Leaderboard

Lock the target in a cocoon of binding energy. While trapped in the cocoon the prisoner cannot act, be attacked, or affected by abilities. However, all effects already on the cocoon's prisoner will continue to affect them. Temporal Cocoon is brilliant not just because of that, or because it can target allies and ennemies, out or in combat : this spell is really special because the unconditional paralized effect and the untargetable effect are secretely independants : the first is Hostile and the second, Beneficial. What does that mean? In first, on yourself (or allies) , the Untargetable effect concern only ennemies. Casting Wall of Draining before, or Salvation of Time during the Temporal Cocoon enhance the duration of Untargetable. And Paralized can be cleared by Out with the Bad (Street Sweeper) or suspended. Or just wait This spell is not combat-restricted, the effect continue after the end of the fight. Better than, you are able to cast it out of fight (Strand of Favor etc). Im conscient that make the Ultimate challenge less challenging for SC wizard. In second, on ennemy, the effect of Paralized is affected by his resolve. High resolve ennemy can be Untargetable but not paralized at the end of the spell, so dumb his resolve is good. And because even when confuse (self) * he stay an ennemy, and so stay untargetable, you cant influence on it during the Untargetable duration. Enfeebled the ennemy before Temporal Cocoon add +50% only on paralized effect. And when the first effect (untargetable) is over, you get some seconds to again enfeebled him. (the duration will be increased by, in first Enffebled effect, Initiale duration of the Cocoon * 1.5, and for the second Enfeebled effect, Initiale Duration of the Cocoon * 2.25. The paralysing Coccon can switch from 5s to 27s if the spell hit for 30s in first place). This tactic work even on Dex. immune, but not on Con. resistant. This spell is against Fortitude. * He can be targetable when Charmed or Dominated before to be Cocooned. Then, Arcane Cleanse or Out with the Good (Street Sweepers) make him only paralysed. But that step doesnt really matter since he become targetable anyway, on top of the Unconditional paralysed. For Charmed ennemy, since damage clear the Charm, the Arcane Cleanse step work very well before attacking him. This tactic work on Dex immune but not on Int immune. Note if the ennemy is affected by Supress Affliction or Liberating Exhortation from a friend to him, then you are able to influence the Untargetable effect during the suspending effect with Arcane Cleanse , and the ennemy is now just paralyzed for the spell duration. For ending, this spell is really brilliant because it cause you to become Blue :

Multiverse-hopping Michelle Yeoh? Sign me up!

I just happened to look into this forum after a long time and thats a hilarious find. I already had a single class wizard testchar with Vela, because I think just the grimoire stealing makes it the best class by far. Loaded that save and tested it on vela (grimoire stealing makes you have permanent priest spells, including SoT) and you can even prolong it on her infinitely, making both wizard and vela untargetable.

