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Nice reading Bruce! I don't know the specific book, but Enid Blytons "The Famous Five" books were something I loved, growing up. The four kids and their dog going on all kinds of adventures, helping a young mind escaping the limitations of the physical world and go to various places of the imagination. Had the very same "red" D&D basic rule book too Good to see, that circumstances didn't completely block your access to things that interested you

I just want Obsidian to know that I prefer Pillars of Eternity 2. World building, lore, setting, immersion, atmosphere, ect. But also dialogue choices, attitudes (aggressive, clever, ect), ect. Only combat is superior in Larian's game. Even exploration is better in Pillars of Eternity, because the game world feels like a world and not a tabletop board. This is just my opinion and I just want Obsidian to know about it. Love you, bye!

's an authentic BruceVC post all right.

Right now we're in the eye of the storm so it's calm and it looks like the rebound isn't going to be too much. All things considered the very intense thunderstorm we had two months ago did more damage to the area I'm in. There's still a chance of flooding so I'm hunkering down for the day. Good opportunity to watch a movie or finally start my Lich run.

Fascinating! The Famous Five books were the first books I started reading for myself, as opposed to having my father or grandfather read them to me. Prolly when I was four or five years old.

I'm technically, what, youth of nineties, but I'm somehow not nostalgic for majority of its music, as for eighties, methinks its music is only slightly less goofy than its fashion. Seventies and sixties are my decades through and through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faraway_Tree There are a whole series of fantasy books based on the Faraway Tree theme and these books were written from 1939-1951, I had forgotten how much they had influenced my love of fantasy because I had assumed it had started with the Steve Jackson books but when I was thinking about the blog and my journey I realized it had started much earlier. I didnt read these books myself so that was what had created my original love of fantasy And that red box D&D image, I will never forget it

Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your journey into gaming. It's intriguing to see how our reading interests lay the groundwork for our digital inclinations. The recurring theme of the power of storytelling is striking, as it not only motivates us to engage in gaming but also to connect with and remain loyal to exceptional storytellers

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with the game, setting etc. They just ****ed up the marketing.

"Where did it start? How did it start? These are questions I asked myself when I made this post. The question being “my love of fantasy and fantasy RPG PC games? And why not Sci-fi, why fantasy as my favourite genre?" For me it was the late 1970’s, I was young and don’t remember much but I do remember my dad reading to us Enid Blyton’s “The Magic Faraway Tree” and that’s where it started. I was absolutely enthralled and mesmerized by this idea of a tree and portals that led to incredible and fantastic lands. You never knew what creatures they were going to meet or what place they were going to discover and my love for fantasy only grew from there. In the 1980s I also started collecting comics with Conan being my favourite and to this day I still RP my characters in RPG on Conan’s personality and world views. Basically, Chaotic Good but someone who helps the downtrodden, wanting wealth and never saying NO to a damsel in distress. It was also in the 1980’s where I started playing the very popular and loved Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone books and I was given my first D&D Red Box ruleset with that indelible image of a fighter and dragon and a new world opened up to me. The world of tabletop RPG. I still consider D&D ruleset and the various D&D fantasy worlds my overall favourite because that’s where my journey on RPG really started. Due to Apartheid sanctions, we had limited access to general fantasy paraphernalia and goods, but my dad was an investment banker and he travelled 3-4 times a year to the UK and sometimes the US and he would buy us things we couldn’t get in South Africa. But we were generally behind in IT and the advancement and creation of the PC, and this included Internet access and connectivity speeds. I used to read Dragon magazine and they had these adverts and stories about games called Ultima, Wizardry and Might and Magic and I always wondered “it looks and sounds amazing … imagine an RPG on a computer.” But in the late 1980’s that started ending because Apartheid was ending and suddenly people had PC at their homes and that meant PC gaming was also coming to South Africa. And in 1989 at my uncle’s house was the first time I saw a PC game and it was one of the classic Sierra games, Kings Quest 1. The PC had monochrome graphics and was incredibly basic, but I still was blown away by the concepts and how you needed to type actions to advance the game like “open door” or “push witch into fire “ . It was a life changing experience and my love, enjoyment and passion for PC gaming never ended from that moment like my love of general fantasy. I stopped gaming from 1995-2007 because of RL responsibilities and I was travelling overseas a lot, but I bought my first real gaming machine in 2007 and PC gaming has been an active hobby of mine since then. I play many different genres like action or RTS games, but fantasy RPG are still my preferred choice and it’s because of my childhood connection to the Magic Faraway Tree books. The idea of what waits behind that door, what lives in that ancient temple, what strange beasts await me are still the most exciting design themes of RPG that I treasure and appreciate. And Obsidian has created many games that align with my core expectations of what I want to experience in playing any RPG. These 3 Obsidian games are all in my top 10 of “best RPG of all time “and it’s tough to think of a top 10 or 20 list because there are so many excellent games out there. Lots of competition which is a good thing for gaming. NWN2: MoB: Brilliant D&D setting with an exciting and fascinating narrative that takes you on this epic journey to the Planes with memorable and interesting characters and companions. I love the entire NWN2 series, but this expansion was my favourite with the whole Spirit Eater curse and then the choices you need to make about the Wall of Faithless Fallout:NV: It’s my favourite third person\first person Fallout game outside the first 2 isometric games. I love open world and sandbox games and I like the concept of exploring anywhere you want and F:NV provides that reality. I had the single most appreciated moment in F:NV and that is the most appreciated of any game I have ever played. To get to NV I didn’t go directly and went through small regions and areas of interest, and I remember I reached a point where I was wounded with no ammunition, and I was being chased by brutal and indefatigable Deathclaws. I had a sniper companion who bravely stood his ground and died while I fled. But the Deathclaws continued to pursue me, and it was night and then I went around a corner and saw something … incredible bright lights on the horizon. I had reached NV finally and I was saved. I have never been so relieved in any game to find my destination as that single experience. PoE2: I thought Obsidian created a fun and worthy alternative to standard D&D ruleset and the whole PoE mechanics worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the overarching and depth of the narrative, the lore of the game world, the companions were interesting, and I appreciated the whole naval exploration of islands and open world design PoE2 created. So, in closing its easy to support Obsidian and love their games because Obsidian is not just a name of a company, it’s a world-builder and creator of so many games that resonate with me and the mystery and allure of The Magic Faraway Tree from my childhood.

