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Summoning Reaping Knives on someone change his weapon set to the knives, but there is a way to alter that : After the Reaping Knives are summoned, the "target" cant change his weapons but can change his form : Spiritshifting or drinking a Potion of the Fearless Brute is allowed. When the form effect expire, the target return to his weapon set , and have as beneficial effect "reaping knives". The effect is now different : 5 focus per hit. Multi-hits weapons generate quickly the focus for the caster, and with Hemmorhaging 's Effort, every hit from spell generate now 5 focus too. Weapons like Keeper of the Flame or WotEP can "focus-back" 10 focus per hit, the area of effect is generating only for 1 hit. This is a little tweak since I personally never used Reaping Knives for the focus back, but against Boss or whatever that can be useful.

The best way to illuminate a room (Skaen's Challenge) seems to, with a Shared Nightmare cipher, trigger one or two seals from the Weyc's Wand, and right away switch to Effort (with Avenging Storm, Vithrack Silk Slippers, Ring of Clenched Muscles, etc). I took a picture (between two lightnings) : The cipher have 9 might but it is enought ..

You're making me want to pick up deadfire again, every time I visit this forum.

I agree, maybe in that order: SoF/Cabalist Gambeson because all you need is to grab on of these items (very easy/no fight required) and get to the point where you have Vanishing Strike or Temporal Cocoon then you've basically won the game. (cherry on the cheesecake: Deltro's helm for a 100000% lash) Effort + Avenging Storm trick because it is incredibly and hilariously powerful but you need to grab Effort (not a walk in the park). Grimoire Imprint, I personally love this and it can lead to hilarious combos, but it's much more effective and convenient with hirelings (while the other 2 tricks are as effective fully solo, except the Deltro ping-pong lash trick). Now of course, you could also use all 3 tricks at the same time, make a little video and maybe pin it at the top of the Obsidian Board, share with the Dev and title it: Deadfire: a definitive guide to how developers intended that you play the game.

I'm pretty sure they are all oversights. Designers put a lot of Effort (pun intended) into balancing the game - and those things are obscure and do break the balance. Look at Chilling Grave proccing Avenging Storm, generating focus and such wild stuff. The other cases are just not as savage in their effect as Hemorrhaging is - when explored properly. Engoliero's Blade Feast and Twin Eels' heal only work on kill - which is much harder to stack and chain as crits - and they can't go into a self-feeding loop. They don't lead to chain-reactions. Thus they maybe didn't really push devs to fixing them in the past but were just left in the game - because other stuff was more pressing until the patch cycle ended. Also those other cases don't count as "melee" weapon attacks but just as spell-like weapon attacks as you said. That even puts a fat cherry on top of Hemorrhaging. It's oversight-ception. Leonardo DiCaprio putting an oversight into an oversight while devs were dozing a bit. I think this is the most gamebreaking "unintendedness" we've ever seen (besides Strand of Favor/Cabalist's Gambeson trick and Grimoire Imprint exploit maybe). Really cool stuff - but way too good and way too gamebreaking to be fun to play for a longer time, at least for me in a party. Maybe cool for a cheeky solo run or for loling at devs while doing the Ultimate Challenge.

Btw, I'm 53 now. I was still in my (late) 30's when I first started showing up in this forum. How bizarre. ...y'know how I didn't quite shave my head earlier this year? It's all maybe 4 inches long now. I think it grew back way more grey than before. I became used to not having to "take care" of hair and it's super annoying having to consider it again. I may buzz it off again in early summer.

please recall how quick we got accustomed to a new normal post 9/11, and the truth is a follow-up terrorist attack were far less likely than is a large venue event becoming a super spreader situation. three thousand died 9/11. total. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us according to a stanford study, trump rallies alone 'tween late june and late september o' 2020 (just three months) resulted in at least 700 deaths. tell people how similar to new airport security changes they need be hours early to gain entry to a large venue event so they may be rapid tested and need provide proof of vaccination? no entry w/o proof o' both? hardly a forehead stamp, eh? would people have complained? sure, but if were a nonpolitical recommendation from cdc and got backing from virtual all political leaders on both sides o' the aisles, people woulda' gotten acclimated to such changes fast... and such stuff woulda' been far less intrusive than the patriot act which most americans went along with absent much criticism. try and tell us what people won't do or will resist doing ignores what they has done during past epidemics and specific recognizing how passive people went forward with far more serious changes post 9/11. mask mandates? *insert eye roll* covid-19 has been different 'cause skeevy politicians made different and 'cause some people keep excusing what were done for no reason other than political opportunism. HA! Good Fun! ps am also just fine with going obvious and not doing large venue with fans present, particular indoors, at least until we get decent antivirals and a few more people vaccinated.

Yeah, I tried to keep Reaping Knives with Draining Touch and Minor Blights - like I did with Llengrath's Great Sword. Sadly Reaping Knives will still disappear. But I didn't notice that the new weapon that replaced the r-knives will retain the r-knives' focus harvesting effect.

Yes, Eothas seems not to be a problem. He cheat when he use Dialogue instead of fight.

Oh I didn't see that, damn. You know, for the Frostfall Dispersed Suffering on any weapon kill, that mean an huge rise of Hostiles effects durations with many summons and one Thunderous Report (from 13s to 64s Mental Binding effect), when Frostfall is in main other hand. It is painless than a confused skeletons-chain-killer.

Brilliant departure does apply the stun effect, but only when no damage are dealed (including DoT). This is like I wrote : as long the invisibility stay, the target is stunned with only the casting of 1 CC spell (when the ennemy is under the effect of Entropy)!

i at least have the honesty to admit my flaws, i don't use the virus as an excuse to jump on the moral high ground and act like i'm better than the others.

I'm thinking about the "legitimity" of the find : because this is not an isolated case, since there are at less also Cruel Blade, Blade Feast (Engoliero do Espirs), Rock Blunt (Sungrazer) and Breath of Life (Twin Eels) that work on spells, it seems that is not a mistake from developpers (we are at version 5.0). Excepted this ones are not melee

Even My Business-School Students Have Doubts About Capitalism

Wahai Poraga can be fixed by editing the "Duration" of AttackPulsedAOEComponent to 0.1 and then increasing "NumHits" to 3.(coz base code means primary target +2. However, 3 additional target is bit too strong IMO since AOE inherit effects of all "primary attack, full attack" abilities) This way, it will works as described.

no worries, my non-english skills are terrible. take it as a complement - the interaction you found with hemorrhaging seems so potentially zany, that i had a real hard time believing it at first, at least the way i was beginning to understand it

A Trickster with Effort, Mask of the Grotto Deep, Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak, Ring of Clenched Muscle, Scroll of Avenging Storm, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and Vanishing Strike : I captured the screen env. 1 or 2 sec after attacking with Vanishing Strike. Without the Mask of the Grotto Deep and Avenging Storm but only Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak and Effort, a Wizard can Stun as long he stay under the effect of Arkemyr's Brilliant departure an enemy that was before prepared by Entropy, with an unique CC spell. It is really funny

..the white cat at around 1:52...I can't even, lol.

Well, as I've probably said in various ways before, I'm not sure I'm an adult even now, despite what it says on any gov. records. I've never had a career-path type of job but I worked lots of retail and had my own housecleaning "business" (just self-contractor, basically, with a full-time number of clients I'd scrounged up) until I was in my late 20's. After that it was occasional part-time or single-job tasks, then it became "retired." In retail I was apparently smart enough or likable enough managers/owners kept wanting to promote me and send me to management ... classes? training? ... but I'd always say no thank you. I learned I do not deal well with certain types of stress triggers (depression/suicidal tendencies back then) and also had a few terrible employer/co-worker "me too" type experiences, and thus most of my life has been about studiously avoiding putting myself in situations where such stress triggers or situations could occur.

