Kaylon

Lilith's aura doesn't seem to work as intended... If you wear the cloak and another item giving +2 stealth the entire aura disappears, not just the bonus on yourself. Also if the companions affected by the aura have also items with +stealth the aura bonus will be suppressed - which doesn't seem right considering how auras are supposed to work.

If you want less than 175kills and less than 10rests during the game you can't do every quest and stealth is a mandatory skill. As for perception you can never have enough while constitution adds just more fortitude.

The xp will be lost if you don't have WM but the xp in WM is enough to reach max level. My advice is to let your quests unfinished once you reach lv12 - you'll reach max level sooner in WM and you'll benefit from high level abilities/spells a little longer and you can upscale the content if you fear it will be too easy.

1. Look for posts/videos about pacifist runs to find how to finish the game with minimal fighting 2. You can avoid combat completely or you can tank and kill them even in potd if you're well equiped (plate armor, rymrgrand mantle, ring of minor protection/deflection, worn buckler, fulvano's boots, gauntlets of accuracy, whispers of yenwood) - high fortitude/deflection will avoid perma stun 3. With a pacifist run is doable - someone on the forum did it in potd (however he used a rogue to be able to avoid a few fights) 4. being revived counts as ko

For a solo cipher the strategy is really simple - start the encounter with your hardest hiting ranged weapon, switch to weapon and shield and retreat to a point where you can fight one enemy at a time. Cast eyestrike on the first enemy (with 18int it should last enough to replenish your focus again) - which will lower his accuracy by 41 and his attack speed by 15% (you can use also a potion of wizard's double for hard encounters) giving you enough defense to tank anything... At higher levels you can replace eyestrike with mental binding and silent scream - try to keep your enemy perma paralized/stunned - and switch to dual wield for more focus/dps. Another strategy is of course using charm/dominate on the first enemy to use him as a shield and to block the path to you and shoot the ones behind (casters/ranged attackers) with a bow. If you can't find a spot to fight a single enemy at a time you have to pull them one by one or skip the encounter until you're strong enough to tank more of them. VS enemies immune to charm, dominate, stun, paralysis you can use later stasis shell to block the path to you. When you have to fight many ranged attackers use confusion scrolls. PS. The description of whisper of treason says it's fast but it has just average speed.

You need 3 in both honest and diplomatic to reach max defenses.

It always interrupted.

The retaliation from the shield stacks of course with everything... But if you have all three on armor two will be suppressed.

Lavender's Wreath and binding rope effects don't stack with retaliation right now - don't know if it will be fixed on 3.03 because I saw nothing in the patch notes.

The average difference between the dps of these weapons is of course very small (+/-1-3dmg depending on targets) and depending on DR/rng you'll get different results. If you get a higher than average number of criticals purgatory might come on top, if a target has low corrode DR bittercut might come on top... If you compare purgatory to a normal sabre the average difference on crits is 8dmg - and if you crit on 50% of hits that's only a 4dmg increase in dps compared to a sabre without annihilation.

Only cruel and aggressive give penalties. The others are neutral and it's recomended to upgrade them too because they can open new dialogue options (especially honest and benevolent).

Distracted doesn't trigger sneak attack.

Bittercut with spirit of decay (which applies +20% dmg to both slash and corrode dmg) does better damage than Purgatory, the spells are just a bonus. Let's say you do 100% critical hits for the sake of the argument... 50% more dmg means, on average, 8 more dmg every hit. 20% dmg means 3dmg on average, thus Purgatory can do at best 5 more dmg than Bittercut on average. However, if you look at the bestiary you'll see that more than half of the enemies are either resistant to slash or weak to corrode and Bittercut will do better damage in most situations. PS. Also Bittercut is obtainable very soon in ch.2 while Purgatory comes only in ch.3... PPS. A fire lash will add only 1 more dmg to a critical hit with Purgatory compared to Bittercut...

Firebug looks good on paper but in reality sucks because it uses your base accuracy (ie up to 33acc loss compared to weapon) which means not only it has a poor chance to proc (less than 10% because of misses/grazes) but when it procs it also has a good chance to miss/graze. Also in order to bounce you need to have a second enemy behind or target or else it will stop. A lash will add more dps than this proc... A superb march steel dagger with a lash and durganized might even outdps it...

You have also Cladhaliath - it comes with +5acc and can have stunning and 20% dmg vs flanked, stunned, prone.

Dual durganized legendary bittercut with corrosive lash is the next best thing after dual dawn in spring. And with the gauntlets of quickness you can reach 0% recovery if you wear a durganized robe/monk outfit.

Well, I tested the ring of searing flames again an now it works. Maybe it was a bug introduced in 3.01 and was fixed in 3.02... PS. In the previous patch I got multiple rings from raedric's keep because I was planning to use them with Persistence and I was really disappointed when they didn't work. Finally I postponed my playtrough because even the Stalker Torc was bugged and it didn't work (now it works too).

Have you tested that? I tried using multiple rings with combusting wounds and it doesn't work... It sounds like it should work, in theory. You can only wear one pair of gloves at a time, so you'd just swap out the pair that exhausted it's charges with the pair in inventory. (as opposed to two rings, one on each hand). I'd try it, but don't have a spare helwax mold lying around Nobody forces you to wear the rings at the same time either... I just used an example of a common item which can be found multiple times and which should provide you, in "theory", more than 3 uses per rest. However the game won't allow more than 3 uses per rest no matter how many items you switch.

I was talking about stacking charges. The fact that the spell doesn't work is irrelevant here.

Have you tested that? I tried using multiple rings with combusting wounds and it doesn't work...

The wall of force blocking the path to lvl2 is disabled only after talking to the steward after you kill Maerwald. Also the door from lvl13 can be opened only if you understand the engwithan language which is possible only after finishing Undying Heritage from Act2.

Yes, the description should say +x% radius. I don't know if developpers used approximative descriptions all over the game because they have poor math skills or because they don't want things too look very technical or complicated.

When combusting wounds will work again DT will become even more effective... Also the chanter might be able to solo any encounter you can't finish until you kill everybody by withdrawing himself with the small shield from the alpine dragon.

Indeed the damage of each tick checks vs 0.25DR and if the last tick has 1s or less it will be lost. DOT damage is affected however only by the might bonus.

Sacred Immolation does on average 25 dmg vs full DR every 3s. Dragon Trashed does 20 dmg vs 0.5 DR every 3s. With Scion of Flame SI will be superior most of the time because of the higher base damage/damage bonuses even if it has to overcome a higher DR. But when you start stacking the chant there's no contest anymore - it's 40dmg vs 25dmg... And with 30int you can even triple stack the chant...