Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Prime Junta]

I am bored out of my tits. Thinking of replaying.

Any fun builds you guys would recommend?

Melee ranger -- built around Tidefall + Shod in Faith. You get obscene damage output and surprisingly good durability with this combo, just make sure your pet has Predator's Sense.

Wizard built around maxing out implement damage. Use Infuse with Vital Essence to manage your shitty Health. (This was prolly my all-time favourite character actually.)

Tanky priest (Eothas, Endurance-draining flail.)

Hurty priest (Berath, Tidefall).

Back-row commander/support paladin built around St. Garam's Spark.

 

[Mexi]

I am bored out of my tits. Thinking of replaying.

Any fun builds you guys would recommend?

Kill-steal paladin is really fucking fun, but you have to micromanage some. You have to play a Kind Wayfarer. That sound of group-healing is always really satisfying when you down an enemy.

 

[The Bishop]

My favorite build is stunlock rogue: hearth orlan; max perception and dexterity; take all things that increase accuracy, crit chance, and crit damage; use two weapons with stun and prone on critical hit. As soon you scored a crit once (which should be relatively easy with all the build choices), all the subsequent hits are much more likely to score crits as well, so you get long strings of them, stunlocking the enemy. If you can apply extra affliction on an enemy (again, pretty easy for rogue) all your attacks are crits with deathblows. By the end game you do 70-100 dmg with each hit and you hit roughly once per in-game second.

Takes some time to set up, because all the weapons you need only become available in the 3rd act, and it has to be both stun and prone on crit weapons, or else game bugs out and you get enemies walking around and fighting with stun/prone affliction still active, but it's pretty fun to stunlock some of the bosses. Concelhaut didn't even know what hit him.

 

[Parabalus]

Cipher who quick swaps blunderbusses. With TWM2 you can shoot and cast Reaping Knives on a barbarian, you won't be able to spend focus fast enough so you don't need a DPS weapon, you just chain cast. With these 2 classes you can also combo Amplified Wave/Dragon Leap (Leap mid Wave cast, timing is a bit tricky) to position the knockdown perfectly with insane range.
Later you can respec and ditch the gun for a bow.

Spelltongue on various melees to keep buffs up. A dual wield melee wizard can keep his buffs (Arcane Veil, DPS buffs) up for the entire combat. It also works on other classes with Sanguine Plate to keep Frenzy for the duration - fighters, rogues, monks, paladins, ..

Bleak Walker Paladin, using double Bittercut. You stack Corrode damage ending up doing 200+ on a Flames of Devotion cast.

A fun party concept I did is full ranged - Pc ranger, Sagani, Kana, Pallegina, Aloth + varies. You bunch up on a spot to benefit from auras (Pallegina and Aloth using Junta's build) while the pets run diversion. You can use the various debilitating bows (Borresaine, Stormcaller on ranger, Sabra Maria,..) to lock down everything.

Melee ranger -- built around Tidefall + Shod in Faith. You get obscene damage output and surprisingly good durability with this combo, just make sure your pet has Predator's Sense.

Wizard built around maxing out implement damage. Use Infuse with Vital Essence to manage your shitty Health. (This was prolly my all-time favourite character actually.)

Tanky priest (Eothas, Endurance-draining flail.)

Hurty priest (Berath, Tidefall).

Back-row commander/support paladin built around St. Garam's Spark.

A few minor comments on about the builds:

• Ranger modal Swift Aim works with melee attacks
• Golden Gaze rod fires two projectiles and benefits from Blast twice. Kalakoth's Minor Blights with Blast is an utter bloodbath on clumped up foes - quadratic scaling baby.
• There is also another DPSey priest(Skein, stiletto/dagger/SB mace) but it's rather brittle.
• You can stack a lot of buffs with the Paladin this way. Coordinating Weapon+Coordinated Attacks+Zealous Focus+(Pallegina)Vielo Vidorio is a lot. It even stacks with a Cipher's tactical meld for a total 46 ACC. The coordinating effects are very sensitive to positioning so you have to pay attention to character distance

A general note is that playing on PoTD having a 3CON/3RES melee is a bit of a pain to manage for every fight, but having those on a ranged is fine.

 

[Haplo]

My favorite build is stunlock rogue: hearth orlan; max perception and dexterity; take all things that increase accuracy, crit chance, and crit damage; use two weapons with stun and prone on critical hit. As soon you scored a crit once (which should be relatively easy with all the build choices), all the subsequent hits are much more likely to score crits as well, so you get long strings of them, stunlocking the enemy. If you can apply extra affliction on an enemy (again, pretty easy for rogue) all your attacks are crits with deathblows. By the end game you do 70-100 dmg with each hit and you hit roughly once per in-game second.

