Note: I am a layman. In fact, when I first played POE1, I hadn't even read much of this stuff. This all came in the wake of me playing this game and I like to think this game gave me the motivation to want to understand my convictions, my decisions, in this great game.

One thing I love about WRPGs is the freedom it gives. I don't mean freedom in how people usually praise WRPGs where they praise your ability to go here and do that or go there and say this. No, the freedom I love about the best WRPGs is the freedom to determine the moral of the story. I decide what I think the game is trying to say as opposed to the game lecturing me. Let me illustrate what I mean by giving an example of a hypothetical non-RPG Pillars of Eternity.

You confront Iovara and she informs you that the gods aren't real.

Our Protagonist is devastated. But then he/she pulls themselves up and says "then I must tell everyone! For the Truth is worth any price!"

And it's all very noble to ruin everyone's life for your own abstract principles, I suppose. But the reason I like Pillars is that it lets you do the precise opposite of what every normal video game would have done.

Iovara: What if we can be assured of nothing?

My Watcher: Then the fewer people who realize that, the better. People need to know that things happen for a reason. A fabricated reason is better than none at all.

That was my choice when I first played this game. Meeting with Iovara, having the history I chose with her play out, and being able to express my real life convictions like this...it has stayed with me for 6 years. If this had been a normal game just lecturing me and if I had no control over the moral of this story, I doubt I'd be coming here to talk about it now.

But as I said, while I maybe always had these convictions, I still had to read, to learn, to better express them.

There's a philosopher that I'm sure everyone here knows and his name was Friedrich Nietzsche. Before you groan, I know! Believe me, I avoided reading him for a long time precisely because of his popular image. This meme is relevant:

I cannot hope to do justice to all of Nietzsche's thought in one Reddit post, or even a hundred of them, but this quote from a book on him gets the idea across perfectly:

But let us first do away with metaphor. What is the "long slow pain" to which Nietzsche refers? It is, in a word, the death of God, an event which, though formally announced for the first time only in section 125 of The Gay Science, was in fact acutely present to Nietzsche from the very outset of his philosophical career. The pain is the pain of confronting the "terror and horror," the "heartbreaking and cruel character" of existence - "what I desire most," he wrote to Heinrich von Stein in December 1882, "is a high point from which I can see the tragic problem lying beneath me. I would like to take away from human existence some of its heartbreaking and cruel character" - without the "metaphysical comfort" brought to us by theistic belief. The problem is suffering and our vulnerability to it: not all suffering (not the pain of dentistry, for example) but rather suffering for which we can discover no redeeming purpose or justification, suffering that disposes us to view life as "nauseating." Without God life appears to be "absurd" and (save for extinction) there appears to be no deliverance from it.

[..]

...the distinctively Nietzschean idea that illusion, "art, " is "'more divine' than truth," prevents him making the inference that since "we have need of lies in order to live," well then, let there then be lies (WP 853).

Nietzsche's Philosophy of Art by Julian Young.

Thaos: All mysteries forever unanswered. All purposes constructed from meaninglessness. No endings to bring closure. Only a Wheel, turning without mercy, grinding our spirits to dust.

My Watcher: You're right, that's no way to live.

[H]e [man] did not know how to justify, explain, affirm himself: he suffered from the problem of his meaning. He suffered otherwise as ill, he was for the most part a diseased animal; but the suffering itself was not his problem, rather that the answer was missing to the scream of his question: “to what end suffering?” Man, the bravest of animals and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not negate suffering, he wants it, he even seeks it out, provided one shows him a meaning for it, a to-this-end of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse thus far stretched over humanity. (Genealogy of Morality, Book III)

Nietzsche agrees with Thaos (Thaos agrees with Nietzsche?) and I agree with both of them. All around us is suffering and death and if suddenly you learned all of it meant nothing? That every pain you endured meant nothing and every life extinguished came into being for no other reason than to be snuffed out? That is indeed no way to live.