This thread is widely based on the data from [MECHANICS] Power level compilation thread from @thelee, but I aimed to deal with specific cases that diverge from general rules, and possibly discuss about how to correct the most annoying exceptions. Basically, there are 4 kinds of scaling : A - Scaling from weapon quality (Unarmed Scaling is close enough to belong here, even if it has a couple differences). +1 PEN, +15% additive damages and about +4 Acc per quality level. B - PL scaling from Weapon Attack Abilities such as Rogue Strikes. 5% multiplicative damages and duration for each PL above Ability Tier. C - Intrinsic non Weapon Attack Ability Scaling, purely based on Ability Tier. For Each Tier above 1, the ability gets +2 Acc and +0.5 PEN. D - PL scaling from non Weapon Attack Abilities. 5% multiplicative damages and duration, +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN for each PL above Ability Tier. Also +1 bounce and +1 projectile for each 2 PL above ability Tier. So : - An Auto attack will get A so it keeps up with enemy defences. - A Weapon Attack Ability will get A and B so it keeps up with enemy defences and get benefits from PL. - A non Weapon Attack Ability will get C and D so it keeps up with enemy defences and gets benefits from PL. The A, B, C, D values are balanced so that all abilities scale about the same. The benefits from A+B are roughly equivalent to C+D. (It doesn't mean A is equivalent to C and B to D ; D provides strictly more benefits than C). All the above would be great design (and for most part is) if not for some exceptions... So here we go. 1) Passive Abilities don't benefit from PL Apart for a couple of specific case (Carnage and Sneak Attack), Passive Abilities don't get scaling from PL as Active Abilities, even for similar effect. They do get scaling from their Ability Tier. So they get scaling C, but not D, making them subpar especially for Accuracy and PEN. For example, rooting pain gets +1.5 PEN and +6 Acc for being a Tier IV ability... but nothing more. => Note that Balance Polishing Mode address this, giving +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN and +5% multiplicative damages per PL to all class passives. I didn't add +5% multiplicative duration because Passive abilities can be applied repeatedly, so I considered they didn't need it. 2) Non-Attack Weapon Abilities get double Scaling All weapon based abilities are not "attack" as Rogue Strikes are. But all of them benefit from Weapon Scaling. The problem is that their Acc and PEN scales as if they didn't... Active Weapon based abilities which are not "attacks" benefit from Weapon scaling (A), intrinsic ability tier scaling (C) and PL scaling (D). Basically, they scale a lot. According to my testing, following abilities are concerned : - Heart of Fury - Whirling Strikes (BPM removed Accuracy and PEN component by accident) - Whispers of the Winds (gasp) - Swift Flurry - CP version of Forbidden Fist - Cleaving Stance Following abilities are NOT concerned : - Clear Out and Upgrades (they are Weapon attack + an AoE attack, that's why the main target is hit twice...) - Flagellant Path and Upgrades (they are implemented in their own specific way) - Furious Call (same as Flagellant Path) - Heartseeker (also implemented in its own specific way) To give numbers Heart of Fury with a legendary weapon and PL 10 gets : - +4 PEN, +60% damages, +15 Acc from Legendary - +3.5 PEN, +16 Acc for being a Tier 8 ability - +0.5 PEN, +2 Acc, +10% multiplicative damages from PL scaling So yeah, that's +8 PEN !!! Passive Weapon based abilities which are not "attacks" benefit from Weapon scaling (A) and intrinsic ability tier scaling (C). They don't get (D) from PL because Passive Abilities don't get benefit from PL... According to my testing, following abilities are concerned : - Riposte - Barbaric Retaliation - Heartbeat Drumming - Vengeful Defeat This leads to undocumented and above average PEN and Acc. 3) About Unique items (general case, refer below for weapons) All the previous also applies to Unique Items abilities, with following specifities : - Most abilities from items counts as Tier 1 abilties, so they don't get any benefit from C - Items use "untyped Power Level", a Power Level that doesn't depend on Class / Multi-Class. All lvl 20 characters have 9 untyped power level. Single Class may have a little edge, but only due to Prestige. Only untyped PL bonus can rise this number (Potion of Elevation, Nature Godlike, etc...) Active abilties from items do get scaling D for PL (sometimes B for Weapon attacks). Basically, they don't scale too bad. Passive abilties from non weapon items get absolutely no scaling. Their PEN is set in stone, their damages are meh and their Acc is about 10 points lower than active abilities at max level. For example, the PEN of Boltcatchers electricity attacks is always 7. I think this should be addressed, as for class passive abilities. 4) About Unique Weapons The funny thing is that unique weapons also get scaled based on weapon quality (scaling A). Passive abilties (such as Frostseeker's Garland Rake) get only scaling A which is decent. Active abilties which are weapon attacks (such as Mowdyr's Bottom Up) get scaling A and B which is... the same as other Weapon Attack abilties. Active abilties which are not weapon attacks (such as Frostseeker's Garland Breath) get both scaling A and D (a bit like abilties from point 2) ). Which is a lot. That's why Thunderous Report deals so many damages with so high Acc and PEN. This is possibly a bit strong, but since Passive bonuses are often more interesting than Per Rest / Per Encounter abilties for weapons, I think it is mostly fine. Don't hesitate to correct me if you spot any inconsistency !

My jobs in this community: 1) Post about weird, obscure, niche games that few, if any, other forum members will care about 2) Also specifically dislike Larian and Bioware writing 3) Hate on Bethesda developed games 4) Post as many screenies as possible to keep the Pictures of Your Games threads from getting overwhelmed by Mordheim Troubleshooter screenies 5) Attempt to convert as many lost souls to the Church of the Eurojank RPG as possible so that they may also share in the glory. Have you heard the great news?

aside: if bill gates did have a plan from the last century to kill more than five million people by virus and his predictions were so precise he somehow knew that the omicron variant o' said virus would be causing global concern, then am thinking we should just be done with it and declare him Emperor o' The World, 'cause that is the kinda mad sooper genius you need murdering for you as 'posed to looking at you as a potential future victim. HA! Good Fun!

So, everyone has their role in a community, right? My jobs are: 1) Post Mordheim screenshots 2) Rant about the lie that is the theory of two extremes, as best illustrated in "moral dilemmas" such as the choice between NCR and Caesar's Legion 3) Generally dislike writing in games as well as tedious design choices 4) Specifically dislike Larian and Bioware writing 5) Post Mordheim screenshots. Admittedly, I have not been posting too many Mordheim screenshots. Mainly because I have not really found much that I haven't screenshotted before.

interesting post. i don't think i've ever really tried to quantify how i or the game value resources, but i have an intuitive sense of what resources "ought" to be. i think you're probably right in terms of how the game values it, but in terms of "ought" (since the topic of balancing is brough tup): i think of costs more intuitively where 1 martial resource = "cantrip/plentiful", 2 martial resource = "sparing and powerful", 3 martial resource = "rare and encounter-changing." i call them cantrips because by mid game encounters, just using 1-cost martial abilities pretty much last you the encounter for regular (non-spammy) use, like frenzy, disciplined barrage, barbarian yell, crippling strike. 2 martial resources eat up your resources twice as fast and suffer from significant opportunity cost as a result, so they should be used sparingly but should have major impact. 3 martial resources should be very very powerful to be worth the cost. so, i guess my equivalency probably views tiers 1-3 as "ought" to be 1, and then 4-9 as "ought" to be 2, and only special exceptions for 3. in this respect i find a lot of abilities stupidly overcosted (barbarian blow doesn't seem like a powerful-enough ability, paladin light of pure zeal at 5 lolwtf*, barbarian's robust at 3 not worth it until you can bring the cost down, rogue ring the bell doesn't earn its 2, the imbue: missiles at 2, etc.) there are occasional undercosted abilities, especially with how one upgrades martial abilities (if i paid 3 for dazing shout i'd probably still be happy). this also effects how casters compare and their resource equivalency - most of their spells i would consider to be equivalent to 2, with exceptions for a few spells at 3 (some tier 8/9 spells). i don't know if that really adds much to the discussion, but just my .02 * i think the game designers also tried for consideration to consider uses/encounter, and is the only reason i can think of that ability being so expensive, so that you're limited to twice/encounter. but unlike poe's per-encounter abilities, there's a huge opportunity cost, so in practice it just seems like a lot to give up.

Consider what happens when you go SC Skald, cast Upgraded Eld Nary + Sasha Empowered Eld Nary + Eld Nary + Eld Nary all 4 in a row. And then reflection happens.