Takes some time to set up, because all the weapons you need only become available in the 3rd act, and it has to be both stun and prone on crit weapons, or else game bugs out and you get enemies walking around and fighting with stun/prone affliction still active, but it's pretty fun to stunlock some of the bosses. Concelhaut didn't even know what hit him.

Well, yeah. Or pick the Barbarian, buy Hours of St. Rumbaldt and do the same early in Act 2 in a large aoe. Well, damage per enemy hit is slightly lower (more like 50-70) and the attacks come slower. But after weapon/armor durganization process and finding Gloves of swift action with light armor or a haste potion you can attack pretty much at the same rate as dual-wielding.
But you almost always hit (and knockdown) at least 3 enemies with each attack, quite often 5+
And you can summon Firebrand sword with Forgemaster gloves to turn into a deadly human fireball....

 

[Parabalus]

Well, yeah. Or pick the Barbarian, buy Hours of St. Rumbaldt and do the same early in Act 2 in a large aoe. Well, damage per enemy hit is slightly lower (more like 50-70) and the attacks come slower. But after weapon/armor durganization process and finding Gloves of swift action with light armor or a haste potion you can attack pretty much at the same rate as dual-wielding.
But you almost always hit (and knockdown) at least 3 enemies with each attack, quite often 5+
And you can summon Firebrand sword with Forgemaster gloves to turn into a deadly human fireball....

IMO for a stunlock barb Tall Grass is much better than Hours [same merchant sells them, that's why the comparison], since enemies won't auto switch to you and more importantly with the added reach it's much easier to pick an optimal target regarding AoE. Even for pure damage compared to something like Tidefall, if you hit an extra target or two it's the better choice.

For a rogue it's more tricky and you could conceivably switch between them, Tall Grass and dual wield [you float a talent or two usually at max level]. I had a 3 Con/Res build where I ended up doing that. Being engaged by an additional enemy you weren't stunlocking lead to fast health damage (and interrupt locks if you didn't have the Holy Meditation gloves) and Tall Grass avoids that.

Regarding attack speed, it's a bit more tricky than that. Attack speed has increasing returns as you approach 0 recovery and that's much easier to hit with dual wield since the 20% is a multiplicative bonus. If you aren't using reach weapons, for a barb 2h vs 2x1h usually leads to the latter winning out, you can also use spell tongue for shenanigans.

 

[Maculo]

Tanky priest (Eothas, Endurance-draining flail.)

Can you go into greater detail about this one? I am intrigued to hear about "tanky" Priest build. I am more accustomed to taking advantage of the damage spells (stacking shining beacons, etc), envenoming strike/purifying flame, or the buffs/

 

[The Bishop]

Well, yeah. Or pick the Barbarian, buy Hours of St. Rumbaldt and do the same early in Act 2 in a large aoe. Well, damage per enemy hit is slightly lower (more like 50-70) and the attacks come slower. But after weapon/armor durganization process and finding Gloves of swift action with light armor or a haste potion you can attack pretty much at the same rate as dual-wielding.
But you almost always hit (and knockdown) at least 3 enemies with each attack, quite often 5+
And you can summon Firebrand sword with Forgemaster gloves to turn into a deadly human fireball....

I tried stun barbarian, and it's really not the same thing. If you maxing out on DEX and PER the AOE isn't going to be large, and damage isn't going to be great either. The rogue on the other hand doesn't really care about might or intelligence, plus you have better base accuracy, you have an accuracy buffing ability, and the most important thing - inherent hit to crit conversion. With Durgan refinement you can get close to 50% chance or converting any normal hit to crit, so you don't even need to rely on superior accuracy to get your first crit. Also comparative speed of attack for two handed weapons as opposed to dual wielding can't be improved through gloves or durganization, because same process can be used for dual wielded weapons to the same effect. Dual wielding still going to be roughly twice as fast.

As far as reliable stunlocking goes, nothing touches rogue. For barbarian it's not as much stun-lock as stun-often against some of the targets in AOE, which is admittedly strong against relatively weak but numerous mobs, but not quite as strong against individual high DEF opponents. And the thing about numerous weak mobs is that there are many strong options against them already. Monks are strong against them, all casters are generally strong against them, wizards can literally do damage measured in hundreds with every shot when using Kalakoth's minor blights + penetrating blast + dangerous implement + burning wounds (my personal record is 400) for as long as enemies are clumped up sufficiently well.