Diseases Looking through the gamedata files, I found something interesting... unused disease-related Affliction Types: Bedfellow Mites (AFT_Bedfellow_Mites) Chest Worms (AFT_Chest_Worms) Red Lung (AFT_Red_Lung) Scurvy (AFT_Scurvy) Stone Creep (AFT_Stone_Creep) The Hack (AFT_the_Hack) The Pox (AFT_the_Pox) The Rot (AFT_the_Rot) Weeping Fever (AFT_Weeping_Fever) (To clarify, AfflictionTypes are gamedata objects that define affliction "categories" and includes ID references to the afflictions that they govern. The primary ones being the Attribute Afflictions, e.g. AFT_Might which contains references to Staggered, Dazed and Stunned.) While our "disease" Affliction Types each contain several references, almost all of the afflictions that would correspond to those IDs are missing from the gamedata files. Luckily, one of these afflictions remain... Red_Lung_Stage4_Death We can from the name alone tell that Red Lung (and likely more of the diseases) would have ended in the death of the afflicted party member. Looking closer at the Red_Lung_Stage4_Death affliction, it seems to cause a "blood splurt" visual effect, then outright kill the afflicted character. Here is the effect in action: It's a shame that there are no traces left of what the previous, non-fatal stages had for symptoms, though I could however find their names in the string table! Stone Creep, Early Stage Stone Creep, Middle Stage Terminal Stone Creep The Pox, Early Stage The Pox, Middle Stage Terminal Pox The Rot, Early Stage The Rot, Middle Stage Chronic Rot Weeping Fever, Early Stage Weeping Fever, Middle Stage Terminal Weeping Fever Red Lung, Early Stage Red Lung, Middle Stage Terminal Red Lung Bedfellow Mites, Early Stage Bedfellow Mites, Middle Stage Chronic Bedfellow Mites Remedies Looking further, I found seven unused item names, descriptions and icons for "remedies" related to our diseases! Six of which corresponds to a specific disease, and one (Lichen Tablet) which seems to be a general cure to any stage 1 disease. Lichen Tablet "A medicine made from special fungi, moss, and algae native to the Deadfire. This unassuming capsule remedies most all sickness, so long as said disease is in its early stages." Rymrgand's Bane "When burned, Rymrgand's bane releases a therapeutic smoke. Cures Red Lung." Potent Incense "An pleasant aroma emanates from the smoldering sticks. While not strictly medicinal, the smoke repels bothersome insects. Treats Bedfellow Mites." Rose Draught "Pungent, sour, and bitter all at once. This brew is difficult to keep down, but its healing properties cannot be denied. It is used to break fevers and settle nausea, allowing the patient to recover. Cures Weeping Fever." (I don't have good enough english or reading comprehension to connect the remaining three items with their descriptions.) Aromatic Rub Astringent Salve Thistle Tar Remaining descriptions: "A poultice made from medicinal plants. This stinging pulp soothes lesions and sores while safely dissolving necrotic flesh. Cures the Rot." "This botanical ointment is spread about the chest and neck. Its fumes are technically toxic, but have the benefit of treating breathing ailments before any noticeable harm comes to the patient. Cures the Hack." "The smell from this goop is harsh and greasy. It is used to clear parasitic infestations deep in the skin. Removes the Chest Worms affliction." "Toxin" and "Fungus" Not directly related to the abovementioned diseases, but while searching I also found two unused items grouped suspiciously close to Antidote's name and description in items.stringtable Antitoxin "A few drops from this vial introduce cleansing materials into the body. The process is painful, but useful for purging foreign elements from the skin and blood. Cures afflictions of the "Toxin" type and imparts immunity to toxins for the duration." Fungicide "A necessity for any healer in the stagnant wetlands of the Deadfire, where a single prick of the skin can cause blooming fungal infestations. Apothecaries produce a steady supply of this harsh, stinging liquid to supply travelers and adventurers. It rapidly destroys fungal spores and growths, both topically and internally. Cures afflictions of the "Fungus" type and imparts immunity to fungus for the duration." (Note that this Fungicide uses a separate string table entry from the FS quest item Fungicide) Looking at their descriptions and comparing to Antidote's, it seems that at one point "Toxin" and "Fungus" existed as keywords alongside Poison!