'cause bill gates believes he is actual a member o' batman's or the flash's rogues gallery and as such he were compelled by his special brand o' crazy to leave clues about his evil scheme two decades in advance via a french game developer's mostly forgotten product. as an aside, if it weren't for david bowie's contribution, we would have had no idea what you were talking 'bout. HA! Good Fun!

Maybe you simply require quality.

I had hair halfway down my back once upon a time. Those days are long gone. Thanks, male pattern baldness! On the plus side, being bald is low maintenance.

^ Probably said before but longest my hair ever was, was about the small of my back. A little higher than the hipline I guess. But another factor of (my) aging is hair brittle and thinning. The density of hairs per inch. Mine used to be flat but super dense and my brushes would be almost clean of hair/breakage was minimal and my clothes/pillows etc. would never have hair on them. Now I seem to be shedding all that extra density like a cat in summer. So far it's ok because it was so extra dense to begin with, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll be egg-bald when I'm 70.

Viral Video Of Royal Guard Plowing Into Young Kid Sparks Debate - Comic Sands

Cat Physics Lesson Newton’s Laws of Motion as applied to Cats and Kittens By John Mollan © 2022 1. A cat at rest remains at rest, and a kitten in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force such as a can opener or a laser beam. 2. The acceleration of a cat depends on the level of curiosity. 3. Whenever a cat or kitten exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite on the first which results in the other object to be knocked onto the floor.

perhaps amusing is a couple years past we mighta' suggested the above piece were likely edited to make republicans look worse than they is. no, is not as if we were thinking mr. o'sullivan would fake interviews, but if you interview a few dozen people and four o' 'em are loons, then it wouldn't shock us if the loons were figured more prominent than they deserved to be. is also ez to take a single observation or statement outta context. we recognize media bias and am actual ok with it. is hardly strange that reporters and news organizations got beliefs which color their opinions same as does the rest o' us. has never been some kinda rule that all news must be dispassionate reported. put your big boy pants on when watching or reading news and realize there is likely gonna be some level o' skew. the problem for us is in our conversations with living and breathing conservatives over the past few years, we have increasingly witnessed the kinda insanity visible in the above video clip. we live in a community which had most neighbors (overwhelming most) vote for trump. not all is antivaxxers, not even most, but is too many who do embrace such insanity and they seem to believe that their particular brand o' denialism and self-harm is actual the majority pov o' their neighbors. if your neighbors is polite and don't call you out on your antivaxx wackiness, these folks take instead as agreement. the more disturbing aspect is how frequent we hear tucker carlson nonsense come outta the mouths o' our neighbors. fbi were behind januar6? okie dokie. is also the weird and quixotic stated belief that blm and antifa were behind january 6 badness, but that for the most part january 6 were just a peaceful protest which is overblown and exaggerated by the media... which is weird views to try and square simultaneous, no? regardless, is increasing difficult to find what we think o' as traditional conservatives, or at least is difficult to find those who is willing to say anything contrary to the current narrative o' crazy which has taken hold o' the gop. cnn and mr. sullivan most assured do not need work hard or selective edit to make republicans as a whole look unhinged. HA! Good Fun! ps just so is clear, am not thinking most republicans is unhinged, but all too many are willing to embrace the insanity or are at least refusing to reject the crazy in their party. many o' our republican neighbors is retired military, far more than national average. when the rittenhouse stuff were big news, those retired military men were tending to agree that kyle's behavior were not reasonable and definitely not laudable, but when they were in a group with other republicans parroting fox news, those military guys became noticeable and uncharacteristic taciturn. if you listen only to the loudest republican voices, is gonna be ez to see 'em all as unhinged, which is fair but perhaps not as accurate as you might believe.

And that work also with your technic : Concelhaut's Draining Touch remove the first Reaping slot

'Twas the night before my resignation...

It was sad to hear that. Football was just more enjoyable back then.

tl;dw - Ryzen 6000 mobile APUs with Zen 3+ 6nm and RDNA2.

I also saw the new Matrix which I actually liked. The action sucked and the story was a mess but something about it worked for me.

Thanks to @Powerotti for the template. The Boomer is named as such because he hits enemies so hard they literally explode. The combination of an extremely high crit chance with tons of crit and damage multipliers will make most of your hits crit, and finishing enemies with Barbaric Smash will pretty much guarantee a crit (150~200 damage each blow) making enemies go boom. So you better like seeing the kill cam trigger, because you will be seeing it a lot. After my first playthrough I tried this one again but with more optimized stats and Berath's Blessings, and even not using the most minmax character possible, because I was playing an Aumaua to continue my PoE1 story, this build is by far the strongest one I tried. It got so strong in fact that I was unable to play other DPS character because they felt underwhelming in comparison. It is very simple to play: Open fights with Rakhan boots in such a way that you get in the middle of the enemies to get flanked, then use crippling strike and finish with Smash. Very few enemies in the game can survive this and after downing a few enemies the rest will have taken enough Carnage damage so that you can finish them off right away with Smash. All of your Barbarian resources are pretty much to reactivate Frenzy. When flanked, always activate weapon modals that increase damage, it'll barely reduce your attack speed. This is specially strong with Axes. This build on later levels has very high survivability as a combination of around 700 HP (With Berath's Bless), AR of 16 with Pallegina using Aura + Shining Bulwark, healing every time you down an enemy or crit and damage reduction. Very high HP means that when you get bloodied, you will be bloodied for a long time before needing to heal. Extremely high PEN too, because of Frenzy + Crits. Difficulty: PotD v. 5.0 Solo: No - low deflection and healing that depends on crits make it too dangerous. Also, self-inflicting damage. Class: Berserker/Streetfighter Race: Human or Orlan Background: Deadfire Archipelago or White that Wends Party: Herald Pallegina, Scout Maia, Wizard Aloth and Priest Xoti. Import from PoE1: Gift from the Machine + Sacrifice Devil of Caroc Attributes: Might - 11 (10 if Orlan) Constitution - 18 base Dexterity - 18 base Perception - 18 base Intellect - 10 base Resolve - 4 base Equipment: Head: Thaos' Headdress - Combo with Persistent Distraction Back: Champion's Cape - Import a character to get it or ask someone for a save Neck: Precognition or Charm of Bones Armor: Devil of Caroc Breastplate - Enchant with Devil's due and Mechanical Mind Waist: The Undying Burden Hands: Hylea's Talons - More damage, why not? Rings: Ring of Prosperity's Fortune and Voidward - Crits and protection against Frenzy Boots: Rakhan Field Boots - Per encounter ability that works as teleport + full attack + AoE debuff Pet: Abraham Weapon: Modwyr + Magran's Favor - +40% attack speed, 20% lash on each, DoT, per encounter ability and immunity to confused. Also, always keep Half-Sword on, since your deflection sucks anyway, for permanent +2 PEN. Switch to Grave Calling or Stalker's Patience when fighting vessels or enemies with low piercing defense. Food: Captain's Banquet or Mohorā Wraps Prostitute bonus: Konstanten Abilities: Barbarian: Thick skinned, Blood Storm, Bloodlust, Bloody slaughter, Blooded, Barbaric Smash, Interrupting blows, Unflinching, Blood Thirst, Brute Force. - The only downside here is not using One Stands Alone, since you want to get Flanked as much as possible, so the fewer enemies needed the better. Rogue: Escape, Crippling Strike, Confounding Blind, Dirty fighting, Devastating Blow, Persistent Distraction, Deep Wounds, Deathblows. - Confounding Blind is used against bosses and enemies with very high deflection. Crippling Strike is enough against the rest. Other: Two Weapon style, Improved critical, Uncanny Luck, Tough.