 

[Haplo]

IMO for a stunlock barb Tall Grass is much better than Hours [same merchant sells them, that's why the comparison], since enemies won't auto switch to you and more importantly with the added reach it's much easier to pick an optimal target regarding AoE. Even for pure damage compared to something like Tidefall, if you hit an extra target or two it's the better choice.

You have a point. But for me the serious damage difference due to Annihilating on Hours plus the dual damage type for piercing resistances win out. But you can have both and switch when needed. I've found myself almost never switching, though. Sometimes used Firebrand for fiery hell and OP damage though.

Regarding attack speed, it's a bit more tricky than that. Attack speed has increasing returns as you approach 0 recovery and that's much easier to hit with dual wield since the 20% is a multiplicative bonus. If you aren't using reach weapons, for a barb 2h vs 2x1h usually leads to the latter winning out, you can also use spell tongue for shenanigans.

It's more tricky as you can actually wear solid armor when dual wielding and still be at/near 0 recovery. But if you're willing to live on the edge with light armor, 0 recovery is 0 recovery, regardless if dual-wielding or using a two-hander. For me an important factor is also gear availability. The best two-handers are avilable early in Act 2, while prone/stun critical effect one-handers only appear in act 3. That's a big diffference, even more so if you also play trough White March between the acts.

I tried stun barbarian, and it's really not the same thing. If you maxing out on DEX and PER the AOE isn't going to be large, and damage isn't going to be great either.

You don't need to max Dex, though. I don't recommend dumping it, because then you'll feel really sluggish, but something around 10 should be fine. Personally I dump Resolve, but have high Int, Per and Might.

The rogue on the other hand doesn't really care about might or intelligence, plus you have better base accuracy, you have an accuracy buffing ability, and the most important thing - inherent hit to crit conversion. With Durgan refinement you can get close to 50% chance or converting any normal hit to crit, so you don't even need to rely on superior accuracy to get your first crit.

Well, a Rogue has an advantage in 1vs1 damage, sure. So it's very good if the Barb can get some buffs (say, Devotions of the Faithull from the Priest for +20 Accuracy, party wide) and even better if you also debuff enemy defences - either Deflection or Fortitude, as Barb can target both.
But a Barb's Accuracy isn't bad. Note that Carnage aoe effect is considered a skill and all skills get an additional bonus of +1 Accuracy per level.

Also comparative speed of attack for two handed weapons as opposed to dual wielding can't be improved through gloves or durganization, because same process can be used for dual wielded weapons to the same effect. Dual wielding still going to be roughly twice as fast.

Not really correct. Once you reach 0 Recovery, you can't go faster. Dual wielding can reach 0 Recovery much faster and wear heavier armor while still attacking at max speed, but two-handers can get there as well. If you use Estocs, the BotEP with +20% speed is very good for this.

As far as reliable stunlocking goes, nothing touches rogue. For barbarian it's not as much stun-lock as stun-often against some of the targets in AOE, which is admittedly strong against relatively weak but numerous mobs, but not quite as strong against individual high DEF opponents. And the thing about numerous weak mobs is that there are many strong options against them already. Monks are strong against them, all casters are generally strong against them, wizards can literally do damage measured in hundreds with every shot when using Kalakoth's minor blights + penetrating blast + dangerous implement + burning wounds (my personal record is 400) for as long as enemies are clumped up sufficiently well.

True enough, I guess. Very strong enemies tend to be resistant. Like the dragons. But whole mobs tend to be on permanent lockdown after a little debuffing - on PotD. Thing is, my experience is that most encounters are vs a Horde of enemies. And a Barbarian really shines there, while still pulling his weight vs strong mobs.

 

[The Bishop]

You don't need to max Dex, though. I don't recommend dumping it, because then you'll feel really sluggish, but something around 10 should be fine. Personally I dump Resolve, but have high Int, Per and Might.

Dex directly affects your rate of attack including animation speed. Less rate of attack - less attempts at crits (especially important if you have conversion chance) - less chance of starting a stun streak. Also if you're not striking often enough your next attack is much likelier be too late to catch opponent still in stunned/prone state. For this specific tactic DEX is very important.

Well, a Rogue has an advantage in 1vs1 damage, sure. So it's very good if the Barb can get some buffs (say, Devotions of the Faithull from the Priest for +20 Accuracy, party wide) and even better if you also debuff enemy defences - either Deflection or Fortitude, as Barb can target both.
But a Barb's Accuracy isn't bad. Note that Carnage aoe effect is considered a skill and all skills get an additional bonus of +1 Accuracy per level.