Yes. You can probably make that a yes for any third person action (adventure/rpg) game with soulslike in its description. Unless you're religiously opposed to gamepads I really recommend finding out whether you like the hand and finger breaking PS-style controllers or the proper ones, and picking one up you like. Some of them can be a bit pricey, but there's plenty of good ones that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

I think playing Souls with a keyboard and mouse will feel very unintuitive. I would recommend picking up a controller - some games just play so much better with it. I don’t have time to check it right now. But Mortismal tends to play all games with k&m. Probably have something to say about Elden ring I that regard.

So I was one of the people who genuinely enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 even in its near-launch state, and thought that despite its issues, it was one of the best games of the year. Today, I finally started the Phantom Liberty expansion, and I now hate Cyberpunk 2077. Platforming, long linear sequences where you can't save, mandatory boss fights... yeah, it's made pretty much the worst first impression possible. Any pretense of it being an RPG are gone, and it's just moving from set piece to set piece in a completely unreactive way like I imagine Call of Duty does - with the caveat I've never played Call of Duty. It's a complete genre-shift into a genre I outright despise.

It tells about Russians that fight against Russia, it focus on group called Karelian team, which claims that they are willing to fight to separate eastern Karelia from Russia, which is interesting for Finland ad Russia (Soviet Union) conquered Eastern Karelia from Finland in WW2. Writer of the article tells that there are little knowledge about Karelian team and some say iy is Russian psyop in order to find disloyal people, then article moves to interview of man they call Dante who says they are part of Karelia team. In interview Dante tells that Karelia team is currently doing operations in Belgrod area for Ukraine. He says that they do operations mainly during nights and they are lightly armed and fast moving with good night vision gear. He then tells Karelia team wants independence for Eastern Karelia and team welcoms all finno ugric and nordic russsians that want freedom from Russia. There are couple pictures of Dante which show his gear and him holding Eastern Karelian flag from time when it was part of Finland.

Im about 15-18 hours into F:NV and its been the incredible and predicted positive experience that I knew it was going to be The mods I loaded from Viva NV and other additional mods seem to have created the ideal wasteland experience for me And as usual I must talk about MO2 and how it helped with troubleshooting because you typically experience most mods conflicts in the first 2-4 hours and once you fix them the problem is resolved Firstly I noticed immediately that Doc Mitchell had the pink mesh problems around his character and that was related to the Fallout Character Overhaul https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/54460 So I did some troubleshooting from the mod Nexus page and everything seemed fine but then I realized I had made a mistake with this mod and I had installed a hotfix with the " Replace" option and not the " Merge" or " Rename " Merge should always be used for hotfixes because it just replaces similar files which is what you want, Replace deletes all assets and just uses the new ones and that meant my mod obviously wasn't installed properly because you need the original mod files with the hotfix. I then rechecked about 3-4 other mods and reinstalled them with the " Merge" That fixed my pink mesh problem. I then noticed I had a problem with circles in the sky and thats a known problem around Desert Natural Weathers and conflicts with other weather mods. But I was confused because the Desert Natural Weathers was the last ESM in right of MO2 but then I noticed that Realistic Wasteland Lighting was conflicting around meshes in the left side of MO2 so I just changed the order of Desert Natural Weathers on the left so it was lower than Realistic Wasteland Lighting and the problem was solved And then Im using mods like World of Pain which adds lots of new and fun quests like Vault 40 and the Harder Barter Faster Stronger which makes the overall economy and resources much more difficult and Im spending lots of time finding resources and being selective about what I can sell. It adds to the overall survival element of the game when money is always a factor The only thing Im " unhappy " about are my companions and how they too powerful and unbalance the dangers of combat. I loaded a mod that allows Companions to die in combat but I will keep the autoheal for companions after combat because I can live with that convenience and Stimpacks are in short supply anyway with the mod settings I use But great experience so far and modding has really improved the vanilla game

Now that I think about it and did some more research, I wonder if I should ditch the 'summoner' aspect and focus on the pet more... As strong as they are, I just don't like the animated weapons Wildrhymer would still be interesting, simply for the passive and active buffs and the indefinitely useable revive for the pet. I'd consider a more offensive pet for that A Waelite/Stalker could also be cool, strong self buffs and also heals and revives, albeit not infinite Geomancer I read a lot of good things about, and I'd still get a strong summon Seer (not Ghostheart as seems to be preferred on the webs) with strong ACC and stuff This game has far too many interesting class choices xD

I agree with Boeroer. Moreover Animated Weapons have self healing abilities and Drake can be "weak" against fire resistance enemies. But as a SC you have also one more weapon... I'm playing a Wildrhymer with mid M, low C/R and max D/I/P. If I went back I'd lower DEX and/or PER and would raise a little M, because you can enhance ACC in other way a part form PER and for casting speed you can count on Rapid Casting and Quick Summoning and as you said MIG is good for healing also than for damage.

A latest state of Russian economy from the quote of the head of Russian Central Bank, or whatever is the equivalent name of Russian FED

There are also some consumable which help deny recovery, i.e. Potion of Power and Potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and some eq, most of all Gauntlets of Swift Action.

