ErlKing

PoTD and RP are not compatible.

Slightly corrected version of Death godlike

You don't need Wild Sprint and such because you have mobility ability from Rogue. You may also consider taking Stand Alone. Thing is that with Spirit Frenzy and especially with Barbaric smash you apply Stagger through carnage, preventing enemies from engagement. I think it also prevents them from applying Flanked status to you, but I'm not sure. On other hand 20% bonus isn't that much considering 50% damage boost from sneak attacks when Streetfighter triggers and other boosts. It now gives -25% damage instead of -75%, so it's not a lifesaver anymore. Almost all damage reduction items and abilities were nerfed, though they never been that great anyway. You might have -40% damage reduction and expect recieving only half damage, but with enemy using superb weapon you will get 100%+40%-40%=100% versus 140% instead of 60% vs 100% (0.7 damage multiplier vs 0.6). Overall more damage modifiers for the enemy - less useful damage reducing effects. Firecrackers now have dual check - Deflection and Will, and count as negative effect, so duration is cut by resolve and other effects. Much harder to apply to Rogue now. Bloody Slaughter isn't that helpful. About Chill Fog and perception resistance - it works more reliably than Firecrackers now, but not without a downside. Blinded gets downgraded to Disoriented instead of Distracted (you still get +50% Recovery time, so -50% from Streetfighter is negated by affliction). But it remains a solid strategy, as you still get sneak attack boost, recovery penalty is negated and enemies suffer from full effects of Chill Fog. Spell penetration is low, so with some decent armor and buff from Frenzy you will get close to none damage from the spell. I don't see Evade ability from Rogue. Don't underestimate it. Mobility tool, which ignores water, webs and enemies and gives +50 Deflection is pretty neat. Personally I run with high Int Marauder (personal preferences) and this 3 seconds are stretched to almost 6 seconds for me. You throw Marauder forward with it and usually it results in Marauder getting surrounded by enemies, who miss their first attacks due this Deflect boost. You get best position for your Streetfighter, allow support characters to cast freely and negate alpha strike from enemies. Upgrades for Evade are too costly in my opinion. Also you can use Priest spell to prolong this +50 Deflect by 10+ seconds with Time salvation, though there are better effects to prolong than that. I completely ignored Smoke cloud, as I wanted enemies to hit my Marauder instead of support characters, but I suppose it's a good 'oh ****' button and setup for Backstab.

It was easy to trigger Flanked by firecrackers, but it was nerfed (1 second duration for firecrackers), also it seems to be resisted often. You can try to use Chill Fog with perception resistance gear. PoTD is broken right now (probably due bugs), I fought enemies with 75 accuracy vs my 25 deflect on start, almost each hit is crit and interrupt. Only way to win fights is cheese game elements - make enemies stuck in narrow spaces, lure them by small amounts and so on.

Damn, I always thought that this grimoire allows Wizard to interrupt enemies with spells, should have read description properly

Just want to note few tricks to trigger Flanked. 1) You can throw firecrackers under feet of Streetfighter, causing Distracted status (same as from Blunderbus). Firecrackers are dirt cheap, easy to craft and there are also gloves that give 2 firecracker casts per rest. I'm used to throw both Streetfighter and firecracker onto enemies in same spot at the same time at start of combat. 2) With Perception resistance from hat or armor you can downgrade Blindness effects to Distracted. So you can cast Chill Fog and go inside, getting only stronger from inflicted affliction. Bonus style points if you do that as Pale elf, shrugging off AoE damage. 3) I haven't tested it, but second Rogue should be able to trigger Distracted by Smoke cloud ability, if he's nearby, but it could easily miss unlike first two methods.

Or Full Attack abilities should have recovery summed from main hand and offhand, because right now using cheap Full attack abilities is better than regular swings regardless of additional bonuses - two swings with recovery only from off-hand weapon.

Now I'm getting flashbacks from For Honor with Centurion bullying other heroes. From my experience Carnage isn't strong damage wise, but it applies Staggered status from Spirit Frenzy. I don't know if it applies bleed from Blood Frenzy, but this stagger is pretty great if you have rogues in your part or just in general, as it cannot be resisted and decreases enemies might by 5. I haven't seen it applying anything else, so Staggered status might be unique effect for Carnage. With my Marauder I was hitting 40-70 with my hits/crits and Carnage from that was around 8-15 I think.