And yet it will still lag some 20 points compared to accuracy a rogue can get. Buffs/debuffs apply to rogues as well.

Not really correct. Once you reach 0 Recovery, you can't go faster. Dual wielding can reach 0 Recovery much faster and wear heavier armor while still attacking at max speed, but two-handers can get there as well. If you use Estocs, the BotEP with +20% speed is very good for this.

Technically yes, but you only barely get into no recovery zone when using two normal one handed weapons. And that's with padded armor or less, even hide armor gives you some recovery, so that should have virtually no effect. BotEP is irrelevant to stunlocking tactics.

True enough, I guess. Very strong enemies tend to be resistant. Like the dragons. But whole mobs tend to be on permanent lockdown after a little debuffing - on PotD. Thing is, my experience is that most encounters are vs a Horde of enemies. And a Barbarian really shines there, while still pulling his weight vs strong mobs.

Indeed, most encounters are hordes. Most encounters are also relatively easy. Fights in which enemies helpfully clump up for you to clean them up, exactly the type in which barbarian excels, are like that. And difficult fights are usually more complicated. So in that sense barbarian is a win more class. Makes simple fights a breeze, but in fights that have some challenge associated with them doesn't help as much.

As for resistances, no dragon is immune to both stun and prone at the same time and most aren't immune or resistant to stun at all AFAIK. They have mighty big deflection though - exactly the case where high hit to crit conversion ratio becomes very useful.

 

[Prime Junta]

Can you go into greater detail about this one? I am intrigued to hear about "tanky" Priest build. I am more accustomed to taking advantage of the damage spells (stacking shining beacons, etc), envenoming strike/purifying flame, or the buffs/

Ehh, that one's not rocket science. Stat up like with a tank (pump RES*, CON, INT, dump DEX*, PER, MIG), pick Sword and Shield Style, heavy armour, big shield, frontline. Also pick a couple talents to buff your flail ACC (that Eothas special talent, plus Adventurer weapon foc if you want it). Avoid items that have on-hit or on-crit triggers either way since you're pumping your DEFL and will have kinda bad ACC, favour ones that pump your most important stats (ring of Overseeing is nice). You might want to pick Hold the Line too for an extra engagement slot.

Your role is to stay in the front line holding down the enemy while buffing and countering. Your buffs won't be affected by your low MIG or PER, and counters will work perfectly well too. Your healing and offense will be weak (healing because low MIG, offense because of low PER), so avoid those. Play this right and you won't need to heal much because your buffs and counters will be really good at keeping the party safe before they take any damage.

Go-to spells: all of the Prayers Against, and --

1 - Armour of Faith, Blessing
2 - Holy Power, Suppress Affliction
3 - Circle of Protection, Dire Blessing
4 - Devotions for the Faitfhful, Triumph of the Crusaders
5 - Champion's Boon, Shields for the Faithful
6 - Crowns for the Faithful, Sparks the Souls of the Righteous

 

[Haplo]

You don't need to max Dex, though. I don't recommend dumping it, because then you'll feel really sluggish, but something around 10 should be fine. Personally I dump Resolve, but have high Int, Per and Might.

Dex directly affects your rate of attack including animation speed. Less rate of attack - less attempts at crits (especially important if you have conversion chance) - less chance of starting a stun streak. Also if you're not striking often enough your next attack is much likelier be too late to catch opponent still in stunned/prone state. For this specific tactic DEX is very important.

The advantage of very high Dex is nice, but rather minor. I believe Dex has diminishing returns. I didn't have the problem with enemies standing up before I can attack again.
But I do debuff them and crit very often with my Barbarian.

Well, a Rogue has an advantage in 1vs1 damage, sure. So it's very good if the Barb can get some buffs (say, Devotions of the Faithull from the Priest for +20 Accuracy, party wide) and even better if you also debuff enemy defences - either Deflection or Fortitude, as Barb can target both.
But a Barb's Accuracy isn't bad. Note that Carnage aoe effect is considered a skill and all skills get an additional bonus of +1 Accuracy per level.

And yet it will still lag some 20 points compared to accuracy a rogue can get. Buffs/debuffs apply to rogues as well.

Yes. But perhaps more important is that with some buffs/debuffs/cc, the Barb can quite easily top enemy defenses by over 40 points and upgrade most hits to crits in an aoe.

Not really correct. Once you reach 0 Recovery, you can't go faster. Dual wielding can reach 0 Recovery much faster and wear heavier armor while still attacking at max speed, but two-handers can get there as well. If you use Estocs, the BotEP with +20% speed is very good for this.