Dolemite Is My Name was just crazy. That movie brought his name back on my radar instantly. Hadn't thought of him in like a million years before that.

Huh, so you're saying it was true to the novel.

Necromunda: Hired Gun has an achievement to kill 100 enemies while wallrunning. I don't think I have killed any enemies while wallrunning at all...

If you fall asleep during a movie, have you truly watched it? I think you have to go back and start over, .

In terms of overall usefulness no summon beats the Animated Weapons imo. They are not only fairly tanky and can spread out but also they each have several uses of special attacks (Pike: Knockdown, Warbow: Wounding Shot and Great Sword: Flames of Devotion) which adds a lot of offensive potential (for example more accuracy than a standard attack). The Dragon has one (or two) advantages: he is very tanky (huge health pool) and takes up a lot of ground space, blocking a big area. While his standard attack is weak, his active attack abilities (fire breath, tailswipe and so on) do scale very well with his high Power Level and thus have great effect. Only if you used them all up he starts to suck offensively. The second advantage is that a Dragon can profit from an Ancient Druid's "Wild Growth" spell. This is just hilarious: not only does it give the beast summon the Robust inspiration for the entire summoning duration (Wild Growth has no duration, it's basically permanent for that summon), making it even harder to kill - it also makes it bigger. You can imagine how cool an already huge Dragon can be if you enlarge him even further. What a mountain of an ally. He will block an enormous amount of space for you. This can be a disadvantage, too: if the space is verys limited he might get stuck. But usually it's very useful because he will occupy a lot of enemies with his big size. This also works with Drakes (all summoned beasts), but they are considerably weaker. If you like Wildrhymer I'd say Animated Weapons is good enough though. Also Many Lives Pass By (phrase on PL7) is accessible as multiclass. The automatically summoned Skeletons don't count towards the summoning limit and "stack" with other summons (and Animal Companion). So you can have Chanter summon + Animal Companion + Skeletons. A nice synergy of Chanter + Ranger is that you can revive the Animal Companion as often as you want with an invocation. So it's not the end of the world if the Animal Companion goes down early. It cannot get injured so it's as good as new after getting revived. My preferred multiclass for summoning is Troubadour/Psion because it can add lots of "temporary allies" (aka charmed/dominated enemies) to the collection of summons. Also both resources (phrases and Psion's focus) work the same for a Chanter/Psion and you will almost never run out of casting fuel (unless you get hit all the time which usually doesn't happen due to so many alternative weak cannon fodder targets).

Restoration and basic reformat of what was in the original post based on the Wayback capture. Replaced all the �s (Unicode unrecognised character) as best as I could based on context. Though I wasn't sure whether some or all of the Phases were supposed to be a bulletpointed or numbered lists so just went all bulletpoints. Otherwise, removed the "Ezboard" link as that service appears to be defunct.

I have right now 3 Modal Proficiencies active, but i dont use any of those weapons. I am double wielding pistols now, but the medium shield Block proficiency is staying. Very confusing, it is as if it gives me a bonus even if i don't have it. It seems to happen if you switch load out when activating and then it can never get deactivated. Can you please force the current effect to get removed when you don't have the correct item in hand?

All speed modifiers in the game except Dexterity only affect the recovery time (or -speed - depends how you look at it). Dexterity is the only thing that not only influences the recovery time but also the action (or animation) time. So giving +2 DEX does indeed help a bit with the recovery malus of armor. Not much, but it helps. Note that attribute bonuses on items do NOT stack (except if it's on weapons or shields). So an armor with +2 DEX and a Ring with +2 DEX will NOT lead to +4 DEX. The Fighter has a special ability called Armored Grace which does not influence the recovery time of the character directly but instead lowers the armor's recovery penalty. Besides that there's dual wielding (+ Two Weapon Style), speed weapons (they carry an enchantment called "speed") and some other effects that reduce recovery time. If you want to play around with those things a bit you can try out this tool: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator THere you can try out DEX, speed items and -abilities with all armors and see what effect they have on your attack and recovery times (in frames).

Who's the veep?

I've been thinking for a long time that Bleak Walkers... ahem... weren't the best subclass. They have a Tier 1 affliction, which is neat, but can be somehow negated (at least you can pick a helm that grants +10 Acc to all affliction inflicting attacks, or the Acid talent via multiclassing). But 12% lash ? Seriously, this is slightly too low. Not even 15%, I would qualify this value as a bit mean from the devs The effect is nice to optimize damages, but compared to what White Flames grants, it seems a bit underwhelming. I know Darcozzi could be seen as weaker, but putting some fire shield a bit everywhere is going to have a better effect on the long run. EDIT : considering a bit of additional scaling to Darcozzi fire shield.

I was goaded into watching a video by The Critical Drinker while writing my posts about Star Trek: Picard. It took about five minutes of him making a semi-decent point about why it is bad until he came to the conclusion it is because diversity and because that woman admiral was allowed to yell at Picard. I stopped watching and had YouTube never recommend me a video of his again. Picard was bad for a myriad of reasons, that old, cantankerous admiral yelling at him certainly was not one of them. Gee, unfriendly and unsympathetic female admirals in Star Trek, what a novelty. Must be this woke crap.

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" except instead it's just The Critical Drinker, Star Wars Theory and other YouTube "personalities" telling you that this is it, they're "done with Star Wars". Until the next video.

