gkathellar

Well, anyways, looks like some of us are going to want a Level 1 NPCs mod to let us mess around with companion stats a little. paladin tanks are a bit misleading. sure, they got great potential defenses, but tanking is as much about getting and holding aggro as it is about being a damage sink. fighters got superior engagement when in defender mode. fighter abilities is also more tank focused than is paladin abilities. am of the opinion that the deeper you get into the game, the paladin-as-tank builds will be decreasing in efficacy. that being said, particular on normal mode, we expect that the paladin will suffice in the tank role, even if it ultimately is not as impressive as a fighter tank.. or a monk tank. Engagement really isn't as important for tanking as it pretends to be. If you play with the mechanic turned off via mod, it becomes apparent that just having your tanks in front (and in the fight first) is the main determining factor. Between Faith and Conviction, Righteous Soul, and the various Exhortations, I think they'll work pretty well all the way through at the two things that matter - soaking up damage, and using occasional support abilities. Anyway, I hope you're wrong, because support-tank is really the only role in which paladins can excel.

An aggressive tank is awfully tempting, if only because Resolve and Perception are no doubt going to be tied to a lot of the dialogue choices that I'm interested in. But I'm probably going to have to go with a Cipher for the mind control.

Then the Wiki is wrong. What does it effect? The wiki is wrong about everything, categorically, all the time. Do not trust it. Never. Perception gives you a bonus to Deflection, Interrupt, and Reflex. It's pretty much exclusively useful for front-liners.

Blame the decision-making process that made Perception useless for Wizards. Racial and Cultural bonuses. You can get Might up to 21 with an Aumaua with the right culture. no no you didnt understand mate, what iam saying is how they can have + 19 additional stats. when everyone else have 18 and the char u create has 18 aswell ( 15 + racial +2, culture + 1 ) There's a long tradition of companions in these types of games having ridiculously overinflated stats. I'd be disappointed if some the companions weren't cheating.

Aloth is looking like someone in development forgot about how Might isn't Strength.

Monks get less out of Intelligence than some other classes do, but there are only a few specialty builds that can actually afford to dump it. With the armor system as it is, I'd advise monk players to figure out whether they want to run an aggressive plate-and-shield tank or slightly-hardy padded armor DPS. The tank will want Might, Perception, and Resolve, dropping Dex and (weirdly) Con. On the DPS side, focus on Might and Dexterity, and don't worry too much about Constitution or Resolve.

Yes, and a matchlock with powder and lead can outperform an M-6 carbine that doesn't have any ammunition. That doesn't mean the matchlock is better, it just means you've weighted the scales.

To be fair, the BG games gave us companions including a drow, a tiefling, and an avariel.

How is this even close to bad design? At worst it's imperfectly balanced, but that hardly comes close to a game-breaking issue. It's the age of hyperbole. I say, at the beginning of the post, that it is not a game-breaking issue, but rather a balance issue and a trap. Maybe the bold will help. Not really the point. It could definitely be worse, you're right, and it may or may not be a big deal in practice ... but it's definitely not as advertised, and in a complicated game like this one, that's problematic.

@Hieronymous: It's not that these are game-breaking issues, or that they'll prevent you from doing alright in game. Certainly the presence of these issues isn't going to prevent me from playing. Running a suboptimal build is not a death sentence, not even on PotD. What irritates me is that it's bad design, and more importantly, that it's a trap. In a game where all choices are presented as having approximately equal value - and PoE is such a game - the presence of choices that are clearly inferior (even if that inferiority isn't severe) is a problem. It's one thing for informed players to go in saying, "okay, I know godlike are subpar, but I'm going to play one anyway." It's genuinely problematic for uninformed players to stumble onto that realization, however.

Don't forget Sisters Across the Moor. That one's just a creepy image.

Chanter is probably your best bet, not just for the summoning invocations, but also because quite a few of the chants have a decidedly necromantic character. Chants can damage those nearby, penalize attacks, inflict fear ... so on and so forth. It might be a little physical for your tastes, but I personally think that a dirge-singing, axe-swinging necromancer-skald is a pretty sick image.

You can make a decent case for it on a heavy armor, sword-and-board auto-attacking monk w/Scion of Flames, Cautious Attack, Sword and Shield Style, Turning Wheel, Soul Mirror, Rooting Pain, etc. It works pretty well as a mix of DPS and tank, but I'm not convinced that Fire Godlike adds anything to it. Battle-forged rarely, if ever, comes into play. The thing is, when your tank gets below 50% Endurance, they're probably taking damage way too fast, and you can look forward to either healing them or witnessing their imminent death. That's not just for tanks, really. Battle-forged doesn't so much help you out in a pinch as it does indicate that you need to reverse the circumstances of its coming up ... and so lose its benefits. Yes, his opinion is based on the limited experience that is available to him, as opposed to your opinion, which is based on nothing. I WILL GRIND YOUR BONES TO BAKE MY BREAD

Ciphers excel at debuffs and damage, and have some neat tricks for helping their allies. If that's what you're looking to do, I recommend playing a Cipher. Wizards have some defensive spells and AoEs to make up for not matching the Cipher in its specialty, but if that's what you want to do, I recommend playing a Priest or a Druid instead. Basically this. A cipher can open the fight with a quick succession of two or three powers, hit once, and snag enough focus to use a few more powers. Druids have the best AoE spells, in addition to healing and a few buffs. With respect to actual spellcasting, they're probably the strongest class and the most interesting. There are good reasons to use one over a wizard.

One of the female moon godlike heads matches pretty clearly with the female moon godlike portrait, minus the sheer amount of translucence and glowing.

Basically, it comes down to Faith and Conviction being sick.

I didn't see any reactions to Godlike in the beta. But, you know. Beta.

Dexterity increases action speed. Heavy armor imposes a penalty on recovery speed that reduces the frequency of actions, making dexterity pretty much pointless.

They are supposed to be a race that is stronger than normal, but are unable to wear hats as a drawback. They fail to deliver on this. Their lore is fine, but that's not what's being discussed.

I would think that, yes. :\ Me too! I wish they were better.

Supposedly, this is going to be absolutely untrue, as the devs claim to be taking pains to ensure that there really are numerous conversation options for just about all of the stats at many different levels. Yes.

He already has Vicious Fighting. That said, yeah, Deflecting Assault is probably wasted. With the rules as they are, Deflection is sort of useless unless you're stacking it sky-high.

Wizard defensive spells and close-combat buffs are garbage, and although I believe druid shapeshift is being improved, right now it's terrible. IIRC, Ciphers have focus gain based on damage, but they are quite squishy and probably work best with guns. Chanters, as you say, are beasts who get summons and attack spells and lots of other things.

Palatinates were administrative subdivisions of the Roman empire, which would have been overseen by a Palatine, or officer of the palace (and the etymological root of the modern "paladin"). Some regions of Europe are still referred to as Palatinates, probably as a result of carrying their history with the much later Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire) forward into the present day. The term's actual meaning seems to have been largely forgotten. Presumably this totally makes sense in the context of Eora, and "paladin" is in no way an artifact term from our own universe.

This is absolutely the best suggestion I've seen so far. I would love to see something like this, possibly in combination with a Constitution fix to ease the recovery penalty. Dunno if they'd really combine well, but those are the two things I've seen people suggest that have sounded good.