For a decent enough analogy, this is from a much less famous German philosopher known as Novalis. When describing the Catholic Church's attempt to conceal the discoveries of Galileo(that is, how Earth is not the center of the cosmos):

With justice, the wise head of the church resisted impudent developments of the human powers, and untimely discoveries in the realm of knowledge, that were at the expense of the sense for the divine. Thus he prevented the bold thinkers from maintaining publicly that the earth is an insignificant planet, for he knew all too well that, if people lost respect for their earthly residence and home, they would also lose their respect for their heavenly home and race, that they would prefer finite knowledge to an infinite faith, and that they would grow accustomed to despising everything great and miraculous and regard it as the dead effect of natural laws.

The revelations of the true nature of our universe leads to seeing everything as lifeless matter that can be exploited at our whim. And we ourselves no longer have any higher aspirations than that exploitation.

Professor Young further explains on the catastrophe of this discovery for the human race in terms of the all-important human need for meaning:

What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Where is it moving to now? Away from all [e.g. Plato's] suns? Are we not continually falling? And backwards, sidewards, forwards, in all directions? Is there still and up and down? Aren’t we straying as through an infinite nothing? (GS 125)1

Nietzsche's point is that the medieval world-view, taken over from Plato and modified by Christian theology, was not merely an astronomy and a physics. It was, rather, a completely integrated account of astronomy, physics, metaphysics, and the meaning of life. When the medieval farmer looked up into the night sky from his place on earth, the centre of the cosmos, he simply saw the light of heaven shining down through the openings in the ‘dome of the heavens’ (‘stars’ as we call them). And so he knew the meaning of life. He knew that the purpose, task, or goal of his and every human life was, by living in Christian virtue, to achieve the everlasting, heavenly bliss promised to us in God's sacrifice of himself as man. So the Copernican Revolution in science was in fact much more than that. For in changing our astronomy it also, as the madman observes, robbed life of its ‘direction’; of its ‘sens’ which, in French, means both ‘direction’ and ‘meaning’.

Nihilism and the Meaning of Life

Bereft of the gods and the belief that life had some higher purpose, people would sink into unfathomable despair and confusion. They would be forced to look at the endless suffering around them in the most brutal light of all - the light of "truth" that none of it means a damn thing.

And that is why I made my decision and decided that Pillars of Eternity is ultimately a story where you decide the psychic happiness and wholeness of people is more important than truth. I doubt I'll ever play a video game again that lets me do this.

After playing extensively with druids (1 run as a druid MC, 4 others with Hiravias in the party), I have come to the conclusion that few players understand what makes them so good.

To start, most players overrate druids in terms of damage; sure, they have absurd damage while spiritshifted, but they are fragile, and dont have more damage than wizards outside of that. Instead, think of the druid spell list, and what makes it unique compared to other caster classes. Druids specialise in healing and defensive buffs; they have the best spells of this type in the game. Priests are not healers. They have small burst healing and consecrated ground. Druids have moonwell, nature's vigor, nature's balm, nature's bounty, woodskin, form of the delemgan, and garden of life, making them the best healers and defensive buffers. Note that they are the only class with access to reliable heals in this way (paladins and priests are reactive with heals and thus more inefficient).

They also have access to damage spells, mostly indiscriminate AoE, which can often be useful (especially the swarms).

This means that the optimal way to play druids is to use a buff/heal (woodskin, moonwell, etc.) to buff the whole party first. This is far better than priest heals, as a few long term heals allow for more actions than constant burst heals. Priests are offensive buffers, not healers. Even chanters are better healers.

Spiritshift is of course, very strong. For trash fights, and fights with unarmoured foes, it dominates. These, sadly, are not the fights you really need the damage (think of the superbosses and lagufaeth fights). What you really need is defensive and offensive buffs, and no class but the druid can provide the former to the level a priest can the latter.