CHILLING TUNES Class: Troubadour / Blood Mage Concept: Pure caster that uses starting invisibility and hoards of summons as distraction to cast in peace and is optimized around a seemingly small but actually awesome synergy: Animated Weapons are immune to Freeze DMG while Blood Mage has loads of outstanding Friend-or-Foe Freeze Spells. Optimized for a No-Rest run. Game Version: RTwP. Works with latest updates and DLCs as of v5.0.00040. I recommend the Full Community Patch and the No Forced Rests mod (otherwise just metagame around them, it’s fully viable but just a bit annoying). Upscaled PotD Solo Viable: Yes. Companion: I don’t think so. Chilling Tunes is a solo Watcher. As always, this is going to be a somewhat long post so please bear with me. I’ll explain briefly why I think this toon is interesting and illustrate how it comes together with some videos, then go over the key stats, equipment and abilities. -----INTRO------ I know this sounds corny but… This build is actually one of the most powerful I’ve soloed, especially considering it’s a multi Blood Mage that doesn’t use Wall of Draining at all. I started from the not-so-small synergy that Animated Weapons (PL7 Chanter invocation) is an amazing distraction, especially coupled with waves of Many Lives Pass By (PL7 Chant) but at the same time, the Weapons are immune to Freeze DMG, which is incidentally among the top damage spells of a Wizard, those being however balanced out by not being foe-only… so you could easily kill any friendly summons with those crazy pulsing/ray freeze spells… unless they’re immune to it! Yay, a faint smell of synergy! From there I built around this ability while trying to maximize the core awesomeness of Blood Mage with abilities and grimoires, and picking the most useful Chanter stuff along the way. While tying it all up together with equipment choice for different situations. The result has been very satisfying. Here are some of the most impactful choices: Brilliant Departure + Summoning will keep almost everyone off your back for entire fights. Sometimes you’ll have to reposition or be careful with certain enemy archetypes; but with Deleterious Alacrity, you’re immune to engagement and Blinded enemies are slow. Crusted Swordfish as food is great for +2 Spell PEN, which Makes Chillfog great again for damage. (#makechillfoggreatagain, #butitwasalwaysgreat). Also especially because Chillfog causes flanked, i.e. -1AR so you can get an actual PEN of 10.5 or 11 at night with Sun & Moon. Other spells just get even better. Even if it doesn’t seem that way, we’re packing a ton of regen, so Blood Sacrifice is always on the table but rarely needed... that being said, Draining Missiles + Blood Sacrifice + Crushing Doom + infinite summons is as often how we nullify the challenge of certain boss encounters. Most of our everyday offense (Chill Fog, Freezing Pillar, Bitter Mooring, Shadowflame and many others) get +10 ACC from Helm of the White Void on ALL their rolls (damage AND afflictions). The significance of free ACC is never lost on Upscaled PotD. In certain situations, I also liked using all the pulsing mayhem with Their Champion... Energized invocation for perma-interruption apocalypse. However, it it is less impactful on Upscaled PotD than any other difficulty, because, well, as much as you crit, it occurs less often. We most often wield Lover's Embrace with Lover's Quarrel enchant because it gives us one or more almost guaranteed Frenzy every encounter. So we're speedy! Here are 2 videos that illustrate the gameplay loop somehow (illustrative, not optimal amazing gameplay, just to set expectations). Video 1 is the bar fight in Splintered Reef not because it’s challenging, but because it’s easy to make it clear. Also slowed down on the shortcuts etc. to make it clearer. Video 2 is in the SSS arena, against Maerwald etc. I wanted to post it because while this fight isn’t very challenging, I messed up A LOT in this encounter and although I made bad mistakes I still came out on top, so you can see in a way the resilience of the build when stupid-me plays. -----SPECS------ Race: Pale Elf (Whatever, Cold AR and +PER are sweet) Background: The White that Wends – Hunter FINAL STATS WITH ALL PERMABUFFS AND NO-REST BUFFS AS OF 5.0 (without combat buffs): MIG 21 (16 Base +2 Berath +1 Gift from Machine +2 Alchemic Brawn) CON 9 (3 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Brawn +2 Konstanten Boon) DEX 26 (17 Base +1 Elf +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Guile +2 Amira’s Blessing +2 Footprints Ahu Taka) PER 29 (18 Base +1 Elf +1 White that Wends +2 Berath +1 Konstanten Boon +1 Effigy: Sagani +2 Alchemic Guile +1 Savage Cunning +1 Cauldron Brew +1 Kuaru’s Prize) INT 26 (18 Base +2 Berath +1 Konstanten Boon +2 Alchemic Wits +2 Charm of Bones +1 Kuaru’s Prize) RES 11 (3 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits +2 Nature’s Resolve +2 Rikuhu’s Blessing) ADDITIONAL PERMABUFFS: Food: Crusted Swordfish, amazing for the PEN bonus on spells, making Chill Fog relevant for damage later on. Adratic Glow All Trainings Dawnstar Blessing Luminous Adra Potion Nature’s Resolve (Accuracy) Savage Cunning (Survival) Galawain’s Gift Magran’s Blessing Infamous Captain, Bonus Skills, Champion Stats, Port Maje vendor, Fully discovered Map, Bonus Money… invested all 105 Berath’s Blessing Points SKILLS: Mechanics and Diplomacy at 13, rest in Athletics and Survival. ----- ABILITIES ------ TROUBADOUR ACTIVE: Thrice Was She > Her Revenge, White Worms > Their Putrid, Their Champion, Called to His… Early on, skellies and ogres are helpful – then respec. PASSIVE: Come, Come…, Many Lives. Early on, Ancient Memory is helpful. BLOOD MAGE (more or less optimized for using various grimoires as detailed below) ACTIVE: Chill Fog, Eldritch Aim, Jolting Touch, Infuse, Combusting Wounds, Arcane Veil, Deleterious Alacrity, Noxious Burst, Minor Arcane Reflection, Wall of Flame, Bitter Mooring, Enervating Terror, Freezing Pillar. PASSIVE: Combat Focus, Secret of Rime, Far Casting, Rapid Casting, Quick Summoning, Improved Critical. Grimoire Supplementation: Illuminating Discoveries (Brilliant Departure!!!) Vaporous Wizardry (more casts if you're secure or have Concentration layers) Nina’s Teachings (Shadowflame & Death Ray) Iron Clasped (Crushing Doom & Draining Missiles i.e. the Boss Killer combo) -----GEAR------ Weapon Sets: Primary: Griffin Blade + Lover’s Embrace (Lover's Quarrel) for the damage and frenzy buffs which will trigger in every fight. Secondary: Duskfall (Drawing Parry), Lethandria’s Devotion (Sheltering Light) if you need add’l regen, or more defense to avoid retargeting by certain enemy AIs e.g. Fampyrs or Dargul Swashbucklers. Tertiary: Magran’s Favor + Sun & Moon if you need to go all in on Burn spells against Freeze immunes. Grimoires in Quick Slots: Illuminating Discoveries, Vaporous Wizardry, Nina’s Teachings, Iron Clasped. Head: Helm of the White Void. (will give +10 ACC to ALL spells that have an Affliction component!). Neck: Charm of Bones. Chest: Fleshmender (Additional regen + Item/Weapon additional sets) . Cape: Three Trolls Stitched (regen). Gloves: Accuracy Bracers, sometimes swap with Burglar’s Gloves or Firethrower’s gloves. Rings: Kuaru’s Prize + Greater Regen. Keep Focused Flames around. Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka. Keep handy Boots of the Stone, Sandals of the Water Lily. Belt: Trollhide Belt for Regen, Upright Captain’s for Doru. Pet: Dude the Six Toes for Regen, Otto Starcat, Concelhaut... -----THE END------ That’s it. Anything not clear, please shoot. Let me know if you want to play a build like this toon, always happy to chat. Also of course if you have additional thoughts on the choices, strategies etc!

