try soloing with Monk. They're quite powerful.

Helpful thread. Thanks!

Ahh, I had no idea a mage could use a shield ... but wouldn't you lose your spellbook (looks equipped in shield hand) ? Or would you just switch the grimoire to the weapon hand and just be wand-less? I have never tried a shield on my wizard ... I guess I could just answer this myself by trying it out ;)

And yeah, CON doesn't do much for mages .........................

In the above creation, that wizard build had a CON of 15 which = Health/Endurance of 104/35
I made the same build with CON at 3 to raise the others which = Health/Endurance of 76/24
(I'm remembering what that came out to, but I'm sure it was 70 something/20 something.

So CON 15 to CON 3 (for Wizard build)- not that drastic of a difference. I used that extra 12 points to raise PER and RES, and I believe my deflection was around 20, give or take a couple points.

I'm torn on which build I like better tbh .... after all, I am planning a Stealth Mage - to use to get in close for a hidden power spell AoE attack, then run like hell while my front line rushes in, then cast magic missile from safety.

Hmm, I have a lot to consider .... I'm going to plug in your attribute numbers and see how the results come out for a wizard. Thanks for posting that

Ok, I figured out the shield thing, thanks for that tip.

I used your numbers, and I like it. It's a nice middle ground to the two extremes I posted ...
It gave me a H/E of 84/29, and a deflection of 5 (13 with small shield).

I'm gonna try some very minor tweaking of those numbers and see what they give me, but I'm guessing this is about the best middle ground i'll find.

My Stealth Wizard is ready. Now just gotta wait for the patch ;)

Nice ...

Thanks to the wiki I found out that Arcane Veil (talent) gives you +25 deflection (I went with Grimoire Slam last time ...) and then Hardened Veil raises that to +45 deflection. .....

Well, I know the first 2 talents I'm choosing on level up with this build :)

Knowing this, I may even go with the original build I created above that left me with higher H/E but put my deflection at negative 2.... with a shield that's deflection 6, and with Arcane Veil (at lvl 2 I believe, before the bear cave) that puts me at Deflection 31. Once I get to the next talent choosing level (4?) my deflection will be at 51.

Of course Arcane Veil is only used twice per rest and only lasts for 10 seconds (nearly 14 with my intel at 19), but it casts instantly and I know when to use it (bear, shadows, etc).

Good stuff.

The more I find out about this game the more I'm liking it

some notes:

- everybody in your party should have 2 athletics. The first 2 points reduce your fatigue gain a lot. Above 2 points the benefit is much lower. If you play a char with less than 2 points, they will get fatigued after a few battles. Fatigued reduces your max hit points and your accurency, so this is very bad. A tank should have more athletics because he gets hit often.

Mechanics is good for finding hidden items, finding and disabling traps and open locks. stealth is almost useless.

Intelligence, perception and resolve are often used in dialogue. Lore is the skill most used in dialogue. In case you want to role play and talk your way out of things.

If you want to do damage, increase might, dex and intelligence and ignore perception and resolve. Select talents that increase your damage, accurency and speed. The exact priorety of these things is dependent on ypour class and play style. Wear light armor or cloth to attac faster.

If you want a tank, maximize perception and resolve and use all things that boost your defenses. Wear the heaviest armor and biggest shield you find. Avoiding hits and reducing damage is more useful than very high constitution.

PoE favours extreme builds. Focus either on max damage or on max defense. Anything in between will be bad in both. Damage dealers will die after a few hits and tanks can survive forever but they don´t do damage. Good positioning is the key to success.
Forget arcane veil.
As you said, it is only for 10 seconds + Int bonus, only twice per rest and fire arms will penetrate it.
Even with this spell your defense will be much lower than your tank and you will get hit.
Focus on things that do damage or disable the enemy.

Ok, I found that dumping CON and PER for a mage, and maxing MIG, DEX, and INT, then using every remaining point into RES is the way to go - at least for a stealth mage. (I believe my RES went to 16 or 17).