Technically yes, but you only barely get into no recovery zone when using two normal one handed weapons. And that's with padded armor or less, even hide armor gives you some recovery, so that should have virtually no effect. BotEP is irrelevant to stunlocking tactics.

You need to stack those speed bonuses: Barbarian Frenzy is +25%, Gloves of Swift Action are +20%, Durgan Steel reduces weapon and armor by... 15% each?
Dual weapons reach 0 recovery very fast and easy. Can also dump Dex and leave it at 3. Two handers need more time/effort, but can get there as well. Or near enough that it hardly matters. At that point both dual weapons and two-handers have the same attack rate. Light armor helps a lot, so does drinking a DAoM potion. Of course dual weapons tend to still win in full attack abilities (both hands strike in quick succession), which are the specialty of the Rogue.

True enough, I guess. Very strong enemies tend to be resistant. Like the dragons. But whole mobs tend to be on permanent lockdown after a little debuffing - on PotD. Thing is, my experience is that most encounters are vs a Horde of enemies. And a Barbarian really shines there, while still pulling his weight vs strong mobs.

Indeed, most encounters are hordes. Most encounters are also relatively easy. Fights in which enemies helpfully clump up for you to clean them up, exactly the type in which barbarian excels, are like that. And difficult fights are usually more complicated. So in that sense barbarian is a win more class. Makes simple fights a breeze, but in fights that have some challenge associated with them doesn't help as much.

The most dangerous enemies tend to be casters. There's often more of them. They nearly never resist knockdown and with a high Int Barbarian you can often either lockdown a whole group or keep the melee front line, while still reaching the casters behind the melees with carnage aoe.

 

[Haplo]

It's kind of an interesting complain in regards to Pillars having "boring" spells because most of the effects have little visual feedback. A few well dropped priest spells can cut an encounter's time in half and I can just fuck people right up with a handful of small little burps of light. I wonder if PoE's spells were more crazy that people wouldn't complain about them as much, because they certainly aren't weak.

Finally someone sees the light!
PoE spells are anything but weak.

 

[The Bishop]

The advantage of very high Dex is nice, but rather minor. I believe Dex has diminishing returns. I didn't have the problem with enemies standing up before I can attack again.
But I do debuff them and crit very often with my Barbarian.

+10 Dex is +30% rate of attack, so it's equivalent to +30% DPS and crit rate. This is pretty big number that stacks multiplicatively with all other sources of DPS and crit chance. Not a whole lot of things in this game can offer you that.

Yes. But perhaps more important is that with some buffs/debuffs/cc, the Barb can quite easily top enemy defenses by over 40 points and upgrade most hits to crits in an aoe.

Well, yeah, however if you already have quite so big of a discrepancy, chances are the battle is already won and all you're doing is just clean up. Not much point in stunlocking then. If you already have -20 -30 debuff on enemy defense, stun will not add much to that, nor will prone, and all that matters at this point is DPS.

You need to stack those speed bonuses: Barbarian Frenzy is +25%, Gloves of Swift Action are +20%, Durgan Steel reduces weapon and armor by... 15% each?
Dual weapons reach 0 recovery very fast and easy. Can also dump Dex and leave it at 3. Two handers need more time/effort, but can get there as well. Or near enough that it hardly matters. At that point both dual weapons and two-handers have the same attack rate. Light armor helps a lot, so does drinking a DAoM potion. Of course dual weapons tend to still win in full attack abilities (both hands strike in quick succession), which are the specialty of the Rogue.

I wasn't talking about time limited abilities, just natural recovery. Of course it's easier to get to the limit if you use abilities and potions, but those have opportunity costs, resource costs etc. Frenzy will not last throughout an average fight, so it's not really correct to assume you always have it.

The most dangerous enemies tend to be casters. There's often more of them. They nearly never resist knockdown and with a high Int Barbarian you can often either lockdown a whole group or keep the melee front line, while still reaching the casters behind the melees with carnage aoe.

I don't know, I can't remember many difficult fights in which casters where anywhere near enough clumped up to be effectively hit by carnage, let alone directly from behind the front line. Going back to that Concelhaut fight: the guy is way back there, and there's a bunch of flying skull casters far on the sides. I can't see how you stunlock more than a couple of them with a barbarian. And most likely it will be just one guy. And if that guy is Conselhaut you're not going to have that easy of a time stacking up all the debuffs before you can actually start critting him. A rogue on the other hand just teleports right in, hits him with a blinding strike, and then the guy never gets to do anything until he dies.