Cool find! I think you've got them ordered correctly. An astringent treats the skin, aromatics are commonly rubbed on the chest for coughing, and tar is goopy. Astringent Salve = "A poultice made from medicinal plants. This stinging pulp soothes lesions and sores while safely dissolving necrotic flesh. Cures the Rot." Aromatic Rub = "This botanical ointment is spread about the chest and neck. Its fumes are technically toxic, but have the benefit of treating breathing ailments before any noticeable harm comes to the patient. Cures the Hack." Thistle Tar = "The smell from this goop is harsh and greasy. It is used to clear parasitic infestations deep in the skin. Removes the Chest Worms affliction." Speaking of feature creep - deadly, contagious diseases at sea would have been interesting.

So - that would have been in the game if ship combat would have been scrapped soon enough.

I tried this in the past when using squid's grasp. I had my MC wield squid's grasp, and then hired a berserker/cipher, who would get confused from frenzy, and then cast Puppet Master on himself, dominating itself. As soon as the toon is dominated, my MC would get Intuitive and Swift from Squid's Grasp, for as long as the domination lasts. It's important to use Puppet Master; once dominated, the toon will stand around and do nothing initially, but you can command it to do whatever you want. Don't use whispers because if you do all they'll do is stand around and do nothing until the charm wears off. It's pretty fun but is micro-intensive. You'll want to dump RES for your witch to keep their WILL low. If it's too high they'll often miss or graze with Puppet Master, which gives you no or a low payoff for all of this micromanagement.

Cocoon? No need for confuse, it is already a great spell for saving allies, because it can be cast outside of combat. (which also enables the strand cheese xd)

But dominate doesnt count for the Hit-to-Crit conversion, the Debonaire bonus. Confuse the debonaire, then he is able to target the charmed ennemy with pure DoTscrolls with 100% hit-to-crit without breaking the Charm effect. Charm is like Asleep.

It is really simple but at condition the ennemy is not Int immune ; with a confused cipher, casting Puppet Master on an ennemy does nothing else to dominate him. But you need to be confuse to cast Stasis Shell on a dominate ennemy. Once, the dominated ennemy is stunned anyway his might immunity, and can be attacked because his alliance flipped (Targetable). On charmed ennemy, the Charmed effect break on damage, and the ennemy return to his Untargetable shell. You can see the Might Resistance of Birta surrounded by her Stasis Shell.

My first reason was to bypass the untargetable effect, my second to benefit from the -10 fortitude and -10 deflection from stunned, and my third is because it is funny

Hey there, so if you are a Berserker/Cipher and like to do some cool stuff while confused (like casting Amplified Wave or Ectopsychic Echo on enemies) you will probably like this one: When you are confused and cast Amplified Thrust on a single enemy (you can bc. confused) it will damage and push that enemy directly. If a second enemy is around it will jump to that enemy, too (and do its thing). This is essentially a +100% multiplicative dmg boost and pretty cool because the single target dmg is quite high (for a tier-2 spell). Enjoy!