I went for Marauder (Rogue - Streetfighter) for the maximum speed and damage. When being Flanked or Bloodied Streetfighter gives -50% recovery and +50% to sneak attacks. When both +100% damage to crits. Downside is +20% recovery time when not Flanked and not Bloodied. This combo requires some micromanagement, but it's pretty fun. Triggering Flanked is harder than it sounds even against swarms of opponent, so you might need to be creative on how to cause it. Firecrackers bomb (or special gloves that give 2 casts per rest) creates AoE that cause Distraced (-5 perception, Flanked) on everyone inside for 20+ seconds. I start fights by throwing Berserker forward with Rogue dash and throw firecracker at same spot with another character. While Berserker activates Frenzy enemies come closer and recieve Distracted debuff too. This allows Marauder to deal sneak attacks with Streetfighter bonus applied. You can also trigger Distracted by shooting blunderbus with modal or by getting perception resistance and wander in Ice Fog, downgrading Blinded to Distracted. It might be a neat combo, picking pale elf and letting wizard in party to spam Ice Fog all over place. Few times, early in game I had my Marauder on brink of death in midst of enemies, but with necklace from Port Maju, which triggers on near death and gives -75% damage reduction and some healing Marauder toughed it out while dealing +100% damage crits with insane speed. If you go with Priest in your party you might consider throwing Barring Death and 'Prolong beneficial effects' spells on Marauder if heat just getting too much for him. Strangely enough Distracted from Firecrackers count as beneficial effect, so it gets prolonged too as well by this spell. Now, for offhand weapon I took Xoti's sickle for the speed boost from 'Harvest'. Full attacks from abilities have recovery of off-hand weapons, so quicker the offhand weapon - faster recovery. Counting all - Frenzy, Bloodlust, Dual wield, Streetfighter and Blood Harvest I had recovery time less than a second on Xoti sickle. So you just spam Ankle cut, Finishing blow or Barbarian Blow almost every second until you out of ability points or enemies. Spirit Frenzy triggers Staggered on enemies by Carnage AoE, making groups of enemies vulnerable to sneak attacks, which is pretty neat.

If you throw firecracker on your streetfighter it will keep him and all nearby enemies flanked for 25+ seconds (+explosives skill and int). Also, there are gloves that give 2 casts of firecrackers per rest. Firecracker craft is pretty cheap and gives 3 bombs per 1 gunpowder, solution and some grass.

There was no fitting picture for the horned Death godlike, so here is quick tweak to another one.

I'm currently playing with Marauder (Berserker + Streetfighter) and while it's not a most stable mix, it's pretty fun. I'm still early on, so can't tell how it synergies with high level abilities (around level 7 right now). Personally I went with Death godlike for rp reasons, though triggering racial ability allows you to see when you reach near death state. 1) You can start fight with blunderbus (maybe even dual) shot, triggering flanked on yourself and then switch to melee. Downside is that's tedious to switch between weapons and reactivate modals. 2) You can throw firecrackers or use unique gloves (2 firecrackers casts per rest) under your feet, triggering distracted on yourself and enemies, not sure how it scales, but it was reliably triggering for me. I had about 1 second recovery time on my swords by stacking recovery reducing effects (frenzy, bloodlust, streetfighter, dual wield, talking sword), Crits and sneak attacks hit really hard when you manage to trigger both requirements on streetfighter. Having stacked action speed and reduced recovery also allows to use items almost twice as fast as other characters, so you can go for deep pockets and throw bombs, summons, use drugs or drink potions (renewable by unique belt). I wonder if it's possible to use Priest to keep Marauder alive by throwing 'prevent dying' spell and then prolonging it with 'add time to beneficial effects'. I haven't reached it yet, so can't tell if it would play out. I would be tempted to go without armor in this case for the ultimate-bait tactic. Death godlike +3 power level bonus would be welcome as well.

