gkathellar

I'm curious - can the self-damage from dangerous implement generate Wounds? I dunno what the application of this would be, but it seems like an interesting possibility.

I think they wanted to be sure everyone hit the cap by game's end, which (paradoxically enough) means there's a fair amount of extra experience for those who go looking for it. Level up companions and cohorts, I guess.

Intellect only ever affects the outer circle of any AoE, which is explicitly the bonus to the size from Int. The only difference is that allies don't suffer friendly fire damage from the outer circle. As to chants not lingering - hopefully they'll fix that (or the tool tips) in the next patch. Maybe submit a bug report?

If you're going to tank, you shouldn't dump Con, but you can probably get by without much.

The game's technology is consistently comparable to that of the 1500s. Machine guns came, uh ... you know, a little later than that. ... I don't understand this view. If you're okay with plate mail, then it seems like you should be okay with guns, since the two have an inextricable technological tie. I guess not everyone is a huge, obnoxious historical warfare nerd, huh? Le sigh. Magran's fire damage spell is 1/rest, unfortunately.

That's neither here nor there. The first three companions are white men, and all of the women are exotic foreigners. It's hardly the worst thing ever, but it was noticeable to me, and I would've been pleased to see a counter to Durance's misogyny show up before Caed Nua. I'm not complaining about Durance, who is fantastically written and strangely endearing, or about any of the companions, all of whom I like. But, if you're tuned to it, the disparity gets really noticeable around the time Durance joins.

@drunetovich - Everything in this setting runs on spiritual energy. Might is a measure of the soul's ability to act on the outside world, regardless of means.

Immersion breaking or not, I think it's a great minigame, and I really like the idea of using quests to measure the progress of time. I'll gladly suspend my disbelief.

Grieving Mother is usable, sure, but that just goes to how valuable ciphers are in general. She's just about the worst Cipher the devs could have plausibly included, though.

My recommended picks for power levels 1-4 1st: Mind Wave, Eyestrike, Soul Shock 2nd: Mental Binding, Mind Blades, Recall Agony/Amplified Thrust 3rd: Puppetmaster, Soul Ignition, Secret Horrors/Ectopsychic Echo 4th: Mind Lance, Silent Scream, Pain Block After that point, it gets more straightforward.

There's some random loot.

Drop some points from the defensive stats, and put them into Might and Dex.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Unless these pictures are being taken with professional quality cameras (they're not), you're kind of talking out of your ass here. A photograph does not show how something looks to the naked eye.

You may want to turn down the difficulty, since the main thing that effects is the number of enemies per encounter. Of course, if your issue is with the number of encounters, rather than the number of enemies in them ... I dunno what to tell you. I can understand that objection (I'm so tired of fighting shades guys), I've occasionally gotten the same feeling, but for the most part, my own experience is that it hits that sweet spot where combat is concerned. ITP: "What? You have opinions I disagree with? Obviously you must be some kind of hypocrite!"

@dukefx That's been fixed, IIRC.

Try the IEMod. You'll find it in the big modding thread in the Backer Beta Discussion subforum. It adds a ClassChange console command and unlocks AttributeScore. (I'd link you, but I'm on my phone.)

Target defenses other than Deflection. Use major debuffs - Charm, Dominate, Paralyze, Stun (Ciphers are especially good for this). Keep careful control of your formation. Use fire. Don't go after the Shadows that Shades summon - they'll get unsummoned when you take down the Shades.

20% isn't worth as much as you think, especially when you're already getting a considerable bonus to attack speed from dual wield + Two Weapon Style. Stacked with maces or stilettos, vulnerable attack is quite effective.

Make sure you delete the old "iemod" folder entirely and replace it with the new one, rather than merging and replacing individual files. I had a similar issue, and it was because I did that.

@tnc - Rather than getting two mutually exclusive weapon style talents, just get Vulnerable Attack so that you can break through high DR with two weapons. (Stilettos also help.)

It's like 4 Endurance, IIRC. I actually think the best use of it might be keeping track of ENDURANCE during barbarian rage.

The main reason to use two-handed weapons is for reach weapons - pikes, staves, etc. - to take better advantage of Carnage. Basically, choose between more frequent carnage, or wider AoE with slightly more damage per hit.

So with ChangeClass - if racial abilities are no longer removed, then you shouldn't have to use AddAbility for anything unless you're respeccing the Watcher, right? Sounds great. Much obliged for all of your hard work.

Everybody in PoE ostensibly uses soul power, so everything fits to some degree. Cipher does give you some additional conversation options here and there, including a lot of additional options with the cipher companion. But I don't know that it's really any more or less "compatible" with the lore than anything else. Anything fits in terms of species, with the possible exception of godlike. There are numerous occasions where it really should come up, but doesn't. None of these are major story points, though. People forget that godlike are infertile here and there, or make similarly dumb mistakes.

Druids should never tank. They're missing 20 points of deflection before class abilities and talents, and that difference is huge, and will let even crappy enemies tear through that paltry endurance number like it was paper. In most fights after Chapter 1, if my tanks take more than a couple points of damage from MIN grazes from anything that isn't a spell, I'm profoundly disappointed in them. They are offtanks so tanking a bit are part of their role. You are doing smt wrong with them then, maybe you chose the wrong spiritshift. With his HoTs and bear form I cant think on anything more tanky than a Druid. Ofc it really needs micromanagement, and the larger the party the less time you can afford on each character separately. Emphasis mine. Monk, fighter, paladin, and chanter. One can make a case for battle priest, too (inorite). Perhaps more importantly, even if druids were good tanks (they're not, I think I may have mentioned), opportunity cost rules the day - any time you're using your druid to attack is a time you're not using them to cast spells. Don't do th...don't be not doing tha...you get the idea.