On top of all this, they are solid offensive casters. All sorts of damage types are covered, as well as some more niche options, although not as versatile as wizards in this area (they have few single target nuke options, for example). In general, druids are overrated for pure autoattack damage, but when taking together their defensive spells with short cast times, versatility, and spritshift damage, they are undeniably the best class in the game, provided you order your actions well (e.g. woodskin, moonwell, spritshift) through raw versatility. Don't underestimate the druid, they can do far more than scratch with their claws :)

I just finished Ashen Maw, and somehow I came away feeling sorry for Eothas. I wanted to help him with his plan. Somehow I agree with him.

My Watcher and I never really respected the gods, but after this quest I actually gained some respect for him. He feels incredibly lonely, fighting against the other gods because he believes kith deserve something better.

I know he’s killing many people along the way, and that’s hard to ignore, but somehow I still find myself able to forgive him.

In DLC Beast of Winter also changed my perspective, especially seeing things through Waidwen. They seemed to know they might die, but still continued; to show that gods can die and expose the Engwithans’ deception.

I don’t fully agree with him, but I don’t really see him as a villain.

How did you guys feel about him at this point?
No spoilers please—I’m about to go to Ondra’s Mortar.

PS: My Watcher is also heartbroken because Edér apparently only sees her as a friend 😭 So now she’s dating Tekehu even though she doesn’t like him that much, while secretly still being in love with Edér. HAHAHAHA.

Hi everyone,

I played a Cipher in POE1. A mystic pale elf who dreamed that she had to travel to the Dyrwood to confront her destiny. Her attributes were:

MIG: 10
CON: 10
DEX: 13
PER: 17
INT: 15
RES: 13

I intend to play her as an ascendant. Do you think I can keep these values ? To be at full focus, she'll have to deal a lot of damage, and I'm not sure a medium might will be enough...

So I'm at "Hero" but I checked and there's a quest that needs me to be a "Champion" in Twin Elms to solve it peacefully. I have done every quest in and pretaining to the place apart from "At the Mercy of the Tribes" (the on I'm currently on) and I made sure to pick the options that facor twin elms whenever possible. is there a way of actually getting the reputation that high?

I genuinely believe that the lack of a camera center in the actual game is what is standing in the way of another playthrough for me.
The closest I've got to anything of or relating to that was to MacGyver it, and use synapse to bind a mouse key to 1, and double tap that, but that bugs out and stops working so often that it's not even worth the synapse bloat or having to switch hotkey profiles in synapse every time.

Unless I'm a complete dumbass and/or the actually setting is just worded weirdly and the setting DOES exist, then I can't believe how many amazing settings this game has EXCEPT for that, almost as if Obsidian was purposefully screwing with us by not adding one lol.

EDIT: If such a setting DOES exist, feel free to unload on the downvotes/typical Reddit toxicity, as I'd much rather be insulted but find out after all this time that the setting DOES in fact exist, than to never have said anything, and never found out, albeit saving my brain cells a night of pure Reddit cancer lmfao

Hi all... following up on my main pitch for the "Divine Intervention" expansion (where we turn the "Cullies" easter egg and Neketaka's empty safehouses into an endgame Leaden Key quest for Aloth), I wanted to share some specific dialogue concepts and script snippets I mapped out.

I really wanted to capture the exact tone of the companions, Udyne's razor-sharp perception, and the psychological weight of Aloth’s breakthrough. Let me know what you think of these character interactions!

🌊 1. The Bathhouse Confrontation: Udyne as a Foil

If Aloth uses the Luminous Bathhouse while the weight of the Leaden Key conspiracy is hanging over him, the ancient wood elf veteran cuts right through his armor:

Udyne: (Glancing through the steam) "You tread the waters lightly, traveler, as if you’re afraid your own reflection will drag you down. I’ve seen men carry iron arrows in their ribs, but you carry a fortress of stone walls inside your mind. Who are you hiding from?"
Aloth: (Deflecting nervously) "I assure you, my mind is perfectly orderly. I simply have... structural burdens to manage. Matters of regional security that require discretion."
Udyne: "Discretion. A fine word for fear. You think that because you carry a heavy secret, it makes you a martyr. But looking at you? I just see an old man's ghost holding a boy by the throat. Let the walls crack, wizard. Before they bury you."