Damn, not this bug again. There was similar one in PoE1 and now it's even worse. Sorry, but game style that relies on a bug isn't something that I might enjoy. Actually, knowing about such bug might spoil the game for some people. You know that you shouldn't use it, but it's something that always available - just click enemy after attack and avoid extra reload times... And suddenly game change from picking right tactic, combining skills and such into 'time your clicks right and you're golden'. Yeah i agree with you, but please let's don't talk about it here or there will be a bunch of guys jump out saying hey u can choose not to use it if you think it is broken Well, I never said "it's not a bug, it's a feature". Whenever you use it or not is up to you till they patch it. Simple as that, nobody force anyone to anything in this game. And well, you are correct- you can choose, or someone stack behind you with knife in your house saying "use reload bug or die? Besides wasn't it you who posted build about Dragon Tarshed triggering Sungraze AOE attacks? It's also a bug and should not happen, yet that didn't stop you from posting it and letting everyone know that they can run it Same is here. He only posted his observations, though; not a fully fledged out build. What's the difference? We both presented some unintended mechanics that work. Or do you think people seeing his post would absolutely never got idea "hey, I can do the same in my game"? Please. No one force anyone to run anything and that should not stop people from sharing their mechanic observations, be it simple post "XY works" or "This is my new build where XY works". Let people define their own fun of what they want to run and use in their single player RPG. Also by highlighting that we let Obsidian now where problems are. Same story, different cover. No, I posted bug-feature about Fire arquebus buff affecting other actions ( +75% general action speed instead of attack action speed), which might be actually feature, though I doubt that, I don't remember posting anything about AoE attacks. Also, while various broken items, skills and synergies could spoil the game, player can choose not to take them. My point is that reload cancel is UI bug, always present, you can't disable it, only choose not to use it. And player can easily trigger it accidentally, clicking at right moment. I completely agree that player free to not use various cheesy tactics, but when it is part of UI it can be unnerving. I would say that mentioned nuance might concern only few players, but it triggers me personally, that's why I posted my opinion on it.

Damn, not this bug again. There was similar one in PoE1 and now it's even worse. Sorry, but game style that relies on a bug isn't something that I might enjoy. Actually, knowing about such bug might spoil the game for some people. You know that you shouldn't use it, but it's something that always available - just click enemy after attack and avoid extra reload times... And suddenly game change from picking right tactic, combining skills and such into 'time your clicks right and you're golden'. Even if you don't want to abuse such bug now you would constantly think about not clicking enemy after attack to not accidentally trigger it. I just hope devs will fix it soon.

Depends on what you want from main character. Chanter is a good choice overall, because of utility and the reload speed song, that allows to shoot much faster. But Chanter is mostly about summons, buffing/debuffing, so arquebus is mostly just something to occupy hero between casts. No special skills for attacking with arquebus. Overall I would say that pure Chanter is better off with pistol+shield for survivability, especially early on. There is unique arquebus for chanter with good effects on kill, but it's harder to be one who finishes enemies without special damage boost skills. I haven't played ranger a lot, but I've heard that it's a pretty boring solo class. For the damage I would recommend Rogue or Cipher or both. Rogue have sneak attack, which adds damage when enemy have some negative affliction (like being flanked) and Cipher have renewable power source and some very hard crowd control options. Paladin is also a great choice, but not as single class. Flames of devotion and sworn enemy give a very nice damage boost and extra defense helps to keep your character alive. Downside is being somewhat limited in roleplay aspect by your chosen paladin type (not following the code results in smaller defense bonus). Fighter makes you more tanky and some pretty nice skills and passives. One subclass allows fast weapon switch, so you can switch between 3-4 arquebuses to avoid reload times between first 3-4 shots. So, what I would recommend: 1) Chanter + Paladin multi: very safe and powerful combo, use summons to occupy enemies, heal team with auras and songs, kill single enemies with Sworn enemy + Flames of devotion. Extra defenses helps to keep you alive. 2) Rogue + Cipher multi: Glass cannon slash caster. Extra damage and mobility from Rogue skills plus another damage boost and some utility from Cipher. Other from that I would recommend multi classes, because combining passives and early skills from two classes give more benefits to arquebus themed playstyle. Single class is good for high level skills, which are mostly powerful spells, summons, debuffs with long recovery times or skills that better with powerful melee weapons. Classes with good passives and powerful early skills are: Paladin, Cipher, Rogue, Chanter, Fighter, maybe Ranger.

Actually, some of debuff songs last longer than 3 seconds, so Brisk Recitation is beneficial if you want to debuff enemies. Also 10 points shield and summon skeleton work better with 3 second songs, as effect renews faster.