Preamble – Why Warlock? Edit: I forgot to mention this guide is intended for Real Time with Pause mode. I haven't tried it in turn-based, but judging from the way action speed works in that mode, it's not going to perform as smoothly. Over the last few months, I’ve been condensing ideas on Warlock into a guide. Berserker/Wizard has been my favorite multi-class since Deadfire launched over a year ago and I hope this guide highlights its strengths while providing options for the player to tailor it to their preference. Warlock is a powerhouse multiclass, which offers solid damage through both martial and melee abilities, and superb flexibility via grimoires, Action Speed bonuses, and Berserker Frenzy (a wonderfully consolidated set of effects we’ll get into momentarily). It’s also pretty resilient with Barbarian passives and Illusion and Enchanting spells filling in defensive gaps. For me, the biggest allure is in the multi’s presentation and synergy: bursting down front-liners with a Fireball and then speeding through the gibs, axes unleashed, towards a hapless wizard; Leaping into a cluster of disabled, clumped foes followed up with Torrent of Flame; tagging a mid-liner with Ninagauth’s Death Ray and running havoc throughout the battlefield. There’s a lot of cool tricks you can pull off with this one, and at ~80 hours using the combo, I’m still finding new ways to play it. Warlock has a few caveats worth mentioning before committing to the multiclass, most of which stem from Berserker’s Frenzy variant, which confuses, damages, and obscures the user’s health while active. Countering these negative effects regularly can be a bit daunting for new players. The specific build I’m covering in this guide centers on Burn damage, which is ineffective in some areas of the game and can be a hassle in PoTD. There’re a few ways to build an effective Warlock from either side of the aisle: you could, for example, load up on Wizard buffs and go to town with Citzal’s Spirit Lance and Combusting Wounds or devote your rotations to casting with enhanced PEN and speed. This guide will focus on a hybrid of melee and magic (Berserker/Evoker) to capitalize on both classes’ strengths – and of course, the fiery flavor and fun of playing a character who teeters between scholar and savage. Berserker/X Berserker is our go-to Barbarian subclass for its Frenzy bonuses to PEN and AR (+2 each) and bonus Hit-to-Crit conversion (30%) with melee and Carnage attacks. Berserker Frenzy has a couple drawbacks, which are easy for a Wizard to counteract - we’ll get to that in the abilities section. For Wizard, the choices are obvious: basic Wizard, Blood Mage or Evoker. Here’s a few considerations: A generalist Wizard gains access to Combusting Wounds, which when combined with the character’s out-of-this-world Action Speed and Carnage, can deliver a lot of damage packets in quick succession. Pull of Eora is a fantastic tool for clustering enemies, and with the Upright Captain’s Belt, you can jump right into the fray. Personally, I’d rather stick these abilities on an ally so the Warlock can stay devoted to dealing damage. Admittedly, I haven’t gone on a full Blood Mage Warlock run yet but there’s some nice benefits here, particularly in longer battles, if you can handle the randomness and micro-management. You’d have to be careful with this option: Berserker Frenzy already ticks down your health, and the -15 penalty to all defenses vs Bloodied opponents can be rough on a front-liner; since this build centers on Wizard buffs, the sacrifice effect may end up recharging unwanted spell tiers. Overall, I think this can be a great option with enough attentiveness. Having completed the game on PoTD/upscaling with both Berserker/Evoker and /Wizard, I prefer Evoker for its raw PL bonus (+2) to Evocation-type spells and 15 percent chance to echo those spells (meaning more opportunities to quickly trigger Bloodlust and Blood Thirst!). Evoker’s 10 percent recovery penalty to Illusion and Enchanting spells is moot when (most) buffs from those schools have little to no recovery anyways. The subclass also loses out on Transmutation and Conjuration spells, limiting its utility somewhat. Evoker loses access to Citzal’s Spirit Lance: a powerful summoned weapon that, while not integral in this guide, is something to consider when building a Warlock. Insofar as progression goes, the Berserker/Evoker starts off strong and bursts out of the gate around level 7. Around the mid-levels it plateaus for a time before returning at level 19 when Blood Thirst and PL7 spells become available. Acquiring critical equipment pieces early on can be a huge help. One more thing: I use mods from time to time, and I generally play with a modded PoTD that changes enemy AR from +2 to +1 and defenses from +15 to +8 along with Deadly Deadfire to balance those tweaks. When applicable, I’ll recommend a mod to make the experience a touch smoother. Races Human and Death Godlike are natural picks if you decide to pick up Blooded and/or utilize Salvation of Time/Barring Death’s Door shenanigans. Both provide bonuses while under low health. Pale Elf is a good option for its extra AR versus Freeze and Burn damage. The Freeze bonus is especially nice if you want your Warlock to use unique leather armor (Miscreant’s Leathers, Fleshmender) since that armor class suffers a Freeze AR penalty. Nature Godlike offers an additional +1PL (we’ll be stacking a lot of these) while under Wellspring of Life. Warlock features all three Body inspirations. Mountain Dwarf, Coastal Aumaua, and Wood Elf respectively bring resistances to CON, STR, and DEX afflictions, and will prevent tier 1 afflictions: useful for keeping your buffs operational. These choices aren’t bad, but I feel Unflinching and/or resistance-enchanted items somewhat lessens their value. Starting Attributes I don’t like to min-max. Feel free to adjust these to your preference. RES is roundly considered a dump stat and defensive Illusion spells should make up for the loss. MIG: 12 (14 BB) (+1 Gift from the Machine, +1 Potion of Mataru’s Strength) Remember the self-damage from Berserker Frenzy will increase along with your MIG so we’ll keep it a little on the low side early on. If you don’t use BB and/or GFTM stats and/or dump RES, I’d recommend starting with 14 base. CON: 12 (14 BB) DEX: 15 (17 BB) (+1 Effigy’s Resentment: Devil of Caroc) PER: 15 (17 BB) INT: 15 (17 BB) RES: 8 (10 BB) Gift from the Machine (+1 MIG, +5% Health) Effigy’s Resentment: Devil of Caroc (+1 DEX, +1 PEN with weapons versus Kith) Skills Active: Athletics (major), others for party assist Passive: Any I like placing 10 points in Athletics and dole a few into Arcana for RP. Investing two points into Mechanics and Stealth for party assist is helpful, too. The passive skill is what you want to make of it. I prefer Intimidate for the aggressive RP and synergy with Casita Samita’s Legacy. History’s a fine choice for the Giftbearer’s Cloth. Culture and Background: Again, pick this based on your RP preference. I’m fond of Mercenary or Dissident. Gear Our gear choices will largely depend on how the party is filled out. Typically, we want effects that increase our PLs and spell damage. Weapons The Magran’s Favor and Sun and Moon combo has been talked about to death, and unsurprisingly, it fits a Warlock. Both are Legendary quality by default, saving you precious materials. Magran’s Favor (Battle Axe) Burning Burst: +15% melee damage as Burn, weapon kills deal AoE Burn damage Blazing Core: +2 Fire PL, 15% of weapon Burn damage heals wielder Sun and Moon (Flail) Celestial Attunement (Day): +2 Fire PL during daylight hours Solar Excellence: 5% chance to repeat attacks after 0.5 sec with Fire attacks Golden Sun (Eothas): 25% Burn damage from weapon heals wielder Other choice weapons include Modwyr (immunity to INT afflictions), Slayer’s Claw (upgrades Tenacious into Energized, adding interrupts to weapon crits), Griffin’s Blade (+10% spell damage), and other assorted uniques you’ll find along the way. Amira’s Wing is an odd bird with a Wilting Wind per-rest cast. It’s a powerful spell for sure but it doesn’t seem to work with Doublecast (the spell is “activated” instead of “cast”). I’d pick it up for flavor since it’s a PL8 ability and Raw damage is always welcome. Head Horns of the Bleak Mother: +1 PER, resistance to RES afflictions (nice versus drakes and dragons), and +10 accuracy versus Beasts (great against cats, which have high Reflex or boars/bears and Fortitude) Thaos’ Headdress: +1 INT, +5 Will versus Mind afflictions in a 5m radius, +5 Accuracy and +10% damage (universal) against flanked enemies. This is the ideal piece since we’ll want to use PER afflictions to lower enemy defenses. Neck Wise Teeth Necklace: +1 INT, +1 History, +1 Insight Dragon Pendant: a DoT Fan of Flames and +1 to Slash and Burn AR Strand of Favor: get a little more juice (10%) out of your long-lasting buffs, -10% negative effect duration, +1 INT Elewys’ Locket and Charm of Bones include INT bonuses (+1 and +2) and 10 +ACC against spirits and vessels. Torso Casita Samita’s Legacy is my favorite armor for this build. I enjoy the extra Deflection with