gkathellar

There are two reasons. The first is that these are terms people are familiar with, sometimes even from MMOs (weird, I know). The second is that when you optimize a party in PoE, you get a natural drift towards those roles. This is arguably a weakness of the system. That depends. On Normal, and even on Hard, they're about as good at it as they need to be even without optimization for tanking. On the PotD, they're about as good as they need to be so long as they're built specifically as tanks. When you start to build them for tanking at lower difficulties, though ... then you start to run into issues. So you want a tank class that tanks on equal level to pure tanks while at the same time does damage at equal level to pure damage dealers. That's not actually what the OP said. What I think is intended (and correct me if I'm wrong, OP) is that he would like melee characters to be designed such that they do not naturally drift towards these roles (DPS vs. tank) when optimized. Given the mention of the IE games, presumably the OP would like melee characters to play more as they did in those games - generally good endurance coupled with steady offense, with a few exceptions where DPS-esque kits like the kensai were concerned. This is absolutely true, but your party will underperform compared to a party that specializes in tanking and DPS roles. Since the IE games didn't have those roles, this can become a little bit grating. No, but the warrior classes in IE were very capable of holding their own, and their damage output was a lot steadier than that of others. The heavy-hitting classes would usually a few really solid hits per fight, and some could go nova, but none could keep dishing it out in the way a warrior could. Don't blame the game for your choices. Fighters and monks can do okay by focusing on disabling effects. You can disable enemies and continue to deal damage. They can do okay, sure. It's not optimal. If that's not something you care about, that's fine, but it's also not something you can credibly dispute. Sure, there's a difference, but because of the Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit system, you can't get much mileage out of one without the other. For enemies to reliably miss, your Defenses need to be absurdly, ridiculously far above the curve. Good defenses mean that enemies will graze, and if you don't have DR, that graze can still hit like a truck.

Which really doesn't say anything good about PoE. But, more seriously: the OP is looking to the IE games for class balance, and in the IE games it was ... reasonable-ish (mostly because Bioware treated item use as the warrior's main class feature). It only fell apart if you really knew what you were doing. PoE's class balance is all over the place. And not in a zany, fun way. Optimization thresholds are wildly different from class to class.

Well, "Kolsc didn't send me," comes close, but yeah, it's weird.

Why are rapiers? Skewering someone is actually a lot harder than than taking a swing at them. Hell, why are daggers? One-handed spears? Those are easy weapons to use, not exactly hard weapons to defend against. PoE's weapon system is not realistic. At all. I can write you a list, if you like. This is a standard feature of fantasy RPGs, and I've long since stopped caring to complain about it. You're welcome to do so, but try to keep perspective - clubs do not stand out in this regard. (That said, I echo your sentiment about WF. I like the idea of Noble and Soldier, but I'd also like to have Swords and Polearms.)

By Tempest's shield!

I've seen the same issue. Doesn't really bother me, because I'd rather not have those particle effects, but ... yeah. Things.

Normally I avoid it, but it does let you grab Gift from the Machine, among other things.

Nice job, Indira. Working on my own Triple Crown playthrough right now (with a paladin ubertank), and it's rough going, but fun!

The big downside to Darcozzi on a solo playthrough is that you can't pick up any points in Cruel without taking an F&C penalty.

There's no reason to stick to small shields on your wizard build, AFAIK. The accuracy penalty from shields only applies to attacks.

How? It does if you're being particular about semantics. Which means that for most purposes, it doesn't.

People can solo the Adra Dragon on PotD using them. So there's that.

As it is, souls already break apart and reform all the time as part of Berath's Wheel. Only Woedica and Rymrgand's choices are harmful in the long term. All of the others have their pros and cons. I think it depends on the Watcher's opinions. If he/she doesn't care the Gods are not real, supporting Woedica is not necessarily bad. If Rymrgand is right and all souls are fated to disintegrate, then satisfying him is not harmful in the long term, because it won't change anything. It may be harmful on the short term though. If there is reincarnation, death is not really a problem, people will die anyway and forget everything. Except for those whose souls are destroyed, but many don't care about it, like the pale elves in Noonfrost, some people that sacrifice willingly to the Ethik Nol (for the first time I notice the "ethics" in their name lol) and the people that "became" Woedica. Anyway, many souls go through the wheel without breaking apart, but if you turn the holloborn into essence, they all will cease to exist as individuals. Sorry, let me rephrase - only Rymrgand and Woedica offer options which are possibly of to the detriment of the Cycle, in the sense of removing resources from it. One way or the other, the souls in all of the other options are going to work their way back to Berath's Wheel eventually.

In development, the person trying to actively sabotage you is named Circumstances, and she is the best saboteur there ever was. I'm not getting into anything else here, I just feel that it's important to remember how easily something can go wrong in a multi-person project, even when no one is at fault.

Pick your battles. The world is bigger than the Watcher, and bigger than Thaos - this is not the only story, and the Watcher is not its only champion. More than anything, the gods are ideals to live up to - bad ideals, good ideals, but ideals. Sometimes it helps that those ideals can provide direct counsel, but as Engwithan history demonstrates, people constructed and believed in those ideals long before they could talk back. Not in a hundred lifetimes could one person convince them to give those ideals up - but Thaos was never afraid of one or two atheists. He was afraid of scientific and social progress allowing people to learn the truth for themselves, and so he perpetrated horrors to prevent it. With him out of the way, Animancy will progress, and the heroes of the coming age will hopefully be the scientists and scholars who can teach a whole world the way one guy with a sword never can. The Watcher learned something, and because of that knowledge, can make informed decisions. By dispatching Thaos and saving the Dyrwood, the Watcher gave the world the chance to do the same. That's probably the best one person - no matter how powerful - can ask for. As it is, souls already break apart and reform all the time as part of Berath's Wheel. Only Woedica and Rymrgand's choices are harmful in the long term. All of the others have their pros and cons.

Of all of the ways to lose my respect, quoting Hagakure unironically has got to be one of the worst.

Are those portraits modeled after people on the dev team, or is it just me? Also, female Wild Orlan portrait ftw

We really just don't know enough about how gods work to speculate on this. Durance says they're invincible as long as they have no physical form; does that apply to god vs. god? Is god vs. god even possible? I don't think we know.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but some official modding support could really help here. People do this stuff for games they like, sometimes at a professional level of quality. I don't know that the fanbase is actually large enough to do this, but hypothetically, they could even host contests to expand some resources semi-officially.

A nice third route would have been taking the kid and returning them to the Fisher Crane tribe.... If there is a way to do it in game I didn't find it. I am not sure about that but at least you can Oh man, that's awesome.

The only specific mentions of Death Godlike that I can think of in-game are both from people referring to them as touched by Berath - so presumably, that's at least a belief that exists in the Dyrwood.

Which is sort of like buying every stack of enchanted ammunition you can find in BG2, tbh.

Because you don't have a car.

I use 1H all the time, with the Jolting Touch stiletto that procs on Crit. I admit i do switch to DW once it procs however. English please. "Procs"? It's gamer-speak for "triggers." I honestly don't know what the word is short for, but I like to think that it's "procreates."

Per isn't enough to put you over 170refl because you have no means to buff perception outside items. Right, but you can shift a point from one to the other, can't you? You can't add more points to perception because you were already at max. The only way to add mor reflex is through dex. Taking White That Wends for your culture would let you do it (sorry, should have said that from the start) - none of your other stats are maxed, so there's no reason not to. It's not a huge deal, but it would buy you a point of Deflection, I guess.