Two firearms sold by Uto are incredible for casters and probably some other classes. Dragon's Dowry Buff: 1 per Encounter: +75% Action speed for 30 seconds. This +75% Action speed applies to all actions, not just shooting but also casting, swinging weapons after switching and so on. I gave to Aloth, he starts fight with casting this buff and then casts his spells almost twice fast. Scordeo's Trophy Stacking -15% Recovery time per hit. Also applies to all actions - casting, using items and so on. I use it for my Chanter - shoot between chants to reduce recovery times. Some offensive chants have 0.5s cast time and around 4s recovery, so when recovery reduction stacked several times Chanter can use such chants really fast.

Idea / suggestion: I think minor fire shield on Darcozzi Paladini is a complete miss. I see Darcozzi Paladini as a pun throwing smartass, someone like Harry Dresden. I would prefer another ability tweak instead of highly situational flame shield. "Sworn Enemy" into "Swearing enemy" - mocking marked enemy makes it harder for target to focus on anyone besides Paladin. Additional effect: Marked enemy have -20 Accuracy vs everyone except Paladin. Idea is that Darcozzi Paladini still focus on protecting his allies, but does so by making enemies focusing on him. Teammate gets beaten by backstabbing assassin - mark him, making it harder for enemy to kill your fragile wizard. Group is facing strong AoE nuker, like dragon or sorcerer - mark him and AoE spells would hit only Paladin in full effect, making it easier for teammates to evade.

I played a bit with both Chanter summoner and Paladin-Chanter, though I chose Troubadour instead of Beckoner. Pure chanter will get better summons/songs eventually and will get them earlier, but from what I saw Chanter doesn't have much to do inbetween besides regular attacks and trying to survive. So far I like paladin-chanter gameplay more (I went with Kind Warfarers), as I'm much tankier, can give some burst damage together with AoE heal and also provide buffs with aura. As pure chanter I got killed and interrupted several times before I could finish first summon, so Pally-Chanter feels safer. On other hand that 9 level dragon summon looks really great, nothing is more satisfying than a sudden dragon, use that vortex wizard spell to gather enemies together and roast them with your pocket dragon. So it is up to you to choose what you like - safer and more active role as pally-chanter or more backstage caster-summoner with potential to reach cooler stuff eventually. Now about Beckoner vs Troubadour: Beckoner have -1 to chant cost, Troubadour have +1 to chant cost, but his songs are 3 seconds long, so he gets phrases twice as fast. For starting summon chants they both equal, and Troubadour more cost-effective for more costly summons (Ogres, Drakes). Beckoner summons twice number of summons, but they have 70% duration and 25% health of originals, no idea about attack, it could be the same. Overall: Beckoner - more DPS and cannon fodder with summons, summons could be weak vs strong AoE. You need to cast summons more often and higher summons are harder to maintain. Troubadour - more versatile as he can use other chants much more often, less dps from summons, can easily maintain higher summons. I personally prefer Troubadour, but you might like Beckoner more for more bodies on field.

Troubadour seems to be best sub-class for Chanter and a very strong choice in general. Lack of linger is not a big price for 3 second phrase. Actually 3 seconds phrase makes it easier to switch between different songs faster and also one particular song (10 points shield) becomes twice as effective. Troubadour have no problem with maintaining strongest summons all the time and also revive party members / debuff / buff inbetween. Also Troubadour can be easily combined with any other class to do something more interesting than just wait between chants.

Nature female Godlike:

I would suggest to use pre-written companions, they not so bad and its enjoyable to see their banter and opinions through game. For fun main character I would suggest: - Darcozzi Paladini Paladin - good way, smartass, party support, heal, tank/of-tank. - Bleak Walkers Paladin - evil way, roleplaying evil hero. - Barbarian - melee AoEer. - Rogue - scout, decent damager, lockspicker. - Monk - really fun in some ways. - Chanter - solid choice that does not require lot of micromanagement, decent buff for go-to-go fights, powerful summons for tougher fights.

+20 Accuracy start-fight instant buff for your Cipher/Wizard is way way better than any circumstantial deflection buff, not to mention original DoT and debuffs ignoring. Loss of Zealous aura range is bit sad, but that Endurance aura buff is really great. If only they would have fixed whole mess with charmed/dominated status effects.

Autoleveled companions got their talents and abilities according some scheme, but does that fit your idea of their builds according to characters? I don't mean optimized or some tricky build, I mean - which talents / abilities / powers are most fitting lore wise?

Blunting belt is best belt for any char imho.