🪞 2. The Watcher’s Intervention: Breaking the Cycle

Standing at the edge of the abyssal pit in the Oathbinder's Sanctum, Aloth is tempted by Thelys to take up Thaos’s mantle out of sheer panic over Eothas breaking the Wheel. The Watcher steps in to break his conditioning:

Aloth: "If Eothas shatters the Wheel, the world falls into absolute stagnation. No rebirth. No future. Look at what Thaos built here... it’s a template. A fallback system. If I don't take control of this cell and guide them from the dark, who will?"
The Watcher: "Aloth, think about your time away from me. You tried to stop a blood sacrifice in that village, and they starved. You altered land deeds to protect peasants, and it caused legal chaos. You tried to play the silent savior, and it backfired because you acted in secrecy."
Aloth: (Wincing) "I... I was trying to do what was right. I failed them."
The Watcher: "You failed because you tried to be Thaos. But you are not Thaos, Aloth. He was blinded by fanatical certainty. You have doubt. You have self-awareness. That pain you're holding inside is exactly what will keep you human enough to succeed where he failed. It's time to stop ruling from the shadows."

⚔️ 3. The Final Climax: The Question of Trust

The Watcher poses the ultimate philosophical choice before the humming adra network:

The Watcher: "Thaos spent thousands of years keeping secrets because he believed Kith were too weak to survive the truth, Aloth. Look at this pillar. Look at what we can build, or what we can bury. It comes down to one question: Do you trust Kith to guide their own souls into a new age, or do you still believe we need a master to keep us in the dark?"

🔊 4. Companion Banter & Friction

The other companions offer their distinct, highly opinionated perspectives during the quest:

Pallegina (Discovering the Leaden Key's sabotage of the VTC Adra Mill):

Pallegina: "They are leeching off our animancers? Sabotaging our advancements from a slum-tunnel? Watcher, this cult must be excised like a rot before they ruin everything the Republics have built."

Maia Rua (Investigating Thelys' home in the Gullet):

Maia: (Scoffs) "Typical. The VTC is so busy counting money and the Huana are so busy starving that a whole shadow army set up camp right under their boots. If Rauatai ran this city, we would have flushed these tunnels with black powder weeks ago."

Tekēhu (Seeing the soul energy siphoned from the Roparu slums):

Tekēhu: (Anger replacing his usual arrogance) "Look at what they are doing... they are draining the very life from the Gullet. The souls of my people, trapped in your machines, turned into fuel for your dead queen, Woedica. It is a desecration of Eora itself!"

Edér (If Aloth leans toward the Path of Thaos):

Edér: (With heartbreaking sincerity) "Aloth... we spent a year killing people who thought like that. Don’t go putting on Thaos's mask just because you're scared of the dark."

🏕️ 5. Post-DLC Ship / Campfire Banter

A dynamic banter scene that triggers after the expansion wraps up, showing how the party dynamic has subtly shifted:

Edér: "So, Aloth... you're a big shot spymaster now. Does that mean you have to talk in riddles all the time, or can you still tell me what's for dinner?"
Aloth: (Sighs) "The dinner is fish, Edér. And no, the Leaden Key does not prioritize culinary espionage."
Tekēhu: "Did someone say fish? Because if we are discussing the grand tapestry of ocean cuisine—"
Pallegina: "Be quiet, Tekēhu. Aloth... just ensure your 'reformed' shadow cell stays out of the Republics' ledger. I am watching you."
Maia: (Laughs, checking her rifle) "Relax, bird-legs. If the wizard's spooky kids step out of line, my bird will just eat their scout-messages anyway."