There is no Light Ironically, there was a special death animation for the area, where the spiders were not retrieving the MC's corpse. "Don't listen to him, listen to me instead". It might be not exactly the best line, but he spider had a point. One of the collectible side quests. Well, they have tried with the altered quote. Her axe kept winking at me. All cut-scenes (except the secret true ending) are shades of grey. Stylish. They had been trying to murder me throughout the area. Did not meet the creature that cast the shadow. The boss. The arena had purple poison activated. The jars were providing protection from it and had been introduced earlier in the area. Unlocked the bestiary. I couldn't shake the feeling that the writing was off. The rocks were possible to stand on, despite looking like a part of the background. A rather unpleasant boss battle - the boss had no windup for most attacks, so I was just hitting once and dodging, occasionally using the rage/special/ability attack. Got a shield from it, which I proceeded to ignore. The backers, I assume. And this boss battle was worse - the arena had pits and the boss was zipping around. Cute fox. Such a nice and welcoming place. One of the few areas with maps. Since there were 3 objectives, which I deduced from staring at the map, trying to explore blindly would be horrible. As is, it was just unpleasant. A pretty bird. Did not do anything and was not a boss. The actual character development system was unlocked by defeating bosses. There were 4 souls possible to equip at the same time, so while sprinting was convenient, higher damage and regeneration felt more important, and so, traversing settlements was always annoying. The final boss and ending. I used the attack speed + increased regeneration built and was mostly just eating the damage. Felt actually good.

Ghost Song The game is gorgeous. An early boss. Well, this I did not expect at that point. I realised only by late-game that these were the escape pods. The secret merchant probably was not wrong. The return runs were rather fun. Persuasion failed, I suppose. The first attempt did not go well - the boss' hitbox was ridiculously large (included the flail while just standing still and not attacking), while my melee weapon had a very limited range. Some lore spoilers. Happens. Tree stumps are good listeners, though. At least, she is not attacking anymore. The purple balls were not hostile and did not cause contact damage. One of the tankiest bosses. Took quite some time. Would high-five the murder bot at that point. End-game.