Intimidate, and the bonus (+5) to Will. It’s aesthetically pleasing, too. The Devil of Caroc Breastplate boasts resistance to INT afflictions, so it counters Frenzy’s Confused right out of the gate. It also offers -10% armor recovery, +2 Rage, and defensive reactive effects. It’s a superb choice if you have it in your world state. Miscreant’s Leathers and Fleshmender are both solid. Remember to increase your Freeze AR per leather armor’s inborn penalty. I haven’t tried it, but Contender’s Armor alleviates some recovery penalty based on Athletics. Cape Greater Deflection/Protection: +7 Deflection/+10 Protection Giftbearer’s Cloth: +1 Weapon and Quick Slot: ok for an extra slot for Amira’s Wing; Protection effect scales with History skill. Rekvu’s Scorched Cloak is an interesting choice that heals you for 10% of the Burn damage you would’ve taken so long as you have an injury. It has a niche appeal. Nemnok’s Cape is always there for Blooded/Fighting Spirit and Salvation of Time hijinks. Trinket Sea Weathered Grimoire Ninagauth’s Teachings Zandethus’ Dragon-Scale Grimoire Gloves Firethrower’s Gloves. Spend those Berath’s Blessings on the Port Maje vendor and grab these as soon as you can; never let go. Plus 2 DEX, 1 Arcana, and 1 Evocations is too good to pass up. Rings The Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC with Fire abilities) is a no-brainer. Make sure to swap it out before fighting enemies with high Burn AR. Voidward grants a 25% reduction in raw damage and +2 Corrode AR: useful for reducing Frenzy’s self-damage. Kuaru’s Prize: +5% damage with spells, +1 PER, +1 INT. Belt Upright Captain’s Belt: Another piece you’ll want to stick on and never remove. This one grants immunity to push and pull effects: outstanding when coupled with Pull of Eora and a good defense against Vine Lurkers and the like. The +1 CON and Concentration mesh well with the build. Boots Boots of the Stone: Unflinching devalues the boots’ resistance versus MIG afflictions slightly but it’s nice to have that effect unconditionally. The +1 Dex and +1 Resolve are alright. Pathfinder’s Boots: +5 Reflex, +1 DEX, +1 Athletics. Rahkan Field Boots: Offers a nice bursty teleport complete with a Full Attack; +2 Corrode AR. Pets Nalvi: +1 RES, party-wide armor recovery reduction Abraham: Single armor recovery reduction, party healing on kill Epsilon: Single armor recovery reduction, +10% party stride Otto Starcat: +1 PEN with Fire abilities, +5% Food Remember that food doesn’t stack with active effects and this multi has a wide spread of them. Look for bonuses to healing received, spell damage, AoE, and INT. Quick Slots You’ll want to use your quick slots on grimoires and the occasional scroll if you invest in Arcana. Glue some high tier healing potions to your last slot; antidotes are valuable versus dank spores and xaurip skirmishers. Abilities Before going into abilities, it’s important to consider which grimoires we’ll use and how they will veer our ability choices. Grimoires are flexible and for this build will be used solely for offensive spells. While there’s nothing wrong with choosing offensive spells on level up, I’d recommend picking universal buffs and swapping grimoires depending on the combat situation: you don’t want to be stuck with Fireballs against the Rathun. Our Barbarian points will be devoted to shoring up the multi’s speed, melee damage, and survivability; Wizard points will be allocated to buffs and offensive passives. With this foreknowledge in mind, the early experience can be a bit ropey and will largely be spent buffing and auto-attacking with an occasional Fan of Flames or Minoletta’s Minor Missiles tossed in. The starting tome, Weathered Grimoire, provides a few Evocations that’ll get us through Port Maje. I’d strongly recommend beelining to Neketaka and picking up our first important grimoire, Ninagauth’s Teachings, as soon as possible. Ninagauth’s will be our go-to book for most of the game since it’s packed with Evocations. Later, we can experiment with Zandethus’ Dragon-Scale Grimoire and Zandethus’ Draconic Fury (PL7), which add a PBAoE and unique offensive enchantment to the mix. It’s a bit expensive early on and I’d recommend holding off on this until at least level 13 when Torrent of Flame unlocks. Note that almost every spell in this tome is Burn-based (and many aren’t Evocations) and plan accordingly. Abilities PL0 As a Barbarian, we’ll gain access to Carnage, which applies a Raw-type AoE damage when hitting or critting an enemy with a melee attack, based on the amount of damage inflicted. The damage isn’t stellar, but it counts as a damage packet, meaning it will trigger stuff like Combusting Wounds. Evoker gives us +2 to PL with Evocation-keyworded spells along with the Doublecast passive, which adds a 15% chance to echo (recast) an Evocation spell after 0.3 seconds. Note that the effect triggers when the spell is cast and has no bearing on how many enemies are hit: it’s echoed all or nothing. Spells that channel such as Ninagauth’s Death Ray will simply be re-applied, though this can be useful if the first missed or grazed. Doublecast is unwieldly but when it triggers at just the right time it can quickly change the flow of battle, offering more opportunities for Barbarian passives to come online. PL1 – Starting Abilities Barbarian: Frenzy (Berserker) is the keystone of our build, providing a +25% bonus to Action Speed, Tenacious (+5 MIG, +2 PEN), Hardy (+5 CON, +2 AR), and a 30% hit-to-crit chance with melee attacks. The latter bonus is often dismissed when playing Warlock but I’m fond of sweeping up near dead enemies with melee attacks and Carnage so to each their own. On the downside, Frenzy reduces the user’s deflection by 10 so positioning off to the side or behind enemies is important, especially early on; Illusion spells and effects from party members can make up the difference. Berserker’s version of Frenzy adds more penalties, which should be addressed before we continue this guide. While under Frenzy (Berserker), the character suffers raw self-damage over time and their health is obscured (numeric values are replaced by question marks and the portrait is blanketed in fire). As I mentioned in the stats section, the self-damage on Berserker Frenzy is governed by MIG and PL. Balancing these modifiers to maintain powerful damage while keeping yourself alive can be tricky so pay close attention to the character’s well-being. There’s a couple ways to circumvent the Health concealment component by keeping an eye on the UI: the color of the question mark representing current Health (green->yellow->orange->dark red); effects that trigger at 50 percent Health (Bloodied, Fighting Spirit, Llengrath’s Safeguard); and auto-pause. The unique ring Voidward reduces raw damage taken by 25 percent. Berserker Frenzy’s worst impediment (at least in non-cheese builds) is its built-in Confused affliction, which lowers INT by 5 and forces all abilities to target friend and foe. As you can guess, this is a big no-no! There’s many ways to prevent or remove this effect (Modwyr sword, Devil of Caroc armor, luminous lobster/Captain’s Banquets/Wael’s Wind, Svef) and you should experiment with them to your liking. Ophiuchus prefers using the spell Infuse with Vital Essence, accessed at level 4 - feel free to wallop boars and wurms and ignore Eder’s complaints. Wizard: Pick Fleet Feet for the Quick Inspiration (+5 Dex and +100% movement speed) and +20 Defense while disengaging. Both effects will help you reposition during battle and rush to enemy back-liners. Fleet Feet lasts a solid 30 seconds by default, making it longer lasting (though weaker) than Barbarian’s Wild Sprint. PL1 Our choices here are limited but the full suite Frenzy provides makes up for this lackluster PL. Pick up Blooded (+25% damage while Bloodied or Near Death; works with spells) on the Barbarian side and a Wizard spell. I’d recommend Spirit Shield (+3 AR, Concentration) early on, then maybe dump it for Fast Runner (+15% Stride, +5 defense vs Disengagement attacks). Barbaric Yell (AoE Shaken for 20 seconds base) is a decent ability early on that can also be swapped out later. Eldritch Aim confers the Aware inspiration (+5 Per, 50% grazes-to-hits) but doesn’t last very long; I’d rather have a friendly Priest with Dire Blessing. Grimoire: Fleet Feet is something we’ll want on all the time and longer fights might require two casts. As a PL1 ability, Fan of Flames scales nicely with PL, and being a conal AoE, makes it a good choice for a multi that can reposition quickly and take some hits up close. PL2 PL2 is where we start to delve into core physical mechanics with Barbarian and finally gain a spell to counteract Frenzy’s Confusion. I’d pick up staples Two-Weapon Style (-15% Recovery Time while dual-wielding) and Thick Skinned for a passive +1 AR versus physical types of damage. I like using Crushing Blow as a flashy melee finisher but the nerf to full attacks while duel wielding sours it and it requires a two-point ability investment to be decent. I use Deadfire Tweaks to change Barbaric Blow’s Rage cost from 2 to 1, making it closer to equivalent martial attacks. By