Not that I have any interest in arguing power levels of barbarian vs rogue here. All I'm trying to say is that they're pretty different in what they can do. And while I think barbarian is just a different take on the same AOE theme, rogue is pretty unique in his niche, and with all the tricks rogues can do it's a pretty fun niche to explore. Pure power wise they're both trampled by monks.

 

[Prime Junta]

Concelhaut story. First time I ran into that fight, at the end everybody was down except the lich himself and Maneha. Maneha however was dual-wielding Spelltongues (cloned with Hellwax Mold) so her buffs stayed up forever (especially Savage Defiance), and she eventually whittled him down. Was a close victory, but I'm still proud I beat that fight blind on the first try.

 

[Parabalus]

It's kind of an interesting complain in regards to Pillars having "boring" spells because most of the effects have little visual feedback. A few well dropped priest spells can cut an encounter's time in half and I can just fuck people right up with a handful of small little burps of light. I wonder if PoE's spells were more crazy that people wouldn't complain about them as much, because they certainly aren't weak.

Pillars has a massive presentation issue. Take the sabre Bittercut, it does it's entire damage as Corrode (Acid)[If it's more than Slash], which is something none of the IE games have. Yet the icon and the paperdoll are so unassuming you feel much worse than equipping a +1 fire damage sword. I won't be surprised if most players even missed the fact it does Corrode.

+10 Dex is +30% rate of attack, so it's equivalent to +30% DPS and crit rate. This is pretty big number that stacks multiplicatively with all other sources of DPS and crit chance. Not a whole lot of things in this game can offer you that.

It's a bit less than that, especially if you are at 0 recovery. There are some irreducible frames, your character after finishing an action will stand still (he's trying to wind up into the non existent recovery phase) before he shoots again.

I do agree DEX is absolutely worth maxing on pretty much everyone but the most dedicated of tanks.

Not that I have any interest in arguing power levels of barbarian vs rogue here. All I'm trying to say is that they're pretty different in what they can do. And while I think barbarian is just a different take on the same AOE theme, rogue is pretty unique in his niche, and with all the tricks rogues can do it's a pretty fun niche to explore. Pure power wise they're both trampled by monks.

I really like how in Pillars Rogues ended up very effective in their niche of single target assassination/DPS, while being vulnerable/less effective in group fights. Not many games get this right.

What build did you have in mind with the monks>> statement?
I found monks to be very good because they can decent damage with high tankiness, but they can't really go full out on DPS attributes since you need CON for wounds.

 

[Sizzle]

It's kind of an interesting complain in regards to Pillars having "boring" spells because most of the effects have little visual feedback. A few well dropped priest spells can cut an encounter's time in half and I can just fuck people right up with a handful of small little burps of light. I wonder if PoE's spells were more crazy that people wouldn't complain about them as much, because they certainly aren't weak.

Pillars has a massive presentation issue. Take the sabre Bittercut, it does it's entire damage as Corrode (Acid)[If it's more than Slash], which is something none of the IE games have. Yet the icon and the paperdoll are so unassuming you feel much worse than equipping a +1 fire damage sword. I won't be surprised if most players even missed the fact it does Corrode.

Haha, wow :D

Yeah, I played through the game several times and never realized this about that sabre, thanks :D

And it's like you said - in the IE games, you usually knew right off if the weapon you just picked up had bonus flaming damage or whatever. But here it wasn't conveyed nearly as well. When I looted Bittercut, I was a bit surprised that the weapon seemed less powerful than the usual gear I got at that point in TWM. So I (hastily) concluded that its deal was the bonus spells (Infestation of Maggots and Vile Thorns) it grants, and never really used it - even though it's (correct me if I'm wrong) the only other weapon besides Stromcaller that can do its entire damage output as elemental damage.

 

[Prime Junta]

I do agree DEX is absolutely worth maxing on pretty much everyone but the most dedicated of tanks.

I dump it on (pure) casters also. You very rarely need to chain cast; spell effectiveness is more about targeting and timing and being able to put those points into PER/INT/MIG instead helps there.

It's a must for anyone at all interested in doing weapon damage though.

 

[Parabalus]

I dump it on casters also. You very rarely need to chain cast; spell effectiveness is more about targeting and timing and being able to put those points into PER/INT/MIG instead helps there.

It's a must for anyone at all interested in doing weapon damage though.

Almost every 'serious' encounter casters are chain casting. Your point doesn't make sense, spell effectiveness isn't diminished by faster spell casts, in fact it's increased because of the way debuffs stack. Only way this checks out is if somehow your processing power as a player is overloaded by faster spell casts, but that's rubbish since you can pause.