Cheesy build with old good tactics BBD + SoT + Brilliant but also a good RPG opportunity to play a death-focused character Hi all, this is my first build for PoeII Deadfire. I've written 3 builds for Poe1, then i switch do PoeII and... here it comes a build I played Poe1 with a Priest of Berath and I've wanted to import it in PoeII. This build started with RPG purposes of a God Killer in name of Berath, it ended with a cheese build which I was unawared at the start and I tried to "excuse" it with RPG reasons Initially I wanted to go multiclass Priest of Berath / Paladin (Bleak Walker), but you can't do that so I opted for a Priest of Berath / Corpse Eater Death Godlike. I like the idea of an ultimate/true/best herald of Berath, so 1. Priest of Berath, 2. Death Godlike, 3. a Corpse-eater in my mind fits well and I like Barbarian, so this is it I respeced and experimented many times through the run, so I'll do a resume of how I'd do the build now, after my run. First/mid levels I based much on Spiritual Weapon and Barbarian frenzy, late game it was Brilliant with Least Unstable Coil or Wit of Death's Herald plus Barring Death's Door plus Salvation of Time. For this build you have to choose some skills before having the equipment for Brilliant and then it is better to respec. I have tried to give this respec some RPG reasons (see Spoiler just below here). I like this build for RPG purpose, if you wanna go for power play go Berserker and Priest of Skaen/Magran Corpse-Eater have bad disavantages but sometimes with beasts, kith or wilders it can be better than Berserker. Ah, with a Corpse-Eater you can eat two Mega Bosses I hope you enjoy it Death Godlike Shaman (Corpse-Eater / Priest of Berath) - The "Ultimate Herald of Berath" "The only answer is «DEATH»." (Lorath philosophy) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Lorath PoTD/SOLO/ULTIMATE: YES - You can beat all contents, also all Mega Bosses Game Version: ver. 5.0.0.0040 with all FREE DLCs and all DLCs ("Beast of Winter", "Seeker, Slayer, Survivor" and "The Forgotten Sanctum" plus "Mega Boss Battles") Race: Godlike (+1 Dex, +1 Int) Subrace: Death (Death's Usher: +20% Damage against ≤ 25% health targets and Pallid Fate: +3 All Power Levels while Near Death (≤ 25% health)) Classes: Shaman - Corpse-Eater (+1 Intimidate, Survival, Athletics, Stealth and History) / Priest of Berath (+1 History, Religion, Arcana, Diplomacy and Alchemy) Culture: Old Vailia (+1 Int). In my mind Old Vailia fits well with Godlike birth and +1 Int is good Background: Mercenary (+1 Bluff, Diplomacy and Streetwise). He is a mercenary in the pay of Berath Pose: Sickly (this is super-very-ultra-mega-important! ;P) Berath's Blessing I have picked Infamous Past and Bonus Skills to maximize Intimidate, but it isn't so significant. --- Attributes: base (with permanent effects collected through the run) Mig: 15 (17 with Effigy's Resentment: Eder and Gift from The Machine) Con: 14 (14) Dex: 14 (15 as Godlike) Per: 10 (12 Savage Cunning and Cauldron Brew) Int: 14 (16 with Godlike and Background bonuses) Res: 8 I like distributed values and no values under 8 or 7, but this build can go with any attributes values. Early game it would be better more PER, but high CON helps. You can switch this two if you want. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skills score Intimidate With Infamous Captain (+3), Mercenary (+1), Barbarian (+1), Frostfur Mantle (+3), Chameleon's Touch (+1), Oil of Allure (+2), Luminous Adra Potion (+2), Berath's Blessing (+1) Marofeto Liano's Training (+1), Skipper's Stay Rest (+2) and Irwena's Mature Experience (+1) I have reached a score of 37 from 19 base. This means +14 deflection bonus from Casità Samelia's Legacy and -14 deflection debuff to enemy with Aretezzo's Cane. These are very good bonus but early game you don't have 19 points to use to Casità Samelia's Legacy give you 8/9 point of deflection (indeed very good) and late game it hard to have all rest and equip bonus for intimidate thus you achieve usually a -11/-12 deflection debuff for enemies (again, it is wonderful). Other skills During the run I always invested in Intimidate, a part for one or two respec for Survival and Athletics for passing some scripted interactions to access certain areas such as Boot-suck Bog and Whēnura Cleft. Moreover early game I give most importance to stealth and athletics, late game there's no actual need of active skills, I've tried to MAX Alchemy for potion duration and Arcana for some fun with high level scroll damage. Early game Mechanics is needed for sure to lockpicking locks and taking equipments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities Before having BDD + SoT + Brilliant Early game without cheesy combo and little equipment, you need some survivability and combat abilities. Level 1 Death's Usher (free) +20% Damage against ≤ 25% health targets. More damage is always good and when you kill an enemy, before or after it has to be less of 25% health Pallid Fate (free) +3 All Power Levels while Near Death (≤ 25% health). Synergies marvelously with BBD Flesh Communion (free) You can eat a dead kith, wilder or beast and gain +50 health and +3 of barbarian resources, at the cost of +1 rage cost of any active barbarian ability. Very great ability when you face kith, wilder and beast, escpecially large group where there are someone weak to kill and eat, absolutely bad with other groups of foes. Carnage (free) 33% of base weapon damage AoE when hitting. Good with 2 handed weapons, thus synergying with our preferred initial weapon and Berath spiritual weapon (great sword). Holy Radiance (free) Some healing, little burn damage, interrupt and shaken for vessels. It helps any encounter with a "free" healing and give a free strike with vessels, balancing out flesh communion that doesn't work with them. Touch of Rot (free) Great instant and DoT corrode damage, not large AoE but being a level one spell it is effective also late game gaining many power levels. I like it and corrode damage fits at the best with the character. Suppress Affliction I've picked "Blessing" to made up for not so high perception, if i restarted my run I'd take "Supress Affliction", because Blessing are not so effective late game and you have other ways to buff PER. Frenzy Between "Frenzy" and "Barbaric Yell", better the first. Weapon Proficiencies Great Sword ("Savage Attack"), obviously, and Morning Star ("Body Blows") which helps to land better Touch of Rot. Level 2 Blessing Helps our low PER. Level 3 Blooded +25% damage when Bloodied or Near Death, more chance of winning a combat in a last-ditch fight. Level 4 Holy Meditation (free) +5 RES and Concentration is very good early game and have a meaning also after that. Spiritual Weapon Good pick early till mid game when you take nice weapons as "Whispers of the Endless Paths". Two-Handed Style / Thick Skinned "Two-Handed Style" sinergizes with Priest Spell we are chosing. "Thick Skinned" if you whishes more defense. WP: Bleeding Cut (Battle Axe) We like raw damage and there are two nice two-handed battle axes in game. Level 5 Accurate Carnage More