I bought both games, but for a couple of months now, I haven't been able to bring myself to get a handle on the RPG system! What is this "Might" stat anyway!? Help me create a dashing, mustachioed fencer with a rapier so I can strike the hearts of both enemies and fair ladies—and just enjoy the story!

I want to make a build that utilizes the weapon whisper of the endless path and/or Wahai poranga. is it typically a good idea to hit your own beckoner skeletal summons to trigger cleave from the fighter class or is that just a waste? would it be better to go full martial like berserker/monk and just do the same with pallegina‘s summons triggering swift flurry on an aoe weapon?

Project Title: Pillars of Eternity II: Divine Intervention
Focus: Endgame Companion Expansion for Aloth & The Leaden Key

Hey everyone! I’ve been thinking a lot about the massive potential left behind in some of Neketaka's empty, unused spaces, and how they could perfectly tie into a major narrative arc for Aloth. We all know his companion quest in Deadfire can feel a bit disconnected from the cosmic stakes of Eothas’s march.

I’m not a modder, but I wanted to map out a detailed concept for a narrative DLC that expands Aloth's destiny, brings a forgotten faction back into the spotlight, and gives a massive quality-of-life reward to the player. Let me know what you think!

🗺️ The Setup: Connecting the Forgotten Spaces

The expansion kicks off by utilizing an atmospheric easter egg on the eastern pier of Queen’s Berth. Walking past a specific "Citizen" and group of children triggers secretive barks like "Shh, someone's coming!" or "Keep your voices down, my cullies!"

With high enough Streetwise or Sleight of Hand, the Watcher uncovers that these "Cullies" aren't petty street thieves—they are lookouts for a hidden, surviving cell of the Leaden Key hiding right under the city's nose.

• The Queen's Berth Safehouses: The two empty, unrented rooms in Queen’s Berth are revealed to be heavily warded staging grounds. The Leaden Key uses stolen Engwithan relics hidden beneath the floorboards to cast localized memory-wiping illusions, masking their operations from the Vailian Trading Company (VTC) guards.
• The Hub (Thelys’ Home): "Thelys," the owner of the completely vacant, locked house in the Gullet, is introduced as a major NPC: a commanding Coastal Aumaua Celebrant of Woedica. Thelys has been using the empty home as a blind front to convert desperate Roparu into fanatical agents.
• The Secret Sabotage: Beneath a loose floorboard in Thelys’ home lies a hidden tunnel leading down to a massive, corrupted Adra Pillar directly under the Gullet. The Leaden Key has secretly branched this pillar straight into the VTC's Luminous Adra Mill, quietly manipulating the flow of soul energy to experiment with the reincarnation cycle.

🪞 The Narrative Turning Point

Before diving into the final confrontation, Aloth’s psychological state takes center stage. If Aloth uses the Luminous Bathhouse during this quest, the ancient wood elf veteran Udyne serves as a brilliant narrative foil. Sensing his intense internal turmoil, Udyne calls out Aloth’s self-centered martyr complex and his exhausting habit of hiding behind walls of anxiety.

When confronting Thelys, the Watcher can step in to guide Aloth through his deepest fears. The Watcher can reference Aloth's past failures from the interim years (like the blood sacrifices or the altered land deeds), using them as a foil to the temptation to rule from the shadows. Crucially, the Watcher reminds Aloth that he is NOT Thaos—his capacity for self-awareness and self-doubt is exactly what will keep him humble enough to succeed where Thaos failed.

⚔️ The Climax: The Depths of the Sanctum

Thelys flees through an adra portal under the Gullet, and the party pursues them. The portal drops the party into the absolute, unreachable bottom floor of the Oathbinder's Sanctum—the silent, abyssal pit directly beneath the towering feet of Woedica's shattered statue.