You can have MIG/DEX/INT/PER all high up with 3 CON/RES. If your caster is ranged there is no need to waste attributes there.
My casters are usually the default NPCs so this point is rather academic for me, but I'd never dump DEX on a caster, since when you're not casting you're still throwing ranged attacks.

Haha, wow :D

Yeah, I played through the game several times and never realized this about that sabre, thanks :D

And it's like you said - in the IE games, you usually knew right off if the weapon you just picked up had bonus flaming damage or whatever. But here it wasn't conveyed nearly as well. When I looted Bittercut, I was a bit surprised that the weapon seemed less powerful than the usual gear I got at that point in TWM. So I (hastily) concluded that its deal was the bonus spells (Infestation of Maggots and Vile Thorns) it grants, and never really used it - even though it's (correct me if I'm wrong) the only other weapon besides Stromcaller that can do its entire damage output as elemental damage.

Durance's staff does Fire/Crush , I think those 3 are all of the permanent ones, the Forgemaster's Gloves give you a temp flaming one like mentioned above.

They went for a very consistent formulaic item description in Pillars, makes most people just glance over I think. BG had stuff all over the place so you had to pay attention to each item better. More vivid icons too.

 

[Sizzle]

Haha, wow :D

Yeah, I played through the game several times and never realized this about that sabre, thanks :D

And it's like you said - in the IE games, you usually knew right off if the weapon you just picked up had bonus flaming damage or whatever. But here it wasn't conveyed nearly as well. When I looted Bittercut, I was a bit surprised that the weapon seemed less powerful than the usual gear I got at that point in TWM. So I (hastily) concluded that its deal was the bonus spells (Infestation of Maggots and Vile Thorns) it grants, and never really used it - even though it's (correct me if I'm wrong) the only other weapon besides Stromcaller that can do its entire damage output as elemental damage.

Durance's staff does Fire/Crush , I think those 3 are all of the permanent ones, the Forgemaster's Gloves give you a temp flaming one like mentioned above.

They went for a very consistent formulaic item description in Pillars, makes most people just glance over I think. BG had stuff all over the place so you had to pay attention to each item better. More vivid icons too.

Yeah, forgot about his staff (they added that in v3.0, I think).

And it's just like you said - they needed to better inform the player about those. When I first got Bittercut, I quickly scanned the description, and I assumed all the stuff about corruption alluded to its spells, not its damage output.

Hope they find a better solution for this in PoE2.

 

[BBMorti]

I dump it on casters also. You very rarely need to chain cast; spell effectiveness is more about targeting and timing and being able to put those points into PER/INT/MIG instead helps there.

It's a must for anyone at all interested in doing weapon damage though.

Almost every 'serious' encounter casters are chain casting. Your point doesn't make sense, spell effectiveness isn't diminished by faster spell casts, in fact it's increased because of the way debuffs stack. Only way this checks out is if somehow your processing power as a player is overloaded by faster spell casts, but that's rubbish since you can pause.

You can have MIG/DEX/INT/PER all high up with 3 CON/RES. If your caster is ranged there is no need to waste attributes there.
My casters are usually the default NPCs so this point is rather academic for me, but I'd never dump DEX on a caster, since when you're not casting you're still throwing ranged attacks.

Haha, wow :D

Yeah, I played through the game several times and never realized this about that sabre, thanks :D

And it's like you said - in the IE games, you usually knew right off if the weapon you just picked up had bonus flaming damage or whatever. But here it wasn't conveyed nearly as well. When I looted Bittercut, I was a bit surprised that the weapon seemed less powerful than the usual gear I got at that point in TWM. So I (hastily) concluded that its deal was the bonus spells (Infestation of Maggots and Vile Thorns) it grants, and never really used it - even though it's (correct me if I'm wrong) the only other weapon besides Stromcaller that can do its entire damage output as elemental damage.

Durance's staff does Fire/Crush , I think those 3 are all of the permanent ones, the Forgemaster's Gloves give you a temp flaming one like mentioned above.

They went for a very consistent formulaic item description in Pillars, makes most people just glance over I think. BG had stuff all over the place so you had to pay attention to each item better. More vivid icons too.

Durance staff is Crush/burn, not Burn/Crush, so it doesn't work with Scion of flame. The primary (first) damage type is what counts.

 

[Haplo]

Durance staff is Crush/burn, not Burn/Crush, so it doesn't work with Scion of flame. The primary (first) damage type is what counts.