PEN for "Carnage" is good early for groups fighting. Level 6 Thick Skinned Sparing one active ability/spell and gaining passive AR during fights. Level 7 Spreading Plague (free) Can be useful for lowering Fortitude and enemy's health, but I haven't cast it very often even if third layer spell has no much to offer. One Stands Alone More effectiveness against large groups of monsters. Divine Mark / Dire Blessing / Consecratend Ground One great one-target-kill and also marvelous -25 deflection debuff even if enemy is burn resistant. Or "Dire Blessing" for Grazes-to-Hits convertion and more PER (but you have already "Blessing") or "Consecratend Ground" for healing (but you can use potions). Level 8 Bloodlust More speed is always a great thing and on kill effect suits with Lorath's role. WP: Defensive Strike (Quarterstaff) / Block (Medium Shield) Using our proficiencies for defense. "Quarterstaff" is also two-handed or if you prefer also "Block" is a great defensive modal. Level 9 Withdrawn Panic button and good evasive tactics: kill someone, retire from combat and start another fight with fewer enemies. Useful also after collecting source of DoT damage and waiting for death of enemy. Level 10 Divine Terror (free) Nice RPG-wise, not too bad, but not casted frequently by me because of "Devotions for the Faithful". Blood Frenzy We love raw damage. "Savage Defiance" is good but at this stage 4 Rage cost are too much for us. Devotions for the Faithful +4 might, +10 accuracy, and maybe -$ might -10 acuracy to enemies. Absolutely NO BRAINER. Level 11 Savage Defiance Armor rating, more health and healing help our defensive capabilities. High rage cost but you can cast it often against kith, wilders and beasts. Level 12 Spell Shaping / Spirit of Decay "Spell Shaping" aims to gain power level and therefore ACC, PEN and so on for our spells and it is relevant to more spells. If you like ToR and think "Spirit of Decay" suits Lorath better, go for it. WP: Binding Block (Small Shield) / Blast (Rod) "Binding Block" (Small Shield) for more ACC or also "Blast" (Rod) is nice if you prefer. Level 13 Rot Skulls (free) Underrated spell, you can do without it but as I said corrode damage for Berath is beatiful and it is an AoE ranged effect. A part from that, this tier you have BBD, so not many times of usage for it. Tough Increases survivability. "Interrupting Blows" can be replaced with "Baby Boar" pet. Barring Death's Door Before having SoT it is good with "Necklace of Fireballs": cast it, throw 4 fireball, recast (if you have 2 of it), don't care about your health, thrown others 4 fireball, combat is over many times If you want to be more in line with the character (or against burn-resistent foes) use it with consumables such as i.e. "Scroll of Wilting Wind" or raw damage scroll and a final "Withdraw". Level 14 Rapid Casting Speed can be fundamental in any encounter. Level 15 Uncanny Luck Underrated passive, it triggers sometimes and it can save your life more times that you think. Level 16 Salvation of Time (free) Eh. Same old good cheese: SoT + BDD + Brilliant. Game over (for the game). Always a must also before Brilliant to extend our buff duration. Brute Force As Corpse-Eater we prefer passives over actives and more accuracy sometimes is good for us. It is often helpful cause we have some ways to lower enemys' fortitude. It comes in play mor ofte than you can think, using Morning Star modal and/or "Spreading Plague". Improved Critical More damage. "Spiritual Ally" can be replaced with a figurine for the moment. WP: Piercing Blows (War Hammer) I like war hammers and they are nice with my PG, so I took it. Level 17 Farcasting Useful for landing ToR against distant wizards, for an example. Level 18 Spell Shaping / Spirit of Decay One you didn't take before. Other abilities are replaceable with items. Level 19 Rusted Armor (free) Least used spell of all. Short duration for its effect, I almost hate it. Savage Defiance / Blood Thirst I like "Savage Defiance" for armor rating and healing before BDD gets in. Blood Thirst / Savage Courage / Stalwart Defiance "Blood Thirst" is great when you face group of foes and suits Lorath. "Savage Courage" for more Concentration, more chances to win. If you haven't already a source of Brilliant, "Stalwart Defiance" for rage cost reduction. Shields for the Faithful Long duration and great deflection buff, I liked it very much. Level 20 Minor Avatar / Blood Thirst "Minor Avatar" RPG-wise cause our PG think about self as a semigod or "Blood Thirst" if you haven't already. WP: Exposing Strikes (Pike) Less enemy deflection. You can also choose what you prefer, don't bother so much. ------------------------------------------------ Respec after BBD + SoT + Brilliant After this combo you doesn't need some abilities and other that was so expensive early no can be casted without thoughts, so it is better to respec. RGP explation could be that Lorath went mad after understanding that at this stage he can be almost a God Level 2 Blooded Fits well RPG-wise and it's a must with BDD. We'll often be at 1 HP. Level 3 Arms Bearer Not so much to choose, more weapons are better than others abilities. Level 4 Withdraw Our panic button and can come in hand for some combat tactics. Fast Runner End game the best probably now is "Fast Runner", passives are always more useful compared to corpse eater actives once you have SoT+BDD+Brilliant. WP: Bleeding Cut (Battle Axe) No reason to change it. Level 5 Barbaric Blow Good for hits-to-crits convertion when late game you need interrupts from crit. Level 6 One handed style More Crits work good with "Bonus Crits Damage" (+20%) of battle axes and it will be useful late game. Level 7 Bloody Slaughter "Bloody Slaughter" is good late game for crits convertion. Combat Focus Third tier priest spells have little to offer for us late game, Concentration is always good. Level 8 Wild Sprint +5 DEX, +100% Stride and immunity to engagment is great also late game. Low cost is good for a Corpse Eater. WP: Rending Smash (Mace) Mid game we have some nice maces and we can need some penetration. Level 9 Bloodlust Not so much to choice here. It works with SoT, so go for it. Level 10 Blood Frenzy Keep on that. Devotions for the Faithful Any doubt? Level 11 Savage Defiance We take it for its upgrades. Level 12 Spell Shaping / Spirit of Decay Same as above. WP: Destructive Channeling (Scepters) Scepter end games is great because we haven't already a ranged weapon proficiency and we don't care about self damage. Level 13 Interrupting Blows Not much to say, we like and need interrupts. Barring Death's Door Our core spell. It also fits very great with Death Godlike Berathian Priest Level 14 Rapid Casting Evergreen. Level 15 Uncanny Luck Late game with "Blade Cascade" it triggers some Crits and thus some interrupts Level 16 Brute Force It keeps help landing hits (and crits). Spiritual Ally A summon can make the difference sometimes even if you have already cheesing strategies and it frees a quick items slot of a figurine. WP: Piercing Blows (War Hammer) At this stage, you can take what you want. Keep "Piercing Blows" if