Berserker/Debonaire: best support char ever!

Funny, I was toying around with Berserker/Cipher yesterday (the result was the dual Amplified Thrust discovery I wrote about) and also tried to find some use for Stasis Shell but didn't succeed. Turn out all it needed was some additional domination. My only question is: why would you want to stun a dominated enemy?

Very interesting! I wonder if this is why we have a kind of relic of an effect where Disease/Poison keywording is very poorly differentiated in some current game mechanics. edit: I wonder if disease keyworded effects were originally planned to also infect targets with a disease, instead of just being another class of abilities that frequently run into same/similar enemy immunities as poison while being different enough to not benefit from the +poison PL stuff.

That is actually a buff compared to Assassin's Untargetable. Yes you could theoretically hurt yourself, but since grimoire swapping gives you bdd and enemies can't even target you with AOE dispel you will never die. Assassin can't even target themselves with AoE buffs, but wizard can just normally target themselves with anything.

Yes but be careful to your own spells, take a meteor shower will hurt you because untargetable is only for ennemies

Hey! I might resemble those remarks...!

Actually, fairies are like that everywhere, but in other countries they got makeovers for the sake of the children.

What is DY2? If it's Dying Light 2, then no. I am not into these kind of games.

Julian Assange is a rapist and should be in a Swedish prison.

Some healthy food: Oy, I sure did feel all that fat the day after, but what can I say? #noregrets.

By the way, a confused Puppet Master is good (except for the -5int) because your character is still controlable (his alliance flipped but on his side, so..) and is able to use spells and abilities, and you get Intuitive and Swift from Squid's Grasp! I dont know if you already knew that

You know, if you watched the show at 100x speed, you could be done with it in 5 minutes.

I've never before used this spell; is it the case that it can normally be cast only on enemies? If so, you have to be confused to cast it on an enemy or yourself, right?

I also am pretty much over the zombie game fad. Dying Light's parkour style gameplay could work well for a lot of different genres, though.

If you dominate it it's not cleared on hit, at least not with cipher spell. Maybe its a weird interaction with weakness to int, similar to how a resistance always shows you "losing" an affliction even tho you should not have gotten it in the first place.

Yeah, no, the gameplay is okay, so that's fine. I just keep pressing the wrong buttons, and I'm not sure why. edit: Checked my Nintendo statistics, my mother has played 232 hours of Pikmin 3 so far. Pretty impressive.

Good to see you around @Raven Darkholme

My first reaction @Constentin Lévine is that I love how your mind works to come up with that and all the recent posts . You seem adept at emerging gameplay, or whatever name is in use now to designate something new, fun, powerful and unexpected.

I think this is very likely, I checked and the Red_Lung_Stage4_Death affliction actually has the Disease keyword.

That's a really interesting find! I wonder if perhaps these were intended as special injuries that could be inflicted in certain areas, like the area beneath the Gullet? Probably a case of a feature being thematically interesting, but frustrating in practise.

I believe the plague ship encounters can kill off your companions if you don't treat it, as in there is different text for tossing each of the main companions overboard. Perhaps they worked the concept into that instead.

Another Charm spell producing some nices effects while confused is Roguish Charm, granting 2 tiers 3 inspirations on an allie

@BruceVC That sounded angrier than I meant it haha. I just hate how many zombie games there are, to the point that I pretty much disregard all zombie games. State of decay was actually cool, but I kept wishing it wasn't zombies

That trailer for Dying Light 2 stressed me out.

Don't get me wrong, if you're into the classic "young boy goes on a coming of age adventure", it seems very good, especially for something made in the 70s. From what I know of Amentep and the animes that he's watched, it seems almost certain that he'll enjoy it...but it is simply not particularly my cup of tea. The positive things I can say for it for personally me is that the art and level of detail is probably unparalleled for a show that came out during this time period, the first three episodes at least were serialized (i.e. totally narrative-driven and not episodic at all, which will presumably continue), I like the Nausicaa-esque post-apocalyptic setting, it has a suitably serious tone, characters aren't in any way contemptible, and there's really nothing bad about it... Nevertheless, it still feels like something that has the character and narrative stylistic trappings of being made in the late 70s, and everything is in service of a type of a story that I'm simply not that interested in (especially given that it's not quite totally grounded when it clearly feels like it should be - when I saw our protagonist hold on to the edge of what was effectively a cliff literally by his toes in a clearly absurd manner, I gave out a big sigh). In other words, as I said, it simply lacks appeal to specifically me. Amentep will almost certainly sing its praises for all the same reasons but with the helpful context of it actually appealing to him, .