There's also the Curoc's Brand wand, but it suffers from the same issue with Pierce/Burn.

Btw. Firebrand was even more broken on release, as it used to target Reflex instead of Deflection.

 

[Haplo]

The advantage of very high Dex is nice, but rather minor. I believe Dex has diminishing returns. I didn't have the problem with enemies standing up before I can attack again.
But I do debuff them and crit very often with my Barbarian.

+10 Dex is +30% rate of attack, so it's equivalent to +30% DPS and crit rate. This is pretty big number that stacks multiplicatively with all other sources of DPS and crit chance. Not a whole lot of things in this game can offer you that.

Not really, as there are caps how low you can go, as Parabalus explained. Once you hit 0 Recovery (doable with 3 Dex while dual-wielding), the attacks speed benefits are very minor.

Yes. But perhaps more important is that with some buffs/debuffs/cc, the Barb can quite easily top enemy defenses by over 40 points and upgrade most hits to crits in an aoe.

Well, yeah, however if you already have quite so big of a discrepancy, chances are the battle is already won and all you're doing is just clean up. Not much point in stunlocking then. If you already have -20 -30 debuff on enemy defense, stun will not add much to that, nor will prone, and all that matters at this point is DPS.


Lowering enemy defense is a great bonus, but I primarily knock them prone so that they cannot hurt my party and/or advance behind my frontliners.
Not much is needed to get that low. Devotions of the Faithful is already +20 Accuracy (also an armor debuff, but not very practical due to limited range), Cipher Phantom Forces gives every enemy in a huge radius -10 Deflection and lasts very long, till the end of most fights. Then there is Painful Interdiction, which Weakens enemies in a huge radius (particurarly good for Brute Force Barbarians, who target Fortitude instead of Deflection). Doesn't last that long, though. Of course, there's also a ton of other stuff, like Blind, Paralyze, Stuck, Stun, but these are not essential. And in most cases, either the duration or the radius isn't great. But with some you can even bring the gap to 60 points advantage.

And DPS? DPS is good, as you're typically hitting (and disabling) at least 3 enemies at the same time. 5 isn't uncommon.

You need to stack those speed bonuses: Barbarian Frenzy is +25%, Gloves of Swift Action are +20%, Durgan Steel reduces weapon and armor by... 15% each?
Dual weapons reach 0 recovery very fast and easy. Can also dump Dex and leave it at 3. Two handers need more time/effort, but can get there as well. Or near enough that it hardly matters. At that point both dual weapons and two-handers have the same attack rate. Light armor helps a lot, so does drinking a DAoM potion. Of course dual weapons tend to still win in full attack abilities (both hands strike in quick succession), which are the specialty of the Rogue.

I wasn't talking about time limited abilities, just natural recovery. Of course it's easier to get to the limit if you use abilities and potions, but those have opportunity costs, resource costs etc. Frenzy will not last throughout an average fight, so it's not really correct to assume you always have it.

Frenzy will last 80% of the time if you use Sanguine Plate. Of course, it's not light, so there is a cost to that. Another option could be to use Spelltongue - if you're dual wielding. Besides making your buffs last, that's another +15% Speed which stacks with everything.

The most dangerous enemies tend to be casters. There's often more of them. They nearly never resist knockdown and with a high Int Barbarian you can often either lockdown a whole group or keep the melee front line, while still reaching the casters behind the melees with carnage aoe.

I don't know, I can't remember many difficult fights in which casters where anywhere near enough clumped up to be effectively hit by carnage, let alone directly from behind the front line. Going back to that Concelhaut fight: the guy is way back there, and there's a bunch of flying skull casters far on the sides. I can't see how you stunlock more than a couple of them with a barbarian. And most likely it will be just one guy. And if that guy is Conselhaut you're not going to have that easy of a time stacking up all the debuffs before you can actually start critting him. A rogue on the other hand just teleports right in, hits him with a blinding strike, and then the guy never gets to do anything until he dies.

Sometimes the casters are bunched together, but often not, true. Concelhaut was a special case though. Tough sucker. But that fight isn't really representative. Strong singular enemies are probably 1% of the combat encounters, most are mobs. Potentially dangerous mobs, like the Lagufueth.

And I disagree that's just "another source of aoe". Other sources are typically somewhat limited, meanwhile a Barbarian can fight all day and night. And with high Int each his attack will be a large aoe.

 

[Grunker]

Concelhaut was difficult, but not overly so I thought? Even some "random encounters" in Longwatch Falls were trickier.

 

[Quillon]

^Wrong thread.