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As titles say, I'm a noob and need help determining which skills and attributes and such to choose. Will be for console (360). What I want to do: 65% melee, 35% magic. The benefits of Purifying Chastisement's extra damaged when weakened is something I definitely I want to utilize (though not be completely centered around, I.e. running around with low health 24/7), which is what is complicating this all. Will be playing solely multiplayer. Main aim is to be a big damage-dealer. Skills: Definites I want to have (unless they aren't good - do tell) are Dual Wield, Tactics Lore, Gruesome Inquisition Focus, Astute Supremacy Focus, Concentration. Beyond this I really don't know what to have. If I read things right, damage-wise Combat Discipline is better than the Aspect Lores so I think I want that over having AS Lore and NN Lore. That leaves 4 skill choices. Constitution and Armor Lore sound extremely, extremely great, but here is where I am confused about these things and PC. To get PC's benefits you have to be at decreased health, but if you have so many hitpoints and they regenerate so fast on top of that (Constitution), won't it be kind of difficult to impossible to get your health decently low to take advantage of the PC benefit? And Armor Lore = less damage taken overall = more difficult/less often to get decently decreased health? Help? Bargaining is useless for me. I'm going to be playing multiplayer exclusively so having the best of best of best weapons and armor, while nice, is not that big of a deal since when playing multiplayer I won't have lots of time to shop (won't be able to check a vendor, teleport, check vendor, teleport, check vendor.. etc, to find the best weapons and armor). All the other General Skills seem rather useless too. So I need 2-4 skills. Don't need to fill out all the possibilities I guess, but it feels a bit of a waste if I leave more than 1 open. If I have more than 1 open I think I'd definitely choose Bargaining as it's better to use it if I have nothing else. Combat Arts I plan on actually using: Callous Execution, Ruthless Mutilation, Frenetic Fervor, Purifying Chastisement, Levin Array, Clustering Maelstorm, Raving Thrust, Zealous Doppleganger, Reverse Polarity, Soul Reaver. Not sure why I'm including the Combat Arts here since I don't have any questions, my mod choices are irrelevant as well. A few of these will be used only in combos. I think Levin Array is pretty cool but when I tried using it due to being co-op and with a High Elf who likes to range Area of Effect everything (well.. duh?) it doesn't quite work out since if he hasn't yet killed most enemies by the time I reach them to Levin Array them, a lot of them decide to run right passed me and it makes Levin Array too difficult to use successfully. Dislodged spirit seems like it'd be really cool and really good at high levels but it's a melee attack and I'll have much better melee to pick from (GI Combat Arts, and regular attack with Frenetic Fervor enabled when on recharge I assume will be able to kill much quicker than Dislodged Spirit). Inexorable subjugation seems like it'd be awesome when powerful and fully modded but I can't see myself using it (at least not for a long, long time.. highest level I've achieved on any character is 16), Paralyzing Dread's slowdown effect seems useless to me due to playing multiplayer and everything dying within seconds (don't have time to go around debuffing maniacally). Attributes: Not sure what to do here. I'm thinking of Strength/Intelligence, but should I include Stamina? Reason for Strength would be since I'm heavily melee, Intelligence would be to raise my damage for my magic. Stamina would be to reduce regen rates of all Combat Arts, but because I am taking the Focuses for all (well, not counting NN which I'd rarely use), I am unsure if it is even necessary to keep all my regen times super super low. The tricks to keeping and making regen times low are something I have not fully grasped yet. If just Strength/Intelligence, was thinking of a 60/40 split. If Stamina as well, 40/30/30? (I really have no idea how much Stamina would help or if it's necessary, so this split is completely up for grabs) Comments: It'll take me a long while to be able to use all 3 buffs, but I will be using 2 as soon as I get them so include those +regen rate times for everything to determine how much Stamina would benefit. Modifiers into armor and stuff are something I won't be able to control much (since playing multiplayer, I won't be able to devote myself to finding a lot of +regen on hit things) so factor that in as well for everything. I feel like I'm missing one last comment here but I have to go right now so, the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ?

Character = not saved? (360) I made a new level 1 character, saved him but didn't even start a game. Next day comes my friend and I start a local multiplayer game, with me being the first player + host. We play for 7 1/2 straight hours, he has to go so I save from his character, make him leave the game, then saved mine and.. to be honest I can't remember if I left the game or just shut off the console from the 2nd controller (I had to turn it off, so instead of "turn off controller" I chose "turn off console"). But I turn the game back on because I figured out some CA mods I wanted to apply and doing them without him playing wouldn't hurt anything.. but I load up the 360, my profile (where my character is), and I see he's level 1........................ friend's character on his profile is intact. So my 7 1/2 hours? Gone. Apparently. Is this true? This would not be such a problem but redoing essentially the same quests over for the third time in a few days (first friend and I started Dryad/SW, I later started own SW to get more familiar with the game, he decided he didn't like Dryad so we started over with HE/Inquisitor (me, 'cause despite NEVER playing a magic character before decided the SW being pure, pure, pure melee was too boring) seems like it'll be mad sucky. And my weapons and armor weren't spectacular but they were pretty good and I was happy (100% content) with my armor and weapons which is a huge deal for me. [edit]So.. my other suspicion, that his character would not have the questlines progression that my character/our multiplayer game had, has just been confirmed. No quests done for him, so essentially all he has is his equipment, level, and map. What the hell.[/edit] So, is my character really gone? And why?