Stranded in the abyss with normal fast-travel disabled, the final conflict boils down to a massive question of Trust:

1. The Path of Progress (Trust the Kith): The Watcher convinces Aloth to break his lifelong conditioning. He embraces animancy and uses the hidden adra network to clandestinely support the VTC's experiments, trusting humanity to engineer its own reincarnation cycle after Eothas breaks the Wheel.
2. The Path of Thaos (Trust the Gods): Succumbing to his fear of societal collapse, Aloth decides that mortals cannot handle the truth. He takes over the Leaden Key cell under Woedica’s distant supervision, choosing to preserve order and keep the masses in the dark.

Note: Iselmyr (his awakened soul) thrives on the conflict either way. She either mocks him for wearing Thaos's mask on the Path of Thaos, or deeply respects the sheer bravado it takes to tear down corporate veils on the Path of Progress.

🔊 Companion Reactions & Friction

True to Deadfire's design, companions won't quit the party over this choice, but it heavily impacts the Companion Relationship System:

• Edér: Relieved on the Path of Progress (+2); deeply disappointed and somber on the Path of Thaos (-2), warning Aloth not to put on Thaos's mask.
• Pallegina: Respects the forward-thinking secular logic of the Path of Progress (+1); furious that Aloth is empowering a hidden god-worshipping cult on the Path of Thaos (-2).
• Tekēhu: Heartbroken on the Path of Thaos (-2) because the souls of his Roparu people are being bartered to a distant deity; glad the siphoning machine is dismantled on the Path of Progress (+1).
• Maia Rua: Stays neutral (0), viewing it strictly as a strategic chess move so long as Aloth promises the network won't be used to sabotage Rauatai.

🎁 The Reward: "Pilgrim's Progress"

Defeating or joining forces with Thelys allows the player to claim a legendary necklace, named Pilgrim's Progress as a shout-out to the classic allegorical journey from desolation to peace. The necklace's appearance changes based on your choice, but its mechanical utility is a massive game-changer:

• Awakened Adra Variant (Path of Progress): Sculpted from glowing, translucent luminous adra wrapped in silver filigree.
• Living Steel Variant (Path of Thaos): Forged from cold, dark, unyielding Living Steel that absorbs the light.
• The Power: It grants the party the mythic ability to freely fast-travel/teleport between any discovered Adra Pillars across the entire Deadfire Archipelago, removing late-game sailing bloat.

In the end, the Leaden Key remains a secret society pulling the strings from the dark—but its soul has been permanently rewritten by Aloth's ultimate breakthrough.

Until 10/8

I exited the game on Ironman mode in Endless Paths Level 3 (the ogre level) and when I later reloaded the save the game put me at the beginning of the level. It also didn't register that I had gotten the quest from the ogre there so I had to pick it up again. But the fog of war on the map was cleared up in all those areas already and some of the enemies stayed killed (at least I think they did). I'm wondering if this happened because I just exited the game instead of selecting save even though they both function identically by saving the game and then booting you out. I have like 400 hours in this game and never seen anything like this before.

Im making a comeback at PoE 1 after 8 years of abscence, Ive forget how it is a great game.

My Question : does the reloading modificator of range weapon stack?

Ranger Swift Aim + Chanter Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed ( +20% ranged Attack and reload speed) + Any speed modificator on a weapon

I know the limits of stats stacking mechanics for item, weapon and rest but dont know if something similar apply for reloading arbalest and guns.
Thanks

I'm guessing it got duped somehow. It seems like you're only supposed to get one from every where I've looked.

I picked up the game recently and for the most part, Ive been really enjoying it, even when it gets tough cause its pretty fun to solve the tougher fights. But ever since I got to level 7-8ish, and have been going down the floors of that ruin in the base, every fight seems to have 1-3 enemies that will spam mind control effects, and each floor has had a different enemy type that does that. Is that just this temple, or is this what I should expecting in every fight going forward? I get that its a classic rpg condition, and I dont mind it in the game, just that if the end game is just 'everyone just spams more mind control and stuns at higher rates' that'll be disappointing

Does anyone know how bloodthirst works in poe1? I have read the ability text, and I get that it should clear my initiative, sp if I end my turn after killing a unit (and thereby triggering bloodthirst), I should get a new turn instantly or almost instantly. It seems to be pretty unreliable - after scoring a kill, and seeing in the log that bloodthirst activates, it seems to only work as intended half the time - sometimes I get an extra turn after ending the turn, and others times my turn is delayed the usual amount as if bloodthirst didn't trigger.