you like it. Level 17 Lion's Sprint More ACC is always nice and no engagment is very good for defense and mobility with also double stride. Level 18 Farcasting As mentioned above, there aren't better alternatives. Level 19 Savage Courage No problem for 4 rage cost now, it is a source of Concentration so go for it. Storm of Holy Fire It give us the possibility to have Brilliant with "Least Unstable Coil", so we need it. It is also a great damage spell, it can give almost all the tier 3 inspirations and it last very long It should be a 9 tier spell for me... but we have it at 7, better for us Level 20 Accurate Empower +10 ACC for "Storm of Holy Fire" and "Least Unstable Coil" effect We don't take "Blood Thirst" as it's bugged with SoT (it disappears instead of having extended duration ). WP: Exposing Strikes (Pike) As mentioned above. Alternatives End game you can experiment with priest spells and/or you can take the route for "Spirit Tornado" instead of "Blood Frenzy" if you think that freeze and terrify can fit good with a Death Herald... and you would be right I suppose "Blood Storm" is useless once you have SoT and Brilliant, so spare the point for it. "Threatening Presence" can be useful before LUC, Brilliant, SoT and so on. For interrupt-resistant enemy (i.e. Dorudugan) you can repsec avoiding all interrupting ability, but, trust me, you can save time and keep them also if they are ineffective. Watcher's Abilities Wit of Death's Herald Taking always sassy responses to Gods, you have a source of "Brilliant". Furthermore, "Wit of Death's Herald" seems made just for Lorath No Time for the Lost More duration to Beneficial Effects, Less duration of hostile effects and it is on purpose RPG-wise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Equipments Weapons Early game we go with "Spiritual Weapon" Great Sword. Mid game the best two handed great sword is surely "Whispers of the Endless Paths". It has always "Run Through", which can help us in "single-enemy-kill", where Barbarian isn't so good. Other nice weapons mid game is Lord Darryn's Voulge (bound to Barb) which is also two handed. Also there are some others handsome two-handed weapons: "Amra", "Oathbreaker's End" (battle axes so we can use its proficency), "The Willbreaker" and "Saru-Sichr" as morning stars. "Sanguine Sword" and "Voidwhell" fits well as RPG but "Whispers of the Endless Paths" works better. You can bound "Marux Amanth" as Priest and use its " Worthy Sacrifice". "Animancer's Energy Blade" can come in help where you have low PEN with any other weapon. Late game, with high Intimidate, "Aretezzo's Cane" is a must. With SoT and Brilliant you'll use "Scordeo's Edge" to trigger "Blade Cascade" and "Adaptative" indefinitely. "Modwyr" gives you "Eager Blade" and immunity to INT afflictions (so our Brilliant doesn't vanishes); moreover "Slayer's Claw" enhance our MIG inspirations. As ranged weapons, I like "Amaliorra" and "Current's Rush". Use "Acolyte's Forstbite" when you need Concentration during the combat to land spells for sure. Armor Early/mid game "Casità Samelia's Legacy" for our high Intimidate value (also fits good for a Death Godlike). Late game "Effigy's Husk" or "Spider Silk Robe" for affliction immunities. "Effigy's Husk" fits good on Lorath too. "High Harbinger's Robes" has speed, damage and corrode effects and a look that suits our PG Clothing (early-mid / late game) Neck: Baubles of the Fin (INT and damage) / Strand of Favor or Sisyfo's Stone (slows enemy) Hands: Gauntlets of Accuracy / Gloves of the Dungeon Warden or Woedica's Strangling Grasp (more ACC or MIG) Finger 1: best of you can retrieve / Kurau's Price (INT and damage) Finger 2: best of you can retrieve / Ring of the Solitary Wanderer (less duration of hostile effects) or Chameleon's Touch (more Intimidate) Waist: Upright Captain's Belt or The Undying Burden (beatiful name for Lorath) / Least Unstable Coil (it gives us immortality and almost all tier 3 inspirations ;P) Feet: Footprints of Ahu Taka (DEX and one more Withdraw) / Boots of Stone (DEX and resistance to stunned, moreover looks better than sandals ;P) Cape: Cape of the Falling Starts (for +7 to all defenses) / Shroud of the Phantasm (more spell speed and source of Brilliant) Pet: +1 PER pet / Grave Hound Pup RPG-wise, Epsilon for power purpose or Eviee for resistance... or maybe Nemnok is good both for RPG and for power Trinket: Muātu's Head or Eye of Rymrgand Quick slot items Early game let's go with what we can find/buy and potions of healing above all. Mid game I have tried "Scroll of Insect Swarm" and "Scroll of Plague of Insects" for Raw damage, it can be a tactics with high arcana and spell damage buff, maybe casting "Withdraw" while enemy is collapsing Late go you'll go almost ever with: - Scroll of Avengin Storm - Potion of Perfect Aim - Potion of Impediment - Potion of Ascension / Potion of Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage / Potion of Piercing Strikes (which is better for the current encounter) In this way you maximize interrupts, that is the best defense tactics for you even (and above all) when you have BDD, SoT and Brilliant. Drugs Deadeye, it has "dead" in the name and it serves our purpose to interrupts enemy. Food and Drink Forbidden Flesh Pie as a Corpse Eater for max power level and RPG purpose. Early and mid game with our low PER, Lorath is particularly gluttonous for Candied Nuts and Murkbrew. Rum is always good for speed. Late game Captain's Banquet and Shark Soup for immunities (and also nice collateral damage and speed buff effects). During the whole game all Incredible Food are good for more damage, less hostile effects duration and more PEN, choose what you prefer for the combat. ===================================================================================================================================================== How to play the build Early Game You can stealth, make no combat quest but for RPG you should fight. I manage to fight all content of Deadfire before DLC and Mega Bosses without much cheese also in the first levels. With kith, wilders and beast remember to eat dead enemy for resource and health. For other encounter Great Sword of Spiritual weapon is a astonishing weapon, use it and heal you with potions and consumables. Get the best rest, food and other effect you can collect (i.e. prostitute boons). Also buff yourself with priest/barbarian actives, they have some also early. Get "Casità Samelia's Legacy" and wear it! Mid Game Take "Whispers of the Endless Paths" as soon as you can, enchant with "Run Through": in this way you can kill ONE large enemy with high health, remeber it has DoT effect, so you can hit, add other DoT damage ("Blood Frenzy", "Touch of Rot", Battle Axe modal and so on) then "Withdrawn" and wait for the dead of the foe It is also wonderful for large group of enemies and your "Carnage" With high deflection that you get from "Casità Samelia's Legacy" take also "Offensive Parry". When you need crush damage instead of slash/pierce switch to morning stars, you can lower fortitude and land you spells easier. Agai, buff with rest, food