Using a wood elf for the accuracy, I'm torn on the remaining background choice. Obviously I want the +1 to either MIG, DEX, or INT. I've eliminated INT, as a Stealth Mage can sneak close enough that an extra point for a minor AoE range increase doesn't really matter. So it's MIG or DEX.

MIG is my first choice (The Living Lands), to hit the unaware enemy with maximum damage on that first attack, but unfortunately there is no +2 Lore or +1 Stealth, +1 Lore choice after that. Choosing +1 DEX however gives me a following +2 Lore option.

Going with DEX takes my elf to DEX 20 .... which is a 30% action speed increase. This could allow me to get off a surprise fan of flames to start combat, and then possibly ....... MAYBE ..... a 2nd one off before I have to book it behind my front liners. Getting off 2 fan of flames at 18 MIG would be more damage than 1 at 19 MIG. Plus this would start my mage with Lore 4 right off the bat, allowing me to spend all early levels building Stealth ........

I think I will go with this. I can always enchant gear later to raise MIG.

Especially now that I know the trick to keep my fighter and rogue in the tutorial from dying at the end of it ;)

I tried the cipher build listed on the prior page. I ran into an interesting effect that I haven't seen before. In that tutorial battle where you are ambushed by one melee fighter and one archer: I tackled the archer with my cipher alone. And the archer repeatedly hit and interrupted so that the cipher could never get a spell out. I haven't seen this one before. It seems like this cipher can't be missed and is always interrupted. And his "average" speed spells can't be cast when this is happening.

I wanted to go back in and try it again to see if it would happen again, but I forgot to save.

The build I listed? It does have a -6 to deflection because of Per 4 and Res 10, but, if you are a Wood Elf, you get back 5 of that deflection if you are father than 4m from your attacker.

I just played through with that Cipher on Hard mode yesterday, and I totally murdered everything in the tutorial. I sent Calisca to use knockdown on the close one, and my Cipher used his Eyestrike talent to debuff the other, then charged it. Calisca had the first dead before the debuff ran out, so then it was all over for the remaining ambusher.

For that battle, since I chose the Old Valian background, my Cipher was using chain mail and dual wielding a rapier with a stiletto. I switched to leather armor and a bow right after this battle.

Yes, I used the same build, as I said. Without launching the game I would guess that blind is a faster spell than the one I used, so you got in first (and/or the dude failed his saving throw).

Eyestrike has an 'average' attack speed. I pick that up as well as the Soul Shock (also 'average' attack) ability to start, since they are both very useful for the tutorial. Once I leave the ruins, I pick up Mind Wave ('fast' attack), since it can be very useful for the next part while solo and being attacked by groups.

A case can be made for taking Antipathetic Field instead of either Mind Wave or Soul Shock. It does do some very nice damage, but I didn't want to bother with the micromanagement of keeping it aligned correctly during the midst of battlefield chaos.

If you were using Whisper of Treason (which I am not overly fond of, honestly), then that is a 'slow' attack ability, which may have given you difficulty.

I find Eyestrike and the charm spell useless. They don't last long and Eyestrike has a terrible aoe.

Interesting, I find that Eyestrike is easily the best Level 1 ability. The AoE is enough that I can get everything hitting the tank (remember, I have 19 Int on my build), and occasionally others, and lasts for ~7 seconds on the target* (so, keeping something chain blinded is not that hard). The debuff for being blind is pretty awesome, so things die fast.

I agree that the charm is not very good though.

This is what the blinding does to an enemy:
–25 Melee Accuracy
–20 Deflection
–20 Reflex
–2 Move Speed
–4 Perception
–25 Ranged Accuracy

You can see the other status effects, as well as this one, here.

*It is useful to note here that the tooltip for Eyestrike is incorrect in the game; I think the base blind duration is around half the 10 second duration listed.

Agreed.

Reading the Almanac and Collector's Book made it a lot more understandable from the start, but I agree that, without outside sources, the game is quite confusing at first. On the other hand, I quite liked all the text in the game; the soul gazing, in particular, gives a nice vignette for the soul in question by giving a snapshot of a previous life. It doesn't do anything for the story, it is true, but I like the little details in games like this.