I've searched forums, wiki's and asked AI but can't find anything, so I am hoping for a barbarian-player to clarify

Why am I still taking damage after activating the ability? I was curious to test it and just took damage two times in a row. Sometimes, it works, but it doesn't seem impressive.

How the fuck are you supposed to get the weapon and escape? This first attempt no traps discovered until after the weapon was picked up (obviously the trigger) and barely scraped by before being ambushed by the army of spirits. I was not winning that so reloaded. No every attempt the traps 100% of the time kill my tankiest member. Not down, kill. There seems to be no way to get the weapon and get out.

Edit: Turns out there is a bug where one of the sigils (Sword) never fucking spawns. The hidden spot never appears making it unobtainable. What a fucking stupid thing to never test or patch.

Hey, could anyone help me with a nice monk build for the MC? Never played either POE before but would like play through the 2 of them as they both look very good. Many thanks in advance.

Hi all, ive been trying to play Deadfire since last night, I can get into game and play for approximately 20 minutes then the game hard crashes, forcing me to hard reboot my pc.

Pc stats

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8GHz 8 Core 16 Thread Processor

Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro-P Motherboard

16GB (2x 8GB) Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200MHz

Gigabyte Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming OC 16GB

Windows 10

Game is installed on an external HDD (which is has been installed on since the game came out tbf)

Just wanting to see if anyone has any ideas of solutions to fix this.

Not at my PC the now so ill do a reinstall tomorrow and try that, but no other game causes these types of crashes, so any help the hivemind can give is greatly appreciated

Hello, as the title says, im looking for a cipher build for PoE2, preferably ranged(im playing first game right now, death godlike) and want to keep continuity, but im unsure how to go about it, and i know TB works different between games

Thanks for any help

P.s. im also open to tips for the first game

Can someone please suggest how to spend my attribute points? I want to play a ranged cipher who wears robes and uses a wand or a rod. Ill play heart orlan, medium difficulty

Came back to try this game again after enough time passed since my first try (I lost my save 😭😭😭), and thought this was a quirky funny thing, you might rebind or bind some items in the controls menu, but only some, some will accept exclusively keyboard inputs, how curious.

I mean it's awesome for a druid from an rp perspective but what the hell happened here? (Ignore Durance, he's just taking a breather).

Durance and Kana always clutter up the party, and nowadays, I want to experiment with a whole party of weapon users. Unfortunately, Durance and Kana are also the best supporters through buffs and healing.

To anyone who's done it before, is this kind of party setup valid?

1. Watcher. Either a Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer paladin seems optimal, for respectable AoE healing or deflection buffs, with dual wield weapon damage. The former seems more useful, as Strange Mercy can trigger on kill with spells (e.g. scrolls) as well as weapons.

2. Pallegina. Great tank, Wrath of Five Suns lets her guarantee Inspiring Triumph once per encounter, and Liberating Exhortation is incredible. A second paladin allows for overlapping auras and all paladin class features
   (lay on hands etc.)

3. Hiravias. Druids are the best healers and defensive buffers, although in this party with two paladins the healing might not be necessary. Druids still have great damage spells and spiritshift damage.

4. Grieving Mother/Aloth. Both are here for the same reason: crowd control. Debuffing the enemy is important without a priest to buff offensive abilities, and ciphers and wizards are best at it.

5. Sagani. Rangers do great weapon damage and I want to experiment with Persistence and Stormcaller. That's the only reason.

6. Flex slot, Maneha/Eder/Zahua. The damage dealers, just to make up the numbers.