and other sources, plenty of healing potion and other usefl quick slot items. Figurines come in handy Maybe go with high Arcana for raw damage scrolls and "Withdrawn". Late Game Before of "Least Unstable Coil" I could beat Dragons and other enemies (Nemnok and so on) with not so much difficult. Very hard encounter are only Ancient Lich Battlemage and Cave of Threshing / Fampyr's Crypt. Fampyrs is very difficult, I've managed them with hard pull. Strangely this does not apply for Splintered Reef and Menzzago... even better! Quite hard is SSS to get "Least Unstable Coil", but you can face it. And now the main dish. Pick and upgrade "Least Unstable Coil", cast an empowered "Storm of Holy Fire" also on yourself and you'll have 5 or 6 tier 3 inspiration, including Brilliant Now cast BBD and SoT whenever you have it available, then cast your buff (also barbarian ones) and you are an immortal crushing semigod of death! Never ending "Devotions for the Faithful" and "Blood Frenzy", infinite amount of "Barbaric Blow" and Priest Spells and so on... And more: no drug crush! You are almost always Near Death and as a Death Godlike you have +3 power levels! Great Scott! Remeber that all barbarian and priest buff can be extended and also all the effects of potions and some scroll (yeah, "Avenging Storm" I'm watching you ;)). Moreover, you can use "Scordeo's Edge" until you get "Blade Cascade" and you can prolong also it even if you switch weapons! Equip "The Weyc's Wand" with "Wael's Inspiration" for be sure to be "Courageous" after empowered SoHF cast We didn't pick "Blood Thirst" because after casting SoT it disappears as opposed to "Blade Cascade". Moreover, against one enemy alone it is easier to trigger "Blade Cascade" than "Blood Thirst". After that you are a freaking hitting-and-striking machine no one can't stop Oh, you can do the trick with other weapons also, but "Blade Cascade" let you finish a Mega Boss in a few minutes And "Scordeo's Edge" with "Adaptive" give you +20 ACC, also extended with SoT. You can do this trick 3 times before rest again (or 4 with "Nemnok" pet or "Adratic Glow"). To land easily "Storm of Holy Fire" better having before "Lion's Sprint" and "Blood Frenzy" (or their corresponding) for improved speed and ACC (avoind being interrupted). "Shroud of the Phantasm" is good because when you have "Brilliant" you cast spells quicker and it can be another source of "Brilliant". If "Storm of Holy Fire" doesn't work (i.e. enemy interrupts you) or before having LUC, use "Wit of Death's Herald" against an enemy or one of you ally (figurine or summon). With high Intimidate use Aretezzo's Cane and you hit like no one. To be honest you can use what you want, having fun with you favourite weapons/scrolls/items Troubles with this tactic Problems are as follows (random order): 1. interrupts; 2. paralyzed / petrified; 3. stunned; 4. terrified; 5. blinded or disoriented; 6. any INT affliction; 7. "Arcane Dampener"; 8. "Concussive Tranquilizer" and any other "-X sec Duration of Beneficial Effects"; 9. "Arcane Cleanse"; Thus almost all afflictions a part from CON ones and little other annoying effects. Now we are seeing how to deal with these hassles. 1. Interrupts: if you are interrupted while casting SoT you can't prolong its effect. Solutions are more Concentration like "Combat Focus", "Acolyte's Forstbite", "Savage Courage" and more speed with "Shroud of the Phantasm", Barbarian actives and so on. If you gain "Courageous" you avoid totally this issue: "The Weyc's Wand" with "Wael's Inspiration" can come in hand if you wanna be safe and relaxed about it. 2. Paralyzed / Petrified: again, with these you can't cast SoT. Solution are immunities like "Shark Soup", "Sandals of the Water Lily" or "Spider Silk Robe" with "Web Walker". Pay attention, "resistance" to DEX affliction cannot work as if one foe petrified you, you become paralyzed, and you're stuck. If you are sure enemy can only paralyze you also "Lucero", "Gwyn's Band of Union" or "Boots of the White" can do the trick. 3. Stunned: old same song, if you are stunned, you can't cast SoT. Go for "Shark Soup" or "Effigy's Husk" as immunities or a resistance such as "Boots of the Stone" or "Potion of the Resilient Body" can be enough. I prefer a clothing or a consumable compared to an armor because for armor we have less choices. 4. Terrified: yeah, if you can use actives, you have no SoT. Resistance is enough, I've been using "Eviee" fo so long, but also "Potion of the Focused Mind" or "Svef" work. If you have already "Captain's Banquet", you don't have to worry. 5. Blinded or Disoriented: ok, you can cast SoT now, but you are terribly slow and it is no good. Resistance is not enough because blidend become disoriented, so go for immunities like "Effigy's Husk" or "Captain's Banquet". 6. Any INT affliction: if you are affected by an INT affliction, puff! Brilliant disappears and you have no more SoT. So you have to take an immunities such as "Modwyr" full upgraded with "True Independence" or "Captain's Banquet". 7. "Arcane Dampener": If BBD effect is suspended and you have 1 HP, you can be hit by a fly and you die. Only one thing to do, that is interrupting the evil one who is casting AD on you. This is why we wanna havve many sources of interrupts. Ok, another workaround is collect many seconds of BBD, cast "Withdraw" and wait till AD ends. But interrupts are easier, safer and more manageable. 8. "Concussive Tranquilizer" and any other "-X sec Duration of Beneficial Effects": If you have to say 20 secs of BBD and a ranger put a "Concussive Tranquilizer" on you (-30 secs of benificial effects) you have no more BBD and you can die easily. Again, interrupts work good with it. Now also collect so many secs of BBD can work, but also many of Brilliant to be sure and you don't have to be hit by many shots of CT... best of all the good old interrupts 9. "Arcane Cleanse": YOUR. WORST. ENEMY. Yes I'm thinking about you "Obelisk of Cleansing". AC deletes all of yours benificial effects, so no more BBD, no more Brilliant and so on... Against a wiz interrupt works like I've just said. "Obelisk of Cleansing" is different because you can't interrupt it. Only workaround is "Withdraw" while it is active. See video below for a demonstration. Oh, actually, AC strips off 1000 secs of benificial effects, thus you can accumulate more than 1000 secs of Brilliant and BBD and be safe, but it is so boring and cheese to the last level that I have never done it. VIDEOS Lorath in action Belranga Dorudugan Sigilmaster Auranic Hauani O Whe Guardian of Ukaizo

I'm getting hit by a hurricane right now. Guess that's one way to get Monday off.

I gave up on Troubleshooter two missions before the end of the second DLC. The difficulty in later content just ramped up too much, requiring delving into mechanics a lot more to counter all the defenses of various enemies with very specific builds. It just is too much hassle and the story has dragged on longer than necessary anyway.

dan da dan artstyle comedy and character are amazing in manga hope this adaptation have enough time and budget to translate it into anime