default, Accurate Carnage is not so hot (+5 to Carnage ACC), but Deadfire Tweaks improves the ability, changing it to +8 Accuracy, +15% Area of Effect, and +10% damage. It’s a change that adds value to a bland passive without being overpowered. For our solitary Wizard point, we’ll roll with Infuse with Vital Essence, which bestows the Fit (+5 CON) and Smart (+5 INT) inspirations. We take this spell to counter-act Berserker Frenzy’s Confused status and increase our opening buffing sequence. Cast Infuse, followed by Fleet Feet, a defensive spell (if needed), and Frenzy to get the most value out of the short-lived INT bonus. You can also follow up Frenzy with a second Infuse to increase the AoE of your Evocations and Carnage. This buff chain is easy to set up in the AI manager. Grimoire: Infuse with Vital Essence will typically be the only spell we cast at this level. Versus trash encounters, and when positioned correctly, Ray of Fire is an alright Evocation that allows us to attack or cast other spells while it ticks (superb when paired with Combusting Wounds). If you use an alternate means to prevent Confusion, pick up Mirrored Image for added Deflection. PL3 Power level 3 is where the meat of Berserker/Evoker comes together with core passives and spells. One Stands Alone (+20% melee damage when next to two enemies, +1 enemies needed to flank) and Bloody Slaughter (20% hits-to-crits and +50% crit damage versus foes Near Death) adds some oomph to our mop up. Bloodlust (+20% Action Speed for 10 base seconds on enemy kill) is a key ability in this build for obvious reasons. Defensive passives Combat Focus (1 Concentration) and Bull’s Will (+10 Will) are there if you want them. Llengrath’s Displaced Image is an alright choice for a time, but you’ll probably want to save those casts for your offensive grimoire. Grimoire: Fireball is one of our core damage dealers. It’s a simple spell with no real tricks or conditions. Have your party lower enemy Reflex (DEX and PER afflictions, Flail modal) and AR (Expose Vulnerabilities, The Shield Cracks) for maximum effect. Disabling enemy movement (tanking, Immobilize, Pull of Eora) is critical. Ninagauth’s Death Ray, exclusive to Ninagauth’s Teachings, is a stellar option when fighting heavy armored enemies as the beam deals Raw damage. Functionally, it works like a foe-only Ray of Fire: anchor it on a target and use good positioning to hit a cluster of foes. This one targets Fortitude so come prepared (MIG and CON afflictions, Morning Star modal). You can use Minoletta’s Bounding Missiles (found in your starter Weathered Grimoire) for situations where Burn damage is ineffective. Admittedly, I haven’t tried this one in a while so I can’t vouch its effectiveness in 5.0. PL4 This power level doesn’t offer a huge leap forward and is more focused on utility and defense. Spirit Frenzy adds a buff to all attacks (weapons, spells, scrolls, explosives, you name it) that inflicts Staggered (-5 MIG, can’t engage): a useful, easily accessible tool for lowering Fortitude. Unflinching grants resistances to all three Body afflictions if the Warlock’s health is at 51% or above: useful for freeing up equipment slots and preventing Tenacious, Hardy, and Quick from being dispelled by tier 1 afflictions. This is the one time we’ll pick an Evocation while leveling up and choose Minoletta’s Concussive Missiles. Ninagauth’s single Evocation at this spell level is Shadowflame and (later) Zandethus’ only offers Flame Shield (an ok ability that gels with Fire and Evocation PLs but you typically don’t want to get hit). At end game, with bonuses to Evocation PLs, this spell will fire six crush-based, AoE projectiles. Scion of Flame is a must for +1 PEN to Fire abilities. Spell Shaping is alright, but I’d only use it with the Deadfire Combat Tweaks mod. Grimoire: Ninagauth’s Shadowflame is the big Evocation here, and while it doesn’t measure up to its predecessor in PoE 1, its extra range and bonus Stun Paralyze effect are decent. Plus, it looks cool so who can argue with that? It’s a slow spell so consider casting it while under Bloodlust and Blood Thirst. PL5 PL5 is bland compared to others. I’d allocate most of these points to older PL abilities. Tough (+2 hp per level; +40 hp at level 20) is always welcome. Leap is a long-range teleport and Daze source. Its Rage cost (2) and hefty recovery time make it ineffective as a consistent mobility tool but it’s nice to have in a pinch. Leaping into a CCed group of enemies and following with Torrent of Flame is good fun. Grimoire: Speaking of Torrent of Flame, this is a spicy damaging spell nestled in both of our key grimoires. It synergizes well with Warlock’s good positioning through Fleet Feet and Leap: engage melee enemies with a tank, cluster casters and archers with an allied Pull of Eora, lay down some Reflex-lowering effects, and cast this tough customer between both groups. And if Doublecast triggers? Whoo boy. Zandethus’ contains Llengrath’s Safeguard: an amazing defensive spell that knocks back nearby foes and increases all defenses by 20 and AR by 5 when the user drops to 50 percent Health. It’s a fun one to mix into spell and attack rotations, especially with Blooded, Fighting Spirit, and the like. PL6 PL6 is also a bit lackluster for our build and we can use these levels on early abilities. Improved Critical is a +10% boost to crit damage, which applies to all sources. The Community Patch mod alters this value to 15, which is a welcome change. I haven’t tried Minoletta’s Piercing Burst much. It functions like Torrent of Flame but deals Pierce damage instead of Burn and has a high base PEN at 15. I’d slot it if you have a spare ability point. Arcane Reflection from Zandethus’. It’s not great but we don’t have much to work with at this PL. PL7 Now we’re in the final stretch. Thanks for staying with me. PL7 is where Warlock’s greatness really begins the shine. Was it worth the wait? That’s up to you. Blood Thirst is the ultimate ability in our arsenal. After killing a foe, the character receives a temporary buff that completely waves recovery on the next action. This power bestows us with huge momentum, allowing us to quickly breach through enemy groups. While Blood Thirst is active, make sure to gauge your options carefully: using a 0 Recovery buff will eat it the same as 3 second Torrent of Flame. Blood Thirst comes late in the game, so I hope you own Deadfire’s fine DLC trilogy: you want enough content left to experience its greatness. Pick up Accurate Empower (+10 ACC on empowered ability) to supercharge your arcane arsenal. An empowered, Doublecast Fireball is a thing of beauty. Grimoire: After a lull in Evocations, our offensive magic returns full swing with two Evocations and a spicy Enchantment. Delayed Fireball doesn’t get a lot of love for good reasons but when used under Stealth, it can be chained with a normal Fireball for a quick spike (have your tank start combat so you’re nice and buffed). Rarely, this combo can Doublecast, resulting in four Fireballs. It’s fun but niche and is included in both Ninagauth’s and Zandethus’. Ninagauth’s Killing Bolt, as you can ascertain, is contained in Ninagauth’s. It dishes out high raw damage to a single target, and if the foe is killed, summons an allied Spectre. The shadowy bolt is a nice flavor spell for Warlock and synergizes with our on-kill effects. Be aware that it targets Fortitude. Lastly, we have Zandethus’ Draconic Fury, which empowers our physical attacks: something we haven’t focused on in a while. It adds a +15% Burning and Slash Lash to melee and a nebulous chance to inflict Terrify when an enemy melee attacks the caster. Unlike our other buffs, this Enchantment has a hefty base recovery at 4.5. I’d recommend working it into your buff sequence (Infuse -> Fleet Feet -> Fury -> Frenzy) while Stealthed. Party Comp Considerations For party members, I suggest: A tank with high reflex and good engagement. Built sturdy enough, it can withstand your Warlock’s offensive salvo. Bonus points if it’s a Paladin with Shared Flames (Burn lashes on your spells, which also apply to Doublecasts!). Double bonus points if it’s a Herald with Fyr’s Burn lash (weapons only, though). A good tank should also be able to soak incoming Arcane Dampeners from enemy Wizards. A healer that can support the Warlock when the going gets rough. This build has fair Athletics but doesn’t use Stalwart Defiance or its upgrades. Herald is a natural. Priest is worthwhile for Dire Blessing, Barring Death’s Door, Salvation of Time, and a slew of other abilities. A single class Wizard or Blood Mage is superb at crowd control and lowering enemy defenses: Miasma of Dull-Mindedness, Expose Vulnerabilities, and both Reflex afflictions through Chill Fog/Curse of Blackened Sight and Ghost Blades/Curse of the Adragan. Like I mentioned throughout this guide, Combusting Wounds and Pull of Eora add a great deal of value. Tekehu can serve a similar purpose as a Druid/Chanter. Close I didn’t intend to be so verbose, but I ended up subclassing as Nalpazca while writing and just went with it. You dig? Groodalicious. Thanks for reading. I hope this guide has been totally copashesy.

