed this guy, the last megaboss on my list. No creative tactics, just tank, spank and run out of fire. He might be the least stimulating opponent I've fought in either PoE game. Being a mega boss, he of course has a generous helping of defenses and a truckload of health, but what makes it all worse is his crazy resolve. I find that only permanent debuffs are worth anything here. You have a poor chance of landing anything to begin with, and if you do, it's going to have terrible duration thanks to his resolve. He's dead alright, but despite having attempted him with half a dozen parties before finally killing him, the victory gives me little joy. Aside from dodging fire (and making him dodge it), the fight just feels like a tedious repetition of very basic RPG combat concepts because his resolve just doesn't allow for any whittling down of his defenses.

I suppose this goes here. The spoken line does not emphasize "from". She's in the Brass Citadel harbor if anyone else wants to opine. Also, cue discussion about whether I should have capitalized "the"

Autocorrect, what did you just do?

That's what I thought. You can't go wrong with blunt weapons in BG, IWD or PoE :D

Multi-classed to paladin, obviously stacking metaphysics. Not solo. Tell me some important fights where, from a damage dealing perspective, I will royally hate myself for it.

Not to be rude either, but I'm only reporting a bug, not trash talking them on Steam for not prioritizing it. There's never a wrong time to report a bug. And hey, there's always a chance they immediately know what's wrong and can fix it about as easily as they would a typo.

You know how to give yourself injuries but not buffs? Should we be concerned? :D Anyway, I've pretty much wrapped up SSS, just have the three last bonus fights remaining. So it seems it's safe to just console the quest items in. Thanks anyway =)

I don't know how. I could add wardstones and food again, I could get the courtesan, bathhouse, alchemic buffs and potions again, but how do I get a new Nature's Resolve and Dawnstar Blessing? Can I use the console to simply give me buffs?

There are a few occasions of the game making you lose all your buffs as though you had rested. Two new such seem to have been recently added (hopefully not on purpose). They're extremely detrimental to my "no rest" playstyle as they happen semi-late in the game, yet are tied to plot critical interactions. The two new ones are the starter tasks for Seeker and Survivor, getting the Sought Skull and the Crimson Crystal respectively. At the end of these scripted adventures, I've always ended up losing all my food buffs, wardstones, etc. Note that this didn't happen with getting the Slayer item, by the way. I've emailed a save game and output files for these. The procedure for triggering the hopefully-bug is simply doing the scripted adventure in whatever way; I haven't found a way to avoid it in 20 attempts on Seeker. I'm going to also name a few other such forced rests. They're not nearly as problematic (for various reasons), but if they're unintended, I'd be happy to have them gone all the same: - Reforging the shattered blades from PoE1 - Doing the Dirty Laundry quest (can't remember which point, when you get changed or when you get changed back I guess) - Southeast of Neketaka there's an island with a Forgotten Catacomb. To reach this mini-dungeon, you have to get through a scripted adventure in a bog. At some point during this adventure, you can do a survival check to head for the path rather than standing your ground. This survival check (on success - I've never failed it) seemingly causes you to lose your buffs.

No, I lost them there too the one time I tried, just haven't tried again since. Also it's a bit annoying to retry it because it seems the design is the search will take however long it takes for your party to almost die from injuries, no matter how awesome you are at passing skill checks If I don't encounter problems with this console solution, I'll use it for Survivor too.

Right, I gave myself the item. Obviously I got no journal update, but it seems I can use the pool just fine. I also got reputation for just inserting it there. So... here's to hope. The console command, by the way, is GiveItem lax01_quest_00_seeker_artifact

Yeah, I'll try that later. Anyone know how?

Riiight... well, I did my first and last rest right after picking up my mercs in Port Maje. Works out beautifully if you don't care about reforging the swords or doing Dirty Laundry. This is annoying, maybe I should find some console trick for it.

I cannot do the scripted encounter for the Seeker without losing my rest bonuses. I think I'm on my fifth attempt now. Anyone know a surefire way? Tried pausing already.

This one is particularly interesting. Do you have a good trick for getting that one crit off, on a monster with approximately exactly the defenses of Dorudugan?

I'm looking to take at least some members of my terminal tank party out of No Pen land, and Glacierbane seems fantastic for it. The modal, and the enchantment... but I don't know if I can make sure to take freeze damage if the fight doesn't have any. My party is 3x herald, crusader, inquisitor. Should I just hit my hammer wielder with a frost damaging weapon?