Don't generalize based on what appears to be a sweatshop work environment.

I am looking forward to it but I'll wait for reviews.

It's something specific to the Switch, all other devices connect just fine, including five separate smartphones (two iPhones and three Android phones). The encryption is OK too, I checked that. I can still try the channel switching if there's an option for it (not sure). Not really a high priority, I just needed the connection to re-download updates and the saves that were on the SD card that I also removed and kept for myself. Can't really work with that built-in memory. Although 64GB is better than the old 32GB, still not nearly enough. The router is pretty old too, so I wouldn't put it past any protocol issues or other problems. Should really replace it at some point. There's a storyline? It's just a boss rush and a weird guy in a rabbit hat saying silly nonsense in between. Heh. Plays fine with the Pro controller, but something about the gameplay keeps being problematic for me, maybe it's the default button layout, I should really change the parry button if that's at all possible. Can't be that I can parry myself through Sekiro without issue and defeat the final boss of the game easily (where others cry and give up for reasons I can't fathom, to be honest, if you can reach the final boss there's nothing stopping you from beating him, dunno) and get whacked like a noob in Furi. Hmmm. edit: Yeah, me too dumb for the game. Not sure why though. Shucks.

Try changing you wifi channel (lower it to 1 if you can), also check what encryption is being used. Could be due to some of these things.

Keyrock you have loads of experience in these types of games and you have seen a lot and sometimes it may be difficult to make someone with your overall gaming knowledge " excited " but arent you excited about DY2 ? The level of detail we get in most trailers about DY2 is brilliant and informative and just adds to what fans like me already know about DY2....its going to be a excellent game in the same way DY1 was an excellent game So I can say with sincerity " I am excited about this game " and its definitely on my "day 1 purchase " like BG3 for sure @Wormerine @Lexx@Sarex@Malcador@Theonlygarby@MrBrown@Oner@kanisatha@Mamoulian War and others Are you guys excited about DY2 ?

Yeah, I bet, that sounds terrible. ...Of course, I'm not sure there's much of a scenario where the Joy-Con is better outside of where it's literally strictly required. I played Furi on PC a few years back, the gameplay was decent enough. The story/dialogue, though...

This is more of a minor thing and maybe widely known but: you can stack Shattered Vengeance's Shards of Woedica curse on yourself or your companions, and it doesn't go away. Why would you want to increase damage received by +25% will you ask me? Well, if you like to use Deltro's Cage Helm lash shenanigans. This can stack with Assassin +15% dmg received, Helwalker +50% dmg received, The Red Hand's +40% dmg received... Potential applications: Solo Strand of Favor abuse runs, with Rakhan Field Boots and Lord Darryn/Essence Interrupter to get a better permanent lash. More legit use in a party, already well known: get a Helwalker/Streetfighter wearing Deltro's Helm, the stuff above that will incur +115% dmg received. At the start of the encounter: give him BDD+SoT, Crit him with Chain Lightning... and unleash this horrible one-shotting beast unto the enemy (he can attack with ranged weaponry or Instruments of Pain). For example he can dash to an optimal spot to reach all enemies with AoE shots, apply Gouging Strike that will proc Powder Burns+Blinding Smoke with Hand Mortar, now he's On the Edge and surviving enemies are Sneak/Deathblow enabled... then switch to Fire in the Hole and boom, Thunderous Report. End of encounter. Add +% beneficial effect duration items/food for optimal use. Note that you can probably also increase dmg recived on your toon with the Pally and Ranger +% dmg inflicted abilities if you Confuse them but that becomes very complicated to pull off .

Sorry I mixed up with Recall of agony for Pain link, so it is good! I try something like that one time, maybe after reading your topic few month ago (I think), and I use on top Wahai Poraga (Counterattack). I first place I feld disapointed because the damage from that is not logged, but that secretely work and stack with pain link. I didnt reach a +165 or +180% multiplier but that was efficient : you seems to be an easy target for ennemies and all want to hit you, and finally take damages from themself! I didnt continued in this way because he needed a BDD priest all the time.

I finished Ys 9 almost a month ago. Great game and as with all the Ys games, you don't have to play the prior games to understand what's going on. Then I replayed the Witcher. And then the Witcher 2. And now I'm on the Witcher 3. I think the first is my favorite despite all the problems.