Meet Elaina: Class: War Caller: Devoted (Sabers or Swords. I highly recommend sabers) / Troubadour or Herald: Pladain Kind Wayfarer/ Troubadour. Introduction: Why I cover both? Because they are built pretty much the same and work simillar. The difference is Fighter covers AOE damage at cost of spending resources a lot, while Paladin has cheap resources and single target damage potential and lack of AOE but you are pretty much immortal with Lay on Hands, Greater Lay On Hands and White Flames FoD. Both pretty much can reach insanse Defense ratings (though Paladin with have better Deflection) and damage. Paladin carry better early game while Fighter carry better late game when you have that Mob Stance + Charge. Why Troubadour?- with high INT and normal chanting you can linger chants pretty much premanent and have two effects all the time on you. Which is great to combo offensive + defensive chant or 2 healing ones etc. With Brisk Recitation Turn on - you can still cast 2 healing chants and be tanky or one offensive or defensive ability (like Mith Fyr or Her Courage) and gaining Phrases at rate no other Chanter can. Even Sklad -1 cost to offensive chants fall later in game when you get 1 Phrase every 3 sec on Brisket Recitation on. He is also thanks to that most flexible- you can stack buffs or spam invocations faster- just adapt to what you need. Why these Multiclasses? They combine very well damage, control, summoning (very helpful on solo) and tankiness. Troubadour is great for melee class and gave me that nice "Sword Singer" roleplay feeling for my sexy elf. Build: Stats: I went with Might 18, Dex 9 (10), Per 17 (18), Con 6, INT 18, Resolve 7. Reason for that being: Hight Might for high healing and damage. Perception for accuracy + seeing traps, low con because so much healing I didn't care, High INT because Linger on Chanter and buffs duration. Low Resolve because it doesn't really help that much. CC spells/abilities are worse enemy than damage. Race: Pale Elf - pure for roleplay reason. You can go Moon Goldlike for War Caller for additional healing early game or for Nature Godlik for +2 Power for both or Human for early game procing of Fighting Spirit. Both builds are so tanky you can pick whatever race you want and have a great fun with it. Skills: I invested in Althetics for high Second Wind healing (especially on War Caller it was useful) and in History for that sweet stacking bonus to all defensives from The Giftbearer's Cloth (Unique Cloak) which gives +5 to all defenses apart from Deflection and stacks with History. Equipment: I aimed at everything that lowers Recovery if possible and boost damage/defenses or give some nice effects for solo. With Devoted I was quite restricted to Sabers but Paladin could get some good combos with weapons. Helemet: Fair Favor - 15% Hits to Crit and 20% more Crit Damage with Sabers, Rapiers, Daggers, Silletos and Sword. Belt: Undying Burden: +1 Athletics (good), grants another Second Wind (double super heal!), and reduce incoming damage by 10% and stack the lower your HP is up to 30%. On top of that +2 CON. Amulet: anything that gives +1/2 Intellect. Armor: Devil of Caroc breastplate- offers great balance between protection and recovery. Gives -20% Recovery (leave it at 15% Revovery only instead of 35%), +2 Max Power Pool (so +2 Resources), Short Health regen and depending on how you enchant it: resistant to CON, DEX and MIGHT Afflictions or INT, PER and RES afflictions. I went with first as DEX afflictions are imo worst and for INT I can always equip Modwyr if needed. Also I wont lie- I went for look too :D :D Tip: If you want to go for heavier armors make sure to grab Armored Grace from Fighter passives (give -25% recovery on heavy armors) Rings: Ring of the Solitary Wonderer: -35% duration to enemy effects on you when you solo and Entonia Signet Ring = +3 to all defenses (stacks 5 times) = +15 to all defenses. Cloak: The Giftbearer's Cloth as mentioned earlier stacks defenses with History skill. Super strong. If you feel you lack Deflection you can either go Deflection Cloak + Grabbing Superior Deflection from Fighter Passives. On Paladin you totally don't need that :D Hands: Gatecrashers. +2 Might, 50% Chance for Knockdown. Got later a few more but I was strong enough I didn't bother to swap.... For Fighter you may want Bracers of Greater Deflection as they give +7 Deflection which is something our Fighter has lower than Paldin. Pet: I went with extra 15% Healing done and healing on kill (Cat Pet I belive). Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka (+1 cast with Priest spell- useless, but +2 Dex and 15% more Healing done). Weapons: For War Caller (Devoted/Troubadour) I went with those in the end: It gave me stacking Accuracy and Crit Chance with hits. NOW HERE IS BIG THING: BLADE CASCADE ON SCOREDO SABER: It's 10% Chance on Hit to ignore Recovery for 0.0 sec. HOWEVER - this is base duration and it scales with INT. So for me on 20/21 INT it was 4.4 SEC!!! Enough to make 4-5 Charges without any Recovery. And it procs (as all effect on HIT) with Charge and Cleave, so the more people you hit, the more chance you have to proc it. This is absolutely best saber for Devoted in game. Ignoring Recovery is just OP. Every "Effect on Hit" is procing per one hit- so Full attack with two weapons proc it two times, so Charge being full attack will proc it two times per enemy hit. So if you have +2 Accuracy per hit and you Charge through 5 enemies that is +10 Accuracy after one charge. Cleave also being full attack around works the same. Same with +2% Crit Chance per Hit etc etc. So every effect on hit works best with Fighter due to Full Attacks on AOE. Hence why ALWAYS DUAL WIELD WITH FIGHTER. Also Sabers and Sword are safe because there is quite a lot of unique ones and you can get a lot of them early. Double Rapiers however are awesome (one is below) as second unique Rapier also gives -20% Action speed which combined with below rapier when facing 3 enemies at last gives -50% Recovery. But second rapier is later in game and Squid is expensive to buy. For Herald (Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour) I went more flexible combo as I was not limited by Devoted choice (However above sabres combo is still super strong for Herald, especialyl Scordeo Sword + Kapana Taga): This was great combo as Squid Gave me immunity to flanking (Kapana Taga also does it), and grants Attempted Parley which is -30% Recovery when threatened by at least 3 enemies. Which on solo is 99% of time. It also gives Evade. Kapana has huge Alpha damage and stacks 5% Melee Damage per enemy so for solo it also gave huge melee boost. Before I got Kapana I was running with Modwyr: Abilities- I will list most crucial abilities to pick for Fighter and Paladin and Troubadour. Rest you can change for what you like: Fighter: - Disciplined Barrage, because later we upgrade that to Disciplined Strikes (+ Concentration) which gives 15% Hits to Crit which stacks great with our Saber and Helmet - Two Weapon Style - Fighter Stances - Determination (very good defensive boost early in game, later you can swap that) - I thought Hold The Line is good, but since 99% of time there were much more enemies on me than two I went without it and grabbed Rapid Recovery which was good decision - Vigorous Defense (+Concentration) - +20 to all defenses... yes. - Charge - your main damage dealer since this point. - Mob Stance - this is where real fun begins :D - Refreshing Defense (good for saving resources) - For Level VII- whatever really. I took Power Strike for fun Paladin: - Lay on Hands - Retribution (works great on solo as you are constantly hit and combos well with Kapana - Sworn Enemy - Deep Faith (perma +21 to all defenses, just be nice to people) - Zealous Aura - Two Weapons Style - Sworn Rival - one of best, if marked enemy dies it returns cost, which pretty much means Sworn Rival is for free now. - Optional - You could grab Eternal Devotion for that 10% dmg lash, but 10% is really low. It combines well later with 15% from Mith Fyr though. But still till you get Mith Fyr 10% might not be worth it. - Combat Focus (Concestration is important, later about it) - Either Exalted Focus or Endurance. If you go Focus, grab also Uncanny Luck for +10% Hits to Crit which with Helemt will give you 25% Hits to Crit. If Endurance grab Practiced Healer for even more healing. Or get both. - Level VI skip (we are soon Level VII for Chanter so you don't anything here) - Level VII- Stoic Steel. With Paladin you stand a lot in middle of crowd. You are not mobile like Fighter. Troubadour: - Skeletons- they will serve you for long. They are great. - Soft Wind - one of your 2 healing sources from early to almost end game. - Optional: Dull Edge - it can be very useful on War Caller in early game. Most enemies you will face have either Slash or Pierce damage and this reduce that by 10 points which is very good. Just Linger it with Soft Wind. Not that necessary on Herald. - Level II - for War Caller take At The Sound of His Voice (Paralyze), it's good for maxing Cleave Stance crit chance vs group of enemies. For Paladin I strongly recommend this too but you should take White Worms. Since you have no AOE damage, but super strong single target burst- you can very fast create a corpse and use White Worms on it for AOE damage. Corpse does not dissapear after cast so you can use same corpse as many times as you want. You will need that AOE. Gernics Slew are absolutely phenomenal summons and you can switch Skeletons for them later if you want. I love having 3 small dragons with me :D - Level III, upgrade to Skeletons is good but only if you empower them (I always empower my summons) as they last long and once your big skeletons die and small skeletons will fight, you can cast skeletons again and it will Summon big ones but with small ones still fighting!. Grab Ancient Memory though for sure. Now those two together on Troubadour, no matter if in Linger (stronger healing as they stack) or in Brisk (weaker but still great), they will heal you a lot. - Level IV- Mith Fyr is good sekf buff chant. Also good is The Bridgeman Slew as with high INT you will have super long duration of this buff and works also on your summons. The Charm invocation The Lover Cried Out is not that long (around 13 seconds with 20 INT) but it's quite good as it allows you to have that extra "minion" on battlefield (or couple since it's cone attack) to distract enemies. But since you have summons it's not that necessary. But it's fun! Also very good Chant is The Silver Knights Shield as with Troubadour Linger when Combined with Mith Fyr it gives you perma +10 Deflection, +1 enemies engaged and 15% Burn Lash. Since with 20 INT they linger permanently you have both effect at once. - Level V- Nothing really good here, you can skip this and focus on other subclass on this Level. Her Courage chant works good with Troubadour as it gives you 10 dmg shield per 3 sec on Brisket Recitation however it doesn't really beat 2 healing Chants so it's not that good. Summoning Drake is fun but imo not worth over Skeletons or Wurms, Seven Nights is strong too (if you take it, ditch out White Worms for something else!). Since you should already be very tanky- just take what you find most fun. All 3 will work great. I took Seven Nights just for fun, but you can just skip it. - Level VI- Their Companion is ok (but cast is long) but not worth imo over The Bridgeman. Though +2 Penetration help your summons. Each Kill Fed His Fury is good upgrade. But again- you can also skip Level VI simillar to Level V if you don't find any good here. - Level VII- Mercy and Kindness chant is great. But most important here is Set to Their Purpouse as you can now recover 1 Resource per 3 sec, finally going full with your warrior/paladin abilities. - This is were you go full power of this multiclasses Just take it first! cast it and just Charge, Charge, Charge and use your fav invocations. You have to respec here to grab The Bridge Cought Their Ruse from Level V so you can take Set to Their Purpouse. You can take it earlier ofc but it's useless without it's Level VII upgrade. General Tips and Strategy: 1. Early game: focus on healing chant/chants going on in normal mode so they can linger on Fighter. Important thing: try to always Summon empowered skeletons/other summon at first. Empowered will last longer and be strong, usually long enough so you can clear a lot of enemies. Try to summon them little in front so they can either flank enemis in front or move to back to target casters/rangers. Also take your party members, rob them and then leave/kill them. On War Caller it's important to use Disclplied Strikes or Vig.Defenses before you start cast (or both if a lot of strong range enemies) this will give you 1 or 2 Concentration, enough to secure summoning. Sworn Enemy is also instant cast, so after that you have not recovery on next attack/action so always spam that once you have Sworn Rival. Whatever you attack, use Sworn Rival first as enemy death will get cost back anyway. Paladin is straight foward- heals on, aura on, tank and burst single enemy- white worms, rise repeat. Use Evade from Rapier to get to ranger/mage if needed. 2. Mid Game. Fighter once you get Cleave Stance and Charge- try to line enemies and target weakest one for innitial burst. Once you charge through them, check their HP and charge to the one who you have chacne to kill fast, this will trigget Cleave, which can maybe kill someone again and so on. Fighter is more resources Hungry, but Cleave helps so much in Speeding fights on solo. Penetration strike is useless waste of resources imo, better ignore it. It's more important to keep Disciplined Strikes up or use Charge. Paladin- nothing is changed here. You tank, burst single target, cast AOE dmg invocation to help your-self and tank all day. You are pretty much immortal. With Giftbearer's Cloth + High History + Paladin Passive or Fighter Vig. Defenses you can reach sky-high defenses and be pretty much untouchable by CC and effect (and Lone Wonderer Ring will cut any hostile durations by 35%). On Paladin I also recommend grabbing Modwyr as fast as possible. With Summons it should not be a problem. Then go to Pirate Island on North West and talk to Y-something woman and tell your sword you love it/want it to stay etc. and you have super strong sword. Combine that early with Sowrd of Yenwood and you are good to go. 3. Troubadour Chants and invocaton usage: Generally I start every combat with popping Concentration (or 2) on Fighter and that is why I took Combat Focus on Paladin- I summon empowered summons. If you use Sasha's Sabre and enchanted it to give you back full Phrases after empowering invocation (you should) you can then follow up with Paralyze to set up higher chance for damage, give yourself some room or just get to crucial target. Try to Summon little in front of you so you can either direct summon on range enemies or on back of melee enemies that engaged you. Of course you can go full offensive way with Troubadour and ignore other invocations, but on PotD solo enemies can interrupt you quite a lot so all invocations with casting time have a risk of being cut. You can also totally ignore all invocation (but take summons!) and just go full chants for debuffs/buffs. As for Chants- if you use Sasha's I usually start on normal linger mode to stack healing in case I face greater burst then I thought. Since after summoning empowered allies I have phrases back I can then cast some other important invocation. After that if I see that I don't take too much dmg I switch to Brisk Recitation to get Phrases faster while maintaining 2 healing Chants or 1 other Chant, like defensive one - Her Courage (don't use it without Brisk) or offensive one- Mith Fyr. You can brisk Her Courage with Mith Fyr as usually when you recover you should have Her Courage up and when you attack- Mith Fyr. 4. Late Game - You can just go Mith Fyr, Set to Their Purpose and Anihilate enemies with Charge+Cleve on Fighter. Or just run Old Siec as Chant for life leech + Mercy. Paladin will sadly slow down here a lot vs War Caller but you can still spam FoD all the time with Set to Their Purpouse on so no big deal Overall both are grat Sword Singer classes. Solo was enjoyable and there was a lot of fun with Chantas, Summons, Invocations and melee fights. Also both does not require certain race, though if you feel you struggle with War Caller a lot a Moonlike might be good option. Hope this will help some people